Philosophy Now Forum

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 8:05 am I'm referring to the concept posited by Maia (Numinous)

It indicates the presence of a divinity. It's a fallacy. There is nothing divine about being torn to shreds and being eaten alive by a hungry bear.

Maia thought getting torn to shreds by a bear is numinous?

Reality is unknowable. Of course reality is seen, but it is impossible to see the source of seeing.

'You' cannot even locate your apparent physical eye. Your own eye, not someone elses.

Yes, 'you' can see an image in the mirror... but that image is not the source of seeing... it is seen.

Yes, there is the experience of feeling goosebumps at nature. It's your own nature, not some other thing called divinity beyond you.

Every person seen is an object of sight... no image can see - whether they have a good eye or a bad eye. No more that the image of a person in a nightly dream can see.

Reality is simple: there is only One.

One is unknowable. How can one know itself, it would have to split into two, into knower and known.

As One experiences life from the perspective of a blind person, the faculty of sight remains 'dormant'... no images are apparent. But this is just an experience... the experience of being blind.

There are here, only experiences, in this unknowable experiencing.

Or perhaps people are experiencing something real and even to varying degrees correctly interpreting their experiences. If you think you can't know reality (

Reality is unknowable

), then you can't rule it out.

Maia wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:43 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 12:38 pm There is nothing about a space, unless you know what its importance is.
We are all the time walking upon ground that has seen death and destruction for millions of years.
It is only when you have been informed that the ground is "scared" that you are filled with a sense of awe.
This is powerful evidence that the "feeling" in endogenous, and not some mystical essence of the earth.

I don't think that's true, though. I can go to a place I've never been before and know nothing about, and get a sudden numinous feeling. That's why I think there must be some physical process at work.

Nah.

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 9:59 am

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 8:05 am
Yes, there is the experience of feeling goosebumps at nature. It's your own nature, not some other thing called divinity beyond you.

Very well put.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:20 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 9:59 am

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 8:05 am
Yes, there is the experience of feeling goosebumps at nature. It's your own nature, not some other thing called divinity beyond you.

Very well put.

It was well put. But my question to both of you is: when do we decide we know that a reaction we are having is only about ourselves and not ALSO about something else. I got goosebumps when I saw his beautiful dive into the water. Oh, that was just your own nature, there was no beautiful dive. Well, pretty much any realist is going to say, well, the diver is real. But where do we draw the line and what makes you sure you know. People feel better often amongst plants, in nature. Oh, well that's just your own nature. But then we have found in recent decades that in fact plants release chemicals that improve out immune system. They also release frequencies of sound that appear to be beneficial. Before we found this stuff out we could have dismissed feelings of better health in nature as some kind of placebo effect or not real at all. Perhaps only having something to do with romantic feelings about plants: human myths.

I certainly understand that neither of you is convinced by other people's experiences, but it seems, especially with dontaskme, like you KNOW what is really going on.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:12 pm Maia thought getting torn to shreds by a bear is numinous?

No.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:12 pmOr perhaps people are experiencing something real and even to varying degrees correctly interpreting their experiences.

Or perhaps.. There are here, only experiences, in this unknowable experiencing.

Are you aware of consciousness, at the instant you fall asleep ? Can you remember the instant right at unconsciousness ? Where does consciousness go ? And when you wake up, are you aware of consciousness at the instant of awakening ?

'You' is a thought, inseparable from the knower of the thought, which is conciousness. While thoughts come and go, and change, consciousness remains ever unchanged.

All there is is consciousness and as such it is the only seer. It is not the eye that sees, or the person that sees, it is consciousness that sees as the eye. Close the eyes and the 'seeing of seeing' is gone. That what knows this is not.

No thing is experiencing consciousness. No thing is conscious. Things (concepts)are known, and that which is known, knows nothing, not a thing, no thing. In 'not knowing', everything is known, because there is no separation between consciousness and it's contents.
You are the knowing that cannot be known.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:51 pm
I certainly understand that neither of you is convinced by other people's experiences, but it seems, especially with dontaskme, like you KNOW what is really going on.

