BigBam

religion-philosophy

THE BIG BAM: Create your own universe

Thank you for agreeing to be a beta reader for my book. For clarity, BAM is a letter of the Sanskrit alphabet that some teachers use to refer to ‘the mind.’ This file is the first 40% of the book. Please read it with an eye to providing feedback on clarity. Can you follow the logic of it? Can you follow the instructions? Can you follow it? Once I receive your feedback, I will edit as required, and then have a grammar-spelling edit done.

Thanks again, for your feedback. Here is the text:

BIG BAM!

Chapter One Introduction

Why do we live sub-optimal lives? Because we’ve been deceived. Our teachers are teaching the children duff gen. We are almost 200 years behind the times, still teaching things that reflect the Victorian society of the 1800’s. Technology has advanced, but, the way we teach the children had not advanced. For example, we’re locked into an incorrect version of Charles Darwin’s insightful teachings on evolution. We’re lost in a hopeless misinterpretation of Isaac Newton’s brilliant laws of motion. We get confused and tangled up in holy books, even when their message is crystal clear. All this subtle misguidance has led us to a blitzkrieg of harmful beliefs that are laying waste our lives. We gotta fix this!

Question: How we gunna do that? How can we fix a broken society?

Answer: Me first: fix one mind at a time, starting with me. The idea is to re-educate our minds so they think more clearly. Then we use that clearer mind to re-think those out-dated beliefs that are ruining our lives. It’s a continuous process: we continually re-train our minds and continually use those clearer minds to re-think our harmful beliefs. From today until for ever. It’s a bit like science. Real scientists continually test their beliefs, revise their beliefs and devise experiments to test their new improved beliefs. Ours is a continuous process of training our mind. It’s working for technology and it will work for society too.

It’s all about training (re-training?) our minds. We do it through contemplative meditation.

We learn to meditate in three steps.

Step one is to quiet our mind.

Step One First we sit in our meditative posture. The body is relaxed, spine erect, chin tucked slightly in, body in balance. The idea is to calm our mind, to get our mind to slow down – almost stop. Eyes lightly closed, we allow the body to breath naturally through the nose. We turn our attention to the breath as it enters and leaves our nostrils. Focus on that slight warming sensation as we breath out and that slight cooling sensation as we breath in. Our goal is to simply experience this warming and cooling and to not be distracted from it. But neither the mind nor the world will cooperate with our endeavour. The mind will come up with all kinds of thoughts to distract us from this totally relaxing experience. We will observe the mind thinking these thoughts and will allow the thoughts to peter out and disappear. We will not follow any train of thought – just observe it and allow it to dissipate by returning our attention to the breath. The world will behave the same way: it will try to distract us from our breath. Some noise will occur. Some body part will get itchy. What’s that funny smell? Why is my stomach is gurgling? When these events occur, we simply ignore them and return our attention to the breath. Warm – cool – over and over. Warm – cool. Always returning to the breath. If we should get drowsy, just open the eyes a tiny bit. That will keep us from falling asleep. That’s the first stage, calming the mind with breath meditation. The “object” we are “meditating on” is our breath.

Step Two The second stage is contemplation. Before the meditation begins, we will read about some appropriate concept. Perhaps we have memorized some wise saying or a poem that has deep meaning. Then we calm the mind through breath meditation and simultaneously think about those wise words. We contemplate the meaning of those wise words.

This book is full of wisdom, ideas and concepts on which we can meditate. By slowly, mindfully pondering these ideas, one of two things could happen. One is, the meditator develops a strong resolve to actually practice what she/he is contemplating. The second possibility is a realization. Our contemplation might lead us to an “ah-hah! moment.”

Step Three If either of these events occurs, the meditator moves to the third stage, focusing the attention on that determination or realization, and holding it there as long as possible. When our attention wanders from the object (i.e. the determination or realization) the meditator has to find the object again. This is done by either remembering the object or by re-contemplating. In any case, the real meat of the mediation is in this final stage, holding our attention on the object for as long as possible and returning our attention to the object as often as necessary.

This book is full of ideas and concepts on which we can meditate or contemplate. I present them in a certain sequence that will help us make progress as a meditator. I wrote this book for two separate kinds of readers: the ones who actually meditate on the concepts and the ones who do not. The ones who meditate using the instructions in this book will receive the benefits I describe: it will change your life. Those who read without meditation will find it interesting – perhaps fascinating, but it will not change your life. It will be fun for book clubs and useful for self improvement courses, but your life will remain the same as always. Like every other field of human endeavour, what you get out of it is proportional to what you put in.

Chapter Two Why?

Why would we make the effort to study, meditate and contemplate in this way?

Question: W.I.I.F.M? What’s In It For Me?

Answer: Remember the chapter 1 precept: we are retraining our minds. Why? So we can stop undermining our lives. Basically, we all want lives full of happiness and free from problems.

(Problems = pain, suffering, unhappiness.)

We enter this noble pathway to our imagined “better life” in hopes that, by changing our beliefs, we will change the quality of our lives. We will increase our happiness and decrease our suffering and pain. That’s our goal. We are motivated to decrease suffering and increase happiness. That’s “what’s in it for me.” Our two-pronged motive is:

(a) increase our experience of happiness, and

(b) decrease our experience of suffering.

And we achieve this goal by training our mind in contemplative meditation.

Chapter Three How?

