Will,

Congratulations on your rational post one above the last. This exhibits a counter example of what you seem to be saying. To quote you: "The new thing is ONENESS, HOLISM, UNSEEN CONNECTION." I knew about, studied and advocated this before you were born and the concepts were not new then. However, these concepts do not preclude rational discussion and using words in either their most common senses of meaning or making their meaning clear in the context. They do not preclude avoiding confusion and raising the entropy of the discussion, if I may use Tom's technical term, by throwing in idiosyncratic terminology and made up meanings on the spur of the moment. Words as sounds and images are what we have to communicate with here in PMR. To communicate on the basis of what you might expect from a caricature of a 60's 'hippy' conversation of the past as in 'yeah man, do you dig it, that's some good grass' or the equivalent thrown into the middle of a discussion can only cause confusion. If you are sitting around in a circle passing a joint and grooving on the vibes, it doesn't matter very much whether your statements convey any more content than the glazed look in your eyes already does. I have been there on rare occasion and know whereof I speak.

But in order to convey information in any real sense between human beings, you must use words in a rational and understandable way. And the participants, in my limited experience of the past, were philosophy, mathematics, physics and such majors, mostly in graduate school, mostly with IQs two standard deviations and up above the norm. They were stoned but still managed, with a few lapses, to speak rationally about whatever was the topic of conversation. They were seriously attempting to enjoy themselves but that did not exclude being understood. For those people, conversing and conveying their ideas and thoughts in an understandable way was enjoyable. It was rewarding in itself. It was what they were aiming their education towards and what they planned to do for a living once they became Dr. Whatever. You are yourself clearly possessed of this level of intelligence and ability to develop and convey ideas, when you choose to do so. Perhaps you will one day be one who writes one of the hundred plus books that Tom hopes to see, conveying a different understanding of the reality that Tom attempts to convey within MBT. A viewpoint that will resonate with a group of people that do not resonate with the other versions already written. But it must be understandable in order to sell and be read and reach an audience.

In expressing oneness, holism and unseen connection does not require treating words as malleable things that can be fitted in almost at random or idiosyncratically and thereby destroying the communication. It is not necessary to express hidden connections by making the connectedness of the discussion hidden. Reality in the sense of the MBT model of Consciousness Space may exhibit more separation for clear conveyance of meaning than is exhibited in the reality being modeled. That is precisely why you make models; to separate something that is confusing because of it's lack of separation, lack of boundaries and clear delineation of functionalities into a simplified version where all of the relationships can be observed and understood. But you cannot condemn the concept of modeling for performing precisely the purpose for which it is done: making something unclear into something clear and understandable. You will contribute much more to the group understanding if you turn on your spell checker, read over what you have written and ask yourself some questions. Does this clearly convey what I intended to say? Is this clear and understandable to my readers without their already knowing what I am saying? Will it require a major effort to figure out what I am trying to say?

None of the above means that you can always communicate with existing words and their existing meanings and semantics. It is necessary to be clear. It is not necessary to make do with old concepts expressed with old phrases. It is necessary to convey truly new and radical ideas with new terminology. But this must be made fully clear as to it's meaning in order to avoid ruining communication. Being limited to subjective viewpoints is a serious limitation. It prevents others from participating in real communication with you as you exist in your own subjective little world. Working towards an objective view, if there is in fact such a view, is desirable as part of clear communications.

Ted

Words give us a very rough description of our thoughts, and it is never enough of them to make a drawing of our mental images. What about verbally expressing our feelings? It takes ten, twenty sentences to narrate what we feel about a beauty of a sunrise, a sea or anything else. Where will all these words be able to take us? Almost nowhere, since each of us have our own colors of feelings, and all we can get is an awareness or understanding, that somebody else may be sharing a similar view about this or that. I think words have only so much importance in our communication, in our live communication, since we have body language, and our eyes and gestures provide additional invaluable meanings. A lack of body language and face expression in written communication demands much more from a writer and a reader. Everything sounds like a common knowledge, but we talk about something big, and obvious things may be in a shadow of those important thoughts.

Lena

_________________
'Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.' Confucius.

Hello IUOCs:

Excellent posts, Ted and Lena.

Will:

I think you are special. You are letting things flow from your inside out, and that is good. I hope you are a good listener. Ted's and Lena's points of view can make you broaden your perspectives. I hope I can contribute too. Some people may see these exchanges as discussions. I see them as mutual learnings and for whoever wants to explore. Hope your life gets easier and you can progress without too much struggle. Now going back to our business:

Will: So you like "subjective component" eh? I must say I think it's clumsy and bad. But anyone can say anything, use any descriptors they want, and indeed that's not really the point.

