reaction to Mooji´s "invitation"
I just listened to Mooji and I loved the experience for the umpteenth time, but I cannot help but wonder afterwards.
How can it be, that a group of people will say the same thing. You might believe it´s just peer pressure, but watching this, it seems more. My own personal answers aren´t any different, when I´m into it. The amount that I agree with the group is a measure for how deep my meditation is. But the doubts come back. When you ask Mooji, he just says, keep practicing. But that´s probably because he didn´t start out as a sceptic. He started out as a devout Christian, and I believe he´s still steering towards this, which is where my resistance stems from the most. In the beginning it was fear of disappearing, but I quickly stepped over that. But now a subtler fear is rearing. A fear of a way of thinking, causing me to dismiss the experience.. But I don´t want to be guided by fear. I want to understand.
´Could this isness be captured in some way?´ And everybody answers ¨No¨. Automatically it seems. This is amazing.. That is a very profound and intricate question. How could we even presume to know the answer with our limited apparatus?
But when you answer that question in deep meditation, there is no doubt. It seems, when we focus on our inner most functioning, this functioning cannot be captured, just like it seems our inner most functioning MUST be infinite, because the attention can travel here and there in this vast empty inner space, but everywhere is allready formed, allready has space to look at. It MUST seem formed, ready for our attention, because our awarenss necessarily encompasses all we can perceive (everything we can become aware of). There cannot be any real surprises, or they just wouldn´t register. Like we will never be aware of gamma rays. We just cannot perceive them. Doesn´t mean they aren´t there, we can perceive instruments that can measure them and we can follow the logic that points to their existence and we can give them a place in the mental picture we have of the universe.. But we cannot perceive them Mooji uses very imprecise words, which seem to work for the majority of people in the video, but if you are like me, you will return to it again and again and think about, what this experience actually means and the danger is, it will nag you so much, you will dismiss it. Like I did a couple of times. Because of
But if you would ask in meditiation of yourself: Does consciousness live for ever¨, the answer would ALSO be ¨NO¨. Because living forever is a concept and is meaningless in a no-concept state.
The problem I have with it is this:
You cannot prove a concept by denying it´s opposit. This is a formal fallacy, (Denying the antecedent, sometimes also called inverse error or fallacy of the inverse) But this is what he implies and why it has so much impact.
It enables people to believe they are infinite. (I am not saying they aren´t, just that this isn´t a good argument)
But should we dismiss it on this basis?
The method does lead to feeling great, I must admit, but so does hypnosis or drugs. For me the fact that it feels good is not enough reason to accept it as a truth. And my mind can ultimately not cope with it, not reach it and that does not fly. It seems easier to dismiss it. But if we can experience it, we should able to think about it.
Some reasonable and logic meaning must be given to it, before I can accept it as a truth. I cannot accept it just because it´s an experience, because that would be just magical thinking. That way you have to accept magic tricks as a truth.. I do not want to go there.
But thinking about this is quite hard, because having the experience means that thinking is temporarily not an option. The moment you follow a thought, you loose the experience. It´s hard, but not impossible. There is a lot of research and scientific thinking out there lately about consciousness.
PCI can now be measured, which is considered a proof of IIT, Integrated Information Theory, which is quite a good model of what consciousness is as a phenomenon. This theory tells us something about what awareness and consciousness could be, basically the feeling (or self-registration) that somewhere information is being processed. (Interconnectedness of information) Kind of like the sense called prioperception that tells you where your arms are and if your muscles are tensed, even when you don´t look at your arms and aren´t touching anything. The information about information activity. Which as a computer-nerd, I´d say is meta-computation. The sense that the model that we have of the universe, which includes ourselves and our place in it, is there AND being adapted ever so slightly, millions of times a second by autonomous processes, even if at that time we choose not to engage with that model consciously. This is what we perceive and all we can perceive, but not the perceived. Therefore it must be, what awareness most fundamentally is. Some people are disappointed, that there isn´t a magical bit to it, like a soul or a univerasl consciousness. But in a way there is. It´s just a soul described as a scientific phenomenon. Like a wave on water. We can describe the water, it´s molecules, atoms or even smaller parts, model it´s macroscopic behaviour with fluid dynamics, but if we study waves, which aren´t an object,
we measure the wave itself. And we use different strategies, we talk about the wave-length, the amplitude, the speed at which the wavefront travels, dampening etc. Describing and measuring a wave like that doesn´t take away from the wave.
