Greetings, I have this 2 cd set, called Nirvana Lounge by Claude Challe & Ravin. (I love this music!) On the first CD is a selection called 'Path of Love' by Atman. In this song there is dialogue from what I knew had to be a very old movie because of the sound quality, but I had no idea what movie. I've listened to this CD many, many times. In the post below I used one of the movie quotes. Actually it should have been, "You sound like a very religious man who doesn't believe in God,". Today, three days later, I am reading 'The Razor's Edge', by Somerset Maugham. This is the book from which the movie dialogue came. I have wondered about this dialogue for greater than 7 years, but just this week did it lead me to this wonderful book. I can't put it down.
Love getting sidetracked on a rivulet! Marsha At 05:09 AM 1/29/2008, you wrote: >Greetings Steve, > >Most interesting! > >I call myself an atheist, because I do not >believe in a God. That seems simple enough. But >I do NOT favor scientism either. I do not accept >the concept of God because it is far too >limiting. Like any definition of DQ, or TAO, is >not it. I reject anyone else's definition, the >bible's, Ham's or the Pope's. (The idea of a >puppetmaster in the sky is just >ludicrous.) There is a line from a movie that goes like this: > >"There goes a very religious man, who doesn't believe in God". > >I am an atheist! > >Marsha > > > > > >At 08:10 PM 1/28/2008, you wrote: > >Hi All, > > > >One reason that I have had negative associations with atheism is > >because I see atheists as rejecting spirituality in favor of > >scientism. This is a stereotype of course, and it doesn't apply to > >all atheists, nor does it apply to Sam Harris. > > > >I found this speech where Sam Harris explains religious experience to > >a bunch of atheists at an atheist convention interesting. He explains > >mysticism in a very rational way. I'd be interested in your thoughts > >on this excerpt from his speech "The Problem With Atheism": > > > >http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2007/10/ > >the_problem_with_atheism.html > > > >"...Heres what happens, in the generic case: a person, in whatever > >culture he finds himself, begins to notice that life is difficult. He > >observes that even in the best of timesno one close to him has died, > >hes healthy, there are no hostile armies massing in the distance, > >the fridge is stocked with beer, the weather is just soeven when > >things are as good as they can be, he notices that at the level of > >his moment to moment experience, at the level of his attention, he is > >perpetually on the move, seeking happiness and finding only temporary > >relief from his search. > > > >Weve all noticed this. We seek pleasant sights, and sounds, and > >tastes, and sensations, and attitudes. We satisfy our intellectual > >curiosities, and our desire for friendship and romance. We become > >connoisseurs of art and music and filmbut our pleasures are, by > >their very nature, fleeting. And we can do nothing more than merely > >reiterate them as often as we are able. > > > >If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of > >accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for about an hour, or > >maybe a day, but then people will begin to ask us So, what are you > >going to do next? Dont you have anything else in the pipeline? > >Steve Jobs releases the IPhone, and Im sure it wasnt twenty minutes > >before someone asked, when are you going to make this thing > >smaller? Notice that very few people at this juncture, no matter > >what theyve accomplished, say, Im done. Ive met all my goals. Now > >Im just going to stay here eat ice cream until I die in front of you. > > > >Even when everything has gone as well as it can go, the search for > >happiness continues, the effort required to keep doubt and > >dissatisfaction and boredom at bay continues, moment to moment. If > >nothing else, the reality of death and the experience of losing loved > >ones punctures even the most gratifying and well-ordered life. > > > >In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a > >deeper form of well-being exists. Is there, in other words, a form of > >happiness that is not contingent upon our merely reiterating our > >pleasures and successes and avoiding our pains. Is there a form of > >happiness that is not dependent upon having ones favorite food > >always available to be placed on ones tongue or having all ones > >friends and loved ones within arms reach, or having good books to > >read, or having something to look forward to on the weekend? Is it > >possible to be utterly happy before anything happens, before ones > >desires get gratified, in spite of lifes inevitable difficulties, in > >the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death? > > > >This question, I think, lies at the periphery of everyones > >consciousness. We are all, in some sense, living our answer to itand > >many of us are living as though the answer is no. No, there is > >nothing more profound that repeating ones pleasures and avoiding > >ones pains; there is nothing more profound that seeking > >satisfaction, both sensory and intellectual. Many of us seem think > >that all we can do is just keep our foot on the gas until we run out > >of road. > > > >But certain people, for whatever reason, are led to suspect that > >there is more to human experience than this. In fact, many of them > >are led to suspect this by religionby the claims of people like the > >Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated religious figures. And such > >a person may begin to practice various disciplines of attentionoften > >called meditation or contemplationas a means of examining his > >moment to moment experience closely enough to see if a deeper basis > >of well-being is there to be found. > > > >Such a person might even hole himself up in a cave, or in a > >monastery, for months or years at a time to facilitate this process. > >Why would somebody do this? Well, it amounts to a very simple > >experiment. Heres the logic of it: if there is a form of > >psychological well-being that isnt contingent upon merely repeating > >ones pleasures, then this happiness should be available even when > >all the obvious sources of pleasure and satisfaction have been > >removed. If it exists at all, this happiness should be available to a > >person who has renounced all her material possessions, and declined > >to marry her high school sweetheart, and gone off to a cave or to > >some other spot that would seem profoundly uncongenial to the > >satisfaction of ordinary desires and aspirations. > > > >One clue as to how daunting most people would find such a project is > >the fact that solitary confinementwhich is essentially what we are > >talking aboutis considered a