Is the Universe Intelligent?

by Sean Byrne

https://provoketur.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/is-the-universe-intelligent/

How does intelligent life come to be?  What is its future?

It was interesting to me when I first heard that Moores law was a logical extension of evolutionary theory.  It was through understanding this that I was able to understand the wisdom of Ray Kurzweil and His law of accelerating returns.  

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

The Law of Accelerating Returns

We can organize these observations into what I call the law of accelerating returns as follows:

• Evolution applies positive feedback in that the more capable methods resulting from one stage of evolutionary progress are used to create the next stage. As a result, the
• rate of progress of an evolutionary process increases exponentially over time. Over time, the “order” of the information embedded in the evolutionary process (i.e., the measure of how well the information fits a purpose, which in evolution is survival) increases.
• A correlate of the above observation is that the “returns” of an evolutionary process (e.g., the speed, cost-effectiveness, or overall “power” of a process) increase exponentially over time.
• In another positive feedback loop, as a particular evolutionary process (e.g., computation) becomes more effective (e.g., cost effective), greater resources are deployed toward the further progress of that process. This results in a second level of exponential growth (i.e., the rate of exponential growth itself grows exponentially).
• Biological evolution is one such evolutionary process.
• Technological evolution is another such evolutionary process. Indeed, the emergence of the first technology creating species resulted in the new evolutionary process of technology. Therefore, technological evolution is an outgrowth of–and a continuation of–biological evolution.

• A specific paradigm (a method or approach to solving a problem, e.g., shrinking transistors on an integrated circuit as an approach to making more powerful computers) provides exponential growth until the method exhausts its potential. When this happens, a paradigm shift (i.e., a fundamental change in the approach) occurs, which enables exponential growth to continue.

This is interesting but does not actually answer where intelligence comes from.  To do this we need to understand what consciousness is.  There is a lot of discussion and argument on this with many modern philosophers weighing in. I don't want to get lost in those muddy waters so I will just suggest what I think to be true.

Consciousness begins at a level of physics very deep within the elements that make up the universe so I will start with what I think the universe is.

I think that the universe has always existed in some form not necessarily what we see today but in some form.  It derives from a context of energy that has no differentiation and all physical reality passes eventually back into this form.  This is the closest we can come to the concept of nothing.  Contextual uniformity.  The smallest amount of change in context causes everything to come into existence as such creation needs only perspective.  The abstraction of definition is the beginning of the change in context.  To have perspective you need to have at least two individualized points at a minimum.  It is the energy shared in the altering of this context that Is the true base of all energy and matter.  Everything follows from contextual energy.

Consciousness then flows from the altering of perspective.  It must therefor be a territorial system of perspective of at least two points.  For consciousness to be aware and intelligent it must preform homeostasis within its system.

This means that intelligence is the ability to self control experience.

So this shows that consciousness is the basis of all physical reality and that intelligence is likely in any system that can self regulate throughout the cosmos.

This is the basis of the philosophy of panpsychism.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

One of the basic criticisms of panpsychism is that it is not falsifiable but I counter that If panpsychism is scientifically it should make predictions that actually occur.

I predict that we will find many other examples of behavior that cant be explained by common materialist phenonema such as nervous systems and brains.

I would suggest that proteins are an older and more successful example of intelligence.  We do not know very much about proteins yet although we have vast amounts of information there is much yet to learn.

The Very Intelligent Protein mTOR

http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/intelligent-protein-mtor?utm_content=buffere36cc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Major accomplishments of mTOR are directly regulating the function of the ribosome, the amount of proteins made, the amount of RNA made from DNA (transcription), energy metabolism, the creation and maintenance of many different organelles and programming cellular death. mTOR is, also, directly involved in brain functions of all types, such as stimulating neural stem cells to populate the developing brain, creation of neuronal circuits, neuroplasticity and very specific functions of sleep, eating, and circadian clocks.

There is much more provided at the link .

Another example of an unfamiliar type of what could easily be defined as intelligence is within rocks.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/2_2_2_2.html

How Do Crystals Grow?

