godnotgod
Thou art That
You, as self, as "I", do not control your dreams. They just happen. So there is no dreamer of the dream; there is only dreaming. If there is no dreamer of the dream, then there is no self that exists.
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What Happens When You Die?
- Thread starter godnotgod
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You, as self, as "I", do not control your dreams. They just happen. So there is no dreamer of the dream; there is only dreaming. If there is no dreamer of the dream, then there is no self that exists.
If there is awareness in the dream, then there is awareness.
Do you have examples of dreams where there is no awareness, or where there is nonexistence? A dream within unaware nonexistence?
godnotgod
Thou art That
godnotgod
Thou art That
Yes, but it is limited awareness, but still without a dreamer. The 'dreamer' does not know it is a dream until he awakens into higher awareness. The same is true of our ordinary waking state: we do not know that we are dreaming until we awaken into the next higher state of consciousness.
This is what Arthur deRopp, author The Master Game, says about those living in the Third State of Consciousness, that of Waking Sleep, or Identification:
For many people, this concept of waking sleep makes no sense at all. They firmly maintain that, once they "wake up," they are responsible beings,
masters of themselves, fully conscious, and that anyone who tells them that they are not is a fool or a liar. It is almost impossible to convince such
people that they are deceiving themselves because, when a man is told that he is not really conscious, a mechanism is activated within him which awakens him for a moment. He replies, indignantly, "But I am fully conscious," and because of this "trick of Nature" as Ouspensky used to call it, he does become conscious for a moment. He moves from the third room to the threshold of the fourth room, answers the challenge, and at once goes to sleep again, firmly convinced that he is a fully awakened being.
So, in the Myth of the Mad King, it makes no difference how often the king's ministers tell him that he is living in the cellar instead of his palace. He will reply, and really believe his reply, that the cellar is his palace and that they are the mad ones for suggesting that it is not.
It was exactly this reaction that Plato described in his account of the prisoners in the cave (which is actually a variant of the Myth of the Mad King). Suppose, says Plato in his Republic (Loeb edition), that one of the prisoners in the cave, whose only impression of reality is derived from watching shadows on the walls, escapes into the world outside. Suppose he is of an altruistic disposition and returns to tell the other prisoners of the bright and varied world that lies beyond their prison. Suppose he announces that all things they have ever seen are merely shadows. Will they welcome that message? Not likely!
"Thou hast nor youth nor age, but, as it were, an after-dinner sleep, dreaming on both"
TS Elliot
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godnotgod
Thou art That
So do you see that everything comes out of nothing? That this phenomenal world we call 'something' is actually an illusion? And that what is real is what is behind the manifestation of the world, that...
"The universe IS the Absolute [itself] as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation"?
godnotgod
Thou art That
The Circle is Unbroken
Seasons they change while cold blood is raining
I have been waiting beyond the years
Now over the skyline I see you're travelling
Brothers from all time gathering here
Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far
Come let us set sail for the always island
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars
Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging
O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?
Seeds of beauty ye bear within you
Of unborn children glad and free
Within your fingers the fates are spinning
The sacred binding of the yellow grain
Scattered we were when the long night was breaking
But in the bright morning converse again.
from: Wee Tam and The Big Huge, by
The Incredible String Band
Seasons they change while cold blood is raining
I have been waiting beyond the years
Now over the skyline I see you're travelling
Brothers from all time gathering here
Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far
Come let us set sail for the always island
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars
Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging
O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?
Seeds of beauty ye bear within you
Of unborn children glad and free
Within your fingers the fates are spinning
The sacred binding of the yellow grain
Scattered we were when the long night was breaking
But in the bright morning converse again.
from: Wee Tam and The Big Huge, by
The Incredible String Band
ThePainefulTruth
Romantic-Cynic
Yes.
________________________________________________________________
I think (and because I know that it is me who is thinking), therefore I am.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Let's get back on track: can you see how the scapegoat is essential to the image the Nazi has of himself?
There's a big difference between a dreamer not existing, and a dreamer being mistaken about it what it is.
That sounds like a hypothesis.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Perhaps exactly the opposite is the case....
No Birth, No Death
"Our greatest fear is that when we die we will become nothing. Many of us believe that our entire existence is only a life span beginning the moment we are born or conceived and ending the moment we die. We believe that we are born from nothing and that when we die we become nothing. And so, we are filled with fear of annihilation.
The Buddha has a very different understanding of our existence. It is the understanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion that causes all our suffering. The Buddha taught there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear. It is a great relief. We can enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way.
The same thing happens when we lose any of our beloved ones. The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, A serious misfortune of my life has arrived. I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died.
When I woke up it was about two in the morning and I felt very strongly as though I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me."
by Thich Nhat Hanh, excerpted from "No Death, No Fear"
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godnotgod
Thou art That
We know that there is a dream, but where do you see an agent of the dream, called 'the dream-er'?
I asked if you SEE, not THINK. A hypothesis is a model that is thought out. Seeing directly into the nature of something is done without thought.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Shall we then proceed with assumptions that make sense?
I assume life after death.
Too many copies of a device of learning (humans) only to have each and every copy fail to become only dust.
This device delivers this reality to each and every mind in a unique and separate linear existence.
We are made to become spirits of unique perspective.
Warren Clark
Informer
I believe death is the same as it is before birth... the void of no existence.
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." - Mark Twain
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." - Mark Twain
Where is the dream occurring?
What is your definition of a dream?
Or you're just "seeing" a dream.
To the extent that they can be tested, sure. Generally speaking, the more robust you'd like a worldview to be, the fewer and more simple the presuppositions should be.
That's your right.
That's a whole lot of presuppositions.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Faith requires no proving.
I think we crossed this point in other threads.
No photos, no fingerprints, no equations, no repeatable experimental results.....
no proof.
There are billions of people on this planet.
Each one developing into a unique spirit.
I do not assume we all survive the last breath.
Lack of faith seems to kill the possibity.
But so many do believe...so do I....
and I think it unreasonable to assume we all fail.
Faith could 'prove' to be the saving grace.
Do you have faith in the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path of Buddhism?
Thief
Rogue Theologian
I have no religion.
No collection or recital of prayer.
No ritual for the hand.
No rug for my knee.
My faith is founded in science.
I believe spirit first...and then substance.
Science discovers how God did it.
The Noble Eightfold Path could prove the saving grace.