Philosophy Now Forum

Harbal wrote:

Dontaskme wrote: when you smile the whole mirror smiles with you..

But didn't you say:

The mirror doesn't change, only your expression can change.

Maybe if you weren't constantly contradicting yourself you would have more credibility.

This advice was free.

And its price reflects its value.

You are the mirror, there is only the mirror and it's reflection. Same ONE

What you give is what you get. The mirror is never confused...it can only appear to be.

Dontaskme wrote: The extract is from the book ''The Aletheon'' by Adi Da Samraj

Available from all good charity shops and car boot sales.

The eyes of a person (which are part of brain strictly speaking) see a bird on a fence.
This visual input activates memories about birds already stored in the brain.
Thus a thought occurs.
If the brain is a poetic one then a verse can come into it.

Dontaskme wrote:

Throng wrote:What do you refer to as 'I'?

I is a thought...it's a thing. That in which things arise is not a thing. Therefore the thing is not really a thing, it's just thinking it is. No thing is doing this.
Each thing is known in the instant it arises one with the knowing which is no thing. These two dynamics of thing and no thing are the same one pretending to be be two.

For more information on this subject, log on to the inner net of net i net i ...NETI NETI ....or go to the other virual information field @ noduality.com

Descartes got it wrong when he said I think. Because I is only a thought., and thoughts can't actually think, they only think they can...which is more thought. Descartes left out one very important aspect of the whole dynamic and that was ''nothingness'' ..and he probably did this for one very good reason, and that being..what can the mind do with nothing

I'm familiar with neti-neti and various non-duality speakers. Descartes process was precisely 'neti-neti': "I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these" (http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/d ... tion1.html)

He says he will proceed as if all he senses isn't 'real'. That he has no senses at all, which in neti terms would be, I am not the senses.

It's difficult to know what Descartes meant by 'I am a thinking thing', but he said this in his second meditation: "... it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind. (http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/d ... tion2.html

He arrives at the realisation that he must exist each time he conceives of it or expresses himself.

The problem I see with your narrative is it implies we don't exist at all. That we do is more obvious than anything. I contend that when people say 'I', they generally are referring to that existent presence to which all their experiences momentarily occur.

Throng wrote:
I'm familiar with neti-neti and various non-duality speakers. Descartes process was precisely 'neti-neti': "I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these" (http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/d ... tion1.html)

He says he will proceed as if all he senses isn't 'real'. That he has no senses at all, which in neti terms would be, I am not the senses.

It's difficult to know what Descartes meant by 'I am a thinking thing', but he said this in his second meditation: "... it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind. (http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/d ... tion2.html

He arrives at the realisation that he must exist each time he conceives of it or expresses himself.

The problem I see with your narrative is it implies we don't exist at all. That we do is more obvious than anything. I contend that when people say 'I', they generally are referring to that existent presence to which all their experiences momentarily occur.

Thanks for your interesting comments relating to Descartes's meditations. What happens during a meditation is the thoughts are observed without there being identification associated with them which would require an owner.

That which is identifying with a thought is a thought, it can't be anything else, because there is nothing else.. To see that there is no thing here that the thought is appearing in or to...is to arrive at the nondual state of pure blank awareness prior to the thought.

It's not that we don't exist at all, it's that there is no separate we/me to exist. Existence is, but it doesn't exist/appear in or to a me. The me is the appearance of existence itself appearing to itself only...me-ing itself.

I suppose Descartes could have said ... ''There is thought so am that''...notice how 'I'm and Am sound very similar, even sounding like they're the same one.

Oh well, it's each to their own understanding at the end of the day, we can only believe in the God of our own understanding...albeit illusory, because it's all the one self expressing it self differently.

God being another word for awareness, or beingness, or presence, or is-ness...or what ever this nameless one is called for the sake of communication.

As most of you - except Dontaskme (!) - use this thread to fill your mirrors with denials, excuses & abuses, let me quote a basic rule of Taoism (that old Chinese philosophy which thinks about nothing:-) - KEEP YOUR MIRROR CLEAN

Dontaskme wrote:

Throng wrote:
I'm familiar with neti-neti and various non-duality speakers. Descartes process was precisely 'neti-neti': "I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these" (http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/d ... tion1.html)

He says he will proceed as if all he senses isn't 'real'. That he has no senses at all, which in neti terms would be, I am not the senses.