New mineral crystals are always forming — at the surface and deep within the Earth. Crystals can even grow from vapors rich in mineral components. This happens most commonly in volcanic areas where hot gases encounter cool surroundings and deposit crystals. This photograph shows sulfur forming near a volcanic vent in Java, Indonesia.

Some crystals geodes in particular actually control their environment to enhance their ability to grow and reproduce themselves in this effort.  Im going to borrow this from http://www.kurzweilai.net/forums/topic/humans-are-first-out-of-the-gate#post-57422 

Mnemomeme A truly brilliant poster to that site.  http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-chemists-create-synthetic-153588.aspx

“We created three-dimensional, synthetic DNA-like crystals,” said UCLA chemistry and biochemistry professor Omar M. Yaghi, who is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and the UCLA–Department of Energy Institute of Genomics and Proteomics. “We have taken organic and inorganic units and combined them into a synthetic crystal which codes information in a DNA-like manner. It is by no means as sophisticated as DNA, but it is certainly new in chemistry and materials science.”The discovery could lead to cleaner energy, including technology that factories and cars can use to capture carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.

“What we think this will be important for is potentially getting to a viable carbon dioxide–capture material with ultra-high selectivity,” said Yaghi, who holds UCLA’s Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences and is director of the CNSI’s Center for Reticular Chemistry. “I am optimistic that is within our reach. Potentially, we could create a material that can convert carbon dioxide into a fuel, or a material that can separate carbon dioxide with greater efficiency.”

The research was federally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The lead author is Hexiang “DJ” Deng, a UCLA graduate student of chemistry and biochemistry who works in Yaghi’s laboratory.

..yet for some reason, the people who have the most experimental success with crystals are nanotech/biochemist combinations…. so…

…seems extremely probable to me that geodes are a type of living thing. A silicon-based life form that’s been here on earth for millions (possibly billions?) of years.

All of this said… the fact that we’re not finding noisy life in the universe may have damned little to do with how noisy it is, and much more to do with how jittery and rapidly we live. If there are sentient silicon-based life forms, they might just be talking so incredibly slowly that we can’t hear them… or alternatively, maybe they communicate so fast we can’t even see it happen.

…or a much stranger possibility… we know there are at least six more dimensions in the physical universe than we have sensory interaction with… maybe they’re talking on some other layer of the physical universe than we’re even looking at? Maybe we’re that guy wandering around New York City staring at his own feet, and asking himself, “where are all the people? Isn’t this place supposed to be crowded?”

There are also forms of scalar intelligences within our society. They are known as corporations.  States and just about any other form of humanity that we spread that defends its existence as one organism.

Then there is the phenomena of of memes Ideas that spread and use many algorithms for survival.  I will leave this today with this video that while it does not mention memes is pretty obviously referring to memes.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Understanding the Energy-Based Nature of Reality and the World Around Us

Art by Cameron Gray

By Nick Harding

If you want to find the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration. – Nikola Tesla

It has always been my belief and understanding that everything in our world, the trees and streams, our pets, and ourselves, are a just one aspect of reality. Our perceptions and senses, what we see, hear, and feel, are merely a physical manifestation of what really exists, and provide just a small component of understanding in the scope of what really is. The actual substance of our existence, in my opinion, is purely energy-based. We are all comprised of energy, and every action and reaction which we see is accompanied by a transmission of kinetic or potential energy interacting between entities. Many theologists have made references to our souls being the pure energy form of ourselves, and some suggest that our spirits are formless. I have come to believe that the physical manifestation we all know is just a clay molding over the energy substructure and the reality of our being.

In a previous article of mine, I made the statement that those who can see energy do so because of the depth of the energy around their third eye being condensed, and that others are more apt to feel energy than see it. This can be attributed to DNA/hereditary abilities, or entirely to spirituality. The spiritual explanation of this is that everything which happens, and every interaction we perceive, is actually happening in the astral realm. Everything we witness in the physical world is a perception of something which happened in the astral realm, as well.

