Religious Symbols of the "I/Self"

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

Eugene,

So my lack of discipline got the best of me, but I am starting this thread only to focus on the religious and symbolic aspect of our previous discussion, which is at the heart of my concerns with your claims about the "I/Self".

"The problem I'm pointing to really is the sense of self that we all unconsciously have and our false identification of it with our awareness or with any ontic entity. There is a reason why it is a problem. If we analyze any of our egoic impulses, desires, addictions etc, we can almost always trace it to that sense of self - it's always "I" who wants or does not want this or that, who is against "him"/"her" or "them". At the same time we have that feel that the "self" is some sort of real existing separate "entity" of almost "ontological" status, like Descartes "I think therefore I exist" (exist in some eternalistic/ontological sense). I'm just trying to describe in simple words the naive-realistic view that most people have in this respect. So, it was Buddha's important phycological insight to discover the root of human egotism in that naive-realistic sense of separate entity of self. This is not to say that the purpose of the Buddhist practice is to "kill the ego". It is only to dispel our false identification with such naive-realistic image of self-entity."

The above is not accurate as to the Judeo-Christian religious traditions, and I am increasingly more confident the Buddhist tradition, along with all other major Eastern traditions, is in alignment. (I also think it would be a BIG hole in many idealist worldviews if those traditions were pointing to different 'truths' at the ontic level).

What the 'Fall' symbolizes is the dawning of human meta-consciousness, i.e. reflective awareness of the "I/Self" which constructs the phenomenal world. It is the knowledge of 'Good' and 'Evil' which sets us on a natural path towards various modes of idolatry. The idolatry is what we call the 'naive-realist' view, i.e. treating 'objects' of our constructed phenomenal world as the ontic ground of Being. 

There is no religious symbol for the "I/Self", because that process is pre-conscious and prior to the formation of the phenomenal world from which we draw symbols. There are only various sets of symbols which 'circumambulate' the "I/Self". The latter is an ontically real process. Further, the meta-conscious 'Fall' is both the disease and the cure for idolatry. 

Without understanding of the "I/Self" as an ontic reality, we cannot remember our participation in co-creating the phenomenal world and our responsibility as individuals to integrate the fundamental opposites spurned from meta-consciousness. Christ is the symbol of that integrative and redemptive process, but I believe the Buddha is to some extent as well. 

So, as you see, I actually believe the exact opposite of what you are claiming, in so far as the ontic reality of the "I/Self" is absolutely critical for our redemption/salvation. And I hope it goes without saying that I am not claiming certainty about any of the above, it's just where my experience, reasoning and faith has pointed me so far.

 

[Eugene I]

Here is the thing, Ashvin. We can argue forever with all sorts of philosophical, religious, archetypal and what not arguments, but all of them will always remain inconclusive and do not prove anything. Particularly with respect to the question of Self, it is obviously impossible to prove its nonexistence, just like it's impossible to prove a nonexistence of a flying spaghetti monster in a parallel universe, but likewise it is impossible to prove that it  has any ontic modality of existence. Ultimately we do not know the answers to these core existential ontological questions. We have a number of competing philosophies/religions/worldviews, each having a bag of compelling arguments, and at the end of the day we choose to believe in what we want to believe in the absence of the ultimate criteria of absolute truth. And the real criteria for such choice are actually psychological rather than philosophical: we choose to believe in a worldview that fits best to our psyche structure and meets our basic existential needs.

So, what are those existential needs? We all love life and fear death. We want to live as personalities, as selves, and persist forever. We want meanings, values and purposes that make our life meaningful. But there is a catch with that, a dilemma. The same personality that we want to live forever has a baggage of basic traits, desires, wants, delusions, addictions, passions, depressions, fears, aggressions that enslave us and makes us suffer. We "want an ice cream" and do not have a choice to not want it. It's a slavery. Further to that, such personal "me" becomes a lens through which we see the world in a distorted way, for us everything we perceive in the world revolves around the center of "me" and has relevance and importance inasmuch as it is relevant to our "me". So, we also want some sort of liberation from such slavery to our pathetic "me" with its demanding compulsive and mind-bending wants. We want to be "saved" from this slavery.

So, if we limit ourselves to idealistic worldviews for now, there is a variety of religious/spiritual traditions and philosophies that offer various solutions to this dilemma and various levels of compromise between these two opposing tendencies. Roughly they can be divided into two categories: personal and impersonal kinds of idealism. 

The personal versions pose that the ontic ground of being is personal by nature - it is a Personal Divinity - God or M@L or you name it, that is conscious and has a Self and Will. Most Western religions and philosophies fall under this category, and most of them, in addition to the personification of the Divine, offer some sort of the eternal existence solution to our personal selves/"souls". What they offer to us psychologically is the promise of persistence of the personal life, at the same time offering a compromising solution to the slavery problem by suggesting that the soul will be eventually "saved" from such corruption, "deified" and transformed into a less slavery-prone state, be it with or without the Divine help. Yet, the complete liberation from the eternal bounds of personality to the transpersonal level is not an option because the Self is still ontic and immortal. The range of options within personal idealism is still pretty wide with the Divine varying from fully meta-cognitive to non-metacognitive, from fully omnipotent or omnibenevolent to partially omnipotent or omnibenevolent, etc. Some versions offer an option of "merging" of the souls personalities with the Divine with the dissolution of the alters personalities into the Divine one. But in any case, the freedom from the Divine personality is never an option and there is no escape from it, we are destined to live in front of the face of God and under his command forever.    

The Eastern traditions, such as Buddhism and Taoism, are clearly impersonal, with Advaita being somewhere in between. These are solutions where the ontic ground of being is aware but impersonal, where any personality/self has no ontic ground and is not something that can persist forever. They offer a no-compromise liberation from the boundaries and slavery to personality and an access to the transpersonal consciousness and transpersonal existence. Notice that transpersonal existence does not mean a dissolution of personal manifestations. There are indeed some nihilistic versions of such philosophies/traditions that deny any reality of the world of forms and of any personal manifestations, but those versions are not very popular and rather peripheral in these traditions. The mainstream versions (such as Mahayana) do not deny the existence of the world forms and personal manifestations, they only consider them impermanent, not eternal and having no stand in the ontic ground of being. Such versions do not aim at disintegration of personal life, but only at giving it lower, relative and impermanent status compared to the ontic level of impersonal reality. In this way, the life of personal forms continues, but the bounds of the personality are transcended offering liberation from the eternal slavery to the ego, as well as liberation from a dictate of any Godhead.

So, we simply have a free choice here, and one can offer all sorts of pro and con arguments with respect to any of these versions and their sub-versions, but ultimately we choose the one that resonates with us more on psychological and subconscious level rather than on the rational level. Often people that are more sensitive to suffering or less prone to accept compromises and limitations to freedom are more prone to choose the non-personal versions, and vise versa. And this freedom of choice is so fundamental that even a personal God (if he exists) can not deprive us from it. 

[First Cause]

Very good Eugene, very good and yes, the psyche (which is essentially the "I") is at the center of our metaphysical choices.  Essentially, our primary experience is one of relationships, and that relationship is with power.  We have power and we freely exercise that power and conversely, there are other physical systems that have power over us, systems like oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and water, systems like large boulders engaged in a relationship with gravity rolling down a hill, a fast flowing river or a speeding truck.  

All systems, not just the intellectual systems of mind; but all systems fundamentally use their intrinsic power to maintain the identity of the system, each system being a solipsistic self-model.  The reason for this is quite simple and yet highly controversial.  There is no sense of self without a sense of control.  This dynamic is underwritten by the qualia of the system which is an awareness, an awareness that is directly correlated to a self.  Without a sense of control there is no sense of self; control is absolute essential to the identity of the self.  And in this context, control is not some dirty little word. 

People who are religious find it difficult to understand why atheists can believe in nihilism.  The answer is quite simple:  that intellectual construction gives those individuals a sense of control, a control that reinforces the identity of the solipsistic self-model, and that grounding self-model and their needs for control is determined by their properties.  Everyone is uniquely different and everyone will express that difference by whatever means and/or method is necessary to give them a sense of control.  We are a discrete, deterministic system with well defined boundaries and we all have only a limited degree of self determination within an otherwise deterministic system.  Qualified by IMHO.   

 

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"Here is the thing, Ashvin. We can argue forever with all sorts of philosophical, religious, archetypal and what not arguments, but all of them will always remain inconclusive and do not prove anything. Particularly with respect to the question of Self, it is obviously impossible to prove its nonexistence, just like it's impossible to prove a nonexistence of a flying spaghetti monster in a parallel universe, but likewise it is impossible to prove that it  has any ontic modality of existence. Ultimately we do not know the answers to these core existential ontological questions. We have a number of competing philosophies/religions/worldviews, each having a bag of compelling arguments, and at the end of the day we choose to believe in what we want to believe in the absence of the ultimate criteria of absolute truth. And the real criteria for such choice are actually psychological rather than philosophical: we choose to believe in a worldview that fits best to our psyche structure and meets our basic existential needs. "

We all share a similar psychic structure, since we are all humans, and we are all expressions of the same "objective psyche". We do not need to rationally understand all aspects of our shared psychic processes to deduce from evidence that they are ontically real. You make it sound above as though ontological philosophy, depth psychology and [closely related] spirituality are simply matters of personal subjective opinions and preferences, but they are clearly much more than that.

"So, if we limit ourselves to idealistic worldviews for now, there is a variety of religious/spiritual traditions and philosophies that offer various solutions to this dilemma and various levels of compromise between these two opposing tendencies. Roughly they can be divided into two categories: personal and impersonal kinds of idealism.  

... 

So, we simply have a free choice here, and one can offer all sorts of pro and con arguments with respect to any of these versions and their sub-versions, but ultimately we choose the one that resonates with us more on psychological and subconscious level rather than on the rational level. Often people that are more sensitive to suffering or less prone to accept compromises and limitations to freedom are more prone to choose the non-personal versions, and vise versa. And this freedom of choice is so fundamental that even a personal God (if he exists) can not deprive us from it."  

You are failing to address the huge problems which arise if two (or more) deeply introspective and long-lasting spiritual traditions reach different ontic conclusions about the nature and necessity of the "I/Self". At the deepest level, I believe they must be pointing to same the ontic reality. There is no denying that Western traditions emphasize the personal aspect and Eastern traditions the impersonal, but it is precisely the union of these traditional emphases which is the goal. That is the ontic reality they all symbolize in their various ways. They all emphasize freedom from "slavery" to egoistic tendencies (idolatry) and personal capacity to manifest the Divine.

The main symbol of Taoism is the Yin-Yang diagram, which I would say symbolizes the "I/Self". This Self is the intermediating dynamic between the fundamental opposites, such as the unconscious and the conscious, chaos and order, the impersonal and the personal, etc. It symbolizes how aspects of one are eternally present in the opposite, and it is the dynamic tension between the opposites which has propelled the evolutionary development of consciousness and therefore the entire cosmos. Without the Self, there is no union of the opposites and no salvation. 

[Eugene I]

<< expressions of the same "objective psyche" >>

Do not forget that this is still an unverifiable/unfalsifiable assumption/inference and even not all versions of idealism or idealistic religions share. But it is your right to believe in it of course.

 

<<  You are failing to address the huge problems which arise if two (or more) deeply introspective and long-lasting spiritual traditions reach different ontic conclusions about the nature and necessity of the "I/Self". At the deepest level, I believe they must be pointing to same the ontic reality. There is no denying that Western traditions emphasize the personal aspect and Eastern traditions the impersonal, but it is precisely the union of these traditional emphases which is the goal.  >>

Such Perennial Philosophy view, introduced by Aldous Huxley, was and still is popular, but was criticized by many scholars as well as many representatives of those traditions. An alternative view is that those traditions are not converging to the same ultimate truth/union, but are different realms in the infinite space of meanings/archetypes/states of consciousness, or different paths to traverse through such infinite space, that are not necessarily all destined to converge to the same destination. Most of them still offer some way of "salvation", yet the paths, practices, methods, views in some way share some common grounds, and in other ways are still quite different and diverse. We can see here the same Yin-Yang play of unity and diversity that never settles to the extreme of entropic death of total uniformity/unity, neither it settles to a complete chaos with an absence of any structure. A unity in diversity is our reality that we constantly have to deal with, and we better learn how to do it with minimal calamities and falling into extremes :)   

By the way: <<The main symbol of Taoism is the Yin-Yang diagram, which I would say symbolizes the "I/Self". >> - this is only your interpretation. Historical Taoism tradition itself offers no such symbolization. 

