The Tyranny of the Mind

*The post below is my response to a question someone had about dealing with experiences of depression and PTSD. This person has already shown great insight in recognizing that there is far greater wisdom and benefit in 'allowing' the experience rather than suppressing or fighting it. But in attempting to allow the experience they feel trapped in an apparent dichotomy of how to deliberately allow an experience to happen. After all how does one control or contrive spontaneity? I have posted my response for any of my readers who may have experienced this dilemma or simply with the tyranny they have felt from their own minds, when immersed in depression or anxiety.*

Hi _, 

This pointer of "allowing" can be a tricky one because you can misinterpret it as another technique to try and control your experience. It is important to recognize that allowing is not the opposite of repressing or identifying. It is really an attitude of surrendering control.

Try this simple exercise - become aware of the rhythm of your breathing. Watch it closely. You will notice that as soon as you become aware of your breath, its rhythm changes. Suddenly, it goes from a nice, natural rhythm to a sort of controlled artificial rhythm. No matter how natural you try to make it, as long as you are trying to control the experience of your breathing, it will seem unnatural and contrived.

The process of allowing is similar to breathing. It happens naturally. It doesn't need your active involvement in order for it to happen. But if you try and make it into some sort of objective, then it can become a mechanical and artificial process too.

Your Mind can never know how to allow. It is not built for that purpose. Its job is to identify or suppress, those are its functions. Just as it makes no sense to use a computer to vacuum a carpet, the Mind  is not equipped to allow. At best it can do a sort of pseudo-allowing, kind of like you trying to force your breath to be as natural as possible. This is where a lot of people can get stuck, but it is exhausting and ultimately unfruitful.

Realize this. Allowing is not something you can 'do', because allowing is already happening. Right now you are experiencing deep depression. Right now you are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. Ask yourself this question - how are you experiencing these? How could these experiences even be possible if it wasn't already being allowed?

What the pointer of 'allowing' is really pointing to is not some new technique for your mind to gain dominion over life, but rather the very intelligence of Life itself, that lies at the heart of every experience. It is pointing to that dimension of your Consciousness that exists even prior to your Mind - prior to the your thoughts, emotions or any other mental events. That Consciousness is the foundation of your whole experience. And it here that the allowing happens.

While depression can feel debilitating, it is also a great opportunity to become aware of this deeper dimension within yourself. Depression and anxiety are tremendous tools for self-discovery, because they temporarily destabilize the mind. And it is in that window of opportunity, when your mind is still scrambling to regain its bearings, that the truth of your being can become even more apparent than ever before.

This is your own inner revolution against the tyranny of the Mind. The Mind has become an institution - like say a government - built on certain beliefs, principles and motivations. And like most government institutions it thrives on power and control. Yet this power and control is only apparent it is not real. The power of any government, no matter how oppressive, depends on the people that support it or fear it. The moment the people stop feeding it, the entire structure collapses like a house of cards.

Instead, of trying to build a government that promises freedom to its citizens (this exactly what is happening when the Mind tries to make 'allowing' a practice), recognize that freedom is already inherent within each and every person's experience. Freedom is already the case, for you. It always has been. Just like you don't need any government to tell you that you are free, you don't need your Mind's permission to tell you that you are free.

Go to the source of where the true power lies. Turn to the Consciousness without which the Mind could not even operate. It is a simple state of awareness. It is silent and watchful. You are already very familiar with it. So familiar perhaps, that you do not even realize it. It is your natural state before even a thought arises, before any sense of who you are arises.

Take some time to become present. Just to simply watch your experience as it happens, without trying to get involved, without doing anything, without any agendas. Whether you are sipping a cup of tea, or brushing your teeth, or suffering some obsessive thought, or lying in a deep depressive funk. Whatever the experience is, be quietly aware of it. In doing so, you will find that your perspective has subtly shifted, from being within the Mind, to being the "Witness of your Mind". This witness position has no opinion, no judgment, no involvement. It is simply aware.

As you become more familiar with this deeper aspect of your Consciousness, you will naturally begin to see that allowing is already happening, whether you like it or not. It has always been the case. Life cannot exist without it, just like your body cannot exist without breathing. The more and more you see this, the more and more you will begin to relax in your attitude towards yourself.

Ultimately, to come to a state of allowing happens when the mind surrenders control and aligns itself with the natural flow of Consciousness. It is the establishment of a true democracy within the mind: a government that places itself at the feet, rather than at the head, of the people. Your Mind is ultimately in the service of Consciousness. Yet, this can only happen when your allegiance shifts from the authority of the mind to the freedom that is inherent within Consciousness. 

The Personality Disguise

Your personality is a scrapbook. It is an album of collective identities, arranged in a unique way which sets it apart from another's. However, apart from the unique orientation of these identities, very little else is unique about you. This may be a statement that causes some people chagrin. In today's day and age we prefer to think of ourselves as individuals, each definitively unique and markedly different than the other. We like to celebrate ourselves for that very uniqueness and we like to celebrate it in others. As a society we exalt originality and base the value of a person on their ability to "stand out" in a crowd. Effectively, the more unique you are the more you are likely to be noticed among the masses. However, this kind of uniqueness is not synonymous with the word 'original'. In fact, contrary to what you have been led to believe, very little of your personality and who you think you are is original at all. Instead, every aspect of you is an imitation, a version of something you have seen, heard, experienced or been influenced by.

