the power of being by chrysesofia on The Pipeline at IndieMusicPeople

the power of being
i was asked yesterday whether i believe in "fate kinda things" … whether, as seems to be a popular fantasy, "everything happens for a reason," or there are "powers that be" with nothing better to do than align coincidences in your life.

whenever questions of cause and effect and "why" arise, i'm always immediately reminded of what i find to be a fascinating little linguistic quirk that is a characteristic of hebrew, to my knowledge, and probably other languages that i don't know. there are two words for why: one that means "what is the cause" and one that means "what is the purpose." in english, we distinguish these meanings by specifying "how come" and "what for." one is about what has already happened, and one is about what you may be trying to cause to happen. why did you leave the keys in the door? depending how that came about, there is either a cause (how come? my hands were full of grocery bags and i forgot to take the keys out) or a purpose (what for? i'm going right out again and i want to make sure i don't leave the keys in the house and accidentally lock myself out). sometimes we ask someone "why" and get the wrong kind of answer, and then we don't know how to explain how it's the wrong kind of answer, and what we really meant by the question.

where the two sometimes intersect is when you do something by accident, but then it turns out later to be "a good thing" that you did because it ends up serving a purpose you didn't know about yet when you had the accident. another example is when you have a specific purpose in mind, and a circumstance occurs to prevent your accomplishing it, and then it turns out for unconnected reasons to be "a good thing" that you didn't get to do what you had planned. maybe it's even just that you have subtly changed your mind about whether you actually wanted it to get done, the sense that you would have been sorry if you had done what you planned.

people tend to think such coincidences of whys are "freaky" and attribute them to something outside themselves, often something mysterious. i have no patience for this. anyone who says "there are no coincidences" is grasping at straw excuses. look: it's a statistical fact that shit happens. that doesn't mean that there is anything making it happen or that there is a prearranged purpose for it to happen. that is a neurotic perspective … that there is still someone or something else in charge of you and your nonsense, that actually cares what happens to you and how.

nope. the only powers that be are in your own head … you're the only one having your experience, so you're the only one who can perceive any patterns that happen to present themselves. sometimes patterns represent opportunities, either to act or to refrain from acting. but sure, yeah, we can talk about why: why do you want to conceive of yourself as a puppet? why play the trick on yourself of pretending that creating that opportunity required some superior power? why pass off the power to some magical imaginary entity outside yourself? why not just assume that the power is yours?

i can tell you why … that is, what for. for safety. because it is more convenient to believe that something is out to get you, wants to take care of you, or is otherwise in control of you, than to take responsibility for your own thoughts, actions, and decisions, and whatever their outcome is. when you can blame your negative outcomes on "fate," it sure is handy to be helpless. on the other hand, when you can't take credit for your positive outcomes because you've handed it over to your imaginary friends, you're only cheating yourself.

if you are noticing that the things you do fall into patterns, or have results that fall into patterns, you don't need to be worrying about what could be making the patterns happen. YOU ARE. so you need to be thinking about what you are doing that causes those patterns, what is going on in your head that you perceive them as patterns, what the patterns are

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5/12/2006 6:06:31 AM

"the only powers that be are in your own head ..."

well surely most things are coincidence. but how can you be so sure that there are no other powers whatsoever ? I'm an agnostic myself but I am quite certain that some things are by design. Of course one might feel like it's an impractical matter that if there was someone supervising, that this being would take an interest in whatever dumb little thing might change your life a hair. But it's an awful cold and strong point of view that there are absolutely no supernatural factors that could possibly exist to influence events. I guess you also feel that aliens can't possibly exist because if they could, they could affect one of us.

I have experienced some amazingly syncronicitous things even outside some truly strange tactile events in my life. I feel that numerous people who come into my life are there by some mysterious fibre that fits together like a puzzle. Now, you may say this is nuts, but it is what I believe.

I believe it's interesting how angry you seem to be about people who believe in these things. I wonder if you've had events in your life that you are in denial about, or maybe you just hate the thought that anybody else could play a role in your destiny.

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chrysesofia

5/13/2006 10:56:37 PM ---- Updated 5/14/2006 2:01:21 AM

you are =far= from agnostic. it's just a matter of what your gnosis is.

i have no problem with the idea of human beings playing roles in each other's destinies. that is more or less how we're wired to do it. i have a problem with the idea of events being controlled in some way by anything other than human beings or natural occurrences. granted that there are natural occurrences so difficult to grasp and understand in magnitude or complexity that it could be more convenient to say oooh and ahhh and ascribe them to supernature than to apply some effort to wrapping our brains around what makes sense; but i find the effort and the brain-stretching infinitely more challenging, interesting, and rewarding than maintaining and defending a belief system as a workaround. and i speak from experience, having already tried it that way. i would rather remain mystified and in awe of what i can't puzzle out, and keep trying to puzzle it out, than resort to an answer that is easy to recline upon because it is unprovable and equally undisprovable. our brains are evolved to figure things out ... not to give up.

