Baddogma's Meta Cafe- Polite Discussions About Scientific Mysticism and General Weirdness

The ego is like a focusing lens or a reduction valve. Perhaps you could make the case it acts as a tuner.

It reduces one's awareness down to a narrow, much more finite point. Instead of a flood light, you have a laser beam.

Instead of a stream of infinite information, our ego allows us to filter and tune into the "channel" of our conscious experience.

This functions to keep us as "us". The ego serves to narrow perspective. If we didn't have a functioning ego, we might be seen as having a mental disorder -- hearing things, seeing things, being delusional ect.

Because the ego does this on a conscious level, this is why our subconscious and supraconcious are aware of far more -- this is where "inspiration" and creativity comes from. This is why divination methods work. All the information is contained within the whole, but it is filtered into a very narrow, tunnel-vision-like experience for you via the ego.

Instead of hearing all radio stations at once, you only hear one -- your station.

Because every possibility to infinity is constantly being expressed by the inexpressible, the ego serves an important purpose. The purpose? It allows and enables you to be you....unless your experience is supposed to contain ego loss that is. The universe is like that...full of paradoxes and dead-ended logic cul-de-sacs. It keeps itself (us) running around in circles for eternity.

Basically, infinity experiencing itself in an infinite number of ways, all at the same time. And for it to be truly infinite, among those experiences include single-purpose human lives.

a reply to: lostgirl

I have to preface this reply by saying that I feel very reluctant to post it, as it will leave me vulnerable to ridicule...

Woah, not by anyone here it won't. In a discussion on general weirdness, the weirder the better!
For what it's worth I think you articulated a lot better what I was getting at with the ringmaster thing, and I agree with you. I think the distractions and 'percolating ideas' (what a great phrase!) are relevant too and will lead somewhere in due time.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Perfectly stated.

I'll add for general jocularity value,that a great number of people are obsessed with
"becoming one with God", while God is "obsessed" with building entire planets to make
sure that people are NOT (consciously) "one with God".

Now yes, there is all sorts of yearning in the system in both directions (both to be
separate and not to be separate).

That's why I find the greatest possible value in the liminal state---it's the only way to
have your cake and to eat it too.

Kev

a reply to: lostgirl

Well... your "out there" 3:00 a.m. posts are far more coherent and thought provoking than mine, so there's that.

And I hear you regarding second thoughts about getting the "kook" label affixed to one's forehead by thinking out of the box (and beyond the tesseract for that matter) and submit you would be near last on my list for "those most likely to lose it"...

but I veer away from serious thoughts that some external force is vaguely trying to thwart my casual explorations of the mysteries, or to thwart me helping some other passer by to not think about something that would, perhaps years later, lead them to free energy and mastery over time/space, or something similar due to visions of Napoleon costumes and mental wards... but you could be right on as something unknown (to most) seems to be faintly acting.

Beats the livin' heck outta me...

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Yes, and to reduce it a bit for the hardly thinking out there (my brodies!) why would a god bother to individuate if being a whole thing was the end goal?

There must be something "good" about individuating unless one subscribes to the mind game playing model of god out to fool folks (itself, actually, if one defines god as everything).

a reply to: MystikMushroom

and yeah, that 'radio tuner' model works so well for so much!

but why are critters limited to one bandwidth necessary at all? likely 'cause all that is possible happens and/or the grand tuner works in mysterious ways... or so I found out one afternoon when attempting to fix my Sanyo tuner in the days before internet tech guides were to be found.

a reply to: beansidhe

and I'm having trouble finding a ringmaster coat with tails in a 42 regular... and my head is way too big for most top hats for sale, too... so I'll have to settle for torn jeans (genes) and a t-shirt once again.

a reply to: Baddogma

a reply to: lostgirl

I Love tarot!

It does work with the right reader and "victim" it is like punching a question in to google and getting an answer

originally posted by: Baddogma
a reply to: MystikMushroom

and yeah, that 'radio tuner' model works so well for so much!

but why are critters limited to one bandwidth necessary at all? likely 'cause all that is possible happens and/or the grand tuner works in mysterious ways... or so I found out one afternoon when attempting to fix my Sanyo tuner in the days before internet tech guides were to be found.

It does. Look how many people go from the birth to the grave "locked" into their ego-derived station of personality and perspective.

a reply to: Baddogma

Tad more complicated than that.

Our 'Individuation' is actually happening in the timeless now.

There is no past of oneness.

There is no future of oneness.

There is no 'real' separation right now either.

God's liminal too.

Kev

I have different opinion about ego. In my case I think ego should be dealt with appropriately but in a timely manner. But as long as ego is present the final Self realization will not happen. Until then there is still a connection or identification with the body and mind, which turns out completely false at the end, as it seems in many different religious, philosophical or spiritual teachings.

