The ONS figures which came out this week estimate the death toll in the UK to be about 50,000 as of last week.

The government has been massaging them down. The excess deaths in care homes in April was 18,000, above the death rate in April the year before. The government is only admitting that 8,000 of these were due to Covid.

I have to say that I get the feeling that this Covid 19 virus is real ( though the risks are overblown) but masks an underlying scam. I'm not sure what the scam is , but I've read that the economy was about to tank this year in any case...so maybe the two are connected.

Yes, the economy was going to tank because of Brexit. Now they can blame it on Covid, so they will push for the hardest Brexit possible and head in the direction of a Singapore on Thames. So they can line their pockets and build their mansions in the posh resorts in Devon and Cornwall.

Look at it this way the US manufactures its cars for sale in the UK actually in the UK, so as to avoid the costs of importing them from a third country, so does Japan. In fact Japan manufactures cars in the UK to sell in the EU. When we leave with no amenable deal with the EU, those Japanese factories will relocate into the EU. If Germany wanted to sell large numbers of Mercedes, or VWs in the UK after we leave with no trade deal, it would only be cost effective for them to build new factories in the UK to manufacture them. But they won't, it's not profitable enough to justify building new factories. They will just develop their markets in Eastern Europe instead, with the added benefit of consolidating and developing those markets inside the single market.

All this stuff is basic economics. Something that the Tory Brexiters don't want you to know. They just want you to keep going on about sovereignty, or hating on immigrants, while they do their shady tax haven deals with their billionaire palls. They don't give a shit about ordinary British workers. We will just become a cash cow, like the US population is over there.

Yes, but that is a label, just like the label, this thing, this cat is a being. One is referring to a property and the other is referring to a thing. Although when I say my cat has being, I am not using either label because I am using a language in which there is only being, the material and things are constructs made out of the tool of material.
— Punshhh

I've read this numerous times and it still makes no sense. Your using a language in which there is only being? Everything you say means being? I don't understand, it appears like you're skirting the issue, trying to claim that it cannot be spoken about, or something like that.

I wanted to explain this a little more, it may be difficult to put into words what I mean, but for me being is present where there is life, in a certain sense it is life, but not physical life, more an underlying essence. I may have to stray into Hindu terminology to explain this. An essence of Atman,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80tman_(Hinduism)

If you are familiar with Hindu cosmogony it might be easier to use that terminology, or to cross reference.

My cat has Atman and I have Atman, we know our Atman through family bonding, or communion.

They're evidently not doing a very good job at being a solution.

But they have to look incompetent at this point, otherwise people will Rumble them. They will reveal the solution soon, any minute now.

There you go again having a rant about the Labour Party, while the clowns in government are going to drive us of a cliff in December. Oh yeah it's all the Labour party's fault.

They couldn't (or wouldn't) prevent the carnage in the carehomes, what makes you think they can get something workable with the EU. Everything Johnson touches turns to dust.

The way it works on this forum is you ask or answer a debating point and someone responds on that point. It's not a place for ranting and ignoring the questions or answers provided.

Going back to Germany(which has one of the best healthcare services apparently, (with a socialist government)). Put this in your pipe and smoke it. Germany doesn't need our custom, with tariffs and mountains of red tape etc attached. It has a massive emerging market in the Eastern European accession countries. And the great thing is, these countries are fully integrated members of the single market. What's not to like.

I may have been vague in my use of intellectualisation and academia, normally this is not an issue, but here I think more explanation is necessary. By academia I refer to the Western academic tradition (WAC), as taught in Western Universities and derived from Greek and Latin historical sources. I accept that other schools can be included in academia, but I am not referring to them, only what I have just pointed out. I am not aware of any mystical training in these traditions, other than some reference to it in theology. If you can suggest any, I would be interested.

Regarding intellectualisation, I may have to veer further away from what is described in the WAC here. I consider that there is more than one level or form of mind conducted in the brain and body. In such a way that the intellect is one of a number of mental processes. It appears to me that WAC reduces the person to a singular intellectual individual (II) and doesn't allow for much else that equates to mind going on in the brain, or body. This reduction appears to insist that all understanding, knowledge and intelligent action must pass through the prism of this intellectual individual (II) and as such can be fully analysed and be rationally dissected through intellectual thought and science.

This essentially reduces a human to a unit of intellectual activity divorced from the body of that individual, for the purposes of analysing its mental activity and that logic can be exercised, applied and imparted on this (II). Thus any aspect of experience is regarded as a psychological, or rational process exercised by this II.

I am not criticising the results of understanding a human through this process that is achieved, but rather what it ignores, or insists must be rendered through this intellectual prism.

As an alternative to this analysis of a human, I come to it from a different direction, in which there is a being, a being, expressed through an organism who through the good fortune (or not) of recent evolutionary development has developed the ability for intellectual thought. That prior to this development there was a mind, a being, an experience. This can be observed in animals and plants around us.

Also I come to it from an appreciation of life as an animating force. Animating rather like the way idealism describes the world. But rather than viewing it from the perspective of the individual human, I view the whole biosphere as one individual and each human is a part of it. This biosphere being an expression of a being via material.

