“Be ye perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” — Matthew 5.48
This instructional scripture is referring to cleansing of generational and self-inflicted programming known as subconsciousness. The scripture is making the point : Be transformed within consciousness, through exposure to Pure Consciousness. It’s important to understand that we’re (finite mind) not perfecting anything, rather we’re surrendering lower-self ego, to that which is already perfect — Spirit : the Spirit perfects /heals when all mental struggle has ceased — it’s the inner struggle which is the problem, not the so-called problem. If the fish ceased struggling more then likely it would free itself from the hook.
With this and the following scriptures in mind, let us explore subconsciousness, its origins and a method of its elimination.
“..Perfect love (pure consciousness) casteth out (transforms) all fear (lower-self)”– 1 John 4:1
“She (soul) wrapped him (Christ nature) in swaddling” (generational conditioning) Luke 2 :7
Subconsciousness or, reactive thought patterns (established conditioning) is/are formed when repetitive societal, cultural, family, national or peer dialogue becomes accepted on the subjective or unconscious mind to form our living reality. Due to mental indiscipline and constant exposure to “world” conditioning, the soul’s higher nature is automatically by-passed causing the lower-self to invent a false (god) personality or persona. Thus, spiritually speaking, the higher-self capitulates to lower-self standard. In other words, our life-fulfillment, being sourced from without, is validated through conditioning. (Cain defeating Abel).
Like nails to magnets, many are emotionally drawn, and later addicted, to this lower-self nature – becoming trapped in a compulsory, delusional web-cycle of action and reaction — we behave robotically from our own and others’ lower-self “programming”. Like valuable archive possessions, we clink to these mental /emotional /vision patterns to justify our out of sync inner world, and then wonder why our outer environment reflects miserably daily or even hourly. Scripture puts it : “As within, so without”.
When (through repetitive, generational conditioning) the soul’s higher-nature was forced into “sleep” mode the lower-self (Cain) was left with an open goal into which to score “own goals” at will — self-inflicted suffering. Needing an identity, the ego has no choice but to create a surrogate or fictional persona through which to survive. The more separated the soul is from its higher aspect the more subconsciousness (illusion) poses as reality. Thus, in proportion to non-heeding the inner voice to freedom, subconsciousness (swaddling clothes) is experienced as “suffering” in its many guises. While we all succumb to the soul’s inner voice eventually — for suffering or separation becomes the catalyst to awakening – why prolong this sinful agony in this lifetime?
God is not responsible for our suffering
Emotionalized thought patterns, particularly the sad /anxious / judgmental, deepen the mind /body’s attachment with suffering. In other words, thoughts high on feeling octanes are accepted as our “desired-for reality”. Such feelings then, in the course of time, are manifested in the mind /body automatically, no questions asked. In this regard, it is WE, through spiritual ignorance or ingrained religious dogma and biblical misrepresentations, who create our own levels of mind /body suffering. Not God, but our own “bystander” approach to being non Spirit-led, settling instead for consumption of the lower-self diet — hence the fatted calf, (inflated conditioned ego).
Through many lifetimes “untruth” mindsets (swaddling clothes) have cocooned, solidified to groove thought-tracks across our mental landscape. A matrix of anti-soul growth patterns become setup (subconsciousness) forming the template of our daily life routine thus leading to our life becoming rudderless : a maze of paradoxes due to fixed inner chaos and spiritual confusion causal of misdirections to soul. Like colonies of ants on the march, these fixed-pattern informational cells proceed unabridged along these thought-tracks ferrying endless non soul-serving paradigms to the conscious mind. Thereby is spiritual perception or soul-tuition sabotaged at source, thus conformity to the lower-self strengthened leading to the unending cycle of impression-suffering-rebirth-suffering.
Soul-poisoning
This emotionalized thought sludge regurgitation is akin to feasting out of a poisonous junk bin and wondering why our tummy is upset, or why we’re feeling mentally sick and depressed. From a health /spiritual well-being perspective fear, worry and anger etc (ignorance of Christ within) carry the most suffering potential. They’re the most dangerous, toxic pollutants the unconscious mind can harbor and which, sadly, compelled under law to become manifested in our life and the environment.
Five Questions which can reveal Awakening-Awareness Within.
Considering the adverse consequences of soul sleeping, surly it behooves each to look within and scan-question the lower-self thought-pit which, out of spiritual ignorance, is determining our every action, mood state and inner /outer manifestations. Ask ourselves :
1) Do I really have full mental freedom over my momentary thoughts : have I power of choice or ability “to switch” mentally of at will?
2) Am I stuck in a one-track mind-set : is my finger glued to a single depressive note /mindset on my multi-viberational Soul?
3) Did I consciously choose my present life-path, lifestyle and immediate environment?
4) Is there congruency of heart’s intentions and outer physical manifestations?
5) Is my life merely reflective of societal /religious /cultural or national programming. In other words, is my life Spirit-led or lower-self imprisoned?
If we’ve answered these Qs sincerely (which I’m sure we have) they will reveal the level of healing repair needed to be carried-out on our spiritual Temple. The good news is we’re not alone in this Temple re-building process. “For the government is upon his shoulders” Isaiah 9 : 2-7
Without such evaluation, the mind /soul’s potential to “full humanity” remains bondaged to subconscious programming or lower-self identity indefinitely.
Readers to this blog know that, the Bible is a book of mind science, coded symbolism to Christ-consciousness and not a collection of literal historical facts. It’s sole purpose is revealing the secrets (practical action to be taken) of awakening from subconsciousness, of facing the reality of inherited swaddling clothes and the consequent self-inflicted inner chaos /suffering. The Bible is about consciously establishing the direction in which the soul must proceed to come upon, to birth, our own indwelling Christ : the second birth. Directionally, of course, the Way /Jesus, is within.
