Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)
Contents
Debating the nature of ego-death
Self-control egodeath profoundest
experience, whether true or not
2 competing conceptions of ego
death
Ego-death rapture is no ordinary
fun
Can ego suppression get too close to low self esteem?
>What
does the term *EgoDeath* exactly mean, in brief?
Ego death,
as I think it should be defined, is a set of insights about, and a powerful
experience of, the impotence and logical invalidity of the accustomed apparent
control-agent who seems to reside in the mind.
Ego death is associated closely with the loss of control, or the loss of
the sense of being a legitimate controller.
After the
ego-death experience and philosophical insight, the ego remains, but now with a
caveat -- it is seen to be largely a practical illusion. The mind revises its assumptions about time,
self-control, and personal identity, shifting many ideas together.
Because so
many ideas are all revised together, it is slightly subtle or tricky
communicating the new conceptual system, but it is not too hard for rational
thought. Systematizing the insights of
full ego death just requires mature, fully developed rational analysis.
http://www.egodeath.com/intro.htm
-- Short introduction to all the main ideas
I am
considering turning off the moderator mail that tells me when people have
subscribed or unsubscribed. I have to
avoid having a goal of keeping discussion group members or maximizing
popularity. Even if I intend to be
widely read in the long run, in the short run this should mean honing some
ideas that are initially unappealing, alien, alarming, or crazy -- it can be a
sign of success when people leave the group or reject aspects of the approach I
am pulling together.
Is this
discussion group limited to the ideas about ego death that *I* embrace? Can people discuss ego death here in terms
other than mine? This group actually
amounts to a contention over what ego-death is really all about. That debate is very much welcome here and I
will try to keep an explicit debate going.
My main overall goal is to define a particular set of concepts, a set
that is concrete and specific enough so that debate and contention can
begin.
I have to
be crystal clear about which exact notions I embrace and which notions I
reject. I have to do a lot of rejection
in order to bring people the innovation that they might be looking for. Will I please the greatest number of people
by being vague and self-contradictory, by endorsing and happily affirming any
and all ideas about ego death? I could
just utter endless platitudes... but Ken Wilber has gained a huge following and
is studied by many different theorists and has never given an *inch* to the
vague spiritualists; he has never been motivated by telling people what they
wish to hear.
Wilber has
gotten a lot of criticism because of his crystal-clear rejection of the notions
of pop spirituality -- yet because of his clarity of rejecting particular ideas
and presenting interesting alternatives, he has become very widely read. If he contaminated his theorizing with
acceptance of gooey pop spirituality, he would lose his important audience,
though he might gain an even larger newage mass following.
Other
people are invited to use this ego-death discussion area to frame ego-death in
a different way than I do. However, of
course as a dedicated member of this group, I will relentlessly debate against
ideas I disapprove of. It is good to
have discussion participants here to debate against.
A debate
is in order, about the real nature of ego death. It has been hard to provoke a debate against the entheogen
spiritualists who belittle entheogens and reserve higher praise for drug-free
meditation, but I have honed my position statements sufficiently through a
large amount of posting on the subject and responding to the few concrete
points that are raised, and modifying my position statements. I have used that kind of discussion not to
let go of an extreme position, but to refine my extreme position.
On such a
serious matter as transcendent mystic-state loss of practical self-control, I
position my egodeath theory as a detailed hypothesis, not as certainty. There is no guarantee my theory is
correct. Work out your own
salvation/rescue possibly fear and trembling.
I do and do not want or intent to be the final word on the subject of
self-control problems.
My main
point isn't that the mystic state is bound to lead everyone to self-control
breakdown and transcendent prayer for rescue.
My main
point is that the mind's most interesting, profound, and divine potential, out
of all possible mental phenomena, is the self-control breakdown egodeath
experience requiring transcendent prayer as to an utterly hidden and unknown
hidden puppetmaster of some sort standing over one's own controllership. The minimal such prayer is touching the
ground to send away the demon Mara by establishing right mental relationship
with the Ground of Being that is, first of all, the Ground of Controllership.
This type
of prayer is the original, ultimate prototype and archetype for all
prayer. All other types of prayer are
lower and derivative from this prayer that saves and restores one's practical
controllership. I might assert that
this is the one true or most true or most pure religion and the only perfectly
correct and pure metaphysical and esoteric understanding of God. All other religious experiences are lower
than this experience of restoration of practical personal self-control through
this type of prayer.
