Cult Icon
2585 replies · 37509 views
"Deautomatising" our perceptions and subduing Ego is possible in order to increase felt time and increase the level of consciousness/heightened perception of the world around us.
higher state of consciousness:
-occur when mind is far more quiet than normal
-normal ego structure softens and fades away.
-higher the ego transcendence, the higher the consciousness, more expansion of felt time. At the highest level there is no time/timelessness. Time and space dissolve into an ocean of the infinite/eternal consciousness, boundaries of past-present-future melt into oneness. Time is no longer linear but spatial.
-DT Suzuki: No time divisions, they have contracted themselves into a single moment of the present where life quivers in its true sense.
-moments where world is filled with beauty and meaning
-we feel like we are part of our surroundings rather than observers
-sense of inner well being fills us and we are connected to a deeper/truer part of self
-more intense vision of reality and different relationship to the world
-brings about a de-automisation of perception
-mind becomes extremely relaxed and still
-normal channels of mental exertion (eg. thinking, concentration, processing) are partially closed.
-intensification of energy inside us
-mind no longer has to conserve energy through automatic perception
-desensitizing mechanism no longer has to function and edit out the reality of our perceptions.
-as a result we experience Is-ness/Being of our surroundings of which are normally hidden from us. And we take much more information from surroundings, which stretch out time.
Making time pass quickly:
1. be comfortable
2. don't be clock time conscious
3. get really absorbed.
The normal way we judge the length of life (clock time) is WRONG.
How much time we experience depends on FELT TIME. It depends on how we live our lives and the state of consciousness in which we live them.
It's quite possible that a 30 year old lives more than an 80 year old.
Typical errors: 1. Speeding up of time due to aging brains 2. Too much clock time in absorbing activities 3. rarely get new experiences 4. don't control the ego and get it draw back
"she was so restless that as soon as she started to get used to one situation or environment, she had to release herself from it and jump into a new one. In this way she never gave the desensitizing mechanism a chance to take hold, and to reduce the amount of perceptual information she processed. During 10 years of traveling, she was "awake" to the raw experience of the world almost constantly, and so time would have passed extremely slowly for her".
Her way of life meant that she spent little time in absorption and distraction.
When you expose yourself to new experiences and new environments you're never bored. You're fascinated or at least interested by the newness around you, and so don' t need distractions. You live in the moment and the world, a 3rd state of BEING.
despite dying young she lived much more than a typical person of 75.
another example: retired race car driver becomes a monk because he can't stand ordinary life
You might say that he lived a longer life by renewing his INNER life at every turn. His swift, divergent journey to various branches of knowledge must have had a mind-stretching effect as a genuine voyage.
new areas of interest, knowledge, and information, learning new skills, encountering new people. Avoid repetition and routine as much as possible, find new experiences instead of repeating old ones to increase felt time.
However the problem with Wanderlust- inner and outer- is that all of it gets exhausted eventually and one needs a "home base" in the case of the latter. This is where we expand and transcend TIME by changing ourselves.
-to expand felt time, reduce ego as much as possible (eg. Mindfulness).
-linear time is created by thought chatter of the ego, much of it concerned with past and future & thus shortens felt time through absorption. By shutting down the ego-chatter more energy is available for processing environment/mindfulness of the present moment & expanded felt time.
- deliberate existential actions to make mundane activities and moments into special things.
-"you might even step out of linear time to get open to the timeless quality of the present moment.
-so you don't have to rely on doing new things to "provoke" yourself into mindfulness, you can just do it right now, (Eg. japanese tea ceremony) by making the moment fresh and new
-ego based thought chatter- often chaotic and often negative
-with higher consciousness, the whirlwind of thought-chatter slows down and fades away, until we only use the thinking mechanism of our minds when we actually want to think rather than thinking involuntarily all the time.
-boundaries of ego become less sharp
-you become one with time, merged with it, rather than outside it, trying to keep up. Instead of focusing on the future and rushing away from the present to get there, you become aware of a new kind of permanence. You see the present as a permanent and continuous reality, and one's that's glorious and meaningful, rather than as a series of moments which flash by and then disappear forever.
“The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.”
― Zhuangz
Recently I finished the audiobooks for Confucius Analects and the Mengzi. These are 2 of the 4 classic works of Confucianism.
I liked the Mengzi far more than the sayings of Confucius. Minus some dated aspects they are remarkably contemporary and the wisdom on honor, politics, family, social relations and social action are timeless and relevant today. However some aspects are not for everyone.
