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Read the Catholic Christian contemplative Bernadette Roberts.Her idea,through a supposed lifelong mystical encounter with God,is that a sense of self is the greatest delusion of humans and the original sin,ie,a sense of separateness from the All via a sense of a separate personal self .She even goes as far as to ask whether God knows He is God,since to know this implies a self to be self reflective.
I am familiar with Bernadette . . . we are of the same chronological cohort. I started out with the same expectations and beliefs about Oneness and loss of self. It is bogus. I lost nothing of my individuality in the experiences. This "either we are one or we are separate" is a ubiquitous mystical misconception that I believed for 30+ years. In the 40+ years since . . . I have proved it wrong (to me) unmistakably.
I am familiar with Bernadette . . . we are of the same chronological cohort. I started out with the same expectations and beliefs about Oneness and loss of self. It is bogus. I lost nothing of my individuality in the experiences. This "either we are one or we are separate" is a ubiquitous mystical misconception that I believed for 30+ years. In the 40+ years since . . . I have proved it wrong (to me) unmistakably.
BR would say you are not far enough down the road.
If we lack certainty that we exist, then we for sure lack certainty that what ever it is that "we" are (to be) "truly" can not be had with certainty either; at least as a self I have ends, actions, determination, and such. And all the work toward that end (the true non-self that I may be) is futile, as that also has to be idealized by guess what (?), and individual mind (even Bernadette's individual mind). It is amazing to me that people are selfs but wish to be something else-to be a different species; there used to be a latin term for this, and it escapes me now, but sort of meant something like being a species fantastic.
It is amazing that some broad can think a while and then come to the conclusion that even poor ol' god is deluded as well-that is a delusion and an idolatry, as the conclusion is, if I am deluded then obviously the god (who is my image as a rattle brain) has to be.
One thing I know is that I, as a self, exist, or properly, I am in the process of "becoming".
It is an old philosophical notion that to attempt to prove what already exists is sort of lame as existence is its own proof (I think Descarte went through this and apparently the problem here is that he left out act-one extends oneself into space; yes, the sensate may be error, but I find it to be mostly reliable). To understand "what" (aesthetics), or better, "how" (ethics), one exists is the problem (this "how" gets one out of abstracting oneself) and brings life to its existing task-one can get an experience of it.
The self is complicated, and part of the difficulty is that each is one and alone (this is a good thing as it makes life possible), and the "becoming" is not completely understood or figured out by the self as being a self is a life time task. The being a self is completed at death and then one can not very well figure it out after death. All attempts at explaining a self have to be abstracted and somewhat universalized and too generalized, as only a self is a self and particular, and in on his own knowing about himself. This stuff of wanting out of the "self realizing task" is to attempt to avoid what one is by either creation or naturally formed, by fooling oneself into thinking one can complete ones life before death.
To set on one's duffer and attempt to figure it out before completion (death) is to attempt to figure it out with out all the "facts". This makes concluding this understanding not possible except at an estimate at best (the value of one's life is subject to the same "fate", one will never know if one's life was worth its time, if "wanting to make a difference", in one's ideological self interest as it goes today, is one's thing, one will never know as one could set in motion in one's do gooderness much evil).
I can see the temptation towards all this wholeness stuff, but the observation of the ego by the ego, is the only somewhat sure observation available, as that which is out side the self, say an alter, increases in abstraction within the ego. One has to idealize oneself but one is at home with oneself; one has to idealize alter, but alter is itself and transcendent to ego. This will never change even in some trumped up collective or such.
BR would say you are not far enough down the road.
I am wondering if there actually is a road.
More likely that she never possessed the discipline and skills to reach the end state in meditation. There are many interim states that can be achieved consistent with the current misconceptions about Nirvana and Oneness. But once you reach the end state (as I did completely unexpectedly) . . . it blows all that out the window. It is an unmistakable experience and there is no loss of self. There is a "joining" as a member of what I like to think of as the "Heavenly Host."
True, but a logical assumption is still an assumption...
...a "real" number is a concept, not a real physical object.
You're not getting what I'm saying. In order to view a case of what reality is compared to what we do or don't know about it you have to use a conceptual arrangement of mathematics to make the point. In the case I provided (which was just something off the top of my head), we are able to use a conceptual framework to determine what reality is. In this "concept world" that I provided, we proposed two scenarios:
1. A universal understanding of everything there is to know about the problem at hand, i.e., We know that x and y are real numbers and therefore that xy and x + y must also be real numbers.
2. A limited understanding of everything there is to know with an independent reality that we cannot confirm, i.e., We know that every time we've added x and y we've gotten a real number. We also know that every time we've multiplied x and y we've gotten a real number. But, we don't know reality. We can only make the baseline assumption with substantial evidence of repeated x and y addition and multiplication to come to what we think is a best scenario conclusion: That x and y are real numbers.
