Welcome
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
— Buckminster Fuller
Welcome to Meher Baba and the Future, a blog created so people can comment on the talk series I did from Jan. 19 - March 31, 2018 at the Avatar Meher Baba Circle of Friends Center in Myrtle Beach.
Anyone can comment below, even anonymously. No login necessary. From time to time I may add things related to the talks or the book I am planning.
To download a free PDF file of my original 2004 book mentioned in the talks go here. For public domain files of the charts used in the talks go here.
If you wish to speak to me privately you can contact me directly at christopherjonathanott@gmail.com
Excellent series of talks. While it may seem obvious as a Meher Baba community member to attempt to sketch the relationship of the Oversoul to the finite soul to enhance one's own understanding (and I did as well), your work in this area is not only "intuitive" and logically consistent, but exhaustive and outstanding in its detailed enumeration of the omissions and errata found in the intellectual philosophical exercises to adequately explain the purpose and mechanics of experience, Real and illusionary.
ReplyDeleteMy sense is that your book and these videos may permit the death of philosophy as it has been historically framed and modernly touted. Kudos and good luck.
Thank you. Your thoughts are like my own about philosophy. A sudden and intense short surge of philosophy as philosophers turn their thinking upside down might be in the works, with some chaos as the world adjusts their seeing to it. But afterward I could definitely see a virtual obsolescence of philosophy as overly wordy version of the new intuition. And thus something quaint from the past.
DeleteThe only sequence in your model that I wonder a bit about is the ordering of time vs space, but that's quibbling, and only due to the argument one might pose : in order to have / count time, there must be space, yada yada yada . . . . but I do not think it matters - - relatively instantaneous, I imagine.
DeleteI think the "fun" part of your work is that you have such a great command of the historical paths of philosophy that, were you to get enough air play, and enough time to explain why the scientists "know nothing", it would be a fun time to watch. The other of course, are all those folks who while they do not accept the Christian's positive argument, strongly accept their negative argument - those folks, it seems to me, are your audience.
one additional thing for BLs: I feel most well-read BLs can start at video #7 and get what you are driving at with little to no problem.
DeleteThanks for your feedback.
DeleteChris, thank you so much for the wonderful series of lectures. Thank you also for your insight and work on new thinking that will be available for future review. The only disappointment is that the series is over! I eagerly looked forward to watching remotely each week. I will say you have enlarged and also simplified my personal philosophy (which we each have, necessarily) - the practical framework of my own perception of myself, within my upbringing with Avatar Meher Baba's Discourses and God Speaks. Through your presentations, I became aware of how I held a number of personal imaginations of "how it worked", that linked Meher Baba's words with my daily personal philosophy of how and why things and people are the way they are, and do what they do. (I'm not unintelligent, and I think about these things; doesn't everyone?) I became aware these imaginations were actually practical assumptions I had made up. Your series made me aware of that, and now I cannot hold these old assumptions. Rather, the hard work you have done to become a channel for a creative, new window on the truth of our relationship to God has enabled me to have a clearer perception of myself, within God and Illusion. Sounds like big stuff, but that is what you have done, big stuff. I thank you, again.
ReplyDelete...also, a comment on the BR comment above about time and space: Clocks are not time. Increment is not time. Time does not require increment, but the reverse is not true. Do not confuse a clock's requirement for time with time requiring a clock. It is not the beginning of space, but rather the beginning of time that is most closely related to the beginning of duality - was and is; then and now. The Beyond Beyond God state is timeless, eternal, with no sense of itself. The Whim was creative, and the impulse to know itself, and be the knower, required was and is, then and now. Time is thus the sense of itself, of self, in its simplest form. It is not increment. The resulting perception of space creates increment. Time can (and does) exist prior to increment (numbers), space cannot exist prior to increment. Always (then and now) precedes (Every)where; thus, time precedes space. Interestingly, this is even the case in the Parvardigar Prayer.
ReplyDelete(correction to above: Time does not require increment, but the reverse IS true.)
ReplyDeleteThank you Christina for your wonderful comments.
DeleteHi Christina, As I said elsewhere, I posited that it was all rather instantaneous, so I think it's basically quibbling, though your presentation of time before space is a little more clear than what I got from Chris' presentation. Since having written the noodle, it's come to me the notion of "impulse" implies time before space, and I like that idea a lot. Fun to think about.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you again BR for your contribution.
DeleteQuibbling is half the fun!
DeleteI found this quote from God Speaks, however that may imply space before time: "Creation, Preservation, Destruction In the very act of creation, the acts of preservation
Deleteand destruction are also present; so, by creating illusion God, as it were, simultaneously
preserves and destroys it. In reality, therefore, nothing is created that remains to be
preserved or destroyed, because the created creation is of the NOTHING, and this
NOTHING in reality means absolutely nothing in all respects...In the eternity of reality
there is absolutely no such thing as creation, preservation or destruction, neither is there
space, nor is there any scope for relativity, much less could there ever be correlated
factors of time, such as past, present and future. In the eternity of Reality, the one,
infinite, eternal, all-pervading existence IS. (GS/87-88)"
Chris, thank you for taking this step and sharing your ides as your book project moves on. I was not aware you had "gone public" again, until Romney linked me to your YouTube series yesterday. I am just starting part 2, but I wanted you to know, it makes my present thought-life an exciting one again. And I am very happy to read the word "Friend" after my name. It means a lot to me. All best.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you Stelios. Glad you are enjoying the talks. I think you will like where it all leads. (:
DeleteAlso later when you are done check out my newest talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMV6yidI0Pc&t=20s
Indeed I like where it all leads and very soon I'll see this latest video. One thing from the heart: Your 11 talks are some of the best "teaching" I have ever seen. A note, no I meant vibration as a mental state not as an effect.
DeleteYes I thought of this later, that the vibration (or movement) Baba speaks of is movement of mind. And there is one sense of energy that means 'impetus' that is strong intention, also mental. And this 'driving force' of this mental intention (a desire) is what propels everything. Even lower subtle and gross forms of energy. So I see it is just a semantical thing, so long as one knows that when speaking of the soul it is only events in mentality.
DeleteMental volition is another good word for the motivating intention of the whim.
DeleteBaba's word 'urge' is good, and captures the urgency of the motive force behind creation and realization. Interestingly motive comes from a root meaning motion, motu.
DeleteI agree that "urge" is an excellent word. "This infinite, impressionless, unconscious tranquil state of the soul reverberated with an impulse which we call THE FIRST URGE (the first urge to know Itself) ." I just speculated about what the mind cannot grasp, that this "reverbration" (or "echo", and hence "vibration") was a movement of the state of mind between the state of infinite unconsciousness and the state of infinite consciousness (which to us appears as a before-after process), and that hence all illusion is a perceived as apparent movements between pairs of opposites. But I don't think any of this speculation has any use in what you are explaining in your talks and books, neither is it any attempt to clarify Baba's notion of the Whim.
Delete