Christians and me, Part II:

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

This is exactly the sort of thing you won't see any of us write! You are clinging to this story, and it's just a story. You don't seem to have 'grokked' that. The personal story, the drama, the victim, the history. The story of the history of "Self" is the one thing here that we eschew. At least you won't hear me talking about my nationality or what my parents were like, and you definitely won't hear me speaking about the 'position of tension and conflict' it puts me in. Again, see below.

If it is the 'one' thing that you eschew then that is the thing which I choose to focus on. I have established something like a formula and a way to proceed relationally to the methodology that you 'cling to'.

But allow me to say a few things as I think that this might help you to understand my orientation better: One thing is that very little of what you talk about - with heroic intensity - is incomprehensible to me. But I do not only mean intellectually or conceptually. I mean it in the sense that you describe 'epiphany': realisations and understandings that occur in one. But, I seem to have required going in a different direction, and it is possible that my position is a further evolution of your own, though I doubt that you will agree since that fact is rendered *impossible* by your own assertions and self-declarations.

I am not sure how to proceed in summarizing your position. One is required to reduce it, or encapsulate it, and to express it in a few simple predicates. The gist of it is that 'the world' is not real; the world is a projection of the mind and of consciousness; this projection is unreal in itself and can be halted (or perhaps modified); and that you do this and that, too, this is 'enlightenment' or the steps/steps that result in 'enlightenment'. When one has done this (or basically stopped doing the 'projecting' or, to use Patanjali's terms, when 'the modificatins of the mind have been stilled') one discovers the nondual 'truth' of all things.

In its essence, and there are numerous variations of method and praxis that the basic definition allows or, to put it more accurate, produces. So, with that said, I will say that 'all of this' is idea-material that is not unfamiliar to me and, in some degree at least, I have *experienced*. But I would rather say that the experience of the ideas, and the possibilitiy, and the *epiphany* to use your term (which means, to me, an experience that comes to one without one having sought it; ie independent of one's will), have certainly had their effects in me. And, in actual point of fact, my thrust is as a result of where my internal investigations have led me. But where I differ from 'you' (speaking to the declared neo-Buddhist tribe) is a pretty radical difference. Just above I posted some selections which, to all appearances, would seem to turn 180 degrees against the praxis that you recommend.

So, instead of defining and giving oneself exclusively to a transcendental praxis (your position is transcendental in the generally-understood philosophic snese), I would not negate the transcendental pole, not in any sense, but I would and I do recommend understanding 'self' and 'person' very differently, and acting in accord with a different understanding. This 'transcendentalism' is not foreign to Indo-European philosophy or praxis, yet transcendental ideas or the idealistic position (relationship to Idea essentially), seems to function very differently. As I have said many times, and I say it because it appears true to me, your praxis is one that destroys your relationship to your matrix. It does not link with your matrix. It operates like a foreign intrustion.

Your ideas and the praxis resulting from the experience has no definable relationship with those 'things' that are the products of culture, civilisation, governance, law, metaphysics, ethics - none of this. Your ideas lead to cessation of relationship; avoidance; withdrawl; and defining a platform - as you do, and with tremendous energy and desire - to which you can bring other people. Remember that this was the original platform of our Beloved Founders: They established themselves as reformers, as challengers, as Zen gadflies, as revolutionaries, taking a position against 'flowey feminine culture', torpid unawareness of self, the insanity of the non-thinking position, 'irrationalism', etc. Like you they propose (each in a different way I suppose) an awakening in Self or to Self.

It is not (not exactly) that I find this 'wrong'. But I believe that what I see and understand about it is something that they (and by extension you) cannot see: a destructive, acidic aspect of it. I have written about this very extensively and won't repeat it here. In my view, a man's spirituality and life must be relational to his matrix. One's spirituality must flow organically if you wish from his matrix, from his traditions, and by that I mean what has made him him. To critique Buddhism of the religious and metaphysical idea-forms of the Indian subcontinent is beyond the scope of my posts, yet I'd suggest that this needs to be done. I might say though that the 'Aryan spirit' of the Indo-Aryan races and cultures was dulled by contact with the tropical regions and the indigenous culture of that region. It is not 'ours'. But - and this must be noted and stressed - you will regard this statement, as it has to do with the 'story' of one's actual biological and psychic realness, which you consider a fantasy, a 'delusion', as fundamentally false. Not partly false and needing modification but metaphysically false. Absolutely false.

And my discourse arises to challenge your assertions which I see as expressions of metaphysic and discrimination. I mean a discrimination that requires modification, that is limited, and that in itself disassociates one from one's real life: biological and psychic.

Thus, I reject your definition of 'enlightenment' and must attempt another: sophersune. Witht he word and the ideas behind the word I choose to link not with the Indian subcontinent and a nihilistic relationship to existence, but with the Greek and Pagan European relationship to life and experience. The difference, I suggest, is crucial. With this, I can include everything that arises in 'our traditions', and in our matrix, our bodies, our cultures, our sciences: everything.

You simply disappear like the Cheshire Cat.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

This fascinating post is, ultimatley and quite really, where the basic Diebertian Manoeuvre leads: an incomprehensible morass! Drunken, postmodernist trash. Beward children!

One is better off fucking a dumb cunt than attempting to dialogue with it ...

[SeekerOfWisdom]

This fascinating post is, ultimatley and quite really, where the basic Diebertian Manoeuvre leads:

I agree that this sort of writing is much too presumptuous and unclear.

The gist of it is that 'the world' is not real; the world is a projection of the mind and of consciousness; this projection is unreal in itself and can be halted (or perhaps modified); and that you do this and that, too, this is 'enlightenment' or the steps/steps that result in 'enlightenment'. When one has done this, one discovers the nondual 'truth' of all things.

No, the world is very real. The world isn't a projection of the mind and of consciousness, the "mind" or "consciousness" are words used to refer to thoughts, sensations, feelings, and so on. This is 'where' what we refer to as "the world" arises, 'where' this very conversation takes place. I have no intention of "halting" anything, I love living in the world, and I don't believe anything about the world changes with enlightenment, it's as real as it's ever been. It's the delusion of what is not the world, what is not reality, which I refute. (Which you so ignorantly and repeatedly act like is the default position, when it is really just speculation and a popular metaphysical belief). Don't you get it? Consciousness is undeniable and it is the reality you know, it is the "default position" in terms of the nature of reality, the belief in that which is "mind-independent" is just an idea which has been clung to for so long that you think it's the default position and act as if I'm putting forth a metaphysical claim, rather than simply refuting your imaginary external 'mind-independent' realm. Once you recognize this, it's no longer even necessary to use the word "mind", but just reality.

