When: Experience > Knowledge = The person becomes a real seeker.
When: Knowledge > Experience = There is no real seeking.
About transformation and the revelation of faith
Faith is revealed in times of uncertainty/lack of control,
When your model of life (formed from your past) does not explain your current experience.
It would also apply when your experience is not stable and consistent, flickering all the time, where the doors and access to perception keeps opening and closing beyond your control (appearing to do so at their own whim).
A person will always judge “transformation” as negative since all judgment is only based on the past.
When there is the nulling of everything you were in the past, how can it be judged as positive in any light?
The only way transformation can be judged positively is by faith.
Transformation: Judging by past (negative) —–vs—— Judging by faith (positive)
What is loved has been lost —-vs—– What is loved has not yet come.
To live itself is to step into the unknown and it is to have faith.
The lowest nadir point in transformation,
Is like the point where the caterpillar has entirely de-structured and become the cocoon.
It is like where one walks alone into the unknown into pitch darkness.
It is here, where all movement happens through faith and faith alone.
Faith is the vehicle that carries you through such dark times,
Where one knows not where one is,
Where one knows not whether what is happening is a blessing or a curse,
Or even how to make any sense of what is happening.
Suicide, Depression, Bitterness, Alienation/Separation/Anti-social feelings, Thoughts of destruction of everything, all show a crisis or a lack of faith.
This faith is actually the force of life itself that moves everything inexorably.
In deeper reality, that is the underlying condition at all times anyway.
When growing or dying or transforming, there is a lot more uncertainty.
At such times there is a lot more of stepping into the unknown,
But also, in a sense, a lot more of change/life.
Life = change/unknown/mystery/spirit.
The vortex of time moves you through various stations.
When things are stable and repetitive, there is a chance to build something of your own.
There is then this transition to feeling like an independent individual capable having personal power.
Here, this underlying movement of faith/life sort of veils itself into a clear knowledge of the world/certainty.
However, the greatest mystery of death still lurks somewhere in the recesses.
Although greatly veiled in a steady structured predictable lifestyle lived in the known,
Death has still been the intrigue for all of mankind for all time.
‘What is before birth’, and ‘what is after death’, are still 2 unknowns.
We find our present self and its condition sandwiched between these 2 unknowns.
We know not where we come from, and we know not where we are going,
But life/god makes itself more or even most visible in times of great change/transformation, removing all apparent refuges/securities, and revealing that this was the only thing that was real and all else was only its appearance.
About time
Time in ‘experience’ is change.
It is a subjective experience.
One could say, there is only psychological time,
Objective/clock/mechanical time is only an inference and not an experience per se.
Time itself has infinite potentials/possibilities,
Because it is a whole dimension.
Any dimension that way is infinite in its nature.
So the determinant of what time is experienced,
Is based on the ‘psyche-lens’ through which the time-dimension is modulated.
This ‘psyche-lens’ I see as different layers of memory and their energetic activations.
In a sense, we are always experiencing eternity at every moment.
Every moment is a combination of …past…present…future…
All 3 are experienced as a single swath/continuum in experience.
They are all completely intertwined and inter-influence each other.
The past memory that is held in mind sets the expectation/imagination for the future.
The present experience influences which past memory is accessed and also the predictions about the future.
A promise from the future can influence your entire present experience and past memories,
And so on.
Fixed self in a changing world or changing self in a fixed world
How do you experience reality?
# Do you feel like a [relatively fixed self] in a [changing world]?
OR
# Do you feel like a [changing self] in a [relatively steady world]?
This relationship between self and world experienced,
Depends on the relativity of rates of change between the 2.
# A more changing world, unchanging self = fixed self in a changing world experience.
# A more changing self, and unchanging world = changing self in a fixed world experience.
Time is the creator, maintainer, and dissoluter of the self.
Time is the ocean, that pushes out the wave of self -> makes the wave ride through -> and reabsorbs the wave back into itself.
This process is however not a single linear chain.
There are multiple overlapping dimensions.
For instance, the biological cycle itself is one of the important dimensions.
There is the process from:
Childhood -> Teens -> Adulthood -> Old age.
So in childhood, the self is growing and changing much faster than the environment around.
Something similar happens in teenage years too, there is a lot of change and growth in other dimensions.
So in both these times, you are relatively changing much faster than the world around you which may appear to be more fixed/steady/cyclic of sort.
In adulthood, once the self is stabilized, there is the maintenance (more or less) steady stage, there might be an experience of:
# Being a fixed self in a fixed world
# Or fixed self in a changing world (if there are catalysts from the environ).
The other dimension I can think of is the astrological sign,
Whether it is: Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable.
# Cardinal signs not only maintain but also build/grow the self further.
They are like the rising wave.
They are equivalent of the Brahma creation principle.
# Fixed signs maintain the self, like the steady wave.
They are the equivalent of the Vishnu maintenance principle.
# Mutable signs are like the returning wave,
Merging back into the ocean.
They are the equivalent of the Shiva dissolver/redeemer principle.
Then there could also be the soul’s age as another dimension,
The larger cycle on which the subtle body rides in time.
From: Infant soul -> Child soul -> Young soul -> Mature soul -> Old soul.
So this is similar to the biological stages in principle but pertaining to the subtle body.
I have outlined 3 dimensions,
But there might be a plethora of such dimensions,
Determining the character of one’s experience.
Doors open, Doors close
When something looks possible/doable to you, that door is open.
When something looks impossible/undoable to you, that door is closed.
Every relation/person is also a door,
That is open or closed to you.
They in-turn open other doors to things,
And/or open doors to other people,
Who then act as doors to more things and people,
And so on…
Doors can open in a cascade, like dominos falling,
And open a whole new vista of experience for you,
And all of it could be from a single door (a person you suddenly made contact with).
The reverse can happen too,
That is, all of your current vast arrays of doors can also start closing up in a rapid cascade.
A bodily problem can do that, it can just shutdown your open doors rapidly in no time.
Similarly a single relation with an difficult person can bring so much destruction,
That most of your doors could close off from that.
A good time in your life is when doors were opening and opening for you,
Keeping fresh enjoyments piling over one another.
A bad time is when doors keep on closing imprisoning you further and further,
Giving you the grief of loss again and again.
What is ‘Vision’
From my contemplation and experience,
Vision is to “See through”.
Vision is the act of penetration through the phenomenology of the world,
So as to never lose sight of the essence,
Which is the “ineffable infinite mystery” that underlies all.
Vision comes from transcendence.
The greater the transcendence, the greater the vision.
Vision is the capacity to recognize emptiness (appearances) and no-thingness.
To see that no thing/form is real,
And that the reality underlying things/forms is not a thing at all.
It is to see that every point of perception in your experience,
Is a doorway or window into the infinite.
It is when your light passes through everything,
And is not stopped by anything.
Mistaken essence is the cause of sorrow
Mistaken essence is the cause of sorrow/suffering.
There is only God/Brahman/Field/Consciousness.
That is the only essence.
All else that is experienced is the play of this singular essence.
So no part of what is seen is essence.
The mistake is to mistake any part of this play to be essence.
It is like gold that is continuously being remodeled and smelted.
Here gold is the essence, and all of the ornaments made with it are subject to change.
So no ornament-form is essence.
Similarly no form in existence is essence.
Essence is formless and quality-less,
And it is not graspable as an object.
One can only be it and experience it directly.
Another analogy would be a VR game,
Where only the “hardware/software/power” are real.
The rest of experience is just the play-out of those 3 as the flow of time.
This is analogous to our essence play as the BME (Body, Mind, Energy) process in time.
No thing is real, and no thing exists.
Only god/brahman/field/consciousness exists.
The evolution process is the play/dream of this field,
And our individual experience is like a figment of this evolution process.
The 3 levels of knowledge
The 3 levels of knowledge are:
# 1st level: Knowledge based on Belief
# 2nd level: Knowledge based on Logic/Deduction
# 3rd level: Knowledge based on Direct Experience
Knowledge based on belief interestingly is often reasonably well backed.
The belief is generally not totally blind.
For instance, we may place our faith on various qualifications, accreditations, positions, institutions, brands, and so on,
Because they have worked well for us and our friends/relatives so far,
And show no reason to suspect anything.
Here, there is a good reliance on statistics, public opinion, popularity etc.
Knowledge based on Logic/Deduction is a deeper kind of knowledge,
Where we investigate the ideas/concepts/laws for ourselves,
And gain an understanding of all of it by ourselves by objective experimentation.
This is generally the realm of science.
The third level is knowledge based on direct experience.
This is the deepest form of knowledge.
Fields like spirituality, meditation, yoga, mysticism etc. come under this.
Here, you know directly by being/union-ing/becoming whatever it is you desire to know.
This is usually where it starts to sound esoteric and mystical.
Generally, we possess all these 3 types of knowledge to varying degrees.
However we may prize one more than the other.
# A person may feel satisfied relying on trusted and proven authorities,
Who have say also received many great testimonials from relatives and friends.
This would be the 1st level of knowledge.
# A scientific person may prize the 2nd level knowledge the highest,
Where he feels satisfied only after he has grokked the concepts fully by himself.
# Then lastly, there are some people who will not be satisfied until they directly experience something. This is the 3rd level of knowledge.
The initiation into the 3rd level of knowledge, is knowing that you do not know anything.
Then the deeper seeking begins at the 3rd level.
So capability being one thing,
The other difference between these 3 types of people,
Is regarding what level they feel satisfied with.
It is to that degree, that they pursue,
Through the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level of knowledge.
Each of these levels use different languages,
And they are often dimensionally apart from each other.
# The language of belief based knowledge relies on testimonials, statistics, numbers, reputation, fan following, popularity, general level of crowd-validation and so on.
