Would you like to experience your own soul?

Originally posted by CREAM
Flag and starred.

Now I enjoy astral projection on a regular basis, thats the way to go

Curious, how do you do that? Meditation?

I've always believed that while the soul is inside the body, it is under the rules of that body and the life that it's living, if that makes sense?

reply to post by KatieVA


I think perhaps consciousness accepts the "rules" of the body though a belief that it is the body. Or "in" the body. If you view everything you witness as a dream, (or projection, maybe) and identify with the "dreamer" (or observer, maybe) how can this dreamer/observer be "IN" a body? Interesting stuff.

reply to post by dominicus


I have, and posted about that experience in this forum, about two weeks ago. My soul was two beings with wings, exact twins, but male and female. They glowed with silver light.

reply to post by NorEaster

So, you can believe that your Personality's data triage effort reveals the existence of a soul, but don't kid yourself into thinking that your idea is a breakthrough. That's a perennial notion that's been associated with the soul since souls were invented.

but thats just the thing ...awareness itself is aware of "ideas" and "breakthroughs". It is also aware of the "Personality's data triage efforts." But awareness itself is crystal clear, does not think, does not have a personality .......merely it is aware of these other aspects.

Soul = Awareness = (the same as your example of "when an event occurs" i.e. It's immediate, and regardless of what was perceived by whatever might've perceived it) as said by yourself of the occurence of the event. So too, just like in your example of an event, Soul would be what it is regardless of the perception and details of it.

A recent thread on this forum announced a research study that suggests that the human consciousness experiences the brain's deliberate choice between a proposed A or B a full 6 seconds after a modified MRI scanning device indicates what that choice is that the brain has made.

The next question of course is; In the systematic evaluation of what science deems is "human consciousness" as opposed to "the brain", can we even begin to establish where awareness shows up on an MRI?

Finally, if the evidence of the survival of human consciousness (post-mortem) is dismissed, then how responsible can the examination possibly be?

Dismissed? Really? Is that done based on MRI scans of the dead?(which would be a joke to myself having experienced myself outside of a body) + I thought it was common knowledge the consciousness still is not entirely understood by science .....let alone the countless descriptions of NDE's, and meditators, who experience themselves and consciousness as nonlocalized and /or outside of the body.

There is still too much left to be understood, but Awareness itself is unquestionably there...... lets examine that itself and see what we find.

A picture can say a thousand words
take a good look at this picture painted by Alex grey

It is a great way of explaining the being beyond the self

great post S&F

this may interest you, also for those confused about soul spirit

The Book of Lambspring, A Noble Ancient Philosopher, Concerning the Philosophical Stone; Rendered into Latin Verse by Nicholas Barnaud Delphinas, Doctor of Medicine, a zealous Student of this Art.

BE WARNED AND UNDERSTAND TRULY THAT TWO FISHES ARE SWIMMING IN OUR SEA. The Sea is the Body, the two Fishes are Soul and Spirit. The Sages will tell you That two fishes are in our sea Without any flesh or bones. Let them be cooked in their own water; Then they also will become a vast sea, The vastness of which no man can describe. Moreover, the Sages say That the two fishes are only one, not two; They are two, and nevertheless they are one, Body, Spirit, and Soul. Now, I tell you most truly, Cook these three together, That there may be a very large sea. Cook the sulphur well with the sulphur, And hold your tongue about it: Conceal your knowledge to your own advantage, And you shall be free from poverty. Only let your discovery remain a close secret.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
From what I've been able to gather, it's non-local, and therefore is both nowhere in particular and everywhere all at once, not in the scull, or anywhere in the body except to the degree that the body temple is a holographic chip off the old block so to speak..

edit on 17-1-2011 by NewAgeMan because: (no reason given)

Yeah. and all is one too

Originally posted by dominicus
reply to post by NorEaster

 

So, you can believe that your Personality's data triage effort reveals the existence of a soul, but don't kid yourself into thinking that your idea is a breakthrough. That's a perennial notion that's been associated with the soul since souls were invented.

but thats just the thing ...awareness itself is aware of "ideas" and "breakthroughs". It is also aware of the "Personality's data triage efforts." But awareness itself is crystal clear, does not think, does not have a personality .......merely it is aware of these other aspects.

Actually, it's through memory that you feel as though you are aware of that triage effort. Awareness can suffer up-to a 6 second lag time - as proven with that MRI research that I mentioned. After that, a split-second of active consideration moves that awareness into the realm of memory, regardless of how you want to think about it. This the real challenge involved in qualifying the human experience of active consciousness. Perceiving perception is still the act of perception, and perception is always subjective. It it and always will be subject to the limitations of the perceiver and what interpretation does to inherently cripple the capacity for objectivity and accuracy.

