Descartes was wrong!

[RAMHALite]

We're all acquainted with Descartes's proof of the existence of the
world (i.e. get out of solipsism) by the Method of Doubt. He could
dismiss all of his perceptions by the Method of Doubt, the alternate
hypothesis being that an evil genius was putting all these false
things into his mind. Or was the alternate hypothesis that he was
molested by a Catholic priest...no, wrong Doubt.

Anyway, the one thing that withstood the Method of Doubt was that
there was doubting going on. And if there was doubting/thinking
happening, then there must be a thinker. I think, therefore I am.

Wait a minute,"I think" is an active verb form, implying some sort of
intentional creative mentation on the part of an actual agent. Under
the Epi conception of consciousness, this is wrong. I offer physical
proof of this.

Benjamin Libet demonstrated experimentally that at the monment that we
make a decision to perform an action, we are already a fraction of a
second behind the brain. The neural activation process to perform the
action has already been initiated. It's a done deal before we decide
to do it.

IOW, consciuousness does not cause the brain activity that carries out
the action. It passively registers brain activity.

One of the traditional Founders of the Theosophical Society comments
in the Letters (at the end of the 19th Century) that it is ridiculous
to think that our thoughts cause any movement in the molecules of the
physical brain. Recall that FMW loved the Letters and felt that he
learned more about esoteric philosophy from them than in any of the
Buddhist texts he read. Quite a statement, huh?

ERGO, "I can doubt anything except that there is doubting going on"--
VALID, but "Doubting is going on, therefore there must be some agent
that is actively,intentionally doing the doubting"--INVALID.

Cosciousness is merely registering, not initiating brain activity.
There is no thinking agent, only awareness of brain activity. Forget
about it; it's all Epi! Just walk away, Rene.

--RAMHALite

[Kanefire]

"Cosciousness is merely registering, not initiating brain activity.
There is no thinking agent, only awareness of brain activity. Forget
about it; it's all Epi! Just walk away, Rene. "

There is truth to this statement, but is not absolute truth.
You continue to use linear standards to perceive something beyond
linear.
This would be like having a sphere and only perceiving a circle.
a great symbol a friend showed me is the Spherical Spiral
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalSpiral.html

Does a tuning fork make sound?
The easiest answer is yes, which is true, but not absolute truth.
Sound is inherent whether there is a tuning fork or not.
The tuning fork merely forms a quality of sound.

The same could be said for consciousness. The mind/body system that
you have simply forms different qualities of consciousness. The left
brain registering a deductive linear quality to consciousness which
has much of its conditioning via languaging structures. The body forms
a more physically resonated consciousness. They have actually found
that there is a brain in the belly (and I would also say that there is
a brain in the heart).

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/2103/1/Theres-A-Brain-In-Your-Belly.html
"This brain is made up of nerve cells lining the digestive tract.
Scientists call it the enteric nervous system. It's an extensive and
highly complicated structure that actually consists of more neurons
than are contained in the entire spine."

These different "brain" centers could be analogous to different tuning
forks bringing a different quality of form to the already inherent
sound. This is hard to perceive linearly through intellectual
constructs...it can only be referenced like the shaded circle on a
piece of paper referencing a sphere.

Furthermore, it does not surprise me in the least that the
registration follows the decision as it is oriented in more refined
constructs and as is more complex, therefore, follows the natural laws
of simplicity preceding complexity. Postulating that this means that
consciousness is created by biology will definitely provide a
framework for effective manipulations, but is only half the truth.

consciousness projects itself (imagination) and through stabilizing a
feedback system develops physicality which therefore alters the
quality of the consciousness that in turn projects itself integrated
with this new quality of consciousness in infinite fractals...

meditate on this last paragraph and you will see its markers in every
level of reality. This is the abstraction that is given form in the
"Holy Trinity"

[RAMHALite]

Kanefire,

I'd appreciate a reference or link for that last paragraph re
consciousness developing physicality and manifesting in infinite
fractals.