All this has very little to do with the workings of the world, I also promote life and experience. In no way do I deny the reality of the human condition, just your self-victimization and delusion. I probably do a better job of living it than you, to be perfectly honest. (I suggest you get a girlfriend without a kid!) Conventional/worldly wisdom is actually something I focus on much more than this simplistic absolute truth, it's just those like you who are so confused and can't figure it out that force me to speak about it so often. I'd rather be talking about our personal lives and selves and benefiting from such.

that in itself disassociates one from one's real life: biological and psychic.

I don't disassociate from my real life, I just don't whine about my parents or race and think it in any way forces "tension and conflict" upon me. Instead I'd suggest a path of greater rejuvenation and life than you might have ever come across.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

No, the world is very real. The world isn't a projection of the mind and of consciousness, the "mind" or "consciousness" are words used to refer to thoughts, sensations, feelings, and so on. This is 'where' what we refer to as "the world" arises, 'where' this very conversation takes place. I have no intention of "halting" anything, I love living in the world, and I don't believe anything about the world changes with enlightenment, it's as real as it's ever been. It's the delusion of what is not the world, what is not reality, which I refute. (Which you so ignorantly and repeatedly act like is the default position, when it is really just speculation and a popular metaphysical belief). Don't you get it? Consciousness is undeniable and it is the reality you know, it is the "default position" in terms of the nature of reality, the belief in that which is "mind-independent" is just an idea which has been clung to for so long that you think it's the default position and act as if I'm putting forth a metaphysical claim, rather than simply refuting your imaginary external 'mind-independent' realm. Once you recognize this, it's no longer even necessary to use the word "mind", but just reality.

Well, within the philosophical and metaphysical school(s) out of which Buddhism arose there are various views about the mind's relationship to reality. In my own way of seeing - which is 100% mystical, indefensible by any rational measure, and essentially non-conversable, I understand that we 'descend' into this realm through an incomprehensible and a deeply mysterious incarnation (coming into a material plane, the psycho-biological plane). While it is true that the world appears real, and is effectively real, it is also true that it is not 'ultimately real'. It is a fraction or a part of a reality that is beyond description, beyond comprehension. I have *seen* this and *lived* this and I have also come to understand that - it certainly appears to be so - this is my 'reality' to live in. But I want to answer another quesion you seem to have asked of me. I understand life/consciousness/awareness as being 'eternal'. I'd use the Sanskrit word 'Sat' (as in Sat Chit Ananda) to describe what it is I mean or understand. Like you, or apparently like you, I tend to locate a 'more real real' at the core of consciousness. This, in my understanding, is undying: athanatos.

But what I do with this basic idea or sense seems to be very different from what you do. I try to be as clear as I can in clarifying or presenting my own understanding while also aware that in such a forum environment one uses a shotgun approach to labeling others. For this reason I question and interrogate your practical choices. And as I say your mysticism seems to negate the cultural and civilizational structures which, in my view, arise out of our spiritual relationship, out of our relationship to Idea, to higher metaphysical concepts, and which is - in the best of worlds - what religion and religiosity are about.

So, continuing to zero-in on your predicates: the world in which we find ourselves is real and substantial in its way. And I will assume that we 'must' resolve to be here? But now I understand that all you seem to be speaking about it one's mental relationship to 'this world'. I will assume that you understand that any description of the world cannot be considered 'real' but only a fanciful product of consciousness. You then go forward to organize your relationship to and through your own consciousness using Buddhist metaphysical (perhaps that is not the right word) concepts to modify your thinking in relation to the world. What else could you do? Again, I do not fail to grasp what is being spoken of, and I can also see that the Buddhist path is one established as a remediation of victimization by circumstances, and I do not and never have had a problem with the general idea.

But I do very much differ with you about the 'realness' and the 'unrealness' of mental creations. Thus: sophersune. A balanced relationship. Concepts and 'metaphysical dreams' (the description of how one thinks the world is organised and what purposes it has or offers and what purposes we can have in it), are no unreal nor meaningless, nor are they to be transcended: they are to be lived and applied.

The minute you start to talk about a 'default position' - I suggest this though I know that you will not accept it - you are also speaking of a metaphysical dream. That is how our metaphysical dreams occur: as attempts to describe reality to our own selves. It is the best attempt to describe things 'as they really are'. Yours is, in its essence, a mystical description (as of course is mine) which is then bolstered and supported - in your case - by recurring to Buddhist texts and such. Now, what I did in relation to my 'epiphanies' and to my 'intuitions' is my personal tale of relationship to spiritual matters, or conceptual orders. It IS my basic concern, naturally, but it is not sharable material.

What I do find amusing - no offence - is how you really believe that you have located 'reality, or that you are in it, and that other people are not. You are the one Truth Seeker on the planet right now whose consciousness has been lit up in a truthful way and, like the Buddha I reckon, you must soon begin your Bodhisattva mission! I say that 'We can get closer and closer to a description of reality' but that we cannot really arrive at one. What we can arrive at though are ethical positions, positions that refelct and enunciate relationship. Simply put, it would appear that I desire a wider and more inclusive relationship than you do. And also that I choose activism or a different field of activity within which to express knowledge and knowing.

All this has very little to do with the workings of the world, I also promote life and experience. In no way do I deny the reality of the human condition, just your self-victimization and delusion. I probably do a better job of living it than you, to be perfectly honest. (I suggest you get a girlfriend without a kid!) Conventional/worldly wisdom is actually something I focus on much more than this simplistic absolute truth, it's just those like you who are so confused and can't figure it out that force me to speak about it so often. I'd rather be talking about our personal lives and selves and benefiting from such.

It has everything to do with the 'wokings of the world', and if it does not I suggest you might need to carry your experience to a further level. The 'workings of the world' are outcomes of relationships to Idea and to Metaphysical perceptions. We are duty-bound to concretize our undersdtandings, in one way or another, in this plane of manifestation (excuse to gooey Newagism).

If you do not 'deny the reality of the human condition' than you instantaneously have a means to understand a huge part of what concerns me, except that I am concerned more specifically about our matrix, our reality, our background, our ideas, our world and our mental and spiritual creation of it. As well as its 'products': language, literature, perception and understanding of meaning, religious observation, metaphysical description, and the diversity of experience, not a singlness as (I gather) interests you.

(I seem to remember, in the dark recesses of memory, or was it another life? having and knowing single women without kids. I made a choice to get involved with a woman WITH a child, and one who was by nature or cultural background a rather conservative woman, as a result of the evolution of my 'transcendental experiences'. Some part of this choice came about as a result of podering the strange, detached, solitary, anti-woman (and I suspect homosexual) position of many of the men who write here. I chose to make my commitment real, and I chose to involve myself in the world (in this sense). It is a choice that I made within the context of my understanding of 'my incarnation'. In this sense - and as a man - I 'serve' woman (woman and child) but I do this in a situation in which the woman follows my lead. What I mean is, by luck or by choice, I am in a situation where I get to apply my masculine will. And I have come to understand that this is what is needed. Men have to modify themselves to be capable and competent to lead. I know that such personal stories are anathema on a forum as this, and such material can be used in 'fearful attacks', but I think I do it to irk y'all).

