GENIUS FORUMS

Zen will always be a failure because it is totally anti-being.

While individuals may LEARN to succumb to it, in times others can afford to provide food for them, no whole community will.

Zen might work once the females have control and make us into ant-minded creatures.

Victor wrote:

Nat: Otherwise, we will keep running after certainty and security compulsively, in the form of one salvationist worldview or another.

Victor: Yeah, the lure of certainty is great. I just expected better from a community like this than to find people clinging on to the illusion of perfect certainty with the iron grip of mortal terror.

You know, I've never met a proponent of the belief that everything is uncertain who wasn't entirely secure and comfortable in this belief.

I also detect no terror or uncomfortableness in either of your demeanours. If anything, what I detect is a kind of mutual patting-each-other-on-the-back smugness. So forgive me if I find these words from the pair of you rather odd.

There is a world of difference between clinging to blind beliefs in an attempt to ward off confusion and uncertainty (as found in religious fundamentalism) and that of opening oneself up to the ultimate truth of Nature. For you guys to equate the two shows an extreme ignorance of what spirituality is all about.

It is actually far more terrifying to approach Truth than it is to rest in the belief that everything is uncertain. Approaching Truth requires an abandoning of everything that normally makes one feel secure - blind beliefs, pre-packaged intellectual frameworks, the support of the crowd, external sources of authority, reputation, honour, status, emotional relationships, the illusion of permanence, etc. It reaches the stage where it is just you and Nature, and nothing else.

In weaker people, this can easily lead to madness. One is literally on the edge of life and death at all times. One is continually exposed on all levels. The further you go, the more you drift away from the comforting arms of the human race. The only salvation one seeks is in Truth itself, and often it can seem like a very flimsy, insubstantial form of salvation indeed! As such, no one has ever approached Truth without entering prolonged periods of agony, despair and incredible doubt.

In the end, a person who goes deep into the Truth is no longer supported by intellectual certainty, for he is beyond the need for that. He is fully immersed in the ever-changing formlessness of reality and is wholly sustained by it. If he slips back into a deluded mindset, he instantly suffers. For he has long abandoned everything else that could possibly sustain him, either intellectually or emotionally, and so suddenly, bereft of Truth, he has nothing. His only happiness now is going back into Truth, which can often be a very difficult thing to do. And so he suffers horrendously in a way that few others can fathom.

So in the face of this reality, which is very much a part of my daily life, and perhaps a few others here, I find your characterizations of what this place stands for to be cartoonish and laughable to the extreme. Victor, I can understand, for he is as ignorant as a person can be about these matters. But Nat .... have you forgotten what it is like? Or perhaps you prefer to forget?

-

David Quinn wrote:You know, I've never met a proponent of the belief that everything is uncertain who wasn't entirely secure and comfortable in this belief.

I think that's an empty assertion. I know it is in my case, at least. Like most people, my natural inclination is to feel that uncertainty sucks ass. I'm learning to cope with it a bit more effectively these days, but I spent many years in the firm belief that uncertainty was a condition which needed to be cured. But rather than fully embracing any of the various salvationist ideologies I looked into at various times, I finally decided to just man up and bite the bullet. And it still sucks at times, but that's life. There's no alternative but religion, and it is an alternative I can do without.

Besides, not everything is uncertain. Existence exists. Even if we suppose existence is an illusion of some sort, then it follows that I'm an illusion as well, and there is no meaningful difference between illusion and reality. Even if we define existence as non-existence, then I'm non-existent as well, and there's no difference. The distinction ceases to arise. If we eschew words and concepts altogether, then what is simply is. That's all we can say with certainty. We can't say that we can know what is, because what is might not be what we think it is. But there is that which there is. In other words, Descartes' "I think, therefore I am," is reduced to "there is awareness, therefore there is existence," where "existence" is defined as presenting an appearance.

But here we encounter an inevitable paradox, the circularity and tautologous nature (or "universal dialectic") of awareness and appearance, which is why we should just get over ourselves and throw the whole ontological project out. We could say that awareness is appearance and vice versa in some sense, but that's tantamount to saying "mu" or "sticky buns" or some other nonsensical, meaningless thing, because it transcends the limits of meaningful language. Unless we wish to be hit with Wittgenstein's fire-poker or Nagarjuna's dharma-stick, that of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence.

I also detect no terror or uncomfortableness in either of your demeanours. If anything, what I detect is a kind of mutual patting-each-other-on-the-back smugness. So forgive me if I find these words from the pair of you rather odd.

