--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophaneros Anartaxius" <anartaxius@> > wrote: > > > > Turqoiseb said something really interesting: 'On the > > other hand, I thrive on cognitive dissonance; it defines > > for me some of the highest, most profound moments of my > > life. I actually seek it, as much as I seek anything.' > > > > I wonder if he might expand on this idea. Surely he > > thrives in trying to create the experience of cognitive > > dissonance for others, at which he is quite good, but what > > would be his reason for seeking it out? It is normally > > not natural to seek out discomfort. > > There is nothing inherent in the experience of > cognitive dissonance that causes discomfort. It's > how you react to it. > > I see cognitive dissonance as a kind of energy field. > I am comfortable with that energy field; it's more > interesting to me than the energy field of "knowing" > or claiming to "know" things. I like the dynamic of > the swirling energy of contradictory ideas being > juggled. As usual with me :-), there is a Bruce > Cockburn lyric that captures my feelings about this. > It's as close as I can get to explaining it: > > You see the extremes > Of what humans can be? > In that distance some tension's born > Energy surging like a storm > You plunge your hand in > And draw it back scorched > Beneath it's shining like > Gold but better > Rumours of glory
Because this subject interests me, I'll try a little harder to explain my approach to it. Unlike many here, including I think Xeno and some others, my approach to cognitive dissonance is not in the least intellectual. I don't perceive cognitive dissonance to be an intel- lectual phenomenon; it's an energy phenomenon. A lot of my approach admittedly comes from the time I spent with Rama - Frederick Lenz. Whatever else he may have been, he was a great connoisseur of energies, in the same way that others are connoisseurs of fine wines. He'd take us out to the desert, or to other places of power, and we'd meditate there and listen to him rap, and dig the energies. He'd occasionally try to explain the different energies, and help us try to take advantage of the energy of a particular place of power and draw upon it to make huge leaps in our spiritual progress. It seemed to work; in my experience I'd come back from those desert trips blown out of my socks and blown out of my body. For several days there would be not only no self, but *nothing* one could hold onto as what only 24 hours ago we'd laughingly called "reality." Instead there was a subjective feeling of being totally "in flux," a self-identity as energy, moving, not as self, fixed. I really dug it. I still do, and still make Road Trips to places of power to immerse myself in the more dynamic energies there and draw upon them to help me make changes in my life. But not everyone did. Some Rama students would be on the same hikes I was and we'd get to one particular place and they'd double up as if they'd been punched in the stomach. Rama would explain that there was a particularly strong energy field there and although they were perceiving it as negative or some kind of "attack," it was just energy. Then he'd advise them to eat a candy bar, because in his opinion sugar helped to "cut" the effect of strong energies like this. It always worked. Go figure. So in my case I don't think of cognitive dissonance as being an intellectual thang at all; it's just a particular intense, swirling band of energy. And I'm pretty comfortable with that energy. I'm so bent that I *get off* on that energy; it gets me high. Others, maybe not so much. For them there may be an immediate reaction to the energy that makes them want to make it GO AWAY. And they accomplish this via denial, via rationalization, via diving for the most comforting "answer we've already prepared" dogma in their spiritual quiver that "explains" it, or via any number of other means. I rarely go there because to me the energy is comfortable. There is no dis-ease or discomfort caused by juggling seemingly contra- dictory concepts or ideas. They ARE contradictory, on one level of reality. On another, they aren't. For me the "answer" to the koan of contradictory ideas is found in transcending the plane of ideas and the intellect, and dealing with the CD situation on the level of energy. This approach has helped me over the years in trying to resolve the energy nexus that was Rama himself. The guy was *simultaneously* able to meditate better than anyone I've ever met, able to "broadcast" higher states of attention to others, able to manifest many of the siddhis, and *at the same time* he was arguably a real dick, lacking in integrity, self-indulgent, a control freak, paranoid, and a bit of a charlatan. What could be more of a CD situation than that? There is no "answer" to be found on any intellectual plane for all of that. These things really were to some extent contradictory. Yet they coexisted. I never try to deny the contradictions, or even to try to "explain" them intellectually; they just were, as part of the reality I experienced when around him. *At the time*, what prevented these contradictions from getting in the way of having fun and having clear, shiny meds was in a sense being able to transcend the one level of reality in which these things appeared to be contra- dictory and move to another level of reality in which they weren't. It was very much the study of alternate realities, close to what was described by Castaneda. Carlos Castaneda, although more than a little a char- latan himself, was valuable in that he invented a language with which to describe these phenomena and experiences. Just as Maharishi invented a made-up language to attempt to describe the indescribable, one that we still use on this forum because we share it, Carlos invented terms that described the study of occult energetics. If you have read him, I would suggest that the resistance to feelings of CD is something associated with the tonal, whereas getting past that to a sense of comfort with CD is more related to the nagual.
