GENIUS FORUMS

Alex T. Jacob wrote:I see QRS as framing a group of perceptions. I see it as a quite strict model. Meaning, there is a vast portion of possible frame-elements that they leave out. But according to their frame-model those things have to be left out.

This sort of analysis is laughable. If you believe that meditation on logical truths somehow excludes whole realms, then your understanding of the process is far worse than I thought.

If done correctly, the mind expands with such meditation. It burrows underneath all things, widens beyond all things and becomes all things.

-

It is less that I don't understand the process or your process, it is that you don't understand what I am talking about. It is interesting, to me anyway, that you have framed me as the one that doesn't understand. There is an element, apparently, I need to get so that I will finally 'understand'.

Going through that "narrow gate" would be a start .....

-

David Quinn:
Going through that "narrow gate" would be a start .....

Carmel:
You use that and "the eye of the needle" analogy quite often which never worked for me because to pass through the eye of a needle requires both the qualities of firmness and flexibilty, such as, a thread passing through the eye. Try passing a rigid substance through it and it can only go in at a limited range of angles, whereas the thread can access the eye from a wide variety of angles.

For me, this analogy only serves to demonstrate that some of your ideas may be too limited and rigid. That's not to say that they're without merit, but ultimately, they only represent a piece of a larger whole.

The fact that you seem to value logic over love or creativity is merely a subjective judgement on your part. It's your contribution to the totality, but your views, logic, and the consequences, thereof don't comprise the end-all and be-all of "reality". To claim they do, would indeed, require a leap of faith...at minimum, you would be engaging in a religion of one.

Carmel wrote:David Quinn:
Going through that "narrow gate" would be a start .....

Carmel:
You use that and "the eye of the needle" analogy quite often which never worked for me because to pass through the eye of a needle requires both the qualities of firmness and flexibilty, such as, a thread passing through the eye. Try passing a rigid substance through it and it can only go in at a limited range of angles, whereas the thread can access the eye from a wide variety of angles.

I take your point, but the important point remains: a person must pass through that eye if he wishes to be acquainted with the highest wisdom. Complaining about how restrictive and exclusive this path is won't help you. "Blessed is he who isn't offended," was the counsel of Jesus to his appalled disciples.

I agree that, mentally, one should never be rigid. The mind needs to be flexible enough to ferret out the obscure hiding place where truth resides and adaptable enough to make effective use of it when it is found.

For me, this analogy only serves to demonstrate that some of your ideas may be too limited and rigid. That's not to say that they're without merit, but ultimately, they only represent a piece of a larger whole.

For sure, the path of truth is just one of countless numbers of paths which comprise the totality of human experience. And it exists by virtue of rejecting all deluded behaviour. So it is extremely limited and rigid in that sense.

The fact that you seem to value logic over love or creativity is merely a subjective judgement on your part. It's your contribution to the totality, but your views, logic, and the consequences, thereof don't comprise the end-all and be-all of "reality". To claim they do, would indeed, require a leap of faith...at minimum, you would be engaging in a religion of one.

Passing through that eye requires a tremendous, unyielding love (of truth) and an ability to think entirely outside the box (which is a creative act). So clearly, I only speak against the kind of love and creativity which serves to reinforce people's delusions and egotistical attachments - that is, against nearly all of what passes for these things in the world today.

-

The problem with using that parable, and to some extent referring the the Biblical Jesus and to Christianity to make your points is that you have taken this parable out of context and that the teachings of this Biblical Jesus deal with elements you never take into consideration, indeed never even mention (love, charity, helping the suffering to name just a few).

Personally, as I have so often been saying, I am of the opinion that you have set up an intellectual trap for yourself. Generally, it seems that the people who accept your view of spiritual life and who adamantly support it (this adamant-cy is part-and-parcel of the TB position) get as fired-up about this idea of single focus as you do. It is an idea quite attractive to a certain sort of mind, and this attitude seems to solve, or pretends to solve, quite a number of existential issues. In this sense it seems to correspond to religious fanaticism.

The parable of the 'eye of the needle', to resort of facts, was one designed for a specific person: a rich man. The Biblical Jesus was taking a position against that of the common Jewish conception, that God blessed his followers with material wealth, that material wealth was a result of piety. Obviously, it was generally conceived that religiosity and piety would lead one to 'all the good things in life' and Jesus, it seemed, was taking a radical stance in asserting another truth, or another aspect of truth.

Now, it is problematical to refer to Jesus and to Christianity for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is you are not Christians. Yet strangely, you are. I said quite some time ago that you have more in common with Calvinism than you'll let on. I think it is an unconscious and if you will psychological fact of your religious orientation. It is something that I think you don't even know how to recognize. So, the reference to Jesus and to Christianity is more than anything baffling.

But let's examine the core of the Jesusonian concept, and his confrontative stance to the Jewish conception. The example is a very good one, in fact, and illustrates at least some part of what I mean to say. This parable of Jesus dealt on this theme so it is hard to avoid the contrast between the Christian concept of a divine life and the Jewish concept. This idea of having to leave everything behind and fit oneself through a needle's eye led of course to establishing monasteries, to male celibacy, to seekers wandering in the desert, leaving kith and kin and all the rest. It led pretty obviously to a kind of extremism that, from one perspective at least, could be seen as fanatical and extremist. But, there is no doubt that there were and are advantages to this form of extremism. The Jewish concept is that religiosity involves family, a progressive continuity through history, a dedication to a historical project (Torah is that historical project), to focus on learning, and of course gaining adequate material circumstances.

It is kind of hard to pin-point what you are doing in all this and why. There seems to be different currents. You could just as easily focus on selflessness (a prime Christian value and just as indispensable, from the Jesusonian perspective, as leaving material wealth and passing through the 'eye of a needle'). Or fraternal love. The potential meaning of all this is, as I say and believe, you are confused about 'real values'. In a certain sense your extremist focus of this 'eye of the needle' has simply replaced the heavy stuff the rich man cannot drop so to be able to pass through the needle's eye.

