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Darren Brown

Do a search for this guy on youtube. He’s amazing. He uses hypnosis and NLP
to manipulate people’s perception. I wonder how close this is to stalking. Sometimes I think very close. Basically, he’s an expert in psychology; he knows the human mind and can remove it’s securities and put other descriptions there.
He’s apparently a big hit in the UK. Check it out.

communication

For a long time now I’ve been aware of the inability of people to communicate, not just in forums, but in everyday life too. It requires a great amount of fluidity, basically demanding that one assumes another’s AP position, or dreaming together.

Knowledge cannot be shared by the conscious mind, our 1st att awareness. It can appear to, but it is really just touched or batted back and forth and never absorbed, which is the domain of the subconscious or 2nd att. Even if we can agree on many definitions, communication will still only be on the surface – a sharing of a description, and not in the heart – a true sharing of experience.

The “key joint” of communication is intent. Obviously reading CC’s books, which are full of knowledge, didn’t turn us into warriors, seers or sorcerers. Why? Because aquiring knowledge happens in the mind (a first att imaginary construct) and not in the AP (the 2nd att/energy body energetic factual reality). If you want a real change, it has to happen in the real world. Intending knowledge, intending a description, is very different than aquiring knowledge and descriptions. Aquiring intends seperation – intending intends unification. Your assemblage point doesn’t give a shit about knowledge. Did you realize that? The AP is moved by sheer intent. Knowledge is the antithesis of intent. Knowledge is fixation, concentration, definition, limitation. The freedom and fluidity that are required for intentional intent come from the place of no knowledge, not-knowing, the unknown. Knowledge is only needed for choosing a destination. But knowledge cannot move you from here to there; there is no knowledge for how to intend. Intending is what we do, it’s what we are, it’s always happening. We can’t learn to be what we always already are – that intends our seperation into mind and makes it appear that our link with intent is severed. Our link is fine – we’re just using it to incapacitate our unthinkable greatness.

So why has my conversation about communication turned into a conversation about intent? Well, they’re pretty much the same. When one listens, or reads, with the entirety of one’s attention and not with knowledge/mind, one engages intent. But to say it that way makes it seem like we’re not always intent. So, better said, one intends the 2nd att instead of the first.
And you’ll notice the same mystery appears: “How does one intend?” now becomes “How does one listen without knowledge?” ie, “how can I understand someone if I don’t use my inventory?” And the same answer is given – this “problem” is resolved in the doing and not in the thinking (ie, it has appeared because the ask-er is there, the seperator.)

I’ll close with some words by J. Krishnamurti:

“It is far more important to listen with the depth of one’s whole being, than to indulge in merely superficial explanations. If we can listen in that way, with the totality of one’s being, the very listening is an act of meditation.”

“You have to listen without any effort, without any struggle. It is a very difficult problem to listen with the totality of one’s being – that is, when the mind not only hears the words, but is capable of going beyond the words. The mere judgement of a conscious mind is not the discovery or the understanding of truth. The conscious mind can never find that which is real. All that it can do is choose, judge, weigh, compare. When you read a book, you might translate what you read according to your particular tendency, knowledge or idiosyncracy, and so miss the whole content of what the author was trying to convey; but to understand, to discover, you have to listen without the resistance of the conscious mind which wants to debate, discuss, analyse.”

“I do not know if you have ever tried this. That is, to listen to the words and to find out the truth of any statement that is made by the speaker, not only intellectually, not only with considerable doubt, but also to listen without any resistance – which does not mean accepting, but to listen so profoundly, with great attention, so that the very act of listening brings about a total breaking down of the pattern of the brain.

qabala quotes

Here are some fragments from Carlo Suares’ “The Cipher of Genesis”.
You may be surprised by the similarities of the Toltec tradition.

“Some religiously-minded people are aware of this lack of a unitary way of thought capable of including the knowledge of man and the knowledge of things. Although far too late, they are only just in time to measure, not with some perplexity, the unthought-of distance which seperates them from the world as it is.”

“We come to realize that the problem of conveying the unknown could only be solved if it were possible to project the common essence of everything which is in the universe as a whole (including, of course, Man, because the essence is One). That essence in man is, according to cabalistic postulates, a movement both inner and outer, which builds structures and destroys them unceasingly. Our psychological inner structures built with and upon words which never convey the things, but are our ideas of what we recognize their appearances to be, must therefore be atomized, so to speak, in order for us to partake in and commune with the cosmic unfathomable mystery of the one movement, which is life.”

