The Ancient Eastern Science of the Nervous System | Book Excerpt from Fasting the Mind
The Ancient Eastern Science of the Nervous System | Book Excerpt from Fasting the Mind The spiritual path of Buddhism came into existence as a result of this yearning to completely slow down our nervous system so we can experience real freedom. In Sanskrit such freedom is called nirvana, meaning extinction, freedom from suffering, and ultimately the unconditioned eternal reality that we experience as enlightenment. In the story of Gautama the Buddha, he sought methods of practice and philosophy that would evoke the state of nirvana. He followed asceticism and strict spiritual practices for six years. It wasn’t until he was exhausted in his efforts that he finally took some milky soup from a young girl herding cattle and sat under the famous Bodhi tree in the small town of Bodh Gaya, India. In doing so, he completely relaxed without the need for striving. His original efforts had been futile because he was approaching enlightenment in the same way that we purchase a cheap suit. In striving for anything, there is still agitation in the mind, and this perception of life comes from the ignorant view of how we supposedly achieve things in this world. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, Gautama the Buddha accessed a part of our nervous system that remains dormant when we are always in physical and mental motion. This part of our nervous system is known as the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS). To gain a better understanding of this we need to know what makes up the nervous system. The nervous system is the part of an animal’s body that coordinates its voluntary and involuntary actions and also transmits signals to and from different parts of its body. In vertebrate species, such as human beings, the nervous system contains two parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The central nervous system contains the brain and spinal cord, while the peripheral nervous system consists of mainly nerves, which are enclosed bundles of long fibers, and axons, which are long, slender projections of nerve cells that conduct electrical impulses away from the neuron’s cell body. These nerves and axons connect the central nervous system to every other part of the body. The peripheral nervous system is divided into the somatic nervous system (SoNS) and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The autonomic nervous system is our central focus when related to psychological or spiritual inner work and transformation. The autonomic nervous system is a control system that largely acts unconsciously and regulates our bodily functions such as heart rate, respiratory rate, digestion, pupillary response, urination, and sexual arousal. The autonomic nervous system has two branches: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS). The sympathetic nervous system is sometimes considered the “fight or flight” system because it is activated in cases of emergencies to mobilize energy. It is what we activate when we are in motion and being stimulated through our senses. Without it we could not do anything. The parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, is often considered the “rest and digest” or “feed and breed” system because it is activated when we are in a relaxed state. We activate the parasympathetic nervous system when we essentially do nothing. It is also responsible for stimulation of “rest and digest” and “feed and breed” activities that occur when the body is at rest, especially after eating, including sexual arousal, lacrimation (tears), salivation, urination, digestion, and defecation. The parasympathetic nervous system is what makes us drift off to sleep every night. It is stimulated most when we relax deeply. The war on our nervous system is essentially the overstimulation of our sympathetic nervous system along with an understimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system. When we stimulate only the sympathetic nervous system without activating the parasympathetic nervous system, we increase the probability of chemical imbalances in our brain from not having a healthy balanced lifestyle. Because of this, the vast majority of us are teetering on the edge of psychological suicide. People may say in response to this statement that they have time to relax every day. But are our methods for relaxation really relaxing? Our perception of relaxing is sitting in front of the television or computer, playing with our phones, chatting with friends, and so on. This is not true relaxation. Actually, when we engage in such activities we are still stimulating the sympathetic nervous system and not the parasympathetic nervous system. Accessing the parasympathetic nervous system requires a complete shutdown and withdrawal of the senses and mental activity, known as pratyahara in Sanskrit. This shutdown is important to Hinduism, Taoism, and especially Buddhism with its methods of practicing meditation. No matter whether it is Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, or Zen, the various strands of the Buddha’s teachings have at their core the necessity of starving or fasting the mind. This is done to allow the parasympathetic nervous system to play its role within our psychosomatic organism. One of the more effective methods that the Buddha supposedly taught was vipassana. Vipassana is a Pali word (vipasyana in Sanskrit) used in the Buddhist tradition that means “insight into the true nature of reality.” The meditation practice of vipassana is an ancient method that is believed to have come from Gautama the Buddha himself and which survived through other Buddhas throughout history. Vipassana meditation is thought of not only as a meditation practice in all life but also a disciplined technique that is supposed to evoke vipassana in all life. This technique was reintroduced by Burmese Theravada Buddhist teachers Ledi Sayadaw and Mogok Sayadaw. It was then popularized by Mahasi Sayadaw (a Burmese Theravada Buddhist monk and meditation master), Saya Gi U Ba Khin (the Burmese vipassana meditation teacher and an influential leader of the vipassana movement), and his student, Satya Narayan Goenka (better known as S. N. Goenka), who is well known for spreading the vipassana movement worldwide with more than a hundred centers located
The Mysterious Mind of the East
