The Debate of God.

[godnotgod]

I'd be surprised, since it's impossible to know yourself precisely.

Well, we talk about our 'human nature' all the time. Our human nature is, essentially, who and what we are. Are you saying that no one really knows who or what we are; that all of that talk about our 'human nature' is nothing but concoction?

 

[godnotgod]

Meditation and the act of expression are both examples of selfishness.

No. The selfishness you see is the result of your looking at them from the outside; through the glass of your discriminating, intellectualizing, conditioned mind.

And if a thing is to express it’s ‘true’ nature then ipso facto there must be a state of affairs that isn’t true. But if that state of affairs isn’t true then how can it be said there is a thing identified with this state that expresses its true nature?

The snake is not expressing a true nature; the rope is, but only when it is seen that it is not a snake.

In that case why meditate?

Because we don't remember that we already have it. Having become lost in Identification, we have (almost) completely lost touch with our true nature.

And more to the point, who or what is doing the meditating?

There is no agent of meditation; there is only meditation itself.

Then so is every aspect of your argument, since it is necessarily grounded in the principle of cause and effect.

Here is just one of your examples:

“The clue to why the Self decides to transform itself into all the myriad forms of the world…”

By 'transform' I mean 'manifest as'. In manifesting itself as the universe, the Absolute is doing nothing, because the manifestation is an apparition, just as the manifested 'snake' is an apparition of the rope:

Transformational Causation

Now the rules that govern transformational causation are very well understood at the universities. The energy that goes into an operation at the beginning comes out at the end. Although the form of the energy may change, you never get any new energy that way. It's like pouring gold. You melt it and pour it into a set of forms. Then you remelt it and pour it into another set of forms. You never get rich that way. No matter how many times you remelt it, you never get any new gold. Transformational causation is like that. What you put in at the beginning comes out at the end. It is governed by the conservation laws. Whether it's matter, energy, momentum or electrical charge -- whatever you put in at the beginning comes out at the end. And since the Universe is made out of energy, the changes of which are governed by these conservation laws, the Universe cannot have arisen through transformational causation. It cannot have come out of nothing.

Apparitional Causation

But what I have referred to as apparitional causation is a very different thing. When you mistake a rope for a snake, the rope is not transformed into a snake. It's just a mistake, and it's something you're doing now. So the question is not: "How did the Absolute become the Universe?" That can't be answered. The Absolute has not become the Universe. The question is, " Why do we see it that way?... Why do we continue to make this mistake? Why are we unable to see through the apparition?"

extracted and edited from:
http://quanta-gaia.org/dobson/EquationsOfMaya.html

A ‘word-thought’? Thought and mind are the same species.

Yes, the mind is also nothing more than a thought itself. When you are not thinking about your 'mind', it is not there. It reappears immediately and without notice when you shift your attention back to yourself via self-reflection. Via meditation, concentrated attention, and the expansion of consciousness, one can observe this process.

You’ve got yourself into a bit of a pickle here.
You said the illusory self is identified on the Third Level of Consciousness, but on the Fourth Level there is only “observation of the self and its thoughts”, simply watching the thoughts arise and subside.
I’m sorry but your every response just seems to be an exercise in covering your back. And that is a classic demonstration of a prior self-regard, where the argument must be adjusted to defend the sensibilities of the poster. But that’s all quite normal, actually.

I fail to see any such pickling here, other than your own, which is your logic painting yourself into a corner, and then pointing the finger at me.

No, I did not say that the 'illusory self is identified on the Third Level'; I said that the illusory self is in the state of Identification on the Third Level. The subtle change of words changes the meaning entirely. Be careful when paraphrasing others via your own mental filters.

On the Third Level, that of Identification, one thinks that the self is real; one is identified with it; immersed in it. But when the true nature comes into play on the Fourth Level, that of Self-Transcendence, there is no self that observes; there is only observation, without an observer, of the activities of the illusory self on the Third Level, acting out its drama, that is not just pretending to be the character in the play, but completely lost in the character to the extent that one actually believes he is, in fact, that character.

I am trying to paint a picture of just how difficult it is to wake up from the Third Level. The reinforcements that keep people asleep are extremely powerful, and people who are asleep do what is necessary to keep others asleep as well out of security issues.

