LastThursday

Ok, so I understand the cause of all suffering is (original) sin. What is the cause of sin? Where does it come from?

@jim123 would you think there is any suffering not caused by sin?

I'd look up in the sky, but your point is understood.

Could you explain this further?

And to add, that flux appears to happen at a certain rate in our subjective experience. That's how the concept of time is built up in the first place.

This is infinity: LTNEOIOVNVMTEFEEHYIIYNNTIGHTIYNG And from that infinity you are pulling out a finite reality. It could be LOVE or TIME or EVERYTHING. Any finity awareness pulls out of infinity has to spell something meaningful - it will fit together seamlessly, second by second. You are walking a path through infinity. Will every word be spelt out in the end?

Take a step away, go be 27 and enjoy it. Then if and when you're ready, go again. You, the "I" may die in the end, but all this carries witnessing itself.

Ok time is a concept, agreed. But what then is a memory of a past event? I mean if the "past" is just a concept, then what is a memory "of" exactly? If it is pure hallucination (like in a dream), then why does it seem so relevant to us personally? Why can other people corroborate a "past" memory of yours? Just thinking aloud.

I'm going to be a killjoy. No moments, no happening, no now. As you say, time doesn't exist.

@Intraplanetary To get to the root of LOA, you have to get to the root of intention. Where does intention come from? Is the future outcome of LOA and an intention linked even before the intention arises? Could you even see the intention as a precognition of the final outcome? Maybe LOA is even more absurd than you thought.

I still haven't got to the bottom of why some days I'm focussed and productive and others I just cannot concentrate on anything. It's like my mind flat out refuses to think in that strict logical step by step way needed for me to do my programming work. Instead I find my mind just drifting in a kind of right brain dreamy reverie - like reality could just consume me and I wouldn't notice or care - and it might actually be a blessed relief just to diffuse into nothingness. So to more magick. If magick works, then for me it is less left brain analytical and more right brain creative/artistic/intuitive. However, to get a handle on it I still need to do the analytical groundwork. It's like the division between science and engineering. I could just engineer my magick and be done with it. So very much a pragmatic trial and error approach - if it works, keep doing it. But trial and error is slow and inneficient - timewise. This is where science comes in, it makes models which refine your approach and point you in the right direction; it's analytical and initially also time consuming, but it pays off by synergising with engineering. One discipline feeds off the other in a virtuous circle. I need both. So to start off with, more science than engineering. Boundaries Magick is really about directed transformation. But not just any old transformation but specifically targeted transformation, mostly done in a non-conventional way. By non-conventional I mean not using the body, but perhaps other methods such as using the mind, or psychadelics, or something else. What could be that something else? There is a strong three way connection between awareness, existence and boundaries. They are really three words for the same thing. Any one of these three things implies the others. Changing boundaries means shifting awareness means morphing existence. Hopefully, you can see where I'm going. By somehow affecting any one of these facets purposefully, then magick can happen. The other thing to take note of is change - ironically the only constant in existence. What change refers to is the constantly changing boundaries of awareness. Perhaps what I didn't really outlign about my metaphysics in my last post, was that I don't consider there to be an observer. This isn't needed as awareness is aware of itself. What is being observed is awareness itself. Awareness "takes on the shape" of reality in all its glory and gore. It's like a painting that sees itself; it's made up of brushtrokes and colours (the boundaries). How then does the "directed" part of "directed transformation" itself arise? Of course like everything else: through awareness. See the circular way in which things happen? "I" am interested in magick and becoming a magician, but, that interest arose from awareness itself. It isn't me that wants to perform magick, but awareness itself. Does awareness know in advance what the outcome of that magical interest will be? Awareness transforms itself, as it always has done: change is constant. So the starting point in learning magick is to let awareness do the heavy lifting. Awareness will direct itself in any case. The seed has been sown. How do I perform magick using boundaries? One way would be by conceptual shifting. A large part of how we see the world is precisely through our map of it. We see cars and people and clouds and poverty and the thousand other things that make up society. To transform our perception of the world is magick in itself. There are any number of ways to change our conceptual understanding. One is simply to gather more information about a concept. If we learn how a car engine works, we will have magically shifted the way we see a car. This is happening constantly by itself, this is what maturity means. Systems thinking is another way to revise conceptual understanding. We learn to join together disparate concepts and see how they influence each other, and how changing something here can affect the whole system. Efficient magick is then knowing exactly where to peturb the thing we want to transform (viewed as a system). Systems will often reach equilibrium, either steady state or cyclical. Knowing where and when to pertub a system, can establish a new steady state or cycle. Does any of the above help? Only in a very meta way. Take away for today: change concepts and understand systems to perform magick.