punishment even inside a prison. Even > >when cooped up with homicidal maniacs and rapists, most people still > >prefer the company of others to spending any significant amount of > >time alone in a box. > > > >And yet, for thousands of years, contemplatives have claimed to find > >extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while spending vast > >stretches of time in total isolation. It seems to me that, as > >rational people, whether we call ourselves atheists or not, we have > >a choice to make in how we view this whole enterprise. Either the > >contemplative literature is a mere catalogue of religious delusion, > >deliberate fraud, and psychopathology, or people have been having > >interesting and even normative experiences under the name of > >spirituality and mysticism for millennia. > > > >Now let me just assert, on the basis of my own study and experience, > >that there is no question in my mind that people have improved their > >emotional lives, and their self-understanding, and their ethical > >intuitions, and have even had important insights about the nature of > >subjectivity itself through a variety of traditional practices like > >meditation. > > > >Leaving aside all the metaphysics and mythology and mumbo jumbo, what > >contemplatives and mystics over the millennia claim to have > >discovered is that there is an alternative to merely living at the > >mercy of the next neurotic thought that comes careening into > >consciousness. There is an alternative to being continuously > >spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves. > > > >Most us think that if a person is walking down the street talking to > >himselfthat is, not able to censor himself in front of other people > >hes probably mentally ill. But if we talk to ourselves all day long > >silentlythinking, thinking, thinking, rehearsing prior > >conversations, thinking about what we said, what we didnt say, what > >we should have said, jabbering on to ourselves about what we hope is > >going to happen, what just happened, what almost happened, what > >should have happened, what may yet happenbut we just know enough to > >just keep this conversation private, this is perfectly normal. This > >is perfectly compatible with sanity. Well, this is not what the > >experience of millions of contemplatives suggests. > > > >Of course, I am by no means denying the importance of thinking. There > >is no question that linguistic thought is indispensable for us. It > >is, in large part, what makes us human. It is the fabric of almost > >all culture and every social relationship. Needless to say, it is the > >basis of all science. And it is surely responsible for much > >rudimentary cognitionfor integrating beliefs, planning, explicit > >learning, moral reasoning, and many other mental capacities. Even > >talking to oneself out loud may occasionally serve a useful function. > > > > From the point of view of our contemplative traditions, howeverto > >boil them all down to a cartoon version, that ignores the rather > >esoteric disputes among themour habitual identification with > >discursive thought, our failure moment to moment to recognize > >thoughts as thoughts, is a primary source of human suffering. And > >when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is > >available. > > > >But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you > >cant borrow someone elses contemplative tools to test it. The > >problem is that to test such a claimindeed, to even appreciate how > >distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own > >contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had > >to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if > >astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldnt make the sky any > >less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more > >difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science. > > > >To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build > >your own telescope. Judging their metaphysical claims is another > >matter: many of these can be dismissed as bad science or bad > >philosophy by merely thinking about them. But to judge whether > >certain experiences are possibleand if possible, desirablewe have > >to be able to use our attention in the requisite ways. We have to be > >able to break our identification with discursive thought, if only for > >a few moments. This can take a tremendous amount of work. And it is > >not work that our culture knows much about. > > > >One problem with atheism as a category of thought, is that it seems > >more or less synonymous with not being interested in what someone > >like the Buddha or Jesus may have actually experienced. In fact, many > >atheists reject such experiences out of hand, as either impossible, > >or if possible, not worth wanting. Another common mistake is to > >imagine that such experiences are necessarily equivalent to states of > >mind with which many of us are already familiarthe feeling of > >scientific awe, or ordinary states of aesthetic appreciation, > >artistic inspiration, etc. > > > >As someone who has made his own modest efforts in this area, let me > >assure you, that when a person goes into solitude and trains himself > >in meditation for 15 or 18 hours a day, for months or years at a > >time, in silence, doing nothing elsenot talking, not reading, not > >writingjust making a sustained moment to moment effort to merely > >observe the contents of consciousness and to not get lost in thought, > >he experiences things that most scientists and artists are not likely > >to have experienced, unless they have made precisely the same efforts > >at introspection. And these experiences have a lot to say about the > >plasticity of the human mind and about the possibilities of human > >happiness..." > > > >Moq_Discuss mailing list > >Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > >http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > >Archives: > >http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > >http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > > >************* >DEFINITION of Marsha, I, me, self, myself, & >etc.: Ever-changing collection of overlapping, >interrelated, inorganic, biological, social and >intellectual, static patterns of value. > > > >Moq_Discuss mailing list >Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. >http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org >Archives: >http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ >http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ ************* DEFINITION of Marsha, I, me, self, myself, & etc.: Ever-changing collection of overlapping, interrelated, inorganic, biological, social and intellectual, static patterns of value. 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