Presence

[M.Dancer]

What new phenomena is there that can't be explained by the scientific method?

[GostHacked]

What new phenomena is there that can't be explained by the scientific method?

The ones we have not discovered yet.

Charter.rights

The greatest limitation of discovery not only in scientific terms but in spiritual and psychological terms as well, is the ego

I can equate this to a closed mind. Open minds have the chance to advance. Closed minds keep that ego up front.

I am an athiest/agnostic, but I am open to the possibility a god exists. I just have yet to find the proof I need to beleive in it.

[WIP]

A very basic description of how the EGO works is this. I state that the sky is blue and you state that the sky is azure. Both statements but when I next say I know it is blue, then that is the EGO at work.

The EGO is our need to control, argue and fight.

What I have learned is that I check out my motives for anything I am going to say and if it is negative then I know that the EGO is there waiting to start something.

I was waiting for you to explain what you mean by 'Ego', and it still seems that you have decided that you can understand how your mind functions. In the last year or so, I've found more informative studies of consciousness and the mind by reading books on neuroscience -- especially where brain function can be correlated with the function of the mind -- and one point that keeps coming forward in books by psychologists and neuroscience investigators such as Andrew Newberg, Michael Gazzaniga and Robert Burton, is that our sense of ego, or even having a continuous conscious self is for all intents and purposes an illusion generated by brain function (likely to give us the ability to function in our everyday world).

Proof that the mind is not what it seems to us has been known for years before brain-scanning machines were invented! The study of people with brain disorders or brain damage, indicates that physical damage to the brain, also damages the 'mind'. Researchers have studied the role of brain damage on personality, and other facets of mind ever since a railway worker named Phineas Gage survived an accident where a railway spike went through his head.

People with severe epilepsy, who have had the hemispheres of the cerebral cortex separated by an operation, start to function as if they have two separate minds inside their heads when given tests that try to isolate each hemisphere. And people with odd brain disorders such as Cotard's Syndrome will insist that they are dead regardless of whatever evidence is offered to prove that they are alive! If you recall the bizarre case of former SCTV comedian Tony Rosato -- he tried to attack his wife and daughter, and was locked up in a maximum security psychiatric facility when he insisted that they were not his real family, but were instead imposters. Rosato could be the most famous person with Capgras Syndrome, a delusion that is caused by either damage to an area of visual cortex that provides our ability for facial recognition, or is a miscommunication with the amygdala - which normally sends an emotional response back to the cortex to provide the sense of familiarity or emotional connection with the face that is observed.

All of these various disorders that impair memory, sense of awareness, and change personality, demonstrate that the mind is what the brain does! Brain researchers are divided between Ego theorists - who believe that there is conscious, continuous ego generated by brain function, and the Bundle theorists - who contend that the fruitless search for a 'Cartesian Theater' that acts as a master control of conscious brain function, indicates that the Ego is for all intents and purposes, an illusion generated by connecting conscious activity with short-term memory. The concept of Bundle Theory of Mind has been around since philosopher David Hume made this proposition centuries ago, and it is even curiously similar to the Buddhist doctrine of 'Anatta' or 'No self'.

From the direction brain research is going, I'm inclined to side with the bundle theorists; after all, can we really say we are the same persons we were yesterday, a year ago, 20 years ago, or even one minute ago? All we know is that we have memories in our long-term memory that are continually updated and re-interpreted. One psychologist I've read recently, Andrew Newberg, seems to have the best picture of what consciousness is all about -- that the brain generates perceptual maps of the external world, and brain function as well. So when we try to go inside and have a mystical experience, we are still limited by the cognitive map generated by our brains, which is providing us with a picture of our inner minds that may be no more representative of the real terrain than the visual maps generated in the visual cortex from a narrow band of wavelengths of electromagnetic energy.

I have no problem with books you referenced by Eckard Tolle, and for all I know, they may be helpful for you and others. If that's the case, then it doesn't matter whether they are describing anything real or not! But for myself, whenever I start reading new age books about the mind or mysticism, I feel that there is nothing tangible in what they are offering, and they do not really understand the mind, the universe and all of the other things they claim to have knowledge about.

[charter.rights]

Again...we're not discussing the Ego defined by Freud. We are talking about self from the perspective that "belief" of who you are is imposed upon you against your will by caregivers from the day you were born. We become the roles and labels defined by others and in turn pass on those roles and labels when we become caregivers ourselves.

Theorists assume that the brain is the source of all thought energy. This is a limitation in thinking at play with the ego being at the centre of that limitation. In order to understand more clearly we need to delve into quantum physics a bit and understand that each molecule of air - each atom of base matter is connected to the next. When energy is expressed through thought it is simultaneously connected to the molecules that make up brain matter, the molecules that make up the skull, the molecules of air, the molecules of another's skull and brain etc. We live in an electron soup and the space we believe is between us is not really there in molecular reality. When we breath we are breathing air that has been breathed hundreds of times before and very often may have been hundreds of miles from our present location hours before. At the molecular level we are all connected. Only at the level of thought do we consider ourselves separate. Only a myth keeps my thoughts from yours and the next persons ans so on.

