Two Selves

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

According to some spiritual philosophies initiated and corroborated by experiences of spiritual practitioners, yogis and mystics....we have two parts to our self.

One part is what we normally see as the conscious self that we identify as ourselves...the ego self. The other part is the inner self that remains hidden but guides and navigates our lives in subtle ways.

The first part focuses on the life here and now in the material world....while the inner self focuses on our inner development.   

The amount of influence and control that the inner self exercises on the ego self depends on ones level of spiritual development. All humans are not equal in spiritual development which is why we have Hitlers and Gandhis ....evil and saintly people....and lots of people at various levels in between. 

The idea is to develop over several reincarnations such that the inner self and the outer ego self merge and unite.

It is the inner self and its subtle influences that are often seen as a personal God and his guidance. Some philosophies identify the inner self itself as the Universal spirit while other philosophies treat them as separate.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Sebastian Toe]

The idea is to develop over several reincarnations such that the inner self and the outer ego self merge and unite.

How does that work in practice?

[Sriram]

How does that work in practice?

I don't know what you mean. If you are asking for detailed mechanisms, I have no idea.

[Sebastian Toe]

I don't know what you mean. If you are asking for detailed mechanisms, I have no idea.

Speculate, hypothesise then?

[Sriram]

I cannot speculate on mechanisms when the details are not known. I am not sure if we are even capable of understanding the mechanisms.

Secondly, I am not concerned about mechanisms at all.  Just as we eat and walk and talk and sleep without worrying about the mechanisms, so also I am more concerned about the experiencing of life rather than its mechanisms.

I am more concerned about the meaning and purpose of life.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I am more concerned about the meaning and purpose of life.

What makes you think that life has meaning and purpose?

[Sriram]

I believe there is a meaning and purpose to life and that is what our spiritual philosophies are all about.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I believe there is a meaning and purpose to life and that is what our spiritual philosophies are all about.

Yes, I know what you think – the question though was why you think it (aside that is perhaps from a heady dose of solipsistic wishful thinking).

[Sriram]

I cannot possibly explain that to you.  As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no! 

[Outrider]

I cannot possibly explain that to you.  As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no!

So no reason, then. A cause, certainly, but not reason, not a rationale, just 'a feeling'.

You'll appreciate, I'm sure, why your potentially hallucinatory sense of something is an insufficient basis for someone else to accept the proposition?

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I cannot possibly explain that to you.  As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no!

And that statement could be distinguished from that of someone who's entirely mistaken or delusional how would you say?

When you can't justify your claims even to yourself, you have no means to know whether you've actually "seen" something or just imagined it.

Try to remember this.

[Bramble]

I cannot possibly explain that to you.  As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no!

That's an interesting answer. Have you never even wondered, felt any curiosity about this? You must have noticed that not everyone sees things the same way you do. Have you always just assumed they are blind because they don't 'see it' like you? Perhaps they see something you miss and therefore don't feel the need to fill that absence with 'meaning and purpose'.

[Sriram]

We have discussed this several times. It is about ones experience. People who have not had the experience may doubt it and assume that it is this or that. That cannot be helped. This argument has been going on for centuries.

 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

We have discussed this several times. It is about ones experience. People who have not had the experience may doubt it and assume that it is this or that. That cannot be helped. This argument has been going on for centuries.

Try to understand something here: the narratives we create to explain our experiences need not be accurate.

We all have “experiences”, but to make sense of them we can only use the reason and evidence available to us to create persuasive stories to explain them. I might for example think I’ve experienced fairies dancing at the bottom of my garden, whereas someone else might conclude that it’s more likely an illusion caused by moonlight flickering through the reeds.

Your equivalent example is that you’ve managed to convince yourself that you have magic spectacles that permit you to see things that other people cannot see. That’s the narrative you find persuasive. Right off the bat though I can think of several alternative and known explanations for your experiences that could be more accurate than the story you’ve told yourself about them.

Does that necessarily mean that my fairies story and your seeing patterns, divining purpose etc stories are therefore wrong? No it doesn’t – what it does mean though is that more probable explanations are available to each of us. I accept the more probable explanations; you on the other hand reject them out of hand.     

Why?         

[Sriram]

Relax Blue...!  You are really getting frantic about this.

You have no way of knowing what I am talking about....so please stop trying to convince me that I am delusional and imagining things.

I am not trying to convince you about my experiences or to convert you into my way of thinking. So you don't have to panic. 

I am merely posting my thoughts for those who may be able to relate to it. You atheists are not the only members on the board you know!

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Relax Blue...!  You are really getting frantic about this.

There’s nothing remotely unrelaxed or frantic about calmly dismantling your efforts here.

You have no way of knowing what I am talking about....

Yes I have. What you’re talking about is experiences you’ve had, and to which you’ve then attached explanatory narratives you find persuasive. 

…so please stop trying to convince me that I am delusional and imagining things.

I’m not trying to convince you of anything – I’m just explaining to you why the explanatory narratives you attempt are poorly reasoned (or not reasoned at all).

I am not trying to convince you about my experiences or to convert you into my way of thinking.

