Lost in the known

      

Where there is life there is mystery. In the beginning this mystery takes the form of fear. And what is it we are afraid of? We are afraid of simple things like the dark - what cannot be seen and what lurks in the dark. What lurks in the dark we learn may hurt us, kill us or kill those we love. We do not know what lurks in the dark except that it is unknown we are surrounded by things to be afraid of. With the dawning of self-consciousness we begin to fight this fear. How? By turning the unknown the mystery into the known. This is a clever trick because all there can ever be is mystery yet nevertheless our task is to turn mystery into the known. The known is invented through language and reason. All language is composed of belief and in belief we are able to pretend that something is known, once this is realised our goal is to know everything and to understand everything through the wonderful invention of belief. Over time we forget the truth, the mystery and we find ourselves completely lost in the known of our own beliefs. Now we find ourselves surrounded by new fears – these are the fears of neurosis, which turns out to be the fear of what is known. No longer are we afraid of the dark now we are afraid that there is something wrong with us and once this is believed we are lost again. Faced with this new fear we can either run away from this fear through drink, drugs, sex, pleasure or the pursuit of more beliefs-knowledge, or finally turn and face the mystery. When we are truly able to do this we find that the known is slowly dissolved until all that is left is mystery and mystery rather than being something to be afraid of becomes the solution to all our fears. Fear can only exist in the mistaken notion that something is known.

Fear

To solve the problem of fear it is necessary to not assume that we know what fear is. In fact this is the problem, we start by assuming we know what fear is. We tell ourselves all the things we are afraid of and exactly how afraid we are of those things. This I think of as knowing too much. It could be said that we know what we do not know. All thinking is knowing what we do not know. A word or a thought can only have meaning when we decide what that meaning is. Language works because of this principle, the words of a language are given meaning and we all agree on the meaning given. This can be useful but it is also possible to forget that the meaning given to words was made up and agreed upon. Words have enormous power when they are believed. This power can be used for great good or great evil. Fear is always the result of believing something to be true that is not true. To be free of fear it is necessary to conceive that this is possible and also to find out precisely what it is we believe that is not true. If we are told as a child that we are not good enough then it is likely we will grow up with this belief and it will rarely be questioned. In fact rather than question this belief we are more likely to reinforce it by repeating it to ourselves and proving to ourselves that it is true. Nothing can be assumed to be true, and if what we believe to be true is in any way negative then that negative is the proof that it is not true. Fear is obviously a negative feeling and so you can be sure it is based on a belief that is not true. Physical feelings I take to be true so long as there is no meaning attached to those feelings. When physical feeling is divested of meaning its true meaning appears. In the case of physical feelings that we usually associate with fear we may find that without meaning these feelings naturally dissipate. We may also find that without meaning what we take to be fearful may be a source of great learning. The difficult part of this process is just the ability to look at these feelings without attaching meaning to them. This usually takes time and practice, it will take less time when the principle is clearly understood. This understanding is very simple - we are the creators of meaning and whatever meaning we create we have to live with. This is optional, we can create meaning or we can-not create meaning.  By keeping our attention only on physical feeling we begin to free ourselves of all unnecessary and negative meaning. We are addicted to meaning because this is the mechanism whereby the ego creates the illusion that it exists. The ego does not wish to know that it does not exist and yet because the ego tries so hard to create the illusion that it does exist suggests that the ego itself is not convinced.The problem is circular in that the ego creates fear as a means to prove that it exists and then becomes trapped by that same fear so that living is equated with fear. Fearing that the ego does not exist is the same as the fear of death or non-existence. We get so caught up in this illusory fear that we do not notice what it is we really are. What we really are is consciousness, consciousness comes before fear; fear arises in consciousness and without consciousness fear could not exist. Everything arises in consciousness even the universe but all the things that arise in consciousness are secondary to consciousness itself. The things that arise in consciousness are attractive or they are fearful but either of these are illusory in comparison to consciousness. Consciousness is subtle but what we are attracted to or afraid of is not, so we take the easy road and focus on what is obvious and ignore what is subtle. Free of the obvious we live in the subtle but wondrous world of consciousness.

Immediately after writing this I found I had been sent this link to a Youtube video 

John Hagelin on Consciousness part one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrcWntw9juM

John Hagelin on Consciousness part two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSxluvq5HI0

Love and Compassion

When all negative thinking has been identified as nothing more than false belief what is left is naturally positive. Free of beliefs the mind is naturally loving and compassionate it is only the negative aspects of ego that obscure this fact. On a retreat a woman told me that she thought it very important to be humble and loving I replied that when we try to be humble and loving it is because we feel we are not. The ego is not able to be loving and compassionate but it is able to mimic the appearance of what it thinks is loving and compassionate. The spiritual world of all religions is full of those who think that mimicking love and compassion is the same as being loving and compassionate. It is usually a screen the ego hides behind. Many seekers take it as a sure sign that someone is enlightened if they smile a lot. Love and compassion are natural aspects of consciousness but consciousness has no need to prove that it is loving and compassionate. It is only the ego being deficient of these qualities that needs to prove how loving and compassionate it is. Consciousness is free of all negatives, once this is understood it becomes clear what needs to happen. We need to see clearly every trace of negative thinking, this thinking cannot be removed it can only be seen clearly for what it is – something that is not true or has no basis in reality. When this is seen on a very deep level (not the level of ego) that which obscures consciousness becomes redundant. Negatives obscure consciousness because they carry a negative charge or feeling, this feeling then occupies our attention causing neurosis (thinking about things that are not worth thinking about) while we are doing this consciousness is obscured, it is still there and even the neurotic thinking could not be there without it but our attention is fixated on the negativity and associated physical feeling produced by the ego. We do not need to concern ourselves as to whether or not we are loving and compassionate we just need to identify the negatives. It is helpful to separate the meaning from physical feeling. When we are able to feel what we feel without the usual attached meaning the feeling will naturally fall away as it is in the meaning that the feeling comes to exist in the first place. There is no meaning in consciousness that is to say consciousness is free of meaning. The important principle here is that nothing can be changed except through seeing that which does not exist. If we remove meaning from our minds nothing can be said to exist. I am not suggesting we do this, what is required is only to remove the negatives as it is in the negatives that we find the aspects of the ego that are not practical or useful. The aspects of the ego that are useful do not need thinking about, they are naturally there without the negatives. The ego has a place and could never be removed, it can only be seen for what it is. When we see what the ego is we see the place of the ego and most importantly we see what has no place in the ego. Seeing the ego is possibly the most difficult thing we may ever attempt this is because the ego does not wish to be seen, this is understandable because contained in the ego are all the things we would rather not know about. The ego’s mission is to keep our attention away from these things we would rather not know about. Knowing the things we would rather not know about the ego would lose all of its power, to the ego this is the same as death and it will do anything to preserve itself. The best way for the ego to do this is in neurotic or unnecessary thinking and especially in negative thinking as in negative thinking physical feelings are stirred up that cause us to think more rather than less. The ego does not exist but acts as though it does and to sustain this illusion requires us to think in neurotic and unnecessary ways, it also requires us to create negative stories or drama’s that in turn cause physical feeling to become attached to our stories that then become harder and harder to disentangle.

The God Particle

As I write this the search for the so - called god particle continues. As I understand it the god particle is the particle that will explain why the universe when looked at very closely seems not to exist at all and yet appears to be solid and real. How is it that something that seems not to exist has the appearance of existing, or if a rock does not exist why does it hurt when someone throws one at me. I thought that this question was about matter and how matter that does not exist seems most conclusively to exist as in the example of the rock or in the way the universe manifests itself. This I feel now is the wrong way to approach this question. There probably is no god particle - what causes the universe to exist in the way it does is more likely to be found in consciousness. Without consciousness there is no universe and no rock to hurt me, and no hurt to be felt. There seems to be an assumption in science that the universe exists regardless of consciousness but without consciousness what appearance would the universe have. Let us leave aside the bigger questions regarding the way in which the universe appears to exist and focus instead on our human experience of how we exist in relation to the universe. It is not that plants, insects, animals and all forms of life are any different from the human form of life in regard to this question it is just that humans seems to be the only species that is interested in these questions. The closest we can come to a god particle will probably be found in the area of belief. Belief is the ingredient that works with consciousness to construct what we feel, what we do, and how the universe and all it contains appears to us. We know that the body, the brain and the sense organs work together to construct what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. This information is not about what is actually there but an approximation of what is there. This process of constructing workable information about the universe has been proceeding since the earliest forms of life arose. Information is the same as belief because whatever the form of information there is can only have meaning through the operation of belief. These beliefs are not only the obvious beliefs like ‘I believe in god’ they also occur in our ‘knowing the colour red’ or in knowing the sound of a dog barking or anything else that appears to the senses before the thought that tells us we know. Once something is ‘known’ in this sense it is known forever after or until this same information is interpreted in a different way. Since the beginning information received through the senses has become more and more sophisticated. Information received by the eyes that tell us of redness probably does change but only after millennia. Other beliefs or information may not take so long to change such as the beliefs that change in each of us as we move from childhood to adulthood. Beliefs like the colours and sounds we experience do not need to change in the short term as they are practical and useful to us. Some beliefs we hold are not practical and useful and may even be dangerous for others or ourselves. In between there are beliefs that make little difference one way or the other like which is the best football team. Beliefs that are not practical and useful must inevitably end. Even in science it can be seen that beliefs about the universe and us have changed dramatically over the last few thousand years. There is no reason to assume these changes in beliefs will stop anytime soon. There is nothing practical or useful about any negative belief, in fact a negative belief is by definition a belief in something that is not true. What we call depression can be seen to be a cluster of negative beliefs about the world and ourselves that are clearly not true. Beliefs continue only so long as we believe they serve a useful purpose. Of course our belief that our beliefs serve a useful purpose can also be false. It does not matter whether or not we think our beliefs serve a useful purpose if the belief is negative it must end even if that end occurs at the end of our life. Holding a belief that is not true even though it serves no useful purpose can only occur because we want to hold that particular belief. This means that we are responsible for all our beliefs useful or not. The fact that we do not know why we believe something makes no difference as what ever it is that is wanted and believed will manifest itself in our life. The proof of this is in all our actions, try to do something you do not want to do, this is impossible for the moment you do something some part of you has already decided that this is what you wanted to do. Even our feelings are subject to this rule, if they are there, anger for instance; they are there because it is what we want even though we may no longer know why we want it. Although there is probably no god particle to be found, in some ways when beliefs become real through the potential of consciousness it is as though there really is a god particle, or more precisely we become god like in our ability to create our own reality. The problem with this god like ability to create our own reality is that most of the human race are unaware of this ability. Assume this is true and look around you and notice the infinitely varied realities that are being created, notice also how many of these realities are negative. The power to change our reality lies in what we want, if we want something negative you can be sure this is what we will get. Again the problem here is that we do not know that it is our own unconscious need for negative experiences that creates through the action of belief and consciousness our own personal reality.  Observe the reality you create for yourself, look for the patterns that are always there, patterns of repeating the same mistakes over and over again and never seeming to learn. This ability to not learn from our mistakes is often mistaken for addictions. Not knowing that we create our own reality we make excuses for what we do and why we do it. Making excuses takes us away from responsibility and makes it increasingly difficult to rectify the situation. Be assured that whatever it is you want you already have, anything you want to change needs to be changed now and not in the future. Without awareness of what it is we really want it is impossible to change anything. The task then is to increase awareness of what it is we really want. There are many ways to increase awareness including meditation but the catch is we have to want that.

Instead of enquiring deeply into what precisely is wrong with the way we think, we tend to be more inclined to ask what is wrong with the things we think about.

‘Language was invented for the purpose of lying’, this is a quotation from R D Laing.  Language can be thought of as imagination, all words are without meaning other than the meaning we assign them. The act of assigning meaning to words involves the use of imagination. The word did not exist until we were able to imagine that it did. There is no limit to the number of words we can imagine and no limit to the meaning we assign to words. When we assign meaning to a word this meaning has power so long as we all hold and imagine the same meaning. There are some words that are reasonably straight - forward and that most of us agree with as to the meaning. There are other words such as god, love, truth and reality where it is not so easy for us to agree on the meaning. We can agree on the general meaning of a word yet there may still be great latitude between the meaning we each may hold. The world of language is also the world of thought. We each of us live in a world of our own thoughts. Each thought is given a particular meaning and is also assigned a certain degree of belief. This can be clearly seen if we observe the verbal interactions between people. We can observe the effect of words on each individual, we can observe words that cause us to love or to hate, words that make us angry or sad and words that can make us laugh or cry or even words that fill us with fear. If we observe carefully we can also see that words that make one person angry do not necessarily have the same effect on another person. This tells us that the meaning that we each assign to words can be very different. A word such as 'death' depending on the meaning given to it may cause some to live their lives with a secret fear. Where there is fear there is imagination and without imagination there can be no fear. What is it we may imagine that can cause us to feel fear? It seems that the answer to this question is ‘almost anything’. Many think that fear is natural and even necessary, while this is understandable it is also untrue. We are afraid for one reason only and that is that we believe in something that is not true and this can be thought of as an inefficient use of imagination. Suffering is always caused by imagination. The process of learning a language begins from the moment we are born. From the beginning we hear the voices and the language of our parents or our siblings or extended family. In time this process is developed, we go to school and are taught not just to speak but to write what we hear. At school we also begin to speak to our peers as well as hear what they have to say. Ultimately we learn language from everyone we may come in contact with. In all of these interactions we learn more than just language we also learn about the way words are used and the emotions that may be injected into them. Some of what we hear is truthful and some is less so. The fears held by our parents can very easily be transmitted through the language our parents use but also through their behaviour. If a mother or father are overly fearful themselves this will be picked up and ingested by the child without ever knowing what has happened. Parents will pass on to their children all that was passed on to them from their parents and again they will not be aware of what has been passed on. It is not possible to assign blame to anyone because no one can be held responsible for what was unknowingly passed on. We do not choose our parents or our language but the part of us I call the ego is the result of all our experiences and without exception we will have ingested much in terms of language and meaning that is not true. The chances of solving this problem are very slim mostly because we are surrounded by others who no matter how learned they may be have experienced a similar version of what we experienced. For most this problem will not be apparent until the degree of suffering they experience reaches a certain level. Suffering always tells us that there is something wrong with the way we think about things. Instead of enquiring deeply into what precisely is wrong with the way we think, we tend to be more inclined to ask what is wrong with the things we think about. We do this because it is easier, but no matter how easy something is it is worthless if it does not work. 

Childhood's End

It is natural for children to look to a father or mother to guide them and we all have to do this with our parents and then later with teachers or mentors of various kinds. There is a long tradition of this in spiritual circles and no shortage of those claiming to have the knowledge their followers are looking for. This knowledge is often referred to as ‘enlightenment’. As I said it is natural that we do this it is also to be expected that if people are looking for this knowledge or ‘enlightenment’ then there will be many who will claim to have this knowledge. There are many areas of life where teachers are invaluable and this may be true to a certain extent in spiritual areas. Ultimately though there is a problem and teachers in spiritual areas may knowingly or not misguide their followers. The reason for this is that it is not possible to know beforehand if a spiritual teacher knows what he or she claims to know. Naturally we look for clues as to whether the teachers claims are true or not. Unfortunately all of these clues require  belief and it seems to be true that if we are looking for something then we have a vested interest in believing things to be true that may not be true. Also a teacher is also unable to know that he or she is actually enlightened without believing it is so. Teachers may also look for clues as to whether they know or not but as with followers this is always dependent on belief and all beliefs will always be suspect. My assumptions are that all beings are inherently perfect – what I mean by this is that all beings are born with consciousness and consciousness is unchangeable and perfect. The only real problem we could ever have is to believe something that is not true. There is nothing about consciousness that requires belief and beliefs have nothing to do with consciousness. Our starting point should be to trust this knowledge - that we have consciousness and nothing we or anyone else could ever do can change this. There are no graduations of consciousness there is just natural pure perfect consciousness and we all have it. The reason we suffer is that we believe things to be true that are not. Ultimately this is something we all have to find out for ourselves, no one can really teach this because all teachings require beliefs and beliefs are actually the problem. Childhood's end is the point where we become responsible for our own beliefs and do not look to others to correct them. 

Self- Referencing

Have you ever wondered how we can kill and hate in the name of religion or God? Surely there is a contradiction here. Most religions advocate peace and love above all things yet the followers of these same religions find no contradiction in hating or killing those who do not agree with them. This contradiction does not only apply to the apparently religious it applies to us all. The question could be ‘how is it possible to hold two opposite beliefs at the same time?’. The answer to this question is we can do this very easily because all our beliefs are self referenced. That is we create our own beliefs in any form and with as many contradictions as we like. The power to believe anything is in a way godlike we can create a universe of our own in which our beliefs do not have to be consistent they can be anything we want them to be. This is not something that needs proving for the evidence is everywhere we look. It is because of this ability to believe anything we wish that we slowly but surely move towards states of insanity. The only thing that could possibly halt this movement is suffering and so it is that the more our beliefs deviate from what is true or actual the more we suffer. The more we suffer the more we are directed towards noticing the beliefs we hold that cause that suffering. Although we have the capacity to suffer a great deal without noticing the link between our suffering and the beliefs we hold the suffering cannot stop until we do.