But twitter’s really only good like that from the inside. Unless you have an account, it’s not really all that useful.

I mean to find little haiku’s like the one you posted here, you have to wade through a lot.

It does changes things a little bit if you actually have your own account though, because the page you get when you log in shows all the fragments of conversation posted by everyone that you “follow”. This way, you can collect the conversations from the people who are important to you either as friends or as people you don’t know bu respect (such as Saul Williams, in this case) and just see what everyone’s thinking about. Plus, you can respond to the posts at any time, which wouldn’t be possible with radio. The internet really is becoming a more timeless place…

The point being that enlightenment in this sense is knowing, completely, intimately, full body and mind, that you are directly connected with the atman/tao/buddha-nature and that your essence is an expression of that. And realizing that acting in anyway that is contradictory to that just isn’t going to work. Not that it’s bad or wrong necessarily, just the understanding that acting in a manner that doesn’t take that into account is like firing a gun while wearing a blindfold. Better to make sure you can see first! :)

And the term ego is definitely abused. It means way too many things, and is used incorrectly way too often. My recommendation is don’t ever take it too seriously.

Say there is the Atman and then there are all these “sub selves” working at odds with each other. You become enlightened. You call all these discordant sub-selves the “ego” in relation to the Atman, which you see as the main point. But by calling them all “the ego” you haven’t united them and got them to work together. You are more or less just devaluing them. I am skeptical of some of these internet arahats. Not that I suspect con artistry going on. But I think that thy still have to master themselves.

I think by spending time connecting to the source of all life and being in communion with it should in principle lead to self mastery, but still its a different thing. There are different subtle aspects of human beings, besides simply the atman and the ego, some like the “false self” are least in importance, but others, like essence need to be brought out more. Gurdjieff said the “false self” helps us get along in a fallen world.

I think there are lots people around that aren’t Gurus that are just really excellent people. They excel in life. I consider them successful people.

For example I really admire Russian Mixed martial arts fighter Fedor Emelianenko. He is very humble and he is a master at what he does. Is he enlightened? I don’t know.

But I mean, if its just a matter of meditating and doing certain practices, and coming to perceive reality in a certain way, what does it have to do with anything else?

To me it seems like if you seek excellence you should arrive at enlightenment. I am thinking maybe that is how we are supposed to become enlightened. We are supposed to get in touch with our essence, which puts us in touch with our gifts and possibly our mission in life.

But if you put your essence in the category of “ego” I think you can fuck yourself up.

The only thing I would argue is that I don’t think enlightenment and personal development are at odds with each other. It might be that the traditional methods of pursuing one don’t match up with the traditional methods of pursuing the other, but I do not think there is anything inherent that keeps the two apart. It’s like saying learning calculus is at odds with learning power lifting. They don’t often go hand in hand, but there’s no absolute reason they couldn’t.

Gurdjieff talked about “St Buddha” as someone who taught how to “enlighten your reason” and from the Gurdjieffian way of looking at things, the reason is only one part of the “I”. So maybe that’s how the pieces fit together in regards to that…

And no worries for the typo, I do stuff like that myself all the time! :)

So you are saying that is a misinterpretation, that Buddhists say you just come to no longer cling to it, not that you throw it away.

Well, I think, they need to spend more time defining the various parts, instead of calling everything the ego.

To me though it looks like “personal development” “self actualization” and “enlightenment” might be at odds.

No, that’s not what I am talking about as essence. Gurdjieff talked about different people having different essences. Its related to astrology and also ethnicity. He believed Armenians to have a certain essence.

There is one self but that doesn’t mean everyone has the same zodiac sign or Myers Briggs personality and same height and build and ethnicity.

There is a distinction between “false personality” and “essence” in Gurdjieff’s schme and this dichotomy does not seem to correspond with atman and ego.

The essence is not the Atman. There is no Mars/Jovail Atman. There is just the Atman. I don;t realy see people as having individual Atmans, its just the place inside all of us where we all connect. The Atman is “the Self.”

The Atman doesn’t develop it doesn’t get enlightened.

So essence

With Buddhism, it’s not that everything which makes you unique is a delusion and therefore false and therefore must be gotten rid of, it’s that everything that makes you unique is a delusion and therefore false, and therefore shouldn’t be held on to.

In Buddhism, clinging to no-self is still clinging. Truly letting go of self and no-self is the only way you can truly have self, without any delusions getting in the way, because the self is there even when you’re not holding on to anything. I think that’s what you’re talking about as essence.

What a lot of people are trying to do is to unify the Atman concept and the ego concept in their minds. This necessarily leads to an emphasis on the all-in-all only because the ego changes while the all-in-all does not. The all-in-all becomes the foundation for the ego, the thing which is always present, even when the bits we call the ego flux and change. But getting rid of that flux and change is totally and completely NOT the point.

Some of these various internet Buddhists seem to imply that there are just two parts, the “all in all” and our socially constructed personality.

I hate that model. Because it means that everything that makes me unique is basically a delusion.

I like Gurdjieff’s idea of “the essence.” I don’t believe the essence is “The self” in the Jungian sense. Its shallower than that. There is only one self, one source of all being. But Gurdjieff contrasts it with the “false personality” which is the most superficial layer.

When people talk about “Be yourself” they are talking of your essence. Its what you were like when you were a little kid, before you became self conscious and simultaneously traumatized in various ways.

But that’s just the way life is.

But I don’t believe “essence” is the Atman, either.

At least, that’s how I understood it…

I am not sure about that ego thing though. I really like lines 1-4, but 5 and 6 don’t make sense. I think when people say “I want to get rid of my ego” they don’t really mean that. They don’t want an inflated ego. But if they had no ego they couldn’t “become” anything. They would have no subjectivity and would literally be “one with everything.”

I don’t think we are here to totally get rid of our ego. I think if we think our ego is all we have, though, then that’s what causes the problems.

But anyway I am really inspired!

It’s also really conversational, in that it’s just little bits of thought, but it’s conversation unbounded by time. It’s casual conversation + time to think about what you want to say + time for other people to respond. In a sense, it’s a perfection of that aspect of IT, and I am sure McLuhan would have lost his head over it! :)

Plus, I can post from my cell phone, which I love cause I get some of my best ideas on long walks through the city.