TIA,

RAMHALite

On Jul 27, 4:04 pm, Kanefire <kanemant...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Cosciousness is merely registering, not initiating brain activity.
> There is no thinking agent, only awareness of brain activity.  Forget
> about it; it's all Epi!  Just walk away, Rene. "
>
> There is truth to this statement, but is not absolute truth.
> You continue to use linear standards to perceive something beyond
> linear.
> This would be like having a sphere and only perceiving a circle.

> a great symbol a friend showed me is the Spherical Spiralhttp://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalSpiral.html

>
> Does a tuning fork make sound?
> The easiest answer is yes, which is true, but not absolute truth.
> Sound is inherent whether there is a tuning fork or not.
> The tuning fork merely forms a quality of sound.
>
> The same could be said for consciousness. The mind/body system that
> you have simply forms different qualities of consciousness. The left
> brain registering a deductive linear quality to consciousness which
> has much of its conditioning via languaging structures. The body forms
> a more physically resonated consciousness. They have actually found
> that there is a brain in the belly (and I would also say that there is
> a brain in the heart).
>

> http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/2103/1/Theres-A-Brain-In-Your-Bel...

[Kanefire]

this is self evident...

I implore you to find the patterns for yourself...
These truths exist outside of the boxes we have for categorizing them
Meditate...


but if you require that the abstraction be given a form here are some
oriented links

http://consciousnessproject.org/articles/consciousness-research-overview/
"Under the direction of Dr Roger Nelsonat Princeton University, the
team maintains a network of electronic instruments connected through
the Internet. These random event generators produce data that may be
affected by human consciousness under special conditions. The
hypothesis of the GCP is that the continuous streams of data from
these instruments will show anomalous deviations associated with
events of mass human interest. Effects are predicted to occur when
there is large-scale ‘mental coherence’, or a resonance of feelings
generated by deep reactions to major news events."

One of the tools that I use at my wellness center is BrainPaint
(http://www.brainpaint.com/index.html) EEG Biofeedback. The Creator of
this system, Bill Scott, uses morphology feedback which takes your
EEG's and converts them to morphing fractal images in real time. He
was asked by the Global Consciousness Project to take the data they
were receiving and integrate it into his fractal algorithms to project
a visual real-time display of global consciousness (you can see still
images and video here http://brainpaint.com/globalbrain.html ) This is
a great recursion of the topic at hand. Consciousness desires a
feedback, so a project is born to measure it in data, then it desires
visual representation so Global BrainPaint is created. Each an act of
a "desire" of consciousness and each generating physical mechanisms
for feedback.


http://www.intuition.org/txt/wolf.htm
(FRED ALAN WOLF, Ph.D)
"WOLF: One-way causality. Everybody says, "Oh yeah, naturally." I
mean, that's what Newton said, that's what they all say. OK, but
there's another notion. What about the future influencing the present?
Is such an idea just an idea that comes about through parapsychology,
or through mystical insight? Quantum physics says no, it says that
definitely there is a real mathematical basis for saying actions in
the future can have an effect on the probability patterns that exist
in the present. In other words, what takes places now, what choices
are being made right now, may not be as free to you as you think they
are. To you it may seem uncertain -- well, I'll do this or I'll do
that. But if you realized that what you did in the future is having an
effect now, then it wouldn't be as obvious. So it's hard to talk about
it because the future's yet to come, right?"

Again, these are only forms it takes...
you can move beyond the form it takes...
There, I sense, is the real power and is the motivation for my
business.

[Kanefire]

and then while I was tasting my quinoa, it occurred to me that your
requesting links was your consciousness' desire for stable feedback
mechanism so it projected itself in the form of a request for which,
it imagined my response would assist this. And my consciousness'
desire to stabilize the concept offered, searched for the links and
posted them. (obviously I had to look for a feedback mechanism that
supported my intuitive knowing)

So it could be said in this case that the driver for this conversation
feedback mechanism would be consciousness which would lend to the
credibility of the argument that I have made, yet that would only be
half of the truth. The other half would make the claim that without
the books and literature and conversations that we have already had,
our conscious would not have the understandings and desires that we
have.