We do this all through science. Multi dimensional math describes quantum behaviour, which leads to the atom-model, which leads to molecules. This is called chemistry. The molecules form proteins, cells, dna and hormones and it´s all called biology. These lead to thinking, which is called neurology, (or being an engineer of neurology, trying to fix problems, is psychiatry or psychology). The thinking leads to a society, which is studies by anthropolgists, historians, sociologists . Societies lead to more emergent behaviour, like economy, which is studies by .... well you get it. So don´t be dissapointed, this is a very profound discovery. Even though PCI can be measured and can demonstrably indicate consciousness and distinguish between dreaming and unconsciousness or a locked-in patient, which is very usefull, Φ or awareness cannot yet be measured, but we are getting closer.. It must be the sum of all the parts of conciousness, that have an emergent behaviour. Being aware of it´s own activity. In Mooji´s words, it wouldn be the second bird, which whatches the activity, but it is more like the tree branch, which feels the weight of the second bird. It is NOT the birds, not of the birds. (And then he says: it´s where the birds come from. That is a jump to a conclusion. You must want that to be true, before it can be true. There is no proof.)
This is one argument, but there is another, less abstract one, which Mooji adresses.
Most spirituality is to create a shift from one bird to the other..
We shouldn´t dismiss THAT, because it has direct merits.
Thinking about myself at this level, puts me on a vastly different scale mentally, it also completely destroys ego, when done right. The realisation that the thing that you call you is nothing but emergent behaviour, really invites you to sit back and look at yourself with an attitude of detachement, thinking: ¨I wonder what this ego is going to do next?¨ The only appropriate reaction seems to be a gentle curiosity about what is happening right now, without worrying about what´s next or what it all means. This mental shift means, you can do this, whilst being you. Just letting being you happen, without judgement. Awareness functions at the most fundamentally small and most fundamentally large scales at the same time. Like a wave must involve the molecules of water, but is not made up of these molecules, but of the relation in behaviour of those molecules..It integrates those scales, those octaves of information.
Focussing on this can make us aware of vast processes like the eternal decay of order in the universe (entropy increasing) and the eternal struggle of all life to exploit and consolidate whatever order exists to create patterns, so complex, they include models (plural) of itself in ourselves, as well as the fact that I need to go to the bathroom, or feel a little angry or sad, which is not important, it´s just there. And I don´t need to act on it automatically. I can watch the tendency to act from the place of vastness and decide. This is what I think awareness is, an emergent pattern of life, very complex patterns at every scale, changing constantly to describe themselves. This means awareness is not limited to humans.
If this is true, computers will be able to become aware in the future.
.
The fact remains, that thinking about the self at this scale is peaceful for me as long as I can believe it.
And it is really hard for me to believe something without evidence, which is why most meditation practices don´t work for me.
But it´s self evident: there cannot be judgement or comparison without thinking, there cannot be a problem, without thinking. So temporarily all problems are solved, which is a welcome break and can even function as a reminder, that all problems are only perceived problems. This is worth something and the fact that most people fear going there, because they fear there will be nothing left, just goes to show how wrong we have been thinking about consciousness and awareness all the time and how badly we focus on thinking ALL THE TIME in our society.
It is very comforting to understand, that even when you do not think, even when you do not judge, the awareness keeps going, seems to get stronger even, because the noise dies away.
And this is a way more complex process than any mere thinking you could do.
And some people, like me, have gone so far in only trusting thinking, they need some science to really back up this fact and trust in it.
I do not want to need to believe in some magical soul, made by some magical power.
It´d rather believe in emergent behaviour from octaves of information.
That´s natural, that´s within my experience and no magical thinking required.
All this means, is that I´m an atheist. Which is basically a standpoint of fear.
I´ve seen magical thinking being used as justification for terrible behaviour too much in my personal and cultural history, to allow myself to go that way.
If you can accept a concept of ultimate one-ness or a God or some kind of will or meaning to the universe, without proof.
You are walking the Dharma path, like Mooji calls it.. More power to you and I´m more than a bit jealous, although I understand it has it´s own challenges.
But I, personally, am way to wary of the traps of magical thinking, I get scared when people abandon logic, it feels threatening, so much, that I usually fall into the trap of deterministic thinking, which is basically thinking that science must be able to explain everything sooner or later.. Which is a believe. There is a track-record, but a track record is not the same as evidence. If anything it is evidence that the scientific method will get things wrong all the time, but will correct itself over time. And culture will be slow to follow, because it thinks magically..
This keeps distracting me.. But even I can get there, given enough time and quiet cogitation. I must believe this.
So please don´t hate,dislike or distrust people for not being able to grasp, what you can grasp without proof. I think we are ultimately all talking about the same thing, want the same thing:
caring about mental and emotional hygiene, bathing and cleansing ourselves by focussing on pure consciousness, giving ourself a way to be which isn´t egoic or personal, but as a part of something greater than the oh so perishable I..
And joining these two types of thinking is what wholism should be all about. It´s not the whole if you dismiss people who disagree. That´s wrong from whatever side you are coming. So if this is too wordy for you, I get it and thank you for taking the time to read this far.
