Nature of memory and time - Split from "Why do we reincarnate without memories"

[lorenzop]

I’m not disagreeing with you, should one desire success in the relative world, in this or the next life, learning of and studying past lives could be a strategy.

[Cleric K]

I’m not disagreeing with you, should one desire success in the relative world, in this or the next life, learning of and studying past lives could be a strategy.

Since your goal seems to be to break away from the relative world, how do you envision the absolute world? Can we speak at all of existence then?

[lorenzop]

I never proposed breaking away from the relative world, or anyone seeking success therein. My point has been that seeking success in any spiritual world (ie refined subtle relative world) is an inclination or option which a person can pursue, or they can learn to play the cello, etc.

[Lou Gold]

In my simplistic view, "Why do we reincarnate without memories?" is because dissociating from the whole to a part is a traumatic experience and memory loss is the natural result. Those who want to ask why an "intentional nature" would do this will continue to ask "Why?" and those who see an "instinctive nature" will focus on how to best deal with things as they are. I fully expect the debate between the two perspectives to continue. I'm not a philosopher but the thought that just came floating by said, "Perhaps this is the Hegelian notion of the dialectic driving development (DDD)." I dunno. Just a thought perhaps worth contemplating.

[AshvinP]

In my simplistic view, "Why do we reincarnate without memories?" is because dissociating from the whole to a part is a traumatic experience and memory loss is the natural result. Those who want to ask why an "intentional nature" would do this will continue to ask "Why?" and those who see an "instinctive nature" will focus on how to best deal with things as they are. I fully expect the debate between the two perspectives to continue. I'm not a philosopher but the thought that just came floating by said, "Perhaps this is the Hegelian notion of the dialectic driving development (DDD)." I dunno. Just a thought perhaps worth contemplating.

If my wholeness is rooted in my "instinctive nature", then my highest goal should be to return to that nature, or simply stop evolving so my current instincts remain in the driver's seat and gradually envelop my own intentional agency. In fact this is the subconscious goal of many people, as evidenced by their actions, habits, and attitudes more than their words. This is not what I call dealing with things as they are, because intentional human agency is the way things have become.

On the other hand, if my 'trauma' of incarnation is intimately bound up with my own intentional agency and that of other beings, my goal is become more conscious of how and why I have been incarnating in this way. I am no longer looking to reduce my intentional agency back to instinctive nature, but to expand it even more to become more unified with the agency that was exercised prior to incarnation.

Don't take this as an attempt to debate philosophy, Lou, it's just a thought which came floating by

[Lou Gold]

In my simplistic view, "Why do we reincarnate without memories?" is because dissociating from the whole to a part is a traumatic experience and memory loss is the natural result. Those who want to ask why an "intentional nature" would do this will continue to ask "Why?" and those who see an "instinctive nature" will focus on how to best deal with things as they are. I fully expect the debate between the two perspectives to continue. I'm not a philosopher but the thought that just came floating by said, "Perhaps this is the Hegelian notion of the dialectic driving development (DDD)." I dunno. Just a thought perhaps worth contemplating.

If my wholeness is rooted in my "instinctive nature", then my highest goal should be to return to that nature, or simply stop evolving so my current instincts remain in the driver's seat and gradually envelop my own intentional agency. In fact this is the subconscious goal of many people, as evidenced by their actions, habits, and attitudes more than their words. This is not what I call dealing with things as they are, because intentional human agency is the way things have become.

On the other hand, if my 'trauma' of incarnation is intimately bound up with my own intentional agency and that of other beings, my goal is become more conscious of how and why I have been incarnating in this way. I am no longer looking to reduce my intentional agency back to instinctive nature, but to expand it even more to become more unified with the agency that was exercised prior to incarnation.

Don't take this as an attempt to debate philosophy, Lou, it's just a thought which came floating by

Could be as you say Ashvin. Could also be that the deepest goal of our instinctive but separated nature is to arrive at the wholeness of the love that reconnects. This too is an imaginative possibility. Should we reject the possibility that the God of many names is instinctually loving?

[Lou Gold]

In my simplistic view, "Why do we reincarnate without memories?" is because dissociating from the whole to a part is a traumatic experience and memory loss is the natural result. Those who want to ask why an "intentional nature" would do this will continue to ask "Why?" and those who see an "instinctive nature" will focus on how to best deal with things as they are. I fully expect the debate between the two perspectives to continue. I'm not a philosopher but the thought that just came floating by said, "Perhaps this is the Hegelian notion of the dialectic driving development (DDD)." I dunno. Just a thought perhaps worth contemplating.

