Presenting 'The Meaning of Life'

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U02-10 Meaning of Life Appendix 3Attention Wars 3 - Return of the Jedi

Disposition, Reality, Attention, and Spiritual Work. Part Three

Staying Awake
So it's really not a matter of thinking good thoughts rather than bad thoughts. Again, it's a matter of attention. It is always the conscious retaking of attention from your ego. It is consciousness attending truth and true reality, consciously staying awake.

Staying Aware
It is being swiftly aware when the ego takes attention, as it will almost always do (less and less as you become more and more awake), and in so doing , becoming conscious of such bad thoughts as really being false thoughts, and therefore not true reality. And placing that attention back on the truth of being. Or voluntarily placing that attention on the play of love and creativity within the human world (the Toltec's second dream). All these are the real good thoughts.

Reality Is
And so, disposition, our reality, is directly equivalent to attention. Not good or bad thoughts, but consciousness or ego, directing attention.

The Work of Spirituality
And that is the work of spirituality in a nutshell: consciousness taking back attention from the ego.

U2-09: Meaning of Life Appendix 2Attention Wars 2 - Attack of the Clones

Disposition, Reality, Attention, and Spiritual Work. Part Two

Waking
Conscious waking begins with attention. It is consciousness taking back attention from the ego. (By some form of grace and sacred wisdom.) It is the conscious focusing of attention.

Intervals of Sleep
At first in this process, there will be a shifting of attention from consciousness to the ego. There will be many instances when your ego takes over your attention again, and you find your consciousness once again sleeping. Again the bad thoughts. The ego is dysfunctional and will always return to such thoughts. It is inevitable.

False Good Thoughts
Good thoughts of the ego? The ego wants pleasurable thoughts and events. But these are its fictions and therefore fleeting. There is always that yin and yang in the ego. It is always such a duality. Pleasure will always be followed by pain. These are not the good thoughts I speak of.

Real Good Thoughts
Good thoughts are the joy of being, the essence of our consciousness, the heart of love, our connection with the godhead, universe, God. Good thoughts is our bad way of referring to all that.

U2-08: Meaning of Life Appendix 1Attention Wars 1 - The Phantom Menace

Disposition, Reality, Attention, and Spiritual Work. Part One

Directing Reality
Directing one's disposition, one's reality. It's not a simple matter of thinking good thoughts versus bad thoughts. Or even analyzing one's psychology. No, it's much greater than that and simpler than that. It is the matter of attention.

The Power of Attention
Our power of being lies in attention. When we pay attention to something, we fill our reality with that which we attend. But our attention is easily distracted. Almost as if it has a mind of its own.

Attention Hijacked by the Ego
And in some ways it does. Our attention has been hijacked by something we call our ego, that self of that virtual world of thought and knowledge. Being a creation of thought, it requires attention to forms and matter in order to gain its identification with what it sees as the real world.

Dying a Thousand Deaths
Such identification takes its attention here and there. Always for naught though, for true being does not lie in that outward direction. And so it dies each day a thousand deaths. Thus, fear and loathing fills its attention. Becomes our reality.

Being Asleep and the Nightmare
And our consciousness, our being in essence, becomes asleep. And our life becomes a nightmare.

(Intervals of Life)
(Although there are those moments when consciousness almost involuntarily retakes attention: a baby's smile, a lover's touch, a poem, a flower, a mountain vista, the endless view of the sea. For a moment we feel wide awake and alive. But sooner or later that moment passes.)

U02-07: An Abridged Meaning of Lifea theological cosmology and psychology in a single paragraph

In the beginning, consciousness (spirit) became matter. The evolution of matter is always moving towards the amplification of its consciousness. The Human Being has evolved to a relatively high level of consciousness complete with thought. Thought results in a separate virtual reality of knowledge in which the Human Being's evolution of consciousness is detoured. Because of this detour, the Human Being dwells in a dream of its own creation. Therefore the Human Being has developed a false virtual self called the ego required to acquire its identity in both external forms and internals forms such as belief. Acquisition of identity through form is ultimately futile, becoming an unremitting cycle of suffering. But, the Human Being still retains the spark of true consciousness within its essence awaiting some breath of wisdom to flame its re-awakening. That breath may arrive at any time, in any guise, to once again continue the evolution of consciousness. Upon this awakening, a singular Human Being will now be the Love that is such a recognition of its oneness with humanity, the earth, the universe, in order to transmit to others awakening, creating a new evolutionary being. In so doing, it is key to remember, that such an external dreaming is always susceptible to reversion into some form of the old dream, and the possible extinction of this particular evolution.

