Decisions I made
There are quite some things I changed within the last year. For some time I had been searching for alternative cosmetic goods such as shampoo since, let’s face it, it’s not hard to recognise that your regular off-the-shelf shampoo (especially if it’s Head&Shoulders Lemongrass) is basically liquid poison. I consciously decided to switch to a local manufacturer of affordable organic soap and was delighted to learn that the appropriate types of soap can also be used as tooth paste, shampoo and shower gel. For me it eliminated the need for any other cosmetic goods as I also stopped using any moisturiser and perfume. I am amazed by how my skin felt more alive just as if it could breathe again after only a few applications. However miraculous, this article is not about soap.
I also started to become more conscious about the food I eat. Since most meat produced today is swamped with drugs and chemicals I’d rather not have in body, I consciously decided to mostly eat vegetarian. I think it really helps not to be dogmatic about it – if I should really crave some meat or it’s a special occasion, I will simply eat it. I recently discovered the taste and vitality provided by raw vegan food and currently plan to develop my eating habits in this direction. You don’t even have to miss out on the most delicious chocolate. [1] Looking at people who have been doing this for longer periods, the long-term viability seems to be given and health benefits appear tremendous. However delicious, this article is not about food.
As I had attended Yoga classes before, I finally took it upon myself and consciously decided to do Yoga regularly. Mind you, it’s not every day and it’s not especially consistent, but I manage to create time and space for it about 1-2 times a week. I find that the best time to do it is after refreshing sleep and before breakfast. The feeling of energization and calmness accompanies me the whole day. I try to become aware of my breathing more often and to ensure that I take deep breaths into my abdomen, as they are much more vitalizing and relaxing than the shallow stressed-out breaths many are used to. Taking five deep breaths can turn most situations around. I also decided to take the stairway instead of the elevator when coming home. However beneficial, the thoughts I want to share aren’t about physical exercise either…
What do all these little episodes of my life have in common? They are about the choices I made which enabled me to live as I desire. Therefore I strive to act in a way to increase the number of choices, both for me and other beings. Being able to consciously choose means having more freedom in your life. Having choices also means bearing self-responsibility – if you made a particular choice, you your-self are to be responsive for the consequences of your choice. This is why many people are afraid of responsibility – because it means they can be held accountable. Therefore mankind created a society where it is easy to lay off responsibility – to some superordinate in the various forms of hierarchy [2] or to our invention of objectivity exemplified by reductionist science. As von Förster points out: Objectivity wants to take the perception of the observer out of the description. If the observer’s perception is deemed invalid – then who is left to describe the phenomenon? The conundrum becomes obvious – without observer there can be no description. [3]
The Refusal to Believe and a Thinkable Alternative
What are the choices you made in your lifetime so far? Have they been your conscious choices or did you simply do as told? Making conscious choices requires the mental freedom to choose. Even before the act of choosing, a choice must become thinkable. No matter where you turn – TV-channels, political parties, supermarkets – you get a number of pre-assorted choices. By deliberately obscuring some possibilities and making you afraid about all kinds of things, your choices are further being limited. People in your social environment, conditioned by the dominant forces of society, often simply adopt such a limited world-view and becomes stuck in it. They regard those who see more possibilities as weird or even crazy. Has it not been the visionaries, who saw a world of possibilities, that have prepared the way for the most marvellous achievements? Isn’t everything you say or do a thought form first, whether conscious or conditioned, and only then born into the world as a word or an action? Therefore, if you want to increase the range of choices you have – which represents the degree of freedom you can claim within your life – you must first decide to think about all those things you would rather not be bothered with. This is an act of becoming aware, acknowledging all the inconvenient observations and thoughts crossing your mind. This means descending into your fears and everything you dislike in order to understand yourself better. Every bit of understanding evaporates the potential to paralyse, manipulate and control you – and transforms it into a vista of conscious choices. When faced with a new situation, a paralysed person can only remain petrified, but a person making a conscious choice may remain calm and move into any direction they desire.
