What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

October 28, 2008

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with

learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a

speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After

extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a

question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences,

everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay,

cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand

things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in

my son?'

The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I

believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically

disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human

nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat

that child.'

Then he told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were

playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I

knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their

team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed

to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some

confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting

much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and

said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning.

I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in

the ninth inning.'

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put

on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in

my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs

but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay

put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits

came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on

the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the

stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now,

with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on

base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to

win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was

all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat

properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing

that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in

Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay

could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher

again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground

ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder

and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay

would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's

head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and

both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!'

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to

first base.

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone

yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!'

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and

struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded toward

second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on

their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but

he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally

threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran

toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled

the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all

the Way Shay'

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help

him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run

to third! Shay, run to third!'

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators,

were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to

home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the

grand slam and won the game for his team.

'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his

face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love

and humanity into this world'.

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having

never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming

home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the

day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:

We all send thousands of messages without a second thought, but when

it comes to sending messages about life choices, we hesitate. If

you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that

you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who

aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well,

the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a

difference.

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help

realize the 'natural order of things' and recognize our True Divine

Nature. So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people

present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass

up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in

the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's

least fortunate amongst them.

With love and regards to all,

Ram Chandran

October 28, 2008

from a posting by ram chandran of the advaitin-list

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?'The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'Then he told the following story:Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.' Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!'Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!' Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded toward second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third! Shay, run to third!' As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team. 'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'.Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day! AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:We all send thousands of messages without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, we hesitate. If you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the 'natural order of things' and recognize our True Divine Nature. So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them.With love and regards to all,Ram Chandran

Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.4/1752 - Release 28/10/2008 10.04

October 28, 2008

Namaste Ram Chandran

with deep joy i read your wonderful message.

Am i allowed to forward it?

in Sri Ramana Maharshi

michael bindel

-

Ram Chandran

advaitin

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 6:25 PM

What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?'The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.'Then he told the following story:Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.' Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!'Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!' Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded toward second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run to third! Shay, run to third!' As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team. 'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'.Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day! AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:We all send thousands of messages without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, we hesitate. If you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the 'natural order of things' and recognize our True Divine Nature. So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them.With love and regards to all,Ram Chandran

Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.4/1752 - Release 28/10/2008 10.04

October 28, 2008

Namaste:

Good deeds should go forward so that it reaches everyone!

regards,

Ram Chandran

Note: Whenever you send a reply to a post, please do not include the

entire message of the previous poster. This will help all messages in

the list to become more crisp and clear. Thanks,

advaitin , " Michael Bindel " <michael.bindel

wrote:

with deep joy i read your wonderful message.

Am i allowed to forward it?

October 28, 2008

Namaste

thank you!

michael bindel

Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.4/1752 - Release 28/10/2008 10.04

October 29, 2008

PraNAms

Beautiful story Ram. The message is profound. We came into this world with

nothing and we depart one day take nothing with us when we leave. Yet we spend

all our energies trying to acquire and aggrandize.

I and my wife felt the same when we visited a deaf-school last year, not too far

from Chennai. One gentleman had a deaf child and his wife left him leaving the

child with him. He brought up the child and found that there are no deaf

schools. So he built one and educated the child and realized that there are so

many other deaf children who need help too. That was the beginning of the deaf

school where now close to 100 students are admitted besides other handicap

students.

We could witness the joy and happiness in the children when we got most of the

needy one hearing aids. There are many children who need help. If any one is

interested to help please let me know through private mail.

The deaf child, because of whom the father started the school, has now completed

his masters. The deaf children are provided vocational training in carpentry and

other vocations so that they can be productive members of the society. If you

happen to be in Chennai, it helps if you visit the school and see first hand how

Lord manifests in so many ways.

Hari Om!

Sadananda

--- On Tue, 10/28/08, Ram Chandran <ramvchandran wrote:

Then he told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were

playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I

knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their

team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed

to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some

confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

October 31, 2008

Michael,

thank you for posting this heartwarming story. There are dialogs about

ego on the forum. Here is a great example of acting without ego,

acting from love instead of fear.

Om Arunacalesvaraya Namah,

Richard

, " Michael Bindel "

<michael.bindel wrote:

>

> from a posting by ram chandran of the advaitin-list

>

> At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with

> learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a

> speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After

> extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a

> question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences,

> everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay,

> cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand

> things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in

> my son?'

>

> The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I

> believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically

> disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human

> nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat

> that child.'

>

> Then he told the following story:

>

> Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were

> playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I

> knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their

> team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed

> to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some

> confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

>

> I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting

> much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and

> said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning.

> I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in

> the ninth inning.'

>

> Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put

> on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in

> my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

>

> In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs

> but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay

> put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits

> came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on

> the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the

> stands.

>

> In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now,

> with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on

> base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

>

> At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to

> win the game?

> Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was

> all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat

> properly, much less connect with the ball.

>

> However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing

> that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in

> Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay

> could at least make contact.

>

> The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher

> again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.

> As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground

> ball right back to the pitcher.

>

> The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder

> and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay

> would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

>

> Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's

> head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and

> both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!'

>

> Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to

> first base.

> He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone

> yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!'

>

> Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and

> struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded toward

> second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on

> their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

>

> He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but

> he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally

> threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran

> toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled

> the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all

> the Way Shay'

>

> Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help

> him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run

> to third! Shay, run to third!'

>

> As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators,

> were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to

> home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the

> grand slam and won the game for his team.

>

> 'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his

> face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love

> and humanity into this world'.

>

> Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having

> never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming

> home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the

> day!

>

> AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:

>

> We all send thousands of messages without a second thought, but when

> it comes to sending messages about life choices, we hesitate. If

> you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that

> you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who

> aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well,

> the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a

> difference.

>

> We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help

> realize the 'natural order of things' and recognize our True Divine

> Nature. So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people

> present us with a choice:

>

> Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass

> up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in

> the process?

>

> A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's

> least fortunate amongst them.

>

> With love and regards to all,

>

> Ram Chandran

>

--

>

> Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com

> Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.4/1752 - Release Date:

28/10/2008 10.04

>

November 1, 2008

Hello Friend

You mentioned "ego cleaning, which means the ego is prepared to face divinity".

From what I understood from Sri Ramana, the ego is good for nothing and is the cause of all suffering.

Whtever cleaning you exert on the ego, it is of no avail; the ego is just like garlic, you cannot get perfume out of garlic. The ego has to be dissolved for the Divine to shine.

mourad

, andreas farsatis <born010405 wrote:>> > Hello james,> what do you mean by self indulgent?> I find that in the search for the divine,self indulgment> is one of the obstaclesÂ one has toÂ get over with.> And the search for the divineÂ is nothing more > thanÂ an ego cleaning,which means the ego is prepared to face divinity.> Through Satsang here you will propably get the help you need> to meet divinity withoutÂ self indulgment.> However,best wishes in whatever you will do..> Sandoshan.> Â > Â > Â > --- james cogdell cogdelljames schrieb am Fr, 31.10.2008:> > Von: james cogdell cogdelljames Betreff: RE: Re: Fw: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!> An: > Datum: Freitag, 31. Oktober 2008, 14:46> > > > > > > Hello Everyone,> I am now giving up all this searching for the divine. It's all far too self indulgent.> Good luck,> James> > > > > > > richard@infinitepie .net> Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:53:36 +0000> Re: Fw: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!> > > > > > Michael,> > thank you for posting this heartwarming story. There are dialogs about> ego on the forum. Here is a great example of acting without ego,> acting from love instead of fear.> > Om Arunacalesvaraya Namah,> Richard> > , "Michael Bindel"> <michael.bindel@ ...> wrote:> >> > from a posting by ram chandran of the advaitin-list> > > > At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with > > learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a > > speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After > > extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a > > question: 'When not interfered with by outside influences, > > everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, > > cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand > > things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in > > my son?'> > > > The audience was stilled by the query. The father continued. 'I > > believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically > > disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human > > nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat > > that child.'> > > > Then he told the following story:> > > > Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were > > playing baseball. Shay asked, 'Do you think they'll let me play?' I > > knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their > > team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed > > to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some > > confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.> > > > I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting > > much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and > > said, 'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. > > I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in > > the ninth inning.' > > > > Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put > > on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in > > my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.> > > > In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs > > but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay > > put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits > > came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on > > the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the > > stands.> > > > In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, > > with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on > > base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.> > > > At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to > > win the game? > > Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was > > all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat > > properly, much less connect with the ball. > > > > However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing > > that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in > > Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay > > could at least make contact.> > > > The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher > > again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. > > As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground > > ball right back to the pitcher. > > > > The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder > > and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay > > would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.> > > > Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's > > head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and > > both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!'> > > > Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to > > first base. > > He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. Everyone > > yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!' > > > > Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and > > struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded toward > > second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on > > their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. > > > > He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but > > he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally > > threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman' s head. Shay ran > > toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled > > the bases toward home. All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all > > the Way Shay'> > > > Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help > > him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, 'Run > > to third! Shay, run to third!' > > > > As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, > > were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!' Shay ran to > > home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the > > grand slam and won the game for his team. > > > > 'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his > > face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love > > and humanity into this world'.> > > > Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having > > never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming > > home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the > > day! > > > > AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:> > > > We all send thousands of messages without a second thought, but when > > it comes to sending messages about life choices, we hesitate. If > > you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that > > you're probably sorting out the people in your address book who > > aren't the 'appropriate' ones to receive this type of message Well, > > the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a > > difference. > > > > We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help > > realize the 'natural order of things' and recognize our True Divine > > Nature. So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people > > present us with a choice:> > > > Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass > > up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in > > the process?> > > > A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's > > least fortunate amongst them.> > > > With love and regards to all,> > > > Ram Chandran> > > > > > > > > > > > > >> ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -> > > > > > > > > > Checked by AVG - http://www.avg. com > > Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.8.4/1752 - Release Date:> 28/10/2008 10.04> >> > > > > > For the best free wallpapers from MSN Click here!>

