Anderz

This recent article seems to contradict my claim that we are moving towards more globalization (towards a transpersonal stage) and less national power (the current personal stage): And indeed there is a clear trend at the moment towards a U.S. - China divide. But I think the article underestimates the exponential (accelerating) power of information technology (and even for evolution as a whole). So a divide like that shaping the economy for decades is unlikely I believe. Instead the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and China can be seen as the last Hegelian dialectic process among nations. And the dialectic in this case is the U.S. as the thesis, China as the antithesis and the synthesis will be a global resolution of some kind. I'm following the Chinese tech giant Huawei's conference that started yesterday. Very exciting stuff! Huawei's technology has a huge potential because it integrates all kinds of things in society. However, the U.S. will likely continue to refuse using Huawei technologies so I'm curious about what will happen and how a unified global cooperation can be achieved or if the divide will continue for years to come.

I have now changed my practice from doing nothing as I described earlier to simply being aware of the difference between the personal stage and the transpersonal stage within myself. Every time I have worry or fear, that's the personal stage of development. Even anger, irritation, being annoyed or frustrated, that's also the personal stage. And even desires are the personal stage (see the four noble truths in Buddhism) because desire causes conflict due to being born out of discontent as a separate individual. It's more difficult to identify the transpersonal stage for me since I'm still at the personal stage of development, but I put things like inner peace, harmony with others, flow state and clarity of perception and lessening of conceptual thinking into the transpersonal category.

Oh! Nations are the personal stage of development on a larger scale. I have written about the following Bible quote in other threads but now it became even more obvious to me: The victorious "one" here is not a single person like a dictator or a king which would be the personal stage of development. Instead "the one" is the Body of Christ, humanity in a transpersonal stage. Some Christians say that the Body of Christ means the churchgoers, and that's a form of unity but it's still the personal stage of development. The true Body of Christ is everybody in the transpersonal stage regardless of religious beliefs or lack thereof. And "the one" smashing the nations to pieces means that even the personal structure of nations will be transcended. In practice I think it first will manifest as the world becoming more global and due to accelerating evolution already in say the year 2030 the world will have become significantly more global. And maybe around 2040 the role of the nations will have lessened a lot.

Aaron Abke has this new video with what I think of as a transpersonal perspective of meditation:

Anger management, that's mild and easy stuff compared to: fear management! Imagine living forever in a state of ever increasing pain. Talk about fearful situation. Fortunately fear management is also easy. Because fear is conceptual. Fear is about the future as a concept in the now. The feeling of fear is a direct feeling in the now but what causes the fear is a misperception. Because a concept is harmless and empty in itself. So fear management becomes a recognition of the cause of fear which is the belief that concepts can be harmful. Realizing that concepts are harmless removes the fear. The personal stage however consists of a huge heap of memories based on fear so there's a lot of concepts to process. Fear, then, as experienced as being serious is only possible in the personal stage of development which has conceptual perception. The transpersonal stage has trans-conceptual perception which means that the whole false foundation of fear has collapsed.

For example the very prominent spiritual guru Nisargadatta Maharaj was often angry. Does that mean that he was at the personal stage of development? It's hard to tell! Because it could be that his anger was a necessary teaching tool. Nisargadatta also died of cancer. Isn't the cancer related to the anger? And therefore a sign of him being at the personal stage of development? Maybe, but even that is hard to tell. The Law of One talks about Wanderers who are advanced beings born as humans. And even the Bible talks about the Nephilim, sons (and also daughters I assume) of God who were (and still are) born as humans. So there can people who look like ordinary humans at the personal stage of development but who are advanced beings, angels basically.

Nonduality teacher Roger Castillo and other spiritual teachers have said that anger can arise as a biological reaction even in the enlightened state. Then how can I claim that anger is a sign of the personal stage of development and that the transpersonal stage is free from anger? Because as I discovered and mentioned earlier there is a difference between spiritual enlightenment and the transpersonal stage. As Ken Wilber has pointed out, there can be spiritual enlightenment at different levels of personal development. So when anger arises and a biological reaction, then that's because the person is at the personal stage of development, even when enlightened. At the transpersonal stage anger is only an additional expression, not something fundamental to the stage. So expressions of anger can appear even at the transpersonal stage, not as an instinctual biological reaction since there is harmony but as reactions to particular situations for impersonal reasons.

Something that can be helpful in the doing nothing practice is that the transpersonal stage is free from conflict and is a harmonious state. So the wild thoughts that can come up during meditation, those are of the personal stage. And this realization helps the mind being guided when practicing the technique in everyday life situations. For example getting angry at someone, that's the personal stage of development. The same with fear and other forms of suffering. That's indication of disharmony, friction, conflict which are signs of the personal stage caused by the belief in separation.

Leo said that the mind can run wild during the doing nothing meditation. That's an important point, and it actually shows what the criteria for entering the transpersonal stage is. Because practicing the technique in everyday life means actually moving around the body and performing real actions, even interacting with people. In the meditation technique Leo described the body is kept still in a sitting meditation position. And then it's safe for the mind to run amok and think of all kinds of crazy scenarios. But imagine what would happen if those erratic thoughts were controlling our actions in everyday life. Total chaos! Even very dangerous. So that shows that the personal stage of development has to be developed into a harmonious enough level, even subconsciously, for the practice to safely work in everyday life situations.

How to do the doing nothing practice in ordinary everyday life? And what if doing nothing is the delusional state? What if the spiritual teachers themselves are deluded? I have a simple approach for that. Yes, it may be that the doing nothing technique is delusional. I can't prove it false or true. However, I can test the idea of the transpersonal stage! It's like testing a scientific hypothesis. My personal stage needs to do nothing for the transpersonal stage to emerge. But how to do nothing without doing anything? It sounds confusing. My solution is that I actually do something! Namely I am testing the idea and therefore I am deliberately just observing myself, similar to how Leo described it but in everyday life. Even now as I write this post!

Ha! I just realized that doing nothing is the correct perspective! Because obviously the personal self is only a concept. And a concept can't do anything so the ordinary state of consciousness at the personal stage is actually a delusion. And of course spiritual teachers have pointed this out already, again and again, but there is a difference between knowing it intellectually and actually getting a grasp of that absence of a separate self really is the correct perspective of life. I (the delusional part of me that's the crystallized ego) have to realize that I'm in a delusionary state of consciousness. Simple in theory. What makes it enormously difficult in practice is that essentially the whole world is still in the delusional crystallized ego stage! So virtually everything we experience in society constantly confirms and reinforces the delusional ego state.

I want to log this to remind myself of the doing nothing technique. It's a very useful method when I have worry or feel burdened by dealing with the future. The main problem is that I often forget to do the practice! And then my mind is trapped in the crystallized ego. The way I do the practice is to just allow myself to enter an automatic mode where I don't need to use my thinking. It's basically ordinary mindfulness practice of just observing one's own mind and emotions. The reason for why I often forget about the technique is probably because my mind is still unclear about the difference between suppression of thoughts and transpersonal development. Leo has this video about a doing nothing technique. I use the technique in everyday life instead of as a dedicated meditation practice but I will take a look again at Leo's video about it.

Shouldn't I first develop my personal stage fully before exploring the transpersonal stage? No, I believe that the shift into the transpersonal stage can be done even without being fully developed at the personal stage, such as second tier in Spiral Dynamics or something like that. The reason for why I believe that is that the transpersonal stage is a different kind of cognitive consciousness. And the criteria is I believe that there needs to be enough personal development only in a certain area. Loosely speaking, one needs to first become sick and tired of the personal stage, haha.

I like how Leo questions everything and there may even be truth to his more extreme claims such as in this video. If reality is one whole interconnected mind, then things like those Leo experienced are possible I think.

Confusion is a result of the belief in being a separate self. So when practicing the nondual technique of doing what one feels like in each moment, when there is confusion that's a feeling, but it's a feeling of not knowing what to do. The transpersonal practice then becomes a technique that recognizes the confusion as a feeling and instead of letting the confusion turn into uncertainty in the thinking mind and a whole chain of thoughts about what to do, the confusion is allowed to remain without acting on it. Allowing the confusion is the same as putting a break on the separate self, for it is fueled by confusion. And the confusion will dissolve along with the crystallized ego, just like how a fire ends when there isn't any fuel left to burn.

Hmm... Now it became tricky for me. I really don't feel like doing a dry fast, so if I follow Roger Castillo's advice to do what I feel like, I prefer to stuff myself with food and drinks instead of doing a fast, haha. So my situation suddenly became really confusing. Should I do a fast or not? I will try the approach of start fasting if I feel like it, which seems unlikely to happen, but who knows.

Another insight I got is what nonduality teacher Roger Castillo recommended which is to do whatever we feel like in each moment. This can be put in the context of personal developmental stages! At the personal stage there is the belief in being a separate doer. Roger says that there isn't any separate doer. And that's consistent with the transpersonal stage. And to do whatever we feel like can from the personal perspective easily be interpreted as impulsive and reckless action. That's a pre-trans fallacy. Because conflict is a result of the belief in being a separate entity. And in the transpersonal stage that belief is transcended so to do what one feels like then becomes harmonious action. AND, another very interesting observation is that doing what we feel like doing that is NOT choice, unless there is confusion. When there is confusion the mind starts to think and compare several options, so the direct action is lost, the flow is lost, the feelings are distrusted and we become trapped in the personal stage. And it's necessary at the personal stage to think and compare different choices, because otherwise it's a regression into the impulsive ego stage which is an even lower stage of development. That's the pre-conceptual stage. The trans-conceptual stage is doing what we feel like without confusion and without conflict.

I now got a new insight about how the belief in the absence of choice leading to feeling like a mechanical robot is based on the belief in mechanical cause and effect from past to future. Actual cause and effect is nondual! So reality can produce emergent phenomena and leaps into higher order of complexity than in the past, caused by reality as a whole and not a result from only the past.

J. Krishnamurti said that choice is confusion, but he also said that practical choices out of preference are necessary. I have doubts about that! Because even a choice between having a beer or an apple, which was an example he gave, that's also a choice! Giving up choice might seem like a horrible strategy, but that's because at the personal stage of development there is the belief in being a separate self. Without a separate self choice is recognized as an illusion, since choice depends on a separate chooser. And the fear of becoming an automatic mechanical robot without choice is also dependent on the illusionary separate self. So the transpersonal stage is about another state of consciousness where choice becomes redundant and recognized as an illusion leading to more freedom, not less. There is still a sense of an individual self in the transpersonal stage, but not a separate one. I will experiment with the idea that choice is actually impossible. And I actually believe that, but it's not my practical experience yet.

Cause and effect is usually experienced only from the past to the future at the personal stage of development. But there can't be many causes since reality is one wholeness. So true causality is reality as a whole in a changeless state. Because change is only an appearance. That which is cannot truly be turned into that which is not, so the fundamental reality is changeless. (Actually Brahman is described as changeless and even in the Bible it says: "I the Lord do not change.") A simple example of nondual causality is the number Pi = 3.14159265... and looking at what is the cause of say the fifth decimal. The cause of the value of that decimal is the whole changeless constant Pi itself! So nodual causality is really simple in principle. The actual effects of nondual causality can be very complicated, including emergent phenomena. And the causality is not only from past to future. And since reality is changeless, whether I will actually do the dry fast I mentioned is already determined! Because even randomness is impossible since that would be what is changing into what is not. And definitely actual free will is impossible. So the transpersonal stage involves realized the changeless nature of reality, or there would be the possibility of individual causes, even an individual person being able to change the universe. Nobody can predict the future. As Stephen Wolfram has explained, even very simple processes are often what he calls computationally irreducible. The only way to know the outcome of such process is to have it actually run. And the same with our lives, we need to perform our actions as a part of the manifestation of the universe. So it's impossible, even in theory, to predict for example whether I will actually do the dry fast or not.

I think I will do a 3 day dry fast, from this Friday to Monday. My health is okay but my energy levels and my body need improvement I feel. The physical body is only an appearance in consciousness. The body is Mind one could say. I believe that but at the same time when still at the personal stage of development there is cause and effect on the material level even within nondual causality. And also, fasting is useful as a spiritual practice. A dry fast is fasting without both food and water. Experts say that caution should be used and even with professional medical supervision, but I have done dry fasting before and I find that for me it's actually easier to do than water fasting. When drinking water the body needs to process all that water and it also prevents the body from producing its own water as explained in this video:

Now I found something I disagree with Leo about (maybe). That's good, because I seldom find something that I disagree with Leo about when it comes to fundamentals. He said that impermanence is a feature of the universe. I'm not entirely sure but it seems to me that reality is a block universe, a changeless fixed block of information. And that single block is permanent. The appearance of time is merely that infinite block of information being "displayed" in its finite manifestation in the now. And it's related to the uncertainty of the personal stage! Maybe Leo actually means the same thing, so I will take another look at this video:

Aha! What we tend to do at the personal stage of development is to think a lot of "what if?" thoughts. That's uncertainty taking the shape of thoughts in order to try to resolve the uncertainty. But what is uncertainty? The answer is that uncertainty is a concept! There is no "what if?" other than as a concept in the present moment. And at the personal stage of development the mind gets stuck on the level of making up a lot of "what if?" thoughts. What is, is. There is no what is not other than as a concept which itself exists. Leo has talked a lot about this fact. An interesting practice for transpersonal development is therefore to mindfully question all the "what if?" thoughts in the mind. Who is confused? And about what? What is confusion other than the feeling of uncertainty? And what is uncertainty other than a concept?

Leo recommended in the video about actuality to answer the following four questions in our personal journals: What is a concept? What is a belief? What is imagination? What is actuality? This exercise it more difficult than I first thought. I will start with dictionary definitions. There are more possible dictionary definitions, I took the first that I found. My first observation is that all those definitions are concepts. The term concept is itself a concept! My answer is that all four words, concept, belief, imagination and actuality are concepts. So for me it boils down to answering what is a concept? The dictionary definition I quoted says that a concept is an abstract idea. But hold on a second! Are concepts really abstract? A concept is an appearance in consciousness. And so is an iPhone. And so is my physical body. So a concept is an appearance in consciousness about other appearances in consciousness. Edit: Hmm... It's possible to take this a step further. A belief is a concept about considering something to be the case. Imagination is a concept about something that doesn't exist (or unlikely exists). Actuality is a concept about what exists. But those explanations are somewhat circular I guess, like begging the question. Also, can concepts define themselves? No, because the concepts depend on a context to give them meaning. It results in a self-reference problem. As an example of the problem with using concepts: What is the definition of definition?

I have used several spiritual sources for getting a grasp of what the transpersonal stage is. There are also atheistic explanations possible. I believe that the Wolfram Physics Project has a more correct interpretation of quantum mechanics without the need for randomness or confusion about collapsing states and uncertainty. However there is also this traditional mainstream observation made by physicist Hugh Everett: So even from an ordinary scientific perspective reality can be seen as a single wave function. That's nonduality! And if we think of reality as a single ongoing "collapse" of the universal wave function, then that also explains time. We are the universal wave function in an ongoing collapse that happened now. The single collapse of the universal wave function is perhaps not mainstream science, I haven't looked into it, but that's precisely a representation of the transpersonal stage since there isn't the universal wave function plus a separate ego. There is only the universal wave function.