Transpersonal Journal

[Anderz]

Spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and J. Krishnamurti have pointed out that when we look at something with out thinking we observe the thoughts about that object instead of seeing it directly. Mainstream psychologist Abraham Maslow has mentioned something obvious that I have overlooked. Embarrassing. I guess it has been my subconscious hiding the obvious from my conscious awareness.

Maslow said that when we observe something with our usual thinking we interpret what we experience through our own narrow and personal knowledge, memories and beliefs. So we then misinterpret what we experience! Leo quotes from Maslow about that in this video:

I will search for more information from Maslow about transpersonal stages. It seems that he knew about that.

[Anderz]

Yes, Maslow was one of the founders of transpersonal psychology; from Wikipedia: "The thinkers who have set the stage for transpersonal studies are William James, Carl Jung, Roberto Assagioli and Abraham Maslow.[7][6][8][9][10]"

Quote

"Maslow published in 1962 a collection of papers on this theme, which developed into his 1968 book Toward a Psychology of Being.[60][61] In this book Maslow stresses the importance of transpersonal psychology to human beings, writing: "without the transpersonal, we get sick, violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic" (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2011).[60] Human beings, he came to believe, need something bigger than themselves that they are connected to in a naturalistic sense, but not in a religious sense: Maslow himself was an atheist[62] and found it difficult to accept religious experience as valid unless placed in a positivistic framework.[63] In fact, Maslow's position on God and religion was quite complex. While he rejected organized religion and its beliefs, he wrote extensively on the human being's need for the sacred and spoke of God in more philosophical terms, as beauty, truth and goodness, or as a force or a principle.[64][65]" - Wikipedia

 

[Anderz]

Maslow's insight explains why what I call the fluid ego is necessary in order to transcend conflict. The crystallized ego at the personal stage of development is a rigid, narrow and personal structure which dictates our thoughts and actions. And since the crystallized ego is a fixed and limited perspective it causes conflicts all over the place.

The crystallized ego is a result of society which in turn only cares about the mechanical functioning of our egos. Society doesn't care about death and suffering of the individuals as long as it itself survives. In fact, society depends on people growing old and dying in order to replace the old "batteries" with new ones that can carry the progress of society further. If people lived forever at the personal stage it would cause society to stagnate.

[Anderz]

Then what to do about the crystallized ego? Leo pointed out how massively difficult it is to even recognize that we have what Maslow called deficiency cognition, meaning the limitations and distortions caused by the crystallized ego.

My method is to use conscious confusion. The crystallized ego absolutely hates confusion, and for a good reason. Accumulating fear at least gives the crystallized ego some method for how to function whereas with confusion it can't do anything with that and therefore actively even tries to avoid confusion as much as possible.

Conscious confusion is to deliberately pay attention to the confusion in the mind when experiencing something or performing actions. The goal with the conscious confusion practice is to dissolve the crystallized ego and then confusion becomes a valuable tool instead of something that needs to be avoided as in the personal stage.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

The crystallized ego is unconsciously working for society as a machine. One common trait is sadism which is useful for society at the personal stage since it forces people to improve by they themselves putting sadistic traps and schemes for one another.

The same with revenge. Why would anyone spend time, effort, energy and even money on taking revenge? Sacrificing a lot for someone they despise?! Because it's an unconscious behavior! The crystallized ego gets emotional gratification when carrying out the revenge and that together with the belief that one has restored one's self-image is enough for the crystallized ego to work in favor for society at the personal stage. Revenge acts as a self-regulating mechanism in society.

Of course, those are, even though serving an overall constructive function at the personal stage, really unconscious traits and lead to continued conflicts and friction. The solution is for society as a whole to evolve into the transpersonal stage. And a first step is to recognized how primitive and conflict-ridden the instinctual habits at the personal stage such as sadism and revenge are.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Should we accept reality as it is? Absolutely not! Acceptance is a judgment that the crystallized ego adds onto reality from its own limited perspective. And of course nonacceptance is equally delusional.

At the transpersonal stage acceptance is like accepting that 2+2 = 4. That would be ridiculous! That would just be to add a redundant opinion to what is already true. Not only that, without a separate self, who is there to accept or not to accept something?

[Anderz]

Ken WIlber has described God from different perspectives; first person perspective, second person perspective and third person perspective. The first person perspective is the nondual experience of reality. The second person perspective is of God as the Great Other. And the third person perspective is God as the web of life, the manifested world appearing in consciousness.

Interestingly, the transpersonal stage can be seen as the second person perspective. Even at the transpersonal stage there is the unknowing of the future. And thus only God knows the future and can be seen as separate from oneself.

