/lit/ - Literature

If the ego is not sovereign, and if collective egos are not oligarchies (each condemns the rest to Hell!), then who runs the show? If one decides to project God into spacetime and form, science will only find nature's generative, enfolded fractal feedback. Sensitives may find synchronicities and discarnate spirits. Both will find infinite multiplicity instead of singularity. But that does not mean that there is no God, or no unifying consciousness. As Plato and others have hinted for millennia, the shadows projected on the walls of our senses are just intimations of a grander, unified consciousness. Kubrick projects an image of astronaut Dave Bowman on the cinema screen, Bowman sees the Monolith (an image of the cinema screen itself rotated 90 degrees), realizes, like Hamlet, Gautama and Christ before him, that he is an actor in a film, stares wildly at the camera, is reborn as a child and returns to Earth to share his message. Such characters - Prometheus, Dionysos, Actaeon, the Cave escapee, Jesus the man, Ziggy Stardust - are usually torn apart by their audiences. This is a survivalistic reaction the group egos clinging to their imagined identity. "They know not what they do." "Give me your hands!"

Historical authenticity is irrelevant. When one views these stories (humanity has only ever told one story) as metaphors, it becomes apparent that THAT WITHIN US WHICH PERCEIVES is the sole unchanging center of the whirling world. This is what the authors of the Upanishads found when they turned the telescope of perception in on itself. Hence, "I AM THAT I AM," the Hindu greeting "namaste" (the divine in me acknowledges and bows to the same divinity in you), and "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Someone asked the present Dalai Lama if he was God. "Who else could I be?" He wasn't on the ultimate ego trip (he's way too happy for that!), he was speaking for all of us.

The suggestion is that, behind the ego-thoughts and behind the forms, "we" are really "I." And all these infinite branching forms are manifestations of the unfolding unity-consciousness behind it all. Nor is this solipsism! The man behind the curtain is our consciousness itself. Spacetime in all its drama ("all the world's a stage") is a big cosmic game.

I am typing from inside a cave, but I know am in a cave and I know that the cave is a projection of the divine within me. I know that at our core, your consciousness, which is reading in a different cave, flows from the same source as mine.

Aren't we finished drawing subcultures in the sand?

We've all watched The Matrix.

pretty interesting, Op

>>2027511
Forgive me for preaching to the converted. I figured /lit/ would be about 50/50, considering the rants that go on here.

Let's all do mescaline and read William Blake's body of work.

>>2027527
Would that cleanse or obscure the doors of perception?

>>2027528
probably both. One way from the mescaline, one way from reading Blake

>>2027529
rofl
bedtime on that note

Fucking awesome, OP. How old are you?

I'm interested in why you brought up solipsism into your argument, seems to me like apples and oranges.

You do realize that mind body dualism has been pretty much wrecked by neuroscience, right? The idea that we have a collective essence that produces every individual consciousness doesn't work if it pretty conclusively seems that consciousness arises from relatively discrete materials.

>>2027557
with lack of material, would I be any less conscious?

>>2027549
25. I've been mistaken for a solipsist before. I think a lot of people are afraid to think they are manifestations of God, so they get nervous when someone brings up the idea.

>>2027557
OP here. I think the Upanishads have it right. Consciousness is more primal than the brain.

I hope I am as literate as you when I am 25.


I don't think people are afraid of such an unyielding concept... I just think it's such a fantastic idea that it gets aborted before entering conscious thought.. on the first day man invented god, etc..

>>2027562
Do you know your IQ? Just curious..

>>2027557
I'm a neuroscience major (and current med school student), and even I acknowledge that consciousness is more fundamental than matter. Basic stuff if you think about it.

>>2027565
I've only skimmed the surface, but I can spot a pattern. Your idea makes good sense.

>>2027567
133

>>2027574
The most basic thing. It's not even a thing. It's a verb, to be. Again, I AM THAT I AM. Or as the Hindus say, TAT TWAM ASI (I AM THAT).

>>2027574
OP again. It's late, but if you ever want to chat, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the pineal gland. My email's in the field.

Namaste, /lit/.

>>2027585
music major eh?

interesting...

you remind me of a bard.

>>2027557
>You do realize that mind body dualism has been pretty much wrecked by neuroscience, right?

