[eugeneonagain]

Who wants to buy empty bottles?

 

[DaveM]

My understanding is that, back in the day, a certain inhaled substance in a dimly lit room with blacklight posters made even popular music plus snacks ineffable.

 

[Tikoo Tuba]

Why should any experience be ineffable , beyond words to describe ? Because such words can be socially , cruelly rejected . But they don't cease to exist . They become as a little book hidden away in a safe place when the language for the experience itself had become ineffable . It's ok for it to emerge as music sublime . And music is able to exist for a future time better than the literal meanings of words anyway . Music is conservative .

 

[Jacck]

Of course. Isn't it always the case that 'things have degenerated from what they used to be'? That there was once a profound truth in whatever is under fire, which has since gone to seed, explaining its current lack.

The argument from 'experience' has always struck me as a rather weak foundation for an argument. (Experience of things incapable of even being defined).

I understand that a lot of these spiritual teachers can sound like snake oil salesman. A lot of them indeed are - Osho, Eckhart Tolle (who has made a very successful business model out of his "enlightenment"). But my own experiences and study of various mystics have convinced me, that there is something real - especially since the accounts from very different culture are principially the same. The problem with this "spiritual truth" is that it is not a positive state, nothing positive can be said about it, it cannot be actively captured by the mind, it is not an achievement, it is not an end result of some spiritual practice, it is not some "insight" that you gain. It cannot be bought, gained. But again, Krishnamurti can say it better (a randomly googled talk). Now, compare him with Meister Eckhart, and you will notice, that despite very different cultural background and no knowledge of each other, they talk about exactly the same stuff. Another one is Rumi. Take a very talented poet, combine him with the spiritual insight of Krishnamurti, and you get Rumi

 

[Strange Magic]

^^^^What we have here is assertion, pure and simple. Nothing wrong with that, except that it is not susceptible to any sort of validation. One may feel better believing such; it may have therefore therapeutic value. But it bears no observable relationship to reality.

 

[Strange Magic]

Jacck, you might want to explore another variety of mysticism, distinct from the introvertive mysticism that someone like Walter Stace of Princeton University described so well in his book The Teachings of the Mystics. Introvertive mysticism, the sort practiced by Meister Eckhart et al comprises 99% of "mystic" experience and testimony, and Stace devotes 99% of his book to it. But he notes that there is another path, extrovertive mysticism, which locates The One entirely outside and beyond the physical boundaries of existence, rather than centrally deep within, and it is not experienced by going within. The late American poet Robinson Jeffers came closest to describing/explaining extrovertive mysticism (and its difference with introvertive mysticism) in his poem Credo. Please note that Jeffers as poet was not necessarily a close student of mysticism--though he developed his own sui generis philosophical structure of Inhumanism somewhat paralleling extrovertive mysticism. Here is Credo....

My friend from Asia has powers and magic, he plucks a blue leaf from the young blue-gum
And gazing upon it, gathering and quieting
The God in his mind, creates an ocean more real than the ocean, the salt, the actual
Appalling presence, the power of the waters.
He believes that nothing is real except as we make it. I humbler have found in my blood
Bred west of Caucasus a harder mysticism.
Multitude stands in my mind but I think that the ocean in the bone vault is only
The bone vault's ocean: out there is the ocean's;
The water is the water, the cliff is the rock, come shocks and flashes of reality. The mind
Passes, the eye closes, the spirit is a passage;
The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the heartbreaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

 

[Guest]

Why, so you can bottle it and sell it?:lol:

Why don't you just take my request for elaboration at face value?

 

[Strange Magic]

No, I mean elaborate on what it means for the tennis player to be in the zone and in what sense she is in some way experiencing or touching with the ineffable.

An interesting concept--that of being "in the zone". I've heard surgeons describe being in the zone when/as they operate (on a good day presumably), and it's often credited with being some sort of higher, more "advanced" state of mind, achieved in brief moments of hyperlucidity, etc. Yet the thought struck me, that rather than being this unique "higher" state attained now and again by fortunate people feeling as one with their inmost selves, it is the state normally experienced by animals as they live their lives--the wildebeest grazing on the Serengeti, the circling vultures, the lioness creeping toward her prey. They may truly live "within the moment", "in the zone" for most if not all of their waking hours.

