The Central Topic

[Eugene I.]

Yea right. "My intuition is true intuition, your intuition is false intuition". The end of philosophy.

[AshvinP]

Yea right. "My intuition is true intuition, your intuition is false intuition". The end of philosophy.

I didn't say ours was "true", but that you are failing to understand what Cleric even means by "intuition" or higher cognition. All of your responses to him are born of this same simple error, where you assume his claims to be something other than what they are and then object to your own fictitous claims. This has been pointed out to you more times than any of us can remember at this point. I figure I can drop a reminder every once in awhile for those following along. My parting suggestion here is to substitute a genuine question for clarity the next time you are about to type "I agree", or anything similar, before launching into a canned criticism.

[Martin_]

Yea right. "My intuition is true intuition, your intuition is false intuition". The end of philosophy.

I didn't say ours was "true", but that you are failing to understand what Cleric even means by "intuition" or higher cognition. All of your responses to him are born of this same simple error, where you assume his claims to be something other than what they are and then object to your own fictitous claims. This has been pointed out to you more times than any of us can remember at this point. I figure I can drop a reminder every once in awhile for those following along. My parting suggestion here is to substitute a genuine question for clarity the next time you are about to type "I agree", or anything similar, before launching into a canned criticism.

This has probably also been elaborated on already, so apologies, but it's a slippery subject, so: How does one tell the difference?
1. phenomenologically: How do I know what type of intuition I am experiencing? Is it a "If you're unsure, then it's not the real thing"/"you'll know it when you see it" thing?
2. in communication: How do I know what others are experiencing, based on their report?

[AshvinP]

Yea right. "My intuition is true intuition, your intuition is false intuition". The end of philosophy.

I didn't say ours was "true", but that you are failing to understand what Cleric even means by "intuition" or higher cognition. All of your responses to him are born of this same simple error, where you assume his claims to be something other than what they are and then object to your own fictitous claims. This has been pointed out to you more times than any of us can remember at this point. I figure I can drop a reminder every once in awhile for those following along. My parting suggestion here is to substitute a genuine question for clarity the next time you are about to type "I agree", or anything similar, before launching into a canned criticism.

This has probably also been elaborated on already, so apologies, but it's a slippery subject, so: How does one tell the difference?
1. phenomenologically: How do I know what type of intuition I am experiencing? Is it a "If you're unsure, then it's not the real thing"/"you'll know it when you see it" thing?
2. in communication: How do I know what others are experiencing, based on their report?

This is where PoF and TCT become the critical first steps to take. One needs to perceive how we actually investigate any claim to "objective reality" in philosophy and science, testing the harmony of facts we discover through our logical reasoning activity. We need to build up trust in the capacity for our own Thinking to discern what is actually harmonizing the facts of our experience and what is simply a rearrangment of abstract concepts in the 'phantom layer' of intellectual cognition. In the context of what I quoted from Bergson, I think it's rather easy to discern - if our "intuition" is simply a general concept which automatically makes us feel we already understand the deepest spiritual realities, or we can safely ignore all the deepest spiritual realities because they are "veiled" and therefore impossible to discern with our scientific Thinking, then it is functioning as the abstract phantom sort. It is abstracting so far out that the concept, by its own definition, explains all other concrete concepts related to sense-experience (theistic "God") or convinces us to quit the pursuit of explanation altogether ("blind Will", "empty void", etc.). Just as this would be dismissed as idle speculation or simple laziness in any rigorous material scientific investigation, it should also be dismissed with spiritual scientific investigation. "Nothing good comes easy" is really an accurate truism here, and we can also understand why it became a truism, given our own 1st-person experience in any knowing endeavor.

[Shajan624]

You assume that knowing consciousness can exist only above the surface and imagine through rocks, dust and reflections the true archipelago of which the island is part. What the Central Topic speaks about is that what is below the surface (behind the eye of thinking) can also be known consciously ...

IMO this as a confusion arising out of multiple meanings assigned to the word ‘know’.

What exactly do we mean by a statement such as ‘consciousness is all there is?’
Is this assertion based on us ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ consciousness?
Is experiencing consciousness same as knowing it?

[Cleric K]

IMO this as a confusion arising out of multiple meanings assigned to the word ‘know’.

What exactly do we mean by a statement such as ‘consciousness is all there is?’
Is this assertion based on us ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ consciousness?
Is experiencing consciousness same as knowing it?

