it's a new mode of living and perceiving the world

we're not called to like everybody but we are called to love everybody i i have a a practice um and it involves taking the image of two people one whom i love deeply and who i like deeply and i take my son for instance that i love him that i feel one with him goes without saying but i also like him very much i then take a second image of someone who i dislike intensely vladimir putin

to give you a sense of my um trajectory

don't do this experiment philosophically do it experientially it's like undressing at night we take off everything that can be taken off

i'll start by way of um an analogy everything that all the objects and characters that appear in a movie derive their reality relatively speaking of course from the single screen

one way to make this experiential investigation into the essential nature of our self would be to remove in fact we don't need to remove it would be sufficient to imagine removing everything from us that is not essential to us so i suggest we let's just embark do this investigation for a few minutes

a big part of the book and a big part of your previous book as I've read both of them is your joury because you describe your life going into different phases

there are universal similarities and effects of music and sound on individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds

One of Seth’s recent projects was called Dreammachine—an immersive art-science hallucinatory experience

the overwhelming majority of our time is spent looking down and as we should have talked about in previous videos we really care about 00:03:57 the hinges that you place in your spine so if you're on a laptop or looking down on your phone there's generally a hinge that we put into our neck and keep it there for a period of time and that 00:04:09 section and it can be right at the top if we're looking at you we've down or it can be lowered down if we're hinging down a lot more towards more of a 90-degree angle the longer in those shapes and the average American at 00:04:22 least can sit you know 10 to 14 hours a day particularly in today's climate without raising an eyebrow it can be just a simple thing that we do and if that's sitting down looking down is a 00:04:33 constant thing then what happens is we take that overloaded tissue to bed and sleep is our recovery time

there's things in the 10th Century in what we think of as now as broadly Western and Central Europe 01:13:46 that are beginning to show up particularly in art and architecture and poetry and music not an accident the musician we know that artists are often people who sense 01:13:59 things and are ahead of a culture they give the first articulation to a set of ideas and so if you today if next time you're in Ottawa I invite you to go to the 01:14:10 National Gallery because the National Gallery in Ottawa has one of the world's best collections of European northern European art and it starts about 1300 01:14:22 there's some before that but their collections of that's old enough to get you into it and it works through historically as you work through the rooms and at least it used to last time I brought it was there it brought you 01:14:36 out into a post-modern into postmodern art as if what's beyond what we think of as Modern Art uh into post-modern art

After I had been searching for ways to flesh out this parallel between contemplative and scientific research, through the common element of a lab method, I finally stumbled upon the Husserlian epoche as a stepping stone or connection piece between the two

Value the process over the end result.

The invisible hand is a metaphor used by the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the inducement a merchant has to keep his capital, thereby increasing the domestic capital stock and enhancing military power, both of which are in the public interest and neither of which he intended.[1]

What is one of our greatest needs, one of our greatest needs for our brain? And instead of telling you, I want to show you. In fact, I want you to feel it. There's a lot I want you to feel in the next 14 minutes. So, if we could all stand up. 00:00:39 We're all going to conduct a piece of Strauss together. Alright?

we are modern humans we've been around as modern humans for 00:04:32 200 000 years on Earth but we are hunters and gatherers we have a rough time we live under extremely variable conditions in deep Ice Age we come into the Holocene the neolithical revolution takes part one of the biggest 00:04:44 Innovations in human history and off we go in the civilizational journey that we all know and here we are today

Guided meditation: The carbon cycle

guided meditation to help achieve this awareness of our physical connection to the world around us.

Ulisse

In Carlin’s archives, by contrast, the jokes were “mainly scraps of paper organized into Ziploc baggies then put into a folder by topic.”

The European materialist tradition of despiritualizing the universe is very similar to the mental process which goes into dehumanizing another person. And who seems most expert at dehumanizing other people? And why? Soldiers who have seen a lot of combat learn to do this to the enemy before going back into combat. Murderers do it before going out to commit murder. Nazi SS guards did it to concentration camp inmates. Cops do it. Corporation leaders do it to the workers they send into uranium mines and steel mills. Politicians do it to everyone in sight. And what the process has in common for each group doing the dehumanizing is that it makes it all right to kill and otherwise destroy other people. One of the Christian commandments says, "Thou shalt not kill," at least not humans, so the trick is to mentally convert the victims into nonhumans. Then you can proclaim violation of your own commandment as a virtue.

It might also help to visually split the mapping area in zones, such as "on-stage" (what the customer experiences) versus "back-stage" (what systems and processes are active in the background).

Let me pose the question in the following way: Is the condition of autonomia fulfilled or undermined by the condition of sumbiōsis? Could it be that autos and sumbios—the most fully realized, best self and the companion—are two sides of the same coin; that is to say, entangled?

