Note: Sorry about the length of this post. Due to my health situation I only had the energy to rewrite it once. It could probably be trimmed to a few pithy sentences without losing much.katy steger:
... is there a useful, personal value in holding specific objections to fundamental reality as consciousness due to holding that "a lot of people — most, it sometimes seems to me — hold that the only fundamental reality is consciousness"? I totally understand that it can be very gratifying and energizing to be argumentatively correct unto oneself, to win an argument, at least in the short-term, and to form ideas like, "Well, if you're gonna practice, you gotta know what you're practicing" and so on.
I am having trouble understanding your complex sentences. I gather you're asking me something vaguely like "Do you raise objections just for the fun of being right?" No. I'll go into more detail below.
... in the very second I am in the presence of a teacher who is conducting their life incredibly well, I just drop that stuff...
I've seen countless people “just drop" their resistance when they encounter a teacher that (in their view) exhibits the characteristics of an enlightened being (or whatever it is they're looking for). But appearances can be deceiving, and talking a good game isn't truth.
Even if the teacher is saying things that are (as far as you or I can tell) true, there's yet another issue: efficiency. Let me explain that one.
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The Buddha (to use him as an example) made some amazing breakthroughs about 2600 years ago. The world has made some strides in liberating itself from ignorance, but our knowledge has grown faster than our wisdom. We now have the ability to destroy all human life on earth. Within a generation we'll probably be able to destroy the planet itself. This is bad.
Yes, I know that “bad” is a loaded term, often scorned in forums similar to this one, but
for the time being I'm tentatively maintaining that it would be “a bad thing” if this planet was destroyed. For all I know, humans are the only example, in the entire universe, of a sentience that can guide its evolution. That strikes me as something worth saving.
However, if it turns out that the optimal way to save humans from delusion is getting them to meditate for years at a time, then we're doomed. It's as simple as that. For countless centuries there have been countless systems to liberate people, but they're far too slow. Humanity needs to wake up, and that's just not going to happen if we demand that people sit and meditate for two hours a day without any idea when or even if they'll get a breakthrough.
— — —
On a related note, you have probably seen that there are many deluded teachers. Perhaps you agree that the number of genuinely liberated people are few and far between. (As I recall, Osho once guessed that only 10 people in history had been fully liberated, while U.G. Krishnamurti said that as far as he knew everybody but him had simply fooled themselves. I salute both of them for having the nerve to speak so forthrightly.)
So I am questioning. I am doubting. I have been exposed to a few people who seemed liberated in ways I could scarcely grasp, but by sticking with the questions I have slowly, slowly come to see similarities in the various systems and teachings. It is my hope (if I might use that word) that the problems humanity faces can be understood, not just evaded. I've taken some encouraging steps in that direction, but of course I could be deluded.
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Some teachers advise us to kill the intellect. I've heard some use precisely that word. Others suggest we de-prioritize it, while others suggest we ignore it or consider it irrelevant. What I'm not hearing is that intellect and no-mind (if I can divide things that way) might work harmoniously.
I acknowledge the vast gulf between thought and experiencing, the immense difference between living via analysis and just living. I've seen this for and in myself. But this is not what I'm talking about just now.
I may be overstating the case, but I've heard countless teachers speak of intellect like it's the devil. In some ways
it is, but only if its “software” is ... let's use the word “twisted”. That twisting is the inevitable result of the evolution of thought, but those evolutionary errors might be correctable.
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So what the heck do I think I'm doing? I'm seeing if we might combine the wisdom of the sages with the honest questioning we associate with the best of science. I'll probably fail, but if I succeed, or if somebody doing the same sort of thing succeeds, then we will be able to stop asking people to sit for years staring at a wall (or bending into odd shapes, or chanting, or praying, or whatever).
Time seems to be running out for humanity. If you're okay with that, well, perhaps you can tell me more. For now, though, I do not consider years-long meditations (and similar strategies) to be in any way a viable answer to the problems that plague humanity.
I'll try not to assume anything, but I do hope your interest in meditation(?)+life/effects is beneficial to you/us.
I do meditate, but it's a tool, not a lifestyle. I do not schedule meditation; I do it when it seems necessary.
Will my participation here be beneficial to “you/us”? Maybe. It's easy to see how it could go wrong and produce nothing but noise. I've made great strides with my questioning ways, bringing myself a measure of peace, equanimity and potential that would have been impossible a few years ago. But I hold no conviction that what I'm doing is even the right thing to do.
I do, however, hold the conviction that the world is full of people who will tell me what I absolutely
must do. And while there is often a kernel of truth at the core of various spiritual traditions, the vast majority of it is bullshit.
Some of the top questions that interest me, then, are: What is the kernel of truth that different traditions vaguely see? and
Is it possible to portray that in an accessible way to open-minded people of average intelligence, without asking them to devote years of study to discover what they actually are (after the delusion is stripped away)?