...and I still consider myself a scientist (as well as THIS). FWIW I am both a theoretician and an experimenter. I routinely conduct all kinds of experiments in the field of construction, collect data, and reach various useful conclusions. It would be hard to find anyone more practical and science-oriented than I am. For this reason I am somewhat humored by the idea that someone might think I belong to a class of starry-eyed spiritualists uninterested in logic and reasoning. After all, I have a degree in science, I did graduate work in the field of magnetic resonance of paramagnetic minerals, I have built all kinds of exotic scientific apparati, and I once received a NSF grant to pursue one of my personal scientific interests. Just to be clear, although I use scientific methodologies and consider myself a scientist in both training and temperament, I recognize the limitations of science and logic, and many scientists do not.
To begin with, let’s remember that the early Greeks distinguished between intellectual knowing (episteme) and body knowing (gnosis). Knowing how to play baseball or ride a bicycle is a different kind of knowing than knowing what Kieerkegard thought about reality or how to use algebraic equations. One kind of knowing is through the body, and the other is through the intellect. The same thing is true of realizations. There are intellectual realizations (episteme) and embodied realizations (gnosis). Question has realized (epistemically) that selfhood is an illusion. I assume that this is the kind of realization that is typical for RT people. Question has not yet realized (gnostically) that selfhood is an illusion. There is a big difference between the two. Intellectual realization (episteme) is a mental phenomenon; body realization (gnosis) is a body phenomenon. A “eureka” realization in the field of science is an intellectual realization (episteme), whereas an enlightenment realization/experience (they can be both--kensho, satori, cosmic consciousness, etc) is a body realization/experience (gnosis). Let’s keep this distinction in mind as we proceed.
I often advise people to attend the actual (ATA--attend the physical world through the senses) for what I think are good reasons based upon my personal experiences, various psychological experiments, observations of other people, and a theoretical foundation that, although not proved, seems highly justifiable and rational.
When I observe little children, and when I remember my own childhood, it seems clear to me that children do not interact with the world/reality/THIS in the same way as adults. They are not attached to thoughts and beliefs, and they psychologically live in the present moment. They don’t worry about the past or the future because they are focused solely upon what is happening NOW. If they get angry, it is like a minor storm, and blows over quickly; the anger isn’t carried forward as something held in mind. IOW, they do not hold a grudge or repeatedly and psychologically relive the events that caused the initial anger. They are usually happy without knowing they’re happy, and the reason I think they are happy is because they aren’t thinking about happiness or seeking happiness. They don’t spend any time comparing alternative states of mind or seeking out particular states of mind.
As they grow older, however, children become conditioned to perceive reality in the way that their family, friends, and culture perceive it. They spend more and more time thinking about reality (constructing an imaginary mental model of reality), talking to themselves, and interacting with various illusions/ideas that they have been encouraged to perceive and believe to be real.
Little children initially have no sense of selfhood and no self-image to protect or defend. They have no shame or pride. They can walk around naked without being embarrassed. As they grow older, however, they gradually and unconsciously construct a self-image and a self-concept. They spend more and more time thinking about themselves and thinking about how they relate to what they imagine is an external world. It seems obvious to me that selfhood is a structure of thought that becomes increasingly dominant as a result of continual self-reflection.
I do not think it is an accident that most world-famous spiritual masters have advised their followers to “become like little children.” In Christianity followers often think that Christ meant, “have faith like a little child,” but I do not think that is what he meant at all. I think he meant that there is a different way of interacting with the world, and little children exhibit that way. I think he was talking about a child’s psychological state of mind, which is empty, open, free, detached, and unknowing. The “fall from grace” related in the book of Genesis in the Bible is an allegory of what each human does as s/he travels from childhood to adulthood. The little child does not yet intellectually know (episteme) the world, and has not yet imagined good and evil; the adult not only knows the world intellectually, but lives and interacts almost exclusively with a world that is intellectually known (episteme).
Children spend more than 90% of their time interacting with the world through their bodies (direct sensory perception), and they know (gnosis) the world directly. Adults spend more than 90% of their time interacting with their ideas ABOUT the world (episteme). This difference in the way each group spends its time is significant, and the AMOUNT of time spent this way is equally significant.