November 2, 2008

Dear James,

I'm not sure if these reflections will be of any help with the current

question. For what they are worth...

I don't find the term " ego " is a very useful one. I say this from my

background as someone following a spiritual path for many years and as a

someone working as psychotherapist for the last 20+ years with many people

for whom spirituality is an important concern in their lives. 'A sense of

individuality' is a phrase that works better for me and has more resonance

with lived experience. The term " ego " is really just a conceptual tool

variously described and used by different disciplines - psychological and

spiritual. In spiritual parlance it's often used with such negativity that,

in my view, as a negatively loaded concept it more likely hinders rather

than helps people make sense of their lived experience and the connection

between their 'sense of individuality' and the sense of connnectedness to

the whole (or one-ness).

It helps me if I put these things in simple terms. Thus:

- In vedanta we call that 'sense of individuality' the jiva.

- We call the underlying one-ness of life Brahman.

- The recognition of the identity between the sense of individuality and the

underlying one-ness of life we call jnana or moksha (enlightenment,

liberation).

- The spiritual path (sadhana) is a concerted effort to uncover that

recogntion.

This " recognition " isn't straight forward. It takes many forms and may be

of various levels of intensity and duration. It may be intuitive, a

fleeting glimpse, a formless conviction; it may be a momentary yet profound

experience of 'other-ness', of one-ness, of the core of one's being of such

an intensity that it changes one's life thereafter. These are just a very

few examples.

In vedanta, someone who is fully established in that recognition is called a

brahma-nishta, or jnani.

In the kind of intense experiences which are transient the person might

retain 'a sense of individuality' during the process of recognition. In

which case the individual might report being in the presence of a higher

power, of feeling a part of the oneness of all life & so on. There are also

experiences where 'the sense of individuality' disolves - at least

temporarily. But when it does re-emerge the outlook on life may never be

the same again. These experiences can be found in the different kinds of

samadhi.

I agree with you in one sense when you say it is all in the mind, if by mind

we consciousness. For one of the factors in common with what we call

mystical experience is that we discover something which has always been

present. That's what makes such experiences profound and potentially life

changing as we discover that underneath our lives of pleasure and suffering,

of separateness and grasping, there is a much deeper substratum of knowing

and being which is not defiled by outer appearances.

It is certainly true that one aspect of human nature is wishful thinking

based upon the desire for happiness and security. However, in itself that

is not sufficient to deny the existence of the underlying substratum. One

might as well claim the sun only rises in the morning because people are

afraid of the dark and desirous of light.

To mention another context...

In the early days of western psychology, psychologists and therapists were

totally preoccupied with definitions of pathology and what made people sick.

Then people like Maslow (the founder of Humanistic Psychology) came along in

the 1940s and decided to explore what helped people to be healthy, self

actualised, human beings. Psychological research along these lines showed

that 'self actualised' people often report experiences of love, wholeness,

creativity, a profound sense of truth, justice, authenticity & so on. These

experiences of self actualised people were called " peak experiences " . But

it wasn't long before their research showed that there was a whole level and

range of experiencing and knowing that transcended the usual models of

personality and ego psychology. In other words there was a range of

experience of unity, love, compassion that couldn't simply be reduced to

either ego needs or ego development. Hence Transpersonal Psychology took

birth (in the 1960s). The term " trans " refers to those states of

consciousness and being that transcend 'ego' and personality. There is very

interesting research in this field for those who wish to follow it up.

In the field of psychology, probably the earliest pioneers in the field of

the 'transpersonal' were Richard Bucke and William James who were

researching the nature of spiritual (mystic) experience back in the very

late 1800s - before even the birth of Humanistic Psychology. William James

found four core factors in common with spiritual experiences regardless of

the background and religion of the person. While this touches a topic far

too big to do justice to via email, and much more systematic research has

been carried out since William James' time, it may be relevant to mention

what the four core factors are:

1. Ineffability - the experiences were too great to be expressed in words

and thus had to be experienced directly as their meaning could not be

imparted to others.

2. Noetic - such experiences involved an experience of knowing, of having

direct access to knowledge otherwise unobtainable to the discursive

intellect.

3. Transiency - except in rare cases such experience is not maintained.

4. Passivity - the individual feels their own will is in abeyance, perhaps

even feeling they were grasped or held by a superior power.

James, my own sense is that we each have to follow the path that emerges out

of what is most meaningful to ourselves rather than in relation to the

belief systems and far from perfect understanding / experiences of others.

May you do the former with great success.

Best wishes,

Peter

________________________________

On Behalf Of james cogdell

01 November 2008 23:07

RE: Re: Fw: What happens

when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Hi Michael,

The point I am trying to make is that the Divine is just another aspect of

Ego. I can't understand why it is being separated from Ego in this

discussion. Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there is

and it is all Ego.

<snip>

November 2, 2008

Dear Peter,

Thankyou so much for your post.

I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it. I have had experiences during meditation practice (formless meditation) that I find difficult to describe. However, they need to be described. For my own benefit, it is of no use to me to have to say that I do not know what I mean; that I cannot describe something. The idea of ineffability is a dead one; it communicates absolutely nothing and leaves a conversation flat. Conversations of that nature tend to end in a knowing smile, a real contradiction. My contention is that all of these experiences during whatever kind of meditation we do are conscious manipulations that produce chemical reactions in the body. We are like vessels that have the potential for many things and we can, once we have come to know our minds, use them for whatever we want. I am a total skeptic and perhaps, as has already been mentioned, do not belong here, but I need to discuss these things in order to understand.