if there are aliens, the probabilities are in favor of their being either less technologically evolved, and/or unaware of our existence, or, if similarly technologically advanced, then also similarly too embroiled in their own philosophical and political issues to be paying much attention to us. i kind of doubt that beings who might by some improbability attain the ability to control lesser creatures would enjoy being puppetmasters of =us=, any more than we would enjoy being puppeted. ant torture. can i see them with their giant metaphorical magnifying glasses focusing the sun on us and frying us for fun? yyyyyeahidon'tthinkso. am i angry at believers ... well i can get frustrated at the misdirection of intelligence that could be doing better things ... like playing a magic trick on yourself and too successfully pretending that you can't see what's really going on.

if you feel that it all fits together, that's good. give yourself credit for being ... the kind of person who glows enough to attract other glowy people to you and make connections. that's what the "fit" feeling is. but to impose the finished-puzzle-feeling on it and then give the credit to something outside yourself. i don't get that. =you= finished the puzzle. why do you want to give the satisfaction in that accomplishment away?

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Kristin

5/14/2006 2:36:24 AM

I myself believe strongly in things happening for a reason. Now, that doesn't mean that I think there were "larger forces at work" when I wore my red shirt the day I happened to splash spaghetti sauce on myself. Of course there are coincidences. Of course there are random occurances that appear to be related to some other overall purpose, but are simply that --random occurances. But I've had many things happen in my own life that were, to me, more than coincidence or happenstance. Things that worked out in such a way that was extremely fortuitous at that particular time. People that came into my life at a seemingly odd time but served a special purpose at a later date. Decisions I've made that had no apparent basis in logic at the time, but proved to be VERY "lucky" farther down the road. Yes, I believe in simple coincidence, but I also believe that there IS something larger out there that CAN and DOES at times give little nudges in a particular direction. In MY case, it's God, in someone else's case, it's karma or the natural thread that binds us all together, Earth, body and soul. Maybe it IS a way to feel better and less alone, but in the end? I don't think that is such a bad thing to want.

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chrysesofia

5/14/2006 9:27:04 AM

kristin--everyone experiences coincidences, and the human brain is wired to perceive patterns, so perhaps it is only a very small and natural step from perceiving the pattern in occurrences to attributing that pattern to what "must" in some logical way be another mind similar to ours. there is an interesting underlying assumption that in the same way that our brains are expert at perceiving pattern--and oh btw also expert at extrapolating patterns that aren't really there, as in the case of optical illusions--that conversely, if there is a pattern, it must have been created intentionally in the way that we would create a pattern. so maybe the base question is, what is the difference, psychological, emotional, whatever, between the brains in you and me (for example) such that someone like you is compelled or content to attribute such patterns to a species of Providence, and someone like me somehow doesn't think that that makes sense and is more inclined to attribute such patterns, where i can't deny they're actually patterns, to things that have fallen into place because of the subtle influences i've exerted on my own environment and the choices i've made. they're very different perspectives. "belief" seems to me like a magic pill, or glasses, that makes everything right, makes everything make a kind of sense, enforces order, removes all uncertainty. it doesn't change anything, it just makes it look different, and by the same token then removes your interest in investigating it further or participating in the process. some people seem to need that kind of medication. ~ i wasn't sure i liked the medication metaphor until i realized why it came out of my head (speaking of coincidence): i recently tried zoloft for about a month and a half for anxiety, and it did its job okay to an extent, but it also disabled my best thinking abilities. so i've discontinued it. apparently i would rather challenge myself to deal with anxieties by changing my own behaviors and attitudes than take a pill that forces me to feel better about everything, whether or not everything is actually better, but also makes me give up control of my own mind. so is the difference between a believer-type and a self-actuated-type simply a matter of control? or unquenchable curiosity? i don't want all the questions answered for me by a belief system. i want the freedom to figure them out myself, even if i never get them. the process of research is an end in itself ... once the question is answered, the fun is over.

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5/14/2006 9:48:30 AM

Chrysesofia, you're looking at this from specific parameters. What you think of as patterns leading to logical conclusions, well that's really not the process. The process is more based on a vibe, like when you hang around someone long enough to discover they're a compulsive liar. This kind of conclusion is often not a calculation, it's an air that surrounds ya. I had a period of time several years ago where I had about 7 or 8 close artist friends and all of them had UFO encounters. I really think some intelligence is calling some shots. I also have some reason to believe that I'm immune to death. ha ha

Even the implication of puppets is one-sided in a negative way. If one is responsible for building a world, a system that involves other living things, it may not be puppeteering that describes a series of controlling actions, it may be similar to the care taken when a master gardener is growing a garden.

