Well Said RKelly!


I agree i thought it was rather insulting as well.

Dear Senor Wences…
I appreciate your struggle to be understood. Most of your points are valid and obviously concern you deeply. You have a geniune empathy for those among us who don't seem to share your anxiety. I'm happy you don't need to go around armed to the teeth every day. It's those days you might be that worry me. lol

You know, I realised as soon as I posted the one you just responded to, that I had just posted an "opinion" in a "debate forum". I resisted the temptation to delete it for a more appropriate forum and I'm glad i did. Thanks.

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Only Love Prevails,
Don

How about the concept that consciousness doesn't 'arise' at all but it is always there simply because it has to be? How about the idea that a lack of consciousness cannot exist and therefore continuous, never ending consciousness is the only possibility? From what I consider to be a logical perspective, there has never, can never and will never be a 'time' when there is no consciousness. In order for you, me or anything else to consider the possibility of nothingness, we have to have consciousness (i.e. be self aware) in the first place. If we did not, there would be no one to know that nothing existed.

For example, if all that existed in the universe was you and you fell asleep for a thousand years and did not dream, when you awake you will have no idea how long you have slept for. It could be a million years or a millisecond - you would have no way of knowing and in fact, you would not even realise that you had fallen asleep in the first place, therefore your consciousness is a continuous, never ending stream of self awareness. From the moment you first fall asleep to the moment you awake, for you, there is no break in consciousness at all. You always exist in a state of self awareness.

Now instead, imagine a single rock floating in space with nothing else at all in existence. How could this be? If there were no one around to observe/ experience the rock, it could not exist in the first place for there would be no one to know of its existence. Conveniently, you are now here to consider this concept but if you, I or anyone else were not, how on earth could it ever exist? It can only ever be there if there is a 'you' to experience it at some 'time'. Interesting, in science (from a quantum viewpoint) the notion of past, present and future don't really exist anyway, everything that has ever and will ever happen is all happening 'now' which would, I suggest, support the above theory.

In short, consciousness has always/ will always exist because it is impossible for it not to.

Please remember, it's just a theory and I'm not submitting it as any kind of truth, only what seems to me to be a logical viewpoint.

I'd just like to add my thoughts to this as well. There's evidence that an all-inclusive consciousness exists. All religious master have talked about it and now science confirms it. Furthermore, this state of unity (oneness) is described as more wonderful than anything we know with our rational mind.

Now that the existence of time/space and matter have been shown to relative manifestations of energy, and that energy is intelligent, perhaps everything in the universe is an idea. The spiritual and the scientific are closer today than they've ever been, EH!

Yes, Angeleyes, the universe itself is an Idea.

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May your awareness be perfection

I would sincerely like to know the source of all this evidence and confirmation.

What "evidence" is there that an all-inclusive consciousness exists? Surely not the fact that religious masters have talked about it, because religious masters have talked of a great many things, including the need to toss the occasional virgin into the volcano, you know for safety's sake. What "science" provides the confirmation that you speak of? I must have missed it in my reading, and I do cover quite a considerable territory (although of course I can't get to all of it).
Now, then, not wishing to seem difficult, but who is it that has experienced this state that is "more wonderful than anything we know with our rational mind," and without being able to know it in their rational mind, how did they manage to describe it as such?
I rather think that this is a bit of an oversimplification, and that since matter and energy can be converted from one into the other and back again, that it is not that matter is a manifestation of energy, but that there appears to be an equivalence, and that they are proportional to one another in some way (according to Einstein in some way based on the speed of light squared, making that proportionality into an equation). And again, since they can do that change-over bit, that is essentially what time measures -- change.

I'm not scientist enough to be able to say what all of that means, I'm afraid, but I'd be wary about being quite so glib, even if I had a great deal more training in the matter.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

Hi EH – There are lots of resources describing higher states of consciousness and the unity or Oneness of that reality. Different disciplines have their own terminologies, and it would be impossible to cover them all in one post. If I had the time, I'd make a list of all the books I've read (from spiritual stuff to quantum stuff) and how they all tie together, but I also know that if you're really interested in checking it out, you will.

Just for starters, Wikipedia has a great discussion under “mysticism”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism, that touches on the ways
this unity is described in all the different disciplines over man’s history (religion, spirituality, philosophy, science, physics, psychology, etc…..)


The following is a quote from that site:




A few other random quotes:

EH, I am not entirely clear about how you see consciousness. You have said:

"I would like to see...a treatise on how consciousness alone arises."

Are you referring to some kind of 'master' consciousness or just the individual perception of consciousness and its possible origins?

This post for some reason will not show in EH's very cool discussion thread called "The Trial Balloon". It was acting very flaky and for some reason will not show any post after the last one there. Anyhoo... by request, here is my post -

Angeleyes - Well quoted!

