tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post699294318112037404..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: To Sleep Perchance to Dream; To Die Perchance to Wake (11.21.11)Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40911949884835269022008-11-08T08:40:00.000-08:002008-11-08T08:40:00.000-08:00Ray said "Ben, I'm just using Van's technique, rep...Ray said "Ben, I'm just using Van's technique, rephrasing something to show what it (allegedly) "really" means."<BR/><BR/>Worth a try. But if you don't know what they're talking about, let alone what you're talking about, it's just you saying silly things.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-2360704921505008272008-11-08T07:30:00.000-08:002008-11-08T07:30:00.000-08:00One could even say that "sleep" is a smaller itera...One <I>could</I> even say that "sleep" is a smaller iteration of the fractal "death." But again, perhaps I'm merely stating the obvious.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-65718053267637964072008-11-08T07:18:00.000-08:002008-11-08T07:18:00.000-08:00BTW Ray - while sleep and death are obviously dist...BTW Ray - while sleep and death are obviously distinct from one another, thanks to the Law of Likenesses the correlation between the two - which has been taken note of by writers, poets, philosophers,visionaries, and for all I know, turnips since time immemorial - is certainly patent enough to validate Bob's point.<BR/><BR/>Of course, you have to be aware of and alive to the Law of Likenesses to comprehend this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-19099441254373420602008-11-08T06:41:00.000-08:002008-11-08T06:41:00.000-08:00Nice admission, Ray.Nice admission, Ray.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-53067704440166130222008-11-08T06:15:00.000-08:002008-11-08T06:15:00.000-08:00Ben, I'm just using Van's technique, rephrasing so...Ben, I'm just using Van's technique, rephrasing something to show what it (allegedly) "really" means.Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-85372032010224763792008-11-08T06:02:00.000-08:002008-11-08T06:02:00.000-08:00"During Holloween week they showed all of the clas..."During Holloween week they showed all of the classic monster movies on TMC, and they all share this feature of living death or death living: Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Dracula, the Mummy. Perhaps this gives us a clue about death, i.e, that it is not so much the opposite of life, but a perverse or depraved form of it."<BR/><BR/>Yes, I might even add zombies to the list.<BR/>One can use those "templates" to describe some people.<BR/><BR/>For instance, a Rev. Wight is definitely a vampire, while Chomsky would be what? A mummy? <BR/>Hitchens seems to me to be a werewolf.<BR/>Useful idiots are zombies or perhaps frankenstein (the two are very similar).USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-66833218909376685482008-11-08T05:56:00.000-08:002008-11-08T05:56:00.000-08:00Damn, Ray. I'm glad you don't play outfield on my ...Damn, Ray. I'm glad you don't play outfield on my team.<BR/><BR/>"The nearer we get to the Timeless Source, change and stasis almost become one."<BR/><BR/>I thought that was clear.USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72073519269721602302008-11-08T05:54:00.000-08:002008-11-08T05:54:00.000-08:00I love the title of this post, Bob!"So many people...I love the title of this post, Bob!<BR/><BR/>"So many people cannot "let the day go." Instead, it intrudes upon their peaceful death, persecuting and tormenting them. Then, even worse, they dream -- or more often have nightmares -- by day."<BR/><BR/>The "living" dead, which isn't really living at all. Just goin' through the motions, senses numb to everything. <BR/><BR/>Night n' day merge into confusion, time becomes irrelevant as does eternity, as one enters a static death-like state where there is no joy and the future is as bleak as the past and present.<BR/>Meanin is meaningless.<BR/>Vanity of vanities! <BR/><BR/>I know when I have been in that state, I hungered for Good, as the life within me dehydrated and withered. <BR/>I hungered but I didn't have the will to move or to do what I knew I must do to live life abundantly. <BR/>Almost as if I was lookin' at my soph in third person.<BR/><BR/>The trick is to whet the appetite knowin' your tastebuds are dead.<BR/>Takes a special kind of food to do that.<BR/>IOW's to reawaken my hunger for life I had to learn to die perchance to wake. To get out of that state between life (awake) and death (asleep).USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-80903550761403120352008-11-08T04:31:00.000-08:002008-11-08T04:31:00.000-08:00Will - So, short version, you don't actually want ...Will - So, short version, you <I>don't</I> actually want to stop changing, you <I>don't</I> actually crave eternity. 'Kay.Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-10144129846928666712008-11-08T02:34:00.000-08:002008-11-08T02:34:00.000-08:00As to the question of why one would have the desir...As to the question of why one would have the desire to seek Eternity/Timelessness while knowing that it would spell an end to "change" - <BR/><BR/>Well, it's simply a desire for Divine Stasis, a desire for rest and motionlessness, a change-less change. Taken on a (very) mundane level, people have a desire for sex because it brings about a momentary stasis - and depending on one's vertical awareness - this can be a momentary timeless-ness. <BR/><BR/>Personally, I don't think we can ever reach the perfect Timeless-ness/Tranquillity in the same sense that we, individuals that we are, can never become God. However, we can as individuals, be forever moving upwards on the vertical scale, moving from one stage of time to another, growing ever closer to the Timeless Source - and this process unfolding in an unending series of alternating periods of change and stasis. The nearer we get to the Timeless Source, change and stasis almost become one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-91277716736748752462008-11-08T01:26:00.000-08:002008-11-08T01:26:00.000-08:00>>Maybe Obama is just a jerk<<I don...>>Maybe Obama is just a jerk<<<BR/><BR/>I don't think one has to be a personal jerk per se to be a living embodiment of the death culture, as he is. <BR/><BR/>I think O's real "jerkiness" will manifest in cosmic inversions of Truth. I think that O is seamless in a way, he can't be anything other than what he is. He's the new horizontal man.<BR/><BR/>Of course, he could be a personal jerk, too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-28800872468755795932008-11-08T01:12:00.000-08:002008-11-08T01:12:00.000-08:00>> . . . the initial postmortem state is ver...>> . . . the initial postmortem state is very much analogous to the metabolic function of dreaming, except that it will range over our entire life, so that whatever was "inessential" is consigned to the flames, while what is essential lives in eternity<<<BR/><BR/>Yes, another death, postmortem - and one that can be considerably more agonizing than physical death, depending on how much of the inessential has to be cauterized. <BR/><BR/>All the more reason to be mindful and as self-aware as possible while we're still "awake" in the flesh. <BR/><BR/>Of course, if, as we speak, the earth environs is undergoing a universal Kundalini activation - and the above is conjoining with the below - then we may all experience something of the purgatorial fires while we're still here. That sort of thing does indeed happen with individuals now and then.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-18380186498624914682008-11-07T21:31:00.000-08:002008-11-07T21:31:00.000-08:00Heh - I know :) It's a relief that I can mention t...Heh - I know :) It's a relief that I can mention these things here; most people would probably just look at me askance and slowly back away, with expressions of great disturbance upon their faces, thinking: <BR/><BR/>"just smile and nod. Don't make any sudden moves, and for gaia's sake don't blanch when she mentions <I>Communion</I> at the dinner table!"juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-88795697204953867822008-11-07T21:11:00.000-08:002008-11-07T21:11:00.000-08:00You're starting to think like a hermit.You're starting to think like a hermit.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40210488178306449382008-11-07T20:58:00.000-08:002008-11-07T20:58:00.000-08:00"However, I'd like to keep my powder dry until he ..."However, I'd like to keep my powder dry until he actually makes some bad decisions, which will be soon enough."<BR/><BR/>Indeed.<BR/><BR/>On a tangential (to the post) note, I was thinking tonight while having a tasty dinner with fruit and wine about the significance of Communion and its relation to the Death card. Once upon a timeless, Prager was talking about the significance of the Jewish diet, specifically that certain combinations of foods are not permitted, because they combine <I>death</I> and <I>life</I> (for instance, meat and milk are not eaten together). When Christ held forth the Bread and the Wine, and called them His body and blood, wasn't he in a sense combining (or rather[?] vanquishing) death and life? By equating bread (life) with corpus (death) and wine (life) with blood (death)?<BR/><BR/>Maybe I'm just stating the obvious (what can I say? the wine was potent) but it's just one more way of looking at Communion that hadn't occurred to me before. I think there was more to it than that, but... what'reyagonnado?<BR/><BR/>Anyway, there's my light thought for a Friday evening :)juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-26481379656727389552008-11-07T20:35:00.000-08:002008-11-07T20:35:00.000-08:00Speaking for myself, and this theory that I am abo...Speaking for myself, and this theory that I am about to say is mine, and I own it, it's no one else's, not being able to imagine being outside of time - or life - I don't bother trying... but that isn't to say that we aren't able to imagine a <I>sort of</I> timelessness. Our distinctive way of thinking, that being conceptually, allows us to disconnect from the demands of the immediate moment, and in doing that we are conceptually able to range from the present moment to the future, back through to the past and back again, forming thoughts that encompass all, and guide us in our actions through time. The higher we go in our thoughts, the more we are able disengage from the constraints of the moment, and there is a definite timelessness (yes, I get it) that we become aware of in doing so.