I deliver
this news not as horrific doomsday revelation and negative prediction, but as
good news. My good news is that I have
discovered a potential of the mind that cannot be topped or matched by any
other -- the ultimate, most amazing experience possible: the egodeath
experience, revealed as a matter of self-control seizure, breakdown, and deterministic
puppet-like prayer to a hidden puppetmaster about which one knows nothing yet
is utterly dependent.
Whether
one really is a puppet and whether this worldmodel is true is irrelevant -- the
point and the value here is that we have the privilege of accessing this most
amazing experience possible. All other
religious experiences are lesser than this -- so my theory is more grounded in
phenomenology (potential mental experiential dynamics) than in epistemology or
ontology.
You might
not necessarily *have* to experience transcendent experiencing in this way,
along these lines, but the main point is that you *can* experience transcendent
experiencing along these lines, producing an experience that cannot be topped
or matched in intensity, profundity, and mind-changing power.
>in our
hearts we hold the power of personal choice.
That hits
upon the heart of the matter. Do we
hold that power in a way that is metaphysically free? Many mystics and mystic traditions say no. We wield power only relatively; our hand is
forced by the Ground of Being. During
the mystic state, one's hand (heart, will) is seen to be forced. My hand is firmly on the wheel of choice and
decision, but now I see that someone is forcing my hand. The ego is the controller of the personal
will, but the ego is secretly controlled by the Ground of Being. When that is seen as terrifying and a
dangerous state of dependence on a hidden manipulator-force, one may pray to
that manipulator force, feeling that one's only hope is to hope that the
manipulator force is a conscious and benevolent being -- God conceived of as
personal and benevolent.
I'm
effectively defining a "new" goal, or one different than the goals
commonly assumed by spirituality. The goal
I'm interested in is enabling and explaining a particular kind of ego death
experience.
You could
say there are two entirely different kinds of ego death -- that which most
spirituality is concerned with, and that which I am defining.
There is
an enormous amount of tradition behind the form of ego death I am
defining. Loss of control, determinism,
disempowerment, timeless fixity of the future, cosmic failure of personal
power, and cancellation of the personal will are commonly reported in various
mystic writings. My task is to pull
together *these* aspects of religious experiencing and mystic insight into a
simple, elegant explanatory system.
Theories
and schools of mystic experiencing and ego transcendence are messy and various,
a forest, a chaos, and yet there are certain trends and models that can capture
and organize many of the ideas in a fully coherent way that accords with
block-universe determinism as I define it.
My goal:
find some kind of ego death experience that is intense, rational, and convenient,
and package that for easy distribution.
Block-universe determinism succeeds at delivering the promised goods.
It's about
time to write an essay on the nature of belief as held by the transcendent mind
-- or the mature mind, in any case.
Suppose I declare that deterministic ego death happens when you believe
determinism while in the mystic altered state, and to be rescued from these
dire straits requires contrite belief in something like a personal
compassionate God or mythic substitute sacrifice. What kind of "belief" is that, and can we say such a
mystic afterwards "believes" in a personal God, or
"believes" in determinism?
No, belief becomes held at arm's length even if it was the key to the
peak experience and the key to recovering from it.
I have no
interest heart- or body-spirituality.
The convenient approach to an experience of ego death is through the
mind -- for me, "balance" means having both a rational model of ego
death and the entheogenic means to access the mystic altered state on tap. Ego death happens in the mind more than the
body or heart. "Heart" in my
dictionary is the center of egoic self-control, the center of will -- also
represented by the liver, as in the eagle-eated liver of Prometheus.
Jesus'
spear-pierced, thorn-crowned heart should perhaps be a liver-heart -- at the
center of the crucifixion of the egoic pseudo-king is the will and its
self-sacrifice in the name of logical integrity, and then the compassionate
heart to rescue and reboot the mind back into a viable state of
self-control. Logic discovers the
supreme integrity of the deterministic block universe model of spacetime,
including the future worldline of one's thoughts. This kills ego and belittles our accustomed assumptions that we
are each a sovereign ruler reigning over our thoughts and engendering our own
acts of will. But this Realization is
packed overflowing with emotions as well, and with strange body awareness, so
it's inaccurate to say this form of ego death is cerebral rather than emotional
or body-attuned.
