I doubt that most of the crime fighting and punishing is actually purely motivated by logical solution thinking. A large part of it is the need for revenge. Emotional compensation for the victims. I have suffered, now you suffer. That kind of thing. In the absence of a believe in free will I think this would change. Why blame someone for something he couldn’t do anything about? Of course you still want to get the criminals of the street, but you wouldn’t want to punish them, you would want to reprogram them. That is something that is attempted even today, but it is done wrongly, clouded by emotion and revenge-thinking. There are probably better methods that putting someone in a prison full of other criminals.(who will enforce each others beliefs)

“If I am not the decision-maker, who or what is? More specifically if I shouldn’t identify with the body-mind or the sense of me-ness that it produces (ego?), how can I identify with he/she/it/that which is the decision-maker?”

This was followed by the sudden realization that it is the identifying which is the folly, not the mistaken object of identification. Anything the ego can identify with cannot be it, as the ego and the body-mind are aspects of a subject which has no object. The subject is, therefore, not a subject at all because the term subject implies an object and there simply is what is. The axioms of the eye seeing itself or the tip of the finger touching itself became perfectly clear in their simplicity. All the other questions that seemed so important once also faded away when countered with the questions “Who cares?” and “Who is asking the question?” I used to get so annoyed by that response, but it’s the only one that makes any sense at all.

The rest of the day was spent wandering in a blissful state of awareness just being. Nighttime and sleep followed and then waking and then everything was the same as it was before that epiphany. Later, I read a bit more of Ramesh’s “Ultimate Understanding” and coincidentally came upon a stanza that discussed moments of understanding and their resultant consciousness expanding capabilities as opposed to enlightenment and how these moments are sometimes a hindrance to enlightenment but still necessary as groundwork, blah fucking blah blah. Maybe that’s the case. There are no claims to enlightenment here, but…who cares?

It’s like an auto repair shop I use. All the mechanics were named Jimmy. There were two Jimmys and one Jimmy junior. Finally though an Eric joined them and broke through the Jimmy barrier.

Next time it’ll be a real link. Although with xtube.com we finally may all have our penis’s on the net for generations to come(apparently). Maybe we could start an advaita xtube channel. We just have to find a shot of the niz’s privates(for the lineage aspect).

Y’know, if there is such a thing as Advaitic blasphemy, I think I just wrote it.

I also heard your G’day podcast for the first time… i liked it, except for all the sciency stuff. My science take sounds more like this “dude, did you hear those words… check this out, I can wave my hands, blink and make noises with my mouth!”

I’m a simple man.

Butt seriously… I do get it, atoms, molecules, string theory, falling asleep, get over it…

I do like all this talk of free will though. The science stuff doesn’t really affect me, in the sense that I have no control and also I have an inability to understand something that isn’t funny. Does it matter that I understand string theory or not? If I understood it, what could I do with it? Create another universe?

hmmm… another universe ay? Maybe I’ll look into that after all. If you create another universe, do you still have to call it a ‘universe’?

How about I call it a ‘Marcelo’ It’s full of black holes, now called pink holes and Quazars, now known as Xuazars(ok, ok thats all I could think of - damn you brain chemicals, damn you to my anus).

In that Marcelo, I’m more like Bob, a wise old man with tempered words, as apposed to me, a retarded mongoloid who flippantly uses great wisdom to make jokes. Offcourse, In that Marcelo I’ve changed my name as to not let the ‘Gods’ get confused and angrily create Christians and Muslims. I am now known as Universe.

In my Marcelo children flock to my house to hear pearls of wisdom
In this Universe I go blank when people look at me
In my Marcelo I tell people that there’s no point in meditating, because that which you are needs no friend.
In this Universe I forget when I fall and use anything to get up.
In my Marcelo I tell people that the threat isn’t real, nor is it really a threat.
In this Universe I’ll go deeper than deep, so know one can find me.

The question is, which Universe will swallow up the other Universe?

Will it be the pink or the black hole?

What about it Cam, are you a pink or black hole kind of guy?

Universe

p.s.
You don’t have to touch that question with an answere Cam, just let it swirl in your mouth, then spit into glass.

p.s.s.
That above p.s. was not in any way a sexual conotation.

The Other Mark (can you guys call yourself something else besides ‘Mark’ please?? Get yourself an original name fer crissakes) - I don’t see anything wrong with walking around not noticing the functioning. You will live life like you are a ‘me’. Actors playing a role on TV know they aren’t the character they are playing but the continue to act like they are. That’s their job. Being “you” is “your” job. So go do it. Just don’t start thinking you are the character you are playing. :-)

Maybe you guys could discuss transcendental meditation in the next show.

Cam– lately, I notice a couple things as I wander the world doing stuff.

1. No matter what teachings I’ve learned from Advaita, I still walk around thinking “I’m” doing this or that. I still feel like there’s a me. The only time I notice the “functioning” without a ME as the controller is when I DELIBERATELY notice “fingers tapping keys on the keyboard” and not “I’m typing”. But this doesn’t last more than a few seconds. Then it’s back to believing that “I’m” a “ME” doing stuff. I believe I am the character, not just an actor playing a part. “I” take action, or not.

2. Simultaneously, I try to stay out of the way and just let life occur…..things happen as they do….without my help.

Interesting paradox.

