The Truth

[Inliytened1]

On 3/22/2024 at 1:25 PM, Carl-Richard said:

You don't think religions teach direct experience? Don't confuse the concept of Religion with actual Religion.

No I don't.  

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, TheSelf said:

No it wasn't about me, not even partially lol, why would I want to have a discussion about myself?

Also I didn't say I'm spiritual, did I?

You surely know a lot about something you have supposedly no affiliation with.

 

9 hours ago, TheSelf said:

I don't practice at all, why would I want to practice, to achieve what?

Do you take psychedelics?

Edited March 29 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

No I don't.  

No awake religious individuals have ever existed?

[zurew]

9 hours ago, TheSelf said:

No it's not random,

And a meditation technique won't directly produce an awakening, basically all the techniques is just to help control the wandering mind, once the mind is controled then the practices should be droped (cause as long as you are doing something the mind is in operative state and in order to see the reality behind the mind which is awakening, all doings should be droped), a real meditation begins here when you totally drop all the techniques to realize you are meditation in your nature, you see the light of awareness which is you behind all the experiences, you become conscious of your self for the first time ever and awakening as deep as this causes the structure of the ego-mind to collapse, you see something you've never seen before, your absolute true self as "The Reality", "Awarness", "Consciousness", "The Self".

Okay, so your take is that certain methods can help one or push one to get there. How do you know that thats the case, epistemically speaking?

---

Just to be clear (Im not suggesting that you are wrong), the reason why I ask is because that take seem to be a belief (the same way religious people have beliefs about what method or technique will produce or can help you the best to have an awakening). So that would be a similarity between religious and spiritual people, unless you can provide a symmetry breaker (differentiate the two  in a relevant way)

 

10 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Yes and no. It is a form of becoming conscious, like an insight. Then you've got direct consciousness which is about realizing the absolute. But they could be used interchangeably when the word direct is put before the words experience or consciousness.

For the sake of understanding this kind of language in a more precise manner - Can you become directly conscious of things that are not absolute? So for example, would you use that language to describe causal events like "I became directly conscious of what healed my relationship with my family members or I became directly conscious of what is the cure for a specific illness".

[TheSelf]

6 minutes ago, zurew said:

Okay, so your take is that certain methods can help one or push one to get there. How do you know that thats the case, epistemically speaking?

I know that because I went through the process and experienced it for myself.

8 minutes ago, zurew said:

Just to be clear (Im not suggesting that you are wrong), the reason why I ask is because that take seem to be a belief

Thats where you are wrong,

You came to me, asked for help, I gave you some techniques that worked on me and might have work on you, I didn't ask you to believe it, you can expermint with it, if it resonates with you, you can continue if not you welcome to leave.

As simple as that.

Based on what logic this looks like a relegion to you and @Carl-Richard God knows.

See it this way, 

You wanna learn how to draw, you go to a master and ask him to help you in anyway (teach you, giving you techniques etc) is the master a relegious figure by doing this and you are joining his relegion??!!

This is ridiculous guys.

[TheSelf]

33 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You surely claim to know a lot about something you have supposedly no affiliation with.

Are you indirectly asking then who am I?!

49 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Do you take psychedelics?

No

[zurew]

1 hour ago, TheSelf said:

Thats where you are wrong,

You came to me, asked for help, I gave you some techniques that worked on me and might have work on you, I didn't ask you to believe it, you can expermint with it, if it resonates with you, you can continue if not you welcome to leave.

As simple as that.

I didn't say that you are religious, I also didnt say that you said that I have to believe it.

All I tried to say is that the seeker has certain beliefs too - The seeker has the belief that there is such a thing as awakening, the seeker also has the belief that certain methods can get him to awakening and awakening doesn't happen completely randomly.

1 hour ago, TheSelf said:

I know that because I went through the process and experienced it for myself.

You retrospectively know. When you started as a seeker you had to have some faith in the method , otherwise you wouldn't have done it.

