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King Koopa
Mr. Hit Dat Hoe
Registered: 06/02/08
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power of now?
#10322374 - 05/11/09 12:54 PM (14 years, 10 months ago) |
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I've been reading 'The Power of Now." The reading comes easily, and it "feels" so right. But, I'm not sure if I can truly believe what he say's about thought. And that the awareness of thought is what I really need to listen to.
WHAT? Thought is thought. Being aware of your thoughts is just another thought. You're turning off your mind, you're just quieting the noise.
What say you?
-------------------- Best Post on the Shroomery Don't criticize my mess unless you'd like to become part of it.
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deimya
tofu and monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 825
Loc: ausländer.ch
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Don't be fooled by your indiscriminate use of language in general, and of words like "thought" in particular.
I for sure may experience awareness yet have no thought.
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King Koopa
Mr. Hit Dat Hoe
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Posts: 8,045
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Re: power of now? [Re: deimya]
#10322423 - 05/11/09 01:09 PM (14 years, 10 months ago) |
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So what about a man without a brain? Is he really "aware"?
-------------------- Best Post on the Shroomery Don't criticize my mess unless you'd like to become part of it.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
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Quote:
King Koopa said: So what about a man without a brain? Is he really "aware"?
No, he's dead, at which point only the Essence of the man, which IS awareness remains. And this is the point: the Rigpa (Clear Light) awareness IS the very Ground of Being. To become aware of this Ground Awareness in the midst of everyday thoughts, feelings and sensations is Self-Realization, Enlightenment. This is what the "Living Jesus" as Wisdom Teacher conveys in the Thomas tradition as Eternal Life.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest
Registered: 05/09/08
Posts: 5,744
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Quote:
King Koopa said: I've been reading 'The Power of Now." The reading comes easily, and it "feels" so right. But, I'm not sure if I can truly believe what he say's about thought. And that the awareness of thought is what I really need to listen to.
WHAT? Thought is thought. Being aware of your thoughts is just another thought. You're turning off your mind, you're just quieting the noise.
What say you?
The idea is to quiet you conscious thoughts but i thought that book sucked in general, I'd reccommend "The Handbook To Higher Consciousness" by Ken Keyes seems like a much more practical guide.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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deimya
tofu and monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 825
Loc: ausländer.ch
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Does one need to think "how lovely/disgusting the taste of honey" to actually taste honey ? Both elements might happen at the same time, or the latter before the former, or most probably without clear boundaries for what happens. Intuition also doesn't come as thoughts first.
Of brains there's much more than only thoughts. Thoughts aren't the be-all and end-all of subjective experiences.
Edited by deimya (05/11/09 02:56 PM)
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
Quote:
King Koopa said: So what about a man without a brain? Is he really "aware"?
No, he's dead, at which point only the Essence of the man, which IS awareness remains.
Awareness remains after brain death?
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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Coughing_Anon
Ninja
Registered: 12/29/08
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Quote:
The idea is to quiet you conscious thoughts but i thought that book sucked in general, I'd reccommend "The Handbook To Higher Consciousness" by Ken Keyes seems like a much more practical guide.
Diff'rent strokes, amirite?
Edited by Coughing_Anon (05/11/09 05:37 PM)
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: power of now? [Re: deCypher]
#10323605 - 05/11/09 06:01 PM (14 years, 10 months ago) |
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Right. Awareness remains before very Creation occured. Awareness is the a priori Eternal Ground of Being as far as I am concerned. I adhere to Transcendentalism, Idealism, Neo-Platonism, Jewish-Christian Gnosticism, Panentheism, Upanishadic thought, Taoism, Vedantist Yoga, etc., etc., etc. Everything created is a manifestation of Pure Ideas. Mind (Nous) is ontological prior to matter, Essence precedes Existence, God is Eternal, Creation is the spacio-temporal extension of Pure Ideas.
The brain is a part of the larger organism, and there is a Great Chain of Being of which we are (as a species) an evolutionary link between origination of form and final transcendence of form. Each of us is a 'wave' comprised soley of 'the Ocean of Being,' and yet most people cannot experience their 'Oceanic Self,' only their discrete temporary little 'wave-selves' which arise from the Ocean, peak, and then diminish into the Ocean once again.
If you think that the brain produces awareness like the kidneys produce urine, then you belong to one or the other schools of materialism. For myself, I see Reality as Saint Paul who said of Ultimate Reality personified (The Ground of Being, God): “In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). We are all 'fish in water' who, for the most part, not only do not know that we are made mostly of water, but we don't know we're immersed in water either! Everyone recognizes their body, some people (like Behaviorists) do not even recognize that they are a psyche (mind, soul), and even fewer people Know that even more essentially, they are Awareness (Spirit). It's the saying: 'I am not a human having a spiritual experience, I am Spirit having a human experience.'
