Finite Transcendence - John Verkaeke

[bmcnicho]

https://youtu.be/SQQaOMfGsu8

I found this episode of Verkaeke’s series on Socrates to have thought provoking implications for the consciousness work we’re doing here.

Leo often speaks about the highest states of consciousness, becoming one with the Absolute/God.  Vervaeke illustrates how aiming for the Absolute all at once might be a bit too destabilizing and extreme.

 The video begins with a nice summary of relevance realization in cognitive science.  Basically how the mind needs to focus and reduce its view of reality in very specific ways in order to accomplish tasks and understand the world.  But that focus can’t be too narrow, because that would make the mind susceptible to self-deception.  So a delicate balance needs to be maintained.

 The alternative spiritual approach Vervaeke proposes, finite transcendence, involves the successive process of transcending limitations of the mind, to achieve insight, higher consciousness, and more integrated ways of living life.  He views God as a universal process that you can participate in, rather than as a state of being.

 I don’t know if Leo would necessarily disagree with this.  Vervaeke might be describing an intermediate process that could eventually lead to the kinds of awakenings that Leo talks about.  It did help me understand the potential cause of the chaos and confusion I’ve been experiencing on psychedelics lately.  Something like what Vervaeke is describing could be a more balanced and integrated approach than trying to blast myself all at once.

[Leo Gura]

Just be careful or you will get so wrapped up in that gradual approach that you will never reach God-Realization. Which Vervaeke obviously hasn't.

Quote

aiming for the Absolute all at once might be a bit too destabilizing and extreme.

Yes, God-Realization is extreme and destabilizing. But how else could it be?

Obviously you gotta keep yourself stable enough so your whole life doesn't unravel and you don't end up shooting yourself in the head.

Quote

the successive process of transcending limitations of the mind, to achieve insight, higher consciousness

Is there any other way?

You couldn't reach full God-Realization in one leap even if you wanted to. Even if you go balls-to-the-wall it will take you years and many, many awakenings.

The solution is simple: just feel into how much you can handle, and if you get overwhelmed, dial it back a few notches and keep doing the work.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Razard86]

7 hours ago, bmcnicho said:

https://youtu.be/SQQaOMfGsu8

I found this episode of Verkaeke’s series on Socrates to have thought provoking implications for the consciousness work we’re doing here.

Leo often speaks about the highest states of consciousness, becoming one with the Absolute/God.  Vervaeke illustrates how aiming for the Absolute all at once might be a bit too destabilizing and extreme.

 The video begins with a nice summary of relevance realization in cognitive science.  Basically how the mind needs to focus and reduce its view of reality in very specific ways in order to accomplish tasks and understand the world.  But that focus can’t be too narrow, because that would make the mind susceptible to self-deception.  So a delicate balance needs to be maintained.

 The alternative spiritual approach Vervaeke proposes, finite transcendence, involves the successive process of transcending limitations of the mind, to achieve insight, higher consciousness, and more integrated ways of living life.  He views God as a universal process that you can participate in, rather than as a state of being.

 I don’t know if Leo would necessarily disagree with this.  Vervaeke might be describing an intermediate process that could eventually lead to the kinds of awakenings that Leo talks about.  It did help me understand the potential cause of the chaos and confusion I’ve been experiencing on psychedelics lately.  Something like what Vervaeke is describing could be a more balanced and integrated approach than trying to blast myself all at once.

1. The entire dream is held together by self-deception. So this belief that the mind will susceptible to self-deception is hilarious. To dream, to live, is to be self-deceived. All God Realization is, is the ability to see your illusions. 

Also everything is a state. A process and a state are ONE and the same. A process is an unfolding, a state is the awareness of that unfolding. You cannot divide a state and a process from each other because without the awareness the process doesn't exist!

You see how silly these distinctions are? More silly distinctions. Here is the kicker! That entire video you just linked is self-deception masquerading as NOT self-deception!!! It's literally funny how strong self-deception is!!! 

[Razard86]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Just be careful or you will get so wrapped up in that gradual approach that you will never reach God-Realization. Which Vervaeke obviously hasn't.

Yes, God-Realization is extreme and destabilizing. But how else could it be?

Obviously you gotta keep yourself stable enough so your whole life doesn't unravel and you don't end up shooting yourself in the head.