I'm not terrified or uncomfortable because those are psychological phenomena which can be largely overcome. Sure, the first few years without the certainty of absolutist beliefs can be psychological hell. They were for me. But you get used to it, and you gradually learn to look at the freedom and possibility that comes with uncertainty rather than the dread and depression. It's an ongoing process of spiritual maturity, or psychological maturity, if secular terms are preferred.

But some people don't have the will to engage this process. They would rather find an "easy out" by declaring themselves to be spiritually/psychologically perfected (or nearly so), invoking some extra-normal insight or understanding to justify the claim. This spares them the lifelong challenge of responding to difficult circumstances authentically as the situation arises, and it makes them role models in the eyes of the next generation of salvation-seekers who also want to shortcut the process of spiritual maturity and reach the comforting state of "perfection."

There is a world of difference between clinging to blind beliefs in an attempt to ward off confusion and uncertainty (as found in religious fundamentalism) and that of opening oneself up to the ultimate truth of Nature. For you guys to equate the two shows an extreme ignorance of what spirituality is all about.

The ultimate truth of Nature is that there is no conceptual or intellectual "ultimate truth of nature." Nature is not rational because Nature transcends the 3 pound lump of neurons in which rationality solely resides. Do you really think so little of Nature that you imagine you can capture it within the 1300 cubic centimeters of your skull? Do you imagine that you can imprison Nature's soul there in a minature gilded cage? Would you have your God drowned in a teacup?

It is actually far more terrifying to approach Truth than it is to rest in the belief that everything is uncertain. Approaching Truth requires an abandoning of everything that normally makes one feel secure - blind beliefs, pre-packaged intellectual frameworks, the support of the crowd, external sources of authority, reputation, honour, status, emotional relationships, the illusion of permanence, etc.

No, what is far more terrifying is to risk throwing away everything on that list for nothing - but that isn't what you do. Rather, you make a calculated Faustian deal which rewards you for your sacrifices in the form of The Absolute Truth of Most Unexcelled Enlightenment, and you get to parade yourself around on "Genius Forum" doing The Good Work for the cause of wisdom. This allows you to shore up your self-image and feel satisfied with your existence in any number of ways. It's a peach of a deal, psychologically speaking. I've almost taken it several times.

But in the end, I tossed everything you mentioned overboard (except emotional relationships) and I've gotten nothing but bare, unadorned freedom in return. Not the Most Lofty and Glorious freedom of the Maharishi, but the real kind, full of uncertainty, risk, and consequences that can't be deflected with an impenetrable shield of guruhood. Not the religious kind of freedom, but Sartre's kind - the kind one is condemned to. In comparison, the deal you made was very cushy indeed. Believe me, I know the difference. I've glimpsed the psychological benefits of your path and I've been sorely tempted by them.

In weaker people, this can easily lead to madness. One is literally on the edge of life and death at all times. One is continually exposed on all levels. The further you go, the more you drift away from the comforting arms of the human race.

Then perhaps you've gone mad. Authentic spirituality re-connects and grounds us to our environment and our world in profound ways. It's a form of psychology that deals with the human experience of the numinous - that which is greater than ourselves - and our integral relationship to it. It does not drive people into isolation or imprisonment within their own heads, except perhaps temporarily. History shows that after completing the solitary stage of their inner journeys, all of the great spiritual leaders willingly return to the world and take part in its myriad activities. They understand what Lao-Tzu meant when he said "Merge with dust. The dust of the Tao is the Tao."

The only salvation one seeks is in Truth itself, and often it can seem like a very flimsy, insubstantial form of salvation indeed! As such, no one has ever approached Truth without entering prolonged periods of agony, despair and incredible doubt.

I've given up salvationism. It's an empty promise, a mirage of escape forever glittering on the horizon for those who cannot summon up the psychological wherewithal to deal with life's bitterwseet realities. There is no salvation, only freedom. And one of the most profound liberations possible is to let go of the desire for salvation. While it may expose one to the vulnerability, uncertainty, and insecurity they have so frantically sought to escape, it also opens the door to authenticity, freedom, adventure, and genuine strength of character. Salvationism chokes and stifles these triumphs of the human spirit. The price of salvation is spiritual death.

In the end, a person who goes deep into the Truth is no longer supported by intellectual certainty, for he is beyond the need for that. He is fully immersed in the ever-changing formlessness of reality and is wholly sustained by it.

