Food and substances can be had in a way that maximizes sattva and minimizes tamas.
Essentially, sattva = high vibration (gaseous) – highest energy in the molecules/being
rajas = medium vibration (water) – medium energy in the molecules/being
tamas = low vibration (solid) – lowest energy so it clumps up
One recharges sattva via deep sleep – basically through the circadian rhythm.
Other conscious activities do help – like relaxation, meditation etc. but again they may disturb the circadian rhythm too.
For instance, if you deeply meditate in the evening for 1 hour – you may not be able to sleep that night. That is the same like sleeping at an odd time like 6pm in the evening and expecting that you will sleep at 12pm in the night as usual.
So in a sense the underworld, The dragon of chaos, the primordial chaos, is -> if you cannot sleep.
The circadian rhythm and [deep sleep/dreaming and its depth] determines the amount of energy one has.
If you lose this capacity to profoundly relax, you also lose your ability to be profoundly awake.
In a sense, paradoxically, conscious relaxation and degree of awakeness are the same.
The person who is always deep at rest, is also deeply awake to that same degree.
That is why a person who does not try to be awake is more awake than the person who tries to be, because such a person has even let go of that tension of trying to be more awake. So only he is truly resting in the Dao.
Once one penetrates to the [Ego-aware, Construct-aware dark night of soul] stage of development, then the very ego/self/will/desire is perceived to be a stress/tension/pain and there is this deeper desire to release it all into the NOW/Dao/Infinite.
One consciously surrenders/gives up all to the unknowing/unbecoming/undoing – like melting into deep sleep – because it is seen with pristine dreadful lucidity that identification with the self construct is the cause of suffering/tension/pain/stress itself.
So the next obvious step then becomes to let yourself relax more and more/fall more and more – to relax yourself beyond recognition – because when the self construct is relaxed, it dissolves (its very structure is maintained by unconscious tension) – so the territory of oblivion is entered, where you do not know who you are anymore and you definitely do not want to go back to your old self/construct (the very stress from which you relaxed yourself out of).
So the self construct is dissolved into something larger, which you awaken into. Like if the self was sugar, it is now dissolved into water.
Your experiencing the dissolving is like dying into the unknown, and when the dissolving is complete, you wake up to your nature as water, you are then re-born.
All death/rebirth/alchemy/resurrection/dissolution appears to have this process. You surrender into the unknown underworld, whose forces are initially painful, then later those very forces become your friends.
The so called devils who were ripping you apart, are now seen as angels freeing you from these tension/structures/false-identifications.
The perspective shifts from seeing all that is happening as an oppressive/tyrannical/eating-away from devils/scavengers to seeing that one has voluntarily/willingly surrendered/given into the action of these forces to be liberated from self.
You could see these dissolving agents as acidic/devils or angels/liberators depending on your orientation.
If you’re eyes are on wanting to holding on -> they are devils, if your eyes are on liberation -> they are angels/helpers.
You lose you old, and what do you get in return? NOTHING. The nothing is born, the old form dies.
The final gift is YOUR ABSENCE, this absence of self is the greatest git.
Every death is an alchemy/transformation – and every death is not death, because death can never be, it is always a rebirth.
There is no life without innocence, death is the return to innocence/freshness.
Like Alan Watts would say, to know everything is to live in the dead.
Spirit is magic, no magic is no life.
We can look at it like a spectrum OR a pendulum:
Re-filling knowledge/form ——————— emptying form/restoring innocence
When too innocent, we seek knowledge ardently.
When too knowledgeable, we seek innocence with the same gusto.
Just like a child, who is ushered into a playroom by his mother.
He enjoys exploring all the new toys, and once he is done, he goes back to the mother, so that she can take him somewhere else where he is once again innocent.
Innocence is the potential fire of knowledge-seeking.
Knowledge is the potential fire of innocence-seeking.
Like a pendulum or a rhythm.
Essentially, sattva = high vibration (gaseous) – highest energy in the molecules/being
rajas = medium vibration (water) – medium energy in the molecules/being
tamas = low vibration (solid) – lowest energy so it clumps up
One recharges sattva via deep sleep – basically through the circadian rhythm.
Other conscious activities do help – like relaxation, meditation etc. but again they may disturb the circadian rhythm too.
For instance, if you deeply meditate in the evening for 1 hour – you may not be able to sleep that night. That is the same like sleeping at an odd time like 6pm in the evening and expecting that you will sleep at 12pm in the night as usual.
So in a sense the underworld, The dragon of chaos, the primordial chaos, is -> if you cannot sleep.
The circadian rhythm and [deep sleep/dreaming and its depth] determines the amount of energy one has.
If you lose this capacity to profoundly relax, you also lose your ability to be profoundly awake.
In a sense, paradoxically, conscious relaxation and degree of awakeness are the same.
The person who is always deep at rest, is also deeply awake to that same degree.
That is why a person who does not try to be awake is more awake than the person who tries to be, because such a person has even let go of that tension of trying to be more awake. So only he is truly resting in the Dao.
Once one penetrates to the [Ego-aware, Construct-aware dark night of soul] stage of development, then the very ego/self/will/desire is perceived to be a stress/tension/pain and there is this deeper desire to release it all into the NOW/Dao/Infinite.
One consciously surrenders/gives up all to the unknowing/unbecoming/undoing – like melting into deep sleep – because it is seen with pristine dreadful lucidity that identification with the self construct is the cause of suffering/tension/pain/stress itself.
So the next obvious step then becomes to let yourself relax more and more/fall more and more – to relax yourself beyond recognition – because when the self construct is relaxed, it dissolves (its very structure is maintained by unconscious tension) – so the territory of oblivion is entered, where you do not know who you are anymore and you definitely do not want to go back to your old self/construct (the very stress from which you relaxed yourself out of).
So the self construct is dissolved into something larger, which you awaken into. Like if the self was sugar, it is now dissolved into water.
Your experiencing the dissolving is like dying into the unknown, and when the dissolving is complete, you wake up to your nature as water, you are then re-born.
All death/rebirth/alchemy/resurrection/dissolution appears to have this process. You surrender into the unknown underworld, whose forces are initially painful, then later those very forces become your friends.
The so called devils who were ripping you apart, are now seen as angels freeing you from these tension/structures/false-identifications.
The perspective shifts from seeing all that is happening as an oppressive/tyrannical/eating-away from devils/scavengers to seeing that one has voluntarily/willingly surrendered/given into the action of these forces to be liberated from self.
You could see these dissolving agents as acidic/devils or angels/liberators depending on your orientation.
If you’re eyes are on wanting to holding on -> they are devils, if your eyes are on liberation -> they are angels/helpers.
You lose you old, and what do you get in return? NOTHING. The nothing is born, the old form dies.
The final gift is YOUR ABSENCE, this absence of self is the greatest git.
Every death is an alchemy/transformation – and every death is not death, because death can never be, it is always a rebirth.
There is no life without innocence, death is the return to innocence/freshness.
Like Alan Watts would say, to know everything is to live in the dead.
Spirit is magic, no magic is no life.
We can look at it like a spectrum OR a pendulum:
Re-filling knowledge/form ——————— emptying form/restoring innocence
When too innocent, we seek knowledge ardently.
When too knowledgeable, we seek innocence with the same gusto.
Just like a child, who is ushered into a playroom by his mother.
He enjoys exploring all the new toys, and once he is done, he goes back to the mother, so that she can take him somewhere else where he is once again innocent.
Innocence is the potential fire of knowledge-seeking.
Knowledge is the potential fire of innocence-seeking.
Like a pendulum or a rhythm.
Journey to the Abstract 