What do you think the ego is?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Cahoot wrote:Before Rolls Royces began to collect around Osho, he was a philosophy professor.
That's a deceptive way of phrasing. You should have written: "before Rolls Royces began to collect around Osho, philosophies and universities were being collected around him". My own take on this is that he managed to drop a false self, a rare achievement in this time but it was also pretty obvious that he was not free of karma as new hungry ghosts started to haunt the empty place. If only he had valued reason more! Like with a thief in the night, all the accomplishments can be robbed if the home owner does not remain alert and on guard And since we cannot trust our own reasoning either (we hide from ourselves at the back of our eyes) -- one has to trust reason itself and follow its path, not dropping from it in the belief one has become superman!
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Cahoot
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Cahoot »

University collecting around someone? Of course. The root of contemplate is temple and the temple is within, not bound to brick and mortar. University is of the mind, and minds collected around Osho.

Around Sri Ramana Maharshi, too. He sat down on Arunachala, minds collected around him, and then actual ashram buildings collected around him.

Attention turned within finds Self. Attention turned outward finds ego and attendants.

*

Re: free of karma

Though “the false self,” disappears, the old karma remains to play out. Since it was born, the old karma must live out its life and die. Since Self is not bound to the limitations of the false self, one of which is form, this old karma drama takes many lifetimes. Buddha is one who is living out the last lifetime of form. Therefore, any human you see is not free of karma, not even Buddha.

Did Osho create new karma? Karma is more like a rushing current of water. No single point of entry into the current defines the creation of the current, which begs the question, what does it mean for one to be free of karma?

Osho may have been an Elf.
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Cahoot: In referencing Jung, Osho said that causality does not explain everything that happens. Existing alongside scientific causality is feminine synchronicity. He said that synchronized lives don’t always make causal sense to the scientific mind, and that his own life was synchronized.

“It is only that the maker, the watchmaker, has synchronized them in such a way that something happens in one and simultaneously something else happens in the other. They are not connected by any cause and effect.”

- Osho, speaking of Jung’s insight
Causality can't explain anything that happens because causality is everything happening now because of everything that happened now ad infinitum. Causality is spiritual, not scientific. Causality is moment-by-moment God-realization, causality is not explanation. Obviously neither Jung or Osho were truly spiritual; their clinging to the idea of male and female characteristics/symbols is evidence of this. Ultimately, causal spirit is genderless.
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Cahoot
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Cahoot »

movingalways wrote:
Cahoot: In referencing Jung, Osho said that causality does not explain everything that happens. Existing alongside scientific causality is feminine synchronicity. He said that synchronized lives don’t always make causal sense to the scientific mind, and that his own life was synchronized.

“It is only that the maker, the watchmaker, has synchronized them in such a way that something happens in one and simultaneously something else happens in the other. They are not connected by any cause and effect.”

- Osho, speaking of Jung’s insight
Causality can't explain anything that happens because causality is everything happening now because of everything that happened now ad infinitum. Causality is spiritual, not scientific. Causality is moment-by-moment God-realization, causality is not explanation. Obviously neither Jung or Osho were truly spiritual; their clinging to the idea of male and female characteristics/symbols is evidence of this. Ultimately, causal spirit is genderless.
Then based on this we can say that causality does not explain how Osho managed to collect a hundred Rolls Royces, and neither does it explain how a hundred Rolls Royces managed to collect around Osho.

Yet this happened, so the scientific conclusion for this phenomena must be ... insufficient data.

Osho was also speaking within the context of his commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Yin/yang, sun/moon, Ida/Pingala, male/female … merely members of the dualistic lexicon required for conceptual verbal communication, no biggie.
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Pam Seeback »

One could say that scientifically speaking there is insufficient data to determine why Osho and Rolls Royce became a causal relationship. What I put to you is, why insert the middle-man of science? It is the spirit of "you" that reasoned the truth of insufficient data, not "science."

