One

"Spirituality is not a subject to be perfected with intellectual insight, its not a subject you can think your way through."

Your discussion with R... was broadcast on local cable-where isn't important-but I thought I might ask one of my devil's food questions with regard to your above comment.

What, exactly, is thought? (and thinking)?

[Rawnrr]

Originally Posted by organic born

I actually tried to work with you directly in one or two of these posts but it became quickly clear that you're stuck on a process with little wiggle-room. Most of how you seem to be processing what you're processing I outgrew some years ago.

Life is far too interesting to waste it on trying to nail-down "the big truths". all the while dismissing as irrelevant the integrity of the individual for the sake of said truths.

Spirituality is not a subject to be perfected with intellectual insight, its not a subject you can think your way through.

Not sure what "you were trying to work with me" on.
You were trying to take a comment about a simple process to encourage growth along a specific line and turn it into a further encompassing concept and then try to point out faults with it in that line, when it was never intended in that line in the first place.

I was speaking about work in a discussion group. By nature a "discussion group" works on the more intellectual aspects of spiritual understanding. No that is not the whole of spirituality, but that is the aspect to which my original point was being made. I never said the point was made for anything at all beyond intellectual growth and understanding.

You are wrong however when you say "Spirituality is not a subject to be perfected with intellectual insight" That intellectual side is PART of our being and on a spiritual path we have to develop an understanding of ALL aspects of our being. If we do not grow on all avenues of our being, we are not fully developed.

Originally Posted by organic born

I actually tried to work with you directly in one or two of these posts but it became quickly clear that you're stuck on a process with little wiggle-room. Most of how you seem to be processing what you're processing I outgrew some years ago.

On a side note, whenever discussions such as this turn to Spiritual Posturing, then it becomes obvious where the ego has come into play, and it would be very hard to continue.

Rawn

[Rawnrr]

Originally Posted by KevinO

What, exactly, is thought? (and thinking)?

That is an interesting point of discussion all on it's own.
At this point I dont think there is any one given school of thought on it that will get everyone agreeing.

My own personal working theory is that thoughts are not a thing unto themselves, but more as a medium of communication through which we can become aware of different aspects of our being. The medium translates various aspects of our being into one recognizable "language" which we can be aware of. Things such as stimuli from our physical senses, or memories, or logical progessions, implulses from higher consciousness or subconsciousness, psychic impulses and more. All these different aspects communicate to each other through the medium of thought so that we may be aware of them.

But that is just my current working theory ;)

Rawn

[organic born]

Originally Posted by Rawnrr

/
On a side note, whenever discussions such as this turn to Spiritual Posturing, then it becomes obvious where the ego has come into play, and it would be very hard to continue.

Rawn

There is plenty in your post that would be fun to delve into but this is the most titillating so lets dive in from this angle.

When I mentioned I'd "outgrown" much of what I'm seeing you doing it was a genuine assessment, and not a reach for artificial credibility. I've been on forums for years and know with some clarity the difference.

As a raw take, here's what I'm seeing you doing that doesn't align very well with the newer rhythms I'm personally exploring. It seems to me that you're attempting to construct a "personality" of sorts that's built around legitimacy, honesty, and fact. It's a conscious thing on your part. You want to incubate, and then project, you want to build on a diverse exposure of broad ranging themes and then consolidate them into something usable and transferable to others. The inner impetuous on your part is as honorable as it is sincere. And to some degree it feels "professional". It's the professional feeling that keeps making me think "academia" when I read what you write.

As broad reaching as it is in an intellectual sense it feels lacking when it comes to living in a more unified way. I ran a lot by you to see if there was any looseness buried in there, I was pinging for humor, was there the ability on your part to more broadly associate, could you relax and have fun with your projections? I was needling you the whole time so you were having to navigate that as well, for that I playfully apologize.

So what is it I "outgrew"? From where I sit your seriousness seems to have hemmed you in to a very controlled manor of being. The most uncomfortable for me (in relation to my "old" self) was your reliance on thought over ones individual makeup. That's why I kept returning to that theme. I used to do that as well. I did so to the degree that the people that surrounded me seemed like merely place-holders of life, that I was forced to put-up-with while the big search unfolded. I was mostly about thought and thinking awaiting for the big ship to come in.

Little did I realize I was missing the boat. I was surrounded by all sorts of most interesting exposures to folks on so many available levels that I continually discounted for the sake of an end product. Indeed I was smart, as you appear to be, I could intellectually navigate a whole variety of subjects, You could set me to just about any task and in time I'd be breaking it down and controlling it's outcome.

But it all felt so sterile and empty. It was egotistically interesting but felt lacking when it came to the simple act of a warm hug. Even writing that last line feels trite to my old self. But a warm hug freely given without direction or thought, in full appreciation of the uniqueness of the person I spend that moment with is clear off the charts more satisfying than any great thoughts I may have.

Of course one can't build their lives around hugging. But one can clear the way for this hug, this connection, the appreciation of the energy that another emits, we can move to align ourselves toward a more openness to that which is "I" in direct relation to the "I" of another. All this is far more profound that any thought I could think, or any sterile information that illuminates the big game.

So what bests assists in this "hug" of warm connectivity? Playfulness is a big one. Don't take ourselves so serious, don't take others so serious that you have to "figure them out", live more in the present the way the rest of our body does (our "conscious" self is the only part of our being that doesn't reside in the here and now, all of our bodily functions are riveted in the present, responding to minutia in a most profound way, our conscious minds are the only part of us that dreams us to distraction).

