On 4/24/17, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net wrote:
lyberta, do look up eckart tolle's story, it's very very funny (and relevant). ok ok i can't resist telling the tale: he was an academic, in some of the worst (bitchiest) back-stabbing in-fighting for funding and "status" academic environments it's possible to be in, and it was really *really* getting him down. so one day he woke up and said to himself, intending to kill himself, "i can't live with myself".
except, the academic in him went, "hang on a minute, what the hell? what the hell is the damn difference between this "I" and this "myself"?? in that stupid sentence! *I* can't live with my "self"?? wtf??" and the sudden and revelationary recognition of the incredible cognitive dissonance between two "things" - two "selfs" - in his mind which he *wasn't even aware were separate" resulted in what's known in the trade as a "kundalini whiteout".
when he came to he found he was still sitting on the bed but he could perceive things in a totally new way. i won't go into the rest of the story but he's now one of the western world's best known "spiritual masters", so his books (including audio books) are well worth reading.
I'm not sure how my feedback on this is valued, but : Believe it or not, I'm not a fan of Eckhart not just 'cause I always despised the definitive "all knowing" rhetoric used by both Church's AND spiritualists, but because I felt Eckhart et-all frequently made the habit of making individuals feel better about themselves by demeaning and incessantly talking about how worthless and powerless so-called "oppressive" forces are, literally as an abstract. Life's meaning (in my opinion) is literally based around conflict as an abstract (not just violence), so it kinda feels like their interpretation of life is a bit pointless if one doesn't make being spiritual a part of their identity (since to them conflict with one's self seems to be the only conflict that has any meaning, and kinda implies if a person views themselves as good human beings just the way they are that they are living a life with nothing but pointless conflicts). That's just my opinion xP