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Deviate
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Icelander]
#19277432 - 12/15/13 01:28 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Icelander said: I never experienced the "divine" in hundreds of psychedelic experiences. I have no idea if the "divine" exists and no one has ever shown that. The idea that something is divine is a subjective view of phenomena. You see something as divine I see it as something else or possibly something else. 
I disagree, it is not subjective. We can divide pleasures into different categories and the higher order pleasures constitute the divine.
For example, biting into an apple on a crisp autumn day is a wonderful pleasure but this is an earthly pleasure because it stems from the senses. Take away the sensory stimulus of the apple and the pleasure of tasting leaves also.
Now a monk who reaches a state of samahdi in meditation is experiencing a divine pleasure, because his samahdhi is not dependent on any sensory stimulus being presented to the body, not to mention it is MUCH more enjoyable than eating an apple.
psychedelics make it easy to experience divine pleasures (self existent bliss) without having to spend years learning meditation.
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Icelander
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Deviate]
#19277443 - 12/15/13 01:37 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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The problem here is I don't consider those states necessarily divine. To the extent of my understanding those states are due to the effect of chemicals altering my brain function. There may be more to it but I certainly have no evidence for that.
Some of my trips have been truly earth shattering and awesome experiences for me. Not to be missed for anything stuff. But when it was all over and my brain got back into normal operating mode I was basically the same guy that went into the experience hoping to become a cosmic mystic supermench.
-------------------- "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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Deviate
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Icelander]
#19277461 - 12/15/13 01:46 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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The problem here is I don't consider those states necessarily divine.
I could say I don't consider monkeys primates but that would not mean that there was anything wrong with the classification system designed by biologists.
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To the extent of my understanding those states are due to the effect of chemicals altering my brain function.
Your point being? Of course psychedelic experiences are due to chemicals altering your brain function. What has that got to do with anything? Its like saying monkeys arent primates because monkeys are made up of chemicals. Its a total non sequitur.
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Icelander
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Deviate]
#19277470 - 12/15/13 01:51 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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My point being there is nothing divine in my world view as opposed to yours. It's all subjective interpretation due to the needs and desires of the individual.
There's nothing wrong with calling it divine. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't necessarily mean anything special.
You're lucky I have insomnia or you'd have no one to talk to . I hope you appreciate me being here for you.
-------------------- "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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Deviate
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Icelander]
#19277484 - 12/15/13 02:02 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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of course it's subjective, classifying monkeys as primates is also subjective. Its simply the human intellect at work, organizing and categorizing its experiences. Its all ultimately meaningless, ultimately nothing more than a set of agreed upon concepts. Never the less, scientists have found it useful to categorize animals in this way.
Its no different when it comes to the divine. I am merely recognizing that within the realm of human experience, there exists a wide range of experiences ranging from hellishly bad to divinely good and everything in between. The term we use for the highest order pleasures, self existent bliss, is the divine. Notice that this system says absolutely nothing about the cause of such experiences. Just like we dont need to understand how a monkey works to call a monkey a primate, we dont need to understand how experience functions to call higher order pleasures divine.
I do appreciate you being awake.
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Icelander
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Deviate]
#19277492 - 12/15/13 02:05 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Fine fine then. I'm kind of used to people equating the word divine with supernatural beings and such.
= divine
-------------------- "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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r72rock
Maybe so. Maybe not.




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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Deviate]
#19277536 - 12/15/13 02:27 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Deviate said: The answer is in your sig. When we stop clinging, our biology starts to run smoothly. THink about it, do you need to expend any effort to beat your heart or circulate your blood or do these things just happen? Man's problems are all in his mind, because he has become spiritually off balance. When this balance is regained, things run smoothly again and the mind ceases to cause trouble.
I agree that it seems like just nature at work and in a sense it is just nature at work, because the imbalance that has happened is not somehow divorced from nature. And yet the imbalance covers up the fact that our true nature is happiness. This is why atheism can be so convincing. Once one has lost sight of his true nature, it becomes so easy to see the world as just a chance occurance filled with meaningless suffering. Suffering is real reason people believe in atheism. If the world was a paradise than of course we would all believe in the divine. But the atheist cannot reconcile the existence of the divine with this dark world of horrific suffering we find ourselves in.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. I guess what I was getting at though was, while it's good to strive for, and may be obtainable, I've found obstacles in attempting it. I'm trying though. It's a nice goal to set anyways.
-------------------- Current favorite candy: Peanut Butter Kisses
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Chronic7
Registered: 05/08/04
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: r72rock]
#19277540 - 12/15/13 02:29 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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r72rock said: Good post. 
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You can never capture yourself, it's an absolute mystery, but you can know it is a mystery & stop trying to capture the mystery, stop imagining yourself to be the knowable and live as the unknowable
This is so hard to do though. I've been trying to do this lately, and to me, it feels like we're biologically driven to seek "the knowable." Part of me things it's impossible just because it's so hardwired into us. In the same way, we seem biologically driven to compartmentalize and make sense of the world around us. It just seems like nature at work.
It is natural as you grow to know more & more things, but its also natural to go beyond the restriction of the known into the boundlessness of the unknown, now or at death, it's natural to do so because the unknown is what we are and we must always return to ourself, a bit like coming full circle
Also i'm not necessarily talking about not knowing what a cup is, or a tree, or how to do your finances... that would be ignorance, it's useful to know you can fill up a cup with water and it's beautiful to know that a tree gives you fresh air to breathe, or to study cosmology etc... i'm not talking about disregarding that type of objective useful knowledge, i'm talking about disregarding the assumption that you know what you actually are, that you are ultimately the unknown, so it's fine to know about 'things' & how they relate, but its also good to know you are essentially unknown, that all of this objective knowledge is founded on emptiness
Paradoxically you can actually know much more (if you so desire) because your not holding onto or narrowed down into believing this or that knowledge but open to everything, your capacity for knoweldge is much vaster when you are aware of yourself as the unknown
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r72rock said:
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To abide as the unknown isn't to be ignorant as you can drop all knowledge but you can not drop yourself, the knower
This is also something that I get behind 100%... yet, I feel like this gets mixed up in ideas of a self. I feel like the self isn't real, but at the same time, we're hopelessly stuck with it. (Again, biologically) This is just some ideas that I've had in me for a while that are totally relevant to this topic.
I agree with the insight that there is no real self, and agree with the insight that there is only the Self, and see no contradiction, it just depends on what you define yourself as, if at all
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Edited by Chronic7 (12/15/13 02:53 AM)
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Deviate
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Icelander]
#19277568 - 12/15/13 02:52 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yes, that's the spirit. Every day things are divine also, we just tend not to see them that way. For me thats what the whole psychedelic thing was about. I would take mushrooms and suddenly I would realize that the sky, the grass, the trees, etc were all absolutely divine creations.
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Chronic7
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Deviate]
#19277811 - 12/15/13 05:20 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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to me that's the greatness of unknowing, there's just the open mystery, no separation between spirit & form
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Icelander
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Deviate]
#19277949 - 12/15/13 06:48 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Deviate said: Yes, that's the spirit. Every day things are divine also, we just tend not to see them that way. For me thats what the whole psychedelic thing was about. I would take mushrooms and suddenly I would realize that the sky, the grass, the trees, etc were all absolutely divine creations.
I hear that. I did get greater appreciation for the "mundane" from Remember the first time you heard your favorite song tripping? Every note was a neverending world to be explored.
-------------------- "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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Psychaesthetics
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Re: Spirituality is Mysticism [Re: Chronic7]
#19277989 - 12/15/13 07:06 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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The Chronic said:
It is natural as you grow to know more & more things, but its also natural to go beyond the restriction of the known into the boundlessness of the unknown, now or at death, it's natural to do so because the unknown is what we are and we must always return to ourself, a bit like coming full circle
Also i'm not necessarily talking about not knowing what a cup is, or a tree, or how to do your finances... that would be ignorance, it's useful to know you can fill up a cup with water and it's beautiful to know that a tree gives you fresh air to breathe, or to study cosmology etc... i'm not talking about disregarding that type of objective useful knowledge, i'm talking about disregarding the assumption that you know what you actually are, that you are ultimately the unknown, so it's fine to know about 'things' & how they relate, but its also good to know you are essentially unknown, that all of this objective knowledge is founded on emptiness
Paradoxically you can actually know much more (if you so desire) because your not holding onto or narrowed down into believing this or that knowledge but open to everything, your capacity for knoweldge is much vaster when you are aware of yourself as the unknown
Couldn't have said it better!
-------------------- As below, so above
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