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

In most cases people attempt to use evidence to go beyond the boundary of what it actually reveals; to make assumed conclusions based on nothing more than inference. Faulty reasoning based on fundamentally flawed metaphysical foundations. There is in fact zero evidence that bodily death is the end of our consciousness, just as there is zero evidence that the body is the metaphysical seat of consciousness. The evidence only reveals their close current relationship, it certainly doesn't show any "end" to consciousness itself.

This is such a strange statement. In our world, right now, based as it is an empirical pronouncements and concrete, physical evidence, it must be concluded within that episteme that the body is the seat of consciousness and that 'metaphysics' in the sense you mean it, is absurd. Metaphysics has no bearing on empiricism. In empiricism metaphysics does not exist!

You are operating within another episteme, and yours is fully mystical.

I have not made a study of it, but 'brain science' and the biological sciences point directly to the physical, biological structures as the seat of and the producer of 'consciousness'.

You will misinterpret this to mean that I am defending that view (when as I say my view is thoroughly mystical and indescribable as such). I know that some scientific/materialistic philosophers are attempting to recover metaphysics out of present empiricism but, still, it seems to me (from a limited background) that it can be suggested but not pulled off (except in the idea-realm).

[SeekerOfWisdom]

In my own way of seeing - which is 100% mystical, indefensible by any rational measure, and essentially non-conversable, I understand that we 'descend' into this realm through an incomprehensible and a deeply mysterious incarnation (coming into a material plane, the psycho-biological plane). While it is true that the world appears real, and is effectively real, it is also true that it is not 'ultimately real'. It is a fraction or a part of a reality that is beyond description, beyond comprehension. I have *seen* this and *lived* this and I have also come to understand that - it certainly appears to be so - this is my 'reality' to live in. But I want to answer another quesion you seem to have asked of me. I understand life/consciousness/awareness as being 'eternal'.

That was unexpected. So you have some insight, but you're still clinging much too strongly to the metaphysical dreams. You didn't descend into the 'material plane', and there wasn't really any 'incarnation'. At least your understanding includes the truth that life/consciousness/awareness is without the "end".

And as I say your mysticism seems to negate the cultural and civilizational structures which, in my view, arise out of our spiritual relationship, out of our relationship to Idea, to higher metaphysical concepts, and which is - in the best of worlds - what religion and religiosity are about.

If you want to entertain yourself with that Jazz, feel free, just know it's only for your entertainment.

But I do very much differ with you about the 'realness' and the 'unrealness' of mental creations. Thus: sophersune. A balanced relationship. Concepts and 'metaphysical dreams' (the description of how one thinks the world is organised and what purposes it has or offers and what purposes we can have in it), are no unreal nor meaningless, nor are they to be transcended: they are to be lived and applied.

I only spoke of the error of taking one of these metaphysical dreams and calling it an absolute truth. I agree that many of them are essentially to be lived and applied, one should simply avoid deluding oneself, which is what occurs with belief and clinging when one fails to remain in recognition of their nature.

e minute you start to talk about a 'default position' - I suggest this though I know that you will not accept it - you are also speaking of a metaphysical dream. That is how our metaphysical dreams occur: as attempts to describe reality to our own selves. It is the best attempt to describe things 'as they really are'. Yours is, in its essence, a mystical description (as of course is mine) which is then bolstered and supported - in your case - by recurring to Buddhist texts and such.

When I use the words 'default position' I'm referring to the absolute and undeniable truth of "consciousness". The truth that there is thought/sensation/feeling and that these are transient is not up for debate and it is not dependent upon any metaphysical dream, though it is communicated through them I suppose. Perhaps if you cared more to distinguish between what is absolute/undeniable, and what is simply a personal dream, you'd have a clearer insight and would completely eschew ideas such as "descending".

Now, what I did in relation to my 'epiphanies' and to my 'intuitions' is my personal tale of relationship to spiritual matters, or conceptual orders. It IS my basic concern, naturally, but it is not sharable material.

Sounds like an excuse to believe in rubbish. Which is what almost all people who have 'epiphanies' or intuitive 'spiritual' experiences do! They cling too much to the experience, the feeling, the emotion, the wonder, the idea, and end up believing that some higher absolute state or god or goal has been revealed to them. We both agree that people have metaphysical dreams, and we both agree that they should be lived and applied in the world, but I don't agree that there is no absolute truth and I don't agree that metaphysical dreams are even relevant on an absolute 'level', except as a contrast of delusion perhaps.

What I do find amusing - no offence - is how you really believe that you have located 'reality, or that you are in it, and that other people are not. You are the one Truth Seeker on the planet right now whose consciousness has been lit up in a truthful way and, like the Buddha I reckon, you must soon begin your Bodhisattva mission! I say that 'We can get closer and closer to a description of reality' but that we cannot really arrive at one.

What does the exactness of descriptions matter? Communication doesn't require exact descriptions, which cannot exist when speaking of these topics. But the very little absolute that can be communicated is extremely relevant to the rest of the 'metaphysical dreams'. I'm sure many people have had similar experiences, but what I'm also sure of is that nearly all of them - as you have done - take that experience and cling to it to determine some nonsense about incarnation in to the material plane, or Pam's expectation of a 'being finished with consciousness of form'. These simply don't exist in reality, except as dreams. When one has ceased clinging to such beliefs, then one is truly free to "live and apply", to realize one's full potential for freedom and happiness, guided by worldly/conventional wisdom.

It has everything to do with the 'wokings of the world', and if it does not I suggest you might need to carry your experience to a further level. The 'workings of the world' are outcomes of relationships to Idea and to Metaphysical perceptions. We are duty-bound to concretize our undersdtandings, in one way or another, in this plane of manifestation (excuse to gooey Newagism).

I was actually stating that for your benefit! What I meant was that the conclusions of conventional/worldly wisdom can be very similar even for one who has never cared at all for metaphysics. And god damn, it's not a "plane of manifestation", that seems to imply other 'planes', like the one you descended from.

If you do not 'deny the reality of the human condition' than you instantaneously have a means to understand a huge part of what concerns me, except that I am concerned more specifically about our matrix, our reality, our background, our ideas, our world and our mental and spiritual creation of it. As well as its 'products': language, literature, perception and understanding of meaning, religious observation, metaphysical description, and the diversity of experience, not a singlness as (I gather) interests you.

I'm much more practical. You do that for entertainment, it's not some higher level, nor is it necessary or better.

