Transpersonal Journal

[Anderz]

J. Krishnamurti said that choice is confusion, but he also said that practical choices out of preference are necessary. I have doubts about that! Because even a choice between having a beer or an apple, which was an example he gave, that's also a choice!

Giving up choice might seem like a horrible strategy, but that's because at the personal stage of development there is the belief in being a separate self. Without a separate self choice is recognized as an illusion, since choice depends on a separate chooser. And the fear of becoming an automatic mechanical robot without choice is also dependent on the illusionary separate self.

So the transpersonal stage is about another state of consciousness where choice becomes redundant and recognized as an illusion leading to more freedom, not less. There is still a sense of an individual self in the transpersonal stage, but not a separate one. I will experiment with the idea that choice is actually impossible. And I actually believe that, but it's not my practical experience yet.

[Anderz]

I now got a new insight about how the belief in the absence of choice leading to feeling like a mechanical robot is based on the belief in mechanical cause and effect from past to future.

Actual cause and effect is nondual! So reality can produce emergent phenomena and leaps into higher order of complexity than in the past, caused by reality as a whole and not a result from only the past.

[Anderz]

Another insight I got is what nonduality teacher Roger Castillo recommended which is to do whatever we feel like in each moment. This can be put in the context of personal developmental stages!

At the personal stage there is the belief in being a separate doer. Roger says that there isn't any separate doer. And that's consistent with the transpersonal stage. And to do whatever we feel like can from the personal perspective easily be interpreted as impulsive and reckless action. That's a pre-trans fallacy. Because conflict is a result of the belief in being a separate entity. And in the transpersonal stage that belief is transcended so to do what one feels like then becomes harmonious action.

AND, another very interesting observation is that doing what we feel like doing that is NOT choice, unless there is confusion. When there is confusion the mind starts to think and compare several options, so the direct action is lost, the flow is lost, the feelings are distrusted and we become trapped in the personal stage.

And it's necessary at the personal stage to think and compare different choices, because otherwise it's a regression into the impulsive ego stage which is an even lower stage of development. That's the pre-conceptual stage. The trans-conceptual stage is doing what we feel like without confusion and without conflict.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Hmm... Now it became tricky for me. I really don't feel like doing a dry fast, so if I follow Roger Castillo's advice to do what I feel like, I prefer to stuff myself with food and drinks instead of doing a fast, haha.

So my situation suddenly became really confusing. Should I do a fast or not? I will try the approach of start fasting if I feel like it, which seems unlikely to happen, but who knows.

[Anderz]

Confusion is a result of the belief in being a separate self. So when practicing the nondual technique of doing what one feels like in each moment, when there is confusion that's a feeling, but it's a feeling of not knowing what to do.

The transpersonal practice then becomes a technique that recognizes the confusion as a feeling and instead of letting the confusion turn into uncertainty in the thinking mind and a whole chain of thoughts about what to do, the confusion is allowed to remain without acting on it.

Allowing the confusion is the same as putting a break on the separate self, for it is fueled by confusion. And the confusion will dissolve along with the crystallized ego, just like how a fire ends when there isn't any fuel left to burn.

[Anderz]

I like how Leo questions everything and there may even be truth to his more extreme claims such as in this video. If reality is one whole interconnected mind, then things like those Leo experienced are possible I think.

 

[Anderz]

Shouldn't I first develop my personal stage fully before exploring the transpersonal stage? No, I believe that the shift into the transpersonal stage can be done even without being fully developed at the personal stage, such as second tier in Spiral Dynamics or something like that.

The reason for why I believe that is that the transpersonal stage is a different kind of cognitive consciousness. And the criteria is I believe that there needs to be enough personal development only in a certain area. Loosely speaking, one needs to first become sick and tired of the personal stage, haha.

[Anderz]

I want to log this to remind myself of the doing nothing technique. It's a very useful method when I have worry or feel burdened by dealing with the future. The main problem is that I often forget to do the practice! And then my mind is trapped in the crystallized ego.

