Reality 101 (part 3)

In 2012, the Higgs particle was proven to be a field which is, or encompasses, all of space and, through its presence, allows all the other fundamental particles to have mass. “The image of an envelope serves to illustrate Being’s infinity closing in on itself and wrapping itself, donut-like, as it were, around itself…it is an energy field of super-nothingness…This dynamic field-like expanse that has no temporal beginning or end is the dwelling of all that is. Because of its existence, all living beings may attain nirvana.” -Dr. Herbert Guenther, Meditation Differently

Reality is “vibratory,” with nothing static in it. When magnified, any solid, including the human body, reveals itself to be mostly a void, permeated by oscillating fields. People have electrostatic fields around their bodies, and Earth is surrounded by a layer of electrically charged particles called the ionosphere, which is positively charged relative to the Earth’s surface. The human fields are interconnected with the isoelectric field of the planet. Thus, in addition to a person’s physical body is a subtle body, which is connected to the personality, emotions, chakras, and thinking mind. Beyond that is the causal body, the template—Plato’s concept of “pure ideas,” out of which everything emerges into physical reality. Behind that is God and, behind God, the homogenous field of the void-state.

People become stuck in the idea of objectivity, seeing the world in a rational way and rarely questioning their motives for desiring some things and being averse to others. This world is not objective, however, but subjective—everyone sees the world through the filter of his or her own, accumulated experience. Self-specific experiences, especially during the formative years, create predispositions that color how they see and interpret the world, which is more accurately described as a world of feelings than a world of things.

Every sensory perception—every time we see something, for example—goes first from the sense organ to the brain’s limbic system (i.e., the reptile brain) where a value judgment is made (positive, negative, or neutral), and the thinking brain makes up a rationale that suits the pre-existing value judgment.

Many people fear that, if they let go of rational control, they will become animalistic, in the sense of having anti-social impulses. This fear—that there are things in oneself that are ugly, untenable, unsociable—are part of one’s own animal, the reptilian lower brain. Behind this fear is (at the first chakra) the loss of separate identity, the psychological dying, the loss of the experience of the Knower; there is also fear that one may become trapped in another psychological state—in other words, that one will go insane.

According to string theorist Brian Greene, there are ten dimensions of space (some of which are “folded up” such that the average human perceives only three) plus one of time, as we know it, and infinite parallel universes. His mathematical explanation is consistent with Buddhist cosmology. Space and time are perceived as separate, but existence is in space and time simultaneously. Objectively, we experience one “axis” of time, which moves through us, and three of space, through which we move. Inside a black hole, time and space switch places, mathematically, such that space is restricted to one dimension, but past-present-future are all available simultaneously.

The Sun has a polarity/sunspot cycle of 11.11 Earth-years. If, however, this cycle is embedded in a millennia-long periodic cycle such that, every few millennia, massive solar flares and coronal mass ejections interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, there will be distortions in the spacetime field. A wildly fluctuating geomagnetic field could cause apparitions—which would be consistent with the laws of physics—as the spacetime field is distorted. Perhaps time will be experienced all-at-once, as P.K. Dick hypothesizes in How to Build a Universe that Doesn’t Fall Apart after Four Days, and normally invisible dimensions will be revealed to us. Such apparitions and other “miracles” would certainly convince many that they were going insane, if they didn’t understand what was happening.

The knowledge of such altered realities has existed for thousands of years, however. Eastern traditions describe in detail the invisible, subtle bodies, some of which die when the physical body dies, and some which do not. All that are born go through a process of birth, growth, decay and death, but some cycles are longer than others, such that an “individual” is part of many cycles. The fear of death, of self-dissolution, is one of the most powerful forces in people—but it is fear of the end of an illusion. What the Buddha calls Nirvana is an extinguishing of the awareness of separation from the Cosmos, a blowing out of the candle of ego. For this, one’s mind must expand beyond the realm of emotion, beyond the illusion of the separate existence—from the ever-craving self to the Self that is All.