# The language of logical deduction based knowledge involves: scientific notations, equations, mathematics, labeling of different components, logical symbols, flow charts, relationship diagrams, modeling etc.
# The language of direct experience is like the language used in esoteric, mystical, and spiritual texts. Direct experience is indescribable, so the descriptions that come closest to that belong in this category.
The science of attitude and perception
Every aspect of existence that we see outside,
Has a corresponding component of that within ourselves too.
Perception is from resonance/recognition/alignment.
That is why it is said “You only experience the self, not the world”,
OR “You experience the world only as reflected in your self”.
All perception is a kind of resonance between the outer and the inner.
It is not that the outer and inner are separated in time by a linear process.
They simultaneous spawn,
Like how the dreamer character and the dream environment spawn together simultaneously.
Like for example, if you start to hate some aspect of yourself,
At that very instant, you also simultaneously prime yourself into hating all other potential reminders/representations/symbols/patterns of that aspect from the outside.
This is because, reality is ‘experience’,
And experience is fractal in nature.
What you hold in mind, you see outside.
And what you see outside, you hold in mind.
You see similar motifs/patterns/symbols/representations,
i.e. all that reflect the idea that you are holding.
The outer-inner appear to be in a constant state of transaction.
Sometimes an inner change alters the outer perception.
Sometimes an outer change alters the perception of the inner.
So from this level of perspective,
There is not even a you vs an other or inner vs outer.
It is a single swath that instantly manifests together.
The attitudes I hold towards every aspect of existence,
Multiply themselves infinitely and instantly throughout the entire scape of existence.
When saying ‘The attitudes I hold…’, I was implying that I am the determiner.
But actually, when delving deeper, I see that even these attitudes,
Also seem to be ‘appearances’.
Rather then being something I determine,
They seem to be flowing through and expressing through me.
My ability to alter them or control them,
Seems to be determined by how much energy/power I have,
And my level of perception and dis-identification i.e. whether I can even perceive those attitudes as objects in my awareness.
This energy level is again conditional of sort, again the effect of many other cyclic processes.
To dis-identify from anything, you must first have the power/energy to separate yourself from it and see it as an object.
When enmeshed and identified into something,
Even if you can see this enmeshment,
You need enough power/freq/energy to extricate yourself out of that.
It is similar to how we need enough external force to overcome newton’s first law of inertia.
Generally, you function from a certain station of freq,
While accessing all kinds of states from there.
This I call the LOC (level of consciousness) of the subtle body.
I could say, ‘What you are is where you are seeing from’.
What you do not see, will be something you are subject to, and it will rule you from within.
What you do see, is something subject to you, and can be ruled.
For many people, what I see is that, their life-fires/soul are enmeshed and identified with their genetics (to varying degrees/levels).
It is like they are embedded inside those grids, and therefore all of their life fires only serve the demands of those structures.
They are completely unaware of this, because they identify totally with the feelings/perceptions arising from these grids.
It reminds me of animals, how they function only within 2 lines, only within a certain set pattern.
For human beings, it seems,
The bottom line is similar to reptiles/mammals,
But the top line is super high.
The spectrum is vast and there is enormous potential to rise up in awareness.
Everyone gravitates towards freedom of some kind
I feel like every person finds their niche,
Where they seek their freedom from.
Some like the freedom of having plenty of money,
And all of the potential/possibility that brings.
Some like the freedom of enrolling into the institution of marriage.
This frees them from the prior insecurity of relationship,
And now they have a safe space to build a bond with the other person.
Then once you have a stable bond, you can have the additional joy of having children,
And having the joy of sharing a profound relationship with a few beings/souls.
Then there is also the social dimension which approves of this and gives you the freedom of social connection (camaraderie/rapport) with all of the others who are similarly married and having children.
And so on.
Some like the freedom of being a nomad and traveling and exploring different parts of the world.
Some like the freedom that the latest technology brings.
Like having the most powerful computer or smartphone or camera etc.
These uber level tools help them access many kinds of potential experiences.
Some like the freedom of buying their own land and house,
And making whatever they want and however they want in that space.
Some like the freedom they get when working for a stable job in an MNC.
Because this frees them from job and social insecurity.
It provides a common frame (a shared environ) for many people to collude with and connect to.
Now they have a safe container to thrive in and explore all its possibilities.
Every company premise nowadays is like a small township right? (before 2020)
Some like the freedom of sexual conquest.
That is, working to making themselves as desirable as possible,
So that they can have the greatest freedom to choose mates and explore that aspect of human nature.
Some like the freedom of the internet in terms of acquiring all kinds of knowledge they are interested in.
The internet is like an unlimited library of knowledge giving immense possibilities for learning any kind of thing.
The list is endless.
As of me, where I find my freedom from, is in the niche of creative self expression.
I get it from expressing/translating/conceptualizing/depicting/articulating/symbolizing and sharing the flow of visions/insights/ideas appearing in my inner space.
Journey to the Abstract 