If we became adept of understanding this and reading each other's thoughts there would be little need in speaking to each other. There would be little interest in telling lies or holding secrets. This is where clairvoyants claim to originate, being sensitive to and interpreting the "signals" sent by others. It may also be where the concept of spiritual existence lies since the energy that once inhabited our bodies, our minds and thought processes now inhabits what we believe is just empty space. It is possible that the energy exists both in externalized thought and in postmortem echoes in the regions of empty space between us we believe exists as a separation between our bodies.

The ego makes us believe that we are powerless - that events and experiences unfold at random. But nothing does happen without our participation. Even being struck by a car, for example requires a number of decisions to be made by the victim and the driver long before they meet in tragedy. The victim turns a corner, walks in the direction of the road and steps off the curb. The driver steers the car down a particular street and takes the exact moment of the encounter to adjust a radio or become distracted enough to miss seeing the pedestrian stepping from the curb. There are literally thousands of decisions that were made that lead up to each and every event we encounter. Changing any one decision could have avoided the encounter outright. The point is that all events are a convergence of our decisions and active (albeit subconcious) participation. They are a syncronistic accumulation of sub-conscious "causes" that lead to a tragic "effect". But it doesn't even stop there since one event leads to another - an encounter with other bystanders, treatment by emergency personnel, touching by doctors, comforting of the driver by others communication etc that would never have happen if not for the plethora of decisions both the driver and the victim made before.

Those of us who have released ourselves from the control of the ego are adept at taking note of the thoughts and decisions that we make. By understanding and preventing thoughts that could lead to harm we avoid being participants (or witnesses to) harmful convergence. While we are still prone to the influences induced by the ego (and occassionly smack our fingers with a hammer shortly after catching the thought about hitting ourselves), it no longer controls us totally and we get to question the motives behind certain automatic behaviors and change our minds before we are subjected to the laws of effect. We see a different reality to the one the ego inhabits because we can change our perceptions at will and question reality as being unreal when it conflicts with our nature of wanting only Joy and Love as the effect. It gives us the power to follow the will of the Is as others send out their ideas into the ether, accepting syncronistic invitations to do and see good.

This ego is the culmination of all the roles, names, identities, relationships and separation to others. It must maintain the myth that we are apart to give it power over secrecy and individuality, uniqueness of thought and isolation. In reality we are one and the same passing electrons from space to other space in between and moving forward towards a new destination, interacting with more and more molecules in every direction. Perhaps this is all there is to God? I don't know but I believe that the connection Is the Christ - the Holy Spirit if you will talked about in Christian circles - that connects us and makes us part of the Holy Trinity (of course the reference to the Biblical stories is being used metaphorically). The Presence and the Is are what makes us human "beings" observers of the effect of our thoughts and actions, while the ego makes us human "doings".

[WIP]

Again...we're not discussing the Ego defined by Freud. We are talking about self from the perspective that "belief" of who you are is imposed upon you against your will by caregivers from the day you were born. We become the roles and labels defined by others and in turn pass on those roles and labels when we become caregivers ourselves.

I got to say that first off, I don't buy the concept that we are 'blank slates' defined by the environmental factors that we have been exposed to during our lives. We are social creatures, and sure, we are going to imitate the examples set for us by parents, elders, and even peers during our youth; but we are also supposed to be capable of reason and rational thought, and should be able to evaluate the beliefs we have inherited, and change or get rid of beliefs or customs that are in error, or harmful.

I read most of the posts, and I still come away thinking that the talk of 'ego' and 'the self' is just playing with words, and is based solely on subjective impressions of what people believe about the nature of their minds.

It doesn't appear to relate to anything that can be studied in any sort of empirical, objective manner, and doesn't consider the fact that studies of brain function (especially dysfunctions) would indicate that our sense of possessing an integrated self, or ego, or whatever you want to call it, is an illusion, or at least a perception of ourselves that is artificially constructed so we can function in an organized manner when dealing with the outside world. Proof of this can be found in the studies I mentioned previously about the two hemispheres of the Neocortex: "experiments have found that each hemisphere creates a separate consciousness, functioning independently of the other." -- Born To Believe p.67, Andrew Newberg & Mark Waldman. The implications of these studies are that we have two separate 'selfs' or 'egos' that we are consciously unaware of because our brain is generating a cognitive picture of possessing an integrated mind.

At the level of neurons, each neuron acts independently when deciding which bits of information to pass on through the synapses. When communicating information to other neurons, it can change the message slightly, by dropping bits of information, or adding new bits of information; in that sense, each one of our estimated 100 billion neurons has a mind of its own, and yet they generate an emergent sense of consciousness, that believes it is not limited by the physical constrictions of brain function! (also from p. 67 of Born To Believe). To me, this says that when we study the mind as a separate artifact, we are studying an image, and not something that has a separate, supernatural existence of its own.

Theorists assume that the brain is the source of all thought energy. This is a limitation in thinking at play with the ego being at the centre of that limitation.

And the reason they connect the mind with brain function is because there is no evidence that the mind continues on in any form separate from the brain. Everything that impairs brain function, also disables the mind. Brain damage can cause dementia, psychosis, depression and many other maladies that impair or alter mental function.

