The True Meaning of Religion

[The New Consciousness]

Hello everyone! After the interest and debate generated by my essay on the problems of Marxism, I thought I'd start a thread about religion. What is religion, really? What is it when stripped of all its mystique, regalia and words?

Let us find out.

Please, have a look at my take on it and then tell me what you think. Please, no swearing or acrimony.

Thanks!

- TNC


The True Meaning Of Religion

Religion is the search for a solution to man's problems. Religion, in its purest sense, is the attempt to radically change humans so we can live together in peace. Religion is essentially the search for love.True religion, thus, is concerned solely with love and how to make man more loving and compassionate.

What is love then?
To be able to answer that in words, one would have to follow some kind of thought-process. Yet, can thought comprehend love? Can love be condensed into images and words and concepts: the language of thought? Surely it cannot. For surely you'll agree that love is beyond thought.

So how do we find out what love is? Truly, we can only feel love. Love cannot be intellectualised. But we can use the intellect to see what isn't love. This is negation.

What is NOT love?
- War
When I use 'war' here I am referring to all forms of conflict between humans: physical violence, hostility, hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, competition, racism, xenophobia, intolerance, malice, resentment et cetera.
- Exploitation
That is to say, using oneself and others as a means to an end. This way you make the object of the exploitation a tool, something for you to use. Can you love such a thing? Is this love?
- Comparison and judgement
Can one love something whilst one is constantly comparing it to others, which is judgment? Surely this way you miss out on the uniqueness of the object?

Why are human so shackled by the above?
The ego

What is the ego?
Thought-created time-bound illusory world perception

What is this?
Identification of Self or 'Me' with
- Past events/experiences
- Successes/failures
- Other people's judgments/opinions of you
- Life circumstances
- Future fears and anticipations: the ideal, the disaster

- Constant comparative consciousness
- Judging and comparing others

- Labelling mind, i.e. the inability to experience the universe directly, instead through a mesh of false concepts

How did this come about?
Who knows? Rousseau suggested it came about when man invented property: i.e. when man began a process of identification with material objects. This then extended to life experiences, attributes and appearance (amour propre) ideas and relationships (perfectibility), further complicating the problem. It seems that man stopped using the intellect and the intellect started using him.

How do we stop this?
We must cease confusing love with thought.

LOVE CANNOT BE REACHED THROUGH THOUGHT.

LOVE IS COMMUNION.

COMMUNION IS DEEP IMMERSION INTO THE PRESENT.

IN THE PRESENT THERE IS NO TIME.

THOUGHT IS TIME.

THUS THOUGHT MUST END.

Fake Religion:
- That which sees love as an 'end' = time (thus thought)
Heaven/Paradise
Meditation leading to Enlightenment after period
- That which uses concepts
Good vs bad
Heaven vs hell
- & doctrine
Dogmas/commandments/traditions/ceremonies
- Labels (-isms): Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, Judaism etc

All major religions seem suffer from this.

It occurred when those searching for love sought to IMITATE (a natural consequence of comparison and judgement) those who were in that wondrous state of being.

Imitation is thought

LOVE CANNOT BE ATTAINED THROUGH THOUGHT

Thus the key message was lost,

The mistake was made by these 'Aware Beings' and their followers when they tried to explain, codify, label this state.

Explanation/codification/labelling = thought.

The message was lost forever, shrouded by illusory, divisive thought.
Illusion = suffering

Thought = suffering

Maybe they should have done is explained what love isn't, which is essentially, thought, for it would seem that only by negating the false can we hope to come near to the truth.

[Dean]

This is pretty cool, and I have had some of the same ideas before. I will look at this deeper later on tonight or something when I have time.

[autotrophic]

You should check out some books by Joseph Campbell. He has written a lot of books on exactly this topic. I think The Hero with a Thousand Faces is his best introductory one.

He basically posits that all religion and mythology (which are really the same thing, many of them being interconnected) is a necessary component of human life, and every society has a 'mythology'. It is a way for humans to relate to their environment, within the framework of the knowledge that they have. There are many universal symbols that all religions share, and all religions have the same basic narrative.

His views are also very compatible with Marx's ideas on religion, that religion is a product determined by the development of society, and the social relationships within a particular society.

You can check out the wikipedia page on The Hero with a Thousand Faces for more info. Sorry I can't post the link, I don't have enough posts yet

[Glorious Union]

I have to dissagree on your points about love. Anything can be love, no matter how sick and distubing it is, exploitation, war, and envy can all be acts of love. It just has to do with the mentality of the person carrying out these actions and those being acted upon. But, thinking with a traditional mindset of the average human being, all of your conclusions on love are entirely correct.

[Plagueround]

I've always liked Julian Jayne's bicameral mind theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29) as an explanation for religion.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Religion is the search for a solution to man's problems. Religion, in its purest sense, is the attempt to radically change humans so we can live together in peace. Religion is essentially the search for love.True religion, thus, is concerned solely with love and how to make man more loving and compassionate.



All of this is unsupported. In fact your whole post is just assertion after assertion.

Let's start with your idea that religion is the search for love. What's your evidence for this?

-Alex

[bcbm]

This post sounds like a "No true Scotsman..." argument. If all major religions "suffer" from being fake, perhaps you need to rethink what religion is.

[The New Consciousness]

Let's start with your idea that religion is the search for love. What's your evidence for this?

Surely this is the fundamental aim of religion no? To attain some kind of state of compassionate bliss? If you cut through all the swathes of useless, egoic crap that is. Perhaps I'm wrong. What do you think?

This post sounds like a "No true Scotsman..." argument. If all major religions "suffer" from being fake, perhaps you need to rethink what religion is.

That's what we're doing here...

[synthesis]

I've always liked Julian Jayne's bicameral mind theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_%28psychology%29) as an explanation for religion.

Jayne's hypothesis is certainly intriguing and innovative, but it seems to me that it would only be useful as a biological basis for the subjective experience of "talking to a higher power" that so many people report.

I feel like there's a lot more to religion than just the interplay between the two hemispheres of the brain. One of the reasons that religion has been so historically dominant is that it is so versatile and adaptive - it's the "God of the gaps," used to satisfy the human thirst for knowledge when we simply weren't developed enough; it's Durkheim's "glue," serving to provide a source of social cohesion; and, of course, it's the "soul of soulless conditions," the opiate of the people.

In that sense, it's difficult to reduce religion to a function of simple biology. There's a lot more that goes into it, and I also don't think it would be productive for us to assume that all religion is rooted in quasi-schizophrenia.

[The New Consciousness]

I also don't think it would be productive for us to assume that all religion is rooted in quasi-schizophrenia.

What if it were shrouded in it?

[Decolonize The Left]

The OP of this thread seems like it has simply substituted "communism" for "God" and applied all the same unjustified religious claims as many have done before..

- August

[Louise Michel]

I'm now in Peru and the idea that religion is about 'love' whatever that word means to whoever is absurd. The religions of the Incas and pre-incan societies such as the moches were about securing a passage into the afterlife for the ruling elites. The Moches for example sacrificed guardians to go into death with a deceased ruler. These people drank blood from the throats of their sacrificial victims. Where's the love?

The Christian idea of love in its scriptural incarnation is a joke. How many churches open their doors to the poor and homeless? None may not be quite accurate but it's close to the truth.

[The New Consciousness]

Religion comes from the latin res divinae, i.e. the reverence of the divine. What is the divine? Surely it is love. What I am saying is that love was externalised into abstractions, and thus shrouded and lost.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Surely this is the fundamental aim of religion no? To attain some kind of state of compassionate bliss? If you cut through all the swathes of useless, egoic crap that is. Perhaps I'm wrong. What do you think?


Well what's your evidence? You can't just say "surely I'm right?" ;)

I'll offer my opinions when you give reasons for thinking the way you do; otherwise this is just going to be bald assertion central.

-Alex

[bcbm]

That's what we're doing here...

I don't think it needs rethinking. Its actually a rather diverse and amorphous concept with no real concrete definition. Buddhism is wildly different than Christianity is wildly different than Confucianism, but all are considered religions.

[Plagueround]

Jayne's hypothesis is certainly intriguing and innovative, but it seems to me that it would only be useful as a biological basis for the subjective experience of "talking to a higher power" that so many people report.

I feel like there's a lot more to religion than just the interplay between the two hemispheres of the brain. One of the reasons that religion has been so historically dominant is that it is so versatile and adaptive - it's the "God of the gaps," used to satisfy the human thirst for knowledge when we simply weren't developed enough; it's Durkheim's "glue," serving to provide a source of social cohesion; and, of course, it's the "soul of soulless conditions," the opiate of the people.

In that sense, it's difficult to reduce religion to a function of simple biology. There's a lot more that goes into it, and I also don't think it would be productive for us to assume that all religion is rooted in quasi-schizophrenia.

I should mention I don't believe his theory to be absolute, but I think it's an extremely interesting and well researched perspective. More so, I enjoyed his research and explanations of what consciousness actually is. I do have to ask, have you read the book on he wrote on the subject? I've been working on it on and off.

[The New Consciousness]

Well what's your evidence? You can't just say "surely I'm right?"

Well what do you think?

If you look at religions what you tend to notice is that the creator or inspiration of these religions (so for Christianity, Jesus; for Islam; Mohammed; for Buddhism; Siddhartha) often bears very little resemblance to the adherants. If the modern day representantives of these religions were the above figures, I doubt there would be so many problems. As Rumi, the great Sufist, once said: 'God is love' (or something along those lines); that God goes beyond iconry, dogma, doctrine and beliefs, because God is love.

Remember, there is a distinction here. Religion = i.e that which we are accustomed to, full of glittery ceremony, dull dogma and hostility to other religions, and TRUE religion = love.

I'm making the assumption that religion, in its core, is a search for love. Afterall, what is heaven but a metaphor for a state of compassion and love? And nirvana? And the Holy Spirit and all the rest of it. And what's hell, but a loveless state? Meister Eckhart said hell was when the part of you that refused to let go burned. I believe that religion set out with the best of intentions. The divinae of the 'res' however changed from the truly divine to the banal...and that's why religion is such a mess.

We're trying to find out in what way exactly religion went wrong.

What do you think, friend?

[Louise Michel]

We're trying to find out in what way exactly religion went wrong.

You assume that religion had an objective and somehow failed to meet it. I think you've already been asked for evidence. Also you are very selective in your examples - you choose only those religions that have texts that can be used to support your idea of the search for love.

Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are all elitist ideologies to the core and therefore very useful to class based exploitative societies. Could this have been a factor in them not delivering heaven on earth?

