Tag: Metaphysics

Posted on

The self is endless morphing

I read this great analogy in one of the essays from Nagarjuna:

shipathorizon

“When you go to the shore and look out, you see the edge of the world, six miles out. You see a ship get too close to the edge of the world; it falls off. That’s terrible; all those people die. It happens far too often. If you go to the beach, you’ve probably seen it once or twice. You are trapped in an illusion!

So let’s say someone sticks you in the space shuttle, blasts you into orbit. You look down, you see it’s a sphere. They explain gravity. You go back to the beach. It looks just like it did before, but you no longer can see to the edge of the world. You no longer get engaged in discussions about “when you fall off the edge of the world, does it hurt immediately, or does it hurt only when you hit the bottom?” That doesn’t make any sense; you understand the illusion.

This is what the Buddha’s saying about the self. Don’t get caught in discussions about the self–does the self exist, does the self not exist. That’s like trying to decide if it hurts when you fall off the edge of the world or not. Look at the world in terms of dependently originated phenomena. That’s all that’s happening.”

This analogy was so deep, it got me thinking.
I started to see other related metaphors that demonstrate a similar point.
I’ll cover two of them below.

Mountain climbing analogy:

conquer-mountain-winter-climbing-aolne-hd-wallpaper

Suppose you decide to climb a mountain.
As you gaze at it from a distance, it stands like a large mysterious awe inspiring object in front of you.
It beckons you to explore, tread and conquer it by reaching its peak.
The peak is usually covered in snow with a foggy haze around it, which stimulates the feeling of mystery and attainment even more.
From this point of view, you resolve to reach the peak and keep walking.
Now as you walk through all the various camps, at each place you see different worlds.
Initially, there is the forest portion, then there are the grasslands, then there is the harsh hostile terrain, and then finally you hit the tall patch of snow as you race to the top.
Various realms/worlds/points of view are traversed as you move along.
Finally when you do reach the peak, doesn’t it look quite different from your conception of it which you had when you were far off on the ground?
You are seeing from a brand new point of view, but at the same time, you are still there, and this feeling of you was not different when you were on the ground, nor was it different as you passed through all the intermediate terrain.
My experience of life has been that way since my earliest memory.
At one level I am moving through stages, goals, progressing, but at another level I am still the same innocence moving from place and place.
The innocence stays untouched, but the scenery keeps morphing.

Staring at a fractal:

Mandel_zoom_08_satellite_antenna

Have you ever played a video of a fractal zoom on YouTube and just stared at it for a while?
Notice how you see a destination, and you see the fractal moving towards it, but at the same time, as the destination becomes larger and clearer, your whole view is replaced by that, and the earlier view fades.
And in this way, there is a kind of endless renewal and an endless movement at the same time.
I think this clearly illustrates the symbol ‘Ouroboros’.
It also reveals the paradox of there being ‘change’ and yet ‘no change’ at the same time.
Posted on

Extroverts, Introverts and the Mystics

planet-atom

I would first like to lay out some spectrums:
Dissociation/Abstract ——— Association/Literal
Transcendence ———– Immanence

In the above 2 spectrums, we would have mystics to the far left, introverts in the middle, and extroverts to the far right.
So it might look something like this:
Abstract—|M|——|I|——|E|—-Literal
M = Mystic
I = Introvert
E = Extrovert

Our psyche projects life/emotion/feeling into the world and enlivens it.

For extroverts, I think the world objects and people are so totally mapped to their psyche that there is no distance.
They are completely tuned into this world.
So there is no abstraction, rather the world is literal and everything in it is literal.
It is the perfect projection of essence giving total reality to the world and its objects.
For example: If an extrovert says I want that specific car, then his feelings permeate the whole car.
The car literally carries his projected feelings perfectly.
So when the car moves, it is his bundle of feelings literally moving.
So similes and metaphors would not apply since there is no distance between the projection and the object.

