generative power

[shadowofwind]

As I recall, talking about sex is against forum rules, but I guess its OK in this context.... Traditionally, the consensus among teachers of mental yoga and similar seems to have been that celibacy, or something approaching it, becomes essential at some point for psychic development. Credible sects that taught otherwise were few to nonexistent, as far as I can tell, notwithstanding other patterns in the same culture. But more recently (last hundred years), when Europe's idle rich started showing up with gobs of cash looking for enlightenment, this fell out of fashion. So my question is what the truth is on this topic. The reason I'm asking here, is that psychic power and mental control is relevant to lucid dreaming and other 'beyond dreaming' topics. And lots of people here believe in gaining and losing 'energy' and various forms of vampirism. I can see that one reason celibacy would be taught, is it spares a monastery the expense of children and the drama and distraction of romantic intrigues. Plus the head gurus can use guilt to keep their underlings in line, and manipulate social dynamics for their own benefit. And the ideas about energy stewardship and 'raising' it could be a fallacies, based on a misunderstanding of the nature of 'energy'. Or there may be something to it. This seems to me to be a hard topic to test experimentally. It would be kind of like trying to correlate how much money you have with how much you spend. They don't necessarily correlate very well in the short run, since there are so many other factors involved, like how much you earn, and how you spend it. So you have to have a fairly complete understanding of what you're dealing with to draw any conclusions. Unfortunately, I don't see that anyone has a very good understanding of 'energy'. People know stuff about it, but part of what we seem to know seems true because we make it true by believing in it. As a confounding issue, personally I'm not even convinced that cultivating mental power or discipline is a worthwhile pursuit. Its like building muscle mass. Its good if you need the muscle, but there's a point at which more is too much. In both cases, people tend to be limited by what they can get their bodies to do through normal exercise. But if you contrive to push past that by some special means, its not necessarily very useful or very good for you. The only kind of mental practice I do is thinking, and my favorite kind of physical exercise is physical labor. I don't meditate, and I don't even bother to dream lucidly any more. (I had an opportunity for a lucid dream a few nights ago, where I was lucid and lying on the ledge of a building, a little bit cold and afraid of falling. Instead of flying off, I just waited there until I woke up.) I just try to learn and change by thinking about my experiences, and trying to live my life in a good way. I'm not 100% sure my philosophy on this is a good one though. Its brought me as far as it has, but pretty much by definition I'll have to make adjustments if I want to go further. I can see that at some point, if you want a high degree of psychic or spiritual development, lust has got to be changed into something else. You can't kill it off, or suppress it forever, but you have to change it, find some better way of expressing the same essential drive. Likewise with aggression. Otherwise, the psychological and karmic costs, not to mention the effect that they have on one's nervous system, make many higher things impossible. For example, I don't think that the steadiness of feeling that is necessary to maintain an awareness of the full depth of one's identity is possible while indulging in those patterns. Likewise for seeing other people truly as they are. But we remain a part of a world that is dominated in certain ways by these appetites, and although we should strive for the best we are capable of, we can't completely separate ourselves from where we come from. All of my (admittedly puny) psychic power depends on my connection with those spirit that underlies nature. Maybe some of those 'higher things' must remain mostly out of reach for now, its just not the right time and place for them. Anyway, if anybody has any insights, or relevant experiences in relation to dreaming, my point here is just to get people thinking about the topic and sharing what they know.

[Sageous]

I think that celibacy in the lives of metal yogis and other high-end mystics is more a result of their dismissal of the priority of sex than it is the suppression of sex. In its consistent misunderstanding of eastern mysticism, the west has tended to see celibacy as a prerequisite for mental and spiritual development, rather than a byproduct of it. In other words, as mystical types enter new worlds of psychic experience, the importance of innate drives -- like sex and, yes, aggression -- tend to get left behind. I think Western thinking, with its materialistic priorities, has a lot of trouble understanding that. By the same token, the energy that mystics seek might be considered not incremental but complementary. They're not trying to "bulk up" on the energy nature already has provided (i.e., the energy behind lust, aggression), but are trying to develop new energy, based on esoteric things like thought and spirit. The more advanced of them really have little trouble with natural drives like sex and aggression, because they have already set them aside as a matter of course. In other words, there is no need to suppress something that is already being ignored, or has been forgotten.