 

[godnotgod]

Self-transcendence

A man's chance of attaining the fourth state of consciousness depends on whether or not he has experienced this state. If he does not even know it exists, he will not long for it any more than a bird born and raised in captivity can know what freedom is like or long for freedom. Man can, and from time to time does, experience the fourth state as a result of some religious emotion, under the influence of a work of art, in the rapture of sexual love or in situations of great danger and difficulty. In these circumstances it is said that he "remembers himself." This term is not entirely descriptive of the fourth state but it is the best available. Self-remembering is a certain separation of awareness from whatever a man happens to be doing, thinking, feeling. It is symbolized by a two-headed arrow suggesting double awareness. There is actor and observer, there is an objective awareness of self. There is a feeling of being outside of, separated from, the confines of the physical body; there is a sense of detachment, a state of non-identification. For identification and self-remembering can no more exist together than a room can simultaneously be illuminated and dark. One excludes the other.

Several characteristics of the fourth state of consciousness have been described by A. Maslow in a chapter entitled "Peak Experiences as Acute Identity Experiences." He emphasizes the paradoxical quality of this state: "The greatest attainment of identity, autonomy or selfhood is itself simultaneously a transcending of itself, a going beyond and above selfhood. The person can then become relatively egoless."

One statement in this chapter by Maslow calls for some elaboration: "Peaks are not planned or brought about by design; they happen." This may be perfectly true, but does not have to be. The whole practice of Creative Psychology is based on the hypothesis that man can change his level of being through intentional effort properly guided and persistently exerted. As a result of this effort, he will attain the fourth state of consciousness (roughly corresponding to Maslow's peak experience) with increasing frequency. He will also get glimpses of the fifth state of consciousness. The difference between experiencing these states by accident and inducing them deliberately is like that between finding money in the street and earning it by the sweat of one's brow. One may find money now and then, but it is not an event to be relied upon. In the same way, some drug experiences may produce a state akin to self-remembering and generate what Baudelaire called "The Taste of the Infinite." There are several ways of getting glimpses of the interior of the fourth room or even the fifth which a person may stumble upon more or less accidentally. This is not at all the same thing as finding the key and unlocking these chambers. For this, both effort and knowledge are required.

Once a man knows that the fourth room exists, he reaches a parting of ways so far as his life is concerned. He can either try to forget all about the fourth room, behave as if it does not exist, lapse again into the state of total identification, or he can decide to play the Master Game and set about looking for
someone to teach him the technique. Two factors will influence his decision: the intensity of his dislike of sleep and the intensity of his longing for real awakening. These are the stick and the carrot which between them get the donkey moving. The struggle to unlock and enter the fourth room and, having entered it, to remain there, is a task so difficult under the conditions of modern life that few undertake it and even fewer succeed. It may well be that even the appetite for this adventure is gradually disappearing from the psyche of man. In this respect, the words of Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra may be relevant:

Alas! there comes the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man. . . .

Lo! I show you the last man.

The earth has become small and on it hops the last man who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable like the ground flea; the last man lives longest.

It may be asked at this point why should one make great efforts to enter the fourth room when things have been made so easy and pleasant in the third room. For there is no doubt about it; we of the so-called advanced nations live, on the whole, like kings. Better than kings. Not all the wealth of Croesus could have brought him even so commonplace an experience as a flight through the air, nor did all the riches of Egypt suffice to give Cleopatra freedom from the pangs of childbirth. The great ones of antiquity were as prone to pestilence as the meanest of their slaves. Even for the rich, life was dangerous and uncomfortable. For the poor, it was one long struggle to keep body and soul together.

Things are very different now. Watched over from cradle to grave by a paternalistic government, protected from overwork by unions, from hunger by the bounty of a scientific agriculture, from pestilence by an art of medicine so advanced that all the great plagues of antiquity have been conquered, soothed by tranquilizers or stimulated by antidepressants, perpetually hypnotized by the unending circuses offered by television, radio, the movies, why should we ask for more? When the third room is comfortable, safe and full of delights, why should we strive to ascend to the fourth? What does it have to offer that the third room does not?