I wasn't aware neuroscientists could disprove the possibility that the mind is a parcel of non-physical matter linked and synchronized to the corporeal by the divine hand of the Godhead.

That sounds kind of outside the expertise of neuroscientists.

>>2027606
yea and right into the hands of cavemen, begone

>>2027613
COOL AD HOMINID, BROOO~

So, since we know that the major differences between apes and men are hardly major at all, shall we incorporate them into the godhead? And if apes have some measure of sentience, shall we admit all mammals as well?

>>2027620
No and no.

2 things.

1: I feel like you've got it basically right, but you've forgotten to continue into the space beyond perceptive consciousness, into cosmic heat-death. Crowley called the white light premature enlightenment; you really know you've got it when you reach the blackness. The being posits nonbeing, and then becomes it. Death is the only way "out". Escape the wheel.

2: In the meantime: the renouncement of subculture and samsaric play sounds boring, don't you think? The godhead dreams the dream to live the adventure. Why not? just to play the devil's advocate (and I do mean Play the Devil's advocate).

>>2027621

yes and yes. all things are godhead. at least get the basics right.

>>2027630
a little too religous for me

see ad hominem pretty much means (non-literally) 'against the man'

and ad hominid pretty much means (non-literally) 'against the caveman'

i mean did anyone get that

>>2027630
If all things are god, then what difference does it make whether the lion kills the antelope or I kill you?

>>2027632

it's sort of the opposite of religious. if everything is god then nothing is. the hierarchy of religion thrives on exclusivity.

>>2027636

it doesn't.

>>2027636
I don't think he means God in a diety form..

>>2027639

"in deity form"

lol oh man.

>>2027506
Kierkegaard did this better, and harder, and with a pineapple raping your arsehole.

>>2027639
We understand each other perfectly.
>>2027639

>>2027644
yea.. I couldn't really think of anything better to say.. it's on the tip of my tongue so I just went with that.

>>2027646

i wasn't making fun of your verbiage. i was laughing at the idea of a deity being referent to a particular form. but i think you meant "anthropomorphic form". i get it.

>>2027635
lol'd, i don't think anybody appreciates the effort you put into your posts :(

Twat would love this thread

>>2027650
precisely. are we at an agreement regarding your post?

>>2027639
We understand each other perfectly.
>>2027637

>>2027655

i don't know, literally. but the "deity" construct is separated from us by so many orders of magnitude that i don't know if any of the models previously proposed could be properly identified as anthropomorphic. they seem like graspings shaped by the lens. do our neurons know about us?

OP uses a lot of big words, but isn't he just hypothesising that "we are all like part of the same consciousness dude."

Two words: Occam's razor

>>2027662
but we're taught that godlessness is the new hip thing, it's spread by our children and their children, through simple logic we can determine that anthropomorphism is a way of the past, and therefore unscientific and hindering..

however if we go to such a deep level, trying to give such impalpabilities such a label as consciousness, on something so impalpable, then why think about anything?

i guess my point would be that lines are there for a reason, and we should make them for ourselves

>>2027664
Nice fallacy of individuation.

>>2027666
I am probably too basic for you, though.

>>2027668
There is absolutely no proof that the consciousness of one person is connected to others. Furthermore it cannot be shown that a connection exists by any experiment. Yet people still postulate that such a connection exists. While it's impossible to disprove this, as it's similar to trying to disprove the existence of angels, it's still highly improbable.

>>2027678
There is absolutely no proof that consciousness is.

And don't get cogito on me; tautological tautology is tautological and doesn't instantiate.

>>2027678
it's not a physical (emotional or otherwise mental) extension that people argue, it's more or a metaphor that we all stem from the same tree, and therefore we are all extensions of ourselves.

except without the solipsism.

>>2027684
>tautological tautology is tautological and doesn't instantiate.
what the fuck does that even mean?

>>2027678

the universe is a system of interactions vis a vis energy and matter. the behavior of one part of the system affects the behavior of other parts, just like neurons in the brain or particles in a weather pattern. positing some kind of supernatural connection is totally unnecessary and I have no idea why you're doing it.

>>2027684

tru fax

>>2027689
>>2027692
contradiction?

>>2027694

always.

>>2027696
but why?

>>2027688
A tautology is true but does not introduce new information.

