Ralston Gives A Clear Answer To Metaphysical Love Question

[Osaid]

4 minutes ago, Davino said:

discard all systems and conclusions, because that is itself a conclusion.

No, it's not. Discarding conclusion doesn't bring you to a conclusion, it gets rid of the medium altogether and brings you to experience, which is not conclusion. Conclusion only happens in thoughts. 

5 minutes ago, Davino said:

You work within models, systems and paradigms, you accept that you are trapped in this reality

Models, systems, and paradigms are exactly NOT reality. They are symbols that represent reality but aren't reality. So it is not a reality to be trapped in at all.

10 minutes ago, Davino said:

This is a much more mature position than just saying, oh the limitations of models, descriptions, answers and systems, what can we do.

It's like I'm trying to tell you that you that your description of the color red is not the color red, and you're like "Nah, you have no choice but to live with and work with models and mental constructs." It's just not what I'm pointing to, at all, existentially. And this is also exactly how enlightenment works. Enlightenment is not a model or anything to intellectually integrate. So the usage for such things simply does not apply here.

[Davino]

@Leo Gura

I would love to understand what love is.

When question are rised about any profound topic, like Consciousness, Truth, Love or God; you say that we don't get it and you do, end of the process. What is the meaning of this forum then Leo?

If I'm interested to go as profound into Love as you have gone, how could you guide me to have that awakening?

Within the unavoidable limitations of communication what could you tell me of the deepest love you have yet reached?

I'm happy to be humbled if I finally get what Love is but give some tools, give me some methods, that I can use to realize Love. If you have done it, I surely also can, the same as any user that really feels the calling of Love. In this way, I suggest you to move from the closed position of I understand and you don't -> end of the investigation. We cannot walk together from there, it's not you vs us, it's supposed to be all together walking towards God. That's how I see it.

What is LOVE?

[Davino]

5 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Discarding conclusion doesn't bring you to a conclusion, it gets rid of the medium altogether and brings you to experience, which is not conclusion. Conclusion only happens in thoughts. 

It's a conclusion that getting rid of conclusions leads to Reality and that Reality is not conclusions or models.

In the beggining one is lost in models. Then one realizes the profound limitations of models. Finally one accepts and uses models skillfully understanding their limits and extreme usefullness, without making an identity out of them or confusing them for reality.

8 minutes ago, Osaid said:

Models, systems, and paradigms are exactly NOT reality. They are symbols that represent reality but aren't reality. So it is not a reality to be trapped in at all

Even though that's the case, you have not realized that models are unavoidable and intrinsic to your mind. Reality in a way is a gigantic and perfect model running itself. Your mind is gonna fill in the blanks and make poor models if you throw the baby out with the bathwater. Upon some point of doing this, you will realize this. That's why it's useful to read Ken Wilber or Susanne Cook-Greuter's research because they precisely point out this traps and evolutionary stages, mapping thousand of individuals in the path. Which is itself a clear example of contruct-aware system making that is extremely useful for sense making of how reality works.

13 minutes ago, Osaid said:

It's like I'm trying to tell you that you that your description of the color red is not the color red, and you're like "Nah, you have no choice but to live with and work with models and mental constructs." It's just not what I'm pointing to, at all, existentially. And this is also exactly how enlightenment works. Enlightenment is not a model or anything to intellectually integrate. So the usage for such things simply does not apply here.

Lol, can't your mind do both? Can't you just experience pure red and then afterwards give the best explanation you can, while being perfectly aware of the limitation of descriptions?

I'm not negating your point, I'm including and transcending it. What you say is True but there is a more mature way of going about it.

[Princess Arabia]

I just love it when the greats debate.

[Breakingthewall]

What sense does it make to say that reality is love and not describe what love is? Are we all obliged to have the same idea that that word evokes, or else the horrible and atrocious condemnation of being shamefully called unawakened, and humiliated to the point of seeking a cherry blossom tree to humbly make sepukku?

[Osaid]

38 minutes ago, Davino said:

It's a conclusion that getting rid of conclusions leads to Reality and that Reality is not conclusions or models.