Regards

James

From: not_2Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:14:19 +0000RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear James,I'm not sure if these reflections will be of any help with the currentquestion. For what they are worth...I don't find the term "ego" is a very useful one. I say this from mybackground as someone following a spiritual path for many years and as asomeone working as psychotherapist for the last 20+ years with many peoplefor whom spirituality is an important concern in their lives. 'A sense ofindividuality' is a phrase that works better for me and has more resonancewith lived experience. The term "ego" is really just a conceptual toolvariously described and used by different disciplines - psychological andspiritual. In spiritual parlance it's often used with such negativity that,in my view, as a negatively loaded concept it more likely hinders ratherthan helps people make sense of their lived experience and the connectionbetween their 'sense of individuality' and the sense of connnectedness tothe whole (or one-ness). It helps me if I put these things in simple terms. Thus: - In vedanta we call that 'sense of individuality' the jiva.- We call the underlying one-ness of life Brahman.- The recognition of the identity between the sense of individuality and theunderlying one-ness of life we call jnana or moksha (enlightenment,liberation).- The spiritual path (sadhana) is a concerted effort to uncover thatrecogntion.This "recognition" isn't straight forward. It takes many forms and may beof various levels of intensity and duration. It may be intuitive, afleeting glimpse, a formless conviction; it may be a momentary yet profoundexperience of 'other-ness', of one-ness, of the core of one's being of suchan intensity that it changes one's life thereafter. These are just a veryfew examples. In vedanta, someone who is fully established in that recognition is called abrahma-nishta, or jnani. In the kind of intense experiences which are transient the person mightretain 'a sense of individuality' during the process of recognition. Inwhich case the individual might report being in the presence of a higherpower, of feeling a part of the oneness of all life & so on. There are alsoexperiences where 'the sense of individuality' disolves - at leasttemporarily. But when it does re-emerge the outlook on life may never bethe same again. These experiences can be found in the different kinds ofsamadhi.I agree with you in one sense when you say it is all in the mind, if by mindwe consciousness. For one of the factors in common with what we callmystical experience is that we discover something which has always beenpresent. That's what makes such experiences profound and potentially lifechanging as we discover that underneath our lives of pleasure and suffering,of separateness and grasping, there is a much deeper substratum of knowingand being which is not defiled by outer appearances. It is certainly true that one aspect of human nature is wishful thinkingbased upon the desire for happiness and security. However, in itself thatis not sufficient to deny the existence of the underlying substratum. Onemight as well claim the sun only rises in the morning because people areafraid of the dark and desirous of light.To mention another context...In the early days of western psychology, psychologists and therapists weretotally preoccupied with definitions of pathology and what made people sick.Then people like Maslow (the founder of Humanistic Psychology) came along inthe 1940s and decided to explore what helped people to be healthy, selfactualised, human beings. Psychological research along these lines showedthat 'self actualised' people often report experiences of love, wholeness,creativity, a profound sense of truth, justice, authenticity & so on. Theseexperiences of self actualised people were called "peak experiences". Butit wasn't long before their research showed that there was a whole level andrange of experiencing and knowing that transcended the usual models ofpersonality and ego psychology. In other words there was a range ofexperience of unity, love, compassion that couldn't simply be reduced toeither ego needs or ego development. Hence Transpersonal Psychology tookbirth (in the 1960s). The term "trans" refers to those states ofconsciousness and being that transcend 'ego' and personality. There is veryinteresting research in this field for those who wish to follow it up.In the field of psychology, probably the earliest pioneers in the field ofthe 'transpersonal' were Richard Bucke and William James who wereresearching the nature of spiritual (mystic) experience back in the verylate 1800s - before even the birth of Humanistic Psychology. William Jamesfound four core factors in common with spiritual experiences regardless ofthe background and religion of the person. While this touches a topic fartoo big to do justice to via email, and much more systematic research hasbeen carried out since William James' time, it may be relevant to mentionwhat the four core factors are:1. Ineffability - the experiences were too great to be expressed in wordsand thus had to be experienced directly as their meaning could not beimparted to others.2. Noetic - such experiences involved an experience of knowing, of havingdirect access to knowledge otherwise unobtainable to the discursiveintellect.3. Transiency - except in rare cases such experience is not maintained.4. Passivity - the individual feels their own will is in abeyance, perhapseven feeling they were grasped or held by a superior power.James, my own sense is that we each have to follow the path that emerges outof what is most meaningful to ourselves rather than in relation to thebelief systems and far from perfect understanding / experiences of others.May you do the former with great success.Best wishes,Peter________________________________ On Behalf Of james cogdell01 November 2008 23:07 Subject: RE: Re: Fw: What happenswhen the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Hi Michael,The point I am trying to make is that the Divine is just another aspect ofEgo. I can't understand why it is being separated from Ego in thisdiscussion. Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there isand it is all Ego. <snip> For the best free wallpapers from MSN Click here!

November 2, 2008

Dear James and Peter,Peter, thanks for your earlier post. It was a very thoughtful response to James' ideas. I enjoyed reading it. James, for some reason when I read your posts I always want to give you a big hug. You are indeed a skeptic but with such an ardent wish to examine even your own skepticism in search of deeper understanding. After reading your post yesterday I got the image that to use the mind to understand the divine is like using scissors to dig a hole. While out running in the woods this morning, I thought about Peter likening the mind to consciousness. I conceive of the mind as something that emerges from consciousness, an arising of activity within the field of consciousness. Consciousness is the empty screen, mind the projections/activity on the screen that obscures it. We tend to place our sense of identity with the mind--we think we are our minds. But we aren't. It's very difficult to relinquish this identification and the illusion of control it gives us. Modes of knowing that do not require or engage language are not encouraged in the culture. Even when these ways of knowing become part of one's experience, they may be dismissed by the linear, thinking mind as unreal, until they are established in a way that makes dismissing them impossible. David Hawkins writes about the ego and enlightenment in ways that I find very useful; you might like some of his books. "I: Reality and Subjectivity", and "DIscovery of the Presence of God", are both good ones.JillOn Nov 2, 2008, at 10:24 AM, james cogdell wrote:Dear Peter,Thankyou so much for your post. I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it. I have had experiences during meditation practice (formless meditation) that I find difficult to describe. However, they need to be described. For my own benefit, it is of no use to me to have to say that I do not know what I mean; that I cannot describe something. The idea of ineffability is a dead one; it communicates absolutely nothing and leaves a conversation flat. Conversations of that nature tend to end in a knowing smile, a real contradiction. My contention is that all of these experiences during whatever kind of meditation we do are conscious manipulations that produce chemical reactions in the body. We are like vessels that have the potential for many things and we can, once we have come to know our minds, use them for whatever we want. I am a total skeptic and perhaps, as has already been mentioned, do not belong here, but I need to discuss these things in order to understand.RegardsJames From: not_2 (AT) btinternet (DOT) comDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:14:19 +0000RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Dear James,I'm not sure if these reflections will be of any help with the currentquestion. For what they are worth...I don't find the term "ego" is a very useful one. I say this from mybackground as someone following a spiritual path for many years and as asomeone working as psychotherapist for the last 20+ years with many peoplefor whom spirituality is an important concern in their lives. 'A sense ofindividuality' is a phrase that works better for me and has more resonancewith lived experience. The term "ego" is really just a conceptual toolvariously described and used by different disciplines - psychological andspiritual. In spiritual parlance it's often used with such negativity that,in my view, as a negatively loaded concept it more likely hinders ratherthan helps people make sense of their lived experience and the connectionbetween their 'sense of individuality' and the sense of connnectedness tothe whole (or one-ness). It helps me if I put these things in simple terms. Thus: - In vedanta we call that 'sense of individuality' the jiva.- We call the underlying one-ness of life Brahman.- The recognition of the identity between the sense of individuality and theunderlying one-ness of life we call jnana or moksha (enlightenment,liberation).- The spiritual path (sadhana) is a concerted effort to uncover thatrecogntion.This "recognition" isn't straight forward. It takes many forms and may beof various levels of intensity and duration. It may be intuitive, afleeting glimpse, a formless conviction; it may be a momentary yet profoundexperience of 'other-ness', of one-ness, of the core of one's being of suchan intensity that it changes one's life thereafter. These are just a veryfew examples. In vedanta, someone who is fully established in that recognition is called abrahma-nishta, or jnani. In the kind of intense experiences which are transient the person mightretain 'a sense of individuality' during the process of recognition. Inwhich case the individual might report being in the presence of a higherpower, of feeling a part of the oneness of all life & so on. There are alsoexperiences where 'the sense of individuality' disolves - at leasttemporarily. But when it does re-emerge the outlook on life may never bethe same again. These experiences can be found in the different kinds ofsamadhi.I agree with you in one sense when you say it is all in the mind, if by mindwe consciousness. For one of the factors in common with what we callmystical experience is that we discover something which has always beenpresent. That's what makes such experiences profound and potentially lifechanging as we discover that underneath our lives of pleasure and suffering,of separateness and grasping, there is a much deeper substratum of knowingand being which is not defiled by outer appearances. It is certainly true that one aspect of human nature is wishful thinkingbased upon the desire for happiness and security. However, in itself thatis not sufficient to deny the existence of the underlying substratum. Onemight as well claim the sun only rises in the morning because people areafraid of the dark and desirous of light.To mention another context...In the early days of western psychology, psychologists and therapists weretotally preoccupied with definitions of pathology and what made people sick.Then people like Maslow (the founder of Humanistic Psychology) came along inthe 1940s and decided to explore what helped people to be healthy, selfactualised, human beings. Psychological research along these lines showedthat 'self actualised' people often report experiences of love, wholeness,creativity, a profound sense of truth, justice, authenticity & so on. Theseexperiences of self actualised people were called "peak experiences". Butit wasn't long before their research showed that there was a whole level andrange of experiencing and knowing that transcended the usual models ofpersonality and ego psychology. In other words there was a range ofexperience of unity, love, compassion that couldn't simply be reduced toeither ego needs or ego development. Hence Transpersonal Psychology tookbirth (in the 1960s). The term "trans" refers to those states ofconsciousness and being that transcend 'ego' and personality. There is veryinteresting research in this field for those who wish to follow it up.In the field of psychology, probably the earliest pioneers in the field ofthe 'transpersonal' were Richard Bucke and William James who wereresearching the nature of spiritual (mystic) experience back in the verylate 1800s - before even the birth of Humanistic Psychology. William Jamesfound four core factors in common with spiritual experiences regardless ofthe background and religion of the person. While this touches a topic fartoo big to do justice to via email, and much more systematic research hasbeen carried out since William James' time, it may be relevant to mentionwhat the four core factors are:1. Ineffability - the experiences were too great to be expressed in wordsand thus had to be experienced directly as their meaning could not beimparted to others.2. Noetic - such experiences involved an experience of knowing, of havingdirect access to knowledge otherwise unobtainable to the discursiveintellect.3. Transiency - except in rare cases such experience is not maintained.4. Passivity - the individual feels their own will is in abeyance, perhapseven feeling they were grasped or held by a superior power.James, my own sense is that we each have to follow the path that emerges outof what is most meaningful to ourselves rather than in relation to thebelief systems and far from perfect understanding / experiences of others.May you do the former with great success.Best wishes,Peter________________________________ On Behalf Of james cogdell01 November 2008 23:07To: RE: Re: Fw: What happenswhen the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Hi Michael,The point I am trying to make is that the Divine is just another aspect ofEgo. I can't understand why it is being separated from Ego in thisdiscussion. Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there isand it is all Ego. <snip>For the best free wallpapers from MSN Click here!