What we see in the physical world and what happens in the astral realm are linked together, and both instances/interactions are equally relevant. When we reach out and hug a loved one, the energy exchange happens, which can be witnessed by those who can see or feel energy, is just as much an interaction in the astral realm, between two souls, as it is a chemical reaction in our brains. The pain and pleasure we feel, the intensity of heat and cold, are all physical representations of an equally important reaction between energy sources as it happens in the astral realm, but perceived by our waking minds. Our physical senses are a comprehensible representation of the actual occurrence between two souls.

Earlier, I used the word “depth” in reference to the energy surrounding a person’s third eye. Another fitting analogy for this could be density, mass, or inertia, but none of these terms apply to something with no physical properties. The substance and energy of the world are not bound by physics in the conventional sense. A person may be regarded as absolutely enormous when perceived with a simple understanding within the astral realm.

The depth or saturation of energy is perceived, physically, as a spatially constrained form, but the astral realm pays no head to such mundane concepts. Energy is infinite, and, therefore, the realm in which all energy consists to exist is infinite. As such, a definition of energy can’t be made by any term known to physical awareness; depth, density, area, vastness are all irrelevant. A strong energy form is undefinable by our current perception, but the way we perceive it, consciously and physically, redefines it to something we can understand.

Maybe this transitive property takes hold with other aspects of our subconscious, considering our spirit exists in a world of energy. Maybe everything which we see and feel in this life, every emotion, every experience, is just our minds’ way of translating subsequent occurrence from the astral. Maybe everything is a subjugated perspective based on transition properties between verses.

Source: http://www.learning-mind.com/can-anybody-learn-to-see-auras-and-energy/

Why Being ‘Misunderstood’ Is The Best Thing That’s Ever Happened To You

The term “misunderstood” itself is a subjective one. I mean, what might not be understandable to some, for others, might seem plain as day.

In many cases, the man who gets labeled as “misunderstood” is the one who’s most in tune with himself.

Today, realness can stick out like a sore thumb, especially when the rest of the world appears to be caught in between smoke, mirrors and photo filters.

It feels like everyone is constantly trying to be someone or appear some way, striving to uphold an impression of normal – one perpetuated by trends and hashtags – and those who fail to play along are seen as outcasts.

Just because you fail to adhere to society’s method of doing things, however, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re incapable of being understood.

Sure, people might not personally relate to all the specific things you find interesting – or choose to engage in – but who said they’re supposed to?

When people are dubbed “misunderstood,” most of the time, this translates to them deviating from the norm.

You know, they’ll be the ones listening to indie music, watching independent films – generally being, you know, independent people.

When people choose to be independent and follow their own instincts, it shows a confidence in themselves. It shows a security within themselves.

When people choose to express themselves truly – and this deviates from society’s construct for how they should be expressing themselves – the easy thing to do is view them as deviants and plead ignorance – call them misunderstood.

But, like I said, “misunderstood” is subjective to who is doing the understanding, so to speak. Just because one chooses not to sway with whatever the masses are preoccupied with doesn’t mean he or she is at all conflicted.

In fact, here’s why being “misunderstood” can be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

You appeal to a wider variety of people.

You never truly fit into one, clear-cut group of people. You weren’t athletic enough to be a jock, and you never enjoyed drinking beer enough to pledge a fraternity.

You have always sort of drifted in and out of different groups of people, depending on what inspired you on a given morning. This allowed you to meet a large network of people.

You never really wanted to settle in with just one group of friends; you always viewed that as limiting.

At the same time, you were never lonely, given your ability to interact and share interests with a broader variety of individuals.

Sure, it might be difficult for you to identify with one specific “clique” in particular; you realize different aspects of your being will appeal to different groups of people – and that’s always been fine with you.

---

People won’t be as likely to take advantage of you.

Throughout your life, people have always mentioned you’re “hard to read.” While you’re not entirely sure what this even means, you’re not necessarily complaining either because it’s prevented others from taking advantage of you.