Also I come to it from the appreciation of a spiritual dimension of which the being of the biosphere is an expression. An expression in which humanity embodies the development of an awakened mind. But a mind newly emerged, which is having to learn a new.

There is a difference in emphasis, in which I do not attempt to explain human experience through the prism of mind of (II). Indeed this is a minor consideration. There is greater emphasis on ones position in the life of the being of the biosphere and ones communion therein. It's true that the intellect is involved in this, but only as a tool of articulating thought in an integrated organism.

Perhaps this is enough for this post and I can address the other questions later when this has been looked into.

You don't seem to be able to link a post to its response. I was agreeing with you that a few old people will die, but being a bit more realistic.

Nearly the entire population is a leftist to you, so calling me one is meaningless.

You really are stupid if you think Germany is coming to the rescue, or the US won't rip us off.

You only need to read up on the TTIP negotiations between the US and the EU to see how the US operates in this way. We will be eaten alive from a point of weakness, worse than What happened in Greece, because there will be no one to bail us out.

Wake up!

Britain just thinks it is reasonable that it should be treated as well as Canada, South Korea etc. Given what a huge market the UK is for EU goods (compared to those countries) that is not too much to expect, is it?
I think that the Germans will ensure there will be a reasonable deal, they'll override those within the EU (and those like you within the UK) who seek punishment for the UK from the EU, the Germans know how important we are to them.

The EU would happily give the UK a Canada like deal, they've said that all along. They were waiting two years for the Tories to fight it out amongst themselves about what kind of future relationship they wanted (and don't go blaming Labour, they were not in power throughout this whole sorry saga). Theresa May did a remarkable job of somehow squaring the circle of how to remain close to the EU and not in it. But the Tories skuppered every attempt to reach consensus. The EU looked on in bewilderment as the Tories descended into a group of cats in a sack squabbling and lashing out at the EU from time to time. It really is disgraceful the way the Tories have brought our country to its knees on the world stage. And you think any other countries would try and strike a deal with those clowns and sycophants. The only country that will is the US and their corporations will suck us dry like a spider devouring a fly.

The German car industry etc didn't come to the rescue did they when we kept forcing a cliff edge. Get this, if anything the Germans industrialists are not going to come to our rescue, they value the integrity of the single market far more.

There is vast scope for trade increases with the USA. If elements of competition , and therefore US in put ,are allowed within the NHS that can only be a good thing. When people bleat about how wonderful the NHS is they never compare it ,to say ,the German system...a German system that has been doing far better with this virus than the NHS.

I won't get into the folly of selling of the NHS right now, I don't have the time. I will point out that in the US patients pay about four times the price for the same US drugs we get through the NHS and they need private health insurance to afford it.

There is only a tiny chance of being killed by covid 19 , almost all deaths are people already in a bad way in hospital and care homes...so releasing elements of the lockdown are a good idea.

Yes this is a great idea if you're Dominic Cummings, or a Tory Grandee. It solves the problem of the demographic time bomb which was going to bankrupt Brexit Britain, because they were going to have to foot the bill for looking after all the old folk. It solves the NHS crisis, what's not to like. It gets the economy going so we can steal an advantage over the Europeans. It's genius.

Oh until someone points out that there are 2 million vulnerable people currently shielding with health conditions, disabled, or on immunosuppressants who will have a mortality rate above around 18%. Might as well get rid of that lot as well, because they cost the NHS a lot by definition. Genius!

Nicely put.

Would you accept that "being" as a property, in the sense of "my cat has being", signifies something conceptual?

Yes, but that is a label, just like the label, this thing, this cat is a being. One is referring to a property and the other is referring to a thing. Although when I say my cat has being, I am not using either label because I am using a language in which there is only being, the material and things are constructs made out of the tool of material.

How could this be the case? Your cat is itself a being, so how could it have another being, which is other than itself in order to say "my cat has a being"?

I haven't found myself in this position, perhaps this is a quirk of intellectualisation.

You are saying that if someone or something, such as you or your cat, experiences something, then they know that thing. So you claim that you, and your cat, each knows its respective property of being, simply by experiencing that being. But that's not consistent with any acceptable use of "knowing". Simply experiencing something is not sufficient to produce knowledge of that thing, other factors are involved

This may be the crux of the issue, the knowing you describe as acceptable is the result of intellectualisation. A knowing via rational thought, Aristotelian. This kind of knowing is entirely an abstraction of the results of experience.

The knowing I refer to is an innate knowing of experience, this does not require intellectualisation, although intellectualisation can be employed in its contemplation. Memory and association both occur in my cat, just as they do in me (absent my intellualisation). I know this because we are both mammals, closely related. The difference being that the memory and association probably occur unconsciously in the cat, whereas I tend to ignore this in me and follow the route of intellectual reference to memory and association.

We address these things through metaphysics. But as I said, metaphysics is the same as mysticism.