Understand, for argument's sake that when you speak of people misdirecting their intelligence by investing any energy in their belief systems, that when you make judgments like that you implicitly accept the burden of directing your own intelligence to maximum usage/results. :)

And I especially don't relate to your argument about finishing the puzzle. Those who believe in the unknown are always in a state of never knowing for sure. The puzzle is never totally solved, not even close. The only way to feel it is, is to conclude there are no such forces. Maybe you're the one who's convinced herself that there is no supernatural, no powers, maybe it's you that is taking the easy way out. :D

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chrysesofia

5/14/2006 1:01:07 PM

> What you think of as patterns leading to logical conclusions, well that's really not the process. The process is more based on a vibe, like when you hang around someone long enough to discover they're a compulsive liar. ... I really think some intelligence is calling some shots.

what's interesting is the inclusion in your perspective (and most belief systems) of a sense, that vibe you refer to, that someone/thing beyond yourself is watching you and applying its control to you. so ... what would that be about, theoretically? loneliness? lack of trust in oneself? it strongly implies that you are only comfortable in your skin if you know that you have a caretaking audience.

> when you make judgments like that you implicitly accept the burden of directing your own intelligence to maximum usage/results. :)

that is kind of my point that you're reinforcing for me. i =would rather= take the active role in being thoroughly responsible for the use of my intelligence than take a big chunk of it and relegate it to a backwater of "belief."

> Those who believe in the unknown are always in a state of never knowing for sure. The puzzle is never totally solved, not even close.

the distinction being made, i'm trying to paraphrase here, is between "believing in the unknown" (which i'm having hard understand what that logically means ... how can you believe in something unknown? can you be more specific about the focus of the belief, how you can believe, in the true sense, in something of unknown nature?) and believing in unknowing.

deciding that the things that you don't understand are still understandable, but only to some power beyond the believer's ability or willingness to comprehend, is indeed imposing a solution on the puzzle and furthermore, as part of the solution, then choosing not to look at it. (it kind of reminds me of the way a cat will put its head in a bag and think that you can't see it, because it can't see you.) the believer draws an imaginary arbitrary line that they themselves will not cross but beyond which are assumed to be ulterior designs, purposes, and intelligences in which the believer places trust. you don't understand it, but you don't need to because something somewhere really is in charge of everything. everything is okay.

i think that i can't place faith in any such ulteriority because it represents not comfort but interference. i feel more comfortable in a zone that exists in the grey area between randomness and my own intelligence. in the field created by my own interactions between the way my head works and the natural flow of the environment lies the way i will go. i'll stick my neck out so far as to say that the only philosophy that makes sense to me is tao, which, if you aren't familiar, says that things are the way they should be, and all you need to do is go with it. flow. now you'd think that would mean that i "should" relax and not try to figure things out; but being in the tao means that whatever you are and do is the way it's supposed to be. no matter how hard you try, you can't avoid being in it. you can't not be you. if i can't stop trying to figure everything out, that is just the flow of me. everything doesn't need to be okay. you can never get to a point where everything is okay, you just work with what you have. process.

which is kind of interesting to note, because Myers-Briggs has always spat me out as a J, but maybe i'm developing my P.

anyway ... what i'm curious about now is (1) the psychological differences between people who espouse belief systems and those who don't, and (2) noticing how it historically has been belief systems that have had the greatest effect on human history, and what that says about human beings. it is probably impossible now for the human race to entirely let go of belief systems, because they have had such an exponentially vast influence on history that to invalidate them would be to admit that almost every aspect of the realities we

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Intergalactic Church of the Almighty Rod

5/14/2006 4:35:05 PM

You can't flow WITH Tao because you ARE Tao. Tao is everything, but at the same time it is no-thing. The Heart Sutra says it as "Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form."

But here is a different model to apply. I is a trick of reality that exists in many forms. The experience of reality that is known as Rev, is no different than the experience of reality that is known as Buddha, Jehova, Shiva, Ra, Athena, Satan, Rock, Tree, or Dog Shit. None of these things exist on their own, rather they require all other things to exist. Put more simply, there is no you without me, there is no Good without Evil, there is no Yin without Yang and all is, (^_^)

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5/14/2006 10:47:19 PM

"what's interesting is the inclusion in your perspective (and most belief systems) of a sense, that vibe you refer to, that someone/thing beyond yourself is watching you and applying its control to you. so ... what would that be about, theoretically? loneliness? lack of trust in oneself? it strongly implies that you are only comfortable in your skin if you know that you have a caretaking audience."

