I AM

[Animus]

non-dual consciousness?

[baulz owt]

sorry, we were high. he meant to say" I AM smellin' like a rose my mommy gave me on my birfday deathbed"

[Is.]

Hello, El Dude.

When your ideas about reality - like conceptual and non-conceptual consciousnessess existing - cease, Ultimate Reality will be seen.

Attachment to ideas, any ideas, no matter how spiritual they may seem, will always generate suffering. However, realizing the Witness-position is a good step since it eliminates attachment to the personal self, which generally is the greatest obstacle to Truth.

[Sapius]

.
Yes, you are, El dude… and so AM I .....and you were ...... ? Just curious... for the sake of true perspective.

[Sapius]

Attachment to ideas, any ideas, no matter how spiritual they may seem, will always generate suffering.

What an idea! Is :)

[Sapius]

non-dual consciousness?

Why? What’s wrong with that, Animus?
For all practical purposes I’m a married bachelor myself.

And I think I know the answer to this one too….

El Dude:...we have no idea of what we are losing every moment.

Hmm… moisture?

[Animus]

Well, I'm just wondering who can have non-dual consciousness, because consciousness implies observation which requires at bottom an observer and an observed (duality).

Perhaps the closest thing to it would be NREM sleep or death.

[Animus]

Ok, well. It's not exactly non-dual. It's more like a window 'tween non-duality and duality. It is borne of non-duality but gives life to duality.

[Pye]

El Dude:...we have no idea of what we are losing every moment.

Sapius: Hmm… moisture?

*lol* with the bracing gust of truth
from a truly wise person.

my best regards to you, Sapius. I don't tell you enough, but then, I don't think either of us needs me to :)

[Nad]

When your ideas about reality - like conceptual and non-conceptual consciousnessess existing - cease, Ultimate Reality will be seen.

If you assume that Ultimate Reality can be seen or known, it seems to me that you too are advocating your own epistemological beliefs.

Attachment to ideas, any ideas, no matter how spiritual they may seem, will always generate suffering.

On what basis do you claim that suffering will always result from attachment to ideas? Even if suffering does always result from such an attachment, might it also be true that greater suffering could be generated without an attachment to "spiritual" beliefs?

However, realizing the Witness-position is a good step since it eliminates attachment to the personal self, which generally is the greatest obstacle to Truth.

Witness-position? What's that? I hope you don't mean Jehovah's Witness. /shutter

Why is attachment to the self an obstacle to truth?

Nad

[Animus]

Yea, Jehova's Witness, except not Jehova... err... Reality's Witness, Testimonium Realitatis. In laborantum cordis suo, non es deus.

[Animus]

Why is attachment to the self an obstacle to truth?

I'll say the answer is to be found in the first word: Why.

I'm no linguist, but bear with me, "why" is a question, it seeks a causal dependency. To ask the question "why" is to presuppose a necessary condition. When we ask "Why did A happen?" we are looking for an answer which is causally sufficient. Causality itself is a pretty big topic, so I won't go into details or even the distinction between sufficient and necessary causation or linear vs co-dependent origination. I just want to make the point that the question itself presupposes a causally sufficient antecedent, or a cause for short.

My argument here is that any and all inquiry, in whatever form (who, where, what, why, when, how), and all explanations and percepts are bound by causation. There are many angles to approach this from apart from the one taken here, for further reading check out Causality or Causation: The Fundamental Fact Plainly Explained by Ted Honderich, or the many links on theabsolute.net (Wisdom of the Infinite, Poison for the Heart, etc..) and the doctrine of Pratītyasamutpāda.

Essentially, to inquire about anything is to presuppose causal dependency, and the alternative is ignorance. With this axiomatic supposition on the table, all things being caused, the problem of attachment to self is that the self is constantly changing, caused to in accordance with its antecedents. It is not a static self-sustained thing, its not even really a thing, its a process.

More to the point, self-attachment distorts perception in bizarre ways, it causes us to lie, cheat and so forth. But that's the kind of thing that is difficult to appreciate without having experienced it. Its really only when we deny ourselves that we become aware of our many faults and distortions. The truth about causation elucidates the fact that we are not independent beings, not self-made men, and thinking we are is an endless source of lies.