Introverts I feel, do not attach to the objects themselves directly but do so to the mental representation of the objects.
So they are a layer removed from the literal and are slightly abstract.
So introverts may use similes, metaphors or abstract concepts more, in their communication.
They see the world with SOME distance and the mental representation in the intermediate layer they interface with the most.
The objects serve as a cue to trigger their mental representation, and then the focus is a bit more internal i.e. on the representation.

Mystics I feel are on the far left end.
They are 1 layer further removed from even the mental representation of objects.
So they inhabit a space that is highly abstract and they witness the deep activity of the symbolic deeper mind.
So their communication tends to be heavy in allegory, metaphor, analogy, and symbols.
One must contemplate on what a mystic says to truly understand it.

This makes me wonder, could we say extroverts are in the nucleus of this world (realm)? (though in conventional life we look at it in the exact opposite way i.e. seeing extroverts as the ones moving around the most)
The introverts are on the nearby electron orbits?
And the mystics are on the outermost electron orbits?
I feel the mystic/free-thinker is a free electron and enjoys a certain freedom in terms of moving around between different atoms and molecules. (which is an analogy for moving in and out of different higher context worlds with an abstract understanding that works in all those worlds)

I feel the mystic operates on the fringe. He is a messenger, a link between the known and the unknown, a link between order and chaos, and he brings back information from the other worlds and assists the evolution of others.
Posted on

Hierarchy of nested contexts

many-worlds

There is no ONE physical world in our experiential reality.
This is more of an abstract idea or concept we sometimes hold in our minds.
In experiential reality however, there is no such ONE world.
Rather there are many many worlds appearing as a nested context hierarchy.
A common context is the commonality.
It conveys “We both are seeing and inhabiting the same world”.

Transcendence is to move from your current context to a higher context.
So there is infinite transcendence(s) as there are infinite nested context hierarchies.
For example: From a geographical point of view, here is a nested context hierarchy:
…Multiverse -> Visible Universe -> Super Galaxy Cluster -> Galaxy Cluster -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Solar System -> Earth -> Continent -> Country -> State -> City -> Area -> Locality -> Building -> Floor number -> Apartment number -> Your room…
The 3 dots on either end is to show that it goes on indefinitely in both directions.
Have you seen the videos on YouTube where they would start from all the way out of the universe and zoom you all the way in until you reach quarks?

Coming to the social sphere, tuning into each context creates a different world inhabited by different people.
What we call ‘our world’ is the context we inhabit.
The status game in society:
People value/e-valu-ate themselves, and then sell themselves to others at a cost.
The whole status game is that: e-valu-ation.
The 2 parties evaluate each other on looks, talents, popularity, status, attractiveness, opportunities, commonality, happiness and so on.
People link up with each other in groups of equivalent status, which forms the common context.

Each context is a world, and you instantly access the common field of information that all the other inhabitants there are holding too.
In a sense that is what unites all of you, it is the context, or the common world.
I can speak about my experience:
– When I was in school (in India), the context was the same for all students in the state known as “state board”. So everyone had the same syllabus and more or less the same school system too. So that was the common context/common world. I was in the same world as most other students in the entire state and to a large extent the entire country.
– When I joined an Engineering college, that put me in that context world and gave me access to all other engineers in the country along with the status hierarchy inside that. There were some colleges which were graded at the same level as mine, and there were some other colleges that were of graded lower, and so on.
– Later, when working in an Indian IT company, I had access to all other friends fresh out of college working in the IT industry and many of my friends were working in similar IT firms as me.
– Then when doing my Masters in US, the university was the common context and that was the new world I found myself in. I could relate up, horizontally, and down the education ladder i.e. with PhD students, other masters students, undergrads and so on. I could share context with other friends doing Masters in other universities too, and so on.
– I then took up a job at a product development company in US, and I was in the world of post-grad professionals working for US IT companies.
So to summarize, I moved through 5 worlds:
– The world of school
– The world of undergrad college
– The world of post-undergrad work
– The world of masters program at a large university
– The world of post-grad work