I would argue that eschewing self-responsibility through the denial of free will is ultimately a way of avoiding ourselves. This has led to the construction of a world-view in which people see themselves as nothing but a “persona”, a social construct. They see themselves as merely adapting and responding to the environment, much like a calculator giving the expected solution to a mathematical problem. This is a materialistic world-view, proposing that everything comes out of matter. It assumes that if we would know all variables in this moment, we could calculate the future. At its core, it means that free will is an illusion – after all, where should it come from if we are merely biological machines? This ideology reveals itself in all forms of so-called inherent necessities. It is manifested every time you hear about something as “the only (viable) option” (like saving banks from bankruptcy), usually accompanied by collateral damage (like mass unemployment) justified through this supposed necessity. This tactic only serves to shield the perpetrator from responsibility. If there is only a single course of action, you can’t blame anyone – there was simply no choice! [4] Yet this rhetoric reveals the non-existent freedom such people have through believing in such a mechanistic world-view – it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and they consider themselves to be victims, constantly violated by their environment. This lets them become very fearful and their response is most often to take control of their material surroundings and fellow men in order to protect themselves. This easily leads to controlling and tyrannical behaviour as they attempt to gain power over others.
I didn’t know what to do when I was first confronted with this world-view and reading publications by neurologists interpreting that there is no (material) basis for free will or consciousness. I remember watching the news as a teenager when the reporter spoke about subsidies for companies while social welfare was lacking – I neither knew what to do about that. However – and this is where it all starts – I refused to believe it. Having stared at my own hands often enough, wondering if I was my body, becoming aware of my thoughts, observing them, I intuitively felt that these explanations can’t be right. As I refused to blindly believe, I had opened my eyes to the gateway leading into another world. Every time you refuse to believe something, even if you are not sure what else to believe, you can choose to make an alternative thinkable.
It is a long and ongoing journey to discover an alternative and I am exhilarated to share my understanding with you. As I refused to believe to be a pre-determined machine, I chose to make an alternative thinkable. Researching related fields for several years and making small steps, as I had chosen to take life into my own hands, I am grateful for ever more amazing experiences and marvellous revelations. Personal experience tells me that making conscious choices and becoming self-responsible improves my quality of life and allows me to learn more and more each moment along the way.
I have recently learned about Tom Campbell’s Big Theory of Everything [5], which provides a scientific basis for a diametrically different world-view while upsetting notions about Newtonian science. Many so-called progressives, techno-utopianists and transhumanists believe reductionistic science to be the path of salvation. Campbell’s theory proposes a scientific, although radically different framework for understanding the world. It requires fewer assumptions and provides better predictability than the current mainstream understanding, yet it also integrates Newtonian science. It postulates the existence of consciousness and evolution. It provides the framework for a statistical reality and shows that conscious will can influence not only your inner mind, but the outer material world – consciousness manifesting itself in matter. The easily verifiable double-slit experiment [6] is the acknowledged example of this phenomenon. It shows that a wave (a probability distribution, a range of possibilities) collapses to a particle (a concrete manifestation) only if it is being observed. Given historical consistency, it explains how the application of conscious will can influence information over any distance and even across time within a statistically significant range.
An easy way to verify this concept for yourself is to attempt Masaru Emoto’s rice hado experiment, whereas thoughts determinate how a physically isolated sample of cooked rice degrades. [7] Being something so counter-intuitive to the materialist world-view, thoughts alone changing matter, this is something only you can prove to yourself. However, it is important that you carry out any related experiment with diligence and pure intent, since your thoughts change the outcome. Accepting this theory might be difficult, but your results would otherwise be skewed. [8] Through this experiment, an important reason for praying and being thankful before eating becomes apparent, while also potentially explaining many religious and paranormal experiences. My desire to understand this existence leads me to accept the theory which uses the fewest assumptions and axioms, explains the most phenomena and has the least exceptions. Which should thus be considered the prime source – matter or consciousness? I choose consciousness.
