Spirituality might work if it wasn't so stupid.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: bb23108

I understand examining evidence is difficult and time consuming. It's work. But if you are going to say we cannot know what a pen actually is, you must also say that for all you know we could be dead right, because, well, you will not know either way. You might as well agree with me it is a pen.

We can agree to call it a pen, for purposes of referring to it. But that object is only called a pen, that is not what it is. It is called la pluma in Spanish, so is it something different then? Of course not.

I am not saying we do not have knowledge ABOUT whether we are alive or not, I am saying we do not know what anything IS. What IS the body?

Anyway, my point with all of this is to demonstrate that if we do not even know what the humblest of objects are, how do we think we know what much more complex objects and processes are - like birth, life, death, awareness, the body, etc.?

It is clearly a mysterious matter, all of this appearance - transcending any labels and descriptions we can rattle off about it. So rather than constantly trying to know everything about everything and coming to all sorts of conclusions in an attempt to control everything, enjoy the mystery of it all. Consider deeply that you cannot know what even a single thing IS!

Participate in this mystery freely, not always trying to control it with our separative thinking minds. This is not to say that scientific-materialism doesn't have its place, its just not comprehensive in its understanding of what all of this actually IS.

originally posted by: bb23108

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

The mind imagines that there are two things making up reality - but reality is what is appearing to happen - reality is not two.

What is "appearing to happen" is just an image that one's point-of-view is creating. If we both look at the same object, you from one angle, me from another angle, different images of what is "appearing to happen" are the case, right?

So which appearance is reality? Why would we even assume that any such image is actual reality? Reality is necessarily beyond all points of view, not limited to any (angle of) perception. The object is as it is altogether in reality, not as we might see or define it.

Seeing is not reality - it is just a perceptual function of the body-mind.

'What is' appearing to happen?

Everything is an expression of emptiness.

a reply to: bb23108

The word is not the object itself, the word is a symbol that refers to the actual, apart from different languages and thus different pronouncements, we all know quite well what it is for and how to use it, we can describe it and really know it because it does not change, it is static.
That which lives is another matter, we can't know 'that' which is constantly moving and changing, we can only see it through observation of what is.
To be honest, since the description is not the described, the word is not the actual object, how can one speak of god, life after death, and say 'i know', where does this notion of god, life after death, reincarnation come from? isn't that a description?

Honestly i don't know either, my insight is based on what i see and since there is no 'me' i fail to see what is so important in the individual human that it would continue to live on after physical death.
A human is simply one of many, awareness is not personal although the 'sense of being' is because we are aware as an individual.
As a human we are the rest of mankind, if individual humans die it changes nothing, life simply goes on.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
'What is' appearing to happen?

Everything is an expression of emptiness.

Is this related to my comment to your prior post when I said "Seeing is not reality - it is just a perceptual function of the body-mind." ?

You seemed to be equating "seeing" with reality (as opposed to the illusion of seer and seen), and I was stating something contrary to that - by saying to you "Seeing is not reality - it is just a perceptual function of the body-mind. "

Can you answer me without all the zen-like questions? Thank you.

Emptiness - sounds kind of bleak. How about everything is a modification of consciousness or conscious light/energy...

originally posted by: earthling42
.. we all know quite well what it is for and how to use it, we can describe it and really know it because it does not change, it is static.

Nothing is static - even what we consider inanimate objects are constantly changing. Such objects are no more knowable in terms of what they actually ARE in reality, than anything or anyone else is.

Really consider even the apparently most static of objects - say a rock. When you really take it all into account, even feeling its essence and unity with all, you still do not know what it IS. Even if you can describe it down to its complete molecular structure, you still would not know what it is.

However, this is an ecstatic discovery because in such a moment of "unknowing" or "not-knowing", there is no separation from what is, and that is our inherent happiness.

a reply to: bb23108

Emptiness - sounds kind of bleak. How about everything is a modification of consciousness or conscious light/energy...

All that appears is just a modification of what you are.
But what you are is not seen - that which can be perceived cannot perceive.
The emptiness is forming.
Nothing is appearing to happen.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: bb23108

Emptiness - sounds kind of bleak. How about everything is a modification of consciousness or conscious light/energy...

All that appears is just a modification of what you are.
But what you are is not seen - that which can be perceived cannot perceive.
The emptiness is forming.
Nothing is appearing to happen.

