The Century of the Self

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Doodlebugs, lol, thRu is what my phone changed to from "douchebags", good day

[Kunga]

You think they're stoopid, Dennis ?
BTW....was that dog you tried to muzzle a bitch too ?

[Alex Jacob]

Materialism: an investiture, with an 'emotional' component, in facts in the realm of phenomena? I would define materialism as the absence of an overarching, guiding, life-altering, ethics and morals altering, vision or understanding of the material basis through which we are all living. I would distinguish 'emotionalism' from 'sentiment' and point out that liberation from 'materialistic binding' is an event that involves the sentiments, most definitely! In a very real sense we measure life and its value by what sentiments are evoked by events, the way we live, the quality and content of our relationships and in a general sense of how the instrument of our personality is functioning: thriving or thwarting.

As to 'dictionary definitions': sure, there are often various definitions, superficial ones and more profound and hidden ones. But if we cannot rely on some of the definitions available through our language, and if there are none, then we would have no basis for any conversation!

Finally, if I may be allowed to say so, I don't think it is possible to get anywhere in expecting or hoping for a clear statement from Diebert as simple as: this is what I really think. Or this is how I view things. Or this is my position. It is not unfair, really. One just must accept that he wishes not to offer it. You have to divine it. Still, having read him for years, I have not been able to. And that is how he desires it. It is 'zennish' in that sense.

The other curious thing: the actual philosophical positions of Kevin or David are irrelevant to him. Even though they founded the core Idea of the forum and the philosophy at its core. So, he can't be said to be 'allied' with or unallied with that philosophy in any tangible sense. In brief, he has not read either Kevin or David in any depth, and if he has whatever are their core conclusions and the thrust that comes out of it (which guides the forum as it foundation) is also irrelevant to him. His purposes are ulterior or what I mean is other: he has his own. Now, it is of course baffling that he would then 'defend' either David or Kevin through interposition of his self as the object to receive the blows 'against' the 'attacks' on the house philosophy, and there is no 'logic' for this except perhaps as a 'friendly gesture'. While he does often deflect a given thrust toward himself and then interpose his own, vague, philosophical understanding of the Founder's philosophy and the internal reasons for choosing it, turning an argument against 'them' into an argument against 'him', I have come to see this as essentially a sentimental gesture: like Pye---and also like you Laird!---Diebert has a strong protective streak. He is not so much interested in tearing anyone apart, or shredding a given formulation, or deconstructing a 'negative' idea (unlike Alex who can be and often is extremely 'violent' and defensive, if not outrightly wicked) that is simply not his focus. In this sense he does not share the forum's declared warning about being willing to 'get bloodied'. It isn't a battle for him but rather a slow, patient teasing out. Perhaps what he desires and values is just clear exposition?

And he will continue to converse with anyone, very politely in fact, 'as long as' he can see himself in, essentially, the superior position. For example, he will keep talking to you, Laird, because he sees himself as having the upper hand. And it is a swiftly moving hand, a shadow-hand, a hand that is not one thing or the other. But if it were to happen that through argumentation you did in fact gain an advantage (which you yourself will never be able to do because you are seen as standing in distinct disadvantage), but if you did, you would be swiftly cut down, dismissed: and then the whole 'team-up effort' against you would be enacted, ritually almost. Diebert in this sense 'functions' within the ecosphere* of GF; GF as a 'psychological entity'.

Very few here work to describe the actual underpinnings here and do not state them in any case. But this is my area of interest. The question is: Am I accurate? We shoot out at each other in a weird 'clear darkness' or 'dark brightness' of an imagined, wordy space. It is such a challenge to 'get it right'!

Just one more near-brilliant post by the Demon Alex which is dismissed and disregarded and misunderstood! ;-)
_______________
*Dysfunctosphere!

[Kunga]

I am at a stage where I'm detaching from Buddhism.
I'm in the RAW.

But if I was adhereing to Buddhist principals, I could use this aggressive emotional turbulence between
Dennis & myself to strengthen the inner calm.
The more forceful the emotion comes....the more resilient the barrier to get me down becomes.
I've been negligent.
I've been reveling in the emotional banter.
But I've been seeing it as the ego (puss), that needs to be extracted, relieved, so healing can begin.

I feel no hatred.
I kinda enjoy knocking the ego around !
Funny how I bounce back for more !

Have I gotton anything out of this ?
Yes.
It's my teacher.
Kinda like, when you drink too much....and it makes you sick, and you don't wanna drink anymore....
Getting drunk on your ego is like that too.

So I hope I can behave myself (for a while at least).
But it takes 2 to tango.
Only one to stop.
Who will be the wise one in this dance ?

