"curtisdeltablues" wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung no_reply@ wrote: > > > > "curtisdeltablues" wrote: > > Some of us already know who we REALLY are. It isn't that big a deal. > > > > > > Curtis, you're talking about the spectrum called "personality," right? > > Not something beyond the physical, right? > > Isn't our personality and mind beyond the physical? They arises from > our physical brain's activity but it is a wonderful nonphysical reality. > Hmmm, now this sure sounds like you're a priest with a PhD in psychology.
Man, did I want to be one of those all my life, but my aim was off and I ended up wearing a suit with extra wide lapels and driving a cheap car with a SCI pamphlet for a bible. Hey, wait, Bloomfield came a lot closer to that goal, and his highly regarded opinion was that candy is dandy but . . . But I digress. Come on, dude, aren't you slipping up here? You've banged my head repeatedly about anything remotely mystical, and "non-physical reality" coming out of your keyboard is like seeing Bunny Wigglesworth come over the horizon instead of Zorro. Toss me a definition, eh? If you meant merely "radiation, not matter," then that's a much easier to defend definition of "a matrix in which personality is embodied or from which mind emerges." If it's radiation or "a neuronic processing," then that's still way physical IMO. > > > > Word schmerds, eh? > > > > If you have the time, I would dwell with a serious intent on your > > definitions of: > > > > "Real" > > This is context dependent as a concept. It is meaningful in context. > If I am imagining a green dinosaur it is not real in the physical > world, but I can tell a story about it and it will be a real part of > that story. Discussing this kind of concept outside its concept is a > quality of some spiritual discussions that I am not into. Slippery again are ya? If a green dinosaur (a jackalope, right?) is real, then whenever you've stomped me about inserting the concept, God, into a discussion, you must have been thinking of another definition of real -- a higher standard for God is being applied by you, and that's fine, but . . . ahem. Yeah, we know a jackalope is not a sentient entity with a causative potency, and when I speak about God it seems you've often thought that I'm granting Him/Her/It/That not only a physical reality, but actually tacitly defining Him with a hyper-realness that is beyond the physical. And you'd be wrong to think that at least when I use "God" nowadays. (Might have used it "too loosely," the wrong way, in my past posts, but not recently.) Just to be sure you know, I think that God is a process that TM labels "amness," but that this is a physical process that dies with the robot; yet this "God" can be contacted and gotten jiggy with (transcending) and that any attempt to get resonant with it is a powerful therapy for the personality. Not that transcending is like going to a masterclass wherein one acquires the skill to mindfully evolve with a set of God-axioms as the guides, but transcending is having the skill of avoiding the lure of identifying with thoughts and this can be a general dynamic in daily life that's quite useful. Non-physical reality. A mouthful, chew it for us a bit more before we swallow it. > > > > > "Know" > > Again, more useful in context. I am not a complete epistemological > skeptic, I believe we do know some things. But if you challenge > knowledge in an abstract way you lose it's pragmatic value, which for > me is its most important value. OMG knowledge leads to action, > flashback central! I have been most focused on building myself a > practical epistemology and don't claim to understand ultimate values > in life like being and no-being. I know my limitations and am > comfortable with them. Nice credo, but do you see the "faith" aspect of this stance? How do you validate your own thoughts as "capsules of truth?" Isn't a thought a thought, and therefore "being" is as handy as "jackalope?" Yet you are uncomfortable when I use "God" even when it is obviously used as a metaphor. I'm tired of "this" between us. I'd like you to see me first and foremost as an athiest -- you'd be wrong, but you'd be a lot closer to where I'm at than if you're thinking I'm over here praying to a non-physcial entity. Note: athiest not an agnostic. I think I KNOW God and that I and anyone is found to be the Witness behind His thoughts if one gets clarity about Identity. "KNOW" is defined as "mere processing," and I don't mean to imply having a universally-found-in-everyone "God process," instead, it is an idioscyncratic processing that embodies my deepest held axioms -- like "I exist," "Isness can be sacred," "God's most easily seen in the processing called "intuition." Etc. These axioms can be totally fercockt, but yet they are egoicly identified with and used as if they are life-supporting, real-real, divine, etc. And, practically, most folks have an inner set of "goodness rules" that is operative when we try to do what Maharishi said, "Don't do anything you know to be wrong." > > > > > And: why it isn't such a big deal to have such clarity. To me, if > > your statement is taken