Starting with your physical appearance - your genetics are derived from those before you. You "look like" different parts of other people. Your emotional being is likewise also a derivative of your genetic inheritance as well as circumstantial/cultural conditioning. As a child you witnessed the emotional expressions of those around you and learned to emote accordingly. You realized that certain emotions were considered to be more beneficial than others and adapted your behaviour to try and maximize those that were considered acceptable and learned to minimize those that weren't. A baby cries and laughs freely as it pleases because it has yet to learn the rules of emoting. Today most adults are far less likely to burst into tears on a crowded bus than to burst into laughter. Your ability to feel emotion is something entirely personal to you; however how you "think you should feel emotion" and how you actually express emotion are both a function of your conditioning. 

But perhaps, the level at which we most identify with our sense of individuality is in our thoughts. And it is at this level that we are paradoxically the most unoriginal. The vast majority of thoughts that you have on a daily basis are repetitive and imitative. Your opinions are rarely ever your own. Even if your opinion is something that stands in stark contrast to popular belief or consensus, even if it is something completely radical and unheard of, it is not something you have invented. Opinions are never invented. They are simply derived. You may have a particularly creative way of rearranging the words in a sentence, or rearranging a the sequence of thoughts in an idea and in that sense may present something that seems more fresh and original than what others have heard before. But here as well, the uniqueness of your expression lies in the creative ways you are able to redress the old. At the end of the day, we are all just regurgitating. No one ever creates anything new. But this isn't meant to be a negative statement but rather if read carefully and seen clearly into can offer great hope and optimism for our entire species. 

We live in a Universe where nothing is ever created or destroyed. Just as the laws of physics state that neither matter nor energy can ever be created nor destroyed, so too within the realm of Conscious expression, including the emotional and the mental, nothing can ever be created or destroyed. No idea can ever be destroyed no matter how evil or destructive. No ideology can ever be suppressed forever. That is one of the most beautiful things about Conscious experience. There is no limit on what you can think. Similarly, no idea can ever be created. It can only be derived. Every idea that ever existed was based on an idea before it. Language itself arose from the need to express emotion and sensation in a more effective manner. Words themselves, were derived from the previously unintelligible grunts of our primitive ancestors. So regardless of which famous person said what in history, whether it was Socrates, Einstein, Marx or Thoreau  - each one of their insights and realizations was based on a history of hundreds and thousands of years of insights and realizations before them. Similarly, their insights set the stage for the thousands of years of insights that came and are yet to come after them. It is all so intricately and beautifully connected that to try and claim some individual propriety over a thought is absolutely absurd. When you talk about intellectual property, what you are effectively claiming is ownership of a thought process or an idea as if you actually created it. But that is just as absurd as claiming ownership of land as if we have some control or dominion over the Earth. That we act in such a manner is more the result of our social contracts with one another rather than any absolute reality. In reality, you cannot own anything because truthfully none of it belongs to you. You did not create it, neither your body, nor your emotion nor your intelligence.

The very fact that we come in with nothing and leave with nothing is an indication that none of it really belongs to us. It’s kind of like a playpen at a daycare where you can come in and play with the toys, and within the game you can claim "temporary ownership" of whatever you lay your hands on, but when it’s time to go home you don't get to take any of it with you. You were only permitted to borrow it for a while.

Similarly, your personality, even your name, is simply a temporary alias, just a borrowed identity. This name that means so much to you and is your unique identifier was fished out of a rolodex of a million baby names that your parents studied over. Your personality, the words you use, the inflection in your voice, your accent, your beliefs, your ideas about yourself and others, your value systems, your morality - are all the toys in the playpen that you can claim for a while as long as you are willing to play nice. When it’s time to go home however, you don't even get to take that name with you.

This can be an immensely liberating revelation if seen with the right perspective. The very fact that you are not bound to your name, your personality, even your emotions and your body is something that has the potential to radically shift your whole perspective of life. No longer can you claim to be the victim of your circumstances, of other people's intentions, even of your own thoughts and emotions. When you realize that none of it really belongs to you, but rather you have only borrowed it for a while, just that recognition can be extremely freeing. This is particularly evident in patients who are suffering from a debilitating illness or severe pain. As long as the illness, disease or pain is seen as something that is "yours" that "you own", that defines you, it can seem insurmountable and overwhelming. But the moment it is seen instead as some borrowed experience that must be experienced for a while, then that part of you that is most essentially you, that most intimate essence, can never be touched.

Prisoners on death row have experienced this sort of disassociation from their circumstances and have reported feelings of deep peace, joy and gratitude which seem to completely contradict their circumstances. The fact of the matter is that peace is not the result of the absence of war, strife, suffering and heartache - but ironically exists in spite of them and sometimes especially within them.

But the realization of the unoriginality of this person that you think you are is vital for liberation, because it is this "person" that you are essentially becoming liberated from. And by "the person" I mean all of it: the ideas, the emotions, the appearance, the desires, the passions, the pains, and the sufferings - all of it. When you see that it is all just a costume that you don in order to participate in this great drama of life - then you have the freedom to set aside that costume if and when you choose.

This doesn't mean the costume is a shackle that needs to be discarded and done away with. In fact, this notion has been one of the greatest traps within the whole history of man's quest for spiritual realization. It has been a trait of every religion and every discipline - this denial of the flesh, of the human, in an attempt to realize the divine. And yet that very desire to do away with the costume is a shackles in itself, it is what makes it a bondage. But when you can see that the costume serves a purpose, that it is your greatest disguise and a thing of sheer genius, one that allows you to participate and express your true self at will, then it is no longer a shackle. To be truly liberated is to be able to wear and remove your costume at will.

When you can perceive this whole person that you are: your name, your physique, your drives and passions, your thoughts and beliefs as all different parts of a fabric that has been painstakingly crafted for your own enjoyment and expression then you may begin to perceive the whole experience of your life with some levity. Because a great production is all this is and is all it was ever meant to be.

