Many thanks for all the responses, not sure how to address them all.. They helped me think more about the question and hopefully some resolution is taking place somewhere in my brain....
58385... Irmeli Mattsson > "I cannot understand how this kind of theoretical, intellectual speculation can help a person to evolve... If you have a rigid preconceived idea, you are less open for the unexpected, which a new stage will be. " MMY often emphasized the importance of understanding along with direct experience, for one's evolution. I agree that "imitating" a state of consciousness from some cultural transmission is pointless, but theoretical discussions can hopefully reduce confusion and be inspiring and motivating. I imagine that direct experience would override and automatically stretch any limiting preconceptions. > "Every thought and every experience regardless of how .. transcendental it feels, when perceived in and through a physical body and nervous system, is always in the relative. We can only talk about the absolute, we cannot experience it." In MMY's schema, this is the "point to infinity" bit, only you're saying that any and all experience is relative. But the Knower is Absolute so from the "infinity to point" perspective why are we stuck with the relative experience associated with THIS point body and not others, given that the Knower inhabits other bodies simultaneously. 58396 ... Rory Goff >"Brahman" or Wholeness resides AS fully in the "manifest, relative" point as in the "unmanifest, absolute" Ocean. No difference. A natural progression from this would seem to be the realization that one's Wholeness is potentially as free to be ANY point-self as to be one's habitual point-self:" Yes Infinity (= Wholeness = Unmanifest/Absolute = Self) is omnipresent at every Point (= manifest, relative = self). So why is the consciosness/Knower remain linked to the habitual point self if it is free to be ANY point-self ? 58405... jim_flanegin > "The Self is distinctly free from any sense of personal identification.It is perceived by the original 'point' body, but is not actually connected to it.....It is odd because it feels like me, but try as I might I can't locate the attachment point, through thought or the senses." Yes identification dissolves when going from point to infinity. > "Though I am unsure about the next step- how the perception of the Self begins to extend to everything else 'out there'. Conceptually, yes, but experientially, not yet constant." This infinity to pointS is the tricky bit. I myself can't speak from experience, but am interested in it conceptually (as part of some understanding of the possibilities of higher states of consciousness). Not sure for instance how it relates to "Unity". 58408 ... Llundrub > "This is the problem, identifying with the body as if it's a point. The body is infinite. The self is absolute, not infinite. A point of identification is the absolute identifying with some snapshot of the infinite. There are no points. There are merely snapshots." I like MMY's spacial schema "point to infinity" = "relative to Absolute". You seem to prefer a temporal model based on snapshots. Both space and time are involved in the relative. And yes a point is equivalent to a snapshot of the infinite. > "All beings are linked, even in the snapshot." That is true even from our unenlightened consciousness. But we experience ourselves as separate points/snapshots - even, it seems, in the Absolute to Relative/Infinity to Point situation. >"When you are speaking of a point body, what's your point? Which point? And even in that point are more points." Very true in terms of a Unified Field chart but what is relevant here is the sensory ego-point , and its experiential separateness from others, in spite of the Wholeness underlying the snapshot. > "A better question is why am I happy sometimes but not at others" Presumably the camera angle.. but what happens when one takes an infinite number of snapshots all at once (infinity to pointS) or is only one snapshot allowed at each successive moment (infinity to point)? 58259 ...Irmeli Mattsson > "My present understanding of the seemingly complicated phenomenon of consciousness evolution is strongly influenced by spiral dynamics....And how you interpret and describe your enlightenment experience depends largely, in addition to cultural influences, on the stages of organizing "I" you are in. The lower you are the more extravagant those interpretations tend to be. I think there are still a lot of inexperienced stages and possibilities ahead us in the evolution of the organizing "I". In order to evolve to those higher stages I think the awakening of the first "I" to be a prerequisite." I found the spiral dynamics notion very interesting. Although this unfoldment of "I"s relates to stages in the "point to infinity" and "infinity to point" - and goodness knows there is an eternity of snapshots on the videotape there to keep us occupied for a while - it doesn't really address the "infinity to pointS" issue, although allows for its mystery to exist and unfold in due course. Well if there are any more ideas that anyone has to contribute, here is how I addressed the original question: no 58255 Maybe this has come up before in FFL, but if upon enlightenment there is consciousness (transcendental) and relative experience, and the consciousness is infinite value and experience point value, I find it odd that the two remain correlated via the ONE body. Take an actor having overall awareness (infinite value) and he acts three characters in a play (point value). Speaking as each character in turn he operates within the limitations their respective "egos" - but as the only "reality" the actor knows exactly what these egos perceive and can or cannot say or do. Whereas, returning to Consciousness, in the case of someone claiming enlightenment, there seems to be only knowledge of the one body and ego that existed prior to enlightenment. Is such enlightenment still "relative" then, and is there another more profound level to reach in which truly one would experience everything as the Self, this Self being truly INTIMATELY cognissant of the egos and bodies of ALL creatures? Because only THEN it becomes possible to love one's neighbour as one's Self AND have the sense that a wrong done to another is truly a wrong done to one's "self" as well. In other words, stage 1 enlightenment is the expansion of point to infinity; stage 2, the linking back of infinity to ALL relative points, enabling the original point to "know" all other points intimately, directly.. Does this tally with any scripture, I wonder. no 58365 My question though is, if in enlightenment the Knower is the "infinite" Self, no longer the "point" ego, which effectively gets overridden (apart from its organizing functions), then you are left with a Self and a perceiving body. There might well be an experience of "Self in all beings/ all beings in Self" but how true can that be if it remains exclusively linked to the original "point" body and its perceptions? As such it's just like a glorified relative ego blessed with blissful oceanic feelings. It would only be a true cosmic Self if, moving from infinity to "point", it no longer is exclusively linked to the original "point" body, since Self is omnipresent, at every point. That would make it less "relative" than before, since it would now be linked with an infinity of "points" of perception. You mention omniscience.. well if there is only ONE Knower anyway... presumably in Unity this happens? Otherwise again it would be a "point" hallucinating "infinity", with no "reality" to it. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
