--- In [email protected], "Patrick Gillam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I share the questions below. It would be nice if > some realized people here would address these > questions on the basis of firsthand knowledge. > Or those of great book-larnin' could tell us what > the sages say. Still, my comments are interleaved below. > > > > Gillam: > > > > > > The Witness can discern whether thoughts are green > > > or grey, pleasant or boorish. Discernment is different > > > from judging. > > > > Stein: > > > > I've never been clear how the Witness can > > discern, or discriminate, or differentiate. > > That seems like a mental function to me. > > I thought the Witness just *be's*. > > Initially, yeah, which is why we don't notice it. > But with all this meditating and sidhis-doing, > the mind cultivates the ability to entertain activity > along with the silence.
Yeah, but that's activity *along with* the silence, not activity *of* the silence, at least in terms of TM's CC. > > > enlightened people can be assholes. They > > > have no motivation to change because their > > > relative personalities, jerks though they may > > > be, are fine to the non-judgmental Self. > > > >Stein: > > > > Well, but their relative personalities might > > engage in self-criticism just as anyone's does. > > This is an idea I'd like clarified: the idea of self-reflection. > Who's reflecting on what? Is it really the relative, small "s" self > reflecting on itself? Or could something bigger be going on? I'd vote for it being all relative. There are many aspects of the small self that are accessible to the small self's own observing function. I mean, when you get into Ramana-type self- inquiry, that can be something bigger, but garden-variety identification and judgment of feelings and behavior--Why am I such a disagreeable bastard?, as with Tolle--isn't anything special (except in the sense that it's *all* "special," which is what he apparently realized). > > Stein: > > > > Most people have mental > > dialogs like this at times. Seems to me Tolle > > bounced off a very common experience to come to > > his realization. What's unsual is what he got > > out of the experience, not the experience itself, > > no? > > Yes, and what intrigues me is the possibility that I could > get something profound out of the same mundane > experience. That's why I'm inquiring into it, and inviting > input from others. I'm not putting down Tolle's realization, just for the record. The story didn't do anything for me, but I'm guessing you got a little whiff already, right? > > Stein: > > > > here's a famous passage from St. Paul that > > hints at the same dichotomy, albeit expressed as a > > magnificently messy tangle: <snip> > > For the good that I would, I do not: but the > > evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do > > that I would not, it is no more I that do it, > > but sin that dwelleth in me. <snip> > Someday I hope to see the glory in Paul's thoughts, but > today I have to say he strikes me as one messed up dude. One hopes it's not quite so convoluted in the original Greek. But it does suggest, at least to me, that he was grappling with the same issue. (That particular quote is not what I'd call an example of "the glory in Paul's thoughts," except maybe insofar as he was willing to show his messed-up side for the sake of others who might think they were alone in their own struggles. From that perspective, it's pretty poignant.) 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/