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: If you think that the brain produces awareness like the kidneys produce urine, then you belong to one or the other schools of materialism.
I don't think the brain necessarily produces awareness, but it certainly provides a much more complicated and informationally dense material substrate under which awareness rises to fantastical levels of reflexivity and consciousness in our ordinary sense of the term. I'd argue that all material things in the Universe necessarily possess some level of consciousness; the only criteria necessary to determine which things have more consciousness than other things is their degree of functional and behavioral complexity. I suppose this would be a variant of panpsychism or neutral monism rather than any crass, eliminative materialism.
In short, I don't think brain death will destroy the inherent proto-consciousness embodied in the electrons and atoms that form your brain, but it certainly will destroy the higher level of Awareness embodied in you as the human mind necessarily formed from your working brain. Is this something like what you're getting at with the Great Chain of Being (a sort of gradation of levels of consciousness)?
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: power of now? [Re: deCypher]
#10323906 - 05/11/09 07:24 PM (14 years, 10 months ago) |
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Well said. Yes, I'm a hierarchialist when it comes to the human-subjective pole of the I-Thou dualism. Like Argus, the thousand-eyed creature of myth, or Ezekiels Ophanim (Eye-covered Wheels-within-Wheels), these visionary images evoke in me the notion that every life-form is an 'I' or 'eye' through which The One has experiences. Obviously this ranges from unicellular organisms to human beings on this planet. The same for all other planetary worlds. But what of experiences through disincarnate or at any rate non-physical beings too? Then, what of the very idea of whole planes or dimensions which are sentient - like when we become the very dreamscape in our dreams. Beyond that, unimaginable (because formless) planes or dimensions of individuated consciousness. I'd rather think of the unthinkable than try to imagine the consciousness of a virus...or a rock. Beyond panpsychism which is reminiscent of a Plotinian World-Soul, would be Mind (Nous) and beyond that, The One. Ken Wilber plays with these hierarchies in many of his writings.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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King Koopa
Mr. Hit Dat Hoe
Registered: 06/02/08
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I don't understand anything you write.
-------------------- Best Post on the Shroomery Don't criticize my mess unless you'd like to become part of it.
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Noteworthy
Sophyphile
Registered: 10/05/08
Posts: 5,599
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Quote:
King Koopa said: I've been reading 'The Power of Now." The reading comes easily, and it "feels" so right. But, I'm not sure if I can truly believe what he say's about thought. And that the awareness of thought is what I really need to listen to.
WHAT? Thought is thought. Being aware of your thoughts is just another thought. You're turning off your mind, you're just quieting the noise.
What say you?
I think you have conflicting notions of the word 'thought'.
An older notion of 'thought', such as that understood back in the 60's, was more that thoughts were like.. ideas. Content. Meaning.
As opposed to sensation, feeling
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
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Quote:
King Koopa said: I don't understand anything you write.
Sorry. Hierarchial[ist]? Plotinus? Panpsychism? It just takes a bit of effort if one wants to understand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.merriam-webster.com/
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King Koopa
Mr. Hit Dat Hoe
Registered: 06/02/08
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Last seen: 13 years, 6 months
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It's just that I need to take baby steps to understand. You're writing as if I have a doctorates also.
-------------------- Best Post on the Shroomery Don't criticize my mess unless you'd like to become part of it.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
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What do you make of deCypher's well-worded writing above? It's not a matter of degree and degree programs don't really make good writers. They're just training programs. Now one can develop in different personal areas within such programs if one has the inclination. I am striving for clarity and some of my posts are more directed toward individuals than to general readers.
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Amber_Glow
Sat Chit Anand
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I really enjoy Markos' posts. He is probably my favorite poster here.
His posts are very clear and he has great insight and knowledge. Some of the things he talks about I perhaps wasn't familiar with at first, but being so intrigued by his posts I have often gone on to research things like Gnosticism because he piqued my interests.
I've also done plenty of panpsychism and religious research on my own so I can generally pick up what Markos is putting down.
Thanks Markos!
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: It just takes a bit of effort if one wants to understand.
Markos's posts have always been extremely literate and well-read, keep up the good work!
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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Mastamike1118
Registered: 03/29/07
Posts: 2,010
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Re: power of now? [Re: deCypher]
#10330507 - 05/13/09 12:52 AM (14 years, 10 months ago) |
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watch your reactions to your thoughts...
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
Registered: 12/09/99
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Yaa me!
Thanks Amber Glow and deCypher!
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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