The Center of the Central Topic (Part 1)

[Cleric K]

This is a continuation of our discussion with Mike from here. I wanted to further elaborate on the different ways we can think about thinking. The reply turned out to be quite substantial so I'm posting it as a kind of essay in a new thread.

Vowels exercise

I often mention the exercise "I think the speech" which should be done in such a way the we feel how we indeed produce the sounds of the words in our mind. I think that for many this exercise is too loaded and provides plenty of hooks for the intellect to go astray. Lately I've been thinking how to pinpoint the core of the exercise such that it can become almost foolproof, with very little chance of misunderstanding. Here's what I've come upon so far.

Let's experiment with vowels. The goal will be to produce vowels - a, e, o, u, i - while freely morphing between them. For example, we start with 'a' and smoothly morph into 'e' - aaaaaeaaaeeaaeeeaeeeeee. It's advisable that we first warm up with producing the sounds with our physical voice (make sure no one's around  ). We take a deep breath and begin slowly and smoothly morphing among random vowels in one continuous sound until we run out of air. After we get used to it, we continue the exercise but now with producing the sounds in our mind only.

There's very interesting difference when we do the exercise in our mind only - we can do it indefinitely - we never run out of air! The voice in our mind is independent of breathing (well, there's still relation but it will go well beyond the scope of this post to go into that). As a matter of fact it might be interesting to experiment also without breathing - we take a deep breath, hold it and begin producing the thought-sounds. We can't produce physical sound without passing air through the larynx but we certainly can in our mind. The reader may find that it is easier to focus when the breath is held (breathing may act as source of distraction). After we get the hang out of it we can breathe normally and hold the sound as long as possible. If we can morph the sound continuously, without any interruption, without any distraction, for about half a minute, that is actually pretty good. But even if we can keep it for much less, there's no need to be discouraged - even ten seconds can be enough if we do it with the needed concentration and intensity.

The goal of this exercise is to experience our thinking spiritual activity as clearly as possible. Yes, even producing a morphing sound can be considered a form of thinking. When we produce the sound we do that with our inner voice, the same one we use to think with verbal words. The most important thing is to feel as tightly as possible how it is through our own activity that the morphing of the sound is accomplished. The sound should feel as continuous, gradual morphing. The slower we do it, the better we can feel it. The sound should be an expression of our thinking will, of our innermost being. We should resist the temptation to split from the act of sound producing and observe it from the side or think about it. The goal is to fully engage precisely this voice which has the tendency to move in the background and imperceptibly comment on conscious phenomena as a bystander. We need to gather all the forces of this bystander and project them into the sound. We should feel this act as giving us inner stability, as if our sound producing activity finds its stable center in the sound perception. The center where the sound is focused at should be felt in the head region. As long as we're being drawn away from that center, the concentration is not yet as it should be. When our activity meets the sound in the right way, we feel very characteristic stability, almost as if a key fits a lock.

Here some may object that the feeling of being responsible for the sound is an illusion. Above all, this feeling is immediate fact of the given. It is only the thinking about that feeling which can declare it to be an illusion or not, but this in no way changes the given fact. Here we simply stick to the given. We shouldn't arbitrarily discard parts of the given because in this way we may be creating for ourselves an unsolvable problem. So in this exercise we don't postulate anything metaphysical but we simply investigate the living experience of willfully thinking a sound with clear self-propelled intent and tightly perceiving the result.

The Hysteresis process

This is a quite unusual state of mind. In our practical life we very rarely produce a thought just for the sake of intimately experiencing how we produce it. Normally we think about something. If we try to observe our thinking about that something, it immediately becomes a memory image for us. We're no longer thinking about the something but about our memory image of how we thought about the something just an instant ago. This is what we should avoid in the above exercise. We should try to feel the sound as real-time as possible as we speak it forth, without allowing it to recede too far away as memory. We can represent this process in the following way:



Before we continue, please loosen your rigid expectations about the graph. What we speak of is actually very simple. Investing too much in the graph will only make it look much more complicated than it really is. Along the X axis we have thinking in which we're fully submerged. This is usually how we think most of the time. Along the Y axis we have our ability to step back from the usual flow of thinking and observe it as memory image. Normally we oscillate between these modes similarly to a bistable perception:



We can see the image above in one way but then we lose the other. If we switch, we see the latter but lose the former. In a similar way, our ordinary thinking is always oscillating when it tries to grasp itself. If we think intensively about something, we're fully merged with the thought process which is experienced as flow in time. On the other hand if we want to step back and grasp thinking, we paralyze the ordinary thinking time flow and behold space-like memory. Here space-like doesn't means static, it just means that it is similar to processes that we behold in front of us in space, which can be changing.