In order to understand more clearly we need to delve into quantum physics a bit and understand that each molecule of air - each atom of base matter is connected to the next. When energy is expressed through thought it is simultaneously connected to the molecules that make up brain matter, the molecules that make up the skull, the molecules of air, the molecules of another's skull and brain etc. We live in an electron soup and the space we believe is between us is not really there in molecular reality. When we breath we are breathing air that has been breathed hundreds of times before and very often may have been hundreds of miles from our present location hours before. At the molecular level we are all connected. Only at the level of thought do we consider ourselves separate. Only a myth keeps my thoughts from yours and the next persons ans so on.

The interconnections of particles at the quantum level doesn't have a whole lot to do with brain function! Quantum mechanics effects such as the Uncertainty Principle are intangible and irrelevant at the macroscopic level. And neurons and synapses are too large to be affected by quantum uncertainty or quantum entanglement. If they were, our brains probably would freeze up, and be unable to function -- since that seems to be happening with experiments trying to design quantum computer processing chips that can take advantage of that uncertainty when particle wave-functions collapse to provide more options than the on/off gate switches currently available in computer technology. But the researchers haven't figured out how to deal with quantum entanglement -- which can allow a mass of particles to assume the same quantum state and act in unison. This effect is useful for things like lasers, but it might be a deal-breaker for making quantum computers.

Anyway, fortunately for us, our brains work at a macroscopic level, and our neurons are not subject to entanglement.

If we became adept of understanding this and reading each other's thoughts there would be little need in speaking to each other. There would be little interest in telling lies or holding secrets. This is where clairvoyants claim to originate, being sensitive to and interpreting the "signals" sent by others. It may also be where the concept of spiritual existence lies since the energy that once inhabited our bodies, our minds and thought processes now inhabits what we believe is just empty space. It is possible that the energy exists both in externalized thought and in postmortem echoes in the regions of empty space between us we believe exists as a separation between our bodies.

Clairvoyance, telepathy, telekenesis -- this is a whole set of beliefs that has no evidence to support it, and is surrounded by con artists who use magic tricks to deceive people. If there was anything behind psychic phenomena, one psychic at least, would have passed the testing that James Randi established, and collected the million dollar prize. All of the most famous charlatans like Sylvia Brown or Uri Gellar, ducked the challenge rather than collect a million dollars!

The ego makes us believe that we are powerless - that events and experiences unfold at random. But nothing does happen without our participation. Even being struck by a car, for example requires a number of decisions to be made by the victim and the driver long before they meet in tragedy. The victim turns a corner, walks in the direction of the road and steps off the curb. The driver steers the car down a particular street and takes the exact moment of the encounter to adjust a radio or become distracted enough to miss seeing the pedestrian stepping from the curb. There are literally thousands of decisions that were made that lead up to each and every event we encounter. Changing any one decision could have avoided the encounter outright. The point is that all events are a convergence of our decisions and active (albeit subconcious) participation. They are a syncronistic accumulation of sub-conscious "causes" that lead to a tragic "effect". But it doesn't even stop there since one event leads to another - an encounter with other bystanders, treatment by emergency personnel, touching by doctors, comforting of the driver by others communication etc that would never have happen if not for the plethora of decisions both the driver and the victim made before.

Those of us who have released ourselves from the control of the ego are adept at taking note of the thoughts and decisions that we make. By understanding and preventing thoughts that could lead to harm we avoid being participants (or witnesses to) harmful convergence. While we are still prone to the influences induced by the ego (and occassionly smack our fingers with a hammer shortly after catching the thought about hitting ourselves), it no longer controls us totally and we get to question the motives behind certain automatic behaviors and change our minds before we are subjected to the laws of effect. We see a different reality to the one the ego inhabits because we can change our perceptions at will and question reality as being unreal when it conflicts with our nature of wanting only Joy and Love as the effect. It gives us the power to follow the will of the Is as others send out their ideas into the ether, accepting syncronistic invitations to do and see good.

This ego is the culmination of all the roles, names, identities, relationships and separation to others. It must maintain the myth that we are apart to give it power over secrecy and individuality, uniqueness of thought and isolation. In reality we are one and the same passing electrons from space to other space in between and moving forward towards a new destination, interacting with more and more molecules in every direction. Perhaps this is all there is to God? I don't know but I believe that the connection Is the Christ - the Holy Spirit if you will talked about in Christian circles - that connects us and makes us part of the Holy Trinity (of course the reference to the Biblical stories is being used metaphorically). The Presence and the Is are what makes us human "beings" observers of the effect of our thoughts and actions, while the ego makes us human "doings".

I don't know what to add to this, except that it all sounds like new age quackery; but if it can be used to develop a system that can change attitudes and improve outlook on life, then I guess it doesn't matter a whole lot if it has anything to do with the real world.

[charter.rights]

EVERYTHING, including brain function is affect by molecular interaction. Humans are not immune or isolated. We are pinged with gamma rays from outer space. Alpha and beta particles from natural sources and radon daughter particles from the earth and our brains and bodies have no clue this is happening. We are just as likely affected by electrical charges that pass through the atmosphere and interact with our though systems. Our own electrical energy can be passed on through close approximation with another human being. What's to say that all that invisible interaction isn't also thought energy? The Butterfly Effect perhaps.

