Spirituality Guide

Imagine The Matrix world - what if the computer simulation already had characters running around, operating according to basic programming. Neo wants to join the game, so the computer ‘models’ him and then overlays that model onto a generated character within the Matrix. Neo would need points of interface to be able to make the character do things other than its programming, but when Neo relaxed, the programming would run the body for him.

What would it be like to be Neo? Necessarily he would need to be unaware of his ‘greater’ life or he would not actually be ‘playing’ the Matrix game. In very short order he would become adjusted to using the model to do things - like driving a car, very soon you cease to think through the steps necessary to drive. Neo could even get to the point of wondering about and perhaps reasoning towards a knowledge of a greater life, but until he dropped the body and model imagery, he’d be unaware of the existence of something above his Matrix world.

The model would be like an astral body – a copy inserted into this reality by the original or perhaps by a ‘higher self’ to play and learn. The links back through the astral body might account for some of the mystery things that occur – there have been numerous cases where people have somehow ‘known’ of future events. There is no satisfactory explanations for this, although there have been numerous attempts.

Maybe the reason we have so much trouble identifying who we are and how things work with us is because we are trying to encompass two varieties of life within one description?

If there is one subject that generates an amazing amount of dialogue, discussion and argument without ever apparently reaching a conclusion, it would be Spirituality. Not only do people disagree about what version is most appropriate to our lives, not only do we dispute or seek a wide variety of definitions of such subjects, but whether there is any such thing as spirit is something in which there is little agreement.

It seems to me a part of our confusion about our lives may be due to not recognising we are complex beings rather than seeing ourselves as a single entity.

what if…?

- There is a life force imbibing reality as a planetary entity, or something I’ve wondered a little on, as a Solar System entity?

Such a beingness might have a different focus to our own. Maybe such a beingness came to beingness as a natural part of the Universe game. Perhaps such a life form was the reason for Origin? If so, it (they?) would have it’s own agenda for development, perhaps phasing through a series of experiments towards finding expression in life forms that would permit self-awareness or to explore Self in a way similar to what I have pondered on in regards to THE ALL, in other threads.

Gaia might be growing in the physical, expressing Self as bodies, finding new and perhaps better ways to integrate and store information as S/He grows.

- There is a Life Force who, once the game has begun to run, sits at the console to play the game. Instead of a keyboard and screen, this entity might use, for want of a better term, an astral body, to enter into the game to play - the astral body allows THE ALL life force to interface with a physical ‘player’ so as to be able to participate in the game.

From Kirlian auras, through to electric fields, people have attempted to show that, if we are not just bodies living in a purely physical realm, our ‘spirit’ can be measured or shown to have reality within this cosmos. So far, as far as I know, nobody has yet managed to definitively show that the effects showing up in science have any relationship to what we term ‘spirit.’

I don’t know if what we term spiritual substance has anything to do with atoms and molecules. How I view it is that spirit is the reality, the thing that underlies everything we experience, and that spirit comes to play in the created environment but is not actually a part of it.

Bruce Lipton’s ‘field’ that owns a body isn’t it I think (spirit) but it might be. I keep having the thought (and I am not sure where it originated) that Lipton’s body-owning field is simply the intermediary, a phantasm created to allow spirit to interact with the physical universe. I think Sheldrake’s field is maybe a field ‘grown’ here in this reality by perhaps the life force that maintains it all.

It’s complex I guess but I seem to have found a view that suggests there is more than one growth happening. The Reality Life is growing towards sophistication while we come as avatars of THE ALL to learn from the game. The Gaia life forms are vehicles available for spirit to inhabit to experience. As spirit evolves in knowledge, experience and awareness, so Gaia has been driving in the same path - Gaia is running, if you like, her own God program, using physical bodies of ever increasing abilities to extend her own awareness and sophistication and in a symbiotic relationship with Spirit, is growing towards her own Godhood.

Mind you, it is also quite feasible Gaia IS our ALL, and that the bits of spiritual beingness that we are actually derive from Gaia. But that doesn’t seem to resonate with me as does the prior idea.

I am far from having it all worked out, but conversations here and on other sites are helping to coalesce the nebulosity into what might be insight… one day perhaps

I think maybe ‘lack of self awareness’ creates automatisms - when one is at all self-aware, there is little that is automatic. When one isn’t, almost everything is automatic. Lack of knowledge limits choices, reduces free will and allows manipulation - but it doesn’t automatically generate automatic behaviour.

I seriously doubt betrayal generates an automatism - I think there are too many people betrayed who stay with the betrayer, who line up to allow it to happen again, who defend the one who hurts them, for it to be ‘automatic.’ The love and hate relationship would seem far more active and complex than can be explained by mere automatism.

I’m also not sure hate is emotional - I think maybe the expression of it can be emotional but true hate is cold and reasoning. Rage is hot and unreasoning. Hate allows the use of reason to find satisfaction; rage will lash out even at risk to self.

I also don’t think empathy is the ‘connection between knowledge and emotion’ as empathy doesn’t seem to bring knowledge with it - it instead relies on the experience of the receiver for informational content - normally it is just ‘feeling’ not data.

I see emotions as being at one end of a scale - I don’t think they have opposites, just flavours. Emotions come from peptides, chemical environments added into informational input based on previous experiences being associated with aspect of current environment. Emotions are meant to be informational, but because we have so little training and education in who we are, mostly they become motivational at the expense of reason.

The opposite of the various emotions is Rationality, where the informational input is shown to the being and decided upon based on content and awareness.

And one last thing - ignorance is not necessarily a lack of knowing - only in a rational person is that definition always the case. For a variety of reasons, people may know but still remain ignorant. The Christian with Evolution comes to mind - Evolution as a result of random mutation may not be the ultimate theory nor even well supported by fact, but to willingly line up Creation against it shows a willingness to ignorance that no amount of education can ever overcome.
(in case you’re wondering, Creation and Evolution are not even opposite sides in the same argument)

As I read recently - ‘It is impossible to reason someone out of a position they were not first reasoned into’

Knowing something and allowing it to change your view are two VERY different things.

The only way to advance, IMHO, is to rely on Self. It is what YOU understand about YOU that matters. Short of perfect telepathy, nobody can tell you about you. They can suggest things to try and point a direction to follow but it is you who must go there. Find your core, learn who you are and what you will or will not do and you are well on your way.

a good way to start is by thinking back on what makes you emote. What causes feelings in you? What are those feelings? When was the first time you felt those feelings? What can you recall about those feelings that might explain why you have them at all.

Then comes the next step. Those feelings, even the events that spark them off, are all in your head. All we know of the Reality in which we see ourselves is what comes to our attention via the mind. The mind gets it’s Point of View by taking what the brain receives and cataloging it all, forming relationships with other events and pieces of knowledge, using the emotions added to the input by the lower levels of the brain to decide on context of the data. The brain gets it’s data from the nerves, but what it all comes down to is the entire world, the universe and cosmos is all simply an impression created in your mind and presented to you.

There is no need to react to such things - you can take the time, a slight pause to allow yourself to realise this is all second hand and the emotions being felt are actually being generated inside your own head based on past (not present now) events. Then you can think through the situation and perform an original act rather than a reaction programmed either by your past or by the person calculating you will react in a particular way.

If you can bring this attitude into your life - and it is NOT an easy thing to do - you will be well on your way. Being aware of self like this will bring self-awareness. From self-awareness comes the path to other-awareness and this is the true spiritual path. It is unique, it is yours and it will work for any who try it.

There are some problems with the bible. First, if we apply some basic psychology to the early days, it is clear God is at the least, schizophrenic and sadistic. At worst he could be psychotic. The way he creates Man, then sets them up to fail his test so he can kick them out is either very poorly explained or fits the Sadist role quite nicely. Why sadist? Because He has then visited the punishment on every human ever born – the bible makes that quite clear with it’s whole ‘born into sin’ dogma.

Another problem has to do with Adam and Eve. Never mind that even a generous measure of when they lived directly contradicts what we’ve dug up of real history, the Creation story has a gaping hole through it.

God made Adam, then apparently took a rib and made Eve. Genetics denies this, and further, men have nipples.
Some rather strange people have tried to make out that this is due to redundancy – in case women somehow came to be unable to suckle babies, men could take over. Pardon me while I spit coffee over my keyboard.

Genetics tells us that females predate men. If God made us, She made Eve first, then made Adam as a match.

How can I say this?

Well, when looking at genes, the X and Y chromosomes stand out as the major difference between male and female. Females have 23 pairs of chromosomes, all of similar size and conformation. In men, chromosome 23 has been stunted, losing a large amount of the DNA that makes up the normal type. It is quite clear that the Y chromosome was formed from the X, not the other way around.

In genetic terms, the Battle of the Sexes seems to have been quite literally just that. One life form invaded another & they were so nearly equal a compromise was reached where the offspring shared genetic parts from both parents. The compromise was such a good deal in terms of survivability that the lifeform dominated to the point where virtually all life is now sexual to one extent or another.

I’m fairly sure this is how it came about because looking around at all forms of life there is every possible variant of the battle results. In some the female is barely more than host genetically while in others it is the male who lost most inheritance.

There are numerous things I’ve run into across the years that fall, for me, into the Spirituality area. There’s quite a bit on the pages here, but I am still working on how it comes together.

First: We would appear to be more than simply physical bodies, but there IS the physical body to account for. It is a fantastically complex machine that provides a myriad of responses and quite sophisticated input, yet we know now that it is both better than needed and not as good as it could be.

Better than needed…? If Evolution is the only force acting, the human brain has taken a light-year step beyond what was needed to achieve reliable survival. The genome seems to have changed in different ways to that used by other life forms. The intellect seems to have taken a step beyond what we needed to become pre-eminent among the primates. Society has formed into a over-riding formative structure that dictates the ongoing changes to us. We have taken memes to a level not seen among other species.

Not as good as it could be…? We are poorly adapted to our lives - if God designed us s/he should have done some basic medical work first. Teeth that replace only once? What’s that about? Telemeres that will only allow 13 cell divisions? Talk about a death sentence. Backs that are poorly adapted for upright posture? Muscles that decay rapidly if not used enough but which poison us with free radicals and acids if used too much? Eyes and hearing that require translation before we understand what’s around us while smell goes straight past the guardian filters to affect us at a level we can’t control?

But what is the other way?

Think about this… you go out with a friend in your car. You get in & drive 100 miles to your destination. Along the way you talk, laugh, joke, reminisce & generally interact with your friend. When you arrive at your destination, how much of the road do you recall?

If you’re normal the chances are the time passed much faster than the length of the trip would necessitate & you can’t recall most of the trip. But you arrived safely. How can this be?

It’s because your driving skills are now habitual - you have done enough driving that you can farm out the driving process while you focus on your friend & the conversation.

We have 2 (at least) levels of awareness - the spotlight, where our focus is here, now, on THAT subject, and the floodlight, where there is no specific focus & we are observing everything around without needing to run a train of thought on any specific thing. We do it all the time.

Psychology tells us that we actively process a tiny proportion of what is being received. Our Minds or maybe our brains do a kind of filtering where only the important stuff gets our attention. But if we do the Zen thing and derail our immediate attention, we can simply ‘BE’ in our space, being a part of ALL and experiencing without analysis.

Our society is very much about the here and now focus, but there is a beingness in us that can use and grow if we practice the floodlight view of reality. Connections come from floodlighting, specific details come from spotlighting.

A DoK Cantre is someone who consciously or otherwise inputs Knowledge into the human consciousness - DoK is an hypothesis that some people often or maybe all people sometimes, can enter data into the human stream of consciousness where it is picked up & becomes ‘common knowledge’ without the normal media-style channels.

Science and Sanity, the original Count Alfred Korzybski book, talks about how to stop labelling, to work on the human habit of identification of dissimilar events and treat each event as an original. He is talking about working to avoid the funnels, to remove the biased views we have and return to a time when all information was evaluated according to its content, not the label attached to it.

So to bring it back on subject… the second way to Know is, I think, what is being talked about here as DoK. The teachers, the media and even the internet presence ALL have one thing in common - they use the physical senses to get the data in. Because we are focussed on the physical (or we wouldn’t own a body) these are loud clear ‘voices’ in our sensorium. but here is another path.

The field that we are also has avenues to knowledge. I think maybe it’s access to the Library or the Hall where all experience is stored, but it’s the same event as when we have those moments of inspiration - the genius thought that lights up our mind as we realise we suddenly know something we didn’t know a split second before.

Many of those who are known for being original creators have said they feel like they are remembering something when it happens, as if the knowledge was already there and they just had to reach out and acknowledge it for it to become theirs. Maybe they are right?

I think the DoK being talked about here is not the physical propaganda path, I think we are trying to define the more esoteric path into Knowledge, the access to the very reason we are here - to take information and use experience to form it into real Knowledge.

Which brings us to what goes wrong…

In a word, funnels. Our education system teaches us the two-valued universe. And there is the problem. We tend to live by those two extremes. Look at the US political system. One is either a Democrat or a Republican. One identifies as that and so anyone who isn’t (say) a Republican like oneself, is automatically a Democrat. So one now has a funnel - a filter whereby people are labelled and the ‘rain’ of information about them is funnelled into a specific area.

After a while one comes to realise that not all Republicans are exactly like oneself, so one widens the ‘catchment area’ for the funnel of ‘them’ - more and more people get assigned over into the ‘them’ funnel and all information about them goes through the funnel.

With our system, most people are better defined by their funnels than by their knowledge. Everything gets labelled and assigned. Funnels [i]are[/i] labels.

But what happens under the funnel, down where the landscape is receiving these bits of data? Imagine a beach in the rain. After the rain has passed, the beach will look pretty much the same. Now set up an array of funnels, some large some small, so that almost all the beach is sheltered by the funnels. Let it rain. What happens to the beach now after the rain? You will find it has been cut into channels, deep ravines where the largest funnels were and small gullies where the small ones were. Certainly the beach doesn’t look untouched any more.

As the funnels of the mind get larger, and as the channels underneath get deeper, more and more information gets funneled into them. We become biased, prejudiced and unthinking in our acts because we have these pre-dug channels to guide how we react.

Now, to ‘know’ something, there are two paths - we can go for a wander up the valleys, round the lake and note the gullies and rocks, the layers of earth in the hills and the direction of the valley itself. All those pieces of information can lead us to decide, to arrive at Knowledge based on all the little pieces we’ve managed to associate so they carved the valley together. This takes time, and at the end we can describe all those pieces of information that led us to the conclusion.

But we’ve all experienced another way. de Bono looks at lateral thinking, the times when we make sudden creative jumps from what we know and find new knowledge. In this analogy, this is like getting into a mental glider and flyuing above the landscape, looking at it as a whole and seeing the shape of the valleys or the extent of the lake at a glance. It happens almost instantly and because we can see so much more than the single subject/valley of the other method, we can bring in other data to form our conclusion. It is very fast and we can’t, once the conclusion is formed, tell anyone how we came to that conclusion - it was the shape of what we saw.

Oh, and the overall landscape? (this is my thoughts on it) It’s our personality. All the experiences, all the thoughts, carve an individual landscape that, viewed as a whole, make us who we are. Our personal valleys are why we react to a stimuli differently to others. And the common features are why we react the same.

Which brings us to what goes wrong…

The other pathway to knowledge would seem less amenable to logical processes. There are times when we simply ‘know’ something. Psychology has tried to tell us it’s because much of our input is subconscious and we’ve picked up cues and hidden data and that has influenced us. Personally I think Edward de Bono has a better grasp of what is happening and Sheldrake and Lipton are providing us with mechanism.

de Bono says, (and in the following any errors are mine - it’s more than 20 years since I read this) the Mind is not the Brain. He proposes a scenario like this…

Imagine every child gets born with a mind that is like an almost featureless plain, stretching off into the distance in every direction. There are some small hills and valleys, but they’re all nicely rounded and hardly more than bumps and hollows. These correspond to the genetic heritage - there’s a valley that predisposes us to using language, to seeing colours, to processing sounds etc.

Now imagine that each piece of data that comes into our sensorium is like rain, falling onto the plain, with the location decided generally by topic. As we grow, the rain will start to alter the terrain. Streams will form, cutting away the ground, Occasional boulders (blocks) will appear, holding back the water by creating dams - eventually a datum will come that fatally undermines the boulder and with a rush of awareness, we have a new paradigm and see the world in different ways.

Over time, our landscape comes to look nothing like the gentle rolling plains that were first there. We have deep river valleys, rugged terrain and treacherous cliffs as the things we sense through our lives change our internal landscape.

First, a thought on why ‘telling’ may be needed. Often we have thoughts about things but it takes a trained or disciplined mind to make those thoughts coherent within the mind. On the other hand, telling someone else those thoughts requires us to structure them, to connect them to other pieces of knowledge, and to form them into a coherent and understandable wholeness that often simply doesn’t occur while we’re just thinking them.

It is why the adage exists about the best way to learn something is to teach a novice - by doing so you’re forced back to basics and you get to structure within your mind things that might have been nebulous or which had gaps in the flow.

I’ve posted elsewhere here about the fields Sheldrake and Lipton are looking at, but let’s assume for now that we are fields who own bodies to interact with the 3D world. This would seem to open two pathways into Knowledge - there’s information that comes from outside us in the world, following the route of event, perception, reception. ie. something occurs, our senses pick it up and transmit it through the nervous system to the brain, where the data is coloured by emotion and passed to the processing area where less primitive connections can be made.

At this point, (hopefully, although most people ignore this step for most inputs) the being who sits behind all this will view the Mind contents and analyse what has come in and make a decision which causes an action of some type.

It’s that last step, or the lack of it, that causes so many of the problems in our world - too many people react instead of think and act.

By: Seeker
So we seem to be finally taking the first steps along a path that might amalgamate Science and Spirituality. It’s possible that in a very short space of time we may see a change in how we view ourselves.

If Science can show that we are not just bodies, that we, as beings, transcend the mere physical and that we do not die forever when the body fails, it will change everything. The current world situation revolves around the wielding of fear – while we fear such nebulosities as World Terror, the powers above us can do almost anything they wish to us, because almost everything is so much less than death or harm from terrorists.

But removing the ‘curse’ of death will mean a people who grow without fearing an end – threatening them with death is no longer the total punishment it currently is for most folk. If we know for a fact that we will continue, then dying will be more akin to leaving home, and millions do that every year, many of them expecting not to see home again for at least a long time.

Without the fear of death, we will be able to focus on life, to watch what is being done in our names and to take responsibility for making our lives significantly better now, instead of cowering in fear over the final end of all things that is how death is mostly seen.

And if we know we will be back, if we can work on how to take our knowingness with us, maybe we can start to consciously move the race into a higher state of beingness rather than apparently constantly playing the same game over and over?

By: Seeker
What I have been discussing here is, I think, worth thinking about. For centuries or millennia the mystics have told us that we are more than our bodies – for the past century there has been a concerted effort to change that view. Over the same period the sages and gurus have told us how everything connects, how all life is one and that enlightenment is achieved when we truly feel that connectivity.

Now it seems Science is starting to give us the factual evidence that this could be literal truth. Admittedly neither Lipton nor Sheldrake are currently standing at the peak of their fields – many other biologists seem to want to push them out of biology completely. But they ARE doing science.

It is difficult, without an unlimited budget, to know fully what happens in journals that are pay-per-view, but the work of both Sheldrake and Lipton is accessible and so far, with a considerable amount of searching, I have been unable to find any hard science that contradicts what they are saying. Their detractors seem to be only able to say that either the two are lying or that, because they have moved beyond the test tube, they aren’t doing science.
Yet Science, by definition, should go where the data leads. Curtailing one’s views or thoughts simply because the data doesn’t agree with personal beliefs is not science, it’s religion, and worse, dogmatic religion of the type that leads to killing those who don’t also ‘believe’ the ‘Truth.’

For those who are interested to look, the Anthropogenic Global Warming subject is a classic example of where ‘science’ is being made to conform to personal (or political) belief. It does happen.