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"Do not forget that this is still an unverifiable/unfalsifiable assumption/inference and even not all versions of idealism or idealistic religions share. But it is your right to believe in it of course."

 

Not all versions, only the correct ones : ) It is possible that Jung's conclusion regarding the existence of an "objective psyche" is wrong, but I would not bet on it. 

"Such Perennial Philosophy view, introduced by Aldous Huxley, was and still is popular, but was criticized by many scholars as well as many representatives of those traditions. " 

The comparative religious empirical foundations for it were by laid by Jung before Huxley, but the latter certainly made it more theologically explicit. I would say you can trace 'perennial philosophy' views back to the neo-Platonic traditions of the late medieval period. I am open to considering scholarly criticisms of that view if you can link one or two examples.

"An alternative view is that those traditions are not converging to the same ultimate truth/union, but are different realms in the infinite space of meanings/archetypes/states of consciousness, or different paths to traverse through such infinite space, that are not necessarily all destined to converge to the same destination. Most of them still offer some way of "salvation", yet the paths, practices, methods, views in some way share some common grounds, and in other ways are still quite different and diverse. We can see here the same Yin-Yang play of unity and diversity that never settles to the extreme of entropic death of total uniformity/unity, neither it settles to a complete chaos with an absence of any structure. A unity in diversity is our reality that we constantly have to deal with, and we better learn how to do it with minimal calamities and falling into extremes :)"    

I don't see how you can have a "unity in diversity" (which I agree with) if the diversities are moving towards different fundamental ontic realities.  I see your claim of the "I/Self" being the root cause of all egotism and a non-eternal epiphenomenal aspect of the ontic reality as one of those "extremes" that we cannot settle in. 

[David Sundaram]

On Tuesday, November 24, 2020 at 9:38:27 PM UTC-7 ashvi...@gmail.com wrote:

Without understanding of the "I/Self" as an ontic reality, we cannot remember our participation in co-creating the phenomenal world and our responsibility as individuals to integrate the fundamental opposites spurned from meta-consciousness. Christ is the symbol of that integrative and redemptive process, but I believe the Buddha is to some extent as well. 

This is what I have more or less said (in different words) - except I reference 'Christ' as a meaningful  concept=-  in my treatise , Ashvin.

[Eugene I]

<< I don't see how you can have a "unity in diversity" (which I agree with) if the diversities are moving towards different fundamental ontic realities.   >>

That is because it's a diversity of path within the unity of same ground of the same ontic fundamental (and not necessarily within the unity of the same collective-level Perennial Philosophy, which may not exist at all). But because we do not know the actual nature of such ontic fundamental, our opinions on it and the paths necessarily diverge  :)  

<<I am open to considering scholarly criticisms of that view if you can link one or two examples.>>

I remember, after reading the Huxley's book, also having/reading a book of a well known scholar in religious studies with such criticism that also offered the "diversification" view that I presented, but unfortunately I forgot the title/name, it was quite a long time ago. 

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"That is because it's a diversity of path within the unity of same ground of the same ontic fundamental (and not necessarily within the unity of the same collective-level Perennial Philosophy, which may not exist at all). But because we do not know the actual nature of such ontic fundamental, our opinions on it and the paths necessarily diverge  :) "  

The paths can, should, have and will diverge, but the salvific destination cannot be within different ontic fundamentals. One path cannot lead to 'salvation' through a 'return' to pure awareness without Self while another leads to 'salvation' through a union of Self and not-Self. Do you disagree?

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"People who are religious find it difficult to understand why atheists can believe in nihilism." 

It is not difficult at all. Life as we know-construct it is a prolonged struggle with pain, malevolence and unending anxiety in the face of infinite complexity. As a person becomes increasingly alienated from the one source of reliable and powerful evolved meaning, i.e. religion, there are only shaky materialist/rationalist ideologies left as levies to hold off the turbulent waters of the Flood, but those give way quickly because they are built on a foundations of loose sand. Nihilism is the only logical result. 

[Eugene I]

<< One path cannot lead to 'salvation' through a 'return' to pure awareness without Self while another leads to 'salvation' through a union of Self and not-Self. Do you disagree?>>

Yes, I agree, but how do we know which path leads to the true ontic fundamental if we do not know the true nature of the ontic fundamental, but instead we (and different traditions) only have various unverifiable assumptions about such nature that do not agree with each other? But these paths/traditions, in spite of certain irreconcilable differences, still have a lot in common (including the idealistic platform, ascetic/salvific practices, development of anti-selfish psyche traits such as compassion, cooperation, wisdom and good will etc).  

Perhaps at some future point along those paths, outside of the limited scope of knowledge of our current corporeal existence, we will know more and may have some additional knowledge/experience that will open to us some further facets of the nature of the fundamental, and so these differences between paths may be resolved (which would suggest that the Perennial Philosophy is in fact valid, but just not at this phase of our development). Or, it may never happen and the nature of the fundamental will always remain a mystery for us. But at this point we seem to no have such knowledge (at least to the best of my knowledge).  

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"Yes, I agree, but how do we know which path leads to the true ontic fundamental if we do not know the true nature of the ontic fundamental, but instead we (and different traditions) only have various unverifiable assumptions about such nature that do not agree with each other?" 

 

Well, I presume that is what most of us are trying to figure out through discussions on this forum. That has been THE fundamental question for most of intellectual human history (this blip of materialist idolatry sidetracked us for a bit). 

It seems most of humanity had been prevented (as if by Divine purpose) from having the capacity to know the true nature of the ontic fundamental, but I believe that has changed rapidly over the last 150 years. Darwinian theory, various branches of psychology, QM, archaeology, philology, etc. have exploded onto the scene or made huge advances. Besides that, modern technology gives us the capacity to read every single great book which has ever been written on these subjects. 

I believe humans have a capacity of intellect, insight and imagination that we are just beginning to realize. That combined with the introspective religious practices which have been around for millennia and who knows how far we can go into the depths of ontic reality. I am right now convinced that all of the paths lead to the same ontic fundamentals, whatever those may be, so it's just a matter of putting in the work and having faith in the wisdom past down and the evolutionary path we are on.  

[Eugene I]

Yes, I would agree with that, with the disclaimer that even with all advances of the modern science/technology and integrated knowledge of the traditions of the past that do give us some insight into the nature of the fundamental, we are still quite far from fully understanding it (and, given the its ultimate ineffability, we may never be able to fully understand it). But at least we might be able to know it enough to get ourselves to the "approximately" right variety of tracks towards it, with possible further adjustments and convergences of those paths in the future as we progress and make more insights and discoveries along the paths. Personally I'm not a stubborn fundamentalist kind of believer and I'm always flexible and open to new insights and path/beliefs adjustments. 

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"Yes, I would agree with that, with the disclaimer that even with all advances of the modern science/technology and integrated knowledge of the traditions of the past that do give us some insight into the nature of the fundamental, we are still quite far from fully understanding it (and, given the its ultimate ineffability, we may never be able to fully understand it). But at least we might be able to know it enough to get ourselves to the "approximately" right variety of tracks towards it, with possible further adjustments and convergences of those paths in the future as we progress and make more insights and discoveries along the paths. Personally I'm not a stubborn fundamentalist kind of believer and I'm always flexible and open to new insights and path/beliefs adjustments." 

I would simply say that we do not know how close or far we are to consciously understanding the ontological prime. Exponential evolutionary advances in consciousness will certainly realize human potential in a way that we can scarcely imagine now. Normally I don't like to inject personal history into a philosophical discussion, but I think it may be instructive here to better explain why I am focusing on what I am focusing on here. As with most people in the modern world, I was a naïve materialist well into my 20s. 

At some point, I started exploring 'new age spirituality' and found the most superficial sense of comfort there, perhaps making me a naïve dualist, although I am not sure if that is a very useful distinction, because my habits of thinking and action did not change much from when I was a materialist.  A significant change occurred when I started exploring various 'conspiracy theories' about why the 'system' is the way that it is. That led into a sort of critical systems thinking which naturally led to a fascination with postmodern thought and neo-Marxism. 

I found that mode of thinking to be very powerful in its explanatory scope and it also led me into various 'doom and gloom' writing and discussions about the coming 'collapse' of global systems. And I could have stayed intellectually comfortably in this perspective forever, but, as some years passed and the world seemed to keep humming along without major financial, cultural and social collapse, I knew there was something missing and, more importantly, something perverse about that way of looking at the world. I found myself frequently hoping there would be bad news indicating a rapid collapse so that I could be proven right. 

At some point, because I was so enthralled by this idea of 'collapse', I stumbled across Christian eschatological views and that led me to start looking at the Bible more closely. I ended up listening to many hours of 'apologetics' defending the fundamentalist Christian worldview against other worldviews. The 'apologists' involved were extremely smart and also seemed exceedingly gracious in their spirits. Long story short, that convinced me that Christianity was literally true and all other religious and secular worldviews were cheap (and perhaps 'satanic') imitations of this literal truth. Of course, unconsciously, I had been adhering to materialist and rationalist assumptions throughout all of the above.

While I was attending church and 'life groups', I became increasingly frustrated with the type of dogmatic 'faith' that was expressed, which in some ways seemed ahistorical and isolated from unfolding reality. And then, about 3 years ago, I came across Jordan Peterson. As with many people, he opened the door for me to start questioning those unexamined materialist and rationalist assumptions, and to look into deep religious thinkers such as Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Jung. I quickly realized that fundamentalist Christianity could not be the proper lens through which to view the world. However, based on the great importance Peterson and the thinkers he pointed to placed on the Christian tradition (or, for Nietzsche, on Christ himself), I felt there was still something extremely valuable in those traditions.

Peterson's ideas reminded me of my fundamentalist debates with Scott on another forum, where he had tried to introduce me to the philosophy of Owen Barfield and Donald Hoffman's current research. I finally got around to following Hoffman, and when following up with Scott, he also mentioned Bernardo Kastrup, so I have been following BK for about a year. Barfield's ideas have just recently opened up for me, and he was an Anthroposophist (founded by Rudolf Steiner) who also placed a central importance on the Christian traditions and the figure of Christ. I know most of you guys are familiar with these particular thinkers, but I will just assume otherwise for the moment. 

Barfield/Steiner, Jung and many other deep spiritual idealist thinkers place Christ at the center of an unfolding evolutionary process in universal consciousness. Peterson's conceptualization is of Christ being the ultimate archetypal symbol of the individual (God the Son) who brings 'habitable order' (God the Father) out of chaos (the Holy Spirit). I believe this corresponds to what Scott has referenced on the other thread as 'formlessness' (chaos), form (order) and self-awareness (the mediating individual). We can also think about Christ as the archetypal symbol of full integration (what Jung termed "individuation"), bringing about the union of fundamental 'polar opposites' (Coleridge). Judaism and Christianity, geographically, originated at the center of Western and Eastern modes of spiritual thought, but we also see both of those modes expressed in the poetry, mythology and historical stories of the Bible.

And I will leave it there for now, because I need to catch a plane... Happy Thanksgiving to anyone reading!

[Simon Adams]

I came to the conclusion a long time ago (while a Buddhist more than anything else) that when Buddha said that there was "no self", this was for the purpose of "freeing" people, a method of teaching, rather than describing some kind of absolute truth.  Otherwise the seeker goes looking for the "real self", and attaches again to the ego as the only thing that matches any logical conception of 'a self'.