Red is red. Life is life.

Instantiation is the process of coming into specific being. You can't use the cogito to prove individual consciousness.

>>2027697

listen, why don't you explain what the particular contradiction stuck in your craw is first.

>>2027689
>a system of interactions vis a vis energy and matter
>energy and matter
>matter

arrrruhhh?

>>2027702

yeah, whatever. pick a noun.

>>2027700
apples and oranges, i get it now, never mind.

>>2027689
>Everything is affected by everything else

Your usage of the word "affects" is too loose to have any meaningful purpose

>>2027685
>it's not a physical (emotional or otherwise mental) extension that people argue, it's more or a metaphor that we all stem from the same tree, and therefore we are all extensions of ourselves.

That's nice, but it's not particularly meaningful

>>2027713
Why isn't it?

We are so limited as beings, why not give ourselves one more?

>>2027709

components of complex systems interact, and complex systems have emergent properties. you want to get into particle physics? i thought we were talking philosophy.

wow an actual good thread on /lit/ sup with that

bedtime, people. i<3u

>>2027727
luv u 2 baby

>>2027719
If you are arguing that people are connected by their existence in the world, through their actions and through language, then there is nothing profound there. Ants in an ant colony are all connected in that they work together for the good of the colony. I interpret that op refers to a deeper connection than this however and that is the connection that there is no reason to believe and no evidence of.

pretty sure ants don't understand the concept of interdependent arising

at least they're not alone

>>2027745
haha, indeed

>>2027745
But those who interdependent arising haven't into locus of control.

>>2028177
can someone please explain this shit?

>>2027745

yeah.

rosencrantz and gildenstern sure as hell didnt know they were in a play, much less die. hows that for your consciousness. it is incomplete.

>>2027731

1: i interpret your interpretation is wrong, or at least not necessarily correct. i don't think, in other words, that OP is referring, necessarily, to the supernatural, but you seem pretty fixated on the idea.

2: i'm referring not just to language and human interaction but to the whole system of particle interactions that make up everything. i suppose you're free to feel there's nothing profound about everything, but that sounds pretty sad.

>>2028540

*as wrong

loldualists

>>2028540
>people are connected through subatomic and molecular reactions

science abuse alert

>Aren't we finished drawing subcultures in the sand?

That's the question.

There is a lot of truth in what you write. But to know something is true and to live and embody that 'knowedge' is another matter.

And if we are one stuff, explicit forms in the mind of God, if life is a dream or a play then why not war and strife? Turn the world into a giant colleseum. For the fun of it.

Why quietism? Why serenity? Why peaceful co-existence?

Many forms in the mind of God have dripped with blood and blazed with fire for as long as we can remember.

Perhaps He/me/you/it likes subcultures.

>>2027506
>implying platonic morals as objective truths

argumentisinvalid.jpg

bubba gump

>>2027594
I'm back. Does that make this a "bardic knowledge" thread?

>>2027623
I like some of Crowley's ideas, and I dislike others. Not sure what to make of him, to be honest. I equate him synchronistically with Darth Vader unmasked. The Old Adam, the Old Ego.

From what I've read (separate accounts of hundreds of regressive hypnotherapy sessions led by Drs. Michael Newton and Brian Weiss), death isn't necessarily escape from the wheel. You reincarnate repeatedly to learn spiritual lessons. I think an MMORPG is a good analogy: you log in, level up, log out, repeat. Earth as training grounds.

But as Buddha, Crowley, et al said, there is an escape. You don't have to work out all your karma, you just have to transcend the idea that it has anything to do with your identity! Then, supposedly, you're free. That's probably an oversimplification, but I don't the hierarchy of physical and nonphysical inhabited worlds.

>>2027630
I would argue that all forms are manifestations of the Godhead, which transcends the world of form. This belief is called panentheism, as opposed the pantheism you've suggested, which simply equates God with form.

captcha: illsori

>>2027645
I haven't read him. But Hegel did a fantastic job. Where should I start with Kierkegaard?

>>2028700
I never mentioned morality.

I don't understand the relevance of a lot of the posts in this thread. What's all this about the evolution of the brain? Nobody's been able to prove consciousness originates in the brain. The mystics say otherwise, too. Read the Upanishads, they go into it in detail.

