Garden plot

Recently, Michael H. in comments suggested that I look into the ideas of Sydney Banks. I visited Banks's Web site and also checked out a Web video he produced. The video, a self-promotional piece titled "Letter to Oprah," left me distinctly unmoved; it seems to be nothing but an attempt to get the author booked on the popular talk show. Some of the material on the Web site, however, was interesting, so I ordered -- and read -- Banks's book The Enlightened Gardener.

The Enlightened Gardener is a series of conversations between an English gardener and four American psychologists visiting the United Kingdom for a professional conference. The idea is that the psychologists end up learning more from this apparently simple gardener than they do from their credentialed colleagues.

I have to say that some aspects of the book left me cold, especially the repeated device of having the American characters react with amazement to even the most seemingly banal statements made by the gardener. At one point, for instance, the gardener remarks that mind and brain are different -- that the mind has to do with the spirit while the brain has to do with the body. One of the psychologists responds in astonishment that he's never heard an idea like that before. Really? Where has this guy been living? In a cave?

There are a lot of moments like that. I began to feel a certain amount of sympathy with Tom, the most cynical of the psychologists, who is constantly making sarcastic put-downs of the gardener's wisdom (though of course he comes around in the end).

Despite the book's defects, there is something intriguing about The Enlightened Gardener -- a hint of larger and more transformative ideas hidden behind the title character's sometimes trite pronouncements. The book itself alludes to this possibility when one of the characters observes that the gardener's remarks are analogous to shorthand, and that to appreciate the full meaning of his philosophy, one has to look beyond the symbols.

The dominant idea seems to be that thought profoundly affects who we are, how we behave, and how we see the world. Now, this seems like the most obvious truism imaginable, ripe for one of Tom's knee-jerk retorts. But as the book gradually makes clear, what the gardener means by "thought" is not simply the particular thoughts that we happen to hold in our minds at any given time. Instead, he is talking about the process or phenomenon of thought itself.

At one point, there is a brief discussion about emptiness and its relation to being. The gardener compares emptiness to formlessness, while being is form. Form emerges out of formlessness. Similarly, what the gardener calls Universal Thought is formless thought, contentless thought, and it is out of this formless thought that our particular, specific thoughts (or thought-forms) emerge.

To me, this is an intriguing and meaningful idea -- though I grant that it may seem pointless and meaningless to others. It's useful to me if I see my own personal thoughts as arising out of a formless background, somewhat like ripples arising on the surface of a lake or, to take a more "scientific" analogy, like virtual particles emerging from the quantum vacuum. (This is only an analogy; I'm not saying that there is necessarily any connection between thoughts and quantum phenomena.)

Universal Thought is one aspect of the gardener's holy Trinity; the other two aspects are Universal Consciousness and Universal Mind. Clearly, these are three different ways of looking at the same thing. There can be no thought without consciousness, and there can be no consciousness without mind. Again, what's useful is the idea of formless consciousness preceding and giving rise to the form of our particular consciousness; or formless mind preceding and grounding our particular form-specific minds. If we strip away forms and penetrate to formlessness, we encounter "wisdom," or "original thought," "uncontaminated" by the forms we impose. We can then see our particular thoughts, consciousness, and minds as what they are: constructions or fabrications, which may be helpful to us or detrimental, but which are not, in either case, the ultimate or true reality. And once we see them for what they are, we need not be imprisoned by their constraints.

This is, I admit, rather vague, and I'm not sure these revelations would have the life-changing effects that the book seems to grant them. But I think there's something here ... though I could be wrong. The Enlightened Gardener has the strange effect of suggesting the answers to great mysteries but not quite unveiling them. Maybe there are no answers and the whole thing is an exercise in self-delusion. Or maybe there are answers, but, like snowflakes, they melt away when you try to catch them in your hand.

I don't know what to think. And maybe that's the point.

Comments

[Ross W]

Hmmm. Not sure I really understand why we need to see thoughts as arising from formlessness, Michael. Some may follow others in logical sequence. Some may come from association (jogged from memory), some may even come from telepathy or tuned into from the noosphere!

I’m also unclear what the difference is supposed to be between Consciousness, Thought and Mind. In Lee Bladon’s recent book “The Science of Spirituality”, he calls the Holy Trinity Consciousness, Energy and Matter, which is much easier to grasp. I can comprehend how Consciousness itself arises from formlessness, but not our individual thoughts per se, which are a secondary product of conscious experience, aren’t they?

[Tim]

Wasn't this the film "Being There" with Peter Sellers?

[Paddy H]

This plot outline seems suspiciously similar to the Peter Sellers 1979 movie "Being There" about Chance the Gardener, whose "simple TV-informed utterances are mistaken for profundity".

[Topher Cooper]

"Wasn't this the film "Being There" with Peter Sellers?"

It certainly is reminiscent of it, perhaps deliberately so, but it sounds like is is profoundly (pun intended) different.

Chance the gardener in the film Being There (and presumably in the novel it is based on) was a true simple-minded innocent thrust into a world he was unequipped to deal with. He responded to anything he didn't understand (almost everything) by talking about what he *did* understand his garden or the TV shows he watched. People projected their own ideas on these non sequiturs, assuming that they were profound metaphors. So someone might ask him "Do you think that we should intervene militarily in the middle east?", to which he might reply "In the spring, the flowers blossom." Which would then be taken to mean that the current turmoil is a temporary phase from which rich beauty will eventually emerge on its own.

The whole point was that there was actually no depth to Chance's statements. Presumably in this book though, the idea is that the Gardener's pronouncements actually have profound understanding behind them.

[Michael H]

I must say Michael, it appears that you have culled more from a single reading of Banks than most do. The difficulty of Sydney Banks is that his wisdom is veiled by its very simplicity.

