Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Hello again,

I understand how this may be becoming tiresome for you, and I really hope you do not think it is my intention to drag this for the sake of dragging it.

I have once again reached the point in discussing these same issues as I have many times before, with the difference, that this time the entire discussion has more clarity.

If, what I am saying is true, it is quite a staggering statement, is it not - that the experiencing person is the real cause of events. Ofcourse you realize it is not my original hypothesis.

I am sorry I am not expressing the importance I feel this subject has for me, and for some others too, well enough.

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

I thank you, for the honesty and simplicity of the way in which you ask the question.

In reality, we would be more concerned about the significance of this statement, as it applies to us, at this very moment, even. But immediately that you do this, you have a sense of almost overwhelming anxiety, and responsibility, because, it then seems the entire world and its events are tightly linked to your being. Even if you disregard, maybe with a twinge of irresponsibility, consequences your actions may result in for others everywhere on this planet, just those things which concern yourself are in themselves overpowering.

We therefore prefer a certain freedom in and from the actions we are doing, and for that reason cherish a little sense of irresponsibility, it is soothing to us, and why not!

But, the converse of this picture isn't one of getting trapped in a thick quagmire of events. The converse should be even more liberating than the way we now feel. It should free us from some fears and anxieties we otherwise carry. So does it? And then what's this way of understanding this simple statement that, we are ourselves the cause of things which happen to us?

There is no denying that we have to accept the existence, somewhere, but why is that in itself more important than the consequence, that, if there is such a signature for each of us, existing in some nether realm, what then?

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

How did the tree make a sound, then, or even fall, for that matter, if there was no one there to experience it?

It is obvious as we read this that this is an image conjured up in our mind. At this particular instant it is, but of course at some other time it will be true.

Can we say, when we read a report of someone hit by a falling tree, that it happened because he was the cause of it, not in the obvious way of physically making it topple, and yet?

Are we saying accidents don't happen? That those involved really cause them. If we can see no connections between events, we do not accept them as related. So it is as much a case of what we are able to connect that determines for us, a cause-effect relationship.

If we accept the existence of that signature for each of us in the nether-realm, does it make things that happen seemingly by accident, appear more coherent? And if it does, is that not a sufficient reason to accept that it must be so, only beyond our present capability of perception and maybe even of inference.

So the situation is one of looking only at effects and attempting to deduce the causes. We feel ourselves straining in that attempt when something unexpected happens, why, why did this happen? And when we reach a satisfactory explanation, can we say with certainty it was all about finding the external events leading to that event. Is there not some internal mental resolving involved too, something we feel fleetingly but is yet satisfying in its power of closing for us the question we have? Something falling into place, but we see no outlines to it, it quickly vanishes from our memory?

To be acceptable this should be true every time. Anytime before an unexpected occurrence a person should have some inkling, some premonition. And, don't they? How else to explain them? The difficulty is in attempting to explain to ourselves, the space wherein these occur; but that is only our attempt to recall them. But these could have the same lifetime as real events, those we see outside, and are true for an instance, and then on their way. We are not able to capture them.

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Sarah, there is a post right before this one, on the previous page. I am not sure you may have read that before this one.

thanks.

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

OK. Let me approach it like this.

If we understand all existence to be in four layers, where the lowest is the things we interact with and the highest is where we are able to think and reason. Everything happening has a manifestation in each of these layers. When we try to express what constitutes the highest layer, we cannot. But that is where we are reaching to, for our understanding of things. When we understand something, we really see its picture there. So, everything is explained in that highest layer, but its totally formless, and ..

If this is bringing some clarity, I will continue.

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

There is a text in Indian philosophy called, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Like many things belonging to the past of India, there is some uncertainty about when this was composed, though likely, 500 BC or so. Patanjali too, may be more than one person, and Sutras, means aphorisms, which these originally are, but extensive commentary has been added with each aphorism.

