For Atheist Mystics

[Windwalker]

Addendum: Silence = Humility

 

[YmirGF]

Addendum: Silence = Humility

I'd be inclined to say that the "silence" is the very wellspring of my humor.

 

[Windwalker]

Windwalker I have waited years for the opportunity to interact with you on a one to one bases and I would like to say that I will never disagree with you. I consider any input that you might give me a treasure and a valuable gift. And anything that I might present to you now and in the future is just for the purpose of comparing notes to create an educational experience for me personally.

I'm not sure why you should feel a need to wait? The only thing I'd say is that I may not respond to everyone all the time because really a matter of time. I spend a lot of time considering my thoughts I put into each post , so responses become pretty selective, but hopefully cover most of the gist of what other posters are saying. At least I think so.

You should always disagree with me if what I say doesn't sit right. It could be a case of you mishearing something I'm saying and I need to clarify my points, or I'm just not seeing something I should be and am off-tracking in what I'm saying. When the former is the case, it helps me to become a better communicator. When the latter is the case, it's exciting to me because it means I can learn more. So, please challenge me whenever you wish! It's a win-win for me. But if you're saying rather that everything I say resonates with you because it's what you see too, then that's cool. That's neat when we find others who speak our own minds for us. It pleases me when I can give voice to what people know themselves but don't know how to put into words.

And Windwalker you are right about, "The minute you start operating out of ego, is the minute that you lose it." Which is basically because of the fears that are involved that create ego. One does not have ego if one does not have fear.

I'd be a little clearer where fear comes into the ego. I could start a whole topic on the ego, but I'll be brief here. The ego is simply the "I" of self-identification. There are lots of Stages of Ego Development that humans go through where the ego (see the link), or the "I" begins as an undifferentiated fusion with the world. There is no separate self-sense. This then moves upward in an inverted hierarchy (growth hierarchies), to self-identification with the physical body, then to self-identifications with the mental objects of how one sees themselves in relation to others, to higher stages of growth where the locus of self-identification continues to expand in ever-widening circles. This can get more complex to talk about, as anything that are models of reality based on empirical observation can be, like the Theory of Evolution is as one example.

To pause for one second here, this what I am talking about has absolutely nothing to do with "Mystical explanations". These are actual studies in human development done by researchers using scientific methods. These have nothing to do with mystical states of awareness whatsoever, nor are they bloody metaphysics! This is actual research that I'm citing from researchers in these various fields of developmental studies. So all this clap trap about making the spiritual complex, and a big puffed up ego thing is just pure nonsense. This is just an understanding of the nature of reality for human development. How it plays into the spiritual for me, is as I've said before, ways to talk about how and why people relate to and understand the spiritual in their own lives, and groups, through being interpreted within these stages of development, which affect how one sees the world. Even if one sits in Silence, which I would preach everyone should learn how to do so!, they don't live their entire lives in a state of no-thought. They think about it afterwards!

Anyway, where fear comes in is in the mode of ego where our center of self-identification is with those mental objects about what makes me me and you you. We fear a loss of self because if those objects, those things we think about ourselves that we self-identify with are threaten, it is a death-fear experience. If they are threatened we fear the destruction of ourselves. This is where understanding the "nature of thought" comes in, which is being made into in this thread as the end-all-be-all realization to all human liberation. I am saying absolutely its essential to understand, and most people do not, but this is to me the first door. That's the first thing you become aware of, this nature of thought. I realized it the first time I meditated! It's a wonderful realization to be sure, but it's just the beginning of understanding that follows. It helps to liberate one from the exclusive "ego" identification into more subtle truth about the self, more cosmic knowledge of the self, and so forth. It's all about dislodging the center of gravity of one's self-identifications that we embed in the things we think.

Is this important to know? Absolutely! I wish everyone did. Is that the end game? Nope. It's just the very beginning truly transforming who we are in our lived experience where we do in fact use thought, and always will. It's about transforming those thoughts themselves, and the way they operate in us. I love what the Buddha says, "More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm." When we see the nature of thought, when we work with it, when we disidentify with it, we master it for ourselves as we function in the world.

The post that you are quoting from is my attempt to define the game that I am playing because what is the fun of it, be one win or loose, if what they are attempting to do is not definesd. Windwalker you do not play games, which is perfectly ok and a valid approach to things. Typist and I play games we are gamers. I do not play games when someother is not playing a game, but I do play games when someother is playing a game. And sometimes I follow their rules and sometimes I do not, but mostly I do.

I don't mind playing devil's advocate for the sake of challenging ones premises. I do it all the time in discussions with others. But when it becomes insulting and offensive to others, then its about something else. That's the small ego that can't be wrong. It becomes about trolling for some shadow or something else. That I don't have time for.

