Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
From: j_alexander_stan...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 2:32 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State A Message From Advaita State (ASSES) || |||| A Message From Advaita State (ASSES) All glory to Ramana!|| | View on youtu.be |Preview by Yahoo| || Hilarious, but also absolutely perfect in this context, Alex. I honestly think that Edg *doesn't know* that when he makes a post chastising people in advance for disagreeing with him about a picayune point *that most people don't have any interest in* and then titles the post... * Youse guys gunna ever listen or not? OR * I'll say it again OR * What do FFLers who don't get it get? ...much less ALL of the above titles, that he's being an arrogant prick. PLUS, as your video captured so well, he's being JUST as much of a fundamentalist Advaitahole as the guy in the video. So *of course* I made fun of him. He reacted the way Edg usually does when someone either fails to take him as seriously as he takes himself (duh...almost always) and worse, laughs at him, and he had one of his meltdowns. He launched into his If-I-just-string-together-enough-derogatory-words-and-hurl-them-at-the-person-who-laughed-at-me-people-will-think-I'm-a-good-writer-and-smart routine, which -- I'm sorry -- just made me laugh at him even more, and strive to encourage others to join in with the laughter. There were other issues as well, which I will touch on before dropping the subject and hoping he is sane enough to do the same once he sobers up: * Some of us don't get off on arguing with other people *period*, even about important things, and think that those who do are kinda jerkish and limited. * Some of us get off even *less* on someone trying to bully you into arguing about an unimportant point that you think is even more stupid and unarguable-about than How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? * Some of us who have had actual realization experiences may feel compassion for those who have not, but that doesn't mean that we feel the need to encourage them when they believe that they can understand or get enlightenment or realization or whateveryouwanttocallit via intellectual inquiry. We don't think it's even *possible* to get it intellectually. So the whole idea of getting one's panties in a twist over some Advaitan intellectual masturbation exercise strikes us as a waste of time. If people *like* to masturbate, and think that doing so gives them more knowledge about the spiritual path, that's fine. But when someone tries to bully us into joining in with their circle jerk, it's bloody well time to make fun of them until they lighten up and realize that not everybody gets off on the same...uh...strokes that they do. That's all. I'm posting this NOT to get Edg or harm him, as he foolishly believes, but to try to explain to him WHY I was laughing at him, and WHY I will continue to do so when he tries to get me to join in one of his rounds of Mental Masturbation Performed As A Competitive Sport. I wish him luck finding other people here who like such things...
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote :
Ya talkin' about WillyTex? Looks likehe now pestering The Peak. :-D
How deeply joyous for both of us, 'tis indeed the season of glad tidings!
The question of how long he can last there before violating *that* forum's
rules and being booted off is the subject of several betting pools on the
Internet.
On 12/15/2014 09:42 AM, Duveyoung wrote:
Not funny. Not funny. When it comes to axioms, I'mpretty much a stubborn
hardass wanting his own way.
Plus, the joke was from Terk, (which rhymes with unwipedasshole) so we know the
intent was to, well, let's spellit out: Turqy was once again trying to portray
my mind asinferior to such a degree that a cogent reply to anythingI might come
up with was completely unnecessary.
To dismiss so trollfully is the mark of a mind that can'tmuster even the first
counter argument in a debate -- andknows it. He's a coward, but not even a
clever one as hetries to prevent his lack of ken from being discovered. Who
here doesn't know how shallow his reach is?
I don't like his personality -- it's a shambles ofbrokenness, and he knows it,
so he keeps poking at me andanyone who has a POV -- trying to get at folks so's
theyare embarrassed to even show up, let alone speak up, whileall the time
keeping the attentions of everyone onanything but his own flaws.
In short the guy is a dick. A fuck. A mean, lost,creepy-ass schizoid out to
harm big, harm small, harm harmharm. A guy who'd be beat up instantly if he
pulled thisshit in a bar.No way he's still living if he was like thisin real
life.
So, no, I'm not laughing at someone who comes here toSOLELY try to piss
everyone off without regard for trueinquiry, scholarship or merits of the
debate topic.
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[FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo
I'm still making my way through this series, and even kinda enjoying it in a prurient way, but I do feel the need to pass along a more critical article that kinda nails its failings (below). As I remember, the person who first mentioned this new series on FFL mentioned it in the same breath as Da Vinci's Demons, which in retrospect (having seen over half of Marco Polo now) was spot-on. When I first discovered DV'sD, I reviewed it with the one-liner, the gaudiest, most egregious Dan Brown-ization of history I have ever encountered. I could just as easily have used that line for Marco Polo. The filmmakers in both cases, while making TV about supposedly historical periods, have completely freed themselves from the necessity of paying any attention whatsoever to real history. Or even reality. They have also -- DV'sD in its depiction of the Maya culture and MP in its depiction of Asian cultures -- freed themselves from even trying to portray them without condescension. In a very real sense, one suspects that if modern Chinese and Mongolian world leaders see Netflix's Marco Polo, they could justifiably consider it an act of war. It's eye candy, and with all the nutritional value of real candy. Ignore that, and you can pass a few mindless hours watching it: Netflix’s orgy bonanza: “Marco Polo” gives a lesson in how not to write about other cultures | | | | | | | | | | | Netflix’s orgy bonanza: “Marco Polo” gives a lesson in h...Bogged down by the idea of prestige TV, it flouts historical accuracy in favor of threesomes in the Khan’s harem | | | | View on www.salon.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | |
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
Yeah, it's to nail down Nisargadatta's take on whether consciousness, after death of the body, is yet maintained within some sort of physicality I know not of. Astral nervous system? Nisargadatta's so out of the person business and, too, so clear that perfect nothingness is sentient and eternal, that I truly do not think he cared if the soul has metaphysical staying power. It was all illusion to him. One thing he said, and I paraphrase: Don't miss that I'm doing nightly puja sessions with my small group of followers. Again, I don't know why he did the rituals, and my guesses here would lack traction, but if there is something that continues after death, then doing scriptural rituals seems like a worthy way to prepare consciousness to be active at very low energy levels. The TM puja requires the teacher to be aware of many levels of consciousness simultaneously -- the spoken words, the Sanskrit internally heard, the meaning of the Sanskrit, the feelings/emotions that harmonize with the words' meaning, and the actual physical movements. Since so many operations of consciousness are being monitored during the puja, it seems to underline that awareness must be beyond the physical. Sure seems to me that if the astral world is real, the puja would be good prep. This said, I don't do puja and I don't meditate and I don't do Advaita mindfulness methods. As a narcissist I think I pretty much started TM for the promised new personality. Once I understood that TM doesn't affect personality, the prospect of reaching CC became a many lifetimes thingy to me. And if so, then I'll just be happy with the 29 years of four hours of program per day. But I'm a reading fool -- it's about all I can do as far as I can tell -- at least give my ego some peace that it has axioms that sustain a world view. Adavaita just makes good logical sense to me. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Consciousness can only become more subtle and refined and that is what happens after death. You reckon no one here can logically beat this? This is crap for a start, seems like it's the killer punch to its own credibility. But the rest of it is interesting if you like that sort of thing, but seems to have been caused by the problem of the brain not being able to see how it works by looking at itself. That's why we think there are two things going on in there when they are really aspects of the same thing and I don't see how we can have one without the other. You'll tie yourself in knots trying to turn round fast enough to see how the mind pulls off the trick, maybe you'll go crazy and think there's some sort of eternal aspect to our selves that is beyond our understanding. It sure seems like that but then I fall asleep and the illusion (however it works) disappears. That's what fuels all this speculation, the fact we can't imagine not being here. If you put it all into an evolutionary perspective you lose all the mystical confusion by realising the whole thing has been added to and refined but that type of refining (jn fact the only type) is always a bodge-up there isn't a single part of our bodies that works as well as it would if it had been designed and I see no reason why the brain should be different. But people don't like thinking about it like that, it collapses the wave form away from us being some sort of mystically superior being. But we could probably work out quite easily what previous life forms would have had upstairs, the only difference between us and them is this ability to create endless metaphors. So it's all constructs really, and it's the constructs that are aware of themselves even if they never come to a conclusion about how they work. The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's all actually put together and start again from there. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : noozguru wrote : Close your eyes and tells us where your awareness ends. Every time I write about this stuff I get just a bit more able to keep to the central issues. So on that level, I thank you for the reply. Awareness is not consciousness. You, above, used the word your as if my ego (or my nervous system, my mind, my brain and/or my Being -- take your pick) had some sort of natural right to own awareness as if it were some sort of personal thing over which I would have some sort of hegemony. BAH! Awareness is beyond beginnings and endings -- it's not a dimensional thing or it or whatever -- if you have a category, piss off, awareness is beyond it no matter what.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
Just curious, do you remember the first time you saw Marshy and if so what was it like? From: Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 9:48 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives Yeah, it's to nail down Nisargadatta's take on whether consciousness, after death of the body, is yet maintained within some sort of physicality I know not of. Astral nervous system? Nisargadatta's so out of the person business and, too, so clear that perfect nothingness is sentient and eternal, that I truly do not think he cared if the soul has metaphysical staying power. It was all illusion to him. One thing he said, and I paraphrase: Don't miss that I'm doing nightly puja sessions with my small group of followers. Again, I don't know why he did the rituals, and my guesses here would lack traction, but if there is something that continues after death, then doing scriptural rituals seems like a worthy way to prepare consciousness to be active at very low energy levels. The TM puja requires the teacher to be aware of many levels of consciousness simultaneously -- the spoken words, the Sanskrit internally heard, the meaning of the Sanskrit, the feelings/emotions that harmonize with the words' meaning, and the actual physical movements. Since so many operations of consciousness are being monitored during the puja, it seems to underline that awareness must be beyond the physical. Sure seems to me that if the astral world is real, the puja would be good prep. This said, I don't do puja and I don't meditate and I don't do Advaita mindfulness methods. As a narcissist I think I pretty much started TM for the promised new personality. Once I understood that TM doesn't affect personality, the prospect of reaching CC became a many lifetimes thingy to me. And if so, then I'll just be happy with the 29 years of four hours of program per day. But I'm a reading fool -- it's about all I can do as far as I can tell -- at least give my ego some peace that it has axioms that sustain a world view. Adavaita just makes good logical sense to me. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Consciousness can only become more subtle and refined and that is what happens after death. You reckon no one here can logically beat this? This is crap for a start, seems like it's the killer punch to its own credibility. But the rest of it is interesting if you like that sort of thing, but seems to have been caused by the problem of the brain not being able to see how it works by looking at itself. That's why we think there are two things going on in there when they are really aspects of the same thing and I don't see how we can have one without the other. You'll tie yourself in knots trying to turn round fast enough to see how the mind pulls off the trick, maybe you'll go crazy and think there's some sort of eternal aspect to our selves that is beyond our understanding. It sure seems like that but then I fall asleep and the illusion (however it works) disappears. That's what fuels all this speculation, the fact we can't imagine not being here. If you put it all into an evolutionary perspective you lose all the mystical confusion by realising the whole thing has been added to and refined but that type of refining (jn fact the only type) is always a bodge-up there isn't a single part of our bodies that works as well as it would if it had been designed and I see no reason why the brain should be different. But people don't like thinking about it like that, it collapses the wave form away from us being some sort of mystically superior being. But we could probably work out quite easily what previous life forms would have had upstairs, the only difference between us and them is this ability to create endless metaphors. So it's all constructs really, and it's the constructs that are aware of themselves even if they never come to a conclusion about how they work. The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's all actually put together and start again from there. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : noozguru wrote : Close your eyes and tells us where your awareness ends. Every time I write about this stuff I get just a bit more able to keep to the central issues. So on that level, I thank you for the reply. Awareness is not consciousness. You, above, used the word your as if my ego (or my nervous system, my mind, my brain and/or my Being -- take your pick) had some sort of natural right to own awareness as if it were some sort of
Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
Really? That's your best shot, Turq? That's your big play? I am so much worse than anything anyone here has yet accused me of being. So much worse. I have failed in just about every human way possible. I retired in 1998 from society just because of such failures. You think you can add to the pain of that with your little boy smarm? So, if the below's all you've picked up on to diss me with? Geeze, my mask must be much better than I ever would have hoped. Ya see? It's not about me. I am way way way not a knower of reality or even an all around good guy. I'm as small and petty as anyone. Daily, hourly. But awareness is not consciousness. This is axiomatic. This is not about whether I am an object of Turq derision or getting old -- this concept stands on its own, and anyone can look within and see if it's true for them -- or not. If it is true, it doesn't make me even a titch more spiritually worthy for having passed it along. I'm not here to try to fool anyone that I'm special -- it's just that this one concept seems so pivotal, so fundamental. If awareness is not consciousness, then spirituality becomes a whole new beast -- it points at how consciousness is an experience whore -- a processing addict, and identity thief. Being turns out to be PRIMAL SIN -- individuality is a crock. So toss your fucking darts at me. I already have whole spears embedded -- that I tossed. Ya got no clout. But awareness is not consciousness has more validity than anything I've ever seen you post, and that's the target you can't hit -- me?, I'm a mess, easy pickin's, but that concept is SACRED, and you can't touch it.
Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
From: Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:12 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State But awareness is not consciousness has more validity than anything I've ever seen you post, and that's the target you can't hit -- me?, I'm a mess, easy pickin's, but that concept is SACRED, and you can't touch it. But carry on. Seriously, I hope you find people who are interested in arguing with you about things you all consider important. I am not one of them, and feel instead that your standards for sacred spiritual axioms seem to be as low as your standards for good writing.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
I first saw Maharishi in 1971 -- Humboldt -- One month course. I was a mess. Big mood maker. Totally thinking I was cool and set for greatness. First time: Not sure if it was on the stage or if it was when I handed him a flower as he walked into the building. He looked me in the eyes, and I felt kinda silly that there was no explosion of bliss and instead was just a guy with a flower and hopes. It should be noted that Maharishi didn't fall a my feet and claim I was the new age prophet upon whom the movement would now prosper. Ha ha ha! I think I actually kinda thought maybe that would happen. This is narcissism, but note that it wasn't an obsessed upon notion.just a passing thought thingy. But I did like Maharishi's vibe. Not his golden aura, not just his nice-person thingy. You know how you can like or dislike a person instantly -- like that I liked the guy. But it wasn't the Maharishi sees Guru Dev's face for the first time when a car's lights shown into the ashram moment. Nope. No epiphany.
Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
Go ahead, put me down. Pleases ya, does it? And by the way, my writing, such as it is, has gotten me retired very comfortably, thank you. 17 years now without having to suck up to someone. And still churning out the residual nickles. How's your writing income doing for you? Still working are ya? Hm.