I used to wonder what little children see when they look at the world. I would drive around thinking, “Hmmmm, little children haven’t yet learned either the names of things or the concepts that underlie the names, so I wonder what they see? They can’t see trees or road signs or bridges in the way that adults see them because they haven’t yet imagined that those things are objects separate from themselves. So, what do they see? They clearly see something because they don’t walk into trees, but if they don’t yet know that trees are trees, what do they see?”
One day, while looking at an airplane after spending two hours staring at objects and contemplating this issue, I had the thought, “A little child hasn’t yet learned that what I’m looking at is an airplane or that the airplane is separate from the sky, so it must see the airplane and the sky in some unified way.” As I stared at the airplane while bearing this thought in mind, the space between “me” and “the airplane” suddenly and momentarily collapsed, and there was a powerful surge of emotion accompanied by a feeling of intimacy. The collapse was so momentary (it only lasted for a second or two) that I immediately began to doubt what had just happened. A few weeks later, I had an experience in which reality totally collapsed, and I then understood (for the first time as an adult) what little children see when they look at the world. They see a unified field of being that is exactly what a camera lens “sees.” They do not see “things” as “things.” They see the world without distinction, exactly as it is before mind imagines separateness.
After several such insights and other realizations, I theorized that in order to become child-like an adult must do what little children do—look at the world without thinking about it. I was already meditating (using breath awareness practices), during which time I was watching the breathing process without thinking about it. It therefore made logical sense to extend this practice into everyday life. This is when I started shifting attention throughout the day, again and again, from thoughts to what could be seen or heard. I was doing ATA before I had a name for it.
As I continued doing this, I had more embodied realizations (gnosis). In fact, my life from that time forward could be described as “the sequential collapse of ideational beliefs.” In each case, the body/mind saw through a belief to the underlying truth. Byron Katie discusses this process at length, and she developed “The Work” as a formal way of helping people examine and eventually see-through their beliefs.
Question has stated that it shouldn’t take fifteen years for an adult to wake up. Well, that is an idea that he might want to investigate using BK’s methodology, but aside from the total absurdity of that idea, itself, it contains an implication that is extremely misleading, to say the least. Although it took this particular body/mind fifteen years to realize (gnosis) the illusion of selfhood after ATA was initiated, dozens of lesser illusions collapsed quite quickly. In fact, the illusion of an objective reality collapsed five months after ATA was initiated. The illusion of meaning collapsed about five months after that. The illusion that the body/mind “ought” to be doing anything other than what it was doing collapsed about two years later.
I think most people on this forum and most spiritual teachers would agree that selfhood is the deepest and most entrenched illusion of all, so it should not be surprising that it would be the last illusion to collapse. As noted before, this body/mind was an intense intellectual prior to doing any ATA, so that was a particularly-serious handicap. LOL
Now, let’s consider scientific methodology and how it relates to this discussion. In the scientific world scientists make various claims. Other scientists who doubt the validity of a particular claim can choose to (1) believe it, (2) not believe it and ignore it, (3) not believe it and make fun of it, (4) not believe it and test it, or (5) suspect it is true, but want to test it for themselves. In order to test a truth claim the scientist must be given a set of injunctions that, if followed, will allow the scientist to have direct experiences which can then be used to evaluate the truth or falsity of the truth claim.
For example, if a scientist wishes to test the truth claim, “The planet Saturn has rings around it,” s/he must obtain a telescope, point it at the planet Saturn, and look through the telescope. With direct experience of what s/he sees through the telescope the scientist then has an empirical basis upon which the truth claim can be evaluated.
If a scientist heard the above truth claim, and then said, “I don’t want to obtain a telescope, or learn to use it, or look through it,” then s/he would be saying, in effect, “I have no interest in acquiring the kind of direct experience that would allow me to evaluate the truth claim, or s/he would be saying, in effect, “I have no interest in the truth claim.” That’s fine, and it happens all the time in the scientific world.