Agreed. So why don't you quit playing sage and jump in?

It's clearly not the ever-changing formlessness of reality that sustains you. It's the idea of the ever-changing formlessness of reality. That idea is a comforter in dark places, a friend in time of need, and a testament to your own specialness and higher purpose. That idea is God, and you are its Adam, innocent of the knowledge of good and evil in a Garden of Eden of your own making. You are a fallen creature who imagines he can return to a time before the serpent tempted Eve. But it can only happen in your own mind, and while you nurture the fantasy, the apple rots in your gut.

If he slips back into a deluded mindset, he instantly suffers. For he has long abandoned everything else that could possibly sustain him, either intellectually or emotionally, and so suddenly, bereft of Truth, he has nothing.

Do you really not see how you're clinging to this religious, conceptual, artificial life preserver of "Truth" to avoid drowning in reality? You're already alive. Your body is functioning. You don't need to cling to "Truth" or any other concept. You are already where you need to be, if you will simply realize it. Come on in, the water is fine. There are a few cold spots and some rocks, but you'll manage. You and other salvationists are like people who can't swim. You are thrown into a pool and you begin kicking and thrashing and reaching out for anything in the belief that you are about to drown. But if you simply attempt to stand, you dicover the water is only a few feet deep.

His only happiness now is going back into Truth, which can often be a very difficult thing to do. And so he suffers horrendously in a way that few others can fathom.

I can fathom it pretty well, I reckon. For ten years, I wanted to know The Absolute Truth of All Things above any other desire. I spent thousands of hours seeking it through contemplation, reading, and writing. I created numerous websites and talked to hundreds of people. Grandiose as it is, I wanted to be the guy who figured out The Final Answer once and for all. I wanted to know everything, and I suffered for it plenty. You and I are not so different in this respect. I was never blessed with the indifference to philosophical matters which characterizes the ordinary person.

But then, over the course of a few days or weeks some time ago, a lot of diverse things I'd been studying finally "clicked" and it began to dawn on me that I was attempting the impossible. The kind of truth I was looking for does not exist, because reality is beyond the intellect's capacity to understand in an absolute metaphysical sense. I don't suffer in the philosophical sense anymore because the question of apprehending reality intellectually no longer arises. I still suffer in the same way you do - if I get a toothache, it hurts. The rest is just psychology. If a particular attachment is causing me trouble, I address it, but I don't make a religious dogma of it.

In other words, I'm no longer looking for truth, thinking about it, or conceptualizing it, I'm living it. I'm immersed in direct experience, unclouded by conceptual ideas about what it "really is." As the popular Visa commercial goes, I'm everywhere I need to be. Although there is suffering here, I can deal with it. There is suffering where you are as well, but you can't acknowledge most of it if you are to maintain your "enlightened" self-image, so you develop various unique and personalized psychological tools to cope with it. I do exactly the same thing, and so does everybody else. There is no privileged existential state, there are only "babbling mammals," as Philosophaster puts it. You are among them, like it or not.

So in the face of this reality, which is very much a part of my daily life, and perhaps a few others here, I find your characterizations of what this place stands for to be cartoonish and laughable to the extreme. Victor, I can understand, for he is as ignorant as a person can be about these matters. But Nat .... have you forgotten what it is like? Or perhaps you prefer to forget?

I remember exactly what it is like to imagine myself the bearer of some higher religious truth, enlightened above the masses and set apart for some noble purpose. It's a very satisfying self-image, but it is built on a foundation of sand. When the tide of life comes in and washes it away, as it must, one can either face reality and rebuild on a firmer (but less grandiose) foundation, or one can sit there in the mud imagining himself the inhabitant of a castle that exists only as dust in the receding undertow.

David Quinn wrote:His only happiness now is going back into Truth, which can often be a very difficult thing to do. And so he suffers horrendously in a way that few others can fathom.

In another thread,

Cory Duchesne wrote:

David Quinn wrote: But the fact remains that I have consciously adopted the cause of promoting wisdom in the world, and so I have no choice but to become a bit of a crusader. It goes with the territory.

This has its downsides - I become less of a regular guy, for example. But it also has its upsides, as it can stimulate young idealistic people into climbing into the first stages of independent thinking and spiritual life. So it's a question of whether the upsides are greater than the downsides.

Ok, so the upside is that you get to influence young people to become interested in the downside.

