Sunday, November 24, 2013

What is a disease? and Mind/Body spectrum

The brain on the right shows dopamine levels in normal circumstances when addicted and the left shows the normal version.

I read an article that talks about addiction not being a brain disease but more of an 'Extreme form of learning'. Normally the dopamine rewards is released for good food, sex, social interaction etc. But here in the addiction case, all of the dopamine is redirected to the substance causing an extreme desire to have it. It is essentially a re-direction. We call it a disease and destructive more because this redirection may threaten the stability and structures of society as it is as of today. But even a mystic would be termed as disease by psychologists because of his relative detachment to things that people pursue. Psychologists are like the mental gatekeepers of our societal structure just like the police are physical gatekeepers. Their concern is first conformity and second your actual health and needs.

Source: http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2012/11/12/why-addiction-is-not-a-brain-disease/

In fact, there is an interesting question about how do we define any disease - physical (pain), mental (ability, processing, fixation), spiritual (true values, desires). It is some kind of disharmony, conflict. Perfect harmony is perfect health.

Addiction is a far broader concept than what it is generally thought to be. Addiction is not just to drugs like alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine, heroin, chocolate, weed, sex, love, sugar etc. It could be for just about anything. It could also be for certain kinds of social interactions, movies, life, state of mind, control, ideas, conceptions, models etc.

It is an entire spectrum of how much a 'perception object' draws you towards it.  The degree of compulsiveness the 'perception object' creates.

For visualization purposes imagine addiction/attachment is something like the visible light spectrum.


I sometimes wonder what is the difference between attachment and addiction?
They both seem to be essentially the same spectrum.

It seems like disease is a concept defined in society based on a certain kind of functionality expectation. When a person is unable to function in his daily office job/socially etc. then we declare him as unwell or having a disease (mental or physical). But the question is, in the absolute reality, is disease really something 'REAL'? OR is it more of an emergent property when the individual is not in harmony with the expectations and beliefs of his environment? Any dis-ease (as we term it) is ultimately just an experience. Anything out of the defined normal is called a disease and there are all kinds of interventions (antidepressants etc.) to forceabily get the person back into harmony/conformance with the dominant socio-cultural values.

Addiction to coffee and workaholism is encouraged and not considered a disease because it is in line with the dominant culture and its values. But addiction to psychedelics and ego-dissolution techniques is considered alien and a disease. Introversion and non-participation is considered a disease because the dominant culture requires you to be an extrovert. There are tons of examples like this. 

So there is no such object called disease in absolute reality. Disease is more of an interpretation which happens when 'What should be' and 'What is' are compared. 'What should be' is again the definition of functional normality as defined by the dominant culture and the average collective level of consciousness. For a future human, our condition maybe a terrible disease and likewise we may view our ancestors as being terribly diseased.

So disease is not really something solid phenomena. It does not exist in the absolute sense. It is an input interpretation based on 'X' model and during our life we flip through many mental models 'X', 'Y', 'Z' etc. A disease in model 'X' maybe a blessing/insight in model 'Y'.

It also opens up a larger question. That 'All of reality is essentially input interpretation' and interpretation happens through beliefs. So it would be quite accurate to say 'beliefs determine reality experience'. When your belief structures are warped by psychedelics/contemplation on connections/kindness/impermanence etc., the same ordinary objects create profound religious feelings. Its as if the physical reality experience is a shadow of higher vibrational realms like the mind and belief centers.

Its as if beliefs are like the ozone layer and clouds which allow sunshine to hit the earth or not. 

The sun (God, universal force, universal energy) is always shining. Each human could be thought of as planets dancing around the sun. Lets consider earth to be one such person. The stratosphere would be the deep subconscious. The troposphere, the pre-conscious. The clouds - our daily thoughts etc. So based on these layers only a limited amount of sunshine hits the earth. If all this is cleared or made transparent through the light of awareness (the sun's light), then there is only light since it has penetrated everything and revealed their true nature.

In a sense, all of these layers can be called diseases. The more cut of you are from the light, the more desperate you become to find it. But is it really a disease? This is after all an experience and each experience is beautiful. It is one form among the infinite appearances that are possible in awareness. How can it be inherently bad from this perspective?

Also the distinction between mental and physical diseases isn't really there. Mental patterns congeal onto the physical dimension of energy when repeated over a long period of time OR if highly intense. A physical pattern can cause a mental fixation and thereby cause mental suffering.

This is again a spectrum with no boundary. Everything is ultimately vibration. Something like how sound and light are actually the same thing (its being debated). Sound would be the lower frequency part and light would be the higher frequency part of the same spectrum.

