You’ve got to put it to the test in a VERY serious manner.

With this purpose in mind, I will give you some questions that could lead you to this answer, but at the same time I will contradict myself. This is to make you think because there are many currents of thought to answer this question, including yours and mine. Yet, I am going to approach to it through a different lens, a practical and experimental one.

First of all, what is the objective of meditation? Some might believe it is to reach enlightenment, so I ask… What is enlightenment? Is it a supernatural thing? Although, this could be deeply phenomenological I still want to be cautious. We cannot simply accept something that is out of our experience (although this experience might be false, will not go here right now, but it is about how our senses and brain tricks us); we need to ask questions because blind belief has a done a lot of damage to our societies.

So, let’s put an idea forward as a possibility of enlightenment:

Love, the feeling of loving when it is overwhelming and completely embracing to the point your “self” is not longer that “self”.

You could have felt this when you were hugging your child, even a dog, or simply by being totally out of time and space when doing something for you or others in a brief moment of space and time, a deep fulfilling moment. My point in comparing it to this: I want to bring enlightenment to something experimental, something that can be actual in yourself, but is not dependent of your desires of wanting to be “enlightened” but in giving “yourself”.

Now, to be very clear I am not saying this is enlightenment, but I am not saying it isn’t either: I am just setting a “common” ground that will put forward the possibility of love being enlightenment.

Now, if love is enlightenment? Then, ask yourself: What could be the most incredible moment of love I have lived? Why haven’t I lived it constantly? What is stopping me from living a constant wave of love within myself?

These questions are very interesting because they could lead you to ask: Who am I? Who is that “myself”? Who is this being “I” who thinks I am which is constantly talking to me? Is there a moment in our minds where there is complete silence of chatter? Does chatter stop when I love? Can I be aware of something without the need of words and chatter? Can I be aware of the words and chatter without judging them, but loving them?

Loving my CHATTER?! Could that mean love myself? Could loving “myself” mean enlightenment? Is this egoism? How does egoism differ from “enlightened” love? Could egoism mean my chatter, and “enlightened” love the awareness of the chatter? Could it mean to love the chatter, but at the same time improving it by being aware of what is going on inside of it without judging harshly (with love)? Am I that chatter? If I can be aware of my chatter, can I be aware of the things that surround me without that chatter? If I am able to see everything around me without chatter or judgments, can I feel that love that makes it all bloom?

Don’t make your need for answers or “quest” be the opium of your mind, let it rest, so when it does speak to you, you will be ready to hear.

Now, awareness… How does it relate to meditation and the idea of enlightenment? Well, meditation is said to take you to this state of silence, but is this silence necessary? Isn’t awareness more fulfilling than meditation? Could awareness be the silence when observing deeply our chatter or nature? Could meditation be at tool that we believe is the “method” without seeing that the tool as a tool is meaningless if there is no understanding of what it does and how it does it?

With awareness, you can have chatter, but you are aware of it. With awareness, you can have silence, and be aware of it. In awareness, there is love… Why? You have to love to see the awareness or you have to be aware to see the love. It is in actual experience that this can be realized, not as a myth of enlightenment, but as an actual thing that can be achieved when you decide to put your effort into it.

In meditation there is the belief that there is a “method”, and methods don’t work for everybody. So, we must doubt the method, and find our own ways to see our minds “through” our own forms of meditation or reflection. You can try the method, but don’t be blinded by the method… You are the ultimate source of meditation… You are the experience that is observing everything that happens around you.

You Choose!

Meditation, awareness, love, enlightenment, or another… Whatever you choose, do it, but try to ask why? Find your own answers, and if they lead you to fulfillment (a deep sense of love)… There is something good there to be explored, if they lead you to depression and suffering: STOP. Analyze yourself.

Ask: What am I afraid of? Nothing…? Then, let it be for a while, stop the questions, live and experience of being in the tree of life. Perhaps, in the moment you least imagine… An answer will pop! You will know it is time to ask the questions, again. However, don’t ignore it totally… Listen.

It is all about deep observations, awareness, love, YOUR method of meditation, and perhaps enlightenment, and again be cautious… Self-delusion is always a possibility, yet… I ask: Is the love you feel an illusion? How is it real? Could it be even more real? Could you live it to its full potential? What is that potential?

