Socratic Merhod Useful for Examining Spiritual Ideas?

[seattlegal]

All good stuff ... and perhaps it's worth commenting that a necessary prerequisite is objectivity or, as Eckhart called it, detachment, so this is a study best undertaken if not under guidance, then at least with someone to whom one can 'bounce off' ...

Human nature has, it tragically seems, an infinite capacity for the dark, so one needs to be careful one is not biting off more than one can chew. Do not the Eastern Traditions assert, more strenuously than the West perhaps, that the Ego is supremely skilled in 'pulling the wool over your eyes'?

When subjectivity clouds the mind, then self-examination too easily becomes self-indulgence, or worse, it actually opens the way for the dark, and seven demons move in where there was just one before ... 'you become what you think about' as the ancients say ...

The story of Pandora's Box has something to say on the topic, too, and if I may mix my metaphors, getting the genie back in the bottle can be a bastard of a struggle ...

Well yes, if you avoid bringing anxiety-causing thoughts to mind, then you are by definition still repressing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_repression

 

[seattlegal]

Got a chance to read it, went quicker than I thought, but also seemed a bit...sparse.

I am aware whatever exposure I've had to disciplines other than Christianity are at best cursory, and through a decided western slant (not necessarily mine, which I'm certain contributes, but western practice of most other disciplines seems to me typically diluted from the originals). I'm not sure the bearing towards the subject at hand, but it is worth keeping in mind as I explore the subject...

I don't see a better way to explain my thought other than anecdotally, so indulge me please.

I used to see a chiropractor / acupuncturist over the course of about 5 years, and I like to think we were just a little more than acquaintances though not quite friends. She had a broad exposure (the western sense I mentioned) to some eastern philosophies, I think in large part to her vocation (acupuncture). She introduced me to, among other things, the Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet. Simplistic, but I'm more like a child in those disciplines, so appropriate at that point in my life.

To the OP, she made me aware that I *choose* to be angry. I thought this a rather odd view to hold, but I also knew my temper, which while I want to believe I control it tolerably well I do have my less than civil moments.

Not long after she and I had this conversation about anger, I found myself in one of my moods that was triggered by I don't even remember what...but mentally I had the opportunity to watch myself grow angry, as if my mind at that moment was (sort of) parallel to my self. I was consciously aware of becoming angry, but it wasn't something I deliberately set out to do. Oh, words fail me here. I watched myself "lose it," but it was a learning moment, and from that I've been able to (when I want to and think about it) redirect the anger, or at least reconsider whether getting angry is an appropriate response to the situation.

I still get angry, but where prior it was something instinctive, reactive, purely emotive and responsive, now I can be more measured in my "anger response." Not withholding or repressing, more like redirecting.

Is this in line with what you are trying to present here?

The thin line I'm trying to present here is to calm all of the other emotions that bubble up screaming for attention by actually being attentive to them and acknowledging them--letting them know that you are there to examine and fix the problem. Let anger become like an "Emergency First Responder," and the screaming by-standers (the other emotions screaming for attention that makes your mind boil--obscuring clarity of thought) will stand aside and give the Emergency First Responder room to work to fix the problem.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

Astral projection is dangerous to find one's self in ---cause there is the danger that you can't get back in.

Yes, IMHO, ghosts are Astral bodies
(mind-intelligence-false ego; ~aka respectively, manas-budhi-ahankara)
that have been stripped of their gross body
(earth-water-fire-air-ether)
before their natural death occurred.

IE: A bomb blast etc will leave one standing and "thinking & willing" after their gross body is evaporated in a flash.

The problem with dis-embodied astral bodies is lack of physical means to carry out any activities.

A person of weak will, Highly intoxicated and in a state of quasi-deep sleep
can be inhabited by a Ghost that seeks "to enjoy once again"
---such Ghosts are gregarious and full-of-passion and yearning intensely for the faculties to act out their mental desires.

---such ghostly embodied souls remain in the astral until they fad-away to take a new birth;
upon which time, their past life of "thinking & willing" will be dissolved and supplemented with a new vehicle of birth
appropo to the Karma (karma-phalam - fruits of works) accrued.

The point is that there is a famous verse:
From anger, delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory.
When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost, one falls down ... (2.63)

The deep sleep intoxicated state I cited above is akin to this "bewilderment"

 

[juantoo3]

The thin line I'm trying to present here is to calm all of the other emotions that bubble up screaming for attention by actually being attentive to them and acknowledging them--letting them know that you are there to examine and fix the problem. Let anger become like an "Emergency First Responder," and the screaming by-standers (the other emotions screaming for attention that makes your mind boil--obscuring clarity of thought) will stand aside and give the Emergency First Responder room to work to fix the problem.

I want to believe I said much the same thing, or at least I'm not sure of the difference between my observation and yours. I am by no means adept, and frankly haven't given a great deal more thought to it other than I am a bit slower to give in to anger now, but only marginally. I do "see" my anger now, but if anything I think it makes it build up inside faster (or deeper?). Yoda will not like me....I try not to hold grudges, but there are a few issues from my past I cannot (or will not) let go of. I know these things are eating me inside, and I am powerless to do anything about them outside. I try to let go but my psyche will not let me...and frankly, on these specific items, I'm not so sure I want to let go.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Thanks SG and juantoo3 for sharing, I gave it some time because it deserved it. I don't have anything to add right now but hopefully Processing it all will trigger something for me.