Now I am in a different world and I do not know what mystical new world/context awaits me.
So these contexts are OUR REAL WORLDS.
Posted on

Night sea journey

nightsea

I often ask myself the question “what do you want?”
When I look inside myself for the answer I see a huge soup of impossible contradictions.
And because I want opposite things, it becomes impossible to move forward.
It is like a boat that is still in the middle of the ocean without a rider.
And say you ask the boat “where are you going?”.
And lets say it communicates the answer to you through its movements.
What would you see?
You would just see it randomly bobbing back and forth in random directions based on the wind forces around it and the undulations in the water surface.
My internal forces, drives and will-power have become like that.

Imagine you are in a boat traversing the night sea.
Say you had a map with you and now that is lost.
The waves, winds and other external pressures determine your steering and movement, but to you it all looks meaningless.
Everything is equally relevant, meaningful, and meaningless simultaneously.
My internal psyche feels like that.
This state of my psyche gets projected to the external world I inhabit too.
The world is only a prop for the movie that you project on it from your psyche.
This is a very strange, liminal, and limbo-like peculiar state of experience for which I have given a kind of poetic expression.
Basically it is the loss of the map.
It is being adrift and directionless.
Mirages of lands emerge at a distance, making me pursue that direction, but it is only temporary for it vanishes and it is replaced by another mirage somewhere else.

The map of reality tells you what is relevant, where to go, what to ignore, what to pursue, what to collect, and so on.
Without this map, now you do not know where to go(what direction), what is relevant or irrelevant, or what is to be pursued or let go.
You do not know what is a blessing and what is a curse, and the perception of things can flip flop too.
Your whole world views can change in a day which would reorder all your energies only for it to change again the next day and once again reorder all your energies.
So how can you make any investment if it can be voided anytime by a fundamental shift?
What can you do if your very ground and frame of reference is constantly shifting? (like undulating waters).

I don’t know if a stable map or a deeper map of reality will ever emerge again.
Will I learn a new way of living without having a map?
Will strong desires ever fill me up again? OR am I moving towards transcendent silence?
Such questions circle my mind.
But all the questions and answers in this territory are again only temporary appearances.
Every emotion arises and vanishes.
Every concern, Every doubt, Every focused area, Every meta-narrative is appearing and disappearing rapidly like a shimmer.
To say I am lost, is to imply that I believe I can be found.
But even that belief does not stay constant :).
I bob in and out of various creative potentials.
Posted on

The fire of desire enlivens reality

Fire

Desire is like the ‘fire’ or the ‘internal sun in you’ that upholds reality.
It comes from within you and enlivens all that you experience as the outside world.
The physical objects in the world are only “Props” for your “Projected desires”.
That is why when desire goes dim, all of consciousness goes dim.
Even the sensory world consciousness is largely/partly maintained from the “desire to survive”.
That is why when I’m alone in a safe place, I would often become oblivious to my surroundings.
The consciousness of everything rests on DESIRE.
Without desire, you would lose consciousness.
The world is kept alive and enlivened by YOUR DESIRE.
Posted on

What is imagination?

child-imagination

What is ‘Imagination’?
Could I say it is ‘Creative capacity’, ‘Creative potential’, ‘Power to create’?
Could we also call it ‘Spirit’?
So, ‘Imagination’ = ‘Spirit’ = ‘Creative Force’ = ‘God’?
Spirit = atma?, Matter = anatma?
But then who created ‘anatma’ would be the question.
So, there is ATMA (notice the caps) which creates the seeming play between atma and anatma.
ATMA {atma, anatma}
GOD {god, non-god}
SPIRIT{spirit(formless), form}

In a way, what we call ‘THE WORLD’ is our conception of it or our interpretation of it.
It is a ‘Mental Representation’.
So reality APPEARS in a field of consciousness, and I am that field.
So I can say, reality appears in my imagination.