This highlights how consciousness projects into physical reality, how
physical reality, in turn, alters the quality of consciousness, and,
furthermore, by this conversation's existence, the fractal nature of
the exchange.

Again it is all around..."he who has eyes to see, let them see"

[Tom Kelley]

."he who has eyes to see, let them see"

You can't take off the "rose-colored glasses", you can only Realize/
Remember you're wearing them...AND that you can't take them off. But
then...everything's...different...

[Kanefire]

> You can't take off the "rose-colored glasses", you can only Realize/
> Remember you're wearing them...AND that you can't take them off.  But
> then...everything's...different...

Much agreed...
You can project, however, and where you will land will be a function
of where you are, the degree of stabilization you have where you are,
the clarity of your projection, and the degree of belief that you can
project, plus there are certain mechanism that can assist this, but in
the end I agree with you...or rather in the "absolute" end, the
glasses can come off, but there will not be an identity apart from it
all.

A great mechanism for projection is the simple question:

If I were __X__, what would it be like?

The important thing is to then allow for the projection to feedback
which is where meditation comes in to play. You will create a feedback
mechanism in the morphogenic field with the archetype represented by
your projection. And the degree of the shift will be the afore
mentioned function with other variables, of course.

Also, be mindful of what you choose to project in to because you then
become that to a greater or lesser degree and we generally only have
an intellectual referencing for what it is and don't quite understand
the reality of it.

steady gains beats quick returns...

[berlake]

I'm not sure if I completely agree with what you're saying here,
RAMHALite, though I'm at a loss for the power to explain why!
Obviously, the fact that Consciousness is Primary isn't in question -
and I would imagine that we can all take that for granted since we're
posting in a group dedicated to the writings of a man whose entire
philosophical thesis is founded on this fact.... However, to
necessarily conclude that this means that consciousness is inherently
passive and receptive isn't in accord with Wolff's point of view, if
my understanding is correct. He was quite clear that a fully awakened
Consciousness is conscious of Itself in all regions and states and is,
in fact, the one power that there truly is.

I think many of the arguments which cognitive psychologists have
traditionally seized upon to promote their physicalist predilections
are essentially centred around notions of selfhood, as the fact that
"ordinary" (or cognitive) consciousness is part and parcel with the
body is largely beyond doubt. It is the more complex and inexplicable
experience of being an individual centre of consciousness which seems
to be the issue. It's an implied fact that neuroscientific data and
modern cognitive phychological research seems to support the claim
that we mistake a "unity of experience for an experience of unity". In
other words, it's apparent now that everything we commonly refer to as
being a "me" is, in fact, one sensation, memory, thought or another
only apparently being "experienced" by a central "I" while really
being registered in some localised way in the "brain". Ergo, no self.
However, as Dr. Wolff states quite clearly, despite the fact that
there is ultimately only THAT in which all Selves and all Objects
inhere, the Self has ascendency over the Universe, despite their
mutual interdependence. The upshot of this is that the whole argument
around whether or not consciousness is meta or epi dissolves, as both
the relative human consciousness (which is necessary for any form of
particularisation/sensation/cognition whatsoever) and the
undifferentiated consciousness of the Self inhere in THAT which is
neither Self nor Universe, but is the Ground of both, to paraphrase
Wolff.

Also, would it not follow that relative consciousness by itself would
never be conscious of the Self making the "decision", and so the whole
process would obviously seem to involve an unconscious "brain" to an
objectively bound observer....? This would also explain why only an
enlightened consciousness would be in any position to make a statement
about the nature of selfhood or volitional will and its origins,
rendering the scientific observer a mere cartographer of the surface
of things.