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Of couse there are rough as well as gentle waves in the ocean; strong emotions come, like anger, desire, jealousy. The real practitioner recognizes them not as a disturbance or obstacle, but as a great opportunity. The fact that you react to arisings such as these with habitual tendencies of attachment and aversion is a sign not only that you are distracted, but also that you do not have the recognition and have lost the ground of Rigpa. To react to emotions in this way empowers them and binds us even tighter in the chains of delusion. The great secret of Dzogchen is to see right through them as soon as they arise, to what they really are: the vivid and electric manifestation of the energy of Rigpa itself. As you gradually learn to do this, even the most turbulent emotions fail to seize hold of you and dissolve, as wild waves rise and rear and sink back into the calm of the ocean.
The practitioner discovers–and this is a revolutionary insight, whose subtlety and power cannot be overestimated–that not only do violent emotions not necessarily sweep you away and drag you back into the whirlpools of your own neuroses, they can actually be used to deepen, embolden, invigorate, and strengthen the Rigpa. The tempestuous energy becomes raw food of the awakened energy of Rigpa. The stronger and more flaming the emotion, the more Rigpa is strengthened.”


― Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

[Dennis Mahar]

Yes Kunga,
thats it.
How many Wisdom schools operate.
push every button a person has in their mind 'til there are no buttons left 'reacting'.
drama free.
free of inane reactivity.

no woundedness (no Victimhood)
no persecuting
no rescuing.

a clear, calm abiding.
untrammeled mind.
Spirit enters.
Guarding Spirit.

The best friends you can have are not those who support your Victim Story.
The best friends you can have are those who push that 'whinging button' hard to regenerate the possibility of Spiritedness.

[Alex Jacob]

Okay, but if we were really really really really REALLY to make an effort to 'tell the truth' it would actually be expressed a little differently. And if you say: 'Alex! You cruel demon! How DARE you say such things!' you would in a certain sense be within your right; you would be just. For I am terribly unjust. But, when some jackasses (when there is only one Jackass allowed and a Divine Jackass in truth) start playing bullshitty spiritual games within psychobabble format, which is the absolute BOTTOM if we are to hold to spirituality and all High Thought as the finest and best that we can offer, then both Kunga and Dennis are supreme bullshit-artists, and for the following reasons:

Dennis has taken it upon himself to 'correct' and to guide Kunga. He imitates Mahatma David in this specific sense. He desires to see himself on the top of the heap. The Teacher, the Guide. This game has been played in spiritual and pseudo-spiritual circles since time began one assumes. But in the post-psychiatry and psychology atmosphere of covert power-plays, all that crappy game of spiritual posturing was taken to unforeseen heights! Dennis is an example of a man who has undertaken the destruction of a platform of his own self. It is a language, concept and sentiment game and will take any person to a bad, bad end. But once you start the very path you have started on will take you to its end. And Kunga, for all that she is a good-hearted person, is a person with a fractured sense of self. Or simply put a fractured self. There is not enough self to coalesce. Or, there is a group of constellations of selves that cannot quite be brought into order because there is not enough of a 'monitor' or 'mental-ego' self to perform that task. And this is very very painful as it is for all of us. So, Dennis is taking himself apart and Kunga had herself taken apart...and can't quite bring herself back into solid manifestation.

Dennis, through choices based in weakness and powerlessness, writes in a fractured style, and poses that this is some sort of zennish revelation and superior to straight, honest prose about straight, honest things. And Kunga cannot write in any other way because that organizing 'monitor' is not sufficiently empowered and has not been enough trained. So, these two individuals, who play in a camp of pseudo-spirituality and cannot actually define what IS spirituality or why they are engaged in it, see the flaws in each other, and hook into them. And, sadly enough, they essentially pollute the whole forum. It just goes on and on and on and on. But, they cannot cure themselves, and the cure is both simple and very, very difficult of attainment. None of this has to do with whether a person is a good person or not. If one speaks in terms of causation, as Dennis often does (machines forced to act in certain ways) it offers a certain explanation for the theatre(s) that are performed here on a daily basis. Caused by outside forces, but aided and abetted by certain 'lodged ideas' that are held to.

The thing is that this dissolving manoeuvre toward self is established as an ideal by decision of some exterior, foreign entity that has invaded our intellectual system. Essentially, the QRS is riding the wave of that school of thought but within it they pull a very interesting presto-chango: they decide that extreme mysticism is somehow a 'rational' process. As if the rational Aristotelian processes at the base of our occidental reasoning systems conduce to the same end as that of extreme Eastern mysticism. So, they are engaged, always, in mental exercises through which their 'selves' are strengthened, not diminished in strength! Even if it is a perversion of the strengthening of self and rather self-conflicted. They actually seem to become stronger egos through it all! It is really odd: they preach in a sense the same notion which must logically conduce to the dissolution of self, and the ineffectiveness of self in the world, and yet they contradict their own preachments in a peculiar masculine and very Western way, by holding to this 'reasoning' base.

