The word "soul" in the black culture connotes a feeling of unity or brotherhood. At least that's what I get from it.
In a religious contex it has often been solidified as an aspect of "spiritual materialism." It may be a reduction of animism, which is the belief that everything has a material spirit inside it. Many people think that only people have souls.
TTF quote:
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One Option: My religion is right - all others are wrong - which seems awful egocentric.
Second Option: None are valid - the Frank option.
Third Option: All are valid - which seems equally hard to swallow as option one.
So where do you rest on this JL. I have some ideas - but I want to know what you think. ?
Wow, what a question. I reject both one and two and accept three in a way that requires qualification. I agree with Wm.James that since we cannot grasp the ulimate nature of reality THEORETICALLY we may just as well make a leap of faith into a religious perspective that makes us feel good, that adapts us to our existential situation. James, however, could not do this. Neither can I. When I speak of "mystical" realization of Ultimate Reality, I am not talking about knowledge in the conventional sense. It is certainly not theoretical, as Frank seems to assume it is. And it is not a form of understanding that others do not have. Actually, the kind of nondualistic perspective I, Twyvel, Coluber, Asherman, and Fresco refer to, is not only available to everyone potentially; it is available to them in every moment of their llife. It is that pre-reflective perception we all have underlying the world we make sense of linguistically. It has been said of culture--something we cannot live without and which provides us our meaningful existence--that it is a web we have spun and gotten ourselves stuck within (pardon the clumsy phrasing). But no need to elaborate on this. The problem with religious systems is their tendency to depreciate other religious systems, to refer to others as heathens and pagans and "unbelievers". This has always been a horrendous problem in human history, witness the Crusades, the Islamic intolerance of heathens, the Catholic-Protestant conflicts of the Reformation and Counter Reformatioo. The problem with religious faith is its tendency to reduce, our ability to explore and expand our knowledge of other possibilities. The mystical perspective, because it is not theoretical, does not do this, as far as I can tell. Mystics do not oppose evolution, do not presume the origin or age of the World, etc. Mysticism and science/philosophy are no more opposed than are art and science/philosophy.
I heartily endorce JL's comments.
Let me elaborate one point regarding the pre-reflective nature of experience. I said it is that quality of experience we all have just before we make sense of it linguistically. It seems to me reasonable to say that if it were not for the non-dualistic immediate experience we would have no experience at all. Linguistic reality, which gives a dualistic framework to our immediate non-dualistic experience, could not exist by itself; it would have no foundation; it would just be words occupying a vacuum. On the other hand, our immediate experience would provide us with no survival benefit by itself since it does not break the world up into all the "objects" and "qualities" we need for its management. This is why I say that the illusion of the ego and the static qualities of things are imperative for our material survival. But "spiritually" it is essential that we realize their illusory, if critically important, nature in order to retain our connection with the world. This connection is what I understand by "religion": to re-connect us with Ultimate Reality. The legio part of "religion" has the same root as ligament, that which connects.
I heartily disagree with them.
They are self-serving.
Twyvel, exactly. Samsara and Nirvana are the same. Liberation from illusion is a non-event insofar as the liberation is from nothing. Without ego actions occur, but not as predicates of subjects, not as actions of agents, only as actions. Instead of "I think therefore I am" there is "thinking therefore there is thinking."
Correct, and therefore it is not the case, as you say, "This is why I say that the illusion of the ego and the static qualities of things are imperative for our material survival."
It's odd but if no egos existed it wouldn't change a bloody thing since no egos exist now.
(changed would to wouldn't)
I don't understand, Twyvel. The illusion of ego is universal, and it seems obvious to me that this is because of its functional value. What am I missing?
JLNobody
We're trying to see through the illusion of the ego, an illusion that it does something.
How can an ego-self that doesn't exist do anything?
A belief system...just as certain as Christianity is a belief system.
If you guys can't see that...you ought to reconsider any thoughts you have that you can see REALITY.
