Moving deeper past the surface layers

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christine.P

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A few more thoughts...

Being Spiritual in my opinion, is in a way moving beyond the surface understanding of life and peeking into some of the underlying layers hidden below the surface. There are so many underlying layers, so this is not a goal-oriented search to get them all under our belt - but rather – ‘contentment’, with where we are and what we know, along with an inner effort and openness to grow into new and more wondrous views, and visions. This is only my view…but - ‘if’ -’ we can pull our senses and thoughts away from outer distractions, and move beyond the most obvious layers of appearance, it may be possible to see the amazing multidimensional images behind the surface of life.

Do you think - ' it is' - what each of us hears our spirit saying in those spaces between the words’; in the quiet thoughtfulness that lies beneath, that holds the key to a deeper understanding of life and the here and the now?
Bow...
 
The problem is, from my perspective anyway, that the surface is completely hyperreal, so if you start from the surface and work your way inward all you're gonna find is layers and layers of supporting hyperreality. There is nothing real under the surface because the concept of something real behind the distortion is itself one of the supporting myths of the hyperreal. This is the post-modern connundrum. Try to go back in history and find the point where the distortion began. You won't find anything solid, just layers and layers of myth. So the idea that behind all the surface confusion, somewhere back in time there existed a pristine first cause, and if we can isolate that we can build from it a pristine spirituality is itself an illusion. It's all smoke and mirrors and the best we can do is play dress-up, swim on the surface, and learn to enjoy it.

I'm probably not explaining this very well, but think of the movie The Matrix.

Chris
 
I believe you've got some good points Chris, but the spiritual realm, which I believe that most people here see as something that underlies all reality, is the issue that Christine is talking about.

But as you say it is specifically unidentifiable, except as it may pop up from time to time in other people and then may be recognized by observers. It's really like quantum effects. Nothing is for certain until it is observed and/or measured, and then and only then is it fixed in time and space. But that which is brought forth in this way automatically becomes profaned in real ways by the world as it is.

Mircea Eliade wrote an excellent book regarding this phenomenon titled, The Sacred And The Profane. I highly recommend it to gain new perspectives on the subject area. Another titled, The Forge And The Crucible is another book by Eliade that I found to be very enlightening.

flow....:)
 
...the spiritual realm, which I believe that most people here see as something that underlies all reality, is the issue that Christine is talking about.

I understand what you're saying Flow, but I don't think the spiritual realm(s) underly "reality" as we experience it. I think the spiritual is available, but non-local to mundane reality. I can't explain these concepts well.

Chris
 
Chris
I view it all as the immanent spiritual presence of G-d in all that is/was/will be created. It is the ONE thing that proves His/Her unconditional love for us. I agree that spiritual underlayment is not that from which the material realities spring, but should rather be sensed as an invisible scaffolding without which our world would never have been made, and without which would cease to exist.

When I participated in some seminar forums concerning science and religion some years ago, our role in all of this was described by learned scientists and theologians alike as being "Created Co-Creators".

When one considers issues such as "global warming" and extreme weather swings that flow from the phenomenon, it places a new set of perspectives upon our responsibilities, and the spiritual burden that goes with them.

flow....:)
 
flowperson said:
Chris
I view it all as the immanent spiritual presence of G-d in all that is/was/will be created. It is the ONE thing that proves His/Her unconditional love for us. I agree that spiritual underlayment is not that from which the material realities spring, but should rather be sensed as an invisible scaffolding without which our world would never have been made, and without which would cease to exist.

When I participated in some seminar forums concerning science and religion some years ago, our role in all of this was described by learned scientists and theologians alike as being "Created Co-Creators".

When one considers issues such as "global warming" and extreme weather swings that flow from the phenomenon, it places a new set of perspectives upon our responsibilities, and the spiritual burden that goes with them.

flow....:)
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O.K., as above so below, but...not necessarily as below so above. IOW, extrapolating the "as above" from what is below doesn't work because of the maya factor. I get this from both Buddhist and Hindu cosmology as well as kabbalistic concepts. We're stuck in the maya, so the original command in Genesis of taking dominion of the earth makes sense. My big problem with Christianity, as it now exists, is the idea of an apocolypse that lets us out of our responsibility to husband the earth. The advantage of Christianity, IMO, is that it builds on Buddhism by giving us a pro-active strategy for doing something with our "enlightenment". But if you follow Judaism that problem is asked and answered. So I think it's a matter of accepting the illusory nature of life, picking up the torch instead of running off to some mountain to meditate and escape, and muddling theough the best we can.