If my wholeness is rooted in my "instinctive nature", then my highest goal should be to return to that nature, or simply stop evolving so my current instincts remain in the driver's seat and gradually envelop my own intentional agency. In fact this is the subconscious goal of many people, as evidenced by their actions, habits, and attitudes more than their words. This is not what I call dealing with things as they are, because intentional human agency is the way things have become.

On the other hand, if my 'trauma' of incarnation is intimately bound up with my own intentional agency and that of other beings, my goal is become more conscious of how and why I have been incarnating in this way. I am no longer looking to reduce my intentional agency back to instinctive nature, but to expand it even more to become more unified with the agency that was exercised prior to incarnation.

Don't take this as an attempt to debate philosophy, Lou, it's just a thought which came floating by

Could be as you say Ashvin. Could also be that the deepest goal of our instinctive but separated nature is to arrive at the wholeness of the love that reconnects. This too is an imaginative possibility. Should we reject the possibility that the God of many names is instinctually loving?

I do like the poetry of the end of T S Eliot's "Four Quartets"

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

[AshvinP]

In my simplistic view, "Why do we reincarnate without memories?" is because dissociating from the whole to a part is a traumatic experience and memory loss is the natural result. Those who want to ask why an "intentional nature" would do this will continue to ask "Why?" and those who see an "instinctive nature" will focus on how to best deal with things as they are. I fully expect the debate between the two perspectives to continue. I'm not a philosopher but the thought that just came floating by said, "Perhaps this is the Hegelian notion of the dialectic driving development (DDD)." I dunno. Just a thought perhaps worth contemplating.

If my wholeness is rooted in my "instinctive nature", then my highest goal should be to return to that nature, or simply stop evolving so my current instincts remain in the driver's seat and gradually envelop my own intentional agency. In fact this is the subconscious goal of many people, as evidenced by their actions, habits, and attitudes more than their words. This is not what I call dealing with things as they are, because intentional human agency is the way things have become.

On the other hand, if my 'trauma' of incarnation is intimately bound up with my own intentional agency and that of other beings, my goal is become more conscious of how and why I have been incarnating in this way. I am no longer looking to reduce my intentional agency back to instinctive nature, but to expand it even more to become more unified with the agency that was exercised prior to incarnation.

Don't take this as an attempt to debate philosophy, Lou, it's just a thought which came floating by

Could be as you say Ashvin. Could also be that the deepest goal of our instinctive but separated nature is to arrive at the wholeness of the love that reconnects. This too is an imaginative possibility. Should we reject the possibility that the God of many names is instinctually loving?

I think the word "instinct" has a pretty clear connotation in common usage, if not in explicit meaning, which is that of unthinking, non self-aware, almost mechanistic carrying out of various impulses. Normally we apply it to animals, infants and small children, and adults whose passions have overridden their rational and reflective judgments. In the law, something like this can actually serve as a defense to a crime, lowering the culpability from murder to voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, for example, which carries lesser penalties. The reasoning is because the person's rational faculties were taken possession by the 'heat of passion', so society should cut them a break because they lacked conscious intent to the same degree as a person who coldly premeditates and calculates a murder scheme.

There is another less common usage, which means something more like "wise impulses which flash into consciousness in certain times of uncertain decision". This is more in keeping with how I view the nature of instincts, i.e. as the intelligent, self-conscious spiritual impulses of beings in whose consciousness we are nested, emanating from the 'top-down'. Yet even these wise impulses, if we were to rely on them indefinitely, become an oppression against our freedom. Then we remain as spiritual infants who are growing into adult bodies but cannot deal with adult responsibilities, so instead we remain attached to all sorts of crude sensory pleasures. From the higher perspective, we are like viruses or parasites who evolve only through higher beings, not through the power of our own creative agency. 

Or another analogy, it is like we are in a candlelight vigil, having our candles lit by the higher beings in front of us in the evolutionary progression but refusing to light the candles of those behind us. 





As often said, this isn't an abstract theoretical speculation on how things are, but a scientific understanding which we all can discern with unprejudiced thinking. There are specific beings with specific candles at specific times in human evolution, lighting our own in specific ways. When we freely decide to take over creative responsibility for lighting our own candles and those behind us, we are transmuting subconscious instincts into conscious intuitions. Then we are coming to truly know and commune with the Cosmic Intelligence from which our natural instincts arise, which is far from any mechanistic or unconscious or semi-conscious mental force. We attain ever-greater wholeness in full clarity of waking consciousness, because we are growing into the archetypal consciousness of our higher Self. 

