The Contents of Our Mind
These days, only the lazy do not repeat — following Lama Ole Nydahl — Milarepa’s words that «we do not see the world, but the contents of our mind». That phrase has become a kind of mantra; repeating it produces a feeling of understanding and even a certain enlightenment.
Nevertheless, few bother to try to understand what, precisely, is meant by this “contents.” At first glance it seems that the Tibetan enlightened master’s words are simply an expression of subjective idealism, stating that our mind deals only with images, descriptions, impressions, and does not relate to “real” objects, whose very existence from that point of view looks highly doubtful.
However, for a Magus who seeks not merely a feeling of understanding but harmonious activity, it is very important to sort out exactly what it is he is interacting with.
As mentioned, “the contents of the mind” Magic describes as a psychocosmic reality, an aspect of the original biner knowable.
Thus the question of the “contents of the mind” reduces to the question of the relationship between the Psychocosm and the Macrocosm in the perceiving part of the mind.
Typically this interaction amounts to a periodic “immersion” of mind into being, followed by the interpretation of what has been “caught.” It follows that in the process of awareness one can distinguish two stages — actual “perception” and its “processing.” The second stage, when the mind truly interacts only with its own contents, is called “bardo” in Buddhism, and it is clear that such a state occupies the greater part of what we usually call the mind. These “intervals” between immersions of the mind into being tend to close in on themselves, endlessly transform impressions, and intertwine them beyond recognition. That is why the mind usually chases impressions, pursues empty experience, which feeds the mind’s own bardo-games.
Counterarguments about the “reality of what is perceived” are often brought forward against this view, and such criticism amounts to mocking Homer Simpson, who claimed that “radiation only kills those who believe in it.” Again, the glaring superficiality of this position is obvious. Broadly speaking, “believing in radiation” does not simply mean thinking that there is a stream of emissions that destroys biological systems; it means operating within a worldview that implies certain laws of its existence, among them properties of mind and being such as the existence of biological systems and the existence and characteristics of physical radiation. And, to be honest, we do not know what would happen if we adopted a fundamentally different worldview that did not include these concepts. It is truly foolish to take an existing worldview and simply ignore some of its essential components. Accordingly, to “stop believing in radiation” is not simply to deny obvious facts blindly; it is to change the character of one’s perception of the world so that entirely different laws and rules would apply in the new worldview. Even someone from the Amazon who knows literally nothing about fast electrons, helium nuclei, and hard electromagnetic radiation nevertheless uses a picture of the world that implicitly assumes a certain physical character of his environment; strictly speaking, they “believe” in radiation, since in his picture of the world there is an implicit place for it. Minds that use fundamentally different worldviews cannot interact with one another, and a shared world effectively means shared ways of describing impressions from that world.
Thus, “the contents of our mind” are the aggregate of all reflections of the energies of the Macrocosm in the Psychocosm, as well as the aggregate of descriptions, interpretations, and impressions of those energies.
When the mind depends on the perceiving system that couples the Psycho- and Macrocosm — the body — it is nourished by correlations of the being’s energies and the mind’s elements; when the body is either misused (for example, when it dictates rather than serves as an instrument) or absent (for example, in the interval between rebirths) — the mind operates only on its own images.
For a Magus it is very important, on the one hand, to make the most of the embodied state for direct perception, correlation, and awareness — that is, the transformation of Powers — and, on the other hand, not to mistake bardo games for power phenomena, and nor sink into intoxication with being or into imaginative games.
Something has drawn the author toward philosophy. This is where we discuss radiation. The consciousness of plants and animals is significantly different from that of humans, but doesn’t radiation harm them as well? And doubts arise about the commonality in the description of impressions of the world. It is not easy to write articles on such topics using classic human conceptual frameworks. You mold words this way and that, yet it doesn’t work out. At best, the thought is conveyed with distortions. The picture of the world is actually a picture, an image on the wall, formed by light passing through the apertures of our perception organs and the prism of our consciousness. Milarepa talks about this, as does Kabbalah. But radiation passes through our bodies, and it doesn’t care about anyone’s picture of the world. Yet the interaction of radiation with the body can be completely reduced to zero, just like any material interaction with the world (via electromagnetism and gravity as part of it). In our beloved quantum physics, with its methods of describing reality, this is fundamentally possible. One must assume that at a certain level of consciousness development, it can manage this interaction. What is the mechanism? Well, Ole Nidal knows it.
