Fetishizing Uncertainty

originally posted by: HarryJoy
a reply to: namelesss

I agree completely with that....Thank you for sharing that info....I interpret the all seeing eye to represent the eye that sees from every perspective.

You're welcome! *__-
There are many 'eyes', but all are hooked up to the One Universal Consciousness!
Thus, all is Known!

a reply to: namelesss

I know that what you said about all being known...is true ! I have always believed it but the way in which I have seen it has evolved. ..or maybe my perception of what I would refer to as God has evolved. I find the fact of all being known as a very comforting thought...I feel that it is so easy to be misunderstood by our peers. And even ourselves at times.

I find myself very much on this middle path that you have spoken of.....I find it to create many conundrums that divides me between bone and marrow. ..so to speak.

a reply to: namelesss
I appeciate it. I hope you didn't mind me still pestering you with questions, I still have trouble trying to wrap my head around the middle way. It'll be too easy for me to say that I get what you mean and that'll be the end of it, since the topic is uncertainty, how can one sincerely say that he or she is certain about something or even less likely about everything? Can we examine certainty in the context of probabilities or arbitrary approximations and evaluations? That'll be self-defeating in a sense. How about generalizations or grand pronouncements concerning the nature of ultimate reality bereft of even the shortest explanations?

To contemplate the simplicity of something complex or to examine the complexity of something simple? Why complicate something simple in the first place and why simplify the complex? Do we just naively accept age old grand pronouncements or witty generalizations or should we be critical about it or do we just ignore it?

To arbitrarily illustrate:
From the bliss of ignorance to awareness, from curiosity to learning and contemplation punctuated by stages of doubt to realization and the ultimately bliss of enlightenment. So, from bliss to bliss it comes full circle. How do we define certainty?

Are we better off not to examine certain aspects of uncertainty and postulate the degrees to certainty? Doesn't this turn you on and seek a way of release or resolution as the OP's title said, metaphorically speaking of course?

Maybe I should just shut up and again try to figure it out by myself... This could be messy.

originally posted by: HarryJoy
a reply to: namelesss

I know that what you said about all being known...is true ! I have always believed it but the way in which I have seen it has evolved. ..or maybe my perception of what I would refer to as God has evolved. I find the fact of all being known as a very comforting thought...I feel that it is so easy to be misunderstood by our peers. And even ourselves at times.

Knowing that all is Known makes ethicality a bit... easier!
What is the one thing that no one ever minds that others know of them, and no one minds Knowing?
Our unconditional Love! *__-

I find myself very much on this middle path that you have spoken of.....I find it to create many conundrums that divides me between bone and marrow. ..so to speak.

Not understanding how existing at the point equidistant from all Perspectives, all opposites, all duality... presents 'conundrums'?

originally posted by: MaxTamesSiva
a reply to: namelesss
I appeciate it. I hope you didn't mind me still pestering you with questions, I still have trouble trying to wrap my head around the middle way.

You're welcome! I'm always happy to answer honest respectful questions for elucidation.
With Love! *__-
The middle way is not something to be 'understood', it is transcendental, something that must be experienced to be Known!
Like Love!
Picture a figure 8.
Now imagine that each of those two loops correspond to two opposite Perspectives, to opposites in a dualistic pairing.
Say, for instance, hot and cold.
If your entire Perspective were within one or the other, the world that you live in would be perceived as hot or cold, and NOT the other (due to lack of Perspective)!
And the Perspectives within the other loop would sure as rain, argue the point!
From the point in the center, equidistant from either loop/side, see the fallacy of both arguments, and their Truth!
Now imagine infinite 'loops' through that central point (that 'chrono-synclastic infundibulum' where all opposites resolve), a 'cloud', all pairings of opposites...

Can we examine certainty in the context of probabilities or arbitrary approximations and evaluations? That'll be self-defeating in a sense.

To examine 'certainty' is to examine pathological insanity.
'Certainty/belief' is all of insanity!

How about generalizations or grand pronouncements concerning the nature of ultimate reality bereft of even the shortest explanations?