The answer, of course, is freedom. Only when he enters the fourth room does a man become free. Only in the fourth state of consciousness is he liberated from the tyranny of the personal ego and all the fears and miseries that this entity generates. Once he has attained the fourth room and learned to live in it, a man becomes fearless. The words "I" and "mine" have ceased to be meaningful. He does not identify the self with the physical body or attach much importance to the possessions of that body. He feeds it, dresses it, cares for it and regulates its behavior. In due course he leaves it. One of the powers conferred by entry into the fourth room is the capacity to die at will.

Man in the third room may think he is his own master but actually has no control over his actions. He cannot so much as walk down a street without losing his attention in every stray impression that "takes his fancy." Man in the fourth room really is his own master. He knows where he is going, what he is doing, why he is doing it. His secret is that he remains unattached to the results of his activity, measures his success and failure not in terms of outward achievement, but in terms of inner awareness. He is able, as a result of his knowledge of forces at work about him, to know what is possible and what is impossible, what can be achieved and what cannot be achieved.

This may sound like a small accomplishment but it is actually a very large one. Dabblers in various forms of occultism and theos-ophy, dilettantes who play with what they imagine to be yoga, show a pathetic naivete when it comes to evaluating what can and what cannot be obtained by these means. All sorts of miraculous achievements are accepted as possible, for man in the third state of consciousness tends to love miracles and to believe all sorts of nonsense that could not possibly happen. In the fourth state of consciousness such naivete disappears. A man knows what combination of forces can produce what sort of result. He knows that everything happens in accordance with certain laws governing the relations of matter and energy. He knows that there is no miracle and anything that appears to be a miracle is merely a manifestation of some rare combination of forces, like the rare combination of skill and knowledge that enabled the master magician, Houdini, to extricate himself from every form of restraint that was ever applied to him.
*****

excerpted from: The Master Game, by Robert De Ropp

 

[Tiberius]

GNG, when will you learn to provide EVIDENCE along with these claims?

 

[nnmartin]

God doesn't need evidence to be provided of him - life is evidence itself!

Now why do you keep asking for evidence of God - in fact why bother with a religious forum at all if you even need to ask such a question?

 

[Heathen Hammer]

Probably to try showing that the idea that 'existence is evidence enough' is an incorrect idea.

 

[nnmartin]

that can never be proved, as evidenced by this thread - nearly 2000 posts long.

but still, why bother with all this religious talk and debate if you are a complete atheist - aren't there better things to discuss?

 

[Heathen Hammer]

Better ask one of the atheists.

It's not about what can be proved, it's about bad ideas not dieing as they should.

As a theist in support of truth, there is nothing more important to discuss than to free people from the slavery of irrationality.

'Existence is proof enough' is failed reasoning.

 

[cottage]

The motive for meditation can indeed be selfish. That is why it is said that if you think you are going to become Enlightened by sitting on your meditation mat, you are deluded. That motive is called 'having a gaining idea'. However, at some point during meditation, the fictional self that maintains such a gaining idea drops away, so there remains only meditation itself, without a meditator, and hence, without a gaining, or selfish motive.

So there is a selfish person or thing, which doesn’t exist, but it has a motive and meditates? Oh do be serious!

To say what you just said is like saying that breathing and walking are examples of selfishness, but selfishness is only a motive maintained by the illusory (small) mind. The unselfish (Big) mind does not exist to realize such ends, but is being itself without a motive for such being. Being is already the condition. It does not involve becoming, so no desire or selfish motive is of any import.

Breathing and waking are indeed graphic examples of selfishness! Anyway, if the meditating thing is illusory then how does this illusory thing ‘go see’ for itself, since both the thing and the act of meditating are an illusion?

Either one sees things as they are, or one does not. When you see things as they are, there is no seeing things as they are not. There is only the rope; there never was a 'snake'.

But by your own admission things are being seen as they are not, and something is failing to see things ‘as they are’. If ‘illusory’ is to mean that perception is false then there can be no single and universal true reality! Hence reality is demonstrably not simple (indivisible).

 

[cottage]

re: 'self' vs 'Self': a comparison can be made with the simple analogy of a wave on the surface of the sea. While both are made of the same substance, water, the wave is form, while the sea is formlessness. The wave emerges from the formless sea, and returns to it. It is temporal, while the sea is eternal, metaphorically speaking, of course. Were the wave capable of thought, it can either think itself a separate entity from the sea, which is an illusion, or think itself always a part of it. In thinking itself a separate entity, it is self-created. This is self. In thinking itself always a part of the formless sea, it realizes it is only empty form. It has no substantive existence other than its own thought of itself as real. There is no such thing as a 'wave', just as there is no such thing as a 'self', as both are energy events. In thinking itself real and separate from the source that is the sea, it creates an image of itself as an object, which is nothing more than a frozen concept invented and continually re-invented within consciousness.