I might
agree it's mind *driven* rather than feeling driven, but I still need to define
"feeling" because rational deterministic entheogenic ego death is
packed with feelings, including the feeling of dread upon encountering the Word
that kills ego -- that is, the Thought of loss of control, or control being
removed as a scepter is pulled out of your hands and replaced by puppet strings
disappearing into the ominous, omen-bearing clouds.
I am
prepared to have as little in common with that other ego death brand, desired
by heart- and body-spirituality, as Ramesh Balsekar has in common with New Age
thinking. The spiritual community was
shocked by his outrageous proposal of peace through accepting determinism.
The best
road ahead for spirituality is to split into two explicitly defined
denominations carefully sorted out:
Freewill
spirituality. Feeling-driven. Heart and body driven.
Deterministic
religious experiencing. Reason-driven,
cerebral, psychedelic. Intellectual
revelation. Mind-driven.
I will
focus on *contrasting* the two -- this is exactly what is needed. Why does popular spirituality fail to bring
ego death, whether a rational deterministic ego death as I define it or an
effective and sure ego death as popular spirituality conceives of it (a mood of
humility and undefined self-deprecation)?
The rational deterministic ego death I define immediately delivers on
its promises. If you consider
block-universe determinism and use entheogens skillfully, you will immediately
encounter the ideas and perceptions and experiences I define. My emphasis is not on enlightenment of what
the truth is, but on a revelation of a potential that resides within the
mind. The mind has the potential for
convenient entheogenic deterministic ego death! That is the gospel, the good news, for which I am an evangelist.
Popular
spirituality brings bad news: enlightenment is difficult, strenuous, and
inconvenient. Ego death is only
attainable rarely. Enlightenment is out
of reach, unattainable, hard, beyond the rainbow.
Rational
deterministic entheogenic ego death brings good news. Enlightenment is easy, effortless, and convenient. Ego death is immediately available for
everyone. Enlightenment is within easy
reach -- it is low-hanging fruit, attainable, easy, within your own
neighborhood and culture.
So I can
market this as easy-path ego death versus hard-path ego death; short-path ego
death versus long-path.
You are
welcome to define ego death as something vague and hard to attain, as popular
spirituality encourages. Or you can
define it as something specific and easy to attain -- the way I am
showing. People can talk about
conventional hard-path ego death tradition here, but it will be tough
competition in light of the system I'm packaging, tuned for ergonomic
convenience.
You are
free to define ego death how you like and walk the path you have defined. I'm intent on revealing the shortcut I have
found to an unbeatably intense and surprising ego death experience,
strengthened and enabled by a specific, tangible, mentally graspable and
comprehensible model. Integral to this
model is the entheogen theory of religion, the vision of block-universe
fixed-future determinism with a pre-set future worldline for your own train of
future thoughts and movements of will, and some explanation in terms of
Christianity read purely as myth and only myth -- myth which was designed to
reflect this very block-universe insight and point the way past the willing
self-crucifixion of egoic, personal self-control.
If you try
to portray this as a mind-driven spirituality, remember that it is also
peak-experience-driven spirituality, so that's one dichotomy that can't be used
against it. This approach is not
body-driven or emotion-*driven* -- I readily concede that, with the caveat that
the experiencing is soaked with intense emotion and also full of certain bodily
dimensions concomitant to the mystic altered state.
Conversely,
I do not hesitate to thoroughly condemn popular spirituality and its conception
of ego death as a bogus and defective product that can't compete in the
marketplace of ideas when a more effective contender comes along. American Buddhism is a way of retreating
into regressive emotionalism and running away from religious concepts and of
avoiding actual higher religious experiencing.
Psilocybin mushroom philosopher Terrance McKenna asserts the latter,
saying that popular spirituality is a way of avoiding real mystic experience
for a degraded substitute.
There are
hundreds of forums in which freewill ego death is discussed to death -- as a
rule, in the form of vague, emotional, lifestyle spirituality. So I do not hesitate to put forth in this
forum at alternative, just as the ever-bold Andrew Cohen, editor of What Is
Enlightenment, did not hesitate to welcome the black sheep of Ramesh Balsekar
into the pages of that magazine, to the deep shock of the world of familiar
spirituality.
http://www.wie.org/j14/balse.asp
-- "while Indian thought has long been criticized for its deterministic
inclinations, it appeared that Balsekar had taken this fatalism to an
unprecedented extreme. It was, in the end, as much a desire to explore these
troubling areas as to pursue our overall interest in the teachings of Advaita
that ultimately brought me to Bombay to speak with him. And while I had come
anticipating a challenging meeting, looking back on it now it is clear to me
that ... there was no way I could ever have prepared myself for the dialogue
that was about to take place."