“The Prince of the world calleth (temptations to evil) and findeth nothing in me” (Pure Consciousness)
Due to chronic subconsciousness the nervous system (body’s well-being /kundalini channeling network) becomes desensitized to natural Christ happiness leading to such being sought artificially as said earlier. Constant association with ‘bottom of the barrel’ sediment denies mind /body /soul the experience of Pure Consciousness Presence : Christ within.
The Solution
Duality (conflicts of heart and mind) is the prime cause of all human suffering. In order to neutralize this cause the secret is we must introduce a non-dual element — Transcendence.
Present-moment awareness integrates subconsciousness /duality by awakening the soul’s desire for healing and unity with the Father — inner Christ. The practice, in time, diffuses reactive thought patterns, the root cause of all personal “hell-engaging”. Thus the conscious mind expands (reclaimed subconsciousness) to withstand Pure Consciousness via the senses and nervous system which, due to becoming purified, serve the mind /body /soul holistically.
This can be practiced seated or, as a meditative walk in our local area. For fifteen minutes daily, practice stepping back from incessant thought activity. In other words, “keep of the grass of mental evaluation and sensory gratification” and allow the grooved thought tracks (conditioning) to heal over, neutralize, experience Sunshine : let the moment be as is. Become the “observer” rather than the “engager” of incoming subconscious activity. Refrain from clicking ANY thought link – even a thought of God! Remember, a thought of God gains fulfillment in its extinction!
Focus the awareness at the solar plexus (navel area) and between the eyebrows (Pineal gland) SIMULTANEOUSLY and “watch” this area non-analytically : see a vertical white light between these two points.
Be easy : if the mind drifts come back each time. “Coming back” is essential for such represents the Alpha and Omega : beginning of the end of suffering! “Watching” gradually deepens to become bliss contact thus opening the Heart Chakra and Pineal gland thereby purify the inner spiritual mechanisms to withstand greater levels of bliss-consciousness (Kundalini). It is this regular CONTACT with the Present Moment which reveals the Higher-Self / Real You at soul conscious level : it rebuilds the spiritual Temple making it fit for knowing Christ within. It represents experiential Ascension of lower-self into higher-self, Unity with God.
Thus we also can truly say “The Prince of this world calleth and findeth nothing in me”.
We also have heeded Jesus’ loud voice (shattering the death-grip of inner sleep) : “Lazarus, come forth” (free of the soul’s swaddling clothes, of subconsciousness, of compulsory sin, to eternal Pure Life Consciousness). John 11: 37-44
Very insightful post! I’ve been grappling with the “how” when it comes to getting out of the entrenched patterns of thinking. Your explanation of why those patterns are there in the first place was very helpful to me. I’ve been posting about the material in a book called The Untethered Soul (Michael A. Singer). This reinforces his teaching. So thanks! I will check out your book, as well.
Hi Janet,
Lovely to hear from you and thanks for your valued comment! Delighted you found the post helpful, that’s what this blog is all about, thanks to Josh. I hope my book takes that ‘help’ a giant step further for you. Enjoy the read, and the journey!
Blessings
Raymond
Very enlightening. “In my weakness, I find my strength.” – Jacob Bohme
Hi Vernon,
Good to hear from you. Thank you for both your nice comment and quotation which I really like!
Blessings
Raymond
Thanks Raymond. There is a wealth of accessible information and wisdom online from Jacob Boehme.
Wow, Raymond, another triple header of insight. Gonna benefit from reading this post over a few times.
I know in your last post you went to great length to explain eternal life in response to my comment.
Did I also ask you about your take on near death experiences? Off topic for sure. But could not help but wonder what you thought about them.
How is the yoga teaching going?
Robert
Robert
Thank you for complementary comment. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner on NDEs. At the time I was preparing for a vacation in Portugal. So, electronically speaking, I was winding down!
While totally respecting all camps, the subject of “near death experience” is a huge topic area with lots of vested interest groups vying for discipleship on their take on certain strange and amazing human experiences. Much like literal scripture trying to keep their audience “outer based” on board with amazing weeping and moving status stories. The Bible doesn’t give much insightful coverage on this subject either.
In its simplest evaluation nde could be described as a partial, or involuntary, spiritual awakening experience.
But dealing with NDE as separate from esoteric scripture will always keep “near death” in the realm of physicality, and not death of the ego, Galgotha/Crucifixion.
Evolution uses many ways to introduce awakening into the “bystander” or non-awakened mind, thereby give that mind a glimpse of non dual reality – transcendence. Actual Crucifixion is not a “near death” of ego rather a total experience. More about this later.
Similarly there is the person who may experience a NDE in a dream, only to awaken from the experience, for such “death” cannot be “experienced” as a separate event through a “time” only anchored mind.
It reminds me of when I first started meditating over 35 years ago. And not knowing where the practice sessions would lead, I held my mind back from totally letting go to what was about to happen naturally – transcendence! I soon realized that having faith was more than simply having the title of “a believer”, rather it was a conscious application of heart. That, stillness and silence, and even strange inner imagery, are necessary unknowns or conduits to transcendence, to successful faith-practice. The old temple is being shattered (subconsciousness). We get a glimpse some of the decayed blocks as they fall (conscious integration).
The reality is so-called NDE takes place, proportionate to practice, each time the mind transcends in meditation. And while ego death is total at the time of meditation, it has to be this “near” or gradual purification way, for our spiritual mechanisms cannot experience full enlightenment through an impure nervous system and five senses.
