--- In [email protected], "salyavin808"  wrote:
> 
> --- In [email protected], "authfriend"  wrote:
> >
> > Hey, PaliGap, nice to see you here again.
> > 
> > --- In [email protected], "PaliGap"  wrote:
> > > 
> > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend"  wrote:
> > (snip>
> > > > I remember when I first started to hop, after a couple 
> > > > days. I had found myself bouncing--involuntarily--without
> > > > getting off the foam. After awhile, I let go of something
> > > > somehow mentally, and then I immediately began to hop. "Let
> > > > 'er rip" describes it, but I don't know whether that's the
> > > > same as what you experienced. It's as if I had not been
> > > > letting the sutra do its job, rather than that I had
> > > > started voluntarily to push myself up off the foam.
> > > > 
> > > > Experience does vary from individual to individual, and
> > > > it's impossible to know what it's like for anybody else.
> > > 
> > > I don't think I am a 'TB'. On the other hand the facts is the
> > > facts. I find it hard to 'explain away'. Believe me - I've
> > > tried (though coward-like I remain agnostic).
> > 
> > Me too. The various theories that have been proposed to
> > explain it away, it seems to me, raise as many questions
> > as they answer. *Something* unusual is going on
> > neurophysiologically.
> > 
> > The only indication I have that it has anything to do with
> > levitation, however, is that on a couple of occasions for
> > a split-second at the apex of a hop, I've suddenly "known"
> > that staying up in the air would be perfectly natural--in
> > the same way I know I'm going to come right down again
> > on all other occasions.
> 
> Just as it did on that occasion.

Exactly. I made that quite clear:

> > But of course that goes away virtually instantaneously.
> > You wouldn't be able to capture any in-air hesitation with
> > any kind of measuring instrument or camera.

> The feeling might go away instantaneously but to an observer
> you never shifted from the parabolic curve you started when
> you lifted off.

(You don't mean "but" here, you mean "and.")

Exactly. Nor could you capture any shift *with any kind of
measuring instrument or camera*--as I just got done saying.

> So it doesn't really matter how you "feel" when
> jumping in the air,

As I said, the "feeling" I had those few times was no
different than the "feeling" that I was going to come
down all the other times: in both cases it was a
*certainty*, a "knowingness," not just a feeling.

> all that matters from a is "levitation
> possible" viewpoint is whether you stay there or not.

Exactly. Where did I say otherwise?

> And of *course* a slo-mo camera would capture any mid air 
> hesitation, if there was any.

Exactly. That's why I said (see above) no camera (or any
kind of measuring instrument) would capture any hesitation.

There's a lesson for you in this, salyavin. Once again,
your own preconceptions got in the way of understanding
what I wrote, and once again it's made you look a fool.

But you know what? Your thinking is so inflexible, you'll
never learn that lesson.

(snip)
> It's like driving a car somewhere and when you arrive you
> realise you can't remember the journey. The body is easily
> capable of doing familiar routines without conscious input so
> your mind can wander off and do other stuff. Couple that with
> an altered state of consciousness and the strong expectation
> of actual flight and we can believe anything that happens is
> more than what it is.

Except that I had no expectation of actual flight, first;
second, I had the experience I described only two or three
times out of many thousands of hops; and third, I have no
belief that the experience was anything more than what I
described.

> Any casual observer will tell you the truth of it.

The casual observer has no way of knowing what was going
on in my head.

I have no explanation for what I experienced. I mentioned
it only to point out that it was the *only* experience I
ever had while hopping that hopping had anything at all to
do with levitation. It came as a complete surprise when it
happened, and it obviously bore no relationship to what my
body was doing.

Hopping itself, for me, had the unusual quality of being
involuntary. I can't explain that either. What it didn't
have was any physical manifestation of levitation.


Reply via email to