(I seem to remember, in the dark recesses of memory, or was it another life? having and knowing single women without kids. I made a choice to get involved with a woman WITH a child, and one who was by nature or cultural background a rather conservative woman, as a result of the evolution of my 'transcendental experiences'. Some part of this choice came about as a result of podering the strange, detached, solitary, anti-woman (and I suspect homosexual) position of many of the men who write here. I chose to make my commitment real, and I chose to involve myself in the world (in this sense). It is a choice that I made within the context of my understanding of 'my incarnation'. In this sense - and as a man - I 'serve' woman (woman and child) but I do this in a situation in which the woman follows my lead. What I mean is, by luck or by choice, I am in a situation where I get to apply my masculine will. And I have come to understand that this is what is needed. Men have to modify themselves to be capable and competent to lead. I know that such personal stories are anathema on a forum as this, and such material can be used in 'fearful attacks', but I think I do it to irk y'all).

Yeah, well done for working within the context of the human condition rather than denying it. See my thread on the necessary context of purpose/action/ambition. Yeah, it seems as if, depending on the circumstance, the woman may be incapable of leading and may need to be led. I'm in the same position, I just don't see how the kid adds anything but a lack of freedom to the situation. Conventional/worldly wisdom dictates that one should realize one's full potential for freedom and do what is best within this context, chances are I'm going to do that and achieve much whereas you are not, probably because you're too obsessed with all the literature, and because you're more dishonest (Did well in the last couple posts though).

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

What I find interesting is that you have a wee dream that you are instructing me and I assume others here too. Yes, Master, I guess you could say I have some miniscule 'insight' and thank you oh so much for even paying attention to me and doling out some tid-bits. The interesting part has to do with the cocky certainty of your declarations which - I assume you deduce this - I don't place much stock in. These grand questions, I have found this to be the case though perhaps this is not true for you, are ones that one spends a lifetime engaged with, and then, perhaps, one might extract out of it some bona fide wisdom to impart. As I have expressed numerous times, I see your platform with its assertiveness, its sureties, as evidence of youth. Well, I am not that old myself so it is a little pretentious I suppose to take the tack to label 'you' children and such, yet for all that you seem bright and enthused I'd have to say that I am not convinced that you are in a position to teach.

To be more factual and truthful you have no idea at all what I 'cling to' nor do you have 0 in my opinion - a genuine right to make statements about what should or shouldn't be clinged to, or valued, or exalted. You seem a little high on yourself.

Any description in language - dipshit! - necessarily involves spatial prepositions. Any visualisation of 'coming into existence', indeed even the phrase 'coming into existence', is a necessary semiotic arrangement. I think this point is larger and more relevant than you are aware: a metaphysical dream is a necessity for every living person. I don't accept your pompous self-assertion (it amount to this) that someone or anyone attains to some state of awareness that is superior or substantially different in essential aspects, and I certainly do not accept your self-declarations as one outside of a metaphysical narrative. What is more interesting than to be wowed by your slick psycho-babble, is to focus on the psycho-babble and in a sense deconstruct or dismantle it.

This may sound contradictory but I am interested in 'encapsulating stories' and I do not necessarily see benefit in dismantling them. What I will suggest, and do suggest, is that you have enough intellect, and perhaps some 'insight' as you say, to see through story. But your sight in this sense is not constructive but (I suggest) destructive: acidic. Acids have gotten hold of you and acids work with you. But you don't - to me anyway - come across as a man with a constructive synthetic understanding. There seem to be whole realms of ideas, whole realms of creation, realms of value, which you far too easily, and carelessly, sweep aside in your stoned pursual of your own odd 'dreams'. So, one reads you, one listens to you, one watches and takes it in, but I do not see myself running out to mortage the homstead to but a down payment on your bill of goods.

So, with this I set myself - my discourse - in opposition to you. I have stated this time and time again, to you and to many others: Get off of your fucking high horse of self-deceptive bullshit.

You do not - again IMO - have enough insight or understanding to say, with certainty, what is 'jazz' and what is real substance of value. I am not pulling this out of my ass for the heck of it. I have put in the time reading your words. Stop the con-job. To have understanding of cultural and civilizational structures (and all this connotes) is not 'jazz'. Your knowledge and understanding base is deficient and your cockyness overrides a careful lingering over what is being suggested as value.

Just as it is possible to take a 'metaphysical dream' and absolutise it, and to deceive oneself, so it is possible to fail to understand that any understanding and any description is just such a 'metaphysical dream' and should not be carelessly disassembled. One of the things about drunken, undereducated youngsters is their brashness in dismissal and disassembly - this is a classic error. You speak often of 'clinging' and such, and you position yourself as the one who is not 'clinging', but what if in fact you are? Not only 'clinging' to your cherished notions about things (all things, the most important things in this case), but actively presenting ideas that may be destructive to necessary metaphysical or symbolical constructs and containers. Just out of curiosity have you considered the possibility?

You speak of 'delusion' as one outside of it looking in. I regret to inform you that I am not convinced.

I fully understand that when you speak of a default position that you are referring to 'the absolute and undeniable truth of consciousness', you crackhead Aussie! What I notice is how stoned out of your mind you are on your 'narcissistic dream'. Usually in this case their comes a precipitous fall. I do not mean 'fall' prepositionally, but metaphorically!

Sounds like an excuse to believe in rubbish. Which is what almost all people who have 'epiphanies' or intuitive 'spiritual' experiences do! They cling too much to the experience, the feeling, the emotion, the wonder, the idea, and end up believing that some higher absolute state or god or goal has been revealed to them. We both agree that people have metaphysical dreams, and we both agree that they should be lived and applied in the world, but I don't agree that there is no absolute truth and I don't agree that metaphysical dreams are even relevant on an absolute 'level', except as a contrast of delusion perhaps.

The word 'epiphany' was yours I should mention. Just like 'descent' is a linguistic preposition, epiphany is just a word to describe understanding that comes to one through channels that, I suppose, are not fully understood, or not reasoned.

I have said a few times recently that what 'you' dismiss too readily I am there, coming up behind, carefully picking it up and dusting it off and preserving it, considering it all over again. I cannot tell you how valuable it has been for me to spend so much time with hard-headed intellectual and spiritual narcissists! All 'your' certainties are bullshit vessels: you have no idea what you are talking about. You make astounding, broad statements about things that you are not really qualified to make statements about. Someone has to stop you, but who has the force to do it?

Conventional/worldly wisdom dictates that one should realize one's full potential for freedom and do what is best within this context, chances are I'm going to do that and achieve much whereas you are not, probably because you're too obsessed with all the literature, and because you're more dishonest (Did well in the last couple posts though).

You're too generous! I think I might melt ...

