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Posted by Rufus T. Firefly
on 11/6/2009, 10:07 pm, in reply to "Re: The Door to Apophatic Mysticism"
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: --Previous Message--
: The Door to Apophatic Mysticism
:
: Greetings rat,
:
: What seemed to be a timely coincidence was
: the Explorer series “Inside LSD” that aired
: 11-3-09.
: One of the things it pointed to was how our
: brains react when under the influence of
: psychedelic drugs that seem to parallel the
: apophatic mystic mind.
:
: So, here is my two bit analysis on the
: connectedness of, brain that’s tripping on
: psychedelic drugs and brain that’s tripping
: on apophatic mysticism.
:
: In order for the brain to perceive and then
: interpolate an experience with apophatic
: mystic reality some fundamental changes must
: occur. A sense of, “oceanic boundlessness”
: is a genuine term of art in
: neuropharmacology. One Nature article
: described it as measuring “derealization and
: depersonalization associated with positive
: mood ranging from heightened feelings to
: exaltation and alterations in the sense of
: time.”
: This oceanic boundlessness seems to come
: from the feeling of, loss of self, reduced
: fear and anxiety while experiencing life
: without our usual filters. With this new
: sense of reality zile seems possible. But
: does it need to come from a philosophical
: approach, or from a physical change in brain
: function?
:
: So the question is, rat, how do you open the
: door to Apophatic Mysticism?
:
: in peace,
: gar
:
: Hi gar
:
: I open it by attempting to learn the
: how-to of getting out of the way of its
: spontaneous opening/unfolding. I do this by
: what I think is changing the dynamics of the
: brain’s functioning, and the psychology of
: reconceptualizing the world around me.
: Needless to say, this is rather complex to
: explain. Is there one aspect you would like
: me to try to describe?
:
: Here is something from my book that might be
: relevant:
:
: Is spirituality simply a stunning example
: of the placebo effect?
:
: In recent years there is increased medical
: research focused on the so-called placebo
: effect. There have been numerous examples
: of subjects in experiments whose intense
: pain has been relieved by sugar pills.
: Others have had remarkable improvement after
: being given a placebo for disabling
: depression.
:
: And perhaps nature also has a built-in
: placebo dynamic by which a person can
: relieve most or all of his deepest anxieties
: and fears about his existence, by being told
: that just by affirming that he possesses the
: ability to overcome these worries, (with or
: without religious belief), the ability will
: become actual. Perhaps the placebo effect
: underlies the resulting mystical ecstasy;
: and the physical experience of ecstasy might
: be due to a release of dopamine in the
: brain.
:
: The human psyche has the apparent ability
: to decide that it does not have to worry
: about any material event; this is called
: “deliverance.” If the decision is made with
: the right finesse, it does indeed result in
: an undauntable sense of deliverance,
: accompanied by a benign attitude toward all
: other beings.
:
: As you may have guessed, the question of
: whether or not spiritual ecstasy is merely a
: placebo is of no consequence to the
: pragmatic apophatic mystic. She does not
: care why she has fallen in love with
: everything.
:
Friends,
There are many doors that lead to heaven on earth. even rats have doors. Many doors, one house. I am a backdoor man. To each his own. Front door, back door, it is the same house. Existence is both union and combine. The Tao has two faces. Fundamentally, existential discontent comes from knowing deep down in one's bones that things are not the way one has been conditioned to think they are. There's something rotten in Denmark. All is not well with the world system. Top down. The garden needs to be weeded from time to time.
But there is also something to be said for a hot bowl of rat's Dukkha Soup on a cold winter's day. In limited amounts it has a homeopathic like curative power. A small dose of Dukkha can cure the ills of Dukkha. Mind or no mind. A small bowl of Dukkha Soup is good for a variety of existential ills. And it goes good with Quakers. I mean quackers. Er, crackers.
For me contentment comes in knowing a distinction between subjective and objective reality. Though the two ends of the string of the continuum of existence are not separate, they are distinct. Of course all such categories of mind are arbitrary but the cameras are off and no one is looking. Conditioned thinking creates a symbolic reality. A reality that if taken too seriously becomes a false reality. Conceptualization is not the real thing, is not the thing it represents. A map of Idaho is real, but it is not Idaho. Thinking things are the way one's cultural conditioning conceives them to be is a kind of mass mesmerization. Group think. The thinking that one pole of a polarity is separate from its other pole dualistic. The Great Fragmentation. The Matrix in spades. The Simulacrum of simulacrums.
For those that live unexamined lives the process of human consciousness is no longer hardware driven but software driven. Relative. Relative is a relative term. A concept, as is absolute. Software. Pure awareness has no conceptual attachments to this or that but rests in the underlying unity of all seeming opposites. The games of the monkey mind are no longer taken very seriously. Others' games, or ones' own. A light touch is taken to such things. Whether three nuts in the morning or three in the afternoon, seven nuts in all. The keeper is not free from causality. She is free to step in front of causality for she sees things as they are. The monkey mind is lost in the desert of the hyperreal. Reality TV. A thousand miles from the real. The monkey's contentment is relative.
All is not subjective. No man is an island of sovereign contentment. Though I can agree that it might seem so. rat and I could just be arguing over words here. In any case, the effect of seeing the objective, the real behind the subjective symbols of the real, does leave one with a kind of contentment that no subjective discontent can long stand against. The subjective is not totally denied, it is simply put in its place. There is an order to existence. A grain to reality. Mountains are both subjective and objective, and more. Once the symbolic is no longer central to one's view of existence the objective seemingly suddenly appears. But of course it has been there all along. One wakes up to existence not as one thinks it is, but as it is of itself so. Suchness. I AM THAT I AM. The Tao. Mountains are mountains again. Only more so for now they stand in both a subjective and an objective relationship with the seer. Totality though ineffable, is a unitive one. The twin foundational fundamentals of the Perennial Philosophy. Although we cannot say what It is, we can say what It is like.
Contentment is a practical matter. I just wish rat would drop any references to pragmatism. Although the pragmatic may seem practical at times in my opinion this violates the spirit of wu-wei. Our means are our ends. The sage is not selfish, she is selfless. The journey is the goal. Spontaneity not calculation is a master key to all of the doors. In my opinion. I could be wrong. Humility is another master key. I have mine right... here somewhere... crap, I may have lost it. I hate it when that happens. rat could simply be trying to reach people where they are. If that is the case, open my mouth and drown me in Octoberfest beer.
As always though most of what rat has to say about life in general and mystical insight in particular resonates deep within my bones. Within my hearty mind. If he gets his book published I will buy me a copy and place it in a place of honor on my bookshelf. And yes of course I will read it. I have learned much from rat. I can only hope he has learned something from me other than patience. Though the existential is both a collective and an individual affair the journey is initially taken alone. No one can see the light for us. But we can point at the moon for each other. And rat is a very good pointer. A very sagely pointer.
"Let no man that can belong to himself be of another." Paracelsus.
To each his or her own door. Same house of seven nuts... acorns.
Rufus T. Firefly
56
"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
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