Transpersonal Journal

[Anderz]

The crystallized ego has a lot of possessions. The ego is "possessed" by those possession and becomes burdened, bogged down, tired, worn out because of carrying around lots of possessions all the time.

And possessions are not only material things such as cars, smartphones and houses. A personal relationship is also a possession. And even knowledge and skills are possessions. So practicing to become more skilled is a subtle and very sneaky form of materialism.

[Anderz]

Rupert Spira has this recent video where he compares the person to a mask. It's not the person that is the problem, it's the nature of the self behind the mask that needs to be recognized, he said.

It's not about about getting rid of the body-mind, not about disciplining, changing or purifying the body-mind, Spira said, The body-mind will become purified by recognizing the self behind the mask of the body-mind, he said.

The mask (persona) identified with the body-mind, that is the same as the personal stage of development as I see it. And what Spira said is the same as what I wrote earlier about how learning new skills only improves the person by adding more skills and knowledge to the crystallized ego.

 

[Anderz]

Aha! Embarrassing. I have (as a crystallized ego) been investing what Rupert Spira called the progressive path where there is an attempt to recognize our true nature by changing the mask as Spira described it. In the direct path the mask is changed by the recognition of the true self.

And it matches my new idea about how even practicing mindfulness, body awareness and developing the ego are possessions added to the crystallized ego. I still think that practices like that are useful, but they can also become a trap I suspect now. I will take a look at this video by Jim Newman who definitely seems to be talking about the direct path:

 

[Anderz]

Yes, Jim Newman is definitely talking about the direct path. There is seeking and there is the end of seeking, he said. That to me sounds exactly the same as what Rupert Spira was describing,

And it makes the crystallized ego very clear. The crystallized ego is that which clings to possessions, both material and immaterial such as personal relationships, skills and knowledge.

The crystallized ego is a structure of the past clinging to other structures of the past. That's a delusional state since reality as a whole doesn't need to cling to itself. I as a crystallized ego will still practice things but I will shift focus to recognizing and examining the crystallized ego.

[Anderz]

Observing the crystallized ego can be done with total open-mindedness. For example, does it take years of practice to become a good violinist? Maybe not! From our ordinary personal perspective we think that of course it takes years and years of practice. But that's actually a close-minded perspective.

I think Leo has mentioned something similar, but imagine if we could tap into the knowledge and experience of all of humanity, like in a form of collective consciousness or access to the Akashic records, or memories of the collective unconscious. Then in theory it would be possible to access the best skills of playing the violin immediately.

Quote

"In theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic records is a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future. They are believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the mental plane. There are anecdotal accounts but there is no scientific evidence for the existence of the Akashic records.[1][2][3]" - Wikipedia

 

[Anderz]

An integral perspective is that progressive learning is necessary at the personal stage of development, and I think that's a valid claim since that's what happens! We learn and train for years.

And what happens at the transpersonal perspective I speculate is that we have then maxed out the personal stage in terms of learning capacity and that a new capacity emerges which is the ability to know things instantly by accessing the Akashic records or something similar. And we cannot skip the personal stage and jump from say being a baby directly into the transpersonal stage. We first need to develop the necessary foundation and capacity for learning before we can move into the transpersonal stage. That's a both/and integral perspective of progress and learning.

Ralph Smart has this video about the Akashic records:

 

[Anderz]

From a scientific perspective the Akashic records is to me the same as the graph they use in the Wolfram Physics Project. The graph in their model is simply a network of "atoms of space" which I think of as points of nothingness. And the graph expands all the time so all the past is permanently "stored" as the graph itself.

Here is a short clip where Stephen Wolfram explains the basic idea: What is a hypergraph? | Stephen Wolfram and Lex Fridman- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGNaRFEa8PI

Alternative researcher Nassim Haramein has a similar model that he calls space memory.

 

[Anderz]

Ralph Smart said that thoughts block access to the Akashic records. That's a good point. Because when we think that's our personal memories being rehashed so we are then only experiencing our own limited personal past. At least at the personal stage of development.

And I think it's useful to question one's whole way of thinking. Spiritual teachers like Sadhguru and Eckhart Tolle even talk about a state of being where there is no thinking at all, and Shunyamurti talked about trans-conceptual awareness which requires going beyond thinking and is I believe a trait of the transpersonal stage of development.

[Anderz]

Here I found more information about the Akashic records. I often look at videos first before reading articles because I find it more convenient, haha. But it's also a way of getting a lot of perspectives quickly. And if I want to dive deeper into a topic I may look at articles for more details.

 

[Anderz]

Then how to access the Akashic records? Teal Swan has this second video where she explains that. It's related to connecting with the heart which research has shown is aware of information before the the brain is.

 

[Anderz]

Accessing the Akashic records at the personal stage needs to be done for reaching the transpersonal stage I think, not to access information from the personal stage level. This is especially so when accessing collective information. Imagine connecting to the personal stage for all of humanity through all of history. That's a nightmare mountain of suffering.

And even if there isn't much transpersonal stage information for humanity on earth yet, the Akashic records are growing as time flows. So as I see it, it's more useful to connect to the Akashic records as a collective living mind than to access lifeless memories.

[Anderz]

I have a radical new idea. We are already connected to everything including the Akashic records. And the body-mind tensions are likely the personal stage of the Akashic records.

What is needed is a connection to a higher level of the Akashic records that Teal Swan talked about. On a practical level that means detaching from the personal stage, and the radical part is that it means detaching from the entire society! Because the whole world is still at the lower stage.

A caterpillar doesn't look anything like a butterfly and with that analogy we can expect our civilization to be completely transformed. Not just gradual or even big improvements here and there but the emergence of an entirely new civilization.

[Anderz]

Society is like a caterpillar and just like a caterpillar it's a necessary and valuable stage, but it's a temporary stage. Now we need to move on to build the butterfly, so I'm unplugging from society, including from most of the internet.

[Anderz]

I did unplug from society. Because where is society? Then answer is that society is in my mind! So the trick is to realize that one's own mind is making all those kinds of separations.

And that's why our civilization is still at the "caterpillar" stage, because everybody is running around with the same delusions of separations in their minds. That's the personal stage.

There will be a massive transformation of society I believe but it will come as a result of us individuals shifting from the personal to the transpersonal stage, and that's a process that probably takes decades just to get started in any significant way. Although the process is I believe already going on and the coronavirus crisis signifies the end of the caterpillar stage.

[Anderz]

The psychological shadow is a big part of the personal stage. Leo mentioned that he plans to do a video about the shadow. Teal Swan's newest video is about shadow work.

Quote

"In Jungian psychology, the shadow, (also known as id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify in itself; or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side." - Wikipedia

 

[Anderz]

Aaron Abke has this video (among others) about shadow work. He said that there is nothing wrong with us. Good point! So the psychological shadow then is merely a hidden source of conflict. It's not something ultimately bad, but the shadow is something that needs to be integrated, and especially for moving to the transpersonal stage where conflicts like that are transcended.

 

[Anderz]

Leo's new video has a topic that surprised me: conspiracy theories! Haha, I know a lot about that topic. My claim is that there are layers of conspiracy theories, many actually controlled opposition to hide the real conspiracy (which as I discovered may in many cases actually not really be a conspiracy in the sense of deliberately causing harm). And also, there are so many different conspiracy theories about each topic that it's impossible for all of them to be true.

In relation to the personal vs the transpersonal stage, conspiracy theories, whether true or false ones (most, actually must be false because they claim different things about the same event), they do indicate the kind of manipulation and hiding of information that goes on at the personal stage. In the battle of getting and keeping the upper hand, it's useful to keep knowledge to oneself or within a small group of people. And even to manufacture smokescreens and diversions is a way of increasing one's own power at the personal stage.

At the transpersonal stage there is transparency as I see it because secrecy can be added as a layer on top of that. It's impossible to add transparency on top of a layer of secrecy.

Quote

"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment." - John F. Kennedy

 

[Anderz]

What, then, if no conspiracy theory is true? Then it's still a sign of the personal stage of development. Because mostly people at that stage would then come up with conspiracy theories in the first place.

The truth I believe lies somewhere between all conspiracy theories being false and all conspiracy theories being true. Or more correctly, the truth lies outside of that dichotomy in that mostly it's about events staged for constructive and political manipulation purposes with good intents (therefore no conspiracy in the traditional sense). So in a sense, both the conspiracy believers and deniers are wrong, haha.

[Anderz]

One insight Leo presented that I learned from is that reality is nondual. Of course I have been writing about nonduality a lot, but not in relation to conspiracy theories which mostly are about us vs them, the good guys vs the bad guys. The conspiracy theories almost always have a simplistic dualistic perspective. Leo has a good point there.

I like QAnon which Leo bashed, and it's true that the Q posts often seem to be a stark us vs them depiction, but notice that the Q posts also mention the importance of what they call 'optics'. I think the term optics here means how things are presented publicly. And that includes the Q posts themselves!

My impression is that the Q posts actually are at a transpersonal level or close to it, very advanced stuff, but they also often give the impression of being at low personal stage levels, which I think of as 'optics'. Of course the Q posts are massively pro-Trump, but I find that useful as a contrast to what mainstream media presents. For example Q recently posted a link to this Trump video, and compare that to the picture we get from MSM (well, Fox News excluded of course):

 

[Anderz]

Oh! Leo said that people at lower stages of ego development are very dangerous in herds. That can be applied to the whole personal stage! And that strengthens my belief that the world will soon turn into an information surveillance and control society. Because that's how the personal stage can be kept in line en masse.

My prediction is that China will steamroll ahead with very advanced information technology with a foundation of surveillance and control. And the Chinese e-yuan (DCEP) will force the west to combat that in the form of a global e-currency which will lead to a global surveillance and control system. Almost like the second beast in the Book of Revelation.

The global control system is only a temporary stage and will remain at the personal stage. The control system will be the cocoon basically for the personal stage, the "caterpillar" and also constitute the necessary security for making the coming advanced technologies safe for public use.