I understand where Ashwin is coming from and there are definitely similarities, but from my perspective I do see some fairly significant differences between the Christian and Buddhist approaches.  In Buddhist practice, the focus is on removing everything that is created by attachment, using fasting, meditation, poverty etc.  The aim is to dissolve the superficial ego by becoming aware of how it rises, and then once these illusions are removed, all that remains is pure experience.  In Christianity, there is also an effort to remove all the attachments through meditation/contemplation, fasting, poverty etc, but the focus is on submitting the will of the ego to the will of god.  So the aim is for the ego to give itself over to god, and over time.  As John the Baptist put it, "He must become greater; I must become less".

In terms of how similar the processes are depends on your view of god.  My own view would be that there are some elements of overlap, but that the end goal is different.

[Eugene I]

<< I came to the conclusion a long time ago (while a Buddhist more than anything else) that when Buddha said that there was "no self", this was for the purpose of "freeing" people, a method of teaching, rather than describing some kind of absolute truth.  Otherwise the seeker goes looking for the "real self", and attaches again to the ego as the only thing that matches any logical conception of 'a self'. >>

Very much agree, Simon, Buddha's approach vas rather practical/pragmatic and psychologically oriented. And agree with the rest of what you said as well.

Ashvin,

Thanks for your testimony. My path also went through Christianity, with the difference that I was in Eastern Orthodox tradition where the emphasis is on the ascetic and spiritual/mystical part, and I definitely learnt a lot and that experience shaped/influenced my development quite strongly, and I'm deeply grateful to the Christian tradition for that, even though I later left to explore other traditions (Sufism, Advaita) and eventually drifted toward Buddhism. My take on these traditions is: I don't believe any of them have a knowledge of the ultimate truth, yet all of them are the specific paths towards that Ultimate incorporating both philosophical and practical/psychological elements with the purpose of facilitating our spiritual development and transformation process. I look at them as pre-requisite practical courses to prepare us to advance to the developmental stages where we will be more able to comprehend the deeper facets of the Ultimate, as well as to transform our psyche structure to become better adopted and functional for harmonious individual and communal life (by de-emphasizing and eventually disintegrating primitive behavioral egoic and reality-distorting cognitive mechanisms).

As an analogy, you can compare for example Buddhism and Christianity to art and music training classes. At a first glance, it may seem that they lead to different goals and development of skills in different areas/applications. Yet the core skills that they help to develop are very similar, such as mastery in arts and appreciation of aesthetic beauty of forms.     

[First Cause]

"In Christianity, there is also an effort to remove all the attachments through meditation/contemplation, fasting, poverty etc, but the focus is on submitting the will of the ego to the will of god." 

There is no question that this is the prevailing paradigm of Christianity.  However, that version is perverted.  The unadulterated version of Christianity before it morphed into its current form runs on a parallel track with Hebrew tradition, a tradition where the Irreducible Imperative is Unknown.  According to this tradition, one surrenders to the Great Mysteriousness of the Unknown with a willingness to forsake everything that one believes and holds dear including the self, not knowing what one will get in return.  In modern jargon: this means the willingness to place a bet not knowing what one will get in return prior to placing that bet.

In the prevailing model of Christianity one knows in advance what will be gained by placing that bet, the same is true with Buddhist tradition and all other religions for that matter.  Fundamentally, all forms of religion trade in the commodity of control.  The unadulterated version of the Hebrew tradition if not predicated upon control, and that is the difference that makes the difference.  

 

[Eugene I]

<< The unadulterated version of Christianity before it morphed into its current form runs on a parallel track with Hebrew tradition, a tradition where the Irreducible Imperative is Unknown.  According to this tradition, one surrenders to the Great Mysteriousness of the Unknown with a willingness to forsake everything that one believes and holds dear including the self, not knowing what one will get in return. >>

Even within the mainstream Christianity there was a niche mystical sub-tradition that carried such apophatic approach, for example the texts of Dionysius the Areopagite or "The Cloud of Unknowing".   

But I would argue that a clear continuation of such Hebrew tradition was Gnosticism. Here is an excerpt from the Gnostic Apocryphon of John:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn-davies.html

The Inexpressible One

The One rules all. Nothing has authority over it.
            It is the God.
            It is Father of everything,
                        Holy One
                        The invisible one over everything.
It is uncontaminated
            Pure light no eye can bear to look within.

The One is the Invisible Spirit.
            It is not right to think of it as a God or as like God.
            It is more than just God.

Nothing is above it.
Nothing rules it.
            Since everything exists within it
                        It does not exist within anything.
            Since it is not dependent on anything
                        It is eternal.

It is absolutely complete and so needs nothing.
It is utterly perfect
Light.

The One is without boundaries
            Nothing exists outside of it to border it
The One cannot be investigated
            Nothing exists apart from it to investigate it
The One cannot be measured
            Nothing exists external to it to measure it

The One cannot be seen
            For no one can envision it
The One is eternal
            For it exists forever
The One is inconceivable
            For no one can comprehend it
The One is indescribable
            For no one can put any words to it.

The One is infinite light
            Purity
            Holiness
            Stainless,

The One is incomprehensible
            Perfectly free from corruption.
Not “perfect”
Not “blessed”
Not “divine”
But superior to such concepts.
            Neither physical nor unphysical
            Neither immense nor infinitesimal
            It is impossible to specify in quantity or quality
                        For it is beyond knowledge.

The One is not a being among other beings 
            It is vastly superior
                        But it is not “superior.”

It is outside of realms of being and time
            For whatever is within realms of being was created
            And whatever is within time had time allotted to it
The One receives nothing from anything.
            It simply apprehends itself in its own perfect light

The One is majestic.
            The One is measureless majesty

Chief of all Realms
            Producing all realms

Light

            Producing light

Life
            Producing life

Blessedness
            Producing blessedness

Knowledge
            Producing knowledge

Good
            Producing goodness

Mercy
            Producing mercy

Generous
            Producing generosity

            [It does not “possess” these things.]

It gives forth light beyond measure, beyond comprehension.

[What can I say?]

His realm is eternal, peaceful, silent, resting, before everything.
He is the head of every realm sustaining each of them through goodness.

[First Cause]

That's the crux of the problem Eugene, all of these Hebrew and Christian traditions as we currently know them, including gnosticism are missing the Point.  And that point is this; that the Unknown Irreducible Imperative is just that; Unknown.  Consequently, there is nothing and I mean nothing that anyone can say about it, including the entire vocabulary contained within the poetry of "The Inexpressible One".   Nevertheless, all of these religious traditions do just that, they are constantly and relentlessly running off their big mouths without having any idea of what they are talking about.  All religious traditions do the exact same thing, East or West, there is no difference.  

 

[David Sundaram]

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 10:00:27 AM UTC-7 fundamental...@gmail.com wrote:

That's the crux of the problem Eugene, all of these Hebrew and Christian traditions as we currently know them, including gnosticism are missing the Point.  And that point is this; that the Unknown Irreducible Imperative is just that; Unknown.  Consequently, there is nothing and I mean nothing that anyone can say about it, including the entire vocabulary contained within the poetry of "The Inexpressible One".   Nevertheless, all of these religious traditions do just that, they are constantly and relentlessly running off their big mouths without having any idea of what they are talking about.  All religious traditions do the exact same thing, East or West, there is no difference.  

Maybe you are 'right' about this - about them that is. But I think I know (as do you, I think!) from experience. Check out my treatise, fella.

[Dana Lomas]

And that point is this; that the Unknown Irreducible Imperative is just that; Unknown.  Consequently, there is nothing and I mean nothing that anyone can say about it ...

So that must also preclude saying that it is 'power' ... while we're at it, who needs anyone even claiming unequivocally that it is 'Unknown' ~ and metaphysical 'speculations' might as well be shut down ... oh well, I'll miss you all you other big mouths :))

[Eugene I]

<< That's the crux of the problem Eugene, all of these Hebrew and Christian traditions as we currently know them, including gnosticism are missing the Point.  And that point is this; that the Unknown Irreducible Imperative is just that; Unknown. >>

I would not agree with such radical statement. In these apophatic traditions (take Dionysiusfor example) the understanding is that the "nature" (the ontological ground) of the Absolute will always remain unreachable and unknown to us, but the properties and manifestations of the imperative can be known to us. Everything in the world are the manifestations of the Absolute, but there is a subtle difference such manifestations that was clearly understood by  Dionysius: there are "uncreated" (intrinsic) properties of the Absolute, the "Divine Logoses", "uncreated energies" (the in the Dionysius language) of the Absolute beyond the space and time of the manifested world, and there are non-intrinsic manifestations of the Absolute that constitute the created world of forms. And the key point is that we, as created conscious forms, not only can experience and comprehend the non-intrinsic properties, but also the intrinsic ones, and through such experience we can "participate" in the Absolute, "become like" the Absolute. In the Christian mystical tradition such participation is the process of "deification" that have the transformative and salvific power and allows us to transcend the limits of the manifested world of forms.        

[Eugene I]

PS:

One of such intrinsic fundamental properties of the Absolute is awareness (if we agree that the Absolute is aware). So, since we are also aware beings, by recognizing our awareness as fundamental property of the Absolute, we now have the direct access, the "door" to the fundamental properties of the Absolute that becomes a "salvific vehicle" for us. This is the key point of the Buddhist practice. The Christian and other traditions focus on other facets of the intrinsic properties of the Absolute, but the overall idea is similar. 

[Rigpa]

Eugene,

This reminds me of Ein Sof :)

[Dana Lomas]

Before He gave any shape to the world, before He produced any form, He was alone, without form and without resemblance to anything else. Who then can comprehend how He was before the Creation? Hence it is forbidden to lend Him any form or similitude, or even to call Him by His sacred name, or to indicate Him by a single letter or a single point... But after He created the form of the Heavenly Man, He used him as a chariot wherein to descend, and He wishes to be called after His form, which is the sacred name "YHWH".

And yet this great supreme Unknown is personified as a He ... 'YHWTF'?

[First Cause]

It's perfectly acceptable if we disagree, I've been accused on more than one occasion of being too radical and taking things too far; no offense is taken.  

"...by recognizing our awareness as fundamental property of the Absolute, we now have the direct access,"

Direct access is questionable, intrinsically linked; absolutely, no question about that!  But it is this notion that we have the power to access the Irreducible Imperative on our terms through some kind of intellectual scheme or ritual practice that is misdirected.  But if one really wants to get righteous, one needs to quit reading and listening to what others have to say, journey out into the barren, vast wilderness of the unknown.  Spend some time there alone and listen to the still heart of persuasive reality and then be persuaded by that reality.  From my own experience there I can make one guarantee, the unknown has it's own voice (a metaphor course) and it will never lie to you. 

It's turkey day down here in the states, logging off for now.

 

[Eugene I]

<< But it is this notion that we have the power to access the Irreducible Imperative on our terms through some kind of intellectual scheme or ritual practice that is misdirected.   >>

I agree, but in Christian, Sufi and Buddhist mystical traditions (and probably other ones as well that I'm not so familiar with) the rituals and intellectual schemes are only practical preparatory actions that help up to un-focus from our human-oriented egoic cares and direct our focus and attention to the Absolute. But the actual vehicle that eventually delivers us is the direct experiential participation in the intrinsic properties of the Absolute. 

[Eugene I]

PS:

So, to add,  the ritualistic and intellectual parts were the means/tools in those traditions to be used by the masses and to be common and preliminary stages of the practices in those tradition. But in each of those tradition there was a "mystical" layer/school/practice (Dzogchen in Buddhism, Advaita in Vedic tradition, Hesychasm in Christianity, Sufism in Islam) where the ritualistic and intellectual parts were de-emphasized and even entirely dropped on the most advanced stages, and the practice/approach remained purely experiential.

[Dana Lomas]

But it is this notion that we have the power to access the Irreducible Imperative on our terms through some kind of intellectual scheme or ritual practice that is misdirected.  But if one really wants to get righteous, one needs to quit reading and listening to what others have to say, journey out into the barren, vast wilderness of the unknown.  Spend some time there alone and listen to the still heart of persuasive reality and then be persuaded by that reality.  From my own experience there I can make one guarantee, the unknown has it's own voice (a metaphor of course) and it will never lie to you.