Peculiarly, and yet differently, Dennis is in a similar boat. The doctrines should conduce to a transparency of self or a, say, 'gentleness' of self, a mellowing perhaps, but with all the rehearsed and essentially pseudo-spiritual rap, all the men's group hyperbole and posturing, with those attacks on masculine self-definition, he is in a bit of a pickle: his ego is as bright and roaring and perverse even as the worst and most self-centered egos, but since according to his doctrines he is not 'allowed' to have such an ego, the push me-pull you force is what keeps him intact. Indeed, without someone or something to fight against, or to bully, or to lord it over, or to 'correct' (such as my fine self!) one supposes he would be lost.

We all develop odd ways, despite the terrible oppositions we face, to keep our self intact!

Well, what do you think? ;-)

[guest_of_logic]

Well, and I wish not to bicker over it, I wish only to suggest a spirituality in which this thread's subject is relevant: a relational spirituality, one of human in relationship with the divine (for which Wikipedia's "the sacred" stands in). In contrast, materialism is that which either denies the existence of the divine, or denies the significance of the divine and the primacy of relationship with it above relationship with "things of this world": this, it seems to me from my little reading of SJotC, is essentially his message, and one which, I understand, those of us in this conversation admire, if not in full then at least in respects.

If we can admit the existence of that which is opposed to divinity, then we can admit the existence of materialistic forces, which, I have tried to demonstrate in the past, can exist externally to us yet which, given human weakness, are capable of influencing (infiltrating) us, just as we are capable of being led and strengthened by Christ and all divine manifestations should we seek them. It is not surprising, then, to find in this world systemic materialistic tendencies such as those referenced in this thread, which are, in my view, a result of humans being "led astray"; humans in error yet believing themselves redeemers: Eddie Bernay had been convinced (but by what, and by whom?) that public relations were good for democracy, that the people needed to be led in this way, even as he, in a less visible way, and as we all are for good and for evil, was being led. (I suspect that there are, too, those who have been led astray in full knowledge, not believing themselves redeemers but wholly complicit in the process).

We are all capable both of being led and of leading: the challenge is to lead, and to be led, into spirituality, and not into materialism. I'm sure that it is as much of a sin to lead others into materialism as it is to practice materialism. It's a personal challenge to me to live my life in this way, and I accept that I am not perfect in this regard (is this to give Diebert "the upper hand"? Perhaps, as Alex suggests, it's the only way to keep him in the conversation!).

As far as your analysis goes, Alex, I agree that Diebert seems not to be all that familiar with David's and Kevin's seminal writings, if he has read them in any depth at all, and, in any case, he asks me to differentiate his views from theirs, so they seem to not be the means by which he seeks to identify himself. I think you could be onto something in identifying a common "protective streak" in the three of us - Pye, Diebert and myself - although I think that that which we protect differs between us, and, in fact, I think you could add many other people to that list, including Dennis and Kunga. Diebert and myself (but never Pye, God bless her kind soul) have at times attacked others, but generally we do not "wage war" in the way that you do, and, in Diebert's case, the attack is usually personally reactive - as in, responding in kind to a perceived criticism or insult - rather than philosophically proactive - as in, "destroying an enemy position" (although he isn't shy to - politely, as you say - point out the philosophical failings of others). All of that said, this is, I think, your area of interest and expertise more than mine.

Re the fighting between Dennis and Kunga, I don't think it needs much analysis - we're all human, we can all relate to, and we all (Pye excluded??) at different times (myself included, for sure) succumb to, that feeling of wanting to lash out at another person for whatever reason. The only question is whether we feel we can justify it, as, for example, "I was simply being totally honest about the way I felt, I refuse to put any artificial constraints on myself; I was behaving perfectly authentically". Based on some of the things she's written, I suspect that Kunga tends towards this sort of justification. I tend to think instead that it's important to exercise discipline (to express "real" negative feelings as diplomatically and constructively as we can, if we even choose to express them), but I recognise that different people see things differently; perhaps Kunga would see that approach as inauthentic, perhaps even as deceptive.

[guest_of_logic]

Re the fighting between Dennis and Kunga, I don't think it needs much analysis

Although I feel I should add that the way I see the fighting is this:

I understand that Dennis perceives this forum to be a special place of teaching, with QRS and the QRS-aligned as teachers, and that he believes that the forum and its teachers ought to be highly respected in that role. When people like Alex not only fail to respect the forum and its "teachers" in that way, but actually criticise it/them harshly, Dennis reacts from the same "protective streak" which Alex identified in Pye, Diebert and myself. He attacks not only the one(s) he sees as disrespecting a respect-worthy forum/leadership, but any who support that/those one(s). Kunga has offered posts supportive of those who in Dennis's eyes disrespect the forum, or at least posts challenging Dennis's forum-protective attacks against them, and so she has in turn fallen within the sights of his loaded gun.