This is the theoretical basis of Yoga, and if you have heard of Yogis having extra-ordinary abilities, then the basis of their practice leading to those abilities was based on the direction in these.

I am usually reluctant to reveal them as the source of where I am arguing from, because I do not wish the person to become so awed that the discussion is not rational anymore. And then, of what significance will be any conclusion if we cannot derive them from experiences in our lives now. Of course one may think these are anachronistic perhaps, but the matter is so deep, that time itself is but a principle to be understood within its framework.

Why don't you set the tone for me to continue further please?

thank you

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

In the second layer of existence are the senses, together with what they connect to in the natural world; and we, as we know ourselves are in the third. Not just ourselves, but all we interact with begins at this layer, that is why the close connection with causes, of things happening as they concern us. Space is part of manifestation of nature, co-existing alongside us, upto the third level. In this sense plurality, as seperation between things, happens as they are expressed in the lower levels.

Events have a pre-determined flow, we live with them in our minds, and when we wish to see connections, we can by reaching in. Else our easy, normal awareness is in the third level of existence, not straining too much.

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Hello Sarah,

I like this fact of your legal background.

I think, why the explanation I gave above is most difficult to accept, is not letting go of the concept of Space as we have in our mind. Yet if you move to an inner sense of yourself, right now, it is as much possible to think of everything you see outside, as manufactured for you by your senses; in the process as you perceive them.

Something else, appears as space. Our particular understanding of space, as we know it, is a result of our mind reacting with that element. This higher level element sitting alongside our mind, is the primary cause of space. We only see it as we do, on the outside. The concept of "alongside" as much depends on the concept of space, but we can still think of the higher constituent of space as having a relationship with our mind.

At least as it happened with me, getting past this particular barrier did most in terms of accepting this theory. Where is the edge of the universe?

thank you.

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Greetings!

But which determines the other's limit?

Are you saying that our capacity to think out enough will fix the real size of the universe. That isn't how scientists would approach something - they accept a complexity in something as given and study it to determine more they can about it.

Thanks

Writing Feedback / an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations. [40]

Greetings again.

Contemplating the infinite should yield us something of worth else it would be
considered an exercise in futility.

I really like the way you are saying what I want to too, but in another way. Yes, I am being more literal and want to take it even further, because I wish to assert that it is literally so. The higher element is not an abstraction of space or infinity, as one may believe, and as I can gather from your statement. Unless you have actually read any text on this subject, nowhere else in world literature has this 'higher constituent of space' been defined. It is as concrete as the real things around us, the point being, it is even more so.

This is really the break one has to make with the past way of thinking about our surrounding reality. And, do you?

We are talking about the third level of existence.

Other than this, 'higher constituent of space' , existing at the same level are the higher constituents of other nature's elements, of earth, water, air and fire. There is one another, very significant, call it of ego-sense. This last, imparts to each of us our sense of individuality - but of note is, that the existence-play doesn't end even for us with the understanding of this one alone. We are yet connected to the reality in the fourth level, the one which as an un-differentiated 'cause itself' makes everything happen.

Thank you for persisting so long in your efforts to unravel all of this. I really do mean that.

Writing Feedback / Vocabulary Composition in my Storyline [3]

wow! you really are a writer.

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Thank you very much Sarah!

It's more challenging to address the next part which I want to write about.

I wish to convey how we may become more than what we normally consider ourselves to be. To bring about that, there are more ways than one. Patanjali points us there through the practice of Yoga and we often have to discover what he means through some of our own effort.

Apart from the practice itself, its interesting to try and grasp the concept how we may literally become, not just understand our Self. This chapter is about Siddhis, extra-natural abilities and perceptions.

The most interesting thing about Indian philosophy is that it says it is possible to see into the future and the past. From one point of view this is completely impractical but from Yoga's point of view this comes about by understanding the world around us differently than we see it normally. Imagine, the world is like a football stadium with those huge night lights. If the sun really stood still like those lights, we would lose our concept of time, because now, its foundation in our minds is based upon the motion of the sun and the changes associated with that change during day and night.

