Virgin Birth Myths

[Belinda]

From the point of view of "something beyond the consciousness" the following is true

Yes, you are correct...but the claimer is a myth...because life is nondual.

However there is no point of view "beyond the consciousness" because points of view pertain to selves. Unless you are going to posit a supernatural self which (or Who) functions "beyond the consciousness" there is no other possible "beyond the consciousness" point of view.

All we can do to approach the mystery of "something beyond the consciousness" is use art, meditation, fantastic analogies, or naive theism. I will not agree with your claim that "something beyond the consciousness" comes first simply because it is an escape from responsibility from the aspect of common everyday awareness

[Dontaskme]

From the point of view of "something beyond the consciousness" the following is true

Yes, you are correct...but the claimer is a myth...because life is nondual.

However there is no point of view "beyond the consciousness" because points of view pertain to selves. Unless you are going to posit a supernatural self which (or Who) functions "beyond the consciousness" there is no other possible "beyond the consciousness" point of view.

All we can do to approach the mystery of "something beyond the consciousness" is use art, meditation, fantastic analogies, or naive theism. I will not agree with your claim that "something beyond the consciousness" comes first simply because it is an escape from responsibility from the aspect of common everyday awareness

Not sure what you mean by escape, I notice you and Greta like to use this escape concept.

I've already outlined the responsibility aspect of the consciousness conscious of itself. Now you are saying something about escaping from it..I really don't understand where you are coming from...now.

If we are aware of our conscious actions and their consequences then it's because we have the insight to reflect on what feels right and what feels wrong...awareness is the absolute, consciousness is on contact it's relative...they both exist as one here now...one is immortal, the other is mortal.

Beyond, just means unawareness of your absolute self which is veiled by your ego self...The absolute is right here now, you are it.

[Belinda]

Dontaskme wrote:

If we are aware of our conscious actions and their consequences then it's because we have the insight to reflect on what feels right and what feels wrong...awareness is the absolute, consciousness is on contact it's relative...they both exist as one here now...one is immortal, the other is mortal.

But we cannot reflect i.e. think except we do so as thinkers. Thinkers are individuals who are separate subjects of experience. What "separate subjects of experience" means is 1. A subject of experience cannot think what another subject of experience is thinking and 2. Subjects of experience could not learn from each other if they had exactly the same experience as each other.

What feels right and what feels wrong aren't eternal values but relative values . What feels right and what feels wrong are values that relate to times and seasons , and persons.

Dam, your use of English is laden with tones of awe towards egoless awareness. Awareness of multiplicity of beings, of selves, is awesome too.

BTW obviously what you mean by 'immortal' is not what I mean by the word so let's not go there.

[Dontaskme]

BTW obviously what you mean by 'immortal' is not what I mean by the word so let's not go there.

Why not? ..what's wrong with the idea of immortal?

[Dontaskme]

Subjects of experience could not learn from each other if they had exactly the same experience as each other.

There is no subject in a subject....there are an infinite multitude of different ''experiences'' the diversity is endless all arising simultaneously in consciousness that we all have. Everything has consciousness...because consciousness is every one and everything.

From self to self we each project our own knowledge to each other...we are only recognising/remembering a knowledge that belongs to no one and everyone...no thing and everything ...same one.

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[Nick_A]

DaM

Not sure what you mean by escape, I notice you and Greta like to use this escape concept.

I use it also. The awareness of levels of reality has diminished which is why the virgin birth seems so absurd for so many.

We psychologically escape both by becoming identified with the earth and secular interests and also by escaping into imaginary associations with God. Both provide our ego's escape routes by protecting us from witnessing the world as it is with conscious attention. It protects us from our negative emotions which sustain our identification with imaginary interpretations.

Most here seem identified with secularism while you seem identified with the belief you are God. Read this description of karma yoga. It refers to the importance of experiencing both the pleasant and unpleasant with impartial attention. Take from it what you will.

