Pure Awareness is non-local awareness. Consciousness, which is local awareness, is the foreground of Pure Awareness in humans. The body, the mind, the world and consciousness all co-emerge in Pure Awareness. Illumination by the light of Awareness imparts the quality of Beingness to all appearances. Living, intelligent Awareness is Presence. When form manifests in Awareness it creates a field of consciousness. All of the myriad objects that appear, making up consciousness, are valuable, significant and meaningful only in that they shine in the radiance of Pure Awareness. This alone is their substance and reality. In no other way can they be said to exist.
Each of us, as sentient beings, are localizations of Awareness, and, as such , are beacons which radiate reality. In the light of our Presence, animating every object blessed in its glow, Beingness blossoms forth.
For Awareness to be local it must have an instrument of sensory perception and a vehicle to house that instrument. That's the human body with it's organs of sense perception. The vehicle appears as one of its own perceptions in the field of consciousness. That is the human in the world. In a universe where everything is in flux, the body must be endowed with self-regulating, and self-preserving capacities; the animal instinct. If it is to relate to, and interact with many others, also driven by self-preserving animal instincts, then the vehicle of localized awareness must have advanced relationship skills to enhance survival in complex social structures. That is the ego personality.
What we wind up with is a vehicle of awareness that has multiple levels of capacity in self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-preservation. Yet, as complex, intelligent and talented as it is, the body is simply a vehicle. It is a sensor, as it were, placing boundless, eternal, infinite,pure awareness in a local, time-bound and finite realm. This realm is populated by billions of awareness-vehicle life forms which must, of necessity, prey upon each other for their own survival. As a result conflict is built in to the experience of this dimension.
Yet, the light of Pure Awareness, in which all of the seething, conflicted masses appear, is itself, utterly without conflict. Pure Awareness is not compelled to struggle or suffer in the spectacle it reifies and animates. It watches.
The living intelligence which understands these words is not human. It is not a quality of consciousness, nor is it a phenomena of the world. It is Pure Awareness, reaching out through its vehicles, caressing itself as the temporary form loving its own infinite depth. It is this one intelligence, this one Presence, the inner and only Self. It is you.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Presence of Being Trancends Memory
There are two fundamentally different types of knowledge. One is direct, non-memory based knowledge; what Hameed Ali calls basic knowledge. The other is ordinary regular knowledge, entirely memory based. Memories are the building blocks of ordinary knowledge and all memories are, themselves, ordinary knowledge.
Basic direct knowledge is a unique type of focused attention. Direct Knowledge is in the moment, held in the light of Pure Awareness, which is is the intelligent capacity to know, inherent in Presence of Being. Thus, direct knowledge is the direct experience of Presence as intelligent, knowing, Awareness. Very fundamental.
Ordinary, memory based knowledge is retained so that it can be retrieved in the mind later, giving us the ability to focus our attention outside the moment. It is, by definition, outside the moment, referenced to, and networked into, the constellation of mental structures and images we hold as memory of past experience. Ordinary knowledge is attention placed on images of past events, held in the light of consciousness. As such, ordinary knowledge gives you an indirect experience of your own life ,while you are engaged in living it! In the moment,yes, but only partially of the moment. Memory of past experience superimposed on the present moment mostly obscure it.
Memory is a survival tool for carrying information forward in the mind to inform and influence the present from the past. This is a body - mind consciousness process. It has a survival advantage, and as such, is necessary and useful. It does not, however, function to give a better immediate, objective, ontologically authentic experience of reality as Presence in the moment. Quite the contrary. Memory serves to obscure experience of Presence, precisely because the memory function requires that attention focus outside the moment, while Presence , of course, is only in the present moment.
Memory is a biological mind function , fully referenced in the field of consciousness and revolving around the biological body. Ordinary knowledge is memory based and inseparable from memory. In relationship to the present moment , ordinary memory based knowledge is always indirect. Much of the experience is inferred from memory and, no matter how detailed, vivid, or significant it may seem, its main content is a preponderance of images from the past overlaying the present. Focusing attention outside the present in order to benefit from knowledge of the past results in inhabiting a present so crowded with recalled elements of past experience that past and present feel very much the same. Presence is lost because Presence is never a memory. It is never ordinary knowledge. It is untainted as a reference to the past, except as a dead image or symbol, misused and always misunderstood by the ordinary mind .
When attention is habitually focused outside the present moment you lose touch with Presence, you lose touch with reality, you lose touch with your true identity, and you lose touch with your capacities, the essential qualities of Presence of Being. Everything truly significant and meaningful resides in the present moment, inseparable from and expressed as your own
Presence of Being. Your identity, your intelligence, your capacities, and your significance are all innate to your Presence.
To believe that you remember your Presence is always a delusion. You may remember ordinary knowledge images of how Presence felt to the body, or how the mind was influenced by Presence, but it is impossible to form a memory of the ontological thusness of Presence itself. Memory and Presence are different categories of experience. The first is illusory, though convincing, useful and protective of the body - mind. The later is real. It is not a subjective experience of reality. It is, rather, an objective experience of being the Presence, knowingness, oneness, and dynamism of reality. This experience is authentic, unmistakable, solid and complete without any need to reference images or the past. Presence of Being, with all of its Essential Qualities, is real. Everything else is illusory.
Basic direct knowledge is a unique type of focused attention. Direct Knowledge is in the moment, held in the light of Pure Awareness, which is is the intelligent capacity to know, inherent in Presence of Being. Thus, direct knowledge is the direct experience of Presence as intelligent, knowing, Awareness. Very fundamental.
