Experience (was "rings" true is not enough)

[Guest guest]

Hi Shawn,

 

First off, sorry that my post to you caused us to "move apart" a bit.

 

What happened?

 

Well, you wrote,

>>> ALL experience is wonderful AND terrible....and FUTILE!

 

Notice "ALL", "AND", "and"

I found that a rather blanket statement and as my own qualifications of

experience never included words like "terrible" and "futile" and as the

portent of your post contained many such though somewhat milder

'pejoratives', (boring, inane, empty, struggling, slippery mind) I felt

compelled to answer the way I did. All with the best intent...

 

I should tell you, but you may have found that out already, that I have a

rather wim-sical way of writing. I may the epitome of the in-corrigible old

fashioned teacher writer. Very often I am long in the tooth. In Dutch we

call someone like me a "prik". You are welcome to it, I mean eh .... to the

word, not ... Well whatever :-))))

 

So bear with me... and if that is hard, just fast forward...

 

So what about "experience", I promised Mazie two weeks ago that I would have

a go at it... So blame Mazie... she will love you all the more...

 

The etymological meaning of the word "experience" is interesting, it has to

do with "trial", Latin "experientia", the criminal trial process used to

find out "all that took place" in a situation that needs clarification.

Experience is about evidence gathering. It is supposed to be a neutral and

objective process, quantitative, not qualitative. The Sanskrit root PAR,

Latin "peri" means "around" or "about". (Let's not get into

"admissibility

of evidence", as over time, since the first application of trial processes,

admissibility rules have changed very much.) An old English word for a trial

process was THING, a council of wise men, DING in German or GEDING in Dutch.

All these words have to do with reality from the Latin "res", thing (res

justitia, res publica, etc.)

 

So... experience entails, all that is around, about and within us.

Experience entails whatever it is, that gets sensed by us one way or

another.

Experience entails whatever is sensorially found to be processed one way or

another.

All this in the widest sense of the word "sense". As John just wrote in his

post, 169 physical and an additional number of more subtle senses.

 

Like I said, experience is quantitative.

Basically (and I admit, this is a strange way of putting it) it is the

registration of frequencies in the electro-magnetic spectrum by specialized

organs of sense perception.

HOW we react to the registration of experience is qualitative and has to do

with acceptance.

Whereas experience is about what is, judgement is how we react to it.

(Remember, all this had originally to do with trials. You will notice that I

very often use words like "sentence" and "charge" in that sense as well.)

 

In human nature, which is not the same as unadulterated nature, we have

found a way to accept, reject or EVEN deny experiences. A very peculiar

human ability.

 

Human nature? The nature of the human is that we act all too often

"de-natured". Instead of action and reaction in the sense of follow through

action, (as we find in physics) we found ways to counter-act action.

Counter-action is not the same as reaction. You will never see a billiard

ball turn around and give the kicker hell or kick it back. Instead of humans

"effect"ively following through on "causes", we have found ways to counter

causes. Such is not necessarily a sign of progress in evolution. This

"countering" ability originally invented to gain more freedom, all too often

has led the human to a semblance of freedom.

Enslaved we have become, to the possibility of extended freedom that somehow

turned into vice.

 

The Buddha's remarks about "cause and effect" had nothing to do with "cause

and effect as found in nature" but rather with "cause and counter-effect in

human nature"; "action resistance" or "action counter action" rather than

"action reaction".

Quite a distinction that! Our misunderstanding of his words has, through the

ages, led many of us to a mis-appreciation of nature. It made us lose sight

of the divine part of nature.

 

Nature is by nature divine, god made, if I may use some old language.

Human nature will be again as we'll realize ourselves.

Self - Realization, reclaiming our original reality, has to do with the

rediscovery and recovery of our original innate divinity. Just as we can

re-cognize nature as divine, we can re-cognize our human nature as divine

again. (This is Jesus stuff of course, Christ stuff, God-Man stuff)

 

Shall we embrace or resist the experience divine...?

Shall we surrender to or deny the experience divine...?

 

Embrace and surrender to SELF, being the human divine again!

 

>> ALL experience is wonderful AND terrible....and FUTILE!

 

Negative adjectives are all in the realm of resistance, denial,

counteraction, non acceptance.

It is that what struck me in what you wrote, Shawn, especially the words

futile and inane.

 

Those negative adjectives do not come from us personally, they have been

learned, pushed onto us it. (I have previously written about where, when and

how it happened.) The negative adjectives are what we were 'made to make' of

our experiences or what to do with them. Qualitative adjectives show our

level of acceptance of experiences, experiences that we have anyways. Humans

cannot not experience...

If negative adjectives somehow tell us that certain experiences are not nice

or good or acceptable to us or our peers, the memories of those experiences

get moved into the background, we then ourselves move into a state of denial

or ignorance. We get sleep disturbed or our sleep gets disturbed. Dreams are

often indicative of such denials and inabilities to accept experiences. New

experiences which take place anyways, will remain hidden behind veils of

denial and negation, and hide in sleep and temporary unconsciousness. Many

of those experiences can become numinous, and can easily be qualified as

illusive...

 

So I wrote:

>> My god, who convinced you of that?

>> There is nothing wrong with experience!

>> Who judged your experience?

>> What was made of your experience?"

>> How was it evaluated for you?

