Understanding your Energy System (Part 1/5)

In the west, we’re brought up with a conceptual model of ourselves as physical beings who think and have emotions. Mind and feelings are typically seen as effects of physical functions. We are the side effects of a machine, victims of our biology as Bruce Lipton would put it.

However, if you do any internal exploration, you quickly discover that such a model doesn’t work very well. For example, your thoughts dictate your action and you experience having free will. How could this arise from effects? Soon it becomes apparent that the model is inside out.

When if you do any browsing for better models of life closer to your experience, you find various models of mind, energy, and spirit. A disjoined jumble of ideas like chakras, kundalini, auras, and astral travel. Not much to build a sense of reality on.

The most important thing to understand is that we are what observes. This is far more important than what we experience. What we experience arises from who we are, so that is the key. Knowing the container is better than knowing the content. But unless our experiences makes some sense, we’re much less likely to relax into observation of how we experience and seeing who we are.

Our Energetic System

“It is from prana (life force) that everything proceeds.”
– Chandogya Upanishad

Life force, prana or chi is the energy that drives our expression. That causes our form to become. On the surface we know this as breath, electro-chemical nervous system impulses and our heart. Tha-thump. More subtly, this is a movement of subtle energy. More subtly still, a movement of light. And yet more subtly, it is the flow of lively intention, the movement of attention. In other words, prana is the flow of consciousness. Including your very breath.

Our subtle energy moves through a fundamental structure that is the same for all beings. It begins with intention. We are intended. Intention has the form of direction, what mathematicians would call a line. In ancient Vedic texts, it’s known as a sutra or thread. A perfectly straight white thread.

On this thread are 7 energy vortexes, essentially 7 values or qualities. Same energy, different functions. These energy vortexes are typically called chakras, a term that means wheels. The main channel between them is known as the sushumna.

If you are unfamiliar, the 7 chakras are:

7	Crown of the head (fontanella)	Sahasrara
6	Third eye – between the 2 eyes and slightly up	Anja
5	Throat	Visuddha
4	Heart (central chest)	Anahata
3	Just above the Navel	Manipura
2	Top of sex organs	Svadisthana
1	Root of the spine	Muladhara

There are 2 secondary channels that run alongside the sushumna, looping up the spine and intersecting at the 7 centers. One is called the Pingala and is associated with male and left brain. The Ida is feminine, right brain.

The Ida and Pingala are often portrayed as entwined serpents. The Caduceus of Hermes symbol used in western Medicine (originally Egyptian) illustrates this. Because they loop through the chakras, a correct illustration has 7 points of contact, including the tails and heads. The Sushumna, Pingala and Ida are the 3 primary nadis or tubes.

The energy that flows in these channels is called kundalini. Kundalini is a blend of pranas, not a separate thing as is often portrayed. It’s also worth noting that Chakra energy is not prana. Chakra is the divine flow into expression, prana is the flow of nature. Kind of the male and female sides. I’ll touch on this more shortly.

Some refer to the Pingala as the basis of the parasympathetic and the Ida, the sympathetic nervous system. The Sushumna is the basis of the central nervous system.

From these primary nadis, a whole series of other channels branch out. The nadis are said to be formed by the flow of energy or prana. At key points of intersection, secondary chakras form – shoulders, elbows, hands, feet, and so forth.

“Among all these nadis, 72 thousand are important. Of these, 100 are principle. And of these, three are particularly significant. Of these three, the most important is the sushumna, which extends from the base of the spine to the crown of the head.”
– Swami Muktananda

Nadi’s are what the Chinese call meridians, although they focus on them slightly differently.

In western medicine, when nerves, arteries or veins interlace with each other, that point is called a Plexus. Almost a hundred such plexuses have been named in the human body, but the four primary nerve plexuses are the cervical, brachial, lumbar, and the sacral plexus, reflecting the chakras. These are also associated with the endocrine or ductless glands. These physical plexuses have their foundation in the subtle energy system or nadis. The nervous system does not mirror the nadi system, but rather the energy of the nadis (prana) creates channels that guide the formation of the entire physical body.

