Can Idealism be without thought?

[Federica]

The problem here lies not in what the experiences tell out of themselves but in what we seek within the experiences through our preconceived ideas. There's no doubt that it is possible to experience a tranquil state detached from the thought-forming process and thus from the self that this process entails. But this experience itself does not tell us anything of whether there could be other states within which we can experience self-reflective spiritual activity. The only way to confirm the reality of such a state would be to experience it. But this is exactly what mystics will never do because it goes against their beliefs.

I tried to dispel such "reductionist mysticism" so many times before, but Cleric keeps tirelessly beating this strawman

Let me try to explain in simple words. We all experience "subjectivity" in our every phenomenological experience (percept, thought, feeling etc), which we call "self", or "I". The problem of dualistic perception is that we, at a very early stage of our child development, developed a sense-idea that this subjectivity belongs to us only, that it is only our own personal subjectivity, and that it is different/separate from the subjectivity of other people. This is a cognitive mistake. If our parents and other people would correct that mistake, we would abandon it, but unfortunately 99.99999% of humans also carry that mistake, so it is culturally conditioned. Anyway, an important feature of that sense of "my own self" is that it is tightly associated with the sense of "my own body, thoughts, feelings" etc, they get wrapped into one "package" of "me and everything that I am" (which includes everything we identify ourselves with). So, when people start nondual practices, the first step they need to go through is to dis-associate their sense of subjectivity from their bodily sensations, thoughts and feelings in order to arrive to the understanding that the subjectivity and those phenomena are not indivisibly melded in a firm "package" structure of "my own self" (that is separate from similar "self-packages" of other people). In other words, to arrive at the understanding that "I am not the body, the feelings, the thoughts, I am something that subjectively experiences them". The practical way to do that is to experience one of those "no-thought" meditative states and phenomenologically prove that there can be a state of "pure subjectivity" without any bodily sensations, feelings or thoughts, and arrive at the experiential realization that "I am indeed not the body, the feelings, the thoughts, I am something else that subjectively experiences them". Once that is done, there is no point to get stuck in that "no-thought" meditation anymore (even though many people do get stuck in that state and believe that this is in fact the "nondual state" of their seeking). This "no-thought" stage is only temporary and provisional, and being stuck in it actually becomes an impediment for further stages of nondual spiritual practice. Instead, the next stages involve realizations that:

- There cannot be "many" subjectivities in the Cosmos, there can only be one subjectivity, one "I" ("I am THAT" stage-realization). In other words, there is only one way to subjectively experience (be aware), and all beings share the same "way of being aware".

- There is actually no duality between the subjectivity and the phenomena that are subjectively experienced, and that the phenomena are actually inseparable from their subjectivity as a fact of their direct phenomenological experience, there is actually no "gap" between any phenomenon and its subjectivity (subjective experience). Another related realization is that there is nothing else in the entire Cosmos other than subjectively experienced phenomena (because no matter how hard we try in meditation, we cannot experientially find any "thing" or phenomenon that would be separate from or exist independently of its subjective experience/awareness). Combined with "there can only be one subjectivity" realization, this becomes the nondual state of "I am everything" realization/stage, which is the realization that there is only One Divine Consciousness in which the entire Cosmos is unfolding by Thinking-Willing-Feeling creative activity and is being subjectively experienced through its individuated, but not separate, spiritual thinking-willing-feeling creative activities. Notice that for this stage to happen, it has to be a meditative experience necessarily with the presence of phenomena. The "no-thought" state would be totally useless at this stage.

AS. Eugene, please be careful when you quote someone’s post that includes quotes. What you have put under my name above has been written by Cleric and has to be presented as such. Would you please do whatever you need to do in order to remember this going forward.

***

Coming to your explanations, I take note that your philosophical position starts with that statement about our generalized cognitive mistake, or psychosis. You put it at the starting point of everything. But it remains unclear how you made that initial choice. It seems to me that the statement about our experience of individuated subjectivity being a “cognitive mistake” is a floating idea, to use Cleric’s words. What is the phenomenological ground for the idea? It’s only afterwards - after the idea has been wholeheartedly adopted and absorbed - that the “cognitive mistake” is inquired as phenomenologically experienceable by means of various practices.