Perhaps it will come to you someday - or perhaps not - but putting energy into kids or a kid is one of the 'holy tasks' if ever there was a holy task. The fact that you don't intuitively grasp this and speak of 'freedom' as you do indicates, to me anyway, an immature lack of understanding. Of so much.

But I'll whip you into shape ... ;-)

[SeekerOfWisdom]

All 'your' certainties are bullshit vessels: you have no idea what you are talking about. You make astounding, broad statements about things that you are not really qualified to make statements about.

All my certainties are bullshit.. Isn't that a broad statement? And how is the reality of consciousness not a certainty? What certainties are you referring to?

Also, how did I suddenly become a stoner and a crackhead? And is "Aussie" supposed to be ad hominem too?

We get it, I said something about your literature and now you're highly emotional, but it won't work on me, like water off a ducks back.

are ones that one spends a lifetime engaged with, and then, perhaps, one might extract out of it some bona fide wisdom to impart.

Ah so at what age can one be qualified?

I suggest) destructive: acidic. Acids have gotten hold of you and acids work with you

How so? Not seeing any effects here, skin seems fine.

here seem to be whole realms of ideas, whole realms of creation, realms of value, which you far too easily, and carelessly, sweep aside in your stoned pursual of your own odd 'dreams'.

Can you explain the importance of these ideas to me? (One's which I'm not aware of that I ought to hear) It sounds like you're talking about a hobby you strongly associate with and want to defend, an interest in culture and religion, not necessary values that I must be educated in. No one is taking your books away from you Alex, no need to throw a tantrum.

To have understanding of cultural and civilizational structures

How could that possibly be relevant to understanding Ultimate reality? Except maybe through providing elucidation via contrast. How will it benefit me? It seems that most of your criticism is derived from how you regard the way I write, or the fact that I'm currently focusing on one single thing, and so you assume single-mindedness, rather than honestly and clearly stating whether the things I have claimed are true or not. For example you've already stated that you "understand life/consciousness/awareness as being 'eternal'." Did I not say this exact thing?

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

The question of 'age' and 'wisdom' are very good ones, necessary ones.

To suggest that your-plural certainties are 'bullshit vessels' is a shotgun statement, yet a necessary one. To explain why this is so, and to demonstrate it, is not easy. Why? Because it will involve a thorough analysis of our present and of the destruction and disassembly of a ramp or a connecting link to both the ability to think cleanly and sensibly, as well as the destruction of a relationship - quite literally - to 'knowledge'. Fracturing, disruption, 'breaking faith', the letting loose of a rebellious revolution-minded youth population, 'radical liberalism', destructive and undermining Marxian currents, self-contempt, suspicion, and so many other influences have to be brought out and described. It is in itself a large and involved educational work. Now, and in regard to you, I said 'You need to be stopped but who has the force to do it?' and this is very true, very relevant. But it is crucial to stress that I am not addressing a singular person but rather a current and a plurality. What one notices in you - you are a sort of fanatical faction - is a symptom of larger trends that are occurring on a far wider scale.

I have been saying, and say it again: One has to stop, turn round, retrace steps, reconsider the steps that have been taken, take a look at what the arrogant youngsters dismiss, disparage and ridicule, but really one must examine the attitude that allows for this to take place. What has given birth to this attitude? In what is it rooted?

Here I suggest that one has to take an even longer backtracking route: One has to examine metaphysics and metaphysical outlooks. It becomes not just a question of the moment, as in your case your 'realisations' are literally realisations 'of a moment'; incomplete understandings cobbled together by a very young person with very limited experience. The analytical task becomes demanding and extensive but what tools does it require? Those tools, naturally, are those that are part of your garbage bag: it is what you have jettisoned, it is what you are unable to understand because you have broken the link to the possibility of education. 'Revolutionary consciousness', cocky rebellion, a self-certainty which at times seems narcissistic, charged and channelled through a mono-maniacal neo-Buddhist dogmatism: it is exactly this which is the blinder to see what is being referred to. How could you possibly see what is being indicated when its possibility cannot appear on your radar? It is a bizarre Catch-22, a mental trap which is deadly. I might suggest a Diebertian term: A seduction par excellence. (Though I'd also suggest that Diebert's own Seduction Declaration is employed - at times it seems so - as a self-seductive discourse. He and Leyla are now enacting this theatre on an adjacent thread, making sense to no one but themselves. How I love Genius Forum!)

When I use exaggerating terms like 'stoner' and 'crackhead' I refer to mental drugs, but it could also refer to partial truths which unbalance the mind and take one away from 'sophersune': my term to replace the 'enlightenment' which y'all talk about, and which no one of you has nor can define: the ultimate bullshitter's term.

As you may or may not know, here in this space, there are 'historical usages' which, when the going gets rough, are hauled out of storage like old dependable cannons. Sort of a blunderbuss I guess you might say! 'Emotional' 'feminine' 'deluded'. It works like this: "Since you cannot see and will not recognize my 'wisdom' and my 'enlightenment', you MUST be deluded-female-emotional". Yet I do not see my arguments - the platform I am bringing to bear against what I understand as false-realization as being emotionally linked. Rather, it is an expression of rationalism as-against what in you is an obvious irrationalism dressed as reasonability.

'Can you speak of the importance of these ideas to me?', you ask. Pretty much this is what I have been attempting. It has become for me a 'project', and for this I am deeply thankful to Genius Forum. I can truthfully say that I did not fully understand the gravity of the situation of 'breaking continuity' or 'destroying the organic link to knowledge', or the 'destructive seduction by a foreign intrustion' which is at the core of the GF Project. I sensed it, I intuited it, I noticed the effects, but I could not articulate an adequate response. Now, I respond (better I think) and yet there are no hearers here to hear! (Well, except some who read and respond off-forum and there are a number who follow these 'discussions'). As Diebert said recently 'It's fascinating at times'.

And it really is. Because once one has recovered what it is 'you' destroy and devalue, one then recovers material, idea, conceptual paths, and historical relationship which are necessary to 'advance'. And that conversation, that adventure of learning, is truly fruitful.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

First of all, stop cherry picking and avoiding.

It seems that most of your criticism is derived from how you regard the way I write, or the fact that I'm currently focusing on one single thing, and so you assume single-mindedness, rather than honestly and clearly stating whether the things I have claimed are true or not. For example you've already stated that you "understand life/consciousness/awareness as being 'eternal'." Did I not say this exact thing?

Answer. Don't you get it? All that matters in determining the validity of one's 'position' is whether it's true or not. For example, if you were right about every viewpoint you held, then you're the authority, simple as that. What matters is who is right and what is true.

s well as the destruction of a relationship - quite literally - to 'knowledge'.

