Deep Mind's topics - tribe.net

Trance Visualisation

2008-07-17T00:11:29Z

(based on an exercise I worked with in my teens, and am currently revisiting as an experiment)

Visualize an aura type sphere of light surrounding the body

As you breathe in, notice how you breathe in energy and the sphere can expand, staying as bright

As you breathe out, notice how the sphere contracts, but gets brighter each time

Each time, allow the sphere to get smaller and brighter, centred on the solar plexus

Be conscious from within the sphere of energy (this is not a given... I am allowing that the experience of located consciousness is possibly illusory) . As it contracts to the solar plexus, gently be aware of the rest of your body receding from the centre of awareness, your head above you, your feet below you. Allow awareness to dwell from within the sphere as it continues to expand and contact, contracting still further still with each breath.

Continue the exercise until the sphere becomes a point of energy with no mathematical dimension, infinitesimally small but infinitely bright.

With awareness within this singularity, with each breath now draw this energy point to the point between the eyebrows... as you breathe in, allow the singularity to collapse beyond singularity and release in an infinite release of energy allow the energy to radiate out on the out breath to fill the manifest universe.

posted in Deep Mind - 7 replies

Miss-Information around Enlightened Awareness

2008-07-14T13:28:32Z

Either this tribe is a bunch of dead heads or the one I deleted 2reload this hav no concept of what IS . . .which in fact, answers my enquiry, my Question . . .
I;m SELLING NOTHING . . . As this is purely a personal enquiry . . . I want to know what YOU think of what is written, not clap-trap about SPAM . . . There is obviously a chunk of people who have too much time to waste writing about SPAM, and NOT interacting with the questions herein . . . If you have nothing clearly interesting to say then go read -write somewhere else . . . yes, this is on at least 20 tribes, there is supposed to be 20,000 of them, so 20 is nothing, I don't have time for 20,000 . . . I want to know what you KNOW . . .simple as that . . .

> IN SERVICE TO Clarity of Mind

> It's feels like time to cut thru the MISS-
> INFORMATION surrounding ENLIGHTENMENT. .
>
> It's time to explore this issue FULLY for the
> benefit of our Earths Survival.
> It can alter some individual journeys, due to
> NOT falling down the traps;1) Society has set
> for us, 2) We have set for us, 3) Lack of clear
> information has set for us.

> Clearly, we have ALL been born to LIVE, real
> CLARITY in the World around us,
> . . . But due to MISS-INFORMATION, . . . we
> knowingly-unknowingly absorbed thru our Lives,
> to known-unknown forces in the World, Clarity
> DOES NOT HAPPEN for all of us. [This too will change].
>
> MUSIC TV is singing right NOW in the background
> “”WAKE UP,
> WAKE UP,
> WAKE UP,
> WAKE UP,
> wake up to the manipulation””
>
> Pink Floyd sang it clearly, as did many others
> in music, film, writing, paintings, drawing,
> photography, etc.
>
> It’s IN the category of “THE EARTH IS FLAT”
> All the evidence showed that the Earth was round,
> BUT
> . . . It didn't stop, the consensus of the day,
> saying the Earth was flat, (and that was only a
> few seconds ago, in Earth history)---ONLY a few
> Hundred Years Ago, our time . . .
>
> Similarly, as a group of people on this Earth,
> many have been hoodwinked into thinking that;
> . . . Enlightenment is DIFFICULT to comprehend
> . . . We cannot talk about IT [to a certain
> degree true]
> . . . We must follow a GURU, a recognised
> Teacher, or Lineage of Teachers, or a pathway
> designated BY someone else
> . . . THE PROCESS of CLARITY into ENLIGHTENED
> AWARENESS, is DIFFICULT to conceptualise-
> experience-and KNOW, . . . .
>
> IS THIS ALL a blatant UN-TRUTH ???
>
> [Something I read years ago was a paper on an
> obscure subject, that around c.1900 was in ONE
> book published, followed by another book several
> years later. This, over a period of 50 or so
> years, was followed by 70+ books until one guy
> at the end of the process did a study that
> established that all 70+ books came from most of
> the information from the first and second book .
> . . Nothing else was of any REAL relevance.]
>
> How THIS Writer established Clarity, [in this
> Life], DID NOT COME from any religion, or book,
> or person
> . . . the Writers’ Awareness came from a
> personal event
> . . . that created the decision to live TRUTH,
> . . . in every moment of every day,
> . . . It came from breaking away (from all
> current ways found in Society) and going
> directly IN to TRUTH.
>
> The process of living TRUTH in every aspect of
> Life
> . . . CREATED THE INNER ENVIRONMENT for the
> experience to HAPPEN by itself (to unfold
> effortlessly), and to become so amazing that
> research to unearth others who have this same
> experience, was a very juicy recent experience,
> and the writer realized that this experience is
> transferable to the Minds and experience of
> others.
>
> WE can NOT grow a lettuce when the environment
> does not support that growth
> . . . Our Culture of Mis-information we ALL have
> been exposed to, has not supported the growth of
> our OWNERSHIP of OUR OWN Enlightenment Awareness
> in its Clarity.
>
> It does not feel to me to be an isolated
> experience that has happened to the writer . . .
> This feels to be a planetary unfolding of
> Awareness happening here, between us
> . . . that we are ALL PART OF...

