This section is for people who just want to talk about Imagination within no academic/formal framework.

Views: 476

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Had to go looking for what you were referring to, I was not familiar with it. I think I found it:

Leadbeater, whose lower self clairvoyance is responsible for the “esoteric” structures in the Adyar Society, made extraordinary statements about life on the Planet Mars. Presented in the first editions of his book “Inner Life” [2], his Martian discoveries help the readers see the true quality of his writings.
 
“Inner Life” was first published in 1910. By then nearly all Adyar Theosophists believed the Martian Expeditions to be true, as the author emphatically claimed.
His words were the words of a divinely inspired being: few dared question him. After all, besides travelling to other planets, Leadbeater had frequent personal conversations with the “King of the World” and other great spiritual authorities whom he himself had invented, with the political and clairvoyant help of Mrs. Annie Besant. No one could think, therefore, that the contents of his books were largely Pinocchian.
It was only between the 1960s and the 1970s that the Adyar Society editors seemed to lose their faith, so to say, in his Martian revelations.
They did not say anything about it to the public, though. The editors tried to keep the bulk of Leadbeater’s fraud still circulating. They made an effort to hide his Martian trips, for this part of the fraud was unsustainable already. They quietly removed C.W.L.’s Mercurian and Martian revelations from any new editions of his book  “Inner Life”. 
After reading some, I do remember hearing/seeing something about it. If memory serves, it was just before Urantia started making waves. Channeling was the "new thing" so everybody and their brother was talking to The Pleiades, or Orion.
-but-
from all that "nonsense" came some important concepts. It helped to open our eyes to some different ways of looking at things. Of course it takes time for the "new" information a "new" perspective yields to be filtered (through us) into a (lets say) more usable form.

The specific author and publisher is, of course, unimportant. However that nonsense did not lead to anything important that legitimate methods would not have covered/discovered.

For each bit of nonsense, are you saying that important things come from them? I don't think you imply that.

I would say that nonsense is to be avoided and good methods will yield good and better results. Not all wild memes are worthy of believing. It is important for each seeker to be able to distinguish nonsense from Truth.

I should add that damage may result from falsehoods as well. Time lost from seeking Truth is a waste of a valuable resource.

Allow me to try this another way (perspective being everything).

compare your mind/brain to a vast forest. In that forest will be points of interest (maybe villages or water sources), around those points of interest there will be well developed interconnected paths.

The same thing happens with our brain and our thinking.

We develop areas of interest that we pay particular attention too, but being "limited" the more attention we pay in one place, the less attention we have for another.

-back to the forest-

you may have flown over the forest many times, and feel you know it, and at some level of resolution you would be correct, but when you start zooming in, the level of detail is not there to support the resolution and the imagination kicks in.

So every "fact" we "think" we "know" has a level of resolution to it, if the level of detail (our understanding) doesn't support that resolution, our imagination starts filling in the gaps.

Given new discoveries come from those gaps, imagination is essential to an expanding or evolving understanding.

So even when the imagination paints a "distorted" picture, the information (and experience) involved in finding those distortions is invaluable, and potentially would have been "overlooked" if not for the distortion drawing our attention to it.

If we are looking for the "truth" and "distortions" exist, then there is reason for them in that truth.

Of course this is all how I see things

These Quotes that keep popping up so close in context to current discussions are awesome.

The one for today was

“It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

― Jiddu Krishnamurti

The problem is free will and the fact that things are not all deterministic. Random junk occurs, truly random with no underlying basis for the firing of the neuron, and now a thought occurs. That thought is garbage and true noise. Man can do this with free will.

A person spends Time, which we have a limited quantity of, to filter this (truly) junk out of existence in one's personal mind.

The world is not deterministic at its basis, and neither is man and Nature. Therein lies a problem. 

I completely agree that determinism is created. By definition something happens first, then something else happens, so determinism has no meaning without time (and space).

Where we seem to differ is in my belief that there is no "junk" or "garbage". If it exist, there is reason for it. Our perspective that it is junk or garbage, only indicates the level of our ignorance.

There is no junk or garbage in nature, what one part produces as waist, the next uses as fuel.

We cannot (in our quest to understand the truth) dismiss or ignore parts of that truth and still expect what we understand to be true.

The truth is the whole, every piece in it's place, complete understanding of every little piece, and of it's potentials.

If we considered a photograph as a complete image of the truth, by the time the photo was taken, that moment, that momentary expression of the truth would be gone, and the truth of it will have evolved into the next perfect expression.

Every moment in time is perfect in it's expression, if we don't like what we see, we should have faith in it's perfect expression (the covenant of "god") and adjust our perspective, not the expression. That would be like having a broken arm and putting the splint on your shadow.

our universe is like a library, all the information in it is available the moment you walk through the door. How you choose to see it (or move through it), determines how your understanding evolves.

and this would be how I see it.

Again with the Quote:

“I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. ... The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.”

― Jiddu Krishnamurti

How about this:

If we try to "imagine" from another perspective, while applying our understanding of our current perception, then our "imagining" will be influenced by what we currently believe. This would introduce "errors". The longer we hold onto these "errors" the larger they become, until the "errors" influence is so great it can no longer be denied. Then we are forced to accept we were wrong (of course that means pain and suffering) and make adjustments to our "imagining" and repeat.

Of course adjustments can be made at any point along the way to mitigate the pain and suffering (if thats what we're truly interested in).

I agree that some uses of imagination have a form of teaching, which can be good. But there is created some true garbage that wastes people time. However, it teaches one to discriminate. That may be considered good. Rather like honing your reality skills. You have a good point there.

"honing your reality skills"

isn't that what experience is? When you put your "imaginings" into practice? Follow that same process the other way. We are constantly testing our "imaginings" (most of us, I would guess, in a scientific manner) through predictions.

each night, as I'm unwinding from the day, I think about tomorrow. I take my understanding, incorporate any information of interest I came across that day, and make predictions for myself about the next day. Simple things, John will respond to that post I made by a certain time. W heather I'm right or wrong has little impact on the day, but it does show me places where my understanding needs more attention. This is also how we maintain a kind of balance.

\What you are describing occurs when one starts believing their own predictions over the reality of the day. In other words, they refuse to see what actually happened, they ignore or twist whatever information comes in to support what they want.

To me, this is the only "sin" you can commit against "God". All other "sins" require one do this one first. Lie to yourself. The only way those fanciful imaginations continue to exist to cause any trouble, is for us to continue to support them, or continue to believe in them in spite of whats being shown to us.

>>> isn't that what experience is?

to a theosophist - yes. Many people do not do it that way...

On a slightly different direction - Imagination is one of the best tools a person can have. One can see symbols, recurring and not recurring, that shed an inner light on the higher planes. This allows one to progress through observation, both mental and physical insights, and develop the inner intuition by sparking it into action. This is often a very powerful tool. One, if not the best, tools we can use to advance. It also creates new free-will actions which can be used to support and trigger other's actions re-supporting natural laws latent in nature and human beings.

RSS

Search Theosophy.Net!

Loading

What to do...

Join Theosophy.Net Blogs Forum Live Chat Invite Facebook Facebook Group

A New View of Theosophy


About
FAQ

Theosophy References


Wiki Characteristics History Spirituality Esotericism Mysticism RotR ToS

Our Friends

© 2024   Created by Theosophy Network.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service