You keep talking about the 'prior self', but you never explained its origin. 'Prior self' is an idea about something. What is it that is maintaining that idea?

In fact it is you who argues to a Self, not me! My response is that it leads to self-contradiction and absurdity. The prior-self is the antithesis.

See my response to your post 1838.

It is not the temporal self that is involved in unconditional giving; it is the eternal, universal, unborn, ungrown, birthless, deathless, formless, impersonal, Self that is Pure Consciousness without thought that is involved. There is no self that gives; there is only the pure act of giving with no ulterior motive involved. It is quite simple, perhaps too simple for the rational mind to understand.

‘Pure consciousness’ is a concept that refers to the incorporeal, self-aware mind, and it is defined by thought. And, with respect, a ‘pure act of giving with no motive’ is unadulterated tripe. How can pure act of giving be generous, charitable, laudable, beneficent or purposeless? And what is being given and what is being received? And what is this motiveless thing that gives and what is this deserving thing that receives?

re:

'but the needy recipients cannot exist if you say they are illusory. And since giving also requires a receiver we see once again the reliance on causation.':

Remember that the 'snake' (relative self) is still the rope (Absolute Self).

If there is only the Absolute then there cannot be any relative self, real or imagined.
And you’ve already said this: “The clue to why the Selfdecidesto transform itself into all the myriad forms of the world…”

There is no separate 'giver' and 'receiver'. They are one and the same; there is only one action, and that is 'giving-receiving', since, as you say, the one cannot exist without the other. Also take note that, in the Yin/Yang symbol, each half contains within it the essence of the other.

That is utter nonsense. Giving and receiving are two actions, not one! A single thing can be a both giver and a receiver but it still involves another party to make an exchange. And if there is no separate giver and no receiver there can be no charitable act. A thing that gives to itself is selfish.

 

[cottage]

However, it is because of his cognitive status that he was unable to make the distinction. He was still approaching the question from the point of view of the thinking mind, rather than the awakened mind. His thinking mind was trying to figure out the issue rationally, an issue that is non-rational by nature.

Descartes cognitive state, or his particular existence, is irrelevant to the issue of how is it can be known that everything is not just a dream, including the ‘awakened mind.’ It all hinges on the question I asked you, which you’ve still not answered, many posts back: What is this world of facts, devoid of those same facts, that can be seen as ‘true’, and by what criterion of truth do you ‘know’ it to be such? If you can answer that question, without resorting to airy assertions or absurd invitations to go where you’ve not been yourself, then the dreaming question is answered.

My question to you had to do with your ordinary nightly sleep-dream state compared to your ordinary everyday awakened state. When we awaken from the sleep-dream state, we KNOW that we are awake, and that we were asleep and had been dreaming, at least as far as our ordinary consciousness tells us. How do you know the difference?

I don't know the difference, that’s what I keep telling you! And from what you’ve just written it’s plain that you don’t either. For what is ‘ordinary sleep-dream state if everything is being dreamt?

It is the same way of knowing the difference between illusion and reality. There is something revealed to us in both states that shows us clearly the difference, and what shows us the difference is mind that knows the true state of reality. The reference for such knowing is always in place.

When we are dreaming, we do not know we are dreaming. Just the fact that the question of whether we are dreaming or not arose is an indication that something in our consciousness suspects something. Something is not quite right for the dream to be authentic reality, and we know it.

In the same way, in our state of waking sleep, the Third Level of Consciousness, or Identification, we do not know we are asleep, dreaming the 'reality' we only think is real, but for some, there is something telltale that they notice, that gives the dream away as a dream. That something is their true nature, partially awakened, that sees, that knows.

The ordinary man cannot tell the difference between a forgery and an original, but the expert eye can detect such differences. And so it is with the perfect vision of the awakened mind in its immediate detection of ordinary 'reality' as a dream.

