"When I fail in my duty, I readily acknowledge it, saying, I am used to do so. I shall never do otherwise if I am left to myself. If I fail not, then I give God thanks acknowledging that it comes from Him" — PTPG

I understand and can relate to that but isn't it having it both ways. If both the failure and success in one's duty is acceptable then, as some would say, anything goes, right?

I don't believe you have discovered for yourself that suffering pushes you towards God. — unenlightened

Pew Research

One theory is that people naturally become more religious as they age (more suffering) and approach their own mortality.

Just so you know, I'm very drawn to mysticism and the like and, to my regret, it's been extremely unproductive. That said, it wasn't like I put my back into it so I can't say with full conviction that all mystical ventures, without exception, are hopeless dead ends in and of themselves.

My relationship with the mystical was so long ago that I can't even recall a single experience that left me wanting more as I suppose I did. Perhaps that's what it's all about, eh? The title "The cloud of unknowing" gives off a sense of the mind-emptiness you mentioned earlier and that explains my inability to recollect my mystical mind-states.

I am drawn to mystical ideas. I think it could be productive for creating fantastic art and literature.
I love the art of Alex Grey and in a many respects William Blake and Y B Yeats were mystics.

Perhaps I am an idle dreamer, and I am not exactly the most successful worldly person, but I do believe that the mystic and visionary perspectives should not be lost in the increasingly drudgery of materialism. I think mysticism is a the atrophied tail of philosophy.

I think mysticism is a the atrophied tail of philosophy. — Jack Cummins

Nice!

Care to share? Your experiences?

I think I remember something now. Even back then, when I was teenager-20's, I was especially drawn to what I can only describe as the brick wall - the wall that you walk/run into and get knocked out cold. That sudden analysis paralysis, the state of utter confusion, the incomprehensibility, the befuddlement of it all, that's what attracted me to mysticism.

These days it's the exact opposite. I dread and loathe confusion of any sort and get all worked up when I can't wrap my head around something I'm working on. I miss the old days when I enjoyed being confused :sad:

↪Ciceronianus the White The handy glossary with the link offered above gives the meaning "Ronner - A gossip or tale-bearer." — unenlightened

I found something defining it as a verb--to mumble or grumble.

I think there are matters that can only be poorly expressed or communicated through language, except in the case of certain poetry. Some things must be shown, or felt, or evoked. That's a misfortune. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why initiates in the ancient mysteries such as the Eleusinian mysteries didn't reveal what they felt and understood to the uninitiated--they couldn't, not really. And yet Plato and others (e.g. Cicero) thought they taught us to want to live nobly.

I think that I may have replied to you in another thread, saying about premonitions, but that was why I wrote the Towee of Babel thread even if it was an off beat metaphor.

I have experienced a lot of premonitions and synchronisities and not all are bad. But all in all, I do feel that I access higher states of consciousness at times, even by psychedelic music that many would hate.

I am not the most conventional and could even be deemed as taking part in what Rudolph Otto classed as profane as opposed to sacred mysticism. I do look to shamanic possibilities and have found meaningful in the writings of Carlos Castenada, even if the factual basis is open to question.

I love the writings of the transpersonal psychologists. I will probably never make it in the world of philosophy, even on this site, but I am an explorer of consciousness and its expansion and I deem this to be part of philosophy but I am sure that others may see this as futile and beyond the scope of the philosophers but I beg to differ.

I come at this with the expertise of a non-practitioner and mere observer and comparer of texts and traditions - expecting this to be mainly an exercise in futility. — unenlightened

I am also a non-practitioner of Buddhist Meditation. But I think the practice of present-mindedness is a good thing, especially for those who are not normally inclined to introspection. Here's some links to a couple of recent converts --- not to Buddhism, but to methodical Introspection. They found feckless meditation to be practical and useful. :smile:


Buddhist Critic : https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/a-buddhism-critic-goes-on-a-silent-buddhist-retreat/

Why Buddhism is Enlightening : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page51.html

I am an explorer of consciousness — Jack Cummins

That's all I need to hear. Good luck! Explorer!

Not finding my manner of life described in books, although I have no problem with that, yet, for reassurance, I would appreciate your thoughts about it. — PTPG2nd letter

I likewise bring my thoughts to you, and appreciate your thoughts - most of them. There is a danger in the solitary life of entering a fugue of self aggrandisement and thinking one is achieving something.

