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.
The ego is the internalization of other’s expectations from you, which you do for survival
We internalize, maintain, and forward the structures of all the others who loved us in whatever way, at whatever level, to continue to attract similar such people who will like and support us in future, and so on.
This is like a memory driven cyclic process, that strives to maintain its core identity, and expand and enhance it.
The relational-ego usually starts with the parents, and then extends itself from there.
The love for the offspring from the parents side and for the parents from the child’s side is biologically supported.
The wheel-hub is created from those primary relations, i.e. the core self-concept, and then it extends its spokes from there as more interaction and exposure to the world happens.
It is a sort of primary imitation and emulation.
I’d say deep devotion/admiration/respect evokes mirroring/imitation.
This may be happening naturally to an infant born into this world.
A deep and vast subliminal absorption takes place in the formative years.
Keeping the individual’s past (karmic memory) aside,
Even just observing the tangible transmission of genetics from generation to generation in the lineage,
I feel the blueprints (genetic memories) are transmitted through and across each generation.
For instance, all the people that loved and supported your grandparents/parents, those faces will look familiar and appealing to you too in some way,
And you may be repelled towards all those who hurt and rejected them in the past.
Literally, the word familiar, points to something to do with familial.
One perspective of all of this is that, this is all Prakriti/Nature.
And that it is all survival based.
Whatever enabled the survival of your ancestors for 7+ generations prior to you,
The memory of all of it is functioning as a blueprint.
Could this be a huge basis of all of our attractions/repulsions to things/people/places etc.?
It is as if this 7-generational worth memory is firing within your experience signaling all kinds of desires/aversions and so on, in experience.
Another aspect is that:
“Every action is propelled from its dual.”
Potential charge -> Kinetic charge.
It is like a battery discharge.
So in this context,
“One could be discharging the potential charges of the family lineage one was born into.”
For example:
Say, if generations have nurtured a deep desire for wealth and due to lack of opportunity they could only keep dreaming about it intensely,
It may happen that the new offspring born into the lineage may have a much better environment and loads of opportunities for wealth.
This offspring may then feel a massive desire to seek wealth with an unstoppable inner force driving it.
The deeper force could be from the imagination of the sheer enjoyment/pleasure of it and/or for the atonement of family/lineage shame (low status) about being poor/unworthy/undeserving etc.
It depends on the undercurrents that are running through the lineage finding expression through the offspring.
If the parent is already successful, then the child simply derives meaning and purpose from that. It would emulate that and try to get those same rewards.
If the parent himself/herself is seeking, then the child also furthers that search as the purpose.
So a settled parent begets a settled child.
A seeking parent begets a seeking child.
This may not be all in the open and articulated.
In fact very little of it may be openly spoken about and conscious to the parent.
The seeds even reveal their potencies only after they sprout up a bit after some opportunity to develop is present.
Else they are too feeble and will not be detectable except by the most sensitive person.
This genetic lineage can be at different stages of maturity and evolution.
The role you play here is an emergent one.
It builds over time as you deepen your relationship with it.
I’ll now try to fit in karmic memory (one’s individual past) into this equation.
This is how I understand it:
For a soul with karmic memory identity, it joins into the genetic memory lineage something similar to how someone with some IT work experience joins a new IT company.
The role/position/environment of this new IT company, I see as genetic memory and its conditions/forces/pressures.
The person’s prior experience (“transferable skills abstracted” as opposed to the concrete discrete knowledge he carried when in each of the roles in his prior companies) before he joined the job = karmic memory.
So just like one did not create anything in the new company one has now joined, the genetic lineage is something that you did not create.
You simply join into it at some role/responsibility and then figure it out from there and get familiar with it as time goes on.
So entering into a genetic lineage is something you become conscious of over time with exploration.
An analogy for this could be of: A mahout and an elephant.
The mahout is the soul (karmic body) and the elephant is the genetic body inherited.
So there are different dimensions of intelligence that work independently and interdependently.
For instance, the elephant can take care of itself without the mahout too.
It knows when it wants to eat, sleep, drink water etc.
It has a life, instinct, and intelligence of its own.
Even an experienced mahout, would have to learn about the new elephant he has been given, and then develop a good relationship with it, before he can direct it to his will.
