The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Dontaskme wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:50 am
A skeleton never gains weight.

The universe weighs nothing.

Any extra baggage is purely mental, weightless at it's core.

.
It's fun to use equivocation and derive lessons from it... mysticism would be nothing without it.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Dontaskme wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:05 pmWhat I think about when I witness my self between thoughts, is that I have two selves, one is the empty unbounded untouched self, and the other is identified ego self full of self conscious tension.
I can't believe that one can experience all that between thoughts. In my experience, an experience involves mental work, which can be viewed as a mental work, or thought.

In fact, the quote itself says, "what I think about... between thoughts..." The writer himself or herself denies the truth of the alleged experience.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Greta wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 2:28 am Many here (and JBT) give the impression that the unity consciousness of the right hemisphere is qualitatively superior to the rational analytical thought of the left hemisphere. I personally value each, that rational analytical ideation is beautiful in its own way, just different to the unbounded visceral present moment.
Erm... it's not a battle of hemispheres, but a battle between the cervical cortex and the hypothalamus. The first has the advantage of sensing reality and deriving reasonable inferences; the latter has the advantage of stronger impulses than the first, being the first in the development of the mind (by millions of years), thus having authority that way.

Thus, if you ever try crack cocaine, your mind says this is stupid and you must stop at once, and the hypothalamus says, please do continue. The mind can only stop you smoking crack if it prevents you from trying it in the first place. As an example.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Dontaskme wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:28 am I had a hard time growing up relating to adult people because I could never understand why they behaved so aggressively to each other. It often seemed like their lives were just chaotic most of the time full of stress and worry, and all I could think about was hey it doesn't have to be like that. So my own life has been a little chaotic too having witnessed the chaos in people who have been close to me personally, so I've indirectly got involved with the chaos myself.
Sorry to hear you had trouble understanding The Life; should you have accepted the Evolutionary theory, understanding the above would have been easy. The scientific model provides a much wider and more profound understanding than any form of mysticism.

I cannot deny, and wont attempt it, that mysticism has its charm. But beyond that, it is impotent.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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No pun intended (but gleefully achieved).
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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-1- wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:28 am
Greta wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 2:28 am Many here (and JBT) give the impression that the unity consciousness of the right hemisphere is qualitatively superior to the rational analytical thought of the left hemisphere. I personally value each, that rational analytical ideation is beautiful in its own way, just different to the unbounded visceral present moment.
Erm... it's not a battle of hemispheres, but a battle between the cervical cortex and the hypothalamus.
I'm just paraphrasing the neuroscientist, JB-T. She was the one who said we have these hemispheric based modes based on the fact that she experienced the left side of her brain being knocked out by a stroke.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Greta wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:12 am
-1- wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:28 am
Greta wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 2:28 am Many here (and JBT) give the impression that the unity consciousness of the right hemisphere is qualitatively superior to the rational analytical thought of the left hemisphere. I personally value each, that rational analytical ideation is beautiful in its own way, just different to the unbounded visceral present moment.
Erm... it's not a battle of hemispheres, but a battle between the cervical cortex and the hypothalamus.
I'm just paraphrasing the neuroscientist, JB-T. She was the one who said we have these hemispheric based modes based on the fact that she experienced the left side of her brain being knocked out by a stroke.
...It's just a battle with your shadow.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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-1- wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:21 am
Dontaskme wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:05 pmWhat I think about when I witness my self between thoughts, is that I have two selves, one is the empty unbounded untouched self, and the other is identified ego self full of self conscious tension.
I can't believe that one can experience all that between thoughts. In my experience, an experience involves mental work, which can be viewed as a mental work, or thought.

In fact, the quote itself says, "what I think about... between thoughts..." The writer himself or herself denies the truth of the alleged experience.
What if the perceived gap in time is not a loss of awareness but part of it?

For illustration purposes, let's say reading a book were a continued awareness from cover-to-cover and a bunch of pages were left blank to symbolize a loss of awareness, would that also be a loss of awareness for the reader of the book?

.....1,0,1,0,1,0,1,0,1.......... Sleep, wake, sleep, wake.... gives the illusion of a change in perception and yet there is a strange continuity.