This is not the same as aiming to, and striving for, unbiased thinking as a cognitive starting point, not as utilitarian technique used as second step, to derive what we have already welcomed in our raw heart as true point of departure. In your approach, the thorough examination does happen - but only as stage two. It should be stage one! But because you have an affinity for the viewpoint 'individuated subjectivity = cognitive mistake', because it feels right, then you say yes to it first, you put it at the center of everything. Instead of starting from the given, you start from this love and passion for a sort of spiritual-political idea, so to say, because it feels immediately and deeply right in your heart. It seems to me that this approach suffers two major issues. The first is, it’s only anchored in itself: how can you ever be sure that the psychotic (as you called it) separate self is not the author of a just as psychotic philosophical viewpoint? How can you be sure that the phenomenological backup is not self validation of the ideological statement emitted by the psychotic separate self? The second issue is, this approach leaves the highest human potential unexpressed and mortified, to the extent that it keeps knowing and acting passion-driven, and only backed by thought.

For my part, I’ve only just started acting on the arbitrariness of a passion-driven approach to knowing/doing/being. Nonetheless, starting is enough to realize that if we want to be worthy of our human potential, we need to invert stage one and stage two. We can't start with the gut feeling of what attracts our soul constitution, and then refine and embellish that feeling with thinking. Instead, we need to recognize that our heart is biased in ways that are, to a large extent, obscure for us. Our heart is submitted to the most diverse streams of influence that can only be discerned and transformed by making good use of the higher-order leverage that we find available for us to grow into as thinking potential. If we put our heartfelt impulses in the driver seat, we are not using our potential, our gift, our freedom, and we linger in an obsolete mode of undisclosed, unblossomed human potential. That’s sad. There’s a system update available, and it would be, not only sad, but also reckless to continue to run on older, improper versions.

Many end their earthly life in the blustery lands of the life of soul, exposed to the strongest tides. But if we, who are still alive, choose to ignore the possibility to develop ourselves from within our thinking potential, that means we are choosing to abort the True self that has been conceived within us. Instead of opening to our second birth, we operate our pre-dissolution. By not nurturing, growing, and making the True self blossom within us, we waste the possibility of elevating ourselves above the wavering of our untransformed heart, and remain caught in the troubled currents of the soul mass. But even if our unenlightened heart is in charge right now, we are still alive. We still have a window of opportunity open before us. It shows us that the “better way” we’ve always been wondering about, more or less consciously, actually exists. It’s not a state, it’s a path. And we have the unheard-of chance of finding ourselves exactly in front of an entry point to that path. Are the harsh winds storming through our hearts strong enough to make us turn our head away from this window of opportunity?

[Stranger]

Coming to your explanations, I take note that your philosophical position starts with that statement about our generalized cognitive mistake, or psychosis. You put it at the starting point of everything. But it remains unclear how you made that initial choice. It seems to me that the statement about our experience of individuated subjectivity being a “cognitive mistake” is a floating idea, to use Cleric’s words. What is the phenomenological ground for the idea? It’s only afterwards - after the idea has been wholeheartedly adopted and absorbed - that the “cognitive mistake” is inquired as phenomenologically experienceable by means of various practices.

This is not the same as aiming to, and striving for, unbiased thinking as a cognitive starting point, not as utilitarian technique used as second step, to derive what we have already welcomed in our raw heart as true point of departure. In your approach, the thorough examination does happen - but only as stage two. It should be stage one! But because you have an affinity for the viewpoint 'individuated subjectivity = cognitive mistake', because it feels right, then you say yes to it first, you put it at the center of everything. Instead of starting from the given, you start from this love and passion for a sort of spiritual-political idea, so to say, because it feels immediately and deeply right in your heart. It seems to me that this approach suffers two major issues. The first is, it’s only anchored in itself: how can you ever be sure that the psychotic (as you called it) separate self is not the author of a just as psychotic philosophical viewpoint? How can you be sure that the phenomenological backup is not self validation of the ideological statement emitted by the psychotic separate self? The second issue is, this approach leaves the highest human potential unexpressed and mortified, to the extent that it keeps knowing and acting passion-driven.

