The Yoga of the Philosophers

[Arising_uk]

...

It looks to me that science usurps philosophical premises very smartly, when it is required and also slams a kick at the backside of philosophy, when she demands its fair share of recognition.

Its more that the 'sciences' are a clear metaphysical schism in Philosophy, and they've been winning the popularity contest hands-down, not least because they produce shit that makes life better.

The basic problem with philosophy is that, neither it wants to join hands with science, nor with religion. As it wants to remain in the castle of books only, thus, living in the real and materialistic world of science, becomes difficult for it. But, when religion invites it cordially to be his guest, it rejects the offer saying that you are untouchable to me.

There is no basic problem with philosophy, we accept metaphysics is for the scientific and religious, for us its now fun. It may well be a castle of books but we endeavor for it to be one that binds together. Religion is a subset of metaphysics from our perception.

... It is a general view that science had improved the state of mankind and we must accept it. Just have a look around us. Science is everywhere. We are even talking on the net with the help of it. We cannot deny its contribution. We may call it technology or something else but it does not matter. Science is science and it does not have any corner left vacant for philosophy, even in its backyard. Hence, philosophy has to make its own now. Although, like you, I am also against being underweight or overweight at any particular king of knowledge, but my friend, the world does.

If I look around I find people as ignorant of science as they are of philosophy. Ask them if they've heard of Karl Marx.

If you ask a student of 5th standard, you will find that he will be familiar with Newton and Einstein. But Nikolai, how many people are aware of Kant? What to say about others, I consider myself a bit above a layman in general terms, but honestly, I came know about him about three months ago, when I joined this forum. Then I read a bit about him and found that he is genius, outstanding and perhaps, a step ahead than Einstein. I am sure, that if you ask 100 persons around you, who seem learned to you, you will not found more than 1-2, which are familiar with Kant. But, all of them must be heard of Einstein.

I think Einstein would have heard of Kant, I think Newton philosophically bonkers, at least in his metaphysics. I think if I asked a 1000 persons around me they'd not have heard of Kant, unless they were Monty Python fans of course.

In real world, no one wants to hear about philosophy. The general perception of philosophy is that it is nothing but words, words and words and moreover, the difficult ones.

I blame the English depts, post-modernism and the deconstucturalists

Have the philosophers ever been read by the common man? Does it matter? Although the academic study is becoming popular again amongst the young, who'd have thought, just as we've closed the philosophy departments.

[Arising_uk]

Hi zinnat13,

My friend, I am sorry to say but it is looking to me that you are trying to concentrate on too many issues at one time, thus, you are just having a “flying look” on them, instead of completely going through. If you do not feel offended, then I would like to advice you, very sincerely, honestly and humbly, to slow down your pace. It will be proved more fruitful for sure. I am not saying this in angry or annoying state of mind but just consider it as an advice from a friend or well-wisher. ...

I will but be reassured that this "flying look" is only the result of many years thought about these things and only the things that have interested me.

You mentioned about hath yoga and said that it has nothing to do with NLP. ...

Not quite, I said they migt not be aiming at the same things.

This is not the problem with you only but generally with the whole west. There are exceptions only, which have the clear understanding of yoga.

Hindu philosophy proposes four types of yoga; HATH YOGA, KARM YOGA OR RAJ YOGA, BHAKTI YOGA, GYAN YOGA OR JANA YOGA

The word “hath” means to do anything with such a force that is beyond a normal capacity. It also represents unreasonable desire for any such thing, which is neither justified nor can be fulfilled in normal circumstances. So, hath yoga covers all types of physical and mental practices, which lay emphasis on any kind of extraordinary stress; either physical or mental. Hence, keeping eyes forcefully open or fixing the gaze on anything for longer times is hath yoga for sure. ...

I agree that the 'west' has erred in much of what it takes from the 'east', its why I prefer to look for western examples that make more cultural sense. What you say about hatha yoga just shows to me that NLP does not have the same aims.

Let us discuss a bit about NLP.

http://www.forum.nlpdevelopment.org.uk/ ... opic=410.0

I am quoting from the above mentioned link, which you provided-

The third component is the key to the entire process. It is a way of using the eyes, of using vision in a different way to that which constitutes the norm. In everyday usage the eyes tend to employ foveal vision - the aspect of our vision where we focus upon specifics, and out of these, build and maintain our perceptual model 0f the world. A certain amount of peripheral vision is employed in seeing, yet it is minimal.

Peripheral vision is opened by:
1) Gently resting the gaze upon a distant fixed point.
2) Without moving the eyes, become aware of what is above, below and to the left and right.
We effectively open the eyes in such a way as to saturate the rods and cones upon the surface of the eye with information from the world. The result of this influx of information is saturation of the conscious mind, which can only process a limited amount of information simultaneously. The conscious mind checks out, as it were. What arises is communication of this information in the direction of the second Attention. This is evidenced by the state of utilising see / feel neurological circuitry which cuts in dircetly as a result of the process.
Having arrived at this state, it can be noted that with all the components deeply and congruently in place, the cessation of internal dialogue is effectively the cessation of the conscious process of maintaining our model of the world. It is as if we experience the world through new eyes.

Format
1) Whilst walking, rest your gaze gently on the horizon point.
2) Without moving the eyes, become aware of what is present in your peripheral vision, above you, beneath you, to your right and left.
3) Continue this until the state deepens and settles.
4) Again briefly recall the outcome, then set it aside.

http://www.brahmakumaris.com/rajayoga-m ... t-now.html

The above mentioned link is the official site of BRAHMKUMARI school of thought. Here is a quote from this page-

Make an appointment with yourself for 10 or 20 minutes each morning or evening.
• Find a quiet place and relax. Soft music, though not a necessity, can create an appropriate atmosphere. Sit comfortably upright on the floor or in a chair.
• Keep your eyes open and, without staring, gently rest them on a chosen point somewhere in front of your room.
• Gently withdraw your attention from all sights and sounds. Become the observer of your own thoughts.
• Don't try to stop thinking, just be the observer, not judging or being carried away by your own thoughts.
• Gradually they will slow down and you will begin to feel more peaceful. Create one thought for yourself, about yourself for example, "I am a peaceful soul." Hold that thought on the screen of your mind; visualize yourself as being peaceful, quiet and still.
• Stay as long as you can in the awareness of this thought. Do not try to fight off or suppress other thoughts or memories that may come to distract you. Just watch them pass by and return to your created thought, "I am a peaceful soul."
• Now think of the Supreme Soul, who is the ocean of peace, bliss, love and so on. Soul receives all these virtues from Him.
• Acknowledge and appreciate the positive feelings and other positive thoughts, which may spring directly from this thought.
• Be stable in these feelings for a few minutes. Be aware of unrelated thoughts. Finish your meditation by closing your eyes for a few moments and creating complete silence in your mind.

Any one of us can see that they are saying the same thing, though Brhamkumari adds some more feeling components to it. NLP says that, fix your gaze first, then looks for the other objects, those are present in peripheral vision; while Brhamkumari says that, fix your gaze first, then looks for the thoughts around. Not even Brhamkumari, but many other schools are using this method also since ages.

I see a great difference in the approaches. Yours has others religious and cultural aims and beliefs involved. But the main thing is that what I've described is just an NLP technique for achieving a way of experiencing a desired outcome in a different way. So the whole point of the exercise is to have a situation or outcome that one wishes to achieve but is not currently achieving. The technique is one of many that could be used. Its not what NLP or New Code NLP is about. The core of NLP is its idea of Modelling, i.e. how to elicit the states of mind and behaviour of another that one wishes to emulate. Its an epistemology and a pedagogy more than anything else. Its about accelerated learning.

Although I consider myself illiterate in comparison to the other members, as far as
philosophy is concerned, but, I am very much informed about the meditation stuff, because it is the subject of my interest since long.

Let me tell you one more interesting thing. Even the Brhamkumari mission does not invent this practice. This is very old practice in Hindu mythologies and it is called TRATAK. Its roots go far deep and back, to the time of sages in Vedic period, even centuries before Christ. You may find something more on the net if you want.

For your help and confirmation, I am mentioning two links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tratak
http://soulcurrymagazine.com/sc/tratak- ... emory.html

The basic concept of all this to improve the concentration by fixing the eyes to a certain point and it helps. It is also a type of mediation. We can do the same with close eyes. All we have to do is to imagine anything with close eyes, then concentrate on it. NLP or Tratak suggests trying to look for other things around, while keeping the gaze fixed at one point. On the other hand, the traditional meditation suggests having a look for the other thoughts around, while concentrating on the main aim. Hence, the methodology is the same. ...

I'm open to all practices that involve improving internal imagery. I'm not sure the idea of fixing the eyes on a certain point is what NLP suggests, its more letting the attention widen from the 'fixed point', the eyes still move, you just don't pay attention to the points it rests upon.

You mentioned about Schopenhauer. I do not have any idea about him, but, as you mentioned, so I go through his Wikipedia page. He is looking very much influence with the Hindu mythologies for sure. Yes, my definition of “will” is near to his version, but not exactly the same. And this was what I want to highlight. ...

He did, it was and still is an interesting cultural mix.

Our mind is covers much more space than we realize generally. Normally we confuse our “will” with the whole anatomy of our mind. Will is what we want to do in the first place. But it does not succeed always. Our mind does not follow our “will” or “wish” in each and every case. ...

Schopenhaur had it as something like 'You can will what you want but you can't want what you want'. I think you're going to love Hegel but think you should also read, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes before the 'Germans'.

I asked you simple questions; why a smoker is not able to quit smoking, even knowing that it will harm him? ...

Because they have a positive intention that is stronger than the information.

Why you get angry again and again, even knowing that it will serve no purpose?

I don't in general.

If you are owner of your body or you are bodymind and you are your body, that it control itself the point of being self-conscious sensing body, then answer those above mentioned questions, using your perspective.
And, please, do not tell me that you have no more anger in you as you became enlightened by overnight.

I do not think enlightenment involves the cessation of anger, just the efficient use of it. I hope this has helped with my perspective.

I fail to understand what you mean. If you look it once again, you will find that I am not talking about immorality. I was talking about mind; that how it refuses to obey our will, using the example of the monkey. ...

And from my perspective its showing the efficiency of using the word "not" as a way to implant a behaviour or state of mind in others. The monkey could have been any imagery but I assume the monkey has a cultural reference as well.

Auk, you are forgetting that the whole language is metaphor for feelings. On the contrary, parables are easier to conceive than a long and complicated text. ...

The whole of language is not just the expression of feelings, its also about touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, etc. I agree parables and metaphors are powerful tools for 'communication' but believe in the one about fishing and teaching to fish, so have always thought the parable tellers should teach how to tell parables rather than use them.

Auk, I must tell you that though I do have “cultural” or rather “behavioral” baggage but I do not have any thinking or perceptual bias at all. I always narrate what I felt and cogitated in my own capacity; otherwise I mention very categorically that I read it somewhere. I always try to be neutral as much as possible, when I put my thinking cap on. ...

And I appreciate the effort. Tell me, how do you represent a thought to yourself?

[zinnat13]

Hi Typist and Nikolai,

Typist,

For me, you are not just an ordinary person. Let me repeat myself.
Quality does not comes cheap and I have no hesitation in saying that he has an exceptional sense of criticism, thus, it takes more to satisfy him.

By saying “millions of typists”, I simply mean the whole community of critics, who questions anything beyond normal mental phenomena and demands the proof.

As I said earlier, I am in total agreement with your view that, anyone who claims that he senses something extraordinary, must proves that, and furthermore, in such tone, that can be conceived easily. There is no use of shouting from the peak of the hill. One has to come down to the plane to get his voice heard. If one wants to remain at the hill, then it is his own choice. But, in that case, he should not expect that others should believe him.

This is the point, where not only spirituality, but, even philosophy has failed.
I fail to understand why philosophers are so obsessed with them. One reason that I am able to understand is that; they feel that philosophy is such an extraordinary phenomenon, which bestows upon to some chosen ones like prophets. They simply consider themselves a far superior than an average person. The fear of identity loss or superiority complex refrain them to mix up with general community. Perceptions could and should be narrated in simple language. I do not see any problem in that. There is absolutely no need of any highly intellectual rhetoric, which has become almost a trademark of philosophy. In my opinion, this the main reason of its loss of credibility in today’s world.