Play an instrument, I like to play piano. Good for turning off monkey mind for half an hour.

If I'm going to be a magician then it will have to be on my own terms. It has to be my own brand of magick. That's not to say I won't be taking input from other sources, to the contrary. But I will synthesise my own conclusions. So to start in earnest. Hacking reality. The base of it all is my metaphysics. My model of how the world functions. Now it would be silly to say that altering the map will alter the territory - changing my metaphysics will not produce magick. However, I need a "way in", so using my existing map at least will orient me so I can find my way. What is my metaphysics? Stuff exists, that's an absolute certainty. Time strictly is an invention. No past, no future, no present. The "shape" of existence, it's patterns and textures are formed by one thing only: boundaries. Boundaries form hierarchies and interdependencies. "Form" comes from boundaries, as do concepts, and language and belief. But concepts, language and belief can in turn affect the boundaries and hence what is perceived (but not all that is perceived). Boundaries are completely fluid. Awareness is aware of itself. This is the defining feature of being aware. By this mechanism awareness brings forth existence from nothingness. Everything is constant change. And as a corollary everything is constant death and rebirth. Everything is correlated (affects, linked) to everything else to a greater or lesser degree. This is systems thinking at large, tug one thing here and something over there responds, maybe even non-intuitively. The most efficient way to affect reality, is through the body (but magick implies there are other ways). Dreams and thoughts are very much part of reality. We are living and participating in a dream. Reality is seamless. There are no gaps to reality. Everything bleeds into everything else, it is a whole or unity. There are no gaps to awareness. It is always "on". Reality has "rules", it's corrolary is that there is "structure" to everything. Reality and consciousness is very personal to "me", it's happening right here, right now. There is no way of knowing if consciousness is happening any place else. Awareness itself is essentially unrestricted, nothing is out of bounds. Ok, so that's the map. Some of the things on the map are related to each other, or seem to contradict, or have further questions attached: No time, but constant change (?) Reality is seamless; no gaps in awareness; everything is correlated. And yet there is division in the form of boundaries? We are in a dream, yet need the body to affect anything in it? The dream is constrained by rules. There is constant change, but there are rules (?), the change is not chaotic. Boundaries must also be part of reality (right?) and are part of awareness. What? Awareness has parts? Isn't this circular reasoning? Is awareness being aware of itself the cause of boundaries (a.k.a duality)? Does awareness have the capability to tie itself in knots? To somehow "boundary" itself? Are the boundaries the rules themselves? Awareness is unrestricted, and yet there are rules (restrictions)? How does magick relate to all the above? That's a start. More later.

It's a sliding scale rather than a binary thing. The idea of cause and effect is just a narrative. For example say I hold a ball, then realease it. It drops. We say that letting go of the ball causes the ball to fall. Cause and effect. But it's actually a synchronicity in disguise. Even if we perform an experiment to release a ball ten thousand times and watch it fall ten thousand times. We can never know if something different will happen the 10,001th time. We can never know if the cause is the actual cause. It's only ever a correlation or a suspicion. A synchronicity is just a meaningful correlation betwen two events. But the meaning and correlation is invented by our awareness. Cause and effect is synchronicity.

