SHACK 240 MY SPACE --KEEP OUT

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The mind is very tricky, not pure mind which is mind without thought. Most think of mind generated from conditioning and programming, in fact all minds are brain washed in a sense.  When we are born we have no religion, cultural tendencies or in fact any agendas apart to be fed and looked after.

This is the mind of the child often quoted by spiritual masters, this is the Kingdom of Heaven, however the trick is to become an adult, intelligent and wise, fully intellectual and perhaps logical but fully aware that ‘mind space’ filled with learning, knowledge of job and religion, politics and what else is only a fabric, a sheet, a blanket which is covering the ‘empty child mind’, so there is a knowledge of a very amazing experience, not taught or engineered of this ‘no mind or the empty mind’ which is so feared by many as boring and vegetative.

However on reflection the mind of a small child is alive, active, dynamic and creative and if assisted by gentle guidance without laying on it layers of ‘stuff’ can result in a very extraordinary being. A child like flowers and plants that KNOW their true self, no one has to tell a daffodil or a rose, an oak tree or cherry tree who they are, they have an intrinsic knowing a deep intuitive understanding from their source as does the seed, as does the sperm and egg.

Then there is a process where the blinkers cover over the child primal pristine mind and the ‘mind empty space of the pristine child mind’ is forgotten and the awareness is taken fully by the education, conditioning and programmes therein and so ‘no mind’ becomes personality and character mind of whatever brain washing ‘stick’ to the blinkers and so pure mind is filtered through a sieve, a net and becomes an agenda, a plan for life and assumes reality. 

Awareness is narrowed down to the limits and manipulations and configurations that the programmes and software allow, the clever alterations, the playing around with combinations of the alive computer that has artificial intelligence created by its own data and has to justify itself and so becomes an entity which in total is the ego.

The ego protects itself and has an arsenal of ploys which defend and attack and in extreme cases is ruthless and cruel. If challenged it gives a graphic warning ‘keep out'—beware this is my space and I will take your space in order to become larger and more dominant’.  Weak egos, the so called loss of confidence have to live in a diminished space and yet can use the ploy of ‘poor me’ and so elicit sympathy or just fret and lament all their life and feel their space constantly invaded and live in narrow confines.  In contrast some egos know that they are weak(in fact they all do) and they arise and overcome their weakness to prove they are victorious and all conquering, most egos are bullies. 

Needles to say their are millions and millions of ego variants however only one singularity awareness and pristine consciousness.

One might say the spiritual journey so to speak is to uncover the ‘stuff’ of life', live it if one can but not be attached to it and know and feel this is not me I am that which is not of the other.

The problem most have is there is no definition to accurately describe or relate or give to that ‘other’ it is a unique experience and that is for many the quest----the quest is mainly to find out who I am not to find out who I am.

SHACK

POST 239 THEORY OR NOT

My Fantasy Magazine

This that follows is but a notion and theory and I trust it will not offend, I have felt touches of this myself and so theorize it might have some value.

I have had lapses of memory and difficulty remembering and finding words occasionally lately (date as to article 21st May 2017 and age 78 and half) my neighbours and friends say it comes with age and there is nothing one can do about it, some say exercise, take supplements, have sex and a relationship, get a hobby have a life, do jig saw puzzles and cross words and similar things, all maybe useful and I am sure it helps. Then there are those that say diet and preservatives, bad drinking water, chemicals in the air, fearful world, huge technological changes, internet and just about any other reason.  These I feel are all contributory factors.

I studied Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), also referred to as psychoendoneuroimmunology (PENI) or psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI), is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body.^[1] PNI takes an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating psychology, neuroscience, immunology, physiology, genetics, pharmacology, molecular biology, psychiatry, behavioral medicine, infectious diseases, endocrinology, and rheumatology.(Courtesy WIKIPEDIA)

The particular interest I had was in the relationship with the neuro peptide cascades. Briefly the way thought produces a chemical reaction in the body.  The brain becomes a chemical factory and as certain thoughts fire off the neurone connections they send a cascade of chemicals to the cells and the receptors like a lock awaiting the chemicals which are the key so to speak (there is or was a film made of this ‘What the Bleep Do We Know'). So what we habitually think and experience conditions the cells to these nutrients, changes in our life at a deep level then changes the whole chemical balance and the cells go through an adjustment and some cases withdrawal symptoms.