 

[Tikoo Tuba]

Well , sure , I've casually seen water more real than water . I think the visions could be from my love for drinking from a mountain stream and without a worry . Without a worry . There is too much social worry, and for so long , and it has been civilized . We have been educated in it until beyond words , as in language diminished . This is is not arguable . The social language of argument has become insufficient . Paradox .

 

[eugeneonagain]

I now suspect one of those AI essay machines. There can be no other explanation.

 

[Strange Magic]

I now suspect one of those AI essay machines. There can be no other explanation.

We once had a similar entity on a kayaking website posting behind others, like Gollum silently padding along behind The Nine through Moria and beyond. It was attributed to a computer algorithm of some sort.

 

[eugeneonagain]

Well it's either that or someone here is having a laugh. It's pretty difficult to consistently read like a fortune cookie.

 

[EdwardBast]

possibly, though I do not see it as self-obvious that music offered evolutionary advantage. It could have served as a bonding mechanism in the early tribes, and tribes with better bonding among the members could have a survival advantage?

Sorry. Just to be clear. I don't think music likely had much if any survival value. It is just a happy consequence of capacities that do.

 

[eugeneonagain]

I wouldn't be able to fathom the evolutionary value of something like Herb Alpert.

 

[DaveM]

Well it's either that or someone here is having a laugh. It's pretty difficult to consistently read like a fortune cookie.

Considering what sometimes appears to be a low bar for art here, perhaps it would be considered high art on a poetry forum.

 

[Tikoo Tuba]

Everyone deserves a relationship .

Everyone except you, Tikoo. Bye bye! :lol:

The reality of the relationship shall not be programmable .

 

[MarkW]

I was never an athelete, but once in college I, a mediocre card player, was recruited to be a bridge fourth. In the space of four hands I bid and successfully played two small slams and a grand slam, Yes, I had the cards and the distribution, but my mind was totally focused, I played at lightning (sort of) speed, I somehow "knew" where all the cards were, and drew them out and played perfectly. Never happened again, but for those fifteen minutes I was "in the zone." That help?

 

[Larkenfield]

I understand that a lot of these spiritual teachers can sound like snake oil salesman. A lot of them indeed are - Osho, Eckhart Tolle (who has made a very successful business model out of his "enlightenment"). But my own experiences and study of various mystics have convinced me, that there is something real - especially since the accounts from very different culture are principially the same. The problem with this "spiritual truth" is that it is not a positive state, nothing positive can be said about it, it cannot be actively captured by the mind, it is not an achievement, it is not an end result of some spiritual practice, it is not some "insight" that you gain. It cannot be bought, gained. But again, Krishnamurti can say it better (a randomly googled talk). Now, compare him with Meister Eckhart, and you will notice, that despite very different cultural background and no knowledge of each other, they talk about exactly the same stuff. Another one is Rumi. Take a very talented poet, combine him with the spiritual insight of Krishnamurti, and you get Rumi

Jacck, I know you've been hurting lately but your statements are completely false about Tolle. There are hundreds of testimonials on Amazon.com about the benefits of his teachings. He doesn't need the money. He's simply trying to reach as many people as possible on a suffering planet, and the media costs, or haven't you noticed what a mess it is out there? He's the same now as when he was sleeping on park benches because he didn't have a dime. You need to be aware of that and there's no indication that you're familiar with his teachings and are mischaracterizing him just like you have with Gustav Mahler. Both his books are clear explanations of why people suffer, how the ego can sabotage spiritual understanding, how to alleviate it and stop completely identifying with the mind as if that's who you are. He's teaching that there's something deeper, a deeper intelligence. He and Krishnamurti are very close in their teachings. What these teachers are trying to do is reveal what's already inside you. They don't teach beliefs and they don't teach dogma... In any event, good luck to you. I hope you feel better. Sometimes it helps just to do a simple act of kindness for somebody else without expecting a return and that can create an instant sense of well-being rather than living a life of waiting-and that can change a person's life.