I've been in limbo now for much longer than I anticipated. It's hard to describe what this limbo is, but fundamentally I've lost faith in being alive, and I've lost that spark I used to have up until my thirties. But the old me died a long time ago, and there's no way back. My optimism and energy has left me. Most of the time I feel like I'm just marking time until my death. I can't tell if I became depressed because of that old death or if depression is still lingering and is the cause itself. No matter, the effect is the same. At least I'm free in a number of ways. I don't have children and partner to maintain. Despite what people say about having family, I know for sure it's 90% grind, it's all survival, interspersed with good bits. In fact escaping grind has always been at the forefront of my being and I've basically got what I wanted. Some may say I've thrown the baby out with the bath water - to use an inapproriate analogy. Covid has also offered me a temporary reprieve from all the faff of actually physically going to work - and the semi-confrontational nature of being in close proximity to people you wouldn't choose as friends, but nonetheless have to tolerate. Again, if LOA is to be believed, I got what I wanted. But what a way to do it, a worldwide pandemic; huh? Slowly over time, I've come to the conclusion that I'm a strange mixture of introvert and extrovert. My parents are at base introverts through and through. So my introvert nature is not surprising: I'm very happy to spend hours by myself and entertaining myself. But I remember being an energetic kid that was always excited to see and be with people: cousins, uncles, aunts, grand parents, friends. And when I went to university as a young adult, I don't think I ever spent more than an hour by myself in three years. I didn't miss or need to be introverted. It's quite possible I've lost that spark because I've been overwhelmed by my introversion. The Extravert in me just gave up, it was fighting a losing battle and so the depression ensued. So what's the point of this post? Other than to get the narrative straight in my head? Two things. I feel strongly like I need to regain that spark and energy if I'm going to continue and stay sane. Secondly, I know deep within myself that life and reality can be magical again, just as it was when I was a kid. Humans are strongly skewed towards magic, we inherently know that the world is unpredictable and mostly unknowable, but also that we possess untapped powers that just need to be brought out and honed. We are magic incarnate. To that end, and since I'm free right now to become whatever I want, I'm going to practice being a magician. That is, someone who bends matter and energy to their will. Maybe it's fanciful, but if I never try, I will never know. I can keep it private, so the introvert in me is happy. But if it works, then the extrovert in me will also benefit. So to start me off I will have the following rules to work with: 1. I'm going to keep the definition of my magick very wide. That's not say that I'll be walking around with wide eyes and mouth agape. No. I instead will build up the magic from tiny beginnings to something bigger. I don't expect instant results. 2. I don't believe in ritual and symbolism per se. It's the tools not the content that are important. Ritual has it's place, but the content of the ritual is not my focus. Again symbolism is just a means to an end, the symbols themselves are irrelevant. Chaos magick appeals most here. 3. I will need to learn how to both hack my mind and how to hack reality. Experimentation and imagination are prime. 4. I shouldn't get stuck in one technique or another, I need to be fluid and free. 5. I definitely won't be using it to directly manipulate or coerce people into doing anything. That's psychopathic behaviour. However, if the side effect of the magic changes the course of my life and the people in it, then so be it. 6. If things happen that I think are magic or I learn new techniques along the way, I will document them here. That's all.

My take, take it as you will: 1. Deja Vu. Memories are deja vu. It's the feeling of "I've had this memory before". To recognise anything, you need memory. All memory is deja vu. Every time you see your mother, it's deja vu - if it wasn't, you wouldn't recognise her. 2. Synchronicity. Existence runs on synchronicity. This is because everything is really connected to everything else. But most of the time you don't notice. Cause and effect is synchronicty. When synchronicty happens without cause and effect, you take notice. But it's actually the default mode of reality. Note that awareness has to be aware of synchronicity for it to be noticed. Awareness is the source of synchronicity. 3. Dreams. We're dreaming all the time, even when awake. There's always an undercurrent of unreality to everything. Unexplainable things also happen when you're awake, but you explain them away with logic and reason. And most of us are lost in daydreams about the past and future and hallucinating talking to ourselves or others. It's quite normal.

It really comes about because of separation. Normally when someone says "I" they mean the thing that is separate from everyone else and the rest of the world. But the deeper you go, the more it's realised that there isn't a separation. Eventually, you become the world and you become everyone else. Everything flows together into one big whole. Then it seems like crazy talk to say the "I" exists. It makes you cringe because it sounds like spiritual cheesy woo woo. Which it is. But only from your perspective. But maybe it also makes you cringe out of fear. Who knows?

There's something to be said for pushing yourself outside of your normal zone of comfort. Or comfort zone rather. Funny how English has two ways of making the genitive. Anyway. The least of things to be said for it, is that you are experiencing something new. This in itself can loosen formulaic ways of thinking and behaving and that's healthy. The most that can be said for it is that it can be life changing. Here's a few of my highlights: Laser Eye Treatment Ever since the age of about 13 or 14 I had been short sighted. I still distinctly remember my vision getting progressively worse over the space of months - from complete clarity to a world of indistinct fuzziness. I've written about this elsewhere in this journal. In retrospect I put it down to some sort of psycho-physical meltdown at the time. The short of it is that in my thirties I ended up wearing disposable contact lenses. These were great, except in the evenings when they would dry up, or when inevitably I drank too much after a night clubbing, slept over at friends' and didn't have my glasses on me. I would either sleep in my contacts (a very very bad idea) or fly blind the following day. In one such incident I had take take an hour's drive home with one contact in, the other of which I had somehow lost when rehydrating it on my tongue - all on a hangover - it wasn't pretty. As fate would have it the opticians had adverts for Laser Eye Treatment by the customer service desk, strategically placed in my eye-line. Eventually my unconscious gave in to the incessant signal month after month of collecting new consignments of contacts - and I decided to get the treatment (yes, free will doesn't exist). The cost wasn't prohibitive for me at the time, but neither was it really cost effective; something like five years to break even. I suppose I was doing it for freedom and that was cost effective enough. I booked the treatment and the hotel up in London, as my girlfriend and I lived near Brighton. We would make a day of it and travel back the day of the surgery. It all went smoothly. I sat in the operating chair whilst my girlfriend watched a monitor from an adjoining room. She had a medical background (HPV) so was very interested to see what they did. They squirted copious amounts of liquid into my eyes and then aligned their laser machinery. But the first step was to clamp my eyelid wide open (one eye at a time). This wasn't so pleasant, but the liquid helped. Then I was told to keep my eyes very still and the machine cut into my cornea like chopping the end off a boiled egg with a knife. This made a flap which was then propped open, and the laser did it's - bacon-like-smelling thing. The whole procedure was painless if uncomfortable. It was all then kept together with a massive contact lens in each eye. That was it. One oversight was that I had forgotten to bring some sunglasses with me, as they advised I would experience glare without them for the first day or so. We had also decided to take public transport. I think the sight of me wearing my girlfriend's sunglasses (an avid wearer) and tears streaming down my face (it wouldn't stop for hours) was very odd on a bus. After a month of eye drops and avoiding my face in the shower, I had new eyes. For me it was the first time in over 25 years I could see clearly again, and I was overjoyed. But it also had the odd psychological effect of making me feel more open and exposed - I could see everything, and everything could see me. It took me a while to "re-balance". But it changed my life in a not insignificant way. Playing Guitar at Wedding Never play an instrument at a friends' wedding. Not unless you're very very well practised. I wasn't. Although before the event I was feeling pretty confident and non-anxious. Saying that I don't really know why I had agreed to it in the first place. It was probably one of those alcohol fuelled conversations friends have in the pub - specifically male friends. The sort of conversation where you can't back down after the fact, because any sign of backtracking is weakness. I must admit I have always liked Air On A G String. And I had been practising on and off months before the conversation and I had boasted as much in the pub. Serves me right. I was immediately picked up on and asked if I wanted to play the guests in at my friend's wedding. I think he was joking, but I called his bluff and said "ok then". He was slightly incredulous but obviously decided to make me pay for my stupidity. Saying that, I have always tried to practise being a "yes man". Or of saying "yes" to things outside of my comfort zone. My idea being that future me would have to worry about it and I might even "grow" from the experience. However in this instance I had zero experience playing to an audience and my own level of mastery was overrated. Come the big day I walked in, guitar in hand and suited up and a murmur went round the already sat wedding invitees. I sat confidently, adjusted myself, quietly tuned the guitar and started playing. Not thirty seconds in and the bride walked in beaming and looked directly at me. It was at the point all confidence left me. This was her big day, not mine and I wasn't the centre of attention. But neither could I afford to get it wrong, I couldn't embarrass the wedding couple on their day. I got stage fright, the adrenaline ran wildly and my fingers seized up, I could remember nothing. I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself, the only thing my mind was telling me was "start again, start again, start again", so I did. The groom noticed, but in the end nobody else did, or really cared. I got my leg pulled over it for years to come. What did it teach me? It's good to go outside your comfort zone, but it can also be bloody terrifying. But there's no way of knowing that beforehand. Bungee Jump In another case of saying "yes" to something I probably shouldn't have, I did my one and only bungee jump in the motherland of bungee jumps: New Zealand. I had spend weeks travelling on a bus full of people ten years younger than me. Basically for an upfront fee, you jumped on and off the buses (using my legs) at your convenience and travelled your way around both the North and South islands. Mostly, I just went with the flow and did a different hostel each night. That way I got to know people and made friends along the way. Most days, there would be sign-ups to various activities in the following days. I didn't have money to burn, but had more than most so I would sign myself up for loads of tours or activities (swimming with dolphins, hot mud pools, sky diving, that sort of thing). I just put name down and forgot about it, until it happened. Of course I had never bungee jumped - and admittedly it was the one activity I was probably going to turn down. As fate would have it, I'd made good friends with this guy from the Netherlands and he was well up for bungee. So I was sort of coaxed into doing it. There was some level of anxiety I had to live with for 24 hours. On the day they tethered me to a gantry and I and my small group walked across it to the glass hut suspended over the gorge. I was nervous, but not nearly as much as my fellow jumpers. Once we reached the hut, the thumping music and the glass floor did nothing to ease the adrenaline. I could easily see people flying off the platform every few minutes. And like an inmate, my time came to be cross examined by fear itself. I sat on a harsh cold aluminium chair built into the floor of the jumping area, whilst they strapped my ankles together and then tethered me to the bungee cord itself. I penguined my way over to a small metal platform jutting out into empty space. At that point fear gripped me hard, and I had to overcome or I would faint or possibly vomit. Others before me hadn't been so lucky and fear had made them abort. The guy counted me down, I jumped. I'm glad I did it. The 300 foot fall took what seemed like an eternity and it honestly was the most serene and freeing experience I've had. I then knew what it was like to fly like a bird (or at least a very large fleshy dead weight). Would I do it again for fun? Probably not.