[shadowofwind]

I think that celibacy in the lives of metal yogis and other high-end mystics is more a result of their dismissal of the priority of sex than it is the suppression of sex. In its consistent misunderstanding of eastern mysticism, the west has tended to see celibacy as a prerequisite for mental and spiritual development, rather than a byproduct of it. Even after accounting for what may be lost in translation, Patanjali's yoga sutras seem to be pretty clear that desire must be 'killed', and that feeling is a part of nature, not an attribute of the conscious self. So while celibacy may be a byproduct of how feeling and craving is dealt with, and not an ends in itself, it still appears to me that there's some pretty serious suppression going on, if not by that name. The extinguishing of desire isn't merely a result of having turned one's attention to higher things, in that system its a core part of how a person is supposed to get there. In other words, as mystical types enter new worlds of psychic experience, the importance of innate drives -- like sex and, yes, aggression -- tend to get left behind. I think Western thinking, with its materialistic priorities, has a lot of trouble understanding that. Your theory on this of course is true or not on its own, irrespective of which eastern or western mystics thought the same way. It doesn't seem to me work out in quite the manner the theory suggests though. Consider aggression. Its obviously a part of a hunting instinct, with social and defensive applications also. As you acquire interest and power in 'higher' things, you still have to eat. You can let other people do your killing for you, but you don't entirely escape that way. Eating meat still connects you to where it came from, and as you develop, fate finds increasingly creative ways to drag you back to that. Or you can "slaughter our animals with love" (that's an actual quote from a Christian mystic), but to me that amounts to a cultivation of emotional dishonesty, a twisting of one's thought of love that has all kinds of sick implications. Or you can become vegetarian. Getting adequate nutrition that way is a problem for many people though, depending on body type, and when and where a person lives. And even if if works for you, its still something that comes up that you have to deal with. Food may not be an insurmountable problem, and certainly its not something to be made a fetish out of, as if you can achieve enlightenment by paying attention to what you eat. But it doesn't just fade into irrelevance either. And I think that there's a psychic problem that's analogous to the food problem, but which isn't as solved as easily and as quickly as the food problem appears to be. Ramana Maharshi is said to have become so immersed in bliss at one point that ants partially ate his leg without him noticing. This is supposed to be an indication of his depth as a mahatma, and maybe one of those things that materialist westerners would have trouble understanding. I think its more indicative of a limitation of his mindset though, and my impression has been that you see this more the way that I do. We're a part of nature, and if we imagine otherwise, we delude ourselves and don't take proper care of "all that [we] are". Our higher, transcendent experiences depend on the body also, and on desire, and on feeling, even if we look away from those relationships. It seems to me that an aspirant in Patanjali's or Maharshi's tradition can make apparent progress for a while, but eventually the reality of those relationships pushes itself into the foreground again. Its like a gigantic bungee jump, you seem to have left the lower things behind, but you don't really get away. That bungee is desire. Tentatively I don't think there's anything "wrong" with it that needs "changed". It expresses as craving or as self-awareness depending on the circumstances it is in, and the mindset its related to. But it has dependencies on things that are more fundamental or physical than what mystic psychological models show. It can't be changed just by a person changing their mind about what is important. If a person tries that, results will follow which will tend to show why those formerly desired things were truly important. Then a person has got to deal with it, try to understand it better or otherwise find another approach, since the former approach wasn't getting the job done. Self-identification with the body, the root of evil in many traditions, isn't just a bad mistake, there's a good reason for it. Likewise with lust and aggression. For myself, it seems as if I'm missing some hidden ingredient that I could only get by indulging my lower desires, and the part of me that is capable of transcendent action and awareness is starving and mostly shut down. But indulging the lower desires is clearly destructive to that better part of myself also, and to other things I care about, and this is made especially clear by the circumstances I find myself in. To a significant extent I can satisfy the same need psychically, by sharing in relation to subjects that require purposeful thinking with desire and feeling, in conversation or in dreams. But I have to be careful not to behave in a manipulative or otherwise unhealthy manner psychically. And opportunities for such interactions seem to be limited. I'm not getting enough of the invisible 'water'-like stuff that sloshes between people's minds, and which I need for my deeper intuition to function. So I need to find a better solution, if there is one.

