Finite Transcendence - John Verkaeke

[Moksha]

1 hour ago, Squeekytoy said:

I've acknowledged that and I'm not blaming anyone, just saying it's practically useless. Sounds like you have some more Buddhas to kill, though. 

It's only useless at the surface, the pearls require a deeper dive. Same for Buddhism, Hinduism, and every other ism.

It's the paradox of language. You need words to communicate, but most people are entrapped by words. They fail to see the difference between the map and the territory.

Even silence is a paradox. It is the purest teacher, but students are deaf to it until they directly realize it, at which point it is no longer needed to teach.

[Moksha]

@Squeekytoy I hear you. It's a common "guru" gimmick to make cryptic declarations and bask in the oohs and aahs of the wide-eyed people at your feet.

I suppose my love for analogies as pointers to truth is that they provide more room for discovery. The deeper you explore them, the more connections you realize.

As you say, it's ironic that you have to see past them in the first place to get anything out of them, but for me their luminosity increases the deeper my capacity to realize the truth they represent.

[Moksha]

2 minutes ago, Squeekytoy said:

Spare me. 

Not going to happen. I share truth unconditionally, and if it doesn't resonate with you, of course you should ignore it.

[Leo Gura]

Vervaeke offers some good insight. It's not a deep understanding of God/Love/Consciousness. You can still learn a lot from him in the relative domain.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Leo Gura

[UnbornTao]

On 4/27/2023 at 0:29 AM, 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 of that is bullshit. It's neither. Mind's attempt to grasp the absolute will always fail. The absolute's already the case, so being afraid is silly in this regard. In other words, maybe your nature is and has always been formless; you just confused it with yourself.  

Short of direct consciousness, being open is the best one can do. So contemplate.

[bmcnicho]

5 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

The absolute's already the case, so being afraid is silly in this regard. In other words, maybe your nature is and has always been formless; you just confused it with yourself.  

@UnbornTao What are your thoughts on the paradox of “You’re already enlightened” in relation to this?

[Yimpa]

5 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

The absolute's already the case, so being afraid is silly in this regard. In other words, maybe your nature is and has always been formless; you just confused it with yourself.  

1 minute ago, bmcnicho said:

@UnbornTao What are your thoughts on the paradox of “You’re already enlightened” in relation to this?

Not UnbornTao, but…

The Absolute is already the case, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are conscious of this. If you’ve tricked yourself into believing that “You’re already enlightened”, it’s actually a copout from understanding the Absolute. 

With that said, you’re already enlightened. 

 

 

[Carl-Richard]

On 27.4.2023 at 3:24 PM, Squeekytoy said:

Because from the first 40 seconds (at most) it's clear that he has nothing for the serious seeker, and isn't one himself.

What — you didn't find it relevant?

Edited April 30, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

13 hours ago, bmcnicho said:

@UnbornTao What are your thoughts on the paradox of “You’re already enlightened” in relation to this?

That's not true, either. It's better to leave one's nature as currently unknown, which it is, and simply admit that. What's left for us to do is being open and dwelling on the question with the intent to discover what's true now. And repeat until you do.

[Yimpa]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

It's better to leave one's nature as currently unknown, which it is, and simply admit that. What's left for us to do is being open and dwelling on the question with the intent to discover what's true now. And repeat until you do.

I agree that that’s a start. 

However, there are definitely states of consciousness where there is no doubt about Reality at all. It’ll be so obviously clear that all answers and questions are Reality. 

[Carl-Richard]

I just realized that my experience of being unable to think random useless thoughts after my awakenings is actually just relevance realization being refined. This also made me think about my hypothesis that the reduction of self-referential thoughts associated with meditation could partially be explained by memory re-consolidation.

To recap: sitting in a physiologically calm context (lower heart rate, slower breathing, etc.) and with psychological detachment (the ability to see your emotional reactions as an appearance rather than the emotional content) means that the memories which are recalled in that setting get re-written with a weaker emotional load, and over time, the thoughts become less threatening and are less likely to cause rumination.

And now I can better explain why: it's because less emotional memories are less likely to be relevant. If there is an important problem that needs to be fixed, your mind will load it with emotions and bring it to your conscious attention (because emotions exist to tell you what is relevant to your survival). But when a thought is less emotionally loaded, it will become less likely to occupy your attention, hence meditation reduces the time spent thinking in general. Pretty cool.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

12 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I just realized that my experience of being unable to think random useless thoughts after my awakenings is actually just relevance realization being refined. This also made me think about my hypothesis that the reduction of the frequency of self-referential thoughts associated with meditation could be partially explained by memory re-consolidation.

To recap: sitting in a physiologically calm context (lower heart rate, slower breathing, etc.) and with psychological detachment (the ability to see your emotional reactions as an appearance rather than the emotional content), means that the memories which are recalled in that setting get re-written with a weaker emotional load, and over time, the thoughts become less threatening and less likely to cause compulsive rumination.

And now I can better explain why it's less likely to cause rumination: it's because less emotional memories are less likely to be considered relevant. If there is an important problem that needs to be fixed, your mind will load it with emotions and bring it to your conscious attention (because emotions exist to tell you about what is relevant to your survival). But when a thought is less emotionally loaded, it will be less likely to occupy your attention, hence meditation reduces the time spent thinking in general. Pretty cool.

So you calmed down and became more present?  

[Yimpa]

4 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

So you calmed down and became more present?  

Thank you. 

[Carl-Richard]

20 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

So you calmed down and became more present?  

Hey, we need some people to be interested in science  But yeah, that's the greatest understatement ever  Silence can kill.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Yimpa]

1 minute ago, Carl-Richard said:

Hey, we need some people to be interested in science  But yeah, that's the greatest understatement ever  Silence can kill.

I always failed science class in school. 

But I understand something that no scientist understands 

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

But I understand something that no scientist understands 

Haha keep telling yourself that

[Yimpa]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Haha keep telling yourself that

Only a fool would do that. 

Fools are imaginary 

[UnbornTao]

7 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Hey, we need some people to be interested in science  But yeah, that's the greatest understatement ever  Silence can kill.

It was said half-jokingly since I found your explanation a bit convoluted. But hey, you're right in that I ended up oversimplifying what you meant to say in an attempt to clarify it, both for myself and others. One communication style I generally prefer is being grounded and clear, that is, without jargon nor intellectualization. That seems to be an element required for communication to take place. I guess this is another avenue for individual contemplation.

@Yimpa 

Quote

However, there are definitely states of consciousness where there is no doubt about Reality at all.

yep, that might be true.

Quote

It’ll be so obviously clear that all answers and questions are Reality. 

don't know about that.

[Carl-Richard]

8 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

One communication style I generally prefer is being grounded and clear, that is, without jargon nor intellectualization.

The thing is I wasn't trying to communicate what happened to me by that entire post. That already happened in the first sentence. I was trying to link it up to a scientific hypothesis I've had in mind for a few years and also Vervaeke's concept of relevance realization.

[UnbornTao]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

The thing is I wasn't trying to communicate what happened to me by that entire post. That already happened in the first sentence. I was trying to link it up to a scientific hypothesis I've had in mind for a few years and also Vervaeke's concept of relevance realization.

Ok, my bad. I must admit your post was a useful contribution imv.