The only thing I’ll add is that I suspect the reason he “has the strange effect of suggesting the answers to great mysteries but not quite unveiling them”, is that he understands that if his readers discover the answers to the mysteries themselves, the answers they discover will have exponentially more lasting significance than anything they can ever learn from someone else.

Thank you for bringing him to others’ attention.

[Paddy H]

Michael, your idea about formless thought reminds me of Wallace Wattles 1910 book "The Science of Getting Rich" in which he talks about formless substance. He summarises:

"There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.
A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.
Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created."

Apparently this book was the inspiration behind "The Secret".

[Leo MacDonald]

I have been talking with a skeptic lately on the paranormal

Chad, I would say astrology everytime i read up on my sign virgo it's always wrong.

Also you said that are many instances where the paranormal has been shown to have a natural explanation which is true in some instances but there are a lot of cases where that has not happen. Such as well documented cases of apparitions where more than one person has seen.

For Example here

http://ghosts.monstrous.com/crisis_apparitions.htm

and here

http://www.thesurvivalfiles.com/Top-40/top-40_start.shtml

By the way you mentioned also Acupuncture there are many studies that have found evidence for it

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/011016070408.htm
http://www.acupuncture.com/research/shldrpain.htm
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/29/1091046071751.html
http://gancao.net/ht/anesthesia.shtml
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HKP/is_1_28/ai_65014410/pg_1
http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2000/B/200001420.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13104-acupuncture-relieves-cancer-chemotherapy-fatigue.html

Also I don't accept all the paranormal I think a lot of it too out there such as Astrology, Big Foot, The lochness Monster, End of the world conspiracy theories etc.]

I do however think there is very overwhelming scientific evidence for psi and survival

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Post #63
2 replies
Chad Hester (Valdosta) replied to your post about an hour ago.
Leo, why is it you don't believe in these other pseudosciences? In regards to Bigfoot, there are plenty of eye witness accounts, videos, pictures and lengthy testimonies. Also, people actually live their lives by astrology, just because you haven't found a "genuine" astrologer to predict your future doesn't mean you can discount it. Further, there have been many studies on the efficacy of astrology. You can find them here:

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/astrology-articles/astrology-scientific-studies.php

Astrology is a great example of why meta analysis can be so faulty(Ganzfeld). Post Hoc conclusions, unconscious experimenter data manipulation, and purposefully manipulative data mining are all can come in to play.

My point is that ANYTHING can be made to seem real once it inundates the public deeply enough. Reports of saucer shaped UFO's were not common until the now infamous Kenneth Arnold misquote. This is a major reason why pseudoscience is ridiculed, so as not to add to public confusion.

There are many very intelligent people who get tied up in these ideas and do a great job of making them seem plausible.

All those documented apparition cases are anecdotal. They are ghost stories; it is very difficult to falsify a story. There are just as many documented cases of UFO abductions, Big Foot and the like.

Crisis apparitions.. the people are in a crisis. Under great emotional stress people are very likely to have their perceptions altered(the time slowing down effect is a good example, which I believe has been found to be a manipulation of the memory of the event and not the perception of the actual occurrence of the event) and it's not a stretch for them to believe they see loved ones.

On acupuncture, there are plenty of natural explanations for any effects found. Such as merely the relaxation aspects or endorphine release do to the needle pricks, there is no need to resort to mystical body energy manipulation. Further, in most studies, any effect is reduced to placebo when performed on large test groups.

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Post #64
Nicole Elliott (no network) replied to Chad's post about an hour ago.
"Crisis apparitions.. the people are in a crisis. Under great emotional stress people are very likely to have their perceptions altered(the time slowing down effect is a good example, which I believe has been found to be a manipulation of the memory of the event and not the perception of the actual occurrence of the event) and it's not a stretch for them to believe they see loved ones."

Nope sorry Chad but that's wrong, I've worked in Palliative Care for many years and I've had some incredible experiences, I wans't under any emotional stress in fact I enjoyed my work, my perception was never altered and in fact the reason why I got into researching the 'paranormal' is because of the things I had seen and experienced with the patients and their families . Had I never had these experiences I may not be one that not only believes in the existence of the soul continuing but I can honestly say that I know it does, but then I've experienced it and seen it, those that haven't can't understand and find it hard to comprehend I can understand that, but it has nothing to do with patients being on medication and seeing things, not all patients are on medication and when I have experienced appiritions I've been very conscious of what was happening at the time.
The don't beleive they see loved ones, they really do see them and I've seen them after the body has died : )

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Post #65
1 reply
You replied to Chad's post 54 minutes ago.
Chad,

The reason why is because I don't find the evidence compelling but I am open to changing my mind about astrology, big foot.

Also you mention about meta analysis referring to the Ganzfeld experiments Yes scientists such as Professor Ray Hyman and Dr. Susan Blackmore have mention the same Post Hoc conclusions, unconscious experimenter data manipulation, and purposefully manipulative data mining which has been refuted many times also the experiments have been replicated many time.

Here's an article you might find worth interest regarding the ganzfeld experiments
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/anomalistics/skeptic_research.htm

They are more than just anecdotal there are recorded voices on tape of ghosts, experimental research such also been done such as Dr. Raymond Moody's work on inducing apparitions in a laboratory setting.

Yes Acupuncture more than likely has a natural explanation but it does not stop skeptics from saying it's still pseudoscience.

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Post #66
You wrote 50 minutes ago.
Michael Prescott does a good job in my opinion on his analysis of James Randi's believe that acupuncture is pseudoscience

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Post #67
Chad Hester (Valdosta) replied to your post 7 minutes ago.
Dr. Raymond Moody never produced an actual apparition.

There are natural explanations for the "ghost tapes".