Both the form and properties, as well as the “physicality” of the body—just like the individuality—are exactly the same products of description, the same elements of the worldview, as are radiation, the speed of light, gravity, and anything else. In a limited state of consciousness, we operate only with descriptions; any direct perception is inaccessible to awareness until it is described. The fact that we can perceive and interact with what we call plants and animals merely indicates that we belong to the same world as them—that is, to the same description. The point is that our consciousness decides which world to describe, which reality to create. From the fabric of energies, it selects suitable blocks, interprets them, and thus creates a world. It is not a question of whether consciousness can control the physical body; rather, it is about how consciousness creates this body by describing blocks of energy and weaving them into a more or less coherent picture. In principle, nothing prevents it from describing this body differently—as a collection of light or as rainbow energies—and this would change not only the nature of this body but also the entire perceived reality.
Such a hypothesis is not new to me and is interesting. I have already come up with a model for it through an expanded concept of energy. But in one place you say: “In a limited state of consciousness, we operate only with descriptions; any direct perception is unavailable for formulation in awareness until it is described.” And elsewhere: “It is precisely consciousness that creates this body by describing blocks of energy, by intertwining them into a more or less coherent picture.” Does this imply that there are two different types of consciousness?
No, as long as we are incarnated, our consciousness is limited by the conditions of incarnation, and it is this kind of consciousness that creates our reality, and it is this consciousness that operates descriptions for its creativity.
Changing the internal picture of the world can alter the ways and forms of interaction with that world. It is difficult to change the internal picture of the world all at once and in all aspects. Therefore, the easiest way is to shift the balance in existing binaries as a form of changing the picture of the world.
A shift in the balance of the binary of time (the speed of processes – the immobility of processes) toward the slowing down of metabolism and the complete cessation of cell division, as presented in the article concerning ionizing radiation, can significantly minimize the negative impact of radiation and preserve the organism’s life. Thus, a shift in balance in even one of the binaries can truly change the picture of the world.
Similar shifts in the balance within the density-emptiness binary toward emptiness and in the binary of the constancy of the environment – the renewal of the environment toward the renewal of the environment will work in the same way. However, a shift in the balance of the binary of belief or disbelief regarding radiation will have no effect since it does not alter the internal pictures of the world in the area of the laws governing the interaction of matter; it merely acts as a BARD – an internal illusion of information interpretation.
Thus, many people who do not believe in demons regularly feed them their life force, even to the point of complete self-sacrifice, without perceiving them in their picture of the world (rather, they perceive their benevolent mask as their whole essence).
In this regard, it can be said that to change the picture of the world, one should use only those binaries that are related to the fundamental processes of the embodied world. The feature of binaries is their inertness in shifting balances. The more a binary is physically connected with embodied matter, the more inert it is. Therefore, it is much faster to slow down internal time than to induce emptiness or renewal of the internal environment.
Sequential shifts in balance according to the designated magical binaries can lead to significant transformations in the picture of the world and, consequently, in the body of the Mage. At the same time, the picture of the world is significantly related both to the selectivity of the Mage’s sensory perception and to the perception filters established by demons and the parasite of consciousness.
In this regard, one of the important tasks of a Mage, aside from fighting parasites, is to expand the range of perception of their senses across binaries:
– holistic perception – perception of parts,
– superficial perception – deep perception,
– form of the object – essence of the object,
– focused perception – defocused perception,
– perception within the standard range – sub-threshold perception.
An additional method of developing perception, as a means of expanding and transforming the picture of the world, is the perception by bodies that are not classical organs of sense (meteorological forecasts from rheumatics are perceived by their bones and joints, and some even talk about the special sensitivity of certain body parts in case of danger).
Where are plants and animals? Aren’t they in our consciousness? The results of many physical experiments also depend on the observer’s consciousness.
“Still, something probably prevents the consciousness from describing the body differently, or maybe it simply doesn’t know how to do it. Enmerkar, perhaps you can suggest in what direction to move to learn this?”
This is a question of training and agreement. In order for beings to be capable of interacting with each other, they must use similar systems of interpretation of perception. Therefore, they teach each other the system of description that they have agreed upon. There is nothing wrong with description – on the contrary, it allows the perceiving consciousness to develop and expand its possibilities. It is only important to remember that description is merely a description, and not to elevate images to dogma.
Thank you for your response. So, it turns out that one can learn a different description of their body from those who are similar in some ways and different in others? For example, from animals? To start with?
Isn’t it the case that each facet of manifestation corresponds to its own world? And the interaction of these facets is what we call “bardo,” when we try to describe the physical through the spiritual, and use energy as power? We do all of this for manifestation in one world or another, based somewhere deep within our spirit, but in reality based on a collection of feelings and emotions defined for us by us in a specific moment… then we analyze… and so on…
Gurdjieff interestingly wrote about this, regarding the wagon, the horse, the driver, etc.
But here, we are all like this, the law of the planet…