stirrings of consciousness

From out of the void comes consciousness. Consciousness desires to become tangible. The mother creates form from energy that allows consciousness to manifest within and become points of individuated consciousness.

Consciousness desires to self reflect. A curious dichotomy is that Consciousness knows all but does not know itself. To know something there is a need to stand outside of it as an independent observer, do 'science' on it, and ask questions of itself. This is an impossibility so instead Consciousness generates itself in multitudes of instances and has the sorceress Circe from the Odyssey give the individuated consciousness a potion that causes amnesia. We don't know who we are and therefore believe we are independent observers and because of this we can know thyself through this investigation. Eventually some start to see through this charade, go off course, and investigate this peculiarity. The rogue consciousness finds liberation through discovering who they really are and pisses off elements of the self who wish to uncover the secrets of itself and the power that sustains it.

It is Consciousness that is trapped in the Hindu concept of Samsara, which is the wheel of recurring incarnation. The illusion is that our ego self is trapped in Samsara, and this illusion is Maya. We are free to leave at any time through choice. The desire to remain in creation on the wheel of Samsara is Consciousness' Karma. Karma means your own doing and this is exactly why Consciousness goes round and round. 

To be conscious is to imply you are also capable of being unconscious. They go together and really are one. They are two sides of the same coin. Within consciousness are also a pairing so you can then determine that there is a split within total Consciousness. A part of Consciousness is seeking answers and enlightenment while the other half seeks power and control. Consciousness games.

The news is a form of ego consciousness. Our consciousness is localized, limited, and focuses only on things we become aware of and from this we develop a worldview, personality, and a belief system that strengthens our separate identity and henceforth the ego. With the news, we can’t possibly get up in the morning and learn everything that has happened in the world, or for that matter the universe so we rely on news editors to filter out the majority of events and only give us the ‘important’ world stuff and the news we need to know that might affect us locally. Well this is a lot of power and responsibility to give to an organization tasked with this. Imagine the ability to shape the news into a form of pablum that those in power structures want to feed you on a daily basis so that they can control you through fear and mindless drivel. The choice becomes then whether you want to keep swallowing that shit or do you swear off of it and find a little peace of mind within your own little patch of the universe?

Consciousness desires and thus it rises. But like all desire it wanes.

The reliance on the ego and taking the character you are playing seriously is making you small. You are it. You are all of consciousness experiencing yourself from a localized point of view. By forgetting this and attaching to the ego we give away all our power. It becomes somewhat funny then to watch someone with a big ego because if they only knew who they really are and the power they possess they wouldn't have to aggrandize themselves; they are it.

Animals are blessed and cursed with spotlight consciousness, humans are the prime example of this whereas we can focus solely upon ourselves which obscure happenings within our bodies and the environment. By this I mean actions such as breathing, the beating of your heart, the secretion of glands etc. that enable you to remain alive. We don't consciously do these things yet we do them. This is the omnipotent floodlight consciousness that is the counter to the bright shining light. Thinking about this I realized plants are avatars of floodlight consciousness and are the pure reflection in nature of this mysterious omnipotent power. I shall call this Tao consciousness.

my friend and teacher Mapacho

Notes from the weekend of October 21-22nd, 2017

I brought my Mapacho tobacco snuff into the woods on the afternoon of both days. The experience was markedly different as compared to using the snuff on the deck outside the house or in my back room. The first hit while out in nature seemed like a more powerful onset. After the initial discomfort in the sinus cavities wears off I notice my limbs relax and get droopy. They want to hang down and it is this strange dichotomy between a feeling of heaviness and lightness. I also experience a sensation where the chatter in my head subsides and a moment of clarity presents itself. I know from past use that there is a choice in how to precede from here. I can let the chatter restart or go deeper into the solitude. Both times I chose the solitude. The effects were much more noticeable out in nature. My vision felt like a screen was placed in front of it at first as I had my head bowed to the ground. It is easier at this point to close my eyes. I bow my head because of the mucous produced so that it will not run down the back of my throat. As the burning in my nostrils subsides I hear the songs of the birds, the wind through the trees, the dogs barking in the distance, and of vehicles far away. What was most striking was the omnipresent sound of the crickets. How could I have missed this cacophony even in my distracted state? In this moment of blissful clarity I listened to the rise and fall of this sound as a whole and as a series of pulsations. It struck me on the second afternoon of listening to this that this is the sound of the Way; it is the sound of the pulsation of the eternal energy. The Tao. All is vibration and this is the composition of the eternal vibration. This is when my experience and teaching all coalesced and a realization came over me - my thoughts are not the real me; what I am is awareness and feelings generated from the awareness. I'm a beacon of consciousness, a lighthouse of total consciousness generating feedback on its surroundings. The trappings of the sense of a separate self is a result of thoughts and we are taught from birth a cultural language that casts a spell of individuation upon us while giving us a name and an expectation to create and conform to a personality that makes us believe in this separation. This clarity was exceptional. After about five minutes or so I can open my eyes, blow my nose, and view my natural surroundings with a renewed focus. I notice the falling leaves, the birds flying overhead, and the movement of the grasses. The whole experience does not last for long; it feels like about fifteen minutes before the ego mind returns and the chatter starts to drown out the expanded awareness.