Be that as it may I felt we could see if senility, dementia and Alzheimer could be explained in some way as to one’s thoughts.  Supposing one was anxious at deep levels producing a background of fear, a sort of anxiety about which the conscious mind was not aware of and say one was picking up the collective unconscious and so a backcloth of nervous tension was felt, or maybe frustrated about the loss of the ‘good old days’ lamenting the loss of the job, bored in retirement, what might have been, what a terrible world we live in, bored what can I do, abuse as a child, trauma never resolved, financial and relationship difficulties that have never surfaced or do and are pushed down, depression and what’s the use I've done it all, regrets and umpteen other bits and pieces.

Let me take the view based on the above that the ‘chemicals’ produced by these underlying or conscious anxieties put the body and mind in tension, the fight /flight is being signalled and the body in subtle or gross tension produces the chemicals and hormone imbalances and one may take medication to help the condition and the side effects with the brain produced chemicals may signal to the nervous system and the endocrine functions and so produce as a result of this not only mental withdrawal its too difficult to motivate myself or brain fog caused by the numbing effects of medication side effects, brain chemicals through unresolved issues, longing for the past where it was safe, going into a world of fantasy maybe to escape boredom and not able to cope with a changing world, information and political oppression, media fear and hype and the fear of nuclear or chemical world war and so many other pressures assailing one today.

So many may choose distraction in drugs, sex, violence, alcohol and ignoring the issues with videos, computer browsing, watching sports and pornography and so on whilst some may choose to slide into a misty fog and go elsewhere.

The effect of the chemical alterations maybe the cells reject foreign chemicals by constant adrenal flight / fight past and seek to deaden the responses by rejection to these new chemical messages and so deposit them in the neural pathways as deadening effect to block electrical impulses and bring relief this then going back to safe pathways, indeed senility maybe a protective device to save suffering to those that cannot cope with deep radical change and not even be aware of it. That is why it s often called the silent assassin.

Is there a cure; I don’t rightly know for me when I felt myself sliding I feel that my meditation and so called spiritual pursuits not through religion, politics or chosen cultural life style, but by diet just being into natural food as much raw as possible, juicing vegetables, smoothies as green as possible, now Qi Gong and Meditation and seeing that life is based on habit, routine and past stored memories and not for me reality, reality to me is the awareness that is behind thought and the past and the future, and is the life saver from getting hooked into the past or future aspirations. So one becomes the witness and has a chance to escape the ravages of sliding into a fantasy world or a chosen path of life such as religion, politics,  a cultural predilection or  oblivion.

Then again am I making excuses for what is not as above and it is the fate for all humans to become decrepit, senile and a useless hunk of flesh in a wheelchair or can one be in a wheelchair in an old age home and be alert, bright and attentive no matter what the physical condition and be here now? 

SHACK

SHACK 238 NOT REALLY

Myositis Support and Understanding

Often when sitting on the toilet during morning ablutions it feels like a meditative state especially if one is not straining hard and then resting for a while whilst the body completes its evacuation procedure and then one feels the subtle gentle 'word feeling' it is complete. Sometimes in that resting state between evacuation and complete there is a gentle kind of rumination and it can inspire one with an Ah Ha and wise counsel.

Whilst in the resting ruminating space I found my mind getting sluggish and it felt as though it were empty and meditative and it came to me it was a kind of dupe.

It felt as I were in a meditative state yet it was a sluggish kind of drowsy ruminative emptiness, it was apparent there was little thought but it was a kind of slow turnover which could lead to a low feeling bordering depression, it was a sinking feeling and I could then feel the ego which to me is the past accumulation of life to this point and its experiences all collected into a ‘box set’ which had the ability to enliven any of its contents as if it were the present and so fool the awareness by usurping it and make it feel as though it were the reality now, the pasts attempt to live always in the present.

As my awareness kicked in and I became conscious of the moment I realised what was happening, I had become unconscious of the now and in true emptiness and the fake past had conjured up a scenario which was as follows; it was unhappy it searched for some thing to do to occupy itself, the ego that is the box set has to keep thinking to validate its existence because it knows at the depth of itself it is just memory that can juxtapose, manipulate, conjugate and compute in thousands of configurations the experiences to fit most events and produce fantastic graphics and presentations.

