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.

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

There has been a lot of material published in recent years about the Law of Attraction. Films like the Secret brought it further into the mainstream and there has been a lot of buzz about the notion that we can attract the realities we want if we only learn to manipulate the way in which we think about them. The vast majority of this positive thinking propoganda is focused around generating wealth, good health, success, power, influence, fame and romance. It isn't difficult to see why it has garnered such a wide audience, especially in the Western hemisphere. In these times we live in, where the mechanisms of society continue gearing up the pace at which the social treadmill we are all standing on moves, any promise of reprieve or respite from the quiet desperation that is the new bottomline standard of our human existence, is something that might seduce even the most rational of people.

That is not to say that the Law of Attraction is bogus. But just as with any ancient tradition or philosophy that falls prey to our insatiable need for novelty, this wisdom too has had the meat and soul stripped out of it and has been dressed in a frilly digestible package ready for mass consumption. The end product promises a far too simplistic and unrealistic approach to life and circumstances, one which offers no insight into why and how it works. But regardless, of how it has been approached and marketed within our contemporary culture the Law of Attraction points to an aspect of reality that functions within each and everyone of our lives. Everyday we are moved by it, influenced by it, informed by it. In order to truly get a feel for this, it is necessary to cultivate an approach of inquiry into ourselves and our own experience of life. What the Law of Attraction is really pointing to is a phenomenon that occurs within Consciousness: the phenomenon of Energetic Resonance.

What is Energetic Resonance?  

When you strike a tuning fork against the side of a table, it resonates with a certain frequency. This frequency of resonance generates a sound with a specific pitch. If you hold a second tuning fork up without making contact with the first, but in close proximity to it, soon the second tuning fork will begin to vibrate at the exact same frequency as the first fork. The resonance of one tuning fork induces the resonance in the other without contact. Now imagine, you were unable to see or hear the first tuning fork and all you had access to was the second fork. If the same process were repeated, it would seem to you as if the second fork had begun vibrating of its own accord and this would perplex you. However, your knowledge of the simple physics of sound resonance would lead you to make an educated guess that your tuning fork was most likely influenced by a resonance effect whose cause you couldn't perceive.

Your Conscious Mind is much like a tuning fork. And just like a tuning fork it has the capacity to resonate through a wide range of energetic frequencies. What do I mean by an 'energetic' frequency? When you perceive the tuning fork vibrating what gives you the feedback that it is in fact vibrating at all? The most obvious one is the sound it emits. The second is that it visually appears to vibrate and the third is the physical feel of it vibrating. All these three means of experiencing this phenomenon are only side-effects. The actual cause is not something we cannot detect directly. What is really happening is that the resonance causes the space around the tuning fork to begin expanding and compressing in a sort of ripple effect. As the space ripples outwards these ripples make contact with the second tuning fork in a very particular way which makes it reciprocate the same ripple pattern, thereby genrating sound. What has happened as a result is that the energy that the first tuning fork was expressing has influenced the second tuning fork to express the same energy.

Similarly, you only experience your own Conscious Minds through certain side-effects that you are able to witness. But you may not be aware of the energy dynamics that cause these side-effects to happen. These side-effects appear in the form of your thoughts, your emotions and your sensations. Each of your minds is a tuning fork with the capacity to resonate not only to the energetic vibrations that occur within it, but more importantly is constantly in interaction with the energy vibrations that are present in other minds you come in contact with as well as with your environment itself. To begin to see how these dynamics works gives a whole new perspective on how connected everything really is.

Everything has a Resonance

Everything is the Universe resonates energetically. From the subatomic level of electrons to molecules to cells. From the inanimate mediums of rock, water and air to the simplest of life-forms to the most complex. Everything that exists, only exists because it has an energetic resonance. The look, feel, sound, taste etc. are all the side-effects so to speak that allow us to experience their existence. But the cause that even allows these side-effects to exist is the dynamics of energies resonating within Consciousness.

In the Universe Out of Nothing I discussed how recent findings in Quantumn Physics point to the possibility that even electrons possess Consciousness. Science is slowly coming to terms with the realization that what we thought we knew about Life is becoming grayer and grayer. The boundaries between what we consider "living" organisms and "non-living" things is gradually evaporating. Even the most skeptical among the scientific community would reluctantly admit that reality is not as easily definable as we previously thought.

If you think of the Universe as one giant Energetic symphony, then each of the instruments involved in this symphony represents an individual life-form, resonating within this symphony. Each instrument is unique and performs its harmonies with varying degrees of complexity. While a human being might represent a complex instrument, like say a Grand piano, capable of experiencing and expressing a wide array of energy frequencies - a bacteria may represent a much simpler instrument like a triangle which is capable of only a limited range of energetic expression. But regardless, of how simple or complex the life form, it is the larger movement of the symphony that influences the harmonies of the individual instruments performing.

