GENIUS FORUMS

cousinbasil wrote:Your definition of help is arbitrary, jupiviv.

It isn't because I'm providing reasons for why I'm defining help the way I am. In fact, it is your definition of help that is arbitrary, because you haven't provided any reasons for defining it that way.

But because I am not afraid of lending a hand as you are

This is something you've made up. There are countless occasions where I've helped people in the sense you're talking about, especially when I was younger, but always when they'd asked. I've never helped poor people asking for money, because I've always understood that doing so would be of no use whatsoever. I don't want the satisfaction of giving someone a few coins; I want to put an end to the poverty that exists because of the irrationality of people. But to achieve the latter would require conscious, tenacious work. How many people do you think would do it? I felt more compassion for poor people than most other people, but it was precisely because of that compassion that I couldn't help them. I wanted to help every aspect of their lives, but realised that it wasn't possible. When my father gave money to beggars, I used to ask him why he doesn't give them all his money. Obviously, the response to this was anything but honest.

If distributing all my money to beggars would solve anything, you can be sure that I'd do it in an instant. But it won't. The difference between you and me is that I think before I help people in any way. The difference I want to make is not in people's material and therefore perhaps their emotional state, but in their minds. That may make me unsympathetic, but do you think a person who regularly gives a few coins to all the beggars he meets is justified in looking down on me because I don't want to make a difference in all the "little places"?

A starving person doesn't give a shit about his delusions - he probably has far fewer of them than you do anyway. He cannot worry about his soul if he cannot get his mind off his stomach.

If he overcomes his delusions he can easily get his mind off his stomach. But I see your point. In a situation where everyone was starving except me, and a few showed the potential for enlightenment, and that potential was being undermined by their starvation, I'd save those few by relieving them of their hunger.

Kelly Jones wrote:Making an argument against his approach must go along the lines of: egoless help is not the standard of rational help.

Well I am in fact talking about rational help, and not simply egoless help.

cousinbasil: But because I am not afraid of lending a hand as you are

jupiviv: This is something you've made up. There are countless occasions where I've helped people in the sense you're talking about, especially when I was younger, but always when they'd asked.

There you go!

I've never helped poor people asking for money, because I've always understood that doing so would be of no use whatsoever. I don't want the satisfaction of giving someone a few coins; I want to put an end to the poverty that exists because of the irrationality of people.

Yes, clearly we are talking about two different things. I as well refrain from dropping coins into the cups of beggars. I tried it once. It doesn't give you any satisfaction.

The difference between you and me is that I think before I help people in any way.

Trust me, I do as well.

That may make me unsympathetic, but do you think a person who regularly gives a few coins to all the beggars he meets is justified in looking down on me because I don't want to make a difference in all the "little places"?

If I were looking down on you I would have bailed on this thread before now. And I don't regularly give coins "to all the beggars that I meet." (That is something you made up.)

Something has gone unremarked upon from my story about the blind man getting off the bus. And that is the fact that I benefited as well although I could not have known that when I volunteered to help the man. Had I not done so, it would have taken me considerably longer to find my way to the correct subway platform because he knew how to navigate the maze of temporary lattices all over the place and I did not.

Jup, I am not interested in looking down on anyone, or elevating my own self. Perhaps it is due to the disparate cultures in which you and I find ourselves that we appear to be disagreeing. But does karma not begin with one's own self? I do not buy into the idea that we are utterly helpless in the face of daily life. You have heard the saying, what goes around, comes around, and it need not take millennia to make the circuit. Perhaps it is that I consider myself a Christian, although I avoid anything even remotely ritualistic.

You are quite right of course that meting out coins to beggars solves nothing. If the beggars lie on a route you use every day, giving them anything just makes them single you out and wait for you.

I try not to fall into the obvious traps, jupiviv.

And I was not speaking about money, either, but rather helping people. I will try to think of another example that does not involve money.

In all the wisdom books I have read...it says that giving should be spontaneous. If you have to think too much about it.....it's ego...no ?