The realisation came when there in this lethargic state and I realised that just before going to the bathroom and getting out of bed, I had a lethargy that dragged me back to getting up; what’s the use you've done it all made the T-shirt, done the trip, bought the ticket the whole darn lot the ‘megillah’ (a slang Yiddish word used now often in every day language meaning a long drawn out story) and so it was searching for something to do, go somewhere, read a book, research, blog, watch a sporting event, eat, look for a movie, meditate it could not find anything to satisfy it, prove that it was alive, because it knew at the very essence of itself it was just clever manipulated memories, covering the awareness and usurping it from time to time and feared the true emptiness which would means its annihilation.

So I was saved from the past endeavouring to be my reality and future and the awareness led me to a sharp clear dynamic awareness and all lethargy gone, brain fog gone and if given into perhaps a kind of senility and dementia.  I realised in that moment how is easy it would have been to slide down that slope of foggy misty dull rumination and get lost in the ‘clouds’ of delight, hate, oblivion, in fact anything than face the now and its apparent emptiness and yet the true emptiness is salvation. Salvation from the past repeats, from boredom and also the terrible feeling that accompanied the dullness at one point ‘the brain'. The mind squeezing itself, it actually physically felt as if I were contracting the brain, my skull to ooze out something in order to escape the now and its apparent emptiness and come up with an exciting ‘something to do, to occupy my mind’.

The paradox is that; the ego detests boring and sterility and needs constant chatter to know it exists, it is scared of emptiness because it sees emptiness as oblivion or at the very least boring, depressive and a waste of time when it could be doing.  Yet when the awareness kicks is in, which is the natural state of the mind, there is happiness, joy, peace, tranquillity and all is well and I feel the ego might somewhere, somehow enjoy this as well.  The strength of constant habit brought about by constant repetition to become crushed to a solid mass which is ego and so an entity split off from awareness, a being formed by the weight of constant impounding routine rote and ritual that it is almost a monumental and gigantic task to break its foothold.  The gift of grace or glimpses of awareness can be a blessing and like the weather wearing down rock, the sea water and waves battering the shore and cliffs cause them to wear down, the rivers that cut deep gauges so we might wear away the ‘hard rock of ego’ such was the gift of this mornings toilet event, not only elimination from the body but some of the ‘mind content as well’.

SHACK

SHACK 237 WATCH IT

Sandra Boynton

A routine that I get trapped in occasionally is that I must be prepared for a really catastrophic event, a nightmare of a situation, a lurking fear and dread. Of course this attracts a situation and may not cause it to happen but could sabotage one into taking action for the fear of causing it to happen.  

A typical event may go like this; I am getting dressed and I am saying to myself I will wear my flip flops whilst typing on the computer----no put your shoes on you never know you might have to run out suddenly, their may be a fire in the building, putting on my shoes is warmer and I feel more secure and steady.

One of my family literally spend three or four minutes locking her front door to make sure its locked. I used to have power objects which I felt when I carried them in my pocket it would ward off an attack. I empowered the object to have an influence over me.  I became a victim of my own fear and brain washing.

I learnt a great lesson with teaching children Judo in a deprived area of London many years back; these children were from abused and poverty stricken areas, I always had parents there for my safety in case I was accused of molesting.

One day as I came into the car park I noticed that they were resurfacing the tarmac, a lovely round stone caught my eye and idea came to me; I started the lesson with a circle not a Sensei in front looking at them.  I asked if anyone wanted to say something, then I would explain the lesson. This time I held the stone in my hand tightly and they looked and said 'what's that Mr Geoff'. 'It is a power stone and if you think nice things sometimes it can help you feel better and sometimes a small gift can arrive'.

During the course of the one and half hour session they could not take their eyes of the stone I held. At the end we all sat down in a circle on the tatami(mat) and I passed it to the child beside me to the right and said make a simple not too grand a wish, they all exclaimed 'the stones hot' I said  'well I have been holding it tightly 'How did you get the stone? Well I got it in my travels from a wise man'.  The last child gave it to me and I said no put in the center and we can go into the breathing and meditation. 

 The next week they came back There were minor 'gifts' and they were very impressed and asked if they could have a stone of the same kind. I shared with them that the stone I found was in the car park, they felt let down, but I said it was your mind that believed the stone did the work, so you can use your mind to do good things and be helpful and so on. There was a major shift in their behaviour and parents did the 'mind stuff' as well. The local council closed us down as not contributing to society and there were no more funds available. There were protests and I was accused of being a trouble maker and unchristian.