From a Western perspective the mind of the East has always appeared peculiar. The Eastern way of thinking, their philosophy and spiritual beliefs, run counter to Western thought. Today, in the modern world, the Western view of life has become the norm, even in the East. The Western approach of radical individualism has spread all around the world, while the Eastern view of holism and collectivism is taking a backseat while each and every individual tries to reach the top of the social heap by tramping over others. A result of this striving for ‘success’ is that we have become excessively busy, and …
Enlightenment in the East: Misunderstood & Misinterpreted
Enlightenment in the East: Misunderstood & Misinterpreted Enlightenment in the East is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. It is completely different from the philosophical movement known as “the Enlightenment” in Europe during the 18th century. Eastern enlightenment is often studied but never experienced. It is usually viewed through our Western and modern linear view of life. Yet the Eastern view of life is built on the natural world’s foundation of a nonlinear view, inclusivity rather than exclusivity, collectivism over individualism, which all contribute to a perception of reality attuned to holism rather than an analytical perspective. Instead of analytically dissecting reality into separate parts to try and understand the whole, the East focused on how the apparent separateness of life is integral and essentially one. Both the holistic and analytical mind were environmentally determined by life’s circumstances thousands of years ago which influenced the way an Easterner and Westerner perceive the world until present day. The analytical mind is attributed to the West. It results from smaller communities during the first two millennia BCE in Greece which were naturally more individualistic because they had to fend for themselves and live off the individual labor of hunting, herding, and fishing for obtaining food. During the same period in the East the environment determined that it was best to live in large communities due to the arduous labor required for rice cultivation. This was especially the case in China and India. For example, the birth of Chinese civilization evolved from the Yellow River Valley area of northern China where rice was the essential food source. Living in large communities in the East people were dependent on each other and the health and well-being of every person. Your own individual self-interest and self-importance was surrendered to what was important for the collective good. This attitude geared people’s mind towards being holistic. As a result they attained a natural nonlinear view of reality. The analytical mind and linear view is the result of individualism, while the holistic mind and nonlinear view is the result of the collective perspective. This doesn’t mean one view is better or more real than the other. But the problem we encounter today is the holistic mind and nonlinear view of reality is disappearing in favor of a world driven by individual pursuits at the expense of our collective well-being, even in the modern East. The holistic mind and nonlinear view is the way of nature and is expressed through our intuition. The analytical mind and linear view is expressed through our intellect. Both are somewhat necessary but we overcompensate for the latter, which ultimately leads to the decline of nature and our own enlightenment as an individual. A mind primarily driven by the linear analytical view of reality contributes to the slow destruction of nature and also the mind itself. We see this with the alarming abundance of mental health issues and ecological problems today. The natural mind is rooted in the holistic nonlinear view which is the fundamental framework of nature, and human beings are an aspect of nature. This doesn’t mean the analytical mind and linear view cease to exist. But instead they should only be employed in those brief moments that require our attention to detail. Yet if your mind is rooted in its holistic nature then any attention to detail will be done without the sense of a separate person doing it, in the same fashion as Krishna was imploring Arjuna to do in battle against his family and friends within the Hindu epic Bhagavad Gita. The nonlinear world of nature and individual enlightenment are intimately related. But our sense of an identity separate from everything else has to disappear before we can realize enlightenment. Patanjali, the founder of yoga, explains this using the Sanskrit purusha (absolute pure awareness and the identical source of the universe within each of us, similar to the concept of Atman in Vedic scripture) and prakrti (all the form and energy of the manifest universe, including thoughts). He explains that the fundamental purpose of nature (prakrti) is for the human being to bring purusha forth into the world. Purusha, then, according to Patanjali, is the ultimate fulfilment of nature and why we essentially exist. Yet this could only happen if the idea of an isolated separate personality has disappeared because when our mind is pulled here and there by the movement of mental activity and life we lose our sense of purusha within. It is eclipsed by a haze of overstimulated mental activity. As a result we begin to firmly believe in the notion of past and future without an appreciation or recognition of the present moment. This is a disaster according to the Eastern wisdom traditions. In the East eternity and our connection to it is not some far off destination or someplace we go after death. It is right now where time and thinking are completely cut off. The eternal now aspect within our mind is experienced when we constantly ground ourselves in pure awareness (purusha). The more we bring our mind back to pure awareness the more we will experience the eternal aspect of the universe because pure awareness is beyond time, form, and mental activity. Our personality, on the other hand, is built and sustained by the linear view of the world. It is an accumulation of experiences from the past that we believe determines our future. Actually we tend to project our desires into the future based on our past. As a result our personality becomes entangled with suffering which is the result of linear time. When we realize we are the charioteer and begin to reign in the wild horses, to use Plato’s analogy of the mind, we become free from the entanglement of a time-bound personality that is causing all the trouble in the world. The real you, the true Self/Atman (Atman is a
Humility: A Sage’s Ultimate Reality
