INTRODUCTION: Real peace has no reason, or foundation, or rationale, because it emerges from a place much deeper than thoughts. Real peace requires no anchor (as in god, or teacher, or a mental position)
Sometimes in life situations arise that put you in a storm. This storm can and will blow you away and sometimes does.
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I don't know how it happens, but it just happens. No books can teach you how, no one can explain why, but it comes. 'The peace that passeth all understanding'.
My experience with this 'peace that passeth all understanding' is that it has a beautiful tinge of silver to it. When I say silver, I mean the 'feeling' that this peace is silvery in nature. Very difficult to explain in words, but it is beautiful and intense, silent and calm.
My experience reminds me of a book I read recently. A book on Tibetan Buddhism named 'Luminous Emptiness' by Francesca Fremantle, an associate of Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of Naropa University. This book talks of 'wrathful compassion' and 'crazy wisdom' that it's deities/dakinis use, to 'force' their student into stillness and mental peace.
The author talks of 'sanity and insanity' working simultaneously, 'cruelty and compassion' working together. Under ordinary circumstances, 'sanity and insanity' working together is nonsense, it is just insanity.
But, under special circumstances, when there is love and trust between the partners, sanity and insanity working together can do wonders, like Francesca Fremantle explains.
The thread of love holds people together, when 'sanity-insanity' operates. Without love, it would all be insanity.
When sanity and insanity, cruelty and compassion, all work together in the envelope of love, 'peace that passeth all understanding' starts manifesting, for brief periods at first, and slowly the time for which this peace stays keeps on increasing. But only if you don't expect it to.
Human relationships are sane and insane, both. There is cruelty in them, there is compassion in them, both at the same time. But this is immature love.
In mature love, there can be no cruelty, no revenge, no brutality. Love is not about beating each other black and blue(emotionally or physically) and then weeping and crying and apologising later.
If love enters the cruel-compassionate-sane-insane relationships that humans strike with each other, they will all heal in time, and 'peace that passeth all understanding' will manifest.
Love can heal everything.
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The future is never as dark as the state of panic might might portray.
Humans, it is true, live in a state of panic, more or less.
Somnambulating from one state of panic to another. But that's not you, it's this 'thing', very accurately represented by...
Newspapers are evidence of panic. News channels are evidence. From one scam to another. From one tragedy to another. There are good things happening too, in this world, but the focus is only on tragedy and doom. That is what the state of panic is all about. All other things melt into nothing, only doom, tragedy linger in the perspective. And very often, things appear much more dangerous than they actually are.
Like Jim Bishop says, "The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face."
The interesting thing about panic is, it can never take you over completely. The fragmentation in the human psyche is the reason for this.
When panic takes over, some aspects of you will remain cool and calm. Always.
This is an excellent video on the nature of panic, and dealing with it.
"You can't control thoughts because thoughts don't exist in the brain. Ignorance is not the result of choosing to think what benefits you to think. Ignorance is the result of fully believing in your thoughts... thoughts that are most often distortions."
Invite the fear to become worse. Ask it to get more intense. Ask it to give you more. When the fear no longer meets resistance mentally, it loses its power. Just like a stray dog stops chasing you when you no longer run from it.
Pema Chodron quote.
"The “Lion’s Roar” is the fearless proclamation that any state of mind, including the emotions, is a workable situation, a reminder in the practice of meditation. We realize that chaotic situations must not be rejected. Nor must we regard them as regressive, as a return to confusion. We must respect whatever happens to our state of mind. Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news."
And a highly interesting Jim Bishop quote.
Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
And an interesting Steve Hagen quote.
Truth and Reality are always here for us to see. We don’t need to stand on any particular idea, belief, answer, or other mental structure. In each moment we can see what’s actually going on without grasping — without needing to find something to bolster us or comfort us. After all, what is there to bolster? What’s being threatened?
A brilliant solution, by Pema Chodron
One way to practice staying present is to simply sit still for a while and listen. For one minute, listen to the sounds close to you. For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance. Just listen attentively."
(Taking the Leap)
CONCLUDING NOTE:
A lot of weakness and sorrow is the result of lack of self esteem, and guilt over past actions, sorrow over past failures.
But then, like Teal Scott points out, most thoughts are distortions. And once this is seen, self esteem will automatically repair itself. You will heal once you see the truth of your past.
Think positive. Life is good. Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting pure gold. Positive thinking isn’t about expecting the best to always happen, but accepting that whatever happens is the best for the moment. So keep smiling and keep staying true to your heart. Someday, the negative voice inside you will have nothing left to say.
In the BhagvadGita, in many many verses, earthly life is called an illusion.
In this blog entry we'll look at just one. Chapter 15, Verse 1. In which it is suggested that the human world is only a reflection of Krishna Loka, and being a reflection, the human world is unreal and "upside down". Metaphorically speaking.
श्रीभगवानुवाच
ऊर्ध्वमूलमधःशाखमश्वत्थं प्राहुरव्ययम्।
छन्दांसि यस्य पर्णानि यस्तं वेद स वेदवित् ॥१५- १॥
अधश्चोर्ध्वं प्रसृतास्तस्य शाखा गुणप्रवृद्धा विषयप्रवालाः।
अधश्च मूलान्यनुसंततानि कर्मानुबन्धीनि मनुष्यलोके ॥१५- २॥
न रूपमस्येह तथोपलभ्यते नान्तो न चादिर्न च संप्रतिष्ठा।
अश्वत्थमेनं सुविरूढमूल-मसङ्गशस्त्रेण दृढेन छित्त्वा ॥१५- ३॥
ततः पदं तत्परिमार्गितव्यं यस्मिन्गता न निवर्तन्ति भूयः।
तमेव चाद्यं पुरुषं प्रपद्ये यतः प्रवृत्तिः प्रसृता पुराणी॥१५- ४॥
The Lord said: They (or the wise) speak of the eternal Ashvattha tree having its origin above and its branches below (in the visible cosmos) whose leaves are hymns. One who understands this is a knower of the truth.
The branches (of this world tree of Maya) spread below and above (or all over the cosmos). The tree is nourished by the Gunas; sense pleasures are its sprouts; and its roots (of ego and desires) stretch below in the human world causing Karmic bondage.
Neither its (real) form nor its beginning, neither its end nor its existence is perceptible here on the earth. Having cut these firm roots of the Ashvattha tree by the mighty ax of detachment;
The goal (of nirvana) should be sought reaching which one does not come back; thus thinking: In that very primal spirit I take refuge from which this primal manifestation comes forth.
MY MUSINGS.....
The reflection of a tree in water or a mirror, if closely observed, will have ALL the details, that the real tree has. But it's not real. Of course.