You never wanted to be easy to read, especially in business situations. When people can gauge your behavior –  and presuppose how you’d react to certain outcomes – they can gain leverage on you.

For this reason, you really don’t care to explain yourself all that much to others – regardless of how “misunderstood” you may appear to the general public.

At the end of the day, as long as you’re at peace with who you are, you don’t really worry too much about what others might think.

---

You’re never worried to be yourself.

The best part about seeming “misunderstood” is that – in most cases – you’ll understand yourself perfectly fine.

Sure, you may appear avant-garde to the majority of your peers; it’s also not done by any great accident. You’re simply being yourself.

Humans are weird by nature. I’ve always believed the ones who appear the most normal are also the ones hiding the most.

Being “weird” doesn’t always convert to being “misunderstood.” In reality, it usually coincides with being the most transparent – the most raw.

And for this reason, you never find yourself trying to be someone you’re not.

Certain trends can strike the fancy of an entire nation, yet, if they don’t appeal to you, it’s all for naught in your eyes.

You’re comfortable with who you are. You could give a f*ck what anyone else is doing (or saying for that matter).

That’s true freedom.

---

You filter out close-minded people.

You know you’re not misunderstood. You know you might be a bit different – a bit difficult, at times – but you also realize at any given moment, your intentions could be easily distinguished. By the right people, that is.

To that end, you know those people who “understand” you (without having to label you as some societal derelict) are the ones you should be spending your time around.

It’s great being labeled as “misunderstood” to most because it acts as a filter for close-minded people.

Still, most people who call others “misunderstood” do so without having tried to understand them first.

The entire state of “misunderstanding” is a temporary one, one that can be solved with just a slight amount of effort.

After all, if the people around you don’t care to take the effort in understanding you – well, then why would you even care to be understood by them?

By Dan Scotti http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/misunderstood-best-thing/1014423/

Ancient Wisdom of the Evolution of Life Revealed

Science, especially quantum physics, strives to reveal how what we can see, hear, and touch comes to be. A 9,000-year-old text known as the ChunBuKyung contains similar wisdom that is in line with our growing body of knowledge and theories. Using just 81 Asian characters, the ChunBuKyung denotes existence, the development of the cosmos and the role human beings play in it. 

According to the ChunBuKyung, the beginning of all things started with One. In other words, only unmaterialized potential existed first. As potential, One never had a beginning, although everything came from it. This can be mind boggling. The ChunBuKyung, although at first seems incomprehensible, is really delineated according to understandable parts, if one takes the time to meditate on it. 

At some point, the One divided into three aspects that the ChunBuKyung calls Heaven, Earth, and Human. These represent the spiritual, material, and energetic aspects of creation respectively. Heaven came first and is the basis for the essence of Earth. The combination of Heaven and Earth brought forth the essence of Human. In another sense, this trinity represents the three dimensions as we understand them today. 

This original division occurred again. Heaven divided into three to become heavenly Heaven, heavenly Earth, and heavenly Human. Earth became earthly Heaven, earthly Earth, and earthly Human, and Human became humanly Heaven, humanly Earth, and humanly Human. 

In this way, everything has these three aspects within it. While they are a part of us, life forms on Earth also take in “heaven” through the oxygen they breathe and ingest “earth” through food. We also release them in our waste. Our lives can only be maintained if we circulate Heaven and Earth. 

After the first time, Heaven, Earth, and Human individuated countless times, with each individuation gathering and organizing into higher beings or entities. Sub-atomic particles become atoms, which combine into molecules, then cells, then, ever more complex multicellular organisms. Each entity created retains the characteristics of Heaven, Earth and Human. Division and gathering, growth and evolution have an eventual point of completion, a return to One. This process occurs over and over, a process of birth and death that can be seen in everything, from the smallest bit of matter to the largest celestial body, as well as the systems through which they interact. 

No distinction or division exists in the One original and all-encompassing potential. However, as it individuates and takes on definite characteristics, duality can be seen. Yin and yang, day and night, land and water, heat and cold, and the continuum between these extremes. The characteristics of each entity are always changing, but the essence of each entity is still the One unchanging potential. 