U02-06: Meaning of Life 11 - Caveatnon est ad astra mollis e terris via

11. CAVEAT
In so doing, it is key to remember, that such an external dreaming is always susceptible to reversion into some form of the old dream, degenerating from its ontological organic means of that loving transmission into some belief, that is, some form, and become lost again in its old false reality, detoured again towards suffering, and contributing to the possible extinction of this particular evolution, its particularly organized form melting into the matter of the world, awaiting reorganization into some other.

Or, on the other hand, we may find ourselves going down some road of duality, as much of what passes as Christianity has. Which is living spirit as an idea through the ego, which may be worse than just being unconscious. Because now our unconsciousness has been given free reign. The world has been split in two. God has lit out for the territories and what remains is godless. And open to whatever terror the righteous (who love the other of God and are so loved by that other as well) see fit to wreak on it.

Burn the heretics. Conquer all nature. Kill the unbelievers. Everyone goes to hell but the saved. Only the righteous know the truth and will judge all that stand or run.

But forgive us, for we know not what we do.

U02-05: Meaning of Life-10; Love and Heavenaka now

10. LOVE AND HEAVEN
Upon this awakening, a singular Human Being no longer separate from true reality, will see itself in union with all Humanity as well, will now be the Love that is such a recognition of its oneness with humanity, the earth, the universe in all its grand unknowable essence, as to recreate its external dreaming in a willful and loving transformation utilizing all its unique skills and abilities, in order to transmit to others with its life, thought, and experience, that is, to breathe upon their spark of consciousness, and in so doing flame awakening, creating a bright light of consciousness, and a new evolutionary state of being.

Call it heaven, nirvana, paradise, or whatever. Call it utopian or inevitable. Call it do or die.

Every other thing we do unconnected to this evolution of our being is just a game. Only life and love and this singular awareness is the truth, is our meaning, is the road that everyone is traveling here together.

Nothing in the game is wrong. But nothing in the game is truth. In fact quite a bit of it is false and mad and drives half, if not all, the people in it crazy wondering how life could be that way.

But life isn't that way. The game is.

The matter is our meta-paradigm. We've been told that matter only matters. That matter in some fashion became conscious. WRONG!

Consciousness matters. Consciousness became matter. But consciousness is, for the time being, lost in that matter. Now is the time to understand this matter.

That the universe is consciousness (aka spirit aka God), and we are consciousness become matter (aka body, aka mind, aka ego), and that, in truth, through awakening and reunion (aka wisdom, aka love), we become consciousness conscious of itself (aka heaven). That's all now.

U02-04: MoL-9; Awakening to Sacred Wisdomaka Perennial Philosophy, Perennial Wisdom, Sophia Perennis

9. AWAKENING (to Sacred Wisdom)
By the grace of all that is ultimately unknowable in the universe, that breath may arrive at any time, in any guise, to once again continue the evolution of consciousness, now utililizing that human being's cognizant abilities in a self-awareness of its own consciousness, in perception that it is spirit in union with the universe.

There are as many ways as there are grains of sand blowing in the wind for this breath to appear. For me, it began with the loving voice of a woman who introduced me to the world of the heart. Later, in the midst of unemployment, I discovered that coincidence is really synchronicity, that the universe has ways of speaking to us if we open our hearts to listen. Then a trip to the American Southwest and a mystical experience in the Canyon del Muerto, rushing waters in the Arizona desert, and thousand year old ruins of an Anasazi settlement, revealed time to be a story.