 

You answered:

> Is it not horrible when a child starves to death or gets hit by a bus?"

>From the child's point of view that may very well be so, of course..., but

we don't really know that. It could be that within the child, transformative

processes are taking place that help it deal with the events and

circumstances effectively.

That is of course no excuse to condone calamities, accidents and mishaps or

make a statement like, "It is all part of some divine plan."

The only thing that I can with some authority speak of, is my own calamitous

experiences and my own processing of such events.

When I discovered how to clear them from the wrappings and trappings of

dramatization and manipulation, the transformative processes, which already

had started with the calamities, carried on and eventually I found myself

and the perpetrators of harm cleared of any charges.

 

I felt concerned about your blanket statement Shawn, as the way you stated

it, pretty well covered all of humankind and for ever. It was so global that

I felt that you also tried make up MY mind about how I should see my

experiences, so I wrote:

>> I have never ever had such [futile and terrible] feeling about

'experience'...

 

Also (but that may not have been wise) I thought it opportune to ask you

some questions, your personal answers to which I expected, could have thrown

some light on the portent and reach of your statement and the rest of your

email.

Obviously my way of posing the questions, the way I did, was inappropriate

and instead of inviting you to consider the questions, it must have felt

that I alienated you.

 

I sincerely apologize for that.

 

But now to get back to how a calamity may affect the recipient of it.

It is very hard to speak about the personal experience of recipients of

harm. Very often commentators on that have their own agendas. Very often

also the stories by recipients of harm, especially when they are still under

some remote control of the harming agent, can undergo distortions, (do I

ever know !) That very much depends on the manipulative opportunities for

oneself or people around oneself.

..

This is a hard call...

 

I can only speak from the viewpoint of me as a past recipient of harm,

trusting that there are no manipulative remnants still at play. Whatever

happened to me, (I have written about it before and there is no need here

repeat it) whatever happened may sound "horrible" to witnesses, bystanders,

or some sympathetic or even gullible audience, but my own memory and

processing of the events, contained no horror or terror the way it is

normally described. What the transformative process was exactly, is hard to

express, but there was enough of it, to later in life pick up the threads

and compassionately deal with it and discharge the events and players in the

events fully. The result for me was an overnight transformation, from being

a potential harmful perpetrator myself, (always so dangerously close to do

to others what had be done to me) to being a well functioning human being.

 

I wrote:

>> Who pre-digested your experience?

>> Who digested your experience?

>> Who post-digested your experience?

 

You answered:

> do you need more fiber in your diet?

 

I was not joking, Shawn.

You wrote your remark (ALL experience is wonderful AND terrible....and

FUTILE!) late at night, you were tired, why did you write what you wrote

the way you wrote it? Again you can say you were tired but if tiredness

causes you to write such things, why would that be.

When I am tired, I yawn and stretch go to bed and I fall asleep...(OK, I

often dream of eating deserts... now what does that mean? ;-)

 

I wrote:

>> Who alienated you from being you?

 

You:

> Isn't this what you are doing now?

 

I'm sorry again Shawn, that you somehow understood it that way, I can

understand that now.

But I can answer your question with a "No" or at least a "I hope not."

You did not process my words that way, and you may still say, "It sure as

hell felt as though you were alienating me."

But that is exactly the point I am trying to make, instead of experiencing

my words, my response was pre-digested to mean, "Alienation by Wim", while

your email was actually literally expressing your own alienation from your

own consciousness... you even wondered where it was hiding...

>You have seen too many psychologists, I'm afraid....

 

Only one, and that was indeed one too many... :-)))

He actually had to step down for harassment and discrimination based on

creed.

He told me about my molestation, that I had it coming, that it was my own

fault.

Ouch...

As I said in another email, both of us are OK now.

> Perhaps you are living in a dream world?

 

Nope! :-))) I know when I eat real deserts and when I dream of eating them!

> Is it not true that ultimately we are not in controll of our experience?

 

That is true, we have no hand in the fact THAT we experience,

but in ultimately we have a free hand in WHAT we experience.

HOW we experience depends on how free we are from manipulative agendas.

> How did you get so deeply entangled in the molasses of analysis?

> love,

 

Indeed, love did it to me..:-)

And you know what? I like molasses...

In Holland we have a special kind of breakfast cake...

It contains lots of molasses and it is best with ginger and candied sugar.

We have many kinds, ontbijtkoek, gemberkoek and kandijkoek.

 

Wim

 

 

 

shawn [shawn]

Saturday, June 15, 2002 2:09 AM

Re: "rings" true is not enough

 

 

on 6/15/02 2:09 AM, Shawn at shawn wrote:

> i already know I don't know and can't know *what* consciousness *is*. It

all

> seems so boring and inane.

> Somehow, I can't muster up the effort to really *try* anything....and so

> I'll use another tac or tact and ask myself , "where is this

consciousness?"

> Even this seems empty as I watch the struggling "me" attempting .......

> attempting what? to get free of itself? Oh slippery mind, I'm on to you

and

> you're boring me......I know how you work. The one I want to be, I am, but

> you are tenacious......I'm going to keep my eye on you!

> ALL experience is wonderful AND terrible....and FUTILE! Where does

> consciousness hide in sleep?

> I'm off to bed, to see what I can find....

> Namaste, Shawn

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