what i want you to do is to now imagine somebody whose body you would like to have 00:28:23 as your own either for a few minutes or maybe long term i'm not going to ask you why you want that body i don't want to get that deep into your psyche and that might be very personal um 00:28:35 but i'll tell you whose body i'd like to have and for how long just to give you a warm-up feel for this i really would like to have usain bolt's body of a few years ago for 9.6 seconds 00:28:47 because i would love to know what it feels like to run 100 meters that fast now when i form that does i think it's a coherent desire how do i why do i think that because i really do desire it i would love it i'd pay a lot of money to 00:28:59 do that um but what i don't want is to be usain bolt because usain bolt is already the same bolt and that doesn't do me any good um what i want is to be me 00:29:12 j with usain bolt's body so i can know what it feels like to run really really fast now i'm not claiming that this is a coherent desire i'm not claiming that it's 00:29:24 possible for me to remain jay and have usain bolt's body but i am claiming that i can desire it and if you are anything like me for some body or other you can desire to 00:29:36 have it for some time or other if you can form that desire then you in deep in your gut don't believe that you are your body you believe that you have a body and that 00:29:48 you might have a different body just like you might have a different hat or a different cat and if you believe that then you really do believe that whatever you are you are not your body 00:30:01 now you might think well that's obviously true i've never thought i was my body um but maybe on my mind i don't think you really believe that either and i want to do the same thought 00:30:13 experiment to convince you of that now i want you to think about somebody's mind that you'd really like to have maybe not for a long time maybe only for a few minutes um i'll tell you mine again i'm really 00:30:25 big and divulging you know hyper sharing over sharing personal secrets um i would really love to have stephen hawking's mind when he was still alive of course not now um and i'd like to have it only for about five or ten 00:30:36 minutes because what i would really like is to be able to really understand quantum gravity and i can't really understand it but if i had stephen hawking's mind for a few minutes then i could understand it now i obviously 00:30:48 don't want to be stephen hawking for one thing he's dead for another thing he was already stephen hawking and it didn't do me a damn bit of good what i want is to be me jay with his mind so that i can 00:31:00 use it to understand quantum gravity um i think that'd be really cool again i'm not claiming this is coherent i'm not claiming that it's possible but i am claiming that it's a 00:31:11 psychologically possible state to be in to crave somebody else's mind and if you like me can form that desire then you like me deep in your gut do not believe that you are your mind 00:31:25 you believe that you're something that has a mind just like you have a body um and that you possessed that mind and you could still be you with another mind and another body i mean just imagine having 00:31:37 the same bolts body in stephen hawking's mind that would be totally cool then i could understand quantum gravity while setting a new record for the 100 meter sprint um but that's not going to happen alas 00:31:50 um the moral of these experiments um takes us right back to chandragiri serpent i think the moral of these experiments is that deep down at an atavistic gut 00:32:02 level we believe that we are something that stands behind our minds and our bodies that thing is the self the thing that is not the mind in the body but possesses the mind in the body that's the thing 00:32:14 that sean decurity identifies as the serpent in the wall our arguments are going to be aimed at that not at our bodies not as our minds not as our personal identities they're 00:32:27 going to be aimed at that self that we really atavistically believe stands behind all of those that's the illusion that's the thing that causes us to be incompetent morally that causes us to be 00:32:41 confused about our own identities and to be confused about our role and our place in the world

so i want to convince you now that you 00:27:18 really do think you have a self no matter how many years you've been practicing

i'm going to simply turn our line drawing upside down and then draw from 00:04:20 the upside down reference what's going to happen here is it's going to force my mind to not think about what i'm drawing but instead focus on the lines and shapes that i actually 00:04:33 see so you can see it takes my left brain out of the process almost completely

we term these individually constructed networks by the aggregate namepersonware. Serving as a medium between the individual and the social world, personware provides aself-reinforced and self-cohered narrative of the individual and its relationships with society. It is boththe sense-maker and the sense being made of social reality entangled into an interactive autopoieticconstruct. It maintains a personal line of continuity that interfaces with the broader societal threads bymeans of concrete intentional cognitive selections. These cognitive selections determine how individualminds represent (encode) the state of affairs of the world in language, how they communicate theserepresentations and how they further decode received communications into an understanding of thestate of affairs of the world that eventually trigger actions in the world and further cognitive selections.At moments of decision, that is, attempting to make a choice to affect the world, the human is thusmore often than not symbolically pre-situated. He enacts a personal narrative of which he is hardlythe author and to which almost every decision is knitted in.

when we attribute sensory experiences to 00:06:39 ourselves for instance like the experience of red or the experience of seeing blue the model is external properties and we think of there as being inner properties just like those external properties that somehow we are 00:06:52 um we are seeing immediately

cognitive illusion and immediate experience perspectives 00:01:44 from buddhist philosophy

so this is white light passing through a dispersive prison and this is a visible spectrum from about 420 nanometers in the violet through 500 nanometers and 00:00:18 the green 580 yellow 610 and orange and 650 red and some of the slides that have this along the bottom axis so how dependent I'll be in color what do you 00:00:30 think we depend on color a lot a little lots okay

I want to start with a game. Okay? And to win this game, all you have to do is see the reality that's in front of you as it really is, all right? So we have two panels here, of colored dots. And one of those dots is the same in the two panels. And you have to tell me which one. Now, I narrowed it down to the gray one, the green one, and, say, the orange one. 00:00:41 So by a show of hands, we'll start with the easiest one. Show of hands: how many people think it's the gray one? Really? Okay. How many people think it's the green one? And how many people think it's the orange one? Pretty even split. Let's find out what the reality is. Here is the orange one. (Laughter) Here is the green one. And here is the gray one. 00:01:16 (Laughter) So for all of you who saw that, you're complete realists. All right? (Laughter) So this is pretty amazing, isn't it? Because nearly every living system has evolved the ability to detect light in one way or another. So for us, seeing color is one of the simplest things the brain does. And yet, even at this most fundamental level, 00:01:40 context is everything. What I'm going to talk about is not that context is everything, but why context is everything. Because it's answering that question that tells us not only why we see what we do, but who we are as individuals, and who we are as a society.

so here's a straightforward question what color are the strawberries in this photograph the red right wrong those strawberries are gray if you don't 00:00:12 believe me we look for one of the reddest looking patches on this image cut it out now what color is that it's great right but when you put it back on 00:00:25 the image it's red again it's weird right this illusion was created by a Japanese researcher named Akiyoshi Kitaoka and it hinges on something called color constancy it's an incredible visual 00:00:39 phenomenon by which the color of an object appears to stay more or less the same regardless of the lighting conditions under which you see it or the lighting conditions under which your brain thinks you're seeing it

