Hi Doc- When you dream, you use primary functions, just as when you live in any other world in which the spirit is awake, but the body is not being used. Some of us have "lucid dreams" in which we are presented with the immediacy of an event. Now watch what happens when we're awake - First the event occurs. Next we prehend it as it is in and of itself. (Primary) Then we interpret and evaluate. (reaction). Finally we cast into terms of other ideas in an interpretive manner., (secondary) - Hang onto that sequene for a moment and consider what happens when we try to make love but spend the time focussing on interpretations of what we are doing. "Spectatoring" in that manner is the primary cause of primary anorgasmia.  To make love is a primary process activity, and needs absolutely no secondary thought. That does not detract from the pleasure - in fact, I'd say that it adds, since it eliminates the intermediate efforts to capture the ineffable nature of the experience.

Anyway - the "sound of silence" state is the first major permanent attainment of meditation. Once attained, the mind does not operate as an abstract observer, but rather interacts at the point of experience. Afterwards we can analyze it - and unfortunately, our ability to handle abstractions is pretty poor. Thus, we lose something that was there when all we did was to have the experience. And if we try to "explainb" it to someone else, things really get mucked up.

Alyssia- - you understand what I'm trying to say, and doubtless agree that we lack adequate words for the task. However, I'm trying to deal with normal psychic states, not psychotic ones. But the latter are always the product of conflicted primary factors - interesting that you picked up on that.

I on't see whay you would be denied entry into psychology. That's a major ripoff!!  - I mean, it's not like my efforts to get into Girl Scouts - whether singly or in groups - But there may be a parallel hidden there anyhow, considering that you got screwed anyway, so to say.

What you refer to as "like suffering" is what I express as "regret" - or pretty close. It's a gut-level sensation, and I'm glad that for you it turned you to love. In my case, the example that comes to mind is the girl friend who got herself preggers (obviously I didn't have anything to do with it) and desiired an abortion. I based a sense of security and happoiness on her not being PG anymore, and (without admission of gult nor responsibility) I bought her an abortion. The nextday a big billborad went up right across fro my apartment: "Abortion Is Murder" - including a picture of a test tube of fetal remanants. Meditation then too me to a place where I idnetified with my decision, and could see that I had predicated my life on the death of the fetus, plus a sense that I was the fetus, and the implication by direct association that I had thus killed myself. The next few hours brought me the experience of being the star attraction of a D&C, disposal into a trash compactor, and somekind of incineration or some such. I stayed sane primarily by telling God to do whatever was needed so that I wouldn't cause more problems.

Don - I honestly tend to believe that past life regressions are valid. BUT I have no basis except my own personal recollections on which to base that opinion. Some people I've regressed were pro-active, and some were re-active in their lives. It seems that everybody is more or less the same. Those who cling to abstract reasoning tend to be earthbound, because they are typically frightened that if they stop analyzing, they'll stop existing. (Making love etc is proof that this isn't true.)

The biggest problem is that we're dealing with a second hand recollection of inexpressable experienceas. No hard data. No first order data. Everything is abstracted to death. It's like doing psychoanalysis on people caught in their own BSTs - like Bruce's tank driver, for example. - Incidently, notice that the tank driver was greeted joyfully by his comrades - secondary abstractions seem not to be necessary when we have direct miond-to-mind connections.

The flip side of that is that wthout secondary functions we lack interpretive ability for many things. I have a vast array of what looks like Japanese Kanji ideographs that scrolls by me in meditation - and I have no idea at all what it means. I also have a bunch of Egyptian hieroglyphs that occasionally appear, and again, I can't make out the meaning. - Maybe that's the primary process psychotic state that Alyssia was mentioning - aka "Duh?"

d

Dave said: I on't see whay you would be denied entry into psychology. That's a major ripoff!!  - I mean, it's not like my efforts to get into Girl Scouts - whether singly or in groups - But there may be a parallel hidden there anyhow, considering that you got screwed anyway, so to say.
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ahh, I was attempting humor Dave. sorry.
I thought I was funny   the story was I went to a college career counselor and discovered through him the psychology field was so glutted with would be fix it type persons that soon everybody would be trying to fix somebody else and nobody would get paid for it. and so I let him dissuade me and became a happy contemplative. ultimately I'm from a another planet where nothing ever needs fixing so I got lucky I didn't take up psychology.
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sorry to confuse things with the psychotic reference I made as a sort of afterthought. I should probably explain what I was thinking better.
I was thinking of how primary thing you are talking about, relates to a belief system, which in turn relates to a computer type brain, which in turn relates to how a person, we can label them psychotic, will commit a crime from a mentality place where they will later say "I don't remember what happened." I called it an altered state.

upon transition into death, there can occur temporarily a state of amnesia. this I conjecture, I only speak for the nearest experience I experienced, plus some retrievals I did. and I think we have it figured out on this thread that being in physical body, our consciousness is divided into segments, concerned with body functions which on the other side there is no events into segmented time slots, such as eating, defecating, driving to work, driving home, so we can agree it is vastly "different" to be relieved of all body and livlihood responsibilities.
this state of affairs is enough to spend many hours of contemplation on but we will not agree necessarily nor immediately what its like.

I would only say its vastly important to gather as much knowledge about the states of consciousness, the different levels, to get one's priorities, desires in place before exiting physical area as what we think now becomes reality there.
the amnesia then can be bypassed entirely, the life review can be done while you are still alive.
Dave said: "sound of silence" state is the first major permanent attainment of meditation. Once attained, the mind does not operate as an abstract observer, but rather interacts at the point of experience.
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this statement above is a gem. and now I shall go and be silent.
and I promise the next time I make a joke Dave, I am going to make sure you know it's a joke.

love you all (most of the time) alysia

Very interesting Augo,

I still think we have to account for our ability to think and reason in the afterlife.  I do agree that we may perceive things in thought more directly/emotionally, however this is NOT to say that it is without intelligence.  This is my objection to the complete loss of the ability to abstract concepts after death.  I believe that our ability to reason survives death, but that the vocabulary changes because much of our abstractions on earth deal with earthly sensory input.  

I found three passages from Swedenborg's writings, which I feel are very much on topic for this discussion, and go toward explaining my point that abstract thinking may be found in the spiritual world:

The first sets up his philosophy -

"The first step in philosophy is to admit that the essence of being is knowable or intelligible. While the esse of a thing is in itself unknowable, its qualities are made manifest as 'essence.'14 Thus the essence of God is knowable as Divine love and Divine wisdom, thus as Divinely Human.15 But man's mind is finite, limited. What the Infinite and Eternal is in itself cannot be comprehended, for no finite idea can 'contain' the Infinite; yet by means of ideas abstracted from space and time it can be seen that a thing is although not what it is.16

There is an absolute Truth which, being infinite, is above human or angelic comprehension, yet must be the source and origin of all perception. This Divine truth, in its proceeding, is the same in all creation, in all substance and in all phenomena - and thus represents itself in matter and in spirit, in nature and in mind. The essence of material things is represented to our minds in terms of sensations of space, time, and motion, and can be evaluated only by these. The physical reality of a thing-in-itself can be attested only by experience, scientific analysis, and checked research, which thus become the criteria of natural actualities. Nature represents the Divine truth which operates therein as laws of order.

The essence of spiritual things is represented to our minds in terms of states - as moods and emotions and thoughts, or as goods and truths and perceptions of use. The reality or essence of spiritual things can be estimated only by the experiences of the mind which sees its own phenomena (or noumena) to be independent of, and antithetical to, physical phenomena and their causal sequences. In the Word, the Divine truth regarding spiritual things is revealed as sequences of spiritual causes and spiritual effects, represented correspondentially in the letter and formally in doctrine; and the Word is therefore the criterion of all spiritual truth.

There is no absolute or "pure" human truth." 17 In both worlds the essence of the thing-in-itself is knowable so far as it can be inferred from its results and qualities. But the perceiving intellect is limited (even as are the senses of both men and angels), and is disturbed in its functions by the affections of the will and by the fact that the media of perception may be lacking, wholly or in part. This accounts for errors of sense, information, and judgment. Since the will motivates the understanding, a true philosopher must not only have a love of truth for the sake of truth, but have modesty and a love of Deity.18 Yet so long as men debate whether a thing is so, they cannot advance into anything of wisdom.19"


Matthew

At this point. it seems that we all have more or less fixed ideas, wherever obtained, which await discovery in the future. Perhaps a more fruitful approach would be to look for the minimal functions expected in the spirit world.

My experience in meditation is that I have, as a meditator, more capability to be aware and understand, then when I'm dreaming. Lucid moments of dreaming seem to be the exception, and bring an acute awareness, but still of the immediate situation.

