Zigzag Idiot and the ladder of Objective Reason

[Zigzag Idiot]

Recognizing Presence

When we discern the inner field that is the soul or individual consciousness, we experience it as presence, independent from and more fundamental than all the content of consciousness and all characteristics of subjective experience. When we recognize pure consciousness, then, what we become aware of is the process of consciousness, its existence, its truth. 

The presence—the “hereness,” the “beingness” of consciousness—is not something extra to consciousness; neither is consciousness an extra property of this presence. This is one of the primary discoveries in the inner journey: Presence is always consciousness, and pure consciousness is always presence. 

This is similar to how photons are always light, and light is always photons. It is not that photons have the extra property we call light, or light possesses an extra property we call photons. Light and photons are two names of the same thing, emphasizing two different ways of viewing the same reality. 

When we apprehend consciousness in itself, independently of the function of consciousness of objects, we experience presence. The term field of consciousness is an attempt to describe the presence of the soul. Furthermore, as we recognize that consciousness is fundamentally presence, the knowledge of our depth begins to open up. 

Recognizing presence teaches us a great deal about consciousness, soul, and essence of soul. In this recognition, we can know ourselves in our fundamental mode of existence. We begin to see, perhaps for the first time, that what we are is more fundamental than all the content of our experience. We are more fundamental than our sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, images, symbols, ideas, concepts, and so on. 

We awaken to our essential nature, which is more fundamental and more basic than our body, heart, and mind. We experience the fabric that is necessary for the existence of all that we have taken to be ourselves. We begin to recognize our real self, our soul. 

More precisely, by recognizing presence, we become aware of the fundamental ground of our soul; we discover the inner fabric that holds all of our experience; we are enlightened to what we are beyond time and space. 

-excerpt from The Inner Journey Home, Chapter 3 by A. H. Almaas

[Zigzag Idiot]

We apparently keep throwing away our common sense as we go up the Spiral. I just pictured it in the Shower.. Categorizing this as an imaginative conjecture in case it falls apart. 

This has obvious forms in the orange-green conflicts. Can orange learn SD well enough to see there is a return of common sense with yellow? This could be a huge mover in politics if there were a catalyst for producing this realization more readily in solid orange people. Probably would have little effect Politically with blue.

The conservative blue will think that one who has just transitioned into orange with 10x the vigor towards entrepreneurial pursuits and leveraged financing Etc., will have lost their common sense. I'm thinking those in red will have an attitude towards blue as being 'suckers' or something kind of similar. I think there is very little actual thinking/pondering that takes place with red. It's mostly stimulus responses to everything. Negative and mechanical, self oriented thinking and feeling.

So guess what yellow does from a certain perspective?  ?

Perhaps I can use this in my attempt to expand the Science of Idiotism.  

Leo mentioned in one of his last videos that we shouldn't get to attached to our pet ideas. I took this to heart. If insights and inspiration about the Science of Idiotism dries up, I'll let go of it.

 

Anyone, feel free to pitch in with additions, corrections or comments if the Spirit moves you.

[tsuki]

I associate common sense with unexamined beliefs.

Stages in tier one try to stabilize their sense of reality by constructing increasingly sophisticated (and inclusive) belief systems.
These belief systems are grounded in ignorance (blindness). It manifests as a convenient loss of lucidity when the belief system is challenged.
A person is unable to hear what the challenger says, as if he was speaking a different language. Words are grammatically and semantically coherent, but they do not connect. They are listened to solely for the purpose of formulating a coherent response. Emotions are given in to and they trigger pre-trained defensive thought loops.

• Blue ego is the first one to acknowledge the existence of belief.
  It uses its own belief system as a standard of validity of other belief systems.
• Orange ego recognizes the possibility of questioning its own beliefs.
  It uses consistency as the degree of certainty of a given belief system. Left brain thinking.
• Green ego recognizes that no belief system can ever be fully consistent.
  It believes consistency to be inferior (incomplete) and focuses on right brain thinking.

In this sense, the first tier is driven by the examination of beliefs, a departure from common sense. Of course, common sense is still present because the exploration does not transcend belief, but simply makes it more and more subtle. This is the root cause of inter-stage conflict in my opinion. Because each stage expects other stages to behave according to their own unexamined standard.