For the first years, I commonly employed myself during the time set apart for devotion with thoughts of death, judgment, hell, heaven, and my sins. Thus I continued some years applying my mind carefully the rest of the day, and even in the midst of my work, to the presence of God, whom I considered always as with me, often as in my heart.

At length I began to do the same thing during my set time of prayer, which gave me joy and consolation. This practice produced in me so high an esteem for God that faith alone was enough to assure me.

Such was my beginning. Yet I must tell you that for the first ten years I suffered a great deal. During this time I fell often, and rose again presently. It seemed to me that all creatures, reason, and God Himself were against me and faith alone for me.

The apprehension that I was not devoted to God as I wished to be, my past sins always present to my mind, and the great unmerited favors which God did me, were the source of my sufferings and feelings of unworthiness. I was sometimes troubled with thoughts that to believe I had received such favors was an effect of my imagination, which pretended to be so soon where others arrived with great difficulty. At other times I believed that it was a willful delusion and that there really was no hope for me.

Finally, I considered the prospect of spending the rest of my days in these troubles. I discovered this did not diminish the trust I had in God at all. In fact, it only served to increase my faith. It then seemed that, all at once, I found myself changed. My soul, which, until that time was in trouble, felt a profound inward peace, as if she were in her center and place of rest.

Ten years of a daily discipline of negative thought. According to Krishnamurti, (I hope he will forgive me for mangling his teachings a little) the self is a centre of thought produced by a process of identification that becomes "sacred"- the all important centre around which all thought (and hence all life) is organised. And this self-identity is the source of all the mischief and all the unnecessary suffering of the world.

So one can see in the case of Brother Lawrence, how the notion of God functions in the mind of the ascetic to displace the self as the centre of life. It is particularly important that the self realises that it can do nothing to 'save' or extinguish, or transform itself. The thinker is a central thought that is sustained by a continuous circular consideration of itself, and every action (thought) of the thinker necessarily sustains and continues it.

Finally, the brother reaches the point where he is more than content to spend his whole life in the process without reaching an end, and that is the necessary condition for the ending of the self. Enlightenment can be obtained, but you or I (as centres of thought) cannot possibly attain it.

Yes. Krishnamurti at least, rejects authority, including his own, in favour of a scientific approach — unenlightened

Yes, he was very explicit about that. However, he was the one sitting on stage, and he spoke in a quite authoritative manner. The message was undermined a bit by the presentation. Some people got confused by his regal bearing.

It might have helped if JK had sprinkled his serious thoughtful talks with the occasional ridiculous fart joke. Some folks appear to have needed the authority bubble they were constructing to be punctured in a decisive manner. That said JK was in a sense a businessman, in that he made his living as a speaker/writer/philosopher. Fart jokes wouldn't be helpful to such business agendas.

Fart jokes wouldn't be helpful to such business agendas. — Hippyhead

Jokes go a long way in the business agenda. Ask the author of "Up your bottom line".

And this self-identity is the source of all the mischief and all the unnecessary suffering of the world. — unenlightened

In my view, the self identity is a product of the real bottom line source, the medium which the self identity is made of. As evidence, this self identity is generated in every person ever born, pointing to a source which is more fundamental than culture.

Many approaches, including JK's, attempt to address the self identity at the level of the content of thought, by editing our ideas about self identity. We should detach, we should observe, it means this it means that, it's good, it's bad etc.

But what happens? Typically all that happens by this process is that the person's self identity changes from something like "I am a smart person" or "I am a sad person" to something like "I am a holy person". Some see "holy" as being a more appealing identity than smart or sad, so such a process can be popular.

What's happening here is that the true source, thought itself, is re-generating the self identity to match whatever forms are suggested by one's chosen culture. So if I choose to be a JK reader, thought says, "Ok, we will rebrand you as a supposedly insightful person". If I like that image I keep reading JK. If I prefer some other self image, I read something else.

The reason that this circus goes endlessly on and on is that the real source of "all the mischief and all the unnecessary suffering" has not been correctly identified, thus the remedies are aimed at the wrong target. Religion as a whole is very involved in this very error.

The true source of the problems is not ideas such as "I am X". The real source is the medium which both "I" and "X" are made of. Self identity is a symptom, a product, of the underlying fundamental process of division.

Thought operates by a process of division. It divides everything it touches. It divides me from you, me from society, me from reality, me within myself.

Trying to think one's way out of this box just piles more logs on the fire.