Corporeal awareness is brain-centric. This is the point of being corporeal and existing within the corporeal realm. If not for that primary fact of how you and I experience existence, there'd be no logical reason for a corporeal phase of human existence. As I reiterate, all that exists does so within an airtight logical framework of requirement and opportunity. The corporeal human being obviously exists. That being the case, it exists within the same logical framework as everything else that exists. Therefore it exists due to requirement and opportunity. Science has taken on the job of determining opportunity, and theology has decided to define the requirement, but that doesn't mean that human beings are the only exiastential item that can logically separate these two to a point where one contradicts the other. And yet, we seem confident in our efforts to do exactly that. In fact, we seem to believe that if we can successfully convince ourselves that we've accomplished this schism, that we've mastered reality itself.

Not that reality even notices us and we do so. In fact, it goes on being real in spite of our insistence that we've bested it through redefining it.

Soul = Awareness = (the same as your example of "when an event occurs" i.e. It's immediate, and regardless of what was perceived by whatever might've perceived it) as said by yourself of the occurence of the event. So too, just like in your example of an event, Soul would be what it is regardless of the perception and details of it.

Except that awareness is an event. It happens, and then it ceases to exist as soon as it happens, to be replaced by the next event of awareness. Each unit of awareness, occurring at the Unit Rate of Change (which unites all that shares the contextual environment in commonality at this most pervasive sub-structural level), is the present for the duration of that unit, and then becomes the past, as it is replaced by the next unit of awareness. This is what we experience as time, and each event of awareness is forever represented by an informational unit that fully represents what it was while it existed. Each of these units are forever associated with one another - like cells in the body - containing the unique Primary Expression, which is akin to the corporeal DNA that causes the cells in a body to associate with one another. The gathering of these units, over the course of a human life, is what we call the human spirit. This is what survives the death of the corporeal body. This is what we are building with these brains we have, as we live these lives we've been given. Science knows how we came into corporeal existence. This is why we came into corporeal existence.

A recent thread on this forum announced a research study that suggests that the human consciousness experiences the brain's deliberate choice between a proposed A or B a full 6 seconds after a modified MRI scanning device indicates what that choice is that the brain has made.

The next question of course is; In the systematic evaluation of what science deems is "human consciousness" as opposed to "the brain", can we even begin to establish where awareness shows up on an MRI?

Sure. Awareness is the event itself. It's dynamic. It's not an it that is static and acts to affect the environment around it. It IS the act that affects the environment around it. Events are real. They exist. They exist, and then they immediately vanish into the past. But they do exist. They cause inofrmation to exist. Information that represents the fact that they exist, they existed, that they have existed, that they did exist. The MRI in question reveals awareness as it suddenly makes an appearance. Restricting yourself to defining existence as something you can hold in your hand or even point to as an amorphous presence, is like saying that your own life - the moments, minutes, hours, days, months, and years that define your stretch of corporeal manifestation - doesn't exist. Of course it exists.

Finally, if the evidence of the survival of human consciousness (post-mortem) is dismissed, then how responsible can the examination possibly be?

Dismissed? Really? Is that done based on MRI scans of the dead?(which would be a joke to myself having experienced myself outside of a body) + I thought it was common knowledge the consciousness still is not entirely understood by science .....let alone the countless descriptions of NDE's, and meditators, who experience themselves and consciousness as nonlocalized and /or outside of the body.

My suggestion is that you can't dismiss the evidence of human consciousness survival. As far as understanding human consciousness, I do. Scientists are extremely good at understanding their specific and highly defined slice of study, but that's all they're good at. Science, in general, is not how dynamic reality is determined. It's a forensic evaluation, and some things don't leave trace evidence that is instructive.

There is still too much left to be understood, but Awareness itself is unquestionably there...... lets examine that itself and see what we find.

Toss around some of the ideas I just suggested, and see what you think. Just don't hobble your search for wisdom by allowing anyone else to define what wisdom will look like when you finally find it. It may look entirely unique, and very different from what has been suggested. After all, look around you at the world we live in. Obviously wisdom doesn't look like anything that's made an impact on what sits out there and directs the action at any level within any society. Chances are it won't look at all like you expect it to.

Originally posted by smithjustinb

Originally posted by Burgo
FFS what is it with guru's, ALL Life as a soul, damned selfish humans .. stop thinking!!!
The only diffrences between humans & perfection is free will and the fact we physically look different .. oh and humans destroy on the grounds they are above nature ... real intelligence lol

edit on 17-1-2011 by Burgo because: (no reason given)

We are not above nature. We are a necessary vital part of it, but not above it. All things serve their purpose. We do have free will and that holds us back (sometimes). We can choose to live like Jesus if we want to, and we shouldn't have any reason to believe that we never can.