The majority of the paranormal research I've seen you site has come from the early 1900's. This is because no evidence was found to support the claims. This is how science works. If a theory is producing no conclusive evidence then it is revised or abandoned. We would not of accepted relativity if it could not of produced experimental evidence.

Classic acupuncture IS pseudoscience. The body does not have some mystical energy that is manipulated by needles. This is similar to chiropractics; there has never been any evidence for "innate intelligence" and this is why few chiropractors practice TRUE chiropractics. It is closer to physical therapy now and if acupuncture is to continue it will undergo similar changes.

[Mark]

So, if I change the "process or phenomenon of thought itself," then I will become a different person and all of my medical problems will vanish? Even if he is on to something, I doubt that Banks knows for sure (or is even close to being sure) that he is right. I don't mean to sound too sarcastic here, but I really wish that Banks could draw me a road map of how to change my "thoughts." I might not be able to figure it out by myself.

[william]

Change your thoughts change your life. Can we change even if the mind is not ready to change? Can effort alone transform us? Do we need certain experiences other than our own effort to help transform us?

Paul Brunton who devoted his life to the study of the mysteries of life thought that even enlightened Hindu masters might have to reincarnate to America and experience the harshness of the American type of capitalism to advance their souls.

Michael mentioned psychologists. Several years ago I met at a graduation party a brand new psychologist with a brand new PhD from UCLA in psychology.

I asked this person point blank "are you an atheist". This person responded and said yes I am. I then asked how do you explain very young children that can speak a foreign language and have never being exposed to that language. This person responded that there are just some things we just don’t know.

Well from my point of view in one question I just showed this person they were not atheist but agnostic. My point is if we are going to deal with the human mind it may be worth asking some profound questions such as if children can talk in a foreign language that may mean many things that have to do with my degree in psychology.

One being that child has been reincarnated and is talking in a language from a former life. This would have huge implications in this person’s professional career in psychology to help people with mental problems or in their teaching other psychologists.

[John]

William, to be fair, a belief in reincarnation does not require one to be a theist.

He is, however, correct that there are things we just don't know. "Xenoglossy" is one of those things. I think we have a pretty good idea about what is going on, but do we KNOW? I'm not so sure.

[Michael Prescott]

Back to reincarnation, are we? I think I could write a post about my favorite breakfast cereal*, and the comments would be about reincarnation ...

*Kellogg's Mini-Wheats.

[John]

Haha, sorry Michael. It's something close to my heart. I'm attracted to the idea and it makes a fair deal of sense to me, and I like to talk about it. Enlightenment and mysticism doesn't quite appeal to me like the other things do. :P

As for your favourite cereal, hear hear. It is indeed the best cereal.

[william]

Well my point was not about reincarnation but about psychologists that had not thought through the mysteries of life as Michael had stated he was surprised that many psychologists found it hard to believe that consciousness can survive outside the brain. Just read that William that comes through David Thompson believes in reincarnation.

For me reincarnation helps to fit some of the pieces of the mysteries of life puzzle together but it is not a popular subject, as most people don’t relish the idea of coming back to earth.

Speaking of David Thompson apparently there are two people that sit in on at least one of DT’s séances and now are accusing him of fraud but will not reveal their names. And the mystery continues.

I have heard that DT is coming to America and one can sit in for only 230.00. A small price to pay for the possibility of meeting a loved one from the other side.

[Mark]

I hear you, man. I always try to stay on topic, unless the whole thread completely goes off course, or unless I need to defend myself. Maybe we should take a lot of data on how long it takes for the thread to go off course and give it to marcos for statistical analysis.

[Ross W]

William: “Change your thoughts change your life.”
-Yes, but it’s not an instantaneous process unless we are very skilled at forgetting our past habits.
“Can we change even if the mind is not ready to change?”
-No!
“Can effort alone transform us?”
-Only if we are ready.
“Do we need certain experiences other than our own effort to help transform us?”
-All experience is effort!

[Hope Rivers]

Can effort alone transform us?”

Ross says - only if we are ready.

I can be totally ready for change, use all my effort yet still fail "change" as a permanent positive quest, whether this is thoughts or something else, same process. My spirit requires something bigger than myself to make the effort bearable, to endure till change happens.

[Ross W]

Hope says: "My spirit requires something bigger than myself to make the effort bearable, to endure till change happens."

True! Perhaps I should have said, "Only when your spirit determines that the time is right" (since waking consciousness is only a part of our total awareness). Fair enough?

[Ross W]

Mark says : “I really wish that Banks could draw me a road map of how to change my "thoughts." I might not be able to figure it out by myself.”

Michael H says: “he understands that if his readers discover the answers to the mysteries themselves, the answers they discover will have exponentially more lasting significance than anything they can ever learn from someone else.”

This reminds me of when westerners go east to study Zen. We recently had on British television a vicar who did this. He heard cryptic pronouncements, but had to experience Zen living to understand them. Mind you, I’m not convinced of the need for this, because I always believe in the possibility of communication – if someone really knows their subject, they can find a way to communicate it clearly. So in the case of the vicar, a question like “What is Zen?” has the cryptic answer, “Fetching wood and carrying water”, which he then tries. Having experienced this, he is able to describe the process in a way that can be understood by western ears: It is all about being centred in what you are actually doing rather than thinking about something you else you might think you prefer; and it is about the way you do it, with fluidity of movement, so that focussing on the perfection of the everyday action drives away extraneous thinking.

[Ross W]

As you may have noticed, there's an extraneous "you" in the above posting:
"something *you* else you might think you prefer".
This is because my higher self likes to play jokes on me.

[Ryan]

The comments about keeping the discussion on track were amusing. Due attention should be given to the contents of MP's posts. It is his blog, afterall. :-)

Colin Wilson has some interesting things to say in relation to Syd Banks:

'The dazzling insight that struck [Banks] one day happened in the following manner. He had remarked to a friend that he was feeling unhappy, and the friend replied: 'You're not unhappy, Syd - you just think you are.' Banks stared at him in amazement and said: 'Do you realise what you've just said?'

The insight that had dazzled him was that all our psychological problems arise from our thoughts, and that we can make them go away by changing our thoughts.

[The psychologist] George Pransky...went on to apply these insights to his patients, and found that they worked. Pransky has created a psychology that is based on the peak experience.

This is [Edmund] Husserls 'intentionality' in action. It is the recognition that the mind itself dictates most of our feelings and responses. We induce most of our own misery.

Intentionality can be used to create what I have labelled 'holiday consciousness', that wide awake sense of reality that is of the same nature as Proust's 'moments bienheureux' and [G.K.] Chesterton's 'absured good news', the sudden joyful recognition that the mind itself can transform and control all our feelings and reactions.'(Colin Wilson, Dreaming to Some Purpose: An Autobiography, p220-221. Currently unavailable from Amazon – try Abebooks).

Some of these insights may be seen to hover between the trite and the profound. Perhaps it is best to consider them--as Wilson does--in relation to moments of vision, that is, if we 'perceive' these insights, and hold onto them in the course of our lives, their profundity can be measured by their transformative effects.

>Form emerges out of formlessness...To me, this is an intriguing and meaningful idea. It's useful to me if I see my own personal thoughts as arising out of a formless background

I think there are parallels with existentialist thought here. Jean-Paul Sartre said that 'existence precedes essence', that is, we exist in the world, and only later come to define ourselves through our thoughts and by our actions. This means that the human subject is radically free, he has no essence; only choices.

[Ross W]

Ryan says: "the mind itself dictates most of our feelings and responses. We induce most of our own misery."

Hamlet of course said, "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so". Unfortunately, recognition of the fact didn't do him any good! He needed a good peak experience psychiatrist, it seems. So, the point is, as Mark said earlier, that we need a road map to show us how to change the way we think. Simple realisation itself is only the start.

[Michael H]

It’s always amusing watching others discussing Syd Banks. If someone hasn’t directly caught at least a glimmer of what he means by Mind, Thought and Consciousness, the discussion always runs along the lines of conflating his suggestions with either Buddhism, Taoism or Zen, or along the lines of New Thought ideas that involve some sort of ‘intention’ in order to actively alter thought processes. In either case, there’s an assumption of some sort of ‘active’ process involved.

Reading Michael’s main post told me that he’d caught a glimmer, because of the difficulty there is in even describing exactly what that ‘glimmer’ was . . . the ‘I think there’s something here’ feeling that’s common to anyone who begins to understand him. I don’t want to mystify it, but anyone who gets that ‘there’s something here’ feeling should just follow that feeling to see where it leads. Don’t try to figure it out.

I’ve always had a tough time trying to explain Banks’ ideas to anyone, though I think I understand why that is. I think it’s because Banks’ ideas cannot be grasped on the level of the intellect. What Banks understands is that his audience needs to undergo a sort of inner experiential shift to understand him. The character in the ‘The Enlightened Gardener’, who is frustrated with what appears to be the banality of the gardener, is very illustrative of what happens when someone attempts to understand him on an intellectual level. Colin Wilson is a good example of what happens in real life when it’s assumed that Banks can be grasped intellectually. He can’t be.

One way to try to explain it is to contrast Health Realization (HR), which is the school of psychology initially developed by George Pransky and Roger Mills based on Banks' insights, with conventional psychology.

The theme common to all psychological approaches is the shared understanding that thought precedes behavior. Prior to Banks and HR, it was always assumed that altering behavior involved altering thought, which was assumed to be an active process. All approaches to psychology before HR share what can best be described as a “disease model”. This is at the core of ideas of intentionality – the idea that if you ‘change your thoughts, you change your life’. The idea is to unlearn unhealthy or self-limiting thought patterns and replace them with new thought patterns. It involves active effort and it rarely results in permanent change.

What Banks realized, and Pransky and Mills developed into HR, was that an active effort to alter thought is neither required, nor healthy. HR is working from a “health model”, which again cannot be grasped until someone begins to experience it. What Banks realized is that everyone on earth has a deep source of innate wisdom within them at all times, but most of us innocently obstruct it with our personal thinking over time, and we’re unaware we’ve even done so. All that is required to begin to understand is ‘noticing’ thought, shifting one’s inner focus experientially to seeing thought as thought, not focusing on the content of thought. If someone begins to actually do that, their mind naturally calms, and they begin to see their thoughts just sort of rising to the surface, like bubbles. Once someone sees that happening within, positive thoughts and feelings just naturally begin come to mind. It’s the very simplicity that many struggle with. What is so difficult to get across is that Banks’ ideas don’t need to be believed, or even understood intellectually, they only need to be experienced.

No one can understand it until they’ve actually done it. And once someone has, they discover it’s very difficult to explain to another because it needs to be grasped on the level that precedes the intellect. It’s not an understanding someone can ‘think their way to’; they need to see themselves as the ‘thinker’ instead.

In any case, I want to thank Michael again for drawing attention to Banks’ insights. Banks has literally changed thousands of lives for the better, and it’s quite possible someone else may come across this post someday and become one of them.

[Ross W]

Michael H says:
"All that is required to begin to understand is ‘noticing’ thought, shifting one’s inner focus experientially to seeing thought as thought, not focusing on the content of thought. If someone begins to actually do that, their mind naturally calms, and they begin to see their thoughts just sort of rising to the surface, like bubbles."

This sounds a lot like trying to empty the mind in order to meditate. But I'm not qualified to say. I don't think I can be like most people. While I wait for rising thoughts, I find only blankness and awareness. I have to consciously make an effort to have a thought (unless I'm reacting to something)!

[Michael H]

It's similar to meditation Ross, but it doesn't require meditation to see it. Banks is pointing to nothing more than our natural state of mind. It's everyone's birthright, there's nothing complicated to it at all.

As I've mentioned before, the depth of what he's saying is concealed by it's simplicity.

All I can suggest to anyone is that if it "seems like there's something there", spend a little time at his website, or read some of Judy Sedgeman's http://www.hsc.wvu.edu/wviih/resourcesAndPublications/reflectionsEssays.asp>essays at WVU and see if you can notice if you're carrying on an internal argument while taking in the material, which many do.

If it doesn't seem like there's anything there, then just forget about it. No one has a monopoly on truth, and Banks has never claimed otherwise.

[Hank]

From the description, it seems to be identical to what I have been practicing for several years, with great results. But I came to it from a different angle, the ancient Indian school of Advaita Vendanta. Or as it's called by its followers, Advaita, or in English, Non-duality.

[Michael Prescott]

As Michael H. says, I don't think it's about analyzing thoughts or their source in an intellectual way. It's about standing back and seeing the thoughts as thoughts, as nothing more than thoughts. That's why the idea of forms emerging from formlessness is interesting to me. I can visualize thoughts emerging from a calm sea like momentary ripples on the surface. Ripples come and go, but the underlying calmness and formlessness remain.

[Mark]

You know, I was thinking about something else. Even if I agreed that I could always make myself feel better just by thinking about it (which I don't), I'm not sure that would be a good thing to do. If someone puts a bullet in my friend's head, I'm going to be sad. There's a good reason for the sadness. Even if I could decide not to be sad, I don't know if I would want to. Maybe under certain circumstances it is better to feel pain. As Kirk said in Star Trek 5, "I need my pain." Maybe someday, when there is no longer any evil in the world, there will be no good reason to have painful thoughts, and they will all vanish. Until then, I would rather work on trying to eliminate all evil (and thus all good reason to have painful thoughts) rather than selfishly trying to change my own thoughts just to make myself feel better in the midst of a lot of evil that warrants painful thoughts.

[Art]

As Kirk said in Star Trek 5, "I need my pain." Maybe someday, when there is no longer any evil in the world, there will be no good reason to have painful thoughts, - Mark
-------------------------------------------

Everything happens for a reason, even the bad stuff. Physical pain imprints memory engrams on the "soul" of the parameters of the physical body. Like computer code, 0's and 1's. Both positive and negative. Even the smallest thing we do imprints on the soul what it's like to be inside or inhabit a body. Brushing your teeth, brushing your hair, scratching an itch, eating a hot pepper, paper cuts, stub your toe or hit your funny bone, arthritis pain, etc. The soul uses the body to learn what it needs to learn while it's in the physical universe. It comes from a place where nothing exists without it first being thought of so before it can create it's own reality it first has to learn what it means to even have a reality. Young girls who cut themselves with knives (cutters), self-flagellators in the middle ages, Malaysians who drive metal spikes through their cheeks, even those religious zealots in the Phillipines are under the control of the soul, directing the body so that it can be imprinted with what it means and how it feels to be inside a physical body. Everything happens for a reason. Even the bad stuff. Death of a loved one, divorce, losing friends. All teaching the soul what it means to be separate, unique, individual, something that may be difficult, if not impossible in the Spiritual Universe due to those overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness that so many near death experiencers talk about. The more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates. We exist in our physical bodies for just a little while, a blink of the eye compared to eternity, and then the soul sheds the body like a cocoon and merges back into the Implicate Spiritual Universe. The purpose of this life is to experience duality and separation, time and space, and imprint memories of what it was like to inhabit a body and exist in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universe. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience. Why we are here has everything to do with quantum physics and the holographic nature of the universe, and time and space not being quite real.

[Mark]

You might like this game, Art:

http://www.albartus.com/motas/

Be warned, it's pretty long, but you can quit and the next time you play just choose continue. The things happening in this game seem to suggest a lot of the same things that you post on these boards. I can't be totally sure what is going on in the game because I never got to the end of it (and I don't even know if the developer is finished with all of the areas in the game), but what I did play through seems like it could have been made by you. Keep an eye out for the book printed in 2050. That really seemed like it could have been made by you. In case you get stuck somewhere:

http://www.milwchat.com/Games/MOTAS-Walkthrough.php

[Michael Prescott]

The problem I have with your viewpoint, Art, is that if separation is what it's all about, then all the mystics and sages who have counseled us to pursue oneness were mistaken. I can see that separation is a necessary step in our journey on earth, but I'm not convinced it has to be the final step. Some people seem able to get beyond separation - to transcend it and achieve a state of unity with all things. To me this seems like a higher state of consciousness than separation, and one worth trying to attain.

[Art]

"then all the mystics and sages who have counseled us to pursue oneness were mistaken."
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Duality and separation are inherent and inescapable properties of the physical universe. From the moment we are born till the day we die (when our deaths become a lesson in separation for our loved ones we leave behind) life is a never ending experience in separation. Separation is the theme to most movies, books, plays, and the lyrics to most songs. When I asked my gay friend about Brokeback Mountain he told me it was about that thing I talk about all the time - separation. Most recently when Heathe Ledger died the whole world experienced separation at his passing. From the moment we are born and we come out of our mothers bodies and that umbilical cord is cut till the moment we die and our soul separates from the body life is about experiencing separation over and over again. Every time you pick a grape or tomato off a vine the soul experiences separation. Every time you get up during the night to use the restroom the soul experiences separation. Why? Because the feelings of oneness and connectedness in the Spiritual Universe are so overwhelming that it may be impossible to become a separate, unique, individual without first having spent at least some time in the Physical Universe. Even staring at a tree and seeing separate leaves on branches allows the soul to get some idea what separation means. Why? Because of the holographic nature of the Spiritual Universe. In a hologram nothing is separate from anything else. Everything is infinitely interconnected to everything. Each piece contains the whole. When near death experiencers say they literally felt like they were everywhere in the Universe at once they are making a comment on how "holographic" it felt. When NDE'ers make comments about the life review and say that they felt the feelings, thoughts, and emotions of the people they had interacted with in life that's a reference to the holographic nature of the experience. The life review is a holographic experience par excellance. 360 degree vision, having all knowledge, communicating telepathically, feelings of oneness and connectedness, time and space not existing, buildings made out of knowledge, thoughts becoming things or people are all reference to the holographic and quantum nature of the other side. We come here to experience time and space. Why? Because they don't exist on the other side and they have to be learned about here. Why? Because the other side is a place where thoughts become things and consciousness creates reality. The alternative is to exist in eternal nothingness and timelessness. The soul comes here to experience the physical universe so it can get a taste and feeling and what it means to exist in a place where time and space do exist and where separation exists. Our souls will use this information after they cross back over to create their own reality. Whatever kind of reality they care to conjure up. The only way to know a thing is to do a thing. There are a myriad of things in life that can only be understood by experiencing them. Making love can't be truly understood by just reading a book or watching a DVD of it. The only way to truly "know" what it feels like to make love to another person is to haver participated in it. The same is true of a myriad of other things in life. Eating an olive? How does one go about describing olivenss? The memories we are creating are being stored in some kind of strange and wonderful Akashic/holographic/collective unconsciousness somewhere and one day we will be able to retrieve those records and use them to create whatever kind of reality we care to experience. Whatever we focus our attention on is what we will be able to experience. Perhaps we won't even be limited to just the Earth, but every planet in the entire Universe or multi-verse. We will be able to share our memories and perhaps know what it was like to be a blue whale swimming in the antartic ocean or a dolphin in Hawaii or a Golden Eagle soaring through the Rocky Mountains. We are here to make memories, of what it was like to be alive and one day our souls will be able to retrieve those memories and know what it was like to be a myriad of different people and creatures throughout the entire Universe. - Art

[Art]

Duality and separation in this life, connectedness and oneness in the next. This is where we learn how to be individuals. Everything that makes us different, all the different labels we wear, teach the soul what it means and how it feels to be different so that after it crosses back over it can maintain it's own unique sense of self. - Art

"I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously." -excerpt from Mark Horton's NDE, http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html

excerpt from Randy Gehling's NDE:
"That was really cool! I kind of felt as though my body exploded - in a nice way - and became a million different atoms - and each single atom could think its own thoughts and have its own feelings. All at once I seemed to feel like I was a boy, a girl, a dog, a cat, a fish. Then I felt like I was an old man, an old woman - and then a little tiny baby." http://near-death.com/experiences/animals04.html

[Ross W]

Beautiful concepts, Art! I really like the idea of being able to occupy the body of a whale or a Golden Eagle for a while. I'll probably give the tapeworm a miss, though ;-)

[Ryan]

@Ross W
Not sure about the snarky comment about Hamlet needing a peak experience psychiatrist, but I will take it in good humour. ;-)

>we need a road map to show us how to change the way we think. Simple realisation itself is only the start.

Even if others here do not agree with Colin Wilson's take on Banks' ideas - maybe we can agree that the basic premise that 'thought profoundly affects who we are, how we behave, and how we see the world' (MP), hints towards a freedom to mould our life experience.

And if this is the case; if we have this freedom, then it seems mistaken to ask for a path to follow. There is lots of philosophy and literature out there offering suggestions. Perhaps it is better to make your own map.
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@Michael H
Just a couple of notes. Husserl's intentionality is nothing to do with new age thought. Although, maybe certain authors have pinched it. I don't know.

Whilst I don't doubt that you are more familiar with Banks' work than myself. I disagree that Colin Wilson offers only an intellectual (mis)understanding of Banks. Wilson is something of an intellectual mystic, and is very aware of the non-intellectual dimensions of the mind.

[Art]

Beautiful concepts, Art! I really like the idea of being able to occupy the body of a whale or a Golden Eagle for a while. I'll probably give the tapeworm a miss, though ;- Ross W
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"I remember understanding the others here.. as if the others here were a part of me too. As if all of it was just a vast expression of me. But it wasn't just me, it was .. gosh this is so hard to explain.. it was as if we were all the same. As if consciousness were like a huge being. The easiest way to explain it would be like all things are all different parts of the same body." - excerpt from Michelle Williams NDE, http://nderf.org/michelle_m's_nde.htm

As the tapeworm travels through the body it is imprinting memories of what it experiences. Like michelle M says in her near death experience, like consciousness is one being. Everything connected to everything else. Bacteria, protozoans, viruses, nematodes, Guinea worms, insects everything in the whole universe imprinting what it sees and experiences, and all this information is stored and retrieveable simply by focusing on it. All making a map and encoding information of their universe. Absolutely everything. Nothing is lost, all the information there like a gigantic library, available to be accessed and gathered together to be used and to create whatever kind of Universe one may care to create with it. Like a gigantic picture puzzle, and as each piece is added it becomes clearer and clearer. We are only a small part of the puzzle, but after we die we will experience the Universe for what it truly is, a gigantic splendidly detailed hologram. Nothing is lost, ever. While we are alive in this physical body we experience everything as being separate from everything else, but after our body dies the soul experiences the Universe the way it truly is, a gigantic spledidly detailed hologram. Like a beautiful matrix or mandala.

[Art]

if separation is what it's all about, then all the mystics and sages who have counseled us to pursue oneness were mistaken. - Michael Prescott
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"I was part of all that has occurred, and all that will occur. It was like I had no sense of self, that I was everything and everything was me, including God." - excerpt from Joann's NDE, http://www.nderf.org/joann_m's_nde.htm

After everyone crosses over they instantaneously become part of the whole universe and experience that sense of oneness and connectedness. Every once in a while in this life we experience brief glimpses of what that will be like but they are very brief and infrequent. Much more commoon and frequent while living in the physical universe are the myriad of lesson in duality and separation that everyone has to endure. Duality meaning such things as, politics, religion, race, culture, language, dialects, wealth, socio-economic status, gender, sexual orientation, color, height & weight, looks, down to the smallest parameters of our bodies, such as fingerprints and our irises being different. All this duality leading to separation to help imprint on the soul what it means to be separate and unique. Thousands, maybe millions of near death experiencers have made comments about how they felt this sense of oneness and connectedness on the other side. I remember one near death experiencers stating that we here in the physical universe can't begin to comprehend the powerful and overwhelming feeling of oneness and connectedness one feels in Heaven. Like a gigantic internet which everyone will be connected to and part of; knowing what everyone knows, being able to experience whatever part of the whole we want to, both time and space, simply by focusing our attention to it.

Karen D's NDE.
The only way I can describe it is feeling like I was part of the universe. I was in the light . I felt like I was part of the light." http://www.nderf.org/karen_d's_nde.htm

[Art]

This is a story written by a medical doctor. It's something that happened to him at a medical conference. I absolutely love this story and after you read it you'll understand why.

Riding the Dragon:
http://www.issc-taste.org/arc/dbo.cgi?set=expom&id=00070&ss=1

Taudo (pseudonym) has an MA in Cognitive (Experimental) Psychology and a D.O. in medicine, and is board certified in family practice. He has been an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and is now in private practice. His totally unexpected and unusual visionary experience took place when he was 30 years old in the most unlikely setting of a military briefing.

[Michael H]

>Michael Prescott wrote: Some people seem able to get beyond separation - to transcend it and achieve a state of unity with all things. To me this seems like a higher state of consciousness than separation, and one worth trying to attain.

I agree. It’s the idea of separation that is so difficult to overcome. What’s intriguing about Syd Banks is that what he is suggesting is that the common denominator between us is that we are all experiencing life through our thoughts. Once one sees that, they may someday discover the idea of separation is also nothing more than a thought.

I’m not saying that anyone who understands Banks will ultimately achieve full enlightenment or anything of the sort. I will say though, that when someone truly begins to see thought as the powerful agent it is within themselves, they can’t help but see it operating in others. Just authentically seeing that in yourself awakens feelings of humility and genuine compassion, and compassion is the first step towards unity. There are thousands of healed marriages that would testify to this.

>Ryan wrote: Husserl's intentionality is nothing to do with new age thought.

http://www.peterkingsley.org/home.cfm>Peter Kingsley has written that philosophy, which originally meant the love of wisdom, has been transformed to mean the love of arguing about wisdom. The mistake common to all philosophers is that they are certain that truth can be discovered through intellectual exploration. Kingsley has demonstrated that in order to discover truth, it is necessary to penetrate beyond the intellect itself.

>Ryan wrote: I disagree that Colin Wilson offers only an intellectual (mis)understanding of Banks. Wilson is something of an intellectual mystic, and is very aware of the non-intellectual dimensions of the mind.

I admire Colin Wilson, and my earlier comments were not intended to disparage him, Husserl or Ryan for sharing their ideas. I had come across Wilson’s references to Banks before, and it was clear that he had grasped the ideas intellectually, but not experientially. Wilson may eventually discover that the terms “intellectual” and “mystic” are not compatible.

As I’m writing this it occurs to me that it may be perceived as an attack on the intellect itself. It is nothing of the sort. However, as I look around the state of the world today, it is very clear to me that it is the unfettered intellect that creates our problems. We talk about it all the time on this blog, from the frustration with the ‘skeptics’, the issues about Darwinism, the Shakespeare debate, the tendency to cast work like Radin’s aside or the resistance to a Braude or a Stevenson. It’s the intellect that’s ultimately responsible for all of the blood shed over the centuries, from the horrific illustration of the Nazi’s in Michael’s earlier post this week, to the ongoing battles about the true nature of “God”. I posted a 2500 word http://www.dailygrail.com/node/5955>exploration at the Grail this week of what happens to cosmology when we allow the intellect free rein. The same thing has happened in physics with string theory.

Maybe the thing I admire the most about Sydney Banks is that he understands that it doesn’t have to be this way. He’s spent over 30 years attempting to show others how powerful thought truly is. He may be non-intellectual himself, but he understands that the intellect is invaluable when it is guided by our inner wisdom.

It is in the reawakening of that wisdom that hope exists. For that wisdom can lead not only to a sense of compassion, but to a deep humility and the restoration of a sense of wonder about existence itself. Genuine progress will come only from that sense of wonder. Syd Banks suggests a step in that direction, and on the deepest level he is fully consistent with the realists of other traditions. It was interesting that Hank had noticed consistency with Advaita, as Ramarshi once said, “The ultimate truth is so simple. It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. This is all that needs to be said.” MP’s analogy of thought as ripples on the surface of a lake intrigued me too, as I recall an interview at WIE with Eckart Tolle entitled “Ripples on the Surface of Being”.

As for Art’s insistence on NDE testimony, the holographic nature of existence and perpetual separation until one ‘crosses over’ as absolute truth, I can only suggest that all of these, as well as any other beliefs, will be viewed as truth only as long as one fails to see them as thoughts.

[Art]

As for Art’s insistence on NDE testimony, the holographic nature of existence and perpetual separation until one ‘crosses over’ as absolute truth, I can only suggest that all of these, as well as any other beliefs, will be viewed as truth only as long as one fails to see them as thoughts. - Michael H
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When you popped out of your mother, and the umbilical cord was first cut, you might think of it as a "thought" or you might see it as the start of a lesson plan which one is learning here in the Physical Universe. Separation is the theme to the lyrics of most songs, books, plays, and movies. It happens over and over and over again to us in life, people, places, and things. We eat and apple by biting it into separate pieces, chew them up, and then after it passes through the gut it separates from our body in a day or tow at the other end. The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it is imprinted holistically without any extra effort from us whatsoever. The soul learns what it supposed to learn regardless of whether we want it to or not. Cut a block of cheese into 1/2" cubes for a party and your soul has experienced a little lesson in separation as you've gone about your daily life. There is no separation in heaven so it has to experience it here so that it can become a separate, unique, individual. All the different labels we wear as we live our lives help the teach the soul what it means to be a separate, unique, individual so that after it crosses back over it can maintain it's own sense of self.

[Hope Rivers]

MP: "I can see that separation is a necessary step in our journey on earth, but I'm not convinced it has to be the final step. Some people seem able to get beyond separation - to transcend it and achieve a state of unity with all things. To me this seems like a higher state of consciousness than separation, and one worth trying to attain"

This is exactly what I believe, achieving oneness is it. We get to taste this in relationship, it's why we feel compelled to always have them, despite separations, losses etc. The drive to merge into oneness is ingrained in us from the beginning of time.

If we are all connected in a cosmic way, it makes sense that total separation and being alone would feel unnatural and therefore we do ourselves a disservice in staying in this state too long, in hinders our evolutionary process.

What you think Prescott?

[Kevin]

Reading through this thread thus far, I'm struck by how the simplicity of the notion of Idealism, in whatever form, can seem so surprising, especially to those of us who were born and raised in the West, where Materialism is so ubiquitous. The apparent "successes" of technology give us the false impression that Scientific Materialism MUST be the pathway to "Truth", and we can all too easily observe the embrace of that philosophy by science practitioners and consumers as being an integral part of the difficulty Idealism presents. Michael's intuition serves him (and us) well, as it seems to reinforce the notion that Thought is primary. Materialistic Dualism assumes that matter is the Primary Reality, and that Mind evolved from lifeforms. The views of Sydney Banks, however, echo the suggestions of observer-created reality seen in quantum physics, our oneness and unity indicated by non-locality, and the advent of Information Theory can give further advancement to the notion that Thought precedes the notion of matter/energy. As Amit Goswami puts it, matter is Mind manifested materially. This would seem also to be metalogical and metarational, as it must include emotion along with intellectualism. It would therefore appear to be correct to state that we cannot achieve complete realization (an interesting word) of this reality by excluding our feelings. That is, of course, a place which scientific reductionism cannot reach. We know the dangers involved with letting our emotions drive the car that is each individual life (are the tragedies of murders, suicides and abusive behaviors comparable to "road rage" here?), but in allowing the increasing complexity of physical life become complications, the words of Banks can be very helpful in making us Mindful of the simplicity at the core of existence.

[Ross W]

Art says, "There is no separation in heaven”

Your rather fulsome and magnificent visions of heaven must be on what Lee Bladon calls the "Causal plane" of the afterworld. From what he says, people need to build up their subtle bodies through thousands of incarnations before they can appreciate that. Only at that point, can they “objectively” understand the holographic reality and become an individual with enough experiences to retain their individuality in the collective sea of self-awareness. As most NDEs testify, the majority of people have only so far built themselves emotional and mental bodies – and the “separation” of the physical plane is necessary over much more than a single lifetime to allow the building to occur. You choose to cite NDEs of those who (I suspect, like yourself), are close to causal reality. I appreciate that this is the hopeful destiny of us all, but please don’t try to convince me that a dead tapeworm has already got there. ;-}

[Wax Frog]

"Back to reincarnation, are we? I think I could write a post about my favorite breakfast cereal*, and the comments would be about reincarnation ...

*Kellogg's Mini-Wheats" - MP

So what are you doing with all those Barbie sport watches? ;)

[Ross W]

Not so! I cannot think of a single thing about breakfast cereal or sport watches that has the slightest relevance to reincarnation. Sorry!

[The Major]

I've heard Richard Dawkin's next book is titled 'The Kellogg's Mini Wheats Delusion.'

[Art]

From what he says, people need to build up their subtle bodies through thousands of incarnations before they can appreciate that.... ...I appreciate that this is the hopeful destiny of us all, but please don’t try to convince me that a dead tapeworm has already got there. ;-} Ross
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I'm very sorry but I don't "believe" in reincarnation. I believe the evidence we have for it is real enough, I just think we misinterpret it. We've woven this tale around the evidence and it's possible that something else entirely is going on. As far as dead tapeworms, every creature imprints information on the Akashic records/collective unconscious/morphic fields/holographic universe as it goes about it's daily life. Consciousness has nothing to do with it. We exist inside the mind of God; we are God's dream. God's mind works holographically and so does ours. We are a hologram embedded in a hologram.

[Ross W]

Thank you, Art! I understand what you're saying. I like your posts. I think they're very inspiring.

[Art]

One can aspire to "oneness" all one wants but that won't prevent one's soul from experiencing separation. Duality and separation are inherent and inescapable properties of the physical universe. Every time you get up to go to the bathroom your soul experiences a little bit of separation. It's everywhere and in everything we do. When we move, when a loved one dies or during a divorce, when a friend moves away, when we eat food, we put up dishes out of the dishwasher, life is a daily and neverending lesson in separation for the soul. We here in the physical universe can't begin to comprehend the infinite and overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness in the Spiritual Universe, so much so that I believe it may be impossible for a soul to develop a sense of "self" or separateness without first spending at least some time in the physical universe.