And thank you Robin for introducing me this word "first person ontology" (and even solipsism) and let me connect the dots with my experience matching the Upanishads. I'm indebted to your knowledge.
I struggled a lot with first person ontology prior to my enlightenment. My ex, in her paranoid behavior, would lash out at me for my coldness (a la Xeno, Curtis and tartbrain) - she would say I had no heart, I didn't know how to take kindly. I got hurt, suffered a lot, sometimes lashing out at her, but then I saw value in it. I could see that I was surrounded by my intense subjectivity, that I really didn't love my ex and the kids. I somehow felt I couldn't touch them, sometimes they looked like complete strangers. I realized all the love that was talked about was just attachment, clinging and misery. Two beggars begging love from each other, as my Ammachi would say. Through the grace of Kali I realized that only the Love after enlightenment, that impersonal Love is the true love, devoid of what Jim refers to as "ego maintenance thoughts". This impersonal love, yet let's me be devoid of any vulnerability, any need to protect myself when I talk to others. I'm totally available to the other, when I talk to the other and out of this impersonal love - I'm able to compassionately and empathetic-ally relate to others, who no doubt feel my love. It happens to everyone I meet and talk to - I talk to them as if no one else exists but them. ________________________________ From: Ravi Yogi <raviy...@att.net> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wed, November 16, 2011 1:05:49 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] For you Robin - God can only be experienced as first-person ontology It is just a beautiful expression of my feelings - the question and answer below. If you lost your first person ontology during your so-called enlightenment, it was not really enlightenment - please stop misusing that word and coming up with more and more words every time to justify your state as enlightenment. I have retained my first person ontology, in fact that's all I believe in and believe in purity of everyone else's. In line with the Upanishads that the one that has multiplied as many and enlightenment is waking up to your rightful claim as the creator, that first person ontology. And you know what I just googled and found a good link. Ontology in First Person: Wittgenstein’s Solipsism and the Upanishads http://philosobabble.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/ontology-in-first-person-wittgensteins-solipsism-and-the-upanishads/ The notion of the generic first-person subject, which I have argued Wittgenstein expresses, echoes not only the Self of the Upanishads, but other ideas written of by philosophers throughout the centuries, such as Averroes’ monopsychism, and Parmenides’ One. By clarifying the subtleties of our language usage underlying the conventions of identity, we can reach a view of ourselves that is logically coherent and spiritually satisfying. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Question: WHY DON'T YOU GIVE ANY PROOF FOR GOD'S EXISTENCE? Why should I? If God Himself is not willing to give any proof, then why should I? God remains unproved for a certain reason. Everybody has to prove Him by his own experience. If God becomes proved, He will no more be a God. If God is proved just as a stone is proved, then He will not be a God. God is a potentiality, a possibility. God is a promise. If God can be proved herenow, and I can put God on a table and you can all inspect and dissect and do things with Him, He will not be a God any more. He will become a thing. Anything proved becomes a thing. God is not a thing. God cannot be proved. But I am not saying that you cannot prove — everybody can prove for his own heart's desire! But nobody can prove for anybody else. You have to go on a pilgrimage on your own. God is proved to me! Only God is for me — you are not, neither are these trees. Only God is. Only the formless is, and you are all forms of it. But that is proved for me. It can become a proved experience for you too. But it cannot be borrowed, I cannot give it to you. And that will not satisfy. Each time, each single individual has to prove God again and again. That is the promise. And when you prove on your own, when you come to encounter God on your own, when you have the feel on your own, He is proved. And still He does not become a thing, He does not become objective. He remains your subjectivity, your innermost experience. God remains private, God can never be made public. God is not a proved thing because God is not a thing. Only things can be proved. I can prove that this is a stone in my hand. How can I prove that there is love in my eyes for you? Love is not a stone, it cannot be proved. Only those who are available to me will know it. Only those who are ready to go with me without any proof, not asking for any proof in the beginning, who are ready to trust — they will know. If you ask, "First, give us the proof, then we are coming," then it is impossible. I am making available to you the door from where God becomes a proved phenomenon, but God never becomes a public phenomenon. It remains private. You can go inside and you can see, and you can feel, and you can be, but when you come outside, you are again dumb. You will be as dumb as I am. You will not be able to say anything about Him. You can say a thousand and one things, but nothing will be really, exactly about Him. It will be roundabout. I can talk about the way I reached. I can sing songs about the beautiful way and the trees on the path, and the flowers and the birds that sing there, but that is not talking about God. I can talk about the bliss that has been attained through God, but that too is not talking about God. I can say what joy and what peace has come to me, but that too is talking about something else, not about God. There is no way to pinpoint Him. He remains elusive. He is very mercurial. And, moreover, to prove God is utterly useless; because just by proving it, nobody is going to become religious. Religion comes out of trust, not out of proof. Let it be understood as deeply as possible. Religion comes out of absurd trust, irrational trust. It does not come out of proof. Proof means your reason has been satisfied. When your reason has been satisfied you cannot go beyond reason. And religion is the effort to go beyond reason, to go beyond mind, to go beyond intellect. So proof is not possible. Then what do these people go on doing — Buddhas and Christs and Mohammeds? They go on alluring you, they go on seducing you, towards something which is absurd. They go on selling something for which no proof exists. A few courageous people purchase, buy that idea, and take a jump. In that very jump God is proved! But before the jump, there is no way to prove Him. You will have to taste Him on your own. OSHO.
