What do you Know for Sure?

Copyright (c) 2009 by Kenny Felder

This essay is a dialogue. It is not a fake dialogue, like those used by Plato and Galileo; it's a real dialogue between me and one of my math students, who responded to my essay entitled Why I Don't Believe Your Religion. You do not need to read that essay in order to read this one: you just need to know that, toward the end, it says this.

Religion, to me, begins with a set of questions. The religious questions include: I do not personally believe that these questions can be answered by science—which is to say, by any combination of empiricism and logic. I am not personally satisfied with ignoring these questions, or leaving them to faith. So I find myself drawn to the mystics, the weird holy men who attempt to find answers through their direct personal experience (see mystic.html for my poor attempt to describe this path).

Alex Dunham sent me a comment on that part of the essay, and I replied, and he replied, and so on. The whole conversation is reproduced below exactly as it happened. Along the way, I think I wound up doing a better job than I have done before of articulating where my own religious path comes from. So I asked Alex's permission to post the whole conversation as an essay, and he graciously agreed.



From: Alex Dunham
July 28, 2009

I completely agree with you that the questions you listed are the most important ones. Where, though, is the step from there to mysticism? Mysticism seems to me much less true understanding than a system of physical and mental lifestyle-alterations eventually supposed to lead to an unshakable feeling of "I know because I know...because I know." It's not that I think those questions can be answered with the "empiricism and logic" approach, it's that I don't think "empiricism and logic" are tools discovered by humans like a wheelbarrow or a wrench, with possibly better alternatives, like mysticism, waiting to be invented—they are only labels for what it means to find the answer to a question.



From: Kenny Felder
July 29, 2009

I've written a few times about the issues you're bringing up here, but rather than point you to my answers, I would like to start with a question. Can you give me a thumbnail definition of "empiricism," or an example or two? Then, can you tell me how confident you are of the results that come from empiricism? Then, do the same thing for "logic."



From: Alex Dunham
July 29, 2009

I'm not sure I can do it adequately, but I'll try.

Logic—I'll give an example.

Maybe "truth" as I understand it is meaningless or can't be found, but if it isn't, then my confidence in logic is great automatically—logic is simply part of how a human finds truth.

Empiricism—Using your senses—not just taste, smell, hear, etc., but any kind of sense, including personal experience—to provide premises, and then using logic to make conclusions from them. Here I guess there is plenty of room for doubt. I can easily imagine my five senses deceiving me, especially when they are not corroborated by somebody else. I think this is where my mistrust of mysticism comes in—how is it not just an even weaker version of our 5 senses? It's personal, it isn't reproducible, it makes conclusions our other senses can't confirm, and the feeling of sureness it provides isn't convincing when people who claim they have seen aliens or must kill their children are just as sure of themselves.



From: Kenny Felder
July 29, 2009

I don't find your example of logic particularly compelling. That is to say, even if I agreed with Premise 1 and Premise 2, I might not automatically agree with your conclusion.

Give me another example—one that is absolutely bullet-proof. It does not have to deal with ultimate truth, it could just deal with doughnuts, but make it as airtight as you possibly can.



From: Alex Dunham
July 29, 2009

Sure, maybe that wasn't airtight, but my idea was to show that (I think) you are still using logic as a mystic because logic can't be detached from "knowing" something.

How about Wikipedia—"Modus Ponens"



From: Kenny Felder
July 29, 2009

Good! Now, let's be absolutely clear. You are not claiming that "I will go to work today" is definitely true. What you are claiming is the following, which I will render in one (long and clumsy) sentence:

"IF it is true that (if today is Tuesday then I will go to work), AND it is also true that (today is Tuesday), THEN it must be true that (I will go to work today)."

Now, here is my question. Are you positive—certain, sure, confident beyond all possible doubt—that that long quoted sentence is true?



From: Alex Dunham
July 30, 2009

No, I'm not completely sure, but if it isn't, then it is not only logic that goes down the drain, but "knowing" at all—

"Why are you going to work?"

"Because it's Tuesday."

"Why do you believe (insert revelation provided by mysticism)?"

"Because I had a personal experience and feel certain."



