h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wouldn't dream of disputing it, Nogg. However, I sometimes wonder at what level of vagueness/generality truth functionality is lost.

toxx

An afterthought, Nogg. As we philosophers like to say: this is perhaps at once too little and too much.

toxx

Are you feeling clever now, toxxin? That's nice - have a good time with it.

I made a light-hearted reply to Chai's posting, replacing the word 'god' with 'fred'.

Really the word 'god' carries so much baggage with it, so much so that it ends up being quite meaningless a lot of the time.

Fred is simply a different word and does not refer to any specific god. I actually doubt that Fred has anything to do with gods at all, in the general sense of the word, since it is not a god concept per se. Well whatever. Have fun.


az

Hey, cool it az. I made a light-hearted reply to your light-hearted reply. There's no need to throw Teddy out of the pram.

toxx

<<... can you be spiritual and mystical without a religious framework? >>

Now you'se sucking deisel baby. Absolutely and of course, as this thread ( or "fred" to give it an east London pronunciation ) has abundantly demonstrated. Go way back and reads Moth's account of her out of body near-death experience for a classic of its kind.

My own most overwhelming similar occurence ( which has informed and formed my life, and fuels my arguments on this thread ) occurred at a Ravi Shankar concert in 1968. Briefly, that which was 'I' totally dissolved into the vastness of an impersonal, unbounded consciousness, from which emerged the knowingness that truth is One, and that Oneness is the truth. This "experience" lasted for the entire second half of the concert ( about an hour ) and was followed by about three weeks of an extremely blissful state.

Sadly, ( my Protestant Christian upbringing hadn't prepared me for this ) there wasn't a religious context through which to relate to it, although it convinced me that Buddhism ( I'd read a few books ) came closest to describing the awareness. Like all experiences it faded, and that was 1968, so it wasn't long before I'd worked my way through a menu of psychoactive substances in pursuit of the lost nirvana . And that led down a very dark alley, which took a decade or so of recovery through meditation etc.

It was not until quite recently ( after a few more decades of meditation and a gentle push from a helping mind ) that the belief in a personal self finally fell away, and that is a huge relief. But ultimately it's no big deal. The irony is that most of the same old crap still chugs along, but, mysteriously, without a 'doer.'This is not "an experience," and does not change. It is a recognition simply of what is, and of what is not.

So, yes, "spiritual" and "mystical" have no need of a religious context in any formal sense. Think of the nature mystics, shamans, etc.

And regarding the RC church and mysticism, the problem with mystics is that their unitary views tended to be perceived as heresy by the upholders of the Trinitarian creed ( a hotchpotch of beliefs formulated to keep the Emperor Constantine happy at the council of Nicea!) One of the greatest of all Christian mystics, Meister Eckhardt, only escaped the fire by dying before his trial for heresy was over.

Nuff said.

Yo Chai.

I think we meet coming back the other way, as it were. My argument is for a natural theology based on scientific method rather than mysticism or religion. Again, this is something that is perfectly feasible and too much neglected. Whether the object of study is God or Fred, we seem to be able to cope using our chosen means of enquiry.

toxx

Maybe you missed the question, Adelaide.

>>What is my experience of religious music outside Christianity? More extensive than you might think! <<

So give us all your list. I am waiting with bated vreath, as, I am sure, are many others.

Jez

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But wasn't it ever thus?

The universe is a self consistent set of rules. This says everything. And nothing.


Now I've said too much.
I haven't said enough.

Michael Stipe "Losing my Religion"


Noggin

Hi Toxx,

Here's my rant on spiritual/mystical "experiences." This is a very recent flavour of my rant, because my own understanding of the entire "spiritual" business is changing/evolving at a fierce rate.

Basic Buddhist statement of the way things are: Life/existence is experienced as unsatisfactory. Unsatisfactory is a closer translation ( they tell me ) of the Sanskrit term "dukkha" than the more commonly quoted "suffering." Because of the nature of this unsatisfactory state of things, we are driven/drawn to pursue that which satisfies our longing for fullness/satisfaction, thus avoiding pain, seeking pleasure, resisting unhappiness, seeking happiness.

