The Debate of God.

[Prophet]

If it feels a bit like I'm making pronouncements in this message and things I'm saying require more examination before you can understand my meaning, please ask questions. I have a purpose here and this purpose is to disseminate useful information on the topic.

I want to talk a bit about a few words being tossed around here, particularly madness or insanity and how this thing pertains to Enlightenment.

First, I want to talk about insanity. First, I want to talk about what it looks like in its most basic form. The sane mind is united. The insane mind is divided. What do I mean by this? Psychological study has found that there exists part of the mind which is hidden from its being, giving it the name "subconscious." This is part of the mind which is effectively asleep and set apart from the rest of the mind. It does not escape me that this definition of insanity touches everyone.

The extent of the resulting insanity varies directly with the size of the subconscious. How do subconsciouses show their size? Well, for one, they've done brain scans on serial killers and found massive dead spots void of activity. That's just some corroborating evidence, but people with giant subconsciouses (We're not talking serial killers still. Think your common insane, unhappy jerk.) lack levels of self-awareness that most people take for granted. There is an obvious reason for this. We create the subconscious so we don't have to face our awful, selfish motives. That is what we hide there. This is how intrinsic good and evil is to the universe. In morality, motives are everything. The sentient mind is designed around this truth. Good causes sanity. Evil causes insanity.

Awaken your subconscious by defeating this insanity. Despite what some may say, you may reason your way to the Truth about everything, including, mostly importantly, who you are. The Kingdom of God is not found by waiting for it, but by searching for it before everything else. Strive to reason honestly with yourself and you will know yourself and all other knowledge you possess will be reorganized by the Divine wisdom you will attain in this pursuit, showing you the Truth, and setting you free. Enlightenment offers this.

 

[godnotgod]

Wrong. A glooback is a small handheld device that is used to alter the properties of light in order to make your walls look different colours. The more advanced models are capable of altering small areas, thus creating the illusion of artworks on your walls.

Right. I said you would have to know that a glooback is the opposite of a snarfle, which it is not, but if it were, it would follow the pattern of behavior I outlined. My point, though, is contained within your description of a Snarfle, which embodies both forgiveness and non-forgiveness in the form of punishment.

Unsupported claim!

Please show that the belief that there is nothing to figure out is the default position.

It is necessarily so, since to figure it out requires thought, and non-thought, or pure consciousness, precedes thought.

BTW, if there is nothing to figure out, how can there be a true nature of reality?

Where does the true nature of reality require that it be figured out?

If it doesn't try to figure out, how can it ever know if its effort to see things as they are is ever successful?

Seeing things as they are is an effortless, spontaneous event.

"Nothing we see or hear is perfect, and yet there, in the midst of the imperfection, lies Perfect Reality"
Shunryu Suzuki

I am not a universe. The universe is capable of holding at least a planet, and I'm fairly certain I'm not that large.

Haven't we already been over this? A component of a thing is different to the thing itself!

Once again, I am a component of the universe, not an entire universe itself.

Actually, you are a microcosm of the entire universe. Underneath the hood, your consciousness and that of the universe is one and the same. You are 100% integrated into the universe. Your ego is still telling you that self and other is a reality, when it is a complete illusion.

"You are not just a drop in the ocean, you are the mighty ocean itself"
Rumi

Show me where I said I thought I was a separate observer.

You did'nt have to SAY it.

Does this give you some clue as to why the mystic's claims can only rarely be tested, and when they are tested, they invariably fail that test?

What test is that?

Contradictions and unsupported claims.

The contradiction - the difference between madness and enlightenment is at once "Very slight" and also "huge".

Wee Tam and the Big Huge, tee hee hee...sorry, but if you don't understand this, I cannot explain it to you, or if I could, I would spoil it for you.

Unsupported claim- Rational mind carried out to its logical conclusion will self implode.

(Of course, if you are imagining the logical conclusion of something, then you are using your rational mind, and thus your mind has self-imploded, which would actually explain a great deal.)

It happens to people all the time, and it isn't their imagination. The koan is designed to deliberately short-circuit rational thought.

Yeah, I have trouble with moons in my water too. Damned pesky things... I can't even open my fridge without three or four moons falling out.

Seriously, what is your point? Was the moon's reflection in some way imprisoning her? If so, you should have explained that bit.

Don't be silly. I did'nt think you'd understand. Do you want more time to reflect on it? The key to understanding this story is intuitive, not intellectual, so the less explaining, the better.

