You might want to exist in that silence for a little longer. My guess is that, with prolonged exposure, you may, may, change your tune. I suppose it depends on how headstrong you are though.
I'm asserting that millennia of mystical tradition is fundamentally sound. You're asserting that you alone think it is not, and that you want to prove it all wrong someday. And you are thinking that, if
mystics were not so headstrong, they would agree with you.
One of the foibles of inner experience that I have learned well over the decades is the peculiar aspect of each new vista seems absolute and that nothing can possibly exist beyond it. After one has been through many of these stages one begins to doubt there is an ultimate destination. I am willing to admit I could be wrong, but if I truly believed I was, I wouldn't be inclined to bring it up.
You are willing to admit you
might be wrong? The overwhelming evidence beyond a reasonable doubt
is that you are wrong. Wrong in thinking there is not an endpoint, wrong in thinking there still might be an endpoint, wrong in thinking anything at all about any points, wrong in every bit of your approach.
In physics, when someone comes along with the absolutely latest greatest theory of why the foundations of modern physics are all wrong, waving around pages upon pages of simple algebraic proofs, we consider them, without further inquiry, crackpots. Why? Because all advancement is an expansion of previous proven theory, not a repudiation, and the frontiers of physics require a language of much greater complexity than high school algebra.
You're doing the equivalent with mysticism, proclaiming a revolution you propose to lead with one of the busiest language-laden whirligig minds I've seen. And yes, you look like a crackpot.
The reason you are getting nowhere after however many years of "inner experiences" is because you are in a rut, spinning in circles propelled by your overly busy mind, and either you are not seeking good advice to get out of that rut or you have rejected the good advice you've been given. And in all probability those "inner experiences" are delusional out the wazoo.
What you are describing is a "closed system" approach. Forgive me if I pass on that line of thought.
No, it's not. I doubt you could even give me a decent definition of what a closed system is, short of cut-and-pasting Wikipedia. For a "closed system" colloquially speaking (i.e., a dead end), nothing beats strangling Reality in the suffocating grip of very very busy wordy thought.
The point is if the symbols are designed as markers, rather than absolutes, I don't see the problem with this.
Symbols have always been markers, nothing more, at least in any faintly modern understanding of symbols. The difference between the precision of, say, scientific language, versus the imprecision of casual language, is not that the scientist imputes any absolute truth to the symbols they use (that there are multiple systems of measurement alone would disabuse one of that notion), but that scientists have agreed to use a precise agreed upon definition of a symbol. In common speech we often work with sloppy definitions.
If that sloppiness is what you consider to be using a symbol as a marker, no, that will not work. You need a common and consistent meaning for a symbol to serve any useful role at all. The reason scientists define their terms as precisely as they can is that without close agreement collaboration is impossible: other scientists might understands a statement to mean something quite different than what was intended, and no one can verify the research of another. Even a nonscientific solipsist needs a consistent definition of symbols: if "green" means one thing one day, and something different another day, I hope the solipsist is not a farmer.
But I'll assume that you intend your symbols to have meaning, that you intend to pick that meaning well, and that you do make some kickass symbols. That is
still not enough to rescue symbols from the dustbin when it comes to grasping transcendent truth.
You seem to be ignorant of nearly the entire body of twentieth century symbolic logic, which perforated the hell out of symbol sets as complete or inclusive representations of truth. In particular, Tarski's theorem makes it clear that in order to successfully represent transcendent states, you'd need to pull your symbols from a system that transcends transcendence. Good luck on that one. You ain't finding the set of all sets.
Symbols themselves are broken, broken, broken.
If said symbols are understood to be symbols, much can be approached that currently has no meaning in verbal terms. It is a daunting project, you have my assurance. In essence, reality itself is redefined in a new approach.
Yes, there are a lot of unimaginative naysayers. I get that. Heck, I used to say it myself.
I don't usually call having both a rigorous grasp of symbolic logic and its limits (you know, silly things like formally studying the crap out of the field), and having an intuitive/mystical grasp of those very same principles, to be "unimaginative". I consider it to be well grounded in a subject matter that you have no grounding in. [/quote]
How fascinating. You mentor others? Hmmm. That is disturbing.
This is what, the fourth or fifth or fortyfifth, or some such number, overt or underhanded insult you're thrown at me so far. All in the genre of "I'm wiser than you-- than
any of you--
all of you are infantile and I PWN you, noobs, I'm the GREATEST!!1!!!".
Pardon me, but your ego is showing. Not to mention a hint of destructive nihilism you may want to tuck back in your garments.
Those who directly follow the first group are those who seek to teach others, as this is another compulsion that I am talking about. I've done that too and learned not to.
For someone who claims not to proselytize and not to teach, I'm sure hearing you try to school me. You haven't a clue what you're talking about, but you talk about it so very very earnestly.
Of course you wouldn't. Your position makes perfect sense. It is those very descriptions that I now term as being fairly superficial. That is my point. Is it any surprise that the "kiddies wading pool of reality" would look much different from any perceptive?
If the entire body of religious and mystical thoughy throughout the ages amounts to a "kiddie's wading pool" to you, you are an idiot.
Getting away from that "wading pool" is significantly harder depending on the religious "water wings" employed. That unnecessary baggage has very real consequences when one get into slightly deeper waters. They are of no use, whatsoever, when one starts to dive for pearls.
Those are not pearls you are diving for in that bowl.
After a few decades into the mystic, as it were, one becomes necessarily wary of claiming much of anything because one implicitly understand the permutations of what they are saying and how it may be taken.
That's not mysticism. That's nihilism. Or at least a freight train full of confusion. Time spent laying down rubber in the parking lot of your consciousness does not count as progress on any path.
Your first point here is what I am currently wrestling with. It's sort of an amalgam of mysticism meets psychology meets theoretical physics meets Joe Blow at Starbucks.
No, it is not. It is, exactly, what it is. All the other stuff you describe is stuff whirring around in your head.
What I am currently attempting is to redefine ideas in a way that speaks closer to both the realities involved and to the person sitting enjoying their cup of coffee. I guess I am attempting to demystify mysticism. As I say, I always did enjoy a good challenge. What might bake your noodle is that I fully expect to fail, but that doesn't stop me from trying. The stakes are far too high.
No, it doesn't "bake my noodle" that you're off in la la land, burning out the bearings of the gearing of your mind, with no apparent expectation that you'll ever get anywhere. Your entire post, every word of it, is all about your ego, aimlessly spinning your mental wheels.
I would sincerely ask you to flesh this out a bit. If you feel more comfortable I would be quite happy if you sent me a personal message so as to not derail the thread explaining what you mean by this somewhat cryptic statement.
If it is "cryptic", then you are no mystic and have never been one. Or you do understand something of what I meant, and you are a predator.
That sounds troubling as well as fascinating. Feel free to include this in your PM, as well. Then again, it might make for a rather fascinating One-on-One discussion. I might have some useful ideas for you and may learn something in the process.
No, I will not give you a private audience to discuss your delusions and how much contempt you have for me and for the body of mysticism throughout the ages. I am not willing to rent out any amount of my cranial space as temporary storage for your mental overflow.
Fascinating stuff. It sounds like we have similar goals, albeit different methods.
Similar goals, not at all. Different methods, more than you could ever begin to fathom.
I am serious about the PM and even the One-on-One discussion. Understand that such a discussion is not necessarily a debate. It might be a very rewarding exercise for both of us.
No, it would not be. I do not succor egomaniacs, idiots, and liars.
Goodbye
:ignore:
Now I think I need to go take a shower or something
:laundry: :liturgy:
