It Is All Good - there just isn't enough of it

[djama]

After a disastrous earlier attempt to introduce this material to this forum in a step by step fashion I will now simply present it all at once as a single 'trip report'. Although it did not involve actual drugs, the yoga techniques used created an ecstatic experience far beyond anything I had every experienced before, and I took a lot of drugs in my youth, so I think it qualifies as a 'trip'.

I know it may seem like a lot to take in all at once but if you manage to grasp it I am sure you will find the effort well rewarded
.
Agent: Raja Yoga techniques: including a sluice induced by taking massive doses of ascorbic acid, 6 days without food, the last 3 without sleep doing both internal and external yoga exercises without break 24hrs a day.

Experience: I have been practicing raja yoga for 29 years.

Setting: I rented a house on my own for 1 week on a remote beach 15km (10 miles) long so that I would not be disturbed or disturb anyone else.

Purpose: To try to resolve the apparent discrepancy between the observation of an all-positive cosmos so often made in states of ecstasy and the common-sense observation of the negativity of ‘bad things’.

The problem of how to reconcile the ‘all-positives’ observations from experiences of ecstasy with the reality of the negatives of this world had been one that had troubled me for a very long time. Although I am talking about psychological states of ecstasy not the drug ‘ecstasy’ ecstatic states precipitated by drug use are not excluded. All mystical and religious traditions culminate in the experience of ecstasy, whether it is called Enlightenment, Nirvana, Fana, Samadhi or something else, the ultimate achievement of the adept always includes an all-positive state of unsullied, unbridled blissfulness.

One of the common observations of this experience is that reality is an entirely positive phenomenon, ie a cosmos completely without negatives. This is the observation has led to such mystic aphorisms as; ‘everything is the work of God’, ‘love is the only force’, ‘everything is divine’ and numerous other superlatives and absolutes involving various traditional religious terminologies and god concepts.

This observation is recorded not just by many of the most revered and respected sages and mystics in history but, largely because of the ready availability of certain types of drugs especially in modern times, many ‘ordinary’ and often quite young people have had this experience and have expressed it in their own modern secular language, eg. ‘it is all good’, ‘love is all there is’, `everyone is good`, etc.

The assertion that ‘it is all good’ raises a problem – how to explain negative phenomena, eg wars, rapes, child abuse, torture, etc. Logically, it seems the two observations are mutually exclusive, ie if everything is good – there cannot be any bad things or; if there are bad things – everything cannot be good. This was a serious problem for me because I had experienced ecstatic states wherein I had the observation that everything was good and I was convinced of the legitimacy of these experiences however I was also convinced that bad things were truly bad, ie I didn’t believe any of the whitewash theories that strive to construe bad things as somehow ‘a good thing in disguise’, eg righteous karma, unseen grand-plan, fulfilment of unrecognised need/desire, etc. We have had at least 3 millennia of ecstatic, mystical, poetical writings describing these all-positive experiences but what we have lacked is a rational reconciliation of these observations with the reality of the often grievous negatives that surround us and that was what I was seeking.

To address this question I undertook the methodology of my tradition and engaged in a special series of yoga processes including; a purge, 6 days without food, the last 3 without sleep doing special exercises 24hrs a day. I designed these processes to produce a state of ecstasy with the intention of focussing the insights of that state on the resolution of this dilemma. I feel it is important to note that the state that was produced by these processes was the most profound and powerful ecstatic experience of my life (and I took a lot of LSD, Mushrooms, Mescaline, etc ,when I was young).
I expected to find that one or the other of these observations were not legitimate, ie either ‘there are no real negatives’ or, ‘everything is not positive’. What I did find astonished me – I found that both observations were legitimate, ie everything is positive and negatives are truly negative. The key to the reconciliation lay in the fact that these 2 observations are not mutually exclusive because there is something about the true nature of negatives which has never been recognised.

While negatives are real – and this is the twist – they do not actually exist. This is not some bizarre quantum reality, this idea is actually completely sensible, absolutely rational and quite simple and it can be readily understood by looking at certain physical phenomena. All negatives are the same type of phenomena as things like; darkness, cold, dryness and silence. That is they are phenomena not of the presence of something but of the absence of something. Darkness is only the absence of light, cold is only the shortage of heat, dryness is only a lack of moisture, silence is only the absence of sound, etc. Here is the trick – an absence of something, since it is an absence of an existence, does not have any actual existence of its own and therefore it does not actually exist. So while things like dark and cold are obviously real and have real effects these things have no actual existence of their own – they are abstracts.