Well I will agree with this on this occasion, for purposes of discussion, as you have repeated it, but I do maintain that there is the difference in the use of the intellect. Namely the metaphysics requires an intellectual result, or product to determine the course of progress, whereas mysticism rejects this in a preference for natural, or spiritual processes to determine the course of progress. This is why when I engage with a metaphysician, she tells me that it has to fit the rationality before I can go there and if it doesn't, it may as well be a unicorn.

Language is a social construct. What we can or cannot say about existence is determined by our language. And this is a reflection of our knowledge, both intellectual abstract knowledge, and other knowledge

This is not exhaustive, Things can be known and conveyed about existence by other means. This means is through being a part of nature and communing with nature. When I commune with my cat, this is what I am doing. All one is required to do to see this is to contemplate the idea that life is a direct expression of being and that everything else is a construct provided for the expression and development of life/being. If you spend a few hours in a quiet natural setting you will have a glimpse at some point of this, provided you can spot it. If you then spend many hours, or years training yourself to be able to commune with nature and forego intellectualisation, you will find it easier, indeed natural.

I am happy to go with you in your description of space and time for now, as the understanding of these things by metaphysics is adequate at this stage. As I say in mysticism this is only to be tackled at a more advanced level.

The spiritual is self-evident. That's fundamental, a first principle in philosophy, basic philosophy101. Those who deny this are undisciplined. They claim a philosophy which is actually unphilosophical. So if this is what is necessary for mysticism, we're both on the same track. And if this is the type of ground rule which your talking about, then I can accept that.

I presume you are referring to theology here. Spiritualuality is unfortunately nebulous in the way it is treated by academia, like mysticism. There may be as many different types of spirituality as there are people who say they are spiritual.

You do realise presumably that on the assumption of spirituality, there is a flip of authority here, as metaphysics takes a back seat and mysticism a front seat. For example, the kind of knowing I am using becomes the primary form and intellectualisation becomes a frail attempt to explain the perfect, or pristine by a limited, embryonic mind, emerging from nature.

Oh have you got the new slogan from the PM for releasing the lockdown, it's just use your common sense. Cummings's master plan to blame the victims of Covid for their own demise, namely they died because they didn't use their common sense.

Just like Rees Mogg claiming the the victims of the Grenfell tower tragedy died because they didn't use their common sense and run out of the building.

Clarity and leadership.

That's bullshit, the draft agreement sets out positions so that the Britain can have its cake and eat it. All Barnier wants to do is maintain the integrity of the single market and Union, so he can't agree to anything which compromises that. It's not his job to look out for the interests of a member state that chooses to leave, the integrity of the single market is far and away more important than that. So if the UK can't come up with something credible in this regard they won't negotiate.

The UK team along with the government has no intention of presenting anything credible because they want to heap the blame for everything on the EU and these sham talks enable them to do it. They have to heap the blame because the people who lended them their vote will be looking for someone to blame when the shit hits the fan and it's better for the government to blame the same old bogeyman.

Meanwhile there are secret trade talks going on in the US intended to throw something together without passing it by congress, or the senate, or parliament in the UK. To sneak a trade deal with the US through the back door. The problem is that Johnson will have to sell our soul for the yanks to agree to this and that includes the NHS.

Although, I gather you don't rate the NHS either, might as well sell it to the US if we get our freedom back.

I don't see your point here. Being is a concept. If you are thinking of something other than a concept, you are not thinking about "being", but "a being". And any concept is limited by the way it is understood. But that's a big issue, because the way that we understand a concept is tempered by our education and cultural background, and the conditions for understanding extend into intuition and innate factors. So I might understand "being" in a way completely different from you, and this fact makes Platonism (within which a concept is supposed to have independent existence) very doubtful.

I think we need to see if we can agree on what being is here. By reducing it to a concept we limit it to a product of intellectual deliberation. Or if we are a bit more generous, a product of mental life. A product which requires being to exist, as it is a content of being. But these contents are abstractions, abstractions produced by the being they are questioning. Perhaps there are difficulties in seeing the wood for the trees here. My cat has being (a being), she knows/is her being equally as I am and know my being. She doesn't require intellectualisation to be. Therefore neither do I, so in expelling my intellectualisation of being (putting it to one side), I can experience my being absent conceptualisation. I find actually that I have a better understanding, or knowledge of my being while in that state. The trees in my garden have being, arguably they know their being better than my cat knows it, (they have less intellectualisation than the cat) or at the very least to the same degree. Indeed the cat may well be more aware, have better knowledge, of my being than I am/have.

To me, this elucidates a very important distinction between empirical knowledge and mystical knowledge. In the empirical sciences we observe physical things, and describe these objects according to the limits of the thing, as observed. In mystical knowledge we are describing limits which inhere within the knower. These limits are mysterious, because we do not directly observe them, and we cannot truthfully say that they are a product of the culture. So for example, my education, and my culture, contribute to the limits of my understanding of "being", but I go beyond this in my imagination and speculation, producing new, original limits, which are distinct from those that others impress upon me. Since the nature of these limits, how they get created or where they come from, is very mysterious, the study of these is properly mysticism.

But these limits you talk of are intellectual constructs, my cat knows nothing of them. I know more of the being of my cat through sitting with my cat than through intellectualisation. Where are the limits in this sitting?

Mysticism is the study of things beyond intellectualisation, as I have repeatedly pointed out. A fact which I keep pointing out to Banno, in which he finds himself speechless. Quite a good response I think. Oh, indeed here it is referenced in your post:

Mysticism delves beyond the intellectual, or mind derived understanding of being, self and "I".
— Punshhh

Right, because "understanding" implies limits already produced, so to approach the process which creates the understanding, and this is the truly mysterious, we must delve beyond the understanding itself. This type of knowledge cannot be properly called understanding.

How are you going to address that which is beyond intellectual understanding, other than through mysticism?

I don't understand this criticism. By "temporal concept" I mean a concept based in time. And I don't understand time to be an aspect of the physical world, it's more like something which makes the physical world possible. As such time is therefore mysterious, and a subject of mysticism. It's existence is not evident through any senses and so it is not revealed to, and cannot be a subject of empirical science. In this way time is very similar to matter. We never sense matter itself, only various configurations of matter, the configuration rather than the matter is what is sensed Both time and matter are taken for granted by empirical science, but since they cannot be in anyway sensed, they are beyond empirical science's capacity of study, being limited to things observed. That's why the nature of these things falls into the category of mysterious, and it is only mysticism which can properly apprehend them. Life, the soul, falls into this category as well. All three, soul, time, and matter are aspects of being, and are subjects of mysticism. It wouldn't be correct to reduce mysticism to the study of one or the other, because one cannot be properly apprehended without apprehending its relation to the others.

I think the key here is the phrase, spacetime, as far as I am concerned space and time are two sides of the same coin, both necessary parts of extension. Matter, material and it's attendant time, is an innate product of this extension and cannot exist, or be regarded as existing absent the time involved in that extension until the duration of it has ended. This is what Einstein told us, is it not.

I agree that time and material are of interest to the mystic, but as I have already said, it is not what is important initially in mystical enquiry and the study of it is only in regard to how being is developed and expressed through extension, or incarnation. This is very complicated and for more advanced levels of mysticism, as I understand and regard it.

I don't see the distinction between metaphysics and mysticism. Metaphysics deals with the very same subject matter as mysticism. If anything, one might be a form of the other, like metaphysics might be a form of mysticism, or vise versa. But since we can go either way with this, metaphysics is a form of mysticism, or mysticism is a form of metaphysics, this induces the probability that they are actually both just different words for the same thing. As such, I can see that it would be an extremely arduous task to establish proper ground rules, or any principles which would be used to recognize a "genuine mysticism". However, in metaphysics it is not difficult to distinguish the different degrees of seriousness which people assign to the discipline. The serious devotees are identifiable by the quality of the discussion.

The distinction is simple, metaphysics is the study of what the intellect can say about existence and is couched in the history and dictates of academia etc. Mysticism rejects this initially and enquires into the same through other means namely life and experience. The intellect is necessary to do this, but only in the interpretation and understanding of it. Also in the contemplation of it, but not in the intellectualisation used in academia. This is perhaps a controversial distinction, which is partly why the mystic steals clear of academia initially.

There's very good reason for skirting the edges when approaching a subject , and this is to avoid narrowing it down too soon. It's very easy to get distracted by one particular aspect of a thing, and focus on that aspect, as if it is the only important aspect, or the essence of the thing, or something like that. Then you don't get the whole big picture, zooming in quickly to focus on one particular part. So the skirting is necessary to determine the required scope of the enquiry, prior to laying down any ground rules. Circumscribing the whole of the subject is an act of unification whereas singling out a particular part without first establishing a strong unity, would be divisive. Notice, a form of synthesis is prior to analysis, because we need to establish what it is which is to be analyzed.

Yes, I accept this, although I think it necessary to define what mysticism is and how it differs from philosophy and visa versa. So as not to confuse metaphysics and mysticism.

I think that in the case of mysticism it might be a very good idea to keep skirting for a long time. The subject matter, by its very nature, is not immediately evident, hidden, mysterious, so we need to take our time in finding the things which belong in this category. What I find is that there is an element of the mysterious which permeates all knowledge, of all things, so there is a need to apply some mystical principles in all of our practises, making allowance for the unknown. Mysticism is what protects us and saves us from things like superstition and paranoia in our endeavours, which are a fear of the mysterious.

Mysticism avoids this by focussing initially on the self, the person and not getting bogged down in what is not understood about the external world. These can be looked into much further down the line when the aspirant understands the distinction between mysticism and the sciences and academic knowledge.

As you can see, I'm not big on ground rules of discussion. I think ground rules may be a little bit counterproductive to the mystical process. By limiting the subject through application of ground rules, we might sort of create an understanding, thereby negating the mysteriousness which is actually supposed to be the subject. Understanding is created by dispelling the mysteriousness. So I think we really need to relax the rules, allowing freedom of discussion, until we develop a better idea of what we are talking about.