The problem is that there's always polarity between what we do as thinking and what we are thinking about. When we theorize about thinking along the X axis, we imagine it, for example, as brain processing. What we think about is some general, imagined thinking process of interacting neurons but this says nothing about the real-time thinking which pictures the neurons. On the other hand, if we completely objectify thinking, it becomes a picture which, however, is now beheld as any other process in space - as sequence of perceptions. Our activity of observing is not contained in the memory picture. When the Y axis is taken to extreme, we arrive at something akin to Buddhist meditation where we completely detach from the ordinary flow and behold a magnificent panorama of objectified dependent arising. When the X axis is taken to extreme we have thinking which is completely engulfed by its object.

These two modes are never completely independent of each other and are always rhythmically alternating (not necessarily regularly) in hysteresis-like fashion - they never really settle. The exercise that we describe is one way in which the hysteresis process can spiral into unity. This is achieved when we preserve both thinking activity and its perception. The simple key is that we can only do that when thinking tries to observe as closely as possible what it is really doing. The hysteresis manifests because what we're doing and what we're perceiving are out-of-phase. We think of something (for example table) but the meaning that we experience about it, contains nothing about the thinking process itself. We're fully merged with the thinking about the table and we experience only the meaning of 'table', not the meaning of 'I'm thinking about a table'. Similarly, when we try to 'step out' of all thinking in order to perceive it objectively (the Y axis), we can do that only if all our spiritual activity becomes something monolithic - encompassing, perceiving, being aware, etc. Yet this is still something that is being done, we specifically guide our spiritual activity in order to achieve this. Just as in the former case, we're completely merged with this activity of 'experiencing' but we don't notice it because it is not reflected in the panorama of objectified thinking. Just as the fact that we're thinking about a table is not reflected in the concept of 'table', so the act of stepping out of all intellectual activity is not reflected in its objectified panorama. So the blind spot is there in both cases. Along the X axis we're thinking about million things but the things themselves don't in the least reflect to us the fact that we're actually willing that thinking. Similarly, along the Y axis we will our spiritual activity such that we step out of the thinking about million things and behold it as an objective panorama, but this panorama reflects everything except the fact that we're now doing something else, that we're willfully seeking this vantage point. This latter point causes great misunderstandings in mystical conceptions precisely because through the detachment from the objectified world content and seeking pure awareness, the fact that one is pursuing this state with one's own spiritual activity remains in the blind spot - it is nowhere to be found reflected in the objectified mystical panorama.

So if everything so far is understood, it should be clear that the reason for the bistable oscillation in cognition is because what we perceive doesn't reflect what we're doing with our spiritual activity. They are out of phase, so to speak. If we try to grasp what we are doing through ordinary means (in the way we're used to think about the sensory world), everything simply rearranges - the bistable mode flips - now we're beholding different panorama (memory image of former thinking) while a new kind of spiritual activity remains in the blind spot - the one contemplating the memory image. Please note that the fact that spiritual activity is in the blind spot doesn't mean that it is not experienced! It only means that we're completely and indistinguishably one with it. We experience all its inner meaning but this meaning doesn't tell anything about the fact that we're thinking it. It's similar in the Y axis where we objectify the world content as if by trying to rise to pure awareness but this objectified panorama doesn't reflect back to us the fact that we're willfully doing the objectification. In this sense, the X axis can be thought of as extreme subjectification where we're totally merged with the flow of spiritual activity without 'raising our head' to notice what we're doing. The Y axis is extreme objectification which goes so far in this 'raising its head' that it becomes objectively aware of everything except the fact that the 'raising of the head' is not to be found within that objectified panorama.

