The "others"

Hi Phantasm, and thanks for your post(s).

Let's please put aside parallel realities and QP in general, not to get confused (or confusing). When we're done with the basic model we can then explore further.

So let's call ourselves strips of consciousness, whatever, flowers even, I don't care. We're little cut-outs of the whole. But WHAT separates us. Is there something to separate us. I need to know that.

We are not separate. Why do you think we are? This is the very illusion. You're fully aware of the truth intellectually, as clear in your post, but because it's only intellectually, you keep dancing between the two levels of truth and illusion, or truth and dream.

Okay look.
You are a person, right?

No, wrong. Of course I'm not. This is the very first veil you have to remove, or see through. You are not a person. The "person" is an utter illusion.

You are everywhere.
You are everyone.
You are me and I am you.
Night Eyes is Rodan and Rodan is Lunar and Lunar is President Roosevelt.
We're all one consciousness but we have the image that we are not.

Beautiful. But…

How do we become so divided?

So soon you fell again in the trap. We are not divided. Night Eyes, Rodan, Lunar, President Roosevelt, etc.: These are fictional "personas" on the stage, or fleeting "appearances" on the screen, So they only "look" divided; at least the "bodies" are truly divided, but only in the eyes of another persona/body in the same dream, and only inside this dream.

From outside the dream, all these bodies and forms and appearances, including your own, are but waves and ripples rising and falling in the mind—your universal mind. You're not really in any of them or one with them, existentially speaking. They're nothing, literally, but mere fleeting appearances.

The ancient sages left us a very good analogy here: It's a lake, at night, and the moon's full in the sky. Few bubbles are floating on the surface of the lake. They each reflect the image of the moon. They're each lit by and reflecting the moonlight. However, when these bubbles become self-conscious what would they think? Each bubble would simply think it's self-luminous, and each would think it has a moon inside, and therefore there are as many moons as there are bubbles.

Truth is, it's only one moon, up there, and these are but transparent, empty and transient bubbles.

Similarly, YOU are this only one moon always there full and shining. This is what we call Consciousness. It's much more than that but let's keep it simple. So you are this one moon, this One Consciousness, and all these bodies and forms and personas—including the one you're currently identifing with—are but empty bubbles, all reflecting only your image and showing only your light.

Hello Lotus, Rodan,

I realize belatedly that I may have been a bit of an interloper on your conversation - I apologize for this and hope that you continue discussing Uri Geller, as it was never my intention to interrupt that. I just thought it might be possible to bring a new strand into the conversation -- as in music where you have two melodies playing at the same time. Point counter point.

(Actually Aldous Huxley wrote a brilliant book called exactly Point Counter Point...one of his earlier ones.



about intellectualism and emotion vs. reason )

I suppose the question behind all these questions, really, is what is the "self"? There is no self, only a universal "plate" reflecting seven billion reflections; seven billion reflections shining from a deep starlit lake.

The Problem of Apparent Separateness

When I said, "how do we become so divided", I was being rhetorical but serious too: certainly we're not divided on the deeper level. But our ordinary everyday beings do not see that. "I" cannot, at will, hop into "your" world; in "my" reality, it has only ever been "me", everything I have ever experienced has been experienced by "me". There is a curtain that separates us, if you will. Yes it is an illusion. A magic curtain. But it's there all the time, and this is why we have wars, this is why we have religions clashing, why people look only to their own comfort and the comfort of their immediate families. They do not see that we are one. They do not even care.

In my body, there are currently germs and so on that are being fought by red blood cells and antibodies. And yet, from my point of view, all that is me. Well I guess the earth is like that too; the Greater Mind sees everything inside it as...ultimately creating some kind of balance... good and bad balance each other out.

Which perhaps brings us to the problem of evil.

Divisions: Good and Evil

Is evil necessary? It is horrible to think, but if there were no problems in this world. No unhappiness, no sickness, no death, no wars, if there was peace and happiness all round and nothing to strive for - well would such a world even be possible? Or would it evaporate in a cosmic blink into pure transcendence?

Sometimes I think such a world really would be impossible - in this universe - that the evil is necessary, that it has to be there to balance out the worldly good. If it isn't necessary, then why is it there?