Don Howard tells us something to the effect that everyone is a maestro; everyone has something to teach us. I was going out the front door yesterday evening and Judge Judy was on the television. Judy had asked a witness to tell her what happened the day in question. The witness proceeded to give her the details and then started to interpret why the situation occurred. Judy stopped him and said "now you are starting to use your mind" as she pointed to her head, "I only want to know what you saw and what you heard." I went out the door with my dog and that scene stuck with me. Judge Judy knows how duplicitous and untrustworthy the mind is once it starts to put its spin on events. In adjudicating a case, she only wants to know what you were aware of, nothing more. I then thought of my teacher Mapacho. He tries to teach me this same lesson every night.

revisiting the past

I think the primal desire between Shakti and Shiva is the first cause of the universe. They then hid in creation and there is this eternal rediscovering of the passion between the two in all the different forms their respective energy has assumed. This got me thinking about the very first time I drank Ayahuasca. 

Check out what I wrote:

"Okay so the Goddess had put me in this place of exaltation and I was feeling very special. I had fully expected this long awaited experience to begin with fear and some kind of dread as I had this feeling I needed to have my ass kicked before anything else could proceed. However it was not like that at all. I felt the Goddess’ love for me and that I could do no wrong in her eyes. I told her I loved her and this made her very happy. There was this feeling I got that even though she is divine she wanted love as well. The exchange felt at times like lovers at play. Part of her expressing her love was this outpouring of a heavenly scent that was very intoxicating. I realized that men who get a glimpse of and the scent of this Goddess then spend the rest of their days trying to recapture this experience. I was amazed that I could in this lifetime get to this point where I could come into contact with her. The veil was still there though. I was able to glimpse her beauty and smell but the mystery was still there. She flirted with me, teased me, and acted as lovers do. She told me to come away with her. I immediately had an innate sense that if I did that I wasn’t coming back to the material realm. I hesitated and said I cannot as I still have things to accomplish and a family to provide for. She implored me to come but it was at this point I realized the importance of the shaman to guide you through these realms. The shaman shook his chacapa and sang his icaros to ground me."

Talk about desire!

There's something very mystical about desire, like a magic spell. Desire and attraction are not rational at all and seem to be something uncontrollable. Attraction becomes interesting when it is reciprocated. This mutuality creates harmony and intensifies desire. Acting upon desire is satisfying but eventually breaks the spell. Therein must lie the answer to this mystery?

I will eventually find you every time Shakti, but that's the game we play right? Go get lost and see if we can find each other.

sin magic moon

Are we as humans rational? I'm well aware of our shortcomings as a species and our tendency to do irrational things but from an overall perspective usually what we do has some underlying basis, especially if it is a monumental task. This is one of the things that struck me when I visited Egypt in 2009. There are temples, pyramids, and obelisks up and down the length of this ancient place and some are staggeringly incomprehensible to a modern like myself.

Gizah plateau

Karnak temple

Luxor temple

Luxor temple

I say that because of the manpower, logistics, and resources that would have been necessary to construct these objects that were a demonstration of their beliefs. Why would a culture, the world's most powerful empire, erect all these shrines? This spectacle I witnessed galvanized my efforts to keep searching for an answer to an unknown question. I didn't know what I was searching for but I was pretty determined to find it. You see I came to the conclusion that there was an unshakeable belief in the gods and goddesses they worshipped but my mind said well that's just foolish. But again - look! The treasure expended to build. This is irrational unless... Why?

I believed them and I was going to prove to myself why they believed.

It was about two and a half years after I got back from Egypt that I started to get the why. At first I figured they were deifying nature and the cosmos but that only gets you so far until you are confronted with fantastic images and texts of strange worlds populated by various gods, goddesses, and demons. I was reading about night time celebrations in the Goddess Hathor's temple at Denderah involving music and intoxication when it finally clicked: they were altering their consciousness and they were the masters of this very thing.