Piaget attempted to define the transition between pre-operational function at birth, and fully abstract logic.  Perhaps the issue is the notion of "abstraction". Concrete operations, using Piaget's sense of the term, imply that all we can do is shuffle immediate sense data. That is certainly not the limit. On the other hand, to view something as defined by some kind of abstract implications, such as the ratiocinations by which I try to justify immoral things I've done on the basis of some long and involved chain of reasoning, that always falls apart, and concrete terms prevail.

As Caryn says, our basic morality seems to stays with us in sleep, which is a concrete connection. Being in this state, or an equivalent with eyes open, a fair percentage of the time, I sense relationships slightly differently than I used to. When I am with other women who might be willing to engage in a little hanky-panky, the association I sense is that this would negate my relationship with my wife. This is an absolute negation, either-or, no possible way to abstract a compromise. That's the sense I get with respect to all moral imperatives, and I call it non-abstract, and I sense the logic to be based outside of myself, not where I can manipulate and bend it. Maybe there's a better term that would communicate what's happening more clearly.

Incidently, the same kind of logic seems to govern the mental operations of drug users, which is why drugs (which actually seem to block certain functions) can lead into states equivalent to meditation, especially if augmented by standard meditative methods. It also suggests a reason why people who take drugs sense a "different kind of mental operation" or a "different reality", even though nothing has been altered externally.

Alysia - I recognize your humor - but can't resist responding in kind. That leads to a totally useless conversation, but it's fun. Having gone through the usual academic process, I'd be inclined to say that people go into the area of study that makes them feel most secure. Psychologists are all bonkers, sociologists are typically sociopathic, philosophers are long winded and confused, political scientists talk a lot and say nothing, and so on. Maybe you just weren't sufficiently dysfunctional to get people to believe that you needed a psych degree to fulfill yourself.

Albert,

I'll have to find the passages where you feel Swedenborg disparages Jews or women - I don't believe that to be the case, but he was, afterall human, and perhaps prone to bias as anyone.  He did leave room for non-christians to enter heaven - so this was a big leap for anyone who lived in his time.  I bet Don would have a better answer about this.

Dave, I think we are starting to agree, that when in spirit, the ability to communicate and understand things which were based on an understanding of the physical/sensory world may be lost.  This may be different than saying that we are not able to think/reason in the abstract.  I plan to post two more Swedeborgian passages that I think solve the puzzle of what we lose at death shortly.


Matthew

Doc:

I didn't write that Emanuel disparaged women.  I wrote that in "Heaven and Hell" he states that when a male and female Soul marry, they become one, the male intellect takes over, and the female intellect goes into subsidance. I find this hard to believe. It goes against everything else I've found to be true. I believe that our Souls are neither male or female or both.

Regarding what he wrote about Jewish people, it doesn't come from Heaven and Hell. I returned the books to the library so I'm not certain what book he stated this in, but it was either in "The true Christian religion" or "Angelic wisdom concerning the divine." Probably the first. If you like I can check the book out again and share the section that relates. I read this section more than once in order to be certain, and he clearly wrote that Jewish people end up living in a squalid place. My feeling is that if a person is open to the love of God, he or she will make it to heaven quite fine. Regarding how Christ fits into the picture, there are all kinds of things spirits find out about after they cross over that they didn't know about before doing so. If a spirit has love in its heart, I believe heaven will be an experience of rejoicing about what is or isn't true, not a matter of, "Well, that doesn't fit into how I believe things should be." One time when I got too hard core on this forum my guidance told me: "You make us sound like a bunch of dictators."

DocM wrote on May 30^th, 2007 at 3:20pm:

Albert said: Regarding what Emanuel Swedenborg wrote, I recently checked out four of his books from the library, and after reading a little I stopped doing so, because some of his viewpoints are hard to believe. For example, in heaven and hell, he writes that when a male and female get married they merge as one, the male spirit takes on the role of intellect, and the female takes on the role of volition.
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Albert I had to go to the dictionary for "volition."  I don't know about these statements either, I think they need much greater scrutiny, they seem incomplete.

speaking just off the top of my cranium, there's only a few men I've met personally who could keep up with me intellectually. I have to rely on archtypes for guidance there.
as for the definition of "volition" and speaking as a woman, my polarity choice in this lifetime only, the definition went like this: noun:   the act of making a choice (Example: "Followed my father of my own volition")

it can be said in marriage between opposite polarities love of the highest order entails a desire to please. yet its beyond that aways. man and woman surrender to each other their respective egos and do merge. she is receptive in that regard, he is active in leading in his spirit. it has nothing to do with who's boss if they are in Oneness, like is described above.

in general, we are not at that high of an evolutionary standard.