You are right, Federica, I actually arrived at this perspective after years of phenomenological investigation and practice, but here I presented it as if it is something obvious and given without showing a way to arrive at such understanding. However, in this thread I attempted exactly that: how to arrive at this understanding by phenomenological investigation and practice. It is just that, to make it tractable, I cannot cover the whole subject in one short message, so it became spread over my many posts and threads.

So, yes, please do not take this idea of "cognitive mistake" as an axiom, but if you want to find out for yourself if it is true or not, you can start from your current human condition and find it out for yourself using the "separate me" meditation or whatever other practice works for you.

For my part, I’ve only just started acting on the arbitrariness of a passion-driven approach to knowing/doing/being. Nonetheless, starting is enough to realize that if we want to be worthy of our human potential, we need to invert stage one and stage two. We can't start with the gut feeling of what attracts our soul constitution, and then refine and embellish that feeling with thinking. Instead, we need to recognize that our heart is biased in ways that are, to a large extent, obscure for us. Our heart is submitted to the most diverse streams of influence that can only be discerned and transformed by making good use of the higher-order leverage that we find available for us to grow into as thinking potential. If we put our heartfelt impulses in the driver seat, we are not using our potential, our gift, our freedom, and we linger in an obsolete mode of undisclosed, unblossomed human potential. That’s sad. There’s a system update available, and it would be, not only sad, but also reckless to continue to run on older, improper versions.

Right, so the way I see it, there are two efforts that need to work in parallel. In our mundane condition we are collapsed around our sense of separate self where we perceive everything else revolving around this center, and in this state we have a conglomerate of human egoic reactions and feelings intermingled with egoic thoughts revolving around the "me in the center of everything" sense-idea. The "separate me" sense is a "gravitational" center that keeps this blob together. This blob needs to be practically disentangled into pieces and released form the gravitational pull of "me in the center", and the potential of human feeling and thinking with the feelings that we already have need to be re-enacted and re-cycled in a new way integrated with higher-order cognition and structures eventually leading us to the all-embracing nondual state of Oneness with the Divine. In other words, making a transition from the "me-centered" state to the Divine-centered state. This is a long path and way to go. But without the deconstructive work on disentangling the "blob" and releasing our cognitive system from the gravitational pull of "me", we cannot do the constructive work of recycling and reintegration into the Cosmic structure.

Many end their earthly life in the blustery lands of the life of soul, exposed to the strongest tides. But if we, who are still alive, choose to ignore the possibility to develop ourselves from within our thinking potential, that means we are choosing to abort the True self that has been conceived within us. Instead of opening to our second birth, we operate our pre-dissolution. By not nurturing, growing, and making the True self blossom within us, we waste the possibility of elevating ourselves above the wavering of our untransformed heart, and remain caught in the troubled currents of the soul mass. But even if our unenlightened heart is in charge right now, we are still alive. We still have a window of opportunity open before us. It shows us that the “better way” we’ve always been wondering about, more or less consciously, actually exists. It’s not a state, it’s a way. And we have the unheard-of chance of finding ourselves exactly in front of an entry point to that better way. Are the harsh winds storming through our heart strong enough to make us turn our head away from this window of opportunity?

Yes, it is a way, always on the go, but a way from the "me"-centered state to the Divine-centered state. The Divine-centered state is not where our individual thinking potential is suppressed or rejected, but on the contrary, it is where the thinking, willing and feeling potential is given a possibility of fully flourishing and expanding from the Divine center. It turns out that it is actually the gravitational constriction of the "me"-center that prevented our thinking, willing and feeling to unfold in its full potential. When our inner life revolves around "me"-center, the range of emotions and thought are severely limited only to whatever is relevant and important to only "me" and may be (with usually lower priority) to my offspring and close relatives.

[Federica]

When our inner life revolves around "me"-center, the range of emotions and thought are severely limited only to whatever is relevant and important to only "me" and may be (with usually lower priority) to my offspring and close relatives.

Eugene, you have a striking, living proof of the contrary to this statement, right on this forum!

[Stranger]

When our inner life revolves around "me"-center, the range of emotions and thought are severely limited only to whatever is relevant and important to only "me" and may be (with usually lower priority) to my offspring and close relatives.