You are struggling here with lots of words but still no answer. You said ‘just the fact that the question of whether we are dreaming or not arose is an indication that something in our consciousness suspects something’. Seemingly it does not occur to you that we dream that also? The rest is just asserted beliefs and question begging statements such as: ‘The reference of knowing is always in place.’

One of Chuang Tzu's continuing interests was the issue of the interchangeability of appearance and reality. He sometimes asks (almost in a Cartesian way), 'How can we be sure of what we are seeing?

"Those who dream of the banquet may weep the next morning, and those who dream of weeping may go out to hunt after dawn. When we dream we do not know that we are dreaming. In our dreams we may even interpret our dreams. Only after we are awake do we know that we have dreamed. But there comes a great awakening, and then we know that life is a great dream. But the stupid think they are awake all the time and believe they know it distinctly."

"Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed I was a butterfly and was happy as a butterfly. I was conscious that I was quite pleased with myself, but I did not know that I was Tzu. Suddenly I awoke, and there was I, visibly Tzu. I do not know whether it was Tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming that he was Tzu. Between Tzu and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is called the transformation of things."


Chuang Tzu, Chinese Taoist

I'm not sure why you think that quoting a doctrine, a dogmatic belief, in any way supports your own assertions?


And it doesn't go unnoticed that he is still quite unable to show that he didn’t dream his great awakening.

 

[cottage]

So if the self is the result of the application of conscious thought, then it must be self-created, which is what I have been saying to you. In other words, it is an illusion! There is no 'self' prior to anything simply because it is a boogeyman!

Well, I see you’ve misconceived the argument. So I’ll make a concerted effort to explain it succinctly and explore it with you.
First we’ll have a quick summary in very simple terms. I’ve consistently maintained that there is no identifiable, that is to say demonstrable, self or Self as an intelligent, existent entity. But when you, prophet, or anyone else argues that there is such an entity then it follows that it must logically be prior, ie selfish, and therefore when any charitable act is described as ‘selfless’ it immediately renders the argument absurd. Okay? Now the self is non-demonstrable as an existent entity, thus the statement: ‘There is no existent Self’ implies no contradiction, for the concept of self is nothing other than a logical relationship between ideas. But if an argument is being made from a distinct or discrete thing to some act or expression then the thing is logically prior to what follows from it, for there is no effect without its antecedent cause, and where there is a supposed intelligence or self-awareness of any form, stated or assumed, every act or expression is necessarily sustaining, or beneficial in some way, and subsequent to the intelligent entity itself. The obverse leads to a direct contradiction. But, as I’ve already explained elsewhere, although the concept of self is necessarily prior to any stated act that is attributed to it, we cannot logically separate the act from the self, or the predicate from the subject, any more than we can remove one of the triangle’s three sides. But there is no contradiction in rejecting the self and the act or, in other words, we can dismiss subject and predicate together. For example, X claims to have done charitable act Y. Y is contingent upon X and so Y cannot happen without X. But the logically necessary relationship disappears if there is no X and no Y (no cause, no effect, no self, no contradiction).

 

[cottage]

No. The selfishness you see is the result of your looking at them from the outside; through the glass of your discriminating, intellectualizing, conditioned mind.

You say ‘No’, and yet when I said ‘Meditation and the act of expression are both examples of selfishness’, you agree in principle, since you’ve written elsewhere: “The motive for meditation can indeed be selfish.”

The snake is not expressing a true nature; the rope is, but only when it is seen that it is not a snake.

Okay, so if the rope is expressing its true nature then ipso facto there must be a state of affairs that isn’t true. But if that state of affairs isn’t true then how can it be said there is a thing identified with this state that expresses its true nature?

Because we don't remember that we already have it.

Having become lost in Identification, we have (almost) completely lost touch with our true nature.

There is no agent of meditation; there is only meditation itself.

By 'transform' I mean 'manifest as'. In manifesting itself as the universe, the Absolute is doing nothing, because the manifestation is an apparition, just as the manifested 'snake' is an apparition of the rope.

‘Manifesting itself as the universe.’ In other words, causes! I’m sure you can see the self-contradiction here: ‘In manifesting itself as the Universe, the Absolute is doing nothing…’

And you’ve stated this several times:

“The clue to why theSelfdecidesto transform itself into all the myriad forms of the world…”

Something is still happening which couldn’t happen if there was no Absolute. Even an illusion is something. That is causation!