Jokes go a long way in the business agenda — Metaphysician Undercover

You could be right. If JK had popped his authority bubble a bit with some fart jokes that might indeed made him more popular. But probably with a different audience, more hippies, fewer intellectuals.

JK was a very dignified and classy person, very much part of his appeal. He spoke to hippies among others, but he certainly wasn't one himself. I'm not sure he could pull off a fart joke, much to his classy credit. :-)

So did you hear the one about the crackpot who said JK should tell fart jokes, but that suggestion turned out to be a fart itself? Ha, ha, ha, ha..... ha..... uh.....

What? Hello? Is this mic on?

But what happens? Typically all that happens by this process is that the person's self identity changes from something like "I am a smart person" or "I am a sad person" to something like "I am a holy person". Some see "holy" as being a more appealing identity than smart or sad, so such a process can be popular. — Hippyhead

The better term here, rather than "I am holy", might be "I am pious". "I am holy" implies I am of great perfection and I ought to be revered, while "I am pious" implies that I have great respect for something more perfect and higher than myself.

The better term here, rather than "I am holy", might be "I am pious". "I am holy" implies I am of great perfection and I ought to be revered, while "I am pious" implies that I have great respect for something more perfect and higher than myself — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok sure, the new identify comes in many flavors, agreed.

And then there's another factor, other people buying in to whatever new identify we've created for ourselves.

I always think of Eckhart Tolle here, but many examples could be given. Best I could tell he's a sincere guy who has learned and skillfully articulated some insightful ideas (very similar to JK). And then a bunch of people who want a leader gather around and start chanting, "You are holy, you are wise, you are our teacher, our leader" etc. And being human, who can resist? I mean, if it were me, and there were hippy chicks involved, I'm lost, a goner.

I'm not sure if this is true but I read once that Tolle was charging folks to touch him. Could be a rumor, but he appears to be charging for lots of stuff, so maybe not. Anyway, point being, if we don't succeed in sucking ourselves in to delusion there may be a bunch of folks standing by ready to help us.

Fart jokes have a long history. Socrates compared the philosopher to a midwife, assisting in the conception. Sometime the supposed conception turns out to be flatulence.

Ha! True that. I should have never brought up fart jokes. Ever since I did I've been plagued by this mental image of my hands on a computer keyboard, and a broken sewer main. Too scary! So I will now return to the safety of the topic.

My King is full of mercy and goodness. Far from chastising me, He embraces me with love. He makes me eat at His table. He serves me with His own hands and gives me the key to His treasures. He converses and delights Himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways. And He treats me in all respects as His favorite. In this way I consider myself continually in His holy presence.

My most usual method is this simple attention, an affectionate regard for God to whom I find myself often attached with greater sweetness and delight than that of an infant at the mother's breast. To choose an expression, I would call this state the bosom of God, for the inexpressible sweetness which I taste and experience there. If, at any time, my thoughts wander from it from necessity or infirmity, I am presently recalled by inward emotions so charming and delicious that I cannot find words to describe them. Please reflect on my great wretchedness, of which you are fully informed, rather than on the great favors God does one as unworthy and ungrateful as I am.

As for my set hours of prayer, they are simply a continuation of the same exercise. Sometimes I consider myself as a stone before a carver, whereof He is to make a statue. Presenting myself thus before God, I desire Him to make His perfect image in my soul and render me entirely like Himself. At other times, when I apply myself to prayer, I feel all my spirit lifted up without any care or effort on my part. This often continues as if it was suspended yet firmly fixed in God like a center or place of rest.

I know that some charge this state with inactivity, delusion, and self-love. I confess that it is a holy inactivity. And it would be a happy self-love if the soul, in that state, were capable of it. But while the soul is in this repose, she cannot be disturbed by the kinds of things to which she was formerly accustomed. The things that the soul used to depend on would now hinder rather than assist her.

Yet, I cannot see how this could be called imagination or delusion because the soul which enjoys God in this way wants nothing but Him. If this is delusion, then only God can remedy it. Let Him do what He pleases with me. I desire only Him and to be wholly devoted to Him.

Please send me your opinion as I greatly value and have a singular esteem for your reverence, and am yours. — PTPG, 2nd letter

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. — Zen koan

Or in this case, mending the sandals of the monks. Sandals are mended, letters are written, in a state of inactivity that fills the whole life where before was the void of self, and desire.

For the past forty years his continual care has been to be always with God; and to do nothing, say nothing, and think nothing which may displease Him. He does this without any view or motive except pure love of Him and because God deserves infinitely more.