>>2027664
Yes, I'm saying our individual consciousnesses stem from one central consciousness, dude. I tried to use different examples, I wasn't trying to use big words.

I find it interesting that mystics of seemingly every tradition and time period say that, in private meditation, they've attained universal/singular consciousness. I recommend commentary on the Bhagavad Gita by Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda.

Enjoyed your posts /OP/.

I read these cards to say you are avoiding the burden of the world. Physical indecision:

http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?UID=195854&Date=8%2F22%2F2011&Name=Anonymous&Query
=Pass+judgement+on+4chan.org%2Flit+posts+2027506%2C+2027507+%26+2027510&Deck=rider_waite&Rea
ding=fourfold&Reverse=on

backed, however, with mental emotional and spirtual good feeling, not to say grace.

Best wishes to you.

>>2028876
I love that site. Very accurate reading! I'm going through a Neptune transit, which involves a lot of inner work, and I'm making steps to get out in the world. I have a lot of support. I wouldn't say I'm passing judgement though. Maybe I'm doing so subconsciously. I'll think on that.

Thanks for the reading!

>>2028628
this

>>2028804
my point, and his, i interpret, was that identification with transcendence and with the godhead is still identification with something, is still life-force conceptualization. i'm not really a dualist, but i can look at reincarnation as a model or metaphor for formal and material recycling. given that, the true end, the end of everything, universal heat-death, escape from the existence of anything at all, is the next step after cosmic consciousness. absolute rest.

the boomers were self-indulgent children. Religion is not hocus-pocus that justifies what you were going to do already, it is a discipline moral, and properly corporeal. It is a grand drama and a bridge to the ancients.

The boomers were heterodox at best, hesiearchs more typically, and the children of their lax theology are the monsters we seem roaming the 'nets today.

>>2028895

unshielded existential horror is anything but a lax dialectic, and suckling at the teat of a disciplinary ideology proves your addiction to daddy's belt and nothing more. make your own discipline.

>>2028887
Oh sorry, the question wasn't intended to say you are passing judgement. Asked the cards to judge your posts.

Yes facade is a helpful site. the cookie cutter definitions aren't much cop but the readings are usually pretty good.

Empathise about Neptune. I have a strong sun/neptune conjunct in my birthchart and he is always there, as it were. Very hard work, but wouldn't be without it. Wish you well with the transit.

>>2028895
Some of them were pretty cool, and they paved the way for a lot of freedoms our generation enjoys.

>>2028894
I think I understand you better now. I hope I didn't patronize you earlier out of misunderstanding. It's very hard to use dualistic language to talk about a nondual state. Not sure about heat death, big crunch, days of Brahman, or any of the end of form theories. Blows my mind trying to think about any of them.

>>2028900
Neptune's a blessing and a curse, in my experience it's like an all consuming fog. Individual forms begin to lose their boundaries. This opens you up to insights but it's hard to ground them. Sound familiar? Likewise, you have my sympathy?

Wanna talk astro sometime? My parents and my dad's new girlfriend have each been doing it for 30 years. I'm new, lots to learn! My email's in the field should you select to shoot the shit.

>>2028900
Wishing you well too!

>>2028919
typo
should be
>You have my sympathy.

captcha's going Joyce on me: Blum's pubilia

Tarkovsky's film adaptation of Solyaris seemed to me like a perfect representation of Neptune. Have you seen it?

Fuck you're terrible at ermersoning.

>>2028933

so. good.

>>2028919

not at all. i luv 2 swapping teh brainz. my communication style can come off a bit aggressive sometimes (sometimes i'm actually being aggressive).

>It describes our condition as consciousness incarnate in form.
>incarnate
>in form
Seems redundant.
>Audience as ego-king: until we dethrone our egos, and stop reigning over our environments, we will continue to rule over shadows.
So our egos project a reality, or a substance onto existing reality, which intrudes upon, replaces and/or obscures a "true" picture of reality (hence allegory of the cave) that can be obtained by overthrowing the ego. A sort of Cartesian "Evil Demon". This is certainly not a new concept in philosophy.
How do you propose I go about conquering this deceiver, Ego? "Ego" is Latin for "I", "I conquer I" seems quite absurd. How can the "Ego", I, the self, overthrow itself, and what replaces it exactly? This analogy of the play -- Hamlet realizes his reality as an artificial creation of some foreign Ego -- how does Hamlet escape from that exactly? If you realize reality is part-illusion manifest by reality-perverting Ego do you escape the illusion in any meaningful way? You still haven't the escaped the Ego, it's still Hamlet's Ego that looks out towards the audience -- the audience is for him a hypothetical "true reality" that he can't see through all the smoke of the play in which he is entrapped.
If you realize you reality is a stage set up by some "collective ego", then how are you to look beyond that stage as anything other than someone that's been an actor his whole life, and has known no reality different?

