Excerpts from dialogue - between Bruce and Roger The authors retain full copyright. Anyone wishing to comment or reprint... please contact the authors at: Bruce: editor@juno.com Roger: rbi@cqg.com http://www.newu.org/ Links to books by Roger's mentor, Edward Tarabilda, at Amazon.com: Thoughts - 1 Roger: A symbol is a limited partial representation for something. Therefore language, our external dialog, is limited due the fact that it is entirely symbolic. But more revealing, our internal dialog, thought/memory, has exactly the same limitation. The entirety of our internal dialog is a replay or projection of symbol. Bruce: Essentially right, but you've neglected visual memory, which is image-based (imagination!) rather than symbolic. The two are variants on the same theme, the very best either can do is to point toward the actual, that which is neither symbol nor image. Roger: Yes, whether we describe mental activity using terminology of "symbols" or "images", the activity is in terms of a reference to an object. Never the object itself. Bruce: Yes, that's the heart of it! Roger: References are always limited information and never express the totality or essence of an object. Bruce: Yes -- in programming terms the pointer is not the data to which it points, the best it can do is to indicate where the data is. Roger: Everything we perceive through the senses is also limited. If you're a technophile you could say the "bandwidth" of the senses is limited. Bruce: Yes, understood -- in scientific terms vision is a narrow-bandwidth electromagnetic wave sensing system, hearing is a narrow-bandwidth vibration sensing system, etc. Even in "mundane" physical reality, there is a great deal that goes undetected by the unaided senses. Roger: Sensory input is always only a partial picture of an event. Our senses are but a limited interface to the world around us. Dogs have a better sense of smell, hawks see better than us, some animals have other senses for example sharks/platypus sense electrical fields, I think geese navigate through an internal magnetic compass. I can see myself consulting a Canadian Goose the next time I'm lost on the trail. Bruce: Well, such a consultation would certainly underline the utility of symbolism (language) -- without a common symbol set, the goose's superior directional sense is inaccessible other than by demonstration! Roger: The usual perceptual function of a human seems to take sensory input and compare it to prior limited memory before presenting the information for use. Thus the rope seen on a dark night is perceived as a snake. New input is typically being filtered & interpreted through prior memory rather than experienced first hand. Bruce: Yes, this is the common compare-and-label sequence. In this case the resulting visualization is a positive survival factor, in the sense of "better safe than sorry." So much of what occludes and distorts human perception originates in survival considerations! This also connects with the Mosaic prohibition of idolatry, the idol being a (sometimes literally) concrete symbol-image hybrid -- the idol is an image of a "god" which in turn symbolizes some aspect(s) the divine. Roger: It's so funny: there are all these prohibitions about idolatry in Christianity, but nearly all Christians fail to see that they've made Christ & God idols! Bruce: Exactly -- and the words of the prohibition include "graven *image*!" I would add that thought is a far more adept image maker than any sculptor! Thoughts - 2 Roger: The contents of thought, the images & concepts are only a fragmentary representation of reality. The raw information coming from the senses is limited, content is lost or misrepresented as in the rope/snake analogy, and the during storage/retrieval in the brain the information content is reduced... or in some cases eliminated. Bruce: Yes, the reception, recording, and retrieval faculties all are unavoidably flawed, and the longer memorized data is stored the more degraded it becomes. What started as mere data becomes ever less clear data. Roger: There seems to be another factor. Information itself is only a static, dead, lifeless thing. Bruce: To again resort to a computer metaphor, it's ones and zeros, ons and offs. Roger: What is the characteristic of the mind that claims to be "I"? The thing that acts on this information. It seems to be a seeking mechanism. Desire. It takes this limited information, then acts on it in an individual way with the apparent goal of maintaining the integrity of the individual. Bruce: Yes, using to the data to advance, acquire, gratify. Survival is the rightful function of the thought pattern called "ego," but survival has a very elastic definition and cannot be made permanent. The ego, already identified with its apparent host organism, will equate its own gratification with the survival/welfare of that organism. Roger: So it takes this information and tries to maximize the perceived progress or pleasure of the individual. Bruce: Exactly, the healthy survival impetus has exceeded its borders to become something quite different, something with an open-ended agenda far beyond survival and simple well-being. Roger: Suffering/pleasure are the feedback mechanism directing the individual to seek endlessly in an arena that can never be ultimately satisfying. Bruce: Yes, it's quite simple and entirely open-ended... Roger: Of course the most useful insight is that the impartial Observer is distinct from the process of desire & thought. Bruce: Yes, consciousness is what it is doing but is actually independent of thought and memory, so this activity can be observed for what it is. Roger: I believe that my essence is neither the information nor that which acts on the information, desire. Bruce: Neither memory nor ego, both of them creatures of thought. No belief is required, the very existence of observant consciousness confirms it. Roger: I experience this, however, there is the ever present likelihood that True Awareness will be lost or become identified with desire in any or most moments. Bruce: It can actually never be lost, it abides, it can only be occluded by (identity with) thought. Roger: I know the exercise neti-neti that leads back to awareness... although I must reassert it constantly. Bruce: Yes, noting the nature of the occlusion allows it to fall away. It can become essentially effortless and instantaneous, the falling away of one occlusion can be the falling away of all simultaneously. There are no temporal or spatial limitations, one can drop all the baggage at once as easily (or perhaps more easily) that letting it go one valise at a time, a freight train of bullshit can be disassembled one boxcar at a time (given enough lifetimes) or the front most boxcar can be uncoupled from the locomotive and the whole assemblage left behind in an augenblick. Roger:There is a strong increasing growth away