Meditation is always upgrading our heart-fuse automatically to withstand greater bliss.
It is my understanding, Robert, that NDEs are simply nudges to the heart / mind out of their fixed relativity, familiarity nest-box or womb state, thereby fledge the soul’s spiritual wings to transcendental Pure silence, boundlessness and fly in Spirit, in Happiness!
Yes, I teach meditation in Ireland and it is going well, thank you.
Cheers, Robert,
Blessings
Raymond
Raymond,
Thanks for that insightful reply. Your explanation of “Nudges” makes a lot of sense, which may be why people’s nde’s are very customized, yet seem to lead those who experience them to pursue more enlightenment.
Blessings,
Robert
Hello Raymond,
Why the need to link an NDE to anything whatever? Or bring vested interests into it? There will always be people who make any subject whatever into their vested interest but that does not say anything about the subject itself.
As you may have seen – I shared something of it with Robert in the comment you are replying to – I experienced an NDE or OBE myself when I was thirteen years old. It is more than half a century ago but I still remember it as vividly as on the day it happened as a very precious experience which I never talked about for decades and only shared with very few people during the last few years. I do not want to make anything out of it or link it to anything whatever. At the time I had never even heard of ego, let alone death of ego, or esoteric scriptures, or meditation. It was and is a precious experience which I still cherish every day but do not want to link to anything else. Anything that I experienced during meditation or mystic experiences, however intense they were, even came close.
I do agree that it is a nudge to the heart and it has turned eventually into my being involved in all those things you mention many years later, but why say simply? In itself it was so much more than that. It was not a process but experiencing the end of the process, if only for a few minutes. There was no ego there, no form nor shape, nothing but consciousness which equalled unconditional love and bliss of an unbelievable frequency. There are not even words to describe it. Every time I try I come up with a slightly different version but nothing can describe what it really was like.
Love,
Anny
Anny,
I get your drift, that you want to experience and evaluate nde subjectively just for itself without trying to make a connection to any other sort of meaning from other themes that can be attached to it. It is what it is, whatever it is. That seems to be a new wisdom I am learning. Trusting in subjectivity.
It is also natural for someone who has experienced nde’s or learns about others who have, to want to look around and compare thoughts and theories, try to see if it fits in somewhere with what we are already familiar with. This satisfies the human desire for objectivity. Our human inclination to try to fit the pieces of the puzzle in order to see the big picture has served us well to take us out of the stone age.
But there is also the inclination to force a piece to fit in, in order to feel more secure about a preconceived big picture we are attached to, ignoring the subjective in order to falsely validate the objective. I guess we call this over-simplification.
I don’t see Raymond’s comments as forcing or oversimplifying anything, but rather an opportunity for me to understand more of his advanced, specialized expertise and experience as he applies it to the concrete questions at hand.
Hello Robert,
I am glad you feel about it the way you do. And it is not that I do not want anyone to link an NDE to anything else, although I agree that I certainly gave that impression.
What I really mean is that I do not want to see an NDE or OBE reduced to something that can only be seen in connection to something else. You know yourself it is too precious for that.
Maybe Raymond did not mean to imply that at all but it is the impression I got. Whatever it is, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion and I just wanted to add mine.
Going straight way to AMAZON uk… to secure your book.
Thank you so much for teaching “us all, so much”
May your knowledge become available to a greater and wider audience via your book.
My love and appreciation,
Evelyn
Hi Evelyn,
Lovely to hear from you. Thank you so much for your glowing comments. I do hope you gain and enjoy from the book as much as I did while writing it. I find when the heart is eager for Spirit-love contact, the fruits of wisdom and happiness appear everywhere and low-hanging, for our essential spiritual benefit.
Blessings
Raymond
In my first science class, the teacher gave us an exercise which may match or even exceed the effectiveness of meditation. We were each instructed to light a candle and observe carefully and with maximum precision to write down our observations. After 20 minutes, I was amazed at how much more there was to observe, even just within the flame of a burning candle.
It seems to me that the effect of mediatation really arises from the reality that doing nothing is a more effective cybernetic strategy than doing the wrong-headed thing; something that is actually taking us away from our goal rather than towards it. “If what you are doing is not working, then do something else.”
But my question remains. How helpful is the mystical overlay that we are putting on this otherwise rather obvious process?
Take this sentence from towards the end of this essay: “Thus the conscious mind expands (reclaimed subconsciousness) to withstand Pure Consciousness via the senses and nervous system which, due to becoming purified, serve the mind /body /soul holistically.”
I think the first bit (the conscious mind expands (reclaimed subconsciousness) ) reasonably describes what was happening in the exercise to observe the candle with enhanced precision. In both activities we may gradually uncover how abstract internal thoughts are blocking my observation of an external phenomenon. In other words when it came to observing the candle, there was more going on inside my head than in the bit between my retina and the interpretating parts of my brain.
And of course, this ability to abstract reality, via unconscious processes, is what makes us mentally sharp. We don’t need to observe the whole movie to recognise that the grizzly bear means to harm us and that we had better get moving! Mental abstraction, which is now automated within the unconscious, is a huge evolutionary inheritance.
However, as your essay says, the unconscious can easily get it wrong. As any magician will tell you, in any conflict between empirical reality and our unconscious belief in what is actually happening in external reality, our uncosciousness wins every time. We would rather believe in what we believe than in what we see before us.