Soon the study began. Looking for an understanding of my Meso-American incident, I came upon the Toltec philosophy of Don Miguel Ruiz in his book, The Four Agreements. His is a simple but loving wisdom (a childlike primer in some ways and an ancient book of wisdom in others), that I now believe came from his study of the perennial philosophy as much as from his Toltec heritage. It spoke to my depths as nothing I had read before, and told me truths that I knew but had not been able to express. That and his masterpiece, The Voice of Knowledge, explained the lies we've come to believe, the dreaming nightmare of a planet, and the possibility to create one's own dream out of love.

Later, in discussing these things with a cousin, she mentioned that Miguel Ruiz sounded similar to Eckhart Tolle, and his book, The Power of Now. A few months later, I saw his latest book, The New Earth, in the bargain books section, and remembering that discussion, purchased the book. Again, words spoke to depths. Via an Amazon list of Tolle's recommended reading, I went on to Cynthia Bourgeault (The Wisdom Way of Knowing), whose book was a revelation of Sacred Wisdom, the currents of which have been running for thousands of years. Her annotated bibliography was itself a revelation and a map.

Soon I was reading Jacob Needleman (Lost Christianity), Huston Smith (The World's Relgions), Kinney and Smoley (Hidden Wisdom), P.D. Ouspensky (In Search of the Miraculous), Gurdjieff (Meetings with Remarkable Men), Nasr (Knowledge and the Sacred), Schuon (The Essential...), Tomberg (known only as Anonymous in his amazing Meditations on the Tarot), Helminski (Living Presence), and others. (Hoping that some day I will climb the more daunting works of Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and The Cloud of Unknowing.) So far still to go.

Like the first glimmer of waking after a deep sleep of dreaming when that long drowsiness is still caught in consciousness like cobwebs in a dawning dusty room, the heartbeat is returning.

They say that heart disease is the leading cause of death. Sacred Wisdom, then, is the leading cause of life, rediscovery of spirit, and infinite consciousness. So much time, effort, and money, will be spent to attempt to cure heart disease. And that is a good thing. Yet almost nothing will be spent on behalf of sacred wisdom. But the little that is, will be enough. Because it will find you if you want it. And if you don't, it won't. Although if you do, but haven't yet, start with any of the above. It's found you.

U02-03 - MoL-8 - Spark of ConsciousnessHenry David Thoreau in the Boiler Room

8. SPARK OF CONSCIOUSNESS
But, the Human Being, if it has not completely sold itself to the world of form, still retains the spark of true consciousness (known to some as the soul) within its essence awaiting some breath of wisdom to flame its re-awakening.

If we are consciousness become matter and in essence lost in that form, it still holds true that this consciousness, this spirit, remains within us, as a spark. In fact that spark, that small flame, is kept lit in ways we may be unaware. Ways that access presence. There are many of them, but three that have done it for me are my daughter, writing poetry, and hiking (nature and nature-writing as well, Mr. Thoreau). These things circumvent the ego and touch our essence, keeping that spark alive.

On the other hand, I would imagine that there are those who get lost in the world of the ego (don't we all), maybe in the world of business and money (been there and done that) or some other such world of seeming power (losing all touch with that little spark of true power), and allow that spark to fade away almost to nothing (you can see it in their heavy faces). But I would like to believe that the spark, no matter how dim it may become, still resides somewhere inside, waiting for some dawning.

Waiting for that breath of wisdom or the wind of revelation (or the wearing wind erosion of the ego by years of suffering).

U02:01 - Meaning of Life-7 Sufferingthe shame of a shiny new red car

7. SUFFERING
But acquisition of identity through external and internal form is ultimately futile, becoming an unremitting cycle of wanting, leading to the madness of violence and suffering that is the human being's life on earth.

It's just not natural, all this living in the mind, identified with thought. So problems naturally arise. First, the mind ultimately isn't stupid. Just misguided. So it identifies with some external form, like say a new car. My new red shiny new car. And it feeds itself off that new car. It identifies with that new car. In its world, in some weird mental way, it becomes that new car. But deep down it knows it isn't that new car. And before that new car becomes an old car, it loses infatuation with it, dis-indentifies from it, and goes on to the next new shiny red thing with which to identify. This becomes an endless cycle leading to constant dissatisfaction. And the same kind of thing happens with thought forms as well.