What I saw in this special state was that all negatives are phenomena of exactly this same type. Just as darkness is only what happens when there is a lack of light, cruelty is only what happens when there is a shortage of empathy. Just as cold is only what happens when there is not enough heat, jealousy is only what happens when there is not enough trust, etc, etc. And in exactly the same way that darkness and cold are real but do not actually exist, cruelty and jealousy and all other negatives are real but do not actually exist either.

The reconciliation of the ‘mutually exclusive perceptions’ comes because something has to actually exist to be subject to perception. In a state of clarified perception (however acheived) all ‘actually existing negatives’ disappear because they were never really there. They never were perceptions of the mind, they were always only ever projections from the mind. All that had to happen for these negatives to disappear was for them to stop being projected.

Negatives are however still perfectly valid concepts just as cold and dark are valid concepts – they are not illusions, figments of the imagination nor are they mistakes and they are negative and these absences do need to be addressed. They are legitimate concepts that correspond accurately to the real world but because they are not actually existing things they cannot be perceived. When we go into a dark room we do not actually see darkness, what we actually see is the small amount of light that is there. What we perceive as cold is actually a perception of heat, only it is a perception of heat leaving the body (anyone with a background in physics or engineering, particularly refrigeration, will understand this immediately).

It is important to realise that this is not just a piece of sophistry or an exercise in semantics – darkness and light are 2 completely different types of phenomena. One is an actually existing thing and the other has no type of actual existence at all. This is demonstrated most clearly in the fact that one can be manipulated and one cannot. Light consists of photons that can be reflected, refracted or blocked – in some cases photons can even be counted. You can't do anything with Darkness because there is nothing to do anything with, it cannot be manipulated because there is no actual thing to manipulate. So even though, in the ecstatic state with perception clarified, the perception is only of positives that is because only positives actually exist, our world can be and is still riddled with negatives because while everything that actually exists is positive there are still many more positives required to address the many lacks of things in this world.

This discovery also resolves any apparent conflict between positives and negatives. There cannot be a conflict: because negatives do not actually exist there are no actually existing things with which the positives could be in conflict.

I do not expect anyone who has not had the experience/observation of omniscient positivity to grasp this insight however with the ready availability of certain drugs in the modern age many people have now had this experience and this observation and have struggled, like me, to find a way to reconcile it with the seeming legitimacy of negative valuations of life’s ‘bad things’.

Since this experience I can see the all-positive nature of reality whenever I choose and I can see that negatives are not the effects of the actual presences of negatives but only and entirely the effects of the absences of positives. Despite this in the automatic default psychological state that occupies me by itself, I still operate on the ‘actual negatives model’ to which I have been so heavily conditioned since I was a child.

If anyone would like a more in-depth treatment of the subject I posted a free download article with more discussion of the implications and applications of this breakthrough at the free electronic bookshop www.lulu.com under the title, ‘Beautiful Garbage’.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	EXCELLENT post!
	Thought Provoking
	An excellent in depth post
	A very special and thought provoking post. Truly a wonderful read. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[Montgolfier]

Fantastic read!! ) I really don't have anything to add to this as you put accross your point so well, except to say you have definitely given me something to think about!! I had never looked at 'negative' as simply 'the absence of positive' before. Very interesting concept.

)

[melt_000]

don't you think pain is a positive thing? it's not the same as absence of pleasure. a gun is a harmful, bad thing that positively exists, it's not defined by the absence of a not-gun.

[djama]

Originally Posted by melt_000

don't you think pain is a positive thing? it's not the same as absence of pleasure. a gun is a harmful, bad thing that positively exists, it's not defined by the absence of a not-gun.

True, pain is not simply an absence of pleasure but pain itself is not a negative. Pain is actually a positive thing - it warns of damage and prevents further damage, such as when a person breaks their leg the pain stops them walking and increasing the damage, or if someone puts their hand on something hot the pain makes them pull it away before more damage occurs. Pain only becomes a bad thing when it gets out of control and a lack of control is a lack of something.

Guns themselves are not bad things, eg if some children were being attacked by a cougar a gun would be a very good thing indeed.

[djama]

Originally Posted by MrCheese

Fantastic read!! ) I had never looked at 'negative' as simply 'the absence of positive' before. Very interesting concept.
)

Good to see someone getting a handle on this. It is more than a concept though - it is an observable fact - next time you are in 'a special state' see if you can actually see it. Good luck.

[dirk]

I think that the ideas that Djarma has mentioned are great starting points for further contemplation, though I imagine that the point at which you view from comes into play (i.e. objectivity/subjectivity).

for instance one may agree with:

"Guns themselves are not bad things, eg if some children were being attacked by a cougar a gun would be a very good thing indeed."

- unless you are the cougar

One of my own favorite ponderings is what color is an orange when it is in the dark?

[djama]

Originally Posted by dirk

- unless you are the cougar

This is because the cougar lacks control of the gun.

[melt_000]

Originally Posted by djama

True, pain is not simply an absence of pleasure but pain itself is not a negative. Pain is actually a positive thing

i agree. but wasn't the goal to reconcile worldly pain with your experiences with drugs of "everything being good" but here we have something which is positive and yet not good. as i see, you have good and bad, both positive in the sense that they are things, but both are still opposites and one detracts from the other. you need some pain in your life or else your pleasure will be boring, and you also need pain to make you grow. so things that make you happy or sad at one point in time, are both "right" and are both necessary for you to be happy in the long run... that's the middle road, you know.. i woudln't really characterize the religious experience, as being only good. in my opinion, it is beyond good or bad, and yet integrates both. freedom from the ideas of pleasure or pain, and just existing is the only way to be at peace. if you can be happier, you're not at peace because you want something. i was just saying that, in isolation, pain and bad things do exist.

but what i really mean is, does that really solve your problem? because you wanted to reconcile the negatives with the religious experience, but now you decide that the negatives are actually positives but they're still bad. so how does that make the situation any better(acceptable)? what i'm saying is, can you look at all the bad things happening and reconcile that with what you felt under the influence when you felt that "everything is good"? that would have to be my ultimate goal in religion. to be able to say it makes sense. but it still doesn't for me. i think maybe people have to change the world until it makes sense instead of asking ourselves why it doesn't.

then, also i've never actually felt that "everything is good" when on drugs. i would characterize it more as "i finally see what is good" or "i finally understand how everything should be" and "everything CAN be good"..

[melt_000]

oh.. continued.....
if you had a gun and a cougar, then the cougar would be a bad thing. "but a cougar is a beautiful specimen of nature" is a possible way to say that the cougar is also good. but it definitely is a bad thing to be attacked by one, if you ask anyone whose ever gotten attacked by one. or maybe the child was growing up to be hitler. so maybe it's a good thing. but overall, the situation involving the gun and the cougar would be a bad situation. it would certainly be better if you never met the cougar and never got the gun. you can't just say that anything that could be good in a situation, is good ultimately. because every action has infinite consequences. am i to just say that no matter what i do, it's okay becuase it may end up being good for somebody in the future?

what about chronic pain with no reason, what about cancer, what about rape as you stated in your first post? in what situation does rape end up being a positive?

is your argument that all suffering is actually justified, like the christian "god does everything so everything is right" argument? are you denying the existence of meaningless suffering, is what i mean?

[djama]

Originally Posted by melt_000

i agree. but wasn't the goal to reconcile worldly pain with your experiences with drugs of "everything being good"

The goal was to reconcile the observation of 'everything is good' with the validity of the negative valuation of negatives, and it wasnt a drug experience for me - did you read original post?

but here we have something which is positive and yet not good.

The discrepancy arises from cutting off the quote mid-sentence. My observation was that negatives are actually absences of positive things not presences of actual negative things - the 'pain is good' quote went onto say that it is only when pain gets out of control that it becomes negative and an absence of control is an absence of something positive.

If you look into things more deeply you will find that an 'absence of control' is a fundamental lack underlying all negatives, eg a starving child is starving because of a lack of food, which is of course a lack however if the child had control of the situation it would have food. Absence of control underlies all negatives and there are many things that can result in absence of control; lack of strength, lack of understanding, lack of empathy but they are all lacks.

as i see, you have good and bad, both positive in the sense that they are things, but both are still opposites and one detracts from the other.

I am actually saying that both are legitimate but it is the nature of negatives which is misunderstood - perhaps the most obvious example is emptiness/fullness. They are opposite but one is the presence of something and one is the absence of something. You cannot get a glass of milk from the fridge unless your glass is empty first - emptiness is necessary but it is not an actual thing and as such it cannot resist or conflict with fullness. There is not and cannot be any struggle between emptiness and fullness because emptiness is only an absence of something there is no actual thing for fullness, or the milk, to struggle with. And emptiness cannot be the subject of 'perception' - this is why it is so difficult to understand this breakthrough. Of course you can 'see that the glass is empty' but because emptiness is a non-existence you are not actually perceiving 'emptiness' you are perceiving a glass full of air which your mind 'sees' as emptiness. There is a special word for this process - it is called reification - it is the process of rendering of a concrete concept for something that is in fact an abstract. It seems that this process makes it easier for us to think about abstract things and that is why we engage in it however if the reification is taken to be an actual thing that is a mistake. Cold is real - that is not a mistake - cold is an actual thing - that is a mistake.

i woudln't really characterize the religious experience, as being only good.

I was referring to the ecstatic experience of 'unbridled and unsullied blissfulness' religious or otherwise - there are quite a number of non-ecstatic experiences which could be regarded as religious.

i was just saying that, in isolation, pain and bad things do exist.

I agree it is the nature of bad things that I am trying to explain - cold, dark, silence, dryness, emptiness - all these things 'exist' and are real but they do not actually consist of anything and therefore are not actually available to perception. When we see 'darkness' we are actually imagining it - what we are actually seeing is the small amount of like that is present. The perception of darkness as an actual thing is a projection from the mind not a perception of it.

but what i really mean is, does that really solve your problem?

Yes, I does - I said at the outset that this was not an easy concept to get a hold on - otherwise someone else would have thought of it long ago.

now you decide that the negatives are actually positives but they're still bad.

No, I didnt say that at all - see above.

so how does that make the situation any better (acceptable)?

I am really not sure you have read the OP right through - the object was to reconcile 2 apparently contradictory observations and they are reconciled in this explanation.

what i'm saying is, can you look at all the bad things happening and reconcile that with what you felt under the influence when you felt that "everything is good"? that would have to be my ultimate goal in religion.

Yes, I can - see 2nd last paragraph of OP and again I was not 'under the influence'.

then, also i've never actually felt that "everything is good" when on drugs. i would characterize it more as "i finally see what is good" or "i finally understand how everything should be" and "everything CAN be good"..

I did say that I thought it would very difficult for anyone who has not had the experience of omniscient positivity to understand this discovery however I am very pleased that people are really trying - it is not easy - it is not even easy for me to realise my own discovery in my usual state. I have still to make a special effort to see what I myself have discovered and as soon as I stop that effort, the illusion of actually existing negatives returns - such is my conditioning.

I am reminded of something the physicist Max Planck once said - I dont have it verbatim but it was something like this: 'New understandings are not established by convincing people who believe something else. New understandings are established by the people who believe something else dying of old age and being replaced by people who have been raised with the new understanding.'

My hope is that with so many young people now having the experience, 'it's all good' that giving them the way to reconcile the legitimacy of this observation with the validity of a negative valuation of certain things will allow them to form a world view that is consistent with their experience yet practical in daily life because these absences do need to be addressed.

[Montgolfier]

I have just thought of a practical purpose for this theory:

Event: psychopath rapes and murders young child in school yard

Old action: Media villify the rapist blaming various authorities, Government debates about new tougher sentencing, checks and legislation, murderer is placed in prison. Parents grieve.

New action: Media reflects on the lack of compassion, love and control by the rapist, authorities are made to reflect on their lack of efficiency and improve control, murderer is referred to a psychiatrist and given medication to give him more control. Parents realise the lack of happiness they now feel.

ok, so this sounds a bit silly and i'm just investigating scenarios, but it is difficult to find any 'real' and helpful applications of this understanding. Perhaps if you explain how this can/has helped you on a daily basis people would warm more easily to the idea.

[djama]

Originally Posted by MrCheese

I have just thought of a practical purpose for this theory:
Event: psychopath rapes and murders young child in school yard
Old action: Media villify the rapist blaming various authorities, Government debates about new tougher sentencing, checks and legislation, murderer is placed in prison. Parents grieve.

New action: Media reflects on the lack of compassion, love and control by the rapist, authorities are made to reflect on their lack of efficiency and improve control, murderer is referred to a psychiatrist and given medication to give him more control. Parents realise the lack of happiness they now feel.

ok, so this sounds a bit silly and i'm just investigating scenarios, but it is difficult to find any 'real' and helpful applications of this understanding. Perhaps if you explain how this can/has helped you on a daily basis people would warm more easily to the idea.

The realisation that negatives are only absences of positives gives a completely practical model for remedies and there are no circumstances in which it cannot be applied - there is simply not enough room here to go through how it applies in a wide variety of situations. Generally it means that the remedy for a particular negative is supplying what is lacking rather than opposing actual negatives which do not actually exist. If you have a particular difficulty with a particular type of example I would be only too happy to address it specifically.

In the example you cite above this theory works perfectly well - even if the psychopath is incurable and there is no effective medication and no way to give him the understanding and empathy he needs to refrain from such cruel and callous acts.

The usual response does involve villification, condemnation, blame and punishment for things that do not exist however we do no need condemnation, blame or punishment to justify the protection of our society from dangerous people. We use such a mechanism all the time in the function of quarantine. People who are a danger to the community are confined, by force if necessary, however there is no condemnation, blame or punishment, in fact people suffering what ever disease or disorder are sympathised with and helped.

If however the disease is incurable and they are never safe to release - they never are released. As such they may be confined for the rest of their lives, eg anyone at the moment who is quarantined with ebola would almost certainly be quarantined for the rest of their lives but their would be no condemnation, no blame, no guilt and no punishment involved.

The parents will grieve anyway - but they grieve because of the loss of their child. They would grieve if the child died by murder, disease or meteor strike. The loss of a child is an absence of something - an absence of something precious. And it all only happened because of a lack of control.

If you are really interested in the theory implied by this discovery I give more detail in the free download article mentioned in the OP.

[djama]

Originally Posted by melt_000

oh.. continued.....
if you had a gun and a cougar, then the cougar would be a bad thing. "but a cougar is a beautiful specimen of nature" is a possible way to say that the cougar is also good. but it definitely is a bad thing to be attacked by one, if you ask anyone whose ever gotten attacked by one. or maybe the child was growing up to be hitler. so maybe it's a good thing. but overall, the situation involving the gun and the cougar would be a bad situation. it would certainly be better if you never met the cougar and never got the gun. you can't just say that anything that could be good in a situation, is good ultimately. because every action has infinite consequences. am i to just say that no matter what i do, it's okay becuase it may end up being good for somebody in the future?

No, not at all. Negatives are not denied by this observation it is only the nature of negatives that is recast. Negatives are the result of the lack of something necessary to produce a positive result and underlying all 'lacks of things necessary for positive results' is a lack of control. If you had control of the situation you would not be attacked by the cougar and the child would not grow up to be a Hitler.

what about chronic pain with no reason, what about cancer,

This is dealt with in the OP - pain is a negative when it gets out of control such as you mention. Again if you had control you would stop the pain and stop the cancer. It is really only a lack of space that causes me to use the one-size-fits-all answer of lack of control. The reverse of 'all you need to produce a negative is to lack anything you need to produce positive results' is that all you need to avoid negative results is anything that will deliver positive results. In the examples you cite - a new pain killer that works for the patient with 'chronic pain for no reason' would produce a positive result. A new cure or treatment for cancer in the case you mention would also produce a positive result however all these things are just specific methods of control so the one-size-fits-all answer of lack-of-control still fits it is just less specific.

what about rape as you stated in your first post? in what situation does rape end up being a positive?

You seem to have misinterpreted my post - my point was that things like rape are negative however they only occur because of a lack of something. In a rape there is a lack of respect, a lack of compassion, a lack of restraint and a lack of intelligence, a case a multiple lacks - it is important to realise that many negatives are the result of the lack of many things not just one.

is your argument that all suffering is actually justified, like the christian "god does everything so everything is right" argument? are you denying the existence of meaningless suffering, is what i mean?

No, definitely not. The fact I am trying to explain implies that all you need for there to be negatives is to lack anything you need for positive results - therefore one could expect negative results to be terribly widespread - however they are still only lacks of things.

[Montgolfier]

Ok, ive got one for you. I can't get my head around this one. . .

The eBay website relies on 'positive' and 'negative' comments after members usernames.

The negative feedback consists of a 'negative comment' about the transaction and a 'red minus symbol', instead of a 'positive comment' and a 'green plus symbol' for a positive feedback.

Following your earlier examples (eg. light/dark) there should be no value for the negative response -simply a 'lack of positive response', but the negative is measurable. There is a text entry and small image ('ones' and 'zeros') stored on ebay's server.

As a keen eBay seller it can be distressing to find a negative comment arrive amongst an otherwise perfect score, but it would be difficult to dismiss it as simply a 'lack of postive feedback' as it seems to carry the same weight.

Or maybe I missed something?

[djama]

Originally Posted by MrCheese

Ok, ive got one for you. I can't get my head around this one. . .The eBay website relies on 'positive' and 'negative' comments after members usernames. The negative feedback consists of a 'negative comment' about the transaction and a 'red minus symbol', instead of a 'positive comment' and a 'green plus symbol' for a positive feedback.

Firstly something is not a true negative just because someone designates it as a negative, eg a negative ionic charge actually indicates a surplus of electrons - a misnomer if ever there was one.

Following your earlier examples (eg. light/dark) there should be no value for the negative response -simply a 'lack of positive response', but the negative is measurable. There is a text entry and small image ('ones' and 'zeros') stored on ebay's server.

