illumination

An Alien Addicted to Entertainment

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

What possible purpose might an extraterrestrial race find in interfering with human evolution, human politics, day-to-day human activities? I like the idea of entertainment as the purpose for alien visitation and intervention.

If an alien species were watching us, they might find us entertaining. Who knows what they might think of us – I’ll wager not the same as what we think of ourselves, though.

Suppose an alien race found a wild planet-bound species intelligent enough to invent and use technology. Though, not wise enough to use their technology or their intelligence to their mutual benefit. And, useful to aliens, not smart enough to escape the confines of the planet to which they are bound.

Further, suppose that this alien race is BORED and likes to be entertained. Maybe they’ve been watching the same TV programming for a million years. After many millennia of the same old stuff, wouldn’t you think you’d like something “different” to watch? Maybe they would, too. Thus, my concept of alien addiction to entertainment.

What About Morals?

Suppose these aliens don’t give a flying feces about our morals, our “10 commandments,” or any other “code of [human] conduct.” They’re aliens! Perhaps all they really care about is TV ratings on their planet! Consider how little we care about subjecting ourselves and other species to all kinds of immoral practices for entertainment’s sake.

An alien race might feel no compunction whatsoever in intervening into whichever human group they wish. Thus, accelerating some groups while watching what happens to others when they do. They’d be completely amoral about it – not caring at all who gets hurt (it’s not gonna be them!). They only care about the entertainment value to them. Thus, their addiction may appear as ratings to them and “bad alien” to us.

Suppose their “network” got to work on entertainment projects like these –

  • “Tonight on ABC News (Alien Broadcast Company) – crew crash lands on an alien planet. Surrounded by wild beasts, they may not make it out alive! Details at 11…”
  • “Today on ‘Days of our Human Lives’ – Harry gives Doug the go-ahead to deliver the device that wipes out everything for kilometers! You don’t want to miss this exciting episode!”

What if the alien to which I refer is me?!

The Law of Selectivity

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The law of selectivity is the concept that for any given set of options there is a best option. It’s a law because, moment-to-moment, I must make a selection. From where my attention goes to what flavor of creamer I put in my coffee, I must choose and defend.

This is the essence of Bubble Awareness in which I select from two or more options and defend one. Any choice based on this law keeps me in the bubble of limited awareness. Thus, the law perpetuates itself.

My fundamental intention to be whole is like a Don Quixote quest for that best option that I know is “out there somewhere.”

How Does The Law of Selectivity Appear?

This law is a perceptual illusion, a characteristic of an intention to validate separation from wholeness with a purpose to achieve it. It is characterized by limited awareness that appears as judgments, choices, definitions, and any perception I defend.

I understand this law in the concept “or” – as in left or right, up or down, this or that, me or you. That is a setup for comparisons like me compared to not me. And defense in the form of reasons, justifications, logic, and evidence. Thus, choices require defense.

What Do I Know?

Because I believe there is a best option, I suppose I can know what is best and, so choose it. That’s quite the logic leap to make from limited awareness!

I use the concepts of need and rightness to make that leap. Due to my need to be right, I suppose that satisfaction of my need is the best option. I assume I’m choosing the best option when it’s based on the need I feel at the time I make the choice.

How True Is That?

What if there was another option? How about the options I didn’t consider? In a realm of infinite possibilities, why select only one option? That limitation to one option is based solely on my belief in and defense of the law. What might happen were I to consider another option – some or all possibilities?

Nevertheless, my belief in and defense of the law gives me the perspective I have – the experience of me. It gifts me with an illusion of me I can trust as real.

The law of selectivity fulfills my intention to be whole in a reality of separation. The law gives meaning to the meaningless, purpose to the purposeless, and reality to the unreal.

Exploring the Matrix of the AHA ZONE

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Exploring the matrix helps me understand it. By studying my bubble of limited awareness, it becomes a proverbial tool in my hand to investigate “Why?” Why the bubble, why limited awareness, why and why not?

