Posted on 08/09/2005 5:17:08 PM PDT by beavus
If you write I will read.
Ah! I'll start off with the story of the frog in the well.
Good night, I'll be on it tomorrow.
The cat has it; the dog is faking
Ping me too (You just want some suspense don't you :)).
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Okay, some of you asked for it. This topic really needs a good sized essay; I'll just write a little something and see where it goes from there. I'll start off with the story of the frog in the well (we can call him Professor Frog for good measure.)
Professor Frog lived in a nice, dark, wet well, he'd spent his whole life there, as had his daddy and granddaddy frogs. He was happy, he know all about the well, it was his world. One day another frog hopped over to the well to see him, and told him about the ocean he had just seen. He told Professor Frog that there was a body of water so big, that it was much, much bigger than the well - couldn't even compare the two.
Professor Frog said: "Bigger than my well? Nothing could be bigger than my well."
Second frog: "Oh, so much bigger. Way bigger. Huge."
Prof. Frog: "Was it twice as big as my well?" (And as he imagined that vastness of a body of water twice as big as his well, his belly puffed up a little with air.)
Second frog: "Oh, it's so much bigger than that - it's WAY bigger than twice as big!"
Prof. Frog: "Okay, let me think about this. Was it THREE times as big as my well?" (And his stomach grew bigger as he puffed it out more, attempting to figure out the hugeness of the unseen body of water.)
Second frog: (Laughing) "Oh, Prof. Frog, it is so much bigger than three times your well - you can't even imagine."
Prof. Frog: "Then, it must be FOUR times as big as my well! Nothing could be bigger than that." (And with that immensity, he swelled so big that he popped.)
The moral of the story is varied. One moral is that if we take the limit of our own mind to be the standard of all that is knowable, we are a relative of Prof. Frog, who never even climbed out of his well to see the ocean. If we take our own limited knowledge as the limit of all that can be known, we are doomed to darkness. If we insist that our present vision is the only standard, we will never see beyond the limits of our own little well.
Another example is a person standing on the edge of the ocean at the beach can only see a few miles out to sea. His vision is very limited. So if he gets a few friends, say 20 or 40 people, and they all stand at the edge of the shore, can they see any farther? Heheheh. Nope. They can all see collectively only a few miles out.
So joint conferences and collective efforts by a large number of Professor Frogs do not further the advancement of understanding of a subject which is beyond the ken of each of them.
So that brings us to the point of how CAN one know the origin and limit of consciousness, and its purview? I'll get to that in my next installment.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
No, not trying to generate suspense!
I have a lot of other things always piling up and now I have a sore finger which makes it hard to type - grrr.
But Let's change Professor Frog's attitude just a tad so that he is very much aware he lives in a dark well. All he can do is fret about it and wonder how he got there and Just how does he get out?
You take it from there:-)
That's the next installment. Later today - for sure. Just got some other stuff I have to do first.
Peek at the ending - none of us have to stay in the well!
I disagree, not with your observation, but with your conclusion. What you are seeing is your child's growing ability to communicate his consciousness to you & others.
I like it. Let them leave the other name in place & after they figure out that it doesn't cover everything, they can retreat in humility to their next theory & use the name you've given it.
Take your basic teenager, the stage in life when they know everything. After a bit more input from life, they find out there are more things they don't know, than know.
Human rationalize their actions. All the other animals just do them. How's that for an answer?
I don't think so. The way it appeared to me is that when a baby it born, the part of their brain responsible for their visual system is not even fully hooked up yet. It was often clear that my newborn son was not seeing the same things in a scene that I was. Similarly it takes a long time before babies begin to grasp simple concepts. It's not true that a newborn baby has a fully developed mind that is only limited by a difficulty in communication.
However you define "consciousness", it is a property of the brain. If the entire brain is still developing, so is the consciousness.
READ LATER
Didn't know if you'd caught this or not.
Thanks. I had skipped it because I was busy elsewhere.
Second installment*:
Every living being is composed of three parts:
1. The eternal atma/self/soul, which is spiritual in essence. It is often compared to a spark of the fire, the fire being God, and the small spark being the soul. The spark exists only because of the fire, has the same qualities of eternity, knowledge, and blissfulness, but it is very small and has the tendency to lose its firey quality. The analogy isn't perfect, because sparks go out and become nothing, whereas the spiritual sparks called "souls" just temporarily "go out" and forget their spiritual/eternal nature.
2. The physical body which is the temporary vehicle or house for the soul/atma. The phsyical body is compared to a tent or house in the Bible, and as a chariot in the Vedas. The soul lives in it for a while, and the body shows life symptoms solely due to the presence of the soul, which is the source of life. The influence of the soul is spread throughout the body (Note this) AS CONSCIOUSNESS. IOW, consciousness is the energy emnating from the soul, as light comes from a candle or lightbulb. But those analogies aren't perfect either, as the light or candle can be extinguished. But you get the idea. The soul is described as always conscious, always existing, not breakable, can never be slain.