[Anderz]

I don't know if there is a heaven after death but if there is it's still the SAME reality! It's one reality. Imagine growing old, getting sick and then dying. What a fricken horror, haha. Maybe one shouldn't joke about it, but death seems completely stupid to me. The same with reincarnation, idiocy!

Surely, if it's all one and the same reality, then the smartest thing would be to improve our current physical reality. I suspect that the crystallized ego at the personal stage of development goes totally mad, because it clings fervently to its possessions in this life, both material and immaterial such as loved ones and so on. At the same time the ego believes that the body will die and all the possessions lost! So it must be in an insane kind of inner conflict all its life.

Can physical reality change? If reality is all mind, then yes, and especially if reality is infinite intelligence then surely something as trivial as a physical human body can be improved greatly. I'm aiming for eternal life in this and other universes, not for some heaven, reincarnation or nonexistence as are the options at the personal stage. Well, there is also the transhuman option with nanotech and biotech to achieve immortality but that's too limited I suspect.

[Anderz]

The coronavirus crisis has pushed people to spend more time on the internet. Does that mean that our personas become stronger and we become even more isolated from each other?

At first that may happen, I don't know, but I have started to sense that people are getting better at "seeing through" the words of what people say or write. If that's true then it means that it's getting more and more difficult for people to lie and manipulate, and that will start to melt the personas instead of strengthening them.

[Anderz]

Leo mentioned in his latest video that there can be an awakening of the mind and that there can also be an awakening of the heart. Nonduality teacher Roger Castillo said that consciousness can move from the head down into the heart area. Spiritual teacher Nukunu described awakening like having eyes and ears in the heart.

And several people have mentioned that the heart chakra is what can unite the lower chakras with the higher chakras.  Neuroscientist Candace Pert was shown by a spiritual guru a drawing of the chakras that they compared with an image of the human nervous system, and nerve centers along the spine lined up with the chakras! That made Candace start taking eastern traditions more seriously.

I wrote earlier how we can't feel pain in the heart and only feel so-called referred pain. So our heart feelings are blocked! At least pain is block which could indicate that even the other feelings from the heart are also blocked. I have started feeling something in the heart area but it's mostly a nasty feeling which is a bit scary and even fear and dread is felt there.

Dr. Bruce Lipton described his awakening as a heart orgasm, not a peaceful one but one that he was down on the floor wriggling. Even Eckhart Tolle described how his spiritual awakening was initiated by increasing fear in his chest area until he passed out! So it seems to be a very powerful kind of energy related to heart awakening.

[Anderz]

I found this video about heart awakening. The presenter said that when our heart becomes numbed we experience people around us and nature as objects. I believe that our hearts are already numbed out from birth!

And also, I hesitate to say this, but I have started feeling sensations in the heart area when walking among people. And again it's often nasty vibrations I feel from other people. Somehow my heart needs to become more balanced because that will bring peaceful feelings instead.

[Anderz]

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

 

[Anderz]

I have misinterpreted the spiritual neti neti method which says "not this not that". I have been thinking that I am Mind and that my body is in consciousness so that I am my body plus everything else I'm experiencing.

So I thought that neti neti was only half of the truth, but my mistake was to think in terms of concepts. Even what we call experience is a concept! And therefore we aren't even experiences. From a meta perspective one can say that concepts are included in what we are, but that meta perspective is itself conceptual unless it becomes trans-conceptual. Really tricky.

Leo explains the neti neti method in this video:

 

[Anderz]

I find it useful to have a theoretical understanding of reality but to reach the transpersonal stage is to go beyond thinking, not only temporary but as an actual new stage. The theoretical knowledge is useful as a guiding tool for the mind. When it comes to going beyond thinking then my main approach is inner body awareness practice.

I have posted this video several times before but I wanted to remind myself of intensifying my inner body awareness practice and I will also combine it with observing confusion in my mind and proactively allow the confusion to come up with full force. My theoretical understanding is that confusion is the fuel for the thinking mind at the personal stage of development and by targeting the very source of thinking the crystallized ego can easier dissolve. And I will also include sensing my heart which is disconnected in the personal stage and needs to be integrated (awakened) to enter the transpersonal stage.

 

[Anderz]

Frustrating! I tried to find more information about body awareness and opening of the heart. What I found was almost entirely what I consider personal stage level teachings. And forget about conscious confusion, I couldn't find anything about that! In my opinion that too is a sign of the personal stage of development. Everybody is running away from confusion like crazy, haha.

I did find this one video which I found useful where Teal Swan said that trying to bring balance, that's actually a form of control which itself is imbalance. Something like that. Good point.

 

[Anderz]

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

 

[Anderz]

Confusion is caused by the belief in separation. And the belief in separation is itself confusion. So the whole world on an official level is still in a totally deluded state.

I will reduce my participation on the internet for a while. Because basically the whole internet is still trapped in the false belief in separation, a belief that reality can be divided up into one part (oneself) that has to struggle against the rest of the universe.

[Anderz]

What I call the crystallized ego is the usual way we think. It's crystallized in the way our minds thinks. For example the word "iPhone" is crystallized in the sense that it's a label and we overlook that fact and take our thoughts as if they are more solid than they actually are.

Quote

"Fluid intelligence (gf) refers to basic processes of reasoning and other mental activities that depend only minimally on prior learning (such as formal and informal education) and acculturation. Horn notes that it is formless, and can "flow into" a wide variety of cognitive activities.[8] Tasks measuring fluid reasoning require the ability to solve abstract reasoning problems. Examples of tasks that measure fluid intelligence include figure classifications, figural analyses, number and letter series, matrices, and paired associates.[6]

Crystallized intelligence (gc) refers to learned procedures and knowledge. It reflects the effects of experience and acculturation. Horn notes that crystallized ability is a "precipitate out of experience," resulting from the "prior application of fluid ability that has been combined with the intelligence of culture."[8] Examples of tasks that measure crystallized intelligence are vocabulary, general information, abstract word analogies, and mechanics of language.[6]" - Wikipedia

In the nine stages of ego development there may be fluid intelligence in all of them but what I call the fluid ego is only at the ninth stage which transcends the separate self into unity, a transpersonal stage. All the first 8 stages I lump together and call the personal stage where we have a crystallized ego.

To really go deep into a theoretical explanation for how to move from the crystallized perspective into the nondual perspective, Leo has this video:

It is said that there can be nondual experiences at all stages of development. And I make a distinction between a nondual state at the personal level where there still is the crystallized ego and the transpersonal stage where there is the nondual state and also a fluid ego.

[Anderz]

I had heard the term deconstructionalism before but hadn't looked into it. And maybe that was probably good, haha, because it's really complicated to read Derrida's writings about it. Leo made the seemingly complicated very clear. My interpretation is that deconstructionalism says that all words form an entangled web without any foundation. So for example, the word "iPhone" has meaning in relation to all other words in the total web of words.

This means that the word iPhone isn't only a definite thing, a label. It's also an evolving interconnected web of relationships. But how to use deconstructionalism is practice? Leo mentioned that Derrida's work can be taken one step further and then it leads to: nonduality! Not only words can be deconstructed, but the whole of reality can. And I came to think of a very practical application of deconstruction, namely money.

The first observation is that society is a "separate" thing struggling against nature and disorder. From a nonduality and fully deconstructive perspective that's a false duality. And money is a part of society, both as the word "money" and also as actual money. But what is actual money? The truth is that money connects with everything else. And since society is a false duality and money being a huge part of it, money exist in us not only as thoughts but also as tensions in the body.

What we think of as "my money" isn't as separate as one might first believe. Our personal money is a part of the immense struggle of our entire society against perceived disorder. So we literally hold money as a part of society's struggle in us as tensions. This makes the theoretical knowledge about deconstruction useful and it can be used for improving one's practice of dissolving tensions within oneself by deconstructing money. To make it simpler, tensions in the body can be recognized as being connected to our thoughts about money. Here the ultimate deconstruction is that order and disorder are the same nondual reality. In short, the struggle we have with money is fake!

And this makes "the love of money is the root of all evil" clearly explained. Love of money is simply us (as a part of society) clinging onto money as if it was separate from for example a pile of dirt. It isn't! What appears as disorder and mess is as ordered as money is.

Edited September 17, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

But surely there is a difference between an iPhone and the same iPhone broken down into a heap of dust. So how to explain that if order and disorder are the same from a nondual perspective?

One way to explain it is that the iPhone is a second order form of order compared to the raw materials that it's made of. And that's how society functions, it builds second order out of first order materials. The same with money which is a second order construct. So there is a difference, and that's why effort is needed to produce for us useful things.

From the nondual perspective it's however the same kind of order and also, there are no separate objects. Everything is an ordered web of relationships. And the effort needed to produce second order is ultimately a trick of seeming separation. One prediction therefore is that as society evolves there will be less effort needed when the separation at the personal stage starts to become more integrated into life as a wholeness.