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Questioning Conditioning

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posted on Dec, 31 2013 @ 06:15 AM
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reply to post by Dark Ghost
 


We inhabit the 'human condition', a condition that would naturally imply that we are conditioned. At least by the environment we inhabit. Sure thoughts and opinions are naturally conditioned as well since they are dualistic in nature, I guess there is nothing strange or questionable in that in itself.

It sure is healthy as well to question your individual standpoint and the validity of your thinking from time to time, but isn't this just trading one conditioning for an another?

I prefer to treat anything that arises in the mind as something that arises in the mind and is therefore limited in scope due its inherent duality and thus by necessity, is conditioned. It is a conjuration of the mind that seems to have solidity, yet lacks substance. Of course you can act on this illusion of solidity, but there is always a point where it erodes into thin air if poked and pronged enough. Mind is an excellent tool to make sense of your environment and convey ideas in the form of language, albeit limited. To rely on and defend its 'constructions', is mental sickness, like casting a bull in gold to worship it next like the israelites did in the desert.

The interesting question regarding conditioning that i would pose would be: Is there anything that does not belong to the realm of conditioning? What happens when you 'let go' in the buddhist sense for instance? Am I still conditioned if there are a few little fluffy clouds I just note but do not pay much attention to on my limitless blue sky?



posted on Dec, 31 2013 @ 07:38 AM
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TatTvamAsi
reply to post by Dark Ghost
 


The interesting question regarding conditioning that i would pose would be: Is there anything that does not belong to the realm of conditioning? What happens when you 'let go' in the buddhist sense for instance? Am I still conditioned if there are a few little fluffy clouds I just note but do not pay much attention to on my limitless blue sky?


I think there is a difference between conditioning, and assembling reality. When you "let go" of reality, the lights and sights become a meaningless but beautiful array of colors and sights without definition - but are we conditioned to assemble reality into borders and objects? I don't think that is conditioning, I think that is more along the lines of natural learning that we are not taught. Even a feral child who grows up in the wild can discern objects as objects. He wasn't conditioned to them; he learned to assemble reality naturally.

I consider conditioning to be the psychological mandates taught us by our parents, our peers, and our society. Normalization. Learning that people behave in such-and-such a way, and you need to also. The norms and dictates of society.



posted on Dec, 31 2013 @ 08:14 AM
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reply to post by TwoTonTommy
 


Sorry for not being clear enough. I did not mean letting go of reality in the sense that you convey in your reply. I meant letting go of trying to label reality or making sense of it and attaching meaning to the manifestations that emerge whether they be mind constructs or physical objects. This attitude does not make physical objects disappear from sight as you suggested, it just makes them void of conditions attached.

What comes to mind when I say, for instance, rose? What came to mind first? Did you think of the fragrance? What color was your imaginary rose? Did you think at all about the thorns? Regardless of whatever came into your mind when I said rose, was not a rose in reality, was it? No, it was a projection of your perception, sum of observations of a real rose or roses attributed to the imaginary rose created by your mind at the instance of uttering the word and maybe some hearsay. All this won't make a real rose any less real, of course, nor will any definition of yours change or define its true reality, whatever it may be.

I would call conditioning that which robs you of the experience of 'uniqueness'. We do this all the time in our lives without even realizing it. You step out in the morning after a nights rain to notice the air is sheer velvet to draw in, the moment that thought arises, the fresh air is almost immediately 'destroyed' by the minding or 'verbalizing' of the fact. This is what I meant, if I managed to be any clearer.
edit on 31-12-2013 by TatTvamAsi because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 31 2013 @ 12:00 PM
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reply to post by TwoTonTommy
 


Actually, thank you, now you actually really just got me going after pondering your reply for a while, so I had to follow up on what you said and what I lastly replied to you. You are probably correct in mentioning how conditioning is generally understood in the last paragraph of your reply, but we as beings tend to get lost in the world of appearances since we actually go about our lives in it. We even constantly self-condition ourselves, most of us probably would even be very fearful of the mere thought of having no fixed set of values or beliefs to follow. So, yes, most of us constantly self-condition ourselves.

I would also challenge the notion that we are supposedly 'assemble reality naturally', as you stated. How can you be sure? Most of the time it seems like it is quite the contrary with our kind... Even a cow grazing in the field has more of that 'assemblage'. It will eat what it needs and leaves the rest to grow back, hell, it will even fertilize the poor sucker it fed upon.


I also wanted to elaborate on my previous reply regarding both the topic of conditioning and the introduced concept of 'uniqueness'. This is something I actually wanted to start a thread on, but I guess I am not able just yet here on ATS. Sure, everybody can go about their lives as they please, believe what they want and so forth. I am just wondering isn't anybody feeling like there is something missing from their lives, maybe some kind of unexplained longing that just doesn't leave you alone and makes you philosophize for hours. Like vultures circling a dying animal that refuses to die.

The conditioning of man regrettably lies on many levels and runs deep. As you mentioned the societal factors, I hoped to bring the deeper layer of 'delusion' or 'conditioning' under the microscope as it is the layer responsible for what you mentioned as being generally understood as 'conditioning'. The fact is that we do it to ourselves constantly as well, most without even realizing it. Which brings us back to the original topic of questioning conditioning.