Rambling again, sorry.

Chris
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
We're stuck in the maya, so the original command in Genesis of taking dominion of the earth makes sense. My big problem with Christianity, as it now exists, is the idea of an apocolypse that lets us out of our responsibility to husband the earth.
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Somebody has to ask this, so it might as well be me. :D

If we are stuck in maya, if everything is an illusion ... then WHAT are we supposed to be taking care of? Wouldn't it be like trying to polish a hologram?

By the way, I agee with you regarding the whole "God will fix it for us" mentality as regards the Earth and our messes. :)
 
Jeannot said:
Maybe what Emily Dickinson said is relevant. She said, "The supernatural is but the natural revealed."
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You could even turn it around in emmanationist cosmology:

The natural is the supernatural revealed.

All we are, all the cosmos is, is congealed energy. ;)
 
Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate here. I just get lost and befuddled by this very abstract philosophying and theologizing so I guess I should just shut up. But I feel to respond to AlethiaRivers's question:

If we are stuck in maya, if everything is an illusion ... then WHAT are we supposed to be taking care of? Wouldn't it be like trying to polish a hologram?

My approach has been, so maybe our life on this earth is an illusion. (WARNING: Those who are serious about exploring the depths of the posted questions may not want to read beyond this point; I can be rather sarcastic at times.) But it is an awful real illusion so far as I am concerned. If I don't act like the cars ripping around the corner of the street I just started to cross are very real and a lethal missile to my very real human body, then I am not going to be around to tell the story. Maybe I have a spirit that will survive my body but I will not be able to live, move, and interact with the people I used to know and love if my body gets killed by a speeding automobile.

This planet on which we presently reside also seems to be an awfully real illusion if indeed it is but an illusion. I lived most of my life on the farm and even though I now live in the city I am still drawn to the nature that is nurtured in this city--conservation areas and green belts and parks with lakes, rivers, wildlife. Right now a baby bluejay is living in the window well outside the window where I have my computer. I'm in a basement apartment. Whether he's real or an illusion, his parents were convinced he's real and they felt a very real concern and panic when the little fellow tumbled out of the nest. And when they finally found him in my window well the mother started feeding him here. He tries jumping out but so far has been unsuccessful. Apparently none of the neighbourhood cats have yet had roast jay for supper. My Point: if all of this is an illusion it is a very real illusion complete with life and death struggles right under my nose.

The very fact that this is life and death issues, which I as a human being share with the birds and squirrels and cats inhabiting the backyard outside my window, makes me feel a connection with these little creatures that seems to be on the level of spirit. Caring for gardens, parks, conservation areas, fields, etc. seems to me a very reasonable and honourable work. And if it is all an illusion, then maybe the hard work we put into the care of said earth is also an illusion. But it's an illusion that is awfully and beautifully arranged to speak to the human soul.
 
Play the devil's advocate all you want. It helps me think. Actually, I was playing the devil's advocate as well. Hehehe. Perhaps I should stop? :D

Maya is an interesting concept. I find that I can thoroughly embrace the Hindu philosopher Ramanuja's concept of Maya, but not Sankara's. It's a fine, but distinct and important line, between their definitions of what God is, what Maya is and what we are.

It all comes down to (for me) understanding what any individual's interpretation of "illusion" is. I find that it varies greatly.

The movie The Matrix, as cliche as it has become to bring it up, illustrates the idea of this reality being an illusion very well. The Matrix seems real. The ground is just as hard and bullets are just as deadly as that in the real world. If you die in the Matrix, you die for real.

But, if our reality is this sort of illusion, then, like Neo did, it is meant to be transcended, not embraced. And it is from that perspective that I made the "polishing the hologram" comment. :)

I'm going to stop here before I start rambling about Ramanuja and qualified non-dualism and stuff.

If I start sounding too philosophical in my posts, will someone please whack me upside the head?! Flow? :p
 
christine.P said:
A few more thoughts...

Being Spiritual in my opinion, is in a way moving beyond the surface understanding of life and peeking into some of the underlying layers hidden below the surface. There are so many underlying layers, so this is not a goal-oriented search to get them all under our belt - but rather – ‘contentment’, with where we are and what we know, along with an inner effort and openness to grow into new and more wondrous views, and visions. This is only my view…but - ‘if’ -’ we can pull our senses and thoughts away from outer distractions, and move beyond the most obvious layers of appearance, it may be possible to see the amazing multidimensional images behind the surface of life.