There is no claim that the mystery (consciousness) aka the (seeing) that cannot itself, be seen... can know itself in a way we cannot know it, for it needs our individual consciousness for it to know. But simply put, the mystery can only know itself through a particular individual consciousness, and hence it can never know itself absolutely without it.

So to whom exactly are experiences known? To consciousness alone, all one. There is only totality and there is nothing we can do or think or feel that is not the beloved and yet we will never know this, for we see the limits of knowledge. How do I know this? I do not.
There seems to be frustration at not knowing as though not knowing was somehow 'outside' of Oneness, or what you call nothing, rather than just simply Oneness arising as not knowing. Knowledge, aka concepts known can only point to the illusory nature of reality, it being unknowable, even to itself, you are this knowing that cannot be known.

There is nothing remotely divine or spiritual about this, except as concept known, that knows nothing. Concepts are pure story within the dream of separation where there is none.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:51 pm

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:20 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 9:59 am

Very well put.

It was well put. But my question to both of you is: when do we decide we know that a reaction we are having is only about ourselves and not ALSO about something else. I got goosebumps when I saw his beautiful dive into the water. Oh, that was just your own nature, there was no beautiful dive. Well, pretty much any realist is going to say, well, the diver is real.

Yes, the diver is real, and so is the dive, I suppose, but the beauty is a property of neither. It is something that is experienced subjectively by the observer, and another observer might think the specacle mediocre.

But where do we draw the line and what makes you sure you know.

I'm not sure I know, I'm just saying what I think to be most likely.

People feel better often amongst plants, in nature. Oh, well that's just your own nature. But then we have found in recent decades that in fact plants release chemicals that improve out immune system. They also release frequencies of sound that appear to be beneficial. Before we found this stuff out we could have dismissed feelings of better health in nature as some kind of placebo effect or not real at all.

When it is discovered that some "mystical" places release some sort of "stuff" that we are able to sense, I will be happy to revise my opinion.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:51 pm
It was well put. But my question to both of you is: when do we decide we know that a reaction we are having is only about ourselves and not ALSO about something else. I got goosebumps when I saw his beautiful dive into the water. Oh, that was just your own nature, there was no beautiful dive. Well, pretty much any realist is going to say, well, the diver is real.

Of course the experience of goosebumps was sourced in you alone. The experience was a reaction to an image appearing within your imageless consciousness, there is no way you could have separated yourself from the experience, no more than you can separate yourself from the consciousness that you are being experiencing the experience which is the only knowing there is.

From the illusion that is 'I' 'you', there is an experience of seeing, hearing, doing, of being 'you' / 'I'. From yours and my perspective this has a sense of being real.From Consciousness perspective while having the experience of being 'you' and 'I' this is also the case.

In Reality, all is occuring in Consciousness, of Consciousness, and is Consciousness, the only knowing there is.

This 'I' 'you' however can only think of and experience this reality, and ideas of Consciousness, according to those thoughts that come from Consciousness, including this thought or idea of me.

These thoughts tell me (consciousness)this experience is real, which is why I won't step out into oncoming traffic expecting not to be hit or injured. Because if I was injured and not killed it would be a real experience to me. If I was killed it wouldn't be.

When I die, then it will be as if there never was a me here, any experiences that I had are only the experience of consciousness having been me.

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 2:31 pm
Yes, the diver is real, and so is the dive, I suppose, but the beauty is a property of neither. It is something that is experienced subjectively by the observer, and another observer might think the spectacle mediocre.

Well put.

Of course the dive was real, because the whole spectacle was an image known within the witness, known as consciousness. The whole experience of feeling goosebumps or mediocre would not have been possible had there not been the presence of consciousness in which all images, sights, sounds, feelings, sensation, ideas, etc etc...are known.

While 'thoughts' about sensations and feelings can change and be very different from one moment to the next, including thoughts about being human...that which knows this is not.

No 'human' thought or lack of such thought can cause anything to happen or not to happen. There's simply what's happening and there is no thing making what happens happen or unhappen.

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 2:31 pm Yes, the diver is real, and so is the dive, I suppose, but the beauty is a property of neither. It is something that is experienced subjectively by the observer, and another observer might think the specacle mediocre.