A common man says that if you are not interested in me, then why I should be interested in you. It is as simple as that. This is the reason why a common man is more interested in science; simply because science listens to him and also tries to provide solutions for his problems. What philosophy and spirituality have to offer to the society?

Philosophy should come out from its castle of books, where it decided to live after Kant, in a self imposed exile. When it will do so, it will be surprised to found that everyone is philosopher out there, more or less. A scientist, an advocate, a doctor or a businessman, everyone is philosopher in one sense or other.

Even a housewife is a philosopher. If her husband goes to his work in the morning, with the angry stare of mind, she understands and visualizes him, thus, prepares dinner of his choice, wears her sexiest dress in the evening and gives her husband a warm, long and passionate kiss, even standing at the door. She remains there for a while, in the embrace of him, just holding him with her tender arms gently. Then she looks in his eyes with her wet ones and the husband founds himself unable to do anything but to drop his guard and surrenders. No words exchanged but the job is done perfectly.

This is philosophy in real terms. In objective analysis, she has all three ingredients of a philosopher; experience or visualization, objective thinking and expression. Firstly, she has a perfect visualization of her husband’s mind, then she thought about it perfectly and sorts out a right remedy for the situation and act accordingly. It does not matter, whether she realizes it or not.

She needs not to learn in from Kant or from any other philosopher, yet, she is able to think in second person perfectly and that is exactly the same, which philosophers do. She learned it from the experience, which is earned by her, during his interaction with her husband. There is no other way for knowing it. Even Socrates does not know what she knows in this regard, simply because he was not a family man.

This is what I mean by living in the castle of books. If we look around us, we will find that philosophy is happening everywhere. The real world offers much more than the books. But we tend to ignore it and especially, the experiencing or the visualization part, which is foundation of philosophy, as it creates understanding in real terms. Then comes thinking or analyzing and the last is expression.

I feel that, right now, philosophy is doing just opposite the recommended prescription. More often than not, we tend take a start from expression, then try to think, and almost ignore the most important part of experiencing or visualizing. This is the only reason, why the expression lacks clarity and authenticity.

So, this is to say that modern philosophy sincerely needs to introspect with reference to two issues; its methodology and interaction with real world.

We need not to look anywhere else. It is happening right here at philosophy now. I want to draw attention all the learned members towards Bill and Barbara. Bill is clearly very much obsessed with socio-economical issues. I feel that many other members are against him as he talks again and again about the same thing. He may be right or wrong in his perspective of what is happening at Wall Street, but he is absolutely right about his approach. I do not understand why others want to ignore this issue. Is it not worthy enough to be entertained by the philosophy? Is it below the intellectual standard of philosophy? Is, even the philosophers, are not discussing the same issues, again and again, even since ages? Or the approach of Barbara is right way to approach philosophy, in which, there is no place, even for other philosophers?

I do not have anything against Barbara in my mind. On the contrary, I respect her involvement, sincerity and intellectual level, but, I have a question. If anyone is so obsessed with oneself; that he does not want to listen anyone else but himself only, then it is better to go to Himalayas and live there with his loneliness. There is absolutely no need to post daily on the net. In that case, one is try to address the folks only after being enlightened.

THE WORLD IS NOT MEANT FOR PHILOSOPHY, BUT, ON THE CONTRARY, PHILOSOPHY IS MEANT FOR WORLD; THE REAL WORLD, WHERE THE FOLKS LIKE US AND MILLIONS OTHERS, USE TO LIVE.
It would be better if philosophy realizes this sooner than later.

Nikolai and Typist,

I want to repeat one line from my last post-
I have believe and faith in me that spirituality can be proved; both philosophically and scientifically too. These are not only words but I sincerely mean it.

With the permission of you two, I will try to do it from my next post.
May I?

with love,
sanjay

[lancek4]

I wish to point out that the previous post is why I refrain from positing spirituality: because it then lends philsophy to a method for living. In this way,then, I might propose any method that satisfies my inclination for 'happy' living, such a phychology or types of meditation or recreation which I may be perfectly justified (and content in myself) in not proposing that it has anything to do with a spiritual way of life or of spiritual knowledge.

I propose that in your not understanding (above), and in positing spirituality, you are in effect proclaiming that such a spiriitual 'ideal' has a priviledge and preference as opposed to any other method I might find by which to live life. As if your proposed 'philosophy/spirituality' is the 'inevitable' culmination, the 'better' or 'of course' course which all other methods imply but, by your proposal, are but intermediary 'stages'.

Thus, in your 'not understanding' you are proposing your preeminance. It is this type of 'grand explanation' which then supports the idea of reincarnation, in that, of course, those who are not interested in your explanation are but of 'lower' or 'less spiritually evolved' incarnation.

As to Kant; he explicitly tells us he is not concerned with speaking to those who are not interested.

In my own experience, I have found that most peoeple are not interested in having a conversation which delves into how they concieve of life and existance and entertain critique of it.

And,likewise, Only those who are already interested in some 'improved' way of living are open to such 'spiritual' discussion. And at times I may offer some advice toward how to have some serrenity or something. Maybe I might even speak of 'spirirtual' type living.
But, for me, philsophy is not about finding a way by which to live life.
My life is fine; in that it is fine and I may have found a 'spiritual' way of living in this regard, I may help others if they wish, and speak to them in inviting and compassionate terms.

Philosphy for me is much more profound and significant, and of course I wish to speak with everyone about it and attempt to speak at their level of terms if they wish to discuss such things.
But the fact is, most do not wish to view their own life with criticism or look at themselves. This does not mean that they are on any stage of any real 'spiritual' path. It means only that they are the way they are. Any 'stage' is but a proclaimation upon another about your superior knowledge.

But I do agree that there is no need for 'high philosophical retorhic'. And that philosophy should attempt to speak in such a way to be accessible to anyone, but again, 'anyone' needs be interested just by necessity of communication. One cannot make one interested, nor 'should' one be interested.

[Typist]

Hi Sanjay,

There is absolutely no need of any highly intellectual rhetoric, which has become almost a trademark of philosophy. In my opinion, this the main reason of its loss of credibility in today’s world.

Yes, agreed. It seems the point of philosophy is to serve human beings. Perhaps many philosophers have forgotten that?

A common man says that if you are not interested in me, then why I should be interested in you. It is as simple as that.

Your statement is not only simple, it's also very clear. Clarity is a good goal for philosophers.

Even a housewife is a philosopher. If her husband goes to his work in the morning, with the angry stare of mind, she understands and visualizes him, thus, prepares dinner of his choice, wears her sexiest dress in the evening and gives her husband a warm, long and passionate kiss, even standing at the door. She remains there for a while, in the embrace of him, just holding him with her tender arms gently. Then she looks in his eyes with her wet ones and the husband founds himself unable to do anything but to drop his guard and surrenders. No words exchanged but the job is done perfectly.

This is fantastic writing! Yes, wisdom comes in many forms, and some of them are far wiser than intellectual arm wrestling.

This is what I mean by living in the castle of books. If we look around us, we will find that philosophy is happening everywhere. The real world offers much more than the books.

Bravo!

I want to repeat one line from my last post-
I have believe and faith in me that spirituality can be proved; both philosophically and scientifically too. These are not only words but I sincerely mean it. With the permission of you two, I will try to do it from my next post.
May I?

Yes, please do.

Keeping simplicity and clarity in mind, I might suggest that what people want is to feel good, be happy. If any approach can demonstrate it has something to offer towards that goal, it should be received with interest.

[zinnat13]

Hi Auk,

You said- Its more that the 'sciences' are a clear metaphysical schism in Philosophy, and they've been winning the popularity contest hands-down, not least because they produce shit that makes life better.
Auk, there is not any popularity context going on. It is all about interaction and utility; as these qualities cause popularity by default.

You said- There is no basic problem with philosophy, we accept metaphysics is for the scientific and religious, for us its now fun. It may well be a castle of books but we endeavor for it to be one that binds together. Religion is a subset of metaphysics from our perception.
I think Einstein would have heard of Kant, I think Newton philosophically bonkers, at least in his metaphysics. I think if I asked a 1000 persons around me they'd not have heard of Kant, unless they were Monty Python fans of course.
If I look around I find people as ignorant of science as they are of philosophy. Ask them if they've heard of Karl Marx
Have the philosophers ever been read by the common man? Does it matter?

YES, AUK, IT MATTERS. I would like to advise you to go through my post just prior to this one, which is addressed to typist.
You are exactly showing the mindset of typical conservative philosopher, who wants to declare himself not less than prophet and considers both science and religion as a business of layman. My dear friend, we must respect all those people, who have contributed to the mankind, whether they were philosophers or not. And, Newton is one of them without any doubt. I want to remind you that even Einstein refused to take the credit of relativity and humbly said that his work is just an extension of Newton. And, Einstein’s view of Newton is certainly more authentic and credible than you and me.

To remind you about his philosophy, I am quoting him from his Wikipedia page-

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

And let me remind you a bit of Socrates-

I know only that I do not know.

Both are saying the same thing. He was as humble and knowledgeable as Socrates. Auk, this humbleness comes only when one realizes that; even knowing that much, there is not even a hint, where it is going to end. I very sincerely advise you to have a re-look at what the genius in Newton ‘bonkers’.

I must tell you one more fact, if you are unaware of that; you cannot spend now even a day with such knowledge, that Newton provided to the mankind.

Let me share you my opinion about the popularity of Marx. He is very much a known in the general community. I think that anyone, who read a news paper daily, is aware of him. It is entirely different thing that most of them are against his ideology. The reason of his popularity is once again the same; he interacted with masses and influenced them; though it is a matter of debate whether he helped them or harmed.

Let me remind you that science and religion are not fun. Both of them address very serious issues and require more effort than philosophy for sure. Furthermore, I must tell you humbly, that science has not produced ‘shit’ up to now. If you want to realize it, then firstly, try to spend only few minutes without all that ‘shit’; and then, repeat this process with philosophy and you will became ‘enlightened’ to know that it is possible to spent the whole life without philosophy but, difficult to survive for some moments without ‘shit’ of science.

Auk, you are not letting the event of philosophy to complete. You are in very much haste to derive the conclusions. That’s why sometimes you are not able to feel the essence of the subject.

QUESTIONING AND ARGUING ARE NOT BAD THINGS IN THEMSELVES, BUT, IT SHOULD COME WITH PROPER LOGIC ONLY; OTHERWISE IT WILL CONVERT IN THE FAITH OF DENIAL BY DEFAULT. AND, THIS NEGATES THE TRUE SENSE OF BOTH SKEPTICISM AND PHILOSOPHY.

Now, let us come again to NLP. Here are some quotes from their official site.
http://www.nlp.com

Huna is the name of the teachings of the ancient Hawaiian people.

Many believe that at one time there was just one teaching, and that all peoples of the Earth lived by that one teaching. As time progressed, different peoples deviated from that teaching, and created the wide variety of beliefs and doctrines available today.

Because of the remoteness of the Hawaiian islands, Huna stayed more pure; more like the original teachings. It is because of this, that Huna is considered by many to be the most direct link to the ancient wisdom. At one time it was outlawed and almost lost forever, but Huna is now available to people of all races and religions.Many people find that they have an unexplained, yet fulfilling affinity to these teachings.

Hypnosis is a scientifically verified and effective technique that can promote accelerated human change. Learning hypnosis will teach you how to stimulate desired changes in behavior and encourage mental and physical well-being in yourself and others.

It is essential for a person to try to search for roots of any ideology, especially when, if one wants to label himself a philosopher.

You looked only at the rhetorical part of NLP, which is filled with articulated words about self improvement. The same formula is used by almost all modern spiritualist ideology.

THEY JUST USURP ANCIENT MENTAL PRACTICES, ADD SOME SPICE TO IT AND PRESENT TO THE WORLD AS AN INNOVATION.

We must appreciate that, at least, NLP is honest enough in accepting it.

If you remember me that I mentioned about a practice called TRATAK, in my last post. I am quite sure that you did not bother to go the links provided by me. If you had been done that, with the reading of the official site of NLP thoroughly, you will able to know TRATAK is used in Hindu mythology for hypnosis, as used in HUNA, from which, the whole premise of NLP is derived. But, my friend, I bothered to have a serious look of your provided links and even tried to go beyond that.

