'Observation' Articles
Everything has as part of its existence both its substance (essence) and its opposite. When thinking of my own being, I must also reflect on my non being. In that you can see the essence. Perhaps a more solid example. If I am thinking of me, there is this me and there is the world which is not me. But I exist in the world, partaking of space and energy and matter. Thus, how one can be who they are and the world at the same time.
What is consciousness or awareness that it can die? And if there is no reality without observation then why isn’t reality all patchy? Maybe there is no absence of observation. We can observe without seeing.
“People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument” Will Rogers
“This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer” Franz Kafka (German Writer of visionary fiction, 1883-1924)
Observation as a Keystone
Observation is really a keystone of spirituality, as well as science. The capability we call observation runs deeper than the sense. As a matter of fact, there are whole scientific and military disciplines focused on “training” observation even though our senses work. The eastern teachings pointed out that senses are distracting and meditation is, in a way, a systematic form of observation, but it is often overlaid with the religious doctrine of whatever creed is teaching it. What is observed while doing observation? What is observed is not so easily answered as people think it is. They look and say… Seek More
Mind and Ego
The language gets sketchy. Is mind thinking? Isn’t thinking just an action? Awareness goes beyond thinking. The mind as we know it comes after, not before. It’s automatic and it’s why people get so tripped up. They are told to control your mind. Free yourself from your mind. Like somehow you can lobotomize yourself and achieve enlightenment. It doesn’t work that way. But the confusion is not that you have a mind or even how that mind works. It’s the idea that you are your mind. It’s every bit as strange as the idea that you are your body. Thinking… Seek More
Direction and Thought
Now here is something interesting. Some people might think of total awareness and ask what about direction? What about purpose? Lots of people stumble over things like the law of attraction because in the popular material something is missing. Can’t be helped, it is the nature of the media. But tell me, can anyone interact with what they fail to observe? If you don’t notice me coming up behind you, I am not real to you until I interact with you. I am real perhaps in a universal sense, but that raises other questions. Who says consciousness is limited to… Seek More
Infinite and Individual
When everyone is infinite, then who is different? Why does difference even matter? Do you believe you are limited? I am not criticising individuality. I am not deriding the core that allows the infinite to differentiate. When I say namaste I mean it. So when everyone is infinite who is different? We are all individual and infinite. When you say one thing makes you different, do you believe that one thing is not found elsewhere? Individual history makes us different and links us as well. It is a grand web of endlessly echoing karma. I am not threatening anyone, or… Seek More
Place of Humanity
The topic is an issue that comes up a lot, but is rarely given any formal answer for. Roughly, I will address the place of humanity in the universe. It can be argued that in order for man to arise (male and female), the universe itself had to satisfy rather unusual parameters. With all the factors that play into the presence of life or its absence, for some the idea that sentient life arose at all by whatever means is an outrageous freak occurrence. I would argue that there is no logical reason to believe this. It could be said… Seek More
Brain, Mind and Experience
Can we say that ‘mind’ is just another word for ‘brain‘? I would debate that myself. I would say mind would be more akin to the morphogenetic field, and the body including the brain more of a mechanism and memory storage device. This is perhaps why the mind-body connection seems so mysterious. If you must anchor it to organic function then it is perhaps a hyper function, because most try to see it in the organic function as a product of the quantum mechanism that lets humans exist anyway. How can I subscribe to a Cartesian view of the world,… Seek More
Attention and Intention
When you share an experience in any way, there is a need to reproduce the picture or data as presented by another. How is that possible without principles governing thought? How is it we experience anything to share with another, the observer, the part that not only says I am, but also I see? The object and the subject cannot be separated. We cannot share experience, but we do share the idea of it. Two people can sit and eat a meal, and arrive at the same conclusions regarding the meal. The consensus reality is transmitted and quite effectively. They… Seek More