“According to the esoteric tradition, Abram was the first really to understand the deep significance of their message. The human seed had to disentangle itself from the magic of the Kasdeem (Chaldeans) where it was being held in bondage, and had to be thrust into the world of conflict, of uncertainty, of hope and utter despair, of wild joy and anguish, of obstinate reconstructions and impending disasters. Any refuge, any protecting shelter had to be denied to it because , were it ever to remain immobile in any peaceful surrounding, it would become static in an immature, pre-human sub-species.” italics mine

“We have already stated that in the perception of the fact that existence is a total mystery lies the foundation of any true religious awareness. The mystery, the realization that the fact of existence cannot be explained in words or in any other way, has always been deeply alive in the minds of the men of the Qabala.”

“The very existence of the universe is a gigantic fact and mystery that can never be fathomed by human thought. That fact must be faced squarely, and not explained away, because so-called explanations pile mystery upon mystery and delude the mind, creating the habit of thinking about that which it cannot ever conceive.” italics not mine

“The cosmic and human drama as described in the bible is an interplay between two partners playing against eachother: Aleph, (nagual), intermittent life-death, unfathomable, timeless mystery evading all mental grasp, and Yod, (tonal), its projection into the time-space continuum, which is its antinomy. The winner, obviously, is always Aleph because all that exists must necessarily come to an end. But the psyche, dreaming of an indefinite duration – in the form of an eternal soul, for example – rejects the very notion of its own death and clings to philosophies or religions that encourage it to believe that the word “always” has a meaning.” italics and parenthetics mine

“When communication purports to convey the Revelation, such ambiguity can only lead to one or another of the multifarious religious interpretations which obstruct the immediate perception of the fact that the very existence of a speck of dust is in very truth the first and last mystery. No mystery is greater than any other: the Qabala has always known it, and has therefore never raised the question as to whether God exists. For those of the Qabala, for Abraham, Moses or Jesus, the unknowable unknown is a presence. The knowing of that presence is the unknown. There is no other revelation. It is therefore, and above all, necessary to reject all interpretations, explanations, creeds, dogmas, all faiths and moral laws, all traditions, philosophies and theologies, so as to allow the unknown to operate directly in our minds. Then thought is free to observe the interplay of life and death and existence because it moves along with it, having shattered its fetters.”

“Thus it is useless for the mind to try to formulate ideas about transcendence, which is totally beyond comprehension or measure. In the first place, any notion of perfection and timelessness we may form is bound to be invalidated by our inveterately dualistic mode of thought. Our whole idea of progress is based on the idea that the good is simply that which awaits us at the opposite end of a continuum which starts with the not-good. Imperfection and time do not merely enter our thoughts; they are our thoughts. Like any other mere tool, the mind as we use it is functionally identical with its products. The chicken and the egg of the mind produce and reproduce one another ad infinitum, ad nauseum.” (As DJ said, we learn to see as we think and we think as we see. I should say “look”, not “see”.)

“There is no transcendence other than our intimacy with the unknown as the unknown. Seeking it is avoiding it. It is everlastingly present in an ever present genesis.”

Mr. Suares then proceeds to reveal the meanings of the Hebrew letter-numbers and apply this to the book of Genesis and further into the New Testament. His new “translation” is an awesome revelation, not of historical figures and dramas, but of energies, universal and psychological, as they involute and evolute again and again from source to mass, Aleph to Yod, nagual to tonal.

chaos; dropping understanding

The science of quantum physics, as well as the seeing of warriors and mystics, has shown us that chaos is the nature (natural order) of the universe and “order” happens in pockets or islands – the island of the tonal.
The tonal, in CC’s books, is often used synonymously as reason or understanding. I prefer to equate it with mind and thought. But there is much more to it. IMO, not enough info is given in Castaneda’s works to understand the tonal and nagual. But fortunately these elements are found in other systems, by the discerning eye.
One of the most enlightening works, IMO, on the tonal and nagual and man’s place/purpose in the universe is found in the Qabala, particularly in Carlo Suares’ fascinating work, “The Cipher of Genesis”. If you can get a hold of this book and read it… well, you’ll be doing yourself a big favor. And much can be gleaned from non-dual systems, zen and tao. So here’s a further exploration into the nature of the tonal based on my studies and observations.

1) The tonal begins at birth and ends at death.
If this is true, then there can be no hells or heavens which would necessarily be organized in some fashion, nor can there be an afterlife unless it is devoid of thought, name, mind, self. So if this is true, many other religions are not true – the tibetan book of the dead and the egyptian book of the dead in particular, and, as Buddha recognized, no transmigration of the soul, no Christian reward in heaven or punishment in hell…. that or the word “death” has some other definition than the normally accepted one. It appears true that the tonal is not present at birth.

