quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:
Shasha, let me overanswer your concerns here by using your comments as a foil for some other things, too.

[/QB]

JB, yes, you do overanswer some things, but that's OK. I enjoy new learning and this theorizing has helped me to better articulate my experiences.

Many thanks!!

JB, what about the part about Jesus' personal self falling away with crucifixion in the Keating quote? That's the part I'm not buying as I don't think the resurrection narratives support this.

Yes, I think Keating would go along with the nuancing you did earlier. BR, I don't know; she doesn't think in philosophical categories and shows little interest in those kinds of distinctions. I do think you're making good distinctions, but I also think the text in question was problematic, not just in style, but in what it was actually suggesting. I guess we'll just have to disagree on that one.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] JB, what about the part about Jesus' personal self falling away with crucifixion in the Keating quote? That's the part I'm not buying as I don't think the resurrection narratives support this.

Yes, I think Keating would go along with the nuancing you did earlier. BR, I don't know; she doesn't think in philosophical categories and shows little interest in those kinds of distinctions. I do think you're making good distinctions, but I also think the text in question was problematic, not just in style, but in what it was actually suggesting. I guess we'll just have to disagree on that one. [/qb]

Theologians distinguish between primary and secondary objects of our beatific vision, and also between essential (subjective and objective) and accidental beatitudes. Keating is describing the essential beatitude, which is God alone, as our primary object, the Divine Essence seen by direct intuition. There are also secondary objects, comprised of all other things of interest to us, including all of the sacred mysteries we ponder now, including the communion of saints, all realities we will encounter as blessings accidental to beatitude: the fulfillment of natural aspirations and the company of Jesus (yes, with memory, understanding and will plus) and one another (yes, with memory, understanding and will plus) , with glorified resurrected bodies, as well as the company of angels and other persons, like those aliens the Vatican spoke of recently. Don't ask me what the plus is -- I threw that in for a cya.

I cannot be sure of what Keating was suggesting, of course, but I doubt he is unaware of these distinctions. His articles would have to be as long and as nuanced as the typical johnboysian post to fully explicate all this stuff? Many people don't want to go there with such distinctions and lengthy considerations and thus otherwise dwell in confusion. And I'm not saying BR is confused, just confusing!

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] I do think you're making good distinctions, but I also think the text in question was problematic, not just in style, but in what it was actually suggesting. I guess we'll just have to disagree on that one. [/qb]

If Keating is actually denying the conception of beatitude with the distinctions I have drawn, then he's in disagreement with us. I don't think you and I disagree. Perhaps he could hire me as his exegete, and publish my heavy concordance as a companion to his books and essays It is my hope that I have not otherwise been engaged in eisegesis .

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
[qb]What is that scripture about how he, Paul, continues to do battle with his flesh, that he actually HATES what he chooses at times? [/qb]

Thanks to search tools (and not to my memory!):

Romans 7:15

For that which I work, I understand not. For I do not that good which I will: but the evil which I hate, that I do.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] Believers who read people like BR and others who share their private revelations ought to remember all this and compare what they're hearing with the faith of the Church. If it comes down to making a choice between one or the other, there should be no contest. [/qb]

That is THE bottomline (and I am truly hoping we are approaching same).

In some cases, though, it is not a choice between church teaching and alternate interpretations that's being presented, but, rather, various aspects of a theological reality that are not really in competition, are only in apparent contradiction, which is to recognize that there are different types of paradox (veridical, falsidical, conditional, antinomial -- beyond our scope here).

Wow, JB, I'm having a hard time following the above as it pertains to my question about Keating's quote on Jesus losing his personal self (even deified self) with the crucifixion. This, it seems to me, is the nub. Maybe I'm just not getting what you say, so, here, again is the quote in question:

quote:

The death of Jesus on the cross was the death of his personal self, which in his case was a deified self. Christ's resurrection and ascension is his passage into the Ultimate Reality: the sacrifice and loss of his deified self to become one with the Godhead.

I referenced the resurrection narratives as evidence that Jesus still had a "personal self" in the sense that I understand the meaning of that term. Keating says he had no such thing, however, but with what evidence? And why does Jesus need to lose his "deified self" to "become one with the Godhead"? There's nothing about this in the Tradition, to my knowledge, and no philosophical/theological justification for it. In fact, the whole meaning of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension is to connect divinity and humanity through the Person of Jesus. What's left of his human nature if his "deified self" is lost along the way?