Two things here - firstly the definition of what is lacking is not simply the lack of whatever it is that is negative - see the treatment of rape below. For something to be negative anything that is necessary for it to have positive results can be missing including multiple absences. Various configurations of absences and presences give different conditions, eg it may be cold, dark and dry. In this case; heat, light and moisture are all at low levels which gives the type of conditions one finds in the desert at night in winter or it may be hot, light and wet in which case heat, light moisture is present at high levels this gives you conditions such as you would find in the tropics during the day in the wet season. In these cases a different configuration of things present and absent results in circumstances typical of different environments.

In the example you gave of the 'negative' post - the post itself actually exists - the digits exist - the colors exist - the symbols exist however they are not negative in themselves - to someone who did not speak the language they would have no meaning at all - they would be just colored lights, and perhaps even very pretty colored lights. If it was an accurate criticism it could be quite positive in helping you improve your business.

What is negative is the response to them - there is something lacking there. Without questioning you about an actual example I couldnt tell you exactly what but I can give some possible answers. Maybe you do not have enough confidence in your own dealings to dismiss the criticisms as baseless. Maybe you do not have enough understanding of human nature to know that such things are inevitable. This is because many people simply take out their frustrations at their own problems on anyone they can including people in forums, on Ebay, etc - wherever they can vent their spleens and flame someone they do.

As a keen eBay seller it can be distressing to find a negative comment arrive amongst an otherwise perfect score, but it would be difficult to dismiss it as simply a 'lack of postive feedback' as it seems to carry the same weight.
Or maybe I missed something?

It may not need to be dismissed - it may be accurate in which case you can benefit from it and so it is not a negative thing. If it is not accurate you could understand that the author of the negative comment was simply lacking something they needed to understand why it is not accurate - seeing it as 'their problem not yours' would relieve you of the negative reaction.

These things 'carry weight' but not because of themselves but because of the weight we give them and the actual consequences that stem from that. One interesting implication of this breakthrough is that debts do not actually exist. Minus six dollars and minus six million dollars are exactly the same in the actually existing world, ie neither of them actually exist. However a debt of six million can be very heavy but it is not because of the debt itself it is because of actual things that will happen if you dont pay it - you will be taken to court - you will have your home repossessed (loss of house) you will be thrown in jail (loss of freedom) etc.

If you owed the same amount of money, ie had the same debt, but somehow the computer record was lost or for some other eason no-one was ever going to come after you for it - it wouldnt be a problem at all. You still have the same debt but if there are not going to be any actual consequences - no problem.

This lack of actual existence of a debt is seen very starkly when sometimes a body like the World Bank simply annihilates a debt to a particular country - nothing has to be destroyed in this type of annihilation because the debt never actually existed - it only ever was an abstract - all that had to happen for it to 'disappear' was for people to agree that they werent going to enforce it with actual consequences.

I can only answer this type of query in a general way because it is a generalised type of problem - if you wish to get more specific we need to deal with a specific example, ie one actual event - then we can dissect it and see what is actually missing in that particular case. When we just talk in generalities the answers are necessarily non-specific because the query is not specific.

Remember a negative occurs when something necessary for a positive result is lacking - it changes how we deal with negatives. Instead of looking for the negative that is the cause we look for the positive that is missing. This completely reverses the direction of all attempts to apply remedies. Instead of blame, guilt, anger, punishment and all these things which are aimed are targets that do not exist, all actions to produce remedy are positive actions to supply whatever it is that is lacking in a particular situation.

I think the most important aspect of this breakthrough is that it gives us a way of dealing with negatives as negatives without employing negative strategies and without becoming negative ourselves. That is it gives us a way of dealing appropriately with negatives without losing the experience, 'it's all good'.

Thank you for your thoughtful queries - it is difficult to get your head around - it is difficult for me to get my head around - I often have to stop and think, 'how is this situation explained in the context of this discovery?'

[Montgolfier]

wow!. thanks for the response. Ive got a feeling no-one is going to be able to prove you wrong on this one! (come on guys, try and catch him out!) ;-)

If this is correct (and I suspect it is) you may have a very profound key to the 'understanding' and possible 'direction to cure' depression. I think the key would be to produce a very concise 'guidebook' giving solutions to (or at least the correct way to look at) as many real-life negative situations as possible.

Getting people to believe and understand as you probably will be finding is the difficult part, I mentioned the idea to my mother (who has been very into yoga for the last 30 years) and she said "It's just another way of saying the same thing" (ie saying that 'Darkness is smply the absence of light" is just the same as saying "light is simply the absence of darkness")

- 'I' understand what you are saying but I can also understand other peoples reluctance to accept it.

[djama]

Originally Posted by MrCheese

wow!. thanks for the response. If this is correct (and I suspect it is) you may have a very profound key to the 'understanding' and possible 'direction to cure' depression.

It gives new direction to the remedy for many things though it has to be kept in mind that it is not a panacea. If the thing, or things, which are necessary to make things right are not available or accessible the problem can still be 'insoluble'.

Unfortunately, it doesnt necessarily make things easier - a starving child may be dying of starvation - it is only a lack of food that causes this problem but if there is no food available the child still dies. However of course if there is food somewhere, and there usually is, it is important to get it to the child.

With regard to depression it may well be simply something lacking in the person's life - maybe someone has no love in their life, perhaps they are given no respect - even no money, in this culture where almost everything costs money, can be depressing. If someone is suffering depression it is good to look at their lives and see what may be lacking and to try and supply that. Although it must be kept in mind that it is not just external lacks that can lead to depression, eg someone's glands may not be producing normal levels of dopamine or something similar and so their remedy may not lie outside their heads.

I think the key would be to produce a very concise 'guidebook' giving solutions to (or at least the correct way to look at) as many real-life negative situations as possible.

I have already mentioned a free download article 'Beautiful Garbage' that I posted on the electronic bookstore site lulu.com however I have also written a book as an introduction to the esoteric form of raja yoga that I teach called 'A Different Future' and I have added a very detailed treatment of this subject as an appendix. This appendix deals with the subject in great depth including all sorts of technical problems like definition, semantics and nomenclature. For people who do not have a particular interest in raja yoga or a technical interest in philosophy I wrote a guide for laypeople on this subject alone with lots of illustrative images called 'The End of All Evil' which gives the subject a reasonably comprehensive treatment - it is about 75 pages of text and 60 of images - both of these books are also available at lulu if you are interested.

Getting people to believe and understand as you probably will be finding is the difficult part, I mentioned the idea to my mother (who has been very into yoga for the last 30 years) and she said "It's just another way of saying the same thing" (ie saying that 'Darkness is smply the absence of light" is just the same as saying "light is simply the absence of darkness") - 'I' understand what you are saying but I can also understand other peoples reluctance to accept it.

I am very pleased that you get it - because it is difficult and you are correct people will have great difficulty understanding this because we are so used to reifying negatives that for almost everyone 'they do actually exist' they just cant see that they actually exist only in their own minds.

It is interesting that your mother raised this particular query - these exact words were used by one of the academics commenting on my manuscript. It is important to realise that you cannot simply define them in terms of each other because they are 2 completely different types of phenomena.

From the OP - Light actually exists darkness does not. Light can be manipulated. It consists of photons which can be reflected, refracted or blocked, under certain conditions photons can even be counted. You cannot manipulate darkness because there is no actually existing thing, no "substance of darkness", to manipulate.

Even apparent manipulations of darkness, like shadow plays, etc are actually manipulations of light - they are produced by blocking the photons from reaching certain places in certain patterns. Defining light and darkness in terms of each other would be a semantic exercise - since light is truly only and entirely 'an absence of light' - light would be 'an absence of an absence' semantic gymnastics indeed!

Copernicus' heliocentric view of the planetary system was not just 'a clever idea' to deal with the apparent retrograde movement of the planets - it dealt with the apparent retrograde movement of the planets (as well as a good many other things) because the Sun really is at the center of our planetary system.

Likewise this theory is not just a clever idea to deal with an apparent discrepancy it deals with the apparent discrepancy because this is how our cosmos really is. That is why when people, throughout the ages, have perception heightened and clarified and have gained that special psychological state we call Enlightenment they see - only positives.

PS Mothers are a notoriously tough audience you may have better luck talking to some friends - I can imagine that in the late 16th Century Copernicus' mother would have been very unsympathetic to the idea that 'the Sun doesnt go around the Earth' but she would have been wrong as was everybody else at that time. It is hard to be in the vanguard.
Keep Well. Regards.

[LowExpectations]

Think about what you're saying... the concepts you are connecting are too abstract. If it's cold, it's lack of heat, if it's hot, it's lack of control? You are simply applying this relatively general concept to anything you can get you hands on. Reality isn't that simple, there is no way to just figure it out with a single theory, a single idea, especially at this stage in our development as a species and as a civilization.

Also remember the implications of experience and state of mind. The older one gets the more they latch on to what they already know, right or wrong or completely abstract. Think of the reasons behind this and why you thought of this.

We are still just another organism in the end, striving to survive, longing to transcend.

