The square wheel analogy

Usually when we get a sensory input our brain couples it to the memory bank and this is how we perceive the world around us. If we see a house we have seen before most of the data actually comes from the memory bank and only a fraction of the perception from the sensory input (the eyes in this case). What usually happens next is that this input starts a chain reaction in the memory bank through the couplings with the memory that was triggered by the sensory input. If we for example recognize a certain smell we couple to the situation where we recognize the smell from, then we start to think about the people that were there or something else coupled to that memory. This is an internal process in your memory bank and draws away attention and actually makes you perceive less of the world around you. To stay focused is to avoid unconscious chain reactions in you memory bank, without this background noise you will feel your sensory inputs much clearer. In fact your update frequency will rise and you will actually have more time at your disposal and your actions will therefore require less effort.

An analogy to this is pushing a wheel-chart with a square wheel on uneven ground. The flat surfaces on the "wheel" corresponds to the time spent in the memory bank between the sensory inputs (the input from the world around you). When you learn to stop the chain reaction in you memory, and turn your focus to the present, your wheel will become more and more round. When there is no other activity in the memory bank other than the registration of input you will be in a flow, with a different perception about time and your actions will more efficient and require less effort.

Next BIG change!

I have been too occupied with acquiring the right mindset.

I have now fully realized that you do not need to do anything in order to be what many would refer to as being enlightened. I would simply call it to be. All you need to do is to stop doing all unnecessary things you are doing. The knowledge and understanding that needs to be acquired and experienced is the recognition of these unnecessary things in yourself, your actions and your thoughts.

Once you have this understanding all you need to do is to stop doing stuff, and this is soo much easier that to start up some focus or state of mind. It takes no energy or effort at all. In fact it will instantly give you more energy, and you will feel it. This process can be compared with, and feels exactly like, carrying around a big heavy stone and then just let it fall down and walk freely without it. But without understanding you are carrying around this stone without even knowing it, wasting energy all in wain. It also makes you die younger.

The right mindset naturally comes when you stop the unnatural processes, exactly because it is natural.

Arrow: the Short Arrow... and related words

The shortest and most true Arrow is just one word "One". But to use it as an Arrow you need an almost fully developed understanding of the oneness of the universe. An arrow which works for me and is also very short is the phrase: Relaxed, Focus, of Love. Although being so short it still speaks to the 3 basic centres of the brain: the mental, the emotional and the body centre. But to use it as an arrow you need to have an understanding of what the centres are, what they are supposed to do and what their most natural state is.

That the Body should be as relaxed as possible in all situations is not hard to understand. Anything else causes an unnecessary energy waste and in many cases it also causes damage to the body over time.

The neutral state for the Mind is a state with no thoughts except for the treatment of input from our senses. If all other processes running in the brain are shut down you get a clearer and stronger input from your senses.

The neutral state of the emotional centre is NOT no feelings, it is actually the feeling of Love. But it is love alone, not love in combination with excitement.

When the 3 centres are working like this the human brain are working as it should and we are ready to perceive the oneness and unity of everything around us. And as always it also works the other way around. If something in our environment causes us to perceive the oneness then the brain start to work as it should, the body become relaxed and we feel love.

Living like this will keep the body and mind in good condition for a long time.

Arrow: the four commands

The past year or so I have been going through a lot of Arrows (the kind of Arrows explained in the preceding post), the Arrows have been everything from phrases like "Remember yourself" amd "I Am" to actions like stopping thought or completely relaxing my body. One Arrow that recently have been usefull to me is the following four commands to yourself:

Still Mind,

Relax Body,

Feel Love,

Be One!

It's usefullness lies in the fact that it adresses all centers of the brain (body, thought, feeling) and tries to make them work without unnecessary disturbing background activity. These three first commands prooves themselves because you will notice these effects whatever Arrow you used to get to the point where all Arrows are pointing, or if it just comes to you!

My guess is that the most effective order of the first three commands are different depending on who you are, for me this order works the best.