"Discarding" or "getting rid" is not a conclusion, it's an action. In the same way that exercise is an action.

41 minutes ago, Davino said:

Reality in a way is a gigantic and perfect model running itself

No, this itself is a model. You've created a model saying that reality is a model. Models are models. They're good when they're used as models. When you try to extrapolate the model into the thing that it is modeling (reality), that's where it can get messy, because the model itself is a subset of reality or experience.

39 minutes ago, Davino said:

I'm not negating your point, I'm including and transcending it. What you say is True but there is a more mature way of going about it.

I'm not holding a philosophical position. There's nothing to transcend or be mature about. I am not saying whether you should or shouldn't use models. I am saying that the color red is not a thought about the color red. They are just different existentially. 

[Breakingthewall]

Anyway, if I have to do a description, I would say that reality is life. real openness to what existence is can only be called life. I am life flowing, total existence without limit, and the word love evokes pink cupcakes, attachment and my mother.

[Yimpa]

6 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Are we all obliged to have the same idea that that word evokes

No.

[Francis777]

6 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

and the word love evokes pink cupcakes

back to the drawing board I think buddy

[Breakingthewall]

5 minutes ago, Francis777 said:

back to the drawing board I think buddy

Oh, you called me not awake? Just now I'm on my knees with my arms to the sky screaming: nooooooooooo

[Francis777]

8 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Oh, you called me not awake? Just now I'm on my knees with my arms to the sky screaming: nooooooooooo

can you quote me that, must've missed it

[Water by the River]

2 hours ago, Bufo Alvarius said:

Merging into the Source was the most intense experience I’ve ever had. And that is one of the attributes of Unconditional Love, its intensity! The emotions that we have, when we’re out of this bodies are far more intense than anything we’ve ever experienced in the body

For sure a valid experience description. The bold markings are by me.

Merging implies a Unity = something merges with something. And has an experience.

The Absolute by definition is always right here right know, and is either known/understood/realized, or covered under clouds of ignorance or mistaken (separate) identity. The Absolute (Reality itself) is not affected wether love arises in the mindstream of a being or not.

Equating the Absolute with anything, be it an experience, a certain state, love, bliss, unity, whatever, n+1, anything non-permanent (aka anything at all) is... not the Absolute in which and as which all of that arises in a nondual way.

When talking about anything specific we are talking (maximum, if at all) about one of the first "roll-out" elements of the Absolute doing its job of manifesting a manifested reality WITHIN ITSELF. Space, time, dimensions, love, bliss, subtle arisings, and so on...

Spiritual Teachers and Traditions tell since the dawn of time about the utmost importance love, and how it is divine. Because love IS a fundamental property of any manifestation/universe. Love stabilizes awakened states, opens awakened states, and is definitely there to awe-inspiring degrees at the higher realms/states of reality.

If one is so inclined, one could even say the essence of everything IS love. There is no manifestation without love as its essence, saturating it, pulling it all back to realize its source. So a necessary ground for every manifestation, showing its essential unity.

Yet, it arises IN the Absolute. Where else could it arise? It is of the same essence as the Absolute, but WITHIN IT.

And if that Absolute is not realized and always available right here right now as ones True Essence... one tends to talk about the first roll-outs of manifestation, the highest archetypes, the first arisings necessary to get a manifestation going...

Selling Water ....

 

PS; And talking about Absolutes in the plural, like x/y/z "is an absolute", is a joke in itself. The Absolute is One without a second. It is not even one. It is that which has no opposite. And no plural. All the rest are manifestations within it, tendencies, or primal manifestation archetypes.

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Water by the River

[Davino]

@Water by the River

Everything is in everything. 

The same as a trees make flowers and then fruits with seeds but the whole tree is contained again in the seed, which contains the tree and so on.

It's the same with Reality, in one way you can say that all arises within the absolute but in another way even the absolute is just a figment of the absolute, one possibility out of the absolute. The same way one ramification of absolute infinity is absolute infinite, it's one thing it could be and is. 