Living your life without unity and uniqueness, wonder, freshness and the innocence of a child is not a life worth living for me. It is like a man eating pizzas. He has an inifinte pile of pizza boxes in front of him. He opens each one in turn, eats some bits of the filling to his liking that he can easily identify under the layer of cheese. Next he throws the pizza away and continues in a similar fashion with the next box under it. And he never gets his fill either. I rather eat each whole pizza in turn and throw the empty boxes away savoring the taste and contemplating my fullness in between pizzas.



posted on Jan, 1 2014 @ 11:35 PM
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reply to post by Dark Ghost
 


The question that you are asking us to ask would is a way to free will, which i believe still is an ego, just a free-er or energy sensitive ego.
The equilibrium of all opposing forces must be met, silence in thought and perseverance.

I don't believe whilst we are on this planet we can be truly free of been influenced by matter through this body bonded to the physical.
Only by shifting once consciousness can you disregard these things completely.



posted on Jan, 2 2014 @ 07:45 AM
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TatTvamAsi
reply to post by TwoTonTommy
 


I would also challenge the notion that we are supposedly 'assemble reality naturally', as you stated. How can you be sure? Most of the time it seems like it is quite the contrary with our kind... Even a cow grazing in the field has more of that 'assemblage'. It will eat what it needs and leaves the rest to grow back, hell, it will even fertilize the poor sucker it fed upon.



The conditioning of man regrettably lies on many levels and runs deep. As you mentioned the societal factors, I hoped to bring the deeper layer of 'delusion' or 'conditioning' under the microscope as it is the layer responsible for what you mentioned as being generally understood as 'conditioning'. The fact is that we do it to ourselves constantly as well, most without even realizing it. Which brings us back to the original topic of questioning conditioning.

Living your life without unity and uniqueness, wonder, freshness and the innocence of a child is not a life worth living for me. It is like a man eating pizzas. He has an inifinte pile of pizza boxes in front of him. He opens each one in turn, eats some bits of the filling to his liking that he can easily identify under the layer of cheese. Next he throws the pizza away and continues in a similar fashion with the next box under it. And he never gets his fill either. I rather eat each whole pizza in turn and throw the empty boxes away savoring the taste and contemplating my fullness in between pizzas.


I understand your take on it, I just use the vocabulary differently. I don't necessarily call the act of labeling objects with words "conditioning" - for me, "labeling" is the term I would tend to use. We are conditioned to use labels for everything, since we can't communicate precise ideas, but I don't equate the two processes.

As far as my other points about "assembling reality", continue to spend time meditating with the eyes open, and I think that you will find objects that disappear from sight completely, or everything will disassemble into a haze of various colors. It's going back to a primal form of sensing, without identifying it. It's not a mental process, it's pre-mental, which means it arises once the mind is silenced. The act of taking these images of light and converting them into objects with boundaries is what I mean by "assembling reality". Not something we do on purpose - it's done for us like breathing or our heartbeat. Except we can put a stop to it by silencing the mind.
edit on 1/2/2014 by TwoTonTommy because: grammar



posted on Jan, 2 2014 @ 09:52 AM
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TwoTonTommy
"you will find objects that disappear from sight completely, or everything will disassemble into a haze of various colors. It's going back to a primal form of sensing, without identifying it."


Ok, been there, done that, could still do that... What is the point in that? It is not a reality that can be 'inhabited' as a corporeal being needs to in order to survive and make sense of his environment, in other words, 'connect'. Isn't that btw exactly what Buddha did before he was finally enlightened, almost killed himself fasting and ignoring reality? I'll soon come back to connectedness. Someone might even make the claim that the particular type of reality, referring to your quote, is what we experience when we are born, but that is another topic altogether.


You claimed we assemble reality correctly by nature? Wouldn't everyone be enlightened then and there would be no need to have this discussion, which btw is enjoyable so far.

Lets take a concrete example, years ago, while building in the yard, I went to fetch more planks as I ran out of building material. The planks were stored close-by behind the shed and under a tarp. The ends of the planks were visible, so I yanked a suitable one out of the stack. It had a wasp nest on the other end. The experience and the the mental aftermath was interesting, so to say.


So, no, most of the time, we do not perceive the boundaries of objects and their interconnectedness (nice word, English is not my native tongue). Actually, most of the time we choose instead to neglect the fact. Very few of us are highly empathic. We shouldn't have any environmental issues as well if we perceived the boundaries of objects correctly. Actually, we should be living in paradise if you elaborate on the concept.

Most of us don't 'meet' the environment on a daily basis, we rather meet the mental image of something and rather deal with it as anyone who has sat on a chair with a broken leg can tell you. The chair was perfectly fine before you sat on it, wasn't it? Of course, everyone can choose how they perceive reality, it just sounds like a dull reality looking at mind constructs with mostly unchanging properties instead of the real, vibrant reality, where everything is unique and ultimately cannot be separated from its rightful place and background or context. In that sense, reality is always full of meaning and is alive, even rocks will speak to you.



posted on Jan, 2 2014 @ 11:09 AM
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TatTvamAsi

TwoTonTommy
"you will find objects that disappear from sight completely, or everything will disassemble into a haze of various colors. It's going back to a primal form of sensing, without identifying it."


Ok, been there, done that, could still do that... What is the point in that?


I think the point isn't really to get to a place of dissolving reality; that's just a side-effect of silencing the mind. It does, however, give someone perspective on how much of what we perceive is actually an order super-imposed by our own brain on the object. Like you were saying, we perceive a mental construct of the object, not the object itself. The mental construct is not the object; the map is not the territory.




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