Very interesting that you interpret the worldview of the posters here as living in an abstract realm of Idealism (the need to conquer with ideas) when this is how I interpret your worldview of "strong ideas as self-law."Gustav: I say that 'strong idea must become self-law'. Meaning, we have to arrive at a strong definition which is then the basis for an ethic, and the primary focus of the ethic is toward the self. Seems as clear as day.
The very start of wisdom is the realization that 'self', the maker of ideas, is itself naught but an idea. Did you think you were a 'self' before your parents told you you were a self?You propose, against an 'idea of self', something that I would not know how to name. An idea of non-self? A non-idea of self? No idea at all? No self-idea? Dissolution of self?
The only 'real' I can infer in your world of relationship is the world of ideas. We're back to idealism which by definition is not real. As for what is left when self-made idealism is abandoned, wait to read the final paragraph.Once you start down this rabbit hole you wind up (I assert) in a labyrinth of meaninglessness. Meanings dissolve because the possibility of man in a real realtionship to what is real dissolves. What is left one after that? How would you describe it?
The acid that best dissolves the idea of self is the truth that the infinite causality that is God is all there is. The experience of danger is fear of this truth. When truth is acknowledged, danger leaves. This is why Jesus said he came with a sword: truth hurts.But dissolution of self is tied to a project of dissolution: a dangerous enterprise. What acid best dissolves self, I ask?
There is no checking out of reality, God is everything, remember? Including dealing with 'Hitler' and 'Churchill.' The difference between us is that where your dealing encompasses the idea of self, who you believe we are (interesting you put 'who we are' in quotes as if it isn't truth or real) my dealing dissolves this very same idea to include the wisdom of what we really are: the causality (of God).Like it or not you are going to have to deal with both 'Hitler' and 'Churchill'. I find this all quite interesting because I think that what we are and what actually (if invisibly) moves us is our post-war condition. You may have no place for these considerations in your system (of checking out of reality) yet they are quite high on my list. We have to underdtand the last war and what was/is at stake to be able to understand 'who we are'. There is no 'spiritual manoeuvre' around this.
Again with the quotes.Spirituality thus has to do with now, this reality, ourselves in a real world - in the world - and it has to do with 'strong idea'.
The idea of self is a shitpile because it usurps the reality of God.Also, there is a great deal that hinges on your understanding that the self is a 'shitpile', that we are shitpiles, that it is a shitpile. That is of course a foundational tenet of your metaphysical definition.
Does God, the cause of the All produce chaos or is it God's idea of self as the center of it All that produces the idea of chaos? As for your assumption of disappearance into meaninglessness and impotency upon death of the idea of self, again, my final paragraph deals with this delusion.I suggest again that we are dealing with 'chaos', that one of the main issues or questions has to do with 'surrender' (the surrender of self I guess one would put it), and once again the question and the outcome of 'subversion'. When these become subjects or elements on the table of discussion, and when one then turns to address your tenets, it all becomes more interesting and various paths open up from it. If one continues in your defined path, one disappears into meaninglessness and impotency.
Usurper. :-)A forum devoted to meaninglessness and impotency requires a King. Need I mention what King rules this realm? ;-)
You asked what is 'left' when self is dissolved. Not an easy task since the idea of self is strong in you, but here goes. It requires that you intuit logically the wisdom concepts of conditioned and unconditioned.
Releasing the stress of the conditioned self is to find and enjoy glimpses of heaven (the unconditioned causality) on earth (Word). It is to trade mortality for immortality, the perishable for the imperishable. It is not an easy trade, acid is a good metaphor. However, with the coming of the acid comes the fruit of the spirit, the fruit of "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."
Meaningless and impotency? That's the job of the idea of self, not the job of God that is too busy causing all things to consider such silly matters. :-)