Robotics - cont'd from Gen. Discussion

[brant]

Just feel the need to vent. So to keep this going, what seems right is that even the fact that Brant (personality "I") came out here and posted is incomprehensible, except for a desire to share, why? I don't know. There could be all sorts of intellectual commentary made and I doubt it would amount to a hill o' beans. The only important thing seems that Brant practiced putting the chattering mind on hold long enough to make a series of breakthroughs past the intellectual process of trying to understand things, and ended up viewing the world from a different perspective. It's likely no big deal. As soon as it's thought about, it goes away. However, on the face of it apparently nothing has really changed at all. Everything feels the same, except for this strange way of seeing the world and, I don't worry when in there. I think that the most valuable realization so far was, the less I read, talk about or think about these sort of things, the better. I need to just stay in the present. When this first started it was rare, now it comprises about 50% of every day. I'm sure that retirement had an impact as well.

It was interesting to watch brant's reactions to Speculum's response as opposed to Zoofence's. S felt refreshing while Z triggered a tightening in my core. Same guy, most instructive. Like I said before, I'm on the spiritual rebound, crawling from the desert of spiritual gameshow. Now I only want truth. I sense that here.
Thanks for being generous to an old relic.

[anna]

There was a great writer, (something or other Roberts) who wrote a book about her own experience of "no mind" - can't remember the title, but it was a sort of biography of the falling apart of her mind which she attributed to everything but the actual shutting down of the "computer mind", until much later she realized that she had actually stumbled across what she thought she was seeking all of her life. She discussed this experience with an elderly woman who excalimed "Why that is exactly what happens to the elderly as they progressively get older." This always stuck with me as significant. I think it is often the actual freedom to investigate the workings of the mind and filter through all the conditioning of our lives that is, unfortunately, rarely available to the individual in the more outer active time of her life, and thus who seldom finds the time and inclination to do so. This however does frequently occur automatically to a lesser or greater extent, as we age, depending upon our proclivities, because we drop so much as ridiculous and obsessive as age reveals the futility of much endeavor. I don't think one necessarily has to be a practitioner of any discipline to discover this, but it does help, of course.

Anyway, this Roberts lady meticulously detailed the falling away of her mind, and found at the beginning that living life "as usual" was almost unbearable for her, because it was so absurd. I believe she teaches what she learned now, so presumably she learned how to integrate that "point of view" with her apparent interelating with her external world.

It sounds to me as though the eyes through which Brant is seeing are simply holes in the face of the body Brant, and that because of the detached perspective, what is seen or felt is not binding. I can't imagine how this could be other than reason to celebrate. I can also understand why this might easily lead to silence. After all, what is there to say? Who is there to say it? Why say it? And yet, what does one do in the meantime? Is the point of life silence? Is the point of life relating? Can the two be done simultaneously? And if so, why? of why not? Of course, progressively silence becomes the option of choice.

I recall Krishnamurti asking some listener of his "Have we shared?" after he expounded something or other. The point he was making was not in what he said, but in his opening himself to the listener, and, hopefully, from K's point of view, vice versa. The words were inconsequential. If memory serves me, the listerner's response was astonishing. His response was to ask rhetorically, over and over again, "Have we shared? Have we shared?...." It was the one time I saw K's face contort in frustration and sadness. Perhaps his experience was an archetypal expression of the silent mind appearing to be communicating, but actually simply being there, accessible to whomever or whatever wished to imprint whatever or whomever they wished upon him. In the end, it seems to me, that the empty mind is one which has no parameters and no central "I" that can actually detach from others, but is obligated, because of that very condition, to connect and become connected to whatever consciousness it happens to be relating to, or perhaps better said, is immersed in.

Of course, all that said, there is, to my mind at least, no way that one can exist without some portion of I as an anchor. Otherwise, what is relating?

[brant]

Anna, we concur. Juggling two apparent beings is certainly a challenge, one serene, one robotic. This fact is unprecedented for I-brant, the Other.. who knows? As you so aptly say, silence is preferable to the insanity. At this point, this definition of truth is all that makes sense - a lack of falseness. Of course, of course... how could it be anything else? I'm grateful for a place to safely speak of the abnormal, ha! Thank you, thank you.