Ordinary, memory based knowledge is retained so that it can be retrieved in the mind later, giving us the ability to focus our attention outside the moment. It is, by definition, outside the moment, referenced to, and networked into, the constellation of mental structures and images we hold as memory of past experience. Ordinary knowledge is attention placed on images of past events, held in the light of consciousness. As such, ordinary knowledge gives you an indirect experience of your own life ,while you are engaged in living it! In the moment,yes, but only partially of the moment. Memory of past experience superimposed on the present moment mostly obscure it.
Memory is a survival tool for carrying information forward in the mind to inform and influence the present from the past. This is a body - mind consciousness process. It has a survival advantage, and as such, is necessary and useful. It does not, however, function to give a better immediate, objective, ontologically authentic experience of reality as Presence in the moment. Quite the contrary. Memory serves to obscure experience of Presence, precisely because the memory function requires that attention focus outside the moment, while Presence , of course, is only in the present moment.
Memory is a biological mind function , fully referenced in the field of consciousness and revolving around the biological body. Ordinary knowledge is memory based and inseparable from memory. In relationship to the present moment , ordinary memory based knowledge is always indirect. Much of the experience is inferred from memory and, no matter how detailed, vivid, or significant it may seem, its main content is a preponderance of images from the past overlaying the present. Focusing attention outside the present in order to benefit from knowledge of the past results in inhabiting a present so crowded with recalled elements of past experience that past and present feel very much the same. Presence is lost because Presence is never a memory. It is never ordinary knowledge. It is untainted as a reference to the past, except as a dead image or symbol, misused and always misunderstood by the ordinary mind .
When attention is habitually focused outside the present moment you lose touch with Presence, you lose touch with reality, you lose touch with your true identity, and you lose touch with your capacities, the essential qualities of Presence of Being. Everything truly significant and meaningful resides in the present moment, inseparable from and expressed as your own
Presence of Being. Your identity, your intelligence, your capacities, and your significance are all innate to your Presence.
To believe that you remember your Presence is always a delusion. You may remember ordinary knowledge images of how Presence felt to the body, or how the mind was influenced by Presence, but it is impossible to form a memory of the ontological thusness of Presence itself. Memory and Presence are different categories of experience. The first is illusory, though convincing, useful and protective of the body - mind. The later is real. It is not a subjective experience of reality. It is, rather, an objective experience of being the Presence, knowingness, oneness, and dynamism of reality. This experience is authentic, unmistakable, solid and complete without any need to reference images or the past. Presence of Being, with all of its Essential Qualities, is real. Everything else is illusory.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Root of Conflict in Relationship
The personality ego structure is vulnerable and fragile. It cannot withstand the narcissistic challenges inherent in routine daily interactions without having it's deficiencies and insecurities exposed repeatedly. This continual chipping away at the ego structure would soon be overwhelming except for the tactics used to divert and dissipate potentially damaging input.
We all, from infancy, have developed the unquestioned habit of looking outward, to others, to know who we are. They tell us, by their words and actions in relationship with us, what and who we are, our value, and our significance. Other people act as mirrors allowing us to see ourselves. As ego personalities we largely exist as a composite of these external images, mirrored to us by others, internalized and then adopted as identity. Consequently we experience our very beings as threatened when negative, insulting or painful images of us are presented by others.
Thus, using people as external mirrors to better see ourselves, we formed self images and in this way created our ego selves. Without constant vigilance, we run the risk that negative images from others might replace or destroy the positive images we hold of our goodness, value, meaning, and significance.
We are vulnerable because others create our ego selves, good and bad. We are fragile because these ego structures are merely images, without real substance. As ego personality 'selves' it is inevitable that we always feel threatened by others in this way.
The most commonly used and universal strategy for dealing with this insecurity of identity is to attack anyone perceived as threatening. Mirror negativity and deficiency to them, as their quality. Preserve one's own fragile self image by projecting inadequacy onto them. This, of course, will have some predictable effects. First, they will be insulted and wounded. Their ego, also a mere collection of images , will be weakened and the illusory nature of their self, nearly exposed. An immediate counter attack will usually ensue, either overtly or covertly. With both parties constantly maneuvering to protect and preserve feeble, image based, self identity structures, it is easy to set off conflict of this nature in any type of human interaction.
In fact, conflict is an absolutely indispensable component of daily intercourse among ego identified individuals . That is to say, it is an integral part of the coping strategy for everyone, in all of their relationships. The active experience of conflict directs judgmental, critical energies outward, away from your own threatened ego self. It elicits powerful emotions like anger, hatred, rage and contempt. Though distorted and destructive, they give substance and support to the ego. Energy flows. One knows what to do. Action is taken.
Thus, conflict actually serves to convert personality damaging, deficiency revealing , negative mirroring into an experience of self as substantial, and capable. Conflict tells you where you stand, who you are, and what you should do. It gives orientation and is very comforting. Even though the emotions of conflict are negative, they support us when we would , otherwise, experience devastating inadequacy.
Relationships that are structured around conflict elicit this defensive psychic armor; protecting, shielding and defending the fragile ego. If we are to exist as functional, adult personalities we must live, to some degree, in a continual state of conflict. That we all do is self evident.
From early on, we need others and they need us for ego creating, ego enhancing mirroring and support. We also need others and they need us for conflict, and a place to project our own deficiencies, so that we can deny and remain numb to the truth of our own ego vulnerabilty, inadequacy and anxiety. We need contentious others for the armoring, energy, substance, orientation and power evoked in defense of the ego. Ego personalities in relationship simply must have a steady diet of conflict to maintain the integrity of their experience of self.
