Consciousness/Soul/Mind and Science

Mike Dubbeld · #1 01-30-2005, 02:02 PM

It seems my response post went the way of the bit-bucket. I responded to a post on the relationship of soul, consciousness and mind. Here I am posting a new post as a new member. My perspective is yoga.

Plato (427-347 BC) basically cursed the West with the soul being a Rational Principle. He got that idea from his predecessors among which are Pythagoras, Thales, Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraclitus and Democritus. Thales (the ‘father of science’) for example came up with the idea that all this arose from water. His pupil Anaximander said all things sprang from ‘The Boundless’ – later to become known as akasha/aether. Pythagoras said ‘all is number.’ At a time when Zeus was running around after mortal women, they sought something more permanent than the many gods of their day who were little better than humans with emotions of jealousy, anger etc. The Universe may come and go but the Pythagorean Theorem will still be true. Plato came up with a ‘Theory of Forms’ and the idea that the soul was a form of Rational Principle – a Logos. This wrong idea that the soul was a mind was perpetuated by Descartes (inventor of analytic geometry) with ‘I think, therefore I am.’ (Cogito ergo sum). Plato got more than that wrong. So did Descartes.

Until the time of Plato the soul was a multitude of things. In The Iliad (Trojan War) we hear how it goes out with the last breath. In the middle East it is among other things, the liver. But when Socrates (Plato’s teacher) was made to drink the hemlock, we find the soul is not physical and does not belong in a body. It was Plato that clearly separated the soul from the physical body. Further, out of his ‘Theory of Forms’ arose the ideas of heaven, (Read your early Christianity on The Son of Man who was supposed to bring heaven on Earth after resurrection on Earth.) Angels (Forms), the Soul and the Fall of Man. All these things Christianity borrowed from Plato/are the result of Platonism. But by associating the soul with the mind, Plato did humanity a great disservice. Christianity, Judaism and Islam bought it hook, line and sinker as well as the whole of Western philosophy. And as Alfred North Whitehead basically said – all of Western philosophy is footnotes to Plato.

The Soul is the Experiencer. The mind captures conceptions about experience. It categorizes/generalizes experiences with words. Words are categories of experience. They are not the experience. The expression is ‘The map is not the territory.’ Or, the computer simulation of a hurricane is not the hurricane. Thinking about experience is not the experience. The mind interprets experiences through our rose-colored glasses/biases.

The only way the mind can know a thing is by comparing it to another thing. This is called duality in yoga. This is a fundamental LIMITATION of the mind. To know up I must compare it to something not so up. Blue, from not blue. etc. The mind is a contraption like your car or your toaster. It sits there as an inanimate object until you do something with it. The mind is nothing more than matter. Subtle matter. It is consciousness that animates the mind. Thinking is the movement of awareness/consciousness through the mind. The mistake is made in believing this movement of consciousness through thoughts is US. It is not us. We are not what we are aware of. If I go to San Francisco, I am not San Francisco. If I think of a tree, I am not a tree. Yet, to this day we find the famous mathematician Roger Penrose in his book Shadows of the Mind talking about using consciousness and mind synonymously.

Language is a major barrier in science today. If you cannot put words together correctly in a sentence to think about a problem, how can you solve the problem? The real problem is not knowing meaning of the words being used. While the West has had tremendous success in science, it is like a helpless child in metaphysics. This is why consciousness is such a big problem today. They don’t know what it is. If you doubt this do a search on quantum and consciousness. It returns over half a million hits with Google. If you do not know who you are, how on Earth can you know what the Universe is? In other words, if you cannot distinguish between who you are and what the Universe is, then how can you make sense of it? This is a major dilemma in science and it shows up as being unable to separate experimenter from experimented upon. In yoga – Seer from seen. Experiencer from experienced. Content from context.

We see what we expect to see. We see more than the physics of the situation. If you look for tuba waves in traffic noise (Nick Herbert Quantum Reality), you will find components of tuba waves in traffic noise. What do tuba waves have to do with traffic noise? Not a darn thing. The point being that the reality you go searching for is the reality you find. There is no ‘objective’ reality. The only way to unravel this dilemma is to separate experimenter from experimented upon. But to do that means identifying exactly who we are. ‘Know Thyself’ is written at the Oracle in Delphi from ancient Greece. But neither in the West or the East do ‘people’ know who they are. Western philosophy is a tragicomedy of errors thanks to Plato associating the mind with the soul.

Metaphysics is the study of what is knowledge (epistemology) and how do you know that? (ontology).
Are tables and chairs more real than say the number one? No one ever saw a ‘one’ before. (pun intended  ‘One’s’ don’t grow on trees, fix your car, or are worn on your feet.) A ‘one’ is an abstract object. All language is abstract(ed). It is categories/generalizations of experience. But before you can answer questions like what is knowledge and what is real, you must know who YOU are. Yoga is the oldest science in dealing with the riddle of the Self.

