Another way of interpreting the same old idea.
Everything else is everything else
Yet there is me.
Do I really think or am "I" a speck in the endless light of thought
There is an altogether different way of understanding how we make observations.
Somebody is present with us and then departs. We could say they are still present, but some other things have changed. They are no longer visible. Their going away, even now in our minds, is slowly fading away. If two people were present at the departing, a week later they may recollect different amount of details. One could still say of the event as existing, but viewable by each to differing degrees.
I can try to regard this formless presence and realize, I am more aware of things which are present and I also believe I have no real connection with the person not present. We are both trapped by other things around us. But these things and their behaviour is independent of who we are, and I am able to stand away and reflect on them in my thoughts. So visiblity is some activity in the eye, brought up in some process. First, there is a mental relationship and the other manifestations come about subsequently, and I form a belief it will so happen. My mind accepts the manifestations of sounds, forms, substance, which by themselves have no meaning, but enforce in the mind a certain flow of events. The effect has been for me to think of the world outside as without its own purpose, and deny its direct relationship to my mind.
It is only in my thinking that I feel myself independent. My thoughts come to me from somewhere I am unaware of, but they make me aware of my existence. They make me feel the different ways I do about myself. It is not the words themselves but something preceding them, a power to make observations of very factual nature. This is what I see, or this is so, or I feel this. Its like reading some inner panel, very observational and all about myself - like an inner latent realm.
Greetings!
Another enjoyable read! I love the last phrase, "an inner latent realm." Although I hesitate to interfere with good writing, there are a couple of points I'll just draw to your attention.
If two people were present at the departing, a week later they may recollect different amount of details. - I think it needs to be either "a different amount" or "different amounts" of details. Probably the former.
One could still say of the event as existing, but viewable by each to differing degrees. - You can say, "One could still think of the event as existing" or "One could still say of the event that it exists" but the way you have it does not really make sense from a grammatical standpoint.
That's a very interesting concept: to think of the outside world as being without meaning, apart from the context we give it through our thoughts. Very nice!
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
I'm trying to say something a little more esoteric, that the world outside, is'nt as we see it. Instead, its an abstract power which works directly on our mind. An event such as the one we talk about, in that sense, only appears to happen as it does. The event takes place in greater reality in our mind. We could perhaps even resist by force of will, not let something come to pass.
We have a constant enforcing of the connection with our bodies, as, I'm comfortable now, or, I feel need for air. We see there is a conversation going on here, but, who's talking, and to whom. My thinking is, I am doing the listening. In that sense I am really apart from the body.
In the early lines, the picture that came to me was of a speck of something, dust maybe, floating in a strong beam of light. The 'happening' of the world is there, its happening, but my sense, that it's happening with me, is that speck. Without the speck, that is, without me, it would be nonetheless, even for me.
Thanks for reading...
...it's a tribute to your selflessness
:-)))
I've always been a bit more of a literalist than I wanted to be (in my writing), so I appreciate the opportunity to read somewhat more esoteric expressions of thought. I also think that, between the hustle and bustle of school, job, family and personal obligations, many students feel they only have time to "just get through" the assignment; actual "learning" or "thinking" can get lost. Your posts remind us to take the time to stop and think--about our world, about the interconnectedness of things, about...life.
Thank you!
Sarah, EssayForum.com
to stretch the ideas further -
.. that the world outside, is'nt as we see it. Instead, its an abstract power which works directly on our mind. An event such as the one we talk about, in that sense, only appears to happen as it does. The event takes place in reality in a different space, we percieve within our minds. We feelcould perhaps even resist by force of will, not let something come to pass, but we are only witnesses to this reality. We cannot say of these as being only within our minds because they did not manifest. Imageary in our own minds confuses us about the independent existence of this reality.
We have a constant enforcing of the connection with our bodies, as, I'm comfortable now, or, I feel need for air. We see there is a conversation going on here, but, who's talking, and to whom. My thinking is, I am doing the listening. In that sense I am really apart from the body.
In the early lines, the picture that came to me was a speck of something, of dust maybe, floating in a strong beam of light. The 'happening' of the world is there, its happening, but my sense, that it's happening with me, is that speck. Without the speck it would still be, nonetheless.
Greetings!
