On the Gradient of Thinking

[Cleric K]

I had to google 'Toruk Makto fallacy', and I know I've seen the movie Avatar . . . I'm not familiar with the movie to comment on how I may be suffering from the fallacy( and you and Ashwin ) are somehow not.

I've re-explained that just a few days ago here. I'm repeating it again:

As explained countless times, this an elementary error. Remember the following scene of the first Avatar. Toruk is a top predator. He has no natural enemies so he never looks up. That's exploited by Jake to jump on his back and make the Tsaheylu bond:



Movie clip: https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkxh9dgBu ... ti2HCxfTbZ

We act like Toruk every time we imagine that we have reached the ultimate foundations of reality. And NO, this is not denial of oneness. This in no way contradicts the fact that we're of one essence with the Divine and all beings. It only brings to attention the simple fact that we blind ourselves for half of reality as soon as we decide that we already know what consciousness is. Instead, we should be open that we haven't even begun to see what consciousness is. This shouldn't cause despair. In fact, it can become our greatest inspiration because there's so much more to learn, so much more to be awestruck by!

I hope I didn't give the impression that I think 'special abilities', ie high cognition and intuition, levitation, astral travel, etc. are not possible or don't have value . . . this was not my intent. My objections were in placing special abilities at high priority, or necessary for spiritual growth.
The literature of religious traditions are chock full of these special abilities - and the literature also warn of their capacity to entrap and ensnare the seeker who is not well established in Being. IOW, placing special abilities in such an exalted position is putting the cart before the horse.
I have accused Steiner of using shiny objects to attract followers.
However, we are not that far apart (as I've suggested before). We could pick 1,000 people at random and 999 would think everyone who participates in this form is equally crazy.

You still miss the point. Have you played tabletop or video role-playing games? There you have a character sheet, with numerical levels of different qualities (health, dexterity, intelligence, etc.) and the most varied items that you can equip.



Your comment above treats the 'special abilities' precisely as external items that can be equipped at specific mount points over our being - physical and psychic. If this was the case I would fully agree that preoccupying with the equipment and quantified levels is a snare. We indeed need to continually peel the layers of our being toward the naked spirit.

My point was that we become equally ensnared when we believe that we have already reached the fully naked inner being and now everything else is external equipment that we look down upon (Toruk Makto fallacy).

Please note that, for example, astral vision can be seen quite differently in this context. Above, you see it as a kind of power-up, some astral vision goggles that you attach to your hero at the head mount-point. It might be useful but is still external to your naked being and it becomes a snare if we preoccupy with it. But consider it in the following way:
Presently, you don't see your pure consciousness as some goggles that you add on top of your Earthly being. It's the opposite - it is the kind of (non-)consciousness that you reach when you try to undress everything Earthly. In the same sense, instead of seeing astral vision (or even higher forms of consciousness) as an external psychic add-on that gives you special abilities and magical powers, you can conceive that it corresponds to the kind of consciousness that you attain when you peel even the diffused layer of (non-)consciousness that you presently accept as the final frontier of existence.

Can you conceive that the mystical state is still only a fuzzy shell (at the edge of falling asleep) of an even deeper self, who has its awake consciousness in a deeper strata of reality? IOW, is it conceivable that there could be a deeper level of self than what you currently know and from whose perspective your current meditating self would feel like a slumbering shell that confuses sleep with the ultimate ground of reality?

[Cleric K]

OK, Eugene. I see your point and I apologize that we have driven the forum in a direction that deviates from pure speculation. But picture that this purity was maintained. Where do you think that would have ever led to? After a decade, a century of pure speculation, what would have become of man? Do you believe that Truth could have been born inside such a container of speculation, abstracted from all reality? Or you are fully aware that this is impossible and you just miss a 'family safe' place where you can exercise abstract speculation knowing that it is not threatened by any contact with reality?

Fair enough, it's good that you admit that.

Science, arts, speculative philosophy and other things in life all have their place and role. You cannot take materialists and draw them straight into spiritual science or any other spiritual practice or teaching. They need to go by steps, starting right from the point where they currently stay - from their speculative worldview, and walk them step-by-step out of their speculative materialism. Their speculative materialistic views need to be first dispelled by the same tool - by philosophical speculative rational discourse. Only then, once they drop it, they can become open to explore further practical paths to go deeper. This (addressing materialism on the speculative level) is what Bernardo is doing and this is what this forum was supposed to help with. I believe, with all limitations of his approach and his philosophy, Bernardo is doing a fantastic job of bringing millions of people out of the delusion of materialism.