Cheers mate so confused lately after being bashed by adventists etc, as far as i see it im screwed and jesus hates me because im confused

i think that this proses that you describe could help you find your spirit but as for experiencing your sou,l i think that this is not good for. the reason that i say this is that in my study and understanding of spirituality, the soul is a combination of the body and spirit. (i have stated this before in a few other threads over a year ago)

this is why in the bible (Jewish and new testament) satan wants your soul. the spirit is eternal without human emotion and feeling and the body is carnal and can experience the physical such as pain. because of a spirit having no emotion and feeling satan would not want your spirit since its not able to be tortured. your body on the other hand can be tortured and destroyed. satan hates us because humans have a special gift that angels dont. that is to be able to experience being physical and spiritual at the same time. we have freedom of choice and they dont. we can deny our spirituality and they cant.

but without the spirit the body would not be able to have life to experience any thing at all. so in order to be human we need our spirit and body to be who we are.

soul i think that in order to experience our souls we have to just be human and not worry about one or the other.

of course this is just what i think and what iv found threw out the years.

Merriam Webster's dictionary has many different definitions on the word soul.


Merriam Webster

: the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life

2 a : the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe b capitalized Christian Science : god

3 : a person's total self

4 a : an active or essential part b : a moving spirit : leader

5 a : the moral and emotional nature of human beings b : the quality that arouses emotion and sentiment c : spiritual or moral force : fervor

6 : person

7 : personification 8 a : a strong positive feeling (as of intense sensitivity and emotional fervor) conveyed especially by black American performers

if you see, number 3 says a persons total self and number 6 says person , which can indicate that a whole person not just the spirit or the body is the soul.

so i think that the soul is the body and the spirit as a whole.

but i like your idea OP. experiencing your spirit is an awesome wonderful thing. and i hope the best for you in your travel of spiritual exploration.

(i will not debate with any one about spirituality. i will only discuss it.)

reply to post by NorEaster

It it and always will be subject to the limitations of the perceiver and what interpretation does to inherently cripple the capacity for objectivity and accuracy.

Actually in my experience here, awareness is without subjective limitations of some perceiver ...it is devoid of thought, devoid of sense perceptions itself.

As far as the MRI deal .....its not prof because we cant know for sure f the awareness thats delayed is the same awareness that is discussed here. If it is we can even debate about how most of man kind is not aware of there own awareness and so it would only be right that the average joe's awareness would show a delay.

Another interesting deal on my own part is that my own awareness is beginning to stay aware even through sleep and even through the minds own dreams.

Corporeal awareness is brain-centric.

Or is brain-centricity based on the corporeal which based on awareness. From my own research both in science and in self inquiry it seems as though awareness itself is the electricity that powers the computer (body) with the brain-centricity being the operating system.

n fact, we seem to believe that if we can successfully convince ourselves that we've accomplished this schism, that we've mastered reality itself. Not that reality even notices us and we do so. In fact, it goes on being real in spite of our insistence that we've bested it through redefining it.

Im all for no schism and a marriage between the two. But it seems like 1 is ahead of the other in certain aspects, and vice versa in other aspects.

I've been arguing this from the get go ...that what is ...already is regardless of what we think about it. Same deal with awareness...... it is something that is alot more than we think it is and what science thinks it knows about it.

Except that awareness is an event. It happens, and then it ceases to exist as soon as it happens, to be replaced by the next event of awareness. Each unit of awareness, occurring at the Unit Rate of Change (which unites all that shares the contextual environment in commonality at this most pervasive sub-structural level), is the present for the duration of that unit, and then becomes the past, as it is replaced by the next unit of awareness.

You know overall I think in many ways we are speaking the same inherent language but using different sets of understanding and perspective. However some things I do entirely disagree with....

...as for the post above ...it seems that coming to that conclusion is based on what the mind thinks about it from its point of view. But from awareness' point of view there is only Now and awareness is constant of itself ...and we can even say is non localized.

You are bringing up paradoxes now that tilt on the mystical as far as awareness happening and then at the same time as happening ceases to exist. And yet who does it exit for..? WHy does awareness have to be chopped up into events ..when it seems it is of itself one continuous whole?

This is what we experience as time, and each event of awareness is forever represented by an informational unit that fully represents what it was while it existed.

really ...my experience of Time is that there is none ...that there is only Now.... that when the past happened it was in the Now that was then, and when the future arrives it will be in the now that will be then. The now is constantly changing yet at the same time constantly constant. Past and future are imaginations of the mind.