It seems to me more accurate to say that each person, within their 'body-mind problem', within their life-circumstance, will have to grapple with the question of what, really, is divine life---what does this really mean? I think that the extremism you recommend could actually be a great deal easier than simply being a decent, generous and (gasp!) warm-hearted person. I only mention that as a counter-point to what sometimes seems a vast, neurotic, machine-like structure you have established as this 'needle's eye'. And I think it behooves you to see how your 'followers' interpret this extremism. You have followers. You establish a religious praxis.

I believe that I do understand your spiritual and religious stance and its relationship to 'nirvana'. You are establishing a very difficult form of yoga as your existential focus. Similar to Ramana Maharshi, similar to Ramakrishna, Yogananda, Shivananda and so many others. And I suppose the Japanese and Buddhist sages. But sometimes I think that what these people are dealing on is 'trance state'. Krishnamurti, somewhere, said that all these states are mental states and they are attainable through training the mind. When he defines 'enlightenment' he is defining something else. I honestly do not mean to minimize your views or your attainments. It is just that 'philosophically' I take issue with your presuppositions.

Still, there is a great deal I find of vital importance in your stance. And I do agree that it is 'philosophy' (clear thinking, ordered thinking, continued thinking---jnani) that allows a great deal of cutting-away of superfluous junk.

Dan Rowden wrote:Yes, and more so since you became a moron. The Prince I know/knew was an irritating little cunt, but he was at least interesting, challenging and occasionally inspiring.

Maybe he found himself a girlfriend; wouldn't be the first time somebody went completely soft after finding one.

I always go completely hard whenever I find a girlfriend.

Alex T. Jacob wrote:The problem with using that parable, and to some extent referring the the Biblical Jesus and to Christianity to make your points is that you have taken this parable out of context and that the teachings of this Biblical Jesus deal with elements you never take into consideration, indeed never even mention (love, charity, helping the suffering to name just a few).

It is not a matter of taking these things "out of context", but rather of providing a different context. Let's not forget that almost the entire Christian religion is based on an arbitrarily selected set of gospels (in which four were chosen out of a possible fifteen) and thus has created its own context for interpreting the words and actions of Jesus. Given that Christianity, as a rule, has no interest in wisdom whatsoever, we can be sure that the context it has provided over the centuries is an extremely deluded one.

In other words, Jesus, to the degree that he was actually wise, badly needs reinterpretation.

When I look at the material featuring Jesus, I never think in terms of "Christianity", "Judaism" or "Jesus". I look at it as I would any other material, such as the posts on this forum. Jesus could be Joe Bloggs for all I care. It doesn't matter if Jesus even existed or not. All I'm focused on is what actually exists there on paper, regardless of who authored it. My only point of interest is whether the words I am reading come from a wise mind or not.

Going about it in this way, I can see that there are certain sections of the gospels which are steeped in deep wisdom - far too deep for the average Christian. As to why these wise sections are interspersed amongst reams of ordinary herd-fluff, we can only speculate. Perhaps the original wise writings were padded out for mass consumption? All I know for sure is that there are at least two separate Jesuses in the gospels - one that is very wise and one that is depressingly average.

Personally, as I have so often been saying, I am of the opinion that you have set up an intellectual trap for yourself. Generally, it seems that the people who accept your view of spiritual life and who adamantly support it (this adamant-cy is part-and-parcel of the TB position) get as fired-up about this idea of single focus as you do. It is an idea quite attractive to a certain sort of mind, and this attitude seems to solve, or pretends to solve, quite a number of existential issues. In this sense it seems to correspond to religious fanaticism.

Or in higher-quality people: spiritual genius.

The parable of the 'eye of the needle', to resort of facts, was one designed for a specific person: a rich man. The Biblical Jesus was taking a position against that of the common Jewish conception, that God blessed his followers with material wealth, that material wealth was a result of piety. Obviously, it was generally conceived that religiosity and piety would lead one to 'all the good things in life' and Jesus, it seemed, was taking a radical stance in asserting another truth, or another aspect of truth.

If you interpret this passage in light of the wise sections of the gospels (where Jesus talks about giving up everything you hold dear and making every effort to go through that narrow gate, etc), then you could say that the "rich man" refers to the person who is rich in emotional attachments.

Material wealth is really just a form of emotional attachment (designed to ease feelings of emotional insecurity). And it is just one of many different forms of emotional attachment that people can call upon. Thus, if Jesus simply counselled people to give up their material wealth, while neglecting to mention all the other emotional attachments, then one would have to regard his behaviour as being extremely superficial.

So if the passage is going to admit of any wisdom at all, Jesus would have to be referring to the complete abandonment of emotional attachments right across the board. If a person cannot shed himself of all his "wealth" in this way, then he has no more chance of entering the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel does of passing through the eye of a needle. That is what I would call a wise, uncompromising teaching.

Was the passage really intended to convey such a message? Does it matter?

Now, it is problematical to refer to Jesus and to Christianity for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is you are not Christians. Yet strangely, you are. I said quite some time ago that you have more in common with Calvinism than you'll let on. I think it is an unconscious and if you will psychological fact of your religious orientation. It is something that I think you don't even know how to recognize.

I've looked at Calvinism in the past and saw nothing of interest. I think this connection you make speaks more about your own understanding of things than it does mine. Your instinctive need to categorize everything into big, clear, conventional boxes fails you when it comes to these deeper, more subtle matters.

