Ralston's New Book - Whereof One Cannot Speak

[Breakingthewall]

7 hours ago, RisingLane said:

Because the mind bends on itself it sees or is aware of itself; thus we have the knowing experience "This is I," "I am myself," and so on. Self is not a socially learned or conditioned experience; it is not a mistake or an illusion. Rather, self or consciousness is a concrete function of the human brain; without it, man would not be man.

The self has a genetic basis and is formed throughout life. The moment you receive a blow and feel pain, a part of your brain activates and self-programs. In the human case, the conceptual function promoted by language captures a large part of the processing capacity, creating a social self that sees itself as a timeline.

The point is not to deny the self, which is as real as a stable energetic structure, but to completely deactivate it at will and be now without any definition, any contraction, or projection.

At first, it's scary, in fact, extremely scary. Leaving the womb of the social matrix is a great challenge. Your whole system screams, because you are absolutely dependent on that matrix. You might believe you are God or anything else to avoid being absolutely naked without any grip. 

As if you were born right now but without the need for a mother, attachment, relationship. The self is not identity, it's contraction plus reference plus continuity. When those energetic barriers dissolve, what you are is revealed, but you need the courage to be without mother matrix . Really, nothing new is revealed, but rather the filtering structure ceases to interfere, and what remains is what is.

Edited March 19 by Breakingthewall

[Joseph Maynor]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

The point is not to deny the self, which is as real as a stable energetic structure, but to completely deactivate it at will and be now without any definition, any contraction, or projection.

I have a different take.  It's not to deactivate the self, it's to integrate aspects of the Self into the self.  It's to realize the self is a character that can be modified to a degree by influence of the Self.  

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I have a different take.  It's not to deactivate the self, it's to integrate aspects of the Self into the self.  It's to realize the self is a character that can be modified to a degree by influence of the Self.  

I don't mean about becoming better, more integrated, or whatever else is possible and desirable, but about having moments of total openness to what is exactly now.  You don't need to be a saint with everything integrated; you need direct intelligence to see, right now, the contraction.

The essential thing is to be absolutely in the now, totally focused on this, without defining anything, and to perceive how the contraction and projection, the continuity , are keeping you separate. If you see them directly now, they open up, and only what is now remains, the totality of what is. That's all the thing, mysticism is just subjective feeling, could be real, same than the self, but it's a grip. The total is open, that's everything. You don't need psychedelic for that, in fact they are confusing. The point is total clarity, not hallucinations .

Edited March 19 by Breakingthewall

[RisingLane]

One of his finest sentences:

Quote

Objects, perception, mind, etc., are limited forms of consciousness, a consciousness-existence able to create the miracle of physics and life, as well as creatures and intelligence—which are all forms of an infinite or absolute consciousness beyond comprehension.

The same sentence, but with "consciousness" replaced by "existence":

Quote

Objects, perception, mind, etc., are limited forms of existence, an existence able to create the miracle of physics and life, as well as creatures and intelligence—which are all forms of an infinite or absolute existence beyond comprehension.

🤯

[CARDOZZO]

I will have to read it 100x 

[AtmanIsBrahman]

I’ve been reading this book too. So far I have to say I’m not that impressed. There are many points where Ralston sounds like a materialist scientist, who doesn’t know science very well.

The words “physical” and “objective” are used a lot.

For example:

“All perception, thought, and experience is indirect. This is just saying the perceptive-experience you have of something is not the same as the thing-itself.”
“sight is a function of light bouncing off an object and you interpreting the light. This means the “data” gathered by the light stimulating nerves in the eye are funneled through interpretation and association to make sense of it.”

But this could also be an issue of how language is used…

Edited 10 hours ago by AtmanIsBrahman

[AtmanIsBrahman]

Moving on to Part 2, the book is getting a lot better though.

[CARDOZZO]

7 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

Moving on to Part 2, the book is getting a lot better though.

Sure. 

Probably you hate scientific precise language.

[r0ckyreed]

I’m still waiting for my book to ship and I ordered it on March 13th! Still hasn’t come! Got it from Amazon. WTF!!

Edited 2 hours ago by r0ckyreed

[CARDOZZO]

38 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

I’m still waiting for my book to ship and I ordered it on March 13th! Still hasn’t come! Got it from Amazon. WTF!!

Get a kindle copy if you want it so badly