Eugene, you have a striking, living proof of the contrary to this statement, right on this forum!

you are right, what I said is what usually happens with average humans, but that does not mean it always happens this way. There are definitely ways to improve the human ego, make it less egocentric, more cooperative and loving (even though still in the dualistic way), integrated into the communities, both within the human society and with higher-order beings. This kind of evolution of human ego, while remaining within the dualistic dimensions, is hope and belief of many human social programs (socialism, communism, liberalism etc) and spiritual practices (New Age and others). It does work to some extent, but the results are always limited.

I understand that what I am pointing to - the nondual path - is very radical, it is too radical for most humans. I have no expectations that it will be widely adopted on the mass scale, it is only for some few individuals who see that as a way to full integration into the Divine-centered state, the Christ-Consciousness. So, if you feel that this path it is not for you and that you want to stay on the dualistic path, then just don't listen to me, it is fully your choice, there are no expectations whatsoever. There is no point to argue which path is right and which is wrong. Every soul chooses its path and faces its outcomes and consequences, whether good or bad (and I am not saying that the outcomes of the dualistic path are all bad, not at all). But I still have to say that the nondual path is the core of the Christ esoteric teachings as well as the practices of other esoteric spiritual traditions (nondual in particular), but again, there are no expectations for anyone to follow them.

[Federica]

When our inner life revolves around "me"-center, the range of emotions and thought are severely limited only to whatever is relevant and important to only "me" and may be (with usually lower priority) to my offspring and close relatives.

Eugene, you have a striking, living proof of the contrary to this statement, right on this forum!

you are right, what I said is what usually happens with average humans, but that does not mean it always happens this way. There are definitely ways to improve the human ego, make it less egocentric, more cooperative and loving (even though still in the dualistic way), integrated into the communities, both within the human society and with higher-order beings. This kind of evolution of human ego, while remaining within the dualistic dimensions, is hope and belief of many human social programs (socialism, communism, liberalism etc) and spiritual practices (New Age and others). It does work to some extent, but the results are always limited.

I understand that what I am pointing to - the nondual path - is very radical, it is too radical for most humans. I have no expectations that it will be widely adopted on the mass scale, it is only for some few individuals who see that as a way to full integration into the Divine-centered state, the Christ-Consciousness. So, if you feel that this path it is not for you and that you want to stay on the dualistic path, then just don't listen to me, it is fully your choice, there are no expectations whatsoever. There is no point to argue which path is right and which is wrong. Every soul chooses its path and faces its outcomes and consequences, whether good or bad (and I am not saying that the outcomes of the dualistic path are all bad, not at all). But I still have to say that the nondual path is the core of the Christ esoteric teachings as well as the practices of other esoteric spiritual traditions (nondual in particular), but again, there are no expectations for anyone to follow them.

Indeed, I find that you write way more interestingly in your phases of exploring the living thinking path than in your phases of pointing to non-duality. Maybe if you review some of your recent posts in the two categories, you will find that you agree!

[Stranger]

Indeed, I find that you write way more interestingly in your phases of exploring the living thinking path than in your phases of pointing to non-duality. Maybe if you review some of your recent posts in the two categories, you will find that you agree!

I'm actually advocating for the nondual living thinking path, but there is also dualistic living thinking path (accomplished through the perspective of "me" who is going along the spiritual path) which is also a possible path of spiritual evolution. It is your right to choose whichever works best for you. But so it is the right for any other soul to make such choice for themselves (which may involve choosing the nondual path).

[Federica]

I am resurfacing from within this older thread, for the purpose of continuing the discussion on the given of experience. In this post, I have simply extracted the important pieces from the above conversation, so they’re in sequence in one place. I have found this sequence very enlightening to approach the question of the given. Unfortunately, I can't make myself agree with everything for now. But before commenting and asking, I thought I would give myself a little extra time for reflection, and a chance to anyone interested, to go through the key points of the question.

(...)

With reference to Cleric’s illustration of the given quoted in the post above, one thing I don’t get/I don't agree with is the following:

Let's unlearn so far that we are like naked beings into existence. No prior knowledge of anything. Well, let's keep at least language and our ability to discern and describe the contents of experience (...) We now find ourselves in a pristine existence or rather - experience is being experienced (we don't know we are "we" yet). How can the totality of this experience be described? Certainly not by saying that we are having a subjective experience of an objective world.