1 hour ago, TheSelf said:

See it this way, 

You wanna learn how to draw, you go to a master and ask him to help you in anyway (teach you, giving you techniques etc) is the master a relegious figure by doing this and you are joining his relegion??!!

No you arent joining his religion and no one is claiming that. No one said that teaching methods is a sufficient criteria alone for someone to be a religious leader/figure.

All that was pointed out is that one of your differentiation regarding spiritual and religious people doesn't seem to work (specifically the one where one have faith in the methods/techniques).

Responding to the drawing analogy - when you start, you have no idea what method will actually teach you how to draw. All you have is a master who can demonstrate that he can draw, but you have no knowledge whether the techniques that he teaches will get you there or not.

 

Edited March 29 by zurew

[TheSelf]

39 minutes ago, zurew said:

I didn't say that you are religious, I also didnt say that you said that I have to believe it.

All I tried to say is that the seeker has certain beliefs too - The seeker has the belief that there is such a thing as awakening, the seeker also has the belief that certain methods can get him to awakening and awakening doesn't happen completely randomly.

These kind of beliefs doesn't have relegious beliefs kind of weight, consequences, scope, and isn' certainly equal at all.

You can have no beliefs at all and just come and expermint with it with an open mind.

It's like saying you have to have faith that drinking water will quench your thurst! Yes and no right? 

39 minutes ago, zurew said:

You retrospectively know. When you started as a seeker you had to have some faith in the method , otherwise you wouldn't have done it.

Again not similar to relegious beliefs.

39 minutes ago, zurew said:

All that was pointed out is that one of your differentiation regarding spiritual and religious people doesn't seem to work (specifically the one where one have faith in the methods/techniques).

You don't need to have any faiths, but you are curious and have an open mind, you directly going to experiment with the methods and verify them for yourself without necessary holding any beliefs that these methods will get you what you want.

39 minutes ago, zurew said:

Responding to the drawing analogy - when you start, you have no idea what method will actually teach you how to draw. All you have is a master who can demonstrate that he can draw, but you have no knowledge whether the techniques that he teaches will get you there or not.

Exactly, same thing can be said that applies for spirituality.

Edited March 29 by TheSelf

[zurew]

@TheSelf okay, so would you define the seeker or the spiritual person as a completely agnostic person (who doesn't have any beliefs at all regarding awakening, and regarding what methods will produce awakening) ?

[zurew]

7 minutes ago, TheSelf said:

It's like saying you have to have faith that drinking water will quench your thurst! Yes and no right? 

Well regarding that - Imagine you are completely agnostic about what can elevate your thirst (meaning , you are not giving any method any more weight compared to other methods).

In that scenario it would mean, that you have an infinite number of methods to choose from and you will choose completely randomly from that infinite set of methods, because you have no belief at all what has a higher chance of solving the problem.

 

I don't thnk this maps onto what most spiritual people or seekers are. They follow a very clear pattern of behaviour and they start trying out certain methods over others.

[TheSelf]

Just now, zurew said:

@TheSelf okay, so would you define the seeker or the spiritual person as a completely agnostic person (who doesn't have any beliefs at all regarding awakening, and regarding what methods will produce awakening) ?

You can form beliefs about anything in life.

[zurew]

One another thing that might be worth to clear up (this is for everyone in the thread who wants to engage with this)

How do you differentiate between belief, knowledge and direct experience? (assuming you differentiate at all)

Edited March 29 by zurew

[TheSelf]

11 minutes ago, zurew said:

Well regarding that - Imagine you are completely agnostic about what can elevate your thirst (meaning , you are not giving any method any more weight compared to other methods).

In that scenario it would mean, that you have an infinite number of methods to choose from and you will choose completely randomly from that infinite set of methods, because you have no belief at all what has a higher chance of solving the problem.

Please read my responses again,

It's not about having beliefs or being completely agnostic, the relegious beliefs does have their own unique kind weight, scope and consequences to them.