The essence of the idea of Karma-Yoga is to meet with unpleasant things equally with pleasant things. That is, in practicing Karma-Yoga, one does not seek always to avoid unpleasant things, as people ordinarily do. Life is to be met with non-identifying. When this is possible, life becomes one's teacher; in no other sense can life become a teacher, for life taken as itself is meaningless, but taken as an exercise it becomes a teacher. It is not life that is a teacher, but one's relation through non-identifying makes it become a teacher. Nothing can change being so much as this practice - namely, to take the unpleasant things in life as an exercise. (Maurice Nicoll,

The idea isn't to reject and deny experience but rather to consciously witness it. Of course it is difficult but those who become capable of it acquire inner freedom from the power of negative emotions.

Like it or not we exist as a plurality. We lack inner unity. We cannot deny it just because we have had some mystical experiences. We have to repair our being rather than deny it in the quest to become more human.

[Greta]

Belief is power..the mind of belief is very powerful..it's a myth appearing real.

Real enough to send a craft into space and land on a comet over half a billion kilometres away and travelling at 17,000kph. There is an intrinsic reality to physical models that defies the notion of "illusion".

Yes, Einstein noted that everything is relative and, if one wants to dig enough, you might say the edifice is built on a house of cards. However, precariousness and temporality do not equal non existence.

There is no such thing as non-existence. Life is not an illusion , the story of 'other' is the illusion.

Humans refuse to get out of their own way because they wrongly believe they are going to die...

Saying that the story of other is a myth, does not mean life is an illusion...and therefore does not exist...of course it exists, but not the way you believe it to exist.

The way you have been conditioned by those who came before you told you...that you believed was real.

Knowledge informs the illusory idea that you exist apart from your mother...but you have come out of your mother...you are inseparable from everything that came before you..any division is purely illusory.

DAM, it is COMPLETELY OBVIOUS to most here that life is not as it appears, that confusion is caused by perspective effects. Anyone familiar with Kant does not need reminding of this - we all know this concept and don't need reminding of the obvious.

If you don't want to accept death, I can understand that. I am personally unsure of why we would be more conscious dead than when in deep sleep. There are possibilities, but I have to admit that falling into blackness as in deep sleep at some point after the NDE seems most likely to me at this stage.

One possible "out" from death is if we fundamentally misperceive time, in which case ever increasing time dilation may be experienced during an NDE as a patient approaches death, which may provide a subjective eternal life.

Another possibility is if the brain is more of a filter and less of a generator of consciousness than is generally assumed. Thus deep sleep would be akin to a "closed filter" while death would be complete removal of the filter, thus explaining the occasional sudden lucidity of some dementia patients just before death.

Another possibility is that we are all part of one consciousness (or at least a much larger one) so that one death would just be akin to a dead cell, just the sloughing of surface stuff while life goes on at a deeper level.

Then there's all the cool dimensional stuff

Whatever, this identity called "DAM" or "Greta" or whatever is a goner, and in that sense death is very real.

You may then claim that these identities are illusions but I would disagree; temporality does not equal illusoriness. Some things simply persist longer than others, but a brief persistence does not constitute an illusion, which is by definition non-existence.

[Dontaskme]

DAM, it is COMPLETELY OBVIOUS to most here that life is not as it appears, that confusion is caused by perspective effects. Anyone familiar with Kant does not need reminding of this - we all know this concept and don't need reminding of the obvious.

I know, we are only ever pointing out the obvious, it's like when ever I read posts from a dualistic stance, I'm thinking how obvious all the time, so be it, it's how it is...it's obvious we are going to repeat ourselves to each other because when we are engaging in any discussion all we are doing is wanting to show each other our personal experience of knowledge, we are never going to be swayed from our personal experiences and so more often than not those shared experiences are going to repeat over and over again...all we are doing if we are honest is hoping to get the other one in the exchange to see our side of the story...that I believe is all that is happening in a two way discussion about any subject...so only when two people come to a mutual agreement will the repeating stop..

If you don't want to accept death, I can understand that.

