Kuba: It looks like I have projected this ‘inner mother’ onto you Vineeto, an authority still (link)
Syd: Funny you say that because this is also what I did, in the last two years in particular, and it all came crashing down recently. Then I learned to think for myself, and I quite like it. I still value Vineeto’s perspective, of course, but at the same time independent intelligent thinking has begun replacing authority/ trust/ faith/ belief. (link)
Hi Syd,
To give you the benefit of “Vineeto’s perspective”, you might find this informative –
Jonathan: You mention authority and the fear of punishment (…). I think that autonomy plays a big part in dismantling these things. Richard, in particular, was so adept at getting me to begin thinking for myself. It started towards the end of the first trip when he sat down and poked a hole in my superiority complex. And it continued to the very last night of the final trip when he talked about a peasant mentality. (…). (Message № 19410). *
(…)*
Richard:** (…) Of course, going by what you later wrote in Message № 19554 – which I will respond to in its chronological order – it might be that ‘a peasant mentality’ was not really a topic you thought worthy of elaborating on despite having introduced it.
I raise this ‘might be’ hypothesis because the following is how you finished-off that paragraph of yours to your co-respondent (partly re-presented near the top of this page). Viz.:
• [Jonathan]: (…). There are so many things that Richard said, which I wasn’t even able to respond to because, to me, they were so far out in left field. But after many months, I find that he was just thinking for himself. And I can do that same thing. (Message № 19410).
Would it be impertinent of me to suggest that your ascription of that adverbial diminisher in your [quote] ‘he was *just* thinking for himself’ [emphasis added] explanatory note which, you add, you can do [quote] ‘that *same* thing’ [emphasis added] yourself, is an instance of your self-acknowledged ‘superiority complex’ in action?
(Richard, List D, Jonathan2, 1 Jun 2012).
The rest of this conversation illuminates how Jon’s ‘thinking for himself’ in this instance is littered with misunderstandings.
Now this may not be the situation in your case but your recent reposting (link) of a quote from Claudiu seems to be an example of a misunderstanding I like to straighten out –
Richard: “Sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space.”
Claudiu: (…) It helped me to think of ‘sensuousness’ as more of a quality or type of ‘me’ being aware, as opposed to being a quality or type of sensing or way or manner in which the senses operate. It’s when ‘I’ am aware of what ‘I’ am seeing in a delighted/ wondrous/ thoroughly enjoying-of-the-senses manner. It doesn’t matter per se if what I am looking at is visually stunning… it’s about how ‘I’ am relating to what ‘I’ am seeing, not about what I am seeing per se.
Of course when I am wondrously aware in such a manner I am naturally drawn to visually appealing things (if what I am seeing is most appealing at the time) (link)
Your reposting of this one particular section is an approval/ a highlighting of what Claudiu wrote. However, I noticed how Richard’s statement is miraculously transmogrified into making sensuousness all about ‘me’ – how “‘I’ am seeing in a delighted/ wondrous/ thoroughly enjoying-of-the-senses manner”. Even though Claudiu says “It doesn’t matter per se if what I am looking at is visually stunning” he nevertheless is “naturally drawn to visually appealing things”, which again emphasises ‘me’, “how ‘I’ am relating to what ‘I’ am seeing, not about what I am seeing per se”.
You could have easily chosen the follow-up section of Claudiu’s post which is more true to the facts and actuality of Richard’s quote –
Claudiu: I suggest to then find a way for yourself to wonder and marvel at that, as it will really ratchet up your enjoyment and appreciation! When being particularly sensuous at one point I was nearly overwhelmed at how delightful it was simply to exist, to the point where I even experienced the act of breathing as a ‘bonus’ of something to be doing to enjoy, on top of the fact that I was simply existing and being alive! (link)
By choosing to highlight the first section, which emphasis ‘me’, your presentation is diametrically opposite to Richard’s statement that “sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space.” The interpretation is making sensuousness all about ‘me’ rather than emphasising “the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space”, which is applying one’s attentiveness to the already always existing perfection of “being here now at this moment in time and this place in space.” It is expanding one’s awareness and wondrous attention beyond one’s favourite “visually appealing things” from which self-less awareness – apperceptiveness – can occur.
Richard: Sensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space. Attentiveness is the fascination of the reflective contemplation that this moment is one’s only moment of being alive – and one is never alive at any other time than now. Wherever one is … now … one is always here … now … even if one starts walking over to ‘there’ … now … along the way to ‘there’ … now … one is always here … now … and when one arrives ‘there’ … now … it too is here … now. Thus attentiveness is an attraction to the fact that one is always here – and it is already now – and as one is already here and it is always now then one has arrived before one starts. This delicious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté (which is the closest one can get to innocence) the nourishing of which is essential if the charm of it all is to occur. The potent combination of attentiveness – fascinated reflective contemplation – and sensuousness produces apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. One is intimately aware that this physical space of this universe is infinite and its time is eternal … thus the infinitude of this very material universe has no beginning and no ending and therefore no middle. There are no edges to this universe, which means that there is no centre, either. We are all coming from nowhere and are not going anywhere for there is nowhere to come from nor anywhere to go to. We are nowhere in particular … which means we are anywhere at all. In the infinitude of the universe one finds oneself to be already here, and as it is always now, one can not get away from this place in space and this moment in time. By being here as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute.
In other words: One is already here as it is always now.
(…)
Apperceptiveness is sensuous awareness of only what is currently occurring and in precisely the way it is happening now – there is neither tolerance nor intolerance – with no acceptance or prejudice. Apperceptiveness is non-predictive observation in that it is this ability of the mind to regard experience without fault-finding feelings. With this ability, one sees things without assumption or opprobrium … and one is surprised by everything being extraordinarily ordinary. In apperceptiveness everything is in equipoise and one’s interest in things is for them to be exactly as they are in their actual condition. One does not have to estimate or establish … one totally acknowledges with delight. (Richard, Articles, Attentiveness, Sensuousness, Apperceptiveness).
Cheers Vineeto