The ball analogy

Being conscious, remembers yourself, rising your vibration level, expanding, becoming aware, are just different wordings referring to the same action. There is a point in having all these expressions, the point is that they all deviate from the truth in different directions. The truth of what the action is and how you do it is impossible to write down. So you need to understand what is lying behind all these different expressions, and when you find the thing that fits behind all these different labels you will be quite close to the truth.

Imagine the truth as a ball sitting on top of a hill. But top of the hill is not flat so if the ball deviates just a little bit from the centre of the top it will start rolling down the hill. All these different expressions are like forces that points towards the top of the hill, but from differen

t directions. So depending on where you have your ball, and how your personal hill looks like, at the moment you will need different expressions to get the ball on top of the hill and experience the truth.

The danger in all these expressions is that none of them is the truth. They can just point towards the truth. If you refuse to see this and hold on to one of your favourite expressions too firmly you will push the ball over the balance point and have it rolling down ont he other side.

If you experience a glimpse of truth after following one particular path, method or expression (we will from now on refer to any of these by the word: Arrow) you have to let the Arrow go and continue being in the truth. Otherwise it will take you away as fast as it got you there.

Love

Love can exist on all levels: body, mind, feeling and soul. True love is fed from, and feeds, your soul and may spread down trough all vibration levels. True untainted love is unconditional and does not care about distances in space and time.

You can not love anyone to a greater extent than you love yourself, because you can not give away something you do not have. If you try anyway your love will be tainted by obligations and expectations or even angst.

Woman: fear of loosing love

Man: fear of loosing freedom

And when it comes to the Minds aspect of Love:

Love as you love a baby, this is where freedom marries love.

Surrounded by allies

Every human being around us in our daily life is our greatest aid in our quest for knowing ourself, because they are all perfect reflections of our own perfection and imperfection.

Heaven and Hell, the relationship

"When you learn to love hell you will be in heaven."

-Thaddeus Golas

The danger of simplicity

"Keep things as simple as possible, but not any simpler!"

-Albert Einstein

The Seeds of Shaughani 4

The speed of your Development depends on your level of Being and your level of Concentration. Train to rise your level of Concentration!

An analogy with moving a big pile of rocks: your Being determines how much you can carry and your Concentration determines how long you can keep going before you need to take a break. And of course you also need Understanding to be Doing the right thing. Otherwise you will be moving the pile of rocks to the wrong place!

Concentration: your ability to keep your focus and stay on a task without having your thoughts drifting away to other things, referring to both physical and mental activities. Mental activities require in general more Concentration to stay focused.

Just a Thought

Every human being is worth your unconditional attention.

BIG Change

I now know that all levels of consciousness are available to everyone all the time. Each individual chooses for his/her self what level is suitable at the moment. But this is mostly an unconscious decision! And that is very fortunate indeed! Because if we would be able to rise our consciousness at will we would get crushed by everything we would perceive inside of us. Therefore we normally choose just the right level to be able to work with ourselves, the right weight to train with, so to speak.

This new knowledge solves my dilemma on why I can not sustain a higher level of consciousness for a longer period of time. Instead of focusing on how I can get more conscious I am now more focused on why the current level of consciousness is the most balanced level for me right now. What are the fears I am protecting myself from? Identifying and working with those fears is the only sustainable way to higher consciousness. Training focus is still essential for the speed of the development and I am happy to write that I have taken up my Focus Training again.

The Seeds of Shaughani 3

To know what is Good for you to Do you need Understanding. Your Understanding can never be greater than your Being or your Knowledge, so they both need to be acquired and accumulated.

Knowledge: if you have the Knowledge of a cookie you have the recipe in your memory and can use it to bake that one specific cookie. But you do not Understand why you add the sugar.

Understanding: if you have some Understanding of cookies you can use the Knowledge of several recipes to create the cookies you want!

The Seeds of Shaughani 2

We are here to Develop ourselves. The only sensible definition of Good and Evil is that Good things favor your Development and Evil things hinders your Development.

