How Do You Unleash Your Inner Beast?

When the night blankets roughtly half of the world and everything goes quiet, who are you? In a world, in which most excell at the art of social disguise, could we trust the answer? Perhaps not even if we hadn’t become accustomed to playing a communal game of “Hide And Seek The Real You“. More often than not, in the complete absence of anyone we know, anonymity bestows us with the capactiy to act immorally, even against our best interest, without conscience…meanwhile we are letting the opportunity to cultivate meaning slip through our fingers. So, when the sky blackens and only faint glimmers of distant light remain, what do you become? How do you unleash your inner beast? [Roll Credits]

Hormonell wirksame Chemikalien in Penaten und Co.?

15 Random quotes from Monkey Island

James' Dojo 3.0

I know that the name of this category is 5 random quotes but Monkey island had three great games so I am putting three times the usualamount of qoutes

1. Guybrush: “At least I’ve learnt something from all of this.”
Elaine: “What’s that?”
Guybrush: “Never pay more than 20 bucks for a game.”

2. Barkeep: “Guybrush? Is that a french name?”
Guybrush: “No, actually it’s a fictional name.”

3. Guybrush: “Then, if you kill me everyone will forget you.”
LeChuck: “Forget me? I’m the dead zombie pirate LeChuck! None will forget me!”
Guybrush: “Do you remember Bobbin Threadbare?”
LeChuck: “Er… no.”
Guybrush: “Exactly.”

4. “I am Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate”

5. “Look behind you, a Three-Headed Monkey!”

6. “I’m selling these fine leather jackets.”

7. “That’s the second biggest monkey head I’ve ever seen!”

8. “So you want to be a pirate, eh? You look more like a flooring inspector.”…

View original post 219 more words

Simply Be

I am…
Without regret, apology or hesitation.

I’m not perfect,
Nor do I claim to be.

I dont know everything,
But I never cease to learn.

I am neither here nor there
Or anywhere inbetween.

And even when there’s no more to give,
I’ll stand with you until the end.

Peace Before Dawn

Have you ever fallen asleep in front of the TV in the early evening and woken up in the middle of the night? Did you feel a wave of quiet wash over the world in those few precious seconds, before you allow yourself to be pulled back into the world as you know it?

If so, take a moment…Enjoy the hours, in which the night is darkest and let go of everything holding you back from who you are truly meant to be.

Appointment with Death – What If We Hesitate?

Introspection without Introspeculations

Scientific research composed and compiled by Shaun Gallagher and Morten Overgaard

We have little to say about pain itself. It is clear that although pain is distinguishable from other experiential states, Price and Aydede do not isolate it from those other experiential dimensions (especially the affective). Thus they write: “First, pain, unlike most conscious experiential states such as visual, auditory, tactile experiences, have an immediate affective and emotional aspect to it, which underlies its intimate personal as well as clinical urgency”. Our ordinary experience of pain, then, is not of some pure painfulness and we should even say that pain infects our visual, auditory, tactile experiences. When I am in pain, my experience of the world via these various modalities is affected and indeed, these perceptual experiences do have affective and emotional aspects to them that may be the result of the pain itself. So we agree that pain does not function as an object of our perceptual experience, but infiltrates that experience itself. “Notice that pain here is not the object of our perceptual experience, but rather, it is the experience itself”. But this also motivates the following question: to what extent does the pain that one tries to introspect actually affect the introspection? This is just the opposite of what might be the more expected methodological question: to what extent does introspection affect (change) the experience of pain (or any experience)?

The authors argue that introspection is indispensable and that it is already a part of third-person studies. But what is the nature of the introspection that is already practiced in science? There does seem to be a very basic agreement among scientists interested in introspection that it involves a direct attending to the subject’s own consciousness, no matter how one would go about defining introspection from there.
To quote just a few of the “first-generation introspectionists,” Knight Dunlap writes “Introspection’ is usually defined in terms which are equivalent to the expression consciousness scrutinizing itself.” (1912). Angell writes: “It [introspection] consists simply in the direct examination of one’s own mental processes” (1908). Stratton considers it to be the “direct acquaintance with the state of our minds which all of us to some extent possess” (1914). Finally, William James characterizes it as “the looking into our own minds” (James 1890). Price and Aydede, however, suggest that it is beyond the scope of their paper to examine the nature of introspection, and they are satisfied with some combination of HOP and HOT models. They suggest that nothing crucial about their analysis depends on this issue. We disagree, especially in regard to the first part of their paper. For purposes of discussion we will stay with the model they propose, but we note that there is certainly much more to say about whether HOP or HOT models genuinely capture the concept of introspection. What’s important here is that whether one appeals to HOP, HOT, or some alternative phenomenological model of introspection, introspection is understood as a reflective second-order cognitive act that thematizes first-order phenomenal experience, and makes that experience the object of reflection. Price and Aydede claim that, concerning this kind of introspection, “there isbabsolutely no reason to think that the use of such a first-person approach is scientifically and methodologically suspect.” Especially with respect to what they characterize as the introspection already practiced in experimental settings, however, there may be some justified suspicion. Indeed, and on a more basic level, before we get to the issue of scientific reliability, we think that Price and Aydede’s analysis may reflect a not uncommon confusion about the very nature of introspection and how it is practiced. Indeed, in controlled scientific experiments that require verbal reports, it is not clear at all that introspection is used in any strict methodological fashion. There are really two points here. First, whether the practices that Price and Aydede call introspective are really introspective; second, whether those practices are above suspicion.

According to Price and Aydede, introspection is already practiced in experimental science because “the subjects’ verbal reports [or nonverbal behaviors like button pushes] about their own cognitive states have routinely been taken as evidence for the cognitive models postulated”. First, one might argue that all reports given by subjects are, at least indirectly, about their own cognitive (mental, emotional, experiential) states. If one instructs a subject to push a button, or say “now” when she sees the light come on, then the subject is reporting about the light, but also about her visual experience. Even if one instructs the subject in a way that carefully avoids mention of an experiential state: “Push the button when the light comes on,” the only access that the subject has to the fact of the light coming on is by way of her experience of the light coming on. In this sense the first-person perspective is inherent in all experiments that depend on subjects’ reports. One might follow this to its logical conclusion, that even scientific observations made by the experimenter, usually considered as third-person data, presuppose and are tied to first-person reports of the scientist. The scientist might say “The subject’s premotor cortex was activated 300msecs before the subject raised her arm.” But that could easily be a report on the scientist’s experienced perception of the instrument that measured the timing of the activation. It would be odd, however, to say that this third-person fact was based on introspection, although it is a first-person report of the scientist. More generally, however, and less extremely, it is odd to say that the first-person reports of a subject are necessarily introspective, although this is precisely what Price and Aydede claim. For example, I may ask the subject to say “now” when she sees the light come on.
How precisely does the subject know when she sees the light come on? Does she reflectively introspect her experience looking for the particular visual state of seeing the light come on? Or does she simply see the light come on and report that? One might ask, “How could she possibly report that she sees the light come on if she doesn’t introspectively see that she sees the light come on? Is it possible that we can report on what we experience without employing introspection?” There is a long tradition in philosophical phenomenology (specifically the tradition that follows Husserl) that answers in the affirmative. We can report on what we experience without using introspection because we have an implicit, nonintrospective, prereflective self-awareness of our own experience. At the same time that I see the light, I know that I see the light. This knowledge of seeing the light is not based on reflectively or introspectively turning our attention to our own experience. It is rather built into our experience as an essential part of it, and it is precisely that which defines our experience as conscious experience. On this view, I consciously experience the light coming on just as I see the light coming on. I don’t have to verify through introspection that I have just seen the light come on, since my first-order phenomenal experience
First-person reports of this kind, then, are not introspective reports. They are prereflective experiential reports. So it is not correct to say that from a first-person perspective “conscious experiences seem accessible only through introspection” or “introspection seems to be the only available method of access to qualia” This applies to pain as well. It is not the case that our access to pain phenomena is “only through the special epistemic faculty of introspection”. Indeed, introspection on pain is usually motivated only because we already know that we are in pain—and we have that knowledge prereflectively, and can report it on that basis, without introspecting it. A stimulus is applied. The experimenter asks, “Is that painful?” I do not have to introspect to say “yes.” I do not have to “observe/believe that such and such sensations” are happening to me (ibid., p. 252).
I can report directly and immediately on my experience of pain because my access is directly and immediately in the pain experience.
In addition, not all reports are about consciously experienced states. In philosophy and especially in cognitive science, there seems to be agreement, at least to a large extent, that not all mental states are conscious (Marcel 1983). Examples such as blind-sight and subliminal perception serve to illustrate that subjects may perform a number of tasks that we normally do not hesitate to call “mental” even though subjects report no conscious awareness of them. Therefore, it seems logical to conclude that not all reports about mental states are introspective, that is, not all of them are about consciousness.
The second point concerns how reliable or how methodological such experiential reports are. In general and for many cases, these kinds of reports do seem very reliable. If an experimenter applies a stimulus that causes a relatively high degree of pain, or a sensory stimulus that is well above threshold, the subjects’ reports that they experience the stimulus as painful or as clearly present seem above suspicion. Reliability may decrease, however, when the stimulus is closer to threshold, and may depend on the mode of report, or other subjective factors that qualify the report. Marcel (1993), for example, has shown that requests for quick reports of close-to-threshold stimuli using different modes of report (verbal, eye blink, button push) elicit contradictory responses. At the appearance of a just noticeable light stimulus, subjects will report with a button push that they did see the light and then contradict that with a verbal report. This kind of data, and more generally, uneven or inconsistent data can motivate two different strategies. Most often, following established scientific procedure,vdata are averaged out across trials or subjects, and the inconsistencies are washed out. Less often, scientists are motivated to take this first-person data seriously and to employ introspective methods to investigate it. The second part of Price and Aydede’s paper turns to what is genuinely the use of introspection in such contexts.

Methodologies of Introspection

So far we have argued that not all verbal reports on experience are introspective reports, and introspection is not the only access we have to experience. Thus we take issue with Price and Aydede’s claim that “Introspection is a way—apparently the only way—of coming to know about our experiences and their qualities directly”. Even if, however, many first-person reports found in scientific experiments are first-person, nonintrospective experiential reports, we do not mean to rule out the usefulness of introspection. The use of introspective reports, that is, self-reports that thematize experience, can certainly provide more information about the subject’s experience. In regard to pain, for instance, introspective reports can specify the qualities and subjective measurements of pain. In addition, if done in a methodically controlled way, introspection can address issues pertaining to the reliability of some
nonintrospective experiential reports.
It will be fruitful to compare and contrast three different models of how to employ a methodical introspection in experimental situations: (1) Price and Aydede’s experiential model; (2) what has been called a “new introspectionism,” developed by Overgaard, his colleagues, and a number of other researchers (e.g., Marcel 1983, 2003; Jack and Roepstorff 2002; see comments by Frith 2002; Gallagher 2002); and (3) the method of neurophenomenology developed by Varela (1996), Lutz, and their colleagues (Lutz et al. 2002). All three share the same ambition to improve techniques for subjective reporting in order to gain more insights into the “subjective pole” inb comparison between objective neural states and subjective conscious states.

The Experiential Model

Price and Aydede suggest an approach consisting of two stages. First, one is to use a “horizontal approach” in which an investigator or subject introspectively examines what some or other subjective state feels like. Price and Aydede advise us to avoid speculations about why something was experienced and to focus specifically on how it feels instead, thus avoiding interpreting or judging one’s own experiences. To do this, they argue that one should notice experiences passively without controlling attention so that one observes ongoing thoughts, emotions, or perceptions as if they were “seen in the periphery of one’s visual field.” Price and Aydede suggest not only “simple” kinds of experiential states as objects for the introspective examination, but, apart from their main example of pain, they suggest performance anxiety as a kind of mental state that can be studied with their approach.
The introspective examination consists not only of “inner observation” but also of a description or verbalization of the observations. Of course, aside from the possibilities presented by those who are poetically blessed, one cannot describe, say, the sensation of coldness with many words. Our ordinary, prosaic linguistic practices have not sufficiently evolved to describe a subjective state in such a way that someone who never experienced coldness himself would get an idea of what that sensation is like simply through the description. To address this scarcity of words, Price and Aydede want their subjects to describe associations and thoughts that may arise in connection with the relevant experience: “Intense burning and throbbing in my hand. Feel bothered by this and slightly annoyed. Is it going to get stronger? Feeling of concern. Hope my hand isn’t going to be scalded.”
Price and Aydede suggest that scientists should use themselves as subjects. The example of a description of associations that arise when lowering one’s hand into cold water was in fact given by one of the authors of the paper. The argument for using oneself, as investigator, as a subject, seems to be that the reports of the investigators are as “subjective” as are the reports of naive subjects, and, in this sense, just as valid as experimental data. However, one should not forget that investigators must be assumed to always have certain hypotheses and results they hope to find, and thus they are likely more biased as subjects. Using the same argument as Price and Aydede, one could say that given that investigators and naive subjects have the same status in terms of validity, one could reduce the possibility of the confounding effects of interpretations and judgments by using naive (though probably trained) subjects only.
Price and Aydede believe that their approach is compatible with experimental methods found in psychophysics. To integrate their rather open method of describing experiences, however, they find it necessary to ask subjects to scale the presence of, say, “a throbbing sensation of pain,” “fear of bodily harm,” or some other state described by the subjects themselves during the “open description.” This would in essence make possible a quantification of the descriptions, and, as such, it would make the reports commensurable with cognitive neuroscience. This is the second, “vertical,” aspect of their approach. In classical cognitive neuroscience, one uses stimulus input as an experimental variable. Subjects would be presented with two or more different kinds of stimuli and in order to find the neural activations for perceiving one kind of stimulus, the neural activations caused by the other kinds of stimuli would be subtracted from the first. Thus, the reasoning goes, one will find the essential features involved with perceiving the first kind of stimulus. When using neuroscientific techniques there seems no way around using such a subtractive method even though it has been severely criticized (Friston et al. 1996; Overgaard 2004). However, one does not need to define one’s variables based upon different stimuli. One could keep stimulus features constant and only vary the instructions as now seen in an increasing number of studies, or one could define the experimental conditions based on the subjective reports themselves. This latter strategy is suggested by Price and Aydede, and it points to a way of integrating the open, subjective reporting strategy with the methodology of cognitive neuroscience. Price and Aydede do not stand alone defending this kind of view on subjective reports and their integration with neuroscience. On several occasions, the authors appeal to introspectionism and phenomenology as research directions with similar goals. Within both traditions, in the last decade, new developments have occurred that deserve a comparison with the suggestions of Price and Aydede.

New Introspectionism

A “new” introspectionist approach to subjective reporting has been put forward in Marcel 1983, 2003; Jack and Roepstorff 2002; Overgaard 2003a; Overgaard, Nielsen, and Fuglsang-Frederiksen 2004; and is further developed in Overgaard and Sørensen 2004; and Ramsøy and Overgaard 2004.
In Overgaard 2003, an outline for introspective reporting is described. It is suggested that one should perform consciousness studies on a metaphysically neutral ground, and that an important reason for the shortcomings of classical introspectionism was the commitment to certain metaphysical claims, for example, the belief in “elementarism.” It is suggested that one should use introspective reporting in experiments on consciousness, given that nonintrospective reporting may reflect non-conscious processing. Furthermore, it is suggested that one should reconsider the use of stimulus conditions as the only variable in experiments in cognitive neuroscience, and instead use differences in instructions or in the subjects’ own reporting as the categories of analysis. This line of thinking corresponds very well with Price and Aydede’s reflections on the use of subjective reporting in experiments as well as in analysis of data. Ramsøy and Overgaard (2004) presented subjects with a visual identification task using varied durations, and asked subjects (1) to guess what was shown on the computer screen, and (2) to scale how clearly they experienced the image. The steps of the scale, including their definitions, were made by the subjects themselves with the instruction that there should be a 1:1 correspondence between experienced differences and reported differences. After a pilot experiment, in which the subjects developed the scale and became accustomed to using it, the actual experiment was run. The subjects ended up using more or less the same scale (named the Phenomenal Awareness Scale or PAS), and for reasons of analysis, the investigators decided to merge the scales to include only the points of the scale that were shared by the subjects. This strategy corresponds almost completely to the proposals of Price and Aydede in the “horizontal stage” of analysis, and in the transformation from the horizontal to the vertical strategy.
In Overgaard, Nielsen, and Fuglsang-Frederiksen 2004, PAS was used with different subjects when using a similar visual display, and coupled with transcranial magnetic stimulation and EEG. This study aimed to identify the involvement of the ventral projection streams from primary visual cortex in visual consciousness.
In effect, the approach of “new introspectionism” (described in more detail in Overgaard 2003b) shares all important features with the approach of Price and Aydede. The subjects started out using their own terminology, which then was used for the purpose of scaling the subjective reports, and finally, it was integrated with neuroscience to search for neural correlates of consciousness.
There are some minor differences between the two approaches as well. Price and Aydede seem more optimistic about which mental phenomena one can study with their suggested approach. Yet, during the horizontal stage, a phenomenon like performance anxiety would give rise to many different associations and thoughts, with the result that it would be almost impossible to tell whether the very different subjective reports basically reflect identical conscious states. Even in the example of the experience of coldness, as mentioned above, the “spontaneous utterings” of the subjects are so relatively different that the investigators must perform some amount of interpretation of the reports in order to create categories suitable for quantitative analysis. Such a post hoc analysis, of course, shares all the problems of the creation of reporting categories in advance of an experiment.

A further line of research using introspective reports aims to identify differences between reports that are specifically about “how” something is experienced and reports about “what” is experienced. In Overgaard and Sørensen 2004, subjects were presented with a simple design for visual stimuli. On one of three possible locations, a simple figure followed by a mask would appear. The figure was either a triangle, a square, or a circle, or some variation of one these figures (e.g., a half-circle, an upside-down triangle, or a combination of two figures). The colour was either blue, green, or red, although the hue varied. The subjects were to identify the displayed figure by pointing at the corresponding figure drawn on three scales: one for stimulus shape, one for color, and one for the location. The scale of shapes consisted of a display of thirty-four different figures, some of which were included in the data material. The scale of colors consisted of eight different levels of hue for the colors. As with the shapes, only some of the colors were actually included as stimuli. The scale of positions displayed the fixation cross in the middle and the three different locations where the stimulus could occur. The responses of the subjects were treated as being either “correct,” “incorrect,” or “near correct.” “Near correct” responses partially matched stimulus in a manner that was only partially correct (e.g., when they pointed at the same color as the one presented, but in a brighter or darker tone). The results of the data analysis showed that subjects in the nonintrospective condition had significantly more correct and incorrect responses, whereas the introspective subjects most often were “near correct.” In addition, subjects in the introspective condition tended to be more liberal about their reports of, say, color, while the subjects in the nonintrospective condition tended to show a more conservative style conforming to specific color categories.
These results open up questions such as to what degree and how precisely introspection might change (visual) experiences. It seems necessary to address the issue if or how this knowledge should change our way of using introspective reports.

Neurophenomenology

A third approach, neurophenomenology, as espoused by Francisco Varela (1996), follows the phenomenological tradition initiated by Husserl. This view involves training both the scientists and the experimental subjects in phenomenological method, including use of the phenomenological reduction, that is, the setting aside or “bracketing” of opinions or theories that a subject may have about his experience. This method involves shifting our attention from what we experience to how we experience. This correlates well with Price and Aydede’s advice to avoid speculations about why something was experienced and to focus specifically on how it feels. Lutz et al. (2002) employ the neurophenomenological method to study the highly variable successive brain responses to repeated and identical stimulations in many empirical testing situations that target specified cognitive tasks. Their hypothesis is that this variability is generated in mental fluctuations due to the subject’s attentive state, spontaneous thought processes, strategy decisions for carrying out the task, and so on. These subjective parameters include distractions, cognitive interference, and so on. To control for such subjective processes is difficult and they are usually averaged out across a series of trials and across subjects. Lutz and his colleagues decided to take these subjective parameters more seriously. They combined a process of trained phenomenological reflection with the dynamical analysis of neural processes measured by EEG in a paradigm involving a 3-D perceptual illusion. Importantly, Lutz and his colleagues used the introspective first-person data not simply as more data for analysis, but as contributing to their analytic framework.
Phenomenological training in this experiment consisted in training subjects to deliver consistent and clear reports of their experience through a reflective introspection. The goal of phenomenological reflection is to gain intuitions of the structural invariants of an experience, not to average them out. Phenomenological reflection can be either self-induced by subjects familiar with it (not unlike Price and Aydede’s proposal that the scientist use herself as the subject), or guided by the experimenter through open questions…questions directed not at opinions or theories, but at experience. Again, this resembles the “open description” discussed by Price and Aydede.
Rather than employing predefined categories, and asking “Do you think this experience is like X or Y or Z?” the open question asks simply “How would you describe your experience?” Open questions posed immediately after the task help the subject to redirect his or her attention toward the implicit strategy or degree of attention he or she implemented during the task. Subjects can be reexposed to the stimuli until they find “their own stable experiential invariants” to describe the specific elements of their experiences.
In a series of preliminary or practice trials, the subjects developed descriptions (refined verbal reports) of the subjective parameters while engaged in a depth perception task. Subjects thus became knowledgeable about their own experience and developed descriptions of experiential invariants on the basis of open questions, reporting on the presence or absence or degree of distractions, inattentive moments, cognitive strategies, and so on. On the basis of these first-person introspective descriptions, descriptive categories were formulated a posteriori to create phenomenologically based clusters that are then used as analytic tools in the main trials. For example, with regard to the subject’s experienced readiness for the stimulus, the results specified three readiness states: steady readiness (SR), in which subjects reported that they were alert and well prepared as the task began; fragmented readiness (FR) in which subjects reported that they were prepared less “sharply” (due to a momentary tiredness) or less “focally” (due to small distractions, etc.); and unreadiness (SU) in which subjects reported that they were unprepared as the task began. Subjects then used these categories to report their readiness state during the main trials as the experimenters recorded the electrical brain activity. The first-person reports were correlated with both behavioral measures (reaction times) and dynamic descriptions of the transient patterns of local and long-distance synchrony occurring between oscillating neural populations. Using these correlations, Lutz et al. were able to show that distinct subjective parameters correlate to specific dynamic brain patterns just prior to presentation of the stimulus. The results were significantly different relative to results based on averaging across trials.
The experimental protocol used in Lutz et al. 2002 thus employs a practical phenomenological method. The subjects are asked to provide a description of their own experience using an open-question format, and thus without the imposition of predetermined theoretical categories. They are trained to gain introspective intimacy with their own experience. Their first-person introspective reports are then intersubjectively and scientifically validated both in setting up the phenomenological clusters and in using those clusters to interpret results that correlated with objective measurements of behavior and brain activity.

Conclusion

These three approaches share a number of common features.
1. Use of preliminary trials or pilot experiments to train subjects and to develop introspective or phenomenological descriptions of experience or subject-developed scales
(Lutz; Overgaard).
2. A pushing aside of theories or speculations in favor of attending to how experience is happening (Price and Aydede’s avoidance of speculation; Varela’s phenomenological reduction).
3. The use of open questions to develop a description of the experience (Price and Aydede’s “open description”; Lutz’s open questions).
4. The formulation of common categories that transform first-person introspective descriptions into intersubjectively verified and commonly understood reports (Lutz’s phenomenological clusters; Overgaard)
5. The use of these phenomenologically generated categories not just as data, but also as part of the analytical instrument (Price and Aydede; Overgaard; Lutz).
6. The integration of first-person data with third-person behavioral, psychophysical, and neurological measurement (EEG, TMS, PET, fMRI) in search of correlations among experiences, brain activity, and behavioral responses (Price and Aydede; Overgaard; Lutz). Putting all of these elements together may provide a fuller and more detailed conception of how a methodical introspection could work than found in any one of the models. Perhaps a more integrated model that recognizes the precise difference between introspection and first-person, prereflexive, experiential reports is now called for.

Who Can We Truly Depend On?

What’s happens when you trust someone completely…when we begin to believe that one person wouldn’t let us down as long as it was within their power to prevent it…Yet, we can never truly know anyone in this life, even ourselves, so how can we trust?

In simple terms, we cannot without the kind of nasty surprises, which topple our whole world. Although they aren’t always unfortunate reminders we should never trust a living soul, they are quite often… Hence, when we find ourselves in a position of great risk, we must decide wisely. What we know of whomever, we are willing to risk a lot for, is a fragment of who they truly are inside. They are just letting us see what they want us to. So, when the mask slips, then we are privy to a mere glimpse of what they have to hide…In truth, most of us would run for the hills, if we ever saw anyone for who they are. We are no longer conditioned to strive for meaningful connections…

These days, things capable withstanding the test of time have become all too rare. We can now only find true loyalty in the darkest of places. Even then it is few and far between. It has become easier to engage with others under the guide of actual trust than to rob them in the broad daylight (of straightforward honesty), so to speak.
Nowadays, what used to strengthen our relationships is the very thing that tears them apart. We have become so accustomed to ‘being’ the way other people expect, to ‘saying’ what they want to hear and ‘thinking’ how we should in their eyes… Few say what they think. Fewer do the right thing, when everybody claims it is wrong…In the process, we have lost who we are deep inside for the pretence of being a part of something that doesn’t exist as we imagine it.
Times have changed. On a global scale, our ability to forge committed relationship depends on our capacity to listen, empathise and respond appropriately with genuine involvement in other person’s life. We must be committed to the fulfillment of their highest potential with similar or greater intensity….But let’s be honest, this is hard work that requires us to act as selflessly as possible at every opportunity.

While we still build different types of relationships for the wrong reasons, their foundations are no longer as solid as they are supposed to be. We cannot depend on others as we used to, but then we cannot leave our doors unlocked anymore either. What once was a communal setting, designed to foster qualities to aid our lifelong development, is treated as an hostile environment now…and occasionally for sane reasons. For example, London residents in many low income areas, rife with gang activity and religious extremism, risk becoming a victim of violence, each time they leave their flats. Who should they depend on? Their mayor, who believes it is all part and parcel of living in the city. They are more likely to be saved by the benevolence of a passing stranger than by an overworked, underpaid police force…or those in their charge of their budgeting… Perhaps Bruce Lee can depend on his skills to get out of a life-threatening situation with multiple attackers, but the average person can’t…So, our dependence on one another in such situations seems perfectly logical, even when help often can’t arrive in time.

However, life & death situations are the most notable example of how nobody can survive alone. Sooner or later, we must depend on somebody or something…but those are extreme circumstances that only compare to how much we depend on others to a limited extent. For instance, the people we can rely on during difficult times will most likely also be a pillar of support for us after a traumatic event. Extremes merely bring out dependency issues that already influence our daily living. They amplify needs, which are already present, in a way they might represent a burden to others over time. Although the average recovery period after a traumatic event can be from 3-6 months to 1-3 years, the majority of modern society has little tolerance for this… For instance, if someone already has an overbearing personality, any event making them more dependent is likely to drive people away…and if we can’t depend on anyone, we have a low chance of survival when things get tough. All too often I’ve encountered the kindest individuals, whose only ambition was to be liked at any cost. Some were devoted to altering their behaviour to please those around them, it hurt to watch every attempt thwarted. Others began to relish the dislike for whatever qualities they displayed, as a defence mechanism, so they increased the frequency of said behaviour.

…What Matters Above All Else…

How do we inspire the kind of loyalty seen only on rare occasions? How we persevere, when we cannot even elicit a hint of tolerance? Perhaps, it is not destination that matters but the journey. It takes a great deal of experience to be as genuine as we were as children. When we reach adulthood, we often lose that innate compassion. It is far easier to offer sympathy than actual help…especially when we are in a superior position of any kind and don’t wish to end up the same way. As though, bad luck is contagious, people tend to avoid those who suffer from it, if they are not actively invested in them.

In general, it is healthy for an independent adult to share whatever they wish with another…Socially, even if we come to depend on it over time, however, only when we are able cope with its sudden loss without emotional upheaval. (Perhaps, we should eventually ask ourselves, when did society become so cold.) Still, before we attempt to rack our brains around that chestnust, we must examine our own biases. No matter how much we believe, we can never truly be independent…We shall always need others for caring support to master our lives…So how can we deny this to others when they truly need it?

Appointment with Death – What If We Can’t?

What is life and who has the right to judge what should or shouldn’t be? Who has control over what can and can’t be? We may think the miracle of life as something sacred that must only be prevented in the case of physical harm to the mother or forced conception. We might occasionally imagine how precious moments of togetherness could foster a lasting bond...But there is a clear line when fantasy meets reality, which is birth…

We can ponder what could be until the rest of eternity, however, we cannot escape the consequences of our actions once we reach a certain point. The further along we are, the more our options are limited until only two remain. Up to the 8th week, chemical abortion through a small pill is offered at free clinics. Although there is mild discomfort and some bleeding, the procedure is considered to be physically harmless. Up to the 10th week, surgical removal of the foetus is permitted by scooping it out. Outside of Europe, there are often alternatives further along in the pregnancy. Personally, I would be uncomfortable exploring any option above the pill, unless I truly wanted to get “that thing” out of me. However, dependent on the circumstances, pregnancy can alter our perception not merely through sentimentality or hormones…Every woman must make her own decision. One that is right for her and her alone. Nobody else. Whether others approve of her decision should be irrelevant, as it is her body. If her personal philosophy cannot reconcile with the idea and move forward, then what is she to do? This is a decision many women face, who still believe in the importance of upholding their values…due to what most call a lapse of judgement… As a teenager, in my opinion, to make the choice is less complicated. With so much life unlived, we ought to not burden ourselves before collecting experiences. Yet, once we are close to thirty, we begin to wonder…when could we be in a bearable position financially? How old do we want to be when our kids leave home? Our answers are nothing compared to the real thing. When opportunity knocks, everything changes. If we are barely getting by, but can’t take the leap, then would choose would destroy herself…by the going against every inch of her faith or by the burden of becoming a single mother…either choice would destroy something within…by going against every inch of ourselves or by the burden of becoming a single mother… When we struggle for whatever reason before the pregnancy, our hardship won’t lessen. People around us will not ease off on their stressful interactions with us at appropriate as well as inappropriate times. In fact, they will persist further. When the odds are morally debatable, then others may act in ways toward the pregnant woman that are unethical, abusive or even life-threatening. She must accept the responsibility to protect her offspring, if she wishes to keep it. Sadly, nothing is guaranteed. We cannot shield ourselves or others, just from the consequences of our own choices after we have decided. Once we make either choice, we must commit completely and never waiver. After all, we are playing with death in the attempt to control life…for comfort ot even for all the right reasons, but always at a steep cost.

We must never give up believing in the potential for nurture to bring out the best in someone brought up in the most unfavourable circumstances. It can be the cliché of the only good thing to come out of a situation, but we must bear it mind, it might not be… It could be the catalyst for something else entirely…

Ultimately, our choice is all about what we can live with. What we desired before we conceived may not be what we want now. What we clung to in order to keep us going might no longer get us through this. Both decisions can be a sign of strength, when we are in full pursuit of our heart. When we “deal with” an unwanted or wanted pregnancy and move forward without psychological fallout, then we have coped in a way that was right for us. Conversely, when we choose to carry to term, because we simply cannot terminate for whatever reason, we are equally doing right by us. In truth, there is no right or wrong, when it comes to abortion. As long as we make a decision, we can commit to in the long run, we have chosen correctly. The worst thing we can do is allow ourselves to be pressured into something that we aren’t ready for. Under no circumstances, should we tolerate threats for how we deal with the situation or our final choice. These are merely means to coerce us into solving a perceived problem, which impacts you more than them, in a certain way that suits them…However, due to their egotistical nature, they could fail to acknowledge how the decision-making process weighs on you or how the added stress can prevent you from forming a conclusion with a clear head.

Click Here For More

Is Social Media an Orwellian Experiment In Permanent Monitering & Censorship?

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

– George Orwell

Seventy years ago, Eric Blair, writing under a pseudonym George Orwell, published “1984,” now generally considered a classic dystopian fiction. The novel tells the story of Winston Smith, a hapless middle-aged bureaucrat who lives in Oceania, where he is governed by constant surveillance. Even though there are no laws, there is a police force, the “Thought Police,” and the constant reminders, on posters, that “Big Brother Is Watching You.”
Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to rewrite the reports in newspapers of the past to conform with the present reality. Smith lives in a constant state of uncertainty; he is not sure the year is in fact 1984. Although the official account is that Oceania has always been at war with Eunrasia, Smith is quite sure he remembers that just a few years ago they had been at war with Eastasia, who has now been proclaimed their constant and loyal ally. The society portrayed in “1984” is one in which social control is exercised through disinformation and surveillance.

The techniques and technologies described in this novel or other classic dystopian fiction are very much present in the world today. A key feature of surveillance in the book is a telescreen, not unlike our modern television. The difference is ours has more than one channel. Without total control, one channel that cannot be turned off would lead to mayhem following a massive revolt. Once viewers become accustomed to a large number of channels, the only way to reduce them to one is by decreasing the number over generation…Failing that, a mass extinction event could also facilitate a reduction in non-essential media channels.
Now, what the novel plays on with the telescreen is the constant monitoring of every person in their own homes. As the screen watches its viewers permanently and cannot be turned off, there is no escape. However, there are suspicions on how much the cameras in our phones, laptops, tablets or television truly surveil…

The apps we download demand access to all sorts of information from our location, photos, contacts, microphone and camera. Countless app providers, like Uber have been under fire for faulty data protection…which led to private addresses of customers being at risk and probably the target of seemingly unrelated criminal offences.

Facebook: Social Influence

On Facebook, any page you click on and like are tracked, so predictive algorithms can ensure its continued financial success with modern innovation.
Many people also claim when you’re scrolling, the microphone is on and eavesdrops on conversations, which may explain why we notice advertisements for things we’ve just been talking about. Facebook obviously denied the accusation. From a legal standpoint, as long as they have permission to access the microphone, they aren’t doing anything they could be prosecuted for. If we don’t feel comfortable with this, we can opt out of it in the app permissions section.
Furthermore, since facebook uses facial recognition technology for its auto-tagging software, the only way to avoid tags is to not be recognisable in any pictures uploaded to Facebook.

It’s not just Facebook collecting user data in myriad of ways. Google, Apple, Amazon and Yahoo, along with others, track cookies, devices and profile data to deliver targeted advertising and personalized content. In each case, digital services offered by these tech firms have privacy policies in place. However, with a little observation, it becomes clear very fast that the vast majority of social media users do not have a solid understanding of how their data can be used for better or for worse.

Twitter: Linguistic Influence

There is one reason why close control of our language is so easily accepted. Digital language in some of its forms, and especially on Twitter, becomes a permanent possession or manifestation of the individual member of Twitter.

Everything that we say on Twitter remains on our account (and even in the Library of Congress it is marked for us), and the stream of content that we follow via Twitter is accessible to us in our own privately curated repository.

Twitter and many other new forms of writing or reading at least appear to be in our service, rather than in the control of a Big Brother from 1984. The extent to which our use of language will always be attached to our historical and database-archived records is a disconcerting prospect. Will all our speech and all our digital writing be accumulated like Google mail in a personal account to which we alone, and Google, have full access? It is all too easily conceivable that in a few decades we may be able to go back over dinner conversations or classroom discussions that had taken place weeks or months or years earlier, lodged and accessed via some personal recording device.

Twitter does not demand our full attention, quite the opposite…although it may elicit surprising experiences possible only through its text restrictions.
“Why would individuals choose to commit to a new form of writing and messaging, especially since we have so many other choices, and Twitter comes with some obvious limitations?” This is merely conjecture, but as countless linguists have arrived at the same question, the answer may yield new insights into how social media affects our psycho-social development on an international scale.
In comparison to Facebook, Twitter does not have any very obvious economic value to most of its members, and it may have got off the ground because we like to experiment with new ways of socializing online. Twitter’s granular structure certainly provides many opportunities for subjective choice. Twitter and other digital institutions provide us with a challenge. These tools offer us new ways of expressing our thoughts and our interests, but in so doing the tools we are using cannot be separated from the form in which the thinking is carried out.

As any social medium, we can join and leave at any moment. In the next chapter I shall consider the ways in which our use of SFDs to build these new digital institutions may rely on the same skill sets and predispositions that have guided the evolution of language and culture in all its shapes in the last million years.
Twitter and other digital institutions provide us with a challenge. These tools offer us new ways of expressing our thoughts and our interests, but in so doing the tools we are using cannot be separated from the form in which the thinking is carried out.

What is a Kilonova?

Experienced stargazers are usually familiar with terms like nova and supernova. You know, these are short-term bright to super bright stars. Some have also heard of a hypernova. A new type of nova, the Kilonova, has recently appeared in astronomy. What is a Kilonova and who or what produces it?

First, a brief explanation of the classic nova concept is given.
For centuries, the last act in star life was the view that the view of the star tent was eternal and unchangeable, because the pattern of the constellations apparently always remained the same. Only the planets as well as the sun and moon make their way through the images of the zodiac. In contrast to the ephemeral things in earthly existence, the sky tent together with the sparkling splendor of the stars seemed made for eternity. Today it is known that stars do not exist indefinitely. They arise, shine for a while and then perish. Of course, the life phase of a star has many millions, usually even billions, of years.
Our distant ancestors were therefore very surprised when a new star appeared in the sky. Far Eastern sources report a new star that surprisingly appeared in the constellation Taurus on 4th of Juli 1054. After a few weeks he was gone again. The famous astronomer Tycho Brahe observed a bright star in the constellation Cassiopeia in 1572 that he had never seen before. The same thing happened to his colleague and successor as imperial astronomer in Prague, Johannes Kepler, who discovered a previously unknown bright star in the image of the serpent-bearer (Ophiuchus) in 1604.
Kepler wrote a report with the Latin title De Stella Nova (“About the New Star”). He and his contemporaries believed that they were actually observing a new star that had never existed before. For suddenly seemingly new stars, the term “Nova” was used. But in the course of time it was doubted whether a nova appearance really indicates the birth of a new stem, especially since the “new” stars could not be observed for a long time, but disappeared again after a few weeks. With the invention of the telescope, it was recognized that Novae (plural of Nova) did not completely disappear, but after its heyday could still be observed as faint asterisks. Today they are called “postnovae”. It was soon assumed that there was already a star, albeit a faint one, in the place of a flashing nova, the Praenova. With the publication of ever better star maps, in which faint stars are also recorded, it was possible to prove such prenovae in several cases. This made it clear: a nova is not a completely new star, but the flare-up of an existing star.
The outbreak of light from a Nova is so enormous that the star suddenly shines a hundred thousand times brighter than before within a few hours. This makes stars visible that before their enormous increase in brightness could only be seen in bright telescopes and were completely unknown before the telescope was opened. Novae is now one of the variable stars in the Eruptive Variable class.

Sometimes stars show bursts of brightness that make them many million, even billion times more luminous than their original brightness. For days or a few weeks, they shine as brightly as a complete galaxy with a hundred billion suns. Such a phenomenon is called a supernova.
Are supernovae observable even in distant milky way systems as conspicuous objects? Supernovae usually outperform nova phenomena by a million times the brightness. From an astrophysical point of view, a supernova must be a different process than a nova.
A nova outbreak is a comparatively harmless event for a star: some stars experience multiple nova outbreaks (so-called recurrent novae). In a nova, a thermomiclear explosion occurs on the surface of a star when fresh hydrogen gas falls from a companion star onto the surface and heats up to several million degrees. ” Because the enormous kinetic energies of the masses falling onto the star graze Impact converted into thermal energy, (i.e. heat). Nuclear fusion is used in the hydrogen gas, which is heated to millions of degrees, a process that normally only takes place in the center of a star. The nuclear fusion running on the surface causes the star to flare up and a nova appears.

A Blazing Finale

A supernova, on the other hand, means “out” for a star. The affected sun ends its existence in a huge explosion that completely tears the star apart and becomes visible as a spectacular light effect in space.
There are two fundamentally different types of supernova events. Type Ia supernovae are caused by the collapse of a white dwarf star, which has exceeded _a Chandrasekhar mass limit due to mass accretion (accumulation). Collapse leads to an explosive nuclear fusion of carbon. Carbon atom nuclei fuse to form nuclei of the elements nickel, cobalt and iron as end products. The white dwarf star does not survive its collapse. It is completely torn apart. A compact remnant such as a neutron star is not left. A type Ia supernova emits as much energy in a few days as our sun does in around a hundred million years.
When a massive star of more than eight solar masses has burned out at the end of its life. When the thermonuclear processes in its center have come to a standstill and an iron core has formed, the central area of the stem collapses. A huge explosion is the result.

For a long time it was believed that a supernova is the most powerful detonation of a single object in the universe. But then bursts of radiation were observed in all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, which exceeded the brightest supernovae by a hundred times. Such a super supernova is now called a hypernova. The discovery of hypernovae can be traced back to the gamma-ray flashes that have been puzzling for many years. Such gamma ray bursts (GRBs) as the. Technical term means were discovered by chance in the 1960s. The Vela satellites in orbit were originally intended to monitor earthly nuclear explosions. But they registered short-term bursts of gamma rays that contain the most energetic photons in the electromagnetic spectrum that came from outer space. Fortunately, gamma rays do not penetrate the earth’s atmosphere.

In the meantime, several satellites are circling the earth with special detectors for researching the cosmic gamma rays. Today you have a fairly accurate idea of how a hypemova is created. When a massive star that causes a supernova collapses, the magnetic field lines are compressed. The accretion disk, which rotates rapidly around the collapsed star, also generates an extremely strong, bipolar magnetic field. The strong magnetic field ensures that the electrically charged particles of the plasma in the accretion disk are accelerated enormously and shoot out along the magnetic field lines at almost the speed of light in two jets. The released energy is bundled. The interaction of atomic nuclei and electrons with photons (inverse Compton eifect) causes intense gamma radiation. If one of the two lets (beam of rays) is directed towards the earth, the gamma-ray bursts mentioned are observed. But the underlying star flashes not only in the gamma range. Electromagnetic rays are also emitted in other wavelengths. Thus, a bright glow can be seen in visible light, just a Hypemova. The enormous energy that one registers on earth with a hypernova cannot be attributed to a spherical (spherical) radiation.

The New Kind of Nova
A new type of nova Recently, nova phenomena have been observed that are around a thousand times more luminous than an ordinary nova, but far from being as bright as a supernova or even a hypernova. Such an eruption is called “Kilonova”.

The Kilonovae, also known as Makronovae, reach a total luminosity of 1031 to 1032 kilowatts, which corresponds to a hundred million to one billion solar luminosities. A kilo or makronova is caused by the fusion of two massive stars, primarily two neutron stars or a neutron star with a black hole. In visible light, a Kilonova glows for a few hours to around ten days, changing color from bluish white to yellow, red and deep red. It can then be observed in the infrared spectral range.

On August 17, 2017, two merging neutron stars became the source of gravitation. A new type of nova Recently, nova phenomena have been observed that are around a thousand times more luminous than an ordinary nova, but far from being as bright as a supernova or even a hypernova. Such an eruption is called “Kilonova”.
The Kilonovae, also known as Makronovae, reach a total luminosity of 1031 to 1032 kilowatts, which corresponds to a hundred million to one billion solar luminosities. One kilo or makronova is caused by the fusion of two.

Turn Into Earth

How your restless, hungry eyes
Search for meaning in a world
That never sleeps…
Speak of cloudy winter skies…

The morning dew, turns into rain
Dying leaves of seasons brown
Losing life as they drift down
Toos soon in life, return to earth
Only they can know their worth

Distant dreams of things to be,
Wandering thoughts that can’t be free
I feel my mind turning away
To the darkness of the day..

AstroForecast of Fixed Stars: February 2020

Compared to the previous month, the view of the evening star tent has not changed significantly. Because the vault of the sky has only turned 30° when you look at the starry sky at the same time as in the previous month. Since a star day is 23h56m long, all stars culminate four minutes earlier each day than the day before. After a month (i.e. after 30 days) all stars pass the meridian two hours earlier.
Orion has already crossed the celestial meridian at 22h CET. Its reddish shoulder star Betelgeuse and its bluish foot star Rigel can be recognized well even in the brightened city sky, just as the three stand in a line rotated by 30° if you look at the starry sky at the same time as in the previous month. Since a star day is 23h56m long, all stars culminate four minutes earlier each day than the day before. After a month (i.e. after 30 days) all stars pass the meridian two hours earlier.
Orion has already crossed the celestial meridian at 22h CET. Its reddish shoulder star Betelgeuse and its bluish star star Rigel can be recognized even in the brightened city sky, as well as the three belt stars standing in a line. However, the Great Orion Nebula (M 42) just south of the three belt stars can only be seen with good eyesight under good visibility conditions. This star formation nest is an attractive object for binocular observers. The sky hunter Orion is followed by the Great Dog, whose intense bluish radiant star Sirius has just passed the meridian. The coming spring is heralding the eastern sky: the lion takes its place here, it is the guiding constellation of the spring sky. Its main star Regulus immediately stands out as the only star of the first size in this area. The twins are high above our heads. Cancer is found between the lions and the twins. The name. almost everyone knows him because he belongs to the zodiac, whose pictures are regularly mentioned in horoscopes. But to spot the crab in the starry sky is not easy, since it is composed only of faint stars.
The naked star cluster Praesepe (lat., cradle) can already be seen in cancer with the naked eye, but only as a weak spot of light under good visibility conditions. In star charts the Praesepe is often entered with the catalog designation M44. A swarm of individual stars appears in the telescope.
The winter hexagon with Kapella in the cart, Aldebaran in the bull, Rigel in the Orion, Sirius in the big dog, Procyon in the little dog and Pollux in the twins have shifted significantly to the west. Of the autumn pictures, only Andromeda and Perseus are worth mentioning.
In the northeast, the Big Dipper slowly pushes higher, while the Cassiopeia, descends to the horizon but does not reach it as a circumpolar image. The seven car stars are not an independent constellation, but belong to the Great Bear (lat. Ursa Maior).
The water snake (Latin: Hydra) meanders along the southeastern horizon. Your head is just south of the constellation Cancer. It is made up of faint stars and is therefore not easy to spot. The water snake is female. There is a second constellation, the water snake, the hydrus or the male water snake. However, the hydrus is so far south that it always remains below the horizon in Central Europe and therefore unobservable.

Objects For Binoculars & Telescopes

To the traditional celestial objects that create a grandiose impression in binoculars and also in visitors to an observatory always bg. spiritually, the two open stem heaps belong to Hyades and Pleiades in Taurus. The Pleiades (M45) appear more crowded. With around 400 light years, they are also three times further away than the Hyads with a distance of 140 light years. In the middle of the hyads is the orange Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri). However, it does not belong to this star cluster, but is one of the most prominent with 66 light years. Binoculars already separate the 91.2 Tauri binary in the Hyades. In the telescope, the central part of the pleiades is broken down into four separate light points.

M44, the crib in the constellation Cancer, is also one of the jewels in the winter sky. With bare eyes as a matt, “but clearly visible light spot, M44 turns out in binoculars as a magnificent open star cluster. The field of vision is teeming with stars. The Americans call this star cluster Beehive, the beehive, because they have the impression that they see stars like buzzing bees. The Latin name for crib is Praesepe. The approximately 300 stars of the cluster are 580 light years away from us. In binoculars you can only see the 50 brightest suns from M 44. The brightest single star in the cluster is Cancri with 6m3, a white star (spectral type A2).

M44, the crib in the constellation Cancer, is also one of the jewels in the winter sky. With bare eyes as a matt, “but clearly visible light spot, M44 turns out in the binoculars as a splendid open star cluster. The field of vision is teeming with stars. The Americans call this star cluster Beehive, the beehive, because they have the impression that they see stars like buzzing bees. The Latin name for crib is Praesepe. The approximately 300 stars of the cluster are 580 light years away from us. In binoculars you can only see the 50 brightest suns from M 44. The brightest single star in the cluster is Cancri with 6m3, a white star (spectral type A2).

In addition to the cradle in Cancer, the M67 star cluster in Cancer is an impressive object. M 67 lies almost 2° west of Acubens (Alpha Cancri). In a telescope with an opening of 20 cm or more, you can see more than 200 individual stars that are relatively close together. In binoculars you therefore have the impression of a little mist of about 20 ’. This bunch can be easily resolved in a telescope. Its distance was determined from the color-brightness diagram (FHD) to be around 2500 light years. New distance measurements tend to make a distance of almost 3000 light years seem more appropriate. With an age of around four billion years, M67 is one of the oldest open star clusters.

Another open star cluster is recommended: M35 in the constellation Gemini. It lies about 2 °5 northwest of Propus (Geminorum) and is already visible through binoculars. However, through a telescope, you can discern roughly 300 member-stars. The distance of this star community from us is approx. 2800 light years.

An interesting triplet in cancer is Tegmeni, 84 light years away. The main component is a 5m0 bright, yellow star (GO) with a companion of 6m0, which also shines yellowish. The separation of both stars is 6″, which separates each three-inch model. The main component itself is a narrow double star of 1m1 distance with 5% and 6m0 brightness of the individual components.

For double star hunters, Kastor in the twins is also called (a Geminorum). Two white suns (A2) with 1m9 and 2m9 brightness are currently 5m3 separated. They circle each other in 470 years. Kastor is 52 light years away and, strictly speaking, a sixfold star.

M51 is a galaxy, a prime example of a spiral nebula that you can see almost vertically. M51 is in the hunting dogs and is considered one of the most beautiful spiral nebulae that are often shown on guided tours. Lord Rosse was the first to recognize the spiral shape of M 51. Because of its appearance, this galaxy is also called “whirlpool galaxy” (Eng. Whirl; pool Galaxy). In order to clearly recognize the spiral shape, one should use a telescope with at least 25cm free opening (10-inch). At the end of a spiral arm there is a brightening that comes from the companion galaxy NGC5195. The more than 300 billion stars of M51 are 27 million light years away from us. Experienced observers may want to look for the NGC 2357 galaxy in the twins. They can be found a little north-northwest of Delta Geminorum. You can see them from the edge as a needle or spindle-shaped structure with 2′ length and a brightness of 13%. To recognize NGC 2357, you should use a telescope with at least 25 cm aperture and a magnification of 200 to 300 times.
Coordinates: a = 07h17m41S / 5 == + 23 ° 21’24 “(12000.0)
In 2010, a supernova outbreak with 15″3 took place in NGC 2357. Another was observed in this galaxy in 2015 (maximum brightness: 14%)

Dear People of the World

Written in 2006

I am, who I am…
And nothing can change that
I am, who I am
And I will be forevermore.

What a beautiful place
Would this world be
If everything mattered,
And everybody was respected.

What a beautiful place
Would this world be
If there was no war,
And we could cultivate peace .

I am, who I am…
And it should matter.
I am, who I am,
And everybody shall see….

How happy would we all be,
If nobody died…
If the world was a better place
With more people who cared…

How happy would we all be,
If we could stand up for each other…
If we were able to give,
With the tolerance to take.

I am who I am…
And I should be proud,
I am who I am…
And I stand for it.

No despair would remain for long,
If we dries each others tears…
If nobody was left outside alone
And we simply accepted one another…

No despair would remain for long,
No sorrow could last
If we could listen to our hearts,
And be who we are supposed to be…

What would happen,
If we stopped fearing loss,
Just letting go of all control
And let the dice fall where they may…

What would happen,
If relationships lasted forever
And the love would remain…
After it’s been unsteady for so long.

I know, who I am…
And I know what I want.
I know, who I am
And I know I can do better.

What if mother nature wouldn’t
Hate us so much
After we ravished her beauty
And destroyed her for so long.

What if people could breathe again,
And there was enough for everyone…
What if we could just be happy
With who they truly are inside..

AstroForecast: February 2020

• Mercury appears in the evening sky from 06:00-12:00.
• Venus continues to play its role as evening star
• Mars can be observed in the morning sky Jupiter rules the morning sky with its shine
• In the last third of Februaryn Saturn appears in the morning sky.

Solar System

Mercury offers respectable evening visibility from the 6th to the 12th. The closest planet to the sun reaches its greatest eastern elongation from the sun on 18°12′. The angular distance is relatively small at this maximum elongation, since Mercury runs through its perihelion (closest point to the sun) on the 12th, whereby 46 million kilometers (= 0.307 AU) separate it from the sun. Despite this comparatively small elongation angle, the nimble planet can be seen in the evening sky at dusk, because it travels eight degrees north of the zodiac than the sun. Under good visibility conditions, Mercury can be seen just above the south-west horizon at the beginning of the month. The sinking of the -1m0 bright Mercury takes place on the 1st at 18h31m. Shortly after half past five in the evening it is already so dark to look for Mercury with the prospect of success. A quarter of an hour before the sinking, it is swallowed up by the thick layers of haze on the horizon. By the 10th the Mercury sunset is late at 19h11m, the Mercury brightness drops to -0m6. Experienced planet hunters may still be able to track down Mercury until the 15th in excellent visibility. On the 15th the only 0m4 bright Mercury goes down at 19h13m. For telescope observers, it should be noted that Mercury reached its dichotomy (half phase) on the 11th. The 7m2 Mercury disc appears half-illuminated through the telescope.

Mercury becomes stationary on the 16th and then quickly rushes back towards the sun, which is coming towards him in the zodiac. On the 26th he meets the sun in the constellation Aquarius, the constellation lower conjunction occurs. Mercury does not step in front of the sun, but walks past it about 4 ° north. In the lower conjunction, Mercury is 95 million kilometers (= 0.635 AU) from Earth. Because of its strongly elliptical orbit, Mercury only reached its smallest distance from us three days later with 94 million kilometers (= 0.628 AU). Mercury pulls its conjunction loop in the area of the constellations Capricorn and Aquarius.

Venus is expanding its position in the evening sky. It leaves the constellation Aquarius and changes to the constellation Pisces on the 2nd. In doing so, it always takes north positions. On the 7th it passes half a degree south of the spring point in the constellation Pisces. Their height above the southern horizon increases one hour after sunset. Venus shifts her downfalls from 20h56m at the beginning of the month to 22h12m at the end of the month. Their apparent brightness increases by 0m2 to -4m3. On the 27th, Venus receives another visit from the waxing moon. His sickle and the shining evening star shine clearly in the evening western sky.

Mars can be seen in the morning sky. The red planet wanders right through the zodiac. On the 11th he leaves the serpent carrier and enters the Sagittarius constellation. On the 16th he passes the winter point just 0m32 south. The rise of Mars takes place at the beginning of the month at 4h48m and on the 29th at 4h25m. The Marshelligkeit increases significantly, namely around 0m3 and reaches 1m1 at the end of the month. This makes Mars a competitor to the 1st magnitude stars. On the first day at 19h, Mars passes the descending node of its orbit around the sun, which is slightly inclined by 1 ° 8 to the ecliptic.

Jupiter, moving rightward in Sagittarius, is expanding its morning visibility. The Jupiter rise takes place on the 1st at 6h31m and on the 15th at 9h47m. On the 29th the now -2m0 bright giant planet rises 5m01 above the southeastern horizon line. The planet disc shows itself oval in the telescope. The apparent equatorial diameter is 34 “, the pole diameter 32”. On February 26, Jupiter passed the descending node of its orbital plane inclined slightly at 1 ° 18 ‘to the ecliptic plane.

Saturn was in conjunction with the sun in the middle of the previous month. ”It wanders leisurely through the eastern part of the Sagittarius and approaches the border with the ibex (see Fig. 7.10 on page 158). In the last third of the month, the ring planet appears in the morning sky in the southeast.

On the 20th the 0m7 bright Saturn rises at 6h02m. By the end of the month, it has risen to 5h29m. On the 13th the ring planet passes the descending node of its orbit inclined at 2 ° 29 ‘to the ecliptic.

Uranus, again right in the zodiac, changes from the constellation Pisces to Aries on the 6th. The planet far from the sun can still be found in the evening sky. However, his visibility time is shortened drastically, he postpones his downfall well before midnight. If the 5m8 faint planet goes down on the 1st at 0h45m and on the 15th at 23h46m, the uranium sunset will take place on the 29th at 22h54m. One hour before sunset, it will be hopeless to look for the faint Uranus. The apparent diameter of Uranus is only 3m5. You can see a small, greenish disc in the telescope, on which no details can be seen, not even in large telescopes at high magnification.

Neptune wanders through the constellation Aquarius. The sun is on his heels. By the end of February, its eastern angular distance from the sun has decreased to a good seven degrees. Its conjunction with the sun is imminent. The most distant planet, faintly faint with 8%, can no longer be found in the evening sky.

Asteroids & Dwarf Planets

Juno (planetoid No. 3) becomes stationary in the constellation of Virgo on the 13th at 8:00 am and begins her opposition period. On the 13th the small planet, only 10m2 bright, rises at 10:30 p.m. The culmination of Juno takes place at 4h16m and its downfall at 9h58m.

Vesta (4) significantly speeds up her right-wing hike through the constellation Aries. On the 28th she changes to the constellation Taurus. It is aiming for more and more northern positions. Their brightness drops further to 8m2. This makes it more difficult to identify them in the starry sky. Vesta relocates her culinary delights from 18h33m at the beginning of the month to 17h11m at the end of the month. On the 1st it goes down at 11h38m and on the 15th at 1h03m. At the end of February the Vesta sinking takes place at 01h32m.
Periodic Falling Star Currents

February shows the lowest falling star activity of all months. This also has the advantage of being able to track down new, as yet unknown meteor streams.

Antihelion-Radian: The Antihelion-Radiant moves along the ecliptic from the constellation Leo (Leo) and reaches the constellation Jungfrau (Virgo) at the end of the month and thus lower heights above the horizon. If there are few fertile sources, the chance of discovering weak meteor currents is favorable. However, all systematic evaluations have so far revealed no new flows in February.

Alpha Aurigids: The alpha aurigids were observed between February 6th and 9th until the late 1980s. Their maximum was not very pronounced. The point of broadcast was near Kapella. Obviously, this stream has dried up in recent years. Nevertheless, it is worth looking out for the Aurigids. Maybe they’ll be active again.

Delta Leonids: The Delta Leonids reach their maximum around February 25th. They are a weak stream that is noticeable between February 15th and March 10th, which are slow objects (around 23 kilometers per second). Even if periodic streams of falling stars are largely absent in February, surprises are still to be expected. Bright cars or fireballs have been registered more often in February. Consider the case in Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15, 2013, in which there were injuries and property damage.

January 2020 – Astronomical Overview

• The Earth comes on the 5th with 147 million kilometers near the sun.
• On the 10th, a penumbra eclipse of the moon takes place.
• Venus is a radiant evening star.
• Mars shows up in the morning sky.
• Jupiter appears in the morning sky in late January.
• Saturn is unobservable in the daytime sky.

Constellations

• 01/20/15: Sun enters the Capricorn constellation
• 01/20/16: Sun enters the zodiac sign Aquarius

Heliocentric view of the planetary system in the first quarter of 2020. The positions of the inner planets for 1rst January (1), 1rst February (2) and 1rst March (3) and 1rst April (4) are illustrated below:

This part shows the outer planetary system including some planetoids at the beginning and end of the first quarter. The arrows indicate the directions to the more distant planets and to the spring point.
Mercury: is right behind the sun far south through the constellations Sagittarius and Capricorn. Already on the 10th he overtakes the daily star. On this day it reaches its upper conjunction with the sun. On the day of the upper conjunction, Mercury is 214 million kilometers (= 1.43 AU) away from Earth. Mercury is in the daytime sky and remains unobservable below the horizon at night. In the course of the January, Mercury gradually grows ever larger Eastern Angular Distance from the Sun, which grows to 14°4 by the end of the month. Under extremely favorable visibility conditions, you can see the nimble planet at dusk deep in the southwest at the end of the month. On the 28th, the bright Mercury sets at 18h07. Around 17h40m you can see him in the increasing darkness. At around 6pm, it is swallowed up in the thick, horizontal layers of haze. By the end of the month, the Mercury sunset at 18h25m was late, the Mercury brightness remained the same.

The encounter with Jupiter on the 2nd, at which Mercury passes 1°30′ south of the giant planet, remains just as unobservable as the conjunction with Saturn on the 12th, which takes place only one degree east of the sun.

Venus appears at the beginning of the year as a brightly shining evening star in the western sky. Our neighboring planet is the first to light up at dawn, long before the other stars are visible. After the sun and moon, Venus is the brightest star in the earthly firmament. The sickle of the waxing moon joins her on the 28th.
In the course of the January, their downfalls are delayed. At the beginning of the year the -4m0 bright Venus sets at 19h23m. On the 31st, on the other hand, it doesn’t set until 20h53m. The venus brightness increases slightly to -4m1.
On the 27th, Venus passes the distant and faint Neptune just five minutes south of the arc. To see Neptune, binoculars or a telescope are required (see Fig. 1.6 on page 39).
Venus still appears relatively small and rounded in the telescope. On the 27th, 75% of the only 15″ large planet disc is illuminated, ten percent less than at the beginning of the year. In the coming months, the apparent Venus diameter will increase and the degree of illumination will decrease. In May, Venus will then appear as a large, narrow sickle, similar to that Earth moon a few days after new moon.

Mars is a planet in the morning sky. On the 7th he leaves the constellation Libra and enters the scorpion, which he leaves on the 15th to switch to the serpent carrier. The red planet moves on the 17th right 5° north past Antares (Alpha Scorpii). Antares means “Mars-like star” because of its reddish color and its proximity to the ecliptic (apparent solar path). Ares is the Greek name for the Roman god of war Mars. Now you can compare the two well. Antares is 1m0 bright, while Mars is 1m4 at the beginning of the month and 1m4 at the end of January.
Mars rises at 5h00m on the 1st, just eleven minutes earlier at the end of January. The apparent Mars diameter on the 31st is a modest 4m8, which is why hardly any details can be seen on Mars in amateur telescopes.

Jupiter has just completed its conjunction with the sun. On December 27th of the previous year, the sun caught up with him in the zodiac. Since the giant planet runs very slowly through the zodiac, its western angular distance from the sun increases rapidly. And since Jupiter is a fairly bright planet at -1m9, it already appears in the morning sky at the end of the month. For the first time you can see the giant planet with its free eyes on the 25th.
It wanders right through the shooter (see Fig. 7.12 on page 159). On the 25th, Jupiter rises at 6h53m. About a quarter of an hour later you can see it as a bright, yellowish point of light just above the southeastern horizon. On the last day of the month, the giant planet rises at 6h34m. The encounter with Mercury on the 2nd remains unobservable.

Saturn rises in the daytime sky with the sun and cannot be seen. On the 13th, it is overtaken by the sun in the Sagittarius constellation and is in conjunction with it. It disappears behind the sun or Saturn is covered by the sun.
On the day of the conjunction, Saturn is 1,648 million kilometers. (=11.02 AU) from Earth. It is separated from the sun by 1501 million kilometers (=10.03 AU).
The encounter with Mercury on the 12th remains unobservable.
On the 10th, Saturn is in a heliocentric conjunction with Pluto. Four days later, on the 14th, the ring planet 0m7 passes the dwarf planet Pluto north.

Uranus becomes stationary on the 11th in the constellation Pisces on the border with Aries. This is hardly noticeable because the greenish planet almost does not move these weeks. By the end of the month it has gone almost unnoticed. Uranus postponed its downfall soon after midnight. On the 1st it goes down by 2h44m, on the 5th by 1h49m and on the 31st by 0h7m.
The best time to look for Uranus is the hour around its culmination. It takes place on the 1st at 19h39m and at the end of January on the 31st at 17h42m. In the first half of the month, moonlight interferes with the observation. Its brightness decreases slightly from 5m7 to 5m8.

Neptune right-driven movement in Aquarius, is chased by the sun and approaches its conjunctive position with it. By the end of January, its eastern angular distance from it has shrunk to just under 36°. This means that the most distant planet has to be removed from the watchlist. It withdraws from the evening sky and becomes unobservable. Its conjunction with the sun is expected in the first third of March. Experienced observers will be able to track down Neptune with suitable optics in the first half of January.
On the 27th there is a very close encounter with Venus. This passes just 0°05′ south of Neptune. At 19h the distance is still eight arc minutes.
On the 1st, Neptune culminates at 16h48m and sets at 22h20m. Its meridian passage takes place on the 15th at 15h54m. The only 7m9 bright Neptune goes down on this day by 2127m. At the latest one and a half hours before sunset, Neptune becomes invisible near the horizon. By the end of the month, the Neptune sunsets are getting to 20h27m.

Planetoids & Dwarf Planets

Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet (planetoid no. 134 340), will also be in the Sagittarius constellation in 2020. On July 15, he comes in opposition to the sun. With 14m3 of opposition brightness, it is only accessible to larger instruments. It is listed in the months of April, July and October under the heading “Planetary Run”.
On the 13th Pluto is in conjunction with the sun at 14h. That day, 5227 million kilometers (=34.94 AU) separate it from Earth. Its solar distance is 5080 million kilometers (=33.96 AU)

Ceres (Planetoid No. 1) comes into conjunction with the Sun on the 13th in the Sagittarius constellation. They separate 584 million kilometers (=3.90 AU) from Earth on this day, while their sun distance is 437 million kilometers (=2.92 AU). This dwarf planet reaches its opposition to the sun on August 28.

Vesta (Planetoid No. 4) stood in opposition to the sun on November 12, 2019. On the 1st it becomes stationary in the constellation of Walßsch and then walks quite right through the zodiac. This ends her opposition period, which is also evident from the decrease in brightness from 7m4 to 7m9. Planetoid No. 4 can be found relatively easily in binoculars.
On the 1st Vesta passes the meridian at 20h23m and sets at 3h14m. By the end of January, her culmination will be premature at 18h37m and her sinking at 1h41m.

Truth In The Bottle

Written in 2016

I am who I am
And that will never change
I am who I am…
More than strange for too many…

It’s either the blade of knife
Or one last drink…just one
It’s been like this all along,
But with one drink it’s only begun

Have you ever tried living without pain,
Because once its there…
It will remain
And its more than anyone could bear

Nothing right, nothing wrong,
Nothing good, nothing bad,
No beginning, no end,
No way to balance it all…

Maybe they don’t realise,
The last piece of hope doesn’t linger.
Someday it simple dies
And that’s when everyone perishes inside.

She’s lying there motionless,
Unable to cry, not anymore…
The blanket is wrapped around her
But she’s still shivering.

A pen remains in her hand,
She write on an empty sheet of paper…
Because in the end,
Our future is pages unwritten.

Sometimes, maybe just to feel alive,
We dream without boundaries…
Often, perhaps to punish ourselves,
We believe it shall never be reality.

Sweet Cancer

He lets out a cloud of smoke,
Before sighting in thought,
They’re starring at him,
Judging…

Thinking of it as a dirty,
…filthy, health deteriorating habit,
Which leads to a
Slow and painful death.

They all curse it,
While adherence to cheat death,
With the likes of living painfully health conscious,
With the gifts modern science has given us.

He lights another cigarette,
While his central line on his neck
Becomes visible…
Ironical, isn’t it?

Those who poison mother nature the most,
Blame those who poison themselves,
And those around them,
Of course not like them.

Addiction,
Low-self worth,
Reckless masochism,
The reasons condemning him to death.

He won’t come of old age,
Not anymore…
His time,
Is running up.

Cigarettes have embarked
On their warpath…
Of a slow,
And excruciating death.

He chose his fate,
Apparently…
At least,
That’s what they say.

So what’s the point?
He doesn’t fear pain
Or death…
Nor does he think he should have to.

Shamanic Physics: Ancient Wisdom in New Discoveries

Written in 2013

Shamanism & The Observer Effect

According to the first hypotheses of the relationship between modern physics and shamanic practices, Fred Alan Wolf concluded that all shamans perceive the universe as being made from vibrations. Within physics, vibrations are repetitive patterns that can be observed in the simplest physical systems. That being said, from the movement of sound through the air to the invisible vibrations of light waves speeding through the universe are all evidence of vibrational motion. Consequently, Wolf discovered that there were even more subtle vibrations, which were contained in the probability waves of subatomic and atomic matter. These waves possess a vibrational pattern, yet they also play a key role in determining how probable physical events are to take place. Whenever in time or wherever in space an event manifests are governed by the strength and amplitude of these waves. Quantum waves are invisible. They are constructs of human thought necessary for the modern world to enable an understanding of atomic and subatomic matter. For any event to manifest, these waves coming from the future and the present or from the past and the present must interfere with each other in the present. The Anglo-Saxon Shamans themselves viewed the universe as a web consisting of vibrating strings. However, when contemplating the observer effect, which in essence describes that the act of observation alters the phenomena of being observed, one should be aware that the quantum system itself would not be able to operate in the same manner, if it was to be observed as a whole. It is known that quantum waves exist through space and even beyond time. In addition, they are possess the capacity affect matter. Yet, most individuals neglect that there would have to be an intelligence behind the observed for it to alter its behaviour. In the Bohr interpretation of quantum physics, these waves would vanish the instant any observation of matter occurred. In fact, the observation was imagined as the sudden collapse of the wave producing a particle of matter. According to Paulis exclusion principle, electrons have the ability to exclude each other from entering each others territory. Atomic energy structures are possible only due to electric exclusion. According to Pauli, photons, particles of light, possess the ability to include each other. They are able to enter each others territory and in fact have a strong tendency to do so, thus the phenomena is termed photon inclusion, which resulted in the development of laser technology that would not be able to operate outside of this fact. Henceforth, during an altered state of consciousness, the observer of a quantum system disturbs the system by the mere act of observing it.

Difference Between Resonance & Vibration

According to the teachings of the Quabala, the universe was constructed from vibrational sound patterns of three Hebrew letters, which are “aleph”, “mem” and “sheen” in an interplay of spirit, matter and consciousness. That which is known as consciousness is consistent of waves of information that move from spirit into matter and then back into spirit. This flow of waves took place outside of time. In the sense that the whole action of that movement was instantaneous. According to quantum physics, any conscious experience also results from a double movement of a wave action. This wave action also occurs beyond space and time. It is a wave of possibilities, that is known as quantum wave function. It moves from the present to the relevant time and then returns to the present moment. As shamans chant sacred songs and chants in order to invoke spirits of all kinds, the connection between sacred chants and the language used by, for instance, Qabalists. Often, a resonant transfer of vibrational energy from one individual to another is symbolized during rituals and practices. In countless traditions, healing is also viewed as a transfer of vibrational energy within the body. When the body falls ill, parts of it are out of harmony with the rest of it. All organs and cells vibrate. Hence, the practice of radionics has become more widespread within Western Medicine. It is often believed that when an organ is no longer receiving vibrational energy from the rest of the body, it is vibrating at another or the wrong frequency, thus it is out of harmony with that which nurtures it. Therefore, healing could simply consist of reinvoking those sacred sounds within the body, which is very similar to the practice of Atharveda within Hinduism. For instance, in the shamanic tradition, the chanting of the world “wolf” would invoke the presence of the wolf itself. Thus if one sang the name of a wolf in a sacred manner, a wolf would appear. Shamans do not simply view things interacting with things producing a cause and effect relationship, yet they view it as a web of interconnectedness, which is very close to the kind of interconnectedness that can be observed in old fashioned and present day quantum models. In physics, this is referred to as non-locality, which describes actions taking place in one location can instantly affect actions in an entirely different location. The process of energy resonating within the hunter that may attract animals of prey, such as a wolf, deer or even edible type of bear. In conclusion, resonance vibrations would differ from individual to individual. One may even hypothesize that it could be unique to the individual. However, vibrational modes of the body can be altered by stress and illness. Thus, when the resonance of the body is adjusted to attain a homeostatic state, the body would attune to the sound and harmonize.

Leylines, Shamanism & the Significance of Geography

Geomancy is a traditional way of divination based on intuitive contact with the subtle energies of the Earth. It belongs to a large family of divinatory methods founded on that which modern mathematicians refer to as binary or base 2 numbers. The most well known of this family is most likely the I Ching, also referred to as the book of changes. The principle underlying these methods are universal, as certain random or quasi random events can be made to produce one of two definite results. To the geomancer, the entire world was a pattern of meanings that could be caught by the perceptive eye and interpreted by the attentive mind. Certain locations upon planet earth have been even assigned essences and personalities. Along my travels, however, I have encountered one which is still significantly potent. Due to the recent electromagnetic changes of the earth, perhaps even more so. It is the Isle of Thanet. Otherwise known as the isle of death, the hiding place of the white witches and the dumping ground of great Britain for centuries. Yet, it’s essence is clearly felt. Winston Churchill remarked upon the eerie nature of the former island. It should be noted that these places of power have different types of energy associated with ancient sites. These are not only ley lines, there is also another form of spiritual geography. It is possible to measure additional geophysical properties in these other sites. For instance, prehistoric stone structures in Cornwall showed radiation anomalies, which could be reminiscent of an ancient nuclear war that has been evidenced around other prehistoric structures on the globe.

There are two forces acting within us. The quantum force of the electron exclusion tends to keep things separated. The quantum force of photon inclusion tends to bring things together. Between these two forces of exclusion, which enables atoms to form all of the molecular to communicate with each other and vibrate synthetically, human life exists. It could therefore be argued that as all is composed of energy, it is probable that locations, certain time frames and even individuals possess unique energies, which in turn define, yet also reveal, the nature of the before mentioned object or subject in question. Conclusively, shamanic physics is the entire nature of geomancy. Humankind has been sensitive to the subtle energies of locations for centuries, it is only in the last hundred years that mankind has slowly faded out that very ability through the lack of utilizing it. In modern times, steel frame buildings uilt on an economic bias have come to replace the ancient geomantic bias. Perhaps this loss of ability has occurred due to the desire to coomunicate with one another over vast distances and hold energy as well as power at ones fingertips. The electromagnetic spectrum has extended into mankinds sensorium, as it may. It provides information, heat, and illuminates dark spaces. The lack of usage of geomancy has caused the ability to utilize it to degenerate, as the imaginal realm vanishes into fantasy.

Five Senses of Imagination

The first five senses of humanity are normal ones. Then one has to consider the imaginal senses. The sense of self-healing, the sense of self-destruction, the sense of penetration, to be able to penetrate other levels, other worlds and other dimensions, the sense of perception, to be able to see and comprehend that which one perceives in those other worlds. And the sense of revelation, to be able to use that which one has perceived as it has been revealed. These are the ten senses that the Chumash work by. There appears to be principles of life based on the mind that have been lost throughout history. These are principles of healing that appear to be universal in essence. It should be noted that mechanical action occurs when life becomes unconscious. As if it becomes dead in its thinking by becoming mechanical in operation. Yet, the mind creates mechanical action by creating least action paths, as Wolf describes it. These paths became the unconscious mind. The body-mind which attends the survival of the individual. The consciousness, the spirit itself, is a very significant part of healing, which in modern medicine is often neglected. Within Buddhism, similarly to shamanism, all illness arises from three root poisons. Attachment, Aversion and Ignorance. The metaphorical gesture of removing the illness, by sucking on the head for instance and then spitting it out, for instance, utilize visualization and healing that has travelled to the corners of Western civilisations by mere efficiency without being directly or indirectly related to shamanism. The imaginal realm has a rather important, yet more often than not overlooked, role within modern society. Out of these five imaginal senses, certain ones are generally trained better. For instance, black shamans are often advised to take caution, when it comes down to cursing individuals, as their ability to heal diminishes and eventually vanishes. The sense of self-destruction, which is often known as self-sabotaging, can be overcome through the sense of self-healing and a sense of revelation. This is rather reminiscent of Jungs and Freuds wish for death and wish for life, which could easily be interpreted as that imaginal sense as well as desire for healing as well as destruction. Perhaps the desire for death represents the yearning to return to a state of complete or true enlightenment. The desire to return to a non-physical state of being. For instance, through the sense of self-healing, the shaman can also attain the knowledge of how to heal and help others, the shaman could for instance produce a healing vibration in the patients body. When the patient tunes into the vibration, they are healed. Wolf suggested that this act of tuning would most likely be related to the vibrational frequency of a quantum wave of probability. The frequencies of these waves are related to the energies of the particles, which tend to manifest where the wave interference patterns are thickest. The lowest frequency waves would therefore have very long wave-lengths.

Time & Dimensional Travel

Shamanic practitioners have been able to reach a state of consciousness, which is reminiscent to sleep. Scientists have identified the brain wave pattern to be theta. Through this trance state, they remain awake. They have shifted their perception, whilst recognizing that their consciousness is not confined to their bodies. They see consciousness in everything. By choosing to observe themselves as spirits traveling over telephone wires or floating in thunderclouds, they are tuning to the consciousness in these objects. This is more or less an extended self-observation and that is precisely that which one must practice in order to regain ones lost senses and travel more effectively. Everything in nature undergoes self-observation. It is a process wherein each observer defines that which is outside of his or her self. The key here is learning to extend that which one calls the self beyond the normal boundaries. Self-observation occurs even in atoms. The atom exists in stable energy patterns known as states. In order to maintain a state of energy, the atom must recognize itself, observe itself to be in a state. If one considers that an observation is an interaction involving a transition between two states, the observer state and the observed state. When an object is being observed in the outside world, according to quantum physics, the state of the object suddenly takes on a discrete value. It appears in the world. And simultaneously, one becomes aware of it. If one considers that objects are not truly solid, the atoms of the object would more than likely alter their behaviour. One may consider the analogy of Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Nevertheless, the atom continually checks its energy state by constantly involving itself in its environment, even if the environment is simply empty space. Actually the electrons in the atom and constantly dancing, as it may, with the photons of light that they emit. Therefore, they are continually emitting and absorbing, or even observing themselves.“Consciousness requires minimum stimulation time of 0.5 seconds {neuronal adequacy}, no matter what the intensity.” [Eccles, 1965]

Additionally, it is also known that mankind functions largely on an unconscious basis, one may not be entirely aware of the interactions and travels that occur. According to variant aspects of shamanism all agree upon one single reality. Within this one single reality without past, future or the passage of time, it is likely that only the present moment would exist. Time, therefore, is not merely illusory, it is also simultaneous. Yet, the words of Fred Alan Wolf seem more fitting in this context “The ability to transcend the death of the body-mind by the intent of the shaman alone to convince the underpart to form an ally, to become an accomplice, in it’s own death.” The ego technically becomes an accomplice in its own removal during the process of self-actualization or enlightenment.
“Consciousness requires minimum stimulation time of 0.5 seconds {neuronal adequacy}, no matter what the intensity.” [Eccles, 1965]

Additionally, it is also known that mankind functions largely on an unconscious basis, one may not be entirely aware of the interactions and travels that occur. According to variant aspects of shamanism all agree upon one single reality. Within this one single reality without past, future or the passage of time, it is likely that only the present moment would exist. Time, therefore, is not merely illusory, it is also simultaneous. Yet, the words of Fred Alan Wolf seem more fitting in this context “The ability to transcend the death of the body-mind by the intent of the shaman alone to convince the underpart to form an ally, to become an accomplice, in it’s own death.” The ego technically becomes an accomplice in its own removal during the process of self-actualization or enlightenment.

Hypothesis: Increased energy signatures due to a form of energy transfer around certain periods of chronological time, as civilisations were more prone to observing the past and the future, which would technically linger within the neural cell memory or even genetic sub-code, as a kind of latent psychic ability, as it may.

Shamanic & Quantum Physics Perspective of Death

“There is more suffering the farther you go. The deeper you seek, the more you suffer, yet the greater is your gain, your insight and your vision.” Death, in essence, is a doorway. It represents a transition of consciousness within the quantum system. When the body is convinced that it is dying, the mode of reality perception shifts. It must, for the usual mode of perception, the one that have all acquired in life, is no longer carrying out its prime function, keeping the body alive. In Wolfs model of reality, the sensory apparatus perceives more than one is actually aware of. That which is perceived as being non-threatening is simply ignored. It is there, however. Within society. There are countless true dangers. Humanity lives in a highly artificial situation. We have dangerous means of moving ourselves at high speeds from one location to another. In an airplane, even though we may manage to fall asleep, we are constantly aware of the probability of danger. The same is true for a car, which is moving at high speed along the highway, or even in a house with electrical appliances surrounding the individual on a daily basis. The danger, however, is mollified rather severely. Each moment that passes without a negative event occurring soothes the individual into a false sense of security, although the danger is rather apparent. Once the individual has separated oneself from their natural environment, it takes approximately a week until the consciousness has adjusted to the situation and develops senses to aid the survival of the new circumstance. Nevertheless, within the Tibetan Book of the Dead, there are instructions on how to provide for the spirit after it has departed the body and is in a disorientated state. When an individual dies, they have to be incredibly evolved and powerfully oriented in order to move outside the body and overcome the sudden state of disorientation. The practice in shamanism is rather similar, as it utilizes a rubber hammer and tap the deceased on the head three times, then they begin to talk to him.

If one considers the holographic universe paradigm, one will notice that a hologram contains multiple images. By changing the light source that illuminates the hologram, different images will appear. The hologram has encoded in it a series of possible images. That which is seen is dependent upon how it is seen. However, similar to a hologram, one must know that to look for when experiencing a spirit. Senses that have been developed beyond the physical. In Einsteinian relativity the observers in relative motion would measure time and space intervals differently. If one were to consider whether the observer was moving superluminally, which is faster than the speed of light. According to relativity, the observer could not have a mass. In other terms, he could not be made of matter, as modern science could understand it. If the imaginal time passed perpendicular to time, therefore the individual could technically be reborn at the time of death.

Group Consciousness of Humanity & Ganzfeld Effect

<

p align=”JUSTIFY”>A wise man once stated “We judge as we possess ego. Without ego, you cannot judge.” The absence of judgement itself is perceived as being a state of love. As discussed in the book, truth and love are synonymous, in essence. Conclusively, a reality, which is based upon the principle of interconnectedness would be similarly based upon the conception of unconsciously linking the psyche of a species. In contrast to a hive mind, the connection would be unconscious and would surface in circumstances of survival, extreme emotion or superior revelation. In consequence, I recently stumbled upon an article, which illustrated a neurocognitive epistemological perspective of shamanism and its effects upon the human mind. The biological foundation for a shamanic epistemology is indicated by the cross-cultural distribution of a shamanic cosmology derived from knowledge obtained during altered consciousness. These special forms of consciousness involve integrative brain conditions that access ancient ways of knowing, expressive systems which have evolutionary roots in the communicative and social processes involved in animal displays or rituals. These were augmented over the course of hominid evolution into expressive and mimetic activities that provided a basis for significant epistemological expansions of consciousness exemplified in shamanic out-of-body (OBE) experiences. These manifestations of consciousness involved new modes of self and processes of knowing, reflecting selection for expanded symbolic brain processes that enhanced psychological, cognitive integration and extra-personal cognition. Shamanic alterations of consciousness also contributed to experiences of personal spirit essences and encounters with extrapersonal spirit presences that reflected activation of innate brain operators involving self-structures and psyche. The evolution of the hominid capacity for knowing involved new understandings of nature (animism), mind (spirits), self (power animals) and others (gods) that were elicited by shamanic practices and expressed though a shamanistic ideology. These phenomena reflect activation of innate aspects of consciousness, illustrating features of shamanism as a neuroepistemology. Shamanism has conceptualized special forms of knowing embodied within the shamanic consciousness. The article related this phenomena to collective dimensions of consciousness that serve as a conscience of the universal mind. Winkelmann stated in another one of his academic papers on shamanism that “The ancient biological bases of shamanic rituals and their adaptive functions are illustrated by understandings of the nature of animal ritual, as provided in such works as The Spectrum of Ritual (d’Aquili et al., 1979) and Supernatural as Natural: A Biocultural Theory of Religion (Winkelman and Baker, 2008). An evolutionary biological approach to ritual illustrates that shamanic rituals have ancient roots and were built out of prior adaptations revealed in the homologous behaviors humans share with other species. As shamanism is in favour of the existence of consciousness within all.

The Six Senses

Seeing you,
Is recognizing the truth
In a world,
Covered by illusions.

Hearing you,
Is like an angels-chorus…
In ears,
Which stopped listening long ago.

Feeling you,
Is like the gentle wind…
Caressing skin,
Covered in scars.

Kissing you,
Is tasting pure gold…
On lips,
As we become one.

Being with you,
Is more than I could’ve imagined…
Without you, I cannot exist,
Nor do I want to.

The Opposer

Written 2007

No matter how loud.
No matter how many.
People remain people.
Thoughts remain thoughts.

A heavy breath.
A sick feeling in the stomach.
Tiredness in the mind,
While bit by bit, we burn out.

Trying is never good enough.
Living is never comfortable.
The truth is never less painful,
Nor is love ever truly returned .

Close to a breakdown,
But never quitting to function…
Not being able to,
Or life crumbles under its own weight.

Nobody to speak to,
No instant to be ourselves,
Never a place to rest,
When we solely pretend to belong.

There’s too much noise
In a world unwilling to listen…
There’s too many lonely
In a world with so many strangers…

No matter how loud…
No matter how many…
Cries remain unheard.
Tears remain unseen.

Unbolted

There are many hidden doors inside of her. Some she remembers closing herself, others she barely recalls creating. A few or them she tried open, but she couldn’t continue for the damage it’d wreak. She made certain to bolt those shut for good, even if that meant never experiencing things other people considered normal. She’ll never feel safe, not completely, not in the long run…She’s accepted that too long ago to worry over the fact. Hell, that was the first lesson, she learnt. There is no escape, not in the remotest of places. Not even with the kindest of people. Since then, she has become accustomed to living in a way that nothing touches her, until it did…

If she let’s go, she’s the only one to be held responsible. If she loses control, she alone reaps the consequences. When she lets her true thoughts slip, she must make amends no matter how genuine the hurt or justified the cause. Like any man, her freedom of thought, speech and belief is ridiculed, but how dare she when she says anything out of place.
The manner, in which she conducts herself mentally and physically is all that’s come to matter. Appearances above all, ain’t that right? So, the fake smile that comes so naturally to her since childhood never ceased to have its uses…Not because she doesn’t genuinely care, but it is second nature to pretend for the sake of social survival. At times, she wonders, what she is surviving for? If it is not to live, what then? Though probably she wouldn’t know how to live, if she had the choice.

When they speak, it is expression inside a safe space, free from judgement. When she speaks, it is the guilt-riddling, overly emotional ravings of just another bitch who cannot take it silently. So, she falls apart deep within for just a moment, before she comes back together. Perhaps she can never be good enough, but she doesn’t care. She will keep trying, even if those she cares for will never care the same way for her. Regardless how many simply think about nothing more than what she can do for them. They’ll always be there for the good times and gone for the bad…That’s how they remind her of what she truly is…She needs those doors bolted for that reason. If they’re not, there’s no telling what she’d do…but no deadbolt can withstand the test of time. Eventually, any lock comes undone, unleashing hell in its wake.

After all, keeping dark fragments of herself divided in cages doesn’t serve to protect her, but them. She learnt early, there are lines never to be crossed. Even when others cross them frequently, just to fulfill their own needs…and she would let them time after time at great cost to her peace of mind…until the end came to justify the means in protection of something greater than she could have been. In one half, it tore her open and left her more broken. In the other, she’s never quite broken enough…never suffered sufficiently enough to cease her pain.
…If she cared to, she could rip those doors off their hinges with a single thought…releasing what may seem like a controlled burst of energy, but is, in truth, an uncontrollable force surging through her that wouldn’t stop. It would never cease…It couldn’t. It’d dig itself deep into the most undepleteable energy sources and unleash hell on all things in her path without compassion, mercy or conscience. The abused would become the abuser in every sense of the term, as they so often do. That would be her, another statistic in a world lacking the capacity to turn the numbers around on a scale, which truly matters.

Searing pain reverberates up through every layer of her being …physical, mental, emotional…is there even a difference? Ultimately, the only way to never lose anything is to have nothing…to be nothing. Perhaps, all locks were made to be broken. Maybe, it was always meant to be like this. In the end, she was destined to come undone. Real love happens but once in life and she has already had her chance. She already experienced the heights of the unconditional beyond consciousness. It is what unmasked her her true reality by undoing everything she once was.
She slowly shuts her eyes, awaiting the inevitable. Silence fills the pathways of her mind. Barely perceptible vibrations bounce off the walls, echoing further than the eye can see. As door after door unlocks, she feels a release of pressure. For a moment, she is almost in a state of acceptance with herself…as always, before her darker impulses take over. The more doors, she opens, the darker the desire. Yet, she has never dared to open them all until tonight. Until now, she still had something to lose…
She no longer plays her most painful memories on repeat inside her head, just to remind her of what should never be forgotten. After the thousandth time, she hardly displays emotion upon recollection, but more importantly, upon confrontation. Behind every door lingers such a memory. Some are shut but unlocked, whereas others are secured with the greatest care.
Still, she wonders, what if she could face worse “doors-open” just to see how far she can bend…out of curiosity for what’s left when everything breaks…and she is unbridled by the illusion of dreams long passed.
The night forever dawns in her heart, and she prays for it to never end…for her to rest in darkness without hope of oblivion…just anticipation of unexpected transformation.

What You Don’t Know

What you don’t know is
That I lie awake,
Wishing you were here tonight…
To wrap myself around you
As you grip me tight.

You don’t realise,
You can try hide the scars left on you,
But you know you never will.
In the end, your imperfections are
What makes me whole…

You can’t begin to imagine how
I grasp for words just out of reach
Because I can barely think,
Whenever you’re so close…
All thought simply falls away.

How would you know
That you are poetry,
Words cannot capture…
Shining a light
On the shadows of my heart.

Whatever was yesterday or
What may happen tomorrow,
I’ll take you for who you truly are..
And with each day,
I’ll do it all over again.

What you may not feel is
Your embrace pulls me from the edge…
When there is nothing left,
You give all that you are
No holds barred.

What you don’t know is
When the moon and the sun collide
And the night dawns…
I won’t be afraid to show
How brightly you set me aglow.

The Dead Truth

Written in 2008

She is resting on the bed,
I am sitting next to it, on the floor…
Carefully trying to pick words,
Which wont do any harm.
I’d bandaged her wrists,
So tight it must’ve hurt.
The cuts were so deep,
Blood poured all over the sheets.
And it was still there…
Smeared and slowly drying,
While she moves her fingers over it,
Trying not to show the pain.
There’s more tears left for her to shed,
I can see them building
Behind her eyes,
Trying to figure out what to do next.
All they do is deny it
How many times she tried to quit…
But fate won’t allow her to.
How much they’ve taken from us,
A reason for living?
Unconditional love?
Protection at no cost?
Does this mean anything to her?
Not anymore.
None of it can save her,
So it became meaningless…
I watch her looking at herself,
It’s more than just her health,
Which declines with every thought.
Her will to live is more than lacking.
Her smile faded long ago,
Blowing all her chances…
I see her breaking every day,
And there’s nothing I can say.
It’s more than control, she’s lost…
The look in her face
Doesn’t change anymore…
To her,
The truth is dead,
Dead like her soul…
Dead like the world,
Executing her, with every day.

Last Leaves In The Wind

Written in 2007

The warm beams of the sun shine
Down on the ground
Melting the snow,
Warming the air.

A solid trunk stands alone
At the centre of an empty field,
Waiting for passers by
To rest in its shadow…

She leans against its skin,
Watching the leaves flutter
In the gentle north wind…
Until day would turn into night.

Feeling its roots reaching far down,
Anchored deep in the Earth…
She takes a deep breath
And just absorbs into raw power.

Birds would build nests on its branches,
Resting in the shelter of its leaves,
Until they change colour,
With that gentle caress of autumn…

Yet, a cold night dawned for mankind
That would last for decades
In which we would no longer care
For the kindness of nature…

Since then,
They would tear open the ground,
Rip out its roots violently
And the branches would rattle.

The trunk would fall on the grass,
Be chopped up in small pieces…
Loaded up on a trailer,
To be carried away, to sell and burn.

…Until there would be no more
Shadows on a summer day.
…Until there would be no more
Leaves blowing in the wind.

Dust & Smoke

Written in 2009

Sitting on the cold asphalt
With her back against the wall…
And there’s no way out,
But through.

When there’s only dust and ashes
From a life long dead.
She doesn’t know where to go…
All she knows, she can’t go home.

Would she go back,
Before it starts raining?
Before she fades away in the dark?
Before picturing going to him?

Buried in the ruins of memories…
The cold air fills her lungs,
And for just a moment
She can breathe…

The night falls upon her,
Holding her in its icy grip,
Suddenly, there’s no dust…no smoke…
As far as the eye can see.

Winter Wonderland

There’s snow glistening
From the branches of the trees.
She wades through fields,
Covered in dusty white…

Snowflakes tumble from the skies,
As she gazes down on the riverbanks,
Its water is covered in ice,
Reflecting the shine of the moon…

She treads between the dark forest
And the frozen river,
Encapsulated by its beauty…
Dazzled by its wonder.

This is her Winterwonderland,
The land of dreams
With footprints of angels
In the snow.

It’s like it will never end,
Like it will always be winter,
And never summer,
Like all the green never existed.

She runs her hand over the leaves hand
Along the way,
Merely to feel the sting of the cold
Deep in her her skin…

This is her Winterwonderland,
A kingdom of innocence,
With the fountains
Of eternal youth and beauty.

Cold, warm…it does not matter…
Time never felt so slow,
Space never seemed so vast,
Lying in the snow…

.

Words of Love

Written in 2005

I never imagined it to be you,
All of it…hit me just out of the blue….
Now you’re by my side,
Something like this can’t be denied.

You dried the tears I shed
With everything you said…
You warmed a heart of stone
Doomed to spend eternity alone.

In my heart,
We are never apart.
There’s something written about our love,
In the sun, the moon and the stars above.

Destined to be, that’s what we are…
Distance can never be too far,
Hearts together, bound as one.
Souls united, a lifetime begun.

My heart, my mind, my body, my soul…
My hopes, my dreams, you have control…
My love for you will always stay,
Always, forever, plus a day.

The World That Never Was

There was a world once.
It was neither silent nor dead,
It simply existed in the absence of everything…
It was everything that had been,
All that was,
And everything that could ever be…

What’s your world now?

Tactical Emapthy: How Much Of An Asshole Am I?

We humans are preeminently social animal. Over thousands of years ago, our ancestors developed complex systems of grouping together as a community to improve their quality of life. During this process, their neurological make-up adapted. They evolved “mirror neurons“, which were more refined and sensitive than those of other primates. On a less refined level, these neurons assist us in mimicking behaviour (excl. genetic implications). However, the art of imitation is more than mere mimicry. “Monkey see, monkey do” will only get us so far in life. Anything further requires understanding of the mind as well as anticipation of its content in order to cultivate a seeminly genuine imitation.
In other words, what began as preverbal communication grew into something more sophisticated to allow for advanced degrees of cooperation. To hone our skills, we needed to refine our ability to detect what people are thinking and feeling. Before our reasoning powers fully unfold this way, even the most sentient beings can’t take their ability to empathise to the next level. In essence, they struggle to see patterns in peoples behavior as well as deduce peoples inner motivations, which will invariably make them appear to be socially insensitive or even callous.

Why We Possess Empathy

Compared to other animals, we remain relatively helpless for many years before we can truly operate on our own. This extended period of immaturity, lasting approx. 12-18 years, serves a valuable function. It encourages us to focus on developing by far the most important weapon in the human arsenal: our brain.
Yet, this prolonged period of dependency can build on negative but also positive tendencies. When our survival depends on the adaptability and reliability of our caregivers, we either learn to behave in ways to meet our needs or we will lack them. Although it would fill most children with unbearable anxiety to think of their parents as fallible, some don’t have a choice. They must grow up fast, so their world-understanding and sense of empathy grow accordingly.
While our capacity to understand others is still developing, we initially perceive our parents as stronger, wiser and more altruistic than they are in reality. This is due to the fact that we view their actions through the lens of our needs, and so they become an extension of ourselves. We project what we want and need to see onto those in charge of our care. Our perception of people becomes saturated with various emotions, such as love, need, sorrow or anger. Then inevitably, in
adolescence, we get a closer glimpse at the dark side of the human condition.

Empathy is the process of focusing our attention outward instead of inward, honing the observational and empathic skills that we naturally possess. It means moving past our tendency to idealise or judge…to simply see them for who they are and accept them. It is a school of thought, which must be cultivated as early as possible.
For example, in the case of Benjamin Franklin, known for his social intelligence. As the second youngest of a large extended family, he learned to get his way through charm. As he got older he came to believe, as many young people do, that getting along with others is a function of behaving charmingly and winning them over with a friendly manner. Yet, the more he interacted with the real world, the more began to see his charm as the actual source of his problem. Being charming was a strategy he had developed out of need. It was a reflection of his narcissism, of the love he had of his own words and wit. It had no relation to other people and their needs. It did not prevent them from exploiting or attacking him. To be truly charming and socially effective you have to understand people, and to understand them you have to get outside yourself and immerse your mind in their world. Only when he realized how deeply naive he had been could he take the necessary steps to move past this naiveté.

When we use empathy as a form of tactical maneuver to sway opinions, we aren’t displaying genuine care or interest in another person…

We have all reached the point of nearly tearing our hair out, when we were talking to someone who was just not listening. Even if we try to convey important information in a manner, which the person is supposed to relate to…but they just don’t give a fuck. This is not what I’m talking about. Each one of us has days, when we can’t be bothered to listen either because we are preoccupied, distracted, drained or for other reasons. There are degrees of listening. Nobody can listen 100% all the time. There is something far worse than a bad day…making a life of empathising as a means to an end. In truth, most of us have done that, when we can’t muster the genuine emotions required to get what we need to get through the day. For example, if we wanna see an action film instead of a chick flick, but he doesn’t want to.

It depends on how often we do this that makes us who we are. If we care too much, we give away so much energy to the problems of other people that we may burn out in the process. On the other hand, when we give too little, we drain energy reserves, which aren’t ours to deplete. Everything in moderation. These are the concerns of the average person, but when relating becomes tactical, empathy becomes exploitation. We witness this on a daily basis through the social imbalance of power, we come into contact with… However, we don’t expect to accept it from our friends or loved ones, even though it is commonplace. Some pass off the small white lies as a kindness, others mascarade an emptiness devoid of conscience to variant degrees. There’s a difference between a having conscience and acting on it. We can either act in accordance with our own ethical code or we can have the capacity to feel remorse. The latter usually negates the need for the former.

Where Does Real Empathy Get Us?

We all know the type of person, who spends day after day working an angle. They may use a pretty smile or kind word to their advantage, but it is a strategic attempt to achieve a very specific goal. They may care or may not care about the people, they are essentially faking almost every interaction with…but does it matter? During the act, they definitely care, just to varying degrees. However, the closer we get to reaching our goal, the less we tend to care. It is no secret that we aren’t saints, but we are often less considerate than we could be. We are prone to caring less than we pretend to. Also we are less likely to accept rejection gracefully, when we need the answer to be “yes”.
This is not the same as the desire for those interactions to be real. When we do the right thing, hoping the feeling behind them will surface eventually, we are in fact fighting our selfish impulses (sometimes genetically active traits). It is another level entirely to commit the most intimate betrayals, only to know what we are supposed to feel but don’t…If we know the damage we are leaving in our wake and simply just carry on to satisfy our own needs, then we ultimately face a worse fate.

In the end, we are all assholes on occasion, no matter how hard we try to be kind at all times…to never say no. Nobody can devote their complete attention to a person at all times, even stalkers eventually snap in the attempt. However, to truly love another as a colleague, friend or relative, we must be consistently committed and involved in fulfilling their highest potential. At times, this means just being physically present without showing any kind of judgement while they pour their heart out. Other times, it may imply tough love. To say, “No” when we are being taken advantage of by someone whose growth we care about. In truth, we always know so little or feel so much about each other as people that we fail to seize the opportunity.

Radiant Silence Within

The noise is drowned by silence,
In turn, silence succumbs to noise.
Imagine the insecurity of it all,
The uncertainty of life,
And then wash it away.

There is nothing smaller,
But equally there is nothing greater
Than the moments everything makes way
For our presence of mind in the here and now,
So be the light you always knew you are…

As the darkest night ends,
It seems as though dawn’s never been as bright,
And when we take it all in,
Perhaps we can discover
A radiance more revealing than anything we’ve ever known.

How Addicts Can Learn To Find Peace – Part 3

Click Here to Go Back To Part 2

What do you live for? What is the one thing that’ll keep you going, when there is no fucking point in continuing? Whatever the answer, we build our lives around it. In a way, our will to live is anchored in that. However, if we live only in the single-minded dedication to our deepest urge, we can break. We can lose ourselves while still in pursuit. Living, even for the thing we need most, can become a struggle for survival. Before we realise, we have traded our former self for obsession…to be haunted by a singular idea that engulfs everything, simply so we can function. Eventually, something’s gotta give, so I used booze to take the edge off, because if I lost my devotion to the truth, life would have no meaning…until the moment, when the sobering realisation hit me that I need to start building an actual life, which will allow me to overcome the insurmountable instead of perish as a consequence [of having seen, heard, experienced and felt too much of the relative truth and too little of the absolute due to my own ignorance].

What I do here [on this blog] is regurgitation. I work, drink, eat and sleep. My research into consciousness has been my life, since my journey to discover the absolute truth began…but to me, it has only as much value as it benefits others, screw myself. I do not require validation, just results. This is also the reason I stopped taking clients as a psychologist with a handful of special exceptions. I couldn’t handle the lack of want for progress. I’m not here to be liked or stroke anyones ego, I’m here to open minds…to give and receive homework for healing…to fucking get shit done and not just talk about it. Still, the hardest fact, we have to accept as professionals is that we could reach so few and change so little, even if we master our craft completely.

There is meaning in purposelessness

We perceive the universe from a linear standpoint [though it’s far from], which means we see reality as a sequence of cause & effect [due to our state of consciousness]. So, if we perform a certain action, then a finite number of outcomes occur. In doing so, our behaviour is designed to fulfill a very specific purpose. For example, we work to earn money as we need it to support the continuation of our physical existence.
In terms of physics, we exert energy in order to receive it within a universe, whose total sum of available energy never varies. In so being, we are presented with a finite number of options, unless we are able to harness the ability to create your own. The nature of the job may shorten or severely damage our life expectancy, but it is a daily task to fulfill the most basic of needs…and therein lies the problem. The mentality to watch out for reminders of the past and anticipate future events prevents us from fully experiencing the here and now. “If” we do this, “then” these events could happen is what we think keeps us alive…our ability to anticipate and react. If it were only so, then life would be far more straightforward. Truth be told, if time is simultaneous, then everything is happening right now. Who we were, who we are and the myriad of possible versions of ourselves, we could be are ever-present.

This three part series started with a biblical quote from Matthew: “Do not presume I’ve come to the Earth to bring peace. I’ve come but to bring a sword.” Though we crave peace, we shall not receive it until we learn to resolve each non-externalised conflict and proceed without surrender. That is what peace in the material world necessitates. A sword is merely one tool to fight one form of battle. There are as many others as there are possibilities in the multiverse. But, metaphorically, to find peace, we must bring a sword. We must be vigilant and prepared for anything. In essence, peace is spontaneous. [In the etymological interpretation of the term ‘spontaneity’, to be spontaneous is to be unaffected by external or internal events.] We may only be at peace, when what occurs within and without no longer has an impact on us…when we have outgrown the world, our conditional identity and attain a state of oneness with the cosmos. So if we can abstain from our deadliest vices and trust in a higher power, [we can work to directly experience,] perhaps then we can take control of our own causality. Until that point, however, we remain bound by shackles of our own making. How free we feel comes at the cost of something that can be taken or given at will, as does our sense of peace. Neither applies. Neither can be seized, because the sole power others have over us is the power, we allow them to exert. Neither can be recieved, just realised and cultivated, as they are preconceptual, prefated ideas prior to thought, word or language.

How Addicts Can Learn To Find Peace – Part 2

Click Here To Go Back To Part 1

What happens when our body and mind no longer act as one with our spirit? When the essence of our being begs us to stop, but everything screams for release? We are presented with a choice. We have the power to choose bearing the consequences of our actions…or we can give in to the worst of ourselves. That part, which enslaves itself willingly to escape the burden of freedom.

Nobody can be free in every aspect of their lives. We can’t exist in an absolute state as we are. However, if we can bide our time, we gradually free ourselves from the self-imposed constructs that cause us suffering. One by one. It would take lifetimes, but we could do it. Still, the more issues, we deal with, the more keep cropping up. We think we are solving the problem but we are merely managing the symptoms of the root cause. Addiction is just another symptom of a larger issue. We are all dependent on something. Whether we need nicotine pumping through our veins or can’t function without coffee in the morning doesn’t matter. It’s all the same and here’s why:

We live in an interdependent universe. That implies we can never be entirely self-sufficient and thus can never truly be free from each other, the world or ourselves. So how do we cope? Denial? Brandy? Any form of distraction after the other will do…Yet, what we need is total anarchy. A state, in which we seize the right to govern ourselves. Until then, we are predestined to fight the urge until we no longer can and go down swinging…Either way, we won’t come out of this fight the same as we entered.

When we use, even if we have taken too much, we dont stop, because it has not hit us deep enough instantly. We cannot feel it. We lack the patience to wait…or perhaps we prefer oblivion. Although we need to be kind to ourselves to be free from whatever shit that plagues us, it doesn’t help. The lines of kindness becomes blurred when we provide help for others. We mistake temporary relief for permanent salvation. Our inner sweetheart doesn’t fix the mess, we have made, but the agressive assertiveness of a newborn bitch might… Nonetheless, there’s a darkness in giving into our impulses that provides the illusion of freedom…of the transient peace that we are so often denied. Sometimes, I wondered how I ever had the strength to resist…and then I think of the one thing that changed my life for the better and I find the courage to continue abstaining. Then, there’s that point in recovery, where we have to face the relative truth of our lives, even if it kills us…where I’m reminded of what I am…what I’ll always be…and that’s when I fail. I’m not ashamed to admit to it. It’s a learning curb, I havent been able to grasp just yet. After some inner disagreements, I always give in to it. All that seems to matter is he feeling of when it hits you and quiets everything inside, you are so desperate keep down, because you can’t change or accept it. Unconsciously, I would pay good money to bet, we are aiming for utter self-destruction. BUT, this is no permanent solution. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. Nothing truly dies…So, we are trapped forevermore, until we free ourselves.

When we work the kinda job or live the kind of life, which doesn’t allow for a normal lifestyle, what do functioning addicts do? If all we manage as a meal is a bite or two before we rush off to rectify the next emergency, it can bring us a level of peace. The peace that comes from letting go temporarily. No matter how much we love what we do. When our work is our life, if nothing can give us the same types of satisfaction, there are more restorative kinds… We cannot expect find absolute peace through relative means. What we can anticipate, however, is the resurgence of buried needs until they’re fulfilled, unless we deal with them or overcome them. The only mechanism to bypass this involves unconventional options.

It should be noted, women experience the process differently compared to men. The primary purose of more masculine qualities is short-term defence for long-term protection, whereas a womans is short- and long-term preservation. The methods used are applied very differently and in dissimilar circumstances [i.e. there are set biological genders but any person can channel more or less masculine/feminine energy and thus fall into either category due to to epigenetic predispositions].

In truth, we are far more than our preconceptions, but they make who we think we are. When at the core, all it takes is the real us. Even if we think our own efforts aren’t enough. Sometimes ‘enough’ is what we can bring ourselves to do. After the life I have led, I didn’t believe there was anything more significant to me than shielding myself the world, the system, an inner darkness…in the pursuit of something greater…Perhaps, there isn’t anything but the depraved purity of experience. Perhaps, there is. Only time will tell, but for now, is definitely nothing more important than the fight for stability through clarity.

Click Here For Part 3

Then is Now

The corridor appears endless.
The light shines so bright,
It burns her eyes.
The clock is ticking on the wall,
But she can’t hear anything
Just her heart beating in her ears.
How could she end up here again?
What was going through her mind
That she would call on those
Who used to make her life hell?
How could she relinquish control
To such an extent?
….Mad…Hungover…Drunk…
She doesn’t care for her excuses.
…Not any longer…No more…
All she remembers is the rage,
Disguising fear deep inside,
Enough to lash out in a daze…

Two bottles in,
And it wasn’t even sundown yet,
But it was just enough to compel her.
Her brain cant process the fragments,
But she can feel them,
Lingering just below the surface.
A whole load of words
In the worst place
At just the wrong moment.
She doesn’t remember a cut to black,
But she doesn’t recall being conscious.
Just a sharp pain and nothing.
When did she become so weak?
She doesn’t care for their company.
None of them did.
…Man nor woman…
It’s a room of shared desperation,
Soaked in liquor and a fog of smoke,
Bound to result in violence.
The smiles are deceiving,
But they hide a dark need underneath.
Her kinds, theirs…
Sometimes, she wonders,
How either can ever find their way…
How things can permanently change?

The good old days were just the same.
Staring into the mirror,
Seeing only the ugliness of her pain.
It doesn’t look any different.
They always used to say,
She bruises easily,
Guess they were right,
Suppose she still does…
Tired of hiding,
Exhausted from fighting,
When will she feel like herself again,
Like she never thought she would?
Why can’t she keep her mouth shut?
As she looks back,
The bad days may have been easier,
When all she cared for had perished
…Several times over…
And there was no more to lose.
Nothing can cover the damage now,
Not even silence.

Darker Than Black

The room is shrowded in a cloud of smoke. She sits and wonders. Another drag, another sip, another fucking day in a world shot to hell. There’s no escape, not really. There are no safe spaces to lay our heads at night, not without the risk of worse fates than death. Bury your head in the sand to pretend, but she can’t. There is no freedom than does not come at the cost of eternal vigilance..there is just ‘that’ in endless succession.

We fall to rise, we rise to fall. Time after time…without the slightest bit of consistency or balance. Though, not for lack of unfulfilled promises made to those who dare to dream…not without the invocation of hope so cruel, she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemies. In the end, there is nothing left for her but this. Deep down, she’d known, it would always come to this. A part of her wonders how it could have taken so long for the moment to arrive…

She feels the transitive power of every passing second, as the walls begin to close in, but she doesn’t feel confined by them. They may spin ever so fast, her mind is dazzled. They may collapse right on top of her. As if, she cared about anything other than the end-result, even if costs her every inch that’s left of her being…As though, she couldn’t be more trapped in its anticipation than she already does.

The cold glass of the bottle meets her skin but briefly. She can barely feel it amongst the pain. Her thoughts could race, if she could see anything other than the inevitable conclusion of her actions. She knows the more she allows it to consume her, the more she loses…the more potential she wastes…the more of herself she squanders. Yet, for her, the question is only, why not? If this is all she can ever be, why pretend? If this is all she’ll ever have, why bother? If it is truly unavoidable, why the fuck not simply give in?

Tired of dealing with the problems of others, she failed to prevent for herself, as she simply wasn’t fast enough. Disheartened by initiating the positive change, she’s never granted no matter how hard she tries… She does not need this life, nor does she deserve its rewards. Failing always, it is lesson after lesson just to see how far she can break. She used to scramble for the pieces of herself, she lost along the way…Now she leaves them behind as a reminder of how she will never be whole, unless she would fucking care enough to redeem herself.

Another life, another try? Two fingers of whiskey linger on the side. Without a craving, she watches the ice melt….turning up the music so loud, she cannot hear her own thoughts nor would she wish to. Everything she feels drifts away, until not even the capacity to feel remains. Biding her time, until there is no choice anymore…until they come to take all that is left of her. If they had the mental ability to lay a hold on what defines her, she’d give herself over willingly, but they are too weak of heart, mind and spirit.

Half the time, she’s about to crack further, but doesn’t mind. She secretly likes seeing all the hidden pieces of herself sprawled out over the place. The other half, they bring her back to life, merely by feeding her misconceptions and watch her stumble for the truth…Yet, when they approach her, no matter how many times, she offers the kind smile, helpful word or a chance, she never got. Each time, she advises them not to shut doors, they may not be able to open again. Each time, she pleads with them that things will invariably get better…and every damn time, she dies a little inside. For them, it probably might be true, just not for her…Perhaps, she wouldn’t want it any other way.
Knowing deep down what we are, just drives our collective urge for extinction…for utter self-destruction. It cant be stopped or postponed, and neither can she.

As though, the last of anything could satiate our desire for more. After death, we long for the same all the more. Knowing her, she gave up leaping in expectation long ago. Even now, she’ll never stop trying to fly instead of fall… To never give in, when there is still something worth fighting for.

How Positive Change Can Trigger Relapse

What makes your knees weak? What causes your stomach to tighten? What touches you deep within? What makes you feel so safe that you crawl inside yourself in fear of the feeling?

It is rational to think that painful or even traumatic events can lead us to resort to destructive coping strategies. However, the opposite also applies to recovering addicts, who are doing exceptionally well. When our life as a sober person improves consistently, we can humbly appreciate our accomplishment, but never truly rest…Until that one event takes place, which tilts the balance of ultimate contentment. We let someone or something in so deep at that point of healing, we feel whole again. Relapse at this stage is a lose-lose situation. If they back off, then the addict is most likely suffer worse or even give up on recovery. If they come clean, then the wrong person is being punished for doing the right thing. They do not deserve that, if the addict can get clean immediately after the slip-up. However, in deal circumstances, communication and understanding are vital. If the slip-up turns into a secret binge, it must end there…before DT [delerium tremens] or other withdrawal symptoms become an issue again.

At one month clean, I had the best fucking weekend of my life…I was touched so intensely by another person that the thought of drowning the feeling was “safer” compared to the alternative of allowing myself to truly let someone in. In other words, positive change triggers relapse, because we crawl inside ourselves to avoid the pain, we are anticipating. Pain, which might or might not happen.

In a dualistic universe, pleasure always proceeds pain. The up and downs of living become normal, so we cope with them instead of aiming to overcome their cyclical influence. Put differently, we become used to the extreme ends of feeling. This is dangerous for any regular person, but with an addict, it can be deadly. The effect a particular substance can have on the brain differ from drug to drug. However, they typically all interfere with the normal functioning of the hypothalamic pituitary axis [HPA]. That means the recovery process will invoke emotions designed to be powerfully cathartic. Ideally, meant to resolve the underlying issue that led to the self-destructive behaviour. If it’s the surfacing pain of a traumatic event or several, we need to process it. Whatever the issue, we must heal, overcome and adapt. Nothing else will permanently make our way of coping go away.

For what it is worth, I do not believe I physiological addiction as such. All forms of addictive behaviour originate in the mind. In my and other cases, they are a result of lacking the necessary self-discipline to maintain a normal lifestyle. Like many functioning users, we give in to cope but destroy ourselves by doing so. I’ve never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, not for lack of trying. I’ve never had help getting clean, not for lack of asking. Few know, while even fewer pretend to care, but none would go very far to clean me up themselves. Emptying a bucket into the toilet, when I could barely stand was about the maximum effort. These would be the moments, when my body was rejecting that which it’d become so accustomed to. At any other point, I would self-medicate at infrequent intervals in order to avoid ‘bothering’ anyone with what should be a priority for the commonly decent. In fact, I would regularly support the habits of others, just for a place to DT privately…in proximity of sober-enough people to call an ambulance, if an actual emergency arose… It became normal to care as little about myself as others did, but this wasn’t a sudden occurrence. It was a fucking gradual process that took place over decades. With every setback, it became more important to function effectively. With every soul-deadening compromise, there was never any time to pause afterward. Then, trapped in an environment, I couldn’t escape, I was offered temporary salvation. After working with two fucked discs for a couple of years in constant agony, I had begged my family to help, but they refused to take me in…I had nobody to turn to and nowhere to go, but from that first real stupor, I no longer cared. As though, the worsening state of affairs could not affect me anymore. When the situation eventually changed, my new identity had invaded every aspect of my being. By the time, I was able to seek medical treatment and get clean, I had become someone, I didn’t wish to recognise. No guilt. No shame. No self-loathing. Just nothing at all. I was free from everything but enslaved.

If I have learnt anything,

It is that everything comes at a price.

Before a relapse, we must always ask ourselves is it worth the risk? In truth, perhaps, it can be. Raised in a society, in which we calculate the value of a person by their latest achievement, what do we expect? We begin to treat our lives as disposable instead of a never-ending wonder to be cherished. Sure, we function, but at the cost of drowning our potential. What we are attempting to get away from is just as present, when we are using, as when we are not. The only difference is our level of awareness. If we are willing to care for ourselves to the extent that we do for what functioning brings us…then, we must learn to say “No”, when doing something that will trigger a relapse, but never use it as an excuse not to step up to the task at hand. We must never let our addictive tendencies become a means to close ourselves off from people or experiences, which may transform the way, we perceive the world.

Can We Know The Absolute Truth?

Was there a time in your life, in which you questioned your loyalty to those around you or even to yourself? Although it is bound to occur sooner or later, it happens far too early and far too frequently for some. The reason for this is not the devolution of society, community or the family unit, but rather the concept of “knowing” itself.
In order to know anything, we must adhere to the same principles as the observer effect, which it turn means that knowing shares some of the same implications.

In the realm of physics, everything has a cause and yields an effect. Ergo, everything happens for a reason, even if the reason does not seem all that apparent. In probablistic algorithms, this includes the act of learning that ultimately leads to the attainment of further knowledge in the future. Consider this process in slow motion:

1. Introduction – the place and time we encounter the subject or object in question, incl. surrounding events leading up to that very moment.|
2. Development of Interest – the instant our curiosity is peaked.
3. Assimilation of Information – the more interested we are, the more we begin to learn about the subject or object.
4. Interpretation Through Perception – After much information gathering, we draw a conclusion based on what we know.
5. Repeat Process

When perceive knowing from this standpoint, how we trust becomes a consequence of a long-winded thought process, starting at the beginning of our individual consciousness.

Without the fundamental knowledge about an object or subject, we are only able to draw a finite number of conclusions. So, at times, we are lulled into complacency and trust on faith….However, instead of an assent of the mind to the truth, our blind reliance on others can carry a steep price, if we are not careful.

In any case, the tendency to trust too easily as well as the inability to trust are a symptom of a larger problem. These opposite ends of the “trust spectrum” also happen to address a rather relevant philosophical conundrum that may bridge the gap between the two extremes: the absolute aspects of “knowingness” in relative space-time.

On this note, we arrive at the question what is knowing? The term dates back to the 14th century, when the adjective was defined as “with knowledge of truth”, which leads us to ask, what is truth? Now, truth exists in two forms in a dualistic universe or universe with a circular spectrum: (1) relative and (2) absolute. In both forms, truth is often equivalated with proper awareness. Conversely, what we define as proper is determined by social standards. Our oldest understanding of proper means to be adapted to some purpose. In ideal world, the purpose would be honourable, filled with noble intentions to shape a world free from suffering. Yet, in any society, the purpose is swayed by mainstream information. Ultimately, this purpose can eiher bring us toward or further away from expanding our consciousness. Even when we are in a state of apparent stagnation, there is still movement in the form of tempero-spatial progression. In simple terms, our consciousness still perceives what is happening as sequence of events within the space time continuum from our individual perspective. This often comes with an involuntary confirmation bias, in which we interpret reality in a way that confirms our personal as well as collective preconceptions. Hence, we draw conclusions in the absence of experiential evidence prior to the self. Far too often, we do not even attempt to verify what we think to be true.

In addition, at higher levels of consciousness, all-time occurs simultaneously while all-space converges. All that was, is or could ever be happens all at once as a seemingly singular, interconnected movement known as our universe. In essence, our universe is the result of a chain-reaction, from which gazillions of possibilities unfold, but onle one can manifest.
When we stand further back to perceive our universe as just one possible form of existence, we are simply one string interweaved in a myriad of others. We could argue, all of which are circular and explore the implications. We could envision a cascade of never-ending existences, trying to imagine what they would be like. However, we can only know by being…through that long-winded battle of striving to attain a state of infinite existence and succeeding…

To clarify, our universe is merely a tiny ripple in a vast cosmic sea of possible realities, just as we are a tiny ripple in the bottomless ocean of society. So, all we know seems circumstantially relative, but becomes much more definitive when we translate knowledge into action. For example, we can think the Earth is flat but when we hop into a spaceship to check, it’ll be an oblate spheroid. Push come to shove, what we know is only as true as our ability to prove the fact. Put in context with our societal hierarchy, this implies that our knowlege is only as good as how we present our case. Whether we are speaking the truth sadly doesn’t matter as much as it should. Though we can change that through nurture, we can’t change nature. For instance, we can create an environment, in which we foster open-mindedness and curiosity, but we can’t force everyone to be tolerant to each other around the clock every day. When ideas collide in the search for the absolute truth, there is going to be fallout and the ego will be the first casualty. So, the most important rule in our search is to leave our ego behind. In doing so, we don’t argue as much as we try to understand where the other person is coming from.

Who The Fuck is Right?

Your truth, my truth, who the fuck is actually right at the end? Honestly, both but no one. We may understand the manner, in which a person perceives anything, yet we can never be certain that they aren’t lying to themselves. We might believe we know another inside out, just to realise eventually that we never truly knew them at all. Everything is relative, capable of being interpreted in the exact opposite way. It is a simple matter of subjective experience, giving rise to relative truths.
For example, in the case of eyewitness statements, this becomes deadly apparent. Although everyone involved witnessed the same incident, the descriptions wildly differ. While our recollections are only as reliable as our memory, how and what we remember depends greatly on our thought processes. In fact, our thoughts shape our memory not only through neuronal connections, but through the reason why we interpret things the way we do.

To be who we are means constant effort for our body and mind. From birth onward, we develop and maintain an identity, dependent on conditional factors. People, events and the world helps mould what we have already become. So, without the occurrence of certain defining moments, we cease to be the current version of ourselves.
Our mind is endlessly processing what has, is and may happen. Content continuously rises to the surface and falls underneath the line of conscious or voluntary recollection. We never stop forgetting and remembering, unless we still the mind completely. Moreover, it takes persistent practice to be present in the now. We must be consistent in our effort to care more for the truth than our personal interpretation.
For what it’s worth, we rarely notice how our own personal perception of reality creates bias in our judgement of what we believe to be the truth. We forget to consider sides to a subject, for instance, because we associate negatively with them. We overestimate the importance of specific factors due to positive experiences in the past. From a primal standpoint, our physical, emotional and social survival relies on remembering some things but forgetting others. Through the evolution of our consciousness, however, we can choose to do neither. We can position ourselves on the fine line in between. We can be vigilant without judging ourselves or those around us. We can just be in the moment, observing…contemplating the absolute truth from within the confines of relative existence…But it wouldn’t be enough.

To discern something as complex as the absolute truth from a version of the relative is not a simple task. To know the absolute truth about ourselves, we need to remove the influence of all relative aspects that make up our personality. This is also a rather painful key to lasting happiness in yogic non-attachment practices. To discover the absolute truth about the many worlds, we must delve into the origin, nature and purpose of existence prior to the relative. If all is mind, then truth is a multi-faceted, collective construct. It contains ego-destroying layers of personal perspectives from every possible angle inside a vast consciousness, whose probability of ending is zero…So, are you ready?

What is Love?

The concept of love predates mankind as a species. Some claim, it is even older than time itself. Whereas our ancestors knew mutual respect, comradeship and shared understanding is essential to the continued survival of their tribe, we believe we perceive love in a more sophisticated light…but do we, really?

“One result of the mysterious nature of love is that no one has ever,
to my knowledge, arrived at a truly satisfactory definition of love.”

However, nothing can restrain the curiosity of spirit. Over the epochs, we have attempted to fit love into various categories, such as eros, philia, agape; perfect love and imperfect love and so on…In a very real sense trying to understand love is attempting to examine the unexaminable and to know the unknowable. It is different every time and with every person in very apparent but also quite subtle ways. Overall, love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words. Its versitable, adaptible nature makes it beyond the explainable.

Scott Peck defines love as the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of ones own and anothers spiritual growth. I, however, disagree slightly…It is the compulsion to do so…
By use of the word “will”, he tried to transcend the distinction between desire and action. Desire is not necessarily translated into action. Will is desire of sufficient intensity that it is translated into action. The difference between the two is equal to the difference between saying “I would like to…” and “I will….” Thefore, the want to love is not love itself. After all, love is as love does. We cannot choose who we converse well with on a platonic level, nor can we choose whom we fall in love with. By defining love as an of will, he inferred that it is an act of intention as well as action. He argues, he we dont have to love, as it is a choice. In my professional opinion, this is only partially true. What when we like someone very much, each day we see them but never pursue them because we have decided not to? We would continue to feel a great deal of affection toward them, there would simply be no desire translated into action, which is rather essential for the bonding process to begin.
Yet, before we continue as to the reason why, it must be noted that in many cases, we may be motivated by something other than love without conscious knowledge, and that what seems to be love is often not love at all. One of the major distinguishing features between what we perceive to be love and that which is real love is the conscious or unconscious purpose in the mind of the person. Furthermore, love is a strangely circular process, which we expand our consciousness in an evolutionary sense.
In other words, when we love, we extend our limits, give our all, or even learn to love parts of ourselves that we don’t.

The act of “loving” is an act of self-evolution even when the purpose of the act is someone else’s growth. It implies effort. We can only extend limits by exceeding them, but exceeding limits requires work. However, when we love someone, this exertion appears to make the connection demonstrably real. It can make any sacrifice worthwhile. Moreover, as a form of energy, love can power the extra step, we take for others, if we let it. Just beware, love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful.

Falling in Love

“Of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that “falling in love” is love or at least one of the manifestations of love.”

It is a potent misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced in a very powerful fashion as an experience of love. While we are still wearing rose-coloured glasses, we perceive a romanticized image of the person rather than the person itself. When we fall in love what we certainly feels is “I love him” or “I love her.” More importantly, two complications become immediately apparent:

1. The experience of falling in love is an intimate experience directly related to our sexual desires. We do not fall in love with just anyone. Even though we may love our family and friends very deeply, we do not fall in love with them on a whim. Often the attraction predates the decision to simply be friends. We typically fall in love only when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated.
2. The experience of falling in love is temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later, we fall out of love should the relationship continue long enough. This is not to say that we ultimately cease loving the person, but the honeymoon phase ends and the rose-coloured glasses must be discarded.

To understand the nature of the phenomenon, it is necessary to examine the nature of our ego boundaries. As infants, we do not distinguish between ourselves and the rest of the universe. The animate and the inanimate are the same. There is no distinction yet between I and thou. We and the world are one. There are no boundaries, no separations. There is no identity, just personality traits in the early stages of development.
With experience, a sense of the “me” begins to develop. This interaction between the infant and the parents is believed to be the ground out of which the child’s sense of identity begins to grow. It has been observed that when the interaction between the infant and its parents is disturbed. For example, due to the breakdown of the family unit [i.e. when there is no parent, no satisfactory substitute or when because of their own mental illness, they are uncaring or uninterested, then the infant grows into a child or adult whose sense of identity is lacking in the most basic ways.]

The development of such boundaries is a process that continues through childhood into adolescence and even into adulthood. Generally, the boundaries established later in life are more mental than physical. For instance, at every stage of life, we typically come to terms with the limits of our power on various levels. For instance, it is namely known as the “terrible twos” because of this learning curb. It is the hope and feeling of immediate gratification that can make any twoyear-old usually attempts to act like a tyrant and autocrat, trying to give orders and respond with regal fury when they won’t be dictated to. By the age of three the child usually accepts the reality of its own relative powerlessness.

“Still, the possibility of omnipotence is such a sweet, sweet dream that it cannot be completely given up even after several years of very painful confrontation with one’s own impotence.”

Although we come to accept the reality of our boundaries, we will continue to escape occasionally for some years into late adulthood.

Falling in love is the world of Batman and Captain America. By the time of mid-adolescence, we have already been conditioned that we are individuals, confined to the boundaries of our bodies and the limits of our power…that each one of us is a relatively frail and impotent organism, existing only by cooperation within a group of fellow organisms called society. Within this group, most of us are not particularly distinguished, but we often separate ourselves from others through our individual identities, boundaries or limitations.

In truth, it is lonely within the socratean confines of the fractured self. Some, particularly those who’ve suffered traumatizing experiences, perceive the world outside of themselves as unredeemably dangerous, hostile and unnurturing. Such people feel their ego boundaries to be a protecting and comforting influence. Through them, they find a sense of safety in their loneliness. However, the majority feel our loneliness to be painful, so yearn to escape from behind the walls of our individual identities to a condition in which we can be more unified with the world outside of ourselves. The experience of falling in love allows us this escape temporarily. “The essence of the phenomenon of falling in love is a sudden collapse of a section of an individual’s ego boundaries, permitting one to merge his or her identity with that of another person.” We experience the sudden release of ourselves from ourselves. A surcease of loneliness accompanying this collapse of boundaries ensues and we feel freer than we did before.

In many respects, but certainly not all, the act of falling in love is an act of deep regression. The experience of merging with a loved one reminds us of a time when our identities were submerged in a unified state of universal consciousness. Along with the re-emergence of this microcosmic oneness, we also re-experience a sense of omnipotence which we had to give up in our journey to take form.

The unreality of these feelings when we fall in love is essentially the same as the illusion of separation. We feel the world at our fingertips with unlimited power at our disposal. However, just as reality intrudes upon the fantastical notion of omnipotence as an individual, so does reality intrude upon the fantastic unity of any couple in love. Sooner or later, in response to the problems or daily routine of life, our individuality reasserted itself. For example, he wants to have sex, she doesn’t. She wants to go out, he doesn’t etc.

Our desires are not always going to be in harmony with the wants of others. In the beginning, we can be who we are, pretending to accept and be accepted unconditionally, but honeymoon phase will ultimately pass. Over time, ego boundaries to snap back into place, which is when couples fall out of love. At this point they begin either to dissolve the ties of their relationship or initiate the process of real love.

Real Love

Actual love often occurs in a context in which the feeling of love is often lacking [i.e. hen we act lovingly despite the fact that we don’t feel all that affectionate].

Falling in love is not an act of will. It is not a conscious choice. No matter how open to or eager we may be for it, the experience may still elude us. Contrarily, it may capture us at a time when we are not seeking it, when it is inconvenient or even undesirable. We are as likely to fall in love with someone with whom we are obviously ill-matched as with someone more suitable. Indeed, we may not truly like or admire the object of our passion, just as we may not be able to fall in love with a person whom we deeply respect and with whom a relationship would be a decent match in all ways. This is not to say that the experience of falling in love is immune to discipline. To be frank, we are usually able to abort the collapse of our ego boundaries and give up our romantic interest. The struggle involved can be enormous. Furthermore, such a strategy is frequently recommended by mental health professionals, when a liaison is dangerous, self’destructive or inappropriate for either person.

Only disciplined will can control the experience, but it cannot create it.

In other words, we can choose how to respond to the experience of falling in love, but we cannot choose the who, how or when. We can’t control the nature of the experience itself.

Whereas falling in love is a partial and temporary collapse of ego boundaries, love is permanently self-enlarging experience. The extension of our limits requires effort. Once the comparatively short moment of falling in love has passed, we are usually none the wiser for the experience. When limits are extended or stretched, however, they tend to stay stretched. While falling in love has little to do with purposively nurturing our spiritual development or that of others. If we have any purpose in mind when we fall in love, it is to escape our own loneliness. We are certainly not thinking of enlightenment. Perhaps, after we have fallen in love and before we have fallen out of love again…

It is through reaching toward evolution that we evolve .

Falling in love is in fact very close to real love. The misconception that falling in love is a type of love is so potent precisely because it contains a grain of truth.

The experience of real love also has to do with ego boundaries, since it involves an extension of one’s limits. One’s limits are one’s ego boundaries. When we extend our limits through love, we do so by reaching out, so to speak, toward people, whose growth we wish to nurture. For us to be able to do this, we must first be attracted toward, invested in and committed to an object outside of ourselves, beyond the boundaries of self.

When we bond with an object outside of ourselves, we also incorporate a representation of that object into ourselves. For example, let us consider any hobby. When we develop an interest in something, like cooking, we start small but before we know it, we “love” doing it. Preparing our own meals instead of microwaving pre-processed junk gradually means more to us. We invest in learning the skills involved in performing that particular activity in order to improve. We inadvertantly learn a great deal about our abilities [i.e. strengths, weaknesses, how to overcome the limitations of either…]. We also understand more about our environment as well as the people surrounding us. For instance, historical context, preferences, problems, future possibilities etc.
Despite the fact that the act happens outside of us, through our attention to it, it comes to exist within us. Our knowledge of it and the meaning it has for us are part of him, part of our identity, part of our history, part of our wisdom. In doing so, we have incorporated it in quite a real way within ourselves, and through this incorporation, we expand our consciousness.
What transpires then in the course of many years of “loving”, of extending our limits in the act, is a gradual but progressive enlargement of the self, an incorporation within of the world without, and a growth, a stretching and a thinning of our ego. In this way, the more and longer we extend ourselves, the more we love, the more blurred becomes the distinction between the self and the world. We become identified with the world. And as our ego boundaries become blurred and thinned, we begin more and more to experience the same sort of feeling of ecstasy that we have when our ego boundaries partially collapse and we “fall in love.” Only, instead of having merged temporarily and unrealistically with a single object, we have merged realistically and more permanently with much of the world.

Protected: Don’t Write Me A Love Poem

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

The Difference Between Pain & Suffering

“Pain is inevitable,
Suffering is optional…”

The word ‘pain’ defines a condition of consciousness, in which we experience hardship. In simple terms, it it the condition of having been injured either physically, mentally or emotionally… However, must pain always invoke suffering?

In simple terms, no. At the deepest depths of pain, suffering can become a reality as a result of emotional as well as psychological attachment. In romantic relationships, this can be to the person, who inflicts violence and abuse on an unassuming victim. Yet, more often than not, it is an attachment to our preconceptions.
We believe pain must inevitably lead to suffering, therefore we simply accept suffering as an unchanging, immutable companion of pain…

Where Does Pain Begin?

In the mind, always. From a biochemical perspective, pain starts a spark in the wiring of the brain [i.e. neurotransmitter signaling]. Yet, on a quantum level, any type of pain is mere information. For example, when we put our hand in a burning fire, we are basically reaching into a cobweb of particles that are moving much faster than our own. What we experience as “Ouch, that’s hot.” is a small collision of particles, communicating the extent of the injury. In terms of thermodynamics, two objects are initiating thermal contact, in which they are exchanging energy, but cant achieve an equilibrium. As particles collide, the cells in our hands are acutely aware of what is happening. This causes a wave of signals to surge through the sympathetic nervous system to initate a pre-conditioned response to the experience. As a darwinian throwback, it takes great willpower to keep our hand in the fire, the more intense the flames.

Psychological pain is akin to its physical counterpart in that it is governed by similar laws

As we burn ourselves, we experience a drain on our energy reserves. This drain persists until the injury has healed fully. The pain is a byproduct of not merely the experience, but its engram…the physical equivalent of its impression on the individual consciousness.

However, in the spiritual sense, pain is a result of conflict. The multiverse functions very similarly to a self-contained holomovement, in which various domains of space-time are [thought to be] casually interlinked. From the moment of the Big Bang, universe after universe emerges…yet they remain an intrinsic part of an interconnected whole. Without them as a form of containment unit for space-time, energy-potential could not become energy and energy could not be condensed into matter.

Therein lies the origin of conflict. In an interconnected whole, we are an indivisible part of the totality of the multiverse. We no longer exist as individuals or a planetary collective, we are at one with the cosmos as well as that which gave rise to it. We may feel we are linked as a people or cosmic whole of consciousness, but we rarely translate this knowledge into an actuality.
For what it is worth, realisation of such multiversal unity is as destructive as it is liberating, hence few choose this path. Even at the highest point of enlightenment in the physical body, pain persists, because we remain in the confines of relative existence [i.e. space-time].

Where does suffering end?

What’s the root cause of mental, emotional or physical suffering? Giving power to that which we have no direct control over is what causes suffering. In other words, we relinquish control, which in turn serves as a source of pain that leads to suffering.

Focus on what you can directly control and accept what you cannot.

There’s a dark gap between what you’re doing and what you’re truly capable of. For instance, when we aim to complete a task, we follow our objectives in order to achieve a level of success. This success is more often than not defined by attaining a specific goal, we have no direct control over. Mentally speaking, when we work toward any goal, our mind is preoccupied by past attempts and preconceptions about the future, so it cannot fully concentrate on the process to improve it while it is still ongoing. Our actions throughout the process are fully under our control, but we are too occupied to focus on the present moment.

If we define success as giving our best in the process, then we cannot fail, feel calmly confident, and can accept any outcome with equanimity.

Suffering is the psychological resistance to what happens. A person can inflict physical pain on us, but suffering only come from resisting what is, from fighting with reality…although it’s futile to fight them, because we can’t change or undo what already is. Nevertheless, we fight with reality all the time in our desire for it to be different. We must have it our way, the way we want it, the way we expected it to be…

Whenever we desire something that isn’t in our power, our sense of inner confidence as well as tranquility is shaken. Often, if we don’t get what we want, we’ll be upset, but if we do, we will experience anxiety, apprehension and insecurity. Therefore, we should always focus on what is now…what we can control our actions but not the outcome. We can give all that is in our power, but we must invariably accept whatever happens.

Focus on what you control, and take the rest as it happens in order to make the most of it.

External factors may have the power to affect how and even whether you live, but they don’t have the power over your spirit in this life and those yet to come. Only you yourself can give them this power over the deepest part of you [by failing to act as well as you’re capable of].
We must make sure that our happiness depends as little as possible on internal or external factors. There should be only a loose connection between what happens to us and how happy we feel. We may focus on what we control, trying to make the best of any given situation and only wanting what is within our power…However, that still invites suffering. It is never possible to make happiness consistent with longing. True happiness implies the possession of all which is desired, yet we can never obtain all we desire.
So, what we aim for is a transient state of conditional happiness. We bind our happiness to some past, present or future event. Time after time, we promise ourselves, we will be happy after we have achieved our next goal, but we never are.

We never experience happiness, because we are never satisfied. It’s like trying to wall off the edge of the Earth, we can walk for miles and miles but won’t get any closer. Either we keep on yearning for stuff we don’t have, or we actually have a chance for happiness. We can’t have both. True happiness is when you have all you desire at the point when you desire nothing from the world or it’s people.

If we wish to be unconditionally happy, we must seek happiness within ourselves.

We’ve been equipped with the necessary tools to create a satisfactory life, regardless the hardships we face in life. So, if we want to be content, we must change ourselves and our desires. We cannot change the things that happen in the world around us, we can only change the way we look at those things and what we choose to make out of them

…If Only…

If only I could express,
How much you mean to me…

If only you could be here with me,
Each time I need you…

If only we could be together,
Every now and then…

If only I could curl up into your arms,
Perhaps the night wouldn’t be so dark…

If only you could fill the empty void,
I feel inside of me…

If only our eyes could meet,
And I could feel again…

If only for a moment…

Dare To Dream, For You Are Magic

Have you ever looked into someones eyes, wanting to believe them but just knew how badly it would end and tried anyway? Have you ever steered your chosen destiny off course, just because it felt right? Have you ever yearned for the presence of another person so intensely, you’ve felt disconnected from the world and all those within?

While you pursue your dreams,
Be mindful of the passage of time.
Persist against the odds.
Live to think freely…

When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first thought that echoes through the corridors of your mind? What’s your last thought, before drift sweetly into the endless night? When we think of specific people, objects or experiences, they merely represent what our heart longs for at its core. However, getting what we want can never still its desire completely. To live is to want the next best thing, or so it might seem…

In truth, there is a fickleness in our affection or loyalty toward what we desire. At each moment, what we want can change…and thereby our dreams.
Nevertheless, there are constant yearnings that are well hidden underneath our seemingly capricious nature. Each day, these dreams surface quietly and often unnoticed…Still, they are there for our entire lives.
If dreams perish slowly until that one fateful day, on which they inevitably die a violent death, they merely sink to the bottom of the conscious mind…They remain ever-biding their time for some form of ambiguous hope. In its absence, they tend to linger in a state, where they continue to draw energy from the body as well as the mind [to exist]. Should they surface prematurely, when they can be fulfilled in a way that will integrate them into the active aspects of the mind, then unprocessed wounds may heal and form barely noticable scars. Conversely, should they rise before their time, then the dream may die once more. At times, this can be less excruciating, but more often than not, the pain increases. Old wounds reopen as new ones are inflicted on top of them. Afterwards it is fairly natural for the dream to sink down even lower. Dependent on the intensity of the trauma, it can be fully/partially suppressed or it might just hover on the border between the conscious and the unconscious…

Important:

Denial differs from suppression in one significant aspect. Pretending a dream was never conceived or a series of events never took place isn’t the same as inhibiting memories of it.

So, when you ask yourself, what is that one secret flight of fancy, which will never relinquish its hold over me…How would you answer?
Let your mind grow silent and calm. Contemplate if there was nothing, what would I long to do most of all? After various ideas, perhaps the truth will reveal itself.

It should be noted that it takes years to unbury and contemplate each one. What every dream represents is a door to self-fulfilment in the form of self-realisation. Karma yoga, cosmic unity through action and therein resultant experiences. Now, the key is to uncover our innermost self in order to pursue a dream worth fighting for. Regardless of the struggle, we face along the way, we must pick something that we are able to persevere with. No dream is worth dying for unless it changes at least one other persons live for the better permanently…

How Far Would You Go Not To Break?

Who are you undereath? What makes you tick? More importantly, what would it take for you to break?

We each have our particular weaknesses to be exploited by those for whom it is a strength. In other words, life is getting pissed on from a great height repeatedly, trying not to get wet.
As though, it actually mattered how much we suffer in the open or behind closed doors, we pretend to care for others. Yet, the majorty of us have more significant tasks to devote their attention to. For instance, satisfaction at any cost.
People will say or do whatever is necessary to get what they want. To them, there is little difference between doing the right thing and ensuring their self-interests are met above everyone elses. Truth be told, I sometimes wonder, if there still is anyone who doesn’t, except for me? The world turns, people are not committing suicide en masse, so there must be plenty, right? Wrong! They are too rare…

Compassion is few and far between in this world, but we should never deny its healing potential. Its effects on the mind have the power to attribute less meaning to memories with a high impact on our presence of mind. In a way, compassion serves as a form of collective self-protection. Conversely, when we are denied it for a prolonged period of time, the want for protection is often overridden by the desire for self-destruction.

“Safety is an illusion”

On the surface, we are conditioned never to look too deep. It is the safest way to avoid painful realisations or the horrible truths about the world or ourselves. As a survival and coping mechanism, this serves to prolong life while making it more difficult for us to break our preconceptions. The deeper, we stare into ourselves, the more the question becomes “how long can we stand the pain?” In general, it depends on how resilient and resistant, we are…but our time is limited. Nobody can cope forever. Eventually, we are forced to ask ourselves, if we can continue until irreperably breaking (i.e. breaking while others watch and do nothing) or if we wish to take back control.
At the very precipes of self-destruction, we have already been destroyed in that we have already made the decision to go forward. However, such a choice is only as inevitable as our committment to do what needs to be done for the right reasons. If we believe, we are worthy of mercy, we must be the first to be benevolent to ourselves. If we are convinced, we are deserving of another chance, we must be the first to give it…Lastly, if we are down and out, then we should not hesistate to put ourselves out of our mysery by any non-violent means available to us.

When picking up the broken pieces of ourselves on the floor, we should truly contemplate how many other times, the exact same thing has happened in order to draw a conclusion. If it has happened too often, the underlying cause should be removed from the equation to guarantee success. However, if the underlying problem is a person, we cant detach from, then the process of resolution becomes a tad more ethically tainted…if we wish to persist regardless of the consequences.

In my case, when the disasterous factor is always you, then it is best to cut as many ties as possible. After all, alone is what people like us do best, simply because we have to…simply because it will never change. Some of us make it through to the bitter end, while others take the preferable options of cutting their suffering short. In all fairness, they might definitely be the lucky ones. Hell, even in the worlds worst dump with the most severe case of spiritual amensia, they are more fortunate than the rest. They need no longer be trapped in world, in which their heart is treated as though it does not exist at all. In any eventuality, who would even notice ther absence? Others impose their perception upon them and they are supposed to agree without question or hesitation. They will simply find someone else to fulfill the same role time after time, no matter the damage, they inflict. Worst thing is, more often than not, the next person will actually play along. They do this for a very simple reason: They know no different.

In our world,
The more you care,
The more vulternable you become.

On a personal note, the concept behind relationships has never been difficult for me to grasp. It is a simple matter of loyalty, respect and empathy in order to build a lasting raport. Yet, in practice, the truly real people, we meet in life are very few. They are the ones, we can turn to, when we are in depserate need of a shoulder to cry on and they’ll always be there. They are the ones, who will believe in us, when no one else can. They are the ones, who’ll take us in, when we have nowhere to go.
As may be easily ascertained, such generosity no longer exists for a small percentage of the mainstream population. After a while, it becomes simpler to just detach from the idea instead to be continuously taunted by it.
People like me are those, who sit on an empty bench by themselves and observe people passing by. We watch their interactions and keep wondering, “Is that even a possibility for me?”. Although we have learnt through many years of experience that it isnt, the thought keeps popping up. Hope refuses to perish. The notion, we may belong, cannot be banished from the mind indefinitely. As a deeply embedded part of our survival instinct, it requires extreme measures to be rid of such a notion permanently. By the time, we reach mid-adulthood, unfulilled desires such as that tend to surface far more intensely. They may create a level of inner upheaval but will disappear soon enough, before reappearing during the mid-life crisis.
In any scenario, belonging is a state of mind. To feel as though we belong can either be delusional or factual, but the feeling itself cannot be forced. For instance, if someone doesn’t feel that they belong, they cannot be made to feel more comfortable by other people overcompensating for past behaviour. It simply creates paranoia and angst.

In truth, as a species, we are beginning to lack the very qualities that define lasting relationships of any kind, from friendship to marriage. The loyal are used for their dedication. Respect is perceived as a weakness. Empathy requires more than a few seconds of thinking about another person without thinking “Me First”.

To remove yourself from the equation of life is just this easy. It is an untangling of our attachments and aversions. It is a process through which we let go completely. We do not cease to feel the relevant emotions associated with strong affinity or dislike toward something/someone, we merely cease to react to them externally as well as internally. In essence, the key is to display compassion, but never get psychologically involved or emotionally entangled.
It can be achieved without much effort, if one has very little ties to the social foundations of our modern civilisation. Off-Grid living would be ideal, of course, but few manage work and attain such a goal without solemn determination to succeed at every cost.

True Night

As the light of day vanishes behind the horizon, its last glimmers are reflected in the rushing water of the river. A cold breeze cuts straight through her and she can breathe again. She runs her hand through the blades of grass at her feet. They feel wet to the touch, but she cannot help but let herself drift onto the ground. With the hill at her back, her head disappears into the hood of her jacket…
Twilight departs and the night approaches.
Staring up into the sky, the stars are gradually blanketed by passing clouds on a pitch-black night. Not even the light of the street lamps can reach her here…The river bank is as it once was, an epitome of constant movement in an ever-changing world of darkness, yet at the same time cut off from everything.

Enthralled by the blackening of a moonless heavens, she years for the sun to bring no other day but this one…She can never escape the night and neither would she want to. It encapsulates everything, which calls her back to the present moment.

The winds of the coming storms passed her by, whispering sweet nothings in her ear of a world that’ll never without cost. If we live only with the hope but without action, she wonders, then what of the future? Sooner or later, it is inevitable that hope shall turn sour. After all, there can be no hope without a certain level of expectation. Deep inside her, hope died long ago, yet she cannot shake the feeling that things never change. It grips her one last time, it wont let go…not truly.

She may pray, trust or believe, but what has happened before will happen again. As though, she was watching an overpowering current approach and sweep her under without any effort, she cannot succumb, but she wants to… If she could only catch its momentum at just the right moment, there might be something left of her at the end, but who’d want that?

The temperature dips. She barely notices the soft rustling in the wind. Still the cold doesn’t reach her. Wrapped in the tender embrace of true night, it feels as though it could endure for all eternity…as deceivingly unlikely, perhaps it does, and none of us ever seriously notice…

All is night, though nobody truly sees the night for what it is. When she is played out and used up, it pulls her close. Ready to conceal her under its wings for just a little while longer. Each time, she swears, it shall be the last, but we cannot break free from the desires which define us…from that which makes us who we are, when we cast the die through the choices we make.

In the dusky hours of truth, the night gives and takes. Before dawn, lives are forever changed. In time, she will join them. She’ll never be the same once again. Her mind grows weary at the thought…if only the die wasn’t cast for her by the fragmented mind of another…if only her fate was hers to shape and not a fraction of mankind…if only…
At the heart of night, she gazes into unfathomably deep abyss of the cosmos. After a while, her sorrow fades. Carried afar by thoughts of the unconditional, and for just an instance, she becomes worth fighting for…worth living for…and all the trouble inbetween.
As she’ll walk away, the night shall soon pass her by. There is never enough time to allow herself to be completely enveloped for long enough by its mysterious edge. Her curiosity to explore its wonders never ceases. She can never get her fill…and before she is just out of sight, she shall always turn to glance back at its the water glistening in the light of the stars in such sweet sorrow, as though their light could never cease.

Fading Dreams of the Night

She’s lying in bed motionless. Her head weighs heavily on the pillow as her eyes stare into the distance. She breathes in, she breathes out…Yet she can barely feel her body anymore. Her chest rises and falls, but only she dares to look within. To her, everything feels hollow. An empty shell, obscuring a spaceless, timeless existence filled with limitless potential. There is the want to believe…the desire to trust…in the process of life, but perhaps, she never can…

With every inhale, sleep fades that much further away.
With each exhale, her mind descends into a world of total silence.

The deeper, she treads, the more control she relinquishes until there is none and merely the illusion of control remains. Inch by inch, she releases her grip on that which must never surface. She ventures ever so deep, where no one must ever go…to a cold, dark corner in the back of her mind. It neither comes nor goes, always lurking in the shadows to remind her of who she truly is inside. Night after night, she watches while layer after layer peels back…As though, her every living thought sifts through an hourglass.
With each grain, another memory passes by. Sometimes, they pull her apart with a sharp jerk at the sheer recollection of pain suppressed at the time. Always, they chip away a tiny bit more of what she used to be and she doesn’t mind in the slightest.
With each grain, she lingers in anticipation, longing for the moment before there’ll be nothing left…No more roles to play…No more to bury…No more to hide…No more of anything at all, but the freedom of absolute truth.

Her eyes fall shut slowly. She’s staring into the blackness of her eyelids. Colours fade, only darkness persists. Gradually drifting further into the distance, her breathing deepens. The ache in her side grows with each day, yet there’s no one to tell her what she doesn’t already know. The bottle awaits, but she wont heed its call. Sleeping pills whisper sweet promises of relief, but she cant swallow another.
Amidst the dying of the light, her defences fall away. She won’t go gently into the calm and restful night…but then that has never been her raison d’être. Fated to walk the Earth without a place to call home, she’ll stare at the cloudless, starry night…safe within herself… Destined to march onward.
She’ll imagine the faint ripples of their light, streaming across a vast cosmic ocean. Sometimes, she’ll contemplate why she can never leave a lasting impression of what can’t be conceived with the mind but only be felt through the heart. Seldom, she’ll wonder, if her spirit can be at peace again…and each time, as the last few grains of sand drip down the hourglass, she’ll forever plead for a soul whose love was once pure.

To All Who Dare Defend Their Freedom – Fucking Go For It

Imagine a world, in which self-defence is a criminal act that is punished more severely than a felony. Imagine a world, in which the life-quality of an elite minority takes precedence over the lives of an enire world population. Imagine a world, in which subjugation is of higher importance than profit…

If you can envision all of the above simultaneously, then you’ll come pretty close to seeing our world as it is, not how we would like it to be. Yet, even at the lowest point of existence, there will always be those that strive to remedy such injustices. To those who dare, this current situation is but a challenge to be solved creatively…However, when these creative solutions share the same consequences, where do we draw the legal line?

If the mere expression of our thoughts is an act punishable by law, then what will happen to our right to free speech? What will happen to our way of thinking?

Whose freedom are we protecting by remaining silent? Certainly not our own, not even the freedom of those attempting to suppress ours.

In the words of George Orwell, “if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And he was right…but what when we have entered a world, in which expressing what we think or how we feel makes us a liability?Regardless of gender or race…that is always the case. From an early age, we are conditioned to only share what is socially accepted, but is that a way to live?

Your life is your life, it is nobody elses, So don’t allow yourself to be dominated by others. Don’t allow your actions to be dictated to by others, nor the regret you feel for having done so. It is a betrayal to yourself, which will prevent you from fulfilling you maximum potential. If you allow yourself to be dictated to by…perhaps your parents, your society, your education system, your politicians, your priests, whosoever they are…if you allow yourself to be dominated by others you will miss the best things in life. As Osho remarked, “domination comes from outside and life is within you.” The two may only meet when the external becomes non-externalised, which in turn means they cancel each other out.

There are two types of people: the obedient and the rebellious. One is a ready to take orders, retreat and/or surrender when things get tough. They have yet to discover their independent spirit. Howeve, they cannot do so until they are able to trust their own being. Unfortunately, the people make up the greater part of the world. They are the masses. The other is a small minority who reject society as well as its values. They think they are rebellious, but they primarily react to the way society dominates them. Rebellion becomes a means to gain back a modicum of control after it has been lost…unless it consists of purely selfless acts.

Whicheve type you are, follow your dream. Ask yourself ‘What do you really want to do?” But be aware you might be scared to admit what you really want to yourself. Unconsciously you may fear that you won’t be able to control your desire once you’ve admitted to it. In fact, it can cause real physical and mental illness if we continue to repress what we know deep down…it will come up eventually anyway. So, by acknowledging what we really want and pursue it, we may end up changing our current job, relationship, position in society, or whatever, but we will be
gaining the freedom to pursue what truly motivates and satisfies us. Remember that success is having a fixed goal but varying means on how to achieve it.

“If at first you don’t succeed,

Don’t try it again.

It didn’t work the first time!

Try something different!”

Changing the way you think can help you embrace a newly found freedom. If you think about life in terms of deprivation and suffering. You’ll never find enjoyment in personal growth, and most likely will soon give up on your endeavors. On the other hand, a person who thinks of life as a form of expression of their freedom will welcome opportunities to expand the consciousness of all people.
When facing temptations and fighting hard to not let them control you, remember that through letting
go of them, you aren’t losing anything substantial. You are simply taking the libery to be a master of your thoughts and emotions, which is ultimately worth more than any temporary gratification, of which you’re depriving yourself.

Where Do You Feel Safe?

When your heart weighs heavily on your spirit, what do you do? For the most part, we are driven reach out. To express our problems in order to seek a solution…but what if we cant?

What when safety reveals itself to be the illusion, which it always has been, how are we supposed feel? At first, we may deny the truth to react with anger. Upon acceptance, it is normal to spiral out of control a little bit, but eventually we begin to realise, there is a freedom in uncertainty.

Anxiety has become a major topic in our modern world. We may even be so anxious, we feel depressed when we are not, simply waiting for the next wave of extreme emotion to paralyse us. At present, anxiety disorders are recognised, but it wasn’t always this way. My generation was conditioned to dismiss fear and confront it head on. We were pushed, bullied and beaten out of allowing fear to hold us back. For some it worked, for others not so much…

Regardless in what way others encourage us to shed our fears, we can only let go of them ourselves. The same applies to our insecurities.

As imperfect as life may be, it is all we have. Again and again…so we cling to that which makes us feel secure, as temporary it might be. Until one big event shatters those illusions, too many remain trapped in unhappy circumstances. They can’t find a way out of them, since they feel escape will make them more vulnerable…which it often does when no support network exists. Though “just” a small number of these cases resort to desperate options, the number is rising every day.

For what it is worth, nobody should settle for a life of unhappiness, no matter how scary it can seem to leave the present situation.

You are worth more than that!

Safety is perhaps the second most persistent illusion, apart from space-time. It lulls us into a sense of trust in the process of life, which is currently being manipulated by approx. 1% of the global population for their own gain…to establish their own safe space.

People like me, and perhaps even like you, don’t have safe spaces. Trust doesn’t work out, but we don’t stop taking a chance. It is a cycle of pain that grinds us down until we find a reason to try again. However, giving up eventually because we perpetuate this cycle by trusting the same personality types is far more likely. Miracles do happen though.

I am perhaps not the most qualified to ask you to trust in people or believe that things can change. They never have for me, and they probably never will…but I refuse to quit. The fight against our worst insticts is never done. We simply need to continue to the end of this life, and similar problems will emerge in the next…in perhaps a brave new world, we never thought was possible. That, in fact, would not be possible without our perseverance.

Where we feel secure has much to do with when. A feeling of safety can be associated with when we visit a particular place, person or do a specific thing…But those things change. Places are turned to dust. People either leave or die. The joy once gotten from doing a certain thing can vanish, if we get depressed enough. So, what should we do, when nothing works anymore?

In essence, we must never give up on ourselves. Life is a conundrum of esoterica. It is so much more mysterious than we could ever imagine. It is filled with so much more unexpected kindness or compassion than we assume so readily. However, we can never discover any of this, if we don’t take the bad with the good.

There are moments, when it seems impossible to go on, but we must. When we need to wipe away our tears and pretend to be just fine…regardless of what happened. Yet, we can only find the strength to do this so many times without confronting the undelying issue. Eventually, if we don’t, we will self-destruct or do something we might sincerely regret. Although there can be no such thing as a safe space in the outside world, we can attain a state of being, in which we feel safe within ourselves… This is far from easy. It wont work in every possible circumstance, bu it is only method that can soften even the hardest blows.

Externalising Fear: As grown-ups, we might still use defense mechanisms we developed as children. Instead of making us feel safe as adults, our behavior causes us to feel unsafe. Instead of facing the situation head on, which we can’t do because we have no idea how to take responsibility for our own safety, we focus our fears on something else. For example, the abused child worries about pleasing their parents or the beaten wife worries about the academic performance of her kids. In shifting our attention elsewhwere, we distract ourselves from what we are going through. More importantly, what we are unconsciously doing to ourselves. After all, we cannot stay true to ourselves, if we abandon our own well-being for the sake of someone elses.

Suppressing Fear: For men, it is fairly common to learn at an early age to bury their emotions. Few cultures encourage young boys to process what they feel…Instead, they learn by the example that getting angry because they deny their emotions is a socially approved way to deal with their mental state.

How to cope:

Chögyam Trungpa once said

“…rather than being disheartened by the ambiguity, the uncertainty of life, what if we accepted it and relaxed into it? What if we said, ‘Yes, this is the way it is. This is what it means to be human, and decided to sit down and enjoy the ride?”

We feel unsafe, because we are designed to expect safety. Our insecurities just reinforce this feeling… From childhood onwards, we begin to feel unsafe within ourselves, so we developed coping mechanisms to deal with the world and our perceived self. We may act out of fear and anger instead of courage and love. We might even find reasons to be hurt by others no matter how nice they are…

Whatever we do, we must learn to be present in the moment and let go of the past in order to embrace the unknown. As hard as it may sound, all of our experiences have made us who we are. The good and the bad. Without them, we could not be who we are now…so we must find ways to be grateful for them. Even if it simply means to acknowledge the strength we have found to overcome the insurmountable.

Accept yourself for the wondrous, amazing self that you have become, because…you are astonishing just the way you are.

Knowledge is Free

The lessons, we learn in life, represent deep realisations that can only come from adversity. In the processes of creation, preservation and destruction, the nature of the cosmos is inherently violent. Therefore, our knowledge is gained from our sweat, tears and pain. It is not effortlessly attained, but it is completely free from materialistic constraints, such as money or conflict.

It can only be found within, since it emerges from the deepest part of ourselves. The part, who knows when our choices involve the lives of others, that they have physical consequences for this person, including everyone associated with. But, they also have moral consequences that do not abide by our sensitivities, quite the opposite. We may think our actions are selfless, but when we take the liberty to decide for another or speak on their behalf, then we are taking the most precious thing they have…Their freedom.

What Is It That We Are All Living For? – A Personal Story

Have you ever spent day by day, wondering why? The answer has been explained in depth inside other posts…Self-Realisation. The experience of cosmic oneness that absorbs the experiencer and the experienced into itself.

Beyond that, what the fuck are we doing?

I dont know about you but I…well…I am perhaps the worst excuse of a human being. After so many years of doing what was expected, I ventured out on my own at the ripe age of 14…still conditioned to do what is necessary to survive in a hostile environment. Friendship was never a concept that was in the cards for me, neither were healthy relationships. After years of abuse, my stench of desperation pretty much drove everyone away.

Recently, I’ve felt a sense of hope, which reawakened dreams that perished long ago. Perhaps, things can change for the better after all. Perhaps, I’m just another anti-feminist, seeking true partnership instead oneupmanship…No matter what I am, I choose to live my life speaking my mind freely.

For this reason, I am sharing something deeply personal with you. It goes beyond the spiritual concepts, we strive for but can never make a utopian reality. We, as people, have strayed so far from our path…Social segregation has driven us to the brink of insanity followed by imminent genocide. When to know this is going on in the world means to be politically incorrect, what happens to the truth? It becomes the first casualty of a world war that is inbound.

I could never wrap my head around the sense behind it all. By the age of 15, I had lost everything. My home. My family. Any possible support network I could have had to process these losses with assistance…As time kept passing by the second, I felt as though the ground had shattered under my feet. Safety revealed itself to be an illusion maintained by the tallest thug in the room with the fighting experience to back his play and control the crowd.

For what it’s worth, I did not desist. I worked hard, read every book under the sun and began my journey into adulthood with little success. At a young age, I already took responsibility for people two or three times my age…and after nearly 15 years, several questions arose. Will it always be this way? Will anyone ever take care of me? Why am I still here, when I’m just living on borrowed time?

After I had been raped the first time, I told no one. Still haven’t. The responses from those I spoke to about an attempted rape at 14 were lacking more than merely compassion…so I learnt to keep stumm. Before that incident, I thought it could not get any worse. I had suffered the unspeakable at the hands of fanily, friends and strangers to the point I ceased to trust…However, when I least expected it, I fell in love. Someone had made the effort to convey over several hours of conversation that I could do anything with my life. I could aim for the stars. He’d given me hope, as I was about to give up. Initially, as things headed into a romantic direction, I fell back on my original conditioning…to please at any cost…but then he got me to trust him after a couple of years. Everything was looking up for the first time in over 6 years…until one night, when he returned home drunk out of his mind. After the second time by another person, it seemed less painful…less important. I wanted to tell, but I was numb. When intimacy was demanded from me, I would reciprocate…pretending to enjoy whatever the fuck was wanted with a smile. Personally, I thought that would never change.

The want for the pain to end is the primary cause behind all suicide. Nobody wants to die, but death is preferable over suffering. How do I know? During a dark night at 14, my mother had gone to bed. Again, I could not sleep. At that time, I had become accustomed to crying myself to sleep after extreme arguments that would last hours every day and would sometimes end in violence. I never hit back. I couldn’t, so I began to self-harm. In the end, it was a cycle of hurting myself for being hurt…until I tried to run away twice. When that didn’t work, I hoarded enough pills or what I thought was enough. After 10 years in the medical industry, I know better now, but then, I just couldn’t wait any longer. I was so desperate for the pain to end, I took the chance without a backup solution. Statistically, the more lethal the means of suicide, the more successful they are.

For what it is worth, I am fortunate it did not succeed. I was lucky to survive to process what drove me to such measures. Moreover, I survived worse after without resorting to further attempts.

Life is a whirlwind of experience. I would not wish for it to be any other way. Without the bad days, how could there be the good? We must never give up on ourselves or others. It is our solemn duty to squeeze the most out of life, just not at the expense of others. Be kind to those who’ve known to little kindness. Be bold to those who overstep their mark at the expense of others…and love unconditionally for the fucking hell of it.

Addiction – Where does it end?

Prior to 1779, the term referred to a state of being, in which we develop a penchant for a specific type of thing. Before that year, addiction was perceived more as a habit than a physiological condition. However, we realise today, there is very little difference. When it comes down to consciousness engineering, we can become dependent on almost anything. After this point of human development, we began to add to our understanding of how simple substance abuse can lead to severe health complications, especially for those who mix and match. Naturally there are those, who are more susceptible than others, but nothing is unbeatable.

Bottling up trauma may lead to inadequate coping strategies that are often perpetuated in adult life.

When we ask ourselves, what if I will never be able to stop? What if I don’t want to stop? What if there are days that I do and days that I don’t? What if those around me don’t support me as much as they enable me or themselves?

It all depends on the choice of poison but the symptoms of behavioural conditioning are universal. When we are deprived of something that we depend on, then we may experience a painful transition until we have overcome our dependency issues. Still, in actuality, everything shapes our consciousness. Even the smallest things can alter the way we think, speak and act. In fact, they have to for us to evolve, but they also further our devolution.

To maintain control constantly means to never be able to let down our guard. It means to avoid any and all mind-altering things in the multiverse, which is an impossibility. But, where do we draw the line? When does indulgence become dependency? We may distinguish right or wrong through the rule of law, although we know it’s not that simple. Nothing in life ever is…

When we contemplate the use of any mind-altering substance [ranging from pharmaceuticals, cannabis to alcohol], there is an underlying reason. Pain relief, for example, on a psychological as well as physical level. As a rule, the kind of substances we can access easily determines how lethal self-medicating is our society is. When over the counter medication or supplements have a higher dosage of certain compounds than medically advised, their destructive nature makes them more than an easy sale.

Anything can be addictive. In all fairness, everything that we cannot live without fosters a state of dependency. It creates a state of being, in which our lives revolve around habits, we cannot break. It seems important at the time, even if we know it will destroy us.
Many of us wake up in the morning and start their day with a drink to keep the hangover at bay or a cigarette to satisfy their bodies nicotine cravings. I’m not one to talk, but I know what it’s like and it doesn’t end well.

“Certain processes which should be regarded as the abnormal functions of the individuals psychology now commence with the rise of the desire for material possessions [wealth and property] the desire for sexual contact and the sense of self-respect which materialises into the desire of self-glorification and the exercise of power over those outside oneself, which all come step by step, in succession. Here, the entanglement of consciousness is complete, and this is what is known as Samsara, or the painful earthly life. It is unfortunate that the mind of man does not rest even with this self-degeneration and, by process of time, getting itself accustomed to this condition, as if it is its natural state, forms its philosophy of ‘it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven’. The result of this is the formulation of erroneous philosophies such as materialism, scepticism, agnosticism, pluralism, formalism, such as we find in the addiction to mere ritual, as well as the several arts and sciences which man regards as his highest achievements today but which are intended only to rationalise and perpetuate the condition of entanglement of consciousness with objects of various kinds, into which is has already descended. Even the so-called impersonal sciences of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and empirical psychology appear to be valid only so long as nature is regarded as external consciousness. A philosophy based on this bifurcation of experience cannot therefore save consciousness from the pains it suffers in entanglement.”

– Swami Krishnananda

The mind seeks to interpret the universe through the senses. However, there is a distinction to be made between relative existence and reality. In its absolute state, reality is self-sustaining…It cannot be interpreted through anything within the confines of our multiverse, only that which gave rise to them. So where does it end? Prior to time and space…in a timeless, spaceless void, where all is one.

We Come Back: Dying, Reincarnation & Life On Other Planets

Click Here for a copy of ‘We Are One’, the 1rst book in the series ‘Light Is…’

Click Here for ‘We Are Awakening’  and explore the 2nd part of this trilogy.

…And please take the time to check out my books in paperback form…

 

We Are Awakening: A Treatise On Journeying In Time

If you enjoy this book, please purchase it in paperback

Click Here for a copy of ‘We Are One’ The first book in the series ‘Light Is…’

Click Here for ‘We Come Back’ and explore the last part of the trilogy.

Implications of an Empirically-Testable Model of Consciousness Transmigration

(Abridged Version)

Link

Please Spread The Word!

And if you like this book, please purchase it in paperback

Click Here for a copy of the next book in the trilogy ‘We Are Awakening’

Click Here for ‘We Come Back’ and explore the last in the series ‘Light Is…’.

Keys To The Soul

When you have the key that unlocks all the deepest doors within you, yet you don’t know how to place it in the lock, then what does that make you? What does that make me or even us? I suppose it means we’re stuck. Damned to wandering this Earth with the keys to the Universe in our pockets, reluctant to figure out the perfect combination to unlock those celestial gates to anywhere and everywhere.

That which we already have in our possession is far more powerful than all the religions of all the worlds combined and it’s source is you. It is all of us…

When everything in existence comes together, from the lowest plane to the highest celestial abode, including every being, every thought-form and every act…When the cosmos itself dissolves or is absorbed back into its cause, then we all return to our natural state. A state, in which All is One, as it always has been.

We carry the worlds in our hearts, minds and souls. Wherever we go, we carry them with us…Mistakenly believing that they emanate from outside us, when they originate from pure consciousness. The part of our awareness who speaks silence. It knows us better than we know ourselves, as all the insight that we believe is ours, has bestowed upon us by it. Our silent witness is ever-vigilantly watching from the background. It knows no secrets and nothing can be withheld from it. Our soul is laid bare to it…as it is the spirit from which the soul sprung.

It knows our bodies and our minds far more intimately than we can comprehend at this time. It seeks to fulfil only our highest potential, while it sees all paths laid out before us. What we may become, what we could be and what we is inevitably our fate. For it, time is the manner our consciousness interprets a sequence of moments. It is how it measures all temporary change that is ongoing, but that in the grand scheme of things never truly was. It is light incarnate. The cloth from which we were all cut from is but a spark. Yet, to find the spark means that we may eventually be led to the flame. However, we should beware, following fire may get us burnt. It may vanquish our bodies, as all our delusions are set ablaze. Nonetheless, the pain can only be as strong as the heights of pleasure we attain. For however high we soar, the further we must fall. And so our soul becomes the great destroyer and the infinite liberator of us all… It is a part of that, which shapes the fabric of our finite realities. It is infinite, pure existence beyond all thought and action.

May The Great Spirit Walk With You 〰

Death Is An Illusion

We often perceive death as the opposite of an explainable mystery. Death is not a cool puzzle designed to be solved, as long as it is depict as eternal nothingness. We only fade into nothingness, when our mind is empty, when our conscious, our unconscious and our collective consciousness has merged…when there are no more desires to be fulfilled as they have all been extinguished.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. Nothing truly dies…We always come back, and as soon as we realise this, we can choose to remember. Death is the process of consciousness transmigration that occurs when self-realisation has not yet occurred. In truth, we live, we die and we come back to repeat the cycle. Those that remember consciously display signs of what clinical psychologists refer to as delusions of grandeur…However, in the higher echelons of society, it is a well-established fact, which is carefully concealed from those that don’t know what they’re meant to be looking for.

Appearances are deceiving…We do not exist in a singular, solid form. In truth, we are formless. Our consciousness, which is the spirit of all existent and non-existent things, is Light. It is the light that shines across the whole of space-time from prior to the multiverse itself.

Light is Love. Light is Peace. Light is Knowledge…

And last but not least, Light is Existence.

Truth be told, we are at war. The hoardes of men that travel across the seven seas are strategically distributing themselves across the world… They do not seek multicultural diversity or refuge, they wish to establish their own ideology without the freedom of choice. Liberty is being engulfed by darkness, but light will always shine through. Who we are to them is irrelevant. Who we are to our leaders is irrelevant. Who we are and how we are perceived is but a passing phase. Our identity doesn’t change, simply because it is demanded of us. Our immortal soul is who we are on the surface of the cosmos, but who we truly are underneath is beyond description or even the concept of immortality. It is prior to the determining factors of our self-consciousness or individuality…

“Mathematically, the probability of consciousness ending is zero.” (Lipton, Bruce) Consciousness is the basis of existence. Furthermore, there is a reason it is often perceived to be without beginning or end. For the purpose of explaining something that is beyond thought and language, that which existed prior to space-time is often playfully described as nothingness or a void of cosmic oneness. However, it is not for those that have experienced anything close to such an indescribable concept…It is pure being. The essence of which pervades all.

For Free Downloads Click Here

You May Like To Read:

What Is Real? What Is Unreal?

3 Reasons Why We Are Offended By Belief

Enlightenment Versus Submission

What Is Your Legacy?

7 Paths of Self-Realization

8 Ideas Bigger Than Religion

3 Reasons Why We Are Offended By Belief

We live in a multi-cultural world, where political correctness was designed to maintain a level of mutual respect and understanding. However, when our beliefs don’t quite fit into the establishment, they can indicate distrust or even disrespect…but even when a part of the global establishment embraces those beliefs, in other parts of the world those beliefs are not acceptable. Regardless of what we believe, as long as we do not abuse our beliefs to justify acts of violence, we are entitled to the level of religious freedom that enables us to pursue self-realisation through whichever religion. (It should be noted that violence takes many forms: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual/religious etc. This also includes neglect, which is defined as the failure to care for those aspects)

Although countless of athiest keep an open mind toward the spiritual, many are rather nihilistic toward the subject…To the point, where they cannot maintain ‘normal’ relationships with spiritual and/or religious practitioners of any kind. This is not an uncommon phenomenon, where any faith or lack thereof is concerned. We feel annoyed or resentful, when others display a certain disregard toward what we think or feel, but that should not mean we have to change our entire belief system to accommodate them. Any philosophical or mental construct, even peace, can be perceived as an insult, dependent on the situation.

On a related note, we all have an acquaintance or two that we avoid theological conversations with. No matter how hard we try, we often agree to disagree. However, for as long as neither party is forced to submit to the beliefs of the other, there can be a modicum of freedom.

We only have collective freedom of expression, as long as we display compassion, when our opinions or beliefs are questioned… After all, verbal or physical aggression has never turned anyone into a true believer.  Conversely, unquestioning submission to a belief, particularly when forced, cannot bring peace. It can never lead us to the truth. Moreover,  without occasionally pushing the boundaries of religion or spirituality, where would be the development? How could we strive to attain higher levels of experiential knowledge?

This leads us to the question, why are some so easily offended, when others do not share their beliefs or outright deny their possible merits? (1.) Desire (2.) Attachment (3.) Ignorance

(1.) Desire: When we do not share our beliefs with another, it can put a strain on the relationship from the word go. Their priorities often wildly differ from our own. However, in life, we are bound to desire acceptance, unless we understand that not everyone can or will accept us. If we do not understand this, then we are far more likely to attempt to change others or ourselves to gain social acceptance. Although such desires do not have to be self-serving. They are only rooted in good intentions in rare cases, but especially then it is of profound importance to maintain boundaries and respect that others muse learn to make their own decision. It is not our right to choose for them.

Being accepted comes from showing acceptance without causing physical and/or psychological harm in the process. Without the aim to control or dominate. However, if we cannot accept ourselves, how can we accept anyone else?

In numerous cultures, women are perceived as second-class citizens. Saudi Arabia and now Pakistan, for instance. In addition, they are held responsible for the actions of men around them. In reoccurring textbook examples of abuse, they are held liable for the desire they inflame, which frequently leads to sexual assault. Upon rejection of romantic or sexual advances, they are scolded with sulfuric acid or even burnt alive, as a disincentive for other women. This serves as a means to show them what may happen to them should they refuse to comply. Fear becomes the ultimate weapon of control to fulfil mens worldly desires reinforced through a system of oppressive religious laws that currently strives for global domination.

(2.) Attachment: When we cling to faith, as if it was a life-raft, there is going to be a conflict of interest. Not everyone will want to float on it with us. Our attachment to religious or spiritual beliefs may enable one person to get through the day, but other people may not feel the same way. I’ve encountered plenty of men, women and children that do not share the same beliefs as their relatives. Some weep and pray for their souls still, as they cannot bear the notions that they will not share a place in the afterlife with their loved ones (which is simply not true, but their expectations can make it so!)

When we love unconditionally, all we long for is happiness, regardless of what shape it may take. For what it is worth, they could worship Lucifer, the Light-Bringer or former Sun-God, and we would let them get on with it. (as long as there is no animal or human sacrifice) For as long as they are free and happy to make their own choices, we are content to let them be. That is the difference between love and attachment. True love depends on non-interference without the urge for the object/subject of our affection to satisfy our needs and wants.

(3.) Ignorance: Our lack of knowledge always becomes the source of someone else’s power to do with as they please. It is the cornerstone of inequality, fear and hatred.

It is the ignorance of our true nature that prevents us from realising that we are all connected, no matter what we believe. For as long as kindness and open-mindedness is not an integral aspect of our religious practices, they can never bear any other fruit than  resentment. When we perceive others as an extension of our own self, we cannot see them for who they truly are: a vibrant, unique part of a greater whole that we are also a part of. By harming them, we only harm ourselves. By liberating them, we can liberate ourselves. Ignorance is a grave betrayal to our spiritual/religious beliefs, as it leads us to view ourselves as seperate from our fellow man. Worst case scenario, it fuels our ego to the point where we view our beliefs superior to theirs…

Ignorance may be bliss for a while, but eventually it leads to immense suffering, when everything comes crashing down…when we have no choice other than to accept the reality that we’ve been denying all along. As is stated in the Upanishads, human beings cannot live without challenges. They cannot live without meaning. We are driven by a deep, inner urge to achieve the impossible, to know the unknown, to shed any and all ignorance in order to arrive at the Absolute Truth

Thou Art That🌹

What Is Real? What Is Unreal?

How can we be certain that our eyes do not deceive us, as they so often do? How can we be sure that what our senses tell us is actually real? And how can we trust anyone that simply dismisses such enquiries, when others wholeheartedly believe they already know the truth? In short, we cannot.

When we trust, we are taking a leap of faith. We extend a curtesy to a stranger that may be our salvation as much as they may be our undoing. If it goes horribly wrong, you can be certain that you’ll be reminded of the fact often enough… If it doesn’t, many will make certain that you know it should have done. On reflection, one cannot win nor lose, only learn from experience.

When circumstances feel as if they’re turning into the surreal, like the current political situation…We can be guaranteed that our intuition will lead the way to the truth, as long as we don’t live in a world of wishful thinking. No matter, for as long as we cannot see our internal and external reality for what it is, we may never realise the truth… In fact, our view of reality is more likely to shatter into countless pieces than be reconciled with the bigger picture.

Although we may never truly know anyone, we cannot spend our lives in distrust for something that has happened or might happen. We must learn to live in the present moment, if we wish to know the truth about our multi-dimensional reality, in which time is a mere sequence of moments interpreted by our consciousness. On a deeper level, time represents change. (In Sanskrit, they even share the same word.) This leads us to the question, how can something feel real, when in truth it is not?

Our senses can trick us into believing almost anything. Therefore, it is our responsibility to apply critical thinking to discern the real from the unreal. That being said, there is a simple rule, when questioning reality: If it is finite, it cannot be infinite. (Its source may be, but the object and/or subject is not) This rule of thumb makes things easier, but it can still be very confusing when putting theory into practice. In other words, that which is real cannot be manifest in relative existence, outside of the realm of self-realisation. Conversely, that which is unreal cannot be manifest in the absolute, or ultimate, reality.

For what it’s worth, religion may guide you in your search for deeper meaning, but it cannot lead you to enlightenment via a path that has been taken by others. Only a handful of practices are common denominators shared by all enlightened spiritual teachers, which are deep contemplation, meditative concentration and gratitude. The path to self-realisation is uniquely tailored to you. You cannot walk it in the footsteps of another or in honour of an ideal that was corrupted long ago.

Beyond ego and appearance, we are all one in heart, mind and spirit…We originate from the same source. Regardless of our religious traditions or personal beliefs, we share a universal spirit that has its roots in pure consciousness.

Sat Nam 💋

How We Sleepwalk Into Extinction

In modern times, we have an inaccurate understanding of just about everything…community, family, education, religion and so forth. We also no longer understand the teachings of the ancient Gods. Although many that have taken the time to read, translate and/or re-interpret old scripture will realise that this paves the way to ‘natural destruction’, there is always another path…

“You are not your body.”

What all the corporations around the globe focus on is how to manipulate your body-image…How to best play on your attachments and aversions. If there’s an inch of your body that you’re self-conscious about, they won’t teach you how to overcome it, since it would make them powerless against you.

Like any narcissistic psychopath, they bet on the fact that you’ll run scared into their arms, if they manipulate all your resources to create disease and eliminate all the competition. However, that which they cannot control is that which they have invested trillions into suppressing…and that’s your way out of this endless loop.

Their weakness is the same thing with which they are attempting to retain control: Ignorance, Blind Faith & Unquestioning Submission. For as long as you do not question the world around you, none of us can reshape this world into something greater. More importantly, none of us will ever find the whole truth.

To those with money, your body is an accessory that you’ll spend an infinite amount of finances to maintain, if you had the resources, but even if you don’t…The charities that you donate to funnel all the money, they receive, as far away from solving global problems as possible. In other words, you are being conned, ladies and gentlemen…and you have been for over a century.

The longest running con is religion, followed by money. If you believe in God, Allah or Abraham in Heaven, then you most likely never read the old texts too closely. The Gods we worship live in the Heavens, just not the ethereal plane that we visit before reincarnation/rebirth. In truth, they are as Alien to this planet now as we are, although they created it, but that’s beside the point…

My point is that we continue to proganitate an inaccurate perception of the body, which is becoming more unrealistic with every generation. In truth, that body is only a fragment of the cosmic body of consciousness that doesn’t actually exist in the manner that we currently perceive it. Existential debates aside, every cell in the body is inherently connected to an all-pervading awareness that goes deeper than the phenomenal world. It is noumenal in essence.

Noumenon: According to Shamanic, Indian and Kant’s philosophy, the term ‘noumenon’ refers to a thing as it is in itself, not perceived or interpreted, incapable of being known, but only inferred from the nature of experience.

This is not to say that you cannot know your body, but by knowing the true source of your body, you needn’t know any more… In fact, there’s nothing to know about something that never was, but the ego can easily get in the way of understanding this reality of the self. Your individual self is no different from the universal self, and until you realise this, you will continue to differentiate between your body and the cosmos. In terms of self-awareness, this dooms you to seemingly endless suffering that no one but you can alleviate.

“You are not your mind.”

When I first turned 18, I was given the most valuable lesson in my entire life: Whatever you think you know is wrong. Everything you have been taught is a lie. So, question everything from every angle, even if you’ll never prove a damned thing!

Approx. 95% of all conditions are psychosomatic… The rest are debatably environmental. The reason I insist that their origin is debatable is the same reason that hinders us from adapting more efficiently to man-made environmental changes. At a certain stage of consciousness development, an environment such as ours no longer has an effect on the body-mind complex… Full   consciousness realisation overcomes all things, even death. (Yeah, I’m a mind over matter crackpot lol) That being said, I’d never ask you to believe anyone’s word without proof, so please I welcome you to embark on your own journey to higher knowledge…and don’t stop until you can conclusively prove otherwise with physical evidence! (Good Luck)

Our comprehension of sanity, or even mental health, is insanity in disguise. In any other location of the universe, we could not survive or assimilate with this current mentality… (This is one of the reasons we are forbidden from colonising space, also why only very few of us reincarnate on other planets, but that’s a story for another time) By creating layers upon layers of false information, enlightenment appears almost impossible. Yet, it is not self-realisation that has become more difficult, it is the survival of the physical body throughout the journey. The people of India  understand that a sattvic diet (strictly vegetarian or vegan) is not challenging for those with money and self-control, but it is costly and harmful for those that live in poverty. Many starve themselves in order not to harm any living being. However, in so doing, they are harming themselves… Hundreds of thousands suffer from the effects of malnutrition and subsequently disease, which represents an one of countless obstacles to enlightenment.

One-pointedness is the single, underlying principle that can become an antidote for any obstacle. With one-pointedness of mind, no obstacle can hinder or distract the mind. Truth be told, if an object or individual cannot distract you, they’re less likely to interfere, yet that does not mean they won’t hinder you. If you cannot be distracted from self-realisation, you’ll often develop blank-spots. Old teachings describe this behaviour as a manifestion of ignorance as well as unconsciousness, but basically they’re saying  you have an aversion and/or attachment that you need to confront. For example, many spiritual teachers speak of Islam as a peaceful religion, when the empirical evidence of their imperial conquests (repeatedly documented throughout recorded history) prove otherwise. The foundation of Islam and the path to Allah can function as a gate to self-realisation, but only if you get passed all the religion. It is the same with almost every mainstream faith, while it preys on the vulnerable in search of deeper meaning.

There can be no love or peace without truth. So, where there is a shostage of honesty, ignorance, apathy and lack of understanding prevails. Moreover, political correctness has karmic repercussions. It perpetuates an inner conflict between your conscious and unconscious mind. Your collective unconscious knows the truth. Yet, for as long as you deny it, you’ll never go beyond the surface. An enlightened or a true leader would never utter words that would endanger what they perceive as a part of themselves, they would strive to show them the reality prior to (the multi-verse).

For right-wing readers, you are at one with your enemy. Whatever beliefs you may hold, everything is interconnected. Every event. All that was, is and will be. Every object and person. EVERYTHING that you can conceive with your minds. Prior to all this molecular interconnectedness,  all is one. So, beyond all misconceptions, frustration and tension, you are free. Always have been. Always will be. Only through this knowledge can one do battle properly.

For left-wing readers, save your breach. I am indifferent to them. All you are doing is disturbing your inner peace and disrupting your path to self-awareness by perpetuating the suffering of others. Go do something productive like save Corbyn from self-destruction. Until that point, every moment that you continue to deny the rape culture, which has festered for decades right on your doorstep, will lead others to feel more apathy to your suffering than you can  imagine. You are proactively going out of your way to injure victims of violent crime, so just stop. For the love of all that is decent, please just fucking stop…

“You’re not your emotions.”

I probably have caused some offence by now…So, I’m wholeheartedly apologetic, if I’m the first to be telling you all this. It should have been taught as a part of theoretical philosophy in primary school, but unfortunately we stopped educating future generations to do more than follow without question. (Pokemon Go, anyone?) For what it’s worth, if you reflect on what exactly rawed you up, it won’t be so easy next time. A lesson most are forced to learn the hard way.

If we are not our emotions, what are they? In quantum physics, emotions represent a subtle energies that are often transferred. When we’re angry, we project negative energy onto others that surpresses our and their immune system. When we’re friendly or kind, we project positive energy that strengthens our immune system and that of our conversational partner. When we’re indifferent, we don’t exchange more energy than necessary from a very minimalistic point of view. In other words, through hate, we relinquish power, strength and health. Through unconditional love/truth, we regain power, health and vitality.

Your emotions are far more powerful than you are led to believe. Many interpret and react to the daily reality of the world according to how it makes them feel, not through cold-hearted reason that defies the modern societal standards of logic. That which many don’t realise is inner, emotional freedom is a key to all forms of freedom. Once you no longer desire (or desire to avoid) anything, you realise the freedom, which is the real you. A freedom that can never be truly forgotten, seized or controlled.

Enlightenment Versus Submission

---

What is the concept of religion? Or more importantly, why is it?

---

Religion has become an all-encompassing system that functions in all essence like a corporation. The Vatican, for example, is an arms stockholder and a bank with great influence in the corporate community. Our modern representation religion has strayed far from its intended purpose…It no longer serves as a voice of reason or compassion, but detachment from the people that it serves. Corruption in any institution can only take hold, if organised elements within it act on delusional beliefs that do not benefit the greater whole. Although many religious scriptures are hardly embodiments of peace or provide more than a handful of useful principles, not all of them have been edited, suppressed or destroyed. Some still offer guidance toward understanding a higher power…an essence that existed prior to this multi-verse.

Heightism Broadcast – Part I & Part II

I was recently interviewed by Joe with SupportForTheShort.org, regarding how heightism affects society. Feel free to tune in.
Cohort Brent picks up the pace to add his incredibly accurate analysis of the entire heightism phenomenon.

“A must listen-to!”

Click Here To View

Related Posts: Heightism – An Observer’s Tale

Piracy Propaganda

“In the decade and a half since Napster first emerged, forever changing the face of digital culture, the claim that “internet pirates killed the music industry” has become so ubiquitous that it is treated as common knowledge. Piracy is a scourge on legitimate businesses and hard-working artists, we are told, a “cybercrime” similar to identity fraud or even terrorism.
In The Piracy Crusade, Aram Sinnreich critiques the notion of “piracy” as a myth perpetuated by today’s cultural cartels—the handful of companies that dominate the film, software, and especially music industries. As digital networks have permeated our social environment, they have offered vast numbers of people the opportunity to experiment with innovative cultural and entrepreneurial ideas predicated on the belief that information should be shared widely. This has left the media cartels, whose power has historically resided in their ability to restrict the flow of cultural information, with difficult choices: adapt to this new environment, fight the changes tooth and nail, or accept obsolescence. Their decision to fight has resulted in ever stronger copyright laws and the aggressive pursuit of accused infringers.
Yet the most dangerous legacy of this “piracy crusade” is not the damage inflicted on promising start-ups or on well-intentioned civilians caught in the crosshairs of file-sharing litigation. Far more troubling, Sinnreich argues, are the broader implications of copyright laws and global treaties that sacrifice free speech and privacy in the name of combating the phantom of piracy—policies that threaten to undermine the foundations of democratic society.”

Click Here To Download Contents For Free

More Than Human

There’s a place,
Where you can set your illusions on fire
And watch them burn.
Out of the ashes of all lost hope,
A newly conceived dream rises.
The endeavor of peace…
Of brotherhood…
Of a united species with a single objective.
The attainment of truth.
A future that hangs in the balance.
Injustice persists,
When good men fail to act.

There’s a place,
Where with every passing day,
More blood is shed in wars over resources.
More of the arctic melts away,
Flooding the shores.
Greed and lust for power masquerades,
As the assertive hand of peacekeeping.
The clock slowly ticks away,
Whilst each and every idea is gift-wrapped,
As the intellectual property of the new world.
Exposure to toxic chemicals is increased.
Injustice persists,
Since good men fail to act.

There’s a place,
In which knowledge flows
Through the fabric of reality…
In which nothing is as it seems,
Happiness is a choice,
And the truth will set you free.
Peace represents a state of harmony,
Created out of mere kindness…
By the desire of the species
To share with one another
Without condition or consequence
In such a way that has no end.
To act in kind,
Even against all the odds.

Kundalini and the Three Worlds

Mystical Tidbits

In your body there are three worlds, the world of the Creator, the world of the Sustainer, and the world of the Transformer. Each chakra calls one of these worlds home. Kundalini passes through them as it ascends.

In the following excerpt from Living the Mysteries, clarifications are in brackets [  ].

° ° ° ° °

Teachings that discuss a three chakra system are teachings about … three lokas [worlds] and granthis [knots].  This gives us an idea of how a teaching concerning only three chakras can coexist with a teaching of … seven or morechakras.

Each chakra exists in one of these worlds, so think of each chakra in the context of the loka in which it is located and the knot that kundalini tries to unravel there.  I have listed some key words that may help you get a feel for the general characteristics…

View original post 773 more words

To Whomever It May Concern

My dear readers,

When you have no country to refer to as your home, the entire world is yours for the taking. It is too easy to allow for hatred to consume your every being, yet to transform that into infinite loving kindness toward every being within existence is far more challenging. It takes much more effort to love unconditionally, especially when rejected or misunderstood.
At times, I feel grateful to have roamed across the globe to encounter unique and highly skilled individuals. Throughout my spiritual journey, there is a profound suffering that lingers within me. As a workaholic in order to graduate my first PhD, I worked ceaselessly whilst still counting the pennies at the end. That is the fate of countless individuals. Yet, here I refer to those that live on the streets, those that are in true need day after day…And those that are giving up hope for the future of this species. We have the power to reach out and provide them with the means to continue, even if it is only for a little bit longer. If we have it within our hearts to collectively rid our world of the suffering that the wealth imbalance and corporationalism has created, one being at a time, we may be able to survive the changes that are yet to come.
Few of you are probably aware that I was born in Switzerland. Although I hold no allegiance to my country nor my blood relatives for mistakes made on both sides, I still experience a profound longing and care for their fate. The glaciers in the Swiss mountains are yet to melt away, leaving very little by 2020. My corporate financial report on the matter highlighted its gradual demise and the companies intention to install a large amount of snowmakers. This is just one of numerous examples of how this world is going to hell. Literally, due to global warming, and metaphorically, due to the fact that we, as a species, possess the power to prevent our undoing, yet we choose to do nothing. For years, I have observed society enforcing change on the lower classes, as I was one of them. No matter the location. England, however, appeared to be a quiet spiritual retreat to conduct my studies independently. As a young undergraduate without a rich family, life can seem harsh. Yet, each time I was about to lose all hope, the universe provided me with the ability to continue twice as robust. After weeks of starvation to pay the bills, a meal from a stranger may seem only temporary, yet it can increase the belief in a positive outcome.
Truth be told, you are perhaps the closest I will ever have to a friend…To someone who will make an attempt to understand or even appreciate my perception of reality as a result of my education. Or even exchange information.
The other day, after three nightshifts and approximately 3 hours sleep, it hit me, I have spent the last 8 years single-mindedly studying and working towards achieving progress in various scientific fields and it has become all that I live for. That discovery at 4AM, which may make one persons life easier. It has become how I measure my own worth and it is how I have become financially viable, as an individual. As most of my close associate are aware, I’m working on one of numerous cures for osteoarthritis that deemed too expensive for public access. I believe that anyone has the capability to become a genius. Just discover your purpose and the love for what you do will see you through. It is how I managed to stay alive and maintain my sanity in a compromised world with a system years from collapsing under its own weight.
After nearly 5 years of in social care and several years of domestic abuse, I have been beaten and raped. It only drove me to work harder, sleep less…to achieve a higher efficiency rate within a shorter time span. After so many years of repetition of the same events, you grow a different type of numb. I no longer connect with others on an emotional basis, yet I still hope. And the love for what I do has not diminished.
As a child, I dreamt of being rescued, yet no one ever came. To be an adult at 15, working full-time without ever being taught, without any friends or family to support you, I would never wish such a fate on anyone. Yet, there are those that cannot teach themselves as I have. Everyone needs to be given a chance in order to succeed. And it is up to each and every one of us to provide that chance. To create the scientists and leaders of tomorrow by inspiring the children of today without taking advantage of them.
This evening, I was told that certain middle class individuals in Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein are merely awaiting the moment of my own self-destruction. For thousands of hours of study and research to be revealed as a “waste of time”. That there is no cure. That there is no way for me to get it right. That being said, the demise of their countries is inevitable, no matter how much it may pain me to observe it. I wish I possessed the ability to alter its fate, however I doubt the Germanic corporate heads are accustomed to reasoning with young soon-to-be doctors, no matter the validity of the argument. They have other plans in mind entirely. All clean energy will soon be patented, and fossil fuel prices will rise exponentially. The social segregation of the classes will become greater and more visible. Prices will rise. However, the natural disasters will also worsen, as the system of control over humanity becomes more intricate and personal. Only the people are able to foresee and act in a preventative measure. To regain their full potential and follow their hearts, wherever it may lead them.

Awakening of Consciousness

Just when you’re not looking, the purpose of your life unfolds. However small it may be. You unknowingly become a part of the evolution of the species through your own thoughts, words and deeds. The responsibilities are minor in comparison to the change in hearts and minds that you can invoke. And the world shall be yours for the taking, if you are capable of carrying the weight of it upon your shoulders.

Valley of the Mind

“To plant the seed of thought,
One has to plow the valley of the mind.”
– Anita B. Sulser PhD

Dating a Higher Functioning Sociopath – Rule 66

There is a point in life, in which we rid ourselves of our child-selves, as it may and step into a world of responsibility. Our own life becomes nothing but responsibility. Yet, with responsibility comes power and that is the objective of too many human beings. Truth be told, I personally reached such a stage. After years of being in a relationship, in which I am the provider, the comments of others begin to lose their meaning. Gender roles should not be the issue here. Within a compromised world, the entire family unit will be required to slave for the clothes on their back. However, there is only so many times you can watch yourself bleed or ignore the bruises that the world has left you with. Mutual responsibility states that both individuals share the entire blame, as both entered the circumstance, knowing  the probable consequences. Only those affected by emotion and unable to accept their part of the responsibility will deny their role.  The truth about modern society can often be so harsh that the masses will shield themselves from it. Blame is shifted here more than anywhere else. Social taboos only persist, since society as a whole cannot acknowledge its responsibility for producing them. Every action contains a wide range of possible reactions, some more probable than others. The interconnected nature of the universe, amongst other things, suggests that the visible separation of objects and individuals is illusory, consequently the attachment that we hold towards our external reality is highly misleading. In the end, none of us are truly alone, yet none of us are truly enlightened either.

Nonetheless, trust is defined by the reliance of integrity, capability or characteristics of an individual or object and within modern society it is formed slowly, if at all. We would all give our lives for something or someone without a moment’s hesitation. Yet, when we are forced to live out the consequences of such a choice, the final outcome differs from the original blueprint of the plan. However, when we actively seek to discover such determination and force of will within ourselves, it alters our character. By tuning into our inner strength, we become limitless. Capable of overcoming anything and everything that may step into our path. No matter how painful. No matter how soul-crushing the experience may be. Yet, there will always be those that seek to break the will of another, at times even crush it beyond the point of return. I’ve encountered a few in my time. It is a harsh experience for another to mould you like clay. Underneath none of us are set in stone. We are like water, we choose the path of least resistance. Although there are others, such as myself, that withstand up to the point of breaking with an inbuilt safety switch, which spells genocide. Western Civilisation is a cosy location for most individuals, except for molested children, child trafficking victims, rape victims, fighting troops, the homeless and those starving on the streets. If you have ever been any of the above, you’ll know what I mean. There are certain circumstances that you simply cannot be yourself again afterwards. This is commonly referred to as a shift in consciousness. Thanatologists refer to it as a form of emotional death, which can trigger an overload, when the trauma is compounded too severely in a short period of time. Individuals that have suffered such an experience before are twice as likely to suffer it again and emerge stronger, if they can fight their way through. A piece of personal advice, do not rely on your social circles, unless they are rock-solid with a steady track record of providing support. You’d merely end up causing yourself more deep-rooted damage than it’s worth. Secondly, learn to detach and walk away, if necessary, to prevent further exposure or risk to yourself. There are few things that you cannot simply walk away from, others simply require further determination, but the most important thing is that you do what you consider to be the right thing. Recently, I skimmed through some of my old study materials, mainly basic anatomy and physiology before progressing to trauma medicine. And to cut a long story short, that which I was reading reminded me of the very first time that I was raped. If you’ve never slept with anyone beforehand, it certainly leaves an impression. Most men and women spend years attempting to move on from it. It becomes a tainted first experience that if you want it or not affects the mind. Yet, I was young at the time and had not completed half the training in psychology that I have now. I picked myself up and carried going, until the second time. The most dangerous part here is that the individual can disconnect too rapidly and too severely, which results in rationalizing the experience in a manner that harms the emotional potential of the individual, yet not the overall mental growth. Similar to suppressing one and forcing the other to grow into excess, resulting in an imbalance. Most rape victims know that the world does not stop simply since they’ve got a bad day. The rent and bills need to be paid. The attendance record at work needs to be spotless. And some still need to perform sexually as if nothing happened with their partners. So, after the second time, I learnt to move on without flinching. To take a hit and keep on going, as if nothing happened. Within the modern world, where everything travels at such a fast pace, there are very few moments to catch a breath and clear ones head. And even less individuals take the time to recuperate in private. I’ve learnt by experience that the methods of social engineering have spread to the furthest corners of the globe and in the end there is no other escape from them than to grow immune and detached from them. To basically become of little use to anyone involved within modern society, as they are mainly dependent upon them. A word of caution, detachment brings countless gifts to the practitioners doorstep, yet one has to be careful not to detach to severely in a short period of time as that can be accompanied with repercussions and emotional outbursts. In retrospect, one should not push oneself over the edge or allow others to do the same. That which you identify with defines you on a deep level. Now, imagine you were to take each and every aspect away from yourself. Bit by bit. Whatever is left, which is nothing, ultimately defines you. There are no material riches. Your weight will not be measured in gold. In fact, you will feel as if you are being stripped of everything that you are.

Ultimately, that is not true. To attain true non-attachment means to distance yourself on every level down to your very core from everything that you perceive affects you, makes you or compromises your perspective. Every single material possession, including your house, your car, the very clothes on your back and food in your fridge. Every single emotional or psychological attachment or social contact that you have ever formed, without allowing it to affect your emotional or mental state as well as communication skills. Although your presence of mind will feel as if it is being torn apart under attack, you grow stronger from it, as it represents as a pure state of self-sufficiency, in which you are entirely independent and disconnected without one singular aspect of the phenomenal world interfering with your state of mind. Disconnecting, in essence, refers to an undisturbed awareness of reality without any forms of emotional bias, judgement, desire, power or attachment towards the situation at hand.

There are at all times individuals that hold opposite goals and values. We all follow a variant methodology of operation when it comes down to living our life. Yet, there will always be those that seek to live off of the generosity and good will of others. Often, there is an unspoken agreement of exchange within society. One hand washes the other, as favours are traded. Exceptions, however, mark the rule. What about the step-father that sneaks into their adopted sons or daughters bedroom, when she is far too young to legally consent to sexual activities or even mentally make sense of them? I strongly recommend the practice of non-violence and there are very few occasions I would justify the use of self-defence, if it results in degenerative injuries that affect motor function, but that is one of them. Every individual is responsible for who they associate themselves with, even when they are born into the circumstances. Perhaps, in Buddhism or Hinduism, it would be especially when they are born into these horrific circumstances. Do not let all that suffering be in vain, but let it drive you one s

Living is Learning

Living is learning by accumulating experience. That includes theory and practical application. Yet, how deeply we carry that knowledge is entirely our decision.

– Anita B. Sulser Ph.D.

Anonymous shows Illuminati 2014 The New World Order

Reincarnation & DNA

Skinwalker Ranch – Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura

Ventura looks into various corporations that are filling the void left by NASA and continuing space research and technology under private enterprise some of which may be used to weaponize space. His leads focus him on billionaire aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow who purchased Utah’s mysterious “Skinwalker Ranch” a site with a long history of claims of paranormal activity, specifically UFOs, leading to rumours that Bigelow is reverse engineering his own alien technology. While Tyrell and Shawn have an unexplained encounter near the ranch, Ventura seeks answers from Bigelow himself.

Lanza M.D. On Biocentricism

Depopulation Plans 2014

Food for thought…Along with some interesting facts.

Understanding Consciousness and the Universe – David Wilcock

Infinite Mindfield – Anthony Peake

The Dreaming Universe

Fred Wolfs Approach on Jungian and Freudian Thought

Dreams appear to break free of space and time limitations. Since the beginning of recorded history, humanity has examined the nature of dreams due to their influence upon waking life. For instance Wolfgang Pauli, who was working towards a theory that would overlap quantum physics and psychology, which was revealed to him by dream images. The holographic model of consciousness and certain concepts from quantum physics has also revealed a great deal of insight towards the mind-body problem. Nonetheless, although dreams had been investigated for thousands of years, Sigmund Freud was most likely the first western researcher that scientifically analysed dreams. Prior to his work, most medical professionals perceive dreams to be hallucinations, which were essentially useless. In contrast to this, Freuds model of dreams stated that they were expressions of the unconscious that had become repressed during early childhood,, after the child expressed wishes that remain unfulfilled. Wishes and desires were therefore strongly represented in dreams and represented yearnings that appeared during the four critical states of growth (oral, anal, phallic and genital). It was Freuds hope that he would be able to identify his clients repressed or buried wishes. Thus images were viewed at the disguised representations of the forbidden desires of the individual. Such a disguise was necessary so that the dreamer would not awaken, thus placing sleep as the primary state of consciousness that vital to human life. In Freuds model of the unconscious, two basic drives or instincts were recognized, which are aggression and eroticism. By 1923, he had replaced them with life and death drives. These drives were in turn attributable to the compulsion to repeat, in regards to habits and repeated patterns. In summary, the ego corresponds to the sense of self that is experienced. Just as Freud offered a structure of the psyche based on mechanism, Jung went further and indicated that the structure had to include meaningful relationships other than those that are time-ordered and cause-effect related. It was Jungs perspective that Freud placed too much emphasis on the erotic element of dreams. He also considered that wish fulfilment was far too small to underlie or be the cause of all dreams. Whereas Freud believed that sleep was the cause and dreams were the inevitable consequence, Jung believed that dreams were primary and seep was a sufficient alteration of consciousness to allow dreams to take place. Jungs model for instance places significant value on the process of individuation, which is a personal development wherein a connection between the centre of the psyche and the ego, the central part of consciousness, occurs. Dreams to him were also a map of possibility. Within the dream state, the observer is not localised to one region of the brain. The observer is distributed throughout the brain, picking up information from several memory locations simultaneously. The quantum wave in the brain is dependent upon all of the possible locations of the observer in order for memory recall in one location to be instantly correlated with other locations, giving rise to meaningful overlaps of that which is usually separated memories.

“Our minds operate mostly unconsciously.”

Freud originally discovered that human beings appear to perform tasks unconsciously. Dreams also appear to operate unconsciously. According to the work of Benjamin Libet, a neurophysiologist, the mind mostly operates unconsciously. In essence, this means, that decisions and responses to sensations are made from the outside world on an entirely unconscious basis. Human beings only become conscious of the phenomenal world approximately half a second later. Interestingly, we refer the late moment of conscious awareness back in time to the moment of sensation and out in space to the location of stimulus, even if it is outside our bodies. This is otherwise known as temporal referral and the latter is known as special referral. For instance, if the brain of a subject is stimulated in a particular area of the cortex, if the individual will feel sensations in the body. The mechanisms by which visual images are reconstructed are located within the brains, neural networks and retinas. In a similar manner, human beings reconstruct from sounds through the vibration of the eardrums and the approximate location of the sound source in space. Libets experiments showed that one might expect a certain amount of delay between the timing of conscious awareness of events, assuming that such awareness can be mapped in time and the time when a stimulus is applied. Libet referred to his theory of consciousness as time-on theory or subjective referral in time. His data showed that an individual, although able to react swiftly to stimuli within a hundred thousandth of a second (one hundred miliseconds) is not actually aware of what the individual is reacting to for several hundred milliseconds, up to a full half second. Yet, when interrogated in regards to the time of awareness, the individual responds as if he or she were aware at the time of the stimulus. His model portrayed that unconscious processes are far more important in our lives that previously imagined. Consequently, a large amount of experience of the phenomenal world is projected from the subjective inner worlds. To grasp Libets findings entirely though, it is necessary to carefully examine the form of the signal as it is detected on the somatosensory cortex. One discovers that it consists of four distinct time zones. The first time zone of the signal is a sharp electrically positive potential that arrives 15ms after the skin stimulus and persists for around 35ms. Libet believed that this pulse served as a time marker, a referral signal for apparent conscious awareness. This is quickly followed by a deep, wide negative potential that persists for around 100ms. Thirdly a low positive hump can be found lasting for around 150 to 200ms, followed fourthly by a shallow negative potential lasting for around 200 to 250ms. All together, the sum of intervals, composes the complex signal that lasts for around 500ms. Conclusively, Libet also showed that there is no conscious sensation of this until the full five hundred millisecond period of the total signal has passed. In other terms, the brain requires to have all of this signal passing into the somatosensory cortex before any awareness of the skin stimulation is consciously felt. If for any reason, certain parts of the signal are blocked, the individual will not be aware of the skin stimulus. In fact, Libet has shown that the S1 response is not even necessary for awareness. When the cortical surface is stimulated, it was found that individuals became aware even though no S1 response was present, thus no one is aware of any stimuli until 500ms have passed.

Purpose of REM

During the day, human beings take in an exponential amount of data. Numerous amount of the input to the brain are of the type described by the neural networks, partial memories that evoke full memories. A certain amount of these inputs, however, eventually cause the interneural connections, via the synapses, to overload. When REM sleep is entered, the dreams are the products of neurons feeding back on themselves without stimuli coming in through the senses. As such, they are negative feedback loops, weakening the strengths of some of the connections with other neurons, similar to the negative weight biasing in the computer networks used by Hopfield et al. Thus, the dreams can turn into erasure modes, helping the individual to become refreshed by making desired or important for survival memories equally accessible and ridding us of undesirable, bizarre memories, those that do not play any role in survival. A major objection is found in experimental studies of individual that are deprived of REM sleep for numerous nights, usually up to one week, one would expect according to theoretical evidence that these individual would exhibit increased periods of fantasy and imagination, possibly even hallucinations. This is because the ‘unlearning’ throughout the night has not taken place and the unwanted memories would not be erased. Although there is some evidence for this, however, the general opinion of researchers is that when human beings or animals are deprived of REM sleep, their behaviour is not affected in any obvious or predictable manner. Waking a dreamer at the onset of REM tends to after several nights produce a rebound effect. It becomes more and more difficult to accomplish. By the end of a weeks deprivation of sleep, the individual enters REM states around fifty times night, suggesting that in these cases the individual may be ‘snatching’ periods of REM during the waking hours. Drug-inducted suppression of sleep is not much better since the medication is known to produce countless side-effects that could mask the result.
It should be noted that certain animals, although they possess larger brains, do not experience REM sleep. Hence, the relatively larger brains of these animals is connected to their lack of REM sleep, as they would require a larger neural network to absorb unwanted associations. This would tend to minimize overlaps in the networks of these animals.

Dreamtime

‘Aborigines believed in two forms of time. Two parallel streams of activity. One is the daily objective reality to which you and I are confined. The other is an infinite spiritual cycle called the dreamtime, more real that reality itself. Whatever happens in the dreamtime establishes the values, symbols and laws of the Aboriginal society. Some people of unusual spiritual powers have contact with the dreamtime.’ In modern times, the aboriginal outlook is still shaped by the dreaming, as it may. Yet, the relationship between dreaming and life remains a problem. Firstly, dreaming must be considered a phenomenon. It is that which is. According to the Puntupi tribes of central Australia, it is a framework for human behaviour. It is a projection into a symbolic space of social processes and it must be related to individuals lives. For the Pintupi, it must also be related to something that transcends everyday life. Dreaming can also be presumed to transcend the space-time of the immediate. The landscape is viewed as tracks of the totemic animal spirits that once walked the earth and by becoming stone themselves, they became the earth. Just as everyday animals leave their tracks ob the ground, these totemic beings leave theirs. In addition, this can be related to the concept of solipsism. In the book, The Secret of Dreaming, Jim Poulter shares a story, which is in actuality a dreamtime recounting of evolution, yet this time evolution has a purpose that transcends mere survival, for each individual dreams of something beyond itself. Poulter believed that this capacity to see beyond oneself, to see into the future, to imagine possibilities that do not seem to exist in the immediate environment, is a unique facette of consciousness. The Spirit constructs existence through this ability in order to go beyond what is to what could be. In other terms, to dream. The reason behind this for Poulter lies in responsibility. The crucial aboriginal concept is the belief that the Big Dream continues, as humanity is awakening to a greater sense of care and responsibility for the future. All humans et to be are waiting in the dreamtime for their births. The astral dimension, as it is also called. Gradually, as evolution proceeds, the responsibility will become clearer that all mankind is a part of a bigger dream of a larger spirit and that the care-taking of ones fellow man should become a necessitated priority. The development of the fetus is a microcosm of the development of the universe itself. It is stated that the fetus goes through every state of life, beginning with the single-celled animal, passing through the final state, complete with gills, all the way up th the present human form. The dreamtime therefore also represents a step towards the meaning of matter. It is to communicate all possibilities to all existences in order for the collective consciousness to attain a higher degree of self-awareness and realisation.

Telepathy

Certain definitions of consciousness are restricted to waking perception processing. Hobson perceived that consciousness is a kind of awareness that may not be only awareness of the outside world but also its representation in the brain. If so, the dream consciousness is definitely an altered state of consciousness. With quantum physics as a metaphorical basis, an insight into the timeless nature of dreams can be gained. Nearly entirely unconscious, the processes of the ID include mental forms that have never been observed as well as memories that have been repressed. These memories unlike the unobserved mental forms, influence the mental and physical life of the individual. It should be noted that during REM periods, the EEG pattern is similar to the waking state pattern. Evidence towards psychic phenomena often involves information that is normally received or experienced in one state of consciousness being made available when the recipient was in another. For instance, the dreamer would become aware of events occurring in waking life. Montague Ullman and others regarded telepathic dreams and the role of dreams in the interconnectedness of the species. Telepathic dreams include dreams of prophecy, links between a dream and an individual in waking life, dreams that connect one dreamer with another, and dreams in which an awake individual attempts to send images to a dreamer. Ullman pointed out that the precognitive dreams are distinguished from telepathic dreams and that even though both are paranormal, telepathy normally refers only to paranormal contact between ones mind and other minds present or past but not future. He also explained that most paranormal dreams are precognitive rather than telepathic. Consistent with the possibility for quantum waves to travel forward, backward and sideways in time. Ordinary or non-telepathic dreams differ from telepathic dreams in only one way. The data that is correlated during the dream. Ordinary dreams usually correlate the days remembered experience with past associations or future expectations contained as memories. They can also introduce anti-correlations as a mechanism to wipe associations or memories that do not serve the survival or the individual or the species. Telepathic dreams are quite different in that they tend to correlate feelings and emotions with space-time events. Closely connected to telepathic dreams is the related issue as theorized by Montague Ullman that dreams serve to help the human species survive with survival of the individual as a secondary but necessary issue.

Relationship Between Dreams And The Physical Body

Implicit in the holographic model is the notion that we sense as out there in the physical world is not as it seems at all. It is reminiscent of the Buddhist idea of impermanence. Nothing within the phenomenal world appears to be permanent or fixed. All remains to be in a state of flux. Solid objects are not really solid at all, they only appear to be such to the human senses. Thus, everything that is sensed is only a passing instance, a glimpse of reality. Virtual images are created as illusions of objects. The light that would be seen, when the virtual image that appears is viewed, which is coming from the image, when it in actuality it is not. Von Franz stated that ‘Whenever the human mind confronts an unknown, it invents symbolic models, drawing on preconscious process of projection. In the history of mankind, we therefore find numerous symbolic representation of the unus mundus. This one world as a continuum consisting of images, as a geometrical continuum or as a numerical structured system. With Einsteins general theory of relativity, mass becomes part of space-time and is unified with energy through the famous equation E=MC2. The idea is to see all of physics as a geometrical continuum, paralleling Jung’s one world concept. So far, science has attempted to look at all processes in the universe in a rational manner has failed to grasp how the material universe could be affected by the processes that resist measurement based on space, time and mass. Yet, it is clearly visible that human behaviour is often determined by the images carried by the individual consciousness. Thus, a body’s symptoms are not to be dealt with purely mechanically similar to pathologies. Instead, symptoms are potentially meaningful and purposeful conditions signalling a phase of life or in order to bring one closer to the centre of existence. Mindell concluded from his patients illness that the condition could be an expression of emotion, which is how the dreambody was developed. It is both a dream and a body. Mindell also states that he not once found a case, in which the individuals dreams did not reflect the body’s symptoms. The dreambody can be related to the physical body in much the same way that the quantum wave function that gives the probability of a particle’s state can be related to the particle’s physical state.

Non-Ordinary Reality

If the imaginal realm is ontologically real, which means that is has objective existential quality as Henry Corbin suggests, then the question is how come only few individuals of the human race have encountered this reality? For Corbin, the imaginal realm was more irrefutable and coherent than the world experienced during the waking state. Beholders of the imaginal realm had reported to him that they were perfectly aware of having journeyed elsewhere. These individuals were not schizophrenic or mentally ill. The world that they had experienced was not fantasy. It was a world with form and dimension and even other life-forms. One may wish to consider the words of Carl Sagan, who believed that there was a connection between dreams and evolution. In shamanistic terms, one may refer to these phenomena as evidence towards a universal mind. The self-reflective mind that knows that it knows. The universal mind knows everything, anything and perhaps surprisingly it knows nothing. Its nothingness is described by Buddhist philosophers and practitioners as the state of pure awareness, consciousness without an object of consciousness. In it, moments, events, fly by as ephemeral flashes like fireflies, but nothing is adhered tom nothing is given any value. In essence, everything is seen as a dream. If the universal mind is a composite of our minds, then how is that composite mind integrated? If the process is akin to a superposition of quantum states of awareness, then the results of that superposition will be another state that does not share in the qualities of the separated states. Only if the minds are decoupled, only if there is something that keeps the patterns in the superposition of the minds from emerging, will there be anything like an objective quality emerging in any single mind at all. Yet, if one were to carry this concept further, given the reality of the universal mind, then the mind separations that produce the results of objectivity are an illusion and as such, the reality of the universal mind will from time to time appear within the individual minds. However, it should be noted that the ability to predict and control nature violates the basic paradigm of science, which is not entirely accurate. Humanity has the capacity to predict and manipulate nature, yet it has its consequences, as noted by the recent polar vortex, which is currently passing through Russia. Nonetheless, Niels Bohr was of the opinion that the complementarity, which existed between the wave and the particle aspects of nature were indications of a much deeper complimentarity in which irreconcilable pairs of opposites need not be contradictory. As he once stated, “the opposite of a small truth may be a lie, but the opposite of a great truth is also a great truth.” In essence, the universal mind would strive towards overall self-realisation of its true nature. The non-ordinary reality merely offers symbolic truth in order to decipher the larger picture and recognize the interconnected nature of the universe.

Sense of Self

Bruce S. Dewitt once stated “The many world interpretation of quantum mechanics reveals a universe that is constantly splitting into a stupendous number of branches, all resulting from the measurement like interactions between its myriad of components. Moreover, every quantum transition, taking place on every star, every galaxy, in every remote corner of the universe is splitting our local world into myriads of copies of itself.” Moreover, there is evidence of brain cellular mitosis occurring, but not in neural cells. Certain studies indicate that the glial cells perform metabolic function, also providing nourishment for neural cells. It should be noted that Albert Einsteins brain autopsy after the time of his death showed a larger than average amount of glial cells associated with his visual cortex. This led countless of individuals to suspect their association with intellect and the enhanced ability to visualise abstract concepts. Nowadays, it has been discovered that dementia severs the connection between the glial cells and neurons, resulting it neuronal death. Studies performed by Karl Lashley between 1920 and 1950 indicated that memory was based on the formation of engrams, which are not localised in specific places but distributed holographically, as it may, throughout the brain. Furthermore, the sense of self is connected to self-awareness through memory and body awareness. With diminished body awareness and volitional control, the self appears to expand, losing its bearings in time and space. In conclusion, there are more than likely thousands of pieces of information and/or images within the glial cell memory. These images are states of quantum physical observables and must follow the rules of quantum superposition. Consequently, any composition of a superposition of states will be complimentary to all other levels. Thus, the secondary images are complimentary to all the primary and tertiary images. The tertiary images are complimentary to all primary and secondary images and so forth. Although a single automaton cannot simultaneously hold multiple images consisting of complimentary observations of another system, it can hold multiple images simultaneously, consisting of complimentary observation of images built up self-reflectively. In other terms, if the images contain the observer as well as the observed, the automaton can recall them. Images of objective, external observations cannot be held simultaneously as the simultaneous knowledge of objective complimentary observables is in violation of the uncertainty principle. Thus to perform the same act with objective images is scientifically impossible, according to quantum physics. In conclusion, an object in a state of self-reflection can hold both truth and its opposite at the same time without the creation of a paradox, while the attempt to determine the same thing results in doubt or uncertainty. It should be noted that any single image will correspond to a specific quantum physical state, while the superposition of images would also correspond to the complimentary physical state of an emotion, thought form, archetype or superarchetype. The automaton could measure and thereby obtain various combinations of images in groups of 1-4 or more of these images, It could obtain a single image or all of the images together, thus constructing the complete superarchetype. Conclusively, the awareness of self is intrinsically linked with the decrease of automatic and mechanical behaviour, resulting in greater choices and becoming more aware of ones own behaviour, dreams, decisions, universe and subsequently of existences in other worlds.

One Single Being

In essence, reality is made of probabilities that can be coherent in order for the possibility to form into solid matter. The dream state is a location, in which the quantum reality becomes especially transparent and the mixture of mind and matter is revealed in a variety of ways. Nevertheless, if we all possess such archetypal images constituting the unconscious minds, these images would be on a deeper level than personal experiences. Conclusively, these archetypes would arise from a more fundamental level of reality. In this sense, the dream becomes more fundamental than the objective reality. Fred Alan Wolf suggests that “When we dream, we return to that reality in order to gain information about how to survive in this reality, yet survival may not be as it seems from a single perspective.” The materialist philosopher believes that consciousness arises from matter. If consciousness exists in matter, then matter is consciousness. Furthermore, everything arises in relation to everything else, reality appears not only interconnected, but also interdependent. Conversely, we as human beings often become afraid when others inform us of that which is real and that which is not. We sense an inner conflict with that which we are told. We feel fear, as we know that the viewpoint of a political system is not consistent with our own standpoint. Communism, capitalism and war is not the answer to the world, it is a tendency towards self-hatred and self-destruction. Whatever we imagine often begins to appear, as if it was called into existence, particularly fearful images, which is reminiscent of a self-fulfilling prophecy created by ones own mind. We create these images as realities because the universe is ambivalent and paradoxical. It is of no matter what is produced, as at the most fundamental level of existence, it is capable of forming reality into whatever images are produced. A famous philosopher once enquired “If we light a candle and walked out of the room, does it still burn?” By this he was trying to highlight that it takes a mind to confirm something’s existence. Existence depends on mind because all of existence occurs within mind. We can know of the existence of our universe only because we have a mind and we can manipulate creation only because we have a mind. Mind is the true cause behind effect and therefore all things are of mental nature. Life is interconnected and is truly capable of being one giant life form that is continually expanding, adapting, and evolving in complexity. The binding force of all life therefore becomes consciousness.

Should Psychology And Physics Be Combined?

There is a breach between the fields of physics and psychology. Indeed, between physics and psychology there is a whole abyss. That is understandable if we take into account the different histories and different goals of each of these disciplines. Yet, it does not have to continue to be so in the future, especially if we take into account the fact that both disciplines aim at expanding our knowledge, if we take into account the fact that in the world around us everything is connected to everything by a communicating vessel. All things seem to be connected either by causal links or, as suggested by a physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychologist Carl Jung, by some “acausal connecting principle.”
In essence the combination of psychology and physics, otherwise known as psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they affect. Psychophysics has been described as “the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation” or, more completely, as “the analysis of perceptual processes by studying the effect on a subject’s experience or behaviour of systematically
varying the properties of a stimulus along one or more physical dimensions.” It was founded in the laboratory of German Gustav Fechner, psychophysics is one of the parents of modern experimental psychology. It demonstrated that mathematical analysis could be applied to subjective reports, and that principled relationships could be discovered between physical quantities and subjective impressions.
Let us examine a famous example, Weber’s Law, named after Ernst Weber, a colleague of Fechner’s. This formula describes how changes in the subjective perception of stimulus intensity (e.g. how heavy a weight feels) are related to the actual change in stimulus magnitude (how much something actually weighs). You can look up the mathematics of this if you’re interested, but a plain-language interpretation is that to increase the perceived intensity of a stimulus you need to increase its physical magnitude by a constant proportion, not a constant absolute amount. Imagine that you can make an empty bag feel heavier by putting in a book, yet a single book won’t make a bag full of bricks feel heavier, even though in both cases you are adding the same amount of weight. Weber’s Law gives you a mathematical way to calculate how much you would need to increase or decrease the physical weight to produce a subjective impression of a change in heaviness. It also allows you to compare sensitivity between the senses, showing, for example that we are more sensitive to brightness than loudness, because the proportional change needed to create a noticeable difference for lights is smaller than that needed for sounds. As well as discovering many of the few laws that exist in psychology, psychophysics has generated methods and theories which are applied across all of experimental psychology, not just in the investigation of sensation and perception. In applying scientific measurement to subjective experience, the early psychophysicists were demonstrating a faith in empiricism, but they were also throwing themselves upon a dilemma – the attempt to relate the world of the measurable and objective to the subjective inner world of sensation. That dilemma is still just as relevant and profound today in all areas of psychology, and psychophysics is still vital as a toolkit for addressing it.
Sensory perception and interart research seems to occur these days in the in-between spaces of art history, literature, media studies, anthropology, neurological sciences, and numerous more disciplines that contribute to the exploration of a new aesthetics. This new aesthetics very much includes aesthesis or the study of physiologically and psychologically infused perceptive abilities in the human. Yet, what happened to the term “psychophysics” in this arena? A long-out-of-print volume, Sensory Communication by Walter Rosenblith, based on a 1959 symposium, has recently been reissued by MIT Press. It reminds us of pioneers like Fechner, criticized therein, in the early days of experiential aesthetics and of the nascent fascination with the human-computer interface and AI around the middle of the 20th century. S.S. Stevens poignantly extracts and highlights the ambiguities inherent to research in psychophysics, playing into the qualitative-quantitative divide co-existent with C.P. Snow’s “two cultures”. “It must be confessed at the outset that psychophysics has often failed to do its part of the job [it tells what the organism can do and it asks those who are inspired by such mysteries to advance our understanding of how such wonders are performed] with distinction. Its task is not easy. For one thing, long-standing prejudices, derived in great measure from a chronic dualistic metaphysics, have triggered a variety of stubborn objections whenever it has been proposed that sensation may be amenable to orderly and quantitative investigation. You cannot, the objectors, complain, measure the inner, private, subjective strength of a sensation. Perhaps not, in the sense the objectors have in mind, but in a different and very useful sense the strength of a sensation can, as we shall see, be fruitfully quantified. We must forgo arguments about the private life of the mind and ask sensible objective questions about the input-output relations of sensory transducers as these relations are disclosed in the behavior of experimental organisms, whether men or animals.”
Furthermore, the theory of psychophysical parallelism states that mental and physical experiences occur simultaneously and are not necessarily bound by any causal interaction. The theory was established in the early 19th century by a German philosopher Gustav Theodor Fechner, also famous for the Weber-Fechner law. While the psychophysical parallelism definition might seem a bit unclear, the theory is very interesting and is one of few philosophical theories which have been accepted by numerous scientists. To better understand Fechner’s approach to mind-body problem a little historical background would be helpful. In the middle of the 19th century, with a more and more rapid progression of scientific thought, many philosophers became interested in explaining the nature of mind and body interaction. This lead to a famous materialism dispute as the opponents of metaphysical philosophy gained many supporters (Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott). Materialistic approach to mind-body dichotomy was at that time seen as very radical, and some of its points still cause much controversy in the 21st century. One of Carl Vogts more memorable quotes around the time was most likely his statement that “Thoughts issue from the brain just as gall is produced by the liver or urine by the kidneys.” Consequently, are our thoughts just like other bodily fluids which are generated in a similar way as numbers in computer programmes? Are we just very sophisticated machines? Gustav Fechner claimed to be able to give the solution to materialism debate. His theory, known as psychophysical parallelism, was first mentioned in 1820s but it was not until 1860 that his approach became widely known, thanks to his mature work Elements of Psychophysics. There are many misconceptions about the meaning of psychophysical parallelism. Countless individuals seem to confuse it with occasionalism, pre-established harmony and Cartesian doctrine of two non-interacting substances. You may read on other websites that psychophysical parallelism is a theory established by Leibniz. It is true that psychophysical parallelism is partially congruent with Leibniz’s theory of non-causal conformity of the soul and the organic body. However, a very important difference is that Fechner rejected any theological grounds for his theory and therefore, even though psychophysical parallelism is a dualistic conception, by no means should it be confused with statements made either by Descartes or Leibniz. Fechner’s theory states that while mental and physical states are not causally dependent they are functionally dependent. What does it mean? It means that to every mental event there is a corresponding brain event. It does not claim causal interaction, it does not deny it. It refrains from explaining the nature of mind and body. It is a very open paradigm. By many it is treated as a good and neutral foundation for more detailed explanations of the nature of mind and body problem albeit the theory itself does not answer many questions.
In other terms, psychophysics attempts to understand the relationship between a physical stimulus and the psychological impression it creates or how the physical world influences the mind. The connection between perception and psychophysics is that perception is one of the constructs examined in the psychological part of the equation. Psychophysics uses quantitative measurements to analyze the relationship between the sensations and perceptions caused by stimuli. The relationship between perception and psychophysics is an important one in that what a person perceives to be so is not always indicative of the stimulus. Stimuli possess different properties which affect whether a person is aware of them or not and dictate their identification. The degree of difference between stimuli will affect whether they are distinguishable or not and to what magnitude a stimulus needs to reach before judgment of similarity and difference can be made.
There are three methods used to measure perception in psychophysics. They are magnitude estimation, matching and detection or discrimination. In magnitude estimation, the subject is required to rate a stimulus on how bright or loud it is on a scale. Matching requires the subject to find the stimuli which are similar in look, sound or pitch. In detection, the subject is asked to discriminate between small differences in intensity or whether a light was flashed or a sound played. Two important terms used in perception and psychophysics are the “absolute threshold” and “difference threshold.” Absolute threshold refers to the smallest detectable amount of stimulus energy, and the difference threshold, or just noticeable difference, refers to the smallest detectable difference between two stimuli.
One of the most important precepts in perception and psychophysics is Weber’s Law which states that the difference threshold between two stimuli is proportional to the baseline or starting intensity. That is, if a small increase in intensity is applied to a small parameter, then that increase can be detected. However, if that same small increase is applied to a larger parameter, it will no longer be detectable.
More and more studies, while not disproving altogether Woody Allen’s theory that the brain is the second most important organ, continue to amass evidence to the contrary. In a paradoxical twist, the field of Psycho-Physics may yet reveal that what we think about disorders in the brain may actually have a greater impact on the brain than their treatment, even the disorders themselves. In fact, what we now perceive as abnormal may soon be the new normal. Recent technologies, along with new diagnostic procedures, are so sophisticated that if there is even the possibility of a disorder, or the need or desire for one, it can be detected. This has raised new questions about the nature of consciousness and the impact of thought on the treatment of mental disease. Indeed, on the proposed invention of it.
This re-visioning of how we think casts a not inconsiderable shadow over the mental health profession regarding a possible bias against the individual psychic disposition. Statistics show that abnormalities in the brain have increased significantly with modern treatment, and this has left some experts to wonder if part of the problem might not be obscured in a broad and all-inclusive classification system. Owing to vague definitions and bloated latitudes, they charge, the individual is viewed as a “mere aggregate of eccentricities.” According to self-reports, the average treatment of twelve sessions per mental health consumer indicated substantial progress. Studies by competitors of those undergoing treatment for extended periods, however, showed actual recovery rates similar to those with no treatment at all. Some conditions even deteriorated with more treatment, prompting many to call for a revaluation of criteria. Insiders reveal that cases are presumed cured only upon depletion of the consumer’s bank account: when the aforesaid is enabled to independently obtain the necessities of existence: twice the mortgage affordable under the most ideal economic conditions, insurance-poverty, and self-medication when feeling overwhelmed. Independent follow-up studies by law firms representing creditors and maxed-out family members, however, found that ninety per cent of consumers returned for more treatment within two years. The discovery that they had minds, yet not knowing what to do with them, sent them back to work in such off-balanced whirlwinds of nervous energy that resuming therapy was a priority even after having gone destitute paying for it in the first place. Recidivism rates compared with those of penitentiary internment. This has led some to suggest a possible “addiction to therapy.”
Crime rates, likewise, didn’t vary significantly between the two groups with one notable exception. Those who underwent treatment before incarceration, once out of a facility, tended to commit more heinous crimes than those whose social stations hadn’t permitted therapy. Once in the system, those under such loose parameters as bible-studies, hand-basket weaving as a means of spiritual contact with the underworld were slightly less violent upon release than those undergoing formal therapy. Psycho-Physics has recently emerged as one of a handful of new approaches which have begun to question the uncritical piling up of statistical data in support of the health industry’s interests along with Eye Rotation Therapy and Tapping. Psycho-Physics is discarding the conventional mantle of scientific pretense for more holistic models which address the individual through pledged commitments to wishful thinking and the power of suggestion.
According to Dr. Aylien Creacher of the Institute for Modern Solipsism stated that “Psycho-Physics proper began with my historical studies of individuality. “Psycho” meaning of course, “crazy”, was combined with “physics”. Greek for “out there”, which also included projected ideas of the body to describe a process of self-examination applied by the individual through the use of concepts designed to free the true personality from the Procrustean bed of modern theory. At the core of Psycho-Physics is the concept of projection. Certain feelings and inner experiences confirm it as psychologically meaningful; however, it cannot be scientifically proven to actually exist. The subjective nature of it makes it relative to the individual in all cases. “Since it is recalcitrant to objective appraisal, it’s seldom employed as a conscious tool for assessment. This ensures that its negative effects work unconsciously. The evaluation of one subjective attitude by another automatically assumes the nature of a value judgment. To regard such projections as belonging only to the consumer and not the practitioner, for example, leads to quite arbitrary conclusions and is therefore scientifically untenable, not to say intellectually unethical. The definition of projection presupposes its functioning in all minds, regardless of personal fantasy. In point of fact, the practioner’s projections actually self-replicate based on the very design of the process itself. The principle of negative sums predicts that the practitioner’s projections will exceed those of others involved.” In conclusion, all the examples of scientific research above have clearly shown that psycho-physics, although it has become distributed and separated amongst numerous sectors and titles, continues to result in discoveries that allow for a greater insight into the nature of mind and matter. One may only dream of that which could be possible, if mankind were to concentrate their focus towards the actual merging and development of the two as a scientific discipline.