 

[YmirGF]

I'd be a little clearer where fear comes into the ego. I could start a whole topic on the ego, but I'll be brief here. The ego is simply the "I" of self-identification. There are lots of Stages of Ego Development that humans go through where the ego (see the link), or the "I" begins as an undifferentiated fusion with the world. There is no separate self-sense. This then moves upward in an inverted hierarchy (growth hierarchies), to self-identification with the physical body, then to self-identifications with the mental objects of how one sees themselves in relation to others, to higher stages of growth where the locus of self-identification continues to expand in ever-widening circles. This can get more complex to talk about, as anything that are models of reality based on empirical observation can be, like the Theory of Evolution is as one example.

To pause for one second here, this what I am talking about has absolutely nothing to do with "Mystical explanations". These are actual studies in human development done by researchers using scientific methods. These have nothing to do with mystical states of awareness whatsoever, nor are they bloody metaphysics! This is actual research that I'm citing from researchers in these various fields of developmental studies. So all this clap trap about making the spiritual complex, and a big puffed up ego thing is just pure nonsense. This is just an understanding of the nature of reality for human development. How it plays into the spiritual for me, is as I've said before, ways to talk about how and why people relate to and understand the spiritual in their own lives, and groups, through being interpreted within these stages of development, which affect how one sees the world. Even if one sits in Silence, which I would preach everyone should learn how to do so!, they don't live their entire lives in a state of no-thought. They think about it afterwards!

Anyway, where fear comes in is in the mode of ego where our center of self-identification is with those mental objects about what makes me me and you you. We fear a loss of self because if those objects, those things we think about ourselves that we self-identify with are threaten, it is a death-fear experience. If they are threatened we fear the destruction of ourselves. This is where understanding the "nature of thought" comes in, which is being made into in this thread as the end-all-be-all realization to all human liberation. I am saying absolutely its essential to understand, and most people do not, but this is to me the first door. That's the first thing you become aware of, this nature of thought. I realized it the first time I meditated! It's a wonderful realization to be sure, but it's just the beginning of understanding that follows. It helps to liberate one from the exclusive "ego" identification into more subtle truth about the self, more cosmic knowledge of the self, and so forth. It's all about dislodging the center of gravity of one's self-identifications that we embed in the things we think.

Is this important to know? Absolutely! I wish everyone did. Is that the end game? Nope. It's just the very beginning truly transforming who we are in our lived experience where we do in fact use thought, and always will. It's about transforming those thoughts themselves, and the way they operate in us. I love what the Buddha says, "More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm." When we see the nature of thought, when we work with it, when we disidentify with it, we master it for ourselves as we function in the world.

A fairly good appraisal of a couple of complex areas, Windwalker. The only thing I would add is that thoughts arise from existing belief structures and will normally quite actively support those structures from which they originate. It can become a rather viscous circle, especially when the thoughts come from beliefs about self image. Blaming the ego is somewhat like blaming a newspaper for the stories written on its pages and ignores the rich tapestries of belief/thought/experience that shaped each "story".

Getting back to the OP, I see part of the problem being that these "dark nights of the soul" arise from the fact that people, in general, do not understand that much of what is floating about between their ears is a narrative... a story they believe to be true...

I also agree that fear comes into play in areas where our self-image structures are assailed. These do not have to be based in reality and can solely be projected onto the fabricated structure of self-image that are bound by emotional investment rather than reasoned analysis.

Hopefully that is clearer than mud.

 

[Windwalker]

A fairly good appraisal of a couple of complex areas, Windwalker.

It's challenging to try to lay anything out regarding what the ego is about in only a couple paragraphs. I'm surprised it made any sense at all.

The only thing I would add is that thoughts arise from existing belief structures and will normally quite actively support those structures from which they originate. It can become a rather viscous circle, especially when the thoughts come from beliefs about self image.

Absolutely and I'm glad you brought this up. In a very real sense, that feedback loop is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing in order to create a functional system, the "me", like a vortex is formed by the motions of surrounding molecules. It becomes a self-sustaining system. That really is what the self-identity is, if you think about: Self-reinforcing feedback loops.

Now what happens is that the dynamics of the surrounding environment, as well as its own internal shifts, it changes the shape of this system. The self changes. We grow and develop and are sustained by a different dynamic system. These systems really are structural supports, but probably better understood in a systems theory sort of way like this. The difficulty, when the shape of the vortex starts to destabilize because of other changes in the environment is because the support structures that sustain it are failing. This leads to the ever-classic existential crisis, and subsequent spiritual awakening. Then the quest for new supporting structures to keep the new shape of the vortex, the "self" in the center, a stable pattern.