And same point a little further in the illustration:

Please note that nowhere in our discussion have we mentioned anything about a self.

The suggested working hypotheses are to imagine to unlearn as much as possible, only keeping our ability to discern experience and describe it through language.
Under such hypotheses, we are matching concepts and percepts within the given, which means that the self-reflective quality of thinking is already there. We are thinking already, therefore we do know that we are “we”, and we can say that we are having a subjective experience of an objective world.
I believe that the only way to not know that we are we, would be to limit the given to the field of percepts, going all the way back to new-born state, no-language, no discernment, only raw experience. Conversely, if we are to execute that work of “restoring the fullness of reality”, then we are accomplishing our 'signature-work' as humans, thus we do feel like subjects taking hold of an objective world, I would think.


PS. Ashvin, Cleric, while I'd be thankful if this could be eventually clarified with your help, I'm not in a rush, I simply want to pin this down for now.

[Cleric K]

The suggested working hypotheses are to imagine to unlearn as much as possible, only keeping our ability to discern experience and describe it through language.
Under such hypotheses, we are matching concepts and percepts within the given, which means that the self-reflective quality of thinking is already there. We are thinking already, therefore we do know that we are “we”, and we can say that we are having a subjective experience of an objective world.
I believe that the only way to not know that we are we, would be to limit the given to the fields of percepts, going all the way back to new-born state, no-language, no discernment, only raw experience. Conversely, if we are to execute that work of “restoring the fullness of reality”, then we are accomplishing our 'signature-work' as humans, thus we do feel like subjects taking hold of an objective world, I would think.


PS. Ashvin, Cleric, while I'd be thanful if this could be eventually clarified with your help, I'm not in a rush, I simply want to pin this down for now.

Clearly, these examples are always somewhat idealized because we can conceive them only through our already developed cognition in the present state. For example, when we reason about the newborn state we use our present developed condition. If we were to truly return to that state it would be like starting our life all over again.

By knowledge that "we are we" I mean a growing consciousness of a self-image. Not in the sensory sense but as knowledge of how we partake in the world content. We can be active in the world without self-image too, like animals can. The animal doesn't conceive of a subjective and objective world. It simply instinctively wills its way through the metamorphosis of spiritual phenomena.

This is also the basic position that I wanted to establish in the post. Subjective/objective, self-image, all of these begin to differentiate when our spiritual activity begins investigate how it affects the world content and how it is affected.

[Stranger]

The suggested working hypotheses are to imagine to unlearn as much as possible, only keeping our ability to discern experience and describe it through language.
Under such hypotheses, we are matching concepts and percepts within the given, which means that the self-reflective quality of thinking is already there. We are thinking already, therefore we do know that we are “we”, and we can say that we are having a subjective experience of an objective world.

Notice how already two concepts are implied at this point in addition to the experiential fact of the given that "self-reflective quality of thinking is already there" (which is obviously true). One of these concepts is that there is "we" who are thinking, so, in addition to thinking as a conscious activity, there is a sense-idea of "someone who thinks" behind that activity, and that "someone" is implied as if it is different form "someone who thinks" in other sentient beings. The other concept is that there is an "objective world" of which "we" are having a subjective experience.

Try to test these concepts in meditation against your actual direct phenomenal experience and find out if they are true. Can you actually find the "me" who is thinking? No, there is only thinking and the phenomena produced and experienced by thinking. The only "me" you can find is a sense-idea of "me". But wait, isn't this sense-idea is a phenomenon itself? Of course it is a phenomenon, look at it and examine it carefully to see that it is in fact just a phenomenon. But how a phenomenon be the "me" who is thinking and experiencing other phenomena? One phenomenon cannot experience others, they are all equally experienced. So, you can only find self-reflecting thinking, but you cannot actually find the thinker. So here we are making a cognitive mistake confusing the "one who actually thinks" with the sense-idea-phenomenon of the "one who thinks".

Likewise, can you actually find the "objective world" that you are having a subjective experience? No, if you carefully examine your actual phenomenal experiences, you will only find the subjective experiences. What then makes you think that there are any "objective things" causing these subjective experiences to happen? What if the world consists of only subjective experiences, but not all of these experiences are experienced simultaneously?

