Debate me one on one

[Swami]

I am willing to debate one on one on the topic of religious experience and conversion. I accept that that religious experience is able to convert materialists/atheists to religion (or questioning materialism). I have the evidence for this.

Post: each person gets 2 posts

Does any Hardline materialist and atheists want to disagree with my evidence? You don't believe experience can convert??

[otseng]

[Replying to post 19 by William]

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[Swami]

I believe they are proven and the reason it's not accepted as such is because of a cultural and philosophical barrier. The West and East and their respective philosophies did not originate together so therefore they were developed on their own terms. The Western scientists simply went with whatever that would emerged from Western philosophy. But this alone does not prove that the Eastern philosophy and approach is wrong. It just means that it had it's own development.

Do you ever think about how your arguments aren't making sense in light of known reality?

I am going to remind the audience again. I'm fully aware that most atheists will not be convinced through "argumentation". This is why I advocate for people to explore and engage in meditation themselves.

Divine Insight lacks the experience that I have which is why he is not convinced. I challenge anyone to dispute my view that experience is capable of convincing atheists. If you are unwilling to experience, and "arguments" don't convince you, then you're only proving my point.

[Divine Insight]

I am going to remind the audience again. I'm fully aware that most atheists will not be convinced through "argumentation". This is why I advocate for people to explore and engage in meditation themselves.

Why create a make-pretend war against "atheists" like as if they are a species of creature with specific characteristics. Anyone who simply sees no reason to believe in the existence of gods is an atheist. Atheists, as individual people, may not have anything in common other than their realization that there is no good reason to believe in concepts that have no evidence to support them.

Divine Insight lacks the experience that I have which is why he is not convinced. I challenge anyone to dispute my view that experience is capable of convincing atheists. If you are unwilling to experience, and "arguments" don't convince you, then you're only proving my point.

I am more than willing to have this experience. Please explain what is necessary to have this experience and I'll give it a shot.

According to the Dalai Lama there is no experience that can validate Eastern Philosophy and it's a matter of faith just like all other religions.

So you are on your own on this one. You don't have the Eastern culture backing you up.

[Divine Insight]

By the way, let's say that I had some sort of experience that convinced me that I am actually pure consciousness independent of any physical structure.

How could I then determine that I haven't just proven Solipsism?

Also, if I had come to that realization why would I need to then reawaken in a physical body after I had this experience? Once I realize that I am pure consciousness shouldn't I be able to simply shed any need for any physical body? Why return to a physical body if I don't actually need one?

Especially a 70-year-old body that has failing health? Why not just consciously imagine a world where I'm young and healthy and wake up in that world instead?

[Swami]

I am more than willing to have this experience. Please explain what is necessary to have this experience and I'll give it a shot.

According to the Dalai Lama there is no experience that can validate Eastern Philosophy and it's a matter of faith just like all other religions.

So you are on your own on this one. You don't have the Eastern culture backing you up.

Hi Divine Insight. It is good to see your openness. My goal here is not to simply show that the experiences can happen because we all know that they happen, people report having them, even children report them. My goal here is also to give people the tool that they can use to induce these experiences for themselves.

As I've mentioned many times before, my meditation practice is based mostly on the system of 'yoga'. There are different types of 'yoga' practice. The one you find in the West is called 'hatha yoga' and it is mostly focused on physical postures, breathing, exercises. The type of 'yoga' I practice is 'Classical yoga' and this is outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Yoga means "union". The type of meditation that Classical Yoga focuses on is one where you become one with your object of focus - whether it be self, someone else, a mountain, the stars, etc. So this type of meditation leads to a range of mystical or unitive experiences. All of these experiences are there to lead to the realization that that the world of objects and subjects are only the appearance, but the reality is that everything is one. Only 'consciousness' exists - as in everything is a manifestation of this source.

In my discussion in the science forum, Using Field Research to Discover Consciousness, I outlined 3 steps that lead to the ultimate state of "union" ('samyama'). Refer here for practical steps:post"]. Samyama on self is like 'transcendental meditation' where it leads to a state that isolate consciousness by itself - pure consciousness. Samyama on other objects can lead to various other experiences like telepathy, clairvoyance, control over the elements, etc. All of this is explained in chapter 3 of the Yoga Sutras I referred to earlier.

There's another experience I believe would be good for you to have and that's the out-of-body experience. To induce these involves techniques that disassociates yourself from your body, like visualizing climbing out of your body, or being pulled out. There are many techniques but they all follow the same logic of disassociation. Here's one Buddhist that brings up his experience:

[youtube][/youtube]. I also have 2 books I can recommend if you need more information.

[Swami]

Some admonitions on siddhis (yogic powers that may develop naturally):

Traditionally, aspirants have been warned of the dangers inherent in the siddhis. Although the siddhis are said to develop spontaneously during the course of one’s intensive yoga practises, the recommendation is that one should not seek these out, pay special attention to them, or cling to them, but rather, one should treat them as natural byproducts of one’s psychospiritual work and move forward in that work. For instance, Ramakrishna is said to have discarded his attained paranormal powers as futile, vain, and heaps of rubbish (Prabhavananda, 1969, p. 259), and Buddha is reported to have said “…It is precisely because I see the peril of the practise of the mystic marvels [i.e., siddhis] that I execrate and abhor them and am ashamed of them� (Dîghanikâya, I, 212 ff, cited in Eliade, 1975, p. 174). In an often cited sûtra (III:38), Patañjali advised that “these� are obstacles to samâdhi, but they are accomplishments or powers in the waking, worldly, outwardly-turned state of mind. It is curious that Patañjali placed this warning in the middle, rather than at the end, of his listing of the various siddhis. In the Yoga-Sûtras, the referent for “these� is unclear. Some maintain that all siddhis listed in chapter 3 are obstacles, others argue that only those siddhis mentioned prior to Sûtra 38 should be considered obstacles, and still others contend that this obstacle warning applies only to the siddhis in the immediately preceding Sûtra (i.e., spontaneous [supernatural] intuitive flashes based in hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, and smelling). The siddhis might become obstacles because they could shift one’s attentional focus to outward things and because they might call attention to egocentric concerns. Both of these emphases could tempt and sidetrack the aspirant from the major aim of yogic practise – to reduce and ultimately eliminate the thought waves of one’s mind so that one no longer falsely identifies puru¶a with the manifestations of prakæti and achieves Self-realization.

Source: Patañjali Yoga and Siddhis: Their Relevance to Parapsychological Theory and Research
WILLIAM G. BRAUD
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... QeS8Pg2gkB

I don't seek after anything beyond OBEs and transcendental consciousness. I had some experiences with telepathy but I can see some dangers with pride and greed if these things are abused. Ultimately, they are distractions as the article suggests.

[Divine Insight]

Hi Divine Insight. It is good to see your openness. My goal here is not to simply show that the experiences can happen because we all know that they happen, people report having them, even children report them. My goal here is also to give people the tool that they can use to induce these experiences for themselves.

You don't seem to be listening to things that I've already said. I have already had these experiences that you are talking about. I have had them both in a totally natural setting where they just came to me in the moment. And I have had them under controlled meditation like the Monk you posted in the video.

Unlike the Monk I did not have a vision of something that then later came to pass, and I question the validity of this Monk's memory of his childhood experience. Psychologists have proven through controlled studies that human will indeed alter their memory without even realizing it.

Buy yes I've had the experience of being totally "one with the universe" where there is boundary where my body leaves off and the rest of the universe begins. But just because I have had those sensations doesn't mean that this represents any factual truths about our reality, and it certainly doesn't imply that reality is made of consciousness.

I have also had out-of-body experiences where I was able to look down from above viewing my actual body from outside of it. But again, I have no reason to jump to the conclusion that this was anything other than my own imagination taking this perspective on things.

So I've had these experiences that you are talking about. The difference between you and me is that I don't jump to unwarranted conclusions about what might have caused them. My explanation that it was my imagination is every bit as sound as your claim that some other conclusion should be entertained.

Obviously if the monk in the video truly was able to see future events before they happened, then this would be quite profound. But the likelihood of that actually being the case is quite slim. It's far more likely that the monk altered his own memory of those events. And he wouldn't need to have done this intentionally at all. This can all be done subconsciously without any intentional effort on the part of the person who is having these experiences.

Obviously, if I had profound experiences where I was seeing future events that later unfolded precisely as I had seen them then this would be a compelling experience. But I haven't had those kinds of experiences. And neither can those kinds of experiences be forced.

In fact, I've been into witchcraft for close to a decade now. Astral projection, and Shamanic Journeying are a big part of this practice. So I've actually been practicing the very techniques that you are suggesting. You're way behind me.

I simply don't jump to the conclusions that you jump to when I have these kinds of experiences. That's all. I chalk them up to pure imagination and I see no reason to go any further than this.

Playing with our imagination can be extremely fun and rewarding. However, for some people it can be quite dangerous as they confuse their imagination with reality.

For example, I once met a witch who had converted to witchcraft from Christianity. She decided to summon up spirits. So she created a ritual to summon the spirits and they came! But they weren't friendly spirits. They were demons, and they scared the hell out of her. In fact, she was so petrified with fear that she ran back to Christianity condemning witchcraft as the work of Satan.

