What is the relationship between thought and action? Actually, fundamentally, there may be none. In other words, thought may not have any relationship with true action. It may be that each and every thought is a reaction and, being in (and “of”) the realm of reaction, thought cannot create what is beyond reaction. It may be like asking a shadow to create light. Only the absence of the shadow may, perhaps, allow light to be. The shadow cannot create (or “make”) the light.
However, when thought/thinking is absent (and not endlessly functioning, such as with a truly meditative mind), then insight may occur, which involves deep understanding and real compassion. Thought/thinking, being of endless reaction in most people, is very mechanical and robotic. This explains a lot of the conflict, wars, miseducation, and insanity that go on in the world, caused by humans. Most people have been educated (i.e., programmed) to exist primarily as thought/thinking (i.e., as reactions).
Science will never find out about the most important things. Science, as it currently is now, is largely based on measurement and calculation… and it depends upon thought/thinking (which is fragmentation). This measurement and fragmentation is incapable of understanding the whole (and is incapable of significantly being in communion with the sacred).
Science, being based upon thought/thinking and calculations, is always limited. What is limited cannot understand the unlimited. What is merely robotic cannot understand real living, no matter how hard it tries. What is fragmentary cannot completely understand the whole. However, a truly wise man (or woman) can understand what science (in its infinite unwisdom) cannot. That understanding involves real miracles (that the science-loving, cadaverous word-swallowers are indubitably incapable of — unfortunately — discovering). Science can make things that make us feel more comfortable. Science has its place, but science can also make things to blow our fellow men to smithereens (and this includes blowing us to smithereens as well). However, science cannot — and never will — understand the whole. Understanding the whole is bliss. Why? Well, because, for one thing, it transcends the unliving quagmire that the unlovingunalive are unfortunately cadaverously buried in.
Some animals — and we silly human beings often see ourselves as separate from animals — have a very profound and deep understanding of the unity and connection of all living things. Some of these “animals,” unfortunately (or fortunately) — in this regard — put many of my neighbors to shame. Deep and profound understanding involves perceiving the unity and wholeness that exists beyond separation. The Buddha, Christ, Walt Whitman, Lao Tzu, and certain others passionately spoke of it, but most of us just didn’t deeply get it. The following video-short, of KoKo the gorilla using American Sign Language shortly before her passing, is worth watching. Please watch it.
[Here are some excerpts from a Sesame Street Song that was playing in the parrots’ room (on their tv). I heard it there while feeding the many tropical fish. (My new wife puts up with a lot… critter-wise.) View it (i.e., the video song) in my complete posting. Should i admit that i love Sesame Street? … Grover rocks! And remember, that separation between you and others — between you and all living things — you learned that from a crass and delusive society. Whether you like it or not, you are everybody else.]
My hair is black and red My hair is yellow My eyes are brown and green and blue My name is Jack and Fred My name’s Amanda Sue I’m called Kareem Abdu My name is you.
I live in Southern France I’m from a Texas ranch I come from Mecca and Peru I live across the street In the mountains, on the beach I come from everywhere And my name is you.
We all sing with the same voice The same song The same voice We all sing with the same voice And we sing in harmony.
I like to run and climb I like to sit and read I like to watch my TV too, And when it’s time for bed, I like my stories read, “Sweet dreams” and “love you” said My name is you.
Little Butterfly Friend … Photo by Thomas Peace c.2025
In last week’s blog posting, one wrote about how merely perceiving with (and “as”) separation, causes limitation expressed as illusory ignorance. Such separation negates enlightenment and profound intelligence. The separation that many minds habitually perceive through (and “as”) naturally involves limited space and limited time. Speaking of separation, we can scientifically understand — as Einstein eloquently indicated — that space and time are not fundamentally separate things. Limited space involves limited time.
