Anderz

Then what about fear of death? Surely that kind of fear will remain? Only when we treat death as an event which means as a thought, a concept, an idea, a separate object. Even the firm belief in inevitable physical death is such separate object. So I suspect that even spiritual teachers who claim that physical death is inevitable have fear subconsciously still remaining in them. I believe that the true transpersonal stage transcends even physical death as an experience. Such claim is today seen as completely unbelievable but I think of the whole of our reality and society changing as it collectively moves into the transpersonal stage. It will literally be "a new heaven and a new earth" and the "old order of things" will have fallen away; our fallen world will have fallen.

The fluid ego removes fear! Notice that even animals at the prepersonal stage have fear in the form of the biological fight-or-flight response. And we humans have the same kind of fear plus the fear caused by our thinking. The Bible says that perfect love casts out fear. And Leo said that the devil is the ego. I think that's a brilliant observation. The ego is the belief in separation which is what the devil is. The devil is the belief in separation, a principle, not some being running around underground keeping sulfur burning. And our society is a "fallen" world precisely because it runs on the devil principle. And I find it useful to recognize society as a separate object, just as the personal ego is a separate object. And objects have no will of their own so there is no need to fear anything, people, society or nature. The crystallized ego has fear because it experiences itself as a separate object and outside people, events and power structures as separate things. And when society remains fallen, remains run by the devil principle (the Bible says that the devil is the prince of this world) then fear and conflicts continue. Even animals in nature are governed by the devil principle, but not always. For example J. Krishnamurti was practicing hatha yoga in nature when a wild chimpanzee came up to him and took Krishnamurti's hand in her hand. The usual wild chimp behavior would have been of fear or aggression!

Another thing that makes lack of free will appear as being a victim or mechanical is the belief that cause and effect is from the past to the future. Almost ironically that makes society mechanical while at the same time clinging to the belief in free will. Even mainstream scientists that propose that there is no free will still experience themselves as having free will when they are at the personal stage of development. I'm still at the personal stage of development but after looking into how reality works it seems plausible to me that cause and effect is a systemic property of reality, meaning the cause of something is the result of all past and future as a single whole. This explains things such as emergent properties, inspiration and creativity. It's not just a mechanical process of cause and effect from past to future, it's a creative evolutionary process that can make leaps into higher orders of complexity.

At the personal stage of development there needs to be the belief in free will. Otherwise the separate person becomes a victim. The transpersonal stage removes the sense of being a victim by the fluid ego being the whole movement of life, the Tao. Society is collectively still at the personal stage and that is reflected in how society functions today with things like personal responsibility, self control, moral obligations, guilt, shame, anger, blame, judgement, legal systems, politics etc. It's all based on the belief that free will is actual and real. And at the personal stage abandoning free will appears to result in being a victim but as Leo explains in this video there is a huge difference between being a victim and having no free will. The mistake made at the personal stage is a pre-trans fallacy. Instead of recognizing the transpersonal flow of life the person at the personal stage believes that lack of free will means becoming a mechanical robot, or like simple lifeforms which are at the prepersonal stage of development. Interestingly I found that even Ken Wilber uses the broad categories of prepersonal, personal and transpersonal stages. Of course within for example the personal stage Ken Wilber has lots of subcategories similar to how Leo described the 9 stages of ego development.

Hmm... The idea of pleasure as a tool for development might be testable. Suffering is a powerful tool for development but it's an unconscious tool, necessary at the lower stages of development. Higher development means more harmony, or else it's a dysfunctional and imbalanced development. So for example, if I feel pleasure getting a million dollars at the cost of other people suffering, then that's hardly development except of the unconscious kind. Pleasure and harmony together that's tricky but that's precisely the kind of immense and holistic intelligence indicative of higher stages of development. So it might be possible to achieve conscious development through pleasure as long as it's in harmony with totality.

Value can also be dependent on the situation. One idea I got is that suffering is more valuable as a tool for development than pleasure. I think that's true but what if that's only valid at a certain stage of development?! What I'm thinking about is that at first suffering is more valuable than pleasure for growth and development and then when reaching a certain level the roles switch and pleasure becomes the most powerful tool for growth and development! Just my speculation but I wanted to post about it in case there is truth to it.

Value is also a second order construct. And the reason for why for instance a block of gold is valued more than say a dog pile is because the tensions in our body and mind! So in a sense the block of gold is actually more valuable since everybody basically has the same evaluation system. But imagine if it was Donald Trump's dog who had crapped on the White House lawn. Then that dog pile would be worth probably more than the block of gold, for as we all know, if someone is more important than God it's Trump. You can't trump Trump. Imagine making a cryogenic preservation of Trump's dog's poop, and then a thousand years from now that piece of sh*t will be worth more than the entire Andromeda galaxy. Just kidding, but it's easy to see how the value of something can change depending on its relations to other things. From the nondual perspective everything is equally valuable. And that's something I find useful as a spiritual practice; to give everything the same value just to make one's rigid value system more flexible and fluid.

But surely there is a difference between an iPhone and the same iPhone broken down into a heap of dust. So how to explain that if order and disorder are the same from a nondual perspective? One way to explain it is that the iPhone is a second order form of order compared to the raw materials that it's made of. And that's how society functions, it builds second order out of first order materials. The same with money which is a second order construct. So there is a difference, and that's why effort is needed to produce for us useful things. From the nondual perspective it's however the same kind of order and also, there are no separate objects. Everything is an ordered web of relationships. And the effort needed to produce second order is ultimately a trick of seeming separation. One prediction therefore is that as society evolves there will be less effort needed when the separation at the personal stage starts to become more integrated into life as a wholeness.

I had heard the term deconstructionalism before but hadn't looked into it. And maybe that was probably good, haha, because it's really complicated to read Derrida's writings about it. Leo made the seemingly complicated very clear. My interpretation is that deconstructionalism says that all words form an entangled web without any foundation. So for example, the word "iPhone" has meaning in relation to all other words in the total web of words. This means that the word iPhone isn't only a definite thing, a label. It's also an evolving interconnected web of relationships. But how to use deconstructionalism is practice? Leo mentioned that Derrida's work can be taken one step further and then it leads to: nonduality! Not only words can be deconstructed, but the whole of reality can. And I came to think of a very practical application of deconstruction, namely money. The first observation is that society is a "separate" thing struggling against nature and disorder. From a nonduality and fully deconstructive perspective that's a false duality. And money is a part of society, both as the word "money" and also as actual money. But what is actual money? The truth is that money connects with everything else. And since society is a false duality and money being a huge part of it, money exist in us not only as thoughts but also as tensions in the body. What we think of as "my money" isn't as separate as one might first believe. Our personal money is a part of the immense struggle of our entire society against perceived disorder. So we literally hold money as a part of society's struggle in us as tensions. This makes the theoretical knowledge about deconstruction useful and it can be used for improving one's practice of dissolving tensions within oneself by deconstructing money. To make it simpler, tensions in the body can be recognized as being connected to our thoughts about money. Here the ultimate deconstruction is that order and disorder are the same nondual reality. In short, the struggle we have with money is fake! And this makes "the love of money is the root of all evil" clearly explained. Love of money is simply us (as a part of society) clinging onto money as if it was separate from for example a pile of dirt. It isn't! What appears as disorder and mess is as ordered as money is.

What I call the crystallized ego is the usual way we think. It's crystallized in the way our minds thinks. For example the word "iPhone" is crystallized in the sense that it's a label and we overlook that fact and take our thoughts as if they are more solid than they actually are. In the nine stages of ego development there may be fluid intelligence in all of them but what I call the fluid ego is only at the ninth stage which transcends the separate self into unity, a transpersonal stage. All the first 8 stages I lump together and call the personal stage where we have a crystallized ego. To really go deep into a theoretical explanation for how to move from the crystallized perspective into the nondual perspective, Leo has this video: It is said that there can be nondual experiences at all stages of development. And I make a distinction between a nondual state at the personal level where there still is the crystallized ego and the transpersonal stage where there is the nondual state and also a fluid ego.

Confusion is caused by the belief in separation. And the belief in separation is itself confusion. So the whole world on an official level is still in a totally deluded state. I will reduce my participation on the internet for a while. Because basically the whole internet is still trapped in the false belief in separation, a belief that reality can be divided up into one part (oneself) that has to struggle against the rest of the universe.

Here I found another interesting video where Teal Swan mentioned a scientific study showing that we can enjoy pain when it prevents an even worse pain. She also said that the mind connects pain with certainty. And I came to think of how the mind hates confusion! I will ponder this a bit. There might be a connection between pain and confusion.

Frustrating! I tried to find more information about body awareness and opening of the heart. What I found was almost entirely what I consider personal stage level teachings. And forget about conscious confusion, I couldn't find anything about that! In my opinion that too is a sign of the personal stage of development. Everybody is running away from confusion like crazy, haha. I did find this one video which I found useful where Teal Swan said that trying to bring balance, that's actually a form of control which itself is imbalance. Something like that. Good point.

I find it useful to have a theoretical understanding of reality but to reach the transpersonal stage is to go beyond thinking, not only temporary but as an actual new stage. The theoretical knowledge is useful as a guiding tool for the mind. When it comes to going beyond thinking then my main approach is inner body awareness practice. I have posted this video several times before but I wanted to remind myself of intensifying my inner body awareness practice and I will also combine it with observing confusion in my mind and proactively allow the confusion to come up with full force. My theoretical understanding is that confusion is the fuel for the thinking mind at the personal stage of development and by targeting the very source of thinking the crystallized ego can easier dissolve. And I will also include sensing my heart which is disconnected in the personal stage and needs to be integrated (awakened) to enter the transpersonal stage.

I have misinterpreted the spiritual neti neti method which says "not this not that". I have been thinking that I am Mind and that my body is in consciousness so that I am my body plus everything else I'm experiencing. So I thought that neti neti was only half of the truth, but my mistake was to think in terms of concepts. Even what we call experience is a concept! And therefore we aren't even experiences. From a meta perspective one can say that concepts are included in what we are, but that meta perspective is itself conceptual unless it becomes trans-conceptual. Really tricky. Leo explains the neti neti method in this video:

I'm new to cinematic style music so I used all the sounds from the original track in this remix and only added a few sounds.

I read that Islam is much about the heart. I found this video about the heart in Islam:

I found this video about heart awakening. The presenter said that when our heart becomes numbed we experience people around us and nature as objects. I believe that our hearts are already numbed out from birth! And also, I hesitate to say this, but I have started feeling sensations in the heart area when walking among people. And again it's often nasty vibrations I feel from other people. Somehow my heart needs to become more balanced because that will bring peaceful feelings instead.

Leo mentioned in his latest video that there can be an awakening of the mind and that there can also be an awakening of the heart. Nonduality teacher Roger Castillo said that consciousness can move from the head down into the heart area. Spiritual teacher Nukunu described awakening like having eyes and ears in the heart. And several people have mentioned that the heart chakra is what can unite the lower chakras with the higher chakras. Neuroscientist Candace Pert was shown by a spiritual guru a drawing of the chakras that they compared with an image of the human nervous system, and nerve centers along the spine lined up with the chakras! That made Candace start taking eastern traditions more seriously. I wrote earlier how we can't feel pain in the heart and only feel so-called referred pain. So our heart feelings are blocked! At least pain is block which could indicate that even the other feelings from the heart are also blocked. I have started feeling something in the heart area but it's mostly a nasty feeling which is a bit scary and even fear and dread is felt there. Dr. Bruce Lipton described his awakening as a heart orgasm, not a peaceful one but one that he was down on the floor wriggling. Even Eckhart Tolle described how his spiritual awakening was initiated by increasing fear in his chest area until he passed out! So it seems to be a very powerful kind of energy related to heart awakening.

The coronavirus crisis has pushed people to spend more time on the internet. Does that mean that our personas become stronger and we become even more isolated from each other? At first that may happen, I don't know, but I have started to sense that people are getting better at "seeing through" the words of what people say or write. If that's true then it means that it's getting more and more difficult for people to lie and manipulate, and that will start to melt the personas instead of strengthening them.

I don't know if there is a heaven after death but if there is it's still the SAME reality! It's one reality. Imagine growing old, getting sick and then dying. What a fricken horror, haha. Maybe one shouldn't joke about it, but death seems completely stupid to me. The same with reincarnation, idiocy! Surely, if it's all one and the same reality, then the smartest thing would be to improve our current physical reality. I suspect that the crystallized ego at the personal stage of development goes totally mad, because it clings fervently to its possessions in this life, both material and immaterial such as loved ones and so on. At the same time the ego believes that the body will die and all the possessions lost! So it must be in an insane kind of inner conflict all its life. Can physical reality change? If reality is all mind, then yes, and especially if reality is infinite intelligence then surely something as trivial as a physical human body can be improved greatly. I'm aiming for eternal life in this and other universes, not for some heaven, reincarnation or nonexistence as are the options at the personal stage. Well, there is also the transhuman option with nanotech and biotech to achieve immortality but that's too limited I suspect.

Ken WIlber has described God from different perspectives; first person perspective, second person perspective and third person perspective. The first person perspective is the nondual experience of reality. The second person perspective is of God as the Great Other. And the third person perspective is God as the web of life, the manifested world appearing in consciousness. Interestingly, the transpersonal stage can be seen as the second person perspective. Even at the transpersonal stage there is the unknowing of the future. And thus only God knows the future and can be seen as separate from oneself.

Should we accept reality as it is? Absolutely not! Acceptance is a judgment that the crystallized ego adds onto reality from its own limited perspective. And of course nonacceptance is equally delusional. At the transpersonal stage acceptance is like accepting that 2+2 = 4. That would be ridiculous! That would just be to add a redundant opinion to what is already true. Not only that, without a separate self, who is there to accept or not to accept something?

The crystallized ego is unconsciously working for society as a machine. One common trait is sadism which is useful for society at the personal stage since it forces people to improve by they themselves putting sadistic traps and schemes for one another. The same with revenge. Why would anyone spend time, effort, energy and even money on taking revenge? Sacrificing a lot for someone they despise?! Because it's an unconscious behavior! The crystallized ego gets emotional gratification when carrying out the revenge and that together with the belief that one has restored one's self-image is enough for the crystallized ego to work in favor for society at the personal stage. Revenge acts as a self-regulating mechanism in society. Of course, those are, even though serving an overall constructive function at the personal stage, really unconscious traits and lead to continued conflicts and friction. The solution is for society as a whole to evolve into the transpersonal stage. And a first step is to recognized how primitive and conflict-ridden the instinctual habits at the personal stage such as sadism and revenge are.

Then what to do about the crystallized ego? Leo pointed out how massively difficult it is to even recognize that we have what Maslow called deficiency cognition, meaning the limitations and distortions caused by the crystallized ego. My method is to use conscious confusion. The crystallized ego absolutely hates confusion, and for a good reason. Accumulating fear at least gives the crystallized ego some method for how to function whereas with confusion it can't do anything with that and therefore actively even tries to avoid confusion as much as possible. Conscious confusion is to deliberately pay attention to the confusion in the mind when experiencing something or performing actions. The goal with the conscious confusion practice is to dissolve the crystallized ego and then confusion becomes a valuable tool instead of something that needs to be avoided as in the personal stage.