This was not quite what I was getting at, but I will give it another shot. In my office on the floor here is a vacuum cleaner. It sucks up dust, etc. But it also has another property: being, it has existence. It has being and it sucks dust and collects it in a bag. Now this seemingly other being you are talking about with the capital 'B', Being. That would seem, by your reckoning, to be something else, some other kind of being.
But what could the difference be? The main property of existence is that it is. So if 'Being' exists, and the 'vacuum cleaner' exists, they both have exactly the same essential property. The only difference is I can use the vacuum to suck up dust, and the other Being just sits there doing nothing, useless. So are these two existences, these two beings, really any different in their essential nature, except for utility? We are now talking vacuum cleaners, not Aristotle, Plato, not Aquinas, these three by all historical accounts did not know about vacuum cleaners. I can also stand outside, or inside, and look at what at certain times I call clouds, sky, earth, but in this case not have a single thought as to what they are. What I see has being, because it exists. And what I call 'I' too exists. So why do I have to do this transcending stuff to be or to experience being? And if I have a thought, the thought has a kind of existence too, and all the other things I have mentioned remain being as well while I am having the thought. And not one bit of it is metaphysical, and yet it is all being, all the same kind of being. ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Xeno, Without looking up the specific points made by Aristotle, Plato, and Aquinas, I would say the absolute is the same as Being, which is the prime mover in metaphysical analysis. But this point of view, although logical and intellectual, may not satisfy most people. I prefer to take Maharishi's explanation for Being which can be experienced by your own self or being. You too are existing since you have consciousness.As such, you are just a tiny drop in an ocean of Being. You can experience pure being by transcending thoughts. Pure being is experienced as bliss which is attained when the mind transcends thoughts. In TM, a mantra is used to transcend these thoughts. MMY stated that the bliss is gained at the juncture between the absolute and the relative in our mind. ---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote : ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Xeno, I using the word "absolute" as the the unified field, the consciousness beyond the human perceptions. John, you have been keeping this conversation going, especially with Curtis, who seems to be on a roll these past couple of days. This comment you made above got me thinking. Aside from quoting others on this point, if something is beyond human perception, how can you know it exists? If no perception, no information passes into the human nervous system and therefore no information about an 'absolute' could be directly processed by the nervous system, and therefore no direct knowledge of it could exist. This would lend credence to the idea that 'absolute' is imaginary; not real. If we assume others who told us this idea are like us, they too would have no direct knowledge of 'absolute'. And thus they too are simply proffering to us an imaginary concept. I have the opinion there is a way out of this dilemma, but I would like to see what your ideas are on this.