Step 1 We’ve already taken step one: recognizing that life really does contain both good stuff and bad stuff. Our goal is to create a life with more good stuff and eliminate all or most of the bad stuff. Step 1 is creating that goal and becoming motivated to expend the effort to change our life. That’s the catch. It takes effort. Change doesn’t just happen. We have to make it happen.

Step 2 This second step occurs in our imagination. We have to visualize the path or process that will lead us to the fulfilment of our two-pronged goal. How do we get there from here? In step 1, we said that we have to make change happen. In this step, we visualize what changes we plan to make.

This is a synopsis of that path:

a Develop and strengthen our motivation.

b Visualize the path.

c Find our self on that path. We do this through a series of mental/meditation exercises. It’s like a mini program within the overall program/path.

d Develop and strengthen our motivation to change our position on that path so as to reduce our suffering and increase our joy.

e Commit to (a) and (d) above. “I WILL do it…”

f Learn “The Cards.” (“The Cards” is a specific teaching explained in chapter 4) and practice slowing down your mind. Slowing down the mind is done by breath meditation, as explained in chapter 1.

g Learn “Mervyn’s Ladder” and practice the non-expression of negative emotions. (Practice, practice, practice!)

h Learn the Buddhist concept of cause and effect, a.k.a. – karma.

i Learn the concept of known vs. unknown

j Learn the concepts of preciousness, self-love, attraction, aversion.

When we achieve mastery of a to j, it is the equivalent of getting a black belt in Japanese martial arts. We are now a master of the basics of meditation. Our mind is now ready to begin the more advanced training. This is the path we should visualize: concepts a to j above.

I will now briefly mention the three remaining steps. I advise you to not ponder them too much: focus your attention on the first 10 – a to j, the 10 we have covered so far. Learn them and practice them. Unless you take those first ten steps, the remaining three steps will be incomprehensible. Here are the three incomprehensibles:

k Our relationship with our “self.” What am I? Our “self” has parts: our sense of “self” is imputed on those parts. What are they?

l Our relationship with the path. Where am I going? Where have I been? What was I, what am I, what will I become? What do I want to become?

m Our relationship with others, The Earth and the rest of the universe. How do these things really exist? Impermanence.

Stages k, l and m are studied simultaneously, not in sequence as shown here. I am hesitant to write about these three concepts in detail because our minds are not yet trained. In this book, I will introduce the three topics and help readers progress along their path(s) – but in order to master these three arts we need a relationship with a fully qualified Teacher. I have not yet met anyone who has mastered anything without a teacher.

The same, but different.

I will now describe the same path from a different point of view. This second treatment will clarify parts of the path and mystify other parts. It’s not the words in the two descriptions that are important – it’s the underlying meaning of those words. The words in the first presentation will have a strong appeal to most modern spiritual seekers. This second description will appeal to those who follow mystic traditions in Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, Shamanism, European mysticism or Zen. But, “the appeal” is not what really counts. What really counts is a person making an effort to learn to meditate in this fashion. “Appeal” is merely marketing. The actual instructions in the remainder of this book will “appeal” to modern sceptics, agnostics, atheists and scientific thinkers. Why? Because I am a scientific thinker and former atheist who has studied ancient religions and philosophy as a hobby. Here is a second description of The Path.

A Recognition of possibility. “I recognize that I have a problem and need/want a resolution of that problem. AND – I am actively looking for a solution to that problem. Something has to change. My mind has to change – my thinking, my understandings, my attitudes etc. have to change. This recognition requires humility and openness to possibilities. It opens the door for progress and learning.

B Consider The Big Bam Path. Read Big Bam and come to an understanding of how this path changes one’s mind in a constructive way. This requires listening skills.

C Develop motivation to use these training techniques to solve your problems and experience a better life.

D Commit to it: “I will train my mind in this manner. I will follow this path of meditation.”

In the martial arts, this is white belt training. This is the precious place where we start. Commitment is the biggest step on the path.

E Practice: slow down the mind by meditating. This is the ‘brown belt’ training. Practice: the non-expression of negative emotions. (Mervyn’s Ladder) Contemplate and meditate on:

– know vs. unknown

– cause and effect (a.k.a. – karma)

– mind and matter

– reliance on correct beliefs

– attraction (a feeling)

– aversion (another feeling)

– the relationship between desire, revulsion, ignorance and their opponent forces. (even more feelings)

F Now comes the black belt training. The key concepts are emptiness (a.k.a.: the void) and self grasping (a.k.a. self love). The training involves high moral standards, meditative concentration and wisdom. We need to understand the mind in depth: we need to know the details and learn to use our mind to create. Take that literally: as in “In the beginning God created The Heavens and The Earth (Gen 1:1). Your mind can be trained to create The Heavens and The Earth. It’s a 3-step process Buddhists call “The Three Bringings.” There’s also a 10-step path that opens to those who have the ability to hold their meditative focus on the void without distraction for as long as they desire. Readers who are at, or train to this level will be referred to my Teacher for advanced training.

The same but different #2.

Let’s try that once more. So far I have described our path twice: same path, two different explanations. The reason for doing so is that different words ring the bells of different readers. Even though I described the same thing, the different language can clarify points for some people and mystify others. Now we’re going to do it again. Same path, different words. Here we go again.

Step One Seek a “transformation catalyst.” Look for a source of “transformation catalyst.” Try to receive “transformation catalyst.”

Question: What’s a transformation catalyst?

