Is it just me who is going through a lot of existential angst about idealism?

[AshvinP]

Freedom is our true nature and is not conveyed within this or that thought. We don’t have to reason it out, or convince ourselves via logic.
BTW if anyone wants to pursue Christian mysticism, or Shamanism, Hinduism, etc. I am totally supportive (sigh or relief everyone)
Also I don’t click with BK’s AI, it reads like he took the physicalist playbook and did a search and replace, replaced matter and mathematics with consciousness/MAL

Ok well, I think all evidence and reason points to the fact that we are not yet free. The world around us does not reflect a place of free spirits, more like a place of mindless automata. Further forsaking logic and reason, obviously, will not make our thinking any less mechanistic. It's certainly more convenient in the short-term for us to live under the illusion we are already free, but that will prove a devastating assumption in the long run.

But, if your position is that facts, evidence, thoughts, logic, reason, etc. don't matter, then I'm not sure why you are even on this philosophy forum or asking us questions as if you might actually consider the answers provided.

[lorenzop]

Oops, sorry, I forgot, we can not communicate. Lorenzo out.

[AshvinP]

Oops, sorry, I forgot, we can not communicate. Lorenzo out.

Yes, communication proves to be rather impossible without logic and reason

[Cleric K]

I'm sorry Ashvin, but I never seem to be able to understand what IN PRACTICE these things, like "redeeming XY through higher thinking", and "qualitative thinking rooted in a living logic" mean. I read the words and they don't mean anything to me.

Everybody has this problem! It's such slippery, abstract language - nothing concrete there at all! Maybe Dana can reword for us?

Ashwin,

Yours and Clerics essays are filled with layers of beliefs and parables-can’t either of you simply state your positions?
For example, Eugene in one sentence gave me a foundation to begin to understand your views, which you couldn’t do in walls of text. Or you wrap your ideas in mystical enclosures like ‘hidden meaning’ or ‘World Content’

We hear here all the time "MAL dreams reality, MAL dissociates, MAL deceives itself, etc., etc." Yet all these things are pure materialism in disguise. It's in no principal way different than saying "Molecules react, electricity flows, neurons fire, etc., etc." In both cases, the intellect that utters these words stands completely hidden in the background. It speaks about the 'concrete' reality but it never occurs to it to investigate its own place in that reality.

It is really not that complicated. If the Cosmos/MAL is really an inner spiritual experience in its essential nature, then self-propelled activity is a natural aspect of it. Then if we follow our own ideas, which say that alters are really apertures of Cosmic Consciousness, it's only logical that this activity of the Cosmos should be found in some form also in our individual human experience.

Is it really so difficult to comprehend that the activity which the higher strata of MAL use to Cosmically Think the Worlds and beings, is of the same essence as the thinking activity which manifests in a far more restricted way within our skulls?

Let me make it even more child-level approachable. The active aspect of the Living Cosmos (the Spirit), can be likened to the air that a deep diver receives through a long hose. This air is not mechanical mixture of gases - it's the very living meaningful Will of the Cosmos (it is Thought-like but it thinks not verbal words but the inner Cosmos). As it passes through several 'filters', 'valves', etc. it is stepped down to our human state where we experience it as the flow of our thinking spirit. This flow can never by grasped in the way we try to understand the flow of electricity in wires, for example. It can only be grasped if we make our own thinking the object of investigation. This is not abstract concept but the direct perception of the real and concrete flow - our own flow of thinking which we creatively shape.

This is not difficult to understand. It's child-level-easy to understand. But this understanding is simply repelled. The trouble is that this understanding is not something the we simply add to our knowledge, as we add a file on our hard drive. It's not like learning about some new 'data', like the height of some peak in some mountain. It's something living which urges us to deepen the very way we experience ourselves as a thinking, feeling and willing spiritual beings. This is what is resisted. The ego doesn't want to change. It expects 'simple' explanations, like a nice table of the highest peaks, which it looks at intellectually and says "Now this I understand." Alas, the last thing the ego wants is to investigate within itself, in the most concrete and real way, how the air-spirit flows from the Macrocosm and we experience it locally as our limited thinking I-ness.

Popular mysticism today, of course, talks all the time about this world of air of which we are part of. Yet the irony is that all that talk about non-dualism simply perpetuates the greatest dualism of our time - it simply cuts the air hose. Then people living in their deep suits say: "These air-thoughts in the mind are no different than the fishes and sea weed I see around me - they are illusions, dreams of the One Consciousness with which I'm one." Alas, one is 'one' with that Consciousness only 'on paper'. This oneness consists in a nebulous feeling of belonging, of expansiveness, bliss, etc., but ultimately, one waits for death to experience something of the Macrocosmic aspect of MAL. In the meantime air-thoughts are simply pushed away and seen as any other dream image.