Maybe I get you wrong but it seems that you say that the absolute is the absolute and is always the case. Maybe we are splitting hairs but the absolute must also not be the absolute for it to be the absolute. We are getting into paradox territory here. The same as God also needs not to be God in order to be totally God. The ultimate reality is indistinguishable from all that arises, it is nothing but that arising, like extreme empiricism. Yet nothing is grounded in anything, it's an infinite ungraspability with an unmisable taste that finds itself in all planes with the same personality pattern expressed in diferent flflavours.

 

[Breakingthewall]

59 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Spiritual Teachers and Traditions tell since the dawn of time about the utmost importance love, and how it is divine. Because love IS a fundamental property of any manifestation/universe. Love stabilizes awakened states, opens awakened states, and is definitely there to awe-inspiring degrees at the higher realms/states of reality.

If one is so inclined, one could even say the essence of everything IS love. There is no manifestation without love as its essence, saturating it, pulling it all back to realize its source. So a necessary ground for every manifestation, showing its essential unity.

It could be said that reality is love in the sense that existence is the infinite that, upon realizing its infinity, does a dance of love with itself, and this eternal dance is reality. but before love there is the absolute infinity, undifferentiated and immutable. "before" in the sense that it is from this limitlessness that arises the total joy that originates the manifestation

[Davino]

5 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

It could be said that reality is love in the sense that existence is the infinite that, upon realizing its infinity, does a dance of love with itself, and this eternal dance is reality. but before love there is the absolute infinity, undifferentiated and immutable. "before" in the sense that it is from this limitlessness that arises the total joy that originates the manifestation

It reminds me to some Indian literature that explains how reality is a celebration and manifestation of Love.

[Water by the River]

18 minutes ago, Davino said:

@Water by the River

Everything is in everything. 

The same as a trees make flowers and then fruits with seeds but the whole tree is contained again in the seed, which contains the tree and so on.

It's the same with Reality, in one way you can say that all arises within the absolute but in another way even the absolute is just a figment of the absolute, one possibility out of the absolute. The same way one ramification of absolute infinity is absolute infinite, it's one thing it could be and is. 

Maybe I get you wrong but it seems that you say that the absolute is the absolute and is always the case. Maybe we are splitting hairs but the absolute must also not be the absolute for it to be the absolute. We are getting into paradox territory here. The same as God also needs not to be God in order to be totally God. The ultimate reality is indistinguishable from all that arises, it is nothing but that arising, like extreme empiricism. Yet nothing is grounded in anything, it's an infinite ungraspability with an unmisable taste that finds itself in all planes with the same personality pattern expressed in diferent flflavours.

 

Maybe that analogy helps: All relative (any manifestation/arising/anything) can disappear (and does in certain states, deep sleep, Nirvikalpa, at least for the invidual perspective/being in Indras Net, but that suffices to understand it), and the Absolute is still there. The Absolute can be without the relative (or manifestation/arising), but the relative can not be without the Absolute.

That is a very clear realization that can be had.

A metaphor: The essence of the ring (relative) is gold (absolute). There is nothing but gold all the time. But the ring can be gone/dead/destroyed if molten, leaving its reality (the gold) unchanged in essence.

Always througout at each moment is only the Absolute (gold).  The ring/Relative is a manifestation/arising of the gold/Absolute, a modulation of it arising within it, as it, nondual. The Absolute and the relative are not on the same ontological level. One is more fundamental than the other.

And deviating from the ring/gold-example, the Absolute/Being also is potentially aware if something arises.

One can destroy each and any manifestation/universe/relative, and the Absolute would be just fine, eternally silent, empty and groundless, unchanging, infinite and eternal, absolute unmanifested infinite potential. Pure empty infinite Awareness/Being, unaware of itself if nothing arises. "Until" it casts itself out again...

And btw., that is not philosophy, but an actual realization that every being can potentially have, this life or the next.

