Transpersonal Journal

[Anderz]

Just to experiment with a crude analogy, In this analogy the letter A represents thoughts, B represents emotions and C represents physical objects. And the screen on which the letters exist represents consciousness.

The screen can exist without the letters A, B and C while those letters cannot exist without the screen. This illustrates how consciousness is more fundamental than what appears as experiences. And also, even though A, B and C are different from each other they are also all appearances on the screen. And similarly, thoughts, emotions and physical objects are all the same "mind stuff" in and of consciousness.

[Anderz]

In this second analogy I have added a letter D to the previous example. The letter D represents the individual self, the crystallized ego. And now it gets interesting because what is D? The answer is that D is an appearance on the screen along with A, B and C.

And this second analogy represents the transpersonal stage. Not only are all experiences recognized as appearances in consciousness, also the separate self, the experiencer, is recognized as being an appearance in consciousness too.

Quote

"The observer is the observed." - J. Krishnamurti

The experiencer itself is an appearance in consciousness. Likewise the observer is an appearance in consciousness, so the observer is the observed.

[Anderz]

In the personal stage emotions are a trick basically. Imagine someone remembering a happy moment and is enjoying the memory and then in the next moment he or she remembers a loved one who died a year ago and great sadness is experienced.

That might seem like a natural and everyday experience of emotions, but looking deeper, the emotional content is exposed as a hoax! Why? Because the mind is playing emotions along with what kind of memory is remembered. One moment there is happiness and the next moment there is sadness, or anger or glee or boredom etc. It's a totally flaky situation! And the emotions only appear to be valid because the mind plays the appropriate kinds of emotions depending on the type of memory or experience.

In the personal stage the is a tremendous exaggeration of the importance of memories due to the heavy emotional content that the mind plays like old tapes. One practice is to observe the emotions that go along with thoughts and also to feel the emotions without connecting them to the thoughts! That causes the emotional content to become severed from the thoughts so that a transmutation can start to happen into transpersonal emotions.

[Anderz]

One simple difference between the personal stage and the transpersonal stage is that in the personal stage there is the experience of a separate self perceiving the world. In the transpersonal stage there is consciousness and the appearances in and of consciousness, and that's all there is to it! I guess Leo describes perception as something similar to the transpersonal stage in this video:

 

[Anderz]

The transpersonal perspective is very different from the personal perspective. And indeed I think that what Leo described in the perception video is exactly the transpersonal perspective.

Just to illustrate how different the transpersonal perspective is from the personal perspective: Sticks and stones can't break my bones, nor can words ever hurt me. Why? Because first of all the "me", that's a concept. Secondly, stones, that's a concept. And of course words are concepts. Even hurt is a concept. A concept can't harm itself or harm another concept.

[Anderz]

As an example, let's say that a woman named Alice was whacked by a stick on the butt in the past. Now that event is a memory in her mind. It's also a mild form of trauma stored as tensions in her body. And the event did actually happen, it's a historical fact. Then how can it be that sticks can't hurt a person in the transpersonal stage?

It's about a shift of perspective. When is Alice's memory of the incident remembered? The answer is that Alice remembers the past event in the present moment. What more to the past event is there other than what exists now? Nothing! The past event is real, yet it's only information in the now. Even when someone for example has a scar from having been stabbed by a knife, all the past is still only information in the now.

And information in the form of appearances in consciousness in the present moment is all there is. Time existing outside of the now is a projection by the mind in the form of concepts. Remembering a past event, that's the mind turning memories into a concept which then is experienced. And thinking about the future is a similar conceptualization where memories are used to come up with future scenarios.

[Anderz]

In the transpersonal stage everything is appearances in consciousness. That's difficult to make sense of at the personal stage. The idea that everything is the same "stuff" seems incomprehensible. For example Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's email server are the same stuff. A memory of an apple is the same as a physical apple being eaten in the present moment, which in turn is the same as a drawing of an apple and is the same as an iPhone.

The perspective of everything being the same thing can get really crazy yet it's still the actual case. My physical body and the Ganges river are the same thing which is the same thing as the emotions I feel at this moment. The holy Bible is the same as the noble Quran which is the same as a porn movie. Isn't that blasphemy? Blasphemy is the same as CNN which is the same as Donald Trump. The Pope is the same as Donald Duck.

[Anderz]

Sameness is a conceptual comparison. The deeper reality is that everything is different. For example A is different from A because those two letters are located at different positions on the screen.

The transpersonal self is different from other selves. But what is the transpersonal self if turning the self into an object (crystallized ego) makes it at the personal stage again? My view is that the true self is a unique, eternal and changeless point. So the transpersonal self is a no-thing, empty in itself, and is only a unique point of observation within reality. I even call such unique point a human soul.

I think that my view of sameness vs difference is influenced by Leo's definitions or even the same as his explanation in this video:

 

[Anderz]

Is it possible to speed up the development into the transpersonal stage? No, because first there is the prepersonal stage, then it's necessary to go through the personal stage in order to develop conceptual cognition and an individual personal sense of self. And only after that does the transpersonal stage become available.

However it seems to me that with the coronavirus crisis, the material personal stage collectively for our civilization is coming to an end, and I speculate that an increasing number of people will enter the transpersonal stage in the coming years. And even though things like psychedelics only give temporary and often chaotic it seems, experiences, psychedelics can probably act as catalysts and speed up personal development, especially into the transpersonal stage.

Personally I don't use the psychedelics approach but it's interesting to learn about it such as in Leo's video:

 

[Anderz]

The mystical traditions unite the different religions into a common transpersonal understanding. In the personal stage religions although having the same kind of spiritual mystical core are very much stuck in materialism. And materialism itself is almost a kind of religion it seems to me and Shunyamurti talks about something similar in this new video:

 

[Anderz]

I think that the world today is sufficiently complex and interconnected to withstand even a prolonged coronovirus crisis. But yes, there will be some kind of big shift in society as a result of the crisis probably.

And the spiritual capital that Shunyamurti talked about is the same as the transpersonal stage it seems. And even if as I believe that society will return more or less to normal soon (or at least in 2021) moving into spiritual capital seems like a good strategy because that's a robust state even in shaky situations.

[Anderz]

I don't feel that there is much love in the world at the moment. However, the personal stage is necessary so in a sense even fear and suffering are a part of the larger universal Love. The transpersonal stage is an increase of love through the personal stage growing out of fear into more love.

There is evolution into more complexity, meaning more intelligence and therefor more love. And universal Love is the driving force of creation. I have defined love as wholeness in harmony, and evolution reaches larger and larger levels of harmonic wholes in the form of holons.

Leo explains what I call universal Love in this video (and there is also a part 2):

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

In the transpersonal stage there is love for everything. That might at first seem like an outrageous claim. The personal stage is based on the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil". So in the personal stage there is love and hate opposing each other.

How is it possible to love everything? I quoted Jesus earlier about he said that we should love our enemies. And that's easy because the enemies are concepts! So the recognition of concepts makes it possible to love everything. As I wrote earlier concepts are empty and harmless in themselves and useful and therefore lovable.

There can still be hate of evil deeds and still be love! Because the evil deeds are concepts and can be loved and can also be hated which is fine too, and behind the concepts there is the universal Love. In this way the love-hate duality is transcended and included in an integral way in the transpersonal stage.

[Anderz]

Ah! I got in insight. The reason for why evil and hatred become real experiences is because in the personal stage our conceptual cognition becomes so heavy and solidified, crystallized, reified so that the conflicts become very real.

The transpersonal stage transcends conflict by recognizing the concepts for what they are, empty labels and therefore the crystallized cognition is replaced by fluid cognition, even for the personal sense of self and of others. 

[Anderz]

It's easy to overlook how heavy thoughts are at the personal stage of development. At first we may believe that thoughts are not such a big deal and that we can easily dismiss thoughts if we want to. No we can't! Not as long as we remain at the personal stage.

As an example, think of your personal finances. Notice how extremely heavy those thoughts are, how much survival instincts and emotional content that go along with thoughts about money. Warning, here comes an even more extreme example. Think about what your gravestone will look like, what will be written on it and its geographical location. Those are incredibly heavy thoughts at the personal stage.

The practice, then, for moving into the transpersonal stage is to make those kind of thoughts, which all are just concepts yet heavy as mountains, to become light as feathers and then dissolve like snowflakes into an ocean of peace.

[Anderz]

The complexity of reality is always increasing. This means that the latest moment in time is the most intelligent. In the personal stage we use old plans and strategies from the past which have less intelligence in them and try to manage the present moment through that crystallized conceptual cognition. This always leads to a struggle against life and a buildup of subconscious hatred and fear.

In the transpersonal stage it is recognized that the future is already determined so not only is the use of past strategies and knowledge inadequate and leads to struggle and conflict, it's also redundant! So the transpersonal stage instead makes use of fluid cognition as a part of life instead of crystallized cognition against life as in the personal stage.

[Anderz]

Reality has infinite intelligence, yet since there is progress and evolution, the past appears less intelligent than present times. And so will (and does) our situation appear less intelligent than the future.

For example a lion killing an antelope is not natural, it's just stupid and cruel. Or to use another perspective, everything is natural, even an iPhone. Similarly today humanity is just cruel and stupid compared to the future. That's why it says in the Bible that the lamb and the wolf will live together and that there will be no more death and suffering. That's intelligence.

[Megan Alecia]

@Anderz Nice insights! This journal is quality stuff <3

[Anderz]

@Megan Alecia Thanks. Leo has a new video about ego development and I hope my ideas are the same or at least similar to what he presents. Leo has much more understanding about personal development but I find it useful to come up with my own view to understand it more and to make it easier to evaluate others' information about it.

The personal stage is driven by fear and desire. From the transpersonal perspective fear is false since that would mean that the universe was afraid of itself. And desire is false because that's a belief that the universe is incapable of fulfilling itself and that it needs extra separate egos to help the universe to do the right things, haha.

Leo said that there will be a third part, so this part may still be about the personal stage of development:

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

The same statement can give different meanings depending on in what stage of development the statement is interpreted. For example to ask oneself in a situation "What would Jesus do?" often means at the personal stage that Jesus is a separate person and I am another separate person.

From a transpersonal perspective even Jesus becomes transpersonal and Christ then represents a universal principle rather than a separate person. Even within Christianity itself there are different interpretations, and even the Bible itself says that Christ is the Word and the Word has created everything (John 1) which is a nondual perspective. And perhaps controversial but proposed by Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is the idea of Christ as the Omega Point which kooks like a transpersonal perspective:

Quote

"The Omega Point is the subject of a belief that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of unification.[1] The term was coined by the French Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955).[2] Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself, who in the words of the Nicene Creed, is "God from God", "Light from Light", "True God from true God", and "through him all things were made".[3] " - Wikipedia