The Conscious Spectrum

There is a spectrum of energetic frequencies that form the entire experience of reality. This spectrum can be broadly subdivided into three sub-spectrums: the Physical, the Mental and the Emotional. If the Spectrum represents the entire range of possible musical sounds, you can think of each sub-spectrum as being something similar to a musical scale. Each scale contains a hierarchy of notes which form the individual frequencies that exist within that scale. While some musical instruments are limited in the number of scales they can express, more complex instruments can exhibit a variety of scales.

A simple organism such as a bacteria is only able to access and express itself in the Physical subspectrum but may have little access to the Emotional and Mental subspectrums. A more complex organism such as a dog has the capacity to express fully within the Physical, to a great extent within the Emotional, but to a far more limited extent within the Mental. A human being, the most complex life-form that we are currently aware of represents the broadest range of access and expression on all three scales.

Still, the same basic frequencies (notes) repeat themselves in each scale and  in this way the three sub-spectrums are connected. How we experience events in our lives is a function of the different scales through which we are able to express. For example, when a cockaroach bumps his head it triggers a single energetic wave in Consciousness. Because the cockaroach's Mind can mostly only access the Physical sub-spectrum, the physical sensation of pain encapsulates its entire experience of this energetic event.

However, when you bump your head that same single Energetic wave in Consciousness triggers a pain sensation within the Material sub-spectrum, an emotion of frustration or anger perhaps within the Emotional sub-spectrum and a thought of "What's that damn thing doing there" within the Mental spectrum. One sound experienced simultaneously in three different scales - what in music would be refered to as a chord.

And this is in fact how we experience life. Every experience we have is a physical, mental and emotional trifecta of sensation, emotion and thought.

 The Musicality of Experience    

All this creates an image of a Universe that runs quite contrary to the one we have accepted by general consensus. The world we believe we live in is one in which we are mostly separate entities who interact almost exclusively through physical action. In other words, we believe that what we think and feel has no impact on others and our environment unless we physically express ourselves through words or some action. However, understanding how Conscious Resonance works reveals that our minds are influencing and affecting others and the environement constantly (and vice versa being influenced and affected by them). Every thought, emotion and action is only the side-effect of an energy ripple that is already in movement. So when you have a thought, your consciousness is already interacting with the Consciosness of others without you even knowing it. And similarly with emotions.

To illustrate this further consider this example. You are sitting in a living room having a light-hearted conversation with a friend when a stranger enters it. They seem moody and quiet and immediately you feel the entire energy and dynamic of the conversation switch. You sense the "tension in the air" and it sets you on edge. Your thoughts begin to take on a more defensive and serious flavor and your lighter emotions are replaced by darker more guarded emotions. Nothing has physically happened per se, yet an entire mental-emotional event has been energetically induced in you. Your demeanour towards your friend and the subject of your conversation changes and your friend too responds alike.

Now, consider a second example. You are at a boring family event. The same relatives, the same conversations. You are standing quietly in a corner nursing your egg-nog, occassionally glancing up at the clock. Your mood is restless and your thoughts complaining about how you wish you didn't have to be here.  At this point someone new enters the room. This is someone new who brings with them a certain air of positivity and a cheerful disposition. They immediately "light up the room". Many in the room begin to respond with enthusiasm and laughter and you feel the air lighten and your body language begins to shift. Your own enthusiasm is sparked and your attiude towards the situation transforms.

In both cases, Energetic resonances this person introduced within the environment caused a shift in the energetic resonances in all the individuals in the environment. This is experienced Physically as a tension and stiffness in the first case, relaxation and ease in the second. It is experienced Mentally as thoughts of suspicion in the first case, and those of curiosity in the next. It is experienced Emotionally as fear in the first case and enthusiasm in the next.

Now, realistically it would take a very magnetic individual with a powerful resonance to influence the energy of an entire room. The strength in numbers rule does tend to hold true more often than not. However, we have witnessed time and again in history how single individuals have held power and influence over millions for the sake of good or evil. What sets these men apart from the rest is not so much their words or actions, but rather the clarity of their purpose which is experienced as an amplification of their resonance fields. A single musical note expressed at a high enough volume has the capacity to arrest an entire musical movement.

At the end of the day it is not just a case of the frequency of energy resonance that influences these Conscious dynamics, but also the amplitude at which the energy is emitted. And this is where the philosophy of the Law of Attraction comes in.

(to be continued...)









     

The Art of Being Fearless

Fear, most fundamentally, is a programmed biological response to a perceived threat or danger. It is part of our animalistic brain, the simple fight or flight mechanism that ensures the survival response in every being. Fear is felt as an immediate and arresting surge of adrenaline like an internal siren that snaps the focus into the present moment and the circumstances at hand. Fear also has the powerful potential to catalyze immediate and spontaneous response, whether the response is to act, to flee or to freeze. The perception of threat, the surge of adrenalin and the spontaneous response all happen almost instantaneously, so well is the fear response programmed into the animal brain. In the ability to feel fear, all beings are equal, there is no hierarchy. A human feels fear no differently than an animal, a child feels fear no differently than an adult. Only the responses may differ based on experience and instinct. 