 

 

[Water by the River]

15 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

It could be said that reality is love in the sense that existence is the infinite that, upon realizing its infinity, does a dance of love with itself, and this eternal dance is reality. but before love there is the absolute infinity, undifferentiated and immutable. "before" in the sense that it is from this limitlessness that arises the total joy that originates the manifestation

Yes, beautifully written.

Love is the force that lets the universe grow in complexity until it has grown enough in complexity to realize itself in its beings. Love pulls the manifestation back to its source. It is the arrow of the universe to ever-growing more complexity.

When an awakened being focuses in on a part of its field of vision, it finds itself in a nondual way "in" the arising and also love in and as the essence of these arisings. There is no other. All of that "hovers" in the infinite silent pure consciousness of being.

"where there is an other there is fear". And where there is no other, there is only love.

[Osaid]

4 hours ago, Bufo Alvarius said:

„Merging into the Source was the most intense experience I’ve ever had. And that is one of the attributes of Unconditional Love, its intensity! The emotions that we have, when we’re out of this bodies are far more intense than anything we’ve ever experienced in the body. The body does kind of filter out a lot of the emotions that we are capable of. Imagine being moved to tears by something, like by love, beauty or gratitude. The Unconditional Love that we feel in the afterlife is like a hundred or a thousand times more intense than that. Take that feeling and take away the tears and substitute joy and then turn it around and send it back to yourself. That will give you a tiny little taste, of what Unconditional Love really feels like.

When I had a flashback of how I merged with Source and I felt that Unconditional Love, it was so intense that it made me feel sick, it was like being electrocuted. Even though it was an incredible experience while out of the body, while in the body, that level of intensity can be frightening and disorienting, if you’ve never felt it before.

Unconditional Love is something that is completely irresistible. That is how we feel when we are drawn into Unconditional Love. And the reason for that is because Source is Unconditional Love, which is not an emotion, it’s not like anything humans feel. It’s actually the words that we use to describe Source’s energy. The closer we get to the Source, the more the energy we feel, the more intense it gets and the more attracted we are. So Unconditional Love is more a sense of being drawn to a power source, than it is a response to another being.”

"intense", "emotions", "me", "sick", "body", "in body", "out of body", "frightening", "disorienting", "never felt before", "drawn to a power source", "it's not like anything humans feel"

All of the above are core phrases used to describe this experience/love. You cannot look at that in good faith and tell me that it is not dualistic, temporal, and anthropomorphic. You cannot tell me that the above is something that could exist in the experience of a spider, or even in your current experience, and if you concede to the fact that it can't, then that means it was simply an ephemeral state, not truth. This is a very anthropomorphic interpretation of an experience. A very profound and illuminating experience, perhaps. But just a shifting of intensity and content ultimately. You can see that all those terms are baked with dichotomies and dualities.

Existentially, this is similar to experiencing a poem about love, or a song about love, or a movie about love. It's an experience ABOUT something, and then after that experience, that "something" is gone, and it is converted to memory, and then existentially you are back to where you were before.

As said at the beginning of the thread, the fallacy of clinging to enlightenment-inducing states is very strong, and it is rampant throughout this forum.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Osaid

[Water by the River]

9 minutes ago, Osaid said:

As said at the beginning of the thread, the fallacy of clinging to enlightenment-inducing states is very strong, and it is rampant throughout this forum.

If these passing states are all one has, and "touching" the Absolute as ones True Being by just "feeling" into oneself and into Infinite Reality (when Its presence "seems" lost, which of course it never is, but it can be covered under various "clouds" of separate-self-arisings) is not possible, clinging and suffering in circles is unavoidable.

And to make onself a bit more comfy in that misery, various coping-ideologies come handy... Until that becomes also tiring. Or this life comes to a conclusion.

[Osaid]

31 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

clinging and suffering in circles is unavoidable.

That clinging and suffering is by definition what non-enlightenment is. So it absolutely has to happen, or else they would be enlightened. The psychedelics wear off, thus the ego has to come back, and the ego forms an identity using the memory of the experience, and then it nests itself in there.