But I feel that I'm stating the obvious here...

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Wouldn't want to speak with you in person Laird, is that how you express yourself authentically?

What would you say outloud if someone asked you how you feel?

[guest_of_logic]

Wouldn't want to speak with you in person Laird, is that how you express yourself authentically?

What does "that" refer to? The way I wrote in my posts, or my description of exercising restraint in expressing negative emotions?

What would you say outloud if someone asked you how you feel?

I'd be honest, but as non-confrontationally as I could.

[Dennis Mahar]

Laird, you have no idea as usual.

A person is full of aversions and preferences.
Those are 'buttons' or points of 'reactivity'.
To be spiritual is to be free of that machinery.

In a spiritual environment,
buttons are pushed hard 'til they are flat.
When they are flattened,
the person is fit for Inquiry.

Your saccharine, bargaining, water-cooler conversation mode suffocates.

Don't offer uneducated opinions about what you haven't experienced.

[Jamesh]

A person is full of aversions and preferences.
Those are 'buttons' or points of 'reactivity'.
To be spiritual is to be free of that machinery.

Yes, Dennis, but you are still in it only for what you get out of it.

Your self, may be flat and expanded in reach, though perhaps we could say of a more of a two dimensional state :) than the spherical burning suns and bubbling cesspits of those with emotionally inclined ways of interaction with reality.

It is your balance. This viewpoint of yours is your “equals sign”.

The equals sign is that which all logic and its children reasoning and rationality rely upon. It matters little what is on either side of the equation as long as it equals. Either side is always subjective.

To quote from a lowly fantasy novel "The Wheel of Time"

"The Pattern is balance. It is not good or evil, not wisdom nor foolishness.
To the Pattern, these things matter not, yet it will find balance.
The Last Age ended with a Breaking, and so to will the next one begin with peace - even if it must be shoved down your throats like medicine given to a screaming babe"
and
"An argument must have an opposition to prove itself, my son. One who argues truly learns the depth of his commitment through adversity. Did you not not learn the trees grow roots most strongly when the winds blow through them"

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I think the ideas in the above post came about due to this draft post, that I never finished properly, and didn’t post on Unidian’s thread. Might as well post it here.

Unidian said:

There is a human logic and a logic of peace. The human logic is A=A (a thing is a a thing, it is what it is and not something else, dependent origination, cause and effect, consciousness). It is rationally unassailable. The logic of peace is A=B (or A=Z) - a thing is what it is not, and everything else, absolute infinity, unity, non-duality, non-thought, beyond rationality). It is trans-rational and has no resolution in terms of human logic. It is intuited directly as a leap beyond the restrictive limits of "sense and nonsense." It is the other shore. It is the logic of compassion, which upholds the universe.

The skeptics can and will say "this makes no sense" or that it "contradicts itself." They are welcome to do so, for it is beyond their ken.

OK So, I’m a sceptic.

As I don’t understand your full premise at all, then I logically cannot accept it. I’ll just give my views on some of the concepts mentioned.

A thing is what it is not

A thing is identified by being identifiable. It is a duality of what it is and what it is not. It is a set of pluses and minuses.

Although it is true that things are causally dependant origin, that identification is quantum or static while form is transitory and thus has no true underlying existence as the thing it is defined to be, such truths don’t now mean much to me in my present state.

Why? – well simply because that is not how I actually exist. There is nothing to grasp onto, I can’t use the information other than in harassing folk who don’t understand this observation of reality, such as folk who believe in souls. You can’t use it for any determination, as in effect that would nullify the usefulness of causality (but not usefulness of the principle). Sure, conceptually understanding this was of transitory importance when it was more novel, when it had knowledge-entertainment value, and I guess resulted in some change in my egos form, but not now.

[Later edit: I’m underselling it here – it also causes one to at least go further or broader, deeper, with causal assessments of experiences, so even for worldly matters, it is useful in getting closer to the right causes that could be changed to produce better outcomes. Of course one still must draw a line and define X and Y as being the reality that will be assessed by human logic – but it means that you become less attached to pre-existing definitions, and to the emotionalising values associated with those definitions, as stored within memory]

Even using the concepts to reassess what one reality is in the universe is kind of a dead end. “Ohh fuck me, as I don’t self-exist, I’m one with the All, its so peaceful - immediately followed by experiencing duality, duality, duality.

I have not evolved to be here now in my present conscious form, by viewing things as being of an empty nature, so there is no precedent that it is truly beneficial - as value determining evidence there are only words a small number of people say. I’m going to stick with human nature, and never pretend there is a “beyond rationality”. I’ll operate as life form, not as what I arose from.

