Sunday, November 30, 2014

The Devil Inside You - Transcending the Net of Thought


The devil is inside you. It is a thought, an illusory net, trying to pull you in and keep you caught in a mental loop of discontinuity with the present moment. Listen, watch it, see how it works within the idea of you, creating "you", and set it free. Right now, in this very moment, you have the opportunity to transcend this psychological bind you have put yourself in and have a radical revolution of the psyche. This is the destiny of all human beings on this planet: To transcend the individual ego and merge with the Whole.


"And what is yourself, the individual you? I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a partiuclar corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not."

Jiddu Krishnamurti 

Language gives us the ability to communicate with one another, to share and collaborate for a better world. However, if the universe is seen only through the confined filter of the your internal dialog, a language that was given to you by external sources, it creates a fragmented world of illusion. 

We are all bound by our thoughts; hidden in a mask of fear from our true selves. The world you see out there is just as much a part of you as your lungs and yet we treat it as if it some foreign commodity we can exploit. Trapped in the net of thought, we have become aliens to ourselves and the world around us (although the two are one process). 

Liberation of the mind is the next evolutionary step of mankind. From the part to the whole. The real you does not live in one particular spot. Like space itself, there is no center. The real you is everywhere. All you have to do is re-member.



Tuesday, November 25, 2014

What the People and the Medicinal Plants of the Amazon Know That You Don't

Mark Plotkin is an ethnobotanist who was cured of an ailment by an Amazonian Shaman and has been fascinated by the medicinal plants of the Amazon ever since. In this TED talk he informs us on the knowledge that the tribes in the Amazon have on the forest and the medicinal plants within it. These tribes are slowly disappearing and with it, so too will the knowledge. Threats are coming from all sides: Trade and transport, illegal gold mining, commercial hunting and fishing, illegal logging, narcotrafficking, and many more. At the root of all these threats, as you can see, is profit. Profit is destroying our world and is a disease within the minds of the people. But what these plants tell us is that we are fundamentally connected with the Earth and each other and we have a duty to take care of both. 

These tribes are truly living in harmony with nature and are actually listening to what it has to say, something us Westerners lack greatly. We have a lot to learn, but so too do the tribes. Together, we can merge our ideas and technology to help better our world and by the use of modern technology help protect the contacted and uncontacted tribes of the Amazon who hold a wealth of knowledge that can lead us into a better and more harmonious world we all know is possible.  







Friday, November 7, 2014

5 Steps to Finding the Ground of Being

**Disclaimer: This should not be viewed as something you need to "achieve". It is simply your natural state of being and is truly only available through surrender.**

This process is a basic guideline to finding what mystics might call the Ground of Being, the Self, the Source, what have you. It is not a strict set of rules you need to follow in order to get there (here). It will not "work" if you think of it that way. Simply, if you let the moment you are currently having evolve on its own while being completely with your body and your extended-body (your environment), it will naturally do this on its own. So really, you don't have to do anything. This is, however, the natural and unintentional process I went through whilst meditating to do so.

Before you begin, I would like to add that for each step, be completely and totally present with your current thought-narrative going on "inside" you during the process. All you have to do is watch it, no need to toy with it. See how the thoughts you have and everything else in your present experience go together. See how there is no separation between the two. 

Let's begin...


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Step 1. Stop everything you are doing and begin slow rhythmic breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Repeat this until you are fully relaxed. Take as much time as needed.


Step 2. Slowly, bring your awareness to relatively the middle part of your brain, near the pineal gland (or what some would call the third-eye). Keep breathing while doing so and focus all of your energy in this particular area of the body. This may take a while. Eventually, you will begin to feel a tingling sensation coming from this area.

Step 3. Hone in on the feeling you are experiencing. Intensify it as best as you can simply by observing/feeling it. Try to find out every little detail about it through your direct felt presence. See how it ripples and flows like some watery energy.

Remember... take your time. Don't rush anything.

Step 4. When the sensation has intensified to a certain point, keep your awareness focused on it, and slowly open up that awareness to your heart. It should almost feel like an energetic sphere inside you with focal points at the heart and the pineal gland. Keep doing this until you feel "it". Once again, this could take a long time. 

Step 5: Let it naturally connect with the rest of your body and follow the sensation deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, into the deepest levels of your consciousness. Do not imagine this, just feel it. It will go deeper on its own the more awareness you place upon it. Surrender to the Void that is you. Eventually, you will feel it. This cannot truly be described but you will be at the fundamental Self, the Void, the Ground of Being, the Source; whatever you want to call it. And if not, do it longer. My first time it took me around two hours of deep meditation. 

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What is felt is indescribable, as is any (the) moment, however I will do my best to share what I experienced. I saw/felt a still pond that was at the "bottom" (although there in no bottom) of what I'll call my inner self (the thing below the surface realm of existence). This pond was a source, the Source that was connected with the sensation I was referring to earlier. This "pond" that encompassed everything would occasionally ripple from the production of "my" thoughts. Although, they were no longer "mine" for there was no "I" or person to claim them. For a duration of time I was no longer identified with anything. I was for the first time in my life free. Everything in the Universe, everything in my direct felt experience rippled from this source. And I realized I have always been here, and so have you, we are just lost in the ripples.














(The use of an entheogen is recommend but not needed for this process)