The Journey of a Lifetime

Imagine you are sitting in a train, gazing out the window. This train is powering on through the vast and scenic countryside. Farm after farm passes you by; you catch a glimpse here and there of farmers hard at work in their fields. Yet, they vanish from your sight no sooner than your curiosity is aroused. The mountains in the distance stay with you for a while longer. Massive and majestic, they seem like permanent fixtures in this world of your perception. They seem to move with you. They seem reliable companions. You doze off for a while, not knowing how long. And when you wake, the mountains are gone. Your majestic companions who seemed so steadfast and reliable have vanished without a trace, like wisps of cloud over the horizon. In their place, an expanse of yellow plains as far as the eye can see, and the river that has been by your side from the moment you began your journey. This river, she will never forsake you. She has always been there, since the very beginning. And yet, an hour comes when you see her branch away, ever so slightly at first. Then further, and further. Now she is no longer parallel to your path but moves away at an angle, farther and farther. You strain to trace her with your eyes, but she fades mercilessly out of existence. Now, she too has gone. You are left with an unfamiliar terrain. Fields appear and fields pass, forests appear and forests pass. Mountains again, newer and more majestic, pass away as effortlessly as if they were a breeze. A new river appears and stays with you for a while. Waterfalls, villages, people, livestock, cities, canyons, plains and tunnels - all pass before your eyes. Each one is real only in this moment, but in the next merely a figment of your imagination.

But the whole world already exists in one moment. It is only you who are passing through it. You cannot help it. You are only a passenger on this train.

Time is the landscape through which you are traveling. It may seem, from your vantage point, that it is Time that is passing and you who are stationary. But just like the passenger on the train, you are only a passenger moving through the landscapes of time. Your body is the carriage in which you are sitting, your mind the train's engine propelling you through time. Moment after moment passes you by, you catch a glimpse here and there of humor or goodwill, but no sooner is your curiosity aroused that it vanishes from your sight. Your beliefs and your ambition loom majestically in your vision like permanent fixtures in your perception. They move with you, like reliable companions. But you awake one day to find they are gone, without a trace like wisps of cloud over the horizon. In their place, a vast empty landscape of uncertainty. At least, love will never forsake you: Love, that has been there since the moment you began your journey. But then a moment comes where it begins to branch away, ever so slightly at first and then further and further, it fades mercilessly out of your existence. You are all alone now and steeped in uncertainty. Yet the movement forward continues unceasing. Humor and goodwill appear and recede, joys and sorrows appear and pass. New beliefs and ambitions, newer and more majestic, pass away as effortlessly as if they were a breeze. New love appears and stays with you a while. Good fortune, camaraderie, regret, unhappiness, success, abundance, anger and insecurity - all pass before your eyes. Each one is real only in this moment, but in the next only a figment of your imagination.

Everything passes. Nothing remains. Only memory, but even that passes. Solidity is the appearance you have chosen to accept as your reality. But reality has no real solidity. It is the stuff of dreams, smoke and mirrors. 

As you watch time flowing past you, become aware of yourself flowing through Time. Regardless, of what passes, has already passed or is about to pass; regardless, of the love, joy, sorrow, regret, successes and failures that appear, disappear and reappear relentlessly; become aware of the Eye of Perception that is witnessing it all happen. It is your Eye. Even as the world changes, it does not change. Even as the moments pass, it does not pass. Even as your body and mind age, it does not age.

This is the world in which nothing remains, where everything appears and disappears relentlessly. Yet, the Eye of Perception, has always been present. It never appeared and can never disappear, it has no beginning nor an end. Because, it does not belong to this world. It is what has created it. 

As with everything else, you too will pass one day. Your journey from childhood to adulthood and finally old age will be complete. The vehicle of your body will no longer be of service, the engine of your mind, decommissioned. An entire lifetime of love, ambition, joy, sorrow, success, failure, abundance and regret will be nothing more than a memory, the stuff of legend, the topic of a warm dinner conversation. 

But the Eye of Perception, its journey complete, will disembark from the vehicle having arrived at its destination at last. With a deep breath and a single stride, it will return once again to that infinity of existence from where it came: that sea of possibility where all realities can simultaneously coexist; where every life it has lived is nothing more than a cherished dream.  

This is the journey of a lifetime. And You are more than what meets the Eye.

The Power of the Feminine Principle

The gender divide is the oldest and arguably most prominent tool of discrimination that we have employed as a species to define who we are as people, to structure our societies and the values on which we base our lives.  We have culturally entrained our minds to zero in on the differences that exist between the two sexes while losing sight of what the two have in common. Through religion, culture, tradition, art, social norm, behaviour, attitude and belief we have, over millennia, learned to magnify that fine line of separation into a solid, insurmountable wall of distinction. Even in our modern day societies, in which we proudly stand for each other’s rights and celebrate these differences, our attitudes ironically only serve to reinforce that wall of separation. After all, just because you have learned to become more friendly and accepting of your neighbor doesn't change the fact that a fence still exists between your land and theirs. Rather than simply celebrating our differences and leaving it at that, its time to take a closer look at the reality behind some of these perceived differences and shift our attention instead to what it is that makes us the same.

The classical view in science was that the female form was the default template during the stage of fetal formation. And it was thought that with the introduction of certain genes further development of the male sex organs as well as the hormone testosterone is what led to the development of the male form. This view was very much in keeping with traditional and cultural views of males being "so much more" than the female. As we developed as a species through competition and conquest, through invasion and violence, through dominance and subjugation, through aggression and brute force, it became increasingly evident that the male form was more useful in these regards than that of the female. Therefore, the value of the male form over the female became simply a function of power and use.