How has
the entire world of spirituality so forgotten the deterministic tradition? It happened at about the same time as
entheogens were forgotten. We are
rediscovering entheogens, which are the origin of religious experiencing and
thus the origin of religion. And so
sooner or later we are bound to rediscover the tradition of heimarmene, Fate,
providence, election, determinism, Necessity, including the problem that it
poses and a variety of solutions to, in some sense, transcend heimarmene
(Fate).
>---
BlackPepla~at~aol.com wrote:
>>
The philosophy of determinism is a very
>>
hard sell.... one problem
>>
is that determinists themselves can't fully agree on
>>
what determinism means.
>
>The
main problem I'm having with the philosophy is
>that
it seems to come from total
>head-logically-obtained-knowledge
and ignores the
>different
and useful kinds of knowledge that our
>bodies
hold for us.
>
>For
instance, I believe that in our hearts (heart
>chakra,
or chest area, or whatever) we hold the power
>of
personal choice.
>
>When
we start to turn our attention inward, even for
>brief
moments, to what different centers in our bodies
>are
telling us, the mind connects up with the body and
>we
become grounded and begin to feel real personal
>power.
>
>I just
see this determinism theory as maybe what
>happens
when you have been too much "up in your head"
>from
reading and tripping, and not grounded into the
>body.
Perhaps if I knew that people who participated
>in Tai
Chi or Hatha Yoga *also* saw it all that way, I
>might
feel differently, I don't know.
>
>Melody
>>Are
you in an egoless state at the moment?
There are
two possible components a person may envision in the idea of the egoless
state. I'm permanently in an egoless
state as far as one of those two components: I know intellectually and
rationally that freewill, like separate-self, is essentially illusory, a
practical illusion of convention, a virtual projection only.
Enlightenment
as a lasting, established condition of the mind generally does not entail both
a permanent state of visionary cognition and the possession of the transcendent
intellectual worldmodel -- only the latter is perpetually present or available
on tap to the mature or perfected mind.
Enlightenment is not an everlasting state of visionary cognition.
However,
visionary plants have the ready potential to ergonomically feed and produce the
visionary state often, such as twice a week for long and intense periods. The shortage and rarity of the mystic
visionary state is a myth; completely unnecessary.
The better
Buddhists, the better Muslims, the better Christians, the better Jews, the
better magicians, the better alchemists, the better astrologers, the better
Hindus, and the better shamans know that the intense mystic state is readily
available on tap through the divine food, manna, bread from heaven, lotus,
Soma, elixir, holy grail, divine plant of Mary, alabaster jar, and bowl of
mind.
>>Are
you living from a condition of seeing through Mr. Hoffman most of the time?
Intellectually,
the understanding of the illusory nature of freewill/separate self is always
available to my mind, on tap, from memory.
The visionary state of loose cognition, with the vivid sense of
no-free-will/no-separate-self, is normally not present. Those who have no intense visionary state on
tap wish that they could be in an intense visionary state all the time, and
unjustifiably, overzealously define enlightenment as entailing such a permanent
visionary state.
>>Have
you heard of the "Shakti" machine?
It's a little machine that duplicates for us hoi polloi the efforts of a
Canadian scientist called Persinger, who hypothesises that many
"supernatural" effects (UFOs, ghosts, visions, etc.) have been the
result of peculiar kinds of electromagnetic disturbances to the brain, that are
replicable.
John
Horgan's book Rational Mysticism paints a most unflattering picture of the
machine. Such a machine would be nice;
the closest effective thing we have to it in terms of ergonomics is visionary
plants. It would be logical and
rational to study visionary plants and chemicals first -- a proven technology
for transcendent experiencing -- and then study mind machines.