This has led me to ask, “What, how, and why else?”

Perhaps the answer to all my questions lies in between the asking and the answering. Could this be where limited awareness is seeking resolution? A trip from nowhere to nowhere that I experience as reality?

Might recognition and appreciation of this instant of no-where-ness and no-when-ness, result in an incredible sense of gratitude and bliss? Could this be the fabled gateway to what lies beyond imagining, beyond questioning, beyond reality as I know it?

It’s All About Awareness!

Due to the limiting effect of separation, I can attend to only one mind at a time. Each mind competes for my attention.

Conscious thought promotes recognition of a paradoxical relationship between confusion and inquiry. Awareness promotes inquiry that promotes awareness. Awareness and inquiry are mutually supportive of an environment conducive to conscious choice. This awareness, in turn, affects the perceptual dynamic of fear in which I associate psychological change with physical threat.

That consciousness affects the way the mind interacts with its physical environment. This took the mind from fear and pain to questioning its reality. “In the past, I acted like this and failed. How else might I act instead?” That kind of inquiry spurred greater use of imagination. And exploration!

In ancient times, change was slow, painful, and in-your-face personal. Today, I can affect and accept change in an instant of Aha!

Breaking Out of Instinct

One evolutionary step in the direction of a new awareness was the recognition of symbolism. Someone realized that the world they perceived was more than it appeared.

Just as the mirror image is not the one it reflects. Those who drew animals on cave walls understood that the drawings were not the literal animals they drew. They applied an esoteric meaning that transcended literal interpretation.

A human broke the old instinctive patterns of interpretation by asking a question. They may have thought, “Wait just a second! What does this mean?” The Aha Zone is in that “instant” when we consider a meaningful question.

Today, I continue this tradition when I seek meaning in my life.

In each generation, one seems to appear to challenge the status quo – prompting all of us to explore beyond. That required an element of risk and some courage. Some of those folks in my past risked being barbequed for their disruptive ideas.

Over time, the concept of pain has shifted. I see pain as evidence of change. Because I expect change, I find pain much less frightening. Because change is inevitable, I can embrace the pain – and celebrate it as I adapt to the change.

Constant inquiry is the Aha Zone at work.

Some years ago, I listened to Fritjof Capra in which he stated that matter only appears to exist. That it is actually not material at all – instead, matter is made up of probability patterns.

Later, I heard that the closer to the speed of light one travels, the slower time passes. As an observer, I’d see light travel at about 186,000 miles per hour. If I were a tiny particle sitting on the photon I’d observed from a distance, I would experience no passage of time. I would literally arrive at my destination in the instant I left. The photon experiences no time passing. No concept of time as the observer reckons.

In other words, time and space do not exist as I reckon them.

Imagine that – having an experience of time and space where neither exists. What?!! How is that possible? It’s a paradox!

In order to experience, one must take themselves out of the flow of acceptance, investment, and defense… and into… the Aha Zone!

“What else…?” drives me forward, giving me the experience of change. I am cause, all I experience is effect. I experience time and space because I am change. Everything I experience expresses who I am. I am and I am not my experiences. Like the map is not the territory it represents, I am not reducible to an experience. It’s all figurative!

What does that mean? Well, then, maybe that is the ultimate question, “What is consciousness?” What gives me the capacity to have an experience of separation within wholeness? How am I the creator of my experience of life?

Occasionally, these questions flash a light into infinity – the Aha Zone.

What does this mean?

Transition to Awareness

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

What if the Aha Zone is a transition point from one level of awareness to another? For example, one of my ancestors questioned their instinctive behavior and realized an aha moment that started a new trend – the use of fire. By questioning their instinctive fear of fire, they learned to control their fear. This realization that fear could be controlled led to a leap in awareness.

Instinctual Me

Instinctive me defends itself against environmental threats and asks, “What threatens me now?” It’s also concerned with needs. “Are my needs being met?” results in two simple questions:

  1. What need is not being satisfied? (What’s wrong?)
  2. How do I get what I need now? (What must I do?)

Cognizant Me

Cognizance adds relational awareness and asks, “What happened?” This results in an awareness of what, where, when, why my environment appears to relate to me as it does. Recognition of cause and effect.

