In The Grip, I talked about the sequence of 4 grips. These are key holdings or resistances that keep us “in the dark”, in ignorance of our true nature as they would say in the east. They are met in the descent of higher states in unfolding enlightenment and, to some extent in the rising and falling cycles of time. There are of course secondary resistances of all sorts, unique to each person. And a different set of blocks in the prior rise of kundalini. This is the journey of healing and release each of us goes through in some form or another on the journey home.
I numbered the grips in the sequence in which they are discovered and released. But what of how they are formed? Why would all this happen? What would be the point of separating ourselves from ourselves?
There are a number of ways of looking at this, each of which will reveal nuances of the truth. Today, I’ll explore it from the perspective of the grips. Let’s see if I can do it in a nutshell.
In the “beginning” (“long” before time), liveliness stirs alertness into awareness. Awareness moves within itself and becomes aware of itself. Awareness is aware of itself both globally and at every point within itself. We could call this the God perspective.
The trouble with the God perspective is that when any intention to create arises, the expression all happens instantly. All of creation, the beings, the universes, the galaxies, stars and planets, the people, the lives and all the individual experiences in all time happen instantaneously. Blip. Done.
This perspective includes complete knowledge of everything that apparently occurred. But the global perspective overshadows the experience at any given point. And that points experience of a fraction of instantaneous does not really do it justice.
What God/spirit does is a fascinating adaptation. Attention shifts slightly from wholeness to the gap between awareness aware of itself. This creates a duality that does several things.
1 – it divides subject and object, creating the trinity of subject, object and process of experience.
2 – it creates space, and through the process of experience, time.
3 – global attention drops into the points of attention
Thus, by creating that simple duality by mere attention, creation is able to be experienced as a sequence of events in space by individual points of awareness. (you and I)
This little twist is the “fourth grip” of ignorance. It is only in seeing past this subtle duality that wholeness can really dawn in awareness and enlightenment can be said to be complete. (although there is always more refinement, expansion, etc)
The intellect has turned from differentiating creation to recognition of Self in all in unity. But it must also stop differentiating Self from Self.
One of the qualities of a creation built from flowing awareness is that it moves in cycles. In The Yugas, I explore one way of looking at the long cycles of time in the rise and fall of consciousness. In a Sat yuga or golden age, the general population experiences life with the twist of ignorance but in many ways is as-if enlightened. As the ages fall and rise again, the other grips are amplified and reduced.
In the descending cycle of Treta that follows Sat, the degree of consciousness drops. By the end of the age, the awareness of spirit is lost. (without global, only the point is known) Thus, feeling divided and alone, the sceptre of fear arises creating the “3rd” grip. The separation and fear make the sense of being a unique individual prominent, causing the core identity.
Fear casts a shadow over all emotions. As consciousness drops further, lower emotions like guilt, shame, and anger become more prominent. The heart builds a crust to protect itself but this further cuts us off from higher emotions and our connection with our soul and the divine. This is the “2nd” grip. Emotions are fed by experiences that verify our uniqueness and validate our feelings.
With the core identity giving a signal of individuality and the emotions energized by this, the mind develops the concept of a separate me. It seeks ways to emotionally gratify this, looking for experiences that verify this perspective. We seek to be right and thus make other wrong. This is the “first” grip.
It should be noted that I don’t want to demonize the ego here. It is a natural part of growing to adulthood. The issue is an ego without global context; an I without spirit. It becomes identified with its experiences and divides everything into good and bad.
As consciousness rises, the grips are lessened or released – either through a rising age or rising spiritual development. The advantage of spiritual development is that it gets us off the wheel of time. Once off, we can continue and clear the last grip and step into wholeness.
Make any sense?
Davidya
Hi Davidya,
Very interesting indeed.
So, if I am understanding correctly, when there is a cycle of falling consciousness, there really isn’t anything we can do. We are imprisoned by the grips?
Next question…
Using this “Big Picture” construct, would the failure of the current orientation of mankind to solve the world’s problems and the corresponding increase of the number of people awakening be a indicator of a period of rising consciousness? Asked another way, are there tracker signs in the trail that can be read?
We are running out of answers based on our current orientation. Actually, we are failing on many fronts very clearly in our western societies and our old ideasviews and actions aren’t helping things in many instances. At the same time, it does appear that something new wants to emerge and that there are people able to intuit this and draw attention to it. Kind of seems like failure and the potential of something new are in fact happening at the same time. Is this recognized as part of it?
Another question…
Do these cycles have a basis in a particular teaching or across several?
Comment and Curiosity…
One thing that has been a really big curiosity here is attention. Ever since there was enough awakeness here to notice, attention and movement appear to be random although in a way consistent with the conditioning of this mindbody.
In a way, what is watching seems to notice how the attention moves and flows spontaneously quite on its own. Since I am a planner and organizer in bodymind, it has become fantastically apparent that my plans and To Do Lists are amended quite often (daily sometimes hourly) by changing conditions and shifting attention.
It seems fantastic to me that there is something that notices individual attention. So that could be the global attention you discuss?
