How Do You Know the Ontological Status of Reality is a Dream

[Joseph Maynor]

Do you see that the premise question: What is reality made out of?  is ridiculous?  There is a metaphor right in that question.  You start the search for thought with thought.  Reality is not a cake.  Asking what reality is made out of is a problematic premise to start with.  Do you see?

G.E. Moore, a Western Philosopher, famously stated that most of the errors in Philosophy result from a bad starting question.  We get perplexed by a foolish question and get more lost by trying to answer it.  Meanwhile, reality carries on undisturbed and ignored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore

Edited February 12, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Natasha]

@Joseph Maynor

"How Do You Know the Ontological Status of Reality is a Dream?"

By direct experience of no-self. Without a dreamer there can't be a dream. It's a dream only to a dreamer.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Natasha

[Faceless]

Any abstraction is a manifestation of reality itself. Abstractions are limited, conditioned, relative, and interdependent with the observer/thought...As I have said before what ever thought thinks about and reflects is a reality. We only know reality through abstractions. What we see is conditioned. 

Edited February 12, 2018 by Faceless

[Shanmugam]

27 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Do you see that the premise question: What is reality made out of?  is ridiculous?  There is a metaphor right in that question.  You start the search for thought with thought.  Reality is not a cake.  Asking what reality is made out of is a problematic premise to start with.  Do you see?

G.E. Moore, a Western Philosopher, famously stated that most of the errors in Philosophy result from a bad starting question.  We get perplexed by a foolish question and get more lost by trying to answer it.  Meanwhile, reality carries on undisturbed and ignored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore

This comes from a basic misunderstanding of what enlightenment is.. Yes, I think most of us saw your question and your reference to 'ontology'... But this forum is not for philosophy.. The words used by me and many other people here are not for literal, intellectual contemplation. They are just devices for the direct experience of truth. 

You can find forums related to philosophy where all the subtopics under philosophy can be deeply discussed. In the path of enlightenment, certain philosophical concepts like epistemology have value.. In fact, when people talk about knowing something through 'direct experience', they do talk about a means of knowledge which is also discussed in epistemology. Other than that, intellectual contemplation really takes you nowhere when it comes to the spiritual path.

My point is, your question has a validity in philosophy but people in the spiritual path are usually more inclined to answer it in the ways which you witnessed in the answers.  If you want to discuss philosophy, try suggesting Leo to open a new sub-forum for philosophy... (Just a suggestion)

[Natasha]

3 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

try suggesting Leo to open a new sub-forum for philosophy... (Just a suggestion)

There was a Philosophy sub-forum here, Leo removed it last year.

4 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

when people talk about knowing something through 'direct experience', they do talk about a means of knowledge which is also discussed in epistemology. 

 Yes. The 'dreamer' is what is to be questioned here. At the absence of  the 'dreamer', the issue with the dream would just naturally fall away.

[Joseph Maynor]

You could use the belief that 'reality is a dream' as a counter-weight paradigm to the paradigm that reality it is not a dream -- thus leading the student to suspend belief on either paradigm.  That's how I tend to interpret these counter-weight theories.  Some of you tend to want to believe these counter-weight theories quite literally, which is a fault in my view.  We're trying to get people to SUSPEND clinging tightly to belief-paradigms and ideology in general.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Shanmugam]

@Joseph Maynor Since you are more inclined towards philosophy, let me talk about Rene Descartes, the most misunderstood man in spiritual circles.. He made a statement 'I think, therefore I am' which is kind of wrong translation of the original Latin phrase 'cogito ergo sum'.. By this statement, he meant that you can doubt the existence of anything and you would never know if they actually exist. But to doubt the existence of anything, there needs to be 'doubter'. In other words, there is no way to deny your own existence but you can possibly deny the existence of anything else... Who is the You, which is undeniable? That is where self-inquiry starts..   

[Shanmugam]

1 minute ago, Joseph Maynor said:

  Some of you tend to want to believe these theories literally, which is a fault in my view.

 

You are right! But there is a difference between believing something and knowing something through direct experience.. Until you know it through direct experience, just believing it is not encouraged. People are only asked to be open to this idea and practice self-inquiry/meditation until they know it through direct experience. 

[Faceless]

@Joseph Maynor

Not saying we must not be be rational, logical, and reasonable. But we must know the limits of what thought/the thinker puts together. We don’t simply refuse to be rational, logical, and reasonable it’s just that  we must be aware of limited nature of these tools. We must also see that we/self are a construction of these tools. 

[Shanmugam]

8 minutes ago, Natasha said:

There was a Philosophy sub-forum here, Leo removed it last year.

 Yes. The 'dreamer' is what is to be questioned here. At the absence of  the 'dreamer', the issue with the dream would just naturally fall away.

oh ok. I didn't know that there was one such sub-forum..  