Let me know if you want more detail, and if you have a preference for a certain vernacular.

[Nad]

the problem of attachment to self is that the self is constantly changing, caused to in accordance with its antecedents. It is not a static self-sustained thing, its not even really a thing, its a process.

On the nature of the self as a continually evolving process, I agree. But that doesn't answer my question. Why is attachment to the self a problem?

More to the point, self-attachment distorts perception in bizarre ways, it causes us to lie, cheat and so forth.

How does self-attachment distort perception? Perhaps the more appropriate question is, what do you mean by self-attachment?

But that's the kind of thing that is difficult to appreciate without having experienced it. Its really only when we deny ourselves that we become aware of our many faults and distortions.

How do you "deny" your self? And how does self-denial cause one to become aware of their faults and distortions?

I tend to think in opposite terms. Denial of the self, the refusal to honestly confront and analyze one's own thoughts, feelings, and motives, the inability to accept oneself as they are, often leads to deception, vulnerability, and inauthenticity, a perfect target for manipulation and control by others. Only when an individual is courageous enough to acknowledge and understand their self can they begin to deconstruct the multifaceted layers of influence that have shaped who they are.

The truth about causation elucidates the fact that we are not independent beings, not self-made men, and thinking we are is an endless source of lies.

What do you mean by "the truth about causation?" What truth? What is truth?

Nad

[Animus]

hey you made the statement of inquiry presupposing a system of causal dependency.

By attachment to self, we mean an attachment to how self is perceived by our selves or by our social environment. Attachment prevents change because it is attachment to a certain quality of self, if we accepted that the self is fluid and constantly changing statements like "I am a genius" makes no sense because it would be a static property.

Its attachment to the changing which brings up suffering from loss of identity.

How it distorts perception is egocentric, its subconscious, not conscious, in most human beings. Unless you make a full-hearted effort to penetrate the layers of subconscious content, you'll probably never attain awareness.

But honestly, I'm not going to be able to give you a full opus on the issue. You accept that self is an illusory process, can you not see that clinging to a snap-shot image is erroneous? Or do you get the story of Nagasema and King Milinda? There is no self that can be ascribed the property of "me". The "me" that is is the fact of awareness, it is the act of being aware that is aware of the self and attaches to it, not the self attaching to the self. So when awareness, which otherwise has availability of many objects of awareness, is disposed to focusing on the self, perception of other objects stands in relation to the self and their nature is distorted by this relation.

[Animus]

The best western philosophical account of this is given by Thomas Metzinger in Being No One. Where he argues that consciousness is instantiated in a first-person perspective by the onset of a Phenomenal Self Model (PSM) which first must meet several functional (causal) constraints. The PSM consists of Phenomenal Intentionality Relations (PMIR) where an object in the environment as represented in consciousness is ascribed a quality of intentionality and consequently has the appearance of "ME" to some greater or lesser extent. For example you probably see your arm and think "this is MY arm" and you look at a car in your drive way and say "this is MY car", the relations are different, but both comprise a PMIR. Both your arm and your car define who you are in some way, according to their Intentionality Relation. There is a broad variety of PMIRs, but the PSM is essentially the aggregation of all these PMIRS.

So, attachment to self is ultimately delusional, because it is not attachment to an ethereal entity, it is attachment to PMIRs or subject-object intentionality relations that wax and wane with the wind.

[Animus]

How do you "deny" your self? And how does self-denial cause one to become aware of their faults and distortions?

Let me try to give an example:

A few months ago I was reading a book; The Narcissism Epidemic ( a really good book ) and I was struck (yet, again) by the magnitude of ecological factors outside of parental control in the development of children. Having previously studied a great deal of developmental psychology and neurobiology the narcissistic encouragement of the society at large seemed insurmountable for any parent desiring to raise their kids otherwise. As I was reading this book a friend arrived, a friend who has a young daughter, and I exclaimed "I can imagine how hard is to raise a child in this society, with TV shows like 'My Sweet 16' encouraging narcissism in our children." my friend then responded "I won't let that happen to my child, my child is not going to be a narcissist."

