A Link of Interest

This was sent to me by my son (somehow you have to copy and paste this link).  

http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html

Very much relates to this question of Free Will vs Determinism.  

Also, published as part of a compilation by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, called "The Minds Eye."  

Highly recommended!

Namaste

Shamanic Journeying

For me, this arose spontaneously many years ago.

I would travel down a tunnel. 

Arriving at a forest path.

Finding a thick old wooden door.

Walking down 5 steps.

Opening the door to a beach. 

The beach was next to a forest.  

I could become all sorts of animals. 

Moving as a snake, swimming as a dolphin, flying as an eagle... 

Enjoyment was the main event. 

I could speak to all sorts of creatures.

The wisest creature was a whale. 

I could rest on the beach, and the whale would come up and we would touch foreheads.

Both a greeting, and an exchange of questions and answers.  

The whale could morph and create a space for me to sit inside its body for travel. 

Being shown what is true… 

This was the teaching and learning… 

Then there was a sacred space, near the edge of the forest.

With a pool of sacred water to enter naked. 

That would cleanse the body and mind. 

I could then don a white robe.

In order to enter the healing cave. 

I could invite in anyone who needed healing. 

Patients, friends, family, even myself. 

They would drift inside. 

Laying on a stone table. 

Sometimes I would invite others to do healing work with me. 

I would use “quantum” healing.

Sweeping away dark energy, no longer needed. 

The darkness was thrown into a container of salt water. 

Then the neutralized darkness could be tossed into the sun. 

When healing was over, we would bath again. 

We could again play. 

My wife, I, and a dear friend took a shamanic journeying course together a few years ago. 

We also read 2 of Michael Harner’s texts on shamanic journeying. 

The Way of the Shaman

Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality

The first book teaches about journeying to the lower world. 

The second book teaches about journeying to the upper world. 

I had been going to the lower world. 

After the course, I began journeying to the upper world. 

The lower world contains power animals. 

The upper world contains wise teachers. 

An interesting part of the upper world is being torn to pieces, often by various creatures. 

Not painful. 

My interpretation is the ego is destroyed. 

Just as with entheogens… 

When the body and mind reconstructs, snaps back together, there is an opportunity to leave out parts of the ego-mind that no longer serves. 

Not a pushing away… 

A recognition, of those parts that may have served in the past. 

Parts of the self, which are no longer are needed for survival. 

Thanking that part… 

For the gifts it gave, in the past, but, no longer needed… 

My current journeying has changed. 

I am pulled into the outdoor fireplace, into the sand underneath though a tunnel.

Dropped into the lower world. 

Usually to sit with my whale guide… 

There I am also torn to pieces… 

I am scattered through the entire Earth… 

I am the Earth, the Earth is… 

Then at the same time I travel up through the outdoor fireplace sand… 

I ride the flames to the upper world… 

I pass through many levels… 

At the highest level I am torn to pieces…   

These pieces are scattered through the entire Cosmos… 

The Solar System, our galaxy, through every black hole in every galaxy, to the furthest reaches… 

 

The I, the small “s” self, dissolves…

There is only the big “S” Self… 

Resting as the lower world, the middle world, and the upper world… 

All-That-Is… 

All-That-Is-Not… 

In the span of some unknown time… 

The self reconstructs… 

Interesting… 

We spoke previously about the illusion of conscious will… 

We think we have control… 

Source surfs us… 

The best we can do

                             is

                                    let

                                                go… 

And surf Source back… 

Be Source… 

And be the small “s” self... 

Embrace who you are fully… 

Walk in the world… 

Follow The Three Commandments… 

Remember that there is a strict order to The Three Commandments.  

          1-There is only one Source.

                    2-Love everything.

                              3-Enjoy yourself.

Avoid the Errors: 

http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-second-commandment-love-everything_24.html

And then Enjoy, Enjoy, Enjoy… 

Namaste

Sitting

In the Dark

Image arises

Solid Foundations of Being

Separate

And

Shared

Light in the Dark

Illuminating

The Entire

Cosmos

We can only know

We are

Here

We can only know

The Time is

Now

 

Yet

We dance

Through the

All

Of the Cosmos

Anchored to the Earth

Dancing across the Stars, Galaxies, Nebulas

Black Holes

Radiating All

That-Is

All

That-Is-Not

Connected

Beings

Surfing

the

Doing

of

Whatever

Arises

“The self is Toast”

That is a paraphrase from one of my favorite quotes from Ken Wilber… 

I’m still in the middle of reading “The Integral Intake,” by Andre Marquis.  A wonderful, highly recommended book. 

Andre has taken Wilber’s AQAL, 4-quadrant model, along with other works, and developed a remarkable guide to idiographic assessment for use in Integral Psychotherapy.  

On pages 113/114 he writes about Translative Spirituality versus Transformative Spirituality. 

He quotes Wilber on how Translative Spirituality is the function of most religions, where a system of beliefs and rituals helps decrease the suffering of the perceived separate self. 

Whereas Transformative Spirituality “dismantles” the self, shattering the illusion of a separate self. 

The full Wilber quote goes “the self is not made content.  The self is made toast”

Which brings me to my current growing edge. 

I am also reading and contemplating “The Illusion of Conscious Will,” by Daniel M Wegner. 

He documents in depth all of the studies that point toward this illusion. 

Perhaps one of most interesting experiments concerns the voluntary movement of lifting one finger. 

Brain activity begins about 500 milliseconds before the actual movement.  However, the experience of conscious awareness of wanting to move your finger only occurs about 200 milliseconds before the actual movement. 

The awareness of moving the finger begins at about 80 milliseconds before the actual movement, and then, the finger actually moves. 

This is only one experiment of many, pointing to this illusion of conscious will.   This is a 400+ page book after all… 

 

One can experience this directly when the action is faster.  In martial arts the practice is to have the movements occur without the conscious mind.  The conscious mind cannot keep up with the action. 

But, the conscious mind will take credit for any successes, or failures, that occur. 

In his last chapter, Wegner discusses the difficulty in trying to resolve the paradox of Free Will versus Determinism, particularly where it relates to responsibility and morality. 

To paraphrase Ramana Maharshi, there is no destiny, there is no free will… 

The Truth is only found in paradox… 

Importantly, this relates to the structure of our penal system. 

We must only control the actions of those who hurt the other or who are destructive. 

We must not punish. 

We must not jail those who we morally judge to hurt themselves…  read this as drug use or sex workers. 

We must provide the means for those with destructive actions to see through this illusion of self… 

To see more clearly, allows inner growth and the evolution of self toward Self. 

Decreases addictive behaviors. 

This allows less of this unconscious information to express itself in destructive actions.   

 

There will always be individuals that need to be kept separate from general society. 

My own work involves the continued contemplation of this small “s” illusory self, and its relationship to Self, i.e., All-That-Is and All-That-Is-Not. 

This contemplation involves seeing deeper and deeper, in an attempt to drop more and more illusions. 

Am I successful? 

Only others can tell. 

This illusory self can never be sure… 

Namaste