In
newsgroups
alt.drugs.mushrooms,alt.drugs.pot,alt.drugs.psychedelics,alt.philosophy,alt.philosophy.zen,alt.zen,rec.drugs.psychedelic,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject:
Re: LSD and Ego Death. - Rick Strassman, M.D., DMT The Spirit Molecule, 2001
Sub Zero
wrote:
>>This
is quite an interesting site to say the least...
>>http://www.egodeath.com/lsd.htm
Ken Kubos
posted excerpts:
> Rick
Strassman, M.D., DMT The Spirit Molecule, 2001
> ISBN
0-89281-927-8
>
>
Mystical States Pg. 234-235
>
> In
order to establish the close similarities between spiritual experience
> and
what is possible with the spirit molecule, I will first review briefly
> the
features of a mystical experience.
>
> The
three pillars of self, time, and space all undergo profound
>
transfiguration in a mystical experience.
I applaud
this emphasis on the transformation of time as well as self and space. The philosophy of time doesn't get *nearly*
enough attention in the theory of mysticism or in the philosophy of
determinism.
The
initiation experience leads to re-conceiving many things, but most notably time
and self-control (self as controller).
Lately I'm searching mystic theories for expressions such as "god
of time" or "controller of time".
I want to
portray the speared liver (such as in Odin, Jesus, and Prometheus) as the time
axis killing the ego-as-controller. Can
the ego-as-controller create its own future?
Not if the future already exists or is frozen into place.
Perceiving
time or the future as frozen directly kills ego because ego is considered by
the mental model to be essentially a manipulator of one's future. The moment one's future is considered to be
frozen, King Ego (an upstart would-be sovereign) is stripped of his scepter.
> There
no longer is any separation between the self and what is not the self.
>
Personal identity and all of existence become one and the same. In fact,
> there
is no "personal" identity because we understand at the most basic
> level
the underlying unity and interdependence of all existence. Past,
>
present, and future merge together into a timeless moment, the now of
>
eternity. Time stops, inasmuch as it no longer "passes." There is
existence,
> but
it is not dependent upon time. Now and then, before and after, all
>
combine into this exact point. On the relative level, short periods of time
>
encompass enormous amounts of experience.
>
> As
our self and time lose their boundaries, space becomes vast. Like time,
> space
is no longer here or there but everywhere, limitless, without edges.
> Here
and there are the same. It is all here.
>
>
_____________________________________________________
>
> Let
me tell you why you're here. You're
here because you know something.
Ego
doesn't really control or change the future, it only appears to.
> What
you know, you can't explain. But you
feel it. You felt it your entire
>
life. But there's something wrong with
the world but you don't know what it
> is,
but it's there. Like a splinter in your
mind. It's driving you mad.
> You
want to Wake Up!
Waking up
seems like a desirable idea, but we wake up to the frozenness of the future --
cosmic determinism and fatedness. We
become dead as metaphysically autonomous controllers, and have to seek some
other form of life and identity instead.
>I want
to free your mind. All I'm offering is
the
>
truth.
> - The
Matrix ( Morpheus in the Movie)
>
> Ken
Kubos, Ph.D.
>
E-mail: kubos~at~execpc.com
> Web
Site: http://www.execpc.com/~kubos/
-- Michael
Hoffman/Cybermonk
http://www.egodeath.com
-- simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth experience
Mike
Anderson wrote:
>You
[consider] egoic free will as illusory, [because] the experience of time as
"flowing" is itself illusory. ... I experienced ego death quite
unexpectedly. The sense of timelessness and "eternity" was extremely
powerful,
This is an
essential point. Today's uninspired
philosophers merely *think* about timelessness and talk about it; in contrast,
the loose-cognition state presents timelessness as a forceful, shattering
experience, like being crucified in eternity, for eternity, like Prometheus
chained to the rock while Zeus' powerful eagle descends from the heavens and
consumes Prometheus' will again and again.
The
inspired philosopher does not merely *think* or "philosophize" about
timelessness, eternity, and ego-death; he *experiences* it, forcefully, even
against his will, so that it is experienced as a life-or-death problem and a
dire situation demanding a solution with the urgency of an emergency.
Mike
Anderson wrote:
>I had
a remarkable feeling of omniscience.
And yet, ... I cannot myself predict my own future actions, although I
should be able to in some sense ... let's say that during ego death I come to
the realization that I will raise my right hand in five seconds. How would this square with the very powerful
"illusion" that I have the ability, on some level, to then choose NOT
to raise my right hand, thus contradicting myself? Is that choice simply not
available to me somehow? It seems to be such a "real" choice, it is
simply hard for me to accept that I would not be able to make that choice.