What is the difference between conception/perception/imagination/thought/idea/visualization/
understanding/explanation? What is the difference between consciousness/soul/energy/prana /mind/ego? What is psychic phenomena? Is it possible? How? What is it that makes something (drum roll) ‘scientific’? Is there any certainty in the Universe? Or are we just shadows on Plato’s wall in the allegory of the cave of some deeper underlying reality? Are we puppets on a string dancing to Lord Shiva’s tune in Maya? (illusion) Are we simply 3 dimensional shadows/holograms in 3-dimensional space of a higher dimensional reality? David Bohm’s Implicate Order.

Keep your vampires and werewolves. Reality is stranger than fiction. Science does not even know what 95 percent of the Universe is. There is Dark Matter and Dark Energy. For 3000 years in the West, we had akasha/the aether. In the early 20’th century Einstein and the Michelson-Morley experiment did it in. But guess what? Its back like a heart attack with a new name – the Higgs field. Or Quintessence.
Did it appear to you in school that in science they pretty much had a good grip on what is going on by the smug (snide) confidence of your science teacher on all the remarkable achievements of science? Flush that. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, VOODOO is now scientific. Of course science had to give it a new name to make it respectable – it is called quantum tunneling and non-locality.

For 300 years, science adopted the wrong model thanks to Descartes. Just now figuring that out. Ever hear the joke in science about quantum mechanics? It goes like this – ‘When we look at it, it acts like a particle. But when we don’t it acts like a wave.’ That’s NOT a joke. But it SHOULD be. It is a clear indication of how LOST science is. It’s called wave-particle duality (more like dilemma) of quantum physics. Bet you didn’t know science was screaming for help when you went to school and only put on a mask of ‘We know what we are doing/everything is alright.’ These guys are LOST. Try this one on for size “We now know that the Moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks.” Cornell physicist N. David Mermin summing up Neils Bohr’s anti-realist position – p17 Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert.

Then there is Gödel and his incompleteness theorem and Chaos. Reality is stranger than fiction/we don’t even need to talk about psychic phenomena, let alone werewolves and vampires.

Hope I stirred up the pot…..  As you might guess I have been doing this for awhile. Some of you may know me or of me from alt. philosophy, alt.yoga or the science NG’s which I have not been on for quite awhile now.

Mike Dubbeld

#2 01-30-2005, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Dubbeld

Did it appear to you in school that in science they pretty much had a good grip on what is going on by the smug (snide) confidence of your science teacher on all the remarkable achievements of science? Flush that. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, VOODOO is now scientific. Of course science had to give it a new name to make it respectable – it is called quantum tunneling and non-locality.

It's about fucking time, they changed up the program.

Welcome to frostcloud Mike, this is where fiction becomes reality. Anything you want, we got your back. Now that the curse that was on me is gone, I can't hide the dark secrets anymore.

kyman · #3 01-30-2005, 07:39 PM

Science is lossed I suppose, if the 'you' who is using it is dependent on it. Identity/ belief system/values in memory is the only thing that is lost. And that status is arbitrary and meaningless. When will we not be lost when identity is the governing concept of our instrument of expression? NEVER. We will only call ourselves found when the identity rooted within our collective mind feels safe and judges itself as not lost, or not in conflict with what it believes is seperate from itself.

My opinion is that our body and these forces around us are neither lost or found. It is empty machanical change, and it is our identity which feels it is hurled about this way and that. In reality, we are perfectly safe, neither here nor there, experiencing all the spectrum of life through believing and buying into our social identity/collective mind.

If all of society told us that we are fine, found, free, fulfilled, then we'd all be that identity. But science is still driven by man's fear and desire. It is driven by a self centered perspective of I, against the universe. Our awareness/will is still at a point in its harmony with form that when creating an ego or identity in which we relate to the world and experience, we are still encapsuling our self in the relative values of these forms. As in the forms dissolution is our death. Forms destruction is our suffering. Forms balance is our happiness. Untill we realize that we are already home, already who we are, already where we will always be, and already complete on the level of existence, we will continue to believe in an idenitity that must fear, desire, grasp, cling, control, force, travel paths, and become something better or more than what it will always be. And in that our idenitities may find eternal suffering or hell. As opposed to no personal identity in constant conflict, which would be our only way of relating to the world, which is heaven.

We make the rules to the game. Our beliefs are a choice in a way. When you belief you are your body and it can die then you are 'choosing' to open yourself up to that reality. We choose these experiences, and do so because we cannot see the forest through the trees. There's no need to have faith in anything unless you are dependent on something being that isn't or cannot be detected. It is identity that suffers and so hopes, wishes, prays, and has faith. We choose to believe that in a personal self based on traits we believe to be us, but only appear to be so in our subjective experience. It is this personal idea which cuts us off from the reality of unity, absolutes, eternity. It allows us to percieve something else doing stuff to us, and us interacting with other things.

