From WhatsApp - parable from "Your Sacred Self" by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

[Tholkappiyan Vembian]

Please read this lovely parable from "Your Sacred Self" by Dr. Wayne Dyer. 

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

[Tholkappiyan Vembian]

Question:

How the babies know that there is something called 'delivery'?

Answer:

Good question. All the metaphors, parables, analogies and examples will have this fault, even scientific examples. They are not identical to the mapped 'thing' but they are similar.

Having said that, we can answer in this particular case: because the babies unconsciously remember having born (delivered) many times before.

This should not be taken as personal reincarnation belief.

Nature is one process. Whatever happened, happens and will happen will leave traces. That is how we make sense of cosmic microwave background radiation pointing to big bang. The incoherence in our concept is that we consider that thoughts are not part of the reality / existence. Somehow thoughts exist but don't exist.

Again this should not be taken as personal words and thoughts will linger around as words and thoughts.

This should be seen as something similar to our personal smell lingering around even after we left a place.

[Tholkappiyan Vembian]

We know babies get impacted by what they hear during pregnancy. So, expectant mothers are recommended to sing, play music, have a positive mindset etc. So, the babies on hearing people talking can come to know about their imminent deliveries.

But the main point of the parable is to point to the trap - mental and sensory prison we are in.

On Thursday, 15 February 2024 at 07:12:05 GMT, Tholkappiyan Vembian <thol...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

[R Shanmuga Sundaram]

Hi

It is not just the "mental and sensory prison" trap that we should note in this.

It is the positing of unknown (unknowable?) things, for which scant evidence exists, that are common to the poem(?) and what is imagined our situation as a parallel to the baby's situation.

At least, the baby can hear sounds, sense the touch of the mother on the stomach, light, etc. from outside her cocoon. We are yet to come across any such signals from outside our 'cocoon' and yet we hypothesize so many things.

Regards/Shan

PS: Also a couple of cartoons to lighten such heavy stuff.

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[R Shanmuga Sundaram]

Correction: poem(?) --> parable

[Tholkappiyan Vembian]

ஜோக்குக்கு ஜோக்கெடுத்தேன் (பாட்டுக்குப் பாட்டெடுத்தேன்)

ஞானப்பழம்!

Carl Sagan said: Intelligence is not only in finding the right answer but more importantly in asking the right question.

The core message of the parable is that you are not separate from the mother, meaning here the existence / nature / cosmos / universe / God... whatever name one prefers. YOU ARE IT!

Unless I was living under a rock completely cut off from the modern world, I should have noticed that the 2022 nobel prize for physics was awarded to the scientist who proved that local reality doesn't exist which means everything is connected to everything else. This 'scant'(!) evidence I must have overlooked.

The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It

The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Pr... Daniel Garisto Elegant experiments with entangled light have laid bare a profound mystery at the heart of reality

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/

But the nature / existence was never split into many things. IT IS ONE. Of course, it appears, conceptually, as many.

To take this conceptual separation as real, investigate what they are and find that they are all interconnected is the cosmic joke and the joke is on us i.e., on ITSELF.

We don't need quantum mechanics to 'see' this which right in front of our eyes and right under our noses.

In case I don't see this, I am unable to see this... there is a suggestion in the parable to try.

“Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

I am sure I tried doing this sincerely I found no scant evidence and that's why I am saying there is no scant evidence.

And I have tried all the suggested self-enquiry methods - gnana yoga, worked on bhakti yoga, karma yoga and found nothing. All BS!

Self-Enquiry Using Sri Ramakrishna's Teachings | Swami Sarvapriyananda |

Self-Enquiry Using Sri Ramakrishna's Teachings | Swami Sarvapriyananda |

https://youtu.be/wDBJbAZ6qL8?si=B_hVn4-wDlcAzVMl

I will forward an essay by Jeyamohan in which he explains expecting objective evidence for metaphysical claim is foolish but I will still do the same.