If you look at the pre-colonial religions of South America and Africa (often shamanic religions) you'll see that they had nothing to do with love at all - how do you square this with your premise?

The Old Testament hardly exudes love either so I guess that'll be excluded from the discussion too.

Your latin based "proof" (reverence of the divine = love) is an attempt to substitute a dictionary definition for historical evidence. The religion we have is not fake "religion". It's real religion as it's evolved within various class societies.

[The New Consciousness]

Thanks for the interesting, incisive reply.

Perhaps I'm being too idealistic about these religions. Perhaps, as you say, they were elitist from the start.

What I'm trying to say is that religion ceases to be 'religious' once it forgets about love. And that religion, in the purest sense, i.e. a state of love and compassion, is not a negative thing.

Thus whether or not these doctrines (isms) had a religious (in the way we're using it here) core or not is irrelevant.

We are trying to find out what true religion, spirituality, compassion, is, and how to find it.

Rumi once wrote: 'Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.’

I must say I am in accordance with him. Processes are conflictive - there can be no love at the end of a quest for it. Or no?

What do you think friend?

[benhur]

Nice post.:)

If I may digress a little, how would you define consciousness? Is it just the result of environment, or is it the other way around? I think Buddhism believes in the former, that there's no consciousness apart from things of the world. But other religions posit consciousness as something that exists permanently, with or without objects. They point to deep sleep as evidence of this (at least Hinduism does, I guess). Which is true?

More curiously, why is it we can't go to a higher level of consciousness without resorting to drugs? Despite our efforts, we stay in the same state, what's forcing us down?

[Louise Michel]

.
We are trying to find out what true religion, spirituality, compassion, is, and how to find it.

Rumi once wrote: 'Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.’

I don't need Rumi or some other guru or "advanced being" to tell me what to do. God is the problem because behind God are the priests and all those who know best what lesser beings should do. God sacrificed his Son to save the world from sin. Thanks very much but I didn't ask to be saved.

Our task is to find sufficient human solidarity to free ourselves from the very real material problems that beset us. We will never be free unless we can liberate ourselves from the oppression of alienated labor and the worship of the power of wealth.

We need to do something practical and concrete to change society rather than ruminating on the meaning of love. Love thy neighbor as thyself will happen only in a society that facilitates it. The question is how do we create that society?

I don't want to be rude but I'm not at all sure your off-the-shelf new age stuff is much of a contribution. Buddhism has been tried too (like classical marxism) and been found wanting.

[The New Consciousness]

If I may digress a little, how would you define consciousness? Is it just the result of environment, or is it the other way around? I think Buddhism believes in the former, that there's no consciousness apart from things of the world. But other religions posit consciousness as something that exists permanently, with or without objects. They point to deep sleep as evidence of this (at least Hinduism does, I guess). Which is true?

I think consciousness is a constant state of being, independent of material factors. I find the the possibility of downward causation, i.e. the manipulation of the material world by consciousness through possibility waves, most interesting. For more info just google Amit Goswami, a quantum physicist.

More curiously, why is it we can't go to a higher level of consciousness without resorting to drugs? Despite our efforts, we stay in the same state, what's forcing us down?

I really wish I knew for sure. I call this state that's forcing us down the CCC (constantly comparing consciousness). If you look at my other post there's quite a bit of info on it.

I think we are so used to the CCC that we live most of our lives in thought. Afterall, when one identifies oneself with though, how can one but live in thought? Drugs make thought irrelevant. They make us actually see and appreciate the sensual world, which before drug consumption we largely ignore.

I like to see it, enlightenment, if you will, as a blazing sun. We are orbitting this sun. Some are further away than others. Drugs can bring our orbit closer. But unless we are facing it, we will never know it. Knowing it, is essentially seeing that which is false. For love cannot be reached by any path.

It's all very difficult to express in words... :)

I don't need Rumi or some other guru or "advanced being" to tell me what to do. God is the problem because behind God are the priests and all those who know best what lesser beings should do. God sacrificed his Son to save the world from sin. Thanks very much but I didn't ask to be saved.

If God is a problem, God ceases to be love. This happens when we make God into an abstraction, as you are now. You are fragmenting yourself away from him. He is probably an old, bearded, stern-looking man in your imagination. And the priests his loyal opium-peddling cronies of oppression (if you are a Marxist that is!). This is an abstracted, conceptualised vision of godliness or love or 'the truth'. God is within you as it is within me as it is within all things: God is existence, God is love, not an old man who decides whether you are punished or exalted after you die; this is childish. The obsession with the after-life is irrelevant when one is actually living. Most people however are dead, brutalised by their intellects they are no better than tools and furniture.

I have emphasised that truth cannot be reached by any path. Thus thought cannot comprehend it. You will not find the truth in any philosophical tract, ideology, religion or belief system anywhere. No-one has found it and no-one ever will this way. Truth is the absolute. Fragmented approaches to the absolute will only view fragments of the absolute and thus miss the essential, universality of the truth, which is life, which is love. Hence I quoted Rumi. Intellectually we cannot ever attain the truth, we can only realise the limitations of thought and see the false as the false, i.e. negation.

God sacrificed his Son to save the world from sin. Thanks very much but I didn't ask to be saved.

These are typical childish, religious abstractions. Just ignore all those metaphors. We are all bearing the cross of Christ. The Christ figure is own true Self fighting the ego. That's all. Just silly allegory. The problem with allegory is that it confounds, as it has you.

Our task is to find sufficient human solidarity to free ourselves from the very real material problems that beset us. We will never be free unless we can liberate ourselves from the oppression of alienated labor and the worship of the power of wealth.

I agree. We must liberate ourselves and only we can do it. No material conditions can bring about this change. We have to make the shift to the New Consciousness. We need to escape the grasping mind which makes power, competition and wealth such an issue. Any sane mind would see that all this is utterly silly.

When one sees something as silly or childish, one does not analyse it. One does not give it the time of day. One simply tries to prevent the silliness from arising again. You are focussing on the details, the 'playthings' of this human silliness. You don't see the totality of the problem. There is a common root for human suffering and there is a common way out. It is vital people understand this and find it for themselves. This is the way to love!

We need to do something practical and concrete to change society rather than ruminating on the meaning of love. Love thy neighbor as thyself will happen only in a society that facilitates it. The question is how do we create that society?

You are locked within a world of fragments. What is society? Society is the product of individuals. You cannot coerce people to behave a certain way. This is conditioning. Conditioning will never liberate man. It is our absolute responsibility and duty as human beings, if we want to have children and live in this world to endeavour to understand love and suffering. I cannot emphasise this point more. The change must come from within. All history has shown the futility of any other change. Coercion, conditioning; they will not cure the disease, they will only modify it and aggravate it. Progress cannot be found in dialectics. Dialectics is merely the constant repitition of the constant 'thesis' of suffering. We must accept a monistic existence. Conflict must end.

I don't want to be rude but I'm not at all sure your off-the-shelf new age stuff is much of a contribution. Buddhism has been tried too (like classical marxism) and been found wanting.

You can call it whatever your narrow conditioning feels like it must label it. Why should I care? Just don't presume to be a revolutionary that's all. How can you be a revolutionary when you carry the age-old burden of suffering within you? The real revolution is the revolution of consciousness. This goes beyond all labels. This is the end of dualism, of conflict, of war. This is the ushering in of humankind's real adulthood. This is real religion, true spirituality. This is compassion.

[Boy Named Crow]

I have to question your first assertion:

To begin with you should have question what is religion? Are you talking about organised religion i.e. Catholicism or are you referring to the human tendancy to seek out answers to difficult questions?

If you mean Organised religion: That is most certainly not Love. If Power and Control were pair of trousers made by a brand called Heirarchy - Religion would be the belt that originally held them up.

If you mean human need to answer questions [as I assume you do] then I think it is a huge mistake to call this religion. EVERYONE seeks answers to questions like "why are we here?" but not everyone is religious or a follower of any particular deity.

NEXT UP: LOVE

First of all you say you can't intellectualise Love and so decide to intellectualise what isn't Love. If you can't quantify what Love is - how can you say what it isn't?

The word LOVE is a construct of language - a label that humans placed upon a non quantifiable idea or sensation. It appears in many forms and has indeed historically been the cause of war, exploitation and judgement. As a comrade said previously, it is all dependant on what the individual does in response to the sensation of "Love".

So surely Love = Suffering ???
Love = peace
Love = anything you bloody well want it to!

There's yet more hypocrisy in your mention of the Ego, etc. You can't argue that the Freudian Ego as false concept of reality keeps us from Love - which as I have just explained is a false perception of reality itself. You say that judgement's and opinions are part of the ego and therefore a false sense of reality - but you earlier used them to quantify "logically" what Love isn't and therefore what Love is???? :confused: That just simply doesn't stand up.

The whole thing is like a badly stacked house of cards.

Interestingly you say:

"Thought = Suffering" which is opposite to Buddha who said that wanting = suffering. The attachment to material things and the craving for material things. That these can only bring pain to you and others. Love is another form of attachment in Buddhism, covetous and jealous, or filled with envy. Thought is prized above all else.

I also want to say I'm not Buddhist - I just found the comparison interesting. :)

[Decolonize The Left]

I think consciousness is a constant state of being, independent of material factors.

If "being" is material, and "a constant state" is the definition of a material thing through time, then how can "a constant state of being" be immaterial?


I find the the possibility of downward causation, i.e. the manipulation of the material world by consciousness through possibility waves, most interesting. For more info just google Amit Goswami, a quantum physicist.

We manipulate the material world through material manipulation... why are you positing without justification immaterial phenomenon?


I really wish I knew for sure. I call this state that's forcing us down the CCC (constantly comparing consciousness). If you look at my other post there's quite a bit of info on it.

Yes, well I call that "living."


I think we are so used to the CCC that we live most of our lives in thought. Afterall, when one identifies oneself with though, how can one but live in thought? Drugs make thought irrelevant. They make us actually see and appreciate the sensual world, which before drug consumption we largely ignore.

Life is not thought. Thought is a rational organization of experience and material phenomena. Life is.

Drugs do not make thought irrelevant. Anyone who's smoked pot knows that thoughts are quite interesting.


I like to see it, enlightenment, if you will, as a blazing sun. We are orbitting this sun. Some are further away than others. Drugs can bring our orbit closer. But unless we are facing it, we will never know it. Knowing it, is essentially seeing that which is false. For love cannot be reached by any path.