He is now so accustomed to that Divine presence that he receives from it continual comfort and peace. For about thirty years his soul has been filled with joy and delight so continual, and sometimes so great, that he is forced to find ways to hide their appearing outwardly to others who may not understand.

If sometimes he becomes a little distracted from that Divine presence, God gently recalls Himself by a stirring in his soul. This often happens when he is most engaged in his outward chores and tasks. He answers with exact fidelity to these inward drawings, either by an elevation of his heart towards God, or by a meek and fond regard to Him, or by such words as love forms upon these occasions. For instance, he may say, "My God, here I am all devoted to You," or "Lord, make me according to Your heart." — PTPG, 4th letter

Br. Lawrence speaks of himself in the 3rd person. A conventional humility. I wonder if you can read through the unfamiliar religious language?

Zen students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others, after all learning all one can isn’t as easy as learning how to ask a girl out or how to ride ones bicycle. These are lessons that take the span of a decade to master. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: “I suppose you left your wodden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs.”

Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in’s pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen. — Zen Koan 35

Sometimes one becomes distracted, until one attains one's every minute presence. I don't suppose I am the only one who sees these wildly divergent cultures saying the exact same things. And if that is so, that explorers of "the outer reaches of consciousness", (shall we say?) have independently arrived at very similar places, then it seems probable that we are dealing with, at the least, a real phenomenon of human psychology. Is that extravagant?

Best I could tell he's a sincere guy who has learned and skillfully articulated some insightful ideas (very similar to JK). And then a bunch of people who want a leader gather around and start chanting, "You are holy, you are wise, you are our teacher, our leader" etc. And being human, who can resist? — Hippyhead

Do you see the need for humility? The moral strength of the human being lies in the capacity to say no.

He often points out our blindness and exclaims that those who content themselves with so little are to be pitied. God, says he, has infinite treasure to bestow, and we take so little through routine devotion which lasts but a moment. Blind as we are, we hinder God, and stop the current of His graces. But when He finds a soul penetrated with a lively faith, He pours into it His graces and favors plentifully. There they flow like a torrent, which, after being forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage, spreads itself with impetuosity and abundance.

Yet we often stop this torrent by the little value we set upon it. Let us stop it no more. Let us enter into ourselves and break down the bank which hinders it. Let us make way for grace. Let us redeem the lost time, for perhaps we have but little left. Death follows us close so let us be well prepared for it. We die but once and a mistake there is irretrievable.

I say again, let us enter into ourselves. The time presses. There is no room for delay. Our souls are at stake. It seems to me that you are prepared and have taken effectual measures so you will not be taken by surprise. I commend you for it. It is the one thing necessary. We must always work at it, because not to persevere in the spiritual life is to go back. But those who have the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward even in sleep. If the vessel of our soul is still tossed with winds and storms, let us awake the Lord who reposes in it. He will quickly calm the sea. — PTPG, 4th letter

The question of why we content ourselves with a little even when we have intimations of possible abundance is an important one. I think it is fear - the fear of losing the little. I have my little life with its discontents and its manageable pleasures. And I remain in this small known world ...

And always keep ahold of nurse
For fear of finding something worse. — Hillaire Belloc

But if I always keep ahold of nurse, I will never grow up - never enter the torrent of life. The torrent, indeed of myself. But of course to see this much is already to have dipped a questioning toe into the torrent of the unconscious.

"... not to persevere in the spiritual life is to go back."

I have experienced the truth of this myself. It is the danger inherent in studying such works, and explains, perhaps, some of the reticence of mystics to discuss openly. Once one has a glimmer of understanding of the direction one ought to take in one's life, to fail to act from fear, or attachment to the old familiar life, is to betray one's best self in favour of one's worst; it is self harm.

You are not the only one who is troubled with wandering thoughts. Our mind is extremely roving. But the will is mistress of all our faculties. She must recall our stray thoughts and carry them to God as their final end.

If the mind is not sufficiently controlled and disciplined at our first engaging in devotion, it contracts certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation. These are difficult to overcome. The mind can draw us, even against our will, to worldly things. I believe one remedy for this is to humbly confess our faults and beg God's mercy and help.

I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer. Many words and long discourses are often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before God, like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man's gate. Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If your mind sometimes wanders and withdraws itself from Him, do not become upset. Trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it. The will must bring it back in tranquillity. If you persevere in this manner, God will have pity on you.