Do you think - ' it is' - what each of us hears our spirit saying in those spaces between the words’; in the quiet thoughtfulness that lies beneath, that holds the key to a deeper understanding of life and the here and the now?
Bow...
Click to expand...
Hi Christine and welcome. If I understand some of what you're getting at correctly, I'd say so true. While there may indeed be many mansions in the "Father's House," many dimensions of being-most beyond our awareness "here," to me spirituality is not so much about intentionally tuning into other realms so much as it is about fully and comfortably inhabiting this one & the life we've been given. In fact, I dare say all sprituality/religious thought and practice are tools for more fully inhabiting this realm, not others where I bet we need a different "how to manual.";) To do that we do indeed need to look beyond who we have falsely believed ourselves and others to be-those misperceptions which harden the heart and close the mind in fear and anguish. have a good one, earl
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
O.K., as above so below, but...not necessarily as below so above. IOW, extrapolating the "as above" from what is below doesn't work because of the maya factor. I get this from both Buddhist and Hindu cosmology as well as kabbalistic concepts. We're stuck in the maya, so the original command in Genesis of taking dominion of the earth makes sense. My big problem with Christianity, as it now exists, is the idea of an apocolypse that lets us out of our responsibility to husband the earth. The advantage of Christianity, IMO, is that it builds on Buddhism by giving us a pro-active strategy for doing something with our "enlightenment". But if you follow Judaism that problem is asked and answered. So I think it's a matter of accepting the illusory nature of life, picking up the torch instead of running off to some mountain to meditate and escape, and muddling through the best we can.

Rambling again, sorry.

Chris
Click to expand...

Chris:
My opinion is that one should never apologise for original thinking, and you do it well. It's a matter of degree and perspective. It's about what technology enables us to see, and what continues to be hidden from us by nature. This has been the basis of the advancement of civilized societies since about 1500 ad.

It should be obvious that there are limits to this process, and now research is bumping up against them. We can digitally construct mathematically-based virtual realities on digital simulators now and avoid some physical limitations. Such simulations then become virtual presences for us within them to do the necessary explorations to render further "progress".
This is definitely illusion in my opinion since it is subject to outside manipulations by "others".

On the other hand, Ruby, nature's traditional realities are around us still most of the time and they do bring comforts to us. But sometime ago early researchers in virtual realities such as Jaron Lanier, noticed that "normal" reactions to external stimulation and resultant cognitive functions among humans so immersed were sometimes altered depending upon the time spent within artificial simulations. Maybe that's our boundary between "maya" and normal reality ?

Of course watching TV, a movie, or playing video games are a degree of such immersions, but they are not as "real" to our brains and senses as are full immersion experiences in virtual environments.

flow....:cool:
 
I think that the distinction between "real" and "Illusory" is largely semantical. It's also a matter of degrees. You might say that we live in an illusory world of objects which seem to behave in ways described by Classical physics, while what is actually "real" is the properties described by quantum physics. In those terms we spin the illusion of our "reality" by deciding where the bounderies of all the "things" lie and imagining continuity of space, time, and matter in a mundane sense.

Being a carpenter, I can tell you for a fact that there's a very good chance that there isn't a single square corner or plumb wall in your house. Those apparently seemless lines and unbroken corners of your baseboard are an illusion as well. I filled them full of caulk and spackle and the painter painted over them. I very often have to choose between actually building something square, straight, and level, and building it a bit crooked so that some other crooked thing that's next to it won't look whacky. That's the difference between straight and optically straight. So here you can see one of the degrees of separation that allows the illusion of solidity and correct proportion. But it doesn't that much matter. We fill in the gaps, we shoot the movie, and we enjoy our little illusion because it's plenty real enough for us.

Lately it's become all the rage to interpolate quantum qualities, apply them to consciousness, and then extend that into the physical world of objects. The idea is that if we can get a handle on consciousness we can change physical reality. Here's the problem in my mind: Shroedinger's cat isn't really a cat. It's a cat analogy that applies to sub-atomic particles. Cat's don't act like nuetrons or vice-versa. That doesn't mean that the concepts aren't conceptually valid in interesting ways, but I think it's a mistake to mix the oranges from one degree of existence with the apples of another.