Well duh? It should come as no surprise that she would conjure up such a terrifying imaginary experience. After all, she had been taught repeatedly as a Christian that witchcraft is the work of Satan and is demonic. So when she tried it that's what she found. It was her own imagination that created the terrifying demons that she had imagined encountering.

Pure secular psychologists would not be the least bit surprised that this might happen to someone who had been taught that witchcraft was the work of a devil.

Our imagination is a wonderful and powerful thing. But there's no evidence that it exists outside of the brain.

Obviously the claim of the monk to have envisioned an event that had not yet happened sounds compelling that something supernatural is going on. But we can't ignore the fact that the monk may very well be mistaken in what he believes to have experienced and how he remembers those events.

~~~~~~

The bottom line is that, to date, no one (absolutely no one) has been able to use mediation or astral projection to convincingly predict future events with any dependable detail or repeatability. And until that happens, these kinds of tales simply don't stand up to critical skepticism.

But yeah, if I could look into the future and be able to say what's going to happen next with any manner of dependable consistency, then I would indeed be "converted" to believing that something supernatural is going on.

But thus far I have not had that kind of experience. Even though I have tried, including using techniques of purposeful meditation and shamanic journeying.

In short, Razorsedge, I have already given those techniques an extremely exhaustive try. In fact, I continue to use them to this day. I enjoy playing with these techniques. They just haven't panned out in terms of providing any evidence for anything other than the simple fact that I have a great imagination.

[Swami]

The bottom line is that, to date, no one (absolutely no one) has been able to use mediation or astral projection to convincingly predict future events with any dependable detail or repeatability. And until that happens, these kinds of tales simply don't stand up to critical skepticism.

But yeah, if I could look into the future and be able to say what's going to happen next with any manner of dependable consistency, then I would indeed be "converted" to believing that something supernatural is going on.

But thus far I have not had that kind of experience. Even though I have tried, including using techniques of purposeful meditation and shamanic journeying.

In short, Razorsedge, I have already given those techniques an extremely exhaustive try. In fact, I continue to use them to this day. I enjoy playing with these techniques. They just haven't panned out in terms of providing any evidence for anything other than the simple fact that I have a great imagination.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. But I walk away with a different conclusion than you. I do not see you as a hardline atheist when I have one on one conversation with you. When you are grouped with atheists then that is harder to see. But you proclaim yourself as a Buddhist and witch for a reason. I think you should continue on your path.

You also bring up 2 sources of objections. I do not accept the ones from psychologists because it is nothing more than theorizing. The say that "it's just a theory" applies when you bring up memory in this case.

The second objection regarding repeatability and dependability of details is something I take seriously. Fortunately there is evidence in terms of dependability but not so much on repeatability and that's because of the low usage of meditation for these matters. If you use meditation to develop and train on these abilities then you are going to get repeatable results. I have a transcendent experiences or something approaching it almost every time I engage in meditation. Having several OBEs, I've also spent some times exploring the real world from a pure conscious state. I have not focused on developing other abilities like looking into the future but theoretically it can be done.

My advice to you is to keep experimenting with a focus on real world application.

[Divine Insight]

I do not see you as a hardline atheist when I have one on one conversation with you.

I'm not a hardline atheist in the sense of flat-out denying the possibility of supernatural events. I not only allow that they may be possible, but I even hope that there is a supernatural essence underlying our reality.

Nothing would give me greater joy than to wake up after I've died and discover that life was but a dream and that I am actually some sort of mystical being who dreamed it all up.

I'm not arguing that such a reality is impossible. Or even that it isn't true.

I simply argue that there is no compelling evidence to support the idea. At least none that I have seen.

Yes, it is true that if some things people have reported are true that certainly appears to be strong evidence. Like the monk in the video reporting to have seen an event before it actually happened. The problem is that such reports cannot be verified to be true. And we don't even need to claim that the monk is making things up. As far as I can see the monk may very well remember the event precisely as he describes it.

The problem is that it still can't serve as credible evidence for the event described. It could simply be evidence that the secular psychologists are correct.

I've been trying very hard to contact "Spirits" via many different methods. And I have imagined meeting with spirits on several occasions. The problem is that I have yet to have an experience meeting a spirit that was able to convince me that it is anything more than my own imagination.

I mentioned the girl who imagined meeting demons that scared her to go back to Christianity. Heck I would even enjoy meeting a demonic spirit that could convince me that it's something more than just my own imagination. At least that would be compelling that there's something "out there in the world of pure consciousness" other than my own imagination. But nope, no demons either.