From: Kenny Felder
July 30, 2009

This probably all seems like a waste of time to you, but I appreciate you playing along. We have arrived at a very important question, one that many spiritual teachers urge us to ask, which is: "What do you know for sure?" You have now stated that the information from your five senses is open to doubt (which I agree with), and that logic itself is open to doubt. So is there anything, anything at all, of which you can be absolutely 100% certain?



From: Alex Dunham
July 30, 2009

I guess not.



From: Kenny Felder
July 30, 2009

I'm going to disagree with you there, and ask you to spend a little more time considering the question.

Two hints.

  1. Don't think in terms of God, religion, mysticism, or anything other-worldly. Think mundane.
  2. Don't try to give me the answer I'm looking for. (This is probably not such a great danger in your case.)
Not only mystics, but philosophers and logicians have considered this one of the most important questions, so give it a little more of your time. Sleep on it tonight. Tell me what you've got in the morning—which may still be "no" of course, but whatever it is—and then I'll tell you what I think.



From: Alex Dunham
July 31, 2009

Still nothing.



From: Kenny Felder
July 31, 2009

OK, so let me start with one basic thing that you can know for sure.

Imagine a universe in which nothing exists at all. No energy, no matter, no time, no space, no laws of nature, absolutely nothing. It isn't even fair to call that a universe: better would be to say, imagine there is no universe at all. It kind of seems like it could have gone that way, couldn't it?

But it didn't go that way. Let's start there: something exists. I'm going to claim that you can be absolutely, positively, 100%, no-doubt-at-all, confident of that one.

Do you agree? And if so, why?



From: Alex Dunham
July 31, 2009

I'm not sure. What if "something exists" and every other comment either of us have made (including this one) are just collections of meaningless sounds, part of an evolutionary adaptation, which also means absolutely nothing? Then we couldn't even say, "Well, even if they are meaningless, they're still sounds, which exist." I'm not absolutely certain that "know" has any meaning at all, so the most I could say is that if "know" is what I think it is and I am capable of doing it, then I am sure that something exists.



From: Kenny Felder
July 31, 2009

I'm not completely following you, but I know I don't want to end up trying to define the word "know." So let me move on to something else. You are sure that you exist. This was Descartes' famous answer, when he asked himself this question. He started by supposing that a malevolent demon, one who could read his every thought and create any illusion, was trying to trick him; and then he asked, what can I be sure of, no matter what this demon might be doing? And he responded: I think, therefore I am.

I'm a big fan of Descartes. A number of people have criticized this passage as being too focused on thoughts, but I think they're missing the point. He is not saying "I am my thoughts." He is saying "Even if I can be fooled about everything else, there must be a me to be fooled in the first place."

Does that make sense? I actually think I can take it one step farther than Descartes did, but I don't want to skip any steps; I want to be confident that each step is completely certain.



From: Alex Dunham
July 31, 2009

It makes sense, if a logical construction like "Even if I can be fooled about everything else, there must be a me to be fooled in the first place" or the one about going to work is 100% infallible. And since I think there is the possibility that logic and knowledge are meaningless nothings, I can't be completely, 100% sure of any conclusion that uses them.



From: Kenny Felder
July 31, 2009

Good! I agree with you, and this is where it starts to get much harder to talk about.

For me, to be perfectly honest, there are times when straight deductive logic ("All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal") seems absolutely bulletproof and unshakeable to me. There are other times, half-awake, when it seems more like a screen we put over the world. Something that is open to question.

The thing I get from Descartes, and am trying to communicate to you right now, is not quite in that category—although when I put it into words, it starts to sound like deductive logic. What I'm saying is that I have a direct experience of being me, and the experience itself is beyond all doubt. This, in fact, takes me to what I referred to earlier, which I think is a step beyond where Descartes got.

Take a moment to stare at something—let's just say, for argument's sake, a red book. Of course, you may be dreaming, which throws a lot of things into doubt. If you are dreaming, there is no book. There is no red light flowing from the book to your eyes. There are, in fact, no eyes to receive the red light that isn't actually flowing. None of it is real. However, amidst all that, I think there is one fact that is beyond any doubt: the experience of seeing a red book is happening. Even though the existence of the book, and the existence of the redness, and the nature of the experiencer, are all open to question, the experience itself is completely self-evident. Right now, I am seeing red. I'm sure of that.



From: Alex Dunham
July 31, 2009

Ok, I accept that the experience of seeing the red book is definitely happening.



From: Kenny Felder
July 31, 2009

Then we have arrived at the point where I want to be, and hopefully I can turn this into something that doesn't seem like a pointless mind game.

We have this thing, this thing that is very difficult to talk about at all, although it is the most salient aspect of our whole existence: this thing called direct experience. It has some interesting characteristics.

All of these map incredibly well to the way that the mystics describe their experience of the godhead. Is it any wonder, then, that they seem to talk in obscure riddles?

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I am not claiming that I have just "proven" anything about God, or the mystics, or anything like that. Maybe all the mystics are all lying, or they are all deluded, or some are lying and the rest are deluded, all of those things are possible. But maybe—just maybe, as in, I can't find any reason to rule it out completely, and I see a few good reasons to suspect it is true—maybe it is possible to know the nature of ultimate reality in the same way that you know the experience of red. Maybe that level of certainty can be applied to the questions that we really, actually want the answers to. And as long as that possibility exists, I can't think of anything more worth shooting for.



From: Alex Dunham
August 1, 2009

That's really interesting, and mysticism looks better than it did before...

But I'm not convinced. It seems to me like there would have to be a fundamental difference between the experience of seeing a red book and this hypothetical experience bringing ultimate knowledge. "Seeing the red book" does not bring us knowledge about anything—in itself, without anything else acting off of it, like thought, it's pretty meaningless (isn't it?). Directly experiencing a revelation of "ultimate truth" is not only unimaginable but would bring with it incredibly important knowledge and meaning, which in every other case are only brought about and understood with logic and empiricism. So I'm stuck there—how would the doubtable logic not come into this, and why should I believe that there really might be a version of direct experience that brings not just experience but answers, and not only answers but the most important ones? I don't know anything about what could cause the experience, why/how it would happen to me, how to differentiate the result from the many people who feel confident that they have been abducted by aliens, nor any idea whatsoever of what the direct experience would be like; it seems like an inapproachably vague stab in the dark.



From: Kenny Felder
August 1, 2009

All fair questions. This is where it gets tough.

There are a lot of people who claim to have "found it." When I read their accounts, or listen to them, most of them sound to me like complete flakes and/or liars—and a few of them don't. Of course I have no reason to suppose that my intuition in these matters is worth anything, but it's where I have to start. I read a lot of spiritual books. And I have had the extreme good fortune to work in person with a few teachers who struck me as being tremendously insightful. When they say, "Here is what you should try if you want to have your own experience of the absolute," I try it.

This is the work of a lifetime, and of course, there is no particular reason to suppose that a lifetime of such work is going to buy me anything. But I have every reason to believe that, without such work, I am guaranteed to continue living as ignorant as I am now. So I meditate. I go to the occasional retreat or meeting. I read, and write, and lecture, on spiritual matters. I try to follow the advice in day-to-day life. That's all. If you study math every day of your life, you may never be a mathematician; but if you don't study math, I guarantee you won't!



From: Alex Dunham
August 3, 2009

...who struck me as being tremendously insightful. When they say, "Here is what you should try if you want to have your own experience of the absolute," I try it.

Is the direct experience a means to the end of having insight into the most important questions or is it the end itself? If it's the end itself then what is it that lasts after you have the experience—some kind of undefined "direct understanding" with the same level of certainty? If it's the insight then isn't that insight subject to our doubt of logic again? And if the experience just stands by itself, an infinitely small period of present certainty that continuously becomes part of our doubtable memory until it quickly ends, it seems rather meaningless and not at all what spiritual teachers describe.

(I don't mean to pile on difficult-to-word questions, but I think the first one especially might clear some things up for me)



From: Kenny Felder
August 3, 2009

Alex, these are great questions! If we were in math class, I would throw a lot of candy your way. Everything in this space is "difficult-to-word" as you say (I say a bit about that in the essay I posted today), but you're doing a wonderful job. You will have to be patient with the fact that I will have equal difficulty in wording my answers.