Well this is a little condescending and kind of limited. The idea that belief in the supernatural or whatever power that me means that you're ascribing some irrational importance to yourself is not necessarily the case. It's as simple as this. If humankind can come up with a system like the IRS to keep track of Americans, imagine what a higher technology could do. If our world is like a scientific experiment for some higher species, it's not a stretch that they could be interested in everyone. Yeah I think some things happen for a reason. It's not that implausible. The only reason you have trouble with it is due to your belief system. :)

"i =would rather= take the active role in being thoroughly responsible for the use of my intelligence than take a big chunk of it and relegate it to a backwater of "belief.""

oh the fact that I believe that things happen for a reason doesn't get in the way of me being very active. I probably have more initiative than pretty much anyone you'll run into in your lifetime.

"how can you believe in something unknown? can you be more specific about the focus of the belief, how you can believe, in the true sense, in something of unknown nature?"

well there are all kinds of truths that stay temporarily or permanently in grey areas. Like I happen to believe for instance that it will be the Pistons vs the Mavericks in the NBA finals. There is an eventual truth to that, a solution to the puzzle, but often you can grasp ideas without knowing for sure. Since I've had experiences with UFOs, I can believe in the concept without knowing exactly what powers them. And everything uncertain doesn't have to be a puzzle unless you force yourself to think in black and white. I accept that I don't have the answer to a lot of things but I do know how I feel about them, where I stand.

"i think that i can't place faith in any such ulteriority because it represents not comfort but interference."

well to me life presents a lot of dilemmas that you can't really get a grasp on. The fact that some intelligence might be pulling some strings is really not much different than coincidence, it just depends how you feel about it. But there's no proof that there aren't powers any more that that there are. None of us know 100%.

'(1) the psychological differences between people who espouse belief systems and those who don't'

I don't think there's much difference usually. My belief that sometimes things happen due to some kind of intervention doesn't really affect my life much. It's like one thought that pops up every month or something. There are people who live and breathe like they're on some leash of the gods but most of them are not very bright.

However most of the creative people I've known believe in some form of the supernatural. I'm ok with people who don't believe in that at all but they have no more basis for their belief than I do for mine.

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chrysesofia

5/14/2006 11:31:16 PM ---- Updated 5/15/2006 12:34:12 AM

Rev--an honor to see you here. yes ... it's been a while since i read my alan watts, so i used the wrong word: you are tao. no figure without background, no on without off. i is an illusion produced by the bag of skins. so tell me what your take is: does it make sense to believe in a higher other, or in ulterior influence?

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chrysesofia

5/15/2006 12:28:07 AM

scott ... i was trying to avoid condescension but if you experienced it then you "believe" it is there. :) i'm poking, trying to get you to say what you think it means that your belief system includes something watching you.

>if humankind can come up with a system like the IRS to keep track of Americans, imagine what a higher technology could do. If our world is like a scientific experiment for some higher species, it's not a stretch that they could be interested in everyone.

there's a llllllotta ifs in that statement. if our world is a scientific experiment for some higher species, they're failing the final. i think if it were a "higher technology" running the show, they'd be doing it a whole lot better.

>the fact that I believe that things happen for a reason doesn't get in the way of me being very active. I probably have more initiative

i don't mean active/initiative, i mean what the intelligence is used for. i must not be explaining myself well about this, so i'll keep trying: if there's a whole realm of enigmatic experience that you've applied a blanket explanation to (e.g., "the aliens are doing it"), then you are no longer looking at it critically and objectively as is your right as a human and you are opting to no longer apply =your= best intelligence to processing that experience. maybe you just don't want to, but in that case the cover story really is not necessary; no one's checking to make sure you did your homework. science keeps revising itself because it keeps questioning itself, and that is how understanding advances. when you simply believe, you cease to question, nothing can be either proved or disproved, and the result is an intellectual, and probably thus a spiritual, stagnation.

>well there are all kinds of truths that stay temporarily or permanently in grey areas. Like I happen to believe for instance that it will be the Pistons vs the Mavericks in the NBA finals. There is an eventual truth to that, a solution to the puzzle, but often you can grasp ideas without knowing for sure.

(you are probably right on that. carter's wasting possessions, and miami has shaq, but detroit is simply a deep deep powerhouse. the clippers are this year's who-knew, but they could never get past either SA or Mavs.)
but here's the thing, and i know you'll get this: you can "grasp ideas without knowing for sure," and you can also read the stats. the numbers will point you in a sensible direction more quickly and reliably than your gut, in a case like this. any results that contradict what the stats indicated are attributable to the inherent randomness of the game. and it wouldn't be a very interesting game without the randomness. isn't life more interesting as a game with uncontrolled and unforeseeable elements of randomness, than as a system where the games are being fixed by the Commissioner?