You see that's the problem, I know there is no separate entity here to accept or not accept anything except as an imagined character having those ideas that it can have such ideas.... I know I don't have to not accept or even accept death...I know there is no death, because I know there is no one living life......I know that life is living itself, and that that life is the only life there is. If humans want to stick labels on everything, then that's what's happening, I am still a human playing the human game, and I know that too, I do give myself permission to be human, and I have never run away from that character, I have to invent a character else there is no play...but, I also happen to know the real truth behind the actor....but as soon as the character sticks the label GOD on everything....people don't seem to like that, they often reject the idea....ironically, they are more than happy to accept their own label, their own ''Christian Name''

But I don't care about what others believe. I know GOD, and I don't believe in God...I know God..and nothing is ever going to take that knowing away from me.

So Greta, can you accept that in Dam's reality there is an innate knowing.. that there is no death?

You can stack as many labels as you like as high as the moon on what you believe reality to be, that will be your own inner universe that has been gifted to you...you can not escape your inner world no more that I can escape mine...there is no escaping any of this..we are this and there is no way we have never not been this or can stop being this.

I am personally unsure of why we would be more conscious dead than when in deep sleep. There are possibilities, but I have to admit that falling into blackness as in deep sleep at some point after the NDE seems most likely to me at this stage.

One possible "out" from death is if we fundamentally misperceive time, in which case ever increasing time dilation may be experienced during an NDE as a patient approaches death, which may provide a subjective eternal life.

Another possibility is if the brain is more of a filter and less of a generator of consciousness than is generally assumed. Thus deep sleep would be akin to a "closed filter" while death would be complete removal of the filter, thus explaining the occasional sudden lucidity of some dementia patients just before death.

Another possibility is that we are all part of one consciousness (or at least a much larger one) so that one death would just be akin to a dead cell, just the sloughing of surface stuff while life goes on at a deeper level.

Then there's all the cool dimensional stuff

I cannot comment on anything you have said here for I have had no personal experience with NDE myself, neither have I used hallucinatory inducing weird drugs to experience alternate realities ...I have never needed these aids...I can spontaneously and voluntary know the multiple dimensional world right here and now, because all dimensions exist in the same place, namely, here now.

I don't even care if people laugh at this or call it out as bullshit or what ever they want to think or believe about my ideas...I already am living the light and the truth that Jesus talked about...and I trust in Jesus alone...I believe that everything he said to be the living truth.

Whatever, this identity called "DAM" or "Greta" or whatever is a goner, and in that sense death is very real.

I don't believe the name-tags claim of anything...I believe the voice of the spirit within me, the Jesus consciousness..so NO..death is not real in my eyes...the name-tags die, but not the essence that is here now and can never not be here. And even the name-tags don't really die, because ideas just keep popping back up again all the time...like those who have supposedly died according to the believers of death...their voices and their name-tags still arise here now...for example, I can look at a photo or a video recording or a voice recording of my supposed dead mother and know she still exists right now just in a different form...I know not many people will understand what I am saying, And I don't expect them to, and it's not important that they do either as far as I'm concerned because I know what I am talking about and that's all that matters to me.

You may then claim that these identities are illusions but I would disagree; temporality does not equal illusoriness. Some things simply persist longer than others, but a brief persistence does not constitute an illusion, which is by definition non-existence.

The thing is Greta, I don't claim anything...I know stuff...I just know who I am, because I know who I am not...I cannot change this, life has evolved this in me to be like this, and nothing anything anyone can ever say to me will change this point of view I hold about who or what I am.

.

[Dontaskme]

DaM

Not sure what you mean by escape, I notice you and Greta like to use this escape concept.

I use it also. The awareness of levels of reality has diminished which is why the virgin birth seems so absurd for so many.

We psychologically escape both by becoming identified with the earth and secular interests and also by escaping into imaginary associations with God. Both provide our ego's escape routes by protecting us from witnessing the world as it is with conscious attention. It protects us from our negative emotions which sustain our identification with imaginary interpretations.