[Lou Gold]

If my wholeness is rooted in my "instinctive nature", then my highest goal should be to return to that nature, or simply stop evolving so my current instincts remain in the driver's seat and gradually envelop my own intentional agency. In fact this is the subconscious goal of many people, as evidenced by their actions, habits, and attitudes more than their words. This is not what I call dealing with things as they are, because intentional human agency is the way things have become.

On the other hand, if my 'trauma' of incarnation is intimately bound up with my own intentional agency and that of other beings, my goal is become more conscious of how and why I have been incarnating in this way. I am no longer looking to reduce my intentional agency back to instinctive nature, but to expand it even more to become more unified with the agency that was exercised prior to incarnation.

Don't take this as an attempt to debate philosophy, Lou, it's just a thought which came floating by

Could be as you say Ashvin. Could also be that the deepest goal of our instinctive but separated nature is to arrive at the wholeness of the love that reconnects. This too is an imaginative possibility. Should we reject the possibility that the God of many names is instinctually loving?

I think the word "instinct" has a pretty clear connotation in common usage, if not in explicit meaning, which is that of unthinking, non self-aware, almost mechanistic carrying out of various impulses. Normally we apply it to animals, infants and small children, and adults whose passions have overridden their rational and reflective judgments. In the law, something like this can actually serve as a defense to a crime, lowering the culpability from murder to voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, for example, which carries lesser penalties. The reasoning is because the person's rational faculties were taken possession by the 'heat of passion', so society should cut them a break because they lacked conscious intent to the same degree as a person who coldly premeditates and calculates a murder scheme.

There is another less common usage, which means something more like "wise impulses which flash into consciousness in certain times of uncertain decision". This is more in keeping with how I view the nature of instincts, i.e. as the intelligent, self-conscious spiritual impulses of beings in whose consciousness we are nested, emanating from the 'top-down'. Yet even these wise impulses, if we were to rely on them indefinitely, become an oppression against our freedom. Then we remain as spiritual infants who are growing into adult bodies but cannot deal with adult responsibilities, so instead we remain attached to all sorts of crude sensory pleasures. From the higher perspective, we are like viruses or parasites who evolve only through higher beings, not through the power of our own creative agency. 

Or another analogy, it is like we are in a candlelight vigil, having our candles lit by the higher beings in front of us in the evolutionary progression but refusing to light the candles of those behind us. 





As often said, this isn't an abstract theoretical speculation on how things are, but a scientific understanding which we all can discern with unprejudiced thinking. There are specific beings with specific candles at specific times in human evolution, lighting our own in specific ways. When we freely decide to take over creative responsibility for lighting our own candles and those behind us, we are transmuting subconscious instincts into conscious intuitions. Then we are coming to truly know and commune with the Cosmic Intelligence from which our natural instincts arise, which is far from any mechanistic or unconscious or semi-conscious mental force. We attain ever-greater wholeness in full clarity of waking consciousness, because we are growing into the archetypal consciousness of our higher Self. 

Your position surely expresses one imaginative version -- yes, a common usage dominant paradigm one -- of what words like "animal" and "passion" mean. For an expanded view of these core words, I would urge one to read "Becoming Animal" by the ecologist, anthropologist and philosopher David Abram as well as his previous highly acclaimed book "The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World " For a deeper understanding of the word "passion", there is probably nothing better than contemplating the Passion of Christ. Lighting the candles of those behind is surely the core Bodhisattva mission of one like Thich Nhat Hanh. As far as human will is concerned, I know that you offer, as well, a more spiritual version of many words. So much depends on how one chooses to place one's imagination and open the doors of perception. Then comes the discipline and work, which thankfully there are many ways to perform.

PS: I really like your current avatar image, which somehow expresses for me both Blake's aphorism, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." and an instinctual urge to discover what's over the horizon. Did you create the image?

[AshvinP]

Your position surely expresses one imaginative version -- yes, a common usage dominant paradigm one -- of what words like "animal" and "passion" mean. For an expanded view of these core words, I would urge one to read "Becoming Animal" by the ecologist, anthropologist and philosopher David Abram as well as his previous highly acclaimed book "The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World " For a deeper understanding of the word "passion", there is probably nothing better than contemplating the Passion of Christ. Lighting the candles of those behind is surely the core Bodhisattva mission of one like Thich Nhat Hanh. As far as human will is concerned, I know that you offer, as well, a more spiritual version of many words. So much depends on how one chooses to place one's imagination and open the doors of perception. Then comes the discipline and work, which thankfully there are many ways to perform.