 

[Prophet]

Heh...heh...heh...so-called 'moral law' is already a selfish pursuit, in that it is an attempt by the self-righteous to control the behavior of others via reward and punishment. The moralist is about the control of the human spirit, its extreme form having been the 400 year long Inquisition and all its horrors.

'pondfrogleapsplash' is MY rendition of perhaps THE most famous of Japanese Zen haiku poems, which has many, many translations. See here:

Matsuo Basho's Frog Haiku (30 translations)

One such translation goes like this:

Old pond
A frog jumps in–
The sound of water.

"Most of us have seen this haiku by Basho (1644–1694). It’s probably the most famous haiku ever written. What we weren’t told by our high school or grade school English teachers is that haiku come out of the spiritual life of the writer, and the best ones speak to the spiritual life of the reader. Dr. Rosen explained that the old pond represents a state of oneness with nature and a mind that has become still, egoless. Then the frog jumps in and the sound of water breaking the silence represents the something happening, satori, the moment of enlightenment. The haiku makes no reference to a past or a future or to a real or imagined self. It describes something that is very ordinary. Yet in the process of capturing it, the ordinary is transformed into something extraordinary. The poet and the object have become one."

Zen and the Art of Haiku

(As I said, I lost my previous post in cyberspace, and I will address the rest of your comments as I can)

That sounds like a description of Enlightenment from someone who had never experienced Enlightenment. I'm still unimpressed by its fame and rather saddened that it has been used to brainwash so many.

 

[godnotgod]

The contradiction - the difference between madness and enlightenment is at once "Very slight" and also "huge".

Perhaps this will shed some light on what I mean:

http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-enlightenment-misunderstanding-mind-14fb1df0-dc6.aspx

 

[Prophet]

That sheds no light. That is just what you said. Another unfalsifiable theory. More religious hot air.

 

[godnotgod]

That sounds like a description of Enlightenment from someone who had never experienced Enlightenment. I'm still unimpressed by its fame and rather saddened that it has been used to brainwash so many.

What is sad is your complete misunderstanding of it as 'brainwashing'. I wish you would cease and desist from using such an inappropriate word for what you think is misunderstanding.

What is not clear to me is what it is you are objecting to: the poem itself, or the misunderstanding of the poem? I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with the fact that, in the East, enlightenment is the realization that the ordinary and the miraculous are one and the same. Is that the problem you are having?

 

[godnotgod]

That sheds no light. That is just what you said. Another unfalsifiable theory. More religious hot air.

You are reading 'religion' into it, where no religion is to be found. 'Religion' is in your own head, not in the article. I understand perfectly what Osho is saying. What is it that you don't get?

 

[godnotgod]

"But by misunderstanding an enlightened man as being a madman you are certainly losing a tremendous opportunity"

Osho

This is exactly what happened to Yeshu, when he claimed he was the son of God, to the objection of the Jews.

 

[PolyHedral]

You are reading 'religion' into it, where no religion is to be found. 'Religion' is in your own head, not in the article. I understand perfectly what Osho is saying. What is it that you don't get?

Mind functions logically, rationally

Only with a lot of practice. Otherwise, it only looks like it does.

 

[godnotgod]

Only with a lot of practice. Otherwise, it only looks like it does.

Ah, but even the madman uses logic and reason. It all makes perfect sense to him, as in, 'there is a method to our madness'. When asked, he will explain it all to you quite matter of factly, without the blinking of an eye.

 

[godnotgod]

That sheds no light. That is just what you said. Another unfalsifiable theory. More religious hot air.

To be clear: I said that what I posted may shed some light on what I meant, meaning that it is an extrapolation of my statement that enlightenment and madness seem close, but are far apart.

 

[PolyHedral]

Ah, but even the madman uses logic and reason. It all makes perfect sense to him, as in, 'there is a method to our madness'. When asked, he will explain it all to you quite matter of factly, without the blinking of an eye.

But madmen, by definition, do not use logic to its fullest, correct extent.

 

[godnotgod]

This is how intrinsic good and evil is to the universe. In morality, motives are everything. The sentient mind is designed around this truth. Good causes sanity. Evil causes insanity.

Awaken your subconscious by defeating this insanity.

The more you try to defeat it, the stronger you will make it. What is required is to understand what its mechanisms are by shedding light on it. That alone will reveal what it really is, and will cause you no harm, unless you identify with it as 'MY evil'.

What causes moral Evil is moral Good, via of the pursuit of Reward and/or the avoidance of Punishment. The motive for even the worst of crimes is always some idea of what is 'Good'. The boss who murders his wife so he can be with his secretary in the Bahamas is motivated by some concept he considers to be 'Good'. Reward the deserving and you plant envy in the hearts of the undeserving. The American soldiers in Iraq who rape and murder Muslim women do so out of some sense of what they consider to be 'Good'. In all these, good and evil are relative values.

Sometimes Evil causes sanity, as when gang members become sickened with their own behavior and decide to make a turnaround because of it. And sometimes Good causes insanity, as when we went into Vietnam fully convinced that our mission was a good and noble one, but which turned out to be pure insanity.

The pursuit of Moral Good and Evil is a vicious circle the cessation of which is possible only via the quenching of desire for reward.

What is required is not the nurturing of dualistic morality, which is learned behavior, but its transcendence and the nurturing of one's own intrinsic Virtue. Morality creates an other-directed individual by some arbitrary external authority or law, while Virtue creates an inner-directed individual via spiritual enlightenment.

 

[godnotgod]

But madmen, by definition, do not use logic to its fullest, correct extent.

Neither do the enlightened.

Actually, they (madmen) do. Their rationales are VERY logical, even coldly and calculatingly so, with no remorse. They see their decisions as not only perfectly logical, but correct as well. Stalin, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler and other mass murderers come to mind. Remember Hitler even went so far as to use the 'science' of eugenics to justify the extermination of the Jews. In our own hemisphere, we very 'correctly' and 'logically' used the atomic bomb on the Japanese, with full rational justification. Napalm in Vietnam; the genocide of the American Indian rationalized by 'Manifest Destiny', and on and on and on. You see. This is why I keep saying that Enlightenment is transcendent of Reason.

Come to think of it, there is a kind of socially approved madness we pursue in the guise of sanity, the recent abuses of the banking and mortgage institutions coming to mind, and the derivatives market manipulations.

 

[cottage]

Except that the true nature of reality, the Absolute, is NOT reliant on experience, and is causeless. Only the phenomenal world is subject to cause and effect, but cause and effect ultimately are illusory, because the phenomenal world is illusory, just as the snake is illusory. The illusions of the phenomenal world and the snake are dependent upon the Absolute and the rope, respectively, and not the other way around.

You keep trying to explain what I say in terms of duality.

And that’s because you cannot escape it! You deny all forms of dualism, such as perfection, and then the next minute contradict yourself by inviting us to make progress towards a perfect state (Post 1459). So, once more, the question is how do we become happier in true reality if the concept of happiness is an illusion?

And do you remember saying this? “There is only Enlightenment itself. In other words, 'Self' is Enlightenment. Because the Self is eternal, Enlightenment is always present. “The clue to why the Self decides to transform itself into all the myriad forms of the world…”

Transformation is an instance of causality.

Why the Absolute cannot be defined or explained:

Which you then go on to define and explain!

The Absolute:

“An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception.”

This is the Absolute, the ONE Reality, the “one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, conditioned, being.” It is the “Infinite and Eternal Cause” but not the “FIRST Cause.” The “First” cannot be the ABSOLUTE, for by its very nature the “first” is a manifestation…and the Absolute, the Infinite, the One Reality, is not a manifestation and cannot be described in any concrete terms. “First Cause” means something which is the first to be brought forth and is therefore finite and conditioned. But the Absolute is not brought forth from anywhere. It is the “Causeless Cause” and the “Rootless Root”…the “Abstract ALL.”

... the Absolute has no name – and CAN have no name – in reality, as It is the Great Undefinable and the Great Indescribable. It IS all and IN all.

... “It is...devoid of all attributes [as in personal attributes or personal characteristics] and is essentially without any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is “Be-ness” rather than Being, and is beyond all thought or speculation. It is “the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e. that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol.

.... the MANIFESTED Universe is... “pervaded by duality” but... “the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the ONE UNITY in which they are synthesised.” There is no ULTIMATE duality in Nature. Matter is crystallised Spirit…Spirit is rarefied Matter…really, there is only ONE.

All that text and shouted capitals and it is still just one more metaphysic among many, a speculative belief no different to any other religion and with no way its advocates can even prove it to themselves, never mind demonstrate it as something true.

 

[cottage]

No. The background to existence is not a doctrine at all. You ask what form it takes, but the nature of the Absolute is undifferentiated formlessness.

I’m not referring to shape, style or configuration when I speak of you not knowing the form of the ‘background’. I’m talking about what it is that supposedly makes it a truth, or in other words why you cannot be mistaken. And it is because you are unable offer any explanation to that effect that your argument is shown to be a mere doctrine held as a belief.

Again, all I am saying is that you, in referring to the phenomenal wold, are seeing it in a one-sided fashion, not taking that which it exists against into account. You just ignore it completely, as if to say that there is only the reality of the phenomenal world, which is no reality at all?

And here we are again with just another meaningless passage: “…as if to say that there is only the reality of the phenomenal world, which is no reality at all?” You make statements as assumptions, but never support them.

If it is not real, it is quite obvious that you must know that it is unreal against that which is real, but you choose not to acknowledge that necessary principle.

‘If’….’if’…’if’… And if I were a rich man I wouldn’t be poor; and if a thing is red then it is not blue. You are still not saying anything at all other than uttering a tautology.
The world and the way it is composed is real, but if there is as you claim a further reality then that is something for you to demonstrate, which to date you’ve been signally been unable to do while unwittingly reminding us of your reliance on the very thing you seek to escape. It’s all just talk and a belief-as-faith.

In short, you cannot have form without formlessness. The one implies the other. But form, like the snake, is the illusion, so what is real is only the formless, which is the background, the Absolute, and it is this background which, to answer your question, takes the form of the phenomenal world, which is illusory. This is the play of maya and lila, in which the Absolute is pretending to be all the forms of the phenomenal world in the cosmic game of Hide and Seek.

So then, here in your own words we have duality, cause and effect and a direct contradiction.

As for my argument being 'dependent upon the contingent world', it is the contingent world that points to the Absolute, as the Absolute is one and the same as the contingent world. They are not two separate things.

Your ‘points to’ is merely a belief. And it is logically impossible for the ‘Absolute’ to be one and the same as the contingent world’. I’ll leave you to think about that.

'The universe IS the Absolute as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation'.

It is because you see it through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation that you see it as the contingent world. In actuality, what you call the 'contingent world' is neither contingent, nor not-contingent. To see it as being contingent is to see only its manifested forms, but not its source, and you fail to see it as it is because of maya and lila. You fail to see that what you think is a 'snake' is none other than the rope, which testifies to just how good the illusion actually is.

That is utterly wrong in all respects, and it shows a graphic misunderstanding of what is meant by the term ‘contingent’. The Universe is contingent, ie only a possible world, and thus it cannot be the ‘Absolute’ because not one scrap of matter has any logically necessary existence. Therefore everything about your argument is self-defeating since you must either contradict yourself by claiming a thing to be certain and yet merely possible (Absolute and not Absolute), or you remain firmly stuck in the experiential world. And with regard to that last point you’ve shown over and over again that you can make no case at all without calling upon the principle of causation, a feature of the experiential world!

The rope and snake thing has become a worn out cliché, which in any case is turned on his head by the common acknowledgement and understanding of perceptual errors, and the required adjustments. If the snake is discovered to be a rope then we are not deceived other than for that moment and therefore the intellect, that is to say the mind, is proved to be greater than the senses. And that of course is something we already knew, for the conscious mind is logically prior to everything, which self-evidently must include mystical belief systems.

 

[godnotgod]

And that’s because you cannot escape it!

Escape what? There is nothing to escape from, since duality is illusory. All that is required is to SEE it for what it is. That alone dissolves the illusion.

You deny all forms of dualism, such as perfection, and then the next minute contradict yourself by inviting us to make progress towards a perfect state (Post 1459). So, once more, the question is how do we become happier in true reality if the concept of happiness is an illusion?

Suffering is temporal and relative. It will end at some point, and is always understood in terms of relative joy, which also is temporal and relative. It is to this relative joy that you refer to as being illusory, and because it is illusory, brings relative suffering. But there is another kind of Joy that has no opposite and is eternal: that is Absolute Joy, which is Perfect Happiness. This state is already present and complete within us, but we fail to realize it because of our illusory pursuits and their negative outcomes.
*****

Causeless Joy

"The more we let go, the more we find this natural sense of happiness, joy, and peace arising all on its own without us having to really do anything deliberately. I call this arising natural because it is uncaused, unforced, uncreated, unmanifested, and unfiltered. It’s pure and untouched, just as it is.

There is this ground of being, [the Absolute] the felt sense of “I Am”, one’s very own existence, Life itself manifesting as an apparent person. It is this unchanging constant silent presence that is the true source of joy, that IS Joy itself.

To BE is itself already a huge gift. When we live in the domain of the mind, there is a vacillation between “life is good” and “life sucks” and we tend to do whatever we think will make us feel better, but very often what we think will work doesn’t, hence the saying “be careful what you wish for” (because you just may get it and realize that it doesn’t actually give you what you wanted fundamentally… happiness and joy)

The more the mind and all its conceptual spinnings can be free to just fall away on their own in their own time, the more this ground of being can move from the background into the forefront of conscious awareness.

When we think that joy is a result, that it has a cause which comes as a result of some accomplishment or attainment, then we will seek to maintain this temporary event as long as possible, or to keep creating and recreating it, lest we lose that which we want. No! Anything but that!

Yet when we go deep enough within and discover for ourselves the presence of the ground of Being and what it depends on (if anything) in order for joy to be present, the more we can stop imposing all these unnecessary and artificial conditions upon our happiness and just BE. We discover that somehow, this itself is entirely sufficient. The quality and nature of Being may itself inspire positive emotion, yet it itself is somehow beyond emotional condition and thus it is free of the emotional pendulum swing. [from relative suffering to relative joy]. The presence of Being is NOT lost when you feel bad and so emotions need not be feared as if they cover this up."

Causeless Joy, What Does Our Happiness Depend On? | You Are Truly Loved

If you have the time, please watch the following video:

[youtube]GpHBgWqchxM[/youtube]
Causeless Happiness - YouTube

 

[godnotgod]

All that text and shouted capitals and it is still just one more metaphysic among many, a speculative belief no different to any other religion and with no way its advocates can even prove it to themselves, never mind demonstrate it as something true.

Because the Absolute is within, it CAN be demonstrated as true, unlike religious belief, which is a model of what one only imagines to be real.

 

[godnotgod]

I’m not referring to shape, style or configuration when I speak of you not knowing the form of the ‘background’. I’m talking about what it is that supposedly makes it a truth, or in other words why you cannot be mistaken. And it is because you are unable offer any explanation to that effect that your argument is shown to be a mere doctrine held as a belief.

As I previously stated, the phenomenal world and the Absolute are one and the same. You and I are manifestations of the Absolute, which lies within. There is nothing that makes the Absolute true reality; it IS true reality itself.

It cannot be a belief or a doctrine, since both of these require thought, and the realization of the Absolute is always without thought.

So then, here in your own words we have duality, cause and effect and a direct contradiction.

There is neither duality nor cause and effect because the phenomenal world is an illusion, but is, at the same time, at one with the Absolute, simply because it IS the Absolute manifesting itself as the phenomenal world, which only makes it seem as if there is duality and cause and effect, in precisely the same manner as the rope only seems to be a snake. There is no contradiction except for the one in your dualistic mind.

 

[godnotgod]

The rope and snake thing has become a worn out cliché, which in any case is turned on his head by the common acknowledgement and understanding of perceptual errors, and the required adjustments. If the snake is discovered to be a rope then we are not deceived other than for that moment and therefore the intellect, that is to say the mind, is proved to be greater than the senses. And that of course is something we already knew, for the conscious mind is logically prior to everything, which self-evidently must include mystical belief systems.

Ha! There are two points to be made here:

One is that there are perceptual errors at all, indicating the faultiness of the rational mind, and Two, it is the faulty rational mind that still sees the rope as real, when, in fact, there is no such thing as 'rope' as well as no 'snake'. This is where the metaphor cannot go any further in being a symbol for the Absolute. In addition, we DO discover that the 'snake' is nothing but the rope, but we do NOT discover that the universe is the Absolute due to heavy indoctrination and conditioning. The mind is no greater than the senses simply because the mind is conditioned, and so, does not see things as they actually are, but as its conditioning tells it they are. Hence, it sees Time, Space, and Causation as real, when they are nothing but illusions. The mind is simply a set of self-created constructs which serve us in a limited sense which helps us navigate the world of 'things'. True reality is neither mind nor things. If your consciousness is seated in the Absolute, you will not see a snake where there is a rope; you will see the universe for what it is: the Absolute itself. You either see things as they are, or you do not. That is all.

"Nothing we see or hear is perfect, and yet there, in the midst of the imperfection, lies Perfect Reality"
Shunryu Suzuki, founder, San Francisco Zen Center

There are no 'mystical belief systems'; however, there are religious belief systems.