Up until now, I've been talking about the questions, which I can discuss with a great deal of confidence. But now we're discussing the answers, and I don't have them. I have not had the kind of experience that we're talking about. So the best I can do is throw at you a combination of my own conjectures, and the things I have read from people who I believe have had those experiences. If you get serious about this stuff—and I am in no way trying to pressure you to do that, because it is the rat-hole of a lifetime—if you do, I will have to start referring you elsewhere. You and me discussing this stuff is like you and a classmate discussing Calculus: you can have some great insights and figure some things out, but you'll only get so far without a teacher who really knows.

Anyway, here I go. The thing we are talking about—the direct experience of absolute truth—is often referred to as "awakening" or "enlightenment." We can say that it is "knowing something you did not know before," or we can say that it is "having an experience that you did not have before," and both of these may be helpful up to a point, but they are both just metaphors. I'm going to offer a different metaphor, which is that enlightenment involves seeing things with a perspective that you didn't have before. To help explain that, let me consider a perspective shift we are both familiar with, which is growing up. You used to have the perspective of a small child. I'm sure you can remember when bedtime seemed a horrible punishment, when working for more than half an hour at a stretch seemed overwhelming, when fights about who got to use the red spoon seemed all-important.

Now, imagine that you (today) are talking to 4-year-old Alex, trying to explain how you've changed. Here are some things you might find yourself saying.

...and so on. Is being grown-up an "experience?" Yes and no, but mostly no. Big Alex and little Alex might have the exact same "experience"—see the same movie, eat the same hot dog, whatever—but it is completely different because the experiencer is different. And little Alex cannot possibly understand, and big Alex cannot possibly explain it to him. Big Alex can only say: "Wait until you're grown up, and then you'll understand."



From: Alex Dunham
August 6, 2009

Sorry it's taken so long to respond—I'm not sure where to go from here.

That's a great metaphor, but it also sounds similar to a discussion between a parent and kid—

"Why should I (fill in with pretty much anything)?"

"You'll understand when you're my age."

How do spiritual teachers defend themselves when asked how they are sure they are more right than people who have "certainly" seen aliens?

Also, it seems like the new perspective would be somewhat limited in everyday situations. Suddenly you understand the "true nature of things," and then, what? You can't just treat it as one section of your life—"Today, in my spiritual life, I found ultimate truth. In my work life, I worked on the big project. In my home life, I mowed the lawn and argued with my kids." And yet the rest of your life is still around—how can you reconcile making a spiritual leap while sitting up in the middle of the night considering the deepest questions and the next day's block party? (Does this make any sense?)



From: Kenny Felder
August 7, 2009

I'm not sure where to go from here.

In all likelihood, we don't go anywhere. All philosophical discussions peter out in the end, and life goes on, right? But maybe at some point—now, or six months from now, or ten years from now—maybe it moves from the realm of intellectual curiosity to something more demanding. Maybe you find yourself lying in bed at night when you should be sleeping, thinking "Oh, my God, I don't know anything. How can I go on like this?!" Maybe homework and girlfriends start to look like feeble compensations. I've seen that happen to many people over the years, but there isn't any obvious pattern to those people, and I've given up trying to predict who will get hit. All I can say is, if that does happen to you, I can recommend some books, and if you read the books and you're still hungry for more, possibly introduce you to some people.

How do spiritual teachers defend themselves when asked how they are sure they are more right than people who have "certainly" seen aliens?

The smart ones don't try. So where does that leave you and me?

There is a man named Deepak Chopra who claims to have many profound spiritual insights. He has written many best-selling books, gives huge lectures, and is widely regarded as a spiritual giant. I read one of his books, and it struck me as babbling nonsense. So I've ignored him ever since.

There is a man named Augie Turak who lives on a little farm North of Wake Forest, and no one has ever heard of him, and I think he is the most profound spiritual teacher I have ever met, and I listen to anything and everything he says.

The point is that you listen to spiritual teachers for the same reason that you've carried on this conversation with me for so long: because there seems to be some value there. Of course, the irony here—given how we got into this conversation—is that we are now talking about the exact opposite of certainty! You make your best guesses about who to listen to, who to read, and what to try. Then you try those guesses out, and see if they work out in your own life. For me, the ultimate proof of Augie Turak's effectiveness as a teacher is the changes I have seen happen to me and others who listened.

You can't just treat [spiritual work] as one section of your life...the rest of your life is still around.

That is another terrific insight, Alex. Taking up spiritual work is not like taking up the piano. It permeates everything in your life.

One thing that happens very early on in the process is that you start to recognize your own foolishness, which is painful but also helpful. You see things with less distortion, and are more conscious of previously unconscious patterns. Although (as I said earlier) I have certainly not found ultimate truth, I have become a very different person in many ways from the person who first set off down this path at the age of 23 or thereabouts. It does affect who I am as a friend, father, husband, teacher.

But beyond that...in the book The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham, the main character drops out of pretty much his entire life, hides out in the library reading, follows teachers. Someone asks him, "What are you going to do with all that wisdom once you get it?" And he replies, "I suppose once I have it, I'll be wise enough to know what to do with it."



From: Alex Dunham
August 12, 2009

One thing that happens very early on in the process is that you start to recognize your own foolishness, which is painful but also helpful. You see things with less distortion, and are more conscious of previously unconscious patterns. Although (as I said earlier) I have certainly not found ultimate truth, I have become a very different person in many ways from the person who first set off down this path at the age of 23 or thereabouts. It does affect who I am as a friend, father, husband, teacher.

What exactly is "the process?" To have the kind of results it did for you, it must be more than just some system of actions that bring you to the point of having a direct experience of "truth"—is it not more a kind of philosophical examination of your life that isn't really related to direct experience? I would love to read the books you recommend, but much more for the "see things with less distortion" part than the "be closer to a direct experience" part.

Here's how I see mystical direct experience:

(Hopefully that was intelligible, but it probably wasn't)



From: Kenny Felder
August 13, 2009

Alex, you have said so many incredibly insightful things during this dialogue that it just blows me away. (Which reminds me—if I can only convince you of one thing, let it be this—sign up for Mrs. Soloman's Systems class in your Senior year. Make it a priority over every other thing you could possibly take.) But right now I want to focus on one thing you said in this email, which I think is the most important thing either one of us has said in the whole conversation.

I don't have the slightest idea where any of my thoughts come from, how at one point I don't know the answer to a math problem and the next point I do.

We could have a whole other conversation just about that sentence. We both know it's true: thoughts float in and out, beyond our control and beyond our knowledge. ("For the next thirty seconds, don't think about a purple elephant.") But look what happens when you try to rigorously define what you mean! What exactly is a "thought": can you define it, in terms of anything other than itself? What exactly does it mean to "know" where they come from: where would such knowledge originate, and would it itself be another thought? When you say "I don't have the slightest idea where any of my thoughts come from" have you succeeded in identifying something else that you know for certain? ("I know for certain that I don't know where my thoughts come from.") And most importantly, the $64,000 question, WHO OR WHAT IS THE "I" THAT DOESN'T KNOW? Apparently, based on your sentence that I quoted above, this "I" has the following characteristics:

But what "knows" if it isn't, itself, thought? I have some ideas about this, but I don't pretend to really have the answer. Some people say that enlightenment means knowing the answer to that one question.



From: Alex Dunham
August 22, 2009

What are your ideas (I definitely don't have any)?

When you say "I don't have the slightest idea where any of my thoughts come from" have you succeeded in identifying something else that you know for certain?

I don't think so, maybe I just don't remember where thoughts come from, but even if that's not why, the whole process of getting to that statement was full of doubt—if I want to convince myself I really don't know where my thoughts come from, I...sit and wait for a "thought" to come around that would give me a feeling that I did know where they came from. Everything about that is doubtful.



From: Kenny Felder
August 22, 2009

For my idea about the question "Who am I?" I'm going to refer you to another one of my essays: www.felderbooks.com/kennyessays/consciousness.html.