Confucius is very much about day to day life in society and simple pleasures, and not about metaphysical, psychological, or philosophical depth from an individualist perspective. He says "Why ask about ghosts, spirits, and death when you don't even know about life"? It is interesting how these theories define the Chinese. It is very practical, business-like and would be regarded as sound family and community ethics worldwide.
I have listened to this more than half a dozen times and am still going . It is fresh everytime.
@Stromboli1 @COP11 @phenobarbie @Joe > Average
Trying very hard not to laugh because it's horrible what's going on but... @Cult Icon enjoy LOL
7 minutes ago, Prettyphile said:@Stromboli1 @COP11 @phenobarbie @Joe > Average
Trying very hard not to laugh because it's horrible what's going on but...
You just witnessed the start of the fall of the American Empire.
I can't say that I tried not to laugh, but I can say that I did laugh.
The distinction between aggressive and defensive courage can also
be seen in Polybius' comments on centurions. Polybius says that the
quality valued in centurions was steadfastness - crTacrlllos - as opposed
to daring - 6pacroS - and love of danger - <j>lAOKiv5vvoS. According to
Polybius, centurions were relied on to set an example not by leading
men into battle, but by holding their position when pressed, and dying
there if necessary (6.24.9). Laudable and effective as their function
may have been, centurions are not presented by Polybius as examples
of virtus.
"Tolkien stands against disenchantment in both its literal and metaphorical senses; indeed, they cannot strictly be separated in his work. The disenchanted view, metaphorically speaking, is that failure renders effort meaningless. In contrast, Tolkien’s protagonists are heroes not because of their successes, which are often limited, but because of their courage and tenacity in trying. By implication, worth cannot be measured by results alone, but is intrinsic. His stories depict the struggle to uphold inherited, instinctive, or inspirational values – matters of intrinsic and immeasurable worth – against the forces of chaos and destruction. "
Tolkein's letter 246:
Frodo indeed 'failed' as a hero, as conceived by simple minds: he did not endure to the end; he gave in, ratted. I do not say 'simple minds' with contempt: they often see with clarity the simple truth and the absolute ideal to which effort must be directed, even if it is unattainable. Their weakness, however, is twofold. They do not perceive the complexity of any given situation in Time, in which an absolute ideal is enmeshed. They tend to forget that strange element in the World that we call Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature). In its highest exercise it belongs to God. For finite judges of imperfect knowledge it must lead to the use of two different scales of 'morality'. To ourselves we must present the absolute ideal without compromise, for we do not know our own limits of natural strength (+grace), and if we do not aim at the highest we shall certainly fall short of the utmost that we could achieve. To others, in any case of which we know enough to make a judgement, we must apply a scale tempered by 'mercy': that is, since we can with good will do this without the bias inevitable in judgements of ourselves, we must estimate the limits of another's strength and weigh this against the force of particular circumstances.
I do not think that Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum – impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence) and had produced a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved. His humility (with which he began) and his sufferings were justly rewarded by the highest honour; and his exercise of patience and mercy towards Gollum gained him Mercy: his failure was redressed.
We are finite creatures with absolute limitations upon the powers of our soul-body structure in either action or endurance. Moral failure can only be asserted, I think, when a man's effort or endurance falls short of his limits, and the blame decreases as that limit is closer approached.
Nonetheless, I think it can be observed in history and experience that some individuals seem to be placed in 'sacrificial' positions: situations or tasks that for perfection of solution demand powers beyond their utmost limits, even beyond all possible limits for an incarnate creature in a physical world – in which a body may be destroyed, or so maimed that it affects the mind and will. Judgement upon any such case should then depend on the motives and disposition with which he started out, and should weigh his actions against the utmost possibility of his powers, all along the road to whatever proved the breaking-point.
Frodo undertook his quest out of love – to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task. His real contract was only to do what he could, to try to find a way, and to go as far on the road as his strength of mind and body allowed. He did that. I do not myself see that the breaking of his mind and will under demonic pressure after torment was any more a moral failure than the breaking of his body would have been – say, by being strangled by Gollum, or crushed by a falling rock.
That appears to have been the judgement of Gandalf and Aragorn and of all who learned the full story of his journey. Certainly nothing would be concealed by Frodo! But what Frodo himself felt about the events is quite another matter