And I guess another way of looking at mediatation and contemplation, is that it is a process of checking our beliefs; because if they are unsound, we are in strife. So apart from slowing down and ceasing unproductive activity (mental and physical), mediatation is also about questioning our beliefs and interpretations and perhaps applying different overlays of meaning to the events of our lives. This is all very effective and supported by some other exciting modes of scientific enquiry. Check out: http://enhancingmylife.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/de-nominalising-your-world.html
But what of the rest of the sentence, which I think is typical of the mystical overlay we are putting on this stuff: “to withstand Pure Consciousness via the senses and nervous system which, due to becoming purified, serve the mind /body /soul holistically.”
To me, the lack of any empiricism here is just injecting even more fallacies into our unconscious maps. Words like Pure Consciousness, complete with capitalisation, create the illusion of a concrete external reality, but to what are they actually pointing? I guess they may be claiming some equivalence with something like electricity, which although unseen does have an empirical outcome, as whern the light shines.
As metaphors, I guess they may be helpful, pointing to some as yet unobservable phenomenon, but at what cost?
Once a group gets hold of these metaphors, it is not long before the metaphor starts to trump observable facts and we are right back to the problem that brought us to meditation in the first place. Our unconscious beliefs are once again preventing us from seeing what is actually there.
Try telling a religious group that their God is really just a beautiful idea, with no observable construct in reality. But be careful, people regularly get killed for such profanity.
It just amazes me how robust our unconscious religious beliefs have become, especially when we can observe how divisive they can be in a shrinking world. To my mind they have definitely reached their use-by date and it is time to meditate our way to more harmonious interpretations of the behaviour of our fellow human beings; especially the ones living on the other side of an artificial religious divide.
So by all means, use self constructed metaphors to speculate about what still remains hidden from our senses. But don’t forget that they are metaphors, not the real deal. And beware of capitalised ideas, like Higher Consciousness and Ancient Wisdom. They are very seductive for an unconscious mind which empowers itself essentially by jumping to conclusions.
The best test of a new idea lies in the outcome it produces; definitely not in the authority and circular logic of the group promoting it. (Such as the logic of religion: God created everything. This good thing must have been created….by God as the sole creator. Therefore God is good……and yes, let’s just agree to ignore the creation of bad things!)
What about a new set of beliefs: I create my own map of reality, via a collection of mainly unconscious beliefs. However, I can bring these unconscious beliefs into the mental realm of rational conscious analysis. The best test of my rationality is in the quality of the long term outcomes I create. However, I must accept that predicting outcomes a long way into the future is also fraught with danger. So I will accept with humility the limitations of my mental apparatus in accurately predicting the future. At all costs, I will avoid the mystical delusion that my metaphorical speculations equal some sort of objective reality. My ideas are important, but they are not reality. My God, as a metaphor for how everything may work, may be a great idea, but He is not real (unless I make Him real; and that is very, very dangerous.) Above all, let’s not destroy the planet over an idea!
Brian,
You have posted quite a legitimate challenge to the question of whether God is “real” according to your definition of real, or whether God is an artificial construct that may simply inspire people to turn the TV off and wonder what life is really all about.
In the long run, perhaps it does not matter whether enlightenment is an evolutionary or mystic design, except the mystic path can take a lot of rabbit trails into dogma and superstition. And you hit the nail on the head… very few people want to listen to a lecture by a neurobiologist on evolutionary tendencies of the human mind , but the masses just love the mystical.
We have to work with what we’ve got. You are beginning to inspire my interest in the field of linguistics and how words and constructs bias our perceptions. Somehow I sense this fits in with the this earliest of all human wisdom “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao”.
On the other side of the coin, human creativity comes from having the freedom and interest to take the less travelled path in and out of rabbit holes to new destinations that cannot be explained at the time of their discovery by analytical thinking. Intuition, metaphor, conjecture, story-telling, and religion all inspire us and open up doors, albeit biased ones, but at least open ones for starters. It’s about that other part of us that Star Trek’s Spock often misses and Data longs to have. Case in point, warp drive, which is actually being developed in the lab these days, was not inspired by logic or modern science, but by the need of science fiction story tellers to frame their tales about mixing with extra-terrestrial civilizations, ETs who science says are light years away if they exist at all. Gotta have warp drive to make peace with the Romulins, and to inspire TV viewers on opposite sides of our world that peace is indeed possible and vital for us all to live long and prosper.
But you are so correct, after we have done our dreaming and arrived at our magic destinations, there is a time to learn to perceive our new reality more accurately.
Just some thoughts. What is a good short primer on the linguistic thing?
Blessings,
Robert
Hi Robert.
I am glad your curiosity has been stimulated.
Here is a modern treatment of some of Korzybski’s ideas.
http://miltondawes.com/formal-essays-handouts/a-grammar-of-consciousness/
Korzybski wrote his stuff in the 1920’s and 30’s, and I would imagine it was pretty hard going even by their more pedantic standards. His style is certainly very heavy going for my tiny brain.
Bandler and Grinder wrote some more accessible stuff in the 70’s to 90’s, under the general rubric of NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming.) Their writings also included the ruminations of people like Greg Bateson (Steps to an Ecology of the Mind), who I believe was married to the Anthropologist, Margaret Mead. Showing my age, aren’t I? These people are now all fond memories from my Hippy Youth, around 1970. Oh my, how keen we were to change the world!
I also liked Arthur Koestler’s Act of Creation; another interesting treatment on the theory of change.
At the moment, I am doing an on-line MOOC with a focus on Calculus and the mathematics of change. What an exciting world we are living in.
I would love to hear your response.
Enjoy Life.
Brian,
Thanks, I am eager to explore this field. Maybe I can check out your references and once I get to know the field a little, find easier presentations.