“He who knows that his body is like froth, and has learned that it is as unsubstantial as a mirage, will break the flower-pointed arrow of Mara, and never see the king of death. Death carries off a man who is gathering flowers and whose mind is distracted, as a flood carries off a sleeping village.” -Dhammapada

The psyche, or soul, is independent of the body, but lives in it most of the time. When the nervous system is developed and refined, such that its frequencies begin to resonate with those of the Cosmos, the psyche flies free upon the death of the physical body. As Laozi writes, if one doesn’t realize the source of existence, one stumbles in confusion and sorrow. When one realizes, one naturally becomes tolerant, disinterested, amused and kind-hearted. One can deal with whatever life brings and, when death comes, one is ready.

“The person is an imaginary collection/assemblage of perceptions, held together by memory. Because of the idea of separation and limitation, life is pain, occasionally relieved by what we call pleasure, continuation of which we call happiness. True happiness is not dependent on external factors.” -Nisargadatta, I AM THAT

“The teaching of Buddha is too simple, so people hesitate to practice it.” -Senzaki & McCandless, Buddhism and Zen

Psychologically, it is a process of turning inward, withdrawing the consciousness from the phenomenal world. One must understand the unconscious in order to free oneself from the domination of compulsive intentions. Many people know that they are afraid and, tragically, are afraid to face the cause of their fears: “refused fear.” So they distract themselves with their hobbies, stories, fantasies, sensual or intellectual pleasures; or illness, neuroses, even death, rather than face life.

“The roots of desires and fears are in expectation born of memory. They are conditioned responses, mere reactions, plain attractions and repulsions, based on memories and preconceptions…The obstacles to the clear perception of one’s true being are desires for pleasure and fear of pain. Ask: who desires? Anxiety and hope are born of imagination. Once you know yourself as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious, you come to disregard your desires and fears…Each step brings you closer to your goal, even backtracks.” -Nisargadatta, I AM THAT

By withdrawing one’s projections, one can turn one’s consciousness in upon itself, and discover a “contemplative vision” by which conscious and unconscious are given greater attention, such that the mind’s “center of gravity” shifts from ego (at the center of the waking mind) to a point between conscious and unconscious, where the individual self, the ego, is transcended.

“When we don’t see the self as self, what do we have to fear? See the world as your self…Love the world as your self—then you can care for all things. -Laozi, The Way and its Power

The belief in a separate ego, says Nisargadatta, is a sin which is greater than all other sins together, because it causes us to defend what is an illusion, and leads to all further sins. This is what the Judeo-Christian tradition calls original sin.

“The tangible world is movement…not a collection of moving parts, but movement itself…it is the movement which constitutes the objects which appear to us…when motion or vibration appears in the absolute, it becomes visible or manifest, and we call it the relative, or physical, reality.” -Alexandra David-Neel, The Secret Oral Teachings of Tibetan Buddhist Sects

Seeing the pointlessness of (conventional) life, one becomes determined to investigate whether the words of the saints point to a hidden reality, or are merely the ramblings of madmen. “Earnestness is the path of immortality/nirvana; thoughtlessness is the path of death. Those who are in earnest do not die; those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.” -Dhammapada

In order to transcend oneself, it is necessary to become ever more convinced that one’s normal waking consciousness is like unto a prison. One cannot conceive of things that are beyond conception, but one can have faith in the words of the saints and teachers of wisdom. And faith need not be blind—the Buddha all but forbade his disciples from taking his word on anything, but enjoined them to put his teachings into practice and see for themselves whether or not what he said was true.

The conventional mind views objects and events in the past as one would see things from the rear window of a moving car. Tantra, however, sees them as a trail of flames projected from the tail-vent of a rocket. Ancient history still looks far away, and things still “recede” along the vista of the past, but things did not “begin” at some point in the past—rather, each person’s “present-frame” is projecting his or her world of experience and knowledge. The origin is not “out there” but in the projection mechanism itself, only seeming to have had a beginning “far back” in time, outside of ourselves, due to the interaction of fields of energy—not unlike the phenomenon of a rainbow, which only appears when sunrays, water vapor, and an observer form a relationship in space and time.