I found this article fascinating and revealing:
http://www.capacitie.org/wren/JWL%20on%20Susan%20Blackmore.pdf

It's written by John Wren-Lewis and is a reply to a book written by a
well-known British skeptic/atheist and cognitive psychologist, Susan
Blackmore. It's not exactly philosophically rigorous, but Wren-Lewis
was no fool and had a talent when it came to writing about his
experiences in an accessible and concise way. If you haven't checked
out his archived articles at capacitie.org, I'd recommend them.....

Berlake

[RAMHALite]

Aaahh, busted! Yes, we all endorse FMW's meta views of consciousness,
and we probably all aspire to at least some level of Recognition of
It. So, maybe I am guilty of a te-e-e-e-ny bit of hyperbole in that
post. But, I find it fascinating that the neuro research is so
uniformly on the side of brain activity resulting in conscious
experience and not at all reflective of consciousness causing any
change in the structure or activity of the brain.

What I take away from that is a sense that normal conscious
experience, NOT mystical awareness but experiences like eating a meal,
watching a sunset, enjoying a good joke, and the like are nothing more
than a registering of the brain activity that such stimuli provoke.
In that sense it is epi all the way. Read any good text on cellular
and electrochemical events at a microscopic level in the brain. It's
truly awe-inspiring how complex and miraculous a system it is, with
more neurons in a single brain than there are known stars in the
universe.

Just don't want the mundane mind getting too big for its britches!
How can it have britches, you say?? It's a koan. ;-{)>

--RAMHALite

> > --RAMHALite- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Kanefire]

Meditation increases brain gray matter
http://www.physorg.com/news161355537.html
---

Train Your Mind: Change Your Brain, by Sharon Begley (book)
---

How Thinking Can Change the Brain
Dalai Lama Helps Scientists
Show the Power of the Mind
To Sculpt Our Gray Matter
January 19, 2007; Page B1
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=72152

"At the University of Toronto, Dr. Mayberg, Zindel Segal and their
colleagues first used brain imaging to measure activity in the brains
of depressed adults. Some of these volunteers then received paroxetine
(the generic name of the antidepressant Paxil), while others underwent
15 to 20 sessions of cognitive-behavior therapy, learning not to
catastrophize. That is, they were taught to break their habit of
interpreting every little setback as a calamity, as when they conclude
from a lousy date that no one will ever love them.

All the patients' depression lifted, regardless of whether their
brains were infused with a powerful drug or with a different way of
thinking. Yet the only "drugs" that the cognitive-therapy group
received were their own thoughts.

The scientists scanned their patients' brains again, expecting that
the changes would be the same no matter which treatment they received,
as Dr. Mayberg had found in her placebo study. But no. "We were
totally dead wrong," she says. Cognitive-behavior therapy muted
overactivity in the frontal cortex, the seat of reasoning, logic,
analysis and higher thought. The antidepressant raised activity there.
Cognitive-behavior therapy raised activity in the limbic system, the
brain's emotion center. The drug lowered activity there."
---

Not to mention one of Quantum Mechanics core discoveries is that
consciousness alters subatomic particles. A great book on Quantum
Mechanics in simple terms is "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav
---

anybody have a highbeam account?

Meditation may alter brain's physical structure
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-9946963.html

[RAMHALite]

Kanefire,

At an epi level, one might respond:

"This is the Great Ilusion! Meditating and thinking seem to be
active processes detached from brain functioning, but are actually
instances of registering brain activity, not causing it. Check out
FMRI studies of meditating Buddhist monks, yogis, etc. and you will
find dramatic changes in thne patterns of brain region activity in
which regions associated with spatial orientation and sense of
personal identity are virtually shut down. When the brain shuts down
these areas, through training and practice, other patterns of
functioning emerge, leading to meditative experiences. IOW, when the
brain changes its characteristic pattern of activity, there are
associated structural changes.

Trauma changes brain functioning also, producing a hair-trigger firing
of the ARAS (arousal system). It is not thinking that changes these
things; it is the brain's physiological response to inner or outer
stimuli."

Just playing Devil's Advocate here, hoping someone can come up with a
convincing refutation.