It is the idea of personal self which forces us to buy into the relative values the universe has. As in location, size, durability, shape. Out of those mathematical relationships we create identity. And these impermanent relationships equate to an impermanent identity, or death. Without identity as most use, you are fulfilled, no where, and no when. Looking out my window right now, or preparing lunch for my loved ones, I gaze and think, this is what eternity feels/looks like. Eternity is always there, past the illusory time which constantly backs identity into an imaginary wall

Our identity is nothing more than a wish. It is a hope. A desperate plea to make a still out of a moving picture. Our awareness and will captures identity momentarily as it flows into the now of our consciousness, and it is when we carry that captured still in memory, and desperately apply it to the constantly fluxing universe that we creates terms/compulsions like survival, murder, dishonesty, guilt, blame, responsibility, offense, defense, revenge, jealousy, etc..........By capturing a freezframe/identity, and giving it power over us through belief, we create the world we live in today. One of idenitity, which gives birth to hierarchy, and so power, ownership, competition, oppression, persecution, parasite humans, resource humans.

In reality we are all humans, or we are what the symbol 'human' points to, yet all we see is superior/inferior, entitled/without right, rich/poor, guilty/innocent, abuser/abused, dominant/submissive, ugly/beautiful, worthy/unworthy. Identity forces us to create the structure of a nation using these concepts. Without identity, they would all disappear from our working belief system, or would naturally modify themselves.

Mind is a tool for expression. It personifies the abstract. Most use mind to personify conceptual relative identities/desire. Eventually identity will cease to seperate us in our perception, and in our unified, collective identity, we will all use mind to personify all that is truly real, and this eternal blissful/whole being, awareness/will.

Mike Dubbeld · #4 01-31-2005, 07:14 AM

I can see your mind thinks about these things. Web of belief/belief systems are complex and minds all have them. Belief systems are like...... everybody has one. Because of the complexity in discussing things like this. I want to keep it as simple as possible. All things exist in relation to all other things as known by the mind. The mind can not know anything without comparing it to another thing. A bold thing to say. As proof, I ask that you or anyone else tell me who they are. (This/these posts are not necessarily/particularly directed toward you but to anyone.) What you said is interesting but I want to be more specific.

I will show the difficulty with doing this. I am Tom Jones. I live at xyz street in Birmingham Alabama. I am married to Jane, drive a beetle and work for Lockheed Martin. But all these things are About you. They are not you. (This is Richard Hittleman for those who may be wondering) They are things About you. Then you may proceed to give me a list of your likes and dislikes/ what you personally enjoy. Making you a unique personality/individual. But again all these things are things about you - in relation to/in comparison to - other people and things.

In fact, if you think about it for a moment, you OWE YOUR EXISTENCE to all else. In other words, there could be no 'you' apart from 'me' or whoever or whatever. It is the only reality 'you' has. Including all your belief systems apart from all other belief systems. At this point you may say, well, I may not be able to tell you who I am, but I certainly know who I am. To which I would reply, Who is the 'I' that knows who you are? Are there 2 you’s? The original you and the you that knows who you are? In that case there must be 3 you’s. The original you, the you that knows who you are and the you that knows the you who knows who you are. In that case there must be 4 you’s..... This is called infinite regress. Smoke and mirrors.

People (minds) think they are their minds. Our very language is set up to lead you to believe you are your mind, body and emotions -- Today I will fly to London. Meaning - Today I will fly my physical body to London. We are not our physical bodies. I think that is OK. Meaning; My mind thinks that is OK. I am angry. Meaning; I am aware of the emotion of anger. We are not our emotions. We are immortal indestructible souls that were never born and cannot die.

The above leads to the question of exactly what is it that we can know AT ALL. (as minds)

Probably everyone has heard of the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. The story goes where the Emperor is duped into believing he is wearing threads so fine that it is all but impossible to see. He goes out in public wearing nothing and no one says anything out of fear. They all pretend he is wearing clothes. But a child that does not know any better yells out ‘Where are the Kings Clothes?’ And the bubble is burst. It took an innocent child to point out the truth of the situation.

In Western philosophy there are 3 major issues/problems. What is knowledge? How shall I conduct myself in life? How shall we Govern? But the later 2 can not be addressed until the first one is answered. To govern others means you know what justice is for instance. You know how to conduct yourself in a just manner. You do this based on your knowledge of what is justice.

What is justice to you may not be justice to me (as minds). No 2 people may agree on what justice is. Justice is relative/subjective. Suppose the Emperor passes a law that says he is wearing clothes. If you disagree you will be thrown into prison or beheaded. Is the fact that the King has the power to throw you in prison or execute you if you disagree with his form of justice – justice? In other words, because the king is in power – what he says WILL BE JUST. ‘Justice is the advantage of the stronger.’
(The Republic/Thrasymachus). Might is right. If everyone in the kingdom says the Emperor is wearing clothes, who are YOU to say otherwise? Is something true or just by virtue of power of a ruler? How about if a democracy voted on it being so? Does that make the king not naked?