 

It's only destabilizing if you lack self-love. The key to every bad trip, every difficulty is self love. It's why I love your video on Self-Love. The answer to every question is SELF-LOVE. The only thing to contemplate is self-love. The path to finding God your true self is self-love. The path to embodiment is self-love. The answer is always the same. The path to wisdom is self-love.

It's the master key and it removes ALL delusions but self-love is so radical even when you think you got it, it slips through your fingers. Because it is one thing to intellectualize it, it's another to experience it. The only problem is....Self-Love will turn you into your own Guru and the people you use to admire....their limitations will become more apparent. You can still admire their strong points but their limitations (the self-imposed limitations of their world view) become ever more visible as well as your own. 

But not shooting yourself is not a hard problem if you accept the Absolute Truth that you created everything, are still creating every moment, everything is you, you are immortal, you are just experiencing your infinite mind from a FIRST PERSON perspective. Like walking around in a VR game. If you identify as the VR GAME instead of a character in the game everything is fine.

Someone says that still makes me want to shoot myself. My reply? 1. You literally created that character. Why would you end that character that you created. If you are God then you literally don't make mistakes. 2. Ending your character accomplishes nothing because you cannot go anywhere so killing yourself isn't an escape. 3. God has the ability to give itself so much pain that it would wish it were dead. So the only understandable reason God would want to end its life is if it created a life so miserable so tough it cannot handle it. Like a disease that is so excruciatingly painful and pain medication has no effect. 

Outside of that extreme outlier, killing yourself is just more self-deception and delusion. Not saying I don't understand the premise, I get it. But if there is no escaping anywhere because you are everywhere, then what is the point?

[bmcnicho]

4 hours ago, Razard86 said:

1. The entire dream is held together by self-deception. So this belief that the mind will susceptible to self-deception is hilarious. To dream, to live, is to be self-deceived. All God Realization is, is the ability to see your illusions.

@Razard86 But if there was absolutely zero self-deception, wouldn’t that just be Death/The Void?  Later in the video, Vervaeke goes on to describe the relationship between knowing and not knowing, how knowledge is dependent upon ignorance, because focus and filtering are required for intelligibility.  The main idea being that the finite can still participate in the infinite without dissolving completely.

[bmcnicho]

@Squeekytoy Understandable, I usually watch long lectures at double speed.  Do you disagree with his first point?  About the interrelatedness of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty?  The main takeaway for me was later on though.  He illustrates well how finely tuned cognitive processes are necessary for making sense of the complexity of reality.  The practice he describes for transcending limitations has balance that I was lacking.

[Yimpa]

50 minutes ago, bmcnicho said:

@Razard86 But if there was absolutely zero self-deception, wouldn’t that just be Death/The Void?  Later in the video, Vervaeke goes on to describe the relationship between knowing and not knowing, how knowledge is dependent upon ignorance, because focus and filtering are required for intelligibility.  The main idea being that the finite can still participate in the infinite without dissolving completely.

 

[Sincerity]

7 hours ago, Squeekytoy said:

So I watched the 40-second intro and there's no way I'm watching the remaining 100 minutes...  It is dead on arrival.

Why? I thought that's quite a good point.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Sincerity

[UnbornTao]

On 4/26/2023 at 7:42 AM, bmcnicho said:

aiming for the Absolute all at once might be a bit too destabilizing and extreme.

What cosmology are you holding that makes you think in such a way?

The absolute is not grandiose, huge, inaccessible or any other distinctions because they are relative. It's impossible for the mind to grasp, and its nature isn't separate from you. Whatever you're aiming for is an image, idea or conception that you have of it.

Edited April 29, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Moksha]

45 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

I disagree and that sounds like bs to me. What cosmology are you holding that makes you think like that? The absolute is not grandiose, huge, inaccessible, or any other such distinction because these are all relative. It's absolute, and its nature isn't separate from you. 

It's a reunion of what was never separated, but within the dream it takes a while to distance yourself from the mind. It's like being groggy when you first wake up. It can be enormously disorienting if you don't pace it. In most cases, you have to ease the kite out gradually into the wind, otherwise you risk losing control of it entirely. No matter how enlightened you appear to be, you still need the string intact to navigate the dream.

[bmcnicho]

@UnbornTao What I’m imagining and have seen small glimpses of, is becoming one with the Absolute such that I would no longer have a finite form.  I’m imagining something immense, chaotic, and unintelligible.  That could easily be completely wrong, I’m just extrapolating from the experiences I’ve had so far.

