ACIM Journal

[Anderz]

Can't fasting be replaced by mindfulness practice, or even with intellectual understanding? In theory I believe yes, but in practice the biology of the body has billions of years of conditioning. That's hardly something that can be budged much with positive thinking or even with mindfulness. Doing all the lessons in A Course in Miracles for a year probably can make significant changes, even on the epigenetics, and have a profound effect on the level of consciousness. However to go all the way into changing the entire body will be done faster with things like fasting I think.

So that's why I go beyond only focusing on ACIM.  I will take a look at this video where one expert related to this is interviewed:

 

[Anderz]

How many days of alternate day dry fasting are needed to make significant biohacking changes? I had no clue myself about that, but I found this new scientific study:

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"Intermittent fasting from dawn to sunset for 30 consecutive days is associated with anticancer proteomic signature and upregulates key regulatory proteins of glucose and lipid metabolism, circadian clock, DNA repair, cytoskeleton remodeling, immune system and cognitive function in healthy subjects" - Journal of Proteomics, Volume 217, 15 April 2020 (brand new, not even officially published yet!)

From the article: "Fourteen healthy subjects fasted from dawn to sunset for over 14 h daily. Fasting duration was 30 consecutive days."

I believe my method is faster, but I probably need to continue with my fast during the whole of April to really make significant epigenetic changes. That sounds a bit challenging to me, and I don't want to use too much self-discipline if my fast leads to increased suffering. My body already feels better and my mind clearer, so I will aim for at least a few more fasting days.

Someone said (I have no scientific source yet) that in water fasting the fat cells reduce in size while in dry fasting the whole fat cells are consumed! And this older study shows that damaged cells (both fat cells and also other types of cells I assume) are consumed first while healthy cells are preserved:

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"Furthermore, once their DNA became damaged, cells were more likely to undergo programmed cell death (Guevara-Aguirre et al., 2011)." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

One expert said that cells in the body recycle proteins and that proteins from food is only the smaller part of the proteins needed for maintenance of the body. That made me think that authopagy is going on in the cells even when we eat food all the time. And I found this scientific paper:

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"Autophagy occurs at low levels under normal conditions, but is upregulated in response to stress such as nutrient deprivation, hypoxia, mitochondrial dysfunction, and infection. Upregulation of autophagy may be beneficial to the cell by recycling of proteins to generate free amino acids and fatty acids needed to maintain energy production, by removing damaged organelles, and by preventing accumulation of protein aggragates. In contrast, there is evidence that enhanced autophagy can contribute to cell death, possibly through excessive self-digestion." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2423346/

The "possibly through excessive self-digestion" may have another explanation I hypothesize. I imagine a scenario where the body sends out a hormone or similar to signal to the cells for programmed cell death (apoptosis). And the body is intelligent so it makes damaged and dysfunctional cells to be consumed first. This can be achieved by the cells sending out exosomes about their current health condition, let's say a value of 0 to 100%. And then the cells receive those exosomes from each other. And the hormone indicates a base level, e.g. 80% health (depending on how much recycling of cells is needed). If a cell has a health value of 80% or higher it doesn't send out health-indicator exosomes and the received exosomes are ignored. When a cell has a health value lower than 80% it compares its own value to the value indicated by the received exosome. And if the cell's own value is lower than in the exosome, then it activates programmed cell death. In this way the least healthy cells are consumed first. And when enough cells have been recycled the body sends out another hormone that stops the process of apoptosis.

And my idea is that when we eat all the time the body never enters the state of recycling cells which makes damaged and dysfunctional cells remain and over time clog up the functioning of the body. Autophagy alone may be insufficient for renewing biological tissue since crappy cells can probably in most cases still perform autophagy.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Now I found something called resting metabolic rate:

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"Resting metabolic rate is the total number of calories burned when your body is completely at rest." - blog.nasm.org

Dr. Stephen Phinney said from 7 minutes into this video that a study of people fasting showed that 5 years after the fasting the resting metabolism was still low even though they had gained weight again. That is PERMANENT metabolic DAMAGE, he said.