However, that is but a mere example of the kinds of "mystic" events that happen all around us without our conscious knowledge. There are others.

Our true nature exists from the day we were born and from that point on it is the unconscious goal of caregivers (driven by their ego) to remove that natural state and replace it with an adopted image of who others think the baby should be. We give them names and require them to reflect our facial expressions. We make them behave in certain ways not for their protection or benefit but so that others will not be disturbed by it. We teach children to be compliant and demand that their anarchist natural state of mind be replaced with our autocratic thinking. We demand that they sacrifice and give in to our wills. Our public self is very much created from the influences and psychological conditioning imposed on us by those caregivers and teachers. We are not in control of our thinking or our lives and are always subject to another's will because the ego demands it. Any attempt to defy the ego indoctrination is followed by guilt, shame, anger, isolation and punishment.

Yet our Self seeks only two things - Love and Joy - we cannot achieve this unless we suppress the ego and understand where it lives. Love and Joy come from "being" not from doing and cannot be derived from any other source except from the "Is". I Am. Anything else beyond the ecstatic Love and Joy is of the ego and intended to limit and destroy Self fulfillment. Being selfish (a construct of the ego) is the antithesis of being Self-full.

If for a moment we simply suggest that God could be universal energy that has been theorized as not being able to be created or destroyed, and everything in the material realm is made of energy in one form or another then some very basic principles appear. 1. God is not external to us, 2. We are of God, a part or form of the energy of God, 3. We too cannot be created or destroyed but may appear in different forms, 4. Our thoughts are from and of God and our physical interaction with other people is but a dream within the mind of God and, 5. The ego is an attempt by the selfish mind to forget about and limit our God connection.

When we attempt to resist the "natural flow" as we do when we let our ego think for us and live for us then we defy what is impossible to prevent - that flow of energy in many forms being alpha, beta, gamma etc. It is insane to deny what is real and true. And that is why the ego is an insane concept. It cannot exist either in the face of reason (using rationalization instead), or in reality (using delusion, myth and prejudice as deception). The Ego must always exist in opposition and so where there is anger, or rationalization, or fear the ego is in control. In Truth only Joy and Love can exist in our natural state and all the rest is an attempt by the ego to deny we are part of the "Is".

I Am.

[White Doors]

So anyways, anyone go camping this summer?

[M.Dancer]

So anyways, anyone go camping this summer?

Why yes. But it was at a Kids Summer Camp.

Does the Great Wolf Lodge count?

[AngusThermopyle]

So anyways, anyone go camping this summer?

Sure did, I even got to break out the Ugly Stick a few times and catch dinner, it was great.

[margrace]

EVERYTHING, including brain function is affect by molecular interaction. Humans are not immune or isolated. We are pinged with gamma rays from outer space. Alpha and beta particles from natural sources and radon daughter particles from the earth and our brains and bodies have no clue this is happening. We are just as likely affected by electrical charges that pass through the atmosphere and interact with our though systems. Our own electrical energy can be passed on through close approximation with another human being. What's to say that all that invisible interaction isn't also thought energy? The Butterfly Effect perhaps.

However, that is but a mere example of the kinds of "mystic" events that happen all around us without our conscious knowledge. There are others.

Our true nature exists from the day we were born and from that point on it is the unconscious goal of caregivers (driven by their ego) to remove that natural state and replace it with an adopted image of who others think the baby should be. We give them names and require them to reflect our facial expressions. We make them behave in certain ways not for their protection or benefit but so that others will not be disturbed by it. We teach children to be compliant and demand that their anarchist natural state of mind be replaced with our autocratic thinking. We demand that they sacrifice and give in to our wills. Our public self is very much created from the influences and psychological conditioning imposed on us by those caregivers and teachers. We are not in control of our thinking or our lives and are always subject to another's will because the ego demands it. Any attempt to defy the ego indoctrination is followed by guilt, shame, anger, isolation and punishment.

Yet our Self seeks only two things - Love and Joy - we cannot achieve this unless we suppress the ego and understand where it lives. Love and Joy come from "being" not from doing and cannot be derived from any other source except from the "Is". I Am. Anything else beyond the ecstatic Love and Joy is of the ego and intended to limit and destroy Self fulfillment. Being selfish (a construct of the ego) is the antithesis of being Self-full.

If for a moment we simply suggest that God could be universal energy that has been theorized as not being able to be created or destroyed, and everything in the material realm is made of energy in one form or another then some very basic principles appear. 1. God is not external to us, 2. We are of God, a part or form of the energy of God, 3. We too cannot be created or destroyed but may appear in different forms, 4. Our thoughts are from and of God and our physical interaction with other people is but a dream within the mind of God and, 5. The ego is an attempt by the selfish mind to forget about and limit our God connection.

When we attempt to resist the "natural flow" as we do when we let our ego think for us and live for us then we defy what is impossible to prevent - that flow of energy in many forms being alpha, beta, gamma etc. It is insane to deny what is real and true. And that is why the ego is an insane concept. It cannot exist either in the face of reason (using rationalization instead), or in reality (using delusion, myth and prejudice as deception). The Ego must always exist in opposition and so where there is anger, or rationalization, or fear the ego is in control. In Truth only Joy and Love can exist in our natural state and all the rest is an attempt by the ego to deny we are part of the "Is".