If you want to debate whether or not anything supernatural might exist, I wouldn't debate that at all.

But if you want to debate whether or not we have sufficient evidence to conclude that it does, then that's a whole different ball game.

[William]

Razorsedge: Hi Divine Insight. It is good to see your openness. My goal here is not to simply show that the experiences can happen because we all know that they happen, people report having them, even children report them. My goal here is also to give people the tool that they can use to induce these experiences for themselves.

Divine Insight: You don't seem to be listening to things that I've already said. I have already had these experiences that you are talking about. I have had them both in a totally natural setting where they just came to me in the moment. And I have had them under controlled meditation like the Monk you posted in the video.

William: It appears to be that the understanding is that an 'experience' had by an individual - either uncontrolled or controlled - no matter that the experiences are assumed or otherwise claimed to 'be the same', they are always left to the individuals own interpretation as to 'what' they are.
Obviously then, position is the key ingredient to the recipe of 'how to interpret said experience'.


Divine Insight: Just for the record, I never took any of the positions you have claimed I had taken. Neither do I believe the things you claim I believe. Please speak for yourself and stop making false claims about me.

William: My bad.
I thought you were arguing from the position of agnosticism as your truth. My comments were more about my understanding of that position, and I hadn't realized you have shifted from that position, since you last informed me..


Divine Insight: By the way, let's say that I had some sort of experience that convinced me that I am actually pure consciousness independent of any physical structure.

How could I then determine that I haven't just proven Solipsism?

William: What would that matter? How would that change one's positions, whatever one's position is, or even if one claims to have no position?

Divine Insight: Also, if I had come to that realization why would I need to then reawaken in a physical body after I had this experience? Once I realize that I am pure consciousness shouldn't I be able to simply shed any need for any physical body?

William: I can 'see' no reason, other than One might choose to, just to give One the illusion of having escaped Oneself now and again...or just for the fun of experiencing the illusions One creates to entertain Oneself.
There would only be Oneself who could provide Oneself with 'reasons' in which to "do" anything.

Divine Insight: Why return to a physical body if I don't actually need one?

Especially a 70-year-old body that has failing health? Why not just consciously imagine a world where I'm young and healthy and wake up in that world instead?

William: In that circumstance, obviously One would provide Oneself with a reason, In The Moment.
Perhaps not having the reasons, is unreasonable?

Divine Insight:They just haven't panned out in terms of providing any evidence for anything other than the simple fact that I have a great imagination.

William: Do you also possess a reason for having a 'great Imagination"?

Divine Insight: I simply don't jump to the conclusions that you jump to when I have these kinds of experiences. That's all. I chalk them up to pure imagination and I see no reason to go any further than this.



William: Are you able to reasonably explain to the reader what you mean by "pure imagination"? I do not personally understand what it is you are referencing here. Is there even such a thing? Does it even exist? If so, do the lines of apparent physical reality and non-apparent "pure imagination" blur into one another making it unreasonable to make any conclusions based upon positions and even non-positions?


Divine Insight: Playing with our imagination can be extremely fun and rewarding. However, for some people it can be quite dangerous as they confuse their imagination with reality.


William: How is One to know which is which? Our reality may simply BE a product of the "pure Imagination" of a Divine Being.
Can anyone show otherwise?

Divine Insight: Our imagination is a wonderful and powerful thing. But there's no evidence that it exists outside of the brain.

William: Are we to reasonably assume we are all brains interacting for a brief moment, within a long moment?
How will that help, if upon the death of that brain we assumed we were, we still experience being?
What will our 'reasons' then be, related to former position and new reality?
Perhaps those who believed they were 'brains' will take on the image of a free-floating brain, in the Metaphysical Reality. Can't be any worse than looking like spaghetti and meatballs, I suppose.

Divine Insight: I once met a witch who had converted to witchcraft from Christianity. She decided to summon up spirits. So she created a ritual to summon the spirits and they came! But they weren't friendly spirits. They were demons, and they scared the hell out of her. In fact, she was so petrified with fear that she ran back to Christianity condemning witchcraft as the work of Satan.

Well duh? It should come as no surprise that she would conjure up such a terrifying imaginary experience. After all, she had been taught repeatedly as a Christian that witchcraft is the work of Satan and is demonic. So when she tried it that's what she found. It was her own imagination that created the terrifying demons that she had imagined encountering.

William: According to your story, the experience served a purpose. That hardly counts as evidence "It was her own imagination that created the terrifying demons that she had imagined encountering."
Did she tell you this herself, are you speaking for her?
Or is this just what you imagined must have happened. What are your reasons for assuming what she experienced was not real?
The story you tell here, implies to the reader that she thought her experience was real.
Why should we believe otherwise?