This is the great dualism which contemporary flat 'non-dualism' perpetuates. If one genuinely seeks the oneness with the Macrocosmic Being, then the air hose can't be ignored because it is the only way through which consciousness grows into the Macrocosm. We can't simply dissolve the thinking ego merrily and wait for death in nebulous feeling of oneness (with who knows what). If we are to overcome the great dualism of 'non-dualism', we can only start bridging the worlds by gaining more and more consciousness of the way the Air-Spirit manifests in us from the depths/heights of Cosmic Being. This we need not in order to declare ourselves pridefully as 'enlightened' but in order to undertake our real tasks in the Cosmic organism. Otherwise we're simply biding our time here, repeating like in a trance "yeah, yeah, it's all one", waiting for true reality only after death, while in the meantime we witness the tragic events that have overcome humanity in the last few days. Then the dual non-dualism says "It's alright, just be compassionate, this is what MAL wanted to experience". But is it alright? Or humans simply don't want to awaken to their spiritual nature and instead fantasize some abstract MAL/void/transcendent nothingness out there which has ordained things to happen in this way?

This is the great dualism of non-dualism - the thinking being that each of us experiences as the active spiritual principle that we are, is seen as illusion, and instead one succumbs into a pleasant mystical sleep, watching the world go by. Instead of doing the only logical thing - to seek living understanding of how the Macrocosmic/Transcendent Being, is stepped down and precipitates in our Earthly experience as thinking "I". If this is understood (and it's not difficult) then it will be clear that we evolve towards our Macrocosmic Being not by pushing away the thinking "I" and sleeping mystically, but by becoming more and more freer and fuller expression of that Being which is our true nature.



To address the topic of this thread - the angst manifests only when the Cosmic Being is conceived as a hyperinflated human ego. This is done out of habit, because it's the only kind of beingness contemporary man knows. This habit sneaks in completely unnoticed. Martin recently said:

speculation:
1. I Am.
2. I am Alone
3. mind splits.
4. here we are.

This implicitly suggests that Cosmic Being is simply a human-like ego free from a body, thus it has all the human attributes to it, including the possibility to feel alone, bored, etc. How about the possibility that the possibility for loneliness only appears once the spirit feels separated and constrained? How about the possibility that Cosmic Being can not possibly know what loneliness is at the heights of the Spiritual World? So we create all of our problems because we anthropomorphically project the attributes characteristic to a life in a bodily environment, onto Macrocosmic Being. So it's not that the Cosmos is full of angst, it's that we project our own human angst on the Cosmos and say "What's the point of evolving, if I'll grow more and more into this infinity of angst?" Well, this is the fault of our own thinking and unresolved feeling life. It all boils down to our ability to stand in humility and be open for a Being (that manifest as our own little "I"), which is immeasurably greater than our current perspective. It's not about becoming a mindless slave of some external god but exactly the opposite - to become more and more that Being, even though there's always infinitely more of it which is still outside any level of consciousness.

The angst can only be overcome if we understand that at our human level we're out of sync with out higher being. We're square, the higher being is circle. They don't fit. Then we project our squaredness on high and say "What's the point?". Instead we should understand that we should gradually 'round the corners' of our rectangle (that is, develop our thinking, feeling and willing life) such that it becomes more and more compatible with the higher circle. The only way we can approach this task is through Love. Unless we open our whole being with Love for the Love of a Divine Being infinitely greater than us, we remain encapsulated in our human can, declare oneness only on paper but expect it (with great hesitation) only after death. The human ego simply can't stand the prospect of not being the top tier container of all existence. And this is what perpetuates the angst and cold Lovelessness. And could it be otherwise when we imagine reality as contained in a lone human ego inflated into Cosmic proportions?

[Ben Iscatus]

The human ego simply can't stand the prospect of not being the top tier container of all existence.

I don't recognise this description as applying to myself. Personally, I don't want to be the "top tier container of existence". My ego recognises my irredeemable faults and accepts that, like 99% of all species that ever existed, it will become extinct. MAL can absorb any bits it wants to reuse (though I know its most unlikely there's anything new in me).

I do accept though that some folks, like yourself, are keen to evolve into a new race. Good luck to you.

[lorenzop]

Cleric thanks for your time and effort. For myself, looking for and harvesting moods, meaning and hidden messages in everything seems like too much effort, and one can too easily be duped into feeling what one wants to feel.
Sometimes a carrot is just a carrot.

[AshvinP]

The human ego simply can't stand the prospect of not being the top tier container of all existence.

I don't recognise this description as applying to myself. Personally, I don't want to be the "top tier container of existence". My ego recognises my irredeemable faults and accepts that, like 99% of all species that ever existed, it will become extinct. MAL can absorb any bits it wants to reuse (though I know its most unlikely there's anything new in me).

I do accept though that some folks, like yourself, are keen to evolve into a new race. Good luck to you.

