When under the influence,
What would your folks thoughts be on the difference in knowledge through thinking and reasoning to the switching off of the mind, and to just experiencing. Where do these methods sit in the realm of things and to what extent can each reach, both on their own and in convergence?
Boooshpig
Interesting question, mon.
Imo, most forms of reasoning should be checked at the door before sitting down to that meal.
Switching off the mind might be a good way to describe it. Another might be transmogrifying into an antenna, wire and battery with the addition of a sacrament acting as amplifier. (Remember the part about checking your reasoning at the door? hehe)
The process of which we speak is about self exploration, imo. Maybe unlocking mysteries of the mind is a better way to put it. However, what we learn about the darkest recesses of our consciousness also applies to the far reaches of the cosmos and everything in between, including fellow humans. To know your innermost motivations, locked in the subconscious is the key to understanding others, imo.
lw
Cheers for the reply man,
I guess the question came uon me during a recent experience in which I must ahve spent several hours philosophising with a friend. In the end we started going round in circles and got to the point where we were thinking, we've either figured it all out ( big headed and unlikely lol ) or that thinking can only go so far OR thinking can only compliment or go with something else, a kind of conclusion to an experience, but maybe in doing so one looses some of it.
You get me ?
Also made me consider the notion of next time trying to recieve more and not think as much
Booosh
Right on, mon.
Words sure have a way.....
Most of my experience with sacraments coincide with musical events. Come to think of it, being moved by lyrics/rhythm and melody run through a (psychedelic) amplifier has been one of the most meaningful and enriching activities of my life. Rewarding in a way that can't be quantified. A common occurance for me and some friends has been an inability to vocalize thoughts for a period of time during and after certain peak musical experiences. Leaving a crunchy show with a (mostly) silently amazed crowd, all shaking our collective head in wonder is about as good as it gets as far as I'm concerned.
Not all language is spoken. I'm guessing maybe we have to shut off the prevalent means of communication to become receptive to activity occuring at more obscure frequencies. hehe
lw
I've always thought that there are certain filters built into our current mode of consciousness. Certainly we evolved them for a reason, but the nice thing is that there are ways to turn them off and experience that which they are filtering. Unfortunately, for me, thinking usually requires those filters to be in place so its often a choice between the two (ie being filter-less, or being able to think about the experience), unless you count the period of transistion between the two. ymmv
Sure Jiku,
One thing I should really do more is balance the various activities that help development and heath/wellbeing and enlightenment. From mental work, reading and books, emotional awareness, physical fitness and much more attention to the silent mind, or as you put it methods to turn these filters off. Which connects with my difference of methods to knowledge i mention in my original post.
Booosh
i find a new sense of oneness from switchin off, kinda do it by default esp in nature sit and observe by becoming null rather than investigating..bring nice inner peace when i got stuff to think about..kinda goes agaiant 'thinking' about it but it all seems to mull over unconciously.. best served in nature away from people.. sacrements tend to increase non thinking thoughts for me, like scenes running through your head with out thinking with language.
i find it a great way to experience the world but can be very stagnent as i find i dont tend to learn facts rather than experience being..two different ascpects for me, i like learning new facts but dont overlook the journey/experience flavoured by knowledge
Reading a little Joseph Campbell reminded me of this thread. Listening to a little music this morning did the same thing. So it must be that time...
To speak or not to speak, that is the question.
As stated before, I believe there is a type of knowledge which cannot be communicated by words. Experiences with sacraments and live music have led me to the conclusion that this knowledge is accessable from a dream-like state and is more emotional in nature than intellectual. Imo, this universal knowledge helps us understand the actions and motivations of others. After one of the most intense psychedelic experiences of my life, a friend commented that I appeared to sleep through the entire show. While it might have looked that way, nothing could have been further from the truth. After many such experiences, I've started to collect details of the mechanics. Barefooted dancing usually leads to picking a safe spot on the floor to sit. At that point my eyes close and I fee my body synching up with the musical source through the crown chakra. At times it feels like being transmogrified into a flower tracking the sun. Or like plugging into a cosmic computer by a psychedelic wi-fi ... Anyway, reading JC set off a little flash in me brainpan which wanted to end up here....
In this first passage he quotes Jung..