On this forum I have made a lot of truth claims:
1. A person can learn more about reality through ATA than through thinking
2. ATA can be used to dispel cognitive illusions
3. “Being still” or “being silent” has the same effect as ATA
4. The easiest form of ATA ( for people with highly talkative/thinkative minds) is breath counting or mantra recitation
5. A slightly more difficult but more effective form of ATA (for people with t/t minds) is breath awareness or breath following (eliminating the mental/verbal component)
6. A more advanced form and even more effective form of ATA includes shifting attention from thoughts to direct sensory perception (what can be seen or heard) throughout the day. Most people find it easier to pursue easy forms of ATA before pursuing more advanced forms.
7. A still more advanced form of ATA is AT (attending THIS) in which attention watches thoughts as well as what can be seen or heard. I don’t recommend this form of ATA because it offers no advantages over other forms of ATA and it has several disadvantages.
8. An extremely advanced form of ATA is A (attention), or “shikan taza” in which pure attention is maintained without any object of focus
9. All forms of ATA are active rather than passive.
10. ATA in the form of shifting attention from thoughts to what can be seen or heard is recommended most highly because it (1) diminishes the sense of specialness associated with many forms of meditation (2) can be pursued throughout the day thereby increasing the amount of time it is pursued, and (3) helps cut through the idea that there is someone making progress or getting closer to some hoped-for state (when thoughts about “progress” or “attainment appear, attention is shifted to what can be seen or heard, thus interrupting the usual cycle of selfhood reinforcing thoughts)
11. People who pursue ATA seriously will have noticeable results. This means that cognitive illusions will collapse, and the person will know it (gnosis) when a collapse happens.
These truth claims can be ignored, ridiculed, or tested. If someone has no interest in testing them, that’s fine, but without testing there will never be any basis for evaluating the truth claims. Unless some of the basic injunctions are followed no direct experience will be acquired.
Testing these truth claims is not as easy as obtaining a telescope, learning to use it, and pointing it at the planet Saturn. These injunctions are pointing to an experiment with consciousness that any body/mind can perform upon itself. Each human being is different, and each human being interested in testing the truth claims will do so differently and for differing lengths of time, so it is impossible to predict how fast any particular human will acquire sufficient direct experience to acquire a necessary basis for evaluating the truth or falsity of the claims. I am guessing that one year is the minimum amount of run-time necessary for this experiment to produce noticeable results. Some people might see results more quickly than this, but one year seems like the minimum investment in time that a person would need to be willing to make who was interested in performing the experiment.
Now, if we step back and take all of the admonitions and statements by spiritual masters and sages as a whole, the message seems far more unified and coherent than diffuse or contradictory. Consider these admonitions in the context of what has been written here:
1. Be here now (Ram Dass)
2. Recognize the power of NOW (Tolle)
3. Stay present (Thich Nhat Hanh and others)
4. There is no greater gift than the gift of presence (Jacobsen)
5. Take no thought for tomorrow (Jesus)
6. You cannot think about the present. You can only think about the past or the future. (Jacobsen)
7. Become like a little child (Jesus and others)
8. Seek and you will find (Jesus and others)
9. Look within (dozens of different teachers)
10. Be still (the Bible, the Upanishads, Gangagi, Papaji, etc)
11. Inquire “Who am I?” (Ramana and others)
12. Only go straight; don’t know (ZM Seung Sahn)
13. Not knowing is the way (many Zen Masters)
14. There is only THIS (Parsons and others)
15. The truth is beyond belief (Jacobsen)
16. Investigate whether any belief is true (Byron Katie)
17. When you awaken, you will find that there was no separation to overcome. It was all an illusion. (Jacobsen)
18. The only way to overcome separation is to stop seeking to overcome it (Jacobsen)
19. There is no journey. There is no destination. You are already here. (Jacobsen)
20. All spiritual practice is a function of the mind. It is still mind seeking to practice something in order to get somewhere or to achieve something. That is why the practice of meditation will ultimately fail. You cannot practice your way out of the mind. (Jacobsen)
21. Awakening to being is a process of inner unfolding. As you awaken, the truth of life is gradually revealed from within, and you become aware of the present of God in everything around you. You become aware of the presence of God within you. (Jacobsen)
22. At the level of mind, you are thought, memory, and imagination. You are opinion, concept and belief. At the level of Being, you are pure consciousness. You are silent presence. You are eternal presence.