[FairfieldLife] Bill Burr: Emails from Psychotic Women
Hey Barry, check this one out. Whaddya think? Where do you rate this on a humor scale of 1-5? Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 11/16/09 https://twitter.com/billburr www.billburr.com View on www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] Re: Bill Burr: Emails from Psychotic Women
P.S. I didn't listen to all of it (yet) - hope it isn't too off-colour. If so, I'll delete the post. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emily.mae50@... wrote : Hey Barry, check this one out. Whaddya think? Where do you rate this on a humor scale of 1-5? Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 11/16/09 https://twitter.com/billburr www.billburr.com View on www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] Dale Borglum: New Interview on Buddha at the Gas Pump - 12/16/2014
https://gallery.mailchimp.com/62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5/images/7d6f5fc9-48d2-4cf2-a2a4-7dc581753771.jpg If you are not doing so already, please consider donating a few dollars a month to help offset basic expenses associated with hosting, MailChimp, etc. Of course, larger donations for other expenses are very much appreciated and needed. Donate button on http://batgap.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=0a56f40cb5e=16e07f16fe http://batgap.com. Updates from Buddha at the Gas Pump Interviews with Ordinary Spiritually Awakened People New interview posted 12/16/2014: * 269. Dale Borglum http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=2cffe14376e=16e07f16fe 269. Dale Borglum By Rick Archer on Dec 15, 2014 07:08 am Dale Borglum founded and directed the Hanuman Foundation Dying Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the first residential facility in the United States to support conscious dying. He has been the Executive Director of the Living/Dying Project in Santa Fe … http://batgap.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=5b0132f139e=16e07f16fe Continue reading → The post http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=b1fa10abf9e=16e07f16fe 269. Dale Borglum appeared first on http://batgap.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=ae630bcf57e=16e07f16fe Buddha at the Gas Pump. http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=2cb390cb3be=16e07f16fe Read in browser » http://batgap.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=053b9a2c72e=16e07f16fe http://batgap.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=6d00c021efe=16e07f16fe Recent Interviews: http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=759f4f5318e=16e07f16fe 268. Leonard Jacobson http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=5bb1b3403ae=16e07f16fe 267. Nukunu Larsen http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=dd1a7bcd7de=16e07f16fe 266. Tom Campbell http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=e6433c4d71e=16e07f16fe 265. Bart Marshall http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=259d155db8e=16e07f16fe 264. Sat Shree Copyright © 2014 Buddha at the Gas Pump, All rights reserved. Regular announcement of new interviews posted at http://batgap.com. Our mailing address is: Buddha at the Gas Pump 1108 South B Street Fairfield, Iowa 52556 http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/vcard?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=b0e5d0d53a Add us to your address book http://batgap.us2.list-manage.com/track/open.php?u=62b7e50ba8598f35e2edf91d5id=244a3641dbe=16e07f16fe
Re: [FairfieldLife] Bill Burr: Emails from Psychotic Women
I can't find it in me to even finish this one. Sorry, but there is something in the tone of his voice (not to mention the things he says) that just screams Misogynist to me. I could be wrong, and he could be one of those radio guys who only badraps women for the ratings, but I'm so turned off by the first three minutes I can't get any further. I think it's deeper than that. This guy really doesn't *like* women very much. In my opinion, of course. How did you expect me to react? From: emily.ma...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:48 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Bill Burr: Emails from Psychotic Women Hey Barry, check this one out. Whaddya think? Where do you rate this on a humor scale of 1-5? Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women || |||| Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women 11/16/09 https://twitter.com/billburr www.billburr.com|| | View on www.youtube.com |Preview by Yahoo| ||
Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo
It's just good TV. I also think the storylines are a bit of a metaphor about our current state of affairs. You can say a lot of things if you shroud it in pseudo history. Usually I'm not too big on period pieces but the series is entertaining. On 12/16/2014 05:54 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: */I'm still making my way through this series, and even kinda enjoying it in a prurient way, but I do feel the need to pass along a more critical article that kinda nails its failings (below). /* */ /* */As I remember, the person who first mentioned this new series on FFL mentioned it in the same breath as Da Vinci's Demons, which in retrospect (having seen over half of Marco Polo now) was spot-on. When I first discovered DV'sD, I reviewed it with the one-liner, the gaudiest, most egregious Dan Brown-ization of history I have ever encountered. I could just as easily have used that line for Marco Polo. /* */ /* */The filmmakers in both cases, while making TV about supposedly historical periods, have completely freed themselves from the necessity of paying any attention whatsoever to real history. Or even reality. They have also -- DV'sD in its depiction of the Maya culture and MP in its depiction of Asian cultures -- freed themselves from even trying to portray them without condescension. In a very real sense, one suspects that if modern Chinese and Mongolian world leaders see Netflix's Marco Polo, they could justifiably consider it an act of war. /* */ /* */It's eye candy, and with all the nutritional value of real candy. Ignore that, and you can pass a few mindless hours watching it: /* */ /* */Netflix’s orgy bonanza: “Marco Polo” gives a lesson in how not to write about other cultures http://www.salon.com/2014/12/15/netfixs_orgy_bonanza_marco_polo_gives_a_lesson_in_how_not_to_write_about_other_cultures//* image http://www.salon.com/2014/12/15/netfixs_orgy_bonanza_marco_polo_gives_a_lesson_in_how_not_to_write_about_other_cultures/ Netflix’s orgy bonanza: “Marco Polo” gives a lesson in h... http://www.salon.com/2014/12/15/netfixs_orgy_bonanza_marco_polo_gives_a_lesson_in_how_not_to_write_about_other_cultures/ Bogged down by the idea of prestige TV, it flouts historical accuracy in favor of threesomes in the Khan’s harem View on www.salon.com http://www.salon.com/2014/12/15/netfixs_orgy_bonanza_marco_polo_gives_a_lesson_in_how_not_to_write_about_other_cultures/ Preview by Yahoo
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
My first meetings with Maharishi were unplanned and pleasant. I was on TTC Arosa in '75 Being a country-boy from WI and in Arosa in June it was like a second spring and I took opportunities to go gallivanting in the Alps. One time I returned from a walk to find Maharishi had flown in on helicopter and was in lobby 'doing a line', I was lil sweaty and not dressed right and without flowers but jumped in at end of line anyways . . . I did the Namaste thing and he gave me some flowers and said something very cheerful. The second time and on another day I was in a bit of a hurry and came around a corner and saw the elevator doors closing so ran and squeezed in sideways and thinking what a coup to make it in but to my horror I banged into Jerry Jarvis who then almost banged into Maharishi. Jerry did one of his lil laughs and Maharishi was quite impressed by my move. Maharishi was in his announcing of Dawn of Age of Enlightenment phase, and he had sites where others were experimenting with Sidhis and he was helicoptering all over Switzerland so I suspect he was in a good mood. Anyways, that was my best elevator ride evah!
Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
By any logic awareness and consciousness can not be mutually exclusive. The argument has it's semantic problems as you can not have awareness without being consciousness. And what is being meant by awareness? The senses? But it's all not worth worrying about. My exploration with Advaita began after a girlfriend gave me a copy of Be Here Now which was followed about a month later with seeing Ram Dass give a talk locally. So I was into reading Ramana Maharishi and the writings of his student Mouni Sadhu. I picked up a few techniques that I have over time passed on to others such as visualizing the earth and then moving so far out in space it is the size of a small piece of sand and then reflecting on all the events of day and history and how insignificant they are. Another was imagining you have died and how society would react. IOW they go on perfectly well without you. I have had to admit the stilts thing was funny. I hate stilts as well as unicycles. I can understand some folks are fascinated with them but not me. So the image was rather funny. :-) On 12/16/2014 07:18 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: *From:* Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:12 PM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State But awareness is not consciousness has more validity than anything I've ever seen you post, and that's the target you can't hit -- me?, I'm a mess, easy pickin's, but that concept is SACRED, and you can't touch it. */But carry on. Seriously, I hope you find people who are interested in arguing with you about things you all consider important. /* */ /* */I am not one of them, and feel instead that /*/*y*/*/our standards for sacred spiritual axioms seem to be as low as your standards for good writing. /* */ /*
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
I wouldn't be too worried about death. You prepare for it every night when you go to sleep. For all we know this life may be nothing but an amusement park ride. On 12/16/2014 06:48 AM, Duveyoung wrote: Yeah, it's to nail down Nisargadatta's take on whether consciousness, after death of the body, is yet maintained within some sort of physicality I know not of. Astral nervous system? Nisargadatta's so out of the person business and, too, so clear that perfect nothingness is sentient and eternal, that I truly do not think he cared if the soul has metaphysical staying power. It was all illusion to him. One thing he said, and I paraphrase: Don't miss that I'm doing nightly puja sessions with my small group of followers. Again, I don't know why he did the rituals, and my guesses here would lack traction, but if there is something that continues after death, then doing scriptural rituals seems like a worthy way to prepare consciousness to be active at very low energy levels. The TM puja requires the teacher to be aware of many levels of consciousness simultaneously -- the spoken words, the Sanskrit internally heard, the meaning of the Sanskrit, the feelings/emotions that harmonize with the words' meaning, and the actual physical movements. Since so many operations of consciousness are being monitored during the puja, it seems to underline that awareness must be beyond the physical. Sure seems to me that if the astral world is real, the puja would be good prep. This said, I don't do puja and I don't meditate and I don't do Advaita mindfulness methods. As a narcissist I think I pretty much started TM for the promised new personality. Once I understood that TM doesn't affect personality, the prospect of reaching CC became a many lifetimes thingy to me. And if so, then I'll just be happy with the 29 years of four hours of program per day. But I'm a reading fool -- it's about all I can do as far as I can tell -- at least give my ego some peace that it has axioms that sustain a world view. Adavaita just makes good logical sense to me. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Consciousness can only become more subtle and refined and that is what happens after death. You reckon no one here can logically beat this? This is crap for a start, seems like it's the killer punch to its own credibility. But the rest of it is interesting if you like that sort of thing, but seems to have been caused by the problem of the brain not being able to see how it works by looking at itself. That's why we think there are two things going on in there when they are really aspects of the same thing and I don't see how we can have one without the other. You'll tie yourself in knots trying to turn round fast enough to see how the mind pulls off the trick, maybe you'll go crazy and think there's some sort of eternal aspect to our selves that is beyond our understanding. It sure seems like that but then I fall asleep and the illusion (however it works) disappears. That's what fuels all this speculation, the fact we can't imagine not being here. If you put it all into an evolutionary perspective you lose all the mystical confusion by realising the whole thing has been added to and refined but that type of refining (jn fact the only type) is always a bodge-up there isn't a single part of our bodies that works as well as it would if it had been designed and I see no reason why the brain should be different. But people don't like thinking about it like that, it collapses the wave form away from us being some sort of mystically superior being. But we could probably work out quite easily what previous life forms would have had upstairs, the only difference between us and them is this ability to create endless metaphors. So it's all constructs really, and it's the constructs that are aware of themselves even if they never come to a conclusion about how they work. The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's all actually put together and start again from there. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : noozguru wrote : Close your eyes and tells us where your awareness ends. Every time I write about this stuff I get just a bit more able to keep to the central issues. So on that level, I thank you for the reply. Awareness is not consciousness. You, above, used the word your as if my ego (or my nervous system, my mind, my brain and/or my Being -- take your pick) had some sort of natural right to own awareness as if it were some sort of personal thing over which I would have some sort
Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo
Yes, both series can be considered entertaining and nothing else, if you are
talking about adult viewers who actually *know* their history and thus
understand that these TV plots are often as far from it as humanly possible.
But now think about the teenagers who can't even find the Yucatan or Mongolia
on a map, and haven't had the breadth of education to help them understand that
these series are FICTION, and have nothing to do with the historical events
they are supposedly based on. Some of them probably base their History class
reports on these TV series. That thought often makes me facepalm in despair.
A similar series that I admit to having watched, just for the costumes and the
babes and to see how into this model it strays, is Reign, a somewhat
fictionalized TV rendering of the events of Mary Queen of Scots during the
period she spent in France. The first shocker for an adult student of history,
of course, is how YOUNG everybody onscreen looks. Well, duh...not *only* are
the ages of the actors and actresses probably closer to the historical figures
than we might imagine (lifespans being so much shorter then), but the
showrunners are trying to reach that very teenage and early-20s audience
mentioned earlier. So the series leads appeal to that demographic.
As a viewer of all three series who is probably more schooled in history than
most viewers, I cringe mightily every time I watch any of these three. On the
other hand, if I just suspend disbelief and take them as a fairly pleasant
way to turn off my mind and enjoy the eye candy for an hour, I can get through
them.
It's just that my personal standard for historical fiction is a Scottish
writer named Dorothy Dunnett, whose historical accuracy is in most cases better
than that of historians. She *never* fudges anything or fakes anything or
changes any history. All she does is occasionally insert some fictional
characters into the midst of real history. The result is SO exciting and SO
dynamic and SUCH good literature that it makes me wonder why other writers
can't do the same thing -- pay equal homage to nonfictional history and
fictional storytelling.
From: Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife]
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:46 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo
It's just good TV. I also think the storylines are a bit of a metaphor
about our current state of affairs. You can say a lot of things if you shroud
it in pseudo history. Usually I'm not too big on period pieces but the
series is entertaining.
On 12/16/2014 05:54 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]
wrote:
I'm still making my way through this series, and even kinda enjoying it in
a prurient way, but I do feel the need to pass along a more critical article
that kinda nails its failings (below).
As I remember, the person who first mentioned this new series on FFL
mentioned it in the same breath as Da Vinci's Demons, which in retrospect
(having seen over half of Marco Polo now) was spot-on. When I first
discovered DV'sD, I reviewed it with the one-liner, the gaudiest, most
egregious Dan Brown-ization of history I have ever encountered. I could just
as easily have used that line for Marco Polo.
The filmmakers in both cases, while making TV about supposedly historical
periods, have completely freed themselves from the necessity of paying any
attention whatsoever to real history. Or even reality. They have also -- DV'sD
in its depiction of the Maya culture and MP in its depiction of Asian cultures
-- freed themselves from even trying to portray them without condescension. In
a very real sense, one suspects that if modern Chinese and Mongolian world
leaders see Netflix's Marco Polo, they could justifiably consider it an act
of war.
It's eye candy, and with all the nutritional value of real candy. Ignore
that, and you can pass a few mindless hours watching it:
Netflix’s orgy bonanza: “Marco Polo” gives a lesson in how not to write about
other cultures
| |
| || | | | | |
| Netflix’s orgy bonanza: “Marco Polo” gives a lesson in h... Bogged down by
the idea of prestige TV, it flouts historical accuracy in favor of threesomes
in the Khan’s harem|
|
|
| View on www.salon.com | Preview by Yahoo |
|
|
| |
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[FairfieldLife] First meetings with MMY (was Re: Marco Polo Arrives)
My first encounter with Maharishi was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles in
1967, and I came away *not* so much impressed with him as I was by something he
said, which in retrospect is kinda poignant.
What I remember most about the day is that someone in the audience got up and
asked a question that basically boiled down to I've got this problem in my
life, Maharishi...what should I do?
His answer impressed me. He said something to the effect of, If I tell you
what to do it will make you *weaker*, not stronger. My advice might get you
through this current situation, but when the next one comes up, you'd be
looking for me to tell you what to do again. Better that you should meditate
and learn to make your own decisions.
