The way I see it Lori, is that if your parents are concerned and others are concerned, I would see that as good reasoning to find out what it is everyone is so concerned. I would most certainly get more professional opinions and see more specialists. However, if you're happy to continue with your life in this manner, that's entirely up to you. I suspect though, that you'll continue to run into difficulties trying to explain your condition of conversing with a god and will most certainly hear the same recommendations. Here's the hitch, Lori. Wouldn't you feel better knowing that all the positive changes in your life were attributed to you alone as opposed to some other alternative?
it was well worth the $180 if it made my parents feel better, which it did. we've always been really close and, what i was saying to them about my experience made them think i might have a brain tumor or something. it didn't jive with what they knew about me and my thoughts and behavior otherwise, and to this day. because they know i'm sane. as for your other question, i attribute the positive changes in my life equally to me and to god, because we each played a part. i asked, he gave. and what i chose to do with what he gave me was and is entirely up to me. and i like that. it's like, the more you get to know him, the more you get to know yourself and vice versa. the relationship breaks down all the lies we very commonly tell ourselves that make us feel like shit. it's been a very liberating experience. i bet you think that's ironic huh?
I suspect most people can't do much about it, They can't handle the truth so they are compelled to fool themselves into thinking they know things they cannot know & to accept fallacy as logic & fantasy as truth & cruelty/apathy as love. The 1st best thing is, if you can, is to learn critical thinking.
Been there, done that. normal actual things are generally easy to see since that is what seeing developed to do. So is going insane. So is meditation. I tend to be quite introspective. Where is the god part? How would it be anything other than my thoughts? So asking you to pony up on your claims is asking too much. But don't feel like you are something special. I approach everyone with the same intensity. Paramount? No. But agreement is none trivial. Particularly when you act like you "know" things and yet when pressed it turns out you just make it all up. My agenda is to know the truth as well as I can and to share that as best I can. If that keeps me from your god, your god would seem not to partake in the truth. you happen to be where I'm seeking at the moment. Is that a problem? Should I leave your stone unturned? Knock on a door with some one behind it, and they may open it. Just going around knocking on random objects and pretending they opened, well what can I say. At the moment I'm knocking on your door, which you claimed god was hiding behind. Funny how it stays locked tight.
Actually they are exactly that. You hold out claims and then when asked about your sources you say they can't be delivered. You say there are experiences, but you can't share them. Basically we are supposed to just accept on just your word that you have contact with all sorts of things we don't seem to have any contact with and treat it as if it were real without actually verifying anything. That is classic being evasive. And so far god mainly seems to just be making you feel good about yourself and assign meaning to things you don't understand. Actually you've only kind of intimated and then you panic when asked for details. Do you really think your way is the only "true" way? You ask the impossible of me, should I not ask the same of you? You seem to know more than you were claiming earlier. But still I wounder -how do you know this? That is a very important question. If you cannot answer it, that is problematic. Note it is -how do you know this? - not - who told you this? A question more valuable than gold or god. You wanted to know more about me, here you go... I learned of a meditation technique once that was interesting. To make a long story short you put a lot of effort into visualizing a personal god. Then after weeks, months, years, when it was perfectly real you visualized merging with it until you were one. Finally, you had to to release it, let it all go until nothing remained and you were once more just yourself as you are. There apparently are unfortunately two points where people get stuck, even go mad. First when the god is real to them and second when they become the god. I have noticed this theme over and over. People go mad when the god is real to them and when they are the god, but they can't bear to let it all go and just be who they are, as they are.
No. You can even watch them happening these days and they are getting better at actually reading some of them mechanically. Mind-reading software reveals brain images BRAIN-scanning technology has been used for the first time to recreate simple images by decoding the brain activity of people looking at them. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026875.900-mindreading-software-reveals-brain-images.html Scientists in Kyoto have reproduced an image based on how the brain responds – effectively reading the brain. http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1568/
So instead of working so hard on being a jerk, just present your methodology. or is it just that you lie a lot? Hmm...a) god likes people like you, or, b) you lie. call me wild and impulsive, but I'm leaning towards "b."
Yes. It exists as a pattern of brain activation. Disturb the brain sufficiently and it is lost. Give the brain sufficient cues and it can reconstruct it. I wouldn't say exchanged so much as evoked. The pattern is encoded in a medium as a message designed to evoke a similar pattering to the receiving brain. The details depends on what medium is used. Sound waves are very popular. As is ink on paper and electrons used to make or manipulate light. But you could use semaphore, drums, disturbed sand grains, humans are really quite versatile about this. Simple patterns don't even require the there be a common language. It is enough if there are sufficient shared experiences.
Lot's of experience with introspection. check, next. "materially reducible phenomena" I'm not a radical material reductionist, next. "the claim of life being contingent on a soul is baseless" Anatman - no soul, next. "the primary quality of a soul is desire" no soul, see above. As for desire my partner says I have a good handle on this, but it is slippery so I remain diligent and continue to practice, next. "The first thing is develop some sort of control on the instruments (or outlets) of desire. In spiritual affairs, one's first duty is to control one's mind and senses." Been working on this for the last two decades, seems to be coming along fine, next. "the instrument of "knowing" is ...the self." and when there is no self? What then? "the nature of conditioned life that the self is in a such a dysfunctional state that it cannot begin to inquire." Why are religous people alwys so negative? If one is "functional" enough to to be curious, then one can begin to inquire. If one is aware enough to recognize being wrong, then one can begin to learn. With nothing more than that, the rest can be found. OK, lay out that methodology. No it doesn't. A good methodology stands on its own. Do this, do that, get such and such result. No theory needed. That is the cool thing about meditation. Do it and it works. You don't have to believe anything, belong to anything, worship anything, make burnt offerings or offer a single tithe. Just follow the method and you arrive at the result. You don't even have to know why.