So, here is an example where an individual feels like their influence over their child will outweigh the rest of the child's ecological system (friends, extended family, immediate community, larger society, culture, etc..). I'd say this individual is probably in for a rude awakening when he realizes that he does not possess direct control over his child, but only influences his child in rather subtle ways. Most attempts to directly control children (as in Baumrind's authoritarian classification) results in maladapted children and a tendency toward narcissism or feelings of inferiority.

Point is that here an individual's sense of self and power exceeds its reasonable scope. This individual may be in for a big surprise when they become disillusioned to this fact. Their attempts to prove otherwise will most likely backfire.

There are plenty of examples like this to be found in everyday life and popular culture. I recently watched a film starring Kevin Spacey titled "Shrink" in which a psychoanalyst's (Kevin Spacey) wife commits suicide and sends him (the Shrink) into depression. He has written a book on the pursuit of happiness and realizes that its all nonsense because he himself is not happy. At one point in the film the Shrink has a hetero-couple in his office and the wife claims "I think he [her husband] is becoming a narcissist.". The husband is laid back on the couch in a very relaxed position, upon hearing this he retorts "I am not a narcissist!!!" then turns to the Shrink and asks "What's a narcissist?"

This is a prime example of narcissism, here the narcissist denies being something that he doesn't even understand. Its a knee-jerk on part of the narcissist to the negative connotations detected in the term "narcissist". It matters not to the narcissist what he actually is, what his behaviour issues in accordance with, what matters to him is having a clean image of himself.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Finally after years of struggle I have found it. There are two consciousnesses
in my body, one is the present moment consciousness that experiences the
present. It is always at comfort and ease.

The other is the dualistic consciousness, thinking and plotting living in past
and future, afraid and petty, it is the mind.

To have barely consciousness could be said to be comfortable and easy as well. Suffering is hardly experienced and most of that will be someone else his problem anyway, as consequences are barely seen. How to distinguish this from what you call "present moment consciousness'?

What you call "dualistic consciousness" doesn't have to be afraid and petty. It doesn't need to be lost in time. Actually the experience that it appears to be so lost and afraid points to a need to grow, perhaps to suffer, to learn more. Instead many seekers retreat away from this path and think they've finally scored happiness and peace, leaving their mind in a mess.

The abstract mind can struggle at times with the body and its pettiness, 'sinfulness' but also the body with its animal-like mind can mirror this and regard the mind as source of pain and fear, demanding liberation from it.

Both views are delusional but spirituality in or outside any religion seems easily locked into one of them.

[Beingof1]

Finally after years of struggle I have found it. There are two consciousnesses
in my body, one is the present moment consciousness that experiences the
present. It is always at comfort and ease.

The other is the dualistic consciousness, thinking and plotting living in past
and future, afraid and petty, it is the mind.

To have barely consciousness could be said to be comfortable and easy as well. Suffering is hardly experienced and most of that will be someone else his problem anyway, as consequences are barely seen. How to distinguish this from what you call "present moment consciousness'?

What you call "dualistic consciousness" doesn't have to be afraid and petty. It doesn't need to be lost in time. Actually the experience that it appears to be so lost and afraid points to a need to grow, perhaps to suffer, to learn more. Instead many seekers retreat away from this path and think they've finally scored happiness and peace, leaving their mind in a mess.

The abstract mind can struggle at times with the body and its pettiness, 'sinfulness' but also the body with its animal-like mind can mirror this and regard the mind as source of pain and fear, demanding liberation from it.

Both views are delusional but spirituality in or outside any religion seems easily locked into one of them.

I suggest this should be read once a day for a month - this was piercing bro.

[Is.]

Why is attachment to the self a problem?

It is only a problem if you view suffering (unsatisfaction, sadness, pain, depression, anxiety, fear, stress, etc) as a problem. If you like most people do find suffering to be a problem, then you'd be interested to find that attachment to self is the cause of that suffering. Because if there is a cause of the arising of suffering, there is naturally also a cause of the end of suffering. So if you find suffering a problem, you can learn about these causes which creates and ends suffering.

First of all, what is self?

Self could be defined as something that exists independent of an imputing consciousness. So for example, if you believe that the table in your kitchen actually exists right now without you being there to see it and think about it, then that table has a self.