This is once again the question that has been gone through so many times. It's connected with with I drew above, it's what has been discussed with Jeffrey at no avail. Experiencing and knowing have the same essential nature. At our stage of evolution they differ in their state of aggregation, so to speak. When we accept the boundary of phase transition as some absolute division line, we arrive at mysticism. We say "knowing can exist only in the solid, mineral intellectual state (thinking concepts are the mineral shards). When the solid melts and even evaporates we have only (aesthetic) feeling and experiencing but from the standpoint of the mineral intellect these remain a nebulous mystery". This is certainly so from the standpoint of the rigid intellect but the goal of the Central Topic is to show that our "I"-experience can evolve also towards the fluid aggregation phase and live there fully consciously and knowingly (even knowingly to a much higher degree that this is possible in the mineral knowing). As an analogy we cay say that if in the mineral state our knowing thinking lives in the mineral shards, then in the fluid state we think with eddy currents within which the ordinary mineral thoughts flow. In other words, the ground being, even though of very different state of aggregation, is still a form of first-person knowing/meaningful activity the reflection of which we call the world. The question is whether we're willing to gradually evolve our consciousness towards this deeper level of thinking-knowing or we'll postulate that the phase boundary between the solid and the fluid shall forever keep our knowing on the mineral side, while we 'know' about the other side only through mystical feeling.

This post may be of interest. We discuss there preicsely this dimension of meaning that is inherent even in the so called 'experiencing'.

[Cleric K]

I'll continue little further what Ashvin said in the context of the magnificent Bergson quote. Actually everything has already been said on many different occasions but let's give it another try.

Things really reach again the question of Deep vs. Flat Mind. Here's the thing:



This is how things look based on what you and Steve describe. The veil is an artificial boundary which simply separates us from the omniscience of the Divine (in gradual way of course). Our desires, sympathies and antipathies are considered to be part of our private conscious sphere (soul life). Divine intuitions are considered two way communication passing through the veil - sending our intentions to the Whole (prayer) and receiving the general intentions of the Divine (intuition). The big shortcoming of this view is that it completely overlooks that the intuitions pass through certain kind of 'medium' which has its own complicated 'refractive indices', 'inner reflections', 'attenuations', 'chromatic aberrations' and so on. The dismissal of this fact leads us to believe that our sphere of consciousness is already pure. Notice the concealed pride - the veil is not there because our consciousness has not yet been perfected to grasp the Divine. No, no. This is not even thought about. We're already perfect, so we must simply keep the veil in place in order to separate ourselves from our perfection, such that we can experience a more limited state. The only imperfect thing that we admit is within the sphere, the tangled ball of thoughts and feelings but in no way we conceive that it stands in between us and the Divine. This is another rendition of Bergson's quote. The simple reason that people are so hostile to the notion of perfection is no other but because they secretly assume that they are already perfect! Of course this won't be easily admitted and will be twisted by saying that there's need to polish some details here and there within the interior of soul life but other than that, the conscious perspective itself is assumed to be perfect (only missing some details of the divine perspective).

Please notice how we've been talking about this 'veil' all the time which simply introduces yet another metaphysical 'entity' that will take another 500 years for philosophers to argue about "What is this veil made of? Is it material? Is it energetic? Is it meta-cognitive? Is it instinctive?" And so on and so forth. Through this superficial throwing around of that concept of veil we simply create another world of hard problems.

This isn't necessary. The given tells us everything we need about this mysterious 'veil'. We simply need to be completely unprejudiced. It's the Central Topic. If we were willing to observe how our thinking manifests, it would never occur to us to seek some metaphysical entity which we must deliberately keep in place. If we see from our own experience how our thinking is being steered by the most varied forces, we'll immediately know what keeps us away from the depths (and no, it's not because we're too conscientious, honest, humble and concerned not to break our promise of not peeking).



The above represents a much more phenomenological picture of our experience. If we're not deluding ourselves, we'll recognize very clearly that our thinking is being steered by our sympathies, antipathies, desires, opinions, prejudices. All of these form a thick atmosphere within which our states of being unfold. We barely know the depths of this atmosphere. We know only the most superficial manifestations of our thinking which most of the time simply tries to justify the feelings and very rarely to question their origin. Seen in this way, we can clearly realize that most of our so called intuitions are really simply unquestioned sympathies. And I'm not saying that these feelings are not aimed towards the Divine, towards the Good. But without understanding the depth medium we can never be certain if what we perceive on the surface, when followed in practice and in time, really leads where we think.