It's all very difficult to express in words... :)

Well that's a nice story, but it's just a nice story..


If God is a problem, God ceases to be love. This happens when we make God into an abstraction, as you are now. You are fragmenting yourself away from him. He is probably an old, bearded, stern-looking man in your imagination. And the priests his loyal opium-peddling cronies of oppression (if you are a Marxist that is!). This is an abstracted, conceptualised vision of godliness or love or 'the truth'. God is within you as it is within me as it is within all things: God is existence, God is love, not an old man who decides whether you are punished or exalted after you die; this is childish. The obsession with the after-life is irrelevant when one is actually living. Most people however are dead, brutalised by their intellects they are no better than tools and furniture.

If "God is existence," and "within you as it is within me as it is within all things," and "God is love," then why do you need the word God? Or the concept? You are, once again, positing without justification.


I have emphasised that truth cannot be reached by any path. Thus thought cannot comprehend it. You will not find the truth in any philosophical tract, ideology, religion or belief system anywhere. No-one has found it and no-one ever will this way. Truth is the absolute. Fragmented approaches to the absolute will only view fragments of the absolute and thus miss the essential, universality of the truth, which is life, which is love. Hence I quoted Rumi. Intellectually we cannot ever attain the truth, we can only realise the limitations of thought and see the false as the false, i.e. negation.

Truth is. Period. Hence you cannot "reach it" as you are already it. But truth is certainly not God, and in the end, the notion of truth is irrelevant.

To quote Nietzsche: The only truth is that there is no truth.


These are typical childish, religious abstractions. Just ignore all those metaphors. We are all bearing the cross of Christ. The Christ figure is own true Self fighting the ego. That's all. Just silly allegory. The problem with allegory is that it confounds, as it has you.

No. The problem with the allegory, and the metaphor, is that it is based upon absolutely nothing material, and it is used to enslave, discriminate, murder, rape, pillage, commit genocide, etc...


I agree. We must liberate ourselves and only we can do it. No material conditions can bring about this change. We have to make the shift to the New Consciousness. We need to escape the grasping mind which makes power, competition and wealth such an issue.

This is hilarious. "The grasping mind" is what you are, in the sense that you are typing (using the grasping mind) to make arguments (in your case, incoherent strings of thoughts) to make a point...

"The grasping mind" is not responsible for capitalism... people are responsible - people and the material conditions they perpetuate.


Any sane mind would see that all this is utterly silly.

Exactly how I feel about your position.


When one sees something as silly or childish, one does not analyse it. One does not give it the time of day. One simply tries to prevent the silliness from arising again. You are focussing on the details, the 'playthings' of this human silliness. You don't see the totality of the problem. There is a common root for human suffering and there is a common way out. It is vital people understand this and find it for themselves. This is the way to love!

The "common root of human suffering" is not love, which you have implied with your previous statement. The common root of human suffering is capitalism and socially divisive fetters.


You are locked within a world of fragments. What is society? Society is the product of individuals. You cannot coerce people to behave a certain way. This is conditioning.

What? Sure you can... look at society, history... you can coerce people to do tons of things!


Conditioning will never liberate man. It is our absolute responsibility and duty as human beings, if we want to have children and live in this world to endeavour to understand love and suffering. I cannot emphasise this point more. The change must come from within. All history has shown the futility of any other change. Coercion, conditioning; they will not cure the disease, they will only modify it and aggravate it. Progress cannot be found in dialectics. Dialectics is merely the constant repitition of the constant 'thesis' of suffering. We must accept a monistic existence. Conflict must end.

Ugh. Of course "change comes within." But this "change" is not everyone thinking about love and saying 'well, I guess I'll start loving everyone now.'

Want to know how I know this? Because it's been attempted before! Countless times! To utter failure. Here's how it works:

Group A says "love everyone, get in touch with the everything, tune in and drop out."
Group B has guns and makes group A slaves for their profit.

Well done - you solved a whole mess of things there.


You can call it whatever your narrow conditioning feels like it must label it. Why should I care? Just don't presume to be a revolutionary that's all. How can you be a revolutionary when you carry the age-old burden of suffering within you? The real revolution is the revolution of consciousness. This goes beyond all labels. This is the end of dualism, of conflict, of war. This is the ushering in of humankind's real adulthood. This is real religion, true spirituality. This is compassion.

Look man, I've read Krishnamurti; I've read Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You"; I've read the Buddhist texts; I've read the Gnostic texts; I know what you're talking about.

What you are talking about is escapism. It is the attempt to divert focus from the material struggle for human liberation to the theological and spiritual struggle for wholeness.

The only problem is that the first struggle, the material one, actually exists. The second is just a delusion.

- August

[Louise Michel]

Most people however are dead, brutalised by their intellects they are no better than tools and furniture.

A lot of people are brutalised by their poverty and oppression. How dare you insult them in this way? Who the hell do you think you are?

For someone who claims to reject thoughts and thinking you seem to indulge in a lot of ego-driven mental-masturbation. In fact, you seem to embody just about everything you describe as being wrong with the world.

[Lynx]

I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with any religion whose meaning is related to love. The significance of religion for people whom I have met is embodied in their faith. Faith, when genuinely held, is a source of strength. Organized religion provides a framework and solidarity for like-minded individuals.

[ashaman1324]

why is it we can't go to a higher level of consciousness without resorting to drugs? Despite our efforts, we stay in the same state, what's forcing us down?
finally, a topic i feel i can bring considerable light to.
first, drugs have been used by organized religion for over 7000years, with drugs integral to some religions (marijuana in hinduism, rastafarianism.. DMT in several south american tribal religions.. etc) for the fact that they altar the users perception of the world, usually assumed to be divine.
second, you dont need drugs to change your perception. an adrenaline rushes often change peoples lives, and gives weight to the argument that adrenaline is better than any drug. Natural highs are also an alternative, some people claim to attain a natural high through meditation, i can tell you from experience, you can "get high" from your own mind. its all about how you percieve the world normally, and then considering it differently.
third, what makes you say drugs bring you to a higher level of consciousness? a difference in perception i think would describe it much more accurately. you percieve the world differently, not necessarily better while on drugs.

[benhur]

some people claim to attain a natural high through meditation, i can tell you from experience, you can "get high" from your own mind.

Thanks for the post. Can you explain how you did this, because you say this is your personal experience? Is it meditation, yoga, or something similar?

[trivas7]

IMO religion is the human search for ultimate meaning. In this sense communism/anarchism/socialism can fit what characterizes religion sociologically, phenomenologically: as cult, code and creed. Class struggle constitutes cult and code in such an analysis.

What makes religion belief is HOW something is held, not WHAT is held. If it is of ultimate meaning for the individual, it is religious in nature. Buddhism, e.g., originally had no concept of the supernatural, deities or a priestcraft, yet surely it is a religion, being a heterodox doctrine emerging from its Hindu roots. The evidence of some primitive communists, e.g., the Neanderthal, suggests they had no belief in the afterlife.

[The New Consciousness]

Hey guys thanks for all the feedback. Awesome replies. The more you challenge me the more I learn.

To begin with you should have question what is religion? Are you talking about organised religion i.e. Catholicism or are you referring to the human tendancy to seek out answers to difficult questions?

I am using a term, 'religion' simply to describe a state of compassion and love. The real worship of the divine. I am effectively positing what religion should be. Words really enmesh don't they?

First of all you say you can't intellectualise Love and so decide to intellectualise what isn't Love. If you can't quantify what Love is - how can you say what it isn't?

Surely that's all you can do then, no?

The word LOVE is a construct of language - a label that humans placed upon a non quantifiable idea or sensation. It appears in many forms and has indeed historically been the cause of war, exploitation and judgement. As a comrade said previously, it is all dependant on what the individual does in response to the sensation of "Love".

Love has not been a cause of war. War is conflict, born of dualism. How could monistic love possibly result in conflict? Perhaps I should start a thread about love too. Words, words, words! It is becoming clearer to me that conveying the New Consciousness in language is an incredibly difficult task. When Krishnamurti died he said despairingly that he didn't think anyone had understood a single word, simply because what he spoke of was beyond words. Hence my use of the term 'reminders' or 'signposts' to describe all this.

So surely Love = Suffering ???
Love = peace
Love = anything you bloody well want it to!

No you are jumping around with the concept of love. Perhaps you are confusing it with all the things that it isn't, like wanting, like exploitation, like means subordinate to ends. The word 'love' itself is clearly insufficient.

There's yet more hypocrisy in your mention of the Ego, etc. You can't argue that the Freudian Ego as false concept of reality keeps us from Love - which as I have just explained is a false perception of reality itself. You say that judgement's and opinions are part of the ego and therefore a false sense of reality - but you earlier used them to quantify "logically" what Love isn't and therefore what Love is????

Was I talking about the Freudian Ego? Again, words. I use the ego simply as a synonym for the CCC, or the time-bound illusory sense of identity. How can a fragment feel love when love is monistic?

The whole thing is like a badly stacked house of cards.

I apologise. I fear intellectualising this state of being isn't really my forté. But I'm very glad you'll all thinking about it.

"Thought = Suffering" which is opposite to Buddha who said that wanting = suffering.

Yet isn't thought wanting? I see them as one and the same.

The attachment to material things and the craving for material things.

Indeed, attachment, which is a totally intellectual process of identification, about which I have written exhaustively (refer to my other thread if you're interested).

That these can only bring pain to you and others. Love is another form of attachment in Buddhism, covetous and jealous, or filled with envy. Thought is prized above all else.

Love is not attachment how could it be, when there is an end to dualism? You can be attached to the whole, but then of course it ceases to be attachment in the sense we're accustomed to. Once more the problem is one of words. I think you have misunderstood what I have said simply because, words, dualistic, have distorted the meaning and it is now a fight of fragments, like all human endeavours. How sad.

I also want to say I'm not Buddhist - I just found the comparison interesting.

Me neither. Why live under a suffocating, divisive label? The truth has no label. Nor does 'love'. (not parenthesis!)

-----
If "being" is material, and "a constant state" is the definition of a material thing through time, then how can "a constant state of being" be immaterial?

I never said it was material did I? If I did, I retract that! It certainly isn't. How could it be?

We manipulate the material world through material manipulation... why are you positing without justification immaterial phenomenon?

If you need justification take a look at quantum physics. But I find this all rather irrelevant to be honest. Ideas are just playthings. They won't take you anywhere really new. Sometimes though, the right combination of words can remind you of the wondrous truth. I've been trying to find such word combinations but it's very difficult and I feel I do not possess the capabilities for such a task.