> Every person on this planet EARTH is related to
> you.
> The TRANSFORMATION IN AWARENESS,. . . of every
> person seems to BE a part of the Planetary
> Awareness in progress.
>
> IN SERVICE TO THIS "I AM"
>
> What are your thoughts???
> ESTABLISHING the process that Transforms into
> simple understandings
> . . . Is a process of Education-not an altered
> state of High Awareness
> . . . Blind Freddie can do it
> . . . It is NOT a Religion
>
> Call it whatever you like
> . . . FREEDOM,
> . . . Clarity
> . . . Enlightenment
> . . . OR, just a time in your Life when you say to
> yourself, . . ."Oh! ! , So that’s what IT IS . . . '
> . . . ‘THE WAKE UP CALL’ HAPPENS
> . . . Enlightened Awareness
> It does NOT MATTER WHAT IT IS CALLED
> . . . .It is An Experience we can all avail
> ourselves INTO . . .[if you so Allow IT to BE . . .] .

> Do you think it is Earth time for its people to
> live in Clarity of Awareness ???

> Where IS the information that cuts thru the Miss-
> Information found by many of us???

> It sounds like a tribe for this needs to be
> established, and later this may be so.
>
> Regards and Blessings
> Sam

>

posted in Deep Mind - 0 replies

Dumb questions

2008-07-13T19:40:31Z

I love honesty
Its BEAUTIFULLLL
I have always asked DUMB questions
Sort of hear the sighs of relief in groups when they are asked
Someone seems to have to ask the dumb questions most everyone wants the answers for
I find that interesting
MORE OF IT HEY !

posted in Deep Mind - 2 replies

"A Crack in the Sky and a Hand reached Down to Me"

2008-07-08T21:29:21Z

A Crack in the SKY.

I know nothing of Buddhist,
. . . apart from what I have read in the last six months
. . . of sorting out in my own Mind
. . . where I have slipped into, with the AWARENESS that permeates
. . . who IS the “I” when this “I” looks in a mirror,
. . . or goes into the FEELING of AWARENESS THAT IS ! !

Yet it seems to me that the Buddhists KNOW
. . . about WHERE, the “I” has slipped / findS Awareness, that makes any sense

. . . Dzogchen Practice
. . . The Story of Padmasambhava-Founder of Tibetan Buddhism
. . . Milarepa, Naropa, Marpa, etcetcetc
. . . “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche

Amongst others, that is
. . . Eckhart Tolle seems to be dominating the sound bites . . .

I’m good
. . . not a nutcase
. . . balanced, resilient, and read it AS IT IS

Sort of like “The Man Who Fell to Earth”-an old David Bowie film out of my past somewhere . . . © Noel Pearce July2008

MY QUESTION is
. . . “How many other people on Earth in this present time zone, has this happened to, or is about to happen to, as I write, AND what are you doing with IT ???”

posted in Deep Mind - 0 replies

Is there something beyond our own mind?

2008-07-08T14:26:22Z

Is there a universe beyond our own sensing of it?

That is to say, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a sound?"

posted in Deep Mind - 8 replies

How do you make yourself stronger mentally

2008-07-08T14:14:31Z

How does aperson trian their mind to be able to overcome any adversity?

posted in Deep Mind - 9 replies

Duration of Meditation

2008-07-08T13:31:31Z

Short meditations done with commitment would strike me as being more useful (yes, I realise the looseness of that term... it's going to be meaningful to me but not necessarily to you... by useful, I'm talking about effecting useful change) than longer ones done without focus. Sogyal Rinpoche suggests doing a short meditation of five minutes, breaking off for a minute but maintaining the state of mindfulness and then recommencing for another short meditation.

Thoughts?

posted in Deep Mind - 4 replies

mantra Weaving

2008-03-16T00:57:07Z

Start a mantra sequence. Focus on the mantra until it you can self sustain it non vocally. Keep it going until it has a momentum all of it's own, then dissociate... step out of and away from your body so that you can see yourself and hear the mantra coming from the location you see yourself sat in.

Move further backwards and forwards until the volume of the mantra (and associated submodalities) are comfortable for you. In this spot, in imagination, sit down and start a new mantra (we are working simultaneously with a dissociated and associated self representation here). Be aware of the original mantra sequence cycling round as you initiate the new mantra layer. Again, keep it going until it is self sustaining, then dissociate again...

Repeat

This is a meditation experiment aimed at developing a deep state of trance in which intentionality and volition remain enabled.

posted in Deep Mind - 5 replies

How to get started in NLP?

2007-11-25T21:21:34Z

Got any guidance for a newbie wanting to learn more about NLP?

posted in Deep Mind - 3 replies

Could there be any spiritual limits ?