Blessings
Robert
Hello Brian,
You write: “However, as your essay says, the unconscious can easily get it wrong. As any magician will tell you, in any conflict between empirical reality and our unconscious belief in what is actually happening in external reality, our uncosciousness wins every time. We would rather believe in what we believe than in what we see before us.”
What we see before us however is just as much an illusion as what we choose to believe. In a sense it also is what we choose to believe as each of us creates his or her own world, even if it is for the most part a cocreation with others. This is not just an idea that comes from spirituality as there are scientists as well who state this. I believe that already Einstein said that time, space and matter do not exist. And from other scientists I learned that what we perceive with our five physical senses is first of all limited to a small bandwith of frequencies (even certain animals perceive more than we do) but besides that it is just an interpretation of the brain, selected from all incoming signals and also based on things like belief, prejudice, imagination, memory, intuition and maybe many things more. I am anything but a scientist so I probably get details wrong but I got the idea as I experienced some of the things they mentioned myself. I wrote about that in my article Does God exist ..? Everything seems to be a hologram, including we (our bodies) ourselves.
As far as God is concerned, I believe that God created/manifested All that is, but also that we created gods and of course these gods do not amount to much, seeing what people did in their name. Whenever I hear that someone does not believe in God anymore, I always wonder who or what the god is that they do not believe in. Often it is a very primitive idea that is rejected. The question is Who, or rather What, is God really? And I do not pretend to have the answer but I do not believe that it can be captured in one image. It is certainly not some sort of aggrandized human figure. I think more in terms of Consciousness, Life force, All that Is, Love, Oneness and many more.
I believe though that everyone should be free to determine for himself what to believe, without any judgment from amybody, and I completely agree with you that we should not destroy the planet over any idea whatever.
Hi Brian,
Thank you for your most interesting comment. And thanks for the link which I read through and found really interesting. It’s similar to a subject I studied earlier on my spiritual journey “De-potentialize our habitual terms of reference” which, really amounted to de-conditioning the unconscious of what we don’t want and instead re-program it with what we do want in life.
Let me address your concern about my use of the term Pure Consciousness. The term was used in a context pertaining to the subject / title of the article : “Be ye perfect” (purity through virgin consciousness). Yes, I agree that over-use of capitalizations can at times be unhelpful for some readers, particularly if not followed by an explanation. Conversely I have found the small scale use in some instances inappropriate and misleading. My first publisher would allow only certain words referring to God for capitalization.
But it may help, Brian, if I explain where I’m coming from. As a member of the worldwide Transcendental Meditation movement (TM) I’ve been practicing transcendental meditation now for the past 38 years twice daily, and also fourteen years as “Yogic Flyer” known collectively in the movement as the TM-Sidhi programme: a fifty minute twice daily routine.
The term Pure Consciousness as used in my article comes from the term : the Unified Field of Pure Consciousness or : the unified field of pure consciousness – same words. But, capitalization, I feel provides more emphasis, clarity and guidance. Visual caps remove the need for over-elaborate narrative for beginners by highlighting separation from our lower-self nature. It’s similar to a picture painting a thousand words idea. In this context, I’m so grateful to my early spiritual writers for their available understanding and use of caps, for without such I would probably still be in the realm of speculation and the mire of confusion. Dogmas and doctrines for me have totally lost their grip.
Without getting too bogged down in explanations, maybe reading this article may help clarify some points.
http://www.shareguide.com/Hagelin.html .
There are over 600 accredited research studies published by world-renown journals which illustrate the benefits of TM particularly, which may help clear up your “empiricism” and “fallacies” concern.
I fully appreciate also your concerns regards metaphors etc. But once the consciousness becomes cultured to the meditative brain state we quite naturally evolve through our early sign-posting words and begin to value such from a more expanded level of consciousness : we grow out of our dolls and drums to become responsible cosmic adults of immense value to this planet and society. Remember, scripture states that man/woman is first natural (spiritual ignorance) previous to enlightenment.
Finally, Brian, can I say, the Bible, Bhagavad Gita and other splended works have set down in coded format the universality of our existence, of transcendental reality, of cause and affect and the method of coming upon our divine inner nature thereby neutralize the effects of generational conditioning. That, through established, experiential, unconditional love, or bliss-consciousness each is free to address or invoke this transcendental power by whatever title they wish in accordance with their natural cultural ethos.
love, Bliss, Unity, Cosmic, Self-Realization, Higher-Self and the myriad of other soul words are titles pertaining to the same transcendental state latent within each soul. This potential state of expanded consciousness is available to each when initiated through a mind-centering process, such as even your candle-gazing exercise, which I practiced myself many years ago. And, such direct contact, having a qualitative nature, brings natural, undeniable “presence” and contentment to that seeker/practitioner. But it takes more than a single sitting, of course.
Caps referring to Pure Consciousness or Being are pertaining to the underlying eternal reality behind all of creation. In other words, while all of relative creation is ever-changing the Power which brought forth such is never-changing. Each soul is comprised of this never-changing element but, realization of such is brought about through decontamination of lower-self (senses/nervous system) and integrated fixed thought patterns, thereby is personal contact with unconditional love or Unconditional Love established. The caps “visually” denote the difference between ordinary human consciousness and the underlying transcendental power or Cause which regulates creation, dissolution and transformation.
de-nomilising (or deconditioning) the unconscious of imposed programming will certainly lead to direct experience of bliss, inner peace and love, thereby benefiting all mankind and nature in the process, thereby establish planet Christedness for earth. Committed daily meditation I feel is the way of achieving our personal and global peace quest, for such has been my personal experience out of the matrix as detailed in my book “Transforming your life”.