Yes, well I call that "living."

Yes. In a state of perpetual suffering. I won't judge it but wouldn't you prefer to get out of that?

Life is not thought. Thought is a rational organization of experience and material phenomena. Life is.

Exactly.

Drugs do not make thought irrelevant. Anyone who's smoked pot knows that thoughts are quite interesting.

True, true. Bad adjective, agreed. I think they make it less important, less domineering. Your slaving bonds are loosened somewhat.

Well that's a nice story, but it's just a nice story..

Indeed, just images. Language of abstractions, language of illusions, language of the dualistic state, the CCC. But how else can one convey it? Since the shift everything has changed so much. I long to share it but words distort and hack the message.

If "God is existence," and "within you as it is within me as it is within all things," and "God is love," then why do you need the word God? Or the concept? You are, once again, positing without justification.

Exactly, we don't need any word. Words are dualistic. Bloody words! :-)

Truth is. Period. Hence you cannot "reach it" as you are already it. But truth is certainly not God, and in the end, the notion of truth is irrelevant.

As I said, truth is a pathless land. One can only 'abide' in it - oh dear, there's another word, I'm sure that's going to cause conflict.

To quote Nietzsche: The only truth is that there is no truth.

Exactly. I really like Zarathustra.

No. The problem with the allegory, and the metaphor, is that it is based upon absolutely nothing material, and it is used to enslave, discriminate, murder, rape, pillage, commit genocide, etc...

It is, just like all words. That's why we must see the false as false.

This is hilarious. "The grasping mind" is what you are, in the sense that you are typing (using the grasping mind) to make arguments (in your case, incoherent strings of thoughts) to make a point...

I just want to share this state of being with you guys, which is truly divine. But alas, words cannot perform this task. I am not really bothered by it to be honest. Just a little melancholy. It seems nothing will hasten man's progression to adulthood. We may have to wait a very long time indeed.

"The grasping mind" is not responsible for capitalism... people are responsible - people and the material conditions they perpetuate.

And aren't those perpetuated material conditions a product of the grasping mind? Would a still mind cause such misery, such dualistic, time-bound conflict?

Exactly how I feel about your position.

Fair enough!

The "common root of human suffering" is not love, which you have implied with your previous statement. The common root of human suffering is capitalism and socially divisive fetters.

I never said that. Love is the total. Suffering is the fragment. Capitalism is just another fragment. It's not good enough to focus on one fragment. The problem is not of 'a' fragment but of 'fragments' and 'fragmentation' in general.

What? Sure you can... look at society, history... you can coerce people to do tons of things!

I meant you cannot if you want to achieve a better world. There must be no ends, no process. Nothing thought-bound can solve the key problem of human suffering, because human suffering is thought-bound. It would be like trying to take your hand out of a glove when your hand is the glove!

Ugh. Of course "change comes within." But this "change" is not everyone thinking about love and saying 'well, I guess I'll start loving everyone now.'
Want to know how I know this? Because it's been attempted before! Countless times! To utter failure. Here's how it works:
Group A says "love everyone, get in touch with the everything, tune in and drop out."
Group B has guns and makes group A slaves for their profit.
Well done - you solved a whole mess of things there.

Excellent point. It would seem that the sane, awakened, enlightened ones in relation to the insane ones would be like oil and water = disastrous. For the dualistic always seeks conflict, and will even find it with the monistic! It's tragic. Sometimes I wish all the sane people could just live together on a island somewhere, like in Huxley's Island. But I feel passionate that the insane must be converted. But conversion itself is insane. So intellectually I am lost. But I'm fine though. It's strange. I have recently come to the conclusion simply to live life enjoyably without doing harm to others, and just hoping people reach this by themselves, because words are not going to convey it.

Look man, I've read Krishnamurti; I've read Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You"; I've read the Buddhist texts; I've read the Gnostic texts; I know what you're talking about.
What you are talking about is escapism. It is the attempt to divert focus from the material struggle for human liberation to the theological and spiritual struggle for wholeness.
The only problem is that the first struggle, the material one, actually exists. The second is just a delusion.

No this is not escapism! Everything else is! This is facing the facts. This is gruelling. :-) This is being responsible for one's actions, not being pulled around by the world. This is FREE WILL my friend! Isn't it wonderful!

----

A lot of people are brutalised by their poverty and oppression. How dare you insult them in this way?

Of course. Isn't that a part of the intellect. Could a man with no memory be brutalised?

Who the hell do you think you are?

I don't know really. I am nobody. I am.

For someone who claims to reject thoughts and thinking you seem to indulge in a lot of ego-driven mental-masturbation.

Words are ego-driven, I agree.

In fact, you seem to embody just about everything you describe as being wrong with the world.

I just wanted to share this state of being. Yet words are dualistic, and thus, as you say, they are an embodiment of all that is wrong. Quite right my astute friend. I have been hoisted by my own petard. But if it serves to show some the false as false, then I am glad

-----

I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with any religion whose meaning is related to love. The significance of religion for people whom I have met is embodied in their faith. Faith, when genuinely held, is a source of strength. Organized religion provides a framework and solidarity for like-minded individuals.

I'm sorry for confusing you Lynx my old friend. I guess I should have been more clear on what I meant by the word 'religion'. I meant what 'religion' should be, if we are to consider it worship of the divine. Bloody words again! Once more we see the illusory, divisive nature of words! I am proving myself right simply in the act of trying to prove an argument, which is dualistic! Hilarious. It is funny to observe the processes before you, like fighting cocks! Hahaha! So funny.

------

third, what makes you say drugs bring you to a higher level of consciousness? a difference in perception i think would describe it much more accurately. you percieve the world differently, not necessarily better while on drugs.

Interesting post. I must say that I have started sensing the constant state of pure being off and on drugs and even when dreaming. This aware state is constant throughout them all. This is facing the sun. Once you see it it's engrained there forever. The other things just bring your senses closer. I was in a dream that was quite horrific. What made it horrific was my involvement in it. I became aware, i.e. I became myself, and I found I had absolute control over the dream. I then woke up in the same state of being as when I was in the dream. When I had some pints of Guinness I could feel the effect on my mind and body but the being feeling it all was the same constant entity, or totality. The same thing happened whilst I was smoking cannabis. The thoughts and senses became more vivid, as if I had entered a new world, but I was still, in my core, the same. The same eternal traveller.

-----

IMO religion is the human search for ultimate meaning.

Same here. I think it's the search for love, or at least it should be. But even then, as a 'search' it's doomed, for searching is an antagonistic process.

What makes religion belief is HOW something is held, not WHAT is held.

Quite. What an excellent way of putting it. So succinct. I agree. The problem is that people live in the what instead of realising the how. It's the whole ends and means business. Most forget about the means. Yet in the means lies all truth. It abides. The means are always there so it is always there, abiding. You cannot travel to acquire it because it is abiding there. Silently. Majestically. Oh it is wondrous to be sure!


Sorry guys for some of the minor dramatics; just feeling a bit awestruck by this discussion, it has really educated me about some of the problems of man and the dualistic state of being. I thank you all immensely. I now see even more clearly the absolute limitation of dualistic language and thoughts. My conviction is strengthened that the truth cannot be found in this realm, which sadly renders all this debate rather meaningless. But to start down this road is the vital first step.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

If you need justification take a look at quantum physics.

I believe I have admonished you previously for abusing quantum physics in this manner.

To quickly recap, what you are talking about is the so-called "Observer Effect", which is poorly named since it implies a conscious observer. However, this is not necessarily the case - the "observer" could be something as simple and thoughtless as a thermometer.

When it comes to quantum physics, all the strangeness that we see under experimental conditions is "cancelled out" on the macro-scale - in other words, reality at the human scale is unaffected by single quantum events no matter how weird because the macro-world is an aggregate of countless quantum events every second. We've actually managed to take photographs of atoms - they're "fuzzy" due to a remnant of quantum uncertainty being present, but otherwise their behaviour is mostly classical in nature. Any quantum uncertainty has diminished to the point of being undetectable by the time one gets to scale of molecules.

No, the real path to understanding the human mind lies in neuroscience and psychology.

[ashaman1324]

Thanks for the post. Can you explain how you did this, because you say this is your personal experience? Is it meditation, yoga, or something similar?
ive achieved it a few times through multiple means.
meditation can definitely do it, it gave me a feeling ive never experienced through conventional methods, i felt like all the problems in the world were no longer problems and nothing could ever bring me down, i felt far smarter than i normally am and afterwards functioned better than normal, it definitely changed me.
i havent tried yoga but ive heard its possible, similar to a bodybuilder pushing himself beyond his previous limits.
the third time i simply kept telling myself i was high, stopped thinking and let myself zone out and after about fifteen minutes the walls started swaying, everything slowed down and i fell asleep shortly after.
its all about how you percieve everything, if you tell yourself it wont work, it wont. but if you tell yourself it will work, it worked for me.
i was also a devout buddhist for two years, so i may have had an advantage over most as far as meditation goes.
also, some people argue that adrenaline is the best drug. you've heard stories of grandmothers flipping cars to save trapped grandchildren on an adrenaline rush havent you? drifting and is a good way for me to get it
finally, really good sex. i consider the feeling afterwards to be a high

[ashaman1324]

the real path to understanding the human mind lies in neuroscience and psychology.
^^

[Lynx]

Well, I must say that imagining what religion is supposed to be is difficult given its political history and from direct observation.
Experiencing faith has made me respect those who have faith a little more than I otherwise would. Who amongst us has experienced faith? Can you describe or define it?

[Comrade_XRD]

First we must start with what is a god. Now, a god is man's attempt in assigning answers to those things that he does not know like creation of earth, origin of humans, afterlife, etc. Now, religion is mankind's attempt to capitalize on these unknowns. With religion, a men may be regarded like gods. Men have written religious texts for centuries hoping to someday spread these works as the one true word of the current divine being that was being worshiped at the time. It's no secret that Jesus was written about decades after his supposed death. Using these texts man could get entire civilizations to change their ways of life. But now it is no longer the wars of the texts, since ours have already been cut and polished by the religious establishments' watchful eyes. Texts were initially screened, accepted, edited, or rejected. Now, it's the war of the leaders. Using one religion alone, one can find a plethora of conflicting sects. And to believe that they worship the same god? But, what is god since religion has re-defined it? The fleshy leader you see before your place of worship? What is religion? The reckless plunder of the ideologies of man? Either way, religion was and is a device created by man. Why? The answers to this question are always subject to conflict. But I will say based on my knowledge that its nothing more than man trying to control other men with ignorance.