The gathering of these units, over the course of a human life, is what we call the human spirit. This is what survives the death of the corporeal body. This is what we are building with these brains we have, as we live these lives we've been given. Science knows how we came into corporeal existence. This is why we came into corporeal existence.

Science may know about dna, atoms, and details of existence but as to why were here ...that answer isn't found in science. Another interesting note .....I remember pre-existing before being born here. I was just pure awareness and then all of a sudden was asked to be born here and take on a body ....which interestingly enough ...at the point of being asked there was no knowing of what "born" or "a body" or "earth" was. Having pre-existed though and being just awareness by itself without any brain-centric based corporeal body was pure freedom and purity..... and that awareness comes from somewhere.

Sure. Awareness is the event itself. It's dynamic. It's not an it that is static and acts to affect the environment around it. It IS the act that affects the environment around it. Events are real. They exist. They exist, and then they immediately vanish into the past. But they do exist. They cause inofrmation to exist. Information that represents the fact that they exist, they existed, that they have existed, that they did exist. The MRI in question reveals awareness as it suddenly makes an appearance. Restricting yourself to defining existence as something you can hold in your hand or even point to as an amorphous presence, is like saying that your own life - the moments, minutes, hours, days, months, and years that define your stretch of corporeal manifestation - doesn't exist. Of course it exists.

Ok agreed ...we may be on the same page afterall. However it seems in my understanding that awareness is always there and always aware ...I can't at this point necessarily agree that it comes and goes ...except to say that it may come and go to the senses and mind themselves being aware of it. Out on a limb on this one.

Toss around some of the ideas I just suggested, and see what you think. Just don't hobble your search for wisdom by allowing anyone else to define what wisdom will look like when you finally find it.

oh of course everything is digested as possible. Your replies are always sharp and require critical thinking. In now way do I or could I ever paint what will be found at the end of the search by what others say about it. And yet preliminary glimpses show that the end of the tunnel reveals unobstructed and nonlocalized objectivity or all perspectives seen at once ...that of you, I, them, dust, trees, atoms, space, etc.

It may look entirely unique, and very different from what has been suggested. After all, look around you at the world we live in. Obviously wisdom doesn't look like anything that's made an impact on what sits out there and directs the action at any level within any society. Chances are it won't look at all like you expect it to.

agreed.... however my hope is all we all look and work toward finding this wisdom.

Originally posted by dominicus
reply to post by NorEaster

 

It is and always will be subject to the limitations of the perceiver and what interpretation does to inherently cripple the capacity for objectivity and accuracy.

Actually in my experience here, awareness is without subjective limitations of some perceiver ...it is devoid of thought, devoid of sense perceptions itself.

Okay then, we've just reached a point where we can't discuss this at all. You've declared awareness to not be aware, and I can't find any known definition of aware that doesn't involve or suggest perception. Language exist to unite people in communication. This is not communication occurring. When discussing reality, you can't use words like a lawyer who makes a living as a political pundit.

As far as the MRI deal .....its not prof because we cant know for sure f the awareness thats delayed is the same awareness that is discussed here. If it is we can even debate about how most of man kind is not aware of there own awareness and so it would only be right that the average joe's awareness would show a delay.

Quite an assumption. And yet I suppose that if a particle beam "proved" that you could change the past by reconsidering the present then the research in question would be proof positive - as has been suggested to death by some in this forum. Look, your presentation is struggling here. I mean, really, suggesting that "average joe's awareness would show a delay"...I suppose a delay as opposed to your own awareness. Do you really want to stay with that suggestion?

Another interesting deal on my own part is that my own awareness is beginning to stay aware even through sleep and even through the minds own dreams.

I suppose that I'm supposed to take you word on this, even though I have no idea what this actually means. If you mean that you're aware of your surroundings while asleep, then you're referring to your perception of your surroundings and your conscious awareness of them. But then you already declared awareness to be perception-free, so I really have no foothold to reach for. I don't know how to respond.

Corporeal awareness is brain-centric.

Or is brain-centricity based on the corporeal which based on awareness. From my own research both in science and in self inquiry it seems as though awareness itself is the electricity that powers the computer (body) with the brain-centricity being the operating system.