[Baron Samedi]

It's good to practice austerities to understand austerities are unnecessary.

[Sageous]

Even after accounting for what may be lost in translation, Patanjali's yoga sutras seem to be pretty clear that desire must be 'killed', and that feeling is a part of nature, not an attribute of the conscious self. So while celibacy may be a byproduct of how feeling and craving is dealt with, and not an ends in itself, it still appears to me that there's some pretty serious suppression going on, if not by that name. The extinguishing of desire isn't merely a result of having turned one's attention to higher things, in that system its a core part of how a person is supposed to get there. Fair enough... in retrospect I admit I might have skipped a step or two in my first post. Your theory on this of course is true or not on its own, irrespective of which eastern or western mystics thought the same way. It doesn't seem to me work out in quite the manner the theory suggests though. Consider aggression. Its obviously a part of a hunting instinct, with social and defensive applications also. As you acquire interest and power in 'higher' things, you still have to eat. You can let other people do your killing for you, but you don't entirely escape that way. Eating meat still connects you to where it came from, and as you develop, fate finds increasingly creative ways to drag you back to that. Or you can "slaughter our animals with love" (that's an actual quote from a Christian mystic), but to me that amounts to a cultivation of emotional dishonesty, a twisting of one's thought of love that has all kinds of sick implications. Or you can become vegetarian. Getting adequate nutrition that way is a problem for many people though, depending on body type, and when and where a person lives. And even if if works for you, its still something that comes up that you have to deal with. Food may not be an insurmountable problem, and certainly its not something to be made a fetish out of, as if you can achieve enlightenment by paying attention to what you eat. But it doesn't just fade into irrelevance either. And I think that there's a psychic problem that's analogous to the food problem, but which isn't as solved as easily and as quickly as the food problem appears to be. Agreed. However, the food problem exists only as long as the body problem exists. Remember that one of the main things the mystics (especially Tibetans, but also Hindu, Zen, and believe it or not Catholic) are working toward is the ultimate separation of their Selves from their physical forms, using new forms of energy they generate through their thoughts, meditations, dreams, and,yes, physical discipline. The food problem, and the aggression problem, and the lust problem, and the four other deadly sins' problem, I suppose, all become secondary as the end of physical life looms neared for a mystic (or pretty much anyone, if you think about it). They are focused on building up an awareness, an energy of Self, that will facilitate their transcendence from physical life, or from the wheel of life if they're Tibetan. As this focus and new, non-physical forms of energy accumulate, their attachment to that which was their physical life truly does become unimportant. Or at least it should. Ramana Maharshi is said to have become so immersed in bliss at one point that ants partially ate his leg without him noticing. This is supposed to be an indication of his depth as a mahatma, and maybe one of those things that materialist westerners would have trouble understanding. I think its more indicative of a limitation of his mindset though, and my impression has been that you see this more the way that I do. We're a part of nature, and if we imagine otherwise, we delude ourselves and don't take proper care of "all that [we] are". Our higher, transcendent experiences depend on the body also, and on desire, and on feeling, even if we look away from those relationships. It seems to me that an aspirant in Patanjali's or Maharshi's tradition can make apparent progress for a while, but eventually the reality of those relationships pushes itself into the foreground again. Agreed. There is a lot of room for self-delusion and hapless navigation in this business of mysticism -- and if you browse the "Occult" section of your local bookstore, you'll see it happens a lot -- even to the point where your own delusion of bliss (whatever that is) caused ants to eat your leg. For as long as we walk this earth, we truly are a part of nature, and must take its rules into account, no matter how high on our personal bliss, love, transcendence, rebirth, or whatever, lifts us. Also, as you note, nature's been generating