Ton, Elena and consciousness

69.            ton - February 5, 2011 [Edit]

e: “And about We are One, we are one Ton in a dimension that you cannot actualize.”

please tell me about this “dimension” elena…

e: “Now you’re talking to me because you can’t avoid my confronting you…”

i could very easily avoid you elena… what you call confronting is just an excuse for hostility and aggression — every time i post here this cycle occurs… you target and attack me for reasons only known to you and then you proceed to justify your horrible lack of civility by conflating me with a list of other people who have wronged or slighted you in the past… you are a bitter woman elena and i do feel sorry for you because you are stuck in this.

e: “…but that was not your intention. Your intentions are the same as always: trying to show me how deranged I am so that I change and you can justify your beatings in the fofblog…”

putting ‘words into my mouth’ and attributing ideas to me which is fabrication on your part… you are doing a pretty good job yourself of showing how deranged you are, apparently, no, obviously i am simply a “trigger.” you keep bringing up the fofblog, i don’t even think about that when i post here, but you’re stuck in the past… and you keep pretending that i had you banned… you need to take responsibility for your own actions elena.

e: “…with posts on consciousness and things that I’ll reach if I follow you word by word and submit to you. You’ve got a real problem here as long as you keep trying that out. I’m afraid Bobby was a great teacher, I don’t buy the likes of him no matter how well disguised.”

this is you elena, i never suggested you “follow” or “submit” to anything whatsoever… you’re living in the past. your initial response to the gebser was one of interest, enthusiasm and even gratitude — e: “Hi Ton, thank you for this, it is of great help” — you started cutting and pasting quotes from gebser/feuerstein and then you suddenly flipped and started attacking me again…. what happened elena? obviously i strongly disagree with you elena, in many areas but especially when you say “bobby was a great teacher”– maybe he was for you but then you spent a lot more time in the cult than i, apparently you learned more than i did from he and his little toy robot gerald. i don’t have a “real problem here elena” but obviously you do.

e: “So if you think we’ve had enough of our little drama, then maybe I can get on with the things that this blog is really about.”

just as you create the blog you create the drama here elena… you seem to thrive on it. were this truly a ‘public square’ you would recognize and try to accept outside influences in the form of contributions and suggestions… in that case it would be a co-creative endeavor but you’re really not interested in that elena, this blog appears to be about a topic or a catch phrase or a slogan you introduce to discuss with yourself… an attempt to contribute here is looked upon with suspicion bordering on paranoia leading to histrionic outbursts which have the effect of further isolation… this blog is about constructing an ivory tower with ramparts and walls to protect yourself from any other point of view. are you familiar with this concept yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder

e: “On your approach to consciousness we don’t agree. You have the same approach Girard and the Fellowship have: that the mind doesn’t participate in consciousness.”

we disagree on a lot of things elena and that’s ok. you pretend to understand my point of view regarding ‘consciousness’ but it’s obvious here you don’t and do you know why you don’t understand… it’s because you don want to, because you would rather conflate me with your ex-husband girald, that’s easier for you than to care enough to really understand another point of view, you see me through the lens of your past experiences and that keeps you from really hearing or understanding in the present. so let me explain my point of view (although i don’t expect you’ll really get it) — i didn’t say that the mind does not participate in consciousness, that’s what you are saying and attributing to me. quite to the contrary, the mind does become ‘conditioned’ – this conditioning is what is called ‘learning’ and more generally this conditioning is experientially based… this ‘conditioned’ mind is what constitutes the contents of individual consciousness… the conditioned mind is an integral ‘paricipating’ aspect of individual consciousness… you see elena, there’s a great deal of difference between your idea of what i think and my actual thoughts on the subject, but i’m sure you’re more content to continue to conflate me with the assholes who have wronged you in the past, that way you can continue to vilify me and use me as a target and a vent for your pent-up hostility and frustration.

e: “A low level of consciousness acts and thinks in specific ways. It is unable to grasp the whole of no matter what situation. It sees one side or another but not both sides and tries to annihilate the other side that it is not willing to see to justify the fact that it doesn’t see it.”