[djama]

Originally Posted by LowExpectations

Think about what you're saying... the concepts you are connecting are too abstract. If it's cold, it's lack of heat, if it's hot, it's lack of control?

Negatives are abstracts that is the whole point - negatives (since they are abstracts) do not actually exist which is why in clarified states of consciousness you do not see them. I am not sure what you mean by 'too abstract' if it is an abstract it is an abstract I dont know how an abstract could be more or less abstract than it is.

In negative situations control is always lacking because, quite simply, if you had control you would stop the negative from forming or correct it if it had already formed.

We are still just another organism in the end, striving to survive, longing to transcend.

If you are alleging that I am presenting a simplistic outlook - have you really thought through what you have just said yourself?

[robin_himself]

I really love your view and will make my struggle to acknowleadge it... but could you explain how parasitism can excist... or a thing like sacrifice.... without "a negative" on one hand to benefit the other.... cause when i would sacrifice my life for someone else's to continue.... does that positive gesture be enough to equal "the absence of my life"?

[LowExpectations]

Originally Posted by djama

If you are alleging that I am presenting a simplistic outlook - have you really thought through what you have just said yourself?

Mine is not a solution, it is a cause for futher questioning and further defining. I recognize my simplicity in a sense, but it is not a simplicity of thought but of representation. I feel I am not at the level of writing to communicate myself accurately, and generally the people around me don't understand me when I do.

Any answer that completes the question and satisfies the drive to persue the matter further is counterproductive. Existance is far too infinitely complex to understand anytime soon, keep going, constantly. It's as if you were a worker building the pyramids, you understand that it will take many more lifetimes than yours and you will never see them completed, but you have an idea of the grand completion to come. If you just decide its good enough for you before it's finished, you will find yourself with a significantly lower vantage point in the coming years.


ah.... I haven't had a good philosophy debate in such a long time.

[robin_himself]

Originally Posted by robin_himself

I really love your view and will make my struggle to acknowleadge it... but could you explain how parasitism can excist... or a thing like sacrifice.... without "a negative" on one hand to benefit the other.... cause when i would sacrifice my life for someone else's to continue.... does that positive gesture be enough to equal "the absence of my life"?

I'd really apreciate if you could awnser this question..... thankx

And i have another one...

why do you believe that everything in its essence is positive? and couldn't it be that the negative should be appreciated just as much?

[djama]

Originally Posted by LowExpectations

ah.... I haven't had a good philosophy debate in such a long time.

Firstly I must apologise I mistook your forum name 'Low Expectations' for the heading on your post and thought it was part of your comment.

I do not pretend to have all the answers - I have found the solution to one problem, ie why when we are in a special state of clarified perception all negatives disappear and I have worked out how the legitimacy of that observation is reconciled with our common sense realisation of the validity of negatives.

It is not everything but it removes an enormous perhaps the biggest stumbling block to making the 'it's all good' philosophy practical.

I am sorry if my responses have been a bit slow my computer blew a monitor and I am waiting on a replacement.

[djama]

Originally Posted by robin_himself

I really love your view and will make my struggle to acknowleadge it... but could you explain how parasitism can excist... or a thing like sacrifice.... without "a negative" on one hand to benefit the other.... cause when i would sacrifice my life for someone else's to continue.... does that positive gesture be enough to equal "the absence of my life"?

It is important to realise that just because negatives do not actually exist does not mean that they are not real. Phenomena like cold and dark do not actually exist since they are only the effects of a lack of something - in the case of cold it is only a lack of heat - in the case of darkness it is only a lack of light. This theory does not deny the reality of the phenomena but refutes certain presumptions about their characteristics.

Since a negative is a lack of something it is simple to explain a phenomena like parasitism, eg a flea draws blood - it is a positive thing for the flea - it gains food for the host it is negative because the host has blood removed. The relationship is positive for one party and negative for the other because one gains something and the other loses something however a loss of something, ie an absence of something, since it is by definition an absence of an existence, does not have any actual existence of its own.

Negatives are real our world is full of them but they are all only the effects of absences. Please if you need more info to clarify ask again, my computer is down and I have limited time at an internet cafe to formulate and post responses but I assure you it does actually make a completely rational and consistent explanation when it is fully understood. Namaste.

[LowExpectations]

Hmmm, all I see really defined is that there is something and there is nothing. There's no good or bad to it, you were simply in a state of ecstasy and the concept's significance was blown out of proportion. Good and bad are generalized measurements of a given situation's impact on the self. Remember to analyze not just how it works, but why it works, and why you have been drawn to this conclusion.