There is another kind of fear that is unique to humans alone. And this kind of fear is a state of mind rather than a momentary biological impulse. It is a state perpetuated by the Mind and its thought processes. It is a state that is simulated rather than real, since it does not need a real and present danger in order for it to perpetuate. Instead, it uses thought to construct an artificial image of threat which it then uses to mimic the biological fear response. 

Everyone experiences this kind of fear (which I will moving forward refer to as 'Fearfulness' to distinguish ir from the natural animalistic fear all creatures are programmed to feel). All of us have experienced Fearfulness. It exists in varying degrees in most people ranging from mild dissatisfaction and unease to anxiety and panic to paranoia and terror. In fact, all human beings fall somewhere within the spectrum and will experience a range of degrees in their lifetimes. In a nutshell this forms the very foundations of the human experience and what we are here to learn from.

The Mechanism of Fearfulness

The mechanism of Fearfulness is a simple one. The human mind is a powerful tool and can be used to simulate any kind of perception, artificially. Just as it is possible to induce in yourself a temporary state of happiness and excitement by focusing on positive thoughts, it is equally easy for the mind induce an artificial state of unrest and unease by focusing excessively on negative thoughts. In the second case, all the mind is really doing is inducing the perception of a threat or of danger where one does not necessarily exist. The body which operates at a lower degree of intelligence than the mind is not programmed to be able to tell the difference. As long as the perception is one of fear, real or artificial, the body reacts the same to generate a Fear response and corresponding surge of adrenalin.

This is why you may find yourself terrified at a horror movie. You know its fake, but your mind will allow you to suspend that knowledge just long enough for it to be believable in the moment. Your body may even respond by cringing or in extreme cases send you screaming out of the theater. The threat may be artificial but the Fear response is real.

There are a large number of people, especially today, who suffer from a variety of anxiety disorders ranging from mild anxiety to full blown panic attacks. There is research that shows that some of these symptoms could be triggered by chemical imbalances in the brain. A defective sort of triggering process where the Fear response misfires periodically catalyzed by some sort of external stimulus or the other. And while this may be the trigger for some people, what perpetuates the anxiety or panic is often a negative thinking pattern that then sets into place and feeds the momentum of Fearfulness.

In fact, the negative thought pattern is the primary and predominant cause for the escalation of anxiety or panic. People who suffer from anxiety often complain of a particularly negative thought or set of thoughts that repeat themselves constantly. This may be thoughts of some impending doom, or thoughts of low self-esteem, thoughts of unworthiness, thoughts of failure, thoughts of suspicion and mistrust of others, thoughts of death or injury, thoughts of doing violent or terrible acts, thoughts of sabotage just to name a few. And each time this sort of thought occurs, it triggers the biological fear response and corresponding chemical surges.

The Addiction to Negative Thinking

So why do we indulge in these negative thought patterns? Most of will agree, that the vast majority of people unwittingly accept their own thoughts to be true to a high degree. After all, most of what we know and experience of our lives is filtered through our thoughts. And so there is this blurry boundary between reality and the mind-induced simulated reality that is difficult to separate. When watching a horror movie it is easy to separate the true reality from the fictional one. But when living in our own "mind movies" as most of us do, it becomes increasingly difficult, the older and more complex we get, to distinguish between what is real and what has been generated by our thoughts.

In fact, most people live almost entirely within the artificial overlay created by their own minds, with only brief moments of clarity when the mind becomes stilled or dormant for some reason. A scenery that takes your breath away, a moment of quiet meditation, being in-the-zone during some sport or focussed activity - at these times the artificial reality fades into the background. But for the majority of our day, we are caught in our own heads thinking about this that and the other.

When a negative thought pattern begins to predominate within our mental experience, we are naturally geared to believe in whatever the thought process is proposing. If the thought repeats, "you are fat, you are fat," after listening to it long enough it will actually skew our perception enough to actually see ourselves as fat. This results in disorders like anorexia or bulimia. If the thought repeats, "you are no good" we might begin to develop issues of low self-esteem. It doesn't matter what the catalyst was, whether we were abandoned by our parents or dumped by our lovers. The catalyst was a single momentary event in the past. What perpetuates the feelings however, is the thought process that makes us relive that moment again and again and again. 

These negative thought patterns are highly addictive for two reasons. The first is biological. Just as the body can become used to (even addicted to) any drug and after a while that drug experience becomes its 'normal state', so too can the body get used to a hormonal/neurochemical experience. It’s all the same really if seen from a biology perspective. Whether you take a hit of a drug externally or internally, it causes a distorting effect in the brain and its processes. Adrenalin, for example, is a highly addictive chemical. It’s the reason why extreme sport enthusiasts are so obsessive about what they do. They "need" the hit of adrenalin. Similarly, every negatively induced state of Fearfulness has an associated chemically/hormonally induced state associated with it. Each time the negative pattern arises a hormonal imbalance (low or high) occurs. After some time the body begins to believe that this is its natural resting state. It feels "normal".