2) Anything that can be named is the realm of the tonal.
Another system which emphasizes this is Gnosticism, wherein the one true God is the Ineffable.

3) The tonal is a guardian that has become a guard.
This statement from DJ gets more into the mind aspect where the tonal dethrones the nagual in the human mind, and it does so as a protective mechanism – the ego.

This is the area I’d like to expand on. This desire or need for protection/security, which originally was a very real physical impulse for survival, has transformed into a false, psychological non-existent ego’s need for continuity. Continuity and permanence are false or at best temporal. Chaos, the nagual, is this constantly fluctuating energy DJ speaks of.

I guess what I want to emphasize is a warrior’s need to stalk/observe moments of continuity, security, understanding… and recognize these as tonal desires/dreams that are simply not possible/actual. I don’t know that the tonal begins at birth and ends at death. But what is more significant to me is that all tonal items are born and die – they are temporal manifestations of order, but they cannot be maintained permanently. What is essential to recognize with the ego is its effort to achieve continuity, to survive. It can only do this by REPEATING THE PAST, and PROJECTING THE PAST INTO/AS A FUTURE. The ego does not exist; cannot exist presently, and present/now is all there is. But it can appear to exist through order, memory, habit, repetition, security, the known. The desire to understand is a front of the ego seeking security and control – order to resist the reality of chaos which would rip the ego apart.
A common element in all these ego strivings is the known (which is the same as the past) – there is no room for the unknown in the ego or first attention or self-reflection. The unknown is having no reflection, leaving no footprints, being without reference, mind emptied of knowledge/thought. The internal dialogue is always talking to us about life; it isn’t life. Mind is always one step removed from life. Let there be just life. That is non-duality. As long as there is life and someone living/experiencing life there will be conflict/seperation and you will miss the true meaning (being) of the nagual. You are the nagual, always have been. But you won’t know it until you eliminate the mind. And then you still won’t know it because there will be no knower and the known – there will be oneness.

I don’t think I said all that I meant to. I’ll have to come back and re-read and elaborate. My focus was meant to be living with chaos instead of resisting it and trying to maintain order. I wish to convey a certainty that order cannot be maintained because it is not the true nature of life. The true nature of life is life-death: flux. So we are back to death again. Death must not be a future event. That supports the false ego’s view, but it doesn’t support actuality. Life is the unknown – we must die to every moment in order for the next to be new. There can be no past, no knowledge, no storing/grasping. We must let these die in order to truly be alive.

the world of actions

Have you noticed that most people have replaced certain very important actions with mere words. Three that come to mind are “thank you”, “I love you” and “I’m sorry”. Now we’re just allowed to say these things and people generally accept them as the action. I’ve noticed that some people can say these things and yet are totally unaware that there are actions that could be done in such circumstances and they never do them.
For example, the action for “I’m sorry” is to amend the error, and not just apologize. There are actions for “I love you” and they’re not buying flowers or a card with someone else’s sentiments on it. And gratitude should be a gesture and not a phrase – give something of equal value or what you can.

And have you noticed there are many types of currency with which to pay our debts to others. The world usually acknowledges money as currency, but can there not be a society that values knowledge as wealth, or the teaching of a skill. What could be more valuable than knowledge that frees? But people don’t want that, don’t value that knowledge. Instead of knowledge, they call it judgement or criticism or worse. That’s understandable, but people are so god damn sensitive these days. In this politically correct world, you’re expected to respect other’s ignorance even as “their truth”. I get that. I really do. But the old days of survival of the fittest seem more aligned with nature. I’d really like to act out and bruise these sensitive egos to show people they’re alive in a way they’re unaware of. Their little world of false security that they create with words… I’d like to smash it with something real. Being protected is so important to them. Give me a man or woman who has been to hell and no longer fears their shadow, but lets it all out… just in your face – deal with it. I’m so tired of games. So bored with people who don’t know themselves and presume to speak about anything. The ignorant lies fall out of their mouths and I want to shut them. I was even taking some notes about myself the other day and I said “who are you writing to? I don’t want to listen to you either.” I’m so fed up with everyone’s stories, including my own.

I long for the world of actions. I feel myself growing silent. I prefer to be alone nowadays. The world is so ignorant of the truth, of reality, of actual existence. I’m allowing myself to feel disgust, anger and hatred like I’ve never known, but not in a helter-skelter kind of way, nor in any arrogant or better than them way. If I thought I was better or priveledged, I wouldn’t be angry with the world. (Personally, I think they’re all fucking with me. 😉 ) But anger is just a useless thought-emotion. When I’m silent, the world seems ok and I don’t know that it should be any particular way other than it is. And I’m not alone…
the entire world is already the world of actions. The tree that fell doesn’t defend itself or explain its actions. The sun doesn’t consider how much sleep I’ve gotten. The rain doesn’t ask permission to fall. The moon doesn’t demand that I admire its beauty (but I’m a sucker for her.) Life is good. I just don’t know a single human that is living life. They’re all victims of their minds.