Electricity? Electricity is the movement of electrons hitting against one another, from negative to positive. and causing a flow of reaction called electric current. Awareness doesn't flow or respond to a potential build-up at all. It's not molecular and it's not quantifiable. It's an event at the burst level, and it's generated by the human brain, but it doesn't become "awareness" until the data triage effort loads it back into the brain's incoming data circuits as immediate experience. This is how and why we experience and observe our own awareness. We observe it because we have it adjusted for consistency and usability by our Personality (provided by own Intellect) and then fed into our data receiving circuits along with all the stuff that comes in from our corporeal sensory receptor units. It's not rocket science. It's data management.

n fact, we seem to believe that if we can successfully convince ourselves that we've accomplished this schism, that we've mastered reality itself. Not that reality even notices us and we do so. In fact, it goes on being real in spite of our insistence that we've bested it through redefining it.

Im all for no schism and a marriage between the two. But it seems like 1 is ahead of the other in certain aspects, and vice versa in other aspects.

I've been arguing this from the get go ...that what is ...already is regardless of what we think about it. Same deal with awareness...... it is something that is alot more than we think it is and what science thinks it knows about it.

Real is real, and we can try to invent whatever we want, but in the end, real is still going to remain real. Awareness is conscious perception, and that's all it is. If a person's conscious perception is accurate, then they have "true awareness". If they persist in inventing ways of elevating themselves through happy delusion, then whatever floats their boat. Real will still persist in being real. They can claim to be as enlightened as they wish. If it makes them happy, then great. Just so long as no one gets hurt.

Except that awareness is an event. It happens, and then it ceases to exist as soon as it happens, to be replaced by the next event of awareness. Each unit of awareness, occurring at the Unit Rate of Change (which unites all that shares the contextual environment in commonality at this most pervasive sub-structural level), is the present for the duration of that unit, and then becomes the past, as it is replaced by the next unit of awareness.

You know overall I think in many ways we are speaking the same inherent language but using different sets of understanding and perspective. However some things I do entirely disagree with....

...as for the post above ...it seems that coming to that conclusion is based on what the mind thinks about it from its point of view. But from awareness' point of view there is only Now and awareness is constant of itself ...and we can even say is non localized.

You are bringing up paradoxes now that tilt on the mystical as far as awareness happening and then at the same time as happening ceases to exist. And yet who does it exit for..? WHy does awareness have to be chopped up into events ..when it seems it is of itself one continuous whole?

When you watch a movie, it seems as though it's one constant "now" until it ends. We all know that this isn't how movies actually work. We know that a movie is frames of film that pass before a projector light, and that the speed of each frame passing before the light and into the gathering reel, as it is immediately replaced by the next frame and the next after that, create the illusion of a constant and seamless now. We experience it as that "now", but for it to be consistent and uniform as an experience, the sub-structure of that movie must consist of uniform frames that clearly belong in a very rigid line of progression, with each frame traveling at a uniform rate of change relative to the projector light's position in the mechanical arrangement. Any deviation will cause the whole experience to become chaotic and disjointed.

Human awareness is the same in a very real sense. The difference, of course, is that there's no pre-printed reel of frames that scroll past our intellectual projectors. The "frames" are bursts of brain-generated Intellect, and the Personality works to strip each burst of contradictory or needlessly extraneous data before putting that burst on the in-feed data run that (in a sense) is the film feeding into our intellectual projectors.

Yes, that's a really sh*tty analogy, but I don't have 20,000 words worth of space to wind right out on the explanation here. The point is that awareness is not some esoteric quality that defies concrete description. It's what you see, feel, smell, taste, hear and sense about the world around you and your specific relationship with that world from instant to instant. All the poetry and purple prose in the world isn't really going to change that.

This is what we experience as time, and each event of awareness is forever represented by an informational unit that fully represents what it was while it existed.

really ...my experience of Time is that there is none ...that there is only Now.... that when the past happened it was in the Now that was then, and when the future arrives it will be in the now that will be then. The now is constantly changing yet at the same time constantly constant. Past and future are imaginations of the mind.

Yes, that is your experience of time. That's everyone's experience of time. That is the corporeal definition of time. This is what I meant by the event lasts until it is replaced by the follow-on event. All occurring at the contextual environment's Causal Unit Rate of Change. That rate of change unites us all in common perception of this timeless now. Like stepping outside of the space station and feeling motionless as you scream across the void at 18,000 mph. It can seem as if the earth is spinning beneath you. The space station is in perfect sync with your velocity and there are no molecules of gas (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, whatever) to clash with your serene experience of Mach 20.5. Have that same experience at 30,000 feet and see what you think of it. There, you'd be dealing with a clash of velocities. You'd vaporize instantly. This is what contextual commonality at the sub-structural level allows, and the rate of change is as sub-structural as it gets when you're dealing with contextual commonality.

The gathering of these units, over the course of a human life, is what we call the human spirit. This is what survives the death of the corporeal body. This is what we are building with these brains we have, as we live these lives we've been given. Science knows how we came into corporeal existence. This is why we came into corporeal existence.