I Am.

Thank goodness someone speaks from the Presence here. All the rest are EGO.

[White Doors]

Why yes. But it was at a Kids Summer Camp.

Does the Great Wolf Lodge count?

Sure does. I hate tent camping, but I have been to all 4 Atlantic proinves this summer on at least overnight trips in hotels, motels or cottage rentals.

My bank statement reads like a map of obscure places in Atlantic Canada in which to use your debit card.

[charter.rights]

Thank goodness someone speaks from the Presence here. All the rest are EGO.

And of course they are involved in another ego tactic - avoidance.

The ego controls THEM and so they try to abuse the process of discussion. It is just the silly games the ego plays because they are afraid of finding out that they are a ghost - a myth in themselves - and powerless against Truth.

[WIP]

EVERYTHING, including brain function is affect by molecular interaction. Humans are not immune or isolated. We are pinged with gamma rays from outer space. Alpha and beta particles from natural sources and radon daughter particles from the earth and our brains and bodies have no clue this is happening.

If it's a question of radiation effects, we could also be "pinged" by internal sources such as radioactive potassium (K40) in the blood, which can cause fluctuations in neuro-electric currents.

We are just as likely affected by electrical charges that pass through the atmosphere and interact with our though systems. Our own electrical energy can be passed on through close approximation with another human being. What's to say that all that invisible interaction isn't also thought energy? The Butterfly Effect perhaps.

Our "thought system" is otherwise known as the brain, and if we could communicate telepathically with other people, by exchanging weak electric currents, we should also be able to communicate with plants and animals and electric appliances!

Because of the fact that psi phenomena is still unproven after 150 years, and the psychics who claim awareness of the thoughts of others (both living and dead) have to resort to deception and outright fraud to impress their audiences, it should reinforce the conclusion that thought is a function of the brain, and does not extend beyond the boundaries of our physical bodies.

However, that is but a mere example of the kinds of "mystic" events that happen all around us without our conscious knowledge. There are others.

The ones described so far, are not mystic events, but are within the realm of force relationships that are studied by physicists and neurologists.

Our true nature exists from the day we were born and from that point on it is the unconscious goal of caregivers (driven by their ego) to remove that natural state and replace it with an adopted image of who others think the baby should be.

I wouldn't mind having a clear definition of "true nature" -- is there any proof that such a concept of true nature actually exists? Because we are going to change throughout our lives, as we are impacted by environmental factors, regardless of what parents or other caregivers did or did not do to us.

We give them names and require them to reflect our facial expressions. We make them behave in certain ways not for their protection or benefit but so that others will not be disturbed by it. We teach children to be compliant and demand that their anarchist natural state of mind be replaced with our autocratic thinking. We demand that they sacrifice and give in to our wills. Our public self is very much created from the influences and psychological conditioning imposed on us by those caregivers and teachers. We are not in control of our thinking or our lives and are always subject to another's will because the ego demands it. Any attempt to defy the ego indoctrination is followed by guilt, shame, anger, isolation and punishment.

Conformity and socialization of children according to community standards is something I would offer as part of true human nature, since every study of hunter/gatherer societies reveals that they expect sons and daughters to grow up and follow a rigid set of rules and behaviours -- there is no tolerance for anarchy and nonconformity among primitive societies that have to struggle for food and shelter!

Yet our Self seeks only two things - Love and Joy - we cannot achieve this unless we suppress the ego and understand where it lives. Love and Joy come from "being" not from doing and cannot be derived from any other source except from the "Is". I Am. Anything else beyond the ecstatic Love and Joy is of the ego and intended to limit and destroy Self fulfillment. Being selfish (a construct of the ego) is the antithesis of being Self-full.

The problem with contending that some sort of mental exercise you refer to as suppressing the ego, and I assume this is similar to what many Buddhist-influenced practitioners would call "living in the now" or "becoming fully present in the moment," is that these techniques may not be seem relevant or meaningful to many people! For instance, because of the fact that our brains determine our mental states, there are many people who have major depressive disorders which cannot be alleviated just by applying psychological therapies.

Depression can be caused by physical factors that have nothing to do with childhood traumas -- that's why these disorders have a high level of heritability. One common factor is that many people with depression have low serotonin levels, and may not feel any better listening to someone tell them to suppress the ego and develop mindfulness of the present!

It is also worth noting that - since you're discussing the source of love and joy - that these feelings correlate with the neurochemical - oxytocin ; if your method of developing feelings of love and joy, you are stimulating the production of oxytocin in the hypothalamus. On the flipside, if you are injected with oxytocin, or take a drug that stimulates production of oxytocin (like MDMA/Ecstasy), you will start feeling love and joy without having made any effort to achieve this positive state of mind! More evidence that mental states affect neurochemistry and vice versa; and love, like other emotions and properties of mind - do not exist separately from brain activity!