Only if it feels too much like labor! ;-)) You did lose me momentarily here: "We feel could perhaps even resist by force of will, not let something come to pass, but we are only witnesses to this reality." - I'm thinking perhaps a "we" got left out before "could"; are you saying that we feel if we just try hard enough, we can stop things from happening? A false sense of power over things beyond our control?
Imageary = Imagery
As usual, you force my mind to follow unused paths (that's a good thing!).
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Thank you Sarah!
Yes a 'we' was left out there, and I'll be more careful with my spellings. To be honest, I thought I was inventing that word right then. I can be so conceited!
Please do not hesitate to give me, hard to swallow feed-back, along with other things you say. I need some very real directions.
...to be read, to be understood... my gratitude is boundless!
Rajiv
Greetings!
Ah, I see! (or do I? ;-)) Does the imagery stand in the way of our seeing? Do we create a different reality within our minds than what exists outside ourselves, because we place a veil of our own experiences over the image? And if so, since we cannot separate ourselves from our past experiences, does that mean we can never see things as they really are, and therefore never control them? Or does becoming aware of the veil allow us to push it aside?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Wonderfully penetrating, your comments are.
I wonder though, where the question about wishing to push the veil aside is coming from. It's not your 'literalist' self.
Would you be willing to accept that the 'literal' is, as much, part of the veil? That's not so easy I am sure, since we believe it's scientifically there.
the same idea came in 'how we evolve' , the earlier essay.
we exert to improve our circumstances. We fear we might otherwise be deluding ourselves into accepting what we do not have, so the physical change is a necessary validation of a real change to our lives - whenever it happens. Like becoming rich!
It seems true then, that the physical change follows after a particular change in our way of our thinking. We may say we became rich after we learnt how to.
--
... but this is really where I am leading to, in the same, (edited for clarity)
we may have difficulty in accepting this paradigm because, if something should exist in a space within, we cannot imagine a more direct means of uncovering it, than the present one, of learning.
scientifically = explicable entirely through external cause and effect.
the experiencing person himself/ herself is the real cause for something happening. Not by the actions they do preceding the event, but due to their state within; of this internal realm.
this is the method of maya, of befuddling us, and we take it, that all events happen only as they appear to.
Greetings!
Being a literalist does not preclude thinking metaphorically. ;-))
I sat and watched a show on public TV about the sycamore fig tree...an amazing piece of life, a world, a universe within itself...the wasp that lays the egg within the fig, which becomes food for another creature, which in turn provides nourishment for another, on and on, smaller and smaller, the tiny creatures actually helping one another come into being, until a micropscopic worm wriggled itself into existence within the giant tree, without which the tree would not be able to reproduce; this series of dramas unrevealed from outside the tree, but creating a whole new universe within it. I noticed my mouth was open in amazement, and quietly closed it, somewhat abashed at my ability to be so amazed that there should be so much under the surface that I never dreamed existed...and I knew then, that trees--and events in life--do not happen "only as they appear to"; but we must be willing to open our eyes, so that our mouths can be opened as well.
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Hello Sarah,
grasp the veil!
you are not taking me literally enough. Perhaps you find some things I am saying a little absurd. But, those maybe exactly what I am struggling to express adequately.
please, do help.
thanks,
Rajiv
Greetings!
Absurd, no. A bit esoteric at times, yes. :-) It is much more difficult to write clearly when the thoughts being expressed come from deep within; the mind is a very personal place to dwell. But, if you want your writing to be understood by others, sometimes you must step outside it, and outside your own mind, and read it with fresh eyes: imagine you haven't written these things and they are not your thoughts; what would you glean, then, from the writings?
Just something to think about. :-)
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
I think one of the most unsettling experience would be, to have to leave something you took as literal, to be not real, and instead accept something you took only metaphorically, as real.
There is so much to let go in the earlier system of things, but more unsettling would be to hope to find meaning enough in the metaphorical, which will allow you to transfer your entire being to it.
thanks
Rajiv
Greetings!
Is one man's metaphor another man's reality? Put another way, is a metaphor always a metaphor? What role does context play? If a book features a man who is on the verge of mental collapse driving through a tunnel, and he comes out the other side feeling better, must the tunnel represent re-birth? Or is a tunnel sometimes just a tunnel? In school, I was always puzzled when I was told, "This is a metaphor for..." I would rather have made the discovery myself, I think...but would I ever have done so?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
This is what I would like to know your response to. How do they go down with you?