Now it just so happens that what Keating saying about Jesus here is exactly what BR is saying about her journey -- that no-self is the loss of personal self, then on we go on to resurrection, ascenscion, etc. without a self. Maybe your footnotes would help to clarify some of what Keating intends, but maybe the real reference is What is Self?.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] Wow, JB, I'm having a hard time following the above as it pertains to my question about Keating's quote on Jesus losing his personal self (even deified self) with the crucifixion. This, it seems to me, is the nub. Maybe I'm just not getting what you say, so, here, again is the quote in question:

quote:

The death of Jesus on the cross was the death of his personal self, which in his case was a deified self. Christ's resurrection and ascension is his passage into the Ultimate Reality: the sacrifice and loss of his deified self to become one with the Godhead.

I referenced the resurrection narratives as evidence that Jesus still had a "personal self" in the sense that I understand the meaning of that term. Keating says he had no such thing, however, but with what evidence? And why does Jesus need to lose his "deified self" to "become one with the Godhead"? There's nothing about this in the Tradition, to my knowledge, and no philosophical/theological justification for it. In fact, the whole meaning of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension is to connect divinity and humanity through the Person of Jesus. What's left of his human nature if his "deified self" is lost along the way?

Now it just so happens that what Keating saying about Jesus here is exactly what BR is saying about her journey -- that no-self is the loss of personal self, then on we go on to resurrection, ascenscion, etc. without a self. Maybe your footnotes would help to clarify some of what Keating intends, but maybe the real reference is What is Self?. [/qb]

For me, self must be identifiable as a person, that's why I referred to the old classical description of the rational soul by Augustine: memory, understanding & will.

This human memory, understanding and will is analogous to the Trinity. Some metaphysical approaches conceive of a disembodied soul (maybe two-dimensional) and some reject that idea as philosophically suspect. From what I think we know and don't know, it is best, in my view, to remain agnostic on this matter.

What seems obvious is that death terminates human life as we know it, to be clear, both our memory, understanding and will, as rational soul, as well as the rest of our body. Personal immortality is not a metaphysical necessity but our resurrection by God, whatever that entails, is a central element of our belief.

What is true, above, about us as humans, is also true about Jesus as a human. At death, His personal, human self was terminated, in a word, lost. After all, Jesus is true man. The notion of deified self, where Jesus is concerned, doesn't make sense. He was like us in all things but sin, ergo, not in need of deification or theosis; not to mention, He is also true God. Maybe, such a deified self is somehow related to how, as a human, He grew in age and grace, and the more human He became, the more He realized Himself? I dunno.

As true God, a person of the Trinity, we will experience, through direct intuition, as our primary object of beatific vision and essential beatitude, Jesus' essence as God, something to which I can confidently refer but not truly describe.

As true man, we will enjoy as a secondary object of beatific vision and an accidental beatitude, the company of Jesus, in His human nature, with that rational soul's faculties of memory, understanding and will, as a human person, as his self, resurrected by God.

God resurrected that man, Jesus, and I have reason to hope, therefore, he'll resurrect this man johnboy, who is human and a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, also joined to Jesus and others through eucharist, and who is still busy about theosis or deification.

Jesus has a human body, a resurrected body including a self (rational soul w/memory, understanding and will), a glorified body, a presence in the eucharist, a mystical body, a cosmic incarnational presence and is the 2nd Person of the Trinity. The human Jesus' self was sacrificed on the cross. His human existence was terminated, lost. This sacrifice, this death, this termination, this loss, was not final. On the third day ... you know the rest of the story, the Greatest Story Ever Told.

quote:

"Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?"

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24: 26-27

quote:

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Romans 6

Obviously, we can lose our self through death. God can resurrect it. He did Jesus. Without knowing the specific substances or modalities, or processes or events, of resurrection, even without human subjective immortality, which some would consider a dubious metaphysical proposition, we have every reason to believe that God can mediate to human persons our memory, understanding and will from His own ongoing life.

As for this:

quote:

Now it just so happens that what Keating saying about Jesus here is exactly what BR is saying about her journey -- that no-self is the loss of personal self, then on we go on to resurrection, ascenscion, etc. without a self.

