Theos-Talk Archives (September 2002 Message tt00041)

Sept 5 2002

Simplicity and Complexity -- any Rules ?
How shall we bake bread ?

Dear Friend:


"Emptiness" is incomprehensible without its contrast:
"FULLNESS". The two are co-existent.

The ABSOLUTENESS is incomprehensible without
"MANIFESTATION." But, does it not need an imperishable,
eternal ENTITY to perceive both ? Where and how do we
discover That ? What transcends either void or plenitude?


Something or someone is able to perceive both and frame an
idea of relationship and contrast. Each human being g has
that capacity. It is innate. But what is it? Who controls
it? Is it identical in all humans as a potential? How to
discover this that we sense but cannot hold or define in any
terms we know?


In any case, does this not imply a third participant in
this, as duality is added to the SOURCE, the ONE, to make
the imperishable THREE -- ONE, TWO and THREE, taken as a
coherent unit gives a basis for the individual and the
UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS, or perceptive awareness on all
planes. But we have to start with ours.

Human consciousness is thus a trinity. It is a micro
replica -- a miniature of the COSMIC.

At least that is how I see it. No one has a total grasp of
the condition unless they are capable of transferring their
unitary consciousness to any, and all planes of being.

But what is a plane? What is Being? what is "Perception?"
How are distinctions made and resolved?

Can mind-beings, residing in gross physical matter aspire to
any perception (imaginary nor otherwise) of a different
superior, or inferior plane of life, being and existence?

The rest is argument and detail. But on what basis ?
Observation is one thing. That can be cross checked.
Speculation and imagination can to some extent be
cross-checked providing the basis chosen for construction
(forward in time probability) or reconstruction (backward
in trying to account for present conditions) is reasonable
and logical.


Example:

I want to bake bread.

I need flour. Then I need water, salt, yeast, shortening,
and, to keep this simple, I need an oven. But that is not
all, there has to be an active agent, a chooser and a
doer -- myself, for instance.

May I say: I also need a memory repository where past
attempts at baking are stored as data: quantities, mixing
times, heat levels, etc...

But who am I, the one who needs? What does that need
satisfy ? How do I secure flour? etc...? How to build an
oven and where is fuel. By the time all is assembled a
complex background of experience is required, is
inevitable. Is it not an ecology, an educational system,
and a technology that are perceived to be necessary, and
this includes science and education and the rules of
co-habitation, etc... and the ability to select necessary
methods and equipment is invoked. No simplicity any more.
Grand-mother taught Mother, and Daughter is making ready to
learn, so that in turn, she can teach her children -- how to
bake bread.

Chemistry, physics, agriculture, hydraulics, architecture,
engineering, a perception of the cycles of the seasons, the
various laws of Nature, and the civics and ethics,
scientific investigation, education, all and more are needed
for a human entity or entities to live together, and to be
fed, and so on ...

So we have to get knowledge and wisdom, inevitably. How to
organize all this and make it useful? The housewife or the
baker makes the bread and does to trouble himself or herself
about these complexities. They want certain substances,
appropriate time, known processes, and heat, or, no bread.

Bad bread can be easily made, but good wholesome food needs
care and the obeying of certain rules -- are the rules and
the experience of the past to be despised and discarded?

But the basis for physical bread is the atoms and the
molecules of various kinds to be selected and used by
INTELLIGENCE. And where do those atoms and molecules and
INTELLIGENCE come from ? Are the destroyed, transformed,
elevated, depressed? And what about the maker (me) how am I
touched by all this experience, no matter how expressed ?

Any help?

Dallas

Dallas

==========================

-----Original Message-----
From: gschueler@earthlink.net
[mailto:gschueler@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 7:41 AM
To: Theosophy Study List
Subject: Re to Mauri

<<<I think I was in my late teens when, one day, while
thinking about
unprovable assumptions (in whichever ways I thought about
such things, then), I
suddenly came to what seemed like a profound realization
that "I don't know
anything,"---ie, other than as per (to use your words,
Gerald) "unprovable
assumptions," which, as I saw it, doesn't "BASICALLY" amount
to anything other
than the "worldview" terms, and permutations of, that we
individually/collectively devise (ie, "basically, even
though," as I seemed to
have sensed at the time, if not in these words: though some
of those
permutations might be seen as inspirational, Theosophic,
spriritual, etc.,
and might serve a Path-related purpose).>>>

All we really know, and can ever hope to know, is what our
senses tell us and
what we hear from others. All of our knowledge is founded on
observations and
mutual agreements of those observations (because there is
100% agreement on
hardly anything). And this is true for all 7 planes of our
solar system.
Realization of this is the beginning of wisdom. Realization
of this can also
lead to a profound understanding of maya.