Good luck on your journeys, each of you.
Not necessarily goodbye.
I just need to be quiet for however long it takes.

stalking

“To break routines is not the purpose of the path; it is only one of its means. The goal is to be aware. Keeping that in mind, another definition of stalking is ‘an unbending attention on a total result’.

“That kind of attention applied to an animal results in a hunting piece. If we apply unbending attention to another person, it produces a client, a pupil, or a romantic relationship. And applied to an inorganic being, it provides what sorcerers call ‘an ally’. But only if we apply stalking to ourselves, can it be considered a Toltec art, because it produces something precious: Awareness.” – CC to A. Torres

the fortuitous recapitulation

“A very profitable form of the exercise accessible to all of us is the fortuitous recapitulation. If you think about it, we are constantly recapitulating. All memories which conform to our internal dialogue can be called that. However, we evoke them in an involuntary way. Instead of stalking them in silence, we judge them and interact with them viscerally. That is pitiful. A warrior takes advantage of the opportunity, because those memories, seemingly random, are warnings from our silent side.”

from “Encounters with the Nagual” by Armando Torres

Check out the book if you haven’t already. This is the first I’ve heard of it, but it was written in 2004. It consists of notes from a student in CC’s presence.

[url=http://www.rarecloud.com/at_html/01/index.html]http://www.rarecloud.com/at_html/01/index.html[/url]

the neurophysiology of change

check this link to the triune brain:

[url=http://www.buffalostate.edu/orgs/bcp/brainbasics/triune.html]http://www.buffalostate.edu/orgs/bcp/brainbasics/triune.html[/url]

Notice how the brain has evolved – first survival, then emotion and memory, then learning, speaking, reading and writing…
If you could see the path of information, it comes up the spinal cord and into the reptilian brain where it moves through the reticular activating system in which items of awareness are “measured and weighed” or judged as acceptable or not. If there is nothing comparable in the inventory, the item is rejected. It has been said that a mere 30% of what we actually perceive gets through the reptilian brain into our conscious awareness. 70% of reality gets rejected.

There is something here to DJ’s statement that we don’t learn unless our lives are on the line. This is why you have to be tricked into this; you have to need it to survive. If it’s not necessary for survival, the reptilian brain most likely rejects it before it gets to the neo-cortex and is seen as reality.

More later… gotta work again.

a web site

Here’s an interesting web site that focusses on deconstructing our beliefs and fixations using buddhist ‘psychology’. The particular page I’ve presented gives an overview of the course’s methods and theory. I find it compatible with CC’s beginning teachings where we learn not to take our view of reality for granted. I especially like the last paragraph where they deconstruct the deconstruction course!

[url=http://www.radiantmind.net/fixations.htm]http://www.radiantmind.net/fixations.htm[/url]

Click on the “transcripts/papers” link on the left of the page to read some actual dialogues from courses. Many are insightful IMO.

a razor’s edge

I have no final conclusions, but the experiences of my life have ranged from trying to become something, to acquire something, to seeing that there is nothing one can add to what actually is. And it now seems to me that the warrior’s path is some middle way, some joining of these seemingly contradictory worlds. But it’s very difficult for me to find any purpose in this. I feel quite certain that the outcome of all this labor is nothing more than being able to claim controlled folly over folly; and I’m equally certain that there is no controller – that what we call control is merely accepting what is rather than resisting it, but there is no control or controller other than spirit, and there is no personal link with spirit – how could universal spirit be personal? Maybe it’s both and neither.

Anyway, as I said – no final conclusions; I still wonder at what a warrior actually is, what the whole picture will look like when I can see it all instead of portions. But today, it seems like a lot of work for nothing but the illusion of controlling folly and I’d rather just watch it arise. Maybe I’m more inclined towards seeing than sorcery. I just don’t see any point to it. And to act towards it (sorcery) anyway, as a not-doing or something, would just be artificial at this time.

So how are things going for you guys and girls? Are you finding what you’re looking for in CC’s work? Is there fulfillment or do you not expect to ever be fulfilled? What will it take for you to say to yourself, “This is it. This is what I dreamed it would be like. I’ve accomplished my quest.”? Or will there be eternal longing?