The inevitability of conflict between ego personalities is best demonstrated in intimate relationship. The ego threat that we seek to defend ourselves against is rooted in our habit of knowing ourselves through others. The one person, historically, that we all most rely on to know ourselves, is our mothers. It is Mom, the unquestioned authority in our infancy and childhood, who informs us about our being, our value, and our significance long before we have the maturity of introspection and self observation. She literally tells us who we are. Later this capacity and right to define us is voluntarily conferred , in large measure, upon our intimate partner.
Because the partner is entrusted with this power to define who we are, our value, and our significance, they exert an immense influence over the quality of the experience of our life. If we perceive them as mirroring us negatively, our reaction is profound. The negativity they are expressing about us may be minor, but the threat that it represents to our self image is major. So is our reaction. In this way, conflict between partners is prone to escalate out of control, even when both parties are well meaning. The stakes are just so high. As personalities , conflict with the partner tends to overwhelm. The experience of fair, informative and appropriately perceived negativity from one's intimate partner is nearly an impossibility. Again, this is due to the vulnerability of the ego combined with it's extreme fragility as a structure of images.
An intimate partner is encouraged to express positivity and mirror good images to their lover, but not negativity, even when appropriate and balanced. The ego just spooks to easily. Over- reaction to criticism expresses first as a defensive counterattack. Negativity projected back onto the complaining partner. This will then provoke an over reaction in them. The chance of a measured communication of simple displeasure then goes out the window. Both partners are relating from the space of an extreme threat to their identity. Appropriate handling of the original issue is lost in a desperate flood of emotion and confusion.
Ego's fragile vulnerability, most specifically to the intimate partner, makes us prone to feeling quickly overwhelmed in any conflict with them, yet conflict will certainly happen. The issue of how to handle conflict appropriately is central to the maintenance of an enduring and authentic relationship. The challenges for ego personalities to attempt this are formidable but unavoidable for couples intent on a mature relationship grounded in truth.
Ego selves just don't relate to others very well. They're too fragile, too needful, too easily spooked and too ruthless when they go off. This situation is not presented for lamentation, nor because it needs to be fixed. It is offered simply for consideration. To be pondered. Held by that part of us that is bigger than this. Clarity of understanding evokes healing.
We all, from infancy, have developed the unquestioned habit of looking outward, to others, to know who we are. They tell us, by their words and actions in relationship with us, what and who we are, our value, and our significance. Other people act as mirrors allowing us to see ourselves. As ego personalities we largely exist as a composite of these external images, mirrored to us by others, internalized and then adopted as identity. Consequently we experience our very beings as threatened when negative, insulting or painful images of us are presented by others.
Thus, using people as external mirrors to better see ourselves, we formed self images and in this way created our ego selves. Without constant vigilance, we run the risk that negative images from others might replace or destroy the positive images we hold of our goodness, value, meaning, and significance.
We are vulnerable because others create our ego selves, good and bad. We are fragile because these ego structures are merely images, without real substance. As ego personality 'selves' it is inevitable that we always feel threatened by others in this way.
The most commonly used and universal strategy for dealing with this insecurity of identity is to attack anyone perceived as threatening. Mirror negativity and deficiency to them, as their quality. Preserve one's own fragile self image by projecting inadequacy onto them. This, of course, will have some predictable effects. First, they will be insulted and wounded. Their ego, also a mere collection of images , will be weakened and the illusory nature of their self, nearly exposed. An immediate counter attack will usually ensue, either overtly or covertly. With both parties constantly maneuvering to protect and preserve feeble, image based, self identity structures, it is easy to set off conflict of this nature in any type of human interaction.
In fact, conflict is an absolutely indispensable component of daily intercourse among ego identified individuals . That is to say, it is an integral part of the coping strategy for everyone, in all of their relationships. The active experience of conflict directs judgmental, critical energies outward, away from your own threatened ego self. It elicits powerful emotions like anger, hatred, rage and contempt. Though distorted and destructive, they give substance and support to the ego. Energy flows. One knows what to do. Action is taken.
Thus, conflict actually serves to convert personality damaging, deficiency revealing , negative mirroring into an experience of self as substantial, and capable. Conflict tells you where you stand, who you are, and what you should do. It gives orientation and is very comforting. Even though the emotions of conflict are negative, they support us when we would , otherwise, experience devastating inadequacy.
Relationships that are structured around conflict elicit this defensive psychic armor; protecting, shielding and defending the fragile ego. If we are to exist as functional, adult personalities we must live, to some degree, in a continual state of conflict. That we all do is self evident.
From early on, we need others and they need us for ego creating, ego enhancing mirroring and support. We also need others and they need us for conflict, and a place to project our own deficiencies, so that we can deny and remain numb to the truth of our own ego vulnerabilty, inadequacy and anxiety. We need contentious others for the armoring, energy, substance, orientation and power evoked in defense of the ego. Ego personalities in relationship simply must have a steady diet of conflict to maintain the integrity of their experience of self.
The inevitability of conflict between ego personalities is best demonstrated in intimate relationship. The ego threat that we seek to defend ourselves against is rooted in our habit of knowing ourselves through others. The one person, historically, that we all most rely on to know ourselves, is our mothers. It is Mom, the unquestioned authority in our infancy and childhood, who informs us about our being, our value, and our significance long before we have the maturity of introspection and self observation. She literally tells us who we are. Later this capacity and right to define us is voluntarily conferred , in large measure, upon our intimate partner.
