A Question From Atheists

[nosferatu323]

That doesn;t follow..and if it were true..."I" wouldn;t be here if just one single guru had ever managed to achieve that state.  I feel like I;m not getting the question across to you adequately.  

Because they could...theres just no end of situations in which a malfunctioning (or even properly functoning) switch could lead to death.  Let me try to put it another way.  We can choke to death on our food.  Because we -can- choke to death..on our food, a certain number of us -will- choke to death on our food, every year.  Wouldn't the same also be true of this self switch?

Because we do.....die, from malfunctions in such critical systems.  Here again, though we see some notion of them "picking it back up"..but how, what; the failsafe or the reset on that?  Presumably, if we have these sort of ability...there has to be something keeping it from malfunctioning most of the time..ad there would be some way to reset it - or...seriously, alot of us would just be cabbages.  That;s what I;m wondering about.  Where are all the cabbages such an ability would ensure with certainty?


That doesn;t follow..and if it were true..."I" wouldn;t be here if just one single guru had ever managed to achieve that state.  I feel like I;m not getting the question across to you adequately.  

I don't know why do you have the assumption that if there is this kind of ability in us, there should necessarily be some sort of "malfunctioning" in it. Anyways, even if that's true many psychological disorders can be as a result of this malfunction. In fact there is a disorder called "depersonalization disorder" which refers to the lack of "I" in the patient. The patient (The universe in fact) however will not experience any "depersonalization" that's how his(her) I reacts after being dropped due to malfunctioning. Another possibility might be that one use of asleep is to prevent such malfunctions. During REM you actually drop your I, but you drop too much stuff, so you also lose awareness. The person with a dropped "I" has awareness when "I" sleeps. They simply are aware of the voidness during the sleep and are very peacefully watching it. Many consider the ability to sleep and being awake at the same time (observing their asleep), as a clear sign of a dropped "I".

There are also other things that one can hypothetically consider to be related to a situation of an accidentally dropped "I". Take reported "demon possession" cases for example.  OBE, our out of body experience might be a common way that a returned "I" describes the experience of being dropped due to a malfunction. BTW, we can create hypothesis for ever. There is no way to verify any of them, at least with the current state of cognitive and neuroscience.

Another matter is that if prolonged meditation can cause the shift, why not trying a direct stimulation of the brain? This might be possible, however it seems currently known methods  can only "temporarily" remove the I, and also there are some side effects! check out God Helmet for example, which was a scientific experiment to see how direct stimulations of the brain using a magnetic field can trigger "spiritual" experiences. Psychedelic drugs are also believed to be in this category by many people. There are countless reports about the lack of "I" from the ones who have used the drugs. There are of course some side effects though, the hallucinations and stuff.

IDK, I don't seem to have had to voluntarily face death...just read up on modern nueroscience.   

What you do is irrelevant. Why you do is all that is relevant. Your reading of modern neuroscience can be your holy war to accept a voluntary death (dropping the "I") in the hope of returning to your Lord (your Universe) and attain his satisfaction (observing his oneness ).  Because you are doing it with the intention of dropping the I. The intention must be strong and constantly kept in awareness though. ISIS is doing it the wrong way, reading neuroscience or sitting cross-legged can be good ideas. 

Right, but, just because the I isn't there to do the voluntary stuff (as if it does anyway..god, don't you know anything, lol?   )..whatever that is, that doesn't mean that the involuntary stuff wouldn't keep humming along, would it?  Lights are on, but nobodies home situation?

I think the lights are on, no bodies home might be the case. There is a lot of emphasis on this in Buddhism. The quest is to "realize the voidness of beings" which means realizing the simple fact that there is nothing "in the" beings. They are just what they are observed to be. Am I getting to your point?