Zigzag Idiot

@seeking_brilliance I think you would like Joseph Chilton Pierce’s Biology of Transcendence. It’s been a while since I read it and I forget a lot of the particulars. Something like when the systolic pressure is in optimum rhythm with the diastolic pressure an activation of the prefrontal lobes kicks in and a measurable entrainment occurs. He writes quite a bit of the how and why there’s an abundance of brains cells (neurons) in the heart, that makes this entrainment or feedback loop between the heart and frontal lobes possible. You have good intuition! I believe that actually may be a heart function and a forerunner of clairvoyance,,,?

Thanks @Nahm I’ll watch,,, I should have given a link to the full article. It’s down below. C. Bourgeault is in fact speaking of the physical heart. To paraphrase. It’s where the bridge is that we can use between physical and metaphysical. Joesph Chilton Pierce has written about this quite a bit in which he refers to the Menninger Institute studies. He makes a good case for the dramatic results stemming from a heart that beats in coherence. The Heart Math institute seems to be carrying the ball now and taking it even further. There’s an actual emf wave field put out by the heart that is measurable,,, https://parabola.org/2017/01/31/the-way-of-the-heart-cynthia-bourgeault/

A relevant article comes to mind that I posted in Top Christian Resources. It draws on Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Sufism. Here is an excerpt from that article- Crushed summary of the following article- The heart is an organ of spiritual perception . Emoting is not the same of true feeling. When one is engaged in emoting, they are in a form of spiritual sleep. The Way of the Heart, by Cynthia Bourgeault From the Christian esoteric tradition, a path beyond the mind Post authorBy Cynthia Bourgeault Post dateJanuary 31, 2017 Photograph by Brandon Zierer From the Christian esoteric tradition, a path beyond the mind Put the mind in the heart…. Put the mind in the heart…. Stand before the Lord with the mind in the heart.” From page after page in the Philokalia, that hallowed collection of spiritual writings from the Christian East, this same refrain emerges. It is striking in both its insistence and its specificity. Whatever that exalted level of spiritual attainment is conceived to be—whether you call it “salvation,” “enlightenment,” “contemplation,” or “divine union”—this is the inner configuration in which it is found. This and no other. It leaves one wondering what these old spiritual masters actually knew and—if it’s even remotely as precise and anatomically grounded as it sounds—why this knowledge has not factored more prominently in contemporary typologies of consciousness. Part of the problem as this ancient teaching falls on contemporary ears is that we will inevitably be hearing it through a modern filter that does not serve it well. In our own times the word “heart” has come to be associated primarily with the emotions (as opposed to the mental operations of the mind), and so the instruction will be inevitably heard as “get out of your mind and into your emotions”—which is, alas, pretty close to 180 degrees from what the instruction is actually saying. Yes, it is certainly true that the heart’s native language is affectivity—perception through deep feelingness. But it may come as a shock to contemporary seekers to learn that the things we nowadays identify with the feeling life—passion, drama, intensity, compelling emotion—are qualities that in the ancient anatomical treatises were associated not with the heart but with the liver! They are signs of agitation and turbidity (an excess of bile!) rather than authentic feelingness. In fact, they are traditionally seen as the roadblocks to the authentic feeling life, the saboteurs that steal its energy and distort its true nature. And so before we can even begin to unlock the wisdom of these ancient texts, we need to gently set aside our contemporary fascination with emotivity as the royal road to spiritual authenticity and return to the classic understanding from which these teachings emerge, which features the heart in a far more spacious and luminous role. According to the great wisdom traditions of the West (Christian, Jewish, Islamic), the heart is first and foremost an organ of spiritual perception. Its primary function is to look beyond the obvious, the boundaried surface of things, and see into a deeper reality, emerging from some unknown profundity, which plays lightly upon the surface of this life without being caught there: a world where meaning, insight, and clarity come together in a whole different way. Saint Paul talked about this other kind of perceptivity with the term “faith” (“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”), but the word “faith” is itself often misunderstood by the linear mind. What it really designates is not a leaping into the dark (as so often misconstrued) but a subtle seeing in the dark, a kind of spiritual night vision that allows one to see with inner certainty that the elusive golden thread glimpsed from within actually does lead somewhere. Perhaps the most comprehensive definition of this wider spiritual perceptivity is from Kabir Helminski, a modern Sufi master. I realize that I quote it in nearly every book I have written, but I do so because it is so fundamental to the wisdom tradition that I have come to know as the authentic heart of Christianity. Here it is yet again: We have subtle subconscious faculties we are not using. Beyond the limited analytic intellect is a vast realm of mind that includes psychic and extrasensory abilities; intuition; wisdom; a sense of unity; aesthetic, qualitative and creative faculties; and image-forming and symbolic capacities. Though these faculties are many, we give them a single name with some justification for they are working best when they are in concert. They comprise a mind, moreover, in spontaneous connection to the cosmic mind. This total mind we call “heart.”1 The purification of Muhammad’s heart by three Divine messengers. Bal’ami. Early fourteenth century “The heart,” Helminski continues, is the antenna that receives the emanations of subtler levels of existence. The human heart has its proper field of function beyond the limits of the superficial, reactive ego-self. Awakening the heart, or the spiritualized mind, is an unlimited process of making the mind more sensitive, focused, energized, subtle, and refined, of joining it to its cosmic milieu, the infinity of love.2 Now it may concern some of you that you’re hearing Islamic teaching here, not Christian. And it may well be true that this understanding of the heart as “spiritualized mind”— “the organ prepared by God for contemplation”3—has been brought to its subtlest and most comprehensive articulation in the great Islamic Sufi masters. As early as the tenth century, Al-Hakîm al Tirmidhî’s masterful Treatise on the Heart laid the foundations for an elaborate Sufi understanding of the heart as a tripartite physical, emotional, and spiritual organ.4 On this foundation would gradually rise an expansive repertory of spiritual practices supporting this increasingly “sensitive, focused, energized, subtle, and refined” heart attunement. But it’s right there in Christianity as well. Aside from the incomparable Orthodox teachings on Prayer of the Heart collected in the Philokalia, it’s completely scriptural. Simply open your Bible to the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:8) and read the words straight from Jesus himself: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