For our own lives, the ChunBuKyung reminds us that despite ever-present change and the eventual end of our physical body, matter, energy and spirit are within us, and in the center of that is limitless potential for creation. By uniting these three aspects of ourselves, we can align our individual consciousness with universal consciousness—the One. This wider view affords us detachment and choice of direction. When this connection allows us to complete our individual lives, physical death becomes meaningless. 

One way to do this is through the ChunBuKyung itself. More than a series of characters, most of which represent numbers, the ChunBuKyung is a vehicle for the pure energy of One. Observing it, writing it, chanting it, or listening to it being chanted all deliver that energy. Leave yourself open to receiving it and then incorporate the awareness and feeling that comes with it into your decisions and actions. In this way, an ancient text becomes a living force in present-day life. 

Ilchi Lee

A visionary, educator, author, and founder of ChangeYourEnergy.com, Ilchi Lee has spent nearly three decades helping people create better lives for themselves. Lee has created Dahn Yoga, Brain Education, and hundreds of other wellness programs and methods. A model for the self-improvement he teaches, Ilchi Lee is continually changing and continually creative. Keep up with Ilchi Lee on his blog at http://www.ilchi.com.

IS-ness, Undivided

Alex Grey

Noticing all the various spiritual points of view like the absolute and the relative, the individual, the one, the infinite, and so on.. we may find that these actually wind up being ways to divide up ISness, pure being. In this video, we explore this topic as we point towards what IS behind all these ways of speaking about what is:


Source: http://www.youaretrulyloved.com/

Focusing on Reality

A great spiritual tool for growing in consciousness after a spiritual awakening is simply this: focus on reality.

What is real right now?

What is actually happening in your current physical experience?

So often our triggers lead to inner threats about our future or repeats of past pains, and they have no bearing on what is actually happening in the moment. When the mind is this out-of-sync with reality, this shines a big bright light on problems with the ego. Along with that, seeing that we aren't in any actual danger allows us to let go more deeply to process whatever pain that may be surfacing. 

Remember that a past event we are feeling is long gone. Our ex-lover isn't yelling at us even though we're feeling the sadness of the event right now. The future status of our finances is also not right now. So long as we are warm, clothed, housed, and fed, money worries are not real. This doesn't mean we lose our ability to plan for the future. Actually, by focusing on what is real in this moment, we amplify our abilities to shape our futures.

In so many ways, a spiritual awakening is a shift back to reality. So much of what people have been taught is reality is wrong. There's no ifs, ands, or buts. It's just wrong. As such, people go through a lot of surprising spiritual revelations as they break away from these illusions and finally start to see life for what it is.

The Inner Conflict of Illusion and Truth

Again and again, I have stories shared with me that simply reflect people's inner conflict with illusion and truth. To be sure, illusions and lies run deep. People have become experts at building seemingly indestructible logic based off of lies. But you can build a vault on a swamp, and it will sink, taking you with it. Oftentimes, I simply won't engage with the discussion at hand with some of my students because they are too stuck in the vault, and I don't accept the assumptions and lies that create its walls. Instead, I point to people's assumptions to make them look at that inner structure, which is what is really under threat. It's why people feel like they are losing their minds. The old ways of thinking have to go away because they are so distorted and wrong.

But when we cling to the old ways of thinking and behaving, we become more and more upset. The harder someone holds on, the more lost they feel. Certainly, a spiritual awakening brings about disorienting moments, but when you abide in those uncertainties, they eventually calm down. Life gets a bit clearer and freer. For some of you, you will be thrust deeper and deeper into issues without much rest, but the more you simply look at what is arising and stop trying to force it into an old idea of how life should go or how you should feel, the more easily you can see the truth that is being revealed to you.