I've no issue with this, though in this case one didn't 'journey out into the vast wilderness of the unknown', as it inexplicably arrived unbidden, as if to disabuse the notion of this spellbound self with no prior practice whatsoever ~ and indeed this engendered a great burst of astonished laughter. But now it doesn't seem so inexplicable, since as an individuated expression of the Fundamental "___" (fill in the blank) ~ there being nothing else to be an expression of, and thus no-one is ever truly apart from it ~ how could one ever actually be so utterly divorced from it, so as to totally preclude any possibility of knowing it? 

"There is no greater mystery than this, that we keep seeking reality though in fact we are reality. We think that there is something hiding reality and that this must be destroyed before reality is gained. How ridiculous! A day will dawn when you will laugh at all your past efforts. That which will be the day you laugh is also here and now." ~ Ramana

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 1:01:04 PM UTC-5 fundamental...@gmail.com wrote:

[Eugene I]

FC, right, and what you are describing is a hero-approach that we can also see in many traditions of the past in the examples of many Christian, Sufi, Buddhist or Advaitic mystics. But by far not many people are prepared to follow such radical path, it's only for a few. The majority of the adepts take a more moderate compromised/mixed approach, and that is also ok. One can argue that the moderate approach is slow and takes longer, but there are benefits of that as well, and dangers with a too-radical approach. The transformation of psyche is a very slow and integral process, you need your whole soul, including the deep unconscious levels and your shadow, to adjust and to settle and to be transformed at every forward step on the spiritual path, otherwise you may run into quite nasty cognitive dissonances and personality-splitting disorders. Spiritual practitioners are like mount-climbers, and to be successful in reaching the summit, you need patience and experience, you need to know the safe paths and dangerous paths, and you need to know the right pace to allow the body (psyche) to acclimatize on every new height.      

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 1:37:32 PM UTC-5 fundamental...@gmail.com wrote:

It isn't about redirecting our focus, it a complete, absolute, and unconditional Act of Forsaking.  I wouldn't even call it a surrender.  It is a willingness to forsake every thing not knowing what you will get in return, a metaphorical stepping off into the abyss.  That takes courage; and the most difficult dynamic of that act of forsaking is letting go of fear.  Fear is the last hurdle to overcome in that process of forsaking, and that insurmountable obstacle of fear was almost a show stopper for me.  

After I crossed that threshold into the abyss and was permanently transformed, the very first thought that struck my head was:  "nobody, and I mean nobody in their right mind would do what I just did!"  The moral of the story:  It helps to be a little bit crazy and reckless to boot.  I fit that bill because of my own struggle with a debilitating mental illness, so I didn't have anything to loose.  I've never been the same since, and after forty years, the influx of intuitive insights keep surging in.  Sometimes it can be a real fucking head rush.......    

Be at peace my friend

 

[Eugene I]

Another important side of almost all mystical traditions is the understanding that the experiential gnosis of the  intrinsic manifestations of the Absolute, if only taken alone, is insufficient and even dangerous. You need to become prepared for that encounter with the Absolute, to "clean" your soul before approaching the Absolute too close, to acquire certain qualities such as humility, compassion, wisdom, peace of mind etc,. (which you can find in almost every spiritual tradition), and allow the egoic and negative patterns of psyche to let go and disintegrate, and that usually takes a long time. This is a slow and gradual process with these two sides of practice (achieving the gnosis and transforming the psyche) going side-by-side and facilitating each other. 

A good symbol of this can be found in the Hebrew tradition where the priest had to fast, spiritually clean and prepare himself over a prolonged period before he could enter the empty Holy of Holies in the heart of the Solomon Temple once a year. 

So, it is dangerous to mindlessly extract from those traditions only the parts that we like and disregard the rest considering them as "cultural baggage". On one hand, there is indeed a lot of cultural and irrelevant baggage there, on the other hand, there are certain crucial parts of those traditions that are there for a good reason, and disregarding them would be simply dangerous for the psychological wellbeing of the practitioners. But you need to understand these traditions very well and to know them practically to be able to sort the essential elements from the cultural and irrelevant baggage.   

[Dana Lomas]

Then again, I suppose one must concede that what needs to be 'destroyed' is the notion of an actual entity that exists apart from the Fundamental "___" that somehow must find its way back from some other ontic location, a notion that only reifies some existence of such a segregated entity, and location. Truly, if still believing in finding such an entity, well, one can only offer 'good luck with that' :)

[Eugene I]

Exactly, and that is why in the Eastern traditions the notion of "separate self" as an ontic entity was understood as one of the most problematic stumbling blocks on the path to the non-dual experience of the Fundamental,  the foundation of the dualistic perception, as well as the fertile soil for the growth and self-sustenance of egotism. With all my respect to the Western traditions I still think that the un-recognized dualism in these traditions in failing to acknowledge the falsity of the "separate self" is one of their weak points. In Sufism such dualism was overcome (but Sufism is not strictly a Western tradition and arguably was influenced by some Eastern traditions).   

[Dana Lomas]

Eugene my man, you may yet convert me to Buddhism, if indeed that inexplicable, unbidden, out-of-the-blue revelation didn't already prime one for its message, perchance precipitated by untold incarnations on some Tibetan plateau  :)

[David Sundaram]

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 10:52:29 AM UTC-7 Dana Lomas wrote:

 

And yet this great supreme Unknown is personified as a He ... 'YHWTF'?

Zing! 🤣

[David Sundaram]

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 11:37:32 AM UTC-7 fundamental...@gmail.com wrote:

That takes courage; and the most difficult dynamic of that act of forsaking is letting go of fear.  Fear is the last hurdle to overcome in that process of forsaking, and that insurmountable obstacle of fear was almost a show stopper for me.  

According to Castaneda's mentor, Don Juan,  'fear' is just the first 'enemy' that has to defeated on the way to becoming what he cal;s "A Man of Knowledge". 😮

In our conversations, don Juan consistently used or referred to the phrase "man of knowledge", but never explained what he meant by it. I asked him about it.

"A man of knowledge is one who has followed truthfully the hardships of learning," he said. "A man who has, without rushing or without faltering, gone as far as he can in unraveling the secrets of power and knowledge."

"Can anyone be a man of knowledge?"

"No, not anyone."

"Then what must a man do to become a man of knowledge?"

"He must challenge and defeat his four natural enemies.

"Will he be a man of knowledge after defeating these four enemies?"

"Yes. A man can call himself a man of knowledge only if he is capable of defeating all four of them."

"Then, can anybody who defeats these enemies be a man of knowledge?'

"Anybody who defeats them becomes a man of knowledge."

"But are there any special requirements a man must fulfill before fighting with these enemies?"

"No. Anyone can try to become a man of knowledge; very few men actually succeed, but that is only natural. The enemies a man encounters on the path of learning to become a man of knowledge are truly formidable: most men succumb to them."

"What kind of enemies are they, don Juan?"

He refused to talk about the enemies. He said it would be a long time before the subject would make any sense to me. I tried to keep the topic alive and asked him if he thought I could become a man of knowledge. He said no man could possibly tell that for sure. But I insisted on knowing if there were any clues he could use to determine whether or not I had a chance of becoming a man of knowledge. He said it would depend on my battle against the four enemies - whether I could defeat them or would be defeated by them-but it was impossible to foretell the outcome of that fight.

I asked him if he could use witchcraft or divination to see the outcome of the battle. He flatly stated that the results of the struggle could not be foreseen by any means, because becoming a man of knowledge was a temporary thing. When I asked him to explain this point, he replied:

"To be a man of knowledge has no permanence. One is never a man of knowledge, not really. Rather, one becomes a man of knowledge for a very brief instant, after defeating the four natural enemies."

"You must tell me, don Juan, what kind of enemies they are."

He did not answer. I insisted again. But he dropped the subject and started to talk about something else.

As I was getting ready to leave, I decided to ask him once more about the enemies of a man of knowledge. I argued that I could not return for some time, and it would be a good idea to write down what he had to say and then think about it while I was away.

He hesitated for a while, but then began to talk.

"When a man starts to learn, he is never clear about his objectives. His purpose is faulty; his intent is vague.

He hopes for rewards that will never materialize for he knows nothing of the hardships of learning.

"He slowly begins to learn - bit by bit at first, then in big chunks. And his thoughts soon clash. What he learns is never what he pictured, or imagined, and so he begins to be afraid. Learning is never what one expects. Every step of learning is a new task, and the fear the man is experiencing begins to mount mercilessly, unyieldingly. His purpose becomes a battlefield.

"And thus he has stumbled upon the first of his natural enemies: Fear! A terrible enemy treacherous, and difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting. And if the man, terrified in its presence, runs away, his enemy will have put an end to his quest."

"What will happen to the man if he runs away in fear?"

"Nothing happens to him except that he will never learn. He will never become a man of knowledge. He will perhaps be a bully, or a harmless, scared man; at any rate, he will be a defeated man. His first enemy will have put an end to his cravings."

"And what can he do to overcome fear?"

"The answer is very simple. He must not run away. He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. He must be definitely afraid, and yet he must not stop. That is the rule! And a moment will come when his first enemy retreats. The man begins to feel sure of himself. His intent becomes stronger. Learning is no longer a terrifying task.

"When this joyful moment comes, the man can say without hesitation that he has defeated his first natural enemy."

"Does it happen at once, don Juan, or little by little?"

"It happens little by little, and yet the fear is vanquished suddenly and fast."

"But won't the man be afraid again if something new happens to him?"

"No. Once a man has vanquished fear, he is free from it for the rest of his life because, instead of fear, he has acquired clarity - a clarity of mind which erases fear. By then a man knows his desires; he knows how to satisfy those desires. He can anticipate the new steps of learning, and a sharp clarity surrounds everything. The man feels that nothing is concealed.

"And thus he has encountered his second enemy:

Clarity! That clarity of mind, which is so hard to obtain, dispels fear, but also blinds.

"It forces the man never to doubt himself. It gives him the assurance he can do anything he pleases, for he sees clearly into everything. And he is courageous because he is clear, and he stops at nothing because he is clear. But all that is a mistake; it is like something incomplete. If the man yields to this make-believe power, he has succumbed to his second enemy and will be patient when he should rush. And he will fumble with learning until he winds up incapable of learning anything more."

"What becomes of a man who is defeated in that way, don Juan? Does he die as a result?"

"No, he doesn't die. His second enemy has just stopped him cold from trying to become a man of knowledge; instead, the man may turn into a buoyant warrior, or a clown. Yet the clarity for which he had paid so dearly will never change to darkness and fear again. He will be clear as long as he lives, but he will no longer learn, or yearn for, anything."

"But what does he have to do to avoid being defeated?"

"He must do what he did with fear: he must defy his clarity and use it only to see, and wait patiently and measure carefully before taking new steps; he must think above all, that his clarity is almost a mistake. And a moment will come when he will understand that his clarity was only a point before his eyes. And thus he will have overcome his second enemy, and will arrive at a position where nothing can harm him any more. This will not be a mistake. It will not be only point before his eyes. It will be true power.

"He will know at this point that the power he has been pursuing for so long is finally his. He can do with it whatever he pleases. His ally is at his command. His wish is the rule. He sees all that is around him. But he has also come across his third enemy. Power!

"Power is the strongest of all enemies. And naturally the easiest thing to do is to give in; after all, the man is truly invincible. He commands; he begins by taking calculated risks, and ends in making rules, because he is a master.

"A man at this stage hardly notices his third enemy closing in on him. And suddenly, without knowing, he will certainly have lost the battle. His enemy will have turned him into a cruel, capricious man."

"Will he lose his power?"

"No, he will never lose his clarity or his power."

"What then will distinguish him from a man of knowledge?"

"A man who is defeated by power dies without really knowing how to handle it. Power is only a burden upon his fate. Such a man has no command over himself, and cannot tell when or how to use his power."

"Is the defeat by any of these enemies a final defeat?"

"Of course it is final. Once one of these enemies over-powers a man there is nothing he can do."

"Is it possible, for instance, that the man who is defeated by power may see his error and mend his ways?"

"No. Once a man gives in he is through."

"But what if he is temporarily blinded by power, and then refuses it?"