When we do the vowels exercise we seek to balance this bistable oscillation. We're not mesmerized by the subjective flow, neither we pretend to encompass the fully objectified world while forgetting that we're still using our spiritual activity to do that objectification. We aim to perceive exactly what we do. This is what we do when we speak the vowels. We have the objectified sound but in the same time it is direct reflection of what we're doing. What we perceive is what we do with our spiritual activity.

I would like to note that all above may sound very abstract to some. This happens if all these things are only being thought about intellectually. Most likely such a person hasn't tried to experiment with the exercise but simply thought about it: "Speaking sounds in the mind? Yeah I get that, what's the big deal?" All these things - bistability, hysteresis process, X and Y axes, etc. sound highly technical but are in reality very simple imaginative expressions of self-evident inner dynamics when we engage with seriousness in the exercise. When we learn to understand the axes not simply as abstract words but as the actual realities of inner engulfment in thinking and objectifying detachment, then X and Y are simply symbols for something living, in the same way the word 'love' is only a token for a real spiritual experience. In this sense, the hysteresis symbol is only an expression. Please don't read too much into its literal form - especially don't try to imagine some mechanical laws which cause the oscillation between the two modes, or try to imagine the activities as somehow geometrically perpendicular to each other.

The spiraling of the hysteresis process into unity is not the end of the world

Here I want to note that what we perceive in the vowel exercise as sound is still only a precipitation of our activity and not the activity itself. The activity is what we innerly do, the sound perception is the expression of what we do. The former we can call the inner thinking gesture, the latter is the thinking perception. We know how we can make bodily gestures with our will. Our willing of the movements of the vocal tract when we speak, can be conceived as another kind of bodily gesture. The willing intent is innerly experienced, the expression of the will is perceived through the senses as something that has already separated from our activity and is in the process of becoming memory. Similarly, when we step in the sand, it is our activity which moves the foot, while the footprint is the expression of the activity which remains as memory. In pure thinking we don't move our body parts but nevertheless we do something with our thinking-will. That's why it's appropriate to call our invisible activity, thinking gestures, while what we hear is the sound produced in our imagination, receding into memory.

The above should also immediately hint that the unity of the hysteresis is not a static point. It only symbolizes 'in-phase' relation between spiritual activity and perception. In the exercise we're fully active, our morphing keeps going completely dynamically. The only difference is that what we're doing is very tightly reflected in the sound. The more smooth, uninterrupted, centered, stable and intense this process is, the more we can say that we're spiraling into the unity of the otherwise bistable (dual) mode of cognition oscillating in the hysteresis. Please note that this unity is different from the common understanding of the non-dual state which is really the extreme Y axis, as already shown. In our exercise we don't aim to step outside everything so that we can contemplate it from the standpoint of the supposed pure awareness (while forgetting to account for the stepping out itself) but instead we take fully conscious control of spiritual activity and seek to bring it in-phase with the perceptual element. It's of utmost importance that this is grasped properly. The unity doesn't lead to some stagnant point but only ends the hectic oscillations of the mind where spiritual activity chases its tail without ever catching it.

True Time

What we have thus achieved is actually much more significant than it may look. We can approach that through an analogy. Imagine a fly and how difficult it is to catch it. Why is that? Imagine that you're looking at the fly and then the conscious experience is put 'on pause'. Just by looking at it can you tell in what direction the fly will turn next? We don't really have a reliable method to do that. In our perceptions we're always in the past. We live in perceptions which are already receding as memory and based on that we try to predict the future movement of the fly. This is not easy because the behavior of the fly is highly erratic.

