Memory

I’d like to go a little more abstract for a moment. (laughs)

I’ve spoken before about how consciousness is always shifting and adjusting. Tuning our awareness so we respond in the right way at the right time.

But is consciousness really participating that intently in our every moment? Well, yes. But there is a deeper aspect we can look at to understand this.

As we shift progressively more deeply into being now, being in the present, more and more is seen to be only right now. Past and future are only in this one moment. Everything is concurrent. There can then be a sense that everything has already happened.

What this can reveal is that it’s all memory. Consciousness is remembering itself through us, through memory.

Until this memory is made conscious, it cannot be said to exist. Until it is experienced, it is not remembered. When remembered, consciousness has known that aspect of itself. We have completed that dharma or purpose.

This is not like remembering how life was when you were 8 years old. That’s taking place right now too. We’re talking about the memory of consciousness itself. Consciousness awakening to its own depth and breadth.

I hesitate to use the term “akashic records” as it’s another of those abused concepts. But this is it, the structure of unfoldment, the structure of the universe, stored in the gap or space of being. (akasha means space) There is also a deeper value of memory called Veda that structures creations such as the one our universe emerges within.

There’s a few interesting details about this. For example, people will talk of karma, the field of action, being unfathomable. But it’s not as unfathomable if you can see the pattern it’s following. Still very vast but…

This may sound like determinism – that it’s already all happened and is predetermined. But ask whose memory are we talking about? And who laid the memory down? This is not separate from your ourself.

We are moving our attention down a timeline that unfolds with our attention. Our attention to our experiences in this moment. These moments are like modules of memory, files of experience we play in a sequence. Our life is our playlist.

What is interesting about this is the moments in the pauses, the gaps between files. The moment where we step a little off the program and stop and smell the roses. Notice a nice sunset. Get distracted and stub our toe. This noticing, outside memory, adds a richness to life and adds in a little variety to experience. We’re remembering who we are in extra nuances.

In the Yog Vasishta, Vasishta meets Bhusunda the crow. Bhusunda has figured out how to live beyond a dissolution or world cycle when everything completes and ends for a time. In the story, he has now lived through 10 cycles and mentions some of the small variations in each. For example, Vasishta has come to see him 8 of the 10 times.

Thus, even though it is all memory, it is not a journey fixed in stone but rather an organic fluid process.

As to why were doing it over and over again… That’s a little more unfathomable. Perhaps God likes the dream enough to have it again. We’re asked to tell our life story one more time…
Davidya

Bindings Be Gone

The experience of the “bottom falling out” in a person’s life is common enough on the spiritual journey that some people speak of it as a part of the path. I would not say that’s universal, any more than a period of no-self is. I have awake friends who have not lost any of their outward trappings. Perhaps because they were able to detach without having to let go overtly. They could see and release the internal bindings. They became more deeply OK with what is, as it is.

If there are subtle attachments or perhaps an even more subtle ‘sense of self’ derived from ones occupation, relationships, or possessions, that can be the place where some letting go must happen. When a spiritual journey comes to revolve around life changes, it can be a large transition.

This doesn’t mean a person is “less evolved” or something if they have an overt set of endings in their lives. We all have different obligations and journeys. Also, people who are “sensitives” or empaths tend to take on qualities of their environment. These easily lead to identification if such lines are not internally clear. Put another way, someone more “connected” may struggle more with the shift into detachment. There are also compensators, people trying to fill gaps in self with things outside of them. These “fillers” can seem to us like self so are not so easily detached. And then of course the run of the mill insecurity and craving that leads to binding.

Letting go is a good practice but you really know you’re doing well when it’s pretty much automatic. It becomes the natural habit. It is how you are responding to much of life. Then, it doesn’t really matter what happens, what shows up or what falls way: it’s all OK. It may be frustrating or annoying. But it’s OK.

It’s much easier to be happy when it’s OK. Even easier when you go deeply enough into OKness to be happiness itself.
Davidya

Resistance

The following comments are edited from a discussion in another forum:

Resistance is so pervasive in most peoples lives, such a habit, that we don’t realize we’re doing it. We can point to concepts or beliefs we might have that get in the way but much easier to explore resistance via feeling. Feelings are what gives resistance energy.

The trick is thus in what some call mindfulness or restful alertness. Noticing. When circumstances arise in our lives, how do we respond? Do we react? And does that reaction have an underlying resistance to it?  Are there habitual reactive “negative” emotions arising?

This is a solid sign we’re resisting what is. We’re not allowing what is to be as it is.

This is not to say we shouldn’t have opinions or preferences. Those are natural. The issue is with conflict, making wrong. Using our preferences to make exceptions bad.

As we become aware of our reactivity, we can allow the emotions as they arise. This allows them to complete and resolve. The “power source” of our resistance gradually gets unplugged. The drama settles. The air clears.

Note that emotions are NOT the issue. Emotions are fine. Beautiful even. It’s when we use them to push against, to resist, and to fuel ideas and beliefs that are against life that our suffering arises.

Resistance behaves almost like an emotion itself, but it has a physical edge to it. It is even stored physically. Like emotions, resistance should not be demonized either. Some resistance is good, like when we hesitate before doing something foolish. The issue is with resistance to life.

When we can resolve some of that backlog, we can find ourselves slipping into Be Here Now without effort. Being OK with what is, as it is. Meditation is profoundly useful for this as it cultures inner peace and restful alertness. But the stuff that’s still being activated by habit mind, often unnoticed in our day to day lives – that’s what can use a little conscious attention.

Fear
Fear is certainly one way resistance shows up. For some, it might be anger, or blame, or whatever. But fear is at the root of it. Generally this core fear of being separate is deeply subconscious until later in the game, in the leadup to unity.

Some describe this process like peeling an onion. Layers and layers, seemingly endless. But a lot of people also note that there is often a bunch of clearing just before an opening. It’s a good sign when the process becomes conscious.

Fear and other potent emotions are powerful manifesting energy. Another great reason they’re good to let go of. But again, the idea is not to get rid of emotions. That’s just resistance again. The idea is to allow them to be there. Curiously, this brings them peace and in many case resolves them. You’ve allowed them, acknowledged them. Everyone just wanna be luved.

You are a human living in the world. You will not have an absence of fear. But you will  cease being driven by, limited by or attached by fear. Fear will simply arise on appropriate occasions. If you are able to just see the fear without being afraid of it, without resisting it, you can step through and out of it in just a few moments. It will be more like a breeze or passing traffic. You might notice it due to its uncommonness, but it will simply move on by.

This is the same as with physical pain. Once you acknowledge having received the pain signal, the body will ease right up on it, perhaps shift to an ache.

Desire is also not the barrier – it’s the attachment to a desire that can be a barrier. Attachment to concepts. Attachment to feelings. Attachment to desires. Funnily enough, the last barrier to awakening is often our concepts of awakening. Once we let it go, there we are 
Davidya

Mind and Consciousness

There’s a notable detail about mind that’s useful to understand. I’ve touched on this before but it’s worth going into in a little more detail.

You may need to read this slowly to get it. I’ll try to be as precise as possible.

Mind is the inside surface of consciousness. All experiences arise in mind.

In the beginning
Silence, what we can call fundamental reality, has 2 qualities: liveliness and alertness.
The liveliness of silence stirs the alertness and silence becomes aware.
Awareness stirs and moves within itself.
Awareness curves back on itself and sees itself, becomes self-aware.
Awareness recognizes itself and becomes even more alert and alive.
Seeing that greater alert aliveness causes more stirring and more experience, it stirs the liveliness within itself to experience itself more.
This is the churning. This is Genesis. This is Rig Veda first mandala.
This happens both in the beginning and now, at every point.

We experience this alert aliveness most fundamentally as life, insight, and love. These are the means Self uses to experience itself more deeply.

Remember that awareness has curved back on itself. It has as if created the principle of space. This is enlivened by the process of experience and by the movement across the surface. The surface we experience as mind.

Mind is the event horizon we could say. Beyond mind, it is simply transcendent being. No experiences.

Duality
When we come from a place of Self and other, we see a separate subject and object. The process of experience then reinforces this separation. I see you. We see 2 forms of experience. The experience of the experiencer, the Self. And the experience of apparent objects. Thus, the alive flowing surface of space is experienced 2 ways, subjectively and objectively.

Subjectively we experience mind. The lively alertness. Thoughts, feelings, and the movement of attention “within”.

Objectively, we experience the world of forms and phenomena. The movie screen of experiences. Subtle vibration structuring form, field, and matter.

Same process, 2 sides of the equation, 2 sides of the space of awareness. 2 different viewpoints. One aware being.

If this is too abstract, the important detail is that consciousness is the container of all experiences. Both the objective world and our inner experiences occur within awareness. Yeah  – it’s all in your head but your head is a little bigger than you thought. (laughs)

Non-duality
When we see that the consciousness that contains us and the consciousness that contains the world is the same thing, we see the oneness of being. The mechanics of all experiences become apparent. We can say all experiences arise in the mind. Mind is the inside surface of consciousness, be it in the expression of form or of feelings. All arises in the ripples of being.

Growth
When we make a step up in consciousness, our awareness expands and quite literally our world gets bigger. Our mind expands with consciousness and thus the field of experience expands with it. We move into a bigger house. We broaden how big we see the world.

However, because the mind tends to identify with it’s existing experience, it may grow out with the first wave of expanding awareness, then shrink back to a previous “size”.

If the identification is too strongly held, mind will not let go. It can draw the opening in consciousness back down. Pull itself back in. Recontract.

Or there may be a big opening and grand experience, but the container shrinks back down again to what we can support. Great experiences but the expansion doesn’t stick.

But not a problem. Consciousness and mind are very pliable. And memory is embedded in the process. Once it has opened, it will return again more easily.

At some point, we will be ready to integrate the expansion and it will “stick”. As we settle in to this new expansion, we can let the prior identification go and then the experience range expands into the space. Then, by direct experience we can verify the expansion has stuck more easily.

Self
The I-sense or sense of Self shifts as we reidentify mind with the higher value. The small box we called me grows out to meet the expanded space. Or else the identification as “mine” ends for a time. Until there is reidentification, there may be a period of no-self or no sense of I.

When the old sense of self ends, we may get a sense of a larger value of mind. As it grows, perhaps we’ll say Group mind or Universal mind or Cosmic mind or the mind of God.

For people on a more heart-centric journey, the same could be said of the feeling values. When consciousness expands, the heart grows with it but may pull back and so forth. Same process, different subjective focus. Universal heart, Cosmic heart, Heart of God.

It’s notable to mention that experiences reflect a value of consciousness expansion but are an effect of it and may be out of sync. True depth of awareness is not in the size of the experience container but in the depth to which you have identified with the container itself. That is, with the depths of the awareness that contains everything.

As long as you identify with the obvious experiences of the mind, you will be at the mercy of it’s very changeable nature. When you identify with the container, you will find that it grows and shifts, but this is only the space within it. It’s essential nature remains unchanged.

This also clarifies why the experience of it is not it. We may have experiences of expansion before we become it. We experience liberation but have not yet quite been liberated. Liberation happens when we become it. When we are liberation itself.

Experiences are the play of the surface. Being is the source of all. The aware quality of being is the flag we follow home.
Davidya

PS – Be happy to explore any points here that are not clear. Please ask.

Senior Moments

There’s a curious flaw in the ego story we develop to try and control life. We avoid writing an ending as that would mean an end of control. When the inevitable end begins to approach, the story begins to fall apart.

For example, if the memory starts to go, that can really make keeping track of grievances a challenge. Some just let them go. Some might shift to what’s wrong right now.

I’ve observed that elders tend to become either mellow or grumpy with age. Are they adding up moments of happiness or making a list of disappointments? Do we see the legacy of family and those we’ve supported or an absorption in empty accomplishments? It can certainly be a time of reckoning.

In our culture, we have forgotten the role of elders. This has left many without a role, often coming apart alone or surrounded by others in the same boat. When you cease to be self-sufficient, your purpose seems to end. Yet we are simultaneously massively extending lifespan.

There is a deeper aspect of this to explore. As the end of life approaches, the pieces that hold the personality together can begin to come apart. We can begin to forget our stories or the threads break or the energy isn’t there to keep it all going.

If death has been an unconsidered gap or is seen as a void, it’s approach can bring deep fear. Add in our wish to avoid the unavoidable pains of a deteriorating body. And then the disintegration of who we’ve seen ourselves to be and you have recipe for profound fear.

Ironically, many people spend lifetimes seeking ways to disintegrate the ego. Yet seniors residences are full of people surrendering to dissolution. Some willingly. Some much less so.

Those who are able to surrender to the process of closing this chapter have a magnificent passing. People will report how all of their grievances ended. They simply radiated with love or happiness. They may report profound experiences and visions of the “other side.” I explored some of these steps back on On Death.

Funnily enough, even those who fight and struggle to the bitter end meet the same fate. No matter how we get there, we all come home. The trick is, if we fight it, were obliqued to come back and do it again until we get the process right.

That’s the kind of school we’re in. Life is about getting it. Or in a deeper way, letting go of it. Until we get 100%, we get a new lesson to get another angle. This is not because God is a hard task master. It’s because the highest qualities of being are of such a high quality, it requires a fine polish for us to stand in that light.

It’s all about getting ready.
Davidya

Chakra Symbolism

At a writers group last night, we used chakra imagery and themes for writing exercises. I responded with this article to review the symbolism in the imagery used. Edited for the scenario.

I thought it would be useful to share a few things about the symbolism of chakras. There are a few features of chakra images you may run into that will make more sense with a bit of background.

Essentially, underlying our physiology – the circulatory, nervous and lymph systems – is a maze of energy channels or nadis. Prominent ones are described as meridians in Asian and Mayan cultures. At nodes of the channels are energy points, what they use in acupuncture and such. What feeds this system are 7 primary energy centers or chakras, each with different qualities to sustain the different resolutions of our being. (physical, emotional, mental, etc.)

Some people will describe more than 7. This is because they are including secondary centers such as the feet. But the primary ones run in a row up the spine to the crown of the head. All the other ones arise from these. There are also ones that may be counted above the head but these are the same 7, unfolded at higher resolutions. (that’s a whole other discussion)

You will often see the 7 chakras portrayed as having a specific colour, running in a rainbow from deep red at the root to deep purple at the crown. These colours are symbolic, used in visualization. The actual energy centers or chakras are spinning vortexes of energy (Chakra means wheel) in a rainbow of colours that varies by person and chakra. Just like auras.

Another way to connect with chakras is using sounds or “mantras”. Some images have a stylized Sanskrit letter for the vowel of that chakra. Some people “tone” to help enliven or balance the chakras.

Images may also contain geometric symbols or layered geometry in what are called “yantras”, a kind of simple mandala. They are symbolic representations of the underling geometry that can be contemplated. When objects are formed, vibration is structured in subtle geometry. This gives direction to the flow of energy and orders the fields that structure matter. This is what Buckminster Fuller referred to as All-Space filling Geometry. The “Platonic solids.”

Many images are edged with flower petals. Each chakra is said to have a certain number of petals, starting from 4 at the root to 1,000 on the crown. To understand this symbolism, we have to explore other aspects of chakra expression.

In front of (or above) the energy vortex is what some might describe as a flower-like form. This opens into the petals symbolized in many chakra images. When opened, the chakra is ready to flow energy and express it in the world.

When people talk of closed or blocked chakras, they may be referring to the floral aspect or be referring to the flow of energy. The chakras themselves are always active and never hindered by anything individual. But they often become encrusted so their light is masked and the channels become restricted by our resistance. Uncovered, chakras are capable of expressing both their primary energy and a much higher energy of the divine.

Behind the vortex is a disc that serves as a ‘root’ structure. This connects to all the pathways up the back.

One may also read descriptions of chakras as spaces, particularly the heart. This is because the vortexes are also doorways into the larger “space” of awareness that energy expresses. The heart center has a more direct connection to the divine than the crown but the crown has to open and the divine descend for that to fully express.

There are a number of secondary descriptions you might run into describing things around the chakras, different angle views and so forth.

It’s useful to avoid too literal an imagery around chakras. Remember they are quite subtle, arising before everything except your soul. This is why symbolism is so often use to connect with them. But taking it too literally gets in the way of direct experience.

It’s also worth noting that chakra experiences are secondary things that will arise naturally. There’s no reason to focus on them or focus on opening them directly. They will open as a natural consequence of expanding awareness.

Hope this takes away a little of the mystery.
Davidya

The Evolution of the I

What is this sense of self, I-ness? How does it evolve?

For most people, their sense of I is this body-mind. I am this person with this name who has these thoughts and feelings and does these things, and so forth. This develops out of childhood, but I won’t explore that here.

Within that I-sense is the ego sense of being a separate, unique person.

Some equate this as THE I-sense or ego that is thence cast off. Thus it may be seen as the bad guy, the thing to get rid of. End the ego!

But that sense of I-ness or person is not an issue. It is a natural part of becoming a complete person. It is what allows us to function in the world like every other sentient being. If I may observe, even the most revered saints and sages have personalities. Some rather distinct ones. (laughs)

The issue with humans is when we become identified with our separateness, it is to the detriment of our wholeness or oneness. So it’s not having a person or sense of I-ness that’s the problem – it’s identifying with that as “me”. If we see this me as a phase, we’ll be less likely to get so stuck.

What is always remains the same. What we’re discussing here is how the I shifts, what it associates with. As our perspective or viewpoint shifts, our I soon follows. We see ourselves to be.

With a spiritual practice that connects us with inner awareness, the witness experience arises. There, we experience ourselves as separate from the body-mind. The body continues to act without our involvement.

When the identification with the separate self falls away, there can be an experience of no-self. No I-ness. The sense of me winds down, leaving us with just silence witness. Some describe this dramatically as ego-death.

Then, at some point, we recognize the silent witness as ourselves. The sense of I becomes less bounded.

Then, there is a shift from being a person experiencing Self to Self experiencing a person. As that settles in, the sense of I becomes the inner wholeness, the big Self.

That sense of Self often expands and deepens over time, shifting the I further.

There can then be another no-self stage if the identity ends separately from what follows. The sense of being this person with a name ends with the core identity.

Then the I becomes progressively associated with everything in unity, similar to prior shifts.

As we evolve, there is a deeper embodiment and more and more becomes associated with the I. We become the cosmic person, the divine, eternal.

All this is Brahman. I am That  (Ooops)
Davidya

OOOPs

From Vasistha’s Yoga (translated by Swami Venkatesananda)

IV:39  Valmiki is speaking:
“..if he is not enabled fully to understand the truth, his mind will not find rest. As long as the mind is swayed by thoughts of pleasure and happiness, so long it is unable to comprehend the truth. If the mind is pure, then it instantly comprehends the truth. Hence, it is declared that he who declares ‘All this is Brahman’ to one who is ignorant or half-awakened, goes to hell. Hence, a wise teacher should encourage his students first to be established in self-control and tranquility. Then the student should be properly examined before the knowledge of the truth is imparted to him.”

I suspect this is more directed at people who preach one truth and no process, but it’s a worthwhile point. It can also be noted that it was spoken in a different age, before Vyasa had to gather the primary vocal traditions and write them down lest they be lost in the dark cycle of time. It’s not like we have an enlightened sage easily available in every area. Yet.
Davidya

Why Intention Doesn’t Have to be Big

If you understand that intelligence is prestructured into everything we experience, there is an interesting aspect that is revealed.

If we can attune our lives to our purpose, our intentions don’t actually have to be very inclusive. In effect, what needs to happen is prestructured. All we have to do is start it. Intend it. Engage it. Then it will unfold quickly and easily.

This may sound like an argument for determinism but it’s actually not. Curiously this prestructuring is what we might call memory. Cosmic memory. We are that which is remembering by attuning our lives to the flow… of ourselves. We are remembering what we’ve chosen.

If on the other hand we decide we want something else, we will find ourselves failing and suffering as we’re trying to build something from scratch, without the inherent intelligence to back it up. Much more work. And also against the grain.

Now, if the desire comes through clearly, there’s a good chance the intelligence is already there. But sometimes, the time is not right. So it fails to launch. We simply have to be patient and see if we can find what is ready to go. Where our attention is best served right now.

Fighting what is will never be the best solution. Engaging the flow is far more fun and fulfilling. We get what our lives are for and we get what life has to offer. And we choose to choose what we have chosen. 

Yoswer!
Davidya

The Miracle of a Mother

My favorite singer these days is Denise Hagan. I spoke about the impact she had the first time I heard her on Rise Up in Song. Later I got to enjoy a whole evening of her singing and storytelling and told of her service with Autistic kids.

When she sang at the World Kindness concert, I finally got a chance to post video, in this case Perfect Replications.  In comments there is a link to an Asian clip of Amazing Space.

On May 8th, she’ll do a special Mothers Day weekend concert to raise money to bring her mother here on holidays. The Miracle of a Mother, An Evening of Celebration. Here’s an interview about the event:

If you’re in the Vancouver area, it’s well worth your presence.

Tickets are available on DivineYou