"ஆன்மிகமான எதற்கும் நிரூபணவாத அறிவியல் சான்றளிக்காது. அதேபோலத்தான் ஆன்மிகமான அறிதலை அந்தப் புறவய அறிதல் மறுக்கவும் முடியாது. ஒருவருடைய ஆன்மிகமான உணர்வுநிலையை ஒரு நாத்திகர் அறிவியலைக் கொண்டு எதிர்ப்பது எவ்வளவு மடத்தனமோ அதேபோன்றதுதான் ஆன்மிகமான அறிதலை அறிவியலைக் கொண்டு நிரூபிக்க முயல்வதும். இந்த இரண்டு மடத்தனங்களும் இங்கு மாறி மாறி நிகழ்கின்றன."

In the same essay, Jeyamohan explains further:

"ஆகவே ஆன்மிகம் என்பது முழுக்க முழுக்க அகவயமானதாகத்தான் இருக்கமுடியும். அதில் இருக்கும் புறவய அம்சம் என்பது அதன் தத்துவத் தளம் மட்டுமே.

உதாரணமாக, பிரம்மம் (அ) இறையுணர்வு ஒருவருக்கு வருவதென்பது அகவயமானது. அதை நிரூபிக்க முடியாது. ஆனால் பிரம்மம் எனும் கருதுகோளைப் பற்றி வேதாந்தம் தனியே ஓர் அவையில் விவாதிக்கும். அது தத்துவம். அதற்கான நெறிகள், விவாத முறைகள், ஏற்பு -மறுப்புகள் தனியே உள்ளன. ஒன்று, நீங்கள் அகவயமான அனுபவத்தில் செல்லலாம். அப்போது விவாதம் அவசியமற்றது. ”உளனெனில் உளன் இலனெனில் இலன்”  என்று சொல்லப்படுவது அதைத்தானே. அல்லது, தத்துவத் தரப்பை எடுத்துக்கொண்டு பிரம்மவாதியாகவோ சைவசித்தாந்தியாகவோ கிறிஸ்தவ இஸ்லாமியராகவோ இருந்துகொண்டு தத்துவ விவாதம் செய்யலாம்.

ஆனால்  தத்துவார்த்தமான விவாதத்திற்கு உங்களை யாரேனும் அறைகூவும்போது அகவயமான அறிதல் என்று இந்தப் பக்கம் வந்துவிடுவீர்கள் என்றால்,  அகவயமான விஷயங்களைப் பற்றி யாரேனும் பேசினால் அதற்கு தத்துவார்த்தமாக எதிர்வினையாற்றுவீர்கள் என்றால் அது பிழை. அப்படி இருக்கமுடியாது."

To add to the last para above, philosophical discussion about 'oneness' can only go up to certain point. After which one has to 'see' for oneself. This has been made clear by all spiritual texts, teachers, ancient and modern. Only pointing can be done.  

I won't read whatever is shared fully, watch videos fully, ignore previous discussions, what I accepted before or couldn't bother to answer but make casual remarks as if I have done all the research and hard work and found no 'scant' evidence. What a fantastic hide-and-seek fun nature is having with itself!

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/freeians/f8addeae-aafb-4b00-ba32-8ef5d217a03f%40gmail.com

.

[Tholkappiyan Vembian]

ஜெயமோகனின் கீழே உள்ள கருத்துகள் இங்கு பலமுறை நம்மால் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ளப்பட்டுள்ளன. அதே வார்த்தைகளில் இல்லாமல் இருக்கலாம். ஆனால் உள்ளடக்கம் அவையே.

என்றாலும் உள்ளூர் மாடு விலை போகவில்லை.

சரி, வெளியூர் மாடு விலை போயிருக்கும் போலிருக்கிறதே என்று நினைத்தேன். ஆனால் அதுவும் இப்போது ஐயமாக உள்ளது.

[R Shanmuga Sundaram]

1. I watched the Swami Sarvapriyananda video. Good explanation about the three questions which one must ask to check where consciousness is located. Fascinating ideas.

I also liked the fact that he has enough humility to accept a possibility that he could be wrong (thus bringing down a whole edifice of thought built over two millennia) and Dawkins / Dennett could be right.
Much better than the 'My theory explains everything' types!