Post-Awakening Challenges: The Lost Gray World of Apathy

Continued Spiritual Revelations and Revealings

I really like to emphasize that a spiritual revelation is a revealing. Truth is not being added into you. It is being uncovered and revealed. Like an ancient tomb full of wisdom and jewels, a spiritual awakening will force you to dig through layers of sand, sediment, and debris to unearth yourself. It's sad that so many of us have become buried so deep, but fortunately, abiding in a space of truth eventually becomes easy because it is our nature state.

Spiritual Revelations and Realizations Roll Through You

While initial revelations may be shocking to the ego self, a lot of times people admit to themselves that they did kinda know this truth all along. And of course you did! You're not a stupid being incapable of wisdom. You already have wisdom. We all have it. That's why you can resonate with my words. Resonance comes from within. When one person speaks the truth and talks about what is real, we can feel it inside us so long as we are not too numbed out. When we hear that truth, our own inner wisdom moves. It wants to come forward, and that tends to push up more lies that are covering that truth. With your sincerity, you can process those lies, and a new level of spiritual revelation naturally moves forward. This cycle can continue for some time as you drop deeper and deeper into the truth.

Speeding Up Healing Cycles

The Ego Strikes Back

But just when someone seems to be breaking through, they'll hit a new wall hard. This is when it's particularly important to focus on reality. The deeper you go, the harder the issues tend to be. What seemed powerful and deep and important in the beginning becomes child's play. Some of you who have delved into deep spaces know this. But just because you are dealing with more powerful issues doesn't mean you can't handle them. You put those issues there. They are your creation, and you can take them apart whenever you choose.

Part of doing that can be going straight to reality. What is real right now? When the ego is screaming that you are not okay, not safe, [insert your issue here], breathe into the moment. What is actually happening? Are you actually in any real threat?

Most of the time, we aren't in any actual physical threat, so the ego is making you respond inappropriately. You have to remember that a lot of our ego structures is built off of the fight or flight mechanism. Many people truly see life only through that lens, and they have an invisible question always going on which essentially is, "Is this person, situation, etc. safe?" Some people live in a state of agitation because they're always on guard for a threat, and most people erroneously interpret a lot of things as threats--including spiritual shifts.

The Worsening of Illusion

Sometimes as we are really dropping into our healing, everything gets distorted, especially if you have a very distorted, paranoid, or otherwise mentally sick ego. You go back into the vault, haunted house, or whatever that you've been living in. Nothing seems possible. Life is too difficult and so on and so forth. These are key signs that you are back in ego-land, and they often are signs that you are coming up to another big shift and release. Lean into these moments, and breathe deeply. Keep noticing what is actually going on in life. Be extremely mindful of misinterpretations. When we are going back into this ego sickness, we tend to badly interpret situations which is why it is soooooo important to focus on the physical reality of what is happening and not our interpretations.

Here's an example.

You and some other co-workers have been called into the break room unexpectedly. Some rumors have been going around that the company isn't doing well and lay-offs may be coming. Your boss seems particularly grim, and you have no idea what is going on. The other co-workers aren't looking at you, and you have been worrying about how you've been doing your job. You start to think you're about to be fired.

Nothing physically dangerous is happening, however. Everyone is sitting and breathing in a room. This is what is real.

However, for someone who is really out of sync with reality, s/he might get so lost in her/his ideas that s/he decides resign without waiting for the humiliation of being fired right before someone yells surprise; a cake is brought in; and everyone sings happy birthday to you.

Focusing on the Moment With Each Breath

Focusing on the moment won't necessarily make the inner space enjoyable when you're processing old pain or facing deeper illusions. But it will help you to get to the core of what is coming up. Simpler issues can vanish. Even major issues can vanish when we bring our presence to bear on reality. You have to remember that most of what is going on in your mind is not real. Most of your interpretations of how to view yourself and life are taught. The spiritual space only takes you to seeing things as they are without your filter (or at least with as minimal of a filter as possible). And breathing in and breathing out with conscious intention helps you to notice what is actually happening and not what the mind thinks is happening.

