GENIUS FORUMS

Now you must now learn how to master your own mind, for an undisciplined mind is like a dog which sets out to track down a deer, but ends up chasing after every rabbit that crosses it path. If you wish to experience the Absolute, you must first train your mind not to be drawn away by the relative; a...

Tranquility is, as I said before, the recompense of one’s having followed the Right Path to its fruition. In the Buddhist tradition such persons are called “Bodhisattvas”, which literally means “enlightening beings”: those who are in the process of awakening – and awakening others. The form of the e...

Good, then let us continue? As I said before, the recompense of having followed the Right Path is tranquility (i.e., equanimity), but this is not itself enlightenment, though it is its primary cause. Now, the form or appearance of tranquility is the “cessation of all emotional suffering (Dhuka)”, an...

It could aspire to create, to experience. Creativity and experience are the innate nature of Being, what need has it to aspire to them? Further, the indefinite and continuous evolution of objective knowledge (The Cosmos) does not alter Being in any way, for given that knowledge is the innate essenc...

But cannot Being serve itself? To what end would that which is already perfect aspire? Being is what it is and cannot be otherwise, and so what need is there of a plan? Yes, I agree with this, but I am not sure about calling it perfect. By the term, “perfect”, I mean that which is complete and in n...

How do you know Being has no purpose or plan? Well, you said "final purpose." I would probably agree with that. That which has a purpose serves another - as its instrument, but Being is that than which there is no other. I don't know that I understand it well enough to agree or not. It su...

Well, I guess this bears some thought. There is surely a perfecting process going on, for example, we have evolution, of galaxies and life forms. Not randomly, but intelligently and with purpose. Indeed, but you must understand that Being has no final purpose, goal or plan, that is to say, beyond s...

Were you hoping to be finished with this discussion? No, I simply though that you may be growing weary of the discussion - which is now entering its second year. I can see that the universe is unfolding toward perfection, or so it seems to me. Now, there may or may not be more than one way that thi...

Very well, then let us see how the Path is able to bring us to this mental quality called “tranquility” or “equanimity”; a state of mind wherein our faculty of imagination neither adds to nor detracts from pure perception. A tranquil mind is one which accepts that the Universe is unfolding exactly a...

I am still here, but you must give me some indication as to where you want to take this enquiry, that is, unless you are ready to bring it to a close.

Yes, but at the same time I wonder if perhaps in some ways the analogy doesn't completely cross over. Like any analogy, it has its limitations, however, the process is fundamentally the same. I hardly know how to formulate a response. None of this makes much sense to me. You say that when a sound a...

I really don't know! It's a strange question. To the dreamer, it seems so. And I had never really analyzed a dream quite this way. But once you think about it, you can ask that same question in many ways. Do the muscles of the dream persona really lift the chair? Are the ears of the dreamer true se...

I would not say that a dream persona has sense faculties. It is just imagination and memory. Though it may be only imaginary, if in your dream, you enter into a room with no light, does this not impair your dream-persona's ability to see what is in the room. Does the dream-persona not rely upon its...

I am not clear on why we posit a separate awareness from consciousness, because of the fact that we don't hear someone speak if our awareness (attention) is elsewhere. Just as a shadow arises as a result of the coming together of a light source and an opaque object, two extrinsic causes, so too doe...

Have you not said that awareness must have an object? If so, then it is not different from consciousness. And what about the one that is associated with the mind itself? What is that about? Consider the case where your awareness is focused upon a particular object of consciousness, something you ar...

I recall that at the beginning there were some problems with this terminology. I don't differentiate between consciousness and awareness, but I think you considered consciousness as part of brain function or something. The reason that I differentiate between consciousness and awareness is that cons...

And are not the laws of thought helpless here? Not at all, for they have brought us to the very limit of knowledge, and it is now for us to make the experiential leap to that which lies beyond knowledge. Remember, knowledge is the inferior (bounded) aspect of reality, and so is not capable of encom...

part I didn't get, why can a thing not partition itself. I could imagine a cell dividing, and the membrane circling around each. What I am saying is that no thing may act to partition itself from itself. For example, if we were out to sea, and everywhere there was nothing but water, we cannot right...

This I did not understand. The possible number is infinite, but the actual number must be finite. There is a fundamental problem with the notion of separateness, and it goes like this: if two things are truly separate then they cannot be related, for to be related is to be connected. For this reaso...

People who leave their bodies, usually during threat of death or the actual beginnings of death, often report a leaving process or a quick jump out of the body, so yes the awareness leaves at the appropriate time, yet most people are quite unable to leave. Yes, that may be due to ignorance, but it ...

Well, it is very difficult for me to say in what way I have encountered it. How does one get insight and in what way does it remain subjective? I ponder things. I would say that I "see" with another faculty of vision. This faculty has taught me things with which you mostly agree, and whic...

Suppose I have the insight that the core of all people is pure and incorruptible. If that is a subjective insight, then what would its corollary experience consist of? I mean, how exactly could one experience such a truth? If it is true, then should not one be able to encounter it in all people ? H...

But what about the insights that one has come to on one's own? While insight is the essence of Wisdom, it is not realization; realization is not an intellectual endeavour, but an experiential one. But the physical embodiment is not even important. It's temporary. I'm talking about what can distingu...

Now, what do you mean about understanding truth conceptually as opposed to 'realizing' it? It is like when you tell a child not to touch the stove because it is hot. Until the child actually touches the stove, heat is merely a concept; however, once they have touched the stove, heat becomes somethi...

Saying that it is impossible to imagine the lack of a subjective world - Ok - but how are we to talk about it? Just as we have been doing it – by slowly sweeping away all that it is not. However, it is still just talk, and not the actual experience. How are you saying that I only understand things ...