Development: is maybe best defined trough its effects: more relaxed, less fears, more focus, more power in your words and actions, less worry, more happiness, thought control, awareness, health... and so on. These are all undefined words but if you find the common denominator you will be pretty near bulls-eye!

Good: does not mean more money, unless you can use the money in favor of your Development

Evil: does not mean less money, unless it hinders you in your Development (not very likely).

The Jungle Analogy

If your brain was a jungle your memories would be like villages in the jungle, and your thoughts like paths connecting the villages. Villages close to each other can develop into a town. And paths traveled frequently for some time develop into highways. But if the towns are not maintained and if the highways become unused, the force of nature will bring everything back to a jungle.

Thoughts that follow a path will easily get lost in the jungle on their way from one village to another. But thoughts that travel along a highway travel so fast and unhindered that you will think of nothing else until your thought has reached its destination. An example of creating a highway is if you repeat a movement some thousand times. And creating a new city is, for example, learning a new language.

The Seeds of Shaughani 0

Before continuing there is actually a need for a "zeroth" Seed.

Without well-defined words any deeper philosophical discussion/text is pointless, and only serves as an example on how knowledge is lost.

This is because all words means different things for different persons. If person A says something including the word "consciousness", person B will interpret what he hears based on what he associates the word "consciousness" with. This is generally different from what A means, and thus it creates a misunderstanding.

In an attempt to avoid situations like that Seeds will, when necessary, be accompanied by a short glossary. This glossary is as important as the Seed itself. But not because it contains some absolutely correct definitions! Any definition is correct, as long as it is well-defined and followed consequently.

The Seeds of Shaughani 1

You have to Be to Do. Most people are not Being, they just exist. Therefore they can not Do, things just Happen.
Happening: This is just action and reaction, cause and effect. You drop a stone and it falls down. Someone yells at you and you yell back, cause and effect. Most of the time your reaction comes from your previous experiences.
Doing: This is the opposite of Happening. Doing is not a reaction based on your environment and/or previous experiences. Doing is something you Consciously Create yourself at the moment of the action.
Being: The more you are Being the more you can Do, consequently less things just Happen. The difference in Being between two humans can be greater than the difference in Being between a stone and a dog.

Back to the starting point, with a different point of view

Up until the last week I had not posted anything here for a long period of time. During this time I have been trying many different tricks and mindsets to clear my mind. All in the purpose of seeing as much of the World as objective, and as unstained as possible. I have been viewing the World trough many different windows, inside many different residences. Sometimes with great efforts and at a high prize. I have been like a game piece completing one round in a game of Monopoly.

And now I'm back at the starting point. Just a few days ago I started Seeing the same way as I saw things before this period started. That is: to See without loosing sight of yourself Seeing. As soon as you focus on something the focus goes in two directions, one towards the Object and one towards the Observer (you). As I'm writing this, the sensation of this type of focus is very strong! It brings you Awareness of Yourself, ie. Consiousness. This together with the fact that this came back to me without effort, without me looking for it, makes me believe that is type of Seeing is worth looking for.

If you are not too confused by the last sentance you might be wondering if the detour around the whole gaming board was necessary. Coming back to square one after all the efforts felt a bit frustrating at first. Until I realized that, although this point is the same as before, my view from this point has changed. The character in this difference is due to the way I got here. The first time it was through reading a book and making an effort in trying to follow certain instructions. Now it just came.

But I believe that both the efforts of getting to square one in the first place, and the efforts and prize I had to pay around the gaming board to get here again, were necessary for this realization to come effortlessly. I had to be aware of this mindset to get to it again. And in Your reality, square one is not the same square if You, the observer, have changed!

This round is now completed, and I made some good investments on the way. This round has definitely paved way for less efforts in the round I'm starting now. I have learned that Effortlessness is brought with the currency of Efforts. This is especially clear in the plane of physical activities: you make efforts and train a movement, and then you can do it effortlessly. But the transition from one state to the other is far from clear, and you might take detours on your way there.

To Expand = to Enrich

I Am inside the whole World, but only My World is inside of Me.

