Imagine that there is no god. What is real? (e.g. Nietzsche so famously said this, so you can read him if you want an answer. He pushes it toward amor fati. Do not be fooled with his famous “nihilism”.)

Imagine that there is no real, but also imagine that there is no “nothing”. Do you see the contradiction? They always say: we have two possibilities (real or nothing), but what if it is not a dichotomy and that is causing all the problems. Imagine none, no two’s. Can you imagine that or all you can see is nothing, that is the something (concept) called nothing?

Or this or that, better shut up, they say… But, do not settle!

Tradition is not a rule, it is meant to be a guide, so you can learn to walk your own path just as a baby learning to walk. You can only guide a baby into the possibility of walking, but not walk for him.

Radical thinking is what will change the world for the better if it is done with intelligence.

What is intelligence? Have a scientific framework where there is no “hard science” such as humanities or philosophy.

What is a scientific framework? Use the scientific method as an exploratory guide.

Be aware that a key aspect of a scientific reasoning is: You change when you realize you are wrong, do not keep a belief just on the base of faith.

Faith can have multiple forms, and it is very… seductive to the point one might not realize one has faith in a certain belief due to our own conditioning through experience and tradition.

This is my “scientific” method and you must create your own, but be sure to be open to the possibility of always being wrong. That is the key aspect. You are wrong without knowing it, and you will realize later why you were wrong, although you might had been right within that certain context.

Get it? Perspective and context plays a role here. Here it goes:

01 Observe deeply. What is deeply? Observe without chit chat in the back of your brain. Not possible to make it quiet? Ask why? How can I stop the chit chat? Observe, don’t analyze yet, just observe! Become one with the observed. Do you think this is possible? Of course not, if you are “thinking” instead of observing, then you cannot get it!

02 After observing, realize (become aware) that you observing. You can become aware of the stillness, in such silence you can begin to understand what is real within your senses quite alert.

03 Now, begin to test your observations through analysis, chit chat can come back being aware of the fact that you are chit chatting. This is an initial jump to start to test the waters of reality, not an actual hypothesis. It is like a child that is learning for the first time how the world works freshly.

04 Create a hypothesis once you test the waters, and test it in its particulars, then open the particulars to the broader perspective, and again make use of step 2 until it is no longer needed.

05 Can you see how things or perspective changes as you modify from particular to generals?

06 Understand, observe where the hypothesis is valid, and where it is not. Perspective is relevant here, imagine that there are levels of understanding that can be opened up as you remove your inner paradigms.

Hypotheses in a philosophical nature are very tricky, so begin to realize this slowly:

What does this crazy non-sense talk mean?

An example is this in “Generals can be absolute if the particulars are relative”:

First Person Generals: There is no reality, nothing and all is non-existent like a dream.

Second Person: This is a general that is absolute, then ask: What are the particulars?

First Person: I am depressed. I cannot live with my pain. I need to use drugs. I want to die and sleep all the time.

Second Person: So, if you are deeply compromised in a type of reality (your particulars), then your generals will be absolute.

They are real within your own context, so you get that and don’t fight over something that is non-sense!

If the second person realizes that those particulars are relative, then peace can occur and we can move on discussing more important things… Instead of fixing with relative-absolute stuff.

Let’s turn the tortilla, and give an example of “Particulars can be absolute if the generals are relative”:

First Person Particulars: I am a depressed person who will find enlightenment that can remove me from my suffering if I do meditation everyday.

Second Person: This is a particular that is absolute for the first person expressing it. It is a total belief that is the fundamental of his existence. I will not threaten his belief directly. He is being particular, but arguing it as a general.

In this perspective, if we can actually see that particulars for the first person are absolute, then a second person can be open to the specifics by having a relative approach to a general belief by a person being specific in his approach, then one can understand why he or she says so and move on.

Now, this general-particular stuff is so misunderstood that it is causing many problems. It might sound simple, but everyday people fight over particulars (relative or absolute) that they believe are general (relative or absolute) within each characteristic particularity.

Can you see the problem here? Each side argues that they know what is real, when actually they both are right and they both are wrong… It all depends on the perspective and context.

Remember: A scientific mind admits when one is wrong! There is no pride, only the truth is real.

Yet, we begin to fight over non sense without even observing and listening deeply to the other, or even oneself.