QUESTION:
So if earthly life is only an "upside down" reflection of Krishna Loka, where is Krishna Loka? Where is the evidence of its existence?
sri-bhagavan uvaca
urdhva-mulam adhah-sakham
ashvattham prahur avyayam
chandamsi yasya parnani
yas tam veda sa veda-vit
Translation
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is said that there is an imperishable banyan tree that has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.
Commentary by Srila Prabhupada
After the discussion of the importance of bhakti-yoga, one may question, “What about the Vedas?” It is explained in this chapter that the purpose of Vedic study is to understand Krishna. Therefore one who is in Krishna consciousness, who is engaged in devotional service, already knows the Vedas.
The entanglement of this material world is compared here to a banyan tree. For one who is engaged in fruitive activities, there is no end to the banyan tree. He wanders from one branch to another, to another, to another. The tree of this material world has no end, and for one who is attached to this tree, there is no possibility of liberation. The Vedic hymns, meant for elevating oneself, are called the leaves of this tree. This tree’s roots grow upward because they begin from where Brahma is located, the topmost planet of this universe. If one can understand this indestructible tree of illusion, then one can get out of it.
This process of extrication should be understood. In the previous chapters it has been explained that there are many processes by which to get out of the material entanglement. And, up to the Thirteenth Chapter, we have seen that devotional service to the Supreme Lord is the best way. Now, the basic principle of devotional service is detachment from material activities and attachment to the transcendental service of the Lord. The process of breaking attachment to the material world is discussed in the beginning of this chapter. The root of this material existence grows upward. This means that it begins from the total material substance, from the topmost planet of the universe. From there, the whole universe is expanded, with so many branches, representing the various planetary systems. The fruits represent the results of the living entities’ activities, namely, religion, economic development, sense gratification and liberation.
Now, there is no ready experience in this world of a tree situated with its branches down and its roots upward, but there is such a thing. That tree can be found beside a reservoir of water. We can see that the trees on the bank reflect upon the water with their branches down and roots up. In other words, the tree of this material world is only a reflection of the real tree of the spiritual world. This reflection of the spiritual world is situated on desire, just as a tree’s reflection is situated on water. Desire is the cause of things’ being situated in this reflected material light. One who wants to get out of this material existence must know this tree thoroughly through analytical study. Then he can cut off his relationship with it.
This tree, being the reflection of the real tree, is an exact replica. Everything is there in the spiritual world. The impersonalists take Brahman to be the root of this material tree, and from the root, according to Sankhya philosophy, come prakriti, purusha, then the three gunas, then the five gross elements (panca-maha-bhuta), then the ten senses (dashendriya), mind, etc. In this way they divide up the whole material world into twenty-four elements. If Brahman is the center of all manifestations, then this material world is a manifestation of the center by 180 degrees, and the other 180 degrees constitute the spiritual world. The material world is the perverted reflection, so the spiritual world must have the same variegatedness, but in reality. The prakriti is the external energy of the Supreme Lord, and the purusha is the Supreme Lord Himself, and that is explained in Bhagavad-gita. Since this manifestation is material, it is temporary. A reflection is temporary, for it is sometimes seen and sometimes not seen. But the origin from whence the reflection is reflected is eternal. The material reflection of the real tree has to be cut off. When it is said that a person knows the Vedas, it is assumed that he knows how to cut off attachment to this material world. If one knows that process, he actually knows the Vedas. One who is attracted by the ritualistic formulas of the Vedas is attracted by the beautiful green leaves of the tree. He does not exactly know the purpose of the Vedas. The purpose of the Vedas, as disclosed by the Personality of Godhead Himself, is to cut down this reflected tree and attain the real tree of the spiritual world.
Commentary by Sri Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur
The fifteenth chapter states that detachment is the cause of cessation of birth, that the soul is an amsa of the Lord, and that Krsna is superior to matter and the jiva.
The second to last verse of the last chapter stated that by bhakti yoga one attains the status of brahman:
mam ca yo 'vyabhicarena bhakti-yogena sevate
sa gunan samatityaitan brahma-bhuyaya kalpate
BG 14.26
The question may be asked "How does a person attain brahman by bhakti yoga rendered to the Lord possessing a human form?"
True, I am human in form, but I am the basis of brahman, the supreme shelter of brahman. This statement, which functions as a sutra, forms the beginning of chapter fifteen. You said that the devotee, surpassing the gunas (sa gunan samatitya), attains the status of brahman. What is this material world made of the gunas? Where did the thread begin? Who is that jiva who surpasses samsara by devotion to you? You also spoke of the jiva being qualified for brahman (brahma-bhuyaya kalpate). What is that brahman? And who are you, the basis of the brahman?
Anticipating these questions, the Lord now speaks. First, with use of a metaphor, the material world made of gunas is compared to an asvattha tree. Above all planets, in Satyaloka, lives four-headed Brahma, who is the one root of the tree of the material world, who is composed of mahat tattva, the first sprout from prakrti (urdhva mula). The branches of the tree are below, composed of devas, gandharvas, kinnaras, asuras, raksasa, pretas, bhutas, humans, cows, horses and such beasts, birds, insects, worms, moths, and immobile creatures at the bottom, in the realms of svah, bhuvah and bhu loka.
This asvattha tree is the best tree because it lets one fulfill one's goals of artha, dharma, kama and moksa. But according to viewpoint of bhakti, asvah means that which will not last till tomorrow (a= not, svah= tomorrow). Asvattha therefore means that which is bound to perish. For the non-devotees however, it appears to be indestructible (avyayam). Chandamsi refers to the Vedas, which expound karma in such verses as the following:
vayavyam svetam alabheta bhumikam
Desiring wealth and power one should sacrifice a white horse in the northwest. Taittiriya Samhita 2.1.1.1
aindram ekadasaka-palam nirvapet prajakamah
Desiring offspring one should offer eleven oblations in the east. Baudhayana Srauta Sutras 13.2.120.7
Because they expand the bondage of the material world they are called the leaves (parnani). With these leaves the tree becomes attractive. He who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.
Katha valli sruti says:
urdhva-mulo'vak-sakha eso' svatthah sanatanah
This eternal asvattha tree has its root is upwards and branches downwards. Katha Upanisad 2.3.1
When death occurs, it occurs from the point of view of the outside observer.
The person who dies, does not know that he has slipped into death.
Just like we are not aware of the point when we drift into sleep.
Only after waking up do we know that we were asleep.
So the questions that arise are:
• How do we know we are alive?
• How do we know we are not asleep?
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'Thoughts'
What we call 'thoughts' may not be generated from within us. They could be from the outside. Disembodied voices pretending to be our thoughts.
Ramesh Balsekar, a non dual teacher, says thoughts are not personal.
"Breathing goes on by itself while the deluded individual thinks it is he who is breathing. Thoughts come from outside, arising spontaneously through intervals of mental vacuum, and he thinks it is he who is thinking. The thoughts get transformed involuntarily into action, and he thinks it is he who is acting. All the while, he is doing nothing but to misconstrue the actions of the Totality as his own action." - Balsekar in the 'Net Of Jewels' (1996).
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'Memory'
Every single thought has hidden content and power to hypnotise.
For example, the word 'Blue'. It comes with associated content. Images of blue objects, and possible connections with events.
• It is possible that that the memory associated with words that come our way is false.
• It is possible that we are bombarded with false memories on a continuous basis.
The ability of so called 'thoughts' to hypnotise the human is intriguing. Some kind of a hypnotic quality is inevitably a part of these so called 'thoughts'.
But there can be times when the associated hypnotic quality weakens momentarily. In such a moment, the true nature of 'memory', i.e., false memory, can be seen.
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'Archetypes'
Ar·che·type/ˈärk(i)ˌtīp/ (Noun):
1. A very typical example of a certain person or thing.
2. An original that has been imitated.
In view of the above commentary, and in view of C.G. Jung's perspectives, it is possible that there is only the PRESENT MOMENT. In which impersonal trajectories with NO PAST are manifesting, in a random manner.
It is possible that what you see as 'you in the past' is only these trajectories, pretending to be you.
The present moment, if it was all that is, it would be always dynamic and changing its flavour. It does not get stuck in any one flavour, at any level.
Slow changing levels, medium chaning levels, fast changing levels. All superposed.
ON 'VOICES'
"Throughout history and even today there are people who hear voices who find their voices inspirational and comforting. Many researchers, practitioners and voice hearers believe it is mistaken to regard voice hearing as part of a psychopathic disease syndrome. Rather, they consider it to be more akin to a variation in human experience - a special faculty or difference that definitely does not need a cure."
False awakening
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A false awakening is a vivid and convincing dream about awakening from sleep, while the dreamer in reality continues to sleep. After a false awakening, subjects often dream they are performing daily morning rituals such as cooking, cleaning and eating. The experience is sometimes called a double dream, or a dream within a dream.
Contents
1 Further concepts
1.1 Lucidity
1.2 Continuum
2 Symptoms of a false awakening
2.1 Realism and unrealism
2.2 Repetition
3 Types of false awakening
3.1 Type 1
3.2 Type 2
4 In popular culture
5 References
Further concepts:
Lucidity:
A false awakening may occur following an ordinary dream or following a lucid dream (one in which the dreamer has been aware of dreaming). Particularly if the false awakening follows a lucid dream, the false awakening may turn into a "pre-lucid dream", that is, one in which the dreamer may start to wonder if they are really awake and may or may not come to the correct conclusion. In a study by Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett, 2,000 dreams from 200 subjects were examined and it was found that false awakenings and lucidity were significantly more likely to occur within the same dream or within different dreams of the same night. False awakenings often preceded lucidity as a cue, but they could also follow the realization of lucidity, often losing it in the process.
Continuum:
Another type of false awakening is a continuum. In a continuum, the subject falls asleep in real life, but in the dream following, the brain simulates the subject as though they were still awake. At times the individual can perform actions unknowingly. The movie A Nightmare on Elm Street popularized this phenomenon. This phenomenon can be related to that of sleep-walking or carrying out actions in a state of unconsciousness.
Symptoms of a false awakening:
Realism and unrealism:
Certain aspects of life may be dramatized, or out of place in false awakenings. Things may seem wrong: details, like the painting on a wall, not being able to talk or difficulty reading (purportedly reading in lucid dreams is often difficult or impossible,[3]) or, oddly, normal types of foods gone missing. In some experiences, the subject's senses are heightened, or changed.
Repetition:
Because the mind still dreams after a false awakening, there may be more than one false awakening in a single dream. Subjects may dream they wake up, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, and so on; suddenly awake again in bed (still in a dream), begin morning rituals again, awaken again, and so forth. The philosopher Bertrand Russell claimed to have experienced "about a hundred" false awakenings in succession while coming around from a general anesthetic.
Types of false awakening:
Celia Green suggested a distinction should be made between two types of false awakening:
Type 1:
Type 1 is the more common, in which the dreamer seems to wake up, but not necessarily in realistic surroundings, that is, not in their own bedroom. A pre-lucid dream may ensue. More commonly, dreamers will believe they have awakened, and then either wake up for real in their own bed or "fall back asleep" in the dream.
A common false awakening is a "late for work" scenario. A person may "wake up" in a typical room, with most things looking normal, and realize he or she overslept and missed the start time at work or school. Clocks, if found in the dream, will show time indicating that fact. The resulting panic is often strong enough to jar the person awake for real (much like from a nightmare). Another common example is when a person usually goes to the bathroom when woken up. The person may be 'false awakened' that he/she thought he/she went to the bathroom but in reality they were still asleep.
Type 2:
The type 2 false awakening seems to be considerably less common. Green characterized it as follows:
The subject appears to wake up in a realistic manner, but to an atmosphere of suspense.[...] His surroundings may at first appear normal, and he may gradually become aware of something uncanny in the atmosphere, and perhaps of unwonted [unusual] sounds and movements. Or he may "awake" immediately to a "stressed" and "stormy" atmosphere. In either case, the end result would appear to be characterized by feelings of suspense, excitement or apprehension.
Charles McCreery drew attention to the similarity between this description and the description by the German psychopathologist Karl Jaspers (1923) of the so-called "primary delusionary experience" (a general feeling that precedes more specific delusory belief).
Jaspers wrote:
Patients feel uncanny and that there is something suspicious afoot. Everything gets a new meaning. The environment is somehow different—not to a gross degree—perception is unaltered in itself but there is some change which envelops everything with a subtle, pervasive and strangely uncertain light.[...] Something seems in the air which the patient cannot account for, a distrustful, uncomfortable, uncanny tension invades him.[7]
McCreery suggests this phenomenological similarity is not coincidental, and results from the idea that both phenomena, the Type 2 false awakening and the primary delusionary experience, are phenomena of sleep. He suggests that the primary delusionary experience, like other phenomena of psychosis such as hallucinations and secondary or specific delusions, represents an intrusion into waking consciousness of processes associated with stage 1 sleep. It is suggested that the reason for these intrusions is that the psychotic subject is in a state of hyper-arousal, a state that can lead to what Ian Oswald called "micro-sleeps" in waking life.
Subjects may also experience sleep paralysis.
In popular culture:
False awakenings are sometimes used as a device in literature, and especially films, to increase "shock" effects by inducing a feeling of calm in the viewer following something disturbing.
A Calvin and Hobbes strip involved Calvin waking up from a dream, then stepping outside his door only to find it is an abyss, where he wakes up again, and repeats it, only to actually wake up and be incredibly frightened about leaving the house.
A twist at the end of the horror film Dead of Night (1945) is an early example of a re-occurring false awakening.
A scene in the "Lisa's Rival" episode of The Simpsons sees Lisa faint after a Saxophone battle for First Chair with her rival. She awakens and is informed she "made it", believing she made First Chair, in which Mr Largo responds with "No, you regained consciousness. Alison got First Chair." Lisa wakes up a second time, concluding the former experience was a dream, and the same events as the dream follow, in addition with "and believe me, this is not a dream!"
The film Waking Life deals with dreaming, lucid dreaming and false awakening.
The film Vanilla Sky begins with the main character having a Type 2 false awakening, achieved cinematically with "empty city" effects.
The Twilight Zone episode "Shadow Play" involved a man having a dream in which he is sentenced to die, with the various roles (judge, jury foreman, attorney, fellow inmates, etc.) being played by people from his past. At the moment he is executed, the dream re-starts, with the characters shuffled. The episode was part of the original series, and re-made as part of the 1985–89 revival.
In the first volume of Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Sandman, the newly freed Morpheus, lord of Dreams, punishes his captor, Alexander Burgess, with endless false awakening nightmares.
In Joan Baez's "The Dream Song", the lyrics discuss a dream-within-a-dream resulting from her apparent awakening. The lyrics end "When I really woke I was frozen in between; I didn't know who I was, it was a dream inside a dream; It's all a dream."
In the film Inception the dream-within-a-dream and the false awakening are central to the plot.
The Rugrats episode "In The Dreamtime" features Chuckie experiencing a false awakening.
The plot of the South Park episode "City on the Edge of Forever" is revealed to be a dream within a dream for Stan Marsh; he undergoes a false awakening as Cartman within his own dream.
In Hugo the main character has a nightmare involving a train accident that he caused. When he awakens he finds that the key is still in its place; however, he has become a machine like all the clocks around him. Reality sets back in when he finally awakens to the real world.
Dream argument
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The dream argument is the postulation that the act of dreaming provides preliminary evidence that the senses we trust to distinguish reality from illusion should not be fully trusted, and therefore any state that is dependent on our senses should at the very least be carefully examined and rigorously tested to determine whether it is in fact reality.
Contents:
1 Synopsis
2 Simulated reality
3 Recent discussion
4 In popular culture
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
Synopsis:
While people dream, they usually do not realize they are dreaming (if they do, it is called a lucid dream). This has led philosophers to wonder whether one could actually be dreaming constantly, instead of being in waking reality (or at least that one cannot be certain, at any given point in time, that one is not dreaming). In the West, this philosophical puzzle was referred to by Plato (Theaetetus 158b-d) and Aristotle (Metaphysics 1011a6). Having received serious attention in René Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, the dream argument has become one of the most prominent skeptical hypotheses.
In the East, this type of argument is well known as "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly" (莊周夢蝶 Zhuāngzhōu mèng dié).
One night, Zhuangzi (369 BC) dreamed that he was a carefree butterfly, flying happily. After he woke up, he wondered how he could determine whether he was Zhuangzi who had just finished dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who had just started dreaming he was Zhuangzi. This was a metaphor for what he referred to as a "great dream":
He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman ‑ how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet, after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed.
Some schools of thought in Buddhism (e.g., Dzogchen), consider perceived reality literally unreal. As a prominent contemporary teacher, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, puts it: "In a real sense, all the visions that we see in our lifetime are like a big dream [...]".[2] In this context, the term 'visions' denotes not only visual perceptions, but appearances perceived through all senses, including sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations, and operations on received mental objects.
Simulated reality
See also: Simulated reality and Simulation hypothesis
Dreaming provides a springboard for those who question whether our own reality may be an illusion. The ability of the mind to be tricked into believing a mentally generated world is the "real world" means at least one variety of simulated reality is a common, even nightly event.
Those who argue that the world is not simulated must concede that the mind, at least the sleeping mind, is not itself an entirely reliable mechanism for attempting to differentiate reality from illusion.
“Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.”
—René Descartes.
Recent discussion.
Many contemporary philosophers have attempted to refute dream skepticism in detail (see, e.g., Stone (1984)). Perhaps most notably, Ernest Sosa (2007) has devoted a chapter of a recent monograph to the topic. There, Sosa presents a new theory of dreaming and argues that his theory raises a new argument for skepticism, which he attempts to refute. Jonathan Ichikawa (2008) and Nathan Ballantyne & Ian Evans (2010) have offered critiques of Sosa's proposed solution.
In popular culture.
In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, Alice finds the Red King asleep in the grass; Tweedledum and Tweedledee tell her that the Red King is dreaming about her, and that if he were to wake up she would "go out—bang!—just like a candle." A similar theme is explored in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, told from the perspective of the dreamer in his own realm of dreams.
In the 1999 movie The Matrix, machines imprison the human race and plug them into "the Matrix", an enormous machine system that uses human bioelectricity and body heat as a biological battery to power the machines. Connected to the Matrix, the humans are kept in a dream-like state, in which they dream of being in the world as it is today; they have no reason to suspect that it is anything other than the real world. Certain people sense the innate artificiality of the illusion and, through various means, "wake up", breaking free of the Matrix. The overall theme of the series is the "waking dream" scenario, and speculations on which reality is preferable. This concept is further explored during the second Matrix film where one of the main characters appears to be able to utilize abilities usually used in the "dream" in what the character currently believes is "reality", leaving the viewer to question if the character is in fact in reality, or if they are still inside the dream.
In the original television series The Twilight Zone, the episode Shadow Play (written by Charles Beaumont, originally aired May 5, 1961, Season 2, Episode 26) concerns a man trapped in a recurring nightmare in which he dreams he is a prison inmate sentenced to death and to be executed; he tries to convince the characters in his dream that they are only figments of his imagination and that they will cease to exist if the execution is carried out.
Richard Linklater's Waking Life deals mostly with this subject, revolving around a man being aware of having been trapped inside his own dream.
Christopher Nolan's movie Inception deals with the fictional science of shared dreaming. The characters enter others' minds, to steal ideas, or in the rare case of inception itself, plant them while the target is unaware they are dreaming. Once in a dream, the characters can enter other layers or dreams within dreams. In the movie, characters can distinguish a dream by using totems which are unique items weighted or otherwise distinguishable to help the user determine reality. In the end, the film leaves open the question of whether the protagonist is himself dreaming.
Films such as Total Recall and Blade Runner, which are both based on stories by Philip K. Dick, also hinge upon the idea that what you remember and perceive is not always real.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty greatly explores the protagonist's Raiden's (and by extension, the player's) diminished sense of reality, and that what you perceive may not be what is truly reality.
Ted Dekker's Circle Series protagonist wakes up in an alternate reality every time he goes to sleep.