Seems like all you're capable of doing is stereotyping and generalising. Like you do with your references to cultures and races. I'm concerned with what is important, and don't at all dismiss 'knowledge', but this brings to mind an example one of the forum founders gave, which was that of the biologist- though I'm not exactly sure if the profession was biology, for the sake of the example it doesn't matter- and how his understanding of reality and his pursuits were so narrowly focused that he had missed the entirety of the 'mystery' of his own existence.

When I say I'm focused on what is important, I mean that I have more in mind than just your seemingly useless conjecture. For example you referred to the attitude of the youngsters and asked about the root of this attitude, which is apparently destructive to humanity, whereas immediately if it were my concern and I was serious about it I would begin being productive, I would focus on the core of the issue, which is not to be found on this forum, but clearly begins at childhood and with things such as government education systems, media, parenting, and so on. So is it really your concern, or are you just over exaggerating?

No, it isn't, you only want to repeat what seems like regurgitated information for no purpose at all, you don't have any intention to do anything about these 'dire problems' do you? You're not fooling anybody, because the fact is that you've had almost no personal insight into the masses, the people which make up the cultures to which you refer, instead you have only ever been exposed to a handful of people and most of what you say is just repetition. You read statements made by people like nabokov, regurgitate it all, and then pretend you know what you're talking about.

It's not a certain 'new' attitude for young people that you're talking about, it's just the prevalence of ignorance that you dislike.

I'll make this statement again, and I claim that it is an undeniable statement. Please explain how this is wrong wrong:

A philosopher cannot both be logical and have sound reasoning, and also at the same time admit that he is completely intellectually dependent on the words and works of others.

(In the sense that almost all of the conclusions such a person makes are based on second-hand knowledge and hearsay. For one to speak of philosophy at all in any logical way, one needs to be able to explain the philosophy from the ground up without ommitting an explanation for even a single philosophical assumption or claim, no matter how subtle or popular it is.)

Also, you asked me this question earlier:

You speak often of 'clinging' and such, and you position yourself as the one who is not 'clinging', but what if in fact you are? Just out of curiosity have you considered the possibility?

Yes, I've spent at least ten thousand hours in contemplation of my thoughts, my viewpoints, my tendencies, my certainty, my beliefs, my knowledge. Often critical and skeptical contemplation. Have you? Also, a while ago you replied to the question about if you have ever spent time just 'dropping it all', said you were busy that week. Did you try it? Have you ever spent time in independent contemplation or meditation without any distractions, such as your books?

Also, you failed to provide a single destructive consequence of not attempting to catch up on all the literature you personally like ;) Will I be burned? Will I lose my home? Will I suffer anger, hate, envy, anxiety, fear, or physical torture? What are the consequences, and where is the destruction? I don't see it, I don't feel it. You're a bit of a drama queen aren't you? You cling so heavily to your understanding of what it means to be intelligent that anyone who is not of the same viewpoint is destructive and childish in your eyes. What if you're wrong? There's only one way to check, which is to challenge and be challenged, to use logic. Which means you need to stop avoiding answering questions and deflecting, dismissing and ignoring (ignorance). So reply to the above questions.

[Leyla Shen]

And since we're on the subject of Lacan, in our dear friend Gustav we see the typical Hysterics Discourse, the Masters (who must be obeyed without justification) in that discourse being QRS (and anyone else who doesn't answer all his questions for him), whom he badgers for answers and against whom he arms himself with knowledge.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

The bow is bent and drawn, Leyla. Make from the shaft.

;-)

Chomsky referred to Lacan as an 'amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan' which doesn't quite rise to the level of a barb.

I have mused at some of your recent gibberish: impenetrable and irrational Leyla-esque obscurantism.

I imagine you and Diebert as postmodern Radha and Krishna in a tangled psycholinguistic Vrindavan.

Maybe surrealist psychoanalysis is the answer ...

Hadn't really thought of it till now. You could team up and offer joint sessions. Make a fortune.

[Leyla Shen]

The bow is bent and drawn, Leyla. Make from the shaft.

;-)

And what will you do, old man?

Chomsky referred to Lacan as an 'amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan' which doesn't quite rise to the level of a barb.

I have mused at some of your recent gibberish: impenetrable and irrational Leyla-esque obscurantism.

Well, of course he did! Only a mad man would expect language to behave in the unconscious in the same way it behaves in the formulation of ideological structures.

I imagine you and Diebert as postmodern Radha and Krishna in a tangled psycholinguistic Vrindavan.

Maybe surrealist psychoanalysis is the answer ...

Hadn't really thought of it till now. You could team up and offer joint sessions. Make a fortune.

You’re welcome.

[jupiviv]

I imagine you and Diebert as postmodern Radha and Krishna in a tangled psycholinguistic Vrindavan.

And you are the serpent, presumably?

@Leyla: Ride Alex. Alex is long.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

A philosopher cannot both be logical and have sound reasoning, and also at the same time admit that he is completely intellectually dependent on the words and works of others.

(In the sense that almost all of the conclusions such a person makes are based on second-hand knowledge and hearsay. For one to speak of philosophy at all in any logical way, one needs to be able to explain the philosophy from the ground up without ommitting an explanation for even a single philosophical assumption or claim, no matter how subtle or popular it is.)

I would start by examining how it has come about that you would make this statement about 'a philosopher cannot be both logical and have sound reasoning', etc. In that statement, I think, you have encapsulated a view in regard to knowing, what can be known and how, and then (I gather this from you and it is similar to other neo-Buddhists or Western Zennists), a whole series of statements about value: what has value and how value is defined. By stopping, by turning around, and by examining you in detail before one has accepted the many and various claims that you have encapsulated, is the best way to get to the bottom of what you are on about.

And I think these assertions of you, when examined and reduced to their elements, are very problematic. I said this many posts back: language is ultimatley what is being spoken about when we speak of 'philosophy'. Language is a communal and perhaps it could be said a psycho-biological function or attainment. Language is therefor a 'second-hand conclusion' since the capacity to communicate through language systems is to participate in a shared meaning and valuation-set. Try to imagine for example (Pye once brought this up) a 'feral child' (like the Wild Child) who grows up outside of a shared language community. Deprived of *language* at this foundational level that feral child does not become human. To be human is to be adept at language. In a sense then to be fully human is to be fully literate. I would suggest that if there are 'mysteries' about life that this is one of them. My sense, based on what you write and the predicates that inform your assertions, is that you fail to understand something that is very important. The failure compounds itself insofar as you seem not to have a way to value language and then the idea-systems or idea-creations that arise in civilization and culture that allow for communication of value.