Then take the astronomical view and see the solar system from outside, and you know the sun is stationary, the earth revolves around its own axis and moves around the sun. Imagine coming closer and closer to the earth, not forgetting you are stationary with respect to the solar system, that is you are free to move by your own will, not moved by the rotations of the earth, and then you focus, remaining yourself unseen, on some things just as you are now. What this has done for you is remove your binding with time and you can see things more as they are. You will notice change happening as an evolution in everything. Your mind is not in a spin because you have to follow the imagined concept of time and you will notice the change happening in things, individually.

Patanjali says you will notice three aspects in anything. Its Dharma, its Lakshanand its Awastha.

Dharmais the stages anything goes through. Everything has a Dharmaand it progresses evolutionarily through those states.

Lakshanare signs indicating where it is going next and where it's coming from within the sequence determined from its Dharma, and Awasthais when we can say how long something has lived in its present state, its age.

If along with objects we consider other things like relationships, our jobs and businesses, our neighborhood. To all of these too we normally ascribe a sequence of stages, we notice signs of change and make judgments of their age, and that's really all we do. We try to define precisely these involuntary natural perceptions all the time. The better we can the more effective we feel we are.

In the practice of the last three Angas we refine these perception to their ultimate degree. We transcend a barrier to our own nature, since in our present perception-cognitions we have to deal with these above aspects, which are really manifestations of a mental limitation and eroded away by the practice.

Reference:

YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI by Hariharananda.( Chapter III)

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

I wrote these pieces last year to help my daughter appreciate this side of her background, when she started studying 'Theory of Knowledge' at school. I suggested she could make a presentation of this material to her class, but her teacher found it more religious than philosophical. I wonder if you feel so too.

But can we really see our lives through the system of the Yoga Sutras? They even point to the reasons that we have the experiences we do. It is a substantial jump from what we normally come across in our lives and one can be skeptical. We think our lives are unique, which they are, and we make them as we choose. But can something be determining our choices?

We must understand here, that it is not another person who would come to know more about us, but we ourselves, gain insights into our lives.

Patanjali begins explaining the practice of Yoga in Chapter 2 with Yama and Niyamas and then briefly about Asana, Pranayama and Pratyahara. To convey what our perceptions are, he explains that we take in the world around us in its three aspects, and to refine these perceptions the last three angas give the practice in Chapter 3.

Before introducing the practice of Yoga he explains the nature of those causes which bring us grief to begin with. We should understand and identify these in our lives, because all of Yoga is the process of slowly whittling away these causes, called Kleshas.

In these sutras there is also something very significant and uniquely Indian, about Karma; the philosophical system of viewing how nature and humans interact. This concept is the foundation of Indian philosophy.

Our own mind is responsible for the world as we experience it. Not in the way, that, as somebody with a destructive mind does something destructive, and when people recognize his nature they limit his actions and punish him so he may recognize it as consequence of his attitude. This curbs his behavior and he may reason with himself that his actions were wrong and hopefully will become corrected. This is the way we deal with criminals and implies intervention is necessary else justice isn't carried out.

The Indian philosophical system says the mind begins in a state of darkness of knowledge, which breeds tendencies of passion, hate, a fear for ones existence, and an unquestioning attitude about our singularity, called Asmita. These are the five kleshas, and they do appear as primal and dark.

The purpose of all existence is the process, where it moves from this darkness into a reality, its opposite. The passage is not always straight, because Asmita more than others, leads us thinking of ourselves at cost to others.

To curb these, one approach is to make just the effort. This is what we are asked to do as children and may be upsetting now. Much better to be ourself and act out our true motives, atleast, we have a chance of learning from their results.