This re-iteration of the ideal that the male is bigger, better, faster, stronger, more useful, more enduring, more intellectual, more innovative is something that continues to operate within our collective psyches even today. I do not refer simply to cultures that have yet to embrace women's rights, I am referring to our own culture here in the West. Even today, we value the person who has a greater ambition and competitiveness, is more aggressive, more dominant, more powerful physically, economically and socially, less yielding and more assertive. In other words, we value the person who is more "masculine". Except, now we have brought ourselves around to accepting that the women in our society can live up to these virtues just as well as the men can. And this is the ultimate double-standard: one that accepts equality of the sexes on the condition that we continue to uphold the masculine principle as the highest virtue in our society. 

This is evident in our social attitudes. For example, it is acceptable, fashionable and even admirable for a heterosexual woman to dress like a man, whereas it is unacceptable for a heterosexual man to dress like a woman. Women who work in traditionally male professions are celebrated, while men who work in traditionally female professions are far less respected. A woman who chooses a career life over the home is held in higher regard than the man who chooses to stay at home and parent over pursuing a career. In our efforts to establish a gender equality, what we have really established is a society in which women are celebrated for their abilty to be more "male" in their outlooks, their desires and their attitudes.

But let's take a look at these apparent "differences" between the two sexes. The classical view in science is now being replaced with more progressive findings in modern genetics which reveal that the female form is not the basic template of the fetus. Instead, during fetal development there is a steady interaction between pro-male, anti-male, pro-female and anti-female genes. This flux of interactions keeps the balance delicately shifting from one side to the other in a genetic ballet that is so subtle that it could really go either way. At the end of it all, a single gene can make the difference, creating just enough of a skew to create the male or female form. The difference is so subtle and so trivial, that it makes you wonder what all the hoopla is really about.

There is no such thing as a pure male or female. We all contain within us genes and hormones that exhibit both characteristics. The male and female distinction then is not some black and white boundary line but rather a skew that places each one of us somewhere in the spectrum of greys. Our physicality ends up being the defining line on how we ultimately end up identifying. However, this desire to fix onto a single position within that spectrum and hold onto it for dear life is what ultimately stalls our ability to evolve and progress as both individuals and as a society. Your true identity is not some fixed point on this spectrum called "very male" or "very female" or "slightly male" or "slightly female". Your true identity lies in your ability to span the entire spectrum because that is the potential that lies within you. Your expression may ultimately be whatever you choose it to be, but your perspective need not be restricted.

The feminine principle is a powerful principle and lies at the very heart of creation itself. It is the principle of intuition rather than intellect, of harmony rather than aggression, of flexibility rather than rigidity, of collaboration rather than competition, of inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness, of compassion rather than ambition, of aesthetic rather than function, of yielding rather than controlling.

Both the masculine and feminine principles operate within each of you, regardless of your physical gender. You are not as male or female as you think you are. These two principles are the two symbiotic movements of Life that balance each other and rely on each other to operate, just like your in-breath and out-breath. Every day, you are masculine in one moment and feminine in the next. At times you are demanding and at others yielding, at times rigid and at others flexible. You can be compassionate and yet self-motivated, you can be motivated by function but then appreciative of aesthetics. You have the ability to display power but also demonstrate grace, you can be competitive but sometimes collaborative. It is in discovering the play of the two principles within yourself and in nature that you can truly come to an appreciation of the value each holds.

Yes, your body is physically only male or female. But as we our discovering, even that is not something unchangeable. But what are you besides just your body? What are you aside from your genitals? How much of your identity do you derive from them?  What is your heart and your spirit? Does it have a gender identity?

The cultures in the East have long valued the presence of both these principles. In martial arts, it is the art of yielding to the aggression of your opponent that allows you to turn their aggression against them. The philosophies of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism all celebrate the feminine principle as one of the highest virtues. It is the foundational principle, one that bases the birth of intelligence in the female principle of Intuition before it is translated to the male principle of the Intellect. It perceives the Unity beneath the separation, the harmony beneath the turmoil.

To re-connect with the feminine principle is to reconnect with the core of our spirit. For a long time now we have, as a species, been lost in our minds and our material ambitions and have gradually alienated ourselves from one another and from the very Earth that provides us sustenance. There is a reason why we call her Mother Earth, why we refer to it as Mother Nature. It is the movement of compassion and abundance for all creation regardless of distinction. There is a reason why some of the most oppressive regimes in the world were those most strongly based in the masculine principle. It is the principle that seeks to control, separate and subjugate.

What is necessary in the end is a balanced expression of the two: in which the masculine feeds the feminine and the feminine nourishes the masculine. Bruce Lee is his famous televised interview referred to it as the Art of bringing together Spontaneity and Control in a single unified expression, one that formed the basis of his martial art and life's work. It is the only purpose that we are here for. 

We each have an opportunity, man and woman alike, to rediscover the value of the feminine principle that lies within all of us. It is a latent power with immense potential. Through rediscovering this principle we may begin to shift the masculine skew in our minds (that we are all equally responsible for, men and women) back towards a more harmonic and balanced perspective of the two, both internally within ourselves and externally in our society. 

Recognize that it is not "man" and "woman" that defines who you are, but rather that indivisible human spirit which encompasses the two, that is the essence of your true identity.   

Dealing with Obsessive Thoughts

This was a response I wrote to a query about obsessive negative thought patterns, that I felt would be worth sharing with a lot of people out there who have experienced something similar:

There is nothing wrong with obsessive thinking. Rather obsessive thoughts are the mind’s way of bringing to your attention that there is some energy suppression that has reached a pressurized state within your psyche and is demanding release. The body uses the same mechanism in the form of pain, to bring to your attention that there is a part of your body that may be in need of healing. From this perspective, neither physical pain, nor psychological suffering is something terrible that needs to be gotten rid of. Rather they are necessary mechanisms that allow you to be aware of what needs your attention. This is the first step, to accepting the obsessiveness of your thoughts.

The second is to recognize that your thoughts have very little to do with reality. Your thoughts are merely signposts that point your attention. The more obsessive the thought the more an indication that your compassionate attention, not fearful rejection, is what is necessary. Allow the thoughts to guide you to a deeper place within yourself that you normally would not have a chance to be aware of.

Become aware of those moments in which you are not obsessing about that thought. Even if they are few and far between, be aware of them. Moments of distraction when you are preoccupied in cooking or watching a TV show or in a joke someone is telling you. In that moment, if you are aware enough you will notice how that negative self-image you have of yourself simply drops away. Gradually, you will see the connection between your thoughts and self-image. You will see how you literally become this negative version of yourself the moment the thought arises. This is just a means of realizing that this image you have of yourself is not real – because it depends on your thinking to create it.

However, even this recognition will not arrest the momentum of the obsessive thought. The ultimate purpose of this, as I mentioned, is healing. Just like physical pain will continue to draw your attention to a wound in your body that needs your tender attention and care, the momentum of thinking is fueled by psychological pain which is similarly drawing your attention to something that needs healing. That healing can only happen through release of that energy. That release can only happen if you allow it to.

Allowing is not about trying to control your experience. It is not about trying to avoid your obsessive thoughts, nor is it about identifying with them. One is like the brake pedal of the car, the other is like the accelerator. Hitting the brake may momentarily pause the momentum, but as long as there is still fuel the car keeps running. Take your feet off both pedals and allow the fuel to naturally spend itself. These obsessive thoughts will come to a natural conclusion when you stop obsessing about how obsessive they are. Do you see the connection? Do you see how your fear or denial both serve to equally fuel the fire?

Be patient and compassionate with your mind, especially with its obsessions. It is all a part of a larger mechanism whose only purpose is to bring you to a more whole and complete version of yourself.

Conscious Density: The Real "Law of Attraction" (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1: Conscious Resonance: The Real "Law of Attraction")

You are all familiar how gravitation works. It is the universal principle of attraction within our cosmos. But not as many are aware just how the mechanics of gravitation work. Is it just some mysterious force that large objects exert on each other? Why is the Earth attracted to the Sun and the moon to the Earth and so on? The answer to this question lies in the Space between them.

Consider a soft King-size mattress with a perfectly even surface. If you were to place a ping pong ball somewhere on this mattress it would make a minor depression in the mattress but you will hardly notice it. Place a basketball somewhere in the vicinity and it makes a visible depression in the mattress, sufficient enough to cause the ping pong ball to roll towards it. Now place a 15lb bowling ball on the mattress and the depression is even more severe. The mattress appears to sink a good few inches under the bowling ball. The basketball and the ping pong ball are immediately affected and being to roll (gravitate) towards the bowling ball.

This is, in fact, how gravitation works. Space-time as we know it is not an empty nothing but is more like a stretched fabric on which all the objects in the Universe are placed. Our Universe is nothing more than a giant trampoline sheet with objects and clusters of different mass and density rolling around on the trampoline sheet, causing other objects to gravitate in one single unending domino effect. 

The Principle of Energetic Gravitation

The Law of Attraction works according to the same principles as the law of gravitation.

The Law of Attraction is really the Law of Gravitation seen from the perspective of Energetic Resonance. What Gravity is within Material reality, Attraction is within Consciousness. In fact, rather than using the phrase 'Law of Attraction' I prefer to refer to it as the principle of Energetic Gravitation. 

Just as space-time is the fabric of the Physical Universe upon which the dynamics of material reality play out, Consciousness is the fabric of the Energetic Universe upon which the symphony of Energies takes place. In this Energetic Universe, each Conscious Mind is the equivalent of a planetary body in the Physical Universe. While simpler minds like that of bacteria may represent smaller planetary bodies like asteroids with relatively minor gravitational effects, the mind of a cat for example might represent a much heavier and more complex body like that of a planet. These comparisons are not meant to be taken literally but only give a sense of relative scales. What mass is within the Physical reality, Conscious Density is within Consciousness. The greater the mass of a body, the more it bends space-time and creates a gravitational pull. Similarly, the greater the Conscious Density of a Mind, the more it bends Consciousness and creates an Energetic-gravitational pull.

The density of a Conscious Mind is a function of the range of frequencies within the Conscious Spectrum it is able to access. Recall the analogy of the musical scales that I used in Part 1. The basic sub-spectrum or scale, which is accessible to most conscious organisms, is the Physical sub-spectrum. The physical sub-spectrum is the lowest scale whose notes represent the various sub-conscious instinctual drives all living beings share - the desires to procreate, to survive, to preserve, to nurture and to evolve. You can witness these dynamics in effect even in the most basic organisms. A mosquito's desire to survive is no different from your own. Within the spectrum of physical drives, all beings are remarkably alike and express themselves quite similarly. However, what sets a dog apart from a mosquito is that the dog, in addition to having physical drives, is able to experience a range of notes within the next sub-spectrum which is the Emotional scale. A dog has the capacity to feel anger, sadness, joy, envy, hatred and loneliness not very differently from a human. A dog's Mind is thus able to access a greater range within the Conscious Spectrum and as a result has a greater Conscious Density than the mosquito.