In other words, how can a person climb into the first stages of spiritual life and still be a regular guy? Being stuck in the middle is actually a terrible position. In my view, teachers of truth seduce the student into ruin. After the student realizes his efforts brought not what he thought they would, it's unbearable to turn back. He tries to be a regular guy again, but greater consciousness makes everything seem much more painful and pointless. Intolerably so.

Also, I would think that wanting to spread wisdom would be a corollary to being wise.

(to which, David never responded)

David Quinn wrote:Whereas Kevin looks at consciousness with great joy at all the possibilities it brings

David, how do you reconcile all of this? Long ago, you vowed to live a life of truth. Wouldn't truth and consciousness include being conscious of what one's needs truly are in order to have the joyous possibilities?
.

David Quinn wrote:You know, I've never met a proponent of the belief that everything is uncertain who wasn't entirely secure and comfortable in this belief.

I didn't used to be. At first, it was painful, when I gave up the illusions of Truth and hermeneutic superiority. However, I gave it up because I decided to engage in the purposeful rooting out of BS, and eventually that motivator won out over the desire for delusion of certainty, immortality, objective meaning, and all that other crap. I am more comfortable being honest than I am deludedly believing in objective truth, meaning, and transcendence.

I also detect no terror or uncomfortableness in either of your demeanours. If anything, what I detect is a kind of mutual patting-each-other-on-the-back smugness.

It would be a sin not to feel some smugness when confronted with you, David. No offense.

There is a world of difference between clinging to blind beliefs in an attempt to ward off confusion and uncertainty (as found in religious fundamentalism) and that of opening oneself up to the ultimate truth of Nature. For you guys to equate the two shows an extreme ignorance of what spirituality is all about.

No, it shows that you draw a distinction aimed at distinguishing yourself from all the rest of ultimate believers. Just like xians smugly proclaim that they possess The Truth, but jews and muslims and hindus are deluded, superstition-soaked heathens.

It is actually far more terrifying to approach Truth than it is to rest in the belief that everything is uncertain. Approaching Truth requires an abandoning of everything that normally makes one feel secure - blind beliefs, pre-packaged intellectual frameworks, the support of the crowd, external sources of authority, reputation, honour, status, emotional relationships, the illusion of permanence, etc. It reaches the stage where it is just you and Nature, and nothing else.

In weaker people, this can easily lead to madness. One is literally on the edge of life and death at all times.

Hahahaha! Now, more than ever, I need a "laughing out loud" emoticon.

Dude, you are so fucking full of yourself, it's amazing you don't pop at the seams.

Victor, I can understand, for he is as ignorant as a person can be about these matters. But Nat .... have you forgotten what it is like? Or perhaps you prefer to forget?

Oh, I am sure Nat fully remembers what it is to indulge in salvationist fantasies. :)

P.S. Nat has addressed the rest of your BS very well.

David Quinn wrote:His only happiness now is going back into Truth, which can often be a very difficult thing to do. And so he suffers horrendously in a way that few others can fathom.

If Truth provides such nirvana, how could it possibly be so difficult to return to? Once nirvana is tasted, it would seem that no pain should be great enough to pose a significant barrier. (I present possible answers to this at the end of the post.)

Nirvana is being true to ourselves, not being true to the expectations we may have had from looking at reports of sages of old, or even looking at sages of old who may only have been following lain expectations and deluding themselves and others, or been true to themselves which were quite different selves than we are.

Yes, I hear your argument asking if an axe murderer should be true to himself, but I question if a part of the sociopath's true self has died, and he hasn't a whole self to be true to. I support that question with the evidence that serial killers don't become truly happy with their killings - they may achieve neutrality, but they have to kill more frequently and become more brazen to achieve their fix. A happy person can maintain their happiness (within a range) by staying with the same basic routine (with some variation) and be perpetually sustained off of that. A routine need not be mindless - didn't Buddha and other masters basically have a routine?

Truth is happiness, and Truth is inside us. Suffering is separation from Truth. When we hurt, it is because we are not being true to ourselves somehow. Either discovering how we are not being true to ourselves, or surmounting the obstacle that separates us from Truth, can be very difficult. Is that the difficulty you were referring to? Is the suffering you meant the suffering of remembering what it was like to be in Truth and now to have this blinding barrier from it?
.

David Quinn wrote:You know, I've never met a proponent of the belief that everything is uncertain who wasn't entirely secure and comfortable in this belief.