It is not that you possess the faculty/capacity of imagination, rather YOU are an appearance of your imagination.
You are your imagination’s possession.
Your imagination transcends what you call as ‘you’.
Paradoxical as it sounds, your imagination is beyond you, and what you call you is one of your imaginations.

Imagination is not a figment within space-time, rather, imagination is beyond and creates strings of space-time itself.
Imagination is the broadest context, the ground of all that exists.

Here is brilliant article on imagination:
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/god-the-imagination/
Excerpt:
“Being the “only immediate reality,” the divine, creative imagination is the primordial ground of “reality” itself. Paradoxically, at the same time that the philosophers’ stone revealed itself as a product of the alchemists’ imagination, the alchemists realized that they themselves — and everyone for that matter — were the imagination of the philosophers’ stone!”
Posted on

The dark night of the soul and chakras

7-Chakras-7-Worlds

There is the world -> then the world of worlds -> then the world of world of worlds, and so on -> Creating the higher and higher context realities.
So, it in the “world of world of worlds”, the mega-context, the far and distant background/context, where the dark night of soul occurs.
For instance in physical terms, if the earth were to go out of orbit – wouldn’t that MEGA-CONTEXT shift affect EVERY SINGLE thing?
The Dark night of soul(dnos) is something like that.
It is a change in the MEGA-CONTEXT layer, which is why it is called dark night of “SOUL”, because the soul is this mega-context/background.

The DNOS is also a 6C(6th chakra) journey.
It is the penance of Shiva to realize his essence.
One could also say that among the 6C realms of ISIS, APOPHIS, and OSIRIS, the dnos represents the realm of APOPHIS.

The egos in society operating to gain:
Security(1C)
Relationships and pleasure(2C)
Status/worldly-knowledge(3C)
and are operating in the 1C, 2C, 3C worlds.
For them anything beyond 3C is far out.
Whereas the dark nighter is operating in the 6C(other-worldly/visionary knowledge) world.

When 6C journeying happens, all the lower chakras get instantly disempowered which is the feeling of getting disconnected from God.
Because here God is Shiva = Third-eye = residing in the 6C or the 6th dimension.
Literally, Shiva loses interest in the lower chakras.

When the 6C loses interest in the lower chakras, the 6C starts journeying to its source(which is ITS ORIGINAL WISDOM aligned to 7C = DIVINE), and now the 6C starts alchemizing all the lower chakras as it moves to ALIGNMENT with its source.
Alchemizing/Purification/Alignment is a ROSY WORD for the harsh climate created for all the other chakras by the 6C return journey.
Each chakra is like a person you know – Our physical person, Our emotional person, Our ego person, Our interests/love person, and so on.
So those people i.e. the lower chakra people go through the DARK NIGHT process of alignment.

The 6C is where the IGNORANCE and DISCONNECTION from God lies.
It is also the chakra where ‘depression’; occurs.
A normal person who believes he is a mortal body/ego lives in 6C estrangement and their 6C channels god energy from afar, like a moon reflecting the sun(moonlight).
That is why they believe, they are this personality/ego, they are mortal, they are the body, they will die etc.
Whereas for a person who has gone through the entire alchemy, his 6C is no longer estranged from the infinite source, and therefore it lives close to the sun and basks in its glory.
Posted on

Every chakra is a context

chakra-mirrors

Each chakra is a context and each higher chakra is a higher context.
Each chakra is a dimension and each higher chakra is a higher dimension.
Each lower chakra context is SUBSUMED and a SUBSET of the higher chakra context.
The higher chakras can journey into realms native to its dimension.

Reality is multidimensional and dimensions are layered.
Lower dimensions are instances of the higher ones.
So when a change happens in the higher dimensions, they AFFECT ALL of the lower dimensions.
Shifts in the higher chakras can challenge all of the lower chakras in different ways.