[Boy Named Crow]

I am using a term, 'religion' simply to describe a state of compassion and love. The real worship of the divine. I am effectively positing what religion should be. Words really enmesh don't they?

Well yes and no. Words tend to enmesh but that is primarily your own fault for using words like Love and Religion which already mean many different things to different people. Somewhat inevitable really...

Surely that's all you can do then, no?

Well, no! Generally speaking, you can't say what something isn't without saying what it is by default. It is just the way human thought processes work. If I tell you a wall is not soft, you know it is hard. Ofcourse this is a solid object - ideas are even more difficult because they are subjective. Every single one of us experiences Love differently - therefore it is impossible to identify what Love is outside of individual experience.

No you are jumping around with the concept of love. Perhaps you are confusing it with all the things that it isn't, like wanting, like exploitation, like means subordinate to ends. The word 'love' itself is clearly insufficient.

Yes I am jumping around with the concept of love. That's because it is a concept with no boundaries except those placed upon it by the individual. That's why I can use what you claim "isn't" love as well as what you might claim "is" love - simply because under any number of circumstances love is whatever you want it to be. There's no ultimate truth to be found in love. Only the truth of the individual experience. It is after all - a word. If what you wish to talk about does not work with the label of Love - perhaps you should reconsider your terminology?

Was I talking about the Freudian Ego? Again, words. I use the ego simply as a synonym for the CCC, or the time-bound illusory sense of identity. How can a fragment feel love when love is monistic?

This essentially is the Freudian Ego. The illusory sense of identity in relation to ones surroundings. For Freud we are all split in two [Ego and Id]. Again, I don't really subscribe to this theory myself.

I apologise. I fear intellectualising this state of being isn't really my forté. But I'm very glad you'll all thinking about it.

It isn't your failing - it is the failing of your subject matter. You can't intellectualise any of it. Love, Compasion, The Divine... all concepts that defy logic.

Yet isn't thought wanting? I see them as one and the same.

Well, again for Buddha thought, when devoid of emotion/attachment is truth. To want something is an emotion, an attachment to material things. Thought transcends this. Apparently... But there's nothing intellectual about attachment. Greed, Envy, Love, Hate, - we are in the world of concepts again.

Love is not attachment how could it be, when there is an end to dualism?
How do you propose an end to the dualism of "human nature" [whatever that is]? Can you prove to me that human's really are fragmented? And I mean definitively prove it...?

Me neither. Why live under a suffocating, divisive label?
the most sensible thing you've said all thread...

[The New Consciousness]

Boy Named Crow, I suggest you glance through my other thread for some of your answers.

[Decolonize The Left]

Hey guys thanks for all the feedback. Awesome replies. The more you challenge me the more I learn.

You're welcome - keep posting.


If "being" is material, and "a constant state" is the definition of a material thing through time, then how can "a constant state of being" be immaterial?

I never said it was material did I? If I did, I retract that! It certainly isn't. How could it be?

So, you're saying that "being" isn't material? And you ask, "how could it be?"

Simple: I am. This is perhaps the most simple statement of being. Let's analyze it, shall we?

"I" is the self - the human individual - the autonomous material agent. "Am" is the verb "to be." To be present, to be alive, to be here, whatever...

There can be no "I" without a body as the "I" is a locus of sense-making ability. There can be no "be" without a subject - the "I."

Hence "being" is entirely material.


We manipulate the material world through material manipulation... why are you positing without justification immaterial phenomenon?

If you need justification take a look at quantum physics. But I find this all rather irrelevant to be honest. Ideas are just playthings. They won't take you anywhere really new. Sometimes though, the right combination of words can remind you of the wondrous truth. I've been trying to find such word combinations but it's very difficult and I feel I do not possess the capabilities for such a task.

But you use nothing but ideas and words to learn here... so they are not just "playthings" as you seem to take them rather seriously, at least, seriously enough to argue for one position over another.


Yes, well I call that "living."

Yes. In a state of perpetual suffering. I won't judge it but wouldn't you prefer to get out of that?

No. My life is not suffering at all. It is wonderful and lovely. I am very, very, familiar with existentialism, buddhism, etc.. and the idea that "life is suffering." I am also familiar with how this is a load of nonsense perpetrated by weak individuals unable to take hold of their lives.


Life is not thought. Thought is a rational organization of experience and material phenomena. Life is.

Exactly.

Then you agree that your position is faulty...?


Drugs do not make thought irrelevant. Anyone who's smoked pot knows that thoughts are quite interesting.

True, true. Bad adjective, agreed. I think they make it less important, less domineering. Your slaving bonds are loosened somewhat.

What? Drugs alter your perception of reality. "Slave bonds" is a term describing a system of socio-political frameworks. All drugs do is distract you from that... not saying that's bad, but it's not anything "freeing."


Well that's a nice story, but it's just a nice story..

Indeed, just images. Language of abstractions, language of illusions, language of the dualistic state, the CCC. But how else can one convey it? Since the shift everything has changed so much. I long to share it but words distort and hack the message.

What?


If "God is existence," and "within you as it is within me as it is within all things," and "God is love," then why do you need the word God? Or the concept? You are, once again, positing without justification.

Exactly, we don't need any word. Words are dualistic. Bloody words! :-)

Words are fine - it is your desire to staple "god" to everything which is unnecessary.


Truth is. Period. Hence you cannot "reach it" as you are already it. But truth is certainly not God, and in the end, the notion of truth is irrelevant.

As I said, truth is a pathless land. One can only 'abide' in it - oh dear, there's another word, I'm sure that's going to cause conflict.

Truth is not a land. It isn't anything. It's a stupid concept.


To quote Nietzsche: The only truth is that there is no truth.

Exactly. I really like Zarathustra.

Oh dear, Nietzsche would be furious that you "really like Zarathustra" and spew the nonsensical delusions of 'a new consciousness' etc...


No. The problem with the allegory, and the metaphor, is that it is based upon absolutely nothing material, and it is used to enslave, discriminate, murder, rape, pillage, commit genocide, etc...

It is, just like all words. That's why we must see the false as false.

No. Words are not based upon nothing material. Words a conceptual tools with direct relations to material things. "God" isn't related to anything material, in fact, it's a distortion of everything material.


This is hilarious. "The grasping mind" is what you are, in the sense that you are typing (using the grasping mind) to make arguments (in your case, incoherent strings of thoughts) to make a point...

I just want to share this state of being with you guys, which is truly divine. But alas, words cannot perform this task. I am not really bothered by it to be honest. Just a little melancholy. It seems nothing will hasten man's progression to adulthood. We may have to wait a very long time indeed.

You will have to wait a long time, yes, this is true. But that's because you cling to childish delusions of "spirit," "truth," "consciousness," "god," etc... these illusions are exactly what inhibit growth.


"The grasping mind" is not responsible for capitalism... people are responsible - people and the material conditions they perpetuate.

And aren't those perpetuated material conditions a product of the grasping mind? Would a still mind cause such misery, such dualistic, time-bound conflict?

Consciousness does not determine condition. Condition determines consciousness.


The "common root of human suffering" is not love, which you have implied with your previous statement. The common root of human suffering is capitalism and socially divisive fetters.

I never said that. Love is the total. Suffering is the fragment. Capitalism is just another fragment. It's not good enough to focus on one fragment. The problem is not of 'a' fragment but of 'fragments' and 'fragmentation' in general.

There is no total. The "total" is an illusion.


What? Sure you can... look at society, history... you can coerce people to do tons of things!

I meant you cannot if you want to achieve a better world. There must be no ends, no process. Nothing thought-bound can solve the key problem of human suffering, because human suffering is thought-bound. It would be like trying to take your hand out of a glove when your hand is the glove!

"Achieving a better world" is done through hard, material, labor. It's not done through meditation. How many people meditating stopped the Nazis? How many people meditating gave workers the weekend? Higher wages? Health care?

Seriously.. think about what you're saying.


Ugh. Of course "change comes within." But this "change" is not everyone thinking about love and saying 'well, I guess I'll start loving everyone now.'
Want to know how I know this? Because it's been attempted before! Countless times! To utter failure. Here's how it works:
Group A says "love everyone, get in touch with the everything, tune in and drop out."
Group B has guns and makes group A slaves for their profit.
Well done - you solved a whole mess of things there.

Excellent point. It would seem that the sane, awakened, enlightened ones in relation to the insane ones would be like oil and water = disastrous. For the dualistic always seeks conflict, and will even find it with the monistic! It's tragic. Sometimes I wish all the sane people could just live together on a island somewhere, like in Huxley's Island. But I feel passionate that the insane must be converted. But conversion itself is insane. So intellectually I am lost. But I'm fine though. It's strange. I have recently come to the conclusion simply to live life enjoyably without doing harm to others, and just hoping people reach this by themselves, because words are not going to convey it.

This is called escapism. It means that you don't know how to deal with other people, and their problems, and so you wish to ignore it all.

This type of attitude enables reactionaries for you provide no resistance, no opposing viewpoint - you are basically saying: "I am weak, unable to resist, and pathetic. Do what you will." They will kill you if they have to.


Look man, I've read Krishnamurti; I've read Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You"; I've read the Buddhist texts; I've read the Gnostic texts; I know what you're talking about.
What you are talking about is escapism. It is the attempt to divert focus from the material struggle for human liberation to the theological and spiritual struggle for wholeness.
The only problem is that the first struggle, the material one, actually exists. The second is just a delusion.

No this is not escapism! Everything else is! This is facing the facts. This is gruelling. :-) This is being responsible for one's actions, not being pulled around by the world. This is FREE WILL my friend! Isn't it wonderful

I know what free will is. I know what responsibility is. What you are talking about is none of this.

Go back and reread Thus Spoke Zarathustra if you like it. If you pay attention you will see that what you speak of, what you believe in, is nothing more than nihilism.

You have no belief.
You have no will.
You have no reason.
You are not becoming.
You are stagnant.

And to be without belief, to be without will, to be without reason, to be stagnant - is to be dead.

- August

[Boy Named Crow]

Boy Named Crow, I suggest you glance through my other thread for some of your answers.

Thank you I'll have a glance through.

Apologies if my arguements come across as aggressive - I mean well and just enjoy intelligent debate. :)

[The New Consciousness]

Hence "being" is entirely material.

If I am aware of my body, what am I? If I am aware of my emotions, what am I? If I am aware of my thoughts, what am I? I can't possibly be those things, can I, if I am aware of them?