2007-11-13T13:21:28Z

After reading the purpose of this tribe I found that it is a very interesting issue to discuss as it presents spirituality in a new day. In fact, we can't force people to follow a specific path or a religious tradition pretending that they are the only and unique way to truth or reality.

Naturally, when the cultural components of a specific spiritual system are not shaken at the light of historical studies they tend to become a kind of standards or dogmas. Meanwhile, the inner meaning of these local expressions of the spirit which are organically linked with space and time datas (general way of thinking inside given paradigms) is lost or ridigly fortaken as a final stage.

That is the essential problem all religious systems are actually confronting. In spite of all what occurs in scientific areas with their technical and philosophical consequences the formulated doctrines are preserving their original shapes. That is one main aspect that makes a person become simply schizophrenic as he would hardly try to elaborate a possible cohabitation between faith and reason. And here we can notice that the prize humanity is paying is very high not only inside each specific religious or spiritual system ( which could in general be geographically apprehended) but also in what concerns interfaith dialogues.

At the end one who is serious and sincere enough would throw away all the fixed forms which are communly proposed. But there remains yet a third way which is the most difficult. Effectively, to follow everything in a mechanical way till the point where you loose your personal perspective is an easy method : it is a sign of apathy and cheating. The second solution which is to negate even the existence of the soul or the spirit is also a negative approach because even modern science (quantum physics) are showing far more mysteries in the core of the materialistic structure of the universe (hologrammatic pictures are designed everywhere with the same design, a kind of a fractal reproduction of the same nature) .

And even inside ourselves, aren't we metaphyscal beings : those ideas, those desires, those feelings that each one of us is experiencing while alive, can they be measured by physical tools ? Are they really pure products of the brain ? And the dreaming state where we are alive somewhere and could see, touch, speak and get eventual messages or premonitions about the past or the future ?

Accordingly, to stay in the middle ( to choose the third alternative) is the most dificult because you would not have any help in a direct form unless you are enroled under some guru's hands with his own system. And here an other difficulty arises as far as each spiritual master would model a disciple to his own image and understanding.

What a precarious situation, indeed ! But let us rejoyce : we can be lonely, but we are not alone ! As individual drops qualitatively similar to the great ocean of spirit or life (according to these physical datas mentionned above) we could deepen our adventure in the universal mind just by jumping inside the terrifying void (which in fact is an imaginary dimension).

When we are armed with dialectics and ethics, each one of us could recall a personal instructor sitting in the heart : he will take hold of the road mapping in ways not seen before. Creation is then to begin.

posted in Deep Mind - 5 replies

Experiment

2007-09-29T19:55:07Z

Look in a mirror

Look at your left pupil

Look at your right pupil

Note how you don't see the movement of the eye between the two

Repeat a few times, each time trying to catch the movemnt, then a few
more times confirming you can't.

Now, close your eyes

Imagine a mirror in from of you

In imagination...

Look at your left pupil

Look at your right pupil

As your eyes track from one to the other, imagine you can see the
movement of the eyes as they do so.

Repeat several times

What do you notice about state? I'm not expecting anything totally
mindblowing... just curious. Always curious :-)

posted in Deep Mind - 0 replies

Hierarchy of Transcendance

2007-08-11T22:38:12Z

Malsow proposed a hierarchy of human needs in his model of motivation. Doc Leary proposed a hierarchy of consciousness evolution (Phil, would that be a fair discription?)... both imply a progression of aquisition (of skills, experience, etc).

Many approaches to transendance seem to involve renunciation and are at risk of focussing on the negative (thus you can hear Sufi's talk of battling their naifs or appetites, Buddhists struggling with desire...). Ghandi, if I recall correctly, went through a process of "giving up" various things in his life as a means to become less dependant on physical need and desire...

My question is this: is there are hierarchy of transcendance (that might for example mirror Maslow and Leary)... in approaching transcendant practices, would it be more effective to transcend Maslow's higher level needs first (starting with the need for self-actualisation <g> and work down the scale)?

I am aware that Maslow's model is as flawed as any such generalisation will be, but it seems a decent jumping board for discussion.

posted in Deep Mind - 15 replies

Karma

2007-07-15T11:31:21Z

Someone really screwed me over for a lot of money, and most of the advice I got in response to my pain and anger was: "Be the bigger person. Do nothing. Let Karma take care of it."

What is 'letting karma take care of it' really in a case like this, other than letting someone else take a hit and dealing with the evil force instead of you? Is that actually a better plan?

posted in Deep Mind - 4 replies

Lucid Dreaming

2007-06-16T19:18:58Z

I've had moments of lucid dreaming in my life.

Some dreams, where it's very vivid and some being is talking to me. Once a Japanese guy (Spiritualists say he's my guide.) and once my dead grandfather.

Now these dreams were quite vivid and I woke up shortly after them. Making the dream very clear in my waking mind.

Omce I had a dream when I was semi-conscious. I had free reign to move about. I was in a bathroom that was all steamed up, I wiped the mirror and decided I wanted to look at my reflection in my dream. I woke up shortly after that. It was awesome!