Kunga wrote:In all the wisdom books I have read...it says that giving should be spontaneous. If you have to think too much about it.....it's ego...no ?

I don't kow what you are reading, but I prefer to think before I do something.

cousinbasil wrote:

Kunga wrote:In all the wisdom books I have read...it says that giving should be spontaneous. If you have to think too much about it.....it's ego...no ?

I don't kow what you are reading, but I prefer to think before I do something.

KOW ? LOL

Yeah...i know what you mean...I have regretted doing things spontaneously.....but they were good teaching experiences. One of the six perfections in Buddhism is generosity.

KOW ? LOL

Yeah...i know what you mean...I have regretted doing things spontaneously.....but they were good teaching experiences. One of the six perfections in Buddhism is generosity.

But I don't know what you mean. What is KOW? This is not a place for "texting." Kind of Weird? Knock on Wood?

I don't kow what you're talking about..... :)

jupiviv wrote:

Kelly Jones wrote:Making an argument against his approach must go along the lines of: egoless help is not the standard of rational help.

Well I am in fact talking about rational help, and not simply egoless help.

Helping is definitely an expression of one's own values. It's always determined by one's worldview, and this turns on a self-concept - either the irrational one or the rational one. So rational help must be egoless; it must rest on the Infinite if it is to be rational.


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Kelly Jones wrote:So rational help must be egoless

Yes, that's what I'm saying. What I meant by saying that I was not talking simply about egoless help, is that "help", defined in a particular way, can be egoless and non-rational. For example, plants help animals, but the help is not rational.

I think a plant, or a dead or asleep or comatose person, would by default have an ego, if there were sufficient consciousness, unless they were definitely rational.

The drive to help comes from the fear that one won't be helped.

It's that simple. Delusional.

You can't help anyone, or anything, only meddle.

I give help expecting nothing back. It would be nice if what I offered sparked some insight, but that's not in my hands.

The short focused help does pack some force when it connects.

- hear and need to hear
- don’t hear and need to not hear
- need to be heard
- need to not be heard

then

- drop the need and observe how the sequence repeats with the order determined by specific situations, repeats in whole or in part without the need.

Then there are the corollary self-indulgences that usually exist in a dualistic pairing, which are also needs and can be dropped if need be, such as needing to hurt and the need to be hurt, the need to laugh at and the need to be laughed at, and so on.

The happiness you have...is from the happiness you have given to others...

(old Buddhist saying)

Karma ?

prince wrote:The drive to help comes from the fear that one won't be helped.

It's that simple. Delusional.

You can't help anyone, or anything, only meddle.

My guess is that you haven't done very much "meddling" in your life, prince.

Actually, your characterization of where the drive to help comes from is off target. It is rather more "delusional" than that (at least in your estimation.) This is because there are countless instances when one could use help but does not receive it, so that fear you mentioned is nonexistent. Yet one continues to help others. So one helps knowing it does not result in one receiving help nor guarantee that one is more likely to receive it. Hopelessly misguided, eh, prince?

Kunga wrote:The happiness you have...is from the happiness you have given to others...

(old Buddhist saying)

Karma ?

"Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl, but she doesn't have a lot to say
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl, but she changes from day to day
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a bellyful of wine
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl
Some day I'm gonna make her mine
All mine
Some day I'm gonna make her - "

cousinbasil wrote: This is because there are countless instances when one could use help but does not receive it, so that fear you mentioned is nonexistent. Yet one continues to help others. So one helps knowing it does not result in one receiving help nor guarantee that one is more likely to receive it. Hopelessly misguided, eh, prince?

I was referring to a more general, visceral response that a person has to help another. For instance, witnessing someone who is on the verge of drowning. The primitive impulse would be to jump in and "save" them, the motivating force being the expectation that one would expect someone else to do the same if the roles were reversed.

Mirror neurons, I believe its called.

