Transpersonal Journal

[Anderz]

Can we make desire harmonious by being considerate and empathetic towards others and ourselves? No, not at the personal stage which has a too low level of complexity to achieve that. To put it more simply, at the personal stage we lack the capability to function in harmony with the whole of society and nature.

What we can do at the personal stage is to recognize the limitation of personal desire and be open to the possibility that impersonal development will result in harmonious desire. And even if we don't yet know how that works, by questioning desire at the personal stage, as done in Buddhism, there is an opening up of being receptive to allowing conflict-ridden desire to be replaced by harmonious desire.

[Anderz]

Then what about fear related to immediate danger? What if you meet a wild bear in the woods? I think it depends on the stage of development of the person. For example judging by how J. Krishnamurti interacted with a wild chimpanzee that I mentioned earlier he would probably just walk up to the bear and pet it, haha.

And more seriously, if we have fear of immediate danger, then people such as criminals can use that to gain power over us. And also, I think of fear as a single principle so if we have any fear, even if only in dangerous situations, then we still have the root fear in us and have only resolved some surface fears.

[Anderz]

Oh noes, I got an idea that fear and the personal stage go together, and that fear is necessary at that level. In that case that's potentially a frustrating situation since we cannot pull ourselves out of the root of fear.

On the other hand, the idea can also be used constructively in a practice of surrendering to and accepting fear consciously and with mindfulness. The fear is then accepted because through acceptance attention is moved from focusing on fear to directing it towards the transpersonal stage where fear is transcended, not by our own crystallized ego but by a process of lessening the interest in fear so that the crystallized ego starts to melt.

I will still do some more research about fear because with a correct understanding of fear it will make the acceptance of it easier. And understanding something also makes it easier to let go of personal control if as I suspect fear is not something we can control. Heck, we can't control anything! Personal control is one of the delusions of the crystallized ego.

[Anderz]

Now I got an even more radical idea. Since fear is based on a false belief in separation, that's all that's needed from the big picture perspective to recognize fear as an illusion. Examining fear further at that level is unnecessary since one can investigate an illusion until one is is blue in the face without getting anywhere closer to the truth since an illusion (as I use the word here) is falsehood!

Here I found a short clip where Shunyamurti explains fear in relation to meditation. I don't meditate in the usual sense but I "meditate" in the sense of practicing mindfulness and inner body awareness and things like that.

 

[Anderz]

Also, fear and confusion feed each other in a vicious loop. The sense of separation since it's a delusional state causes confusion which the mind at the personal stage tries to run away from through desire and fear, carrots and sticks which at least are more useful than confusion. The fear in turn because of its illusionary nature results in more confusion leading to new desire and fear and so on in a circle.

J. Krishnamurti says in this short video that fear must be totally eliminated for there to be a transformation of human consciousness. 

 

[Anderz]

Shunyamurti has this new video where he talks about death and the fear of death. The fear of death cannot be overcome by the ego, because it's precisely the ego that dies, he said. I believe that physical death might be overcome, but it will be a transformation of the "body of flesh". And for that to happen the transpersonal stage is necessary I think and the melting of the crystallized ego, so yes the ego "dies" in a sense, but it's also preserved in an transcend and include of the individual personality which is very valuable.

 

[Anderz]

Actually, I believe that the physical body is already an immortal avatar, and that it's the crystallized ego that has a mistaken view, which makes the body grow old, get sick and then die.

The reason for my belief is that everything material is the same "stuff" which isn't even any solid stuff but merely information experienced in consciousness. And the fundamental information isn't even any separate bits but an interconnected web of no-things, just points, just like the graph model they use in the Wolfram Physics Project.

[Anderz]

From a big picture perspective we can think of the personal stage collectively as a moral scaffolding necessary for moving into the transpersonal stage. The moral scaffolding consists of external rules in society, including human-made laws, cultural norms and other shoulds and shouldn'ts.

At the transpersonal stage the moral scaffolding can be dismantled because it then has served its purpose, and instead of external moral rules our behavior then becomes an ethical capacity for functioning in harmony with the totality.

Quote

"Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved." - Saint Augustine

Saint Augustine was describing the transpersonal stage. That's very different from the dysfunctional version at the personal stage:

Quote

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." - Aleister Crowley

It could be that the Aleister Crowley quote is taken out of context, I haven't checked that, but taken in isolation it would result in havoc at the personal stage where there is the "love of money" rather than the love of God in the Saint Augustine quote. External rules are necessary at the personal stage of development.

[Anderz]

On an individual level the crystallized ego is the scaffolding at the personal stage of development. It's a rigid structure made of social conditioning plus personal fears and desires.

One idea I have is that all that's needed for making an evolutionary leap into the transpersonal stage is to recognize the crystallized ego within oneself and to realize that it's a construct based on a necessary yet false foundation of belief in separation. The crystallized ego manifests as tensions in body and mind caused by confusion, fear, desire and a continuous numbing out of physical pain.

[Anderz]

Acceptance and nonacceptance are relative judgments. The nondual context is beyond that. In the relative context acceptance and nonacceptance are possible.

And in the relative context judgments depend on sub contexts. For example I accept reality for what it is and believe that it has perfect order. At the same time, from another perspective I totally don't accept society as it is now.

In my nonaccepting context I see the world as in Plato's cave analogy where we are prisoners. Another analogy is that our world is like the inside of an egg that hasn't hatched yet, and as we develop, the inside of the egg gets more and more oppressive until we are ready to break out of the eggshell.

[Anderz]

A perhaps better analogy is the caterpillar to butterfly transformation that Bruce Lipton and others have used. Society today is collectively at the personal stage of development represented by the caterpillar. And the butterfly is the collective transpersonal stage of humanity.

The coronavirus crisis might be the beginning of the caterpillar turning into a cocoon. And within society a transformation will happen where the butterfly starts to develop while the caterpillar dissolves. That's a process that may take decades to complete! That's tedious from the individual perspective yet a very short period of time seen historically and is a result of exponential (accelerating) evolutionary progress.

[Anderz]

I envision my life purpose as becoming an "imaginal cell", that's the name of the cells that develop into a butterfly. I read or heard somewhere that a part of the brain of the caterpillar remains and develops into the brain of the butterfly.

What is the analogy of the part of the brain that remains in the world? Is that the current political systems? Heck, no, the political systems are a joke, haha, well not a joke but they are manipulated and phony as hell.

Instead I think that the core "brain" of the world is the breakaway civilization! That's the top control system and governments, academia, religions etc are only control structures for the masses.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Leo has this new video about introspection that I found useful. He mentioned that it's a skill that can be trained. I think that's true and that's why I'm doing so much introspection of my own personal stage of development. And I now got the idea that I can also use introspection of how other people are at the personal stage. That's still my own subjective experience but I can learn how my own personal stage of development relates and connects to other people.

 

[Anderz]

Introspection of the crystallized ego is tricky. Because when I learn it as a skill, then doesn't that skill also become a part of the crystallized ego? Probably so! But there is a slight difference. The new skill of introspecting the ego is a meta perspective which can even take into account the possibility that itself is a part of the crystallized ego that needs to dissolve.

Quote

"Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings.[1] In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's soul.[2] Introspection is closely related to human self-reflection and self-discovery and is contrasted with external observation.

Introspection generally provides a privileged access to one's own mental states,[3] not mediated by other sources of knowledge, so that individual experience of the mind is unique. Introspection can determine any number of mental states including: sensory, bodily, cognitive, emotional and so forth.[3]" - Wikipedia

 

[Anderz]

Leo mentioned the importance when doing introspection of noticing beliefs. I can use that advice in my own practice. The idea I have of a fluid ego at the transpersonal stage is just a belief. And even if I claim that experts like Shunyamurti have said that trans-conceptual awareness is possible and a necessary stage to reach in order to transcend the ego, that's just appeal to authority.

Appeal to authority some philosophers claim is always a fallacy it says on Wikipedia. I think appeal to authority is useful and actually even necessary because we cannot ourselves know all human knowledge. Just as an example, what I read on Wikipedia just now is itself a form of appeal to authority. But yes, appeal to authority is always a belief unless we have our own realization of what we claim.

My belief in a fluid ego is something I need to explore and realize myself in order to know whether it's a valid claim or not. And I can match the idea to authorities such as spiritual traditions and scientific knowledge which I find useful but it's insufficient. I have to actually enter the fluid ego state to know that it's real.

[Anderz]

Hmm... I now came to think of an interesting possibility. The idea is to use introspection to observe the transpersonal stage in oneself. At first, while still being at the personal stage, there is probably nothing to introspect! Because the transpersonal stage hasn't emerged yet within oneself. So that might seem inefficient.

The reason for why I believe such introspection is actually efficient is that the personal stage of development is a necessary yet delusional stage. And therefore introspecting the personal stage with all the confusion, tensions, numbness, fear, beliefs, anger, sadness, desire, personal memories and so forth, that's what needs to be transformed, and when focusing on it with introspection it tends to keep it in place instead of dissolving it.

My new practice then is to introspect the transpersonal qualities which include inner peace, trans-conceptual awareness, flow state, mental clarity, enhanced sense perceptions and emotional and physical health. And those transpersonal qualities are traits of the fluid ego. And the fluid ego emerges out of the personal stage into the transpersonal stage by introspecting the process happening automatically within oneself.

[Anderz]

Leo said that introspection should be done by just observing oneself nonjudgmentally. That sounds like the same as mindfulness practice. I think I will follow that advice but I will cheat a bit, or make my own version of it.

The change I made is to make the introspection proactive so that I have a goal in mind to achieve which is to move into the transpersonal stage. Is that a wise approach? I don't know, but it feels more interesting to me.

There is a risk of getting stuck in beliefs when having a goal like that. And also, I myself with my own crystallized ego cannot reach the transpersonal stage. On the other hand, I am not separate from reality, I am one with reality, so I think it will work as long as I'm aware of the potential trap of fooling oneself.

[Anderz]

Here is an older video that Leo recommended about observation. I will use the observation practice to observe my inner peace. I find that interesting and also a little horrifying because what I notice is the lack of inner peace in me.

 

[Anderz]

Actually my new practice of observing inner peace in me is causing me more suffering! Instead of experiencing more inner peace I feel an increase of worry and agitation in me. This could be a good sign though where previously hidden worry comes up to the surface of my awareness.

And another thing I discovered is that I can combine this new practice with my conscious suffering practice since suffering is what it results in, at least now initially when I'm starting the practice. Later on hopefully there will be an increase of inner peace and then I can shift into observing that instead of on the conscious suffering.

[Anderz]

One thing I observed is that when worry comes up it tends to move into thoughts and grab on to something to worry about by thinking about it. Since that's the functioning of the crystallized ego I will practice staying with only the feeling of worry. That's a form of manipulation but I think it's a valid form of directing the practice since feeding the crystallized ego will just keep it going and going.