Interestingly, that may be why when nirvana/spiritual enlightenment occurs (as a blessed visitation), one of the things that happens (while it is occurring) is that one’s visual field (involving depth perception) collapses… probably because even that space (involving perceiving distant things) has little importance to that sacredness that is timeless and beyond limited space. (Please don’t try to mentally collapse your visual depth perception through effort to get something out of it; that would be childish and futile. You can’t “make it happen.”) Unfortunately, we obtusely stick to so many edicts and presumptions that our crude society dishes out to us. We tend to faithfully cling to these limited realms, embracing them without question; it’s much like a turtle mindlessly sticking solely to his little, stagnant pond, while all the while a beautiful, pristine, majestic, large lake exists nearby.
One actually is one’s fears, but when a person feels separate from the fears that he says “he has,” he is manufacturing a fictional, illusory space between the fears and what he (as a thought) claims he is. So, analyzing and trying to subjugate those fears will take time (in relation to the limited space that was fabricated). That space and that time — being of one thing — is limited. A consciousness stuck with such dynamics (or lack of dynamics) is naturally limited. Limitations can be stagnation. There is an intelligence that exists beyond such limitations.
For many years, i have encouraged people to be sensitive and aware… whole and deeply perceptive. And now we are living in a world that — because of man — is rapidly becoming more degenerated, immoral, dishevelled, and contaminated. There is more ineptitude, mental stagnation, and environmental waste and indifference. Some of my aware readers — who have been very close to nature, being more at-one with nature than most — have become heartbroken over the abuse and extinction of animals in the environment. For instance, some areas of Michigan are exterminating (with gas) Canada Geese rather than relocating them. Also, a myriad of animals (worldwide) are going extinct due to insane manmade environmental changes.
Regarding such instances, one feels that it would be prudent to act (and do what we can to help regarding these situations). Additionally, one must not allow these occurrences to cause one to be overly depressed or sullen. One must — despite the outer moral chaos — maintain one’s integrity, inner joy, and light. The light of wisdom is not easily extinguished by manmade, fragmentary darkness. We must live in this craziness but not be of it. We must investigate deeply into the root cause of the disorder. Please do not let the light of goodness be extinguished by the jaded and crooked.
Many of us chase after goals in life, running to achieve things. Many like to chase after new adventures by traveling to “new” and interesting places. One’s consciousness, however, despite all of this chasing and traveling, remains as it always was… never fundamentally ever going anywhere other than where it always was. In essence, the scenery changes but consciousness remains exactly the same… unmovable. (It’s much like a hamster in a hamster-exercise-wheel… passionately running but not really going anywhere.) And we think we are highly evolved and sophisticated! We need to reassess our situation and truly change fundamentally, not theoretically… and not according to what we see others doing. So what will you do?… chase after some “special techniques” that promise to help get you out of this? (Would doing so really just be a continuation of the mindless running in an “exercise-wheel”?)
“Mine,” upon looking as a distance, fed the content of recognition to an “I” that was another concoction of thought/thinking. Possession was what it was all about. Then, looking out the window… was a perception of a curb and some oncoming cars which were a human who was standing outdoors and getting ready to cross the street… (only the indoor dweller did not really see it in that particular way). After a bit, the brushing of teeth took place, as if something separate from the teeth possessed the teeth (as “its” teeth). Steps were taken towards the door, which was subsequently opened, while the mind remained closed. Outdoors, the “looking at a bird,” of course, consisted of distance and separation, which helped to reinforce the assumption of a separate “I,” a separate “me.” And a label, which existed in (and “as”) the brain, automatically said “a dove,” without really fully perceiving without fragmentation whatsoever. Steps along the sidewalk consisted of “my shoes” and “my stride.” And these steps were steps very much apart from the bird, at a distinct, separative distance. Joyous and carefree was the avian creature, and “flying” beats “walking” any old day.
Understanding the whole is not possible if the mind is distorted. So, obviously, the instrument of the mind must be orderly and uncontaminated for clear, holistic perception and understanding to occur. A mind full of antiquated patterns, opinions, and fragmented systems that include conflict, friction, copying, and learned anxiety, is likely not what is capable of perceiving purely (beyond the distorted). A mind burdened with the conditioning of a violent, primitive society — such as ours is — is likely too stagnant and adulterated to perceive purely.
So the first step is to perceive beyond — and without — the past conditioning. Many of us may agree, but few will actually deeply look into doing it. Most of us are tethered to the “old ways” in ironclad habits and stagnant patterns. To leave those patterns seems frightening and too unconventional. So we keep reacting (rather like lemmings). Most take the easy path (which is, really, an unalive path).
The old, fragmentary ways of looking at things via separation, conflict, psychological distance, pigeonholing, and using symbols (such as words) as if they are realities, can drop away without needing secondhand methodologies, techniques, and calculated systems. Such calculated systems take time, and they are limited and fragmentary in themselves. Looking without contamination and conditioned parameters does not take time. Time may be a postponement and an easy excuse. Organized religions all take time and emphasize “gradually improving.” True inner silence and profound awareness do not take time, nor are they necessarily two separate things.
From E.E. Cummings: “It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my poems are competing.”
For most people, the “whole,” is conceptual (as a component of thought/thinking). However, what is merely conceptual (i.e., a product of the brain-thought process) is not the whole. It is just a fragment, or series of fragments, constructed of intellectual images/symbols. The whole is imperceptible to a person who is immersed in (and “as”) fragmentation. Yet, a lot of people think that they understand the whole. Words are fragmentary symbols/representations, not the actuality.
Education, in the past, for almost all of us, focused exclusively on intellectual and conceptual things and parameters. We were not encouraged to look beyond mental symbols, fragmentary parameters, and run-of-the-mill mental constructs. We were — early on — molded to perceive conceptually, fragmentarily, with (and “as”) words and ideas. So most of us look with (and “as”) a screen of mental fabrication. Such looking is limited, largely symbolic, and quite robotic.
Encouraging others, later in their lives, to go beyond such mental structures is very difficult. They function almost exclusively in a world of fragmentation and symbolism. However, there is always the chance of real metamorphosis. Surprisingly, perceiving beyond limited concepts and fragmented symbols does not take a lot of effort. It is the robotic attachment to habitual mental effort that prevents people from radically changing. The blind, habitual effort and dependence involving constantly looking with limitation (as mental fragments and symbols) must psychologically end.
The root of the word “mediocre” means halfway… like going halfway to a treasure or halfway up the mountain. Many people in society, it seems, tend to not care enough about profound, important, and penetrating things. Many prefer to look superficially and prefer to remain satisfied with the superficial. Caring to go deeper is not a one-dimensional thing. Caring to go deeper is multidimensional (and perhaps beyond ordinary dimensions). If you truly care to go deeper, you also naturally care for all human beings. Additionally, you care for the whole of life: the trees, the plants, the animals, and all living things.
A mind stuck in the superficial remains content with superficial things. This superficiality is fragmented, limited, divisive, and circumscribed. I often get complimented for my pictures but not for the written content. I am polite and thank those who compliment me but i wonder about how they perceive in this world. (If Einstein was still around and he gave a superb lecture, would it be prudent for one of the listeners to solely compliment him on the color of his tie?) Society (and its so-called educational systems) have succeeded in turning out a lot of robotic people who go through the motions of being alive, yet (unfortunately) are not fully alive.
We can exist in an easy so-called life and do as we were told, exist as we were instructed, while we believe in what was hammered into us. To question everything intelligently, however, is not easy. To go beyond mediocrity and a lemming existence is not easy. To go very deeply is not easy. To look beyond the stale curtain (and the provided beliefs, isolated boundaries, and words) is not easy. It may be that, unlike what society had taught you, you are not some separate, little entity that needs to succeed apart from all others; it may be that the whole of life (including all living things) is what you are (and not something separate). In true silence and emptiness… the whole is.
We are all aware of the bloodshed and fighting between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Then there’s Russia and Ukraine, as well as other wars and conflicts taking place worldwide. The mass shootings in America and other areas also come to mind. We human beings do not learn from our mistakes, it seems. We keep on contributing to war and violence.
