Nikolai1

Part of growing up is realising that not everyone is just like you. To run scared of death appalled me, because it is so pitiable. It was quite a hard lesson to see that some people are so unfortunate. Not surprisingly, before his diagnosis you would never have considered this person unfortunate. He had the most amazing large house in the Pennines, massive garden,very near Chatsworth plus cars and holidays galore. But his consciousness was all geared towards some things and not others. Despite my young age, I instinctively saw spiritual strength as more important than his daily circumstances.

Non comprendo

Good meditation will make you slowly aware that there is a part of you that is entirely happy and at peace, regardless of what happens on the outside. This part of you will then grow and grow until it dominates who you are. When you are already content and at peace, your motivation to chase and get things will be hugely reduced. Most of the world's activity, including industry and the college degrees needed to perform this industry are based on the assumption that there are things on the outside worth getting. It is possible that you no longer believe that the stuff your friends do is worthwhile. The urge to get drunk is a really good example. The peace and expansion that comes from alcohol is already subtly yours as a result of the meditation. It's like you have an intravenous drip of vodka, slowly subtly entering your bloodstream. It takes the edge off the desire to stand at the bar doing shots. The same goes for nearly all of our pleasure seeking. When you no longer need pleasure on the outside, you become demotivated to participate in nearly everything that makes sense to normal people. Even going for a nice chat over coffee can lose its appeal. A lot of the conversation in this world is mutual reinforcement of ego identity. We talk in order to gain reassurance of our ego both through positve affirmation of our actions, and distancing and negative judgement of actions that aren't like ours. When we are no longer interested in small talk it is because we have a deep and stable sense of who we really are. But this means that we are really becoming distant from normal human behaviour. This process is simultaneously satisfying and deeply distressing. In our lower moments it can be very frightening to find ourselves drifting out of our niche. We don't know where we are headed, and more often than not, we are headed there alone. At your age, it is very, very common to not drift off too far. You'll stop the meditation and return back to the fold for another decade or so. This is absolutely fine and if you do this you won't feel any guilt, and the idea of yourself as 'spiritual' will probably stay with you anyway. Many don't return to their practice until they are retired, or at least financially stable. Others find the call too strong and have to somehow juggle their deepening practice with being in the world as well. In these cases, work must be found that isn't incompatible with all the insights about your true identity. For example, if you are simpy caring for old people it is easy to carry on when you start to see others as aspects of yourself. This is harder if you are a salesman who must deceive the customers a bit if you want to get good commission. Only you will learn what path you take, but it's all good so try not to worry too much!

This idea that nothing is gained or lost is often repeated because it is a very valuable teaching. It keeps those people in check who think they need to acquire something from the outside: a new feeling, a new skill, a new philosophy. But the teaching isn't wholly true. We do gain something new. We gain peace and contentment, and empathy and wisdom and, yes, even certain powers we didn't have before. But these are secondary. They come when the insight comes, and the insight is that we are already whole.

When I was 19 an event happened, and I see know how my response to it prefigured all my interest in spiritual liberation. My Uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer and his response was to battle the thing head on and outwardly go into complete denial that it could ever kill him. The final years of his life was spent taking the most aggressive treatments available, while simultaneously feeling incredibly angry and aggreived at the injustice of his situtation. He made his wife and childen very miserable. Two weeks before he died he decided he needed a new hobby and bought himself a very expensive camera. His response appalled me. For me, i could not conceive a more inadequate reaction to death. He was a man who, despite being 60 years old, was totally lacking in spiritual consciousness - the deep unshakable sense that a part of him is untouched by death. Clearly I already had this, because it was from this place that I judged the situation as so unfortunate. At his funeral, his son read the Dylan Thomas poem you referred to: Most people viewed his attitude as somehow virtuous; I, perhaps, alone saw it as pitiable and weak and the mark of the most unfortunate being. He could not be blamed. He simply lacked something that is very, very important - the most important thing. We do all have in varying degrees, and if you don't have it then you must see the futility of trying to talk to those who do.