It seems to me more accurate to say that each person, within their 'body-mind problem', within their life-circumstance, will have to grapple with the question of what, really, is divine life---what does this really mean? I think that the extremism you recommend could actually be a great deal easier than simply being a decent, generous and (gasp!) warm-hearted person. I only mention that as a counter-point to what sometimes seems a vast, neurotic, machine-like structure you have established as this 'needle's eye'. And I think it behooves you to see how your 'followers' interpret this extremism. You have followers. You establish a religious praxis.

I'm sure Jesus would have encountered the same criticisms in his time. The path he outlined was very extreme, so extreme that even his followers balked at it. "Everything that man values is detestable in God's sight", said his spiritual extremism.

You're like Paul, trying to water everything down all the time.

I believe that I do understand your spiritual and religious stance and its relationship to 'nirvana'. You are establishing a very difficult form of yoga as your existential focus. Similar to Ramana Maharshi, similar to Ramakrishna, Yogananda, Shivananda and so many others. And I suppose the Japanese and Buddhist sages. But sometimes I think that what these people are dealing on is 'trance state'. Krishnamurti, somewhere, said that all these states are mental states and they are attainable through training the mind. When he defines 'enlightenment' he is defining something else.

Krishnamurti is right in saying that. Enlightenment has nothing to do with going into mental trances.

-

Jason wrote:Why do you refuse to deal with possibility of the world being a dream/hallucination/illusion?"

Alex T. Jacob wrote:What makes you think that I don't see things that way? Existence, the fact that things exist, the weird contrast (an impossible contrast) between existence and non-existence, is just too strange of a consideration. It rapidly becomes imponderable, and yet laden or charged with 'meaning'.

The essence of everything is in that, and it surrounds any examination of the essence of human situations (phenomenological considerations/meditations). Instead of entertaining such an idea in a modern-popular-cinematic way (Diebert has recently mentioned PK Dick, the science fiction writer, who dreamed up so many scenarios that made their way into popular films), I would likely instead 'call to mind' some of the Vedic conceptualization of this idea/fact.

I do in fact see this life and this world as a participatory dream. It would explain quite a few anomalous elements to my own perception/experience of the world, and the sense that more awake beings---individuals, actual persons beyond this particular 'dream'---do enter into this world (of mine, ours) from time to time, and also a very peculiar, and also meaningful, configuration of circumstances that I have sometimes called 'the exploding metaphor'.

If the world is such a dream, made of dreamy stuff, there seems to exist the possibility that we can act unusually on the surrounding dream. The dream itself, or the way we logically apprehend it, induces us to imagine it is singular, constant, inviolable, but there are whole schools of thought that see the world as responsive to man's will: the science and practice of magic. If I think thus-and-such, if I will thus-and-such, I can affect the world, the present, the future. It is an interesting idea that our modern science is really, in a similar way, an applied magic. The manipulation of 'things' strictly resulting from application of will.

(And there of course all the mythic symbolism of a Mephistophelean activity, the creation of automaton machines that take over the planet, etc.)

Now, the question gets more interesting when that 'magic' becomes 'spiritual magic' or 'holy magic'. Maybe that sort of 'magic' (an existential attitude and activity) is one where the individual is conscious of a surrounding, 'superior' consciousness? And it is less about a strict application of his will, which is sometimes a little maniacal, and a surrender or giving-over to another will. There, of course, a whole other sort of path opens up. And I suggest, of course, that is where 'divine life' might begin. What that seems to mean is that this 'thing' or possibility known as God/the Divine is only knowable through grace; that one comes into it only to the degree that one renders oneself susceptible to it, sensitive to it, and that in this strict sense one has to 'go and meet it'. I am not trying to 'get religious' on you (the Christian language, the metaphysical essence is, when you strip it down to the basics, the language of just such a 'magical school of thought', the blending of Jewish mysticism and Isis-worship/magical practice, among many other currents, a sort of pan-Mediterraneanism), and am only trying to fill out a little what you seem to be suggesting.

If as you seem to imply we are 'taking place' in a dream construct, and if as I say there is a sort of 'Lord' or designing intelligence of the realm (I wince too at some of these terms and those who use them, they all have to be carefully explained anew), what if one can never get to the bottom of anything here unless one shows the right attitude? Unless one 'turns over one's will'? In this scenario the individual has no power, or very limited power, to 'open his own front door' (in this far broader, existential sense), and what is more, the door is so tightly closed that only, on occasion, does an 'exploding metaphor' get by the Gatekeeper and hearken to something entirely other?

Kind of does a number on a strict atheistic/rationalist group of presuppositions, I admit that... ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0

OK, that was a bit of an over-exaggeration, but your post was jam packed full of rapid jumps between multiple unexplained streams of thought. Or maybe it's just that I'm a poor little philistine who is incapable of deciphering and recognizing the grand historical narratives and discourses to which you so casually refer....

David's comment about going through the "narrow gate" was right on target I think(at least in so far as I interpret that saying, which is pretty much at face-value, given that I'm very ignorant of all things biblical.) Not that I'm aligning myself with the idea that you should go through the narrow gate, but rather that the narrow gate really reflects what appears to be a deep divide between your mindset and many of the other contributors to GF.

Are you interested at all in that sort of "reductionistic" method? Or do you think it is inherently flawed? Perhaps I was trying to corner you with my own narrow gate with the dream question. If the world were a dream in the sense that I was conceiving of it, it might eliminate the value of a lot of what you seem to think has significance philosophy/religion-wise; forcing you to narrow and limit your focus.

Perhaps another question, something that I've been wondering: what fundamentally orients you? Philosophically.

To be frank, from my often relatively "narrow-gated" perspective, you seem to be floating, adrift, everything up in the air, nothing solid or settled; I'm guessing you'll disagree with that characterization though. I know Christianity, Judaism, maybe even some shamanism(or was that a joke? I can't remember) play a part, but could you try to, just for once, for my sake, try to zero in on the essence. If it's a multitude of things then "a multitude of things" is a perfectly fine stand-in for an exhaustive(and exhausting) explanation.