Causation is where one thing answers to another: The action of making something else happen, or, as you’ve said previously, occurring as a ‘result’ of something else. Causation, or causality, is a worldly phenomenon, and if the world doesn’t have to exist then neither does causation. So the world’s existence cannot be explained by arguing to a supposed true reality by an appeal to feature of the contingent world.

Yes, the mind is also nothing more than a thought itself. When you are not thinking about your 'mind', it is not there. It reappears immediately and without notice when you shift your attention back to yourself via self-reflection. Via meditation, concentrated attention, and the expansion of consciousness, one can observe this process.

Incorrect. There is no demonstrable self that thinks, but there is always mind: for it cannot be said without contradiction that there are no thoughts. And ‘consciousness’ is simply mind.

I fail to see any such pickling here, other than your own, which is your logic painting yourself into a corner, and then pointing the finger at me.

No, I did not say that the 'illusory self is identified on the Third Level'; I said that the illusory self is in the state of Identification on the Third Level. The subtle change of words changes the meaning entirely. Be careful when paraphrasing others via your own mental filters.

Well excuse me, but what is the material difference between these two sentences: ‘The illusory self is identified on the Third Level of Consciousness.’ ‘On the Third Level, that of Identification, one thinks that the self is real; one is identified with it; immersed in it.’ I understand them to be the same.

On the Third Level, that of Identification, one thinks that the self is real; one is identified with it; immersed in it. But when the true nature comes into play on the Fourth Level, that of Self-Transcendence, there is no self that observes; there is only observation, without an observer, of the activities of the illusory self on the Third Level, acting out its drama, that is not just pretending to be the character in the play, but completely lost in the character to the extent that one actually believes he is, in fact, that character.

These are your actual words:
“During meditation, the Fourth level is entered upon, wherein there is only observation of the self and its thoughts, so from this vantage point, there is no such 'obsessive self-regard' whatsoever.”

And ‘Self-Transcendence’ is a contradiction in terms, an exclusive regard for the thing’s own prior interest, where it comes to know itself or be released from the ego in mystic-speak. ‘Spiritual ecstasy’, I believe some call it. Obviously it is not possible to transcend the Self unless there is first a Self, and since it cannot be denied that meditation has a purpose, it follows that the pre-transcended condition has a desire and the purpose and the act of transcendence satisfied that desire. The priority of the self is upheld, for even the idea of a True Self is selfish.

I am trying to paint a picture of just how difficult it is to wake up from the Third Level. The reinforcements that keep people asleep are extremely powerful, and people who are asleep do what is necessary to keep others asleep as well out of security issues.

Maybe, but it isn't something true. It's a doctrine that you've bought into and obsess over. No real difference between that and religious fundamentalism.

 

[godnotgod]

GNG, when will you learn to provide EVIDENCE along with these claims?

When will you snap out of black and white brainlock mode to realize the simple logical fact that the world of illusion cannot provide evidence for the world of reality?

Evidence from the phenomenal world to prove something true within the sphere of the phenomenal world consists of that which can be seen, felt, smelled, heard, tasted, calculated, predicted, or otherwise proven valid via logic and analysis.

The Absolute is odorless, tasteless, silent, invisible, and formless, and can only be accessed and verified via of not-knowing. It exists only in this living Present Moment, and therefore cannot be predicted. It is Infinite, and therefore cannot be calculated. It behaves in ways paradoxical to the rational mind, and so is not subject to its limited systems of analysis and logic which attempt to encapsulate that which cannot be finitely contained within any fact or set of facts.

All efforts to prove its existence or understand it via rational thought are futile. Only when these methods are finally exhausted and surrendered can the Absolute become evident. Logic and Reason are obstructions.

One can either get a glimpse, or an explosion, or over a long period of exposure, gradually become transformed into a new consciousness.