It is very good and noble to aim for political freedom, but it isn't actuallly the thing that the spiritual seeker considers most important. There is a kind of liberation that holds even when confined in a concentration camp. A few remarkable souls had this ingredient, life was bearable for themselves and they were able to ease the pain of others. Nowadys, films and books are written about these real-life stories. Vicotr Frankl in his famous book Man's Search for Meaning saw at first han how some immediately despaired at being in this barbwire Matrix, others did not despair and remained strong and cheeerful. What is this ingredient? Some people first sense it exists, and then want it for themselves: it is the spiritual life.

Hi Karl, In the early days of Christianity, when the religion was fresh and vibrant and truly awakening people, there are stories of the persecution the followers suffered by the Romans. But they were liberated within. They had found a place where no amount of earthbound misfortune could touch their inner good fortune. If they were whipped, they were whipped in order to demonstrate the glory of Christ. It was a pleasure to be singled out. When they were crucified and burnt they went to the stake singing glory and prasing Jesus. It made no different to them whether they were alive or dead. They were above such concerns. This is the spiritual life! Do you think these people even cared that the Roman soldiers were manipulating their very existence. They were perfectly happy regardless! And do you know what? It was the soldiers who were truly impressed by what these people had found, and many of the perpetrators ended up converting to the faith themselves. Even if you dismiss the Christians as under some kind of delusion...can a more perfect and benevolent delusion be imagined? It is a delusion that sustains you through suffering and unto death and, who knows...beyond? Anyone who has started to sense the true potential of the spiritual life has very little concern whether they are trapped in some kind of Matrix. Liberation that is only political is nice, but not the most important thing worth having. I suggest to you that your forays into spiritual practice were only ever about getting something for yourself here and now on earth. When you could see that it wasn't going to happen that way, you just went bck to the prosaic business of getting ahead on this planet. And when it isn't happening you blame those who supposedly keep you in subjugation. Why don't you consider true liberation? The liberation of the Cristian martyrs.

Hi Spotless, The way you are now functioning is how I imagine wu wei to be. When even your own actions are timely and happen of their own accord without the need for effortful thinking and planning. I'm still heavily in the Alzheimers phase but one thing I've noticed is how big onerous jobs that I would have really huffed and puffed about happen much more easily. We recently moved house and lots of random boxes and stuff and junk just got dumped in the garage in order to make the house quickly livable. Yesterday I tackled the garage and even though I worked for about four hours on it, afterwards it felt like I hadn't lifted a finger. I felt clean and unfatigued and without any sense at al that I had spent the day unpleasantly. In fact I had hardly any memory of really doing anything specific. By the way, you have such a novel creative way of describing your life, i think you should write a book - honestly! Spiritual biographies are always very popular reading for seekers. Best wishes to you!

Thank you for sharing your wonderful experiences! Could you say a little bit more about the above? How is this alternative source different from our usual egoic motivations? Does it feel different? is it stronger and more compelling? Really interested in how you describe it? Thanks.

You are right to point out the danger, but it's only a danger if the maturer souls start to think of themselves as maturer and take advantage of that. In practice, it is completely self-limiting. Old souls are so tired and weary that they have neither desire nor motivation to do anything except their private spiritual work. It is the younger souls who get kicks from all the overlordery...and that is the precise situation we see every day. Young souls are the movers and shakers of the world. And these young souls are the least likely to see the merit of soul maturity theory. Rather than all these dark oracular warnings, I think it's high time you describe in detail the specific predicament we are in and how you have found out about it?

I certainly don't believe in it, except in a quite light loose sort of way...but: I've certainly become more open to this as my sense of identity has shifted from being a guy in time and space, to a being in which time and space happens. Also, because I hold truths with a much lighter grasp at the logical level, I am more interested in the emotional and moral benefits to certain theories. This is my new determinant of truth: the sincere and kind act is the truer act. I really like the soul age theory because it has no place for divisive moral judgement. We can see people behavng immaturely but we don't get angry. We just accept them as they are: just as we accept that children like to build lego and not real grown-up houses. Or we accept the beauty of the blossom in the orchard, and don't lament the fact that they aren't yet apples.

Soul age becomes a particulary useful handle when we see children and teenagers with wise moral judgement and their parents angry and selfisly indignant. Or we see children with leaukaemia calmly and serenely approaching death - an insiration to all around. On the other hand, the Buddhist writer Steve Hagen told about wokring with a 95 year old woman, terminally ill, but bewildered and asking God 'why me?' There is a trajectory to life. With time we generally become wiser, more ethical and more compassionate. Some pass through this trajecotry very quickly and can surpass others decades older,

One concept I find incredibly useful when it comes to this stuff is Soul Maturity. Here's a good summary of the different ages: http://www.michaelteachings.com/soul_ages.html We don't get upset when we see children playing their silly little games. Neither should we get upset when we read the news and see less mature adults behaving in ways that are less than mature. We despair if we let their behaviour reflect on ourselves. Though we may not realise it, we only desair when we start to think: 'this is humanity, I am a human. Is this all there is to me?' Just let the children of the world be children, and be at peace in yourself! Don't expect physically matured adults to be psychologically or spiritualy mature as well.

Going to the local Lodge and expecting mysterious ritual is rather like going to the local Church and experiencing the mystic alchemy of the Rosacrucians. Most organisations are just nice clubs, and most members just clubbable members. I once witnessed our local Lodge emtying after a meeting. They were smartly dressed, but just very regular chaps. You can tell by looking at them, the way they walk, the way they talk. Just blokes socialising and making contacts. But I still think you should go along if you're feeling that interest.

We imagine that there is a constant indendently existing piece of matter that behaves at some times like a particle and at other times like a wave. This gets us very confused. But when we see the impermanence of all reality, when we see that there is no indepedently existing matter the whole issue becomes very clear. Matter is conceived in one moment within the intellectual framework that sees waves. In the next moment matter is conceived within the intellectual framework that is the particle. The apparent duality of the matter's nature is a myth. We are simply applying two different intellectual frameworks, two incommensurable overlays in two different moments of time. This is no more complicated than looking at a painting and in one moment seeing a chrome yellow smear of pigmented oil, and in the next moment seeing a banana in a bowl. Why then do we make it so hard? Wave particle duality gets people so confused because they are unable to separate reality from our intellectual maps of it. The physicist is so convinced that reality corresponds to his theories that he can't understand how the so called particle can behave so strangely. There is no matter! The matter itself is part of the map. And the map is itself just the briefest moment of impermanecene that flashes into existence and is then annihilated forever.

Hi Brian Technology is never the direct result of the theory. The theory merely provides a language to describe practical know-how. There is no reason why lasers couldn't be described with the language of, say, orthodox Christianity. Light we would call 'God'; the high coherence of the beam would be Truth; radiation would be 'holy spirit', and so on. Any of these could be translated into simple symbols, as shorthand, and it would become maths. It would be perfectly possible to accommodate complex technological understanding within a Christian narrative if there was sufficient flexibility surrounding defintions of existing Christian terminology, and there is the freedom to invent neoligisms which also have a theological flavour. The secular lnaguage of science was only necessary because the Christian priesthoods would not allow Christian terminology the linguistic fluidity needed. Furthermore, they made the words of Scripture sacrasanct, which made it very difficult to adapt them to new technological breakthroughs. Technological expertise has nothing whatsover to do with the secular scientific worldview. It only appears to be the case because of Christian dogmatism at the time of the Renaissance. This is a point that people like Richard Dawkins completely miss - they are frequently heard saying that science is justified by the fact that it works. These guys should study modern philosophy more, where all this is seen and taken for granted.

Yes, but I think in the case of quantum physics the theory is so strange that the scientists aren't really able to come to terms with it. I've heard it said that the field is in a state of trauma, so unable it is to come to terms with the paradoxes they are facing. Let's face it, it's nearly hundred years since these major discoveries - we are no nearer to theoretical unification and everyday people don't really incorporate, say, quantum entanglement in their everyday worldview. The paradoxes can't actually be overcome as long as the scientist clings on to the idea that through their theory they are capturing reality. Reality can't be illogical, so say the people. This is why I predict that the future will see a political resolution of the paradox of the photon. Wave-particle duality will slowly come to be viewed as an error of measurement. Human reason needs this to happen. We do have parallels in history but they occurred within a theological context. A good example from early Christianity is whether God was outside nature or immanent in nature...and in us: another classic paradox. It was the 'outside' camp that had the power, they won the day, compiled the Bible and anything that smacks of pantheism or Gnosticism was deemed heretical. What never happened was the widepsread resolution of the paradox, which, going by their writings, individual and private mystics achieved for themselves.

Hi all, Another reason why we get so confused about the wave-particle duality is that the same types of people, sometimes the same individuals of genius, have come up with the two contrasting interpretations. If the two theories had been generated from different epochs in time, or from different disciplines we would find it much easier to either a) see them as two different approaches (as in the chemist and the art critic approaching the banana in the painting) or we would be more able to see one theory as right and one as wrong (for example, the older theory is often considered wrong when compared to the newer theory) But when the same individuals generate two different approaches in the same epoch it is more likey to present itself as a paradox.

Yes I've come to the same conclusion. In my own head I framed is as the choice to see things as discrete entities or in terms of their connectedness. Particle, discrete...wave connected. Everything can be viewed in these two contexts. They are fundamental epistemological categories.

You don't remain forever stuck in some kind of equipoise, that's for sure. The equipoise can't be tolerated by anyone for long. The first solution is to go back, that is, to become convinced that your equipoise was created by your accepting what should have been dismissed. For example, we realise in a great flash that our notion that things might be impermanent is and always was an illusion. A temporary aberration which we snapped out of, which then allowed us back to the usual view of things. It feels great to back, safe and dry, not too much harmed. The second solution is to stop asking whether things are permanent or impermanent. Our life is no longer lived according to big intellectual worldviews. We switch between things whimsically. Our aim is to live in each moment according to our instincts. The first solution is to stay within the intellectual worldview. The second solution is to move into a heart-based worldview. Now you Karl, have a tendency to think that seeing impermanence and having a 'heart view' are the same thing. You do not see that impermanence is as much an intellectual conclusion as your own permanence and objectivism. To be fair, this is a very common misconception. Spiritual teachers can't talk about the the life of the heart, the best they can do is practically demonstrate it. With words they are only capable of trying to dismantle single-minded objectivism. They therefore speak of impermanence...and others think they are speaking the final truth.

You don't understand how I think. If you did you wouldn't use your stubbing your toe example. I can't tell you how I think. It can't be communicated. if you think I'm some kind of mystic you will be woefully missing the point. To stub our toe is an intrinsically real and dreamlike experience. But who sees it both ways?

This recognition is huge and significant and in human history has never been anything other than a minority viewpoint. For the rest, theory and reality coincide, to the extent that theory isn't taken as theory but as truth. Baffling paradox within our chosen belief system is rarely tolerated for long. The tension becomes too great. Our very reality is at stake. So what happens? Subtly there will emerge different camps united by one simple and logical assumption: 'a photon can be a wave or a particle, but not both.' Each camp will start to cast doubt on the findings of the other. For example, the seminal authors of photon wave function used X apparatus, which as subsequently come into question. There is some inconsistency in statistical methods used. Professor Y was a known donor to the Netanyahu party etc. It is impossible that both camps have equal political clout, and over time one of them will use all its influence to assume greater powers. When these are sufficient, there will be some kind of summit where the truth over whether the photon is a wave or a partcile will be announced ex cathedra (although the pontiffs in question will be fully convinced that they are simply clarifying the truth) And as the pronouncement passes, so too does the paradox. We will have a new and unquestioned scientific assumption. Confusion passes and we are at peace. If we are to truly resolve the paradox of wave-particle duaity we have to do some serious spiritual enquiry for ourselves, and the paradox is resolved only for ourselves.

Yes, the famous tetralemma! But who is the one that sees the tetralemma? That is my practice!

Shucks, never thought of that!

If it's magic then it is no different to the type of magic that we do with the banana in the painting. Its just the simple everyday magic of intellectual flexibility. Our Protean gift for seeing things in many different lights.