I think you misunderstand me, I simply mean to define mysticism and what it is doing, what it involves and which does require at least one assumption. The assumption that there is some kind of the spiritual, for want of a better word, in the world we find ourselves in. If one were to work on the possibility, or conviction that the world we find ourselves in is nothing more than a place of material as described by science, then mysticism become irrelevant.

A parody of Johnson's speech lastnight about easing the lockdown lol.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WDzqCUbUQW0

I agree, "being" is the starting point, the point of interest. But for me, "being" leads straight to temporality. It's a temporal concept, and there's no avoiding this. Sure you might prefer your type of mystic approach, go to the guide and say lead me, but the guide will inevitably lead you down that winding path toward temporality, because there is nowhere else to go with this interest in "being".

You say being is the starting point and is of interest and then limit it in your view of it as a concept and therefore subject to time. This seems to not see the baby in the bath water.

In English we have a term, "happening", which means occurring, as events. And "being" in modern, western lingo, is sometimes replaced by "happening". Notice that "being" might signify a static unchanging existence, while "happening" signifies activity. Happening is similar to the ancient concept of "becoming", which is often contrasted with "being". "Being" signifies something staying the same as time passes (the suffix "ing" indicates that time is passing), while "becoming" signifies something which is changing while time is passing. Time is the underlying theme. So I approach "being" from a western background, seeing the world as happening, and wondering what is happening. From this empirical, scientific background, there is no "being" for me, being is some sort of mystical ideal, what you've called a platitude.

You do acknowledge here that there is at least the notion of being as something beyond the temporality of concepts. You then reduce it to a meaningless aspect of the physical world.

So there is this mystical concept, "being", which doesn't really relate to anything real in the world, in the way that I understand the world, as consisting of events, happenings. But let's say you and I have both had an interest in this mystical concept, "being", so we've delved into it. You appear to have opted to enroll in some sort of formal mystical training, with a guide, while I have taken the philosophical approach, which is to look into as many different philosophies as possible, approaching the subject from many different directions, and in a sense to be self-guided because I can choose my directions of approach.

Likewise, I am a veritable magpie for collecting philosophical, religious and mystical concepts and traditions. It has though become distilled into a very simple philosophy and view.

What I have been doing here is suggesting some ground rules from which to explore the issue. Just like the philosophical foundations, or ground rules which are required for a discussion of metaphysics for example. These ground rules are necessary so as to be discussing genuine mysticism as practiced down the ages by people who take the discipline seriously. Rather than skirting around the edges which people tend to do who have not studied the discipline, just like with metaphysics.

I haven't really been discussing my personal view, or practice, but rather the equivalent of an academic approach, but for mysticism. Which unfortunately doesn't have much in the way of a formal academic structure in western learning.

I think you express the wrong attitude toward the philosophical approach here. The opposite of what you say about the rigidity of the philosophical approach, is actually closer to the truth. In the philosophical tradition there is a vast array of different approaches to the same issue, being. As you know, philosophers do not agree. The problem with the philosophical approach though, is that there is far too much variance, so unless you go to an organized school, a university or something, and have professors, as guides, who point toward the appropriate material, you might get lost, overwhelmed by the vast material, perhaps wasting a lifetime getting nowhere. So you have chosen a guide instead, but the guide gives you that rigidity of a singular approach, the way that the guide knows. Unless you recognize when you have gotten as far as that guide can take you, and you move along to another guide, in the same way that we switch professors and courses in university, you will not get as far as you might want to get.

Yes some varied background reading and approaching from more than one established path of entry into the discipline. Along with talking with a diverse group of adherents does help one to get a rounded take on the discipline. I suppose what I was getting at in my first post that you reference is that often the philosopher one engages with will require you to use established terminology, follow the ground rules and will be critical, or dismissive of anything which does not fit therein.

Notice how you describe your progression as a type of growth, which is a becoming, rather than a being. This is an odd tendency. We want to refer to ourselves as beings, human beings, such that the self has a temporal extension as the unchanging "I", yet when we describe ourselves we describe a changing, growing creature.

This falls into what I described a minute ago as skirting around the edges of the issue while not adhering to the ground rules. I hadn't gotten around to any ground rules regarding being, or self, or "I"

The natural inclination appears to be to relate to ourselves as beings, something which is, like Descartes said, "I am". However scientific endeavors demonstrate that what we are is changing, growing, evolving things. By what means would I say that I am the same "being" that I was twenty years ago? So science provides no place for the "I", the self. The perception is that expressed by ancient Greece as "becoming". Plato and Aristotle demonstrated and incompatibility between being and becoming, so the concept of "matter" was proposed to reconcile them, to bridge the gap.

Mysticism delves beyond the intellectual, or mind derived understanding of being, self and "I".

I think that the concept of matter provided the basis for a revolution in western mysticism. In pre-Socratic times mysticism consisted of ancient myths concerning the relationship between the gods and the world, as well as the relationship between souls and bodies. These relationships were not well understood, and the myths were very sketchy. After Aristotle the main focus of western mysticism became the nature of matter, whether it's real, whether its inherently evil, etc.. Matter is a central concept in the western world, but there are two very distinct ways of looking at matter. The scientific approach takes matter for granted. The mystical approach does not attribute any necessity to matter.