To be egoless must mean one travels through life rudderless, up Shit Creek without a paddle. It is not as if the “enlightened” live with others in an involved way – no, it seems they narrow their active relationship to others by limiting it to the concentration on the electronic promulgation of what they know. The related alternative is to be a guru – but that is a no, no because the negative consequences apparently causes a regression into desires. Admittedly though this isn’t as autistic as a monk’s life.

All the same surely this has to result in some sort of reduction in the “coherency” of one’s relationship with humanity generally.

absolute infinity

To me, absolute infinity is logical impossibility, as it would provide no freedom for differentiation to arise.

As far as I am concerned the universe exists precisely because absolute infinity is impossible, as that unboundedness allows for “growth”. It allows “manifestation”, by not putting a boundary on the totally.

The only rational way to include the concept of absolute infinity in one’s thought processes, is to view the modus operandi of the universe as being a continuous expansion of itself. So the universe is an active thing, a process. Expansion is the “life” of the Totality.

The universe is not some sort of non-definable, thus magical existence that somehow causes appearances to arise through causality.

Causality is not an explanation for change. It is not some added on infinite process – it is just a logical statement about the dualistic process of the totality’s content.

unity

Yes, as in appearances of the universe arise from and consist of only one thing without segregation.

As Form however is not a “unity”, but an observation of, then the logical manipulation of, by the self, of presently useful attribution-related-unity (order), differentiated from presently non-useful unity/disunity (chaos). So from the viewpoint of the total encompassment, the concept of “unity” as a precise description of the universe, is not correct. It is only taking half a picture of what is real. The totality of Form does not have a lower value than The Totality-Unity as resulting from the “onenesses” of interconnectedness and causally infinite origin. Shape is as important as size.

non-duality, non-thought, beyond rationality

Useless terms.

It is trans-rational and has no resolution in terms of human logic. It is intuited directly as a leap beyond the restrictive limits of "sense and nonsense." It is the other shore. It is the logic of compassion, which upholds the universe.

That just makes it into a feeling, caused for some reason by redefining the self - not just logically when thinking of same - but within memory (to a degree) as some form of infinity, while ignoring the fact that everything you actually think and do will be of a dualistic and human nature.

Now I’m not suggesting that that is not peaceful to one’s mind. I’m sure it is, and from a peaceful mind real compassion can arise. However, the compassion is not coming from that re-jigging of some synapses, from your memory agreeing with your ego that you are enlightened, it is coming from your human logic, albeit possibly greatly enhanced by the self-categorisation of the self as being egoless.

So I don’t get your “which upholds the universe” comment.

Quite frankly, I have no idea what you mean by logic of compassion. If you do not value anything and all things become equal then that means there is nothing upon which compassion can manifest. Or is it the totality that is giving a compassionate kindness to you – in letting you fly of like an untethered balloon.

The process of causality means the universe is the opposite of peace, it is just one big motherfucking state of war. Continuous war is as what continuous expansion - the underlying cause of the universe – must always logically result in.

The evolved purpose of life, which is also to evolve, is to make war with the universe. Rationality is a tool for this purpose.

So you are inventing for your our emotional mind a definition of being as “peace” that is not existent everywhere else. Peace does exist in a transitory nature. Peace (holding an approximate form over time) and change (war) are aspects of Form. For someone who does not disvalue the concept of evolution, and thus sees the importance of life forms making themselves centres of the universe, then the true value of Peace is again only as valued as is War, even though cognitively and emotionally peace may hold a high value in ones thoughts.

Human logic is not a creation of humans, it is just an identification of universal logic as presented to us by form. It is the only way logic can arise in us. A=A is not logic, it is a rational statement. Logic is about the basic observation of causality.
For there to be a +change in a thing, or a set of definition-related things, there must be an equal force exchange, but a different form –change in other things (this process being powered or driven by the expansion of time). So a computer binary digit being on or off is the same as the foundation of logic. A thing is either X is or it is not X, it is true or false, it is positive it is negative. All further logic comes by adding more definitions, such as sets, or boolean logic.

Human logic in the sense of “what is rational” is at core just two-valued logic. The rest of logic is mathematics, built from sets of two-valued logic. Maths could be said to be the form of logic, and ones value systems the personalisation of logic. Even only subjectively true, ego based self-interest rationality is based on sets that can be destructed to many instances of + or – of some type (multiple layers of: good for me-bad for me; taking X action will mean less of Y action/effect; liking green over brown, routing systems of the brain; storage of memory content, timing systems etc).

[Pye]

I meant to spend this morning's tea time discussing some of these problems with metaphysical essentialism, but overnight developments here steer me otherwise . . . .