Maybe it'd be easier if I gave you multiple choice:
A.) Your heart
B.) Your intuition
C.) Tradition
D.) Post-modern-lit-crit
E.) Parrots
F.) Nubile latinas
G.) All of the above with a spoonful of ayahuasca

--

I've spent a lot of my life being very disappointed. Disappointed in my fellow humans. Disappointed in much that they have created and believed - large parts of culture, religion, belief. Because of this, I have developed a tendency to be extremely skeptical and often downright aggressively dismissive(sometime perhaps a little too pre-emptively and habitually so) of convention. Some belief, code, more, moral, religion, culture, practice has existed for a few thousand years? That doesn't impress me. I couldn't give a shit. I've seen how bullshit can live for generations, I've seen how it is everywhere. That's why, amongst other reasons, a narrow path was a natural fit for me. (Hmmmm, not a very well executed or momentous ending to the post, but I thought I'd just tack that on there....maybe you will respond to it in some valuable way....)

P.S. Have you read anything by Anton LaVey(founder of the Church of Satan)? He had some interesting ideas about combining religious-drives, magic and ritual with modern science and psychology.

Alex Jacob wrote:I didn't offer anything specific, I am just interested in the question about their presuppositions.

Perhaps we can get to specifics through the question of presuppositions then. I see the primary QRS presupposition as this: that the transcendent (in the sense of being eternal/timeless) ultimate truths of reality can be uncovered by purely logical thought, without recourse to empiricism. So I'll tack on a couple of addendum question to those which Jason just asked you:

Do you agree that this is the primary presupposition that QRS make, and if not, what would you say that it actually is?

What do you make of the primary QRS presupposition (whether it's the one that I framed or one of your own framing), and how does it compare to your own presuppositions?

Jason wrote: "OK, that was a bit of an over-exaggeration, but your post was jam packed full of rapid jumps between multiple unexplained streams of thought. Or maybe it's just that I'm a poor little philistine who is incapable of deciphering and recognizing the grand historical narratives and discourses to which you so casually refer...."

Y'all like your truth raw and with no sugar-coating, right? Y'all have set this up as a primary value, right? Y'all don't like to mess around, you want to go straight to the 'real', and y'all certainly are no suckers. This is one of the primary tenets of the path that is revealed and explained here, isn't that right Jason? So, there should really be no animosity if I describe things like I see them, right? I should rouse the ire of no one. You guys like it like this: truth, direct, right in your face, like a cold slap.

I do not use the word philistine, but rather uneducated and preliterate. There is a solution: gaining education and literacy. One does that through wide reading. Beginning to become familiar with the bases that the Occidental structure is built on.

As people fall further and further away from such basic familiarity with our traditions, their capacity to compare ideas, to see a greater whole, and to think in wider terms becomes progressively reduced. People who have a limited structure of mind, who yet see themselves as complete and capable of making decisions about grand questions, only end up doing harm. The solution---taking ones education seriously, going back to school.

One of the main elements that makes for the fantastic reductions that occur on this list, an inability to see a wider picture, to understand the questions on a fuller dimension is just this reduced mental palette. Sorry, bro, I do not mean to offend. It is offered in the same spirit as your Truth.

"Perhaps another question, something that I've been wondering: what fundamentally orients you? Philosophically".

If you were interested in and capable of reading, you would already know this, since I have been offering this description since I first signed on here.

You could, I suppose, conclude that I am up in the air and that nothing is decided, that I am floating. But since you do not seem to grasp what it is I am talking about, how could you even know? What you want, apparently, is to have it doled-out to you, like pablum, in mouthfulls that dont overwhelm you. A reduction, a simplistic reduction or a group of them, will likely serve you better than anything I might say. Ah yes, the narrow path...

"I've spent a lot of my life being very disappointed. Disappointed in my fellow humans. Disappointed in much that they have created and believed - large parts of culture, religion, belief. Because of this, I have developed a tendency to be extremely skeptical and often downright aggressively dismissive(sometime perhaps a little too pre-emptively and habitually so) of convention. Some belief, code, more, moral, religion, culture, practice has existed for a few thousand years? That doesn't impress me. I couldn't give a shit. I've seen how bullshit can live for generations, I've seen how it is everywhere. That's why, amongst other reasons, a narrow path was a natural fit for me. (Hmmmm, not a very well executed or momentous ending to the post, but I thought I'd just tack that on there....maybe you will respond to it in some valuable way....)"

Who is talking about convention? Me?

Well, the real question here is What shall you create? Or, What are you creating? The Western tradition has opened up all the avenues that are considered or explored on this list. Verily, verily I say unto you: it is the stuff with which we have made Self. Maybe if you actually knew a little more about this stuff that you seem inclined just to sweep off the board, you would also know how to select out of it what is relevant, even sublime. Because it is there, even if you cannot see it. To know where to go, youd have to know where we have been.

David wrote: "Given that Christianity, as a rule, has no interest in wisdom whatsoever, we can be sure that the context it has provided over the centuries is an extremely deluded one."

The one who makes such a statement---I always see this so clearly, it just jumps out at me even though it is not this I really want to talk about---does not really understand how intimately the 'Christianity' he describes as 'deleded' and 'unwise', has in fact created the conditions for the very conversation we are having. It has actually transformed a world, built a world, that may be considered flawed from one point of view, but from another is a decent and considerable structure.

The fact is that such an unstudied and reductionist interpretation is in fact 'ignorant' and 'deluded'. But, you cannot see this. You don't have points of comparison, I assume.