I also detect no terror or uncomfortableness in either of your demeanours.

You know, I think this passage bears coming back to. It's really interesting in its connotations.

You sound like you think there is something wrong with not suffering for truth. Your own descriptions of the dangers and the suffering of your religion supports that as well. It's almost like you know you bought a bill of goods, and now you fear you can't see them as valuable unless you pay the price. You feel like you have to suffer for your salvation.

This is a very old religious idea, and a ratherstaid one at that. I find it really curious, coming from you -- this is yet another datum affirming your relationship to 'ultimate truth' as being basically religious in nature.

Me, I don't think we should suffer for our freedom. In fact, in the past, I had frequently decried the whiny existentialists who see the existential freedom as being necessarily burdensome, a curse to be suffered rather than a liberation to be embraced. I find it highly interesting, though, how you seem to assume that spiritual attainment must be paid for with suffering. Telling, ainnit?

Dude, you SOOOO need to do some serious digging inside your own head...

will is but lend to us and we put it to noble or to base ends; our good and evil stalk us and predestine our becoming.

Indeed bert, but the loan is conditional. If we do not meet the conditions, will is not lent to us at all.

Nat wrote:

But in the end, I tossed everything you mentioned overboard (except emotional relationships)

Ah.

Besides, not everything is uncertain. Existence exists.

So after all that arguing in the Reasoning Show thread, you do believe in the existence of absolute truth and intellectual certainty, after all.

Do you really not see how you're clinging to this religious, conceptual, artificial life preserver of "Truth" to avoid drowning in reality? You're already alive. Your body is functioning. You don't need to cling to "Truth" or any other concept. You are already where you need to be, if you will simply realize it. Come on in, the water is fine. There are a few cold spots and some rocks, but you'll manage. You and other salvationists are like people who can't swim. You are thrown into a pool and you begin kicking and thrashing and reaching out for anything in the belief that you are about to drown. But if you simply attempt to stand, you dicover the water is only a few feet deep.

So what is that solid basis you are standing on, then? It has to be a rock-solid "certainty" of some kind.

Truly immersing oneself in uncertainty would mean constantly drowning with nothing underneath to act as a support at all.

But in the end, I tossed everything you mentioned overboard (except emotional relationships)

Ah.

DQ: In weaker people, this can easily lead to madness. One is literally on the edge of life and death at all times. One is continually exposed on all levels. The further you go, the more you drift away from the comforting arms of the human race.

Nat: Then perhaps you've gone mad. Authentic spirituality re-connects and grounds us to our environment and our world in profound ways. It's a form of psychology that deals with the human experience of the numinous - that which is greater than ourselves - and our integral relationship to it.

I agree that becoming more truthful does connect you to Nature in a profound way. But at the same time, it also takes you away from all the nonsense that the human race preoccupies itself with 99.99% of the time. The connection to truth means a disconnection from falseness - which, in turn, means a disconnection from almost all of humanity.

The truthful person is like the solitary kid who refuses play in the other kid's games and gets roundly teased and abused for it.

It does not drive people into isolation or imprisonment within their own heads, except perhaps temporarily. History shows that after completing the solitary stage of their inner journeys, all of the great spiritual leaders willingly return to the world and take part in its myriad activities.

They start participating in all the falseness again? I don't think so. If a spiritual person does start engaging in the world again, it is only done in an oppositional sense. In other words, his only participation is in the stark clash between truthfulness and falseness.

When Jesus re-entered the world, he was crucified within three years. Socrates was tried and executed for his participation in the world. Both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were abused and laughed at during the course of their lives. These were authentic, spiritual men.

But in the end, I tossed everything you mentioned overboard (except emotional relationships)

Ah.

For ten years, I wanted to know The Absolute Truth of All Things above any other desire. I spent thousands of hours seeking it through contemplation, reading, and writing. I created numerous websites and talked to hundreds of people. Grandiose as it is, I wanted to be the guy who figured out The Final Answer once and for all. I wanted to know everything, and I suffered for it plenty. You and I are not so different in this respect. I was never blessed with the indifference to philosophical matters which characterizes the ordinary person.

But then, over the course of a few days or weeks some time ago, a lot of diverse things I'd been studying finally "clicked" and it began to dawn on me that I was attempting the impossible. The kind of truth I was looking for does not exist, because reality is beyond the intellect's capacity to understand in an absolute metaphysical sense.

