Arbitrary absolutism: the values of the house philosophy

[AlyOshA]

Alyosha, whom/what are you quoting?

Hi Robert, I'm a little disappointed you did not recognize the "Classic of Purity" considering it is an absolute must in the Taoist cannon for anyone studying that philosophy. It is attributed to Ko Yüan (or Hsüan), a Tâoist of the Wû dynasty (222-277 CE) also referred to as Ge Xuan.

Here he is in the historical context of the Tao Te Ching (according to Wikipedia - hahahaha!): Highlighted in bold:

Among the many transmitted editions of the Tao Te Ching text, the three primary ones are named after early commentaries. The "Yan Zun Version," which is only extant for the Te Ching, derives from a commentary attributed to Han Dynasty scholar Yan Zun (巖尊, fl. 80 BC-10 AD). The "Heshang Gong Version" is named after the legendary Heshang Gong (河上公 "Riverside Sage") who supposedly lived during the reign (202-157 BC) of Emperor Wen of Han. This commentary (tr. Erkes 1950) has a preface written by Ge Xuan (葛玄, 164-244 AD), granduncle of Ge Hong, and scholarship dates this version to around the 3rd century AD.

Here you can read it online (you can play around finding better translations if you like): http://zenhsin.org/taoism/The_Classic_of_Purity.html

Now back to the reality of the discussion. You referred to the empty set? Perfect!

Can you tell me how this:

sup {} = min({-∞, +∞} U R) = -∞

inf {} = max({-∞,+∞} U R) = +∞

( {} is the "empty set" with a size of Zero. U and R are the only equivalents because this font does not allow all mathematical symbols.)

Does this concept not echo Taoist and Buddhist teachings? This is the same thing as saying A=A.

[AlyOshA]

Hahaha! Oh sorry. I just read that you deactivated them. Ignore that last post :)

[guest_of_logic]

Diebert, you're talking around the point I'm making, not addressing it at all. Your last post was almost entirely irrelevant to the point, so I'm going to go back a post, to where you referred to the "whole inclusiveness" of the Totality, as if this somehow avoids the core issue I'm trying to get you to acknowledge, and yet it doesn't at all. Not in the slightest. You wrote that "all different versions and possibilities are necessarily caused". Consider, though, that the versions and possibilities that I'm talking about are of the Totality as a whole, and those cannot be caused. No matter which version or possibility of the Totality is the actual one, regardless that we can refer to it as "the One Reality", this does not explain why that version or possibility has been preferenced into reality over the (infinitely?) many others.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

AlyOsha, thanks for posting that anyway.

I was interested in finding out the translation of the last lines of the complete text. Haven't been able to find much yet, but for example here

• Therefore it is impossible for living beings to attain the true Dao with deluded
  minds. Since they have deluded minds, their spirits are frightened; because
  their spirits are frightened, they are attached to the myriad phenomena.

Other translations say "perverted minds". Perhaps they mean "disturbed" since stillness and constancy are listed as missing: "true constant response to phenomena, true constant attainment and abiding". But one could argue the mind is nothing but its movements.

What would be a "constant response to phenomena"? A corpse has a constant response too from a certain perspective.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

. Consider, though, that the versions and possibilities that I'm talking about are of the Totality as a whole, and those cannot be caused. No matter which version or possibility of the Totality is the actual one...[snap!]

Stop right there! What you are doing is first turning Totality into an object, xerox it and then starting some versioning system, some cataloging system to store all of them, then you come back and say this cannot be the totality because of all the versions and possibilities which first need to be explained.

But it was you who turned it into a thing to reproduce. In your imagination. And there you objectified it, undid the notion, destroyed it and processed it before giving it back to me. Perhaps you do that because that's the way your mind is used to handle what it's being given. But that's exactly what you cannot do with the Totality. That's something to learn though, that it cannot be done and the why.