Answer: Sigh…

Transformation catalysts are mysterious. We know we’re receiving the transformation catalyst because we can feel it. We feel it, we don’t hear it or see it. We are looking for a certain feeling.

When Tibetans refer to the catalyst of transformation, they are talking about something specific. Think ‘transformation energy,’ but it’s not energy. Energy is “stuff.” In Albert Einstein’s famous E=MC2, energy is equated to matter. “The transformation catalyst” is not matter or energy: it is a catalyst. It affects matter and energy, but is not matter or energy.

The closest ordinary experience I have ever had – closest to a mysterious “transformation catalyst” experience, was captured in the musical “South Pacific.” The song, by Ezio Pinza, was “Some enchanted evening.” It captures the moment when boy meets girl and falls in love. The transformation catalyst is a similar feeling without the sexuality, like a magical spell.

The transformation catalyst comes from someone to us. That “someone” is like radio transmission tower that radiates its signals from the tower to our radio. That “someone” can either intentionally turn their signal on and off or, in some cases, leaves the switch permanently “on.”

There are different names for this feeling in different spiritual traditions. I have heard these ones so far: “Being present” (Fourth Way), “The Transmission” (Buddhist), (The term “blessings“ is also Buddhist.),

“The Holy Spirit” (Christianity), (The terms Grace and agape are also used in Christianity.) “The Strike” (Training in Power), The Nameless (Rainer Marie Rilke’s poems),. In other writings, I sometimes use the term “Shine, Heart-shine, Glow, The Present.” These terms all have the same underlying meaning.

I have received “Heart Shine” from two Ukrainian Catholic priests, an orthodox Jew, several Buddhist monks and nuns, many teachers and trainers in Faye Fitzgerald’s Training in Power, several students in Mervyn Brady’s Academy of European Arts and Culture, and a small number of gifted people, including my own son, Frank and my ex-, Pat Norquay when we were in Mervyn’s Academy. All these people were able to transmit grace and others could feel it.

In summary, seek “the transformation catalyst.” Look for a source of “the transformation catalyst.” Try to receive “the transformation catalyst.”

Step 1 is a quest.

Step 2 Develop a relationship with the source of the transformation catalyst you have found.

Step 3 Become a source. Take the training. Learn the material. Practice, practice, practice. It takes effort. Give blessings. Radiate grace. Shine as if there is a little sun at your heart.

Step 4 Help others with steps 1, 2 and 3.

This 4-step path has two roads leading inwards. One is the road of words, stories, verbal constructs and verbal understandings. The second is the road of the nameless, of love, of heart shine. You feel your way along it. This second way is outlined in words in St. John of the Cross’s poem Dark Night of the Soul. (for a unique translation of this poem, see my website KennyDN.com.)

My most beloved Teacher, Mervyn Brady, used to teach us level 3 and 4 of this path by holding meetings every week or two. We would sit in a circle and one person would present some concept. During the presentation, everyone present would make an effort to send the transmission to the best of his/her ability. Every once in a while, the presenter would pause and hit the refresh button. Everyone would re-focus on being a transmission source. After 44 minutes we would stop for a recess and the participants would hold presence for the whole 11 minute break. Then the meeting would continue with discussion, questions and answers for up to 44 more minutes.

(Find fourth way rules and regulations regarding photographs, opposite ‘I’s etc.)

Chapter 3.1 Non-meditative Training

I recommend several mental training techniques to help us develop focus, concentration, short term memory and the ability to hold attention on an object without distraction. To an outside observer, it looks like we are meditating, but what’s going on in our minds is not meditation.

The exercises involve sitting in a meditative posture and starting the breath meditation we learned earlier. But, instead of continuing to focus our attention on the breath, we go through a counting exercise. I have labelled these counting exercises 1-count, 2-count, 3-count and so on. In each counting exercise, we count (either silently or out loud) in a specific sequence. Here is a list of “The Counts:”

1-count: mentally count from 1 to 11

2-count: mentally count from 11 to 1

3-count: mentally count 1, 11, 2, 10, 3, 9, 4, 8, 5, 7, 6.

4-count: mentally count 11, 1, 10, 2, 9, 3, 8, 4, 7, 5, 6.

5-count: repeat counts 1 to 4 going to 12 instead of 11. Then 13. Then 14, 15, 16, — ad infinitum. Then do it all again, counting by 2’s: even numbers only. Then again, with odd numbers only. Then again, counting by 3’s. Repeat these exercises over and over, increasing the complexity of the number sequence.

Now we do the same thing with the letters of the alphabet. a, b, c, d, — z, Then z, y, x, w, v, — to a. Then a, z, b, y, c, x, d, w, e, v, — . Then we start at z and go z, a, y, b, — . then we start in the middle and go outwards. m, n, l, o, k, p, — .

These exercises are play. We should never compare our ability with others’ ability in these fun games. To brag or lie about it un-does some of the benefits of our meditation practice. The value in these mind-play exercises is internal. They help us hold our focus on our meditation object without distraction. When we lose a subtle object, this training helps us find it more quickly. The more complex counts, when done simultaneously with some of the alpha-counts, will help us hold several objects simultaneously once our practice evolves to that stage. Have fun! If it’s not fun, stop the practice for a few days and restart with a simpler count. Play with these ideas. Be creative.