No. Schitzophernia is a physical disorder of the brain. You might introspect your self into a phrizzy, but you won't give your self schitzophernia in less the underlying disorder is present. Last I checked they were uncertain as to the relationship if any with the first episode and the underlying problem. Solipsism is easy. Eventually you get hungry and eating yourself sucks but eating others is tasty. Eventually one notices that all the nightmares go away as soon as you don't bother with them. Dealers choice. Personally I jumped in with both feet and found that I was sane. Who'd have thunk it? It depends if they enjoy spooky movies or not. Certainly like you they could talk them selves into the heebie-jeebies. But its not necessary.
Swarm o...k... well, what are you working with then (since you have lots of experience on the subject)? Now might be a good opportunity to explain how you hold an impersonal view of consciousness yet don't subscribe to a reductionist paradigm of life ..... I guess that leaves you with the question of "what is desire?" then (oh lemme guess, its a materially reducible reaction between matter and chemicals) what specific means do you adopt to deal with the mind and senses? leaves one with the question of what is the self and what is the phenomena of its knowing (once again, chemicals and matter I take it ....) Or alternatively, why do gross materialists place eternal values on a temporary object? that's the point conditioned life tends to exclusively harbor curiosity in matters that deal with name, fame, adoration, distinction, etc ... so any sort of discipline of knowledge is subjugated to the demands of the bodily concept of life .... Even spiritual knowledge can be dressed up like that (what atheistic critique of theism is complete without a didactic dressing of the fallen practitioner?) ...however such sort of spiritual knowledge doesn't deliver the results of course .... if you think the self and consciousness is materially reducible, you will have severe disagreements with it at the level of theory hence the "this", "that" and "such and such" become the theory of the methodology. If you didn't have some theoretical understanding of what water, a jug, a glass and pouring is, you couldn't follow the methodology of "pour the water from the jug into the glass" (then there might be added problems if one wasn't clued into the means of positioning the glass and jug in the right manner) If you don''t hold any beliefs to the method, you don't have any means to assess whether it works or not. Of course this type of approach to spiritual life is quite popular since it lets one get down to the real task at hand .... namely cultivating the bodily concept of life
I guess if you developed the first step, as you previously mentioned, the misunderstanding would not have ensued .....
hence holding the mind as the fundamental substance of reality poses dire consequences the question doesn't come to the fore until after pranomaya nothing is as soothing as good association (or as debilitating as the opposite)
“ Originally Posted by StrangerInAStrangeLa It's abstract. I should've said that earlier. ” You guess wrong.
But what choice is there? To someone who holds the mind as fundamental, the choice to hold something else as fundamental still lays in the realm of holding the mind as fundamental - and so for such a person, nothing has changed. Is there a lesson to be learned form that? For example "First secure your physical existence and learn to enjoy it, and only after that venture into issues of philosophy"? Young people nowadays in schools sooner learn about "critical thinking" than having their physical survival ensured. Many people who are unemployed or otherwise struggle materially, venture into investigating spirituality and philosophy. Would you say that this is backwards, that an investigation of spirituality in such a context of material strife is likely going to lead to unsatisfactory results? What about people who don't have such good associacion and don't seem to be able to get it? P.S. You didn't say anything to my reply to you in the thread on the Vedic refutation of solipsism. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I have to disagree based on a few things: There is no requirement for rationality (meaning that I'm sure it would help if one person attempting to convince another, but method - while a nice suggestion, is basically compulsory based on the individual's capacity for persuasion). This ignores the "power" or impact on behavior of ideas/concepts. The "actuality" of a thing is simply irrelevant to one who believes it real. As such, a person believing in something does not need compelled by rationality or proof in any other terms that those they have already settled upon. Failure to comprehend that their criteria for "proof" could be different that that of someone you might consider 'rational' is also irrelevant, as at the time of the attempted persuasion - it is necessarily inconceivable to them.
Signal the choice to accept that one's mind is not the ultimate authority. No need to get terribly esoteric about this. Everyone has the experience of being pushed to the hilt to fulfill the desires of one's mind and then being dragged over the coals by the very same entity for doing so. much like a person wearing red glasses sees everything as red Actually one tends to finish with pranomaya when one realizes that there is no scope for security or enjoyment within the realm of matter I think there is a wider social context of industrial consumerism which places absurd requirements for the procurement of a little food and shelter If you look at the four types of people who begin spiritual life (as mentioned as the four pious types in the gita), you see that material strife can catalyze a persons spiritual initiative. Of course there is a watered down version of spirituality which basically boils down to "I should have more sex and not work so hard" .... but basically one acts according to one's nature .... so all these issues of economic development and social procurement boil under the flame of rajas (while sattva tends to be the mover and shaker of spiritual life) then they face greater challenges in surmounting the demands of their mind (but it also often works out that they are capable of more greatly appreciating and taking advantage of good association whenever the opportunity arises) sorry almost slipped me