November 2, 2008

Hi Jill,

Thanks. I can always do with a hug!! This all just seems like playing around with words, that's all. How on earth can you discover the Divine without using the mind, if the Divine exists ofcourse, which I honestly doubt. The Divine seems to be what Peter called a 'conceptual tool' and is also what Alan Jacobs has called an 'umbrella term' which to me means that it can be spread about abit to mean just about anything, like the touching of the 'Divine' when you blow yourself up to become a martyr, etc, etc.....or when you paint something and feel that you are entering another realm; or when you read a poem or listen to a piece of music that moves you to tears. The Divine is not sui generis. What other modes of knowing are there that do not require a mind?

Love

James

From: eggersjDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 12:32:22 -0500Re: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear James and Peter,

Peter, thanks for your earlier post. It was a very thoughtful response to James' ideas. I enjoyed reading it.

James, for some reason when I read your posts I always want to give you a big hug. You are indeed a skeptic but with such an ardent wish to examine even your own skepticism in search of deeper understanding. After reading your post yesterday I got the image that to use the mind to understand the divine is like using scissors to dig a hole. While out running in the woods this morning, I thought about Peter likening the mind to consciousness. I conceive of the mind as something that emerges from consciousness, an arising of activity within the field of consciousness. Consciousness is the empty screen, mind the projections/activity on the screen that obscures it. We tend to place our sense of identity with the mind--we think we are our minds. But we aren't. It's very difficult to relinquish this identification and the illusion of control it gives us. Modes of knowing that do not require or engage language are not encouraged in the culture. Even when these ways of knowing become part of one's experience, they may be dismissed by the linear, thinking mind as unreal, until they are established in a way that makes dismissing them impossible.

David Hawkins writes about the ego and enlightenment in ways that I find very useful; you might like some of his books. "I: Reality and Subjectivity", and "DIscovery of the Presence of God", are both good ones.

Jill

On Nov 2, 2008, at 10:24 AM, james cogdell wrote:

Dear Peter,Thankyou so much for your post. I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it. I have had experiences during meditation practice (formless meditation) that I find difficult to describe. However, they need to be described. For my own benefit, it is of no use to me to have to say that I do not know what I mean; that I cannot describe something. The idea of ineffability is a dead one; it communicates absolutely nothing and leaves a conversation flat. Conversations of that nature tend to end in a knowing smile, a real contradiction. My contention is that all of these experiences during whatever kind of meditation we do are conscious manipulations that produce chemical reactions in the body. We are like vessels that have the potential for many things and we can, once we have come to know our minds, use them for whatever we want. I am a total skeptic and perhaps, as has already been mentioned, do not belong here, but I need to discuss these things in order to understand.RegardsJames

From: not_2 (AT) btinternet (DOT) comDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:14:19 +0000RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear James,I'm not sure if these reflections will be of any help with the currentquestion. For what they are worth...I don't find the term "ego" is a very useful one. I say this from mybackground as someone following a spiritual path for many years and as asomeone working as psychotherapist for the last 20+ years with many peoplefor whom spirituality is an important concern in their lives. 'A sense ofindividuality' is a phrase that works better for me and has more resonancewith lived experience. The term "ego" is really just a conceptual toolvariously described and used by different disciplines - psychological andspiritual. In spiritual parlance it's often used with such negativity that,in my view, as a negatively loaded concept it more likely hinders ratherthan helps people make sense of their lived experience and the connectionbetween their 'sense of individuality' and the sense of connnectedness tothe whole (or one-ness). It helps me if I put these things in simple terms. Thus: - In vedanta we call that 'sense of individuality' the jiva.- We call the underlying one-ness of life Brahman.- The recognition of the identity between the sense of individuality and theunderlying one-ness of life we call jnana or moksha (enlightenment,liberation).- The spiritual path (sadhana) is a concerted effort to uncover thatrecogntion.This "recognition" isn't straight forward. It takes many forms and may beof various levels of intensity and duration. It may be intuitive, afleeting glimpse, a formless conviction; it may be a momentary yet profoundexperience of 'other-ness', of one-ness, of the core of one's being of suchan intensity that it changes one's life thereafter. These are just a veryfew examples. In vedanta, someone who is fully established in that recognition is called abrahma-nishta, or jnani. In the kind of intense experiences which are transient the person mightretain 'a sense of individuality' during the process of recognition. Inwhich case the individual might report being in the presence of a higherpower, of feeling a part of the oneness of all life & so on. There are alsoexperiences where 'the sense of individuality' disolves - at leasttemporarily. But when it does re-emerge the outlook on life may never bethe same again. These experiences can be found in the different kinds ofsamadhi.I agree with you in one sense when you say it is all in the mind, if by mindwe consciousness. For one of the factors in common with what we callmystical experience is that we discover something which has always beenpresent. That's what makes such experiences profound and potentially lifechanging as we discover that underneath our lives of pleasure and suffering,of separateness and grasping, there is a much deeper substratum of knowingand being which is not defiled by outer appearances. It is certainly true that one aspect of human nature is wishful thinkingbased upon the desire for happiness and security. However, in itself thatis not sufficient to deny the existence of the underlying substratum. Onemight as well claim the sun only rises in the morning because people areafraid of the dark and desirous of light.To mention another context...In the early days of western psychology, psychologists and therapists weretotally preoccupied with definitions of pathology and what made people sick.Then people like Maslow (the founder of Humanistic Psychology) came along inthe 1940s and decided to explore what helped people to be healthy, selfactualised, human beings. Psychological research along these lines showedthat 'self actualised' people often report experiences of love, wholeness,creativity, a profound sense of truth, justice, authenticity & so on. Theseexperiences of self actualised people were called "peak experiences". Butit wasn't long before their research showed that there was a whole level andrange of experiencing and knowing that transcended the usual models ofpersonality and ego psychology. In other words there was a range ofexperience of unity, love, compassion that couldn't simply be reduced toeither ego needs or ego development. Hence Transpersonal Psychology tookbirth (in the 1960s). The term "trans" refers to those states ofconsciousness and being that transcend 'ego' and personality. There is veryinteresting research in this field for those who wish to follow it up.In the field of psychology, probably the earliest pioneers in the field ofthe 'transpersonal' were Richard Bucke and William James who wereresearching the nature of spiritual (mystic) experience back in the verylate 1800s - before even the birth of Humanistic Psychology. William Jamesfound four core factors in common with spiritual experiences regardless ofthe background and religion of the person. While this touches a topic fartoo big to do justice to via email, and much more systematic research hasbeen carried out since William James' time, it may be relevant to mentionwhat the four core factors are:1. Ineffability - the experiences were too great to be expressed in wordsand thus had to be experienced directly as their meaning could not beimparted to others.2. Noetic - such experiences involved an experience of knowing, of havingdirect access to knowledge otherwise unobtainable to the discursiveintellect.3. Transiency - except in rare cases such experience is not maintained.4. Passivity - the individual feels their own will is in abeyance, perhapseven feeling they were grasped or held by a superior power.James, my own sense is that we each have to follow the path that emerges outof what is most meaningful to ourselves rather than in relation to thebelief systems and far from perfect understanding / experiences of others.May you do the former with great success.Best wishes,Peter________________________________ On Behalf Of james cogdell01 November 2008 23:07 RE: Re: Fw: What happenswhen the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Hi Michael,The point I am trying to make is that the Divine is just another aspect ofEgo. I can't understand why it is being separated from Ego in thisdiscussion. Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there isand it is all Ego. <snip>