Twyvel has hit on one of the issues I have with buddhism. I feel the non duality of nature (it seems Parminedies and Heraclitus were discussing this same line of thought) but the end game of this line of thinking is that there is no spoon - no ego - no you - no I - just 'it'. It seems that when this is realized - and no change takes place (it cannot take place - unless the individual soul is posited) - that the buddhist believer is left with an odd conundrum. I think this buddhist conundrum led to the creation of the Buddhistavas. Buddha did not change and thus needed to create the vow that he would help others.
This seems to apply to the conversation at hand - which is Buddhist and epistemological in nature. The question was - how do you know that your 'religion' is correct? However, if your realization is that all is one - and this one is the nature of enlightenment - truth is already acheived. Only with a dualstic nature can change take place. Nothing (illusion) can do nothing - only something can do something.
Frank,
Thanks for the correction of my words - I think your restatement said it much better.
My take on why I believe that my beliefs are correct has been well document in this thread - although rejected by Frank and others (which is just fine). I believe emperical knowledge is possible of religion. I believe that religious experience can support certain hypothosis about religion. I believe that it is possible for the seeker to not find evidence that certain faiths are correct - this does not reduce me to a relativist however, it makes religion in my model a subjective experience.
I think the search for ultimate reality, as Frank stated it, is correct, and I believe that this nature can be experienced and that experience can cause change in the seeker that can guide belief. This knowledge is inductive in nature and although cannot give certainty - it can give probability.
But I think this makes me a dualist - because there has to be a 'this' to recognize a 'that' and make claims about it.
TTF
The characters of our dreams do not exist, yet they seem to move about, interact, speak and think. Our dream creatures seem to believe that the world they inhabit is real, and that they exist. Long dead relatives advise us as if they were alive. Suffering exists within the dream world.
Then we wake up and the dream world vanishes, or does it? Do the projections of our dreams believe that they have free will, that they exist as separate entities in a four-dimensional world?
My belief is that the perceptual world we live in is itself a dream, and that everything within it is illusory. There are some apparent differences between an Asherman dream and the illusory world "dream". Our personal dreams are within a dream, a little playlet within the play. We imagine that we exists as separate entities with character and personality. We believe in dimensions, change and decision-making. That which "dreams" us, I believe, is infinite and dimensionless. It has no character or personality and makes no decisions. It is not "interested" in the little dream that is our universe, or even probably conscious of it. It just is, and is no more fully understandable to us than our dream creatures are of us.
The Awakening Experience is somewhat like what might happen if one of our dream creatures suddenly realized that it was a dream. For a moment that never existed, the dream creature would be outside the dream construct and to some extent realize that nothing in the dream, including suffering, was real. What happens to an "Awakened" dream creature that never existed in the first place? Did the dream creature ever really think, speak or act? We seem to, don't we?
The flash of transcendental insight into the nature of things causes profound changes in a dream creature's "life". They behave differently, and as a consequence are "free" of many of the dream's fetters. The dream creature has directly experienced something different, and afterward they "know" that the dream is insubstantial. As Frank has so often pointed out, neither we nor our dream creature projections really know anything. We both just have a strong belief that our Awakening Experience does represent a true insight into the nature of reality.
"you're justa bit of undigested beef", as Ebanezer said.of Morley's ghost. Even if Morley realizes that he doesn't really exist how valid is his realization? Our own Awakening Experience may be just as illusory as Morley's. The experience may be the result of a "mal-function" within the brain. I'm not so sure that it matters very much. The Experience matters to me and I treat it as real and valid, even though I can not provide evidence of a high order for it.