In my own view, and as a result of dealing with religious fanatics like you of this neo-Buddhist variety, who have run to it as a salvific blanket and as a result of the loss of connection with both themselves and their own civilisation and culture (I have written of this extensively), a whole realm of importance is dismissed. I abbreviate that by saying 'our traditions' but I really mean much more: I mean quite actually with knowledge and with reason. I have come to understand that 'your way of thinking', which reflects and expresses a specific metaphysic with specific tenets, will ultimately destroy a link with knowledge.

I submitted, some pages back, the entire first chapter by Ernest Becker ('Zen: A Rational Critique'). The mysticism that you engage in, and that captures you, allows you to break with a rational and also 'empirical' relationship with yourself and also 'the world'. I refer as evidence to your very first statement: For if a philosopher cannot be logical and have sound reasoning by using his tool of consciousness and our communal language-attainment (logos), then you imply that there is some other zone where a 'real knowledge' and a real connection to knowledge is to be found. This allows you are fabulous and yet a 'destructive manoeuvre': a leap over what I have referred to as 'the library': the repository of man's rational work in our world. You refer to the 10,000 hours you have clocked doing whatever it is that you do in zazennic meditation. You contrast this with 'second hand knowledge' and you are so hopped up on your deluded conclusion that you do not see nor understand what you are in fact doing. Essentially, and simply, this is the 'destruction' that I refer to. The essence of it is here. You are just a symptom of this destruction - one unit among millions of units who in various ways (causation) is breaking ranks and doing so as a symptom of larger processes.

And again, a few pages up, I quoted some pithy paragraphs by Pierre Krebs which, in my own view, describe what we are losing and what we need to recover. True, this is all debatable, but this is the area I would focus in. As I have said: One is required to stop, to linger, to back-track, to pick up and examine everything that you brash headstrong youngsters toss behind you as you march toward 'Infinity'. You will interpret what I write as a jab, as a mean-spirited attack, as rhetorical ridicule, and dismiss it as 'drama', but I see this as very very serious.

So, you are going to 'explain philosophy from the ground up' are you? I think that I understand what you are getting at. You think that you do not require any antecedents to do this, and therefor what you will do is to claim or to 'locate yourself' in the 'default position', and that default position is the zazenninc meditation, a mindless state, but I am sure that you have all manner of different ways to describe it. Having enough familiarity with Eastern philosophy I understand - because I have been influenced too - what you seem to be getting at. I would not say that *this* is absolutely destructive eo ipso, but I would certainly say that what you do with it, taken overall, is destructive. It seems to be the result of entertaining a 'foreign intrusion' into a way of being and existing, and certainly as I suggest one of knowing.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

Look, if you (Leyla and Diebert) can allow yourselves a swim in surreal and absurd Lacanian language-torrents, and end up saying nothing at all, since *meaning* as a possibility had been abandoned, why cannot I bring Lear into this? ('The bow is bent and drawn' is what Lear says to Kent just before he banishes him for telling Lear what a tragic mistake he has just made).

Just as a King (a true king) cannot divide his kingdom, and most surely cannot render authority over to two aggressive daughters, so the division of self and the break in continuity results in tragic disunity and destruction.

Kent never varied in his service though. Even though he was exiled he changed form and went on serving his King. It is an interesting metaphor to insert here. The question is: What is to be served?

The other side of the metaphor is Gloucester: the man who had to lose his mortal eyes in order to recover his vision. ("I have no way and therefor want no eyes. I stumbled when I saw").

Reminding me of one of my favorite Blake quotes:

• This life's dim windows of the soul
  Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
  And leads you to believe a lie
  When you see with, not through, the eye.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

It is a non-workable comparison, Jupy. In the Forest of Vrindavan the whole space is absolutely under the Krishna's enchantment. Krishna as Adam simply cannot work. Through illiteracy you have 'mangled' (as Diebert recently said) the barbed jab. There is no snake in the Forest of Vrindavan, or if there is the snake is just another Gopi: rendering service to the Supreme Lord. Even the demons who do make it in, when they are destroyed, their destruction is their liberation. To be killed by Krishna is to be delivered.

To be a postmodern Radha and Krishna is to have been confused by contorted psycho-babble and to be inhibited from really 'getting it on'.

I suggest therefor that should you have a monkey get-up of some sort (rendering you a Hanuman) that perhaps you might swing down from the treetops and attempt to break the flow of their dour logorrhea?

[jupiviv]

My new avatar suffices as a response to the above.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I see your point. You need say no more.

[Pam Seeback]

Flame wars of the logical. Ideal food for the eternal Mother.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Yes, you've been repeating that point for a while, but refuse to elaborate on the destructive consequences, and refuse to answer simple questions:

Have you? Also, a while ago you replied to the question about if you have ever spent time just 'dropping it all', said you were busy that week. Did you try it? Have you ever spent time in independent contemplation or meditation without any distractions, such as your books?

Will I be burned? Will I lose my home? Will I suffer anger, hate, envy, anxiety, fear, or physical torture? What are the consequences, and where is the destruction?

language is ultimatley what is being spoken about when we speak of 'philosophy'.

Language is being spoken of when we speak, thanks for the insight.

The words are attempts to communicate 'philosophy' by way of commonly shared -or the possibility of commonly shared - insights. Having independent insight or understanding regarding existence/reality does not require one to communicate at all.

therefor what you will do is to claim or to 'locate yourself' in the 'default position', and that default position is the zazenninc meditation, a mindless state

That is not at all what I meant. I was referring to the certain knowledge which one can discern when one ceases believing in the various assumptions they have made (whether they realize they have made these assumptions or not). Descartes attempted something similar, extreme philosophical doubt, in which he concluded the certainty "I think therefore I am". This is an example of a statement which is seemingly obvious or even seemingly useless to those who have no interest in understanding things for themselves. The 'default position' I was referring to was the absolute certainty of the existence of what we refer to as thoughts, sensations, emotions, and so on. This is the 'default position' because one logically builds from certainty upward, as opposed to jumping the gun and accepting second-hand metaphysical assumptions as truths.

If anything, I'm looking at the history of philosophy, such as Plato or the Buddha, and beginning any discussion surrounding philosophy from the very roots. I am aware of the knowledge that I also have insight in regards to the nature of reality/consciousness. You seem to eschew this endeavor or exercise completely, how can you explain that?

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

'Destructive consequences' is part of a much larger conversation - a cultural and civilisational conversation - that has been going on for quite some time. You seem to have no familiarity with it, perhaps because of your 10,000 clocked hours in mindless meditation, or perhaps because you have no interest in ideas, literature, letters, philosophy and perhaps much of anything at all except a form of religious fanaticism (neo-Buddhism).

Tp speak of 'destructive consequences' requires an entire foregrounding to this conversation. It requires citing sources which, one gathers, you cannot and will not cosider as you disinvalidate these as 'second-hand' sources. Yet were you to be able, conceptually, to register for example Pierre Krebs (one example among hundreds possible), and trace back his line of thinking, examine his sources, understand his concerns, understand his 'philosophy', you would begin to grasp a dissdent and critical position with direct and tangible links to 'our traditions'.