[Moksha]

1 hour ago, Squeekytoy said:

In short, standard issue "have your cake and eat it too" spirituality. Wearing a pseudo-rational/scientific hat.

I haven't watched the video, but am seeing a trend with spiritual seekers parading down the carpet while hiding their desires behind their back. It's an egoic trick. They tell themselves that the absolute is in every experience, so embracing desire equates to realizing the absolute. 

The absolute isn't fooled by its own tricks. To enter the gate requires the surrender of the apparently in-formed absolute to itself. Otherwise, it is just spiritual ego beating itself bloody on the other side with no way in.

[Moksha]

5 minutes ago, Squeekytoy said:

That's the second time you mention desire to me for some reason, can you just say what you mean?

Actually I was thinking of recent conversations with @Breakingthewall, who is one of the most sincere people on this forum, but still hasn't realized the absolute mandate for surrendering desire.

I haven't dissolved all of my desires yet either, but I do know they have to be dissolved. You can still hold desires, just lightly, without expecting them to fulfill you. They are sirens that lure you into drowning in the ocean, while placing wax in your ears allows you to sail freely from their song.

I know you like plain speaking, but analogies are my thing. Deal with it 

[Yimpa]

16 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

The absolute is not grandiose, huge, inaccessible, or any other such distinction because these are all relative. It's absolute, and its nature isn't separate from you. 

Whatever you're aiming for is an image, idea or conception that you have of it, and it isn't it.

All of that can be seen through as false when you understand Reality.

The Absolute is not so stupid to limit itself to such nonsense! Paradoxically, the Absolute can be that as well  

[Yimpa]

16 hours ago, bmcnicho said:

@UnbornTao What I’m imagining and have seen small glimpses of, is becoming one with the Absolute such that I would no longer have a finite form.  I’m imagining something immense, chaotic, and unintelligible.  That could easily be completely wrong, I’m just extrapolating from the experiences I’ve had so far.

All finite forms are Absolute. 

Let me repeat.

All finite forms are Absolute.

Every argument against this is Absolute.

[bmcnicho]

@Yimpa This sounds a bit like the paradox of “You’re already enlightened.”  I understand intellectually that the infinite already exists fully within everything that is finite.  We’re not discovering anything that wasn’t already true, of course.  But I have a feeling there’s a bit more to it than that, otherwise what is it exactly that we’re trying to awaken to?

Edited April 27, 2023 by bmcnicho

[Yimpa]

31 minutes ago, bmcnicho said:

This sounds a bit like the paradox of “You’re already enlightened.”  I understand intellectually that the infinite already exists fully within everything that is finite.  We’re not discovering anything that wasn’t already true, of course.  But I have a feeling there’s a bit more to it than that, otherwise what is it exactly that we’re trying to awaken to?

Higher and higher states of consciousness, which include the transrational. That does not mean that you lose intellect. It includes even that, but even better… more holistic and superhuman-like. 

Leo has an upcoming course to guide da humans, so look out for that.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

haven't dissolved all of my desires yet either, but I do know they have to be dissolved

So you have the desire of dissolve your desires, because you want to be more awake, closer than the absolute, or even merge with the absolute. Of course, without that desire of raise your conciousness, be one with god, it's impossible to advance in spirituality

[Moksha]

@Squeekytoy See, there's something to be said for analogies, as long as you look beyond them to where they point. To analogize analogies, they're like rubik's cubes which when solved, reveal the homogeneity in apparent diversity.

@Breakingthewall Sorry to summon your specter after the recent banishment  You're right, it seems ironic that surrendering will is required to realize will. On the other side of irony, you realize nothing was actually surrendered, only clearly seen.

The hunt for the absolute is not about pursuing the prey, but about realizing the prey is always a trap. Think of it like this. The ego has a stench, while the absolute is clean. When you let loose the hounds of love, they discover reality not by chasing down the ego, but by finding the clean air where it is not.

[Moksha]

14 minutes ago, Squeekytoy said:

Jesus speaks entirely in airy fairy metaphor, Jan speaks very very plainly, perhaps even more so than Jed McKenna (albeit less bluntly). It doesn't get any more plain and down to earth than Jan.

Don't blame Jesus, he tried speaking plainly and look what happened. Everyone wants to be a lion, but nobody wants to be a sheep.

The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep."