--- "anartaxius" <anartaxius@> wrote: > > I misread that same passage, interpreting it as > transcending forever; natural language has a tendency to > be ambiguous, but harping on that repeatedly does not > further the conversation. Iranitea has made some > interesting observations and provided information I find > interesting and relevant. >
> Your focus is almost always too narrow - usually accurate > within that range - and results n a discussion basically > going nowhere useful. Are you refering to Judy? She being an editor has a tendency to micro-focus. Sometimes, larger picture can be missed. Tell me Xeno, does Einstein's 'thought experiments' done in a similar meditative state. Nicola Tesla was another person who could do it. > Iranitea's explanation fits very well in my opinion. > > We can think of 'states of consciousness' as paradigm > shifts. Long ago, when I tried to imagining what these > changes in experience might be like, because there was no > other possibility, I would take what I was then > experiencing and then add some kind of mental image to it, > an extrapolation. This is a common procedure in science > for finding new avenues of investigation and for trying > figure out what is going on. These mental images are > false, but they provide a template for progress, and when > enough progress is made, they are discarded and replaced > with a more conforming explanation. Thus when in CC, when > a person tries to imagine, say, unity, they imagine it on > the basis of CC, that it is somehow like CC but with > something more, or as something else, but with CC somehow > incorporated, but in fact unity is nothing like CC or > these imaginings. It's more like ordinary waking > consciousness with, shall we say, a wry twist to it, for > the memory of having spent all that time to get where you > already were. > > Thoughts come spontaneously, and so while certain yogis > might be able to maintain certain kinds of trance states > for long periods of time, with basic meditation, such as > TM or mindfulness, thoughts can come, and because they are > spontaneous and without effort, you cannot control when > they come. Imagining that you will sit in TM and plonk, no > thoughts and no outer experience for the full period is > one of those imaginary extrapolations about where progress > will lead. A particular meditation might actually go that > way. But as we experience, every meditation is a bit > different from the other. Maybe in one meditation, a fly > lands on your nose, and then where does transcending go? >