I used a lot of quotes by Jacobsen because they seemed particularly germaine to this discussion, but there are thousands of other similar ones available. When reading through these words, look at the common theme that runs through all of them. Be still, be present, be attentive, and leave beliefs behind.
Having written this tome-like post, and fully understanding the limitations of language and the various misconceptions that will inevitably arise regarding what is written here, I will now retreat to my bomb shelter to avoid all the rocks that are sure to be hurled in this direction. Have fun.
To begin with, let’s remember that the early Greeks distinguished between intellectual knowing (episteme) and body knowing (gnosis). Knowing how to play baseball or ride a bicycle is a different kind of knowing than knowing what Kieerkegard thought about reality or how to use algebraic equations. One kind of knowing is through the body, and the other is through the intellect. The same thing is true of realizations. There are intellectual realizations (episteme) and embodied realizations (gnosis). Question has realized (epistemically) that selfhood is an illusion. I assume that this is the kind of realization that is typical for RT people. Question has not yet realized (gnostically) that selfhood is an illusion. There is a big difference between the two. Intellectual realization (episteme) is a mental phenomenon; body realization (gnosis) is a body phenomenon. A “eureka” realization in the field of science is an intellectual realization (episteme), whereas an enlightenment realization/experience (they can be both--kensho, satori, cosmic consciousness, etc) is a body realization/experience (gnosis). Let’s keep this distinction in mind as we proceed.
I often advise people to attend the actual (ATA--attend the physical world through the senses) for what I think are good reasons based upon my personal experiences, various psychological experiments, observations of other people, and a theoretical foundation that, although not proved, seems highly justifiable and rational.
When I observe little children, and when I remember my own childhood, it seems clear to me that children do not interact with the world/reality/THIS in the same way as adults. They are not attached to thoughts and beliefs, and they psychologically live in the present moment. They don’t worry about the past or the future because they are focused solely upon what is happening NOW. If they get angry, it is like a minor storm, and blows over quickly; the anger isn’t carried forward as something held in mind. IOW, they do not hold a grudge or repeatedly and psychologically relive the events that caused the initial anger. They are usually happy without knowing they’re happy, and the reason I think they are happy is because they aren’t thinking about happiness or seeking happiness. They don’t spend any time comparing alternative states of mind or seeking out particular states of mind.
As they grow older, however, children become conditioned to perceive reality in the way that their family, friends, and culture perceive it. They spend more and more time thinking about reality (constructing an imaginary mental model of reality), talking to themselves, and interacting with various illusions/ideas that they have been encouraged to perceive and believe to be real.
Little children initially have no sense of selfhood and no self-image to protect or defend. They have no shame or pride. They can walk around naked without being embarrassed. As they grow older, however, they gradually and unconsciously construct a self-image and a self-concept. They spend more and more time thinking about themselves and thinking about how they relate to what they imagine is an external world. It seems obvious to me that selfhood is a structure of thought that becomes increasingly dominant as a result of continual self-reflection.
I do not think it is an accident that most world-famous spiritual masters have advised their followers to “become like little children.” In Christianity followers often think that Christ meant, “have faith like a little child,” but I do not think that is what he meant at all. I think he meant that there is a different way of interacting with the world, and little children exhibit that way. I think he was talking about a child’s psychological state of mind, which is empty, open, free, detached, and unknowing. The “fall from grace” related in the book of Genesis in the Bible is an allegory of what each human does as s/he travels from childhood to adulthood. The little child does not yet intellectually know (episteme) the world, and has not yet imagined good and evil; the adult not only knows the world intellectually, but lives and interacts almost exclusively with a world that is intellectually known (episteme).
Children spend more than 90% of their time interacting with the world through their bodies (direct sensory perception), and they know (gnosis) the world directly. Adults spend more than 90% of their time interacting with their ideas ABOUT the world (episteme). This difference in the way each group spends its time is significant, and the AMOUNT of time spent this way is equally significant.
I used to wonder what little children see when they look at the world. I would drive around thinking, “Hmmmm, little children haven’t yet learned either the names of things or the concepts that underlie the names, so I wonder what they see? They can’t see trees or road signs or bridges in the way that adults see them because they haven’t yet imagined that those things are objects separate from themselves. So, what do they see? They clearly see something because they don’t walk into trees, but if they don’t yet know that trees are trees, what do they see?”