The human Mind on the other hand is able to access yet another sub-spectrum within consciousness which is the Mental scale. Just like the dog, the human can feel the emotion of anger, but unlike the dog it also has the capacity to create an abstract thought model based on that anger. What that allows the human to do is to manifest that emotion at will simply by conjuring a thought that mirrors the circumstances that trigger the emotion. Whereas a dog can only feel anger if a real life momentary circumstance, such as a menacing postman, appears before it, the human can feel anger simply by conjuring the image of a threat without there being a threat physically present. As a result, the dog's emotion comes and goes with the postman, whereas your own emotion lingers as long as you choose.
As a result your human mind has an even greater Conscious Density and the Energetic-gravitation you create within Consciousness is much more profound.

Elemental Energies   

Now, that we have spoken about the Physical, Emotional and Mental sub-spectrums of Consciousness, it is necessary to understand what each note within each of these three scales represents and how they are different from one another. Every note has a different frequency, a different resonance. So let's for example consider the notes do-re-me-fa-so-la-te. Each note has a distinct vibration, a distinct resonance frequency. Within each scale the 'do' note has the lowest frequency, the most dense vibration, whereas the 'te' note has the highest frequency and the least dense vibration. Now this do-re-me-fa-so-la-te progression of notes exists within each sub-spectrum of Consciousness in exactly that order.

A 'do' note in the Physical sub-spectrum may denote the instinct for survival which becomes especially activated in the face of a threat. The survival instinct operates even in a bacterium which has a very limited capacity to feel emotion. That same 'do' note will be experienced in the Emotional sub-spectrum as the emotion of fear. And finally, the 'do' note struck within the Mental sub-spectrum may trigger some negative thought of doom or gloom. Now while it is possible to strike the same 'do' note on all three scales at the same time (much as you would on a piano) it is not necessary that they are always linked. For example, you can experience the 'do' note as both a mental thought and an emotional fear but you may not experience yourself moving into survival mode physically. Or you could have a random negative thought of doom which really just passes by without triggering much of an emotion. Or you could feel a random attack of fear for no apparent reason while thinking about something completely unrelated. The 'do' keys are not necessarily related yet they resonate with the same tone.

Similarly, at the higher end of the scale, the 'so' key may denote the instinct to procreate in the Physical sub-spectrum. The same 'so' note may be experienced as the emotion of love in the Emotional sub-spectrum and thoughts of Well-being in the Mental sub-spectrum. Again it is not necessary, that all three get triggered at once. For example, you are able to feel the Emotional 'so' note of love for your parents without triggering the Physical 'so' note which is the basic sexual drive. Yet, you may trigger both for your spouse but your relationship may not trigger thoughts of contentment and well-being on the Mental spectrum.

The range of notes, or Elemental Energies, is of course far greater in Consciousness than just the six mentioned in my analogy. What this musical scale provides is a simplified image representing the basic framework of Energies within Consciousness.

The Conscious Density of the Human Mind

Each human mind is identical in its basic potential to access the Conscious Spectrum, just like every Piano has the same number of keys. However, the Conscious Density of each mind differs based on what range of the spectrum that individual mind actively accesses. A piano on which only a small percentage of notes are struck produces a far more simplistic music than one on which a much larger range of notes are used. Similarly, a Mind which accesses only a limited number of keys may be said to have a lower Conscious Density than that of a Mind that can use a broader range.

Take an infant for example. A human infant is only able to access notes within the physical sub-spectrum, a handful of notes within the emotional sub-spectrum and almost nothing within the mental sub-spectrum at first. A human newborn seems just as helpless as a fawn. In fact, the fawn may even display a higher level of intelligence initially than a human baby, as it is able to walk and survive far quicker than the human child. We may go even as far as to say, that at that stage the Conscious Density of a fawn is higher than that of the human infant. However, the reality is that the human infant represents the potential of a much higher Density, just as a Grand Piano represents the potential of a wider range of notes than say a prehistoric flute. As the baby grows, it rapidly begins to access the notes within the Emotional Spectrum. By early childhood, most children are as capable emotionally as are adults. Yet, the development on the mental spectrum takes a bit longer as the child's capacity to abstract his/her reality begins to take shape.

There is a whole range of Conscious-energy capacities within the human race. The average human individual has potential access to the entire range of all three sub-spectrums but perhaps accesses only a small percentage. Within that percentage that we usually access, the range sub-spectrum we are able to access the most is the physical scale, the next is the emotional scale and the lowest access is the intellectual scale. Then there are individuals who fall in variation to the norm. There are those whose mental capacities remain relatively child-like even though they have fully developed emotional capacities. There are those who may display high mental capacities yet their emotional range is very limited (this can lead to psychopathic tendencies if they are only motivated by Physical drives and lack emotional ability to connect to others). There may even in the rare case be people who do not have the ability to connect to the basic desires to survive, to eat or to procreate but regularly access the emotional, mental sub-spectrums. This may be the case in mystics in the east who infamously had to be fed and bathed by their disciples or else they would have died of starvation out of the lack of  ability to connect to their physical desires.  

How each Conscious Mind accesses the Conscious Spectrum impacts the Conscious Density of that mind. This Conscious Density is what creates the Energy-gravitation. The greater the Density the greater the gravitational pull.

However, Conscious Density is not the only criteria for the force of Energetic-gravitation to exist in Consciousness, just like the masses of two planetary bodies is not the only criteria for the gravitational force between them. Physical gravitation is also dependant on the distance between the two planets. Similarly, the difference in energy-resonance frequencies between Conscious minds is a vital factor in understanding the principle of Energetic-Gravitation. I refer to this difference in frequencies as Energetic Distance.