Claudio: I like so many things. I used that word for the corresponding context of a phrase. Will, I detect some possible ego playing here.

Will: Indeed what is the point? You seem to think finding the spearation point between subjective and objective data sets is some big goal. Is that what the big question is?

Claudio: It is not one point or the big question. That's ego playing. You are trying to find THE SOLUTION for everything. If I try to define THE POINT I would say: "THE JOURNEY". I think Cole posted something about it. We are sharing our journeys now, that is one of the big points here. We are learning from it. Like I said we are not capable right now to have a clear separation but I am interested in learning about the two and their relationships. In NPMR this is very important. You can experience things and sometimes, specially at the beginning it is not easy to differentiate between what you created and some externally created information. I think Tom or other very experienced in NPMR can make this distinction easier, for me I still have a big room for improvement.

Will: Where subjectivity "ends" and objectivity "begins" ? Ha its like these discussions get so... whats the word, sorta abstract they aren't about too much after a while. I don't think that's the goal, finding a new separation point, though. I think its putting it all together and getting a big picture and all that, no?

Claudio: I think I answered this above.

Will: The left brain type thinking sees a perfect ARRANGEMENT as its goal.

Claudio: Cataloguing this way is a sign of ego. I like to continue progress in the left side as well as on the right and I wish that for everybody. If you or anybody else wants to keep limiting themselves to their side is their free will.

Will: It would like to be able to say: this is this, this ends here, this starts here, and this is what's doing this, and this is what's doing that.

Claudio: That's good. Science works on it. You can work on it too. As long as you don't get frustrated with uncertainty it is good.

Will: The new thing is ONENESS, HOLISM, UNSEEN CONNECTION. I was even watching some BBC thing from 1980. That's almost 30 years ago and it was all about that - had interviews with physicist David Bohm and others. Here's the link, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnL0f8EQIhU

Claudio: Thanks. What was the new thing 20 years ago now is not. You can always find new things. Your exploration is good for you.

Will: I think its gone way beyond just some more sophisticated way of determining the separation points of some ordinary arrangement, Claudio. I gotta say, man. We can discuss how symbolic (i.e. verbal and even numerical) logic relates there but clearly what the wave of the future is, is holism. mind or thought as such is a holism - the element BEHIND all the form, behind what's arising in a form sense. Or you could say, what's containing it. But even mind is just a word and so on. You could call it anything - spirit, consciousness, even God.

Claudio: I agree, how you call it is not so important. If you like the holistic path go for it. I think you can learn a lot from Ted. He's been there, than that. I prefer the NPMR path and learning from MBT and others.

Will: Nobody knows or can know how to break it up into components because it IS the totality in some fundamental sense.

Claudio: Phrases starting with: "Nobody knows" are ego phrases. You cannot prove that nobody knows. That's for the speaker to feel better. I use the phrase sometimes though, but as long as we identify ego or our thoughts are not in the ego direction it is OK. What you are is more important than what you say.

Will: What Tom has going is cool and pragmatic and useful, but he acknowledges that its only a tool, a description for exploring it.

Claudio: That's ego again. Will, you are very special. If you work on your ego you will achieve more. Be humble and open to what you can learn from Tom or anybody.

Will: p.s. I just want to say that I also think there is, in a basic sense, something OBJECTIVELY real. That is, beyond subjective delusion patterns. But that is bound to be something far different than the world we perceive through perceptions notoriously shifting channels. Things ARE. It's just that we need to move beyond separation based thinking in general to even begin to amplify the knowing of them into a different sort of REALER KNOWING.

Claudio: These thoughts are good. This is why I think you are special. You have a potential in you. Don't take my critics as bad. Learn from Tom, Ted, and everybody.

Will: Even simpler: things are but there is more to them, and that more is how they are connected, which ordinary thought and perception don't usually show. Its as though the consciousness pattern of connection ITSELF leads somewhere totally new, progressively connecting and expanding and thus realizing.

Claudio: See my last response above. MBT is a good path to what you are looking for, but don't limit yourself. Explore everything that you find interesting and keep in mind that you are special and have a big potential.

All the best for you man!

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Hey Claudio,

Please don't take this the 'wrong' way, as I say this with all due respect and understanding but: my feeling has been for a long time that it is not necessarily useful to point out in others what you think of as "ego." For one thing: it isn't really up to you (or me) to decide if someone is actually acting from "ego" or from some higher perspective than you're capable of grasping. I'm not saying that is or isn't the case with this discussion, but what I'm trying to say for example is that: certain key phrases or words may strike you as "egotistical" in nature, while in actuality- that is an incorrect interpretation. To give you an example: there are many times when I read the posts around here and feel the urge to point out to someone: "You seem to be acting out of ego and here's why I think so..." but I always take a critical examination of why I really feel that way and question internally whether or not its my job to make that judgement. See to me, I tend to see ego in wanting to separate things into neat/well-defined parts and make judgements of character without all the facts. Yet, in general (and as a rule of thumb) I'm not going to point that out to people, because I realize that they will probably disagree with my interpretation, and it is probably my own ego that wants to point it out in the first place..

example-

Will: What Tom has going is cool and pragmatic and useful, but he acknowledges that its only a tool, a description for exploring it.

Claudio: That's ego again.

? I'm a little unclear (to me) as to how the above statement is untrue/fear-based/ or in general coming from ego.

At some point, you can start to call almost anything an act of ego. I don't know if you're familiar with eastern spirituality (broad description) at all, but I believe most of those traditions have an understanding of the idea that it is usually our own ego that causes us to want to point out ego in others. A bit of a conundrum eh?

:)

peace and with good humor,
-Cole

_________________
Never live so certainly as to confuse your own convictions with what is true.

Hi Cole:

Everybody is different. Some people don't like being criticized or receive some feedback. In my case I don't mind and actually think it may be positive to me and to others to get your opinions.

Cole: Please don't take this the 'wrong' way, as I say this with all due respect and understanding but: my feeling has been for a long time that it is not necessarily useful to point out in others what you think of as "ego."

Claudio: "Take this the wrong way". Thinking of this, this is one way of evolving. When we learn to take things the best possible way, to find something positive from a situation we evolve. You are right it might not be useful, but it might too and the more we deal with the situations (instead of hiding) we may learn faster. Ego is a master of hiding and this is another thing in common with fear.

Cole: For one thing: it isn't really up to you (or me) to decide if someone is actually acting from "ego" or from some higher perspective than you're capable of grasping. I'm not saying that is or isn't the case with this discussion, but what I'm trying to say for example is that: certain key phrases or words may strike you as "egotistical" in nature, while in actuality- that is an incorrect interpretation.

Claudio: Anybody can make mistakes but if you don't "give it a try" you won't evolve. I might make a mistake, but isn't it better for me to try and then for you or somebody else to point to me an error they found? After this is where we learn if we don't make the first step there is no learning. In this case, I payed attention to Will and I saw several similar phrases from him in previous posts (from his first ones). I also already answered back to him on other topics and I think we got a little closer to each other. If he does not like my critics I can stop them. I can explain why I say what I say and that is another way to learn more. Aren't more important the "whys" than our mistakes? Ultimately it is not my decision or anybody's what is important is what anybody learns from it. Some people don't like to admit "I was wrong" or even "Claudio, you made me think from what you say. You may have a point, may be it is my ego...". Ultimately only the original poster will know. I also posted above that what is important is how we are, and how we improve, not what we say, write or what mistakes we make.

Cole: To give you an example: there are many times when I read the posts around here and feel the urge to point out to someone: "You seem to be acting out of ego and here's why I think so..." but I always take a critical examination of why I really feel that way and question internally whether or not its my job to make that judgement.

Claudio: Sometimes it is not easy to know if an action is right or wrong. My intentions are to help people (even if they hate me). I would sacrifice somebody not liking me to help him/her in a way. Sometimes I use my intuition (CS whispering at my ear). I think Will is special and has big potential, he is a good thinker (and omser) and he can get better (IMO). To your thinking above add also if you may not say something because a possible fear of a reply from that person. Aren't we supposed to deal with our fears?

Cole: See to me, I tend to see ego in wanting to separate things into neat/well-defined parts and make judgements of character without all the facts.

Claudio: If you separate things for a practical reason or to study them I don't see anything wrong with it. Generalizing from limited information can lead to wrong conclusions but trying it can also lead to some learning.

Cole: Yet, in general (and as a rule of thumb) I'm not going to point that out to people, because I realize that they will probably disagree with my interpretation, and it is probably my own ego that wants to point it out in the first place..