I have one such relationship with time, for example. In instinct, I serve the demands time imposes upon me – like circadian rhythms. Once I recognized that there was a way to measure time, I could change my behaviors within it. At some point, someone came to an “Aha” moment in which they realized that one could measure time. There is a significant difference between the acknowledgment of time and the cognitive use of it.

This relational awareness offers me much more insight into my world. Because of the power of instinct, I tend to put relationships into service of defense, like blame and war. Cognitive questions tend to connect me with others in a meaningful way. Such questions as, “How do I get what I want?” tend to result in behaviors that take my community into account. Cognizance adds opportunity for more questioning:

  1. Why do I feel as I do? (What does this experience mean?)
  2. Who am I in relation to my environment?

Visionary Me

Visionary me asks questions like:

  1. What’s next?
    1. What am I not perceiving yet?
    2. What could this experience mean beyond what I think it does?
  2. How might we evolve?
    1. How might what I do now affect the future?
    2. What might a future appear like than how I imagine it now?
  3. Why do I matter?
    1. What is my purpose in the grand scheme?
    2. Why does my contribution matter to the whole?
  4. Who am I?
    1. Who am I beyond the context of my world?
    2. What is beyond my perception of my personhood?
    3. Who is the who that I am?
    4. Who else might I/you be than who I think I am/you are?

Beyond Me?

What may lie beyond these limited-awareness aspects of me?

Awareness of Gratitude for the Absurd

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

In a bubble of limited awareness, I perceive in duality. This offers me only two options for comparison: something and everything that is not that something. This appears as a sort of battle between something and its environment – like me vs not me.

For example, I define order in a comparison to disorder. This relationship appears on a continuum from minimum to maximum. A paradox arises at the point where maximum is indistinguishable from minimum.

Full disorder is so unlimited as to be nothingness and order is so limited as to be nothingness. 0 = 1. This ambiguity presents a paradox in which any and none appear synonymous. When zero equals one, duality collapses. That’s absurd!

Limited Awareness

Perception relies upon a range of conscious awareness of adequate contrast between this and that to distinguish one from the other. Too little or too much contrast destroys the awareness of differentiation and, thus, perception.

Limited awareness changes the equation, 0=1, to a comparison, 0<1. Thus, limited awareness resolves the paradox – and makes perceptual experience possible.

From a Fifth Degree of Illumination awareness, I can appreciate how limited awareness resolves the paradox of oneness. While inside the bubble of limited awareness, however, I can’t see the paradox, much less resolve it. I’m too busy living it!

Limited awareness offers me experience that illustrates what I want to believe moment-to-moment. It does this by connecting some unknown with the known, some uncertainty with certainty, some yin with the yang. So, limitation – YAY!

The Gift of Defense

I use defense to define the borders of my limited awareness. As I introduce some flexibility into my border defense, I strengthen it. The stronger the defense, the more convinced I am that the experience is as it appears. Thus, defense resolves the paradox of reality – where nothing is as it appears AND everything is as it appears.

Defense complements limited awareness. Comparison and competition are merely concepts. My response is the defense that turns concept into experience. Defense exists in an environment of limited awareness. Limited awareness exists in an environment of defense. Together, I get experience. Experience offers opportunity for enlightenment through questioning.

Recognition and Gratitude

Recognition of the absurdity inherent in this level of limited awareness invites inquiry into the paradoxes. For example, when considering the paradox of certainty, I may ask myself what, how, why, and who is so certain that I can’t doubt. This inquiry may reveal the absurdity and add some illumination into the darkness that limits my vision.

The addition of illumination might feel like gratitude – the “aha” moment when the darkness gives up its secret. That secret is that I was never limited – just having an experience of it.

When the windows of perception clear, I see myself as I am.