Osho spoke of love as if it is objective truth rather than the truth of it being one side of the love/hate coin, which for the one who realizes the truth of emptiness and impermanence, makes love a delusion to be transcended, not an ideal or a truth to be worshiped. Osho offered milk, not meat.
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Cahoot
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

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What I put to you is, why insert the middle-man of science?
Because the principle of science describes the nature of the activity that “you” performs by inferring causal relationships via observation and reasoning (and if possible, conducts experiments to validate the reasoning).
causality can’t explain anything that happens
That would be a weak explanation while under oath, to say the least. To this the judge would likely say, “I require you to explain what happened, and so that we can all understand, explain what happened in terms of causality.”
Osho spoke of love as if it is objective truth rather than the truth of it being one side of the love/hate coin, which for the one who realizes the truth of emptiness and impermanence, makes love a delusion to be transcended, not an ideal or a truth to be worshiped. Osho offered milk, not meat.
An objective truth would be a thing, a thing is classified as a noun. Osho said that love is a verb, not a noun.

The referenced delusion is caused by turning the verb Love into a noun. Once Love is a noun, an objective thing, then it can have aspects such as two sides. Once this nouny Love thing becomes more substantially a thing with two or more sides, once it becomes the truth thing, the ideal thing, the worshipped thing, then haul out the transcendence to move the whole operation back into Verb territory.
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ardy
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by ardy »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote: And since we cannot trust our own reasoning either (we hide from ourselves at the back of our eyes) -- one has to trust reason itself and follow its path, not dropping from it in the belief one has become superman!
Diebert: This is a tricky thing because your acceptance of logical reason over the natural rise of understanding that comes from samadhi can lead you to a well reasoned but flawed solution. i.e. A logical solution to winning the second world war was to send millions to their deaths in the face of cannon and machine guns. Anyone proposing a contrary solution ie General John Monash had to fight to get his ideas accepted and it was only when the public and the media became disillusioned with the war and were desperate to try another way that his ideas were accepted with excellent results and less killed.

Logic and reason seems to float on a cloud of current thinking and is being blown by the winds of time. Prajna on the other hand is wisdom seen through the moment and not developed from the reasoning mind.

If I have your understanding wrong please explain your view of reason?

As I understand it the thinking mind is too easily bound by the ego and sends us in all sorts of strange directions.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

ardy wrote:acceptance of logical reason over the natural rise of understanding that comes from samadhi
This never has been the main topic of my posts or the drive of this forum in my view. Did you read something else than I did or did you draw some conclusion at an early stage which made you read into things? Of course proper reasoning can and must flow from deeper understandings beyond the words and ideas but when it comes to anything in this world any understanding is just as "blown by the winds of time" as the subject matters themselves. Here it's a matter of mastering perspectives because such wind blown view could easily fool someonne into having deprecating views when applied with a certain, stuck attitude and emotion.
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Pam Seeback »

So much spin in that link on love by Osho, I'm dizzy!

Love is as empty and impermanent as was Osho.
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Cahoot
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Cahoot »

movingalways wrote:So much spin in that link on love by Osho, I'm dizzy!

Love is as empty and impermanent as was Osho.
That describes everything.

The dizzy is from an unbalanced wobble, like a top, which spins faster to be still.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Osho was an unbalanced wobble alright. But anyone who is into this "teacher" probably still misunderstands the difference between power and spirituality, like the average religious person never can tell the difference either. Spirituality understands power very well but cannot get caught in any power looping. Because that moment it dies and becomes something else entirely!
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Cahoot
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Cahoot »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Osho was an unbalanced wobble alright. But anyone who is into this "teacher" probably still misunderstands the difference between power and spirituality, like the average religious person never can tell the difference either. Spirituality understands power very well but cannot get caught in any power looping. Because that moment it dies and becomes something else entirely!
Are you saying that Osho’s power came from spirit?

Osho was a collection of perceived and interpreted phenomena that did happen. A relevance of Osho to the topic of ego is his observation that ego is the greatest technician in the world.

This observation explains ego's relevance to survival via tool making.
It explains the why of ego.

The why of Osho could also be relevant to ego, though that relevance hasn’t been explained.