Claudio: When you say: "because I realize that they will probably disagree". Is there a "fear" component there? OK, I know we don't have to act fearless without respect. We need to balance it with respect for others (I know I am not perfect on this, I already made some mistakes with Ted but I think I am trying and improving). If it is your own ego or not, ultimately you may know. In my case I know myself pretty much. It is on one side that I like omsing, learning from it (I won't deny it), on another side, because I also think I can help somebody, even if it is not the person I am dealing with, somebody else can learn something.

Cole:

example-

Will: What Tom has going is cool and pragmatic and useful, but he acknowledges that its only a tool, a description for exploring it.

Claudio: That's ego again.

? I'm a little unclear (to me) as to how the above statement is untrue/fear-based/ or in general coming from ego.

Claudio: People with ego tend to "equalize". They tend to put somebody or something said at their level. They may not feel comfortable with a sense of inferiority that may want to come to them. They may also put some belief in a superior level and grab it when they need its rescue. I am not saying Will is all that. Only he knows, but if I make him think about it or somebody that thinks similarly I may help him/them. The phrase: "but he acknowledges it's only a tool" is limiting Tom's MBT model, making it limited. Even though Tom said that (don't forget he is humble), that does not mean MBT is only a tool. If it is only a tool you can just put it together with other meditation techniques. Do you think we have 900 pages of just a tool? Being a tool is just one aspect. You can say it is a tool to evolve. Will posted similar phrases in other posts. Other ego phrases: "Obama does not know anything". "Einstein did not know what he was talking about, he was nuts".

Cole: At some point, you can start to call almost anything an act of ego.

Claudio: That may be the case if ego is taking over somebody. To answer your above statement I answer with another of your above statements: Cole: See to me, I tend to see ego in wanting to separate things into neat/well-defined parts and make judgements of character without all the facts.

Cole: I don't know if you're familiar with eastern spirituality (broad description) at all, but I believe most of those traditions have an understanding of the idea that it is usually our own ego that causes us to want to point out ego in others. A bit of a conundrum eh?

Claudio: Call it ego or whatever, if ego is making me try to learn and help other people learn I see it as positive. For me spiritual evolution includes helping others to evolve, and lucky me I enjoy doing that too.

:)

Cole: peace and with good humor,


Claudio: Peace. I said in a previous post that you are evolved and evolving very well Cole, I don't know if you read that post. Keep it up! No hard feelings. Hard feelings are in our way towards evolving.

Take care Cole


Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

That is what I have been saying for years, what we notice in others usually means it is because we recognize it in our self. I've always considered that to be a kind of "common sense" thing because like attracts like and noticing something is an attraction. Just using the term "ego" is pejorative, and I think is what this thread is all about, the meanings and the reactions released without making the connection as to why. What is it about the word "ego" that gets our panties in such a bunch?

I found a new book by Richard Bach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bach, new to me anyway. It is Illusions: The Adventures Of A Reluctant Messiah and so far it rocks.

How this thread and that book are connected is for each to recognize, if they even are.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Bettte: That is what I have been saying for years, what we notice in others usually means it is because we recognize it in our self.

Claudio: What we notice in others and in ourselves can help us evolve. That usually is not the same as always. In my case I am out of the "usually", may be I am unusual or not normal (paranormal :). I am way tougher with myself than I am with other people. Bette: what you've been saying for years is something MBT talks about. Our interpretations are comparing new information with our previous experiences (compare it to "recognizing it in ourselves").

Bette: I've always considered that to be a kind of "common sense"

Claudio: Isn't "common sense" a friend of "belief"?

Bette: because like attracts like and noticing something is an attraction.

Claudio: Like attracts like is not a general statement. We may be attracted to opposites or to totally different kind of people. I am very different from you, yet I attracted you to post (possibly).

Bette: Just using the term "ego" is pejorative, and I think is what this thread is all about, the meanings and the reactions released without making the connection as to why. What is it about the word "ego" that gets our panties in such a bunch?

Claudio: So you are saying that Tom was pejorative when he wrote MBT? Recognizing ego is not important for you Bette? Isn't ego a friend of fear and an enemy of evolution?


Happy holidays Bette


Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Happy holidays to you too Claudio. Now you've started my "Happy Holidays" song for the day I sing to myself out loud. Tom didn't invent ego or the term as it has been around since terms began, and that IS what I am talking about, although it might not be what Will is talking about. The term or word "ego" is moldy with meanings that need to be shaken out and brought to the light, then recognized for where they came from, what is behind the meanings, and then decided upon what the word "really" means when being used. To connect the meaning threads to the word and analyze the usefulness of the word towards communicating what we are trying to communicate. Becoming aware of hidden meanings, hysterical meanings (do you know the history of the word hysterical, "they" used to think the uterus in women moved around in the body and where it landed the woman would have pain or problems, hist=uterus, for example), I mean historical meanings, etc. Connect and release, keep the keepers, let's go fishing. ;)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

What is important to me is what can we recognize in ourselves that we can then improve. When we say something to somebody other people can also learn from it.