Humility: A Sage’s Ultimate Reality The effortless universal virtue of humility is what evokes enlightenment in life. The big problem with this mystical virtue is generally we only have fleeting moments of its power, as we constantly get sucked back into the subjective dramas of the world in our mind. As a result, we revere the sage for their sustained absorption in the lowest and paradoxically most powerful state of humility. A master absorbed in the humble and most refined state of consciousness has truly accepted life as it is. They have no desire to promote their own agenda, as from this state all agendas have evaporated like dewdrops on a hot sunny day. We seek to attain this level of perception through our spiritual practice but we get lost in social and cultural habits of thinking linearly, as we strive to succeed by gaining “spiritual powers.” This has more to do with showmanship than mysticism. We shed our old persona for a new and improved “spiritual persona.” Still driven by the ego we are attempting to define ourselves as someone “special” in relation to the world. Our spiritual practice becomes more about how to stick our head above the rest of the crowd. But enlightenment has no relationship to such an approach. Enlightenment is evoked by resting in the lowest place of humility. Water corresponds to this low place of humility. Water is the lowest force of nature, yet paradoxically it is the most powerful. Humility, like water, is the low and receptive virtue of nature within our psychology and linked to the unconscious, which paradoxically is the most powerful state of being that transforms the world without any intention to do so. Enlightenment is not something we can strive to attain. It is as natural as water moving down a mountain stream undisturbed, where the destination and journey are one. Humility is the state of consciousness when destination and journey, self and other, individual and universe, samsara and nirvana, reveal their intrinsic unity disguised as mutual opposites. Humility evokes this perception of enlightenment, which is actually the fruit of all spiritual practice and also life. We don’t perceive this in our life or practice because we are indoctrinated by culture to focus on the foreground of life instead of the background. We only perceive and are attracted to chaos in the world which is a reflection of the attraction to chaos within our mind. This eventuates because we have not refined our consciousness into the pure jewel of transparent and reflective awareness. When we are caught in the detail/drama of life we are trying to control the universe to suit our egotistical desires and cravings. We are still playing a game of one-upmanship with the world because we appall the low road of humility that unites us with the source of the universe. Humility evokes enlightenment when we give up trying to control life and instead trust the universal flow in the same way that water trusts the contours of a river without resisting its own clear nature of transparency and reflectivity. We are out of sync with the universe because we have lost this innate trust. Our trust continues to sleep dormant because we are trying to change the world to suit our conditioning according to sensory pleasures with the absurd exclusion of pain. Changing the world is the primary focus of most people. We feel as though we are saving the world but we don’t know who or what from. We believe we are a prisoner in this beautiful garden. We seek to save ourselves from its claustrophobic steel bars that develop in our mind so we can someday enjoy the aroma of the flowers. But we were never enslaved, nor is there anything to free ourselves from. We have invested too much time and energy on the chaos of the world within our mind without realizing it is only the detailed foreground of an orderly background. Intrinsic to chaos is order. This is the evolved perception of a sage. If our perception is too contracted we lose sight of reality as it is. We perceive chaos within and without, and believe it is stagnant and not undergoing any fundamental change. We become frustrated as a result and seek to force change with an intention that is solely our own. Trying to change or save the world implies that reality is not already perfect and that somehow we are isolated from it as a stranger in this cosmos. Contrary to this common feeling, when we let go and trust the universe, as a sage does, we realize deep within a “sense of unity” that is the goal of all spiritual practice and life. The fundamental paradox of life is we can never know true and authentic unity if we do not trust the universe. You cannot strive for unity because unity is evoked by the trust you live. Though, this unity is not the same unity that we dream about in images of world peace. It is the unity which dawns on an individual consciousness when opposites merge and chaos becomes perfect order from a state of perception so pure that the nature of the universe is finally seen as it truly is. Only then is world peace possible because our perception of order instead of chaos has given us the humility to receive the world with open arms and an agenda-less mind. Our struggles in life are born from not perceiving perfection in what others erroneously believe is imperfect. Our fundamental notion of duality between self and the universe continues to eclipse this beautiful perfection from our eyes. Living the science of humility is the sage’s medicine for our blindness. Published by Watkins Magazine http://www.watkinsmagazine.com/ Common Ground Magazine http://onlinedigitaleditions.com/commonground/archive/web-09-2015/ SHARE
The Trap of Devotion to God and Guru
The Trap of Devotion to God and Guru We fear nothing more than being truly independent. True independence does not mean in the social context in regards to individual job titles, nor does it mean in the collective sphere of nationalistic independence, though both may be derivatives. Real independence is spiritual sovereignty, meaning the individual truly lives psychologically from the Heart with no agenda and is free from the attachment to social, cultural, and religious programs which imprison our mind. Some may argue that we all need a philosophical framework psychologically to navigate our way through this life to give us a sense of meaning. And others may say that we need to eliminate all philosophical frameworks from our mind, whether it is social, cultural, or religious, because then we can move freely in the world and have a mind that Zen Buddhism would say “is a mind of no deliberation,” meaning that it doesn’t stick to any type of formula to understand life. From the opposing perspective this still may be thought of as a type of framework as Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor points out in his work by explaining that formulating and taking on frameworks may be inescapable for the mind. But this could also be