Terry,
When do you stop thinking?
purps
Spiritual Self-Assessment
by purplesofa 34 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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quietlyleaving
JamesThomas
I'm not sure what the hell a "spirit" is, and I don't much care. So, we may be talking apples and oranges here, and this probably can't help but confuse further comment, but I'll go ahead anyway. Fool that I am.
thanks for the laugh
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Terry
Terry,
When do you stop thinking?
purps
Not sure what you are asking here.
When does consciousness stop specifically focusing on a particular thought for the purpose of analytically processing it? When I get tired and go to sleep! When I dream I'm not "thinking" per se. My mind is dumping waste and I reboot.
Telelogically, the answer to your question would be when I'm forced to permanently lose consciousness.
But, I'm not sure I answered your question the way it was framed.
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Terry
So the point is to not be cajoled into any "identification of self". Lets work with what we genuinely have. Lets investigate sincerely, thoroughly and severely into the one and only reality we have: conscious-awareness. How deep does it go? What am "I" at the core? Does consciousness exist only as far as the body?
I can't say,
Knowledge is only possible when we can say something.
Are you repudiating knowledge?
By calling everything into question which we say we "know" it would call data into question which has proved very useful, practical and life-saving (i.e. medicine, technology, math, etc.)
If there is data and there are practical uses of knowledge of data why would we doubt we can know other things?
Or, is "knowing" even important to you? Don't know; just asking!
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JamesThomas
Knowledge is only possible when we can say something.
Intellectual "knowledge" perhaps. But this is only superficial. The sounds of a few vowels and consonants, and the thoughts which they echo, can in no way capture life; only present a facsimile. One can sit quietly without thought and by placing acute and clear awareness on the body and sensations, come away with a far richer knowledge -- even if it is a wordless and indescribable knowing -- of what it is to live, than compared to every word ever written and spoken about life.
Words and thoughts are only empty verbal or pictorial interpretation, one or more steps removed from the reality these mono-dimensional representations feebly attempt to convey. On the other hand, silent, non-labeling, non-defining, non-interpreting, and open conscious-awareness has a wondrous way of meeting directly with life and reality. It's as if words and thoughts are structures of separating boxes and walls; whereas silent attention is free and boundless. Certainly the conscious-awareness which scans a thorough and lengthy autobiography, is not any of the words and thoughts. The awareness is real, the words are not.
Raw, immediate actuality is not within words and thoughts; it is closer; it is in the still awareness which all existence moves and is experienced within. It can be realised that the reality and the silent conscious meeting with that reality, are same meeting same. They are one. This has to be seen first-hand. The meeting has to be made. Believing it, is only words and thoughts, and so not at all the reality to which we are referring.
In other words: we are not what we think. We are deeper, far richer and more real than words, thoughts and beliefs about "self" can ever convey.
Are you repudiating knowledge?
No, not at all. If I seem to be implying that, then it is likely my weakness of language. Intellectual knowledge is a wonderful, useful and excitingly evolving tool. I am only saying that there is a Reality that is closer than all mentalizing: The conscious-awareness which all intellectualizing happens within and which gives all knowledge it's existence and validity. Most people champion intellectual knowledge. It doesn't need me, and I choose to point elsewhere. But this does not mean I disrespect or discount intelligence and learnable knowledge. In fact, I often wish I had some. The knowledge I am pointing to can not be learned. It's what we truly are.
If there is data and there are practical uses of knowledge of data why would we doubt we can know other things?
I don't doubt. In fact it was while looking at thoughts and knowledge that the curiosity arouse to want to know what was seeing the thoughts. Can it be realized what we really are? The way to know is through acute observation, very much like how a scientist examines new species and things, that they may show and teach him or her.
Or, is "knowing" even important to you? Don't know; just asking!
Actually, it's all about knowing. What is true? What/who, am I, really? These are the questions that have lighted the way. Not the words so much, as the deep yearning ache to want to genuinely know. However, the realization of the true depths of self can not be known as things and objects are known. It's just too immediate, vast, raw and real. It is not known so much as lived. It's not something we can hold or fit in the mind, it's what we really are. It's what existence is.
j