EH - I think the 'issue' is the forthcoming big debate: The Redefinition of God.

Your Articles extend rationally to the limit of post-modern existential thought - that all faiths including athiesm fit within a nicely compartmentalized view of their respective deities/non-deities. But the issue is that these paradigms exist in the shadow of their own projections - that they define themselves based on beliefs of their own dogmas. This includes athieism since as it has become institutionalized it rejects these deistic-projections without reconsideration of what these projections might be external to 2000-year old dogma (give or take).

What IS God. To the masses that speak about their religion they can quote rote scripture and cite books which most athiests can knee-jerk attack because you're communicating on a purely rational level: they are trying to convince you "rationally" of why their religion is true (which they can't because they've already missed the higher point) and athiests gleefully use standard logic to pick apart all of the inevitable flaws in the dogma presented.

But in the end - both parties are speaking on the same level: in light of one another as opposed to seeking the point where the diverging notions meet.

So what is God? If you slice away all the dogma, all the scriptures, and read as metaphor for the human *experience*, you find very easily I might add, that there is that recurring common ground. And conveniently, it does not include *any* cultural mores indemic to the institutionalized doctrines.

You find parable after parable, of men and women meeting God in "his" transcendence. You have tradition after tradition saying the same things of the experience. There *is* a trail to be followed! And you can look into *every* Western wisdom tradtion - and you will find those who have written about it in the only language they have to define it. Look past the magical, and the mythical verbage - and it's right there.

Go to Eastern traditions - and it's *much* easier to find. Look at them both together, side by side! There is a common theme to these "experiences" from different nations between spans of centuries - millennias - and the unifying word in the west they use to describe it is God. And because of this fact, you can apply logic and rationality to it as well. There *is* a conclusion to the behaviors the people of these respective traditions have embarked upon that can be *followed*.

Consciousness is a modern term - that simply suggests the means by which we perceive reality. The higher states of consciousness which I personally have and do experience, through repeatable processes. THAT by its definition requires one to remove the "toxicity" of both religion and athiesm.

The analogy is like two children arguing which is better - Pie or Cake and both arguing that one is made out of the other. When the truth is neither - but both have elements or ingredients of both - and can make so much more than either.

Hey, I'm certainly not alone in this. I've been practicing Buddhism for over twenty-years, I've studied every major religion (east and west), most western classical philsophies, modern ethical and morality based philosophies, went to a Jesuit University, hosted discussion-salons (still do) in my own home for the last decade - and I *still* am learning things everyday about myself and the world around me. The most valuable thing I've learned is to let go. My struggles with trying to define reality easily doubled the amount of time invested into coming to this conclusion - rather than learning to shut the hell up (in my mind) and dissolve the preconceived notions I'd built up over the years and just let go and *EXPERIENCE* reality free of everything.

Kensho (which is only a very early stage of the non-dual experience) is that point where you see what the term "arising in consciousness" means. I think that's where your article(s) get lost in the terminology everyone is bandying around: it's not that all of a sudden reality arises into some new view of the universe - it's that you've stripped away a significant layer of pre-conditioning on how *YOU* perceive the world, how your consciousness is seperated by your own self-definition in relation to the rest of reality. That part of you (EH) that say's "I AM EVENGELICALHUMANIST!!!!!!!!(HEAR ME ROOOAAAAARRRRRR!!!!! RAARRRRRR!!!... sorry I couldn't resist ) and you then learn through: meditation, deep prayer, chanting a mantra, ectstatic dancing etc. pick your method - to still that voice until you simply are. The "I AM EH" becomes "I AM" and you then sit in the world for the first time - naked and experiencing the world non-seperate from your *real* self. In kensho it is like pulling a veneer off your senses - the world around you is arising in its entirety, that is your new level of consciousness and how it perceives things... and it's only the beginning.

From a purely scientific point of view - which should go right along with your athiestic leanings - it will take little convincing on my part that this phenomenon can be repeated, and described, and you will have little doubt in your mind that when re-reading the holy scriptures that the perspectives written about God were in these states.

Magical? No. Mythical - myth inducing likely. Scientifically repeatable even to skeptics and athiest diehards who believe in pure rationality to the point of reverse dogma - you betcha.

Sam Harris thinks so -

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/o...t_faith_1.html

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index...ge=harris_25_6

as a few examples from a now-prominent humanist/former athiest.

"it's not that all of a sudden reality arises into some new view of the universe - "

Actually it is that way to some who do more than just have Faith in God .
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"and you then learn through: meditation, deep prayer, chanting a mantra, ectstatic dancing etc. pick your method - to still that voice until you simply are. The "I AM EH" becomes "I AM" and you then sit in the world for the first time - naked and experiencing the world non-seperate from your *real* self."

Do you refer to 'God' as your real self ?
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