Now consider once again the exercise. In certain sense we also morph the sounds randomly but this randomness doesn't surprise us. It's not like we expect one sound but we hear another. Instead, all feels completely lawful. It's not about getting in argument whether our choice of the sounds is free or not. It's simply that we feel our thinking activity to be extended in time and uniting the separate 'sound frames'. In certain sense we're the engineer of time for the sound. It is as if we feel not an infinitesimal small 'now' moment but a tiny slice of time for which we simply know where things are coming from and where they are going. We know this because it is our own activity which spans the law within which the sound morphs. This is such an important observation that I'll label it with (T) for future reference. T - for True Time. This really coincides with Bergson's concept of duration which Ashvin often quotes (for example here). The meaning that we experience, which spans time, is the temporal glue which makes the sound to be perceived as something for which we know the past but also something of the future. What is here being said can never be understood in the right way if we simply think about thinking as some objective process similarly to the way we think about 'digestion'. In the latter case we think about a sequence of images and time remains a mysterious law which somehow propagates the images. But in the exercise we must not think about thinking because all our thinking activity should already be fully focused in the speaking forth the sound. Yet as a kind of higher intuition we simply know where the sound is coming from and where it is going. That's why I call it True Time - because it's the only thing for which we understand something of the past and the future in this unique and immediate way. We experience the immediate meaning which in itself is also the temporal law for the sound to be experienced in the way we do.

This may leave the reader with a question "But this observation is useless! Feeling the sound up close doesn't answer any practical riddles of existence. We need the hysteresis process to continually split from our thinking and objectify it in order to create theories about its workings." This has been the dominant paradigm in science and philosophy for the last centuries but we'll see that the (T) experience can lead us as if through a portal, to a quite different way of knowing of how our thinking works. We'll continue in Part 2.

[Eugene I.]

So the blind spot is there in both cases. Along the X axis we're thinking about million things but the things themselves don't in the least reflect to us the fact that we're actually willing that thinking. Similarly, along the Y axis we will our spiritual activity such that we step out of the thinking about million things and behold it as an objective panorama, but this panorama reflects everything except the fact that we're now doing something else, that we're willfully seeking this vantage point. This latter point causes great misunderstandings in mystical conceptions precisely because through the detachment from the objectified world content and seeking pure awareness, the fact that one is pursuing this state with one's own spiritual activity remains in the blind spot - it is nowhere to be found reflected in the objectified mystical panorama.


Please note that the fact that spiritual activity is in the blind spot doesn't mean that it is not experienced! It only means that we're completely and indistinguishably one with it. We experience all its inner meaning but this meaning doesn't tell anything about the fact that we're thinking it. It's similar in the Y axis where we objectify the world content as if by trying to rise to pure awareness but this objectified panorama doesn't reflect back to us the fact that we're willfully doing the objectification. In this sense, the X axis can be thought of as extreme subjectification where we're totally merged with the flow of spiritual activity without 'raising our head' to notice what we're doing. The Y axis is extreme objectification which goes so far in this 'raising its head' that it becomes objectively aware of everything except the fact that the 'raising of the head' is not to be found within that objectified panorama.

Cleric, that's not true, experienced nondual practitioners of course know about that "blind spot". Rupert Spira talked about it a few times. The blind spot on the Y-axis is not a problem at all. Yes, you can always take another "step back" and become aware of being aware of perceiving, and then take another step back, but there still will always be a blind spot, because the act of direct knowing by itself is always immediate. There is no problem with it and not much point in doing so many step-backs, it will only overload our thinking capacity with so many self-reflective acts. This is why one step back to observe all activity of willing, thinking and perceiving (other than the stepping-back itself) is good enough for the mindfulness state. In such meta-cognitive mindful state you know what you are doing or thinking and why you are doing it. If we can achieve this and stay in this state continuously all the time, this is already a huge progress (I'm far from being there). However, this is called the "mindfulness" state and it's a pre-requisite of, but not exactly the non-dual state, the latter includes something more than that. Ideally, when such mindfulness becomes a habit, the thinking is performing its activity always at the "tip of the first hysteretic cycle" - thinking and willing actively in the world and at the same time observing and knowing what and why it is willing and thinking and perceiving. This is difficult to achieve, especially not only during meditation but in everyday life, because it is not how our minds were developed to work and it overloads the thinking process during our daily activity.

Now, regarding the non-dual state, this is beyond mindfulness. If someone has a negative attitude towards the non-dual state, they will never experience it. One needs to seek for it deeply in their heart. "Knock and the door will be opened to you". If your intention is to experience it only to later criticize it and show how "inferior" it is compared to Steinerian way of cognition, you will not be able to experience it. The gatekeepers will not let you in.