I see Keating saying that we and Jesus lose this self. I don't hear him denying that we and Jesus get it back. I do hear him affirming that we and Jesus must also go beyond this self, Jesus, for His part, returning to His essence in the Godhead, the primary object of our beatific vision and our essential beatitude; we, for our part, becoming members of the Mystical Body; creation, for its part, the Cosmic Christ. Neither do I hear Keating denying that, as an accidental beatitude, we encounter Jesus' full resurrected humanity as one of the secondary objects of our beatific vision. I do hear Keating emphasizing the primary and essential and not addressing the secondary and accidental but don't find anything inherently wrong in that. That others are perhaps more concerned with that which is secondary and accidental is understandable, but that says more about others and nothing about Keating.

I think everyone is throwing around the term No-self too loosely. Now it has to do with physical death; next it has to do with advaita vedanta; then it has to do with mystical ecstasy; or else with self-forgetfulness; or it has to do with nondual realization or nondual perspective or nondual awareness or nondual enlightenment or temporary nondual phenomenal states or permanent nondual epistemic structures; and let's not forget, whatever it is that BR suggests it might also be.

I am repeating myself. I am ready to resolve to be content with being misunderstood due to my inartful expression. I have tried, however.

Anyone who's followed this thread, please consider Thomas Keating on the word Nondual .

Thanks,
jb

Nice going, JB. That's a good, straightforward statement of your beliefs and understanding. Thank you for sharing this with us.

Just a couple of points:

quote:

This human memory, understanding and will is analogous to the Trinity. Some metaphysical approaches conceive of a disembodied soul (maybe two-dimensional) and some reject that idea as philosophically suspect. From what I think we know and don't know, it is best, in my view, to remain agnostic on this matter.

I'm pretty sure that the Church does affirm that with death we are "disembodied souls" who may nonetheless begin to participate in the beatific vision. The view of the soul as spiritual also implies that it is immortal, and that its innate faculties remain intact. Death must surely "do a number" on how these faculties function, however, no doubt about that. Whatever the case, a "disembodied" soul is metaphysically deficient without its body, which it will receive with the resurrection on "the last day."

quote:

I see Keating saying that we and Jesus lose this self. I don't hear him denying that we and Jesus get it back. I do hear him affirming that we and Jesus must also go beyond this self, Jesus, for His part, returning to His essence in the Godhead.

One must assume that Keating, a knowledgeable Christian teacher, grants this. He does not, however, affirm that the human individual, Jesus, is alive and well in the Godhead - not in the passage we've been parsing, at least.

As for BR, she definitely seems to deny that the human Jesus dwells in the Godhead -- she did so when I asked her about the "Jesus" who appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, and she seems to insinuate as much in her statement that I object to in my opening post.

Of course, in all of this, words like self, consciousness, person, soul, identity and individual are thrown around loosely and carelessly -- as though they are all synonyms. Then there's the problem with the way terms like no-self are used to describe a variety of experiences, states, etc., as you noted. That's part of the confusion, no doubt, especially when terms are being used as experiential descriptors without grounding in a philosophical understanding of human nature.

quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:
[qb] Anyone who's followed this thread, please consider Thomas Keating on the word Nondual .

Thanks,
jb [/qb]

Right, that's very good. I wish he'd have said something like that in Rohr's magazine.

Another "oh well" . . .

Johnboy,

this has been my experience also. when i read BR words of no ego, no self, i hear her saying that there is no awareness, there's no one there who is having the experience, no memory, no thoughts, no emotions. I'm simply not clear what she is saying
and see that i will need to read her book on No-Self to see if there is any clarification there.

Thanks so much.

quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:
[qb]

I think everyone is throwing around the term No-self too loosely. Now it has to do with physical death; next it has to do with advaita vedanta; then it has to do with mystical ecstasy; or else with self-forgetfulness; or it has to do with nondual realization or nondual perspective or nondual awareness or nondual enlightenment or temporary nondual phenomenal states or permanent nondual epistemic structures; and let's not forget, whatever it is that BR suggests it might also be.