Of course, these concept of the "one who thinks" and "the objective world out there" are not just abstract ideas, but over the decades of executing them starting form very early childhood, they became an unconscious intuitive sense deeply embedded and interconnected with our subconscious thinking patterns, as well as into the collective human subconsciousness and human culture and language. This is what makes it so difficult to recognize and remove from out thinking patterns. For an average human it is just unthinkable how it would be possible to live and function without the sense of "me" and the "objective outer world" without "bumping into the walls" as Lorenzo said. Here is a good video on that (keep in mind that Adya is talking about the "self" as "separate me" here, not as the Cosmic Self)

[Federica]

The suggested working hypotheses are to imagine to unlearn as much as possible, only keeping our ability to discern experience and describe it through language.
Under such hypotheses, we are matching concepts and percepts within the given, which means that the self-reflective quality of thinking is already there. We are thinking already, therefore we do know that we are “we”, and we can say that we are having a subjective experience of an objective world.
I believe that the only way to not know that we are we, would be to limit the given to the field of percepts, going all the way back to new-born state, no-language, no discernment, only raw experience. Conversely, if we are to execute that work of “restoring the fullness of reality”, then we are accomplishing our 'signature-work' as humans, thus we do feel like subjects taking hold of an objective world, I would think.

By knowledge that "we are we" I mean a growing consciousness of a self-image. Not in the sensory sense but as knowledge of how we partake in the world content. We can be active in the world without self-image too, like animals can. The animal doesn't conceive of a subjective and objective world. It simply instinctively wills its way through the metamorphosis of spiritual phenomena.


This is also the basic position that I wanted to establish in the post. Subjective/objective, self-image, all of these begin to differentiate when our spiritual activity begins investigate how it affects the world content and how it is affected.

Yes, Cleric, I understood what you meant (If I had thought that you were referring to "knowing that we are we" in the sensory sense, my whole post would have been sensless, because in it I said that it's precisely in such animal-like/new-born-like instinctive activity that we don't yet know that "we are we").

So I understood what you wanted to establish, and in relation to that I'm unable to agree that this self-image is not in place the moment we have taken the steps of forming concepts/ideas, conveying these through language (even if the link, or process, is ready-made and unconscious, because the product isn't) and even more so, the moment we make sense of someone else's thought exposed to us. Back to one of your points, but extending the quote:

We need to develop our ability to be perfectly clear whether we are experiencing concepts and ideas in relation to actual perceptions (like in our exercise) or in relation to a condensed thought-perception that acts as a symbolic grounding point for the generalized idea.


We need to really take our time and feel the difference. At every step of the exercise we are firmly grounded in the given. There are no "floating" concepts and ideas. Every meaning that we experience is in relation to concrete perceptions - no matter if individual or sum-total. Contrast this with the experience when we summon the though-symbol as a grounding point for the idea. Unless we can make clear distinction between the two, confusion is inevitable.


Please note that nowhere in our discussion have we mentioned anything about a self. We are perfectly in line with Eugene. Let's consider a state of experience without self and self-driven thinking . There's no problem whatsoever to conceive of this state as perceptions together with corresponding ideas/meaning but without experience of a process that links them together. The link is ready-made, we don't feel responsible for it.

From this quote in particular, it even seems that the process of abstraction also ("projecting the meaning of the state into words") is set on the no-self side of thinking. But this I would admit is not totally clear to me, because later I understand you mean that abstraction is precisely the sign that active thinking and sense of self have come in. But whichever is the correct interpretation of where you were placing abstractions, I doubt, as I said, that we can go through the ready-made concept forming process, and that we can listen to someone else's thoughts, without a sense of self.



I can easily imagine that I must be making some mistake somewhere, but I can't find it just yet. To go a little further, you explained that the purpose of the whole illustration is to carefully distinguish what is given from what we subsequently add to the given by means of active thinking. As it seems to me, you want to establish that as long as we remain in the given, we don't need to imagine that we have a sense of self, and that's how we know that we are still grounded in the given. In contrast to that, I have gathered from my recent exchange about the given on the other thread, how it makes sense to understand the given as:

not only sense-perceptual spatial phenomena, but also inner cognitive experiences temporally extended. It is also the intuitive stream of becoming which manifests these outer-inner experiences and allows for continuity of consciousness.

to use this condensed expression by Ashvin.