[guest_of_logic]

Diebert, you're still just talking around the issue that I've raised, still not addressing it at all. Please clarify how exactly your last post is supposed to resolve the issue. All I saw was some object-ions (haha) to the way you believe me to be conceptualising the Totality, but how this addresses some of the very concrete examples I've given you (one of which I've repeated to Dan) is something you've left (perhaps deliberately) very vague and ambiguous.

[David Quinn]

David (on disabling 2 contributor accounts): Yep, good move.

Nope. Arbitrary absolutism.

Whilst you exercise authoritarianism over the genuine, philosophical necessity of skepticism (the harder you’re pressed, the quicker you eliminate), you let linger a half-dozen innocuous posters whose presence and comments do nothing to forward thinking; nothing to threaten your position. Perhaps less than “arbitrary; it’s methodical.

Are you directing this to me? It was Dan who kicked them off. I would have been happy to have let them stay as I was in the middle of conversation with them. But I can understand why he did it, as Nat in particular was doing little more than pouring out abuse in every post.

Were you okay with Nat's behaviour?

Skepticism itself is necessary to forward the next thought; except when you’re done thinking. Apparently, many of you are done. An amazing feat for a living being; an incredible piece of hubris.

This whole thread did more to reveal the dangers and irrationalities of identifying oneself as a “sage” as any I’ve ever seen here. The identity itself provides an abyss of ego, which, apparently, once fallen in, there’s no escaping, whether you are in the possession of truth or not. “I want to be a sage” is taking things from the ass-end and setting up a permanent address in the cul-de-sac of ego. Sageliness doesn’t declare itself; it demonstrates itself, and there has been precious little demonstration of it in your smug and irrational reactivity here; collecting into a little knot of self-congratulatory like-minded [done-]thinkers.

There is little value in un-worthy “enemies” upon which to hone one’s reasoning.

But then, when you’re done; you’re done.

You seem to have really gone downhill from the early days, Pye. Where is that spark you used to have?

I don't agree with the thrust of your analysis here. I think you are misreading the situation due to your own bitterness towards the forum. And it is causing you to be very insulting and rude to a lot of people here.

But I suppose we're all sub-human in your eyes now, so it doesn't really matter .....

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[David Quinn]

Diebert, you're talking around the point I'm making, not addressing it at all. Your last post was almost entirely irrelevant to the point, so I'm going to go back a post, to where you referred to the "whole inclusiveness" of the Totality, as if this somehow avoids the core issue I'm trying to get you to acknowledge, and yet it doesn't at all. Not in the slightest. You wrote that "all different versions and possibilities are necessarily caused". Consider, though, that the versions and possibilities that I'm talking about are of the Totality as a whole, and those cannot be caused. No matter which version or possibility of the Totality is the actual one, regardless that we can refer to it as "the One Reality", this does not explain why that version or possibility has been preferenced into reality over the (infinitely?) many others.

I know the question you are raising seems valid to you, but you really do have to go back and re-examine its basis. The question is invalid because it treats the Totality as "the All" and as "less than the All" at the same time. This incoherency springs into being the moment the question is asked, which is what immediately renders it invalid.

Emotionally, the question seems valid to you, which is why you keep pursuing it. But it should be noted that the emotions don't care whether they spring from an incoherent basis or not. Issues of truth are not their concern.

You need to get it out of your head that Dan, Diebert and I are stubbornly refusing to answer this question of yours out of some sort of fear. This is not what this situation is about. We are pointing to something very important and very real. If you really want to resolve this question, then as I say you're going to have to re-examine its basis and observe carefully what occurs in your mind as you formulate the question.

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[Dennis Mahar]

What happens if the thoughts lead to an understanding of causation, and oneself as made of causes? The dominating, organising power of thoughts can lead to a beneficial end.

Just like how a powerful man can restrain someone in a temporary fit of crazed suicidalism, and the power used in restraining them aims to do no harm.