If you think your faults are 100% transparent to you at your current stage of development, so that you can rationally assess them and "accept" them, then the description applies to you most of all. That's actually what Cleric is trying to highlight. The intellectual ego convinces itself that it knows all that it needs to know in order to make a fair assessment of itself and of what may be required of it to grow, only finds the most superificial inner experiences which have bubbled to the surface of its consciousness, and then declares itself fit for duty and doesn't think twice that, maybe, just maybe, it's not at the top tier of conscious self-knowledge in the entire Universe. That, maybe, it needs to know more before it has any chance of making a fair assessment. It's much easier to excuse yourself from all knowing responsibility by saying, "I am going extinct with 99% certainty", but it's also unmitigated arrogance and pride.

[Cleric K]

I don't recognise this description as applying to myself. Personally, I don't want to be the "top tier container of existence". My ego recognises my irredeemable faults and accepts that, like 99% of all species that ever existed, it will become extinct. MAL can absorb any bits it wants to reuse (though I know its most unlikely there's anything new in me).

I do accept though that some folks, like yourself, are keen to evolve into a new race. Good luck to you.

Cleric thanks for your time and effort. For myself, looking for and harvesting moods, meaning and hidden messages in everything seems like too much effort, and one can too easily be duped into feeling what one wants to feel.
Sometimes a carrot is just a carrot.

As it should be clear already, it's no one's point to 'convert' anyone else into anything. The objection was that what Ashvin and I say is incomprehensible. My point was to show that it is not really that cryptic but it's simply a direction which for the most varied reasons is avoided.

Since there were no direct objections to what I wrote, I assume it was understandable. The replies simply confirm that "I get that but I'm not interested into evolving in a new race" and "I get that but it's too much effort so I prefer not to seek any deeper meaning (i.e Anna Brown - everything happens for no reason at all)"

And I'm fine with that. It's just that these statements can be made up front instead of accusing others for being incomprehensible. It's fine to say "I don't understand because I don't want to understand, since I dislike the direction where all this is leading." Otherwise it sounds like "I don't understand thus you're talking nonsense."

Let just be noted that both statements above simply confirm what I wrote about the dualism of non-dualism. Human life is completely severed from out spiritual source (awaiting extinction so that we can be reabsorbed) or we simply don't even care about that source (or only vaguely dream about it), let alone try to bridge the Cosmic Being in our Earthly life.



Other than that, for anyone else following, it's worth noting that it's all too popular, trendy, politically correct, to speak as if anyone can have their own truth. So if we're looking at a book, some say "it's too much effort to learn to read so for me this is just blobs of ink on paper". That's fine. But we shouldn't delude ourselves that just because this attitude is comfortable, it makes the intelligence which has ordered the ink blobs, to be non-existent.

It's the same with our life here on Earth. One can say - wars are just wars. Human weakness is just that. Why look further than this? The new race Ben mentions is not some human mutation with five legs and two heads. It's simply humans awakening to their true spiritual essence. The same MAL that everyone here talks about but quickly turns away as soon as the possibility to actually have real and living relations with that Macrocosmic Intelligence, is mentioned. The new race is simply humans who realize that it is up to us to organize our chaotic soul and bodily organism, such that the Light can freely and creatively transduce through our perspective. If we don't do that, then we pass through our incarnation as if we watch a movie and say "Well, what you're gonna do. This is what man is - sinful, evil. There's nothing we can do about it. MAL ordained it in this way and we'll patiently wait to be reabsorbed back."

[Ben Iscatus]

It's much easier to excuse yourself from all knowing responsibility by saying, "I am going extinct with 99% certainty", but it's also unmitigated arrogance and pride.

No pride felt here! Extinction is quite natural - the dream ends, and, in the cold morning light, a dream avatar is transcended. A notable one like you may be remembered for a while, though.

[AshvinP]

It's much easier to excuse yourself from all knowing responsibility by saying, "I am going extinct with 99% certainty", but it's also unmitigated arrogance and pride.

No pride felt here! Extinction is quite natural - the dream ends, and, in the cold morning light, a dream avatar is transcended. A notable one like you may be remembered for a while, though.

Living beings coming from unknowable void of Being, going extinct and vanishing from existence, each individual consciousness extinguished at death. Where have we heard this before? Oh right, it is crass physicalism of the last 200 years. The very physicalism BK is always ranting against, while spawning more physicalist thinking which, unlike the standard physicalist thinking, is not even aware of itself. You are "transcending" your way right into unconscious mechanism.

But, as Cleric said, his post and the responses at least revealed the "I can't understand what is being written because it's too abstract and complex" excuse is bogus, so I won't bother trying to clarify anything for you or lorenzo anymore. There isn't even an inkling of desire to understand anything other than preprogrammed dogma of Western culture.