When: Experience > Knowledge = The person becomes a real seeker.
When: Knowledge > Experience = There is no real seeking.
Pleasure and Pain musings
# Pleasure is beginnings, pain is endings
# Pleasure is expansion, pain is contraction
# Pleasure is success, pain is failure
# Pleasure is to seek, pain is to withdraw
# Pleasure is to accelerate, pain is to brake
# Pleasure is to birth, pain is to put to rest
# Pleasure is growth, pain is retardation/regression
# Pleasure is wonder, pain is horror
# Pleasure opens possibilities, pain collapses possibilities
The world as a 5D theater show
The 5 dimensions being the 5 senses:
Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch.
The power of these senses determines the level of realism and dazzle of the world.
Imagine, if the projector light is dimmed in the cinema hall and if the speaker volume is lowered a lot.
The image would then look washed out and translucent, you would be able to see the color, cloth like material texture and imperfections in the screen behind. You’d also hear all the noises and sounds made by the people around you.
Net result: The immersion thus would drastically reduce and what the projector is playing will not have much sway/impact in your experience at all.
Now, let’s say the opposite is done.
Imagine, they make the sound thunderous and surround, they also make the hall pitch black, have a projector that can shine as bright as the sun and make the screen look totally invisible like you are seeing reality through a window.
Net result: Then the movie would cast a powerful spell on you and drown everything else easily and totally possess your experience.
Now what happens if the projector is suddenly switched off or the speakers suddenly cut off? That entire dimension of experience is simply removed right?
Once a sense is cut, that entire dimension of the world disappears with it.
So the world can be said to be a projection of the senses.
The senses project the world just like a projector projects the image world, or a speaker creates the sound world.
So in a way, the world is secondary to the senses themselves.
The dimension of the world experienced, entirely depends on that sense being powered.
It is almost like each sense is like a ‘Yantra’ creating a portal/door through which you can perceive/access those reality dimensions.
Many corollaries or inferences can be made from this.
For instance: The power of the senses determine HOW REAL the reality projected is experienced to be.
Just like how a dazzlingly bright projector will be far more immersive than one that just projects a dim translucent like image. The projector must shine so bright that it effectively hides its existence itself. It must remove all awareness of the existence of a screen at all.
Any awareness of the screen will ruin the immersion.
It ties into those poetic concepts such as, ‘God projects a world so dazzlingly real, it forgets it’s own existence’.
In carnivorous animals such as tigers etc. one can see how powerful their senses are,
And consequently how powerful the experience of the world must be for them.
Even the experiences on LSD amp the senses to such heights, that the world appears to be dazzlingly real and alive.
Actually it is your own increased sense aliveness that is reflected back to you as aliveness of the world.
The world you perceive reflects your own state of aliveness.
When you are profoundly alive, the world also looks profoundly alive to you.
Similarly when you feel dead inside, the world also reflects the same back to you, that it is also dead.
We only see the reflection of our own level of aliveness in the projected world.
We see a sick world when we are sick.
We see a great world when we feel great,
And so on.
# Generally people with sense-powers that are really amped tend to be into sports, travel, physical adventures etc.
# In people where the senses have mellowed down a bit, there is an increase of the intellectual aspect. That detachment may also bring a more visionary attitude to things.
(Imagine, when you were 4 years old and went to the beach for the first time for a picnic, were you intellectualizing stuff or analyzing things, or just immersed/rapt in the sheer dazzle of it all.)
# If the senses are completely withdrawn from (pratyahara), one enters into states of meditation/dhyan/samadhi and so forth. The mystical ‘Naga’ dimension of life gets revealed.
These 3 steps are in a way the journey back to the source projector from its image.
To turn back and look at the projector, first the realization that the movie is unreal must happen.
Else how can you withdraw your mind from it even for an instant?!
Every new sense will usher in a corresponding new dimension of the world.
It is like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.
Each one experiences the elephant depending on what he is feeling.
The world is simply the sheer power of Maya to bewitch one.
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.
Time gives and takes all
The cycle of birth and death,
Seems to have a very close analogy with the water cycle, in my understanding.
As the water vapor rises, the air gets colder,
Condensation happens, rain clouds begin to form,
It rains over the mountains,
Forming various river streams.
Various ice formations from the top of the mountains also mix into these streams.
The streams carry the ice along with them in their journey.
They slowly gather more and more material.
Some of these streams become mighty rivers,
Some of these streams remain fairly thin,
Some of these streams crash somewhere and stop.
Some streams go alone all the way.
Some streams confluence and form large rivers.
Finally, all of the water (from all the streams) evaporates,
And becomes vapor and rises.
In this manner, the cycle goes on and on.
Every incarnation seems like a unique path/stream.
It descends upon the point of birth(the mountains),
Gathering unique material along its path,
And in the end, the water leaves everything behind,
And rises out of all the matter gathered.
Whether the stream was abruptly brought to a stop,
Or whether it joined the ocean and then vaporized from there,
The evaporation eventually happens nevertheless.
Maybe the stream may end up in a hot place causing rapid evaporation,
Or the stream may end up in a cold place causing slow evaporation,
But that is only a difference in degree, not essence.
The essentially process whether shortened or lengthened is still going to happen.
Our spirit-energy I feel is like water in essence.
It can mix with the earth in all its 3 states – existing as ice, water, vapor.
It mixes with the earth and identifies with various kinds of solid, liquid, and gaseous material,
But all of the material can be distilled out to give back pure ice, water, or vapor.
Time gives all and takes all,
But nothing of true value is ever gained or lost.
Nothing real can be threatened, and nothing unreal exists.
All loss is only loss of the illusion of taking the appearance to be real.
No thing exists, only ‘nothing’ exists.
The death process
The withdrawal of the projection:
The world falls back onto the Indriyas (senses),
The Indriyas (senses) fall back onto Manas (mind),
The Manas falls back into the Pranas (life energies/breath),
The Pranas fall back into Tejas (fire/heat of the body),
Lastly, Tejas falls back into Sat (reality).
About Heaven and Hell
Reality seen as total emptiness is heaven and ultimate freedom.
Seeing reality as anything else apart from total emptiness,
Is to be in some level of hell or bondage,
Depending upon the density of the restrictive lens it is seen through.
About wonder
‘Wonder’ is to see infinity, the boundless, and the limitless.
It is a kind of openness.
As the William Blake quote goes:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed,
Every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.”
Feeling great wonder about something would mean,
That particular door of perception is open in you.
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 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.
Journey to the Abstract 