Karma is fascinating as it seems to go beyond our normal realm to our earlier lives, to explain things happening with us. Every action is driven by a motive, so kleshas lie at the root of all Karmas. People accept karma is necessary and for that reason they do their karmas. But if we try to see how our lives follow from our efforts exactly, we cannot do it with accuracy and have to take the system on belief.

tapas, svadhyaya and isvara-pranidhana are kriya-yoga.
for bringing about samadhi and minimizing the klesas. - reference below

Samadhi is a term denoting the state which is free of hassles. Kriya Yoga is the specific method to get there by getting rid of the kleshas, and tapa, svadhyaya and ishvar pranidhan are the three parts of this method.

These three which are also the last three Niyamas are mentioned here for those who aspire to reach fulfillment through Yoga and cannot be content with the regular pace of evolutionary progress.

It's natural that we wonder at the promised efficacy of these practices, for that's what they amount to, and wonder how they may change our lives.

There is a test of faith involved here, because we don't know how nature responds to our evolving mind-state. We are asked, and I am not sure how ready you may be to accept that, that what follows naturally and which people in general are most willing to accept, is the natural outcome of their actions. This is predictable with some uncertainty, as something may affect the outcome. We need to accept that the final outcome is the natural response to the experiencing person's mind-state. Patanjali explains that response of nature gets accumulated, and is projected as experience, bunching up with similar responses to actions the individual may have done earlier.

People turn to making wealth as a goal to this same hassle free existence, in the course of which, with a self-serving motive they only ensure more karmas, and to avail these, they need rebirth and experience.

Patanjali has instructed us the practice of kriya yoga, a method to reduce the effect of the kleshas, which like warps in our mental-states we are carrying through lifetimes. He says, the results of our past karmas are already in operation and our suffering is due to them. The fruits of our past actions take place as the opportunity presents itself to nature, like water flowing in the irrigation canals in fields. Whenever there is a breach, water can flow out. Nature behaves in that fashion. The pressure of our karmas lies waiting, our present experiences are already those which could become true for us, others lie in wait.

According to whether a person acted with an ulterior motive or a positive one, the karma is painful or pleasant. So even good intentioned motives bring a return of action.

He asks us, to step aside, go up a level, burn out the klesha inside you, the karma associated with it will never happen, like a seed which does not sprout when it has been burnt inside.

Reference:

YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI by Hariharananda.( Chapter II )

1. Tapas, svadhyaya and isvara-pranidhana are kriya-yoga.
2. For bringing about samadhi and minimizing the klesas.
3. Avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa and abhinivesa are the five klesas.
4. Avidya is the breeding ground for the others whether they be dormant, attenuated, interrupted or active.
5. Avidya consists in regarding a transient object as everlasting, an impure object as pure, misery as happiness and not-self as self.
6. Asmita is tantamount to the identification of purusa or pure consciousness with buddhi.
7. Attachment is that modification which follows rememberance of pleasure.
8. Aversion is that which results from misery.
9. As in the ignorant so in the learned the firmly established inborn fear of annihilation is the affliction called abhinivesa.
10. The subtle klesas are forsaken by the cessation of productivity of the mind.
11. Their means of subsistence or their gross states are avoidable by meditation.
12. Karmasaya or latent impression of action based on afflictions, becomes active in this life or in a life to come.
13. As long as klesa remains at the root, karmasaya produces three consequences in the form of birth, span of life and experience.

14. Because of virtue and vice these produce pleasurable and painful experiences.
15. The discriminating persons apprehend all worldly objects as sorrowful because they cause suffering in consequence, in their afflictive experiences and in their latencies and also because of the contrary nature of the Gunas.

16. Pain which is yet to come is to be discarded.
17. Uniting the seer or the subject with the seen or the object, the cause of which has to be avoided.
18. The object or knowable is by nature sentient, mutable and inert. It exists in the form of elements and the organs, and serves the purpose of experience and emancipation.