All this thinking and identification leads to some interesting consequences. Emotions. Now the body has a set of emotions that are natural and form in response to the external environment. Usually in some survival mode. The mind sees a threat and the body reacts. But living in that virtual reality, the mind sees similar threats in its thought forms, virtual threats, but the body reacts with real emotions. That's why Miguel Ruiz points to our emotions as guides. The emotions are real. Feel them, process them, then follow them to the misguided thought. That's the culprit.

But when the emotions aren't processed. When the chain of events isn't followed. When the thoughts aren't examined. What happens? Suffering happens. Misery happens. Depression happens. Also violence, aggression, and wars. In other words, the human condition. Otherwise known as insanity. The daily workaday world of madness happens. Buddha said so; Jesus said so; all the sages say so.

U01:20 - Meaning of Life-6 Ego & IdentificationBicameral Mind and the legislation of Eckhart Tolle,

6. EGO & IDENTIFICATION
Therefore the Human Being has developed a false self called the ego (and the super-ego), and because of the essence of that ego's own falsehood and its ultimate void, it is required to acquire its identity in the world of matter, in both external forms and internals forms such as thought and belief.

There's a theory concerning the Bicameral Mind which posits that at an earlier point of the human being's evolution, the two hemispheres of the brain were separate. There was the god-half and the self-half. And the god spoke to the self in hallucinatory myths. And thus was born the world of the gods.

But in time, because of stressful experience, or maybe because of knowledge and written communication, which can be stressful in and of itself, the two minds converged, and the gods left, leaving the human being alone in its world of thought. And thus was born the self as it is in thought, unconscious identification with the mind, as Eckhart Tolle calls it, or what we now call the ego. Alone and alienated from all the gods and the essence of life.

Not knowing that it was connected to the godhead itself, that it was one with universal spirit of consciousness, it turned to the world of matter. So theory or not, the ego is the self created in thought, disconnected from the life source, believing in the world of matter as its new source, connecting to forms, be they external things or internal thoughts, for identification, meaning, and what it mistakenly thinks of as its life.

U01:19 - Meaning of Life-5 Dreaminga tale told by Gurdjieff full of misconception signifying sleep

5. DREAMING (THE BIG SLEEP)
Because of this detour onto its separate and false way of thought, the Human Being dwells in its world of knowledge, its virtual reality, living in a dream of its own creation.

When the wise man points at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger. In that regard, Gurdjieff called everyone, including himself, an idiot. And that metaphorical finger, pointing from the world of knowledge, is Samsara, illusion, vanity, the dream. Gurdjieff called it sleep. The Big Sleep. It is duality, a world of concept and opinion. It is the fruit we ate in Eden, the world we entered when we left behind that paradise.

It's false and filled with lies but we believe it with all our heart. To such an overwhelming extent, our faith really rests in it. So much so, that we completely lose sight of the true reality, that energy of consciousness, that actual God without a face, without a story, without a name. Our one true self.

And even when we begin to question that nightmare of knowledge, when we begin to realize that it is indeed a virtual reality; we really don't. We may entertain that question. We might look at it as an interesting thought. We could even begin to believe in it as an idea. But that's the rub!

It's still only an idea. It's still part of the dream of knowledge. It's a dream within the dream. Our faith is still wrapped up in that false world. We may now believe that it's all a dream, a virtual reality, illusion, vanity all. But belief is part of knowledge and knowledge is that virtual reality. Insidious curl of wave!

And that curl of wave can go on for quite a long time. The endless surf. Even until the death of the dream, the end of our knowledge, our mortal death. That biggest sleep of all. Unless, of course, we will awaken.