1 + 1 = 2. This was true before the Universe came into being and will still be true when it is gone. It is not subjective at all. It is not subject to cultural values at some place in some time in history. It is not a ‘culturally bound’ subjective sort of thing. It is regarded as an Absolute Truth. Like the Pythagorean Theorem. The relationship between the sides of a right triangle is A squared + B squared = C squared forevermore. (Sacred Geometry/Divinity of Number) A rectangle also has a simple formula. So do circles. It is reasonable to assume that ALL FORMS, as nothing more than complex geometrical figures, similarly have some geometrical equation. This means ‘Forms’ are in some sense Divine. Divinity being related to immortality/things that do not change.

That is exactly what Plato’s ‘Theory of Forms’ was all about. Humans ‘participate’ in human forms. Dogs participate in ‘dog forms.’ Everything has a divine aspect to it as a form. Plato believed things like justice also have a ‘form’. Plato had many Gods –Zeus and gang. But Plato invented something he called ‘The Form of the Good.’ Closest thing to God in his day. His life was spent attempting to discover the ‘form’ of justice as an absolute something. A concrete, absolute relationship like the Pythagorean Theorem. Up until the time of Gödel (a buddy of Einstein’s), mathematicians thought something along these lines existed and that everything could be somehow related to everything else absolutely. Determinism. It was Gödel who burst this little bubble with his famous ‘Incompleteness Theorem.’ (Search it) As well as quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Now suppose, the Emperor voted 1 + 1 = 3 into law. Would it then be true if everyone ‘believed’ it? Lets say you do not because you are an anti radical of a rebellious sort. Suppose you were brought up on charges of espousing 1 + 1 = 2. Found guilty and sentenced to death. In SOME SENSE, 1 + 1 = 3 IS TRUE because if it were not, you would not be going to be losing your head! In other words, physical reality is altered (you minus one head) based on 1 + 1 = 3 being true.

Again, I will ask this question. How is it that ANYTHING whatsoever can be known?/is true/truth?
What is it that 1 + 1 = 2 or 1 + 1 = 3 have in common so as to lend ‘reality’ to them? What is it that makes something ‘justice?’

The only way the mind can know anything whatsoever is by comparing it to another thing. 1 + 1 = 2 can only be true by virtue of ….. or 1 + 1 = 3 can only be true by virtue of…..

The answer is one word. I am sure someone will say it. This leads to a discussion of exactly HOW SACRED is mathematics for knowing something ABSOLUTELY and what exactly the difference is between mathematics and science. The pillars of knowledge today! Anybody want to buy a science worshiping mat?

Is something good because the gods like it? Or is it good and that is why the gods like it? (Euthyphro/piety). Is everything relative/subjective/nihilism/solipsism/anarchy/Nietzsche uber mench/survival of the fittest/Law of the jungle.? Is there order in the Universe? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Is morality what makes you feel good?

Mike Dubbeld

Mike Dubbeld · #5 01-31-2005, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Misfit

It's about fucking time, they changed up the program.

Welcome to frostcloud Mike, this is where fiction becomes reality. Anything you want, we got your back. Now that the curse that was on me is gone, I can't hide the dark secrets anymore.

Heh heh! Thankyou, I specialize in science bashing. You should see on alt.tarrot where they seem bent on disproving all psychic phenomena.

Mike D.

#6 01-31-2005, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Dubbeld

Heh heh! Thankyou, I specialize in science bashing. You should see on alt.tarrot where they seem bent on disproving all psychic phenomena.

Mike D.

You are welcome. Can you post a link to the site you are talking about? I did a search but all I saw was something on tarot cards.

I personally enjoy a good banging myself but that will not effect the mold a person has creates around themselves. I have to shatter my own every now and then, it keeps my mind sharp like a blade.

As far as psychic phenomena, I don't think the people that defend it are real when it comes to understanding it because so far they have not been able to prove it with anything tangible. Only the real people can defend it, and the last place you will find them is open in the public or charging money for it.

The tarot cards are nothing but business. Regular playing cards require a skill that does not come with an instruction manual. I was handed coffee cups as a little girl and told to read what I saw. People used to break my door done for me to read their fortunes in coffee cups because I did not charge money, they took advantage of me. They should have given me something from their heart, so it was easy to read for the people and I did not like reading for them because I was attracting greedy people that only take and have no compassion or consideration. The people that are selfish and ask for money or the people that don't give from their hearts (not money) always have bad fortunes (including the psychic). A real psychic does not come with a price because they want to help people, that comes from their heart. And it is not good to keep going to the same psychic, just one time is all a person needs with that person. So there really is no good way for this to be analyzed or proven simply because it is not common, at all. Magic should not be bought with money nor should it be used to learn about other people or be used against other people or even if you think you are helping someone without their knowledge, it is over a persons will and when people play God with another life, that is black magic. It is not pure, clean or honest, and that's what makes it bad and probably what has kept the science of it from being proven. Too many greedy people full of pride in this world. It is better not to defend it if you want it to open, the bad people don't want this, the people that like to invade lives for their own reasons or gain.