If for a moment we simply suggest that God could be universal energy that has been theorized as not being able to be created or destroyed, and everything in the material realm is made of energy in one form or another then some very basic principles appear. 1. God is not external to us, 2. We are of God, a part or form of the energy of God, 3. We too cannot be created or destroyed but may appear in different forms, 4. Our thoughts are from and of God and our physical interaction with other people is but a dream within the mind of God and, 5. The ego is an attempt by the selfish mind to forget about and limit our God connection.

Par of this could be summed up as a classic definition for pantheism -- basically that the creator and creation are one and the same, and the universe should be regarded as a single conscious entity, but part 3 is obsolete since discoveries made in cosmology over the last 15 years have revealed that our universe will continue expanding at continually increasing rate of acceleration, until it either reaches a point where it will just disintegrate and vanish without a trace, or the universe will die a heat-death after 1000 billion years or so. The philosophical implications of new findings in cosmology are that our universe has a beginning and an end. Our universe is going to die, so if God is the Universe, the God of this universe is not immortal! Is He aware of his eventual mortality? There are a number of multiple universe theories, but that won't save anything that is of this universe, whether its advanced lifeforms or some pantheistic god of the universe.

When we attempt to resist the "natural flow" as we do when we let our ego think for us and live for us then we defy what is impossible to prevent - that flow of energy in many forms being alpha, beta, gamma etc. It is insane to deny what is real and true. And that is why the ego is an insane concept. It cannot exist either in the face of reason (using rationalization instead), or in reality (using delusion, myth and prejudice as deception). The Ego must always exist in opposition and so where there is anger, or rationalization, or fear the ego is in control. In Truth only Joy and Love can exist in our natural state and all the rest is an attempt by the ego to deny we are part of the "Is".

I Am.

[WIP]

Thank goodness someone speaks from the Presence here. All the rest are EGO.

I'm not speaking for either presence or ego since they are both meaningless, unproveable assumptions.

[WIP]

So anyways, anyone go camping this summer?

Weren't you whining about someone else hijacking this thread because they wanted to discuss U.S. backing of Georgia?

If you're not interested or don't understand the subject here, why are you posting mocking comments? Just piss off and go back to warmongering!

[White Doors]

edited.

not worth it.

Edited August 19, 2008 by White Doors

[charter.rights]

Our "thought system" is otherwise known as the brain, and if we could communicate telepathically with other people, by exchanging weak electric currents, we should also be able to communicate with plants and animals and electric appliances!

Of course. And we do subconsciously.

Because of the fact that psi phenomena is still unproven after 150 years, and the psychics who claim awareness of the thoughts of others (both living and dead) have to resort to deception and outright fraud to impress their audiences, it should reinforce the conclusion that thought is a function of the brain, and does not extend beyond the boundaries of our physical bodies.

You miss a very important fact: Cause ALWAYS precedes effect.

One cannot ~find~ what one does not expect, first. Astronomy is advancing because scientists "expect" that there is something more. While they generally theorize that there are boundaries to the universe, or that the universe is expanding it could not be UNLESS someone wondered about the possibility and investigated it.

I wouldn't mind having a clear definition of "true nature" -- is there any proof that such a concept of true nature actually exists? Because we are going to change throughout our lives, as we are impacted by environmental factors, regardless of what parents or other caregivers did or did not do to us.

Conformity and socialization of children according to community standards is something I would offer as part of true human nature, since every study of hunter/gatherer societies reveals that they expect sons and daughters to grow up and follow a rigid set of rules and behaviours -- there is no tolerance for anarchy and nonconformity among primitive societies that have to struggle for food and shelter!

"Anarchy" in its truest definition is our "true nature" - to be self-regulating and self-fulfilling. Conformity imposed on us from birth is meant to limit the caregivers inconveniences, not the subjects. They impose ego because to do so creates in the image of God and maintains The Separation the is necessary for it to exist. The ego could not exist in a state of public thought and so it hides in the belief that it can hide thought from others.

The problem with contending that some sort of mental exercise you refer to as suppressing the ego, and I assume this is similar to what many Buddhist-influenced practitioners would call "living in the now" or "becoming fully present in the moment," is that these techniques may not be seem relevant or meaningful to many people! For instance, because of the fact that our brains determine our mental states, there are many people who have major depressive disorders which cannot be alleviated just by applying psychological therapies.

Depression can be caused by physical factors that have nothing to do with childhood traumas -- that's why these disorders have a high level of heritability. One common factor is that many people with depression have low serotonin levels, and may not feel any better listening to someone tell them to suppress the ego and develop mindfulness of the present!

You are very much "stuck". First of all the ego cannot be "suppressed" until one understands where it comes from, what kinds of control over our lives it presents and how powerful we have made it. Trying to suppress it is like pounding your fists against concrete - the harder you pound the more resolved the concrete is to just "be there". While many ~peaceful~ religions have a sense of "being" there are some who "get It". As such many of the ancient teachings - including those preserved in the Bible - are meant as a guide to access our "true nature" beyond the control of the ego. While religion can impose, oppose and oppress, faith releases and forgives. Understanding that everything that happens to us is because we choose it leaves us with the question "Why would we want it?", instead of "Who is to blame?" (the usual question of the ego)

The chemical xhaos that show us in the brains of depressed or mentally ill patients is an "effect", not a "cause". The cause is the internal struggle between the ideas imposed on us and our true nature to be self-full, literally a struggle between our ego and our eternal presence.