The foundation of all these mental practices is the same. They advise to concentrate on a object, thus, the consciousness can to be provoked, and thus, one is helped from it in improving his mental abilities.
Now, let me remind you your comparison and conclusion-
I see a great difference in the approaches. Yours has others religious and cultural aims and beliefs involved

Auk, NLP is very clearly stating that they revived HUNA, which is an ancient teaching, in the name of NLP. Cogitation of this notion was not difficult for you, but, you were unable to do it; just because of a reason that you did not pay enough attention to it.

Having said all this, let me remind you that I said; it is not a bad thing to start with.

You said-Because they have a positive intention that is stronger than the information.
But, you did not answer my question. You just changed the words. I would like to ask you again-
WHY POSITIVE INTENTION IS STRONGER THAN THE INFORMATION? WHY BODYMIND CHOOSE TO FAVOR THE HARMFUL INTENTION INSTEAD OF RIGHT INFORMATION?

You said-I do not think enlightenment involves the cessation of anger, just the efficient use of it. I hope this has helped with my perspective.

My friend, I was talking about something else. I advise you have a relook if you wish.

As you asked, I am putting my definition of thought.

THOUGHT IS A AN INTRUSION, WHICH IS FELT BY CONSCIOUSNESS, IN A PLACE CALLED MIND.

with love,
sanjay

[Arising_uk]

Auk, there is not any popularity context going on. It is all about interaction and utility; as these qualities cause popularity by default.

It was a turn of phrase, I agree the sciences produce utility and that anyone could interact with it if they wished. The 'popularity' amongst students to study it is that it is learnable and do-able by anyone and there'll be a job at the end of it. Can't say the last for philosophy.

YES, AUK, IT MATTERS. I would like to advise you to go through my post just prior to this one, which is addressed to typist.
You are exactly showing the mindset of typical conservative philosopher, who wants to declare himself not less than prophet and considers both science and religion as a business of layman. ...

Not at all, I think philosophy like the sciences and religion are available to the layman, its just that philosophy requires one to examine ones cultural and religious beliefs whereas the other two, in general, don't. Tell me why you think it matters that the philosophers should be read by the mass? What issues do you think it would solve now? Don't get me wrong, I think it a real shame that Philosophy is not more read, it'd stop a lot of the nonsense that is spoken about it.

My dear friend, we must respect all those people, who have contributed to the mankind, whether they were philosophers or not. And, Newton is one of them without any doubt. I want to remind you that even Einstein refused to take the credit of relativity and humbly said that his work is just an extension of Newton. And, Einstein’s view of Newton is certainly more authentic and credible than you and me.

To remind you about his philosophy, I am quoting him from his Wikipedia page-

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

I'm not saying these people have not contributed to mankind, their scientific and mathematical achievements prove it. But are you saying you agree with Newtons determinism with respect to prophecy? That there can be no prophets, as I agree. You believe in his 'god'?

And let me remind you a bit of Socrates-

I know only that I do not know.

Both are saying the same thing. He was as humble and knowledgeable as Socrates. Auk, this humbleness comes only when one realizes that; even knowing that much, there is not even a hint, where it is going to end. I very sincerely advise you to have a re-look at what the genius in Newton ‘bonkers’.

I'm informed about what Newtons genius involved, I also know that Leibniz did at least one equivalent thing. I think if you'd met Newton or Socrates, 'humble' would not be quite the correct word.

I must tell you one more fact, if you are unaware of that; you cannot spend now even a day with such knowledge, that Newton provided to the mankind.

You mistake me, I understand very much what debts we owe to the sciences.

Let me share you my opinion about the popularity of Marx. He is very much a known in the general community. I think that anyone, who read a news paper daily, is aware of him. It is entirely different thing that most of them are against his ideology. The reason of his popularity is once again the same; he interacted with masses and influenced them; though it is a matter of debate whether he helped them or harmed.

I did not say he was popular, I just said how many of the mass of people have heard of him. As he was a philosopher and I think him as famous as Einstein and probably more than Newton. What do you mean he "interacted with the masses"?

Let me remind you that science and religion are not fun. Both of them address very serious issues and require more effort than philosophy for sure. ...

The sciences maybe, but that'll be the Maths, if you include Formal Logics then Philosophy is much effort. I have no idea what effort religion involves but since it involves faith then I think it a different effort from philosophy as we're mainly interested in reason.

Furthermore, I must tell you humbly, that science has not produced ‘shit’ up to now. If you want to realize it, then firstly, try to spend only few minutes without all that ‘shit’; and then, repeat this process with philosophy and you will became ‘enlightened’ to know that it is possible to spent the whole life without philosophy but, difficult to survive for some moments without ‘shit’ of science.

My mistake for using a colloquialism , by "shit" I mean "stuff", "things".

Auk, you are not letting the event of philosophy to complete. You are in very much haste to derive the conclusions. That’s why sometimes you are not able to feel the essence of the subject.

QUESTIONING AND ARGUING ARE NOT BAD THINGS IN THEMSELVES, BUT, IT SHOULD COME WITH PROPER LOGIC ONLY; OTHERWISE IT WILL CONVERT IN THE FAITH OF DENIAL BY DEFAULT. AND, THIS NEGATES THE TRUE SENSE OF BOTH SKEPTICISM AND PHILOSOPHY.

Theres no such thing as "proper logic", unless you mean Formal Logics? I agree that skepticism should reach conclusions where it can.

Now, let us come again to NLP. Here are some quotes from their official site.
http://www.nlp.com ...

Its not their official website as there is no official body or website. I gave that link because the exercise was described well but for the rest of the site I cannot speak as you can find as many charlatans and money-takers and as much waffle and disagreement in NLP as there is in religion and philosophy. Even funnier, NLP itself had a schism between its own inventors. But neither, I think, would support such waffle as this as NLP;

Huna is the name of the teachings of the ancient Hawaiian people.

Many believe that at one time there was just one teaching, and that all peoples of the Earth lived by that one teaching. As time progressed, different peoples deviated from that teaching, and created the wide variety of beliefs and doctrines available today.

Because of the remoteness of the Hawaiian islands, Huna stayed more pure; more like the original teachings. It is because of this, that Huna is considered by many to be the most direct link to the ancient wisdom. At one time it was outlawed and almost lost forever, but Huna is now available to people of all races and religions.Many people find that they have an unexplained, yet fulfilling affinity to these teachings.

Other than someone may have modelled this 'Huna' and is now trying to flog it.

Hypnosis is a scientifically verified and effective technique that can promote accelerated human change. Learning hypnosis will teach you how to stimulate desired changes in behavior and encourage mental and physical well-being in yourself and others.

In NLP hypnosis is a subset of the Meta-Model of Language. Although Ericksons Hypnosis was one of the first techniques and skills that they modelled.

It is essential for a person to try to search for roots of any ideology, especially when, if one wants to label himself a philosopher.

I agree and you appear to have stayed in the shallows.

You looked only at the rhetorical part of NLP, which is filled with articulated words about self improvement. The same formula is used by almost all modern spiritualist ideology. ...

Nope, I went out and got a Grinder certified practitioner certificate which is filled, if you choose, with techniques for achieving goals and outcomes, even finding out what these might be, 'self-improvement' may just be one of the goals one desires. NLP is pretty much blind to what goals one wants, its due to being based upon the idea of contentless therapy, just how to assist yourself or others in getting them.

THEY JUST USURP ANCIENT MENTAL PRACTICES, ADD SOME SPICE TO IT AND PRESENT TO THE WORLD AS AN INNOVATION.

Nope, Grinder and Bandler invented it whilst studying psychotherapy and psychology. As NLP is the 'Modelling' not the various techniques used to change state. Personally I care not if some of the techniques came from other fields or cultures, if they work for NLP's purpose of modelling, change and outcome achievement and are more explicable than the explanations these ancients gave then I think them doing a good job, at least better than the self-styled gurus we've had over the years.

We must appreciate that, at least, NLP is honest enough in accepting it.

Since you have a limited understanding of NLP I can understand why you think this. I also think it matters not that such practices have been done before as such things will be pretty much the same around the world as we have the same body pretty much.

If you remember me that I mentioned about a practice called TRATAK, in my last post. I am quite sure that you did not bother to go the links provided by me. If you had been done that, with the reading of the official site of NLP thoroughly, you will able to know TRATAK is used in Hindu mythology for hypnosis, as used in HUNA, from which, the whole premise of NLP is derived. But, my friend, I bothered to have a serious look of your provided links and even tried to go beyond that.

No, its not the whole premise, its a subset if you'd looked further, and this "Huna" is an opinion of one NLP practicer upon a forum I assume.

The foundation of all these mental practices is the same. They advise to concentrate on a object, thus, the consciousness can to be provoked, and thus, one is helped from it in improving his mental abilities.

In NLP its to achieve a goal or resolve an impasse in behaviour. Improving ones mental faculties is a by-product, as we assume one already has all the resources one needs to change.

Auk, NLP is very clearly stating that they revived HUNA, which is an ancient teaching, in the name of NLP. Cogitation of this notion was not difficult for you, but, you were unable to do it; just because of a reason that you did not pay enough attention to it.

Its one quote on one forum on a subject that has no official body nor priesthood. So no, NLP does not in general have any knowledge of "Huna" other than that the Hawaiians appeared to have practiced hypnosis, as have many cultures.

Having said all this, let me remind you that I said; it is not a bad thing to start with.

I think it the most useful thinking scheme so far promoted in the 'West' and would appeal much to the western philosopher. Business and some politicians have taken much note.

But, you did not answer my question. You just changed the words. I would like to ask you again-
WHY POSITIVE INTENTION IS STRONGER THAN THE INFORMATION? WHY BODYMIND CHOOSE TO FAVOR THE HARMFUL INTENTION INSTEAD OF RIGHT INFORMATION?

Because there are pleasurable effects and affects that satisfy the positive intention more than an abstract idea of death.

My friend, I was talking about something else. I advise you have a relook if you wish.

I did, how does this, "... do not tell me that you have no more anger in you as you became enlightened by overnight.", not mean that if one is enlightened one does not have anger?

As you asked, I am putting my definition of thought.

THOUGHT IS A AN INTRUSION, WHICH IS FELT BY CONSCIOUSNESS, IN A PLACE CALLED MIND.

An "intrusion" by what or who? Where is this "place" called 'mind'? No Body no consciousness.

[zinnat13]

Hi Lance,

Your reply is very thoughtful and clear. I must appreciate you for that.

Although one is the only real judge of him, but, I can clearly see your quest and thus, evolvement. I wish that you will continue in the same way. I am not saying these words just because of just one post but with reference to all those which I saw, since I joined the board, regardless of those posts are addressed to me or not; including your essay at scribd.

Let me clear myself.

I see a very clear cut difference between philosophy and religion.

Sometimes they looked embedded, but still, there is dividing line between them.
It is possible that a philosopher may have a religious bias or not, and it is also possible that a religious person may be a philosopher or not.

This has happened in the past too but, the job of religion and philosophy is entirely different.

What you are suggesting, as a proposal of way of living, is not the job of philosophy, but this is the duty of religions or different schools of thoughts, and, atheism is also one of them. These thought schools certainly propose a particular way of life.

The duty of the philosophy is to examine these proposes, either new or old. This is what precisely I am trying to do. I have an analysis or you may call it a proposal and I trying to examine that by the other board members, simply because that; it is quite possible that I may have biased too much with my ideology, thus, may be unable to judge it with the true essence of third person, thus, it seems logical to me to crosscheck by such persons, who are wise enough to indicate the flaws in my analysis.

The jurisdiction of the philosophy ends here.
Its duty is to show the society its different cogitations. This onus is on the philosophy, given by the society. The society offers all basic input to the philosophy and those serve as the raw material for it. So philosophy and philosophers are morally bound to return the favor by addressing all the issues, which use to pop up time and again around it. It should not turn its face when a common man asks for help. The issues of day to day life are more important than addressing the ultimate truth. If the philosophy treats these issues as below par, then who will do it? No other stream of knowledge owns as much thinking and analyzing capacity as philosophy has, because it starts from thinking, goes through thinking and even ends at thinking.