[/qb]

quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:
[qb] Anyone who's followed this thread[/qb]

I must admit, I got lost a while back. "Non-dualism" doesn't mean much to me, and I would have to do a lot of reading that I'm not willing to do just to be able to discuss the subject. In any case, B has repudiated the term, so it's relevant to our discussion only by its exclusion. But thanks for the link to the Fr. Keating video, though. He is very wise and always a joy to listen to.

yes, thank you SO MUCH, JB for the link to Fr.Keatings video. it was very helpful for me in thinking about the word NON-DUAL. i especially liked the comment about art, as i am a self taught artist and would like to explore the thinking/feeling/intuitive /spiritual value of art.( another thread perhaps?!) MUCH LOVE, rebecca

quote:

Originally posted by Derek:
[qb]

quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:
[qb] Anyone who's followed this thread[/qb]

I must admit, I got lost a while back. . . [/qb]

LOL. Well, JB and I were just making sure that the hard-core philosophical and theological implications were considered. I think we're pretty much done with that (or at least worn out) for now.

What's much more important, in many ways, is what people are actually hearing and understanding people like BR, Eckhart Tolle, etc. to be saying. When I hear what Rebecca, Ajoy and other say about how these writings affected them, that's important. I've felt that gloom as well, and journaled extensively to see what that was about. Turns out the message, in the afterlife, you will not exist as an individual, isn't really good news. And that's what I was hearing! It could well be that this is not what the intended message is, but when it's stated again and again in every which way and from every which angle, it's hard not to reach that conclusion. Misunderstandings of another's message are not always in the ear of the beholder.

Now, please, dear forum friends, do not feel compelled to engage in the exchanges JB and I have had if they do not speak to you. Your own perspectives and evaluations are welcomed, even if not backed by layers of philosophy-speak. I'm most interested in how your faith, hope and love are influenced by BR and writers with a similar message, and, of course (thread topic) on the exchange between BR and JA.

I've been following from a distance, so to speak. The Keating video has drawn me further in. Fascinating to see all the "spiritual hoi poloi" gathered in one room. The nearest thing to heaven on earth?? Maybe not. Still I'd like to see more of that conference. Do you have a link, jb? I don't actually read much stuff like BR or TK or any other of the spiritual celebs. Most of what I glean comes from these boards. So - eternally grateful!!

Fr Keatings remarks resonated with me, however. Words like intimacy, Presence etc resonate with me because they speak to my experience. JB talked a while back about the quieting of the emotional energy which fuels the ego bringing about spontaeous intellectual insight, even to the point of experiencing nondual, enlightenment states. I think this quieting allows also for the experience of those words - intimacy, Loving Presence, Divine Grace. This insight, offered through the quieting of the mind, in my own experience, never deviates from Christian orthodoxy, in that, while the heart and the soul respond to Presence, they also respond, in a very similar way, to the orthodox teaching of the church - the incarnation, Christ's personhood, his unity with the Father, our own redemption through the cross and our individuality reconciled and united with God in true love. Therefore the (joyous) experience of Divine Grace offered in practise of divine Presence is very much at one with the experience of Divine Grace (also joyous) offered in the understanding of orthodox teaching. All of which makes it harder for me to come to terms with someone like BR who's experience is so divergent; harder to go beyond the Grace, enlightenment(small 'e') offered to me in the context of my own walk. Which is perhaps the reason I probably won't ever read BR, or anyone like her.

I do love those celebrity sessions however. Is there a spiritual version of OK magazine or Hello magazine ?

quote:

Originally posted by Derek:
[qb]

quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:
[qb] Anyone who's followed this thread[/qb]

I must admit, I got lost a while back. "Non-dualism" doesn't mean much to me, and I would have to do a lot of reading that I'm not willing to do just to be able to discuss the subject. In any case, B has repudiated the term, so it's relevant to our discussion only by its exclusion. But thanks for the link to the Fr. Keating video, though. He is very wise and always a joy to listen to. [/qb]

While BR and others say her work has nothing to do with nondualism, many of us are not so sure. It remains an open question for me and many others.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] Just a couple of points:

quote:

This human memory, understanding and will is analogous to the Trinity. Some metaphysical approaches conceive of a disembodied soul (maybe two-dimensional) and some reject that idea as philosophically suspect. From what I think we know and don't know, it is best, in my view, to remain agnostic on this matter.

