Ask Sunstone Anything About His Views On Mysticism

[Random]

So far as I understand it, Conor, nihilism refers to a rejection of all moral principles. It does not seem to me there is anything intrinsic in death that requires of us to reject all moral principles.

I see. Nihilism in the context I used it here meant the complete destruction of one's life (through death) and the attributes of existence thereof, which is concomitant with the total negation of all values.

The total negation of all values might (does) include moral principles, but is not limited to moral principles, in my understanding.

Anyway, we've drifted off topic a bit, so thanks again for your thoughts.

 

[Sunstone]

Are things experienced with the five known senses real?

The senses have the same relationship to what is sensed as a thermometer has to heat.

Just as the read out of a thermometer bears little or no resemblance to the kinetic energy (vibration) of atoms and molecules that is loosely said to possess heat, the "read out" of the senses bears little or no resemblance to what is sensed. For instance, when photons of a certain wavelength excite some of the optical cells in my eye, I have the sensation of seeing yellow. But yellow in no way resembles the photons that ultimately produce the sensation of yellow.

Given that what I've said seems to be the case, the senses might be thought of as instruments which do not reproduce what they sense, but instead interpret what they sense. This means that seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling, or otherwise sensing is not representational of what is sensed. Consequently, if seeing, tasting, touching, etc. are considered experiences, then those experiences are certainly not representational of the world we might suppose exists beyond the senses.

Our senses are very useful as tools for navigating the world, but they should not be thought of as tools that mirror or reproduce the world.

 

[Sunstone]

Do you consider the Universe to Really Real

Somethings seem to exist independent of myself and somethings do not seem to exist independent of myself.

 

[Sunstone]

What is your position on Duality? If opposites exist, who or what created them and why?

The notion, or perhaps perception, of opposites seems to be an intrinsic effect of conscious awareness.

To some large extent, conscious awareness (consciousness) behaves like an editor, censor, or negator. Thus, in many cases, it seems that opposites are created by consciousness through a rather simple process of taking a concept, negating it, and then positing its negation as a second concept opposed to the first. For instance, suppose I take a notion of strength, negate it, and thus arrive at a notion of weakness.

I very strongly suspect there's more to it than that, but let's put aside for now any more nuanced discussion of how consciousness creates opposites. The key point is to recognize that consciousness behaves a bit like an accountant -- always putting things into plus and minus columns.

Mystical awareness, on the other hand, does not seem to behave like an editor, censor, or negator. Instead of perceiving opposites, it perceives unity. Please be careful, though! In contrasting this one aspect of conscious awareness with one aspect of mystical awareness, I by no means wish to suggest that conscious awareness is the opposite of mystical awareness. So far as I know, conscious awareness is no more the opposite of mystical awareness than a day is genuinely the opposite of a night, or than a man is genuinely the opposite of a woman. There are far more similarities between conscious awareness and mystical awareness than there are differences.

Opposites can be useful conceptual tools, but they are most useful when one recognizes their limits.

 

[doppelganger]

Your experiences seem to me to be considerably less symbolically bounded than those that are triggered in the context of a traditional religious gloss or reality window. Do you consider this unbounded mysticism a "gift", i.e. a product of serendipity? Or is this mode of experience something that a person lacking an awareness of the role perspective plays in the reality he or she experiences can be taught?

Put another way, is it possible to meaningfully explain or describe it to someone who doesn't already move in it? And if so, how?

 

[Magic Man]

Your experiences seem to me to be considerably less symbolically bounded than those that are triggered in the context of a traditional religious gloss or reality window. Do you consider this unbounded mysticism a "gift", i.e. a product of serendipity? Or is this mode of experience something that a person lacking an awareness of the role perspective plays in the reality he or she experiences can be taught?

Put another way, is it possible to meaningfully explain or describe it to someone who doesn't already move in it? And if so, how?

Did you write "The Matrix"?

 

[doppelganger]

Did you write "The Matrix"?

I did my part.

 

[Quiddity]

Is there a "mysticism for dummies" book you recommend?

You guys confuse the hell out of me. It could be that I'm just used to doing the very things you guys don't like doing or atleast it seems that way to me.

It's like you guys are aware of something I'm not......but also don't act human in the process.