Laird, on some level, I could appreciate your comments of niceness and god-blessedness toward my demeanor here, but on another, such might diminish the teeth of reason and of spirit that I mean to put forth here. All of us are "protecting" something - that which we most highly value - even those protecting the idea of non-protection and disattachment. I highly value the spirit of reason and the reason of spirit, and so I consider myself a confrontationalist as well as any. It is, and will always be about the way we try to do this.

I've spent the majority of my adult life learning and teaching difficult, unsavoury, challenging 'philosophical' thoughts to move thinking, for like it or not, thinking is movement/dialectic; thought is a verb. Perhaps beneath the 'niceness,' more is afoot; and perhaps the ways in which this works is just as confrontational as any effective dialectic. I run the risk here of an accusation of some 'womanly witchery' by discussing a way to appeal to thinking, but here, too, would be another misunderstanding that that way is louder than the what's being said. And to ignore the possibilities of way is to ignore something that gets played out here over and over again: one can see fundamental and/or nuanced shared ground (the only place dialectic can actually happen) ignored, because the pinch of personalized rhetoric stings harder than what's being said; blood-filled eyes cannot focus very well. It gets in the way.

My demeanor here is just as calculating and deliberate as anyone's in the name of dialectic (thinking). I've chosen it, developed it, after long, long practice in the field of this appeal. And, paradoxically, I utilize this way to better-clear the way to the what.

[Alex Jacob]

A person is full of aversions and preferences. Those are 'buttons' or points of 'reactivity'. To be spiritual is to be free of that machinery.

Sure, and this view is derived from one point of view only: a form of neo-Buddhism. But the view must serve a Whole. Yet there is no Whole left to serve. And while it is indeed true that man when he is reduced, conceptually, to his parts, is seen as a group of machine-like 'entities', each clamoring for some want, it is not in any sense of the word evidence of 'spirituality' to be free of any part of those clamoring desires. Since it is distinctly obvious, or should be, that the one who makes this recommendation, or repeats the recommendation of Doctrine, is gripped at every turn by 'reactivity'. And you will never be free of it, dear Dennis. That is why your doctrines are absurd, distorted and impracticable. To hold to a doctrine, or to envision a doctrine, where there are no 'preferences' or 'aversions' is to hold to an abstract, to an ideal, but just as the biological entity is composed of 'aversions' and 'preferences', so too even the Higher Man has a relationship to both aversions and preferences. It all hinges upon what one is averting and preferring. So, in fact there is a terrible logical fallacy operating right at the very core of your assertion.

When people like Alex not only fail to respect the forum and its "teachers" in that way, but actually criticise it/them harshly, Dennis reacts from the same "protective streak"...

And this is how 'aversions' and 'preferences' arise. Technically, my hitting those reactions point could be seen as a sort of 'healing activity'. Alex as psychic acupuncturist!
_________________________

What I find interesting about your view-structure Laird is the following: You represent and to some extent describe a Medieval God or the memory of it. The basic ordering of your world, the world you 'see', is a reflection of that Medieval world that is our common heritage (that of Europe). Your vision of the Ideal Society underpins your writing, generally, and the forces you describe operating 'as against' both man and society are similar if not the same as those oppositional forces that held Medieval Europe in check: essentially demonic.

But that Medieval structure, the first and only creation of European and Mediterranean culture that envisioned a Whole and created a unified system of philosophy, religion, government and economics, was completely shattered and broken asunder. We now have no common rallying point around which to organize ourselves, and we have fractured into millions of independent 'atoms': discreet individuals, noisy and clamoring, who squiggle about in their reality like amoebas. (Not only are we prey to the 'demons', we also are the demons). We are 'one and all, muddled and divided men', who have lost our unity with a Whole that we conceive and believe in, and we are seen and understood (by mercantile and political forces) as small machines of personal and subjective machination that can be influenced/controlled by the focused will of some controlling and directing party or entity.

In the psychological sense, as with Bernays, it is recognized that 'modern man' in its democratic form is a body of disparate wills that have to be directed by a guiding hand, and this is essentially true! Because we are falling away, a very slow and strange and even agonizing free-fall into independence and autonomy, every man is really and basically out of control: spinning outward, thrust out by forces beyond him. That is pretty much what 'explains' us all: we have been thrust into motion by forces we cannot see and don't recognize. To the degree that it can be said that we have no free will, is exactly the degree that we are herded along, or propelled along, by extraneous force. In the absence, say, of a 'genuine guiding and spiritual authority', and in the absence of a world where there is no guiding God in any tangible metaphysical sense, there is no State nor Corporation that offers a backbone or a base for human life. We are billions of 'independent wills' clamoring for existence, but an existence essentially devoid of purpose.

And so a man can go any way. He can be shot forth in this direction just as easily and readily as in that direction. This is just a basic fact. That is in a very real sense what Modernity means: it means to have fallen away from a Guiding Structure into ... a form of chaotic life. And we have no clear sense where that will lead although, vestigially, we seem to anticipate a 'demonic future'.