<<<Come to think of it, I was fascinated by Zen at the time,
and had been
meditating, so I'm now wondering (in retrospect, for the
first time, possibly)
if my meditation might've had something to do with
that(subsequent?)
"realization" about the prevalence of unprovable assumptions
. . . Those days
I used to meditate/concentrate on a spot, until the spot and
its surroundings
would fade from view. But I might've got confused at that
point about my
technique and basic assumptions: ie, how can one meditate on
a spot that
doesn't seem to want to stay put. Those days, I didn't
speculate as much, so
didn't even speculatively put two and two together.
Apparently it didn't
occur to me that possibly that spot might be nothing more
than another
unprovable assumption that, if meditated on, would vanish,
like its
surroundings, would reveal to me it's mayavic, assumed
(dualistic/exoteric)
nature.>>>

I also began with Zen in my teenage years. Every day I
concentrated on each
number from one to nine, giving a full minute to each
number. It slowly got
easier to do as I practiced. This kind of thing is basic
preliminary stuff,
meant to help us gain a bit of control over manas.
Ultimately manas has to be
transcended. But before that, it has to be brought under
some control.

<<<<Maybe the doubters ought to find out for themselves by
meditating on a
spot, and see for themselves how it disappears, thereby
"proving" that it was
just an assumption, to begin with . . . Actually, in my
experience, the spot
was always the last to fade, after the surroundings. Not
that there aren't
various assumptive "explanations" for such fades, but isn't
the whole point of
such an exercise to transcend (to some extent, at least,
even if symbolically)
the very dualistics that support maya and assumptions of all
kinds . . .>>>

I started out as a teenager learning about emptiness (called
suchness in Zen).
I learned that if you looked at a tree, there was no "tree"
but simply a
collection of parts arranged a certain way and given a
label. Same with "car."
Then I learned that the same could be said for the ego. I
knew that objects
and egos did not exist as such by the time I was about 18.
This kind of
"proof" requires no meditation or mysticism at all; it is
purely using logic
and reason to see what is really in front of you. Take away
names and labels
and a new world opens us. This new world is called dependent
arising.

<<JERRY: Once "reality" is understood to be anything we want
it to be, we will
indeed have our rose garden. Thats a promise. >>
I tend to see assumers running off in all kinds of
directions with that
one.>>>>

I meant it to be interpretable. When interpreted correctly,
it is a promise
that will be kept.

<<<When we "question" we tend to "speculate/think about,"
(don't we?), and so
when we "think about" our "worldview" in terms of its
"correctness," we're
speculating about "relevance" and "applicablity" within the
confines of our
current worldview, and so our thoughts about "correctness"
and incorrectness,"
about whatever worldviews, tend to be more or less
apparent/believable in keeping with whatever our
preconceived/assumptive
notions are about whatever current "worldview" (or " basic,
evaluative
stance") we happen to have adopted, (by whichever route), so
. . .>>>

Questioning and speculation is absolutely essential if we
are to pierce
through the veils of maya that surround us. Once we
understand that nothing is
provable, and that all worldviews depend on unprovable
assumptions, then we
can develop a natural and unforced tolerance for others and
for other
viewpoints. The thought that "My worldview is closer to
truth than yours" is
an elist fiction that is based in egotism. Much better to
think "My worldview
works better for me to help me understand my experiences
than yours would."

<<<how can all that wording not fail to smack of an all too
apparent, basic,
popular reliance on a collection of dualistic assumptions
about things in
general that, as a whole, (in spite of the various, notable
Path-related
aspects) is mayavic . .. Not that "notable Path-related
aspects" are not also
basically mayavic, but . . . some things are, after all,
"Path related," so we
have such as "Theosophy," "meditation," "sprirituality,"
etc.>>>

Good question. And yes, even "Path-related" is mayavic. The
need for a Path
assumes that we are unhappy where we are and need to get
somewhere else.

<<<"Mixed and confusing" to who . . . I think that I meant
that there seem
to be some things . . . I think Shakespeare (or his
rewriters . . .) said
something about "more things in heaven and earth" . . .
whatever . . . and, as
I see it, since Theosophy would seem to have a rather
intimate connection with
such as "esoteric/exoteric," well, what can one expect to
come of it . . .
Anyway, I tend to agree with your comments about assumptions
in relation to
"reality,j" but, somewhat "more specifically," I tend to
agree with those
kinds of comments (as from you, Gerald), "basically,"
leaving some room, in a
sense, for "Path-related aspects" that might be
"preferentially" seen
as "useful, rather than mayavic," if just in "working
terms," in a sense . . .
>>>>

Mayavic can also be useful. The idea that there are people
in need is mayavic,
yet we should not turn a deaf ear to them. Our helping
others is also mayavic,
yet we need to do it. So long as we are in maya, we need to
do useful things.
Its rather like dreaming and knowing you are dreaming. In
lucid dreams we can
help others even though we know it all to be a dream.
Why is this? Well, it has to do with the difference between
Hinayana and
Mahayana Buddhism. When lucid dreaming we can either stay in
the dream and
direct/control it, or we can wake up. A
Hinayanist/Theravadin would wake up. A
Mahayanist would continue dreaming, using consciousness to
deliberately and
effectively help others in the dream. The rationale for this
is hard to put
into words, and when I put it into my own words it comes out
something like
this: Life is a fun thing, an adventure, a wondrous and
joyful series of
experiences. It is a chance to do things in time and space.
A chance to
express onself in various ways. Part of our essential nature
is love, and so
doing loving things is self-expressive and healthy and fun.
This sounds almost
like a selfish narcissism, and perhaps it would be except
that there is no
accompanying sense of self as such.

Jerry S.