We need to get to the root of the problem. If getting to the root of the problem makes us feel uncomfortable and annoyed, it doesn’t matter. We need to drop our separative stances (that contribute significantly to why these terrible problems exist). More wars have been fought in the name of religion than for any other reason. That is one big reason why i do not belong to any organized religion. Additionally, i prefer to consider myself to be a global citizen, not just someone who belongs to one country. I’ve lived in various countries during my life. Countries are — whether we like it or not — manmade constructs that are an extension of the divisive tribalism of the past. We are all like the fingers of a hand. The index finger may seem separate from the middle or ring finger but it isn’t. We are all of one whole. Kill another and you are killing yourself.
This outward separation and conflict in the world is a protrusion from the inner separation and conflict within the minds of most of us. This internal conflict must end for the vast external conflict and violence to end. Many people cling to what seems to be “easy security,” by belonging to old, manmade structures; however, in actuality, these very structures are the antithesis of real security and are divisive extensions of the primitive past. This is a very serious thing and anyone who doesn’t want to be bothered is turning his or her back on immense order and goodness. Please be responsible.
When you are genuine and whole, you are largely unaffected by the accepted beliefs and psychological frameworks that society embraces. Then you stand alone. Such a person is blessed. Then one sees beyond the fragmentary and fallacious acceptances, beliefs, and assumptions. Then one actually thinks (and questions) beyond blind dependence.
Society tells you that you are in charge of your own thoughts. Society does not suggest that thoughts make the thinker and that the thinker is a product of thought. (By the way, what one implies here does not negate eternity.) Society predominantly endorses fragmentation and friction, not wholeness and deep compassion. Society endorses (and teaches) dominance by the self. Society sees — and encourages you to similarly see — life and death as two separate things, not as what is together as one, as a larger, beautiful whole. Society encourages you to see with distance, and it encourages you to see with distinct borders and separation. You know that society of course; it’s what is continually falling into widespread disorder and chaos.
Please look beyond the fragmentation that was poured into you. Ironically, nourishing the isolated self — as so many narcissists do — negates real security and the understanding of sweet eternity.
Please consider perceiving beyond influence. Influence rooted in the past may distort perception, causing it to be jaded. We were all heavily conditioned in childhood. We were conditioned to hold certain beliefs and opinions. We were conditioned to perceive through separation, psychological distance, and mental screens involving labeling and pigeonholing. We were taught that fragmentary, manmade borders are legitimate and absolute. We were primarily taught that we are separate from the world, separate from all of life’s creatures, and separate from those other countries.
Additionally, beyond outside social structures trying to condition one, one also can further condition oneself. One can, for example, mislead oneself into thinking that one is superior to others, that one is meditating spectacularly (while all the while one is actually hypnotizing oneself), that a central “controller” is separate from “other” thoughts, or that one is somehow special (such that it is OK for one to take advantage of others).
It is arduous to go beyond outside authority. It is much easier to follow instructions and to do (and think) as you were told. Going beyond “inside” authority is likewise very difficult. When one goes beyond inward authority, perception exists without relying on past conditioning that is mistakingly taken to be original, isolated, or self-created. (One thinks that one needs to control oneself to be good. However, the very control may create a false inward authority, dominance, and friction. Legitimate order may involve much more than that old game.)
To go beyond outside and inside influence may involve great wisdom, freedom, and integrity.
What divides you from so-called “others”? Is it what society has poured into you (when you were very young)? Is that division (i.e., that separation) what they implanted within (and “as”) you? Could it be that when you look with separation and fragmentation, you are separation and fragmentation?
Thought/thinking usually depends upon division. It is fragmentation. It is one symbol after another. Holistic perception exists beyond these fragmentary divisions/separations. It is, therefore, not merely of limitation, confinement, and solid boundaries. It transcends beyond illusory barriers and close-minded conceptions. Friction is separation, conflict, and division. Harmony is of holistic oneness and caring intelligence.
Experiencing things, for most people, involves recognition and thought/thinking. Experiencing things, for most people most of the time, deals with experiences that seem to be separate from the “experiencer.” But the “experiencer” is really not something apart from the experience (though he or she seems to be separate). Without the experience, there is no “experiencer.” Most tend to look with full-blown separation and distance.
