Georgi Y. Johnson's Blog: I AM HERE - Opening the Windows of Life & Beauty, page 19

The ‘Thing’ About Democracy

The idea of democracy is a system of government determined by the people.

Nowhere is it decreed that it be a binary system of left V right where each defines the other. Nowhere does it say it should be a mud fight between two candidates in which the victor will be placed as ‘the face’ of a whole population. The core of democracy is destined to be about collaboration through which a common ideal evolves, not about toxic competition that leaves destruction in its wake.

The fatal flaw in today’s political and psychological framework is that in the dance between left and right, we get blinded to an aliveness that is neither left nor right.

With flares of illusion, this never-ending dance sheds victories and defeats in balanced portions.

Witness the presidential face of collective ego, born from the wounds in its own shadow, bequeathed by its presidential predecessor.

The structures of ego are toxic, blotting out the miracles of perception, poisoning the body and the mind, and draining the natural vitality from the system.

The all-powerful ego aims to divide and conquer its electorate. When the manifold is divided, then only might is right. Truth is happening elsewhere – if it exists at all.

The electoral candidates of ego have a fundamental purpose to distract our consciousness from truth. When consciousness is captivated by conflict, it contracts from sensing the deeper wounds in the darkness. It betrays, neglects, abandons and refuses to heal. The cries of the emptiness are heard by the candidates only for the cause of ego inflation, and later, they are rapidly forgotten.

Because fear breeds the energy of division, the mantra of ego is “Be Afraid.”

Be afraid of other species, other races, other religions, other nations. Be afraid of the other sex and of differing sexuality. Be afraid of anything and everything, except the light of ego that guides us for the sake of its own survival. Above all, be afraid of those cries from the emptiness – the dispossessed that would rob ego of its power.

We trust this shield of government to save us from ourselves, and repress the fear that maybe, one day, we will find that nobody was ever really home in the white house of false self, and we never were protected.

We trust this ego even though we know that inevitably, it dies again and again, for only ego is able to die. So we become widows, widowers and orphans, bereaved of the miraculous vitality whose promise is inherent to the human community.

One antidote is to disinvest from the system of illusion. Develop a sense of truth, even if it’s irrational, crazy and foreign; even if it means allowing courage to burn away the fear; even if it means our freedom consumes all we believed ourselves to be.

Perhaps then, a democracy of the heart, body and mind will have space to emerge.

All the above could be wrong, but perhaps wrong is more honest than the dualistic notion that makes media addicts of us all.

Are You Licensed to Live? How Reality Gets Blinded by Fear

Once upon a time, and still now, having the right papers could make the difference between life and death. From the chaos of war through to the decrees of courts, the legitimacy of the paper work can impact status, finances, well-being and the right to remain alive at all. Today, the official labelling of a human as a “refugee” a “migrant” or a “terrorist”, will change her destiny and ration her right to compassion as a human being, whether or not the papers tell the truth.

Within the substrata of collective trauma, we carry the Nazi occupation of Europe, in which paperwork, whether genuine or purchased on the black market, meant freedom from extinction. It’s in our DNA. You don’t need to be an African American to have witnessed the horrors of the slave trade, in which paper-work determined that ethnicity gave a licence to abuse other humans to death. This is a survival principle imprinted collectively. Watch out for the papers, or your loved ones could burn.

Off the record and very much alive.

The pain and threat of illegitimacy runs deep. It’s carried within us as a feeling of horror, producing tremendous amounts of stress on a daily basis. It’s not for nothing that the word “bastard” means ‘bad guy’.

It’s felt in the agony of abandonment, the poverty of exclusion – when social consensus, reinforced by a rubber stamp, decides who is OK, and can live as equal, and who is not, who lives and who dies. It breeds the illusion that what’s told on the news is what really happened. It impacts our ability to relax, to relate, to express and to find home.  No home address? You don’t exist.

The social field of legitimization has its own unreliable dimension of reality. What’s recorded in history is fact, (what’s not there, never happened – or did it?). What is written in the records is who you are. If the papers say Jack is your father, then he is your father, even though on the ground, in living biological truth, you are the daughter of Michael. If the license says you’re married, then your relationship truly exists, and must conform to a family model placed upon your living being. There is a great rift between the legitimately stated crust and the omnipresence of life as it is.

The Kafka-esque nightmare continues. When you are condemned by the court, you are guilty, regardless of the crime. Where there are papers, you have privilege and exemption: you’ve got the license to live, even if you got the papers through lies. The murderer walks free, because the court ‘cleared him’, although the victim’s blood still stains the tunnel walls.