The bold part is unviable and you know it

You can't walk out of abstract metaphysics (no matter if they are physicalist or idealist) by thinking in their channels, any more than you can draw figures on a flat sheet of paper and hope that at some point they will emerge in the Z direction.

Expecting that one must first drop their materialistic habits before they are free to consider deeper reality is a fallacy that attains many different forms in life. The most common is the general understanding that one can engage in spiritual life only after they have secured their material life and thus they finally have the free time for other things. However, if this is our ideal, as life often teaches us, we never reach that point of security. It always seems that there's something more to be secured and thus we keep postponing inner work for better days, when the economy is better, when there's peace, etc. Such a view proceeds from a completely erroneous understanding of what the spiritual dimension of our existence is. It sees spirituality as some exotic leisure time hobby that people can give their time to after retirement (only if they are still healthy and well in the head, that is). In fact, it is precisely in hardships and suffering that we can know and find the true value of real spiritual life.

Thus, the bold is precisely a recipe for speculating indefinitely and bouncing in the loops of closed formal systems of metaphysical thought. This traversal of mental states lying on a closed flat surface can never give us the certainty: "Aha, so by looping through this pattern of mental states, I feel confident enough that the Z direction is real and now I can finally allow my being step there and explore novel states of being." This can never do. We can only understand the true spiritual dimension of existence when we realize that we already partake in it while we are thinking metaphysically, when we understand our thinking activity as ropes hanging from a higher stratum of existence, dragging in the dust below. The shapes in the dust are what we call thought perceptions. We move these thought ropes instinctively and contemplate their dusty feedback. It is impossible to analyze the shapes in the dust and find there 'proof' that the ropes exist (one can always lift their hands and say 'the dust shapes simply come and go on their own). We can only find the spiritual reality of the ropes when we begin to exercise our inner intuitive activity, when we begin to move the ropes (which are the 'fibers' of our own spiritual being) in novel ways and perceive the feedback, the degrees of freedom and constraints. It is these inner movements that expand as new levels of consciousness.

If we are to extend this metaphor a little, it can be said that the ropes do not start from us. They hang from even deeper strata of being (coming from behind the back of our head, so to speak) and our Earthly self modulates their movement. The deeper movements of the ropes we can understand only when we find the humility to allow higher levels of self to glimpse through our Earthly perspective - which reciprocally means that our intellectual ego also glimpses through their perspective and can forge concepts, since for a moment we are resonantly attuned as one.

So in a nutshell, we can't dispel materialism or any form of metaphysics by a clever configuration of dust devils. Neither can we do that by putting ourselves in a fuzzy inexplicable state that is simply the edge of falling fast asleep. We can only make an evolutionary step forward when we realize that Truth can't be found in any particular dust configuration but in the awakening of our inner being that is active along the depth of the thinking process. If we can't awaken to our inner being within the movement of the thought fibers, we'll be expecting in vain our deeper self to manifest from some lateral direction that we can't even conceive.

[Stranger]

Thus, the bold is precisely a recipe for speculating indefinitely and bouncing in the loops of closed formal systems of metaphysical thought.

I agree with that. However, if you talk to typical materialists, they are stuck in their speculative beliefs and will not accept any arguments outside of their formal system of thought, so there is a place for speculative arguments to dispel these beliefs. They believe in the validity of rational system of thought, and they are simply closed to any other types of arguments outside of that box. I know that for a fact because, due to my profession, I worked closely for decades with many physicists and engineers, and I know how they think. So, as a first step, the contra-arguments within the same formal system need to be presented to them do dismantle their belief system and break their firm belief structure. But once that's done, I fully agree that staying in the framework of formal systems will not let them to move ahead. They need to move out of the formal metaphysical box and go deeper using different approaches.

[lorenzop]

Great! Then I imagine the next time we hear from you, after you have digested the material on this forum at your own pace, it won't be another video link to nondual awakening, which we have all agreed traps us at the threshold of true Self-lucidity, or commiseration about the past history of the forum, but comments and questions related to how we better orient toward the manifold and harmonic relations of spiritual reality and, even if we haven't attained clairvoyance ourselves, explore the clairvoyant experiences in our living thinking, which in truth already lives across the threshold of corporeal death and can therefore understand how the current Earthly life was prepared by and will prepare that Cosmic journey.

