Eugene I wrote: ↑Sun May 02, 2021 8:13 pm
I do have an interest and I'm doing exactly this, but using different approaches and practices, and I also have some of my own extra-mundane experiences (about "non-self" and what's not), which you also mentioned above. But now you claim that we all: me, tens of thousands of the NDE experiencers, mystics and visionaries of other traditions and religions, only experience their fantasies or sensory-distorted perceptions and interpret them "improperly" because their "mirror" of perception and cognition is unclean. But you developed the real supersensory and proper cognitive perception and cleaned your mirror so that you can perceive and understand thing properly.
I haven't developed anything that anyone else isn't capable of. I simply report what is being found in this direction. I'm not claiming God-given powers. In fact all that I speak of is really the a,b,c of things when this direction is trodden. I'm not in anyway trying to look superior. If that was my goal I would withhold any knowledge of the methods I use so that I can 'enjoy them for myself'.
The simple fact is that I describe a path of inner experiences which not only has never been investigated but there's resistance
to even understand it intellectually - which by the way would be more than sufficient in order to understand everything else. I hope the great asymmetry is visible here. I don't dismiss the nondual method out of ignorance. I understand it very well, I have practiced and I can report first-hand the experiences that you report. But the reverse is not true. And this is not a judgement. It's pretty clear why this is so. The focused spiritual activity is simply not being considered (or it's considered only as an intermediate step for quieting down the mind). Many times I have spoken of this - we ascend to the higher/deeper strata of being when we pass through the pinhole of the focused spiritual (cognitive) activity.
So it's a door. And it's there in every moment of existence. But it's simply not being considered. I'm fine with this, I'm not saying that everyone should do this. But does this mean that reports of observations beyond the gate should not be stated? The things about the mirror are simple facts of observation. What do you expect me to say, that someone who eats, drinks and watches TV all day should have the same NDE as a saint would have? Or a drunken criminal would behold on shrooms the same things that a learned, lucid thinker would? It's everyone's experience that in our normal life we have to work hard for every intellectual, artistic and physical skill. I'm sure that in your profession you've met a whole spectrum of people with very different degrees of comprehension on electrical engineering, for example. It's true that some people are more talented than others but most of it is simply hard work. So we understand and accept this for our everyday's life but somehow all this doesn't hold anymore when it's a matter of the deepest mysteries of existence? I'm not saying any of this as "look how advanced I am". Not at all. I'm sure that there are many in this forum that could tread the path better than me
if they attempted it. But it's simply not serious when I say "Here's the gate, here are the tools, here are the methods. Now some work is needed on adjustment and perfecting the spiritually-'optical' system." to be objected with "So you claim that there's something beyond that gate that we don't already know and that we need to improve something within our spiritual apparatus to behold it? How arrogant is that?!"
Eugene I wrote: ↑Sun May 02, 2021 8:13 pm
You feel very confident that you do not need any further evidence or proof that your perception and cognition is non-distorted and you dismiss any possibility that it still may be distorted and you might be fooling yourself. Well, ok, I get it, good for you. As long as you are happy with it.
Think about your life experience again. How did you gain confidence in electronics (I think this is (one of) your field, excuse me if I got it wrong). What was your evidence that your perception and cognition was not distorted and you were not fooling yourself? It's quite simple. All these questions would only make sense if your knowledge is some purely mind-thing with no contact with the full spectrum of reality. It's exactly the relations of the ideas of electronics with the perceptual spectrum that prove their worth. You understand that you are on the right track because your knowledge grows and becomes more coherent, encompassing, logical. Well, it's similar with any genuine spiritual development. Our inner experiences don't simply stand in the black box of our fantasies. Everything is revealed and must be tested against the full spectrum of reality. If my awareness expands, if I see clearly the ways in which I sabotage myself, my unhealthy habits, my flaws of character, then if I find the strength and methods within my research to rectify all these, I clearly have a practical knowledge. If everything around me becomes more and more comprehensible and logical - even amidst the outer chaos, if I find the inner courage and force to face and overcome the trials of life, then I'm on to something. To be able to assess if things are getting more or less distorted we need to have experienced at least two different degrees of distortion. If we only know one we have no reference for comparison what's more and what less distorted. If I can look back and see my soul as laid down in front of me and see how I have been struggling within the labyrinths of my own ignorance and twisted desires, I have direct experience of what it means to have less distorted view. Now I don't delude myself that I'm already done with my work. Quite the opposite - I'm fully aware that just as I can now see through the shaping forces of my former self, which were completely unconscious for me back then, so there are also now such forces which shape my current life and which I'll be able to behold in the future
if I continue on my path. Just as I can see my former unconsciously entangled self in the past, so I can look towards the future and see prophetically a potential self which looks back on me in much higher understanding. It is my task to always aim towards this future self. The future will come in one way or another but there's no guarantee that I'll see more clearly. I can even fall back into more entanglement. That's why I need constant vigilance and effort.
So this is in a nutshell how I know whether I'm moving towards more or less distorted state. It takes just a glance on my life to see as a fact how the ideas that I've been exploring have played out.
The possibility for self-development, even in the more secular sense, is something completely understandable. So am I reasonable if I declare that the deepest truths can be revealed completely independently of the state of my mirror? If we refuse to consider spiritual development as something real we face a world of mysteries. Why different people, traditions, religions have different NDEs? If I consider that everyone's mirror is perfect as it is, I have to assume that there's no real structure and laws in the higher worlds and everyone is 'right'. Those who think that there's God are right, so are those who think that there isn't. Those who think that there's reincarnation and karma are right, so are those who see only one lifetime and eternal heaven or hell afterwards. We just have to take an unprejudiced look and acknowledge the price we pay in order to maintain our idea that there's no such thing as ever-evolving perfection of the mirror. Just because it's too much trouble for us to consider that we are responsible for our own spiritual evolutionary development, we prefer to accept all the paradoxes and illogicalities of the flat picture.