Accepting a different explanation is an act of transformation. As the world-view is transformed, so are you. Your view is your framing of existence and what you consider to be possible experiences in your life. For me, the refusal to accept a manufactured belief has become an ongoing systemic inquiry [9] into the nature of existence. I gladly share my current understanding, but only you can give yourself an answer to the questions of existence. What are you? Where do you come from and where do you go to? What is the purpose of all this? I am astounded by how many people are hardly bothered by these questions, yet they set the stage for the sense-making of every single experience! I believe it comes back to the basic question of whether you consider yourself to be consciousness bestowed with free will. This extends into whether you can choose to build an understanding of these profound mysteries. Those who say that it will never be solved, why do they have so little faith in the power of their own understanding?
The Power of the Mind
Learning about language, neurology, psychology, sociology, religion, occultism and systems theory has brought me to the study of consciousness itself. The more understanding I gain, the more I believe in the power of my mind. A self-understanding as co-creator puts one into a vastly different mind-set than a self-understanding of being the constant victim of circumstances. Understanding that I can greatly influence my interpretation of the world – and thus my experience – enables tremendous self-empowerment. [10] With great power comes great responsibility. [11] While there are great guidelines on how to act in a way to further love and unity, [12] making mistakes and failing allows us to pay attention to what we still need to learn as part of the process.
My current understanding as basis, I consider the mind to be tremendously powerful. All that can be conceived by our imagination can become reality. While it might take time until a concept, for example of a composition, is transferred into musical notes so it may be played: However fleeting the thought form, it already exists in front of the mind’s eye and is thus already being experienced! As proven by mathematics and imaginary numbers, the realm of imagination can help us to create results in the material world as well. [13] The story of Pema and ancient Buddhism suggest the possibility of creating thought forms which take on a life of their own and manifest in the material world as deities. The conclusion is that just like the deity is an illusion, so is the whole of what is believed to be real. [14] Hypnosis is able to re-create the same phenomenon for both pleasure and spiritual advancement. [15] Are these our children’s so-called imaginary friends? What about the myriad so-called paranormal phenomena (including ghosts, apparitions, UFOs and aliens) which could be simultaneously observed by more than a single person? What about any and all phenomena which cannot be properly explained by the materialistic scientific framework? Both ancient mystic knowledge and modern consciousness research suggest that it is conscious will and desire which bring about our reality, both individually and collectively. One of the reportedly most potent ways to mould reality is through the directed awareness of a group of people, focusing their intent in harmony. This allows to affect the results of random number generators, make plants heal, levitate tables and conjure ghosts with more intimate knowledge of Victorian history than the conjurers could collectively possess. [16]
Assuming conscious choices bring about self-responsibility and thus a more aware, considerate, kind and enjoyable existence within this life-time, the most important task becomes the creation of the freedom to think. As mentioned above, this may be accomplished by facing your own fears and being honest about your desires. After all, if there is a thought within your life you are not comfortable with, how to better do away with it once and for all than to carefully examine and subsequently change it. Thus facing your fears seems to be the best way to understand and thus transform them for good. [17] If your ability to positively influence your life depends on the power of your imagination and your scope of conscious choice, would you not want to make sure that your mind’s eye has a view unobstructed by fear, doubts and pre-conditioned concepts? The clearer the sky in front of your mind’s eye, the better you are able to conjure thought forms and manifest your dreams – from initial conception to eventual realisation – whether in the spiritual, mental or physical realm. We see only what we believe and we believe only what we see. The quantum leap in reflexivity is exemplified within systems theory. From believing that systems exist out there to be eventually understood in their entirety (ontological view), to believing that we actually create the systems as intellectual constructs through our very act of understanding (epistemological view). The more we understand, the more we create through our understanding, the more there is to understand. Thus our inquiry into both the inner world of our mind and the outer world of matter will both be unending. An eternal cycle.