How can it be, that a group of people will say the same thing. You might believe it´s just peer pressure, but watching this, it seems more. My own personal answers aren´t any different, when I´m into it. The amount that I agree with the group is a measure for how deep my meditation is. But the doubts come back. When you ask Mooji, he just says, keep practicing. But that´s probably because he didn´t start out as a sceptic. He started out as a devout Christian, and I believe he´s still steering towards this, which is where my resistance stems from the most. In the beginning it was fear of disappearing, but I quickly stepped over that. But now a subtler fear is rearing. A fear of a way of thinking, causing me to dismiss the experience.. But I don´t want to be guided by fear. I want to understand.
´Could this isness be captured in some way?´ And everybody answers ¨No¨. Automatically it seems. This is amazing.. That is a very profound and intricate question. How could we even presume to know the answer with our limited apparatus?
But when you answer that question in deep meditation, there is no doubt. It seems, when we focus on our inner most functioning, this functioning cannot be captured, just like it seems our inner most functioning MUST be infinite, because the attention can travel here and there in this vast empty inner space, but everywhere is allready formed, allready has space to look at. It MUST seem formed, ready for our attention, because our awarenss necessarily encompasses all we can perceive (everything we can become aware of). There cannot be any real surprises, or they just wouldn´t register. Like we will never be aware of gamma rays. We just cannot perceive them. Doesn´t mean they aren´t there, we can perceive instruments that can measure them and we can follow the logic that points to their existence and we can give them a place in the mental picture we have of the universe.. But we cannot perceive them Mooji uses very imprecise words, which seem to work for the majority of people in the video, but if you are like me, you will return to it again and again and think about, what this experience actually means and the danger is, it will nag you so much, you will dismiss it. Like I did a couple of times. Because of
- the apparent simpleness of the communication, the lack of nuance
- the apparant lack of self-critique. There are jumps that are just not justified.
- the trust in only perception and the constant emphasis on NOT using the mind, seeing the mind as an enemy.
- rumours about what goes on in satsangs. It all seems to good to be true, so part of me wants to believe that there is awfull things going on. But ultimately it doesn´t matter. The experience is real, I just disagree about what it means.
But if you would ask in meditiation of yourself: Does consciousness live for ever¨, the answer would ALSO be ¨NO¨. Because living forever is a concept and is meaningless in a no-concept state.
The problem I have with it is this:
You cannot prove a concept by denying it´s opposit. This is a formal fallacy, (Denying the antecedent, sometimes also called inverse error or fallacy of the inverse) But this is what he implies and why it has so much impact.
It enables people to believe they are infinite. (I am not saying they aren´t, just that this isn´t a good argument)
But should we dismiss it on this basis?
The method does lead to feeling great, I must admit, but so does hypnosis or drugs. For me the fact that it feels good is not enough reason to accept it as a truth. And my mind can ultimately not cope with it, not reach it and that does not fly. It seems easier to dismiss it. But if we can experience it, we should able to think about it.
Some reasonable and logic meaning must be given to it, before I can accept it as a truth. I cannot accept it just because it´s an experience, because that would be just magical thinking. That way you have to accept magic tricks as a truth.. I do not want to go there.
But thinking about this is quite hard, because having the experience means that thinking is temporarily not an option. The moment you follow a thought, you loose the experience. It´s hard, but not impossible. There is a lot of research and scientific thinking out there lately about consciousness.
PCI can now be measured, which is considered a proof of IIT, Integrated Information Theory, which is quite a good model of what consciousness is as a phenomenon. This theory tells us something about what awareness and consciousness could be, basically the feeling (or self-registration) that somewhere information is being processed. (Interconnectedness of information) Kind of like the sense called prioperception that tells you where your arms are and if your muscles are tensed, even when you don´t look at your arms and aren´t touching anything. The information about information activity. Which as a computer-nerd, I´d say is meta-computation. The sense that the model that we have of the universe, which includes ourselves and our place in it, is there AND being adapted ever so slightly, millions of times a second by autonomous processes, even if at that time we choose not to engage with that model consciously. This is what we perceive and all we can perceive, but not the perceived. Therefore it must be, what awareness most fundamentally is. Some people are disappointed, that there isn´t a magical bit to it, like a soul or a univerasl consciousness. But in a way there is. It´s just a soul described as a scientific phenomenon. Like a wave on water. We can describe the water, it´s molecules, atoms or even smaller parts, model it´s macroscopic behaviour with fluid dynamics, but if we study waves, which aren´t an object,
we measure the wave itself. And we use different strategies, we talk about the wave-length, the amplitude, the speed at which the wavefront travels, dampening etc. Describing and measuring a wave like that doesn´t take away from the wave.