This is not a religious creed, but a simple statement of how things are.

Buddha's answer to the problem arose from his awakening to the emptiness of apparent existence, the illusory nature of the process we identify with as a permanent, real, "personal" self. His recommendation was that one should awaken to the true nature of the apparent personal self ( an ever-changing, impermanent process of identification with name and form, consciousness, sensation, feeling, emotion and thought ) through meditation. Once awakened to the true nature of the apparent self, the need to satisfy "its" craving for happiness and avoidance of pain automatically ceases. This is liberation. Life can then be lived joyously, spontaneously, outside of the cyclical process of attraction/repulsion. The Vedic and Buddhist traditions both refer to the post-awakened state as fullness/happiness/bliss etc.

Note there is no mention in any of this of a deity, nor of an individual "soul/spirit."

And yet Buddhist religion has accumulated a considerable overlay of deistic beliefs through the millennia. To explain why some people seem to suffer more than others, past lives, karma ( action/reaction ) and reincarnation are introduced.

With regard to mystical/spiritual " experiences," the nature of the awakening is to unity awareness, the truth of the Oneness of being.
All "experiences" of any sort are dualistic, and require, by definition, an experiencer, a process of experiencing, and an object of experience: e.g. I see the cat. Pre-awakening, a separately conceived 'I' becomes sensorily aware of a separate entity, a cat. The perceiving 'I's identity is subsumed into the process of perceiving the object - cat.

Post-awakening, that which was the perceiving 'I' no longer exists apart from the continuum of consciousness which also maintains the being of the cat. There is no separation within consciousness, there is a unity of being. Experientially, dualistic perception has given way to unified perception.

But, and this is the crucial but... the perceiver does not suddenly become the cat. It is rather that impersonal, unboundaried consciousness is the silent witness both to the perceiver and the cat. This is both paradoxical, subtle, and a bit obscure, but words are limited to the world of dualistic logic, and under-standing. Unity cannot be understood, only lived.

All spiritual seeking is ultimately the search of the fragmented individuality for re-integration in the wholeness of unity.

Now, having awakened to unity, a Christian mystic may very well describe unity in terms of the divine ground of being, the godhead, ( fredhead) or whatever. Similarly with other cultures, religions. All have their mystical fringe, and it's interesting that the mystics often end up in trouble with the creed-following flag-wavers of religious orthodoxy.

The reason why is simply the lack of common ground between the unified view and the dualistic ( moralistic, right/wrong, saved/damned, good/evil ) camp. The unified view tends to see all the apparent separate aspects of the manifest/dualistic reality as integrated, essential parts of the wholeness, therefore neither right nor wrong, but simply appropriate to what is.

Nuff said for now.

I suspect that Budda was a product of his times as much as any of us. So, if reincarnation was a standard part of beliefs at the time, he might just have taken it for granted.

Karma is at least a useful guide for thinking about responsibility, whereas the equivalent guilt and salvation cycle strikes me as terribly unhealthy.

Hi Chai

Very nicely put, very nicely indeed .

Your cat analogy is very interesting, particularly for those who have 'shapechanged', that is spirtually assumed the form of an observed animal and travelled with it a way.

The path of the feral druid is very close to that of the shaman. We share their ability to alter or even split our perspectives whilst in trance states. As we grow we can do this in a limited fashion whilst in a wakened state.

It can make the world a painful place for shared empathy can be hard. But any healer must share part of themself if they are to heal. C'est la vie.

To touch such truth is, as you say, to touch the unity of spirit of the universe, to us the Awen /|\. We don't see this as strange or mystical, nor do we regard ourselves as mystics. It is as natural as death.

We understand how this invokes fear in those who only have faith, not experience. And especially those who profit both materially and emotionally from propagating this faith.