Playfulness clearly isn't everything, the mental disciplines that we've developed has a most helpful place. But in terms of "satisfaction" our mental agility will be often found lacking.

[organic born]

Originally Posted by KevinO

What, exactly, is thought? (and thinking)?

I'm still working on this one. It seems that "thought" is conditional. It's vulnerable to emotion, it's steered by belief, it can shift on a dime and is continually unrelenting. Try and stop thinking for the span of just a minute, one is doing good to make it 15 seconds or so. Thought is a friend, a beast, a distraction, and generally feels necessary, so we can't live without it.

How we live with thought is about as important as what thought is itself.

And what thought actually is, is still under review. :)

Thank you for your answers and your discussions!

Lets' try this: The basic operation we exercise in this place is perception.

So, thought is perception of some sort. I propose that thought is an unconscious stringing along by association what we observe, creating a systemizing tool we call the mind. It is driven by genetics but mirrors associations one has outside human experience. Thought is useful in solving issues where we already know the answer because it lies within reach, somewhere
It is not so useful in seeing what we are not already aware of, which requires a willingness to expand reality by seeing anew.
Which is part of the idea of "one". If you can accept that there are shiny new somethings to see that require information outside human perception, then you are on the road to seeing them.

[organic born]

Originally Posted by KevinO

Thank you for your answers and your discussions!

Lets' try this: The basic operation we exercise in this place is perception.

So, thought is perception of some sort. I propose that thought is an unconscious stringing along by association what we observe, creating a systemizing tool we call the mind. It is driven by genetics but mirrors associations one has outside human experience. Thought is useful in solving issues where we already know the answer because it lies within reach, somewhere
It is not so useful in seeing what we are not already aware of, which requires a willingness to expand reality by seeing anew.
Which is part of the idea of "one". If you can accept that there are shiny new somethings to see that require information outside human perception, then you are on the road to seeing them.

I have roughly 50 books on the subject of how the brain works. I dance back and forth between them with generally 5 or so cued up in my tablet at any given time. The general implications are most interesting. There are those who have been spending 30 to 40 years on the subject and are still scratching their heads as well. They think they have the pathways tracked but something comes along and forces them to rethink it all. Our brains and our thoughts seem to be narrowly focused. Our "conscious" thinking process evolved in relation to simple needs. "Can I eat it, or will it eat me?". There are arguments suggesting that much of what we do is being run in the background and that consciously we barely weigh-in.

In a very real sense we live in a dream world. Our senses dump roughly 400 billion impulses a second into our brains and somehow this structure keeps up with this load. By comparison our conscious mind trickles about 4500 bit's in the same period. So what we're "thinking" at any given moment is almost irrelevant to the overall flow of what's occurring. We can dream freely, think about our problems, want that new car, enjoy a tall beer, consider the spiritual, we can run all over the place with our thinking and barely put a dent in the roar of what our mind generally deals with.

If our conscious self were to gain access to this monster within there's no telling how intense this could be. Right now we barely register as a presence,, "consciously" we're along for the ride.

[Rawnrr]

Any path the excludes clarity of thought and promotes confusion is ripe for delusion.
The mind is a powerful tool and to deny it for a simple feel good hippie hug-fest is a dangerous thing. That is why the hippie culture of my youth turned into the self-absorbed yuppies of the 80's....and we are still trying to recover from the damage they have done.
Any path pushed too far one way to the exclusion of the other does not lead to a full and balanced life. Mind, body and heart have to work together.

Originally Posted by Rawnrr

Any path the excludes clarity of thought and promotes confusion is ripe for delusion.
The mind is a powerful tool and to deny it for a simple feel good hippie hug-fest is a dangerous thing. That is why the hippie culture of my youth turned into the self-absorbed yuppies of the 80's....and we are still trying to recover from the damage they have done.
Any path pushed too far one way to the exclusion of the other does not lead to a full and balanced life. Mind, body and heart have to work together.

Now, what is a full and balanced life? Did Dylan Thomas lead a full and balanced life? Byron? Emily ****inson?
Who decides?
And, if life is simply a point in existence, why decide it is any more important that anything else? What if abandonment is the "best" way to live? I could make a case for it.

Originally Posted by organic born

I have roughly 50 books on the subject of how the brain works. I dance back and forth between them with generally 5 or so cued up in my tablet at any given time. The general implications are most interesting. There are those who have been spending 30 to 40 years on the subject and are still scratching their heads as well. They think they have the pathways tracked but something comes along and forces them to rethink it all. Our brains and our thoughts seem to be narrowly focused. Our "conscious" thinking process evolved in relation to simple needs. "Can I eat it, or will it eat me?". There are arguments suggesting that much of what we do is being run in the background and that consciously we barely weigh-in.

In a very real sense we live in a dream world. Our senses dump roughly 400 billion impulses a second into our brains and somehow this structure keeps up with this load. By comparison our conscious mind trickles about 4500 bit's in the same period. So what we're "thinking" at any given moment is almost irrelevant to the overall flow of what's occurring. We can dream freely, think about our problems, want that new car, enjoy a tall beer, consider the spiritual, we can run all over the place with our thinking and barely put a dent in the roar of what our mind generally deals with.

If our conscious self were to gain access to this monster within there's no telling how intense this could be. Right now we barely register as a presence,, "consciously" we're along for the ride.

I agree that we process consciously only a small subset of ambient wavelength (which includes potential existence). I would say the brain is a part of the system, but can be separated from the more one sees of how the overall system works, and is of course discarded when the current life ends. The question is how to deal with this place to one's idea of maximum benefit.