Ive decided to order a couple of books on all this to bring me a bit more up to date in my investigations. I've narrowed it down to 5 and my 3 favourites at the moment are Dean Radin's "The Conscious Universe", which seems to follow on from Randall's "Parapsychology and the Nature of Life" which was really insightful. Secondly maybe Paul Davies "The Mind of God" and thirdly, mainly because it sounds so entertaining and he sounds so charismatic and fascinating, Richard Feynman's "Surely You're Joking!".
As most of my knowledge is based on a combination of intuition and very old books I've picked up serendipitously in second hand bookshops it seems a good idea to brush up on current developments. Also I would like a bit of basic knowledge of popular science, at the moment I am re ally ignorant.
When I was looking through the book lists today on Amazon, I noticed how often sort of "quackery" type books come up alongside anything connecting science and philosophy. Its really irritating. I don't mean to dismiss other people's beliefs but I'm sorry, I think most of us are not spontaneously all knowing and we do need to work things out, through intellectual study and/or exercises like yoga and meditation, and it just seems sort of lazy and stupid to accept some ready made explanation of everything, whether its scientific, religious, or cult-ish.
After yesterday I kept finding myself up against this confusion about the self and the separation of the self from the body. I don't think it is separate. its more that the body is like an expression on the face of the true self. Oh dear! Whenever I try to think about this I get more far out and more bewildered. What I think I mean is that the body is a collection of atoms which, with my rudimentary and probably erroneous scientific knowledge, I think means it is fundamentally a pattern of waves and particles, immaterial at a microsscopic level and not grounded in space-time or any concrete Newtonian sort of reality. So, why shouldn't the true self, call it the "Overself", be one with the body. I think it is one, body, emotions, intellect etc are all one, but everything that can be named is like a sort of movie being projected onto a bare blank wall, and that blank wall is the unnameable and is the underlying truth of being.
Anyway, that's what I was thinking when I started writing this, but already it seems obvious that this is a particular and limited view.
God, no wonder scientists struggel with this even with all their expert knowledge and intellectual prowess! No wnder most people ignoer it altogether or if they do try to engae eit hthese question sin their lives do so from teh standpoint of faith - I believe what i beleive because i do!
Sunday, 15 July 2007
Saturday, 14 July 2007
dreaming
So one thing that has been bothering me is this.
The self is NOT:-
The body
The emotions
The intellect
The thoughts
Sensations
Memories
Desires
None of it.
And the idea that the self is a separate entity encased in skin is illusory.
That’s only how it seems, because our perception of the reality “outside” ourselves is based on the senses, and our perception of the reality “inside our heads” is based on emotion and the intellect and thoughts. None of these are real and objective. All are subjective. And behind/under all of these is pure consciousness, which cannot be expained or described or even comprehended but only known! Like God, I know, awful, I hate sounding religious, and I loathe churches and dogma. But thats how it seems to be. And pure consciousness is an empty space, a blank screen with no projection, a silence waiting to be filled, a void.
But as none of this is actually the self, then the self is neither “outside” as perceived by the senses nor “inside” as perceived by the brain – thoughts, emotions, and the intellect.
So, according to all the seers and mystics and great thinkers and religious leaders, the self is actually – nothing.
I can actually accept that although I can’t pretend to grasp it conceptually, it’s sort of beyond intellectual understanding, at least for my limited intellect.
So the self is nothing.
But what is “outside” the self?
Is that also nothing? Are the material world and all its creatures “maya” and illusion? Are other people real? Is History real? Is war and famine real?
Is it all like some dream of a great living entity that seeks to bring into being every conceivable experience from hellish suffering to heavenly ecstasy, with every shade in between?
Sometimes I’ve sort of grasped it to some extent but then, when I really feel the dissolving of the boundaries between self and outside the self, I get really bogged down in this point: surely other people are real, its not just me, like that saying about a man who wakes up after dreaming he was a butterfly who dreamt he was a man.
Is it that the individual "I" is an illusion? Or is the idea of everyone/everything else an illusion? Is there only "the ONE"? Or, are we all individuals ( as Monty Python said), each of us a "nothing self", wildly projecting our emotions, sensations and thoughts, blindly groping for meaning, comfort, sensation?
Is there just the sort of timeless all seeing nothing of pure consciousness, beyond my own senses and mind experiences? Solipsism claims that the table is only there when an observer is observing it. Leave the table alone and unobserved in the room and it ceases to exist.
But doesn’t this sort of train of thought seem insanely egocentric and dangerous too?
There have been times when I thought, maybe all this horrible stuff about the Jews and the Nazis for example, with its ties to my personal past, was just a horrible nightmare fantasy of mine, or rather, of a being who is experimenting with every conceivable possibility and not excluding anything, no matter how extreme.
Dreaming.
This all sounds bonkers but anyway.
The self is NOT:-
The body
The emotions
The intellect
The thoughts
Sensations
Memories
Desires
None of it.
And the idea that the self is a separate entity encased in skin is illusory.
That’s only how it seems, because our perception of the reality “outside” ourselves is based on the senses, and our perception of the reality “inside our heads” is based on emotion and the intellect and thoughts. None of these are real and objective. All are subjective. And behind/under all of these is pure consciousness, which cannot be expained or described or even comprehended but only known! Like God, I know, awful, I hate sounding religious, and I loathe churches and dogma. But thats how it seems to be. And pure consciousness is an empty space, a blank screen with no projection, a silence waiting to be filled, a void.
But as none of this is actually the self, then the self is neither “outside” as perceived by the senses nor “inside” as perceived by the brain – thoughts, emotions, and the intellect.
So, according to all the seers and mystics and great thinkers and religious leaders, the self is actually – nothing.
I can actually accept that although I can’t pretend to grasp it conceptually, it’s sort of beyond intellectual understanding, at least for my limited intellect.
So the self is nothing.
But what is “outside” the self?
Is that also nothing? Are the material world and all its creatures “maya” and illusion? Are other people real? Is History real? Is war and famine real?
Is it all like some dream of a great living entity that seeks to bring into being every conceivable experience from hellish suffering to heavenly ecstasy, with every shade in between?
Sometimes I’ve sort of grasped it to some extent but then, when I really feel the dissolving of the boundaries between self and outside the self, I get really bogged down in this point: surely other people are real, its not just me, like that saying about a man who wakes up after dreaming he was a butterfly who dreamt he was a man.
Is it that the individual "I" is an illusion? Or is the idea of everyone/everything else an illusion? Is there only "the ONE"? Or, are we all individuals ( as Monty Python said), each of us a "nothing self", wildly projecting our emotions, sensations and thoughts, blindly groping for meaning, comfort, sensation?
Is there just the sort of timeless all seeing nothing of pure consciousness, beyond my own senses and mind experiences? Solipsism claims that the table is only there when an observer is observing it. Leave the table alone and unobserved in the room and it ceases to exist.
But doesn’t this sort of train of thought seem insanely egocentric and dangerous too?
There have been times when I thought, maybe all this horrible stuff about the Jews and the Nazis for example, with its ties to my personal past, was just a horrible nightmare fantasy of mine, or rather, of a being who is experimenting with every conceivable possibility and not excluding anything, no matter how extreme.
Dreaming.
This all sounds bonkers but anyway.
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
meditate on that
I've been doing meditation, or rather trying to do it, for a couple of weeks now, 20 minutes once a day. Hard enough to pin myself down to those few minutes, and then when I do it I spend the whole time trying to stop myself thinking, noticing sounds (a bird singing, footsteps), sensations ( an itch, my foot going to sleep), sights (even with my eyes closed - points of light or colours). Incredible how many thoughts can pass through the mind in a fraction of a second.
Nevertheless, in between all these distractions I've had some glimpses of a still centre within and of something beyond and apart from all the noise and mayhem. The best moments are when I can relax into it and sort of listen to the stillness, like using my whole person as an ear! And not straining to be still, just letting it happen. Its a bit like singing or dancing. If you're trying its no good. You have to learn some basic technique, and practise, but what makes it graceful and soaring is when it becomes an effortless and unselfconscious act. And its like allowing yourself to be empty and being filled by the song, or the dance or whatever.
My powers of concentration are poor. I've been trying to do that technique where you focus on the breathing and count every exhalation from 1 to 10. I've never got beyond 4 without thoughts interfering and having to start from number 1 again. Usually I get to 1 or 2 if I'm lucky. Still it seems to be having a really noticeable effect on me already.
I feel very energised, almost speedy, and light, less hungry than usual and a bit fierce actually, argumentative, intense.
It mightn't all be the meditation, but some of it at least can be traced to that. My state of mind, being so focussed on sort of pushing through the veils, reminds me of previous times when I was smoking a lot of dope ( I havent smoked now for 20 years), doing acid, (ditto) and oddly, being in love. That sort of intense yearning for soemthing .
I'll come back to this.
Nevertheless, in between all these distractions I've had some glimpses of a still centre within and of something beyond and apart from all the noise and mayhem. The best moments are when I can relax into it and sort of listen to the stillness, like using my whole person as an ear! And not straining to be still, just letting it happen. Its a bit like singing or dancing. If you're trying its no good. You have to learn some basic technique, and practise, but what makes it graceful and soaring is when it becomes an effortless and unselfconscious act. And its like allowing yourself to be empty and being filled by the song, or the dance or whatever.
My powers of concentration are poor. I've been trying to do that technique where you focus on the breathing and count every exhalation from 1 to 10. I've never got beyond 4 without thoughts interfering and having to start from number 1 again. Usually I get to 1 or 2 if I'm lucky. Still it seems to be having a really noticeable effect on me already.
I feel very energised, almost speedy, and light, less hungry than usual and a bit fierce actually, argumentative, intense.
It mightn't all be the meditation, but some of it at least can be traced to that. My state of mind, being so focussed on sort of pushing through the veils, reminds me of previous times when I was smoking a lot of dope ( I havent smoked now for 20 years), doing acid, (ditto) and oddly, being in love. That sort of intense yearning for soemthing .
I'll come back to this.
ways of seeing
So far I've found a number of different ways of getting in touch with whatever it is that lies behind everyday experience. Firstly, intellectual investigation - reading, philosophy, scientific study of nature, life, the universe, including study of the paranormal, but these days if you look hard enough at anything in physics or biology it seems to lead to the same dawning recognition. And at certain moments that recognition goes beyond the cerebral and touches something intuitive and greater than the self.
Secondly, physical/mental excercises such as yoga and meditation, to still the mind and body and concentrate the breathing, which allow the hidden something underneath to make itself felt.
Thirdly, drugs - hallucinogenics, especially organic ones like psilocybin mushrooms, which could almost have been put on earth with the express purpose of aiding and guiding seekers after "truth".
What about creative action - dancing, singing, playing music, painting and so on. Maybe losing oneself totally in the act of creation becomes a sort of devotional act and brings you "out of yourself". (I dont think of it as self realisation because it seems beyond the individual self ).
Then there's sex - orgasm is known as the "little death" and people talk of the loss of self and the unity with the partner, the breaking down of ego boundaries, at the moment of orgasm.
Death is probably another way! Bit extreme for me at this stage though.
Secondly, physical/mental excercises such as yoga and meditation, to still the mind and body and concentrate the breathing, which allow the hidden something underneath to make itself felt.
Thirdly, drugs - hallucinogenics, especially organic ones like psilocybin mushrooms, which could almost have been put on earth with the express purpose of aiding and guiding seekers after "truth".
What about creative action - dancing, singing, playing music, painting and so on. Maybe losing oneself totally in the act of creation becomes a sort of devotional act and brings you "out of yourself". (I dont think of it as self realisation because it seems beyond the individual self ).
Then there's sex - orgasm is known as the "little death" and people talk of the loss of self and the unity with the partner, the breaking down of ego boundaries, at the moment of orgasm.
Death is probably another way! Bit extreme for me at this stage though.
Sunday, 8 July 2007
ESP and all that
Last night I was reading a book from the 1970's about the study of Parapsychology, probably pretty outdated by now, but nevertheless it really suprised me when it described these experiments into telepathy, clairvoyance and telekinesis that took place between the 1930s and the end of the '70s. I had no idea such incontrovertible evidence existed, even then, of the widespread occurence of these phenomena. When the research began, there was this enormous opposition from the scientific community towards even conducting these experiments. The researchers were slandered and persecuted, some to the point of suicide, all in an attempt to discredit their evidence.
Why? Well, fear of the new and fear of change and anything that could rock the status quo. Basically the old orthodoxy, which was religion and the church and fought fiercely against the new science, for example Darwin's Theory of Evolution, has been replaced by the new orthodoxy of science, and the same old "head in the sand" attitudes have grown up around science, working actively against its claimed objectitiy and detachment.
Where once (and again, actually, if you look at the growth of religious fundamentalism in the US, for example), science was hounded for daring to suggest that there might be other explanations for the nature of the universe, now it is science which refuses even to look into paranormal phenomena and a sort of conspiracy of silence seems to have built up around the whole issue. Its a kind of taboo to mention it in polite society, people think you're bonkers and look at you strangely. Why! When this is all longstanding proven fact?
I just can't understand how those who claim to be rigorously objective and realistic in their appraisal of the universe can justify such claims whilst ignoring truths that actively contradict their world-view.
For example, some of the experiments carried out in the UK found out that not only could subjects transmit mental messages across spaces as large as 250 miles with no loss of (and sometimes even an improvement in) accuracy, but that just as frequently as messages were accurately received after being transmitted, they were received before they had even been selected!
This obvioulsy means that both time and space can be transcended by the mind, and offers clear evidence that our perception of reality, as firmly grounded in physical space and linear time, is not reality, or at least not the whole story.
Am I mad or isnt that incredible? Why hasn't such knowledge shaken the foundations of our beliefs to their core? Is it that its too much for us to contemplate so we just shut it out? Is it a conspiracy by those in power to keep us ignorant?
And now physics is now showing up masses of the same evidence, time and space being sort of invented or perceived realities not objective facts.
Excuse my lack of real knowledge about any of this. It s the ideas that fascinate me, but I dont have any grounding in science. Am going to try and find some easy layman's texts to get a bit more knowledgable.
Why? Well, fear of the new and fear of change and anything that could rock the status quo. Basically the old orthodoxy, which was religion and the church and fought fiercely against the new science, for example Darwin's Theory of Evolution, has been replaced by the new orthodoxy of science, and the same old "head in the sand" attitudes have grown up around science, working actively against its claimed objectitiy and detachment.
Where once (and again, actually, if you look at the growth of religious fundamentalism in the US, for example), science was hounded for daring to suggest that there might be other explanations for the nature of the universe, now it is science which refuses even to look into paranormal phenomena and a sort of conspiracy of silence seems to have built up around the whole issue. Its a kind of taboo to mention it in polite society, people think you're bonkers and look at you strangely. Why! When this is all longstanding proven fact?
I just can't understand how those who claim to be rigorously objective and realistic in their appraisal of the universe can justify such claims whilst ignoring truths that actively contradict their world-view.
For example, some of the experiments carried out in the UK found out that not only could subjects transmit mental messages across spaces as large as 250 miles with no loss of (and sometimes even an improvement in) accuracy, but that just as frequently as messages were accurately received after being transmitted, they were received before they had even been selected!
This obvioulsy means that both time and space can be transcended by the mind, and offers clear evidence that our perception of reality, as firmly grounded in physical space and linear time, is not reality, or at least not the whole story.
Am I mad or isnt that incredible? Why hasn't such knowledge shaken the foundations of our beliefs to their core? Is it that its too much for us to contemplate so we just shut it out? Is it a conspiracy by those in power to keep us ignorant?
And now physics is now showing up masses of the same evidence, time and space being sort of invented or perceived realities not objective facts.
Excuse my lack of real knowledge about any of this. It s the ideas that fascinate me, but I dont have any grounding in science. Am going to try and find some easy layman's texts to get a bit more knowledgable.
Saturday, 7 July 2007
late addition
A busy and eventful day, followed by a moody sort of an evening, so nothing to add of any note except to say how stupid of me not to mention Micheal Moorcock as another favourite author, more on that later, and also that of course Ed McBain and Dirk Bogarde can't be classed as the sort of writers who are questioning the nature of reality, so I guess I just like them because I do. Ed McBain is warm and humane. good humoured and funny, entertaining and easy to read! And dead actually since last year. And Dirk Bogarde, also dead of course, is interesting and deep and complex and writes beautifully and I love his Visconti films, and Liliana Cavani's "the Night Porter".
Friday, 6 July 2007
as i was saying
.........and the reason I love those authors, and the recently sadly departed for another world Kurt Vonnegut too of course (how could I have forgotten Him!) is, apart from the fact that they write beautifully, that they are all looking for hidden meanings and questioning/probing reality. Well actually Dickens not so much, he's more into social justice and human frailty and compassion than questioning the nature of reality. On the other hand I suppose you could say that his books offer a kind of mirror reflecting the beauty and the ugliness of the human race and if you are into karma, for example, then its all relevant.
Talking of Karma, I'm sorry but it just does seem, as a friend who is a firm believer recently said it must do "to people down here..."a terribly callous philosophy. To say that people get what they deserve in the next life is pretty much what the Catholic church says. I can't see as to how its particularily revolutionary or way out. But it implies that the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the ugly, are that way because of their past wickedness. That of course is the justification that the Hindus have used for thousands of years for continuing to oppress the Harajans - Untouchables - they are the lowest caste and live in abject poverty despised by every other caste, and its their own fault! They should have behaved better in their previous incarnation.
And it lets dictators and monsters like Idi Amin, Hitler, Pinochet - just a to pull a few names out of a hat - completely off the hook.
Also it suggests that taking action to improve the lot of the suffering peoples of the earth is pointless and possibly counterproducitve, as it could work against the "higher power's" grand plan to place them in that situation in the first place.
Another beloved writer is Iris Murdoch (no relation to Rupert). Not reality challenging in the way of Phillip K. Dick or Vonnegut, but actually in amidst the complex characters and relationships of her books I often find myself washed over by a wave of the mystical.
It was in one of her books recently, Bruno's Dream, about an old man about to die coming to terms with his life and his death, and the people around him, that I was struck by the realisation that the most terrible thing of all must be to die knowing you missed the point of life, especailly if you did so deliberately and stubbornly. I don't know exactly what I mean by "the point" but to know that you have wasted something precious and something attainable! That must be terrible. And since reading that in Bruno's Dream I've noticed the same issue keeps cropping up all over the place, in factual and fictional works.
Which is part of the reason why I've stated writing this and why I seem to be so preoccupied, at present, with the metaphysical!
I believe in serendipity again, after a bit of a hiaitus feeling it was silly, and naive and over optimistic and also sort of bigheaded, to think that anything was looking out for me, offering a helping hand if only I would look and listen out for it. But actually I don't think it is naive. I think its perfectly reasonable to imagine that I myself am greater than my conscious self (which, lets face it, isn't particularily great) and that this greater part of me wants to communicate with the other part, and pass on some of its insight and understanding. As, for example, can happen in dreams. And maybe its not only my own greater self but the collective greater consciousness that wants to get in touch.
Talking of Karma, I'm sorry but it just does seem, as a friend who is a firm believer recently said it must do "to people down here..."a terribly callous philosophy. To say that people get what they deserve in the next life is pretty much what the Catholic church says. I can't see as to how its particularily revolutionary or way out. But it implies that the poor, the sick, the oppressed, the ugly, are that way because of their past wickedness. That of course is the justification that the Hindus have used for thousands of years for continuing to oppress the Harajans - Untouchables - they are the lowest caste and live in abject poverty despised by every other caste, and its their own fault! They should have behaved better in their previous incarnation.
And it lets dictators and monsters like Idi Amin, Hitler, Pinochet - just a to pull a few names out of a hat - completely off the hook.
Also it suggests that taking action to improve the lot of the suffering peoples of the earth is pointless and possibly counterproducitve, as it could work against the "higher power's" grand plan to place them in that situation in the first place.
Another beloved writer is Iris Murdoch (no relation to Rupert). Not reality challenging in the way of Phillip K. Dick or Vonnegut, but actually in amidst the complex characters and relationships of her books I often find myself washed over by a wave of the mystical.
It was in one of her books recently, Bruno's Dream, about an old man about to die coming to terms with his life and his death, and the people around him, that I was struck by the realisation that the most terrible thing of all must be to die knowing you missed the point of life, especailly if you did so deliberately and stubbornly. I don't know exactly what I mean by "the point" but to know that you have wasted something precious and something attainable! That must be terrible. And since reading that in Bruno's Dream I've noticed the same issue keeps cropping up all over the place, in factual and fictional works.
Which is part of the reason why I've stated writing this and why I seem to be so preoccupied, at present, with the metaphysical!
I believe in serendipity again, after a bit of a hiaitus feeling it was silly, and naive and over optimistic and also sort of bigheaded, to think that anything was looking out for me, offering a helping hand if only I would look and listen out for it. But actually I don't think it is naive. I think its perfectly reasonable to imagine that I myself am greater than my conscious self (which, lets face it, isn't particularily great) and that this greater part of me wants to communicate with the other part, and pass on some of its insight and understanding. As, for example, can happen in dreams. And maybe its not only my own greater self but the collective greater consciousness that wants to get in touch.
Thursday, 5 July 2007
Why are people that are into spirituality almost always skinny and not into food? or drink, and a lot of the time they seem vaguely disapproving about sex and singing and dancing and joking and general revelry and sensuality.
Buddha was fat
I can't think of many "aesthetes" into the bacchanalian thing, although I suppose Aleister Crowley, and William Blake said "rather a baby strangled in its cot then a desire left unfulfilled". And Bhagwan Rajneesh who these days seeems to be called Osho and is in any case I believe dead, he was into everything that was pleasurable, apparently.
But its incredibly annoying actually that people can't be curious and fascinated and awed by the mystery and wonder of it all without being sanctimonious and prissy about it at the same time.
Of course that doesn't apply to everyone really, but in my own circle it seems to be a bit the norm. The people I can have a laugh with tend to be pragmatic and "realist" and think everything is totally random and nothing has a reason and things just happen and it all means nothing and then you die. And the people who talk about meaning and patterns and multiple realities and all that are humourless bastards! Which is a pity as it seems to me bizarre, actually, to be living here on this planet hurtlng through space with just a few short years alloted to each of us and history behind us the unknown ahead, and chaos all around and so much suffering and madness and despair as well as beauty and harmony, and not to want to know just a little bit more about what it all means! Even if it isnt possible to know it just seems incredible not to want to know.
On another tack, (enough of all the metaphysical stuff for tonight), I've listed below some of the books I've just finished. I love reading and look forward to an hour or more with a good book every night. Among my favourite writers are Paul Theroux, Phillip K. Dick, Margeret Atwood, Dirk Bogarde, Theodore Sturgeon, Ed McBain, James Ellroy.
Off I go, goodnight!
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