Would my hand simply raise itself against my own "will" somehow?
Louis
Sass' masterpiece of a book on schizophrenia, Madness and Modernism, discusses
the paradox of simultaneously feeling omnipotent and impotently controlled from
outside the self.
MichaelH:
>My
experience was a very disturbing one, particularly since my ego did not really
understand what was happening. At the time it seemed as if I was dying, and the
painful, eternal nature of the experience caused me to believe that I was in
fact trapped in "hell" somehow. (I was raised as a Catholic, wouldn't
you know). I am eager to re-enact the
experience
based on the knowledge that I now have. Do you have any advice to make it less
painful/shocking? I am terribly afraid
that I will find myself in the same uncomfortable state of mind despite my
intellect!
You
experienced:
o Egoic free will as illusory
o Time as "flowing" only in an
illusory way
o Unexpected ego death, felt as eternal and
painful [compare Prometheus]
o The problematic nature of predicting one's
choices, perhaps especially during the loose-cognition or ego-death state
MichaelH:
>My
experience was a very disturbing one, particularly since my ego did not really
understand what was happening. At the time it seemed as if I was dying, and the
painful, eternal nature of the experience caused me to believe that I was in
fact trapped in "hell" somehow. ...
I am eager to re-enact the experience based on the knowledge that I now
have. Do you have any advice to make it less painful/shocking? I am terribly afraid that I will find myself
in the same uncomfortable state of mind despite my intellect!
As an
emergency measure, when destructive chaos is a deadly serious threat,
transcendently postulate and pray to a compassionate mystery savior outside the
system of time, will, and personal control.
The more
intellect you bring to the situation, the more forceful is the realization of
the insolubility of the problem of control.
There is no solution, yet faith in the recovery of stability can happen;
producing the rebirth of the illusion of the stable controller-agent -- this is
the concept of "resurrection" or "rebirth with and as the
mystery-god". You should expect
that the loose-cognitive state, combined with reflection on the problems of ego
death, will continue to be painful and problematic, even past the tenth
significant session. It is a mystery
that we can experience such control-instability and die as a controller, and
yet re-stabilize and continue to live.
One
quarter of the ego system dies permanently after a series of ego-death
experiences. The ego system is half
illusion, and half of that illusion is delusion when the mind mistakes the
illusion for a simple reality. That
delusion permanently is revealed and discarded like a child's clothing after
one grows into maturity. Thus one
quarter of the ego (the gullible delusion part) is destroyed during ego-death.
John Frank
wrote:
>I am
concerned about intolerance. I often
experience loss of ego moments and have listened to heavy mystic-rock for many
years. Love the site, it has helped me
gain insight into the loss of control I fear and desire. Given today's climate, what can I do to
heighten these experiences?
There is
an overview at
http://www.egodeath.com/intro.htm
or
slightly better paragraphing at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/1
The latest
postings are at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath. Recent focus is on mapping Christian
theology to the timeless deterministic cyber-death experience.
There are
some accepted vehicles for the Holy Spirit.
Salvia is named for divine salvation.
Verily,
Christ lives in the flesh, which we eat, uniting with Him in us, so that we die
and are reborn in Him. Amanita is an
accepted vehicle of the Holy Spirit -- this is evidently a main traditional
Christian sacrament.
Capped
nutmeg adds spice.
The Holy
Spirit descends in many bodies to bring death to the self-willed self -- the
false pseudo-sovereign -- and lift up the spirit in new life in the true
Governor. Investigating the variety of
forms of the flesh of the Holy Spirit is rewarding. The Anti-Christ has not blocked all paths between the flesh of
the Holy Spirit and the mind of the sinner who seeks salvation and
reconciliation.
It would
also elevate the soul to donate online to relevant philanthropies, made easy
via http://www.reformnav.org.
I would
also like to upload more lyric explanations and links to purchase songs about
mystic-state cyber-control breakdown and transformation. Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly":
"My sole intention is learning to fly" = "My soul in tension is
learning to fly." Dukes of
Stratosphear has many hyper-60s-style songs with lyrics about the mystic state
phenomena.
