Peter Ralston worldview

[Natasha Tori Maru]

35 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I didn't read his books. Maybe I will try but I'm too ADHD for reading books, or maybe I just find them boring. What I understand of his idiosyncrasy is that, according to him, the mental is illusion and the real is direct experience: tastes, smells, what you can see and touch.

But the mental is also your direct experience, even if it's not sensory; it's a real perception. You're not imagining it; your system creates the mental from perceived models just as it creates the sensory. It's not ontologically different. It's just another level of perception, less rigid but as real as the senses. 

I think some of Ralston's terms can be confusing. And our mind can make things VERY real. I am not contesting anything like that.

What Ralston points to with his teachings on suffering are leaning into dissolving conditioning and healing. He would never term it as such, because he almost dies when someone frames his methods us such. He does not want to put any sort of 'aim' or 'outcome' in his students minds.

All of us are working on our conditionings and dissolving them into ourselves as part of spiritual process. Wake up, clean up, grow up. This is the process of integrating Truth after realisation. After mystical experience. This is what his teaching about suffering is aiming toward, because when we see we cause some unnessecary suffering in our experience it is actually healing at the same time. Healing scars 'samskara' from the past. Remuneration. Memories etched into our primitive mind.

The problem is 'stop doing it' isn't a method many can use. So I think much of some users dislike of Ralston is his brutal teaching methods that just aren't going to land for the typical person. Being yelled at to 'stop doing it, you are doing it' confuses many, and makes them feel like they are responsible for their suffering. 

We aren't responsible for our suffering from trauma in that, it is embedded in the animal 'brainstem' feeling part of the brain. It acts as a reflex. But it is possible to heal from this. After all, this is what therapy aims for. Self help. Dissolving conditioning. 

All of us must take responsibility for our healing. We cannot walk through life hurting those around us and claiming 'I have trauma, soz' 

I can see exactly why being told to 'stop doing it' is not going to work for most. It just so happens, it worked for me. It led to the realisation I was performing unnessecary suffering in my experience.

Edited 3 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru