In my vision, from a very abstract view, experience has only 3 qualities:
* Vision = The extent of your seeing.
* Power = The extent of your power.
* Sustainability = The extent you can sustain the power.
Power, in its purest form, is self-transformation.
Everything else is a kind of shadow or substitute.
* Control over others or environment = A consolation for lacking the power to see and transform oneself.
It’s reactive and it needs endless force and maintenance.
It is also just blind loyalty to a self you have falsely identified with.
* Self-control = An intermediate step.
It’s internalized power, but limited.
You can restrain impulses or habits, but you’re still structually bound to the mind or circumstances.
It’s like steering a boat along a river you didn’t build.
* Self-transformation = The ultimate power.
Especially when Vision + Power converge: You see what you truly are + actively shape your consciousness and being.
It’s the ability to remodel the very field/structure of existence you inhabit.
True agency is always inward first; everything external is secondary.
Ofc, generating a massive burst of power is not as difficult as sustaining it.
The real challenge is in re-engineering your system to sustain that power/voltage.
On Time, Identity, Desire, and Transformation
Time creates the identity,
Time maintains the identity,
Time exalts the identity,
Time destroys/changes/transforms the identity.
The desires we feel are a combination of 2 things:
1. The projection of the ‘current identity’ expansion/fortification.
2. The projections of past identities expansions/fortifications that stay as ghost images.
Now this current identity could be stable or in the process of transformation,
Or it could have reached a new stability post-transformation.
When identity is transformed by time,
The past-identity projected desires still stay as ghost images.
Even though the new transformed/transforming identity projects different images,
These ghost images stay on the screen too.
Everything thus gets mixed up.
So then there is a deep confusion whenever there is transformation,
As to which desire is from something real or unreal.
In fact by very definition, when in-between a transformation process,
All projections of what is happening are all fleeting and temporary like a dream,
Because a continuously shifting/changing/transforming thing completely veils even the appearance of any essence.
So an identity-transformation process instantly throws a person into emptiness.
He cannot know who/what he is, what he wants/desires, everything in his experience shifts into a unreal dream flow.
If this lasts for 2 decades of his life,
Those entire 2 decades will be like a night dream,
Constantly shifting empty experiences, sort of like being on a psychedelic trip throughout.
Because memory needs a structure to hang off.
But if the structures themselves are changing/morphing, then all the memories have no foothold.
That is why I think we do not remember much of anything before the age of 5.
Because there is too little structure in identity to hold any memories.
So in a way, a person going through a transformation process of identity,
Is in a similar state of consciousness, as someone who is only 2-3 years old.
Early childhood, night dreams, psychedelic trips are the closest analogue to how transformation of identity would feel.
Going through transformation essentially overwhelms the mind when it tries to make sense of it.
It is unable to make an identity/anchor out of all the experiences happening.
It reminds me of the scene in the movie Arrival, when the heptapod aliens just blast the entire screen with innumerable circles.
It becomes impossible to process it and create a coherent narrative.
Some insights on change and free will
Generally, when we think of change,
We think of it in objective/external terms,
Like day-night cycles, season cycles, the rusting of iron, and so on.
So in this context,
We can study these changes, and make prediction models.
Here the subject stays as a relatively stable witness to the changing objects outside.
Changes of this kind are actually fairly superficial in our experience.
The subject is relatively unchanging while the object is changing a lot more.
Like when some people go on a vacation,
They are mostly the same people in different outer situations.
They mostly feel and act the same.
But there is another kind of change,
That is not objective, but subjective,
That is not outside, but inside.
Here, since the very subject changes,
This kind of change is unpredictable and profound,
It feels more like magic.
This kind of change is like when a person takes a medium dose of LSD.
There is a dramatic internal change that changes everything in their experience.
Childhood also is like that,
Where we go through dramatic shifts in our very view of reality itself with every passing year.
I am using the words objective and subjective in a more loose and colloquial sense here.
If I look at it deeper, all objectivity too would collapse into the subjective,
Where only the “Subjective” would exist.
Similarly I could also argue, that every subjective experience could theoretically be determined by objective factors that we still do not yet have the necessary subtle-enough instruments to define, study, and alter.
Objectivity = 3rd person perspective (3rd pp)
Subjectivity = 1st person perspective (1st pp)
All 3rd pp could be said to be subsumed into 1st pp.
I tend to look at all change as change in your state of consciousness (SoC).
Birth and Death are times of great change in consciousness.
Could equate it to sunrise and sunset?
While our Lifetime is more linear and less dramatic?
Could equate lifetime to day-time and after-death to night-time?
After death could be some unfathomable mystery though.
I think what is generally called free-will is the situation where:
We have a relatively unchanging subject in a changing outer world.
So then the subject is able to exert his/her steady will on the changing outer world and build things.
There is much less free will when we are undergoing any transformations of subject.
Here the subject changes relatively much faster than the outer world rhythms.
Transformation times are like kayaking in rapids.
The free will then has to be mostly used in service of the transforming force,
In navigating the rapid change,
So as to keep maintaining order and balance through the changes.
About transformation and true life
All transformation is by definition towards ‘the unknown’.
The surrender into it is not from any specific calculation.
It is ‘change’ for its own sake, and the ‘yielding’ to it.
The slogan here is:
“I am not trying to change, rather I am just allowing change to change me.”
“The whole moves the whole, no part moves the whole.”
True life is not about one’s smartness or calculations.
It is for its own sake.
It is the indiscriminate surrender into dissolution.
It is along the lines of: “Thy shall be done” or “Let thy be done”.
It is allowing the flowering, blossoming, maturing, burning up, unfolding of life through one, whatever the case may be.
It is like a great unravelling.
It is the indiscriminate and total willingness to dissolve into the greater.