I don't really perceive a problem, or crisis within mysticism from the modern views and discoveries about matter, physical material.

I see this as the key point, and the reason why time becomes so important. We apprehend ourselves immediately as "a being" because we have memories which provide the base for an "I" or "self", extended in time. However, we also have to relate to what you call here "the animation of events". And this is a very practical issue, which opens up all the questions of freedom, constraint, and agency. We simply cannot deal adequately with any practical issues without having the required understanding of the role of time in the animation of events. The extent of the requirement varies by degree, depending on the subject. But to ourselves, as beings, time only appears as a particular extension, or dimension, of existence. The temporal extension of the self provides the testimony for this. So there are two seemingly incompatible notions of time at play here. One plays a role in my static identity as "I", and the other plays a role in the animation of events.

Yes you point to a potential conflict between temporality and permanence/perfection. Like I have said physical material, as far as I am concerned in this endeavour, is a tool of expression of being. Time and space, spacetime is an aspect of physical extension and material.

I know that this last point could become a point of contention here and I do accept that mysticism does become concerned with matter and time. But only really at a more advanced level and we would need to have established the ground rules of discussion before reaching a point where this can be adequately expressed.

I'm not, as I said it's globalisation what did it. Google globalisation.

It's globalisation what did it. Wages went down in other countries outside the EU too.

OK, but I'm having difficulty grasping what you mean by "pure and divine", "perfect". I've been told before, that if I want to better myself, I need to apprehend this (let's call it an ideal), because I won't be able to truly judge better from worse, without some sort of scale which would be based in the ideal, the notion of perfection. But I don't completely apprehend that need. Can't I just judge one thing as better than another thing, in relation to a third thing? So the one thing is closer to the third thing than the other thing, and therefore better. This would make the third thing the best, of all those three things, without the necessity of being perfect. Now I need to question what makes this third thing the best, and I can't just relate it to a fourth thing, and a fifth thing ad infinitum, so maybe I really do need an ideal to ground the notion of "better".

I will try to address your concerns here. But first I want to put in context what I have been talking about in this thread. What I am referring to is a set of mystical practices, practices which are precisely targeted at a process developed to help a natural growth within a person, rather like practicing Yoga for your health. In this the concern is relationships between aspects of the self of the practitioners so entirely internal. It is the case that the practitioner is living in our world simultaneously to this, but the practice is the focus and in this time is of little importance other than its role in the animation of events. I do accept that time does on occasion become the focus of such practice.

So going back to your concerns. People may tell you to look to perfection of some kind to better ones self, but it is nothing more than a platitude I think, like if you eat more carrots you will have better eye sight. As for judging better from worse, this depends on the perspective when the judgement is made. In mystical practice this is contemplated, but no judgement is made other than what is perceived to be appropriate for the practice. Of course one is free to come the judgements for personal consideration, opinion etc, but this is separate from the practice. I should point out that I don't think the human mind is equipped to understand reality, this is not to say that it is not equipped to behold it, but rather to work it out unaided.

I think that attempting to position the soul in your time theory might be useful, but I don't think we can find the truth of the situation, but what makes sense to us. I am familiar with your thoughts on the metaphysics on time, which I broadly agree with, but haven't enquired into much myself as I am not so concerned with the metaphysics of physical reality. Rather that physical material is a tool for the expression and development of being and that being is of more interest.

I perceive a problem for the human mind in coming to a definitive metaphysics, due to not having any idea where reality begins, or ends, or how deep it goes. Rather like trying to peddle without peddles. I am open to being corrected on this, but don't hold my breath.

An asshole is going to be an asshole after ‘enlightenment’. They might even be an asshole with a more inflated ego, because they’ve experienced selflessness, oddly enough.

Somehow I don't think an asshole would fit through the eye of the needle.

I don’t think we can begin to imagine what is beyond our little fishbowl of experience.

Nicely put.
This would suggest to me that we are not going to figure it out with our little minds, but rather it is revealed to us, or not, as the case may be.

RIP Little Richard.

I accept that time is involved in these processes to quite a fundamental degree. I want to draw you back the what I am aiming for which is a relation between, in a sense different apparatus in a person's psyche, or being. The easiest way to explain this is if one considers that we have a soul, this soul is (for arguments sake) pure and divine. It does though have life, a past, a present and future and it is myself, but ordinarily I am somehow not aware of it, or at least can't distinguish it from the limited self. The orientation is to achieve an alignment of the person of the limited self and the person of the soul, such that the goals, desires, understanding and motivations of both is one and the same. The soul though being perfect cannot change, so the limited self being imperfect will change to become perfect.

I agree, I see the overcoming the self, negating, or losing the self, narrative as one of a number of practices developed in a school which has become over emphasised in its, perhaps, being taken out of context. I am sure that it has some merit as a practice in a Tibetan monastery for example, but I have only ever found it to be something unattainable and pointless, or what is it that is to be achieved through doing it?

