http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxfPIe2qqxw&feature=related
Ravi, Apologies if I have neglected my duties as your biggest fan; I felt I was staying in touch and expressing my appreciation, for your fully realized showmanship, with my links, which, I agree, can sometimes be far left field, at best; but then anarchy is like that, and one of the many reasons I wait to read and reread every word you post is that I know you are the true anarchist (if not anti-Christ) of conscious entertainment whose only goal to show how naked the pompous ass of the emperor can truly be. As you may know; the music at the following link was written a few blocks from where you're living. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJY8jJkDoMY&feature=related I've always thought of you and Robin as somewhere between born again Narcissus and Goldmund's and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. http://www.enotes.com/narcissus-goldmund-salem/narcissus-goldmund http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck6vqsOt-Pc Please keep throwing those books, you've been even hotter than usual this week ________________________________ From: Ravi Yogi <raviy...@att.net> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2011 12:43:21 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: For you Robin - God can only be experienced as first-person ontology Dear Robin, OK fine, if there was anyone who could have stopped The Mad Yogi Inc it would have had to be either you, Bob or Judy. All of you are strangely silent or conniving, in cahoots with this outrageous, provocative and queasy organization. If at all history has to look back, today would be the day that marked as the beginning of the betrayal. Having said that you know very well I'm the needy, narcissistic lover that loves to entertain the beloved and demands attention from her. So I totally loved the attention. I will periodically attack or provoke you and I expect similar attention from you. You are free to copy and paste that first paragraph of yours, though I would love something fresh even if it's a rearrangement of those words. The part about Osho completely went over from my head, did you miss a link or something? Love - Ravi On Nov 16, 2011, at 10:36 PM, maskedzebra <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: > > >Re: [FairfieldLife] For you Robin - God can only be experienced as >first-person ontology > >Dear Ravi, > >You are so different from me, from all the rest of the persons who post here >at FFL, that I hesitate to go beyond what I have already said to you in that >personal analysis. Because there I simply tracked my experience of you. What >makes you (to repeat myself) stand apart not just from everyone here, but >every person I have known in my life is this capacity to not be wounded in >your self-consciousness, this capacity to always transcend any neurotic >potentiality, this capacity to live outside of all conditioning, this capacity >to make reality whatever you choose to make it—without ever, it seems, >becoming hostage to that reality, or a victim of reality's judgment of you; >this capacity to assault creatively what you, in your freedom, perceive to be >constricted, hidebound behaviour in others; this capacity to live outside of >time and space and human tragedy; this capacity to create the universe you >wish to create; this capacity to always be accountable only to your own consciousness and sense of play; your capacity to always be purely spontaneous; your capacity to not be hurt by the reactions of other people; your capacity to strike at the weakness of others where that weakness issues in some negative compensation; your capacity to provoke but to let go in an instant, never making of this a compulsion; your capacity to always stay moving and in flight, never getting stationary or immobilized by your own subjectivity; your capacity to insult with an impersonal purpose; your capacity to create and live totally inside your own context; your capacity to make conscience something which you can take or leave as you see fit; your capacity to blaspheme in the evident holiness of your own outrageousness; your capacity to like what you like without even sensitizing yourself to the likes of others—much less be influenced by these other likes; your capacity to know truth but never to feel constrained to be obedient to truth; your capacity to make of life a perpetual act of provocation and love; your capacity to torment and tease always from a point of view which takes advantage of your momentary egolessness; your capacity to not be a victim of the fact that you did not create yourself; your capacity to seemingly ignore the prospect of death—except of course to celebrate this opportunity to entertain the powers which will conduct you to your next world; your capacity to take all of what I say here lightly; your capacity to read the motives of others; your capacity to enjoy the fluctuations of your moods; your capacity to take what I have just said to you what you will—never being determined by some consideration of your own vanity. > >Pretty interesting, all this, I would say. Now Ravi, I am going to do >something I would never think of doing, given my knowledge of you. But in >knowing your contempt for certain ideas that I like, for example, >omnisubjectivity, I thought to take advantage of the perfect irony >understanding between us, and do a point counterpoint with you. You have >included in your post the ideas of Osho. I find him unbearably goofy; and yet >I sense in you a strong sensation of recognition that somehow he represents >your own truth to you. This is quite incredible to me. Because, knowing what a >sharp fellow you are—way more than sharp—I would have thought you would >experience something of what I experience whenever I watch Osho speak, or read >what he has said. But I have read what you posted of his, and to reciprocate, >I am going to send you a letter that Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote when he was >just 21 years old while finishing with a double first at Oxford. I suspect, but for very different reasons, you will hate what he writes. But since you have trusted me with what you have committed yourself to as being consonant with your own beliefs about reality, I am going to post this letter from Hopkins, a letter which, when I first read it, produced the awareness of a kind of perfect truth—in this sense: Hopkins was making contact with [this was before his conversion to Catholicism] an extraordinary reality, the kind of contact out of which he would compose his beautiful poems in honour of his Master. You will laugh and mock and dismiss almost everything he says; but I have already done the same with Osho. So, no matter. This letter represents faithfully the way I go about determining the value and significance of something; which is to say that Hopkins is able to use his first person ontology in order to apprehend something very real—but something which would escape the notice and experience of almost everyone else in the world. > >Here is that letter—or rather the main substance of the letter, a letter I >deem about as unanswerable as any letter I have read—although as I say that, >you, Ravi, will have no compunction about condemning it as pure bunk. For me, >this is a human being demonstrating the very rarest of spiritual >discrimination and understanding. If I lived in his time I would consider this >letter to contain a form of sensitivity to reality, to what is supernatural, >which is unsurpassable. And no one since I was born has been able to say >anything which comes up to this—but then of course this would be the case, >since God has eliminated the context within which we could know what Truth >was. And the subject matter I think quite interesting, as you are about to >discover. > >Here it is: > >"I have thought often since you were here of what you said about the >particular shape in which the doctrine of eternal punishment presented itself >with offence to you. You said you know your repugnance was to view the issues >of eternity as depending on anything so trivial and inadequate as life is. I >do understand the point of view. But I think the answer which I gave then >comes at once—that in fact the argument tells the other way, because it is >incredible and intolerable if there is nothing which is the reverse of trivial >and will correct and avenge the triviality of this life. To myself all this >trivialness is one of the strongest reasons for the opposite belief and is >always in action more or less. Of course it is plain too that the belief in >the future of theology destroys the triviality in proportion to its intensity. >I think certainly that strong beliefs make ordinary goings on look more >ridiculously trivial than they would otherwise, but then the trivialness is one to which oneself does not belong and from which one longs to bring other people. However this is to the same effect as what I said before; but I have thought of something which will weigh perhaps more as not being merely a reversal of your argument. I think that the trivialness of life is, and personally to each one, ought to be seen to be, done away with by the Incarnation—or, I should say the difficulties which the trivialness of life presents ought to be. It is one adorable point of the incredible condescension of the Incarnation (the greatness of which no saint can have ever hoped to realise) that our Lord submitted not only to the pains of life, the fasting, scourging, crucifixion, etc. or the insults, as the mocking, blindfolding, spitting etc, but also to the mean and trivial accidents of humanity. It leads one naturally to rhetorical antithesis to think for instance that after making the world He should consent to be taught carpentering, and, being the eternal Reason, to be catechised in the theology of the Rabbins. It seems therefore that if the Incarnation could *versari inter* [pass one's time among, be involved with] trivial men and trivial things it is not surprising that our reception or non-reception of its benefits should be also amidst trivialities. . ." > >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 <raviyogi@...> >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 â€" 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 â€" 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 â€" 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 â€" 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. > >