Exactly. It's totally possible to be or exist at more than one level simultaneously. You can know the illusion but still take part in it. Just go see a movie for example.

This is the "Duck Test". Or if you prefer the "Turing Test". If the robot were to walk and talk like it had consciousness and self awareness, then for all intents and purposes it has consciousness and self awareness. It's a philosophical question whether it has a conscious inner life, not a practical one. Actually, you are applying the Duck Test whenever you interact with people. You are mapping their speech and movements and form to yours and concluding that they too are experiencing what you are experiencing, a.k.a. consciousness. But, you will never know. Even if you magically expanded the reach of your consciousness to enter the "mind" of another person, that still wouldn't answer the question. Instead you would be some sort of hybrid consciousness, neither the original you or the original them. This is akin to the measurement problem in quantum physics. You can't measure the state of a system without disturbing the system. More accurately, whenever you measure a system, you are merging with it, to create a hybrid system. You can't disentangle the observer from the observed.

Very few people seem get this. A. "There's no time." B. "Yeah, I know what you mean." A. "No. No you don't." B. "Yeah, the present moment is eternal." A. "No. No you don't. No moment. No eternal. No present."

Does an awakened person feel pain if you cut their finger off? Does an awakened person feel hungry? What changes is the perspective not the sensations. And according to some there are infinite "levels" of awakening. Maybe there are perspectives which are totally disconnected from sensation, but that's just my speculation.

You will disappear before that happens. This will assimilate you. This is the Boogey(wo)man (sorry I'm on an equality drive in the usage of my language, it's a phase ).

Time exists. We even have a word for it. It's just not what you thought it was, it was something else: just a thought. There's no eternal moment, there's just this. This is not created by or related to anything else, it's just this. You are this. Everything is this. Apologies for the woo woo semi-poetic nature of my post. It's actually very very simple, but so incredibly hard to grasp or explain. It's scary to abandon yourself to just this, without the crutch of time and tomorrow to lean on.