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

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

What action?
And there is no positive religion, yet. Ultimately I think that is what will happen. Why people like Unifinity and all the soulsearchers exist.
We know free will is a myth. Everything I am thinking, writing and doing is predetermined. There is no such thing as coincidence.

a reply to: Peeple

The truth is that you almost certainly still have MHS and probably Kundalini Psychosis like pretty much most of the human species.

Now making scientific progress on those phenomenon seems the best next step to me.

Let go of all the spiritual crap and focus on the mechanism driving us crazy.

IMHO

Kev

a reply to: Peeple

The action I won't be discussing on ATS.

As far as everything coming together?

That would be nice.

But 99.999% of all species that have ever existed on this Earth are now extinct.

And this is just one Earth.

It would be superstitious to assume that we will roll 1000 straight sixes in a row.

Kev

a reply to: Rethaya

thanks!

First I would like to say that I don't want for anybody to walk in my shoes. This desire for Self realization must come within in some form. At first I wanted "to get" unconditional love but then everything develops from one thing into another. With experiences, realizations and reading....

well I read a lot and absorb anything which seems interesting to me, but meditation and true spiritual practices at the end are about simple natural being, not accepting, not rejecting, not thinking, not reading, or past or future...in a nutshell it is ALL about the present.

well naturally it has different meaning for different people and that is one simple interpretation for me...

being in the present, just as you say. But I want to take it to a whole new level, in my opinion. Detachment is exactly about that, being in the present at all times, you know. That is the essence. This is also dying before real death ... as Kev says.

But it depends on how far do you want to go?
some want to learn and experiance the full potential as far as being goes, not thinking...that is just a desire not to think. So meditation and everything else is a form of enjoyment for some.

We all have our desires...and as long as you are happy with yours, I am also happy for you. And don't take this post as an attack, it is not intended as such, just exchange of opinions.


Zen gets much deeper than it is generally known in the west, but I don't want to say with that you don't know about it, just my opinion, since you mentioned it.

Their strict rules are there for a reason and advanced teachings are being kept from public, at least that is my opinion.
There are many books on the net, but I think that real native masters have a lot of secrets techniques about kundalini and all other stages of Self realization.

But you can bet that their real focus is Self realization as in any buddhisem or other Eastern traditions, at least the ones who are in a monastery or serious practitioners. At least I got the feeling that they are all into that. They have expressions such as satory and kensho for describing their experiences about Self-realization in zen. There is a lot information about that terms on the net or in the books if someone would be interested.

But if there is any real truth in what is available is another matter. For me there was and their koans are a great way to develop the imagination.


"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."
...fun zen qoute, I am sure you have heard of it already....

: )


a reply to: Peeple
thanks!
nice thought, It did not came to me before, but you are right - in a way it is exactly like that.

a reply to: Peeple

hehe well, I know what part of me is "a soul". The question is where was it before? I wish I will experiance past imprints and learn from them at some point. weeeelll...Maybe I already did, in some dream or trip : )

but the main point is, that silence is the key, not thoughts.

It is good to think and contemplate about anything and all that. But it is wrong when thoughts are taken as a fact, this like to causes confusion and arguments instead peace and compassion which a person with that kind of Self knowledge and experiance should aspire to cultivate.

And that could also be considered a positive religion.
Religion based on actual experiences and wisdom gained through meditation and contemplation and reading... Well this sounds a lot like pure buddhisem : )

in my opinion.

a reply to: UniFinity

Nah, I don't consider any of that an attack. I think you bring a lot to the table actually, as far as this thread goes.

Everyone has different opinions, beliefs, and experiences. I'm sure some people will read this thread and find exactly what they're looking for in your words. I just tried to provide a counterpoint, if that makes any sense.

Perhaps you're right and I'm looking at zen from a rather limited perspective. I'm not an expert on anything, really. I just went crazy/obsessed over spiritual stuff when I was younger and read a lot of different things, and pieced together the bits that worked for me. I'm sure some of the folks on ATS who read the crap I've mentioned in this thread think that the "crazy" label I just applied to myself is the only accurate thing I've typed, lol, but hey that's life.

As far as experience goes, I could be wrong but the things I went through didn't lead to enlightenment, and while I realized a type of energetic unity between my own consciousness and the rest of the local universe among other things, I'm not a buddha or especially wise. So, for me anyway, there's a sort of fundamental disconnect between what I've read and what I've experienced which places me firmly in the KPB fan-club box (even if I'm not 100% certain about it all) because his words/experiences fit my own.

