Despisers of the body

Simon · Post by **Simon** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:06 am

Nietzsche supposedly advocated that one should not fight against the body.

"Your Self wants to perish, and that is why you have become despisers of the body! For no longer are you able to create beyond yourselves.

And therefore you are now angry with life and with the earth. An unconscious envy lies in the sidelong glance of your contempt.

I do not go your way, you despisers of the body! You are not bridges to the Superman!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

Personally, I've indulged in egotism and the aesthetic to an inordinate degree. So much, that I've grown weary of the aesthetic and the self.

It seems my body is telling me to negate sensuality and become more conscious.

And so I've been doing so, negating sensuality, and thinking more coldly and starkly, and by doing so it seems I've come accross increasingly sublime sensations, ones that I'd never had experienced if I were still indulging in gross egotism, sex, psychadelics and food.

So I still think Nietzsche is right - that one should listen to the body, and if you do that, it will lead you to asceticism naturally, rather than unnaturally. If your body doesnt lead you to asceticism and wordly overcoming, then perhaps you werent cut out for that sort of thing.

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:41 am

I think it all depends on the attitude you take towards attachments when you're indulging in them. Awareness erodes the attachment and lack of awareness entrenches you in it.

Simon · Post by **Simon** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:19 am

Matt Gregory wrote:I think it all depends on the attitude you take towards attachments when you're indulging in them. Awareness erodes the attachment and lack of awareness entrenches you in it.

It sounds like you are saying that one can have his cake and eat it too.

Do you mean: it's ok to indulge, as long as you are aware?

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:16 pm

Everything has consequences. But if you're going to indulge in an attachment, it's better to increase awareness by trying to look at it in the light of the Infinite.

Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:26 pm

Matt Gregory wrote:But if you're going to indulge in an attachment, it's better to increase awareness by trying to look at it in the light of the Infinite.

And what will be unavoidable to notice then is that indulging in attachments goes with increasing awareness as water goes with fire.

Simon wrote:So I still think Nietzsche is right - that one should listen to the body, and if you do that, it will lead you to asceticism naturally, rather than unnaturally. If your body doesnt lead you to asceticism and wordly overcoming, then perhaps you werent cut out for that sort of thing.

Nietzsche defined the body as 'the greater mind' and in that sense your thought seems correct. But the same body also attaches itself quite naturally to all sort of things, look for example at newly born babies. So with age comes perhaps a natural tendency to detach and become reborn, if development is not strained somehow. Which most often seems to be the case for some reason.

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:24 pm

Matt: But if you're going to indulge in an attachment, it's better to increase awareness by trying to look at it in the light of the Infinite.

Diebert: And what will be unavoidable to notice then is that indulging in attachments goes with increasing awareness as water goes with fire.

I'd say it's more like darkness and light. Indulging eats at awareness, but awareness will eat at an attachment, too, and make it less appealing. It all depends on the will.

Simon · Post by **Simon** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:21 am

Matt Gregory wrote:Everything has consequences. But if you're going to indulge in an attachment, it's better to increase awareness by trying to look at it in the light of the Infinite.

It seems like you are saying, "If you are going to drill holes in your boat while out at sea, it's better to bail out the water that's leaking in as you continue to drill."

A bit difficult to do both at the same time I would think.

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:36 pm

It doesn't have to occur at the same time. We can reflect on our actions after we've done them. Or before.

Matt Gregory · Post by **Matt Gregory** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 1:36 am

Here's a good talk about it, from Buddhism:

MN 2: Sabbasava Sutta

unwise · Post by **unwise** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:16 pm

As you wise ones must know, a person in authentic total awareness of Reality in the form of Consciousness is in samadhi. I don't know if you have ever seen a person in this state, but they would die if they remained in it. There was a woman guru I used to read about who wrote remarkable things. She was nearly in a non-stop state of samadhi. It got to the point where she had to be fed as she had lost all desire for self-motivated acts of volition.

I am wondering how close you are to this state you seek. As an experiment in control and loss of attachments, I would like all of you to go 6 or 7 days on water alone. You can do it. I take it none of you are overweight. If you are in good health and strong-minded, you could do a sweet fast. I used to do it, so I know you can.

David? How about you? Lets walk the walk. Another way to test you attachments is to go off the dole and sit out with a beggar's basket. Many have done it. It is traditional.

Enzo's Vampire Doom Blog

Cory Duchesne · Post by **Cory Duchesne** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:40 pm

unwise wrote: There was a woman guru I used to read about who wrote remarkable things. She was nearly in a non-stop state of samadhi. It got to the point where she had to be fed as she had lost all desire for self-motivated acts of volition.

Yeah, I read lots of cool stuff too. I'm really excited about this elite yoga

unwise wrote: I am wondering how close you are to this state you seek. As an experiment in control and loss of attachments, I would like all of you to go 6 or 7 days on water alone. You can do it.

Actually, at first I was assuming you meant without sleep. But if you allow for sleeping, then I would think that a week without food and just water might actually be good for your system. But I don't know enough about it.