It is also worth noting that - since you're discussing the source of love and joy - that these feelings correlate with the neurochemical - oxytocin ; if your method of developing feelings of love and joy, you are stimulating the production of oxytocin in the hypothalamus. On the flipside, if you are injected with oxytocin, or take a drug that stimulates production of oxytocin (like MDMA/Ecstasy), you will start feeling love and joy without having made any effort to achieve this positive state of mind! More evidence that mental states affect neurochemistry and vice versa; and love, like other emotions and properties of mind - do not exist separately from brain activity!

Love....and Joy... are not emotions. They are states of being! While you are trying to intellectualize this discussion, you are not only missing the points, but are exemplifying the control and tactics of the ego. You denial is a shield the ego uses as defence.

Par of this could be summed up as a classic definition for pantheism -- basically that the creator and creation are one and the same, and the universe should be regarded as a single conscious entity, but part 3 is obsolete since discoveries made in cosmology over the last 15 years have revealed that our universe will continue expanding at continually increasing rate of acceleration, until it either reaches a point where it will just disintegrate and vanish without a trace, or the universe will die a heat-death after 1000 billion years or so. The philosophical implications of new findings in cosmology are that our universe has a beginning and an end. Our universe is going to die, so if God is the Universe, the God of this universe is not immortal! Is He aware of his eventual mortality? There are a number of multiple universe theories, but that won't save anything that is of this universe, whether its advanced lifeforms or some pantheistic god of the universe.

Equating God as only the universe is limited thinking. The universe is a creation of the Is, being energy, being more. Limiting God to a beginning and an end - the Alpha and Omega - suggests that you think that energy can be created and destroyed, in defiance to the laws of physics as we currently understand them. And even though scientists think the universe has an end it is only a theory based on limited thinking. Cause is always preceded by effect and even an apparent "end" is followed by an eternal effect. Just as our birth seemingly leads to the beginning of our life, we begin as nothing more than a "cause" from something else. I would suggest that from a thought perspective there was never a time in anyone's life where they could remember being "unborn". And it is just as feasible that we will not remember dying, or passing on to the next realm even though both are absolute components of "cause and effect". However, our loss of memory or brain function never diminishes the effect we have had on the universe. Nor can it limit the effect to the time between birth and dying - both of which are ethereal effects of a greater cause. And so in terms of God or the Is, neither cause nor effect can be created or destroyed, since it occurred in the beginning of all time and will continue for all time. (I'm sure if God had a watch it would be an Omega) However, through the ego we can emulate an "effect" through dreaming that has no real effect on the micro or macro causes. By dreaming we forget who we are and in the protection of sleep we can jump from planes and fly high above the clouds without even worrying about the physics or limitations of the physical world. In the world of the ego we are merely dreamers in our own consciousness and the dreamed in others' consciousness. And when we "wake up" we are merely dreaming another dream, unless we have recognized the ego for what it is not- a creation of the Is. When we wake up to the Presence, we are going beyond the ego, capturing the dream and the dreamer simultaneously and releasing Self to connection with the Is. When we awake spiritually we awaken to "potential" and reject limitation. We become the creation of the Is and reject the creation of the ego through our caregivers. We are. I Am. There is nothing more that matters except the Joy and Love we share.

[M.Dancer]

edited.

not worth it.

I feel the same way about the CNE, but hey, the Kids like it.

[margrace]

Of course. And we do subconsciously.

You miss a very important fact: Cause ALWAYS precedes effect.

One cannot ~find~ what one does not expect, first. Astronomy is advancing because scientists "expect" that there is something more. While they generally theorize that there are boundaries to the universe, or that the universe is expanding it could not be UNLESS someone wondered about the possibility and investigated it.

"Anarchy" in its truest definition is our "true nature" - to be self-regulating and self-fulfilling. Conformity imposed on us from birth is meant to limit the caregivers inconveniences, not the subjects. They impose ego because to do so creates in the image of God and maintains The Separation the is necessary for it to exist. The ego could not exist in a state of public thought and so it hides in the belief that it can hide thought from others.

You are very much "stuck". First of all the ego cannot be "suppressed" until one understands where it comes from, what kinds of control over our lives it presents and how powerful we have made it. Trying to suppress it is like pounding your fists against concrete - the harder you pound the more resolved the concrete is to just "be there". While many ~peaceful~ religions have a sense of "being" there are some who "get It". As such many of the ancient teachings - including those preserved in the Bible - are meant as a guide to access our "true nature" beyond the control of the ego. While religion can impose, oppose and oppress, faith releases and forgives. Understanding that everything that happens to us is because we choose it leaves us with the question "Why would we want it?", instead of "Who is to blame?" (the usual question of the ego)

The chemical xhaos that show us in the brains of depressed or mentally ill patients is an "effect", not a "cause". The cause is the internal struggle between the ideas imposed on us and our true nature to be self-full, literally a struggle between our ego and our eternal presence.

Love....and Joy... are not emotions. They are states of being! While you are trying to intellectualize this discussion, you are not only missing the points, but are exemplifying the control and tactics of the ego. You denial is a shield the ego uses as defence.