This, as I intended, is the original theme of this particular essay - an another way of understanding our observations.
Rajiv
Greetings!
The question that comes to me is, if it is the person who is perceiving the event who is "the real cause for something happening" what of things which happen, unobserved? It's the age-old question of "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" If the answer is that if no one is there to observe it, it didn't happen, that I could not agree with. But certainly, I can see that our observation changes the way we perceive. Am I missing the point entirely?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
I am missing the contradiction you imply-
Ofcourse, things happen unobserved, they are progressing to events, which may or may not concern us.
Yes, the tree makes a sound, and it can be recorded as proof.
Greetings!
I agree with you; I was just trying to understand when you referred to the "experiencing person" as "the real cause for something happening." To me, that implies that, without the person who is experiencing it, it does not happen. However, I see that there is more than one way to interpret the phrase.
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
Greetings Sarah!
I do imply it as you say it - without the person who is experiencing it, it does not happen.
I am saying, I don't get how this is contradicted when things happen unobserved or the question, did the falling tree make a sound when no one was around.
I do in a sense get it, but if you say it, I may better be able to state the position of my own statement on it.
Thank you very much.
Rajiv
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
Greetings!
No need to apologize! I think we all grapple with these ideas and must find our way through the sometimes clouded haze of understanding to reach a clear expression of thought.
To me, it is a contradiction to say that the event does not happen without the person who experiences it, and yet the tree does make a sound falling in the forest even with no one there to hear it. How did the tree make a sound, then, or even fall, for that matter, if there was no one there to experience it? Is it that the tree experiences it? I am confused. :-))
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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?
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.
Greetings!
It is an interesting phenomenon, this human need to explain why something terrible happened. It may be that Freud's comment that "there are no accidents" was taken out of context...but it is now flung about as if it were a truism. Anyone who has ever been a passenger in a car that crashed, and been seriously injured, knows how untrue it is, though. At least, from the passenger's perspective it most certainly was an accident.
I find it much easier to explain these things in terms of randomness...and am continually surprised how few people share this view. I wonder why the thought that things happen for no particular reason should be so frightening to most people?
Any thoughts on that?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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
Greetings!
I'm going to be really honest here and say...I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I feel as if I have lost the thread of what you were talking about in the first place that you keep referring back to. Your last paragraph is particularly puzzling to me.
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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.
Greetings!
Yes! Putting things in terms of an image which can be visualized is always helpful. That is why simile and metaphor add so much to writing, I think. So, tell me more about the layers. What are the other two? And where did this concept of layers come from? Is this your own concept, or one which comes from a religious philosophy, or somewhere else?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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
Greetings, Rajiv!
Thank you for your explanation. I take your point about not necessarily wanting to reveal the source, but to me, in this case, it makes it all the more interesting. I suppose when discussing timeless truths, anachronisms...well, aren't. :-)
There is a line one must walk, between expressing things as they come from within, and saying them in a way which is likely to be understood by the reader--meaning, perhaps, being more literal than feels natural. Or do I mean "literal"? At any rate, I think attempting to bridge the divide is often a good choice; if we lose something in the expression, at least we did not lose everything, from the viewpoint of the person reading it.
Thanks
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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.
Greetings!
Now I am confused again...above, you said, "the lowest [level] is the things we interact with" but now you are saying "we, as we know ourselves are in the third. Not just ourselves, but all we interact with begins at this layer"; so, are the things we interact with at the lowest level, or at the third level?
See what happens when you engage in a philosophical discussion with someone with a legal background? You get cross-examined! :-))
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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.
Greetings!
If, as scientists think, the universe is continuously expanding, and therefore infinite, then the universe has no more of a physical edge than it does a mental one--perhaps even less of one, depending on how expansive one's mind is. Which seems rather appropriate, doesn't it?
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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
Greetings!
No, that's not what I meant--now it is you who is being too literal! :-)) I was saying that some people are incapable of contemplating the infinite; so, for those people, the universe would (only to them) be a smaller place than it actually, physically, is. If we "think of the higher constituent of space as having a relationship with our mind" then our mind sets the limits for our own perception of the the universe, does it not? Which is only a perception and has no effect on what the universe does...as far as we know.
Thanks,
Sarah, EssayForum.com
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.