--RAMHALite

On Jul 31, 9:17 pm, Kanefire <kanemant...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Meditation increases brain gray matterhttp://www.physorg.com/news161355537.html

> ---
>
> Train Your Mind: Change Your Brain, by Sharon Begley (book)
> ---
>
> How Thinking Can Change the Brain
> Dalai Lama Helps Scientists
> Show the Power of the Mind
> To Sculpt Our Gray Matter

> January 19, 2007; Page B1http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=72152

[berlake]

It's a maddening argument! I'm not sure there is anyone alive who can
conceive of a way to interpret the data and analysis, both of the raw
information and its attendant philosophical conceptualisations, and
construct an argument which convincingly concludes one way or the
other - otherwise we'd all be completely convinced, at a level which
provides utterly irrefutable evidence, one way or the other.....

This is why, again(!), Wolff's books are so completely unique and
valuable. He reduces the argument to one which cannot be assailed by
logic or analysis, as both of these processes can only ever yield an
amount of evidence which might lend some substance to either side of
the argument; after which, one is left to decide whether they believe
that people like Dr. Wolff were deluded, crazy, plain wrong, or - as I
hope most of us are at least prepared to consider - fundamentally
right!!

It's easy, too, to react to the reduction of the argument to one of
probable truth deduced from a certain amount of faith, because this
argument can easily be put into very simplistic and naive terms which
give it an air of "if I want to believe, I will", and this is
completely unsatisafactory to a mind which has been largely
conditioned by the scientific method. It's like a grown up version of
playground bullying, really, as the capacity of the mind to carve out
ever more complex arguments AGAINST metaphysical reality leaves one
with the capacity to analyse them in a very difficult position, as
there will always be the temptation to reach ABSOLUTE conviction
through logical analysis - something which, so far, remains
impossible. This is why one must, in my opinion, sieze the opportunity
to find out for themselves whether the techniques provided through the
millennia can actually lead to Gnosis. Otherwise, one is only ever
hedging one's bets. This, I increasingly feel, is what most serious
philosophical enquiry amounts to. If philosophy can pick apart the
claims of the great mystics via logical analysis, then it can keep its
practitioners at a safe distance from the prospect of mystic death!!!

I realize that the devil is in the detail, but that could equally mean
that detail is the "devil's work", as it leads us away from the
"universal". It seems a very fine balance is required between
credulity and faith, as too much of one or the other will likely lead
one down a blind alley eventually....

I keep trying to find a way to put into a few words something which
makes sense to me regarding how consciousness is both transcendent and
empiric. The closest I can get is to say that there would be no three
dimensional universe (including the brains which are in it) without a
relative consciousness (and not only a human one). This seems obvious
(if we truly stand behind the proposition that consciousness is
primary), as things necessarily require sensory equipment for there to
be any "knowledge" of their existence. There would be no
particularisation without cognition. As John Wren-Lewis has said, to
state that there are only brains modelling a reality is not the whole
story, as in fact it is consciousness which models the brains which
model reality. So out of the vast, undifferentiated Self, somehow a
universe of utterly interdependent objects is projected. And this
requires cognition. Brain activity seems no different from any other
form of sensory activity, except insofar as a certain breed of
scientific thinkers believe that proving the brain's ability to model
reality necessarily precludes the fact that consciousness could be
projecting the brain and reflecting itself through its cognitive
processes.... I don't know if that's at all helpful, as I really
haven't ironed the argument out for myself yet!!

I think it's very useful to remember, too, that Wolff believed that
the objective universe provides a kind of terminus for the utterly
free and undifferentiated consciousness to come up against - otherwise
it would never be aroused to self-consciousness. And remember, too,
that to relative consciousness, Absolute consciousness is necessarily
nothingness, no different from unconsciounsess. Again, this explains
why there APPEARS to be no "agency" behind cognitive processes.....



B

> > Meditation may alter brain's physical structurehttp://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-9946963.html- Hide quoted text -

[berlake]

Just one more thing!