Peace only exists if it is individual, so it is a personal responsibility to find peace within ourselves for the sake of others and oneself.

This is actual, a repetitive aspect of each person because that is the way we produce judgments based on memories and experience. Each vision has a certain truth and falsity in it, why? The further you are from a certain vision, the less you are likely to agree with it. It is as is if the agreement with a position depends on your understanding of what the other’s perspective is, and the more compare and ask questions that deepens the perspective, then you are likely to disagree with it.

Why is this important? Why should we recognize the truth in others vision? Well, because their vision if written or if the person is alive creates action, an activity that comes directly from a vision. It is easier to say… Well, he is wrong. I do not care…

Instead of actually understanding why he says what he says. What do I mean to understand what he says?

I mean to actually SEE through his EYES. This is real compassion, not a sense of pity, but love. The greatest love is the one that cares about the other’s perspective, instead of violently rejecting it. To see the past within that perspective, the experiences, and their “logic”, so there is no violence when you decide to set apart from this perspective/beliefs.

What is the objective? To recreate his “ambience” to actually see why he or she is so stubborn with a certain position, then to ask what is the “truth” he so desperately lingers on, so you can see the “why”. If you are able to see his perspective from its core, then the way you disagree with him will not be violent. It is an awareness of the other, not a categorical rejection due to the fact that his “beliefs” will produce actual action that affects you.  Thus, this awareness will not threaten your “ideas” that provide you a “false” sense of security.

What do I mean with a false sense of security? Beliefs give psychological security, not actual security. You can believe you have a home, but that is not an actual reality unless in that moment are at your home. There is a lot of depth here, but will not explore it due to the topic. The way beliefs work within a conceptual framework, not an actual experience unless you are being aware of the belief of your belief as an experience…

Therefore, you now can be comfortable with the fact that you can be right and wrong depending the perspective, and in that moment peace is given a real chance because there is understanding of the other and yourself.

Why yourself? To understand others is to understand yourself, and viceversa because the other influences your position and the understanding of his position will make you understand better your position (right, wrong or/and both), understanding does not judge because it adds to your comparison, but doubting does divide when comparing because it separates you from the observed. Doubt me, but after understanding me? Maybe… Can we actually understand others? Could be? Think about it!

We act as if peace was an exterior result, but in actuality it is an interior thing that produces consequences that can be seen as peace. However, if countries are peaceful, but people are violent… peace is an illusion.

So, we need peace as an interior result; so we can understand others’ positions instead of being intolerant to what others have to say.

Yes, people might be wrong, right or right and wrong, but to find and live peace it is not about who is wrong and who is right, but how much do I understand others, so I don’t take their beliefs as a threat to my beliefs.

There are two important aspects here:

01The capacity to listen what you don’t want to listen because it threatens your stubborn beliefs.

02The capacity to understand the other’s perspective until you make the other’s perspective yours.

I am not saying that by doing this you will be convinced with his opinion or you that should believe the other’s opinion, instead within this act of love you are able to see through his eyes, and then see the big picture, what he is not able to see, and walk away.

However, you will be different because you have just discovered a new perspective you didn’t want to hear, the fact that you were able to be the other will change you, and then to see the limits of his vision as you lived his vision will transform you as you love deeply.

You will not see your own limits, unless you dare to go within the perspectives you most reject.

If the person who you just understood would see your vision, would he change his perspective? Maybe… Will you change your perspective a little after seeing through his eyes? Yes, you might not think/believe as the perspective you absorbed, but you will see things you weren’t able to see before.

This includes trying to see my perspective, and at the same time doubting my position, both acts are important… But most important is: Peace. Is it? Why?

We have an urgent thing to answer: What is violence? Where does violence come from? Where does violence lie within us?

There are people who talk about freedom of the mind, and its emptiness. It is my concern that their beliefs and their concepts about all these theories fill the same void religion fills. The only difference is that their ideology changes to their new adopted behaviors of meditation or whatever “fashion” is available to them that makes them feel good or safe. The problem of ideology and belief is the lack of questioning the fundamental reasons: Who are we? What is a concept? What is to think? How do we think? What is love? What is to observe? Etc. These questions may seem obvious, but it is in that trap that we have been living, a trap that can no longer be contained. It is ready to explode. There are philosophers, religious figures, and others who have attempted to give answers to these questions. However, it can no longer be a state of complete denial where deep thought is left for some, it is our responsibility to ask questions, and try to answer them, not for the sake of knowledge, but your own fulfillment.

Now, it seems easier and more tempting to just read a “guru”, and believe everything he says, instead of challenging him and giving him your own level, you as “he” as the same capacities, the only difference is that he made a living by being “a guru”. You cannot. Most of us, have to work or do things to survive, and being a guru is not an option, unless you are one of those writers who say to know everything about the world, but in fact are a bunch of copy pasters from different traditions of thought.

Therefore, this post today will be to challenge you… I dare you to think! To ask questions. To forget about the “guru”, to face life with all you’ve got, painful or not, it is all we actually have, our experience, and if we continue to rely on those “mythical figures” (academic, political, or religious) we will fail to see our mistakes, and will be keep doing them for centuries to come.

So, how to ask questions? With more questions, without “definite answers”, however you will gain new perspectives about life. You will be able to see how there is no actual “true” or “false” (in a deep sense), but perspectives that have different ways of seeing and experiencing life. As I said before, these questions are not about finding perfect answers or new beliefs… It is about experiencing life in a new way… BEWARE the guru, the knower, the whatever… better know thyself!

Let’s confront the gurus, prophets, philosophers, etc, and realize in yourself the correct perspective of what they are saying. Got a belief? Challenge it. Challenge your own belief. Don’t fall into the your own guru bias. You have to be very careful, very aware of your thoughts, and how they arise, and how they dissolve. Why? You use your thoughts to understand life. It is a source of your “experience”, you cannot simply trust your senses because it is “obvious” to do so, you need not only to challenge others, but to challenge yourself to the extreme. This might sound difficult or extraordinary, and it might be… Until you realize how relevant, and transcendent for your experience it is to see beyond concepts, to observe beyond beliefs, to actually LIVE, and instead of being in a “virtual reality” of yourself.

Ask questions: Use one question, and answer it with another until you have a bag of questions you are constantly trying to answer day and night. You will reach answers, doubt those, and start again. Why do we want to feel security of knowing? Is there something else beside knowledge? What about experience? Is experience knowledge? How can live an experience if I am always thinking about nonsense? Or is the experience a thought? If experience is a thought, then… Is all reality a product of thought? Is there something beyond thoughts?

How can you assure that the mind is never empty? How can you assure everybody lives a mind without emptiness? Why is emptiness so important if you have never had your mind empty? Isn’t that same “idea” of emptiness the same thing that “prevents” you from being empty? And if you reach emptiness how can you be sure that there is this divine? And if it is divine, how can you be sure that divine is not obtained through untraditional non explored ways that only you can reach through self-contemplation with or without thoughts? Why do mediators want to empty the mind? Isn’t the mind already empty, but we strive to “live” the illusions due to the security felt by what we know? Why would you want to achieve one-mindedness if one-mindedness already is? Why try to achieve something that is not achievable because it already has been achieved?

Why is there a classical sense of traditional meditation? Is meditation total awareness (Including your thoughts whenever they arise and non-thoughts)? What happens when there are no thoughts? Is this possible? How can you assure that there is no possible existence without thoughts just because you haven’t experienced a life without “constant thoughts”? Ask about contemplation, how does contemplation relate with thought? How could awareness of these conflicts change things? What is contemplation? Could there be a state of constant awareness?  For example, I am observing the conflict inside my head without judging, but just listening to it and trying to understand it. Could this be meditation? Why should you follow a tradition about what is a “meditative state”? What is justice? What is freedom? Do you really have free will? If so, could the idea of having free will a belief that you want to nurture to feel security and feel you have control over something?

These questions are not easy, some may find them too difficult to answer because that means to change your entire way to observe and experience the world. You will change, and in this change if there is no peace, but more conflict, your answers are creating more and more beliefs that do not have a foundation of truth. Why? What is truth? What is peace? What is violence? How does violence work within the mind? Is our nature violent? Why? Why could you accept a concept like that seeing the implication of such violence in the world? Could concepts and beliefs be the source of violence? Could our identification of ourselves with these beliefs create violence to defend these beliefs that create us security? Where does true security lie? Could security be related with violence? What would happen if we understood security? Would fear disappear? What is fear? How is fear felt? What are the consequences of fear? How does frustration relate with fear and anger? Can you live without anger? How is fear helpful? What are the limits of fear? Are we really free? What is freedom?