This is a fun line of thinking. I'll chew on this some more and see where it takes us. I think it's got a lot of legs, both rationally and metaphorically. Think about it. When you look out at everything in the world, every person, it's all whirlpools.

Blaming the ego is somewhat like blaming a newspaper for the stories written on its pages and ignores the rich tapestries of belief/thought/experience that shaped each "story".

All we need to do is change the shape of the ego to be more liberated from these broken systems. Stopping the stream of thought is a good way to gain some perspective on the whole system, and then do something about it. Normally, all we do is see the world looking out at it as that vortex itself. We have to make that subject an object first in order to disidentify with it and gain some perspective. Be the Witness over our own selves.

Getting back to the OP, I see part of the problem being that these "dark nights of the soul" arise from the fact that people, in general, do not understand that much of what is floating about between their ears is a narrative... a story they believe to be true...

The dark night is every time we move away from our exclusive identification with one shape of that vortex. It's a death-fear expeirence to see what you have always identified with changing shape in radical ways, not just a different hair color of fingernail polish.

I also agree that fear comes into play in areas where our self-image structures are assailed.

I think an import point to add to this is really the resulting anxiety. We live in such a neurotic anxiety about preserving that self identification. It's a hangover from when we were living in the forest primeval, ever-vigilantly wary of predators. Now that we don't have to worry about leopards, we take that heightened vigilance and become obsessed with protecting our self-images. We are literally monkeys with over-sized brains. IMO, meditation is an essential tool to deal with this problem of ours.

These do not have to be based in reality and can solely be projected onto the fabricated structure of self-image that are bound by emotional investment rather than reasoned analysis.

Hopefully that is clearer than mud.

Well, it's crystal clear to me because I think about such things using my mind to help advance self-understanding, when I'm not on the meditation mat looking far beyond all that part of what is is to be human.

 

[mystic64]

From my perspective, this last nugget about fear creating ego is perhaps one of the most absurd things I've read in a very long while.

! Thank you YmirGF for you input! It is very much appreciated!

 

[mystic64]

So you thought you'd inflate my ego EVEN LARGER than it already is?? I'll get you for this!



I'm sorry, but thought is an electro-chemical process in the human brain, an element of nature, and thus it has properties.

My argument is that thought operates through division. It observes a single unified reality, and breaks it up in to separate conceptual objects. That's what thought does, that's how it works. Thus for instance, we get the foundation of language the noun, whose function is to divide one part of reality from another.

Obviously, this division process is very powerful and the key to our physical survival. So we can't just dump it, just as a bird can't dump it's wings.

So thought is very powerful and necessary, but it comes with a big price tag, an illusion of division which infects everything it touches.

Because this illusion arises from the nature of thought itself, it doesn't help much to change around the thought content, because any idea we come up with will still be made of thought, still subject to the inherent properties of thought, still subject to the illusion of division.

Religion has a place, moral codes, advice on how to live etc. I'm not against religion unless it becomes violent, an attitude I've shared all over the forum.

But it's stupid to try to turn mysticism in to a religion. Just let the experience be. Respect it, allow it to be what it is. It doesn't need your help.



You've misunderstood my remarks, perhaps due to poor writing on my part. I never said everybody should stop thinking every minute of the day.



No, that's wrong, completely wrong. My logic is made up of typoholic arrogant pontificating bombastic flatulent burpings. Get it right!



A key source of conflict for endless centuries has been mystical experiences, that well meaning dumb people then tried to convert in to explanations, which were different than somebody else's explanations, so let's have a war about it. Just like we're doing in this thread.

If our mind is exhausted from over use, we can give it a rest. Only philosophers would take this and try to turn it into something really complicated.

I'm assuming participants of this thread don't need to teach the simple meditation exercises because after all, they are so advanced and so on.

Typist, I wish that I could give this post of yours a "Ten Star" Like . I love your mind, and when you get cranked up abit you are a pretty good "word mechanic" . Well Typist my friend, if I misunderstood your words before, there is no misunderstanding them now. Humm ? Mark Twain said, "A man pontificates on what he knows." You and I Typist pontificate because it is fun!

The arguments that you have created in this post are valid, as you and I both know. Typist I am the 64th fastest gun in the west and I am looking for number 65 and you may be number 63. This can not be good ! The intuitive mind against the intuitive mind and the problem is that your fears are extremely minimal. On top of that you don't have a hard and fast set pattern mind reality. Because of that you have the ability to adjust to the "flow" of things in a fluid sense.

So, if we (you and I) accept that the arguments that you have presented in the above quoted post are valid, then is it still ok for me personally to explore the mystic experience and if so, then what are the pitfalls I should be looking out for and be aware of as I explore this artificial reality ?

