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Contemplate thoughtfully

August 11, 2014 – 12:06 PM

contemplation4

Reference: The 12 Aspects of Mindfulness

Mindfulness provides the discipline for looking and contemplation.

You may do this exercise while sipping coffee in a café, or strolling along a river. You may even find a place where you can sit comfortably for a while without being disturbed. Then patiently observe the world go by.

When mindfulness is practiced, thinking becomes contemplation. Problems are solved by looking at them closely and recognizing the relationships among what is there. Nothing needs to be figured out. Let non-judgmental observation provide accurate input. Let free association provide the uninhibited awareness of existing relationships.

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MINDFULNESS 11: Contemplate thoughtfully.

  1. Observe as usual. Notice the environment and other people.

  2. Apply the aspects of mindfulness that you have learned so far.

  3. Observe physical and mental objects, while sitting or walking, with eyes open or closed.

  4. When you perceive something amiss become very alert. This may be the case despite the explanations provided. Something may still appear to be inconsistent and incoherent. See Inconsistency in KHTK.

  5. Look more closely around the area that seems out of place.

  6. Look at the relationships among what is there.

  7. Follow the trail of what continues to be puzzling.

  8. Exhaust all such trails until the missing piece is observed.

  9. The trail may take you to some childhood question that never got answered, or to some confusion in school that never got resolved.

  10. The trail may also take you to some traumatic incident that you feel emotional about.

  11. Look at those questions, confusions and emotions while applying all aspects of mindfulness.

  12. Consult references from books and Internet, which are applicable to those areas as necessary.

  13. Follow through to the end of trails of what does not make sense.

  14. Expand your span of attention and let the perceptions pour in.

  15. Let the realizations present themselves to you without you making effort.

  16. Use your own judgment as to when to end a session.

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Develop this exercise to a point where you may execute it even while interacting socially with others. Keep following  patiently the trail of what does not make sense. Many things may come up naturally to be scrutinized. Simply observe them and become aware of them without effort.

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By vinaire | Comments (8)

Aristotle and the Ground State

August 9, 2014 – 9:28 PM
Aristoteles_Louvre
Reference: Unmoved mover

The unmoved mover is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or “mover” of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the “unmoved mover” moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action.

Scientifically, the unmoved mover is equivalent to an absolute static. However, an absolute static is not possible in this universe because static-dynamic exists only in pair. This pair may be represented by a scale of infinite gradients where one end approaches increasing static value and the other end approaches increasing dynamic value in an asymptotic manner.

Thus, static and dynamic do not exist independent of each other. There is no static that exists in isolation. There is no “unmoved mover.” Static is always relative to dynamic. There is always relative motion.

One may presume no relative motion, but that would also mean no awareness because awareness arises only with relative motion. This would be the Ground State of “absence of awareness.”

Aristotle argues that “there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world”; and to prove this he invents an impressive array of new concepts that includes  potentiality and actuality, the four causes, hylomorphism, the theory of categories, and, of course, the “first cause” or unmoved mover.

But one may ask, “How does that immortal, unchanging being of Aristotle come about?” Or, “How does such an argument come about?” Or, “How does anything come about?”

The Ground State of “absence of awareness” provides a basis from which it becomes possible to start answering such questions. We don’t really need Aristotle’s complex explanations that use a wide variety of new concepts. All this complexity only seems to generate more mystery and confusion.

The concept of Static in Scientology is simply the concept of Aristotle’s “Unmoved mover” wrapped up in a new garb. Since the Scientology static has the ability to postulate and to perceive, there is awareness associated with this Static. Thus, such a Static is not something inherently permanent; and, like Aristotle’s unchanging being, it also arises somehow.

All we are asking is, “How does anything come about?” This boils down to the question, “How does awareness come about?”

So the basic question that needs to be answered is, “What is awareness? How does it arise?”

Whatever is beyond awareness is unknowable. The idea of primary cause may simply be dropped. It is not required.

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By vinaire | Comments (6)

Awareness and the Ground State

August 9, 2014 – 4:17 PM
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Reference: The Ground State of the Universe

I believe in a Ground State. Scientifically, there has to be a ground state of beingness, existence or the universe. But it is not the Absolute Zero of science though. Nor is it the God of the Abrahamic religions. It is not the self, soul, spirit or atman. It is not even the Buddha-nature, or the Static of Scientology.

The Ground State is a mystery.

Let’s start with our beingness. The core characteristic of a human being is that it is aware of being aware. We are talking about the human being as a whole and not of its parts. We may define awareness as follows.

Awareness is the ability of an organism to respond to stimuli. It is unaware of the stimulus it cannot respond to.

The stimuli, in general, would be physical objects in one’s environment. When the stimilus is a mental object, such as, thought, emotion, or impulse, and the organism responds to it, then we may call it “awareness of awareness.”

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Humans are not only aware, they are aware of being aware.

Animals are definitely aware but not aware of being aware to the degree humans are.

Plants are definitely aware also, but we regard them as not aware of being aware.

Minerals are limited in awareness. They are aware to the degree that they respond to chemical interactions.

Awareness is intimately related to motion. If there is no motion anywhere we would find it very hard to define external awareness. Thus, we may say that inert gases are approaching unawareness, except at molecular level by reason of temperature, and at atomic level by reason of structure. Beyond the solidity of nucleus there is the motion of electromagnetic waves.

We may imagine a whole scale that goes asymptotic toward absence of awareness at one end and toward awareness of awareness at the other.

Everything in existence seems to be at some point on this scale of awareness. Life seems to start when a certain level of awareness is reached.

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Philosophically, we may look at the dichotomy of “awareness – no awareness,” and say that beyond awareness would be no awareness and any area beyond awareness would be unknowable. We are unable to tell if there is no life beyond awareness because that area is unknowable.

Our whole universe lies in the sphere of awareness. We may say that our universe is bounded by an “absence of awareness.” To us, all manifestations lie within this sphere of awareness. Our universe is the universe of awareness.

Beyond this universe, there is neither awareness nor motion. Awareness arises only when there is motion.

There is no definition possible for “absence of motion or awareness” simply because there is no awareness. Anything defined shall be within the universe of awareness. Therefore, self, soul, atman, God, Static, etc., are all within the universe of awareness.

We may only speculate. But any speculation would then be part of awareness. Any potential that we may imagine shall be part of the universe of awareness.

“Absence of awareness” shall then act as the theoretical reference point for our universe of  awareness, the same way that “zero” acts as the reference point for all numbers.

Thus, “absence of awareness” may serve as an approximation for the Ground State for now. Certainly anything that we can be aware of would not qualify as the Ground State.

Thus, the Ground State is unknowable from the perspective of this universe of awareness. It cannot be defined.

By vinaire | Comments (38)

Beingness, Viewpoint and Reality

July 18, 2014 – 10:05 AM
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Reference: The Nature of Forms

Beingness is “existing-ness.” A phenomenon exists as a spiritual essence and a physical form. The spiritual and physical aspects go together. They cannot be separated as some absolutes. A spiritual state will have physical form, no matter how subtle. And a physical state will have some spiritual characteristics, no matter how subdued.

Thus, an atom has a configuration and certain properties that express its essence. Both of these physical and spiritual aspects go together to make up the beingness of an atom.

Beingness is inclusive of both form and essence.

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Awareness arises because there is desire to know. Awareness is manifested as a light with barely a frequency and period. Its characteristics are limited to a very basic form requiring space-time and simple awareness. This is the totality of initial beingness. The appearance of beingness reinforces the desire to know, and this pushes the development of beingness.

At the basic level there are no developed characteristics, such as, perception of other forms, visualization of other forms, or thinking by association of forms, because there are no other forms. The initial beingness is very raw and in no way does it resemble the God of Abrahamic religions or the thetan of Scientology. Those things come much later after the beingness has developed.

The initial beingness is basic light and raw awareness.

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We look at self in human perspective only; but self could be regarded as the consciousness of any beingness. Some beingness is more developed than others. Therefore, some self is more developed than others.

The initial beingness is basic light and awareness. Its self would only be the limited consciousness of light. This self would be very primitive. It would then develop as self of minerals, plants, animals, and finally that of the humans.

The self is the consciousness of beingness.

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The self or “I” forms the basic viewpoint from which awareness expands. It consists of all of space-time in the beginning. It is not just a “point” in space.

The “I” of a mineral consists of the space-time its physical form occupies, and the awareness it extends through its chemical properties.

The “I” of an animal consists of its physical form, and its interactions with its environment. It will include all its instincts and the functionality of its body.

The “I” of a human being consists of the human form and its vast capacity for interactions. It will include his intelligence and skills.

The basic viewpoint of beingness is the self or “I”.

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The desire to know is not satisfied with just having a beingness of light and awareness and with nothing else to be aware of. Thus come about harmonics of disturbance of the ground state, which gives rise to different beingnesses with their viewpoints.

Thus, there is differentiation. There is separation of forms. There are boundaries. There is perception of other forms. There is knowledge of basic forms.

There are interactions of different awareness, and with such interactions there come about complex forms, beingnesses, viewpoints and knowledge.

The desire to know produces harmonics of disturbance, giving rise to different beingnesses.

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Thus there is reality gained from perception through the viewpoints. Then there is reality of the viewpoint of “I”, which comes from the consciousness of beingness. There is also the reality of other beingnesses and their viewpoints.

The “I” is very basic in the beginning. It has awareness of its own space-time and characteristics as light. This awareness is then extended to other beingnesses or existence in general. That constitutes its reality. “I” acts as the basic filter of the awareness of all existence.

Beyond that reality is the reality of “I” itself.

Reality is what is perceived through viewpoints, and the fact of viewpoints.

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By vinaire | Comments (17)

The Nature of Consciousness

July 14, 2014 – 7:10 AM
Molecular Thoughts
Reference: The Ground State of the Universe

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In the beginning there is only awareness. Since there is nothing else to be aware of, there is simply self-awareness. This is consciousness.

The fundamental awareness is consciousness.

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With awareness there is perception. The perception is followed by recognition. Awareness recognizes its nature to perceive. It then perceives, and the cycle continues. Thus awareness as a disturbance oscillates from perceiving to recognizing and so on.

Awareness oscillates between perceiving and recognizing.

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Since consciousness is an oscillation, there is some justification in making an association between consciousness and light, which is also a fundamental oscillation. It appears that this association is intuitive and it has existed since ancient times. Thus, we may assume consciousness to have the form of light and the essence of awareness.

The essence of consciousness is awareness, and its form is light.

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Form represents the physical aspect. Essence represents the spiritual aspect. These two aspects seem to be relative and not separate and absolute in themselves.

For a long time space and time were regarded as absolute dimensions in themselves. Newtonian mechanics built on those dimensions has been very successful on a human scale. But, on a cosmic scale, it has been found by science that space and time are relative dimensions.

Similarly, Abrahamic religions have long regarded spiritual and physical to be absolute aspects in themselves. This has been adequate on a human scale. But, on the cosmic scale, we find it necessary to regard spiritual and physical to be relative aspects.

A spiritual state will have physical form, no matter how subtle. And a physical state will have some spiritual characteristics, no matter how subdued. Thus, consciousness is both physical and spiritual having the form of light and essence of awareness.

Spiritual and physical are relative aspects and not separate and absolute in themselves.

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Fundamentally, it is the desire to know that generates consciousness by disturbing the ground state. Consciousness, being a disturbance, has a certain frequency. Thus consciousness spreads as a wave with certain wavelength and period. As this desire gets stronger consciousness increases in frequency.

The desire to know pushes the consciousness to higher frequencies.

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As its frequency increases consciousness develops into more complex forms, such as, inanimate matter, minerals, plants, animals and humans. Thus, every part of existence has the property of consciousness. All things are conscious to some degree if only as the properties they display.

Consciousness is the fundamental property of all existence.

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Next: The Nature of Form

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By vinaire | Comments (57)