The above gets to the heart my beginning the thread on definitions and uses of specific terms . . . like 'soul' . . . and also gets to heart of my lack of credulity of your speculations. I think having a proper intellectual understanding of 'soul' is essential to knowing what is being offered.
To make sure I've got this correct: Are you suggesting the separate self (soul) can perceive beyond death, and survive death (of the body\mind), and continue living think\feel as an independent self for Eternity?

[Federica]

Great! Then I imagine the next time we hear from you, after you have digested the material on this forum at your own pace, it won't be another video link to nondual awakening, which we have all agreed traps us at the threshold of true Self-lucidity, or commiseration about the past history of the forum, but comments and questions related to how we better orient toward the manifold and harmonic relations of spiritual reality and, even if we haven't attained clairvoyance ourselves, explore the clairvoyant experiences in our living thinking, which in truth already lives across the threshold of corporeal death and can therefore understand how the current Earthly life was prepared by and will prepare that Cosmic journey.

The above gets to the heart my beginning the thread on definitions and uses of specific terms . . . like 'soul' . . . and also gets to heart of my lack of credulity of your speculations. I think having a proper intellectual understanding of 'soul' is essential to knowing what is being offered.
To make sure I've got this correct: Are you suggesting the separate self (soul) can perceive beyond death, and survive death (of the body\mind), and continue living think\feel as an independent self for Eternity?

Lorenzo, I know this post by Ashvin was particularly appealing to you because of its one-paragraph format, however it would be great if you could also read the last one from Cleric, which was explicitly written to your attention and benefit. Please… it's still a reasonable length. Don't you think it could be worth the effort?

[lorenzop]

Lorenzo, I know this post by Ashvin was particularly appealing to you because of its one-paragraph format, however it would be great if you could also read the last one from Cleric, which was explicitly written to your attention and benefit. Please… it's still a reasonable length. Don't you think it could be worth the effort?

Thanks for pointing to that post - I missed it. Cleric's point does not materially change my question, or address my lack of credulity.
Apparently the answer is that the independent separate self does live forever in an exalted state.
Isn't this a simple upgrade like from Baggage Class to First Class? After countless lifetimes in this exalted state, what has been gained; isn't one still ensnared?
Isn't it wise to turn down such an offer?

[AshvinP]

Great! Then I imagine the next time we hear from you, after you have digested the material on this forum at your own pace, it won't be another video link to nondual awakening, which we have all agreed traps us at the threshold of true Self-lucidity, or commiseration about the past history of the forum, but comments and questions related to how we better orient toward the manifold and harmonic relations of spiritual reality and, even if we haven't attained clairvoyance ourselves, explore the clairvoyant experiences in our living thinking, which in truth already lives across the threshold of corporeal death and can therefore understand how the current Earthly life was prepared by and will prepare that Cosmic journey.

The above gets to the heart my beginning the thread on definitions and uses of specific terms . . . like 'soul' . . . and also gets to heart of my lack of credulity of your speculations. I think having a proper intellectual understanding of 'soul' is essential to knowing what is being offered.
To make sure I've got this correct: Are you suggesting the separate self (soul) can perceive beyond death, and survive death (of the body\mind), and continue living think\feel as an independent self for Eternity?

As any nondual framework suggests, there is no separate self. That is only our first impression based on the aliased perception of the Intuitive Whole. Yet as soon as we start thinking, we start to dispel the Maya of separate self. From the last essay:

Our normal intuition is that we are self-enclosed bubbles of consciousness confronting an ‘external’ world that runs its course mostly independently of our activity. Yet we know [through thinking] that our genetic material is woven from a line of ancestors that becomes increasingly wider in scope, more universal, the further we trace them back. Likewise, the substances that comprise our body are drawn daily from the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. The air we inhale one moment was outside of us the moment before. Our psychic life is woven from memories of interactions with the outer world and its beings. On the path of retracing, we find these outer facts are genuine reflections of inner realities that also go in the other direction – our inner life is continually finding its way into outer forms and events. Our inner experiential space is felt to be superimposed with the experiential spaces of many other beings, not bounded by our skin and bones.