The Illusion of Separateness

I think somebody has certainly already asked this but in the context of what I'm going though now -- we're one mind, but why do we see ourselves as separate? Why aren't we all awake to the illusion of our separateness? Deep down perhaps we are...

Lotus wrote:So soon you fell again in the trap. We are not divided. Night Eyes, Rodan, Lunar, President Roosevelt, etc.: These are fictional "personas" on the stage, or fleeting "appearances" on the screen, So they only "look" divided; at least the "bodies" are truly divided, but only in the eyes of another persona/body in the same dream, and only inside this dream.

We are personas - but why create them? What's the point of this world, the stage? Why aren't we just hovering in divine bliss all the time, why is it that only certain experiences, such as love or transcendental meditation or even drugs, can open us up to experiencing that bliss?

I read once about a strongly spiritual thanatologist who experienced "the mystic wedge"...all seven billion minds in one go. Only for an instant, but it was enough to pretty much literally knock him over. Is that why we're cloaked in a dream all the time? Why our mind seems to have an ending point?

Though at the same time it doesn't. You look out at the world around you and there is never one point where you feel like your mind ends. Your mind is everywhere you look. It doesn't stop at the borders of your brain; that would be silly.

Brain/Body, Mind/One Consciousness

How exactly our brains and souls and minds and spirits (words, words, words...) interact, is of course a mystery. Maybe some monks have penetrated it in moments of transcendence, I don't know. I would like to think that mind>brain, mind over matter and all that, that as the Simplifier said in another thread, it's the thoughts that mould the physical substance. On the other hand, it has been shown to also, if not always, be the other way round.

The brain moulds the thoughts. Look at dementia, for example. You lose those memories, you become strange; bipolar, or other mental illnesses - Asperger's, a developmental disorder. People with ASD have totally different brains and therefore think differently, more concretely, though often at a genius level.

Thinking is mind and mind is thought. But thought and mind are also brain, and brain is body, and our bodies are separate (except...at certain special times).

I'm sorry if I'm leading away from your beautiful vision - because it is beautiful, even Phanty must recognize and pay tribute to it - but the truth is that the "separateness" does continue to plague us as a society. Time and again spiritual people, particularly from the east, say we are here to wake up from the illusion of this separateness. But how did we become "separate" in the first place? Why are we not already awake?

Original Sin?

Also I suppose - and again I'm sorry to go off-topic, but the problem is that your topic is so big that like the One Consciousness it includes within it everything - there is also the question of time.

Time/Space, One/All

We are "fleeting appearances" and "ephemeral", but we need time in order to move on, in order to "fleet", or we would be at a stand-still. Which is, just on another level, what I mean by "where" and "how" and "who" do we go when we travel from one universe to another.

Because if we realise that time is actually everywhere at once, as Einstein has told us, we also realise that there is no movement from past to future. All exists simultaneously. All exists simulatenously for our 7 billion selves.

What is observing that, what creates the illusion of the observer, the illusion of movement?

Coming back to Aldous Huxley. I was him, just as I was Einstein and everyone else I admire (including you). We are all each other, now, always. Time is everywhere at once and we are everywhere at once. Everything and everyone that ever lived is me, you, us, we. All, one whole. All the multiple universes too. What quantum jumps from one to another? It must be a very clever illusion, just the same as the clever illusion that we are moving through time and the clever (perhaps not-so-clever) illusion that we are all separate.

To end, again, as I began, with dear Aldous -- I'm sure he loved The Three Musketeers. In his later, mystical years, the great novelist might have rewritten the book to be about The Three Non-Duals, with the motto:


Thanks for reading.

from your other persona,
Phantasm

(brownie points if you spot the Led Zeppelin reference)

To kind of re-direct things a little (sorry!) I see that the thread has been moved from the LoA forum to the Esoteric Wisdom forum. That's completely fine of course. But it made me remember when I was creating the thread I wasn't sure where to post it. I did remember the original thread that sparked this one and it was quite esoteric.

But then there is also the very conventional LoA ideas and advice behind how we can improve our experiences with the others in our reality. (Think of the advice & explanations in The Secret.) I touched upon that in my original post that kicked off the thread and it's interesting to note that no one really went in that direction. How does that line of thinking within this larger discussion if at all?