if only you would take this insight to heart and to see it in yourself…

e: “That is how ridiculously destructive it happens to be and there is nothing funny about it no matter how ironic. It is the lower eating the higher. That’s good, I’d never actually seen that law so clearly. In practical terms it bans, imprisons and kills people who do not agree with it…. The saddest aspect of fascism is that it is not conscious people performing evil but unconscious people performing their best understanding strongly attached to their egoness.”

still quoting fof scripture… still stuck in the past… i have to ask: are you really seeing how this works in yourself or are you simply parroting ‘catchy’ slogans…. you’ve exhibited this behavior over and again elena, do you see that clearly ?

e: “Just like Girard. So you think consciousness has nothing to do with the world and we are going nowhere and if I find our times wonderfully interesting, you think its a curse!!!!”

look elena, i’ve already responded to you putting words in my mouth regarding what ‘consciousness’ is… i think something is lost in the language translation here, you obviously didn’t get the implication… and i don’t know that i can explain it so you’ll understand — consider for a moment what it is that makes for “interesting times” — it has to do with social changes based on the play of shifting ideologies… for example what’s happening in cairo…. these changes are also fraught with danger, danger and the unknown possibilities contained in change make for interesting times… in this context you might even substitute “dangerous times” for “interesting times” — it is in the ‘danger’ of change wherein lies the ‘curse.’ one might conjecture that the source of this was a taoist chinese farmer who would have been contented and happy to live life from cradle to grave without major shifts in the social fabric. change makes for ‘interesting times’ but for those who are not interested in changing, it can be seen as a curse… i’m sure you can relate to this elena since you are so opposed to change yourself.

e: “No, of course not, now you’ll say that wasn’t you but Gebser right? So easy when you never speak for yourself unless you’re put against the wall, to blame those you quote…. like Bobby!!”

look elena, you do this all the time elena, do you understand what conflation is? this keeps you from the possibility of actually hearing anything or relating to the individual as an individual…. this tendency has a lot to do with misguided misjudgment, your confusion of me with either ‘bobby’ or anyone else is based on conflation. Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals or concepts become confused until there seems to be only a single identity — the differences appear to become lost. treating two distinct individuals or concepts as if they were one often produces errors and misunderstandings, a fusion of distinct subjects tends to obscure a clear analysis of ideas or relationships which are emphasized by contrasts. distinctions between two concepts or individuals are ignored by you because through this glib and superficial sort of treatment it’s easier to interpret the other individual through your filter of already familiar categorizations… this keeps you unwittingly stuck stuck in a box of your own making.

e: “And this style of yours Ton is so sick, can’t you ever just SAY it? Speak? Do you have to “imply” things so that if I actually come at you, you can run to the sides?”

is it my style that you react to with such hostility ? i suspect there is a lot more to it… like i said, i am simply a trigger for your aggression, your hostility which is based on….? something more than my ‘style.’

e: “THAT is the great problem with a dialogue with you. That you can’t dialogue. The first condition of consciousness between two people is that they openly and sincerely acknowledge each other.”

and what is the problem with you elena? that you can’t dialogue? that there is so much venom and vitriol in your reaction to my presence here? i’ve already indicated that part of the problem is that you don’t care to acknowledge me as an individual, you’ve already placed me in a box along with other males who have harmed you, along with the other cultists who have harmed you… you are unable or unwilling to relate to me as an individual because of the confusion induced by your continuing conflating; in this you are very much stuck in the past…. here is yet another example — e: “…you like Bobby think it’s “feminine dominance”. you’re stuck in the past the idea of “feminine dominance” is something i left behind when i left the fof many years ago and yet you still hang on to and carry that rotting baggage…. let it go if you can elena.

e: “If all you can answer to the post I wrote is that “interesting” is a chinese curse, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? WHY DO YOU EVER COME IF NOT TO SIT IN YOUR OWN DISCOMFORT?”

why do i have to explain my presence to you elena, are you so insecure ? i thought this was a “public square” elena. am not experiencing “discomfort” by visiting you but it is you who experience “discomfort” when i come here because of your own insecurity… this has to do with your reactive defensive responses to me…. what is that about?

this is getting longer than i expected and i have to move on to other things but i’ll return later to address the rest of your post… i’m sorry that it makes you uncomfortable but if it does too bad, after all this is supposed to be a ‘public square’ wherein we have to learn to be tolerant of other points of view… i think this is a valuable lesson for you to learn. thank you for allowing me to continue to help you with that.