I'm pretty sure that the Church does affirm that with death we are "disembodied souls" who may nonetheless begin to participate in the beatific vision. The view of the soul as spiritual also implies that it is immortal, and that its innate faculties remain intact. Death must surely "do a number" on how these faculties function, however, no doubt about that. Whatever the case, a "disembodied" soul is metaphysically deficient without its body, which it will receive with the resurrection on "the last day." [/qb]

Using the language of an aristotelian thomistic metaphysic, you're right, there's a lot of explicit teaching and a clear tradition that the soul is immortal. Of course, the concept of soul is metaphysical and therefore not an inherently theological reality. And our articulations and interpretations of theological realities are not restricted to any given philosophical or metaphysical system. For our purposes, it is sufficient to note, as you did, the metaphysical deficiency of a disembodied soul.

Perhaps on another thread some day, we can explore some of the modern dialogue regarding death and resurrection from different philosophical perspectives. While I emphasize the primacy of philosophical methods over systems, and am otherwise pretty much a metaphysical agnostic except for being a panentheist, my leanings, as you know, are toward folks like Peirce and Scotus and Kung, and also toward a naturalistic (maybe even physicalistic) conception of mind or self or soul, albeit nonreductive. This is, to me, a truly fascinating area of study and has practical implications for developmental psychology, moral theology, formative spirituality, theological anthropology and so on.

To the point of our current consideration, the practical upshot of my inclinations are toward the view that this self we have been speaking of in terms of faculties, or consciousness, all roughly analogous to a rational soul, indeed, terminates at death. Now, of course, this remains an open question for a whole lot of reasons related to philosophy of mind type issues. If one stipulates to this view, though, a whole bunch of interesting considerations come cascading down regarding, for example, the communion of saints, purgatory, Jesus' descent into hell, the "timing" of His and our resurrections, what happened to Jesus "self" on the cross, and on and on. It certainly has implications for East-West contemplative dialogue.

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen:
[qb] Do you have a link, jb? I don't actually read much stuff like BR or TK or any other of the spiritual celebs. Most of what I glean comes from these boards. So - eternally grateful!![/qb]

That conference video came from here. Take the wheat. Leave the chaff.

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen:
[qb]Fr Keatings remarks resonated with me, however. Words like intimacy, Presence etc resonate with me because they speak to my experience. JB talked a while back about the quieting of the emotional energy which fuels the ego bringing about spontaeous intellectual insight, even to the point of experiencing nondual, enlightenment states. I think this quieting allows also for the experience of those words - intimacy, Loving Presence, Divine Grace. [/qb]

This brings up an interesting consideration. And it is dry and philosophical, I know.

But, to the extent we can formulate some rather compelling, although not wholly empirically obervable and fully rationally conclusive arguments for the Reality of God, Whom most seem to believe in either through formation or even spontaneously via common sense reflection and intuition, it has always seemed that the most robust God description we could come by from natural philosophical musings was the God of Deism, the Creator Who wound the clock of the cosmos and then left it to ticking, otherwise uninvolved.

And it is helpful to have those philosophical arguments to demonstrate the reasonableness of faith.

I have always wondered whether or not one could, through philosophical argument alone, come up with an equally compelling argument that would argue for a caring and involved God, that would argue for a universe that was, ultimately, friendly. For it seems that a friendly cosmos and a caring and involved God is something one can only come to via special revelation and not just natural revelation, for as beautiful and good as life can be, it is otherwise ambiguous in these regards, leaving us, then, ambivalent, alternately in awe and in fear.

So, full circle back to your recognition, Stephen, about this quieting of the discursive mind leading you into precisely this type of intimacy of which Fr Keating was speaking:

I saw a lot of heads of a lot of gurus in that room and they seemed to be nodding in agreement with Keating and I wonder, without the formation that comes from special revelation, how is it that they can agree that ultimate reality is concerned and caring and desiring of intimacy? How do they get to a relational spirituality without special revelation?

The medieval philosophers like Scotus and Aquinas and Bonaventure often went round and round about what we could know from special revelation, alone, and what could be known only from natural revelation or natural philosophical argument. Scotus did not believe that we could know from natural philosophy, for example, whether or not the soul was immortal. The other fellows argued about whether or not we could know whether the universe was eternal or not except via special revelation.

