Undifferentiated awareness

When you drop everything, you reach an undifferentiated state without verbal thought. Basically when you pull yourself back to see the entirety, there is just experience. I use thoughts and break this pure infinite experience down into space, time, objects, other people etc. If I just totally pull myself to observing the entirety or the whole, I see that there is just ever changing experience. All value lies in the experiences themselves. All our categorizations of good/bad, right/wrong, self/other, inside/outside are just coming from our mental models of reality which we collect over our lifetime. But the model will only be an accurate as the depth of our investigation of reality. Generally people get lost in an infinite horizontal space and fail to see that this space they are standing on is itself resting on some unquestioned beliefs. In diving to the depths of consciousness, we see that there are only 2 states – awareness and non-awareness (sleep, part of dreaming, perception in waking life). You could take it even further and ask the question, who knows about the unawareness part – well awareness knows. So there is ONLY awareness and nothing else. The experiencer, experienced and the experiencing are happening in awareness. Awareness/Consciousness/Light is all that there is. Everything just is. Every moment is full of it, including illusions, mental conceptions, preoccupations, physical reality etc. – all of them are mental concepts occurring within awareness. You are everything there is. The magic of questioning helps to get through the layers of illusion.

Someone might raise the question ‘If a rat nibbled on your toe in the night, didn’t that happen? How can it be said that there is nothing apart from you? For this question the answer would be that there is simply experience which is complete at every moment and the value is intrinsic, in this very wholeness. A rat nibbles at you at night. There is a concept of day/night, rat, nibbling, harm, pain, you, separation (being separate from the rat) etc. But how would a new born look at it? There is just experience, no concepts of rat, mammals, good/bad, day, night, harm etc. The baby is not even aware of sleep because it simply happens. The experience is one flow and memory is the only thing that maintains time (due to comparison).

2nd Attempt Jhana meditation

This was my 2^nd attempt at Jhana meditation without a timer. Sat in a room which was mostly silent with very mild road noise and a clock tick. In this session, I was able to concentrate on my breath for up to 60-70% of the time. On closing my eyes the mental plane started mildly swirling and dancing but I tried to look at the entirety of the movement from an empty space again and again. I noticed that I needed to relax further down, this helped get rid of the ‘holding on to an image’ problem. The perceptions were still dancing about initially, but this time, I stayed more firm with my observation frame and caught the breath. The breath in the very relaxed state felt non-physical. It was a pure feeling and I could not locate it in space. I could not even feel its direction beyond how I chose to visualize it: as a sphere expanding and contracting, as a piston moving back and forward etc. I could drop the physical aspect, space and direction of it. It felt like a ‘subtle feeling’. I tried to reach this place again and again during my 15 min meditation and then concluded.

Anger about societal interpretations of sex and love

Sex is a pleasure object that is so outside your egoic control. When you really want it, you don’t get it. When you’re in an average mood, you get it. Then the whole power game kicks in with questions like: Why should I do it when you want, when you don’t give it to me when I want it? This lack of control about the whole experience and you being at the mercy of luck and your partner is so ego-destroying. It makes me a slave at the whim of my master. My master is actually the attachment to the pleasure I get from it. My partner would be the agent for evoking the pleasure, so in a way, she is the master. It makes me feel vulnerable, pathetic, pitiable, helpless, a slave, and at the mercy and whim of my master. It gives so much of my power away to the other person. It makes me feel like a puppet which the other person can abuse. It’s so demeaning, humiliating, hurtful and insulting. The entire internet keep ramming into my head that it’s the most pleasurable thing in the world even more than all drugs. Then why don’t I have access to it? Am I supposed to just wait my entire life at the mercy of someone who would provide me that? Too dis-empowering! Why is it such a pain to get sex when you exactly want it? Why is the sexual part of all my relationships always kind of pressured, non-optimal, guilt inducing and so ego based? There has to be some pleasure FAR better than sex so that I can get rid of this bondage forever.

Love is another word I started hating. It’s an endless waiting and it feels so competitive. Every person I see happy in love makes me die a little bit inside. In the world around me, it seems like I have to really slog my ass off to make someone love me. At least if it was that way, I would have a definite path. Then it gets even more complicated when you realize, you cannot force it, it will just happen. Well it’s not happening and I am acutely aware of that. Even when I hear the word love or say it, I feel a lot of discomfort in my chest.