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November 2, 2008

Hi James,Yes, it IS all playing around with words, isn't it--this process of using words to point to that at which, as someone said, "all words turn back". I don't know how to say about other modes of knowing than mind. Perhaps I am being clumsy in the way I am using the word 'mind'--other ways of knowing than thinking, than language-based thought, this is more accurately what I mean. Knowing in ways that do not include thinking, reason, analysis, and other mental activities like that. As you say, any term can be spread about to mean just about anything. All this talk and all these words on this list are just floating on the surface. At some point words turn back, the conversation, as you say, goes flat, the thing/non-thing reveals itself as Presence. Words are only so useful and I am not using them too well, here. love,JillOn Nov 2, 2008, at 1:09 PM, james cogdell wrote:Hi Jill,Thanks. I can always do with a hug!! This all just seems like playing around with words, that's all. How on earth can you discover the Divine without using the mind, if the Divine exists ofcourse, which I honestly doubt. The Divine seems to be what Peter called a 'conceptual tool' and is also what Alan Jacobs has called an 'umbrella term' which to me means that it can be spread about abit to mean just about anything, like the touching of the 'Divine' when you blow yourself up to become a martyr, etc, etc.....or when you paint something and feel that you are entering another realm; or when you read a poem or listen to a piece of music that moves you to tears. The Divine is not sui generis. What other modes of knowing are there that do not require a mind?LoveJames From: eggersj (AT) gvsu (DOT) eduDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 12:32:22 -0500Re: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Dear James and Peter,Peter, thanks for your earlier post. It was a very thoughtful response to James' ideas. I enjoyed reading it. James, for some reason when I read your posts I always want to give you a big hug. You are indeed a skeptic but with such an ardent wish to examine even your own skepticism in search of deeper understanding. After reading your post yesterday I got the image that to use the mind to understand the divine is like using scissors to dig a hole. While out running in the woods this morning, I thought about Peter likening the mind to consciousness. I conceive of the mind as something that emerges from consciousness, an arising of activity within the field of consciousness. Consciousness is the empty screen, mind the projections/activity on the screen that obscures it. We tend to place our sense of identity with the mind--we think we are our minds. But we aren't. It's very difficult to relinquish this identification and the illusion of control it gives us. Modes of knowing that do not require or engage language are not encouraged in the culture. Even when these ways of knowing become part of one's experience, they may be dismissed by the linear, thinking mind as unreal, until they are established in a way that makes dismissing them impossible. David Hawkins writes about the ego and enlightenment in ways that I find very useful; you might like some of his books. "I: Reality and Subjectivity", and "DIscovery of the Presence of God", are both good ones.JillOn Nov 2, 2008, at 10:24 AM, james cogdell wrote:Dear Peter,Thankyou so much for your post. I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it. I have had experiences during meditation practice (formless meditation) that I find difficult to describe. However, they need to be described. For my own benefit, it is of no use to me to have to say that I do not know what I mean; that I cannot describe something. The idea of ineffability is a dead one; it communicates absolutely nothing and leaves a conversation flat. Conversations of that nature tend to end in a knowing smile, a real contradiction. My contention is that all of these experiences during whatever kind of meditation we do are conscious manipulations that produce chemical reactions in the body. We are like vessels that have the potential for many things and we can, once we have come to know our minds, use them for whatever we want. I am a total skeptic and perhaps, as has already been mentioned, do not belong here, but I need to discuss these things in order to understand.RegardsJames From: not_2 (AT) btinternet (DOT) comDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:14:19 +0000RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Dear James,I'm not sure if these reflections will be of any help with the currentquestion. For what they are worth...I don't find the term "ego" is a very useful one. I say this from mybackground as someone following a spiritual path for many years and as asomeone working as psychotherapist for the last 20+ years with many peoplefor whom spirituality is an important concern in their lives. 'A sense ofindividuality' is a phrase that works better for me and has more resonancewith lived experience. The term "ego" is really just a conceptual toolvariously described and used by different disciplines - psychological andspiritual. In spiritual parlance it's often used with such negativity that,in my view, as a negatively loaded concept it more likely hinders ratherthan helps people make sense of their lived experience and the connectionbetween their 'sense of individuality' and the sense of connnectedness tothe whole (or one-ness). It helps me if I put these things in simple terms. Thus: - In vedanta we call that 'sense of individuality' the jiva.- We call the underlying one-ness of life Brahman.- The recognition of the identity between the sense of individuality and theunderlying one-ness of life we call jnana or moksha (enlightenment,liberation).- The spiritual path (sadhana) is a concerted effort to uncover thatrecogntion.This "recognition" isn't straight forward. It takes many forms and may beof various levels of intensity and duration. It may be intuitive, afleeting glimpse, a formless conviction; it may be a momentary yet profoundexperience of 'other-ness', of one-ness, of the core of one's being of suchan intensity that it changes one's life thereafter. These are just a veryfew examples. In vedanta, someone who is fully established in that recognition is called abrahma-nishta, or jnani. In the kind of intense experiences which are transient the person mightretain 'a sense of individuality' during the process of recognition. Inwhich case the individual might report being in the presence of a higherpower, of feeling a part of the oneness of all life & so on. There are alsoexperiences where 'the sense of individuality' disolves - at leasttemporarily. But when it does re-emerge the outlook on life may never bethe same again. These experiences can be found in the different kinds ofsamadhi.I agree with you in one sense when you say it is all in the mind, if by mindwe consciousness. For one of the factors in common with what we callmystical experience is that we discover something which has always beenpresent. That's what makes such experiences profound and potentially lifechanging as we discover that underneath our lives of pleasure and suffering,of separateness and grasping, there is a much deeper substratum of knowingand being which is not defiled by outer appearances. It is certainly true that one aspect of human nature is wishful thinkingbased upon the desire for happiness and security. However, in itself thatis not sufficient to deny the existence of the underlying substratum. Onemight as well claim the sun only rises in the morning because people areafraid of the dark and desirous of light.To mention another context...In the early days of western psychology, psychologists and therapists weretotally preoccupied with definitions of pathology and what made people sick.Then people like Maslow (the founder of Humanistic Psychology) came along inthe 1940s and decided to explore what helped people to be healthy, selfactualised, human beings. Psychological research along these lines showedthat 'self actualised' people often report experiences of love, wholeness,creativity, a profound sense of truth, justice, authenticity & so on. Theseexperiences of self actualised people were called "peak experiences". Butit wasn't long before their research showed that there was a whole level andrange of experiencing and knowing that transcended the usual models ofpersonality and ego psychology. In other words there was a range ofexperience of unity, love, compassion that couldn't simply be reduced toeither ego needs or ego development. Hence Transpersonal Psychology tookbirth (in the 1960s). The term "trans" refers to those states ofconsciousness and being that transcend 'ego' and personality. There is veryinteresting research in this field for those who wish to follow it up.In the field of psychology, probably the earliest pioneers in the field ofthe 'transpersonal' were Richard Bucke and William James who wereresearching the nature of spiritual (mystic) experience back in the verylate 1800s - before even the birth of Humanistic Psychology. William Jamesfound four core factors in common with spiritual experiences regardless ofthe background and religion of the person. While this touches a topic fartoo big to do justice to via email, and much more systematic research hasbeen carried out since William James' time, it may be relevant to mentionwhat the four core factors are:1. Ineffability - the experiences were too great to be expressed in wordsand thus had to be experienced directly as their meaning could not beimparted to others.2. Noetic - such experiences involved an experience of knowing, of havingdirect access to knowledge otherwise unobtainable to the discursiveintellect.3. Transiency - except in rare cases such experience is not maintained.4. Passivity - the individual feels their own will is in abeyance, perhapseven feeling they were grasped or held by a superior power.James, my own sense is that we each have to follow the path that emerges outof what is most meaningful to ourselves rather than in relation to thebelief systems and far from perfect understanding / experiences of others.May you do the former with great success.Best wishes,Peter________________________________ On Behalf Of james cogdell01 November 2008 23:07To: RE: Re: Fw: What happenswhen the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Hi Michael,The point I am trying to make is that the Divine is just another aspect ofEgo. I can't understand why it is being separated from Ego in thisdiscussion. Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there isand it is all Ego. <snip>For the best free wallpapers from MSN Click here!For the best free wallpapers from MSN Click here!