"That means his battle is still on. That means he is still trying to become a man of knowledge. A man is defeated only when he no longer tries, and abandons himself."

"But then, don Juan, it is possible that a man may abandon himself to fear for years, but finally conquer it."

"No, that is not true. If he gives in to fear he will never conquer it, because he will shy away from learning and never try again. But if he tries to learn for years in the midst of his fear, he will eventually conquer it because he will never have really abandoned himself to it."

"How can he defeat his third enemy, don Juan?"

"He has to defy it, deliberately. He has to come to realize the power he has seemingly conquered is in reality never his. He must keep himself in line at all times, handling carefully and faithfully all that he has learned. If he can see that clarity and power, without his control over himself, are worse than mistakes, he will reach a point where everything is held in check. He will know then when and how to use his power. And thus he will have defeated his third enemy.

"The man will be, by then, at the end of his journey of learning, and almost without warning he will come upon the last of his enemies: Old age! This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one he won't be able to defeat completely, but only fight away.

"This is the time when a man has no more fears, no more impatient clarity of mind - a time when all his power is in check, but also the time when he has an unyielding desire to rest. If he gives in totally to his desire to lie down and forget, if he soothes himself in tiredness, he will have lost his last round, and his enemy will cut him down into a feeble old creature. His desire to retreat will overrule all his clarity, his power, and his knowledge.

"But if the man sloughs off his tiredness, and lives his fate through, he can then be called a man of knowledge. If only for the brief moment when he succeeds in fighting off his last, invincible enemy. That moment of clarity, power, and knowledge is enough."

[Simon Adams]

Eugene:   So, to add,  the ritualistic and intellectual parts were the means/tools in those traditions to be used by the masses and to be common and preliminary stages of the practices in those tradition. But in each of those tradition there was a "mystical" layer/school/practice (Dzogchen in Buddhism, Advaita in Vedic tradition, Hesychasm in Christianity, Sufism in Islam) where the ritualistic and intellectual parts were de-emphasized and even entirely dropped on the most advanced stages, and the practice/approach remained purely experiential.  

In the Catholic tradition this is centered around Eucharistic Adoration, or Eucharistic Meditation, and has been for a very long time (at least since 300sAD).  I guess you could say that mass is the external ritual/sacrament (an outward sign of an inward truth), and adoration is the internal (the mystical presence).  My weekly hour in silence before the eucharist is the best part of my week, and can be profound.  As Padre Pio said;

"A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament."

[Eugene I]

Simon, yes, the mystical part of the Catholic tradition is also rich and deep, with the rituals understood as external symbols representing the internal mystical realities. This is what I think is mostly missing in the Protestant versions of Christianity. 

[David Sundaram]

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 3:02:11 PM UTC-7 simongr...@gmail.com wrote:

"A thousand years of enjoying human glory is not worth even an hour spent sweetly communing with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament."

I hope you can 'receive' this in the spirit in which it is intended, but some people think and feel there's nothing better than the experiences of sucking their own thumb or of having an orgasm, too.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

Here's the problem. You guys are operating under materialist/rationalist assumptions you have not yet examined.

First is the assumption that ontology should be evaluated in static snapshots, ie the Newtonian worldview. You are not 

really thinking about the OP as a process unfolding dynamically and eternally. As Scott argues, it is a tri-unity of form, formlessness and the Self which mediates between the two. Can you come up with a good reason to analyze each of these as static objects or deny one or more of them? If not,then you have failed to put forth any philosophical argument challenging that formulation of the OP.  

And based on FC comments on religious traditions, he is also looking at it with unexamined materialist assumptions about

what those traditions mean, which throw his perspective way off. So right now, we have solid philosophical, religious and psychological foundations for the Self as OP, across all human cultures as indicated by many comparative studies (with the possible exception of Buddhism), and on the other side we have anecdotal experience, feelings about why the Self is bad and leads to egotism (which is psychologically false) and complete misinterpretations of Biblical texts.

[Lou Gold]

You are not really thinking about the OP as a process unfolding dynamically and eternally. As Scott argues, it is a tri-unity of form, formlessness and the Self which mediates between the two. Can you come up with a good reason to analyze each of these as static objects or deny one or more of them?

OK, speaking from my intuitively flaky self, I'll take the bait. The good reason to avoid this way is because the symbolic map called 'philosophy' of which ontology is part is inadequate. From the get-go we know this map is not the territory. How else might a map be made? Consider this way. 

Yes, I grok that I will be accused of offering a paean to original participation, to ways which predate the present confusion over the 'I/Self'. I ask why this state of confusion (or the 'fall') can really be known as a progress? I personally confess that I do not know this state (or process phase) as 'progress.' Actually, I suspect that notions of progress are just the ways that victors write history (and make maps). 

How do you know it?

[Simon Adams]

Ashvin: Here's the problem. You guys are operating under materialist/rationalist assumptions you have not yet examined.

First is the assumption that ontology should be evaluated in static snapshots, ie the Newtonian worldview. You are not 

really thinking about the OP as a process unfolding dynamically and eternally. 

I'm all for trying to fit the different spheres of human understanding together at some level.  Its a common problem with scientism, where you limit the axioms to a small field of knowledge (that which can be measured with the senses and physical instruments), and then decide that this represents the only valid knowledge.  There needs to be a complete view which takes into account a wider epistemological base,.

However its tricky taking the different forms of knowledge and making a 1:1 correlation.  For example, take my assertion that Buddha deliberately didn't talk about the 'real' self, purely because that would be a hindrance to his process for people to get to a deeper understanding of their nature.  If I'm correct, and there is 'something' individual beyond the experience of conscious unity with all, something that he saw as continuing through re-incarnation etc, then people who construct a wordview where there is nothing to an individual other than an illusory loop in consciousness would be over simplifying.

On the other hand, like you I also take "the fall" as analogous to the emergence of meta consciousness, and so there may be a more valid argument for describing the eastern search for enlightenment as an attempt to 'undo' this, to turn back across the desert, into the primordial innocence of the garden of Eden.  I may well be wrong about that, but this to me is an example where it could be useful to have a hybrid of systems, and as you say, Jung and Nietzsche etc tried very much to find areas where there could be this synthesis.  I find "bad karma" a far more useful term than "sin" in the modern world.  If you say to people that "Jesus took the bad karma of people from the past and the future onto himself", which very quickly resulted in him being physically and spiritually crushed, it tends to make more sense to people.

I just think you have to be very careful mixing bits of the traditions.  There is no equivalent of "Jacobs ladder" in Buddhism for example, and from my perspective this is due to a key difference which is a critical problem in trying to synthesis the different terms and concepts.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth."

...

"Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge". -Pierre Tielhard de Chardin

Lou, to me your question is like asking why a prenatal infant should not stay in its mother's womb. There is no original participation in isolation, without manifesting potentialities pregnant within it.

Simon, I agree with much of what you say. The eastern/western divide of religious consciousness, as with all evolutionary matters, can be corresponded to our individual psyches. We are always at risk of spiritualizing too much or structuring too much, of focusing too much on regression to the past or progression to the future. What we seek is that Middle Way.

I believe Christianity, properly understood, is that middle path. If we just reflect enough on its development, its structure, its symbolic teachings, etc, then that becomes very evident. It becomes evident that the individual is a dynamic microcosm of the macrocosm, and that we participate in the archetypal Hero`s Journey every day of our lives and in no trivial manner. 

This is Truth we experience even without deep introspective dives, although rationalist and materialist modes of thinking have made it most occluded to our inner and outer experience. However its always within a stone's throw and we have developed new modes of appreciating it as well.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"That's the crux of the problem Eugene, all of these Hebrew and Christian traditions as we currently know them, including gnosticism are missing the Point.  And that point is this; that the Unknown Irreducible Imperative is just that; Unknown.  Consequently, there is nothing and I mean nothing that anyone can say about it, including the entire vocabulary contained within the poetry of "The Inexpressible One".   Nevertheless, all of these religious traditions do just that, they are constantly and relentlessly running off their big mouths without having any idea of what they are talking about.  All religious traditions do the exact same thing, East or West, there is no difference. " 

Like David said, the problem is how YOU currently know them, which is apparently in a thoroughly occluded manner which persists statically in the modern materialist paradigm. 

Here's the reality- people will always find more deep meaning in religious mythology than in the cold, soulless language of the `irreducible imperative`. That includes you as well. You can only deny this deep meaning rooted in your unconcious for so long. But the more you treat the unconcious poorly, the worse it will treat you in return... it will manifest in your life and therefore in the world, the only question will be how much if any control you have over the manifestations.

[Dana Lomas]

So what do y'all make of this ... I Am the Way / The Mystical Jesus

On Friday, November 27, 2020 at 8:17:06 AM UTC-5 Dana Lomas wrote:

Here's the reality- people will always find more deep meaning in religious mythology than in the cold, soulless language of the `irreducible imperative`.

And yet it seems that this doesn't have to entail some personification of it, surely not as a supreme Father or Mother, an inclination that I've never felt much affinity for, having been born and raised in a completely secular context, with quite flawed parental figures as examples of those archetypes. Indeed, I've come to resonate with a Divine, Fundamental "___" without having to personify it. Hence I do wonder if any such symbolism can always be universally applicable to all stage-specific cultures or psyches, at all times. In this experience the Divine can be known in such a way, without all the cultural baggage and narrative being projected onto it? So, for example, some Divine emptifullness feels no less numinous here, absent any such religious symbolism ~ although I feel some affinity for the yin-yang symbol, in that it doesn't prioritize or repress either anima or animus. Not to say that such symbolism doesn't have its place in spiritual individuation, just that not all symbols are equally efficacious for all psyches, in giving meaning to that process.

[Dana Lomas]

Here's the reality- people will always find more deep meaning in religious mythology than in the cold, soulless language of the `irreducible imperative`.

And yet it seems that this doesn't have to entail some personification of it, surely not as a supreme Father or Mother, an inclination that I've never felt much affinity for, having been born and raised in a completely secular context, with quite flawed parental figures as examples of those archetypes. Indeed, I've come to resonate with a Divine Fundamental "___" without having to personify it. Hence I do wonder if any such symbolism can always be universally applicable to all stage-specific cultures or psyches, at all times. In this experience the Divine can be known in such a way, without all the cultural baggage and narrative being projected onto it. So, for example, some Divine emptifullness feels no less numinous here, absent any such religious symbolism ~ although I feel some affinity for the yin-yang symbol, in that it doesn't prioritize or repress either anima or animus. Not to say that such symbolism doesn't have its place in spiritual individuation, just that not all symbols or mythos are equally efficacious for all psyches, in giving meaning to that process.

[Dana Lomas]

Btw, please excuse deleted messages, since in the absence of an editing function, when posts end up with faulty links, there's no option but to delete and re-post it, thus placing it out of proper sequence.

 

[Lou Gold]

So what do y'all make of this ... I Am the Way / The Mystical Jesus

EXCELLENT! 

[Dana Lomas]

Still, there's seems no way the avoid the bastardization, misinterpretation and misrepresentation of such originally oral teachings, and their mythos/symbols, such that they can become quite counterproductive in their intended aim. And I suppose that's why there will always be a place and a need for a new mythos applicable to each evolved stage-specific age. Somehow it seems that it's not enough for the next 'Christ Consciousness' to be some individual expression of it, but rather a collective expression of it, or in Buddhist terms, the next Buddha must be the Sangha.

[Lou Gold]

YES! to the passage (or return) from me to we.

"In The Real Early Morning"  

In the real early morning
With the sun slowly rising
I was walking out slowly
Wandering free
When out in the distance
Over the valley
I saw an old friend
Waiting for me
Waiting for me

She was a young girl
She was an old soul
As fair as the ocean
Timeless and free
She was my mother
She was my daughter
She was my lover
She was everything
An old friend could be

I said, "It's been such a long time
Since we have spoken
There's so much to say to you
I want you to know
I wish you could tell me
All that you've seen here
But we haven't got long now
For soon, you'll be fading
And soon, I must go"

I know the way home

She said "You are a soldier
You are a father
You are a wise man
You are a friend
You were my first love
I won't forget you
I'm walking beside you
I was here when you started
I'll be here till the end"

And now it's the evening
There's a moon slowly rising (ooh, ooh)
There isn't much more that
I wanted to know, wanted to know
And I am alone now
She isn't beside me no more
But I feel no sorrow
I'd come tomorrow
I'll be on my way home
I'll be on my way home

[David Sundaram]

On Thursday, November 26, 2020 at 9:25:21 PM UTC-7 ashvi...@gmail.com wrote:

Here's the problem. You guys are operating under materialist/rationalist assumptions you have not yet examined.