An evening walk - different ways of perceiving

While walking on the road, initially I noticed that my perception was locked in a certain pattern. I tried to open that up a bit by conceptualizing in new ways.

·         Looking at the number plates of cars and analyzing

·         Looking at street signs and parking boards

·         Looking at the shape and architecture of buildings

·         Counting the number of ground slabs, Counting the number of street lights and seeing spacing, noticing the sewer covers

·         Looking at all the people and judging their moods

·         Noticing clothing of all people

·         Noticing each shop and creating mental groups when possible

·         Paying attention to the colors around

·         Perceiving sky patterns

·         Noticing the ratio of trees (plants) to man-made objects

·         Noticing stationary vs. moving objects

·         Noticing the texture of things

·         Noticing the quality of the air, scents and my breathing

·         Noticing the reflections on glossy surfaces and watching the shapes that form

Why is everyday reality so stable and predictable?

I can intellectually understand that reality at any moment is infinitely complex and I can also feel my own experience is continually different and changing. I imagine it to be a fractal which is continuously morphing. But yet, my day to day experience of reality seems so enduring, persistent, repeatable, stable, very slow changing. That is where I feel stuck and the element of boredom or dissatisfaction kicks in.

It’s like how we have rock like structures in nature. The rock is microscopically changing at every moment, but to my eyes it looks, well, like a rock. It would appear as the same rock to me throughout my 100 year lifetime. Another example would be looking at ourselves in the mirror everyday, the changes would be imperceptible right?

My experience of reality is mostly changing so gradually, that if I sample a day or two, there are moment to moment differences but overall it feels almost the same (low novelty). Extreme, shocking, exciting, rapturous, novel, moving experiences are quite rare. Their frequency is decreasing as I am getting older. The only direct way for me to get a powerful experience is by trying out new drugs and increasing the dose once I understand its effects. In such a case, I may enjoy life much more, but firstly society would gun me down, Coolidge effect would kick in and lastly I might get addicted to those pleasures and fall into a trap.

What elements control the experience of rate of change or rate of fluidity in my perception? My conceptual knowledge accumulated from my past is making everything more and more predictable with fixed patterns (mundane). What area of perception do I need to improve OR what do I need to examine to increase my enjoyment and fulfillment in everyday life? Do I need to simply work of increasing the fire of my observation and awareness from moment to moment?

I have read that some enlightened beings lead a super ordinary life as perceived by most people, but they are utterly fulfilled and happy by that. How is that possible? Is it that their sensitivity is 10 times of mine? What do they do differently?

All value is from comparison: like if you only date one girl, you only know one fractal, but if you have dated 10, then you’ll have 10 times the perspective etc. The perspective, interpretation, rating and ranking gets better, the more number of experiences you have.

Knowledge is riches because it opens up so many more life experiences accessible through memory and choose between perspectives at the present moment. Also, the joy of comparison and deep understanding through connections.

Prison of beliefs

See everything 'as it is'. Feel all emotions completely without any controlling. Every belief is limiting, imprisoning you in a self-created prison. Every belief is giving away your power. Drop all beliefs and you have infinite power. There is nothing called power, love etc. or any emotion or experience outside of you. There is no outside. It’s your belief in separation that's giving you that feeling. Thinking something is good/moral/right/correct/noble is also a prison just like thinking something is bad/evil/despicable/shameful is equally imprisoning. All beliefs can be traced back to some person/people who gave you that. There is no reality to any of that besides your belief. You are the space in which everything arises and you are eternally this infinite space. All goals are based on your existing level of wisdom. If you elevate your level of consciousness, your goals could transform. You can be the most insignificant thing in the world OR the god of the world depending upon your beliefs. You can believe that you are the son of god and have the greatest purpose to enlighten people OR you could believe you are a ‘nobody’ and absolutely worthless. They both are still beliefs creating different experiences. Belief is needed for experiencing. Without belief there is no experience.  Also, from direct intense observation, it can be seen that if there is an ‘experiencer’, then the experience is temporary. The ultimate knowledge is simply seeing the totality of everything which automatically creates perfect intelligence, perfect intuition, and effortlessness. The question is “who are you?”; find the essence of this entity with the fire of awareness and it will reveal itself.