Even though I learnt from these children the power of the mind, still stuff sticks and the awareness gets dragged into these routines of 'do this, be prepared, put on your shoes, carry a torch you never may know when you might need it, watch it'.

I used to fear coming into an empty house and shout and pretend I had back up company, keep the light on, don't walk under ladders, with my luck anything can happen and its never good. The number of patients I saw and the Forensic terror numbed my awareness at times even with all the workshops and meditation over many years.

It is in retirement I can reset the awareness as it were and let the accumulated debris of unwanted 'clothing and furniture of the mind seep out' and have no objects to give my power too, less rituals and disciplines with routines and where I ask does this lead too---nowhere in particular.

SHACK

SHACK 236 PAINT

When at a theatre investigating an incident the team came across two pieces of broken wood that had been sheared of a scenery backdrop.  The strange thing when we looked at this wood which did have some blood on it was that above the wood surface there was an three inch layer of striated paint of different colours attached to it.. When we asked how this outcrop had appeared and was it a fabric we got a surprising answer; the scene operators who painted the canvas used to wipe their brushes dry on this wood before cleaning and believe it not over seventy years this had built up. We were skeptical and then taking it back to the laboratory it was clear this was layers of paint over those years.

 The lesson I learnt from this; we build up layers of conditioning which turn into habits and appear to be solid and form our reality commensurate to our cultural, religious, political and life experience and every person has their 'paint strata' according to their predilection.

The hardness of these layers being inculcated over many years is hard to just remove and wipe out, like changing a room round and one keeps going to a drawer or chair where it was, I had this when changing cars I had to re-remember the gear shift and pedals until a new norm arose.

Do we ever completely eradicate the old; force is tiring and endless vigil can drive one crazy. Perhaps a way is to remind oneself amusingly; this is not me these are programmes that have become ingrained and form a sense of false reality or to watch in an interested way the antics and performances as one would in a theatre knowing you are a spectator in the audience and just a witness enjoying and moving on and not going back for a second visit, if per chance there is a second visit merely just acknowledge it and watch for a reaction. The reaction would most likely be it challenges the status quo of the ego set up reality, a good indication of where a layer is.

Truly a work in process.

SHACK

SHACK 235 HALT

www.zenthinking.net

STOP THE INQUIRY

WHY SHOULD I 

WHO IS IT THAT WANTS TO KNOW

FIND THE I AND THE INQUIRY ENDS

IS THAT SO!

ARE YOU SURE 

WELL YOU SHOULD KNOW

AH! THE TORMENT

SILLY FELLOW

SHACK

SHACK 234 WHICH WAY

Art People Gallery

I KNOW NOT WHAT THE WAY IS

NOR FROM WHENCE IT CAME AND TO WHERE

IT GOES

MAYBE IT NEVER ARRIVED OR DEPARTED 

AND IT WAS ALL A FABRICATION 

OF THE MIND

I KNOW NOT WHAT MIND IS 

MAYBE THE WAY AND MIND ARE THE SAME

MAYBE THEY MET SOMEWHERE SOME PLACE

AND MAYBE NEITHER EXIST ANYWAY

PERHAPS THIS IS A DREAM AN ILLUSION AND 

NOTHING REAL WAS THERE OR HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE

OH! WHAT A MYSTERY

WITHOUT THE MYSTERY WHAT IS THERE TO KEEP ONE GOING

WONDERING WHO SET UP THE MYSTERY?

QUIET BOY---BE STILL

IF ONE IS STILL AND QUIET IS THE MYSTERY STILL THERE OR HERE OR ANYWHERE?

IS THERE AN ANYWHERE OR SOMEWHERE IN AN ILLUSION?

WHAT IS NOTHING?

SHACK

SHACK 233 WHEN I'M GONE

Intuitive Consultants.net

When I'm gone from this life and one can speculate;does one reincarnate, go to another dimension, return to source at this point in time I don't rightly know for sure and can only ruminate on all the possibilities and then give up to destiny.

Perhaps there is Life after Death of the human body and if so I choose to feel that we are an energy form of some sort, maybe retaining the memories of the past incarnation and therefore if there is a residue of substance left over in the departing energy field body and the leftovers are not in completion, an unfinished programme of some sort that needs healing and forgiveness and is vibrating and broadcasting its needs, causing the still waters of Life to ripple and attract a situation which may resolve and bring closure to these events.  Like a TV the wavelengths are a broadcast and some unit in this case a family wanting a child or an individual about to be born maybe the antennae for that frequency and so an incarnation is born. On the other hand some may think there is oblivion and there are many other views, I just picked this one out of the hat so to speak.

