What esoteric practices actually work once you've learned too much and destroyed your ability to take any one scripture or symbolic system on faith? I've tried fideism and it didn't work for me. I know too much about the historical contingency of various scriptures to believe in any one uncritically. I don't think I could get myself to believe that Muhammad was God's last prophet, that this or that guy is the true occultated mahdi, that Jesus was the literal son of God, that the Vedas were divinely inspired and simply apperceived by rishis, etc. I've also tried various esoteric systems. They all seem to resolve into two aspects to me: an effectively arbitrary, historically contingent aspect and a core doctrine aspect. The core doctrine appears to be negative theology and moksha or unio mystica of some variety, and the historically contingent components appear to have required sincere, naive belief in their divine inspiration or at least their "it actually works, trust me bro" efficacy to be useful as stabilizers for achieving moksha/unio mystica. The result is that all systems just seem to me like they're saying the same thing: "realize the truths of negative theology hard enough that you are motivated to still your thoughts; still your thoughts; then moksha/unio mystica happens." I get the first part, I have tried the second part, and the third part never arrives. I've talked to people who have done the second part way harder than I ever did, and they also said the third part never arrived. And those were the rare ones. Most practitioners seemed to be doing it either because they were actually fideists in disguise (and really believed Shiva or Jesus is a real guy who just wants them to do this stuff), or they were quietists in disguise and just liked that it made them more chill. I don't want to be chill. I want to escape. I am okay with escape taking multiple lifetimes, but I would like to have a form of practice that actually convinces me that I am experiencing something that isn't discursive cognition. So far I have tried various forms of mind-quieting meditation and achieved some interesting mastery over my own nervous system (as far as I can tell), but nothing truly noetic or gnostic. I have also tried contemplative exercises, but because most of these are anchored in some symbolic system that requires sincere naive belief (like mediating on the ninety-one hats of Hatmandu), nothing happens. Lately the most success I have had at achieving something approximating noesis is meditating on the Platonic solids. At least then my mind was doing something it doesn't normally do in ordinary cognition. (I had the best success with tetrahedrons.)Anyone else in my position? Or has anyone else been in my position and overcome it?
probably esoteric kantianism
>>24972412Six Dharmas of Naropa
have you tried fideism?
>>24972412What makes you think you are doing? It sounds like youre attached to the idea of practice and expecting a certain outcome no?Anyways. Theres a good book by an author named Jon Peniel. Give it a read. Its interesting but like all things, me included, no spoken or written word can contain the full 'Truth'. I wish you much luck and blessings to The Infinite Creator :).
Take a big rip of DMT
>>24972496>>24972412To make it a little more specific and directIt sounds like the demand for certainty and escape may itself be the last structure that hasn’t been questioned.Granted I do not know your journey, but I do wish you much luck
Interesting threadI am practically in the same boat as you, probably didnt try as hard to still my mind yet though.I think some external work is still necessary (at least as to achieve moksha realistically), like the great work or some degree of asceticism. Without some of that, worldly attachments might be too strong for most people to just get rid of them with their mind.The only reliable way I have seen to get a reliable subjective mystical experience is psychedelics. At least if used intentionally and in a natural setting.
>>24972412>the historically contingent components appear to have required sincere, naive belief in their divine inspiration or at least their "it actually works, trust me bro" efficacy to be useful as stabilizers for achieving moksha/unio mysticaSo much this! As some who has come to accept religion via perennialist authors like Guénon, it seems to me that even if perennialism is true, it was never supposed to be revealed in such a systematic and objective way. Sure, sages in the various religions may say things which hint towards perennialism but they always maintain their own religion as the superior form and fulfilment of all the others. To subscribe to one of them and see it in this way feels like role playing for the sake of spiritual experience, sort of like the esoteric version of buying your way into heaven, having to do things only for the results and not out of genuine belief like everyone else who went before on this path.
>>24972412I stopped trusting in the negative theology aspect. Logically-speaking, it does not make any sense. You can't think of nothing. Nothing is not even a thing. How can you comprehend it? It is outside being. Even if you were to not think of anything at all, you would be, at best, thinking of an indeterminate thought. I also don't believe too strongly in the noetic/discursive dichotomy. We clearly operate within both, but the noetic aspect is overrated (you grasp things as they are to the extent that they are, being qua being), and the discursive aspect simply never ends as there is always more to learn, more relations to uncover, etc. At this point, I prefer devising an all-encompassing method of explanation so I can fill in the blanks as nuggets of knowledge comes my way, and then cultivating virtue to live in harmony with the world for as long as I live. There's not much more I could hope for.
>>24972519Boy you're gunna have a fun time reading about the number zero and the concept of nothingJust so you know, the "nothing" takes up infinitely more space than the "something"
There are several things to say. Firstly, seeing or not is an ability that is granted in a continuum, and that is not correlated with cognitive capacity and making things logical and systematic. Therefore, you might be very predisposed at the latter, while blind to the former.However, if that is not the case and are still among those who can see, what I would advise you is to put yourself in proper situations in order to see. Get cold, sleep outside, try hiking with minimal equipment. Dedicate yourself to a task, whether it is physical, or "intellectual", to the point of obsession.
>>24972527>number zeroNot a number in any rigorous sense. Also not a nothing. In practice, it's either used in the sense of "balance" or in the sense of being an arbitrary ordinal marker along a constructed number line. Zero never means pure nothing. >Just so you know, the "nothing" takes up infinitely more space than the "something"Absolute drivel. You have to lobotomize yourself to actually believe that "nothing" takes up space as if it were a thing. You're just playing around with words for pure entertainment without any consideration for its truth.