Compare that 1967 advice to how he started running his students' lives shortly
thereafter. And, as he accurately intuited back then, him doing that made them
all weaker, not stronger.
From: inmadi...@hotmail.com [FairfieldLife]
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
My first meetings with Maharishi were unplanned and pleasant. I was on
TTC Arosa in '75
Being a country-boy from WI and in Arosa in June it was like a second spring
and I took opportunities to go gallivanting in the Alps. One time I returned
from a walk to find Maharishi had flown in on helicopter and was in lobby
'doing a line', I was lil sweaty and not dressed right and without flowers but
jumped in at end of line anyways . . . I did the Namaste thing and he gave me
some flowers and said something very cheerful.
The second time and on another day I was in a bit of a hurry and came around a
corner and saw the elevator doors closing so ran and squeezed in sideways and
thinking what a coup to make it in but to my horror I banged into Jerry Jarvis
who then almost banged into Maharishi. Jerry did one of his lil laughs and
Maharishi was quite impressed by my move. Maharishi was in his announcing of
Dawn of Age of Enlightenment phase, and he had sites where others were
experimenting with Sidhis and he was helicoptering all over Switzerland so I
suspect he was in a good mood. Anyways, that was my best elevator ride evah!
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Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
By any logic means you're using the dictionary meanings. BAH. I'm contending that Nisargadatta is giving us new meanings and trying his best to use mere words when they must necessarily fall short. Yes, in the dictionary, we find very similar meanings for the two words. But Nisargadatta is close to 100% in his using awareness as primal and consciousness as merely phenomenal. I think Maurice Frydman who did the translations toed that line very well. Kept them quite separate. In every use of these two words in the book seen, the consistency is remarkable. Awareness is the sentient agency that observes consciousness.never the other way around. And so that's what I report as fundamental. Yes, I'm asking everyone to dump the dictionary. Most of what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said about consciousness does apply properly, but try to find out what Maharishi thinks about what is equal to what and what is different from what -- soul, witness, consciousness, being, mind, heart -- and it's just a mishmash -- with words being tossed about with far less precision. The Gita seemed perfect for four readings for me, and then Advaita made precision important, and Maharishi's Gita was notched down. This said, there's just so much in his commentaries that were edifying to me that I cannot but be thankful for what was in them. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : By any logic awareness and consciousness can not be mutually exclusive. The argument has it's semantic problems as you can not have awareness without being consciousness. And what is being meant by awareness? The senses? But it's all not worth worrying about. My exploration with Advaita began after a girlfriend gave me a copy of Be Here Now which was followed about a month later with seeing Ram Dass give a talk locally. So I was into reading Ramana Maharishi and the writings of his student Mouni Sadhu. I picked up a few techniques that I have over time passed on to others such as visualizing the earth and then moving so far out in space it is the size of a small piece of sand and then reflecting on all the events of day and history and how insignificant they are. Another was imagining you have died and how society would react. IOW they go on perfectly well without you. I have had to admit the stilts thing was funny. I hate stilts as well as unicycles. I can understand some folks are fascinated with them but not me. So the image was rather funny. :-) On 12/16/2014 07:18 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... mailto:turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: From: Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:12 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State But awareness is not consciousness has more validity than anything I've ever seen you post, and that's the target you can't hit -- me?, I'm a mess, easy pickin's, but that concept is SACRED, and you can't touch it. But carry on. Seriously, I hope you find people who are interested in arguing with you about things you all consider important. I am not one of them, and feel instead that your standards for sacred spiritual axioms seem to be as low as your standards for good writing.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Humor and Self-Deception
Thank you Eustace for the 60 Minutes link. I watched the show - a good plug. Jon Kabat-Zinn is looking peaceful. :) If Anderson Cooper can surrender his mobile devices and keep coming back to his breath, than so can I. And, I practiced this morning and I do feel calmer. If it is good enough for Google and they are teaching it in classrooms, then it is good enough for me. Comments below. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, emily.mae50@... wrote : Let me try out some mindfulness (no, not a TM'er - no hope for enlightenment here) and see if I can answer you coherently. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seerdope@... wrote : EM: I posted this article because I like the topic; personally, I think the test they used, based on what they mentioned of it, is a bunch of BS. There are no black and white answers. The article itself is lousy and dumbed down for public consumption. SD: I think the premise of the study is valid (from abstract) More generally since humor often involves seeing life or a person from a novel angle and self-deception tends to reduce such angles, self-deception will naturally tend to reduce ones sense of humor. EM2: Yes, this sentence does the best at capturing the essence of how they relate and why different people have different senses of humor. I posted the article, but didn't read the abstract. Basically, sloppy, and then I threw the whole thing under the bus for good measure. I admit I was overtaken by my resentment towards the Myers-Briggs test - my Ma had us kids take it as teenagers in an effort to figure us out (can't blame her for that). I filled it out as opposite as I could (in an attempt to outsmart it) and then suffered the consequences. I think I'll move on from this now.I sound kind of angry in my original reply. SD: My concern is the research design -- whereby self-deception is purportedly measured by a questionnaire.In contrast, if the study identified levels of deception via brain imaging or similar means, it could be quite insightful. That is, almost by definition people don't know when they are deceiving themselves. Tell tale clues might show up if previously identified and established deception centers in the brain lit up when a subject gave particular responses. EM2: That 60 minutes show attached electrodes to Anderson Cooper's brain and showed the part of the brain that lit up with stressful thoughts and then how it relaxed. Pretty convincing. Without that, we are left with, it appears, some crude notion of an implicit norm about self-detection such as its normal for everyone to at times enjoy being cruel. So if one answers no to I could never enjoy being cruel,” one would presumably score higher on the self-detection scale. To me that ass-backwards. People who are cruel to others have a distinctly more limited perspective than a more considerate compassionate person that sees from multiple angles, from other people's perspectives, how actions may hurt another. And taking pleasure in another's pain further indicates some inner pain/distortions twistedness that would generally indicate a limited perspective. Which is counter to the premise of the study that a wider perspective, the ability to see things from multiple angles correlates with a broader, deeper sense of humor. EM2. Exactly. I would like to see how they scored/measured and corrected for measures of impression management, extraversion, mood and how much a person laughs in their daily life. These things seem unquantifiable. EM: Great humor like great art often comes out of pain and suffering. SD: I can't speak for others or for great art or humor, EM2: What, are you saying I made a pompous and blanket statement? O.K. The word great is wholly subjective as is the way I was applying/interpreting pain and suffering - was thinking more along the lines of existential angst in this instance. Art, literature, and music that I do enjoy and appreciate and that has meaning for me (not always LOL humor though, it's true) often has roots in, or is a comment on, or expression of some form of pain and suffering/questioning (very broadly defined.) You say it much better, below and I love it. To appease my melancholic self, this is on my refrigerator, which came in a used book: Stand at the brink of the abyss of despair, and when you see that you cannot bear it anymore, draw back a little, and have a cup of tea. - Elder Sophrony of Essex SD:.but for me, creative times are generally amplified during times of balance and integration -- when a back drop of relaxed freedom and happiness exists and playfulness is more manifest. EM2: Love this - inspiring My point on the (not termed such in prior post) of the existential angst Woody Allen appeared to express in the posted video -- to me is different than pain and suffering. The angst has
Re: [FairfieldLife] Bill Burr: Emails from Psychotic Women
I couldn't take it either - skipped through it and it didn't get any better - stereotypical clap trap. I posted it because a 30-minute stand up routine by comic Bill Burr was referenced as what the participants in the study on humor and self-deception watched. People who scored high on self-deception reported enjoying the act less Huh? I am going to reply to your post.just for fun ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : I can't find it in me to even finish this one. Sorry, but there is something in the tone of his voice (not to mention the things he says) that just screams Misogynist to me. I could be wrong, and he could be one of those radio guys who only badraps women for the ratings, but I'm so turned off by the first three minutes I can't get any further. I think it's deeper than that. This guy really doesn't *like* women very much. In my opinion, of course. How did you expect me to react? From: emily.mae50@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:48 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Bill Burr: Emails from Psychotic Women Hey Barry, check this one out. Whaddya think? Where do you rate this on a humor scale of 1-5? Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 Bill Burr - Emails From Psychotic Women https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 11/16/09 https://twitter.com/billburr www.billburr.com View on www.youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxCQB7xpH4 Preview by Yahoo
Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo
Then there is the remake of Broadchurch as Gracepoint which pretty much followed the script of the original except for the ending. That's a bit controversial given that the series wasn't renewed though there is a second season of Broadchurch starting in February. On 12/16/2014 09:01 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: */Yes, both series can be considered entertaining and nothing else, if you are talking about adult viewers who actually *know* their history and thus understand that these TV plots are often as far from it as humanly possible. But now think about the teenagers who can't even find the Yucatan or Mongolia on a map, and haven't had the breadth of education to help them understand that these series are FICTION, and have nothing to do with the historical events they are supposedly based on. Some of them probably base their History class reports on these TV series. That thought often makes me facepalm in despair. /* */ /* */A similar series that I admit to having watched, just for the costumes and the babes and to see how into this model it strays, is Reign, a somewhat fictionalized TV rendering of the events of Mary Queen of Scots during the period she spent in France. The first shocker for an adult student of history, of course, is how YOUNG everybody onscreen looks. Well, duh...not *only* are the ages of the actors and actresses probably closer to the historical figures than we might imagine (lifespans being so much shorter then), but the showrunners are trying to reach that very teenage and early-20s audience mentioned earlier. So the series leads appeal to that demographic. /* */ /* */As a viewer of all three series who is probably more schooled in history than most viewers, I cringe mightily every time I watch any of these three. On the other hand, if I just suspend disbelief and take them as a fairly pleasant way to turn off my mind and enjoy the eye candy for an hour, I can get through them. /* */ /* */It's just that my personal standard for historical fiction is a Scottish writer named Dorothy Dunnett, whose historical accuracy is in most cases better than that of historians. She *never* fudges anything or fakes anything or changes any history. All she does is occasionally insert some fictional characters into the midst of real history. The result is SO exciting and SO dynamic and SUCH good literature that it makes me wonder why other writers can't do the same thing -- pay equal homage to nonfictional history and fictional storytelling. /* *From:* Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:46 PM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo It's just good TV. I also think the storylines are a bit of a metaphor about our current state of affairs. You can say a lot of things if you shroud it in pseudo history. Usually I'm not too big on period pieces but the series is entertaining. On 12/16/2014 05:54 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com mailto:turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: */I'm still making my way through this series, and even kinda enjoying it in a prurient way, but I do feel the need to pass along a more critical article that kinda nails its failings (below). /* */ /* */As I remember, the person who first mentioned this new series on FFL mentioned it in the same breath as Da Vinci's Demons, which in retrospect (having seen over half of Marco Polo now) was spot-on. When I first discovered DV'sD, I reviewed it with the one-liner, the gaudiest, most egregious Dan Brown-ization of history I have ever encountered. I could just as easily have used that line for Marco Polo. /* */ /* */The filmmakers in both cases, while making TV about supposedly historical periods, have completely freed themselves from the necessity of paying any attention whatsoever to real history. Or even reality. They have also -- DV'sD in its depiction of the Maya culture and MP in its depiction of Asian cultures -- freed themselves from even trying to portray them without condescension. In a very real sense, one suspects that if modern Chinese and Mongolian world leaders see Netflix's Marco Polo, they could justifiably consider it an act of war. /* */ /* */It's eye candy, and with all the nutritional value of real candy. Ignore that, and you can pass a few mindless hours watching it: /* */ /* */Netflix’s orgy bonanza: “Marco Polo” gives a lesson in how not to write about other cultures http://www.salon.com/2014/12/15/netfixs_orgy_bonanza_marco_polo_gives_a_lesson_in_how_not_to_write_about_other_cultures//* image http://www.salon.com/2014/12/15/netfixs_orgy_bonanza_marco_polo_gives_a_lesson_in_how_not_to_write_about_other_cultures/ Netflix’s orgy bonanza:
Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
I also read Nisargadatta too as well as his student's books. That was in the late 1990s. I guess if one is still in serial consciousness these issues would be of a concern. But after awhile they do indeed become mental masturbation and essence of the teaching inconsequential. Just be the light and enjoy the light. That's all you need. Or have you not found the light yet? On 12/16/2014 09:13 AM, Duveyoung wrote: By any logic means you're using the dictionary meanings. BAH. I'm contending that Nisargadatta is giving us new meanings and trying his best to use mere words when they must necessarily fall short. Yes, in the dictionary, we find very similar meanings for the two words. But Nisargadatta is close to 100% in his using awareness as primal and consciousness as merely phenomenal. I think Maurice Frydman who did the translations toed that line very well. Kept them quite separate. In every use of these two words in the book seen, the consistency is remarkable. Awareness is the sentient agency that observes consciousness.never the other way around. And so that's what I report as fundamental. Yes, I'm asking everyone to dump the dictionary. Most of what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said about consciousness does apply properly, but try to find out what Maharishi thinks about what is equal to what and what is different from what -- soul, witness, consciousness, being, mind, heart -- and it's just a mishmash -- with words being tossed about with far less precision. The Gita seemed perfect for four readings for me, and then Advaita made precision important, and Maharishi's Gita was notched down. This said, there's just so much in his commentaries that were edifying to me that I cannot but be thankful for what was in them. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : By any logic awareness and consciousness can not be mutually exclusive. The argument has it's semantic problems as you can not have awareness without being consciousness. And what is being meant by awareness? The senses? But it's all not worth worrying about. My exploration with Advaita began after a girlfriend gave me a copy of Be Here Now which was followed about a month later with seeing Ram Dass give a talk locally. So I was into reading Ramana Maharishi and the writings of his student Mouni Sadhu. I picked up a few techniques that I have over time passed on to others such as visualizing the earth and then moving so far out in space it is the size of a small piece of sand and then reflecting on all the events of day and history and how insignificant they are. Another was imagining you have died and how society would react. IOW they go on perfectly well without you. I have had to admit the stilts thing was funny. I hate stilts as well as unicycles. I can understand some folks are fascinated with them but not me. So the image was rather funny. :-) On 12/16/2014 07:18 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... mailto:turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: *From:* Duveyoung no_re...@yahoogroups.com mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:12 PM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State But awareness is not consciousness has more validity than anything I've ever seen you post, and that's the target you can't hit -- me?, I'm a mess, easy pickin's, but that concept is SACRED, and you can't touch it. */But carry on. Seriously, I hope you find people who are interested in arguing with you about things you all consider important. /* */ /* */I am not one of them, and feel instead that /*/*y*/*/our standards for sacred spiritual axioms seem to be as low as your standards for good writing. /* */ /*
Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo
I watched both, and enjoyed both. Interesting scenario for a remake -- same writer, same showrunner, at least one cast member in common, and equally good. Given my rants in the past on this forum against remakes, I found that I actually (gulp!) enjoyed Gracepoint more than Broadchurch. A large part of that gulp! reaction was caused by Anna Gunn, who was formidable. I still have not had time to go back and look at the US version of The Bridge. I actually have plans to do so someday if I live long enough and manage to have enough TV time, and that's mainly due to you speaking positively about it. I watched the first episode of the US version and was so turned off that I didn't continue with it. But you and a number of other people I trust tell me that I should have, so I'm willing to go back someday when I have time (someday mythical!) and see what I missed. Elsewhere in TV world, Lost Girl started up again, and didn't even force those of us who are Kenzi addicts to do completely without her. They kept her in for at least the first two episodes. I am also delighted that Ripper Street is back with a third season, and in fine form. From: Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 6:38 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo Then there is the remake of Broadchurch as Gracepoint which pretty much followed the script of the original except for the ending. That's a bit controversial given that the series wasn't renewed though there is a second season of Broadchurch starting in February. On 12/16/2014 09:01 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: Yes, both series can be considered entertaining and nothing else, if you are talking about adult viewers who actually *know* their history and thus understand that these TV plots are often as far from it as humanly possible. But now think about the teenagers who can't even find the Yucatan or Mongolia on a map, and haven't had the breadth of education to help them understand that these series are FICTION, and have nothing to do with the historical events they are supposedly based on. Some of them probably base their History class reports on these TV series. That thought often makes me facepalm in despair. A similar series that I admit to having watched, just for the costumes and the babes and to see how into this model it strays, is Reign, a somewhat fictionalized TV rendering of the events of Mary Queen of Scots during the period she spent in France. The first shocker for an adult student of history, of course, is how YOUNG everybody onscreen looks. Well, duh...not *only* are the ages of the actors and actresses probably closer to the historical figures than we might imagine (lifespans being so much shorter then), but the showrunners are trying to reach that very teenage and early-20s audience mentioned earlier. So the series leads appeal to that demographic. As a viewer of all three series who is probably more schooled in history than most viewers, I cringe mightily every time I watch any of these three. On the other hand, if I just suspend disbelief and take them as a fairly pleasant way to turn off my mind and enjoy the eye candy for an hour, I can get through them. It's just that my personal standard for historical fiction is a Scottish writer named Dorothy Dunnett, whose historical accuracy is in most cases better than that of historians. She *never* fudges anything or fakes anything or changes any history. All she does is occasionally insert some fictional characters into the midst of real history. The result is SO exciting and SO dynamic and SUCH good literature that it makes me wonder why other writers can't do the same thing -- pay equal homage to nonfictional history and fictional storytelling. From: Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:46 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo It's just good TV. I also think the storylines are a bit of a metaphor about our current state of affairs. You can say a lot of things if you shroud it in pseudo history. Usually I'm not too big on period pieces but the series is entertaining. On 12/16/2014 05:54 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: I'm still making my way through this series, and even kinda enjoying it in a prurient way, but I do feel the need to pass along a more critical article that kinda nails its failings (below). As I remember, the person who first mentioned this new series on FFL mentioned it in the same breath as Da Vinci's Demons, which in retrospect (having seen over half of Marco Polo now) was spot-on. When I first discovered DV'sD, I reviewed it with the
Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
I find that re-reading increases my clarity -- guess I'm still learning. Haven't had any light experiences since TT days. From the little I can remember, they seem to agree with my present ways of describing Advaita. My theory is that understanding is grown. We grow our nervous systems, obviously, so why not our knowledge? Seems to me the more I intellectually mull over these concepts, I'm forcing my brain to create more connections and add to my grasp. YMMV. But no light. I'm not an authority -- merely a parrot.