I know of a woman, I have never seen her but I have heard of her. She is very poor and takes care of an old lady, she will not take money but something must be given to her, like food, drink, clothes. She is not a beggar but lives off of what is given, no money can be exchanged, she will not take it. And it's the black, the control over other people that keep the good people like her from being noticed. That power is strong and can even keep the cleanest heart down. People may think they live a good life and nothing holds them back, but something does, the reality of not recognizing what is real and what isn't.

#7 01-31-2005, 12:27 PM

http://www.luckymojo.com/faqs/faq.a-tarot.9801

Is this the place you are talking about? WTF? I just got to the reversal and dignities part, and that is how they are dealt, half of backside to each other. It’s a tricky move with the hand too, and you do not just lay cards down. They are picked back up and put in different orders, some spreads for a simple yes or no question will take a long time, and you have to pay attention otherwise you mess up and have to start over. The dignities are just light or dark. That person describing doesn't know what he is doing. I can't even describe it.

StBean · #8 01-31-2005, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Dubbeld

Reality is stranger than fiction

Mike Dubbeld

Yes, it is certainly strange...
D. Bohms work is very interesting. Skimming over his latest book, Undivided Universe. The book starts off "readable" but then about 40 pages in it starts to turn into a different language, math that is. I might as well be reading chinese. I gotta catch up on my math.

Dragon · #9 01-31-2005, 07:55 PM

I just realized your a card reaer Misfit, didnt know you believed in magic. Wow, well you learn new things everyday.

I am curious on card reading's history and how it is used and so forth, but then these days you dont know what is fact and truth or its hard to read what is.

*This dawns on Dragon* You were a fortune teller on the phone...*smacks head* that explains things on the other thread.

#10 01-31-2005, 09:22 PM

Dragon, are you just fucking with me? I don’t read cards, my cousin does. I do the coffee reading which is totally different. It’s also called tasseography, I read pictures and tell people how fucked they are. It’s fun because it’s social and the card thing is silly, giggly, girl social too and based on chance. As for the magic stuff, I don’t fuck around with that shit, i’d rather see it all magically disappear. People get killed and poisoned with it, of course it’s real. People will magically slip it into your food and drink, I know because it has happened to me by another family member. But she’s different, she married into the family and is Vlach (Romanian), magic is her religion. But she only knows how to do stuff with herbs that grow wild in the mountains. You can't find this stuff anywhere else in the world. Magic people use their metaphysics talent for evil because you got all kinds of people looking for different "solutions". They don't care, it's totally underground too, nobody will ever admit they do it. It's like the national past time in Eastern Europe, and the Middle East amongst the woman. But I do have an uncle that could read coffee cups too.

kyman · #11 01-31-2005, 09:54 PM

If anything lasts or doesn't last, what meaning or importance does it have. I thought, it all passes, over and over in cycles. Eventually when we are all gone a cycle will start, new. New because the old is unkowable, and so no comparison. I started thinking things like, I feel like this to my community, but compared to nothing, what am I? At that point I realized how everything has a relative value. One point I've made over and over is for people to stop seeing themselves relative to others. Look at yourself as if you were the only thing in existence. Which is to say, see your self for what you are, and not shaded by comparison to something else. Otherwise you don't know yourself well, and continue to live out other people's lives, expressing other people's belief system and will.

Nobody knows 'who' they are, nor can they. They mistake their personality for identity, but identity is something we share and do not own. We create each others personality/identity relatively. We collectively share belief systems, and that is the common ground which gives us unity/oneness in perspective/identity. We are one, yet experience the world without being alone.

The earth, universe is you. Your sense body is merely a channel between you (intention/awareness) and form. Form is not you but your instrument. But just as a chatroom icon comes to represent our personality, so does form, and personality represents awareness/will. And since awareness/will are formless, form is its only instrument of expression. Identity is form, and so dissolves or transforms or evolves (which even positive change can be hard), and sees this as death. Form may be the body/instrument, but its dissolution is not death, in fact it is more so life.