[Faceless]

4 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

@Joseph Maynor Since you are more inclined towards philosophy, let me talk about Rene Descartes, the most misunderstood man in spiritual circles.. He made a statement 'I think, therefore I am' which is kind of wrong translation of the original Latin phrase 'cogito ergo sum'.. By this statement, he meant that you can doubt the existence of anything and you would never know if they actually exist. But to doubt the existence of anything, there needs to be 'doubter'. In other words, there is no way to deny your own existence but you can possibly deny the existence of anything else... Who is the You, which is undeniable? That is where self-inquiry starts..   

There is thought therefore I am

[snowleopard]

@Shanmugam  I've found the core teaching of Buddhism to be consistent with non-dual idealism, as an ontological model.  Notwithstanding the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching, is there not some validity in conceiving an ontological model to replace materialism as the basis of a collective ethos, even if ultimately idealism too can only be 'true enough under the circumstances' -- until such time that some kind of collective realization would render it redundant?

[Shanmugam]

13 minutes ago, Faceless said:

@Joseph Maynor

Not saying we must not be be rational, logical, and reasonable. But we must know the limits of what thought/the thinker puts together. We don’t simply refuse to be rational, logical, and reasonable it’s just that  we must be aware of limited nature of these tools. We must also see that we/self are a construction of these tools. 

When I was 8 years old, I heard about 'sex' for the very first time and I came to know that babies are actually born this way.. Before that, I used to ask my grandma 'If God is putting the child inside a woman's womb, how come only married  women give birth to a child?' and she said 'because God knows who is married'  ..

But when a boy who was a little older than me explained what sex is, I couldn't believe it. I asked some adults that I knew. They laughed and said that 'married people have sex almost every day'... I asked them 'Why?, just doing it once is not enough for pregnancy?'...  But I never understood why they do it until I experienced sexual attraction directly when I was an adolescent. That cleared all my doubts.. 

@Joseph Maynor Try applying this as a metaphor to spiritual enlightenment.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Shanmugam

[Shanmugam]

6 minutes ago, snowleopard said:

@Shanmugam  I've found the core teaching of Buddhism to be consistent with non-dual idealism, as an ontological model.  Notwithstanding the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching, is there not some validity in conceiving an ontological model to replace materialism as the basis of a collective ethos, even if ultimately idealism too can only be 'true enough under the circumstances' -- until such time that some kind of collective realization would render it redundant?

 

Quote

In philosophy, Idealism is the group of metaphysical philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as humans can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

The above definition of idealism is from wiki. This approach is actually good for inquiry.. But philosophy usually stops here... The only way to take it further is by walking on a spiritual path. Once the direct experience of truth has happened, the need for a lot of philosophical questions will disappear. 

[Faceless]

11 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

When I was 8 years old, I heard about 'sex' for the very first time and I came to know that babies are actually born this way.. Before that, I used to ask my grandma 'If God is putting the child inside a woman's womb, how come only married  women give birth to a child?' and she said 'because God knows who is married'  ..

But when a boy who was a little older than me explained what sex is, I couldn't believe it. I asked some adults that I knew. They laughed and said that 'married people have sex almost every day'... I asked them 'Why?, just doing it once is not enough for pregnancy?'...  But I never understood why they do it until I experienced sexual attraction directly when I was an adolescent. That cleared all my doubts.. 

@Joseph Maynor Try applying this as a metaphor to spiritual enlightenment.

Lol...I understand man?

Edited February 12, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

13 minutes ago, Faceless said:

There is thought therefore I am

Thought being conciousness @Shanmugam

[Shanmugam]

Just now, Faceless said:

Thought being conciousness @Shanmugam

That is right, but Rene Descartes didn't mean it that way either.. His intended meaning was kind of like this:  'I can doubt the existence of anything.. but since I doubt and this doubt is undeniable,  there certainly exists something in which the doubt arises; I doubt therefore I am!"

[snowleopard]

3 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

But philosophy usually stops here

But it needn't stop there ... It can also point to the revelation that the Divine Dreamer and its Dream are not two, and thus resolve the real/unreal dichotomy.

 

 

[SOUL]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

We get perplexed by a foolish question and get more lost by trying to answer it.  Meanwhile, reality carries on undisturbed and ignored.

The questions, the answers to the questions, the explanations of the answers to the questions, descriptions about the explanations of the answers to the questions, understanding the descriptions about the explanations of the answers to the questions, the reasons for understanding the descriptions about the explanations of the answers to the questions, knowing the reasons for understanding the descriptions about the explanations of the answers to the questions.

Or... just be. It isn't really about not asking the question, it's about not desiring the answers. There is genuine peace in just being.... an unquestionable ontology.

Edited February 12, 2018 by SOUL

[Shanmugam]

Just now, snowleopard said:

But it needn't stop there ... It can also point to the revelation that the Divine Dreamer and its Dream are not two, and thus resolve the real/unreal dichotomy.

 

 

I must admit I never studied philosophy separately.. But just studying philosophy usually takes one nowhere. It may start an inquiry and an interest in the spiritual path. That is all it can do. Other than that, studying merely philosophy would not help when it comes to spiritual enlightenment. In fact, it is totally unnecessary as far as the spiritual path is concerned and is often seen as a distraction.