3. Here is they key third ingredient or constituent of the living being - the mind. It is considered a type of body, as it also covers the soul/atma. It is a subtle body, meaning it can't be seen with the eyes. It consists of thoughts, desires, feelings, memories, perceptions, and so on. It is also like a recorder, it keeps records of everything the senses perceive, and plays back at the right time (and sometimes at the wrong time). It seems to have a life of its own. It is not the soul but we identify with it as though it were our very self. It is not the self/soul or source of consciousness; think of it like this: If you hold up a candle behind a thin cloth, the cloth appears lit itself. But it is the candlelight that gives the cloth its illumination. It is NOT the self/soul. This can be understood by these statements, we've all said them or heard them:
"I just can't control my mind!" "I can't stop thinking about her, I wish I could." "My mind just won't work today." "I'm supposed to study but my mind won't concentrate." "I am so angry I can't control it." Etc etc.
One mistake scientists and thoughtful people often make is they mistake the mind for consciousness itself. The mind needs to be controlled by the intelligence - and I don't mean smarts like what is measureable by IQ tests. Intelligence means that function of the will that acts like reins on the mind. Here's an example - suppose the mind comes up with a desire (that's one of its main functions)- for instance, for chocolate cake with whipped cream on it. The mind dangles this in front of you, so to speak. You have the option of indulging in the cake - going to buy some, cook it, or you have the option of telling your mind - "No, not now, I'm trying to lose weight. Forget it." The intelligence is supposed to direct the mind - tell it where to go (often in no uncertain terms!)
The soul/atma who is entrapped in the mortal world, covered by the physical body and the mind, has, according to the Vedic understanding, four defects. There is no one in existence, except for saints who have overcome all earthly taint, who is free from these defects; but we all have them in varying degrees according to our type of conditioning (more on that in the next installment).
These defects are:
1. Imperfect senses. I think this needs no explanation. I can't see the back of my head, I need glasses and can never find them, can't see or know what is happening two miles away, etc.
2. Tendency to commit mistakes. No one alive can say that he or she has never committed a mistake or two. Some of us could write novels about our mistakes.
3. Cheating tendency. Who among us can say "I have NEVER lied"? Or tried to present ourselves in a different light than the truth? Or deceived ourselves? What to speak of outright scam artists.
4. Tendency to be in illusion. We've all been deceived, either by ourselves or others, have false understandings, false ideas, and the like. Think of those on DU!
Now here's the crux - if we all have those four defects, to one degree or another, how can anyone know the truth - the truths of God, the soul, and the soul's purpose?
Answer - compare the defects to an illness. Is health the natural condition of the body, and sickness the unnatural condition? Similarly, the covered, defective condition of consciousness is the unnatural state, so in order to rid ourselves of these 4 defects we need to regain our spiritual health.
This is a separate energy than matter (which I guess in scientific lingo would be the energy, mass and time as described above). Spiritual energy has different characteristics than matter, and that is why Prof. Frog cannot imagine the ocean. He can only imagine the well that he is familiar with. The soul/atma, although not material (IOW, not limited by time, space and mass), is covered by the physical body which includes the mind, and by identifying with the body and mind, is mistakenly limited.
This can be compared to the sun, which although shinining always in the sky, is often obscured to our vision due to cloud cover, night time, or fog.
To backtract to the soul/atma being the source of consciousness - the current pet scientific theory that the brain is the source of consciousness (and they didn't describe exactly what they mean by consciousness, btw) is not consistent with not only Vedic understanding, but doesn't make sense. There are reams of literature about out of body experiences (likely some of you reading this may have had one); I've read some accounts, and have had at least one myself. If I "am" the brain, I can't possibly exist away from it. And the idea that out of body experiences are phantasms created by the brain I won't even condescend to address. There is too much evidence to entertain it, it's just clutching at straws.
There are cases of people born with defects such that there is virtually no brain, just fluid. I've read about them. Sometimes they exhibit normal behavior and intelligence. Even without any recognizable brain. The brain is like a computer that the soul, using the mind and intelligence, works. Some of us have fast, expensive computers and some of us have old, junk, slow computers. Sometimes we get computer viruses! Similarly, the brain is used - as a filing cabinet, spelling list, calculator and so on. Haven't you had the sensation of "looking" through your brain for something?
Who is doing the looking?
Next installment: Processes of regaining spiritual health; to see beyond the well.
*(This is from the conclusion of the Vedas and related Vedic scriptures, but the information is not a sectarian teaching, but rather a universal philosophical approach to understanding what is the soul, what is God, and what is the universe in which we find ourselves. Take it as you wish, and apply in your own way.)
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