When people look at the stars, they are observing something that happened millions of years ago (which, of course, is due to the fact that it took the stars’ light millions of years to get to the Earth). So, essentially, they are looking at the past. And even when one sees things that are physically very close, one is still observing the past. Experiencing is, for survival purposes, often very useful; it often is a necessity for survival. However, merely depending on experiencing — and existing as experiencing — may not be very prudent. Merely remaining in that limited realm may be remaining in (and “as”) the past. Many cling to the apron strings of experience… and they are afraid to venture beyond that limited and separative realm. It is wise to often be experiencing things and it is wise to be beyond experiencing things. Immense wholeness is beyond experiencing (and all of the traditional separation, discrimination, psychological distance, isolation, and circumscription that goes with it).
Integrity is very significant in life. A mind that is merely a sponge, just robotically spewing out what it absorbed, is likely not of integrity. A mind without integrity and order is limited and fragmentary. Integrity means wholeness, soundness. Integrity is of an unadulterated innocence. A mind full of limitations is of conflict and is bound to do divisive and chaotic things. Wholeness exists beyond the limitations. Many of us, when we were younger, accepted behavioral patterns — which society spoon-fed to us — based on competition and conflict. Most of us have accepted such behavioral patterns — largely based on fragmentation and conflict — and have gone on in existence, adhering to these patterns of limitation and conflict. True bliss, however, is not of limitation and fragmentation; true bliss exists with (and “as”) wholeness, integrity. But so many of us have merely accepted what was poured into us when we were young… and we have gone on in the old ways; we have gone on in the antiquated traditions.
Limitation, being based on conflict and tending to produce conflict, inevitably contributes to the divisive and chaotic attributes of society. Limitations — based on conflict — are restrictions, and they snag the mind and keep the mind within (and “as”) constrained and blocked realms. Blocked mental realms often manifest as disorder and conflict. Disorder and conflict do not generally reflect wholeness and integrity.
Interestingly, our very concepts of time are based on fragmentations and limitations. We accepted these time-oriented fragmentations and limitations from society; we fully accepted them as being totally legitimate. However, it may be that we have largely accepted what is fundamentally erroneous and distorted. Our limited conceptualizations of spacetime may be largely fragmentary and perverted; we see what we were programmed to see. Our time conceptualizations may be somewhat relevant physically — in getting actual physical things done — but in the psychological realm, they may be rather absurd, limited, and illusory. One says, “I will try to be less envious of others tomorrow,” but then (at that moment) one creates a space between what one considers to be “oneself” and “others”; one additionally fabricates a “tomorrow” that is separated from “now” by psychological time (which also is of a concocted space). This concocted space is of conflict, which was a distorting factor (initially) in the situation. To live in limitation, conflict, and distortion may not be order, may not be bliss. Deep joy and order may come when distortion ends, when limitation is not just overwhelming.
his looking, day after day year after year,
Was through the mental screens and motifs that They provided
Hence, it wasn’t his “looking” whatsoever; it was Their “looking”
And it wasn’t “seeing” whatsoever; it was the death-like absence of really seeing
It’s Slinky, It’s Slinky … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021
A couple of young men were walking near to where the aged Lo Zu was resting. He was sitting on an inclined large log with his meandering cane resting along his side. Then they observed Lo Zu walking — with his curved, wooden cane — to a nearby evergreen tree, where he presently stopped and began stooping next to the tree, looking at something down low toward the ground; he had a big smile upon his bearded face as he looked at something upon a blade of green.
The young men asked Lo Zu what he was gazing at. “Life on its journey,” reported Lo Zu.
Just then, a group of monks came walking by, all with shaved heads that were bowed down, with eyes only staring at the empty path that they were treading upon, while their “leader” marched ahead, “leading them.” The two youth said to Lo Zu, “Many say that you are the wisest man in all of the lands, yet we see that you do not march with the others and go to the temples.”