Right, but there was a diver. Some may react with fear to something they call a spiritual entity. Some might react with joy. My point was not so much that the reaction is the right one or that there is a right one, but rather to give a base example of there being something beyond our mere internal processes. IOW I assumed we three would accept the reality of the diver (at least in some sense even in dontaskme's non-dualism)

But where do we draw the line and what makes you sure you know.

I'm not sure I know, I'm just saying what I think to be most likely.

Yes, your first post was quite gentle. But you approved of dontaskme's explanation/sentence - which I agree was very well put - and she expressed there and around that quote a knowing that it is mere subjective changes, not in reaction to anything.

When it is discovered that some "mystical" places release some sort of "stuff" that we are able to sense, I will be happy to revise my opinion.

Sure, I understand why you don't believe. I'm not trying to convince you that Maia's interpretation, for example, is correct. It's more like I want to question the closing of a door. Now your first post did not close the door. It was a qualified sense of what you thought was actually happening. Dontaskme's post were presented in full certainty. You complimented one portion of her post and the combination felt like a door closing. I certainly consider this a very subjective reaction on my part. But that's where I'm coming from. And then, when you weigh in what is likely, isn't this like the goosebumps in her well-put sentence?

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 3:23 pm Of course the experience of goosebumps was sourced in you alone.

The experience was a reaction to an image appearing within your imageless consciousness, there is no way you could have separated yourself from the experience, no more than you can separate yourself from the consciousness that you are being experiencing the experience which is the only knowing there is.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. This would be true in all reactions to anything present or hallucinated...or?

From the illusion that is 'I' 'you', there is an experience of seeing, hearing, doing, of being 'you' / 'I'. From yours and my perspective this has a sense of being real.From Consciousness perspective while having the experience of being 'you' and 'I' this is also the case.

In Reality, all is occuring in Consciousness, of Consciousness, and is Consciousness, the only knowing there is.

OK, but how do we decide what is mere subjective reaction and what is not?

This 'I' 'you' however can only think of and experience this reality, and ideas of Consciousness, according to those thoughts that come from Consciousness, including this thought or idea of me.

These thoughts tell me (consciousness)this experience is real, which is why I won't step out into oncoming traffic expecting not to be hit or injured. Because if I was injured and not killed it would be a real experience to me. If I was killed it wouldn't be.

When I die, then it will be as if there never was a me here, any experiences that I had are only the experience of consciousness having been me.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the goosebumps/divers examples.

As best as I can understand what you wrote in this post, I have understood you have these beliefs. I'm just not sure how to connect them to deciding
1 here you were reacting to something real outside you.
or
2 here you were just reacting to something in yourself.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 3:37 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 2:31 pm
Yes, the diver is real, and so is the dive, I suppose, but the beauty is a property of neither. It is something that is experienced subjectively by the observer, and another observer might think the spectacle mediocre.

Well put.

Of course the dive was real, because the whole spectacle was an image known within the witness, known as consciousness. The whole experience of feeling goosebumps or mediocre would not have been possible had there not been the presence of consciousness in which all images, sights, sounds, feelings, sensation, ideas, etc etc...are known.

While 'thoughts' about sensations and feelings can change and be very different from one moment to the next, including thoughts about being human...that which knows this is not.

No 'human' thought or lack of such thought can cause anything to happen or not to happen. There's simply what's happening and there is no thing making what happens happen or unhappen.

I can't really understand this post either, not that it was directed at me.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 1:53 pm Or perhaps.. There are here, only experiences, in this unknowable experiencing.

You've shifted now to perhaps. Perhaps is another can of worms.

Are you aware of consciousness, at the instant you fall asleep ? Can you remember the instant right at unconsciousness ? Where does consciousness go ? And when you wake up, are you aware of consciousness at the instant of awakening ?

Rarely, but yes. Especially if I am meditating a good deal in that period of my life. Especially the instant of awakening. I've also experienced dreamless sleep and heard myself snoring. Though I'm not sure what this has to do with deciding if someone's interpretation of what is giving them an experience is correct or not.

'You' is a thought, inseparable from the knower of the thought, which is conciousness. While thoughts come and go, and change, consciousness remains ever unchanged.