>>24972570You wouldn't be talking about the number zero like this if you knew even the slightest bit of it's history and the concept of nothing
>>24972576I'm extremely familiar with the history of the number zero and the concept of nothing. You are the ignorant person. The fact that you haven't even made an attempt to disambiguate zero in demonstrating my argument has proven to me that you are not thinking at a sufficient level of resolution to even have a productive conversation with. Zero is not the magical concept that you are making it out to be, unless you are trying to conceive of an absolute nothing, which in that case yes it is absolutely magical because it is absolutely impossible and not even a coherent concept. You might simply not have grasped just how radical such a concept is and how we *never* actually mean it in any of our uses of zero.
>>24972412>I've tried fideism and it didn't work for me.Fideism isn't an esoteric practice, nor is it strictly required for participating in most esoteric practices.>I've also tried various esoteric systems.Did you personally study under a qualified teacher who instructed you how to do them properly? If the answer is "no", then in most cases you were likely not practicing the genuine esoteric practice in but were engaging in your own personal experimentation of trying to reconstruct something based on secondhand information, which is very unreliable. >realize the truths of negative theology hard enough that you are motivated to still your thoughts; still your thoughts; then moksha/unio mystica happens." I get the first part, I have tried the second part, and the third part never arrives.1) No offensive intended but this is a very simplistic account that doesn't reflect how it works in practice. It's almost never the case that an eastern doctrine says "just turn off your thoughts and stop thinking and you'll be enlightened. Rather, usually via-negative is combined with teachings about one's own Self, or the nature of the Soul or the true nature of Awakened Mind etc that in combination with via negative help you positively attain the correct state of gnosis instead of landing in a blank vacuity. Moreover, it's common for doctrines to teach methods to recognize or discern the Absolute even in the presence of conceptual thoughts, i.e. a total suppression of thought is not actually necessary, this is true in Advaita and in multiple schools of Tibetan Buddhism.As Shankara (pbuh) writes in Brahma Sutra Bhashya 3.2.21:>When Brahman is taught thus, knowledge dawns automatically, and by that knowledge ignorance is removed. As a result of that, this whole manifestation of name and form, superimposed by ignorance, vanishes away like things seen in a dream. But unless Brahman is (first) taught (by scripture etc.), neither does the knowledge of Brahman dawn nor is the universe sublated even though the instruction, "Know Brahman, sublate the world", be imparted a hundred times.2) Secondly, in practice in many eastern doctrines a central part of initiation is having your initiating teacher or Guru provide a direct 'pointing-out' or 'introduction' where they directly point out to you the nature of your Self/Awakenend Mind etc in a special rite or ceremony where they use various objects, sounds, instructions etc and the symbolism involved with them to communicate intuitive immediate knowledge which is spiritually transformative once assimilated. Without being instructed in this by a qualified teacher one is in no position to make judgements about the efficacy of lack thereof of esoteric practices which presuppose one has already been instructed in this by a guru.
>>24972583Lol yeah bro underneath all religion, all non-fictional media is actually something and not nothing okay dude Face it bro basically everything is actually nothing, society is built on layers of nothing. You are like little babby with concept of nothing.
>>24972412A critical aspect of (Christian) mysticism is that doing good is the foundation of it all. In fact, almost all Christians who experienced visions or bilocated or whatever were just very pious people who simply did good, and what came along the way was never even expected. You can't philosophize your way to heaven or theosis in Christianity. The whole point is to love God and love your neighbor, to bear one's cross. If you're looking at it like a system of rigid rules where doing X hours of Y type of prayer will give you Z result you're just going to beat your head against the wall over and over.
>>24972412Why do you want to do esoteric practices in the first place? If you've gone down such a deep rabbit hole in that direction, and you're not getting what you want, maybe you ought to try a different direction. More getting involved with the world and less sitting in your room and contemplating polyhedra.>I want to escape>multiple lifetimesBe careful that the target you're pursuing here isn't something that you're believing uncritically on faith. Or are you actually cool with that?
>>24972412>What esoteric practices actually worknone
>>24972412>I want to escape.Check out Nimrod de Rosario:Fundamentalshttps://archive.org/details/fundamentals-of-the-hyperborean-wisdom-complete-english-natural-translation/Fundamentals%20of%20the%20Hyperborean%20Wisdom%20(complete%20English%20natural%20translation)%20(1)/page/n12/mode/1up
>>24972412The only ones that work are from lost manichaen scripts in sogdian and old uyghur.
>>24972412>blah blah blahI think you need to think less of fidelity to a certain scripture like the koran or bible and more of fidelity to a lineage and textual continuum and instiution.I was in much same boat. Then I became a mildly syncretic catholic and had a kundalini experience.Guenon is cool. But too dismissive of west.
>>24973702>escapeYou must engage to escape or smthn -- le daoists
>>24972412Currently my plan is to get really into heroin
I have often felt the same way you do and 9 years of meditation, while yielding plenty of beneficial indirect results, have so far given me no access to deeper states of consciousness or concentration.At this point I have simply suspended my disbelief while also forgoing the mental leap towards a positive faith. I enjoy nianfo practice not because I am convinced of its efficacy but because I enjoy its inherent simplicity.
>>24975020Based