Most here seem identified with secularism while you seem identified with the belief you are God. Read this description of karma yoga. It refers to the importance of experiencing both the pleasant and unpleasant with impartial attention. Take from it what you will.

The essence of the idea of Karma-Yoga is to meet with unpleasant things equally with pleasant things. That is, in practicing Karma-Yoga, one does not seek always to avoid unpleasant things, as people ordinarily do. Life is to be met with non-identifying. When this is possible, life becomes one's teacher; in no other sense can life become a teacher, for life taken as itself is meaningless, but taken as an exercise it becomes a teacher. It is not life that is a teacher, but one's relation through non-identifying makes it become a teacher. Nothing can change being so much as this practice - namely, to take the unpleasant things in life as an exercise. (Maurice Nicoll,

The idea isn't to reject and deny experience but rather to consciously witness it. Of course it is difficult but those who become capable of it acquire inner freedom from the power of negative emotions.

Like it or not we exist as a plurality. We lack inner unity. We cannot deny it just because we have had some mystical experiences. We have to repair our being rather than deny it in the quest to become more human.

Thanks Nick..I understand all this and know it...I always seem to be able to totally get what you are talking about.

I also agree with the Maurice Nicoll quote...I'm living that quote right now...I've come to recognise / remember that.


Thanks, I'm really pleased that you brought this important factor of the human condition to the forum.

.

[Dontaskme]

Eodnhoj7 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:57 pm

The observation of the self does not negate the unity of existence as the self is an extension of that very same infinity unity, and hence is infinity in itself. While observing the self may be strictly an approximation of the greater whole it simultaneously mirrors it in the respect both are 1.

The nature of question is often times an assertion of truth in the face of some absence, for to question something is to reveal it for what it is in some manner or another.

The observation of the self does not take away from the fact existence is unified nor does the unity of existence prohibit "the self" to exist.

Does anyone agree with this amazing clarity..this is what I speak of also, albeit not quite so eloquently as Eodnhoj7 apparently.

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[Dontaskme]

Escapism is within the dream of separation,we escape from what we believe to be a world of ''me'' here and the world outside of ''me'' out-there.

Instinctively we know unity, but the world and it's appearances show us a very different story. The senses are easily tricked into the sense of separation and in that feeling there is an urgent sense to seek unity, simply because the isolation of separation is not natural, in fact it's a kin to living in hell.So we often attempt to escape from that hell that is not our true home...

These are some examples of what may happen to the mind of the dual thinker...

A form of escapism in life.. is the Harry Potter obsession or the Disney World obsession, or the obsession with food or drink or drugs, or sex, or having lots of friends, or craving lots of ''likes'' on social media websites, like instagram, & facebook etc etc.......now, in my opinion, these obsessions, habits, are in reality an unconscious desire to return to wholeness unity... the desire to be with the beloved..but lets not confuse this with reality which is always unity in every moment. The beloved is closer than your own skin, it's right here now always.

We cannot leave or escape from that which we never entered, nor can we enter or escape from that which we never left...this is unity. It does not leave, because it never came. IT IS....THIS IS IT.

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[Nick_A]

Here is a classic example of escapism. A Course in Miracles makes millions. However what if there is another side to the escapism it furthers? Wishful thinking into escapism may not be worth the effort.

The text of the book "A Course in Miracles" is the product of seven years of trance spirit channeling of a Mrs. Helen Schucman. The spirit that channeled a "new gospel" to Mrs. Schucman claimed to be Jesus Christ. The "spirit" made contact with her to correct errors in Sacred Scripture, and the teachings of the Church. The "spirit" that channeled through Mrs. Schucman wrote that Sacred Scripture was in error in teaching us that sin separates us from God, and that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross for our sins. The book "A Course in Miracles" contains a Text (the dictation's of Mrs. Schucman), a Student Workbook, and an Instructors Manual (1).

Mrs. Schucman, a Columbia University professor and psychologist, was an acquaintance of Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R. (seen on EWTN). Fr. Groeschel gave a eulogy at her funeral. Fr. Groeschel wrote (2), "This woman who had written so eloquently that suffering really did not exist spent the last two years of her life in the blackest psychotic depression I have ever witnessed." Fr. Groeschel is a holy, practical, wise, no nonsense priest, and psychologist. During an October 1994 lecture on "Discernment" given at Holy Cross Church, Rumson, N.J., Fr. Groeschel stated that he believed that Helen Shucman's experience with the channeled "spirit" was possibly a true diabolic manifestation. Fr. Groeschel's experience as a psychologist and priest included being called upon by his Bishop to investigate reported diabolic manifestations in his New York City diocese. In the lecture Fr. Groeschel described one experience ã called as an exorcist ã where he witnessed objects unexplainably being thrown about a room. At the end of a lengthy discussion he attributed that particular experience to paranormal manifestations ã but not diabolic in nature (3). Fr. Groeschel is not easily inclined to attribute any experience to the diabolic. The possible diabolic origin in the spirit channeling of Helen Schucman was one exception given by Fr. Groeschel. Fr. Groeschel's suspicions find support in Sacred Scripture..........

[Belinda]

Dontaskme wrote:

A form of escapism in life.. is the Harry Potter obsession or the Disney World obsession, or the obsession with food or drink or drugs, or sex, or having lots of friends, or craving lots of ''likes'' on social media websites, like instagram, & facebook etc etc.......now, in my opinion, these obsessions, habits, are in reality an unconscious desire to return to wholeness unity... the desire to be with the beloved..but lets not confuse this with reality which is always unity in every moment. The beloved is closer than your own skin, it's right here now always.

The mark of escapism is that it's easy and pleasant and usually simplistic. Harry Potter novels and Disney works are examples of harmless escapism. If 'wholeness unity' is a quick fix it's immediately suspect. I don't know whether or not your insistence upon 'wholeness unity' came from long practice of meditation, or long time intellectual work, but if not it is probably escapist.

[Dontaskme]

The mark of escapism is that it's easy and pleasant and usually simplistic. Harry Potter novels and Disney works are examples of harmless escapism. If 'wholeness unity' is a quick fix it's immediately suspect. I don't know whether or not your insistence upon 'wholeness unity' came from long practice of meditation, or long time intellectual work, but if not it is probably escapist.

Belinda, the mind will always find new ways to trick itself into existing...it simply cannot cope with the idea of non-existence, and yet it cannot see that there is no such thing as non-existence...there is only here the images of the imageless, and it doesn't like that, so will do what ever it can to convince itself those images are real.

Unity is your natural SELF...No one lives as SELF...so there's no one to escape either from it or to it.

Although the misidentified mind may desire to swing from solitude to distraction depending on the mood...but in essence NONDUAL SELF is the final resting place, it's pure bliss in every moment, even amid the chaos...it's what you are, and is what every other living creature is.

In the play of duality ..it seems like the character can escape to the sensation of no mind, or it can escape from the fear of solitude into the world of distraction...either way, it's all fictional fantasy.

Having no preference toward solitude or distraction is the neutral way..what the Buddhist call the middle way....the only real way of living in the world.

I choose the middle way.



.

[Nick_A]

One thing we've learned is that the results of reliance on critical thinking is like water moving in descending cycles as it approaches and finally goes down the drain. Reliance on critical thinking can only result in nihilism and the absence of objective meaning as we cycle in eternal chaos.

Thanks to the powers that be that there are and have been those like Simone Weil who are unable to accept such inner slavery. Only such people can rise above the limitations of trying to experience objective meaning through dualistic critical thinking and open to human intelligence capable of replacing nihilism with universal understanding revealing objective human meaning and purpose. It is obvious how far we are from such an understanding.

Simone Weil says: “We know by means of our intelligence that what the intelligence does not comprehend is more real than what it does comprehend.”

True. We need more people with intelligence capable of experiencing the good sense of what she said.