Green is a difficult stage because it is a kind of a dead end with respect to beliefs. Everything has been explored, but it needs to be integrated.
Left and right brain seem incompatible because if one tries to use both, the result is a paradox. It seems like no answers can be given this way.
The shift comes from using paradox as a lens to see the truth. Yellow sees it is a pivot of a given perspective. 

Transcending beliefs in tier two comes from recognizing that common sense and introspection are a paradox.
From one point of view, common sense is a basis for communication, but on the other hand - it needs to be examined to find one's individuality. These two ends are a root of conflict in tier one, but in tier two they form acausal loop that is not disturbing for the ego

In tier two, common sense is more about gracefully resolving situations without referencing belief systems.

(I'm tagging you @Joseph Maynor because it seems to be compatible with your work).

Edited March 8, 2019 by tsuki

[Zigzag Idiot]

@tsuki Great addition!

Your view of tier two common sense meshes with The Oracle of the Cosmic Way in which common sense is seen as practicality brought about by including feeling Consciousness with thinking Consciousness in a balanced way to produce beneficial exact answers or solutions to problems on the relative plane.

[Zigzag Idiot]

If you really want to know what the Bible says read, GOD IS DISAPPOINTED IN YOU.

 

Understandably, Adam and Eve were consumed with curiosity about this tree. It was just one of thousands of trees in the garden, but now they found it impossible to resist eating its magical fruit… and having a talking snake constantly goading them into it didn’t help any. So Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the forbidden tree and were immediately endowed with the knowledge of good and evil, which mostly made them uptight about nudity.

When God found out about the missing fruit, he went apeshit. He yelled at them, evicted Adam and Eve from the garden and, as extra punishment, he ordered them to become parents. This move backfired, however, because Adam and Eve simply filled the world with children who murdered each other, worshiped idols and had sex with giants, all of which really pulled God’s beard.

God was so angry that he killed off the entire human race with a giant flood. Well, not the whole human race. He gave one guy named Noah a heads up. Before the flood, Noah built an enormous boat and filled it with every species of animal he could find, which made Noah not only the world’s first sailor, he was its first animal hoarder as well. As soon as he finished packing the boat, the flood began. After forty days and nights of rain and a meat-heavy diet, the water subsided and Noah found land. When God saw the millions of dead bodies littering the ground, he wondered if maybe he’d overreacted.

[Zigzag Idiot]

12 hours ago, tsuki said:

I associate common sense with unexamined beliefs.

Stages in tier one try to stabilize their sense of reality by constructing increasingly sophisticated (and inclusive) belief systems.
These belief systems are grounded in ignorance (blindness). It manifests as a convenient loss of lucidity when the belief system is challenged.
A person is unable to hear what the challenger says, as if he was speaking a different language. Words are grammatically and semantically coherent, but they do not connect. They are listened to solely for the purpose of formulating a coherent response. Emotions are given in to and they trigger pre-trained defensive thought loops.

• Blue ego is the first one to acknowledge the existence of belief.
  It uses its own belief system as a standard of validity of other belief systems.
• Orange ego recognizes the possibility of questioning its own beliefs.
  It uses consistency as the degree of certainty of a given belief system. Left brain thinking.
• Green ego recognizes that no belief system can ever be fully consistent.
  It believes consistency to be inferior (incomplete) and focuses on right brain thinking.

In this sense, the first tier is driven by the examination of beliefs, a departure from common sense. Of course, common sense is still present because the exploration does not transcend belief, but simply makes it more and more subtle. This is the root cause of inter-stage conflict in my opinion. Because each stage expects other stages to behave according to their own unexamined standard.

Green is a difficult stage because it is a kind of a dead end with respect to beliefs. Everything has been explored, but it needs to be integrated.
Left and right brain seem incompatible because if one tries to use both, the result is a paradox. It seems like no answers can be given this way.
The shift comes from using paradox as a lens to see the truth. Yellow sees it is a pivot of a given perspective. 

Transcending beliefs in tier two comes from recognizing that common sense and introspection are a paradox.
From one point of view, common sense is a basis for communication, but on the other hand - it needs to be examined to find one's individuality. These two ends are a root of conflict in tier one, but in tier two they form acausal loop that is not disturbing for the ego

In tier two, common sense is more about gracefully resolving situations without referencing belief systems.

(I'm tagging you @Joseph Maynor because it seems to be compatible with your work).

Rereading this I appreciate your description even more. Except for labeling common sense as a belief. It almost seems like we're talking about 2 different things in regards to teir One commonsense. I was pointing to those who have a natural ability to improvise practical solutions, Like any good car mechanic.

This isn't a judgemental thing with me. It's making a distinction about a part of everyone's nature. Or more accurately, an ability tied to a behavioral quality or perceptual filter. What I'm reffering to is a quality that seems to disappear disproportionately among those who have an extensive higher education.

I agree with your description so much I hesitate to send this. It's just I can't fit what I was reffering to as common sense into what could be called a belief or unexamined belief.

im going to keep pondering about it.

[tsuki]

Yes, indeed we're talking about two different things. I just realized that. What you call common sense I would call practicality.

Indeed, practicality seems to lessen in highly educated people, but I think that it is a byproduct of how we educate them.
During education, we need standardized tests that have correct and incorrect answers to effectively grade students.
Problems that spring organically never have "correct" solutions. All solutions inevitably fail, sooner or later, and we usually implement the most plausible one, so there is no room for comparison. This is never taught in schools because it undermines its whole philosophy.

In real life problems, there is always this sense of uncertainty, shakiness. Theoretically-minded people try to solve this uncertainty by trying to analyse the problem down to its fundamental parts, but there are no fundamental parts. Depending on the theory one uses, the parts are different.
There can also be no theory of which theory to apply, so this open-endedness of organic tasks is irreducible.
It is a sign of being lost in the mind. The mind does not fix problems. It matches patterns. Theories are patterns.

So, is there any point in learning theories? YES! This is the mistake that many practically-minded people make.
Theories are distillation of practice to core principles. We can simulate reality using imagination using these core principles.
The missing ingredient of education seems to be deliberate theory-making and theory deconstruction.
A hand works with a hammer, but the mind works with theories. They are tools.

What practically minded people often miss is the fact that they have their own theories of how things work, but these theories are much less developed than the ones that are taught. Scientists are the the people that craft the tools for the mind to work with. These tools are industrial grade, not just home brewed.

I called common sense belief, because in my epistemology everything the mind works with is a belief.
It is fundamentally grounded in ignorance (blindness). Simple unwillingness to deconstruct it. This is the tier one ego's job.

Edited March 9, 2019 by tsuki

[Zigzag Idiot]

@tsuki Interesting. I immediately have 2 or 3 half formed responses in my mind. Maybe they will form better while I run errands this morning.

[Zigzag Idiot]

I never knew Bill Murray was a reader of Gurdjieff. 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

5 hours ago, tsuki said:

 

What practically minded people often miss is the fact that they have their own theories of how things work, but these theories are much less developed than the ones that are taught. Scientists are the the people that craft the tools for the mind to work with. These tools are industrial grade, not just home brewed.

 

I agree. I see this in myself and others. Roots of what turns into belligerence, perhaps.

5 hours ago, tsuki said:

Problems that spring organically never have "correct" solutions. All solutions inevitably fail, sooner or later, and we usually implement the most plausible one, so there is no room for comparison. This is never taught in schools because it undermines its whole philosophy.

Allow me to be so pompous as to theoretically give a solution to this problem in education that would involve distancing from left brain rationality to include the Chaotic right brain as well as whole body awareness. 

Starting with Carol Anthony's take on commonsense which she makes one word out of.

Commonsense: is a consensus of all the senses. The commonsense comprises the five senses of inner perception and the metaphorical senses. In humans, the commonsense is the "inner judge," which discerns what is in harmony with the person's inner truth (and therefore also in harmony with the Cosmos) and what is not. It's judgement is based on the inner senses, and is in the form of feeling. Another function of the commonsense is that of being the Helper of Transformation (This applies only to humans). This function is referred to in the Hexagrams 15, Modesty, 16, Enthusiasm, 17, Following, and 21 Biting Through. As part of our animal nature, the commonsense gets blocked when a person's animal nature has been slandered as "lowly" or as "the source of evil". 

Why education needs to include instructing that we are '3 brained beings' - Zigzag

Almaas:

“For the process of understanding to happen, three elements need to be there at the same time. The element of disidentification is one of them, involvement is another. The third element is the quality of allowing. These elements can be there when there is harmony among the three centers—the belly center, the chest center, and the head center. When there is this harmony, it is possible to experience fully, to allow, and to disidentify. Now, what do I mean by these three elements? Each center contributes to the process of understanding. If the head center is functioning correctly, it means that space or emptiness is allowed. What is the significance of space and emptiness? Space and emptiness make possible the quality of allowing. When there is space in the mind, there is no self-image. You’re not trying to stick to something in particular. You’re not trying to go somewhere. The mind is allowing whatever is there to be there. So the head center’s participation or contribution is space, which is an allowing, a welcoming in a sense—space for things to happen without rejection, without trying to hold on. You become complete allowing. The heart center’s contribution has to do with its central quality, which is the personal essence. The contribution of the personal essence is the diving movement, the actual living of the experience. You not only allow it, you’re in the midst of it, you’re one with it. You’re really it, you let it happen, you feel it fully, you sense it fully, you experience it fully, right? That’s the contribution of the heart center. The belly center has its contribution, which is represented by the self, the essential self. The contribution of the essential self is the disidentification, the turning away. When you are truly functioning in the belly, you are completely present, and being completely present, you are being yourself. So you are not identified with the usual activity of trying to get somewhere else.”

 

Diamond Heart Book Three, pg. 73

 

Almaas:

“Distinguishing Physical Sensation from Essential Substance

The capacity to sense oneself must become so refined that the individual can discriminate between physical sensation and the sensation of essential substance. It is not enough that the mind be quiet. It is also necessary for the body to be sensitive. The mind can be quiet while the body is deadened. The body has to be awakened so that the center of sensing, the belly center, can be activated. The belly center, or what Gurdjieff called the physical center, is the center of sensing for all parts of the body. Its deepest function is the subtle sensing, the sensing of essential presence, that the Sufis call the organ for touch. Touch is, in a sense, the most intimate of the physical senses. The skin must be directly against an object to touch it. There is no intermediary medium, like sound for hearing or light for seeing. So this subtle capacity is a very intimate one. Accurately speaking, it is sensing essence by being essence. It is the most direct way of perception. This capacity of touch, connected with the belly center, is very intimately connected with the embodiment of essence. It is the body center; its mode of perception is embodiment. Here, perception as touch, and being, are the same act. So this capacity is the most important one.”

Essence with the Elixir of Enlightenment, pg. 130

 

“Functioning of the Essential Self in the Belly Center

Yes, usually the belly center has to do with embodiment, with the capacity to sense oneself. However, the belly center is also the will center. In a sense, the ultimate function of the will is to surrender to what happens, surrender to the now. And surrender to the now means not to hold on to something. The true function of the will is complete surrender to what’s happening without holding on. That is will. The essential self, like all essential aspects, can function in any of the subtle centers. When one is being the essential self its location is usually the heart center. However, when the essential self is functioning in relation to identifying or disidentifying from any content of experience, it becomes associated with the belly center. The essential self is more like a potential for experience, and it also manifests as a capacity for identification. One of the results of that capacity for identification is embodiment. Embodying something means you are identified with what’s happening. An essential state is present. You are embodying it if you are it. The true self has the capacity to identify with something you are experiencing, but it doesn’t have to. It has a choice; it has the freedom.”

Diamond Heart Book Three, pg. 79

 

I guess my notions about commonsense have turned into an argument for education and Culture itself as being too left brained and doesn't include much in the way of whole body awareness or including the heart in the process of perceiving and understanding. This might be relating back to your mention of the paradox of commonsense and introspection. I may have gone off on a tangent but this is my version of fun,,,, Given also that my blindspot is still mostly intact, there is probably some form of me not seeing the forest for the all the trees,,,,

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

                                                    States and Stages

Never trust a state of consciousness, Ken Wilbur said. They frequently change. Whereas stages are more stable. Both include degrees of being. In the post just above I pasted quotes relevant to what underlies 3 centered awareness. Modern nondual mystic and Christian Contemplative Cynthia Bourgeault is teaching this in workshops and retreats. She's one of the first women ordained as an Episcopal Priest has a phd and has been in the Gurdjieff Work for about 30 years. She teaches this notion of 3 centered awareness that comes from Gurdjieff. Her retreats and wisdom schools are usually booked up months in advance. I mention this to show I'm not making this up as a rogue student of Gurdjieff's ideas. To articulate these ideas without notes helps me learn and apply it and understand it better.

About 3 Centered Awareness Gurdjieff simply said; "everything more vivid" 

In my own Inquiry I've noticed an amnesia of sorts that exists when one goes from high state of consciousness to a low state of consciousness. The low can't see the higher but the higher CAN see the lower. Why it doesn't have more of an impact when in a high state of consciousness is that when we're in that state - nothing is wrong in a sense. We don't feel the inner angst that disrupts our thoughts as it does when we fall off into a low state. Simply not inhabiting the body is a recipe for a low state of consciousness. Gurdjieff referred to it as Itoklanoz awareness.

3 centered awareness.        - Fulasnitamnian Awareness -- impartial or balanced awareness

1 or 2 Centered Awareness - Itoklanoz Awareness -- deficient emptiness often felt

Maurice Nicoll says this also about people in different stages of Being of Consciousness. Those who are lower in Being can't see/understand those who are higher in Being. The higher can see the lower though. This can be observed and realized by about everyone because the human psyche is so varied, just about anyone can observe someone who is lower in Consciousness/being and over time in hindsight see times of expansion ones own awareness.

Its not that everything is wonderful in Fulasnitamnian Awareness but one becomes more impartial and balanced.

We can all see how fragile our states are when we do Inquiry together over time. To some extent, everyone goes up and down and when it becomes more extreme, we lose our continuity of being. To reach the level of continuity is very doable. It just takes sincere Inquiry over time. Meditation does help this process. I'm not ambitious enough to have opinions on all of Leo's practices but I do intend to take on more of them in the future.

Don't take my word. Do Inquiry and Observe for yourself. Honestly observe the negativity when it shows up and don't fall into self criticism. Don't feel guilty for a thought that just shows up. It's not you. Let go and don't identify.

Notice how Inner quiet brings relief.after a spell of neurotic anxiety or temporary depression.

[Zigzag Idiot]

                                                                   The mean old sky God

Getting rid of the last traces of the old sky God can take some time, like Inquiry or integration. I'm referring to the angry God of the Old Testament that got introduced into a lot our minds in childhood. I want to look at it as an element of superego. Just by associations in the mind an old picture of God with an emotional element tied to it can last a lifetime if not observed and processed. I see these traces in mental images that cause a subtle sense of guilt/fear/contraction in the body when images are in the mind

This statement would probably offend most fundamentalists but I doubt there are any around close.

 Two major elements comprising our spiritual sleep:

Imagination 

Negativity

Leo's 3 part series on self deception and Mankind is a Bullshiting Animal come to mind and suggests this assessment of spiritual sleep is not far from Leo's.

Two unflattering characteristics shared by everyone in different degrees that take a monumental effort to transform. It's not sex that makes the world "go around". It's the feeding on negativity and negative emotions.This is declared by those in the Fourth Way and I have begun to observe overtime how these two issues constitute the majority of work to be done on oneself. We don't see our own mechanicalness but others do. We all have a psychological blindspot.

We shouldn't normally feel anxious or depressed or experience unearned guilt. Holding grudges and having grievances with others perpetuates negative feedback loops. When we feel hurt it's easy to react in a mechanical way and perpetuate a cycle of negativity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Castenada said look for your hands in the dream state to bring one into a lucid dream. Looking at the hands again verifies and amps up lucidity. A few years ago I followed the path of the Dreamer. I was amazed at how much a dream joural can help. It has to be right beside the bed where you can reach it half asleep first thing in the morning. It was like actually putting the pen and paper in place, along with the intention to do this immediately triggered more dreams. A metaphoric realization I had in hindsight was that movement of the body acts like an eraser that starts erasing dreams the minute we get out of bed. Each different time I kept a dream journal, my entries would consistently grow longer. When I would quit writing them down, the dreaming would lessen.

Ive had three lucid dreams years ago. So At least I've had the experience. They were the realist mystical experiences that I've ever had. I felt more aware THERE than here. But then they also had a quality similar to an LSD trip. The paradoxical nature of it.

I've only done LSD a handful of times. I've had 11/2  bad trips. It's an experience of something that seems worse than hell that will make you love your enemies. Impartiality will grow faster from this than anything, eventually, after recovering. 

Supposedly there are two paths in white sorcery. The dreamer and the stalker. I abandoned the path of the dreamer and focused on being a stalker. A stalker does the same thing that self observers do in practicing Inquiry. Ones own weaknesses and mechanical behaviors are stalked. They're elusive to our own seeing. It requires the ability for one to create their own strategies suitable for the particularities of ones life. Making the work ones own in a healthy sense. Stalking was seen as more of a necessity for me than dreaming. 

Portraying Gurdjieff as a boy in the 70's movie Meetings with remarkable men.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

The Goldilocks just right solution reminded me of the law of three

 

Law of three

Law of three basics 

Active force - Paasive force - neutralizing force 

Finding the appropriate neutralizing force between active and passive forces brings about a new arising or solution.  The neutralizing force is something determined to be just right, like the Goldielocks solution.

 

Webpage about law of three -  https://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/philo_lawof3.htm

[Zigzag Idiot]

Brad Warner, contemporary Zen Master makes some good points. I feel a more accurate title would have been Spiritual Awakening is Bullshit, but it's not but it is.

I read most of his books a few years ago and became inspired to learn and start practicing Zazen which eventually led me to a consistent meditation practice. Although quite scholarly, he's very real and down to earth and not caught in the trappings of Zen Buddhism. He doesn't "stink of Zen" as the old expression goes.

[Zigzag Idiot]

I thought of this a few days ago. If you understand why there seems to be a high rate of suicide among squirrels who live near the road then you understand why in part its a little more difficult for a mercurial (thyroid) essence types to do Inquiry than other types. All that energy which is hard to contain is a part of the price they pay for their natural superior perceptive abilities, perhaps.

http://destinyclemens.com/Destinyclemens/Gallery_1/Pages/Mercury.html

im a Solar Saturn/mars type. Mars and Mercury energy often clash with one another.

[Zigzag Idiot]

The body I have now was born in 1967. The body of my previous life died around 18 years before somewhere in or close to the U.K. I have no way of explaining how I know this.

 

 

[Wisebaxter]

9 hours ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

The body I have now was born in 1967. The body of my previous life died around 18 years before somewhere in or close to the U.K. I have no way of explaining how I know this

Do you have any more information at all, about your previous life? Or is is just like am intuitive feeling? Do you have images? Words or anything flash up?

[Zigzag Idiot]

I wouldn't have said that if wasn't something that's been with me all through life. There hasn't been a major revelation but hundreds of small ones over the years. 

I could easily be wrong and it's not that important to me. Just something to express my openness towards reincarnation. As a kid I couldn't stand to watch movies or anything that was set in that time period. that time period (1890 -1950). 

Im British at heart in a way. Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Elo, Clapton ,,,, great! Not so much for The Rolling Stones. Love Monty Python, Faulty Towers and others. This doesn't really say anything though. A few years ago on an elevator at a Casino on the Mississippi River for some reason, 3 women assumed I was from The U.K. for some reason. They actually said that I looked British!

Anyway, that's the short story on that. 

Hope things are going ok with your boundary melting medicine. Sounds like it was but this is at least 3 hours later. 

Enjoy your trip,,,,

[Zigzag Idiot]

Watched this last night. Yellow SD level very connected to Systems thinking.

 

Learn to hang out in objectless awareness, she says. CB mentions letting objectless awareness be the default home for our witnessing presence. 6 minutes.

 

Laura Knight-Jadczyk touches on a disturbing element for those who wake up. 5:40 minutes