>>2028947
Advice welcome!

whats the external world then? is that god too?

We rely on one another for survival, and our actions reverberate all across our planet, and possibly even the cosmos. Now, does this belief in the interconnectedness inherent in our universe imply anything supernatural or mystical? "God" as defined by most "believers" is an entity separate from us. God is dad. A watchful, judging, anthropomorphic being who has our best interest at heart. I think this belief is obviously erroneous, and I think using the term "God" in any other way will only confuse the average person. Find a different word or term.

>>2028970

yep.

>it's still Hamlet's Ego that looks out towards the audience -- the audience is for him a hypothetical "true reality" that he can't see through all the smoke of the play in which he is entrapped.

And even when he looks to the audience he seems them as humans in a ghostly, extradimensional form -- but still humans; sympathetic humans -- the same creatures that populate his staged reality, so that even when he imagines a reality beyond it is still composed of the same objects that his own consists of and which he cannot escape.
I'm trying to give you an idea of how hopeless it is to try and "transcend" reality as it appears, as adulterated by Ego.

>>2028973

language is a bottom up, not a top-down, process. the word god has arisen in these situations because it evokes unique qualities as a descriptor that fit the experience in question-- the immensity of these ideas and experiences, the subjective sensation of interconnectedness, and the reference to a transcendent principle unencompassable by language. your attempts to regulate language use managerially and proscriptively will never match languages emergent, organic generative force. the feminists have had problems with this for years.

>>2028961
>So our egos project a reality, or a substance onto existing reality, which intrudes upon, replaces and/or obscures a "true" picture of reality (hence allegory of the cave) that can be obtained by overthrowing the ego. A sort of Cartesian "Evil Demon". This is certainly not a new concept in philosophy.

Age-old. The "perennial philosophy." But mind and body aren't the only characters at play. There's spirit, which is singularity-consciousness, soul, which is an individual branch of spirit, mind/brain, which is a dualistic, experiential tool of the soul, and body, another tool of the soul. All turduckens tied in a knot.

>How do you propose I go about conquering this deceiver, Ego? "Ego" is Latin for "I", "I conquer I" seems quite absurd. How can the "Ego", I, the self, overthrow itself, and what replaces it exactly?

It does seem absurd! That's where I think Descartes got hung up. He placed the I-ness in the brain. But I think it goes further back to spirit, where it's collective/singular. Your sense of being doesn't change as you age (the details change, but not the basic presence). I assume it's the same with everyone. Consider this: singularity divides itself into form, into witness and object, for the sake of self-experience through dualism. I think that's what Hegel was on about.

>>2028987
>This analogy of the play -- Hamlet realizes his reality as an artificial creation of some foreign Ego -- how does Hamlet escape from that exactly?

For most of the play, Hamlet's a contemplative. Nothing but suffering happens until he has an experience, offstage, battling pirates, an exercise in action. He comes back, takes action, kills the king, and dies. Did he really die, or did he put his ego in his place? Can this only be achieved by combining contemplation and action?

>If you realize reality is part-illusion manifest by reality-perverting Ego do you escape the illusion in any meaningful way? You still haven't the escaped the Ego, it's still Hamlet's Ego that looks out towards the audience -- the audience is for him a hypothetical "true reality" that he can't see through all the smoke of the play in which he is entrapped.
If you realize you reality is a stage set up by some "collective ego", then how are you to look beyond that stage as anything other than someone that's been an actor his whole life, and has known no reality different?

I think you still experience ego, but you are no longer convinced that it is in charge. The authors of the Upanishads achieved it by focusing their consciousness on the nature of consciousness itself, and they found that each individual river led back to the ocean of singularity. You can still be in the world, but I'd imagine knowing and experiencing that kind of unification would make the experience a lot less stressful.