One day, while looking at an airplane after spending two hours staring at objects and contemplating this issue, I had the thought, “A little child hasn’t yet learned that what I’m looking at is an airplane or that the airplane is separate from the sky, so it must see the airplane and the sky in some unified way.” As I stared at the airplane while bearing this thought in mind, the space between “me” and “the airplane” suddenly and momentarily collapsed, and there was a powerful surge of emotion accompanied by a feeling of intimacy. The collapse was so momentary (it only lasted for a second or two) that I immediately began to doubt what had just happened. A few weeks later, I had an experience in which reality totally collapsed, and I then understood (for the first time as an adult) what little children see when they look at the world. They see a unified field of being that is exactly what a camera lens “sees.” They do not see “things” as “things.” They see the world without distinction, exactly as it is before mind imagines separateness.
After several such insights and other realizations, I theorized that in order to become child-like an adult must do what little children do—look at the world without thinking about it. I was already meditating (using breath awareness practices), during which time I was watching the breathing process without thinking about it. It therefore made logical sense to extend this practice into everyday life. This is when I started shifting attention throughout the day, again and again, from thoughts to what could be seen or heard. I was doing ATA before I had a name for it.
As I continued doing this, I had more embodied realizations (gnosis). In fact, my life from that time forward could be described as “the sequential collapse of ideational beliefs.” In each case, the body/mind saw through a belief to the underlying truth. Byron Katie discusses this process at length, and she developed “The Work” as a formal way of helping people examine and eventually see-through their beliefs.
Question has stated that it shouldn’t take fifteen years for an adult to wake up. Well, that is an idea that he might want to investigate using BK’s methodology, but aside from the total absurdity of that idea, itself, it contains an implication that is extremely misleading, to say the least. Although it took this particular body/mind fifteen years to realize (gnosis) the illusion of selfhood after ATA was initiated, dozens of lesser illusions collapsed quite quickly. In fact, the illusion of an objective reality collapsed five months after ATA was initiated. The illusion of meaning collapsed about five months after that. The illusion that the body/mind “ought” to be doing anything other than what it was doing collapsed about two years later.
I think most people on this forum and most spiritual teachers would agree that selfhood is the deepest and most entrenched illusion of all, so it should not be surprising that it would be the last illusion to collapse. As noted before, this body/mind was an intense intellectual prior to doing any ATA, so that was a particularly-serious handicap. LOL
Now, let’s consider scientific methodology and how it relates to this discussion. In the scientific world scientists make various claims. Other scientists who doubt the validity of a particular claim can choose to (1) believe it, (2) not believe it and ignore it, (3) not believe it and make fun of it, (4) not believe it and test it, or (5) suspect it is true, but want to test it for themselves. In order to test a truth claim the scientist must be given a set of injunctions that, if followed, will allow the scientist to have direct experiences which can then be used to evaluate the truth or falsity of the truth claim.
For example, if a scientist wishes to test the truth claim, “The planet Saturn has rings around it,” s/he must obtain a telescope, point it at the planet Saturn, and look through the telescope. With direct experience of what s/he sees through the telescope the scientist then has an empirical basis upon which the truth claim can be evaluated.
If a scientist heard the above truth claim, and then said, “I don’t want to obtain a telescope, or learn to use it, or look through it,” then s/he would be saying, in effect, “I have no interest in acquiring the kind of direct experience that would allow me to evaluate the truth claim, or s/he would be saying, in effect, “I have no interest in the truth claim.” That’s fine, and it happens all the time in the scientific world.
On this forum I have made a lot of truth claims:
1. A person can learn more about reality through ATA than through thinking
2. ATA can be used to dispel cognitive illusions
3. “Being still” or “being silent” has the same effect as ATA
4. The easiest form of ATA ( for people with highly talkative/thinkative minds) is breath counting or mantra recitation
5. A slightly more difficult but more effective form of ATA (for people with t/t minds) is breath awareness or breath following (eliminating the mental/verbal component)
6. A more advanced form and even more effective form of ATA includes shifting attention from thoughts to direct sensory perception (what can be seen or heard) throughout the day. Most people find it easier to pursue easy forms of ATA before pursuing more advanced forms.
