STUDY GROUP--The Book of Not Knowing--

[seeking_brilliance]

@Zigzag Idiot yes it's such a balance to strike!  Perhaps it comes down to the symbols of the words, whereas conclusion is made in the cultural matrix and direct experience is like saying the same thing but non - matrixed. Of course any time we relay the direct experience it then gets communicated back through the cultural patterns of speaking. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

((Reading music, or you can listen to it before reading to settle the mind))

 

 

Embracing Paradox
Chapter Five: 47-53

5:47
The tools presented in this book are not to force any type of conclusion upon the reader, the author just hopes we will use them to actively engage in questioning all aspects of experience.

 

5:48
Authentic is the first and last of the principles. It is both a major part of the questioning process and also the end result. It's what honesty, groundedness, openness and questioning leads to.

 

5:49-53
The four principles are necessary for an experience of real-being. But also, paradoxically, they are also necessary abilities to grasp or to use the principles of each one. In other words, I guess, they lead (fold back in)to themselves.

We are now equipped with the only thing needed to go out and question everything about our experience, in search of an authentic experience.
 

Edited September 14, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

 

 

Creating a Conceptual World
Chapter Six: 1-10

 

6:1-3
Play is an inherent nature for many mammals. We observe it in cats, dogs, squirrels, monkeys, rabbits, etc. 

For human children, it is also inherent to create imaginative worlds in which to play. But make-believe is not merely playing, its like an autonomous life-training for the ability to conceptualize.

 "Just like kittens becoming cats, what are adult humans good at? Conceptualizing!"

 

6:4-5
Along with play, the imaginations of children allow them to soak up cultural knowledge like a sponge. This time in their life is when they learn many of the things that will haunt them into adulthood- like that "knowledge, talent, and possessions are evident of a "deserving" person…."

 

6:6
These lessons are internalized and then present themselves in the play. They invent roles to fulfill these cultural life lessons, such as playing doctor, mommy, store clerk, etc.

6:7
This carries into adulthood, except we forget we are make-believing. Its true that most of what we "know" is make-believe, but we've been doing it for so long - (in fact childhood precedes our memory of it) -- that we no longer recognize it as such.

 

6:8
Simple acts like dinner time are not inherent truths of reality, but merely cultural phenomenon, something passed down through the ages. (although its definitely starting to break down if you notice). So lets just say "eating dinner". Its not an inherent truth. We have been told when to eat (three times a day is most popular) so we think that between 5 and 7 we should eat dinner. Its all made up!

 

6:9-10
Its good to root out many other make-believe that we take for inherent truth, such as: 'I am thinking', 'emotions are what we say they are', 'disease can be cured', 'animals have emotions', 'my self is unique and meaningful', etc. It's important not to take this information as conceptual evidence, but to continue to explore this and have continuous experiences and insights into how much of our reality is make believe.

 

 

 

 

[seeking_brilliance]

(I was really hoping readers would at least post their exercises on here for study and comparison)

Exercises:

What do I believe? Well I guess I could jump straight to the root of it and I believe that there's an I to believe in something.  It is held as true because for what is supposed to be 35 years I have identified as a person who grows up, experiences many things good and bad, and navigates Earth in a body.  So another belief is that I'm in this body, controlling it.  (that's not to say that I now think I literally AM the body and nothing else, I Just believe or assume that I am currently inside it, giving it commands.) This gets reinforced constantly, for example when I woke up this morning with stomach cramps and had to rush to the toilet.  Pain is a steady reminder.

 

What's true about family?  Gosh this is a loaded question. Half of my family has been estranged for 15 plus years, because they are Christians and my homosexual lifestyle made me feel alienated. Much of that has broken down lately, although I still can't talk about it to my dad or both surviving grandmas. Fortunately, I do have the family experience with my mom and my husband's family.

 

  So what do I actually believe about family? I definitely think we should be there for one another. I think that there are family bonds that can survive even the worst scandal (thankfully) I think that sometimes family has too many unfair expectations. I'm ok with the fact that these are all beliefs.

 

What do I think about my country?
Wow another loaded question… I live in USA.  I feel that USA is a young country, but has been on an accelerated growth spurt. It's definitely experiencing major growing pains right now, in fact. It elected Donald Trump, completely flubbed the whole corona-virus debacle, and now currently the west coast is ablaze.  We went to many wars, some of which I think may have been completely unnecessary.  However, it did play a major part in defeating the Nazi regime. Again, I'm willing to admit these are merely beliefs.

[seeking_brilliance]

((Reading music, or you can listen to it before reading to settle the mind))

 

What Is a Concept?
Chapter Six:14-19

 

6:14-15
A concept is anything fabricated in the mind. It is unreal, objectively, which means there is nothing substantial existing. It has no mass, location, and occupies no space.  "It exists solely within our mental perceptions or imagination. That's not to say it makes it any less powerful, just less objective.  I only refers to something; and is never the thing itself.

 

6:16-17
Concepts permeate nearly all of experience. They can be found in--"memory, beliefs, ideas, notions, dreams, imagination, thoughts, fantasies, visualizations, assumptions", and etc. Anything we perceive is also stored as a concept for later reflection, or in other words: memory.  Memory is simply reperceiving events. However, concepts can be so deceiving that they not only mimic reality, but helps to create reality as well.

6:18
When we look at something, for example a tree, we imagine that we are perceiving the tree when we are actually interpreting or "knowing" it is a tree. There's an object there, but as soon as we interpret it as a tree, it has become lost in conceptualization. The concepts form a mental overlay on top of the actual image of the object.

6:19
Likewise, much of what we experience of ourselves is merely conceptual rather than actual experience. (I assume this happens with growing self-awareness as a child to adult)

[seeking_brilliance]

 

 

Concepts Dominate Our Perceptions
Chapter Six: 20-27

---- There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.-- William Shakespeare
 

6:20
Perception should be glimpsed prior to concept. The author is not suggesting that we live without concepts, but we should understand the difference, and therefore the relationship between the two.

6:21
Pure perception should be incomprehensible… that's the point. Without concept, we don't "know" what we are perceiving. "Fundamentally, a perception is simply a sensory encounter" with the occurrence, and is void of association or emotional charge.

 

6:22
The two major conceptual filters are "interpretation" and "meaning".  Perception itself has no meaning, but our concepts adopt meaning to anything we perceive.  All perceptions are then related back to how it relates to ourselves.

 

6:23-24
The concepts are associations to past experiences and beliefs about the object. As a child, we saw things for the first time, and then adopted beliefs about them. Now we are to see them again, without the beliefs. It is a practical and many times necessary means for survival, but it also hinders pure perception and our connection to what is.

6:25
This same conceptual labeling process works the same way in relation to our thoughts, emotions, and sensations. They are associated with past experiences and beliefs, and reinforces though a feedback loop.

 

6:26
These conceptual labels become synonymous with our experience.  We see that the tree is spooky, or the lamp is too bright, etc. These are of course labels and beliefs, but they happen so seamless and undetectable, that it is way too easy to take those as reality, instead of ideas or concepts.

 

6:27
Same with concepts of life and who we are.  We are not simply experiencing life, but also simultaneously imagining it (things about it). It doesn't seem like imagination, so we don't know the difference between what's being added and what's really there.

[Zigzag Idiot]

3 hours ago, seeking_brilliance said:

Pure perception should be incomprehensible… that's the point.

I like that! ?

It serves as a description of the state aimed at in Centering Prayer most often referred to as objectless awareness or nonconceptual awareness.

 

3 hours ago, seeking_brilliance said:

 

6:22
The two major conceptual filters are "interpretation" and "meaning".  Perception itself has no meaning, but our concepts adopt meaning to anything we perceive.  All perceptions are then related back to how it relates to ourselves.

 

6:23-24
The concepts are associations to past experiences and beliefs about the object. As a child, we saw things for the first time, and then adopted beliefs about them. Now we are to see them again, without the beliefs. It is a practical and many times necessary means for survival, but it also hinders pure perception and our connection to what is.

6:25
This same conceptual labeling process works the same way in relation to our thoughts, emotions, and sensations. They are associated with past experiences and beliefs, and reinforces though a feedback loop.

 

6:26
These conceptual labels become synonymous with our experience.  We see that the tree is spooky, or the lamp is too bright, etc. These are of course labels and beliefs, but they happen so seamless and undetectable, that it is way too easy to take those as reality, instead of ideas or concepts.

 

 

IME This is what Gurdjieff was pointing to in Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson with the term 'Kundabuffer'. If we don't have a solid grounding in the body, Kundalini runs wild into our imagination which keeps people stuck in their head and emotions. It's power is so great and yet subtle, at the same time that our imaginings mix with our ego structures in the above mentioned feedback loop to form a custom reality from our own personal history. 

I might propose that taking note of one's own internal dialogue in general, could be viewed as strong circumstantial evidence that one is polluted by their own ego structures. Just the very fact of nonstop thinking in general or as some say, "monkey mind" points to that foreign installation that Oscar Ichazo referred to as the "word mechanism". The mind's role in Three Centered Awareness is simply to provide space or as Echart Tolle might say, spaciousness. A still, quiet mind has the quality of spaciousness. True thinking is a slow deliberate function. Much slower than the speed of emotions, which most often is what gets us all in trouble. Emotional reactivity,,,

As the theory goes one's enneatype is simply a polluted form of one of the nine Holy Ideas. The ultimate meaning of the Enneagram. The following is a piece of Ichazo's description of point nine where he uses the phrase "word mechanism".    Holy Love which when appears in polluted form, the personality is described as being possessed by sloth.

According to Ichazo, Divine Love is “The awareness that though the laws which govern reality are objective, they are not cold, because these cosmic laws inevitably lead to the creation of organic life, and Life itself, like all natural phenomena, fulfills a cosmic purpose. As soon as the mind’s word mechanism is destroyed, love, the natural condition of the mind, appears. Love begins the moment man contemplates the Creation and says, ‘Thank you, God.’ All men feel this somewhat, no animal can feel this at all. Man alone can know that all comes from God.”

Excuse me if I've gone off on an inspired tangent,,,, Seems relevant though. 

[seeking_brilliance]

23 hours ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

On 22/09/2020 at 9:13 AM, seeking_brilliance said:

 

Excuse me if I've gone off on an inspired tangent,,,, Seems relevant

No I enjoy your contribution! I may not always have something to respond with, but it's a nice new perspective. If I just kept talking to myself on here it would just be a closed feedback loop... 

Again I do wish readers would post their own results for the exercises if they have the book... 

[seeking_brilliance]

 

There's More to Perception than Meets the Eye
Chapter Six: 28-34

6:28
To boil it all down: all of our perceptions are only understood through concepts. Seeing an object does nothing for us, unless we recognize it as something useful or separate. (Otherwise, it might just be the background. ) Every perception, the multitudes of them a day, comes packaged with an automatic association with a multitude of concepts.

6:29-30
Exercise: I am looking at a poster of the titanic on the wall. I believe it to be flat, but coming off the walls a bit in the corners, to be somewhat colorful, and depicting an image of something that has much value and heartfelt emotion for the giant ship.  It's so iconic, its become woven into our language, such as when you hear "oh he's sinking like the titanic…"  The feelings which arise are those of curiosity, wonder, tragedy…. I feel bad for all the money that went into it, the time and effort of fine carpenters and craftsmen, the people who just wanted to take a luxurious ride to the new world. All the lifes lost and a black hole of fear. I don't look at this poster often, but I do see it in good favor since I care deeply about the tragic event.

6:31-32
Exercise: I sat back and looked at my laptop. The screen was distracting so I turned it off.  As I looked it over, I began asking myself, "what is this?" "what is this thing?"  And answers would pop up, like laptop, keys, screen, mouse, etc. Each time an answer popped up, I asked again, "what is this?", letting go the previous answer. At once, the words "I don't know" arose, and even though that felt kind of forced, I got where I am going with this exercise. I'll continue to practice this throughout the week. By the way it sounds exactly like self inquiry…

6:33-34
All of this conceptual influence can be applied directly to one's sense of self. It's all happening within the perimeters of concept-- "thought's, feelings, beliefs, images, memories, assumptions, and programming."  None of these will ever represent the experience of our real being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

 

 

The Solidification of Concepts
Chapter Six: 35-40

 

6:35
Through experiences and survival, we take certain truths, like the bus will run over you if you don't step aside, as a higher form of truth than something imagined, like being able to fly away from the bus. Likewise, many of the deceitful concepts which we take for truth are also mistaken for this higher realm of truth and reality.  Thus concept becomes reality.

6:36
Examples include: believing that sex before marriage is a sin against god, or that being homosexual won't let you go to heaven. Or that there is a heaven. Or a patriarchal God who punishes those who defy Him. Or that there is no God. Etc…

6:37
The same can be applied to our sense of self. This is why depression is SO tricky-- the depressed person believes the concept of being depressed, lonely, worthless, in pain, etc. They believe it so much it is an integral part of their reality and experience. The people outside of him do not see or experience this. They think he should get over it, or just act better.  They don't believe he is worthless or in pain. (of course their judgements of the depressed person's actions and appearance will help to form their own respective realities.)

6:38
For example, if you have no legs, you can't run. You will be confined to a wheelchair. Nothing you can think about it will change the fact that you have no legs and can't run. However, when the concepts of worthless, stupid, not good enough, etc, are taken as true as having no legs, it does become very true in the reality and experience of the one with no legs.  One must take this path of learning to distinguish between assumptions and beliefs and what's really there.

6:39-40
You can shift your self-concept, and therefore your perspective of yourself, but its imperative to have a good foundation to start. The web of concepts and lies runs so deep, and you run the risk of just shifting your self-concept to be built onto another  false concept.  Yes, we must abide by the assumptions and beliefs of culture to survive and navigate, but to believe them all and subject yourself to suffering because of them is foolish. No concepts will ever define you, so stop hurting from them.

[seeking_brilliance]

 

 

Challenging Conceptual Dominance
Chapter Six: 41-48 (first part)

 

6:41
In order to see what's unseen, we must more clearly recognize what's really there.  Many people live their lives in assumption that their perceptions are a true reflection of reality, and not even considering that experiences  in this frame of mind are 100% subjective. To counter-act this, we must "fully perceive and acknowledge the dominating influence that concepts have on our moment-to-moment experience."

6:42
No I can not stop my thinking, even the background noise that continues to play even if I shut of "audibe" dialogue.

6:43-44
This inability to cease thinking is a perfect reflection of the "power and dominance of concepts". We have an inherent drive to conceptualize.

6:45
Culture instills in us this idea that thoughts and emotions are two separate experiences, when they are in fact two byproducts of mental activity.

6:46-47
Just as we can't control the rise of emotions, we cannot control the rise of thoughts. However thought fans the flames of emotion, such as pouting for more sympathy when we are upset,  or in the old adage: misery loves company.

6:48
But what we don't realize is that the "basic nature of all emotions is conceptual." The emotion 'rises' as a result of mental stimulus, which is conceptual to begin with.

[seeking_brilliance]

(Second part)

6:49
According to the author, one would be able to check in(side) at any moment and find a feeling/emotion, whether or not it is screaming loud. It should be there.

 

6:50
Exercise: (going to type while checking in): As I listen to my reading music, I love that its pretty and also calming. It kind of annoyed me that my dog walked in and distracted me for like two seconds, but luckily she's gone now. I get kind of bored when I sit with my eyes closed and am trying to feel into how I feel. Then I get annoyed at the thoughts which arise that I'd rather be doing something else.  Then I get annoyed that I'm subject to that nasty cycle.  There was a pain in my wrist from resting on the laptop and it was enough to annoy me, so I moved.  Wow I get annoyed a lot, and that annoys me!!!

 

6:51
Exercise: well, I'm actually quite versed in apathy, so I figured this exercise should be quite easy.  I kind of practice this thing randomly throughout life, but not enough.  I can kind of turn off feelings for things that bother me, if I really concentrate, but while listening to the music it was very hard to turn neutral to how pretty it sounds.

 

6:52
Basically, this is as difficult as it is to suspend thoughts, and that's because both are closely related and both are conceptual in nature. The goal of this book is to recognize and break free of all conceptualizations, including those subtle emotions and feelings and thoughts which dominate our experience by the second.

[seeking_brilliance]

 

Being Yourself
Chapter Seven: 1-5

 

-------He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false. --Baruch Spinoza------

7:1
Its easy to become swept up in some kind of spiritual attainment, and forget that one extremely important thing is to be yourself. No matter what that is, just be it. It is the foundation of spiritual work. The friction caused by not being yourself  brings spiritual bounty to a grinding halt. We must stop pretending that we are something we are not.

 

7:2
You can smell a phony person a mile away. They go to great lengths to act in a way that is not as convincing as they might think, and often they are only trying to convince themselves anyway.  When we meet these type of people, the "distinction between the "real" person and what they'd have us believe"-- is made.

 

7:3
This may cause irritation to arise in the observer, as we wish they would stop the pretenses and be their "real" self.  Yet they must think that their observers want them to act a certain way, otherwise why put themselves through all the work of upholding the pretenses? (for some reason this makes me think of the double slit experiment.) 

 

7:4
This is easier to see in others than in ourselves. We also find ourselves guilty of this adopting pretenses, being something we are not.  Like mannerisms to indicate a way we'd like to be seen. (I have much experience with that, being a gay male business owner in a town with very mixed politics.)

7:5
The observation of someone acting in this false way, is coupled with the sense of what the real person would be like underneath.  This is true simply because otherwise there would be no observation that they are acting falsely. Likewise with our own selves, in order to eliminate something unreal existing within us, we must first "recognize what is real and what is not."

"Discovering what's real is dependent on recognizing what's false.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

 

The Real and the False
Chapter Seven: 6-10

7:6

Attributes of Real:  authentic, free of pretense, factual and not merely appearance or thought.

Attributes of False: mistaken ideas, inauthentic, temporarily built, resembles but does not accurately depict.

7:7
One must look to themselves and find what's real and false. If anything inauthentic is found, or is temporarily built, then you must call it false, "or at least not call it your 'self.' '' If it is illusory or created to represent yourself but is not actually yourself, then it is false.

7:8
If you were to only practice one thing in life, then stripping away all false pretenses of yourself could be the most effective and transformative.  One should always consider the inquiry: "what could I be pretending or affecting that has gone unnoticed."  Then watch, everything.  Just watch.  Watch your presentation, communication, thoughts, feelings, and desires. Watch as you autocorrect. Observe your life transforming under this simple yet unmatched power of awareness upon your own falsities.

7:9
Falsities arise whether on purpose or not.  Sometimes we put on falsities, (so easy from childhood playing) and sometimes they arise unawares. We must root them all out.  Many of these will be parading around as truths. But just because we feel a certain way, are used to being a certain way, are used to doing certain things, doesn't make them true. We must be alert and observe it all. The practice is two-fold. While practicing intentional authenticity in all moments of life, we must also root out all that is inauthentic.

7:10
A real self can not be inauthentic. If it had a name, it would be GENUINE.   Free of thoughts, concepts, images, beliefs, etc. etc.

[Zigzag Idiot]

3 hours ago, seeking_brilliance said:

But just because we feel a certain way, are used to being a certain way, are used to doing certain things, doesn't make them true. We must be alert and observe it all. The practice is two-fold. While practicing intentional authenticity in all moments of life, we must also root out all that is inauthentic.

What's being described here to me sounds like the phenomena of being identified. It's something we all do and do it everyday to some extent. Much of it already in place from our childhood conditioning, education and cultural expectations.

In the Fourth Way there are different divisions between the authentic and inauthentic depending on lineage. Most of the differences are just "in the semantics" as is said and confusion from others talking past one another because their usage of the their common words slightly differ. Some say division between authentic and inauthentic is simply between personality (being false) and synonymous with egoic and essence being what's real about individuals.

Some schools add more distinction and make the divide  between personality and false personality. When the false personality is seen and worked through and shadows integrated, the True Self or Pearl beyond Price is attained in which our expressions are from aspects of Essence. This doesn't happen overnight and usually requires years of work and Inquiry. Essence almost synonymous with being and presence but rather as aspects, flavors, finer distinctions of Being.

Anytime I catch myself hooked, trigggered, reactive, it usually means I'm in a state of identification and usually while being in that state, do not want to admit it. But as the saying goes, it's better to eat crow while it's fresh,,, if possible.

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Zigzag Idiot
Finished off third paragraph.

[seeking_brilliance]

@Zigzag Idiot thank you, awesome reply ?

[seeking_brilliance]

 

 

Masks and Hats
Chapter Seven: 11-20

7:11
Within society, we are not only encouraged, we are forced-- to adopt a persona that is best pleasing and serves the society. (Which is funny, and not surprising, because as we learned earlier, persona literally IS society. So this is some kind of self-feeding loop.) To be accepted and approved-of is a driving goal in all of us-- even those that act directly against it in rebellion-- is this perhaps because the persona is seeking communion with itself? Which is funny to say because it makes it sound as if "persona" is a real, alive being. When its really just a byproduct of Society itself. Society lives through Persona(s). And society is a concept itself. (I took alot of liberties in this paragraph, interpreting in my own words what is being said. Perhaps someone will get a different takeaway.) 

7:12-13
During a growing and expansion phase, (which ironically can be during a time of great pain) we adopt and 'try on for size' many different attitudes, expressions, mannerisms, moods, etc. ---and kind of experiment with these, testing them out in various situations we may encounter. But over time, we become accustomed to the ones which stick.  We get so accustomed to these behaviors until we begin to believe they are part of our nature. The author here calls these our many "masks and hats."

7:14
We try on so many hats and masks over the course of the first 30 years or so, that we get good at taking one on and putting on another, sometimes without even noticing. For example, I carry a different persona at work than I do at home. Sometimes so different, I'd be embarrassed if the two worlds ever met. The same goes with how I act alone compared to how I act with my husband. There's a blending of that, because lately I just don't care anymore, but I still completely let go when alone. Its an amazing feeling to do so. 

7:15-16
Main takeaway: " "Doing" something is not the same as "being" something."

7:17-19
Since we are not taught to build a clear distinction between all the mask and hats we put on, and the underling being, our conceptual self dominates our lives, thoughts and feelings.  It's a full time job to maintain this "adopted-self", and every person becomes confused and identified with it. Frustrations which arise from this identification put us in a bit of an imagined hell.

7:20
We must learn the distinctions between what is conceptual and what is real about ourselves, so that we can learn to work with our conceptual selves more consciously. Anything conceptual about ourselves can change.

[Zigzag Idiot]

I could view my astrological type and my enneatype as my mask and hat perhaps. I like the distinction made in the Fourth Way of false personality, personality and Essence. Personality here is synonymous with True Self combined with Essence. Ive become used to the Ridhwan school's notion of personality =ego and that through purifying, integration and shadow work there's a personal Essence that emerges along with other aspects of Essence of which there are many. I just ran across a good excerpt from A. H. Almaas's Pearl Beyond Price which sums it up more efficiently than I could paraphrase it.-

Absorption of all Essential Aspects into the Personal Essence

So the capacity to be without this ego sense of self eliminates selectivity in one’s personal experience of essential qualities, opening the consciousness to an unlimited range of qualities. The absence of inner selectivity due to cessation of the feeling of self, coupled with the openness to expansion due to disidentincation from ego inadequacy, allows a new possibility of realization. It makes it possible to complete the process of personalization of Essence, which is the absorption of all essential aspects into the Personal Essence, or the synthesis of all aspects into a personal presence. The essential aspects now constitute the very substance of the Personal Essence. One not only feels one is a full personal presence, but that this very same presence includes the presence of Love, Joy, Strength, Compassion, Merging, Peace, Intelligence, Will, Consciousness, etc. Aspects are simultaneously personalized, with their capacities and functions integrated. This is a condition of  completeness, of an amazing degree of integration. One is full and firm, strong and soft, sweet and warm, and so on. One is a complete person. This does not mean that one’s personal presence from now on is always this complete state. It indicates that one is able to be present in this expanded state of Being. The Personal Essence is an organic and fluid presence; there is no rigidity in it at all. All its states, through the whole process of its realization and development, are available to it now, manifesting according to the situation. Practically, this realization allows the capacity to be personal in any of the essential aspects, or any combination of them, depending on the demands of the situation. The complete state of the Personal Essence brings a perception of one’s presence as preciousness, beauty and regality. It is no wonder that the Personal Essence is called in some stories, the Princess Precious Pearl. 

Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 391

A part of this process also is balancing and embodiment of the instinctive, emotional, and Intellectual centers. Excuse me for another copy and paste which elaborates about the three centers-

Contribution of the Heart Center in the Process of Understanding

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. I am not implying that space is always in the head, the pearl in the heart, and the essential self in the belly. Centers lose their importance after a while in terms of locations of essential aspects. What I mean is that when space is functioning as allowing, it activates the head center; when the pearl is functioning as involvement, it is usually in the heart center; and when the essential self is functioning as disidentification, it is usually in the belly, in the Hara center.

 

In my own work, the embodiment of the Essential Self in the belly Center has been the most striking so far in my discovery because for so long I had been completely ungrounded and stuck completely in the upper two centers. Mostly stuck in my head. In the egoic mind. This isn't to say that later I won't make a leap in further integration of the heart center or the head center.So far, this has all been an unfolding development involving, among other things, a dissolving of ego structures that I would label as conceptual in that they're internalized images of self representations.

The Essential qualities I would then equate as the more real part. In the past couple of years how I've worded it has changed especially after a talk Cynthia Bourgeault gave pointing out that we are not Being but rather we reach a point in which we have our being. This is how it's also worded in ACIM as well as The New Testament.

[seeking_brilliance]

On 08/11/2020 at 8:38 PM, Zigzag Idiot said:

I could view my astrological type and my enneatype as my mask and hat perhaps. I like the distinction made in the Fourth Way of false personality, personality and Essence. Personality here is synonymous with True Self combined with Essence. Ive become used to the Ridhwan school's notion of personality =ego and that through purifying, integration and shadow work there's a personal Essence that emerges along with other aspects of Essence of which there are many. I just ran across a good excerpt from A. H. Almaas's Pearl Beyond Price which sums it up more efficiently than I could paraphrase it.-

I really like those distinctions too. I think I grasp what you're pointing at, at least in essence. ?

 

Edited November 12, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

 

 

Superficial Remedies
Chapter Seven: 21-24

7:21
We are all familiar with the occasional feeling of despair from the idea that our lives are meaningless , or "without true worth."   This feeling is so universal, it has sparked countless attempts to cover it up or to find that meaning, such as "religions, spiritual movements, and other shared belief systems." my 2 cents: if society isn't a direct manifestation of this despair, then it at least has a very close relationship with it.

7:22-24
We must drop all of these social solutions we have adopted, and find the real authentic experience of being. To put it simply.

 

Looking for Self in All the Wrong Places
Chapter Seven: 25-33

7:25
We adopt many of these social solutions (beliefs) as a sort of patch onto our 'incomplete' sense of self. Many of these beliefs are on the conscious level and are relatively easier to become aware of. We also subliminally hold beliefs, probably what people would call core beliefs (turns out I was right ), which stem "from the parameters of our actual "self sense." Going fairly unnoticed or incognito, these beliefs are even more easily mistaken for real aspects of ourselves. 

7:26
As a cultural thing, we all tend to throw out the hats and masks which don't serve us.  At least that's the intention, but the problem comes in knowing which ones those are.

7:27
We will look more closely at beliefs and assumptions to help identify them:

Belief:

1.  Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something.

2.  Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

 

7:28
By definition, belief is conceptual. This means that is always a reflection of truth, not the actual direct experience of it.  A complete mental fabrication.

7:29
It is not about finding the 'right beliefs' but about redirecting our relationship to all beliefs- as concepts and not actual truth.

 

7:30
Assumption:

1.  The act of taking upon oneself.

2.  The act of taking for granted.

3.  Something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof; a supposition.

4.  Presumption; arrogance.

7:31-33
Assumptions are more deeply absorbed into the subconscious as a product of upbringing. These are core beliefs. They re-manifest in our thoughts and feelings. We must use and open mind to root them out.

Edited November 16, 2020 by seeking_brilliance