Reply

70.            Elena - February 5, 2011 [Edit]

Oh Ton, I have tried again and again to allow you to be here but you tire me so quickly I will surely ban you again if you keep it up and that is not a threat but a fact.

We don’t agree Ton. We simply don’t agree and don’t want to agree and each one of us has his and her own reasons not to. I’ve told you mine and you’ve told me yours and I am not going to change mine to please you or you to please me. Since that is alright at this point, since to me you can go on laying out all your sophistry and continue avoiding the facts I present which are all here from the beginning, there is no point for me in insisting.

I do consider this a waste of time. I do not appreciate your position Ton and your unwillingness to actually explain your presence here reveals you more clearly than anything else you’ve said. It’s so difficult for you to stand up for yourself and be honest. People don’t go anywhere they don’t like and when they do it is because their deranged mind is out to get a kick out of bothering the person they don’t like. That is what you’re doing here: bothering me. You find nothing of value here and come with your posts implying that you are here to give me lessons. That is your real problem Ton: your superiority complex. It’s a hard one to get over isn’t it? You who seem to have some institutionalized knowledge of psychology should know it so well. That is why you and I cannot dialogue because I simply won’t take your act.

Again and again you can’t avoid your own imaginary picture that you are so superior to me that you are here to teach me something, the valuable lesson you think I have to learn from you and wanting to “help” me because in your mind I am deranged!. Are you this lousy with the other people you treat as a so called therapist? Is that why you come here even though I don’t even pay you? I am not trying to offend you although that certainly sounds offensive but it might make you actually think about it.

You are in a box Ton, take a look at it and try to find a hole out of it when possible. Then perhaps you’ll get human enough to actually address the things I present here with the human approach that I am willing to connect to. I’ll probably be a better partner for a dialogue then.

So if you really wish to participate here allow me to give you some guidelines that might make it easier for you.

1. Pick a subject and expose it as you understand it then add to it with other people’s quotes if you need to.

2. Even better, choose from what is already here and discuss it, that is, digest it in your own way and then we’ll discuss it if I find it of interest. Since you are a visitor here that would be the most “civilized” approach: to acknowledge what you find and add or take from it.

3. If you continue your superiority act I will avoid your posts.

4. Speak from your self. I am not interested in what others write as much as what you think: a dialogue between us. Others are very welcome in as much as they write about what you and I are already dialoguing about and we can use others to emphasize our points of view but not to replace our whole self with them as you tend to do. The cult definitely lingers in that behavior letting the “guru author” think it out and play your part!

5. Should you not be interested in following these guidelines please refrain from posting here.

6. I will also not read posts from authors that you yourself don’t substantiate and if they are not related to my research I will eventually delete them.

6. I will give us two weeks to a month to try this out and if it doesn’t work I’ll probably ban you again and continue working on the things that interest me.

Good luck!

Going back to your post and explanation of the “curse”, this is good because it reveals you: interesting times, dangerous times. This second explanation allows me to better relate to your post. Cairo. You find it dangerous? I am not surprised being it such a confrontation to the US but maybe eventually Americans will find that there are also humans on the other side of the world wishing to live and not destroy the planet as Arabs are usually portrayed by your people. Even more interesting is the expression of “integral consciousness” as Gebser put it. People everywhere realizing that they not only exist but count!

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71.            Elena - February 5, 2011 [Edit]

Please also read the post above but to get on with the things that matter….

Ton: so let me explain my point of view (although i don’t expect you’ll really get it) — i didn’t say that the mind does not participate in consciousness, that’s what you are saying and attributing to me.

Elena: you didn’t say anything it was Gebser

Ton: quite to the contrary, the mind does become ‘conditioned’ – this conditioning is what is called ‘learning’ and more generally this conditioning is experientially based… this ‘conditioned’ mind is what constitutes the contents of individual consciousness… the conditioned mind is an integral ‘paricipating’ aspect of individual consciousness…

Elena:

In relation to that we are saying the same thing but I’ve added a lot more to that not only talking with you but before so if you don’t read what I write what is the point of the dialogue?

I’ll restate once more for the sake of trying but this won’t go on and on.