So what is being suggested is that, in our creative thinking that links fragmented sensory appearances into coherent ideal principles, we are already across the threshold of death ('death' is simply what we call states of cognition independent of the neurosensory system). That is even more intensified if we work with pure thought relations, independent of the senses. It doesn't matter at all whether we speculate if this after-death experience will last for eternity or what exactly will happen. We are doing science here, in so far as we refrain from speculations and remain open to whatever new ideal relations we encounter in our creative thinking states. As long as these new ideal relations continue to illuminate the facts of our current Earthly experience, as individuals and collectives, then we are on the most fruitful path of integrating knowledge.

Of course, it only stands to reason that if this is possible, it has already been done to some extent. And just like we don't need to rediscover every single mathematical relation from Pythagoras onward to learn mathematics, we don't need to do that for the after-death spiritual relations either. We can evaluate the already discovered relations with our reasoning and see if they make greater sense of our current living experience. It is only in this way that we are left completely free of beliefs, dogmas, abstract theories, or speculations. The latter are usually colored by our unconscious assumptions, interests, preferences, etc., and these are the first aspects of the soul-spiritual worlds that we make more transparent to our intuitive thinking. Only if we are enthusiastically interested in pursuing Self-knowledge in complete freedom from all past traditions and authorities does this path make sense for us.

[lorenzop]

I must be missing something - I fail to see how thinking, a local and finite activity, no matter how exalted, can directly invoke or be equivalent to a Oneness, or Intuitive Whole.
Can a thought convey unboundedness\Infinity\Freedom?
And if this is possible, to invoke a thought as Ideal Principle or Wholeness, what happens when one has to make dinner? Is the Wholeness forgotten or can one maintain Wholeness thinking along with daily chores thinking?

[Stranger]

I must be missing something - I fail to see how thinking, a local and finite activity, no matter how exalted, can directly invoke or be equivalent to a Oneness, or Intuitive Whole.
Can a thought convey unboundedness\Infinity\Freedom?
And if this is possible, to invoke a thought as Ideal Principle or Wholeness, what happens when one has to make dinner? Is the Wholeness forgotten or can one maintain Wholeness thinking along with daily chores thinking?

This is actually a fundamental question that deserves its own topic, and I would recommend moderators to split it from this thread.

My two cents here, to begin with, is to point to the difference between thoughts, that are obviously finite and local, the meanings they convey, that are not necessarily finite and local, and Thinking-Willing as an inherent capacity/aspect of Reality (of Consciousness) that is not finite and local, even though it appears to be local and finite on the surface.

What I find missing in the nondual teachings, both traditional (Advaita, Buddhism) and modern (Spira and others) is neglecting the active inherent aspects of Consciousness - Willing/Feeling/Thinking - that create all forms of phenomenal experiences and allow us to cognize them and cognize even the very fact of the presence of Awareness to which these nondual teachings point. The very fact that we are discussing this on this forum is due to that ability of consciousness to will and think.

Referring to the analogy that nondualists like to use - the water-ocean is the "fundamental", the waves on the surface are accidental and transitional and therefore irrelevant to the ocean. However, first, there would be no waves if the water would not have the intrinsic fundamental ability to move. The ability to move is not accidental to the ocean/water, it is its own inseparable and inherent ability. Likewise, the ability of Consciousness to think and will is inherent to Consciousness and not accidental. Second, the waves (meanings, thoughts, experiences) constitute our cognition, and without waves it would be impossible for the Ocean (of Consciousness) to have the ability to cognize itself.

Can a thought convey unboundedness\Infinity\Freedom?
And if this is possible, to invoke a thought as Ideal Principle or Wholeness, what happens when one has to make dinner?

A thought can reflect the presence of the direct experience of Oneness experiencing itself and carry a meaning of Ideal Principle or Wholeness as one of the most truthful ideal reflections of Reality.

[lorenzop]

In the spirit of ‘reaching across the aisle’ I’ve considered naming samadhi\pure consciousness a specific manner of thinking, even though it’s traditionally described as non-thinking.
We’ve all experienced thinking gross or crude thoughts (gross and crude not in content but mechanics, and we’ve experienced subtle abstract thoughts.
Perhaps one can think of samadhi as thinking of the most sublime and abstract kind, conveying unboundedness.
I think this creates more problems than it solves.
It’s cleaner and more traditional to describe samadhi, oneness, wholeness as a manner of being present, not as a way of thinking.