U01:18 - Meaning of Life-4 Detourof the Kabbalah, this, Daat, and the other thing

4. DETOUR (Knowledge)
Thought results in a separate virtual reality of knowledge, a world of duality created from the process of thought, and the Human Being's evolution of consciousness is detoured by and into that false reality of knowledge, wrongly believing it to be the true reality.

This is the curl of the wave, where the rising consciousness will lose itself within itself. In the Kabbalah, knowledge is the point of the abyss, Daat, completely off the charts, aligned above the inner line of consciousness, but not a part of it, not really part of the Tree of Life. It is a world unto itself.

It is a world that arises from thought, a process of analysis and differentiation, and therefore one of duality. Let me quote myself on the subject:

This personal computer is a perfect
metaphor for that, now come to think
about it. Everything within its world
becomes a binary determination.

Mind is that as well. Except its speed
exceeds ten thousand Buddhas times a Mega
Hertz that’s measured in a God knows what.
In other words, it’s really wicked fast.

But still, despite the engine underneath
the hood, the neighborhood is black and white.
There’s not a thought that’s not a mathematical
equation from a string of ones and zeroes.

It's all enough for mere survival, of course, and we can accord it beauty, and we can build a world of knowledge around it, but it's not the unitary essence of things. And so it goes that our world of knowledge is not the essence of things either. All those buildings. All our relationships and business. All our laws. Every judgment and belief. Even our religions! The finger that points to the moon is not the moon.

Unbelievable 01:16 - MoL-3 Human BeingUsing Ken Wilber and the Tool of Mind

3. HUMAN BEING
The Human Being has evolved to a relatively high level of consciousness amplified by its nervous system and brain, developing the instrument of speech, and in turn the implement of internal speech called thought.

On earth, evolution has come to the human being at this point in time. Not an end, not the final destination, but the train of thought rests here for now. Consciousness has been amplified by an intricate blend of brain and nerves to the sound of speech. And so this idea arises.

Ken Wilber writes, "Where matter is favorable, life emerges; where life is favorable, mind emerges," and parenthetically adds, "where mind is favorable, Spirit emerges" (but we will touch upon that aspect of things later in the program).

And so we are the thinking animal, it's been said. Yes, we also are the tool-using animal, as 2001: A Space Odyssey emphasized, but our greatest tool is that verbal one. With it came communication between one another. Telling others how to use a tool could become the fashion.

But soon there came another kind of communication: thought. Now we could talk to ourselves, ruminate about a tool, maybe think of ways to improve that tool. Use our Mind tself as a tool.

There's not much more than that to say about this topic. Think about it.

Unbelievable 01:14 - MoL-2 EvolutionPeter Russell & the Amazing Technicolor Dream Amp

2. EVOLUTION
On Earth (and possibly elsewhere) the evolution of matter is always moving towards the amplification of its consciousness, its divine spirit.

Evolution is not just survival of the fittest. It's a creative movement towards higher levels of consciousness. It's the song of the cosmos. The smallest particle is alive with the intelligence of spirit. Just as your body can breathe and circulate its blood without help from your mind because of its innate intelligence and spirit, everything in the universe possesses some similar intelligence and spirit.

The Plains Indians as well as other Native Americans know this. The ancient tradition of Shintoism in Japan knows this. The sacred wisdom traditions on earth know this. Walt Whitman in 1855 knew this. Your and my heart know this now. Only scientific materialism doesn't. Although it's learning.

Peter Russell calls such evolution amplification of consciousness. Maybe this song is being played on other worlds in distant galaxies as well. Maybe there's a pattern in this movement in infinity. Some rising wave, then in-turning curl of distortion and crash before the clear and wonderful wash to shore.

Returning to our cartoon icon, Nigel Tufnel, maybe we are only tens on that Amazing Technicolor Dream Amp. And maybe such an evolution requires some distortion before it hits that highest note. Maybe a rock is set at one, Pat Boone. A single cell is crooning two. Some worm is turning folksy tambourines at three. By the time we're listening to vegetation or some tree, we're at a mellow five or steady six or gently rising seven. The wind called Mary begins to blow across the leaves.