The second reason is that believing in a negative thought pattern gives some continuity to reality. Most people would rather believe themselves to be something negative than to be unsure about who or what they are. It’s insane but is actually very common. We live in a society in which we tend to define who we are by the roles we play. Each one of us is a mother, father, brother or sister, a boss, an employee, an artist, a scientist, a jock, a nerd, a misfit, a rebel, a conformist, a socialist, a capitalist, an anarchist, a doctor, a lawyer, a truck driver, a drunk, a devotee, an atheist or whatever set of labels you have chosen to define yourself using. Its all made up. Even our social realities are mind-made artificial realities at the end of the day. Our political boundaries are nothing more that imaginary lines drawn out on a piece of paper, our laws no more than invented rules for relating to one another. Even the value we attribute to things is all made up. That land in the city costs ten times as much as land in the country is an arbitrary value that we have all agreed to set upon. Land existed long before we showed up on the planet and to believe it has an inherent monetary value is absurd. Still we have all agreed to participate in this consensus artificial reality, and it works to some degree from a practical perspective.

Our Mind-made Realities

The problem begins to come in when the artificial replaces the real in our frame of experience and we begin to derive our sense of who we are from the very roles we have conceded to play within this invented drama. For most people, who accept the consensus reality to be real, to suggest that it is all made up is blasphemous. No matter how obvious or rational an argument, the sense of Self is a fragile thing and to threaten its existence or reality is huge. Let's take high school for example. For most adults who are well past high school, looking back in hindsight will reveal how silly it all was with its cliquey social circles and labels, the jocks and popular kids, the nerds and the misfits, the rebels etc. It all seems like a fantasy even, yet the experience of actually being there at that age is something entirely different. Similarly the high school student looks back at kindergarten or elementary as a time of silliness and naiveté.

Even though we are able to look back and laugh at the unreality of it all, it doesn't mean the reality we are living in at the moment is any more real. It is only a different one yet just as artificial. To the high school student, elementary school was silly and childish. To the adult, high school and its drama was naive. But what about adult life, work life, life in society? Isn't wealth, social status, work politics and all the social drama that we engage in everyday just as naive and childish? And yet, the human mind is defiant when its reality is threatened. Trying to convince an adult that wealth, fame and social status doesn't matter is like trying to convince a high school kid that tests, popularity and acceptance into cliques don't really matter. The stage becomes grander but the drama remains the same. When governments and countries go to war we all shudder at the seriousness of it all and the devastation and the mayhem it propagates. Yet, from a different viewpoint it is no different than a bunch of high school hooligans getting into it with their rival school. Different scale, different degrees, same stupidity, same naiveté.

For people who experience regular anxiety and Fearfulness, the negative-thought pattern even though traumatic is actually validating. It reaffirms their belief in the artificial reality they live in and even assigns them a role within it. That role may be "loser", "low-life", "whore", "mooch", "fatty", "worthless", "evil", "selfish", "anti-social", "weirdo" or whatever. And yet, even those labels are better than not having one - of "N/A". 

The mechanism of Fearfulness may be obvious within people who show overt signs of anxiety and low self-esteem but it is also and especially operating within others who don't. In fact, the majority of self-referential thinking that we all do has a component of Fearfulness embedded within it. It may not be so easy to identify but you'll see it if you observe it closely.

Fearfulness is built into our social psyches and the way we operate. The choices we make day to day, the paths we take in our lives are predominated by this Fearfulness. Our economic systems and justice systems are fashioned from this experience of Fearfulness.  The way we relate to one another at work, the way we measure our words, the way we mistrust strangers, the way we worry for our security, the way we worry we will be lonely, the way we worry we will be abandoned, the way we worry we will become redundant or unemployed, the way we worry we will be perceived by others, the way we need to control how others perceive us, the way we need to control our circumstances - all this is rooted in and perpetuated by the state of Fearfulness. Nobody is immune - no matter how well they seem to have it all together. Some of the most "with it" people, the ones who exude the most confidence and control over their circumstances are also often people who are extremely dominated by the mechanism of Fearfulness. One of the most primary indications is any form of rigidity, aggression or exertion of power within the personality. Some of the greatest leaders of our times were also some of the greatest control freaks. Corporations, governments, banks and nations are nothing more than magnified super-structures constructed and fed by this same need for control, perpetuation and securtiy - in other words, Fearfulness. This is the world we live in, because it is the one we create for ourselves, in agreement with one another, day after day, because it is how we operate within ourselves.

Arriving at a Tipping Point

Like any addiction, habit or pattern that pushes the mind to a tipping point, so too can this experience of Fearfulness reach a critical mass within the human psyche. This tipping point can be experienced in a variety of ways. It can be instantaneous, sudden and dramatic. In my own case it felt like a fuse had blown within my mind. For months my brain and its thinking patterns were completely silenced. In others, it can be a more gradual process that happens periodically and in waves. But regardless of how this tipping point is experienced the purpose it serves is the same.