Each chakra has an inner dimension and outer dimension.
Outer dimension of chakras:
Like all physical experiences = root chakra
All sexual, relational, and pleasurable experiences = sacral chakra
All doing, acquisition of status/position in the world = solar chakra
All that you love(interests/passion) in the world = heart chakra
All the true power/understanding you command in the world = throat chakra
All that you can see in the outer world = third eye chakra
Your universe-view(like world view), knowing faculty = crown chakra
Shifts in each chakra will shifts contexts.
Higher the chakra, deeper and vaster is the shift of context.

That is why, since psychedelics hit the sixth chakra, they journey you through the sixth dimensional realms.
So they can create totally novel and unpredictable experiences in all of the lower chakras.

It is like say, I suddenly teleport you to a war zone in Israel.
Imagine the gigantic change in context.
Suddenly all your behavior would have to change right?
All that you see, hear, and sense is different.
Supposing there, you could meet a person of the opp-sex who is also trying to escape the war, and let’s say you both form a kind of relationship.
And lets imagine you both have are sexually attracted to each other and have sex.
That sex would be a 2C phenomenon happening under the umbrella of the 6C context of being in a war zone in Israel.
Similarly the kind of food you eat = physical 1C experience.
The kind of relationships you make there = 2C experience.
The kind of community you find yourself in = 3C experience
The broad vibes of that place = 4C experience
The kind of understanding you have of that situation = 5C Experience
And all of this is under the UMBRELLA of the 6C context which is being in a war zone in Israel”.
Now what if I teleport you to an alien plant = That would be a 7C shift of context to a whole new realm.
Posted on

Linear causation is only an appearance

television

Structures emerging like an organic process (Implying linear causation), are only streams or channels coming from the uncaused.
There is no linear-causation at all in the larger context.
It all exists at once.
Causation is an APPEARANCE stream coming from the uncaused.

So in the higher truth,
There is no static measurable discrete force in me that is working against chaos to build order nor is there is a me making steady progress in understanding the world.
Those linear appearances are snippets happening in the vaster context of non-linearity and multi-dimensionality.
Everything is only an appearance/a certain unfolding of possibility in a context channel and when the context channel shifts, 100% of reality can shift.

I think full structures/worlds/dreams are already present and all we do is tune into them which then creates our linear reality like selecting a TV channel.
It is like that the cymatics experiment -> the pattern just instantly emerges when the frequency resonance is right.
Or it is like a dream where the whole dream just instantly comes in.

Like take the television set example.
You turn it on and BAAM a channel is running, say with a TV show.
It instantly appears -> and appears to have a situation, some characters, and some movement.
Now say you change the channel, then that linearity and that scene and all the characters just vanish, and are replaced with an entirely new context.
So that is what I meant by saying that linearity is just an appearance.

Like have you had the experience of dreams fading in and out?
In my lucid dreams, after getting lucid in one dream -> I would pursue that dream thread and situation, however soon-after the dream would start to fade to black.
If I stay relaxed in that black space -> then a new dream would SPAWN from there. And the context would just materialize. Like suddenly I would find myself in a beach, or a strange apartment which would be completely different from the former dream -> and then even this would fade to black and again return to dreaming, but each of these returns would be dramatically different with no overlap.

This can be observed even in your normal dreams.
Like say you hear the alarm in the morning (you are jarred awake out of your dream) and you snooze it and go back to bed.
Now again you start dreaming and once again the alarm rings after a while -> again you are awake, but just compare the 2 dreams you had. Weren’t they radically different qualitatively? Were you even the same person in them?
Posted on

All of us are channelers

channeling

Where does everything in existence come from?
Where does all of our consciousness come from?
Where does all our knowledge come from?
Where do all our thoughts and actions come from?

Isn’t is all ultimately from God?
From the formless, uncaused, divine?
Ultimately doesn’t all inspiration come from above?
Aren’t we all channeling God?