We do not have a religion, we have an alternative perspective that both delights and torments us. We share some truths with Tibetan Buddhism, and see many truths in other philosophies, which is why we are slow to condemn. We do, however, reject dualism and all the suffering it, by its very nature, creates and fuels.

Hope, love and purpose,
Matholwch /|\.

But not 'too much', Nogg. For that, we need a counterexample that ought not to count, but sneaks in. For 'too little', we need a counterexample that ought to count but doesn't. Doncha just luv philosophical method?

Some enlightenment, if you please. How can there be a self-consistent, or any other, set of rules without something to which to apply? Maths or a logic comes closest, I guess. As ever, we will dispute as to whether the rules are in the thing or in the mind of the observer; or if both, the direction of causation.

toxx

Intriguing, Chai. I'm sure Hume said that however much he examined his ideas and impressions, he could never find a 'self'. I must be terribly unenlightened as I can never find anything else!

toxx

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Dear Math,

Erm, rejecting dualism is by definition a dualistic exercise. The unity rejects nothing, how can it?

It's late, I'm off to bed, until tomorrow, or whenever,

Cheers, and thanks for your kind remarks,

Chai

Hi Toxx,

I really am too tired to get into this intriguing area now. But... << I'm sure Hume said that however much he examined his ideas and impressions, he could never find a 'self'. I must be terribly unenlightened as I can never find anything else!>>...this is such a paradoxical area. How , as they say, can the eye see itself? If R'man was interested in this thread anymore, I'm sure he'd say it's a logical nonsense for the self to look for the self, and in a dualistic sense, he'd be right. But the awareness intuits a continuum of being that lies "deeper" than anything that can state "I am." This cannot be "understood," only recognised and lived. In a weird way, it is not an experience, and yet it is experienced as an ongoing fact of mundane reality, a recognition of what actually is. And terms such as "deeper" are utterly misleading, because "it" is nowhere else, nowhere other than where "we" are, right here, right now. It's the old problem of mistaking the sign-post for the path. But to communicate truth ( at least here in print on a screen ) we must use words, which are limited and dualistic. In person, truth can be attuned to between people, there's a kind of resonance effect.

Nuff,

G'night,

Chai

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Where does this idea come from? It's bizarre!
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Revelation wasn't admiited to the Canon until the 3rd century AD, and then, it only narrowly squeaked in.

Why does everyone get so cross about Paul? It seems to me that many people think he represents law against grace, which could not be further from the truth... Others seem to think that Paul is the opposite, making it all too easy! He has his share of mystical experiences himself, you know!

<>

Ah, me too...

hi Chai,

I've not noticed a lot of spirituality within most religions. Especially monotheistic religions. There is a very definite dividing line between the person and their god. The god often tends to be something very separate, usually above and beyond what the human can ever experience while being alive, hence their need to have a belief that this god does somehow exist, which also includes some concept of salvation and a promise of 'another life' after this one.

Feeling or being spiritual does not require religion.

The unity of being thing you talked about is something that seems to come quite naturally to me. In fact, I often have to set up 'artificial barriers' so as not to feel overwhelmed by feeling so 'connected' to, well, everything, to the extent that it gets in the way of me living my life as a human. And I agree with you that this cannot be explained, but only lived.

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I think the 'avoidance of pain' factor is the thing that limits us the most from truly experiencing our lives. So I also agree that getting past that *is* very liberating. Though much easier said than done.

This is probably the thing I work on hardest, in a spriritual sense. To try and understand what makes me want to hold on to the very things that hold me back, and then takes steps to make a compassionate break with those life-long habits. For me the compassion factor is very important. Not to deny but to, well, unify the whole package deal, so to speak.

az

Sorry, 'take steps', not 'takes steps'.

az

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But what sort of stuff would such a something be, toxx?

Energy, the "stuff" of the material universe, is an abstract conserved quantity, the "ground of all being." To ask what it it is "made of" is a meaningless question.

Noggin