19. Diversified, undiversified, indicator only and that which is without any indication are the states of the gunas.
20. The seer is absolute knower. Although pure, modifications are witnessed by him as an onlooker.
21. To serve as the objective field to purusa is the essence or nature of the knowable.
22. Although ceasing to exist in relation to him whose purpose is fulfilled the knowable does not cease to exist on account of being of use to others.

23. Alliance is the means of realising the true nature of the object of the knower and of the owner, the knower.
24. Avidya, or nescience as its cause
25. The absence of alliance that arises from lack of it is the freedom and that is the state of liberation of the seer.

26. Clear and distinct discriminative knowledge is the means of liberation.
27. Seven kinds of ultimate insight come to him.
28. Through the practice of the different accessories to yoga when impurities are destroyed, there arises enlightenment culminating in discriminative enlightenment.

** we discussed 19, as the four levels, in the previous essay.

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Hello Sarah!

If I may ask then -- what do you think about karma?

Thanks

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

As I see it, there are two non-conventional aspects to the normal understanding people have of karma. The first, as you too indicate is its connection with the re-incarnation idea. But, really more significant is its connection to this other idea - that reactions of things we have done, and we talk only of those in our present life-times, naturally follow from our actions which preceded them. As an example, during his younger years that a man lived in some neighborhood he spent much time on building a farm, which he had to leave without finishing, as he was forced to leave town to take up something elsewhere, and made sense to do so at that time.

So on his return to the old town after many years, he can start work on his farm again, almost as he left it. The people he bought supplies from, though different now, have no problems working again with him; the produce of his farm too, he sees he can find buyers for, pretty much amongst the same group that earlier would have bought from him... so all in all, everything takes on, from where he left it.

But, now, in a manner of speaking, we move closer to what he did during his earlier days, that is, with every project, constructing a fence, or clearing the land to build a barn upon; when he negotiated with the supplier of his material, did he look for ways to take more than store-keeper would have given him happily. Did he perhaps wait for the time when he knew the store-keeper would be away from his shop, and he would be able to take advantage of the wife, or his son who were not so business savvy. Or, for clearing the land for his barn, did he perhaps not care, that what he threw away was messing up a stream flowing by his land.

If no one is the wiser about his actions, we may remark, simply, he's earned bad karma. But then, what is the implication of this remark!

Thanks

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Greetings Sarah!

The point of the story is that, it's the man's intentions which form our picture about him, as they are dilineated in the last paragraph. Its one thing that the people in the town have this impression about him and perhaps, will not be helpful to him. But its quite another thing to say that his circumstances will be so arranged, that its not because of what the people don't do for him that his life is difficult, but his circumstances themselves, as though showing a mind of their own, wish to taunt him for just the excesses of behavior he showed during his previous years spent there.

Thanks

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

If the second explanation, the one about nature having its own mind, seems only an enchanting story - so would it be, if two men were standing together watching a cannon firing. If one of these men, knew Newton's laws and predicted where the ball would land, would not the other man be equally struck with wonder? Even without bothering to bring up the equations in our mind, or the factors that need be known to arrive at the result, the mass of the ball, the initial velocity.., we have put our faith for explaining all of nature's phenomenon so much in physics, that when we do not have a ready answer we still feel safer believing in physics, than any other way of understanding.

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Dear Sarah,

I truly wish to ask your help in making the essays more approachable - specially the last one above. Please do not hold back from any fear of offending my sensibilities. I would gladly suffer that to make them easier to read and understand. I mean that in total sincerity.

Thank you.

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Thank you so much Sarah!

My very best wishes to you, and I wish for you to recover soon and completely. I really appreciate your feeling comfortable enough to tell me this. I think you would understand I am more than happy to wait till you are ready with what you want to tell me.

take care!

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Greetings Sarah!