What's your thoughts on intense dreaming? have you had any?

posted in Deep Mind - 4 replies

questions

2007-05-23T22:52:16Z

Do things happen for a reason? Are those inconveniences we curse,
if we were privy to the whole picture, really blessings, keeping us
from harm, until they don't? We all die, sometime, somehow. Does
it matter to some greater plan when and how?

On C-SPAN2 last night a religious studies professor spoke about his
book and beliefs about religion. He said each religion seeks to
answer different questions. As an example, Christianity seeks to
remove sin; Buddhism seeks to remove suffering. But my
understanding of Buddhism is that it is not about suffering being
overcome, but rather transformed into compassion. Christianity is
not about sin, but forgiveness. So is religion about transforming
our human experience into one more divine? Or is the human
experience a divine experience, a manifestation of soul path? Can
we be looking through several mirrors at once, each reflecting a
different dimension of our selves? Or is the reality truly random,
our pattern recognition neural software working overtime creating
synchronicities, omens, questions, faith?

If I am creating my own understanding of reality from which to find
basis for action, for self-creation, it makes sense to me that my
reality be one through which I find my highest self-expression, my
best case scenarios, my most transcendent joys. So why do I keep
bringing myself down with worries, self-restrictions, griefs? Do I
expect vital messages to find me along those lines?

posted in Deep Mind - 14 replies

Program: america.

2007-05-04T17:04:53Z

Dear population,

Due to end-time events manifesting in your current experience, you can expect a few changes in your regularly scheduled lifestyle. Time is speeding up. Your planet is becoming warmer from both increased radiation emitting from your sun, as well as your species' penchant for messing the place up. These are the factual aspects of said changes. Sadly, some of you will continue to argue over the details until the end of time. The following is an exploration of some of the more fluid aspects of a cultural society under the influence of increasing vibration and pressure.

Most of you have been too worried about changes among your fellow humans to be concerned about the usual media-based fear-mongering. People are becoming easier to figure out, and you don't like what you perceive. The young'uns music is too loud and repetitive for your liking these days. The old farts get sectioned off to progressively smaller sectors of suburbia to be ignored until they die. The Baby-Boomers are fighting this tooth-and-nail. They rebel by going to yoga, creating alternative names for grandparenting just so they don't have to feel the way MeeMaw and Pappy acted back in the day. They will behave in exactly the same way, fearful, concerned, worrying, and stressed out over who-knows-what. Thought. Control. Integration, division, the consolidation of emotion into energy for those who do not deserve it. Exactly like it has been done since the beginning of time, all the way up to the corporate-computer-network-television vs: THE INTERNET all-out-battle for the METAMEMES we have going on today. People are choosing sides...

Your choices are:

Side with THE MATRIX i.e. the monolithic* FINANCIAL CONTROL SYSTEM of the IMF/WORLD BANK/TRILATERALIST ILLUMINATI. Continue naively believing that you are providing valuable service to a reputable company when in reality you are being paid far less than you are worth by servicing a Service-to-Self (STS) organization that does not have your best interest in mind. They would rather control the interest rates. The US Treasury is a PRIVATE organization not controlled by the US Government. They shock prices and judge response (read: level of complicity) using commodities and stock markets. An economy responds to stimulus and depletion just like an electrical energy circuit. They have every single household in the world accounted for and the income for each forecasted in order to suck just the right amount of value from every citizen. In this particular country it's called the IRS. The control structure that oversees this organization employs mind-controlled assassins to slay their way through our educational institutions while using their own military to distribute weapons to the most dangerous political arenas on the planet. WAR IS BIG BUSINESS, the realization of this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Watch as United States citizens are disarmed in the name of public safety. Security alert this, foreign policy that; WE as a nation sell Crisis as a Product to the rest of the planet, then make them pay us to "solve" it. How else could we still be operating under such a large deficit for so many years? All part of the plan. Extermination of the third world, enslavement of the first by the bloodlines that originally created the structure, buy into it or die. US or Them.

or, alternatively you can...

SIDE WITH THE MULTIVERSE (higher-dimentional earth [and beyond] unaffected by existing lower frequencies). Continue your positive outlook and maintain a Service-to-Others (STO) attitude. This is the mechanism by which the positive majority of humanity will circumvent the death and destruction prophesied for the next few years. Be prepared to rebuild a sustainable local community once we are out from under this heavily manipulated fiat currency. If knowledge is power then why would those in control let us know the truth! Wealth is no longer defined by the almighty dollar. Those who are obsessed with money and power will soon become very aware of all who they have harmed in order to get it. Home-based artisans and community businesses will fare much better than large corporations in an economic downturn. In the meantime, start gathering sustainable resourses for you and your loved ones just in case Iran gets the bomb. Know in your heart of hearts that there is a group of highly intelligent beings who are non-locally guiding this whole process and trying their best to keep another 9-11 type event from happening. However, "unpredictable" doesn't even come close to describing the times ahead, and it's better to be safe considering they can only intervene in the most dire of circumstances. (hey, it's OUR freewill!)