Because the partner is entrusted with this power to define who we are, our value, and our significance, they exert an immense influence over the quality of the experience of our life. If we perceive them as mirroring us negatively, our reaction is profound. The negativity they are expressing about us may be minor, but the threat that it represents to our self image is major. So is our reaction. In this way, conflict between partners is prone to escalate out of control, even when both parties are well meaning. The stakes are just so high. As personalities , conflict with the partner tends to overwhelm. The experience of fair, informative and appropriately perceived negativity from one's intimate partner is nearly an impossibility. Again, this is due to the vulnerability of the ego combined with it's extreme fragility as a structure of images.
An intimate partner is encouraged to express positivity and mirror good images to their lover, but not negativity, even when appropriate and balanced. The ego just spooks to easily. Over- reaction to criticism expresses first as a defensive counterattack. Negativity projected back onto the complaining partner. This will then provoke an over reaction in them. The chance of a measured communication of simple displeasure then goes out the window. Both partners are relating from the space of an extreme threat to their identity. Appropriate handling of the original issue is lost in a desperate flood of emotion and confusion.
Ego's fragile vulnerability, most specifically to the intimate partner, makes us prone to feeling quickly overwhelmed in any conflict with them, yet conflict will certainly happen. The issue of how to handle conflict appropriately is central to the maintenance of an enduring and authentic relationship. The challenges for ego personalities to attempt this are formidable but unavoidable for couples intent on a mature relationship grounded in truth.
Ego selves just don't relate to others very well. They're too fragile, too needful, too easily spooked and too ruthless when they go off. This situation is not presented for lamentation, nor because it needs to be fixed. It is offered simply for consideration. To be pondered. Held by that part of us that is bigger than this. Clarity of understanding evokes healing.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
An Expansive View of Mind
What is the relationship of the mind to the body? How does this play out in awakening? The mind has local powers, capacities and sense perceptions that are oriented to, and dependent upon, the body. The mind is an organized field of locally gathered knowledge assembled from sensory perceptions understood in a context grounded in instinct. Enhancing this perceptual knowledge are powers of image formation, memory, conceptualization, logic, and rational thought. Emotions complete the picture. All prioritized around, and primarily concerned with, the affairs of the physical body. This pretty well describes the societal consensus of beliefs regarding the body-mind, and if it was a complete description of the knowledge sources informing the mind, it would be simple to grasp. As a one dimensional phenomena, this really is what human beings are about.
The complication is that humans are multi-dimensional beings. Other sources contribute direct knowings, sensings, and contexts of intelligence to the mind. Although subtle and seemingly vague or ephemeral in comparison to the five senses, they become distinct and profound when cultivated. Our powers for being complete humans are dependent upon, and reside in these other-dimensional realms. The extra-corporeal perceptions, in fact, are vital, and indispensable to the comprehension and inhabiting of or our true identities.
Regardless of this truth, what we usually wind up with is a multi-dimensional mind display referenced to one dimension , physical reality. Consequently, a lot of mind content seems confusing, out of place or irrelevant. It ends up being ignored, dismissed, and discarded. One's reality closes in and stagnates.
What is lost is nothing less than our humanity. Knowledge, understanding, intelligence and capacity originating in the dimension of Presence are screened out or, at best, misunderstood and undervalued. Essential Aspects of Presence of Being are not allowed to instruct us or to imbue in us the direct experiential wisdom of our identity, our capacity, and our potential.
Non-local, extra-corporeal and trans-dimensional knowledge are part of our birth right; the power of their perception innate to the potential of every human. The key to accessing this treasure lies in the cultivation of our sense of Presence, the most attainable dimension, nearest to, but beyond, physical manifestation.
It must be realized and understood that we substitute mental and emotional states for Essence. The understanding of these states as false and obstructing to our vision, frees the way for us to activate other more authentic and expansive capacities, until then, habitually overlooked.
The complication is that humans are multi-dimensional beings. Other sources contribute direct knowings, sensings, and contexts of intelligence to the mind. Although subtle and seemingly vague or ephemeral in comparison to the five senses, they become distinct and profound when cultivated. Our powers for being complete humans are dependent upon, and reside in these other-dimensional realms. The extra-corporeal perceptions, in fact, are vital, and indispensable to the comprehension and inhabiting of or our true identities.
Regardless of this truth, what we usually wind up with is a multi-dimensional mind display referenced to one dimension , physical reality. Consequently, a lot of mind content seems confusing, out of place or irrelevant. It ends up being ignored, dismissed, and discarded. One's reality closes in and stagnates.
What is lost is nothing less than our humanity. Knowledge, understanding, intelligence and capacity originating in the dimension of Presence are screened out or, at best, misunderstood and undervalued. Essential Aspects of Presence of Being are not allowed to instruct us or to imbue in us the direct experiential wisdom of our identity, our capacity, and our potential.
Non-local, extra-corporeal and trans-dimensional knowledge are part of our birth right; the power of their perception innate to the potential of every human. The key to accessing this treasure lies in the cultivation of our sense of Presence, the most attainable dimension, nearest to, but beyond, physical manifestation.
It must be realized and understood that we substitute mental and emotional states for Essence. The understanding of these states as false and obstructing to our vision, frees the way for us to activate other more authentic and expansive capacities, until then, habitually overlooked.
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Superego: A Two-Edged Sword
Superego attacks of judgement, comparison and criticism are authoritarian power statements that are narrowly referenced, biased and predominantly false. These judgements are given to us to serve as frames of reference in determining the experience of our self identity. The intent is that we find this negative frame of reference to be painful and that we take action to change it.