The way I do the practice is to just allow myself to enter an automatic mode where I don't need to use my thinking. It's basically ordinary mindfulness practice of just observing one's own mind and emotions. The reason for why I often forget about the technique is probably because my mind is still unclear about the difference between suppression of thoughts and transpersonal development.

Leo has this video about a doing nothing technique. I use the technique in everyday life instead of as a dedicated meditation practice but I will take a look again at Leo's video about it.

 

[Anderz]

Ha! I just realized that doing nothing is the correct perspective! Because obviously the personal self is only a concept. And a concept can't do anything so the ordinary state of consciousness at the personal stage is actually a delusion. And of course spiritual teachers have pointed this out already, again and again, but there is a difference between knowing it intellectually and actually getting a grasp of that absence of a separate self really is the correct perspective of life.

I (the delusional part of me that's the crystallized ego) have to realize that I'm in a delusionary state of consciousness. Simple in theory. What makes it enormously difficult in practice is that essentially the whole world is still in the delusional crystallized ego stage! So virtually everything we experience in society constantly confirms and reinforces the delusional ego state.

[Anderz]

How to do the doing nothing practice in ordinary everyday life? And what if doing nothing is the delusional state? What if the spiritual teachers themselves are deluded?

I have a simple approach for that. Yes, it may be that the doing nothing technique is delusional. I can't prove it false or true. However, I can test the idea of the transpersonal stage! It's like testing a scientific hypothesis. My personal stage needs to do nothing for the transpersonal stage to emerge.

But how to do nothing without doing anything? It sounds confusing. My solution is that I actually do something! Namely I am testing the idea and therefore I am deliberately just observing myself, similar to how Leo described it but in everyday life. Even now as I write this post!

[Anderz]

Leo said that the mind can run wild during the doing nothing meditation. That's an important point, and it actually shows what the criteria for entering the transpersonal stage is. Because practicing the technique in everyday life means actually moving around the body and performing real actions, even interacting with people.

In the meditation technique Leo described the body is kept still in a sitting meditation position. And then it's safe for the mind to run amok and think of all kinds of crazy scenarios. But imagine what would happen if those erratic thoughts were controlling our actions in everyday life. Total chaos! Even very dangerous. So that shows that the personal stage of development has to be developed into a harmonious enough level, even subconsciously, for the practice to safely work in everyday life situations.

[Anderz]

Something that can be helpful in the doing nothing practice is that the transpersonal stage is free from conflict and is a harmonious state. So the wild thoughts that can come up during meditation, those are of the personal stage.

And this realization helps the mind being guided when practicing the technique in everyday life situations. For example getting angry at someone, that's the personal stage of development. The same with fear and other forms of suffering. That's indication of disharmony, friction, conflict which are signs of the personal stage caused by the belief in separation.

[Anderz]

Nonduality teacher Roger Castillo and other spiritual teachers have said that anger can arise as a biological reaction even in the enlightened state. Then how can I claim that anger is a sign of the personal stage of development and that the transpersonal stage is free from anger? Because as I discovered and mentioned earlier there is a difference between spiritual enlightenment and the transpersonal stage.

As Ken Wilber has pointed out, there can be spiritual enlightenment at different levels of personal development. So when anger arises and a biological reaction, then that's because the person is at the personal stage of development, even when enlightened. At the transpersonal stage anger is only an additional expression, not something fundamental to the stage. So expressions of anger can appear even at the transpersonal stage, not as an instinctual biological reaction since there is harmony but as reactions to particular situations for impersonal reasons.

[Anderz]

For example the very prominent spiritual guru Nisargadatta Maharaj was often angry. Does that mean that he was at the personal stage of development? It's hard to tell! Because it could be that his anger was a necessary teaching tool.

Nisargadatta also died of cancer. Isn't the cancer related to the anger? And therefore a sign of him being at the personal stage of development? Maybe, but even that is hard to tell. The Law of One talks about Wanderers who are advanced beings born as humans. And even the Bible talks about the Nephilim, sons (and also daughters I assume) of God who were (and still are) born as humans. So there can people who look like ordinary humans at the personal stage of development but who are advanced beings, angels basically.