Re: [FairfieldLife] First meetings with MMY (was Re: Marco Polo Arrives)
I might cut him some slack in that it took some time for him to find how lame westerners can be and they do need a nanny. :-D There's so much about MMY that if you have spent any time around Indians and particularly hear other Indians speak of western society as well as the silliness of many Indians then you start to see MMY as being typically Indian about things. It has nothing to do with enlightenment but just Indian culture. On 12/16/2014 09:09 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: */My first encounter with Maharishi was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles in 1967, and I came away *not* so much impressed with him as I was by something he said, which in retrospect is kinda poignant. /* */ /* */What I remember most about the day is that someone in the audience got up and asked a question that basically boiled down to I've got this problem in my life, Maharishi...what should I do?/* */ /* */His answer impressed me. He said something to the effect of, If I tell you what to do it will make you *weaker*, not stronger. My advice might get you through this current situation, but when the next one comes up, you'd be looking for me to tell you what to do again. Better that you should meditate and learn to make your own decisions./* */ /* */Compare that 1967 advice to how he started running his students' lives shortly thereafter. And, as he accurately intuited back then, him doing that made them all weaker, not stronger. /* *From:* inmadi...@hotmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:53 PM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives My first meetings with Maharishi were unplanned and pleasant. I was on TTC Arosa in '75 Being a country-boy from WI and in Arosa in June it was like a second spring and I took opportunities to go gallivanting in the Alps. One time I returned from a walk to find Maharishi had flown in on helicopter and was in lobby 'doing a line', I was lil sweaty and not dressed right and without flowers but jumped in at end of line anyways . . . I did the Namaste thing and he gave me some flowers and said something very cheerful. The second time and on another day I was in a bit of a hurry and came around a corner and saw the elevator doors closing so ran and squeezed in sideways and thinking what a coup to make it in but to my horror I banged into Jerry Jarvis who then almost banged into Maharishi. Jerry did one of his lil laughs and Maharishi was quite impressed by my move. Maharishi was in his announcing of Dawn of Age of Enlightenment phase, and he had sites where others were experimenting with Sidhis and he was helicoptering all over Switzerland so I suspect he was in a good mood. Anyways, that was my best elevator ride evah!
Re: [FairfieldLife] Humor and Self-Deception
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: emily.mae50@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: seerdope@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com ... In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not (Yogi Berra) In theory, I love science and its methods, despite severe limits. Particularly neuroscience, broadly defined. However, in practice, I am quite leery of psychological studies using interviews with canned questions, particularly if Yes/No are the alternatives. Even 10 point scales can be silly responses to complex questions. More than once it felt good when I heard on the news that someone had been killed” “I could never enjoy being cruel.” Just as a question, why can't someone who has No Problem answering these questions with a simple Yes or No interpret the inability to do so as self-deception. EM: Someone could - and by doing that they could be deceiving themselves, and also selling themselves and the rest of humanity short in some key way, perhaps? Not to harp on this, but I think this is an important point. And I think you are (possibly intentionally) missing that point. EM: That is my point - that those who can easily apply simple yes/no answers to questions such as these (I'm not saying these particular ones are good examples) may tend to think in black and white terms in life, a rigid kind of perspective, and don't seek to consider or explore the it depends scenarios that better represent reality and serve to better inform one of the complexity and depth of the human condition. I find that deceptive because the truth is that morality can be subjective as you will note below. If you -- being completely honest -- can answer Yes/True to the first question, then *that is the answer*. If you -- again, being completely honest -- can answer No/False to the second question, then *that is the answer*. EM: Yes, assuming the rules of the test are these, and conforming, if these were your answers than they are your answers. The problem (IMO) lies with people who hedge their bets and say, Well...this is a bad question, because although yes, more than one time I *have* felt good when I heard that someone died, I don't feel that way all the time. I'm really a good person. EM: You are the one here who is tying the yes/no option to a good/bad person conclusion. Also, the question was whether it felt good, more than once, to hear that someone had been *killed*. Or they would prefer to say, This second question is bad, too, because although I cannot say that I have *never* enjoyed being cruel, I don't enjoy being cruel all the time. I'm really a good person. EM: The question is whether one *could enjoy being cruel* - not the assumption that they have already, whether they enjoyed it at the time or all the time, or how that implicates one in being good or bad. All of this is self-deception. *The* answers to the questions ARE (respectively) Yes and No. ANY hedging and excuses and exceptions a person feels they need to post after that are IMO exercises in self-deception, an attempt to convince themselves that they're good people anyway. EM: If I conform to the rules of said test and answer, without question I would answer OPPOSITE to what you answered - a definite No and Yes! You must be joking? I can honestly say, up to this point in my life, I don't think I have ever *felt good* to hear of someone being killed. Maybe I felt relieved (e.g., Bin Laden, sexual predator at large, etc.), but I can't drum up a feeling of *good* as in pleasurable. And, I can also honestly say I could never enjoy being cruel. That is a *YES*, right? Are you trying to yank my chain with your answers? Should I be assuming that you mistakenly reversed your answers? Should I be assuming that you have lied? Your answer above, Emily, sounds to me like an attempt to portray any person who feels no need to equivocate and lie -- to themselves and others -- and can answer these questions with a simple Yes and No as a Bad Person. Whereas the person who can't answer them without equivocating and making excuses for answering Yes and No can still claim to be a Good Person. It seems to me that the very *definition* of the latter behavior is self-deception. EM: What? See above. The article is about tying the ability to perceive humor to one's level of self-deception, not about determining whether they are good or bad. If you have taken pleasure in news of someone else's death -- EVER -- *that's who you are*. If you have enjoyed being cruel -- EVER -- *that's who you are*. How *often* you do these things is not the question; it's whether you can honestly admit to doing them when you find yourself doing them. Those who indulge in
[FairfieldLife] Awareness versus Consciousness
The human mind cannot parse infinity, or infinities. The awareness versus consciousness issue is the goad for the 'path of enlightenment'. It shows up in various guises. Reality versus illusion Absolute versus relative Consciousness versus 'pure' consciousness Silence versus thought Being versus action Unity versus diversity God versus person hood Enlightenment versus ignorance These kinds of statements are really subterfuge koans. Statements that defy logic, but seem on the surface to be logical, as if they are somehow meaningful in terms of 'what really is'. The human mind has a gravitational pull toward connectedness, seeing similarities, giving us an intuitive (if not necessarily correct) sense that the universe is somehow all of one piece and together. After all, we see it as somehow all together. As we navigate this place, we have to account for the differences we see. The mind is pretty good at this too. It is just when it tries to parse the whole thing all at once, it runs into the logical stumbling block, because parsing means to split. So when we come across a phrase, as in Nisargadatta, that awareness is not equivalent to consciousness, the mind is led on its merry way, and if it is considered important enough, it will not stop trying to parse the difference. If one defines awareness = consciousness, no problem, no need to think about it, one less problem to solve. Consciousness or consciousness/awareness by itself is a thorny enough issue alone. These phrases in the spiritual trade are what in script and fiction writing is called the MacGuffin, the elusive goal of the protagonist (and other characters in the story as well) are pursuing. The focus of attention. A MacGuffin is not necessarily germane to the plot, which in this case is your traverse of life. Except in the spiritual trade, the goal is a unity, so parsing is contrary to the goal, but that is just what a koan does, it gives the mind a problem to solve that has no rational solution, but it is short enough that the mind can manipulate it easily. Thus, by being handed a longer, more seemingly relaxed paradox, you are being deliberately misled. While this may seem pointless, or even possibly malicious, if it goes on long enough one of three things will happen. You will tire of it and give up. Or, if you are somewhat dull, you will pursue the idea until you die, and that means you are religious or a cultist, and unthinkingly enamoured and obsessed to a lesser or greater degree. Or, at some point the mind short circuits and realises it has been had, because it sees the 'unity' was always there and it completely missed it because it was making up shit about it, often with a little help from friends, well wishers, and other interested parties who likewise have been caught in, or exploit the making up shit spiral. The first and third outcomes result in people leading normal, probably fairly well-balanced lives. The second outcome though results in people trapped in a world of fantasy so deeply entrenched it leads to a least annoyance to the the fairly well balanced types, and sometimes to death, as in the case in the past few days of that nut case in Sydney, Australia, who was trapped in a religious fantasy. (Note: I was watching a new panel discussion about the self-styled Muslim cleric who took hostages, and the one of the panellists made that comment that 'this situation has nothing to do with religion'!) The basic difference between these phrases and a 'real' koan is the non-rationality of the structure is hidden by a long chain of inferences so it seems to be a plausible statement to a mind looking for a way out of whatever predicament it is imagining it is in at the moment. One might call these ideas and their supporting arguments 'long-form koans'. I am not saying one should avoid doing this, as this kind of thinking might lead to a more fulfilling life somehow, but that in the back of your mind it might be worthwhile to keep in mind that someone might be playing a trick on you, and that person might not be someone else.
Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo
Broadchurch was a bit dry but not as bad as some BBC series. I find with some my mind drifts and I have to concentrate hard on the show. A local Brit friend tried to get us to watch Hinterland because it was shot in his hometown. The pace was very slow and disinteresting so I survived one episode and gave up on the second. One BBC produced movie I watched recently was abysmal so I researched as to why and it turned out it was derived from a book and they let the book writer write the screenplay and then had director who had only shot documentaries and not narratives make the movie. I think also in US writing there is a writing secret that if you reveal a plotpoint a dialog you need to repeat it usually as a confirmation later on as people may miss the initial dialog. On 12/16/2014 09:55 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: */I watched both, and enjoyed both. Interesting scenario for a remake -- same writer, same showrunner, at least one cast member in common, and equally good. Given my rants in the past on this forum against remakes, I found that I actually (gulp!) enjoyed Gracepoint more than Broadchurch. A large part of that gulp! reaction was caused by Anna Gunn, who was formidable. /* */ /* */I still have not had time to go back and look at the US version of The Bridge. I actually have plans to do so someday if I live long enough and manage to have enough TV time, and that's mainly due to you speaking positively about it. I watched the first episode of the US version and was so turned off that I didn't continue with it. But you and a number of other people I trust tell me that I should have, so I'm willing to go back someday when I have time (someday mythical!) and see what I missed. /* */ /* */Elsewhere in TV world, Lost Girl started up again, and didn't even force those of us who are Kenzi addicts to do completely without her. They kept her in for at least the first two episodes. I am also delighted that Ripper Street is back with a third season, and in fine form. /* *From:* Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *To:* FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 16, 2014 6:38 PM *Subject:* Re: [FairfieldLife] TV reviews: Marco Polo Then there is the remake of Broadchurch as Gracepoint which pretty much followed the script of the original except for the ending. That's a bit controversial given that the series wasn't renewed though there is a second season of Broadchurch starting in February. On 12/16/2014 09:01 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com mailto:turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: */Yes, both series can be considered entertaining and nothing else, if you are talking about adult viewers who actually *know* their history and thus understand that these TV plots are often as far from it as humanly possible. But now think about the teenagers who can't even find the Yucatan or Mongolia on a map, and haven't had the breadth of education to help them understand that these series are FICTION, and have nothing to do with the historical events they are supposedly based on. Some of them probably base their History class reports on these TV series. That thought often makes me facepalm in despair. /* */ /* */A similar series that I admit to having watched, just for the costumes and the babes and to see how into this model it strays, is Reign, a somewhat fictionalized TV rendering of the events of Mary Queen of Scots during the period she spent in France. The first shocker for an adult student of history, of course, is how YOUNG everybody onscreen looks. Well, duh...not *only* are the ages of the actors and actresses probably closer to the historical figures than we might imagine (lifespans being so much shorter then), but the showrunners are trying to reach that very teenage and early-20s audience mentioned earlier. So the series leads appeal to that demographic. /* */ /* */As a viewer of all three series who is probably more schooled in history than most viewers, I cringe mightily every time I watch any of these three. On the other hand, if I just suspend disbelief and take them as a fairly pleasant way to turn off my mind and enjoy the eye candy for an hour, I can get through them. /* */ /* */It's just that my personal standard for historical fiction is a Scottish writer named Dorothy Dunnett, whose historical accuracy is in most cases better than that of historians. She *never* fudges anything or fakes anything or changes any history. All she does is occasionally insert some fictional characters into the midst of real history. The result is SO exciting and SO dynamic and SUCH good literature that it makes me wonder why other writers can't do the same thing -- pay equal homage to nonfictional history and fictional storytelling. /*
Re: [FairfieldLife] Humor and Self-Deception
Thanks for your reply. What? You were expecting more? No, that's it. Thanks for your reply. What were you hoping for? From: emily.ma...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Humor and Self-Deception ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: emily.mae50@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: seerdope@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com ...In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not (Yogi Berra) In theory, I love science and its methods, despite severe limits. Particularly neuroscience, broadly defined. However, in practice, I am quite leery of psychological studies using interviews with canned questions, particularly if Yes/No are the alternatives. Even 10 point scales can be silly responses to complex questions. More than once it felt good when I heard on the news that someone had been killed” “I could never enjoy being cruel.” Just as a question, why can't someone who has No Problem answering these questions with a simple Yes or No interpret the inability to do so as self-deception. EM: Someone could - and by doing that they could be deceiving themselves, and also selling themselves and the rest of humanity short in some key way, perhaps? Not to harp on this, but I think this is an important point. And I think you are (possibly intentionally) missing that point. EM: That is my point - that those who can easily apply simple yes/no answers to questions such as these (I'm not saying these particular ones are good examples) may tend to think in black and white terms in life, a rigid kind of perspective, and don't seek to consider or explore the it depends scenarios that better represent reality and serve to better inform one of the complexity and depth of the human condition. I find that deceptive because the truth is that morality can be subjective as you will note below. If you -- being completely honest -- can answer Yes/True to the first question, then *that is the answer*. If you -- again, being completely honest -- can answer No/False to the second question, then *that is the answer*. EM: Yes, assuming the rules of the test are these, and conforming, if these were your answers than they are your answers. The problem (IMO) lies with people who hedge their bets and say, Well...this is a bad question, because although yes, more than one time I *have* felt good when I heard that someone died, I don't feel that way all the time. I'm really a good person. EM: You are the one here who is tying the yes/no option to a good/bad person conclusion. Also, the question was whether it felt good, more than once, to hear that someone had been *killed*. Or they would prefer to say, This second question is bad, too, because although I cannot say that I have *never* enjoyed being cruel, I don't enjoy being cruel all the time. I'm really a good person. EM: The question is whether one *could enjoy being cruel* - not the assumption that they have already, whether they enjoyed it at the time or all the time, or how that implicates one in being good or bad. All of this is self-deception. *The* answers to the questions ARE (respectively) Yes and No. ANY hedging and excuses and exceptions a person feels they need to post after that are IMO exercises in self-deception, an attempt to convince themselves that they're good people anyway. EM: If I conform to the rules of said test and answer, without question I would answer OPPOSITE to what you answered - a definite No and Yes! You must be joking? I can honestly say, up to this point in my life, I don't think I have ever *felt good* to hear of someone being killed. Maybe I felt relieved (e.g., Bin Laden, sexual predator at large, etc.), but I can't drum up a feeling of *good* as in pleasurable. And, I can also honestly say I could never enjoy being cruel. That is a *YES*, right? Are you trying to yank my chain with your answers? Should I be assuming that you mistakenly reversed your answers? Should I be assuming that you have lied? Your answer above, Emily, sounds to me like an attempt to portray any person who feels no need to equivocate and lie -- to themselves and others -- and can answer these questions with a simple Yes and No as a Bad Person. Whereas the person who can't answer them without equivocating and making excuses for answering Yes and No can still claim to be a Good Person. It seems to me that the very *definition* of the latter behavior is self-deception. EM: What? See above. The article is about tying the ability to perceive humor to one's level of self-deception, not about determining whether they are good or bad. If you have taken pleasure in news of someone else's death -- EVER -- *that's
Re: [FairfieldLife] A Message From Advaita State
That's too bad after sticking with TM all these years. As MMY would have said you didn't get the goods. He wouldn't have said it but probably thought you should have moved on and tried something else. Perhaps Shiva mantra might have worked better. There are some techniques out there that will blow your head off if you aren't prepared for them. When I'm laying in bed about to go asleep I often just focus on the light which fills me and then go to sleep. It's like looking for anything else. On 12/16/2014 09:56 AM, Duveyoung wrote: I find that re-reading increases my clarity -- guess I'm still learning. Haven't had any light experiences since TT days. From the little I can remember, they seem to agree with my present ways of describing Advaita. My theory is that understanding is grown. We grow our nervous systems, obviously, so why not our knowledge? Seems to me the more I intellectually mull over these concepts, I'm forcing my brain to create more connections and add to my grasp. YMMV. But no light. I'm not an authority -- merely a parrot.
[FairfieldLife] Life on Mars?
This will be rather amazing if true... Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Evidence of life on Mars could have been found by Nasa's Curiosity Rover. View on www.independent.co.uk http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] Re: Two Trillion Trees to Save the World
What a worthy project. Talk about solution-oriented - corporate sponsors, global relations - excellent. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, seerdope@... wrote : Two Trillion Trees to Save the World: Video http://www.bloomberg.com/video/weforest-founder-two-trillion-trees-to-save-the-world-r0FUoPu4RpaUEVc8E5Y9Tw.html http://www.bloomberg.com/video/weforest-founder-two-trillion-trees-to-save-the-world-r0FUoPu4RpaUEVc8E5Y9Tw.html Two Trillion Trees to Save the World: Video http://www.bloomberg.com/video/weforest-founder-two-trillion-trees-to-save-the-world-r0FUoPu4RpaUEVc8E5Y9Tw.html Bill Liao, founder of WeForest, explains his project to plant trees around the world in order to boost the total number to two trillion to help clean the air and pr... View on www.bloomberg.com http://www.bloomberg.com/video/weforest-founder-two-trillion-trees-to-save-the-world-r0FUoPu4RpaUEVc8E5Y9Tw.html Preview by Yahoo
Re: [FairfieldLife] Humor and Self-Deception
An answer to the following question in yes/no format. Were the responses to the questions consistent with the integrity of Barry Wright, as you perceive him? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : Thanks for your reply. What? You were expecting more? No, that's it. Thanks for your reply. What were you hoping for? From: emily.mae50@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 7:54 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Humor and Self-Deception ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: emily.mae50@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: seerdope@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com ... In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not (Yogi Berra) In theory, I love science and its methods, despite severe limits. Particularly neuroscience, broadly defined. However, in practice, I am quite leery of psychological studies using interviews with canned questions, particularly if Yes/No are the alternatives. Even 10 point scales can be silly responses to complex questions. More than once it felt good when I heard on the news that someone had been killed” “I could never enjoy being cruel.” Just as a question, why can't someone who has No Problem answering these questions with a simple Yes or No interpret the inability to do so as self-deception. EM: Someone could - and by doing that they could be deceiving themselves, and also selling themselves and the rest of humanity short in some key way, perhaps? Not to harp on this, but I think this is an important point. And I think you are (possibly intentionally) missing that point. EM: That is my point - that those who can easily apply simple yes/no answers to questions such as these (I'm not saying these particular ones are good examples) may tend to think in black and white terms in life, a rigid kind of perspective, and don't seek to consider or explore the it depends scenarios that better represent reality and serve to better inform one of the complexity and depth of the human condition. I find that deceptive because the truth is that morality can be subjective as you will note below. If you -- being completely honest -- can answer Yes/True to the first question, then *that is the answer*. If you -- again, being completely honest -- can answer No/False to the second question, then *that is the answer*. EM: Yes, assuming the rules of the test are these, and conforming, if these were your answers than they are your answers. The problem (IMO) lies with people who hedge their bets and say, Well...this is a bad question, because although yes, more than one time I *have* felt good when I heard that someone died, I don't feel that way all the time. I'm really a good person. EM: You are the one here who is tying the yes/no option to a good/bad person conclusion. Also, the question was whether it felt good, more than once, to hear that someone had been *killed*. Or they would prefer to say, This second question is bad, too, because although I cannot say that I have *never* enjoyed being cruel, I don't enjoy being cruel all the time. I'm really a good person. EM: The question is whether one *could enjoy being cruel* - not the assumption that they have already, whether they enjoyed it at the time or all the time, or how that implicates one in being good or bad. All of this is self-deception. *The* answers to the questions ARE (respectively) Yes and No. ANY hedging and excuses and exceptions a person feels they need to post after that are IMO exercises in self-deception, an attempt to convince themselves that they're good people anyway. EM: If I conform to the rules of said test and answer, without question I would answer OPPOSITE to what you answered - a definite No and Yes! You must be joking? I can honestly say, up to this point in my life, I don't think I have ever *felt good* to hear of someone being killed. Maybe I felt relieved (e.g., Bin Laden, sexual predator at large, etc.), but I can't drum up a feeling of *good* as in pleasurable. And, I can also honestly say I could never enjoy being cruel. That is a *YES*, right? Are you trying to yank my chain with your answers? Should I be assuming that you mistakenly reversed your answers? Should I be assuming that you have lied? Your answer above, Emily, sounds to me like an attempt to portray any person who feels no need to equivocate and lie -- to themselves and others -- and can answer these questions with a simple Yes and No as a Bad Person. Whereas the person who can't answer them without equivocating and making excuses for answering Yes and No can still claim to be a Good Person. It seems to me
Re: [FairfieldLife] Awareness versus Consciousness
But why worry about it? Just do sadhana and see where it goes. If one technique doesn't deliver try another. Don't let the politics of an organization control you. By all definition I started meditating at age 4 when I asked my mother where the end of the sky was and she told me it was infinite. So before I fell asleep at night I thought about infinity. Since I also found other people who had the same experience. On 12/16/2014 10:56 AM, anartax...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: The human mind cannot parse infinity, or infinities. The awareness versus consciousness issue is the goad for the 'path of enlightenment'. It shows up in various guises. * Reality versus illusion * Absolute versus relative * Consciousness versus 'pure' consciousness * Silence versus thought * Being versus action * Unity versus diversity * God versus person hood * Enlightenment versus ignorance These kinds of statements are really subterfuge koans. Statements that defy logic, but seem on the surface to be logical, as if they are somehow meaningful in terms of 'what really is'. The human mind has a gravitational pull toward connectedness, seeing similarities, giving us an intuitive (if not necessarily correct) sense that the universe is somehow all of one piece and together. After all, we see it as somehow all together. As we navigate this place, we have to account for the differences we see. The mind is pretty good at this too. It is just when it tries to parse the whole thing all at once, it runs into the logical stumbling block, because parsing means to split. So when we come across a phrase, as in Nisargadatta, that awareness is not equivalent to consciousness, the mind is led on its merry way, and if it is considered important enough, it will not stop trying to parse the difference. If one defines awareness = consciousness, no problem, no need to think about it, one less problem to solve. Consciousness or consciousness/awareness by itself is a thorny enough issue alone. These phrases in the spiritual trade are what in script and fiction writing is called the MacGuffin, the elusive goal of the protagonist (and other characters in the story as well) are pursuing. The focus of attention. A MacGuffin is not necessarily germane to the plot, which in this case is your traverse of life. Except in the spiritual trade, the goal is a unity, so parsing is contrary to the goal, but that is just what a koan does, it gives the mind a problem to solve that has no rational solution, but it is short enough that the mind can manipulate it easily. Thus, by being handed a longer, more seemingly relaxed paradox, you are being deliberately misled. While this may seem pointless, or even possibly malicious, if it goes on long enough one of three things will happen. * You will tire of it and give up. * Or, if you are somewhat dull, you will pursue the idea until you die, and that means you are religious or a cultist, and unthinkingly enamoured and obsessed to a lesser or greater degree. * Or, at some point the mind short circuits and realises it has been had, because it sees the 'unity' was always there and it completely missed it because it was making up shit about it, often with a little help from friends, well wishers, and other interested parties who likewise have been caught in, or exploit the making up shit spiral. The first and third outcomes result in people leading normal, probably fairly well-balanced lives. The second outcome though results in people trapped in a world of fantasy so deeply entrenched it leads to a least annoyance to the the fairly well balanced types, and sometimes to death, as in the case in the past few days of that nut case in Sydney, Australia, who was trapped in a religious fantasy. (Note: I was watching a new panel discussion about the self-styled Muslim cleric who took hostages, and the one of the panellists made that comment that 'this situation has nothing to do with religion'!) The basic difference between these phrases and a 'real' koan is the non-rationality of the structure is hidden by a long chain of inferences so it seems to be a plausible statement to a mind looking for a way out of whatever predicament it is imagining it is in at the moment. One might call these ideas and their supporting arguments 'long-form koans'. I am not saying one should avoid doing this, as this kind of thinking might lead to a more fulfilling life somehow, but that in the back of your mind it might be worthwhile to keep in mind that someone might be playing a trick on you, and that person might not be someone else.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Awareness versus Consciousness
Who said to worry? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : But why worry about it? Just do sadhana and see where it goes. If one technique doesn't deliver try another. Don't let the politics of an organization control you. By all definition I started meditating at age 4 when I asked my mother where the end of the sky was and she told me it was infinite. So before I fell asleep at night I thought about infinity. Since I also found other people who had the same experience. On 12/16/2014 10:56 AM, anartaxius@... mailto:anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: The human mind cannot parse infinity, or infinities. The awareness versus consciousness issue is the goad for the 'path of enlightenment'. It shows up in various guises. Reality versus illusion Absolute versus relative Consciousness versus 'pure' consciousness Silence versus thought Being versus action Unity versus diversity God versus person hood Enlightenment versus ignorance These kinds of statements are really subterfuge koans. Statements that defy logic, but seem on the surface to be logical, as if they are somehow meaningful in terms of 'what really is'. The human mind has a gravitational pull toward connectedness, seeing similarities, giving us an intuitive (if not necessarily correct) sense that the universe is somehow all of one piece and together. After all, we see it as somehow all together. As we navigate this place, we have to account for the differences we see. The mind is pretty good at this too. It is just when it tries to parse the whole thing all at once, it runs into the logical stumbling block, because parsing means to split. So when we come across a phrase, as in Nisargadatta, that awareness is not equivalent to consciousness, the mind is led on its merry way, and if it is considered important enough, it will not stop trying to parse the difference. If one defines awareness = consciousness, no problem, no need to think about it, one less problem to solve. Consciousness or consciousness/awareness by itself is a thorny enough issue alone. These phrases in the spiritual trade are what in script and fiction writing is called the MacGuffin, the elusive goal of the protagonist (and other characters in the story as well) are pursuing. The focus of attention. A MacGuffin is not necessarily germane to the plot, which in this case is your traverse of life. Except in the spiritual trade, the goal is a unity, so parsing is contrary to the goal, but that is just what a koan does, it gives the mind a problem to solve that has no rational solution, but it is short enough that the mind can manipulate it easily. Thus, by being handed a longer, more seemingly relaxed paradox, you are being deliberately misled. While this may seem pointless, or even possibly malicious, if it goes on long enough one of three things will happen. You will tire of it and give up. Or, if you are somewhat dull, you will pursue the idea until you die, and that means you are religious or a cultist, and unthinkingly enamoured and obsessed to a lesser or greater degree. Or, at some point the mind short circuits and realises it has been had, because it sees the 'unity' was always there and it completely missed it because it was making up shit about it, often with a little help from friends, well wishers, and other interested parties who likewise have been caught in, or exploit the making up shit spiral. The first and third outcomes result in people leading normal, probably fairly well-balanced lives. The second outcome though results in people trapped in a world of fantasy so deeply entrenched it leads to a least annoyance to the the fairly well balanced types, and sometimes to death, as in the case in the past few days of that nut case in Sydney, Australia, who was trapped in a religious fantasy. (Note: I was watching a new panel discussion about the self-styled Muslim cleric who took hostages, and the one of the panellists made that comment that 'this situation has nothing to do with religion'!) The basic difference between these phrases and a 'real' koan is the non-rationality of the structure is hidden by a long chain of inferences so it seems to be a plausible statement to a mind looking for a way out of whatever predicament it is imagining it is in at the moment. One might call these ideas and their supporting arguments 'long-form koans'. I am not saying one should avoid doing this, as this kind of thinking might lead to a more fulfilling life somehow, but that in the back of your mind it might be worthwhile to keep in mind that someone might be playing a trick on you, and that person might not be someone else.
[FairfieldLife] Good development between India+Russia re Yoga [1 Attachment]
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140From: Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full Text Point 33: « 33. India and Russia .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and fitness through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. » Jai Guru Dev ! All Glory to Guru Dev ! - Mail transféré - De : Hubert O hubert1...@googlemail.com À : Hubert hubert...@orange.fr Envoyé le : Mardi 16 décembre 2014 7h15 Objet : Fwd: Good development between India+Russia re Yoga http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140From: Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full Text Point 33: « 33. India and Russia .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and fitness through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. »
[FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
Re But I'm a math joke. Need a smart person for this. Anyone?:
Not me. I came across Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form in the library one time. I
read the first few pages and put it back on the shelf. Dry-as-dust symbolic
logic interspersed with gnomic, zen-like comments.
Spencer-Brown later claimed to have become enlightened and said this:
Enlightenment by itself, there is no such thing, just as there is no black
without white. But to be enlightened, having been un-enlightened, is not the
same as having been un-enlightened before. Because one wasn't really
unenlightened at all.
A smart person who may be able to help you is J. Engstrom. His Masters Thesis
from Maharishi University of Management (1994) was called Natural Numbers and
Finite Sets Derived From G. Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form!
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote :
I'm not smart enough to do this math. I read The Laws of Form, but it was
mostly beyond me except for some of the broad concepts.
I would bet, though, that there could be found neat parallels between that
book's stuff and what we can assert about laws of consciousness. Ex.: when
consciousness becomes conscious was a Maharishi phrase that could be applied
to, say, the transition from, say, awareness to I am's appearance. But I'm a
math joke. Need a smart person for this. Anyone?
Laws of Form http://lawsofform.org/
http://lawsofform.org/
Laws of Form http://lawsofform.org/ This is a web site inspired by the book
Laws of Form by British mathematician George Spencer-Brown.
View on lawsofform.org http://lawsofform.org/
Preview by Yahoo
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, steve.sundur@... wrote :
Hey Edg, I can't really speak knowledgeable about Advaita, but would you have
any thoughts about how this might relate to set theory?
Specifically, first you have nothing
Then you have { } which is the null set. Then you have {0}, which is the set
of 1, but here is really nothing in it, but 0. Then you have {0,1}, which
equals two.
Just some thoughts, which may, or may not illuminate anything. (-;
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote :
noozguru wrote : Close your eyes and tells us where your awareness ends.
Every time I write about this stuff I get just a bit more able to keep to the
central issues. So on that level, I thank you for the reply.
Awareness is not consciousness. You, above, used the word your as if my ego
(or my nervous system, my mind, my brain and/or my Being -- take your pick)
had some sort of natural right to own awareness as if it were some sort of
personal thing over which I would have some sort of hegemony. BAH!
Awareness is beyond beginnings and endings -- it's not a dimensional thing or
it or whatever -- if you have a category, piss off, awareness is beyond it no
matter what.
Whatever my mind is able to do is a product of my nervous system -- NOT
AWARENESS.
Compare: Awareness is beyond the does or does not; whereas, mind is a
processing of, what?, billions of chemical operations per thought? THAT'S
NOT AWARENESS.
Awareness is not a doing or non-doing. It's not an it. It's not in or out
of existence. That which is aware is awareness solely -- consciousness merely
attempts to chemically embody and internally structure itself to symbolize
awareness -- this is labeled I am. If a thought comes, I am changes to I
am that thought. That's consciousness pretending it is sentient. BAH.
Consciousness is an identity whore. The monkey who will jump to any branch --
that's the Ved symbol for how the mind attends to its processes -- NOT how
awareness or identity is changing or moving or whatever.
Awareness is beyond isness and isnotness. Consciousness (Being) is all about
parochial expression in a nervous system. (I'm willing to grant that maybe the
universe is a giant nervous system and that that would be the foundation of our
understanding of the term, universal consciousness.
Remember, I'm not the person saying this shit. I'm merely reporting Advaita
axioms -- why? -- because I think we'd all be edified to see this CRUCIAL
difference between these two concepts of awareness and consciousness. The
concept, awareness, is merely a place holder for we don't have a way to
conceptualize this non-this non-thingy thingy.
Had enough of me? Don't blame you, so here's Nisargadatta -- who was the real
deal as far as I can tell from my many years of reading his shit. But what
would I know? One thing I bet is that no one here can best his logic about the
present issue.
Here:
Maharaj: The present 'I am' is as false as the 'I was' and 'I shall be'. It is
merely an idea in the mind, an impression left by memory, and the separate
identity it creates is false.
This habit of referring to a false centre must be done away with, the notion
'I see', 'I feel', 'I think', 'I
Re: [FairfieldLife] Awareness versus Consciousness
Not that people on FFL have been nitpicking these issues for ages. I guess they feel better nitpicking than exploring enlightenment. ;-) On 12/16/2014 12:09 PM, anartax...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: Who said to worry? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : But why worry about it? Just do sadhana and see where it goes. If one technique doesn't deliver try another. Don't let the politics of an organization control you. By all definition I started meditating at age 4 when I asked my mother where the end of the sky was and she told me it was infinite. So before I fell asleep at night I thought about infinity. Since I also found other people who had the same experience. On 12/16/2014 10:56 AM, anartaxius@... mailto:anartaxius@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: The human mind cannot parse infinity, or infinities. The awareness versus consciousness issue is the goad for the 'path of enlightenment'. It shows up in various guises. * Reality versus illusion * Absolute versus relative * Consciousness versus 'pure' consciousness * Silence versus thought * Being versus action * Unity versus diversity * God versus person hood * Enlightenment versus ignorance These kinds of statements are really subterfuge koans. Statements that defy logic, but seem on the surface to be logical, as if they are somehow meaningful in terms of 'what really is'. The human mind has a gravitational pull toward connectedness, seeing similarities, giving us an intuitive (if not necessarily correct) sense that the universe is somehow all of one piece and together. After all, we see it as somehow all together. As we navigate this place, we have to account for the differences we see. The mind is pretty good at this too. It is just when it tries to parse the whole thing all at once, it runs into the logical stumbling block, because parsing means to split. So when we come across a phrase, as in Nisargadatta, that awareness is not equivalent to consciousness, the mind is led on its merry way, and if it is considered important enough, it will not stop trying to parse the difference. If one defines awareness = consciousness, no problem, no need to think about it, one less problem to solve. Consciousness or consciousness/awareness by itself is a thorny enough issue alone. These phrases in the spiritual trade are what in script and fiction writing is called the MacGuffin, the elusive goal of the protagonist (and other characters in the story as well) are pursuing. The focus of attention. A MacGuffin is not necessarily germane to the plot, which in this case is your traverse of life. Except in the spiritual trade, the goal is a unity, so parsing is contrary to the goal, but that is just what a koan does, it gives the mind a problem to solve that has no rational solution, but it is short enough that the mind can manipulate it easily. Thus, by being handed a longer, more seemingly relaxed paradox, you are being deliberately misled. While this may seem pointless, or even possibly malicious, if it goes on long enough one of three things will happen. * You will tire of it and give up. * Or, if you are somewhat dull, you will pursue the idea until you die, and that means you are religious or a cultist, and unthinkingly enamoured and obsessed to a lesser or greater degree. * Or, at some point the mind short circuits and realises it has been had, because it sees the 'unity' was always there and it completely missed it because it was making up shit about it, often with a little help from friends, well wishers, and other interested parties who likewise have been caught in, or exploit the making up shit spiral. The first and third outcomes result in people leading normal, probably fairly well-balanced lives. The second outcome though results in people trapped in a world of fantasy so deeply entrenched it leads to a least annoyance to the the fairly well balanced types, and sometimes to death, as in the case in the past few days of that nut case in Sydney, Australia, who was trapped in a religious fantasy. (Note: I was watching a new panel discussion about the self-styled Muslim cleric who took hostages, and the one of the panellists made that comment that 'this situation has nothing to do with religion'!) The basic difference between these phrases and a 'real' koan is the non-rationality of the structure is hidden by a long chain of inferences so it seems to be a plausible statement to a mind looking for a way out of whatever predicament it is imagining it is in at the moment. One might call these ideas and their supporting arguments 'long-form koans'. I am not saying one
Re: [FairfieldLife] Good development between India+Russia re Yoga
What the hell does Swami Brahmananda have to do with Putin and the thug who is
in the driver's seat in India?
From: email4you mikemail4...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
To: mikemail4...@yahoo.com mikemail4...@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:06 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Good development between India+Russia re Yoga [1
Attachment]
[Attachment(s) from email4you included below]
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140From:
Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full
Text
Point 33:
« 33. India and Russia .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and
fitness through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including
through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. »
Jai Guru Dev !
All Glory to Guru Dev !
- Mail transféré -
De : Hubert O hubert1...@googlemail.com
À : Hubert hubert...@orange.fr
Envoyé le : Mardi 16 décembre 2014 7h15
Objet : Fwd: Good development between India+Russia re Yoga
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140From:
Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full
Text
Point 33:
« 33. India and Russia .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and
fitness through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including
through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. »
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Re: [FairfieldLife] Good development between India+Russia re Yoga
Oil, gas, nuclear, rare earths and biotech crops is what these two are
slavering over - that yoga/ayurveda crap is in there for Modi to suck up to the
yogis in the country and their many voting followers.
From: email4you mikemail4...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]
FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
To: mikemail4...@yahoo.com mikemail4...@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:06 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Good development between India+Russia re Yoga [1
Attachment]
[Attachment(s) from email4you included below]
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140From:
Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full
Text
Point 33:
« 33. India and Russia .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and
fitness through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including
through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. »
Jai Guru Dev !
All Glory to Guru Dev !