Sure; "It's ALL True!"
There, does that help? *__-
The most Universally True statements are always very simple, they have to be!!
The complex stuff has to do with 'getting here'; once we experience/Know unconditional Love, we no longer need to 'understand', we understand that we cannot understand.
To get Here intellectually (Jnana yoga, is not for the present state of human intellect) is rare.

To contemplate the simplicity of something complex or to examine the complexity of something simple? Why complicate something simple in the first place and why simplify the complex?

Why ask why?
We do and think and say as we must, as our nature (the Universe), at the moment, dictates.
All Perspectives are necessary for god to completely Know OurSelf! *__-

"The complete Universe (Reality/Truth/God/'Self!'/Tao/Brahman... or any feature herein...) can be completely defined/described as the synchronous sum-total of all Perspectives!" - Book of Fudd
ALL INCLUSIVE!!!

tat tvam asi (en.wikipedia.org...)

Do we just naively accept age old grand pronouncements or witty generalizations or should we be critical about it or do we just ignore it?

Many do, some can think for themselves, and there are probably a couple philosophers on the planet.
It makes no difference, in a couple centuries ego/thought will have died.

To arbitrarily illustrate:
From the bliss of ignorance to awareness, from curiosity to learning and contemplation punctuated by stages of doubt to realization and the ultimately bliss of enlightenment. So, from bliss to bliss it comes full circle. How do we define certainty?

The best definition of insanity that I know;
"To 'believe', in a 'make-believe' Reality, is insanity!" - Zen Kahuna

Are we better off not to examine certain aspects of uncertainty

We have no choice, it depends who and what we are, at the moment.

Maybe I should just shut up and again try to figure it out by myself... This could be messy.

You can always take a bath afterwards.
Or just rub it in, I guess...

I'll tell you that you will be continually unfolding, evolving, all your life, like a forever opening chrysanthemum...
There will be many epiphanies, no mess!
It can get messy between epiphanies, though...

"To escape one's illusions is to plunge headlong into chaos!" -Iota

a reply to: namelesss
Is the road to enlightenment then an endless kinky and messy foreplay?

"To escape one's illusions is to plunge headlong into chaos!" -Iota

I love it! But who is Iota? A cursory google search lead me to another thread here in ATS with your post quoting it, another lead me to able2know.org, to onlinephilosophyclub.com etc. which lead me to Baruch Spinoza- Charles Gidley Wheeler book Iota: God as Nature, Nature as God, the other links lead me to Bertrand Russell's Theory of Definite Descriptions (On Denoting) to The Notation in Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica and commentaries about how Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's notation was eventually used up to the present day in differential and integral calculus. I have to stop when it lead me to Kurt Gödel's philosophical notebooks that indicate that he had read Peano's Formulaire des mathématiques.

Do you recommend reading The Upanishads? What else do you recommend? Much obliged.

a reply to: namelesss

So are you saying that loving yourself and others unconditionally. ...doesn't present conundrums?

For instance if you are a faithful person and you are in a committed relationship with a person that loves unfaithfulness....how do you continue to be faithful to them without damaging yourself ? How do you satisfy the need to love yourself unconditionally and satisfy the need to love them unconditionally as well ?

Also when we are equal distance from justice and mercy....how do you satisfy both when you are in the midst of an unjust situation ?

originally posted by: MaxTamesSiva
a reply to: namelesss
Is the road to enlightenment then an endless kinky and messy foreplay?

"To escape one's illusions is to plunge headlong into chaos!" -Iota
I love it! But who is Iota?

Damn! It appears that I don't know!
I tried a little search of my own an...
That is truly odd as that is a cut and pasted quote from somewhere.
But who was he?
I always assumed he (was a 'he') was some Greek philosopher, but I am finding no online support for such a thing!
Hmmm...
Sometimes we find ourselves in the darndest of places while researching something completely different!
I think that I will continue to share delightfully True quote, and continue to attribute it to Iota, until someone informs me otherwise.
Or garrotes me...