In the order of identities therefore there are 3 dimensions:
The numinous -> The abstract -> The concrete/literal
Pure spirit/pure consciousness/pure intelligence -> Soul (karmic memory identity) -> Ego (genetics + person’s relational memories from interaction with the world – from the various time-space-people paths it has passed through).
So it is technically possible to transcend and go beyond the soul karmic identity too and move into pure intelligence/spirit.
In terms of dimensions in this realm, in my understanding:
6th dimension = The space of all genetics
5th dimension = The space of your lineage genetics
4th dimension = The astrological ‘time-path-trace’ for your lifetime
3rd dimension = The current space-time location you are in.
The absurdity of the ‘love yourself’ mantra
This is something that has perplexed me since childhood.
I’d keep hearing slogans like ‘be yourself’, ‘love yourself, ‘believe in yourself’, and so on.
I used to wonder, what is this self that they are referring to, while pointing at me.
Where is this self? What is it?
Is it my image of their idea of what I am, what I should be, or what I think they want me to be?
Is it my own image of what I am independent of them being around me?
But generally my own image of what I am, is heavily and actively conditioned/influenced by who is around me (in silent or talking level interaction with me) and the larger surroundings in that place.
Even if nobody is around me, my self is some sort of a more diffused response to the environment around me.
My general personality/disposition/investments/ways of thinking-perceiving-feeling etc. are part nature and part nurture.
I can recall an active self forming at the age of 6, then a more developed one at 11, and I think after the age of 28 it seems to have stabilized itself.
But what was that active self that first formed? What existed before the age 6?
It feels like I just emerged from a bunch of situations throughout early childhood.
Ok, then was I born a clean slate? – I don’t relate with that too.
I have no continuous memories of anything below the age 4-5, but I intuit I could have already had a seed with its potentials/proclivities/tendencies/patterns (what they call samkharas and vasanas in vedic literature).
So maybe the selves that formed through 6, 11, 20, 24, 28 etc. were different milestones where a distinctive evolving pattern emerged in my vibrating sands (like the sand patterns in Cymatics as the frequency is raised).
So my deeper self then could be my bio-memory embedded in the whole body (in its trillions of cells)? – Coming from my forefathers, ancestry, genetics, lineage.
That genetics could have passed on its own fantasies, ideals, projects, works, characteristics, goals, preoccupations etc. that I identify with or dis-identify with depending on my own past lives?
In my own past lives, again the same situation might have been there, of genetics, upbringing, conditioning, social environment (the yuga at that time) and its influence etc.
So it sort of loops on itself. When did it all start?
The dilemma is like, when you are a tree, you search for your source.
You find out, you grew from a seed.
But a seed cannot grow without the fertile ground.
So the ground is also responsible for the tree.
But that seed itself has come from a previous full grown tree (the past life), and so on.
It goes into an infinite regress loop.
My whole quest to find an independent self eludes me.
I just cannot grasp a ‘me’ that exists independently.
From my contemplation, I see none of any of this is me.
Because if I can perceive it as an object,
Then the me must be separate from the object right?!
The deeper I contemplate this, I realize that what I am is transcendent of language itself.
It is a transcendent dimension, what they call consciousness.
The holographic field
We live in a holographic field.
We are the holographic field in essence.
Birth into form and Death into the formless,
Is from the crystallization and dissolution of the ‘organic structure’,
That creates the ‘point of view/lens/focal apparatus’.
A fully crystallized self structure creates/projects a fully crystallized world.
On the other hand, when the self structure is in transformation,
The world seen/perceived/experienced also appears to undergo a transformation.
Birth and Death is like the shifting of the point of observation/attention/focus.
For visualization: Imagine a 360 degree camera moved around your room.
At all times, all the contents of your room would be visible in the video.
However, you would see the details and sizes of objects varying wildly depending upon the camera’s position.
Similarly, we experience the same general field from all the points of view within it.
Since the field is holographic,
Every point in the field contains the whole in principle,
Just like a drop of water contains the same essence as the whole ocean.
Or just like the structure of the atom is said to mimic the structure of the universe itself.
So through studying the self, all knowledge of the world/universe too can be gained.
The self and the world are complements of each other.
As is the self, so is the world.
As is the world, so is the self.
They both go together.
They arise together and pass away together.