I am also familiar with how this is a load of nonsense perpetrated by weak individuals unable to take hold of their lives.


'Weak' individuals? You are making judgments and measuring, typical fragment behaviour. This induces you to stamp unnecessary labels on things, isolating you forever from those things and preventing you from communing and understanding those things. This is especially harmful, as you can imagine, in human relations. With such a mindset how can you not suffer. Bear in mind that suffering is everything from small pangs of jealousy to full-blown depressions. Look into yourself and tell me truthfully that your happiness is unconditional. If it is conditional, you are a suffering being, a fragment. If not, then you seem to have reached the New Consciousness and I congratulate you.

Then you agree that your position is faulty...?

How so? My whole argument is based on the principle of non-resistance...

What? Drugs alter your perception of reality. "Slave bonds" is a term describing a system of socio-political frameworks. All drugs do is distract you from that... not saying that's bad, but it's not anything "freeing"

The real slaver is the human intellect, which, when invested with identity, creates inordinate suffering. Social-political frameworks are merely a consequence of suffering. Everything starts with the individual.

What?

I experienced 8 or 9 months ago a complete shift in consciousness, I want to share the New Consciousness with you but words are hampering me.

Words are fine - it is your desire to staple "god" to everything which is unnecessary.

I am not trying to 'staple god to everything' I am merely trying to redefine what god is.

Truth is not a land. It isn't anything. It's a stupid concept.

Truth is infinity: incomprehensible to a mere measuring, scaling tool such as the intellect.

Oh dear, Nietzsche would be furious that you "really like Zarathustra" and spew the nonsensical delusions of 'a new consciousness' etc...

Are you quite sure? Isn't 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' a guide to transcending the fragmented state? Isn't the Superman just an enlightened being?

No. Words are not based upon nothing material.

Words are limited, fragmented, dualistic.

You will have to wait a long time, yes, this is true. But that's because you cling to childish delusions of "spirit," "truth," "consciousness," "god," etc... these illusions are exactly what inhibit growth.

Growth towards what? The problem with growth is that it is time bound. People are concerned with becoming something else, something better. They are obsessed with the time in their lives when they feel they will realise this ambition. Their obsession with illusions is what causes them suffering, fragmenting them and isolating them from others.
You cannot grow towards the truth. You cannot grow towards love. Love is here.

Consciousness does not determine condition. Condition determines consciousness.

In the current human consciousness, the measuring, comparing consciousness, yes it does. And thus we have so much division in the world for all human beings live in different conditions. We cannot equalise everyone's conditions, it would be impossible.
But we can find the common-ground within: that which goes beyond mere material, environmental, societal conditioning: love.

There is no total. The "total" is an illusion.

So the Universe is an illusion?

"Achieving a better world" is done through hard, material, labor.

Other than providing one with sustenance what's the point of labour? Beyond that point it becomes superfluous.

It's not done through meditation. How many people meditating stopped the Nazis? How many people meditating gave workers the weekend? Higher wages? Health care?

Do you know the true meaning of meditation? It is not enough to simply sit somewhere and escape. Meditation is awareness, of thought, of body, of emotions, of the world. In this state of awareness abides the monistic truth of love.
This is called escapism. It means that you don't know how to deal with other people, and their problems, and so you wish to ignore it all.

You're not ignoring anything. You are more alert actually. Most people's problems, unless they are of a material nature, are utterly pointless and self-created. The individual simply lacks awareness. How can awareness be escapism? It's a paradox my friend.

This type of attitude enables reactionaries for you provide no resistance, no opposing viewpoint - you are basically saying: "I am weak, unable to resist, and pathetic. Do what you will."

Who said you became a fatalist? You can still defend yourself. You just don't imbue identity in the process. Why should you anyway?

what you believe in, is nothing more than nihilism.


If living in a state of compassionate bliss is nihilism, as you say, with your funny little labels for everything, then I am all for it!

You have no belief.
You have no will.
You have no reason.
You are not becoming.
You are stagnant.
And to be without belief, to be without will, to be without reason, to be stagnant - is to be dead.

Locked as you are within the insane, unaware, fragmented consciousness, with its overemphasis on thought, on measuring, on comparing, on judging, on labelling you assume that life cannot possibly go on if you have disentangled yourself from the intellect. It's logical: your ego is opposing all this because that's how it maintains control. The ego feeds off conflict.

Now let's go through these childish attributes:
Belief: This is when you lock yourself into a way of thinking with your own particular deity, like religion, ideology, nationality, culture, whatever. You are totally fragmented. It is better, as Aldous Huxley wrote, to have faith. Faith in the power of love: when we abide in the eternal now.
Faith is something very different from belief. Belief is the systematic taking of unanalysed words much too seriously. Paul's words Mohammed's words, Marx's words, Hitler's words - people take them too seriously, and what happens?What happens is the senseless ambivalence of history - sadism versus duty, or (incomparably worse) sadism as duty; devotion counterbalanced by organized paranoia; sisters of charity selflessly tending to the victims of their own church's inquisitors and crusaders. Faith, on the contrary, can never be taken too seriously. For faith is the empirically justified confidence in our capacity to know who in fact we are, to forget the belief-intoxicated Manichee in Good Being. Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief.
You have no will.
How can you even be so audacious to say you have will in the fragmented state, when you are a product, as you say, of conditioning. Is this will? You are completely contradictory.
You have no reason.
Who said you didn't have reason. You're mind doesn't turn off. You can still use it for practical purposes. But having ceased imbuing your sense of self into it there is no suffering. The mind becomes a tool, and you cease to be the mind's tool, which is how it should be, if you want to be free that is.
You are not becoming.
Why must you 'become' something else? Is love conditioned by becoming something else, with dissatisfaction, with wanting, with conditions? No, of course not. Becoming is a terrible disease my friend.
You are stagnant.
On the contrary as you are actually living in the reality of the Now (all that exists) instead of in childish illusions of becoming, or in your own tortuous little beliefs, you are more vital, energetic and alive.

----

Thank you I'll have a glance through.

Cool.

Apologies if my arguements come across as aggressive - I mean well and just enjoy intelligent debate. :)

None needed. Your arguments were perfectly fine! :)

[Decolonize The Left]

Hence "being" is entirely material.

If I am aware of my body, what am I? If I am aware of my emotions, what am I? If I am aware of my thoughts, what am I? I can't possibly be those things, can I, if I am aware of them?

"You" are a system of cells (organ cells, tissue cells, neurons, etc..) combined with a system of calcium formed into bones. "You" are the brain 'making sense' of the body's situation within an environment. Identity, the fiction we write about ourselves, is merely a story which helps us to navigate society.

"You" are nothing, I repeat, nothing more than your body.


I am also familiar with how this is a load of nonsense perpetrated by weak individuals unable to take hold of their lives.

'Weak' individuals? You are making judgments and measuring, typical fragment behaviour. This induces you to stamp unnecessary labels on things, isolating you forever from those things and preventing you from communing and understanding those things. This is especially harmful, as you can imagine, in human relations. With such a mindset how can you not suffer. Bear in mind that suffering is everything from small pangs of jealousy to full-blown depressions. Look into yourself and tell me truthfully that your happiness is unconditional. If it is conditional, you are a suffering being, a fragment. If not, then you seem to have reached the New Consciousness and I congratulate you.

I have been what you call fragmented. I have delved as deep as I could into nihilism, severing myself from social-political-cultural bonds. I have de-constructed my identity. I have 'simply been.' I have let go of all these bonds, my identity, responsibility, etc.. I have looked deep into my suffering.

I learned that such a journey is pointless without will. It is pointless without a movement beyond. Where is beyond? For me, it is the movement towards my own creativity, and the movement towards the development of class consciousness.


Then you agree that your position is faulty...?

How so? My whole argument is based on the principle of non-resistance...

Yes, and the "principle of non-resistance" is weak and unhealthy.


What? Drugs alter your perception of reality. "Slave bonds" is a term describing a system of socio-political frameworks. All drugs do is distract you from that... not saying that's bad, but it's not anything "freeing"

The real slaver is the human intellect, which, when invested with identity, creates inordinate suffering. Social-political frameworks are merely a consequence of suffering. Everything starts with the individual.

You have already posited an unjustified dualism. You say "the real slaver is the human intellect." Hence you posit something 'beyond' the human intellect. I have already tried to explain how the human intellect is merely a function of the brain.


What?

I experienced 8 or 9 months ago a complete shift in consciousness, I want to share the New Consciousness with you but words are hampering me.

You did not experience a "shift" in anything. Your perspective changed - this is fine, but your current perspective (from what I can gather) is sickly.


Words are fine - it is your desire to staple "god" to everything which is unnecessary.

I am not trying to 'staple god to everything' I am merely trying to redefine what god is.

"God" isn't real - it is a concept used to explain things which scare and confuse the human being. You cannot "redefine" something which doesn't exist and claim it to be true...


Truth is not a land. It isn't anything. It's a stupid concept.

Truth is infinity: incomprehensible to a mere measuring, scaling tool such as the intellect.

Then why do you speak of it?


Oh dear, Nietzsche would be furious that you "really like Zarathustra" and spew the nonsensical delusions of 'a new consciousness' etc...

Are you quite sure? Isn't 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' a guide to transcending the fragmented state? Isn't the Superman just an enlightened being?

No. In the first chapter of TSZ, Nietzsche speaks of the three metamorphoses. This is not, as you claim, a "guide to transcending the fragmented state."

He is saying that first the human being (the camel) is loaded with social conditioning - values from outside. The human then seeks freedom (the lion) and must combat these values (the dragon). Should the human succeed, the lion becomes a child - free to create new values.

This has nothing to do with "truth," "god," "consciousness," or anything like that. It is a movement towards freedom and the creation of new values. Nietzsche hated such absolute concepts with no relationship to material reality - this is why he ragged on religious people so much: not only are they perpetuating weak value systems, they are also tethered to nonsensical beliefs which bind them to their deities and hamper their freedom.

What you speak of it nothing more than a story to distract on from one's material reality: wage slavery.


No. Words are not based upon nothing material.

Words are limited, fragmented, dualistic.

Then why are you using them? You see your bind? You cannot be without from within.


You will have to wait a long time, yes, this is true. But that's because you cling to childish delusions of "spirit," "truth," "consciousness," "god," etc... these illusions are exactly what inhibit growth.

Growth towards what? The problem with growth is that it is time bound. People are concerned with becoming something else, something better. They are obsessed with the time in their lives when they feel they will realise this ambition. Their obsession with illusions is what causes them suffering, fragmenting them and isolating them from others.
You cannot grow towards the truth. You cannot grow towards love. Love is here.

