The Problem of Self

Frank,

If you care to read the link I gave above you might reconsider your claim that we are advocating "belief systems".

But to learn if there is anything that is beyond thought, beyond the intellect, beyond the routine, one must be free of all beliefs, mustn't one? Which doesn't mean you become an atheist. The atheists and the believers are both the same.

Rex

You wrote:

RexRed wrote:

When you look to yourself you will become lonely. When you look to others you will be let down. When you look to God you will never be let down and you will never be alone.

And then immediately posted:

Quote:

Sound logic.

In a way, you are correct...it is a form of sound logic.

But it would have been just as "sound logic" if you had written...

..."...When you look to Santa Claus you will never be let down..."

fresco wrote:

Frank,

If you care to read the link I gave above you might reconsider your claim that we are advocating "belief systems".

I have read it.

I am more convinced than ever that it is a belief system...and a belief system that is trying to fake out itself...and its adherents.

I did agree with one thing K said:

Quote:

But to learn if there is anything that is beyond thought, beyond the intellect, beyond the routine, one must be free of all beliefs, mustn't one? Which doesn't mean you become an atheist. The atheists and the believers are both the same.

In any case, K thinks he has the answers to the Ultimate Question of "What is going on here...what is the nature of existence."

And insofar as he does, it is my opinion that he is advocating a belief system.

Frank,

Krishnamurti's method is never to give "answers" but to exhort the listeners to "observe themselves".
He completely rejects any "authority" attached to himself (whom he calls "the speaker").
This process of questioning of synthetic boundaries is a little bit like the celebrated Sherlock Holmes' fictional dictum "when we have eliminated all we can, whatever is left contains "the truth" however unlikely this may seem".

Of course one of the most difficult things to do IS to ruthlessly observe the self. We have so many vested interests wrapped up in our many rationalizations that for most the inclination simply does not arise. Using the label "belief system" for what in essence a "meditative exercise" could be merely an excuse for letting sleeping dogs lie.

Frank Apisa wrote:

fresco wrote:

Frank,

If you care to read the link I gave above you might reconsider your claim that we are advocating "belief systems".

I have read it.

I am more convinced than ever that it is a belief system...and a belief system that is trying to fake out itself...and its adherents.

I did agree with one thing K said:

Quote:

But to learn if there is anything that is beyond thought, beyond the intellect, beyond the routine, one must be free of all beliefs, mustn't one? Which doesn't mean you become an atheist. The atheists and the believers are both the same.

In any case, K thinks he has the answers to the Ultimate Question of "What is going on here...what is the nature of existence."

And insofar as he does, it is my opinion that he is advocating a belief system.

Frank the agnostic has a belief too... it is a belief in a form of unbelief.


If the final result is to confess that one cannot know then it is a belief in unbelief.

I think, to look in the face of creation and say one cannot know is to run from the reality of all realities.

To scoff in the face of what IS known and to mock the certainty of that which plainly IS versus that which is not. To say that all which IS came from nothing or the unknowable is not logic.

It had to come from something that transcends all time and matter. It is only logic that we are in the image of this presumed unknowable thing... so to know this we need only to look into ourselves. When we find the timeless virtues within ourselves we will also have found the image of God within.

Frank Apisa wrote:

Rex

You wrote:

RexRed wrote:

When you look to yourself you will become lonely. When you look to others you will be let down. When you look to God you will never be let down and you will never be alone.

And then immediately posted:

Quote:

Sound logic.

In a way, you are correct...it is a form of sound logic.

But it would have been just as "sound logic" if you had written...

..."...When you look to Santa Claus you will never be let down..."

Frank the only fault with your logic here is...

... that Santa Clause is not the supposed "person" that people refer to as "creating the heavens and the earth". If that claim were to be imposed upon Jolly Old Santa then I would agree that Santa would never let you down. It is the creator of our universe that is all powerful regardless of what you may want to call him/her by name.

Frank

It is not self serving to say we are in "God's" image... It is self serving to rationalize, in the face of reality, that one cannot know so they can usurp the position of God for their own glory.

I concede to God you rationalize to deny God for your own denial of the truth.

Kuvasz,

Thanks for the term "perennial philosophy"...any recommended links ?