Having said this, by no means, I am proposing that complex issues like truth or ultimate should be avoided. On the contrary, they are helpful in discussing general phenomena as they sharp the teeth of philosophy.

Let me explain.

We all know about the sport of motor racing. It is perhaps the costliest sport in the world. Motor companies like Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren spend millions in research and making formula-1 cars. These are very costly but their engines and tyres last only few hundred miles. All these spent millions became useless within 1-2 hours, yet, companies do it happily. The reason is simple that they test and improve their technology in f-1 racing, which returns them much more millions when they use this earned technology in normal cars.

This should be the approach of philosophy. It has to attract the best talent by discussing the complex and difficult issues; sharpen their minds there, and then use them to address all issues in the society along with difficult ones.

Now allow me to talk a bit about me as you hold me a culprit.

I do not consider myself a philosopher in its traditional sense. All I can do is visualize, analyze and narrate the same. If you want to consider this process as a philosophy, then, I am philosopher for sure. But, if the definition of the philosophy covers much more canvas than these three things, then you may consider me a layman. I would not like to object in either way, because, regardless of the opinion, I will be the same what I am. So, it does not matter to me.

I think you are indicating about our discussion which we had earlier in’ what is stopping us from seeing the truth’; particularly about my notion of ‘subtle dimension’. But, I had to do that because the thread asked for it. And because, without covering the subtle dimension, I would not be able to form the complete argument. if you remember me, then you recall that in my first post there; I very categorically stated that philosophy should refrain itself from talking about the ‘ultimate’. All I proposed that we must examine our mind.

It may appear, in the first place, that I am promoting theism, but, I am not. My dear friend, you should remember that we are on a philosophical board, not on a social one. You have every right to refute me. Nobody will stop you and that includes me too. Why do you want to negate it in the first place? What if it will prove right? But you may challenge it and you should do it for sure.

I do not have any authority to undermine anyone else. This is not my intention. I simply fail to understand why philosophers are so afraid of spirituality. Instead of challenging and it, in the battlefield of logic, which is their home ground, they want to declare it untouchable. Why? I do not think that it is fair.

Lance, it is not the duty of philosophy to hide its cogitations from the society. It should not concern about the fact that the society will follow those or not. If philosophy founds that any notion is right then it should say that this is right, and the same process should be applied to the wrong one also; without the hesitation.

Every pack of cigarette comes with a statutory warning; smoking is injurious to health. This is precisely the duty of philosophy; labeling of notions. And then left to the society to decide and act upon. Here, we must remember that, one who wants to smoke, will smoke for sure; even noticing the warning. And one, who does not smoke, will never smoke; even if there is no warning.

So, this is exactly, what I am expecting for me and my analysis; if it is interested.

I wish to promote my proposal, but not here at philosophy now. If destiny allowed me, I shall do it for sure in some future, in a form of book, which is in the process, since last two years. I do not know when it will complete, but, that day will come for sure; perhaps, within a year. There I will narrate in full flow, including my spiritual experiences, those I refrained here. That will include my cogitations and proposal also. But not here, as it is not a proper platform because all that will not go well with other members and perhaps the Mods also.

with love,
sanjay

[Arising_uk]

...
Even a housewife is a philosopher. If her husband goes to his work in the morning, with the angry stare of mind, she understands and visualizes him, thus, prepares dinner of his choice, wears her sexiest dress in the evening and gives her husband a warm, long and passionate kiss, even standing at the door. She remains there for a while, in the embrace of him, just holding him with her tender arms gently. Then she looks in his eyes with her wet ones and the husband founds himself unable to do anything but to drop his guard and surrenders. No words exchanged but the job is done perfectly. ...

Oh! What a paradise India must be!

[Arising_uk]

... But not here, as it is not a proper platform because all that will not go well with other members and perhaps the Mods also.

As long as your not spam nor threatening actual real-world violence I think pretty much anything goes here sanjay.

Take a look at dattaswami's posts in Phil of Religion.

[zinnat13]

Hi Auk,

You said- Personally I care not if some of the techniques came from other fields or cultures, if they work for NLP's purpose of modelling, change and outcome achievement and are more explicable than the explanations these ancients gave then I think them doing a good job, at least better than the self-styled gurus we've had over the years.

I am in total agreement with you here.

AUK, if we stretch this line of thinking a little bit more, then this should be the right approach for looking at all notions; either new or old. And, I would like to include all schools of thoughts in this list, including religions also. We should examine all religions seriously and objectively, and then try to sort out appropriate notions and discard illogical ones. In my opinion, all major religions, being lasted since ages, are intruded more or less; especially the interpretation of the scriptures.

You said- Its not their official website as there is no official body or website. I gave that link because the exercise was described well but for the rest of the site I cannot speak as you can find as many charlatans and money-takers and as much waffle and disagreement in NLP as there is in religion and philosophy. Even funnier, NLP itself had a schism between its own inventors. But neither, I think, would support such waffle as this as NLP;

Yes, you are right. I admit that I was mistaken that particular site as an official one but actually there is none as such. My apologies for that. There are numerous sites which claim that they are the real ones.

I go through the wiki page of NLP and at least 20 more sites when googled, but the basic practice is same. I also tried to read a bit about the inventors through their wiki pages, but still, I did not find any reason to change my opinion about NLP.

There is nothing worth noticeable in the whole concept except that mental practice. In simple language, the whole concept of NLP is nothing more than a way of self-hypnosis. They just covered it highly intellectual and technical language. I found that even wiki page endorses my opinion.

Here is a quote from wiki page of NLP-
According to Grinder, the linguistic aspects of neuro-linguistic programming were based in part on previous work by Grinder using Noam Chomsky's transformational grammar.[25]. However, according to linguist Stollznow (2010), this system of analyzing language is intended as theory, not therapy. Other than borrowed terminology, NLP doesn’t bear authentic resemblance to any of Chomsky’s theories or philosophies – linguistic, cognitive, or political

The wiki page also suggests that it more criticized than accepted but that is not the point. I do not want to see this as a critic or skeptic. I am of the opinion that we should take and think of one step at a time; about the next one only. The reasoning behind this logic is that we are not sure about these things. There are enumerable ways and opinions and furthermore, we do not have any testing mechanism for these things like physical sciences, other than the history. The only available way of testing is going through the experience, only then, we will be able to know that it is right and wrong.

SO, THE APPROACH SHOULD BE; LET US TAKE ONE STEP, SEE WHAT HAPPENS, AND THEN, WE WILL TAKE IT FROM THERE; INSTEAD OF ANALYZING THE PRO AND CONS OF THE ENTIRE PROCESS. LET US REMEMBER THAT; THE MOST IMPORTANT AND DIFFICULT PART ALWAYS, WHICH WILL OPEN THE DOORS FURTHER, IS THE FIRST STEP. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE FIRST STEP WILL AUTOMATICALLY TELL THAT WHAT TO DO NEXT AND PROCESS WILL GO ON.

And my friend, NLP provides us that most important first step, thus, let us try it.

I think that we are done with NLP.

You said- I have no idea what effort religion involves but since it involves faith then I think it a different effort from philosophy as we're mainly interested in reason.

My friend, it is the fault of religions, not yours. The reason is that they failed to present their case properly, same as philosophy. Or, we could say that we failed to grasp their essence properly; whatever may be between the two.

I want to remind you your words about folks when you said that- it does not matter to philosophy if a common man is not interested in it. The same approach spirituality has for those who use to live outside its realm. But, it is not the right idea.

It is a general misconception that religions or spirituality do not require any effort as one could have a belief only and that is enough. The reason behind this notion is that we do not understand what the essence of the religions is.

The core or crux of religions and spirituality is something else. It is neither faith nor belief as we generally think.

Spirituality or religions may take a start from many different ways. We can compare them with a complete meal. As we all know, a formal meal has three courses; a welcome drink or a starter, main course and desert in the last.

The first one is the starter. It may be a slight belief, which comes with race or society. It may be a curiosity as in case of philosophers or it may be some unexpected incident, as in the case of me, or it may be something else.

Then comes the main course. This is the essence of religions but I am not talking about either scriptures or rituals. I am talking about what Zen monks used to do 18 hours in a day throughout their life. I am talking about what ancient Hindu sages used to do alone in the Himalayas. I am talking about what Sufi saints used to do hiding in the caves for years, isolated from the world. You may call it worship. You may call it prayer. You may call it meditation or even anything else whatever you like, but, it does not matter. More often than not, we want to bypass this stage, because it demands hilarious commitment and effort; more than anything else in the world. It requires such high level of concentration, that you cannot do anything else doing this. There is absolutely no scope for anything else.

Now it is the time of desert; and that is faith. Faith is not the starting point of the event, but, it is the end result. It is the default product of the process. It is just like the fruit of the tree of spirituality. It is a reward, that’s why I compared it with the dessert. It is like the dressing of the salad or icing on the cake. The event concludes here.

I think I made myself clear enough with respect of the importance of the effort in the case of religions.

Auk, what NLP is suggesting is a welcome drink or a starter. But still, I would say the same that it is not a bad thing to start with. You may not realize it now, but, my friend, if you would take it seriously for some time; you will understand what I am trying to say.

But Auk, we all are not same and this could be said for our taste also. Some like mild favored food while some fall for spicy one. I feel that in some moment of our life, destiny provides us a chance at least to taste a starter in one form or another. Some like it and want to enjoy the main course, while it does not ‘enpleasure’ the palate of others; hence they avoid the remaining courses of the meal. So, in the end, it depends entirely on us.

You said-Because there are pleasurable effects and affects that satisfy the positive intention more than an abstract idea of death.
AUK, you still does not follow what I am asking. You are explaining the event, not the cause. I am talking about something deeper.

I think that I should explain my question in the form of the answer from your perspective.

You say that there is neither body nor mind but a combine entity as bodymind. Now recall the parable of father and son duo and the monkey. The father said that just repeat these mantras ten times and you became immortal, but, during the repetition, the thought of the monkey should not come to your mind. The son tried to do so, throughout his life, but failed. You can replace the monkey with a frog or anything else, but, it does not matter. The result will be the same. This imaginary situation is very easily conceivable, and we all know, it will occur exactly in the same way I imagined. That thing, which the father refrained, whatever it may be, will pop in the mind of son by default. He could not be able to avoid it.

In this case, there are no positive or pleasurable intentions. Each and everything is on the side of the son. All he has to do is just avoid the thought of monkey. This does not look like a difficult thing in the first place, but, still proves to be impossible. Why?
To make this question clearer, I would like to add one more dimension to it. Let us imagine that his father asked him to repeat mantras while running. In this case, he would do it successfully in the first attempt. Why he succeeded this time?

Now, I ask my question once again. The son is a bodymind according to you. So, he should be succeeded in both cases, but, it does not happen. Why there are different results in the case of mind and body?

I would like to advise you one thing, which will help you immensely in this context. Do not try to find the answer by thinking and reasoning. Instead of it, try to visualize the event, again and again, and then see if logic ‘happens’.

You said-An "intrusion" by what or who? Where is this "place" called 'mind'? No Body no consciousness.
Auk, we will discuss it next time, when we will conclude the question of the monkey because that will help us in this context.

As far as dattaswami is concerned, I must tell you that I had read his posts prior to be a member on this board. I did not find anything worthy of interest in those.

Auk, I am not interested in reading the religious scriptures verbatim. I have read a lot of them from many religions. I want to see what is beneath them, not on them.

with love,
sanjay

[Arising_uk]

AUK, if we stretch this line of thinking a little bit more, then this should be the right approach for looking at all notions; either new or old. And, I would like to include all schools of thoughts in this list, including religions also. We should examine all religions seriously and objectively, and then try to sort out appropriate notions and discard illogical ones. In my opinion, all major religions, being lasted since ages, are intruded more or less; especially the interpretation of the scriptures.

Not sure what you mean by "intruded"? If you mean all current cultures are affected by it then I agree. I think Philosophy is exactly where religions are examined seriously, so seriously that they've identified them as a subset of metaphysics. I think each religion should think about applying what you say to themselves and each others religion, probably make for a safer place.