energy for quite some time, and to simply eschew it because we think we're better than it is probably a mistake. Better to pursue what you want, do so with nature and her innate power as a partner, not a foe. However, nature comes in many forms, energy-wise, and sometimes it might be a good idea to step away from, or perhaps redirect, the energy of primitive drives if you want to transcend. Its like a gigantic bungee jump, you seem to have left the lower things behind, but you don't really get away. That is about the best metaphor for the mystical quest that I have ever heard, for a few reasons. First, as the jumper plummets, the energy of his fall is transferred to the bungee, but it simply stretches behind, absorbing it all while the jumper enjoys the rush. In terms of energy, nothing has really changed; it just shifted a bit. But the jumper thinks quite differently, especially as the inevitable rocks in the tiny stream below loom closer. Then the bungee releases all that energy, dragging the jumper almost back to his starting point, safely but against the will of his falling body. A couple of more tease bounces happen, but in the end the jumper finds himself floating safely above the rocks, adrenaline pumping but deeply pleased that the bungee did its job and held him securely to the bridge. I think a lot of mysticism is like that -- mystics enjoy the rush of new transcendent experience, of sampling novel energy and its byproducts (i.e., lucid dreaming, psychic powers, dream-sharing, etc), and then they deem to pronounce themselves "beyond" who they really are and from what they were made, and it all bounces back. Unfortunately, as these mystics are floating above the stream at the end of they're jump, they can't let go of their assertions, and the delusions begin. I wonder if this is where cults come from? That bungee is desire. Tentatively I don't think there's anything "wrong" with it that needs "changed". It expresses as craving or as self-awareness depending on the circumstances it is in, and the mindset its related to. But it has dependencies on things that are more fundamental or physical than what mystic psychological models show. It can't be changed just by a person changing their mind about what is important. If a person tries that, results will follow which will tend to show why those formerly desired things were truly important. Then a person has got to deal with it, try to understand it better or otherwise find another approach, since the former approach wasn't getting the job done. True. Desire alone does not work; but it does make an excellent tool -- consider maybe that desire is the bungee coiled on the deck of the bridge (or the back of the truck on the way to the bridge, maybe). Prayer, or directed desire, might fall into the same bucket. Self-identification with the body, the root of evil in many traditions, isn't just a bad mistake, there's a good reason for it. Likewise with lust and aggression. For myself, it seems as if I'm missing some hidden ingredient that I could only get by indulging my lower desires, and the part of me that is capable of transcendent action and awareness is starving and mostly shut down. But indulging the lower desires is clearly destructive to that better part of myself also, and to other things I care about, and this is made especially clear by the circumstances I find myself in. To a significant extent I can satisfy the same need psychically, by sharing in relation to subjects that require purposeful thinking with desire and feeling, in conversation or in dreams. But I have to be careful not to behave in a manipulative or otherwise unhealthy manner psychically. And opportunities for such interactions seem to be limited. I'm not getting enough of the invisible 'water'-like stuff that sloshes between people's minds, and which I need for my deeper intuition to function. So I need to find a better solution, if there is one. A very rational, balanced mind-set indeed! Perhaps too rational? Maybe a gentle break from the balance -- a leap off that bridge, if I can stretch the bungee metaphor a bit further -- is in order? Now, I don't mean giving in to your darker desires; that would be wrong and destructive to you and maybe others. But maybe just close your eyes for a minute and ignore everything. Open the door to new energy. And for me lucid dreaming is an excellent tool for this exercise... perhaps not the better solution itself, but a marker on the path to it. Finally, could you tell us more about the " invisible 'water'-like stuff that sloshes between people's minds?" I'm not sure I understand what you mean, and I have a feeling it's important -- and certainly relevant to this thread.