No-one has suggested otherwise, though your poor reasoning comes freighted with a fairly unpleasant implication that in your head at least you have perception abilities somehow superior to those of the rest of us. 

So you don't have to panic.

No-one has panicked. 

I am merely posting my thoughts for those who may be able to relate to it.

And I’m merely dismantling those “thoughts” as logically false (and often arrogant to boot) when you do it.   

You atheists are not the only members on the board you know!

The reasoning that shows your thinking to be either absent or wrong has nothing to do with atheism. 

Just out of interest, did you understand a single word of the explanation I gave you for why you cannot just assume that the experiences you have and the narratives you reach for to explain them likely don’t align? 

[Sriram]

How can you possibly reason out on something for which you have no inputs what so ever?!

I have the inputs and I have reasoned it out quite well (to the extent possible)....thank you.

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

According to some spiritual philosophies initiated and corroborated by experiences of spiritual practitioners, yogis and mystics....we have two parts to our self.

One part is what we normally see as the conscious self that we identify as ourselves...the ego self. The other part is the inner self that remains hidden but guides and navigates our lives in subtle ways.

The first part focuses on the life here and now in the material world....while the inner self focuses on our inner development.   

The amount of influence and control that the inner self exercises on the ego self depends on ones level of spiritual development. All humans are not equal in spiritual development which is why we have Hitlers and Gandhis ....evil and saintly people....and lots of people at various levels in between. 

The idea is to develop over several reincarnations such that the inner self and the outer ego self merge and unite.

It is the inner self and its subtle influences that are often seen as a personal God and his guidance. Some philosophies identify the inner self itself as the Universal spirit while other philosophies treat them as separate.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers.

Sriram

Once the Inner Self is identified and brought closer...life changes remarkably. Priorities change and life becomes so much easier. A different world.

Nothing else is worth pursuing. 

[Outrider]

How can you possibly reason out on something for which you have no inputs what so ever?!

I have the inputs and I have reasoned it out quite well (to the extent possible)....thank you.

Your experiences are not an input, they are an output - you are presuming that your interpretation which produces the output gives you an accurate assessment of the input, but prior experimental evidence on human experience and the inconsistent response of people to, presumably, the same stimuli calls that into question.

O.

[Sriram]

Your experiences are not an input, they are an output - you are presuming that your interpretation which produces the output gives you an accurate assessment of the input, but prior experimental evidence on human experience and the inconsistent response of people to, presumably, the same stimuli calls that into question.

O.

The same old....it may not be what you think it is....argument. 

[Outrider]

The same old....it may not be what you think it is....argument. 

If you keep posting the same unsubstantiated assertions without changing the basis on which they've already been questioned, why would you expect different arguments? They were valid before, as is evidenced by your abject failure to address them yet again, and they're equally as valid now.

O.

[Sriram]

No...they are not valid because you have no basis on which you can comment or pass a judgement.   

Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination  is not a valid argument.  It is just an opinion which is neither here nor there.

[Nearly Sane]

No...they are not valid because you have no basis on which you can comment or pass a judgement.   

Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination  is not a valid argument.  It is just an opinion which is neither here nor there.

Right back at you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

How can you possibly reason out on something for which you have no inputs what so ever?!

Easily, because I do have the “inputs”. Those inputs are the (occasional) arguments you attempt to justify the explanatory narratives you claim for you experiences, which are always wrong. They’re wrong because they rely on various fallacies – albeit that you just ignore that problem when it’s shown to you.

Your mistake here is that you’re still assuming the experience and your explanation for it are the aligned, when they’re quite likely not. See if this helps: a while ago a friend of mine experienced awful chest pains in the night and so convinced himself that he’d had a heart attack. After a bunch of tests though he was told that in fact he’d had severe indigestion, and there was no heart abnormality at all.

What can you learn from this? You can learn that even though there was only one experience (ie chest pain) more robust reasoning and evidence than he initially reached for gave him a very different explanation for it. This is essentially what you do – you have experiences, and then apply lousy reasoning to obtain your explanations for them. More robust reasoning on the other hand tells us that your reasoning is wrong, so you have no worthwhile argument to support your explanatory claims – they’re just unqualified guesses.     

I have the inputs and I have reasoned it out quite well (to the extent possible)....thank you.

No you haven’t. You have experiences (as did my friend), but your reasoning to justify your explanations for them is appalling. Your problem though is that rather than address why it’s appalling when it’s explained to you you always run away. 

What does this say about you do you think?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

No...they are not valid because you have no basis on which you can comment or pass a judgement.

Yes he has. He can evaluate the arguments you attempt to justify the explanations you claim, and find them wanting.   

Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination  is not a valid argument.  It is just an opinion which is neither here nor there.

And that’s another fallacy – called a straw man. No-one here is “Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination” at all. What they’re actually doing is falsifying the arguments you attempt to justify the explanations you claim for you experiences.

Does that mean that those explanations are necessarily wring? No – after all, a stopped clock is right twice a day after all. What it does mean though is that you have no firm basis to think they’re right either.

Try to understand this.