Tag: Attention

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Pain is a demand on our attention

Every pain basically demands (seizes) attention.
When we would rather attend to something else,
That is when the pain creates suffering.
The suffering is from the resistance,
Of not wanting to attend to that which is paining.
It could be argued the pain itself appears,
Only after one has ignored something for long enough,
That it starts to break into the threshold of consciousness and escalate.

I’m creating 2 definitions here:
Selfish = attends to self, neglects the other.
Selfless = attends to others, neglects the self.
Broadly I’ve seen:
The selfless person may suffer from a lot of pain themselves,
But others are fairly happy/ok with them.
On the other hand, the selfish person may be quite well themselves,
But others struggle and have a lot of pains in relation to them.

Whatever is not loved creates pain.
When the self is not loved, it creates inside pain = selfless person.
When the other is not loved, the other gives you pain = selfish person.
Only what is loved is satisfied,
And what is not loved is in pain.
The separated disowned parts of your psyche are wanting reintegration,
And the pain is to get you to attend to them and finally own them.

This self-other distinction I wrote above,
Is more for the convenience of speaking and analyzing.
In reality or essence, there is no such division.
They both are only parts of a single landscape.
They are both parts of your current dream in consciousness.
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The shift of attention

When attention shifts,
From foreground to background,
From form to formless,
From objects to space,
From light to darkness,
From known to unknown,
From linear to non-linear,
From outward to inward,
From reflections to source,
From time to flow,
From cyclic to non-cyclic,
From manifest to unmanifest,
From creation to the unborn,
From manifest to potential,
From stars to the void of space,
From content to context,
From control to surrender,
From fear to devotion,
From identification to freedom,
You return to God.
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Reality vs. Virtual Reality

vr

If you know something is ‘virtual reality’, would you invest/immerse yourself in it?
Would you allow yourself to believe it?
Would you willingly suspend your disbelief?
No matter how overwhelming and high-def the sensory content provided to you is, will you ever lose sight of the fact that it is virtual/unreal?
OR Will it be like a movie where we can plug in and out of it at will?
In a movie, we make the movie ‘feel real’ by virtue of our INVESTMENT, isn’t it?
So what makes something real or unreal?
I feel INVESTMENT/CATHECTION/ATTENTION is what makes ANYTHING real.
So withdrawal of investment implies withdrawal of that reality itself from your consciousness.

Super hi-def Virtual reality that mimics our sensory resolutions will open up a whole new interest in deep metaphysical questions (similar to the feelings Neo had in the matrix movie when he was first shown the nature of reality).
If all REALITY is from our INVESTMENT, then what about this solid reality we experience as the “REAL WORLD”?
Could we call that – our own UNCONSCIOUS INVESTMENT?

I see it as 2 poles:
Movie/VR is conscious investment ——while——- ‘Hard Reality’ is unconscious investment

Even an attempt to change the movie implies investment in the movie.
To “take/claim/redeem” your “power/freedom” back is to redeem your “attention/investment/cathexis” from the unconscious.
I see this as the whole quest of realization and freedom/transcendence.
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Sensations, Psychological activity, and Integration

There are multiple sensations of chaos/pain -> simultaneously happening in:
1 – Sensation/physical reality
2 – Mind/psychological reality
One is not the cause of the other.
Rather both are simultaneous.
1 – Every sensation carries the potential for the psychological effects
2 – Psychological effects carry the potential for sensational effects.
[Sensation effects Psychological effects] = Are ONE, they come together
Focus shifts:
1 – However it is possible to focus on the sensation alone.
2 – OR It is possible to focus solely on psychological effects.
Generally the psychological reality is much more complex that the bare sensation and it can trigger a world of thoughts/memories.
1 – If one wants to rest, then it is possible to simply rest on sensation which by virtue of focus suspends the psychological animation/activity. [Depression – depression by itself is simply rest]
One then experiences only pure sensation with no interpretation.
2 – If one wants to delve into the psychological world of the sensations, then a channel of expression such as free-writing can reveal all the webs of meaning of potential opened up by the sensation.
Here one can get absorbed into all the narratives, stories, webs and principles.

‘Attention/Focus’ is what limits reality to one or the other.
Can one pay attention to the sensation and thought together?
Yes, to an extent, but there is a limitation here – it can tire you quickly.
As a rule:
1 – Divided attention tends to tire – because it takes a lot of energy.
2 – Single minded attention tends to relax – because it uses a much thinner stream of directed energy.
So interestingly, paying attention reduces energy expenditure since the reservoir of energy available is channeled.
That is how people can do focused work for many hours(one thing is relevant, rest is irrelevant), but when they are restless with nothing to do(all is relevant), they can get depleted very rapidly.
It is similar to a circuit.
– If the circuit is not properly closed, then the energy leaks in a lot of places.
– If it is fully closed, then energy is conserved.
The next question though will be about the focus structures themselves.
‘Focus structures’ are driven by desire.
But desire is usually shaped by self-concept/ego-concept structures created in the early years.
Then there is the deeper archetypal desires of your self/soul which are more global and abstract.
So generally again there is a dichotomy here:
1 – If your ego-concept aligns fairly well with your soul/deeper desire -> you function and explore happily within the structure of your ego in the world.
2 – If your ego-concept is distant from your soul desire (your true wisdom) -> the soul will drive most of the efforts into correcting that and seeking learning.

In point 2, that disharmony = pain, and this pain will drive you towards the task of acquiring the necessary understanding to bridge the gap that will integrate and reshape the self-concept.
In such a case, there may be a movement towards dissolution of structure and entering the deeper chaos (the chaos is from lack of conscious nurture) again to realign with your soul-potentials which were abandoned earlier.
Why is there a dissolution? – because probably the structure has already served its purpose and most of its potentials have been explored OR it could be from having many neglected potentials which were not included in your early structure, necessitating integration work via. intuiting of higher order principles as executive agents for the reassembly.