But the experiment you describe—sitting and waiting for a "thought" to come around, and paying careful attention, and trying to see where it came from—that experiment is infinitely more valuable than reading my little ramblings. You've just invented meditation. Try it 5 or 10 minutes a day: it has the potential to take you beyond the think/talk realm and into the realm of direct experience.






COMMENTS


Note to readers: this gets a bit confusing. The dialogue above is between me and Alex Dunham. Most of the comments below are a subsequent conversation between me and Alex DiLalla, about the conversation between me and Alex Dunham. Both Alexes are students at Raleigh Charter High School. To make matters more complicated, toward the end, Alex Dunham comments on the comments from Alex DiLalla. Who said following philosophy was going to be easy?



From: Richard Felder
August 10, 2009

I haven't had time to read through and digest the dialogue—I'll do that later. I've read enough, however, to know that this is one astounding high school student. Maybe one in a hundred seniors in chemical engineering could have written his end.


From: Michelle Williams
August 10, 2009

Neat conversation w/ your student.


From: Paul Canniff
August 11, 2009

All fun stuff! Important too. One specific area that you might enjoy expanding on is the July 31 post. The more I have learned about how we actually expereince "direct experience," the less it matches your description. It is fallible, interpreted, delayed, and selective. It is often "right" so we attribute perfection to it. IMHO, logic is like "fying on instruments," for the times when circumstances are foggy. If you'd like my fuzzy statements expanded upon, I'd be happy to engange in dialogue or to refer you to some books by people with relevant expertise whom I have found interesting!


From: Kenny Felder
August 11, 2009

I'm not sure I have time for a book right now but I would love to hear the dialogue.

I do think it is important to distinguish between a direct, present-tense experience, and something second-hand such as a memory or interpretation of that experience. I think a lot of the flaws you are very correctly highlighting come in at the second stage. Perform the experiment—just look at something red—and ask yourself, as you look at it, if you can possibly doubt the sensation as it happens.


From: John Hanna
August 11, 2009

I really really liked this.


From: Barbara Soloman
August 13, 2009

Wow—What else can I say? I have to meet him!

But I also loved your responses. You mentioned the fact that doing spiritual practices changed you; that even though you are not enlightened, you have changed. I have certainly seen that in you. I have also seen Marty change dramatically and to a lesser extent I've seen changes in myself. You might want to stress that to him—it's not an all or nothing—having absolute truth may be an all or nothing but the path to it creates profound changes in people. Most of those changes seem very positive to me. Just the act of trying sometimes to think of "those questions" as more than a passing thought seems to me to help a person gain more perspective for example.

By the way, put it in his head now that he has to take systems!!!


From: Alex DiLalla
August 30, 2009

I very much enjoyed reading your discussion with Alex Dunham, it answered a lot of running questions. However, I also have a question I hope you can answer.

Why do "I", the conscious me, find enlightenment or the pursuit of what the human existence means, so important, if I also believe that reality and conscious existence, which my brain perceives as the living Alex DiLalla, ends when Alex DiLalla dies? There ceases to be an "I" simply because the vessel that produces self consciousness ceases to function. What is the point of attaining knowledge if it only lasts a lifetime?


From: Kenny Felder
August 30, 2009

It sounds like you've thought about these things before. That's great—I didn't start to get serious about these issues until after college. You're way ahead of me!

I have a few answers to your question—some of them, you may be able to guess, having read an essay or two. But before I drown you in my own ideas or links to other essays, let me ask you, what do you think?

I guess you can take that question two ways. The first is, "What clever responses can you come up with?" The second is, "What do you actually believe / hope / fear is the answer?" I would be curious to hear both, but much more the latter.


From: Alex DiLalla
August 30, 2009

I would have to say honestly say I look for knowledge because the loss of myself for eternity is an extremely terrifying prospect. Just as if I was about to enter a formal debate, if I know what I'm up against or I know my enemy, it does not completely alleviate the fear, but it significantly diminishes it. (Am I being clear?) I try to also discover knowledge because it sincerely makes me happy to discover new things or unlock secrets, until the point that I remember knowledge is only a byproduct of consciousness. Please tell me if I need to be more clear on a point.