Recall, the formula you used in high school physics where the force of Gravitation (F) was directly proportional to the product of the two masses (M1,M2) and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (R) between them. In the same way, the force of Energetic-Gravitation is directly proportional to the Conscious Densities of two minds and inversely proportional to the square of the Energetic Distance between them.

(to be continued …)

The Paradox of Perception

When speaking about Consciousness it is important to draw a fine distinction between universal Consciousness and the experience of your own individual Consciousness.

Think of yourself as a laptop computer with a powerful battery, which is your brain. This battery has the potential to store Electrical charge for up to a certain amount of time before it needs to be recharged through sleep cycles. Now think of Consciousness as Electricity. Electricity itself has no form of individuality. Yet, when transmitted into a specific device, it is the animating energy that "brings it to life". 

Now, compare two such laptops: they are different in size, design, memory, RAM, processor speeds, software, applications, video cards, sound cards. Even their batteries have different storage capacities and performance capabilities. But what is the difference between the Electricity each one stores? Is one laptop's electricity different from the other's? How the electricity manifests itself in terms of function and performance of course is completely different in each laptop. Yet, the Electricity itself is no different in one battery or the other, or from that in a mobile phone or an electronic shaver for that matter. The Electricity itself is single and undifferentiated.

So when speaking about individual Consciousness, it is important to understand that I don't mean my consciousness versus your consciousness versus someone else’s' consciousness versus Universal Consciousness. To speak about consciousness in this way is as absurd as comparing one battery's electricity to another's. What is individual is the unique expression that is a result of Consciousness interacting with the brain. It is only in the Material reality that such a separation appears. But within Consciousness itself, there is no such separation.

The Illusion of an Independent Consciousness  

Your brain is programmed to perceive itself as a separate entity. In other words, it perceives itself according to its own design, power and capacity rather than by the Consciousness that is animating it. When it perceives other entities, human, animal, plant and inanimate it revalidates its separate identity by comparing these differences. So for example when you walk past a mirror on the street, it takes you a fraction of a second to separate your own image from that of other people walking past based on subtle differences in design, power and capacity. This programming of separative perception is partly biological and genetic but to a large extent also socio-cultural. Over many centuries of perceiving ourselves as individual entities, it has become ingrained within our evolutionary programming.

However, this is not how it always was. Many ancient cultures from all over the world including the Native peoples of North America, the Shinto traditions of Japan, the aboriginals of Australia,  the various pagan cultures of Europe, just to mention a few, unanimously believed in a spiritual inter-connection of all beings within nature, including the elements; a single Consciousness that illuminated everything. In fact, a lot of their daily activities and healing techniques incorporated and cultivated awareness of and connection to this aspect of reality. While the sense of individuality did exist on one hand, it was balanced with a simultaneous awareness of the unity of Life.

Yet, as the more separation-driven cultures of the world began to dominate in power and influence, this balance between the two perspectives began to skew more and more in the direction that we now find ourselves in. Yet, the capacity for the modern human brain to re-establish this balance very much still exists. The ability of your brain to perceive itself not only as a separate entity but also as the Consciousness underlying the foundation of the Universe may be currently dormant but is not extinct. What is required then, in the words of J.Krishnamurthi, "is the kind of Insight that brings about a very mutation in the brain cells."

The Left Brain, the Right Brain     

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a prominent neuroanatomist, in her TED talk speaks about her experience with having a stroke. I have attached the link here because it provides a unique insight into how we actually perceive ourselves differently through each of the brain's two hemispheres.

I won't go too much into how each hemisphere functions, as much of this is covered in the link and is widely accepted in our mainstream understanding of the brain. Stated briefly, the left brain (hemisphere) is the analytical, logic-driven part of your brain. It is what divides, compares, evaluates and judges in your experience of your life and of yourself. It experiences life in linear terms, creating a timeline of part, present and future. It's almost constant preoccupation is with estimating its own position with respect to various points on that timeline.

Imagine a number line, with Zero in the center and intervals going in the positive one, two, three till infinity to the right and negative one, two, three till negative infinity to the left. To the Left Brain, this abstract number line is what it believes represents the experience of Life: where Zero is the present moment and the negative numbers are moments in the past and positive numbers are moments in the future. And so to the Left brain, each moment is of equal value. The present is no more important or significant than a random moment in the past or future. And so it is constantly attempting to reposition and re-orient itself to create the "best possible trajectory" of moments in this experience of life.

Contrast this against the Right Brain. Now the Right hemisphere is the part that is rooted in spontaneity and present moment awareness. To the Right Brain this number line is purely nonsensical and imaginary. The experience of reality is only ever in the Present moment so the Zero is all there ever really is. With no past or future to consider, there is no notion of any movement, any sort of transition or any evolution. Everything is already as it is and its existence itself is proof of its perfection. This appears as a complete contradiction to the Left Brain.

And herein lies the divine irony, the great cosmic joke of the Universe. Because the brain that powers you contains two paradoxical capacities. And this paradox is evident in the way humanity functions. No person or culture is entirely left-brain oriented or right-brain oriented, but there are a variety of combination of left-brain right-brain skews. For example, most religions (I refer to their philosophies, not the institutions that follow) are largely Right-brain dominant. They believe in divine intelligence that creates and unites us all, they believe in the unity of all beings, they believe in a Divine Will that drives all beings, they believe in destiny and a master plan for the Universe. Of course, once you lay on all the mythology and ritual it starts to deviate. But the core of Faith is extremely present-moment centric.

Contrast this to Science, dominated by the Left-brain, which requires theory backed by analysis and empirically verifiable proofs to sustain its view of reality. The chronological aspect of time is absolutely critical to its approach. It is far from being centered in the present moment. Rather the scientific approach creates absolutely no distinction between the present moment and any other moment. A moment is a moment, more precisely - a specific interval of time. Without accepting the reality of Time, logic has no foundation to stand on.