viewed as just being extremely clever in an attempt to be victorious in this ongoing game of spiritual and philosophical one-upmanship, while also not taking into account the actual experience of the individual which is hard for anyone to judge from an external point of reference. No matter how you view both perspectives on an individual level is not the point. The real emphasis is about how we depend on philosophical frameworks that we were once naturally drawn to but have over time become a crutch that obscures our ability to perceive reality without names, labels, or a prior agenda. This conditioned habit is carried over into the spiritual and religious philosophies we turn to when we yearn for liberation. Paradoxically the spiritual and religious philosophies we convert to originate from different environments than our own. Essentially they are built on an archetype diametrically opposed to the one embedded within our psychosomatic organism. This is evident more visibly when we find Western people interested in Eastern philosophy and other esoteric wisdom traditions. In our search for enlightenment, or real independence in other words, from social, cultural, and religious mental concepts we discover the eternal depth of the East and its ability to reveal our underlying true nature beyond the claustrophobic walls of our ego. Yet the dependence we seek to transcend is projected onto the spiritual temperaments of the East. For example, the Eastern character and temperament of devotion and surrender to God or guru/master becomes a crutch for both Eastern and Western seeker if their dependence on either eclipses their real faith and union with the irreducible essence of the universe. Again this is more visible when we observe a Westerner trying to embrace and mimic the Eastern archetypal structure. None more so than when we witness Western spiritually inclined people diving at the feet of a guru to kiss their feet or put their forehead on the guru’s feet in a so-called gesture of respect through the action of wiping the dust from the guru’s feet with the forehead. Deep down in the sacred intelligence of the gut, which is not connected to the ego, we know this is not genuine and is basically spiritual materialism because it is based on how we should appear to look towards others in the outside world and also to fulfill an image of ourselves that we have in our head. Though some may argue that this external behavior has an internal effect, and it does to some degree considering we have to completely humble our ego to kiss someone else’s feet who we acknowledge has more wisdom than us, but the problem is the attitude of devotion and surrender to either God or guru is based on the imitation of the archetypal temperaments of the East. (Note that in Oriental iconography a common image is the two footprints that symbolize divinity. They represent the feet of the divine that we kiss and touch with our hands as this action symbolizes that we are reaching in and kissing God in our heart). The Westerner will take on Eastern philosophical thinking and dress sense, for example, to hide and suppress the psychological habits and latent tendencies that cause us suffering. We imitate in the hope that these habits and tendencies will be transcended. The Easterner in turn does the same form of imitation when they try to take on the Western archetypal framework of social and materialistic success, but that topic is not of importance here. A sincere spiritually inclined individual has no need to imitate nor do they to the contrary have to uphold their social, cultural, and religious programming. We can appreciate that kissing the feet of a guru is primarily an Indian archetype and is a sacredly beautiful aspect of India when we observe the people of India in their childlike innocence practicing such devotion and humility to God and guru. But this is not practiced anywhere else in the Far East, whether that be China, Korea, Japan, or even South East Asia. And astonishingly the Far East and South East Asian spiritual and cultural traditions are heavily influenced by India where Hinduism gave birth to aspects of Buddhism and Buddhism traveled over the Himalayas to Tibet then China to mix with Taoism which eventually became Zen Buddhism in Japan. All along the way the environment especially in the Far East never deviated unnecessarily from their archetypal temperament to show honor and respect to a master and each other with a humble bow instead of the Indian version of kissing the guru’s feet. We would think it is extremely strange if a disciple of Japanese or
The Evolution of Perception
The Evolution of Perception In any attempt to save the world we are in one sense an immense help in changing the world, and in another sense paradoxically we are a hindrance and destructive burden upon the world. The world which most people seek is invariably based upon their own sense of pleasure with the exclusion of pain. The socially accepted freedom that we value and associate with liberation, the one that drives most us to change the world, is a separatist effort to impose our own individual agenda upon others and the world. German psychologist Erich Fromm would suggest that this is “freedom from” or “freedom to,” but not real freedom because it is based on the differing points of view that each and every one of us believes to be physical and psychological comfortability. This social and cultural motif that humanity perpetuates is only one dimensional for the sheer fact that we have excluded the reality of pain from our existence. We are suffering from an illness within the psychological and spiritual sphere as a result. An individual will do anything no matter how absurd to avoid their latent psychological and spiritual pain. We dissect and edit out of our life what is not in accord with our hypnotic conditioning, as we continue to try and bypass the inevitables in our life. Pain is experienced when we begin to break our psychological limitations. The very nature of our perception is contaminated as a result of spiritually bypassing our psychological pain, to the point that the root of our awareness is continually veiled from the excessive stimulation of pleasure within the physical and mental planes of consciousness. The arcane wisdom of the sages expounds to humanity that consciousness is composed of three planes of growth which is an evolutionary process our perception undergoes through sincere self-work. The wisdom traditions, the esoteric mystery schools of antiquity, the perennial philosophers both ancient and contemporary, and the metaphysicians all refer to these three planes as the physical, mental