From: Kenny Felder
August 30, 2009

"I would have to say honestly say I look for knowledge because the loss of myself for eternity is an extremely terrifying prospect."

I would describe that as very clear and very honest.

"I try to also discover knowledge because it sincerely makes me happy to discover new things or unlock secrets."

That is also honest, but I think you'll find—if you seek the kind of knowledge that I seek—that it doesn't always work that way. Some kinds of knowledge actually make you a lot less happy; or, to put it another way, ignorance sometimes is pretty blissful. So when you reach that crossroads, you have to really dig down to figure out what you want more, honesty or happiness.

I'm not saying all knowledge makes you unhappy, by the way (although one good friend of mine often quotes "Self-knowledge is mostly bad news"). But I am saying that, if you set your mind on the truth, you have to be ready to take the bad with the good.

"until the point that I remember knowledge is only a byproduct of consciousness."

That one lost me. I'm not sure what you mean, and more importantly, I'm not sure of the significance of it.


From: Alex DiLalla
August 30, 2009

"So when you reach that crossroads, you have to really dig down to figure out what you want more, honesty or happiness."

Most people would answer happiness. Some would answer honesty. Is it possible to have your cake and eat it too?

"until the point that I remember knowledge is only a byproduct of consciousness."

this goes back to my original question of what is the point of searching for enlightenment if as soon as I cease to exist the knowledge "I" have obtained ceases to exist also.

By this statement I simply mean that everything I do or think is only temporary. So what is the point of looking for it in the first place—would I not rather be ignorant and happy?

Yet, I seem to think that my purpose if anything is to take hold of my ablity to think. I'm starting to believe that not searching for enlightenment is a slap in the face to the human race. Is wasted ability and talent not a mortal sin?


From: Kenny Felder
August 30, 2009

I'm still confused.

It sounds like you're saying that, if you were immortal, then it would be important to gain some kind of cosmic knowledge, and hold onto it forever. But on the other hand, given that you're going to die, gaining cosmic knowledge doesn't matter, since you can't hold onto it forever.

Is that all basically correct? Because if it is, I would say there are a whole lot of unexamined assumptions there. Most importantly—given that you're going to die no matter what path you take—if you don't search for knowledge, what are you going to do that doesn't "waste your ability and talent?"


From: Alex DiLalla
August 30, 2009

I think I was confusing myself too. It's extremely hard to put those abstract concepts into words and concrete ideas. But you make a good point. What do you mean by "a whole lot of unexamined assumptions there" is that just a euphemism for immaturity?


From: Kenny Felder
August 30, 2009

You're assuming (for no reason I can see) that death is the end of consciousness. You're assuming that "meaningfulness" is a by-product of "lasting forever." You're assuming that, if you don't last forever, there is something more worthwhile than finding ultimate truth—which seems to contradict your second assumption.

Here is a different set of assumptions that you can try on for size. Assume that, without finding "enlightenment" of some sort, you honestly have no idea if death is the end or not. Assume, since all you know about is this lifetime, that you have to find meaning in this finite time period, rather than during the infinite time after that. Most of all, assume that you yourself can find the answers to these questions—that you don't have to be stumbling in the dark, as we both are right now.

I honestly did not intend to insult your maturity, or any other personality characteristic. If you are just playing mental games right now, I would say that is immature. But if you are seriously asking questions that demand to have answers, that's terrifically mature—as I said, it's years ahead of me. Either way, you can take my comment at face value: you're making some assumptions, and I like my assumptions better.


From: Alex DiLalla
August 30, 2009

I'm asking you questions because you seem be more in tune with answers that I haven't found through meditation (which to me is just sitting down or lying awake at night trying to piece things together) . I apologize if I'm coming off as someone who is trying to play mind games. How do you suggest we find these answers. I would very much like to not be stumbling around in the dark.


From: Kenny Felder
August 31, 2009

Alex, it seems to me that you are taking a lot of the right steps. You're experimenting with meditation, which I think is tremendously important. You're asking questions, and sincerely hoping for answers. You're looking for a teacher, someone who can guide you down the road.