Paradox

God is not the root of contradiction, but God is the simplicity itself prior to every root. Nicholas of Cusa

In the Way of search for God everything is upside down. Rumi

The place wherein Thou art found unveiled is girt round with the coincidence of contradictions, and this is the wall of Paradise wherein Thou dost abide. The door whereof is guarded by the most proud spirit of Reason, and, unless he be vanquished, the way in will not lie open. Nicholas of Cusa

I observe how needful it is for me to enter into the darkness and to admit the coincidence of the opposites, beyond all grasp of reason, and there to seek the Truth, where impossibility meets us. Nicholas of Cusa

Its formless Nature produces all forms, and in It alone Not-being is an excess of Being, and lifelessness an excess of life and Its mindless state an excess of wisdom. Dionysius the Areopagite

Paradox

 

[godnotgod]

These are your actual words:
“During meditation, the Fourth level is entered upon, wherein there is only observation of the self and its thoughts, so from this vantage point, there is no such 'obsessive self-regard' whatsoever.”

And ‘Self-Transcendence’ is a contradiction in terms, an exclusive regard for the thing’s own prior interest, where it comes to know itself or be released from the ego in mystic-speak. ‘Spiritual ecstasy’, I believe some call it. Obviously it is not possible to transcend the Self unless there is first a Self, and since it cannot be denied that meditation has a purpose, it follows that the pre-transcended condition has a desire and the purpose and the act of transcendence satisfied that desire. The priority of the self is upheld, for even the idea of a True Self is selfish.

What is being transcended is the illusion of a self, so no, there is not 'first a Self', as you reason. The snake never existed in the first place.

Life on the illusory Third Level eventually leads to a state of unsatisfactoriness, which causes one to seek something more satisfying.

The True Self is not a definable entity like the ordinary self, and so cannot be 'self-ish'.

The purpose of meditation is not, as Suzuki tells us, to attain Enlightenment. It is to express our true nature. We meditate in order to meditate.

Meditation creates a set of conditions that are conducive to the realization that Enlightenment is already the case.

 

[godnotgod]

Better ask one of the atheists.

It's not about what can be proved, it's about bad ideas not dieing as they should.

As a theist in support of truth, there is nothing more important to discuss than to free people from the slavery of irrationality.

'Existence is proof enough' is failed reasoning.

While your reasoning that 'Existence is proof enough' is failed reasoning is valid, you put your foot in the doodoo when you claim you are an atheist in support of 'truth', because you're doing exactly what you accuse the believer of doing, namely, making an assertion of the trueness or falsity of something without being able to prove it via of your own system of thought.

An 'atheist in support of truth' is an oxymoron, since the authentic ascertation of what is real comes about via a mind that is completely open to whatever truth is, and not to any preconceived notions, such as 'god exists', or 'god does not exist'. The representation of this open mind is contained in the phrase: 'Think neither god, nor not-god', which is a position of no-position, which is freedom. This is the approach of the dispassionate scholar.

 

[godnotgod]

"Human beings actually have no more independence or autonomy in living their lives than do the characters in a dream. Neither do they have anything to do with the creation of the dream or anything in it. They are simply being lived along with everything else in this living dream of the manifested universe. The entire dream is unreal. Only the dreamer is real, and that is Consciousness itself. Consciousness has produced this play. Consciousness has written the script. Consciousness is playing all the characters. And Consciousness is witnessing the play. It's a one man show."

Ramesh Balsekar

Appearance and Reality

 

[godnotgod]

So there is a selfish person or thing, which doesn’t exist, but it has a motive and meditates? Oh do be serious!

All that the illusory self thinks and does, is unreal. As I said, it is self-created, and as such, goes about the act of doing this and doing that, when in actuality, there is no such doer. During meditation, the doer dissolves, and there is only meditation itself.

Do you see a doer? If so, will you kindly point out its description and location?

Breathing and waking are indeed graphic examples of selfishness!

That is only possible where a self is imagined to be breathing and walking.

Anyway, if the meditating thing is illusory then how does this illusory thing ‘go see’ for itself, since both the thing and the act of meditating are an illusion?

Because during meditation, if practiced correctly, another kind of consciousness is awakened, which IS real, whereupon the illusory self is seen for what it is.

But by your own admission things are being seen as they are not, and something is failing to see things ‘as they are’. If ‘illusory’ is to mean that perception is false then there can be no single and universal true reality! Hence reality is demonstrably not simple (indivisible).

Your logic is judge, jury, and hangman.