Now, I'm not claiming my experiences were a reflection of some kind of universal truth. It's just that what I found at the end of my particular golden-bricked road wasn't an actual end-point at all, and it raised more questions than answers.

Regardless of all that, it takes all kinds of people to make a world, such as it is, so I look forward to any and all interpretations when it comes to this thread. There's a certain point where one has to go beyond the more common language and definitions found in books, and I think all of us here have something to offer along those lines.

a reply to: Rethaya

I'm a Rethaya fan for what it's worth...

But I'm also a fan of differing aspects of everyone in this thread....

We are colony creatures just waking up to this fact...it's unwise to just "blow off" anyone or anything.

Yet humans are also seemingly slated for destruction...so I have no idea whether this more general "awakening" and the joining up with elder species will ever happen or not.

Kev

originally posted by: Rethaya
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

I am having such a hard time trying to understand your and Kev's perspective on the 'soul' - I just don't get what particular aspect of humans you're referring to when using that 'term', especially as you -

- "agree that part of what we are is effectively immortal", because that is exactly what most people are talking about when they use the word 'soul'.

Hope you don't mind if I ask:
You mentioned that you have a son - at what age would you say he started exhibiting distinct personality traits?

My daughter came into this world already distinctly individual, showing traits definitive of having a personality -

- she was not a 'blank slate' awaiting the 'personhood' which 'life' experience bestows...

...Thus, as my daughter was 'born' with distinct personality traits - she must have existed 'somewhere' that she could have had personality 'forming' experiences prior to being conceived by me.

-- Mind you, I have studied child development and, having spent over 15 years helping 'raise' children, right from infancy, for many families (as a live in nanny), I can tell you that my daughter is not unique in demonstrating individuality so early -
- although, I will also say that I have known babies who seemed genuinely 'newly' born (as if having no prior existence).


Anyway, my point is that it is in defining the "immortal" aspect of a person that I (and most everyone else) would use the term "soul"...

...and therefore, in describing my daughter as seeming to have had existence prior to 'this' life, and in inquiring about the possibility of the same being the case with your son -

- my primary question is:

If the 'soul' is not "the immortal essential part of us", then what would you say that the soul is?

I know Kev thinks it is something either that a person 'constructs' or is 'invaded' by - but having 'started a person from scratch' (so to speak), what does your experience of witnessing the very 'beginning' of an individual human being tell you?

a reply to: lostgirl

Since I was aware in the womb and watched everything form I can say this:

1) It seemed that something wondrous filled me in the womb which was not my soul. (looking back...there was pure awareness but no 'self' yet)

2) When my parents started threatening to kill me...I started developing a solid sense of self as a defense mechanism.

3) When the childhood beatings intensified in grade school my sense of self intensified

4) When I was threatened with death again in the Navy, my sense of self intensified.

5) When Kundalini erupted fully around 33, my sense of self expanded 1000 fold.

6) When my "soul died", my sense of self approached zero.

7) I have a small sense of self right now...be a good husband...be a good person...give something back before I die. Lots of Kundalini, but I'm not "eating it to grow a soul". I have no further interest in souls..

They are a pain in the behind and pretty much optional.

That's my perspective.

Kev

a reply to: lostgirl

My son exhibited his own personality on day one of his life, I think.

I think a soul is like another kind of body...in the sense that it's a energy-construct that the mind inhabits. It's something used to interact with the environment we happen to be in, whether it's some kind of afterlife environment or the normal world during an OBE/NDE, similar to the way we inhabit our physical bodies and use it to interact with this world.

I think the mind itself, or individual consciousness if you prefer, is the immortal part. I like to think individual conscious entities are small fragments of some greater whole, but whether that whole is simply the universe, some larger group-soul kind of thing, or something else...I don't know.

a reply to: Rethaya

For the record I'm pretty certain that there can be multi-generational soul seeds...But I view that as neither positive nor negative (but its often negative).

Its the larger life that sends out probes.

They exist as long as they exist.

There is seldom anything special about one compared to another.

One life or a thousand seeded by the same seed...it might matter...but not necessarily.

One of the Buddhas said something similar If I recall correctly.

Kev

a reply to: lostgirl

I thought of a few more interesting things I should have said earlier.

Regardless of what I think about souls, I know children exist before entering this world in some form, and I think sometimes entities help them come into the world.

When I was a teenager, one of the anomalous things I encountered was a sticky infant-shaped handprint that showed up on a cookie tray that I normally kept very clean because I used it only for...let's say processing Colorado's new state flower. There was no normal way of explaining that appearance of weirdness, as there had been no children that young inside that house within the decade preceding my acquisition of the tray.