Okay, that was clear to me, and I do understand how you use the word "emptiness" but it tends to evoke negative connotations, especially since it was often used and translated from Buddhist texts, based in the more "alpha" orientation of the Orient as opposed to the omega orientation of the west.

"Emptiness" also does not necessarily account for the energy aspect of consciousness, so I don't tend to use it, but that is just my preference.

Oops, it double posted.

a reply to: bb23108

Pen and "la pluma" mean the same thing. We are not speaking about the word "pen".

If we cannot know what anything is, how do you know we cannot know what anything is?

How do you know what fundamental awareness is?

How do you know that we are not our bodies?

It seems to me you are quite sure, absolutely sure, about your knowledge, while at the same time calling everything a mystery and that we cannot know.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: bb23108

It's a pen.

tsk, tsk, a superficial analysis at best,
you're still off balance from bluemules offer at worst*

it could be a knife, or a bug, anything at all

would it really be such a terrible thing if in a visionary trance
you were to perceive clearly [rather than logically deduce, as you've failed to do so far]



how really shaky the foundations of western science and western "rational" materialism are?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

The problem with considering in an ad hock way. That the Universe and its existence is the result of a random event is with respect to Chaos theory. By this I mean that anything we observe as random ( in example quantum fluctuations).Upon the large scale structure of the Universe could be an expression of complete order.

Chaos, with reference to chaos theory, refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules; this understanding of chaos is synonymous with dynamical instability, a condition discovered by the physicist Henri Poincare in the early 20th century that refers to an inherent lack of predictability in some physical systems.

The two main components of chaos theory are the ideas that systems - no matter how complex they may be - rely upon an underlying order, and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events. This latter idea is known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions , a circumstance discovered by Edward Lorenz (who is generally credited as the first experimenter in the area of chaos) in the early 1960s.

Source

Our Universe (93 billion light years wide) could be. Despite its seemingly random appearance at our scale of observation is very ordered and not the result of a random event.

Or it could be a component to a much larger scale structure like an atom can be part of a human being.

Consciousness given the above could very well be an essential quality that is inherent to matter.

And wherever the condition are correct life forms potentially offering underlying order to what in us can be define spiritualty as objective.

Any thoughts?

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
If we cannot know what anything is, how do you know we cannot know what anything is?

Reducing this consideration to clever semantics now?

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
How do you know what fundamental awareness is?

How do you know that we are not our bodies?

It seems to me you are quite sure, absolutely sure, about your knowledge, while at the same time calling everything a mystery and that we cannot know.

We have direct "knowledge" of fundamental being or awareness because we are that. However, the mind can never know what anything is because it always objectifies what it looks to gain knowledge from and/or about.'

In other words, mind always creates a point-of-view and so only can perceive an object in this limited manner - never as it actually IS in reality.

a reply to: bb23108

Imagine the potential in Hypothesis of looking at what a human being looks like n relation to it being made entirely of quarks and leptons?

Such an observation could very well present NO indication that the object is in reality human.

Any thoughts?

a reply to: bb23108

Everything is half truth because it's in someone else's perspective

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: bb23108

Imagine the potential in Hypothesis of looking at what a human being looks like n relation to it being made entirely of quarks and leptons?

Such an observation could very well present NO indication that the object is in reality human.

Any thoughts?

Then view it (how?) with sunshine bouncing off of, and reacting to...or nuclear toxic waste we have here, reacting with our quarks and quirks and what is going on there?

a reply to: InTheLight


in presented in Hypothesis, like in the sense of some really cool/impossible to make today/microscope.

I have no idea why you are bringing up, "toxic waste".

Perhaps you should take that hair out of your...


Any thoughts?

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: InTheLight


in presented in Hypothesis, like in the sense of some really cool/impossible to make today/microscope.

I have no idea why you are bringing up, "toxic waste".

Perhaps you should take that hair out of your...


Any thoughts?

Perhaps the cool microscope is us.

a reply to: InTheLight

Point made me lady

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: InTheLight

Point made me lady

originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: bb23108

Imagine the potential in Hypothesis of looking at what a human being looks like n relation to it being made entirely of quarks and leptons?

Such an observation could very well present NO indication that the object is in reality human.

Any thoughts?

Yes, I agree with you - it would not appear as a human in all likelihood. Even if we wanted to try and see what the simplest object appears like from a dozen different points-of-view (using a camera, for instance), the object would not likely even be distinguishable as what we usually see it as.

So what is the nature of any object or creature beyond point-of-view?