November 2, 2008

Peace with you

James

"what other means of knowing..."

of course NOT with the conceptual "mind" - but only with the "higher intuition" (intuition plus higher mind)

only with this "tool", at the right "moment", when you as a "person" are mature enough to "grasp" it you will really KNOW and "feel" with all your being the "Divine"

"" are used because this terms depends on your personal understanding

at first i would in your position check with all your ability (at that moment) to define whatever you understand under a certain "word" - which meaning you yourself has given to it

than check what others understand by using these terms

by the way

all my explanations are born out of inner experience, not by books

books - as our friend yossi stated so wonderful - are just helping tools on the way

at the moment you really understand "something" you do not need them any more and no further explanations for others are needed

instead of socalled knowledge - look at the situation in your personal life, in your personal world, in the world at large! you will see the fruits of this socalled knowledge which is instead ignorence per se, its like the building of the tower of babel in the jewish bible! - i prefer the expression curtain of noknowledge

yours sincerely

michael

-

james cogdell

Sunday, November 02, 2008 7:09 PM

RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Hi Jill,Thanks. I can always do with a hug!! This all just seems like playing around with words, that's all. How on earth can you discover the Divine without using the mind, if the Divine exists ofcourse, which I honestly doubt. The Divine seems to be what Peter called a 'conceptual tool' and is also what Alan Jacobs has called an 'umbrella term' which to me means that it can be spread about abit to mean just about anything, like the touching of the 'Divine' when you blow yourself up to become a martyr, etc, etc.....or when you paint something and feel that you are entering another realm; or when you read a poem or listen to a piece of music that moves you to tears. The Divine is not sui generis. What other modes of knowing are there that do not require a mind?LoveJames

From: eggersj (AT) gvsu (DOT) eduDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 12:32:22 -0500Re: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear James and Peter,

Peter, thanks for your earlier post. It was a very thoughtful response to James' ideas. I enjoyed reading it.

James, for some reason when I read your posts I always want to give you a big hug. You are indeed a skeptic but with such an ardent wish to examine even your own skepticism in search of deeper understanding. After reading your post yesterday I got the image that to use the mind to understand the divine is like using scissors to dig a hole. While out running in the woods this morning, I thought about Peter likening the mind to consciousness. I conceive of the mind as something that emerges from consciousness, an arising of activity within the field of consciousness. Consciousness is the empty screen, mind the projections/activity on the screen that obscures it. We tend to place our sense of identity with the mind--we think we are our minds. But we aren't. It's very difficult to relinquish this identification and the illusion of control it gives us. Modes of knowing that do not require or engage language are not e ncouraged in the culture. Even when these ways of knowing become part of one's experience, they may be dismissed by the linear, thinking mind as unreal, until they are established in a way that makes dismissing them impossible.

David Hawkins writes about the ego and enlightenment in ways that I find very useful; you might like some of his books. "I: Reality and Subjectivity", and "DIscovery of the Presence of God", are both good ones.

Jill

On Nov 2, 2008, at 10:24 AM, james cogdell wrote:

Dear Peter,Thankyou so much for your post. I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it. I have had experiences during meditation practice (formless meditation) that I find difficult to describe. However, they need to be described. For my own benefit, it is of no use to me to have to say that I do not know what I mean; that I cannot describe something. The idea of ineffability is a dead one; it communicates absolutely nothing and leaves a conversation flat. Conversations of that nature tend to end in a knowing smile, a real contradiction. My contention is that all of these experiences during whatever kind of meditation we do are conscious manipulations that produce chemical reactions in the body. We are like vessels that have the potential for many things and we can, once we have come to know our minds, use them for whatever we want. I am a total skeptic and perhaps, as has already been mentioned, do not belong here, but I need to discuss these things in order to understand.RegardsJames

From: not_2 (AT) btinternet (DOT) comDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:14:19 +0000RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear James,I'm not sure if these reflections will be of any help with the currentquestion. For what they are worth...I don't find the term "ego" is a very useful one. I say this from mybackground as someone following a spiritual path for many years and as asomeone working as psychotherapist for the last 20+ years with many peoplefor whom spirituality is an important concern in their lives. 'A sense ofindividuality' is a phrase that works better for me and has more resonancewith lived experience. The term "ego" is really just a conceptual toolvariously described and used by different disciplines - psychological andspiritual. In spiritual parlance it's often used with such negativity that,in my view, as a negatively loaded concept it more likely hinders ratherthan helps people make sense of their lived experience and the connectionbetween their 'sense of individuality' and the sense of connnec tedness tothe whole (or one-ness). It helps me if I put these things in simple terms. Thus: - In vedanta we call that 'sense of individuality' the jiva.- We call the underlying one-ness of life Brahman.- The recognition of the identity between the sense of individuality and theunderlying one-ness of life we call jnana or moksha (enlightenment,liberation).- The spiritual path (sadhana) is a concerted effort to uncover thatrecogntion.This "recognition" isn't straight forward. It takes many forms and may beof various levels of intensity and duration. It may be intuitive, afleeting glimpse, a formless conviction; it may be a momentary yet profoundexperience of 'other-ness', of one-ness, of the core of one's being of suchan intensity that it changes one's life thereafter. These are just a veryfew example s. In vedanta, someone who is fully established in that recognition is called abrahma-nishta, or jnani. In the kind of intense experiences which are transient the person mightretain 'a sense of individuality' during the process of recognition. Inwhich case the individual might report being in the presence of a higherpower, of feeling a part of the oneness of all life & so on. There are alsoexperiences where 'the sense of individuality' disolves - at leasttemporarily. But when it does re-emerge the outlook on life may never bethe same again. These experiences can be found in the different kinds ofsamadhi.I agree with you in one sense when you say it is all in the mind, if by mindwe consciousness. For one of the factors in common with what we callmystical experience is that we discover something which has alwa ys beenpresent. That's what makes such experiences profound and potentially lifechanging as we discover that underneath our lives of pleasure and suffering,of separateness and grasping, there is a much deeper substratum of knowingand being which is not defiled by outer appearances. It is certainly true that one aspect of human nature is wishful thinkingbased upon the desire for happiness and security. However, in itself thatis not sufficient to deny the existence of the underlying substratum. Onemight as well claim the sun only rises in the morning because people areafraid of the dark and desirous of light.To mention another context...In the early days of western psychology, psychologists and therapists weretotally preoccupied with definitions of pathology and what made people sick.Then people like Maslow (the founder of Humanistic Psychology) came along int he 1940s and decided to explore what helped people to be healthy, selfactualised, human beings. Psychological research along these lines showedthat 'self actualised' people often report experiences of love, wholeness,creativity, a profound sense of truth, justice, authenticity & so on. Theseexperiences of self actualised people were called "peak experiences". Butit wasn't long before their research showed that there was a whole level andrange of experiencing and knowing that transcended the usual models ofpersonality and ego psychology. In other words there was a range ofexperience of unity, love, compassion that couldn't simply be reduced toeither ego needs or ego development. Hence Transpersonal Psychology tookbirth (in the 1960s). The term "trans" refers to those states ofconsciousness and being that transcend 'ego' and personality. There is veryinteresting research in this field for those who wish to follow it up.< BR>In the field of psychology, probably the earliest pioneers in the field ofthe 'transpersonal' were Richard Bucke and William James who wereresearching the nature of spiritual (mystic) experience back in the verylate 1800s - before even the birth of Humanistic Psychology. William Jamesfound four core factors in common with spiritual experiences regardless ofthe background and religion of the person. While this touches a topic fartoo big to do justice to via email, and much more systematic research hasbeen carried out since William James' time, it may be relevant to mentionwhat the four core factors are:1. Ineffability - the experiences were too great to be expressed in wordsand thus had to be experienced directly as their meaning could not beimparted to others.2. Noetic - such experiences involved an experience of knowing, of havingdirect access to knowledge otherwise unobtainable to the discursiveintellect.3. Transiency - except in rare cases such experience is not maintained.4. Passivity - the individual feels their own will is in abeyance, perhapseven feeling they were grasped or held by a superior power.James, my own sense is that we each have to follow the path that emerges outof what is most meaningful to ourselves rather than in relation to thebelief systems and far from perfect understanding / experiences of others.May you do the former with great success.Best wishes,Peter________________________________ On Behalf Of james cogdell01 November 2008 23:07 RE: Re: Fw: What happenswhen the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Hi Michael,The point I am trying to make is that the Divine is just another aspect ofEgo. I can't understand why it is being separated from Ego in thisdiscussion. Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there isand it is all Ego. <snip>

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November 2, 2008

Thankyou Michael and peace be with you too,

I am struggling, I know, but it is a fruitful struggle and coming to terms with my own level is a part of the process and I can't think of a better place to be with more understanding people.

