May all your plans be thwarted...

Originally posted by knightmeister
I take it from your response that there is little I could do to encourage you to re-think your conceptualisation that the experience was not external ?

I'm afraid I will pass on the other thread. I have little interest in exploring a god who is internal only. Such a god could only ever be an emotional mirage to me . I'm much more interested in a ...[text shortened]... e mirage then look me up . I may not have all the answers (if any) but I would be interested.

Be well, my friend.

Before all thinking, what is God? 🙂

Originally posted by vistesd
Be well, my friend.

Before all thinking, what is God? 🙂

God just is , no matter what we think or don't think.

Before all thinking what is water? Ans- Water just IS. (And like God one can sense/ experience water as an external entity)

Originally posted by knightmeister
God just is , no matter what we think or don't think.

Before all thinking what is water? Ans- Water just IS. (And like God one can sense/ experience water as an external entity)

Very good! On the right track.

Now you are irresistible, and have drawn me back here. (Laughing: “I shouldn’t have looked!” )

I used the word “God” in my presentations to you because that seemed the best focal-point; I don’t always.
This is where it gets very difficult on the internet, because we have only words. I have to compose something on that for the other thread, and am taking my time about it.

Here, I will say: “You have given me a word: ‘water.’ But I don’t know what that word means; I have no preconceived mental associations with it; I don’t speak that language. What is this ‘water’?” Now what?

Originally posted by vistesd
Very good! On the right track.

Now you are irresistible, and have drawn me back here. (Laughing: “I shouldn’t have looked!” )

I used the word “God” in my presentations to you because that seemed the best focal-point; I don’t always.
This is where it gets very difficult on the internet, because we have only words. I have to compose something on th ...[text shortened]... ed mental associations with it; I don’t speak that language. What is this ‘water’?” Now what?

Ah...yes...but even if you had no word for water at all you could experience it as external to yourself as a reality having substance could you not?

If one had such an experience of the thing we call "water" and then realised that we had conceptualised it as "water" and named it so , why would that mean water was a "mirage" all of a sudden and that our experience or primary sensation of it as an external reality was false somehow. Water would still exist.

I say this because my experience of the Holy Spirit would still be an experience of an external reality even if I had no religious framework or language for it. This is the essence of phenomenology is it not? The experience is what it is . Full stop.

You either experienced and external Spirit to yourself or you did not. It is what it is - regardless of it's theological implications or conceptualisations. This comes back to what I wondered before---- you seemed to at first say that your primary phenomenological experience was an external spirit of some kind , or did I read you wrong?

Originally posted by knightmeister
Ah...yes...but even if you had no word for water at all you could experience it as external to yourself as a reality having substance could you not?

If one had such an experience of the thing we call "water" and then realised that we had conceptualised it as "water" and named it so , why would that mean water was a "mirage" all of a sudden and tha ...[text shortened]... henomenological experience was an external spirit of some kind , or did I read you wrong?

Ah...yes...but even if you had no word for water at all you could experience it as external to yourself as a reality having substance could you not?

Can I assume that you just skipped over the part about, perhaps, handing me a glass of water to drink? 🙂

So I drink the water (let’s say it’s spring water). As I drink the water my brain creates certain sense impressions that I identify as taste. Those sense impressions are “stored” in my memory, so now I have some mental associations to go with the word “water.”

Later, someone else offers me a glass of water, and I say, “Sure.” I drink it. Yuck! This is clearly not the same as the sweet spring water that you gave me.

Over time, I develop a sufficiently complex set of mental associations that I can identify water from different sources as being still of the broad substance we call water.

___________________________________

Back to that first, virgin drink, however.

Experientially, there is no such thing here as taste separate from my tasting the water. The taste is neither in the water nor in me. We can go into all kinds of metaphysical speculations, but I am talking about (aware) lived experience.

It is the same with every moment of lived experience. At that moment, (1) there exists no I that is not drinking the water, and (2) there is no taste of the water except the sense impressions that are created by my brain from the interaction of the water with my taste buds.

The first is the principle of non-separability; the second is the principle of mutuality.

It is the same for all lived experience. There is no experience that is not shaped and formed by our brain.

That does not mean there is not a world that continues outside the boundaries of my skin. It does, however, mean that even the most forceful-seeming image might be a mirage, rather than an oasis. That must be decided on other grounds.

Zen is not about interiority. But part of Zen requires that one learn to observe how thoughts, images, impressions arise in the mind, and how they combine to create mental associations, thought-complexes.