 

[Iti oj]

Typist, I wish that I could give this post of yours a "Ten Star" Like . I love your mind, and when you get cranked up abit you are a pretty good "word mechanic" . Well Typist my friend, if I misunderstood your words before, there is no misunderstanding them now. Humm ? Mark Twain said, "A man pontificates on what he knows." You and I Typist pontificate because it is fun!

The arguments that you have created in this post are valid, as you and I both know. Typist I am the 64th fastest gun in the west and I am looking for number 65 and you may be number 63. This can not be good ! The intuitive mind against the intuitive mind and the problem is that your fears are extremely minimal. On top of that you don't have a hard and fast set pattern mind reality. Because of that you have the ability to adjust to the "flow" of things in a fluid sense.

So, if we (you and I) accept that the arguments that you have presented in the above quoted post are valid, then is it still ok for me personally to explore the mystic experience and if so, then what are the pitfalls I should be looking out for and be aware of as I explore this artificial reality ?

attachment.

 

[YmirGF]

Well, it's crystal clear to me because I think about such things using my mind to help advance self-understanding, when I'm not on the meditation mat looking far beyond all that part of what is is to be human.

This part resonated with me and there is some truth that our inner explorations are at first tinged with an alien quality, until we are more accustom to the perspective, and oddly enough, that makes the human experience even more wonderful and sublime because it is understood to be so fleeting. This inner experience is so radical and so alien, at first, that I can readily understand that some might not to like to hear people talking about it. There is definitely a time where the individual is at a total loss for words on how to describe this silence. Fortunately, we are not fence posts and hopefully our understanding and growth continues. It's only much later that articulation of the processes becomes possible as the individual begins to see different ways to handle the topics without losing too much of the meaning.

For anyone who has been there, the flotsam and jetsam of my thinking and words will resonate with the reader as they go, "Ah, yes. Quite so." These words would rarely be taken literally, but others can distill my cast offs, integrating them into their own understanding, with little effort due to their own experiences. As you noted, the silence is perhaps the 1st stage, that of calming the thought process and reveling in the unencumbered view, but there is so much more beyond that stage. And yes, it is something that people need to learn to harness or master or what have you... but just appreciate that these are perhaps the first tiny steps on what could turn out to be a very, very long journey.

 

[mystic64]

I'm not sure why you should feel a need to wait? The only thing I'd say is that I may not respond to everyone all the time because really a matter of time. I spend a lot of time considering my thoughts I put into each post , so responses become pretty selective, but hopefully cover most of the gist of what other posters are saying. At least I think so.

You should always disagree with me if what I say doesn't sit right. It could be a case of you mishearing something I'm saying and I need to clarify my points, or I'm just not seeing something I should be and am off-tracking in what I'm saying. When the former is the case, it helps me to become a better communicator. When the latter is the case, it's exciting to me because it means I can learn more. So, please challenge me whenever you wish! It's a win-win for me. But if you're saying rather that everything I say resonates with you because it's what you see too, then that's cool. That's neat when we find others who speak our own minds for us. It pleases me when I can give voice to what people know themselves but don't know how to put into words.


I'd be a little clearer where fear comes into the ego. I could start a whole topic on the ego, but I'll be brief here. The ego is simply the "I" of self-identification. There are lots of Stages of Ego Development that humans go through where the ego (see the link), or the "I" begins as an undifferentiated fusion with the world. There is no separate self-sense. This then moves upward in an inverted hierarchy (growth hierarchies), to self-identification with the physical body, then to self-identifications with the mental objects of how one sees themselves in relation to others, to higher stages of growth where the locus of self-identification continues to expand in ever-widening circles. This can get more complex to talk about, as anything that are models of reality based on empirical observation can be, like the Theory of Evolution is as one example.

To pause for one second here, this what I am talking about has absolutely nothing to do with "Mystical explanations". These are actual studies in human development done by researchers using scientific methods. These have nothing to do with mystical states of awareness whatsoever, nor are they bloody metaphysics! This is actual research that I'm citing from researchers in these various fields of developmental studies. So all this clap trap about making the spiritual complex, and a big puffed up ego thing is just pure nonsense. This is just an understanding of the nature of reality for human development. How it plays into the spiritual for me, is as I've said before, ways to talk about how and why people relate to and understand the spiritual in their own lives, and groups, through being interpreted within these stages of development, which affect how one sees the world. Even if one sits in Silence, which I would preach everyone should learn how to do so!, they don't live their entire lives in a state of no-thought. They think about it afterwards!