In the past few hundred of centuries, we have witnessed an evolutionary dominance of the Left brain within the human species. This is evident from the way Left-Brain-dominant civilizations systematically colonized, enslaved and reconditioned the smaller and less aggressively oriented Right-brain-dominant cultures of the world. The aforementioned Natives of America, the Aboriginals of Australia, pagans of Europe, Ainu of Japan among thousands of others were all dominated, subjugated and reoriented. 

Our technological evolution is a testament to the rapid dominance of Left-brain orientation within the human species. But despite all the progress we have made, the very attributes that caused the rise of the Left-brain skew are the very attributes that limit our evolution as a species. It is a double edged sword. This fact is also readily observable. We live on a planet with fast depleting resources, where global economic and social inequalities are stark, where the very eco-system that sustains our species is beginning to reject us, where power and acquisition takes priority over the existence of life-form.

Consciousness and the Two Brains

Depending on which hemisphere is dominant within your particular experience in any given moment, your perception of yourself and your world will shift its reality. This actually happens to you several times in any given day, but because we are a left-brain dominant species, these "pockets of time" are conveniently glossed over and swept under the rug by the left-brain processes.

For example, when you 'zone out' or 'stare-off' for a while, or when you become absorbed in meditation, or when you are lost in a beautiful scenery, or when you go into deep sleep, your Left-brain actually ceases to dominate. In these moments, the sense of being some separate individual self simply doesn't exist. Whether in deep meditation, caught up in an inspirational moment, lost in prayer, the experience in those moments is one of deep interconnectedness with everything. Those lines of separation between you and the world seem to blur if only for a short while. You cease to experience time in the traditional sense. You have experienced a glimpse of the Right-brain perspective.

But how do these two hemispheres interact with Consciousness? The left-brain and the right brain are actually the tools of two different aspects of reality and, in fact, are instrumental in perpetuating them. Earlier, we spoke about Consciousness being the Reality which underlies the Material plane that we call the physical Universe. Your brain with its two hemispheres is what creates and maintains the link between these two planes of reality.

The Right-brain is the instrument of Consciousness, the Left-brain is the instrument of Materiality. You can think of the whole brain as a prism: Where the Right-brain is one face of the prism through which the undifferentiated white light of Consciousness enters, and the Left-brain as the second face which projects a completely differentiated spectrum of colors - the material Universe. This is how your brain works.

The Right-brain is useless when dealing with material practicalities and theories. As Jill-Bolte Taylor described, when having her stroke which shut her entire Left-brain down, she had no idea what the numbers on her phone even were and couldn't identify where her own body began or ended with respect to the things around her. When the Right-brain perceives the environment it doesn't see a tree, a house, a street, a dog and other people; all it perceives is a single dynamic flux of energies. This is the first filter that Consciousness must pass through in order to generate the illusion of a Material Universe. A pure, undifferentiated, unchanging Consciousness is filtered through the Right-brain to generate the perception of a still unified but dynamic flux of energies.

Now this perception then passes through the second filter which is the Left-brain. Here is where, the unified fluz of energies is further distilled and crystallizes into the various separate elements that form our material realities. Through a process of double distillation, Pure Consciousness is translated by the Right-Brain into a Unified singular flux of energies which is then translated by the Left-brain into a differentiated Material Reality.

The Shifting Self

The "Self", the way I define it, is simply the lens of perception. It is the Awareness of existence, whether Unified or Differentiated.  And this is where my views "apparently" contradict Jill Bolte-Taylor's who considers the Self to be a Left-brain construct. I say "apparently", because what she refers to as the "self" is really what I call the individual-self, that sense of being a single isolated entity in a vast disconnected Universe. And from that perspective, yes, the individual-self is a Left-brain construct.

However, even a purely Right-brain perception of Unity and Oneness, while it not perceiving the separation of individual from Universe, is still perceiving something.  There is an in-built acknowledgement in both the Left and Right perspectives of an existence, whether it is of a small individual or of a Oneness. In the second case, this image is still of a Self, but this is the Higher Self - the Unified Self or God as it is known in different theological traditions.

However, the way I define "Self" is not as the image being perceived (individual or Unity) but rather as a vector (the direction in which the perception is pointed). Depending on which direction the perception shifts a different image of the self becomes a reality. When a mystic is immersed in a deep trance state and rejoices in the Oneness of all things, the Self he perceives himself to be is "one with God" or "one with the Universe". As a result, he exclaims "I am the Universe, the Universe is me, we are one and the same." When the corporate-worker gets onto a packed train at the end of a long day and can't find a seat to sit down on he sees the world and everyone as distinctly separate and distant from him. He feels tired and isolated and laments his poor, pathetic individual existence in this cold and detached Universe. Both images of the Self exist, depending on which brain's perception is dominant. But which image is the real one? Which Self is the true Self?

The answer is neither. Since the Self is nothing more than a vector it has no properties within existence. Existence is literally configured based on the direction in which the vector points. Existence can either be a singularity or a multiplicity. But it cannot be neither. Therefore, the Self is what actually facilitates existence.  The image of the Self literally shifts as we move from Left-brain to Right-brain perception and back. And yet, neither of them is anything more than an approximation.

This notion of Self, transcends both Scientific reason as well as the Metaphysical viewpoint. This is the notion that allows the paradox of the human mind, of the Left-brain and the Right-brain to rest at ease and in harmony. This is the notion that says the scientific view is potentially true AND the metaphysical view is potentially true, because Truth when seen from this perspective is shapeless, formless and fundamentally unknowable.