To stay on topic the how, or causality that is identified as Osho, should also be considered in terms of ego.
Did minds and stuff that collected around Osho, and that rarely collect around other people, collect around him because of a strong ego, or because of no ego?
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ardy
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by ardy »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
ardy wrote:acceptance of logical reason over the natural rise of understanding that comes from samadhi
This never has been the main topic of my posts or the drive of this forum in my view. Did you read something else than I did or did you draw some conclusion at an early stage which made you read into things? Of course proper reasoning can and must flow from deeper understandings beyond the words and ideas but when it comes to anything in this world any understanding is just as "blown by the winds of time" as the subject matters themselves. Here it's a matter of mastering perspectives because such wind blown view could easily fool someonne into having deprecating views when applied with a certain, stuck attitude and emotion.
Hi Diebert: I assumed this from several of your posts, both you and Kelly Jones made similar observations that the forum paid a lot of attention to logical thought and reasoning. At one point you noted (quite accurately) that I could not 'reason my way out of a paper bag' and Kelly made similar comments when I was discussing Prajna with her (?). This intellectual reasoning is valuable and the western world would not be what it is without it BUT I have never suspected you or Kelly of any experience of Prajna. I have never seen any mention by you of this phenomena - maybe I missed it...
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Cahoot »

ardy wrote:
Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
ardy wrote:acceptance of logical reason over the natural rise of understanding that comes from samadhi
This never has been the main topic of my posts or the drive of this forum in my view. Did you read something else than I did or did you draw some conclusion at an early stage which made you read into things? Of course proper reasoning can and must flow from deeper understandings beyond the words and ideas but when it comes to anything in this world any understanding is just as "blown by the winds of time" as the subject matters themselves. Here it's a matter of mastering perspectives because such wind blown view could easily fool someonne into having deprecating views when applied with a certain, stuck attitude and emotion.
Hi Diebert: I assumed this from several of your posts, both you and Kelly Jones made similar observations that the forum paid a lot of attention to logical thought and reasoning. At one point you noted (quite accurately) that I could not 'reason my way out of a paper bag' and Kelly made similar comments when I was discussing Prajna with her (?). This intellectual reasoning is valuable and the western world would not be what it is without it BUT I have never suspected you or Kelly of any experience of Prajna. I have never seen any mention by you of this phenomena - maybe I missed it...
I think that saying clearly requires seeing clearly.

I have the impression that a foundational premise of this forum is:
Seeing clearly requires saying clearly.

Of course, seeing and saying clearly have their related topics.

Does seeing clearly require saying clearly?
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ardy
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by ardy »

Cahoot wrote: I think that saying clearly requires seeing clearly.

I have the impression that a foundational premise of this forum is:
Seeing clearly requires saying clearly.

Of course, seeing and saying clearly have their related topics.

Does seeing clearly require saying clearly?
No it doesn't seem to. I know some people who are tongue tied with internal examination and cannot express one thing about anything to do with the great matter. The difficulties of getting them to speak is discussed in the book 'You have to say Something' by Dainin Katagiri.

I think you need to think clearly to hope to speak clearly BUT it depends on what you are talking about.

I worked with many very intelligent people who could express themselves perfectly logically, both in writing and verbally but they had no understanding or interest in the world within. I have listened to monks give speeches that were poorly structured, poorly offered but had some depth to them.

The more I think about your question the more confused I have become - Frankly I just don't know.
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Pam Seeback »

ardy wrote:
Cahoot wrote: I think that saying clearly requires seeing clearly.

I have the impression that a foundational premise of this forum is:
Seeing clearly requires saying clearly.

Of course, seeing and saying clearly have their related topics.

Does seeing clearly require saying clearly?
No it doesn't seem to. I know some people who are tongue tied with internal examination and cannot express one thing about anything to do with the great matter. The difficulties of getting them to speak is discussed in the book 'You have to say Something' by Dainin Katagiri.

I think you need to think clearly to hope to speak clearly BUT it depends on what you are talking about.

I worked with many very intelligent people who could express themselves perfectly logically, both in writing and verbally but they had no understanding or interest in the world within. I have listened to monks give speeches that were poorly structured, poorly offered but had some depth to them.

The more I think about your question the more confused I have become - Frankly I just don't know.
Obviously one cannot say clearly until they see clearly, which is to have right view, which is to realize the truth of the permanent unchanging "divine" law of ever changing impermanence. Keeping your mind on truth, how can confusion arise?

To the one who desires to realize their "reality body" of unconditioned consciousness there is nothing else worth talking about.
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Kunga »

Does this "devine", require the use of logic and thinking, or is it a spontaneous, all-knowing intuitive ?
Maybe it is both ?
Or, maybe it is neither ?
Or, maybe it is both and neither ?

If The Absolute is everything, then how can there be truth in all those lies ?
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by ardy »

Obviously one cannot say clearly until they see clearly, which is to have right view, which is to realize the truth of the permanent unchanging "divine" law of ever changing impermanence. Keeping your mind on truth, how can confusion arise?