>Since I've had experiences with UFOs, I can believe in the concept without knowing exactly what powers them. ... to me life presents a lot of dilemmas that you can't really get a grasp on.

well, then maybe "belief" is defined as trusting in your perception of your experiences, and there's nothing weird about that; it's human consciousness. if your previous experience with UFOs is equally vivid to any other daily experience you have, then of course you believe in it. my experience doesn't include anything like that. the experiences of mine that i trust don't include anything involving powers. i tried doing that for some years, but i found i actually had to construct the thing in my head before i could believe in it, because i knew it didn't make sense. i had to extrapolate a god. wtf?

>The fact that some intelligence might be pulling some strings is really not much different than coincidence, it just depends how you feel about it.

the clearest response i can make to this is, i disagree. belief is =all about= how you feel about things, so this is what we're talking about. so moot that. ulterior intell

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Intergalactic Church of the Almighty Rod

5/15/2006 1:40:07 PM

Good to be here.(^_^)
Now let's jump right in.

Firstly everyone has a belief structure, whether it's religious, scientific, or philosophical. In it's simplest form a belief structure is a model to represent reality. However where most disagrement lies is in the mistaken belief that the model is reality. Put more simply, my belief in the nature of reality is not reality itself. This is because in order apply the model I also have to apply concepts that rely on other concepts. We apply these concepts and models to explain direct experience to others. Where we fail is the thought that one concept is more valid than others.

Higher other is a concept that gets a bit tetchy. But here is my take on the concept of diety. First I think that the idea of an all powerful creator is a load of crap. Now the idea of a trickster entity who convinced people that it was an all powerful creator in order to fill it's desire(or possibly even purpose) of being worshipped makes more sense to me. I see it like this(bear in mind that this is anthropomorphization for sake of explaination), If reality incarnates itself in a myriad of forms to experience itself from the POV of those forms then why would dieties be any different. Diety is only higher when compared to the concept of humans, just as humans are higher only when compared to something "lesser". So yeah, since I can conceptualize it, it makes perfect sense to me. (o_-) I do beleive in dieties, I do believe that they can influence the cosmos if they want or are asked to, much in the same way we can. The difference in scale lies in the comparison and categorization. This doesn't change the fact that they are Tao and therefore are me(and as such being illusions of reality).

I have noticed a tendency of certain people when they talk about "God". They describe it in terms that would be concidered right out of Taoism or Buddhism, but they don't have the grounding in or study of those paths to interpret their model in any other fashion. This could be due to teachers such as DT Suzuki, The Dalai Lama, and the like who transmute certain concepts with the word "God", who in turn influence Western philosophical and spiritual thinkers who adapt these concepts further into their own models and so on.

Was that clear enough? I get a little muddled trying to translate this stuff into words.

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chrysesofia

5/15/2006 6:53:31 PM

well that =is= the nature of tao, after all ... it's impossible to talk about.
yeah it ... irritates me when otherwise well-grounded spokespeople such as the dalai lama use "god" to refer to concepts that don't technically comport with the traditional western judeochristian deity. (deus, deity, dear ... you say "diety" and i start to feel hungry. :) ) it really confuses things. the i-ing of the universe in all forms is not at all the same thing as the boss-of-the-universe, so using the same term is misleading. but your point is well taken that "the word is not the thing," confusing symbol for reality, so given that everyone has a belief structure of some kind, it really does not matter so much what framework is applied to describe the experience of the numinous. got it. but so in your anschauung, there actually are deities that are different varieties of i-ing from the human sort? but ... err. first of all, how would you know? second, if they are you anyway, why bother to classify and deify them? i think that's my main ... pin that i'm sticking in everyone's eye. if it's all tao, it's all really one thing, so isn't it easier and more integrated to feel it as being part of you than as something "other"? why ... how come or what for, i don't care which ... =why= philosophically divorce it from yourself just in order to have something to look up to? what is the point of that? what is the psychological necessity of it? there must be one, because this compulsion to deify, otherate, uppify, certain ideals and perceived control mechanisms infects the whole species. it just seems really neurotic to me that an entire highly evolved intelligent life form can't somehow finish growing up and do without a sense of being eternally parented, or "gardened."

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Intergalactic Church of the Almighty Rod

5/16/2006 11:01:12 AM

whew, I should be charging for these answers :) a little joke. I copied your response into my Word Processor so I can really dig into the subject matter a little more deeply. I'll get my response to ya as soon as possible.

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chrysesofia

5/16/2006 3:34:18 PM ---- Updated 5/16/2006 3:39:50 PM

thanks for that. ... it seems to be kinda boiling down to being about individual interpretation of experience ... how it's interpreted, but then why one would trust in an interpretation whose validity depends on extrapolating a dimension of otherness or ulteriority for which there is no direct evidence. where does that "higher/alien" skew come from? i'm consuuuumed.

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5/16/2006 4:17:00 PM

"philosophically divorce it from yourself just in order to have something to look up to? what is the point of that? what is the psychological necessity of it? there must be one, because this compulsion to deify, otherate, uppify, certain ideals and perceived control mechanisms infects the whole species. it just seems really neurotic to me that an entire highly evolved intelligent life form can't somehow finish growing up and do without a sense of being eternally parented, or "gardened.""

It just makes more sense to me that there are factors that affect our fate that we don't know about.. than the other option, that there are none. I've experienced enough high strangeness situations that it would be remarkably closedminded of me to rule these things out. And I don't think any of my beliefs in this area really play a big role in how I lead my life, either. Sure I trust my instincts more than most people probably but not sure if that really qualifies as letting my beliefs rule me. Since that particular arena constitutes maybe oh.. .02 of my daily thoughts, neurotic I don't think is appropriate any way you cut it. Maybe if I thought about it 10% of the time. heh

"Finish growing up", now there's a concept. Can you explain that ? I'd love to hear your definition of that phrase. Maybe it would help me finish growing up. :D

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chrysesofia

5/16/2006 4:55:48 PM

if your belief affects your life in such a miniscule way, then what purpose does it serve for you? this is the "purpose" aspect of the why, right. as for the "cause" aspect, we can say that your belief comes from your experience, which you interpret in a certain way (which is what i really want to know, what makes you interpret it that particular way rather than in any other of the myriad available, or geewhiz, an original one) and choose to trust that interpretation ... but the placement of trust implies that you get something out of it. what constructive feeling does it give you to maintain that belief? what are you getting out of looking up to the aliens? you may never have thought about it in this way, but the stretch might be worth it, so humor me. (as much as i'd love to actually challenge the belief, on a pissy day, that'd be beside the point. i'm really much more driven to understand what is going on in a mind that has momentum in that type of direction.)

"finish growing up" as in become ... mentally? intellectually? spiritually? something? self-sufficient and leave behind the knee-jerk to look +up+ to anyone/thing +beyond yourself+ for explanations, reassurance, or ability to investigate and figure-out and reach rational conclusions, even if they only raise more questions. that is what i mean by neurotic. the carryover of parent-child relationship to a supposedly "mature" belief system. to me, the one just evolves into the other, but nothing really changes, the same child-feeling role remains. i think it was buber who called it the i-thou relationship. am i the only one seeing that parallel? i keep referring to it, or feel like i have been, and it's like i'm hollering down the laundry chute because no one's addressing it.

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chrysesofia

5/16/2006 11:46:15 PM

under the circumstances, i'm very flattered that you've entertained the possibility i could be an alien. :)

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Intergalactic Church of the Almighty Rod

5/17/2006 7:34:57 PM

What I’m seeing as your dilemma is that even though that you accept that all things are Tao, your understanding of Tao is still rooted in the classical Greek ideal of separation of Spirit and Matter. In Eastern thought, there is no differentiation between Spirit and Matter. The realm of Matter is best defined by what we can perceive with our senses and the realm of Spirit is what we cannot perceive directly with our senses. Consequently things like gods and Mind itself are included within the realm of Spirit. One is not in accordance with Tao if one only trusts the reality that is perceived. Meaning the ability to see, hear, touch, smell, or taste is not the judge of what is real. These things can only be real when there is the intangible.

Tangible and Intangible are Yin and Yang and Yin and Yang are merely Tao. Tao is the totality of reality. Some tribal peoples refer to this as the Web of Creation. In a web symbolism all things are connected to each other in a complex series of interrelations. This is the basis of “All is Illusion”. You see it’s not that the myriad of things (including gods) are not real, it is simply that no thing has a reality of it’s own. Light cannot exist without Darkness, Peace cannot exist without Conflict, Life doesn’t exist without Death, Mortality does not exist without Immortality. In Eastern thought, gods are not Supreme Beings that rule us, they are simply immortal creatures that can interact with us and the rest of existence (conceptually speaking gods in Taoism are more akin to the saints and angels of Western religions, or possibly even Scott‘s aliens. Things that are not meant to be worshipped but rather respected.). To put it more simply, planets and stars are different but at a certain level they are both made of exactly the same thing, the flow of forces, the equality of opposites, this is Tao.