and spiritual. Majority of humanity only perceive the temporal plane of the physical world, and are somehow under the delusion that this sphere is a permanent realm without ever undergoing vibratory and rhythmic transformations of change from the spiritual sphere. In John Holman’s The Return of the Perennial Philosophy he writes about this evolutionary process of perception through the three planes in relation to Christian Theosophy, There are actually three births. The first is the natural or ‘outward’ birth, the second is the birth of the soul in the human consciousness, and the third is the birth of the spirit or the highest divinity in the soul. In Christian Theosophy man – every man – is body, soul, and spirit, and the three births relate to each of these. At the end of the road, man sees through his highest spiritual eye. This ‘eye in the heart’ (a phrase also popular with Frithjof Schuon) was/is the eye ‘with which God sees himself through us’, says Versluis. The Fall of Man (or Adam) is a moving away from this higher (Aevertinal) consciousness to a lower (Character or earthly man) consciousness, so that instead of seeing transcendent reality, we see only the temporophysical world. The sincere spiritual seeker and esoteric student travel through these three planes of growth, where one’s perception begins to evolve from the physical and mental planes of material and intellectual orientated consciousness, onto the higher plane of spiritual consciousness. If one is sincere in their own introspected self-work, our perception of reality will embark upon a journey from matter to spirit where consciousness is perceived in all forms of life. British author and philosopher Philip Sherrard explains this journey from matter to spirit, I see the universe as a hierarchy of levels descending from the formless spiritual level down to the most dense material form. In Sanskrit the liberation of perception is known as moksha, and in The Science and Practice of Humility this is known as the “evolution of perception” where I thoroughly explore the philosophical, psychological, metaphysical, and spiritual knowledge behind this evolved perception and its relation to the three planes of consciousness. The spiritual plane of consciousness is a level of perception so reflective and transparent that one who dwells in this enlightened state can perceive eternity in the manifest and understand that matter and spirit could not be separate. The Taoist sage Chuang-tzu said, When there is no more separation between “this” and “that,” it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still-point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things. Residing in that unpolluted state of consciousness, the spiritual plane, Chuang-tzu could perceive the infinite irreducible essence of the universe, known in Chinese as Tao and Sanskrit as Brahman, in all forms of nature. This is a way of perception so subtle that one can perceive the formless reality within the world of form. This level of perception that Chuang-tzu attained cleared his mind and vision of what he once thought was a concrete reality built on separation and chaos. In this purification of one’s mind and awareness, an evolution of perception takes place naturally that leads one to the ultimate “sense of unity” revealed within. This evolved perception and sense of unity should not be misconstrued with the informational awareness one attains from alternative research of conspiracy theories or new-age misconceptions of oneness. The awareness and oneness that a sage imbibes is in the authentic wisdom of a sense of unity within consciousness that an individual has latent within and can experience as it is our original nature. The result of this mystical experience is a pure state of awareness not attracted or caught in the apparent drama of life. As a result of being lost in our daily dramas and general semantics of life, the most misunderstood and
The Artificial Human
The Artificial Human The destruction of an organism depends upon an element of that organism becoming neurotic to its place within the natural order of organic life. If a species builds their perspective of life only within a linear conception, that very species would naturally have a propensity to fall into an artificial disposition. Could we say that the human race has fallen into this artificial disposition? Humanity surely must admit that they have lost contact with the nonlinear circuitry of our minds which is the aspect of our mind that connects us to the natural rhythms of the planet. Remarkably, animals never lose contact with the natural order of life, and they all play their part in the constant unfoldment of organic life. Yet contrary to this, the human race has become totally dependent upon external influences which hypnotize the individual into a linear perception of growth through external means and pleasurable experiences. Our dependency upon acquiring a pleasurable experience or stimuli is enhancing a schism within the psyche which expresses itself as a constant pursuit of control that in reality leads to an artificiality within the human-being. Our use of technology is a testament to that fact. The excessive use of technology depends on the artificial aspect of the psyche. Evidence of this artificiality is rife within the current technological age. The average individual uses technology not in the essence of attempting to grow both naturally and spiritually, but instead majority are only concerned with using technology as a device for entertainment which keeps one in a perpetual state of hypnosis. Most individuals cannot go one day without turning on the television, or checking their emails and social media networks. People are constantly clinging to a smartphone, laptop, tablet, etc., which is detaching one from what really “is.” The artificial human is always striving for fame and fortune through a glowing monitor which fills that empty void in their lives. Nobody is truly that popular that we need to be checking our smartphone every five seconds. An individual does this because most people long to be accepted by others which proves that the majority of humanity has self-worth issues deep within. Even the spiritual charlatans who appear on numerous television programs are addicted to their smartphone, yet they arrogantly parade around like a guru telling people to go beyond the limitations of the mind but they themselves fail to understand that to be incessantly on a smartphone is over stimulating mental activity and thus is an act of the mind. Our belief that we do not belong to each other and the planet is the very reason we seek acceptance from others. Seeking acceptance from others is again to depend on external influences, as if we were a machine rather than human. The predominant use of technology then is to desensitize and dehumanize the individual into an artificial machine. Machine in this case, is the artificial robotic function of an individual’s psychology and physical welfare. Our entire world is built on the premise that society and culture is what helps the individual grow rather than the individual growing of their own volition. Culture and society themselves and all of their apparatuses, such as government and politics, are all built on the maintenance of the linear concept of the world. So culture, society and everything that holds them together are artificial because nature’s constituents abide by the nonlinear realm of the cosmos. Culture and society in this sense are what is being mythologized through many artistic outlets, such as film, because culture and society is depicted as the artificial machine which dictates its influence over the natural human. The external influence of culture and society is what creates an artificial robotic human, as all machines are controlled from the outside. We all feel this either consciously or unconsciously, and this is what drives most into the comforting arms of a cyber-world which is not tangible. The social and cultural machine teaches the individual that they can never be like the celebrities that the culture promotes and so to be “successful” one ought to mimic those celebrities to gain acceptance from others who are under the same hypnosis. This kind of parroting lasts a very short time as most figure out that they will never attain the fame and fortune of those so called celebrities they are mimicking. So one variably retreats into an online world where they can build another artificial persona to hide behind. The online cyber world that most are drawn into is transforming the way we interact and express ourselves to others. Increasingly, people are finding it hard to communicate to others face to face without the assistance of a social media chat box. This form of cyber communication tends to develop false habits and tendencies on the part of those who are engrossed by that world. People develop habits and tendencies of being rude, arrogant, a sense of always being right, machoism, etc., which are all attributes that most would not express to another face to face. In the field of psychology, this sort of behavior would be deemed schizophrenic, yet humanity parade around as if this sort of behavior is perfectly sane. No one can be sure where we are heading as a species, but if we lose our sense of communication, we will continue to deteriorate as our faculty to sympathize and understand another will be completely lost to our own individual agenda for the world. The miscommunication has already begun between society and the individual, as for thousands of years we have had a cultural and social machine that only imposes its Will over the individual rather than listening to their needs of the time. In the perpetual tyranny of society and culture over the individual, we discover that humanity is only attracted to the artificiality of the hand that supposedly feeds them. The artificial world imposed on
Cosmic Dance
Cosmic Dance The way we perceive power and strength in this world is beginning to change. For thousands of years we have viewed strength and power in the physical sense which is one of the reasons why our world has been constantly dominated by men, but this view of reality is seen with blurry vision. If strength and power is truly in the physical presence then why is our world in a state of fragility? If this was true then wouldn’t we be on an upscale of evolution instead of a process of going in circles? Explanations for this are many but one big part of this cosmic puzzle is that most beings on this Earth are only embracing the masculine side of their consciousness which is an active principle and if not counterbalanced by the feminine which is a passive principle, then destruction will eventuate. We are not just talking about the physical characteristics when we speak of masculine and feminine principles, because we are actually speaking of energetic principles that are inherent within all sentient life on all levels of consciousness from physical, mental and spiritual. When both energetic principles are in union with each other, we have a creative force that not only evolves the individual but also the race. At this point in time we see the domination of the active principle, but what a lot of people are seeing and feeling is that the feminine energy in this universe is rising and changing the way we perceive strength and power. The greatest knowledge of these principles is in the esoteric teachings of the ancients. In fact a lot of these teachings can be traced back to Thoth of Egypt and Hermes Trismegistus of Greece who are hypothesized to be one and the same God. Hermes/Thoth expounded to their disciples the seven Hermetic principles or laws which govern the universe. We are not going to discuss the seven laws but we are going to concentrate on the seventh law which is the Law of Gender. In Hermes teachings or what is better known as “Hermetic Philosophy” it states the following regarding the Law of Gender, “Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine principles; Gender manifests on all planes.” This axiom needs to be understood before we can move on. The Law of Gender illustrates that within all humans there are both masculine and feminine elements and when both are in union it manifests as a creative force. So on the physical plane this creative force is sex, but as the law stated, this force manifests on all planes which includes the mental and spiritual planes. Two simple examples within these planes is first a thought which is a masculine principle and a feeling that is a feminine principle in perfect harmony give birth to a true thought form. Second example is free/cosmic will which is the masculine and the desire and imagination which is feminine arouses the free/cosmic will. So once again if both are in harmony with one another then we have true action. These are just a few examples to demonstrate how important it is to understand how these two principles create on all planes of existence. Now some may say that there are more than three planes of consciousness, but we are just using the Hermetic teachings as a reference point. With all this said we can see now that yes our world is dominated by the masculine principle but we can also see that the feminine is making a return. We come back now to strength