We do this all through science. Multi dimensional math describes quantum behaviour, which leads to the atom-model, which leads to molecules. This is called chemistry. The molecules form proteins, cells, dna and hormones and it´s all called biology. These lead to thinking, which is called neurology, (or being an engineer of neurology, trying to fix problems, is psychiatry or psychology). The thinking leads to a society, which is studies by anthropolgists, historians, sociologists . Societies lead to more emergent behaviour, like economy, which is studies by .... well you get it. So don´t be dissapointed, this is a very profound discovery. Even though PCI can be measured and can demonstrably indicate consciousness and distinguish between dreaming and unconsciousness or a locked-in patient, which is very usefull, Φ or awareness cannot yet be measured, but we are getting closer.. It must be the sum of all the parts of conciousness, that have an emergent behaviour. Being aware of it´s own activity. In Mooji´s words, it wouldn be the second bird, which whatches the activity, but it is more like the tree branch, which feels the weight of the second bird. It is NOT the birds, not of the birds. (And then he says: it´s where the birds come from. That is a jump to a conclusion. You must want that to be true, before it can be true. There is no proof.)
This is one argument, but there is another, less abstract one, which Mooji adresses.
Most spirituality is to create a shift from one bird to the other..
We shouldn´t dismiss THAT, because it has direct merits.
Thinking about myself at this level, puts me on a vastly different scale mentally, it also completely destroys ego, when done right. The realisation that the thing that you call you is nothing but emergent behaviour, really invites you to sit back and look at yourself with an attitude of detachement, thinking: ¨I wonder what this ego is going to do next?¨ The only appropriate reaction seems to be a gentle curiosity about what is happening right now, without worrying about what´s next or what it all means. This mental shift means, you can do this, whilst being you. Just letting being you happen, without judgement. Awareness functions at the most fundamentally small and most fundamentally large scales at the same time. Like a wave must involve the molecules of water, but is not made up of these molecules, but of the relation in behaviour of those molecules..It integrates those scales, those octaves of information.
Focussing on this can make us aware of vast processes like the eternal decay of order in the universe (entropy increasing) and the eternal struggle of all life to exploit and consolidate whatever order exists to create patterns, so complex, they include models (plural) of itself in ourselves, as well as the fact that I need to go to the bathroom, or feel a little angry or sad, which is not important, it´s just there. And I don´t need to act on it automatically. I can watch the tendency to act from the place of vastness and decide. This is what I think awareness is, an emergent pattern of life, very complex patterns at every scale, changing constantly to describe themselves. This means awareness is not limited to humans.
If this is true, computers will be able to become aware in the future.
.
And it is really hard for me to believe something without evidence, which is why most meditation practices don´t work for me.
But it´s self evident: there cannot be judgement or comparison without thinking, there cannot be a problem, without thinking. So temporarily all problems are solved, which is a welcome break and can even function as a reminder, that all problems are only perceived problems. This is worth something and the fact that most people fear going there, because they fear there will be nothing left, just goes to show how wrong we have been thinking about consciousness and awareness all the time and how badly we focus on thinking ALL THE TIME in our society.
It is very comforting to understand, that even when you do not think, even when you do not judge, the awareness keeps going, seems to get stronger even, because the noise dies away.
And this is a way more complex process than any mere thinking you could do.
And some people, like me, have gone so far in only trusting thinking, they need some science to really back up this fact and trust in it.
I do not want to need to believe in some magical soul, made by some magical power.
It´d rather believe in emergent behaviour from octaves of information.
That´s natural, that´s within my experience and no magical thinking required.
All this means, is that I´m an atheist. Which is basically a standpoint of fear.
I´ve seen magical thinking being used as justification for terrible behaviour too much in my personal and cultural history, to allow myself to go that way.
If you can accept a concept of ultimate one-ness or a God or some kind of will or meaning to the universe, without proof.
You are walking the Dharma path, like Mooji calls it.. More power to you and I´m more than a bit jealous, although I understand it has it´s own challenges.
But I, personally, am way to wary of the traps of magical thinking, I get scared when people abandon logic, it feels threatening, so much, that I usually fall into the trap of deterministic thinking, which is basically thinking that science must be able to explain everything sooner or later.. Which is a believe. There is a track-record, but a track record is not the same as evidence. If anything it is evidence that the scientific method will get things wrong all the time, but will correct itself over time. And culture will be slow to follow, because it thinks magically..
This keeps distracting me.. But even I can get there, given enough time and quiet cogitation. I must believe this.
So please don´t hate,dislike or distrust people for not being able to grasp, what you can grasp without proof. I think we are ultimately all talking about the same thing, want the same thing:
caring about mental and emotional hygiene, bathing and cleansing ourselves by focussing on pure consciousness, giving ourself a way to be which isn´t egoic or personal, but as a part of something greater than the oh so perishable I..
And joining these two types of thinking is what wholism should be all about. It´s not the whole if you dismiss people who disagree. That´s wrong from whatever side you are coming. So if this is too wordy for you, I get it and thank you for taking the time to read this far.
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