Future Fun: Once we have trained our minds to black belt level, we will introduce two more counting exercises: the Children’s Twenty Count and the Kenny Count. Here’s a brief preview:

The Children’s 20-count is a technique used in Indigenous tribes to teach their traditional ways to the children by counting their fingers and toes. One is for Grandfather Sun. Two is Grandmother Earth. What happened when Grandfather Sun made love to Grandmother Earth? The Plant world was born. Three is the plant world. Four is the animal realm. Five is the human realm… it gets a bit more involved for the next hand … Ten is the Sacred Measure of intellect: Here’s how my Teacher described it: “10 is the expression of artistic originality into all forms of all states of consciousness.” It’s hard to imagine teaching children something this complex. And we’re only at 10 out of 20. Fifteen is The Souls of All Humans, and explains the interconnection of human souls within unity. Twenty is Great Spirit, all-knowing oneness. It’s easy to see why this topic is not introduced until we have trained our minds to be able to meditate on it.

The Kenny-count is a way of understanding Buddha’s teachings on emptiness, or Lao Tsu’s teachings on the Dao. Or Judaism’s “Who am.” Or Zen Buddhism’s famous Void. We use math to explain these concepts: math instead of myth.

My imaginary hero: sometimes I wonder about the miraculous mind of theoretical physicist, Steven Hawking. In order to analyse data at his level, he must have had gold medal math mind. He would have been able to do these counting exercises easily! Steven Hawking, I salute you!

Chapter 4 Basic Technique #1 Motivation

For the remainder of this book, we will follow our original description of The Path. Step (a) in our mind training path is motivation. Why do we need to train our minds? In chapter 3 we described this important step as “(a) Develop and strengthen our motivation.” Let’s look more closely at the real reason why we need to train.

Question: In perceiving our environment, what percentage of that perception is mental and what percentage is physical?

Answer: I don’t understand the f^&*#ing question!

Question re-stated: when some “thing” enters our consciousness, what percentage of our awareness of that thing is mental and what percentage is physical?

Answer: that depends on the thing. Some things are 100% mental and 0% physical. Hatred, kindness, motherhood, justice, curiosity are a few of them – it’s a long list.

Other things may not be 100%. Consider a cup of coffee. Our vision, smell, taste, heat sensors and auditory senses perceive the cup of coffee. Our memory remembers what cups of coffee are, what coffee tastes like, whether or not we like coffee, where the beans were grown, how much we paid for the coffee, how our caffeine level is today – so the question is valid. What percentage of our perception or cognition of that cup of coffee is mental and what percentage is physical? Good question!

Point of clarification #1: what do we mean when we say “percent physical?” Here’s the problem: Physical things are perceived with our seven senses. What percentage of our sensory perception of that specific ‘thing’ is mental and what percent is physical?

Answer: Once again, it’s 100% mental because the awareness or consciousness of our senses are parts of our mind.

Point of Clarification #2: our eyes are parts of our body, but, our vision is part of our mind. This is true of all our senses. Isn’t it correct to say that our sensory body parts interact with the environment and we experience sight, smell, hearing etc? Aren’t the physical body parts of the senses required so that our mind experiences taste, warmth, vision, hearing etc? Answer: No! That is not the experience of someone having a dream. Dreamers experience vision, for example, in a dark room when their eyes are shut. Dreams are 100% mental.

Once more: what percentage of our perception of the cup of coffee is mental and what percentage is physical?

Combo: question AND point of clarification: what does it mean for our perception to be physical?

Answer: Most people conceive of a world that actually exists and say we are observing or perceiving it. We believe our mind and/or our body is perceiving it. We have asked what percentage of our awareness of that world is mental and what percentage is physical, and, so far, we keep finding it’s 100% mental. Unfortunately, if the real world is physical and our perception of it is mental, we can easily be mistaken. Our perception might not match the real world. Some of us could have it wrong. Some of us can easily have an understanding of our lives that does not match reality.

That’s why we need to re-train our minds. Our minds make too many mistakes and the result is a stressful unsatisfactory life.

Meditation #1 Read this paragraph several times:

“Sometimes my life seems stressful and unsatisfactory. This may be occurring because my perception of reality does not match reality. Many of my habits and beliefs may be out of sync with reality. I must correct this problem by training my mind to be more realistic. This will result in less stress and more satisfaction in my life.”

Now sit down and go through the three step meditation outlined at the beginning of this book on PAGES 2 – 4. (hot link to those pages)

Meditation #1.1 Read these few paragraphs several times: “When my niece was 19 years old, she asked her old Uncle Ken for some advice. In the process of answering her question, I asked her several questions. One such question was: “What’s your life goal?” She answered: “I just want to be happy.” Years later, I discovered that I had no idea at that time, what happiness was. Now I know.

Happiness is inner peace.

Unhappiness is inner turmoil. (a.k.a. dissatisfaction, disturbed mind, confused mind, doubtful mind, fearful mind, muddle-mind, – you get the picture.)

Period. Full stop! There ain’t no more!

My motivation for writing this book is to help readers develop inner peace through meditation. If we explore this concept, we will realize that life is mental. We live in our heads. Our thoughts and beliefs ARE our life. The more peaceful and still our minds are, the happier our lives will be. The more agitated and disturbed our mind is, the more we will live lives of pain and/or suffering.”

Now sit down and go through the three step meditation outlined at the beginning of this book on PAGES 2 – 4.

Chapter 5 Technique #2 Commitment

Step 2e in the original outline of this path says we should commit to a path. Commitment is a formal statement of our intention. “I WILL do the following…” This is important to our success. This path is long and requires a lot of work. It’s easy to give up. We may need help from time to time. This is what the German poet and scientist, Wolfgang Goethe, said about commitment:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to back out, and ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation.

