Here is another sketchy outline from December 6, 2000 ... from a discussion at the Chopra Forum about what is 'real' and what is not ...
I wouldn't claim any of the following thoughts as being definitive. On the contrary ... far from it ...
Oh yes, there was an objection to A Course In Miracles and similar descriptions of reality as being too fluffy ...
Bad news, reality is fluffy - ask any quantum physicist. :)
The more you try to pin it down, the more elusive it gets. We toss this word 'reality' around with gay abandon ... but what is it ... what is 'real' ... how do you define the word 'real' ... there was much more to this line of thought as I sat on the bus but it was never transferred to paper ... one can only winder as to where I was headed ...
Reality is far fluffier than you or i are capable of imagining. Our imaginations themselves are part of the fluffiness. One could say that fluffiness is the essence of our existence. Though you might get some funny looks from certain people who have yet to adjust to the idea. They still yearn for a solid reality which does not exist.
The time has arrived for each of us to embrace our fluffiness. I am only partially kidding with saying that. We do tend to speak of 'reality' as though it is some solid and verifiable thing 'out there' that we can observe and study and understand. But that picture requires us to regard our very minds as being separate from reality rather than intimately and intricately tied up in it, indeed creating it on a moment-by-moment basis.
...
A little later ... How real is real? How do you define real? How real is a dream? It sure seems awfully real while you are IN it. How real is a thought? It sure seems awfully real while you are thinking it. How real is an emotion? It sure seems awfully real while you are experiencing it. How real is an experience? How real is yesterday's sadness if I am happy today? How real is yesterday's happiness if I am sad today? How real is today's happiness if I am sad tomorrow?
Then a few other assorted ideas came briefly into my mind ...
I can't explore your consciousness just like I can't go to the toilet for you - that is something you have to do for yourself. You can choose to remain sitting in your cell even after someone has handed you the key. There's always freedom of choice.
{Then I remembered something the Dalai Lama said about inner disarmament. And it is a brilliant analogy - so long as you keep the slings & arrows and rocks and nuclear warheads handy there is a chance you'll use them ... }
Oh yes, I revised my analogy of trying to explain the Theory of Relativity to a five-year-old. There is nothing wrong with the explanation and nothing wrong with the five-year-old but it is a pointless exercise. But it will not always be a pointless exercise - with the appropriate intellectual growth & development and interest it won't be all that long before that person can understand the theory ... it is also a pointless exercise getting angry if the five-year-old can't understand what you're explaining ...
"Reality is indeed way, way, way, way, way, way less concrete and definable than certain people would like to believ it is."
Then I wrote a couple of funny poems -
People used to tell me that my life was quite strange,
So I talked to God and found there was nothing to change,
People used to tell me that my thoughts were not normal,
So I smiled back and said there's no need to be formal
Lord, help me to tolerate the skeptics and all of their crap,
Without ever once putting a live scorpion in their lap,
Lord, help me to inspire their rigid, closed-off minds,
And open them up to the joy and wonder one often finds.
(Needles to say, it was a very funny day)
getting back to where we were ... yes, what do you mean when you use the word 'real'. People use it as if reality is something solid and 'out there' when it is as least as likely to be something quite fluffy and 'in here' ...
I had many more thoughts throughout the day which never persisted long enough to be recorded onto paper ... that may be just as well ...
Ultimately, the question that remains is 'does it matter either way' ... and if so, why so ...
Hold the presses ... I just found another scrap of paper in my pants pocket ... with this stuff written on it -
Oh yes, getting back to my early days asking this very question 'what is real' and finding that i could not EVER verify the existence of anything external to myself ... now this can be a terifying or a liberating thought - depending on what you choose to do with it. I mean, you could use it to justify any behaviour whatsoever because you were testing th notion that the people around you just migh all be figments of your imagination ... and there may be individuals who have done some extreme stuff with this sot of thought upermost in their minds ...
(There's a tad more in my journal for December 6th - click here
... oh yes, one person seemed to be implying that someone's staement about reality was 'rubbish' or 'nonsense' as if you could be totally certain beyond doubt ... the VERY fact that an alternative possibility can be put forward shows there exists some doubt. The doubt may be miniscule in most minds or more substantial in others ... (that needs work) ...
Yes, lying in bed just about to drop off to sleep ... ask yourself what do I know absolutely beyond all doubt ... I know there is a 'me' ... but where is this 'me' and ... there was much more to this that never was written down ... basically the existence of this 'me' is the ONLY thing I can absolutely know beyond all doubt ...
Reality really does work that way - it is whatever you believe it is - fluffy, solid, fair, unfair, karmic, miraculous, pointless, meaningful, unfathomable, mysterious, indifferent, hostile, benevolent, triangular, banana-shaped, enigmatic ... whatever ...
Update December 11 -
The following thoughts are necessarily even vaguely connected to the above ...
They were sparked by a question about 'the gap' which is mentioned in
Quantum Healing
The question was on or around December 9 or 10 ...
click here - but the forum archives aint so easy to navigate - sometimes you have to take pot luck. :) It would be around message # 56,310 {Assuming the forum is still around when anyone reads this ... }
Great questions. I may answer them when I feel sufficiently inspired to do so. It's hard to say when that might be. I'm not sure that I actually spend a whole lotta time in 'the gap' but it's a useful subject for contemplation. :)
In the meantime, I was checking out the Dharma the Cat site the other day and their links page too me to a site called
Gerardus' Grist, which is well worth a visit for those who are into this kind of stuff.
Having given a bit more thought to your questions, I can say that the gaps beween my thoughts ... boy this is tough to put into words ... :) but anyway, on a 'good' day the gaps are quite long and yet there is a sense that I am actually more aware during the periods of no-thought than during those periods where thoughts are streaming through my mind one after the other in a never-ending progression that starts nowhere and ends nowhere ... don't know if that's much of an answer to what you asked but it''s the best I got right at this moment. Mind you, I'm relatively new at all this stuff - if you'd told me two years ago that I'd be reading such material and happily spending hours a day in contemplation and meditation, I would have said you were crazy. :) That's not to suggest that where I'm at right now is a better place than where you're at right now - I'd be incredibly presumptuous to suggets such a thing. And I am slowly learning not to be so presumptuous. All I can say is that where I'm at now is a vast improvement on where I used to be and even then it isn't quite as simple as that because I keep having brief 'flashbacks' to my former self as is evidenced by some of the nonsense I posted here a couple of weeks back. As usual, I've succeeded in being about as clear as mud - oh well, it can't be helped. Not to worry. One day this will all make sense. Of course, that day may be several lifetimes away of it may be just a moment away. It's hard to be certain about these things, you know.
On second thoughts, even the idea of my 'present self' and my 'former self' is an arbitrary mental construct. Some mystics claim that since time is an illusion, then past, present and future all co-exist which sounds a bit of a daft thing to say based on our everyday experiences. :)
Best of luck trying to get a handle on it all. Then again maybe letting go of the handle is the key. :)
Namaste
PS I wrote a little poem on the train this morning. Remind me to post it if I forget. It's about the 'road to enlightement' and the things that happen along the way. I like it - but I might be a bit biassed.
A few more thougths ...
Actually, when you think about it, it is quite amazing that any descriptions at all are possible of what goes on in the mind. especially when talking about non-everyday states of consciousness like meditation & contemplation & 'the gap' etc ... I mean the mind is not observable - you can observe a person's behaviour and body and deduce their approximate mental and/or emotional state ... but some states of consciousness may have little or no physical indicators or manifestations ... if you know what I mean ...
... I mean where is a person's mind while they are in a coma ... one could well ask that of the dream state too ... or even the waking state ... :)
All of which got me thinking of the types of messages people post to the forum & the motivation ... and I have to admit that mine have probably frequently been more motivated by a sense of spiritual pride or smugness or a desire to be 'clever' than by a genuine desire to say something that might be beneficial to others. Sometimes the benefit may happen in spite of that - it is a gestalt process after all ...
That reminds me of that quote from When God talks back -
And really, on some level I myself am still trying to 'get my head around it' - the experience which
Maslow
describes ... and why it only seeems to happen to a small percentage and thus (like alien abduction?) is so uncommon that most people regard it as fantasy or imagination or delusion ... hmmm ...
And in my case it was completely spontaneous and involuntary and absolutely unexpected ... you could say i am still bouncing of the walls 22 months later ...
Along with Gerardus link - could include the Living Meditation by Dr Thynn Thynn -
here
... Yes, the 'tone' of some of the exchanges at the forum (which I suppose only reflects something of the current human climate which is not overly harmonious) ... makes me realise how spot on the Daily Lama is when he speaks of inner disarmament - somebody or something might not be bothering you at this moment but if you carry round the seeds of anger or blaming or judging then they are like weeds just waiting for the right conditions to flower again ... pardon the mixed metaphor ...
Plus a lot of recent discussion about Deepak's personal life and whether he lives according to what he writes ... even if he does not always apply the wisdom to his own life that does not in itself diminish the value of what he writes and the only way to evaluate his ideas is to apply them to the way you live from moment to moment and see what the results are one way or the other. I mean even the Dalai Lama says that -
(May pay to re-post that to the Forum ... if somebody who represents a long tradition of teachings which have transformed many lives is not the least bit evangelical, that's telling you something :)
A few more recent thoughts recorded on various scraps of paper ...
Well, first, here is that poem I promised you ...
Road to now here
I was on the road to enlightenment just the other day
They looked somewhat puzzled and asked for more details
I said that this reality is not solid at all
I told them our souls were unimaginably vast and immense
They both looked at me as I was quite insane
I smiled and I thanked them for all their attention
10-12-2000
I have more scraps of paper around the house that may or may not contain anything useful to the human race ... I shall type them up if & when I feel sufficiently inspired or moved to do so ...
In the meantime ... why not have a bit of fun by visiting
The Land of Oddz and downloading the starter kit. I purchased the full version of Oddballz at a recent computer swapmeet and I don't know how much of the full version comes in the starter kit ... but the screen saver is a riot ... and maybe one needs to purchase the actual CD to see the screen saver ... if so, you might like to
click here for the Petz site ...
December 12 -
... a few more thoughts on the approval/disapproval dynamic and the impact it has on people's peace-of-mind and thus their happiness ...
{This section to be filled in at some later date when i get around to it ... I'm sure you'll survive until then ... in the meantime why not try clicking
here or maybe
here or possibly even
here}
December 13 update -
Yes, I know, I'll fill in all the 'blanks' above sometime ...
Here's a few (idle) reflections I jotted down while sitting on the grass and watching some ducks on a pond in a local park ...
I thought about that long list of endorsements of Depak's work which was posted to the Forum - around message # 56, 490 ... (yes, 56 thousand messages and still going ... amazing ... one has to ask what percentage of those 56,000 were driven by love and what percentage were driven by ego/judgement/whatever ... hmmm ...) anyway ...
And yet, at the end of the day it's up to each individual to experiment and see from experience what value if any an idea has for the way they live their lives ... this sounded a LOT better in my head ... (more in journal around dec 12 & 13)
... and if the ONLY people you're going to take notice of are stereotypical 'saints' then you may miss out on something really trabsformative because most of us aint saints just yet and many of us haven't experienced that level of absolute trust and faith that a Ghandi or Mum Theresa experienced so they might not be the greatest guides ... (this also needs work)
Yes, looking around me ... it's somewhat sad that these days it's almost as if it is 'uncool' to be cheerful and friendly ...
I had an ebryonic idea - largely borrowed from the Buddhist meditation on leveling out the emotions - yes, when you look at the entire spectrum of our emotional reactions to the people around us - all the way from outright hatred and hostility through indifference, compassion, fondness to love ... the SOLE determining factor is the categories we place people in and those categories ONLY exist when we indulge in the sort of thinking that focuses on the observable - you could call it APB - we tend to focus on a person's Appearance & Personality & Behaviour and decide whether they fall into the 'like' or 'dislike' category ... there's a good idea in there just screaming to get out - any hints? send me an email -
grjallen@hotmail.com
... and when a whole society basically never looks any deeper than APB ... you create a LOT of tension because the tendency is to define your self and thus your self-esteem in these superficial areas ... which brings us back to my thoughts on approval/disapproval which was touched on earlier in this file and possibly by the time anyone reads this far, the above section will have been filled out - if that makes any sense ...
Yes, you know you're making some progress when your initial reaction to those who might wish you harm or scoff or deride you is a tendency toward compassion rather than hostility. It's a prospect I personally would have regarded as totally loopy for most of my life this time around. And the seeds of that compassion is the simple recognition that anybody who directs any ill-feeling toward any other being for any reason at all is coming from a very unlit place just at that moment and having personally experienced how truly awful such unlit places are ... you can't help but feel at least compassion and wish them a speedy exit from such a place ...
It is an interesting question - can you have genuine compassion for the lost unless you have had direct personal experience of being lost ... the same applies to chaos, despair, lack of confidence, social ineptitude and discomfort and awkwardness ... schizophrenia at its worst is all of the above and a bit more ... I mean it's tough to be suave and charming whilst you're hearing voices nobody else does or having experiences most people could never begin to imagine ... it's like a crash course in compassion ... literally ...
... and yet in the prevailing climate their are still odd occasions where I forget myself and slip back into an uncompassionate way of being ...
I don't expect to convince the skeptics. I totally understand them because I was one of them. I don't try to convince anyone because nothing -- nothing -- could have convinced me 15 years ago.
"I am a Buddhist and my whole way of training is according to the Buddhist teaching or Buddha Dharma. Although I speak from my own experience, I feel that no-one has the right to impose his or her beliefs on another person. I will not propose to you that my way is the best. The decision is up to you. If you find some point which may be suitable for you, then you can carry out experiments for yourself. If you find that it is of no use, then you can discard it."
When I spotted a skeptic and a scientist blocking my way
Hard at work on some strange notion called proof
I told them their current reality was just a spoof
I told them their minds had gone clean off the rails
By focusing solely on the realm of the five senses
They had built up some really quite marvelous defenses
With the right training you can walk through a wall
I said that our nature is actually quite fluffy
But we get mesmerised by a world that's grown stuffy
They scoffed and insisted on waiting for solid evidence
But how can we believe? It's beyond our comprehension
I asked them if dreams were clues to another dimension
And started examing the chemistry of my brain
Aha! they exclaimed. We have found the solution
This excess of dopamine is the cause of your delusion
And decided there were some things I ought not mention
I wished them well and continued on the path
As I walked away, I'm sure one of them laughed.
