For the purpose of this article I’ll define two types of relaxation:
- Physicalistic relaxation.
- Unconventional relaxation.
Physicalistic relaxation is what happens when ordinary beings relax. Ordinary beings have entrenched habitual ideas about themselves, the world, what is real and what isn’t, the relation of themselves to the world and so on. They think the mind comes from the brain. They think the body is who they are. They think the body lives in a material universe. Their minds are full of these ideas and these are not just ideas, but they are a way of life, they are ingrained mental habits which occur effortlessly and tacitly. Therefore, when ordinary beings relax, the state of relaxation merely brings them to that which is habitual: to that whole host of relatively bad metaphysical assumptions about one’s body, one’s own mind, the world, and the relation between the three. This is what I call physicalistic relaxation. From a subjective idealist POV phyiscalistic relaxation can be called a deluded or a constrained relaxation. This is the kind of relaxation that all the people get on the couch while watching football, while playing the piano or guitar, while reclining in the garden and so on… This is why relaxation of the ordinary beings doesn’t make them enlightened but simply refreshes and maintains ignorance.
Now then, there is another kind of relaxation. It is the relaxation of a peer. The peer has thoroughly and repeatedly reviewed and mentally relaxed all the constraining ideas about one’s body, the mind, the world. In some cases the peer may have abandoned some such ideas altogether. For example, the peer does not think the mind comes from the brain or from anything else. Does not think the world is inside, outside, temporary, eternal, non-existent, existent, made of substance, etc. Does not think that the human body is inside the world or the world is inside the human body or that the human body and the world are identical. Does not think of oneself as identical to the body or different from it. Subjective idealism provides a reliable theoretical foundation for this radical change in mentality. The peer doesn’t rest in some anti-intellectual vacuum, far from it, but instead intellectually understands why and how the constraining conceptions of physicalism can be discarded on the basis of reason. And it’s not merely thinking in these ways that’s been abandoned, but also all attendant habits and intuitions have been relaxed and in some cases abandoned as well. Now, when this type of being relaxes, something extraordinary happens. The universe of appearances resolves into mystery and there is nothing but clear light of wisdom, omniscience, the universal womb. This is what I call the unconventional relaxation. This sort of relaxation is liberative. It’s not ordinary. It confers not only insight but all kinds of superknowledges and special abilities to the person and it is not for the feint of heart because after all, the universe becomes undone, never mind your personal being as you would typically conceive of it, or your family, or all the rest.
I think you successfully got across what you wanted to get across. I intended my comment as a way of saying, “I agree, and to clarify my thoughts further…” not as a rebuttal or refutation.
Originally commented by u/Utthana on 2016-05-15 12:45:02 (d35x1jk)