Impulse, Intuition, and Discipline

It is useful to think of the experience of being as a hydraulic process. The fluid in the hydraulics of being is awareness, and the central issue is "is the fluid aware, or is it not". In the more primitive organisms impulse rules the flow of awareness. Intuition requires an associative awareness function. A fly intuits the jeopardy of a coming swat and impulse does the rest. Discipline is that situation where awareness is capable of resisting the flow of impulse and intuition in order to perform some self imposed behavior.

The supreme value of meditation is the potential of meditation to awaken awareness from the darkness of animal fascination. Animal fascinations do not lose their efficacy when the fluid of awareness becomes self aware: on the contrary; the simple pleasures of animal fascinations are the foundation of art and science. Intuition, on the other hand, is remarkably quickened in the awakened awareness. The awareness that is not identified with its path it is more sensitive to the gravitas of its flow, and therefore awake in the moment of intuited perception. Discipline is negative or positive according to its ability to better the life of the disciplined. Neurosis is an example of the mis-application of discipline.

The what that is the who of what we are is simple awareness. All of the problems of the world are at this point directly related to the categories of awareness at flow in humanity. The only thing that can save the world from the unleashed libido of the human race is enlightenment, and meditation is the discipline capable of redirecting the flow of human awareness.

Suicide

This is a note to all those contemplating suicide. Amongst the Eskimos of old those who had become old and in the way would on some storm driven night just walk off into the snow. If you are young and contemplating suicide you have a great gift to give to the world. Obviously your world has become a burden: it seems to you that there is nothing to live for and it makes a certain kind of sense to just put an end to it all. If you have come to that point of futility in self effort then you are the perfect candidate to help make the world a better place. Your very loss of self interest means that you are in a position to devote yourself to helping those who can not help themselves. You have lost what you think you have to lose so why not do what you can for those for whom a little help is a lot. It cost you nothing (except the burden of existence), and the weight of the good you can do significantly out weighs the weight of self destruction.

Your loss of hope can make of you an emissary of hope for others by the very fact that you have nothing to lose and yourself to give.

Give it some thought.

Awareness, Thought, Instinct, Brain

Any successful meditator will discover for themselves that we are not our thoughts. Well then, what is the the who to whom thoughts occur. It appears to me that the awareness which possesses the imprimatur of "I" is a field phenomenon: probably one made inevitable by the behavior of electrons in the outer electron shields of complex molecules. I haven't heard a more convincing or logical theory, so mine will do as well as any I've encountered.

It is known that electrically stimulating specific sites in the brain will excite specific categories of experience. The fact that with practice we can control our thoughts is an indication that awareness navigates the brain and draws electrical attention to the patterns of configuration that will produce the desired thought.

Instinct must project into experience if it is to effect behavior, and instinct is woven into the physical structure of the brain. If we imagine the brain as a vast interconnected waterway with flow patterns and tides, we will detect preexisting canals and rivers that direct the flow of electrical activity. This is instinct.

Awareness is all, and everything else is fluff. The good that brings happiness is like a chess game between awareness and instinct. A game in which the supreme outcome is win-win.

There are many meditation forms with variously described efficacy. I suggest "The Contemplation of the Void". The contemplation of the void is the contemplation of awareness, and can result in what one might call "The Awakening of the Intelligence". When the field phenomenon known as "awareness" becomes self aware, a little bit of the universe has met its maker.