We actually agree that” the mind does become ‘conditioned’”

We are not saying anything new here Ton, we verified this over and over again when we studied brainwashing and how it was possible in cults. The formatory apparatus is conditioned not only in cults but in average life and people “adapt” their thinking to the “consciousness” of those around them which is not actually their own consciousness but the generalized attitudes about anything and everything. This is what you call learning.

( I will continue to use work language because I still find it useful and am not about to sit and invent other terms that I already know work so if that is an obstacle for you as you said, its too bad. I find it of great advantage that you know the language so that we can expand and communicate with it, regular psychology doesn’t speak as clearly about centers, division of centers and so on. Other systems are probably as good and complete but having learnt this one I intend to use it, remember, I threw out the dirty water not the baby.)

Ton:– this conditioning is what is called ‘learning’ and more generally this conditioning is experientially based… this ‘conditioned’ mind is what constitutes the contents of individual consciousness… the conditioned mind is an integral ‘paricipating’ aspect of individual consciousness…

Elena: So yes, this I understand but what I’ve been talking about is taking all that and putting it upside down and forward, that is, we’ve verified that the mind of a human being can be trained and conditioned like a dog and that is exactly what happens in cults, it is the outer world sculpting the inner functions of an individual without his self presence and control, that is, without his own consciousness. What I am talking about is the step beyond that when individuals become conscious of themselves, their self and allow that consciousness of the whole to penetrate all their functions. The mind then learns and can be reconditioned as much as all the other centers but something else that happens is that the “world” becomes alive to the individual.

In the first process the individual is passive and the world is active. The world acts on the individual and conditions him or her. In the second process the individual is receptive to the world, active, and allows the world to objectively act on his or her being rendering “meaning”. The ACT, the relationship that connects the individual and the world then becomes and objective reality in which both world and human act towards their mutual development.

An individual is not just conscious of himself. An individual is conscious but what that really means is that “life has objectified itself in the individual”: that “reality” has come to life in its full expression in a particular individual and he or she are hence aware of its intensity, vividness, connectedness, wholeness. This is important and must be explored carefully for I am thinking out loud.

The “mind consciousness” I believe, is still attached to the ego but integral consciousness is not. What the ego cannot conceive is the objectivity of the world with or without its presence. That is why it becomes attached to the physical aspect of the world and has to “possess” it, “own” it. That is the private property impulse playing itself out big time. The integral consciousness is not attached to the ego. It is conscious of the whole.

Music for example, is in itself an objective reality, so is eating, working, moving. The subjective individual does not allow for the reality of the music, the food or the work he or she is doing to “impress” them objectively because in the unconscious state they “buffer” the impression and subjectify it. They “subjectify” it particularly in their identification with it. Because of the identification with it, they cannot be objectively impressed by it and the world fails to “feed” their spirit sucking out their subtle “energies” through their own identification.

Yes, that is one way to put it. I need to go. Bye

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72.            ton - February 5, 2011 [Edit]

sophistry? ha ha ha… that’s a good one elena coming from you who tries to bury and hide truth with words piled on top of words piled on topo words–a dog chasing it’s own tail comes to mind.

indeed this has become, once again, like fighting fire with fire — it’s a waste of time. you see me as an intrusion into your own ‘private idaho,’ your artifical world of insulation from reality, and you don’t like me here because you see me not as an individual or a person but as an intrusion, a mere inconvenience…. and you have your ways of dealing with such a situation, you eliminate the intrusion… and who has a superiority complex?! once again, the kettle calls the pot black. i understand your desire to be alone, this is an aspect of your narcissim, and i will leave you to it, but please elena, don’t call this a public square, that’s just plain nonsense.

before i take my leave i would have liked to go back and address what you’ve written to me here but we’ve traveled that path too many times before and frankly i don’t have the time or energy right now to deal with you… you weary me… maybe later.

before closing here i would offer an editorial comment and suggest that if you cannot recognize and aknowledge the danger inherent in the current social unrest occurring in cairo you are in serious need of a reality check… how many have been killed and injured so far… that does not represent danger to you !?! i suppose the individuals who are hurt by this probably don’t matter to you, since “we are one” you probably don’t even stop to consider the individual who is harmed by the volitility of the situation…. the individual doesn’t matter right elena, it’s all about the collective and the ‘righteous’ cause of “democracy” and “freedom” right elena?