Wolff is very clear about the fact that the universe of objects of
necessarily a projection of the Self. In Transformations he talks
about how the universe is the result of the laws born of the
Transcendent thought. So, when we get confused about how this wealth
of experience and data is only "epi", and the consciousness witnessing
it only a kind of empty vessel (which is the impression I have often
fallen foul of), remember that it is only the PHENOMENA that are
empty. In other words, the myriad things of the universe, including
the incredible and awe-inspiring processes which take place within the
physical brain, are inherently without any meaning whatsoever without
the Self. They are, in fact, mere reflections of it. And, in the end,
the Self and the Divinity are also only abstractions from THAT,
meaning that THAT must be pretty bloody awesome! ;-)

B
On Aug 1, 12:19 pm, RAMHALite <ramhal...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Meditation may alter brain's physical structurehttp://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-9946963.html- Hide quoted text -

[Kanefire]

very well stated B,
The links I posted were simply a counter-weight.
I will again re-iterate that it is my experience that consciousness
and physicality are in a biofeedback.
This is why an absolute position can not be taken.
When conscious seeks stability, it densifies, when the density becomes
limiting, it expands.
It is not as linear as this statement makes it seem. Which is the
issue with the deductive mind, it uses points of reference to create
meaning between the two, yet reality doesn't operate simply by those
principles as it is far more dynamic.

Articulation can only reference the greater dynamo and if someone
simply takes the articulation and bounces it off their previous
reference points, they will take the expansiveness of complexity and
shape it to a size and simplicity that they are familiar with, like
scooping a bucket in a lake. The lake is not bound by the shape of the
container except that which the container is able to hold. Become a
malleable container and you will experience more of the nature of the
lake.

There is a counter to this deductive process in science, it is call
postulation; pretending that something exists, and if it does, then a
particular set of measurable qualities must exist as well. This is a
form of projection and is actually the basis for science itself...how
recursive (again showing the biofeedback and fractal nature of reality
"again"). We still can't prove gravity, we simply postulate that it
does and build physics around this postulation. This is why quantum
mechanics and relativism collided.

[berlake]

I think the following article (cut and pasted from elsewhere) answers,
or at least clarifies, this argument very well and is also in accord
with the Wolffian view.... I wouldn't post something here that wasn't
relevant, so please accept that this is just an attempt to help
clarify this murky subject! It's quite long, but well worth a read...

The Nature of the Physical World, by Douglas Harding

Science -- or rather, science misunderstood and gone haywire -- has
come up with a great deal of unscientific nonsense in its time. And
the most prevalent, the most silly, the most absurd piece of pseudo-
scientific nonsense is the dogma that consciousness is a by-product of
matter -- a kind of incidental and accidental effluvium or subtle
radiation that matter gives off when it gets sufficiently complex, as
in human brains. The one thing led to the other, as if brains happened
to grow a bump of consciousness in addition to the other bumps! As if
the protuberance on the top of the head of images of the Buddha were
the bump of that superconsciouness which he called enlightenment! In
the beginning was a lot of stuff, and in the course of time it got
around to noticing itself! Clever stuff! Wonder of wonders, object
gives birth to subject. Are we astounded at such a maculate Conception
and Nativity? Not at all. We take it in our stride. The primacy of
matter over spirit is simply taken for granted. It is among the least
challenged of the myths we live by.

That things should produce awareness of things -- and by chance, at
that -- is, when you think of it, quite weird. It's like supposing
that the movie-projector is operated by one of the actors on the
screen. Equally odd is the notion that the subject can be examined
from outside as if it were some kind of object. How can the subject be
discovered except from within, by subjectivity itself? In any case
there's not a particle of evidence of material things giving rise to
consciousness. No one has ever observed it happen, or explained what
to look for. In fact, the very idea is nonsensical.

What is a material object, according to science itself? It is a
collection of phenomena (from the Greek phainein, to show), a set of
regional appearances/pictures/readings which the scientist picks ups
and pieces together as he hovers round the "thing" he's surveying from
various angles, at various distances, with the help of various
instruments. What these regional appearances are appearances of, what
nestles at their center, is hidden from him. However close he gets to
that thing so-called, he remains too far off to say what it really is,
intrinsically, at no distance from itself. The scientist, as such, is
an outsider.