One way to re-collect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquillity, is not to let it wander too far at other times. Keep your mind strictly in the presence of God. Then being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings. I have told you already of the advantages we may draw from this practice of the presence of God. Let us set about it seriously and pray for one another. — PTPG, 8th letter.

In zazen, when we realize we’ve been caught up in thinking, we try not to react at all. We just return to wholeheartedly sitting. A classic analogy for this is trying to hold a bowl of water very still. If you shake, or the wind blows, the water will be disturbed, but there’s nothing you can actively do to make the water calm again. Any motion you make, like patting the surface of the water, will only make things worse; the only thing you can do is hold still. Stimulus-independent thinking is like the turbulence in the water, and absorbing yourself in just sitting is like holding the bowl still. Patting the surface of the water is analogous to evaluating your meditation and mulling over how to improve it, feeling frustrated with your mind or with yourself, judging thinking as being bad, or even trying to hold your mind on something in rigid way in order to brace yourself against stimulus-independent thinking.

https://zenstudiespodcast.com/zazenpart2/

Again, it is obvious that the practice is substantially the same across cultures, though the language is different. And this goes too for the recommendation to continue the meditative practice at a less intense level as one goes about daily life. I like that phrase "stimulus-independent thinking" - think about what you are doing and seeing and avoid absent minded thinking. Chop that wood attentively! Read that thread carefully!

Most of us are afraid to hear deeply, but it is only when we hear deeply, when the sounds penetrate deeply, that there is a possibility of a fundamental, radical change. Such change is not possible if you listen superficially, and if I may suggest, at least for this evening, please try to listen without any resistance, without any prejudice - just listen. Do not make tremendous effort to understand, because understanding does not come through effort, understanding does not come through striving. Understanding comes swiftly, unknowingly, when the effort is passive; only when the maker of effort is silent does the wave of understanding come. So, if I may suggest, listen as you would listen to the water that is flowing by. You are not imagining, you are not making an effort to listen, you are just listening. Then the sound conveys its own meaning, and that understanding is far deeper, far greater, and more lasting than the mere understanding of words that comes through intellectual effort. The understanding of words which is called intellectual comprehension is utterly empty. You say, "I understand intellectually, but I cannot put it into practice," which means, really, that you do not understand. — Krishnamurti

http://krishnamurtiaustralia.org/articles/Krishnamurti_on_Listening.html

I like that phrase "stimulus-independent thinking" - think about what you are doing and seeing and avoid absent minded thinking. — unenlightened

I agree, to be attentive requires a certain will to be so, one might even call this an effort. But watch out for what follows, when it comes to understanding effort may have a negative effect.

Well, doing something requires that you be attentive and concentrate on what you are doing. But understanding is not really a case of doing something, it's a passivity. So if you start making an effort to understand, as if you are making an effort to do something, the effort will go toward something which is not really understanding, and this will actually be a distraction which prevents understanding. The focus and attentiveness which is required for understanding is completely different from the focus and attentiveness which is required for doing something, understanding being something other than doing something.

I like this one:

"I understand intellectually, but I cannot put it into practice," which means, really, that you do not understand. — Krishnamurti

When we make effort to learn things, we memorize, principles, rules, orders, mathematical operations, etc.. We memorize all these things, to be able to recall them, know them, and we can actually use them in the conventional ways, without even understanding them. It's like when people talk, and say things without really understanding what they're saying. It's a matter of being able to repeat, mimic, or copy, without understanding the meaning of what is being copied.

When we make effort to learn things, we memorize, principles, rules, orders, mathematical operations, etc.. We memorize all these things, to be able to recall them, know them, and we can actually use them in the conventional ways, without even understanding them. It's like when people talk, and say things without really understanding what they're saying. It's a matter of being able to repeat, mimic, or copy, without understanding the meaning of what is being copied. — Metaphysician Undercover

Indeed! Not that one should not learn things, and even conventions, but as a way of life it falls short. Use your head, but don't live in it.

God knows best what we need. All that He does is for our good. If we knew how much He loves us, we would always be ready to receive both the bitter and the sweet from His Hand. It would make no difference. All that came from Him would be pleasing. The worst afflictions only appear intolerable if we see them in the wrong light. When we see them as coming from the hand of God and know that it is our loving Father who humbles and distresses us, our sufferings lose their bitterness and can even become a source of consolation.