It is about challenging the known, not with a new belief… And although, that “will” and might happen, the ultimate purpose should not be to gain a new “way of thinking”, but a new way of being… How?

Changing the way you experience life, love!

As a simultaneously taught bilingual child, you can use different brain pathways to understand things. When studying foreign languages, so you can think in two more languages. Thus, the way your brain translates, processes, understands, and uses pathways is different.

At first, you use only your memory, you identify figures/numbers, and assign them a clue name. So, whenever that symbol wants to come into life, as magic, you just say the “abracadabra”, and it opens inside your mind. The power language has inside your head is immense, but our comprehension of the consequences of such power is limited scientifically.

How can you understand the system and its processing once it is running?

We live limited, and the only way to see your own limits is by challenging your brain, but… there is a downside or entropy:

Our brains use “language” to understand itself. How can you challenge your brain when you use words to think?

The brain developed the ability to use language, as a chimp, we can understand some abstractions, but we are unaware of our own limits because: How can you see a limit if you cannot see where you are standing?

For example, how can a chimp know it cannot speak, when he is not aware of speech?

We are somehow like that, but in a more “advanced” sense. We are trapped in a world of language where it becomes the one that liberates us, helps us understand things beyond “animals” can, but at the same time stops us from seeing our limits.

When you learn a language and can think without translating, there is a transformation: Imagine a brain with different functional operating systems; where you can choose to use a Linux from from a proprietary operating system software.

When are you running a Linux? You can get support from any other person who is part of your community: You are open, honest, trying to keep a healthy relationship, so it continues, and always in a conviction that there is good will around you.

When are you not? When you are afraid, need to use chains, there are a lot of bugs, and you cannot solve those problems because they are outside the box they sold you.

We live brainwashed when we do not question enough. If we could hack our own operating system by using different languages, thought processes, and creative community support… We could free ourselves from the chains created by greed, pain, and any kind of unhealthy behavior.

The problem comes into being when we don’t ever realize what is an unhealthy behavior, we don’t listen to our thoughts, and we become comfortable running a proprietary software. We need to stop this, not because of “the need of a better world”, but because living passionately, doing what you love, and being really happy is something we all should have a right to live, not because of “the government” will take care of our rights, but because each one of us understand how our brain works, therefore how our thoughts interact with us, and how can we live peacefully inside-out.

Its like we are provoking pain without being aware of it, there is a need to realize what is inside of us, but our own language limits us, the way we communicate with ourselves is through thoughts, is there another way to reach my mind?

How can I gain control over my brain? Unchaining language.

This picture is an example of how language has its chains, but also the key to our own freedom:

by margolove

Language is not all we’ve got to understand ourselves. Is it? Could it be just one of the known pathways? Are there more?

How can we reach new pathways if we use language & concepts inside our brains to communicate to ourselves?

To question your thoughts means: I admit I can be wrong.

Therefore, I can change because there is no need to be who I believe I am because you need to admit you can be wrong to accept change.

They teach us to see freedom as something external; like the capacity to choose a president or to choose what to buy, but freedom actually is the removal of paradigms and chains of your mind ; to remove those limits, so you can live fulfilled and happy.

Freedom can even mean to be a child again, and ask: Why? to everything, even what seems most obvious.

Do the voices control me or do I control the voices?

Those voices are conditioned by my past experiences. I see a tree. I know it is a tree because someone told me it was so. I am not focusing. I believe there is a man standing beside it, but I focus and no one is there.

Was it my mind or my senses?

Flickr: Vince Alongi

This event tells me the mind is not trustworthy. My senses can trick me and my mind can create whatever it wishes. (Example: Schizophrenia)

Is there a way to discover what is real without other people as my point of reference?

There must because we will die, and alone. So, other people’s opinions or ideas are not valid at the time of death.

So, if certainty does not come from external interactions, but from inside out. How can I discover it?

Let’s explore this with our thoughts…

The fact: Thoughts are influenced by our surroundings, if we are not aware of those thoughts and how our surroundings affect them… we may end up doing things we are not passionate and happy with.