In the ninth episode of the fourth series of the science fiction television series Doctor Who, "Forest of the Dead", the Doctor's companion Donna is "saved" into the Library's hardrive and begins to live out an imaginary and fake reality, she is oblivious to the reality she is living is an illusion, until a disfigured woman who had been killed in the 'real' world and respectively submitted into the hardrive convinces her that her life is not real.
See also.
Consensus reality
Evil demon
False awakening
Maya (illusion)
Meta-universe
Reality in Buddhism
Simulated reality
Social simulation
Solipsism
INTRODUCTION: The tree lives in you
the beautiful music lives in you
the greenery lives in you
and that is why they live outside of you
The air lives in you
that is why it lives outside of you
sustains you every second
it will never go away
even if you do not thank it
because that's its job.
Life's job is to keep you alive
and it will.
An interesting question asked in a Philosophy Group I participate in sometimes.
"Why do we breathe?"
I believe breathing is a manifestation of a very deep, seamless connection we have with our environment. A living connection. It keeps us alive.
In fact, from what can be referred to as the LIVING PERSPECTIVE, it may not be wrong to compare "a human living on earth", with "a child in the womb".
If phrases like 'deep interconnectedness' and 'sustainability' are used as the guiding perspectives, then it is easy to see the above mentioned parallel.
The unborn child emerges from the material of the womb, and lives in a state of deep connectedness with the womb. Gets blood, oxygen, nutrition from it, which is the unborn child's complete universe.
The unborn child's connection with its environment is a living connection.
The earth sustains us in the same way. Breath, food, shelter from extreme forces, pressures, temperatures and killer radiation that lie beyond the earth's atmosphere.
Our connection with our environment is a living connection.
Some hindus hold the perspective that the entire cosmos is a womb.
And when the human becomes sufficiently developed, he exits the earth-womb, but only to enter a different womb.
Perhaps what we perceive as death is childbirth into something newer. Death of the caterpillar is birth of the butterfly. The paradigm shifts. The environment changes.
If you have seen Stanley Kubrick's movie 'A Space Odyssey', in this movie, in the final scene - the STARCHILD is shown. An unborn child in open, deep space.
This unborn child represents the next stage in human evolution. And by putting him in outer space, Kubrick is trying to instill the cosmic womb perspective.
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Question: So why use the word 'WOMB' in place of the word 'environment'. What use is it?
Answer: The word 'environment' is a detached, clinical viewpoint. It's not wrong, but it's not sufficient to explain life.
'WOMB' is a word that points to the existence of deep feelings of nurture. And since life cannot be founded on anything except feelings, the word 'WOMB' instills the living perspective.
The tree lives in you
the beautiful music lives in you
the wind lives in you
the thunder lives in you
the greenery lives in you
food shelter drinking water
nurture, air
They were neighbours and wonderful friends. They also attended the same school. She was one year his senior.
One day as they were sitting and talking, after school hours, he could not help but notice how exceptionally erotic she looked that day.
She's continuous erotica, he thought to himself, as they continued their conversation. She was telling him what someone at school had said to her, but he could barely focus on what she was saying. His mind was saturated. Obsessed.
He'd been madly in lust with her for three years now. But he never mentioned it to her. Felt pretty awkward. He didn't want to come across as stupid. Or some desperate freak.
He was sure she had noticed his feelings, but pretended as if she had no clue.
Their talk very rarely involved comments of a personal nature. Their talk revolved around events at school. Things going on in the neighbourhood, etc.
So she never saw it coming.
Suddenly he said, "Listen, there's something I want to say...but...am afraid that if I do, you might never want to speak to me again."
"What?! Don't Understand!" , She said.
He looked straight at her for a couple of seconds, almost staring.
"Not really easy to say what I want to."
"Why?" She asked. He could see that her expression was serious. Dead serious.
"Let it be. I changed my mind. I gotta go, see you later." He said.
And he left. And as he walked way, he was wondering what she was thinking about. He knew her mind had hit 'Red Alert' instantly....and that made him nervous.
He knew she knew he was in lust with her. Over the years, he had done many strange things in her presence, without wanting to. Like stare at her breasts. Her legs. Her arms...lips..On many occasions he had ended up trying to look up her skirt. Or down her blouse.
So he was sure she knew. But she never let it show. She never made him feel uncomfortable. Never ignored him, was never rude. Suddenly he felt grateful for the way she had been treating him. Because he felt vulnerable. His lust for her made him vulnerable.
And as he walked, he started fantasising about a situation in which he walks up to her and just blurts it out. No bullshit. No vague, cute things. Just blurts it out....'I WANT TO FUCK YOUR BRAINS OUT.'
"What if I did it?" He asked himself. "We have been friends for many years. If she hates me for expressing my lust for her openly, I'll apologise. She might not break the friendship. She likes my company."
But he wasn't ready yet. It was so damn awkward..... :-/
CHAPTER 2 --
School was off for summer, and he was glad. Because he just didn't want to run into her, not for a long time.
But since she lived in the neighbourhood, it was going to be difficult to not run into her.
He was afraid he might blurt it all out prematurely...because offlate he had been spending hours and hours every day, fantasising about her. Sometimes in her school skirt, sometimes in her tennis skirt. Sometimes in her tight jeans, heels, and the sheer, almost see-thru, sleeveless tops that she used to wear, in summer.
Experiments and exercises in becoming a blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate, eternally changing Master of Transgressive Beauty.
1. Take inventory of the extent to which your "No" reflex dominates your life.
Notice for 24 hours (even in your dreams) how often you say or think:
"No."
Then retrain yourself to say "YES" at least 51 percent of the time. Start the transformation by saying "YES" aloud 22 times right now.
Don't wait for inspiration. Go after it with a butterfly net, lasso, sweet treats, fishing rod, beguiling smells, and sincere flattery.
(Slightly modified Rob Brezsny passage.)
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Watch out for FALSE statements like the following and oppose them when you are able to spot them emerge in your mind:
• "I fear they will not do my work."
• "My future is doomed."
• "Something or the other is going to destroy me soon."
• "This life is not worth living."
• "I am worthless."
• "I keep making the same mistakes over and over."
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PASSAGE 2:
When the spell is broken, you will be able to tap into resources you've been cut off from. When the spell is broken, you will finally notice the big, beautiful secrets that have been lying in plain sight.
When the spell is broken, you will slip down off a clean, lofty perch where it has been hard to relax and arrive at a low, funky spot where you'll be free to feel things you haven't felt in a long time.
When the spell is broken, it will be because you have decided to break it.
What is that spell?
-- Rob Breszney passage.
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The mind, out of habit says no to everything we want to do. It is its habit to oppose. And it attacks all our vulnerable points.
This is nothing to worry about. Through positive thinking, the mind can be conquered.