i chose to use the unrest and turmoil in cairo to help you understand the “chinese curse” comment because the unrest is current… i hoped you would better understand the sense of my referense to said “chinese curse” but you still didn’t get it… maybe this was a bad example to try to explain it to you…. elena, it has nothing to do with nationality elena, but of course leave it to you to filter it through a lens distorted by bigotted stereotypes. you don’t get it and that’s fine elena, keep your head buried in the sand if that’s what you need.

one more question before i go elena, would you not agree that the “ultimate superiority complex” here is exhibited and wielded by you yourself with your repeated flourishes and grandiose declarations of ‘rules’ and the illusion of having the ‘final word.’ threats to banish me (again) from your private ivory tower of babel, do no harm to me elena. the threats and attacks and hostility issue from your own superiority complex in action, the repeateded threats and attacks reflect nothing more than your own intolerance and lack of civility. go ahead elena, dismiss me (again) i’m bored to tears with you anyway.

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73.            Elena - February 7, 2011 [Edit]

Thank you for your post Ton and for clearly revealing your self and your agenda here once again.

I have before talked about vices in speech in relation to our interactions and here we can again see the same patterns:

1. You avoid to write about the things that matter taking legitimacy away from the individual talking about them. i.e. you totally avoid the post on consciousness.

2. You attack personally over and over again showing that what you are after is undermining the person you’re talking to. Were the person identified with your valuation she or he would fall for the attack but after that happening over and over again the person finally learns to stand up on his or her own self no matter the valuation others have.

It cannot be said that you do these things “consciously”. The problem is not a conscious intention to hurt but simply unconsciousness of the other person and the issues being presented.

I’ll talk about the points in which we disagree in a following post.

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74.            Elena - February 7, 2011 [Edit]

Ton: before closing here i would offer an editorial comment and suggest that if you cannot recognize and aknowledge the danger inherent in the current social unrest occurring in cairo you are in serious need of a reality check… how many have been killed and injured so far… that does not represent danger to you !?! i suppose the individuals who are hurt by this probably don’t matter to you, since “we are one” you probably don’t even stop to consider the individual who is harmed by the volitility of the situation…. the individual doesn’t matter right elena, it’s all about the collective and the ‘righteous’ cause of “democracy” and “freedom” right elena?

Elena:

I understand your position Ton but your interpretation of the problems is poor.

The fact that people die in all struggles is so common for us in the third world that what shocks and what I find beautiful about Egypt is that only a few people have died because it is clear that Mubarak and his inner circle knows that if he were to attack and hurt more people he would lose even more support for there is still something sacred about life in those cultures that has long been lost in the West.

One of the most impressive images I’ve seen recently, is Tahrir Square full with thousands of people peacefully praying and then vigorously defending themselves from the violence. In the Arab world they cut your arm if you steal, that is how seriously the laws there are actualized. It is difficult for an American to understand the differences in the life experiences of people that they have become used to seeing as “inferiors”.

In the imaginary world that people in America and Europe have been trained to accept, what counts is not the millions of dead that their governments have killed one way or another in the hidden and silent imperialism putting puppet governments to rule willing to sell their people and riches away, but the threat of a nation that stands up against such domination.

I understand you Ton. You are in the box of your American dream like millions of Americans and it is time for you to wake up to the horrors of your people and move beyond them into a more human version of yourself in which you are able to see the crimes your people have committed with full consent of their laws and those they’ve imposed on the world over. To see and understand that does not take away from the greatness of America in other areas. What we’ll come to realize in time is that nations like individuals, have their light and dark side, both with equal intensity. To overcome this inability to see both sides is the task of the next generation and it comes with the actualization of compassion in our being.

Compassion comes when we experience the duality in our own selves and active consciousness and will begin when we force our selves to control the purely instinctive impulses in our acts. Until then, individuals and nations move with the inertia of the past without conscious action like animals do in nature. This is why people cannot be found responsible in their unconsciousness in the spiritual dimension although they are certainly liable in the human dimension and crime against others can be judged by the laws. But when the laws are manipulated against the people, crime has become the modus vivendi of the status quo, just like in cults.

It’s interesting that the more consciousness we acquire as human beings, the more we stand up for the actualization of the laws that people in all civilizations held up from the beginning. The human “ideal” is already there and we are simply striving to “realize” it, actualize it, socially, nationally, universally and individually.