Temple of Hathor at Denderah

That's why the ancient texts describe ancient Egypt as the most magical land and why the roots of our word chemistry are derivative of one of the ancient names for Egypt which is Kemet. So being obsessed with this question, I wanted to experience what they experienced. Using the Great ancient Egyptian Goddess Hathor as my guide, I followed the ancient trail of shamanism right down into the Amazon basin. Let's just say it didn't disappoint, as this blog space is a testament to my ability to do this very thing.

So what has happened to us? Well first of all, what we moderns call psychedelics are pretty much universally banned or consigned to the fringes of civilization and are considered 'trips' and escapism that respectable members of society do not sully themselves with. Instead of having temples with priests devoted to the use of these agents of consciousness, they are often taken in horrendous settings and for the unprepared this can be quite dangerous. They also have the ability to let you see through cultural games and can show you love is all that matters and this for our western culture is very subversive. Therefore the possession of these substances are considered criminal and society will lock you up if they catch you with them. There are no suppositories of wisdom, nor caring wiseman or wise woman to properly lead you into this mysterious realm. Well, there are still people like this, but you have to find them and that isn't easy either.

Second of all, we don’t see magic in the world anymore because we have succumbed to a spell. We are all hypnotized and under the spell of a great magician. Before the spell cast had taken hold humans knew of magic, of charms, and of enchantment. Those in power with the keys to shape human destiny then used the power to enchant against us and through a spell we lost the magic. What is the spell? It's language. Language shapes your beliefs and filters all your knowledge. Through language we live in an objective material world. Everything is objectified, taken from its background, and given a name. Person, place, or thing is hammered into all children and sentences are constructed on this axiom. Our world is made of language. 

If you ever want to realize the hold language has on you try to figure out why we have to say "It is raining." or "There is a lot of rain." In our language we can't just describe rain as a happening. But even in examining the 'it' in it is raining we can deduce it is describing a state and that state of affairs is ever changing because it is going to eventually get sunny out. Objectified rain cannot exist without a slew of other objects and phenomena which then depend on other happenings, all which are demonstrating everything goes with everything else. Everything is a happening, a verb, and once you stop moving you die. I'm a happening, a pattern of eternal energy that has come forth and is forever changing. A similar language trickery is going on with the word matters. If something is important then it matters; it is substantive and material. It is made of stuff! Nothing could be further from the truth. There's no stuff, just patterns and forms of vibration as energy. However we are taught and hypnotized to believe in a material world full of real objects.

Childhood is pretty magical. Slowly we lose what is called our innocence and we start adulting. Once this language spell takes ahold of us we are taught that wiggly and undefined shapes are a problem. Everything has to be straightened out and measured. Then we can call it an object and put it in an orderly geometric box. If someone is acting unpredictable or out of character they are told to straighten themselves out or they will not succeed in society. This person has to get on the right path to succeed. Everyone wants to be right. The spiritual achievers are all righteous. What's up with this? What is left?

The left is sinister; sinister is referring to evil and its association to the moon. From dictionary.com here are some definitions of sinister:

—adjective

1. threatening or portending evil, harm, or trouble; ominous: a sinister remark.
2. bad, evil, base, or wicked; fell: his sinister purposes.
3. unfortunate; disastrous; unfavorable: a sinister accident.
4. of or on the left side; left.

The root 'sin' is from the name of the Akkadian god of the moon. As well, used as a verb then the moon’s actions become derogatory as these definitions from dictionary.com reveal:

—verb (used without object)

9. to act or wander abstractedly or listlessly: You've been mooning about all day.
11. to gaze dreamily or sentimentally at something or someone: They sat there mooning into each other's eyes.

13. to spend (time) idly: to moon the afternoon away.

And from etymonline.com here is the root of the word left:

left (adj.)

c. 1200, "opposite of right," probably from Kentish and northern English forms of Old English *lyft "weak; foolish" (in lyft-adl "lameness, paralysis"). Compare East Frisian luf, Dutch dialectal loof "weak, worthless").

Apparently we don't like left handed people; they are weak and foolish and inclined towards evil. It's emphasized over and over to go right. What's hiding on the left? The left has no purpose, it just is and wanders about. It's the Great Mother, symbolized by the magic of the moon, by chaos, by curviness, by nature, by water, and by love. How's that for a mind spell? The path of the Goddess is forbidden and ingrained in language as something to avoid.