A black man raised in a stuck up white family may frown upon his heritage. He has a white identity, a concept of self based on his relative surrounding values, and even though his identity and body are one, the governing idea splits, sees itself as seperate, and so in conflict with itself. Just like a gay senator who's identity is straight, and so works to outlaw gay marriage, all the while engaging in his natural sexual behavior. The sex is not homosexual, just sex, however, the identity is in conflict with its form, and so labels it as that, and fights homosexuality even though its body engages in that type of sexuality. A racist is governed by a self made out of identitfication with form. Someone who acts snotty may be governed by a self based off superficial differences in form. "When the baseball star lost the use of his arm he spun into a serious depression." He never was a baseball player, but a being that labeled itself that, and the depression was an adaptation between the old identity of a player to a new identity which is not in conflict with the present circumstances of form.

Man and woman are one creature, though the identities created based on the forms relative values causes the identities to be in conflict. The identities heal or complete once a loving bond is formed with the opposite sex. Upon creating a loving bond of give and take, the male incorperates the female characteristics and identity into his own, and vice versa. Now both share an identity, which is original and unlike any other, since it is created off of each others mind/body or form.

Nobody knows who they are because there is no who. Who only comes into being when it is necessary, as in male femal split, or multiple units instruments of being so similar that differentiation becomes useful. RELATIONSHIP creates identity. It is because we mistake the other for something seperate, and now our who's are all messed/mixed up. Who/identity is merely a form/structure meant to interface.

BELIEF is the power at hand. It is to take something as real. And belief is a choice. We choose to buy into seperateness for the sake of perpetuating our identity which is in constant fear/suffering. Let the identity die, as in christianity's sacrificing your self for god and obtain eternal life. Atoms/energy/form does not die! When you let what does die/dissolve pass on, identity, you are left with your eternal existence, beyond life/death.

Drop identity and drop time, fear, death, guilt, judgement, dependency, hate, and many more. The idea of who you are will protect itself at all cost in order to continue believing in itself. It is this that causes so many to compromise external factors in an attempt to control outcome, so ego/identity can perpetuate itself. Identity is the egg to be cracked. Beyond it, is eternal loving fulfilling mystery.

Dragon · #12 02-01-2005, 03:20 AM

Misfit-

Ooooooh......nevermind, i thought....bah nevermind, forget i asked.....anywho.....

Mike Dubbeld · #13 02-01-2005, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Misfit

You are welcome. Can you post a link to the site you are talking about? I did a search but all I saw was something on tarot cards.

All I know is it was alt.tarot but I had to get to it using Outlook. I searched for it and found
http://alt.tarot.newsgrouptopics.com/ but I don’t know if it is the same one. Gea Jones is on that group, ask her or do a search on her name. She is very well know for winning the lottery for someone a couple of years ago using tarot.

I personally enjoy a good banging myself but that will not effect the mold a person has creates around themselves. I have to shatter my own every now and then, it keeps my mind sharp like a blade.

As far as psychic phenomena, I don't think the people that defend it are real when it comes to understanding it because so far they have not been able to prove it with anything tangible. Only the real people can defend it, and the last place you will find them is open in the public or charging money for it.

For what wizard worth his salt haunts the bars all night?

Proving it is mind attempting to transcend mind.

A man was drunk one night and dropped his watch in the dark walking home. Someone saw him staggering around under a streetlight and asked him what he was looking for. He replied he had dropped his watch. The other said do you know where you dropped it? The drunk said yes, over there. The man asked the drunk why he was looking over here when he dropped his watch over there in the dark. The drunk replied – because this is where I can see.

Much like a scientist who scurries away with their tail between their legs when someone discovers something that is non-linear or non re-normalizable in particle physics. The vast majority of differential equations are non-linear and their exact solutions can not be found – only approximated by iteration/numerical calculation by computers. Attempting to visualize non-linear things is difficult at best. When I see something x = 1 and something else is
y = 5 and then I see x = 2 and y = 10; I think I know what comes next! When x = 3 then y should be 15. There is a linear relationship between x and y such that I can predict what y will be next by knowing x. Y = 5x. This is what science likes. It is like the man with the watch looking in the light (linear sorts of problems) even though that is not where the watch (solution) can be found.

In the same way, attempting to transcend mind with mind is a useless endeavor. Psychic power is not found in the mind and there are things the mind can never know at all. For instance, if I never tasted an apple before, there are no number of words your mind could use to convey ‘apple taste’ to me. Apple taste is an experience. Words are categories/conceptions/abstractions of experiences – they are not the experience itself. The experience is one thing. Thinking about experience is an entirely different matter.

The mind is not the experiencer. The soul is the experiencer. The mind simply captures conceptions about experiences. It will of necessity always fall short and this gives rise to things like ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ Or ‘you had to have been there.’ Proving something is a mind activity. A manipulation categories of experiences. A psychic experience is just that. Some people are born with great ability for music or art. Psychic comes from the Greek word Psyche and pertains to the soul. It was Plato that confused the West with the mind being the soul.

Even so, it is very difficult to find someone with psychic ability just as it is hard to find Beethoven’s or whatever. We all have it but it is a skill.