"When I look at the material featuring Jesus, I never think in terms of "Christianity", "Judaism" or "Jesus". I look at it as I would any other material, such as the posts on this forum. Jesus could be Joe Bloggs for all I care. It doesn't matter if Jesus even existed or not. All I'm focused on is what actually exists there on paper, regardless of who authored it. My only point of interest is whether the words I am reading come from a wise mind or not."

But so much is about 'context'. The life we live, the ways that we determine value and meaning, these derive from context. What has made you as a person is a context. You read Nietzsche and Kierkegaard who were utterly informed by their context, who spoke to and from that context, but it is as if you assume you have superceded it. You propose a 'wisdom' that is divorced from the 'body', from what has given birth to it.

It is this sort of reductionism that defines your style of mentation, the philosophy that derives from it, this radicalism, this fanaticism. Other and wider perspectives are possible which also have a strict focus.

"Going about it in this way, I can see that there are certain sections of the gospels which are steeped in deep wisdom - far too deep for the average Christian. As to why these wise sections are interspersed amongst reams of ordinary herd-fluff, we can only speculate. Perhaps the original wise writings were padded out for mass consumption? All I know for sure is that there are at least two separate Jesuses in the gospels - one that is very wise and one that is depressingly average."

Because I live in Latin America and like books, I have quite a number of them. Because I live in LA it also is relevant to try to understand Catholicism, so I look at Catholic literature which is extensive. What you call 'herd-fluff' is more than anything a world-view, a structure of view, a way of perceiving the essence of the 'kosmos' and the human world within that. This view-structure is tied up in a group of dying (or perhaps transforming) presuppositions that I included in a previous post (and most of us are basically familiar with the old order that is falling away, that has been undermined...) And we don't at all have to 'speculate': the Holy Roman Empire was an extraordinary effort to create a unified system where the base structures (economy, civis engineering, governance) were intimately unified with cosmological orientation, theological ideation, etc. It is nothing less than the mother which has given birth to what we now are: the structure out of which we concoct Self. To know thism I think, inclines one to a more judicious and even tolerant viewpoint. It would tend to incline one away from inessecary reductionism, and it might also help one to focus, in a more legitimate way, on the question of What is Wisdom? What does this really mean?

But still---I don't disagree at all---there are numbers of Jesuses in the Bible, and not just two as you say. Maybe there are ten. But what you are talking about is a Gnostic Jesus if I read you right. The hidden and occulted Jesus with a message only for the elect. The one that if you were to repeat even one of the three mystic words that he was said to have confided to Thomas the Dídamo (Twin) would cause even an exceptional, advanced devotee to pick up rocks and stone you, but which rocks would turn into fire and consume the thrower (even as I am consumed). A Jesus so radical and proposing such radical choices that only a select group can even hear it: "Or ... higher-quality people: spiritual geniuses".

It is not that I don't understand where you are coming from, it is that I am learly of this brand of radicalism. And I do offer reasons why.
__________________________________________________________

The rich man could also be a person with a body. Because that is really what one of these Jesusi was talking about. A perspective about which Nietzsche, as I remember, had a thing or two to say...

"Was the passage really intended to convey such a message? Does it matter?"

Well, again, the question is context. Our spiritual vision is a reflection of how we orient ourselves in our conceptual order of reality. You seem to be able to define a radical stance and a disassociation with the world, life, and the body, but that does not at all mean you have the issue all decided. Your absolutes could be and may be also 'deluded'.

Hi Laird,

I tried to get at your questions in these responses to Frère Jason and Frère David. To be utterly truthful my basic presupposition is that there does exist a Supreme Being. I think the Q-R-S negate this essential view of things and recoil into a reasoning position as a way to deal with existential issues. I don't think this position is tenable. I also don't think it can define 'wisdom' or an 'absolute' since, ipso facto, it is flawed from the start. But, to define a Supreme Being as an agent of personalism is no less daunting an enterprize. It is, as I see it, the stuff that a New Mysticism will arise from. David's position is in fact rather complex since he begins to look more and more like a monastic, a sort of St John of the Cross popping his head out of a kangaroo pouch...

"Do you agree that this is the primary presupposition that QRS make, and if not, what would you say that it actually is?"

The primary presupposition is really a group of assertions and choices, as I see it. It is a radicalism borne of a kind of desperation. A crisis of modernity. A solution to nihilism. A quick solution to oppressive materialism. It seems to me at its unconscious core a fanatically religious position, but one that incorporates deeply relevant positions and suppositions. As a strict rationalistic position, and one that does not and cannot take the 'whole person' into consideration, it is doomed to produce a distortion, and the distortion is essentialla misperception, a misapprehension. I have a strong feeling that it will produce malaise and not 'liberation' in the practitioners of it. To some extent that 'malaise' is notable in the practitioners. It is reductionsim and shrinking of the human spirit.

Still, there are very positive elements and those have to be carefully separated out...

"What do you make of the primary QRS presupposition (whether it's the one that I framed or one of your own framing), and how does it compare to your own presuppositions?"

My own presuppositions have been included in my posts over the course of a long while. I don't believe in a 'short-list' and I don't believe (in this context) in abbreviation. I don't mean to avoid the question, but it would have to be developed over time. I don't consider myself to be in a radically different or better position, and I see 'the problem' as being one of 'incomplete birth' (perhaps). The value in having these conversations is no small thing. I don't think we should at all minimize each other and what we are attempting.

Jason wrote: I've spent a lot of my life being very disappointed. Disappointed in my fellow humans. Disappointed in much that they have created and believed - large parts of culture, religion, belief. Because of this, I have developed a tendency to be extremely skeptical and often downright aggressively dismissive(sometime perhaps a little too pre-emptively and habitually so) of convention. Some belief, code, more, moral, religion, culture, practice has existed for a few thousand years? That doesn't impress me. I couldn't give a shit. I've seen how bullshit can live for generations, I've seen how it is everywhere. That's why, amongst other reasons, a narrow path was a natural fit for me. (Hmmmm, not a very well executed or momentous ending to the post, but I thought I'd just tack that on there....maybe you will respond to it in some valuable way....)