<BR/><BR/>Not having died, I've no clue what that'll be like, and more than likely, even that's a completely inappropriate way of describing it. However, I've been in situations where death, or the apprehension of it, has been palpably close, and that does prompt a suffusing dread of losing <I>all moments</I>, there was was a sense of experience itself as being something within my grasp... but which I barely have a grip upon and the palpable sense that it can be pulled from my grip like candy from a baby. <BR/><BR/>Another 'however', however, when I was young I had several instances, where on passing out, and both on the way out of, and the way back into consciousness... there was a sensation where 'time'... well... 'was not there'... also of what I normally identify as being 'me'... was not there either, and as "I" began to come back on line, time did as well, and I was back 'in' the world. It wasn't then, and is even less so now, describable, and even though I assume they were more cases of mental faculties being down, than time or myself actually being absent, the sensation was enough that I don't completely scoff when people speak of such things.<BR/> <BR/>"I'm curious; isn't there even a small part of you that welcomes death and looks forward to it?"<BR/> <BR/>And speaking for myself anon, no I don't have any interest in either welcoming or looking forwards to Death. When the time comes, I flatter myself to think that I will meet it without attempting to abandon myself, but I've certainly no... eagerness... for the rendezvousVan Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-10851200143238349112008-11-07T20:20:00.000-08:002008-11-07T20:20:00.000-08:00I don't know. Maybe Obama is just a jerk. Howeve...I don't know. Maybe Obama is just a <A HREF="http://minx.cc/?post=277688" REL="nofollow">jerk</A>. However, I'd like to keep my powder dry until he actually makes some bad decisions, which will be soon enough.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-47213085598628137792008-11-07T19:59:00.000-08:002008-11-07T19:59:00.000-08:00So many of our problems could be dissolved into no...So many of our problems could be dissolved into nothing by recognition of the fact that everything has an insides and an outsides. I mean, if you make that distinction suddenly you can see that science and philosophy are complementary rather than antithetical.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-61934698221421677182008-11-07T19:54:00.000-08:002008-11-07T19:54:00.000-08:00That's a little like asking, "Why think if you wan...That's a little like asking, "Why think if you want to act?" Well, of course you can think in order to act and it makes perfect sense unless you're crazy Theodore Roosevelt or somebody.<BR/><BR/>So can you get out of time in order to dwell in it.<BR/><BR/>"In the world but not of it."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-92160581733886757932008-11-07T19:23:00.000-08:002008-11-07T19:23:00.000-08:00Monk, I wasn't denying the notion of 'eternity'. T...Monk, I wasn't denying the notion of 'eternity'. The question was: Why <I>desire</I> to get outside of time, seeing as that's equivalent to stopping changing, which means stopping growing and learning and loving and so forth?Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-6557657563326856452008-11-07T19:11:00.000-08:002008-11-07T19:11:00.000-08:00File under 'too good to be true.'File under 'too good to be true.'robinstarfishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15665546554663005609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-26194238845621430592008-11-07T18:51:00.000-08:002008-11-07T18:51:00.000-08:00Oh well. Let's console ourselves with another int...Oh well. Let's console ourselves with another <A HREF="http://vanmorrisonnews.blogspot.com/2008/11/van-gives-rare-interview-for-la-weekly.html" REL="nofollow">interview</A>.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-24652881481852450202008-11-07T18:32:00.000-08:002008-11-07T18:32:00.000-08:00Comment tease. They bagged the live stream of the ...Comment tease. <BR/><BR/>They bagged the live stream of the V Morrison concert.<BR/><BR/>I blame Bob.vanderleunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10296245324443413545noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-72897909944802657842008-11-07T17:47:00.000-08:002008-11-07T17:47:00.000-08:00Bob Woodward wrote about it. She was assisted by J...Bob Woodward <A HREF="http://www.cnn.com/US/9606/22/hillary.book/index.html" REL="nofollow">wrote</A> about it. She was assisted by Jean Houston.<BR/><BR/>That was around the time that Bill had several meetings with Anthony Robbins.walthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01388218390016612051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-53859083157493092062008-11-07T17:46:00.000-08:002008-11-07T17:46:00.000-08:00Credit where it is due: a classy gesture.Credit where it is due: a <A HREF="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1108/Obama_apologizes_to_Nancy_Reagan.html" REL="nofollow">classy gesture</A>.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.com