[shadowofwind]

the food problem exists only as long as the body problem exists. Remember that one of the main things the mystics (especially Tibetans, but also Hindu, Zen, and believe it or not Catholic) are working toward is the ultimate separation of their Selves from their physical forms, using new forms of energy they generate through their thoughts, meditations, dreams, and,yes, physical discipline. So the food problem goes away if they're right about being able to separate from their physical forms. Are they right? This is what I was getting at with the bungee metaphor. I think they're wrong on two counts. First problem is they ignore the dependence of their minds on their physical bodies. They realize that their 'awareness of the body' is an image in their minds, so from that they conclude that the body itself is like an image in their minds. They seem mostly unaware of the fact that what a person experiences as their body is only a mental representation of their physical body - they don't make that distinction. So then when they have an experience that doesn't include an image of the body, they assume that the experience is independent of the body. They don't seem to realize that their ability to have the experience may still be quite dependent on the body. We see this fallacy when people assume they're not using their physical brain while astral projecting, or that their awareness of heaven in a transcendent state does not depend on having a physical brain. They may not be conscious of making that assumption, but they draw conclusions which depend on it. How can their ideas about what is ultimately possible be credible when they're clearly confused about experiences we have now? Second problem is that even if it is possible for the mind to exist apart from the body, its still subject to a lot of the same kinds of limitations. Do they have memory in their transcendent state? If so, that's practically synonymous with matter, they're talking about a kind of matter. Is their new, higher kind of matter subject to problems like increasing entropy? If so, then they have a food problem. If not, why not, and how can they tell, and what are the conditions that need to be met? These kinds of questions are almost uniformly met with an ideological response - they haven't actually come to terms with these issues. Even if the food problem does have an answer, its still a problem for us, because we do not have that answer. My view is that a transcendent entity still has a physical brain of some sort. It may be very fluid, distributed, and intangible compared to our brains, but its still a brain, and its still dependent on some kind of matter. And from what I've seen, possession of such a brain does not automatically solve our moral difficulties. To the contrary, the gods and masters that men are in contact with are as mixed up as we are. So if there is a solution it requires a different development in understanding, the traditional mystic assumptions about transcending matter aren't adequate. Such is how it appears to me anyway.

[Sageous]