Science may know about dna, atoms, and details of existence but as to why were here ...that answer isn't found in science. Another interesting note .....I remember pre-existing before being born here. I was just pure awareness and then all of a sudden was asked to be born here and take on a body ....which interestingly enough ...at the point of being asked there was no knowing of what "born" or "a body" or "earth" was. Having pre-existed though and being just awareness by itself without any brain-centric based corporeal body was pure freedom and purity..... and that awareness comes from somewhere.

Okay....

Sure. Awareness is the event itself. It's dynamic. It's not an it that is static and acts to affect the environment around it. It IS the act that affects the environment around it. Events are real. They exist. They exist, and then they immediately vanish into the past. But they do exist. They cause information to exist. Information that represents the fact that they exist, they existed, that they have existed, that they did exist. The MRI in question reveals awareness as it suddenly makes an appearance. Restricting yourself to defining existence as something you can hold in your hand or even point to as an amorphous presence, is like saying that your own life - the moments, minutes, hours, days, months, and years that define your stretch of corporeal manifestation - doesn't exist. Of course it exists.

Ok agreed ...we may be on the same page afterall. However it seems in my understanding that awareness is always there and always aware ...I can't at this point necessarily agree that it comes and goes ...except to say that it may come and go to the senses and mind themselves being aware of it. Out on a limb on this one.

To say that we agree would require us to completely understand each other. I think we still have some distance to travel before arriving there.

Toss around some of the ideas I just suggested, and see what you think. Just don't hobble your search for wisdom by allowing anyone else to define what wisdom will look like when you finally find it.

oh of course everything is digested as possible. Your replies are always sharp and require critical thinking. In now way do I or could I ever paint what will be found at the end of the search by what others say about it. And yet preliminary glimpses show that the end of the tunnel reveals unobstructed and nonlocalized objectivity or all perspectives seen at once ...that of you, I, them, dust, trees, atoms, space, etc.

I appreciate the compliment. Thank you. I am trying to make it clear to anyone reading any of this that reality can be understood. It has a sub-structure, and we already know that we can qualify that sub-structure. The difficult part of reality is what the human mind is capable of perceiving it to be. When you dive into human imagination, there is no bottom to it. This is why consciousness can't possibly be primordial. It is too complex and ultra-sophisticated to be anything but an ultimate achievement.

It may look entirely unique, and very different from what has been suggested. After all, look around you at the world we live in. Obviously wisdom doesn't look like anything that's made an impact on what sits out there and directs the action at any level within any society. Chances are it won't look at all like you expect it to.

agreed.... however my hope is all we all look and work toward finding this wisdom.

Yeah, me too. Thanks for giving me some stuff to respond to. I appreciate that.

reply to post by dominicus


I liked your post, and have extensively explored the subjectivity of perception, due to the numerous filters through which we see "reality"; and, above all, attempting to remove these filters, experimenting with them, turning them on and off.

Could you just change your wording, and leave out "soul", this has become, I believe, a very toxic, and entangled word. The use of it, IMO, immediately turns many people away...just a thought...

reply to post by dominicus


why can't this be the 'mind'? how is the mind different to the soul?

-B.M

reply to post by B.Morrison

why can't this be the 'mind'? how is the mind different to the soul?

The soul is aware of the mind and what it does and sees that the mind is other than itself. Whereas the mind can't see itself, it can't see the soul ...it only can see other thoughts, conceptual, theoretical, imagination, etc.

When sleep comes ...the mind is either in active or dreaming ...but the soul in the background observes what the mind does. Just as in meditation or the practice of stopping all thoughts. When all thought is stopped ...is there still a you?
___________________________________________________________________________________
In Reply to NorEaster;

Okay then, we've just reached a point where we can't discuss this at all. You've declared awareness to not be aware, and I can't find any known definition of aware that doesn't involve or suggest perception. Language exist to unite people in communication. This is not communication occurring. When discussing reality, you can't use words like a lawyer who makes a living as a political pundit.

Look ..at first awareness seems to just be aware ..but upon further investigation of awareness it reveals alot more. The mind itself filters everything that awareness is aware of and yet everything including the mind happens within awareness.

In a way words suck!!!! It is complete reliance on subjective semantic fields. For example I just recently noticed from reading about Iamblichus that I believe I have misinterpreted your meaning of what intellect is. For me it is a faculty and part of the mind while it seems you may be implying intellect is the Mind.

No biggie...