In essence, scenario number two provides us with a very similar analogy to what we are and how we interpret reality. We, as humans, don't know x and y are real numbers (if we are to replace x and y with any given quest of human knowledge). What we can do is study the sums and products to determine what we think is a very likely suggestion of reality. We can't prove it the way we can a mathematical proof (scenario 1) but we can take a very likely stab at what is true and real.
But, the mere notion that we are performing Scenario 2 in our lives suggests that a reality exists. While our understanding or depiction of it may sometimes seem illusive in nature, it is nonetheless reality.
Besides, if reality is an illusion, then the reality of that is that reality is an illusion.
Who ever wrote me; I think the skepticism is a good thing to have. Socrates said he wasn't sure what he was. After all we just define all this stuff from our own minds (one has to have ideal forms to get some transcendental definition). And when one thinks on this self stuff and realizes how fragile or exactly how "metaphysical" thoughts are, just how near non-existent we actually are, one could wonder if it all is not some illusion. There is a mathematical negative root, I am not too familiar with this, but I heard that the next negative after another, there is nothing there-when matter subdivided. The greeks thought a space between two points was infinite-the turtle and the rabbit paradox. Evidently it isn't infinite.
More likely that she never possessed the discipline and skills to reach the end state in meditation. There are many interim states that can be achieved consistent with the current misconceptions about Nirvana and Oneness. But once you reach the end state (as I did completely unexpectedly) . . . it blows all that out the window. It is an unmistakable experience and there is no loss of self. There is a "joining" as a member of what I like to think of as the "Heavenly Host."
She holds the opposite opinion and believes that all states previous to a complete annihilation of a sense of self are the interim states of those who have not gone far enough.The disciplines with thousands of years of experience at deep meditation,ie,Buddhists,would agree with her view,ie,the drop dissolving back into the ocean and no longer sensing itself as separate from the ocean.
If each state unfolds only upon the completion of the previous one,how can anyone claim to know that they have reached the end state?What you describe is seen as intermediate stages by most disciplines.
If we lack certainty that we exist, then we for sure lack certainty that what ever it is that "we" are (to be) "truly" can not be had with certainty either; at least as a self I have ends, actions, determination, and such. And all the work toward that end (the true non-self that I may be) is futile, as that also has to be idealized by guess what (?), and individual mind (even Bernadette's individual mind). It is amazing to me that people are selfs but wish to be something else-to be a different species; there used to be a latin term for this, and it escapes me now, but sort of meant something like being a species fantastic.
It is amazing that some broad can think a while and then come to the conclusion that even poor ol' god is deluded as well-that is a delusion and an idolatry, as the conclusion is, if I am deluded then obviously the god (who is my image as a rattle brain) has to be.
One thing I know is that I, as a self, exist, or properly, I am in the process of "becoming".
It is an old philosophical notion that to attempt to prove what already exists is sort of lame as existence is its own proof (I think Descarte went through this and apparently the problem here is that he left out act-one extends oneself into space; yes, the sensate may be error, but I find it to be mostly reliable). To understand "what" (aesthetics), or better, "how" (ethics), one exists is the problem (this "how" gets one out of abstracting oneself) and brings life to its existing task-one can get an experience of it.
The self is complicated, and part of the difficulty is that each is one and alone (this is a good thing as it makes life possible), and the "becoming" is not completely understood or figured out by the self as being a self is a life time task. The being a self is completed at death and then one can not very well figure it out after death. All attempts at explaining a self have to be abstracted and somewhat universalized and too generalized, as only a self is a self and particular, and in on his own knowing about himself. This stuff of wanting out of the "self realizing task" is to attempt to avoid what one is by either creation or naturally formed, by fooling oneself into thinking one can complete ones life before death.
To set on one's duffer and attempt to figure it out before completion (death) is to attempt to figure it out with out all the "facts". This makes concluding this understanding not possible except at an estimate at best (the value of one's life is subject to the same "fate", one will never know if one's life was worth its time, if "wanting to make a difference", in one's ideological self interest as it goes today, is one's thing, one will never know as one could set in motion in one's do gooderness much evil).
I can see the temptation towards all this wholeness stuff, but the observation of the ego by the ego, is the only somewhat sure observation available, as that which is out side the self, say an alter, increases in abstraction within the ego. One has to idealize oneself but one is at home with oneself; one has to idealize alter, but alter is itself and transcendent to ego. This will never change even in some trumped up collective or such.
I'm curious if you even have a clue what is being talked about,have done any research into the "old broad's" works,or are just spouting off from a state of ignorance?
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