Would you be willing to agree that Newton's laws are the same as the action of Karma?

thanks

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

... or in the story I was making above, is this quite acceptable to you -

" Its one thing that the people in the town have this impression about him and perhaps, will not be helpful to him. But its quite another thing to say that his circumstances will be so arranged, that its not because of what the people don't do for him that his life is difficult, but his circumstances themselves, as though showing a mind of their own, wish to taunt him for just the excesses of behavior he showed during his previous years spent there."

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

As I am asking for your help to make the essays more approachable, I am not sure why they aren't, since the language is intelligible. Yet my distinct sense is that the message in them is not carried through. I really want to know what the reason for this is.

Is it that I have only made the subject appear simple in the way I have expressed it and in fact, a reader is not able to get their arms around it? So the simplicity of the language is really misleading.

Thank you very much for your efforts in trying to answer my questions.

Writing Feedback / How we may cause natural events to happen - an essay [12]

There are two things here. One is when we act, the other is when nature acts for us.

Our being the one doing the action, is illusionary, if we can accept this idea that the thoughts occur to us, but they're in a sense outside of us and belonging to the event we are involved in. This can be the experience even when we're overtly doing something.

An extension of the same principle, like the learning experience, is that it's an internal state of our mind; we can get there in different ways. Normally our evolution happens as we are accustomed to seeing in everybody, the increase in the capabilities, initially more of the physical ones but more lasting, the mental ones. This learning process, of 'hard-knocks' or by studying, proceeds along established patterns in our mind. But every time the progress really is the removal of some dross. Accompanying it is an intensity in our mind which we may understand as the separating of the subjective from the objective but nevertheless it happens. This is the 'feeling of indignation', and contributes most to our learning.

The essay suggests this as a direct process to speed the growth in our minds.

Writing Feedback / How we may cause natural events to happen - an essay [12]

Greetings!

The answer to your question would be along the lines of our earlier discussion in the 'observations' essay. Whatever we percieve as thoughts, their objective part, that is also their real part, is of the nature of the 'higher constituents' of nature's elements. We accompany the thought only with our ego-sense, which too exists at that same level.

The experience of seeing our thoughts as such is the revealing of the reality.

Thanks

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Thank you very much for your answer.

I think what is working for me, as you say it, is just trying to match your own excellent and clear writing. I also pay close attention to the specific things you point to, and at the same time, I don't want to lose sight of what I am wishing to convey.

Karmas are the reaction of an insentient nature working within its own laws. These laws, we have called the causal realm, are the fourth level of existence. They, ie. karmas, of course include our ego-sense, and therefore us from the third.

Newton's laws of motion are an insight into nature's laws as they apply to inert bodies, mass and their motion.

Writing Feedback / How we may cause natural events to happen - an essay [12]

Thank you very much for answering me today, being Sunday.

I have the same questions with this philosophy and think the way forward as following through to where it is that it takes us further, that is, to abilities beyond the limitations we normally consider ourselves as having. As example, we cannot now say with absolute certainty what's on another person's mind, or to exactly know which events are going to happen with us next and will significantly impact the course our lives will take.

The text itself advises to not consider these as an objective of the study or practice, because of all the involvement and turbulence it would create in the life of the person having them - like the present day 'celebrity-status' . On the other hand, I find no other method to prove that the parts, or 'assumptions' as you call them, leading to the results are in fact correct, unless one can experience these extraordinary results.

So my fix is nearly the same that you have with it.

Thanks

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Thank you Sarah,

I have learnt much in these discussions with you. But there is much, much further I have to go, I only hope I am never lost and without a direction to take.

Rajiv

Writing Feedback / Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]

Thanks Sarah. I'm really glad your pet came back.

Writing Feedback / How we may cause natural events to happen - an essay [12]

The position you take is, and please do correct me if otherwise, that 'things' may exist and we can believe that it is so, but, evidence is required, ie. hard facts alone allow 'things' into the domain of science.

thanks.

