Anderz

Letting go of confusion is the same as dissolving tensions. That's great, but I now have an even more advanced approach. It's the crystallized ego that has (is made of) chronic tensions that produce confusion. The fluid ego is free from chronic tensions. And the crystallized ego is only a temporary stage of development necessary in order to go from undifferentiated oneness and into development of an individual person as a seemingly separate self. There isn't any actual separate self, so when the crystallized ego has served its purpose as a vehicle for personal development it will dissolve as we move into the transpersonal stage. The new approach is to simply expect the crystallized ego to dissolve automatically. And that this will happen because of the understanding of the evolutionary process of going from the personal stage and into the transpersonal stage.

Now I have an even more radical method. Maybe too radical but I want to explore and document it. The practice is to focus on confusion and then let the confusion go. Sadhguru says that the mind is always confused. And as I see it that's true about the thinking mind. Thought is always limited as J. Krishnamurti said so there will always be confusion when we are stuck in thinking.

Here is an example of a traditional meditation practice: Isn't that the same as my "new" method? No, I think it's different. Traditional meditation and mindfulness practices like that are about still using the thinking mind to guide the practice, such as focusing on the breathing. My method is to let go of the thinking altogether. Here is another similar method: That's very similar to my idea, except my method doesn't involve holding on to the unchanging Self whatever that means. My method is about letting go of the structure of thinking, not about holding on to anything.

Wow, I discovered a very powerful practice. Really simple and it's a way of deconstructing the crystallized ego and turning it into a fluid ego. The practice is to let go of thoughts. Not particular thoughts. Instead it's about looking at the structure of thoughts instead of the content. So for example, it's not about letting go of say thoughts about a health problem, or about a financial or relationship issue. It's about letting go of the whole mechanism of thought! That's a radically simple idea. In practice though it means being able to observe the whole thinking process and to let go of the habitual tendency of keeping the thoughts going. Maybe that's the same as some meditation practices and things like Ramana Maharshi's practice of letting go of the I-thought, but I found it to be a new insight. Here is Leo's video about content vs structure again:

One of the most useful tips I found Leo mentioning in his video about letting go is that it can be practiced, and it can be practiced temporarily! So for example if I have some particular worry, I can practice letting it go with the intent that I can pick up the worry again after the practice. Very interesting. I will experiment with that. And also, letting go is related to deficiency cognition and being cognition. Letting go is always connected to deficiency cognition, which in turn is centered around thoughts. So it's the thoughts (together with emotions) about things and situations that need to be let go of.

Very deep insights presented by Leo in the previous video. And it's much about how we think. Roger Castillo yesterday talked about how the mind makes abstract concepts. That's the same explanation as Leo was talking about. Roger gave the example of an apple. The word 'apple' contains very little of what an actual apple is. Even to say 'red apple' that's still only a label, and the same with all descriptions and thoughts about an apple or any other object or situation. I will take a look at this video for clues about how to let go of the clinginess to thoughts:

One example of deficiency perception in my opinion is when we shop at a supermarket. It's not enough to be mindful and perceive things to buy with what seems to be being cognition. There is still a deficiency perception! The reason for the deficiency perception in the above example is that there is a deeper layer of energy drainage going on. As Karl Marx showed, the companies that own the means of production (the supermarket in the example) always receive more value than we as people without means of production receive in return. The cure is to include the perception of money into the whole picture. And to recognize money as a neutral tool. Then the deficiency perception turns into being perception, and that prevents drainage of our energy.

The crystallized ego has deficiency cognition and the fluid ego has being cognition. So deficiency cognition is an aspect of the personal stage and being cognition is an aspect of the transpersonal stage. I learned those terms from Leo who got them from Abraham Maslow.

Money is a typical personal stage development. Money is the primary means of structuring the crystallized ego into a coherent social structure. At the transpersonal stage money is transcended since the fluid ego interacts without needing rigid structures such as money and laws. However, there is a transcend and include of things like money and laws. It's impossible to jump from say bartering in ancient times and lawlessness directly into the transpersonal stage. First society needs to be developed enough to form a scaffolding that supports the emergence of the transpersonal stage and that includes things like money, laws and calendar time. My own guess is that we will still have to deal with money for at least two decades from today. Ray Kurzweil has predicted a technological singularity happening around the year 2045. That's an incredible transformation of society which undoubtedly, if it happens, will lead to a transcend (and include) of money. Money can still be transcended today by using money as a tool instead of clinging onto it as the crystallized ego does. So a fluid ego and the use of money are compatible.

Aaron Abke talks in this new video about how the mind has evolved to always assume the worst as a strategy for survival. When we always assume the worst, when we always take the most pessimistic view, then we are most likely to avoid danger, Aaron said. Good point. That made me think that a sign of a collective consciousness is that all fear drops away when interacting with other people. Because then those other people are a part of one's own being. So it's a total transformation of that ancient fear-based survival strategy of always expecting dangers, which is what we still have at the personal stage.

Also, exploring a collective consciousness is compatible with nonduality. So I can examine both. I will take a look at Jim Newman's new video and try to interpret it from a collective consciousness perspective.

Is it a mistake to describe a collective consciousness? It's a mistake if there is no such thing as a collective consciousness. But there could be! Another possible mistake is to aim for a collective consciousness instead of realizing nonduality. Even with the whole planet as a collective consciousness, that's tiny compared to nonduality. Realization of nonduality is the realization of infinity. But I still find it interesting to explore a collective consciousness as a step into the transpersonal stage.

I realized that I can theorize about a collective consciousness! So that's something I can post about. It's just theories that may or may not be true. And as for a conceptual trap, we are already totally trapped in a conceptual perspective when we are at the personal stage of development. A collective consciousness is a single organism. So when one person is doing something, then the whole collective is doing it. This is very different from the personal stage. If we try to act as a single being at the personal stage, then that's a double mistake. The first mistake is to believe that the action is done by the separate person, and the second mistake is to try to act in unity which is just more separate action and nothing at all like a collective consciousness. So the claim by many spiritual teachers that the ego needs to die is correct (even in religion such as Jesus saying that we need to deny ourselves). Because as long as we act from the personal stage it's always based on the false foundation of a separate self.

Here I found another interesting video (from my self-biased perspective ). I think the scenario where money is no longer needed will happen relatively soon historically speaking due to accelerating technological progress, but my guess is that it will still take two decades before it happens.

Hmm... The presenter in this video pointed out a problem with universal basic income (UBI). A UBI will just keep the failing capitalist system going for a bit longer. That's a valid point. And automation in a capitalist system will make the wealth inequality much worse than it already is. The Chinese capitalist model is scary, because it's Orwellian with massive control and surveillance systems. The Chinese model however may be able to deal with automation since the government can control companies and still allow fierce market competition to make good products and services and to keep the prices down. What may happen I speculate is a Hegelian dialectic scenario where western capitalism is the 1) thesis, the Chinese model the 2) antithesis, and the solution emerging out of both is the 3) synthesis.

I need to stop posting in this journal. Because even if what I post about a collective consciousness is correct, it might be detrimental to write about it since it could easily become a conceptual personal stage trap.

A collective consciousness is that achieved through interacting more with people? No! Because that's social interactions at the personal stage. It doesn't matter how socially active a person is if he or she remains at the personal stage of development. A collective consciousness is an entirely new level of being. There will not be interaction with other people in the usual sense. It will be interacting as one being! It's like comparing the experience of a single cell to the experience of a human being. The single cell doesn't have the same perspective that the whole human being has.

Hmm... Integral nonduality is too limited! Because I use the term transpersonal to mean a collective consciousness. So it's truly beyond personal consciousness. Integral nonduality can include that too, but it doesn't imply that, so integral nonduality generally still means only a personal consciousness even if it's a spiritually enlightened state. And who knows, spiritual teachers may be describing a collective consciousness too, such as J. Krishnamurti talking about "thinking together", but they usually keep silent about it because if they give us spiritual concepts about it the risk is that we remain trapped in personal consciousness and get stuck on the level of concepts. There are many traps in nonduality so one has to be careful. Leo talks about that in this video:

Then what about Trump's ban of Huawei and other Chinese companies, preventing them from using U.S. manufacturing equipment? I think it just gave China an excuse to cut their dependencies with the U.S. and at the same time save face. So I believe Trump indirectly helped China! I watched a video (I don't have the link) where Chinese experts discussed how they needed to secure microchip development, including CPUs, and China has been aware of the dangers of dependency on other countries for many years, maybe even for decades. So for example NVIDIA buying Arm, is likely a scenario that China already has prepared for in their long term plan. Evidence for this would for example be that Huawei and/or other Chinese companies start using their own CPU architecture(s) instead of ARM or X86 (Intel) already in 2021 or 2022.