Humans:
1. Compartmentalize
2. Attach meaning
3. Label things
4. Dogmatize ideas

And it seems that mysticism trys to stay away from all that. Which is just weird to me because it's like denying your very nature. It's like a fish that trys to unlearn how to swim.

Is my perception off?

 

[YmirGF]

Some very interesting insights here Phil. Good work. As is to be expected, I have a plethora of comments and even a few questions.

...And those attachments can cause emotional and psychological suffering because -- whether there is an objective reality or not -- a fundamental nature of our experience of this world and all that is in it is impermanence.

I do agree with this. It is not the "thingliness" that binds us, but rather our emotional attachment to any given "thingy". The beauty of physical experience is largely because it is fleeting. That is what creates the exquisite sweetness of physical being and should be our only reason needed to both make the best of and to enjoy our physical existence. It could be my senses but I smell a bit of KrsnaMurti in your thinking here. Is this correct?

So far as I know, Storm, there are two basic kinds of awareness: Mystical Awareness and Conscious Awareness (or consciousness).

If that is true, then despite that, subjectively speaking, humans spend most of their lives consciously aware of what they are experiencing, rather than mystically aware of what they are experiencing, it most likely (I think) is not conscious awareness, but mystical awareness that arose first in evolution.

Although I personally find the term "mystical awareness" to be very distasteful, I very much like your thinking here... once I translated into YmirSpeak, of course. :drool:

One possible advantage of mystical awareness, then, is that an organism mystically aware of its environment can (all else being equal) respond quicker to its environment than an organism consciously aware of its environment. I suspect that's because mystical awareness takes fewer steps to complete than conscious awareness.

It might be simpler to say that "mystical awareness" is more instinctually motivated and operates outside of the trappings of logical considerations. Not that such things do not follow their own instantaneous logic, of course.

One possible advantage of conscious awareness, however, is that an organism consciously aware of its environment can (all else being equal) respond more flexibly to its environment than an organism mystically aware of its environment. The "additional step" of consciousness seems to somehow allow an organism to reflect on what action it will take and in some sense to choose between various options. (The act of reflection is most likely a matter of making more or new associations between bits of information, while the act of consciously choosing is most likely a matter of inhibiting certain behaviors.) So, conscious awareness can add considerable flexibility to an organism's behavior.

Again, I very much like your thinking here, but I am rather sure that the so-called "mystical awareness" would be far more flexible/adaptive. It would seem more reasonable that "logical conciousness" would be the result of pattern detection once enough direct experience had been accumulated. Does that make sense to you? In this way, "logical awareness" would be directly borne out of prolonged "mystical awareness" impinging on external reality.

So, Storm, my guess as to how we evolved mystical awareness is to answer that mystical awareness evolved before any other kind of awareness and that it was selected for because it benefited the organism in finding food or mates, and in avoiding or dealing with dangers. And my guess as to how we evolved conscious awareness is to answer that conscious awareness evolved after mystical awareness and that it was selected for because it benefited the organism by expanding the ways in which the organism could go about finding food or mates, and avoiding or dealing with dangers.

See my notation above, for I see direct correlations involved that you are only hinting at here. Bravo, nonetheless. Most astute thinking, Grasshopper.

What useful roles can/do you see mystics playing in the modern world?

I think to answer your question, Scarlett, it is best we begin by reflecting on the fact mystical experiences can be (and frequently are) transformative experiences. By "transformative" I mean two things here. First, they can and very often do radically change our notions of who we are and what is real. Second, and perhaps more important in this context, they can and very often do radically change our values. The repeated emphasis is on the word "radical" here because these changes can be unimaginable to someone who has not gone through them -- no matter how much effort is put into describing or explaining what's happened.

[...edit for brevity...]

If all of the above is true, then one useful role people who have had mystical experiences might play in the modern world is somewhat obvious: They can go about their lives being good to themselves and others. And, in fact, that seems to be what most mystics pretty much do.

There are other things mystics can do that are useful in the modern world, Scarlett. But I think I will write about those things in a separate post both because this post is getting to be a long one and because I want a chance to think out the best way of approaching a discussion of those things.

Agreed. The so-called "mystical experience" causes a distinct catharsis in the psyche of the individual and can be differentiated from psychotic episodes simply because the experiences are more often than not, beneficial to the individual and the world through which they travel.