Let all our efforts be to know God. The more one knows Him, the greater one desires to know Him. Knowledge is commonly the measure of love. The deeper and more extensive our knowledge, the greater is our love. If our love of God were great we would love Him equally in pain and pleasure.

We only deceive ourselves by seeking or loving God for any favors which He has or may grant us. Such favors, no matter how great, can never bring us as near to God as can one simple act of faith. Let us seek Him often by faith. He is within us. Seek Him not elsewhere.

Are we not rude and deserve blame if we leave Him alone to busy ourselves with trifles which do not please Him and perhaps even offend Him? These trifles may one day cost us dearly. Let us begin earnestly to be devoted to Him. Let us cast everything else out of our hearts. He wants to possess the heart alone. Beg this favor of Him. If we do all we can, we will soon see that change wrought in us which we so greatly desire.

I cannot thank Him enough for the relief He has given you. I hope to see Him within a few days. Let us pray for one another. — PTPG, 15th letter

At the end of his life, it is still the act of faith that is of central importance, and both pleasure and suffering are 'trifles'. I think the nearest this secular age can get to an understanding is perhaps the loyalty one feels towards one's home country, or one's local team. It is not an identification, but a commitment to the other that is also 'within'. It makes no sense to the rational mind

For when I say darkness, I mean a lacking of knowing: as all that thing that thou knowest not, or else that thou hast forgotten, it is dark to thee; for thou seest it not with thy ghostly eye. And for this reason it is not called a cloud of the air, but a cloud of unknowing, that is betwixt thee and thy God.

HERE BEGINNETH THE FIFTH CHAPTER

That in the time of this word all the creatures that ever have been, be now, or ever shall be, and all the works of those same creatures, should be hid under the cloud of forgetting.
AND if ever thou shalt come to this cloud and dwell and work therein as I bid thee, thee behoveth as this cloud of unknowing is above thee, betwixt thee and thy God, right so put a cloud of forgetting beneath thee; betwixt thee and all the creatures that ever be made. Thee thinketh, peradventure, that thou art full far from God because that this cloud of unknowing is betwixt thee and thy God: but surely, an it be well conceived, thou art well further from Him when thou hast no cloud of forgetting betwixt thee and all the creatures that ever be made. As oft as I say, all the creatures that ever be made, as oft I mean not only the creatures themselves, but also all the works and the conditions of the same creatures. I take out not one creature, whether they be bodily creatures or ghostly, nor yet any condition or work of any creature, whether they be good or evil: but shortly to say, all should be hid under the cloud of forgetting in this case. — Cloud 84

Good luck proving a contradiction in a cloud of unknowing!

BUT now thou askest me and sayest, “How shall I think on Himself, and what is He?” and to this I cannot answer thee but thus: “I wot not.”
For thou hast brought me with thy question into that same darkness, and into that same cloud of unknowing, that I would thou wert in thyself. For of all other creatures and their works, yea, and of the works of God’s self, may a man through grace have fullhead of knowing, and well he can think of them: but of God Himself can no man think. And therefore I would leave all that thing that I can think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think. For why; He may well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be gotten and holden; but by thought never. And therefore, although it be good sometime to think of the kindness and the worthiness of God in special, and although it be a light and a part of contemplation: nevertheless yet in this work it shall be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting. And thou shalt step above it stalwartly, but Mistily, with a devout and a pleasing stirring of love, and try for to pierce that darkness above thee. And smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love; and go not thence for thing that befalleth. — Cloud 89

And here, with all respect, I rest my case for the prosecution that all argument as to the mere existence or non-existence of that Beloved is guilty of utter triviality. What business is it of mine if there will ever be a reader of what I write? It is an act of faith to say and share my best truth with anyone or no one. And now read on at your convenience and explain it to me in turn if you will.

When thought does not look, then there is only observation, without the mechanical process of recognition and comparison, justification and condemnation; this seeing does not fatigue the brain for all mechanical processes of time have stopped. Through complete rest the brain is made fresh, to respond without reaction, to live without deterioration, to die without the torture of problems. To look without thought is to see without the interference of time, knowledge and conflict. This freedom to see is not a reaction; all reactions have causes; to look without reaction is not indifference, aloofness, a cold-blooded withdrawal. To see without the mechanism of thought is total seeing, without particularization and division, which does not mean that there is not separation and dissimilarity. The tree does not become a house or the house a tree. Seeing without thought does not put the brain to sleep; on the contrary, it is fully awake, attentive, without friction and pain. — Krishnamurti's Notebook