First is the assumption that ontology should be evaluated in static snapshots, ie the Newtonian worldview. You are not 

really thinking about the OP as a process unfolding dynamically and eternally. As Scott argues, it is a tri-unity of form, formlessness and the Self which mediates between the two. Can you come up with a good reason to analyze each of these as static objects or deny one or more of them? If not,then you have failed to put forth any philosophical argument challenging that formulation of the OP.  

And based on FC comments on religious traditions, he is also looking at it with unexamined materialist assumptions about

what those traditions mean, which throw his perspective way off. So right now, we have solid philosophical, religious and psychological foundations for the Self as OP, across all human cultures as indicated by many comparative studies (with the possible exception of Buddhism), and on the other side we have anecdotal experience, feelings about why the Self is bad and leads to egotism (which is psychologically false) and complete misinterpretations of Biblical texts.

👍 Ashvin. Here's my 'update' of 'Biblical' 'code' (excerpted) from my treatise:

"For those who have reached the point where they are capable of dispassionately pondering such matters, I submit that “The Father is in me, and I in him” (John 10:38) which Jesus added in the same speech-sequence (as “I and my Father are one”) clearly shows the latter understanding to be what he actually meant to communicate. Notwithstanding the meta-truth that every ‘feature’ of Creativity (Life, God, Reality, Being – however you wish to view and reference It) is an inseparably integral aspect of one all-inclusive phenomenon, in light of which any and all conceptual ‘divisions’ which distinguish aspects of It one from another may be seen to really just be navigational aides at best, this saying indicates that Jesus ‘saw’ that there was a dynamic, two-way flow-connection between the primally progenitive soul of ‘the Father’ and the consequentially co generative soul-constellation of ‘the Son’, such that the outflow from one functions as inflow in relation to the other in continuously ongoing outflow→inflow→ad infinitum fashion. Readers capable of engaging in abstract thought experiments may appreciate the kind of experience an observer walking lengthwise along the seemingly two sided ‘surface’ of a mobius strip would have and, if reasonably intelligent, sooner or later grok as analogically explaining the never ending ‘story’ of ever-ongoing Father↔Son Creation.

Actually, Jesus’ vision was even more penetrating and far-seeing than even the statement “The Father is in me, and I in him” implies. Presaging that wave-ripples of awareness and spiritual espousal of what he ‘saw’ and articulated would spread and become so mutually validating and reinforcing as to eventually peak in a worldwide crescendo, continuing to identify with and so speak in the ‘persona’ of The Entity of all Creation, he then went on to say, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and  I  in you.” (John 14:20) Such statement cannot possibly be made sense of using simple, linear A→B→C logic, of course, but how aspects of the identities of personal and transpersonal beings (beingnesses, really) can operationally be ‘in’ one another becomes readily understandable when and as one realizes, as more and more people are now doing, that our existential reality is a matrixially interwoven, dynamically living (that is, creatively growing, developing, evolving, etc.) system wherein the output of every personal and transpersonal component of said system functions as input in relation to any and all other components which, because of constitutional similarities and/or complementary affiliations, are vibrationally ‘attuned’ thereto, such that the process of every singular or compound element thereof, ‘from the least to the greatest’, ultimately directly or indirectly affects and is affected by the process of every other aspect of Life."

The idea of a capital 'G' God (or 'Self') as being absolutely/eternally unchanging program/programmer is no longer tenable except as an 'insecurity'-based fantasy-security-blanket - Living Intellgence learns and changes/reprograms Itself as a result of process feedback just as AI ('artificial' intelligence) does!

[Lou Gold]

Lou, to me your question is like asking why a prenatal infant should not stay in its mother's womb. There is no original participation in isolation, without manifesting potentialities pregnant within it.

Ashvin, to me your answer depends on having the right map. How do you know your map is correct?

[Eugene I]

<<Here's the problem. You guys are operating under materialist/rationalist assumptions you have not yet examined.

First is the assumption that ontology should be evaluated in static snapshots, ie the Newtonian worldview. You are not 

really thinking about the OP as a process unfolding dynamically and eternally.>>

Well, my/Buddhist view is definitely not Newtonian, and in this view the ever-going unfolding process is and will always be fueled by unlimited potential of the OF. But this view is still in agreement with Christian theology that there are intrinsic and extrinsic properties of the OF - the former being never-changing and fundamental to the OF, and the latter are ever-changing and belonging to the realm of unfolding forms. The question at the root of this thread was whether the "self" belongs to the former or the latter.

 

Regarding the "materialistic assumptions": if we roughly categorize the types of metaphysics  into 3 main ones:

1. OF is non-conscious and non-personal (materialism)

2. OF is conscious but non-personal (Buddhism, Taoism, arguably Advaita)

3. OF is both conscious and personal (Western monotheistic traditions and philosophies)

then #2 is half-way in between #1 and #3, and from the standpoint of #3 it does seem to be a step back to #1 of materialism. On the other hand, from the standpoint of #2, the #3 seems to be too anthropocentric.  

#3 is definitely more "warm" and oriented to human needs, it gives more psychological comfort: you can have a "relationships" with the OF - love, dedication, faith, you can be loved and rewarded in return, etc. Obviously, you could not have all of those with a non-personal OF, because such "cold" and inhumane OF simply "does not care" about our human needs. On the other hand, #3 really opens a possibility of liberation from the limitations of the human nature and the ways to evolve into a different kind of conscious beings free of such limitations, overcoming the trap of human form resulted from the "fall".  

So, as I said before, at the end we choose to believe in what we want to believe, with a lack of objective criteria of the ultimate truth. There are souls who are prepared to transcend their human nature with all its human needs and traits, and there are souls who do not want to do it and do not even see a point in that endeavor. It is a free choice, and each soul is free to make such choice according to its dispositions and developmental history.    

[David Sundaram]

On Friday, November 27, 2020 at 8:43:45 AM UTC-7 fundamental...@gmail.com wrote:

I am amused that everyone has an opinion, not only about myself but about the path I took to forsake every thing unequivocally and unconditionally.  I willfully choose to use the unprecedented power that has been imbued upon me as a human being, not to save my own life, but to forsake it; not knowing what I would get in return.  Is this not the very path that the wisdom of the gospels outline over and over and over again as "The WAY"?

Borrowing a phrase from the Hebrew culture;  I did not barge into the Holy of Holies uninvited, imposing my own will, nor did I enter with humility, fasting and prayer; I was literally jerked into the Holy of Holies against my own will and in spite of my ability to resist.  The transformation was immediate, dramatic and overwhelmingly traumatizing as I witnessed the threshold that I had crossed disappear before my intellectual eye.

I am also quite amused that nobody has inquired of me what my experience with the Absolute is like, now that I have been transformed.  I surmise that lack of interest is due in part to everyone's own personal biases and subsequent disregard for me and my words.  I can express what the experience is like with words that are common and familiar if anyone is genuinely interested nevertheless, the words in and of themselves cannot in any way convey what the depth of meaning those words convey nor what they feel like; for the experience itself, in the context of meaning is ineffable. 

Seriously, FC - I wonder, has it ever occurred to you, and if it hasn't, I wonder if, now that I bring it up as a possibility, if you can open-mindely contemplate the possibility that your 'I'dentification with 'First' as a characterization  may be qualitatively similar to the personal 'l'dentifications' of those who pompously bandy the 'America First' ' slogan about?

[Dana Lomas]

I am amused that everyone has an opinion, not only about myself but about the path I took ...

FC ... I do trust that you don't feel that I in particular am projecting onto you some preconceived notion of what you're about, as I do try to make a conscious effort not to do so, even if still prone to that tendency from time to time. So for the record, I've no doubt whatsoever of your genuine experience of the ineffable, regardless of how we may differ in our respective, ultimately inadequate attempts at expressing it within the inherent limitations language, when filtered through our various oh-so-human distortions of Love.

[First Cause]

Dana,

No, I do not feel that way about you, and thank you for your kindness in this regard.  I had no intentions of sharing this personal and intimate experience with this forum as I usually hold my own cards relatively close to my chest.  I think it was Ashvin's own personal testimony that he elaborated upon before he boarded his flight to be with family that triggered the response.  And everyone needs to know, especially Eugene; that I consider his comments and spiritual advice to be genuine.

 

[Eugene I]

<< I am also quite amused that nobody has inquired of me what my experience with the Absolute is like, now that I have been transformed. >>

FC, I would be interested to know you story, but I understand that such experiences are often very personal and not many people are prepared to be open about them, especially publicly.  

[Lou Gold]

FC,

I'd love to know of your story if you choose to share it. Dana and I have shared our stories and it's good to have Ashvin and Eugene telling of their journeys. In my view, the personal witness deserves great appreciation. 

[Dana Lomas]

FC ... I'm intrigued. So would you allow that in your proximal encounters with these individuals there was a felt 'frequency' transmission, as if by osmosis, that left an indelible imprint upon your psyche, with no actual languaging of it required?

On Friday, November 27, 2020 at 2:45:21 PM UTC-5 fundamental...@gmail.com wrote:

I don’t have any problems sharing the experience Eugene, but my willingness to express does have its limitations.  And those limitations are intrinsic to the ones hearing the words, words that of and by themselves have No Meaning.

I’ve worked on this vocabulary with four other individuals who share the same experience for quite some time.  The only difference between myself and the four other individuals is that the others whom I’ve met were born into the experience therefore, they know of no other experience.  I consider those individuals to be true Mystics in both the spirit and intent of the word.  Now having said that, these Mystics would never have been able to effectively form an articulation of their own experience because like all Mystics, they have nothing else in which to contrast their own experience against.  It was only by a freak encounter that I met these Mystics, all of them within the last five years or so.

The experience itself is a Noetic continuum that persists through all wakefulness hours and very often during sleep.  That relationship and experience with the Irreducible Imperative is a triune of three dimensions:

!.  It’s Unequivocal

2.  It’s an Equal Partnership

3.  And that partnership is Shared Power.

This experience is not a Master/Slave relationship.  Personally, I was uncomfortable with the “Shared Power” part of the relationship however, the Mystics had no difficulty with that.  And after many, many, many hours, days, weeks and months of intense communication I understood their comfort zone.  it’s the only experience they’ve ever known, they know of no other. 

 

[First Cause]

Definitely not.  These are just ordinary people like you and I who, by the time they reached adulthood have figured out that they live in a foreign and hostile world filled with creatures that look like them but are intrinsically not like them.  They hold their cards very close to their chests.

[Eugene I]

<<  These are just ordinary people like you and I who, by the time they reached adulthood have figured out that they live in a foreign and hostile world filled with creatures that look like them but are intrinsically not like them.   >>

Well, this is going to sound like a fairy tale, but if you give any credit to the reincarnation model, and based on Dr. Michael Newton's regression data, there are different realms/dimensions in the multiverse where the conscious forms and the states of consciousness are drastically different from the ones populating this material and "astral" after-life realm (whatever you want to call it), and sometimes some souls from those other realms for certain reasons decide to visit this realm and incarnate into humans. Reportedly such cases are rare and so there are very few of them on the planet. So, if you feel yourself as if you are like an alien and a stranger among humans, if you can not get used to and fully embrace you human nature, it's likely that you might be one of those - you are just a guest here who does not belong to this realm, but there could still be a reason why you came down here. Even though they have the same human mind as others, from the depths of their souls they often see things in a very different way. (The reason I say this is that I myself feel this way). Another test: if you fully embrace, feel comfortable and settled with you human nature and the way you perceive the world (even though you may see certain problems with it), you most likely belong to this realm and would have no plans of changing your citizenship, and vise versa.     