Yes, you are right. I admit that I was mistaken that particular site as an official one but actually there is none as such. My apologies for that. There are numerous sites which claim that they are the real ones.

I go through the wiki page of NLP and at least 20 more sites when googled, but the basic practice is same. I also tried to read a bit about the inventors through their wiki pages, but still, I did not find any reason to change my opinion about NLP. ...

What do you think the basic practice is? If you want to understand where NLP has come from then read Frogs into Princes, The Structure of Magic I and II, then if you want to understand how its been applied read the later stuff by Bandler or Grinder and Delozier, there's probably only two or three from either. If you want to read how its been applied read Anthony Robins, Robert Dilts, Andrea Lages and Joseph O'Connor.

There is nothing worth noticeable in the whole concept except that mental practice. In simple language, the whole concept of NLP is nothing more than a way of self-hypnosis. They just covered it highly intellectual and technical language. I found that even wiki page endorses my opinion. ...

Not sure thats much of an endorsement. But I think you miss its concept entirely, not least because so many are writing about it. I told you, Eriksonian Hypnotherapy was the first thing they modelled, so its no surprise that you think its all about hypnosis, but its not what NLP is all about, its about communication and learning, an epistemology and a pedagogy.

Here is a quote from wiki page of NLP-
According to Grinder, the linguistic aspects of neuro-linguistic programming were based in part on previous work by Grinder using Noam Chomsky's transformational grammar.[25]. However, according to linguist Stollznow (2010), this system of analyzing language is intended as theory, not therapy. Other than borrowed terminology, NLP doesn’t bear authentic resemblance to any of Chomsky’s theories or philosophies – linguistic, cognitive, or political

Which is why I love wiki as a first reference but I don't hold to much stock by it. As Grinder does not do this, what he does do is that once they discovered the meta-model he used his skills as a linguist to make a model of what was going on. I doubt he still uses it given the way he's gone with this stuff but from my point of few what he said and did with the phrase structure grammars made reasonable sense as an explanation of what was going on. What this Stollznow misses is that the model was built from the language of the successful psychoanalyst.

Me I like Chomsky's grammars but linguistic philosophy has pretty much disagreed with him I thought?

The wiki page also suggests that it more criticized than accepted but that is not the point. I do not want to see this as a critic or skeptic. I am of the opinion that we should take and think of one step at a time; about the next one only. The reasoning behind this logic is that we are not sure about these things. There are enumerable ways and opinions and furthermore, we do not have any testing mechanism for these things like physical sciences, other than the history. The only available way of testing is going through the experience, only then, we will be able to know that it is right and wrong.

SO, THE APPROACH SHOULD BE; LET US TAKE ONE STEP, SEE WHAT HAPPENS, AND THEN, WE WILL TAKE IT FROM THERE; INSTEAD OF ANALYZING THE PRO AND CONS OF THE ENTIRE PROCESS. LET US REMEMBER THAT; THE MOST IMPORTANT AND DIFFICULT PART ALWAYS, WHICH WILL OPEN THE DOORS FURTHER, IS THE FIRST STEP. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE FIRST STEP WILL AUTOMATICALLY TELL THAT WHAT TO DO NEXT AND PROCESS WILL GO ON.

And my friend, NLP provides us that most important first step, thus, let us try it.

Already have as I'm a Grinder certified NLP Practitioner.

I think that we are done with NLP.

I think you've not started and I have a long way to go, all of it explicable.

Here's one of the better NLP resources I think http://nlpuniversitypress.com/

My friend, it is the fault of religions, not yours. The reason is that they failed to present their case properly, same as philosophy. Or, we could say that we failed to grasp their essence properly; whatever may be between the two. ...

I think Philosophy has put its case very well, its why I try to adhere to it. I think Religion has puts its case properly to me as well, unfortunately for it, it wasn't allowed to enforce its case upon me as a child, as such I think it currently full of holes and whilst adhering to my cultural ethics and morals I find most of the explanations and practices of many religions meaningless if not downright harmful in this day and age.

I want to remind you your words about folks when you said that- it does not matter to philosophy if a common man is not interested in it. The same approach spirituality has for those who use to live outside its realm. But, it is not the right idea. ...

I think I asked what matter it to philosophy, not not matter to it. So I presume you'll be telling me soon?

It is a general misconception that religions or spirituality do not require any effort as one could have a belief only and that is enough. The reason behind this notion is that we do not understand what the essence of the religions is.

The core or crux of religions and spirituality is something else. It is neither faith nor belief as we generally think.

Spirituality or religions may take a start from many different ways. We can compare them with a complete meal. As we all know, a formal meal has three courses; a welcome drink or a starter, main course and desert in the last.

The first one is the starter. It may be a slight belief, which comes with race or society. It may be a curiosity as in case of philosophers or it may be some unexpected incident, as in the case of me, or it may be something else.

Then comes the main course. This is the essence of religions but I am not talking about either scriptures or rituals. I am talking about what Zen monks used to do 18 hours in a day throughout their life. I am talking about what ancient Hindu sages used to do alone in the Himalayas. I am talking about what Sufi saints used to do hiding in the caves for years, isolated from the world. You may call it worship. You may call it prayer. You may call it meditation or even anything else whatever you like, but, it does not matter. More often than not, we want to bypass this stage, because it demands hilarious commitment and effort; more than anything else in the world. It requires such high level of concentration, that you cannot do anything else doing this. There is absolutely no scope for anything else.

Now it is the time of desert; and that is faith. Faith is not the starting point of the event, but, it is the end result. It is the default product of the process. It is just like the fruit of the tree of spirituality. It is a reward, that’s why I compared it with the dessert. It is like the dressing of the salad or icing on the cake. The event concludes here.

I think I made myself clear enough with respect of the importance of the effort in the case of religions.

I think you miss that this starter of yours, at least over here, is provided at an age before reason, as such it becomes an extremely strong belief, its why its called faith over here. The Catholic Church explains what you say by the ways you can come to 'God', faith, scripture or revelation, they hate and discourage the last, co-opt the second and encourage the first.

If what you say about the essence of religion is correct then pretty much everyone who proclaims a faith is wrong and it sounds unimplementable and impractical, as I such I think we need to be thinking-up other ways of having beliefs that create faith.

Auk, what NLP is suggesting is a welcome drink or a starter. But still, I would say the same that it is not a bad thing to start with. You may not realize it now, but, my friend, if you would take it seriously for some time; you will understand what I am trying to say.

I think I do have an idea of what you are talking about. I think you currently don't understand what NLP is suggesting or proposing but I like your last sentence as its a nice NLP example of sleight-of-mouth and a very useful communication tool in certain circumstances.

But Auk, we all are not same and this could be said for our taste also. Some like mild favored food while some fall for spicy one. I feel that in some moment of our life, destiny provides us a chance at least to taste a starter in one form or another. Some like it and want to enjoy the main course, while it does not ‘enpleasure’ the palate of others; hence they avoid the remaining courses of the meal. So, in the end, it depends entirely on us.

It does but the 'us' has some things that are pretty much the same, we all have a body, we all had a mother, we all have thinks and thoughts in combinations of images, smells, sounds, touch, tastes and 'feelings', in the main we all have a language to express such things. NLP is about the most generalized model I've seen about such things and it has techniques that one can try out or not.

AUK, you still does not follow what I am asking. You are explaining the event, not the cause. I am talking about something deeper.

I think I'm talking to the cause which explains the event and even deeper I'm explaining how we can change the event.

I think that I should explain my question in the form of the answer from your perspective.

You say that there is neither body nor mind but a combine entity as bodymind. Now recall the parable of father and son duo and the monkey. The father said that just repeat these mantras ten times and you became immortal, but, during the repetition, the thought of the monkey should not come to your mind. The son tried to do so, throughout his life, but failed. You can replace the monkey with a frog or anything else, but, it does not matter. The result will be the same. This imaginary situation is very easily conceivable, and we all know, it will occur exactly in the same way I imagined. That thing, which the father refrained, whatever it may be, will pop in the mind of son by default. He could not be able to avoid it.

He could if he did a good NLP course or found a decent practitioner.

In this case, there are no positive or pleasurable intentions. Each and everything is on the side of the son. All he has to do is just avoid the thought of monkey. This does not look like a difficult thing in the first place, but, still proves to be impossible. Why?
To make this question clearer, I would like to add one more dimension to it. Let us imagine that his father asked him to repeat mantras while running. In this case, he would do it successfully in the first attempt. Why he succeeded this time?

From my perspective this would depend upon how the son represents his thoughts(thinks?) as the runner may not be a kinesthetic thinker, so it may not work, could but not definitely, it may also make the mantras difficult. The positive intention is on the part of the father as he does not wish to let his son down and tell him he can't become immortal, so he uses the word "not" to make the task impossible or so he thinks. In NLP we understand the word "not" to be a sleight-of-mouth technique that talks past the conscious awareness, its a kind of imperative as to achieve it you must do the thing that is negated. Philosophical logic pretty much confirms it as the negation symbol, "¬", does not have a truth value by itself(as Wittgenstein pointed out none of the operators have a reference in this world), so the truth of not P(seeing the monkey, frog, etc) depends upon P being the case or not and in either case you have to imagine it. Its like if I say to you, "Do not think of a purple-spotted tiger and definitely do not think of it dancing.", as long as you know what a tiger, purple, spots and dancing is, you cannot but help think it, its how language and thought work.

An NLP dad would be doing this in response to the sons request, "What would being immortal do for you?" would be the first question, once a congruent response was observed, "How would you know when you've become immortal? could be the next, then "Whats stopping you?", and go from there. What your dad did would not in general be done in NLP to such a request.

Now, I ask my question once again. The son is a bodymind according to you. So, he should be succeeded in both cases, but, it does not happen. Why there are different results in the case of mind and body?

I hope the above explains how I think about this case. Lets say I was an NLP counsellor and the son comes to me and says, "I wish to say perform the mantras but without this monkey popping into my head". If I was unscrupulous I would first find out how each part was represented by the son, if they are in the same representation it'd be easier as then we just increase the modalities of one and reduce those of the other, so if he did it in images then we'd make the one wanted bigger, brighter, clearer, more colourful, etc, and the other lesser and lesser until gone or separated from the other, we'd probably use whats called the Swish Pattern technique. The same would apply with any other form of same-like representation. It'd be slightly more complex if the two things were in different representations but it'd still be achievable I think, not the immortality that is.

I would like to advise you one thing, which will help you immensely in this context. Do not try to find the answer by thinking and reasoning. Instead of it, try to visualize the event, again and again, and then see if logic ‘happens’.

Thanks for the advice but since I have an idea what thinking, thoughting and reasoning is and it involves, images and the other representations I'll be okay I think.

Auk, we will discuss it next time, when we will conclude the question of the monkey because that will help us in this context.

As you wish.

As far as dattaswami is concerned, I must tell you that I had read his posts prior to be a member on this board. I did not find anything worthy of interest in those.

I think he makes a fair case for his religion.

Auk, I am not interested in reading the religious scriptures verbatim. I have read a lot of them from many religions. I want to see what is beneath them, not on them.

What do you mean by "what is beneath them"? You don't know why people would want a faith? Apart from having it thrust upon them that is. But we agree I think, religion like NLP should be practiced not just read.
p.s.
If you want to see what NLP in action can look like watch any early Derren Brown on YouTube. Not that what he does is NLP as he has his own way but its understandable, in part, by NLP concepts.

[zinnat13]

Hi Auk,

This post is slightly long, thus, requires a bit more patience to done with. I hope that you will bear with me.

You said- I think Philosophy is exactly where religions are examined seriously, so seriously that they've identified them as a subset of metaphysics

If what you say about the essence of religion is correct then pretty much everyone who proclaims a faith is wrong and it sounds unimplementable and impractical, as I such I think we need to be thinking-up other ways of having beliefs that create faith.

Let me quote once again my definition of faith, which I mentioned in reply to one of your post in ‘who is stopping us from seeing the truth’. Perhaps you missed that reply. Here it is.

I see belief as a mother and experiences/witnessing as a father. If the semen of father is strong enough to make the mother pregnant and then, if the mother is strong enough to carry the child in her womb for long time enough, so the child would mature before coming into existence, thus, the child of faith is born. Even after taking birth, it needs to be cared properly by his parents otherwise it will die or became ill. It should he fed and looked after; unless and until, he becomes able walk and talk. If the parents enable him to walk and talk properly, then he would be able to walk the talk for sure.