I am cool with stream of consciousness expression. What I write will also be like that, although some formulation has already been composed. I find it hard to reference scholastic material in this because there immediately becomes an issue of terminology and interpretation of the source, or criticism of the source, or of me, in which what I am trying to say becomes sidelined.*

I want to stress that what I have to say about this alignment in the self is a subject for a whole book and that I don't feel I have expressed it sufficiency as yet.

I want to stress the word orientation, because as I use these ideas in contemplation, I find the concept of changing myself through the fine tuning of my orientation easier to countenance. Firstly because I am not changing myself, but turning something in me, fine tuning a relation. Secondly because I realise that the goal is not a change in myself, but either a freeing, a realisation, an opening. Third I like the concept of an ironing out of the wrinkles in myself, or stilling the ripples on a pond. Fourthly that I am confident in the sentiment that that which I strive for, reach out towards want to free myself for, or to achieve is already here, I am already it, I am already there, if only I were to realise that fact, to re orientate inside myself that it shine through.


*I can reference my principle source, but on the condition that it is only a source in that it provides a skeleton of structure from which to work and that I dont endorse any other aspect of it. Or following it word for word, or agree with the premises of the work necessarily. That if someone then criticises the work, or my use of it that I would ask them to return to the discussion without derailing in these ways.

Curiously my wife has this even stronger than I have and she is not spiritual, mystical, or anything like that, but an atheist. Well she says so but I don't believe her and I doubt she does either on that point. I mean how could she with a gift like that.

My preferred - idiosyncratic - notion is 'ecstasy' rather than 'mysticism'; ecstatic practices - what Iris Murdoch calls "unselfings" - rather than mystical, or spiritual, exercises (i.e. union with (some) 'transcendent' (something)); ego-suspending via everyday living (i.e. encounters (à la Buber) - prayer, meditation, or contemplation via e.g. making / performing / experiencing art; free play; intimate sex; compassion-care; etc - and/or hallucinogens) rather than ego-killing via ritualized ascetics (e.g. monasticism, militarism, etc). Not religious, not spiritual, not mystical - but I am (an) ecstatic.

I hear you loud and clear, it doesn't need to be either/or though, it can be both, or a creative synthesis. Tailored to the nature of the individual.

Yes, nature mysticism.

I think a lot of young sensitive souls hit on this entree to mystical experience. It was my first taste. Especially the deserts of the southwest US; more especially, Monument Valley and Joshua Tree. A perfect mirror-metaphor for the emptiness of the soul.

Nice, I'm envious. I mentioned animals in particular, they have a special significance to me as they are in a sense me without the ego. Or at least there is a glimpse of this in a communion with them. Ref' St francis of Assisi.

Yes what you bring up is an important aspect of the mystical/spiritual quest (I realise that the use of the word spiritual has baggage here). The fight of, with, or subjugation of the limited self, resulting in the true self emerging like the pheonix from the ashes. Or the Hindu deity standing erect with his foot on the back, or head of his limited self. Such practices rituals like the initiation from the boy to the man speak volumes about the pitfalls and distractions of this limited, inherited self. Also they beckon to the aspirant the desire, need, requirement to cross this rubicon. In the certain knowledge that no (real) progress can be made until crossed.

This is not the subjugation I was referring to initially. What I was referring to is the process of the alignment between the self and the guide, to use another analogy. The self and God, the self and soul, the self with nature, with spirit. This is another important aspect/process on the path and likewise not much progress can be made until it is tackled. This process presupposes the breaking free of the limited self that you refer to.

This process of alignment, orientation has various aspects including some sense of giving up ones freedom. This is something which is offered freely in the knowledge and surety that nothing is lost because what is gained thereafter is that which was feared to be lost along with the added component of being guided by some ineffable power (I am using this phrase only because it follows on from the phraseology I was using earlier). Which is known to be oneself already, but just an area of the self not realised. So as I suggested earlier, it is not a subjugation to a power over, but rather a power with and power over simultaneously, synthesised into a unity.

An illustration of this is spoken by Jesus in John 12:44-46
"If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark"

Just a quick thought, I will give a longer response later. The aspirant when surviving the ordeal of the destruction of his/her conditioned self realises that the ineffable power who is the object of their effort to transcend the ego, or self, is in fact him/her self already. So again we have power over and power with integrated and the distinction desolving in a synthesis of self with creator. So power is both over and with in one unity.

LOL. How much has the UK government spent on covid-19 so far? What will a no deal Brexit cost the UK? What does the word negligible mean in nobby English?

Yes, England is going to hell in a handcart and people who have been conned like Chester want to bring it on asap. Note he doesn't agree with the UK lockdown, that it's an over reaction. No lockdown followed by a no trade deal Brexit is hell in a hand cart for the English. Just as we fall off the economic cliff, Scotland and Northern Ireland will leave the UK, tempting the Welsh to follow. Fortunately I will be getting my Scottish passport. The nobs will be happy whatever happens, they have their offshore accounts and will turn the wreckage into the 51st of the US.