Maybe there should be a data mining feature where when you type in key words, it refers you to threads that are closely related. Kind of like how some pictures on tumblr have hashtags and when you click on it, it shows you related pictures. Also, maybe there can be "Reccomended For You" emails or pop-ups on the home screen showing the top threads you'd most likely be interested in, depending on the frequency of "hashtags" you tend to post on most...

Phantasm: That was a very thoughtful and insightful read my friend; thank you for your time and for all this effort you put in it. And no, no need to apologize at all. You didn't really interrupt us. Rodan and I, anyway, are in constant dialog even when we are silent. Besides, we're already done with Uri Geller and his spoons; that wasn't even our main topic here after all.

Master Dogan. This is probably the second most famous name in the world of Buddhism, next only to the Buddha himself, as you probably know. This Grand Master once said: "Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately." I was literally shocked when I first read this, and it really took me years before I could understand what he really meant.

Truth, my friend, is very simple. Simplicity is rather one pointer where the truth is and what the true might be. One of the easiest techniques Buddha came up with to help us realize the truth and free ourselves, therefore, was this: Just stick to your "direct experience" now and here. Just stick to that, only that—that you're seeing and hearing and smelling, right now and here. Gradually, you'll experientially realize there is really nothing other than this, say, seeing. It's just seeing. The moment your mind comes in and you think, "I see this," you instantly cover the truth, because you "split" the one true and direct experience of "seeing" into a "seer-I" and a "seen-this." But this is only in your mind. There is nothing really in your "direct experience" but seeing—and hearing and smelling and tasting and touching and feeling—all of which we can sum up in only one word: Knowing. You are this Knowing. You are not a knower; there is no self or person whatsoever, and consequently there is no other; this is all only in the mind. So there is just Knowing. You, all that exists, are Knowing—continual Knowing; Infinite Consciousness. 

But we lose sight of the truth from the very beginning—starting with the act of "recognition" itself. Worse still, we go on theorizing and conceptualizing and constantly adding more and more layers or covers on the bare truth of direct experience. And we end up in a "mental world" of thoughts within thoughts based upon thoughts and with endless "stories" the ego keeps weaving all the time in order to hide further our simple truth. Knowing!

You're full of books, Phantasm. And your intellect is probably one of the strongest I've ever met on the web. But this is precisely the veil between you and the truth. This is precisely why Dogan said "Give this up immediately." You should rather "shut down" your mind in order to realize the truth—to "see" the Face of God. It's because you "think" so much that you don't see. And it's truly that simple.

So make up your mind: if you want my (and others') comments on all this "stuff"—the problem of evil, the body-mind knot, time and space, Aldous Huxley, etc., please let me know. We'll then probably open several new threads to cover all these "troubles" :d—and it's likely to still be an enjoyable journey. But if you want the truth—only the truth and nothing but the truth; still in the main context of "The Others" topic—then please remove the clutter, focus on only one idea at a time and come as brief and simple as possible.

I also want your answers, please, not only your questions.* I'm not a "guru" I'm just a researcher. Actually that's one reason I like your posts, Phantasm: Even when you ask you also give us your insights, at least between the lines, all of which I sincerely enjoy. So I don't mean only simple questions and short, to-the-point ideas; I just want you, especially in this dialog, to be less intellectual, my friend.


_________________________________
* I'll be away for a few days so please take your time my friend and see you soon.

kazoo wrote:To kind of re-direct things a little (sorry!) I see that the thread has been moved from the LoA forum to the Esoteric Wisdom forum.  That's completely fine of course.  But it made me remember when I was creating the thread I wasn't sure where to post it.  I did remember the original thread that sparked this one and it was quite esoteric.  

But then there is also the very conventional LoA ideas and advice behind how we can improve our experiences with the others in our reality. (Think of the advice & explanations in The Secret.)  I touched upon that in my original post that kicked off the thread and it's interesting to note that no one really went in that direction.  How does that line of thinking within this larger discussion if at all?