Let us suppose there is this vibrating magnetic energy field which also is magnetic and was the former inhabitant of the human body that hosted it and let us further suppose it reunites or forms a relationship(s) and it has cleared a majority of its personal hangups and is more altruistic and benign, then there is a great deal more transparency and sharing and is more open and loving,  This then means a greater co operation and so evolution can work more freely through these 'chains of transparent not so resistant' information and so ascension to higher forms of evolutionary life and energy are possible.  The selfish greedy element is being upgraded to a more fluid abundance of compassion and well being.   

SHACK

SHACK 232 HARD TO BELIEVE

ultra -vr

When you bang your elbow fall sharply on your knees on a gravel surface it hurts, sometimes bleeds and then it heals a mysterious process not under the conscious control.

All the above suggest that in reality these are solid facts. However as later articles go deeper into solidity one might be shocked to believe that this is all in the brain and it isn't really solid at all and in fact is a virtual reality show decoded by the brain as TV decodes its screen programme.

It is so hard to believe we are a virtual reality and yet when it dawns on us and we realise its implications the reaction can be chaos, depression, distraction, bewilderment or endless freedom and joy.

Glimpses of this no state  - state can motivate one to further exploration.  A quote from 'Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be', cokney East End London from a musical and jazz classic.

Hey do me a favour
They changed our local Palais into a bowling alley and
Fings ain't wot they used t’be (chorus)
There's Teds wiv drainpipe trousers and debs in coffee houses and
Fings ain't wot they used t’be (chorus)
There used t’be trams not very quick
Got you from place to place
But now there's just jams half a mile thick
Stay in the human race
I'm walking!
They’ve stuck parking meters outside our doors to greet us, no
Fings ain't wot they used t’be (chorus)
Cor! monkeys flying round the moon
We'll be up there wiv ‘em soon
Fings ain't wot they used t’be (chorus)
Once our beer was froffy but now its froffy coffee well
Fings ain't wot they used t’be (chorus)
It used t’be fun, Dad an old Mum paddling down Southend
But now it ain't done
Never mind, chum
Paris is where we spend our outings !
Grandma tries to shock us all
Doin’ knees-up rock ‘n’ roll
Fings ain't wot they used t’be (chorus)
We used to have stars
Singers who sung
A Dixie melody
They’re buying guitars plinkety plunk
Backing themselves with three chords only
Once we'd dance from 12 to 3
I've got news for Elvis P
Fings ain't wot they used ta
Did the lot we used ta
Fings ain't wot they used ta be

This was a musical in the 50's and if you read the lyrics and see the local jargon then one can perhaps see and feel change, now with the internet and virtual reality, computer graphics and digital technology maybe reality is changing, our adaptability is put to the test, the letting go, the speedy information change, our minds exposed to hundred of TV, Cell /Mobile phone stuff, adverts, Apps and quantum stuff, maybe we can get the message of illusion and reality--- a question----when there is no illusion when all the 'virtual's' are gone, when one profoundly realises all these changes are like programme switches at the touch of the remote control, when the TV is off, no programme what happens then-----memories which are not real but phantom ghost thoughts of the past stored for recall with emotions and ego editing-----so who are you when all this ceases----dead----senile----or enlightened----frightened and nowhere to go---nothing to fill the active eager mind---or at peace and knowing the unknown and that is all-----happy now?

SHACK

appreal-vr.com
ONE STEP FURTHER WHAT HAPPENS WHEN VR AND AI MEET CONSCIOUSNESS.
VR (virtual reality)
AI (Artificial Intelligence) 
THE SELF OR CONSCIOUSNESS
ALL ILLUSION GONE AND ONE HAS FOUND THE SELF
Perhaps this is a process steps to finding the THE SELF a kind of Zen journey, keeping in mind 'I AM NOT THAT' so moving on with the realisation I am not an illusion AND NOT GETTING STUCK AND LETTING GO.  (SHACK)

SHACK 231 I AM AWARENESS

Darrell Hardy

I AM AWARENESS

WHAT IS THAT?

IT IS BEING PRESENT------CONSCIOUS

OH!-- REALLY?

SHACK

www.emaze.com