The tarot cards are nothing but business. Regular playing cards require a skill that does not come with an instruction manual. I was handed coffee cups as a little girl and told to read what I saw. People used to break my door done for me to read their fortunes in coffee cups because I did not charge money, they took advantage of me. They should have given me something from their heart, so it was easy to read for the people and I did not like reading for them because I was attracting greedy people that only take and have no compassion or consideration. The people that are selfish and ask for money or the people that don't give from their hearts (not money) always have bad fortunes (including the psychic). A real psychic does not come with a price because they want to help people, that comes from their heart. And it is not good to keep going to the same psychic, just one time is all a person needs with that person. So there really is no good way for this to be analyzed or proven simply because it is not common, at all. Magic should not be bought with money nor should it be used to learn about other people or be used against other people or even if you think you are helping someone without their knowledge, it is over a persons will and when people play God with another life, that is black magic. It is not pure, clean or honest, and that's what makes it bad and probably what has kept the science of it from being proven. Too many greedy people full of pride in this world. It is better not to defend it if you want it to open, the bad people don't want this, the people that like to invade lives for their own reasons or gain.

Ok, I used to think the same thing. But after many years is dealing with other people –attending psychic functions for just about everything you can imagine, I have come to find out that there are people that do have psychic ability and do not believe it is bad to charge for it. Kundalini Yoga (white Tantra), does healing and they charge. They reason it is not spiritual to be a burden on others in abject poverty and they should earn a living and not be such a burden. That being the case, nothing could be more ideal than getting paid to teach Kundalini Yoga – what they know, love and believe in.

They do not think of themselves as bad people. I can guarantee you the healing they do is incredible and you would find yourself on a waiting list in Washington DC area and it costs a fair amount – but not nearly what doctors charge. How do you think this came about? It came about because they ARE good at what they do/the healing works. I attended Kundalini Yoga classes for 3 years under Darshan Kaur Khalsa in the Washington DC area. However, this form of yoga is not my main source of yoga. But it is a powerful one and a good one.

Further, it is a huge misconception that yoga is about renunciation. Giving up all your things and wandering around like a bum. That is not the case at all and I want to make it clear that this is running away from your problems/not facing up to them. The very opposite of yoga. Subramunia has many tales of people running off to the ashram until they find life is much harder there and leave in a matter of days.

In yoga we are taught selfless service. No one can acquire the 8 great major siddhis while still attached to material things and conditions of the world. But there is lesser psychic power that is had. If someone makes great progress in yoga and dies, they can be born with siddhis.

I know of a woman, I have never seen her but I have heard of her. She is very poor and takes care of an old lady, she will not take money but something must be given to her, like food, drink, clothes. She is not a beggar but lives off of what is given, no money can be exchanged, she will not take it. And it's the black, the control over other people that keep the good people like her from being noticed. That power is strong and can even keep the cleanest heart down. People may think they live a good life and nothing holds them back, but something does, the reality of not recognizing what is real and what isn't.

I know of a woman, I have never seen her but I have heard of her. She is very poor and takes care of an old lady, she will not take money but something must be given to her, like food, drink, clothes. She is not a beggar but lives off of what is given, no money can be exchanged, she will not take it. And it's the black, the control over other people that keep the good people like her from being noticed. That power is strong and can even keep the cleanest heart down. People may think they live a good life and nothing holds them back, but something does, the reality of not recognizing what is real and what isn't.

That is so right. I always have to tell people because the people that have to be told are the unfortunate ones. The ones that want you to ‘prove’ psychic things or God. Great psychics are very spiritual and like honey to bees, their followers hound them to the extent outsiders simply don’t get near them. Droves of people flock around Mother Mira and Subramunia when he was alive. This is very discouraging in the sense that outsiders will never likely be fortunate enough to see any miracles.

Enough beating around the bush. There is no devil. The ego IS the devil. The ego is that which literally separates you from God. Do you ever wonder how people fall in love? To be loved, one must be lovable. To be lovable one must be happy. To be happy means you have found some way to diminish your ego. Psychic power is inversely proportional to ego. The more ego you have, the less psychic power you have and vice versa. This means the more attached to things and conditions in the world, the less psychic ability you will have. There is too much ego.

Ego is the thing that stands in the way to spiritual power/psychic power. And the more spiritual a person is the less likely they are to deal with the world at all for any sort of benefit they might receive from it. A yogi uses the world as a tool to direct awareness inward from selfless action. A mystic is a person that is consciously conscious. They are not so involved in the drama of the world that they are not at all time not able to easily withdraw from it. The world is a dream of the mind. Adults don’t take children’s toys seriously, nor does a mystic take the mind seriously.

ALL activities in yoga are for the single purpose of concentration. The yamas and niyamas are for the purpose of diminishing ego through selfless service. This diminishing quiets the mind so that concentration can take place. Out of sustained concentration comes meditation. Out of sustained meditation comes contemplation. Out of sustained contemplation comes Self-Realization. At that time you discover who you are. And in the same instant – who you are NOT! You are not your mind AT ALL.