A lot of people's thinking turns very negative when thinking about pending issues...
There is nothing to worry about, only an initial hesitation. Once you start getting your work done, your thinking will become more positive.
THROUGH POSITIVE THINKING AND CAREFUL WATCHING OF THE MIND'S RESISTANCE, ANYTHING CAN BE DONE.
Positive thinking is pushing against the mind's negativity on a continuous basis. Like pushing against a dilapidated piece of furniture that resists you but starts moving eventually when sufficient force is applied.
YOU HAVE TO PUSH AGAINST THE MIND'S NEGATIVITY AND RESISTANCE CONTINUOUSLY. IT IS NOT DIFFICULT.
WHY?
Because the energy to push against the mind's negativity comes from nowhere but the mind itself.
It's an enemy that empowers you to overcome it. On a continuous basis.
"I wanted to let you know that this is a perfect time for you to learn more about the difference between your fearful fantasies and your authentic, accurate intuitions.
It's always a good time to do that, of course, but even more so right now. This is an exciting turning point, when the future is up for grabs. Worn-out old habits of thought are unraveling. Structures that have kept us enthralled to fake values are crumbling. The coming months and years will be ripe with opportunities for us to lay the foundation for a new world that's actually fit for the human soul.
And in the midst of this grand mutation, it's predictable that so many so-called leaders are trying to fill up our imaginations with scary visions and angry emotions. They want us to buy into their visions that the sky is falling.
In the face of their toxic paranoia, it's wise to remember that we always have the power to turn away from their fear-mongering and tune in to the guidance of the still, small voice within us -- the still, small voice of intuition that will, if we allow it, lead us very capably through every twist and turn of our destiny, even when our destiny brings us right into the thick of our civilization's massive transformations.
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Knowing the difference between your fearful fantasies and your authentic, accurate intuitions is one of the greatest spiritual powers you can possible have. So let's explore what it means: knowing the difference between the frightening, alienating pictures that sometimes pop into your imagination, as opposed the simple, warm, clear direction that is always available from the deepest source within you.
Strangely enough, many people get these two things confused. They are especially prone to believing that the frightening, disempowering images that erupt in their mind's eye are coming from their intuition.
For many people, if they get an image of a scary future possibility popping into their imagination, they worry that it's a prediction of some event that will actually occur in their lives. For instance, they may have a fantasy of themselves getting into an accident, or maybe they dream of losing a loved one, or maybe they internalize the toxic vision of some talking head on TV who slaps them upside the head with a prediction of imminent doom. When these people get images like these stuck in their imagination, they may begin to obsess on the fear that these things are literally going to happen.
Almost every time, scary fantasies like this are not true intuition. Our true intuition is just not very likely to be fueled by fear, and it rarely if ever motivates us to act by making us feel afraid.
No. Our true intuition emerges from the wise, loving core of our being. It blooms in us like a slow-motion fountain of warmth. It reveals the objective truth about a person or situation with lucid compassion. It shows us the big picture.
Fearful fantasies, on the other hand, burn and itch and make us feel like we're coming apart. They drain our energy and cloud our judgment. They fill us with obsessive urges to run and hide or do something desperate and melodramatic.
I don't want to say that true intuition is always calm and emotionally neutral. It isn't, necessarily. But I will say this: The emotions that accompany true intuition are never alienating. They don't make us feel superior to other people or fill us with hatred and terror. They don't disempower us or make us feel helpless.
True intuition may rouse our anger, but if so, it is the kind of invigorating anger that leads to clarity and constructive action, and thus it is an anger that ultimately relaxes us.
True intuition may show us a difficult truth, but it always does so with a suggestion of how to deal gracefully and courageously with that difficult truth. True intuition may reveal imminent changes that could compel us to adjust our behavior, but it always does so in a way that empowers us.
Let me emphasize this point: True intuition may not always reveal that everything will be fine, or that we will be able to continue to live in the ways be have been living -- true intuition is certainly not falsely optimistic -- but if it does alert us to circumstances that are in flux, and how we will have to transform ourselves, it does so with love and poise and clarity, not with fear.
Here's one more thing, *. Just as our true intuition never works by scaring the hell out of us, neither does it flatter us with grandiose suggestions about how superior we are. In fact, it may often gently inform us of some correction that should be made in our attitude. It may tactfully but firmly lead us to the understanding that we have been suffering from some form of ignorance and that we need to wake up and get smarter.
True intuition reveals the story of our lives from our soul's point of view, not our ego's. In my understanding, true intuition is the voice of our own personal inner teacher, which just happens to be the divine part of us. The certainty that true intuition provides us is therefore not loud and puffed up, but rather humble and graceful.
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This is a perfect moment to think on these things, and to add some insights of your own. It's also an excellent time to flush away the fearful fantasies that may have seeped into your imagination -- and thereby make it possible for you to hear your true intuition better.
One way to facilitate this process, by the way, is to cut way back on the amount of terrifying and disorienting images you allow to flow into your imagination from the TV, Internet, newspapers, movies, and other mass media. In fact, I invite you to consider the possibility of going on a media fast for a while and spending more time in nature than you usually do.
In conclusion, my beloved companions on this beautiful, interesting planet, please get to work on seeing your fearful fantasies for what they are and enhancing your connection to your true intuition."
When an old tree in the rain forest dies and topples over, it takes a long time to decompose. As it does, it becomes host to new saplings that use the decaying log for nourishment.
Picture yourself sitting in the forest gazing upon this scene. How do you describe it? Would you dwell on the putrefaction of the fallen tree while ignoring the fresh life sprouting out of it? If you did, you'd be imitating the perspective of many modern storytellers, especially the journalists and novelists and filmmakers and producers of TV dramas. They devoutly believe that tales of affliction and mayhem and corruption and tragedy are inherently more interesting than tales of triumph and liberation and pleasure and ingenuity.
Using the juggernaut of the media and entertainment industries, they relentlessly propagate this covert dogma. It's not sufficiently profound or well thought out to be called nihilism. Pop nihilism is a more accurate term. The mass audience is the victim of this inane ugliness, brainwashed by a multibillion-dollar propaganda machine that in comparison makes Himmler's vaunted soul-stealing apparatus look like a child's backyard puppet show. This is the engine of the phenomena I call the global genocide of the imagination.
At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we believe that stories about the rot are not inherently more captivating than stories about the splendor. On the contrary, given how predictable and ubiquitous they are, stories about the rot are actually quite dull. Obsessing on evil is boring. Rousing fear is a hackneyed shtick. Wallowing in despair is a bad habit. Indulging in cynicism is akin to committing a copycat crime.