Writing Feedback / How we may cause natural events to happen - an essay [12]

I think I also need to say something about where I am coming from, in this - I should really be saying, where I wish to go to, with this. Well, simply put my case is that the philosophy I have been advocating for in our discussion deserves to be studied, that is, there is merit enough in what we can say about it as of now, and that nothing in our present knowledge allows us to dismiss it. Dismiss it as something unlikely to add to the our understanding of life, and how to better deal with it.

As a concrete objective I would wish something included in the course of 'Theory of Knowledge' which high school students study. Naturally I am asking for a chapter in the text-book which stands on its own, and is not considered only an extension of the chapter on religion.

What would be your opinion?

Thanks

Writing Feedback / How we may cause natural events to happen - an essay [12]

But my point is that there is enough merit in this philosophical system to take its statement -- of the four levels of existence, as a hypothesis worthy of further investigation. How can one arrange for such concerted study, is a question?

In this case, we must keep in mind though that the person doing this investigation will be experimenting on his or her own faculty of observation. This would not be a result that any person can be called in to verify in an instance. Any person who is subsequently involved to verify 'facts' claimed by the experimenter, can only make such observations after he too has been through the process of the experiment. The instruments and objects in this experiment are the experimenter's own senses and his mental faculties. He is able to observe his deeper lying faculties only by a process of stilling his normally agitated behavior of the mind. After that, the 'fact' of the inner faculty is viewable quite objectively.

Still stands to question though that, as the experimenter peers into his own stilled mind will he have an enlarged view of the external world? That would be the third level experience. Deeper still, will he find himself at par with the machinations of the entire universe, at the causal level, the fourth one?

I think it's very intriguing to put this to a proper study and test. Don't you agree?

Thanks.

Writing Feedback / A presence in oneself -- an essay [19]

Ofcourse I do. Thank you, Sarah.

Writing Feedback / A presence in oneself -- an essay [19]

I think in the above, the philosophizing really begins with, ' what really exists is me, this presence'.

I can very, very vaguely imagine, my existence, but without this presence. Or put another way, I can sometimes see myself, as though clinging to this sphere of reality within which everything is happening. Because I see nothing else but this, and it does not turn upon me, ie. separate itself from me, I think I have started to think everything I see within as my very own world.

Thanks.

Writing Feedback / A presence in oneself -- an essay [19]

Let me make a small change in something I've said above:

If anything has experienced these years, it is this. Whatever I may come upon, to work with, it is always going to be what affects this, this same presence; something I can feel with, or bring my mind to bear upon something, using some knowledge I have lately acquired; it happens because of this presence, and can happen really in no other way.

And say instead:

it happens for this presence, and can happen really in no other way.

Saying it as earlier makes me the person doing it, feeling it... and as this, it shifts the emphasis to, it is happening for reasons I am not even aware of, I'm only carried along.

As of now I think I feel, all the way down to the experience of it, as pleasant, unpleasant, soft, hard - but this is so actually, with my sense of being involved. My hand cuts and bleeds, after the initial intense moments, I can even see it all distantly. If I feel attached by the physical pain, that too can be schooled to appear removed; as people who follow this practice do.

Writing Feedback / A presence in oneself -- an essay [19]

Hello Sarah!

I am more than just grateful to you for staying in this discussion. I am also grateful to have found someone who is representing the other point of view. Usually, it only feels like a blank wall when some things I take for granted, aren't so at all, and I'm left wondering why.

Does it seem incredible that millions live by these ideas? I will be really happy to think that, for this discussion, if you were to visit India sometime, people doing such practices as we have talked about will not bring in you any feelings of revolt.

Thanks.

Writing Feedback / A presence in oneself -- an essay [19]

I couldn't agree more with you, and share your hope in finding reconciling world-views among peoples through understanding each others cultures.

Yes, many ideas I have tried to express, may be the first time that people outside India have come across them. Or what is more likely, they may not have seen them connected to a single framework, and may appear pretty strange otherwise.

This concept of presence versus doing-it-ourselves is definitiely one of such.