In the age of big data, every detail of our likes, dislikes, tendencies, sexual orientation, passions, position and social network can be formulated within seconds through security programs in order to profile exactly who and what we are. Personal identity is no longer a private affair, and it’s engraved in a zone to which we have no access. Out of this, we lose vast parts of ourselves. Shadows of injustice, martyrdom, victimhood, neglect and abuse wait in the parliaments to grab us from behind. The pain is in the voiceless scream arising from the bones of the unseen, and it passes through generations.

Still, the ‘crazy’ people, the dreamers, the poets, the traumatized, the illegal immigrants, the underground labor force, the artists, the visionaries, the homeless and the mystics live on in the emptiness, rejected from the consensual zone.

Do we fear them? Or do we utterly depend on them for our wholeness?

Life won’t be licensed.

The shadows created out of ‘legitimacy’ are vast. Lies don’t actually change reality, they disguise it. When life gets caught in conditions, life tends to bite back. The cynical gap between the reality as experienced and the reality as licensed gets wider, and the suffering emotion caught in the rift constantly threatens to jump forward. The horror of illegitimacy roams the dark night of the collective soul.

Identity approved by a rubber stamp. The royal “I”.

Imagine you are licensed as a doctor, but you never actually studied medicine; or everyone thinks you’re an angel of charity, when secretly you know that the funds were channelled into your own villa in the sun. Sinister charlatans dressed in robes of shame and distrust begin to run free, through the core of the whole system. The illusion and the shadow of illusion at some stage collide, exposing the fear or trauma that drove the need for external legitimization from the outset.

Licensing, paperwork, authentication and legitimization are forms born out of us in order to serve us. The need behind them was to support us collectively, not enslave us. They should reflect what we do, not decide what we’re allowed to do. Their natural functioning is not to create the artist, but to recognize the artist as he or she is. When we buy into the belief that our wholeness depends on a piece of paper, we should guard that paper 24/7.

The system of licensing others is anyway retarded, based on the past, and lacking the fluidity of the living. But when we abuse the system of labels, seeking status, profit, freedom and immunity through the privilege of license, then we pave (for ourselves) a steady road to a private hell. Witness the amount of lives damaged by the worldwide campaign to delegitimize ancient forms of medicine such as homeopathy.

Life will rise through the dark night of all the unwanted parts of ourselves we have tried to disguise. Life can’t be licensed. The art of living must be a dogged, unconditional allowance of the movement from the inside out, regardless of legitimacy in the eyes of “the world”; regardless of the powers that would bow to the papers as the sources of all objective truth. It can feel vulnerable, but our wellbeing and vitality depend on it.  Only in this way do we begin – individually and collectively – to regain our freedom to live.

We can’t license life. We can’t license beauty. How did we ever come to that labour of lunacy?

Jesus said: give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. So in areas where physical survival seems to be truly the name of the game, we might have no choice but to give to the ‘world’ what the world seems to demand. We’re caught in this horrific and consequential game of the printed license. But like those that remembered themselves in the shadows of the Spanish Inquisition, let us never believe that it has anything at all to do with truth.

The Collisions that Birthed the Moon

Our moon, it seems could have been formed by a series of celestial collisions, in a similar manner to the formation of the earth. Scientists this week suggested that originally we had several moons, which on collision, reformed as the planetary sphere that lights our nights and gives gravitational pull to the waters of our planet and our bodies. Why would the chaos and dispersion of collision reform in a perfect sphere? What is the interplay between destruction and creation, discord and the pull into harmony, and the incredible yet mysterious power known as gravity?

It’s our moon, suspended in beauty in the space around our earth, sharing its destiny from one universal chapter to the next. It’s as real as the tip of the nose, made of the same substance of all that forms us. As it reaches its zenith in the next few days, perhaps the unfolding mystery of its history, destiny and impermanence is worth a ponder.

HAIFA, ISRAEL (January 9, 2017) The Moon, and the question of how it was formed, has long been a source of fascination and wonder. Now, a team of Israeli researchers suggests that the Moon we see every night is not Earth’s first moon, but rather the last in a series of moons that orbited the Earth in the past. The findings by the team of researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science are published today in Nature Geoscience.

The newly proposed theory by researchers Assistant Prof. Hagai Perets, of the Technion, and Weizmann Institute Raluca Rufu (lead author) and Prof. Oded Aharonson, runs counter to the commonly held “giant impact” paradigm that the moon is a single object that was formed following a single giant collision between a small Mars-like planet and the ancient Earth.

“Our model suggests that the ancient Earth once hosted a series of moons, each one formed from a different collision with the proto-Earth,” said co-author Assistant Prof. Perets. “It’s likely that such moonlets were later ejected, or collided with the Earth or with each other to form bigger moons.” To check the conditions for the formation of such mini-moons or moonlets the researchers ran 800 simulations of impacts with the Earth.