I'm not a teacher—that is, I'm not someone who has the answers you're looking for. I am a student who has been searching for a few more years than you have, and we all know that can be very useful too.

Here is some advice that I believe in very strongly.

  1. Seek out the company of others who are serious about the same questions. We are all heavily influenced by the people around us. Some people say "Well, I just won't be!" but that is fighting against nature, which costs a lot of energy. It's much more efficient to work with nature. If you hang around all day with people whose highest value is getting good grades so they can go to a good college so they can get a good job so they can make a lot of money, that will tend to become your highest value as well. If you hang around all day with people whose highest values are getting drunk and getting laid, you will find it much harder to focus on your grades. You see what I mean? So you want to hang out, as much as possible, with people who are searching for the answers to life and death. People who can recommend good books that you haven't read, good Web sites you haven't seen, good meditation techniques that seem to be working for them. People whose conversation moves frequently in the direction of God. The more you surround yourself with such people, the more you will find your own thoughts turning naturally in that direction.

  2. Keep meditating. Try to build a steady habit of 15 minutes a day. See where your thoughts tend to turn.

  3. Keep thinking. Every event in your life, but especially the more traumatic or intense ones, is an opportunity to look at yourself more honestly. You don't have to believe in a personal God who is setting things up as lessons, to believe that life is a series of lessons.

  4. Read spiritual books. You don't have to agree with them!!! Read them with a critical eye, just as you would read a book on politics, discerning what seems like good advice and what seems like nonsense. A few heavily spiritual authors I personally recommend are Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, Andrew Cohen, Nisagardatta, and Ken Wilber. (If you check out Eckhart Tolle, try if possible to get his books on tape or CD; they work better in that format than on paper, in my experience.) A more philosophical book that is a great start is "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker. Also check out spiritual Web sites; my own teacher's site is www.augustturak.com, which has some of his writings on it.

  5. Consider joining the RCHS Philosophy Club (talk to Hillary Stroud). If you're not a Senior this year, consider taking Mrs. Soloman's Systems Class when you are. If you end up at State, UNC, or Duke, consider joining the Self Knowledge Symposium. All this advice comes under the header of number (1), surrounding yourself with people who will help you focus.

  6. Never, ever, ever, ever give up. People work like dogs for 20 years to become a lawyer, and in the end, what do they have to show for it? High blood pressure and a Ferrari. This is harder than becoming a lawyer. It's also, in my opinion, more worthwhile.
If my own essays seem helpful, by all means keep reading them. If my advice seems helpful, by all means keep asking for it, in email or in person; I'm delighted to help in any way I can. The point is, ultimately, approach this like a scientist: run experiments, and see what works.

So, OK, that was a long answer to a short question. I hope it helps!


From: Alex DiLalla
September 1, 2009

Thank you. I don't know if you've written an essay on this, but what do you personally believe spiritually?


From: Kenny Felder
September 1, 2009

A tremendous amount of what I personally believe is exactly what I put in my last email to you. I believe in asking the questions with passionate intensity. I believe that results are proportional to energy applied. I believe that, until you find the answers, you shouldn't just make them up—and I haven't found them yet.

If you just start clicking through my spiritual essays, you will see a whole lot of what I believe. Far more, and more carefully written, than I could put in this email. You may want to start with mystic.html.


From: Alex Dunham
September 3, 2009

I know [Alex DiLalla] and I read and enjoyed [his comments], especially the happiness vs. honesty part—if you do end up with the knowledge you want, won't there be a kind of Buddha-like contentedness involved? An "Oh, finally I've succeeded in the path that I've worked through for so long"? And can you be sure that it isn't just that final feeling of contentedness that is driving you to follow the path at all?


From: Kenny Felder
September 3, 2009

As I said to Alex, right now, not having gotten there, I have no idea if that final state is particularly happy or content or blissful. What I can say with confidence is that, along the way, you do sometimes have to take some pretty bitter pills, and I have tried to always choose truth.


 Kenny Felder's Essays and Commentaries
 www.felderbooks.com/kennyessays

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