Anyway, where fear comes in is in the mode of ego where our center of self-identification is with those mental objects about what makes me me and you you. We fear a loss of self because if those objects, those things we think about ourselves that we self-identify with are threaten, it is a death-fear experience. If they are threatened we fear the destruction of ourselves. This is where understanding the "nature of thought" comes in, which is being made into in this thread as the end-all-be-all realization to all human liberation. I am saying absolutely its essential to understand, and most people do not, but this is to me the first door. That's the first thing you become aware of, this nature of thought. I realized it the first time I meditated! It's a wonderful realization to be sure, but it's just the beginning of understanding that follows. It helps to liberate one from the exclusive "ego" identification into more subtle truth about the self, more cosmic knowledge of the self, and so forth. It's all about dislodging the center of gravity of one's self-identifications that we embed in the things we think.

Is this important to know? Absolutely! I wish everyone did. Is that the end game? Nope. It's just the very beginning truly transforming who we are in our lived experience where we do in fact use thought, and always will. It's about transforming those thoughts themselves, and the way they operate in us. I love what the Buddha says, "More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm." When we see the nature of thought, when we work with it, when we disidentify with it, we master it for ourselves as we function in the world.


I don't mind playing devil's advocate for the sake of challenging ones premises. I do it all the time in discussions with others. But when it becomes insulting and offensive to others, then its about something else. That's the small ego that can't be wrong. It becomes about trolling for some shadow or something else. That I don't have time for.

In my experience as a mystic, you reach a point where you are an observer looking through two lenses (the ying and yang of it all for the lack of any other term) and you do not identify with any of that which is observed. You are just pure observer with I (self present) just being on but not associated with anything including the concept of self. From there you look away from the two lenses and enter into the world of God (for lack of any other term). And this can not be done until one dumps all fear and when one dumps all fear what you are calling ego ceases to exist.

If one carries any residuals from the two lenses experience into the observer experience they well not be able to look away from the two lenses and they are then drawn back into the reality created by the two lenses. Yes they are probably changed in some profound way, but they are still drawn back into the two lenses reality. Yes there is a self present (awareness of self) that can exist without fear (maybe ) but even that is a residual that will draw one back into the reality created by looking through the two lenses. What one sees while looking through the two lenses is different and the reality of the two lenses is more controllable, but one is still drawn back into the reality that is created by the two lenses. One example of this are the mystics that reach that point and then return to the reality created by the two lenses to help others from within the reality that is created by the two lenses. And just for the record I am not one of those that returned to the reality created by the two lenses just for the sake of helping others. I returned for other reasons besides that. Most of which are very obscure , but they work.

 

[mystic64]

attachment.

Yep ! Yours is a very good assessment of things!

 

[YmirGF]

And this can not be done until one dumps all fear and when one dumps all fear what you are calling ego ceases to exist.

Though I encourage you to divest yourself of your fears don't bet the farm that your ego will no longer exist once all those fears are gone. The ego will be much happier and feel less threatened however and can then be consciously included in the reality of its larger identity, secure in its place in what I've come to call the civilization of the psyche. .

 

[Typist]

Having no interest in further explanations can certainly lead to complacent stagnation.

This helps us dig deeper YmirGF, thanks.

One of the issues being discussed is the possible necessity of growth, change, advancement along some path towards some goal.

Certainly we all agree growth is a desirable process in many regards, for instance in our careers. Clearly growth in some contexts is justly declared a positive.

But what, if anything, does growth have to do with mysticism? That's one of the questions under review here.

I'm attempting to make the case that personal growth, and the explanations which are seen to be a means to that end, are not what mysticism is about.

Mysticism is not an act like philosophy, where one works to build a conceptual building higher and higher, laying a foundation of understanding, erecting the walls of logical arguments, adding a second and third story as new ideas are born, and then defending the ideological structure from external threats.

Mysticism is not an act like religion, where we seek to become better people, more constructive members of society, part of a community etc.

Mysticism is an act of surrender.

Like meditation and love, mysticism is a form of death. In the silence, we don't become bigger and better, we are gone.

A process of growth implies we are driving the bus. We are doing this and that, we are understanding something or another, we proceeding from here to there, we are becoming more of whatever it is we think we should be. Me, me, me, the building of me.

That's not mysticism. That's psychology, or philosophy, or religion, or just plain old garden variety self absorption.

Mysticism is an act of surrender, a form of death. It's a quick visit to wherever it is we came from and where ever it is we will someday go. That's what heals us, being touched by that place, not anything we are doing.

But it only heals us for a bit, because in order to function as humans we have to return to the realm of thought, and thus once again have to pay the price tag that comes with this powerful tool.