A cursory google search lead me to another thread here in ATS with your post quoting it, another lead me to able2know.org, to onlinephilosophyclub.com etc. which lead me to Baruch Spinoza- Charles Gidley Wheeler book Iota: God as Nature, Nature as God, the other links lead me to Bertrand Russell's Theory of Definite Descriptions (On Denoting) to The Notation in Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica and commentaries about how Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's notation was eventually used up to the present day in differential and integral calculus. I have to stop when it lead me to Kurt Gödel's philosophical notebooks that indicate that he had read Peano's Formulaire des mathématiques.

Sometimes we find ourselves in the darndest of places while researching something completely different!

Do you recommend reading The Upanishads? What else do you recommend? Much obliged.

I'm tempted to not make any such recommendations as what you need will be what you read, and I don't even know what I might need the next moment. I always know what I need right now!, exactly what is! *__-
But, having the biggest ego on the bloch gives me a few perks, and I shall indulge in a couple books.

Alan Watts - 'The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' is a small beautifully packed book with some real food for thought, an interesting Perspective from an Enlightened philosopher.

I can't do it.
'I have read insignificant little books that made no sense at all, to me, until 20 or 30 years of maturing and experience have passed and THEN the light bulb comes on!!
And again, in another ten years that bulb quantum leaps in intensity!

Whatever you are ready to understand, at your present state of evolution, whatever you NEED TO KNOW, will appear before you, pay attention!
Life is exactly on a 'need to know' basis, we never know/experience anything that we do not 'need to know'!

One can read all the books, I have, and it seems that they were more of an obstacle than help.
The books, all of them, are intellectual masturbation.
All those orgasmic epiphanies are just that, mindgasms, cheap thrills of the ego!

Vedas do offer the best yoga for the present Kali yuga (age of Kali).
As 'thought' dies, the path of 'thought/ego' (thought is ego) is available to fewer and fewer people.
Jnana yoga is the yoga of philosophers.
For today, the most (generally) fruitful path into enlightenment/unconditional Love is Bhakti yoga, 'devotional service' aka 'puja' (pooja).
Make every act one of Loving devotional service, even if that 'service' is to the divinity that is washing our dishes, us. Then cleaning the dishes becomes a Loving act, 'worship', 'prayer' is communion, 'being Universal', being God!
One!

It is the 'practicing' rather than the reading of practicing that seems most fruitful.
Books are fun and mind expanding and food for thought/ego, but reading the map won't get you the treasure, we have to 'practice'.
Like Buddhism.
Like Zen meditation, another fruitful practice!
I spent a lot of years reading all the books, and generations practicing various disciplines.
And I think that we are getting a bit tangential to the topic, at this point.
I'd be happy to chat more about this through our email system, if you like. *__-

a reply to: HarryJoy

I do not mean to but in with your question to nameless but your question hit a nerve with me.

A relationship depends on parameters that you both agree upon. If those parameters arn't satisfied then its really not a relationship. This doesn't mean you shouldn't love the other person any less even if they tried to kill you. Nor does it dictate that you should remain in a relationship that is harmful to you. If a ball and chain stops you from attaining a higher spitiual goal in life then you need sever that chain.

a reply to: glend

Is it a ball and chain. ..or a vehicle? Can we really gain new perspectives. ..without the friction of opposing polarities?

And just to clarify....I didn't mean physical harm ...just the psychological harm/pain that arises from not being able to reconcile an issue.

a reply to: namelesss

Damn! It appears that I don't know!
I tried a little search of my own an...
That is truly odd as that is a cut and pasted quote from somewhere. But who was he? I always assumed he (was a 'he') was some Greek philosopher, but I am finding no online support for such a thing!
Hmmm...
Sometimes we find ourselves in the darndest of places while researching something completely different!
I think that I will continue to share delightfully True quote, and continue to attribute it to Iota, until someone informs me otherwise.
Or garrotes me...

Oh you're being too modest, I bet it's part of The Book of Fudd. Anyway the concept is not new but the way it was phrased or translated has more... umpfff!... or for lack of better word- balls. You just inspired me to write my own Book of Duds, I'll try to stir clear though of the sexual metaphors... if I can help it.

Alan Watts - 'The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' is a small beautifully packed book with some real food for thought, an interesting Perspective from an Enlightened philosopher.