There is a fundamental truth, the ignorance of which has killed countless ideas and brilliant plans: “At the moment one definitely commits one’s self, The Forces of the Universe move too. All sorts of things happen that would never have happened without definite commitment. Because of one’s decision to commit, a whole stream of supportive events flows his way. Meetings, material assistance and unforeseen incidents which one could never have dreamed, line up to support the one who commits.”

Whatever you can do or dream, you can. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Meditation #2 Read this paragraph several times:

“At the moment one definitely commits one’s self, The Forces of the Universe move too. All sorts of things happen that would never have happened without definite commitment. Because of my decision to commit, a whole stream of supportive events flows my way. Meetings, material assistance and unforeseen incidents which I could never have dreamed, line up to support me when I commit.”

Now sit down and go through the three step meditation outlined at the beginning of this book on PAGES 2 – 4.

Chapter 6 Technique #3 Chillin’

Step 2f in the first description of our path, referred to a teaching called “the cards.” The teaching was outlined by P.D. Ouspensky in his book The Fourth Way under the name “centres of gravity.” Although it is an important part of Mr. Ouspensky’s Fourth Way school, we require skill in only a small part of his overall teaching.

I will briefly summarize his teaching here:

He taught that the human mind has 5 basic methods or centres of operation: intellectually centred, emotionally centred, movement centred, instinctively centred and sexual. All of us function in all of the first four categories. But only one is our favourite. That means we operate mainly, habitually, from one of these four centres.

Even more interesting are Ouspensky’s ‘higher minds’ or ‘higher centres.’

Our meditation mind-training targets these higher minds. Regardless of what our natural thinking styles are, we are training our minds to become efficient and productive like Ouspensky’s higher minds. We make the transition from ordinary mind to higher mind by re-programming our ordinary mind in meditation. We need to slow down. When our minds work slower, they can more easily perform several tasks simultaneously.

Ouspensky outlined three basic levels of the mind and named them after the jacks, queens and kings in an ordinary deck of playing cards. The Jacks are the average Joe and Joan. The Queens are the excitable, emotional ones and the Kings are the slower, more dignified and regal ones. Louis Carroll was a member of a European mystic school and was familiar with this teaching. He wove the cards teaching into his famous Alice in Wonderland. Everyone remembers The Queen of Hearts: “Off with her head!!” On average, in a normal population, about 80% of people are jacks, 15% are queens and 5% are kings.

The main difference between the three categories is speed. Queens think fastest, Jacks think at average speed and Kings think more slowly – more pensively. In order to access our higher mind centres, we must first slow our minds down to the level of the kings. Only 5% of the population does not require this training because it comes naturally to them. But everyone else – that’s EVERYONE ELSE!!- needs to make a continual effort to slow down our reaction time, our thinking speed, and our talking speed. Slow down our life!

We are talking about all four centres: intellectual, emotional, movement and instinctive.

Intellectual: When The Jacks (that’s 80% of the human species) use their intellectual centre, they use it like a library. They memorize and regurgitate.

When The Queens use their intellectual centres, they tend to argue and persuade. When The Kings use their intellectual centres, they compare ideas and link concepts together in imaginative ways.

Emotional: When The Jacks feel their emotions, they often hardly feel emotional at all. Their emotions are shallow, mechanical and weak. A modern “jackism” occurs when someone ends a telephone conversation with “Bye. …love you.” They say they love you, but do not feel much actual love. The Queens, on the other hand, feel their emotions in a BIG way!!!! (with lots of exclamation marks!!!) In their world, everything is a big important deal!!! The Kings feel their emotions in a refined and dignified way; in a way that is appropriate to the situation.

Movement: The movement centres are similar. Rock and roll is jack dancing; salsa, rumba, cha-cha, samba are more queeny and ballet is of the kings.

Instinctive: To understand the instinctive centre, imagine James Bond sipping his vintage wine and telling you the year it was made and where, in southern France, the vineyard is. (King) Then there’s Calamity Jane slamming back the shooters. (Queen) And there’s Joe and Joan eating steak (well done) and guzzling down a 2-4 of “their brand” of beer. (Jacks)

When we attain the higher centres, especially the higher emotional centre and the higher intellectual centre, the two king centres combine. The higher mind is the mind of epiphanies, the mind of “ah-hah” moments. The all-encompassing slow pensive intellectual mind unites with the high speed refined emotional mind to produce huge levels of understanding at lightning speed, accompanied by a rush of positive emotion. This is the first mind we are training for: the mind of realizations.

We start the training for this higher mind by slowing down our lives.

Every day examples of this type of self training are:

stop and smell the roses
eliminate all impulse buying
drive slightly below the speed limit
before eating, say a prayer or some sort of blessing of gratitude
in conversation, stop talking and pause more frequently
make love more slowly
intentionally lose an argument now and then

We can see how well Ouspensky’s Cards training meshes with contemplative meditation. In meditation, we first slow down the mind. Then we contemplate an idea or concept. Sometimes we get an “ah-hah moment.” Then we hold that moment for as long as possible. In Ouspensky’s Cards system, we are training to achieve higher minds during meditation. In our non-meditation time, we also consciously try to slow down the mind. Eventually this will become a habit. That slower intellectual mind and that slower emotional mind then combine to raise us to our higher mind. Initially, the key is to slow down. Our friends sometimes tell us to “Take it easy,” “Chill out,” “Relax.” All this is good advice. Remember to do it in all four centres. Eat slower, move slower, listen to slower music, dance slower, read more difficult books; use your imagination to lower your level of excitement and the pace at which you live. And, slowly the kings will open up to you. From the kings come the realizations of the higher minds.