Quite an assumption. And yet I suppose that if a particle beam "proved" that you could change the past by reconsidering the present then the research in question would be proof positive - as has been suggested to death by some in this forum. Look, your presentation is struggling here. I mean, really, suggesting that "average joe's awareness would show a delay"...I suppose a delay as opposed to your own awareness. Do you really want to stay with that suggestion?

YEs I would like to stay with that. 99% of some odd people are not in tune with awareness and think that they are who they think they are. For the most part it seems just from direct experience that only 1-3% of awareness is being used whereas its just the tip of the ice-berg as far as all the other seeming factors attached to the rest of the percentage like subconscious, super-conscious, supra-consciousness .....the layers are soooo deep.

Yes we should definitely put the average joe in a room with a person who is in complete tune with Awareness it self ......we will find a huge difference. Theta/beta waves, control of thought or no-thought, amongst other things.

A shift occurs naturally. At first all is thought and awareness is in the background ...those that work on and examine themselves get to a place where awareness is first then thought occurs.... so of course there would be a difference in MRI models just like the studies that show the area of a Buddhist meditators brain thats lit up while in meditation/awareness/oneness ....is never lit up i any other subjects.

I suppose that I'm supposed to take you word on this, even though I have no idea what this actually means. If you mean that you're aware of your surroundings while asleep, then you're referring to your perception of your surroundings and your conscious awareness of them. But then you already declared awareness to be perception-free, so I really have no foothold to reach for. I don't know how to respond.

don't take my word on anything ...or for that matter dont take anybodies word on anything ...and see where that takes you.....

As far as awareness being perception free .... it is very hard to explain in words ....it perceives ...but it perceives based on the mind coming back in the picture afterwards and labeling that it perceives. It is aware but it is aware without a mind saying what it is aware of ....we are indeed encroaching on very difficult to understand areas ...and yet they are there.

In a sense it perceives but there is no entity, ego, mind, I ...to say that it is perceiving except in retrospect of what has already taken place ...and yet continues to perceive in its own 'awareness' like way.....

I mean we know the eyes see, ears hear, nose smells ...and so on ...but Awareness is aware of all of these but the mind comes in to label what each and everyone of those is. So take away the labeling, the mind, the I ...and what are you left with?

Electricity? Electricity is the movement of electrons hitting against one another, from negative to positive. and causing a flow of reaction called electric current. Awareness doesn't flow or respond to a potential build-up at all.

Never mind, I meant the example to be simple ...and you had to break it down into scientific fundamentals of what electricity is. My point was that from both my readings and experience ...it seems thus far that awareness is first, animates the body, then comes mind.

This is how and why we experience and observe our own awareness. We observe it because we have it adjusted for consistency and usability by our Personality (provided by own Intellect) and then fed into our data receiving circuits along with all the stuff that comes in from our corporeal sensory receptor units. It's not rocket science. It's data management.

I dont quite get this as I really never cared for flow-charts and data management. Are you saying that awareness is a by-product of the mind?

Real is real, and we can try to invent whatever we want, but in the end, real is still going to remain real. Awareness is conscious perception, and that's all it is. If a person's conscious perception is accurate, then they have "true awareness". If they persist in inventing ways of elevating themselves through happy delusion, then whatever floats their boat. Real will still persist in being real. They can claim to be as enlightened as they wish. If it makes them happy, then great. Just so long as no one gets hurt.

cool ...I agree completely ....and no I dont say I am enlightened as its a paradox.... But I do think its necessary to check and see if enlightenment is real and if it is, to tell others that it is a definite possibility. Thus far in my experience ...when I was an atheist and the agnostic ...the changes that happened (and continue to do so) on the path to see if there is a God and if there is an Enlightenment ...are just way to profound to completely dismiss outright.

It is literally as if I was a sleepwalker, then awakened, then on the process to complete annihilation which will result in some permanent state that can only be known once its permanent. Yes spiritual ego sucks (the awakened state) and I am guilty of projecting one and not noticing ....but the ongoing process of annihilation is taking care of that.

Im too far down the rabbit hole of experiencing Absolute Truth to ever be able to come back to where I once was and to what I once thought myself to be. All I can really say thus far is that there definitely is some sorts of Mystical enlightenments', some sort of Absolute Truth that can only be experienced, and that the ego is an illusion/imagination. Take it however way you want it ......but all of these experiences each time prove to be more real than what real once was to me.

When you watch a movie, it seems as though it's one constant "now" until it ends. We all know that this isn't how movies actually work. We know that a movie is frames of film that pass before a projector light, and that the speed of each frame passing before the light and into the gathering reel, as it is immediately replaced by the next frame and the next after that, create the illusion of a constant and seamless now. We experience it as that "now", but for it to be consistent and uniform as an experience, the sub-structure of that movie must consist of uniform frames that clearly belong in a very rigid line of progression, with each frame traveling at a uniform rate of change relative to the projector light's position in the mechanical arrangement. Any deviation will cause the whole experience to become chaotic and disjointed.

yes this is how the mind works.........