To the one who desires to realize their "reality body" of unconditioned consciousness there is nothing else worth talking about.
MA - I have read this (bold) in a few texts and always agreed with it, then my teacher pointed out to me that many of those who realised the way could not shut up. They talked about everything apart from IT, just pointing and hinting. One of the Chinese monks got beaten so badly across the buttocks by the Chinese authorities that he died because he just could not keep it in his head, but had to point out the problems he saw clearly around him. A bit like Jesus I guess. It's tricky I guess for the enlightened, many of them see so clearly that they are bound to end up in trouble. They didn't nail Jesus up for nothing!
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by ardy »

Kunga wrote:Does this "devine", require the use of logic and thinking, or is it a spontaneous, all-knowing intuitive ?
Maybe it is both ?
Or, maybe it is neither ?
Or, maybe it is both and neither ?

If The Absolute is everything, then how can there be truth in all those lies ?
Kunga - I suspect that Prajna helps and particularly if you are smart to begin with. The problem with thinking is best described by the Japanese term 'Nen' which is described here http://members.core.com/~ascensus/docs/nen.html The problems with Nen come when the thoughts are conscious and then we make a decision, review that decision and then modify and so on towards almost madness if the decision is a big enough one. My understanding of it is that the enlightened work from Nen that is not in your awareness yet. How the hell that works I have no idea...
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

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ardy wrote: My understanding of it is that the enlightened work from Nen that is not in your awareness yet. How the hell that works I have no idea...
Well, I get premonitions in my dreams, that come true. Does it have anything to do with being psychic ?

I just found this interesting article on NEN (just before I found it I was wondering about NINJA, and if there was any connection, also I was thinking about how everything is ENERGY...)

http://h-x-h.wikia.com/wiki/Nen


Also,when you experience deep meditation (samadhi), it may activate (kundalini) prajna ???
My intuition seems to be dominating more than ever now. I have to question myself more & more to double check myself, because it's taking over !!!!

Also, I was wondering what you thought of telepathy and it's relation to Prajna.

As much as we love thinking and analyzing, when we relax, and become more spontaneous, that's when prajna enters.
It also helps to have bodhichitta and a certain faith in the tao/universe

Just found this :

http://the-wanderling.com/prajna.html
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

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ardy wrote:
Obviously one cannot say clearly until they see clearly, which is to have right view, which is to realize the truth of the permanent unchanging "divine" law of ever changing impermanence. Keeping your mind on truth, how can confusion arise?

To the one who desires to realize their "reality body" of unconditioned consciousness there is nothing else worth talking about.
MA - I have read this (bold) in a few texts and always agreed with it, then my teacher pointed out to me that many of those who realised the way could not shut up. They talked about everything apart from IT, just pointing and hinting. One of the Chinese monks got beaten so badly across the buttocks by the Chinese authorities that he died because he just could not keep it in his head, but had to point out the problems he saw clearly around him. A bit like Jesus I guess. It's tricky I guess for the enlightened, many of them see so clearly that they are bound to end up in trouble. They didn't nail Jesus up for nothing!
ardy, with wisdom of unconditioned and conditioned causality, in time, comes wisdom of skillful means. Even the most emotionally charged person can, if they are in a moment of calm listening, reason the nature of emotions to be empty and impermanent. They may not be able to hold this reasoning very long, fear of the void of self usually kicks in pretty fast, but a breakthrough is a breakthrough, the mustard seed parable comes to mind. As for the enlightened getting into trouble, better to get into trouble for speaking the truth than speaking a lie, the law of karma don't stop for nobody.

It is my experience that philosophical Buddhism, schools such as Theravada and Mahayana, do the best job of explaining how to realize truth. It is also my experience that the more "spiritual" or "religious" is the path, the more likely it is to muddy the waters.

As a side note which ties in to what Diebert said about Osho above, that is, that he stopped using reasoning after he dropped the concept of self. Had he continued to reason the ignorance of objectifying causality into "God is love", he would not have not needed to feed its hungry ghost. Of course the law of attraction kicked in and those who were as object-hungry as he followed him dancing and singing to the buffet.
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Kunga »

Kunga wrote:wondering what you thought of telepathy
Diebert's eyes are rolling and he just took a few shot's of vodka...
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by ardy »

Kunga and Movingalways: I try to keep my comments to what I have experienced and assume that what I have no experience of does not impact on me until I have some impact with it.