But he does have two clues to what's inside:

His first clue is that the nearer he gets to the thing the less
"thingy" and the more empty it becomes. Progressively stripping it of
assets, he comes to regions where all that remains of that seemingly
solid object is space haunted by twists of energy, so to speak. Beauty
and ugliness, utility, life, color, opacity, shape, even precise
location -- all are left behind by the approaching observer. There's
not a quality or function that will stand up to close inspection. It
is distance that lends these enchantments. Go up to anything and you
lose it.

But just a minute! Who goes up to that thing and loses it? Who
registers the dismantling and disappearance of the object and its
reduction to virtual emptiness? Why, the scientist himself, of course,
as consciousness. He leaves all behind except awareness. You could say
he takes it with him wherever he goes, because that is what he is.
It's impossible for him to explore the physical world of cells and
molecules and atoms and particles and leave it merely physical: his
active presence there infects it through and through and at every
level with spirit. As for the space that underlies all, how could his
awareness of it be separated from that space? Just as there's no way
of entering an empty house, so there's no way of contemplating
mindless space. No wonder subatomic physics is forced by the facts to
bring the observer into the picture. In fact, while the picture fades
on ever closer examination, the consciousness that illuminates it
shines all the more brightly. Matter dissolves in favor of spirit.

Let me put it in another -- and I think better -- way. Things can be
moved and carried around. Not so consciousness of things. It isn't a
torch which the scientist takes along with him to shine on things, or
an air freshener he sprays them with, or a laser beam he directs at
them. Wherever he goes it's already there, inseparable from the very
nature of those things. If for the word consciousness or spirit I read
God (and there are many worse names for It) then I can say with the
Psalmist:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy
presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou are there: if I make my bed in hell,
behold thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea,
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

In short, spirit or consciousness underlies all, and there is no such
thing as the merely physical. A phenomenon or regional appearance by
itself, without a central reality of which it is an appearance -- what
sort of nonsense is that, for heaven's sake?

There exist two distinct kinds of things (so-called) which are
available for the scientist's inspection -- the observed thing and the
observing thing. That is to say, other bodies, and his own body. We
have just seen to what conclusions his examination of other bodies
leads. Now let us find out whether they are confirmed by his
examination of his own body, the specimen he carries around with him
all the while.

Here, nearer than near, is his second clue to what things really are,
as distinct from what they look like at a distance. Here is his very
own sample lump of matter, always handy, requiring no laboratory or
instruments for its most searching examination, constantly reporting
on its true and intrinsic nature, transparent through and through to
his direct inspection. If (and it's a very big if) he takes seriously
this unique and precious sample -- if and when he dares to look at
what he's looking out of, inspecting it from inside that one thing on
which he is the final authority -- why then he finds it to be quite
empty, and in fact no kind of thing at all. A nothing keenly aware of
itself as just that. Such is the view of himself at no distance from
himself, provided he is honest and attentive enough. Which is to say,
truly scientific.

Notice how nicely these two clues confirm each other. Whether looked
at from outside or inside, bodies dissolve, matter vanishes, spirit
remains -- once we bother to go into the matter. "Spirit is the living
body seen from within, and the body is the outer manifestation of the
living spirit." Extend this statement by Carl Jung to all bodies from
electrons to galaxies, and you have the ultimate physics.

To understand the primacy of spirit is good. To realize it, to see it,
wordlessly to experience it, to be it without thinking about it --
this is incomparably better. And incomparably easier: in fact,
understanding must always be about its object, hovering round and
about it and never gaining admittance. That is why the rest of this
chapter is a heartfelt invitation to the reader to do one or two
little experiments, which will surely lead to this direct perception
of what would otherwise remain a mere set of lifeless concepts.