So is fasting bad? In my case this is GOOD! Why? Because PERMANENT change means epigenetic programming and things like that. And in my case the resting metabolic rate is HIGH. Because first of all it's only 33 hours fasting at a time (look at the high value in beginning of the graph above) and during the feast day I can eat a lot. Eating too little during a long period also reduces the metabolic rate another expert, Valter Longo, said if I remember it correctly.

Edit: Many people in the comment section for this video said correctly, that the graph is for calorie restriction, not for fasting, although long periods of fasting can lower the metabolism:

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"It's well established that very long periods without food can cause a drop in metabolism.

However, studies have shown that fasting for short periods can actually increase your metabolism, not slow it down.

Intermittent fasting ... Interestingly, this approach to eating may also benefit your metabolism and metabolic health.

One study in 11 healthy men found that a 3-day fast actually increased their metabolism by an impressive 14%.

This increase is thought to be due to the rise in the hormone norepinephrine, which promotes fat burning." - healthline.com (scientific sources from PubMed Central)

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Darn! Now I've got the keto feeling.  That's the slight toxic feeling I get with longer fasts. I was hoping that the 33 hours periods would be free from that. But maybe it's good! That ketosis kicks in faster after a while so that the effect is stronger now. I really want to continue for the whole of April to make that permanent changes I posted about earlier. It could be that the toxic feeling is due to detox because I haven't prepared beforehand with healthy diet etc. I just started cold turkey from from a fairly unhealthy diet. Not recommended, but I have done dry fasts before so my body and mind were somewhat prepared. Experts say that medical supervision is necessary for dry fasting and that could be true for people who haven't done it before. Might be dangerous! And also, the psychological habit, the usual addiction to food can be really challenging when fasting.

[Anderz]

I find inner body awareness practice easier now than in the beginning of my fasting days. And I discovered a new practice. Instead of thinking of the heart as a pump I used the new insight I wrote about that the heart is not a pump. So what happens in reality is that blood is pushed into the heart and at each heart beat the blood is sent out again with a vortex motion at the same rate.

The inner body awareness practice I used was to feel how the blood flowed IN to the heart and through the heart, instead of feeling the heart as a pump. And there is an increase of nice energy felt when I do the practice! So something changed in how my heart feels.

Another thing is that the blood is sucked from the capillary beds into the veins. I think it's a capillary action like in trees that causes the blood to be sucked up from the low pressure environment of the capillaries. So another practice I will experiment with is to feel how blood is sucked up from the cells back into the heart within the whole body. And a third practice is to feel how blood is pushed into the cellular environment by arteries.

[Anderz]

How is fasting related to spirituality? The first thing is that fasting is practiced in lots of religions and has been for thousands of years. I haven't looked into that much but I came to think of a nondual connection for the whole body and mind with what is called subtle energy. My idea has been for a while that subtle energy is the same as zero point energy, the vacuum energy of "empty space" which is the same as prana, chi and orgone energy etc. Now I discovered that Shunyamurti says the same thing!

Another idea I have is that all forces in nature, including gravity, are simply pressure differences (gradients) in the vacuum energy. This means that fasting and inner body awareness are examples of methods of managing the vacuum energy. Ken Wheeler who presents alternative science sometimes has said that same thing basically, that nature is about pressure differences, something like that. I find it hard to grasp his teachings sometimes but the part about pressure seems very similar to my idea. Here is Ken's most recent video:

 

[Anderz]

If vacuum energy is the foundation of physical reality, then what is vacuum energy? One possibility is that the vacuum energy is only waves. Then what are those waves made of? In my model those waves are made of finite information. And what is the information made of? My premise is that the information is a result of a simple undirected complete graph of differences.

Manifested reality starts with a single difference which results in the initial graph which consists of two points (vertices) connected by a line (edge). And the initial graph results in a new graph because there are two new differences between the points and the line. And the second graph results in new differences forming a third graph and so on until infinity.

No matter how large the graph becomes it has a beginning in the initial difference, so the graph when illustrated as in the picture above has a top and a bottom. And the information for the manifested reality can be achieved by simply picking one point in the infinite graph! Because that point in relation to the initial difference can be seen as a natural number which in turn can be represented as a finite binary string.

Consciousness in my model is a result of a feedback loop between the manifested and the unmanifested reality, so interestingly enough consciousness is in my model not the foundation of reality. The foundation of reality is the simple undirected complete graph of differences. Consciousness however is connected to the unmanifested reality which is the one difference with infinite expansion. So consciousness has the properties of oneness and infinity. Manifested reality is always finite (no matter how much the graph expands it will always be finite in the same way that all natural numbers are finite).

Rupert Sheldrake has a new video where he interviews Rupert Spira. They talk about consciousness as the foundation of reality:

 

[Anderz]

If reality is information connected into oneness, then where is the randomness? Where is the disorder, also called entropy? The answer is that entropy is just hidden information. And in ego consciousness a lot of the information is hidden which causes confusion and seeming disorder. Anna says in her new video that the ego can't handle perfection. That sounds very similar to the ego failing to recognize the perfect oneness of reality.

 

[Anderz]

I found this new video by Ester Hicks channeling Abraham. I haven't listened to Abraham much in the past so I'm curious about what this new channeling is about. Abraham is a collective consciousness just like Ra in the Law of One.

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"According to Esther and Jerry Hicks, "Abraham" consists of a group of entities that are "interpreted" by Esther Hicks. Abraham has described themselves as "a group consciousness from the non-physical dimension". They have also said, "We are that which you are. You are the leading edge of that which we are. We are that which is at the heart of all religions." Abraham has said through Esther that, whenever one feels moments of great love, exhilaration, or pure joy, that is the energy of source and that is who Abraham is." - Wikipedia

 

[Anderz]

Abraham talked about different kinds of collective consciousness including global consciousness. I came up with an idea of how to develop a global consciousness. Instead of approaching it with ego consciousness my idea is to let the global consciousness emerge within unity consciousness which is connected to everything and therefore includes everything including an emergent global consciousness.

How to access unity consciousness? Roger Castillo had a great explanation for how our thinking is an overlay on top of oneness which is unity consciousness. What we do in ego consciousness is to only focus on the overlay. And the oneness, the unity consciousness, is already accessible by noticing awareness itself. Consciousness IS already unity consciousness and even though it's seemingly hidden by our ego we can tap into unity consciousness by noticing our own awareness.

And from that state of awareness thoughts, emotions and sense perceptions are perceived. And although we cannot yet in ego consciousness perceive any global consciousness, by allowing new perceptions to flow in it can modify our experiences. And then what we need to do is to allow new experiences coming into our field of awareness instead of through our ego actions.

[Anderz]

Leo wrote on his blog:

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"Most of the hotels on the Strip have gone dark, but they left a few rooms lit up in the shape of hearts.

Could the sign be any more obvious that this virus is not some mindless evil or pesky inconvenience, but a nudge towards our evolution to higher consciousness?" - https://www.actualized.org/insights/covid-love

I love that! And I believe that the coronavirus crisis has something to do with a shift into a higher level of global consciousness. I even speculated earlier that it's the global ego in the form of a caterpillar having grown enough and is now starting to form a cocoon.

[Anderz]

Okay, now it has gone too far. Check out this stupidity:

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"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders all people to wear face coverings in public" - CNBC, Apr 15, 2020

Viruses don't even exist! It's a Big Lie hoax. Pictures of so-called viruses are exosomes. This is getting ridiculous. The establishment has painted itself into a corner of lies. Good luck with that.

[Anderz]

One interesting possibility, although I believe the chance of it happening is slim, is that the white hats have allowed the corrupt powers to go too far with the coronavirus scare in order to make it blow up in their face. And the result being a disclosure of a lot of lies, manipulations and hoaxes. I doubt it will happen since it sounds too disruptive to me, even in the situation we are in now. But if it happens it's a great catalyst for a monumental cleaning up and correction of the authorities. It's like a dad telling his daughter that Santa Claus is a big effin' hoax, haha. The problem is, the general public is probably too immature for a revelation like that.

[Anderz]

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"Coronavirus: Trump says peak is passed and US to reopen soon" - BBC, 16 Apr, 2020

I hope that's true. The coronavirus scare is about to get out of hand it seems to me. Governments need to tone down the situation. There is such thing as the nocebo effect and also fear makes people more vulnerable to disease.