Chapter 7 Emotional Refinement

Step 2g Mervyn’s Ladder and the non-expression of negative emotions.

Most of us are slaves to our emotions. We have no control over what causes our emotions nor how we react to those emotions. Most of us react, like stimulus-response robots. We give control of our lives over to (a) whatever causes our emotions, and (b) whatever reactions our emotions cause in us. If we feel very attracted to something or someone who draws us into joy, we may become emotionally dependent on that someone or something. Then, when deprived of it, we often develop a very negative reaction that does harm to others. And if we feel negative about something or someone, we may develop negative feelings and cause harm to our self or others. We will deal with attraction and aversion later in the training. Right now, lets focus on the lack of emotional control we often experience when life hands us a bucket of trouble.

Question: Can our mind be retrained to react emotionally as we want – and not as it wants?

Answer: Yes. We will use a teaching from First Nations folk wisdom and from Mervyn’s Academy of European Arts and Culture to clarify the training. The Story of the Two Wolves and Mervyn’s Ladder.

The Two Wolves.

A boy was walking with his grandfather in the woods. Granddad told him that there were two wolves in his mind. One was the good wolf: he was kind and helpful to everyone. He followed all the tribe’s ways and was always there to help others. The other wolf was the bad wolf. He was mean to everyone. He broke the tribe’s sacred laws and made everyone’s life miserable. These two wolves live in our mind and they are constantly fighting.

The little boy asked: “Granddad, who will win the fight.” The wise one answered: “The one you feed.”

Mervyn’s Ladder

I received this teaching from Mervyn Brady in autumn 2000 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I watched as he pulled it from the sky.

The “worlds” and their corresponding numbers refer to our emotions. The words are a brief description.

World 0 Dios

World 3 Angeles

World 6 Agape

World 12 Love

World 24 Happiness

World 48 Neutral

World 96 Suffering

World 192 Hate

World 384 Depression, kamikaze, jihad

World 768 Diablo

World 00 Dios

Between world 384 and 6 are a variety of feelings that human beings can experience. Outside this range, untrained humans can only imagine the feelings. I wrote the Spanish words because those were the words Mervyn used when he taught us this wisdom. The numbering system reflects the concept of weight. The large numbers are heavy feelings, the small numbers, light.

When you ponder this scale, it is useful to start at world 48, neutral, and work out from there.

Most of us spend most of our lives bouncing between world 96 and world 24. Mostly, we react to our environment with the emotion we have been programmed to experience. Our environment pulls the trigger, and we respond with some emotion.

Then we fall in love and vault up to world 12. Every corny love song in the world plays through our mind. We feel every chick flick ever filmed, all at once! We’re in love!

Seven years later we’re in divorce court. OMG! What a jerk! How could I ever have fallen for this!!?? What a *&%#^)(@!! Hate! World 192.

The most common way ordinary people experience world 12 is briefly, through sexual orgasm. Otherwise, it takes special training to get to world 12. Nuns and monks have exercises to teach them this extreme type of love – divine love. In Christianity the candidates train to adore Jesus and Mary, to imagine the suffering He did for us… In Buddhism, monks and nuns are trained to feel compassion and/or bliss as they meditate on the human condition and the true state of existence of all sentient beings. Other words associated with world 12 are: ecstasy, adoration, bodhichitta, bliss consciousness, great bliss. I’m sure there are others…

Then there’s world 384, the dark world of the ancient warriors. Special training is given here, too, to those one step away from hell. In ancient times, many cultures trained young men in this world: Vikings, Samurai, Cossacks, Mongols, Greek, Kobudo (Japanese), Roman, Ghurkha, and others – it’s a long list. Modern weapons technology has made most warrior training obsolete now. It’s one of the few good things achieved by modern weapons technology: less training in world 384.

With worlds 12 and 384, we have reached the limit of human experience. If we want to train the mind beyond these levels to the mythical realms of angels and devils, we do so in secret. We learn from a Teacher who has achieved those levels. In myth, archetypal characters like Star Wars’ Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda are examples of warrior trainers. Prophets, certain Catholic saints and Buddha’s are examples of “angel trainers.” One way to determine if, what appears to be an ordinary person is, in fact, an “angel trainer,” is that he/she can teach you without being present. They are difficult to impossible to find, but are rare and precious treasures. So far, in my life, I have found two. (…smile)

For our purposes, we won’t need such a Teacher until we expend mucho effort to progress along our path. There is a corny old saying that applies here: “When the student is ready, the Teacher will appear.” It’s true. You don’t look for these Teachers. They are looking for you.

Our goal at this stage is to get control of our emotions. We want to foster emotions that keep us in the light part of Mervyn’s Ladder. We want to live in those light worlds. We want to live our whole lives, as much as possible, in those minds of love or higher. Whenever we find ourselves in a heavy dark emotional state, we want to “lighten up,” to raise ourselves to those lighter levels of happiness and joy, love and ecstasy. These levels are not intellectual understandings; they are feelings. It’s not about defining, thinking or imagining; it’s about feeling.