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75.            Elena - February 7, 2011 [Edit]

On the subject of rules here, there are rules in every blog Ton and this one is no different. You adhere to them or stay out. Why would that surprise you if not because you think you are the authority and I should submit? But thinking is not being and the facts here are that I am in charge of this blog, I set the standards and you submit to them: to the standards, not to me.

You are to me my equal: a human being, full of mistakes and inconsistencies, like me. We have both dwelled for long in the dimension of opposite thinking, willing and acting. We struggle with the inconsistencies in each other’s unclarified domains in the first, second and third lines of experience: the personal, the social and the universal.

We have struggled for long and dug into each other’s dimensions enough to know that We are there in the end as two human beings with the experience of their particular times and place.

I wish you all the best Ton. I wish all the clarity and well being that life can give you. The enmity we experience in one dimension is just an aspect of our own selves struggling to come together in better harmony. Disharmony in one dimension is not disharmony in all of them and once in a rare while when we experience harmony in many dimensions, consciousness lights up in our beings and impregnates them with clarity.

The chairos times that we are experiencing with wikileaks, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordania and Egypt are a flourishing that millions of us have been waiting for all our lives. The division of the world into civilized and not civilized people cannot continue. We are all equally human. American and Europeans need as much help to heal their inhuman inconsistencies as third world countries need to heal their inhuman inconsistencies. What was right a century ago is no longer right and what is right now will not be right in a century. We are simply stepping on the step of our turn and cannot jump over it but we will be seen as savages three centuries from today.

I realize you are unwilling to hear me when I speak thus but I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to your heart from my heart, for we are one in that dimension.

78.            ton - February 7, 2011 [Edit]

re: 73

in the past i’ve responded to condescending and arrogant posts like this by writing something that i felt represents “a mirror” (what you call a ‘superiority complex’ is something you see in me but fail to see in yourself. you don’t care to see yourself through the eyes of another, to see yourself from another’s perspective makes you uncomfortable, you find it disturbing. so when i hold up the mirror for an already reactive girl like you, you don’t take in the impression to digest it, instead you over-react and the vicious cycle continues. your self-understanding is apparently very limited and although i’ve tried to get through to you, the the thickness of your character armor keeps you ‘safe’ and secure in the illusion of your superiority. you’re not interested in change anyway, you find the idea of change to be disturbing. well elena, for now i’ve lost interest in the game of reflecting back to you yourself. in the past i’ve responded to you by acting out of a persona which i am seeing in you, it’s a persona which for me feels completely absurd, bombastic and frankly, more than a little nuts. i’m not interested right now in engaging in this nonsense in order to help you to see yourself… and you do need help, whether you acknowledge the fact or not — no one is an island. you who are so adamantly against change — and that’s part of your problem — you may think it’s a strength but it’s only the mere shadow of strength. you are unable to relate to me as an equal elena, and when i return that attitude to you in kind, you react with extreme hostility. the truth is that it’s YOU who cannot relate to me here as your equal, and that’s something you just don’t get. you are obviously not interested in getting it, you need to feel you have the upper hand in order to hide your own insecurities. so this strategy of “fighting fire with fire” does not work, that’s ok, i tried to help you to see yourself and for a while it was mildly amusing but now i’ve lost interest. we all have psychological ‘blind spots’ — a fact to which you obviously prefer to remain oblivious. it’s more accurate to say you don’t have a choice and so you remain too smug, too vain, too arrogant to consider that you might have defects. when you are challenged you are too reactive and that leads to the vicious cycle. obviously you don’t like the notion of change because you’re comfortable and self satisfied which feeds the arrogance and condescension…. arrogance and condescension which you’ve once again leveled at me in 73. this is your problem now elena, because you cannot see it for what it is. talking down to me as you are wont to do only demeans to you, continuing to talk down to others from your “high horse” only feeds your delusions. when you can learn to relate to me as a unique individual and as an equal, only then will we ever begin to have a civil conversation.

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79.            Elena - February 7, 2011 [Edit]

Thank you for your understanding Ton, I am glad you’ll stop “treating” me.

I have for a long time told you you are not someone I wish to be treated by. I am finally very comfortable with what you call my “madness”