You cannot use Tao to question or disprove the existence of a Creator (the actual thing you are having a problem with) because at the root they fill the same niche in their respective model. Again the Western mind tends to separate the ideas of Spirit and Matter. This is a classical Greek idea. In theory, God is a personification of Tao, hence why certain Eastern scholars tend to use the word interchangeably. To them it is a figure of speech because they aren’t separating anything. Your experience of reality is based solely on what is tangible (indeed it is. If not you wouldn’t have bothered to ask how I can be sure that beings that I cannot perceive in the traditional sense are real). Because you base reality solely on the concrete, I cannot offer any proof without manifesting a god in your living room. Even then you wouldn’t be convinced unless this being did something drastic like make an oak tree sprout from your armpit. This of course is unnatural. Lao Tsu wrote that “Heaven is a mirror of Earth.” I interpret this as gods or demons cannot do anything that humans are not capable of.

I have no tools at my disposal to convince you that this is true. In your view separate equals independent. The intrinsic reality of separate things is logic. Things are separate but are void of intrinsic reality without everything else, this is Tao. :)

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Intergalactic Church of the Almighty Rod

5/17/2006 7:39:32 PM

Forgive the repitition of some thoughts. As I was writing my brain was constantly reinterpreting certain concepts to make them easier to understand (and type ;) ), so the first and third paragraphs say essentially the same thing. I didn't realize this until after I posted it. Believe it or not I do have the occasional lucid period.

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chrysesofia

5/18/2006 12:08:55 AM

argh. i don't know =where= you are getting the idea that =i= am having a problem with separating spirit and matter. i'm saying that people who personify a deity do, and i don't see why there is this psychological necessity in people to do this.

>Your experience of reality is based solely on what is tangible (indeed it is. If not you wouldn’t have bothered to ask how I can be sure that beings that I cannot perceive in the traditional sense are real). Because you base reality solely on the concrete,

indeed i do not. but i apologize because i have a tendency to put my points as rhetorical questions and they are probably coming across as literal ones. i wasn't asking, i was pointing.

i don't really care how you can be =sure=. my point is that it is illogical to say in one breath that the tao is the totality of reality and then in the next that there are differentiations and greater/lesser and gods and such. i think that being in accordance with tao necessitates experiencing your i-ing in such a way as to accept and flow with the illusions it presents, but at the same time to -feel- existence on a different plane, as a flow of altogether. (“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” F. Scott Fitzgerald) i crack my elbow on the doorjamb like everyone else, but i know that the sensation that "i" "collided with" "something" is an electrochemical magic trick that doesn't reflect the underlying reality that i understand, that matters (NPI) to me. i think that the mutuality of opposites is where zen leaves off unfinished, and that tao is much more than that; mutuality of opposites describes, defines the terms for what can be said to "be," but beyond that is the undifferentiated pool of be-ing, the verb that precedes the noun. so deity and tao don't go together. and that's the only reason that tao =does= make sense to me ... it utterly precludes the concept of differentiated deity. "We believe in the formless and eternal Tao, and we recognize all personified deities as being mere human constructs. " (Creed of the Western Reform Taoist Congregation ... i never heard of these people, i was just looking up what the philosophy indicates.) "The priesthood views the many gods as manifestations of the one Dao, 'which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing.' The concept of a personified deity is foreign to them, as is the concept of the creation of the universe. Thus, they do not pray as Christians do; there is no God to hear the prayers or to act upon them. They seek answers to life's problems through inner meditation AND outer observation."

emphasis is mine.

it is actually true, as Scott has nudged me to realize, that i have not had any "experiences of high strangeness" that i couldn't attribute to tricks my own mind was playing on me, so i just don't have in my experience that kind of question, a need for anything ulterior to attribute them to. this is not for lack of awareness of them, but from a sense that i feel it is self-misleading and melodramatic to make (and move) a mohammedan mountain out of a molehill of mental malfunction. (~mmmmm!~) = i= base reality on the undifferentiated totality; "tao is the totality of reality."

>The intrinsic reality of separate things is logic. Things are separate but are void of intrinsic reality without everything else, this is Tao. :)

the thing-separation is illusory, it is a delusion. physically it is all one essence, and metaphysically it is all one essence, so no matter how you look at it, thingness as an elemental quality is illogical. separating the tao into gods and humans and whatever you'd consider "lesser"--that greaterness and lesserness do not exist apart from the human mind that makes that qualitative distinction. i find it highly self-contradictory that all-one-thing could be at the same time =intrinsically= differentiated, and in fact that do

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5/18/2006 1:39:39 AM

"if your belief affects your life in such a miniscule way, then what purpose does it serve for you?"

It doesn't really serve a purpose, it's just me interpreting events. It's not for spiritual purpose, it just is, or rather, it's just what I think =is=

"what makes you interpret it that particular way rather than in any other of the myriad available, or geewhiz, an original one"

There you go, condescending again. I haven't really got into my total beliefs here so you shouldn't be even attempting to judge whether or not they're original if you don't know what they are. Actually I have a couple possible directions that my personal experiences of high strangeness take me in. One is that there is a constant alien higher intelligence that is capable of affecting people on earth. The other is that I was a victim of some kind of govt. mind control experiments that used the subject of UFOs as sort of a deception tactic.