To understand 'what has happened' and where we are now is a work of philosophy.

I do not 'eschew', I said that I have doubts about the way that you put your project into motion, its larger and overall focus, and what results from it.

Can you speak more about a comparison between Plato and the teachings of the Buddha? It does not seem an impossible area. But I have no idea how you might pull it off.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

perhaps because of your 10,000 clocked hours in mindless meditation

This reveals a lot. You think meditation is a 'mindless' exercise, and it would be safe to assume you meant that in a negative way.

Also, if we're using the word meditate in the way which I assume you use it, then I don't really meditate. I'm specifically referring to contemplation, not whatever 'empty your mind for mindlessness' meditation you're probably imagining. You didn't answer. Have you spent time in solitary contemplation- as well as critical contemplation in regard to some aspects- of thought, free will, perception, belief, awareness, reality, existence, death, and so on, without the distraction of things like books, the girlfriend, etc?

of anything at all except a form of religious fanaticism (neo-Buddhism).

I care very little for Buddhism and am in no way a religious fanatic. All you're capable of is stereotyping. When asked to elaborate on your claims, such as the destructive consequences you mention, you simply deflect by referencing a historical figure. I'm talking about some actual destructive consequences that will effect me personally because of my actions, not some larger cultural problem.

Can you speak more about a comparison between Plato and the teachings of the Buddha? It does not seem an impossible area. But I have no idea how you might pull it off.

We'll find out in the morning.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

It reveals very little, in fact. But again, one would have to first back away from an offered or assumed definition of 'contemplation' and sort out the various predicates that inform the idea and the practice. If you ask me 'Have your contemplated? Have you examined your life, your emotions, your existence, perceptions and beliefs?' the answer is of course yes. I assume that most people that would be drawn to this forum or fora like it would have some sort of contemplative life. It is possible that in terms of 'clocked hours' (I don't think you picked up the irony in referring to 'meditation hours clocked on your consciousness unit' but no matter) I have more hours clocked and registered than you. But I have a different focus.

Yet again I would say that it is not exactly the activity that is objectionable (though in truth I have no objection and the conversation has value as it pertains to larger issues), but what one does with the activity. Or - and I don't know how else to say it so excuse the redundancy - the predicates that inform the intention that gets channeled into the activity.

When I say 'mindless meditation' I am of course using a barbed term, but then every distortion has an element of truth in it. So, and for example, I made reference to Becker's critique of Zen practice as sharing commonality with Chinese techniques of thought control. He links the Zen/Chinese practices to 'behaviour modification' efforts and, thus far and based on what I have seen (speaking generally) on the Genius Forum over the years there is decidedly a 'thought reform' effort that is undertaken.

But we are back twisting and turning over the basic points: I listen to your declarations, your 'teaching' (and you seem to have an interest in being just such a teacher), and simultaneously observe what you jettison. What you jettison is, effectively, 'the library', the depository of knowledge but then my assertion is to note specifically Western modes of knowledge. This is all 'second hand' to you. Observing that therefor, I am quite inclined to assert very much the contrary. I have repeated this now 5 times. I may repeat it 500 times and it cannot get through to you. Why? A different set of established predicates apparently.

When I use words and phrases, and when you use words and phrases, we are employing with them a whole usage, a whole background. You very clearly and quite obiously are indeed a religious fanatic not insofar as you are a faithful religious processionist, or a reader of a Missal, or a catechist, or a guru or a disciple of one, or a priest in a temple, but because you are (by your own admission) I think involved compulsively with questions and issues which are fundamentally religious as 'religion' is defined: a linking up with higher meaning. Your fanaticism is not, in my book, a negative thing in and of itself. But I would certainly question, probe and challenge the tenets of your religious platform as it is expressed. In this sense, then, you come across as a religious fanatic.

It is impossible not to stereotype, to some degree, on these fora and in this medium.

You want me to define 'harmful results' and to speficy what, exactly, in your case is or will be the result of your negations. But I am not inclined to do that. What I will suggest is:

• "But what is less well-known than the negation of the mind, and fundamentally to any appraisal of it, is the method Zen uses to proselitize. Zen is basically a technique by which to achieve a mental breakdown of people so that they can be made to accept a new ideology".

Now, this is a broad assertion to be sure, and one requiring more filling out and explanation, and yet it is something that I notice among the religious sorts in this particular environment. I have called you on some specifics and the main one I notice is your dismisal of what you refer to as 'second hand knowledge' in favor of whatever is primary for you, or of the 'default position' whatever that is. To me, it seems clear what is critiqued and why your predicates cause that negation. But you don't seem interested in accepting it.

I have come to understand - in a general sense - that some portion of the overall techniques, and the recommendations, that are tauted by those who share your predilections, result in similar negations. I have spent '10,000 man hours' writing about what I see. I have gained some support and I have also earned contempt. I link 'ideological shifts' with 'metaphysical shifts' and notice the effects in people and in people's behaviour, ideas, and much else. My interests extend from observations like these to questions and examinations far beyond the limits of this forum.

I'm talking about some actual destructive consequences that will effect me personally because of my actions, not some larger cultural problem.

A larger cultural problem will certainly effect you personally. Larger cultural problems are expressed personally in individuals. Cultural problems are metaphysical issues that show up as symptoms. As an example 'nihilism' is a cultural problem, and a metaphysical issue. How it came about can be examined, spoken of, remediated or the oppostite: remain unexamined, ununderstood, never stated, never addressed. How to bring questions as these to the fore is in itself a large effort. It requires time.

[Leyla Shen]

Look, if you (Leyla and Diebert) can allow yourselves a swim in surreal and absurd Lacanian language-torrents, and end up saying nothing at all, since *meaning* as a possibility had been abandoned, why cannot I bring Lear into this? ('The bow is bent and drawn' is what Lear says to Kent just before he banishes him for telling Lear what a tragic mistake he has just made).

Just as a King (a true king) cannot divide his kingdom, and most surely cannot render authority over to two aggressive daughters, so the division of self and the break in continuity results in tragic disunity and destruction.

Kent never varied in his service though. Even though he was exiled he changed form and went on serving his King. It is an interesting metaphor to insert here. The question is: What is to be served?

The other side of the metaphor is Gloucester: the man who had to lose his mortal eyes in order to recover his vision. ("I have no way and therefor want no eyes. I stumbled when I saw").

Reminding me of one of my favorite Blake quotes:

• This life's dim windows of the soul
  Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
  And leads you to believe a lie
  When you see with, not through, the eye.

It's not how big it is but how you use it that counts.