Real Trouble in Reality

Real troubles in life are--for the most part--actual physical threats. Someone who is waving a gun in your face is a real threat. Not having enough food or water is a real threat. Being homeless and having cancer are real issues. These issues also pull you back in reality. Many people have spiritual awakenings because someone dies or gets severely ill. This kind of reality forces people to face reality and in this case, the reality that we all will die.

But when trouble is real, being mindful, clear, and open is even MORE important. Reacting from our unconscious ego tends to make things ten times worse and will usually miss hidden opportunities and possibilities for resolution. The encouragement is the same; focus on what is real. See what you are faced with. See what you need. Ask for help if you need it.

Fear and inner agitation will not help you here. So, at every step of the way, the unconscious ego and its automatic reactions usually based on fight, flight, or freeze are counterproductive to say the least. So you don't need to be having an awakening to benefit from focusing on reality when things get rough. All of us benefit from being more mindful, especially when we are faced with an actual life problem.

Resting More Deeply in Your Wisdom

Since wisdom abides in the present moment, we find ourselves resting more in our own wisdom and love as we focus on reality. The truth of what wisdom and love actually are becomes more and more apparent, and life simplifies.

One last point to make about the ego is that it likes to over-complicate everything. Life for its vastness and diversity is so simple in many ways, and that simplicity is greatly liberating.

So when difficult issues stir up, breathe into the moment. See what is real. What is actually happening? Are you safe? Are you fed? Are you breathing? Keep your focus on what is real, and any issue and illusion coming up from within can then dissolve in the light of your truth.

Source: http://www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com/2015/04/focusing-on-reality.html

Demystification of Enlightenment

A reader recently submitted the following:

I see this as a trend toward the general de-mystification of enlightenment, along the lines of what has been happening with meditation over the last forty years. It is only as people understand the secular, mundane components of awakening that the majority can become empowered to integrate higher levels of consciousness.

When a secular person goes through an intense enlightenment process, it is natural to look around and try to find others who have gone through this, to look for context. And what you often find is one of two things: a religious context or a new age ascension context.  There is nothing wrong with this per se, but you then see people who are essentially not part of either of these movements or belief systems adopting them to some degree in order to understand their experience in context.

There is another way to embody enlightenment, but it is not really part of the literature.  As something that is completely normal, non mystical, non religious, not esoteric.  Some of the changes that we go through in the process are so dramatic, so radical.  It’s easy to understand why we’d reach for religious or mystical interpretations or structures to steady ourselves.  It’s completely understandable. But I really do feel that this is going to change as we normalize and secularize the enlightenment experience, process and state of being, and integrate it into our understanding of what it is to be human.

Imagine if puberty was something that happened at different times for different people, and that it didn’t even happen once every lifetime. So, let’s say after a hundred lifetimes or so, a person would experience puberty.  Now, imagine that the only way that this rare phenomenon was studied and codified was by religious people, priests of various faiths.  Puberty would be mystical, mythical, bound up and confounded with religious dogma and language.

Puberty is a time of intense metamorphosis. Your emotional body, your physical body, your mental body all change. You are becoming something else, and if you had never even known a person who went through it, never heard of it at all, or perhaps you only heard of it as something that happened to a few people thousands of years ago, or only a few people in the current times and only in “The East”, well…you might be in for some unnecessary confusion the day you wake up with a single crinkly hair sprouting out your groin!

If you never knew anything about puberty and no one around you did either, you would think you were going insane or that you had a brain tumor and were about to die.  If you told people close to you, they would fear you and worry for you and haul you into the doctor and the next day the priest.  You’d have no idea where this was all headed or when it would settle down or why your body was so awkward or why you looked at everything so differently than your peers.  Or maybe you’d think you were really special and turning into some advanced human or whatever. Maybe you’d think you were a saint or superman.  Who knows?

But when we go through puberty, we know what is happening.  It’s still really intense and really awkward.  The experience is still one of uncertainty and metamorphosis.  Even when we know what is happening and that it’s normal and good, we still feel fear and uncertainty. Our bodies and emotions are suddenly ungainly and a bit out of control. We have to learn new ways of moving gracefully and wisely with this new state of being.  But at least we know it’s coming and that it’s normal and that we will make it to the other side. At least the people around us expect it and know, more or less, that it’s a turbulent ride and that they need to provide a different kind of stability, support, information and emotional anchorage than before.