Also, it seems as though there is something prior to the noticing of what the individual mindbody is doing that is somehow known but cannot be sensed. I scratch my head, and say that is the mystery. If I am not insane in this recognition how does this fit in to what your write at the Macro level?
Interesting interview…
I heard an interesting interview on NPR with Dr. Miguel Nicolelis. He is an MD and Neuroengineer. I won’t go into his work, but it is quite fantastic regarding how the brain works and what they have learned. He has a new book out: “Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines—and How It Will Change Our Lives”
http://www.beyondboundariesnicolelis.net/~beyond/wordpress/
Anyway, he made a statement in the interview that really brought some of the above home. I am paraphrasing this. We have learned that the brain looks out in the environment and formulates a response or action before that response or action is consciously realized by the person. http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=13851
So it seems that much of what occurs launches from the unconscious. Any comment on that?
Interesting Topic!
Thank you!
Ben
Hi Ben!
Lots of interesting questions.
Well, think of the seasons. When winter comes, we can look at it as an inevitable trap. But we may see it as the natural cycle of nature. Or we may fly south for the season. 😉
In a story I read recently, the kings of a region of India saw that Kali Yuga had arrived and retreated to the forest to meditate. In those days, the kings were also the wise and patrons of the wise. As a result, several key errors crept into the common understanding quite quickly. And some tried to hide the dawning age as well.
It’s also worth reminding that only 10% of the time are we in a “winter” of consciousness.
And the solution is awakening. Then we’re not driven by time.
One of the tricks with rising consciousness is that it’s an inside out phenomena. One of the last places you’ll see it is on the surface. But what it can do is cause purification. And it can push what has been ignored or hidden to the surface.
Further, rising consciousness will cause us to reevaluate what is right and good. A lot of what’s happening in world events is highly symptomatic of these kinds of changes. Whole populations becoming more aware of evil, injustice, and more. What was happening didn’t change – just peoples awareness of it.
There is also the evolution of media taking place where things they would not have or could not have been reported before are now being reported.
There is a phenomena with water when it changes states from liquid to gas. Just before it reaches a smooth boil, it goes through a “roiling” stage where the water is highly agitated. This is known as a phase transition. We’re in such a transition now. The key thing is to move through a phase transition as quickly and as smoothly as possible. That is why several groups have created large groups (2-7000) meditating together every day. It’s why they’ve gathered thousands of pundits in groups around the world to do world peace yagyas. Larger groups by far than anything since 1945.
Much is falling away right now. The key is to look to what is arising and let the old go.
All of the ancient wisdom traditions I’ve seen speak of the cycles of time and the ages. They have developed different ways of measuring that time (like the Mayan & Hopi calendars) but the correct understanding aligns them all with the precession of the equinoxes and what we know as the ages – the age of Pisces, Aquarius, etc. I read an interesting bit about how even the Bible tells stories of the changing ages, like Moses casting out the bull (age of Taurus replaced by Aries)
“What is watching” is what I describe as the witness or observer here. It’s very normal in evolving awareness. We experience what is as if an independent observer of our body, mind, and life. A deeper development of that is when we notice the noticing, when we are witness to the person experiencing their life. This is the beginning of awareness aware of itself. This is a very clear experience. Awakening is simply when you shift into being the observer rather than “having” an observer. Its a surrender from identifying with the ego person and “falling” into being the observer.
Yes, the observer cannot be sensed as it is beyond sense and mind. It simply is. These points of observation are not really different things but more different points of observation from one awareness.
The observer is an aspect of the global attention but the global is much bigger still. Most experience it in progressive expansions.
It’s worth noting that you may find your attention is becoming more powerful. Thus, it is good to be mindful of what you’re feeding with your attention. Not in a judging way, just noticing and favouring.
On brain function, it’s even more than that. Our sensory input is compared to prior experiences before it is assembled and experienced consciously. In other words, all of our incoming experiences are filtered through and put in context of the past before we’ve even experienced them. This allows us to make faster choices but can doom us to repeating the past or misinterpreting our present unless we pay attention to how we’re responding. That’s much easier with the witness.
There is the general tendency for us to first notice what we’ve done after the fact, then during, then as the impulse arises. That awareness introduces choice.
One of the things about dawning Self Realization is attribution. At one time, we said “I do this.” I am the actor and I am making the choices. As the witness dawns we find ourselves detached from action yet see that actions continue. What is causing those actions to occur?
If we take a materialist paradigm, we might say the subconscious. An unconscious aspect of the ego-self is responsible for action. As we go deeper, we find a different mechanism. We find that nature itself is acting through all of life. From some perspectives, the actions of nature are performed by “devata” or what we in the west would call fairies and angels and such. All of these just point to the change in perspective on who is acting.
As the witness becomes more established, the refinement of the physiology accelerates and we begin to be able to perceive the mechanism of action in nature. This perspective evolves into GC and then on into unity which brings it all together. I’ve written much about this process elsewhere here.
Let me know if any of this doesn’t address your questions as intended. Or introduces more. (laughs)