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

I am also quite amused that nobody has inquired of me what my experience with the Absolute is like, now that I have been transformed

You made repeated posts which show a profound lack of understanding about religious traditions, in various threads, and you don't acknowledge these misrepresentations after they are pointed out to you. Then you say, 'forget all those brilliant religious mystics and their experiences past down to us over thousands of year, listen to me and my experience which shows how they were all wrong'. Thanks, but no thanks. First I have to trust that you have some understanding of the traditions you are trying to tear down, and you just don't.

One example of many is you reducing all of religious tradition to a uni-variable analysis, such as 'all religions trade in the commodity of control`. How can you expect anyone to take your 'experiences' irreducible imperative seriously if you are so fundamentally wrong about something as important as that? 

On Friday, November 27, 2020 at 4:57:57 PM UTC-5 fundamental...@gmail.com wrote:

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

Regarding the "materialistic assumptions": if we roughly categorize the types of metaphysics  into 3 main ones:

1. OF is non-conscious and non-personal (materialism)

2. OF is conscious but non-personal (Buddhism, Taoism, arguably Advaita)

3. OF is both conscious and personal (Western monotheistic traditions and philosophies)

then #2 is half-way in between #1 and #3, and from the standpoint of #3 it does seem to be a step back to #1 of materialism. On the other hand, from the standpoint of #2, the #3 seems to be too anthropocentric.  

Eugene, the above looks for very Newtonian to me. What I mean is, the insistence on a static and mechanistic framing of the OF and its possible 'properties'. Why is there no option for conscious and impersonal-becoming-personal yet not ever being impersonal or personal?

Someone like Jung, who I am sure most who have considered seriously would agree is extremely familiar with at least Advaita, Taoist and Judea Christian traditions, would say they are all closer to that fourth option than the three you listed.

[Eugene I]

<< Eugene, the above looks for very Newtonian to me. What I mean is, the insistence on a static and mechanistic framing of the OF and its possible 'properties'. Why is there no option for conscious and impersonal-becoming-personal yet not ever being impersonal or personal? >>

Well, as I said, within the #2 scenario, there are intrinsic properties of the OF that are beyond the realm of forms/phenomena with its space and time, and therefore they never change, and the extrinsic ones that belong to the realm of forms (although both are still the properties of the OF). The latter are the structures or phenomena that "happen" when the manifestation potential of the OF unfolds, and they are all subject to changes. If a property changes, if it appears or disappears, it belongs to the realm of forms. So, if a manifested activity, such as a conscious being (be it of a divine scale or of a smaller-creature scale), develops a personality or a sense of self, then that is something that "happens" and therefore belongs to the realm of forms (which does not mean that its "not real", but it simply means that it's not fundamental to OF, not ontological). For example, awareness is obviously fundamental, because the OF can not be unaware (if we are within the idealist ontology), and the presence/beingness is also fundamental, because the OF can't not to be. However, the personality and the sense of self are not fundamental, because they change: there was a time when they did not exist, and then became a time when they appeared. Even Highest Divine (M@L), with its persona/self, will, cognition etc, is still what "happened" in the OF, and hence it is not fundamental to OF, it's a "creature" like all of us, even though a creature of the highest level/capacity. That's all I'm saying: in the #2 scenario the self and the Divine are real, but not fundamental, and the OF itself is a fundamentally non-personal but aware ground of being from which the Divine is born (and probably not even one, because why would the unlimited manifestation potential of the OF be limited to the manifestation of only one Divine being?). So, the answer is: the OF does change from impersonal to personal, but this change only occurs in the realm of forms without affecting its fundamental absence of personality.

[Eugene I]

So, to continue, the psychological danger of believing in the ontic reality of "self" is this. Behind such concept of ontic "self" hides the ego that lives and strives on the foundation of the "separate self", with the "self" becoming the center of our perception of the world. For the ego, identified with he "self"/"perceiver"/"doer"/"subject" of consciousness, the world becomes an "object" and revolves around the "self" and is only as much relevant as it is relevant to the "self". It's this self-centered dualistic perception of the world that inevitably results in the development of the egotism. That is why the recognition of the impermanent nature of the self and the insight into the non-personal and non-dual Consciousness as an all-uniting ontic ground of being is so crucial for the possibility of the transcendence of the ego and liberation of our individuated Consciousness from the slavery to the ego, and that was one of the key Buddha's psychological insights. That does not mean "killing the ego", it simply means de-crowning it from the throne of the ruler of our psyche and the "center of the universe" and giving it a role of a servant in the world of fleeting forms where it really belongs. 

On Friday, November 27, 2020 at 10:16:19 PM UTC-5 ashvi...@gmail.com wrote:

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

"Well, as I said, within the #2 scenario, there are intrinsic properties of the OF that are beyond the realm of forms/phenomena with its space and time, and therefore they never change, and the extrinsic ones that belong to the realm of forms (although both are still the properties of the OF). The latter are the structures or phenomena that "happen" when the manifestation potential of the OF unfolds, and they are all subject to changes. If a property changes, if it appears or disappears, it belongs to the realm of forms. So, if a manifested activity, such as a conscious being (be it of a divine scale or of a smaller-creature scale), develops a personality or a sense of self, then that is something that "happens" and therefore belongs to the realm of forms (which does not mean that its "not real", but it simply means that it's not fundamental to OF, not ontological)"

You are still considering form to be mutually exclusive of formleshess at the OP level. Which then leads to statements such as this, "So, the answer is: the OF does change from impersonal to personal, but this change only occurs in the realm of forms without affecting its fundamental absence of personality."  

Which in the first part acknowledges the OP's personal becoming but in the second part denies that which is becoming. What is the philosophical or metaphysical problem with holding the OP as a dynamic tension of opposites? Such as Impersonal/Personal  being One. It is a problem to formal logic, but I presume we agree that formal logic is a representational construct which is idolized in the Newtonian paradigm.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

So, to continue, the psychological danger of believing in the ontic reality of "self" is this. Behind such concept of ontic "self" hides the ego that lives and strives on the foundation of the "separate self", with the "self" becoming the center of our perception of the world. For the ego, identified with he "self"/"perceiver"/"doer"/"subject" of consciousness, the world becomes an "object" and revolves around the "self" and is only as much relevant as it is relevant to the "self"

But you are identifying the ego with the Self by claiming the latter has no ontic reality and therefore belongs to the world of temporary forms. That is usually done unconsciously in the modern era and there is a natural tendency toward it, "original sin". That identification is psychologically harmful, I agree. The only possible way of bringing opposites into union and avoiding the ever-present extremes of ego inflation or nihilism is through conscious operations of the Self, "repentance and confession". So awareness of OP as Self is not only psychologically beneficial but also critical.

[Dana Lomas]

Yes, again, there's the expression of the OF in individuation as an ontological imperative, thus conceiving these inter-being loci of awareness in an inter-dependent, relational, phenomenal, co-evolving subject><object dynamic. And then there's the exclusive identification as a segregated self, and by extension exclusive identification with tribes of such selves, now pitted against other exclusively identified selves, forming, and conforming to a dogmatic ideology of segregation, religious or otherwise, wherein all hell can break loose. So insofar as the teaching of a spiritual modality is efficacious in dispelling of the spell of exclusive identification as such a segregated self existing apart from the OF and its other various inter-being expressions of individuation, then it's serving its intended function. However, insofar as a modality only reifies such a segregated self, then it's actually counterproductive to such an aim, and just remains conducive to 'all hell breaking loose' ... and by their fruits you shall know them.

[Dana Lomas]

I suppose one problematic aspect of the idea of a Cosmic Self, is that with the teaching that I and that Self are one, there's the possibility of just becoming identified as that Self now dissociated from a realm of individuated expressions, being attached to some witnessing state apart from  such apparently illusory phenomena. So again, it's still based in the notion of a segregated self, except now on a cosmic scale.

[Eugene I]

<< there's the possibility of just becoming identified as that Self now dissociated from a realm of individuated expressions, being attached to some witnessing state apart from  such apparently illusory phenomena. So again, it's still based in the notion of a segregated self, except now on a cosmic scale. >>

Exactly! It's the sneaky path for the ego to "hide" behind the Cosmic Self, identify with it and pretend to be the "Divine". And that happens subconsciously, so people do not even notice how they self-centeredness gets elevated to the "Divine" level. And this trap state of consciousness is even worse than identifying of the ego with a "little separate self/me". 

The field of metaphysics and religious beliefs is very flexible, there so many ways you can interpret and cognitively model/explain the reality and the world. And this has a purely philosophical side, and a practical and psychological side: some views and beliefs are more psychologically efficient and less psychologically risky (on both individual and collective scale), others are less. Or different paths can be "almost" equally efficient but still differ in the methods and the destination states. 

 

So, with that in mind:

<<But you are identifying the ego with the Self by claiming the latter has no ontic reality and therefore belongs to the world of temporary forms. That is usually done unconsciously in the modern era and there is a natural tendency toward it, "original sin". That identification is psychologically harmful, I agree. The only possible way of bringing opposites into union and avoiding the ever-present extremes of ego inflation or nihilism is through conscious operations of the Self, "repentance and confession". So awareness of OP as Self is not only psychologically beneficial but also critical.>>

Right, there are basically two paths with some subtle differences: the transformation of the ego (repentance/divination) and the transcendence of it. In the former the individual consciousness exist within the boundaries of the ego, but works to transform into a better-adopted forms. The latter path breaks beyond the boundaries into the post-ego non-dual state, without "killing" the ego. The former path is the path of Christianity and similar monotheistic religions, the latter is the path of non-dual traditions. Which one is "better"? I don't think there is a definite answer to that, both have their pros and cons, both are valid on their own terms, and the choice is ours and free.    

<<Which in the first part acknowledges the OP's personal becoming but in the second part denies that which is becoming. What is the philosophical or metaphysical problem with holding the OP as a dynamic tension of opposites? Such as Impersonal/Personal  being One. It is a problem to formal logic, but I presume we agree that formal logic is a representational construct which is idolized in the Newtonian paradigm.>>

Ultimately everything that "is" and that "happens" is within the OP and part of the OP, so you can argue that there is no fundamental difference between the "being" and "becoming". There is still psychological/practical difference: the "becoming" part is flexible and by nature impermanent and conditioned, the "being" part is the opposite - it's unconditional and free from conditioning and not subject to change, and that has certain salvific quality to our our individual consciousness, it brings liberation from being bound to conditioning (specifically, conditioning by the ego), it's like "building the house of your state of consciousness on the rock":

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:24-27     

[Dana Lomas]

Considering that there may be better terminology than a cosmic 'Self', given some of the problematic connotations of the term 'self', how about cosmic Individuator?  :)

[First Cause]

Eugene,

I am familiar with the narrative you outlined and I will not pass judgement on anything you've contributed during our time together.  Be well my friend.....

 

[Eugene I]

<< Considering that there may be better terminology than a cosmic 'Self', given some of the problematic connotations of the term 'self', how about cosmic Individuator?  :) >>

My personal preference is FOE (individuated field of experience) or FOA (individuated field of awareness) - this is the closest to how I see it in the direct experience without adding much of mental interpretation. 

[Dana Lomas]

without adding much of mental interpretation. 

Well FOE does have the connotation of 'enemy' or 'opponent' so best go with FOA  ... whereby the center of which is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere (as per Borges' Pascal's Sphere) ... and thus may the Foa be with you :)

[Dana Lomas]

In any case, what is the issue, if any, in understanding this FOA as being numinous?