It's difficult to know what Descartes meant by 'I am a thinking thing', but he said this in his second meditation: "... it must, in fine, be maintained, all things being maturely and carefully considered, that this proposition I am, I exist, is necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or conceived in my mind. (http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/d ... tion2.html

He arrives at the realisation that he must exist each time he conceives of it or expresses himself.

The problem I see with your narrative is it implies we don't exist at all. That we do is more obvious than anything. I contend that when people say 'I', they generally are referring to that existent presence to which all their experiences momentarily occur.

Thanks for your interesting comments relating to Descartes's meditations. What happens during a meditation is the thoughts are observed without there being identification associated with them which would require an owner.

That which is identifying with a thought is a thought, it can't be anything else, because there is nothing else.. To see that there is no thing here that the thought is appearing in or to...is to arrive at the nondual state of pure blank awareness prior to the thought.

It's not that we don't exist at all, it's that there is no separate we/me to exist. Existence is, but it doesn't exist/appear in or to a me. The me is the appearance of existence itself appearing to itself only...me-ing itself.

I suppose Descartes could have said ... ''There is thought so am that''...notice how 'I'm and Am sound very similar, even sounding like they're the same one.

Oh well, it's each to their own understanding at the end of the day, we can only believe in the God of our own understanding...albeit illusory, because it's all the one self expressing it self differently.

God being another word for awareness, or beingness, or presence, or is-ness...or what ever this nameless one is called for the sake of communication.

The thread is at least presented as being about Descartes, but I came to suspect that was just a front after reading a few posts. Problem is everyone knows "Cogito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.

If one observes the thought meditatively, thoughts change and go and then new ones come. I don't think anyone for a moment thinks they are their thoughts. Obviously I endure while thoughts come and go.

There is a distinction between what I experience and what I am. That's the whole basis of neti. I think that speaks to the issue of separation. Not being the experience doesn't make us separate. On the contrary, it makes us all the same. Everyone has their unique lived experience, but are are fundamentally aware of experience in the same way. In the latter sense we are all the same.

Throng wrote: . Problem is everyone knows "Cognito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.
.

Or even how to spell it.

Harbal wrote:

Throng wrote: . Problem is everyone knows "Cognito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.
.

Or even how to spell it.

A good one! Some things are just too funny! Please note - since it extends beyond your range of "subtle meanings" - that you must now download the app to know that you are otherwise how would you know? Doesn't the "Cognito" make it obvious??

Harbal wrote:

Throng wrote: . Problem is everyone knows "Cogito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.
.

Or even how to spell it.

Oops.

Throng wrote:

Harbal wrote:

Throng wrote: . Problem is everyone knows "Cogito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.
.

Or even how to spell it.

Oops.

I like it.
Cognito ergo sum

I have identity therefore I am.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
I have identity therefore I am.

No thing / nothing made that up.

Throng wrote: The thread is at least presented as being about Descartes, but I came to suspect that was just a front after reading a few posts. Problem is everyone knows "Cogito ergo sum" but do not know it's more subtle meanings.

Yes, there is the belief I am my name, my body, my conditioning, my mind.

This is Not so on a more subtle level.

'' The operation of consciousness
has created the ‘apparition’ called ‘me’. ''



What you are has no form ...like this >

''Water has no shape, its nature is to flow. If you put it into a vase it will take the shape of the vase. In this cup, it has assumed the shape of the cup. If poured into my cupped hands it will take the shape of the hands. But water has no shape. It is the same with the consciousness, which is subtler than water. It similarly has no form, but it assumes the form of whatever concept it is poured into or identifies with, but it will never be the form.
It remains ever its formless nature.''

Dontaskme wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
I have identity therefore I am.

No thing / nothing made that up.

''That, within which even silence is heard;
before perception arose. Which, itself,
perceives perceiving. That concept-less
and Immutable Being-ness. That alone Is.
-That we are.''

waechter418 wrote:As most of you - except Dontaskme (!) - use this thread to fill your mirrors with denials, excuses & abuses, let me quote a basic rule of Taoism (that old Chinese philosophy which thinks about nothing:-) - KEEP YOUR MIRROR CLEAN

''We need the mirror
to see that the personal is not.
Self-enquiry is the mirror.''