The potential for world peace, Brian, through established personal inner peace is the surest or only way forward for mankind, I’m sure you might agree. It’s what Jesus and all the great scriptures are about, from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita, and which is manifesting through this new era of Aquarius which commenced in 2012.
Blessings, my friend,
Raymond
As somebody who has leukemia and could fall off the twig at any moment, I suppose I should be more respectful when discussing the Almighty, but I guess my search for truth and a good laugh is in the ascendent.
Here is an extract from a Wikipedia about John Hagelin:
“In the summer of 1993, Hagelin directed a project aimed at demonstrating a force that TM practitioners call the Maharishi Effect; critics deny it exists.[15] Approximately 4,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. As a group, they practiced TM-Sidhi techniques twice daily for several weeks. Using data obtained from the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department for 1993 and the preceding five years (1988–92), Hagelin and collaborators followed the changes in crime rates for the area — before, during and after the six weeks of the gathering.[30] Hagelin said that while the number of murders had increased, the number of brutal murders had decreased.[31] There was a review board – composed entirely of TM practitioners.[32] Robert L. Park, research professor and former chair of the Physics Department at the University of Maryland, and a well-known skeptic of paranormal claims, called the study a “clinic in data manipulation.”[32]
In 1994 a science satire magazine, Annals of Improbable Research, “awarded” Hagelin the Ig Nobel Prize for Peace, for the 1993 project.[33]”
I think this quote from another skeptic about the quality of research into Meditation is also worth a moment’s contemplation:
“Well, sure. There are lots of studies showing that lots of forms of meditation can yield lots of benefits. But the research is unimpressive, to say the least, and is corrupted by the “allegiance effect,” the tendency of proponents of a treatment to find evidence that it works. (The term was coined by a Lester Luborsky, a prominent psychotherapy researcher.)
A similar picture emerges from the 2007 peer-reviewed report “Meditation practices for health: state of the research,” by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The report analyzed 813 studies of meditation and concluded that most were of “poor quality.”
The report stated: “Many uncertainties surround the practice of meditation. Scientific research on meditation practices does not appear to have a common theoretical perspective and is characterized by poor methodological quality. Firm conclusions on the effects of meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence.” If your particular form of meditation makes you feel good, do it! But don’t kid yourself that its medical benefits have been scientifically proven.”
Do these opinions make Meditation a failure? I doubt it. If people feel they are being helped by it, then that is worth something. Certainly, I have friends in the cancer community who are utterly convinced that 30 minutes of meditation per day is doing them a power of good. And their general demeanour and optimism seems to support these assertions that something is delivering a positive outcome.
So, what is the role of skepticism in this debate? Probably little more than a bit of balance. Something to smooth off the rough edges of excessive claims and inuendo such as a claim that a majority of reputable scientists support the idea.
As a cancer patient (definitely in recovery!) I have been assailed by a myriad of likely cures from super-foods right through to my partner’s prayer group praying for me. Luckily for me, I have made some excellent progress over the past 12 months. This is mainly on the basis of the opinion of my Oncologist and my blood tests which are all moving in the right direction (like Annie says, we all have to have faith in something, and I trust sticking my blood into an assaying machine.)
However, I suspect I could make a bit of money if I would just state that one of these other interventions is the real cause of my recovery. But sorry, I don’t want to ruin my image as a skeptic.
But for what it is worth, here is my favourite remedy for stress and/or a diagnosis of leukemia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slOY4cSVfy8
Enjoy!
Hi Brian,
Love the video but have to disagree. I am never going to die, nor are you!
We just take off our coat of flesh (which is the translation of the Gothic word that has become the word for body in Dutch). And do not have fear of the Almighty either; the only one who is going to judge you, if at all, will be you, which is as it should be as you yourself write to me in your reply to my comment. The Almighty is not in the judging business at all. It is only Love, whatever else It is.
Love,
Anny
Brian,
I understand the need to be stand-backish about the myriad of claims made by healing freaks. That field in our world is also driven by markets and groupies. I’ve noticed the expensive herbal remedies often don’t work anywhere as efficiently as even OTC meds. I was happy that Dr. Oz got reprimanded by a Congressional committee. I worked for one pharmaceutical company that put attractive labelling on their product to make it sound like it was something new and alternative, even though it was the same OTC they’d been selling for decades. There is a lot to be said for good old and proven medical treatment, and having a realistic confidence in what to expect. I was healed (permanent remission) of stage 3+ Hep C. I had contracted it as a child from a blood transfusion, and it stayed semi-dormant until 15 years ago. An initial treatment failed. Then I signed up for a drug trial using the latest experimental high dosage interferon and antiviral treatment available then, along with all kinds of other meds to compensate for the side effects, which were major. At the time, the remission rate was lower than 50%, and the high incidence of Hep C in the counter culture made it very difficult to get a liver transplant unless you had connections. I was very fortunate.
I think it is very important to stay up to date on the medical and alternative therapies. They are both useful and subject to mistakes. The Maharishi thing was connected to a cult who also produced “What the Bleep …”. I live near Duke University which is a major researcher in, and provider of, mindfulness based therapies. If the studies were simply promising and flimsy, research funding would not be at the high level that it is today. The latest study is offered to pre-diabetics who are given a 22-week intensive free course in mindfulness and $500.
Whenever I read stuff on the internet, I always probe three levels down to find out who the authors are, their history and connections. I google “criticism of …..” and I also checkout the critics. Then I check out everything else I can get on the topic, and I check the sources they come from. You have to weed out the crap from both sides to get a better picture of who is for real. I have found just as many skeptics as health freaks who are not for real. Its kind of like a normal distribution curve.