When we see the world from the vantage point of all-at-oneness, always right here, we can be said to be like a pearl in a bowl. Flowing with every turn without any obstructions or stoppages coming from our emotional reactions to different situations. This is a very commonly used image in Zen — moving like a pearl in a bowl. As usual, our ancestors comment on this phrase, wanting to break open our solidifying minds even more. Working from Dogen’s fascicle Shunju, Spring and Autumn, we have an example of opening up even the Zen appropriate phrase — a pearl in a bowl. Editor of the Blue Cliff Record Engo ( Yuan Wu) wrote: A bowl rolls around a pearl, and the pearl rolls around the bowl. The absolute in the relative and the relative in the absolute.   Dogen: The present expression “a bowl rolls around a pearl” is unprecedented and inimitable, it has rarely been heard in eternity. Hitherto, people have spoken only as if the pearl rolling in the bowl were ceaseless.

I have written previously about the issue of “both”. In one sense, interdependence and total dynamic working implies that everything is both form and emptiness simultaneously. But the problem is that you can’t PERCEIVE both form and emptiness at the same time. They are both there supporting each other but our discriminative thought can only see one or the other; like the front and back foot in walking, like the old lady and young lady optical illusion, or the front and back of a hand. Both sides are always there. We have a whole hand but you can only see either the front of the hand or the back of the hand in a single moment.

So, if some of you are still feeling a bit too certain, I'd like to do this one. So, if we have the lights down. And what we have here -- Can everyone see 25 purple surfaces on your left, 00:15:03 and 25, call it yellowish, surfaces on your right? So now, what I want to do, I'm going to put the middle nine surfaces here under yellow illumination, by simply putting a filter behind them. Now you can see that changes the light that's coming through there, right? Because now the light is going through a yellowish filter and then a purplish filter. I'm going to do the opposite on the left here. 00:15:31 I'm going to put the middle nine under a purplish light. Now, some of you will have noticed that the consequence is that the light coming through those middle nine on the right, or your left, is exactly the same as the light coming through the middle nine on your right. Agreed? Yes? Okay. So they are physically the same. 00:15:56 Let's pull the covers off. Now remember -- you know that the middle nine are exactly the same. Do they look the sa

also true for complex perceptions of motion. So, here we have -- let's turn this around -- a diamond. And what I'm going to do is, I'm going to hold it here, 00:08:53 and I'm going to spin it. And for all of you, you'll see it probably spinning this direction. Now I want you to keep looking at it. Move your eyes around, blink, maybe close one eye. And suddenly it will flip, and start spinning the opposite direction. Yes? Raise your hand if you got that. Yes? Keep blinking. Every time you blink, it will switch. So I can ask you, which direction is it rotating? 00:09:20 How do you know? Your brain doesn't know, because both are equally likely. So depending on where it looks, it flips between the two possibilities

What is color for?" And instead of telling you, I'll just show you. What you see here is a jungle scene, 00:02:08 and you see the surfaces according to the amount of light that those surfaces reflect. Now, can any of you see the predator that's about to jump out at you? And if you haven't seen it yet, you're dead, right? (Laughter) Can anyone see it? Anyone? No? Now let's see the surfaces according to the quality of light that they reflect. And now you see it. So, color enables us to see 00:02:32 the similarities and differences between surfaces, according to the full spectrum of light that they reflect. But what you've just done is in many respects mathematically impossible. Why? Because, as Berkeley tells us, we have no direct access to our physical world, other than through our senses. And the light that falls onto our eyes is determined by multiple things in the world, not only the color of objects, 00:02:56 but also the color of their illumination, and the color of the space between us and those objects. You vary any one of those parameters, and you'll change the color of the light that falls onto your eye. This is a huge problem, because it means that the same image could have an infinite number of possible real-world sources

Here we have that exact same illusion. We have two identical tiles on the left, one in a dark surround, one in a light surround. And the same thing over on the right. Now, I'll reveal those two scenes, but I'm not going to change anything within those boxes, except their meaning. 00:07:11 And see what happens to your perception. Notice that on the left the two tiles look nearly completely opposite: one very white and one very dark, right? Whereas on the right, the two tiles look nearly the same. And yet there is still one on a dark surround, and one on a light surround. Why? Because if the tile in that shadow were in fact in shadow, and reflecting the same amount of light to your eye 00:07:35 as the one outside the shadow, it would have to be more reflective -- just the laws of physics. So you see it that way. Whereas on the right, the information is consistent with those two tiles being under the same light. If they're under the same light reflecting the same amount of light to your eye, then they must be equally reflective. So you see it that way. Which means we can bring all this information together to create some incredibly strong illusions.

let me show you how quickly our brains can redefine normality, even at the simplest thing the brain does, which is color. 00:05:29 So if I could have the lights down up here. I want you to first notice that those two desert scenes are physically the same. One is simply the flipping of the other. Now I want you to look at that dot between the green and the red. And I want you to stare at that dot. Don't look anywhere else. We're going to look at it for about 30 seconds, which is a bit of a killer in an 18-minute talk. (Laughter) But I really want you to learn. 00:05:55 And I'll tell you -- don't look anywhere else -- I'll tell you what's happening in your head. Your brain is learning, and it's learning that the right side of its visual field is under red illumination; the left side of its visual field is under green illumination. That's what it's learning. Okay? Now, when I tell you, I want you to look at the dot between the two desert scenes. So why don't you do that now? (Laughter) 00:06:21 Can I have the lights up again? I take it from your response they don't look the same anymore, right? (Applause) Why? Because your brain is seeing that same information as if the right one is still under red light, and the left one is still under green light. That's your new normal. Okay? So, what does this mean for context? It means I can take two identical squares, put them in light and dark surrounds, and the one on the dark surround looks lighter than on the light surround. 00:06:47 What's significant is not simply the light and dark surrounds that matter. It's what those light and dark surrounds meant for your behavior in the past.