This tipping point is nothing more than a reality check. It is a momentary experience of the true reality that exists independently of our Minds and its perceptions. Whether the experience lasts a minute or a month, the effect is that it dislodges (even if temporarily) the faith we place in our own artificial realities. There are a number of mystical and spiritual traditions that sensationalize such an experience as something divine, but robbed of all its trappings it is nothing more than a simple and clear view into the reality underlying the one we compulsively project through our thoughts. 

This experience can also be one of great relief both mentally and emotionally. It can feel like a huge burden has been lifted off you, and the response is often one of causeless joy and feelings of deep love and connection with the environment and others. Yet even this is only a reaction.  Imagine having in a drunken stupor for most of your life to the point where you have no memory of what it was like to be sober. Imagine living in a haze and then suddenly one day sobering up and seeing what the sober reality is like. It can feel tremendously liberating.

Yet addiction works the same no matter what the drug, whether the drug is alcohol or the drug is thought. And just because you get sober once doesn't mean you will never relapse. In fact, most addicts do, because even though they have glimpsed what it feels like to be sober, there is a momentum of Fearfulness that continues to operate and propel them towards the drug. And so we do relapse again and again. But the only difference this time around is that we now KNOW what it means to be sober. And that is the knowledge that eventually comes through in the end.

The more you become aware of the existence of a reality beneath the mind-simulated one, the more unreal the mind-simulated reality becomes. But it is a process. The momentum of the mind uses not just thought but emotion as well to reinforce itself. It is one thing to believe something mentally, but to feel it reinforced in your body as an emotional response makes it all the more real. Its one thing to think you are fat, but to see yourself and feel yourself as fat gives a whole new dimension of realness to it. And so even though the thought is the disguise, the emotion and feeling it generates is the energetic component that completes the illusion. And it is this energetic component that fuels the momentum. It is literally like a car running on gas. As long as you continue to fuel the car it will keep running until it eventually breaks down. Rather than waiting for a breakdown, it is possible to recognize the mechanism at work and respond in a manner that doesn't continue to fuel the momentum.

Releasing the Mind’s Momentum

Until, you are willing to see that the reality your mind projects is nothing more than an invention, none of this will really apply. Because Fearfulness will continue to be the experience you actually desire in order to keep the charade going. But once you have had a taste of the sober reality underlying it all, you can make the conscious choice to stop feeding it. In a number of traditions, people respond to this rather extremely by taking severe measures and austerities in order to deny their minds. They meditate until they are blue in the face, attempting to use their will to supress their thoughts but all of it falls flat in the end. Because the very premise of wanting to suppress something is because you think that thing is undesirable or harmful. Believing thought to be undesirable or harmful immediately serves to reinforce its reality. And so whether we are believing the thought, or suppressing/denying it, we only reinforce it. 

What is thought at the end of the day? Is it not just a random bunch of words strung together in some sort of sentence that passes through your mind? The thought "I am a loser" and the thought "a green bear has wings" are both equally meaningless. The only difference is that one triggers an emotional/bodily response and the other doesn't. But the thought in itself has no reality other than the language and alphabets it represents. So, thought itself is really harmless. What can be potentially harmful (and even this is only a relative perspective) is the emotion and energy that it triggers. A simple thought like, "he's an idiot" can trigger a flash of anger. Repeating that thought again and again can feed and inflate that feeling, building the momentum into rage. This when the internal experience can potentially transform into some sort of violent action.

If we see thoughts as harmless, then the energetic/emotional experience is ultimately what we are really dealing with. Without a thought to justify it, an emotion is simply an emotion. Anger is just anger. It is not "good anger" or "bad anger", "righteous anger" or "evil anger". That's where the thought label attached to it rationalizes the emotion as necessary. For example, if you get angry at your boss and start yelling at him this sort of anger is considered inappropriate. But if you get angry at a criminal this is considered acceptable. It’s only the way the Mind justifies it. If you see thought as unreal, your justifications, criticisms and judgments of how you feel will simply not seem all that relevant anymore.

Then whether you are happy, sad, personable or anti-social, the experience of the emotion in the moment is allowed to be experienced simply because that is what is happening at the moment. Even if there is a "should", "shouldn't", "this is good", "this is bad" thought trying to validate and feed that emotion, you cannot believe the thought for long. As a result, the emotion/energy isn't fed and perpetuated as before.

We all have a reservoir of unreleased emotions within our systems that have accumulated through our entire lifetimes. These relate back as far as our infancy, our feelings of fear and inadequacy, our upbringing and feelings of abandonment. Every thought that we ever believed became paired to an emotion and locked into our psyches. And there it continues to remain until it is released. There is a saying that goes, "if you believe yourself to be enlightened, go spend a weekend with your family." Some of our deepest fears are also some of our most earliest.