Two weeks after the hand-print appeared, my sister had a miscarriage.

Also, a couple of months prior to my wife finding out she was pregnant, she woke up with a bruise on her thigh shaped like a six-fingered human hand. I didn't tell her until after we found out she was pregnant that I had asked for help with that, in a sense, and I took the hand-print as a good sign.

My wife had several miscarriages over the course of our relationship prior to that and had thought we couldn't have children. I decided that if we were going to, it would make sense for it to happen when we were still relatively young and tried to help things along with my weird pseudo-shamanism.

Despite having no luck carrying a child to term over the previous 8 years, everything went perfectly. When my son was born, after the medical folks cleaned him up he looked around (even while holding his head up, which I hadn't thought possible) and was perfectly content, seemingly happy and fully aware. Like all children, he sometimes makes me joke that the six-fingered-hand-print-leaver must have been a demon, but he's been extremely healthy and rather large for his age throughout, and I think we've all been very lucky.

a reply to: Rethaya

I think that's simple pareidolia...but I don't make any grandiose claims..I still have much to learn.

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

It could have been that, although it was eerily accurate if it was. The other seemingly related events could have been coincidental, but even if I'm wrong I still find stuff like that interesting.

originally posted by: Rethaya
a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

It could have been that, although it was eerily accurate if it was. The other seemingly related events could have been coincidental, but even if I'm wrong I still find stuff like that interesting.

Yes of course!

My "memory" of robbing one of the Buddha's on the road is also very precious to me, even though I know that it's probably a Kundalini psychosis fragment or eternal now image.

And the day before my previous soul died...4 past lives very solemnly said goodbye to me with great class and sweet tender comraderie. It is the most precious thing imaginable to experience.

The next day without warning, "junior" hatched and left me for dead. (or several other metaphors).

But it's unwise to hang onto such things.

Spurious experiences pave the road to pareidoliaic paranoia and schizoid loops of entrapment.

Even if true they are pointless baggage from an uncertain past and corrupt the future.

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

I just don't understand why you view having a "sense of self" as a negative thing...

...but then, my experience is opposite to yours really -

1) When I was a baby and strangers walked up to my mom to remark on my "big, blue eyes", my sense of self was of being happy to feel that I was special.

2) When I was a small child I had two 'states' of 'being':

When my mom was in loving 'mode' I had an exuberant sense of self, very engaged with life (loving nature, playing, creating, singing) -

- when she was being abusive (which, as in your case, also included threats of being killed) my sense of self 'shriveled up' in emotional pain - diminishing, disappearing into a deep well of abject awareness of 'non' me-'ness' all sense of self drowned in nothingness...

...But, thru grade school, I had the resilience to regain my spirited engagement with 'life' and sense of self after abusive episodes..

3) As I got older, there was no more "mom" being "in loving 'mode'" - although the abuse was no longer physical, having evolved to being merely hatefully verbal...the result of the verbal abuse was the same - loss of sense of self, and I was becoming less resilient, less able to regain my sense of self after the episodes.

4) By high school, I no longer had any sense of self at all. I felt as if there was a thick fog between my awareness of 'life' and the actuality of it. I was functional and people just assumed it was a shyness thing, but really, there was no 'me' behind the facade...

...And then the Depression 'hit', and in all those years (nearly 40) nothing I have tried has really 'helped' - and when I say I've tried everything - please believe me, we're talking everything:

every type of 'therapy' (got all my 'issues' resolved to the degree of receiving a clean bill of psychological health after extensive testing) - most all medications on the market and in various combos - everything that several naturopathic doctors could think of to try - until finally the only thing left to try was 'intensifying' my spiritual 'journey'...

...I say "intensifying" because I have been 'exploring' my 'spirituality' since i was old enough to ask questions (and then read books) about anything that would fit under that 'topic'...

5) After several years of intensive spiritual 'journeying' (although the Depression only eased marginally) I did begin to notice some small return of my 'sense of self'...I remembered how it felt to 'be me' as a child -

- and I started being able to appreciate that kind of 'engagement with life' again, all that "stop and smell the roses" type stuff.

Sorry to drag all that out - but I didn't know how else to make my point that:

It is the 'sense of self' that makes being a consciously aware physical being worthwhile...how can a person experience the joy to be had in 'living' if they don't have a 'self' as well as having a 'sense' of 'who' that self is?

