Only a few hours ago the I Ching urged me to commit to my highest aspiration and to announce my intention. It said "Make known the arrival of a message from heaven and announce it at the Earth altar. If you don't deliver your important message you will be cut off and isolated. Call out. Tell us now. Now!" Then along comes an invitation to do so on Facebook, which motivated this... :)

So, what is the highest perceived benefit or aspiration of my Life?

When one sufficiently overcomes the habit of naive realism one can coherently understand the nature of reality rather than remain trapped in a self-reproducing closed loop of unconscious assumptions and resulting misunderstandings.

A coherent understanding can be attained personally and also examined scientifically. A personal understanding will transform one's life. A scientific understanding will transform civilisation.

The main features of a coherent understanding:

• Reality is that which perceives rather than that which is perceived. The objects of perception are not objective because they depend on how we perceive them. The objective reality is the stream of awareness within which the objects of perception arise and which is our true self.

• We have experiences of "being in a world", which is how the situation appears from our perspective. However those appearances do not reveal the true nature of reality, just as experiences of a VR game world do not reveal its true nature to be computation.

• There are underlying processes that animate our stream of awareness and give rise to the appearances that we apprehend. These processes are that by which we perceive and cannot be apprehended as objects of perception, thus they themselves seem unmanifest and abstract.

• All manifest forms are inferred to exist from our perceptions, however they have no independent self-nature. Hence the ideas of matter and a physical universe are myths.

• The underlying processes animate all systems and enable them to experience, react and thereby interact. All system interactions are driven by reciprocal experiences and there are no inanimate systems.

• The underlying processes that enable our individual streams of awareness are part of a unified process that animates everything.

• There is a global coherence to this unified process, which imparts a global coherence to the realm of manifest forms. Thus no event is local, every event is a 'movement' of the entire cosmos.

• We can operate via sensory perceptions and thereby exert influence locally, or we can operate via the inner-most animating process 'within' us and thereby exert influence globally or remotely.

• Our individual state of being (both body and mind) arises from the many levels of interacting sub-systems that comprise us. If these sub-system interactions are dysfunctional we suffer.

• Our interactions and relationships integrate us into many levels of super-systems (groups and organisations) that comprise society as a whole. The collective state of being emerges from this integration. If our interactions are dysfunctional the emergent collective suffers.

The main results of the work from which this world-view arises can be found here http://anandavala.info/OIPVSE.pdf

Worldly concepts, words and thought processes cannot give the mind enough traction to grasp reality. However the mind itself CAN grasp these things and the intellect can understand. Although the word 'mind' means different things to different people... Hence I'll explain a little of where I'm "coming from" in regards to 'mind'...  More >

The following is a brief overview of an information system ontology and metaphysics, i.e. those concepts, entities and processes that provide a foundation for a non-materialist, consciousness based world-view. The explanation is kind of technical because it is difficult to explain non-materialist issues in a mostly materialist language, however the understanding itself is very simple and intuitive once one shifts to a non-materialist paradigm. This explanation starts from general principles and works towards particulars.  More >

I was recently asked my opinion on the work and teachings of A.H. Almaas, called the Diamond Approach. This article is not a general review of his work, it is about something that I believe to be a common misconception of spirituality, particularly throughout the West (e.g. many proponents of Integral philosophy). However I found in Almaas' work a clear and succinct expression of that misconception, which has inspired me to say something about it now.

Firstly let me say that I am not familiar with Almaas or his work, however after reading an article on the core principles, written by him and an interview with him I think I can sense the gist of where he is coming from. He has many deep insights that suggest genuine realisations, hence I suspect that many spiritual aspirants could get some benefit from his fusion of depth psychology with aspects of both dualist and nondual spirituality. That is all I have to say regarding his work in general.

However, from my perspective and the perspective of Eastern spirituality, he succumbs to a critical mistake. It is this mistake that I will discuss here because it is very limiting and it is prevalent and growing in popularity throughout the West.

I am talking about a misconception of spirituality that is based on a partial realisation that is mistaken for a full realisation. The seeker attains a degree of realisation, but mainly at an intellectual level, which has not penetrated very deeply into their subconscious / unconscious mind – they are often not even aware that it should penetrate deeply or how deep it must go before one has full realisation. Hence they believe themselves to be realised and to understand the spiritual path, even whilst the bulk of their mind is unconsciously dominated by the ego and still bound within the illusory world that the ego imagines itself to inhabit and the illusory life that the ego imagines that it is living.

