Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
Isn't it obvious that minds are dissimilar? How else could we be having a discussion of such?
I dont look in the mirror to see a dissimilar other, I look in the mirror to see views and aspects of myself I cannot see from inside myself.
Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
The opposite exists by nature, not through any specific creation.
I would argue that it does not exist by nature. I would argue that what we call "winter" "spring" "summer" and "fall" are one cycle that we
break into chunks for our own ease and convenience. I would say that that is the case with any apparent opposite. If we see them as opposite it is
because we are only able to view the whole from one angle.
Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
And while from a particular point of view opposition is an illusion, it is the interpretation of the illusion that we live in. Which is the point of
view I'm speaking from right now.
I can play a video game and know it is a game while I play it. Even if it were a fantastic virtual reality, utterly immersed in the game and not
looking at a screen, I could still "know" that I was in a game. I am not saying at all that there is not a convenience in naming things and
drawing lines. I would only say that this convenience becomes a hindrance if one forgets it is a convenience only and mistakes it for "truth."
Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
If I were a completely self-sufficient organism, with no need of any outside assistance, then simply being would be practical. I wouldn't need to
concern myself with the doing, thinking, being of others. As it is, I am not. And don't know anyone who is. So it is in my best interests to seek
out those who are willing to work with me.
I do not think that the "fractal" view of reality would suggest that you isolate one "bit" of the fractal completely from the entire set. That
would be beside the point. It would ask more that you recognize as "you" the entire set.
Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
I understand and believe the philosophy, but I see it as useless if we can't translate it into practical existence.
I think that is what many of the mystic teachers have tried in earnest to do.
Jesus, for instance asks that you "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And to "love thy neighbor as thyself," and to "judge not
lest you too be judged." Although I know that these are not commonly interpreted as being pointers to our "sameness" or "lack of other-ness" I
would argue that in that culture in that time, to those people, it was an attempt to convey that vision in a way that was practical and understandable
and applicable. Not having our science, our math, our Mandelbrot set as an illustration, our ability to view the Earth from space and see it as one,
I do not think it is difficult at all to see why it was taken the way it was. Especially considering that with all that, plus exposure to endless
mystics that have pointed as the same "lack of other-ness" and our bandying about words like "oneness" we can barely even grasp what that means
today.
Originally posted by TravelerintheDark
And I would say these were truly minds dissimilar from mine, as I have never considered such an act, and never will.
I believe that you believe that your mind is truly dissimilar, and I do believe that you would probably never act in that way, but I do not think any
one has a truly dissimilar mind. It seems to me that the degree to which the potential we all carry is expressed or made manifest is the only
"difference."
I think that if we were able to look at ourselves without denial or unconsciousness, one could find if not the act itself, but the seed that sprouted
the root that grew the plant that produced the fruit that was that violent act. It may be several "transmutations" away from what happened to you,
but I would argue that it is there in you and it is also there in all of us.
I would say that none of us to a person, (in the apparent division) does not have that potential lying within us. Denying it, is like planting the
seed. It gives it a warm dark place to sprout and begin to grow. What makes some "harmless" is that they have awareness of the potential for
violence within them and they do not give it the soil in which to sprout.
I would argue that the very misunderstanding that "we are separate" from each other and from God, is that seed.