And so mysticism is a simple act of maintenance, like eating or sleeping, not a march up some glorious mountain to whatever it is we think we need because we feel we're not already good enough as we are. We eat the meal of nothing, feel better for a bit, and before long need another meal.

Why oh why can we completely accept without complaint the need to eat every day of our lives, but when it comes to thought induced psychic hunger we demand some kind of permanent solution?

If we reject the silly notion of a permanent solution, of growth and change and advancement etc, then mysticism can be something very simple.

The problem for we philosophers is that we don't like simple, because it makes us largely irrelevant. With simple there's no way for us to build our self flattering personal identities by becoming an expert, someone in the know, a guru, a leader, and all of that.

For example, Windwalker is a tremendous resource. His knowledge is encyclopaedic, but more importantly he is extremely honest and considerate. He is, dare I say it, a genuine RF treasure.

So long as you keep flattering him, and helping him stay in his cozy routine, he'll be happy and like you. You can see above what will happen if try something else.

It's no different than challenging atheism or any other ideology, sloppy challengers can be enjoyed as they help the ideology strengthen itself, but effective challengers must be ignored, defeated or destroyed by some means or another.

Again guys, if you weren't building a towering structure of explanations and personal identity, there'd be nothing for me to attack, and nothing for you to defend. If you insist on building a fort out on the virgin prairie, then it's only a matter of time until some rowdy indians come along and burn it down.

That does not mean that one will not have to distill the information into their own terms of understanding.

Mysticism is not about information and understanding.

It's not about accumulating.

It's about surrendering.

 

[Windwalker]

Mysticism is not about philosophy. It's about surrender. 100% agreed. But then, there's the laundry.

 

[Typist]

Typist, I wish that I could give this post of yours a "Ten Star" Like . I love your mind, and when you get cranked up abit you are a pretty good "word mechanic" .

Still building my ego are you? Well, this means war you know!

Seriously, as every reader can see for themselves, I'm a writer not a role model. I see my job as a poster to try to add something to the conversation that's not already there. It's the reader's job to determine the degree to which I succeed or fail.

Mark Twain said, "A man pontificates on what he knows." You and I Typist pontificate because it is fun!

Yep, do I ever know pontification! It's one of the few things I have a natural knack for, and fun is the only real reason to do it because it pretty much never accomplishes anything beyond that, though the illusion of meaningful purpose can be strong so long as the keys are still hot and going clickety clack, clickety clack.

Typist I am the 64th fastest gun in the west and I am looking for number 65 and you may be number 63. This can not be good !

So, what is one to do if one sees one has a natural knack and incurable passion for a largely pointless activity? Have a sense of humor, look in the mirror and laugh at the absurdity. It could be worse, I could have smelly flatulence coming out the other end too!

The intuitive mind against the intuitive mind and the problem is that your fears are extremely minimal. On top of that you don't have a hard and fast set pattern mind reality. Because of that you have the ability to adjust to the "flow" of things in a fluid sense.

That's pretty insightful my flattering friend.

then is it still ok for me personally to explore the mystic experience and if so, then what are the pitfalls I should be looking out for and be aware of as I explore this artificial reality ?

If by "artificial reality" you mean the products of thought, I can only suggest what you're already doing, have fun and don't take it too seriously.

And when you're exploring the real world, be patient and give it some time, and don't be in a big rush to get back to the "artificial reality" of explanations. The real world has been doing just fine for billions of years without our help.

If you have to do some explanations as we all do from time to time, you might try personalizing reality with a name like Gaia, and thinking of "her" as your lover.

If you can, resist the temptation to try to analyze your lover, explain her, fix her up, improve her, that's always the path to trouble, eh?

Love her, but touch her lightly, give her space, let her be who she is.

Both you and she are already perfectly fine just the way you are, there's really nothing for you to do but relax and enjoy.

Yes, that's right, I'm a great guru, a teacher, a prophet. My real is His Flatulence Sri Baba Bozo, and I am the founder of Bozoism, the next great non-religious religion which teaches silence to the unwashed masses in as many words as possible.

 

[YmirGF]

This helps us dig deeper YmirGF, thanks.

One human animal's deep digging is another human animal's superficial pond skimming.

One of the issues being discussed is the possible necessity of growth, change, advancement along some path towards some goal.

Oddly, you won't hear about this imagined goal from me because from my perspective there is only expansion and growth. There is no final goal.

Certainly we all agree growth is a desirable process in many regards, for instance in our careers. Clearly growth in some contexts is justly declared a positive.

But what, if anything, does growth have to do with mysticism? That's one of the questions under review here.

I'm attempting to make the case that personal growth, and the explanations which are seen to be a means to that end, are not what mysticism is about.