Yes, ma'am, that was my direction this time—unfortunately. We left a "shadow" of the topic in LOA forum though. But it's no big deal really; if you want it back it'd be back immediately. We moved it for two reasons: First, because many of the ideas being discussed here are "key" ideas, ideas that may lead to breakthroughs or to drastic changes in our worldviews, which is the main objective of what we call the "Esoteric Wisdom" forum. Second reason, because we generally, and strategically, tend to have these less fortunate forums more active—or the gap between the forums will just keep increasing and we'll have to remove these skinny forums altogether in the future.

Thanks for bringing this up, Kazoo, because I'd like to also highlight the following: The title "Esoteric Wisdom" probably means different things to different people. What we precisely mean, however, is in the "description" of this forum, which I urge all members to please read. We have absolutely no problem whatsoever to change the title, Esoteric Wisdom, and come up with something more expressive of this kind of topics mentioned in the description. Please note, this site and all these names and titles and even descriptions were all written, structured and put together with the design in only three days. They were meant to be temporary, and they'll remain always subject to any changes the members here and especially the Board deem necessary or even just preferable. This, forever, is a work in progress, my friends.

President Roosevelt wrote:Maybe there should be a data mining feature where when you type in key words, it refers you to threads that are closely related. Kind of like how some pictures on tumblr have hashtags and when you click on it, it shows you related pictures. Also, maybe there can be "Reccomended For You" emails or pop-ups on the home screen showing the top threads you'd most likely be interested in, depending on the frequency of "hashtags" you tend to post on most...

I believe this all is already available here (somehow, somewhere). No seriously; just today I discovered a "Tags" tab in our profiles. Ever noticed that before? This is exactly or almost exactly what you're talking about.

Like I said, I don't have a problem with where it is, it belongs here.  I considered putting it here and I should have figured the discussion was of course going gravitate to the more esoteric side of things rather than the conventional basic/beginner LoA stuff.

One debate that took place over and over again at the other other place is that of free will.  Some people have a problem with methods of trying to remotely influence someone else's behavior, trying to force a relationship and override another person's free will.  Well if everyone in my reality is actually me, and a projection of myself or a dream what are the moral implications there?

If I kill someone, what's the problem then?  It's all dream.  They are just a projection of me, not a separate person who has their own individual soul?  And by that same token, I can feel free to rob someone's house too, right?  It's all my stuff anyway. I just projected it for them instead of myself for whatever reason.

Kazoo, i would just fire the question back at yourself but change it a little

If everyone is a projection of yourself.... why would you want to kill them, or rob them?

Not being the murderous type I can't really speak for true motivations of killers, those motivations are numerous from crimes of passion to terrorism to disgruntled employees on and on and on.

People rob basically because someone else has something they want. And not being aware of their ability to manifest they look at robbery as an easy way to get it.

Obviously I've projected a lot of scumbags and jerks into the world. I get what Lotus is saying but I still am not comfortable with it all. Like I said in another post, I don't want the responsibility of me being the one one who is projecting all of the bad people and hardships in the world. That just doesn't resonate with me.

Wow, this thread is going in some amazing directions.

Night Eyes wrote:Kazoo, i would just fire the question back at yourself but change it a little

If everyone is a projection of yourself.... why would you want to kill them, or rob them?

I took this in a different way to Kazoo; if everyone is a projection of me, why would I even want to steal anything since it's already mine? why would I want to kill myself? ...and of course if we look at it that way it just emphasises what Phanty was saying about separation and the problem of violence. If only we just realised that we're all one earth and one consciousness. Why go to war with ourselves?

Haha, I get what you're saying but if I want a big screen tv to watch the Superbowl I am not gonna be satisfied with knowing that my projections are having an amazing Superbowl party down the street while I'm sitting at home missing out.

Even if I am aware of LoA I might think robbing their house or someone else to get the money to buy one might be the path of least resistance in getting that TV for myself.

Again, going with this theory most of our projections are unaware of LoA and don't understand that you don't have to rob someone to get something so all of this horrible stuff is taking place.

Well yes, but all of that is still just you on the ego/individual/"separate" level, it isn't you as a realised, transcendent One Consciousness. The version of me sitting at home and saying "oh I wish I had a plasma television like the Smiths" is still very much wrapped in Lotus's dream world (as I understand it). In reality she is the Smiths. She has the plasma TV already and is already watching the Superbowl.