The only way you could coherently claim this is by intellectually understanding what reality is. Otherwise, it is a claim which has no meaning.

I personally have no trouble intellectually understanding reality. It isn't that difficult to achieve.

I know it is in my case, at least. Like most people, my natural inclination is to feel that uncertainty sucks ass. I'm learning to cope with it a bit more effectively these days, but I spent many years in the firm belief that uncertainty was a condition which needed to be cured. But rather than fully embracing any of the various salvationist ideologies I looked into at various times, I finally decided to just man up and bite the bullet. And it still sucks at times, but that's life.

You've tried to cure it by becoming more mindless, ceasing to engage in discriminating thought, valuing nonsense, finding value in postmodernist beliefs, etc. This is a common path preached by modern Eastern religions. Salvation lies in animalhood.

I don't suffer in the philosophical sense anymore because the question of apprehending reality intellectually no longer arises.

Yes, that is your cure. Block out the problem, block out the pain. Retreat back into the animal realms once again.

There is no privileged existential state, there are only "babbling mammals," as Philosophaster puts it. You are among them, like it or not.

There you go, straight from the horse's mouth. "We are all in the animal realms."

But in the end, I tossed everything you mentioned overboard (except emotional relationships)

Ah.

-

Victor,

You sound like you think there is something wrong with not suffering for truth. Your own descriptions of the dangers and the suffering of your religion supports that as well. It's almost like you know you bought a bill of goods, and now you fear you can't see them as valuable unless you pay the price. You feel like you have to suffer for your salvation.

It's not a matter of wanting to suffer, or turning to suffering as a means of validating one's path. Rather, I'm simply describing what occurs as one approaches Truth.

To abandon all of one's ego props and go naked before Truth is a very serious matter, with large risks involved. The fact that it is performed consciously, with the ever-present temptation to retreat back into the comfortable world of ordinary humanity and its normal ego props, makes it that much harder. But that is the reality of the situation, and any person contemplating making a serious bid for enlightenment needs to be aware of it.

That's one of the reasons why I like Kierkegaard so much. He doesn't shy away from spelling out the trials and tribulations of becoming more truthful. He was an extremely honest thinker when it came to these matters, almost frighteningly so.

-

David Quinn wrote:So after all that arguing in the Reasoning Show thread, you do believe in the existence of absolute truth and intellectual certainty, after all.

Only of a kind that doesn't mean anything to talk about, as I said earlier.

So what is that solid basis you are standing on, then? It has to be a rock-solid "certainty" of some kind.

The certainty of being. Nothing more can be said.

Truly immersing oneself in uncertainty would mean constantly drowning with nothing underneath to act as a support at all.

Not if you know how to swim.

I agree that becoming more truthful does connect you to Nature in a profound way. But at the same time, it also takes you away from all the nonsense that the human race preoccupies itself with 99.99% of the time.

I think 99.99% is a bit excessive. If we have to use these mathematical figures, I'd say it gets you away from 80 or 90% of the nonsense, but a little nonsense every now and then adds some spice to life. Only an Ayatollah forbids all nonsense.

The connection to truth means a disconnection from falseness - which, in turn, means a disconnection from almost all of humanity.

I think it means a disconnection from falseness within oneself. One does not need to go into isolation to accomplish this.

The truthful person is like the solitary kid who refuses play in the other kid's games and gets roundly teased and abused for it.

Sometimes. But other times, you play the game for your own reasons, or for the sake of others. There's no inherent worth in being a renunciate. It is a means to an end.

They start participating in all the falseness again? I don't think so. If a spiritual person does start engaging in the world again, it is only done in an oppositional sense. In other words, his only participation is in the stark clash between truthfulness and falseness.

But that "stark clash" can happen in subtle ways. It doesn't have to involve holding up a big sign that says "you're wrong and ignorant." Actions speak louder than words.

When Jesus re-entered the world, he was crucified within three years. Socrates was tried and executed for his participation in the world. Both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard were abused and laughed at during the course of their lives. These were authentic, spiritual men.

Yeah, I know. I get abused and laughed at for various reasons, too. I try not to develop a martyr complex about it. That's the way the world is. People who think differently are misunderstood.

The only way you could coherently claim this is by intellectually understanding what reality is. Otherwise, it is a claim which has no meaning.

Yeah, I know. That's what I've been saying. No claims about "understanding ultimate reality" have any meaning. It's all a word game, a big distraction.