"The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost secre recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long beforethere was ego-consciousness, and will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness may extend. For all ego-consciousness is isolated: because it separates and discriminates, it knows only particulars and it sees only what can be related to ego. It's essence is limitation, even though it reach to the furthest nebulae among the stars. All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood."
"It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it never so childihs, grotesque or immoral. So flowerlike is it in its candor and veracity that it makes us blush for the deceitfulness of our lives."
J Campbell continues...
The secret of dreams is that subject and object are the same. The object is self-luminous, fluent in form, multivalent in its meanings. Its your dream, the manifestations of your will, and yet you are surprised by it. That's the relationship of the ego-consciousness to the unconscious. Ego-consciousness has to learn about the unconscious, and dreams are the vocabulary of the unconscious speaking to the conscious mind. Yet, in dreams and in visions, subject and object are the same.
..... The point is that consciousness itself is below this level of darkness, beyone dream consciousness In one of the Upanishads there is a saying: "We go into that world which is Braman world every night, but, alas, we are asleep." The goal of yoga is to go into that realm awake. If you do, you will have arived at at pure, unmitigated, undifferentiated consciousness. Not consciousness of anything...... but consciousness per se. Since all of our words relate either to things or to a relationship of things - whether things of waking or visions of dreams - there are no words for this experience. All that can be said about it is silence.
Silence is the proper vocabulary of this realization.... This is why Zimmer said that the best things can't be told - there are no words for this realization. And when you utter words in order to refer the mind to it, the danger is that the words will trap you and you won't go through. So, for anyone lecturing, there's a not very comfortable sayin: "He who speaks does not know. He who knows does not speak." That's the final word. - Joseph Campbell -
lw
Quote from: "Bushpig"I guess the question came uon me during a recent experience in which I must ahve spent several hours philosophising with a friend. In the end we started going round in circles and got to the point where we were thinking, we've either figured it all out ( big headed and unlikely lol ) or that thinking can only go so far OR thinking can only compliment or go with something else, a kind of conclusion to an experience, but maybe in doing so one looses some of it.
Thinking isn't the issue here. However, the focus of our thoughts should be questioned, imo. I, too, have spent countless hours with friends philosophising and saving the world while under the influence of certain sacraments. But that external focus may be a waste of the true capabilities of certain entheogens. I believe more can be done in the effort to save/better the world by delving below the surface of our individual consciousness than by projecting our energies outward. For when we peel away the superficial trappings of our minds, where identifying differences is the name of the game and peer a little deeper into the psyche where common experience dwells, true change can begin. I believe the world may indeed benefit from the life-affirming actions of individuals realizing that change must come from within more than by a group of intellectuals sitting around and figuring out what others are doing wrong that must be changed.
While I've read most of this work by Joe Campbell several times, it's really ringing my bell this time through.
..... So what is keeping you out of the garden? Your fear and desire: that which the Buddha transcended. And when Buddha did not respond to temptations of fear and desire, he passed through the gate to the tree, where he now sits with his hand pointing to the earth. That's redemption. The Buddha and the Christ are equivalent. Jesus has gone through and become, himself, the fruit of the tree.
When threatened
by fear and desire,
let ego go.
....I see BUddhism and Christianity as two vocabularies for speaking about the same thing. In Buddhism we are lost in the world of fear and desire, the field of maya, illusion. This is, in Christian iconography, the Fall. Redemption is losing those fears and having the experience of eternal life.....
The Buddha is saying, "Don't be afraid of those gate guardians. Come in and eat the fruit of the tree." The act of communion is eating the fruit of the second tree in the garden. The fruit is symbolic of the spiritual nourishment that comes when you have reached the knowledge of your eternal life.
....in the Levant, the accent is on obedience, the obedience of man to the will of God, whimiscal though it might be; the leading idea being that god hass rendered a revelation, which is registered in a book that men are to read and to revere, never to presume to criticize, but to accept and to obey. Those who do not know, or who would reject this holy book are in exile from their maker.
If you fix
on yourself and your tradition
believing that you alone have got "It,"
you've removed yourself
from the rest of mankind. - Joseph Campbell -
"For when we peel away the superficial trappings of our minds, where identifying differences is the name of the game and peer a little deeper into the psyche where common experience dwells, true change can begin."
Well put!