Have a glass of water. 🙂

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]Ah...yes...but even if you had no word for water at all you could experience it as external to yourself as a reality having substance could you not?

Can I assume that you just skipped over the part about, perhaps, handing me a glass of water to drink? 🙂

So I drink the water (let’s say it’s spring water). As I drink the water my brain creates ...[text shortened]... how they combine to create mental associations, thought-complexes.

Have a glass of water. 🙂[/b]

Yes...yes...I understand all that....but can't we skip the trailers and jump to the car chase here? (LOL)

My sense of a glass of water is a mental construct in the way you describe. This to me is just a simple truism. I do not believe for one minute that the glass of water is really a mirage or does not exist as a real phenomenon. The water and the glass are real (although I cannot be 100% sure) and I believe them to be real because to question it would be to even question whether reality exists.

The pertinent question at hand here is this. On what basis or rationale have you decided that your experience of a glass of water is telling you something about a reality that actually exists ? And on what basis have you decided that your experience of an external spiritual reality is not telling you something about a reality that actually exists?

In short , one could argue that all life is a mirage because we cannot prove that the entire universe is not some grand hallucination in our own brain. However , we don't really believe that do we , so how to separate the mirage from the real? You have not said as yet my friend , particularly in relation to this spiritual experience of yours.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Yes...yes...I understand all that....but can't we skip the trailers and jump to the car chase here? (LOL)

My sense of a glass of water is a mental construct in the way you describe. This to me is just a simple truism. I do not believe for one minute that the glass of water is really a mirage or does not exist as a real phenomenon. The water and the ve not said as yet my friend , particularly in relation to this spiritual experience of yours.

Actually, I thought I did. Subsequent experiences, having learned to observe how such images, etc. are manifest in the mind, and reason.

________________________________

In this way and that I have tried to save
the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and
about to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.

No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!

—Chiyono's satori poem

Originally posted by vistesd
Actually, I thought I did. Subsequent experiences, having learned to observe how such images, etc. are manifest in the mind, and reason.

________________________________

In this way and that I have tried to save
the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and
about to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.

No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!

—Chiyono's satori poem

So the external spirit was a mirage but the glass of water real?

Originally posted by knightmeister
So the external spirit was a mirage but the glass of water real?

Yep.

People who have a personal experience of an “external” Krishna: real or not?

Or, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad and revealed verses of the Qur'an: real or not?

Originally posted by vistesd
Yep.

People who have a personal experience of an “external” Krishna: real or not?

Or, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad and revealed verses of the Qur'an: real or not?

Yes , these experiences could well be real. The experience of an external spiritual reality is relatively common in mankind. Humanity has a track record of these experiences and they can be interpreted in different ways.

Bear in mind that God is not the only external spiritual reality out there. Christianity is a faith that includes the idea of mass deception , wolves in sheeps clothing, false miracles , a spiritual enemy who is an angel of light etc etc. We need discernment on these issues.

For example , I believe that people do receive messages "from the dead" and sense the presence of spirit guides (TV psychics). I believe this to be a real (although deceptive) experiences. There are no lengths the enemy will not go to deceive , he will become whatever he needs to become to take us off track.

The important thing for me is the quality of the experience in terms of love and intimacy. God's love cannot be replicated so I'm curious as to whether those who have experienced an external "Krishna" felt loved intimately by him? Also , did Krishna say he would live beyond the grave as Jesus said he would?

Originally posted by knightmeister
Yes , these experiences could well be real. The experience of an external spiritual reality is relatively common in mankind. Humanity has a track record of these experiences and they can be interpreted in different ways.

Bear in mind that God is not the only external spiritual reality out there. Christianity is a faith that includes the idea of mass tely by him? Also , did Krishna say he would live beyond the grave as Jesus said he would?

No, I meant the “real” Krishna. Not a deceptive mirage. I meant the “real” Gabriel. Not some other spirit creating the deceptive mirage that he is an archangel.

You see, when it comes to other’s experiences—which they would say are as clear and forceful and obviously “external” as your own—you dismiss them on other grounds. Because their experiences do not fit with yours, they must be mirages. I have simply concluded that they all are. I don’t pick and choose.

The important thing for me is the quality of the experience in terms of love and intimacy. God's love cannot be replicated so I'm curious as to whether those who have experienced an external "Krishna" felt loved intimately by him? Also, did Krishna say he would live beyond the grave as Jesus said he would?

