“When I went to find myself I found God, and when I went to find God I found myself.”
A Sufi saying attributed to Rumi.
Mind is a limited and partial sense of ‘self’
Try this: think of a thought that is universal.
By universal I mean does not contain a binary; a right/wrong; an important/unimportant; a valuable/not valuable; a desirable/repulsive; a perspective.
You will find no thought to exist that can satisfy this.
That is because all mind is on a vector. All mind is limited. All mind is a holographic rendition of existence; existence perceived as “out there” to an “in here”. This is dualism as often discussed in the spiritual traditions.
Every mind is a limited sense of self, aware it is limited by some material condition. Therefore there is the perception of death of the self. Therefore there is the fear/aversion signal away from death and the anticipation/craving/excitement signal towards life.
Thus every mind is anchored to a sense of body. A sense of perspective and limitedness. Now we can address the dialogue that takes place between the mind and the body.
The mind circuit is animated on mind energy/light. This is many times less substantial than denser communication systems. It is flickering faster, at a higher “frame-rate” as it were, creating a faster/deeper perception of “‘time”‘. Therefore it is able to model and anticipate and react faster to the next holographically rendered instant than the body beneath otherwise would.
When the mind, in its dream, considers its conclusions are substantial enough to merit conscious intervention, it communicates to the denser selves below by varying their exposure to labels / signals, as discussed based on fear and anticipation / aversion and craving. It creates a compelling dream that mocks the body to respond. In receiving body reaction it fulfils the loop and captures attention/focus/awareness. Consciousness is descended into this pattern and we are “living” the dream of this perception of reality mentally and physiologically.
The mind receives fear / desire signals upwards from the denser body selves too. These are able to be heard the more the mind is absent from the marinade of fear signals.
Both mind and body communication can come as a slow-burn change to the default water-level/preferences/tolerance thresholds. They can also communicate with a sudden tsunami-wave of shock/intensity.
You must come to know the difference between yourself and your mind.
Mooji (moojibaba’s notebook readings, part 2, spotify)
Mind is a simulator
The mind is a simulator. A dream machine. It begins by focus on some or other sensations within the body, and overlays the mental map, the story, the interpretation, the dream.
Thus we have the ability to enter the mind of another, by proxy. Our focus attaches to the ‘them’ that we see, the them that we ‘remember’ (a stored model of data and associations). The mind creates this proxy of their mind within us and plays it ‘as a tape’ / like a recording. Our focus creates a holographic, almost robot – drone impression of them. Thus we may internalise another and react to that.
This is the basis of empathy; as we vicariously live the experience of the other as best as our model accurately reflects their authentic reality.
This is the basis of self-talk, as our minds play models of our own created ‘identities’ and reacts to them accordingly, even giving them scripts and voices.
This is also the basis of the mental / perceptive aspect of trauma. The body, in triggering (associating) experiences externally, may arise with the same sensations as earlier iterations of the pattern. The mind, focussing (often on the highly compulsive urgency of these sensations; flagged with fear or other ((hormone?)) tags), on these sensations, re-creates / evokes / ‘boots-up’ the holographic mind that is associated with them; the thoughts that were last programmed in the response of these sensations. Then the intense sensations of the original experience(s) that have again arisen are overlaid with the story, the characters, the narrative; and with all this a coherent (in some senses) explanation of what is happening, the values to ascribe to it, what the desired outcomes are, therefore how to interpret and react to the external world outside. Here is projection as a mental process. Perception is projection; but there are different degrees of projection stemming from the underlying energy reaction; a harmonious, equanimous awareness of the labels over the forms outside, ephemeral, all the way to a volatile ‘knee-jerk’ reaction to the world.
Lastly I’ll say here that meditation operates on this same vector of projection but finds its undoing in it. I talk here of the meditation I have experienced; annapanna and vipassana meditation. Take annapanna; the mind focusses on the sensation of the upper lip below the nose with the breath passing over it. With discipline the focus follows the greater will of a sovereign mind (less the illusory senses of self, more the holistic entirety), and so sheds its preoccupations with running scripts / videos / mental rehearsals and comes to obey the will and focus simply on the sensation of the body. At this point it assumes / mirrors / creates the mind of these sensations. This mind is at a smaller scale of existence. It has no mental overlay of its own. It is more viscerally real than an overlaid story. Thus the whole consciousness comes to focus on the real tangible self. This self is un-coupled from mental stories, and all the world of mental suffering, coming from labelling, that overlays sensation in ordinary perception. The whole consciousness comes to know its ‘self’, its material reality without the clutter and suffering of the mental processes. Without the byproducts of the perceptive / projecting mind. In this way meditation is a universally applicable route of connecting more unshakeably to real existence; existence above and beneath perception / projection / mental overlays.
This was the way that buddha taught the transcending of suffering, according to the Vipassana tradition of S.N.Goenka. I am confident that buddha would not have wanted the approach he taught to be associated culturally or religiously with ‘him’ in any exclusive sense. I will link to an article when published here about all authentic spiritual paths being one and all exclusive intellectual, cultural and identity overlays being illusion, I believe not advocated by the founders of many of those faiths in the first instance. My favourite quote of buddha on this is:
Do not simply believe whatever you are told, or whatever has been handed down from past generations, or what is common opinion, or whatever the scriptures say. Do not accept something as true merely by deduction or inference, or by considering outward appearances, or by partiality for a certain view, or because of its plausibility, or because your teacher tells you so.
Buddha, as recorded in the Samyutta Nikaya. XLIV. x. 2, Anuradha Sutta
Consciousness is a flow of signals oscillating between sensation and mind
Consciousness is a flow of signals exploding in the perception. The signals can be mind. The signals can be sensations. As will be covered somewhere here, mind harnesses itself in reality by overlaying sensations (making itself applicable, real, needed, valid), and sensations call out for mind to attach to them (map them in a greater conceptual framework, explain them, and thereby service the physiological entities that sent them).
Consciousness is a rapid stream of signals. They are oscillating between mind signals/perceptions/images/narratives/value-attributions, and with body sensations; oscillating between these two streams in a rapid back and forth. The mind signals are overlaying the body sensations, explaining them, reacting to them, integrating them into meaning. When there is a relative absence of sensation the mind signals may go their own way, wander their maps in an imaginary, holographic reality, and can mimic sensation over neutral matter.
The mind signals are ‘broader’ typically than the body signals, which are ‘denser’. The mind can pack more ‘bandwidth’; length; story into a single impulse, because it experiences ‘time’ differently. Body signals can carry an intensity in a single ‘bit’ that is greater than the mind, as the matter of body is denser. However, the mind can stack a repeated signal in a single ‘bit’ and create a highly concentrated message of urgency. Of course, the two compound which is the origin of the different ‘selves’ / chakras / to be covered.
The meditator can guide their focus with less of an emphasis on the mind signals and more of an emphasis on the body signals. It is possible to sink below the ‘waves’ of mental labelling and witness the sensations independently of values being attributed to them. Witnessing reality as it is. In this way the meditator learns that they are not the mind, not the stories, and the sensations are not compulsive to react to. They are optional to react to. The meditator learns they; being the sovereign consciousness, the sovereign focus, are not their mind/stories/identities, and not their sensations/body/pleasures and pains. The meditator learns they are immortal. They are consciousness preceding thought and form. They are ubiquitous. Their life, in its rawest, most ultimate way, is vaster than their body and mind. They are one with all consciousness, the source of animation for all Existence. They are the ‘life’ that underpins existence at every scale; from the micro-organisms (from the perspective of our scale) to the cosmos. They are one with Existence. Aka the Atman, God within us/the holy spirit.
Existence is real.
Mind experiences ‘time’ more densely than sensation
The mind, operating on a faster, more liquid / light high voltage substrate in the brain, experiences perception and time at a more rapid frame-rate.
(frequencies of a higher ‘frequency’ are more liquid as they are flowing in smaller subdivisions than those below; thus they float above the denser, lower frequency tones; the acoustic spectrum is like a soup with denser vibration at the bottom and more highly oscillating / compact / floating vibration above.)
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
The biological elements of the body have their own senses, priorities and senses of self. These are the chakras, the physiological systems, the archetypes. Each of these have their own plane of realty upon which they consider value and relevance to reside. Each has a presence in the brain, as the ambassador or spokesperson for themselves; the limbic system, the triune brain model as an example. Consciousness is the potential totality in hearing all and answering by descending and enlivening what is approved / deemed real and valid.
They are all feeding into a “forum”, like a house of parliament, a senate, stating their perception, their value judgements on the outcomes. Our consciousness may be aware of their chatter, and aware of the consensus-building; which is being chosen as “true” / most important / action.
Such decisions made build up habit and stored memory in the body, allied to a mind sense of self. Because each of these signals and voices carries with it a sense of the self, the being, as its limited biological form, and an evaluation of the neutral world around as being of positive and/or negative value in relation to that form.
These reactions get remembered as they have energy of permission – action – truth (light) flowed through them, and so they grow. The next time the same decision comes around they will be the automatic response, and so a habit builds.
Personality is the stack of these habitual reactions, containing within them implied senses of self and evaluations of reality in relation to those selves. Personality is how a being habitually interprets and reacts to existence.
For much of your life the ego has been hiding inside your name. When you stand up he stands up. When you sit down he sits down.
mooji (moojibaba’s notebook readings, part 2, spotify)
Ram Dass, who was a practicing Harvard Psychology Professor, described Psychology as the ‘study of personhood/selfhood.’ and the spiritual path is the study of no-body-ness.
Who we are, who we think we are, and therefore the route laid before us to spiritual actualisation.
Enlightened beings are, strictly speaking, person-less. They have shed all or most of their person-hood and they reside in consciousness. The paradox of the spiritual path is the shedding of personhood, hence Ram Dass’ comments about “becoming nobody”.
The act of meditation* trains the being to hold with discipline their higher-willed perception / conscious focus on part of reality, and the sub-persons can not get a grip and derail the focus.
Consciousness starts as expansive, all-pervading and light. As sense identities (which have been trained to automatically ciphon-off conscious presense, identity, selfhood) awaken (e.g. the perception of a desire or threat) the consciousness solidifies and condenses into focussing on / being / experiencing that reality.
*certainly vipassana and annapanna meditation; others may or may not serve this purpose.
Existence is Real 