...one can progress up to the point when all desire for progress must be abandoned to make further progress possible ...all effort ceases; in solitude and darkness, the last step is made... Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[anna]

Ah, I see you have found Nisargadatta, lucky you! Of course Nisargadatta would ask how there can be two yous or Is juggling together. Indeed, if I may be so bold to speak for him, I think he would suggest that there is really no I per se, just being, as you. If truly felt, then, there can be no falseness either, because everything is true, as being is true. It's the staying there that isn't always easy - so habitual we are to distractions and thinking and planning and doing, and separating, and discriminating, and generally getting in the way of our simplicity. God, the mind can be a real nuisance, you know? It's just so busy, busy, busy. But then, it gets us to where we can see that, right?, so I can't even dump on the mind completely.........sigh! It's all really one huge joke, or maybe better, game? Everything fits together perfectly, if we can just see it from the right perspective.

[anna]

To take Nisargadatta’s statement a step further: isn’t the end result of his realization, in many ways similar to the Zen concept that for a while a tree is not a tree, but eventually, a tree is just a tree? In the beginning, nothing is as it appears, but in the end, everything is exactly, perfectly, as it appears, because everything is everything, perfectly.

The curious thing of it is that until it becomes apparent that there is no place to go, no goal to reach, and indeed, the reaching and going obstructs that realization, one MUST, indeed can do no other, than to search, to find a way out.

This has always struck me as incredibly devious on the part of the universe, or God, or "it", to set up such a process that self-destructs as it goes along, like the snake eating its own tail. Maybe it's not so devious, but perhaps just paradoxical. In any case, the relief that comes with realization that there is nothing to be done, that I can do nothing about anything, is enormous, and very freeing. Indeed, the freedom of not being responsible for anything, including my own destiny, not to mention the destiny of anything at all.

[brant]

Nisargadatta is acting as a foil (or a software patch) to the dreaming beings he speaks to, but brant is not. He is a robot dream being not seeking anything except to be out here describing the awakening process happening in order to observe it from various angles (other robots or the awakened) so to speak. There are two that are also one, and seem likely to remain thus as long as the dream lasts.

Yes, we are awake, aware of the singularity, know that indeed no-thing exists, but awareness is not being. This does not seem to destroy the operating principles of duality in the dream state. Awake or not, illusion or not, these two principles appear to operate in conjunction within the dream as long as the dream remains. They do indeed fit perfectly, are perfect, however attempts to understand, describe or catalog are meaningless and interfere with the process, function as ego aggrandizement (to delay waking up). The process in brant is the ripening of reality, so to speak, presented here for all to see.

[anna]

"Ripening of reality" suggests that there is a reality that can ripen. The way I see it, there cannot be a progressive Reality, or perception of Reality, but instead, it is an either or sort of thing. Otherwise, it becomes "experience", and the experiencer is always the dream being, that is its function after all. I think that the effort to experience the awakened state, if you will, is still the egocentric mind of an isolated being, struggling to improve itself or its conditions, and thus, by virtue of that fact, cannot be "Reality, or Truth, experienced,", simply because, the awakened mind is no longer the dualistic or separated mind, and thus, cannot "experience" anything other than being awakened.

[brant]

That's the trouble with thought & communication. It's always half true - half false and can be poked full of holes. Around and around we go. We are out here discussing because we may be able to clarify but realistically, is it is just not possible. Still it's fun and fun is good.
I couldn't possibly comment on the progressive versus instantaneous, it may not be the same for every manifestation, but I'll let you know if I find out.

[Speculum]

It was interesting to watch Brant's reactions to Speculum's response as opposed to Zoofence's. S felt refreshing while Z triggered a tightening in my core. Same guy, most instructive.

Thanks for sharing that. Whenever I look into the mirror and see Z, I experience a little tightening, too. Fortunately, most mornings, Z’s out making a nuisance of himself somewhere, so the image I see in the mirror is moi-meme, Speculum. Far better start to the day, I can tell you.

Now I only want truth. I sense that here.

Thank you for that, too. It is most appreciated.

Thanks for being generous to an old relic.

Around TZF, there are a lot of us old-timers.

Some years ago, Anna and I were house-sitting halfway up Haleakala mountain on the island of Maui, and our neighbors were a young couple with a live-in elderly father, who, after the two youngsters went off to work, used to wander out of the house, hitch-hike down the mountain to the nearest village, and then forget where he was, how he got there, where he belonged, and what to do next, leaving his daughter and son-in-law in a tizzy on their return home at the end of the workday, trying to find and retrieve him. Eventually, they posted a large sign at the end of their driveway, “Please do not pick up the old man”.

That line has stuck with Anna and me. Occasionally, when one or the other of us says or does something age-related-stupid, we repeat it, “Please do not pick up the old man”.

It makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways.

[brant]

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