Chris
 
Chris:

You're absolutely right of course. But the fact is that we all live now in a world flooded with manipulatible and manipulated images of things that we are all familiar with for the sole purpose of selling such and such to us. One might refer to it as "maya" in the extreme, but I like to think of it as the ultimate in "bait and switch".

As for square corners and such, you're right on the money again. I used to repair and refinish old furniture, and once even rebuilt a termite ridden triple window. When I was done with a job like that, I knew what was real and what was covered-up by illusion, but as long as the customer (quite often my wife at the time) was satisfied with the appearances things went well.

However I guess I'm concerned about the effects of all this upon those of us who purposely devise and sell illusory materials to others. Besides the gnawing dishonesty effects upon the purveyors of illusion, what of the spiritual effects of it all when the receiver of such illusions comes to recognize the emptiness of paying for and accepting falsehood ?

Maybe it's all too much adoo about too little on my part.

flow....:cool:
 
Flowperson said:
However I guess I'm concerned about the effects of all this upon those of us who purposely devise and sell illusory materials to others. Besides the gnawing dishonesty effects upon the purveyors of illusion, what of the spiritual effects of it all when the receiver of such illusions comes to recognize the emptiness of paying for and accepting falsehood ?
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Behind the baroqueness of images lies the eminence gris of politics.

This way the stake will always have been the the murderous power of images, murderers of the real, murderers of their own model, as the Byzantine icons could be those of divine identity. To this murderous power is opposed that of representations as a dialectical power, the visible and intelligible mediation of the Real. All Western faith and good faith became engaged in in this wager on reperesentation: that a sign could refer to the depth of meaning, that a sign could be exchanged for meaning and that something could guarantee this exchange--God of course. But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say can be reduced to the signs that constitute faith? Then the whole system becomes weightless, it is no longer itself anything but a gigantic simulacrum--not unreal, but a simulacrum, that is to say never exchanged for the real, but exchanged for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference of circumference.

Such is simulation, insofar as it is opposed to representation. Representation stems from the principle of the equivalence of the sign and of the real (even if this equivalence is utopian, it is a fundamental axiom). Simulation, on the contrary, stems from the utopia of the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as value, from the sign as the reversion and death sentence of every reference. Whereas representation attempts to absorb simulation by interpreting it as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation itself as a simulacrum.

Such would be the successive phases of image:
  1. It is the reflection of a profound reality.
  2. It masks and denatures a profound reality.
  3. It masks the absence of a profound reality.
  4. It has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum.
When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a plethora of myths of origin and of signs of reality--a plethora of truth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity. Escalation of the true, of lived experience, resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. Panic-stricken production of the real and of the referential, paralel to and greater than the panic of material production: this is how simulation appears...

Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
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I gotta get dinner going, but I'll comment on this later.
 
Take a look at this last paragraph from the quote I transcribed:
When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a plethora of myths of origin and of signs of reality--a plethora of truth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity. Escalation of the true, of lived experience, resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. Panic-stricken production of the real and of the referential, paralel to and greater than the panic of material production: this is how simulation appears...
Click to expand...
"When the real is no longer what it was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning."

Boudrillard talks about "nostalgia for the lost referential." What he means is that in the post-modern world where everything is surface, hyperreal, and self-referential, there exists an overwhelming desire in people for some reference to something real. This is the key to understanding how we are dragged around by the nose by advertisers, government, religious authority, and other artificial power structures. It's what makes the propaganda work.

To see how this works think about the whole route 66, 1950's nostalgia thing. This is a super-set of images created by the media and entertainment industries, and doesn't represent anything "real" in a historical sense. It's faux real, but it functions as a simulated reality anchor in order to sell us things to help quench our desire for some sort of "age of innocence" americana thing that we can build a mythology on.

"There is a plethora of myths of origin and of signs of reality--a plethora of truth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity. Escalation of the true, of lived experience, resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared."

This goes straight to the point of the original post. This idea that there MUST be something real and true underneath all the surface B.S. Check out the New Age section of your local book store and tell me if "resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared" doesn't come to mind immediately. The truth is that without a simulated nostalgic referential to take the place of some sort of foundational truth the whole hyperreal, surface, matrix world we inhabit and think of as reality would collapse. But the problem is that the "signs", or images, or icons (whatever term you wish) no longer have any real value that can be "exchanged for meaning." IOW, The trappings of identity, whether ethnic, religious, or political are themselves part of the simulation. There is nothing real to go back to: no conservative ideal, no golden age, no proto-pagan innocence, no hippy-dippy utopia...nothing.