and power. As we said in our world strength and power is usually acknowledged in the physical realm, but is this truly strength and power? The answer is no because all that is happening is the men and women of today are sublimating all their energy into the physical appearance which is analogous to an animalistic instinctual mind. This implies not strength and power but weakness and insecurity. This is a reflection of the masculine principle, without the existence of the feminine. The pendulum of life is beginning its backswing though, and the feminine principle is being realized which is evident in the world today. We see both men and women undergoing amazing changes not in the physical world, but the world within. The feminine is slowly but surely being born within both sexes. As the feminine is becoming more apparent our perception of strength and power is being altered. Instead of seeing strength and power in being macho and winning fights and arguments, we see that true strength and power is in the ability to surrender in a fight or argument because those who can surrender know they are not their beliefs, so they have no concept to violently defend. They are sovereign over their mind. Those who still only embrace the masculine find it quite perplexing how someone could just surrender in a confrontation. The reason being because for those who have only the masculine switched on view the world through the eyes of their own individual ego. In this case of only being the active principle, majority of the population take what they want from the world to further perpetuate their individual belief systems. This directly corresponds with the way we treat our Earth like a drinks stop in a marathon, which is the result of an unconscious population. Our Earth is a direct reflection of the current state of mind because in its hyper activity we are like the worker bees but instead of building our hive we are destroying it. This is the extreme polarity of the masculine energy. Yet not only are we destroying our hive, we are also killing each other. We only have to look at the useless wars, violent sports, movies and television programs where we see the audience baying for blood like an animal. Once
Weight of the World
Weight of the World When most people feel under stress they often say, “It feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders.” It is a very common phrase used amongst English speaking nations. But behind this one phrase is a quintessential truth, because when one is on a path to self-transformation they realize that the weight of the world is truly on their shoulders, so it is up to them to change it. Yet this whole phenomenon of being the change has become confusing to many and in some cases a smell of pollution surrounds this so called change. At this moment and throughout time we have seen large groups of people around the world in rebellion against external forces. The problem with a lot of these rebellions is that most of them are based on an “us against them” mentality, which implies a lack of wisdom as to what the nature of reality “is.” On the other side of the spectrum we have a large internal awakening occurring around the planet, where major portions of this energetic change have been hijacked and are shrouded in ego to line the pockets of a few with plenty of money. Thus both external and internal are in chaos with one another. We need to find common ground because the weight of this world is becoming unbearable. Somehow we need to find the balance to this weight. In our present day the weight of the world is not a physical disability, but instead it is psychic in nature. Almost everything we visualize in our external world stems from our collective psychic illness. Buddha once said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.” This piece of wisdom rings true when one understands the total functions of the mind. One of the innermost fundamental principles of consciousness is that everything in our world either on a personal or collective level is a deep mental projection. So what we create in our reality is either from conscious concentration or it is from a darker emotion suppressed within the human psyche. This is very important to understand especially at this moment in time, because even though some people out there are consciously manifesting reality, most of these people still haven’t addressed the darker content in their own lives, and hence we all contribute to a collective disease. All of this comes back to the psychic dance between the ego and the self. This dance can truly seduce the most ardent believer. A lot of people on Earth at the moment believe they are in true rebellion against the banking cartel, corporate structure and corrupt governments, with the belief they are creating a better world. The seduction here is that this rebellion is only a projection of our ego. The ego does this to keep anyone from having true eternal rebellion. Since the ego is the totality of the mind at present, it will do whatever it has to do from letting you go inwardly and finally dealing with those darker emotions suppressed within the shadow-self. So because of this, what is happening now is the ego is disguising itself under a false projection of a better world to further its own existence and to keep us from the true journey. In our present day many activists, movements and rebellious groups are rising to the surface, but none of this is new. We have always had opposition to the status quo, but never any lasting change. For thousands of years we have been in external conflict with no true results. This is because we choose not to shine the light within where true freedom resides, so we persist with rearranging the chess pieces in the world we see. So it is with our illusory belief that we can change the external chess pieces that our illness is sustained. Herein lays the problem behind all movements and revolutions, because we believe to heal this world we need to rearrange the external world. If this is the basis then all movements and revolutions are fundamentally flawed. Sure a new movement may look more pleasant to the eye, but if the same collective and individual psychological state is going into the new world then our sickness will still plague us. In the end it should not be a debate about what certain benefits or external relief we will have from any particular movement, because the only issue that should be of our concern is what truly drives any of these movements or revolutions deep within us? Built into the public’s state of consciousness is an unnatural desire for material comforts. Everybody is seeking some form of