Perceiving the mind-made overlay reality as unreal is not enough. The only way to stop fueling its momentum and its believability is to allow an energetic release ie to spend the fuel. The momentum will keep going until the fuel is spent. This is where it becomes important to develop the Art of Being Fearless.

The State of Fearlessness

Fearlessness is simply the practice of acceptance. It is the practice of being rooted in your being. When thought is seen as unreality, then the emotion and energy momentum within the psyche is what is left to deal with. This practice is only centered in the present. Because the only emotions/energies you have to deal with are the ones you are experiencing right now. It doesn't matter what you experienced yesterday, nor the ones you are afraid will come tomorrow. The past and future experiences of emotion need thought to perpetuate it. In other words, you have to "think" about them to experience them. 

Fearlessness is a complete acceptance of yourself in this moment, exactly as you are. Not as you wish you could be. Not as you know you can be. Not as you are afraid you will be. Just as you are. Because what you are doesn't need you to think about it, the rest of them do. When you accept yourself in the moment, then you accept whatever energetic expression is happening within your being. Whether that is a feeling of rage, feelings of guilt, feelings of unworthiness or restlessness or boredom, or anxiety. They will come up and your acceptance will allow them to be experienced and released.

You may find a thought creeping in here and there trying to validate, suppress or deny the feeling. These are only old patterns and habits at work. If you have seen thoughts as harmless, you realize there is no reason to respond to them. In fact, when you do respond to them that can be your indicator that at some level somewhere you still believe that thought to be true.

Practicing this acceptance allows a slow and gradual rewiring and reconditioning of the Mind. As the momentum begins to dissipate your perspective becomes more and more clear, balanced and rooted in sobriety.

Fear, the momentary impulse of the animal brain, continues to operate of course as it does in all creatures. There is a practical benefit to this sort of impulse. It is what causes you to jump out of the way of an oncoming truck. Yet this kind of fear lasts only as long as the threat exists. Once the threat is gone, you return to your natural state of ease. Wouldn't it be strange if animals walked around constantly paranoid about predators. They continue to revisit and share the same waterholes because their fear response is only activated if there is an actual threat. They don't have the ability to think and so don't experience Fearfulness.

By glimpsing the sobering reality that lies beneath the drama we call our life, by seeing our thoughts as harmless mental phenomena with no reality and by cultivating an attitude of acceptance towards ourselves and all our emotional/energetic experiences in each moment, the momentum of Fearfulness gradually subsides. What is left in its place is a spacious, present and deeply rooted state of Fearlessness. In this state, everything is allowed, good and bad, enjoyable or painful and even fearful.

Fearlessness is not the opposite of fearfulness. It is not courage. Courage is nothing more than the desire to control fear. And in this sense, even Courage is just another face of Fearfulness. Because to want to combat or control fear, is to be fearful of it.

Fearlessness is the space in which you are allowed to be whoever you are and whatever you are in this moment. Whether you are a loser or a winner, a coward or a hero, a sinner or a saint. You are allowed to be whatever expression you take in that moment, because who you really are is much deeper than that, and for that there are no words.   

Expression is the Purpose

As an infant, you are not entirely a clean slate to begin with. Every infant already contains, encoded within its DNA, a unique personality and karmic blueprint. No two infants are alike, even from the get go. Ask any new parent and they will testify to this. As a society, we tend to perceive infants from a very limited perspective. We see the infant as a brand new instance of life with no real history of its own. This is a fallacy. Encoded within the DNA of each child is the history of the entire Universe. This is not meant figuratively. It is literally true. 

From the primary elements, metals and minerals that were formed in the first explosion that created the Universe, to the primitive cells that represented the earliest life forms, to the animal and reptilian instincts for survival that propagated life, to the primitive man who first discovered fire, to the early agrarian peoples that formed the roots of civilizations, to the ancient plunderers and barbarian hordes that swept across continents, to the civilizations that created mathematics, art and culture, to the medieval kingdoms and their struggles for power, to the imperial powers and colonization, to the industrialization and explosion of the human intellect - all this history of chaos, bloodlust, power and enslavement, of cooperation, creativity, symbiosis and progression is encoded within a single microscopic strand of every infant's DNA. In other words, rather than being a clean slate without a history, an infant is the cumulative expression of the entire Universe seen from a single unique perspective. Every newborn contains the same primordial soup of elements, influences and events. Just like all snowflakes are essentially comprised of the very same elements, yet each flake is unique in the patterns in which it crystallizes, so too is every infant absolutely unique in the crystallization of its expression - its karmic blueprint.

The Purpose of Unique Expression

As human beings and as members of society, we all have some purpose to fulfill and this purpose is defined  according to the various functions and uses we serve. It is the purpose to survive, to provide for ourselves and our families, to contribute to society, to collaborate with one another, to compete against each other, to find our partners, to create families and propagate our bloodlines, to maintain order and harmony, to find and develop an art, skill or trade, to be law-abiding and moral members of society, to work for the benefit of society, to aspire to personal and professional success, to contribute to progress and innovation, just to mention a few. 

