The book is called WHAT IS MAN? and you can read it in its entirety here:
http://users.telerama.com/~joseph/mantble.html

Think about it, if there is no “you” (or “me”) to determine a course of action, then you or I cannot be held responsible for our actions. And if we are not responsible for our actions, then how can a group punish an individual for making a wrong or immoral decision? That essentially reduces Hitler and all other creators of genocide down to social factors. It also reduces everyone down to the level of machines.

So, we must ask, can machines every be happy? Isn’t happiness just another belief/feeling/etc? If happiness is an illusion as well, then why not just kill yourself and get it over with?

Just a thought or two

Just for fun, I’d like to mention Napoleon, while painting pictures of himself on a tall white stallion sent through the media to the people….he rode a donkey into a seeminly losing war, and won. I think that’s mystical. And he was a world leader at the time.

This is called “dependent arising” or “interdependent arising”:
http://bahai-library.org/personal/jw/other.pubs/nagarjuna/

The notion that enlightenment means universal compassion and the renunciation of violence is certainly not universal.

That’s great for one person to discover, but what would happen if suddenly a powerful government started saying the same thing? We’re all one consciousness? There’s no such thing as death? It would be pretty much carte blanc for them to do whatever whenever they wanted. They could murder rape and pillage with abandon with perfect justification, claiming that the people they mowed down by the hundreds of thousands were nothing more than illusions, and that death doesn’t exist.

Since the individual state applied to gov - wouldn’t you say that on an individual level, that unity consciousness dealy could go either way as well? I mean, one person wakes up to the idea that everything is one and so you should do better for all, and it is a positive application. Other person wakes up to same idea and does a Columbine type killing spree because they don’t recognize the consequence or distinction, since it’s all just an illusory game…so it comes down to sane / kind government vs warped and fucked gov, applying their sane vs fucked view of the same idea.

The other point I’m trying to make, I guess, is that if everyone across the entire face of the earth came to this realization of unitive consciousness, that would be one thing. (But even then, what would happen? You can’t just drop a lifetime of habits in an instant) But if only an elect group came to that realization, things would get dicey. There would inevitably people who didn’t believe in it, wouldn’t accept it and would resist it because it diminished their earthly power.

But that is a caricature of spurious mysticism.

Provided people actually experienced theses truths, instead from just taking the mystical statements at face-value, there would be a feeling of absolute hopelessness in doing any such thing. If everything is the same, and all distinctions are illusory, then there is no hope for any sort grand ambition on the part of the government — there probably wouldn’t even be a government anymore. From this sort of high mystical perspective, everything is *perfect*. I know how much people hate to hear that, and dismiss it as New Age bullshit, but once you start vibrating high enough, no other perspective is tenable. There is no need for a forcible correction, unless you’re still insisting on taking issue with the work of God — in which case, you still ain’t got it, son.

At any rate, I think that if society adopted the belief that we’re all one consciousness and that there is no death, the transformation in our world would be wonderful.

Just to clarify, I’m not as much talking about society or about a ground-swell of this sentiment from regular people - but about a top-down government or political party that comes in and starts preaching and enforcing such a philosophy.

You seem opposed to this concept because you’re still operating from a “me” point of view that is desperately afraid of the death of the ego, etc.

Am I? I’m trying to articulate a particular way of looking at things, rather than necessarily espousing it. That said, if we’re truly all one consciousness, then YOU are the one who is operating from a “me” point of view and desperately afraid of the death of the ego.

SO THERE!

What I’m trying to say though is that the goals we cling to have the potential to become terrible nightmares when taken out of their original contexts. Which makes me wonder if their original contexts aren’t equally flawed as well, but we’re unable to see them, because we have a sentimental personal attachment to them as our goals.

But now with eliminative materialism, they’re throwing not my whole world into question because they’re saying my thoughts and feelings ABOUT these things don’t even exist!! I never quite thought of it like that, but it really bothers me thinking that the feelings that I believe I’m feeling aren’t real in any sense of the word, and that everything is temporary and arbitrary.

At any rate, I think that if society adopted the belief that we’re all one consciousness and that there is no death, the transformation in our world would be wonderful. You seem opposed to this concept because you’re still operating from a “me” point of view that is desperately afraid of the death of the ego, etc. Given this new understanding, I think all of us would operate completely differently. . .with no need for governments or institutions that control us in any way shape and form. And if we all believed we were one consciousness, and acted accordingly, we wouldn’t hurt or kill other people because it would be in our best interest not to! Giving us the freedom to kill, rape, and plunder at our leisure does not necessarily mean that we would ever ACT on that freedom, especially when we would be acting AGAINST ourselves. And we would see that, and know it, if we operated from the consciousness that “we’re all one”.

Of course, that’s merely conjecture on my part. . .but I have a great friend, reminds me of you in a lot of ways, only his mind is less focused on the mystical/mysterious nature of the universe, and more on the practical aspects of it. Anyway, he lives in NYC, and he once said that the city itself seems to be self-governing, that the people there look out for one another for the most part, and if they see something bad happening, they get together to stop it. Now, I have no idea if any of this is actually accurate, but I like the idea that certain places in this world are becoming more compassionate. . .and that solidarity could eventually become the natural order of things everywhere.