The true benefit of the "mystic" is that they are not about "look at me, look at me, golly gee, I am great" but rather, "Look at what you can do too!"

Submitted to .Lava

The mystical experience itself, however, transcends any and all religions, and is not contained by them.

Precisely. The One is much greater than all the parts of diversity itself regardless of the labels and symbols diversity creates to describe Oneness.

So far as I know, John, mysticism can be without any superstition and superstition is not implicit in it. The mystical experience can be described as "an end to subject/object perception" and there is nothing in someone's experience of an end to subject/object perception that necessarily creates or promotes superstitions.

The entire post (#20) is wonderful. I have written on this topic a few times from much the same perspective. I tend to go further and quietly insist that those who rely on heavy religious symbolism to speak of their experience(s) unwittingly sully their own descriptions by doing so. If anything, they are clear markers that said "mystical experience" was not as deep as most might think as they are still bounded by form.

The core of mysticism is the mystical experience, Luke. In epistemological terms, the mystical experience occurs when there is a sudden end to subject/object perception while the continuum of experiencing yet remains. This produces a different kind of awareness -- an awareness that is radically different than conscious awareness. In all likelihood, the experience also transforms the person who has had it, especially in their understanding of themselves, their notions of what is real, their sentiments, and their values.

I know I am a knitpicker, but the experience does NOT produce a different kind of awareness. It simply awakens the ordinary consciousness to a hitherto unknown aspect of its own being. An important difference. In my own experience, it did turn my ideas of what is "real" inside out. Curiously, it did not alter my values all that much, but I have always been relatively non-materialistic and bond with others fairly easily. These experiences did underscore the deep meaning of interpersonal relationships however. What was already important to me became far more important. And yes, my sentiments echo my inner stability.

That's enough to chew on for now, plus the RF 10,000 character limit must be looming. All in all, Phil, very nice... very tight. There is hope, yet.




Ka!

 

[Troublemane]

Sunstone, when you refer to 'mystical awareness', is it a separate form of awareness? Or is it the underlying awareness that is, rather, the True Awareness that is just muddied over by all Life's Little Things?....
(just chiming in on the side of non-dualism)

 

[Sunstone]

Sunstone, when you refer to 'mystical awareness', is it a separate form of awareness? Or is it the underlying awareness that is, rather, the True Awareness that is just muddied over by all Life's Little Things?....
(just chiming in on the side of non-dualism)

From what I've read, Troublemane, most people -- perhaps just about everyone -- who has experienced mystical awareness comes away with the impression that what they've experienced is truer, more vital, or "more real" than what they've experienced in conscious awareness. In other words, the mystical experience typically leads to the overwhelming impression -- and even to the conviction -- that mystical awareness is primal awareness.

I haven't reached any hard and fast conclusions about that. Although, if you're interested in my speculations, I have been for some time toying with the notion that conscious awareness and mystical awareness are a little bit like sketching a portrait of someone with graphite pencils, and then turning around and sketching the same person in the same pose with color pencils.

If we saw two portraits like that side by side, then we might easily assume the color portrait was truer to life than the graphite portrait. That assumption would be all but natural for us to make. But in making that assumption, we are forgetting that both portraits are in their most fundamental ways only interpretations of someone. As such, they are in some sense both equally true and equally false, but in different ways true and false.

In other words, I think it is quite possible that there is something about human psychology which predisposes us to sense or feel that mystical awareness is primal -- just as there is something about human psychology which predisposes us to sense or feel that color portraits are more "real life" than graphite portraits. Yet, so far as I know, neither mystical awareness nor conscious awareness mirror the world as it is. Each is an interpretation.

Having said all that, I would like to add here that I also think mystical awareness contains considerably more information about the world than does conscious awareness. Both might be interpretations, but they are by no means equal in the sheer quantity of information they convey. Conscious awareness is a seven gallon a minute stream from a garden hose. Mystical awareness is a hundred gallon a minute stream from a fire hose.

I would like to turn now to your question of whether mystical awareness is genuinely separate from conscious awareness, and whether the two kinds of awareness can be properly thought of as opposed to each other. I believe the short answer is "no, the two awarenesses are not in life opposed to each other."