I can't
reply now, so must just confirm for others' posting:
>So, OK
then, let us talk about ego death - in so far as this list allows one to talk
of it then. Is ego death which is not
drug induced allowed on this list?
Yes. Serious on-topic contributions are much
valued, regardless of position. I am
very pro-debate, unlike common spiritual discussion groups. I get more out of postings I disagree with
than most simple agreement.
>Mystics
should keep their mouth shut for at least twenty years after their first big
experience - for there is more dear Horatio; and a little learning can be a
dangerous thing if one assumes that it is all the learning there exists to be
done.
That's
terrible needless prohibition. People
must choose between that view and mine: I say, study and have mystic
experiencing immediately and ergonomically in full, and speak richly of it
immediately without hindrance. Choose
whose paradigm you listen to -- that which is premised on difficulty and long
waiting, or ease and immediacy on tap.
There is no substantial reason to wait, delay, and silence oneself.
If you
like the paradigm of difficulty, waiting, and long silence, you will get your
wish for a version of mysticism that pushes away mysticism into a
hard-to-attain realm. I define and
choose the theory of immediate lightning-path mysticism without delay. The slow path is actually just an excuse for
no path; that is, for poor effectiveness.
>>I
am a drummer and the guitar posts have no interest to me
Guitar Amp
Tone & Ego-Death Experience
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/556
For drums,
consider:
Neil
Peart, Dionysian drummer of Rush
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Neil+Peart%22+drummer
James
Arthur, who is Jon Bonham reincarnated and author of http://www.jamesarthur.net
and author of the book Mushrooms and Mankind.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22John+Bonham%22+drummer
Mushrooms
and Mankind: The Impact of Mushrooms on Human Consciousness and Religion
by James
Arthur
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585091510
2000. Current rank 58K (popular)
_________________
Aaron
wrote (paraphrased):
>>As
they grow older, many are turning to ego diffusion as an escape mechanism;
seeking to lose themselves so they do not have to experience pain or loss.
There were some posts about people wanting to live life in an elevated state
from day to day and how that was a bastardization of
satori/rebirth/enlightenment. Wasn't
the practical improvement of life what the Enlightenment era was about? If so, was the Enlightenment a step in the
wrong direction?
I'm still
reading Nasr's book Knowledge and the Sacred to try to understand why the
Enlightenment lost sapiential knowledge.
Probably due to a reactionary extremist pendulum swing,
overcompensation: "Religion can be abused, therefore, away with all traces
of religion and the transcendent."
A key clue may be that the earliest scientists were esoteric mystics;
the transition from a "Traditional" sapiential culture to flatland
modernity with its literalist non- mystic state religion did not happen in one
move, but a series of two moves; there was an interesting brief transition
period that was both sapiential and modern-scientific.
Early Ken
Wilber would say that the Enlightenment was a step forward but something was
temporarily necessarily oversuppressed; but recent Ken Wilber would emphasize
something equivalent to: the sapiential and exterior scientific-modern threads
are distinct threads of development and there was no good reason why increasing
modern-scientific consciousness had to result in a reduction of
sapiential-experiential mystic gnosis.
My project
of systematizing ego death and theoretically explaining ego death in pre-modern
mystic-religious systems is essentially a project of synthesis, finally
succeeding at the balance of combining enlightenment and the Enlightenment.
>>Is
ego gratification as important as ego diffusion? Seeking both is multilateral,
not hypocritical.
I suppose,
but your usage of terms is unclear to me.
It could be interesting to conjecture that today's spirituality is mere
degraded ego diffusion rather than ego transcendence. I would have to guess how you are associating the various ideas
you mention. I can only guess what you
have in mind by "ego gratification".
I abhor superficiality, fakeness, pretense. People should just be real. Americans perhaps in particular are in deep conflict: people both are, and are not, supposed to be proud; are and are not supposed to be geniuses, are and are not supposed to accomplish great things and be great. Too much, we praise great people for being humble, instead of simply praising them for being great -- and genuine. We say "if you are self-deprecating, you are real; if you are proud, you are fake." I don't buy such superficial assessment at all; it puts all emphasis on irrelevant mannerisms.
Best would be for people to be proud in certain aspects and humble in certain aspects, in accordance with reality. Everyone pretending to be self-deprecating only backfires, I'd expect.
Home (theory of the ego death and rebirth experience)