Why you don't compare the relegious beliefs to a scientists beliefs for example? Or to any other beliefs people have about anything else in life?

Edited March 29 by TheSelf

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, TheSelf said:

Are you indirectly asking then who am I?!

As predicted, you're getting quite evasive, but that's ok. We don't have to continue.

 

2 hours ago, TheSelf said:

No

Do you watch Leo's videos? 😂

[TheSelf]

2 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

As predicted, you're getting quite evasive, but that's ok. We don't have to continue.

Again I'm not sure how talking about me personally would help you or anyone following this discussion.

If you've read my responces in this thread carefully then you already should have ideas about where I'm stand in my path.

Yes I did meditate, Self-inquery, and experminted with the spiritual practices and methods in the past.

[zurew]

@TheSelf Im not sure im tracking whats our disagreement about right now.

Do you try to say, that having beliefs about awakening and methods regarding awakening doesn't necessarily mean that that person is religious? Or in other words, do you try to communicate, that just because someone has beliefs about awakening and methods regarding awakening, it doesn't mean that that person can't be categorized as a seeker or spiritual person?

Also are you trying to say that you differentiate between religious and spiritual beliefs and if so, my question would be how?

[TheSelf]

@zurew Did you follow the discussion @UnbornTao and I had with @Carl-Richard from the beginning of this discussion? If yes, let me know what you think.

I'm not interested to repeat this whole discussion again.

Specially my answers were very clear to you about the nature of beliefs.

Edited March 29 by TheSelf

[zurew]

7 minutes ago, TheSelf said:

@zurew Did you follow the discussion @UnbornTao and I had with @Carl-Richard from the beginning of this discussion? If yes, let me know what you think.

I'm not interested to repeat this whole discussion again.

Yep and thats why I jumped in, and I don't think that you have answered any of those questions in this thread that I asked above. 

The whole point of this discussion was to see how strong the line is between religion and spirituality and you tried to make arguments to make that line thicker and we pushed back to show that that line is much thinner that most people here think.

Most attempts to differentiate between the two failed, because most of those things are applicable to spiritual people as well.

 

The fact of the matter is that a lot of people here try to make that line thicker because they think they are more intelligent or more conscious than religious people (this is another thing that most of you probably picked up unconsciously from Leo, without contemplating any of these things yourselves). Its basically seem to be motivated reasoning to feel superior or better without acknowledgeing that most of those criticisms are applicable to the approach that you guys use as well.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, TheSelf said:

Again I'm not sure how talking about me personally would help you or anyone following this discussion.

If you've read my responces in this thread carefully then you already should have ideas about where I'm stand in my path.

You seem very passionate about spirituality. I would appreciate more of your insights.

 

3 hours ago, TheSelf said:

Yes I did meditate, Self-inquery, and experminted with the spiritual practices and methods in the past.

Why did you do these things?

Edited March 29 by Carl-Richard

[Ishanga]

4 hours ago, zurew said:

One another thing that might be worth to clear up (this is for everyone in the thread who wants to engage with this)

How do you differentiate between belief, knowledge and direct experience? (assuming you differentiate at all)

Belief - Picked up information from sources other than Yourself (books, video's, news, papers, other ppl relating stories) related to some sort of ideology, religion, political group/system or situation happening somewhere..

Knowledge - something I know via having used/been there, in either in a physical way (think marital arts training, it first is a concept, then you train then use it), or mental way (I don't know math, I learn math, then I use math), or something I have learning via experience, like driving in Toronto, I know it is shit driving experience because I drive it everyday for years, I know what is it via my experience of it..

Direct Experience - usually associated with Spiritual Knowing and such, its a direct experience of Bliss, or Oneness/Completeness, indescribable, it can be described but the person/s listening will not relate to it unless they themselves have had a direct experience, think of a woman describing to a man what it is like to give birth, the man can relate to what she says, the pain of the labor, the pushing and such but he will never know the direct experience of having a baby and going thru the process of it, which is a different level of intensity of Experience..