James

From: michael.bindelDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 21:04:46 +0100Re: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Peace with you

James

"what other means of knowing..."

of course NOT with the conceptual "mind" - but only with the "higher intuition" (intuition plus higher mind)

only with this "tool", at the right "moment", when you as a "person" are mature enough to "grasp" it you will really KNOW and "feel" with all your being the "Divine"

"" are used because this terms depends on your personal understanding

at first i would in your position check with all your ability (at that moment) to define whatever you understand under a certain "word" - which meaning you yourself has given to it

than check what others understand by using these terms

by the way

all my explanations are born out of inner experience, not by books

books - as our friend yossi stated so wonderful - are just helping tools on the way

at the moment you really understand "something" you do not need them any more and no further explanations for others are needed

instead of socalled knowledge - look at the situation in your personal life, in your personal world, in the world at large! you will see the fruits of this socalled knowledge which is instead ignorence per se, its like the building of the tower of babel in the jewish bible! - i prefer the expression curtain of noknowledge

yours sincerely

michael

-

james cogdell

Sunday, November 02, 2008 7:09 PM

RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Hi Jill,Thanks. I can always do with a hug!! This all just seems like playing around with words, that's all. How on earth can you discover the Divine without using the mind, if the Divine exists ofcourse, which I honestly doubt. The Divine seems to be what Peter called a 'conceptual tool' and is also what Alan Jacobs has called an 'umbrella term' which to me means that it can be spread about abit to mean just about anything, like the touching of the 'Divine' when you blow yourself up to become a martyr, etc, etc.....or when you paint something and feel that you are entering another realm; or when you read a poem or listen to a piece of music that moves you to tears. The Divine is not sui generis. What other modes of knowing are there that do not require a mind?LoveJames

From: eggersj (AT) gvsu (DOT) eduDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 12:32:22 -0500Re: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear James and Peter,

Peter, thanks for your earlier post. It was a very thoughtful response to James' ideas. I enjoyed reading it.

James, for some reason when I read your posts I always want to give you a big hug. You are indeed a skeptic but with such an ardent wish to examine even your own skepticism in search of deeper understanding. After reading your post yesterday I got the image that to use the mind to understand the divine is like using scissors to dig a hole. While out running in the woods this morning, I thought about Peter likening the mind to consciousness. I conceive of the mind as something that emerges from consciousness, an arising of activity within the field of consciousness. Consciousness is the empty screen, mind the projections/activity on the screen that obscures it. We tend to place our sense of identity with the mind--we think we are our minds. But we aren't. It's very difficult to relinquish this identification and the illusion of control it gives us. Modes of knowing that do not require or engage language are not e ncouraged in the culture. Even when these ways of knowing become part of one's experience, they may be dismissed by the linear, thinking mind as unreal, until they are established in a way that makes dismissing them impossible.

David Hawkins writes about the ego and enlightenment in ways that I find very useful; you might like some of his books. "I: Reality and Subjectivity", and "DIscovery of the Presence of God", are both good ones.

Jill

On Nov 2, 2008, at 10:24 AM, james cogdell wrote:

Dear Peter,Thankyou so much for your post. I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it. I have had experiences during meditation practice (formless meditation) that I find difficult to describe. However, they need to be described. For my own benefit, it is of no use to me to have to say that I do not know what I mean; that I cannot describe something. The idea of ineffability is a dead one; it communicates absolutely nothing and leaves a conversation flat. Conversations of that nature tend to end in a knowing smile, a real contradiction. My contention is that all of these experiences during whatever kind of meditation we do are conscious manipulations that produce chemical reactions in the body. We are like vessels that have the potential for many things and we can, once we have come to know our minds, use them for whatever we want. I am a total skeptic and perhaps, as has already been mentioned, do not belong here, but I need to discuss these things in order to understand.RegardsJames

From: not_2 (AT) btinternet (DOT) comDate: Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:14:19 +0000RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear James,I'm not sure if these reflections will be of any help with the currentquestion. For what they are worth...I don't find the term "ego" is a very useful one. I say this from mybackground as someone following a spiritual path for many years and as asomeone working as psychotherapist for the last 20+ years with many peoplefor whom spirituality is an important concern in their lives. 'A sense ofindividuality' is a phrase that works better for me and has more resonancewith lived experience. The term "ego" is really just a conceptual toolvariously described and used by different disciplines - psychological andspiritual. In spiritual parlance it's often used with such negativity that,in my view, as a negatively loaded concept it more likely hinders ratherthan helps people make sense of their lived experience and the connectionbetween their 'sense of individuality' and the sense of connnec tedness tothe whole (or one-ness). It helps me if I put these things in simple terms. Thus: - In vedanta we call that 'sense of individuality' the jiva.- We call the underlying one-ness of life Brahman.- The recognition of the identity between the sense of individuality and theunderlying one-ness of life we call jnana or moksha (enlightenment,liberation).- The spiritual path (sadhana) is a concerted effort to uncover thatrecogntion.This "recognition" isn't straight forward. It takes many forms and may beof various levels of intensity and duration. It may be intuitive, afleeting glimpse, a formless conviction; it may be a momentary yet profoundexperience of 'other-ness', of one-ness, of the core of one's being of suchan intensity that it changes one's life thereafter. These are just a veryfew example s. In vedanta, someone who is fully established in that recognition is called abrahma-nishta, or jnani. In the kind of intense experiences which are transient the person mightretain 'a sense of individuality' during the process of recognition. Inwhich case the individual might report being in the presence of a higherpower, of feeling a part of the oneness of all life & so on. There are alsoexperiences where 'the sense of individuality' disolves - at leasttemporarily. But when it does re-emerge the outlook on life may never bethe same again. These experiences can be found in the different kinds ofsamadhi.I agree with you in one sense when you say it is all in the mind, if by mindwe consciousness. For one of the factors in common with what we callmystical experience is that we discover something which has alwa ys beenpresent. That's what makes such experiences profound and potentially lifechanging as we discover that underneath our lives of pleasure and suffering,of separateness and grasping, there is a much deeper substratum of knowingand being which is not defiled by outer appearances. It is certainly true that one aspect of human nature is wishful thinkingbased upon the desire for happiness and security. However, in itself thatis not sufficient to deny the existence of the underlying substratum. Onemight as well claim the sun only rises in the morning because people areafraid of the dark and desirous of light.To mention another context...In the early days of western psychology, psychologists and therapists weretotally preoccupied with definitions of pathology and what made people sick.Then people like Maslow (the founder of Humanistic Psychology) came along int he 1940s and decided to explore what helped people to be healthy, selfactualised, human beings. Psychological research along these lines showedthat 'self actualised' people often report experiences of love, wholeness,creativity, a profound sense of truth, justice, authenticity & so on. Theseexperiences of self actualised people were called "peak experiences". Butit wasn't long before their research showed that there was a whole level andrange of experiencing and knowing that transcended the usual models ofpersonality and ego psychology. In other words there was a range ofexperience of unity, love, compassion that couldn't simply be reduced toeither ego needs or ego development. Hence Transpersonal Psychology tookbirth (in the 1960s). The term "trans" refers to those states ofconsciousness and being that transcend 'ego' and personality. There is veryinteresting research in this field for those who wish to follow it up.< BR>In the field of psychology, probably the earliest pioneers in the field ofthe 'transpersonal' were Richard Bucke and William James who wereresearching the nature of spiritual (mystic) experience back in the verylate 1800s - before even the birth of Humanistic Psychology. William Jamesfound four core factors in common with spiritual experiences regardless ofthe background and religion of the person. While this touches a topic fartoo big to do justice to via email, and much more systematic research hasbeen carried out since William James' time, it may be relevant to mentionwhat the four core factors are:1. Ineffability - the experiences were too great to be expressed in wordsand thus had to be experienced directly as their meaning could not beimparted to others.2. Noetic - such experiences involved an experience of knowing, of havingdirect access to knowledge otherwise unobtainable to the discursiveintellect.3. Transiency - except in rare cases such experience is not maintained.4. Passivity - the individual feels their own will is in abeyance, perhapseven feeling they were grasped or held by a superior power.James, my own sense is that we each have to follow the path that emerges outof what is most meaningful to ourselves rather than in relation to thebelief systems and far from perfect understanding / experiences of others.May you do the former with great success.Best wishes,Peter________________________________ On Behalf Of james cogdell01 November 2008 23:07 RE: Re: Fw: What happenswhen the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!Hi Michael,The point I am trying to make is that the Divine is just another aspect ofEgo. I can't understand why it is being separated from Ego in thisdiscussion. Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there isand it is all Ego. <snip>

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November 3, 2008

Dear James,

Thanks for your response. My replies are between your statements...