All there is is consciousness and as such it is the only seer. It is not the eye that sees, or the person that sees, it is consciousness that sees as the eye. Close the eyes and the 'seeing of seeing' is gone. That what knows this is not.

No thing is experiencing consciousness. No thing is conscious. Things (concepts)are known, and that which is known, knows nothing, not a thing, no thing. In 'not knowing', everything is known, because there is no separation between consciousness and it's contents.
You are the knowing that cannot be known.

It seems like this could be applied to any experiencing, whether it seems obvious like the diver or less clear with numinous experiences or something considered supernatural by some, etc.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:21 pm
As best as I can understand what you wrote in this post, I have understood you have these beliefs. I'm just not sure how to connect them to deciding
1 here you were reacting to something real outside you.
or
2 here you were just reacting to something in yourself.

There is no 'you' or 'I' or 'me' .. these are merely concepts/thoughts known in consciousness..

Reactions are all that there is to be known in this conception, in consciousness.

That which observes the known reaction, is unknowable. If the observer was known, the observer would be able to experience itself as the object known as the image in imageless consciousness. But consciousness can never experience itself as an object known, because objects know nothing. Consciousness is this immediate knowing, the only knowing there is, one without a second. There is no other knowing, and so no image known to consciousness, in consciousness, as consciousness, for consciousness, can see or know anything because it's simply an image of the imageless, it's an illusion appearing real as consciousness is real only by association via the mind of concept....in this conception, albeit illusory.

Don't forget that all words are merely concepts known...no word has ever been seen to exist outside of the knowing of them, which is consciousness, the one and only unitary action of seeing, that cannot be seen.

This knowing is a nondual unitary action appearing as reactionary, and is wholly outside of space and time duality, aka the dream of artificial separation, the thought realm, which is made up of mere concepts which know nothing, as they are being known by consciousness.

Knowing is outside or beyond each known thought, insofar as ''knowing'' or ''consciousness'' is not the thought. But is the knower of every thought as and when they arise in knowing. So thought is neither in nor out of consciousness, because conciousness is all there is. No thing knows this.

There is nothing sacred or spiritual or divine about any of this except as conceptual empty storytelling, all very fleeting and temporal with about as much reality as a mirage is to the observer of a mirage, or a dream is within the dreamer.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:17 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 2:31 pm Yes, the diver is real, and so is the dive, I suppose, but the beauty is a property of neither. It is something that is experienced subjectively by the observer, and another observer might think the specacle mediocre.

Right, but there was a diver. Some may react with fear to something they call a spiritual entity. Some might react with joy. My point was not so much that the reaction is the right one or that there is a right one, but rather to give a base example of there being something beyond our mere internal processes. IOW I assumed we three would accept the reality of the diver (at least in some sense even in dontaskme's non-dualism)

But where do we draw the line and what makes you sure you know.

I'm not sure I know, I'm just saying what I think to be most likely.

Yes, your first post was quite gentle. But you approved of dontaskme's explanation/sentence - which I agree was very well put - and she expressed there and around that quote a knowing that it is mere subjective changes, not in reaction to anything.

When it is discovered that some "mystical" places release some sort of "stuff" that we are able to sense, I will be happy to revise my opinion.

Sure, I understand why you don't believe. I'm not trying to convince you that Maia's interpretation, for example, is correct. It's more like I want to question the closing of a door. Now your first post did not close the door. It was a qualified sense of what you thought was actually happening. Dontaskme's post were presented in full certainty. You complimented one portion of her post and the combination felt like a door closing. I certainly consider this a very subjective reaction on my part. But that's where I'm coming from. And then, when you weigh in what is likely, isn't this like the goosebumps in her well-put sentence?

I thought DAMs post (Yes, there is the experience of feeling goosebumps at nature. It's your own nature, not some other thing called divinity beyond you.) was a succinct way of putting my own view into words, and that is why I said it was well put, but I didn't mean to imply that my view is any more than an opinion, or any more valid than Maia's view.. So, just to be clear, I am not making an assertion, I'm just expressing an opinion. I would actually find it very interesting if places did turn out to have an actual mystical essence to them, rather than just a perceived one.