You might even ask, well.. Great perspective exists, nothing new! What is real beyond perspective?

Aha! My dear reader, do you think I would spill the beans so easily? Never!

The challenge is in your side, and the unknown remains in my side of the court because I might or not know… And at the end, it does not matter to you, does it?

Well, to give you some hints let’s move this idea even further, ok? Ready… Here we go!

Imagine that you are in a dream, then what is real? Can a dream be real? You might think so as you dream fully within it, right?

However, what if there is no dream? What if the dream is a projection of your brain, and it has no reality? Could it all be reduced to matter?

Imagine you had different senses, like an insect who can see vibrations or a dog who can see with smell, could that change your perspective of what is matter? What if you were able to “see” details normally ignored?

We believe matter is substance, like a visible thing, but what if “matter is energy”? What if other beings can sense energy, not only substance, how would that change the game? What would be real then?

Imagine that with those different senses, you realize that everything you had thought was reality is a total lie. Imagine you have synesthesia, and what you taste has colors, the numbers you see have smell, the colors also have taste, imagine more options, etc. What is real, then?

Do you believe your brain and your experiences or do you believe what others say is real? How do you reconcile opposite views when a majority believes in their “hard” core senses?

Well, do not reconcile! Express your unique individuality through art and science. You shouldn’t feel guilty for being different. We are all different, but are trained to be the same in order to believe in a collectivity; one that we believe to know as real.

However, do we really know what is real?

I do not think so because we believe that our reality is only that which we experience within a collective framework. All others are crazy cows! Put them in a cell, they do not know how to behave!!! So sad. Or not? Maybe we still have hope!

To be unique is good!

Make others understand…

The importance of art is to let others enter the realm of the unpredictable, your own original self.

However, science can do the same thing art is doing but through a “fact” type of approach.

Both contain facts in the sense that once you create your artwork, it is a fact: a piece of the present that can be observed…

It is real when you are observing it directly with your own senses.

Now, imagine a 3D immersion where you are challenged to let go of your normal senses. What is real there? What is real when your brain is challenged to react in a totally unknown reality?

It is in these experiences that one can actually begin to understand what is real. It is when you challenge your own paradigms about what is, and then open your eyes to actually observe deeply what is in front of your eyes with complete clarity without mind chatter.

Ready to enter this new “reality”? Ever thought the matrix was a parody…

Think again! AHA!

Think by yourself!

Challenge tradition, and be yourself.
Who are you?

Photo Credit: By Jamboid

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?

Photo Credit: Hamid Najafi

Thoughts create depression. Is this true?

Stay alert:

• Do you speak only about yourself?
• Do you ask for others doings after speaking a while about yourself?
• Do you really pay attention to the meaning of the words when they are speaking or are you just thinking in what are you about to respond?
• Do you analyze the impact of your words and calculate the “aftermath” of your encounter?

Sometimes, we rather talk to someone without a purpose, than to listen to yourself before, during, and after speaking. Why?

If you don’t listen to yourself, you are actually a representation of this picture: Totally blind to your surroundings, and totally confused with what is going on because you are not observing/listening/talking about what is happening.

If you talk about yourself without considering what the other person may want to hear, are you actually communicating? You may say; you do, but in fact a conversation can only be held if two persons are really engaged into understanding each other.

For example: You may talk for half an hour about fish because you love them, but after that you go to sleep, and don’t ask your mate (wife, husband, friend, brother, sister etc.) about his day, his plants, or whatever. Do you realize that by doing so, you are separating from him?

Now, it can be tough because even you do have the intention of listening, you may realize that now you can see things that may hurt:

01You were so into speaking that you hadn’t read their body talk before (yawn, a tick, touching their mouth as if they want to speak, etc.); you realize people weren’t interested in your talk.

02Those who listened to you, don’t want to talk to you about the things they love, and don’t feel the need to share about themselves.

03You may realize the interesting things you could have known, you may regret the days you were self centered, and wished had spent sharing with your loved ones. You may even feel sad for being so dumb.

Now, stop.
If you start feeling those depressive thoughts, react! There is no need to feel guilt, but to analyze the reasons behind the self-centered attitudes, so you may be alert before they arise again.