Well we will know soon as Pakistan is going to unlock tomorrow and their death rate is still increasing. Also India will be an interesting example, the numbers are starting to surge there now. I heard that there were 75,000 cases confirmed as of today which is rising rapidly. India is densely populated and most are poor, so they won't be able to social distance effectively.

Certain kinds of mystical experience are as natural as the sky or the sun.

Yes, like a communion with animals and plants. One might remember that one is an animal too.

Commenting in the hope of maybe augmenting the given expression of “subjugation”. In my current understanding, there’s often a critical difference to be found between typical mysticism and typical religion: whereas the latter often concerns an experienced relation of power-over, the former is typically concerned with an experienced relation of power-with.

I agree with the distinction you make, however as I see it there are many subtleties and nuance here. Perhaps in the case of religion "power over" is dictated for purposes of controlling the members, or population, over whom the high priests rule. Whereas an individual adherent might foster a more "power with relationship" in private.

When it comes to the mystical aspirant, or master the "power with is" stressed outwardly, while the individual might have developed more of a "power over" relationship, or aspiration in private.

Also for the mystic there is a more nuanced distinction in which the mystic is in many ways free to do, or think what he/she wants without fear or favour. While having a trust that an ineffable power is in some way directing their bahaviour and thinking, for some greater purpose, in which the aspirant is essentially offering service. This relation can take the form of the aspirant identifying an aspect of themselves which is of the ineffable realm in an imminent sense and there is a communion, or dialogue between the two. In which the distinction of power over/power with is lost, because the relation is within one's self. Also there may be the consideration of a hierarchy of ineffable connections/activities which the aspirant can't expect to, or be expected to have personal agency in, or understanding of. Such a scenario can only really be described as power over, although the aspirant is cooperating, or giving permission for the ineffable agency to operate through him/her self.

This is an interesting introduction I think into the role of agency and purpose in mystical practice. I would be interested in exploring this further.

Have you done your reading yet?

Quite and the body which decides which drugs are procured for the NHS and which are to expensive, meaning many people don't get the treatment they could have is called NICE.

Nice.

In the UK, the hawks and the rightwing media are gunning for lifting the lockdown.



With over 600 deaths yesterday, the curve has not come down much. The five tests which the government has identified as necessary for the lockdown to be relaxed are nowhere near being met. With more and more calls for a relaxation and worries about the economy being aired. It's beginning to sound like some people are beginning to think that a few hundred or thousand extra deaths are worth the cost to reduce the economic damage. The government messages are vague and keep changing. Johnson is apparently going to announce the way forward on Sunday the day before the current end of the lockdown period. With an excuse that not all the information is in yet. There is speculation that there is no plan and the government is in chaos.

I also did not see my own body (like derealization describes), but I lost awareness of it. I always saw some blue visual, which I can only describe as 'cosmic', like a star. The visuals only played a minor role, though. The sensations of inner peace and omniscience were much more profound and made a bigger impression on me.

This correlates to my experience. There was what seemed like an extremely bright( but not bright in the sense that it lit up the room), but when you looked into it it was to bright to make anything out. Also there was the sense that it was spatially concentrated, like the tardis in Dr Who. There could have been whole worlds of beings in there. There was the feeling of peace and omniscience and I could sense someone talking inside it, that I was aware of. They were discussing whether I was ready to be taken, or it wasn't my time. After giving it their careful consideration they concluded it wasn't my time and it moved and faded away. But the feeling of awe and wonderment, the deep feeling that everything was going to be alright (in the sense of after death), the deep sense of peace and benevolence and omniscience remained with me for quite while and the whole experience is still vivid to me now 30 years later.

Many boats to float. One sea.

One sea, many waves.

This is not to deny anything about religion, or God, but rather they are not of importance within the practice. Others may disagree.

— Punshhh

As I understand it most recorded mystical experiences are given within a religious or cultural framework. Absent any framework there is nothing to say about an experience except via poetry or allusive language. But then poetry has its inevitable cultural moorings, even in the absence of an explicit frame.

I need to tease out what I am saying, during my practice I am not adhering to a religion, or seeking a contact, or communion with God. As opposed to other practices in which one carefully follows a prescribed religious practice, or is praying, seeking a communion with God, as an integral part of their practice.

For me the integral parts of the practice are between myself and some aspect of nature (including aspects of myself) there is no prescribed practice and there is no effort to interact with a God, or God like being (although I have done these things in the past).

An important thing to realise, which is often not grasped by people enquiring into mysticism is that there is a subjugation of the ego and in a sense the personality to some other power which then directs one's development. As such an enquiry into the other power, or ones relation to it is, or its purposes, are not important. What is important is in allowing the channel between yourself and the power to flow freely.

I realise that this might sound weird, but when one looks into prayer, or religious based mystical practice this is also going on between the self and God. Such interaction is an important aspect of mysticism. This is not to say that it is necessary.

A structured mystical practice changes the person and has an effect on the people around them. This is real and documented. Religion which is a kind of mysticism and changes the adherents and has an effect on the people around them, indeed on the course of human history.