Why is it important what this guy says? What is the point of his argument? That if you are a light year away nothing about being here matters? How is that even a point at all? When I say “be here now”, I don’t mean for you to be where I am at the moment I said that, I mean for you to be where you are in every moment you are and to continue to be in the moment that is now for you. Okay, I can see how that might not be clear. That’s exactly the difficulty of living in the moment that this guy is exploiting. He’s exploiting that your mind wants to evaluate the past and project it into the future and base your decisions on that analysis. It actually is helpful to do that, but you shouldn’t get wrapped up in it or obsessed by it. You have to admit, each moment, that whatever you thought was going to happen was only thoughts. You have to adjust the reality that only exists in your thoughts to the reality that is happening outside of those thoughts.
If we had to worry about all perspectives within a light year, that would be an incredibly difficult task. Luckily we don’t. That is a very minor and inconsequential data point that we can include in our analysis of what to do next in this moment, here. Anyone using that to make a point about what you should do or how you should feel about love is trying to manipulate you. It’s a lie that you can’t connect with other people. He then exploits the feeling of loneliness, something everyone has but doesn’t like to talk about, and turns that into some sort of lie we tell ourselves to pretend we are in love just to avoid talking about being lonely. Sad, because talking to someone about being lonely is actually what does create bonds and leads to loving relationships. This guy has it so backwards.
He wants to take all of your thoughts, all of your questions about the world and your own feelings and just dump them in a bucket called “fickle”. He wants something from you. Maybe he wants to validate his own resignation and his own failing to think about what it is to be human. He is not feeling right about himself, so he’s going to try to get you to feel the same way to make himself feel better.
If you want the formal definition of the fallacy he is using, this one fits pretty well:
105. - Use-mention error - This is when you confuse the meaning of a word with the mention of a word. For example here is the use of the word “Thinking", “Thinking can be a complex ongoing process." And here is the “mention" version of the word thinking. “Thinking is a word derived by ancient people and is just a word."
There is love, and it is a deep thing
but there are deeper things than love.
First and last, man is alone.
He is born alone, and alone he dies
and alone he is while he lives, in his deepest self.
Love, like the flowers, is life, growing.
But underneath are the deep rocks, the living rock that lives
alone
and deeper still the unknown fire, unknown and heavy, heavy
and alone.
Love is a thing of twoness.
But underneath any twoness, man is alone.
And underneath the great turbulent emotions of love, the
violent herbage,
lies the living rock of a single creature’s pride,
the dark, naif pride.
And deeper even than the bedrock of pride
lies the ponderous fire of naked life
with its strange primordial consciousness of justice
and its primordial consciousness of connection,
connection with still deeper, still more terrible life-fire
and the old, old final life-truth.
Love is of twoness, and is lovely
like the living life on the earth
but below all roots of love lies the bedrock of naked pride,
subterranean,
and deeper than the bedrock of pride is the primordial fire of
the middle
which rests in connection with the further forever unknowable
fire of all things
and which rocks with a sense of connection, religion
and trembles with a sense of truth, primordial consciousness
and is silent with a sense of justice, the fiery primordial
imperative.
All this is deeper than love.
But when I read stuff like the above that these spiritual types like to use it makes me think that I am missing out on some sort of massive and life changing secret and that by refusing to do so I choose to live a life of illusion. I get the sensation that they are superior to me in some way.
I just can’t seem to get it out of my head and I am not quite sure what to do about it. No matter how much I seem to ponder it I just default to them being in the rightz
Based on the testimony that some of these people give you get the idea that they might just be one to something, how can I just dismiss what they say as just something crazy or that they are mistaken?
Based on the testimony that some of these people give you get the idea that they might just be one to something, how can I just dismiss what they say as just something crazy or that they are mistaken?I enjoy these little talks about being, until you stop contributing and just saying you can't get stuff out of your head. It's a poem. It says we come from primitive biology and we die alone. It uses words like "deeper" but so what? Death doesn't lessen love. Despair doesn't negate happiness. Knowing that you can't eat anything you want anytime, do you choose to eat only poison? I hope not. But you poison your thoughts by empowering these questions that aren't really questions. They don't have answers that someone can tell you on a web page or in a book. They are just things to consider when you are thinking about what your life is going to be about. If you want to be like this guy and go around reminding people that they are alone and are going die, that's your choice. But go do it somewhere else.
Based on the testimony that some of these people give you get the idea that they might just be one to something, how can I just dismiss what they say as just something crazy or that they are mistaken?I enjoy these little talks about being, until you stop contributing and just saying you can't get stuff out of your head. It's a poem. It says we come from primitive biology and we die alone. It uses words like "deeper" but so what? Death doesn't lessen love. Despair doesn't negate happiness. Knowing that you can't eat anything you want anytime, do you choose to eat only poison? I hope not. But you poison your thoughts by empowering these questions that aren't really questions. They don't have answers that someone can tell you on a web page or in a book. They are just things to consider when you are thinking about what your life is going to be about. If you want to be like this guy and go around reminding people that they are alone and are going die, that's your choice. But go do it somewhere else. I am mostly referring to the second link where in one of the quotes paragraphs he said that what he “found" was worth and price and any sacrifice that it took to get there, and based on the intro they give it makes it sound like he knows what he’s talking about. That kind of scares me, because if someone can be so fervent about what they have found as some kind of truth then there must be something to it and that by ignoring them and what they say I am just choosing to live a lie and deny the change to uncover something grand and great. Personally I don’t think there is anything grand underneath it all, it the thought that everything I have learned about the world and existence and myself could be a lie is almost mind shattering.