- Mail transféré -
De : Hubert O hubert1...@googlemail.com
À : Hubert hubert...@orange.fr
Envoyé le : Mardi 16 décembre 2014 7h15
Objet : Fwd: Good development between India+Russia re Yoga
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140From:
Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full
Text
Point 33:
« 33. India and Russia .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and
fitness through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including
through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. »
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[FairfieldLife] Re: Awareness versus Consciousness
See? See? NOW THIS IS A PROPER FFL RESPONSE. I might sorta disagree with a lot of it, but man o man does it give you a challenge to shore up your axioms.or change. Nice. I don't think I'm a cultist -- may not ever actually have been one in my true-believer days -- narcissism protects me from a lot of that kind of tar baby caught mind traps. Narcissism always has me believing MY thoughts and dwelling within them to excess -- makes it hard to listen to anyone, and so when someone like Nisargadatta CAN break into my me-cave and keblammo my most loved axioms and scatter them like bowling pins, it attracts me like a 20 year old redhead. However, if not a cultist, I am a fool who pursues folly like a dog going after a pretendedly-thrown ball. So, maybe not much of a diff -- I walked talked and quaked (Howard the Initiator) as a role instead of as a brainwashed zombie. As for the wonderful koan concept being inserted into this discussion, I say, neat trick! It does seem to gather some loose ends into a nice knot. But maybe it's a Gordian, maybe it's a Windsorjust sayin'. Ha ha. First of all, I'm not a spiritual practitioner. I read Nisargadatta here and there -- sometimes not, sometimes a lot -- mostly on a daily basis. My intent is to see if I agree -- if so, then I read on. If not, I will read that again and again until I reach clarity. I've gone days on just a couple of sentences that didn't feel right. Not obsessed, but having some perplexity peppering my day. Even at this late stage, Nisargadatta says stuff that is not intuitively obvious to me -- not a surprise -- and so I get to gnaw on stuff until it's swallowable. But I don't do Zen. I'm not trying to evolve anymore. I don't know if koans actually have any spiritual worth, but some folks claim big for it. Go for it, says me, but nope not for me. My intellectual clarity is NOT much of a tool, but it does keep me having to read the-rest-of-a-paragraph in a lot of essays. Mix up awareness and consciousness, and I just don't have the time to see if you DO have clarity about anything else. It's a rough filter, but that's what I do. And thank you again, Anartaxius -- I haven't got your intellect, so I consider it a favor that you've stopped to lend a hand. Put a merit badge on your Brownie sash! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : The human mind cannot parse infinity, or infinities. The awareness versus consciousness issue is the goad for the 'path of enlightenment'. It shows up in various guises. Reality versus illusion Absolute versus relative Consciousness versus 'pure' consciousness Silence versus thought Being versus action Unity versus diversity God versus person hood Enlightenment versus ignorance These kinds of statements are really subterfuge koans. Statements that defy logic, but seem on the surface to be logical, as if they are somehow meaningful in terms of 'what really is'. The human mind has a gravitational pull toward connectedness, seeing similarities, giving us an intuitive (if not necessarily correct) sense that the universe is somehow all of one piece and together. After all, we see it as somehow all together. As we navigate this place, we have to account for the differences we see. The mind is pretty good at this too. It is just when it tries to parse the whole thing all at once, it runs into the logical stumbling block, because parsing means to split. So when we come across a phrase, as in Nisargadatta, that awareness is not equivalent to consciousness, the mind is led on its merry way, and if it is considered important enough, it will not stop trying to parse the difference. If one defines awareness = consciousness, no problem, no need to think about it, one less problem to solve. Consciousness or consciousness/awareness by itself is a thorny enough issue alone. These phrases in the spiritual trade are what in script and fiction writing is called the MacGuffin, the elusive goal of the protagonist (and other characters in the story as well) are pursuing. The focus of attention. A MacGuffin is not necessarily germane to the plot, which in this case is your traverse of life. Except in the spiritual trade, the goal is a unity, so parsing is contrary to the goal, but that is just what a koan does, it gives the mind a problem to solve that has no rational solution, but it is short enough that the mind can manipulate it easily. Thus, by being handed a longer, more seemingly relaxed paradox, you are being deliberately misled. While this may seem pointless, or even possibly malicious, if it goes on long enough one of three things will happen. You will tire of it and give up. Or, if you are somewhat dull, you will pursue the idea until you die, and that means you are religious or a cultist, and unthinkingly enamoured and obsessed to a lesser or greater degree. Or, at some point the
Re: [FairfieldLife] First meetings with MMY (was Re: Marco Polo Arrives)
I only jist seem him one time. I was over at that thar MIU and we wuz on a course, it was that Taste of Utopia course and we had jist had some kinder meeting where that feller what used to be some kind-a general or sergeant major or somethin' was talking to us about what kinder programs they might have thar at MIU - I gave 'em a couple suggestions but they never did nuthin' with 'em. Anyway, I was jist settin' thar and there was about three or four hundred people in that there place and this feller I knowed from South Caroliner was near me and he let this noise outer his mouth somethin' like a cross between a moan and a holler and him and a bunch of other fellers rushed the stage cause this little feller in some white robes had come out with no fanfare and was jist settin'. Yep it was Marshy and he set there and let people git settled and then he commenced to jawin' about different stuff. Some of it was praisin' us all for bein' there and doing all that meditatin' in big groups like what he had wanted us ta do to start with. Then he talked about some other stuff but I can't remember what it was.Then the Big Marshy got up and pressed his palms together and stood looking out at the crowd. He turned slowly and passed his gaze from his center to his left, sweeping half the crowd with his gaze, I was in that half. As his gaze got closer I felt a tremendous wave of energy as strong as anything I have ever felt and the closer his gaze got the stronger the energy became. At the time I had never felt anything like it. As his gaze passed the energy faded. I was purty impressed and thought that's what an enlightened feller must do jist all the time. Nex nite he met with everybody and blabbered about some new project he was announcing and wanted something like 40 million dollars for whatever it was and Fred Zimmerman pledged about 4 million of it. I had my fist doubts about him that nite as he was not mentioning the LAST project he had been sayin' was so important and for which he had been dunning everyone for money for the last year or two. It apparently had vanished. So its taken me all this time to realize that a liar and huckster can have some potent energy too. From: Bhairitu noozg...@sbcglobal.net [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 12:50 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] First meetings with MMY (was Re: Marco Polo Arrives) I might cut him some slack in that it took some time for him to find how lame westerners can be and they do need a nanny. :-D There's so much about MMY that if you have spent any time around Indians and particularly hear other Indians speak of western society as well as the silliness of many Indians then you start to see MMY as being typically Indian about things. It has nothing to do with enlightenment but just Indian culture. On 12/16/2014 09:09 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: My first encounter with Maharishi was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles in 1967, and I came away *not* so much impressed with him as I was by something he said, which in retrospect is kinda poignant. What I remember most about the day is that someone in the audience got up and asked a question that basically boiled down to I've got this problem in my life, Maharishi...what should I do? His answer impressed me. He said something to the effect of, If I tell you what to do it will make you *weaker*, not stronger. My advice might get you through this current situation, but when the next one comes up, you'd be looking for me to tell you what to do again. Better that you should meditate and learn to make your own decisions. Compare that 1967 advice to how he started running his students' lives shortly thereafter. And, as he accurately intuited back then, him doing that made them all weaker, not stronger. From: inmadi...@hotmail.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:53 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives My first meetings with Maharishi were unplanned and pleasant. I was on TTC Arosa in '75 Being a country-boy from WI and in Arosa in June it was like a second spring and I took opportunities to go gallivanting in the Alps. One time I returned from a walk to find Maharishi had flown in on helicopter and was in lobby 'doing a line', I was lil sweaty and not dressed right and without flowers but jumped in at end of line anyways . . . I did the Namaste thing and he gave me some flowers and said something very cheerful. The second time and on another day I was in a bit of a hurry and came around a corner and saw the elevator doors closing so ran and squeezed in sideways and thinking what a coup to make it in but to my horror I banged into Jerry Jarvis who then almost banged into
[FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
Re Duveyoung: Nisargadatta's so out of the person business and, too, so clear that perfect nothingness is sentient and eternal, that I truly do not think he cared if the soul has metaphysical staying power. It was all illusion to him. He was a heavy smoker till his dying day. When asked about his habit he said that his body had become addicted to the drug and it was too much trouble to stop smoking. Better just to let the body die as only the Self is important. I can't imagine a statement more out of tune with contemporary new-age types who are obsessed with detoxifying the body! Re salyavin808: The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's all actually put together and start again from there. Yeah, but . . . it's the actually put together bit that is soaked in metaphysical assumptions. The type of person who tells us he's a hard-nosed, down-to-earth, just the facts ma'am type is saying that *the real world* must conform to his IDEAL view that the world is no-nonsense sensible. I agree about not taking metaphors too literally. We can't escape from the language trap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPa45uO0-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPa45uO0-A
Re: [FairfieldLife] First meetings with MMY (was Re: Marco Polo Arrives)
I was there too, MJ, at that very moment! Hell, we might even have been sitting next to each other! I experienced MMY's presence as an extraordinary and quite unexpected peacefulness that settled all over me. It was quite wonderful, and unlike anything I had experienced before. All the niggling little irritations and difficult feelings one has in any given moment were completely gone. It really was like sitting in bliss. I have never forgotten it. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, mjackson74@... wrote : I only jist seem him one time. I was over at that thar MIU and we wuz on a course, it was that Taste of Utopia course and we had jist had some kinder meeting where that feller what used to be some kind-a general or sergeant major or somethin' was talking to us about what kinder programs they might have thar at MIU - I gave 'em a couple suggestions but they never did nuthin' with 'em. Anyway, I was jist settin' thar and there was about three or four hundred people in that there place and this feller I knowed from South Caroliner was near me and he let this noise outer his mouth somethin' like a cross between a moan and a holler and him and a bunch of other fellers rushed the stage cause this little feller in some white robes had come out with no fanfare and was jist settin'. Yep it was Marshy and he set there and let people git settled and then he commenced to jawin' about different stuff. Some of it was praisin' us all for bein' there and doing all that meditatin' in big groups like what he had wanted us ta do to start with. Then he talked about some other stuff but I can't remember what it was.Then the Big Marshy got up and pressed his palms together and stood looking out at the crowd. He turned slowly and passed his gaze from his center to his left, sweeping half the crowd with his gaze, I was in that half. As his gaze got closer I felt a tremendous wave of energy as strong as anything I have ever felt and the closer his gaze got the stronger the energy became. At the time I had never felt anything like it. As his gaze passed the energy faded. I was purty impressed and thought that's what an enlightened feller must do jist all the time. Nex nite he met with everybody and blabbered about some new project he was announcing and wanted something like 40 million dollars for whatever it was and Fred Zimmerman pledged about 4 million of it. I had my fist doubts about him that nite as he was not mentioning the LAST project he had been sayin' was so important and for which he had been dunning everyone for money for the last year or two. It apparently had vanished. So its taken me all this time to realize that a liar and huckster can have some potent energy too. From: Bhairitu noozguru@... [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 12:50 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] First meetings with MMY (was Re: Marco Polo Arrives) I might cut him some slack in that it took some time for him to find how lame westerners can be and they do need a nanny. :-D There's so much about MMY that if you have spent any time around Indians and particularly hear other Indians speak of western society as well as the silliness of many Indians then you start to see MMY as being typically Indian about things. It has nothing to do with enlightenment but just Indian culture. On 12/16/2014 09:09 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... mailto:turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: My first encounter with Maharishi was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles in 1967, and I came away *not* so much impressed with him as I was by something he said, which in retrospect is kinda poignant. What I remember most about the day is that someone in the audience got up and asked a question that basically boiled down to I've got this problem in my life, Maharishi...what should I do? His answer impressed me. He said something to the effect of, If I tell you what to do it will make you *weaker*, not stronger. My advice might get you through this current situation, but when the next one comes up, you'd be looking for me to tell you what to do again. Better that you should meditate and learn to make your own decisions. Compare that 1967 advice to how he started running his students' lives shortly thereafter. And, as he accurately intuited back then, him doing that made them all weaker, not stronger. From: inmadison@... [FairfieldLife] mailto:inmadison@...[FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 5:53 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives My first meetings with Maharishi were unplanned and pleasant. I was on TTC Arosa in '75 Being a country-boy from WI and in Arosa in June it was like a
[FairfieldLife] Re: Awareness versus Consciousness
What I wrote was a discussion, not a prescription. By your own admission, narcissism would be your main stumbling block. We all tend to believe what we think is true, but how often does that work out? Agreeing and disagreeing is just giving yourself strokes. By the way, I have never done a koan. I had an interest in Zen, but was never a practitioner, that was just an exercise in analysis. Note, that to Barry, a narcissist is meat grinder fodder. I have a theory (it is 'just a theory' kind of theory rather than the scientific kind), and that is some people think brilliantly and quickly; others less brilliantly and less quickly, and it takes those longer to learn things, but maybe they can learn them if they slow down a bit. I think more quickly and deeply than some, and yet there are those that can think circles around me. So with them I have to slow down and be more deliberate to find out if I can match them or not. And sometimes it comes out on the not side. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : See? See? NOW THIS IS A PROPER FFL RESPONSE. I might sorta disagree with a lot of it, but man o man does it give you a challenge to shore up your axioms.or change. Nice. I don't think I'm a cultist -- may not ever actually have been one in my true-believer days -- narcissism protects me from a lot of that kind of tar baby caught mind traps. Narcissism always has me believing MY thoughts and dwelling within them to excess -- makes it hard to listen to anyone, and so when someone like Nisargadatta CAN break into my me-cave and keblammo my most loved axioms and scatter them like bowling pins, it attracts me like a 20 year old redhead. However, if not a cultist, I am a fool who pursues folly like a dog going after a pretendedly-thrown ball. So, maybe not much of a diff -- I walked talked and quaked (Howard the Initiator) as a role instead of as a brainwashed zombie. As for the wonderful koan concept being inserted into this discussion, I say, neat trick! It does seem to gather some loose ends into a nice knot. But maybe it's a Gordian, maybe it's a Windsorjust sayin'. Ha ha. First of all, I'm not a spiritual practitioner. I read Nisargadatta here and there -- sometimes not, sometimes a lot -- mostly on a daily basis. My intent is to see if I agree -- if so, then I read on. If not, I will read that again and again until I reach clarity. I've gone days on just a couple of sentences that didn't feel right. Not obsessed, but having some perplexity peppering my day. Even at this late stage, Nisargadatta says stuff that is not intuitively obvious to me -- not a surprise -- and so I get to gnaw on stuff until it's swallowable. But I don't do Zen. I'm not trying to evolve anymore. I don't know if koans actually have any spiritual worth, but some folks claim big for it. Go for it, says me, but nope not for me. My intellectual clarity is NOT much of a tool, but it does keep me having to read the-rest-of-a-paragraph in a lot of essays. Mix up awareness and consciousness, and I just don't have the time to see if you DO have clarity about anything else. It's a rough filter, but that's what I do. And thank you again, Anartaxius -- I haven't got your intellect, so I consider it a favor that you've stopped to lend a hand. Put a merit badge on your Brownie sash! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : The human mind cannot parse infinity, or infinities. The awareness versus consciousness issue is the goad for the 'path of enlightenment'. It shows up in various guises. Reality versus illusion Absolute versus relative Consciousness versus 'pure' consciousness Silence versus thought Being versus action Unity versus diversity God versus person hood Enlightenment versus ignorance These kinds of statements are really subterfuge koans. Statements that defy logic, but seem on the surface to be logical, as if they are somehow meaningful in terms of 'what really is'. The human mind has a gravitational pull toward connectedness, seeing similarities, giving us an intuitive (if not necessarily correct) sense that the universe is somehow all of one piece and together. After all, we see it as somehow all together. As we navigate this place, we have to account for the differences we see. The mind is pretty good at this too. It is just when it tries to parse the whole thing all at once, it runs into the logical stumbling block, because parsing means to split. So when we come across a phrase, as in Nisargadatta, that awareness is not equivalent to consciousness, the mind is led on its merry way, and if it is considered important enough, it will not stop trying to parse the difference. If one defines awareness = consciousness, no problem, no need to think about it, one less problem to solve. Consciousness or consciousness/awareness by itself is a thorny enough
Re: [FairfieldLife] Good development between India+Russia re Yoga