I wonder, then, about natural mysticism and its contact with the ground of being. Often, folks come away from such nondual experiences or realizations freed of existential angst, apparently with a Julian of Norwich-like affirmation of all being well, all manner of things being well.

I suppose the question is, then, whether or not such an experience can be translated into a philosophical argument with ontological implications. And I'm guessing it can because, while not all Buddhists interpret their experiences with ontological categories, focusing more on the raw awareness and the experience in and of itself, many were fine philosophers. I have often felt from a Scotistic-Franciscan perspective, stripped of its explicitly theological overtones, that I could fashion an argument for more than a deistic God, but I haven't gotten there because it is so hard to jump outside my own theistic system, to bracket it, in order to do natural philosophy. This is one way the East and West can gift each other. Together, maybe we can fashion a compelling argument for a caring and involved and intimate ultimate reality, for a ground that is personal and relational. I suspect what we'll get is a good argument but one that is not as universally compelling as the classical arguments. Thankfully, we have stories and koans and theological virtues, and traditions and practices, that do not depend on reason, alone, which can otherwise be so sterile.

Thanks for letting me use your comment as a take off point, albeit not wholly related.

Shasha & Phil

Thanks for your generous sharing of your experience Shasha & how your relating to what BR is expressing. I can relate to what you are expressing on various levels. And yes there was an awarenes that was experiencing all this.

Which leads to the question for me if this is not the ego and not the self,& one does not experience
an awareness of God who is it that is having the experience. It sounds like BR may be saying
this is Christ?? Would this be accurate Phil?

Your point is very well taken Shasha about what is
the significance of these experiences to your
journey. The only experience that has seemed really significant in my journey was when entering a darkness while in relationship with God.

Thanks a bunch

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
[/qb]

On a silent retreat a few years ago at the Abbey of Gethsemani, I did experience what seems exactly like B.'s description of the VOID.

I was simply surrendering my life to Christ that weekend, nothing unusual going on...I laid my body down on the bed, closed my eyes, and I was suddenly dropped into the void. Words are impossible to describe. I experienced a total black, vast, endless abyss...there was no me, no other, no God...my body was hallowed out, as though I disappeared. It was quite terrifying in a way you could never know fear except in the face of total emptiness.

I don't know how it is possible to be *aware* of non-existence (paradox!), but there it was, no other way to say it.

Shasha [/QB][/QUOTE]

quote:

Originally posted by Ajoy:
[qb]... this has been my experience also. when i read BR words of no ego, no self, i hear her saying that there is no awareness, there's no one there who is having the experience, no memory, no thoughts, no emotions. I'm simply not clear what she is saying and see that i will need to read her book on No-Self to see if there is any clarification there ... [/qb]

I am not being silly here.

What those words describe to me, in the plainest of terms, is death.

Let's consider, though, stipulating to my putative position that death terminates the self --- the memory, understanding and will.

Remaining metaphysically vague (neither thomistic, process nor relational, for example), but theologically true to our belief in the resurrection, we would hold THAT God will mediate those faculties to the human person at resurrection, whenever that occurs (whether immediately or after three days or, otherwise, in eternal but not temporal terms) although we wouldn't know HOW. And this implies, for example, that our self --- our memory, understanding & will ---, our consciousness, is objectively re-membered by God, Who has, analogically speaking, a Divine Memory.

Until resurrection, then, our self would enjoy no subjective reality but would be an objective reality to God, analogically speaking of course. This is in distinction from those metaphysical theories that speak of an "intermediate state" or those that employ astral bodies or disembodied souls or what have you.

Now, join me for a crazy thought experiement. What would it be like to remain physically alive, with sensations and perceptions, abstractions and judgments, but no memory, no emotions, no robustly discursive thoughts, no ordinary consciousness, just direct intuitions or apprehensions? What if one's ordinary consciousness, as such, was no longer subjectively available but only objectively real to God, as after death (in certain schemas)?

And this might be to ask what if God was not mediating those faculties to this living person in the same way He may or not mediate them to any dead person, for however long, for whatever reason? This would be like getting annhilated without dying? Nothing one would want to live through. (And I think BR has said she wouldn't wish it on anyone). After awhile, the experience might be better accomodated by the "victim?"

I'm not trying to advance a metaphysical argument or make any particular point. I am trying to lead and be led into an experience, or, at least, a shadow of such an experience, a vague grasp of such an experience. And I'm rying to place it in a context with somewhat recognizable categories.

