Comments on: The Art of Lying

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 05:58:02 +0000

Intelligence is born out of ignorance, but it is not separate. While you all bicker about whether a lie is okay, or how art and drama is a lie. You seem to forget that intelligence itself is a manipulation of truth. Truth is ignorance. Raw and untamed like the salty ocean. Respect truth like you respect the sea, and never turn your back on it. You may get away with your manipulations and never get caught. So, then. won’t you be proud on your death bed, that you willingly helped to manipulate and deceive others through trickery? Brutal honesty is on the other side of course. You simply can’t go around pointing out the truth, especially if it’s ugly, and it usually is fairly raw. Humor is key to making light of otherwise serious subjects, and once again there are exceptions. For instance some people are intensely literal, and must be in the correct mood for humor, or it will have the opposite effect. Sometimes even the best intentions can come with insurmountable obstacles. Your inner state of being is not fixed by any means, and neither is the external world. This creates a rich environment for a multitude of experiences to manifest, without a set pattern, a.k.a. mystery. There is no need to fabricate falsehoods because as they say “you couldn’t make this stuff up.”

By: Arpana

Arpana — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 08:30:07 +0000

‘The only objective statement it’s possible to make is their is no such thing as objectivity.’

Given that you just said ‘the only objective statement it’s possible to make…’, that would seem to imply that objectivity *is* possible. That, in turn, seems to render the second part of your sentence wrong.

Give me a break. Do you think I dont know that.!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect

Now that the last word game has kicked in!!!!!

Objectivity. Subjectivity.

By: Teertha

Teertha — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 02:13:53 +0000

Parmartha, over the years I’ve come to question the whole nature of ‘shaktipat’ energy, and related phenomena. Experientially I’ve been well acquainted with such things — in fact, what got me ‘on the path’, and drawn to Osho at a young age (I was 23 when I took sannyas in the early 80s), was energy phenomena like kundalini and shaktipat. And my sannyas initiation, though done via a medium (not Osho), was extremely powerful, and sent me home in bliss for several days after.

But over the past three decades, as I’ve looked further into the matter, I’ve become more convinced that all displays of energy are insubstantial, given to change, and unable to have any effect on the formless core of what we are. They are, in effect, ‘light and shadows’ and entirely related to perspective as it generated by consciousness.

That doesn’t mean that I can’t or don’t enjoy the show — I do, and by no means feel ‘finished’ with it, which leads me to suspect that if reincarnation is true, I’ll be returning. But I believe that the gig is up for me. The rest is integration, although I have no idea how long that takes.

By: Teertha

Teertha — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 01:56:02 +0000

Arpana, you wrote:

‘The only objective statement it’s possible to make is their is no such thing as objectivity.’

As for the rest, the main point is something like this:

1. Absolute truth is possible. (For example, 1+1=2).

2. Subjective distortion is not only possible, but commonplace.

3. Subjective distortion, within the realm of human existence, can go a long way. It can even be more impressive (fun, appealing, attractive, etc.) than objective truth. (Gurdjieff was getting at this in his teachings on ‘Objective Art’ vs. ‘subjective art’).

As an interesting comment on all this, behold Captain Picard’s famous ‘there are only 4 lights’ scene with the Cardassian commander — a play off of Orwell’s ‘Room 101′ scene. (And a brilliant example of two great English actors, Warner and Stewart, having great fun):

The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.

By: tilopax

tilopax — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 21:58:01 +0000

please enllighten us what you actually mean by that

you said ‘they are truthful as he is….’

thats the point “he is” but not everybody
van gogh sees a star at night…his mind applies its personal perceptions and he draws it on the paper…way different from the original one

or for that matter consider a rohrsbach? test…different people see different stuffs in it..it is ‘their personal truth’ which is different from rest of us

By: tilopax

tilopax — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 21:50:24 +0000

‘because truth is absolute’

isnt it your personal assesment hence relative

By: Parmartha

Parmartha — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 22:03:56 +0000

Teertha I am open to discussion but I always took energetic as a word I use in English for Shaktipat in Sanskrit.
Shaktipat refers in Hinduism to the conferring of spiritual “energy” by one person on another.
It is considered an act of grace and its reception cannot be forced.
It depends on the receptivity of the disciple. It is commonly held that Shaktipat can be transmitted in person or at a distance.
When I was open around Osho’s physical presence, (which was not always by any means) I certainly experienced a dissolving of normal consciousness and ego, and a totally centered bliss, which was not at all concerned about what he may have been speaking about, or anything like that. It actually felt primordial.
Once after darshan (third eye contact with the finger) I could not sleep at all, all night, but did not feel anxious or anything like that, and can remember the dawn as a wonderful stillness. I felt in touch with what I figure mysticism is all about. It is a tad psychedelic!
Is that meaning okay for you?

By: Arpana

Arpana — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:31:45 +0000

I dont actually agree that the Van Gogh stars are a falsehood. They are as truthful as he is capable of making them, just like any statement made by anyone who is sincere

The only objective statement its possible to make is their is no such thing as objectivity.

By: Teertha

Teertha — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 00:05:02 +0000

Arpana — I was responding to Frank’s post above where he made the comment that ‘all art and drama is essentially lying’. Your painting is your representation of reality, a dramatic performance (like theatre) is storytelling (someone’s fantasy), etc. The point is, such ‘trickery and deceit’ can be fun, beautiful, provocative, etc. In other words, truth does not have an exclusive hold on beauty or fun. A falsehood can be as instructive as a truth, and often more so.

Take a van Gogh painting, as an easy example. His stars do not look like the stars above our heads at night. They are his stars, from his mind. In terms of the stars we collectively perceive above our heads, they are a falsehood. But his paintings also sell for millions of dollars, so clearly they are valued.

By: Young sannyasin

Young sannyasin — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:18:24 +0000

it seems to me one of his abilities was to give a unique, deep,and yet simple answer to questions regarding every aspect of spirituality, religion and psychology, basically everything a seeker of that time (70-80-90) could come across (from books mainly, and for some by direct experience, like people who have done other kinds of meditations or had experience with psychedelics or humanistic psychology) he gives a description of what it’s all about, taking off all the religious-devotional stuff and giving suggestions on how to make it bette ,for the “man of today”. There is a difference between a syncretism that is basical putting every kind of stuff picked up here and there and just mixing it in New Age soup,and putting things in a way that makes sense together in the biggest picture. He experimented with his sannyasins and chose what worked better and faster. The whole story was basically a big experiment, he said it many times. If you take only his words, without considering the experiences of the sannyasins, you are missing the results of the experiment.