I want to make My World as objective as possible.

That is, as close to the whole World as possible.

Desirelessness

The Desire to get rid of all Desires is the hardest Desire to get rid of.

Effortlessness

Even if you can carry out the same actions as your master the difference lies in the way the action is carried out. What for you would require a lot of effort to accomplish is by the master carried out entierly without effort. Hereby, the result of the action is different.

Illusion of Choise

Every choise we make can result in every possible outcome. The possibility of the choise becoming something else that we originally expected becomes greater the more complex the choise is. The complexity in the choise becomes balanced by the rising uncertenty in the outcome. This should bring you great comfort and assure you that the only important factor in a complex choise is your intention when making the choise.

Concentration

Your mind works with Couplings between Mental Photos. A Mental Photo is all the impressions from your senses at one given moment. What you see, hear, feel, taste and smell. But only the parts of a Photo that are coupled to from other Photos stay with you for a longer time. Most Photos fade away entirely. Sometimes just some parts of the whole Photo is left, you might be able to recall smell but nothing more from that memory.

Your Flow of Thought runs randomly along the Couplings between these Photos. If you suddenly come to think about something and ask yourself: "Why on earth did I come to think about this". Then you often can follow the Flow of Though backwards and end up on something you saw, heard, felt, tasted, smelled or Actively Thought about just recently. Active Thinking is the opposite of the random Flow of Thought. It is something that you think about intentionally and is totally controlled by you.

So when you are learning concentration it is important that your random Flow of Thought is halted. It should be held up at a certain point. It might be something visual (like focusing on a candle flame) or a feeling (like the feeling of being Awake) or something else. As long as it is just one and the same Mental Photo. And as soon as you realize that your Flow of Thought has drifted away to another Photo you bring it back to the one Photo you were trying to focus on.

This way you create more couplings to that Photo and it will be easier to stay focused for a longer time. This is just the basic process of learning. You repeat something until you remember it. Until that particular Photo (or series of Photos that are strongly connected, like a movement pattern) has been coupled to enough time to create a strong memory.

The last thing I want to state in this Post is that the way to stop the Flow of Thought is in itself a Mental Photo. So by focusing on a candle flame you will not just learn to couple back to that visual impression, you will at the same time create stronger couplings to the decrease in Flow of Thought itself! In this way, any effort to focus on just one Mental Picture, whatever it may be, will improve your ability of staying Awake.

Consciousness

There are 4 stages of Consciousness:

1. Sleep
2. Relative Consciousness
3. Consciousness
4. Objective Consciousness

Normally we only live in the first two stages. What is interesting is that the difference between stage 2 and stage 3 is as at least great as the difference between stage 1 and stage 2.

The 3rd stage might come by itself for short periods. Especially if you are in a situation you have never been before. Then you might be thinking "it is so strange than I am right here in this situation now". This kind of thinking can be associated with a feeling of being present. A strong realization of that you are right here right now. A focus on yourself, and the situation, at the same time.

The 3rd stage is sometimes referred to as being Awake, or just being Conscious because it really describes the feeling very well. You feel almost like the rest of you life is like in a coma. In general people think they are Conscious, but they are not. When you are awake for a longer time than just the random moments described above you will automatically experience the following things:

• your body becomes relaxed
• movements feel more natural
• your breathing is slower and deeper
• being conscious stops thought
• you understand people better
• you make the right choices
• you never take things personally
• you feel a huge boost of self esteem
• + a bunch of other secondary effects...

But staying Awake, staying Conscious, for more than just a minute requires a lot of concentration and a lot of Work. Work on that which disturbs your concentration. But that is not why more people are sleeping, first of all you need to realize and acknowledge to yourself that you are not conscious. Because no one are capable of learning something they think they already know, and no one are willing to work for something they think they already have.

The Sports Car Analogy

Why do not we all, eventually, develop into the best possible human being in the environment we are living in? Why do not we all, naturally, learn to control our angers and fears, and why do not we all have, in our genes, a stronger desire to help everyone around us if the are in need of help. This would on a local scale stop you from arguing with your neighbor, and on the global scale it would prevent wars.