From this point of view, there is absolutely no difference between any kinds of knowledge. There is neither science nor metaphysics, but there will be knowledge only, nothing else.

Belief must be supported by concrete evidence to be considered as faith. Belief is just slight above the thought or imagination. It is an assumption derived by reasoning while faith is a proven state. Belief or assumption has to cross the entire spread of experience to convert in faith. You may call it empiricism if we go by the technicals of philosophy. Faith is almost a fact.

Theories should not be considered as faith, because they have to acquire to the state of fact, prior to be declared as faith. God is a theory postulated by religions just as science did in the case of BBT. Neither of them is able to proof their claim. At the scale of logic, both theories have equal weight.

We tend to take the term of faith very lightly. This phenomenon is more visible in religious people. I feel that science is more careful about using faith than religions. If we put adherents of all religions on this test, majority of them would fail.

Faith means that we are absolutely sure that the event will happen exactly in the way, as we assume. For instance, we have faith that a female give birth to child, not male. We simply know it. There is no scope that it could be proved wrong.

Auk, what I am proposing, is neither impractical nor impossible to implement. On the contrary, I do not think that there could be any other way of having faith than testing it by trying the assumption.

I think we should follow the example or science in the context; as it looks more appropriate and logical. Einstein postulated that time runs slowly near heavy objects. Given the context of that time, it was out of the box idea and was quite difficult to believe. So, science tested it by putting two identical clocks at the bottom and the top of watch tower and this theory was proved right, hence, science accepted it as a fact. I do not see any problem in adopting this methodology for other notions. There is no need to find any other way to convert belief into faith. I would like to know if there may be any other way other than testing.

Even you do not have faith in NLP right now. At this moment, it is just your belief. You have assumed that you will eventually get one day, what you expect from NLP. But Auk, that may or may not happen. For the confirmation, you will have to wait up to that moment, when you will think that you are done with NLP, a far as the efforts are concerned. Then, you will have to introspect and judge that whether it served your purpose or not. At that moment, you would able to have faith either way; positive or negative, but, not right now.

But, do not get me wrong. Having said all this, by no means, I am negating the importance and utility of reasoning. It has served its purpose well I the past and will continue to do so. We will cut off the scope of further development, if we choose to discard assumptions completely; but, it has its own limitations. The ideal way is to assume notions first by using reasoning, and then, test it to accept those as fact or faith.

You said- I think you miss that this starter of yours, at least over here, is provided at an age before reason, as such it becomes an extremely strong belief, its why its called faith over here. The Catholic Church explains what you say by the ways you can come to 'God', faith, scripture or revelation, they hate and discourage the last, co-opt the second and encourage the first.

I do not subscribe the view of Catholic Church. The ideal order should be; belief or assumption, experience and then faith. It one does not follow this route, then he will remain at the stage of belief only, though he may mistaken himself as having faith. This is the precise reason why religious people fail to explain properly when questioned. They simply do not know what the process is and how it unfolds. All their knowledge is borrowed from the books and they try to explain accordingly. But, they tend to forget that, all religious scriptures are not limited to the verbatim. The capacity of reading between the lines can be attained only by going through the experience.

I am not against having belief but it should not be a blind one. One must be brave and honest enough to test it objectively. Then it is faith and philosophy too in real terms otherwise, I do not have any hesitation in holding that mere a superstition.

Let me tell you that about 20 years ago, I was of the same view as yours that all these religious and spiritual talks are useless. These all imaginary theories are invented by our ancestors just to create fear in the society to keep it in order; simply because I did not find any justification for all those and felt that science and ethics are enough to lead a perfect human life, but Auk, I was proved wrong.

I am quoting a portion of my unfinished book, which perhaps, will enable you to visualize my experience and cogitations too-

As I told earlier, my guru gave me two mantras for meditation. Initially I use to sit with my legs crossed during meditation with my eyes closed and repeating the mantras. This posture is described as PADMASAN in Hindu mythology. At first I chanted them with very slow voice so that no one else could hear except me, but as the time goes, automatically I switched to unaudieoable mode. Now my tongue was not moving, but the words are pronounced by a slight movement in my throat and I was hearing them not with my ears but from my mind. It was totally a new experience for me. In initial stages I used to sit about 15 minutes but this period increased gradually. I was finding it very difficult to concentrate. I had to find something on which I can focus. There were two options before me. The first option was that echo which I was getting in the mind from repetition of mantas. The second choice was available to me in the form of a picture or image of any gods according to mythology. It was difficult for me to choose. Initially I tried to concentrate on both at the same time but it was just impossible so I decided to use them alternately. Nothing extraordinary happened and this went on for some time say about two or three months. As the duration of meditation increased, I felt many emotions going through my mind…...
Although I am very patient and calm person but the adverse circumstances were creating frustration and restlessness in me. I did not had any releasing outlet of all this so whenever I meditate, these emotions used to unplug and acted like a catalyst for the intensity of meditation and it(intensity) was gradually increasing as the circumstances were becoming worse. One day for some reason, I was very disturbed and thought very hard sitting alone what to do next. Somehow by then, a belief had been developed in my heart that meditation and prayer will ultimately make the way out for me so I decided that tonight I will put all of myself. At night I started meditating as usual and carried on doing it. I never did it for so long before. The experience and the impact were also different this time. It was very difficult to keep the concentration going for longer periods. I was trying very hard to focus at the echo and in doing that, I felt that I have come closer to the echo. Now I was not only hearing the echo but also somewhat seeing the words. Although echo is not a physical thing, but I felt like that. I kept on doing it and then a strange thing happened. An image of an old person in his fifties flashed before my closed eyes and he shouted at me. The image lasted only 2-3 seconds and it was in black and white. I did not understand what he said but he was looking very angry from me. That man had small white beard. I tried to recall but I did not recognize him. His getup was suggesting that he was a Mohammdan (associated with Islam).I tried to figure out the reason of his annoyance from me but didn’t find any……
I was finding it very difficult to concentrate on the echo of my voice. My mind was simply refusing to stick at one point. Whenever I start meditating, after some minutes, many things used to pop up in the mind from nowhere. I was totally surprised to see that how much was stored in the mind. Normally it appears to us that we do not remember beyond a certain limit but it is not true. Our mind preserves almost all memories from the time, since our understanding develops in the childhood. Out mind has a recycle bin type of system like computers. All those memories, which are not required regularly, are sent to the recycle bin, but these are not permanently deleted. These memories can be restored if we can control our mind. I was experiencing it. Sometimes the thoughts which were coming in the mind did not have any correlation with the context. It was appearing that they were randomly picked by the mind. I was getting the short flashes of thoughts and memories even from my childhood times. More often than not I tend to flow with those thoughts forgetting to concentrate on the echo. This was happening again and again and happens now even after 15 years. I have to bridle my mind regularly towards the echo…..
It was very frustrating. I was simply unable to understand that if I am trying to concentrate at the echo then who is this other entity, which is trying to disturb me or engage in other thoughts. I thought a lot about this but did not get any clear answer. However, for the first time, I was getting the feeling that I am alone not the whole sole in charge of my mind. There is someone else for sure otherwise those disturbing thoughts and flashes should not come in the mind during meditation without my will. This query was answered later through my experiences…..
As the time passes, I tried to put more effort in meditation but, as I told earlier, I was not able to hold myself for more than 15-20 minutes. My mind used to become heavy and I fell asleep so I decided to meditate with open eyes to keep going for longer times. Now I was able to hold for more 8-10 minutes. Now, with open eyes, those flashes and thoughts were less disturbing than closed eyes, but the level of concentration was also decreased very much. It was quite difficult to concentrate on the echo with and almost impossible to an image with my eyes open, but I tried to do that. The basic problem was that, when I kept my eyes opened, my concentration automatically came on the eyes so it was very difficult to concentrate on the echo. To overcome this situation, I tried to imagine the words of echo in the front of my eyes to create an object to see. In other words, I tried to make the words appear by visualizing as I pronounced them. It worked to some extent but I found that the words are actually popping up in the mind instead of eyes so my concentration again tend to shift from the eyes to the mind and once again I started feeling drowsy. The experience of drowsiness was different this time compared to closed eyes. I could not able to fell into a nap because I had kept my eyes opened forcefully. After some days, while meditating with open eyes, I almost reached at the verge of sleeping without been slept. This stage was like a dividing line between sleeping and awakening. I do not know any other word to describe it. I kept hanging between both sides for some time. Then all of a sudden something very unusual happened. I saw some unknown people were there wearing different type of clothes and they were talking. What I mean to say is that it was like seeing a film. I was not present there. I was just witnessing it. This last perhaps 1-2 minute then someone shook me slightly and I came back to my senses…..
It was different from dreams. Hindu mythology has a proper word for this phenomena and it is called TANDRA. It was an amazing and wonderful experience. It was time of night and I kept thinking about that incident lying in the bed…
. This incident gave me a kind of opening to the spiritual world. I became very curious as I want to know more about them. From here on, I always tried to reach on that thin dividing line to peep into the spiritual world…
. As I said earlier, I was mere a witness during TANDRA as I was not present there, but it was appearing to me as they were there for me. As the time passed, and I became able to hold the state of tandra for longer times, I found that I was also present there in some form though I am not able to see it but feel it. One day I heard my own voice during TANDRA though I was not talking but meditating. It was shocking and unbelievable. In the first place, I thought that perhaps it was my illusion but it happened again and again. Then I tried to concentrate more on the voices and found that I was not always present there, but also interacting with them in TANDRA. I would like to call this second existence of mine the inner self. He was almost like me but with some difference. His voice was identical to me. He knew each and every thing that I knew and his thinking was absolutely identical also. Every moment that I lived in my whole life was available to him. Now I understood that those disturbing and disconcerting thoughts which used to pop up in my mind during meditation were belonged to that inner self as he is a co-owner my mind so sometimes I can feel what he feels. But there was a very big difference between me and him as he was not only familiar with those spiritual entities but also had relations with them.

Auk, you can very clearly see I am saying what I experienced in person. Prior to meeting to my guru, I did not know anything about all these things, but, I took a chance and tried it honestly. Hence, when I talk about my inner self or subtle dimension; I am not assuming it but it is my faith because I know from my experience that something like that exists for sure.

But, at the same time, I cannot say that confidently about the ultimate, because, doing so, I have to embed assumption with my faith. The reason is again simple; because, I have not experienced that stage; hence, whatever I shall say will include some portion of speculation for sure, thus, it may be right or wrong as well. But, even in the case of assuming it wrong, my version will be nearer to the right one, in comparison to whom, who have not crossed the threshold.

This is the reason I object when you say that you are a bodymind, not beyond that. Auk, how can I deny that what I witnessed or felt? Though, from your point of view, it is quite difficult to believe. That’s why I said that if you try to do NLP sincerely for some time, you will automatically understand what I mean. It is only the matter of breaking the first barrier to manifest the real quest. Having crossed that, it is difficult to stop. At least, I felt that way.

I have tried many versions of meditations; some were chosen from the books while others were self invented. I tell you that there was a period in my life of about two years, when I did not do anything else that this; about 10-12 hours in a single day. I have tried mantras not only from different schools of Hindu mythology, but from other religions also; especially Islamic ones. But Auk, the result was always the same. So, it is only the intention that matters, not the words; because, intention causes concentration and that is the only required ingredient. There is no need for anything else. I can tell you from my experience that we require a certain level of concentration to provoke the consciousness; it does not matter from where or how it comes, but, this benchmark should be breached to get the breakthrough.

Auk, there are enumerable mental practice described in the different schools of thoughts. The aim of all these practices is the same; to create such a level of concentration that would enable it to provoke consciousness, nothing more. What NLP proposing as its aim, is a default byproduct of this process, not the finished one. When one meditate seriously enough, self improvement bound to happen. The reason is that, during meditation, one can understand how his mind works. One can see how thoughts manifest and vanished; how irrational thoughts overcome the will, thus, one becomes able to control his mind, and thus, behavior.