I hope this helps.
Robert
Good point, Robert. In Korzybski’s terms, I have unconsciously defined myself as “the skeptic” in this group, instead of staying with the idea that skepticism is a useful process (verb not noun).
Like you say, those skeptical steps in your final paragraph are now, in the internet age, fairly simple and straight forward and in my experience fairly productive.
The cancer support groups over here are pretty big on mindfulness. And yes, cancer is certainly more fun if you can extract maximum hope and even humour from the situation you find yourself in.
By the way, that is my theory of everything, in relation to the snake oil industries, hope is an amazingly popular product and it also has the business virtue of being very cheap to produce. Hence we have a growing industry. But enough of that cynicism.
Anyway, my cancer group gave me a book on optimism, by some very famous dude, whose name escapes me. So, like you, I googled his critics and uncovered some very juicey gossip. This guy had produced a very well accepted study, with a heap of stats to demonstrate that optimistic workers were more productive than pessimists (and therefore workshops on optimism were a good investment for a business). And within his academic community, this paper had been cited by something like 600 other authors.
That was until, a real statistician turned up to say that the statistical devices had been used inappropriately and that all the conclusions were therefore rendered unreliable.
The statistician who did the original maths immediately withdrew the paper; or her part in it (sort of an academic trip to the confessional). From memory, the famous dude was far enough up Oprah’s food chain to tough it out, by virtue of now being so famous.
That left 600 other authors, who claimed to be practising rigorous science, including peer review. So, how come they had not checked the stats as part of that review process?
So yes, the devil is usually in the detail and just because I say I am a scientist does not always guarantee I am one.
But I would like to see skepticism promoted far more as a life skill; buyer beware and all that sort of thing.
One of the best units I did at university was called developing alternative hypotheses. We were given a rather seductive set of data, which begged you to jump to an obvious conclusion. However, we were required to create and think about less obvious possible interpretations of the dataset. It was an enjoyable exercise, if nothing else.
Keep searching!
“Due to mental indiscipline and constant exposure to “world” conditioning, the soul’s higher nature is automatically by-passed causing the lower-self to invent a false (god) personality or persona.”
My gut feeling tells me that processes happening at the spiritual level can be likened to what’s taking place physiologically in the physical body. They won’t be that mysterious anymore once they’ve been understood (yeah, duh) in the way we understand our body through medicine. The passage I quoted above reflects this sentiment of mine.
Thank for your comment, Laurens. So true!
Hi Laurens,
Lovely to hear from you. Thank you for this “gut feeling” comment. It’s a beautiful way of describing the inner voice thereby acknowledging the wisdom of our soul!
Blessings,
Raymond
Hi Anny. I almost agree with your last paragraph, except for the bit about “without any judgement from anybody.
I believe that one person should judge very carefully what I believe; and that is me.
For me, while religion is a community of true believers, science is a community of skeptics who challenge each other to observe more carefully and to consider more precisely the Universe in which we find ourselves.
Hopefully, both communities enhance the quality of life.
By the way, would a world free of judgement not also have to include a legal system in which nobody is ever found guilty? Interesting.
Love from Brian.
Brian,
I believe there is a more positive approach to skepticism than the usual one, one more integrated with creativity and exploration. The usual skepticism will miss observing and understanding new phenomena because it is blind to the fact that its criteria for truth are biased, flawed, and sometimes politically motivated.
Also, judgment is a very ambiguous word that is applied to so many things, and then the logic that would apply to one situation can be easily be transferred incorrectly to another situation, which is what has happened in mixing up “freedom to select a spiritual path” and “deterring criminal behavior”. We either need to apply adjectives to the word judgment like “spiritual” versus “criminal” or used different synonyms. The important point is to use terms that are well defined and application specific. This is what in fact scientists do carefully, scrutinizing details to avoid mix-ups.
Hi Brian,
You are absolutely right in what you write about judging. We should certainly judge very carefully what we believe ourselves. I meant anybody else of course.
I think viewing religion as a community of true believers is a bit too simple.
Of course they are a lot of those, especially in fundamentalist circles, but it is not true for everyone by far. In no religion. Even as a kid I already decided what to believe and what not and to think about what would be the truth if those church doctrines were not. I never stopped doing that and still I remained part of that religion and that church for many more years. And I was not the only one. Others also focussed on following in Jesus’footsteps very literally, even at the cost of their own life sometimes, in the Second World War for instance which figured very largely during my youth. They did not focus on dogmas at all but on practicing unconditional love, no matter what. They were my heroes.
On the other hand religion and science are not so different at all.
There are religious people with open minds and there are scientists with open minds. And there are those who want to hold on to dogmas no matter what. Scientists as well as religious people, although scientists will not call it dogmas of course!
There is for instance the scientific dogma that consciousness is a product of matter, which may or may not be true but some scientists refuse to even examine that. It is like a dogma for them.
So there are scientists who are only willing to look at findings that conform to what they hold for the absolute truth and who are completely unwilling to look at anything at all that points in another direction. But there also are scientists who are willing to examine everything, even that which might prove that what they always believed to be true – whatever it might be – might in fact not be; this would mean back to square one for them. Still, it is the only way to really get anywhere.
I think it takes courage to at least consider something that might prove your paradigm wrong, whatever your paradigm is, scientific or religious. I hope that I will always have that courage. I certainly want to observe and consider everything I can understand carefully. And I think that the openminded sides of both science and religion will enhance the quality of life greatly but I am afraid that the close-minded dogmatic side of each will not contribute to that at all.
“By the way, would a world free of judgement not also have to include a legal system in which nobody is ever found guilty? Interesting.”