So once again we arrive at the need to continually go deeper. By maintaining the artificial conception of 'veil' which supposedly simply makes us forgetful of our perfection, we practically don't question the nature of our intuitions. We dismiss the possibility that these intuitions may be like the spoon above, that they may be optical refractions.

So what do we do? The same thing the human spirit has always been doing - keep going deeper into the facts and seek their holistic harmony. It is plainly obvious that we can't know the facts in their depth if we stay where we are. In this sense this 'veil' is nothing but self-imposed limitation. This is all so simple that the more I try to explain it the more complicated it looks to be. It's the simple fact that we're willing to block a direction of inner experience, based on a completely unjustified metaphysical belief (some mysterious veil entity). It all amounts to saying "I won't go in that direction because in my belief this will simply reveal prematurely my divine perfection and will ruin the purpose of my limited experience".

But the above is contradicted by practically all unprejudiced observations. The only thing that supports such a view is our own personal desire that it should be true. If we make even the tiniest step towards examining that desire, we'll immediately arrive at the truth of the second picture above. This is all so simple. It is enough to experience even the tiniest movement perpendicular to a plane, in order to know that there's depth of the third dimension. It is enough to experience how even a single thought is being manipulated by desire in order to know that we're placed within optically aberrated astral medium of sympathies and antipathies, pulling and pushing our spiritual activity, bending the light of intuition.

When we see things in such an unprejudiced way we become fully aware that there's no need to worry about us having to support the 'veil' in place. Here humans really misjudge their authority, we become little intoxicated with self-importance. We act like "I must keep the planets in their orbits. I shouldn't alter the way I think because otherwise the planets will fly off." Yes, this is really how absurd are all those talks about the veil which we imagine it is up to us to keep in place. There's no need to worry. Not only that the veil won't nudge if we decide to remove it 'by hand' but we'll also realize the simple truth that the veil is really our own ignorance and unorganized body of desires. Good luck to anyone imagining that this can be removed by simply wishing it away.

We don't need very deep spiritual science for this realization. Only the most preliminary observations as outlined in the Central Topic. These observations are avoided simply because it is felt that they will immediately reveal the truth in self-evident and undeniable way. Thus one continues to pretend that the veil has nothing to do with our spiritual development but is there only to protect us from becoming perfect prematurely. The end result is that we imagine the tangled ball of desires and prejudices to be some entirely private matter (the first figure) while we fantasize everything which feels warm to the heart to be direct Divine intuition.

Now the question will be "But if the the medium of desires is so tricky how can we ever be certain that what we discover is not just more and more aberrations?" The answer will come in itself when we allow ourselves to correct at least one aberration. We can only deny the possibility to see clearly if we refuse to see within ourselves how even one single thought can be manipulated by desire. When we allow ourselves to see how unexamined desires, prejudices, sympathies and antipathies manipulate the wave function or curvature where our thinking manifests, we'll also have first-hand knowledge how this process can continue even further.

[Shajan624]

IMO this as a confusion arising out of multiple meanings assigned to the word ‘know’.

What exactly do we mean by a statement such as ‘consciousness is all there is?’
Is this assertion based on us ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ consciousness?
Is experiencing consciousness same as knowing it?

This is once again the question that has been gone through so many times.

These questions keep repeating because no one is able to answer with clarity.

You said “Experiencing and knowing have the same essential nature. At our stage of evolution they differ in their state of aggregation, so to speak”.

I take it to mean ‘experiencing’ and ‘knowing’ are different/mutually exclusive at our stage of evolution. Please correct me if I am misinterpreting your statement.

You go on to say we could evolve towards a “fluid aggregation phase and live there fully consciously and knowingly”. Assuming that is possible, how would you then communicate unambiguously to those who are stuck at the current stage of evolution? Because you would have moved beyond the knowing-experiencing polarity and whatever you say would appear metaphorical to the less evolved.

[Eugene I.]

You assume that knowing consciousness can exist only above the surface and imagine through rocks, dust and reflections the true archipelago of which the island is part. What the Central Topic speaks about is that what is below the surface (behind the eye of thinking) can also be known consciously ...

IMO this as a confusion arising out of multiple meanings assigned to the word ‘know’.

What exactly do we mean by a statement such as ‘consciousness is all there is?’
Is this assertion based on us ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ consciousness?
Is experiencing consciousness same as knowing it?