That kind of scares me, because if someone can be so fervent about what they have found as some kind of truth then there must be something to it ....Then don't watch TV commercials late at night or infomercials ever and don't click on videos that say they are going to offer you a great opportunity, because those people are incredibly fervent and you will end up buying some ridiculous useless crap. If "ferventness" is your criteria, you are not making real choices.
That kind of scares me, because if someone can be so fervent about what they have found as some kind of truth then there must be something to it ....Then don't watch TV commercials late at night or infomercials ever and don't click on videos that say they are going to offer you a great opportunity, because those people are incredibly fervent and you will end up buying some ridiculous useless crap. If "ferventness" is your criteria, you are not making real choices. It was mostly how the link said that he went to Harvard and that the quote from him made it sound like he found something that was worth more than anything else in life. How does one discount that? Also in regards to love it got me thinking, do you really love the person or just a trait about them? At that point is it really loving the person or more like the idea about them. Like how he says you don’t love the mother but maternity, that it would be unlikely you would love your mother if she was mean. Which got me thinking that maybe humans don’t really love each other but rather the ideas that we have in our heads about each other. It’s like saying someone is kind or strong, but if they really were such things then they would be so all the time. A moment of weakness or a bad day could be all it takes to waver that view. Or maybe it’s something so complex that it cannot be put into words. It’s just kind of hard to think that love doesn’t have the majesty and power that we assign to it from the stories. I hope to be wrong about it. That’s not factoring questions regarding the nature of the self and it’s perceived existence.
It was mostly how the link said that he went to Harvard and that the quote from him made it sound like he found something that was worth more than anything else in life. How does one discount that?One is aware of all the swindlers in the world.
It’s like saying someone is kind or strong, but if they really were such things then they would be so all the time. A moment of weakness or a bad day could be all it takes to waver that view.These are the kinds of things you say that convince me you are not for real.
I hope to be wrong about it.You are.
I want to polish this up a bit, but it’s a nice day and I need to get out. It’s an interview of a guy who left his religion. The concept of “theodicy of silence” comes up. They talk about how religion creates doubt and guilt, then hands you a cure for it. It’s exactly what’s going on with these links.
The explanation of it is given in the description of the podcast, so you can just read it you don’t want to listen to the whole thing. My blog translates it into liberal versions of the same type of mind messing, so it’s not just a religious thing.
I was finally convinced that, at least in all probability, there was such a thing or event [Realization], while I was in the midst of the discussions of a metaphysical seminary held at Harvard during the academic year of 1912-1913. I saw, at once, that if such Knowledge were an actuality it was of far greater importance than even the greatest intellectual achievement within the limits of the subject-object field. … I resolved to make the search and pay what price might be demanded. In the years since, I have been more than once discouraged and have permitted lateral desires to lead me into side-excursions. But I always returned to the search. I tested various different routes, finding values and defects in all, and then at last by combining the best that India has to offer in the field of metaphysics with the best of western science and philosophy, and then adding thereto some modifications of my own, I found a road that has proved successful. While during the interim there have been partial Transformations and Recognitions, it has taken twenty-four years of search to attain a culminating point which I can recognize as definitely culminating. … If I had known in the beginning all that is here for the first time collected together between the covers of one book [Pathways Through To Space], many years of time would have been saved.
My final word on this particular subject is: I sought a Goal the existence of which I had become convinced was highly probable. I succeeded in finding this Goal, and now I KNOW, and can also say to all others: “IT IS ABSOLUTELY WORTH ANYTHING THAT IT MAY COST, AND IMMEASURABLY MORE."
The above is what I meant when I spoke about the links I listed.
I did look at your link and I do see a similar pattern among the spiritual types. Introducing doubt and dismantling what you know to put their own words into the mix. But that last sentence lingers in my mind. Though your bit about 20 years kind of helps. Years ago we thought we knew X and then Y came along. Who is to say something else won’t come along to turn things around. That’s kind of why I like the likely truth of science and the degree of confidence but not total certainty. It leaves room for growth. Spirituality seems rather stunted.
However my remarks about love and the self haven’t really been addressed. Like the traits that we like about someone and assign to them are not always there. I think in an earlier thread there was a remark about how love is an illusion of the brain.
I was finally convinced that, at least in all probability, there was such a thing or event [Realization], while I was in the midst of the discussions of a metaphysical seminary held at Harvard during the academic year of 1912-1913. I saw, at once, that if such Knowledge were an actuality it was of far greater importance than even the greatest intellectual....Does he ever say what he is talking about? This happened 100 years ago. You'd think by now that whatever he found might be written up somewhere, maybe someone has commented on it, added to it. You'd think if it was valuable, some other people might endorse it. Don't you think?
However my remarks about love and the self haven’t really been addressed. Like the traits that we like about someone and assign to them are not always there. I think in an earlier thread there was a remark about how love is an illusion of the brain.This is your usual pattern, the "haven't been addressed" thing. Come up with something new. You're just plugging "love" into the same old questions about illusions and how we know anything.
He really just has a website and some books, I linked to it