--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > > You seem to prefer reading the travel books and > > speculating about the exotic places they describe > > to actually visiting these places yourself. > > > > Cool. I guess. > > For the record, this is not nearly as confrontational > as you're going to imagine it is.
I think you mean to say it's not as confrontational as you imagine I'm going to imagine it is. But as usual, your imaginings are dead wrong. How could I imagine it to be confrontational when it doesn't actually confront anything I wrote? You'd have a much better chance of getting people to listen to your "advice" if you tried to pay attention to what they're saying and then offered something relevant, rather than imagining they've said something else entirely to which your "advice" might apply. It reminds me of nothing so much as an incompetent tech support person who doesn't bother to read and understand the customer's "issue" and just pastes in paragraphs of totally irrelevant boilerplate based on spotting a couple of isolated key words. I've already pointed out several places where you completely missed what I said, but you ignored those pointers and went right along pursuing your own train of thought as if it had anything to do with anything but your own erroneous imaginings. You just talk *at* people rather than *with* them. And as a result, you end up talking only to yourself. <snip> > I guess that all I'm suggesting is that after forty- > plus years on the spiritual path I'm unconvinced of > the value of intellectual models for enlightenment > and descriptions of enlightenment (or, even more > hilarious -- the nature of ultimate reality) that are > designed to be heard and appreciated by the self. What > they seem to do, as far as I can tell, is *perpetuate* > that self, to convince it that it "understands" the > journey it's on, and has a strong intellectual grasp > on the nature of where that journey leads. And the more > "travel books" the self reads *about* enlightenment or > the nature of ultimate reality, the further away one > becomes from the destination one reads about, and the > further distanced one becomes from reality. Key words here: "As far as I can tell." That isn't as far as you think, Barry. And again, you'd fiercely and nastily resist anyone telling you *their* experience was applicable to everybody else. Yet you seem to think it's not a problem when you turn *your* experience and understanding into a universal imperative. Nor do you ever seem to realize that you positively revel in conceptual models about enlightenment, such as the one above, at the same time that you're decrying them. Your thinking is so lacking in coherence, it's no wonder you're constantly denigrating the intellect. Yours just doesn't function very well. > Enlightenment is about putting the travel book down > and getting up from one's easy chair. One packs a > suitcase for the journey, walks to the door, and then, > before stepping through it, leaves both the suitcase > and one's self at the door and leaves them behind. > What steps through the door is enlightenment. And how's that conceptual model working for you, Barry? <horselaugh>