It’s likely that small moons formed through the process could cross orbits, collide and merge

The new model is consistent with science’s current understanding of the formation of the Earth. In its last stages of the growth, the Earth experienced many giant impacts with other bodies. Each of these impacts contributed more material to the proto-Earth, until it reached its current size.

“We believe the Earth had many previous moons,” said Assistant Prof. Perets, who added that, “a previously formed moon could therefore already exist when another moon-forming giant impact occurs.”

The tidal forces from the Earth could cause moons to slowly migrate outwards (the current Moon is slowly doing that at a pace of about 1 cm a year). A pre-existing moon would slowly move out by the time another moon forms. However, their mutual gravitational attraction would eventually cause the moons to affect each other, and change their orbits.

”It’s likely that small moons formed through the process could cross orbits, collide and merge”, said Rufu, and Perets summarizes “A long series of such moon-moon collisions could gradually build-up a bigger moon – the Moon we see today.”

The Paper in Nature Geoscience

Spiritual Psychology: Structure of Self for Nondual Healing

The above slides give a descriptive map of the structure of our spiritual psychology (Click on slide to see the complete image).

The images should be viewed as representative of living form. The representation is given within the language of time and space, yet is of existential manifestation. The outer layers of the structure are highly unstable, changing, fluctuating according to the direction of consciousness and the environment, whereas the inner layers are less affected by time or distance. Above all, nondual healing addresses phenomena as it arises in the here and now, including the transient phenomena of identification and personal identity, investing in the true stability of source – the natural position of being “Not I, Not other than I”, formless and unentangled through all phenomena.

While conventional psychology works to the depth on changing behaviors through addressing underlying trends to ego structure of self image through bringing awareness to the patterns of personality, it ends with the black ring which is called here the “dark night”. In this, there is a materialist approach based on the visible rather than the broader dimensions of inner experience. The materialist approach to psychology develops out of the belief that consciousness is generated in the brain and is a local phenomena to an individual body.

Spiritual psychology and nondual healing turn this approach on its head, working from the somatic through to the boundless dimensions of infinity and eternity. It recognizes the vast dimension of emptiness (conventionally labelled the black box; unconscious; or subconscious), for its restorative power (as deep sleep is for the rudimentary physical). It also describes the ‘bardo’ phenomena found in the emptiness, the shadow sides, through which unconscious fears get projected out onto the world and onto others.

Nondual therapy also adds the area of qualia – the individual recipe of universal qualities that each physical bring brings as potential into the world. Yet also this, in nondual healing, is not an endpoint, but is like a diamond structuring the pure, formless, source prior to being.

It’s important to note that each layer of self is interdependently rooted in the rest. That is, when a structure of ego takes a hit, it resonates through the layers of personality and into the dark night, and vice versa.  When a pattern of personality is liberated, it of course, has an immediate effect on the release of the burden of ego structures.

Here, we will briefly describe a little of each area.

Ego

Ego structures can be both positive and negative, as they connect to the image we have of ourself. Each self image has a continuum of fear at its core, as the image is necessary to ‘check in’ on the threat of rejection.

Ego structures are driven through the processes of identification which uses the dualistic system of grasping and aversion to select what it wants to ‘be’, and equally how it needs to be ‘seen’ from the outside.

Ego forms out of a belief in separation and the inheritance of a sense of condemnation, a sense of lack and a sense of not being good enough as-is. They form as a cover-up and shield to the imperfect personality, and have the dual agenda of recreating the best possible self image, while avoiding worst-case scenarios. As such, they are intricately bound up with the psychology of survival and the functioning of the autonomic nervous system.

While an improved “self image” can give room for expansion and healing, the agent of enhancing the image is likely to be pursued addictively  so as to avoid the threat of contraction and to avoid the shadow of the image.

Personality

Unlike ego structures, personality is inherited, together with the DNA. While it might evolve or contract further through the impact with the environment, it serves as a template in a similar manner to the color of our eyes or the length of our toes.

Epigenetics has recently shown that this heredity includes also trauma from previous generations, as well as the resilience gained when a cycle of trauma is brought to peace. As the self matures through life processes, the personality can become a perfect vehicle through which to express the essential qualities that flow from a deeper layer.

The lion’s share of the personality (and the ego structure that grows out of it) is formed by trauma, which is encoded deeply into the cells of the body and the fundamental neurobiology. Another way to describe this would be that it is genetically determined by the basic instinct to survive, and the passing on of the survival lessons learned to progeny.