The body would be the slower vibration part of the spectrum while thoughts would be the higher vibration part of our 'Spectrum of being'. Even higher in vibration would be the 'I am ness', 'desire space' and 'belief space'. Manifestation in the lower physical spectrum can have its origin in the higher vibrational spaces like thought. Like the saying 'Everything begins with a thought, an idea, a dream'. Also the reverse can happen. Physical pain (lower vibration) from a disease may make you change your beliefs (higher vibration). So the whole thing is one like the poles of a magnet - physical and mental realms. The interconnection is so complete that they both are really 'ONE'. Thought influences the physical and the physical influences thought. Both physical and mental represent the one absolute being. Its just like how we call the whole band of electromagnetic spectrum 'Light'.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Effects of our actions occur through probability spaces

The effects of all our actions occur through a probability space. Some things have much higher probability of inducing certain reactions, some of the others have a more unpredictable nature, some have low probabilities depending on what the chosen goal is. You can only perform actions in probability spaces, however the ultimate effects of your actions are driven by forces outside your control.

For example: A particular song may induce certain types of feelings in me. The overall pattern is highly probable However the exact feeling can never be recreated. There is a whole gradient of probabilities in awareness. Like if you are sick, in a very bad mood, tired, even the best songs would not be enjoyable. Whether or not some action of your will satisfy you is also a probability.

Maybe, in the previous weekend, when you had a night out and drank 4 beers, it was memorable. So you may do that again to repeat the 'memorable' aspect, but that again is a probability. It may or may not be memorable. Also the exact flavor can never be recreated.

These probability spaces at every moment are vibrating, pulsing, dancing etc. which is the ecstasy of life.  The more deeply you look, the more vibration is found. For example, your table looks stable. Look at it with microscopes, going progressively deeper, you'll reach a point where electrons are moving in warp speed and your entire table is made up of those warping vibrations. The same applies to your DIRECT experience of anything. The amount of vibrations you perceive depends on the extent to which you have developed your awareness.

So every moment is completely unique. When this fully sinks in, it creates a mixed feeling of euphoria and discomfort. The discomfort is because of the groundlessness. The euphoria is because your true identity is this infinite space of manifestation.

Experience of self as a mirror

My experience of self (self within awareness field) is like a mirror reflecting the environment. But this mirror also has memory, beliefs and filters. My beliefs are like translucent/opaque overlapping layered pieces of cloth covering this formless mirror.

The overlapping pieces of cloth with varying opacity are  like layers of an onion. When all the layers are peeled it is discovered there is nothing hiding inside.

Some parts of the cloth are more translucent, some less, some parts are opaque. I do not experience the pure formless mirror reflectivity because of my accumulation - belief filters, memories, interpretations, conditioning etc.

Right now, my experience of the world is through the translucent parts and holes of the veils that are obscuring my true unbridled nature.

How do I remove all the accumulation, conditioning and layers to find this brilliant formless(objectless) mirror which contains within itself the entire universe reflected with no separation?

Friday, November 8, 2013

Meditation - Insights on weed

The forehead is just flashing a light, the solar plexus is reacts to these flashes with a stably shining bulb like light. All the lights can be opened and the veils/blockage energies can be pierced through.

When thinking, you whole spine lights have to think, not just the top part: middle part = memory and base parts - grounding and context, and top parts - thinking, exploring, planning, uppermost part - higher vision.
The energy has to be released. Every impression, image that causes a strong reaction in the chakra lights means there is a lot of energy in that area that has to be expressed and released. So the objects that cause this occurrence should be welcomed and then you can work to release the stored energy. Once this energy is released partly/fully with the light fire of your awareness intensity, then even if the forehead light flashes an impression, it does not affect the body chakra lights below or affects very little because the accumulation of that energy was released from the lower level.

Weed increases the mind body connection with increased focus. This increased focus or stronger light of awareness breaks up the body sensation into a more splintered form. So technically any substance that increases focus energy should splinter the body experience and reveal more change.

The mental/thought impression affect the body energy. Its as if the body energy is like stored balls of energy (each chakra). Some mental chakra flashes trigger highly accumulated balls of charge. So such impressions should be thanked and the body energy must be released fully with the power of light (awareness).

Each object/impression/thought that triggers some body reaction should be focused on and the heavy body energy release should be intensified and allowed fully. Is should be allowed so fully that whether you think of that paranoid thought or not, the release should be the same.

Sense impressions - pure feel, sight, sound are very rarified. Only the accumulation/congealing of energies is the body. There is no actual solidified body, there is only the space of feeling. The solidified is just accumulations and therefore a burden. Imagine how light it would feel without this congealed energy moved everywhere. It would feel like a child again.

Energy release techniques: Deep observation of outer triggered reactions and meditation practice for chakra brightening, freeing and expanding. Thank your surroundings for bringing out the very things you need to release.

If I remove those accumulations then I can enjoy much faster changing pixels everywhere. A dissolution/splintering of the body. Now vipassana bhanga makes more sense. Thats what you were essentially doing regarding freeing up the light of chakras. I can see it would lead to fearlessness because fear is basically this congealed energy.