to be utterly true, then you have found > truths> of incredible worth. > > In my 20's I had more confusion and doubts about myself. Now I am more > comfortable through living with myself in different situations. > I think getting older IS profound but not in some cosmic sense. My > process of living with immigrants and having friends from different > cultures made me feel more at home in the world and less insecure > about how much of it I had experienced. Here you use "myself" in the ordinary sense of "personality." But, I'm not hearing you say that you have clarity about your subtle processing, and instead, I think you're saying, "I don't know where my next thought is coming from nor do I have many details about how it was manufactured, but I'm comfortable nonetheless, because of my long history with "this brain" has proven to me that I will only come up with thoughts that I am happy to have -- for the most part." Yes? > > > > > I must admit that I am so different from even last year's version of > > me, that, whew, I really have no grasp of what I might be next -- it > > seems to depend on the matrix so much more than on anything I might > > (don't laugh) plan for "myself." > > > > Yet, you and others pull off being quite certain who they are/will > > be/have been with such an aura of conviction that my above POV is > > shaken. Am I in denial about knowing my real self? > > It probably depends on your definition for "real self." My opinions > about things change, but who I am stays constant. I can clarify and > change certain values but my processes for doing that is similar. I > can re-invent myself in some ways, but it is all done from the core of > who I am. Man, you sound enlit. Nice poem. Wonderful if true, but do you have some special skills that can be mindfully used? It sounds like you can just roll up your psychic sleeves and cut and paste your personality's dynamics with aplumb; yet, you're not actually saying you could, say, go inside yourself and fiddle around a bit and come out and say something like: "I have changed my favorite color from blue to red, and I would now rather eat boiled cabbage a lot and have ended any possibility of having a "burger lure" arising. Surely you cannot do this kind of precision work. So clue me in about the actual practicalities that embody your skill set. I ask, because it took three readings of Ramana's "Talks" before I could get my brain to dump my intellect's attachement to TMO philosophy, but you make it sound easy to tweak personality. Not that you're bragging, but to be able to do even the least changing-on-purpose, seems a very high skill. > > > > > Questions: when did you finally become you? when did you finally > > conclude that you had finally concluded about who you are? how does > > change impact your certainties? aging must mellow all so how does > > that jibe witcha? do you have axioms that have not been shaken for > > years, decades, a lifetime? > > I believe that the decade after I left the movement was the decade I > gained self-actualization in Maslow's sense of the term. I don't know > exactly when since I don't consider it static. But I definitely > noticed that at some point I was dealing with life from a better place > internally, with more self-knowledge and more knowledge of how life > works. I became more comfortable with all the stuff I don't know and > the ambiguities of life. I would also throw in the death of a loved > one as a pivotal moment in my consciousness. It changed me in a very > positive way. > > Certainties is not a word I would use. I would call it a functional > mental tool kit. With good evidence I change my POV regularly. I > think aging makes me more comfortable with ambiguity and a bit less > harshly judgmental of other people's choices. But I know I can still > be a prick so I keep an eye on myself. > > > > > Oh, too much to ask of you, but if you have the time.... > > It is a privilege to be asked such questions. Having someone give a > shit about your POV across the digital abyss is a wonderful thing so > thanks! > > Now back at you brother, what is your take on your own questions? > Okay: > > Questions: when did you finally become you? I think I skipped "knowing me," and have settled into "whatever comes up, I'll identify with it like the sucker I am." And this differs by the nanosecond. when did you finally conclude that you had finally concluded about who you are? For me, after my studying of Ramana, it became very clear that I am not a personality, and my addiction (identification with it) to it is my ONLY problem. how does change impact your certainties? Change proves that any indulgence in a certainty will end up badly. aging must mellow all so how does that jibe witcha? I think that aging is my main technique, and I give it a higher potency than you seem to do. do you have axioms that have not been shaken for years, decades, a lifetime? I'm pretty sure I have axioms, and I think I know where one is hiding -- I'll catch one of those suckers one of these days. I thought I had a whopper on my line the other day; pulled it up out of the murk, and, nah, just an old boot. Edg > > > > > Edg > > >