The partial realisation results in thinking that could be phrased as “Okay, so now I'm realised, but I'm still me, an individual person in the world - so what now? How can this realisation help me and others to lead a better, more spiritual life? That is after all what spirituality is really about.” This thinking results in the tendency to approach spirituality more as a spiritually themed lifestyle for the ego as it lives its illusory life in the world. Rather than seeking to deepen their realisation and eventually attain full and complete realisation of reality and truth, and thereby overcome the ego and all of its delusions; thus traversing the greatest paradigm shift of all and coming to apprehend and live in reality, which is radically different to what the ego imagines.  More >

I just read a very thought provoking article The Truth by Eric Gross, which I thoroughly enjoyed. In response to it something came to mind, certainly not as a criticism but simply as an extra dimension to consider...  More >

Some quotes from Advaita Vedanta:

“Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself…” (J Krishnamurti)

- # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # -

"No person from outside can make you free... No one holds the Key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity..." (J. Krishnamurti)

- # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # -

“That which is the subtle essence, in it is the self of all that exists. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou ... art it.” (Chandogya Upanishad 4:10:1-3)

- # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # -

Recently I have been feeling harassed by someone and yesterday during "peace negotiations" with them I realised why they were behaving how they were, and I took a fresh look at myself and saw that I also do a similar thing - it helped me to understand many things about my life. I'll try to explain what I realised and what that meant to me. Perhaps this insight might be of some use to you if adapted to your life...

Firstly, I'll describe how they were behaving, at least according to my perceptions. Have you ever known someone who came to look at you through shit-coloured glasses and assume that was the real you? And then tried to “help you” by seducing you and others to see you in that shitty way? And they did all this in the name of Love? And they misunderstood your attempts to clarify things as defensiveness? And they remain staunchly self-righteous – believing themselves to be a beacon of loving kindness?

I realised that I also do this to others by looking at aspects of society (such as propaganda, entrenched confusions, self-reinforcing closed loops of hidden assumptions, outmoded paradigms, etc) through shit-coloured glasses and stating my views rather harshly at times. I do this out of love for the victims of illusion and its resulting suffering, the oppressed, the deceived and the exploited. I also do it out of love for truth, reality, decency, honour, peace and health. However this is only one view and most people see things differently, for instance those seeking comfortable illusions or distractions, those seeking power and dominance, those seeking mayhem and chaos, etc. It is a subtle trap to fall into one-sidedness and to denigrate the ways of others. Even if one knows that those ways are destructive and dangerous it is not productive to denigrate them. Even if those following those ways (e.g. authoritarians, mass media, materialists, egotists, fanatics, etc) routinely denigrate other ways.

As part of a propaganda campaign it is standard practice to spread a one-sided view and to denigrate other views, however this is really a form of cultural violence, and violence begets violence. If one truly believes that it is truth that will set us free, then one must accept all ways no matter how abhorrent they may appear. One should not condone them, but one shouldn't react with hatred towards them. Instead accept them as part of what is and find ways to help the whole situation evolve towards a healthier state. Rather than focus on attacking the negatives one can focus on nurturing the positives.

Of course, this doesn't mean that I should never warn people of dangers. That would be irresponsible, it just means that there are times, places and ways of doing this. I must also learn to accept that many people will blindly wander into suffering and despair and there is nothing that I or anyone else can do about it. Making regular snide remarks and disparaging comments about these destructive paths is not going to turn anyone away from them, it will only make people bitter towards me and more entrenched in their ways, whilst at the same time corrupting my expressions and obstructing my communications with others.

Overcoming negative reactions is not easy though, there are subtle mind-games that must be overcome. I have found that in myself some of these are related to the activities of the shadow, that part of ourselves that we habitually deny even exists. That is what this article is about...  More >

Hello again everyone :)

I hope you have all been well!

I have been away for a while, maintaining abstinence from all in-depth discussions in order to still the mind and focus it. I'm not about to dive back into the fray of online discussions but I have re-opened my facebook profile for now and will generally hover on the periphery of cyberspace for a while. For those of you who are interested, I'll share a little of what has transpired for me over the past couple of months.

I've journeyed far and wide in a metaphorical sense, stilling the mind to explore deeply into certain issues, as well as going beyond the realm of ideas and emotions (the symbolic content of awareness) to penetrate deep within consciousness itself (the stream of awareness). Delving down through the layers, from the conscious mind, down through the unconscious and into the psychosomatic interface between body and mind. From this vantage point some very interesting work has been done and will continue. However this is getting ahead of myself, I'll back track and tell a little story, which also sheds light on information wars, propaganda, oppression, authoritarianism, effective resistance and other issues relevant to our times.  More >

See the original and other answers at http://www.quora.com/Is-the-universe-a-simulation

At the bottom of this page there are also some other answers and my comments on them.

I will not attempt to answer this question here, but merely provide some links to instances where the idea has been discussed. This idea is becoming increasingly popular within the scientific debate because it provides an explanatory framework that allows us to comprehend quantum phenomena that were previously incomprehensible...

Whilst it is impossible to comprehend the quantum mechanical description of the universe in terms of 'physical' phenomena, at the same time we are finding that thinking in terms of information processes allows us to understand quantum phenomena, not as something bizarre and paradoxical, but as the natural & necessary properties of a simulated virtual reality.  More >

Quoted from my comments to a facebook conversation...

Some Information Theoretic Background

In terms of communication, the issue of coherence is related to the transference of pattern/structure between information spaces. E.g. the transference of an idea between minds or an email between computers.  More >