Thanks for the kind words; a few thoughts...

I would tend to agree with you that much of development isn't explicitly conscious or aware from the perpective of the smaller self.  As I read your post, I am caught by the feeling that we are, as beings who continuously develop in self-awareness, merely waking up to the very surface of a giant tumbling snowball of evolution.  The fundemental driving forces of the snowball have nothing to do with us, but if we can truly wake up and see what's going on above and beneath the surface to the best of our ability, we can begin to direct where those fundemental forces carry the snowball.  We can be the eyes of evolution.  I doubt we really have a choice.  I think that, perhaps, when we believe we are "figuring something out," we are often merely identifying with a single narrative of the overall bigger picture of consciousness.  We beleive we have "choice" because we select our interpretations of arising phenomena, and decide how to respond, but these interpretations are determined by a narrative that is arising within us, and that narrative didn't come from us, it circulates within a larger consciousness.  Even in the UL, we can't really claim anything truly comes from "me," because most of our interior awarenss is fitted to the Kosmic Habits (or morphic fields) of the universe's evolution, whether or not we are aware of it.

Hey, Fangsz - Thanks for the reply - and that's a nice new iconic look, the modern city buddha, the contemporary boddhisatva, under the tree, snappilly attired.

I like the poetic and evocative imagery of a "giant tumbling snowball". It led me to imagine how we are as individuals, with the weighty accumulation of experience and memory, where so much wet snow sticks to it, tumbling sometimes hurling forward.

Yeah, I wonder, too, how much choice we actually have, what are the parameters of our potential. Apparently, there are those who have committed themselves to various persistant and deep inquiries, seemingly by their wills, whose parameters get quite large, from some way of seeing it - I guess they are spending more time in "higher tier" modes. I think that you are saying that the "narratives" which we say to ourselves and others is a very partial narrative, to say the least. And I suppose that the narratives that we tell ourselves then set some parameters for what we think is possible, and what we think is possible may or may not be running on a different side track than what is more deeply truly going on. Are all the narratives just dreams, with little bearing on the deeper "what is"? Illusory." Or/and do all tracks, run evenually like tributories towards the sea, or like snowballs to their final resting and melting places, or like dreams to their ultimate diffusion?

Huh, what's that?

Yoh, hoho, and gsheesh, ambo

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Ambo Suno

I think the narratives, or, in another way of putting it, thoughts and images, are, as I believe you said in an ealier post, only metaphors for what is really going on.  But then when we see (or feel) past those metaphors into what is "really" going on, we eventually find ourselves trapped in another metaphor, which is potentially more expansive than the last metaphor, but a metaphor nonethelesss.  I like the tributories towards the sea image.  That definitely feels like it works as a way of orienting it.  All narratives, thoughts, and images are indeed dreams, but all dreams flow from and flow to the same Source.

That idea of apparent non-linearity of reality in relation to a nondual Source of things made me remember a question I've been dealing with lately.  Is evolution, especially when we start getting into it's highest, subtlest emergence that we are currently capable of registering as human beings, essentially linear and chronological, or does it run deeper than our perceived understanding of time, our one-foot-in-front-of-the-other gross-waking conception of the development of our universe, from the Big Bang to dirt to the Wachowski Brothers (Ken always uses Shakespeare for that one); I guess the essential question is: does evolution occur, at a subtler level, with some degree of independence from time?

Fangsz, you took me to my obvious limits, here.
"That idea of apparent non-linearity of reality in relation to a nondual Source of things made me remember a question I've been dealing with lately.  Is evolution, especially when we start getting into it's highest, subtlest emergence that we are currently capable of registering as human beings, essentially linear and chronological, or does it run deeper than our perceived understanding of time, our one-foot-in-front-of-the-other gross-waking conception of the development of our universe, from the Big Bang to dirt to the Wachowski Brothers (Ken always uses Shakespeare for that one); I guess the essential question is: does evolution occur, at a subtler level, with some degree of independence from time?"