from this false identification. However, what does Arjuna say? "The mind is as difficult to control as the wind", and Krishna replies "but with practice and non-attachment it is held". Bruce: Such identification is merely passing thoughts, transient neural energy, it has no actuality we do not grant to it. This wording is very telling: "it is held" -- not "you can hold it" or "you can control it." In fact, "it is held" in the spontaneous absence of the would-be controller, which is "the mind!" A Zen aphorism says "Realization is an accident, all practice can do is make us accident prone." Finally, it is a matter of what Christians call "grace." Roger: Reflection on these topics seems to drive more nails into the coffin of illusion. Bruce: My very great joy to "hear" of this. The Masters Bruce: I would say J. Krishnamurti was more an advocate of a pure "neti" approach, not so much intellectual as observational. He pointed out the limitations of intellect on an ongoing basis -- not to discourage its use so much as to encourage appropriate use and to notice how and when it fails. Roger: Yes, I agree. The appropriate use of the intellect is "not this, not this". The appropriate use of the intellect ( or any of the tools used by other paths ) lies in transcending the tool being used. If a person has the strength of intellect then "Neti" will lead to a silent observant awareness beyond thought, beyond intellection. And reality dawns in this silence. Bruce: A fine contribution, Roger. Unfortunately, you are very likely going to catch flack for excluding some yogas -- and surely many teacher/pointers combine aspects of two or more of the categories you present -- Sri Ramana certainly had a great deal in common with Krishnamurti, yet he was in some ways a traditional Indian guru who inspired intense bhakti, which Krishnamurti actively discouraged. Likewise some yogas seem to be "hybrids" -- for example, Surat Shabd Yoga or a modern innovation built on a Vedic principles like TM. Roger: I feel confident about my dear friend Edward Tarabilda's categorizations. www.newu.org However, I do not wish to push these on anyone. What I will defend passionately is the need to recognize diversity, and recognize that strife is just the ego looking for security. Bruce: No "push" observed or inferred. My respects to your late teacher's work. Diversity within the sphere of honest spiritual enquiry and endeavor need not bring strife. As long as you understand the nature of such passionate defense as love's behest, I will joyously stand with you. Roger: I think everyone must come to their own understanding about the diversity in the spiritual quest, I will be a voice arguing that we can't deny that diversity exists. Bruce: As such, your are clearly surrendered in what is. Namaste'! Roger: Since life manifests undeniablely through diversity, any resistance to diversity this is just our lower ego, our dark side, and when identified with resistance we are off our path whether our path be the intellect, the heart, the will, etc... Bruce: Beautifully stated, let us rejoice in the common culmination of all "paths." On Symbols and Archetypes Roger: The physical sciences show us the built-in organizational structure of the physical world. I think Spiritual Science also has a structure. But no one should take my (Edward's) word about it, our structure should not become just another imposition. Bruce: I think you left a "not" out of the sentence -- what you're saying is that the categories are (roughly) descriptive rather than prescriptive, and I agree with you and Edward. Roger: I think the archetypes can serve as seeds to insight. However, category most properly used is just another "pointing". Bruce: Perhaps we can use the archetypes as markers along some kind of continuum rather than as jars on a shelf. The Vedas seem to place a great deal of stock in such things, as Judy Stein did in our correspondence -- perhaps her emphasis originates with Maharishi. Roger: Category can actually be used to great advantage in the process of "neti-neti". Us "neti-neti" types use category already: I am not 'expansion or contraction', I am not 'psychological becoming', I am not the need for 'security or power or their inverse' ... Category complements neti-neti. Bruce: It helps us make communicative sense of neti, but the original pronoun "this" is really all that's needed if we're negating in the moment. If something resembling (in the same category as) something we've previously negated comes up, negate again! Otherwise we're time-bound, in the realm of thought, the Great Comparator[tm]! We have to perceive directly what something isn't, what it is we already know: if it's not the non-dual totality it's an aspect of maya. Roger: This is a slightly different sort of viewpoint from "K". K's msg was to strip away ALL category, but I think this applies mainly to stripping away the ego's projection through category. The ego holding onto category is one thing. But category may actually exist in nature, so we can't negate category when it's a part of the natural structure of life. Bruce: No, category is always a convenience designed by thought -- it helps us make communicative and intellectual sense out of maya, but what is abides with or without our tendency to label it. Roger: It's an interesting question "do the archetypes convey the fundamental structure of reality?" Or are they just an arbitrary thing. Edward has a recent book "The Global Oracle" where he draws parallels between the I-Ching, Tarot etc, and the astrological archetypes. There are remarkable similarities. Bruce: I'd say that archetypes help us in much the same way as the dots in a connect-the-dots drawing do -- they are a very coarse approximation of and pointing to the actual continuous and unitary nature of reality. As such they may well "convey," but they certainly don't depict. Love and fear (from post to - alt.meditation.shabda) Roger: A love that promotes fear is not really love. Promotion of fear is petty self interest, not love. Genuine Love warmly & openly embraces everything, including discrimination. Fearful of loss, petty self interest recoils from discrimination and threatens more fear. Genuine Love, however, is ever full & expansive, and never experiences or promotes the contraction of fear. Bruce: Nicely put, I especially like your use of the word "contraction," because fear is the chronic human dis-ease, a terrible contagion. When the Torah was translated from the original Hebrew into Greek and other western languages, the phrases "fear God" and "God fearing." became part of religious discourse. My childhood studies of Hebrew revealed that the word translated in the KJV as "fear" is actually closer to "awe." There is an entire universe of difference between what these two words point toward -- "awe" is an aspect of love, "fear" is that which precludes love. |