I took part in a year long online group reading of Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson in 2017. Being that it was a small group, it became an atmosphere where we sometimes shared our inner world along with our self observations. It was all saved to Google Drive. The following is what I shared at the end of chapter 43. Thoughts on empathy and compassion in relation to Spiral Dynamics. I’m not claiming what I wrote was spot on. I’m sharing it as just food for thought. Anyone feel free to give an opinion or question me. DS - More on not expressing negative emotions. I mentioned in one post about the ‘payment’ I felt when achieving this aim in a time of stress. It feels like resolving a disparity in a small puzzle piece of my shadow. On the other side is specific kinds situations in which I continually fail. When I become more than just dismayed and disgusted at my inability to stay awake, a big shift can take place if it causes me to see and feel my own nothingness. The nothingness of my personality/ego self. Regarding The Tales being overweight in Patriarchy, misogyny, and other biases against the feminine. I've been pondering on the second tier of Spiral Dynamics as being Gurdjieffs intended territory of destination for his persistent readers. The first level encountered in the second tier is yellow. It has a multiperspectival approach to learning and gathering information and living in general. The yellow individual is more interested in understanding accurately someone's view than they are in labeling it. This multi-perspectival kind of awareness is key. It turns every offensive or seemingly ignorant perspective into a curiosity or a mystery to figure out or understand why it is that people perceive the way they do. But this requires the kind of impartiality that Gurdjieff is talking about. Enduring an injustice,,,, or being emotionally abused and tormented by someone for months or maybe years. Being ridiculed,,,,ostracized ,,,, and mocked. These situations grow us in terms of 'being', faster than anything. That is, if one isn't traumatized beyond recoverability. But at the same time, the amount of intensity needs to be enough for one to be pushed into a kind of state that one has never experienced before. This experience reveals more of what being 'identified' is about. This is a part of second tier awareness. That's where green and yellow differ in terms of emotional suffering in connection with wanting to be a protector and an advocate of compassion for all apparently disadvantaged beings. From outward appearances green looks more 'spiritual' than yellow. That's because yellow has more impartiality that can be interpreted by some as cold and detached. People in yellow are not as apt to experience the feeling of pity toward others because they realize it perpetuates unnecessary suffering and is an attitude declaring the Divine to be inept. In the second tier it seems pity is completely replaced by empathy.

I think this link might be a good resource for this thread. http://www.consciousdynamicsllc.com/home/levels_of_consciousness.html See how the description of your enneatype lines up with the descriptions given.,,,,

I Consider this article to be quite relevant to the subject. http://www.lawsofwisdom.com/course-overview/opening-statement/the-problem-of-the-subtle-sybil-effect/

Practice for inhabiting the body with I am and cultivating 3 Centered awareness These are some instructions I got from a Fourth way Course about 4 years ago.Doing this correctly over time helps one to distinguish the difference between sensing and feeling. Become aware of the natural flow of your breathing for a few breaths, noting the sensation or presence of the physical body as the air comes in and goes out. Relax the body as you breathe out. Let a feeling of gratitude or wonder arise. Relax into a feeling of gratitude or wonder for life or for whatever you may feel gratitude for. Do this for a few more breathes. For the next few breaths, say inwardly “I”, as you inhale, breathing with the intention of taking in finer energies or substances in the air and feeling a connection to Higher help. When you breathe out say inwardly “AM”, with an awareness of your whole body physical presence. The exercise itself is a form of self-remembering — returning from “all these other things” back to myself. Its aim is to practice three-centered awareness — observing (seeing), sensing, feeling. Engaging all three centers and having a sense of whole body awareness is essential. Activating gratitude, wonder, our being, or our own inner poverty and need for higher help — all are good catalysts for self-remembering. The inner exercise should only take a minute or two (or less) once familiar with the steps. After you get used to doing it, start feeling from the heart with the in breath and saying I And then sensing the body with the exhale while saying am, silent or inwardly. I recommend the book Silence by Robert Sardello for those who take this up as a practice or for anyone who has tasted any true appreciation for solitude and silence. This is a book which will take one deeper into that territory. Some relevant quotes from the Ridhwan school glossary- Grounding Awareness in Bodily Experience is Important Inner support implies that we need to be in touch with our experience. Inquiry is not a mental exercise, disconnected from ordinary reality. We have to be rooted in our everyday personal experience and in touch with our own thoughts, feelings, body, and behavior. Inquiry does not require us to leave our body or try to reach unusual transcended heights of perception—and we will not feel our inner support by doing so. Instead, we need to become more concrete, more down to earth, by delving into our own everyday experience. It is the embodied soul that is the entry to all the treasures of Being. When you are inquiring, it is important to keep sensing your body—to stay in direct touch with its movements and sensations. This includes the numbness, the dullness, or the tensions you may feel. To ground your awareness in your bodily experience is important because your essential qualities are going to arise in the same place where you experience your feelings, emotions, and reactions. They are not going to appear above your head, they are going to arise within you. So your body is actually your entry into the mystery. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 294 Our Heart Produces One Feeling – Love- and From that, All Its Derivatives We can say that the basic feeling of the soul is love. This means that all other feelings, all other emotions of the heart, are derivatives of this basic feeling of love. They are reverberations of love, reflections of love, and sometimes distortions of love. They are reflections on reflections on reflections on reflections of love. So our heart produces one feeling—love—and from that, all its derivatives. That is why, if we want to remain connected with the energy of love, we need to allow ourselves to experience all of our emotions, whatever the feelings are that arise in us. We cannot experience love without experiencing our other feelings as well. And because all of those feelings are derivatives of love, if we close ourselves to those feelings we will close ourselves to love. Love Unveiled, pg. 55 Mixing Our Consciousness with Our Experience The nature of the soul is such that when a feeling arises, we can experience that feeling from within the feeling itself. We can intimately mix our consciousness with the specifics of our experience and recognize directly what the experience is. This is the ground of knowingness, which is direct knowing, and it is necessary in the process of understanding. Without this kind of knowingness, this gnosis, there is no possibility of real understanding; understanding remains only a mental operation, which is good for mathematics but is not enough for spiritual transformation. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 333 Feeling Free from the Conceptualizing Mind But what is feeling free from the conceptualizing mind? If we suspend our conceptualizing minds for a moment, we realize that the only thing we know for sure about our inner experience is that sensations arise. If, for a moment, we do not use the mind and do not say this sensation is anger or hurt or fear, if we just forget about these names for a while, we will have the chance to see what “annihilate mind in heart” means. To see what heart without mind is, we need to be willing to let go of our sense of being an entity. When we do that and simply look at our feelings, what we actually experience is nothing but sensations. The conceptualizing mind singles out certain intense sensations and labels them as various emotions. This is the ordinary way our experience happens, and there is nothing wrong with it. This is how human beings have always operated, what we have always known. However, if we want to meet the guest, if we want to leave the realm of the day and have a glimpse of the true night, we need to go beyond this normal experience of things. We need to see the mental quality of what we call our feelings and emotions, and allow ourselves to suspend the conceptualizing mind that distinguishes and labels them. Diamond Heart Book Five, pg. 161

Don't Worry About It by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen When you tell yourself, “don’t worry about it,” here is why that’s the right thing to say. When you worry, you’re not dealing with what is. You’re not even accepting whatever it is. Even if the thing you’re worried about does happen, the worry has gotten you nowhere. Even if you're in the middle of it right now, the worry leads not to progress, but to distress. Worry, of course, is a form of fear. When you’re tied into fear, you don’t make progress. And progress is what you really want. And it comes from accepting what is, allowing that whatever it is, it’s a part of your life right now. So instead of being afraid of it and trying to avoid it or pretend it isn’t there, you look at it honestly. Now you can look within yourself and find the helpful ways to move forward. You’re not moving forward because of worry. You are now moving forward due to trusting that the answers are within you.

@seeking_brilliance I can’t think of anything right off. It’s something I’ve picked up in bits and pieces over the last few years. I’ll see if anything comes to mind in the next day or so. I do have a practice concerning this written down somewhere. It’s quite intense. I’ll see if I can find it. Doing a bing search a few minutes ago I found this article. I haven’t read all of it but it looks pretty decent. https://www.jgbennett.org/distinction-sensing-feeling/

Wow! I woke up about an hour ago . Thinking it was predawn morning I made and ate a nice breakfast and did the check-in journal. I now realize it’s evening. Lol,,,?‍♂️ Im going to look now for a little book I have in which a student of the Gurdjieff work in Europe has ovelayed the enneagram personality types onto the Astrological wheel. In my life I’ve seen a lot of Libras who were enneatype 1’s sometimes 9, Cancers who were type 4, and Sagittarius who were enneatype 8. If anyone would care to. Leave your astrological sign with your enneatype here as a kind of survey, please do. Zigzag Idiot - Virgo and enneatype 6 of the counterphobic kind.

1.What where you doing before the thread was opened? Anything important? Eating breakfast and talking with a friend who dropped by right after I woke up. 2. How did you get to where you are now? I haven’t been anywhere. Just walked to the kitchen and back to the bedroom. 3. Do you really know if you were doing anything before opening this thread? Yes. What is stated above. 4. If applicable, what did you block out to focus on the check in? The opinion the I should be sensing the body rather than feeling. (My mr. know it all self,,,,,) Also thoughts about my friend and his drunk girlfriend who stopped in unannounced. 5. What is now, compared to before? As it stands, two elements conceptually created within the timeless but done so on the relative plane in time. 6. Who am I? All and everything and nothing as well as a bipetal, gaseous vertebrate. 5. Is this a dream? Possibly when put in a frame of reference beyond the scope that I’m aware of. ----------------------------- Further questions presented by @Preety_India 8. Am I more focused now than before? Definitely 9. On a scale of 1 to 10, (10 being the strongest) what is my focus level today or now? 6,,,,,? 10. Can I let go everything in this moment? How does it feel when I let go? At this moment it would be a possibility but actuality in all honesty, no. 11. Am I aware of my body and mind and spirit? Are they all aligned to my inner sense of purpose and direction in life? Yes, somewhat, but not in an optimal way. Are they all aligned to my inner sense of purpose and direction in life? Only marginally, at the moment.

No Sir. I’m not THAT much of a theologian. ? Just got it in a Bing search of a half remembered Bible verse. ?

I enjoy their good harmony.

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Answer for Buddhists ?? Answer for Christians: ?? New International Version Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. New Living Translation Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom. English Standard Version Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Berean Study Bible Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, for in Sheol, where you are going, there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom. King James Bible Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. New King James Version Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. New American Standard Bible Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity, planning, knowledge, or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.

@seeking_brilliance Good idea! @Gesundheit You missed the subtlety of my point. If you read it that is. If that’s the case, excuse me. I liked your witticism on the other thread though.

Bump. Hey, @seeking_brilliance, excuse me for bumping into you this morning. ?

@Roy The human condition being what I is, I think your question is spot on. Even though @Carl-Richard makes some seemingly valid points, the way he framed your question with his answer implies a non recognition of the prevalence of spiritual sleep of which I include myself to be as susceptible as anyone. Sensing the physicality of the body anytime of the day helps the embodiment of awareness if it is carried out deliberately and not mechanically. The feet, because of the pressure of our weight and the numerous nerve endings make an easy target for one’s awareness and attention to get out of the head and become more wholly present. The use of observing any kind of negative emotions or reactivity can also be a very useful “alarm clock”. Observing it in others is easier but to stand in the middle of oneself and name and hopefully call it down is where the big payoffs occur. This exercise is difficult to do but it’s just plain bad ass! For instance, notice here on the forum when other’s response to questions are more about looking big and important and just pissing all over someone, instead of a friendly, helpful form of skillful means. A tongue in cheek quote from Ocke de Boer comes to mind.” If you could float above the earth and become aware of all the negativity that’s going on, you would never laugh again.”

There’s a lot of transrational in transcending. “In this he says the ego blames rather than take responsibility, thrives on conflict, clings to the past, fears the future, likes excuses, tends to go into denial rather than admit, it’s impatient and doesn’t want to wait. Waiting when your uncomfortable is difficult.” yep, true that.

To me, one of the most beneficial experiences from psychedelic trips are what’s gotten rid of. Specifically, personality or ego structures that you might say become ruptured. The familiar comfortable way in which we have always framed the world cannot be fixed as before. My first nn dmt trip was fairly traumatic and uncomfortable but that played a crucial role in “killing” a part of me that would not have died otherwise. An analogous situation - A Friend of mine once said of a former girlfriend, “ she broke my heart and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Before that relationship, he was fairly cocky and a bit arrogant. After she “broke his heart’” he became quite a bit more gentle with people. He gained enormously in having empathy towards others.

I never really have but I’m glad you expressed that. I always viewed the numbers as arbitrary but having value in the order they are and being relative to one another loosely There’s been a lot of people who have totally dismissed him because of the scale. I like that he goes really deep into issues but is still often light hearted. It was about 15 years ago that I just lived and breathed his books for a couple of years. Reading them made me feel high but in hindsight, I was still in a bit of Zen devil phase then.

.The level or degree of ones being is always fluctuating. On some days, I’m as dumb as a claw hammer. Just ask Marc Schinkel. He could probably verify this somewhat. We’re two natured beings. Having a planetary body and also an energy or astral body. It is said that Feelings are the blood of the astral body I like the description that when we are thinking dominated, we radiate from the head and when our centers are balanced, we emanate from the heart center. I’ve made peace with being especially dense from time to time on certain days. Years ago this caused me a lot of insecurity and further confusion. Through understanding, I was able to let most of that just go. Maybe it was the other way around? I let it go and then achieved some understanding. I don’t know. Understanding comes about through beginners mind and maybe vice versa.,,,? When the emotional center is purified and we are free from guilt and also don’t overthink everything, we perceive accurately with our feelings. Feelings become intuition and eventually become clairvoyance. The energetic (astral) body as well as our planetary bodies have signature vibrations. Almaas describes us as fields of impressionability. For me, this aligns with Conscience being defined as the intelligence of the universe Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. Most everyone knows where that line came from,,, When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is just too full to talk about. Sounds like non-duality.

Beautiful looking country! That’s a BIG river,, Looks like a good one for a canoe maybe. Yes, I’ve slept outdoors a fair amount. I recommend getting a sleeping bag rated for about 20 degrees cooler if not more, than what you’ll be sleeping out in. Usually I’ll get acclimated to the cold air after about 24 hrs. out in it. I like to dress in several light layers that can be easily taken off and on while hiking. Taking care not to break into a big sweat if possible and also to put on fresh dry socks 4-5 times a day.

@tsuki Are there any streams with trout in your area? I’ll take wintertime camping over summer camping anytime. I love the smell of breakfast cooked over a campfire. Even better is trout wrapped with tinfoil with butter, lemon, and onions thrown in and baked in coals with a side dish of some greasy, salty, fried potatoes . Also a fan of moonlight walks in forest and pastures with no additional light. Both solitude and being in nature are major elements in my life which I wouldn’t want to live without.

It's Not Time that Does the Healing by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen Time does not heal. The healing process heals. Your willingness to do a little learning starts the process. It’s a process of releasing you from your past (things you’ve done, things that have happened, and things done to you) so you can be free of that stuff now and in your future. It’s a process of acquiring new choices and moving forward. It’s about reaching up and reaching within to your better self. Sometimes you have to shed untrue, hurtful beliefs and attitudes that have caused pain for yourself and others. Sometimes you need to learn to alter your behaviors so you can show that better self to the world. Sometimes you need to be guided to face and let go of old emotions that no longer serve you and your relationships. And sometimes you need to develop the sense of purpose and meaning in your life. All of it is walking a path that brings you more peace, more fulfillment, and makes you more alive.