I think that the proof is in the pudding. What sort of life changes come from the experience, whether a brain-abberation or TRUTH? If the person who had the Experience remains unchanged, then the Experience probably was only an experience. Buddhist doctrines are very much based on the Awakening Experience, and we are told that many Buddhists have over the last couple of thousand years had the Experience. I believe that the absence of Buddhist religious war and intolerance, constitute at least some proof that the awakening Experience results in efforts to relieve and mitigate suffering. The Experience, I believe, is available to all regardless of their cultural or religious background. Does the Experience have the same effect on others as it has on Buddhists?
One of the things I've noticed about Christians is that after you've debated them long enough...and pointed out that most of the stuff they accept...they accept on blind faith...which is to say, they guess it to be right and then insist that it is despite almost no evidence...
...they go into this "I've had a personal revelation" nonsense.
And if you ask how they know their brains are not deluding them into thinking they have had something "revealed" to them...they end up saying, "I just know, that's all."
Gosh...those Christians sure are stubborn about their guesses.
So are we Buddhists, its just that we are a tad more tolerant generally.
As someone pointed out, I think it was Frank :wink: , in the absence of knowing, it is possible that the Christian "I've had a personal revelation" claim is valid and reflects the true nature of existence. In the absence of "knowing", to typify the reported experience as "nonsense" seems a bit inconsistent. To the person making a true profession of a personal revelation/Awakening Experience, the experience isn't a guess. We believe that we know on the basis of personal experience. Absolute honesty, does require that we acknowledge the possibility that our experience (whatever it is/was), might not be all that it seemed. That isn't likely to cause anyone to change their minds. We may doubt a proposition, but still hold it to be true. Only when we come to the conclusion that our belief is "wrong" can we discard completely discard it.
The ability for Christians to remain "faithful" to doctrines that seem to be clearly impossible is amazing. Can the sun suddenly stand still in the sky? "No, certainly not." But, you believe that the sun stood still for Joshua? "Oh, yes." How? Why? "God can do anything." Blows me away.
It doesn't bother me that Christians believe the truth of their religion based on faith, and personal experience they believe is valid. After all, as Frank points out that applies to everything we think we know about the universe. We "guess" and accept that which we "believe" has evidence of a high order to recommend it. I'm much more bothered by the unwillingness of many Abrahamics to test their beliefs in an open minded way with reason. To reject reason, mathematics and physics when there is a conflict with an article of faith is astounding to me. The second problem I have with the Abrahamics is their historical willingness to kill anyone they can not convert to their particular beliefs.
Asherman...you are right.
I shouldn't have used the prejorative "nonsense."
I withdraw it unconditionally.
But I would like to share this with you:
One of the other things that bother me about Christians...is their endless rationalizations about why they say the things they say.
They tend to minimize the agnostic argument by pretending the kinds of things they guess about (their belief system) is some analogous to the kinds of things we have to "guess" about all the time.
They completely ignore the fact that although they are correct that proof of anything is almost impossible to come by and "guessing" of a sort is necessary simply to live life...
...the fact is that gratuitous, self-serving guesses about the unknown are not comparable at all.
And they insist their guesses about the unknown are valid...and that their "experience revelations" are somehow different from other assertions of "experince revelation"...and that they KNOW their experiences are valid.
Boy...those Christians sure are hard-headed.
Twyvel, I have not yet read the comments posted since you said:
"We're trying to see through the illusion of the ego, an illusion that it does something.
How can an ego-self that doesn't exist do anything?"
Ah, I see your point. I suggest that although ego doesn't do anything, because of its non-existence, it is the illusion that it does exist that influences behavior. Animals that have not developed a sense of self respond differently to situations and events than do humans precisely because the latter operate under the ego illusion. A mirage of a body of water, draws us to it in order to quence our thirst. Yet, as a body of water it does not exist. Like the ego, the mirage's ontological status is purely psychological.
Now I'll read the posts to see if my statement is redundant or otherwise unnecessary.
Asherman wrote:My belief is that the perceptual world we live in is itself a dream, and that everything within it is illusory.
If you believe that everything in the world is illusory then you also, perforce, believe that your belief that everything is illusory is also illusory, correct?