Time bound? Time is a dimension of our existence. You cannot be "timeless" in any real sense. Nietzsche spoke of timelessness, but this is the feeling which comes from freedom.

If "love is here," then why do so many people kill? Hint: it's not because they aren't loving enough, it's because they have reason to kill.

You spout the same tired story which has been said throughout history by individuals incapable of strength. It goes: "if everyone just loved everyone else, this world would be fine."

While true, it's an utterly stupid statement because it is an absurdism. Everyone doesn't love everyone else. The solution is not to beg them to love more, but to change the conditions which gives rise to such hate.


Consciousness does not determine condition. Condition determines consciousness.

In the current human consciousness, the measuring, comparing consciousness, yes it does. And thus we have so much division in the world for all human beings live in different conditions. We cannot equalise everyone's conditions, it would be impossible.
But we can find the common-ground within: that which goes beyond mere material, environmental, societal conditioning: love.

Love doesn't change conditions. Material struggle does.


There is no total. The "total" is an illusion.

So the Universe is an illusion?

The universe is merely a term used to describe what we understand to be "all things."


"Achieving a better world" is done through hard, material, labor.

Other than providing one with sustenance what's the point of labour? Beyond that point it becomes superfluous.

Not everyone has sustenance. Do you think they need to love more and it will just come to them?


It's not done through meditation. How many people meditating stopped the Nazis? How many people meditating gave workers the weekend? Higher wages? Health care?

Do you know the true meaning of meditation? It is not enough to simply sit somewhere and escape. Meditation is awareness, of thought, of body, of emotions, of the world. In this state of awareness abides the monistic truth of love.

Ok... but this doesn't make Nazis stop attacked black people. It doesn't stop capitalism.


This is called escapism. It means that you don't know how to deal with other people, and their problems, and so you wish to ignore it all.

You're not ignoring anything. You are more alert actually. Most people's problems, unless they are of a material nature, are utterly pointless and self-created. The individual simply lacks awareness. How can awareness be escapism? It's a paradox my friend.

People have material problems. The problems of which you speak are constructed within the mind for they exist solely in the mind.

Truth, god, consciousness, etc... are all concepts. You are fighting these concepts and hence ignoring material reality. You see that you are performing the exact situation which you wish to be free of?


This type of attitude enables reactionaries for you provide no resistance, no opposing viewpoint - you are basically saying: "I am weak, unable to resist, and pathetic. Do what you will."

Who said you became a fatalist? You can still defend yourself. You just don't imbue identity in the process. Why should you anyway?

Defend yourself? With what? Love?


what you believe in, is nothing more than nihilism.


If living in a state of compassionate bliss is nihilism, as you say, with your funny little labels for everything, then I am all for it!

Nihilism is the belief that life has no inherent meaning and hence all values, beliefs, etc... are ultimately undermined.


You have no belief.
You have no will.
You have no reason.
You are not becoming.
You are stagnant.
And to be without belief, to be without will, to be without reason, to be stagnant - is to be dead.

Locked as you are within the insane, unaware, fragmented consciousness, with its overemphasis on thought, on measuring, on comparing, on judging, on labelling you assume that life cannot possibly go on if you have disentangled yourself from the intellect. It's logical: your ego is opposing all this because that's how it maintains control. The ego feeds off conflict.

I am well aware of the Buddhist notion of the ego - I repeat, I have read Krishnamurti. I know what you're talking about. It's not helpful to the material struggle in any way, in fact, it restricts it.


Now let's go through these childish attributes:
Belief: This is when you lock yourself into a way of thinking with your own particular deity, like religion, ideology, nationality, culture, whatever. You are totally fragmented. It is better, as Aldous Huxley wrote, to have faith. Faith in the power of love: when we abide in the eternal now.
Faith is something very different from belief. Belief is the systematic taking of unanalysed words much too seriously. Paul's words Mohammed's words, Marx's words, Hitler's words - people take them too seriously, and what happens?What happens is the senseless ambivalence of history - sadism versus duty, or (incomparably worse) sadism as duty; devotion counterbalanced by organized paranoia; sisters of charity selflessly tending to the victims of their own church's inquisitors and crusaders. Faith, on the contrary, can never be taken too seriously. For faith is the empirically justified confidence in our capacity to know who in fact we are, to forget the belief-intoxicated Manichee in Good Being. Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief.

I agree that nationality, race, gender, etc... are all hampering concepts because they are created to divide individuals according to arbitrary lines. But "faith" is belief without reason/evidence.

It is the door to oppression.


You have no will.
How can you even be so audacious to say you have will in the fragmented state, when you are a product, as you say, of conditioning. Is this will? You are completely contradictory.

Will is the ability to become with purpose. You are not interested in becoming, but in "being." Hence you oppose change - you are reactionary.


You have no reason.
Who said you didn't have reason. You're mind doesn't turn off. You can still use it for practical purposes. But having ceased imbuing your sense of self into it there is no suffering. The mind becomes a tool, and you cease to be the mind's tool, which is how it should be, if you want to be free that is.

You are not separate from your mind. Once again, you posit dualism without justification.


You are not becoming.
Why must you 'become' something else? Is love conditioned by becoming something else, with dissatisfaction, with wanting, with conditions? No, of course not. Becoming is a terrible disease my friend.

You are constantly becoming - as far as we can tell, nothing stays the same. If you think this is a "disease," you must think evolution is a disease as well, and change...


You are stagnant.
On the contrary as you are actually living in the reality of the Now (all that exists) instead of in childish illusions of becoming, or in your own tortuous little beliefs, you are more vital, energetic and alive.

The "Now" is simply another word for the present. The present is constantly changing... to deny this is to be stagnant, like I said.

- August

[Lynx]

Living in the now is freedom from worry.
Living in a purgatory of one's own creation is optional.

[The New Consciousness]

This is unbelievable! Where's my post! I wrote a huge post replying to you about 2 days ago and it's been deleted! I'll have to write it all again now!

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

This is unbelievable! Where's my post! I wrote a huge post replying to you about 2 days ago and it's been deleted! I'll have to write it all again now!

A mod made a mistake and we had to reset. Apologies.

[Decolonize The Left]

This is unbelievable! Where's my post! I wrote a huge post replying to you about 2 days ago and it's been deleted! I'll have to write it all again now!

Just love it back into existence...

- August

[The New Consciousness]

Identity, the fiction we write about ourselves, is merely a story which helps us to navigate society.
Fictions create suffering. I say we end that. I say we live without fictions, without illusions, without dualism!

I have been what you call fragmented. I have delved as deep as I could into nihilism, severing myself from social-political-cultural bonds. I have de-constructed my identity. I have 'simply been.' I have let go of all these bonds, my identity, responsibility, etc.. I have looked deep into my suffering.
That is wonderful my friend!

I learned that such a journey is pointless without will.
Yet true will arises when one is free from the binds of conditioning! For it is then that we are truly free. It is then when we have options!

It is pointless without a movement beyond. Where is beyond? For me, it is the movement towards my own creativity
Can you move towards creativity? Doesn't creativity dwell in the now? Aren't creative thoughts spontaneous? Like love? I see love and creativity as the same thing, both spontaneous, both unconditioned by time or anything else.

and the movement towards the development of class consciousness
Class consciousness is dualistic and will lead you down the path of suffering. The state replaces the capitalist as oppressor and on it goes. Dualism is inherent in dialectics. Dualism is suffering. So therefore so is dialectics.
Holding that the basic problem of humanity is suffering, it follows therefore that we should bring an end to dualism and dialectics.
We must embrace a monistic consciousness. To do so one must really see the bigger picture: the problem of fragmentation. To focus on individual fragments like class, nationality, race et cetera is narrow minded and dualistic: lose yourself in a fragment, be it anything from your own identity, to a football team, to a flag, to a god, to an ideology: you are dualistic. You are fragmented. Fragmentation is division. Division is conflict. Conflict is suffering. So simple, so clear, so true. No convoluted theoretical wanderings. Simply that. Division is conflict, and conflict is suffering. So division is suffering. Fragmentation is therefore, suffering.
Fragmentation ends when one is aware of it.

Class consciousness is just a fragment. You must see beyond that. The problem is not of individual fragments, but of fragments in general: dualism, in other words. It seems dualism is completely incompatible with human beings, causing pain and suffering and misery.
I'm suggesting we give monism a chance. True monism. Not dualism clothed in monism like the 'god' religions speak of, but the true monism which is the reality that the universe is one infinite totality, unified by its own presence and existence.

Yes, and the "principle of non-resistance" is weak and unhealthy.

Please bear in mind that I am using the term 'non-resistance' with respect to bringing an end to dualism. This does not rule out self-defence and practical survival. You don't lie down and die. You continue to navigate through the movement of the universe, you're just not weighed down by it.

You have already posited an unjustified dualism. You say "the real slaver is the human intellect."
The human intellect is innocent of all charges against it. To blame the mind for man's problems would be foolish, to say the least. The problem is not the intellect as such, but the problem of fragmentation. When we invest identity in the intellect we are fragmenting ourselves from the rest of the world. Why? The intellect is there. It is a reality. You can't deny it. It is a part of us and everything else for that matter, and it's a remarkable tool. Without it we wouldn't be here. But it is a tool. It is just another type of movement. One of the infinite number of movements constantly occurring in the universe. To live within one movement is to become isolated from other movements and the oneness of the universe. This is fragmentation.

Hence you posit something 'beyond' the human intellect. I have already tried to explain how the human intellect is merely a function of the brain.
The human intellect is just another movement. Cling to a moving object, you'll get dragged through all sorts of troubles, if you'll forgive my little metaphor.
However way you define consciousness, you cannot deny that a human being is a collection of different movements.
To identify with one particular movement is to isolate oneself from all others. Don't you see? This is dualism. Descartes' selected the most obvious movement, simply because it is, in modern man, the most valued: the intellect. He selected it, and he honoured it as being the basis of our being. And thus dualism was born.
But we are composed of so many more things. And go close enough with a microscope and you shall discover that human beings are really connected with the universe: that on the level of atoms, there is SO much space. There are no straight lines demarcating 'fragments' there. Why? Because fragments are illusions. Dualism is an illusion. It doesn't really exist. We believe in it though. And this is what causes us suffering.
The false god so many religions have praised to is an incarnation of Dualism.
The true god, the one I speak of here, is the simple fact of Monism.