Observe this thing you are now holding. What in reality is this object
called "book"? I mean this actual wad of paper with printing. There it
is, a solid enough lump of stuff a few inches wide and long and less
than an inch thick, weighing rather less than a pound, covered with (I
trust) meaningful black marks on a white surface. Now where are these
meaningful patterns that you are currently taking in? Are they over
there, some 12 inches away, or are they where you are?

Well, let's put the matter to the test. Go right up to the page and
see. Apply your eye to this printing, as if you were putting on a
contact lens. Yes please, all the way. If you feel a bit ridiculous,
remember what's at stake. Namely Reality itself, and your status
within it. Go on ...

What did you see? I venture to say that what you found there was not
meaningful sentences, not loose words, not a string of letters, not
even fuzzy black marks on a white ground, but an illegible blur. And,
on contact, nothing at all. You lost everything, but you didn't lose
consciousness. It was the book, not you, that passed away. The nothing
you found wasn't just nothing at all -- whatever that monster could be
-- it was Nothing but Awareness. "There is a Light by which things are
see," says Ramana Maharshi, "and if divested of things the Light alone
remains."

So much for where these printed words are coming from. Where are they
going to? Who is reading them now, on present evidence? What is taking
them in? In your firsthand experience at this moment, is it a solid,
rounded, hairy thing with two peepholes in it? Only you -- you who are
your own closest inspector -- are in a position to say. Again, isn't
it true that what you go right up to you lose? You certainly go all
the way to you. So it's no wonder that you vanish, just as the page
did, leaving only awareness. Intrinsically, then, the Reader is the
same as the Read, and none other than Spirit which is indivisible. To
put it picturesquely, this page of printing is a letter from Spirit to
Spirit, a love-letter from You to You. And, of course, what's true of
this page is true of the other pages in this book when you come to
them, and of the hands that are now holding it, and of the furniture
in the room, and of all that's going on outside. They are views of
You, messages from You, displayed to You. At root, all you perceive is
Yourself, heavily disguised as someone else, for your entertainment
and refreshment.

It would be difficult to overstate the practical importance of this
discovery, its consequences for everyday living. All alienation, all
separation, the many-sided threat of hostile things and persons and
situations -- these are no more than bad dreams. All is You. How could
you fear Yourself? How could you despise, resent, be bored by
Yourself? How could you not love Yourself?

All this and more than this. Everything you see and hear and handle is
something you want to say to yourself, something well worth saying,
something significant -- even if it's only about an oncoming bus.
There can be no dreadful or garbled or meaningless messages from you
to You. News about You, read by You, is good news, however bad it may
sound to the hearer who is deaf to its Source and Destiny in himself
as Spirit. To him Ramana says: "The imperfection appears to you. God
is perfection. His work also is perfection. But you see it as
imperfection because of your wrong identification ... Find out if you
are physical."

In conclusion, then, the spirit which is one and the same in all
beings is the true nature of what we take to be the physical world.
Things as such have no substance and no reality and no power at all.
You could call them pictures of God held up by God for his own
inspection, and in themselves less than paper-thin. All you have to do
to live from this realization is to go on seeing who's doing it. And I
mean seeing, not understanding.

[berlake]

.... furniture in the room, and of all that's going on outside. They

> them, and of the hands that are now holding it, and of the ...
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> read more »

[RAMHALite]

Excellent post, Berlake. I think you capture a great deal of the core
of FMW's message and the obstacles that stand between us and
Recognition!

--RAMHALite

> > > Meditation may alter brain's physical structurehttp://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-9946963.html-Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Kanefire]

Here is a free ebook that you will probably enjoy.
It takes these concepts and forms them into practical application for
shifting from scarcity models (left-brain, deductive, separation) to
abundance models (right-brain, inductive, connection).
What is the point of knowing if we don't utilize the knowledge.
http://www.tinyurl.com/theabundancematrix

[Jeffrey Paige]

I'd like to thank all participants for a very interesting discussion!
Keep up the good work!!
Everyone has made excellent points, cutting right to the heart of the
matter.

Jeffrey Paige