[Anderz]

Whoa, the WHO is very tricky! Now I learned that WHO and the Chinese government initially said that the coronavirus does NOT spread between people. I have been suspicious of WHO since they have been pushing vaccines which I believe is a hoax. BUT the WHO could actually be controlled by white hats, good guys who are tricking the corrupt powers.

The global ego is built on deception. Compare it to regular people manipulating each other. People deep in ego consciousness can be very clever when it comes to manipulation and deception. Now take that skill and magnify it to deep state power with thousands of years of experience and knowledge of manipulation and deception. It's unbelievable levels or trickery.

Trump stopped funding the WHO. Was that the right decision? On the surface I think no, but looking deeper then yes! Trump did the correct thing I think. Trump has said "I love China" and I believe he means it. Trump is a white hat, the WHO is run by white hats and China is run by white hats. They are playing 4D chess with the corrupt powers.

[Anderz]

With all the manipulation and disinfo, then what about my own speculations, do they contain disinfo? No, because my theory is that the top power structure globally is run by white hats, and some white hats can play roles of black hats, and although I may have suspicions about such cases I mostly keep quiet about that because as Q said, something about not revealing too much information. So my info is honest, and also amateurish, so I'm free from manipulation in that sense.

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"INFORMATION WARFARE.
Q" - Q post 3958

Manipulation leads to lies and lies need to be protected by additional lies and so on in a vicious cycle. So manipulation is a stupid strategy in my opinion. The white hats however do need to use manipulation, a LOT of manipulation and deception. Because they need to outmaneuver the corrupt powers plus they need to disclose the truth carefully in a way that society can handle.

[Anderz]

It's another fasting day for me today. Only slight hunger and thirst. So that's fine, except there is another problem: food addiction! It's my habit of having something to eat or drink. And I have at least some experience with fasting. I don't know yet how to handle that except to try mindfulness practice. Someone suggested distractions. That can be useful to some extent I guess. To distract oneself with researching things on the internet might be useful to a point until that too becomes an addiction. Tricky.

[Anderz]

I now found something called the Financial Stability Board (FSB):

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"The FSB was established in April 2009 as the successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF). At the Pittsburgh Summit, the Heads of State and Government of the G20 endorsed the FSB’s original Charter of 25 September 2009 which set out the FSB’s objectives and mandate, and organisational structure. The FSB has assumed a key role in promoting the reform of international financial regulation and supervision." - fsb.org

 And the G20 Summit 2020 begins on 21 November.

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"G20: Think Tank, Ministers, Central Bankers to Talk Crypto, CBDC Policy

The G20 will once again tackle the issue of cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with an influential think tank, ministers and central bank chiefs set to embark on discussions in the weeks and months ahead." - cryptonews.com, Feb 21, 2020

It will be interesting to see if the coronavirus crisis will have catalyzed the introduction of CBDCs. The G7 summit in June is also a possible event for CBDC discussions.

[Anderz]

Someone pointed out that atoning means undoing. ACIM uses the words forgiveness and Atonement is a specific way.

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"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God’s Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God." - ACIM W-2.1

"The forgiven are the means of the Atonement. Being filled with spirit, they forgive in return. Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of the Atonement. Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with me for the salvation or release of all of God’s creations.

I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I am the Atonement. You have a role in the Atonement which I will dictate to you. Ask me which miracles you should perform. This spares you needless effort, because you will be acting under direct communication. The impersonal nature of the miracle is an essential ingredient, because it enables me to direct its application, and under my guidance miracles lead to the highly personal experience of revelation. A guide does not control but he does direct, leaving it up to you to follow. “Lead us not into temptation” means “Recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following my guidance.”" - ACIM T-1

I invented a new(?) practice called nondual mindfulness. In this practice awareness is put on the whole of one's experience as a single nondual unity. This includes thoughts, memories, sense perceptions, emotions, the physical body and the external world. The aim with the practice is to recognize, or at least test the hypothesis, that all of reality is of the same nondual wholeness. This is similar to the Atonement in ACIM in that it undoes the old ego belief in total separation between things.