The denial of extra-terrestrial intelligence is the cornerstone of "National Security". The denial of harmful intent in a populace comes just before they are stripped of their defenses and civil liberties. Research into exopolitics, starculture (non-Hollywood) and fringe science/satanism/conspiracy theory will prove most of the topics in this message. If you want to get closer to those soaring above dimensionally, limit your exposure to mammalian (red) meat, fluoridated water/toothpaste, and the television. This with some basic meditation should produce contact in about 10 days. If not, then seek out an event where the main focus is dancing to repetitive music, and go from there. Polarization will make it relatively easy to see which side of the coin an individual is on. Usually that line is drawn with an illuminated glass screen, some wires and transistors, and high-rise office buildings. The increasing energies and acceleration of time will continue to make the old ways seem frustrating, unproductive, repetitive, and boring. The new technology and way of living will be the meta.utopian subjects covered by enlightened, TRULY illuminated media outlets. The new ways are put out into the world every day through the Internet. It is up to us to apply them.

good luck,
The Universe.

* Reference: The Zebulon B. Vance masonic phallus in Asheville, NC.

posted in Deep Mind - 0 replies

Dying

2007-04-30T08:09:51Z

we all have ways of representing our personal experience of time, and reflect that in language... the passage of time, time stretching ahead, looking ahead, into the future.

I'm interested in our personal experience and representation of mortality. In NLP, we have the concept of a timeline, a metaphor for that personal representation of the experience of time. If you examine that representation of the personal experience of the passage of time, where, or how, does it end? For me, time is a path or stream (quite wide) heading away from me, but fading out some years hence.

It is an interesting experience to mark this out on teh floor, and to indicate various landmarks, milestones, to give a sense of proportion, then to physically take myself into the areas beyond the faded out. It can also be interesting to identify a point and manner of dying in this area, to extend the timeline to meet it, then to take myself in imagination to this point and experience the dying in different forms.

posted in Deep Mind - 4 replies

Belief, Reality, Faith

2007-04-30T08:01:31Z

I got into a discussion witha guy on an NLP board related to religion and faith. I know, silly me... but hey

Anyway, this guy started by saying that he couldn't understand how anyone could have got anywhere with their NLP training and still profess a religion/faith etc. His reasoning as such (and do bear in mind that I precis this significantly) was that, since the meta model was such a powerful tool for challenging the structure of faith (and he argued that a faith was defined by being a belief for which a lack of evidence was regarded as a strength) that no-one could come through a training and hold on to a faith.

This seemed to be a rather narrow set of beliefs through which to function to me. Or maybe rigid being a better word.

I watched a TV programme last night called the "Bullshit Detective"... I thought it was actually rather good. This guy basically pulled the rug out from under the bottled water promoters advertising by getting people to blind taste expensive bottled water and what he told them was his own distilled urine (it wasn't, it was tap water)... he also tested and challenged several crystal healers. Obviously, since his intent was to debunk, they came off badly, though they didn't do themselves any favours.

Now, I don't have any faith that could be clearly recognised by most, though I do have an abiding interest in the nature of faith and belief.

ADAM'S DEFINITION: Faith; a belief system, the evidence for which is only experienced after the assumption of that belief.

Personally, I do not "believe" that my psychic friend talks to her spirit guide. I DO believe that she does (believe that is). I personally believe that there may be more useful beliefs in structuring meaning from experience. But I also believe that there are a lot worse.

I don't *believe* that crystals radiate a vibration that modifies the human energy field (one of these women really pissed me off when she came back with the "if you don't get better it's because you don't want to"... I'm a mild mannered man, but I want feel veins between my teeth on that one :-) and I don't believe that the chakra system as used in most new age therapy bears much if any relationship to the model described in the tantric texts, though there may be many here who can argue with me. AND that's OK because models change and flow and evolve.

I do believe in your right to believe what ever is useful for you to believe (and in general, you get to define what is 'useful') and I will defend to my moderate discomfort your right to believe it.

I did like this quote in something I'm reading

"Superstition is rigid little rituals frozen around symbols. Black cats are evil, so don't let one walk in front of you. A four leaf clover is lucky, so pick it. Spilling salt is unlucky, so throw some grains over your left shoulder. Blue wards off the evil eye, so put blue on your baby. That sort of thing. That pat approach will reify your significant moment and render it lifeless. It will record a snatch of bird song even as it kills thesinger, stuffs it, sets it in a niche... worships it as the symbol of joy while playing that same old bird tape for ever more. 'The stuffed bluebird of happiness'"

posted in Deep Mind - 9 replies

The Subtle Body

2007-04-22T04:56:46Z

Is it direct experience or a synaesthetic metaphorical construct?

Or does it matter?

I tend to think of it as a metaphor for state. In traditional models, the chakra appear to mediate consciousness and changes in chakra function can lead to profound changes in consciousness (doesn't seem to matter if you use a tantric model, a shamanistic one or western occult kabbalah).

The act of clairvoyance, then, I tend to regard as a constructive visual hallucination that presents complex 'other than conscious' processes to the conscious mind in the form of a metaphor that can be made sense of... clairaudience being the auditory equivalent. Is there a clairkinaesthesience? :-)

posted in Deep Mind - 3 replies

Submodalities in Meditation

2007-04-15T20:21:25Z

For those of you who may not have come across the term before, submodalities are a core concept in NLP. Submodalities are those aspects of the representation of experience that are not related to the content (example... if I have an image in mind, the qualities of that representation such as it's size, contrast, location etc are all submodalities)

A central theme in NLP is that the meaning we ascribe to experience is encoded in the submodalities of our representations. So to change the meaning of a representation, we simply change the submodalities... if that critical voice you hear from your left in you father's voice now changes to come from 2 inches above the floor and sounding like Mickey Mouse on helium, it's damn nigh impossible to take it seriously:-)

However, from the point of view of meditation, it seems to me that while having an awareness of submodalities gives us immense freedom in how we co-create our existence, any submodality is a limitation and restricts our perception and experience (since ascribing "meaning" to "experience" necessarily defines an experience by what it *isn't* as well as what it *is*... meaning cleaves the perception of the world in two)

I notice that some meditational systems use extreme submodality shifts (Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines records several practices where the practitioner sees themselves as a diety, as big as the universe) and many people report extreme submodality shifts in mediatation. I'm wondering what the effect of a practice that delibarately cycled through submodalities of a particular representation extremely quickly and intensely might do.

Bugger, that's my homework for the evening <g>

posted in Deep Mind - 3 replies

The Psychological Foundations of Consciousness Exploration

2007-04-11T22:19:55Z

I'm using delibarately vague terms here (consciousness exploration, consciousness evolution, spiritual development) but ultimately I'm talking different ways of producing changes in consciousness of the practitioner that can be regarded within the context of most cultures as consistent with spiritual evolution. These could include:

.: a change in the perceived boundaries between "self" and "other"
.: a direct awareness of the interrelated nature of reality and of consciousness, and frequently
.: a development of compassionate awareness

However, this is just one map offered by reason of explanation, and is not intended to limit the scope of this project.

Anyway, I'm currently interested in "preparatory work"... every tradition I've looked at, from the various buddhist, christian sufi etc through to the more esoteric, all place great value in a programme that is clearly intended to change the mundane psychology of the practitioner prior to more extensive work... one text on buddhism I read many years ago stressed this very strongly stating that inadequate preparation at a psychological level (IIRC it talked in terms of strengthening the ego) would result in the subsequent spiritual practices being harmful to the psychological integrity of the individual.

What are people's experiences and what would you consider to be important, useful or necessary psychological change/development in preparation for such work?

XX

posted in Deep Mind - 11 replies

Cognitive function

2007-04-07T09:56:31Z

A recent New Scientist article on memory and it's role in imagining the future (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19325961.400-future-recall-your-mind-can-slip-through-time.html) also raised some interesting questions for me about the relationship between memory and depression, and ultimately about the need for seeking optimal cognitive function.

The question of depression in western society verses more primitive cultures can be hotly debated... many people argue that the prevalence in western society is due to indulgence... we can afford the time and the effort away from simply meeting the needs to survive... but the article got me thinking

First, it points out that those with a diagnosis of depression generally have difficulty "seeing" a future (which I knew)... even if they can imagine future events, these imaginations are somehow povertised and robbed of detail. What I didn't know is that they have difficulty with recalling past events, that these recollections are also povertised in the same way. Memory is impaired with specific reference to detail.

Now, western technological culture is probably the first culture to systematically erode the need to use the faculty of memory (I realised the other day that I don't even know my own mothers phone number!!! where as she, the wise woman that she is, refuse to programme her fast dial for that very reason!!!)... Memory research shows that delibarately exercising the faculty (i.e. the use mnemonics etc) enhances the overall function of memory

Are we plunging ourselves into a pandemic of mental disfunction by failing to recognise this simple fact, that all human mental faculties need exercising to maintain an optimal level of survival functioning?

We know many cultures had a training that involved, among other things, memorising an enormous body of poetry... I'm suspecting that they had some very specific ways of doing this (most of the memory techniques taught today actually go back thousands of years). But anyway, relying on memory was a simple survival necessity, without hand held palm tops programmable phones etc, for all people in a pretech world.

Adam

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looking for thoughts, opinions..

2007-04-05T03:28:37Z

hey y'all....

perhaps a strange topic...but it's timely in my life.

What's your takes on the notion of 'Evil'? And what do we do with it??!

..i used to be of the opinion that we were made up of both elements, the darkness and the light, and through cultivation and awareness we could bring ourselves closer to our light selves...by embracing the dark self. ya know? of course you do.

I've had some disturbing experiences of late...where i just couldn't find the humanness in other person. awful violence and nasty drugs...

and it felt really DARK to me.

and suddenly my paradigm on this thought of evil and not...well i'm thinkin...'

thoughts? please?

posted in Deep Mind - 26 replies

Intro

2007-03-31T18:46:42Z

Hi,

I've just hopped over from the old YahooGroup.

I've been lurking mainly on the NLP groups for a couple of years,
as my interests have veered more to the energy side of things.

I'm interested in EFT, Reiki, Silva Method and now teach taiji, which
is sometimes called moving meditation. I end the classes each
week with a short, seated meditation, visualisation or awareness
exercise.

Best Wishes,
James

posted in Deep Mind - 1 reply

Welcome

2007-03-30T20:53:08Z

I started this group because I wanted a forum to promote discussion about accelerating* the benefits that I perceive as being a consequence of the practices commonly known as meditation. As a therapist and an NLP practitioner, I use psychological changework approaches all the time, but I am most interested in their application in leading us to a transpersonal awareness. But I don't want the discussion to be limited to NLP and meditation.

Lets get the sorcerers, the mystics, the psychologists, the dancers and singers all talking.

What do people see as useful or desirable outcomes for the practice of meditation that can be effectively enhanced through the application of accelerating changework technologies?

Adam

* people sometimes balk when I talk about accelerated meditation... let me try and explain a little bit about what I mean... it has more to do with the concept of elegance than it does with speed per se. accerating a technique is, to me, a process of refining it and amplifying that which assists it in working while removing that which doesn't. So, if you were to suggest a new study pattern that improved my learning, you would be accelerating my learning. It's about elegance and grace, not so much about getting somewhere faster.

posted in Deep Mind - 3 replies

Accellerated Meditation

2007-03-30T20:08:19Z

One point of view:

Meditation Shortcuts
by Philip H. Farber
originally published in The Journal of Hypnotism

I tend to say this frequently: There's no substitute for practice and experience. Nonetheless, I'm often asked for "shortcuts" to achieving meditative states. So it's now time for the down-and-dirty, nitty-gritty guide to Meditation for the Patience-Challenged. What follows is a discussion of a few different techniques that will take your practice from Om to Wow in the shortest time possible.

1) The Meditation Marathon - This is sometimes called a "retreat," but it's not necessary to haul your butt up to the Himalayas to hide out and meditate. Your usual meditation-location will do nicely. What this involves is taking a set period of time - a week, for instance - and meditating every available minute. I'm talking about hours of meditation a day - but just for that week. The trick here, as you're probably already considering, is scheduling. You have to clear the time from your schedule well in advance. Turn off the phone, disconnect the TV cable, pull the plug on your computer, and make sure your family and friends can read the Do Not Disturb sign on your door.

A meditation marathon is based on the idea that the more you do, the more you will learn. By exceeding your usual limits for the marathon week, you'll be able to develop new and powerful resource states that can be accessed again (and again!) when you return to your regular meditation practice. Which brings us to...

2) Anchoring - I'm assuming that most of you have a good idea about anchoring, which is the basis of the post-hypnotic response. A state of consciousness is assigned to a particular stimulus so that in the future, when this stimulus is again experienced, the state will be accessed once again. If you are going to do a meditation marathon - or even in your regular practice - you'll want to know that when you get to those really interesting states, you'll be able to have some way to anchor them and get back there quickly and easily.

Most of the elements of your meditation environment and practice can be used as anchors - if and only if they are consistent and unique. The first and probably most important aspect of this is "asana," the position in which you are sitting when you meditate. This is one reason that traditional meditation teachers insist on very specific ways to sit when meditating. Posture and physiology also have direct effects on consciousness, so by using a good asana when you meditate, you are covering your bases in a few different ways. In terms of anchoring a state to a position, if you decide to sit in half-lotus, for instance, or in a chair with a straight back, then continue to use that position and only that position when you do that particular meditation practice. Experienced meditators often report that, after years spent meditating in one asana, they are able to access their meditative states and experiences very quickly, simply by sitting in that position again.

Along with asana come other important physical anchors like mudras (yoga hand positions), your mantra or object of concentration itself, and so on. Likewise, other aspects of your practice can serve as anchors, including the clothes that you wear - if you have a particular pair of comfy meditation pants, for instance, and wear those only when meditating, then, after time, putting them on will help you access that state again. If, however, you also wear those clothes to play softball, go shopping, or whatever, then their usefulness as an anchor will greatly diminish.

In a similar vein, lighting, the objects in your field of vision when you sit to meditate, and any music or sounds you hear can also act as anchors, if they are unique and consistent. Olfactory anchors are very powerful, so choosing a particular scent of incense that you use only when meditating will further increase your ability to quickly enter states. All of which brings us to...

3) The Ritual Frame - I've discussed this here before (http://www.hawkridgeproductions.com/media/ritframe.html ), so dig through your back issues for the complete explanation. The ritual frame refers to the things you do just before your meditation, and the things you do just after. This might include, for instance, taking a shower or bath, dressing in your anchor-clothing, and performing symbolic acts to clear out your meditation space and to separate your mind from distractions. The ritual frame has its own symbolic functions, but also acts as an anchor (or set of anchors) that can help you to access your meditation states more easily. Again, you'll need to be consistent and to use the same ritual frame each time for it to act as a consistent anchor.

4) Self-Hypnotic Preparation - I'm sure some of you experienced hypnotists have already considered this one. It's a very simple idea - at some time other than your scheduled meditation practice, give yourself a self-hypnosis session in which you program your unconscious mind to access resources that will be useful in meditation. These can include, for instance, the power of concentration, the ability to relax muscles, calmness of mind, and so forth. You can future-pace these qualities and attach them as a post-hypnotic experience to one of your consistent, meditation-only anchors.

5) Tips and Tricks - Did you know that it is easy to still your internal dialogue by simply letting your tongue drop away from the roof of your mouth? In general, meditators are advised to meditate with the tongue against the roof of the mouth, or against the front teeth (there are theories of energy-flow that account for this suggestion) - and that's good advice. But if you find yourself meditating and are distracted repeatedly by internal dialogue, a few minutes of letting your tongue relax and drop away from your teeth and the roof of your mouth can help you get a little bit of internal quiet. Then you can return to your usual tongue-position and practice.

Another nice way of increasing concentration and shutting down internal distractions is to make sure that you are experiencing your object of concentration through as many senses as possible. If your meditation involves a mantra or counting, then also visualize the word or numbers, give it an appropriate color, let the sound of your mantra (even if you do it internally) reflect the meaning or intent of your mantra, and feel the sound of the mantra in your body, perhaps in an appropriate chakra or physical location.

Now... some of you may have noticed by now that all these down-and-dirty shortcuts all represent aspects of traditional practice. There's nothing that I've described here that hasn't been taught by various meditation schools for thousands of years. As usual, there's no substitute for regular practice - but making sure that you are consistent and absolutely congruent in your approach will take you much further, much faster.

More stuff here: http://www.hawkridgeproductions.com/media/index.html

posted in Deep Mind - 4 replies

Weave worlds within which to play

2007-03-30T05:31:57Z

I found this quote interesting because I frequently use the weaving metaphor and ambiguity in self-hypnotic scripts/journeys with a consciousness expanding theme

"We will strive for an understanding of the pure source of Tantra. Defining Tantra is both indispensable & arduous allowing for the myriad of possible meanings, each with its own particular nuance. Depending on its context, Tantra means a shuttle (in weaving), the warp (of a fabric), even a mystical & magical doctrine. The best new translations from the original texts is ~ Tantra means a "loom" or "weaving" ~ Tantra offers a perception of the universe as a fabric where everything is, in one form or another, interconnected, woven together ... If you connect the remnant remaining ~ "tra" = "weaving instrument" to "tan" = "to stretch, to expand" ~ you get tan-tra, literally, the instrument to expand ~ and now, in a spiritual context ~ a means to expand ordinary consciousness ~ to reach, awaken, and harness the wellspring of primal powers."

http://home.earthlink.net/~pleiadesx/twotale.htm

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...Unknowing...

2007-03-29T20:03:58Z

Really looking forward to doing this excercise with a dear friend. Thanks to all who posted this piece. Namaste, GH

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An exercise in Unknowing...

2007-03-29T19:55:28Z

A tribe friend of mine, Jamie, posted this on her blog, and has said it's OK for me to post it on... it kinda resonated with me and the intent of this tribe so here it is in it's entirety

"i just came back from a workshop, and we had the opportunity to have a seminar led by a wonderful man from the blackfoot tradition AND a tibetan buddhist tradition (i know! only in the kootenays...yaaay, koots!).

He ran us through a bunch of different exercises, and one, tho' intellectually obvious perhaps, if you are immersed in this path, was a beautiful and humbling experience to surrender into...

it comes from a native american tradition, held and overseen by elders, often for the passionate and fierce youth, throwing themselves against 'the enemies".

i challenge you to find someone to do this exercise with. To really do it, but to make yourself vulnerable and experience it.

we only can be gifted with as much as we give, right?

So.......................the idea is that you sit with someone. and one person reads a set of questions. The response to the first set of questions is always, "I don't know".

it should be done quietly, in a whisper...gentle, gentle, softly.

But he asked us not simply to respond by rote, to respond by our busy, sarcastic selves, but to drop into our bodies, find our breath, slow our mind, and actually look for that spot within ourselves where WE ACTUALLY DON'T KNOW.

"Does anyone love you?"...go beyond your knowingness, go beyond your reflex...and find that place, tender and uncertain.

the place beyond our safety nets and constructions and "facts".

The second set of questions our partner asked us, our response was "I am that too".

" I am that too."

This one was the most powerful for me.

Then you switch partners.

here are the questions...let me know how it goes!

much love, friends

j
xox

***********************************************************************

"I DON'T KNOW"
******************
Who are you?

Are you your thoughts?

Are you your feelings?

Are you your work?

Are you your spirit?

Do you love anyone?

Does anyone love you?

What will happen when you die?

"I AM THAT TOO"
********************

There are people who love.

There are people who oppress and hate.

There are people who forgive.

There are people who are sad and depressed.

There are people who are compassionate with themselves and others.

There are people who murder."

http://people.tribe.net/86729156-b88d-4495-b19c-d3d083e6ed08/blog/f388fb7b-e650-4b5f-aa59-8409b8abf2b0

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