Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

You can see I answered to Asta Kask in such terms, as others did. I spoke about penalties, I quoted GURPS sources, including LCT 1, and offered suggestions along these lines. Then, afterwards I added more depth to this when you answered to my initial objection to Edges -for saying it so.

Of course I acknowledge that this thread has grown beyond Asta Kask initial request!

Yes, I agree very much with your last paragraph. Indeed, that ineffable spiritual experience can be reached through such aesthetic experience; it's attainable with role playing games. And I'm familiar with that, indeed I understand that with the doctrine of the Rasa, the diverse aesthetical flavours allied to the purpose of attaining Enlightenment, especially according to the Shaivism-, and particularly in the way Abhinavagupta explained it. Santa-rasa (transcendent peace) and Vira-rasa (heroic, epic feeling) are the most powerful and effective for this that you're suggesting here.

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

You are translating my more than imperfect explanation into GURPS mechanics. That's OK.

I wasn't being exhaustive explaining these steps, because I thought that they would be looked upon with some discomfort.

In the first part there should be, in addition to what you're saying, something similar to a Pact and/or the gifting of a Power Investiture, for representing the transmission not only of mental concepts but of a supernatural element or "blessing" to the disciple through the master. Some rituals of initiation are subtle.

Blessed could be included in the first stage, too. Some form of Disciplines of Faith should be included in the second and third stages. True Faith could pertain to the third stage, as a partial achievement (it could be too in the second, though).

The fourth step is the actual achieving of Enlightenment. Obviously that, being the goal, isn't a skill, but rather something non traceable by existing GURPS mechanics. The Power Investiture advantage could have something to do with that, but only very slightly. The Blessed advantage from the first step can go to Very Blessed, depending on how one wants to model this. Clerical Investment / Religious Rank, Status, Reputation and even Social Stigma could handle some of the social aspects of being acknowledged as an Enlightened sage in a culture of ancestral sort, or as a saint in a culture of religious type -although usually these beings are anonymous. And well, I acknowledge that modeling this in a rules wise way is definitely subjective.

"Seeing directly that the only reality is the Brahman" is one of the ways of expressing the effective knowledge and identification with the Absolute, which is operated through the "acquisition" of transcendent knowledge, indeed absolute knowledge leads to Enlightenment. It is advaita (without a second, non-dual, there's no subject-object polarity) because by being absolute, it "swallows" or "anihilates" the human subject, or in other words, the human identity - the ego . . . which in itself is a limitation and an altered state of the Consciousness (another term for the Absolute), and only is ego and operates as such when it holds the conviction of its autonomy regarding the Supreme Self or Brahman. However, until the time of the "anihilation" or "release" or "Enlightenment" (the three are the same in this context), the aspirant (the subject) was "pursuing" the knowledge and assimilating it as an object. Is in the final step where the distinction between subject and object is permanently abolished.

But this absolute knowledge acquired through Gnosis isn't like the scattered notions that we can store in our memory. It's tightly related with this view on Intelligence:

This knowledge is identified with the synthetic nature of the Self (sometimes alluded as "a synthethic conjunct of knowledge"), and it's related with the Intelect in the highest sense of the term (Greek Nous, Hindu Buddhi, Arabic Al-'aql, etc...). It's not the faculty of the reason nor the memory. It isn't a feeling nor an emotion, neither. Indeed, this is the only faculty on the human being able to really tackle on the transcendent; without it any true spiritual achievement would be inconceivable, and all should be reduced to the level of subjective emotions and feelings. On the other hand, Enlightened "persons" just play the divine game, and usually they remain acting as normal humans, or act as spiritual instructors if that is their function. They don't need to demonstrate anything to others, unless there is something needed to do in that sense, as part of their function as individual persons. Many of them added much to their respective cultures, too (Plato, Shankara, Abhinavagupta, Dante, Meister Eckhart, Nicolás de Cusa, Lao Tzu, Dogen, etc).

Don't get angry with me for answering to this, but from the point of view of the metaphysics I'm talking about, Aristotle's thinking isn't particularly relevant, in the same way that Kant and many others aren't relevant. And in several ways, some of the Aristotle's views and philosophies are related with materialism, even if other parts of his theories were used for supporting Christian Scholasticism. OTOH, Aristotle and the Greek Classics are relatively "new" to history. "Sophisticated thinking" started IMHO much before, even in times in which anthropologists still are imagining the so-called "pre-logical" thought, and the Classic philosophers added for certain many distinctive things. Aristotle's philosophy, in various ways, remains as part of the modern mentality, and is viewed as one of its precedents.

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

That was more or less my point.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

Then we are agreeing here.

I would add to that that the modernity -the rupture with the traditional world-views- started in the Classical times, was stopped or "half corrected" during part of the Middle Ages, then resurged again in the Renaissance and has prevailed until today, affecting later to the whole planet, for good and for bad. Of course, in very general lines.

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

I would agree, modulo changing the word "corrected" to "suppressed" or "subverted." But then, I think the Aristotelian revolution was essentially positive, despite incidental bits of garbage that got caught up with it.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

Such as . . ?

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

Some men are slaves by nature. The form of man is male, and is supplied by the father; the mother supplies only the matter, and proper development results in a male child; female children are usefully defective. Objects at rest tend to remain at rest, and objects in motion tend to come to rest. Every object has a natural place. Goods ideally exchange for other goods of equal value, and no one gains from making an exchange.

For example.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

Agreed, trash.

Makes perfect sense in an environment where friction is sufficient to slow down most motion. It's like bashing Newton for not mentioning the relativistic effects.

I don't even quite understand how I should envision that.

Ideally. Kinda breaks down when subjective value doesn't match objective (average) value. Which is hard to avoid, given that subjective value depends on the environment and the situation heavily.

If anything, about ¼ of what you mentioned is just an approximation/primitive version of the way things work.

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

These are actually closely related. It's Aristoleian physics closest approach to the concept of forces. Things slow down not because there is a frictional force acting on them, but because their natural state is to be motionless. Things fall or rise because their natural place is at a higher or lower level, bows snap back because the tips have been pulled away from their natural place and so on.

Re: Effects of meditative trance
 

No, it's completely false from start to finish. There is no such thing as intrinsic value; value is an estimation of a thing in relation to the needs of a human being, and different human beings have different needs and different circumstances. Because of that, it's possible that value of a to X > value of b to X, but value of b to Y > value of a to Y, which makes it possible for them to exchange X for Y and both be better off. That fact is the whole basis of exchange, trade, and market economics. Without it there would never be any reason to have any of those things in the first place.

Nor is this just a "subjective" estimate of value. Consider two villages, one of which grows wheat, while the other catches fish. Wheat has a lot of calories in relation to its amino acid content; to get sufficient protein, the farmers have to eat huge amounts of wheat. Conversely, fish has fewer calories for the same protein; to get enough calories, the fishermen have to eat a lot of fish. In each case, Liebig's Law of the Minimum comes into play to limit their numbers to those sustainable by the most constraining resource. But if they can trade, the farmers can get more protein from fish and the fishermen can get more calories from wheat, and they both are less limited; exactly the same amount of food can sustain larger populations in both villages, enough to support extra people to provide trade and transportation. In other words, trade functions as a virtual additional food source.

Bill Stoddard