Thoughts play a very important role, but sometimes we underestimate their power. We take a thought as a reality or a fact, when a thought is one of the most ephimeral things of this world.

For example:
I see a man with big wrist watch. I want it. I see a TV ad. I want it even more.
If I ask my self: Why do I want it? Do I need it? Can I use that money for something even better?
Answer: I don’t need it. I prefer… or I want it because…
You just stopped to think, therefore your free will is in action.
On the other hand: if you did not question yourself, and just bought it… You are just a muppet of our surroundings.
Think about it.

While I believe the media is not the one to blame, but each one of us, who don’t question things and go with the flow. If we all began asking the reasons behind everything… this world would be very different; more peaceful and educated.

The media is the result of our actions, and it is the reflection of the mayority of our society. Don’t blame the media. Question your mind, and find out: Am I being controled by someone? Or am I being free and those are my elections?

Why?

Each one of us, choose how and what to absorve in the media, if we are aware of our surroundings as they unfold. It is very easy to just blame others for the way and how we are being manipulated.

However, it is a point of view I find somewhat interesting:

Are thoughts a trustworthy source of self knowledge? Why?

Thought 1: I don’t like you.
The same person, within the same hour.
Thought 2: I love you.

Thought 1: I am sure.
The same person encounters an event that changes his old paradigms.
Thought 2: I don’t believe on that anymore.

Is a volatile thought generator a valid source to get to know me?
Certainly, in a physical external environment where you are certain those thoughts will produce some action because…

For example:
Certain thought 1: I don’t like cats. They produce me allergies.
Will this person change his mind? Unless, the allergies are vanished. He will live all his life disliking cats.

But… Is a volatile thought generator a valid source of self/inner (not subjective) knowledge?

Could be… Could not be… How can we know?

Mind exploration with out many possible capacities:

• Thought
• Creativity
• Emotion
• Hormones
• Brain
• Others

Why have we evolved in such a way we can use thought is the means of transforming abstraction into thought, and then ordered words?

Thoughts are like the ocean: How will they be?

There should be a reason, so… To know our mind we can use as a first step thoughts. A volatile form of communicating with ourselves and others.

This is important to know because if we understand this, then we can change our minds freely. There is no need to fixate with ideas because ideas are thoughts, and those are volatile.

Thoughts change and the results of those produce different actions. Things also change, how will we adapt to those changes if our thoughts may not be ready for those changes? How fast does our surroundings (nature & people) change? Do does our mind move as fast? We all can be wrong at the long run, but may be right in the short term.

Does the truth change? What is the truth?

When will be admit… we all can make mistakes to learn from them?

Society as a group of people is just an aspect of the collective mind, it is the conjunction of different factors like: the general state of consciousness of the population, your inner division (what you believe vs. others believe) causing peer pressure, and the clear necessity of doing something, to reach a certain ideal like beauty, money, power,etc. because it is well seen by the population.

To be unaware how the collective mind influences; can affect us in such a way we become prisoners of their ideals without asking ourselves: What is my passion? Do I work and feel fulfilled with it? Who am I?

I have tried to imagine why can we become prisoners of our collective (social) minds; It occurred to me (may be wrong) it is our fears, the need of acceptance, and to feel secure the reasons we loose our freedom.

Freedom is not about being a “free country”; Freedom is about a free “you”, and that does not mean to do whatever you want, but to have the ability understand who are you, then you will know how does freedom really apply to each one of us.

Virtual Pioneers @ Flickr: krossbow

For example, if the collective part of us accepts something, then we don’t have to think stuff for ourselves, and just act as how most of the people agree on. So, we stop fighting into finding a meaning for life. We get accustomed and accept the supposed “fact”: Life is just that, get over it, and use your mind on things that produce results, like money (results the collectivity can use, and then assess as really good results).

However, the collective mind can be mistaken. It has been so many times along history. You always have a choice: To question or not to question, and find out things by yourself. Will you choose to become aware about your choices or will you choose to go with the flow?

The reason I believe we don’t question the collective mind as we should is that we don’t want to take full responsibility for our actions and its consequences. If you can say,” It is not my fault. It is not my mistake. It is not my consequence It is the fault of the circumstances, it is the mistake of my parents, it is the consequence of a divorce, but never mine.” Then, you can have an excuse. You will not face the facts. You will not change, and this society will continue to degenerate.