The action initiated is supposed to be one that will please the superego, and cause it to withdraw its negative judgement. Hopefully, the superego will substitute a positive judgement that we can use as a frame of reference for identity in place of the painful negative one. In a nutshell, superego manipulates the perception of one's identity in order to have power to influence one's actions.
This raises some basic questions. Can one's identity really be known by others? Seen, valued, perceived, and discerned accurately? When judging others as superego, is it our right to say, "This is how you are", or is it more truthful to say, "This is how you appear to me"? Superego judgement of others always wounds them because it always places the power of self knowledge outside themselves.
Doesn't the one acting as judge also lose? They validate the process of superego identity judgements. Superegos are thus acknowledged as empowered to determine identity for others and are simultaneously acknowledged as having the power to assign our own identities. In this way the wound of superego always cuts both ways. Thus, it is true that we can't be free of superego's tyranny over ourselves unless we give up judging and criticising others. Having an active superego is like owning a temperamental and vicious dog. If it isn't kept busy and engaged stalking and biting others, it will turn and bite us.
For us to attack, judge and criticize others is tantamount to attacking ourselves. It may temporarily postpone our wounding, but makes it none the less a certainty. Superego is strengthened, emboldened, nourished and empowered every time we use it internally or externally.
Self-realization, the knowledge and experience of who we really are, is subverted, blocked and denied by superego. Every time the superego is exercised it increases the veil that blocks our awakening.
The action initiated is supposed to be one that will please the superego, and cause it to withdraw its negative judgement. Hopefully, the superego will substitute a positive judgement that we can use as a frame of reference for identity in place of the painful negative one. In a nutshell, superego manipulates the perception of one's identity in order to have power to influence one's actions.
This raises some basic questions. Can one's identity really be known by others? Seen, valued, perceived, and discerned accurately? When judging others as superego, is it our right to say, "This is how you are", or is it more truthful to say, "This is how you appear to me"? Superego judgement of others always wounds them because it always places the power of self knowledge outside themselves.
Doesn't the one acting as judge also lose? They validate the process of superego identity judgements. Superegos are thus acknowledged as empowered to determine identity for others and are simultaneously acknowledged as having the power to assign our own identities. In this way the wound of superego always cuts both ways. Thus, it is true that we can't be free of superego's tyranny over ourselves unless we give up judging and criticising others. Having an active superego is like owning a temperamental and vicious dog. If it isn't kept busy and engaged stalking and biting others, it will turn and bite us.
For us to attack, judge and criticize others is tantamount to attacking ourselves. It may temporarily postpone our wounding, but makes it none the less a certainty. Superego is strengthened, emboldened, nourished and empowered every time we use it internally or externally.
Self-realization, the knowledge and experience of who we really are, is subverted, blocked and denied by superego. Every time the superego is exercised it increases the veil that blocks our awakening.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Body is a Portal to Other Dimensions
We are multidimensional beings. As Presence, which is self-aware awareness, we can and do inhabit many realms of reality. In order for those dimensions to inform and orient our mind-body manifestation we must activate and unfold our innate powers to perceive, sense, discern, and understand the spectrum of our home dimensions. Since all dimensions are present at all levels, at all times, it is not a matter of moving from one to another in actual location. It seems to be a shift in the content of our sensing perceptions that moves us from dimension to dimension.
Is this shift a change in how the senses are used? Or, is it a shift in which sensing power is utilized? It's both, singly and in combination. Physical senses are necessary to monitor the body and it's environment and for keeping it safe. A portion of the mind is active in this process as well, working out the logistics of problem solving for survival. While these body-mind level processes are going on, attention can be in the dimension of Presence experiencing spontaneously arising Essential Qualities that are naturally appropriate to one's situation. This happens simultaneous to the body and mind doing their parts, when Essence is not blocked. So, the body is a portal to Essence, to Presence.
The powers of the body and the mind protect, nourish, and nurture the body so it can function unimpeded as a portal to Essential Qualities of Presence of Being. The Essential Qualities arise spontaneously in response to circumstances and dynamics of interaction of the body-mind in consciousness. This co-emergent interaction of body-mind and Essence activates senses and empowers intelligent capacities that enable one to experience the universe as a positivity that is loving and lovable without exception. A perfect holding of lightness and goodness.
Experiential knowledge of our physical - mental presence and our Essential Presence, co-emerging in a perfect loving universe opens the dimension of pure Awareness. Awareness has boundless perceptive capacity in all dimensions. Empowered Awareness holds the totality of what can be known and experienced, in perfect equanimity and ease.
In the flawless clarity of its unbounded expanse Awareness finds one unknown. One unknowable. The mystery of it's own origin. The Absolute. Drawn irresistibly, Awareness sheds awareness of itself, thus entering the portal to the Absolute. The infinitely mysterious source of all is, itself, utterly unknowable. As such, it enters all other dimensions, itself remaining implicit as potential; the context, never the content.
Is this shift a change in how the senses are used? Or, is it a shift in which sensing power is utilized? It's both, singly and in combination. Physical senses are necessary to monitor the body and it's environment and for keeping it safe. A portion of the mind is active in this process as well, working out the logistics of problem solving for survival. While these body-mind level processes are going on, attention can be in the dimension of Presence experiencing spontaneously arising Essential Qualities that are naturally appropriate to one's situation. This happens simultaneous to the body and mind doing their parts, when Essence is not blocked. So, the body is a portal to Essence, to Presence.
The powers of the body and the mind protect, nourish, and nurture the body so it can function unimpeded as a portal to Essential Qualities of Presence of Being. The Essential Qualities arise spontaneously in response to circumstances and dynamics of interaction of the body-mind in consciousness. This co-emergent interaction of body-mind and Essence activates senses and empowers intelligent capacities that enable one to experience the universe as a positivity that is loving and lovable without exception. A perfect holding of lightness and goodness.
Experiential knowledge of our physical - mental presence and our Essential Presence, co-emerging in a perfect loving universe opens the dimension of pure Awareness. Awareness has boundless perceptive capacity in all dimensions. Empowered Awareness holds the totality of what can be known and experienced, in perfect equanimity and ease.
In the flawless clarity of its unbounded expanse Awareness finds one unknown. One unknowable. The mystery of it's own origin. The Absolute. Drawn irresistibly, Awareness sheds awareness of itself, thus entering the portal to the Absolute. The infinitely mysterious source of all is, itself, utterly unknowable. As such, it enters all other dimensions, itself remaining implicit as potential; the context, never the content.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Why Life Always Feels the Same
Beginning at the inception of our concept forming mind Mom intervenes and constantly refocuses our attention.
Refocused attention evokes in us the experiences she wants.
Memory of those experiences create anticipation and expectation that they will occur in the future.
Anticipation and expectation focus our attention and evoke our perception of the experiences imagined. Experiences repeat.
Superego messages, judgements, beliefs, criticisms and comparisons continually refocus our attention thus reinforcing and habituating the experiences they predict.
Habits of attention, perception and experience are formed that create continuity and substance for the 'world' anticipated. It is thereby reified.
The universe that Mom focused our attention on, described ,and predicted, is now perceptually and experientially created and inhabited by us.
With some variation of content but not quality, it endlessly repeats. Over time, with repetition, it gets more and more 'real'.
Refocused attention evokes in us the experiences she wants.
Memory of those experiences create anticipation and expectation that they will occur in the future.
Anticipation and expectation focus our attention and evoke our perception of the experiences imagined. Experiences repeat.
Superego messages, judgements, beliefs, criticisms and comparisons continually refocus our attention thus reinforcing and habituating the experiences they predict.
Habits of attention, perception and experience are formed that create continuity and substance for the 'world' anticipated. It is thereby reified.
The universe that Mom focused our attention on, described ,and predicted, is now perceptually and experientially created and inhabited by us.
With some variation of content but not quality, it endlessly repeats. Over time, with repetition, it gets more and more 'real'.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Challenging Our Orientation to Pain
It seems obvious enough. Pain contracts. Pain stagnates. Pain constrains. Pain interrupts flow. Pain takes our power; it defeats us. Pain seems to make us helpless and dependent. It seems that pain takes our will, our strength, our value, and our power. It also seems to cut us off from other qualities of Presence such as appreciation, gratitude, joy, satisfaction, curiosity, contentment, acceptance, forgiveness, and understanding. In sum, pain seems to insist that we focus on pain in the absence of Presence and it's holding qualities of both integrity and bliss.
This seems odd, and very suspicious.One would think that a natural unfolding of events would lead automatically from pain to the arising of those universally possessed, latent but unexpressed, internal powers of Presence best suited for dealing with pain. Survival would be promoted. Why does this not happen? Why does the very opposite occur?
In people firmly committed to their ego self identities, arising Essential qualities of Presence in others near to them begins to evoke their own sense of Presence. But, the immediate focus is on the emptiness and deficiency of their ego state as they begin to move away from it and towards Presence. Thus, Presence in others will make them feel threatened and uncomfortable.
A young child in pain will naturally experience rising Presence in its supporting and holding aspects. This will initiate vague, but definite feelings of inadequacy and emptiness in the ego-identified parent, unable to recognize the child's Presence for what it is, or the estrangement from their own Presence of Being. As a result, without knowing why, the parent is offended and feels wounded by the appearance of their child's powers of Presence. Accordingly the parent both overtly and unconsciously discourages and prevents the arising of, and unfolding of, their child's intrinsic capacities and powers to deal with pain.
For the child, the relationship with the parent supercedes their natural innate relationship to pain and their powers of Presence. The parent's estrangement from their own powers of Presence then results in a serious distortion of the child's developing relationship with his pain, and his identity as Presence. All based on the discomfort exposed when holding powers of Presence threaten to reveal the emptiness of the ego personality.
The child then, with the parents guidance, learns to impede its natural flow, constrain its innate holding powers of Presence, and contract its consciousness around the presence of pain. The natural unfolding of intrinsic powers in the child is blocked. Flowing capacities of evoked powers are thwarted, their development stunted and their ability to provide inner holding for the child in pain, denied.
For this to happen, the hurting child must turn his focus to the pain and the object relationship with the parents, while denying his intrinsic wisdom. This model for experiencing and dealing with pain becomes habituated, internalized and reified. Decades later the dynamic is virtually the same in the adult.
In this framework of reference, pain is to be rejected, turned away from, and gotten rid of by whatever means possible. To go into it is to invite disempowerment, helplessness, and dependency. Pain is seen to take something precious from us. To accept it is unthinkable.
In truth, pain naturally evokes innate powers of Presence capable of deepening the capacity of the one hurting, often while soothing, comforting, and promoting healing.
Quality of life is diminished immensely when the tremendous significance of pain as empowering is lost. In its place, pain is mis-labeled and given significance as an agent of disempowerment. Each time we are hurt, physically or mentally, we activate this distorted framework of references giving orientation and meaning to our pain, our identities and our world. If pain did, in truth, disempower and cut us off from Presence, then we would live an inimical world. In this realm, where pain is ubiquitous, every pain turns us away from our inherent powers. Every pain denies our Essential Presence. Every pain tightens the grip of delusional conditioning on our experience of life.
This seems odd, and very suspicious.One would think that a natural unfolding of events would lead automatically from pain to the arising of those universally possessed, latent but unexpressed, internal powers of Presence best suited for dealing with pain. Survival would be promoted. Why does this not happen? Why does the very opposite occur?
In people firmly committed to their ego self identities, arising Essential qualities of Presence in others near to them begins to evoke their own sense of Presence. But, the immediate focus is on the emptiness and deficiency of their ego state as they begin to move away from it and towards Presence. Thus, Presence in others will make them feel threatened and uncomfortable.
A young child in pain will naturally experience rising Presence in its supporting and holding aspects. This will initiate vague, but definite feelings of inadequacy and emptiness in the ego-identified parent, unable to recognize the child's Presence for what it is, or the estrangement from their own Presence of Being. As a result, without knowing why, the parent is offended and feels wounded by the appearance of their child's powers of Presence. Accordingly the parent both overtly and unconsciously discourages and prevents the arising of, and unfolding of, their child's intrinsic capacities and powers to deal with pain.
For the child, the relationship with the parent supercedes their natural innate relationship to pain and their powers of Presence. The parent's estrangement from their own powers of Presence then results in a serious distortion of the child's developing relationship with his pain, and his identity as Presence. All based on the discomfort exposed when holding powers of Presence threaten to reveal the emptiness of the ego personality.
The child then, with the parents guidance, learns to impede its natural flow, constrain its innate holding powers of Presence, and contract its consciousness around the presence of pain. The natural unfolding of intrinsic powers in the child is blocked. Flowing capacities of evoked powers are thwarted, their development stunted and their ability to provide inner holding for the child in pain, denied.
For this to happen, the hurting child must turn his focus to the pain and the object relationship with the parents, while denying his intrinsic wisdom. This model for experiencing and dealing with pain becomes habituated, internalized and reified. Decades later the dynamic is virtually the same in the adult.
In this framework of reference, pain is to be rejected, turned away from, and gotten rid of by whatever means possible. To go into it is to invite disempowerment, helplessness, and dependency. Pain is seen to take something precious from us. To accept it is unthinkable.
In truth, pain naturally evokes innate powers of Presence capable of deepening the capacity of the one hurting, often while soothing, comforting, and promoting healing.
Quality of life is diminished immensely when the tremendous significance of pain as empowering is lost. In its place, pain is mis-labeled and given significance as an agent of disempowerment. Each time we are hurt, physically or mentally, we activate this distorted framework of references giving orientation and meaning to our pain, our identities and our world. If pain did, in truth, disempower and cut us off from Presence, then we would live an inimical world. In this realm, where pain is ubiquitous, every pain turns us away from our inherent powers. Every pain denies our Essential Presence. Every pain tightens the grip of delusional conditioning on our experience of life.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Tracings on the soul
There are events which occur in life that leave a tracing on the soul. Events so painful,deep and early that they are virtually impossible to metabolize through enquiry. These early woundings cannot be explicitly known. They are stored in the primitive psyche, unavailable to conceptual, verbal consciousness. When these preconceptual patternings of the soul emerge into consciousness, it is as urges, emotions, habits and, most importantly, as the context and background of mature consciousness. This is the tone, the feel, the affect of consciousness before any thought-forms enter.
This background of primitive affect is there experientially. We feel it, and know it so deeply that it is inseparable from consciousness itself. It is held and known as a fundamental quality of consciousness, as part of the weave of the very fabric of consciousness. It is not observable because it was left as a tracing on the soul before discrimination of self and other had emerged. It is a completely homoginized, merged quality, present before 'self' and 'other' and'world' were known as separate. It is omnipresent in consciousness. The mind can't observe it because this knowledge is now fundamental to consciousness itself. Similarly, an eyeball cannot see itself.
This background knowledge and feeling informs and flavors everything that appears in consciousness, without exception. Everthing perceived in the mind tastes like this. Every experience, every memory, every relationship, every belief, every fear and every conscious moment feels like this, tastes like this and is informed by this. There is nowhere to look, at any level, in any dimension or state of consciousness, that does not carry this information and feeling. It is Basic Distrust of consciousness and it's contents.
It is there when you meditate, it is there during sublime states of knowledge and expansion. It's there during orgasm and ecstacy. It is primary to the suffering of being alive. It is inescapable. A dilema, insoluble to the mind, burdening consciousness. It's solution cannot be in consciousness. The understanding and metabolism of this conundrum must come from outside of consciousness.
What does that mean? It's meaning can be pointed to, but not directly described or explained. If the field of consciousness and all of it's contents are turned away from and discarded, ignored, there emerges a Pure Awareness. This Pure Awareness is not in or of the field of consciousness. It knows itself by being itself. It is not self reflective. There is no separation between being and knowing. Pure Awareness is inherently self aware.
When all else is let go, Pure Awareness knows and acts through the body-mind. It manifests through the body and mind but is not part of them, nor is it conditioned by them. Pure Awareness animates the body-mind yet it is not the body-mind and it is not not the body-mind. It neither is, nor is not, nor neither, nor both.
If Pure Awareness is to animate the body-mind we must continually let go of every experience so that we enter each moment fresh, new and without preconditions. In this way the deep preconceptual woundings of the soul do not inform and flavor our experience of being conscious. The mind, instead, performs it's natural function as a transducer, bringing Pure Awareness, our True Nature, into the field of consciousness.