I'd personally let the fucker drown. lol

prince wrote:

cousinbasil wrote: This is because there are countless instances when one could use help but does not receive it, so that fear you mentioned is nonexistent. Yet one continues to help others. So one helps knowing it does not result in one receiving help nor guarantee that one is more likely to receive it. Hopelessly misguided, eh, prince?

I was referring to a more general, visceral response that a person has to help another. For instance, witnessing someone who is on the verge of drowning. The primitive impulse would be to jump in and "save" them, the motivating force being the expectation that one would expect someone else to do the same if the roles were reversed.

Mirror neurons, I believe its called.

I'd personally let the fucker drown. lol

Not clear on your analysis here. If there is a primitive impulse to jump in and save, no motivation or expectation would be required, the primitive impulse itself superseding anything else.

So you lack mirror neurons? Any other missing neurons you'd care to divulge?

Kelly Jones wrote:I think a plant, or a dead or asleep or comatose person, would by default have an ego, if there were sufficient consciousness, unless they were definitely rational.

Please explain this statement.

Jupta's statement that egolessness and non-rationality can go together was wrong. Egolessness only arises through reason (and, indirectly, consciousness). Plants don't have the capacity for egolessness.

I think a plant, or a dead or asleep or comatose person, would by default have an ego, if there were sufficient consciousness, unless they [it] were definitely rational.

What are you babbling about? Read the blue part just by itself and tell me how that makes sense. None of it does - it's a miracle that I think I get your point.

And just FYI - the rational road to egolessness is the one you have chosen to take. Stop with these nonsensical proclamations like "egolessness only arises through reason." What about methods such as self-mortification, or devotion to a master?

cousinbasil wrote:

I think a plant, or a dead or asleep or comatose person, would by default have an ego, if there were sufficient consciousness, unless they [it] were definitely rational.

What are you babbling about? Read the blue part just by itself and tell me how that makes sense. None of it does - it's a miracle that I think I get your point.

I was not babbling, only reinforcing the principle. But I'm happy to spell it out for you. Being egoless requires the process of reasoning to occur about what the ego is, and how its basis as a flawed belief can be abandoned. Therefore, without that process occurring, there cannot be egolessness. Therefore, anything, including things that are commonly regarded as unconscious, have an ego by default, even though there is apparently not sufficient consciousness for egotistical behaviour to be displayed. Thus, if they did have sufficient consciousness for the latter, it would be clearly evident. The last clause simply finishes the reasoning off neatly.

I hope this makes it clear.

And just FYI - the rational road to egolessness is the one you have chosen to take. Stop with these nonsensical proclamations like "egolessness only arises through reason." What about methods such as self-mortification, or devotion to a master?

If self-mortification is not based in reason, then how can it reveal the true nature of self (and therefore lead to the abandoning of ego)?

Devotion to a master likewise.


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Kelly Jones wrote:Jupta's statement that egolessness and non-rationality can go together was wrong. Egolessness only arises through reason (and, indirectly, consciousness). Plants don't have the capacity for egolessness.

I couldn't make sense of what you said, so I didn't respond. What you said was:

I think a plant, or a dead or asleep or comatose person, would by default have an ego, if there were sufficient consciousness, unless they [it] were definitely rational.

But does a plant or a dead person have sufficient consciousness? Not to my knowledge. And what you said here doesn't tie in with what you said in the quote above. Ego(the sense of a self) only arises with consciousness. When this consciousness reaches its full, there is no self to be conscious of, since the self is fully conscious. Thus - the person is ego-less. In the case of an unconscious thing, there is no self to be conscious of, since there is no consciousness. It's quite simple to understand.

Kelly wrote:If self-mortification is not based in reason, then how can it reveal the true nature of self (and therefore lead to the abandoning of ego)?

Surely you must comprehend that self-mortification is a more visceral warfare. You need not know the character of your enemy to shell his ramparts or to besiege them and starve him to death.

Your notion of abandoning the ego is faulty because your concept of what the ego is appears flawed. It cannot be abandoned - this too is a delusion. It would be like saying that if the besieging army decided to pack up and go home, the fortress it had been attacking would cease to exist.