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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: OneU] 1
#14608161 - 06/13/11 07:11 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Stan Grof solved some major conflicts that I carried from my experience of 7/4/73 when my birth was revivified under a massive dose of LSD. I have read most of his works, and I've learned to incorporate deterministic psychoanalytic theories (Freud, Adler, Jung), with free-will existential theories (Frankl, Maslow, Rogers), in order to create a new metatheory. In the last book of his that I obtained from MAPS, for donating, Grof himself said that he didn't know the efficacy of Holotropic Breathwork. There were more contraindications for its practice then for taking LSD! Of LSD, both Grof and I, as well as many at this site are sure of its efficacy for personal change.
Of course, one requires a theoretical 'scaffolding' in order to use the fuel of psychedelics like LSD. Otherwise, there may be colors, bright light, or an unfortunate explosion of one's mental apparatus, but no transcendental escape from the gravitational force of our earthbound nature. Even dear departed Dr. Leary could not separate his sexual needs from what he deemed transcendence. It was more like sex at a cellular level than sex in a cosmic perspective, as a concretization of cosmic masculine and feminine archetypes. Grof has the most wide-reaching grasp of psychedelic usefulness to the end of transcendence IMO.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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OneU
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I had never seen that picture. Is it of transcendence or something else?
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: OneU] 1
#14609149 - 06/13/11 09:54 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
OneU said: I had never seen that picture. Is it of transcendence or something else?
Yab-Yum. Compassion-Wisdom. Karuna-Prajna. Father-Mother. Yang-Yin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yab-yum
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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OneU
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Thank you.
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The Whale

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I once had a dream that "Stanislav Grof" was some essential ingredient or direction that guides my behavior and consciousness towards a pattern of growth and discovery. Although Grof, Jung, and other mystics referred to archetypes within the mind, in this dream these people were the actual archetypes - we only called them humans, and called their messages and signals philosophy, due to that sexy dress that Maya wears when she dances.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: The Whale] 1
#14616942 - 06/15/11 11:12 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
The Whale said: I once had a dream that "Stanislav Grof" was some essential ingredient or direction that guides my behavior and consciousness towards a pattern of growth and discovery. Although Grof, Jung, and other mystics referred to archetypes within the mind, in this dream these people were the actual archetypes - we only called them humans, and called their messages and signals philosophy, due to that sexy dress that Maya wears when she dances.
We're all dreams in the mind of God. That most people don't experience themselves as Consciousness is THE Cosmic Joke (but not funny from the perspective of suffering). Fish probably don't Realize that they're immersed in an ocean, and primarily made of water. But Maya is indeed the culprit. We experience our existential separateness without the equal experience of essential unity. This is the source of fear, greed, desire, and hence suffering. Do snowflakes try to be examples of perfect crystalline uniqueness? 
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Icelander
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We're all dreams in the mind of God.
I think you got that backwards sonny.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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laserpig
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: Icelander]
#14617250 - 06/15/11 12:23 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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To say that we are "dreams in the mind of God" is a more subtle proposition than it sounds. If you get loose with what you mean about God, in my opinion, the idea makes perfect sense. It cannot be denied that the primary fact of reality is experience, not matter, not form, none of those. Those are concepts which the monkey mind has deduced out of raw experience. Good deductions, don't get me wrong, science-bashing is not my point here.
My point is that what we really are, is a conglomeration of experience, interacting with other experience. Obviously there is "room" for mind in the universe, because mind does exist, experience actually happens; and it is in that "space" which absolutely everything that can be experienced is experienced. This space, the sum of all minds, is what I think of as "the mind of God." There are patterns of mind which transcend the individual mind. Cultural paradigms are an obvious example. These are "thoughts in the mind of God." Or "dreams," if for some reason you prefer to think that God is asleep. I'm not gonna bother to take this metaphor to that level of specificity, nor am I sure that the idea of "awake" or "asleep" really applies here, but ... yeah. Mind of God. Makes sense if you're willing to think about it that way.
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Icelander
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: laserpig]
#14617676 - 06/15/11 02:03 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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This space, the sum of all minds, is what I think of as "the mind of God."
That's nice.
. Makes sense if you're willing to think about it that way.
Doesn't make it true.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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laserpig
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: Icelander]
#14617715 - 06/15/11 02:12 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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It's only a metaphor. It's not a falsifiable claim, there is no possibility of it being correct or incorrect. Just a way of conceptualizing huamnity's place in the universe, and the relationship of our individual consciousness to the rest of consciousness in the world.
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Icelander
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: laserpig]
#14617861 - 06/15/11 02:40 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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there is no possibility of it being correct or incorrect.
How would you know that?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Olympus Mons
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: Icelander]
#14617888 - 06/15/11 02:45 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: there is no possibility of it being correct or incorrect.
How would you know that?
the question is how would i know that.
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I close my eyes and seize it I clench my fists and beat it I light my torch and burn it I am the beast I worship....
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Icelander
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OK, how would you know that?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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laserpig
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: Icelander]
#14618523 - 06/15/11 04:49 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: there is no possibility of it being correct or incorrect.