Alan Watts is okay but I'm not too thrilled reading his book. I'm in the middle of rereading Hermann Hesse's Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game), Siddharta and The Journey to the East. Since you recommend it, I'll queue it in and the Vedas if I can find a copy.

Whatever you are ready to understand, at your present state of evolution, whatever you NEED TO KNOW, will appear before you, pay attention!

I like that, it's similar to Daniel-san talking to Miyagi. I already feel like holding a pair of chopsticks trying to catch a fly in mid air.

Life is exactly on a 'need to know' basis, we never know/experience anything that we do not 'need to know'!

I beg to disagree. I think it requires something like an intellectual promiscuity, to know the other side, not in the biblical sense though. How can we understand the views that we don't like or don't agree with if we can't make the effort to at least try to understand it?

Or did I took it too literally?

It is the 'practicing' rather than the reading of practicing that seems most fruitful. Books are fun and mind expanding and food for thought/ego, but reading the map won't get you the treasure, we have to 'practice'.

Yeah, I agree. What will be the worth of what we know if we can't apply it in practice?

And I think that we are getting a bit tangential to the topic, at this point. I'd be happy to chat more about this through our email system, if you like.

That will be a terrific way to get rid of me annoying you with more questions. I'll PM you my e-mail ad and all you have to do is to ignore it. Brilliant! Seriously though, how do we go about it, I'm new at this? You PM me, I don't PM you...

originally posted by: HarryJoy
a reply to: glend

Is it a ball and chain. ..or a vehicle? Can we really gain new perspectives. ..without the friction of opposing polarities?

And just to clarify....I didn't mean physical harm ...just the psychological harm/pain that arises from not being able to reconcile an issue.

Ball and chain is a mental construct as is your psychological harm/pain which you reconcile as suffering because it is separate from what you feel is pleasing to your mind. If we realize that life and relationships are impermanent. Then we can predict that the clinging to permanent happiness from imperament relationships will always cause suffering. So before trying to reconcile your issue with your partner try to understand your needs/feelings and why they arise.

originally posted by: MaxTamesSiva
a reply to: namelesss
Life is exactly on a 'need to know' basis, we never know/experience anything that we do not 'need to know'!

I beg to disagree. I think it requires something like an intellectual promiscuity, to know the other side, not in the biblical sense though. How can we understand the views that we don't like or don't agree with if we can't make the effort to at least try to understand it?

Or did I took it too literally?

Knowledge = experience!
What we experience now and now and now is Knowledge.
We cannot experience anything that is not 'necessary', and necessarily a perfectly balanced feature of the Perfectly Balanced Reality!
What 'is', 'needs to be'!
Thus, we cannot Know.experience anything that is not the perfect thing, at the moment, to experience/Know!
Thus I offered that all Knowledge is on a 'need to know' basis.

"It is the 'practicing' rather than the reading of practicing that seems most fruitful. Books are fun and mind expanding and food for thought/ego, but reading the map won't get you the treasure, we have to 'practice'."

Yeah, I agree. What will be the worth of what we know if we can't apply it in practice?

That is what practice is, applied!
We Know what we practice!

And I think that we are getting a bit tangential to the topic, at this point. I'd be happy to chat more about this through our email system, if you like.
That will be a terrific way to get rid of me annoying you with more questions. I'll PM you my e-mail ad and all you have to do is to ignore it. Brilliant!

What makes you think that? That would be rude.
You can always make threads to discuss stuff, if you are more comfortable...

Seriously though, how do we go about it, I'm new at this? You PM me, I don't PM you...

It appears that you have caught on... *__-

a reply to: glend

Yes the reconciliation that I was referencing. ..was within my own mind and not with my partner. So does this impermanence that you mention arise from irreconcilable differences ??

a reply to: HarryJoy

Impermanence is a state of nature. Once we realise that nothing is permanent we can free ourselves from buggage that drives many of our deeper emotions and desires. As nameless stated we should live in the now. Understand that life is like a river that always changes. Perhaps you and your partner will accept each other for who you are, instead of desiring something, that you both are not. That's for you to persue.