Your choices affect everything because you are part of it all.

At the end, you cannot divide yourself just by thinking you are different from the collective mind. You are inside of it, but are free to be yourself if you know who you are.

As a consequence, many things that make you feel great or bad about yourself, may be not the facts. It could be those ideas you are lingering on, but those can change at any instant.

However, the instant you understand you have the ability inside yourself to really feel great, and it does not depend on your ideas or concepts about yourself:

You are really free. Not free in the sense of my country is free, but the freedom that even though you may be in a prison… You are really free of yourself, and you become the real you.

WHY?

A concept is a mental elaboration of the “object” thought. An idea represents the conjunction of those concepts into a bigger elaboration, and your inner relationship with those concepts.

Each idea can produce an action, an emotion, a desire, etc. It is the product of concepts, created since birth, by the people who surround you and your reaction to those interactions.

We have the ability to change your results, to change the reactions produced, if you take some of your time to think about:

Who is the real you beyond all those concepts and ideas?

How deep are you willing to go?

Society states: These are the rules, enter the matrix, you cannot think for yourself once you are there.

You have a choice each instant: I want to take the responsibility of my ideas and their consequence; created or not by society through deranged concepts.

You can listen inside yourself; you know when something is going wrong, when there is something out there waiting to be understood, but you don’t have the time to find out why, you may be sad or angry at everything, you feel fear…

• When will enough be enough?
• Who are you?
• Why do we exist? What is the purpose of life and yours?
• Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you in fear?
• What is wrong and right? Does good and bad exist as I believe it does?
• Why do I judge others? Am I judging myself as I judge others with those same ideas?
• Why do you do what you do? Are you doing things because of you or because of what the collective mind tells you is right?

It is really weird because somehow people don’t relate nature with themselves, when we are actually very much the same. We are nature, as nature is in us.

Why do we want to destroy who we are?

I suppose this does not only happen by with nature. We also act constantly against ourselves without being aware of it.

Nature is us as much as we are of it.

The path of self-distruction is not to hate, but to act upon your hatred. For example, you may hate a movie, but it will stop there. You won’t go, and destroy a cinema because they showed it. It is the same thing inside of our minds.

We may even hate parts of us, but hate and love have the same root: You care about something enough to hate it or love it. So, how to find a balance in so many “opposites”?

01We tend to compare things in the same sphere of consciousness, when things are not like that. For example, love can be compared to hate as an opposite if you see love as a feeling. However, if you understand love as a state of being, then it may be harder to compare it with being hateful.

02 Our definitions represent the image we have created of those concepts. Therefore, a comparison is just valid using your own internal processed ideas about what is being compared. Even though, we use dictionaries, those lack the deepness of a human being discovering the reality beyond our communication systems.

It is very easy to say: Hate is the opposite of love, but is that the truth? In what extent of awareness it may be, and when do they begin to unite each other?

This all happens because we are living in a society full of “I AM WHO MY MEMORIES TELL ME I AM”.

That’s ok if that’s what you believe is enough, you don’t want to ask more questions, and you don’t want unveil the truth behind our confusion. Those memories can help us to elaborate complex thought systems that break our traditionally made communication systems.

It is strange, but instead of using thought system to break communication ones, we use communication systems to understand our thought system. I believe we can use both in a spiral, break one, understand one, and in time change our devious ways to become a better person.

Yet, even though, you conclude that egoism is good, famine is good if it is not yours, imprisonment of the body is good because you are free although others may be trapped, and living without the wonder world is good because you will live a rich life, if you have taken time to analyze yourself and question your motives, there is more truth in that than those who say to be generous and have never spent time to analyze why.

However, those who don’t believe in being good to others, surely haven’t found the truth, they still must ask themselves more questions to find the joy of life, instead of living a treat that is keeping you from having a fullfilled life.

It is a serious matter, don’t take it lightly, it is unfair to continue this way. What will our future generations remember us for? Our acts of self-destruction? Because when we contaminate, it is not killing just us, but everything that surrounds us.

Take as an example smoking, those who die first may not be the smoker, but the little daughter that spends her time with her dad.

Please, let her live… Let us live. Let us have a wonder future before it is too late for us to correct what blind adults have done.