For example Amazon is just a box mover and China could easily construct JD facilities around the world and outcompete Amazing within months. Definitely the same thing with Apple, and maybe even Google could be surpassed by Huawei. One huge blunder the western tech companies have done is to outsource hardware manufacturing to the east. Today most western semiconductor companies are fabless, meaning they lack the capacity to manufacture their own microchips. And one expert said that large microchip manufacturing facilities are needed for successful future research and development of microchips. Being an armchair microchip developer like Apple and even Qualcomm won't cut it. What is needed is what the Chinese manufacturer SMIC is doing with its N+1 and N+2 processes. And those who believe that China is behind the west in terms of technology have been fooled I suspect. China has spent over trillion dollars on microchip research and development. And it's likely that they wait with playing their strongest cards, while the western tech companies can't afford to do that and have to play their best cards immediately. And one Chinese politician called Taiwan a province, lol, which is probably true, so I expect that China already controls for instance TSMC.

China's hybrid system of communism and capitalism is very successful, but it's also Orwellian. For example I think that China's social credit score system is awful, but I heard that they need that in order to deal with problems in society. So it may be that it's only awful from a western society perspective. Even the alleged human rights violations in China I suspect may just be a smokescreen to fool the western powers, in a kind of reverse psychology psyop way. So I'm optimistic about the Chinese progress. And I expect to see excellent products and services from China in the coming years. China has been "harvesting" western technology and now their industry is capable of operating on its own, and will soon far exceed the western tech industries I believe.

If capitalism has caused such a disastrous wealth inequality, then how can I claim that capitalism has been useful? My view is that capitalism has resulted in great progress on the material level and also lots of creativity and unique developments produced through capitalism. Excellent products and services. Communism would have been a disaster, producing a bleak society with crappy products and lack of progress. And communism is a form of oppression by a centralized politburo that stifles invention by demanding clunky 10 year plans to be implemented in a mechanical and inflexible manner. Capitalism at least provides more freedom. My claim is that capitalism has been useful but that it will be detrimental in the future if it continues to dominate. And I actually believe that capitalism will start to weaken as a natural consequence of evolution. The Law of Accelerating Returns shows that evolution is a process for how all of reality progresses and not just for biology but also for technology and for our entire civilization.

I now realize that Bill Gates' robot tax idea is bad. Because the imbalance of capitalism is still there. And unhinged automation leads to capitalism on steroids and with the wealth distribution in the world getting even more grotesque and insane, and with Bill Gates and his billionaire buddies on Wall Street getting richer than ever. Not good. No matter how large the robot tax is it can't reach and go beyond 100% because then capitalism is pointless, so the imbalance of more profit to companies than to the workers will remain. And with the 'workers' becoming robots and artificial intelligence the divide between those who own the production and those who don't will increase to absurd levels with a capitalist system.

In this new video Shunymurti explains what I believe is the root problem of the crystallized ego. The perspective at the personal stage is that the ego is a separate being. In reality there is only one being which is all of reality as a wholeness. So there is a fundamental error in the crystallized ego, which is necessary for developing individuality and a personal self, but we need to move out of the separate self and into the transpersonal stage, or the error will continue and become an obstacle instead of a tool for development.

Aha! I have been thinking of Marxism as Communism and have largely igored looking into it. Now I watched this short video and there is a good point presented which explains the enormous difference in wealth distribution (one of the 'horse manure' side effects of capitalism I mentioned earlier). When a worker produces a product for a company, the worker receives less of the value than the company receives. So there is an inherent and systemic imbalance built into the capitalist system. The Communist revolution mentioned in the video I think is horrible though. And one expert said that Marxism becomes useful in combination with automation, which is a more peaceful approach forward. Communism is I think even worse than capitalism, such as caricatured in George Orwell's book Animal Farm.