7. A still more advanced form of ATA is AT (attending THIS) in which attention watches thoughts as well as what can be seen or heard. I don’t recommend this form of ATA because it offers no advantages over other forms of ATA and it has several disadvantages.
8. An extremely advanced form of ATA is A (attention), or “shikan taza” in which pure attention is maintained without any object of focus
9. All forms of ATA are active rather than passive.
10. ATA in the form of shifting attention from thoughts to what can be seen or heard is recommended most highly because it (1) diminishes the sense of specialness associated with many forms of meditation (2) can be pursued throughout the day thereby increasing the amount of time it is pursued, and (3) helps cut through the idea that there is someone making progress or getting closer to some hoped-for state (when thoughts about “progress” or “attainment appear, attention is shifted to what can be seen or heard, thus interrupting the usual cycle of selfhood reinforcing thoughts)
11. People who pursue ATA seriously will have noticeable results. This means that cognitive illusions will collapse, and the person will know it (gnosis) when a collapse happens.
These truth claims can be ignored, ridiculed, or tested. If someone has no interest in testing them, that’s fine, but without testing there will never be any basis for evaluating the truth claims. Unless some of the basic injunctions are followed no direct experience will be acquired.
Testing these truth claims is not as easy as obtaining a telescope, learning to use it, and pointing it at the planet Saturn. These injunctions are pointing to an experiment with consciousness that any body/mind can perform upon itself. Each human being is different, and each human being interested in testing the truth claims will do so differently and for differing lengths of time, so it is impossible to predict how fast any particular human will acquire sufficient direct experience to acquire a necessary basis for evaluating the truth or falsity of the claims. I am guessing that one year is the minimum amount of run-time necessary for this experiment to produce noticeable results. Some people might see results more quickly than this, but one year seems like the minimum investment in time that a person would need to be willing to make who was interested in performing the experiment.
Now, if we step back and take all of the admonitions and statements by spiritual masters and sages as a whole, the message seems far more unified and coherent than diffuse or contradictory. Consider these admonitions in the context of what has been written here:
1. Be here now (Ram Dass)
2. Recognize the power of NOW (Tolle)
3. Stay present (Thich Nhat Hanh and others)
4. There is no greater gift than the gift of presence (Jacobsen)
5. Take no thought for tomorrow (Jesus)
6. You cannot think about the present. You can only think about the past or the future. (Jacobsen)
7. Become like a little child (Jesus and others)
8. Seek and you will find (Jesus and others)
9. Look within (dozens of different teachers)
10. Be still (the Bible, the Upanishads, Gangagi, Papaji, etc)
11. Inquire “Who am I?” (Ramana and others)
12. Only go straight; don’t know (ZM Seung Sahn)
13. Not knowing is the way (many Zen Masters)
14. There is only THIS (Parsons and others)
15. The truth is beyond belief (Jacobsen)
16. Investigate whether any belief is true (Byron Katie)
17. When you awaken, you will find that there was no separation to overcome. It was all an illusion. (Jacobsen)
18. The only way to overcome separation is to stop seeking to overcome it (Jacobsen)
19. There is no journey. There is no destination. You are already here. (Jacobsen)
20. All spiritual practice is a function of the mind. It is still mind seeking to practice something in order to get somewhere or to achieve something. That is why the practice of meditation will ultimately fail. You cannot practice your way out of the mind. (Jacobsen)
21. Awakening to being is a process of inner unfolding. As you awaken, the truth of life is gradually revealed from within, and you become aware of the present of God in everything around you. You become aware of the presence of God within you. (Jacobsen)
22. At the level of mind, you are thought, memory, and imagination. You are opinion, concept and belief. At the level of Being, you are pure consciousness. You are silent presence. You are eternal presence.
I used a lot of quotes by Jacobsen because they seemed particularly germaine to this discussion, but there are thousands of other similar ones available. When reading through these words, look at the common theme that runs through all of them. Be still, be present, be attentive, and leave beliefs behind.
Having written this tome-like post, and fully understanding the limitations of language and the various misconceptions that will inevitably arise regarding what is written here, I will now retreat to my bomb shelter to avoid all the rocks that are sure to be hurled in this direction. Have fun.