We have arrived at phase four in the precession of simulacra: Existence here on the surface "has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum."

Chris
 
Well Chris, you have single-handedly shown why conservatives hate the French so much. The terrific observations of Mssr. Baudrillard and your absolutely right on analysis of it about covers all of the bases.

I guess the primal question is now, if we're in the fourth stage of essentially living in new realities, do traditional beliefs apply, or can they be modified to adapt to our situations? Yes, nostalgia is comforting (right now I'm reading Tom Brokaw's tome about the WW II generation).

I have maintained for about twenty years or so that the effects of science and technology in the world are shoving our beliefs into limbo at an accelerating pace each day, week, month, year, and not much from the past applies anymore. Nor does anyone care to peer back, down, and into the memory hole anymore to look for the truth.

What does it mean to be a human being anymore ? How can we stop to smell the flowers when we are implacably driven by our urban environments in such merciless ways ?

Denial is not just a river in Africa.

flow....;)
 
Flow,

Thanks for sticking with me on this, it pleases me that you understand my flogging attempts to explain what is perhaps unexplainable. I want to say that these are just ideas, and that I don't presume to have the answers, so I'm not in a position to be preaching to anyone.

That said:
I have maintained for about twenty years or so that the effects of science and technology in the world are shoving our beliefs into limbo at an accelerating pace each day, week, month, year, and not much from the past applies anymore. Nor does anyone care to peer back, down, and into the memory hole anymore to look for the truth.
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I don't think that belief systems evolve very well or efficiently. The problem is that there's no eraser in the belief process. Everything that's built up to accomodate the cutting edge of science has to re-explain the old belief structure by adding a new layer of special theory to make the old stuff work. We are way, way beyond the point of simplicity, and deeply advanced into the realm of the rediculous on this. It's no longer a question of finding and identifying truth, but rather the necessity of incorporating everything we ever thought was truth into our latest version of truth in order to avoid the admission that we were ever in error that's screwing us up.

Within the tangled, self-referential hierarchy of the simulicrum there is always an escape hatch. I don't accept that a totally illusory condition can exist. There would be no urge for the real if there weren't some element of the real to tantalize us. The point of the simulation of the real is to fulfill that urge, placate us, and keep us on the hamster wheel, but it wouldn't work if there weren't some element of the real that's lurking somewhere close enough for us to at least get a sniff now an again. So, hidden somewhere under all the self-feeding logic and liars paradox of the system there is an escape mechanism. There has to be or the illusion wouldn't work.

But the illusion of reality keeps us looking in all the wrong places. It sets us up to look for truth in the places where it wants us to think its found. It makes it easy to find just like I do when I play hide-and-seek with my four and five year old daughters. And the answers we find just feed and reinforce the delusional logic that stokes the machine. The truth is, we CAN escape, but we can't take ANY of the logical constructs of the system with us.

Now, if that seems crazy, just consider that this is exactly what Buddhism is saying. Everyone wants enlightenment, but what they really want is to get it, and then bring it back into the illusion and do something groovy with it. You can't.

Chris
 
Chris

There's been a quiet scientific revolution going on for about twenty five years now, and it is my belief that it is about to come out of the shadows.

It has been popularly referred to as Chaos Theory for much of that time, but I call it complex systems theory. I would recommend that you obtain a book written in the 80's by James Gleick, who was a science writer for the NY Times, titled, Chaos, Making a New Science. Another good book is Godel, Escher, Bach, written by an Indiana University computer scientist, but his name escapes me. Another good book on the subject was written by a Belgian chemist. Ilya Prigogine, who received a Nobel prize for his work, but the book's title escapes me in this case ( I really hate this getting older crap !). Another good book peripheral to all this is, The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot.

While much of this foundational information began to be made known in the 80's not much of it has seen the light of day in the wider media since it's implications for the world as it is are so profound. Aspects of the science address the matters that we have been discussing, but not in ways that are very comforting, shall we say, to traditionalists of any stripe. Let's just say it's implications are probably equivalent, and probably much greater than the upset caused by Galileo's findings which essentially placed him under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

I think that your curiousity to seek and to know is very human and very healthy. Don't ever lose that, and pass what you can of it on to your kids. They've got the genes.

Peace and Love....flow....:)
 
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