[Cleric K]

Cleric, that's not true, experienced nondual practitioners of course know about that "blind spot". Rupert Spira talked about it a few times. The blind spot on the Y-axis is not a problem at all. Yes, you can always take another "step back" and become aware of being aware of perceiving, and then take another step back, but there still will always be a blind spot, because the act of direct knowing by itself is always immediate. There is no problem with it and not much point in doing so many step-backs, it will only overload our thinking capacity with so many self-reflective acts. This is why one step back to observe all activity of willing, thinking and perceiving is good enough for the mindfulness state. In such meta-cognitive mindful state you know what you are doing or thinking and why you are doing it. If we can achieve this and stay in this state continuously all the time, this is already a huge progress (I'm far from being there). However, this is called the "mindfulness" state and it's a pre-requisite of, but not exactly the non-dual state, the latter includes something more than that. Ideally, when such mindfulness becomes a habit, the thinking is performing its activity always at the "tip of the first hysteretic cycle" - thinking and willing actively in the world and at the same time observing and knowing what and why it is willing and thinking and perceiving. This is difficult to achieve, especially not only during meditation but in everyday life, because it is not how our minds were developed to work and it overloads the thinking process during our daily activity.

Now, regarding the non-dual state, this is beyond mindfulness. If someone has a negative attitude towards the non-dual state, they will never experience it. One needs to seek for it deeply in their heart. "Knock and the door will be opened to you". If your intention is only to experience it to later criticize it and show how "inferior" it is compared to Steinerian way of cognition, you will not be able to experience it. The gatekeepers will not let you in.

Thanks Eugene, for your comment. I'll withhold elaborating at this point because there are things in Part 2 that are needed to go further. Just to mention that my point was not that the Buddhist is not aware of what he is doing. That's why I turned attention that 'blind spot' doesn't mean lack of conscious experience. The point was to recognize the tendency to polarize our consciousness such that we assume the perspective of spread out invisible awareness that enwraps phenomena and beholds them objectively. When we strive to attain to this fully objective awareness, there's something which we miss in the whole picture. I hope it will become more clear in Part 2.

Other than that I agree that the hysteresis mode is the right mode for our daily life. It's actually important that we keep these modes differentiated just like we keep working and sleeping differentiated. In our stage of evolution we need to bring these modes into a healthy rhythm. What we achieve in the unitary mode bears fruits which have significance for our everyday life - the nature of the hysteresis is more harmonious, more finely tuned. It's the same with everything actually. The racing team tunes the car in the box, once on the track it is expected to work properly. We study for an exam beforehand. What we learn at home prepares the nature of the hysteresis patterns we'll go through at the time of the exam.

[AshvinP]

Cleric, that's not true, experienced nondual practitioners of course know about that "blind spot". Rupert Spira talked about it a few times. The blind spot on the Y-axis is not a problem at all.

There is easy way to verify this. Quote something from Spira or whoever else in nondual mystical tradition which has similar meaning to what Cleric described above, pointing out the same issues with polarization on X-Y axis and what works to mitigate them. Obviously the same words and graphs don't need to be used, only something reflecting the same underlying meaming of what was written. Then we can all evaluate it for ourselves.

Everyone can think of how many nondual mystical practitioners they have come across, perhaps right here on this forum, because they are very common. Then we can ask, why have we never come across one of them imaginatively and precisely illustrating these things as Cleric does? If our first instinct is to cry "superiority!" rather than logically think through the reasons this could be, then we should become aware of that antipathy which clouds and guides our Thinking.

That's all I wanted to point out. Thanks for the fantastic food and exercise for Thought, Cleric, and looking forward to part 2!

[Eugene I.]

When we strive to attain to this fully objective awareness, there's something which we miss in the whole picture.

Absolutely, we become like one-eye blinded person ignorant to the depths of the universe of spiritual activity and its meanings. But likewise, if we only stive to attain to the layers and layers of the universe of meanings and spiritual activity and become so ignorant to the depths of our existential dimension of who we ARE, we become again one-eye blinded, only now with the other eye blind. To attain a truly stereoscopic all-encompassing knowledge and experience of reality in all its aspects, we need to see it with both eyes open.

[Eugene I.]

When we strive to attain to this fully objective awareness, there's something which we miss in the whole picture.