Equating God as only the universe is limited thinking. The universe is a creation of the Is, being energy, being more. Limiting God to a beginning and an end - the Alpha and Omega - suggests that you think that energy can be created and destroyed, in defiance to the laws of physics as we currently understand them. And even though scientists think the universe has an end it is only a theory based on limited thinking. Cause is always preceded by effect and even an apparent "end" is followed by an eternal effect. Just as our birth seemingly leads to the beginning of our life, we begin as nothing more than a "cause" from something else. I would suggest that from a thought perspective there was never a time in anyone's life where they could remember being "unborn". And it is just as feasible that we will not remember dying, or passing on to the next realm even though both are absolute components of "cause and effect". However, our loss of memory or brain function never diminishes the effect we have had on the universe. Nor can it limit the effect to the time between birth and dying - both of which are ethereal effects of a greater cause. And so in terms of God or the Is, neither cause nor effect can be created or destroyed, since it occurred in the beginning of all time and will continue for all time. (I'm sure if God had a watch it would be an Omega) However, through the ego we can emulate an "effect" through dreaming that has no real effect on the micro or macro causes. By dreaming we forget who we are and in the protection of sleep we can jump from planes and fly high above the clouds without even worrying about the physics or limitations of the physical world. In the world of the ego we are merely dreamers in our own consciousness and the dreamed in others' consciousness. And when we "wake up" we are merely dreaming another dream, unless we have recognized the ego for what it is not- a creation of the Is. When we wake up to the Presence, we are going beyond the ego, capturing the dream and the dreamer simultaneously and releasing Self to connection with the Is. When we awake spiritually we awaken to "potential" and reject limitation. We become the creation of the Is and reject the creation of the ego through our caregivers. We are. I Am. There is nothing more that matters except the Joy and Love we share.

Charterrights, what these EGO driven people refuse to see is that we are all two parts. EGO wants, needs to be the controlling force, EGO is the negativity in us. All the things we learned in our life.are in our EGO. EGO hates and fears Presence. Sarcasm, changing the subject, making fun of others, showing how important we are or how educated we are all come from EGO.

If we look at our next statement and decide whether it is coming from Presence or from EGO we scare the devil in EGO. If we chose Presence as you are then EGO loses power. We do not need to judge, EGO demands that. We do not need to have the best, to control others, to put others down. EGO demands that.

This is why these people are so fearful that they need to do everything they can to shut this discussion down. EGO demands it.

We cover up the fear in us by putting others down, this is what these people are doing.

[charter.rights]

This is why these people are so fearful that they need to do everything they can to shut this discussion down. EGO demands it.

Because their fear of reality is more threatening to them, than their fear of being deluded. Choosing delusion over reality is an act of insanity, and being wholly insane they cannot (and will not) understand they are cause of all their misery.

[AngusThermopyle]

QUOTE(WIP @ Aug 16 2008, 03:25 AM) *

Our "thought system" is otherwise known as the brain, and if we could communicate telepathically with other people, by exchanging weak electric currents, we should also be able to communicate with plants and animals and electric appliances!

CR Response.

Of course. And we do subconsciously.

Well now I know for sure. So you do actually talk to your toaster CR, I always suspected as much.

Having read through this interminable thread all I've seen you do is present unproven/unprovable fantasy and discount any points that are actually based on reality while you call everyone insane.

Done with you, you're not worth wasting time on anymore.

Edited August 20, 2008 by AngusThermopyle

[charter.rights]

Well now I know for sure. So you do actually talk to your toaster CR, I always suspected as much.

Having read through this interminable thread all I've seen you do is present unproven/unprovable fantasy and discount any points that are actually based on reality while you call everyone insane.

Done with you, you're not worth wasting time on anymore.

Except for trolling - your favourite past-time - why did you even bother to respond? If you had nothing relevant to add you could have easily kept it to yourself.

No one said anything about being able to talk to YOUR toaster. But we have influence on everything and everyone we have contact with. By the way it is all proven. You just can't see it for your own fear.

[AngusThermopyle]

we should also be able to communicate with plants and animals and electric appliances!

CR Response.

Of course. And we do subconsciously.

No one said anything about being able to talk to YOUR toaster.

Would you like to stick your foot in your mouth yet again?

If you mean MY toaster, I'm glad you don't talk to it. I like my toaster to be silent and sane, so please do not attempt communication with my toaster. Go pick on someone else's toaster instead.

[charter.rights]

Would you like to stick your foot in your mouth yet again?

If you mean MY toaster, I'm glad you don't talk to it. I like my toaster to be silent and sane, so please do not attempt communication with my toaster. Go pick on someone else's toaster instead.

Ah dude. There are lots of ways to communicate with YOUR toaster without talking to it. A control panel or a spring-based lever instructs the toaster to turn bread into toast.

Man are you ever slow! Boinggggg! Toast is ready.

[AngusThermopyle]

Ah dude. There are lots of ways to communicate with YOUR toaster without talking to it. A control panel or a spring-based lever instructs the toaster to turn bread into toast.

Generally I refer to that as operating or using but if you like to think of it as communicating then go ahead, fill yer boots.