Skepticism: Enlightenment and the secrets of the universe

[Forestluv]

@Derrida A baby has a form of nondual consciousness. A baby has no concept of subject object. No attachment/identification to “me” or “you”. A baby has no story about being a character living through time. If a baby throws a ball, the ball simply disappears. There was a ball one moment and no ball another moment. The baby doesn’t look around for the ball or think “I want my ball back”. There simply jus is. . . Then we developed cognition to separate subjects-object, a timeline and a story of “me”. I like using babies to point to a “prior” to these creations. There is a form of consciousness present that is “prior” to the thought stories. An exercise for deconstruction I like is to unwind back to when I was a baby, before all the thought stories. Even back to when I was a fetus and prior to fetus. Before any images, language, thoughts etc. I’ve found sensory deprivation floats to be a good environment for this. Also shamanic breathing.

Every “pointer” or metaphor is incomplete. It is a partial truth of one facet. So we can always say “But wait a minute, what about xyz?”. This doesn’t invalidate the value of the metaphor, it’s just a part of the whole. It’s like five blind men feeling an elephant. One man says the elephant is a tail. Another man responds “How can the elephant be a hairy tail, when it is a hoof?”. . . In this case we may say “How can a baby be enlightened when it is has no awareness of the ‘I Am’?”. For sure, we could say that an aspect of enlightenment is awareness of Now for which babies are a good example as well as awareness of “I Am-ness by which babies are not a good example.

Yes, I would consider embodiment to be deeper than intellectual acknowledgement. Embodiment is a type of “getting it”. For example, someone might read that “the self is like character in movie”. The person might say “yea, yea, I already knew that. Tell me something new”. Yet the person is still deeply immersed in playing that character and is unaware of the deeper truth. The embodiment would be the direct experience realization , integration and transcendence of the character. This is a much more difficult process and can there can be a lot of resistance and discomfort. . . . Another example might be identifying as a character in a dream. The dream character could intellectually acknowledge the existence of dreams, yet still identify as the dream character. This is different than the alarm clock going off, waking up and realizing “So that’s what a dream is”. That direct experience is deeper than a thought story. . . . One challenge is that thought stories are cheap and easy, the direct experience realizations generally take a lot of practice, effort and time. 

Regarding hallucinations . . . Imagined = Real and Real = Imagined. Saying that “suffering is just a hallucination and isn’t serious” is assuming that hallucinations aren’t real and therefore not serious. Imo, it would be better to say that suffering is both serious and not serious depending on perspective. I’ve volunteered in a psychiatric ward sitting and listening to patients that re suffering. In this context, I tried to be the best listener possible without judgement and I tried to understand and be loving. In this context, I would not be helpful to tell them “your so-called ‘suffering’ is just a hallucination that isn’t serious”. . . . However, an Eckart Tolle retreat is a very different context. Eckart may reflect on his own suffering and his realization that suffering is an hallucination. This may help people in the audience recontextualize their own suffering. 
 

“I hope getting the experience won't require that I abandon my scepticism altogether though. Otherwise that would be similiar to Christians telling you: You need to open yourself to God ( = believe in him) in order to experience him so that you can believe in him. Well .. shit.”

Part of the process involves surrender, yet it’s not quite like how you are framing it. Rather than surrendingbto something irrational, it is surrendering to something post-rational. Yet prior to the transcendence, the mind will not be able to differentiate the two and will resist both. However, one can get a sense of the difference. For example, religious people and Leo both seemed to talk about irrational “woo woo” stuff at times. Yet I could tell the difference between a religious zealot and Leo. The key for me was that religious zealots were irrational and could not have a reasonable/logical conversation. However “woo woos” like Leo were able to use reason/logic, so I was able to tell that they were at a higher level and I was missing something. 

 

 

[Derrida]

@Serotoninluv I think that cleared some things up for me, thank you

"For example, religious people and Leo both seemed to talk about irrational “woo woo” stuff at times. Yet I could tell the difference between a religious zealot and Leo. The key for me was that religious zealots were irrational and could not have a reasonable/logical conversation. However “woo woos” like Leo were able to use reason/logic, so I was able to tell that they were at a higher level and I was missing something. "

Personally I had some discussions with religious people who were very good when it comes to reason or logic (as far as I could judge that at least). I think generally picking holes in someone's worldview is pretty hard, because even the most crazy shit can still be logically possible. Plausibility is of course another matter, but plausibility also tends to be subjective .. I mean to a degree at least.

 

@Raptorsin7 I dunno, have all people who are more advanced in the practice the same opinion on these matters? Nothing to discuss?
You also have a point of course. No worries, I think I've satisfied my need to philosphize for the time being.