How else but by having (and knowing) 'my sense of self' could I know that:

I like - walking in the rain; listening to songbirds as I lie under my big old oak tree; walking my dog late at night when the stars are bright and no one else is out; watching classic comedies ("Some Like It Hot"!) and movie musicals ("Sound of Music") with my teenage daughter; letting a whole handful of M&Ms slowly melt in my mouth until the chocolate oozes out of the candy 'shell', filling the mouth with it's warm, rich sweetness...

You know, for a person who spends a majority of her life wishing it was done and over already - I actually experience more of the 'appreciation of life' then anyone I know.

So, you see why my "perspective" is that if the 'sense of self' is what you would call the 'soul'...

...well, not only do I 'not' think souls are "a pain in the behind" - but I'm darned glad I've got one!

a reply to: lostgirl

I don't.

But in it's present form it's an evolutionary mistake.

You read "The Fall" correct?

Don't you and everyone else in this thread realize, that the human sense of self is so painful, and so broken, that there is an evolutionary pressure to discard it entirely, and to fly off into imaginary realms to escape it? This is the little read wagon hauling various materials.

Now yes, you can zen out and appreciate the moment like animals.. but very few humans ever find a stable sense of self that doesn't just let them escape into their delusional worlds.

To be both 'spiritual' and useful.. that is the hardest thing of all.

Kev

a reply to: Rethaya

My observation about spirituality is that it's a lot like string theory.

The string theory landscape has something like 10 to the 500 power universes that it could be describing, so as a result it's in the embarrassing situation that it can't event find "the equation for our reality", nor can it really make any predictions.

It's not even a real theory.

Spirituality is exactly the same.

At the core of everything it seems that there are an infinite number of ways that things are simultaneously working.

So Peeple can have her Archons if she wants.. Lost Girl can have her "meaningful souls". BadDogma can still be avoiding "enlightenment" by being bedeviled by the Trickster.

Of course none of these things have any actual value, except to those specific individuals.

The world will still burn down, and what needs to be done won't happen.

Humans nearly EVER, to the last one of them, do "what needs to be done", but rather fall under the spell of their toxic sense of self, and the even more toxic sense of self of their culture and religion.

Now of course the same thing could be said of me. But what I want to do is to be an "un-cola". It's what Shamans do.. of course "I'm not a Shaman" (I'm saying that to pacify certain people).

To put it simply, I'm interested in what's at the root of all the nonsense, not the nonsense itself. And that nonsense is very robust and will take a very specific probe to undo it's toxic crap.

Kev

a reply to: Baddogma

BD, you were teasing me a while back about "sayings for T-shirts". So I made a page for them on my blog a while back. Here is the current list, for general humor value:

"Liminality is the Start of Spirituality" -KPB

"God creates Universes. Humans create religions. The two have nothing to do with each other." -KPB

"Spirituality is when you have "Sex" with the Universe." -KPB

"All gods are merely accumulated ignorance." -KPB

"The only difference between a ghost and a statue of a ghost.. is the Higgs Boson" -KPB

"As far as projection --- it's the "Universe" which finds what it seeks, and "we humans" are part of the mechanism for that." - KPB

A "friend" who wishes to be helpful, always talks past the human being... as the human being is not the student. -KPB

"The purpose of mysticism is to embrace death, not flee from it; by embracing death you conqueror it". - Mrs. KPB

"I love heathens...they yearn for truth and beauty instead of heaven." -KPB

It's a group decision to be terminally stupid. -KPB

The "fall" happened, because we got stuck in one mode of thinking; spirituality is the attempt to fix that error. -KPB

"Words lose their corruptive power once you no longer need them." -KPB

"If you use words sparingly then each word becomes magical." -KPB

"Suffering is the scaffolding which holds up reality." - KPB

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Don't you and everyone else in this thread realize, that the human sense of self is so painful, and so broken, that there is an evolutionary pressure to discard it entirely, and to fly off into imaginary realms to escape it? This is the little read wagon hauling various materials.

That's true. And so very sad. There wouldn't be this "need for paradise", if we could all just be honest. Mostly honest to ourself.
We are trying to escape because we are hurt, from people who got hurt, we will hurt someone eventually, or already did.
While we are looking for unconditional love. Something that doesn't exist.
And if you try to live loving, you're the weirdo everybody thinks they can abuse for their pleasure.
Our brain is just trying to be a good servant and gives us a few hours of paradise, before we land hard back on Earth.
That doesn't make it real though. Nothing our brain tells us is "reality", it's perspecive, never the truth, just projection.
Spirituality. Fiction.