Joseph Maynor

Is there any other way besides direct experience?

Could one have anger that doesn't result from attachment to ego or the self?

Everybody getting angry, even neo-advaita people who deny anger. I've seen it. And everyone arguing about spirituality, which shows a criticism sourced from anger that does not necessarily originate from ego. If you weren't angry you wouldn't criticize anything, and you wouldn't mock anything.

I think the solution is to pay attention to when you feel anger and try to find the message behind the anger. See if it always involves ego.

This is exactly what I'm challenging.

I agree there are people who are in the habit of blaming outward for their feeling of stress and this can punish them and others like a death of a thousand cuts kind of thing. This should be avoided because there might no end to this. It depends on the relationship too.

I see it more as a range of creation broadening than wanting to locate a final fixed stage. But even that is just a pointer.

There's a kind of phoniness sometimes with nondual teachings, although there doesn't have to be. It's a good pointer, but more needs to be taken account of IMO, and it's not a final stage on the path, unless you create it to be, then you will loop here and that's okay too.

Interesting. But the statement X probability is reasonable to accept still obeys the true vs. false dichotomy.

I don't know if I have a single worldview. I see worldviews on a spectrum of personal development. But I'm conscious when I'm speaking to one or glossing more than one stance. I see it as more of a set of worldviews that exist rather than one right one, except I also need the right one for me, or at least I strive for that. But the creative effort there I acknowledge is as much artistry as it is a stable camping site if that makes sense. Of course people will challenge this in the worst possible way. But I'm sharing some of my deeper thoughts to try to inspire others to open up their investigation more.

This is a very advanced and key question. I would frame it like this, to what degree do I create reality? How do we unpack that question to give an answer in pointer form in language. And then contemplate the issue of manipulation and to what extent is that good or bad in relation to The Divine.

I just answered your question, it wasn't directed at you personally. I was riffing off your question basically and expressing in a general way. It's conscious creating at a higher level, but that gets into Beauty and we're discussing Truth here with slight leanings into Love.

I take issue with the emotional scale. I've had many conversations about this with people who follow Abraham Hicks' works, and the people who buy into that mentality they're in it full bore, so I've determined thru the school of hard knocks literally that there is nothing I could say to convince them otherwise. And I respect that stubbornness to a degree. I don't make a distinction between a feeling or emotion, they're both words pointing to the same thing. I don't like the higher vs. lower emotions thing -- It's kind of analogous to thinking there are higher vs. lower thoughts. "Wellness" is interesting because what constitutes wellness? One insight I have is all emotions have a cognitive component, Spinoza talks about this which influenced me. So the thing to do is not try to force thoughts or emotions, but to allow them to be part of the Modes of God/Nature, unless they are caused by confused ideas like egoic passions (as he terms them). To try to force something to be is a kind of erroneous thought or passive affect of the finite wanting to be the Whole, unless it comes from confused ideas or confused understanding of the Whole. And often you'll get a backlash doing this too: E.g. trying not to feel angry leads to weird explosions. You're trying to judge and repress something that is part of God/Nature instead of contemplating what the thought associated with that emotion is, and determining if it is caused by lack of Understanding or not. But if Intuition is had, which is Pure Knowing of God/Nature, the emotions felt in extension or body and in thought or mind are Good. In other words to try to overcontrol one's emotions without Understanding is seen to be a form of confused ideas and confused passive emotions from thinking that God/Nature's emotions are not ok to exist the way they do when they are active emotions, or emotions liberated from the problem of egoic distortion. So it's more nuanced than anger is bad. Spinoza would say if anger is an active affect or active emotion, it is Good.