You are the entire universe

People would often settle for ‘you are a part of the universe’. But on further examination, the whole universe is you. When you are deep asleep there is nothingness. When you are awake all perceptions come back. You evoke the whole universe from your point of view while dreaming or awake. In the awake, dreaming state there is just perception. The ‘you’, mine, other is a division within the same space. ‘Time’ and ‘space’ are also part of this perception. Everything is eternally present and is ‘just is’. If all experiences are completed they leave the empty space you truly are without a trace. Like when a new born child moves from one room to another – everything is totally different.

People have also reported that set and setting is a huge thing while using psychedelics and just moving from one room to another makes a profound difference.  Maybe this is because the psychedelics greatly sensitize you and loosen your existing models of the world, allowing for fresh perspectives. You are life looking through this perspective/corner of its own creation. Everything is looking at itself from a specific viewpoint within everything. It’s like space moving through space. It’s like light moving through light. It’s like a hologram/fractal where everything is contained in everything infinitely.  Everything is a play of consciousness. There is wholeness in every moment. It’s only the form that’s changing.  All energies are there right now, the total energy of the universe is always the same and infinite and we are the total energy at every moment. Can you feel or know anything apart from you? We are the infinite energy and in an infinite sea of change. Even the enduring entities in our perception ultimately fall away upon death. So death is the final point for holding on to anything. The timeless component is not the changing forms; it is the formless awareness behind all form.

THERE IS NOTHING APART FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW AND YOUR EXPERIENCE. If you think there is, you have just divided your experience up into categories and concepts. You have created the entire game of the universe and now you’re in it and pretending to have forgotten that you know everything in order to freshly experience everything for the first time through infinite living creatures having infinite lives and infinite new perspectives for each. But the awareness which is everything, which is the knowing, which is simultaneously empty is always your essence.

All experience is felt moment to moment and is unique at every moment on sensitive examination. We never step in the same river twice. All the entities we think of as having essence are ghost like, when we shine bright light of awareness on them, they simply disappear and the truth is revealed in sparkling clarity. These essential entities can be dissolved only on intense powerful observation.

Our ultimate desire seems to be of union with everything. We relate to humans and not animals because we think they are similar to us. It seems like we always try to further our definition of ourselves. If we identify with a certain culture, conditioning, beliefs etc. then we try to expand only in that direction by finding similar people. The wider the definition of yourself, the more people you are embrace and understand. With the highest understanding, by this reasoning, you should be able to embrace every single concept, thing, person; real or imagined.

Is it similar to how we divide the land area of the world into countries? Are we dividing and sizing up people into similar boxes, boundaries, sets?

About First Times...

First times are usually a cocktail like mixture of expectations/anticipations (origins from a plethora of sources), excitements, fears (rejection, acceptance), anxieties, pressure (performance), urgency, grasping,  pleasure, the process of trying to interpret - fitting the new sensations into some mental model, sometimes shame.

The first times are Intense because of this cocktail but not usually pure pleasure. The pleasure is just one of the elements mixed into it.

Self Inquiry

If I look at my life history impartially, there have been people who really enjoyed and liked my personality and there have been people who have been indifferent or abusive. But somehow I have a tendency to view myself as a person who is not liked much or accepted by people in general. Why do I identify with this image more? Does it truly reflect the actual reality? Why do I tend to choose to be alone rather than with people? Why do I choose hobbies that greatly lower the need for interaction with others? Afraid of rejection, abusive people, exploiters, predators, indifference, judgments – anything that dis-empowers my perception of myself? Am I attached to an image of grandiosity about myself? And only like people who continually validate that? Which is why self-absorbed people don’t interest me since they are all about themselves and nothing is coming out?

