Our inner Order of the Star

Are you aware of your inner Order of the Star, your internal authority structure?

Are you willing, ready, able to dissolve it?

I’m aware of it constantly, especially when reacting to something that offends or doesn’t support my feelings/beliefs about what should/should-not-be.

Are you willing, ready, able to dissolve it?

The dissolution of the self-center can’t be an act of will because will is what sustains it. I’ve said previously and still think that the brain has to be ready to allow it to happen.

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I see will as helping us get to the edge of the cliff, but not to take the leap into the unknown. Will built me a nice cozy camp at the edge of the cliff where I think hard and long about taking the leap, analyze it, contemplate it, imagine what it may be like. But this same will (i.e. ME!) prevents me from leaping.

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Answer 1 : (a reductio ad absurdum) If we were able to recognise and want to destroy our internal authority structure - wouldn’t this be due to our internal authority structure?

Answer 2 : My brain is my internal authority structure, as soon as it commands me to self-dissolve I shall obey.

Answer 3 : I am currently enamoured with epistemological idealism as thats what I happen to be studying - I accept the concept as accurate as it aligns with my trust in science and logic.

So there are at least 3 authorities there (a philosophy, a practical demonstration of the philosophy by science, and the tool of logic as a method of evaluation) that I’m aware of.

But I am not a card paying member of any of these authorities - if they can be seen as false I’ll go where the evidence takes me.

You seem to be saying that we (people like us) choose to live on the edge of a cliff rather than residing inland where it’s easy to forget what we’re here for.

What does a deeply devout brain do when it knows nobody knows or cares about its deep devotion?

But as long as you think the brain is yours; that you exist apart from the brain, you can’t dissolve.

Interesting mix your interest in logic-science and Zen. Straddling worlds?

I am not a card paying member of any of these authorities - if they can be seen as false I’ll go where the evidence takes me

Glean what is gleanable from all views, be loyal to none. Conditional trust?

Personally I feel ‘choice’ is not what keeps me camped out at the cliff’s edge. After everything I’ve seen and realized, how could I do anything else? (Definitely not saying I’ve seen and realized a great deal, but enough to get me where I am.)

What does a deeply devout brain do when it knows nobody knows or cares about its deep devotion

Remains devout while feeling profoundly alone? (Though not necessarily lonely.)

This is what interests me. It’s all about who/what I agree (with myself) to be, whether in a city, or alone in the forest.

I compare the dissolution of the inner Order of the Star to a man who had reached the point of standing at the edge of a very deep and dark cliff; as he looked down into that bottomless void, and at all of what was lurking behind him, he asked himself, “what am I to do, shall I continue living the miserable life that I have been living until now, or am I better off dead?”. But because he had reached this point, he realizes that his own life is what has brought him here, that it is here where it becomes evident to him that his life is no longer worth living, that indeed he is better off dead. So, moved by this thought, he jumps into the void but only to be stunned by the view of a totally new world, by the opportunity of a completely new life, and as he sees this, tears of joy come out of his eyes.

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Who/what I agree to be or who/what I (really) am?

Sounds like you are saying that to awaken you need to die. ? This would certainly explain why few people awaken.

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He’s contemplating suicide…having a Hamlet moment…then…

he realizes that his own life is what has brought him here, that it is here where it becomes evident to him that his life is no longer worth living, that indeed he is better off dead…

That’s quite a conclusion to jump to…

So, moved by this thought, he throws himself of the cliff, but only to be stunned by the view of a totally new world, by the opportunity of a completely new life, and as he sees this, tears of joy come out of his eyes.

A happy ending for our hero. But what does this story actually tell us?

Our hero chose to jump to his death because when he “realizes that his own life is what brought him to here, that it is here where it becomes evident to him that his life is no loner worth living, that indeed he is better off dead”. In other words, after jumping to the conclusion that he was “better off dead”, he literally jumped off a cliff to what he assumed would be his death, but turned out to be his reward for being so jumpy.

Every ending brings with itself a new beginning; and so, if there is no ending then there is no new beginning. Is this not so? Here, the ending is the “dying to”, there is no hero and no suicide. This is clear.

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If there were any truth in what I have posted above, for sure you would have to discover it for yourself; but what you get by translating what you read into your own way of thinking is a totally different story, perhaps a confused story that doesn’t make any sense, or has no truth in it, a story made up by someone else.

Intuition tells me this: Death is transformation, not ending.

A corpse is a transformed organism?

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Can I be anything more or less than an aware organism, confused and conflicted or not?

As I see it, @Manuel 's post is a continuation of where @rickScott left off in this post, and he neither speaks of suicide, as @Inquiry seems to say, nor that the mention of death and dying in his post means an end in itself from which nothing else would exist after that, as @rickScott himself seems to say in this other post.

So forgive me, but perhaps we could look at these two examples – without disrespecting anyone, or anyone feeling attacked by it – to see if we are really thinking together, if we are moving together, or is it just the individual thought of the commenter who merely shares its thinking apart from the natural flow of the conversation?

p.s.: it’s just a proposal, so don’t hit me too hard for daring to propose it :innocent:

Nearly correct - acceptance of death is all that is required. Those that commit suicide have accepted nothing at all.
@Manuel’s story about how the man is moved by his thought (of death) is not quite right - in an honest and sincere acceptance of death a door opens of itself. Unfortunately this does not mean we can earn any points by pretending to accept death on the merits of some story.