No, as I thought I had said above, the food problem goes away when their physical bodies die… Which I think brings me to the crux of our “disagreement” here. I’ve reread all of our posts, and have found that we are almost always in some sort of agreement, yet the tone and tenor of both our posts seem to breathe disagreement and a need to prove our particular “side.” That confused me at first, probably because of my thick skull, but I think I’ve figured it out: on this thread, and in past exchanges, we seem to have but one disagreement: Your view of human sentient existence is finite, mine is eternal. The rest is just words, I think, but it all comes down to that. By explanation, and since it’s loosely relevant to this thread, I’ll respond to some of your points below in the hope of making mine: So the food problem goes away if they're right about being able to separate from their physical forms. Are they right? Yes, because almost to a mystic these folks assume that the body is survived (and, usually, preceded) by a soul, and most of their work involves transcending to the level of that soul without waiting to die. The sincere among them acknowledge that a byproduct of this transcendence is, perhaps ironically, the death of their physical form. The insincere who think that they get to transcend while keeping/ignoring their physical form are the ones left hanging on the end of the bungee. So: This is what I was getting at with the bungee metaphor. I understood the bungee metaphor, and I tried to expand upon it, not redefine it. I agree 100% with you that the mortal coil is a real thing, and we are beholden to our brains and their physical requirements until the day our hearts stop beating. So do the sincere mystics! What I was pointing out was that the mystics were stretching the bungee with the weight of this new energy they were generating with their perceived transcendent behavior, but nature is always connected to them, and that energy is eventually dissipated because the transcendence never occurred -- if it had, the bungee would have snapped, and other monks would be sweeping the remains of the mystic's abandoned former body off the rocks below. I think they're wrong on two counts. First problem is they ignore the dependence of their minds on their physical bodies. They realize that their 'awareness of the body' is an image in their minds, so from that they conclude that the body itself is like an image in their minds. They seem mostly unaware of the fact that what a person experiences as their body is only a mental representation of their physical body - they don't make that distinction. So then when they have an experience that doesn't include an image of the body, they assume that the experience is independent of the body. They don't seem to realize that their ability to have the experience may still be quite dependent on the body. We see this fallacy when people assume they're not using their physical brain while astral projecting, or that their awareness of heaven in a transcendent state does not depend on having a physical brain. They may not be conscious of making that assumption, but they draw conclusions which depend on it. How can their ideas about what is ultimately possible be credible when they're clearly confused about experiences we have now? Agreed, again 100%. It reminds me of the semi-mystics who assume that nothing is real, to whom I usually respond, "Then go step out in front of that approaching unreal truck." And those who think as you illustrated have ideas that are not ultimately credible, because that confusion is real, and I believe leads to an old age addled with delusion, no transcendence, and lots of followers (since the deluded do the most talking). However, mystics who think that way are confused, not right. What about the rest of them? Are all mystics wrong because a (very large) group of them are deluded? I'm not sure that follows. Second problem is that even if it is possible for the mind to exist apart from the body, its still subject to a lot of the same kinds of limitations. Do they have memory in their transcendent state? If so, that's practically synonymous with matter, they're talking about a kind of matter. Is their new, higher kind of matter subject to problems like increasing entropy? If so, then they have a food problem. If not, why not, and how can they tell, and what are the conditions that need to be met? These kinds of questions are almost uniformly met with an ideological response - they haven't actually come to terms with these issues. Even if the food problem does have an answer, its still a problem for us, because we do not have that answer. Here is where our real difference finally occurred to me. I think you are applying theory of mind to transcendence. First, why should the transcended have memory in a transcendent state? Just because we do? Who knows? An eternal soul might exist in the "here and now" forever, with no sense of its former identity because that simply does not matter. That is counter-intuitive, I know, because identity is formed in humans by memory, and to abandon identity in the name of transcendence doesn't sound like much of an advancement. I personally don't agree with that last thought, but I thought it needed to be pointed out that the whole point of transcendence, indeed, the very definition of transcendence, is a movement to a new, unprecedented form of existence. Also by definition, transcendental experiences cannot be defined or explained because there is no human metaphor available to draw upon. So take the words of anyone who claims to have transcended with a grain of salt. I have no idea if memory is matter -- I'd list it more in the energy department myself -- but I am also very confident that, if these higher states of existence do exist, then the "food problem" has probably been handled as well. Given that the entire universe is energy, I am sure that a savvy soul can tap it in in some manner that doesn't require hitting the Save-Mart for a can of beans. In other words, "they" don't come to terms with these issues because the issues likely will not exist, at least not in the same way they do now. Is that enough of an ideological response? My view is that a transcendent entity still has a physical brain of some sort. It may be very fluid, distributed, and intangible compared to our brains, but its still a brain, and its still dependent on some kind of matter. I cannot disagree with that, because it simply makes sense in an unprovable anthropomorphic sort of way. Again, though, I would switch out "matter" with "energy," since energy is the foundation of existence in this universe, with matter as one of its by-products. That human brains draw their energy from matter does not mean that a transcended brain must do the same. So, I think it would be safer to say that that surviving "brain" would be an energy-based engine for consciousness, regardless of fuel. And from what I've seen, possession of such a brain does not automatically solve our moral difficulties. To the contrary, the gods and masters that men are in contact with are as mixed up as we are. So if there is a solution it requires a different development in understanding, the traditional mystic assumptions about transcending matter aren't adequate. Such is how it appears to me anyway. Who said transcendence would solve our moral difficulties? Not me. In fact, I'd be concerned about an increase of moral difficulty with transcendence, assuming that transcendence includes an increase in awareness, power, and interaction with other, very different beings -- plenty of opportunity to be mixed up! I apparently have little interest in the "traditional mystic assumptions about transcending matter" because they seem to be inadequate indeed! Bottom line, Shadowofwind, I think we are more in agreement on the mechanics of this stuff than not. It is our perspectives that differ wildly, which I do not see as a bad thing at all. Think about it. Whether you are right and the mind ceases to exist with the death of the body, or I am right and the mind has opportunity to move past the body in some other energy-based form, we both seem in an excellent position to understand the truth when it is finally revealed to us. Or we'll be dead, and it won't matter anyway. So enough about food problems. You named this thread generative power -- can I ask again about that " invisible 'water'-like stuff that sloshes between people's minds?" again? It sounds worth exploring, and very relevant.

