--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bronte Baxter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I replied to this once. Somehow it never posted, so here goes again: > > From Judy, quoting Bronte: > To claim that the ego is only a Me is to perceive only its limited > expression. Such limited expression certainly needs dissolving for > cosmic bliss to occur. But the Me only needs to dissolve into the > I. It was never intended by the Infinite that the I should dissolve > into non-existence. > > Judy wrote: > I really think this all boils down to a matter of semantics. I've never understood that in enlightenment the "I" dissolves into nonexistence; rather, what dissolves into nonsexistence (because it was an illusion to start with) is *identification* > with the "I." The "I" is still there, doing its thing, not in any way inhibited by the lack of identification with it. > > Bronte writes: > It's not just semantics. It's a fundamentally opposite way of viewing life and the universe. People of my mindset don't just claim that the ego never dissolves in true enlightenment. We also advocate that IDENTIFICATION WITH the ego -- in the subjective sense of "I, the doer" (not in the object sense of "Me, the happened to") SHOULD never dissolve. We argue that having such dissolution as one's goal or allowing it to happen is the hugest mistake a human being can make. > > You say that the ego doesn't dissolve in enlightenment -- that identification with the ego is what dissolves. I don't think identification with the small self has to ever dissolve or should. What the goal should be is to identifify with both one's cosmic unlimited universal nature while AT THE SAME TIME identifying with oneself as an individual consciousness. Both identities must be simultaneous for true realization to occur. > > When a person stops identifying with their individual "I," they lose their authorship, their empowerment, their freedom as original, creative expressions of God. The difference between your description of enlightenment and mine is huge: it's the difference between someone floating in the water and someone swimming.
Well, that's certainly a loaded analogy! > We're not here to float in the water, to let life happen to us. To observe and witness ourselves and life, to be "done to." We're here to co-create with God, realizing our oneness with That, our infinite power and joy as God's dynamic expressions. I don't think we're ever going to see eye-to-eye on this; but again, my understanding is that if you identify with the Self rather than the self, you are identifying with the ultimate creative principle. Your self is then experienced to be *the creation of* that principle, of the Self. So in no way do you opt out of the job of creating. > Co-creating is impossible when people accept a belief that to identify with their individuality (thoughts, desires, etc.) is unspiritual, egotistical, and contrary to liberation. Sure, if it's only a belief and not one's direct experience. <snip> > I agree that false identification is at the root of suffering in life. But what false identification consists of is not what Indianism tells us it is. FWIW, it's not just "Indianism" that tells us this. Even St. Paul said Christians are to be "in the world but not of it." > False identification, and the cause of suffering, is identification of ourselves with the body, not identifcation of ourselves as individuals. But the identification that is said to dissolve in enlightenment isn't just with the body, it's with everything individual about the person--mind, personality, emotions, intellect, etc. Ultimately there's said to be a reintegration, in which all the individualities in the universe are seen to be one with the transcendent; that Unity is one's personal Self. You're very eloquent in your defense of your position, but I still strongly suspect that we're dealing with subtle semantics here, as well as, perhaps, different stages of realization. In any case, it's never been my understanding that one becomes a kind of robot in enlightenment (at least not in any sense that one wasn't a robot to begin with). One realizes one's status as the Robot Master, as it were, the generator of the very forces of creation.