Hatha yoga is to force the mind to pay attention to the body. To quiet the mind and make it subservient to experience – to focus it/concentrate it on the body. Psychic power is soul power. When you cast off all the garbage in your aura such that the inner light shines through you, you radiate spiritual power and energy to all around you. Great gurus are not great because they are great talkers. If that was true we would have politicians for gurus or lawyers for gurus. The darshan that shines out from their being is felt directly by people. A flashlight can not see very far in the dark because its beam diffuses off in the distance. But if you could focus the energy of the beam you could see much further.

Concentration focus’s the energy so that the person can ‘see’ things that other people cannot. When there is a buildup of energy from healthful activities and concentration to focus that energy, the yogi turns the energy back in on itself to discover the Self-God within. Self-Realization. The turning inward enables the person to see and understand things that external people do not. Psychic power is not miraculous to a yogi. Yet, like all other experience, when attempting to relate his or her divine encounters in words – it is a failure. If you cannot tell me what apple-taste is, how on Earth could you tell me what God-taste is?

Faith is something you walk around with until you get the facts in yoga. Faith is a Christian virtue but not in yoga. Proof of things is yoga says (for instance Chapter 3 Vibhuti/Powers in Patanjali Yoga Sutras) is what one should strive for. Not blind belief. But it is proof by experience. Not by 1 + 1 = 2 = the mind operating outside of its scope of capacity.

Mike D.

Mike Dubbeld · #14 02-01-2005, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StBean

Yes, it is certainly strange...
D. Bohms work is very interesting. Skimming over his latest book, Undivided Universe. The book starts off "readable" but then about 40 pages in it starts to turn into a different language, math that is. I might as well be reading chinese. I gotta catch up on my math.

Yes, I found Wholeness and the Implicate Order the same way. But I was determined to struggle through with it. Then it got packed on a move and I started another book. But I did understand where he was coming from. And having read a lot since have come to find out where he got his ideas from. Bohm would have been famous without any of it as a particle physicist. He was one of the first to stick his neck out in an unconventional way in science.

Physicists are the most arrogant people on the planet. They flaunt it. They defy you to challenge them – likely because they know you can not. As soon as you do they will go running for their equations. Long ago, philosophy and science and theology were not separate things. But with increasing technical skills, philosophers basically gave up on science to a large extent. To wit, if they knew the math, they could get high-paying physicist jobs. So it is rare to find people that will challenge science. Basically people that challenge science are almost guaranteed a trashing. Both the challenger and trasher walk away without knowing what took place. That is why it is soooo important to learn metaphysics. Physics can be shown to be a subset of the superset of Metaphysics. (I can hear trashers moaning and whining now fuming for a fight. That’s good. They should bring an auditorium full of their buddies – as they will likely need them to console them later on….. 

I could show you directly here and now how and why that is the case but it is long and I am quite sure that time will be very soon. I have here in front of me a mountain of science books along side of which is another mountain on philosophy, yoga, and metaphysics books. Since my training was in electrical engineering, the math does not bother me.

Take a look at this web page to see how it is that science can be slapped around quite easily if you deal with the very nature of knowledge itself. Metaphysics deals with things like ‘The Theory of Abstract Objects.’ The limits of knowledge itself arises out of yoga as does the limits of the mind. For most people such things are a sort of blasphemy because they think they ARE their minds. That both their minds and knowledge are unlimited. http://mally.stanford.edu/theory.html

It is a foreign concept to think of the mind as an object like any other object. Like a table or a chair. But the mind does have limitations/boundaries – just like tables and chairs.

David Bohm (and David Peat) and others recognized the implications of quantum physics and much like the story of ‘The Man Who Saw Through Heaven’ – their minds were blown to a certain extent as they knew they had found how humbling quantum mechanics can be upon understanding it. (no one understands quantum mechanics – per Neils Bohr – anyone who understands quantum physics does not understand quantum physics. Quantum mechanics is a wake-up call to science. I will be glad to relate as well as I can some of the things that blew their minds. ‘Everything is the cause of everything’….. Yoga says ‘Everything is as it should be. In a perfect state of evolution.’ (Subramunia) Not a single electron in the most remote corner of the Universe is not doing what it ‘should’ be doing. Have you ever heard of Aristotle’s 4 Causes? Does the Universe have a ‘purpose?’ How about the Anthropic Principle or the Miller-Urey experiment for attempting to create life on Earth?

A good quantum mechanics book – the first chapter or so is free on the web – is Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert. Just do a search on them and you will find it. Here, you will find the extent to which science is confused, dazed and disoriented/wonder-struck by what they have found in the quantum world. I call it ‘Quantum Weirdness.’

Mike D.

#15 02-01-2005, 01:00 PM

Quote: