From: nospam@example.net   
      
   On Sun, 21 Apr 2024, oldernow wrote:   
      
   > On 2024-04-20, D  wrote:   
   >   
   >>> ===================================================   
   >>> |  "There is no greater mystery than this, that   |   
   >>> |    we keep seeking reality though in fact we    |   
   >>> |  are reality. We think that there is something  |   
   >>> | hiding reality and that this must be destroyed  |   
   >>> | before reality is gained. How ridiculous! A day |   
   >>> | will dawn when you will laugh at all your past  |   
   >>> |  efforts. That which will be the day you laugh  |   
   >>> |             is also here and now."              |   
   >>> |                                                 |   
   >>> |                ~ Ramana Maharshi                |   
   >>> ===================================================   
   >>   
   >> True. It does cast religious seekers in quite a fun light   
   >> I'd say. =) On the other hand... man seems to be designed   
   >> to seek, to grasp, to expand, to never settle and always   
   >> expect something behinds the next turn. So realizing   
   >> that it was there all along goes extremely against human   
   >> nature I think, and that is probably why it is so extremely   
   >> difficult.   
   >   
   > Indeed. It literally makes us irrelevant, and our precious   
   > self-definitions no like-y that!   
   >   
   > Thing is, though, said notional selves were irrelevent   
   > from the very conception, and the "transcendence" we keep   
   > referring to on an off is merely seeing it in a way that   
   > obviates the seer....   
      
   Sometimes I have fun with theories of identities. You know the one that   
   says that we are all one? I try to imagine how that could be explained in   
   terms of material/scientific concepts.   
      
   I think my favourite is to imagine ourselves as consisting of the same raw   
   materials. We all come from the same source (big bang), and we all exist   
   in the same field of atoms. Every living and dead thing on the planet   
   exists, connected in the same field of atoms, ultimately separate by the   
   vacuum of space. So from that point of view, we could be seen as   
   "materially one".   
      
   Then we have consciousness. All consciousness is fueled by some kind of   
   electric activity in nerves. It could theoretically be argued that this   
   electric activity which fuels every living thing, is part of the same   
   chain of causation going back to the first spark.   
      
   So materially we are in fact "one" (from the point of view of a field of   
   atoms encompassing everything from the vacuum of space down to the earths   
   core) and in terms of the nervous system and consciousness, we share the   
   same causation, the same spark, from the beginning. The spark has just   
   settled in a multiplicity of hosts, but through the chain of cause and   
   effect, it is ultimately the same spark.   
      
   Well, enough mumbo-jumbo for now. ;)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)