So, when there is belief in self, what happens is that there are things over here, and things over there. (Duality). And because of our biological origins, we tend to incessantly label things as either "good" or "bad" or "neutral". (Emotions). So if we have a thing over there, we will label it as perhaps "good", perhaps "bad".

And if that thing is "good", we want more of it. So we seek it. And if that thing is "bad", we want to get rid of it.

Because the nature of Reality - viewed from a dualistic perspective - is constant change, that thing which is "good" and which we seek will eventually go away. So then we will be unsatisfied. The same with the thing which is "bad", even though we've tried to get rid of it, it will always come back. So then we will be unsatisfied.

For example, a good thing is a beautiful woman. So we seek to possess her. But then she perhaps finds another guy, or dies. So we become sad. Or, a bad thing is death of the body. We seek to avoid the death of the body, but eventually the body dies. So we become sad about this.

If attachment to self - self as in separate things existing independently of an imputing consciousness - is no more, then this unsatisfaction or sadness naturally can't arise.

Hope that answers your question.

[Cory Duchesne]

To have barely consciousness could be said to be comfortable and easy as well.

I understand you on that point.

Suffering is hardly experienced and most of that will be someone else his problem anyway, as consequences are barely seen.

Are you referring here to the consequences of denying that which causes suffering?

For instance, consider the burden of seeing the pollution your business causes. Most people don't want the burden of being conscious of negative things, so they ignore them, they bypass discomfort/suffering......at the expense of someone else. But I'm not clear on what you mean by "the consequences of actually suffering, but being barely conscious of it" that's seems too vague to be meaningful.

The abstract mind can struggle at times with the body and its pettiness, 'sinfulness' but also the body with its animal-like mind can mirror this and regard the mind as source of pain and fear, demanding liberation from it.

Both views are delusional

But if you want to be free from the animal urges of the body, what is the alternative way to overcome this if you can't use the abstract mind to fight against the body? With me, if I'm having negative emotions about my life situation, I use my abstract mind to combat this, by thinking rational thoughts.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

But I'm not clear on what you mean by "suffering is hardly experienced and most of that will be someone else his problem anyway, as consequences are barely seen" that's seems too vague to be meaningful.

It was like you said about denial or in many cases even the plain inability to even conceive of it, self-absorbed as attention can become. Lets hope I improved upon my phrasing here!

But if you want to be free from the animal urges of the body, what is the alternative way to overcome this if you can't use the abstract mind to fight against the body? With me, if I'm having negative emotions about my life situation, I use my abstract mind to combat this, by thinking rational thoughts.

In the end there's only one mind and it will develop as a whole: it won't be able to suddenly severe itself from its immediate context without disabling itself in the process. Even the negative emotions do inform you but in a very vague, difficult to interpret manner. Lets call it opining.

Reason not really combats anything: it willfully, forcefully, turns our mind back upon itself - to reflect no matter the pain of the twist. It steers, shapes and forms whatever is there, information, impressions, confused inputs, to forge it into something else entirely. And lets not forget reason is a product of mind, its very fuel lies in its feud. Beware of the preachers of peace if their words sound soothing and calming.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

You are analysing it with so many words and the dualistic mind.

Only too many words for small minds or those where words drop out at the leaky bottom.

What I am talking about has nothing to do with all this analysis, these are the real facts that consciousness is divided in two, and the more you listen to it the more dualistic mind will fool you and fool you again and will never lead to liberation.

Your escape in some monolithic mindset sounds like false comfort. Consciousness is that very division. Deal with it, wisely!

[Cory Duchesne]

But I'm not clear on what you mean by "suffering is hardly experienced and most of that will be someone else his problem anyway, as consequences are barely seen" that's seems too vague to be meaningful.

It was like you said about denial or in many cases even the plain inability to even conceive of it, self-absorbed as attention can become. Lets hope I improved upon my phrasing here!

Ok, that's clear to me now.

But if you want to be free from the animal urges of the body, what is the alternative way to overcome this if you can't use the abstract mind to fight against the body? With me, if I'm having negative emotions about my life situation, I use my abstract mind to combat this, by thinking rational thoughts.

In the end there's only one mind and it will develop as a whole. It won't be able to suddenly severe itself from its immediate context without disabling itself in the process.