And yes Steve, I have definately mastered it. Actually Koan is a good word to describe such a thing. A paradox(masturbation) that leads to intuitive knowledge(orgasm- or as the French call it “le petit mort”)

p.s.
Appology for quoting the French

Bruno and the Pastor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW8_cz-6qro

The Leonard - Ramesh story checks out!
http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/bombay.html

How about that.

They had an Ali G marathon on yesterday, one had him as the gay german character interviewing a pastor about getting converted to hetrosexuality. Frickin priceless.

Sasha Baron Koan - creator of paradoxical characters which lampoon the United States.

Leonard Koan: Jewish Zen lyricist with a paradoxically deep voice.

“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Go right ahead, expert boys and girls all, go ahead and make the joke about just one hand.

Really got a good laugh at your comments, Marcelo.

Love.

ko·an (k?än´) noun
A riddle in the form of a paradox used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining intuitive knowledge.

From a scientific standpoint, the boundaries between the organism and the environment are dependent upon the level of magnification. As such, the thought and the action it leads to are both part of the phenomenal realm. The individual does not exist. And if there is no individual to make a decision, a decision isn’t being made.

Who’s the imposer? Well… that very thing itself, that which you are and could not be anything else.

What else could be giving the orders(so to speak)?

But maybe imposition sounds a bit too harsh. For example, this morning, I had a wank. Since ‘I am that’, that means that you all played with my penis this morning - you dirty dirty filthy bastards…. there was no need to be that aggressive. So who decided to have a wank this morning?

What else could be giving the order? (sorry, thats a really really bad way of putting it(instantly implies duality) and makes it sound like ‘a’ GOD is yelling out orders “at 8:45 Marcelo will have a wank” “at 11:49 he will humiliate himself on advaita podcast comments” “at 11:59 Cameron will block Marcelo from commenting ever again” “at 12:01 Cameron will have a wank”

Sorry, thought you should have some pleasure Cam (since your married with kids and such)

But is ‘that’ making orders? How could that which is untouched do such a thing? I mean, it’s untouched!

Like cam sais, it’s spontaneous, it’s a happening. How much reality do dreams have? Well, none clearly, it’s a fucking dream.

Reality is not a happening - it’s a non happening - aww hell, lets just call it ‘no thing’.

And were back to what we all already know.

Marcelo

-but doesn’t that mean it’s a mistake to attribute what’s happening to any entity all?- Maybe, but life still works the same way.

That’s deep, Mike… deep! I also subscribe to Thomas Pynchon’s view of the decision making process, as such:

“Decisions are never made - at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations, and general assholery.” - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

I am the decider. Coo coo, ka choo!

My take on free will is that a choice is never really made at all. Free will implies there might have been some other decision made, and that’s impossible. What happens is the only thing that ever could have happened…no past, no future, only what is, right?

Re-reading your comments, that’s basically what you’ve already said. So it sounds like you’re on the other side of Mark’s and my issue: while we can’t get past the idea of an independent entity, you see through the illusion of an individual entity but still think choices are being made. As you point out, it’s a mistake to “attribute what is happening to a me” but doesn’t that mean it’s a mistake to attribute what’s happening to any entity all? Then how can a decision be made when a decision implies a decision-maker (Dubya “the decider”)?

By the way, Cameron, I found on his bio that Bill Hicks was born in Georgia and grew up in Houston. Is redemption in the happening?

The concept ‘I’ what I take to me is a delusion, the natural intelligence and functioning is still there, memory, intellect and everything else. You can still do math and make out a grocery list while at the same time knowing that the ‘me’ is unreal. The concept ‘me’ never actually did anything, we attribute what is happening to a me.

Mark Carpenter: if you’re right and what the pedophile refers to as ‘I’ is a delusion, how does a delusion make a choice? How does a delusion *do* anything for that matter?

And, for the record, I am not posting comments as someone named Mark. :-)

My point about evaluation in action is that if you asked a pedophile whether he would rather have 1 million dollars or a kid, he would probally that afternoon go for the million dollars. Saying just ‘he had no free will’ is misleading. What he or anyone else refers to as ‘I’ is still a delusion but there is still intelligence functioning there.. Ultimatley it could not have happened any other way becuase it is going to function how it’s going to function but laws an punishment are the same reason I don’t start a grow op. in my basement.

My spontaneous actions are unique to “me”, my agendas, etc.

Who is the “ME” you ask?

Can I point to “ME”? No……

It really just feels like an Awareness that is encapsolated in “my” body….It’s the “ME” that is not “YOU”. My unique combination of experiences, talents, personality, habits…

What Bob calls Intelligence Energy expressing itself in different appearances….I am one of those appearances….unique….just a bit…..somehow…..one wave on the ocean….

Intellectually I see the point—-”ME” is none of those fleeting things.

And YET!….I feel very much feel that I am “ME” and you are “YOU”, even though I simultaneously know that we’re both the same pure awareness underneath everything.

I understand it when you say decisions are made spontaneously, without a “me” doing any of it. Been there, ….I experience it….

But all this arguing over there not being any independent entity here is just driving me up the freaking wall. Because we all enjoy playing the game of being UNIQUE individuals, do we not?

From there we can also talk about who or what the “you” is that you think is in control of them, but that’s another bedtime story.

Mike, great Bill Hicks quote above. But you left out the punchline….

“And now… the weather.”

As far as your point about free will: if there is no seperate entity doing the weighing of desire versus punishment, then how can you say it occured “in the person?” Doesn’t “desire versus punishment” imply duality?