[shadowofwind]

I think most of the apparent difference in perspective is a matter of semantics. But I'll say something about semantics anyway, since slight issues in that area can have a real influence on perspective also. When I say 'memory', I'm using the word in a physics more than a psychological sense, though they're essentially the same concept. A particle has memory because its present state is not entirely independent of its previous state. It appears to me that when people talk about 'matter', the property that they're referring to is a kind of memory. When people speak of 'energy' as if it has a reality apart from matter, I assume they're drawing a contrast with a more ridged or primitive thought of what matter is. It appears to me that what they think of as energy is actually what matter is like, which I guess is what they are trying to communicate if they say that 'everything is energy'. The word 'energy', as used technically, is more of a mathematical accounting device for a kind of invariance than it is an aetheric substance. I was careful not to suggest that transcendent states must have memory. I asked if they do, and said that if they do, that implies something like matter. Clearly a lot of people's transcendent states do involve something like memory though, based on their descriptions. For those that don't, the same objections don't apply. Part of why I picked the food example is I think its closely analogous to other moral problems also, including ones that most people don't think of as being physical in nature. 'Man does not live on bread alone.' For example, in what sense is loneliness like hunger? Almost invariably, the nature of loneliness is explained (at least by scientific types) in terms of natural selection, as if the 'how it came to be that way' sociological story completely covers the issue. According to these descriptions, the experience of loneliness has no real meaning except insofar as acting to diminish it tends to correlate with higher chances of gene survival. So if your children are thriving, and you still feel lonely, the feeling can be viewed almost as a sensor malfunction. I think there's a fallacy here similar to the one that I exhibited when I dismissed the reality of astral projection based on having recognized it as the manipulation of a mental model. In whatever sense we have souls, our souls still have needs even after the physical, gene-transmissive requirements are satisfied. And our attempts to satisfy those needs account for an awful lot of our moral problems, if not all of them. And those needs do not necessarily go away when we free ourselves from bodily concerns, if indeed that is possible. The most advanced mystics I have seen evidence of, even if they are ostensibly asexual, still appear to me to spend a lot of effort trying to satisfy emotional needs that aren't entirely different from what motivates people in relation to sex. Its true that we shouldn't smear the best mystics with the failings of the worst ones. My hypothesis is that there is a large gap between theory and reality for every mystic, not just most of them. And its not that they're falling short of some ultimately achievable or even asymptotically approachable ideal. I think that the reason they're falling short is not that they're not aspiring sincerely enough, or haven't been at it for long enough, but because their highest ideals don't actually entirely make sense. I think their difficulties and hypocrisies are because their theories are underpinned by fallacies. So what I'm trying to do is re-evaluate everything freshly, and find how to reform the ideas so that they make more sense. I said "the food problem goes away if they're right about being able to separate from their physical forms. Are they right?" You replied "yes because almost to a mystic these folks assume that the body is survived (and, usually, preceded) by a soul". I didn't ask what assumption they are making, I asked if their assumption is right. The crux of the question here is in what sense the 'soul' can be said to be 'before', 'during', or 'after' the body, and in what sense its none of those, on account of not being a temporal kind of thing like that. My tentative position is that there's a false premise in the question 'what happens to your soul when you are dead'. I think life is sort of by definition a time when things are happening to your soul. When I say that I am not suggesting that the soul is not eternal. I am suggesting that you might not be able to have time-like experiences without some kind of body. I'm not primarily concerned with what may or may not happen after death though. What I care about is life, the present moment and the future of our world, and many of the same issues are involved. More on water soon.