We sometimes use our intellect or imagination to change our feelings. That’s fair dinkum. But our goal is an emotional goal. We know what it’s like to be happy, to love, to feel sexual orgasm. It’s those feelings we are trying to control and to learn.

When we find ourselves angry or hateful, we are feeding the wrong wolf. Our heavier minds are being nourished. We need to stop feeding that wolf and feed the other one.

One technique we can use is to shift our attention. If our anger/outrage was triggered by some media event, an article or news clip, we should start by turning off the television, radio or computer. Put down the newspaper and move your attention to something that is neutral or better. Modern media is designed to create outrage in your mind. The media does it intentionally because people get addicted to outrage or anger and stay tuned to the outrage story. This creates sales and advertising appeal. It’s how the media makes their living. The more readers or followers a given person has, the better living they can make. Naturally, they don’t care about the state of your emotions. Why would they? It’s your attention they care about, not your mental well-being. When you pay attention to them, they sell copy. Stories of outrage sell copy. When you start paying attention to your mind’s level on Mervyn’s Ladder, your mind will change. You’ll want to feed your love wolf and let your hate wolf starve. You’ll start to read articles that spin today’s news in the direction of co-operation and harmony instead of blame and outrage. That type of writing will attract you, not the stories of blame and shame.

To use these two stories, The Two Wolves and Mervyn’s Ladder, we have to continually pay attention to our feelings. We practice this continually, remembering our goal of living lighter, living in the love part of The Ladder. When we meditate, we remember The Ladder and remember the feelings we once had at a time when we were very high on The Ladder. We try to re-feel those exalted feelings and hold that feeling for as long as possible. Every time we do, we feed The Wolf of Love. Our mind gets used to feeling love – high level power-love, not just ordinary love. Practice, practice, practice. Your love wolf will become powerful, strong, flexible, fit. Your poor pitiful hate wolf will become weaker and weaker. Eventually, he will fall asleep and never wake up.

Chapter8 Newton’s Third Law: Karmic Reality

Sir Isaac Newton is heralded as the father of modern physics. He was a professor of astrology at Cambridge University in England and wanted to better predict the movement of the planets by expanding on the work of Copernicus and Fr. Galileo. In the process of studying the solar system, Newton invented calculus and expounded his famous laws of motion. In this section, we will apply his third law of motion to mental things, not just physical. This will help modern scientific minds better understand Buddha’s teachings on karma and how we use this knowledge to reach our spiritual goals of (a) increasing happiness, and (b) decreasing suffering; i.e. moving up Mervyn’s Ladder.

Newton’s third law is a geometric expression of the sentence, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The word “karma” is Sanskrit for “action.” When we apply Newton’s third to the non-physical parts of the universe, we can say, “For every karma, there is an equal and opposite karmic reaction.” It becomes the law of cause and effect, “Everything we experience in our lives has a cause – and every action we make is the cause of some reaction in the future.” This obvious truth is reflected in many wisdom sayings, like:

Do onto others as you would have others do onto you. Matt7:12
Whatever goes around, comes around.
You reap what you sow
Do not treat others in ways you yourself would find harmful. Buddha. Udana-Varga 5.18

Every religion has a version of this wisdom in its sacred Teachings. Most of the religious versions refer to our relationship with other people and to the effect our actions have on them. For example, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” refers to the effect you want your actions toward other people to shape the quality of their actions toward you. Newton’s Law of Karma (a.k.a. Buddha’s Law of Cause and Effect) is more about causing happiness and suffering in your own life. It is true that we are all dependent on one another and using the Laws of Cause and Effect to influence others is valid, but our purpose is to create upward movement on Mervyn’s Ladder in our own lives. Our job, for now, is to create the causes of joy and happiness in our mind and to stop creating the causes of suffering and hatred. We are training our mind, not fixing the world. We’ll fix the world later, when our mind is fully trained.

This emphasis creates the first major irony on our path.

Question: what is the cause of happiness, love and sexual orgasm?

Answer: making others happy, loving others and making love to others.

Action/karma: love others. Re-action: others love us.

Action/karma: make love to another. Reaction/karma: someone makes love to us.

Action: give people gifts. Reaction: people give us gifts.

Action: say kind things to others. Reaction: others say kind things to us.

We can do this all day. Although sometimes we may be kind to someone, and that person is never kind to us, with a bit of good luck, someone else will be kind. Applying this universal law, we can spend our whole lives being kind and loving to everyone, and slowly, gradually, over time, we will live in a kinder, gentler world. Slowly, our lives will move higher and higher on Mervyn’s Ladder. Gradually our love wolf will become stronger and stronger and our hate wolf will weaken. It’s a universal law and we can easily use it to our advantage. This is how we change our world by training our mind. We perform actions that cause our desired world. We stop performing actions that cause harm to our desired world. And our desired world is one with more happiness and less suffering. Basic logic: Newton’s third Law of Motion applied to the whole universe, not just physics.

Chapter 9 Known vs. Unknown

One problem with Newton’s Law of Karma is that often, we do not know precisely what present actions cause a specific future reaction. And we may not know what present effects came from what past actions.

And sometimes we knew, but we forgot… Sometimes we know, but ignore…

Usually there are many causes behind a given effect. But usually we focus only on one cause. Life on The Planet Earth is complex, not simple. We know that cause and effect is a true law, but many times it appears to not work. This may be because we are looking for a certain effect, and some other unexpected effect may have occurred. Often we may think we are creating a certain cause, but, in fact, that action is causing something else. Life is complex, not always simple.