 

[Guest]

I was never an athelete, but once in college I, a mediocre card player, was recruited to be a bridge fourth. In the space of four hands I bid and successfully played two small slams and a grand slam, Yes, I had the cards and the distribution, but my mind was totally focused, I played at lightning (sort of) speed, I somehow "knew" where all the cards were, and drew them out and played perfectly. Never happened again, but for those fifteen minutes I was "in the zone." That help?

Well, thanks for the example Mark. Being "in the zone" is not an unfamiliar expression to me - it's used often enough to describe all kinds of...what sahll we say?...super-sense phenomena (not supra-sense, note).

It's the instant reaching for "the ineffable" that puzzles me. Once our experiences touch on something that seems inexplicable, the answer alwasy seems to be "magic" of some kind, rather than a complex, but entirely material set of interrelating conditions and operations bringing about an incredible outcome.

Think, if you will, about all the material factors that go into bringing about a victory for the Red Sox, or Man Utd, or the Packers, or Roger Federer: the physical and metal state of the players, the condition of the surface on which they play, the weather, the technology of the equipment. And that's before you get to the precise physics of the speed of the ball and the effect of air on velocity and direction.

For a small example of what I mean. 20 goalkeepers in the zone? Or just the right place at the right time?

 

[Jacck]

Jacck, I know you've been hurting lately but your statements are completely false about Tolle. There's hundreds of testimonials on Amazon.com about the benefits of this teachings. He doesn't need the money. He's simply trying to reach as many people as possible on a suffering planet, and the media costs, or haven't you noticed what a mess there is out there? He's the same now as when he was sleeping on park benches because he didn't have a dime. You need to be aware of that and there's no indication that you're familiar with his teachings and are mischaracterizing him just like you have with Gustav Mahler. Both his books are clear explanations of why people suffer, how the ego can sabotage spiritual understanding, how to alleviate it and stop completely identifying with the mind as if that's who you are. He's teaching that there's something deeper, a deeper intelligence. He and Kristnamurti are very close in their teachings. What these teachers are trying to do is reveal what's already inside you. They don't teach beliefs and they don't teach dogma. In any event, good luck to you. I hope you feel better. Sometimes it helps just to do a simple act of kindness for somebody else without expecting a return and that can create an instant sense of well-being rather than living a life of waiting-and that can change a person's life.

I will just state my opinion. It is not my desire to attack your favorite spiritual teacher. I read the Power of the Now because I wanted to know what all the hype was about. The book and the teaching were not that bad compared to much of the self-help and spiritual stuff on the market, but I felt, that it is an exctract and a compilation of Krishnamurti (and other sources that Tolle has read). Tolle was a philosophy student in Germany, he is intelligent, he digested all this spiritual literature and regurgitated it and wrote a book about it, but I doubt that he had an original insight himself. If you know Krishnamurti and then read Tolle, you will notice at first, how much Tolle took from Krishnamurti, but you start noticing certain differences, that I attribute to Tolles misunderstanding. Tolle is right, that dysfunctional thought patterns cause a lot of problems for people - even the CBT believes the same. But there are certain aspects of Tolles teachings, that I think are wrong. But let me quote you for an example "stop completely identifying with the mind as if that's who you are. He's teaching that there's something deeper, a deeper intelligence". This goes against the Buddhist doctrine of the anatta and goes against Krishnamurti too and if you believe it, you will not doubt fall into error and delusion. You are your ego, period. Ie you believe that there is some ego, and underneath the ego there is some intelligence and that if you remove the ego, you will find this intelligence, your true self etc, you are in illlusion. You thus create a duality and will make effort to get rid of the ego to reach some state beyond, like a dog chasing his own tail. What is beyond the ego is the "unknown". Tolles teaching that you should "stay in the now" is similarly wrong and will never work for long. You can concentrate to "be in the now", but that will require your mind to make conscious effort to be in the now. What is required according to Krishnamurti is understanding what is. Ie forget all spirituality, just understand your own life, your own mind. And the business that Tolle has made out of his enligtenment does not convince me either. I hope you understand that Tolle is not beyond critique. I personally don't mind if you criticize Krishnamurti or anyone else for that matter. I even welcome it.