Friday, November 5, 2010

First Blog

This is the first Mind Drift blog, and it has been created as a link to my newly created Rose and Lotus website.

The basic idea is that this can be the repository for any discussions that the website might generate, with space to direct any side-issues that come up in the course of such discussions (assuming that some might be generated!), as well as any other off-topic ideas that may come to me. (If I consider them on-topic, I will be more inclined to include them on the Rose and Lotus web site itself.)

The web site is an introduction to the evidence that exists to affirm the reality of an afterlife. I have often seen comments, particularly in atheist and humanist articles, along the lines that "there is no evidence for an afterlife, so why should anybody believe in one?" The Rose and Lotus website has been created as a point of reference for anybody who wants an answer to that question, and the primary impetus for this blog is to create an arena for anybody who wants to discuss (or argue) about it.

At the time of writing this, the Rose and Lotus website is brand new, and so I will be grateful for anybody who points out any errors that they may find in it.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Rodney,
    I found one site error - the links to previous and next page on page 9 are reversed.
    As to the content, I have found no errors. However, my appreciation of such is clouded by my mind's current perception of what consciousness is. I do see consciousness and mind as not being the same. I see the mind as being the 'materialist', the rational and the emotional tool that perceives, thinks, imagines, feels and remembers stuff. Consciousness, I see as being merely the awareness, the witness of that stuff. It is consciousness that I see as being everywhere and as one. A mind is the material stuff that has a great capacity to host or reflect or interact with that consciousness. I see that not only is consciousness still there after the body/mind has died, it was there before the body/mind. Its existence can be thought of as independent of mind.

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  2. Hi, Boop:

    You have jumped a bit ahead of me. So far, the web site is directed only at those who confuse mind and brain, which is like confusing a radio set for the source of the sounds, while denying the existence of a radio station as the source. What you have done is talk about the difference between mind and consciousness, which is a bit like the difference between what the radio announcer says (and can be heard on the radio set) and what he is thinking as he says it. It is a bit academic to those who still think that the radio set itself is the primary source of the sound.

    More advanced material will gradually appear here over a period, but for now we are still at the beginning, showing the evidence for the need to distinguish the mind from the brain.

    In my perception of it, mind is one form of consciousness (or, rather, two forms - concrete or materially conscious mind, and higher or abstract mind), but there are others. Feelings or emotions are another, a little lower than the mind levels, and at a higher level than the mind there is Intuitional Consciousness, sometimes called Buddhic Consciousness, which many are beginning to discover, and then there is Will Consciousness, sometimes called Atmic Consciousness, which is available currently to only a very advanced few. But that is getting way ahead of where this web site is currently directed.

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    Replies
    1. I suggest that there is something beyond these states/forms of consciousness. One of our big problems is one of language, because this 'other' consciousness is sometimes known just as 'consciousness', sometimes as 'awareness' sometimes as 'witnessing' and probably many other words that already have other meanings for most of us. I use the word 'benowing' and, for want of any better definition, define it as pure awareness or the awareness of being aware. I say pure awareness because it is somehow separate from the object of the awareness (other than itself).
      Now, I am not sure if it is another name for Buddhic consciousness, because I don't know enough of Buddhist philosophy or Buddhist meditation practices, but I suspect it may be.
      In an attempt to illustrate this pure consciousness, I can offer a meditation practice. When sitting in your usual meditation seat, picture the room that you are in. Even imagine that you are the room, the space that is the room. Now remove everything that is in the room - every physical thing, from the room. What remains is just the room. Keep your awareness with the room.
      Now remove the roof and then the walls and then the floor. What remains is purely the room - AWARENESS of the space of the room, with no object of that awareness.

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  3. Hi there,
    Thank-you for taking the time to create the "Rose and Lotus" website. I just finished reading it and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am going to send the link to a few close friends of mine, and investigate the links, videos and other works you posted in the next few days and weeks. Hopefully I will be back to comment shortly. Thanks again.

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