For the purpose of this article I’ll define two types of relaxation:

  1. Physicalistic relaxation.
  2. 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.

  • @syncretik
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    1 year ago

    “Not all manner of relaxation is of equal benefit.”

    Originally posted by u/mindseal on 2016-05-13 10:12:09 (4j3pf1).

  • @syncretikOPM
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    11 year ago

    This is why relaxation of the ordinary beings doesn’t make them enlightened but simply refreshes and maintains ignorance.

    I think for those of us wriggling our way out of convention and into unconventionality, ‘conventional relaxation’, like ‘conventional (a lot of things)’ can potentially do a little more than just refresh and maintain ignorance. E.g. I think some creative arts and expressions can qualify as ‘conventional relaxation’ but can actually serve to dismantle and weaken certain conventional patterns.

    So I am not uniformly against all those things that might fall under the umbrella of ‘physical relaxation’. I am against them when they’re carried out with a highly physicalist mentality, but I’m against anything carried out with such a mentality.

    Originally commented by u/Utthana on 2016-05-15 12:31:56 (d35wm44)

    • @syncretikOPM
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      11 year ago

      I think for those of us wriggling our way out of convention and into unconventionality, ‘conventional relaxation’, like ‘conventional (a lot of things)’ can potentially do a little more than just refresh and maintain ignorance. E.g. I think some creative arts and expressions can qualify as ‘conventional relaxation’ but can actually serve to dismantle and weaken certain conventional patterns.

      I agree. I am generalizing. I am pointing to the fact that people relax all the damn time and almost none of them ever become liberated from anything conventional. There are tons of artists but only few Alan Moores and Austin Osman Spares, etc.

      That said, I’ll edit the article, gladly, if you can find a smoother way to get this across.

      So I am not uniformly against all those things that might fall under the umbrella of ‘physical relaxation’. I am against them when they’re carried out with a highly physicalist mentality, but I’m against anything carried out with such a mentality.

      Neither am I. I never said what is beneficial and what isn’t. :) I only said that the benefit is not equal. Sometimes you may want to deliberately fall into a conventional mode of relaxation because you like the convention you’ve developed for yourself. It becomes a problem when you forget that this sort of relaxation is just one way to relax. There are deeper and trickier ways to relax too. That’s what I was trying to get across.

      Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2016-05-15 12:37:11 (d35wsen)

      • @syncretikOPM
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        11 year ago

        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)