I thought it was a pretty good ending, for what it's worth. I have a similar 'narrative'.

Alex T. Jacob wrote: can be sure that the context it has provided over the centuries is an extremely deluded one."

The one who makes such a statement---I always see this so clearly, it just jumps out at me even though it is not this I really want to talk about---does not really understand how intimately the 'Christianity' he describes as 'deleded' and 'unwise', has in fact created the conditions for the very conversation we are having. It has actually transformed a world, built a world, that may be considered flawed from one point of view, but from another is a decent and considerable structure.

I'm not sure how the political and economic structures that we enjoy today - fostered in part, as you say, by Christian thought - have any relevance to Christianity's confused philosophic outlook and deep-rooted spiritual ignorance. Are you trying to say that because Christianity helped create modern Western civilization it is evidence that it possesses spiritual wisdom?

"When I look at the material featuring Jesus, I never think in terms of "Christianity", "Judaism" or "Jesus". I look at it as I would any other material, such as the posts on this forum. Jesus could be Joe Bloggs for all I care. It doesn't matter if Jesus even existed or not. All I'm focused on is what actually exists there on paper, regardless of who authored it. My only point of interest is whether the words I am reading come from a wise mind or not."

But so much is about 'context'. The life we live, the ways that we determine value and meaning, these derive from context. What has made you as a person is a context. You read Nietzsche and Kierkegaard who were utterly informed by their context, who spoke to and from that context, but it is as if you assume you have superceded it. You propose a 'wisdom' that is divorced from the 'body', from what has given birth to it.

"Transcends the 'body'" would be a less pejorative way of putting it.

You're right in saying that context is important. That is why when it comes to determining the wisdom of someone like Jesus, you have to do it in the context of a personal, inward, authentic understanding of what wisdom is. Scouring historical and sociological texts isn't going to provide this context. You're going about it the wrong way.

It is this sort of reductionism that defines your style of mentation, the philosophy that derives from it, this radicalism, this fanaticism. Other and wider perspectives are possible which also have a strict focus.

Engaging in reductionism is only a small part of the spiritual path, the beginning part. One needs to break down every received belief and assumption as part of the process of clearing the mind of all its junk. Only in this way can the mind become free enough to holistically tune into the larger reality of God.

Because you have never ventured down this path yourself, not to any serious degree (there are still many unchallenged assumptions inside you), you can only view the process from afar. All you see is the reductionism part and, beyond that, a sort of black hole. You don't have any personal understanding of what happens when a person carries his reductionism into the black hole and beyond. Your desire to stay firmly within the realm of books and collective knowledge limits your vision here.

"Going about it in this way, I can see that there are certain sections of the gospels which are steeped in deep wisdom - far too deep for the average Christian. As to why these wise sections are interspersed amongst reams of ordinary herd-fluff, we can only speculate. Perhaps the original wise writings were padded out for mass consumption? All I know for sure is that there are at least two separate Jesuses in the gospels - one that is very wise and one that is depressingly average."

Because I live in Latin America and like books, I have quite a number of them. Because I live in LA it also is relevant to try to understand Catholicism, so I look at Catholic literature which is extensive. What you call 'herd-fluff' is more than anything a world-view, a structure of view, a way of perceiving the essence of the 'kosmos' and the human world within that.

So does the world-view of the Ku Kux Klan. It doesn't really mean anything, does it.

Okay, you're smitten and fascinated by Christian history. You can't help that. But don't pretend that Christianity is anything other than a jumbled mess of contradictions that has relied on an ambiguous text, political power, violence, the exploitation of people's fears, and priestly trickery to persuade a superstitious population to continue accepting it.

Those few wise people who have emerged within the Christian tradition (Kierkegaard, Eckhart, etc) have largely done so in spite of the teachings of Christianity, not because of them.

-

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:

prince wrote:So how does one become more of a moron? Short of getting a blow to the head or oxygen deprivation.

Too much fluoride in the water.

Well that goes without saying, it's yet another stupid, forced perpetration of idiocy on the human race.

I drink bottled water and have done so for years. But I have no doubt that's it not entirely 'clean'.

David wrote: "I'm not sure how the political and economic structures that we enjoy today - fostered in part, as you say, by Christian thought - have any relevance to Christianity's confused philosophic outlook and deep-rooted spiritual ignorance. Are you trying to say that because Christianity helped create modern Western civilization it is evidence that it possesses spiritual wisdom?"

In confronting what I see as your ignorance---a sort of wilful ignorance---of the traditions and processes that have brought us to this point in 'modernity', with its problems, dangers and challenges, which also is to say as a 'crisis' for the individual, I am forced from time to time to focus on elements within the edifice of your thought which are clearly lacking, misinformed, and because of this 'ignorant'. Because you always wield this sword---you are the one who defines what is wise, valuable, relevant, et cetera, you sit like a judge and pronounce decisions---I often feel inclined to focus in one of those areas where your ignorance is manifest. The Christian movement within Western culture and the grand conversation that took place between the poles of Egypt, Hellens, Rome and Judea (the Mediterranean Matrix, if you will) gave rise to the Self which appears here in this conversation. The implications of this fact/idea are simply beyond your ken, so you will dismiss it as irrelevant. But it is not at all irrelevant.

You can simply sweep aside the value and importance of Christianity---the giant structure that it is, with so many dimensions, so many contributions, so much that has become the literal fabric of the Self---because your essential project is reductionist. When I mention 'Calvinism'---you seem to misunderstand me---I am referring to a fanatical limitation in the quantiy of ideas that are part of permissible thought. It is part and parcel of a religious extremism which is a system that feeds on itself.