The brain and senses are a continuous feedback system. A person learns to process data in ever more refined ways, but not how to focus on Being itself, such that s/he is trapped inside the realm of left-brain, linear thought, which s/he does not question, and comes to believe is all that there is. If, however, one focuses on Being (Awareness) itself, data-processing continues but ceases to distract, engage, dominate, and imprison one’s consciousness in its self-created sub-order of Reality. When all conceptions are seen through as void of independent existence, one becomes aware that one’s mind is embedded within a vastly larger presence. The human body is the link between a person’s mind and the electromagnetic waves flowing into the crown, through the body, and out of the sense organs. The tantric practitioner endeavors to reverse the flow of attention, from outward through the senses, to inward and upward, toward the heavens.

“Progress is slow in the beginning, rapid in the end…Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental and, therefore, loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily.” -Nisargadatta, I AM THAT

The rhythms of the heart, breath, cellular activity, etc. structure each animal’s sense of time. Every particle in the universe is also a wave of rhythmically vibrating energy. The interactions between material objects are, fundamentally, interference patterns produced by the interaction of energy fields. One’s mind is a “congested” type of Awareness, within a shimmering Void that is constantly manifesting and dissolving bodies (phenomena). When the feedback loop of Small-Mind-to-Big-Mind is recognized and firmly established, one realizes one’s abiding essence, of which this universe is but a “stepped-down” solidification. Then subject-object duality dissolves as it arises, because one sees one’s interrelationship with everyone and everything, how the “movement of Mind” creates the illusion of separation. Stillness clarifies to rigpa, pure vision. “Be still, and know that I am God.” -Psalm 46:10

Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching: sensations and images, or “appearance,” both internal and external; thinking, feeling, imagining—all are evidence of, and no different from, the dynamic energy of Awareness. Thus, all appearances and the act of perceiving itself become reminders of Awareness in a great feedback loop with itself.

Two Zen monks were walking along, and came to a woman in fine robes, stuck in front of a muddy pool of water that blocked the way. Without a word, the senior monk picked her up and deposited her on the other side. Several minutes later, the junior monk, unable to keep silent, said, “How could you pick up a woman like that?! We monks are not even supposed to touch a woman!” Without missing a beat, his senior responded, “I put her down back there—why are you still carrying her?”

“Prolong not the past. Invite not the future. Alter not your innate wakefulness. There is nothing more than that.” -Tibetan Buddhist saying

“Too busy right now” is the excuse made by many who hope someday to walk the path to liberation. “I’ll get to that later,” they say, while their current predicaments sap their vitality and further condition their minds. Some will later find themselves in psychoanalysis and/or on medications that hinder, if not disable, their ability to be natural.

Laozi said he had but three things to teach: simplicity, patience and compassion, which are a person’s greatest treasures. “Simplify your mind, reduce distraction, and prepare the ground for fertilization, seeding, growth, buds and fruit…He alone who, without ceasing, practices the duty of sitting alone; he, subduing himself, will rejoice in the destruction of all desires alone, as if living in a forest.” -Dhammapada

Why wait? Simplify as soon and as much as possible. Only by reducing distractions can one achieve the tranquility of mind that is a prerequisite for deep meditation. Loneliness and compulsive socializing simply cause more useless distraction and activity, increase anger, arguments, attraction and repulsion, as people infect each other with their bad habits, and rarely help each other. To truly help someone is to put him or her beyond the need for further help. Until one needs no more help oneself, it is better to abandon all associations in which one is dependent upon others, and make an effort to live in quiet solitude and practice.

Aware of the dangers inherent in daily mundane consciousness, and revolted by the ways of the world, one turns decisively in the opposite direction. Earnestness, devotion, recollection—these help one remain in the present moment of awareness; conscience helps one to remain authentic. “Disgust with the world, wanting nothing, and diligence must be tied to your ego…whatever comes-to-presence and is interpreted as world appears as one’s teacher and surges as an ocean of revitalization…One’s body and mind and the emotional pollutants are the overt features of pristine awareness. Although for ignorant ordinary personas these may seem to be a net in which they are caught, for the yogi who does not set it down as something nor interferes with it, it is Being’s ecstatic intensity he feels working in and through himself.” -Dr. Herbert Guenther, Meditation Differently

Stages on the way to liberation can be described as 1. Accumulation, whereby one achieves mental quiescence (shamatha) and a presumptive understanding of voidness, having heard or read it explained properly; 2. Preparation, whereby one attains penetrative insight (vipashyana) and a conceptual, inferential understanding of voidness; 3. Seeing, when one has attained a non-conceptual, bare perception of voidness in one’s meditation; and 4. No-more-learning, when there is full realization, at all times—the pristine awareness of the inseparability of voidness (nirvana) and appearance (samsara). “Things are merely nominally existent; the basis of mind resides in a flux of experience within which attributions, discriminations and judgments arise as such. Training consists in letting go of attachments in such a way as to allow this flow to develop…it is in itself found to be joyous and unlimited.” -Crook & Low, Yogins of Ladakh

“Look, and it can’t be seen. Listen, and it can’t be heard. Reach, and it can’t be grasped.” Laozi, The Way and its Power

Conventional mind cannot reach ultimate reality, for it is beyond thinking, speaking, or conceptualizing. This idea is consistent with Gnosticism and Kabbalah, where the path to God leads within. God is within everything, and the universe is the embodiment of God. Thus, the inner Self is the most accessible point for experiencing the Supreme, which is beyond all states of mind. The six senses (five plus mentation, or mental activity) and the six worlds (the Wheel of Life’s realms of gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hells) interweave to create the illusion—eyes create the world of color and form, ears create the world of sound, nose the world of odor, tongue the world of taste, and brain the world of thought. Tantra, like Zen (dhyana), is simply using these things to point beyond themselves, “reversing the flow” of the sensory perception process, as it were.

What we perceive as solid is not really solid, but appears so because our eyes can only perceive the frequency of certain wavelengths. “Matter is not separated from consciousness, but rather identical to it…The world is not an illusion, rather the perception of duality is the illusion…the yogi knows that the entire cosmos is situated within his own body…Whatever is perceived is the universal “I” (prakasa). Whatever you see, whatever you hear, whatever you smell, whatever you taste, whatever you touch is I. The sensation of touch, the sensation of smell, the sensation of taste, the sensation of seeing anything, whatever you perceive—not only think but perceive—with any or all of your five organs of perception, is called I.” -Shiva Sutras

In the blink of an eye, there are said to occur 17 trillion thoughts, or “mind-moments.” Each mind-moment is an entire universe and, between moments, there is voidness. The incredible speed at which they pass makes the experience seem simultaneous, because the thinking mind collates and summarizes them. Desires manifest in thoughts, and who one knows oneself to be is a function of one’s thoughts and conceptual models of one’s identity. Thus is ego no more than a conceptual structure that is redefined, over and over…ad nauseum, if one is lucky. One’s motivation—which could also be called attachment, desire, or clinging—is the reason that thoughts continue to arise, why karma continues to be created and why, when one body is exhausted and dies, “psychic energy” of unfulfilled desires leads to so-called reincarnation. (The concepts of karma and reincarnation, which had been features of some early Christian cults, were declared heretical at the fourth century councils of Nicea, Trent and Constantinople.)

“The mind produces thoughts ceaselessly, even when you do not look at them. When you know what is going on in your mind, you call it consciousness, [which] shifts from sensation to sensation, from perception to perception, from idea to idea, in endless succession. Then comes awareness, the direct insight into the whole of consciousness…All you are conscious of is your mind; awareness is the cognizance of consciousness as a whole.” -Nisargadatta, I AM THAT

Like planks of a raft that was needed to cross a river, all concepts must be left behind, for conceptual thought itself must be transcended if one is to perceive non-duality directly. Christ and the Buddha speak of the Way. Christ teaches realization of Self and its dissolution into God—the Alpha and the Omega—as a drop of water merges with the ocean. Buddha teaches the goal of the Beginning, when the world was without form and void—nirvana. Time is not a line, for Alpha-Omega is omnipresent. “Kor-gay yer-may” is a Tibetan phrase meaning “samsara and nirvana are inseparable.” Spacetime is like a spectrum created by the rapidly expanding, evolving, diversifying universe, represented by the sound-wave “AUM” that contains all sound-waves.