Most modern storytellers go even further in their devotion to the rot, implying that breakdown is not only more interesting but far more common than breakthrough, that painful twists outnumber vigrous transformations by a wide margin. That's just absurd disinformation. Entropy does not dominate the human experience. Even factoring in the misery in parts of Africa and the Middle East, the Global Bad Nasty Ratio never exceeds 50 percent. And here in the West, where most of you reading this live, the proportion is lower. Besides that, the fact is that a vast majority of the people on this planet love to be alive, and the preponderance of their experience is a YES, not a NO.
Still, we at the Beauty and Truth Lab are willing to let the news media fill up half their pages and airwaves and bandwidths with poker-faced accounts of decline and degeneration, misery and destruction. We can tolerate a reasonable proportion of movies and novels and TV dramas that revel in pathology. But we also demand EQUAL TIME for stories about integrity and joy and beauty and bliss and renewal and harmony and love. That's all we ask: a mere 50 percent.
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I vividly recall one of the shocks that incited me to head in the direction of pronoia. While perusing the front page of my local daily newspaper some years ago, I was startled to find a tiny oasis of redemptive news amidst the usual accounts of reeling turmoil. It reported that inner cities all over America were undergoing a profound renaissance. From Los Angeles to New Orleans to Boston, the poorest sections of town were becoming markedly safer. New businesses were opening, capital was flowing in, neighborhood clean ups were proliferating, drug sales were decreasing, and people were relaxing on their front porches again.
I was amazed that such an uplifting story had cracked the media's taboo against good news. And yet its anomalous presence as an exception to the rule proved that the rule is virtually ironclad.
At this late date in the evolution of pop nihilism, the problem is not merely the media's relentless brainwashing. We of the mass audience have become thoroughly converted to the sadomasochistic vision of the world: so much so that we've almost lost the power even to perceive evidence that contradicts that vision. The good news is virtually invisible.
Even those of us whose passion it is to champion the cause of beauty and truth are in the early stages of fighting our blindness. We are retraining our eyes to see the emancipating truth about the nature of reality.
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As we gather the secret stories of the human race's glories and success, the Beauty and Truth Lab doesn't spend much time on ho-hum data like, "Two thousand planes took off yesterday and all landed safely." We leave that to others with more patience. Our preferred evidence emphasizes the triumphs that have entertainment value equal to the bad nasty stuff.
We also want our good news to consist of more than reports about hurts being healed and disasters being averted. We celebrate the family of the deceased Israeli girl who gave her heart to be transplanted into a sick Palestinian boy, but we also want a front-page story about physicist Paul Ginsparg, who has revolutionized scientific communication by creating a free service for publishing and reading research reports on the Internet.
We cheer forest protection activist Odigha Odigha's successful campaign to preserve Nigeria's last remaining rain forests, but we want to hear more about George Soros, whose philanthropy has provided billions of dollars in support for intellectual freedom and democratic societies in more than 30 countries.
We honor West Virginia's Julia Bonds, who has made headway in her campaign to halt mountaintop coal mining before it turns more river valleys into waste dumps, but we also want sensational acknowledgment for Ruth Lilly, who donated $100 million of her fortune to Poetry magazine, even though its editors had rejected all the poems she had submitted for possible publication over the years.
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I invite you to share with us the interesting good news you come across in your travels. Not sentimental tales of generic hope; not "Chicken Soup for the Soul;" not life imitating the faux Hollywood art of contrived happy endings; but rather crafty, enigmatic, lyrical eruptions of the sublime; unpredictable outbreaks of soul that pass Emily Dickinson's test for poetry: She said she always knew when she was reading the real thing because it made her feel like the top of her head was about to come off.
Feel free, too, to take up the cause of zoom and boom as you resist the practitioners of doom and gloom in your own sphere. Demand equal time for news about integrity and joy and beauty and pleasure and renewal and harmony and love. In your personal life, be alert for stories that tend to provide evidence for the fact that all of creation is conspiring to give us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.
P.S. Part of our task is to hunt down and identify the interesting good news that's going on now. But we've also been charged with the job of creating the good news that's coming.
It is often heard from Buddhist teachers, that this life is nothing more than a dream and awakening no different in either case. Having studied lucid dreaming in a dedicated way for about two years I have to agree with this assessment. Let me make a couple of key points in this regard but importantly explain why this insight is of any practical use.
First of all, lucid dreaming is when you are dreaming but you know you are dreaming. You are fast asleep, dreaming and fully conscious. In order to learn how to have more lucid dreams, I read everything by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, joined his Lucidity Institute and practiced diligently. Dr. LaBerge has probably conducted more clinical research into the phenomenon of lucid dreaming than any other scientist. His book, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, reviews the history of the phenomenon and provides a detailed training program to teach anyone how to have lucid dreams. Having followed that program I can assure you it works and I was able to conduct a variety of experiments while lucid dreaming.
What is lucid dreaming like? Think Neo in The Matrix. Whatever you expect and believe to be real will be real. I mean as real as the waking world. While lucid dreaming I would check to see if things had the same physical characteristics as the real world. Of course they did and in as fine a level of detail as I cared to examine. They did because I expected them to. However I learned to work with this. Can I pass through that wall over there? Bonk! Nope. Ah, change the mind. Its not a wall but a veil and there is another room on the other side. This time, no problem.
Because the training required ‘round the clock practices, I also became highly aware of the nature of my regular dreams and gained a heightened awareness of the nature of the waking state of consciousness. I became very aware of how the waking state was different or similar to the dream state. Here is the key insight: although the physical characteristics of things in the dream state are different than the waking state, the state of consciousness is no different.
Why do we not normally realize when we are dreaming, especially when such odd things happen? We go blithely along with whatever happens as long as it is not too frightening. The reason is that we are not in a different state of consciousness than when we are awake. When we are dreaming, just like when we are awake, we accept everything that happens as normal. Let me turn that around for its real significance to be seen; when you are awake, you are in the same state of consciousness as when you are dreaming.
We are aware of the random flow of events in dreams but suffer the illusion that our waking life is different. It is not. Our life, just like our dreams, is nothing more than a constant series of responses to completely random events. We do not perceive them as random because we view our lives from a certain perspective in space and time. Our lives are a momentary formation like a swirl in billowing smoke or an eddy in a stream. However because we view our lives from within that formation, we suffer the illusions of permanence, separateness, meaning and control. Yet just as a cloud forms from random events in the atmosphere, changes and then disappears due to the same forces, so do our lives.
Buddhism teaches that all things are temporary due to their dependence on other things for their existence. This is only a part of the truth however, and the less difficult part to accept. Not only are all things temporary but their creation, existence and dissolution are all driven by random events.