Think about designing a Sports Car. You have already made it as effective as you can. Engine, brakes, wheels... everything is as good as you possibly can get it. The limit is reached because everything is getting too complex for you to design. Everything from the material in the tires to the computerized injection system in the engine. But there is one way of making the Sports Car even better: to let it develop itself after it has been produced.

The huge downside of this is that, in most cases, it will develop into something worse. Or it might develop to become very unbalanced. The Sports Car might for example develop a super strong engine at the same time as the brakes get worse, or the tires! (Just because it wants to.) But in the rare cases where the development is nicely balanced you will get a Sports Car to win every race with.

In nature you can see different types of animals with different degrees of freedom in terms of development after birth. It is difficult to change anything in an Ants behavior. A Dog can learn a lot, and Humans even more. The more freedom you give the Sports Car to develop itself after it has left the factory the greater it can be. But the chances are smaller that it ever will be nearly as great as it can become. It might just as well end up worse than the original. And then the risk of car accidents become much higher.

Buildings Highways in your Brain

Your brain have the wonderful property of being able to adapt, to create new couplings. This is the way we learn new things. We can practice them and make them permanent by repetition. Movements, languages and all other types on knowledge can be made permanent in such a way that you do not even have to think to perform the task associated with the knowledge; to speak the language or perform an acrobatic maneuver. In certain cases it is even necessary for the task to be fully automatic for it to be at all successful.

This can be visualized as a road in your brain. Creating it usually takes a lot of practice and a lot of repetitions. And even when the road is build it has a lot of built-in crossroads. These are places where your thoughts can drift away from the destination they were intended to go. If you, for example, try to perform a difficult movement and come to think about something else in the middle of the execution you do not succeed very well in completing it. This is equally true for all knowledge, not just movements. Studies of any kind are another excellent example.

You need to be focused to stay on the road you intend to follow. Most people fail to understand the importance of developing your ability to stay on the road. They keep buildings new roads, learning more and more things. But the can never be really effective because they keep drifting away in different directions and have to get back on track again. An average person can keep his/her focus for about 10 seconds. When the focus is lost it has to be regained. This happens very fast but it dramatically reduces the average speed toward the destination you are heading for.

A good way of training your focus is to try to think about one thing only, do it for at least 10 minutes and repeat that exercise. You can for example focus on a candle flame for 10 minutes every day. As any learning process it takes time to recouple/uncouple your nerve cells. But if you train you will become better in staying on track, keeping your focus for prolonged times. In time the roads in your brain will become like fast flowing Highways that takes you where you want, without any detours on the way.

Coming back... to a Challenge

I came back to where I grew up, just for the summer. In terms of Self Development there was a positive and a negative side of coming back here.

When you come back to a familiar environment after being away for a longer time you more easily notice the changes in yourself. Much like you more easily notice changes in other people if you do not meet them regularly. And the changes becomes very clear if you have not seen a person for, let us say 2-3 years. I experienced something like that when I came back to my old neighborhood. I noticed that I now saw things in a more healthy and objective way.

The negative side was that I found it harder to act accordingly here. I saw myself acting like the old me, but it was very hard to do something about it. Too much memories from places and persons. And because everyone around me viewed me as I were one year ago, it was very hard to act different from what they expected.

I think it will be a very good exercise for me to try to brake away from the social prejudices the people have about me. Prejudices created by myself during my time here. I want to show people around me that I have changed, for the better. And in a place like this, where everyone think they know everyone, it will be a tough challenge indeed.

Start-up

I have just started this blog. I have always though that I never would create a blog. But it might be useful for me to spread my thoughts around somewhere. Just like spreading my things around is the first step in cleaning my room.

Right now I am just working with the design and layout. I have to say that I am pretty satisfied with the outcome so far. I hope you like it as well. And if all this blog gives is a second of joy for your visual cortex it is already better than nothing!

Back to work now...