So far as I know, conscious awareness can be thought of as simply an additional step in the way the brain processes information. Information is first processed by the brain mystically and then consciously. If that's true, then consciousness is in some sense a superstructure built onto a foundation of mystical awareness. Perhaps in that specific sense, mystical awareness is indeed primal.

 

[Sunstone]

Your experiences seem to me to be considerably less symbolically bounded than those that are triggered in the context of a traditional religious gloss or reality window. Do you consider this unbounded mysticism a "gift", i.e. a product of serendipity? Or is this mode of experience something that a person lacking an awareness of the role perspective plays in the reality he or she experiences can be taught?

Put another way, is it possible to meaningfully explain or describe it to someone who doesn't already move in it? And if so, how?

Let me begin by asking a closely related question, Brendan. Is there any value in trying to describe the mystical experience to someone who has not had one?

Well, there is considerable evidence the mystical experience itself cannot be communicated. Although I do not know for certain, Brendan, I am more than half convinced the actual experience itself never enters into consciousness. The instant we become consciously aware of having a mystical experience, the mystical experience is already done with -- all that remains is the often strong, but always fading, aftertaste of it. If that's true, then the mystical experience in some important sense cannot even be communicated to our very own conscious selves -- let alone to others.

That's my best guess about whether the experience itself can be communicated. We should not, however, confuse communicating the experience itself with communicating what we've learned from the experience. It might be arduous to communicate what we've learned, but I still think it is often possible.

For instance, one lesson that quite many people around the world seem to have drawn from their mystical experiences has been famously stated as "The map is not the terrain". And it does indeed appear that a person who has not yet had a mystical experience can fully grasp that point and its implications if he or she is willing to work at grasping it and perhaps also has the luck to have it well explained to them.

I hope I've adequately addressed your question, but I wouldn't be surprised if I haven't. I am fairly tired as I write this. Please let me know if what I've said is at all useful to you.

 

[Sunstone]

Is there a "mysticism for dummies" book you recommend?

Zen in the Art of Archery is a classic.

You guys confuse the hell out of me. It could be that I'm just used to doing the very things you guys don't like doing or atleast it seems that way to me.

It's like you guys are aware of something I'm not......but also don't act human in the process.

Humans:
1. Compartmentalize
2. Attach meaning
3. Label things
4. Dogmatize ideas

And it seems that mysticism trys to stay away from all that. Which is just weird to me because it's like denying your very nature. It's like a fish that trys to unlearn how to swim.

Is my perception off?

It seems to me your perception is to some extent on the mark, Victor. However, the things you've outlined -- compartmentalization, etc. -- are more likely intrinsic to conscious awareness rather than to human nature as a whole. And if you were to look at these things like a mystic, then the issue isn't usually a matter of denying human nature. Rather, it's more a matter of exploring certain aspects of human nature most of us neglect to one extent or another.

 

[Troublemane]

From what I've read, Troublemane, most people -- perhaps just about everyone -- who has experienced mystical awareness comes away with the impression that what they've experienced is truer, more vital, or "more real" than what they've experienced in conscious awareness. In other words, the mystical experience typically leads to the overwhelming impression -- and even to the conviction -- that mystical awareness is primal awareness....
....So far as I know, conscious awareness can be thought of as simply an additional step in the way the brain processes information. Information is first processed by the brain mystically and then consciously. If that's true, then consciousness is in some sense a superstructure built onto a foundation of mystical awareness. Perhaps in that specific sense, mystical awareness is indeed primal.

Thank you for the detailed response! That clears alot up! :bow:

 

[Sunstone]

That clears alot up! :bow:

Thank you!

 

[Sunstone]

I know I am a knitpicker, but the experience does NOT produce a different kind of awareness. It simply awakens the ordinary consciousness to a hitherto unknown aspect of its own being. An important difference.

I'm afraid I cannot endorse your view here, Paul, but it is nevertheless an interesting one. Since this is not a debate thread and I don't wish to turn it into one, I will leave it at that.

 

[Willamena]

From what I've read, Troublemane, most people -- perhaps just about everyone -- who has experienced mystical awareness comes away with the impression that what they've experienced is truer, more vital, or "more real" than what they've experienced in conscious awareness. In other words, the mystical experience typically leads to the overwhelming impression -- and even to the conviction -- that mystical awareness is primal awareness.