Body arises like a pattern in a 3-d screen with empty pixels, like the way the blocks animation emerges in 3-D space say. Keep continuous awareness of this congealed/burdenous energy.

Sometimes only certain sense/mental impressions puncture these filled balls and make them radiate that accumulated stuff. All the energy stored in the feeling centers need to be released. Allow the existing accumulation/suppression to release with allowing and continue the allowing for new experiences so that no new accumulation/suppression takes place.
Weed allows you to see finer patterns by refining your mental focus in amplitude, resolution and stamina.

Project forward first, then backward then in the sides, then imagine the light shining from behind your body and through you. To release blockages. The heavier it is, the stronger and longer the release that is required.

Short contemplations (Oct/Nov) - some my own, some based on reading/videos

Loneliness is an experience i.e. energy making u move in a certain direction.
For e.g: it is like a hunger/thirst, which makes u look for food/water. When it comes to food/water we don't feel bad about getting it from outside. Why do we feel bad about getting stuff from other people then?

Music is experienced in infinite ways depending on which of the infinite moods you are in right now. The flicker or snow you see in your visual field is like infinitely rolling scrolls of your subconscious moving through parallel realities every second.

Anything conceived/cognized is a potential. Anything you are aware of is you and your potential. When u know your true nature of nothingness/everythingness/beyondness, you have total freedom in this space of potentials. The closer you are to nothingness, the more variety you can experience.

Do not identify with anything in the present moment if the thing had a beginning in time. Anything that appears or disappears cannot be your true nature.

Just like you masturbate through emotional intention and get yourself to orgasm. Can't the same be done about any emotion?

If you see something in others that makes u dissociate, angry, irritated, annoyed etc. that means you suppress that quality in yourself because there is basically only awareness and the quality (even they both are actually 'one'). Whether it comes from inside or outside is just semantics. You don't have control either way. There is only arising or disappearance in the field of consciousness.

If something is truly miserable you will drop it that very instant. What does not serve one part of me serves another part which gives it fuel to stay. If the whole of me does not give a pattern fuel to stay, its impossible that it would exist after that.

Constantly projecting a known past to an unknown present is the reason for perpetuation of patterns.

Hurting is not from love but from the conditions and projections we build around it.

You are aware of the whole infinite screen of consciousness timelessly in which the moment to moment dance takes place.

Its not the answer that is sought, it is to be free of the discomfort of not having it.

Great doubt and disorientation leads to great awakening.

If there is a real self then how can we be so fragmented? We keep locking on to different states of the mind body process. Infuse all processes with - precision and allowing, The best we can do is create an optimal environment for consciousness to grow in.

When you look into internal image space, you see that vast network. Your stored images of the world, flipping through them like roller decks at lightning speed. When u look at this blank image space there is a shimmering, subconscious flipping through of these roller decks. Your flipping through worlds, some of them are memory, some of them are fantasy/mythological/possible worlds. The part that is so far in, that it is sort of out. It sort of connects with that other network leading to oneness of the whole.

There is no 'thing' to love. That would be an illusion that you allow only that object's presence to put you in that state.


Meditation is a generic skill. It is a global variable applicable to all experience.

Life is always playing a game no matter what I do, even trying to withdraw is a game. 

There is no separate 'I' that stands apart from others, outside. Everything appears and moves in the same space/soup of consciousness. 

The more I observe change with sensory clarity and totality, I am able to switch between perceiving the screen and the movie. The persistent objects in the screen are the patterns of my believed self. More observation, more the release/understanding of this.

If all experience is coming to me and I am just still, then what am I attracting towards myself? Is everything entirely my world? Every single notion of what I think is going on outside me? Every interpretation? Is my basic substance all experience?

The fundamental nature or noumenon is permanent. The objects/appearances are impermanent. 

Beauty is an ideal form towards which we keep pushing. Everyone' wants their bodies and faces to look like the archetypes and we try to get closest to that by controlling stuff like - diet, exercise, makeup, grooming. There are also archetypal beautiful qualities which we keep moving towards such as - power, love, trust, openness, acceptance, clarity, equanimity, confidence, humor etc. What are these archetypes in the mental and physical? Do we really need to base our self esteem on how close or far away we are from those archetypes? Isn't it all relative, and only evoked when I think about it? What is the reality of everything when I do not think?
From the point of view of the witness, there is no doer. From the point of view of the separate self, there is a doer.

What we call relationships colloquially are habits, which are especially visible when talking with family.

I understand that thoughts are empty. But are desires empty? Are aversions empty? Are all desires mirages?

Qualities of a diamond mapped to experience

The ideal +ve experience is where the mind is like an infinitely large diamond that is clear, does not hold anything but yet, reflects/refr...