Well, if you really want to dumb it down you could say that mysticism is all about nothing.

Mysticism is not an act like philosophy, where one works to build a conceptual building higher and higher, laying a foundation of understanding, erecting the walls of logical arguments, adding a second and third story as new ideas are born, and then defending the ideological structure from external threats.

Mysticism is not an act like religion, where we seek to become better people, more constructive members of society, part of a community etc.

Mysticism is an act of surrender.

I have certainly read my fair share of philosophical treatises and more than my share of religious works, but I can't say that I have ever been particularly enamored by any of them... though I was smitten with the Bhagavad Gita for a time.... that was now a very long time ago. I also don't particularly buy into the idea that mysticism is surrender. Surrender to silence? To nothingness? Seriously?

Like meditation and love, mysticism is a form of death. In the silence, we don't become bigger and better, we are gone.

To the novice perspective, perhaps. It sounds like you have a seriously stunted view of what personality is and its inherent facets. Pity. Oh, and for the record, in the silence "you" are not gone. You are very much aware of your existence in that silence.

A process of growth implies we are driving the bus. We are doing this and that, we are understanding something or another, we proceeding from here to there, we are becoming more of whatever it is we think we should be. Me, me, me, the building of me.

Ah yes, your strawman again. Pity I'm not talking about egotistical growth or the endless expansion of ego. I'm pretty confident saying that neither is the WindyOne. So, in the context of your strawman, no, this isn't all about the "me me me" syndrome. It's about the multidimensional nature of personality.

Mysticism is an act of surrender, a form of death. It's a quick visit to wherever it is we came from and where ever it is we will someday go. That's what heals us, being touched by that place, not anything we are doing.

These are definitely the words of a novice. I would agree, but in time, via continued experience one understands that once this realm of experience has been touched one never really leaves it.

{drivel snip}

If we reject the silly notion of a permanent solution, of growth and change and advancement etc, then mysticism can be something very simple.

Well, duh! That is actually a very revealing and unintentionally hilarious way to put it. No kidding, eh?

The problem for we philosophers is that we don't like simple, because it makes us largely irrelevant. With simple there's no way for us to build our self flattering personal identities by becoming an expert, someone in the know, a guru, a leader, and all of that.

Thank goodness I'm not interested in any of that sort of thing, LOL. I once had students but didn't like the experience so I cut that out again, a very, very long time ago.

Mysticism is not about information and understanding.

It's not about accumulating.

It's about surrendering.

Funny, I always thought it was about direct experience. Who knew it was about this surrender thingy? To what or to whom are we surrendering?

 

[YmirGF]

Mystic experience is the experience of life itself. The only death is the death of the individual self (ego).

With the greatest respect, Orbit, the only thing I would change here is, "The only death is the death of our limited ideas about self." The ego is not the bad black sheep of the psyche, but rather, it is a necessary integral part of the whole self. It's our ideas about the ego that cause so much angst that so many wish to be rid of it of what is perhaps the greatest of gifts... from our larger identity.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Mysticism is not about philosophy. It's about surrender. 100% agreed. But then, there's the laundry.

"Surrender" is an interesting comment, could you elaborate? One Buddhist teacher talked about embracing uncertainty.

 

[Typist]

These are definitely the words of a novice.

Do you see how your entire post is the selling of your "advanced" status? That's what I'm talking about, without the explanations, none of that is possible. Which is why you and our friend Windy are both pushing back the way you are. The self identity "expert" pose both of you appear to cherish is under threat, and you don't like that one little bit.

This is why I'm claiming that much of what you and Windy are talking about is really little more than an intelligent and articulate form of self delusion. And again, my posts really aren't intended to be about you personally, but about the millions of people who are getting sucked in to these same delusions. The mass New Age delusion is that we are liberating ourselves from ourselves, when the truth is we've just found yet another way to obsess about ourselves.

Don't take my word for it dear reader, go to any New Age type forum or thread, and observe for yourself that it's all about "me, me, me, me", my status, my situation, my progress, my advancement, my enlightenment or whatever other phoney baloney phrase might be popular at the moment.

If I challenge an atheist ideologue, they will likely get all snotty and fire back in anger. If I challenge a New Age ideologue, they will likely get all snotty and fire back in anger too. There is no meaningful difference, except that that New Age ideologue perhaps has a more complicated defense mechanism, as they desperately attempt to both win the debate, and pretend they are above it at the same time.

I'm not above any of this, and am playing all the same games myself. Thus, converting to my philosophies, replacing your explanations with mine, won't accomplish anything except perhaps make you a better debater.