This is, then, mostly an affective musing on the loss of affect. At least as I have tried to "go there" imaginatively, it seemed to have something of a counterpart to my experience of loss of affective ego.

From JB: . . . Now, join me for a crazy thought experiement. . .

Right, that's all what she says.

Only . . .
- can one really be said to have died while continuing to live in the same body (everyone look up the definition of "death," please).
- if there are other reasonable explanations for the phenomenon (a la Arraj), then wouldn't Occam's Razor urge that priority be given to those?

Besides, I'm not at all agreeing with your view that death terminates memory, understanding and will. (Sidenote, here, BR realizes that these go on even during what she calls "death/no-self," only that they are "blown open," as it were; one could say they no longer converge on self-concept as a possible explanation that rings true to my own experience, here.) There are a number of Church teachings that presuppose the persistence of the soul beyond death:
- Jesus' teaching the souls of the dead in Sheol;
- Purgatory
- the Particular Judgment
Some of these teachings are dogmas, one is even in the Creed -- all long before the rediscovery of Aristotle and the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, Scholasticism, etc. I think we have a situation, here, where Revelation and theology illuminate philosophy. Of course, one can speculate, and some love to do so. . .

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] From JB: . . . Now, join me for a crazy thought experiement. . .

Right, that's all what she says.

Only . . .
- can one really be said to have died while continuing to live in the same body (everyone look up the definition of "death," please).
- if there are other reasonable explanations for the phenomenon (a la Arraj), then wouldn't Occam's Razor urge that priority be given to those?[/qb]

At this point, I am just trying to enter into her experience affectively. So, I am pleased that you have validated that, at least as being consonant with what you think she is saying.

As for everything you wrote, in the excerpt above, after Only ... there are a host of epistemic criteria that would urge other explanations.

In looking at what she has said more closely, I also see that she conflates our affective life, she says "system," with the faculty of the soul we call the will, which she also calls personal energy. This is not how I conceive the human will as distinguished from feelings, for example.

For one thing, these faculties --- memory, understanding and will --- each presupposes the other in a unified triad we know as the mind. They are not three ways of being conscious but, integrally, are three aspects (actitivities) operational in every singular conscious activity. It is analogous to Peirce's triadic semiotic of abductive, inductive and deductive inference; alone, each is meaningless. It is only in relationship with the other aspects of the triad that each inferential form is meaningful. This is true, also, in modal ontology, which is a trialectical interplay between possibility, actuality and necessity (or probability). Each of these modal capacities, by definition, presupposes the others. Because, in the end, memory, understanding and will, are faculties oriented toward the Trinity and elevated by the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, these faculties and virtues are also integrally related and each presupposes the others.

I'm not offering a fatal critique, but am suggesting that there are problems here that will cause me to dig deeper.

I've tried to resist this thread, mostly so JB doesn't get the errant impression his philosophical musings have the power to raise the dead. But this has been a good discussion for me to follow. And I'm posting to share what I've seen over the years of doing hospice work. While none of it resolves the residual anxiety related to these haunting notions of self annihilation, there are some fairly strong tendencies that one could consider themes transcending cultural and religious boundaries. And so JB would probably consider this bordering on the epistemic, at least by the dying patient's self report, rather than revelations of theology near post-mortem. So there is some unpleasant truth in the saying �You gotta die to find out.�

If self annihilation were a true feature of the dying process, then those awakenings to the Eternal Presence would either have to be like what JB describes (God sheltering the soul until the general resurrection), or a cleverly wired Darwinian trick easing us into nothingness. Either one of these limits our ability to penetrate that mystery. We end up being protected from the truth as well.

Yet what is quite profound and common among the dying is the growing radiance before, during and after clinical death; it permeates the room, and one's own awareness, stilling the mind and opening the heart just as God does during infused contemplation (although family members tend to avoid it as it increases the openness to grief). Darwin isn't capable of this trick, so we're left with God throwing up a curtain of comfort for the grief of those left behind who cannot see, or tolerate, the temporary annihilation taking place. I can live, and probably die, with that scenario (as though there were a choice!).