comforting relief in the external world. This is because within the majorities current state of consciousness there is an inbuilt function of escape which is mixed with our natural desire for freedom. So what we get is, we have a constant search for freedom based on material comfortability. In our modern age every movement and revolutions ideologies are grounded in external welfare through comforts and not internal well-being. Most movements and revolutions believe that if we have the access to the necessities of life served up on a platter, then internal peace will be born. Can this be true? The sad answer is no, inner peace will never be found in this way for two reasons. First reason being that most of these modern day movements and revolutions are in pursuit of a high technological civilization with the aid of material comforts to keep us solidly grounded in the external world, with the chance of no internal inquiry into the nature of our existence. So these sorts of movements will only benefit the ego which brings us to our second reason. The other reason being that the nature of our existence is not found
The Space Between
The Space Between How do we close the gap? The gap that we believe exists between you and I. What would it take for humanity to acknowledge space in a higher sense? We have all learned from birth that the space between you and me, the planets and throughout the universe is just emptiness, nothing. But is all this space truly empty, or is there a deeper understanding? What is the space between? When we see external objects, animals, people, etc., we just perceive the forms and not the formless. We will look into the eyes of another and only recognize the person, but could you ever look into the eyes of another without the formless, the space? These ways of thinking should be fundamental in our educational system, yet it is foreign to especially the western mindset. The reason why is because the western model of education is only interested in boosting and perpetuating ones ego. If we are from childhood blindly educated to believe we are separate from everything else, then we uphold this false system of thought until the day we die. This is why we cannot truly contemplate what the space between is. We are all raised into a Darwinian mode of consciousness, where we are made to believe that this is a dog eat dog world, where only the strong survive. So the Darwin model which society is built on today only develops the false-ego. It enforces a false belief of separation, so we continue to see ourselves as isolated human beings. Understanding the gap between you and I is not even a relevant question in the Darwinian world, because if we look into the space between, we will shatter the world of limitations and separateness which binds us to our false-ego. When one looks into the space between, we come to a phrase which is thrown around a lot these days. The phrase of “We are one.” When most people hear this, they do not truly understand what is meant by “We are one.” Some try to comprehend this unity in a logical sense and others begin to go deeper. The mundane view of being all one is that we are one with each other on Earth. We see the same sky and we breathe the same air. Then on a deeper level people begin to understand that we all came from an energetic charge that created the universe, which we now know as “the big bang.” Knowledge of this gives us the understanding that we are all energetically connected as one, thus we are energy. Usually when this is taken onboard it will reveal the true nature of this phrase, “We are one.” The true meaning of “We are one” is that we are actually one. You are me and I am you, there is no separation between you and I. The reason we are each other is because what drives this energetic connection between all things that create the physical universe is consciousness. Consciousness is the fundamental principle of the universe. This foundation of all life is what truly connects us as one. A lot of ancient sages, shamans, yogis, philosophers and psychologists have always known we are one mind. That is the truth; we are one consciousness living a dualistic experience. The evidence of this conscious connection is everywhere for those with open eyes to see. Most of the time people discount events in their everyday life which are synchronistic. People usually believe such events are just a coincidence, but there is actually no such thing as a coincidence because everything is a synchronicity through our one consciousness. These are basic understandings for a clairvoyant, mystic and psychic, and it also explains telepathy, because for those who are telepathic never ignore the feelings they get inside. Majority of us ignore these feelings and pass them off as erroneous thoughts. But these feelings are the language which resonates within all sentient life. This is why when we see an animal or person being harmed we feel that pain but it is also the joy we feel from everything in all life. These feelings cannot be described by the eyes that see, because it is a feeling within, not a visual experience. As we further the understanding of our unity, we see that it is not the distance between our physical world where we feel such pain or pleasure, but it is in the space between. If we are one then how can we describe the space between physical matter? When the intellectual mind/ego minded person hears such a statement, they begin to over analyze and rationalize the simplicity that is there before them. This is because their perception of life is conditioned with the western model of science. With their intellect getting in the way, they will say, “Well the space between you and I is air which is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen and minute amounts of other gases that surrounds the Earth and form its atmosphere.” So once again we over simplify anything to try and justify our separate individual ego. Our false separate view of reality is why the world is in a state of unrest. Our molded educated mind only sees a world apart, so it attacks. By not giving any deeper meaning to the space between, we see it as air, as nothing, so we blindly believe that we are a stranger to our environment. The separate stranger who believes they walk alone in this world will consciously perpetuate a world divided. All nations, religions, races and sexes who believe they are separate will continue to exist, because the gap between all things is judged as nothing. Yet how could we exist without the space between? The gap you see between people and all life is an illusion. This space has fooled us into believing that we are on our