I was just getting some thought that if we are all One, when we exchange opinions we may call it thinking as One, Wow, something to think about.

Bette, regarding your shaking. May be what I do (like in this thread), is shake some people. When we shake we dance, we exercise. Workout for our souls.


Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Hi everyone,
Wow how come my posts always have humble beginnings and then explode into pages and pages?
HMMM what can I dream up to say next? Thanks for all the complients Claudio. You're special too. (hmmm little ego there? special kinda goes both ways sometimes, but nah.)
Maybe that post was a little egoic on my part. At least in the apparent sense. That is, it had some of THE GRAMMAR OF EGO. In other words the grammar of debate. I guess I couldn't resist that. Because really people are always contradicting what I say and I'm, after all, incredibly brilliant. It's hard some times.< If you don't see the ironic intent here, uh, see it.
All kinds of neat mosaics of connection are possible here: I.E. grammar of ego, and grammar is words and words and grammar are what this post was originally all about.
Ok wait, uh, where was, am I? OK Ted. Ted: I just wanted to say that I'm not necessarily talking about inventing new words. But I could be. Not talking about being a hippie either. But I could be. What, in fact are we talking about here? Again I see that correspondence like: Ted- use accepted (general) meanings to get greater objectivity. Will- use new (connected released) meanings to get greater objectivity. In both cases we're going for a bigger picture, which has to do with going beyond the limiting "subjectivity" as its known in this discussion. Althought Tom talks about subjectivity as the main thing we're kinda experimenting with in MBT. But same general directionality- i.e. getting greater objectivity on subjectivity. Anyway, at least we agree we're going for a bigger picture. OK cool. We're all there on that.
New meanings - new awareness. Newness is always in the direction of holism. Holsim, is, by the way, the big picture. The Toe or what's beyond the toe. Simplify. The simplicity of seeing as opposed to complication of talking. The complicated has become confused with the strange.
Although I can feel new Ted n' Claudio responses coming in future time as: You're over simplifying it... and new is greater fractalizations! Ever evolving uncertainties and MBT computer sims and great AUMOSAURS and all! Right on! I like that stuff too. It's all...IT. HOWEVER...... wake up. Wake up is kind of like that. No more fractalization. Very strange.

Ted: Listen boy, YOU wake up.
Claudio: That's really special but don't forget to read your mbt, be humble, and learn from everybody!

Will: I learn, I talk, it's all good, let's try an experiment with holism and the observer effect on the psycho-verbal level.


OK OK That's probably not what you'd really say. I'm having fun. He he he haw haw.

Anyway I have a cool image and sense of, like, this STATE LIKE, not DISCUSSION LIKE, group or even just personal recognition of connection. And how that would alter all, almost instantly. When I say connection I mean this immediate almost zen like thing, lightening like. Wow ITIYOUBANG! But it would be practical and you could still talk. It's just like, words are part of a fundamental fragmentation and that's been known since Lao Tzu.
But also I see some intermediary stage in which is where words begin to evolve so we can have new concepts. But yeah you can also just use regular ones. Ya know, whatever works. Big picture. Clarity, yeah. New words can be clear. Old words can be clear. Big Aum rhythm comsic humm ad infinitum.
Holism is something key like. In my opinion it is more key like than fractalization. Words are fractalization-istic. They just go and branch like crazy, fascinating and complicated, specify, specify, specify, exemplify, return, image rhythm, remember, explicate, complexify, recap, cinematize, list, log, justify, relate, synthesize, lead into phase, form from intersection, re-picture to conclude, you gotta admit.
Some whole new cool superconscious language. Just think of it. Tripped out New concepts. More interconnection based and just any new concepts. It would have to be NEW connections. Like a whole new palet of colors beyond the primary colors.
I donno maybe it wouldn't help, how the hell should I know until I tried it? Maybe you just gotta go way PAST words if you're gonna do that type of thing. It would definitely be interesting to experiment with though. Get a group of people together and have them learn a whole new, less dumbed down, more holistic, or just new-conencted SUPERCONSCIOUS language. See how that changed the group reality.