Maybe animated life turned up to eight or nine becomes a strident survival of the fittest, a battle of the bands. Maybe those evolved with the amplification of thought, cranked all the way up to ten, will lose themselves in that world for a time in purple haze! Maybe our ultimate goal is to find that clear and ringing all-important one enhanced than ten, eleven, clear amazing grace. Maybe we'll discuss that in our further points.

Unbelievable 01:13 - MoL-1 FONTThe Big Bang, Dark Matter, and Sacred Panpsychism

1. FONT
In the beginning, consciousness (spirit) became matter.

Originally I had titled this point Genesis. But then, considering that heading was already taken, considered others. Origin? Source? Cause? I chose Font in its definition as an 'abundant source.' But also liking very much its other connotation as a set of type. For, in many ways, one's cosmology sets the size and face for what's to follow.

The first point, by its position alone, is always a leap of faith. Scientific materialism has as its first the Big Bang. (As an aside, I find it interesting that our culture would use such a violent connotation for this primal point of birth: more indicative of its own thought structure than that of the universe.) But there is some controversy within its own ranks as to its validity as a theory.

From my readings on it, it certainly appears something other than that. Curiously, although the theory doesn't work with what science knows, things are created out of thin air to make it work. If you need something to slow down the explosion (else, this primal stuff would have kept moving outwards), and something to pull things together into galaxies of suns (else, all that primal stuff would have kept itself separate), well, just say it's there: Dark Matter. (A good but lengthy analysis of all this matter and stuff is available online in an essay by Christian de Quincey.)

More importantly, it's believed that all of this starry creation was random and left to luck. Although, as Ken Wilber argues, there's not enough time in the estimated age of the universe for all that chance and happenstance. That being the case, there needs to be some guiding principle in the universe creating all of this creation.

Creationists will insert their God here, their own anthropomorphic creation. Panpsychism, being a bit more humble in its outlook on one species on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy among a billion other galaxies, tends to leave such subjectivity behind, and admit that every quanta in the universe is sentient, that somehow out of the Emptiness of Spirit, this matter of the universe evolved.

Quantum physics points this way; the universe isn't mechanical. Moreover, it appears the universe is subject to our consciousness as well. A particle is a particle or a wave is a wave depending on our observation. And, as Peter Russell asserts, science doesn't have a clue as to how matter at some point became conscious. Again, theorize to your heart's content. But it makes more sense to see consciousness becoming matter, than vice versa. The sacred wisdom of the centuries and millennia speak to the same. And it appears the closer science gets to the truth, the more right that wisdom is.

Unbelievable 01:12 - The Meaning of Life is HereIntroduction: A Revelation According to Nigel Tufnel

INTRO
The Meaning of Life

Over the next two or three weeks, or maybe even more, I will be presenting my blogging treatise on the Meaning of Life. That is, the meaning of human life. That is, my story of it, from my point of view. Based on my readings of Ruiz, Tolle, Gurdjieff, Needleman, Bourgeault, Krishnamurti, Chopra, Wilber, Russell, Smoley, Nasr, and a host of others.

Because I am who I am and possess the kind of skills I have acquired in this dreaming, those planning kind of scheduling sort of forecasting abilities, it's in a basic outline form. Also because, at this point in my evolution, I require something like that, something that will oppose the spotty one I've been carrying around with me, that one being half materialistic and half spiritual and completely chaotic.

It's in eleven points, because as any good fan of Spinal Tap knows, eleven is one better (or in Nigel's lexicon, louder) than ten. And in fact, I do believe the eleventh point is an absolutely critical one, so crucial that I'll offer up a sneak preview, because that is what my culture does to grab any potential viewer's (in this case, reader's) attention.

The eleventh point is the caveat to all that comes before it, and therefore all that follows this introduction, the fact that at any moment, if one is not observant, vigilant, truthful, loving, and as reflective as one can be, then one may very well revert back to old ways, false beliefs, unsatisfied wanting, continuous suffering, and ultimately, contribute to our extinction as a species.

Despite my playfulness at times (for after all, creation is fun) that's how serious this all is.