>>2028919

Yeah, fogginess in thought and feeling. My irises are even kind of groundglass like.

Would be happy to chat astrology, sure. I am not very knowledgable (haven't studied it for a few years now) but I am interested.

And Zep 4 reversed might be a stairway to hell, go careful!

>>2028973
God as dad, God as everything, God as inspiration of everything, it's a loaded, confused term. I'm using the panentheistic definition.

>There's spirit, which is singularity-consciousness
How does this differ from the Ego of the mind?

>>2028993
>Stairway to Hell
The way out is through. The Hermit on the inside cover, who's Hebrew letter is Yod, the closed fist, is Faust, who shines a light into the Hell of his subconscious. At least that's what he'll do in my version lol.

Pinocchio/Jonah lights a fire in the belly of the whale - he integrates the subconscious consciously.

But advice taken!

>>2028999
Each person has his own ego.

>I think you still experience ego, but you are no longer convinced that it is in charge.
You mean by Ego is no longer convinced it's in charge? I think the Ego is the only thing that deals with "convincing".

>the ocean of singularity.
An ocean is a big place for a "singularity".

>>2029008
>ego, convincing
I've heard accounts of the nirvana state, "you only know when you leave it." Maybe the ego can only point and say, "it went that-a-way."

>ocean, singularity
It's a metaphor. English is a dualistic language, I'm doing the best I can.

>>2027549
>>2027565
You know you shouldn't bother with intellectual pursuits unless you can instinctively spot pseudointellectualism from actual intellectualism, illiteracy from actual literacy.
A neophyte needs only this as the basis for his pursuits -- intellectual honesty. If you find yourself swooning over muddled, gaudy prose then you must lack even this fundamental disposition.

>>2029032
Seems like everyone's a pseudo-intellectual these days, amirite? Where is the line drawn?

I remember a thread here a few months ago. Rich kid OP posts his book collection, something rivalling that of a Harvard professor's, and people call him a pseudo-intellectual.

I think Socrates had it right. "I'm not wise, but I love wisdom." Let's all learn from his example and relax, eh?

>>2029032
How do you become an intellectual?

>>2029059
You don't.

>>2029061
if you either are or aren't, a method must exist somewhere to properly blend in with the intellectuals.. one is not simply born with it.

>>2029068
If tracing one's consciousness back to the Godhead/singularity is the only way to escape the wheel of samsara, intellectualism is a distraction. Not that I'm an anti-intellectual, but intellect is a tool. It's not everything.

>>2029077
if it isn't everything as you claim, and such as it is; a tool, why bother putting such an emphasis on whether you have it or not?

I'm not even sure we can say with certainty that there IS an Ego that we must tame. I would submit the hypothesis that rather than having one singular ego, we may have hundreds and thousands of little egos. Each one is somewhat unconscious except in having a single desire, love, sex, booze, success, etc. and each one battling for control of your body. You have a sort of super-ego that plays traffic cop between all the little egos. Therefore you could quite possibly act differently around your girlfriend than around your boss, or at church or at a bar. Same person, different behavior patterns mitigated by a superego.

>>2029053
I'm not even the original sage guy, but I also thought this thread was bullshit. I typed out something longer a bit earlier, got irritated and trashed the response, then got irritated that this thread was still on the front page and wrote this response.

>Seems like everyone's a pseudo-intellectual these days, amirite? Where is the line drawn?
My line? When a person babbles out nonsense like this:
>Historical authenticity is irrelevant.
One can safely disregard anyone who rejects the primacy of the past and drabs ancient Greek philosophy in baggy tie-dye clothes, twists its locks into a long greasy ponytail, glues patches of nasty hair to its chest, stuffs marijuana blunts in its mouth and hangs a giant gaudy peace sign on its neck. Not that there weren't more problems with what you wrote, but that proud ignorance was what pissed me off the most.

>>2029081
furthermore, how do i shed this sense of inferiority, and embrace the intellect.. to live life with love, what the fuck must I do?

>>2029087
I'm sorry.

I'm allergic to hate. I'm out.

>>2029104
>I'm allergic to hate. I'm out.
Fucking hippies.