It isn't the One Consciousness that desires to watch TV, it's the dreaming "individual".

Maybe it's the American in me, as we have a history of individualism and self determination. I don't want to be the Smiths. I want to be me and only me. The Smiths can be free to be themselves and live as they choose. Not as I choose for them.

I do believe that we are interconnected as we are all the creation of the same higher power, but not that we are all one. It's more like a brotherhood in my mind where we are all related and connected but also maintain our individuality and autonomy.

I totally understand where you're coming from, Kazoo; I'm the same, of course, I emphasise my individual identity and have always seen myself as "different", even "special" (and yes, I can imagine Lotus and PR shaking their heads a little reading that!).

But I do think that this "me" is really just an illusion, a mental construct, on so many different levels. On the other hand, as Lotus said in an earlier post:

Lotus ♥ wrote:...now I see more clearly the "duality" and "polarity" of everything. It's a paradox. We are either one, or many. But we are both. The truth therefore is beyond logic, beyond mind, and consequently beyond language.

(emphasis added)

On one level, we are individuals of course. But on another level, we are one. And ultimately we are both many and one at the same time, an ultimate reality that is too deep and rich for the intellectual mind to even ever begin to comprehend.

(And before anyone thinks I have a grip on any of this, of course I don't! I haven't penetrated actuality yet, I'm a mere demisemiapprentice in the business of Oneness)

*tries to get her head around it all*

*fails*

...or maybe you ARE the Superbowl.........

Hello Lotus

I wanted to reply here earlier but I wondered if maybe you wanted the conversation to progress a bit without me first so that I could figure out how to write unacademic messages. lol.

At the moment my head is done in and I have the intellectual complexion of a jellyfish. Can't even string sentences together in an email to this dude who's probably waiting for a response. My philosophy is, better late than stupid. So. Nah, right now I can handle thinking about Victoria's Secret Angels but definitely not about MINDBLOWING STUFF.

So this, still, isn't my reply. But something got me thinking about this thread today and I wanted to just quickly post it.

It's that famous scene in The Matrix.





"Do not try and bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon. Then you will see it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
―Spoon Boy to Neo

This. On so many levels. This.

This, to me, is what it's all about. In three sentences. All of it.



(How was that for a less intellectual post? Do I get brownie points for the fact that real-life Spoon Boy is a personal friend of mine? )

Phantasm wrote: Do I get brownie points for the fact that real-life Spoon Boy is a personal friend of mine? )

Somebody said that before. Did you say that in PLOA another time or has he more than one friend at these forums?

WHAT? HE HAS OTHER FRIENDS??????

Fine... I admit I've only really spoken to him like... once. But we're Facebook friends, and that's what counts, right?

Well if it was another person who said that, I think she was a girl and they went to school together.

Just yesterday I was looking a couple of people in my friends list on Facebook thinking "Who is this guy? How did he get there? Did we have friends in common?"
in my university there was a group of Greek girls that all added me on Facebook but never said hello to me in real life during all the 4 years

He went to a girls school????

oh fine I guess co-eds do exist.

and uh, I'm a bit guilty of that, adding people you barely know - in fact some of my best friendships started that way... like this girl who was a friend of a friend... she was just um... well let's just say I admired her greatly and so I friended her out of the blue and it ended in her asking me out to a concert.

But I get requests from people who I've NEVER met or even SEEN in real life. That... that... is weird.

Phantasm wrote:
(How was that for a less intellectual post?

 
 
Fantastic. I guess that's "being one with the spoon" in other words. Thanks Phantasm for your post and sorry I can't write much these days. You too please take your time. I definitely agree with your philosophy, "better late than stupid." For me, however, it's always better late than scattered, inconsistent, or out of focus. Will be waiting for your longer reply.

(Also thanks to Armine [limiting beliefs] and Lunar [permanently lucid] for their latest posts).

Am I the only one here who doesn't have a Facebook account? (Or Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Skype, and whatever else people are into...)

oh pressie i cant be doing with snapchat and instagram! how many times can you sit there just taking silly photos of yourself?