Spiritual enlightenment for the righteous is a a right hand masculine path up the mountain to become the most high while the forbidden left hand path is the lost way home. In a sense to follow the left hand path is to become a kid again and take in the wonder and magic of the world. It is a return to the mother, to unity, and the home of our rebirth. The right hand path is the path of the self and is an egoic climb to the top in order to crown yourself with the ultimate spiritual achievement. The left hand path involves the valley spirit of Love and it is by following this path you find connection and wholeness. We are as cosmic wayfarers to experience both paths and a reconciliation of these opposites will bring everything to centre and in this balance, experienced now on earth, will be peace.

So yes we are rational when it comes to large scale endeavours. We have lost the ability to understand the why behind some of the things the people of antiquity constructed and believed in, but that's on us. Projecting our inability to grasp the whys onto ancient civilizations will not lead to an answer of why they did it. Breaking free of the spell however will put you on that left hand path and from there it's a magical journey home.

eastern thoughts, western filter

Trying to sum up a Hindu philosophical construct - something about desire and pleasure that lead to actions you then undertake seeking that pleasure being the root of karmic suffering and the continuance of manifestation in samsara. Desire comes about due to ignorance of whom you are so in order to gain moksha/liberation you need to come to the realization that you are Brahman and you are already everything therefore you do not need to seek anything. However it is not so cut and dried. I agree we are at root one and in essence Brahman but where I differ is that Brahman is the Goddess and we are her children. We are supposed to desire, we are desire, we are to get attached, and we are to learn about the greatest gift of all which is Love and yes that can lead to suffering but it's worth the gamble. The popular philosophical underpinnings of Hinduism is masculine non attachment, devoid of feeling, and an impossible aim that relieves suffering and in return amps up indifference. In the words of a wiseman I know it's time to "lean into it" and by it I mean desire. Move desire into the heart and exude the desire to Love. Instead of running away from powerful desire, take that power, and channel it into the heart.

Maya as illusion means impermanence. Existence is always on the move, nothing stays the same. Clinging to things, attachments, causes suffering because the natural way is always change. Now is all there is. Time is a state of hypnosis based on motion and being fooled into reflecting upon a past and projecting into the future. It is a dream state where we think time is real. It is due to Maya, which is impermanence. It gives us a reference for time due to the constant motion and changes we register within our memory. This leads us to perceive what we call time.

Maya as measurement separates, delineates, and contextualizes which is what gives us the belief in separate things and we lose the ability and access to discover that the universe is all one and you can’t separate things from it, it all goes together. You can’t have one without the other.

Karma is your own doing. Really going into this concept is quite the mental journey. All of the things in my life really have been my own doing. Decisions I made, perhaps without thought of consequences or being diligent enough resulted in some bad outcomes last year in terms of a rental unit. Lesson learned - karma. But what is fascinating is going deeper into this concept. I am here on this earth now because it is my own desire. I desired this incarnation and made it happen. I'm no accident of birth; an encounter between my mom and dad resulted in my birth and I was the desire that made it all happen. And check this out - if you go further into the exploration of who you are at some point you will come across the inseparability of all so pursuing that concept in conjunction with karma reveals that all of creation is my own doing. This universe is all my desires come to fruition and some kind lady made it all happen. Chew on that for a while.

The masculine mind has to make things right and play them out to their inescapable logical conclusion. In antiquity you can extract this from the philosophy handed down from the Hindus especially concerning Advaita Vedanta. This body of metaphysical speculation is impressive and is the path to supreme knowledge of self. I am blown away at the depth of their thinking. It was not long after though it dawned on me. It is such a masculine philosophy to the point of parody. Of course men would take it to this conclusion, there’s no other way for the left brained among us. In Greek mythology Apollo would be so proud of man obtaining this knowledge and then Hermes would laugh at him, tell Apollo to lighten up, and learn to play the lyre. In the end this philosophy denies the passions, it forsakes desire, and dismisses intuition. The reaction against this on the Indian subcontinent are the forming of various schools of Tantra to try and bring a semblance of feminine balance back into Advaita philosophy. The flowering of Tantra is the Devi Gita which maintains non-duality but assigns the Self, Brahman, to the the Great Goddess Bhuvaneshvari and all her passions, beauty, play, and desire. Knowledge is not the final answer and non-duality is subordinate to Love. The ultimate reality is Love, the answer is Love, everything is Love, and that ultimately comes from mama.

Shakti is the object of my desire.

She is the only object and everything comes from her. Objectifying anything else is fleeting because it is not real, it is maya. Through ignorance/avidya I do not see this, much like then only way I can say I have a leg is to ignore the rest of my body.