However the dying may need this spiritual analgesia, they certainly don't commonly suggest it. Seeing deceased loved ones, talking to them for weeks or even months prior to death, knowing these souls are helping them prepare: full blow conversations with all the trappings: arguments, reasoning, bargaining, tears, joy, unspeakable locutions like the saints. No doubt there is fear of death. Dying is laboring to live and surrender at the same time. Yet there are many moments of sheer readiness, where a goodbye is said and comfort and hope given by the dying to loved ones. And, there is the occasional story of a dying person seeing a deceased friend or relative nobody else knew had died (like a family member who died hours or a day before, but the news hadn't reached the family yet).

So there is fear of what awaits, but that seems mostly early on, before dreaming deepens into nearing death awareness. Then, once nearing death awareness appears with more constancy, there is less fear and more obvious sadness: the time is inevitable and drawing near. And perhaps most telling regarding the nature of the faculties during death are the patients who wait for days until a loved one arrives to say goodbye, and then depart right at that moment of closure. If that doesn't suggest the preservation of memory and will, I'm not sure what can. But then the veil remains, even in this description.

Here's a recent email to Phil:

Phil:
�
I've never seen among the dying what one would expect if BR's notion were true re: the dissolution of the personal sensibility, which seems tantamount to personality itself. Most Alzheimer's patients show strong signs of their personalities enduring, and can even experience the re-vivification of their lucid self-other sense (with intact memories, ability to orient, speak coherently, etc)toward the very end of bodily life - seemingly as the soul is readied for release into beckoning Grace, ie, angels, recognized deceased loved ones all usually reported by the dying who are still verbal- not at all the traditional Buddhist description of consciousness merging/dissolving into non-dual presence. Even the person dying who is non-verbal, or deeply withdrawn, will occasionally reach upwards to embrace an unseen presence.�And�Buddhists have to deal with this trans-cultural feature of nearing death awareness, positing disincarnate beings as projections of the dying person's mind.

And so the Alzheimer patient recovering these faculties suggests they are of the soul, not primarily bodily-dependent functions.

What seems most poignant in this is the heart's role in dilating�in response to�that growing transcendental presence. And this may be where the deeper self is secured beyond whatever dissolution of sense perception occurs�during death, or for that matter�during enlightenment experiences as recorded by BR and Suzanne Segal, or Eckhart Tolle for that matter. When you read or listen to these folks,�their personalities are unique, vivid, and seem to be a source of pleasure for them as co-extensive to the wonder they are experiencing. At no point does the personality seem accidental to the enlightenment state. And as love always implies a giver and a receiver, the NDEs are not surprisingly characterized in this way. Therefore one can also wonder about the increasing role of conscience within the dilating heart during the dying process.

I'd point out further that many NDE's and nearing death reports seem to support the notion of a glorified body given or generated upon death. In my own contacts with my deceased relatives, they all appear as beautifully bodied: very much themselves, with varying degrees of increased wisdom and lovingness not seen while on earth. This increase in wisdom and lovingness seems to be involved in what transforms their bodies, or how it is embodied; perhaps it includes the residual subtle body from earth maintaining the memory of its physical experiences and form, and further preserved and transformed by God's love. Yet their bodies appear as physical as they are radiant. But as for rationality, will, memory, etc . . . none of these seem to fade, but are transformed and illuminated within this increase of lovingness and wisdom. That's what I'm left with as I'm blessed with these dreams/visitations for consolation. And scripture seems to weigh-in on these issues with similar descriptions. So if memory and will were extinguished at death, one would further have to question the appearance of these faculties in the dis-incarnate as they are reported to communicate in such ways with the dying.

quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:

Now, join me for a crazy thought experiement. What would it be like to remain physically alive, with sensations and perceptions, abstractions and judgments, but no memory, no emotions, no robustly discursive thoughts, no ordinary consciousness, just direct intuitions or apprehensions? What if one's ordinary consciousness, as such, was no longer subjectively available but only objectively real to God, as after death (in certain schemas)?

And this might be to ask what if God was not mediating those faculties to this living person in the same way He may or not mediate them to any dead person, for however long, for whatever reason? This would be like getting annhilated without dying? Nothing one would want to live through. (And I think BR has said she wouldn't wish it on anyone). After awhile, the experience might be better accomodated by the "victim?"

[/QB]

Without memory & emotions how would one know they were unhappy or happy. Seems that life would
just be.