I personally have no trouble intellectually understanding reality. It isn't that difficult to achieve.

It's not that difficult to imagine this to be the case, I agree.

You've tried to cure it by becoming more mindless, ceasing to engage in discriminating thought, valuing nonsense, finding value in postmodernist beliefs, etc. This is a common path preached by modern Eastern religions. Salvation lies in animalhood.

Salvation doesn't lie in anything. Step outside your religious mindset for a few minutes and read what I've been saying here. I don't believe in salvation at all. I'm not looking for it. I am unsaved and I plan to remain that way, because salvation is a religious fiction.

Yes, that is your cure. Block out the problem, block out the pain. Retreat back into the animal realms once again.

There is no problem and there is no pain. Being is only painful for those who are overwhelmed by it. Thus the search for salvation, an escape from the reality of being.

There you go, straight from the horse's mouth. "We are all in the animal realms."

The human species is a species of animal, yes. This fact is not a problem for me.

The human species is a species of animal, yes.

That is a truth that truth-seekers need to embrace in all its profundity.

clyde

Just because something is true does not make it profound.

Yes, but I think this truth regarding our true nature is profound.

I’m not dismissing or diminishing the value of reflecting on “A=A” or causality, etc. and the insights that arise into the nature of the universe. But there is value (and I believe an inestimable value) in examining our direct, immediate experiences and reflecting on our nature as human beings. This forum is about enlightenment, but who or what is enlightened?

clyde

It's natural to want to seek a better state of existence, because sometimes this one can suck. Sometimes we can suck. Just this evening, I got into an aggravated mood and behaved in ways I'd rather not have. But I'm not going to run out and sign up for Christianity or Hare Krishna or whatever else because of it. Instead, I'll have to be content with recognizing that I am an imperfect being and sometimes I screw up. That's just the way life is. We have to attempt to improve ourselves in an honest manner, as slow and frustrating as it may be.

Sometimes life sucks. Everyone does the best they can to deal with it, including those preaching salvation. They have found a very effective psychological tool, but it isn't an authentic one. I prefer authenticity, even if it means everything is more difficult.

will is but lend to us and we put it to noble or to base ends; our good and evil stalk us and predestine our becoming.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Indeed bert, but the loan is conditional. If we do not meet the conditions, will is not lent to us at all.

indeed elizabeth.
the attitude within the context unveils the meaning.
genius is obsession,a love sworn to life,reshaping and conserving itself by bravely resisting those things which interfere with its function.

Nat,

Salvation doesn't lie in anything. Step outside your religious mindset for a few minutes and read what I've been saying here. I don't believe in salvation at all. I'm not looking for it. I am unsaved and I plan to remain that way, because salvation is a religious fiction.

I have trouble believing this. On the one hand, you are saying that you no longer have any real interest in philosophical or spiritual matters, that you are living as a simple human being again. And yet here you are, on this forum, arguing spiritual matters with me.

Moreover, you still want your decision to live once again as a simple human being to be blessed by the Taoist masters. If you gave up the Tao Te Ching altogether and never spoke about Lao Tzu ever again, then that might be a different matter. I would begin to have some respect for your decision. It would show me that you are serious about it.

But at the moment, it just seems comical to me that a man would use a religious text to justify his decision to abandon religion.

In any case, I don't believe in salvation either, at least not in the sense you mean. Once you realize that nothing fundamentally exists, not even your own self, then the very concept of salvation no longer has any meaning. It is only in that do I find my being.

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David Quinn wrote:I have trouble believing this. On the one hand, you are saying that you no longer have any real interest in philosophical or spiritual matters, that you are living as a simple human being again.

Oh, David, David! This is your own artificial dichotomy! You are the only one who thinks that 'philosophical and spiritual matters' must necessarily be salvific. I don't know about Nat, but for me, philosophy is simply what I do, my modus operandi. I want to understand the world and my relationship with it, and so I practice understanding by studying philosophy and science. I will never understand everything, but the process of understanding itself is what I am after. It has nothing to do with any sort of salvation; I do it the way I eat and breathe. Nat, I suspect, has a very similar position.

You are the only one here who still sees philosophy as a mean, a path to salvation, rather than an end in itself, the mode of living. For you, philosophy is like money are for others -- a way to achieve a goal; and just like those who seek money in pursuit of happiness, inevitably fail, so your quest for philosophy as a mean to salvation fails. There is no salvation. There is just the process of seeking truth and understanding.