So, Bernays, in this sense, could only be interpreted as basically a 'demonic' force. The same techniques were used to sell Nazism as are used to sell toothpaste and cars, but what is interesting is that we have no way to sell a unified vision of a whole reality: a new vista for human life that is essentially religious. And by religious I mean one that unified heart and soul and metaphysic and cosmic vision of the Whole Cosmos in which we live. Our science extends its looking outward, infinitely, but it has no capacity to see, and cannot define Truth, the Truth that in Medieval times was a factual, operating basis of knowledge and rulership.

What intrigues me in all this, this description of mine of a post-classical period essentially, a decadence, is how the doctrines of QRS fit into this process of degeneration, or answer it. It seems that there is a reaction against all human reality and a desire to switch allegiance to that of an eternal something-or-other. David calls it 'God, the God of absolutely everything' and attaches a mystical power to it: that of origination. Out of the Dark Void all forms shoot out into existence. It has a semi-scientific ring to it but is a riff on ancient Buddhistic/Hindu concepts. Yet it represents a desire to re-anchor man to a Solid Substrate, which is to say to stop man's chaotic falling away from Unity, the Unity offered by the Medieval world-view. It is taken as an Absolute just as the Medieval God was an Absolute.

But it functions and operates within fragmented structures. It offers no 'relationality' to society nor to man nor does it act as any sort of 'social glue', no bonding is possible through it: it is still a part of the process of dissolution and cannot function as a force to upbuild. The philosophy at its core condones a breaking apart, a dissolving of any particular crystallization, and so it 'serves' men who are themselves atomizing themselves vis-a-vis the 'factual world.

[Dennis Mahar]

Jamesh,

"The Pattern is balance. It is not good or evil, not wisdom nor foolishness.
To the Pattern, these things matter not, yet it will find balance.
The Last Age ended with a Breaking, and so to will the next one begin with peace - even if it must be shoved down your throats like medicine given to a screaming babe"
and
"An argument must have an opposition to prove itself, my son. One who argues truly learns the depth of his commitment through adversity. Did you not not learn the tree grow roost most strongly when the winds blow through them"

That's pretty right.

One still has aversions and preferences.
They are simply flat, non reactive.
emotionally mature.


Cosciousness identifies, differentiates and reacts.
It doesn't do anything else.

Getting about in the World, one's reactivity is 'pushed' all day.
May as well be serene as a possibility.

[Alex Jacob]

Consciousness identifies, differentiates and reacts. It doesn't do anything else.

How absurdly reductive. You turn consciousness into little more than a machine. But consciousness, the instrument of man and certainly High Man, carries out an almost inconceivable undertaking: it divines the nature of the Whole in which it exists and participates and fathoms relationality to all that is. It also brings forth Art and though this is beyond your ken it is a pretty marvelous achievement for an ascending beast... ;-)

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Well, and I wish not to bicker over it, I wish only to suggest a spirituality in which this thread's subject is relevant: a relational spirituality, one of human in relationship with the divine (for which Wikipedia's "the sacred" stands in). In contrast, materialism is that which either denies the existence of the divine, or denies the significance of the divine and the primacy of relationship with it above relationship with "things of this world"

It's very simple then Laird, especially with John of the Cross as reference. Put all your valuables, trust and effort in one relationship, the fundamental one and all other relationships will be explained to you and given to you. There's no other way around it. As St. John and the Gospels and whatever relevant tradition you want to bring to the table would agree on: there's no way to serve two masters, to start a devotional "sacred" marriage and still sleep and party around just because you "need" various relations to blow off your steam.

If we can admit the existence of that which is opposed to divinity, then we can admit the existence of materialistic forces, which, I have tried to demonstrate in the past, can exist externally to us

But the whole "message", if there is any, is that this stubborn half-hearted image of "us" is actually the only real opposition involved. The utter unavoidable reality of this causes projection of evils everywhere to vanquish, to cast out, to drown out, whatever. The problem is always ourselves: the first step to take, the first rabbit hole.

in Diebert's case, the attack is usually personally reactive - as in, responding in kind to a perceived criticism or insult - rather than philosophically proactive - as in, "destroying an enemy position"

Perhaps in time you might understand how much grace is involved. You don't know yet the violence of your own mind or that of others you have put trust in. Didn't I call you once a puppy killer? Did you really think it was meant as a simple insult at the time? No, I was addressing the hurt and violence, the resulting confusion in your own behavior, all nicely, deeply hidden. At some point all one can do, if anything needs to be done, which is the recurring question, is try to shock with a mirror, to say something outrageous to provoke. The trick wears out quickly though if it does anything at all. In that sense it's all experiment what happens here but never merely "joke", unless literary everything is.