I have an opinion that the final stage is a step where ego is not present at all. From the eyes of the "spirit" there is no I or you, there is just we - all beings = one being = Self. But to get to this point there are a lot lessons, even lessons about ego, what it is and how to train it to be of help to us instead of in the way. And in the end it should fall off by itself.

But no ego does not mean no thoughts. Many people are confused about this. Thoughts are OK but ANY attachment to them is ego, as was already posted in my first posts in this thread, in my opinion. If this is indeed true, than what we have to do eventually is simple...well maybe for some : )
Inspect every thought and see what is the real source of the thought. And when it comes from wrong source, let it go...

And complete detachment to body AND mind is an end by product of final Self realization. Until than we are still bound by sufferings of the body and mind and still in cycle of death and rebirth.

a reply to: UniFinity

Most people's personal thoughts about "Enlightenment" and a "Path" are colored by the personal delusion of having an immortal soul.

You can pick out who knows something, and who does not, based upon what they know about "souls".

Since a "soul" can arise and "fall" in a single life.. and of course since humans never even started making "souls" until relatively recent history, any philosophy of "enlightenment", would be required to take these facts into account.

As a matter of fact, the desire to have a soul, is the absolute earmark, that a person has yet to properly begin on a spiritual path at all.

To really put a nail in it, the people who most talk about their souls are those in the grip of MHS and at the last, Kundalini psychosis.

IMHO of course.

Kev

a reply to: UniFinity

Beautiful, it made me think: "The ego is to the mind what time is to the physical world".

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

I hate to disagree with you. But I know for sure I have a soul. It's the part of me that remembers I was "working at a temple responsible for the flame".
It's not the souls fault people have the wrong definition of what it is. But there is an immortal part in almost every one, that's what the hindus got right. Not all are as old, but if you'd try really hard and go back very far, I bet you'd find out you were a dinosaur once. Because you are definetly an old one.
I can feel that.

a reply to: UniFinity

Personally I think that, although people can make progress and learn useful things about themselves, there is no end goal when it comes to meditation/spirituality.

Most people spend enormous amounts of time and energy focused on their past or future, when technically the only part of their lives that exists is simply the present. Even the thought that there is some kind of goal somewhere off in the future to achieve takes time and energy that could be used to simply enjoy being.

I'm obviously not entirely free of that myself, and sometimes thinking about the past, as in learning from it, or thinking about the future insofar as planning can be useful, but in general I try not to worry overmuch about either.

Maybe all that means is that my ego is fond of zen philosophy, but regardless of that I stand by the idea that some things may be impossible to achieve and serve only as distractions.

Mystik's post at the top of this page is worth thinking about as well. Ego serves a purpose in our lives, and I'm not sure any of us would function well without it. It's useful to reach a point where the ego isn't constantly chiming in with random thoughts, but as long as we're human I don't think we can be completely free of ego. And as far as I can tell, all the supposedly enlightened masters that have ever existed have been as human as the rest of us, from cradle to grave.

No amount of reverence for past teachings will change that.

Having said all that, I'm no more infallible than anyone else so perhaps you'll prove me wrong one day.

I wish you luck and sincerely hope you find whatever you need.

a reply to: Peeple

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that it's the mind, or consciousness itself that remembers things like that. I think what we call a soul is simply another kind of body, and therefore Kev's ideas could be accurate. If nothing else, I don't think the soul is the immortal essential part of us, and it's a possibility I've thought about for a long time.

It's interesting how people come to similar conclusions independently, sometimes, regardless of whether the ideas are right or not. I do agree that part of what we are is effectively immortal, no matter which part or label we favor.

a reply to: Peeple

You are tapping into the eternal now.

It's a very common mistake.

And no need to apologize; I made the same mistake during my journey too.

Kev

a reply to: Rethaya

Beautifully said.

Kev

a reply to: Rethaya

The "Universe" is immortal and will keep birthing and killing all of us forever.

We are one set of possible sets of self-expression for the Universe, and the Universe both can't and won't throw away part of it's evolutionary fitness Landscape.

Now will the "stuff" collaborating to form "us" keep evolving relatively compared to the Absolute frame?

Yes.

But when "the stuff we think of as "us" evolves" that is in fact the death of the "current us".

Spirituality is the study of death. If you can't stomach death, then you are just deluding yourself, and aren't "spiritual" at all.

Most people are stuck in loops of MHS or Kundalini psychosis and are not being "spiritual" whatsoever.

a reply to: Rethaya

I had a NDE once, a while ago and after that I got all kinds of strange "memories", that's kind of a strong hint towards the soul theory. Because it is pretty common.
I don't know what you mean with the "soul is a body"?

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

I just feel like you are simplifying(that's wrong, right?) too much. In my view, there is the "mind-cloud", the species-conscience and the personal drop in this vast ocean, the soul. Which is part of both, but not really belongs anywhere.

I just noiced we are in general chit chat? If we aren't metaphysical, then I don't know what is?!