PS: I really like your current avatar image, which somehow expresses for me both Blake's aphorism, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." and an instinctual urge to discover what's over the horizon. Did you create the image?

Actually, Lou, Mr. Abram and his modern animism has been running in the background of my mind in our recent dialogues, because I remembered you highlighted his work a few times before. It is exactly that mindset, as featured in someone like Abram, which is so dangerous for our times, mostly because it is born out of ignorance. Again, if you hold these things abstractly, then it might make sense to call the difference between an animal and a human "common usage dominant paradigm one" and change the meaning of "animal" as one sees fit. If one values a precise scientific understanding of life, on the other hand, which of course requires a higher-than-animal consciousness, then no such linguistic games will be played at the expense of the objective truth. It's not about valuing the animal lesser than the human or vice versa, but coming to actually understand the relation in precise detail. Only then can we orient ourselves properly and evaluate these modern animistic worldviews fairly.

We must now also consider the other side, and not overlook the radical distinction between what man performs with his soul, and the animal with its soul. As an example, we will start from a definite fact. Travelers have often noticed that if they kindled a fire because of the cold, after they left it the apes would come and warm themselves at it. They never observed, however, that an ape had fetched some wood, to keep the fire going. It cannot arrive at this combination, and that is eminently important. It can never, from its own spiritual powers, do anything new, such as stir up the fire, etc.

If we want to make clear to ourselves the animal soul, we must start with this difference from the human soul. A further difference between the animal and human soul is that you can write a biography of each human soul, but not of the animal. That is very important. If you ask yourselves about your interests in different beings, you will find that you bring the same interest to an individual man as in the case of the animals, to a whole group of similar ones. Think of a lion. You feel the same towards the lion-grandfather, father, son, grandson, etc., but this idea would appear to you nonsensical, if applied to human beings.

It says nothing when a dog owner perhaps maintains that he could write a biography of his dog. You could also write a biography of a pen, or the differences in the life of a pin and a needle. That is only an overdrawn distinction. Just as strongly as one whole animal species differs from another, does the single individual person differ from another.
...
Soul life in the animals is graduated in many variations in the different animals because, in creating the organs, the spirit has in each case given them a particular stamp. But we see that the spiritual activity of creation — which is anchored in the astral body — expends itself in organic formations, in what the animal actually brings with it into the world. In creating these specific formations, the spirit expends itself. The animal brings with it into the world what it is able to bring and what existence allows it to experience. It can go very little beyond this. This is evidence that the spirit has spent itself, has poured itself out, in the fashioning of the organs. In the formation of the organs, however, the species of animal is revealed to us. Therefore to the question: “What is it that the animal enjoys and experiences in its life of soul?” we can answer: From birth until death the animals' experiences are determined by its species. — It experiences in its soul life, and from out of its own organism, what it has been given by the spirit to accompany it into existence.

Goethe was one who reflected deeply about the life of the animals and of man and he wrote these fine words: “The animals are instructed by their organs — so said the men of old. I add to that: men, too, but they have the advantage of being able to instruct their organs afresh."
...
An important consideration in the study of human life is that from birth to death a man is capable of learning new languages, and what is equally significant is that if a man were to grow upon a distant, uninhabited island, he could not develop this faculty at all. The same applies to the faculty of forming concepts, and the development of the mental picture of the “I.” These are things which have nothing to do with heredity, and which cannot be transmitted by heredity, because they do not belong to the species or genus. In what does not belong to heredity, in faculties that remain capable of development beyond and apart form heredity, man has something that is not conditioned by the species or genus, but belongs to the individuality. And in the faculty of speech, in the possibility of forming ideas, and in the experience of the Ego concept, there lies what man himself so brings into the world that by means of it he instructs his organs afresh, teaching them what they have not yet received, but which they must acquire.

Now if the response to this careful observation and reasoning is, "well I'm not a philosopher or a scientist, just a storyteller... and I choose to tell myself the story that fits with what I (and Abram, etc.) desire to be true", then there is no further discussion possible. Then we are content with pure speculation while the real stakes at play from these living ideas which are at work in the world go ignored. I have little interest in such idle and counter-productive speculation.