Russians have been into yoga for some time. But the bigger news is that the Ruble is getting crushed in this new cold war and they've raised interest rates in Russia to 17%. Ouch! And Russia might get pissed enough to stop providing us with uranium which we need for our nuke power plants. About 10% of the electrical power in the US is nuke. May you live in interesting times. On 12/16/2014 02:39 PM, Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: Oil, gas, nuclear, rare earths and biotech crops is what these two are slavering over - that yoga/ayurveda crap is in there for Modi to suck up to the yogis in the country and their many voting followers. *From:* email4you mikemail4...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com *To:* mikemail4...@yahoo.com mikemail4...@yahoo.com *Sent:* Tuesday, December 16, 2014 4:06 PM *Subject:* [FairfieldLife] Good development between India+Russia re Yoga [1 Attachment] [Attachment(s) https://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=02d5legm57u43action=newsfeed#TopText from email4you included below] * http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140* From: *Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full Text* * * Point 33: */« 33. I/*/*ndia and Russia* .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and fitness /*/through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. »/* Jai Guru Dev ! All Glory to Guru Dev ! - Mail transféré - *De :* Hubert O hubert1...@googlemail.com *À :* Hubert hubert...@orange.fr *Envoyé le :* Mardi 16 décembre 2014 7h15 *Objet :* Fwd: Good development between India+Russia re Yoga * http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-to-india-full-text-633140* From: *Joint Statement on the Visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India: Full Text* * * Point 33: */« 33. I/*/*ndia and Russia* .../... will encourage cooperation to promote health and fitness /*/through traditional Indian forms of Yoga and Ayurveda, including through Yoga centres, camps and Ayurveda centres. »/*
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
On 12/16/2014 02:56 PM, s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: Re Duveyoung: Nisargadatta's so out of the person business and, too, so clear that perfect nothingness is sentient and eternal, that I truly do not think he cared if the soul has metaphysical staying power. It was all illusion to him. He was a heavy smoker till his dying day. When asked about his habit he said that his body had become addicted to the drug and it was too much trouble to stop smoking. Better just to let the body die as only the Self is important. I can't imagine a statement more out of tune with contemporary new-age types who are obsessed with detoxifying the body! But it also sez that his smoking was no barrier to enlightenment. Neither is eating meat for that matter. My tantra teacher smoked though quit around 2005 and put on weight as a result. The extra weight probably lead to his heart condition which eventually killed him. No, he didn't know much about ayurveda. Re salyavin808: The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's all actually put together and start again from there. Yeah, but . . . it's the actually put together bit that is soaked in metaphysical assumptions. The type of person who tells us he's a hard-nosed, down-to-earth, just the facts ma'am type is saying that *the real world* must conform to his IDEAL view that the world is no-nonsense sensible. I agree about not taking metaphors too literally. We can't escape from the language trap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPa45uO0-A
[FairfieldLife] More BS for MJ
/Why This Company Sent Poop to 30,000 People for Black Friday// / http://time.com/3634443/cards-against-humanity-poop-black-friday/
[FairfieldLife] Post Count Wed 17-Dec-14 00:15:02 UTC
Fairfield Life Post Counter === Start Date (UTC): 12/13/14 00:00:00 End Date (UTC): 12/20/14 00:00:00 229 messages as of (UTC) 12/17/14 00:02:24 45 TurquoiseBee turquoiseb 35 Bhairitu noozguru 22 Duveyoung 20 emily.mae50 18 Michael Jackson mjackson74 15 s3raphita 12 salyavin808 9 seerdope 8 srijau 7 anartaxius 7 LEnglish5 6 dhamiltony2k5 4 j_alexander_stanley 4 Share Long sharelong60 3 curtisdeltablues 3 Mike Dixon mdixon.6569 2 ultrarishi 2 jr_esq 1 steve.sundur 1 inmadison 1 feste37 1 eustace10679 1 email4you mikemail4you 1 devindersingh gulati dgulhati 1 'Rick Archer' rick Posters: 25 Saturday Morning 00:00 UTC Rollover Times = Daylight Saving Time (Summer): US Friday evening: PDT 5 PM - MDT 6 PM - CDT 7 PM - EDT 8 PM Europe Saturday: BST 1 AM CEST 2 AM EEST 3 AM Standard Time (Winter): US Friday evening: PST 4 PM - MST 5 PM - CST 6 PM - EST 7 PM Europe Saturday: GMT 12 AM CET 1 AM EET 2 AM For more information on Time Zones: www.worldtimezone.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Awareness versus Consciousness
We were also responding to another one of Edg walks into a bar moments. IOW, it was as if Edg was walking into a bar, waving his arms and shouting and the clientèle saying WTF! Of course if it really was a bar he would have been promptly shown the door. :-D On 12/16/2014 03:12 PM, anartax...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife] wrote: What I wrote was a discussion, not a prescription. By your own admission, narcissism would be your main stumbling block. We all tend to believe what we think is true, but how often does that work out? Agreeing and disagreeing is just giving yourself strokes. By the way, I have never done a koan. I had an interest in Zen, but was never a practitioner, that was just an exercise in analysis. Note, that to Barry, a narcissist is meat grinder fodder. I have a theory (it is 'just a theory' kind of theory rather than the scientific kind), and that is some people think brilliantly and quickly; others less brilliantly and less quickly, and it takes those longer to learn things, but maybe they can learn them if they slow down a bit. I think more quickly and deeply than some, and yet there are those that can think circles around me. So with them I have to slow down and be more deliberate to find out if I can match them or not. And sometimes it comes out on the not side. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : See? See? NOW THIS IS A PROPER FFL RESPONSE. I might sorta disagree with a lot of it, but man o man does it give you a challenge to shore up your axioms.or change. Nice. I don't think I'm a cultist -- may not ever actually have been one in my true-believer days -- narcissism protects me from a lot of that kind of tar baby caught mind traps. Narcissism always has me believing MY thoughts and dwelling within them to excess -- makes it hard to listen to anyone, and so when someone like Nisargadatta CAN break into my me-cave and keblammo my most loved axioms and scatter them like bowling pins, it attracts me like a 20 year old redhead. However, if not a cultist, I am a fool who pursues folly like a dog going after a pretendedly-thrown ball. So, maybe not much of a diff -- I walked talked and quaked (Howard the Initiator) as a role instead of as a brainwashed zombie. As for the wonderful koan concept being inserted into this discussion, I say, neat trick! It does seem to gather some loose ends into a nice knot. But maybe it's a Gordian, maybe it's a Windsorjust sayin'. Ha ha. First of all, I'm not a spiritual practitioner. I read Nisargadatta here and there -- sometimes not, sometimes a lot -- mostly on a daily basis. My intent is to see if I agree -- if so, then I read on. If not, I will read that again and again until I reach clarity. I've gone days on just a couple of sentences that didn't feel right. Not obsessed, but having some perplexity peppering my day. Even at this late stage, Nisargadatta says stuff that is not intuitively obvious to me -- not a surprise -- and so I get to gnaw on stuff until it's swallowable. But I don't do Zen. I'm not trying to evolve anymore. I don't know if koans actually have any spiritual worth, but some folks claim big for it. Go for it, says me, but nope not for me. My intellectual clarity is NOT much of a tool, but it does keep me having to read the-rest-of-a-paragraph in a lot of essays. Mix up awareness and consciousness, and I just don't have the time to see if you DO have clarity about anything else. It's a rough filter, but that's what I do. And thank you again, Anartaxius -- I haven't got your intellect, so I consider it a favor that you've stopped to lend a hand. Put a merit badge on your Brownie sash! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : The human mind cannot parse infinity, or infinities. The awareness versus consciousness issue is the goad for the 'path of enlightenment'. It shows up in various guises. * Reality versus illusion * Absolute versus relative * Consciousness versus 'pure' consciousness * Silence versus thought * Being versus action * Unity versus diversity * God versus person hood * Enlightenment versus ignorance These kinds of statements are really subterfuge koans. Statements that defy logic, but seem on the surface to be logical, as if they are somehow meaningful in terms of 'what really is'. The human mind has a gravitational pull toward connectedness, seeing similarities, giving us an intuitive (if not necessarily correct) sense that the universe is somehow all of one piece and together. After all, we see it as somehow all together. As we navigate this place, we have to account for the differences we see. The mind is pretty good at this too. It is just when it tries to parse the whole thing all at once, it runs into the logical stumbling block, because parsing means to split. So when we come across a phrase, as in Nisargadatta, that
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
Re The extra weight probably lead to his heart condition which eventually killed him.: Something I've noticed (and was predictable and predicted) is that the anti-smoking backlash and indoor smoking bans have at least some responsibility for the scary increase in obesity levels in the West. All the catwalk models you see smoke! Yes, smoking is no barrier to enlightenment - David Lynch chain smokes and he's enlight . . . Oh, hang on a minute. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, noozguru@... wrote : On 12/16/2014 02:56 PM, s3raphita@... mailto:s3raphita@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: Re Duveyoung: Nisargadatta's so out of the person business and, too, so clear that perfect nothingness is sentient and eternal, that I truly do not think he cared if the soul has metaphysical staying power. It was all illusion to him. He was a heavy smoker till his dying day. When asked about his habit he said that his body had become addicted to the drug and it was too much trouble to stop smoking. Better just to let the body die as only the Self is important. I can't imagine a statement more out of tune with contemporary new-age types who are obsessed with detoxifying the body! But it also sez that his smoking was no barrier to enlightenment. Neither is eating meat for that matter. My tantra teacher smoked though quit around 2005 and put on weight as a result. The extra weight probably lead to his heart condition which eventually killed him. No, he didn't know much about ayurveda. Re salyavin808: The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's all actually put together and start again from there. Yeah, but . . . it's the actually put together bit that is soaked in metaphysical assumptions. The type of person who tells us he's a hard-nosed, down-to-earth, just the facts ma'am type is saying that *the real world* must conform to his IDEAL view that the world is no-nonsense sensible. I agree about not taking metaphors too literally. We can't escape from the language trap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPa45uO0-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPa45uO0-A
[FairfieldLife] Re: Life on Mars?
As 99 per cent of the methane produced on Earth is generated by biological processes it looks like H G Wells may have been on the right track after all. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : This will be rather amazing if true... Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Evidence of life on Mars could have been found by Nasa's Curiosity Rover. View on www.independent.co.uk http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] If you have a pulse, you'll LOVE this!
Derby the dog: Running on 3D Printed Prosthetics http://youtu.be/uRmoowIN8aY http://youtu.be/uRmoowIN8aY Derby the dog: Running on 3D Printed Prosthetics http://youtu.be/uRmoowIN8aY See how unique, custom-3D printed prosthetics allow derby the dog to run for the first time. View on youtu.be http://youtu.be/uRmoowIN8aY Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] 60 Minutes: Mindfulness
View online. Mindfulness http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/mindfulness/ http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/mindfulness/ Mindfulness http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/mindfulness/ Anderson Cooper puts down the mobile devices to meditate and report on what it’s like to try to ... http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/mindfulness/ Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] Re: If you have a pulse, you'll LOVE this!
Love it, love it, love it.
[FairfieldLife] Holier than thou?
I see that early followers of MMY commonly referred to Maharishi as His Holiness. (At least amongst themselves. Do any FFLifers who actually met Maharishi ever remember addressing him in person as Your Holiness?) Now the Queen of England is properly addressed as Her Majesty? So is she actually *majestic*? I wouldn't know(!) - but anyway it's irrelevant as the title is just a convention. But I'm not aware of any convention sanctified by tradition that would warrant MMY being entitled to a Your Holiness tag. So the use of such a formula could only be justified if people were otherwise convinced that Maharishi was indeed a holy man. Is there any such evidence? Accepting (for argument's sake) a positive view of the character of the TMO founder we could claim him as original, hard-working, personable, and, yes, courageous; not vicious certainly; as occupying an important, pioneering role in the spread of Indian meditation techniques to the West. But holy? Speaking for myself, I would hate to be called Holy Seraphita. Firstly, I am emphatically *not* particularly virtuous or self-abnegating. What am I saying? I'm not virtuous or self-abnegating full-stop. And secondly, it's surely proof-positive that someone is not holy if they encourage others to call them by that label. Any thoughts?
[FairfieldLife] How does one decide if a person's testimony is valid?
What can I do to test these statements? Nisargadatta The scriptures say so, but I know nothing about it. I know myself as I am; as I appeared or will appear is not within my experience. It is not that I do not remember. In fact there is nothing to remember. Reincarnation implies a reincarnating self. There is no such thing. The bundle of memories and hopes, called the 'I', imagines itself existing everlastingly and creates time to accommodate its false eternity: To be, I need no past or future. All experience is born of imagination; I do not imagine, so no birth or death happens to me. Only those who think themselves born can think themselves re-born. You are accusing me of having been born -- I plead not guilty! By its very nature the mind is outward turned; it always tends to seek for the source of things among the things themselves; to be told to look for the source within, is, in a way, the beginning of a new life. Awareness takes the place of consciousness; in consciousness there is the 'I', who is conscious while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself. The 'I am' is a thought, while awareness is not a thought, there is no 'I am aware' in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is beyond all -- being as well as not-being.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Life on Mars?
The methane could be coming from microbes underneath the ground. The rovers should find more interesting facts as long as they keep operating on the planet. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, s3raphita@... wrote : As 99 per cent of the methane produced on Earth is generated by biological processes it looks like H G Wells may have been on the right track after all. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : This will be rather amazing if true... Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Evidence of life on Mars could have been found by Nasa's Curiosity Rover. View on www.independent.co.uk http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] Re: Life on Mars?
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, s3raphita@... wrote : As 99 per cent of the methane produced on Earth is generated by biological processes it looks like H G Wells may have been on the right track after all. Funnily enough, they did this experiment in the '70s with the Viking lander and it had the same result but they concluded there was no life because the other two experiments on board didn't find anything. But the lander had been forced to touch down in a place where the other tests weren't designed to work. The team that built the original gas exchanger lab on board were highly pissed off but went along with it at the press conference. Later on they maintained they had found life but this is the first thing that has been landed since that is actually looking for life because everything since Viking kept up the assumption there was none! I hope it gets confirmed as something living but the bigger question is whether it evolved independently of life on Earth. There's been so much interchange of material between the two planets via meteorites that we could be Martians and vice versa. Proving that we are separate life forms would dramatically increase the likelihood that life can get going anywhere suitable. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : This will be rather amazing if true... Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Nasa finds evidence of 'life on Mars' http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Evidence of life on Mars could have been found by Nasa's Curiosity Rover. View on www.independent.co.uk http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html Preview by Yahoo
[FairfieldLife] Re: Marco Polo Arrives
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, s3raphita@... wrote : Re salyavin808: The problem here is the metaphors taking themselves too seriously. You probably think that's ducking the question but it's just avoiding getting pulled into the endless cycle of ever more mysterious sophistry. We won't work it out how minds work from the inside, at least no one ever has, so it's probably be a good idea to hang five and work out how it's all actually put together and start again from there. Yeah, but . . . it's the actually put together bit that is soaked in metaphysical assumptions. The type of person who tells us he's a hard-nosed, down-to-earth, just the facts ma'am type is saying that *the real world* must conform to his IDEAL view that the world is no-nonsense sensible. I agree about not taking metaphors too literally. We can't escape from the language trap. Then we have to be sure we haven't created one for ourselves. Hence the building of my world relies on nothing other than the simplest explanation of the data and not on assuming things we simply think - or want - to be true. So I exclude everything that doesn't fit in with the cornerstones of knowledge, most importantly the theory of evolution by natural selection. This applies to everything and not just us. If consciousness is some sort of eternal being that survives us after death and is even some sort of quantum god thing, then Darwinism has to go out of the window. Physics would have to be completely rewritten too, I imagine the laws of thermodynamics would be the first in the bin, which is a shame as they work rather well, but any sort of god must be immune to entropy. And that would need an impressive explanation. So if we assume the universe is a no-nonsense sensible place that works according to fathomable laws rather than for the convenience of invisible creators we can get an ideal that allows for the further research needed to explain what we don't know rather than one where things are assumed to be beyond us and where our interpretations are seen as just as valid as demonstrable theories. I worry that a lot of intelligent people are continually looking in the wrong place for their gods and that they will get all the publicity and research money because their answers are what people want to hear. The net is full of crap research funded by some religion or other with an agenda to push. Trouble is, we are still in a 'god of the gaps' situation with consciousness and intelligence but not enough to be able to say that they are part of some sort of extra-material reality of which we currently know nothing. We should take comfort from the fact that everything is explainable and that everything has turned out to have a simple explanation that requires no add-on supernatural powers but we like to reserve them for everything unexplained all the same. The human condition I suppose. So my ideal is based on what we can see and the knowledge that we are great at inventing stories and so everything that doesn't fit in with the known laws of nature is most likely our imagination. I convert for evidence though...