we see by learning to see. The brain evolved the mechanisms for finding patterns, finding relationships in information, 00:04:38 and associating those relationships with a behavioral meaning, a significance, by interacting with the world. We're very aware of this in the form of more cognitive attributes, like language. I'm going to give you some letter strings, and I want you to read them out for me, if you can. Audience: "Can you read this?" "You are not reading this." "What are you reading?" Beau Lotto: "What are you reading?" Half the letters are missing, right? 00:05:04 There's no a priori reason why an "H" has to go between that "W" and "A." But you put one there. Why? Because in the statistics of your past experience, it would have been useful to do so. So you do so again. And yet you don't put a letter after that first "T." Why? Because it wouldn't have been useful in the past. So you don't do it again.

(Music) (Applause) (Music) (Applause) (Music) 00:07:16 (Applause) (Cheers) (Applause) Beau Lotto: Ah, how wonderful, right? So right now, you're probably all feeling, at some level or another, awe.

new way of being

OP VAK is a concerted effort to make the hyperthreat visible and knowable across the broad spectrum of society. This has practical, educational aspects, including increasing CEC literacy and improving ecoproduct and services labeling. It also links to the integration of CEC into the remit of mainstream intelligence agencies. To address sensory and affective knowing, as well as the deep framing and meaning-making dimension of hyperthreat “knowing,” it will partner with the communications, arts, and humanities sectors in line with the “60,000 artists” concept.24 It will also harness the potential of virtual reality technologies, which have already proven effective in CEC communication.25 Finally, it will involve fast-tracking relevant research and improved mechanisms for conveying and sharing research and knowledge.

Here, in PLAN E, the concept of entangled security translates this idea into meaning that humanity itself can make a great sudden leap.

We fail to realise that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey.

To create trails  When we are studying a text we need to take the time to understand more than just the storyline. During your second reading, any comments made during the first reading (marginal comments or summaries) will quickly give you the gist of your first reading, so that you can take advantage of your second.

Vogler based this work upon the writings of mythologist Joseph Campbell, particularly The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and holds that all successful films innately adhere to its principles.

Professional musicians, concert pianists get to know this instrument deeply, intimately. And through it, they're able to create with sound in a way that just dazzles us, and challenges us, and deepens us. But if you were to look into the mind of a concert pianist, and you used all the modern ways of imaging it, an interesting thing that you would see 00:11:27 is how much of their brain is actually dedicated to this instrument. The ability to coordinate ten fingers. The ability to work the pedal. The feeling of the sound. The understanding of music theory. All these things are represented as different patterns and structures in the brain. And now that you have that thought in your mind, recognize that this beautiful pattern and structure of thought in the brain 00:11:52 was not possible even just a couple hundred years ago. Because the piano was not invented until the year 1700. This beautiful pattern of thought in the brain didn't exist 5,000 years ago. And in this way, the skill of the piano, the relationship to the piano, the beauty that comes from it was not a thinkable thought until very, very recently in human history. 00:12:17 And the invention of the piano itself was not an independent thought. It required a depth of mechanical engineering. It required the history of stringed instruments. It required so many patterns and structures of thought that led to the possibility of its invention and then the possibility of the mastery of its play. And it leads me to a concept I'd like to share with you guys, which I call "The Palette of Being." 00:12:44 Because all of us are born into this life having available to us the experiences of humanity that has come so far. We typically are only able to paint with the patterns of thoughts and the ways of being that existed before. So if the piano and the way of playing it is a way of being, this is a way of being that didn't exist for people 5,000 years ago. 00:13:10 It was a color in the Palette of Being that you couldn't paint with. Nowadays if you are born, you can actually learn the skill; you can learn to be a computer scientist, another color that was not available just a couple hundred years ago. And our lives are really beautiful for the following reason. We're born into this life. We have the ability to go make this unique painting with the colors of being that are around us at the point of our birth. 00:13:36 But in the process of life, we also have the unique opportunity to create a new color. And that might come from the invention of a new thing. A self-driving car. A piano. A computer. It might come from the way that you express yourself as a human being. It might come from a piece of artwork that you create. Each one of these ways of being, these things that we put out into the world 00:14:01 through the creative process of mixing together all the other things that existed at the point that we were born, allow us to expand the Palette of Being for all of society after us. And this leads me to a very simple way to go frame everything that we've talked about today. Because I think a lot of us understand that we exist in this kind of the marvelous universe, 00:14:30 but we think about this universe as we're this tiny, unimportant thing, there's this massive physical universe, and inside of it, there's the biosphere, and inside of that, that's society, and inside of us, we're just one person out of seven billion people, and how can we matter? And we think about this as like a container relationship, where all the goodness comes from the outside to the inside, and there's nothing really special about us. 00:14:56 But the Palette of Being says the opposite. It says that the way that we are in our lives, the way that we affect our friends and our family, begin to change the way that they are able to paint in the future, begins to change the way that communities then affect society, the way that society could then affect its relationship to the biosphere, and the way that the biosphere could then affect the physical planet 00:15:21 and the universe itself. And if it's a possible thing for cyanobacteria to completely transform the physical environment of our planet, it is absolutely a possible thing for us to do the same thing. And it leads to a really important question for the way that we're going to do that, the manner in which we're going to do that. Because we've been given this amazing gift of consciousness.

That's a picture of it in the background. And this organism has the special trick that we call "photosynthesis," the ability to go take energy from the sun and transform carbon dioxide into oxygen. And over the course of billions of years, so starting from two and a half billion years ago, little by little these bacteria spread across the planet 00:07:08 and converted all that carbon dioxide in the air into the oxygen that we now have. And it was a very slow process. First, they had to saturate the seas, then they had to saturate the oxygen that the earth would absorb, and only then, finally, could oxygen begin to build up in the atmosphere. So you see, just after about 900 million years ago, oxygen starts to build up in the atmosphere. And about 600 million years ago, something really amazing happens. 00:07:35 The ozone layer forms from the oxygen that has been released in the atmosphere. And it sounds like a small deal, like we talked about the ozone a couple decades ago, but it actually turns out that before the ozone layer existed, earth was not really able to sustain complex, multicellular life. We had single-celled organisms, we had a couple of simple, multicellular organisms, but we didn't really have anything like you or me. 00:07:59 And shortly after the ozone layer came into place, the earth was able to sustain complex multicellular life. There was a Cambrian explosion of life in the seas. And the first plants got onto land. In fact, there was actually no life on land ahead of that. Another way to see this is, this is kind of a chart of pretty much most of the animals that you guys are familiar with. 00:08:24 And right at the bottom in time is the formation of the ozone layer. Like nothing that you are familiar with today could exist without the contributions of these tiny organisms over those billions of years. And where are they now? Well actually, they never really left us. The direct descendants of the cyanobacteria were eventually captured by plants. And they're now called chloroplasts. 00:08:49 So this is a zoom-in of a plant leaf - and we probably ate some of these guys today - where tons of little chloroplasts are still trapped - contributing photosynthesis and making energy for the plants that continue to be the other half of our lungs on earth. And in this way, our breaths are very deeply united. Every out-breath is mirrored by the in-breath of a plant,

today I'm here to describe that everything really is connected, 00:02:02 and not in some abstract, esoteric way but in a very concrete, direct, understandable way. And I am going to do that with three different stories: a story of the heart, a story of the breath, and a story of the mind.

Fundamental features of human psychology can constrain the perceived personal relevance and importance of climate change, limiting both action and internalization of the problem. Cognitive shortcuts developed over millennia make us ill-suited in many ways to perceiving and responding to climate change (152), including a tendency to place less emphasis on time-delayed and physically remote risks and to selectively downplay information that is at odds with our identity or worldview (153). Risk perception relies on intuition and direct perceptual signals (e.g., an immediate, tangible threat), whereas for most high-emitting households in the Global North, climate change does not present itself in these terms, except in the case of local experiences of extreme weather events. Where strong concern does exist, this tends to be linked to care for others (154) combined with knowledge about the causes and possible consequences of climate change (155).

The next day, I assumed we would begin our quest to find signs of hyperobjects in and around the city of Houston

With the aid of the concept of opposing pairs of magnetic poles, we can clearly contribute in a significant way to our expression and understanding of basic relationships in the overall magnetic field. We are proposing to look at soma and significance in a similar way. That is to say, we regard them as two aspects introduced at an arbitrary conceptual cut in the flow of the field of reality as a whole. These aspects are distinguished only in thought, but this distinction helps us to express and understand the whole flow of reality.

the fastest path to peace

How to Create a Travel Website: Types, Features, Industry TrendsTimur YilmazTech JournalistProduct GuideHomeBlogEntrepreneurshipHow to Create a Travel Website: Types, Features, Industry TrendsJul 13, 202119 min readMost people plan a journey by seeking advice from the same source — the Internet. As ending the pandemic is becoming more solvable, many of us think about where to travel next. Ironically, we tend to get easily overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks. What place is ok for a night stay? Which is the best camera backpack? Where to refuel? So today, we will figure out how a travel website works. We will also share tips on how to make your own travel website genuinely shine.

From morn to night

folly=inescapable

Some suggestions:   -Interrogate your life           Who are your heroes?           Who are your villains?           Where did you come from?           Who are your people? - Contemplate your own life story and those concerning your family. - Write down your life story.   - Identify your family rituals (birthdays, marriage, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.). - Write down your dreams and the impact they’ve had on your life.   - Religious beliefs and how they have affected your life. - Identify how your family recognizes the changes in life status, e.g., the passage from adolescence to adult, "coming of age". Note any differences between the way women and men are treated. - Identify any conflict resulting from the change in life status and its resolution. - How does religion or philosophy of life fit into your personal myth? - What major events have influenced your life? In what way have these events been the hinges whereby the story of your life swings? - Think about the story elements in your own life, then look for the meaning beneath the surface. - How does your interpretation of events differ from that of others who witnessed them?

highlighting and annotating

that which you have read has awakened a response within, and the Soul of you yearns formore, -- then you are ready for what follows.If you still question or rebel at the seeming assumption of Divine authority for what is hereinwritten, your intellect telling you it is but another attempt to beguile your mind with cunningsuggestion and subtle sophistry, -- then you will receive no benefit from these words; for theirmeaning is as yet hidden from your mortal consciousness, and My Word must come to youthrough other avenues of expression.It is well if your personality with its intellect impels you thus to question and rebel againstauthority you do not yet know to be Mine. It is really I Who cause your personality thus to rebel;for your personality with its proud sense of individuality is still needed by Me to develop a mindand body strong enough that they can perfectly express Me. Until you have become prepared toknow Me it is but natural for your personality thus to question and rebel. Once you recognize MyAuthority, that moment the undermining of the authority of the personality has begun. The daysof its dominion are numbered, and you will more and more turn to Me for help and guidance.Therefore, be not dismayed. Read on, and mayhap the recognition will come. But know that youcan read or not, as you choose; but if you do it is really I Who choose, and not you.For you, who seemingly choose not to read further, I have plans, and in due season you shalllearn that whatever you do, or like, or desire, it is I leading you through all the fallacies andillusions of the personality, that you may finally awaken to their unreality and then turn to Me asthe one and only Reality. Then these words will find a response within:

"Be still! --- and KNOW --- I AM --- God."Yes, I AM that innermost part of you that sits within, and calmly waits and watches, knowingneither time nor space; for I AM the Eternal and fill all space.I watch and wait for you to be done with your petty human follies and weaknesses, with yourvain longings, ambitions and regrets, knowing that will come in time; and then you will turn toMe, weary, discouraged, empty and humble, and ask Me to take the lead, not realizing that I havebeen leading you all the time

8Yes, I sit here within, quietly waiting for this; yet while waiting it was really I Who directed allyour ways, Who inspired all your thoughts and acts, impersonally utilizing and manipulatingeach so as eventually to bring you and My other human expressions to a final consciousrecognition of Me.Yes, I have been within always, deep within your heart. I have been with you through all, --through your joys and heartaches, your successes and mistakes, through your evil-doing, yourshame, your crimes against your brother and against God, as you thought.Aye, whether you went straight ahead, or strayed aside, or stepped backward, it was I Whobrought you through.It was I Who urged you on by the glimpse of Me in the dim distance.It was I Who lured you by a vision of Me in some bewitching face, or beautiful body, orintoxicating pleasure, or over-powering ambition.It was I Who appeared before you within the garb of Sin, or Weakness, or Greed, or Sophistry,and drove you back into the arms of Conscience, leaving you to struggle in its shadowy grasp;until you awakened to its impotence, rose up in disgust, and in the inspiration of a new visiontore off My mask.Yes, it is I Who cause you to do all things, and if you can see it, it is I Who do all things that youdo, and all things that your brother does; for that in you and in him which IS, is I, My Self

So, you must arrive at a conviction, and a willingness to commit to that conviction, which allows you to abandon reason for the apparently unreasonable. It is because what we are doing at this moment, you and I, does not compute with your preexisting conditioning that it seems unreasonable and impractical, and will seem so if you do not stay in touch with the unjustifiable claim that I am making—that you and I are together, actively and consciously together, to the degree that you are Hearing me, in the Fourth dimension, in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the middle of Reality, and that it is only by means of this connection and your embrace of the ability to conceive of your being Here with me that you can break through your “amnesia.”

Now, this evening, I want you to explore being from your Knowing, not from your thinking. You will not be tested, nor judged. Just explore it, and the exploration of it will provide us with grist for the mill, as it were—further elucidation which will be relevant to you and will have meaning. And ask me questions. Don’t assume that somehow the process of Listening and Hearing is going to be different.

All you can be sure of—and this is the Fact—all you can be sure of is that you are seeing something, and it is something functioning Fourth-dimensionally, even though the definitions and meanings you are giving it, which seem so real, are invalid. In order for what they really mean to register with you, you must go through a phase where, indeed, you are unsure.

Let this sense of Reality and unreality, without clear distinction, be. And do not try to figure it out. But insist, as you have, upon communicating with me, because our communication does now cease to be a communication of information and becomes a substantiation of where you, as you are experiencing yourself, are originating from. In other words, again, our conversation confirms your divinity and its active presence, Fourth-dimensionally speaking. What I am saying, you are experiencing—and I am not talking about an idea! To continue frequently to experience—not think about—that confirmation, you will become grounded Fourth-dimensionally and ungrounded three-dimensionally. That is the shift. As that confirmation is reconfirmed when you frequently address me and hear me respond, it will include illumination of the details which in the past you have hoped to arrive at by means of thinking and reasoning. You are indeed on the move again—not stuck in an improved belief.

I encourage you, during the next twenty-four hours, to check in with me even more frequently. And again, I caution you not to become concerned because of a lessening of your ability to tell what is real and what is not, what is important and what is not. Allow that flux, and address yourself to the one unchanging, anchored aspect—that of our connection and the fact that that connection is occurring Fourth-dimensionally; that you are not connecting with me from the three-dimensional-only frame of reference, but are connecting with me from and as the Fourth-dimensional conscious experience of Being.

You are realizing that when that sensation occurs to you in a healing session, it indicates not a three-dimensional point of view on your part, but an awareness of a pervading feeling (distress) in the area of the person you are working with.

Although the transcript gives some slight indication of what we have been discussing, the emphasis should be placed on the actual experiences which you have had. The value is in the communication of meaning as experienced within your consciousness.

The only solution which can actually resolve a relationship problem is for the one experiencing discomfort to drop the personal sense of involvement, thus resolving it actually back into the normal Universal Harmonies that constitute the existence of the individualities involved. This is a phrase which you have heard many times before, but it has been unclear to you how to do it. Trying to lay down a personal sense is like trying to lay down a piece of flypaper. The more you attempt to put it down, the more firmly it sticks! The only way to lay down a personal sense of things is to go within to that Place of quietness and attentiveness, and listen for the influx of your Being as It sees Itself from Its infinite standpoint. This can be achieved through meditation, if one is a beginner. Here, you not only see things as they are, but you experience them as they are. In that experience you cannot find a trace of that personal sense of things from which you had been suffering.

Raj, is there anything you can do to help me quit smoking, or is there anything you can suggest to me that will allow me help myself more effectively quit smoking? RAJ: As you asked the question, you realized that all you have to do is set into motion the fact that you are not addicted to cigarettes—or, more positively, that you are free of the desire to smoke cigarettes—and that that is the most effective means you could possibly use in order to give them up. As I said earlier, they, as part of Your infinitude, are going to be more than willing to cooperate with that desire, placed at the point of Conscious Being, and set into action by the Law of Being. I would suggest that you simply begin to use that facility to see your desire manifest in your life. You see, Paul, it all has to connect up. There is truly only one thing going on. From the first through the Fourth Dimension there is only one Activity, and that is the Activity occurring as Conscious Being. All of you is always present, and all of you is always functioning and the manner or the means by which it is present and functioning is the simple practice with which I began our conversation today. As you can see, this is not self-hypnosis, nor is it an attempt to influence the three-dimensional conscious frame of reference. It does not involve manipulation of things “out there,” or ideas within your head. You simply go to the Source, bringing to it the perfect desire. The Law, then, together with the Nature of Substance Itself, takes care of the objects “out there” and the beliefs “in here”—in three-dimensional awareness. You are going to have fun with that.

PAUL: Very well. What about the three gentlemen that were here? RAJ: Paul, I know you are still looking for some specific, objective evidence to totally prove the fact that all of this is valid. Paul, it will happen in its own time, and you must be patient. The formation of voluntary trust on your part is still in the development stage. The need at this time is for you to persist in this process because you feel it is right.

In the present day, the awareness of the Christ-consciousness is no longer new. Indeed, there is a large part of the population—Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, et cetera—who are quite at the point of recognizing that the Christ-consciousness resides within them. And this is where it will come to pass that the reappearing of the Christ will occur. Stop trying to figure it out, Paul. It is obvious that the literal manifestation of the level of the development of mankind today would not be conceptualized as a brand new baby. Instead, it would be an adult facilitator of that inner Self-discovery which will actually constitute the reappearance of the Christ. You must realize that the majority of mankind is not at this conscious point of Self-realization. They are, nevertheless, at the point of recognizing their Divinity. It is for this reason that an adult will appear. This adult will meet the requirements that will allow them to pay attention and give credence to the appearance.

Now we are going to talk for a bit about the idea of what it is that you are going to practice on. As your entire Being is becoming consciously integrated as your conscious experience of your Self, it will appear as though the Reality of your Being—to whatever degree you are aware of it—will be brought to bear upon that disowned portion of your experience which is not clear to you is your own Being. It will appear as though that aspect will be “healed,” “improved,” “changed,” or “reversed.” But, the actuality of such appearances is one of the revealing of its true nature as your Being. Every time you have a healing session with anyone, do not believe for a moment that, through your inner growth and development, you are being able to do something wonderful for “them.” It is your Self that you are experiencing, working with, and handling. Figuratively speaking, it amounts to nothing less than your discovery that the piece of the puzzle—which is difficult to identify on its own—is actually some part of the universal portrait of your Self. The Bible quotes Jesus the Christ as saying, “I have overcome the world.” This means that He had come over into the Christ-consciousness of His world, and no longer disowned any part of it as being separate or other than His Being.

I want you to consider for a moment that you are very structural regarding what is and what is not right, and what is and what is not done properly when it comes to yourself. it takes very little for you to feel that you have not done well enough—or that you have not measured up to the mark—and therefore, you are deserving of those negative feelings which are appropriate for such a person. This is unfortunate, because each successive, little dig you have made at yourself—by pointing out to yourself those ways in which you have not measured up—has developed into a rather strong subjective “put down” of yourself. This subjective “put down” is part of what tells you that you can’t move beyond where you are, or you can’t see this, or you don’t know what the answer is to that, et cetera.

Now, I want to correct a misconception on your part. Your ability to reason and think is not the equivalent of the three-dimensional frame of reference. Your thought processes and reasoning processes are not to be ignored. We would not be communicating at this very moment if you did not have the means to translate the meanings I am communicating into words and phrases. It is only by virtue of the fact that you have imagination, reason, perspicacity—all of the various capacities and functions of Consciousness—that you are able to correctly translate that which unfolds to you. This is true whether it is coming from me, or from that Place wherein you directly experience the Reality of Being. We run into trouble when we stand away from the Door, and begin our thinking or thought processes from their standpoint, and then extrapolate and come to conclusions without going within and being as Conscious Being. You see, Being unfolds Itself as meaning, not as language. It is through the function of Reason and Imagination that language is brought into play, for the purpose of verbalizing these infinite meanings which Being is unfolding. You do have a right to answers which will identify the Absolute Oneness of Being throughout your entire experience of Being.

RAJ: It has a direct bearing, an exact bearing, on it. You are trying to make everything fit into your concept of what is right, instead of simply flowing with What Is. You are so busy reacting to your own thought structures and concepts, and how things look to you, that you are not able to perceive what is really taking place. It is not destructive or unprincipled in any way.

RAJ: Paul, you are suffering from your “should” system. You are experiencing how difficult it is to lay down conceptualized processes and theories. I will not leave my position that this conceptual thinking relates in no way to what is Actually going on—which is the infinitude of your Being unfolding Itself perfectly, properly, and nondestructively—except of course, in terms of these concepts which are binding you. They will be destroyed. They no longer serve to move you to a new base. As you are discovering, the concepts are actually impeding your growth. You must lay them down. The growth will occur. The growth is occurring. This is why you feel shoved into the corner right along with the concepts. Figuratively speaking, this is why you feel that you are going to be blown up in the blowing up of your concepts.

PAUL: I feel like I’m going crazy. RAJ: I know you do. But remember, Paul, that is just an idea, just one of an infinitude of ideas, and it therefore holds no position of authority or dominance in your experience. Do not credit it with any value, for it has no more value that any other spurious thought which states an absurd impossibility. Do not attempt to handle it, but simply pass on by.

PAUL: Raj, as you know, nothing has apparently changed since the first conversation we had—objectively, at least—although subjectively speaking, I feel a lot has occurred. As we have progressed into the last few weeks, I have become more and more concerned about the dire straits I find myself in, objectively speaking. It has been very difficult for me to relax and to have faith in the validity of what you have been telling me. Nevertheless, something keeps me coming back, and here I am again. I will do my best this evening to be still and attentive and receptive. I will listen to what you have to say, and not busy myself with arguments and questions and doubts and fears.

We need to remember that all of Life, infinitely speaking, is unfolding Itself at every moment, and not just an isolated part of that infinity. It is essential for you to realize that your thinking processes do not in any way have any effect, whatsoever, on this infinitely detailed, yet harmonious unfolding of Being. This does not mean you have nothing to do with it, but it simply means that you have no three-dimensional control over it. You must come to the realization that it is your Being which is unfolding Itself infinitely on the basis of Its Nature as Intelligence, as Life, and as Mind. Therefore, It is—before you think a single thought about it—unfolding Itself (your Self) with all the precision, Intelligence, and Principle which constitutes Itself. It is this infinite unfolding of your Self that you must learn to bring your thought in line with. You cannot use your thoughts to bring your Being into line with them. This is a part of the letting go which is necessary for you in order for you to experience the unfolding of your Being as complete Harmony. Until you are willing to let go of this concept—that you must in some way be able to control your environment and your life experience with your thought—you will seem to suffer from the unfoldment of your Being.

If “form follows function,” then it is imperative that your attention be on the function and not the form. What is the Function which you see as the unfolding of daily activities? It is the unfolding of Your Being, identifying and fulfilling Itself as Itself. Activity, money and profit are all aspects of that identification. Money—income—is not the end goal of it all. Every aspect of your day identifies your Being, and not any one is more important or less important than another. Work does not generate income. Being generates work and income and leisure and growth. Yet, not any one of these things exist for their own independent purpose or identity. They identify Being, and Being is the Alpha and Omega—that which is and is identifying Itself completely and successfully. It is the flow of Being which is the Function. It is identified by the forms which constitute your daily activities. Your need is to identify yourself as Being and not as form.

RAJ: Whenever you are faced with a demand to give specific attention to some part of your infinitude and it presents itself as being “problematic,” it is simply the time and place for this aspect of You to be consciously incorporated into and as your conscious experience of being as Yours! You say you don’t want to be bothered, that this is not a good time because of other more pressing demands. But, Paul, your Being unfolds Itself as You according to divine Intelligence, Universal order and priorities. Every problem is your opportunity to be the Christ—that accurate perception of Reality (Your Being) that is not deluded in any way—and for that perception to become irrevocably “incorporated” into and as your Self-awareness. There is no more pressing need than that, because when seen, it becomes apparent that pressing needs are illusions of the partial view. They never existed as anything for you to sweat over and tense yourself up about.

Now, I do want to deal with some of these issues which are confusing to you at the moment. First of all, it is an accurate perception on your part that your allegiance, your trust, and your energies need to be placed unequivocally where they have been for the past six months—in other words, in your direct perception of your Self as Fourth-dimensional Conscious Being. You will be foolish to use any external source as a gauge or measuring stick by which to know whether you are on the right track. It would be a backward step for you to allow the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, or any other author, or the current point of unfoldment of any group or organization to become in any way the authority for what you are to think or do. These sources most certainly have their place when one seems to be unable to consciously perceive the Divinity of his own Being directly as his very own conscious experience. But, this is not where you are. Therefore, you cannot afford to place the authority for what you think, believe, or do at any point external to that direct perception of your Conscious Being.

Therefore, those in your experience who are attempting to “help” you see that what is unfolding here in your experience is the Christ-consciousness revealing Itself, are correct to that degree. However, they are incorrect in attempting to “help” you see that an individuality by the name of Raj is an illusory part of this experience. Their view is still so limited—in spite of the grandness and infinity of the view they see currently, as opposed to what they saw originally—that you would be foolish to use their vantage point as your own.

You can see that it truly, completely, means getting yourself out of the way. This is the grand lesson. Do not be afraid of being “out of control.” So many times people feel that if they are out of control, they will be wide open to being controlled by other entities, forces, or powers. But the omnipresent I Am—the infinite, divine Mind that constitutes the Being of every being that be’s—is the only Presence and Power which can exert and manifest Itself, and be the center and circumference—the Alpha and Omega. Therefore, such concepts or beliefs are groundless, and one need never be afraid to let go and say and be the statement, “Thy Will be done.“

It is apparently new territory for you, Paul, although you could say it is your “native land.” Nevertheless, as the shift is made from the finite to the infinite view, you are going to have to be a stranger in a strange land, a babe in a new world. Although there will be no aspect of danger involved, it will be necessary to patiently explore, sense, perceive, and understand how to be, rather than do.

RAJ: Don’t add that “but.” Stay with the simple Fact you have just stated. The “but” is the hooker! “All is infinite Mind and Its infinite manifestation.“1 There aren’t any “buts” about it! Being is “neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it. It is at that point and must be understand therefrom.“2 It will never be understood from the standpoint of the three-dimensional frame of awareness (ego). You must stop looking for clues, helpful hints, or reassurances objectively. Being doesn’t need them, and “ego” only needs them in order to hook you. Remember, as you “do battle,” that there is no battle going on at all. It is a process by which you are becoming less slipshod in your self-identification. It seems as though it is an attempt to influence you in the direction of misidentification, but you are at a point where the thrust truly cannot reach you because you are hidden in the Secret Place of the Most High. You have experienced It.

PAUL: I feel as though I’m really going out on a limb here by maintaining the position which you outlined this morning and previously. RAJ: Why? PAUL: Because it appears that I might lose something. RAJ: There it is! Ego. If nothing can get outside the infinitude of your Being, then how can You lose anything? Paul, you must be very strict. If you can’t lose anything, then you haven’t lost anything. All of You is still present and functioning, and all of You will continue to be present and functioning.