Do you consider that to be an egotistical thing?

 

[Sunstone]

Do you consider that to be an egotistical thing?

That's an interesting question, Patty.

I suspect the impression itself -- the impression the mystical experience is primal -- has little or nothing to do with the ego. Of course, people can turn anything -- even a mystical experience -- into something to become egotistical about. But it does not seem that egotism necessarily or inevitably arises from the impression that the experience is primal.

 

[Sunstone]

Your experiences seem to me to be considerably less symbolically bounded than those that are triggered in the context of a traditional religious gloss or reality window.

Brendan, please allow me to address that statement in more detail now.

In common usage, the word "mystical" covers any number of different experiences. Yet, as you can see, I have in this thread singled out one -- and only one -- of those many different experiences to focus on. The mystical experience I refer to in this thread is strictly the experience which occurs when subject/object perception abruptly ends while the continuum of experiencing remains.

If I might digress for a moment: Why that experience and not all the others? Because so far as I've been able to reasonably guess, it is that peculiar experience which at times leads to enlightenment. And, of the many other experiences, some actually seem to be hindrances to enlightenment, and still others I cannot make a reasonable guess about.

Now to return, let me suggest that accompanying the end to subject/object perception is an end to conscious awareness. One hallmark of conscious awareness is that pesky perception of a divide between subject and object. So, when that perception ceases, so does anything I am willing to call "conscious awareness". That's to say, an awareness remains, but it is no longer conscious awareness.

Naturally, all sorts of strange things happen then. The self disappears -- or at least what we normally think of as the self disappears. Conscious memory ceases -- for there is no consciousness. "God" or whatever other petty name you want to call it appears -- for there is Oneness. And, so on and so forth.

Now, at some point, the perception of a subject/object divide kicks in again, albeit weakly at first -- and that's when the real fun begins. For that's when we first notice that something has happened. The experience at this point is over and done with. All that remains is its aftertaste. (But what an aftertaste!) It is, so far as I know, this aftertaste -- and not the actual experience itself -- that most of us routinely think of as the mystical experience.

It is now that we begin interpreting the experience -- or more likely the aftertaste. Of course, it can be extraordinarily difficult to make any sense at all of it. And when we do try to make sense of it, we inevitably interpret it in whatever symbols are familiar to us. Hence, someone from China might think, "I am experiencing the Tao", while someone from Spain might think, "I am experiencing God", and a third person, with yet another symbol set to draw on, might think, "I am experiencing Unconditional Love."

As you've certainly realized by now, Brendan, I am grossly simplifying all of this for the sake of discussion. So let me simplify it a step further to drive the matter home. There are two paths people can go by at this point: The first path is to more or less immediately interpret their experience into whatever collection of symbols they can find or come up with. The second path is to refuse to interpret their experience for as long as possible.

Of those two paths, the first seems to lead to our becoming "symbolically bounded" much more often than the second.

Not just a little, not just some, but the overwhelming weight of evidence from around the world points to the simple fact the mystical experience itself is beyond all conscious comprehension. Hence, it cannot be adequately symbolized. It cannot be adequately described. And any explanation of it it, including any explanation I've offered, is -- even on a good day -- at least as false as it is true, and as useless as it is useful. So, it is somewhat ironic that anyone should adopt or create a ridged dogma in response to it. But many people do. And perhaps that seeming paradox can be understood as an attempt of the self that is conditional on conscious awareness to reassert itself. That self is also known as the ego, and so in some significant sense, an attempt to adopt or create a ridged dogma in response to the mystical experience is an attempt to strengthen or aggrandize the ego.

I hope from the crude map I've sketched for you here you might take a useful bearing or two. By the way, I am grateful to you for the work you've done on mystical imprinting and how that can lead to someone becoming symbolically bound following a mystical experience.

 

[Sunstone]

Can an atheist (like you) be taken as a definitive authority on mysticism? If so, how?

The question is amusing. I'm not sure where you get the impression I'm an atheist. Or, for that matter, where anyone would get the impression I'm not one. But to address the meat of your question, Conor, I have yet to find even one definitive authority on mysticism -- whether an atheist or theist -- in the 30 years I've been on and off interested in the topic. Moreover, I have every reason to believe there will never be such a bird as a definitive authority on mysticism. I hope this helps.