.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Greta wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:12 am
-1- wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:28 am
Greta wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 2:28 am Many here (and JBT) give the impression that the unity consciousness of the right hemisphere is qualitatively superior to the rational analytical thought of the left hemisphere. I personally value each, that rational analytical ideation is beautiful in its own way, just different to the unbounded visceral present moment.
Erm... it's not a battle of hemispheres, but a battle between the cervical cortex and the hypothalamus.
I'm just paraphrasing the neuroscientist, JB-T. She was the one who said we have these hemispheric based modes based on the fact that she experienced the left side of her brain being knocked out by a stroke.
With all due respect, I am completely satisfied that her experience has been accounted by her with honesty and frankness; I doubt if she has the knowledge, however, to pinpoint the steps in her experience to physical spots or to physically located functionalities of her brain. I, however, can't prove this skepticism; it is purely speculative by me.

I predict, as a prophet, not as a scientist, that she'll be proven wrong by posterity, via scientific knowledge applied to her description of her experience.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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DAM and -1-, how can you sprout so confidently without even knowing what she actually said? Watch the video first and then comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU&t=11s
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Not quite the same thing, but damage to the left temporal lobe can make savants out of some ordinary people. I think it's because it overloads the right hemisphere to the point where the underlying subconscious can start to flow into the conscious, in some parts of the right hemisphere.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Greta wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 10:20 pm DAM and -1-, how can you sprout so confidently without even knowing what she actually said? Watch the video first and then comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU&t=11s
How can you so confidently sprout I haven't watched the video?

I watched her description over a decade ago or so. It caused quite a stir in the circles I moved in then. Surely my memory fades, but the gist of it I retained. I remember my opinion more that I formed then than her speech, true. I remember I also disagree with her claims of spiritually heightened stages... bullshit, if you ask me. I can't prove her wrong, but she smacked of religious agitational propaganda. I was not impressed.

As I remember she did not quite come out saying she saw god or similar, but the suggestion was there and it was very strong. I hate shit like that. She was very obviously catering to a religious audience, and she did that to draw in crowds, in order to make money. The more in the crowd, the more money, and she sold out not only her show, but also her scientific dignity, if you ask me. It was all planned, contrived, and basically a lie. After she went into a religious tangent, her entire speech became suspect for me -- I lost respect in her, she lost her credulity for me.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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-1- wrote: Thu Sep 27, 2018 2:50 am
Greta wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 10:20 pm DAM and -1-, how can you sprout so confidently without even knowing what she actually said? Watch the video first and then comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU&t=11s
How can you so confidently sprout I haven't watched the video?

I watched her description over a decade ago or so. It caused quite a stir in the circles I moved in then. Surely my memory fades, but the gist of it I retained. I remember my opinion more that I formed then than her speech, true. I remember I also disagree with her claims of spiritually heightened stages... bullshit, if you ask me. I can't prove her wrong, but she smacked of religious agitational propaganda. I was not impressed.

As I remember she did not quite come out saying she saw god or similar, but the suggestion was there and it was very strong. I hate shit like that. She was very obviously catering to a religious audience, and she did that to draw in crowds, in order to make money. The more in the crowd, the more money, and she sold out not only her show, but also her scientific dignity, if you ask me. It was all planned, contrived, and basically a lie. After she went into a religious tangent, her entire speech became suspect for me -- I lost respect in her, she lost her credulity for me.
Jill Bolte-Taylor is actually a keen atheist. Her experienced did not change her views there. Rather, she is positing that life itself contains this joyful boundless aspect to it that we are generally too busy being sensible and practical to notice. You don't need religiosity to experience such things at all.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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I started reading I Am That a long time ago. I didn’t finish because it was boring. I have others in PDF format.
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Re: The thoughts of Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Greta wrote: Wed Sep 26, 2018 10:20 pm DAM and -1-, how can you sprout so confidently without even knowing what she actually said? Watch the video first and then comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU&t=11s
I watched the video ages ago, but what she says would be irrelevant in comparison to your own direct personal experience of Absolute Infinity... relatively speaking of course...So even her interpretation of what she was trying to say was only a scratching of the surface of what is reality as we know it so far, it runs much deeper than we can possibly imagine. Remember when Jesus said, metaphorically speaking, he said In My Father's house there are many mansions.

The proof is in the pudding, only you can taste the pudding. No one else can give that to you, or describe it to you, you have to experience it yourself.

One can do this totally without ever having a stroke, or taking consciousness altering drugs, what usually brings one home to reality, differs for everyone. Sometimes it happens just by grace alone while taking a stroll through nature or a city.


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