Healing involves releasing belief structures around the permanent nature of form, and leveraging of neuroplasticity by mindfully engaging the nondual resources such as meditation or mindfulness that lift the ceiling from the brain’s dualistic software of either-or choices (mind of discrimination).

The Dark Night

The rift in form sometimes referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul, or the Valley of the Shadow of Death, is actually a region of pure emptiness, alive with all omnipresent resources of the source of life. However, when we throw stuff, memories, situations or emotions “away”, this is the “away” we are throwing them into.

Jung has described this space as the unconscious (prior to the experience of Opus Mundi or One World), where the shadows of the psyche lurk, attempting to rejoin the whole through their reintegration into conscious awareness. It is the dimension of trauma (separated parts of ourselves) that demands integration. It is the rift in which we can meet our own worst nightmares – and transform them to freedom.

Because of the threats anticipated in the ‘Dark Night”, rings of existential states shield us off from this realm. These core states are also inherited and tend to be carried collectively in the atmospheres of a particular home or nation. These states include states of boredom – that drive us outward to seek egoic distraction in the ‘outer’ world; states of “nothing” – not an empty nothing, but a thick, resistant, nothing of energetic denial; states of depression (which can become chronic, as pressure to integrate the whole increases) and states of negativity (life is BAD). Many beliefs giving form to the personality are crafted by these states that shield us off from the deeper falling into the expected and dreaded horrors of the unknown (unconscious) regions of the dark night. When the states fail, or are threatened, anxiety or panic can come forward.

Navigation through the dark night is supported tremendously by attitudes that represent beacons of light: including gratitude, humility, service and compassion. These spiritual ethics, adopted in sincerity, literally light the way between the inner core of bliss and the layer of personality in periods of existential despair and angst.

Essential Being

From this point inward, we are out of the limitations of physical time and space. The Being is shining like a sun through all the layers of form, and is often experienced or sensed when we liberate consciousness from identity, or when there is a fracture in conventional patterns, such as the death of a loved one. Inherently death-less, this layer is an expression of our deeper purpose, happiness and fulfilment, which is connected with the manifestation of essential qualities out into the world through the layers of self, as well as the reception of the qualities of others.

The layer of essential being is fundamental to the precepts of nondual healing as it is home to the nondual positions that present the healing elixir to many of the conflicts on which personality and ego structures are based. For example, in the spiral between shame and disgust, the antidote offered to both from essential being is inherent purity. In the conflict between war and surrender, the nondual elixir is the indestructible energy of peace.

Source

Prior to being and at source of consciousness, the source is the perennial continuum of freedom from and within all structures that express through time and space. It is imperceivable in the same way that an eye cannot see itself. Powerful beyond all belief, it underlies even the unified field of potent of emptiness, like a black hole birthing galaxies. It can be known by its qualities, and by the quickening and liberating effects of falling back into the inner most source of the life that we are.

It sounds abstract, yet (as is constantly reminded in ZEN traditions), it is under the nose, in every particle of normal experience. Nothing is left out of source, yet nothing is caught there either. The more an ability is developed to allow the undoing of structures of self, through the cessation of grasping and aversion, the more peace and reflexive care naturally moves through all layers with a pure, healing intelligence.

Time will not solve this problem. But once you clearly for yourself see – absolutely, irrevocably – that time is not a factor, then already you begin to see the cracks in the wall.

J. Krishnamurti

Sexual Abuse and Healing Trauma with Somatic Experiencing – Peter Levine

Somatic Experiencing is a form of alternative therapy aimed at relieving the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental and physical trauma-related health problems by focusing on the client’s perceived body sensations (or somatic experiences).

Sessions are normally done in person, and involve a client tracking his or her own experience. SE connects sentient awareness with physical sense perception in the body which supports the release release of physical tension or charge held in the body in the aftermath of trauma. These energetic and physical contractions occur when survival responses (fight, flight, freeze or dissociation) of the autonomic nervous system are aroused, but are not fully discharged after the traumatic situation has passed.

Another element of SE therapy is “pendulation”: the movement between regulation and dysregulation. The client is helped to move to a state where he or she is dysregulated (i.e. is aroused or frozen, demonstrated by physical symptoms such as pain or numbness) and then iteratively helped to return to a state of regulation. The goal is to allow the client to resolve the physical and mental difficulties caused by the trauma, and thereby to be able to respond appropriately to everyday situations. Pendulation between any two positions opens the freedom of consciousness in that which is able to make the switch – thus releasing the sense of captivation in any particular state. Through pendulation, the parallel universe of the trauma (or the trauma tunnel) loses its absolute status over ‘reality’, as other options – including accompanying sense perceptions – are introduced.

“Resources” are defined as anything that helps the client’s autonomic nervous system return to a regulated, relaxed state. This might be the memory of someone close to them, a physical item that might ground them in the present moment, or other supportive elements that minimize distress.

In the period of arousal of traumatic effects, “discharge” is facilitated to allow the client’s body to return to a regulated state. Discharge may be in the form of tears, a warm sensation, the ability to breathe easily again, or any other physical responses which demonstrate the autonomic nervous system returning to its baseline.

Somatic experiencing is used for both shock trauma and developmental trauma. Shock trauma is loosely defined as a single-episode traumatic event such as a car accident, natural disaster such as an earthquake, battlefield incident, physical attack, etc. Developmental trauma refers to various kinds of psychological damage that occur during child development when a child has insufficient or detrimental attention from the primary caregivers.

Dr. Gabor Maté: Ayahuasca and Addiction Treatment

World expert in trauma and addiction Dr. Gabor Maté worked for several years in Vancouver’s downtown with people suffering from severe drug addiction. Based on his own experiences with ayahuasca, Dr. Maté is convinced that the Amazonian shamanic medicine, if taken in the proper context, can help people cure severe addiction.

See also:

The War on Consciousness
Energy Healing & the Cerebral Spinal Fluid
I AM HERE archive on healing trauma

Energy Healing through the Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF)

How could the Cerebral Spinal Fluid be connected to consciousness? This extract gives is from the intriguing research of Mauro Zappaterra. Dr. Zappaterra specializes in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation with a focus on regenerative medicine, neuro-rehabilitation, neuroplasticity, musculoskeletal medicine, and pain.

Certain traditions believe there is a ‘step-down’ process or condensation that occurs from the Source to our physical self. As this energy condenses it becomes more differentiated and visible to the human eye as physical form. As this condensation occurs, certain traditions believe that the initial ‘step’ into the body occurs at the third eye, or the brow center. At this same location is the third ventricle, a space in the middle of the brain filled with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

Amazingly, this same fluid space, bordered by the pituitary gland in front and the pineal gland in back, has been referred to as the ‘Crystal Palace’ and the ‘Cave of Brahma.’

The CSF is home to many neurotransmitters and signaling molecules providing an elaborate range of biological functions. The CSF utilizes volume transmission and its information can potentially be quickly dispersed and simultaneously target key brain regulatory centers due to its fluid nature.

At the back of the third ventricle, in the middle of the brain, the CSF condenses and aggregates into a thread-like structure known as Reissner’s fiber that extends the entire length of the central canal of the spinal cord. The precise role of this fiber is unknown. Could it have a role in conveying vibratory signals from the fluid itself? In addition, the CSF contains the ‘spirit molecule’ DMT that is released by the pineal gland.

It’s therefore suggested that the CSF may serve as a medium for the immediate signaling to major control centers of the brain and may be significant in regulating consciousness and the sense of ‘I Am’.

Fluids come together and the ‘I Am’ appears.

Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Watch the full video here.

Consciousness & Awareness Are Not the Same: Stephen LaBerge

The I AM HERE teachings differentiate, like Stephen LaBerge, between mental consciousness and choice-less awareness.

Is consciousness the same as awareness, or do the two words refer to different dimensions of perception?

According to world expert on lucid dreaming, Stephen LaBerge, consciousness is awareness plus mind and the structure of the individual brain. “That’s a critical understanding,” he says, “Consciousness does have to do with the brain, but it’s not awareness. Awareness is the word for what it is prior to the one thing we are sure of.”

Stephen LaBerge is the first scientist to empirically prove the existence of the phenomena of lucid dreaming. His work has developed this technique into a powerful tool for studying mind-body relationships in the dream state and he has demonstrated the considerable potential for lucid dreaming in the fields of psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine. His book on the subject, Lucid Dreaming, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming and his more academic Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain have received enormous popular interest. He is the founder of The Lucidity Institute, an organization that promotes research into lucid dreaming, as well as running courses for the general public on how to achieve a lucid dream

Maya Angelou – From Silence of Rape to Voice of Compassion

The visionary poet, thinker, performer, sacred activist and human Maya Angelou.

Out of emptiness. A moving and courageous account from Maya Angelou about being raped, a long period of muteness, and the hidden gift in the suffering contraction around expression.

Out of horrified silence, witness the birth of one of the most transformative voices of our generation.

STILL I RISE

Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

The Consciousness of Things – Thich Nhat Hanh

Do animals and plants have consciousness? Are electrons alive?

Thich Nhat Hanh in dialogue with University of Virginia Astrophysicist Dr. Trinh Xuan Thuan.