That's because all the philosophies, ideologies and explanations are all made of the same thing, thought, and thus inherit the inherently divisive properties of thought. Thus, discussions and debates about mystic explanations are essentially pointless, because no matter what explanation we might settle on we wind up at the same place, a place which is not mysticism.

Yes, I'm a novice. And so are you. So are we all. None of us know what we're talking about.
The whole notion of "novice" is built upon a misguided delusion of progress, advancement towards some glorious goal, a process of becoming, which in turn is built upon....

A rejection of what we already are.

Some of us don't like who we think we are, so we invent a glamorous new story to replace the old sad story. This strategy only works so long as we isolate ourselves in tiny communities where everyone else will agree to support our fantasy in exchange for us supporting theirs. But once the story teller emerges in to the real world, it's only a matter of time until some bombastic butthead rips their story to shreds.

There's no need for any of the stories. It's ok to be a small inconsequential imperfect flawed human being. Once we stop rejecting being normal and ordinary, the need to advance will melt away, the towering pile of esoteric explanations will tumble to the ground, and there will less junk to surrender the next time we want to go mystical.

 

[Windwalker]

"Surrender" is an interesting comment, could you elaborate? One Buddhist teacher talked about embracing uncertainty.

Yeah, I thought about my hasty agreement with his comment yesterday, which was what I was responding to. I don't think I'd be so quick to say it that way again. I'll elaborate. In context, when he was saying mystical experience is about surrender and I was agreeing, I was thinking of the fact that we are laying aside identification with those mental self images we embed the "self" within. When we "surrender" them, it is in another sense embracing uncertainty. We voluntarily let go of our natural tendency to cling to and preserve those things we self-identify with, and as, in an embrace of the Unknown.

Where the term surrender comes in I think is it seems to have its roots in Christian symbolism, but the action is pretty much the same in all religions, that of letting go of the small self. It can be visualized as an offering to the Divine. "All that I am I give to thee", type of 2nd person approach. The effect of that positioning of one's self is to choose to set aside all that to willfully embrace the Silence, without fear. It's really like an act of faith, closing the eyes and falling into the Abyss where the small self is given up as in death, and our identity shifts to the Self. As we open ourselves through releasing, or surrendering, we are filled with divine Light. I am actually describing my own experience in all of this.

What happens is we let go of this exclusive identification with the egoic self image, and the "I" moves into the divine itself through various stages of higher "self". Each of these movements is a process of letting go, releasing our identification with that stage. Through intention, we willfully choose to let go into the higher, letting it fill us and move us into identification with it. The techniques, the tools, the processes of this will vary, but whatever vehicle one chooses to use to get from point A to point B, the destination is the same.

I'll quote something here I think is a wonderful description of this, and was something I was talking about to a bunch of people yesterday about the role of deity forms in Tibetan Buddhism,

But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. ... By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate'. At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype.


~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg. 85
​

This "surrender" is an attitude brought about through various ritual forms, prostrations, offerings, open hands, bowing head, to the deity form and so forth. It can also be simply just breathing, symbolically releasing all of yourself to the world before you (something I do frequently). This has the effect of setting aside all that identification with the small "egoic self". Then we identify with the higher self, the higher mind, the one not stuck inside this world of thoughts inside our heads in an endless whirlpool of swirling self-texts.

One last quote which I think is a perfect description of this process, and one which when I read I immediately recognized as my own experiences.

“There are lights which ascend and lights which descend. The ascending lights are the lights of the heart; the descending lights are those of the Throne. The false self is the veil between the Throne and the heart. When this veil is torn, and a door opens in the heart, like springs towards like. Light ascends toward light and light descends upon light, and it is ‘light upon light’.

When each time the heart sighs for the throne the throne sighs for the heart, so they come to meet. Each time a light ascends from you, a light descends toward you. If their energies are equal, then they meet halfway. But when the substance of light has grown in you, then this makes up a whole in relation to what is in the same nature in Heaven. Then, it is the substance of light in Heaven that longs for you, and is drawn to your light, and it descends toward you. This is the secret of the mystical journey.”

~9th Century Sufi mystic, Najim al-Din Hubra​

Eventually, this is who we become, and the egoic-self, is and still remains a part of you, just as your body does, but the center of gravity shifts away from the egoic-self, to the divine self. We never "get rid of the ego". That's like saying we should chop our feet off once we've grown into adulthood. We transcend the ego, only in the sense of it is no longer the seat of our self-identification as the body was when we were young children. Surrender is simply "letting go" of that stage of growth of the self into the next stage of growing up. Entering into mystical states simply exposes us to it. It's what we do in daily life with it that either makes the mystical a pleasant day trip to escape life, or the key to transforming us into its image, to becoming who we truly are beyond the egoic self.