That’s why I compared NLP with a starter as it has all ingredients of being a good one, but, not beyond that. Concentration has endless potential and it can carry us far beyond the aim of self improvement; if we continue with it seriously enough.

But Auk, pure reasoning cannot manifest concentration. That’s why I repeatedly said that, philosophy, in its conservative sense, fails after a certain point; and, spirituality starts from there onwards; as all this falls outside the jurisdiction of thinking. Kant realized this as he was able to reach at this very threshold. He is the limit of thinking, and thus, philosophy. With my limited interaction of philosophy, I do not think that anyone else, other than him, was able to attain this stage.

Nikolai and Typist were absolutely right when they say that, at last, philosophers have to discard all notions what they learned throughout their life. If you remember the wording of Typist; this was his whole argument that why should we try when all this is going to be proved useless one day. Hence, it is better to ‘be here now’, instead of trying anything. This was his whole concept of ‘aphilosophy’ though Nikolai has different ideas than him.

You said- "Do not think of a purple-spotted tiger and definitely do not think of it dancing.", as long as you know what a tiger, purple, spots and dancing is, you cannot but help think it, its how language and thought work.

You are getting nearer. You said that you cannot help but think it and it is how thought work. Auk, this is precisely what I am asking. Why you cannot help but to think of it? Why thoughts use to work this way? When you claim that you are bodymind and that implies that you must have control over it. Thoughts are manifested in the mind for sure, so, how it is possible that your mind diverts its attention to such a thing; which as a complete entity of bodymind, you do not want? I do not think philosophy has any answer for this phenomenon. Tell me if it has any.

If I am right about Kant, the genius in him failed to find the answer of this very question. He was looking for the originating source of the thoughts but did not find any.

You said- But we agree I think, religion like NLP should be practiced not just read.

Yes, first we must have an objective look at the notion and try to sort out appropriate ideas from it. Then we should give it an honest and sincere try and see what happens.

Understanding, and thus knowledge, does not come from the books. Books can provide an idea or at last, some mild belief; not more than that. Those can provide a start definitely. Beyond this, one has to travel on his own legs through the entire spread of experience. Books are history as they imply what others perceived about the same notion. Hence, they are useful when one wants to compare his perception with others.

The problem arises when we think that it is enough to read the books to acquire the knowledge. We want to bypass the real learning phase of experience and hence, fail to grasp the essence of the subject.

with love,
sanjay

[Arising_uk]

b2b,
Where'd your post go? I was about to reply to it.

I couldn't hear the music link as I currently have no speakers so I don't know if the lyrics relate to what you said.

From what I remember; Can language capture another experience so that you experience what they experienced, no. You can never experience what its like to be someone else, its the point of having a unique point-of-view, i.e. a body. What language can do is correspond to your experience and the other can recreate themselves in a similar situation. People talk much about telepathy and mind-to-mind communication and fail to see that language fits that bill. Although it not the all of what communication between us is about.

From an NLP point of view, if your mind is a blur you need to slow it down some and separate out the parts and put them in their right places, then take a look again.

[Arising_uk]

Phew! Took a while but here you go zinnat13,

Let me quote once again my definition of faith, which I mentioned in reply to one of your post in ‘who is stopping us from seeing the truth’. Perhaps you missed that reply. Here it is.

I see belief as a mother and experiences/witnessing as a father. If the semen of father is strong enough to make the mother pregnant and then, if the mother is strong enough to carry the child in her womb for long time enough, so the child would mature before coming into existence, thus, the child of faith is born. Even after taking birth, it needs to be cared properly by his parents otherwise it will die or became ill. It should he fed and looked after; unless and until, he becomes able walk and talk. If the parents enable him to walk and talk properly, then he would be able to walk the talk for sure.


From this point of view, there is absolutely no difference between any kinds of knowledge. There is neither science nor metaphysics, but there will be knowledge only, nothing else.

As far as I can understand this its a description of the process of religious experience that we both appear to agree that those who call themselves religious don't have?

I'm not sure it applies to the sciences but can understand how the idea that the world exists and follows lawlike 'laws' amenable to reason could be considered the 'belief' of the sciences. and as such truth and knowledge comes from observation, hypothesis, experiment/test, conclusions and faults, solutions and suggestions, repeat... . Not sure where faith fits in but we might have different understandings of such a thing as applied to the 'faithful'.

Belief must be supported by concrete evidence to be considered as faith. Belief is just slight above the thought or imagination. It is an assumption derived by reasoning while faith is a proven state. Belief or assumption has to cross the entire spread of experience to convert in faith. You may call it empiricism if we go by the technicals of philosophy. Faith is almost a fact.

My understanding it that beliefs have nothing to do with the concrete world of evidence. Theres an old story about the psychiatric patient who thought he was a corpse, when the doctor got him to agree that corpses are dead so no blood and then cut him to show he could bleed, "Goddamn! Wadayaknow! Corpses bleed!".

In a Christian culture the thing we call faith, basically an unshakeable belief in the existence of whatever 'god/s' is being punted, is given to you before you can reason about it.

I take it that your definition of belief and faith is what you want to replace or contextualise the discussions between religions?

Theories should not be considered as faith, because they have to acquire to the state of fact, prior to be declared as faith. God is a theory postulated by religions just as science did in the case of BBT. Neither of them is able to proof their claim. At the scale of logic, both theories have equal weight.

At the scale of logic all theories have to test themselves in the world of contingent states of affairs. I agree that 'god' was a good explanation for some phenomena once upon a time. I think the difference between 'god' and the BBT is the microwave background, do the religions have an equivalent? I don't think the scientists think their theories faith, I think they think them true or very probably so.

We tend to take the term of faith very lightly. This phenomenon is more visible in religious people. I feel that science is more careful about using faith than religions. If we put adherents of all religions on this test, majority of them would fail.

When you say 'we' I think your mean you religious, as I take the existence of those with 'faith' fairly seriously.

Faith means that we are absolutely sure that the event will happen exactly in the way, as we assume. For instance, we have faith that a female give birth to child, not male. We simply know it. There is no scope that it could be proved wrong.

And thats the issue I think, as we can never be absolutely sure that any event will happen in exactly the way we assume. So Biology has found two species of male parents I think and modern Medicine seems to be knocking on that door, gender and reproduction in the age of genetics and the chemists is going to be an interesting issue.

Auk, what I am proposing, is neither impractical nor impossible to implement. On the contrary, I do not think that there could be any other way of having faith than testing it by trying the assumption.

I think we should follow the example or science in the context; as it looks more appropriate and logical. Einstein postulated that time runs slowly near heavy objects. Given the context of that time, it was out of the box idea and was quite difficult to believe. So, science tested it by putting two identical clocks at the bottom and the top of watch tower and this theory was proved right, hence, science accepted it as a fact. I do not see any problem in adopting this methodology for other notions. There is no need to find any other way to convert belief into faith. I would like to know if there may be any other way other than testing.

I'm not quite sure what you are proposing but if it is that you wish to teach the religions to sing from the same hymn sheet then I wish you luck. The problem I have with it is that you are thinking that a belief is amenable to evidence?

Even you do not have faith in NLP right now. - You know this how? I have complete faith NLP does what it says on the tin. At this moment, it is just your belief. - No its a presupposition. You have assumed that you will eventually get one day, what you expect from NLP. - I know exactly what to expect with NLP and have already experienced it. But Auk, that may or may not happen. - From a philosophical logical point of view you might just well have said, "Its either raining or its not". For the confirmation, you will have to wait up to that moment, when you will think that you are done with NLP, a far as the efforts are concerned. - I think you're projecting your experience upon mine. Then, you will have to introspect and judge that whether it served your purpose or not. - My take is that if you'd done it right the first time then no need for this "done with", but the 'introspect' I kind of understand as NLP has a Test, Operate, Test, Exit(TOTE) model for some things, so decide what you want, test if you've got it, if not change, test, etc, exit when achieved. More complicated in practice as it requires the application of techniques but easily doable with two. At that moment, you would able to have faith either way; positive or negative, but, not right now. - I think you projecting.

But, do not get me wrong. Having said all this, by no means, I am negating the importance and utility of reasoning. It has served its purpose well I the past and will continue to do so. We will cut off the scope of further development, if we choose to discard assumptions completely; but, it has its own limitations. The ideal way is to assume notions first by using reasoning, and then, test it to accept those as fact or faith.

Maybe but I thought you did not have a difference between fact and faith?

I do not subscribe the view of Catholic Church. The ideal order should be; belief or assumption, experience and then faith. It one does not follow this route, then he will remain at the stage of belief only, though he may mistaken himself as having faith. This is the precise reason why religious people fail to explain properly when questioned. They simply do not know what the process is and how it unfolds. All their knowledge is borrowed from the books and they try to explain accordingly. But, they tend to forget that, all religious scriptures are not limited to the verbatim. The capacity of reading between the lines can be attained only by going through the experience.

I am not against having belief but it should not be a blind one. One must be brave and honest enough to test it objectively. Then it is faith and philosophy too in real terms otherwise, I do not have any hesitation in holding that mere a superstition.

Good luck in converting these religions.

Let me tell you that about 20 years ago, I was of the same view as yours that all these religious and spiritual talks are useless. These all imaginary theories are invented by our ancestors just to create fear in the society to keep it in order; simply because I did not find any justification for all those and felt that science and ethics are enough to lead a perfect human life, but Auk, I was proved wrong.

Not surprised if it was a "perfect life" you were seeking. I do not hold your view "that all these religious and spiritual talks are useless", just that many are inappropriate for my culture as the practices may be beneficial but they come with a lot of other cultural baggage. I do not think religion was created "just to create fear in the society to keep it in order", although accept many have come to this, I think it the best explanation at the time for phenomena and existence. If its anything its as Marx said, an opiate for the people.

I am quoting a portion of my unfinished book, which perhaps, will enable you to visualize my experience and cogitations too-