The Perennial Philosophy
"These teachings are, therefore, no novelties, no inventions of today, but long since stated, if not stressed; our doctrine here is the explanation of an earlier and can show the antiquity of these opinions on the testimony of Plato himself."
Plotinus, Enneads, V, I, 8


The term "Perennial Philosophy" refers to the thesis that the same timeless truths about the nature of the self, the world, the meaning of life, and deity, reappear time and again, regardless of culture or belief-system, differeing only in external culturally-determined details. The existence of such a universal wisdom tradition has been variously argued by Aldous Huxley, Huston Smith, Ken Wilber, and representatives of the Traditionalist movement, among others

The ubiquity of the Perennial Philosophy can variously be explained as due to either that

Reality has a specific "structure" which mystics and visionaries of all times and cultures have tuned into
The human brain has a specific "structure" which mystics and visionaries of all times and cultures have tuned into. This describes the "deep structures" of the brain (or mind) but has nothing to say about reality itself
Some paleolithic genius came up with a central idea or set of ideas and this was carried down and eventually spread through all cultures. Different traditions added their own embelleshments (again sometimes borrowing from each other)
Of these options we can easily reject the last; it does not explain how mystics came upon these ideas independent of religion or background, or schizophrenics or patients undergoing psychoanalysis can come up with alchemical or gnostic wisdom without knowing anything about the original (often very obscure and little known sources, as C. G. Jung found), and the comprehensive scope of the Perennial Philosophy is too integral to be carried on without fragmentation or distortion.

The second option assumes metaphysical nihilism or at least metaphysical agnosticism; we cannot know about Reality in itself, only about the brain or other things in the phsyical world. But this basically materialistic or quasi-materialistic itself makes huge assumptions about there being a physical world of such and such properties, human knowledge is limited in such and such a way, etc etc, and these assumptions are specifically part and parcel of the cultural-memetic bias of the secular west. Since there is no reason why the secular west should be any more insightful than say the wisdom traditions of sages past and present, there is no reason this option should be preferred to any other (one cannot say "because the secular west perfect science, and science is so accurate in explaining the world", because science makes no metaphysical statements either way)

That leaves only the first option, which is the position I adopt here

The Perennial Philosophy can thus be considered a valid or reliable source of knowledge

But - important! - to say the Perennial Philosophy consitutes a form of authentic knowledge does not mean that anything that is included under the Perennial Philosophy is automatically gospel truth, and conversely that anything that is not part of the Perennial Philosophy must therefore deficient or unreliable. Such a position - taken by the anti-modernist school of Rene Guenon (i.e. "Traditionalism") - is, like all such extremist and literalist statements, both incorrect as far as understanding the physical universe goes (e.g. the struct Traditionalists reject Evolution in favour of a modified (monotheistic-ecumenical) Creationism, although it has conclusively been shown that Creationism is incorrect both factually and in terms of its methodology), seriously narrows the scope of the knowable and denies new frontiers of knowledge, thus creating a new straightjacket to replace the straightjacket of reductionist materilaism.

Because the Perennial Philosophy constitutes the majority view of pre-modernist understanding, that does not mean it is the only view.

So, while we can say that the Perennial Philosophy constitutes one form of authentic knowledge, and as such serves as an essential reference for the creation of any Provisional Metaphysical Theory of Everything; it is necessary to also acknowledge that there are many things that are not included in the Perennial Philosophy, indeed some that actually go against the Perennial Philosophy (e.g. nirvana or liberation is not the highest goal of existence, or science gives a reliable account of external physical reality, or animals have as developed a soul as man) which are I would contend are also equally valid.

RexRed wrote:

Frank

It is not self serving to say we are in "God's" image... It is self serving to rationalize, in the face of reality, that one cannot know so they can usurp the position of God for their own glory.

Yes it is, Rex. It is extemely self-serving to say anything about any God's...considering the evidence you are using.

But you have a closed mind...so it is difficult for you to see that.

Try opening it a bit.

You also wrote:

Quote:

I concede to God you rationalize to deny God for your own denial of the truth.

You normally don't make much sense...but in this sentence, you truly outdid yourself.

I have absolutely no idea of what you were trying to communicate.

Is English a second language with you?

the human desire is insatiable. that is is the reason. when the needs gets to ends, ends gets to needs. it is toomuch for us desire that that end meets end.

Fresco and Kuvasz, thanks for the Krishnamurti and Perennial Philosophy links. They have long been fountains of inspiration for me. It is a shame that Frank cannot see that what Krishnamurti recommends is quite the opposite of a belief system;...

...he only recommends that one see for himself the nature of his reality, much as the Buddha recommended that each of us be a lantern unto ourselves.

Frank, I don't want to respond to your rigid assertions, but I do not want to say that you undoubtedly DO NOT understand Krishnamurti. For one to "reject the notion of the self or ego" (in order to become enlightened) is to merely reinforce the delusion of the ego, to maintain the "fragmentation" that K refers to.