I don’t know what this means. You obviously don’t know anything about Krishna. I don’t believe that Jesus lives beyond the grave, no matter how many people are able to conjure him up by the power of their minds. And I am suggesting that your wonderful feelings of love and intimacy are as much a part of the mirage as the rest; so they are not evidence of why your mirage should be taken any more seriously than anyone else’s.

I will now turn your words that started this whole discussion round back on you: If just once you realized the illusion that you are under, you would not walk away from that realization, and you would know that real love from real people “cannot be replicated.” You see, that kind of thing can always be levelled both ways.

I simply reject one more illusion than you do. I saw that it is an illusion, when I took a long time to observe and learn how such things arise in the mind; how all perception is subject to the creative participation of our brain (mutuality), whether we are conscious of it or not; and how there is no need to believe in the supernatural just to let my own mind off the hook. In short; by observation and reason. You need to believe in the supernatural in order to believe your experiences are not a mirage, created by your mind in mutuality with some “external” circumstances. But one illusion does not validate another. I do not need to posit the supernatural in order to believe that the glass of water is real.

You seem pretty much back to: Because it feels good, it is real (or because it feels good, I wouldn’t want it not to be real, which you said earlier). So are the others saying the same kind of thing. Do you think those feelings are “external”? Why would you assume that others do not experience such feelings—again with as much depth and forcefulness—without identifying the same source. You seem to assume that the love you experience in your life is greater than that which I experience in mine, because—well, it just must be, since it is God! Or else, you do it the other way around: it must be God, because it’s love.

You said two very good words in a post above: “Full stop.” I have never once questioned the reality or forcefulness of your experiences.* I question how you interpret them. What I called “immediate translation” James H. Austin, M.D., in his book Zen and the Brain, calls “reflexive interpretation”—the interpretation your mind selects in the midst of the experience itself, or in the moments immediately after. I question your reflexive interpretation, and the later interpretations as well.

I have no need for there not to be a god or gods. Some people think that I ought to be frightened that there might be an "external" god, but I am not. I just think there isn't.

You said above that you prefer an “external” God because it seems grander, etc. I cannot argue with your preference. I will just note that your “external” versus “internal” divide does not apply to Zen Buddhism.

_____________________________________

*Note: A mirage does not arise from nothing; it is an illusion fashioned by the mind that does not see things just as they are, and projects mental content onto the event.

Originally posted by vistesd
No, I meant the “real” Krishna. Not a deceptive mirage. I meant the “real” Gabriel. Not some other spirit creating the deceptive mirage that he is an archangel.

You see, when it comes to other’s experiences—which they would say are as clear and forceful and obviously “external” as your own—you dismiss them on other grounds. Because their experiences d ...[text shortened]... nd that does not see things just as they are, and projects mental content onto the event.

I do not have any problem admitting that the way I interpret my (and yours) experiences are a matter of faith. The world is constructed in such a way that the possibility of actually knowing the truth objectively will most likely elude us. Thus faith becomes the default position for us all. We pay our money and take our pick.

I do not think that someone who is experiencing a real external krishna is experiencing a mirage as such . I think they are experiencing something real outside of themselves which they name "krishna" . It's possible they are experiencing the Holy Spirit but mis label Him , it's also possible that they are being deceived by a real spiritual entity. Either way the experience of an external spiritual reality is valid in both cases.

I also do not neccessarily think myself to be more loving than you or to decry your spirituality. I was simply trying to explore the quality of what you experienced.

My overall feeling is that if someone feels that they are in the presence of an external spiritual presence then this ought to be questioned but also taken seriously. There must have been something very convincing about your experience for you to talk this way even after many years. I take on board that the mind is very good at playing subtle tricks on us , but do you take on board that the mind is also very good at talking us out of things we know in our spirit are true?

There may be many unconscious reasons why I might "need" to believe in an external supernatural realm , and there may also many unconscious reasons why you might "need" not to believe your experience. How is one to know ?

Originally posted by knightmeister
I do not have any problem admitting that the way I interpret my (and yours) experiences are a matter of faith. The world is constructed in such a way that the possibility of actually knowing the truth objectively will most likely elude us. Thus faith becomes the default position for us all. We pay our money and take our pick.

I do not think that so ...[text shortened]... scious reasons why you might "need" not to believe your experience. How is one to know ?

That's a good and thoughtful reply.

I know that we're beyond this, but just for fun:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=81856&page=1