I do feel confident though that sleep deprivation isnt very wise

Jamesh · Post by **Jamesh** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:55 pm

Yeah, I read lots of cool stuff too. I'm really excited about this elite yoga

Lol...surely he could have made the scam less obvious - haven't they heard of touching up pictures.

Mind you unwise may be partially right about starving - it apparently can have a mind opening affect on the brain, not disimilar to similar effects of certain drugs - but 6 days no, that would be insane.

I've never done it, so I may just be promoting a myth. It may just all be stuff released from stored fat or "plugged/closed off" neurons.

Cory Duchesne · Post by **Cory Duchesne** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:23 pm

Yes, without really reading about it or even planning it, I fasted in my earlier twenties, drinking nothing but water, doing small doses of mushrooms and sleeping very little. Only for about 48 hours. I kind of just naturally fell into it somehow. The fasting definitely made the body and mind more sensitive and even energetic, as I think a great deal of fuel reserves start being released when you deprive yourself for too long. It was a pretty intense time. Lots of wide eyed, naive, verbose, psuedo philosphizing. To add that my states of ecstasy, joyous emotions, and lucid sureal perception suddenly got up and left leaving me in a pit of despair, confusion and self loathing - should go without saying I think.

And to further comment on the fasting thing - there was a guy named Scott Nearing, who was regarded as one of the first amercian counter culture radicals, he was a homesteader, and throughout his life, he would annually fast for a week to clean out his system, drinking nothing but water (but I think he also ate apples during the fast, so its not quite what unwise is pushing for) Anyway, he lived to be 100, and interviews with him indicate a solid mind. He actually starved himself on purpose when he reached 100 because he couldnt take care of himself anymore. A very noble suicide.

But recently there have been some books about his life, and it seems he wasnt very honest about some things - - him and his new agey wife seemed to have had a sort of narcisitic fixation on making their life story a myth rather than the truth.

Cory Duchesne · Post by **Cory Duchesne** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:37 pm

Jamesh wrote:Mind you unwise may be partially right about starving - it apparently can have a mind opening affect on the brain, not disimilar to similar effects of certain drugs - but 6 days no, that would be insane.

Yeah, you are probably right - 6 days fasting is probably potentially damaging to the brain.

But I wouldnt be suprised if unwise has done it, among other things that would mark him as the sort of person I wouldn't want to take advice from.

unwise · Post by **unwise** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:40 pm

You are making this too difficult. You are up in your head. Don't you want to be free of attachments? What greater attachment is there than eating and avoidance of hunger? Therefore, let this be where you hone your nonattachment. Do not let your search of Poptarts and peanutbutter interfere with your clear view of nonillusion. Do the fast. Get off the dole. Don't talk about nonattachment; do it!

Cory Duchesne · Post by **Cory Duchesne** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:42 pm

unwise wrote:You are making this too difficult. You are up in your head. Don't you want to be free of attachments? What greater attachment is there than eating and avoidance of hunger? Therefore, let this be where you hone your nonattachment. Do not let your search of Poptarts and peanutbutter interfere with your clear view of nonillusion. Do the fast. Get off the dole. Don't talk about nonattachment; do it!

LOL

[Bowl of cereal and off to bed]

unwise · Post by **unwise** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 3:45 pm

You are making this all to difficult. It is about hunger. Hunger is attachment. You are all attached to food - and to the body. The tried and proven method of rising about bodily attachments is to fast. You should all give up peanutbutter. Go on a 6 day water fast. No food. Why just give up boners? Go all the way people.

Enzo's Vampire Doom Blog

Jamesh · Post by **Jamesh** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:14 pm

Don't talk about nonattachment; do it!

There is truth in this. I think all my unmanly yap, yap, yapping about my own lack of discipline to change to a more rational style of living, is an around about way of providing relief from actually having to do anything. lol, even this post is :)

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 3:43 am

I see the vampire is back spreading his doom. Unwise, you sound like a fitness trainer the way you are encouraging the forum to stop supplying their bodies with nourishment, the desire for nourishment is not an attachment, unless you are giving the body bad food to feel the pleasurable sensation of the bad food itself.

Drinking water, eating good wholesome meals, with perhaps a few herbs that work as antitoxins will clean the body out. Fasting is not necessary; it is resistance in my opinion.

Cory Duchesne · Post by **Cory Duchesne** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:23 am

unwise wrote:You are making this too difficult. You are up in your head. Don't you want to be free of attachments? What greater attachment is there than eating and avoidance of hunger?

Hmmm....let me think - how about: drinking alcohol, smoking and buying $125 wrist watches?

On the same thread that you challenge us to let go of attatchment, you post a link to your personal blog that seems to celebrate your highly superflous lifestyle.

unwise · Post by **unwise** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:31 am

On the same thread that you challenge us to let go of attachment, you post a link to your personal blog that seems to celebrate your highly superflous lifestyle.

But you misunderstand. It is not ME who speaks of attachment and non-attachment. It is YOU. You people.

So, I'm only asking you to consider the attachment of food. You could all exist quite well (and more healthily) on a very low calorie Spartan diet. So why don't you?