Your old patterns will try to regain force, each day, until the new habits replace the old ones. Well, how does all of this relate to depression? Well, a sad person comes into being because of several factors like:

• Loneliness
• Fear
• Anger
• Frustration
• Insecurity
• Low-self esteem
• Egoism

One concept is always are related to each other.

For example: If I feel anger, it is because I feel powerless, thus frustrated that you cannot change “the thing that keeps you depressed”. Or, If I are am an egoist person, then others will start to stay away from me because I am bitter, self-centered, and I will become lonely although surrounded of people.

So, what can we do when depressed? Find out the source of the depression. Listen to your thoughts. Find out if your thoughts provoke your sadness. Find the reason of those thoughts. Ask questions, ask them again, and release the inner pain through becoming aware of it.

Good Luck, and by the way, beware: These ideas are not considering a chemical imbalance, merely “some sort of mind/spirit” issues.

Photo Credit: By Icky Pic | Jimmy Changa

What will we be tomorrow?

If things have changed, they can change again. Pretty convinced things won’t change? Ask those who banned Galileo… They surely will be on your favor.

So, what we now call miracles will some day be explained, and we will be living them constantly because we will be able to repeat them consciously, through the scientific method.

It is miracle if you wish to look at a natural occurrence as a rare one. It is a miracle if your soul admires completely the lived.

“According to many religions, a miracle, derived from the old Latin word miraculum meaning ‘something wonderful’, is a striking interposition of divine intervention by God in the universe by which the ordinary course and operation of Nature is overruled, suspended, or modified.”1

However, miracles are created by the eye of the beholder… Do you believe in the impossible?

Then, it shall occur because that perspective will change the way you look at the world.

Isn’t it a miracle we can have such a developed understanding of our surroundings we can read this on the Internet with a computer?

Les make an example about persepctives:
First concept: Olives.
Concept’s attributes: Bad, slimy, and ugly.
Consequence: I don’t interact with olives.

Why is it important to understand the influence of concepts in our daily lives?

Imagine…

I have been told olives are bad, slimy, and ugly. So, I never eat olives. Or once, as a child I ate a rotten olive. So, I never taste another olive in my life.

For a strange reason, I see my best friend indulge those olives, so I decide to try them again. I love them after that.

Why did a concept (the idea) stop me from enjoying olives? Yes, but concepts can also save us from a bitter experience.

However, how many concepts have been induced, and never really confronted by us? How many concepts do we really know we have? How many concepts have been questioned by you before establishing as a truth?

How many concepts produce fights and many deaths?
How many concepts produce peace and truthful freedom?

Concepts can act in several ways:

• Limiting our forms of communication (If thought is established as the producer of all sorts of communications)
• Establishing a determined pattern by which we can communicate

What type of communication are we talking about? Thought produces or beyond thought produced?

If we analyze the concepts that damage us, and those that help us we can begin to understand the influence of others on us. We can stop being what others say we are, but to analyze who we really are by oneself. That way concepts can become a way to communicate, but not a limit that doesn’t permit communication.

…The Eye of the Beholder can change it all…

Photo Credit: By alicepopkorn

• Is love just a concept (an idea created by the mind producing a result as a feeling)?
• Is love just a feeling (a cascade of emotions bringing hormones into action)?
• Is love something more than just a concept and feeling?

How can we really express love? Where is love? How can love transform our lives? Does love bring us true happiness?

If so, why do we stop expressing love? Are there different levels of happiness? How does that relate with love? I ask you all of these questions with the intention of giving you a pathway of questions, and become aware of the dimensions of love.

If you can extrapolate love into different spheres of existence, could we relate love to energy, action, or as nature? Could it be that all beings have the nature to be love (lovable and loving)?

So… It is up to each one of us to discover love. However, if you have decided love is something more than just a subway passenger, love is the motor of the world, love is the true way peace can be achieved, love is the way the universe manifests us beauty, and love is it all: Welcome to my world!

What would happen if we could always remember others need our smiles and hugs? We would never miss a sweet caress of those who do. Would we?

There is a reason to exist. What is it? Question it all. Find it. Be happy, live without stress, and be more alive through awareness!

It doesn’t matter if there are dull, angry, or sad days… It is about trying your best, not into being a perfect robot, it about learning from those mistakes, and become aware of them.

It all comes in time when intention is on the way.

A perspective about what could be love: Find out what is your perspective deep inside “you”.

Photo Credit: By Leland Francisco