[Alex Jacob]

Thank Heaven for Grace! So that when the knife goes in one doesn't turn & twist it while staring hatefully into the fading eyes of one's victim!

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Laird, if someone asks you a question in person, do you give them a 45 minute answer? No, you reply authentically, cut it down for me, how do you feel??

I will give an example of how I might respond honestly:

I feel good, I'm generally pleased with life and I spend a lot of time "playing", following my whims as a child would, I marvel at life and although sometimes when I am being unappreciative it can feel a little pointless, I am mostly very content and happy for what I have, especially when I look at the sky. I still have to "deal" with some emotionAl people but I do so only with one thing in mind, keeping the interaction calm and the people happy, I would say I am non-confrontational also..
Now answer authentically, that means with a real answer.

[Dan Rowden]

Just out of curiosity, what does it matter how he feels? If how he feels sucks in some way, there's not a thing he can do about it, right?

[Alex Jacob]

I asked Laird once how he was and he held forth for almost three hours. The topics ranged from algorithms to what to do with burnt toast to the Tibetan Book of the Dead to tricks to repair a tire, to stonemasonry, nanotechnology, vegetarian gyoza, cherry tree cultivation, antique mirrors, collectable lunch boxes, the dabbawala traditions of Mysore prior to the British colonization, Anglo-Saxon warfare, Blind Lemon Jefferson, bookbinding, history's famous warblers, reflexive alliteration, cocoa cultivation, and a verbal essay New Zealand hummingbird populations. I fell asleep and when I woke up he was still going!

If I'd have asked you and you spouted out that jolly ramble about 'being happy looking at the sky' and other such crap I'd have shot your miserable ass toot sweet!

[SeekerOfWisdom]

The sky is where I spend a lot of time looking, something wrong with that? I was trying to give Laird an example so he didn't reply about his feelings academically like I expect he would.

[Alex Jacob]

The sky is where I spend a lot of time looking, something wrong with that?

Under normal circumstances, no. But after a few weeks of analysis, and with this recent confession, it seems quite likely you have a case of advanced 'Sky Narcissism'. Untreated it can be fatal. Or at least lead to brain failure. Here's a test. If you answer yes to any one of them, you've got it. Seek help.

• 1) Do you have recurring fantasies of running naked in slo-mo through fields of daisies with Miranda Kerr as she tells you what a great lay you are?
  
  2) Have you recently swapped out a university education for a bizarre hallucination that there is more to be gained through mastering neo-Buddhist jargon while casting aside the training of your mind?
  
  3) Is your idea of 'enlightenment' what a cow enacts every minute of its life?

[Dennis Mahar]

Pye,

I meant to spend this morning's tea time discussing some of these problems with metaphysical essentialism, but overnight developments here steer me otherwise . . . .

Laird, on some level, I could appreciate your comments of niceness and god-blessedness toward my demeanor here, but on another, such might diminish the teeth of reason and of spirit that I mean to put forth here. All of us are "protecting" something - that which we most highly value - even those protecting the idea of non-protection and disattachment. I highly value the spirit of reason and the reason of spirit, and so I consider myself a confrontationalist as well as any. It is, and will always be about the way we try to do this.

I've spent the majority of my adult life learning and teaching difficult, unsavoury, challenging 'philosophical' thoughts to move thinking, for like it or not, thinking is movement/dialectic; thought is a verb. Perhaps beneath the 'niceness,' more is afoot; and perhaps the ways in which this works is just as confrontational as any effective dialectic. I run the risk here of an accusation of some 'womanly witchery' by discussing a way to appeal to thinking, but here, too, would be another misunderstanding that that way is louder than the what's being said. And to ignore the possibilities of way is to ignore something that gets played out here over and over again: one can see fundamental and/or nuanced shared ground (the only place dialectic can actually happen) ignored, because the pinch of personalized rhetoric stings harder than what's being said; blood-filled eyes cannot focus very well. It gets in the way.

My demeanor here is just as calculating and deliberate as anyone's in the name of dialectic (thinking). I've chosen it, developed it, after long, long practice in the field of this appeal. And, paradoxically, I utilize this way to better-clear the way to the what.

...and after years of wrangling with the great thoughts of great thinkers.
and gutsing out a career teaching 'wannabe's' the most difficult of thinking ; with a commitment, a constitutional care and patience, in a University...

you get a patronising pat on the head for being a 'good little girl'..

[Dennis Mahar]

How absurdly reductive. You turn consciousness into little more than a machine. But consciousness, the instrument of man and certainly High Man, carries out an almost inconceivable undertaking: it divines the nature of the Whole in which it exists and participates and fathoms relationality to all that is. It also brings forth Art and though this is beyond your ken it is a pretty marvelous achievement for an ascending beast... ;-)

See what I mean?

reacted.

geddit?

probably not. too dumb.