And of course 'transcends the body' is the peculiarly Vedantic way of phrasing it. Those ideas are ensconsed within a rigorous religious and metaphysical understanding of the world very peculiar to those 'systems' of thought. I am not necessarily opposed to definitions of reality that might avail themselves of these metaphysics---in fact not at all. They are welcome in a conversation. The question for me is the very nature of Revelation for an individual, and what this Revelation means in the context of a disruption in a holistic notion of self around which a person, but also greater society, modern society, constellate. The thrust I have been working in is to say that modern man is in a deep crisis because we have lost a unified connection to 'the Totality' (as you say). The personality of moderns, resulting from this crisis of disunity, begins to disintegrate. We 'split' into fractions of self: the mental portion, which goes one way; the spiritual portion, which goes another, and the body which 'is left in the dark'. I am not sure if 'transcending the body' can be said to be very relevant as moderns recollect themselves.

"Scouring historical and sociological texts isn't going to provide this context. You're going about it the wrong way."

Oh no, I don't think I am at all. I have made the assertion that your 'solution' and method is one borne of a certain desperation. It is the same fragmented self that senses real danger and very desperately needs to make a decision, to come up with a plan, to save itself from dissolution (in the aftermath and death of an old world-view, and in a mercilless materialistic environment that feeds on the divided parts of man---the reference here is to a Machine that consumes). Just like so many others who have struggled, consciously and unconsciously, with the crisis of disolution of self, you come up with a plan. It has to be a Total Plan, it has to be one that beyond any shadow of a doubt can be described and represented as a Total Truth, and Absolute Truth, and indeed it is presented in this way. And this is exactly where the problem lies, which is what I have been saying. It is rather that certain questions can be asked and should be asked, and these questions have been posed within this thread. Myself, Laird and also Carmel (?) seem interested in the question/problem of limitation. That is, excluding what should not and perhaps cannot be excluded. I am not quite the Prophet and Master as you are, so I am chary of offering a Complete Plan for the Modern Individual, something that could be represented as an Absolute Truth. I leave this to you, of course. I am much more interested in trying to get the right questions on the board, so they can be examined.

You are wrong in assuming that what I do is to 'scour' historical and sociological texts. Please note that I seem to be undergoing a subtle transformation, an evolution. When once I was a 'drunken poet' and an 'aesthete', now I being transformed into historian and sociologist! In my case, for good or for evil, I have been forced to focus on the very deepest existential questions since a very early age. An age far too young, in fact, to be able to handle the intensity of the experience that propelled me, pushed me into these considerations. I don't establish myself on a higher or better platfrom that you or anyone else---we are all in this together like it or not---yet I most definitely do not place myself on a lower rung as you or anyone else here (this 'game of hierarchies' is part-and-parcel of the ridiculous aspect of this forum and fits into its neurosis, of course).

What is the 'right' way and what is the 'wrong' way is a question very much up in the air.

"One needs to break down every received belief and assumption as part of the process of clearing the mind of all its junk. Only in this way can the mind become free enough to holistically tune into the larger reality of God."

It sound so good 'on paper'. Everyone intuitively and practically recognizes the truth that is expressed in this phrase. It functions, I suppose, for someone inclined to the Authority of the Absolute. But the fact is the process of self-knowledge and that of discovering 'God' cannot ever be spoken of as 'one thing' or as a singular process. When one begins to frame the problem of modernity in a wider context the specific radicalism (reductionsim) can be examined, indeed needs to be examined.

And to be clear, I am not 'opposed' to the idea you presented in the above-quoted. I am not dismissing it. But I certainly would place it in a wider area of concern, and I would certainly be concerned with what you 'cut away'.

You're procrastinating, Alex, and simply trying to find ways to justify it.

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family."

Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

Luke 9:59-62

This is Christianity. Full of trepidation, horror, excitement, and hope. A plunging into the unknown. A gamble. A dangerous movement in the here and now. The very essence of life. What you are doing, in relation to studying Roman Catholicism and political history and "framing questions" and worrying about becoming a "whole person" and the like, is infinitely removed from this.

Perhaps you were more traumatized by your early brush with this sort of thing than you acknowledge....?

I'm not having a dig at you, really. I don't blame you if you can't make this gamble. Not many people can. But it is important to be honest about the situation. I'd rather a person back away from spiritual matters altogether and say openly, "It is too hard for me. I am not cut out for it", than to keep dipping their toes into it and mangling the whole thing because of pride and a refusal to acknowledge their own limitations.

-

David:
I take your point, but the important point remains: a person must pass through that eye if he wishes to be acquainted with the highest wisdom.

Carmel:
That might be, but I don't think that's the ultimate key to enlightment. For example, as I'm sure you know, Siddhartha(Buddha) ultimately renounces asceticism(the narrow gate), in favor of "the middle way".

David:
Complaining about how restrictive and exclusive this path is won't help you. "Blessed is he who isn't offended," was the counsel of Jesus to his appalled disciples.

Carmel:
Whoa! slow down there, Jesus, I'm not one of your disciples. ;) I was neither "offended", nor "complaining". I'm simply expressing my viewpoint, the same as you or anyone else are.

David:
I agree that, mentally, one should never be rigid. The mind needs to be flexible enough to ferret out the obscure hiding place where truth resides and adaptable enough to make effective use of it when it is found.

Carmel:
I agree, Buddha said something to the same effect... that one should aknowledge truth wherever it is found, regardless of the source. This is one of the premises which originally attracted me to Buddhism when I young. That, as well as the notion that he encouraged people to question him and not just accept his words with blind faith.

David:
For sure, the path of truth is just one of countless numbers of paths which comprise the totality of human experience. And it exists by virtue of rejecting all deluded behaviour. So it is extremely limited and rigid in that sense.