Upstream of this question I can fake, pose, putz, ramble and riff, but when we get to these nitty-gritty questions of evolution, which to many people can be somewhat explained, I am numb with dumb. On some threads of thought about evolution, especially more matter of fact and 1st tier understanding, I'm willing to trot out some factoids and speculations, but I am really quite torn to bits of knowledge when it comes to, apparently, the spiritual dimension of stuff. It's kind of weird for me here on II, since that's sort of the point of it all. So much of the descriptive basis for a spiritual presence and trajectory is founded on the metaphor of physical evolution, not just as observed, but then as presented as a narrative(s) with certain gaps that are filled in and appear more linear and that conjure a seamlessness and a divine motive force &/or intelligence that I don't feel I have much of a clue about.

I suspect that because I am still so predominantly materially/scientifically bound, in "first tier" mentality, I really don't get what look to me like leaps and finessing of story lines and beautiful endings, whereas others at other "altitudes" seem to get it. I also think I actually find myself confused and in a way disoriented in the back and forth verbal shuttling between the stated categories of "nondual"/ultimate/essential and the "relative" world of thought and understanding, as I hear people speak and as I enter the frays myself. (I'm thinking my status is in the lower realms/stages mentioned in the conversation over on NewYok Times and God thread - well, all over II) I'm just not there where I share these vantage points that I could say anything about subtler levels of evolution and transformation. Sure, occasionally I fall into a zone of poetic reverie-like speculation or run-a-way verbosity and all manner of shiny shite rolls quasi-eloquently off my bloody tongue. And, yet the more pervasive COG truth for me seems to be that I really don't know about evolution (other than spotty images and ideas) or how and even if it is propelled.

Anyhow, Fangsz, I like being able to say how it seems for me in this regard, and I guess that I am hoping that, if I stay expressing myself, in that kinetic movement some wisdom will slide its way in unnoticed and uncorrupted by me. And, I hope you will continue to explore what you are seeing and thinking. I like being in the neighborhood. yoh, ambo

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Ambo Suno

hi ambo,

i'm not sure if you had me in mind, among others, but i hear you. i think the launching of integrallife.com is going to structure communication in a way that will help both of us to do better than we have on the multiplex.

it's tricky. it may be obvious to you, but i honestly don't know why you didn't respond to my last message to you on this thread. i was doing my best to convey to you a perspective i thought you might agree with somewhat.

i also don't pretend to understand all of what fangsz is saying, and, for me, that's perfectly ok: it gives me something intriguing to wonder about. i have my own ideas about evolution, so it's interesting to compare.

to a more integral life,

ralph

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Hi, Ralph - just a quick message to say that at the moment, I'm not sure why or how I didn't respond and that I'll look back soon at the message and see what comes out. Thanks for speaking out your feelings.

"i'm not sure if you had me in mind, among others, but i hear you."
I'm not sure what you are referring to here.

"i also don't pretend to understand all of what fangsz is saying, and, for me, that's perfectly ok:"
Yeah, certainly it has to be OK if we don't understand someone perfectly. In this exchange between him and I, I have felt pretty comfortable with my tracking of what he's saying.

"i have my own ideas about evolution, so it's interesting to compare."
Well step in when you feel like with them. I may or may not respond - but if you be so inclined, puts yo tokens down and takes yo chances.

I'll say here, off-topic, that I liked hearing about your Buckley word play when you were in college - sounded creative and edgy. ambo

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Ambo Suno

hi ambo,

i'm with you for the most part. as far as jumping in, though, for now, i'll just see what the two of you have to say.

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Wow - part 4 is such a good exchange for me. So much helpful and inspiring came out of it for me. I want to say what those are, later when I have more time.

Dang - embarrassing. I just read one of my earlier posts and was doing so with the most minimal of wincing - until I came upon when I started calling "Rupert", "David". I think that when I was posting I suddenly merged Rupert's name with David Bohm's - zgeesch.


I'm glad that both Ken and Rupert want to do some more exchanging. ambo

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Ambo Suno