Well, we’ll wait to see what @Jobuys has to say about it… but if it’s as you say, then it’s all in the realm of the self, and the other has nothing to do with it. So, let’s say that the self begins to observe why it has to pretend to be what it is not, together with the inner conflict that this pretending causes it. And in that observation the self has an insight into the possible loneliness that this would entail for it if it does not do so. So, as loneliness terrifies it (and therefore it doesn’t go beyond this “unpleasant” insight) it decides to continue pretending and let it be what God wills. And not only that, but the moment any conflict arises, for that self the other will always be to blame, never itself.
So it is not the self demanding to pretend to be something it is not that makes it arduous to look at what it is, but (in this case, and probably in all other cases) its own laziness in not wanting to look deeply into that terrible fear it has of loneliness, of being nothing.
p.s. and there is still someone who wonders if the disorder is factual or subjective!
This fear of being nothing (not-a-thing) is allayed by the realization that what we ARE may not be this material body and not this material thought but that nevertheless, we ARE!
May I ask you something? … How does one know that the so-called “partial insights” are revealing more of an edifice that one does not even know in its entirety beyond one’s imagination constructed through the knowledge that the self has turned those so-called “partial insights” into?
Unsustainable for whom and through what does that unsustainability arise if I may ask?
I don’t know if you meant to express this, as language is sometimes treacherous, but if I may say so “may not be” implies doubt, not realisation.
“…nevertheless we ARE (in spite of everything)!” only points to the fear the self has of disappearing completely; as if it were a last resort to hold on to once the doubt you expressed earlier becomes an “unpleasant” realisation for it.
So what’s the actual problem for that self in being nothing (not-a-thing), if I may ask?
There is no ‘problem’. The problem lies in the belief that the ‘self’ is what one is; that image formed of an individual, a self, the past etc, that that is what you are…you’re not.
How can you know that these “partial insights” are revealing more of an edifice which you are unaware of except through images that the self is creating from the knowledge in which it converts each of those “partial insights”, and which are obviously not the actual thing?
Is it more understandable now?
If I may point out, there is a flaw in that reasoning… “for a brain that is no longer limited by its conditioning” nothing is unsustainable anymore, “unsustainable” being a word that implies a struggle between what is and what one would like it to be, a struggle from which that brain has been freed.
Of course, theory (knowledge) is wonderful, but the self does nothing with a theory unless it sees the actuality of that theory. So can we look at the real thing which is that the self is afraid of being alone, of dying to itself and being nothing (not-a-thing) any more, and that because of that it constantly creates all this disorder that we are all so used to?
Yes, we know that, but the main question is: why does the self, once it has an insight that it is not that it thinks it is, say: “Ok! I am not what I thought I was, yet I AM!”, which is back to the old pattern, and therefore to disorder once again.
p.s.: sorry but I have to leave now, otherwise I won’t sleep today. Thanks for the dialogue, and we’ll continue tomorrow!
We frequently realize that beliefs and assumptions we have about certain things are not true, and those are partial insights, awakenings to what we thought we knew and came to find out how mistaken we were.
“for a brain that is no longer limited by its conditioning” nothing is unsustainable anymore,
A brain free of its conditioning is unlimited, but it still must be practical, so it sustains necessary knowledge, i.e., practical thought. What it can’t sustain is all the content about its imagined self and its images of others; it negates all psychological thought.
Finding out we were holding a fallacious belief is great. And finding out that we were holding a second fallacious belief is great too. But I don’t think we can accumulate bonus points in this way?
The best conclusion we can come to is to be more tentative in our beliefs - which is still not freedom from belief - is it even a step towards that goal?
OK! Let’s say I go to listen to K, and because I understand the language I find that what he says has a certain logic. So I compare what he says with the image I have of myself, and somehow I see that this image is the cause of all my conflicts. So after that understanding I try to change that image through my newly acquired knowledge of myself. Would you call this a “partial insight”?
And if not, what do you mean by “partial insight”?
If I may point out, there is also a flaw in this reasoning… since for a “brain free of its conditioning” there is no longer any imagined self, neither of itself nor much less of others. So such a brain has no psychological thought to negate beyond the practical thinking necessary to relate to the world. For if there is any kind of negation, that brain is not yet a “brain free of its conditioning”.
The ‘problem’ with psychological conclusions (insights?) is that they’re old, the past, a mess in the room…they have their place in the practical as do “steps” but in the mind they all become ‘clutter’?
I currently have a friend who has cancer (colon cancer). We have long conversations and her mind is able to describe to the last detail its disorder and the psychological suffering (in addition to the physical suffering) that this disorder brings her. But after she has described that suffering her words are “even so, I can’t get out of that mess. I would like to erase it, but I can’t even reach the eraser”. Is this the disorder you mean when you say “but in the mind they all become ‘clutter’”, Dan?