Studying the self is also a study of the world.
Studying the world is also a study of the self.
You are only aware of the world, to the extent you are aware of the self.
You are only aware of the self, to the extent you are aware of the world.
I could say, from more practical terms,
The lens through which you perceive the world,
Would be the entirety of your biochemistry (inc. all neurotransmitters).
So the biochemistry and neurotransmitters would be the switching station to access all possible worlds in the human body.
I am generally witnessing the play of the field/existence/god through a point of attention within my body.
If I move this point of attention outside/beyond my organic body, then it would be called an out of body experience.
Generally when we say out of body, or this concept of beyond or outside, we imagine a certain direction or a different point in space-time.
But in my experience, out of body experience is far vaster than that conception.
It is a non-linear, non-Euclidian movement in the field.
It is like the idea of ‘concepts’.
All ‘concepts/ideas’ actually transcend space and time. Even simple ones like a ‘chair’ etc.
When you shift your mind from one concept to another, what direction are you moving in?
(x, y, or z axis?)!
When you move from between the states of consciousness from waking to dreaming, what direction do you move in?!
Even in general science today, we speak about movement in the 4th dimension, but this is quite inconceivable. What direction would you move in to move in the 4th dimension?!
There are many such movements possible in the consciousness field that are outside of the space-time physical reality framework we generally think in.
The observer and the observed world
You see the world not as it is (idea of 1 objective world),
But as you are (idea of observer-observed relationality).
The world appears to you in the way you are.
The world changing is you changing.
You changing is the world changing.
There is perfect correspondence.
The self-world pair appear together as one process,
And they also vanish together in the same process.
Generally if the self is relatively more stable than the world it is in relation to,
Then, you feel like a stable person with a stable view of a fast moving world.
On the other hand, if the self is rapidly changing compared to the world it is in relation to,
Then, you feel like the very viewpoint is shifting and experience of the world becomes more like a dream.
When you open up, the world (as you perceive) opens up.
When you close down, the world closes down.
The violence within you is the violence in the world.
The peace within you is the peace in the world.
When you are unstable, the view of the world is unstable.
When you are stable, the view of the world is stable.
The true objective nature of the world is Shunya/Indeterminate.
The body-world appears like a hologram.
Like how every drop of the ocean is the ocean contained in the drop.
Both the body and mind are actually external to your real nature.
When both the body and mind are witnessed as objects,
Then you realize the transcendent space.
Allotments of desire to serve or take responsibility
Abstractly seen,
There are “quotas/allotments of desires” functioning through us.
I think this is exactly what they call “Prarabdha karma”.
I feel we gravitate and are attracted to the ‘genetic instruments’ and ‘conditions’ that will be best suited to serve those desires.
‘Genetic instruments’ here refers to our choice of which human body to occupy for this lifetime.
And of course, this genetic instrument will be a child of many other surrounding conditions that will be like the larger body surrounding it.
To give an analogy:
Supposing you wanted to do a lot of professional video editing work and are continuously on the move, you might choose to buy a high end Apple Macbook Laptop for that purpose.
But suppose, lets say you wanted to play the latest AAA pc games which require the most powerful GFX card, and are mostly at home, then you might choose to buy a much bigger Desktop PC.
If you live in the US, you would get it cheaper, compared to buying it from India.
Similarly, in US you might also get many more options for the hardware components.
So based off that analogy, here in this case:
We choose an instrument from the choices available in the market,
To fulfill our requirements/desire/purpose.
We are also limited by what is available in the market at that point of time.
Just like how when we desire/need something,
We check out the local market at that time,
And make a choice from what’s available.
I think similarly, when taking birth here we might probably have a similar set of constraints.
Then there is the concept of responsibility.
I think responsibility is something we take up from our own desires.
Generally we refer to the overheads as responsibility.
For example, take the statement:
“I enjoy my smartphone, but I am responsible to keep it safe and in good condition”.
# Here the desire is to enjoy the functions/features/abilities of the smartphone.
# But the responsibility is the overhead of maintaining it, keeping it safe, and so on.
Another example would be, say our desire is for a monthly salary, then we would take up a job (take on some responsibility) so that we are paid that salary (which is the desire).
So in short, all responsibilities serve our desires.
Responsibilities are necessary overheads we take on for fulfilling our desires.