How are my values created? Out of all the experiences in my life what is the magnet of my personality that creates my perception and memory? Are the core qualities of the magnet formed in childhood or are they a function of previous lives too OR does it have no boundaries and simply an ever evolving manifestation of god? By definition, I am a person (Incomplete) and moving towards completeness and all-inclusivity. The interesting part is that even though my environment is completely different, I am still trying to work on my past projects with the hope that I would find some future situation where they would perfectly come in handy.

Why do I perceive the way I do? Why do I see the world the way I do? Why am I ‘ME’ and not someone else? Why am I even asking these questions at the moment? To think about them in future?

Why do I have such a deep need to be understood? Why am I not sure of my own truth and I am so badly seeking validation from other people for that? I think the reason for validation is to gain social power. But what power can stand in front of truth? Isn’t this illusory power? Am I looking for some ground to stand on and thinking the best way is to get people to fortify my beautiful thoughts so that beauty continues in my perception?

Among all my perceptions, why are only some registered as me? Isn’t ALL PERCEPTION = me? There is this imaginary giant filter through which I pass all perceptions and whatever passes through gets stored into memory too. My motivation is coming from this memory castle which attempts to advance in certain ideas, pointers, and directions in the infinite reality space. These motivations change with environment, but certain core aspects seem to be persistent giving the clear feeling of permanence or an essential self. What is this essence?

Perception of everything as an investment

Everyone is running after investments in all forms. All relationships are investments, all job work performed is an investment, traveling around/exploration is an investment for interesting social conversations. There is a mindset where I can see everything reducing into some form of investment in anticipation of future reward/security.

Ecstatic movement of energies

All your life energies and EVERYTHING that you can possibly imagine and beyond is in a certain configuration at this moment. These energies are constantly in a flux and are ecstatically moving. The “I” concept filter acts as a huge barrier to the free movement of these energies. I force myself to think in a particular way, suppress feelings which arise which don’t seem right and encourage only certain patterns in myself. I also control my attention in definite ways which have been taught to me by society.

The energies are moving ecstatically from infinite intelligence and the “I” or ego attempting to stop them does not really stop them. The energies try to move around the obstacles I create and if they are impassable the energy transmutes into other forms and get stored as stress in muscles and nerves. If I unevenly dam a river, it starts flowing in a very turbulent way creating lots of opposing forces. It greatly reduces the power of the river, lowers speed and wastes lots of vital energy.

The ego cannot do anything to stop life energy since the ego conception itself is part of the flow. The “I” entity restricts the flow only because of social definitions imbued into us from societal man-made influences. Most of the ideas/concepts/energy configurations which define me are based on the ‘average understanding level’ of everyone who influenced me in my life. It’s like your operating system utilizing infinite energy from the background. Your operating system can only draw as much power from the infinite space as your beliefs permit it to do so. When you upgrade your beliefs, you upgrade your O.S. and can thereby draw more energy from the infinite space.

If you dam any part of your psyche, it will flow out through maximum force through the smallest of holes. This is why sexual repression is so powerful. It creates immense interest that it just wants to burst out of you if given the freedom. Whichever part you suppress or deny yourself, it will create pressure and want to come out of you in greater intensity. This is part of the reason why temporary self-denial is so pleasurable. It creates intense pleasure once you let go after a while.

Now the mind boggling part is that, being aware of this river of life is like the gift of a lucid dream. It happens to certain people at certain times and even that cannot be willed by you. Your very desire to know the truth that drives you to read and explore all these perspectives is part of your flow. The experience of releasing energies is very profound and liberating and stokes immense gratitude in you but it is not necessary to transfer this experience to each of the so-called non-liberated people. They are all having fun in their own way. You do not even need to go by any rules such as ‘Help those want to be helped’ since you will automatically do so anyway if your life energies desire so.

So the ultimate goal seems to be to free all your life energies completely and just sit back and enjoy the ecstatic ride. The tension and release game of life energies is what makes it such an interesting game. Regress your awareness far enough that you can see the whole game being created and animating the infinite energy into whatever configuration it wants to move in (including the part that you call ‘you’, ‘other’, ‘material world’, ‘separation’ etc., all concepts)

The ‘tension’ and ‘release’ principle is actually what we use in dancing all the time. Maybe that’s why the usage of the term ‘Ecstatic dance’ for the universe energies.