Quote

"Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." - Hebrews 13:2

 

[Anderz]

Anger management, that's mild and easy stuff compared to: fear management! Imagine living forever in a state of ever increasing pain. Talk about fearful situation.

Fortunately fear management is also easy. Because fear is conceptual. Fear is about the future as a concept in the now. The feeling of fear is a direct feeling in the now but what causes the fear is a misperception. Because a concept is harmless and empty in itself.

So fear management becomes a recognition of the cause of fear which is the belief that concepts can be harmful. Realizing that concepts are harmless removes the fear. The personal stage however consists of a huge heap of memories based on fear so there's a lot of concepts to process.

Fear, then, as experienced as being serious is only possible in the personal stage of development which has conceptual perception. The transpersonal stage has trans-conceptual perception which means that the whole false foundation of fear has collapsed. 

[Anderz]

Aaron Abke has this new video with what I think of as a transpersonal perspective of meditation:

 

[Anderz]

Oh! Nations are the personal stage of development on a larger scale. I have written about the following Bible quote in other threads but now it became even more obvious to me:

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"To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father." - Revelation 2:26-27

The victorious "one" here is not a single person like a dictator or a king which would be the personal stage of development. Instead "the one" is the Body of Christ, humanity in a transpersonal stage. Some Christians say that the Body of Christ means the churchgoers, and that's a form of unity but it's still the personal stage of development. The true Body of Christ is everybody in the transpersonal stage regardless of religious beliefs or lack thereof.

And "the one" smashing the nations to pieces means that even the personal structure of nations will be transcended. In practice I think it first will manifest as the world becoming more global and due to accelerating evolution already in say the year 2030 the world will have become significantly more global. And maybe around 2040 the role of the nations will have lessened a lot.

[Anderz]

I have now changed my practice from doing nothing as I described earlier to simply being aware of the difference between the personal stage and the transpersonal stage within myself.

Every time I have worry or fear, that's the personal stage of development. Even anger, irritation, being annoyed or frustrated, that's also the personal stage. And even desires are the personal stage (see the four noble truths in Buddhism) because desire causes conflict due to being born out of discontent as a separate individual.

It's more difficult to identify the transpersonal stage for me since I'm still at the personal stage of development, but I put things like inner peace, harmony with others, flow state and clarity of perception and lessening of conceptual thinking into the transpersonal category.

[Anderz]

This recent article seems to contradict my claim that we are moving towards more globalization (towards a transpersonal stage) and less national power (the current personal stage):

Quote

"TikTok, WeChat and Huawei Technologies Co. are just the beginning. What comes next has the potential to reshape the global economy for decades to come.

President Donald Trump’s moves to prevent some of China’s biggest companies from accessing the private data of Americans -- restrictions set to take effect this month -- are part of a broader effort to create “clean networks” the Communist Party can’t touch. ...

“All of this is fundamentally an attack on the internet itself,” said Andrew Sullivan, president of the Internet Society, which advocates for open networks across the world. “This is an attempt to destroy the entire economy that has grown up around networked applications.”" - Bloomberg, Sep 9, 2020

And indeed there is a clear trend at the moment towards a U.S. - China divide. But I think the article underestimates the exponential (accelerating) power of information technology (and even for evolution as a whole). So a divide like that shaping the economy for decades is unlikely I believe. Instead the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and China can be seen as the last Hegelian dialectic process among nations.

Quote

"Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a threefold manner, was stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus[27] as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction; an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis." - Wikipedia

And the dialectic in this case is the U.S. as the thesis, China as the antithesis and the synthesis will be a global resolution of some kind. I'm following the Chinese tech giant Huawei's conference that started yesterday. Very exciting stuff! Huawei's technology has a huge potential because it integrates all kinds of things in society. However, the U.S. will likely continue to refuse using Huawei technologies so I'm curious about what will happen and how a unified global cooperation can be achieved or if the divide will continue for years to come.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Now even Russell Brand is talking about transpersonal development:

I like Russell's approach which gives a new perspective. And he isn't even a spiritual teacher!