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What am I so afraid of? I don’t wish to escape my body. It’s not a matter of fear but more a matter of taste.
I trust myself completely. I prefer to keep it all together, and I end up finding a better and more healthy spirit in it than I ever have playing with the ghost in the shell.
Thanks for the poetry praise. I realise when I write things like that I leave myself open, although sometimes the responses give an insight into character. Praise is rare though and it is appreciated.
Now that thats out of the way I can slag you off..!
Can you see what you are doing here, when you say 'join your club of being ignorantly satisfied with not knowing?'? Do I have a club, have I displayed or advocated ignorace...do you think that I lack knowledge?
And then you mention Plato's cave...you are rather silly you know. A perhaps more productive move for you would be old Zarathustra's serpent lair.
In all this conversation you have only said one thing that I find interesting. For the most part it has been puffing and prancing...and capitalizing. It isn't just the tone, inflection or choice of words but more of the...assumptive and presumptive!
And going by this thread, it seems to be par-for-the-course.
And lastly...because I am honest.
Something did happen to me
That's why I can see
Thanks again for the poem stuff
Midicon.
Truthfully I wouldn't mind having an OBE that is not drug induced. I don't outright deny it's possibility I only feel the argument against it is currently stronger than the one for. Nothing I read has convinced me otherwise.
This might be because of my skeptical nature, but this is how I have always been and don not know how not to be the way I am.
And as far as I can tell, my assumption that you and Aphorism has never experienced it, was correct. Big deal
This seems like quite the generalization. So let me get this straight, spiritual people, in your view, neither like themselves, nor their bodies, nor others. These are the hallmarks of a spiritual person. Is that right?
Why would we suppose such a thing? a
That which resides within the body since conception would cease to be a foreign object, no?
I think it's quite the opposite, actually.
You are not only your body. That is too broad a definition of 'you'. You seem only concerned with the 'what' (object), and only perfectly content to disregard the 'who' (subject). We are not zombies.
Your fear is not your body. Your sorrow is not your body. Your happiness is not your body. Your thoughts are not your body. Your ideas are not your body. Yet all of these things are part of what constitute the 'you'. They are not material either, so where does that leave us?
How do you regularly identify yourself as you? By your personality, or by the length of your arms? By your experiences, or by the size of your brain?
Do people - your family, friends, colleagues - relate only to your body (object), or the subject within?
Why do you readily dismiss things like the mind and thoughts?
No, Aphorism. Look again at the bolded part of your definition. Sound is mechanical energy, or a vibration, that moves through the air. It can only be "heard" once that vibration/energy hits the ear, or a microphone, or any other device that is capable of converting those vibrations into electrical signals that your brain turns into a sound, which is then experienced through your consciousness. If a device is not there to intercept the vibration, then a noise can not, and will not, ever be made. This is fundamental reality here.
No, again. All sensations ultimately occur in the brain. That's where the electrical impulses generated by the sensory equipment are converted into a perceivable sense. So the vision of "reality" occurs inside your brain. As does the smell, the taste, the touch etc...they are all created in the brain. This is fundamental science, so not too sure what you are trying to say. It seems you may be the one confusing any intelligibility here.
www.brainfacts.org...
Our senses connect us to the world. Through complex systems that begin with cells that respond to physical stimuli and send signals through a maze of brain circuits, we can know—both consciously and otherwise—what goes on around us and within our bodies.
It’s a dynamic process. The brain is not simply a receiving station for sensory signals, and what we see, hear, and feel are constantly shaped by emotions, memories, moods, and beliefs. Our sense of the world is a creation of the brain, and the same physical sensation may be experienced quite differently at different times of life, and even from day to day.
Your opinions of it and of the OBE'ers you talk to, has nothing to do with your personal actions and spiritual endeavors so don't blame them.
Leave those poor little witch-doctors and Shaman's out of this, and just say 'I don't want to know if its real or not, I'd rather belief it isn't real and call myself a practical, sensible and down to earth person as I try to convince others as well.
Fair enough?
Don't you find it strange that you...clever and knowing as you are...lack clarity of vision. That is why I say something is amiss.
I wanted to write something beautiful.
And then I realized...
I would have to become beautiful,
And then I was lost…
Then my love touched me, and gave me a gift
And the gift was her touch…
Love is the most beautiful thing
I can understand why you would not want to relate what happened to you...but you want others to share. You say come back in a few months and we will talk about it. In reality we should reverse our roles in this conversation!
I’m going to let you dictate what I can and cannot do because you can have an OBE? That’s a fat chance. You brought it up. You wanted to talk about it. I'm tired of hearing about it frankly. It’s not even the topic of this thread. Like I said, if you find any use for your “gift”, let me know. Until then, let's find something more interesting to talk about.
"Zarathustra is alone amongst the great teachers of the world who is not against the body, but for the body. All the other teachers are against the body, and their reasoning is that the body is a hindrance in the growth of the soul, the body is a barrier between you and the divine. This is sheer nonsense."
I want to speak to the despisers of the body. I would not have them learn and teach differently, but merely say farewell to their own bodies—and thus become silent.
“Body am I, and soul”—thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.
“I,” you say, and are proud of the word. But greater is that in which you do not wish to have faith—your body and its great reason: that does not say “I,” but does “I.”
What the sense feels, what the spirit knows, never has its end itself. But sense and spirit would persuade you that they are the end of all things: that is how vain they are. Instruments and toys are sense and spirit: behind them still lies the self. The self also seeks with the eyes of the senses; it also listens with the ears of the spirit. Always the self listens and seeks: it compares, overpowers, conquers, destroys. It controls, and it is in control of the ego too.
Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage—whose name is self. In your body he dwells; he is your body.
It's ok Midicon, really, I have no problem with whatever you think about me.
No, it was you who said that we are JUST our bodies and condescending others who say otherwise. That just BEGGED for an OBE'er to get involved. You don't want the subject of OBE's to come up? Fine. Then don't make such silly claims. Especially if you've never explored the subject beyond your thoughts and surmises. Otherwise, I thought it was very relevant.
One example is found in John, where it is expressed that we should not love the world or the things in it, and that we should rather reserve that love for God. I find such paradoxes almost sickening, because we are of the world and things in it.
Did you not know that by showing love to others you are in fact loving God?
the idea you're speaking of in John is basically saying don't love material possessions... its pointless because you can't take them with you