The 'things' in question are not things at all, but are merely falsely perceived as such. The problem lies with the discriminating mind, which is the self-created entity that divides reality into 'things'. It is this illusory mind which fails to see things as they are, which are not separate things at all, but merely manifestation of form. (Zen Master Suzuki used to make it a point to say 'see things as it is'.) Underlying the illusion of separate forms, is the unifying 'ground of being' that is the Absolute, which is playing all the 'parts' in the universe simultaneously. Reality is always singular and universal even when it is seen as divided.

If Reality were actually divided, as you seem to imply, you could only determine it to be as such via that which is undivided. There is no way around this. However, the opposite is not true: the undivided Absolute does not require the 'divided' to determine its unity because division is an illusion. There is no opposite to the Absolute. That is why it is called 'the Absolute'. However, we can talk about relative, dualistic states of division and unity, but ultimately, all is One.

That you see reality as divided into 'things' is just an illusion of the mind.

"When the things are seen as separate from that true self, then all the things are just illusions. But when they are felt as part of that true self, when they are treated as not separate from that true self, they will become reality. Only due to the core strength of that true self they are treated as reality."

----Sri Ramana Maharshi.

 

[godnotgod]

In fact it is you who argues to a Self, not me! My response is that it leads to self-contradiction and absurdity. The prior-self is the antithesis.

The real question is why a thought requires a self, let alone your self-created 'prior' self, at all. You are still thinking 'my thought', and 'your thought' because you are attached to the concept of a separate ego acting upon the world you call "I", which no one has ever been able to locate. Yoo hoo! Are you in there, LOL? In other words, you are still attached to "I think", and "I act", and blah blah blah ad nauseum, when, in fact, there is no such agent of thinking or acting or anything else.

‘Pure consciousness’ is a concept that refers to the incorporeal, self-aware mind, and it is defined by thought.

You are jumping to conclusions. Pure consciousness can exist without mind or thought, both of which are concepts created by the self-created mind. Consciousness is what is prior to both thought and mind because consciousness is non-local and intemporal. It is unborn, ungrown, and deathless. It is not 'defined' by thought; thought is defined by consciousness.

And, with respect, a ‘pure act of giving with no motive’ is unadulterated tripe. How can pure act of giving be generous, charitable, laudable, beneficent or purposeless? And what is being given and what is being received? And what is this motiveless thing that gives and what is this deserving thing that receives?

Well at least you are consistent in your erroneous paraphrasing of what I've said.

I did not say: ‘pure act of giving with no motive’

I said: 'there is only the pure act of giving with no ulterior motive'

ulterior motive

An alternative or extrinsic reason for doing something, especially when concealed or when differing from the stated or apparent reason.

Simply put, a genuine act of giving is one in which there is no expectation of receiving something in return for such giving. Either you have never freely given anyone anything out of a genuine sentiment, always harboring an ulterior motive, or have always received under the impression of the giver's ulterior motive.

If there is only the Absolute then there cannot be any relative self, real or imagined.
And you’ve already said this: “The clue to why the Selfdecidesto transform itself into all the myriad forms of the world…”

It is relative because it sees itself in terms of 'self and other', which is illusory. Therefore, there is only the Absolute, just as there is only the rope. There never was a self to begin with, just as there never was a snake.

That is utter nonsense. Giving and receiving are two actions, not one! A single thing can be a both giver and a receiver but it still involves another party to make an exchange. And if there is no separate giver and no receiver there can be no charitable act. A thing that gives to itself is selfish.

But you are the one who stated a few posts back that: 'giving also requires a receiver'

How can 'giving and receiving' be 'two actions'? That is utter nonsense! There is no giving without receiving, or vice-versa. The fact, as you yourself point out, that a 'receiver still involves another party' is just another way of saying that giving and receiving are one act, as in: 'giving-receiving'.

There is no 'thing that gives to itself': there is only giving-receiving, without an agent of giving or receiving. There is no self.

The only place there are two actions are in your dualistically-minded head! In other words, you're seeing double! You are in dire need of vision correction. :foryou:

 

[godnotgod]

"In reality only the Ultimate is. The rest is a matter of name and form. And as long as you cling to the idea that only what has name and shape exists, the Supreme will appear to you non-existing. When you understand that names and shapes are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and shapeless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness, you will be at peace - immersed in the deep silence of reality."

Nisargadatta.

Appearance and Reality