Your question above is indeed interesting. I think the matter of crime would have to be solved in a totally different manner. First of all, in a world without judgement there might be a lot less crime as people would not have to feel being discriminated against. Everyone could probably take part in society and contribute what he or she had to contribute and receive appreciation for their contributions. Remaining crime might be dealt with more in the way of an illness. What went wrong that someone felt the need to do this and how can this be cured/fixed? By not apportioning blame there would probably much less aggression, if any. Well, that is what I can come up with right now.
Love to you too,
Anny
Hi Raymond,
Thanks for such a great article. Your insights into the scriptures have opened up many passages in the Bible. Can you do a little elementary break down of what you mean by the “fatted calf.” I get it, but it hasn’t totally clicked yet. I know this fatted calf is killed when the “prodigal son” returns to his senses, so I assume the ego feeds this animal.
I’ve read a couple of your articles and would love to see you address a couple of topics in the future, if possible. For one, I’m not sure I buy into the fact that the 12 disciples are the 12 cranial nerves of the brain. While I personally do not believe the disciples ever existed as literal history, I see more opportunity in the story than predetermined genetic make-up. With that said, I would also love to hear what you have to say about how Judas Iscariot fits into the Christ story.
I’ve got your book on my “to get list,” so I apologize if you’ve already discussed some of these already. I’ll definitely get to it soon.
Once again, very grateful for the insight.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comment. I would recommend reading Josh’s fine article on the 12 cranial nerves / 12 Apostles.
http://www.spiritofthescripture.com/id1312-what-the-twelve-tribes-of-israel-and-the-tabernacle-really-symbolize.
The “fatted calf” is a biblical metaphor for expressing our true nature, Christ within. Having “returned”, (repented) the prodigal son is then expected to feast off his Christ within, thus the expression “bring forth the fatted calf”, bring forth our Higher Self. The Father, or the risen Christ, represents the feast or “fatted calf”. In other words, when the ego is crucified the risen Christ comes forth naturally as expressions of divine faith/love in our lives. An occasion of soul nourishment celebration, the “feast” is consequent of consciously denying the lower-self (heeding the soul’s prompts) and returning to Christ for healing. Meditation (surrender of ego leading to transcendence) fulfills this “returning” process.
The ego, (Cain) celebrates “this is MY effort” while Abel celebrates his achievements as acknowledgment of the risen Christ working through him. Remember, Cain and Abel were both sinners, both worked “in the field” of sensory addiction. But Abel, having squandered his inheritance, and realizing the futility of going it alone, the impossibility of purging his own lower-self, returned (within) for forgiveness (purification).
The elder son was always with the Father ((Pharisaically) and saw no need of “repentance”, while the younger son, having made a complete mess of his life, “came to his senses” and sought Christ within. Sounds like the story of all our lives.
Hope this helps, Chris.
Blessings,
Raymond
I’m catching up, and I wish I hadn’t been away so long. I doubt by now anyone will read this reply, but if you do please take this as being [c]illy not supercilious. In this lively rabbit hole tunneling from Raymonds’s article it seems we are channeling Lao Tsu, Jesus, Jacob Boehme, Auguste Comte, Thomas Kuhn, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
It’s an impressive cast. I love all of them. I only wish Soren Kierkegaard and Carl Jung could join us. It might be billed as esotericism and spiritualism meets positivism, relativism and depth psychology. Every viewpoint has as its genesis the all seeing eye of the beholder – I mean this esoterically and not literally, of course, with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
I shall tunnel onward for my own edification with another stream of consciousness contribution for what it’s worth – although its value is inherently subjective and highly questionable. I prefer the unconscious ‘ignorance is bliss’ coined in a poem by Thomas Gray, not the conscious kind spoken of by the Dalai Lama, which requires me to do something. No disrespect intended. Doing nothing and embracing ignorance is very liberating. Try it you’ll like it. It’s the secret of transcendence, which is a mind blowing thought. Ironically, it’s through the door of ignorance that we find knowledge. This is the seeker’s paradox. If you get what I mean, it means you’ve been there.
I don’t know what I don’t know, and I don’t care but my ego does. I can’t tell my ego to go away, because that would be my ego speaking to itself. What am I to do? I can’t free myself from this dualistic entanglement by any means other than rebirth. As Nicodemus asked, “how can I re-enter my mother’s womb?” Why worry about it? Swimming from the deep end to the shallow end I reference a Beatle’s lyric “Whisper words of wisdom. Let it be.”
It seems we can get on the merry-go-round, but we can’t get off safely without it stopping of its own momentum. If we jump off prematurely we will injure ourselves. Being impatient mortals and not knowing any better we always jump thinking it will lead to our immortality. It never does. If we don’t learn what to “unlearn” we are destined to get on and jump off ad infinitum. The ego is dumb. As Pete Seeger asked in his song, “when will [ego] ever learn?” : )
Follow your bliss,
Tommy
Tommy,
Thank you for these very interesting comments, which, in the process, gave Robert a good laugh! A sense of humor is a valuable asset in life these days. I intend writing a post covering some of the points raised in your comments. I too would like to send Robert positive vibes!
Blessings,
Raymond
Tommy,
Thanks. I am going through a lot right now and I needed a good laugh. Very insightful too, even with the tongue and cheek.
Hi Robert!
I’m sorry for your troubles and sending some positive vibes your way.
Tommy
Tommy,
Thanks. Today had been easier so far. Thanks for the positive vibes.
Will done thanks Me thanks THIN Okay yes THINKS. Do you know of Edgar Cayce?
Origen.. Are shell I shall Probably Return