Just as lucidity enables you to awaken in a dream, so you can awaken to the waking dream. This is nature of The Buddha’s awakening. This is enlightenment and nirvana. He saw that all things are temporary. He stopped doing what everyone else was doing, which was grasping at temporary things in the belief they will make one happy. He saw that, ironically, it was in fact the grasping that caused the very unhappiness we seek to avoid. He saw that all things depended on other things for their existence and stopped believing things could be controlled and instead saw that they must instead be accepted. To resist reality only makes us suffer and to accept it is the only path to the end of suffering, or what we call happiness. This is “Right View” and this insight is the goal of all Buddhist practice.
So how does one awaken? Just as I trained with the program offered by Dr. Stephen LaBerge to awaken in my sleeping dreams, there is another program available to enable you to awaken to the waking dream. That program is called The Eight Fold Path.
Chaos Theory, a beautiful science, tries to instill in us that the perfect shapes of Euclidean geometry like straight lines, circles, cones, cylinders, are only human imagination, and do not manifest in nature. They are just references we use to measure our surroundings.
In fact, you can't even draw these shapes if you tried. No machine can ever produce a straight line, since drawing a line would entail giving it a thickness, and a thickness means it's not a 'line'. Further, every machine, no matter how refined, always deviates from its design trajectory.
So the drawn line will have a varying thickness, as well as deviations from the mathematical formula for a line, so, whatever it is... the drawn line is not a 'straight line'.
So if neither man made machines, nor nature produce straight lines, or straight anything - if we apply this concept to 'time' as we think it is ---
----then time flowing at a constant speed, in a 'straight line', progressing neatly from one year to the next -- this might not be true.
Time might be twisted, discontinuous, broken, looping, zig-zagged etc.
And if indeed 'time' has the above mentioned bizarre nature, it only means that the flow of events may not be a neat linear chronology that follows cause and effect.
i.e. the dream perspective... that mystics keep talking about.
Whatever this universe is, it's not what we are traditionally trained to think it is.
I have pondered parallel lives often...and I feel that in case the flow of time is not a 'straight line', and it doesn't look like it is, then there is no reason why time can't flow in parallel streams. That can converge, diverge. Converge again.
Perhaps time can be likened to a river. Has a flow but only if you are in it or observing it from close range. And like a river, consists of meanders, multiple streams, creeks, brooks, rivulets...
Many stories of human endeavour upon deeper investigation reveal the following qualities:
1. Entrapment and suffering. 2. Catch-22. 3. Impending deluge, death.
The mind's conclusions are often much more severe than what actually unfolds.
"Learn to look without analysis, conclusions". Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Even the 3 points mentioned above are nothing more than a perspective. Situations are as they are. It's our mental projections into the future that judge these situations.
Anything, if looked at through the 'Mental Lens' of the future, or past, is at the risk of appearing morbid or negative.
The only cause of stress is too much thought activity...
These stress relieving videos are based on the 'Golden Ratio', a number (1.61803399) that has fascinated philosophers/mathematicians for almost 2500 years.
The 'Golden Ratio' has fascinated mathematicians/philosophers/architects for almost 2500 years. Pythagoras and Euclid, astronomer Johannes Kepler, Oxford physicist Roger Penrose, to name a few.
And some more.....
And this Eckhart Tolle video explains how to pull attention from the mind, into the body.
As attention is pulled into the body, thoughts slow down.
It rejuvinates.
"Not Reacting To Content", when combined with the above exercise, would be very powerful.
“We cannot imagine Life without Death, because the entire Life rests on Death" - Sorin Cerin.
This video explains the collective death that stares humans in the face.
Humans walked off the cliff a very long time back. When humans assumed that infinite growth, without decline, is possible.
Everything humans have built is based on the assumption that oil and other natural minerals will always be available in plenty and will fuel growth indefinitely - a wrong assumption.
Our money is 'debt money' - money that can exist only if growth does not stop. If growth stops its upward journey - the financial system will collapse.
Even today, the corporate employee is under pressure to produce short term profits. If he doesn't, he'll be replaced by someone who does.
And short term profits cannot be generated if one works keeping in mind the big picture explained in the video.
Keywords: Peak Oil, Rare Minerals, Debt Money, Severe Resource Crunch.
Quantum physicists *accept the role of the living being in the scheme of things, the deep interaction/connection between the living being and the universe.
The living being is not just important, the living being is central to the existence and functioning of the cosmos.
The universe is not a machine that's running with utter disregard of its living inhabitants, but interacts with its living inhabitants. Continuously.
And it's not just the local environment that interacts with us. Even remote locations in the cosmos would be interacting with us.
Distance, it seems, does not matter, in these mysterious interactions that science does not really understand, but has observed.
10 Kilometres or 10,000 billion Kilometres. It does not matter.
We are interacting continuously with everything. Influencing/shaping it and getting influenced/shaped by it.
And possibly creating it. ________ *Not all but at least some of the top physicists like Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli and David Bohm accept this.
"This material world is sometimes regarded as an ocean of nescience and sometimes as a blazing forest. In the ocean, however expert a swimmer one may be, the struggle for existence is very severe.
When you are situated in the boat of transcendental knowledge, you will be able to cross over the ocean of miseries."
- The BhagvadGita.
nes·cience: (noun.) Absence of knowledge or awareness; ignorance.
If you are not in the boat of transcendental knowledge, you'll be thrown around by the ocean of miseries continuously. It will threaten to drown you at every step.
Even in those moments when you are not in the boat, or do not want to be in it, it will be somewhere near you.
If this writing has caught your attention means the transcendental boat is either very close to you right now, or you are in it, right now.
Question: What is it, that binds me down, threatens to drown me in the ocean of miseries? What is it that keeps me in spiritual delusion? Am I really drowning?
Answer: Make a list of all your fears.
...the ocean of miseries uses your fears to trap your attention.
...it can trap your attention, but it cannot trap you.
...your entrapment is an illusion.
...all that you fear, they are all illusions.
...the drowning is an illusion.
These lessons from ACIM are wonderful exercises. They are 'Transcendental Boats'.
INTRODUCTION: Real peace has no reason, or foundation, or rationale, because it emerges from a place much deeper than thoughts. Real peace requires no anchor (as in god, or teacher, or a mental position)
Sometimes in life situations arise that put you in a storm. This storm can and will blow you away and sometimes does.
If you have seen Stanley Kubrick's movie 'A Space Odyssey', in this movie, in the final scene - the STARCHILD is shown. An unborn child in open, deep space.
Chaos Theory, a beautiful science, tries to instill in us that the perfect shapes of Euclidean geometry like straight lines, circles, cones, cylinders, are only human imagination, and do not manifest in nature. They are just references we use to measure our surroundings. 
Perhaps time can be likened to a river. Has a flow but only if you are in it or observing it from close range. And like a river, consists of meanders, multiple streams, creeks, brooks, rivulets...
Many stories of human endeavour upon deeper investigation reveal the following qualities:
"I am the light of the world".