Those are different aspects of consciousness. Experiencing can be known, or it may not be known by thinking. The fact that experiencing, thinking, feeling, perceiving and willing are inseparable does not mean that they are equally existential or fundamental so to speak. These are different aspects of consciousness, but these aspects have certain priority relations. As a thought experiment, we can imagine if there would be consciousness with no perceptions - in principle it is quite possible. Then, remove feeling - possible too. Then remove thinking and willing - still possible, even though there would be no "knowing" that there is only experiencing present, but the state would still be experienced. Also, even when all those aspects exist, we can temporarily put on hold perceiving, willing, thinking, feeling (in a lucid deep sleep or "nothingness" meditation), but it is impossible to put the experiencing on hold, because we can never know or experience the state of the absence of experiencing. But, if we remove the experiencing, then no other aspects may be known to exist in principle, it would not be "consciousness" anymore, because even if thinking, feeling, perceiving and willing would still exist, they would not be consciously experienced, just like in an AI computer that could think, feel, perceive and will but cannot consciously experience anything. This points to the fact that experiencing (awareness) is somehow the most fundamental aspect of consciousness. It also the aspect that brings all aspects of consciousness and all conscious phenomena into a unity, it is an invariant "common denominator" of all conscious experience and every conscious phenomenon. Everything else can change, but experiencing never changes, there may be more or less thinking, feeling, perceiving, willing, but there is never more or less of the experiencing. There is a deep mystery here for anyone who cares. All of it is based on the facts of our direct 1-st person experience. Of course we can only understand and speculate about it by exercising thinking, but it is pretty obvious that even if we would not expose it to thinking, this fact would still be true.

[AshvinP]

You assume that knowing consciousness can exist only above the surface and imagine through rocks, dust and reflections the true archipelago of which the island is part. What the Central Topic speaks about is that what is below the surface (behind the eye of thinking) can also be known consciously ...

IMO this as a confusion arising out of multiple meanings assigned to the word ‘know’.

What exactly do we mean by a statement such as ‘consciousness is all there is?’
Is this assertion based on us ‘knowing’ or ‘experiencing’ consciousness?
Is experiencing consciousness same as knowing it?

Those are different aspects of consciousness. Experiencing can be known, or it may not be known by thinking. The fact that experiencing, thinking, feeling, perceiving and willing are inseparable does not mean that they are equally existential or fundamental so to speak. These are different aspects of consciousness, but these aspects have certain priority relations. As a thought experiment, we can imagine if there would be consciousness with no perceptions - in principle it is quite possible. Then, remove feeling - possible too. Then remove thinking and willing - still possible, even though there would be no "knowing" that there is only experiencing present, but the state would still be experienced. Also, even when all those aspects exist, we can temporarily put on hold perceiving, willing, thinking, feeling (in a lucid deep sleep or "nothingness" meditation), but it is impossible to put the experiencing on hold, because we can never know or experience the state of the absence of experiencing. But, if we remove the experiencing, then no other aspects may be known to exist in principle, it would not be "consciousness" anymore, because even if thinking, feeling, perceiving and willing would still exist, they would not be consciously experienced, just like in an AI computer that could think, feel, perceive and will but cannot consciously experience anything. This points to the fact that experiencing (awareness) is somehow the most fundamental aspect of consciousness. It also the aspect that brings all aspects of consciousness and all conscious phenomena into a unity, it is an invariant "common denominator" of all conscious experience and every conscious phenomenon. Everything else can change, but experiencing never changes, there may be more or less thinking, feeling, perceiving, willing, but there is never more or less of the experiencing. There is a deep mystery here for anyone who cares.

I hope you can see, Shajan, where pure abstract speculation takes us when reading the above, i.e. in the direction of denying all 1st-person experience to postulate a "thought experiment" (which literally cannot be imagined) to prop up one's preferred metaphysical theory. Eugene doesn't realize he is still doing this, despite Cleric relating it very precisely with his own experience of mystical meditation towards the pole of formlessness (what Eugene calls "pure experiencing") many times and showing the glaring logical flaws. "Experience never changes" for pure abstract phantom theorizing, which is why it keeps repeating itself without absorbing new facts to harmonize, or noticing how its ability to make the above claims presuppose the central role of Thinking, but it clearly does for everything else.

PS - this is my last comment on this "pure experiencing" topic so as not to completely derail the otherwise productive discussion.