Reality Frames – Mind Frames
As a way of both exploring and avoiding ourselves, we have created many common understandings – reality frames collectively agreed upon. So the world allows us to perceive an illusion of stability. People believe that the material world is real and identify with it. They even believe that their being depends on it. Within the theory of consciousness, our experience of the world and ourselves could be likened to the Matrix as depicted in the 1999 movie. [18] Basically, it is about an illusory experience we believe to be real and important. Previously, I had believed that the matrix was the idea of politics – that a society would necessarily need to be organised through a top-down divide-and-conquer system, along with man-made positive law used to oppress. Then, I thought it was about economy and the idea that demands and debt need to govern human relations. Later, I believed it was about understanding the world’s hidden structures and special interest groups along with their totalitarian ideologies and occult agenda. It is through this path that I came to the study of sociopathic behaviour. I was able to recognise that the issue relies within the individual psyche – yours, mine and society’s mind as the collective reflection. Considering all identification with the material world and our experience we believe to be so real as an illusion is a more radical step, yet one I am happily willing to take if it allows for a more enjoyable life. The process I personally went through, which might very well be far from finished, could be similar to the dream-levels shown in the movie Inception. [19] You wake up to a truth and believe that you are now experiencing the “real” reality, yet you are still dreaming. You wake up to another truth, yet you are just in another layer of your dream. Grand realisations aside, it helps to simply strive to be aware of all the reality frames and dream-layers we constructed: The media with its manufactured version of the world out there. Politics with its ideologies on how the world should work – along with its fake alternatives to stay in control of potential dissidents. Movies and popular culture creating scenarios and proposing specific possibilities – of course only those which ultimately serve the interest of extended control. [20] Video games as alternate realities so extensive some people practically live in the virtual world. The internet, the cyber-space as a representation of our consciousness, yet also heavily censored by the dominant powers. When was the last time you put on your go(o)g(g)les to search for something?
Who created all these realities and what interests do they serve? Can you extract the elements which further your personal freedom and reject those which try to artificially restrict you? Are you aware enough to make the conscious choice to use these reality frames – and not become trapped inside their conceptions so you remain controllable? Many politicians and economists pretend or even believe the world would end if the current system of economic governance collapses – some people even buy into this. Why shouldn’t so-called hallucinations, drug-induced perceptions, [21] altered states of consciousness, extensions of awareness, spiritual experiences and the power of imagination be real? Which reality frames do you allow to frame your mind and thus construct your world? Are they of your own making or did you just blindly accept them? How is your judgement based on your personal understanding of your existence and the fact that you are aware of it?
Consciousness as Eternal Creation
“I believe that every perception is an act of creation, every memory an act of imagination.” – Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman
Isn’t everything we do, from the seemingly most irrelevant blinking of the eye to the greatest feats of art an act of conception? Isn’t every thought, every emotion, every move, every word, every perception an act of imagination brought about by our mind?
Can we be anything less than eternal co-creators, endlessly re-imagining the dream we call life? [22] Are we not consciousness embodied in mankind, soul fractals incarnated within the material world of time and space, yet always connected to the absolute unity of consciousness beyond polarity? As consciousness within this dense sphere, having forgotten our own nature in order to experience all aspects of existence, what could be more important at this critical juncture then to re-gain our awareness? Choosing to believe that everything is made of the same substance – the subtle, sentient energy we call consciousness. Consciousness is Awareness is Everything is Consciousness becoming aware of itself. Understanding the profound connection between us, which I describe as our common connection to the absolute unity of consciousness, means we are all the same entity experiencing itself from myriad perspectives. We are one yet many. [23] Both ancient Greek philosophy and modern systems theory show how the whole is greater than, or at least different from, the sum of its parts. [24] What could be the purpose of an all-powerful unity of consciousness – being pure love – to conjure these worlds and throw us in it as its parts? I imagine it to be the interaction between its constituent parts – it is thus life itself. The purpose is to learn and to love, as only love allows us to approximate the absolute unity of consciousness beyond polarity. Loving is the process by which the unity is being brought into and re-created within this material world. Thus I believe loving to be the most purposeful act of consciousness. Thus, given the right frame of understanding, I can rephrase: Consciousness is Awareness is Everything is Becoming Aware of Myself as Being Consciousness. I Am that I Am. [25]