Deibert will be frothing to get at that post BUT if you don't know doesn't mean it ain't so. I read an amazing quote by Herbert Ponting (the photographer on Scotts fatal trip to the South Pole) in his book about Japan where he describes in detail a sticks reading from the I Ching that described in detail what would happen to a traveller. Another example is the description by Black Elk about the medicine man's speaking in tongues in the lodge and how a few white men saw this and could not believe it was true.

I stick to what I can experience, see and touch. My imagination is not reality.

I wonder, in our hubris, whether we have all the answers yet. Still a long way to go but not in the next few hundred years as we slip back into a period of little change, according to that great man - ME!

Note: 'All the great men are dead - and I'm not feeling too well myself'
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ardy
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by ardy »

Kunga wrote:
ardy wrote: My understanding of it is that the enlightened work from Nen that is not in your awareness yet. How the hell that works I have no idea...
Well, I get premonitions in my dreams, that come true. Does it have anything to do with being psychic ?

I just found this interesting article on NEN (just before I found it I was wondering about NINJA, and if there was any connection, also I was thinking about how everything is ENERGY...)

http://h-x-h.wikia.com/wiki/Nen


Also,when you experience deep meditation (samadhi), it may activate (kundalini) prajna ???
My intuition seems to be dominating more than ever now. I have to question myself more & more to double check myself, because it's taking over !!!!

Also, I was wondering what you thought of telepathy and it's relation to Prajna.

As much as we love thinking and analyzing, when we relax, and become more spontaneous, that's when prajna enters.
It also helps to have bodhichitta and a certain faith in the tao/universe

Just found this :

http://the-wanderling.com/prajna.html
Kunga: If you are falling deeper into intuition is it you doing it or something else?

Samadhi may well activate kundalini but I personally have never experienced it, wish I had. Prajna seems not to be similar to Kundalini from my reading of it. Chitta at a couple of deeper levels is something that comes fairly early on in the meditation work and prajna seems to follow it but I ain't sure could have just been me.

I think that there are 2 levels to intuition (could be more), the normal female one which seems based on emotion and a faith in fatalism and the one that I have read about, which is post-enlightenment and seems based on a deeper understanding of reality.

My partner uses her intuition to question everything I do, which as a male can be pretty annoying, it is fairly wide-spread amongst females according to my male friends and anecdotal evidence. When I am planning to do something to do with machinery or building, that she has no knowledge or experience of, suggestions about how I should approach the work leaves me shaking my head. She also re-inforces when her intuition is right and ignores the times she is wrong. I don't keep a count, maybe I should I might learn something!
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Re: What do you think the ego is?

Post by Pam Seeback »

ardy wrote:Kunga and Movingalways: I try to keep my comments to what I have experienced and assume that what I have no experience of does not impact on me until I have some impact with it.

Deibert will be frothing to get at that post BUT if you don't know doesn't mean it ain't so. I read an amazing quote by Herbert Ponting (the photographer on Scotts fatal trip to the South Pole) in his book about Japan where he describes in detail a sticks reading from the I Ching that described in detail what would happen to a traveller. Another example is the description by Black Elk about the medicine man's speaking in tongues in the lodge and how a few white men saw this and could not believe it was true.

I stick to what I can experience, see and touch. My imagination is not reality.

I wonder, in our hubris, whether we have all the answers yet. Still along way to go but not in the next few hundred years as we slip back into a period of little change, according to that great man - ME!

Note: 'All the great men are dead - and I'm not feeling too well myself'
ardy, you speak of experience, but only through reasoning do things become real to us. Note that both reasoning and reality begin with the same prefix, as does realization, ergo we realize (experience) our reality by reasoning our reality.

For the record, I did not always understand the key role of reasoning in relation to wisdom (prajna) of the nature of reality. And by reasoning I am not referring to the type of thinking you mentioned in a previous post where one continues to modify/doubt their thinking until they go mad, rather I am referring to what I am doing right now, which is to type without being conscious of what I am typing. In other words, I am making conscious my reasoning of ME but I am not conscious of what reasonings of ME are going to come next. Even if I proof read this post and change something, the same process applies. In other words, intuition and reasoning are not mutually exclusive (as I once believed).
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