Carmel:
Yes, but we don't seem to have quite the same definition of what entails "deluded behaviour". From what I can tell, you seem to devalue all emotions and some forms of creativity and deem them delusional, whereas, I don't. However, I do agree that the ego can produce emotions that interfere with the process of attaining wisdom.

Ah, shit. Not him again....

Carmel wrote:David:
I take your point, but the important point remains: a person must pass through that eye if he wishes to be acquainted with the highest wisdom.

Carmel:
That might be, but I don't think that's the ultimate key to enlightment. For example, as I'm sure you know, Siddhartha(Buddha) ultimately renounces asceticism(the narrow gate), in favor of "the middle way".

A much misunderstood phrase. I think the Buddha erred when he came up with that one. He made it too easy for people to imagine that their mediocre lives with their little bit of "this" and their little bit of "that" - never going too extreme in any direction - is somehow compatible with the Buddhist path to enlightenment.

It is possible that he started teaching too soon, without allowing his new understanding to mature. For example, he states during his initial teachings:

"Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. (What are the two?) There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable.

"Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata (the Perfect One) has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path realized by the Tathagata...? It is the Noble Eightfold path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration."

To me, this particular focus of his seems to have been shaped by what happened in his own life (assuming, of course, that the records we have are accurate).

He started off as a prince and enjoyed every pleasure that the world at the time had to offer. Then, finding this wanting, he renounced his title and his family and went off to live in a forest to practice an extreme form of asceticism - even to the point of indulging in self-mortification. After six years of that, he realized that this was a deluded path as well and so he decided, rather belatedly it would seem, to sit down and actually nut out the core truth of existence, vowing to never get up again until he was successful. And lo and behold, it only took him a few hours to succeed.

So what are we to make of this?

Firstly, it shows that his decision to abandon the path of self-mortification was a good one, but also that his engagement in it wasn't a complete waste of time. The years of doing it obviously toughened his mind up and made him mentally comfortable with the idea of abandoning the world entirely. Thus, when he was finally ready to begin reasoning in a serious manner, there was little holding him back. He powered through to enlightenment very quickly.

Given this, it is pretty disappointing to hear him talk down his ascetic period. It wasn't really the renunciation of his asceticism which helped him become enlightened, but rather the combination of his participating in it and then renouncing it.

He then turns around - rather immaturely, in my opinion - probably flush with the excitement of having renounced asceticism and subsequently becoming enlightened - and teaches people a completely different path. A far more mediocre path which, on the face of it, disturbingly seems like a sales pitch to get people to follow him.

Having said that, even the "Middle Way" that he teaches is pretty stringent and austere. Attaining "right understanding", for example, means renouncing all wrong understanding. It doesn't mean being content with, say, a balance of right and wrong understanding.

For example, as I'm sure you know, Siddhartha(Buddha) ultimately renounces asceticism(the narrow gate), in favor of "the middle way"

The "narrow gate" doesn't refer to asceticism in the normal sense. It simply refers to the shedding of all delusion. At root, this is the only kind of renunciation that is required from a person wishing to live a life of truth.

David:
Complaining about how restrictive and exclusive this path is won't help you. "Blessed is he who isn't offended," was the counsel of Jesus to his appalled disciples.

Carmel:
Whoa! slow down there, Jesus, I'm not one of your disciples. ;)

I've got you in my net, don't worry. Struggle all you like, but you'll be perfuming my feet in no time.

I was neither "offended", nor "complaining". I'm simply expressing my viewpoint, the same as you or anyone else are.

If a person isn't appalled and offended by what a life of truth demands, then he is either very wise or not seeing it at all.

David:
I agree that, mentally, one should never be rigid. The mind needs to be flexible enough to ferret out the obscure hiding place where truth resides and adaptable enough to make effective use of it when it is found.

Carmel:
I agree, Buddha said something to the same effect... that one should aknowledge truth wherever it is found, regardless of the source. This is one of the premises which originally attracted me to Buddhism when I young. That, as well as the notion that he encouraged people to question him and not just accept his words with blind faith.

It is definitely a huge step up from religions like Christianity and Islam - no question.

David:
For sure, the path of truth is just one of countless numbers of paths which comprise the totality of human experience. And it exists by virtue of rejecting all deluded behaviour. So it is extremely limited and rigid in that sense.

Carmel:
Yes, but we don't seem to have quite the same definition of what entails "deluded behaviour". From what I can tell, you seem to devalue all emotions and some forms of creativity and deem them delusional, whereas, I don't. However, I do agree that the ego can produce emotions that interfere with the process of attaining wisdom.

I don't really devalue the emotions as such. Always, the prime focus is on irrational conceptions and ignorance. It's just that emotions cannot arise in the absence of irrational conceptions and ignorance. In a wise person, the series of causal connections inside the body which lead to the emergence of an emotion is broken. A vital piece in the chain has disappeared. The whole mechanism has ground to a halt.

This has enormous ramifications for those who have a desire to break through into enlightenment and become wise, in that if a person isn't willing to give up his attachment to a life of emotional highs and lows, then he will be subconsciously restricting his own mind to ensure that it won't fully dismantle its irrational conceptions and ignorance.

-

That's not what I am talking about. The weak link in the causal chain which leads to the arisal of an emotion is perception. If a person becomes so wise that he thoroughly sees through the illusion of his own "self", then no longer can he experience the perception of threat, victory, defeat, gain, loss, etc. In his perceptual universe, there no longer arises anything that could trigger an emotional response.

So it's not a matter of merely reflecting on something until it "disappears", but rather of reprogramming the neural pathways inside one's brain in a wiser manner.

-

dejavu wrote:If one holds self as illusion, what is left to 'see through'?

Coming back to the subject of this thread, the only thing of woman you've 'exposed' in speaking against her, is that she is not man. A thing needing no exposition.

It doesn't matter, forget it.

-