[shadowofwind]

Your view of human sentient existence is finite, mine is eternal. I guess I'm not seeing this. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I don't understand what you mean. I view existence sort of like Fatou dust. Its 'finite' in the sense that its real within a certain context, but its both infinite and eternal in other regards. The complex plane (the 2-dimensional Euclidean metric space) with all its properties is eternal. Can it be destroyed? It can not. Though there may be realms or contexts where it can't be conceived of. I think I'm eternal in pretty much the same sense. Currently people live on the earth, but not on the moon. If you consider where water and carbon animals might exist in the universe, they're scattered widely, physically disconnected, bounded within countless small regions, and bounded in time, at least within any particular region. Furthermore if you zoom in persistently and try to pin down its essence, you find nothing to measure. All you find that way is blind cause and chance. (If you're not familiar with Fatou dust, its akin to the Cantor set in that regard.) But life is real, and also infinite and connected in a deep way, even where it is disconnected geometrically. And I'm not aware that anything is ever destroyed in any ultimate sense. When did you ride a bicycle? When you had a bicycle. If you lose your bicycle, you can't ride that bicycle any more. But that doesn't amount to a bicycle apocalypse, where there can be no more bicycles. For that you would not only have to destroy all thoughts of bicycles, you would have to destroy all possibility of such thoughts ever arising, anywhere. The physical vs spiritual or matter vs energy questions seem to me to be beside the point. Everything amounts to a mess of interrelationships, no matter what you call it. If you entertain a thought for a long time, and then you tire of it and start thinking in another way, are you still you? I think there's a sense in which the old you has died and a new you is born. How can you change and grow if you can not let go of the old you? And yet, the old you is not lost to eternity. And somewhere a part of someone is like the old you, with a kindredness that you may even have felt. Like the Fatou dust, I don't think our everyday experience is even possible without such affinities, an infinite wealth of almost nonexistent experiences all joined together in essence. I don't see how talking about incorporeal beings is essentially different from talking about animals. Actually I don't even see how 'finite' and 'infinite' are fundamentally different - a simple transformation maps one to the other. Is there a difference between existing for an instant and existing for an eternity and never changing? I don't see the difference. The only things that seem to change are the interrelationships, and that stays the same also. I'm not sure I can even find the finite vs eternal question that we're talking about.

[shadowofwind]

I think the 'water' I refer to is the experience of the ebb and flow of thought between different minds. Possibly there's nothing physically there, no mysterious astral liquid, but the fluidity of it describes the dynamics of how it behaves. And it is mysterious in the sense that it is not something that we understand very well, or that can be accounted for by existing physics models. I had a dream a couple of nights ago that suggests that there's a tradeoff between my need of this 'water' experience, and the need of my subconscious for some kind of informational nourishment. Maybe another way of saying that is my 'water' need is in tension with other needs that I'm not as aware of. I'm pretty much certain that the recent decrease in my exotic dream experiences is intentional on the part of my subconscious, and its for what it/I perceive as my own good. Its like changing the water temperature for a fish. Might be good, might be bad, and the shock of changing it too fast might be either good or bad depending on if the fish needs a shock. I think the really strong lucid experiences sort of amount to a kind of shock like that. Like I said, there's an interrelational aspect to this water stuff, since I'm sensing it in relation to other minds. I also feel something like that in relation to nature, as if there is thought in the earth also. Though I don't feel this as strongly in the part of California where I live now.

[mowglycdb]

austeries and desires are unecesary, but if you feel them, you shouldn't resist, when you understand, those things fall away by themselves. Resisting your desires is an action of ego.

[shadowofwind]

austeries and desires are unecesary, but if you feel them, you shouldn't resist, when you understand, those things fall away by themselves. Resisting your desires is an action of ego. So, if I feel like raping someone, I should not resist that urge, because resisting would be an action of ego? Or is an exception made because that action might harm someone else? If so, has it occurred to you that other less extreme actions on my part could also hurt other people, as well as myself? Your response appears to be an ideological assertion. I see that it contains an element of truth, but as a whole I don't see how it can be reconciled very well with reality.

[mowglycdb]

So, if I feel like raping someone, I should not resist that urge, because resisting would be an action of ego? Resisting a feeling/desire is diferent from resisting the action involved in it. example: I feel like raping "this" person, No! I shouldn't feel like this! ( this is what I didn't explain well ), I meant blocking or supressing feelings is what's wrong. You let the feelings flow, you love them because they're a part of you, and then you think of something else, if it doesn't work something is creating these feelings/thoughts, and you oughto figure out why, so you don't end up doing something stupid. though resisting your desires is an action of ego, that's true, and stoping yourself also, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or right.