It is desires that is primary.
Responsibilities are its supporting function.
Next let’s cover ‘disposition and attitudes’.
Our personality/dispositions/attitudes are also ways to serve our desires only.
They are like the background/backdrop conducive factors.
For instance: Say I have the desire to be liked by everyone and avoid conflict.
Then naturally, the disposition I would adopt would be: ‘polite, pleasant, diplomatic, highly adaptable’.
So your disposition definitely conveys your desire.
But even here, desire is primary.
The disposition and attitudes are like conducive fragrances to attract the bees that you desire.
Another reason for birth could be for balancing out the personality.
For instance, say someone was an insensitive bully in his former life.
He could then choose a birth of being an artistic, sensitive, and weaker person to experience those opposite qualities.
That would satisfy his desire for balance and neutrality.
After all, we can truly move to non-duality only when we transcend all dualities, right?!
This is a dictum I learned from Teal Swan: “To heal from anything is to experience its opposite”.
So figure out what your real desires are.
And the things that you have taken up in your life to fulfill them.
This is more a contemplation on ‘why’ by conscious observation, and the goal is for ‘revelation’.
Even looking at your mundane life and tiny decisions, will reveal a lot of deeper things about yourself.
Resonance, Attraction, the time-shaft dimension of a person
Every person we meet has a past, present, and future.
“…Past self —— Present self ——- Future self…”
People are like flowing rivers.
And when you meet them, you are meeting their river at that time and place.
All interaction is only possible only because of resonance.
Without resonance, the others would not even appear in your experience.
You mingle/jibe/sync with the person only through the resonance you both share.
In other words, you see them within you, through how they appear/form within your space and its filtering structures.
Understanding this resonance can be a very subtle job.
It could be a positive or negative kind of ‘energy investment’ resonance.
For example: Both liking or hating the same thing.
Another possibility is, it could be resonance with the thing but not with the relationship to that thing.
For instance: Say both are obsessed with the idea of beauty.
One of them trying to become beautiful with the other actively rebelling against the idea of beauty and doing the opposite.
The commonality here is, both are focused/fixated/locked onto, and have their cathexis/emotional investment set on the same theme/field/topic/idea, although with differing/opposing relationship.
So there is the resonance from:
# What idea you focus on
# Relationship towards that idea
The first bullet point creates the “shared reality/shared frame of reference”, which is the primary resonance.
The second bullet point, that is, the relationship towards that shared frame is the secondary resonance.
This is because if the 2 do not see/share the reality/frame as the first step, then no interaction is possible at all.
Another element of this is consciousness.
# 2 people could come from the same cultural background and share that deep resonance,
But they could be completely unconscious of it.
They both may not see that shared resonance as an object at all in their experience.
# On the other hand, if there is consciousness of the resonance, then there is also consciousness of the object that is resonated with. And this implies that the person is seeing from a point of view that is transcendent of the object.
This is actually a necessary precondition for all consciousness of any object.
All consciousness requires transcendence, that is to see something clearly as an object in your experience, requires ‘you’ to see from an ‘identity space’ that is transcendent of that object.
All consciousness needs contrast.
The ‘transcendent reality’ provides a contrast to everything we experience here.
Union-ing with that, allows for the greatest clarity and unifying vision of everything here.
Let’s now look into the time dimension:
What the other values/cherishes/desires/longs/strives for, represents their future self.
That is what they will become, or that is the direction of their movement.
They are drawn towards certain possibilities, and if you are also attracted towards a similar direction/possibility, then that also is a resonance shared.
In a way, seen from a 5-D perspective, every person is tracing a time mandala.
From the 5-D perspective, the entire mandala is already there, it is only a matter of time.
Like how a cassette or DVD already has the entire recording, but it is played out in time.
So there could be a 5-D resonance too. Some kind of complementary time mandalas in deep relationship with each other.
This is what is called soul connection I believe.
Basically a referent used to point to a much deeper higher dimensional resonance/relationship/attraction/complement-ality.
Sometimes the attraction to the other is because they represent a possibility/potential that we desire, but we are unable to be/become or own that due to various reasons.
This could be 5-D or even 6-D based.