For most of us, this becomes the overarching purpose of our lives. We inherit our sense of who we are based on the values we derive from society. Even though, we pride ourselves on own individuality and believe that we are unique in our thoughts, opinions and actions, we are subconsciously programmed to perceive and value ourselves through the eyes of society. As a result, in searching for our own unique purpose we inadvertently end up searching for just another function or use that we might serve. 

As an adolescent or young adult, you may have asked yourself the question: what is the purpose of my life? And in an effort to answer this question, you may have found yourself thinking about what career will fulfill you, what kind of mate might fulfill you, what greater ambition or path of altruism might fulfill you, what cause or belief system might fulfill you, what philosophy or spiritual path might fulfill you, what amount of wealth, power and influence might fulfill you, what journey of exploration and adventure might fulfill you. The only answers you can come up with are those that arise from the perspective of function and use. The only solutions your mind can think of are just versions of the statements: "how can I enhance my own value, how can I be perceived by others and what use can I be to society." This is how the human brain has been conditioned to think, to value itself and others.         

Why is every snowflake unique? What is the purpose of this unique design? After all snow is snow and if snowflakes were identical to each other it would hardly make any difference. And yet, no two snowflakes are alike. This leads to another question: what is the individual snowflake's purpose? After all if it can be identified to be so unique it must have an equally unique purpose attached to it. And yet, the only apparent purpose of a snowflake is to be born, to descend to the ground and to eventually dissolve. This is a perspective that associates purpose with function or use. And from this perspective, since the individual snow flake seems to lack any unique function or use it cannot found to have a unique purpose that is separate from the purpose of snow in general. However, there is a deeper perspective that goes beyond the notions of function and use, which reveals an entirely different reality. And from this perspective:  The expression is the purpose.

The Influence of Outer Authority

The dictionary defines authority as: "the power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior". From a very young age we are encouraged to recognize and to obey authority. This authority comes in many forms as we evolve as individuals. In the beginning our own parents are the primary voices of authority in our lives. They lead us, inform us, influence and command us. They instill upon us their own sense of values, morals and beliefs. They project upon us their own perspectives of reality, of what is beneficial and what is harmful, of what is important and what is trivial, of what is worthy and of what is useless.

As we grow older, the range of authority figures increases to encompass our teachers, our friends, our peers, our superiors, our bosses, our law enforcers, our governments, our courts, our leaders and our state. Yet none of these figures of authority offers anything unique or original. They, just like us, have inherited all their value and ideals from the authority figures in their own lives, who in turn have inherited it from those in their lives and so on endlessly to the beginning of humanity. And while the values we live by evolve and transform from generation to generation, the process of how we derive our own sense of personal value stays the same. As a result, we become nothing more than derivatives of the times and circumstances in which we live. And though, there may be slight variations in how we express ourselves, it all fits in very nicely within the paradigm of function and use which is how society perceives the individual.

In the system in which we live, we are accustomed to attributing value to individuals based on their functions and contributions. As a result, someone like Einstein or Gandhi is perceived as being of greater value than your tax accountant or the postman, who in turn is of greater value than a homeless man or an unemployed bum. A beautiful model or talented celebrity is of greater value than a plain housewife or lowly insurance salesman, in turn of greater value than a prostitute or a drug addict. It always ties back to function and use. The greater the function and use the greater the value of the individual. And this is the approach we inadvertently take when attempting to discover our own unique purpose. We begin with the mistaken assumption that value is something you earn, rather than something that is inherent. The voice in our own heads is really the cumulative voice of all the authority figures in our lives, the voice of outer authority. We adopt this voice and make it our own, moving forwards with our lives believing that we are expressing our own unique purpose. Yet, as long as we continue to evaluate who we are based on what we do, we will not have begun to even scratch the surface.

Return to the case of the human infant, the newborn, once again. From the perspective of function and use, an infant is the most useless form of human on the planet. It literally is incapable of anything other than breathing, wailing and flailing its arms about. And yet it takes a very cynical perspective to look into the eyes of a newborn and to see anything less than a miracle of nature. One might argue that an infant represents a future potential for function and use within society, and this is where its value comes in. But this is a limited viewpoint. Look into the eyes of an infant and you will find yourself hypnotized by something only infants possess: The ability to be complete in their own uniqueness.

No infant has any concept of value or purpose. Yet it is expresses itself with utter uniqueness, effortlessly. The infant is not confused. When it is hungry it will let you know. Without regard of what anyone thinks about it, without a care of how it will be values by others, without concern about what purpose it must serve within society. When it is hungry it will let you know, when it is tired it will let you know, when it is happy it will let you know. Its expression is entirely unimpeded by any derived sense of value. And still, it displays an authority. The authority that demands to be fed, to be held to be recognized and attended to, to feel joy, to feel indignation, to feel love. What is this authority and where does it come from? What is the infant's purpose if it has no concept of function and use? 

The expression is the purpose. And the authority that ensures the expression is an Inner Authority.     

The Voice of Inner Authority

The voice of Inner Authority is a silent one. It is silent in the sense that it does not make itself heard through any mental activity. It does not express itself through the intellectual or emotional mind. It is only sensed as Intuition. As we progress from infancy, our intellectual and emotional minds begin to dominate. We are sponges, soaking up everything from the environment; from the basics of how to walk and chew to how we come to perceive and value ourselves. Everything is soaked in, filtered and distilled to form our sense of self identity. And the primary tool we use to perpetuate this self-identity is our intellectual and emotional mind. 

The mind expresses itself predominantly through thought and emotion. It perpetuates an incessant internal monologue (the voice in our heads) that is an amalgamation and derivative of the voices of Outer Authority. Early in our childhood, we are still tuned in somewhat to our deeper intuition, our unique expression, to the silent voice of Inner authority. This is why young kids still appear so unique, creative and unabashed in their expression of life. But slowly, over time the balance between the Inner Authority and Outer Authority begins to shift. More and more we find ourselves trapped in our own heads trying to sort right from wrong, trying to project future outcomes, trying to grasp for fulfilment. 

Does a three year old worry about creating a secure future? Or about being of value to others? Or about finding happiness? Or about expressing itself more uniquely? Some might say the two year old is too stupid or ignorant to grasp such concepts, but this again is a limited and cynical view. The two year old expresses itself constantly and effortlessly because it is still grounded in its own nature, in its own Inner Authority.

And yet, its "fall from grace" is an inevitable one, because that is the nature of the process. The voice of Inner Authority never enforces, never commands, never explains, never cajoles or convinces. This is unlike the voice in our heads, which is forever explaining, rationalizing, comparing, evaluating, defending or blaming. The voice in our heads is nothing more than a power struggle, a hunger game between competing voices of authority - the voices of our spiritual beliefs, religious doctrines, political parties, moral police, justice system, family values, parental influences - all in flux all competing to control and dominate who we believe ourselves to be, how we will survive and how we will be of use. 

Inner Authority does not control, it accepts. It does not command, it whispers. It does not condemn, it permits. It does not dominate, it acquiesces. Even as the balance shifts within our beings to an externally derived sense of self, it does nothing to obstruct the purpose. Because experience and expression is the purpose.   

Reconnecting with Inner Authority

As long as you continue to determine the value of individual existence based on function and use you will remain estranged from your own Inner Authority. Because Inner Authority does not place any value on these attributes. Rather the existence of Life itself is the only value there can ever be. That you exist in this moment (your being) rather than the functions you satisfy (your doing) is what is of primary value. From the perspective of Inner Authority all individuals that exist are of equal value by simple virtue of the fact that they exist. Their own existence is the only thing of value, everything else is contrived.

This is difficult for the intellectual-emotional mind to wrestle with because it is accustomed to differentiating between people and things based on their perceived value. After all if everything is of equal value how can there be anything unique about it? And so it is confronted with the same paradox of the snowflake and its purpose. As long as you turn to your own thought processes to provide you your sense of value you will inadvertently be misled, because your thought processes are not unique to you, they are derived from the voices of Outer authority.

Turn your attention inwards instead and catch a glimpse of the world that is inside. It is just as real, just as vital and just as ancient as the one outside. A single strand of your DNA contains the entire history of the Universe and still it is completely unique from any other. Contemplate this mystery. Meditate on yourself and try to delve deeper. Use your intuition to try and get a feel, a sense of your own unique reality, your own karmic blueprint. Your inner world needs and requires as much attention as does the outer. And in exploring this world you will fall prey to the same tendencies that you do in your outer reality. The voices of Outer Authority will influence you here as well. Your intellectual-emotional Mind will attempt to dominate this process too.

But you can and will revisit again and again to that place of Inner Authority, that waits patiently and unperturbed for your return. As you develop a deeper, more intuitive sense of yourself, one that does not rely on your thought processes and rationalizations to perpetuate it, you will begin to exhibit it more and more in your outer world as well. The balance begins to shift again and the pendulum begins its return journey.

As you grow in recognition of your own true nature and inherent self-worth, so will you perceive the same in others around you. It happens simultaneously in tandem. The one cannot happen without the other and if it does it is only another indication that you have been misled by your thought processes. Because the outer world and inner world are only reflections of each other. The voices of authority, of power, of aggression, of obedience, of morality and righteousness, of control and fear that you perceive in the world outside are none other than the thoughts and emotions fleeting through your Mind. And yet, in moments of great clarity, when the silent yet deeply grounded sense of your own Inner Authority becomes so very palpable, what you are simultaneously sensing is the beauty and infallibility of the spirit of Creation.

Your own unique existence is the only thing of value in this world. And to be here, exactly as you are in this moment, is the greatest purpose you can ever serve.