Lo Zu replied, “They march with their heads held down — not looking around whatsoever — and follow a path which they’ve been walking upon for centuries, and that path, honestly, is empty and dead. Life is not flowering in such a path. They do not look around to freely and joyfully perceive the beauty of the skies and the miracles of nature; they follow a leader who may be as blinded as they are. They spend time in the temple. It is full of man-made statues. They revere these lifeless statues, all of which were made by thought. They revere a dead product of their own creation. I, however, do not enter the temples. I remain away from the cold, lifeless buildings and spend time with nature, with creation… life. I am neither fascinated by dead, empty paths, man-made fabrications, nor with leaders who lead others to closing their lives away from life and the beauty of existence. Their fancy garbs and decorative buildings do not make them truly religious. Being religious is a living thing. If you are going to worship something, worship that poor, elderly woman toiling in the fields. Help her to carry her heavy load to her home (without asking anything in return).”
Life on its Journey … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021
There is chronological time — time by the watch — such as when you have to be at the doctor’s office at a certain designated time, or the fact that you have to be at work at a certain time. However, there is also psychological time, such as when the brain imagines (to itself) that it will be less fearful in the future. Psychological time often departs from real, substantive frameworks and oftentimes flows into the fictitious, the imaginary, and the illusory.
Take the psychological time-based situation of a typical person imagining that he or she will be less greedy in the future, for example. The person imagines the greed (that he or she is now) as being separate from what he or she actually is. It is something that can be controlled from a distance, to his or her typical perspective anyway. Then, a separate “I” (that is projected to be separate from the greed) is formulated to go beyond the greed, controlling it, over time. (The imagined separation from the greed is, itself, a form of greed.) That person does not fully perceive that he or she is not separate from what the greed actually is. So the typical brain separates itself from greed (during the very distorted perception of greed) and then imagines or projects a state of being beyond it, or of controlling it. The typical brain sees greed as what it has, or as what it can control, rather than as what it actually is. It additionally projects a “should be” (i.e., an imagined state beyond greed) and strives to get to that imagined point over time.
A mind of deep, holistic intelligence deals with this differently. With such a mind, psychological time is not so much a factor. It instantly sees (without the movement of time being a factor) the greed as being what it is… not as being what it “has” (or what it is contending with or controlling). Here, the perceiver is “that which is perceived”; the controller is not separate from the controlled; really, there is no controller in this situation (and, really, there never truly was, in all actuality). The greed, by the way, likely dissipates without effort due to holistic intelligence (which has its own energy and profound order); or it never occurs much in the first place. (The word “has” in the previous sentence does not mean or imply ownership from a distance. By the way, ownership from a distance implies greed, doesn’t it?)
Here is another extremely interesting time-oriented point. Many top scientists — Einstein among them, who formulated the philosophy of spacetime, with space and time being one thing — are now supportive of the Block Universe perspective. It is also referred to as Eternalism. It, in one fell swoop (and whether you like it or not), nullifies the notion of free-will; however, it does not nullify the responsibility that each one of us has for the whole, for all others, and for the entire environment. Watch the following short video if you are not familiar with it. (You can watch it for a time.)
Goodbye Ice Ice Baby … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2021
We function in (and “as”) time. Time involves distinctive patterns in sequences. Thought/thinking is of time; thought/thinking is time. Distinctive, disparate patterns in (and “as”) time allows for conflict, friction, and discord to take place. Needless to say, a lot of friction and disharmony takes place in today’s world; just look at the newspapers to see plenty of that going on.
There is a nameless, sacred timelessness that exists at (or “as”) another dimension completely. It is not of conflictive patterns; it is not of sequences of discord; it is not of fragments involving disorder. It is coherent and is of a harmonious whole, beyond mere conflict and chaos.
Organized religions cannot take you there; organized religions are based on achievement, progress, and movement to goals (in time)… all involving calculated (man-made) patterns. That namelessness is beyond the cause-effect parameters of patterns; it is not some causally induced “effect achieved” or end result.
Thought/thinking, though oftentimes very necessary in functioning, cannot take you to that otherness. Thought can play all kinds of tricks but it cannot take you to where it cannot function… to where it has never functioned (and to where it never will function). (Thought/thinking can easily imagine that it is of wholeness and that it is in great silence and in the special quietness of “not being thought”… while — all the while — it is deceiving itself.) Thought/thinking is always conditioned, always in (or part of) a cause-effect sequence, always reactionary, always rather virtual, always fragmentary, and always rather secondhand. Well, that’s enough thinking for now.
Pale Green Assassin Bug, waiting with his different-colored bait … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020
Can consciousness actually be in contact with the infinite when such a consciousness always functions with (and “as”) the limited? It cannot. The mind can think or feel that it is in contact with the infinite, but that is mere reaction and not the actuality. It is immensely easy for the mind to delude itself and trick itself into believing and thinking all sorts of things. A consciousness of fragmentation, for example, can convince itself that it is of wholeness and freedom… while, in actuality, that is not the case whatsoever.
Unfortunately, most people are quite content to merely — in very limited ways — accept the traditions and beliefs that were handed down to them. (Curiously, this is even the case with many of those writing on meditation or mindfulness in books, blogs, and such, as if they have transcended something, when fundamentally they have not.) Most people in limitation — which is of confinement — feel “safe.” They do not truly reexamine all that they were taught. They do not fully question what was spoon-fed to them. (Many assume that they have broken from the standard, run-of-the-mill consciousness but, fundamentally, they have not.) They, among countless others, were taught to conform, obey, absorb, accept, and adhere to all of the traditional outlooks and images. Is a consciousness raised in such a way, and programmed in such a way, much more than a bundle of reactions?
One reaction after another, in life, is limitation, is fragmentation. Holistic contact is much more than mere reaction, but far too many people are merely reacting and are not involved with (or “as”) what is beyond. It is beyond what they spoon-fed into you. It is beyond beliefs, conditionings, and symbolic, sequential thoughts and ordinary feelings (which are all limited reactions). Though the physical organism is important to maintain in time, the old “you” cannot merely psychologically exist (for that immensity and nameless eternity to visit).
Among the Coneflowers … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020
Recently, within the last week or two, one of the regular blogs that i visited, as part of a rather poetic posting that it had about things to accomplish, mentioned — among other things — “becoming whole.” Not wishing to criticize here, but that posting — like so many blogs that are similar to it by well-meaning others — has very good intentions but (one feels) misses the mark (so to speak). (Unfortunately — for others — people who write about wholeness and mindfulness, but who have never actually gone through deep and profound enlightenment — though their intentions are good — are like blind men writing about the beauty of good photography.)
To have the aspiration of “becoming whole” may seem well and good but it may actually have the unintentional backfiring effect of being quite misleading and misdirecting. For instance, do any of us deeply question “what” or “who” is going to be “becoming whole”? If what purports to become whole is some illusory “center” that one has accepted (via miseducation) as some kind of core controller in the middle of consciousness that is (supposedly) orchestrating things, then one may be wasting time with fictitious, barbaric paradigms. Frankly, as one has pointed out in numerous blogs (previously), there is no legitimate “center” that is in control. (And do not misconstrue this; this does not mean, because of a lack of a true center, that one should get all depressed about a lack of security and eternity in life; nothing could be further from the case. Security, order, and eternity are there in abundance with right understanding.)
If there is no legitimate center, and there isn’t, then what is it that is going to psychologically “become”? One may become a better cook, a better gardener, a better photographer (over time). These all have to do with physical improvements over (and in) time regarding fragmentary and sequential frameworks… and in such frameworks, they are quite valid. However, wholeness — real wholeness, not silly mental constructs and fabrications about what wholeness is — may be beyond the framework of time. Time, thought, and everything in time (including thought) is fragmentary and sequential. Real wholeness is a timelessness beyond all of this. And an illusory, petty little “center” — that one has blindly accepted from society (from your parents and educators) as being legitimate — purportedly thinks that it can progress (in sequential time) to what it says is whole. It cannot. An illusory fragmentation (as an accepted image of something “central”) cannot become what is pristine and what is beyond sequential, time-oriented paradigms.
It would be prudent, before proceeding on a quest for truth, to do so without carrying a heavy load of preconceptions/presumptions (i.e., a heavy load of baggage). And without the psychological baggage, it may be that there would not be a false, fragmentary network seeking what it could never be. And there is great beauty in that.