# 5-D based attraction would be something you could potentially become, but you may be having many other preoccupations and constraints, it may involve too many sacrifices, compromises, guilts, fears, restructuring, and so on.
# 6-D based would be something that is impossible for you to become in this birth given your conditions. For instance, if I wanted to be a billionaire’s child, that is a 6-D possibility because it is impossible in this current birth no matter what choices/decisions/investments I make. It is then more like a parallel universe, that can only be lived in the imagination.
Imagination is the Ultimate Bridger of all worlds and possibilities.
The negative, balanced, and positive
Negative |||||| (fighting to survive) |||||| –Balanced/0– |||||| (enhancing self) |||||| Positive.
The self is a structure.
The world is a structure.
The [changing structure of the self] is in a [changing relationship] with the [changing structure of the world].
The 3 happen together and play out as a singular dream of experience.
It is not that any of them is causing the other to happen, though it may appear to be.
# When the world appears to not only maintain the self but also enhance it, there is the experience of nurture, pleasure, and the positive.
# When the world appears to not only not enhance, but also actively violate and attack the self structure, there is the experience of fighting/adapting/resisting to survive, felt as war, pain, and the negative.
# When the world appears to simply maintain you in a kind of zero gain arrangement, it is felt as balance, where there is neither enhancement nor depreciation and things just go on cyclically with no net change.
Completing and freeing the dependence on relationships
All relationships are with parts of ourselves projected out to and as others.
The other is that part of ourselves we have projected out “as” the other.
Thus when we reclaim and own that projected part/aspect,
We neutralize the attraction, and free ourselves.
To give an analogy,
Say you have a backpack full of 100s of smartphones.
But say, you only keep 2 of those phones in your pocket,
And you have no active memory of the backpack’s existence.
Now when you see your friend showing you his phone,
You’ll recognize it, it will look familiar,
You’ll feel attracted towards it, and want to possess it.
But if you realize you are carrying a backpack full of them,
And look inside it,
You’d find that you own that exact same model.
Then there is no longer an attraction to the other’s phone,
But rather, you can enjoy exploring the phone’s features together.
Because now there is a commonality and you also own that same model.
The very act of relating is like a play or dance.
The question is then whether it is conscious or unconscious.
A conscious relationship is like a conscious dance done willingly from both sides,
(i.e. conscious projection and introjection),
While an unconscious relationship is like an unconscious dance happening compulsively from both sides,
(i.e. unconscious projection and introjection).
Once you own all aspects of yourself, you become whole,
And realize that all the others are representative of potentials of your own consciousness.
Then there is nothing that you lack, that can only be got from the other.
Rather, whatever you experience as the other, is instantly owned.
The same would apply to ‘aversion to others’ too.
It is the aversion of the projected aspect of ourselves that we believe we are.
So there can be 2 steps:
First the delusion (false Introjection), and then Projection.
To free the identity from all these introjections,
Is to contemplate and realize our essence is beyond all of this,
And is transcendent of all of these appearances,
Which are all but only one of the possibilities of our infinite nature.
The mirrors of the self and world
The self reflects the world.
The world reflects the self.
The self projects the world.
The world is a projection of the self.
What is held in the self, is seen in the world.
What is held in the world, is seen in the self.
What is sought in the self, is sought in the world.
What is sought in the world, is sought within the self too.
There is a bi-directional correlation, correspondence, and reflection.
People who want to rule and who seek ruler-ship positions in the world -> Actually want to rule themselves too.
You cannot rule the world right, unless you rule your own mind first.
All qualities extend to the self first -> Then they go outward.
Controlling one’s own mind is needed -> Before it is extended to controlling other minds.
The view of the self -> Extends to the view of the world.
People on the journey of understanding their selves -> In effect are also on a journey of understanding the world.
When one is on an inner journey of growth -> There is a natural looking up to many things in the world, and a recognition of many possibilities.
When one is attempting to get security within, for their identity -> Then everything outside that would alter that is seen as a threat.
Similarly, the way you treat others -> Is a reflection of the way you treat yourself.
True double standard does not exist in the psychic plane or the subconscious.
There is always direct correlation and extension.
Evil is actually simply “small identity”.
Because “small identity” will attempt to destroy everything that is not that.
Evil or Good in this realm, is just a question of how inclusive or large your “identity” is.
Journey to the Abstract 