If you attempt to discover awareness through intellectual debate do you deny yourself that which you seek?

Question

Debate with yourself or others?

For those who have so obviously missed the meaning of the question entirely, I will rephrase.

Is it possible to gain awarness though intellectual debate (the mind) only, in of itself?

Answer 1

Discovery is an inside job!
Enlightenment is an inside job!
Pure Wisdom is an inside job!
A human must wage war with both the intellect and that most stubborn of mans attributes, called the ego!
The intellect and ego, if placed in ones way, create a beautiful world of illusion!

Answer 2

If I'm understanding your question properly...

Both are necessary.

Every approach is just that: an approach. That includes science and logic, though these have produced far greater results than anything else in the history of mankind.

We should respect the collective knowledge/awareness as well as our own personal experiences because, without the latter, we cannot even have the former. Personal experiences may be fallible, but I might argue they are the best things we have...

Edit: If you mean: Does the search sometimes prevent the individual from finding?, then yes, I think it does - sometimes. Isn't the search almost always shaded by the seeker's own ideas? That is why science tries to use, fundamentally, the collective experience (causality, for example, is agreed upon because it is observed all the time by everyone) to settle on truth. But science itself may lead astray if there is something more.

Answer 3

No. In my experience, intellectual debate is for fun. Sometimes the Spirit can witness of a truth that someone may say, while you are in a debate.... but most of the time one who is debating intellectually is too focused in the mind to be receptive to spiritual witnesses.

Intellectual discussion (esp between two spiritually aware people), or following a logical train of thought, CAN lead to spiritual enlightenment, if the logic leads one to a true conclusion (and then the Spirit may enter the heart, in witness to that truth).

Logic is all well and good, provided one doesn't hold on to it when spiritual intuition leads one in another direction.

Answer 4

The intellectual is a valid path to the eventual goal - the mind of the westerner usually demands care and feeding before it agrees to rest awhile..quieting down enough for the more subtle levels to be known....

the debate is a tool, to allow acceptance, and to encourage cognition. It is all debate, until the individual has a tangible experience for themselves. Then it becomes "truth"

but to quote BodhiDaves Zen quote, today's enlightenment is tomorrows poison...
every realization will limit, no matter how fine and vast...

Answer 5

As others have suggested, I think that eventually we have to go beyond intellect. Logic, reason, knowledge can only take us so far. And these are the province of the intellect.

The 'awareness' we seek has to feel 'right'. In other words, the intellect has to surrender to (for want of a better word) belief.

And while debate can present us with doors to new knowledge, it is the compass of the heart that eventually steers us towards our 'goal'. Well, that's what I think.
.

Answer 6

I don't think you can gain enlightenment through debate, but you can clarify things in your own mind which may lead you down the eventual path towards enlightenment. We all need guidance; and we all have to discover certain truths for ourselves and really understand what some things mean. One of the ways we do that is by debate or discussion with others. We need others to shake us from our own point of view and open us up to new ways of seeing and experiencing truth.

Peace to you.

Answer 7

Not at all. Intellectual debate will broaden a persons perspective. Awareness is achieved through a larger perspective and an open mind, not through a single perspective and a closed mind.

Answer 8

I don't believe so. Awareness, knowledge and development exist on all planes of existince. It could be that an intellectual debate could LEAD you to discover other forms of awareness, that the debate is just a stepping stone, or a gateway drug to awareness.

Answer 9

I'm not sure what you mean by "intellectual debate," but I suspect it means intellectual exploration, especially throught the free and open discovery of knowledge, as well as open debate on issues.

So my answer is no.

If, through human history, people had not engaged in the search for knowledge and the free discussion of ideas, you would be a serf, living in a mud hut.

Answer 10

each from time to time we fall; we enable the international come to a decision our degree; all human beings has an idealised self; we wade by pains to expressed it; The project is unity between the international and the idealised self; —Happiness and sadness If that project is won (all of you expressed and maintained in the genuine); is that no longer the in basic terms suitable seek extra suitable than worldly fact; is that no longer our happiness? whilst we are suppressed by using condition; it is the only incorrect. you may understand all the certainty in the international, yet whilst the perfect is in no way realised even partly; there is sadness, we contemplate whether it is the way it would be. stay in the convenience that it would not would desire to be. Be the grand challenger; the champion of your perfect self. —you are the which skill of existence the international is gray dirt; your perfect provides it existence. Your arms shape the clay; you provide to the clay which skill; fairly your perfect; the cup is you; you provide the clay which skill, the type you provide existence which skill; it replaced into clay previously you got here and now it incredibly is you. —Be the tension; no longer a Rock mutually because it incredibly is sensible to be worldly sensible; it incredibly is even extra suitable, in case you may align the awareness of the perfect with the genuine. stay; the international is transitory