Belief Statements - Robinrohan

I see. A social club.

I doubt that Robinrohan actually believes what he claims to. I've seen many of his posts and he strikes me as a fundamentalist Christian creationist who's taking everyone for a ride. That's just the impression that I get from his choice of words and overall attitude.My $0.02

How I wish. Both Iano and I have presented the gospel to Robin many times to complete uninterest.

That is where my feeling of futility comes from. How to explain how the subject object perception arises and how it resolves. I just haven't found a way to do it.The nondual teachings point to only consciousness existing. Things are a perception, an idea that we become enthralled with. They are forms of consciousness. The metaphor is of gold that can be crafted into any shape but remains gold. You can melt the object down and recast it. The form changes but the gold remains the same. Things are temporary. Being is the unborn undying essence.lfen

No, I just object to a sentimentalized version of life as inaccurate and to moralism as inconsistent. Somebody will proclaim that all morals are subjective, and then the next moment he will be solemnly moralizing: the righteous do-gooder mentality.

OK, what we are talking about here is an extreme form of philosophical idealism (everything is mental). I get that, but your version goes even further. Not only is there no physicality, there is no subject to be conscious. What we have is consciousness per se.To me that's like saying there is nothing that is dead, but there is such a thing as deadness.

Well the mind is denied also, so I think the implication is not the same thing as mental. I think it's more like Spinoza's use of the word "substance". The fundamental thing is mystery. You can go so far with explanations and then you fall into the mystery of being. But remember this is pragmatic. What the sages are doing are pointing to how you actually experience. Typically you point to some concept or state that you designate as your "self". The thing is that concept or state is an object in awareness. You keep looking at that awareness noticing that you/it keep identifying with an object as its self but.. that can't be as you/it are the subject. It begins to dawn on you that you can't define or know yourself. You know about the body, the mind but what do you know about the awareness of those objects? The awareness of existence, of isness is what you are and that is a mystery to be experienced finally in silence, that is with out concept, to taste it itself. I'm not clear what you are saying here. When the void, that is nothingness as literally No Thingness is spoken of it is as of a deep mystery that is the creative source of the manifest universe.Things are concepts and so deadness of a thing is a qualifier of a concept. We divide up the universe into parts or things like stars, planets and people. But life, or what I understand you to mean as beings depend on the entire universe for their existence. They aren't discrete.The question I have for you is where do beings come from? How do they arise and where do they go at death? That is to ask what is birth and what is death?lfenEdited by lfen, : oops, meant to click preview wasn't done proofing

From other beings. They cease to exist.

Are you using being as a synonym for organism?And beings come into existence as a result of reproduction?lfen

Reading your thoughts always makes me so happy that God is an object, a separate personality who loves and can be loved by a subject, and that he's promised us an eternal existence with our souls or is-ness intact and able to love him for that eternity.There's just no way that most human beings can grasp such ideas as you are trying to convey, and even less that we can be attracted to such ideas that imply personal dissolution. Even if it were the truth it isn't a truth I could be happy about. I don't understand your attraction to it at all.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith,I understand what you say. And I'll try a quick answer and then see if something better comes to me later.I think it may hinge on having a little taste of the experience, otherwise it probably is not something people can relate to.I am also interested in the studies of semantic and philosophical modeling regarding what existence and an object is. This would include the teachings attributed to the Buddha and the philosophies derived therefrom as well as Wittgenstein and science. That is the intellectual aspect.But the surrendering of the beloved Other is a crisis that some individual's have reported. Ramakrisha worshipped the Supreme in the form of the divine mother Kali. He was an ecstatic devotional type and he didn't want to go beyond that. There are others I have read but don't recall at the moment and as I'm heading out the door this will have to wait.One function of posting here is challenging myself to understand and find ways of presenting these difficult to grasp notions and experiences. Maybe all I will learn is that they are ineffable and I should just remain silent, but until I've gotten that I'll keep trying approaches.Before I head out the door I'll just note the account of the Buddha is that by examining his experience in phenomenological depth he discovered that there was no person there. But I know his insight is not appealing to most westerners.perhaps later I'll find something more clarifying, or not ...lfen

No, I'm defining being as that which possesses consciousness. That which does not possess consciousness, I call a thing. Yes.

Okay, some of this is coming back to me from some time back.Beings possess consciousness and you are referring chiefly if not exclusively to earth based lifeforms?You are not sure if consciousness is a quality of all life, including bacteria or have you arrived at a cutoff point? Like say oh worms maybe?It seems that you are then agreeing with the position that consciousness is an emergent quality in the universe that come about when? With cells? With sufficiently complex neural organisation? With brain?lfen

I don't think consciousness is a quality of all life. Only the higher animals.

Okay, so have you an accounting of where this being/consciousness originates? How it comes about?Does some level of neural complexity give birth to it?Think about an animal/thing with what a billion brain connections? Would the billionth and first connection suddenly switch on consciousness and voila sudddenly there is an animal/being?Or does your model have somethng else occuring? It seems that you are saying that a sufficient complex thing suddenly turns into a being. Is that how you see it?lfen