How would you know that?
It's the same basic idea as saying "there's an invisible dragon in your house which can't be detected by any means." That's not a falsifiable claim. It can't be disproven, it can't be proven. Therefore, neither correct nor incorrect.
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Icelander
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: laserpig]
#14618611 - 06/15/11 05:09 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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How do you know those are the same?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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laserpig
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: Icelander]
#14620553 - 06/16/11 12:51 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Icelander, all I'm talking about here is the way I personally choose to use the word "God" in conversation. There is no object that I'm claiming to be real. "The mind of God" is an idea/ideal that I use when conceptualizing my relationship to all of the possible states of mind and being which exist.
"God" is a metaphor the human mind uses when it feels the need to check itself against "the best thing" or "the most knowledge" or "the greatest love" or whatever non-real but nonetheless mentally useful standard of comparison they feel a need to relate to.
I think religious people are using a damn good metaphor, perhaps by definition the best metaphor, but they fail to make the distinction between metaphorical thought and empirical observation. You can confirm this simply by directly questioning a deeply religious person about the specifics of God. After a few weak and un-thought-out attempts at factual assertions, they become quite content to simply not make any empirical claims whatsoever. They refuse to say anything falsifiable, only reasserting that it is their choice/faith to think this way, and that it has immense personal meaning. They suppose that without actual belief in a literal God entity, their mind will lose the ability to think in terms of that metaphor. Atheists make the same mistake. In my opinion, it's simply a lack of imagination.
So there you go. I was only describing my use of a metaphor, that's why I said what I said about the "mind of God" idea being neither correct nor incorrect.
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zzripz
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: laserpig]
#14620863 - 06/16/11 02:40 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Years ago, you could hardly find ANY books which discussed psychedelics! So imagine when I found Grof's book Realms of the Human Unconcsious in a library--I went ballistic and almost begam a preacher for Grof lol. I went on to read more of his books
But then I started to try and find critiques of his ideas--I am always disturbed when there is no other view of a person, no matter how 'great' they are, but all i found was praise. Noticeably all from men.
The first critique I read of his ideas was from Monica Sjoo in her book which deeply critiques the New Age titled Return of the Dark/Light Mother or New Age Armageddon? Towards a Feminist Vision of the Future
This other source, also written by a woman reflects Sjoo's concerns about Grofian 'philosophy':
Quote:
It is important to note that some of Grof's commentaries on perinatal matrices are often sexist, bordering on misogynist. In his work he blames the aggression of the mother for trauma to the fetus. In particular his commentary on the "violence" of the birth and his presentation of the mother as an enemy of the fetus is, by today's standards, unacceptable (1976, pp. 104-105, 108, & 115). No doubt in some cases (dysfunctional mother, dysfunctional family situation) the mother may be superficial cause of perinatal trauma. However it is important to look to the social situation, political, economic, and even medical history to look for the actual roots of perinatal trauma. For example, raising a child in conditions of poverty would, without a doubt, cause significant perinatal trauma. In the case when society and the political structures fail to provide adequate supports for a parent (or parents) to raise a child in a stress free environment, it is the social and/or political structure that should be faulted and not the parent.”
Also when he desribes his 'perinatal 3'phase involving 'Walpurgis Night' and disseminates the myth of the 'evil witch' withOUT going into the deep ingrained fear of the Wise Woman that was inculcated into the human psyche by the many years of the Christian Inquisition. Ie, he assumes it is some kind of natural automatic reponse, but in doing so, for me, continues the patriarchal denigration of the Wise Woman who was called demonic and a 'witch' by the patriarchal mindset prevailing--and which still does!
Grof emphasizes the 'going inside' of the psyche both for his LSD psychotherapy, and HB (I have done two solo DIY session of HB and it is powerful but i cried so much my eyes smarted for days!), and seems to dismiss observational insights. I dont. I feel that observational experience is AS deep --and I dont like this divide between 'inner' which is his psychoanlaytical influences as shrink, and 'outer'.
I also dont really dig his insistance that his 'inner journey' is THE 'cartography'. No it isn't, and other people not influenced by his prelimanry setting will have other different kinds of experiences.
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Icelander
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Re: Mysticism- Stanislav Grof [Re: zzripz]
#14621045 - 06/16/11 05:07 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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desert father
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Re: Organized Religion [Re: OneU]
#14621773 - 06/16/11 10:03 AM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
OneU said: It's very similar to pranyama (eg: fire breathing) from what I gather but I had forgotten this selection as well.
Thanks for watching 
hey man, i had a question for you.
when i was incorporating fire breath into my yoga practice, i would experience a metallic taste in the back of my tongue/throat area (which i'm guessing would be toxins leaving the body?)
do you have much experience with fire breathing over extended practice?
had you found yourself in anyway changed in comparison to other breathing techniques?
and also what would your "favorite" breathing techniques be?
i'm always interested in talking to other people about yoga, especially people with some experience, so thanks for your time man.
-------------------- vi veri veniversum vivus vici What she said : "I smoke 'cos I'm hoping for an Early death AND I NEED TO CLING TO SOMETHING !"
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