"When the mind is active, everything looks real. The mind is the projection machine, which constantly projects pictures on the screen we call reality. In sleep or while there is no consciousness of the world such as in a swoon, this projection machine is temporarily switched off and everything disappears. The world reappears after the mind is switched on again.

It is the mind and ego, which are responsible for the appearance of the world. When you are able to switch off the mind and the ego you realize in a direct manner the Spirit that is always here, beyond the illusion of the outside world."

And just like in a movie theater, we can go to the projector room, see how the projector works, turn it off, and be in reality. Same deal with the mind, awareness, self enquiry, and self examination.

The point is that awareness is not some esoteric quality that defies concrete description. It's what you see, feel, smell, taste, hear and sense about the world around you and your specific relationship with that world from instant to instant. All the poetry and purple prose in the world isn't really going to change that.

Who does all these things? Who you think you are is just a product of the mind and does not exist in reality. People think that they are, that they are bodies and in a body, and that they are limited in scope to the abilities of the body and the mind ...but thats just the presumed mass fabrication ...its an en-mass movie being played out. If you investigate the projector(mind) and whats behind then you will begin to see the truth.

Yes, that is your experience of time. That's everyone's experience of time. That is the corporeal definition of time. This is what I meant by the event lasts until it is replaced by the follow-on event

Actually when asking most people about their experience of time I have found very few who experience it that way I have laid it out to be. Many say the live in the past, or keep focused on the future, r that time feels fast or slow. But have only met about 1 other person who experiences a timeless Now. If you have it like that as well then cool. Two thumbs up. Its definitely not a majority thing though.

To say that we agree would require us to completely understand each other. I think we still have some distance to travel before arriving there.

Blame it on semantics, pour you an ABT or lager, and call it a day. As the whole experience of the Now (seems we share) ...we are getting somewhere.

The difficult part of reality is what the human mind is capable of perceiving it to be.

What I originally proposed is that we are aware of the mind and its thinking, its actions ...and so we cant be the mind. Are we the perceiver or that which is perceived? Having seen the mind from an outside perspective, there is no way I can possibly quantify at this point that I am the mind.

When you dive into human imagination, there is no bottom to it.

But imagination isn't necessarily what is ...its made up of unreal conceptual thought...and plus we are aware that the imagination is imagining ...so it cant be me. I want to find where is this me, this I .....

This is why consciousness can't possibly be primordial.

Thats just a projection of the mind. A mind that cant entirely be trusted or always relied on as I have come to learn of my own mind. If it is primordial then it is accessible, since it is be definition a first source, then its a matter of both negating what isn't it, and also tracing back the steps to where it is.

It is too complex and ultra-sophisticated to be anything but an ultimate achievement.

But like you said ...what-ever it is ...it is as it is and has nothing in common or related to what we project it to be based on subjective opinion. To say all of that makes it by default unknowable/inaccessible ....and so forth.

However I argue that it is primordial and accessible and is what we really are and can directly experience. You want was to get there? Well thats a whole other thread ...I can list at least 100 methods.

reply to post by KatieVA


Your soul isn't a physical thing but our body is the vehicle for it and for us to experience this 'life'.

Though it's generally accepted that your soul is where the heart is.

reply to post by B.Morrison


Your soul is your pure essence, your mind is an outlet for expression.

Excellent post! S & F! Our bodies are just vehicles to navigate and experience this 3D world. I intuit that we are plugged into the Creator..GOD and this tether/cord extends from our crown chakra to the Creator. So we are one with the Creator and one with all of creation. Throughout your life, the Creator experiences all that you do. In this way, the Creator experiences his creation. The Creator experiences everything simultaniously. The Creator is you and me and everything in creation. So if you love your neighbor, you love yourself. If you love your planet, you love yourself. So do not hate or kill or do things to hurt your neighbor or your planet, for by doing these things, you do them unto yourself. PEACE.

I had an idea about something similar to this recently while studying lucid dreaming.
I haven't managed to dream lucidly (yet) but I'm familiar to the concept, so bear with me; Has anyone ever tried, in a dream, to "summon" your "soul" or subsconcious, or whatever you seem fitting to call it? It felt logical to me that the best place to look would be in the recesses of your own mind

Even if it wouldn't be tangible proof of any external influence of some kind, it could be a fun experiment with your mind if you're capable of dreaming lucidly.

interesting answer, I will have to think about that, thankyou for replying

-B.M