I'm Interviewing Peter Ralston - Gathering Questions

[BlessedLion]

Hey Guys,

 

In a few days I will be doing a one on one interview with Peter Ralston on my YouTube channel, @LionsHeartWisdom 

 

I wanted to come here to gather some questions you guys might have or things you feel need clarification. I've already come up with a pretty distilled list of topics and (full honesty) I don't see myself changing it much but more input wouldn't hurt.

 

Please note:

-This is for direct questions to Ralston about HIS work and books, any questions regarding "Leo said this, you said that" will be OMITTED 

-Try not to give questions that are just wanting some straight up answer to a metaphysical question, those won't go anywhere with Ralston (Ie, Is God Love? What is a chakra?) try to provide questions that Ralston can actually direct you to an answer for within your own experience or based on his work.

 

So far, i've got the topics of 

 

-Mastery/Purpose

-Suffering

-self, Self and Awakening 

-Infinity, Space, Time

-Social World (self, other, language)

-Love

-Communication and Relationships

 

disclaimer; I can’t promise to ask every question, but I’ll be reading everything to help refine the depth and direction of the conversation-

 

Thanks, with Love!

[UnbornTao]

Why the urge or impulse to believe? What is a belief?

Can you envision a future in which the spirit of this work remains alive after your passing? Why do these things almost inevitably turn into a religion? Why do we, as a whole, tend to do that?

Something along those lines.

Edited 23 minutes ago by UnbornTao

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Does the role of language enhance suffering? It seems to me, if we were to somehow remove language, or just our instant habit of making distinctions with it, the lines between emotion and cognition would be more blurred. I have noticed language can act to enhance my suffering (rumination). But in some contexts it can also reduce suffering. Sometimes I feel as if language removes me from experiencing a more honest state of 'being.' Conversely I can also use it to guide myself closer to direct experience. Do you consider language something that separates us from reality? Or an abstraction? 

I've been stuck on the above for a bit in my contemplations. Might be too elementary for Ralston  

Edited 15 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[enchanted]

That's awesome @BlessedLioncan't wait to watch it 

[Someone here]

Question about suffering.  I do know(at least I believe i discovered ) how to overcome suffering..just by zoning out of the changing world and focusing on my own inner void. That's also how I overcame fear of non-existence and fear of sleeping and never awakening again ..that the void is not something to be feared but it's the ultimate truth and nature of myself ..reality and god .

The question is this delusional or escapism or what is missing in this approach? 

Thank you.

[AtmanIsBrahman]

 Why do anything at all if you are 100% complete? For example, why eat food— if you are complete then why survive at all? Doing anything aside from just being seems to require some sense of being incomplete, even if it is very minimal.

[theleelajoker]

Why do you think the world is set up the way it is? Is it because it is choice, because it is the only possible way to exist, or some other reason? 

[Elliott]

How did infinity come to be? Why does infinity exist?

Why does he teach?

Edited 3 hours ago by Elliott

[Breakingthewall]

15 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Does the role of language enhance suffering? It seems to me, if we were to somehow remove language, or just our instant habit of making distinctions with it, the lines between emotion and cognition would be more blurred. I have noticed language can act to enhance my suffering (rumination). But in some contexts it can also reduce suffering. Sometimes I feel as if language removes me from experiencing a more honest state of 'being.' Conversely I can also use it to guide myself closer to direct experience. Do you consider language something that separates us from reality? Or an abstraction? 

If I may, what you're discussing is the point of spirituality rooted in Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, and in my (humble) opinion, it's a very serious mistake. I myself fell into it when I was 16 or 17. I read Krishnamurti and others and came to the obvious conclusion that all suffering is self-generated by thought and that if I stopped thinking, I would be free and present like a bird. This sounds very obvious and liberating, but it's a complete error, since it denies the mind as an illusion.

It would be like telling an ant that all that stuff about queens, workers, and soldiers is an illusion, that it should forget all that and be like a bird. The ant would tell you that it's a cell in an anthill, not a bird, and that if you want to induce some kind of schizophrenia in it, as its entire system has evolved over billions of years to do exactly what it does, just like your conceptual/verbal/logical/evaluative/social mind.

If you do what Ralston suggests, you're creating an ontological distinction between physical sensations and mental movement, asserting that the physical, hunger, cold, pain, are real, and the mental is false. Let's see: cold makes you move to a warmer place to avoid dying. The idea of Rome's grandeur leads to the construction of coliseums. Both are reality switches that trigger movement. There's basic movement, like that of bacteria, and complex movement, like the creation of a religion to provoke a unanimous movement of a billion individuals.

The entire emotional system is synchronized with conceptual triggers of attachment, rejection, belonging, purpose, reproduction, family, tribe. Denying it is seductive; it seems like the direct path to freedom, but it's an illusion, it doesn't work. It always seems like you're one step away, just one final step toward freedom, which never comes.

 

[Breakingthewall]

8 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

 Why do anything at all if you are 100% complete? For example, why eat food— if you are complete then why survive at all? Doing anything aside from just being seems to require some sense of being incomplete, even if it is very minimal.

Well observed. The idea of stillness that Buddhism promotes as an ideal is the opposite of what reality is. Reality manifests as ceaseless dynamism, since it is not contained, it has no absolute limits. Therefore, there is always a point to reach, a movement to make. Although from an absolute perspective these movements may not lead anywhere, the flow of existence is always dynamic.

Wanting to be static is resisting that flow, believing that you know how reality should be. It doesn't work; what works is aligning yourself with the flow and becoming one with it.