As the enlightenment process becomes more prevalent in the secular world, we need to find a way to provide that understanding, that support and the feeling of normalcy to those who find themselves in it.


Source: http://modernawakenings.com/demystification-enlightenment/

Mindfulness As Effective As Antidepressants For Preventing Relapse

Alice G. Walton

There’s been an increasingly compelling pile of evidence that mindfulness training has effects on both brain and behavior—and its potential for treating depression is among its more promising uses. A new study from the University of Oxford finds that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is just as effective as antidepressants for preventing a relapse of depression, which affects 50-80% of people who experience a first bout of depression. This may not be entirely surprising, since previous studies have hinted at similar results. But what’s encouraging here is that MBCT may be an effective way to wean people off even successful courses of antidepressants, should they want or need to get off them in the future, without the high risk of relapse.

The team, who published their findings in The Lancet, followed 424 people who were already on antidepressants for major depression. They had them either continue taking the meds for “maintenance” (to prevent relapse) or titrate off while at the same time learning MBCT. The people in the latter group had eight group sessions of MBCT, were given instructions about how to practice on their own, and had four in-person follow-up appointments over the course of a year.

April 12, 2011. A Moment of Mindfulness led by Andy Puddicombe from Headspace, where the audience are helped to meditate. Is there a science of happiness? (AP Photo/Edmond Terakopian)

Here’s a little about MBCT: the practice marries mindfulness meditation (or mindfulness training) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), which are quite related to begin with. With mindfulness, an individual learns to observe his or her own thoughts with curiosity and without judgment, acknowledge them, and then let them go. Similarly, with CBT, people learn to identify their own negative or destructive thought patterns and replace them, over time, with more productive and positive ones. The two merge naturally and, as MBCT, are thought to be very effective for depression, since intrusive and ruminative thoughts can be some of the central and most crippling symptoms.

And the results from the current study were impressive: MBCT was just as effective as staying on antidepressants over the next two years following treatment: 44% of people in the MBCT group relapsed, while 47% of those in the antidepressant group did.

From their earlier work, the researchers had anticipated that MBCT might actually be more effective than medication in preventing relapse. Although that wasn’t the result of the current study, MBCT was still just as effective as medication, which is good news for those who in principle would like to go off it.

That a meditation-based practice might be as effective as medication for treating depression is not new. In a meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins last year, looking back over many studies on meditation and depression, the effect size for meditation was found to be 0.3, which is largely the same as for antidepressants. This also suggests that meditation might rival medication for actually treating depression – not just preventing relapse, as in the current study. Perhaps not for everyone, but for some.

“Compared to other skills that we train in,” says Madhav Goyal, author of this earlier study, “the amount of training received by the participants in the trials was relatively brief. Yet, we are seeing a small but consistent benefit for symptoms of anxiety, depression, and pain. So you wonder whether we might see larger effects with more training, practice, and skill.”

And that’s the other important finding of the current study: The cost was about the same for both treatments – often a concern with any form of “talk therapy” is that it may be costly more than meds, since multiple visits with trained professionals are required. But this was not the case – perhaps partly because the study used group sessions of MBCT – which gives more fuel to psychosocial treatments being as effective as drug therapies on multiple levels.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/04/21/mindfulness-may-match-meds-for-preventing-depression-relapse/

The study brings some interesting and hopeful news for those who don’t want to take medication over the long term, or who can’t tolerate the side effects. And, the authors point out, some people just prefer psychosocial treatments over drug treatments for personal reasons. Always speak with your mental health provider before changing or stopping therapies. Since 350 million people worldwide are affected by depression, and it’s one of the leading causes of disability in the world, finding alternative ways to prevent relapse from happening is critically needed. And MBCT, in the right circumstances, might be one of the more effective alternatives.