Why do you speak of sex and companionship as attachment, career as attachment, nice things and nice homes as attachment......but you ignore your unnecessary food items as attachment? How logical is this? Also, why are some here attached to the dole? This is fear. Go out and beg as others who seek 'non-attachment' have done.

I do not practice non-attachment because all acts of volition are attachment to the body. It is all nonsense. Once you discover that you are NOT the body, none of this makes any difference whatsoever. This is why I flaunt it.

Enzo's Doom-Joy Blog

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:13 am

Unwise wrote:

But you misunderstand. It is not ME who speaks of attachment and non-attachment. It is YOU. You people.

So, I'm only asking you to consider the attachment of food. You could all exist quite well (and more healthily) on a very low calorie Spartan diet. So why don't you?

Why do you speak of sex and companionship as attachment, career as attachment, nice things and nice homes as attachment......but you ignore your unnecessary food items as attachment? How logical is this? Also, why are some here attached to the dole? This is fear. Go out and beg as others who seek 'non-attachment' have done.

I do not practice non-attachment because all acts of volition are attachment to the body. It is all nonsense. Once you discover that you are NOT the body, none of this makes any difference whatsoever. This is why I flaunt it.

Unwise, you are missing the primary motivation as to why one negates these things in the first place, its not that a big house is an attachment, although I suppose there is a possibly that one could be attached to it. One negates a big home, a career, and nice things because a sensitive person doesnâ€™t want to be a slave to have these things. The avoidance of suffering is the primary motivation.

And one eats a healthy diet with the same motivation, namely the avoidance of suffering.

And being on the dole is much easier than begging, if survival became too much of a struggle for me, I would let myself die, I donâ€™t care. Begging is not worth the effort. The burden of securing basic food, clothes and shelter should be minimized as much of possible.

Question: How do you afford to flaunt material possessions? Did you inherit money? Do you work a job you hate to pay for it? You see I donâ€™t work a job I hate, but I have nothing to flaunt either. However, the freedom associated with this negation of worth it for me.

And if you inherited money, couldnâ€™t you find something much more intelligent to do with your money than flaunting a bunch of tacky possessions?

you're problem is that you are relying on your imagination to tell you what a spiritual man should be or do, when you should be listening to the suffering of the body. And why are you a man of imagination rather than a man of senstitivity? probably because you idolize a bunch of charlatan gurus.

Diebert van Rhijn · Post by **Diebert van Rhijn** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:26 am

unwise wrote:I do not practice non-attachment because all acts of volition are attachment to the body. It is all nonsense. Once you discover that you are NOT the body, none of this makes any difference whatsoever. This is why I flaunt it.

I agree that the body itself comes with certain attachments. Breathing air equals already drinking alcohol - the pure affectation of being. But while we can easily walk a little drunk, when becoming totally pissed it will leave us just stranded in a gutter somewhere, badmouthing the nearest streetlight.

So when you say you have discovered you are not the body why do you attract that much attention online for everything that body and its personality does? How many times we were offered pictures, stories from the past and now a blog? All starring your body or its various extensions.

What is the message here and why does it seem to contradict your claimed de-identification with appearances?

Ryan Rudolph · Post by **Ryan Rudolph** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:38 am

Diebert has made a profound point.

Hereâ€™s the extent of your logic Unwise:

Iâ€™ve have discovered that I am not my body, therefore I can do whatever the hell I want.

Donâ€™t you think that this is flawed logic considering that it is the body that provides one with all the sensory information related to suffering and what not?

I would say that you are the body, you are nothing other than the body. All a logical person can do is listen to what the body says, it is the guide, it leads you like a seeing eye dog leads a blind man.

You are like a blind man without the seeing eye dog.

unwise · Post by **unwise** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:42 am

and one eats a healthy diet with the same motivation, namely the avoidance of suffering.

Avoidance of suffering amounts to the sort of hedonism that was spoken of by the ancient philosophers. Today, hedonism is associated with my lifestyle of pleasure seeking, but actually hedonism is simply the avoidance of suffering.

If a little wine helps your digestion, fine. Sex is surely a cure for strained nerves. You see? It is better to have a house that has a nice roof, etc. Also, relationships here at this forum are routinely attacked as a source of suffering, but surely they do not have to be. You are deluded if you think they are all a source of suffering. Many are a source of avoiding such sufferings as loneliness. It is easier to weather the dicey conditions of life and bad health with a helper close by whom you can trust. Someone who cares about you. This is also avoidance of suffering.

I post, blog, live and brag to demonstrate that normal living is not counter to the spiritual life. I despise all religions, dogmas and disciplines that insist that certain aspects of life are to be completely avoided - such as marriage or sex. It is childish. You will find, if you begin to read anyone other than Quinn, that other gurus completely dropped all disciplines at or around the time they 'woke up.' Not just me. Look at the life of Nisargadatta Maharaj. He smoked cigerettes, told off-colored jokes and was married. Just like me. But he was in fact enlightened. See beyond your cult.