Talking to ones self

Well, I only made the comparison because I just don't see a difference between you and the average person.

I'd call this an extreme example, wouldn't you?

 

I dont appriciate you making a statement like that based on what I say on an online forum. I dont see the difference between you and the average person either. Tell me, who is the average person.

And yes, that is an extreme example. I was trying to get you to see what I was talking about.

 

I have no problem being lumped in with the "average" crowd. I don't know why you WOULD see a difference between me and the average person. What is more common than the thought that one's self is exceptional?
Do you not appreciate my statement because you consider yourself special, or above average, above others?

I don't think extremes act as a justification towards a comment made about most people.

 

No I dont know what you mean by the "average person". Im sure everybody would say something different regarding the "average person". Im not in a rut, are you? And I was using that "extreme" example to let YOU know what I was talking about. Its not litteral in anyway. Maybe for some but not most.

 

Why not take this to the next level

You don't even have a mind

You just have a body

mind is body observing body

and Self is body observing body observing body

Oh but wait, you don't have a body either; body is just organs interacting; oh but wait you don't have organs, etc I prefer to acknowledge basic facts of existence like "I do not appear to be my mind" rather than questioning everything to the point where you don't believe that quarks fuse into particles or something. Both are valid paths to take, as all paths are valid, but for me personally, one leads to nothing but despair and meaninglessness, and the other leads to integration and meaning.

 

Neither do I. I was just supplying that word within the context of the conversation. I believe you were the one to first create a hypothetical "average" group of people, or a general category of people, during this discussion.

 

i have learned not to stereotype from this thread

 

I strongly disagree.

This may all be true in the philosophical sense, but practically, I'm just trying to point to how sophisticated and complex the entrapings and illusions of the mind really are. And yes I know, they don't exist, but yet they do and we experience them everyday; spirituality is full of paradoxes, neither end of which is the truth. I'm not going to say my path is the same as your path, but I know that a lot of people who frequent this forum are on similiar paths, and there comes a point where one reaches a sort of spiritual complaceny. It's when the mind has conviction in spiritual truth, and knows it to be truth, yet it isn't realized, because as usual, it's just mind.

 

Yeah that was way back. I was refering to people who arent spiritual, or people that dont trip. People who are stuck on tracks and are not happy. And I was saying, if I could share what I experience with them, maybe they would be happy too? like me? Because what they experience is not happy. And Im not trying to generalize. Im refering to people I know, or know of, or someone I know knows, Im not going to be specific and say names, so therefore I have to generalize to an extent.

 

Completley the opposite in my experience, and it grows in that direction perpetually.
Though I was never one to be 'under' any influence during adolesence, so it works both ways surely.

 

Well there is the division, a concept of duality in Mr Writers post (meaning and emptiness) and the state of the mind as being removed the highest in your post.
I agree with you Josh, though Mr. Writer has some good points as well, in my experience there is nothing outside of the mind, and whatever God is that my use of the word implies apparently is entirely paradoxical and absurd.
So in that case, a path going one way and a path going the other, even on an individual basis, presents themselves as one and cancels each other out.
The mind is something which we barely understand, it is to soon to jump the gun and assume we can know the difference between mind and spirit, or if either are present in any ultimate reality at all. In essence, any experience we have is within the mind, and anything trascendental we touch is received by the mind, therefor anything else we experience is based on belief, not on fact. As many experiences I've had with God, and while I have no doubt that it is manifesting reality, I can not tell that to another (though I laugh at people and am guilty of calling people idiots on a daily) and expect any appreciation because for all I know, my mind may have well leaped off the deep end years ago and left my 'Self' behind to wander in the light show.
Self, meaning the leftovers of my personality, the false sense of purpose and identity we all have, wether with life or with the absolute, so chosen to be distinguished and acknowledged as such.

 

my mind is selfer than your mind

 

Yo, you tryin to fight or somethin? Let's step outside right now, just you and me brah

 

I'm left completely confused as to the difference between Spirit and Mind. Actually, confused as just to what Spirit actually is.
I can say from my own experience that I have experienced Spirit, but past experiences don't exist anyway. That's the bitch about it, you go through something that puts you completely in touch with Tao, there can be no doubt, and then the mind processes even that. And it becomes something temporal, something fixed in the past, something that is a memory instead of life, and it becomes mind, and therefor becomes not real, and possibly even therefor, never happened anyways.

I just feel that people who have had enlightening experiences, they grasp onto them like other people would a car of some other materialistic item, and they become just another product of the mind, another tool of the ego, yet they don't realize it because their tool has some sort of spiritual semblence or a philisophical nature. But really, it's the same thing, it's no better than someone who lives for money. It ALL must be relinquished.

 

i get what you're saying neodude. i guess my response would be to suck on the paradigm the mind has grabbed hold of as a sort of spiritual candy, and if it isn't ultimately true then it will prove so in the long run. but you might as well enjoy it if you realize it might not be completely true.

i think it's important to just enjoy things even if they are illusions. a good story from a book is an illusion but you can still enjoy it. enjoy the mind if you recognize it's false, that's part of what makes it fun.

 

When you taste liberation, illusions start to lose their hold on you.

You begin to see them for what they are. Illusions.

 

This is one of those times where I'm not sure how to express what I've learned from this post, but I have learned it.

:cheers2:

You're right, I have been completely gasping to what I've learned like just another peg on the ladder of life. Now the hard part is letting go of THIS

 

I know I quote it a lot, lol but it applies to everything, especially these moments

"The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding."
-Tao Te Ching; Chapter 1

 

That's the 50th time today, John!

 

I'm the same. If someone said it better than I can, repeat what they said. Knowledge is knowledge.