As I told earlier, my guru gave me two mantras for meditation. Initially I use to sit with my legs crossed during meditation with my eyes closed and repeating the mantras. This posture is described as PADMASAN in Hindu mythology. At first I chanted them with very slow voice so that no one else could hear except me, but as the time goes, automatically I switched to unaudieoable mode. Now my tongue was not moving, but the words are pronounced by a slight movement in my throat and I was hearing them not with my ears but from my mind. It was totally a new experience for me. In initial stages I used to sit about 15 minutes but this period increased gradually. I was finding it very difficult to concentrate.
-- Was this because you had stilled the sub-vocalization in the throat?
I had to find something on which I can focus. There were two options before me. The first option was that echo which I was getting in the mind from repetition of mantas. The second choice was available to me in the form of a picture or image of any gods according to mythology. It was difficult for me to choose. Initially I tried to concentrate on both at the same time but it was just impossible so I decided to use them alternately. Nothing extraordinary happened and this went on for some time say about two or three months. As the duration of meditation increased, I felt many emotions going through my mind…...
-- Which ones?
Although I am very patient and calm person but the adverse circumstances were creating frustration and restlessness in me. I did not had any releasing outlet of all this so whenever I meditate, these emotions used to unplug and acted like a catalyst for the intensity of meditation and it(intensity) was gradually increasing as the circumstances were becoming worse. One day for some reason, I was very disturbed and thought very hard sitting alone what to do next. Somehow by then, a belief had been developed in my heart that meditation and prayer will ultimately make the way out for me so I decided that tonight I will put all of myself. At night I started meditating as usual and carried on doing it. I never did it for so long before. The experience and the impact were also different this time. It was very difficult to keep the concentration going for longer periods. I was trying very hard to focus at the echo and in doing that, I felt that I have come closer to the echo. Now I was not only hearing the echo but also somewhat seeing the words. Although echo is not a physical thing, but I felt like that. I kept on doing it and then a strange thing happened. An image of an old person in his fifties flashed before my closed eyes and he shouted at me. The image lasted only 2-3 seconds and it was in black and white. I did not understand what he said but he was looking very angry from me. That man had small white beard. I tried to recall but I did not recognize him. His getup was suggesting that he was a Mohammdan (associated with Islam).I tried to figure out the reason of his annoyance from me but didn’t find any……
I was finding it very difficult to concentrate on the echo of my voice. My mind was simply refusing to stick at one point. Whenever I start meditating, after some minutes, many things used to pop up in the mind from nowhere. I was totally surprised to see that how much was stored in the mind. Normally it appears to us that we do not remember beyond a certain limit but it is not true. Our mind preserves almost all memories from the time, since our understanding develops in the childhood.
-- I agree, its becoming apparent that we pretty much forget nothing, its the way we teach retrival thats the problem.
Out mind has a recycle bin type of system like computers. -- Sort of, Fredkin has a model called 'lossy memory' I think, I prefer at present to think of the 'brain' as a neural net, as such its not a process such as sending the memory to a bin, rather that the memory is not 'stored' or 'deleted' at all but can be retrieved by the re-activation of the nodes concerned. We have models of computational neural nets that do this so I think it likely some physio-chemical form is doing much the same, given we have neurons.
All those memories, which are not required regularly, are sent to the recycle bin, but these are not permanently deleted. These memories can be restored if we can control our mind. I was experiencing it. Sometimes the thoughts which were coming in the mind did not have any correlation with the context. It was appearing that they were randomly picked by the mind. I was getting the short flashes of thoughts and memories even from my childhood times. More often than not I tend to flow with those thoughts forgetting to concentrate on the echo. This was happening again and again and happens now even after 15 years. I have to bridle my mind regularly towards the echo…..
It was very frustrating. I was simply unable to understand that if I am trying to concentrate at the echo then who is this other entity, which is trying to disturb me or engage in other thoughts. I thought a lot about this but did not get any clear answer. However, for the first time, I was getting the feeling that I am alone not the whole sole in charge of my mind. There is someone else for sure otherwise those disturbing thoughts and flashes should not come in the mind during meditation without my will. This query was answered later through my experiences…..
As the time passes, I tried to put more effort in meditation but, as I told earlier, I was not able to hold myself for more than 15-20 minutes. My mind used to become heavy and I fell asleep so I decided to meditate with open eyes to keep going for longer times. Now I was able to hold for more 8-10 minutes. Now, with open eyes, those flashes and thoughts were less disturbing than closed eyes, but the level of concentration was also decreased very much. It was quite difficult to concentrate on the echo with and almost impossible to an image with my eyes open, but I tried to do that. The basic problem was that, when I kept my eyes opened, my concentration automatically came on the eyes so it was very difficult to concentrate on the echo. To overcome this situation, I tried to imagine the words of echo in the front of my eyes to create an object to see. In other words, I tried to make the words appear by visualizing as I pronounced them. It worked to some extent but I found that the words are actually popping up in the mind instead of eyes so my concentration again tend to shift from the eyes to the mind and once again I started feeling drowsy. The experience of drowsiness was different this time compared to closed eyes. I could not able to fell into a nap because I had kept my eyes opened forcefully. After some days, while meditating with open eyes, I almost reached at the verge of sleeping without been slept. This stage was like a dividing line between sleeping and awakening. I do not know any other word to describe it. I kept hanging between both sides for some time. Then all of a sudden something very unusual happened. I saw some unknown people were there wearing different type of clothes and they were talking. What I mean to say is that it was like seeing a film. I was not present there. I was just witnessing it. This last perhaps 1-2 minute then someone shook me slightly and I came back to my senses….. - What different kind of clothing?
It was different from dreams. Hindu mythology has a proper word for this phenomena and it is called TANDRA. It was an amazing and wonderful experience. It was time of night and I kept thinking about that incident lying in the bed…
. This incident gave me a kind of opening to the spiritual world. I became very curious as I want to know more about them. From here on, I always tried to reach on that thin dividing line to peep into the spiritual world…
. As I said earlier, I was mere a witness during TANDRA as I was not present there, but it was appearing to me as they were there for me. As the time passed, and I became able to hold the state of tandra for longer times, I found that I was also present there in some form though I am not able to see it but feel it. One day I heard my own voice during TANDRA though I was not talking but meditating. It was shocking and unbelievable. In the first place, I thought that perhaps it was my illusion but it happened again and again. Then I tried to concentrate more on the voices and found that I was not always present there, but also interacting with them in TANDRA. I would like to call this second existence of mine the inner self. He was almost like me but with some difference. His voice was identical to me. He knew each and every thing that I knew and his thinking was absolutely identical also. Every moment that I lived in my whole life was available to him. Now I understood that those disturbing and disconcerting thoughts which used to pop up in my mind during meditation were belonged to that inner self as he is a co-owner my mind so sometimes I can feel what he feels. But there was a very big difference between me and him as he was not only familiar with those spiritual entities but also had relations with them. - It all sounds a very interesting happening and from my viewpoint it sounds something like you've managed to create an attention that is a meta-attention, i.e. you're modelling your own model of experience. What do you mean by this "spirit world"? That it actual exists outside of your body and thoughts?

Auk, you can very clearly see I am saying what I experienced in person. Prior to meeting to my guru, I did not know anything about all these things, but, I took a chance and tried it honestly. Hence, when I talk about my inner self or subtle dimension; I am not assuming it but it is my faith because I know from my experience that something like that exists for sure.

I'm still not quite sure what you mean when you say "my faith", do you mean your faith in Hinduism? Do you think if a Christian from a different culture did your meditative practices they would experience the same as you, i.e. the Hindu 'god/s'? Do you think an atheist would experience what you have? Do you think there could be more of these inner-selfs or subtle dimensions? And what makes the difference between an inner-self or subtle dimension? I'm not saying I don't believe the practice you describe will produce interesting states of 'mind' but that I wonder whether you truly believe that these things are going on at the same time outside of your body as well?

But, at the same time, I cannot say that confidently about the ultimate, because, doing so, I have to embed assumption with my faith. The reason is again simple; because, I have not experienced that stage; hence, whatever I shall say will include some portion of speculation for sure, thus, it may be right or wrong as well. But, even in the case of assuming it wrong, my version will be nearer to the right one, in comparison to whom, who have not crossed the threshold.

This this "perfect life" you talked about? If so, lots of luck. What would a perfect life be for you? How would you know when you've got it?

This is the reason I object when you say that you are a bodymind, not beyond that. Auk, how can I deny that what I witnessed or felt? ...

What was it that you denied? As I'm still not quite understanding what you think your experience means?

Though, from your point of view, it is quite difficult to believe. That’s why I said that if you try to do NLP sincerely for some time, you will automatically understand what I mean. It is only the matter of breaking the first barrier to manifest the real quest. Having crossed that, it is difficult to stop. At least, I felt that way.

In NLP there is no overarching explanation, so there is no real quest other than your own personal vision and mission and there are some pretty 'rough' techniques to help with that if one chooses. But I can well understand how difficult it is to stop doing it.

I have tried many versions of meditations; some were chosen from the books while others were self invented. I tell you that there was a period in my life of about two years, when I did not do anything else that this; about 10-12 hours in a single day. I have tried mantras not only from different schools of Hindu mythology, but from other religions also; especially Islamic ones. But Auk, the result was always the same. So, it is only the intention that matters, not the words; because, intention causes concentration and that is the only required ingredient. There is no need for anything else. I can tell you from my experience that we require a certain level of concentration to provoke the consciousness; it does not matter from where or how it comes, but, this benchmark should be breached to get the breakthrough.

I'll take your word for it. Not sure how many can spend a couple of years meditating and think that it may be a cultural intention that allows no change amongst the different practices, as I doubt Islam would be happy thinking that you can get to Hinduism through it, but I can understand I think.

Auk, there are enumerable mental practice described in the different schools of thoughts. The aim of all these practices is the same; to create such a level of concentration that would enable it to provoke consciousness, nothing more. What NLP proposing as its aim, is a default byproduct of this process, not the finished one. When one meditate seriously enough, self improvement bound to happen. The reason is that, during meditation, one can understand how his mind works. One can see how thoughts manifest and vanished; how irrational thoughts overcome the will, thus, one becomes able to control his mind, and thus, behavior.

What do you think NLP is proposing as its aim?

That’s why I compared NLP with a starter as it has all ingredients of being a good one, but, not beyond that. Concentration has endless potential and it can carry us far beyond the aim of self improvement; if we continue with it seriously enough.

I think the rest of us will be happier with just 'self-improvement' at present, although from an NLP view its about modelling, learning and communication in the purpose of goals or outcomes.

But Auk, pure reasoning cannot manifest concentration. That’s why I repeatedly said that, philosophy, in its conservative sense, fails after a certain point; and, spirituality starts from there onwards; as all this falls outside the jurisdiction of thinking. Kant realized this as he was able to reach at this very threshold. He is the limit of thinking, and thus, philosophy. With my limited interaction of philosophy, I do not think that anyone else, other than him, was able to attain this stage.

Wittgenstein.

You're right, all reason can do is point out the nonsense in the idea of " falls outside the jurisdiction of thinking.".

Nikolai and Typist were absolutely right when they say that, at last, philosophers have to discard all notions what they learned throughout their life. If you remember the wording of Typist; this was his whole argument that why should we try when all this is going to be proved useless one day. Hence, it is better to ‘be here now’, instead of trying anything. This was his whole concept of ‘aphilosophy’ though Nikolai has different ideas than him.

I can take Nikolai as at least he's bothered to read some philosophy, as such I think his disappointment with psychology is what drives him, and think he'll love NLP and explanations and techniques like it, may stop all his 'eastern mysticism' but since he's with the mad Finns I reckon the 'fey and scary' will be visiting soon.

Typist upon the other hand has nothing to say to me about philosophy as he's not read any, just some hippie babble from his youth with a couple of pet psychological ideas and a lost faith.

You are getting nearer. You said that you cannot help but think it and it is how thought work. Auk, this is precisely what I am asking. Why you cannot help but to think of it?

Because to understand a word is to understand the representations it refers to. Are they the 'real' ones? No, there are no real ones as there is no private language, even tho' the 'voice' in ones head makes one think so.

Why thoughts use to work this way?

Why is it thought before thinking? I think its because 'thought' comes from perception and perception is built by the body and not the 'mind'.

When you claim that you are bodymind and that implies that you must have control over it. ...

I think it implies that there is no "it" nor "you" in this situation, just 'I' or 'me' and what that is is a body with senses, the ability to 'remember' part of the representations without the actual inputs and a language(which means there's two of them at least).

Thoughts are manifested in the mind for sure, so, how it is possible that your mind diverts its attention to such a thing; which as a complete entity of bodymind, you do not want? I do not think philosophy has any answer for this phenomenon. Tell me if it has any.

I think thoughts manifested by the body from perception. I think the diverting is done by 'language' or whatever is the preferred representation that one thinks in, which is pretty much the same as 'mind' I think. I also think the bodys recognition of an other is a big factor, pretty much every species recognises its others.

If I am right about Kant, the genius in him failed to find the answer of this very question. He was looking for the originating source of the thoughts but did not find any.

Couldn't say as its been many years since I read Kant. My take is that his Noumena was a Descartes moment for philosophy but unfortunately like Rene metaphysical schools developed from it, so Kant, I think, led to such things as Hegel and the Transcendental Idealist ideas of 'supra minds' and some kind of 'destiny' for 'Mind'. Whether Kant correctly identified the limits of reason I don't know but for me his problem was, like Descartes, how to get back to others and the world, probably guessing tho'.

Yes, first we must have an objective look at the notion and try to sort out appropriate ideas from it. Then we should give it an honest and sincere try and see what happens.

My take is I try to sort out what I want, then go find something that looks like it'll meet that need, then give it a sincere go, if its not working, change the want or do something else.

Understanding, and thus knowledge, does not come from the books. Books can provide an idea or at last, some mild belief; not more than that. Those can provide a start definitely. Beyond this, one has to travel on his own legs through the entire spread of experience. Books are history as they imply what others perceived about the same notion. Hence, they are useful when one wants to compare his perception with others.

With respect to Religion I agree, with respect to the sciences I think we'd have got nowhere with this approach, to much re-inventing the wheel.

The problem arises when we think that it is enough to read the books to acquire the knowledge. We want to bypass the real learning phase of experience and hence, fail to grasp the essence of the subject.

I think this depends upon what the subject is. Although I sort of agree with you as I like the adage "In theory, theory works, whereas in practice...". So I think theory and practice is the name of the game, as in practice, without theory, you're stuffed if its a new problem.

Yours
a_uk