Not an Electrical Array … Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2020
Why do so few people perceive the whole? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Perhaps the question itself is a wrong (i.e., faulty) question. It may be that wholeness is simply “what is” beyond the dualistic, separative perception involving an “observer” and “that which is observed.”
Very few people are of wholeness, though (certainly) a good number think that they are. Most people are of fragmentation… perceiving from — and through — that fragmentation. We were taught, by elders, about how to perceive, how to react, and about what to believe in. We live in (and “as”) mental symbols; we accept those virtual-mental symbols as true realities. Most of us stay in the rut of that limitation, that conditioning, and remain that way until the day we die. Is that ever really living?
Throughout school, we were not encouraged to question things deeply; we were not encouraged to go beyond the accepted values and the accepted ways of perceiving things. Man, throughout the ages, evolved from animals; we (being so-called sophisticated animals) still harbor basic instincts for focusing on elemental parameters, (just like the animals do… only what we do is a bit more “sophisticated”). Few of us go beyond that. You could count those (living wholly) on one hand. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Through eons of conditioning over generations, people are locked into reacting as they inevitably do. The following video, by Donald Hoffman, is worth a watch; it has its limitations, but it helps to illustrate some about what one has been saying for a long time. (With other of his video/audio sessions, one feels that he relies too much on old, fragmented, mathematical, and speculative approaches that can leave us merely analyzing ad infinitum.) Is, by the way, the watcher separate from the watched?
If one knows that one is meditating, meditation isn’t there. If one knows that one is whole, wholeness isn’t there. If one knows that one is humble, humility isn’t there. If one knows that one is quiet, quietness isn’t there. If one knows that one is spiritual, spirituality isn’t there. If one cultivates simplicity, simpleness isn’t there. If one cultivates perception, insight isn’t there.
Who is pulling my leg from down there? Photo by Thomas Peace c. 2019
True perception involves seeing the whole in a sensitive way without the contamination of isolated (taught, habitual) images. Distortion occurs when the supposed (but false) whole is seen fragmentarily through a mental screen of conditioning. For instance, it is in vogue to say that “I am one with the beauty of nature”… or to identify oneself in a special connection with magnificent, towering trees or a breathtaking mountain range. One fragmentary image, however, identifying itself with other images… is what it is: a sequence of fractional image making. (Few, by the way, identify themselves with people who are mentally or physically handicapped or with disappearing coral reefs; maybe if they observed them without a mere fractional center… more good things would get done). Real wholeness exists beyond the boundaries of thought. These boundaries include the fallacious center that feels in control of what are considered “subservient thoughts.” Thought/thinking projects this center as being separate from other thoughts and as being separate from what is perceived (through the screen of thought); this center has (and is) an essence of separation. Real wholeness does not put a separative, isolated image of a (fallacious) center on a psychological pedestal; real wholeness does not have a supposedly central image that merely identifies itself (at times) with other chosen, select images — like breathtaking mountains — while (at other times) it purports to be domineering over “other” images (whether they be internal or external) from a distance.
Most people don’t care deeply about true or deep perception; they have accepted crude, mundane ways, (and they continue to perceive through — and “as” — these mundane, superficial ways, without going deeply beyond them). In these banal, mundane ways, most inevitably get bored and feel unfulfilled, which is (obviously) due to clinging to the old and stale. They continue to cling to the old and stale ways, and they are afraid to let them go. Untold many, over centuries, have each relied on and believed in a domineering and manipulative center that is (supposedly) in charge of the rest of thinking… and the world remains in crisis; deep harmony rarely emerges out of distortion. The irony in this, unfortunately, is that most will not care to delve into this and transcend the fractional center; yet it is this very so-called center (because of its unnecessary friction and conflict) that keeps them in psychological isolation that is dull, lonely, distorted, second-hand, deceitful (and that is not dynamic while it creates a space of limitation that directly leads to boredom and inner sorrow). The serious mind that sees the falsity of such a center is, on the other hand, joyous, harmonious, original, whole, and beyond deep deception. Falsities are not just in some of the age-old, infantile beliefs of man; they go to the very essence of what consciousness entails. Transcending them is true liberation and bliss… not all that phony stuff.
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