The pristine purity of our True Nature informs consciouness, not primitive and archaic woundings of the infant. This is the new and objectively true context and background of consciouness. In this light, the old, frustrating, painful universe is transformed.
This background of primitive affect is there experientially. We feel it, and know it so deeply that it is inseparable from consciousness itself. It is held and known as a fundamental quality of consciousness, as part of the weave of the very fabric of consciousness. It is not observable because it was left as a tracing on the soul before discrimination of self and other had emerged. It is a completely homoginized, merged quality, present before 'self' and 'other' and'world' were known as separate. It is omnipresent in consciousness. The mind can't observe it because this knowledge is now fundamental to consciousness itself. Similarly, an eyeball cannot see itself.
This background knowledge and feeling informs and flavors everything that appears in consciousness, without exception. Everthing perceived in the mind tastes like this. Every experience, every memory, every relationship, every belief, every fear and every conscious moment feels like this, tastes like this and is informed by this. There is nowhere to look, at any level, in any dimension or state of consciousness, that does not carry this information and feeling. It is Basic Distrust of consciousness and it's contents.
It is there when you meditate, it is there during sublime states of knowledge and expansion. It's there during orgasm and ecstacy. It is primary to the suffering of being alive. It is inescapable. A dilema, insoluble to the mind, burdening consciousness. It's solution cannot be in consciousness. The understanding and metabolism of this conundrum must come from outside of consciousness.
What does that mean? It's meaning can be pointed to, but not directly described or explained. If the field of consciousness and all of it's contents are turned away from and discarded, ignored, there emerges a Pure Awareness. This Pure Awareness is not in or of the field of consciousness. It knows itself by being itself. It is not self reflective. There is no separation between being and knowing. Pure Awareness is inherently self aware.
When all else is let go, Pure Awareness knows and acts through the body-mind. It manifests through the body and mind but is not part of them, nor is it conditioned by them. Pure Awareness animates the body-mind yet it is not the body-mind and it is not not the body-mind. It neither is, nor is not, nor neither, nor both.
If Pure Awareness is to animate the body-mind we must continually let go of every experience so that we enter each moment fresh, new and without preconditions. In this way the deep preconceptual woundings of the soul do not inform and flavor our experience of being conscious. The mind, instead, performs it's natural function as a transducer, bringing Pure Awareness, our True Nature, into the field of consciousness.
The pristine purity of our True Nature informs consciouness, not primitive and archaic woundings of the infant. This is the new and objectively true context and background of consciouness. In this light, the old, frustrating, painful universe is transformed.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Looking at letting go
If I am hurt by someone repeatedly and I carry anger and resentment against them in my mind, am I doing that because I need to, to relate to them appropriately? Or for some other reason? Can I learn the lesson about them and relate to them appropriately without revisiting the memories of how they hurt me? And what is it to hold on to a thought or belief? Is it not to review, revisit, and reference that thought to provoke the attendant feeling and emotion? The feeling or emotion then motivates my actions. If I let go of the thought and belief structure, then I do not experience feeling and emotion. Consequently, my actions change. This points to the fact that emotions, as false presence, are not really in the moment, even though they are convincingly experienced as such.
Emotions are informed and driven by remembered beliefs, judgments and images from the past. These memories may be conscious or unconscious. The key understanding here, is that they are fragments of the past and that they displace conscious Presence of Being in the moment. Though emotions may be convincingly, experientially very real and present, and satisfyingly rich, compared to their mental image origins, they are nonetheless, stale and brittle partial truths about a time now past.
As surrogates for Presence for Being, with its living, intelligent, loving flow of Essential Qualities, emotions are tragically inferior. When we let go and release our hurts, resentments, hatreds and anger, we don't know what will take their place to motivate us, give us identity, give us substance in the world, protect us, earn us the right to belong and hold us. It is Presence of Being, with its perfect sufficiency of Essential Aspects that will hold us, protect us, inform us and move us each moment. Whether we let go the long, laborious and difficult way or do it effortlessly and instantly, the result is exactly the same. We become the vehicle of Pure Awareness expressed as a dance of Essential Qualities of Presence of Being emerging in harmony with every unfolding condition and situation. We don't need to understand it, or to make an effort, or to wait for something to make us ready. In letting go we discover that the time for our awakening is, and always has been, right now.
Emotions are informed and driven by remembered beliefs, judgments and images from the past. These memories may be conscious or unconscious. The key understanding here, is that they are fragments of the past and that they displace conscious Presence of Being in the moment. Though emotions may be convincingly, experientially very real and present, and satisfyingly rich, compared to their mental image origins, they are nonetheless, stale and brittle partial truths about a time now past.
As surrogates for Presence for Being, with its living, intelligent, loving flow of Essential Qualities, emotions are tragically inferior. When we let go and release our hurts, resentments, hatreds and anger, we don't know what will take their place to motivate us, give us identity, give us substance in the world, protect us, earn us the right to belong and hold us. It is Presence of Being, with its perfect sufficiency of Essential Aspects that will hold us, protect us, inform us and move us each moment. Whether we let go the long, laborious and difficult way or do it effortlessly and instantly, the result is exactly the same. We become the vehicle of Pure Awareness expressed as a dance of Essential Qualities of Presence of Being emerging in harmony with every unfolding condition and situation. We don't need to understand it, or to make an effort, or to wait for something to make us ready. In letting go we discover that the time for our awakening is, and always has been, right now.
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