Thoughts or labels or concepts are dead things.
They refer to an 'experience' but are not anything like the experience.
The word 'water' is completely dead in relation to the experience of water, so dead it is in fact useless really.
In this way thoughts, labels, concepts are junk mail.

Upon waking up in the morning there's an experience of vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste and a mind labelling every sensation that appears....it's doing it automatically.
Pretty soon there's an experiencing of having to sort thru a foreast of concepts, wade thru an ocean of meaning, being lost in a jungle of verbiage..a feeling of hopelessness.
This labelling phenomenon, the subject-predicate logic which we use every day conceals the true meaning of what existence really is...primordial being or buddha nature...the experience of that nature has reified into a relation between a thing and its properties.

What Greensky appeared to be trying to say was that the Western teachers in creating a massive predicate calculus have gone one way..
and that the Easties start in from the point that 'you' are always/already Buddha Nature and they use concepts as if they were thorns that pulled out thorns...to shift the entity from the false sense of I to the natural state.

Prior to wordsmithing there has to be being or awareness. the primordial state. 'the experience'. the words are after and fail miserably.

Labelling doesn't cut it but does have a useful function by pointing to what is ineffable.

[Kelly Jones]

Upon waking up in the morning there's an experience of vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste and a mind labelling every sensation that appears....it's doing it automatically. Pretty soon there's an experiencing of having to sort thru a foreast of concepts, wade thru an ocean of meaning, being lost in a jungle of verbiage..a feeling of hopelessness.

I don't experience that feeling of hopelessness or the feeling of drowning in a claustrophobic jungle.

Probably because I have no faith in the object-subject division. A lot of people say there is an inner world and an outer world, but for me, there is only one seamless reality in which I am fully immersed.

This labelling phenomenon, the subject-predicate logic which we use every day conceals the true meaning of what existence really is...primordial being or buddha nature...the experience of that nature has reified into a relation between a thing and its properties.

If you notice how concepts merge seamlessly into one another, moving naturally along in a thought-process, interacting with each other like pollen flying through the air, splashing and trickling and leaping around, you'd have a direct experience of primordial being.

;-)


A frog leaps into a pond. Splash!


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[Dan Rowden]

Just so everyone knows, I have deactivated both Robert's and Nat's (Unidian) accounts. Their current behaviour and posting amounts to nothing less than trolling and I have no patience for it.

Trolling? I hardly think so. There was some humour at QRStian expense, but in general they were contributing constructively, offering their take on the Eastern philosophies so highly regarded here, and explaining, in some detail, why they disagreed with the take of the house philosophers on those Eastern philosophies. Deactivation seems very extreme, particularly without warning.

I have no interest in your opinion on this. Dave can reverse my decision if he wishes to. Nat stated at his own forum that he's really only posting here to alleviate his boredom. I have no interest in accommodating that sort of impure motive. If you can't tell when people are almost exclusively interested in stirring up drama and make token gestures at serious discussion merely to disguise that agenda, then, well, we see a different world.

[Dennis Mahar]

I

don't experience that feeling of hopelessness or the feeling of drowning in a claustrophobic jungle.

Probably because I have no faith in the object-subject division. A lot of people say there is an inner world and an outer world, but for me, there is only one seamless reality in which I am fully immersed.

That's wonderful. I get it that there's a freedom expressing thru the pattern that appears as 'you'
and I get it that an enquiry was undergone and something was pointed out.
and I get it that that freedom wasn't always the case
and I get it that causation leads 'you' to help 'others' who are indeed experiencing hopelessness and lostness in a forest of concepts.

If you notice how concepts merge seamlessly into one another, moving naturally along in a thought-process, interacting with each other like pollen flying through the air, splashing and trickling and leaping around, you'd have a direct experience of primordial being

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Got it. Lovely expression. thankyou.