It resembles a kind of great love.
That one dies into willingly.
It is not something a part of you does to gain something.
It is not something that is chosen.
Rather, it is something that one falls into,
When there is the realization that there is nothing greater that one can desire.
It is like falling into a black hole,
And letting the black hole turn you inside out.
Everything goes through a 180degrees reversal here,
As the mystics have shared since ages.
Whatever was once believed to be outside,
Is now seen as the projection of one’s inside.
Connects to the saying: “We do not see the world as it is, but as we are”.
It reminds me of the idea of the philosophers stone.
A peculiar saying that goes along the lines:
“The philosophers stone is not an object in your imagination,
Rather, you are the imagination of the philosophers stone.”
One never returns to the regular worldview after this.
This black hole is the passage/portal through which one exits this great illusion.
It is simply unimaginable and impossible to explain to the uninitiated.
It is like stepping out of this great magical spell that makes us believe we are a body in this world.
The past idea of the world and all that was believed to be real knowledge fades like a dream.
One is then carried through this vortex by the will of life itself,
From the known shores into the unknown.
All ‘Change’ is ‘Death’
All ‘change’ is ‘death’.Â
# Growth is additive change
# Decay is depreciative change
# Transformation is total change
All change is death.
All change is life too.
Change is both death and life,
When looked at backwards or forwards in perspective.
To die is to live.
To live is to die.
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.
The 4 stances people take towards an alien
Suppose you were totally alien,
The 4 stances people might take towards you are:
1. Dominate
2. Oppose/Fight or Avoid
3. Live and Let Live
4. Explore
I’ll describe each of the aspects:
Domination is like the way we deal with children and education.
The stance that, “They don’t know anything and we have to shape them”.
This is also the stance held by all conquerors.
If we feel threatened by them,
Then we actively oppose or fight them,
Or passively avoid them,
Depending upon what we believe is the better way to protect ourselves.
The 3rd option of live and let live,
Comes when we no longer feel threatened by them,
And we are strong enough to be equals with them and let them be.
We then live with mutual understanding while keeping our boundaries with them.
The 4th option happens when we perceive them to be higher than us.
Then we pursue/explore and attempt to know more and more of them,
So as to transform our selves and our own lives through that knowledge.
To be fully alive
Life is change.
All that does not change is dead.
So total change is total life.
To be fully alive,
Is to be like a fire,
That blazes, sparkles, and dazzles.
Everything you do must change everything,
So as to fall into endless transformation.
Whatever you do must be:
Towards what matters to you the most,
Towards what means the most to you,
Towards what you most deeply feel/desire/care about.
It must transform and change you fully from moment to moment.
Living in a way where the whole moves the whole.
Where all of you is free,
In full power, glory, and splendor.
Living every moment from the creativity,
Of ushering a whole new world at each moment.
Bringing/Gathering all of one at each moment,
Only to fire up and change it all up in the next.
More on Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.
The 3 states of energy manifestation are referred to as: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.
Tamas = The tendency of energy manifestation to maintain its current configuration.
Rajas = The tendency of energy manifestation to move in cyclic activity (or cyclic transformation activity)
Sattva = The tendency of energy manifestation to evolve or transform in a non-cyclic way.
These 3 states can coexist simultaneously in different proportions.
If I have to put it in a single word:
Tamas = Inertia
Rajas = Activity
Sattva = Evolution
I could abstractly picture them to be:
Tamas = Point (maintenance of configuration and solidity)
Rajas = Circle (cyclic activity or cyclic transformation)
Sattva = Line (non-cyclic transformation, evolution, moving towards the subtlest source in a straight line)
Rajas + Sattva = Spiral (circle + line)
All of physicality is basically tamas.
It is only because forms maintain their integrity over time, they are experienced as a persistent reality.
The food chain (i.e. transformation cycle of life forms), birth and death cycle etc. also comes under Rajas.
The wheel of Samsara I would say is Rajas.
Sattva is spiritual seeking, learning, yielding to the higher realities,
And transforming oneself and one’s understanding.
A life form transforming and moving closer to its source,
Or to subtler and subtler planes is sattvic.
About Samskharas
The house, family, relatives, lineage, political, economic, and national situation,
And other such circumstances you were born and conditioned into,
Are from your ‘Samskhara’, i.e. the inheritance acquired on the basis of your past.
This samskhara also includes your disposition and attitude towards all of those circumstances.
That whole mental setup unfolds itself over time as we grow up,
Just like how a seed manifests a plant, and then a tree over time.
Just as there is samskhara for an individual,
There is also samskhara for the collective.
The individual samskhara is a subset nested within the collective samskhara.
For instance, if you were born in the 14th century,
Your would not be inheriting a car, laptop, tv etc. no matter where on earth you were born.
Similarly if you were born in the future, say 2150 AD,
You might be privy to accessing special electro magnetic light healing technology,
Which would be capable of healing all sorts of physical and mental diseases and afflictions,
Something we can only dream of today.
If samskhara is the imprint of the past, there is also a force that impels everything forward to change.
Like when looking at the solar system as seen from the heliocentric model, we see that everything moves round and round in orbits around the fixed sun.
But if we go beyond that model, we see that the sun itself moves around the milky way, and the planets perform a vortex like motion.
Similarly, various larger forces of evolution are actually constantly changing things.
Things from one perspective appear to be cyclical, but there is also evolution simultaneously happening.
Evolution is transformative in nature,
For instance, the growing up and the aging process.
How can one go beyond one’s past?
It begins to happen when a yearning for something beyond arises,
I.e. when that begins to take hold, take foot, in one’s life experience.
This yearning/longing then begins to carry the being beyond its past.
And begins to transform it.
Journey to the Abstract 