>> I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible

>> to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you mean by "to know". It seems to me we are capable of 'knowing' quite a lot without recourse to language. That's not something peculiar to the spiritual domain, it's part of our everyday lives. When we are moved by a beautiful sunrise, when we feel the gentle caress or meet the eyes of someone who loves us... do we need recourse to language in order to know this is meaningful for us? Lewis Hamilton became World Champion racing driver yesterday. When asked what it meant for him he said he couldn't find the words to describe it. The didn't mean he didn't know it had great significance for him or that he didn't know he had become world champion. The experience was simply more than words could express and perhaps so overwhelming for him that no words could do it justice.

>> I have had experiences during meditation practice (formless meditation) that I find difficult to describe.

>> However, they need to be described. For my own benefit, it is of no use to me to have to say that I do

>> not know what I mean; that I cannot describe something.

>> The idea of ineffability is a dead one; it communicates absolutely nothing and leaves a conversation flat.

>> Conversations of that nature tend to end in a knowing smile, a real contradiction.

I'm not sure I am following you.... Are you saying that because you find it difficult to describe those experiences they are of no use to you?....and if you can't describe something you therefore don't know what it means? Can you say a bit more?

"Ineffability".....Could it be the way you respond to the idea of ineffability that makes it a 'dead one communicating absolutely nothing'?

Ineffability simply means a) no words can do justice to the experience and/or b) that for the person concerned the experience is too sacred for them to share with others. When people refer to their 'experience' in such a way they are telling us (through language) something very important about that experience. It's certainly not a "dead idea". Even so, in the example I gave you, William James referred to three other factors that accompany spiritual experience. Ineffability is just one aspect of descriptions of spiritual experiences. (Other researchers refer to many more.) Why not explore the other aspects rather than dismiss them all on the basis that just one has no meaning for you?

I feel we need to be careful not to get in a double bind here. When people describe spiritual experience or spiritual knowing as beyond concepts you dismiss it as "communicating absolutely nothing". Yet when people (eg Jill) use language to offer you some descriptions you also dismiss these as just playing with words. What to do?

>> My contention is that all of these experiences during whatever kind of meditation we do are conscious

>> manipulations that produce chemical reactions in the body. We are like vessels that have the potential

>> for many things and we can, once we have come to know our minds, use them for whatever we want.

You also said in a previous post:

>> Everything that happens in our minds is everything that there is and it is all Ego.

If I understand you correctly you are suggesting that what people refer to as spiritual experiences are really just chemical reactions in the body produced by conscious manipulations of the mind (Ego). That's certainly an interesting theory. The problem with theories of chemical causation is that either you apply them to all experience including the explanation of consciousness itself or they don't really explain anything at all.

For example - if consciousness in the form of the mind is an independent agent that can manipulate thought, feelings and produce chemical reactions in the body then why can't there be other kinds of consciousness and experiences at that level that are independent of chemical reactions in the body? Is your sense of being an individual, someone with questions and doubts, who wants to understand, who responds sensitively to other people - just to be explained away as the by chemical reactions in the body?

>> I am a total skeptic....

Well, you are not a total sceptic for at least you believe in your own ideas, that you have a body and that there are people with whom you disagree. Descartes, in his Meditations, initially assumed the position of total sceptic and chose to doubt everything of which he could not be completely certain, whether presented to him by the senses or the mind. This meant doubting all his experiences, even that he had a body - afterall he could just be dreaming. He also asked- what if there were an all powerful being who could make him believe and experience anything? A Great Deceiver. Of what then could he be really certain? He continues:

"... I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So after considering everything very thoroughy, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind." (Second Meditation; para 3)

In other words, only a being who exists can doubt his own existence. Therefore to doubt one's own existence is to affirm it.

This brings us to the entrance point of advaita vedanta and to the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and the reason why experiences are to be noted but not chased after, whether they be material (of the senses), mental or spiritual. Hence Ramana (and Advaita Vedanta) states over and over again that the real quest is to discover the truth of the one named "I".

I suspect that I have wandered far away from your questions, so best stop here.

Best wishes,

Peter

On Behalf Of james cogdell02 November 2008 15:24 Subject: RE: What happens when the True Divine Human Nature Reveals!

Dear Peter,Thankyou so much for your post. I think deep down I am struggling here ...

<snip>

November 4, 2008

Dear Peter,

Thankyou for taking so much time and effort in your reply which has taken me a little aback in its detailed analysis of my effort.

Your first response brings up the age old problems of epistemology...what constitutes knowledge. You suggest that there is much in everyday life that we experience that we cannot put into words. That may be so, but here we are talking about ultimate reality or claims to ultimate reality. You mention the sublime and how it makes us speechless. But does it really? Or does the sublime just momentarily put us to sleep? Does it tongue tie us? If an experience like this suspends our ability to put into words how we feel, I contend that it is only a matter of time until language matures enough to reclaim that experience for itself. Language catches up with experience in a Hegelian dialectic; a movement towards.....I'm sure you know your Hegel. Your example of Lewis Hamilton is a good one, but I am sure that given time, he will be able to reflect and explain to himself and others how he felt.

In answer to you point...I'm not sure I am following you.... Are you saying that because you find it difficult to describe those experiences they are of no use to you?....and if you can't describe something you therefore don't know what it means? Can you say a bit more? I can just say this: My contention is that not to describe something is to leave open a space that can be abused, because ideas are very very powerful. Everywhere we see the idea of ineffability used as a justification for war. 'God moves in mysterious ways' can quite easily mean 'God has told be to me to murder you and rape your wife'. You may think this is an extreme example, but the mystical has always been bound with the political. So when someone says that their experience is ineffable, what they are leaving open is the possibility for that ineffability to be highjacked at some stage. The lack is as poweful as plenitude.

Why not explore the other aspects rather than dismiss them all on the basis that just one has no meaning for you?

I just used ineffability as it was the first example you gave from James.

You mention a double-bind. We are in a double bind; that is the crux; that is exactly my point. I suppose the only way out of this is the Neti Neti of Nagarjuna, I think it was Nagarjuna. Or the via negativa. Or the deconstruction of someone like Derrida. I don't know. But the contradiction you highlight in what I have said is interesting. It's a hermeneutic circle I guess. A linguistic trap.

I'm not too sure about my 'everything is a chemical reaction' statement. I tend to concur with you on that one. I have thought a lot about this and have decided that what we are doing is what we always do in western thought and that's reduce to binaries with one side superior to the other and in this case we have an aversion to being reduced to chemicals. I would suggest that one day, the term mystical may become the name of a chemical element.

Lastly, who said I believe in my own ideas? I certainly do not. My ideas are constantly changing. I believe that my ideas are simply apparitions, that's all.

James

Thanks for your response. My replies are between your statements...

>> I think deep down I am struggling here because I cannot understand how it is possible

>> to know something without recourse to language. This is basic for me and I cannot ignore it.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you mean by "to know". It se That's not something peculiar to the spiritual domain, it's part of our everyday lives. When we are moved by a beautiful sunrise, when we feel the gentle caress or meet the eyes of someone who loves us... do we need recourse to language in order to know this is meaningful for us? Lewis Hamilton became World Champion racing driver yesterday. When asked what it meant for him he said he couldn't find the words to describe it. The didn't mean he didn't know it had great significance for him or that he didn't knowexperience was simply more than words could express and perhaps so overwhelming for him that no words could do it justice.