There are some instances where a person is suffering, but then he realizes that it makes no sense to suffer over something so small. So you used thought to change the perspective you were looking at yourself in, which diffuses the chaos.

Even the negative emotions do inform you but in a very vague, difficult to interpret manner. Lets call it opining.

Sure, they are certainly like opinions. Irritation says: I dislike this situation (which is part and parcel of liking some other situation). But some have the knowledge to tune down the noise of the emotional brain by changing the perspective. Stepping back, turning the big into small.

Reason not really combats anything: it willfully, forcefully, turns our mind back upon itself - to reflect no matter the pain of the twist.

I can't make heads or tails of this!

Willfully, forcefully doing anything sure as hell sounds like combat to me. One part of the mind is effecting a different part of the mind. I see the mind as different entities in dialogue with each other. Arguments ensue. There is a winner and loser.

[reason] steers, shapes and forms whatever is there, information, impressions, confused inputs, to forge it into something else entirely.

Again, you have the active opponent which destroys, and you have more passive ones which get destroyed.

And lets not forget reason is a product of mind, its very fuel lies in its feud.

Ok, but just as long as you do admit there is a feud happening. With winners and losers. Natural selection occurs in the mind. Lots of destruction, discrimination, etc.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

[

Reason not really combats anything: it willfully, forcefully, turns our mind back upon itself - to reflect no matter the pain of the twist.

Willfully, forcefully doing anything sure as hell sounds like combat to me. One part of the mind is effecting a different part of the mind. I see the mind as different entities in dialogue with each other. Arguments ensue. There is a winner and loser.

Sure, like a man can do battle against a mountain during a climb, the mountain becoming opposition. But what pits this man against nature: his will, his motive, his creation and so on. The idea I tried to convey was to define reason not as a specific part of the mind. It's the act of creating the opposition, knowing full well there will be a syntheses following each conflict. Like logic does not constitutes just good or false, aligning with one of them. It just provides the means to have a momentary distinction.

[Cory Duchesne]

Willfully, forcefully doing anything sure as hell sounds like combat to me. One part of the mind is effecting a different part of the mind. I see the mind as different entities in dialogue with each other. Arguments ensue. There is a winner and loser.

Sure, like a man can do battle against a mountain during a climb, the mountain becoming opposition.

That's not a terrible analogy, but for me, it's more like "the skill of dispelling illusions". Like having a magician (the mountain) put on a show before you, and you have the freedom to look at what he's doing at different angles, to the point where his show loses all power to bewilder and amaze. You have the brain observing at different levels of sophistication, and the lower parts get tricked if the higher parts don't intervene and muscle out the will of the lower parts. I look at the brain as competition. Certain parts competing with other parts for energy.

But what pits this man against nature: his will, his motive, his creation and so on.

I'm not sure I like looking at it this way. I see multiple wills, multiple motives, many creations, they are all competing for energy.

The idea I tried to convey was to define reason not as a specific part of the mind.

I wouldn't either. I would say reason serves many different desires at once.

For instance, ADHD is like a magnification or amplificiation of what we all go through. The mind sifting through different possibilities.....how to prioritize? Should I do this? Should I do that? The mind is flooded with various possibilities, some of these possibilities have a strong emotional pull, perhaps connected to more primitive drives. Other possibilites have hardly any emotional appeal at all. Sometimes the things we crave to do the least, we end up doing, because rationality wins the competition.

It's the act of creating the opposition, knowing full well there will be a syntheses following each conflict.

I definitely agree that things we recognize as primitive and bad, are just creations of the brain, just as much as the things we see as sophisticated and good. The brain generates/creates both the good and bad. The good often involves more imagination, less emotional craving, more foresight, rationality. thought.

But what do you mean by syntheses? Can you give me an example? I'm not really sure what you're referring to.

Like logic does not constitutes just good or false, aligning with one of them. It just provides the means to have a momentary distinction.

I agree logic doesn't have to have values, it can be more stark and naked than that. Simple A=A, and A does not equal B, etc.

But I don't understand why you brought this up. We're just talking about the competition in the brain. Rational values and sophisticated recognition of consequences in competition with primitive desires is basically all I'm talking about.