In fact let's try an experiment now: respond, if you will, to this post with your own superconscious language.

Will

WE'RE ALL SMARTER THAN WE THINK. And way smarter than ego paradigms. Can language re-organize to better reflect that?

EVOLOVE

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

As opposed to "group think" which is basically what happens since there are so many people split into so many cliques, I mean groups.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Will. I like your post. In this post you are showing not only that you are special, but you are also creative and you are good in finding positive outcomes from situations. I admire you. You said you are brilliant and it is true, but don't abuse, with power it comes "responsibility", and you also always have room for improvement. Don't ever feel that you already achieved the top. The joy is in the journey, a journey where there is always a new path to move forward, to may be go down to later come up again.

You see that some people may not say what you expect to hear or you may find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, but life is full of these situations. PMR has these tough obstacles and like any good training you don't want just an easy training, right? A smart tennis player may pursue playing against the best, even if he gets humiliated, but at the end it is the best training. You seem to let ego out when you see you are making progress. That's good, man.

Again, I hope your PMR training gets easier regarding your job/economic situation, etc. so then you can move on to other lessons to learn and other tasks for you to help other people evolve.

Wish you a better year for 2010.

Take care Will!

P.S.: Regarding the Superconscious language, give it a try. It is your idea. Tom created a simple language to use in MBT. His idea. You can do something similar.

Claudio

_________________
"Every moment can be as good as you want it to be."
"Experience is the ultimate teacher."

> http://soprano.com <

Will, I did not get everything that was going on here, but I think the gist of your argument was that somehow, a standardized languange prevented us from understanding our oneness. Id argue that the truth is exactly the opposite. We will never be "one" untill we can communicate universally. It is our innability to communicate effectively that creates separation perception. Just ask Jews and Muslems, Athiests and Christians, Democrats and Republicans. All conflict amounts to, on some level, a failure to communicate.

When we try to in with different vocal languages, there is simply a complete lack of comprehension. But when we try to communicate IDEAS with the similar vocalized language that is carrying a different meanining and intent, well then the result is not a lack of comprehension, but a confussion of meaning. In some cases the meaning so confused in translation, that people will react with hostility.

There is a story in the Book of Genesis. In that story, God looks out over the people of the earth an saw that they were building a tower to reach heaven. God decides to get a closer look and finds that all the people of the earth were of one language, and he says "now that the people of the earth are of one language(of one mind), nothing they decided to do can be withheld from them, and now this they begin to do(build thw tower). So God scattered the people accross the face of the earth and confused their tounges. You know this story as the Tower of Babel.

Im not going ot argue about the facts of the story, myth or legend, or why God scattered the people or what not, or was he good or bad for doing so. "God" may as well be a natural distater in this case. The point is that it was recognozed a long long time ago that a common language is what holds us together as "one".

Modern common language is so ambiguous that it becommes hard to communicate. Every wikipedia entry for a term has what is known as a "disambiguation", to sort our the various meanings for each term. These layers of meaning, they only serve to divide. Create groups and cliques held together by ubiquitous usage of ambiguous terms. George Orwell envisioned his 1984 dystopia as having such an ambiguous language that the "Mistry of Love" was the organization that kidnapped and tortured you, and the "Ministry of Peace" perpetuated perpetual war...Maybe Obama will change the name of the Department of Defense now that he has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

S, not only is it a potential for confussion, but ambiguous language divides and scatters and separates us. Its dangerous.

Edit: And also, the layers of abiguous meaning also create the "levels" of perception that people experience. "That makes sense on so many levels", or "thats wrong on so many levels", one might say. They are familiar with several usages of a term and have percieved simultanously how a statement could apply to the many usages of that term.

Claudio,

Let me just say that I appreciate your presence on these boards as well. I think you bring a lot to the table and I've found myself agreeing with the things you've had to say more often than not. You're right. We are all learning, and we are all teaching and each of us teaches as we learn and we learn as we teach. I was simply trying to point out that we shouldn't be too quick to make pronouncements of "ego", but yes- there is a time and place for everything... I just said we should "think twice" (so to speak). Regarding my being "evolved": thank you, I appreciate the feedback and test of ego. 8^) You manifest wisely as well my friend.

Happy Holidays to you too brother! :)

Bette,

It's actually funny that you should bring that book up. I was just considering buying it recently for my girlfriend as a Christmas present but decided on a book called "One" by the same author. You check out "One" sometime and I'll have a look at "Illusions." Deal? :)

-Cole

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Never live so certainly as to confuse your own convictions with what is true.