"but the placement of trust implies that you get something out of it."

Trust sounds like 100% belief, that's not what I have. And if I did, the only way that could be interpreted as me "getting something out of it" is if you don't happen to have the same beliefs. Again you're coming across as a little simplistic here in that you need to ascribe my beliefs with some sort of motivation like he needs to believe this for X reason. I don't get anything out of my beliefs in metaphysical thangs. If anything I've gotten ridicule for it. I've just tried to interpret the data presented me, and came to a conclusion that it sure seems likely that there's more involved here than just nothingness.

""finish growing up" as in become ... mentally? intellectually? spiritually? something? self-sufficient and leave behind the knee-jerk to look +up+ to anyone/thing +beyond yourself+ for explanations, reassurance, or ability to investigate and figure-out and reach rational conclusions, even if they only raise more questions. that is what i mean by neurotic. the carryover of parent-child relationship to a supposedly "mature" belief system"

Beliefs are a part of being self-sufficent. Everybody has their own mind. Some people use religion for a crutch and other people use politics and other people use sports and so on. I don't think I really look up to metaphysical phenomenon, sounds like a mischaracterization. And I think what is a mature outlook is also a judgment call.

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chrysesofia

5/18/2006 10:51:39 AM ---- Updated 5/18/2006 12:50:51 PM

oh, man ...

> I don't get anything out of my beliefs in metaphysical thangs. If anything I've gotten ridicule for it.

there is a psychological or emotional benefit of some kind, whether you seek it or not, from relying on a belief system to explain or even just to organize and categorize the unexplained. i’m asking you to look and tell me what that might be.

> I've just tried to interpret the data presented me, and came to a conclusion that it sure seems likely that there's more involved here than just nothingness.

interpretation is by nature subjective, so what i'm curious about is how anyone comes to interpret data in particular ways. why one way as opposed to another. i suppose that part of the problem that i have not yet taken into consideration is that any given person has to trust their own spontaneous interpretation of their experiences to a large extent, because the alternative is to assume instead that you are insane. *L* as an example we could all agree is extreme, my dad has alzheimer's and his severe short-term memory loss leads him to interpret his experience in ways that don't make sense in a context where i happen to know what actually did happen as opposed to the way he interprets it. but as a still intellectually processing individual, it's just not possible for him to let go of trust in his own senses, even though the data they provide no longer have the interpretive support of cognitive integrity. he =must= construct explanations, no matter how disconnected from the larger reality, for things he can no longer understand with a fund of memory. we all know he's suffering from dementia. he only knows he's suffering, but can't accept the dementia. that would be, in a sense, relinquishing humanity.

> Beliefs are a part of being self-sufficient.

if it mattered, i’d need you to explain that one. the logical test of the statement, to reverse it, results in “lack of belief is not part of being self-sufficient” and that has no meaning. but anyway you have still missed my point. i am referring specifically to belief in ulterior otherness … anything outside yourself that is more “powerful” or can do things that you can’t do and influences your life in ways you don’t understand, and for which there is no measurable evidence you could rationally demonstrate to another person. that is not a self-sufficient perspective at all.

> I don't think I really look up to metaphysical phenomenon, sounds like a mischaracterization.

it is not any kind of characterization at all; it is a logical reduction of what you yourself describe your belief to be. to regard anything as “more” … more powerful, more intelligent, more anything … you place yourself by comparison on a lower plane from it. to relate to it then, you’re looking up to its superiority in whatever respect you regard it to be superior.

ugh.
look.
we’re not getting anywhere.
this is inquiry, not inquisition. none of the questions i’m putting are meant to be personal or specific to you, or anyone. it’s just i was thinking that since anyone really only knows their own reasons for believing as they do, it would be easiest to use yourself as an example.
but since the only way you could feel what i’m saying to be condescending is if you’re taking it personally, perhaps the error is mine in thinking that anyone can use their own belief system as an example for inquiring into the nature of belief in ulterior otherness. i can see that if i put myself in your shoes and it’s me being asked why i think it makes sense to believe what i believe, there is no answer except that it makes sense to me. and if i try to think about why, from my pov, no one else’s belief system makes sense to me, all i can say is that it doesn’t. any given person is probably too close to their own construct to be comfortable looking at it objectively. fine.

then use someone else as an example. think of anyone you can think of, preferably someone you don’t know well, like … t

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chrysesofia

5/18/2006 11:12:09 AM

oh yeah:

>I've just tried to interpret the data presented me, and came to a conclusion that it sure seems likely that there's more involved here than just nothingness.

what would be so wrong with nothingness? in what way is "there's more involved here" better than nothingness?

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