2. I fail to understand how violation of local causality (locally real?) makes all things inner connected. The fact that the measurement of a spin of an entangled particle here (local) collapses the wave function light years away does not imply that I am connected to everything. Are we saying that if I raise my little finger here and how, the distant galaxy's state changes instantly?

It is nice, poetic and moving to say "You cannot pluck the smallest flower without disturbing the furthest stars" (I would like to add instantly, because this act does propagate to the distant stars over time in a very attenuated way so that the effect becomes practically immeasurable. For comparison, the total amount of energy received by the radio astronomy's telescopes in all these years from all these stars is very, very small. "The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground" ― Carl Sagan), but is it true? If the energy received by us over the years from all the massive stars near and far is such a small amount, imagine the amount of energy that is propagated by the spatial rearrangement of a little finger!

Even if the amount of energy is small, we can still claim that we are connected. The only difference now is that the connection is instantaneous (in some cases) instead of traveling at the speed of light. So, I fail to understand what has changed. This is very important for QM and Relativity because EPR paradox is resolved in favour of QM. But for the "everything is connected to everything" believers, it is adding nothing new.

To summarise, let us not suddenly (shall I say, instantly :)) jump from "no local causality" (true) to "everything is connected" (not true; at least, not yet proven; no scientist has made this claim, to the best of my knowledge).

If you know of some way that a measurement here affecting a far particle instantly implies "everything is connected", please do let me know.

Lastly, your interpretation "The core message of the parable is that you are not separate from the mother, meaning here the existence / nature / cosmos / universe / God... whatever name one prefers. YOU ARE IT!" is something I did not find in the parable. The parable clearly states that "Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above". Take the last sentence "Calling down from above". It the child is IT, there can be no calling from above. There is no above if you are IT.

As to scant evidence, tell me a signal that has come outside the womb, in this case, outside the universe, outside of space and time. If such a thing existed, then I would accept it as evidence.

It is all very well to say I should read all the stuff, watch all the videos. Thanks but no thanks. Is it not the the responsibility of the claimant to prove he/she is right?

Until some such proof comes along, it is kind of funny and sad to say things like "We don't need quantum mechanics to 'see' this which right in front of our eyes and right under our noses" which is just a vacuous statement.

As to the sentence "I am sure I tried doing this sincerely I found no scant evidence and that's why I am saying there is no scant evidence", I do not understand what you are trying to say. If I remove the double negative (no and scant), the sentence reads "I am sure I tried doing this sincerely I found evidence and that's why I am saying there is evidence.". I do not think I meant this when I wrote "for which scant evidence exists". Is this yet another example of reading what one wants in simple sentences and complex scientific discoveries when no such meanings exist in the first place?

If only "After which one has to 'see' for oneself" is possible, then why drag poor QM into this. By all means, do your sadhana and become one with the universe and when you do that, drop a line. I would be interested in knowing how to reach that state. Until then, all our discussions will not take us anywhere and degenerate into mere clash of egos!

So, my request is a) either give a valid, testable evidence or b) do it yourself and when you achieve the state, tell me about it. I will accept a) fully and accept b) based on my trust that you will not lie about such an experience and achievement.

Until then, let us let sleeping dogs lie!

Regards/Shan

PS: The first image does not seem to appear on my laptop. Could you please send it as an attachment?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/freeians/167261016.6338824.1708338834203%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Tholkappiyan Vembian]

You are making the same mistakes, at least from my perspective. So, no fruitful discussion will result.

For example reading the parable literally. Not responding to all points is another one. Repeating the same thing is not an argument (asking for objective evidence when it is said you have see for yourselves. Even in the Sarvapriyananda video at the end he says you have to do the last step yourselves).

I can point out others but it will not be fruitful based on my experience so far with our exchanges.

But, if you are sending casual remarks and cartoons and should be happy to receive the same and not blame or hide under a clash of egos.

I enjoy casual criticism and cartoons as well as constructive criticism. But so far I have not received any.

But I value your other contributions like the speech by Jeyamohan. So, please continue to share.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/freeians/93ce1bbb-0493-43a8-a2c4-8a0139a6a19b%40gmail.com.