Looks like…

Some of the most misleading information around chakras is all the stylized art work you see around. Typically, you’ll see each chakra a single tidy colour in a progressive rainbow, with the heart green in the middle.

This is not what the chakras are like. They are whirling vortexes of multicoloured light, just like some aura pictures you may have seen. The thread extends up through the chakras and out the top of the head.

They are also equidistant and in a straight line, irrespective of the position of your body. Remember, we’re not talking about physical objects.

Another way people describe chakras is as flowers with each center having a progressively larger number of petals, the crown having a thousand. The chakras can be seen as 3 level. The center is the vortex we’ve been describing. Slightly forward is a very flower-like expression that opens with giving attention. Outward flowing.

Behind the vortex is a similar structure, but flatter. Like a disc. It balances the flower, connecting to the flow, almost like a root.

We can also see various other aspects, like a vertical donut around the heart, a descending cone around the 2nd, crusts or caps on the tops of restricted centers, and so forth.

It’s worth further noting that there is only one set of 7 chakras in our universe. We all share the same 7 centers. Including all other life forms like plants, insects, etc. Each individual is just a personality, a variation on the single expression. I’ve described how we see our lives collapse into the moment and how all beings can collapse into the same. This is shifting to the more divine view where all is concurrent and timeless.

“If one could reach the subtle vibrations, one could see that the whole universe is composed of subtle vibrations; the whole universe is seen as an ocean of thought. In the ocean of thought, we exist as whirlpools of individual thought.”
– Charlie Lutes

Next, we’ll explore the pranas and purushas.
Davidya

Part 2 – The Bodies and Energies
Part 3 – Myths and Resistance
Part 4 – Practical Understanding
Part 5 – Awakening

Qualities and Quantities of Being

India has a very ancient spiritual tradition that has somehow survived the usual ravages of time. Partly because it has had periodic revivals, partly geography.

Within that tradition are 6 systems of philosophy designed to gain complete knowledge. If you’ve explored Indian ideas much, you’ve probably heard of Yoga, Karma, and Vedanta.

Some have taken these systems as separate beliefs, pitting one against the other. This is the habit of many philosophies, to find the “one truth” rather than seek how truth evolves. For example, some posit that Sankhya is godless and thus denies the existence of God. However, this is seeing incorrectly, like seeing the limbs of yoga as separate steps. Sankhya is simply the study of quantity and becoming, not source. Source is without quantity.

1) Nyaya is correct procedure for study
2) Vaisheshika studies something’s special qualities
3) Sankhya studies the components, quantity
4) Yoga studies means of knowing (paths)
5) Karma Mimansa studies the field of action
6) Vedanta or Uttar Mimansa is the end of knowledge, the absolute and it’s relationship to the above.

I talked about Yoga here and have discussed Karma and Vedanta in various articles. Today I wanted to outline Vaisheshika and Sankhya.

Vaisheshika

Vaisheshika outlines 8 fundamental qualities of all things or objects. The first 5 you’ll recognize as the base “elements” much like in the philosophies of the Greeks, Chinese, Alchemists, Tibetans, and more. In fact, it is an almost universal concept because the subtle elements can be directly experienced.

However, in this case, they are used to define qualities rather than components. Although this is a study of differences, they are more easily found if you study what things have in common rather than what makes them different.

1 – Earth (Prithivi)
2 – Water (Apas)
3 – Fire (Tejas)
4 – Air (Vayu)
5 – Space (Akasha)(or ether)
6 – Time (Kala)
7 – Direction (Dik)
8 – Soul (Atman)

This article started as an application of Vaisheshika to the evolution of consciousness. However, the model I ran into turned out to be invalid on close examination. But it’s still useful to lay the ideas out. You can see the above qualities show up in various places in Sankhya.

Sankhya

Sankhya defines the components. Sankhya means number, so is the quantitative study. It has 25 components, but many are derivations of the others. It also illustrates the origin of some of the qualities above. It’s best not to see them as linear stages but rather as interactive. Also, remember we’re talking more principles or essences here, not physical objects.

1 – Purusha – cosmic spirit, the one soul
2 – Prakriti - Nature
It arises as the 3 gunas – sattva (balance), rajas (kinetic), and tamas (inertia)
Attention of Purusha causes nature to stir and the gunas to go out of balance.
3 – Buddhi or Mahat – intellect, taking a direction
4 – Ahamkara – individualization of Mahat, I-ness or ego. A wave on the ocean of Prakriti, seeing itself as unique.

5 – Manas – cosmic mind, the object of Ahamkara, individuation is defined.
Note that Ahamkara does not create mind. Mind is more the evolution of Intellect with which Ahamkara interacts. The object and subject. Mind is the evolution of the field in which differentiation occurs. Ahamkara causes the sense of a me in the person if one is identified with the shallow sense of self.

This subject-object dynamic is defined with 3 aspects – the observer, the process of observation, and the object or observed. The observer side gives rise to the senses through the sattva guna of Prakriti. Observation gives rise to the “organs of action” via rajas. The observed gives rise to the subtle elements with tamas or inertia.

Each of these values divides into 7 due to the 7 forms of energy (chakras) I’ll be discussing this in another article. But because only the first 5 have manifest values, only 5 manifest. Thus we have 5 senses, 5 actions, and 5 elements.

6 – 15: The 10 Indriyas or tentacles – 5 senses and 5 organs of action.
These can be seen as 5 ways of experiencing the world and 5 ways of responding. The means for mind to connect with it’s expression. Think of them as energies.
- Power of hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling (sattva) Energy moving through the organs of sense (named below)
- Power of speaking, grasping (hands), moving (feet), reproducing and eliminating (rajas) Energy moving through body.

Note the correspondence of senses and actions – hearing/speaking, etc. When you think about someone, you extend the indriyas in the mind to them, hence tentacles.

16 – 20: 5 Tanmatras, ‘mother of matter’ or essences -
Just as intellect differentiates mind, senses create essences or objects of the senses. (tamas)
The essences and sense may have the same English term but I’ve included the Sanskrit to illustrate they are not the same thing but rather the different ways the energy expresses.

Essence	in Sanskrit	from sense (Indriya)	becomes
Sound	shabda	hearing (Karna)	space
Touch	sparsha	touch (Sparshana)	air
Form/color	rupa	sight (Chakshu)	fire
Taste	rasa	taste (Rasana)	water
Smell	ghanda	smell (Ghrana)	earth

21 – 25: 5 Mahabhutas or ‘elements’
Sustained attention and tamas guna, inertia, cause physicality and gross manifestation. The essences blend to become elements. It is not directly one to one (see below)

Element	Sanskrit	dominated by	quality
Space	Akasha	shabda (sound)	Ether
Air	Vayu	sparsha (touch)	Motion, all Gases
Fire	Tejas	rupa (form/color)	Light, Heat, Color
Water	Apas	rasa (taste)	all Liquids
Earth	Prithivi	ghandha (smell)	all Solids

There are several ways to understand this process.

We can describe each element as containing all tanmatras or essences in seed form with one dominant. Thus, all elements can be smelled, tasted, seen, felt, and heard as they include all essences.

We can also see each element building on the prior ones as it becomes more dense. Air for example contains sound and touch while earth contains all 5. Put another way, From space arises air, from air arises fire, and so forth. Notice how they become increasingly dense.

Another way of understanding this is that observation of the essences causes them to collapse into elements, somewhat like observation collapses the wave in particle physics.

When you experience the essences directly, the senses and essences are less differentiated and you can “feel” music or “taste” green (it’s tart), for example.

Trika is a study that adds further layers, prior to Purusha in Sankhya. I’ve not found that perspective very useful as I would define it differently. I find Shankara’s description of the 3 forms of Maya more accurate. However, it is fair to say Purusha and Prakriti arise from Shiva and Shakti. Shiva and Shakti express their power and create the dream or Maya which produces what is described in Sankhya. Shiva and Shakti are the male and female aspects of God which arises from Awareness aware of Itself, observer & observed.

Application

The 5 essential elements then blend to form the components of the physical world. Remember – our reality arises from the mind through perception. Attention and intention are the key drivers in manifestation. Subject drives objects via perception. This illustrates it in detail.

If you study an older Periodic Table of the Elements from Chemistry, you’ll find they’re in 8 “groups” based on the electron’s outer orbit. (reactivity) These 8 groups are the 8 usual combinations of the 5 subtle elements. You’ll also notice that the elements rule the state of the component – solid, liquid and gas.

You may notice that sound and speaking are associated with space rather than air, but space is an element more like the concept of ether than emptiness. Subtle sounds are heard without air.

These experiences form the basis of a wide swath of understanding – everything from architecture, to medicine, cooking to spiritual practice is influenced by this.

For example, Ayurveda is the ancient science of health. Similar to the idea of the Greek humors, people tend to have a predominant leaning in their body type or dosha. This determines the best diet and routine for balance and what will tend to bring imbalance. Air and Space form the Vata type, Fire and Water the Pitta type, and Earth and Water the Kapha type.

Another example is taste. While rasa is an essence, it’s companion is taste so the elements blend as flavour.
Earth + Water is Sweet, Earth + Fire is Sour, Water + Fire is Salty, Air + Fire is Pungent, Air + Ether is Bitter, Air + Earth is Astringent.

You’ll note they describe 6 tastes. They also recommend you have a little of each in each meal to satisfy the body, dropping the tendency to overeat. You can also use them to balance your body type above.

In the body, the eyes (a sense) are considered the seat of Pitta, a blend of fire and water. Thus the elements express through the senses and the senses through the elements.

I trust this may help explain some terms you’ve run into and how thought becomes form. I’m working on another article on the energy system that may help.
Davidya

What Arises

It is interesting to see how things come up in “sets”. Quite often, I end up writing an article because the same subject keeps showing up in a short period of time from different places.

Layers of OK is an example, further reinforced by Tom Stine’s posting on the same subject.

It is interesting to take a look at why this can take place.

For one, it is about attention – what we are thinking about or doing. We filter out massive amounts of information, letting only a small percent show up in our conscious awareness. Much is just dumped. Some is picked up by the subconscious, which very quickly processes it using preset or habit responses. Fast and automatic. Like responding to sudden changes in traffic. And the remainder shows up in our attention. If it is a subject du jour, we are much more likely to notice it. The subconscious may even flag it for attention, like the bad driver.

Put simply, it shows up because we’re watching or attuned to it.

Secondly, is a little more subtle. As the world arises from consciousness, what we put our attention on grows stronger. We get more because that is the intent. This is the function behind ideas like Law of Attraction. If we’re thinking about it, we notice more but we also create more connections.

If you spend any time on a subject you may notice that not only do you notice more, but stuff around the subject starts showing up all over the place. It grows organically.

All this assumes one is open to the subject. If there is any resistance or discomfort with what something may imply, this will discourage growth and throw up a blocking filter. You can tell if you have resistance just by how you respond. If you are mindful and notice an emotional response – however subtle – to words like God, reincarnation, gambling or polygamy, then you know there is resistance.

Yes, there is a big difference between resistance and discrimination. It is perfectly fine to decide you don’t like gambling or the idea of reincarnation. But when the response is reactionary, this is not a rational choice but a resistance that prevents you from seeing clearly.

For example, if you disagree with the idea of reincarnation, then have an experience of a past life, where does that put you? In apparent conflict with yourself. The conflict does not arise with the experience but with your resistance to what arises.

It is perfectly possible to disagree with something without pushing against it and making it internally wrong. If we don’t make it personal, we can simply make a choice. Then we begin to step out of the resistance game and ending suffering.

We can see that things may arise because we’re paying attention or because we’re giving it attention. But there is another even more important way things arise. They arise from what is. From the whole. From the soul or cosmic values. Nature/Spirit/God wishing to get our attention.

Some call this their intuition or guide. The signals or push to look in a certain direction and take a step there.

This is the beginning of stepping into the flow. Of moving with nature. Of not only being OK with what is but living it in every action. If you are impressed by synchronicity or coincidence, you’ll feel doubly blessed by moving in the river of life, without resistance.
Davidya

Layers of OK

Many teachers speak of being OK with what is. Of being here now. Of being mindful or present. Of the  present of presence.

These are all ways of saying much the same thing. It is interesting to note how this tends to develop though. Rare is the person who simply sees through their drama and becomes whole. Usually they step through in stages.

First step is a willingness to see what’s there. To see our conditioning and resistance. To stop hiding from how we really feel about life and our lot in it. For many people, this in itself can take some time. It may depend on how invested we are in the drama. It may depend on how much we believe the story we’ve been telling ourselves and everyone else who will listen. Or how true we feel that out life is bad. But there must be a willingness to look. A willingness to begin to stop taking it all personally, to stop believing it, and to see what mud is there.

At first, it can be tricky as ego will play both the role of the drama queen and the one who steps back and judges it wrong. “I am spiritual so should not have these feelings.”"Real men don’t cry.”"I am above such things.” Blah blah blah… (raspberry noise)

As we begin to see the drama and resistance there, we can learn how to let it go. That too can be a little difficult at first. It is such a habit, the muck can seem a part of us. In fact, we will soon discover that what we thought was “me” was just a story. Not only that, but the story is terrible – badly written, illogical, and having almost no merit.

Soon we get the hang of it and stop believing it. Then it can be almost entertaining. I believed that?? Doh!

As we clear some of the load and let go of some investment in it, a new level of OK begins to dawn.

We can begin to let it be as it is. To just be OK with it. As we may have so long been on a path of making ourselves wrong and looking for fixes, this too can be a challenge. I’m a mess, believing some shoddy story. I am too this or too that. How can that be OK? But that is the next lesson. Forgiving ourselves.

To really get the lesson of being OK, we have to step into being OK with everything. Absolutely everything. If we are against it, we are resisting.

This can be deeply challenging for some people. We can build our whole identity around what we’re against – war, Nazis, torture, victimization, slavery, poverty… the list is very long and can bury us in regret and a need for control. Some people can ream off their list. Some are oblivious to it, simply taking it as presumed  “fact”.

But there’s a trick to this. It doesn’t mean we give up discrimination or opinions. But we get the deeper spiritual truth that railing against something makes it stronger. Anti-war is war. But pro-peace is peace. They may seem 2 sides of the same coin but they are miles apart. Discovering what we prefer rather than what we are against can be a surprising revelation. We learn to choose what we love rather than dwell on what we hate.

When we stop being against, we are emptied of fear and suffering. We being to truly allow what is, as it is. This brings a startling clarity of perception. What is more deeply true is unmasked. We step through the illusion of pain. And we step into the peace we have so long sought.

The film Fierce Light muses on this subject, the coming together of spirituality and activism, of inner peace and passion. When peace becomes deep, the passion of life itself dawns.

What is most interesting is what falls away and what stays. Things we may have thought part of the “real me” can simply end. And things we had long thought we were bad at or were someone else’s skill begin to blossom on the new ground of freedom.

There is another aspect to being OK with what is – not only is it the key to stepping out of suffering but as I begin to touch on here, it is the key to awakening. Allowing, being OK, willingness is the key to the spiritual journey.

Today I was writing this article and one about how things can arise from many places at once. To illustrate both points, Tom Stine posted Willingness Is the Key to Spiritual Awakening. (laughs)

Silence speaks through all voices.
Davidya

Thinking vs Being

When you explore subjects like self actualization and success, you’ll hear messages like “what you believe you receive” or “pretend it to be it.”

This may be true for the field of action, of thinking and doing. But action is a thin film over deeper reality.

If you try to apply these same principles to being, they will fail. We can’t do anything to awaken. We can’t think our way to non-thinking. We can’t feel our way to peace. We don’t become enlightened through techniques or experiences.

Now, this is not to say that techniques and experiences are not valuable. They can greatly enhance ones journey. But the secret is not in doing but non-doing. In allowing. In surrender.

It is only in allowing that we can become. In becoming, it is made real. Enlightenment is about being, not experiences or ideas.

Missing this point is quite a common mistake in spiritual circles but also in philosophic and intellectual circles. Especially if we have a good mind, we are used to working out our problems and solving or fixing the puzzles that arise.

One of the big signs of this is slogans. Quotes from famous teachers used to discount a point – a classic trick of mind.

“Anyone who says he’s enlightened isn’t”, to abuse a quote of Yogananda. Or “If you can talk about it, that’s not it” from Lao Tzu. Now, these are perfectly valid statements in the right context but when they are used as a debating technique, the meaning has been lost.

Recently, I received a well thought message to some commentary I made on-line. They spoke of the fundamental sense of “I am” you would feel in a place of sensory deprivation. They quoted Kant, Zen, and Hegel. And they stated that there is only Emptiness and the One.

The only problem with this is that it was an intellectual construct. While constructs are useful for relating to the world, if they are contrary to our actual experience of the world, they create an internal division and a resistance to what is. Our mind is battling with our feelings and experiences, making them wrong.

And indeed, this particular author tellingly used the concept of the world as an illusion to discount perception. “Perceptions are not real“, as a concept, helps us build such internal divisions. We avoid how we feel and stay in the mind and senses. Which is ironic given that we think we’ve rejected them. Another good sign of ego playing both sides.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with thinking about what can be and seeking understanding of what it is to be fully human. But we want to culture an acceptance of what is, a relationship with who we really are and what’s actually going on inside. This is the path to happiness and truth, not concepts out of touch with our experience.

The literature is full of such things. Debating which reality is “more true” rather than seeing them as stages of truth and a progression. Many years ago, I took a western philosophy course. I wrote a paper stating that different philosophical positions were different perspectives of one truth. This was not the correct answer. You were supposed to take sides. (laughs)

And now, forget a pink elephant.
Davidya

Present

“Allow conditioning to be present
in the spaciousness of being.
To struggle with it, is a habit of past.

The opportunity is wherever you are.
A constant opportunity to be present,
to be deeply aligned with what is.”
– Neelam

In Tune with the Infinite

Back in the 1970′s, I read an old book called In Tune with the Infinite. I really enjoyed it. I was reminded of it today…

”The great central fact in human life, in your life and mine, is the coming into a conscious, vital realization of our oneness with this infinite life, and the opening of ourselves fully to this divine flow. In just the degree that we come into a conscious realization of our oneness with the infinite life and open ourselves to this divine inflow, do we actualize in ourselves the qualities and powers of the infinite life.”
– Ralph Waldo Trine

Devolution

As we progress down the spiritual path, there is an interesting phenomena that occurs. While being deepens, the person become more shallow. In a way, we could say the person devolves as spirit evolves.

The easiest way to explain this is to use a concept from Transactional Analysis. They speak of 3 aspects of the person – the mature Adult, the controller or Parent, and  the Child.

Some talk about finding their “inner child“. One side of this is the freedom and openness of innocence, but the child I refer to is the fear driven primitive.

Although it may be bastardizing TA, the idea is that we can think of the ego as the controlling Parent and the identity as the fearful Child.

As we awaken, the controller is exposed and falls away, followed by the various “shrapnel” we have around that. Concepts, beliefs, and so on that have kept us trapped in an idea of being an individual. The ego is a concept, built of concepts.

The ego is energized by emotions such as fear, anger, shame and so forth. With nothing to land on, these are seen more clearly and released.

As this clears off, the divine heart begins to open and the deeper identity is felt and seen. Kind of a deeper version of ego. For many it feels like a nest of primitive fears and needs. A deep grip in the gut. Soon, we wake from the identity of other into oneness. The division of “inside ” and “outside” fall away. Then a series of related core beliefs and needs dissolve with time.

Many talk of peeling the layers of an onion. For many, emotional clearing begins well before waking. The work is already well underway. After waking, seeing is much easier but we may be surprised by what holding is still there. We may feel like we reach the core of the onion, only to find another set of layers.

In some ways, we could say the process does not have an end. (scary thought) But as we clear each layer, the load gets lighter and the vision gets broader. Peace and then happiness begin to show up. The experience of the person becomes less and less prominent until it is overshadowed by bliss and love.

At the same time, this needy gripping continues to show it’s face in places you didn’t know you had. But it’s importance is less and less, so the effects become increasingly minor.

It can be a little like progressing backwards through the layers of holding and fear into original innocence. A devolving of the person into innocent surrender.

Then the inner child that remains becomes the Adult of all.
Davidya

What Begins

Photo by Onilad

I thought it would be useful to touch on how it begins. Before there is a person. I’ve covered this before in places like Deepest Being, but it can be useful to explore it with different language.

Essentially, there is silence. The silence has 2 qualities:
- alertness, which becomes what we call consciousness or the observer
- liveliness, which becomes what we call experiences and the world

The liveliness stirs the alertness into awareness. Awareness becomes aware of itself, creating a process of observation. This process creates qualities we may call intelligence – direction, attention, and so forth. And that creates existence or the sense of being. (you’ll note from experience there is no sense of being unless there is also an observing)

In the primary reality, there is no space or time. Just this lively alert intelligence. Everything is experienced concurrently.

All those separate events you experience, indeed all lifetimes are just layers of attention in a timeless moment. Words are of course inadequate. To say layers implies space and time. They are not separate but rather interlaced shifts in liveliness.

In a similar way, all beings in a universe are just slight shifts in attention. And we’re not just talking about people, but all life forms. Like moving your eyes from one word to the next as you read this.

A slight phase shift, and you have another universe of beings with a whole different set of experiences. Yes, a literal other universe.

Everything, everywhere, everyone, all in a moment.

We might think this is how God sees the world, but God also sees all possible ways of seeing concurrently.

For you and I, attention collapses to a point, a focus. Infinity becomes focused on an single wave or event. This attention on a point causes time and space to, as if, unfold from a point. The play of life appears on the screen of awareness.

Another way to see it is that when the observer steps in to see the observed, a  “space” is created. When the attention is focused on events in space, we experience time. Thus awareness can go into the detail and experience it fully. Know and feel what it is.

Some then get “caught” by this experience by forgetting how to disengage. How to step out of the focus. So we journey into the detail, then journey back out into the boundless. This is the evolutionary cycle.

Some physicists suggest there are other dimensions, rolled up very small. While I don’t agree with this, it is true that space and time themselves are both unfolded and rolled up, which may give the impression of alternate dimensions. The rolled up dimensions are not other dimensions but rather the same ones, seen from a different perspective. Or, seen another way, we are experiencing our current space-time, but all other non-current space-time is rolled up.

We can also see that people experience overlapping realities or a shared sense of world because there is only one world. Indeed, there is only one ‘me’.

One can of course explore this from many angles and go into much more detail.

One interesting one is the idea of subtle memory, Smriti. We are essentially remembering by unfolding what is rolled up. Evolution, even life itself is a process of remembering.

It’s very fascinating to see that reality isn’t really there. In any way. The mind doesn’t like this much though. (laughs)
Davidya

PS – Currently, I’m working on an article on the energy system, the structure of our personal reality. Probably a 4 parter. This arose to frame it.

Hokey?

What if  the ‘Hokey Pokey’ really is what it’s all about?

One of those jokes that showed up today. But it illustrates a point being discussed in comments. Reality is what you think it is. As who you are changes, reality shifts along with how it seems to work. As you progress and get used to the process, these shifts become increasingly frequent. When we’re open to being surprised, the surprises get bigger. (laughs)

It also points out that our ideas of reality are just that – ideas. It’s letting go of the ideas that shifts us into reality.

And finally, life is a dance so of course the dance is what it’s all about. 
Davidya