[Eugene I]

<<<<Which in the first part acknowledges the OP's personal becoming but in the second part denies that which is becoming. What is the philosophical or metaphysical problem with holding the OP as a dynamic tension of opposites? Such as Impersonal/Personal  being One. It is a problem to formal logic, but I presume we agree that formal logic is a representational construct which is idolized in the Newtonian paradigm.>>

Ultimately everything that "is" and that "happens" is within the OP and part of the OP, so you can argue that there is no fundamental difference between the "being" and "becoming". There is still psychological/practical difference: the "becoming" part is flexible and by nature impermanent and conditioned, the "being" part is the opposite - it's unconditional and free from conditioning and not subject to change, and that has certain salvific quality to our our individual consciousness, it brings liberation from being bound to conditioning (specifically, conditioning by the ego), it's like "building the house of your state of consciousness on the rock": >>

PS: 

Another psychological side of the  "being" and "becoming" sides of the OP is this. In our habitual (dualistic) state of consciousness  we usually only live in and pay attention to the world of changing forms, to the "becoming" part (and that is where our ego identifies itself with one of the manifestations of this world), and we entirely ignore the fundamental and unconditional beingness/awareness side as if it does not exist or it is something unimportant. Such perception splits the world in our minds into the multiplicity and divided parts/entities (subjects><objects) and we simply do not see and experience the unity. We can conceptualize the unity, but we still experience the world as duality/multiplicity, and that is where the egotism strives, since it feeds on the separation. Recognizing the  beingness/awareness side of reality existentially/experientially, still without ignoring the "becoming" side, brings the unity to our perception of reality, because this is the side that is common to all of us and unites us into the wholeness of the OP. The experiential recognition is possible because beingness/awareness is present in our direct conscious experience every moment, we just do not notice it. Such existential recognition has tremendous psychological salvific and transforming power (which was recognized in the non-dual spiritual traditions), as it breaks the self-centeredness of our egotism and delvers us to the non-dual state of consciousness and perception of the reality as a wholeness and the organic interplay of the "being" and "becoming" sides of reality.   

[Eugene I]

<< So what do y'all make of this ... I Am the Way / The Mystical Jesus >>

Yes, it is entirely possible that the teachings of Jesus were grossly misunderstood by his followers and the historic Christianity became a dualistic interpretation of essentially non-dual teaching of Jesus.

You can sense it even in the canonical scriptures:

John 10:30: "I and the Father are one." 

John 17:21: "I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you."

But the most "non-dual" is of course the  amazing Gnostic "Gospel of Thomas"

[Eugene I]

PS: some quotes from the Buddhist tradition relevant to the above

"There is simply realization or its lack in the basic state of phenomena

For those with realization who reached the state of bliss there is pure perception

For those without it there is non-recognition of awareness and habitual patterns of dualistic perception

from which sensory appearances manifest as dualistic separate objects in all their variety,

although in reality none of them stray from the basic space of awareness"

Longchenpa, The Treasury of Dahrmadhatu

"There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is thus discerned." 

Buddha, Iti. 2.16

"Those who know this unfabricated state, their minds released through the ending of craving" 

Buddha,  Iti 44

[Dana Lomas]

But the most "non-dual" is of course the  amazing Gnostic "Gospel of Thomas"

To be sure, as much as the original teaching can be understood to be a nondual teaching, with the G of T perhaps the most clear example of that, its later misrepresentations by the 'segregated self' mindset actually can be interpreted as quite dualistic, and thus no surprise the G of T was suppressed and buried.

[Lou Gold]

I agree about the Gospel of Thomas. 

Speculatively, I have wondered if the later representations perhaps are not misrepresentations as much as personal markers along a spiritual path moving from degrees of duality into a re-membered nonduality compared with an original fully remembered nonduality arrived into the dilemmas of dualism. One keeps in mind that language is itself an expression of duality whereas silence is the real deal. 

If this speculation is accurate, perhaps this is why different degrees of so-called "misrepresentation" seem to appeal to different folks at differing stages of their spiritual journeys? I can imagine a never-ending journey of many steps and a generous God allowing for a representation (or misrepresentation) fitting each step, including multiple incarnations of entities passing through many forms. 

[Dana Lomas]

And curiously enough the G of T was uncovered in December of 1945, just after the end of the last World War and its multitude of horrors born of ideologies of 'segregated self' mindsets. Yet to a large extent its lessons remain unlearned, as the segregated selfing carries on. Oh for the coming of the messiah as the collective Christ consciousness ... I know, I know, dream on oh-so-naive and idealistic one. :))

[Lou Gold]

One wonders if an unbeatable process dilemma of the realm of dualism might be: "the more light, the more shadow"? And, thusly, an on-going challenge of peacemaking is also intrinsic to the dualist process and realm. Perhaps, the arrival of Christ Consciousness is also an ever-on-going process, a holy peacemaking evermore collective. ("Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." Matthew 5:9)

[Eugene I]

<< One wonders if an unbeatable process dilemma of the realm of dualism might be: "the more light, the more shadow"? And, thusly, an on-going challenge of peacemaking is also intrinsic to the dualist process and realm. Perhaps, the arrival of Christ Consciousness is also an ever-on-going process, a holy peacemaking evermore collective. ("Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." Matthew 5:9) >>

Right, and from the Buddhist perspective the endless cycling/transmigration of souls between heavenly and hellish realms is the reality of the dualistic existence (samsara). That is because the dualistic state of consciousness is always a fertile ground for the ego's egotism to develop and manifest in one way or another, so a soul in a dualistic state can never find stability in either "light" or "shadow" states.  

[Scott Roberts]

On Friday, November 27, 2020 at 6:01:28 PM UTC-10 Eugene I wrote:

So, if a manifested activity, such as a conscious being (be it of a divine scale or of a smaller-creature scale), develops a personality or a sense of self, then that is something that "happens" and therefore belongs to the realm of forms (which does not mean that its "not real", but it simply means that it's not fundamental to OF, not ontological). For example, awareness is obviously fundamental, because the OF can not be unaware (if we are within the idealist ontology), and the presence/beingness is also fundamental, because the OF can't not to be. However, the personality and the sense of self are not fundamental, because they change: there was a time when they did not exist, and then became a time when they appeared.

Or, self-awareness is an eternal feature of the OF, and the appearance of a sense of self in the evolution of human consciousness is a (very) partial revealing of tha eternal self-awareness, a step on the path of creating images of the OF. Hence, the "path" might be to expand one's sense of self through introspective self-critique, not attempt to transcend it.
 

[Eugene I]

<< Or, self-awareness is an eternal feature of the OF, and the appearance of a sense of self in the evolution of human consciousness is a (very) partial revealing of tha eternal self-awareness, a step on the path of creating images of the OF. Hence, the "path" might be to expand one's sense of self through introspective self-critique, not attempt to transcend it. >>

The problem with such approach is that the ego and the sense of self are tightly related and always go together hand by hand. So, by expanding the sense of self you will automatically expand the ego (and vise versa), and by projecting your sense of self to the "Cosmic Self" you will make your ego grow to the Cosmic scale and identify with the Cosmic Consciousness ("I AM Brahman" - oops). But the pure experiential awareness has nothing to do with any sense of self (as well as ego) whatsoever, they are simply forms appearing in awareness and experienced by it. That is why in the Buddhist tradition the path to the experiential gnosis of the OF it not through expanding the sense of self (dangerous!) but though the opposite: the dis-identifying from the sense of self (and the ego associated with it).

[Lou Gold]

"... from the Buddhist perspective the endless cycling/transmigration of souls between heavenly and hellish realms is the reality of the dualistic existence (samsara). That is because the dualistic state of consciousness is always a fertile ground for the ego's egotism to develop and manifest in one way or another, so a soul in a dualistic state can never find stability in either "light" or "shadow" states."

I'm not a mystic or philosopher or scholar of religions but I can imagine "samsaric" states in line with the famous question posed by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, "Do you think the piece of gold likes it when it is being hammered into a fine shape?" If duality is the location for the "hammering," I can imagine at least two reasons for entering it: 1) as a sort of purgatory where one gets cleansed and formed into a finer (more pure) consciousness; and 2) as an act by purer ones compassionately concerned for suffering souls. I believe that both the traditions of Christian Charity and the Buddhist Bodhisattva way can be viewed as aligned with the second direction/intention of be in duality. So, what is the basis of generalization -- is the process a transcendence, an immanence or a bit of both? 

I would not argue that Buddha and Christ never found stability in duality but, rather, that they were obligated to pass through an encounter with the demon/devil along the way.

[Scott Roberts]

On Saturday, November 28, 2020 at 2:38:05 PM UTC-10 Eugene I wrote:

<< Or, self-awareness is an eternal feature of the OF, and the appearance of a sense of self in the evolution of human consciousness is a (very) partial revealing of tha eternal self-awareness, a step on the path of creating images of the OF. Hence, the "path" might be to expand one's sense of self through introspective self-critique, not attempt to transcend it. >>

The problem with such approach is that the ego and the sense of self are tightly related and always go together hand by hand. So, by expanding the sense of self you will automatically expand the ego

Introspective self-critique means, among other things, becoming aware of false beliefs one has about the self (like being an ego needing defending) that lead to sinful behavior.

 

[Eugene I]

<< Introspective self-critique means, among other things, becoming aware of false beliefs one has about the self (like being an ego needing defending) that lead to sinful behavior. >

That's right. But some people don't understand it and take the "I AM Brahman" literally. I would not say that if I would now meet a quite few of them among the Advaitists and neo-Advaitists . That is why I think the Buddhist practice is safer. So, I'm not saying that such practice that you describe (which is common in Advaita tradition) is wrong, you can do it if you know what you are doing, I'm just saying that it is not safe. 

But once you do it right, both practices will get you to the same destination.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

Eugene,

There is no need to speculate here. In the context of religion, we have mentioned Barfield's views that human history is best understood as revolving around the evolution of consciousness itself (as opposed to the evolution of phenomenal forms produced by consciousness). If you don't disagree with that view, then the implications are as follows:

1) People in the modern age have not fundamentally 'misunderstood' the Christian teachings, but experienced those teachings in the light of materialist/rationalist axioms which necessitate their flawed understandings. They are stuck in the static Newtonian view of religious tradition.

2) Once #1 is granted, the interpretations of scripture by Saint Paul, several early church fathers and even early medieval theologians must be radically different from what many in modern Biblical scholarship assume them to be (and certainly what a modern lay person assume them to be). They do not realize the language used by those Christians follows the evolved mode of consciousness at those times, which is much different from our own.

3) The Gnostic gospels fall mostly outside this spiritual tradition of Christ, his followers, early church fathers, etc., because they abandon the Middle Way for radical spiritualization of Christian tradition and a corresponding belief that the forms of the 'material world' are completely unnecessary to salvation and perhaps even Evil. 

You may want to see to what extent #1 applies to you as well when it comes to conceptualizing the OP as only impersonal . Or, perhaps you disagree with the Barfield's view, and then I would ask you to propose the reasons why. Everyone should keep in mind, that mystical traditions which emphasize co-eternal, dynamically intermixing dualities can still be, and most often are, non-dual in the framework of philosophical ontology.

Whenever Scott backs you into a philosophical/ontological corner, you revert to 'psychological' arguments about why the Buddhist impersonal OP ontology is "safer" to use in spiritual practice. But earlier I pointed out to you how denial of the Self's ontic reality is precisely the state of mind which most reliably leads to rapid ego inflation ('egotism'), since it allows the personal conscious ego to treat any process which exists at a 'deeper' level as its ontological equal. There is no surer way for idolatry and egotism to run amok, and only evolved ancient religious traditions have the force of meaning and connection with the OP to protect against that ever-present danger.

[Lou Gold]

I agree that materialist/rationalist axioms have distorted interpretations of the meaning of Christ. However, as a pre-Christian myself, I find that the Gospel of Thomas resonates well with my introspective experience of the Jesus who I truly love.

[Ashvin Pandurangi]

I also like the sayings of the Gospel of Thomas. They are truly powerful and insightful, but they are not the whole story of Christ. Identifying partial representations with the whole story is idolatry which produces harmful extremes in worldviews.

[Dana Lomas]

Lou .... likewise, as a pagan who has eclectically drawn on, and gleaned from, diverse sources of spiritual teachings for inspiration in finding/formulating a model that jibes with one's experience, including from participants I've come across in this forum, I have to concur that the G of T is the one Christian interpretation that has meaningfully drawn me in, and I feel most affinity for, especially since reading Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels. Mind you, I still have a lot of curiosity about those 'missing years.'

On Sunday, November 29, 2020 at 7:33:16 AM UTC-5 Lou Gold wrote: