The amazing results of detaching from my own thoughts and the recognition of an “inner faculty” which apparently makes this possible has changed my life immeasurably.
That’s why I use the word “vital” in the title – not only to stress the importance of this insight but also to distinguish its nature from a merely conceptual recognition – vital is “Life” – it is a living and experienced insight based on impersonal, impartial, and completely neutral observation (to the extent that this is possible, which is another question to consider).
Ernest Holmes did not call his teaching “Science of Thought”– he was looking at a completely different dimension of Mind — and I began to address this aspect of the realm of consciousness in a recent piece – “The Secret of the Secret.”
This very important insight first became understandable to me when I heard Eckhart Tolle say that “the mind cannot know the mind.”
What he was essentially suggesting is that thought cannot grasp the Mind from which or within which thought itself arises. Thought can only be a pointer, or indeed a metaphor, for truth.
And perhaps Eckhart Tolle’s greatest insight came out of his own depression – the recognition and distinction – “I can’t stand myself.” “Who is this I?” he asked himself, and he realized that it was “no thing” and not “him” as a self or any combination of thoughts.
He began to see the false “Self” as a conditioned organizing principle comprised of thoughts about himself that had begun to crystalize at an early age. Scientists now identify this as age 2 (the terrible twos) when the infant begins to fathom the dream foisted upon it by society – that he/she IS his namesake.
Thereafter, all thinking forms around this imaginary self with which the entity identifies. But organically this entity IS an organization of cells that has an evolutionary connection that is billions of years old (to single cell organisms that also function via DNA – a “program” that could not have manifested with the presence of a Mind or what we may call consciousness).
Science refers to this as “the hard problem” of consciousness and has come up against it in quantum physics, neuroscience, and astronomy.
This is the wonderful part of the Science and Nonduality Conference in San Jose – the expansion of the investigations of science into the realm of consciousness itself – to finally confront “the hard problem.”
Now science must finally address the ‘inconvenient’ reality of an impersonal field or “Beingness” of Intelligent Energy that is ubiquitous and infinite and always “here and now” – which can be called Source, Mind, Consciousness, Being, or if you will, “God.”
SAND’s focus this year is on “The Nature of Consciousness,” and really the teachings of Advaita and the findings of science, which now make us recognize deeply inside ourselves that our nature or being goes far beyond our thoughts about our nature or being.
Our thoughts are finite and ephemeral but our being is something far greater – something unfathomable and mysterious – it IS our nature – and literally what we are.
Unfortunately, our main access and means for discussing these matters amongst ourselves and with our ‘experts’ in various fields is through language and, ultimately, through thought.
But is it?
Perhaps the most direct experience of this truth comes to us through art and, by extension, through metaphor.
For example, I have written at great length about what it means that DNA operates as software and it is the topic of a session I will present at SAND.
The key aspect to this reality is that DNA as software is NOT a mere metaphor – it IS what is really the case and it points to a level of energetic intelligence that is beyond conceptual understanding and yet is completely scientific and logical. It is mathematically precise in the same way that the constants Pi and Phi are precise (the radius of a circle is in a relationship to its circumference that is not ‘almost’ 3.1416 etc. but it is ALWAYS the case).
But here is where it gets weird and wonderful. The concept of a pointer or a ‘metaphor’ like seeing DNA as software is itself yet another concept.
And metaphor itself is a mental construct – it is a mediator between what we can understand or comprehend and what is presumably truth itself – but it is entirely mental. For example, a caterpillar turning into a butterfly is a “metaphor” for transformation in the human mind – but within nature that is precisely what is happening.
Can it not be felt and experienced that the notion of art, metaphor, and what these forms point to is a truth beyond thought – and in fact within the realm of Mind?
I sense that this was the essential teachings of both Jung and Joseph Campbell in their identification of universal archetypes and their study of dreams. Jung, as you may know, also had theories about UFOs as being mental phenomena.
Perhaps these phenomena are literally beyond thought in a higher frequency of mind – another dimension entirely, if you will – which is integrally woven into our nature and the fabric of Being itself, and thereby allows for the navigation of the ultimate projection of our true nature – the Universe itself.
“Lockheed Exec admits key to Space Travel is ESP” is a recent piece in CE by Christina Sarich that points to this reality and its amazing ramifications, and I believe the same is true of the work of Nassim Haramein.
But of course, as long as science is mired entirely in the realm of its own conditioned thought patterns, assuming an objectivity it does not posess, these sorts of inquiries will remain limited by our own similarly conditioned world views.
It is only when Science goes beyond “scientism” and addresses the nature of Mind as OUR nature and being itself (best termed “Consciousness”) that any true comprehension beyond our conceptual limitations will be possible.
The is undoubtedly the next step in our Collective Evolution. And the caterpillar will become a butterfly.
The fat dysfunctional caterpillar or thought before it is transformed:)
…and what is mind when thoughts are not appearing (stillness)?
Is it not a state of no mind.
“comprehension beyond our conceptual “(mind) I like that.
Then we should not look to science( conceptual) for explanations and concepts but look within in stillness for what is beyond the mind.
This is actually something that I’ve been pondering a great deal this past week and a half. The concept that we are not Thought-ness, and we are not even the mind (that we use to hold and wield the thought-ness). We are (at some higher level) beingness.
But, I might suggest (and feel free to disagree, if you so desire), that we are not even beingness itself, for there are events and manifestations which be considered even “To be.”
I believe that we, source, are a collections of puttings-on and takings-off of identities and traits so as to fulfill our base desire which is simply to be who we are. Just as plants take on plant-ness (And that’s us), or rocks have put on Rock-ness (and that’s still us), We put on body-ness, mind-ness, and spirit-ness, and when we’re done with those, we put take them back off (all according to what we want to experience). And when we’re done with experience-ness, we can put that down too. 🙂
It’s very exciting to realize that we, as the Infinite Creator are truly infinite, in every way. 🙂
Thoughts, anyone?