[guest_of_logic]

I know the question you are raising seems valid to you, but you really do have to go back and re-examine its basis. The question is invalid because it treats the Totality as "the All" and as "less than the All" at the same time. This incoherency springs into being the moment the question is asked, which is what immediately renders it invalid.

You're playing to a theme here, aren't you, David? In the "Why" thread you accused me of treating subjective consciousness as being two things at once, and here you play the same trick. Justify yourself, punk! As it is, you're just throwing around words. As I said to Diebert, I've phrased my question in very, very concrete terms. This wiffle-waffle that you're responding with frankly doesn't cut it.

Emotionally, the question seems valid to you, which is why you keep pursuing it.

You're not quite a one-trick pony, David, but not far off it either. You have your little arsenal of intended put-downs. In the past few weeks from you I've had "like a woman", "post-modern" and now, "emotional". Of course these are insults only in your own mind, but intentions do count. Emotionally, the question does seem valid to me, but more to the point, intellectually it is valid to me, and you have done NOTHING to challenge that. You are as much of a spin artist as Diebert is.

You need to get it out of your head that Dan, Diebert and I are stubbornly refusing to answer this question of yours out of some sort of fear.

Fear, eh? Is that what it is? Good to know.

I was thinking more along the lines of reluctance: reluctance to recognise the limitations of what you propose as a comprehensive platform but which turns out to not answer all ultimate questions. But if it's fear, then that's very telling. It makes good sense, too. Not knowing everything, not having all of the answers, is, for some people, very frightening: uncertainty horrifies them: adrift in the abyss!

I have no interest in your opinion on this. Dave can reverse my decision if he wishes to. Nat stated at his own forum that he's really only posting here to alleviate his boredom. I have no interest in accommodating that sort of impure motive. If you can't tell when people are almost exclusively interested in stirring up drama and make token gestures at serious discussion merely to disguise that agenda, then, well, we see a different world.

Nat has been contributing here for years and years. He was the second guest on The Reasoning Show. He was engaged in a meaningful debate with David, which David acknowledges. Do you honestly think that a sudden banning ("deactivation"), with neither warning nor recourse, is fair given those circumstances? How many people whom you allow to post here have "impure motives"? I can think of several who have absolutely no regard for the intention of the forum, but who instead use it for personal or social purposes, and who don't even discuss its philosophy. Surely a man whose motives are "impure", but who nevertheless engages constructively with the philosophy, is worth a thousand times more than they? And yet you tolerate their presence, and not his. Why? Because they don't threaten you like Nat does. And, as Pye implies, threats like that must be extinguished when you are done (in your own mind); otherwise when you admit that you are not done, then they are the force which takes you to a higher level. In another thread from several months back, you asserted to me that Nat essentially agrees with your metaphysics. How much more valuable, then, are any disagreements that he might have with you? Is this a forum of constructive exchange of ideas or is it a place for the empowered yet threatened to extinguish meaningful opposition, so as to maintain the delusion that they are privy to Ultimate Truth, whilst those who oppose are "blocked"?

Now, as for Robert, how you derive "trolling" from his posts is completely beyond me. Granted, Nat indulged in some posts consisting entirely of cutting satire, but Robert did nothing of the sort. It seems to be a case of "guilty by association". Those of us who know you know that you have no high regard for Robert, but does this really justify banning without warning, when, like Nat, and as David likewise acknowledges, he was engaged in constructive debate at the time of said banning? Can you even point to a particular post of Robert's that can even vaguely be characterised as "trolling"?

[Dan Rowden]

Nat has been contributing here for years and years. He was the second guest on The Reasoning Show. He was engaged in a meaningful debate with David, which David acknowledges. Do you honestly think that a sudden banning ("deactivation"), with neither warning nor recourse, is fair given those circumstances? How many people whom you allow to post here have "impure motives"? I can think of several who have absolutely no regard for the intention of the forum, but who instead use it for personal or social purposes, and who don't even discuss its philosophy. Surely a man whose motives are "impure", but who nevertheless engages constructively with the philosophy, is worth a thousand times more than they? And yet you tolerate their presence, and not his. Why? Because they don't threaten you like Nat does. And, as Pye implies, threats like that must be extinguished when you are done (in your own mind); otherwise when you admit that you are not done, then they are the force which takes you to a higher level. In another thread from several months back, you asserted to me that Nat essentially agrees with your metaphysics. How much more valuable, then, are any disagreements that he might have with you? Is this a forum of constructive exchange of ideas or is it a place for the empowered yet threatened to extinguish meaningful opposition, so as to maintain the delusion that they are privy to Ultimate Truth, whilst those who oppose are "blocked"?

Now, as for Robert, how you derive "trolling" from his posts is completely beyond me. Granted, Nat indulged in some posts consisting entirely of cutting satire, but Robert did nothing of the sort. It seems to be a case of "guilty by association". Those of us who know you know that you have no high regard for Robert, but does this really justify banning without warning, when, like Nat, and as David likewise acknowledges, he was engaged in constructive debate at the time of said banning? Can you even point to a particular post of Robert's that can even vaguely be characterised as "trolling"?

Meh, I love that you said so much after I said that I don't care about your opinion. My action was based on history and knowledge of motive that I will not discuss with you - or reveal here. I know you don't like my decision. I really don't give a fuck. Seriously. I would ask you to simply trust and/or respect my judgement, but I don't care about that either.

[David Quinn]

I know the question you are raising seems valid to you, but you really do have to go back and re-examine its basis. The question is invalid because it treats the Totality as "the All" and as "less than the All" at the same time. This incoherency springs into being the moment the question is asked, which is what immediately renders it invalid.

You're playing to a theme here, aren't you, David? In the "Why" thread you accused me of treating subjective consciousness as being two things at once, and here you play the same trick.

It's not a trick. You are indeed making the same mistake in both instances.

In the end, this is what all ignorance, confusion and lack of mental clarity boils down to. Double-think. Not recognizing A equals A.

Emotionally, the question seems valid to you, which is why you keep pursuing it.

You're not quite a one-trick pony, David, but not far off it either. You have your little arsenal of intended put-downs.

It's not a put-down. It is the truth as I see it. You have an emotional investment in certain philosophic outcomes and it is causing you to fuzz things up, to mistake different things at once.

In the past few weeks from you I've had "like a woman", "post-modern" and now, "emotional". Of course these are insults only in your own mind, but intentions do count.

Well, now you're whinging like a woman ....

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[Kelly Jones]

Laird,

Oh, forget it. No point trying to communicate with you, since you'll just ignore me. I guess you ignore me because I present an opposing views to yours, no doubt.

Whiff of hypocrisy in the air.


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[Pye]

Pardon no-time to fetch up specific quotes, (I still have a ways to go with 4 summer classes at 2 uni's, days at one, evenings at the other), so let me just address in general: that some are missing the most salient point of my protest - that of philosophical skepticism. It runs the entire spectrum from the impossibility of humans to grasp in concept, logic & words understanding of the Tao - as debated herein - to the so-called "waffling" that Laird and Alex supply in re-treating absolutes as assumptions. It is entirely necessary for keeping any scientist, philosopher or logician - any truth seeker - from building the weight of trajectories upon crumbling foundations. Knowledge doesn't come in lines like this - it's built on watersheds - the necessary watersheds that cause shifts, not towers. Alex, I am not talking about a kumba-ya-like promotion of equivalently 'valid' views - for most of us are all trying to look at the same thing. We must, in this, accept the stone truth that we cannot exceed our own instrumentation when measuring the universe at the same time we must accept this One Thing as the subject of us all. Of course 1+1=2 is indisputable (David) (inasmuch as numerals are the conceptual, incremental invention of humans in their efforts to do this grasping), but such a fundament does little to advance rising consciousness; a schoolchild can grasp the aforementioned process of naming. It only tells them there might be truth; not what that truth is: path; not goal - where a number of people here also mistake "logic" as the thing itself, and in displaying method as goal, actually serve to prove how much unreasonability and monocular vision comes from using the delivery system as the contents of the package. I regret as well (David) that you were still willing to continue the debate, (more important than any I have seen here in awhile) yet you still seemed to congratulate Dan on his deactivation judgment (you can hardly blame my confusion with that). I don't care about Nat's "behaviour" as you say; nor am I concerned with "insulting" remarks from myself or anyone else: delivery packages are not their contents. As for the spark, it is still ever present in the very aforementioned post; you just might not have liked the direction in which it fired. If Dan has unspeakable reasons for doing what he did, then this matches how unspeakably unreasonable such a move struck myself, and perhaps some others. Yet another reason why alacritous debate here often fails to reach its best form due to the alliances and dis-alliances from back-room networking. A disappointment in my mind; but also human (not sub-human :)), but human, all too human . . . . such are the limitations of these instruments embedded within the same thing they are trying to measure/grasp from without (i.e. 'objectively') . . . .

[again, pardon the verbal rushing. I posted yesterday from uni, 10 minutes from the start of a class, and I am in a similar position again today . . .]

[Diebert van Rhijn]

philosophical skepticism. It runs the entire spectrum from the impossibility of humans to grasp in concept, logic & words understanding of the Tao - as debated herein - to the so-called "waffling" that Laird and Alex supply in re-treating absolutes as assumptions.

Skepticism should be always encouraged. But the particular doubting Thomasses you seem to have in mind in your earlier posts were not skeptics, they came with wholesale competing interpretations of this and that, which didn't seem to allow for much discussion or doubt in return. Appeals to authority were subsequently used to cover up the lack of argumentation. That is not real skepticism. I hope you noticed that as well.

Anyway, perhaps you want to rethink "the impossibility of humans to grasp in concept, logic & words understanding of the Tao". The contradiction is glaring to me since you're at least asserting a very definite concept in words regarding the Tao: that it cannot be grasped. This is more than just sophistry: it's a real contradiction which indicates confused thinking on the matter.

It is entirely necessary for keeping any scientist, philosopher or logician - any truth seeker - from building the weight of trajectories upon crumbling foundations.

Well, I agree. Although in my view "building upon crumbling foundations" describes a lot of what I see happening in science, philosophy and certain areas of logic, not to mention many recent ideologies springing up.

Knowledge doesn't come in lines like this - it's built on watersheds - the necessary watersheds that cause shifts, not towers.

There's knowing and there's knowing about knowing. The second type of knowledge is generally assumed or implied but it's used each and every time to start building any [other] knowledge. It's very worthwhile to attract attention to the root and source of it all, just to create a bit more depth. People are forgetful, they prefer living on top, at the surface. This very tendency leads to confusion about ones true condition.

[evinco]

If you can't tell when people are almost exclusively interested in stirring up drama and make token gestures at serious discussion merely to disguise that agenda

I have to take issue with this. Perhaps for those long-established in these parts it seemed pointless, but as a reader not hugely well-versed in these areas I was finding the discourse quite rewarding (beyond the minor amusement/distraction of the conflict). On both sides: I took a lot from Unidian, and Robert, but also from David, Kelly, et al's contributions to the discussion - and, while rather off-track from Laird's intention with this thread, I think it could have proceeded in a healthy direction. If David is still willing to continue with the discussion, I would like to see it.

Jonathan

[Dan Rowden]

I have reasons beyond the dynamics of discussion here for my action. I know it seems odd to people not familiar with certain historical realities, but there it is. David is free to reverse my action if he wishes. There are simply some things I cannot bring myself to facilitate.

[Dennis Mahar]

pye

Knowledge doesn't come in lines like this - it's built on watersheds - the necessary watersheds that cause shifts, not towers

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Good pointing!

But how many get it?

QRS provide a very fine opportunity for realisation to occur here in this very website.

This realisation is an experience of 'astonishment' regarding the true nature of the human condition.

The activity must be an enquiry.

The seeker must be coachable.

[Kelly Jones]

Jonathan,

Since Dan doesn't care to expand on his decision, I am going to. Members unfamiliar with Dan's history with Nat and/or Robert may mistakenly assume Dan is being unreasonably intolerant. This isn't the case. This isn't a new discussion for Dan, Robert, Nat and Dave. It's a new bout, if you like, of exchanges that have run along the same lines since the ezyBoard version of the Genius Forum. I'd say roughly five years' worth, could be more. Particularly in Nat's case, that history extends well beyond the Genius Forum. So far as I know Dan had a soft spot for Nat, as an individualistic, intellectual person who struggles to live with some degree of truthfulness in perhaps the most materialistic, brainwashed, and spiritless nation outside of China (i.e. the US). He has been a supportive, active member of many of Nat's message boards and other projects, and used Skype apparently. Just a few days ago, Dan lightly warned me to cut Nat some slack. And Nat has always taken issue with David and Kevin, not Dan. So Dan is evidently still fostering a connection, and I don't think Dan's decision to deactivate "Unidian" was taken lightly.

If you have something in mind you'd like to discuss, why not pick a concept or topic that interests you?


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[David Quinn]

In my eyes, the conversation between Nat, Robert and myself had more or less run its course. It had reached the point where it had begun to repeat itself. So I don't see a particular need to have them back at this point.

Having said that, I've legged it over to Nat's forum (KIR) to discuss one more thing with him - namely, his understanding of "direct awareness" - but I don't plan to be there for very long. (You can view it here. I make my entry on page 7 of the "Genius Forum Bans ("deactivates") Robert and Nat" thread. )

But I'm happy enough to keep discussing the issue here with you, Jonathon, or with whoever else.

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[Dennis Mahar]

Being Coachable:

Only two things are required - earnestness and openness.

Earnestness is the stubborn pursuit of what is being pointed to - the impulse to get to the bottom of it, to know what the Hell it's all about. But also necessary is openness - if that earnestness is there but there is no openness to the possibility pointed to, there will be a constant banging your head, the mouse will run around and around, it will remain a mental exercise because that's the platform of reality.

Lay aside what you think you know about the world and your "self" - these pre-existing ideas are the very veil which seems to block the clarity. Be open to the possibility that you are not a person at all, you weren't born and are heading towards death, you are not a individual entity born into a world.

In fact the world is born into or within you. Everything you know - the world, the body and the mind or thoughts - these are all experiences TO YOU. They come upon you - they appear TO you. That body is an experience to you, however with the incessant identification you take yourself as bound within that body.

These are all contained within the state we call Consciousness - Consciousness is itself the arising of the world and body-mind experience. What you are is THAT which KNOWS Consciousness, knows the coming and going of the world, body and mind.

The world came to you. The body is a field of experience. Right now, without doing anything different, without having gained anything special or spiritual, what you are is that which knows this field of experience. That field of experience includes everything you take yourself to be - innocently, inadvertently but also falsely.

There is nothing needed to MAKE it so - to GET liberation - you are already FREE. Only see the world as it truly is and not through this imagined platform or filter of reality.

So the spiritual path is a path which takes you home - only you aren't actually going anywhere - going home means realizing you never left.

[Kelly Jones]

I can't view the KIR posts, but I don't care.

Nat has no grounds for complaint over being "unfairly banned", if he is happy to do it to others. He banned me from Realism (my first and only banning) about six months ago, for the false claim that I revealed private information by using his real name.... but he had already disclosed his full name on the internet without my assistance, and didn't complain when David used his full name a few days ago. I don't think that a board administered by someone prone to hair-trigger emotional outbursts is worth checking out.


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