The reason for this is that the universe is not exactly what it appears to be. What appears is what we know. What we do not know, does not appear.

There was a time in Europe, when the earth appeared to be flat. Oops! Turned out to be round. There was a time when the orbit of the planets around the sun appeared to be circular. Oops! Turned out to be elliptical. Science has a long list of things we know and things we don’t know. As we examine new evidence, “what we know” changes. New hypotheses arise. Old ideas are discarded. That’s how the scientific process affects what we know and what we don’t know.

That’s also how mind training works. As our minds evolve through meditation and logical contemplation, many things we now know, will prove false and many things we believe to be false, will turn out to be true. These changes are sometimes uncomfortable for our minds. The mind resists change.

This discomfort with mental change is Newton’s First Law of Physics applied to our mind. Applied to physical objects, Newton’s First Law states that any object will remain (a) stationary or, (b) moving in a straight line at a constant speed, until an external force is applied to it. Applied to our mind, his first law might say that our belief system will stay the same or evolve in the same direction until the force of a new belief system is applied to it. That’s what mind training is all about. We will constantly learn new beliefs, practice new practices and learn new concepts. We will constantly feel mental discomfort. Eventually, a wonderful event will occur. The mind will experience epiphany.

One of the effects that mind training causes is mental flexibility. Our mind loses that “steel trap” rigidity and learns to dance among the stars. At first, this usually happens in meditation, as outlined earlier. But, eventually, our mind will learn to see beauty everywhere, to find happiness in the most unlikely places and to love what you once despised.

These changes in feelings are part of what we know and do not know.

Chapter 10 Our style of Meditation

Meditation:

It is important to meditate on the concepts of knowing and not knowing. When we sit in meditation, we try to visualize a physical container that holds what we know. It’s a symbolic representation of everything we know. It has an open top, where new knowledge enters our mind through the learning process and our experience of life. It also has a drain at the bottom where what we forget, leaks out. It’s not a stationary thing – it’s active and dynamic, constantly receiving new knowledge and constantly forgetting old. Now visualize a second container that contains everything we don’t know. OMG! It’s HUGE! Look at the size of that thing!!

Quietly ponder these two knowledge containers. Very quiet. Deep meditation. Mental stillness. Compare “what I know” to “what I don’t know.” Spend a lot of time here. Really GET IT!

When, eventually, a sense of humility sets in, a sincere sense of humbleness, you have found the object of this meditation. Hold it in your attention for as long as possible. When, you lose your focus and your attention wanders, find the object again by either (a) remember it, or (b) re-contemplate the two containers of what you know and do not know. Continue to do this for the duration of your meditation session.

This meditation is the cure for that feeling of discomfort associated with learning new beliefs and practising new techniques. Its effect is almost instantaneous.

Humility is the gateway to all learning. When we were children, we were blessed with bucket loads of humility. Do you remember those days? Especially age four. All those questions! Mommy what’s this for? Daddy, how does this work. Mommy, why can’t I do this? Daddy, how can I do that? Never-ending questions. Never ending curiosity. Never ending learning. What happened? What went wrong? Where did our innate humility go?

Without humility, our minds will be too rigid to be trained. Yes, rigid-minded people CAN learn, but only in the direction of what they already know. For example, the paternal religious traditions (“God the Father…”), Judaism, Christianity and Islam, work well for authoritarian people – people who work well with authority and structure. Authoritarian people can be good at learning, but their new knowledge must follow their current belief systems. It is often difficult for them to talk about the maternal beliefs – beliefs that involve mother nature, or mother earth – like the shamanic or wiccan traditions where structure is more free flowing and less rigid. They are comfortable with obedience to sacred law and readily adapt to new laws, but not feel comfortable with new ways or new beliefs. Modern, less rigid minds find the paternal religions unacceptable because many paternal traditions do not value freedom, progress or change.

There are many scientists who have rigid minds and are stuck in their current belief-ruts. These rigid minds have great difficulty with new discoveries. Such scientists resisted the round earth and solar system theory, sarcastically referring to it as “the flying balls hypothesis.” When the Louis Pasteur promoted the notion that bacteria cause infectious diseases, sceptics mocked the idea as “the invisible bugs theory.” Pseudo-scientists have great difficulty with paradoxes. They often ignore evidence that speaks against their view of science.

Eventually our meditation practice will lead us to examine consciousness. When we do so, we will encounter some very un-humble thinkers who claim to be using science and reason to examine consciousness. At that time, it will be important for us to remain humble even when facing the rigid minds of critics and pseudo-scientists. Repetitive meditation on “what we know” vs. “what we don’t know” will help keep our minds flexible and open. It is important for us to use words like, “These observations support the conclusion that…” and NOT “This proves our theory!” Humility, not arrogance.

Rigid and arrogant minds benefit most from this mind training and from this “Know vs. Unknown” humility meditation in particular.

Known vs. unknown is a deep and mysterious topic and we will explore it again, further down the path. Not only does it open the doorway to humility, the rocket fuel that propels learning, but it is also the key that unlocks wisdom. Wisdom training starts after the next session.

Following our martial arts analogy, at this point we have almost completed our training to become black belts. The next set of concepts, 2j, will complete the black belt training. Once our minds have mastered these basics, they will be ready to start training in wisdom.

… to be continued.