You did not experience a "shift" in anything. Your perspective changed - this is fine, but your current perspective (from what I can gather) is sickly.
Call it whatever you want, but the fact is my suffering has all but diminished. When I do experience suffering I am invariably aware of it, which serves to destroy it immediately.
I am also now far more relaxed with other people and my relationships have improved vastly. Life is also far more beautiful. Breathing is like drinking some delicious nectar! The simple passing of the seasons completely captivates me. Little things fascinate me. Never before have I been so happy and at peace.
But I cannot prove any of this of course. But perhaps this will help. There is no perspective. The perspective I had simply vanished and wasn't replaced. This is life without filters. This is a monistic existence.
This is awareness. That's all I'm talking about here. Awareness of movement. Awareness of the problem of identification with movement: which is dualism. And awareness of the truth of monism, which is the source of all compassion, joy and creativity.

God" isn't real - it is a concept used to explain things which scare and confuse the human being. You cannot "redefine" something which doesn't exist and claim it to be true...
The God you speak of is the Dualistic God. The stern judgmental old man with his Pearly Gates and his Fiery Furnace, forever cleaving men in two: a truly wondrous example of Dualism.
The God I speak of is the monistic God. He is behind, or between the words if you will. These words on this page, for instance, like everything else, arise out of him. He has no name. But he is the source of compassion, joy and creativity.
You can only see him if you are truly alert. Otherwise you'll miss him. And you can't chase him. Because he's right within you.

Then why do you speak of it?

Out of some hope that I can convey this effectively enough to people so that they may see for themselves the problem of dualism and engage in awareness, thus bringing an end to all their unnecessary suffering. Maybe I'll never manage to convey the message. Perhaps words will always be walls. But they're all we have. So I'll keep on trying. It is my responsibility as a human being, as a potential father, grandfather, great-grandfather to try to alleviate the suffering of the tortured human race.

No. In the first chapter of TSZ, Nietzsche speaks of the three metamorphoses. This is not, as you claim, a "guide to transcending the fragmented state."
Perhaps I interpreted it wrong. But who says Nietzsche was the authority on anything in the first place? Here's how I interpreted it.

He is saying that first the human being (the camel) is loaded with social conditioning - values from outside.
Precisely. The dualistic mindset no?

The human then seeks freedom (the lion) and must combat these values (the dragon).
Yes, awareness being the weapon. I didn't know there was a dragon. I thought the second stage was just the lion...perhaps I'm wrong.

Should the human succeed, the lion becomes a child - free to create new values.
Is this not the free will I have been talking about? This wondrous state, free of all bounds. Free of the bounds of fragmentation? Free to make actual choices? Finally no longer a tool? No longer a slave? And like a child, possessed by creativity, compassion and joy?

This has nothing to do with "truth," "god," "consciousness," or anything like that. It is a movement towards freedom and the creation of new values.
Isn't freedom bound in with truth. Consciousness is our being so that's obviously vital. As for 'god', well I believe I've cleared that up.

Nietzsche hated such absolute concepts with no relationship to material reality - this is why he ragged on religious people so much: not only are they perpetuating weak value systems, they are also tethered to nonsensical beliefs which bind them to their deities and hamper their freedom.

I agree. He was clearly identifying the problem of dualism and fragments.

What you speak of it nothing more than a story to distract on from one's material reality: wage slavery.

Once more, the mantra of wage slavery. Isn't this perhaps another weak value system, another nonsensical belief? Has Marx been vindicated anywhere? Have we seen any real socialist states? No doubt he has informed many developments, but do we stand any closer to his ideal today?
I would say that whilst we are dualistic we will always be far from that lofty existence. Though ironically it is right here.

Then why are you using them? You see your bind? You cannot be without from within.
Like I said. It's all I have. Worth a try no? I'm convinced there is a way of expressing this more effectively. This is why I value your criticism. You are helping me sharpen the message. You are helping me make the signposts to the truth more visible, if you will.
Note, I used the word 'signposts', simply because only you can find the truth. Only you can be aware. No-one else can be aware for you. We are all individual windows onto this world. Is not a sentient being a simple window of consciousness? Or a space in which the universe is felt? We must tend to our own windows. We must endeavour to keep them clean, unclogged and stained by dualistic notions!

Time bound? Time is a dimension of our existence. You cannot be "timeless" in any real sense. Nietzsche spoke of timelessness, but this is the feeling which comes from freedom.
Indeed, timelessness is freedom!
And bear in mind, one can still wear a watch and make practical plans!
It's only when one starts creating illusions about being this or that in different times. That's when problems occur. For it is then that we are fragmented. Memory and anticipations are both just movements. To live within them is to be fragmented.

If "love is here," then why do so many people kill? Hint: it's not because they aren't loving enough, it's because they have reason to kill.

They kill because they simply haven't found the love within. Their reasons are inevitably dualistic ones, and natural occurrences of a fragmented existence. If they could see the monistic reality of the universe they wouldn't even consider killing. They would commune instead.

You spout the same tired story which has been said throughout history by individuals incapable of strength. It goes: "if everyone just loved everyone else, this world would be fine."

'Incapable of strength' sounds like a rather extreme thing to say. What is strength, for you?

The solution is not to beg them to love more, but to change the conditions which gives rise to such hate.
You can change the conditions but will it cure suffering? Remember suffering is not because of one particular condition. Suffering is a problem of fragmentation. He who is no longer fragmented is independent of conditions. He is able to transcend them. He is not defined by his conditions. Conditions which are movements, cannot change the singular reality of the universe. They move within that reality. They are that reality.

The universe is merely a term used to describe what we understand to be "all things."
Are 'all things' an illusion then? :-)

Not everyone has sustenance. Do you think they need to love more and it will just come to them?
Acquiring sustenance is a practical task. On its own its very straightforward. The problem is that the fragmented human condition tends to have practical repercussions, making it less straightforward, like injustice, inequality and exploitation. You can't possibly deny that.

Ok... but this doesn't make Nazis stop attacked black people. It doesn't stop capitalism.
Action guided by awareness is the best action imaginable. The more awareness, the less suffering. Nazism and capitalism would disappear. As would umbrella terms like 'black people'. We are all unique after all.

People have material problems. The problems of which you speak are constructed within the mind for they exist solely in the mind.
Yes but you'll agree that the latter can have severe consequences for the former. Practical problems on their own are relatively innocuous. Its the insane behaviour caused by dualism that complicates them, like I said before.

Truth, god, consciousness, etc... are all concepts. You are fighting these concepts and hence ignoring material reality. You see that you are performing the exact situation which you wish to be free of?

I am not fighting anything here. Nor am I ignoring material reality. I'm just not making the massive assumption, which it would seem you are, that humans are doomed to dualism.

Defend yourself? With what? Love?
With your fists if need be. Like I said, you're still operating. You're still surviving. You're just not fragmented. It's a far better way of navigating the world.


Nihilism is the belief that life has no inherent meaning and hence all values, beliefs, etc... are ultimately undermined.
Life doesn't have a meaning. It simply is. The sooner we accept that instead of clinging to fragmented identities and meanings, the sooner we'll be free.

I am well aware of the Buddhist notion of the ego - I repeat, I have read Krishnamurti. I know what you're talking about. It's not helpful to the material struggle in any way, in fact, it restricts it.

It restricts stupid behaviour. A Marxist however good his revolutionary intentions are will never be anything but a reactionary if he is dualistic and fragmented. A revolutionary, however, who is aware and monistic, will be able to achieve far more and will not make half the mess the dualistic revolutionary will. History has seen plenty of dualistic Marxists. Not so many monistic revolutionaries though. (No need for the title of 'Marxist' there, simply because Marx's vision is ultimately the kind of society monistic vision will create)
A monistic revolutionary is a real revolutionary.
A dualistic -ist revolutionary is a walking disaster.

I agree that nationality, race, gender, etc... are all hampering concepts because they are created to divide individuals according to arbitrary lines. But "faith" is belief without reason/evidence. It is the door to oppression
Remember, faith here is simply awareness.

Will is the ability to become with purpose. You are not interested in becoming, but in "being." Hence you oppose change - you are reactionary.
True change will not come if carried out by dualistic individuals. This kind of change is by itself reactionary. It merely reshapes the same old problem of human suffering, repeating it all over again but in a different guise.

You are not separate from your mind. Once again, you posit dualism without justification.
Of course not. You are not separate from anything. The observer is the observed.

You are constantly becoming - as far as we can tell, nothing stays the same. If you think this is a "disease," you must think evolution is a disease as well, and change...

Evolution is just movement.
The 'disease' of suffering is caused by fragmentation, in memory of what was or in anticipation of becoming, it's all the same.

The "Now" is simply another word for the present. The present is constantly changing... to deny this is to be stagnant, like I said.
I never denied that the present is constantly changing. I just said it wasn't a problem. When one is aware one learns to love the constant flux of the universe.

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Living in the now is freedom from worry.
Living in a purgatory of one's own creation is optional.
Spot on! As Meister Eckhart said, hell is simply the part of you that doesn't want to let go: the memories and attachments.

[The New Consciousness]

A mod made a mistake and we had to reset. Apologies.

Ah no probs! :)

Just love it back into existence...

There you go, friend.

[The New Consciousness]

Any replies? Let's keep the ball rolling here.

[benhur]

Any replies? Let's keep the ball rolling here.

Don't wanna butt in, but if you're familiar with J Krishnamurti's teaching, I'd like to ask you something about his thinker-thought/observer-observed idea. Is it okay?

[The New Consciousness]

Fire away friend.

[benhur]

Fire away friend.

Thanks. I have two questions regarding this 'thinker is the thought' idea.

a) JK often gives the example of anger, that at the precise moment of anger, there's no 'I,' there's only the experience of anger without the experiencer. But how is it possible to experience anything without the experiencer, without an "I" that's experiencing these feelings, emotions etc.? Does that mean there's some kind of awarness behind the thinker?

b) Even if it's true that thinker is the thought, wouldn't this put us in a rather helpless situation? As long as I am separate from that which I am trying to control, there's something I can do. But if, as JK says, the controller and the controlled are one entity, a unitary process, wouldn't this make effort totally redundant? And if that's the case, aren't we back to square one, in that we won't be able to get rid of anger, fear, and all the rest?

Benhur

[The New Consciousness]

Basically when he says that the observer is the observed he is pointing out that fragmentation and dualism don't actually exist, that they are illusions as everything is interconnected and 'one'.

The illusion of division is that which creates the concept of observer and observed. This is the fragmented state.

[PARTI_ENVER]

not just nice,its excellent,salute:)