“You are not just a drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.” – Sufi mystic Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī
Is this the reason why both psychology and mysticism tell us to look within ourselves if something bothers us in the other? You see yourself reflected in your world, and often our human companions are our most perfect mirrors. Searching within yourself, acknowledging, accepting and understanding the issue, transforming it, brings resolution and furthers unity: Unity within your personal psyche, unity within your natural and social environment, unity within the whole of consciousness – for it is all you, and as such every manifestation is a fractal of the absolute consciousness. [26]
If you realise yourself to be eternal consciousness incarnated within a temporary body rather than a temporary body having developed consciousness – everything is changed and have new eyes to see. As consciousness, you have the great responsibility of conscious choice – deciding where to go – where to project yourself. As consciousness, everything you direct yourself to – everything you pay attention to – can be transformed or re-inforced by you, for it is (part of the same) consciousness itself. The modern so-called attention economy proves the point that your awareness, yourself as directed consciousness, is what is actually being fought for on the market. Within the control game, it is the only thing that matters and indeed, the only thing capable of creating matter. Only a consciousness which is not losing itself within identification with the material world will not be distracted by the irrelevant promises of power and fame. Such a consciousness can realise its full potential to love through its own creation. Therefore, it is wise to be conscious about yourself as consciousness – being truly self-aware means being yourself.
“Dont ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman [27]
With this great power and responsibility also comes great freedom – the freedom to decide. Whatever you do, you may choose to act out of fear or out of love. This is the only relevant choice. I have found that the realisation of being an eternal soul is certainly not necessary, but proves to be very supportive in choosing love over fear. As I realise my immortality since my source is the realm of spirit beyond – nothing in this existence can truly threaten me. Even the death of fear is accomplished as I realise that the fear of death is unfounded. The seriousness, severity, heaviness of existence within the material world is en-lightened. [28] Life ceases to be a struggle and starts to be an experience of learning and loving. It’s just a ride. [29]
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This freedom enables us to do whatever we want – yet the truly en-lightened have always chosen the path of love over the path of fear, no matter what price they had to pay within the material world. There are interests among us – and thus still within ourselves – which want us to believe that it doesn’t matter what we do, since every decision supposedly serves the great plan. I contend that while even the worst atrocities need to be acknowledged, understood and thus ultimately transformed into goodness, it does not mean that they are at all necessary in the first place. Becoming aware is a choice in itself and being aware means you can consciously choose to do the right thing right away. Unfounded extensions of ethics in order to justify the unjustifiable should be abandoned for the most ethical, compassionate decision. Written and institutionalised rules and law are dead and can never bring about living ethics. Only conscious deliberation and compassionate intuition at every decision-making point is truly ethical living. [30] I consider the ideology of moral relativism, stating that every behaviour is acceptable, not only misleading but also very dangerous. It attempts to disable your individual moral compass, luring you away from trusting your own conscience (consciousness) in order to accept whatever the dominant culture considers to be the most respectable choice. [31] Listen to your inner guardian protecting you from committing spiritual hara-kiri [32] – you will intuitively know what the right decision is. My choice is to regard the mystery of experience as art-in-fact, realising myself to be an artist, co-creating and thus bringing about life.
“The most visible creators are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible – without brush, hammer, clay, or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt. Their medium is simply being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see, but don’t have to draw, because they are the artists of being alive.” – Donna J. Stone
My desire remains – to fulfil my own potential and inspire others to do the same – all the while enjoying this marvellous experience. Creating freedom for thought permits me to see more possibilities. Making conscious choices enables me to stay on the right track to realise my potential. Constantly inquiring into the meaning of existence and the nature of consciousness, the nature of myself, is the process of becoming self-aware and allows me to take steps towards a different frame of mind: Loving comes easily and my dream manifests. As consciousness, it is your choice and yours alone. The world you create for yourself – the world I create for myself – the world we create for us. For we are everything experiencing and expressing ourself in infinite refractions. All it takes to realise the miracle of creation and awaken to your life’s purpose: A conscious decision.
Notes:
[ 1] I recently tried this recipe for vegan chocolate. All it takes is cacao powder, liquid coconut oil and agave syrup. It is absolutely delicious.
[ 2] I wrote an extensive article on the Principle of Hierarchy as a reference.
[ 3] The famous cyberneticist Heinz von Förster talks about the issue of the observer, self-responsibility and his life in this interview. The concepts of embodiment and the validity of subjective accounts are also a recurring theme in phenomenology.
[ 4] The mystic scholar and philosopher Armin Risi writes about free will, world-views and the nature of consciousness in his book Licht wirft keinen Schatten (in German). I think I have never read a German book written in an accessible fashion while revealing such profound insight. If you are interested in understanding how our world-views determine our actions or the mysteries of life, please do read this book.
[ 5] Tom Campbell provides extensive documentation for his Big Theory of Everything in a trilogy of books, but the gist is contained within his lectures.
[ 6] The fundamentals of the double-slit experiment are documented on Wikipedia. This experiment has been widely reproduced and is generally accepted. It serves as the microcosmic example of Campbell’s theory. It is Max Planck, the founding father of quantum theory, who supports the assumption of consciousness as primal source: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” As quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)
[ 7] Masaru Emoto’s rice hado experiment is taken from the Russian documentary Water, which reveals many interesting properties of the element our bodies are mostly composed of. These findings are completely in line with Campbell’s theory and I was able to reproduce the results myself. The experimental set-up is very easy and many people have successfully done this experiment . If you are a scientifically minded person, I think this is one of the best ways you can convince yourself of the primacy of consciousness.
[ 8] The concept of second-order cybernetics, from the field of systems theory, explains how the experimenter is always part of the experiment himself and is unable to separate himself from it. The experiment influences and vice versa. Understanding the power of conscious intent elevates this consideration to another level.
[ 9] I consider systemic inquiry as a fancy description of never stopping to question everything. I encountered it during my academic study of systems theory. Taken from Ray Ison: “With awareness systemic inquiry invites a consistent way of being within an on-going inquiry process (e.g. living life as inquiry).” You can download the first chapter of this book here.
[ 10] Banal as it sounds, belief in self-efficacy is something which needs to be (re-)learned. Yes, you are infinite potential.
[ 11] This quote is prominently featured in the 2002 Spiderman movie and initially appeared in the first spiderman story by Stan Lee.
[ 12] Armin Risi provides most excellent explanations about the differences between “God’s law” and “God’s will” in Licht wirft keinen Schatten. It deserves its subtitle as a “spiritual-philosophical manual”.
[ 13] James Bechrakis wrote a paper on the concept of imaginary numbers as a modern from of astral magic: I, Squared.
[ 14] The story of Pema is featured as Chapter 3 of Magical Use of Thought Forms but can also be accessed here. I recommend reading this highly fascinating and inspiring story.
[ 15] If you are interested in creating thought forms, you might want to visit the website of hypnotist Talmadge Harper. He seems highly competent, his products are reasonably priced he is praised in many testimonials.
[ 16] These examples are taken from both Thomas Campbell’s work and the book Magical Use of Thought Forms by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and J.H. Brennan.
[ 17] While psychiatry and yoga/bodywork have different approaches, the both require the afflicted to re-live an experiment in order to change its definition. I think this process can be likened to accessing a specific part of the matrix (your mind), going into it and re-programming it. Therefore you must face your fears if you wish to defeat them. I won’t tire to recommend the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.
[ 18] Max Planck spoke about the mind as the matrix of all matter: “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” Excerpt from Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)
[ 19] I recommend the movie Inception. It offers Hollywood’s interpretation of the power of our minds and the idea of both living in and creating dream-layers. Within the plot, as agents change the environment within the dream of their victim as they try to fool him, his unconscious, represented by the pedestrians in his dream, becomes increasingly suspicious of the intruders and eventually tries to stop and kill them. It is this kind of vigilance we require within our own minds as foreign thoughts, concepts and ideologies attempt to invade it. Make sure the general population within your mind is well-armed against potential intruders – it is mental defence that is most required these days.
[ 20] This review of The Political Economy of Culture by Sut Jhally neatly summarises this point.
[ 21] As probably most great philosophers, Aldous Huxley also actively sought out experiences which enabled him to perceive the world in a new way. He describes his experience with peyote/mescalin in the essay The Doors of Perception.
[ 22] I can recommend the book The Tree of Knowledge written by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, applying the science of neural systems to questions of perception and knowing, ultimately arriving at the concept of self-creation as Autopoiesis. The profundity of this consideration was also recognised by von Förster in Ethics and second-order cybernetics, as reported in the aforementioned book by Ray Ison: “Am I apart from the universe? Whenever I look, am I looking as through a peep-hole upon an unfolding universe? Am I part of the universe? Whenever I act, am I changing myself and the universe as well? He then went on to say: “Whenever I reflect on these two alternatives, I am surprised again and again by the depth of the abyss that separates the two fundamentally different worlds that can be created by such a choice. Either to see myself as a citizen of an independent universe, whose regularities, rules and customs I may eventually discover, or to see myself as the participant in a conspiracy [in the sense of collective action], whose customs, rules and regulations we are now inventing.””
[ 23] Derived from the teachings of Sri Chaitanya, Armin Risi descirbes this unimaginable state of God and God’s energies being simultaneously both different and not-different: “Mit anderen Worten, wenn man sagt: „Alles ist eins”, ist dies eine einseitige, nicht vollständige Betrachtungsweise des Absoluten. Denn alles ist eins und verschieden, und zwar gleichzeitig. Diese differenzierte Erkenntnis (tattva) lautet im Sanskrit: acintya bhedabheda-tattva, „das unvorstellbare (acintya) gleichzeitige Verschiedensein (bheda) und Nicht-verschiedensein (abheda) von Gott und Gottes Energien”.”
[ 24] See the principles of emergence and swarm intelligence, whereas complex and entirely unexpected behaviour can arise through the collaboration of seemingly simple agents. This notion was popularised in James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds.
[ 25] I recommend this short but very inspiring lecture by Alan Watts on the Way of Waking Up. On a similar note, as he insightfully attested a crisis in consciousness and called for the real revolution, I would allow Jiddu Krishnamurti to ask “Who are you?” and “Why don’t you change?”.
[ 26] This is most likely what is called God by most religions, seen and interpreted from their different viewpoints. It is also strongly related to Carl Gustav Jung‘s idea of the collective unconscious, which is also being referred to in the aforementioned Magical Use of Thought Forms as the astral plane where thoughts can be transmitted. I am still highly impressed by the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. The series has (at least) two alternate endings through its Human Instrumentality Project. One exemplifies the return to the absolute unity of consciousness, the other shows the continued material embodiment of soul fractals within the world of polarity. There is also an interesting analysis of the series’ characters according to the sephirotic tree of life.
[ 27] A modern embodiment of this principle of “doing what you love to do“ is Mitch Altman, a prominent member of the Hackerspace movement. Watch his TEDx Brussels talk and be inspired to do what you love to do and find the support you need.
[ 28] I stumbled across this short video entitled The Universe is an Illusion, But Consciousness Isn’t. Profoundly inspiring.
[ 29] The comedian Bill Hicks pointed this out as the conclusion to one of his programmes.
[ 30] Albert Schweitzer extends on this point and describes his view on ethics in Reverence for Life.
[ 31] Armin Risi de-constructs the fallacies of moral relativism in Licht wirft keinen Schatten.
[ 32] This useful piece of advice is taken from the aforementioned Magical use of Thought Forms.
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