Enjoying the Experience

You can tell a child the stove is hot, but until he touches it, he doesn't know what that means. It's like trying to explain the cold to someone who lives in the tropics.
 
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too funny.... you do realize other folks read your posts...and based on posts decide how much credibility to put to other posts right?
 
Thomas said:
LOL! That's so not true!
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Why's that mate? There's lots of things I'd have trouble believing with no first hand experience. Your statement above proves NJ's point. You read something contrary to your experience so you rejected it.
 
Aussie Thoughts said:
Why's that mate? There's lots of things I'd have trouble believing with no first hand experience.
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Of course ... and lots of things we accept with hardly a thought. It depends on what order of 'thing' you're talking about.

But when it comes to 'spiritual development', it's like saying I want to be sure I'm gonna attain Enlightenment before I make the effort. Real life's just not like that. Some things require one to go out on a limb, to take a step in the dark, to have faith ... then again, faith is a dirty word in consumer culture, people want commodity, and they want a guarantee of reward before they make an investment.

And I never had to burn myself to prove to myself the stove was hot. Nor did I have to poison myself when my dad told me those colourful looking berries in the garden were poisonous ...
 
Thomas said:
But when it comes to 'spiritual development', it's like saying I want to be sure I'm gonna attain Enlightenment before I make the effort. Real life's just not like that. Some things require one to go out on a limb, to take a step in the dark, to have faith ...
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I understand what you're saying, but what if in your spiritual development you ran across something that falls outside the realm of traditional thinking? Something not contained in scripture. Perhaps even appearing to go against it. Would you take it on faith just because it were told to you?

Speaking for myself, I would not. Especially if it were told to me by someone I saw as being less informed? Unless that is, I had come to a realization on my own by way of first hand experience.
 
So...it is look at this picture.... and realize...

and if you can't...who cares...I ain't telling you?

Have I got this right? This is the recommended method of development?
 
Aussie Thoughts said:
... but what if in your spiritual development you ran across something that falls outside the realm of traditional thinking?
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Depends.

I'm Catholic. If I ran across something that falls outside the Tradition, then I would be skeptical. I would look to its provenance, ask for 'evidence', for a reasoned and logical argument in support. If it was something that as a Catholic I should believe or do, but something 'not contained in scripture. Perhaps even appearing to go against it' then I would be doubly-cautious. Again, I'd look for its source and origin, and look for commentaries that touch on it.

Take reincarnation. It's not mentioned in Scripture, so that's strike one. It's not mentioned at all in the commentaries of the Tradition, strike two. Logically, its incompatible with the Tradition's idea of the 'person', strike three. (Some might argue Origen on metempsychosis, but that's too detailed to go into here.) There are those who cite a couple of texts in support of the idea, but they do so out of context, and dismiss the traditional interpretation of the text without reason. Their bias is clear, and I'm afraid that stands against them.

If however, I ran across something outside Christianity as such, say Buddhism or the Dao, and that 'spoke to me', then there we have a case of conversion, a kind of 'Damascus moment'. Then I could not say what might happen ...

I did try 'converting' to Zen at one point, but it was never authentic, it was a change of mind, but not a change of heart.

Aussie Thoughts said:
Unless that is, I had come to a realization on my own by way of first hand experience.
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Well first hand experience is the most fallible and least reliable data of the lot ... and we have to distinguish between what kind of experience we're talking about.

Take empirical/physical experience, and put that on one side. We're talking a different order of thing altogether.

Take 'the zone' ... you know that place athletes talk about, say long distance runners? It sounds cool, and I want to 'get into the zone'. How do I do it? As the old adage has it, practice, practice and more practice. And even then, it's not guaranteed. In short, hard work. Now there are those who ill say, 'you know what it's like when... ' and offer an analogy. OK. But an analogy is not the zone, but people assume that because they felt something like it, they were in the zone ...

The classic distinction is between spirit and Spirit, between intellectual light and Enlightenment, between knowing and being. The latter is a whole different order of thing, but many assume that the two are near enough the same. So some have first hand experience of the former, and tell themselves it's the latter, and when anyone suggests they're wrong, then they get a swift rebuttal. I'm right? How do I know, because I know! If 'tradition' says otherwise, then the tradition is wrong.

The classic argument: What I believe is right, and right for me, because I believe it.
 
wil said:
So...it is look at this picture.... and realize... and if you can't...who cares...I ain't telling you?
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Let me ask you mate, were you given all the exam answers at school or like me, did you have to figure them out on your own based on information given in class? My Dad used to say, "I can tell you, but you will have learned nothing."

Thomas said:
Depends......
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Well, that was a long walkabout in a circle. :) I can agree with you to some degree, but we definitely part company on the 'First Hand Experience' aspect.
 
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Aussie Thoughts said:
Well, that was a long walkabout in a circle. :) I can agree with you to some degree, but we definitely part company on the 'First Hand Experience' aspect.
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OK. My first-hand experience tells me otherwise :) But then again, just because I'm fallible doesn't necessarily mean everyone is!
 
Yeah, I figured things out... but I didn't play word association games for enlightenment...

I've never been simply given a picture without a reference and been told... Yeah....you won't understand the deeper meaning... so the hell with ya. No use giving you anything...pearls before swine and all that...

It seems laughable how disrespectful that is... Look at my picture..hee hee.... it has deep meaning that will change your life...but meh..

Of course I also didn't have to touch the hot stove, and don't feel the need to test the paint when I see a wet paint sign...
 
wil said:
I've never been simply given a picture without a reference and been told... Yeah....you won't understand the deeper meaning... so the hell with ya. No use giving you anything...pearls before swine and all that...
It seems laughable how disrespectful that is... Look at my picture..hee hee.... it has deep meaning that will change your life...but meh..
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I still don't see how you find this in any way relevant to the discussion.
 
Namaste Jesus said:
This is the deleted photo Aussie Thoughts spoke of. If your post is any indication, Aussie was correct in his assessment that no one here would grasp it's true meaning..........
1388
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and then when asked we went into the whole hot stoves, we aren't worthy, figure it out for yourself, I ain't tellin, pearls before swine...

Can't tell us because he'll just get grief....yadda yadda...
 
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