And yet here you are, on this forum, arguing spiritual matters with me.

As am I -- and it's because, unlike you, I treat philosophy and spirituality as ends in themselves, rather than just means to an external end. For me, philosophy is Aristotelean energia (activity for its own sake) rather than kinetika (activity for the sake of a separate goal).

Aristotle, BTW, thought that philosophy practiced as energia was the highest possible form of human activity; that in pursuing philosophy for its own sake, we are god-like.

But at the moment, it just seems comical to me that a man would use a religious text to justify his decision to abandon religion.

David, you are missing the point by a nautical mile. :)

In any case, I don't believe in salvation either, at least not in the sense you mean. Once you realize that nothing fundamentally exists, not even your own self, then the very concept of salvation no longer has any meaning. It is only in that do I find my being.

And that is the salvation you seek -- self-assuagement, delusional pacification.

vicdan wrote:I want to understand the world and my relationship with it, and so I practice understanding by studying philosophy and science.

I think that is David's point exactly. You study these things, you know the works of the greats and the not-so-greats by rote, but the point of philosophy is thinking for yourself. You know a lot, and you can cite and reference circles around just about anybody, but when was the last time that you ventured out on just your own thoughts without having them substantiated, verified, or cross-referenced by anyone else? That's what David meant when he said you have never thought. You just seem to regurgitate.
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David Quinn wrote:I have trouble believing this. On the one hand, you are saying that you no longer have any real interest in philosophical or spiritual matters, that you are living as a simple human being again. And yet here you are, on this forum, arguing spiritual matters with me.

This wall you create between "spiritual" and "human" is the biggest problem with your philosophy. By building this wall, you imprison your authentic nature in a tomb like Fortunato in The Cask of Amontillado. The thousand injuries of human life you bore as best as you could...

Moreover, you still want your decision to live once again as a simple human being to be blessed by the Taoist masters. If you gave up the Tao Te Ching altogether and never spoke about Lao Tzu ever again, then that might be a different matter. I would begin to have some respect for your decision. It would show me that you are serious about it.

Ordinariness, simplicity, and authenticity are praised by the Taoist masters, the Zen masters, and all the other masters throughout all the great spiritual texts of history. Conceit, putting on a show of enlightenment, and setting oneself above others are discouraged by the same.

But at the moment, it just seems comical to me that a man would use a religious text to justify his decision to abandon religion.

"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Do you find that comical as well?

In any case, I don't believe in salvation either, at least not in the sense you mean. Once you realize that nothing fundamentally exists, not even your own self, then the very concept of salvation no longer has any meaning. It is only in that do I find my being.

If nothing exists and we don't exist, then we are of the same nature as everything, and the distinction between "exists" and "does not exist" becomes a meaningless one. Therefore, one cannot posit existence, non-existence, both, or neither, and that's reason #96 ontological proclamations are a crock. Really, David, read your Nagarjuna. :)

vicdan wrote:I will never understand everything, but the process of understanding itself is what I am after.

vicdan wrote:There is no salvation. There is just the process of seeking truth and understanding.

I think you need to decide whether or not you really are in a constant state of willingness to accept what evidence may bring in the future, because what I keep seeing is you making absolute pronouncements like the above.

vicdan wrote:For me, philosophy is Aristotelean energia (activity for its own sake) rather than kinetika (activity for the sake of a separate goal).

You may not have a seperate goal, but if the activity of your version of philosophy is to "engage in the purposeful rooting out of BS" that doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that you will someday come to a final resting place in truth because of it. Just because you churn milk for love of churning milk doesn't mean you won't eventually end up with butter. Also, just because someone's ultimate goal is to make butter, that doesn't mean that churning milk can't be another goal and love.

living in agreement with any preconceived thesis or ideal may be as crippling as living up to any worn out group-respect,cliché,or whatever absurdity; the disguises of the Ids are many.
therefore the Stoic adopts his own virtue and behaviour to which he by singleness automatically responds.his instincts healthily brought back to life ,he smells out all falsity and fallacy.he does what he so wills and takes all responsibility - thus the virtue.do as you please ,to whom the pleasing is the law.only what you represent has sincerity and the potent form of affection.

Bert,

I like how you dump on worn-out groups and traditions and then proceed to talk about what the Stoic does... :)

"I have taken up my cause without foundation" - Max Stirner from "The Ego And Its Own."(who is selectively quoting Goethe.)