As an analogy, suppose I'm a person lacking a sense of musicality. This does not make me bad in any way, it's just that I don't have that ability to sense the depth and the beauty of music, there are many people like that. But it's not only that, but I also claim that there is nothing to music other than what I hear in it: only a mechanical sequence of notes, and that people claiming that there is anything to the music in addition to the sequence of notes are just fooling themselves or lying. Fortunately, I have a good coordination and memory, so I quickly learn to play a piece of Bach music, and I go through experience of the playing, but in that experience I do not feel of perceive anything beyond just mechanical sequence of notes. It sounds nice and harmonious, but nothing more than that. So, I say that my experience proves me right: there is nothing more to music than a nice sequence of notes. I could possibly develop my sense of music and start experiencing some depths in music, but by my rejectionist attitude towards even a possibility for such experience I obstruct myself from developing my sense of musical esthetic.

Similarly, when we reject and oppose a possibility of developing our consciousness in the existential dimensions, we obstruct ourselves from such development, it just cannot happen because we are unwilling to enter this dimension, we close the door from inside. We can prove ourselves that there is nothing in that experience of "pure awareness" other than attention to our objective awareness that we can experience in a simple meditative exercise. We can sit in meditation and observe that we are aware of all phenomena, and this will indeed be a dry, dull and flat experience similar to mechanical playing of the notes of Bach music. And then we will say: see, I tried your "awareness" meditation, there is nothing there but a flat and plain objective observation, no depths, no meaning, just a dull and mechanical experience, and this will only confirm our rejection and unwillingness to explore this dimension. It is called "bias confirmation". Trust me, the experiences and meanings in the existential dimensions are so much deeper and richer than just mechanical objective observation of awareness, but it opens very slowly and gradually, and only to people that are open to this dimension with faith and longing in the depths of their hearts and consistently stiving to go deeper. In spiritual realms you need an open hearted approach with faith and deep interest and longing in order to progress. Here is how some people describe their experience of "pure Consciousness", but note that it happened to this girl because she was seeking it with deep faith and longing:

Of course it is true that if we only strive to develop in the existential dimensions and disregard other dimensions of development, we will definitely miss much in the whole picture. So, it is simply a matter of expanding into all these dimensions simultaneously instead of pursuing only one of them exclusively and rejecting the others.

[Cleric K]

Of course it is true that if we only strive to develop in the existential dimensions and disregard other dimensions of development, we will definitely miss much in the whole picture. So, it is simply a matter of expanding into all these dimensions simultaneously instead of pursuing only one of them exclusively and rejecting the others.

Yes, exactly. I agree with everything you say about the depth. And this is the goal of TCOTCT - to find the stable point of origin from which this expansion can begin in such a way that the existential dimensions can really be grown into. If we don't start from that point, we hit the wall of inexplicability. We stand within hieroglyphic space and assume that this is the Earthly limit. Exactly as your musical depth example, we can't attain to that depth from the side. No matter how ingeniously we combine the mechanical musical techniques, the depth won't be experienced there. We need to grow through the music, the music must become of the same nature as speech for us. Speech is the expression of our I-ness as meaningful sound. This meaning can be superficial but can also have depth. To have depth means that we find deeper unity through the hierarchy of meaning. If we imagine the latter as the tree of knowledge, then peripheral meanings are the tips of the branches. If we know only that, we live in superficiality - we live in multitude of disconnected fragments of meaning, mechanically patched together. To have depth, means that consciousness lives within the depth of the branches and finds the links which unite seemingly separate branches. The more we move towards the trunk, the more we find how everything fits into holistic harmony.

It's the same with music. We discover the depth in music only when we experience it as expression of spiritual states of being. It's the same also with existence as a whole. We can't find the depth by simply expanding our awareness and listening to the music of existence. Sooner or later we hit the hieroglyphic wall in this way. The meaningful depth of existential music doesn't come to us by itself. We're listening to that music even at this moment. Our thoughts flow according to certain chords, we are now in a verse, then in the chorus, now crescendo, then diminuendo, etc. This is all language that our soul speaks. Ordinarily we live only in the outermost vibrations of this music and assume that it's all random. We can begin to approach the depth of our soul life only if we're open that our intellectual states can be understood from a higher/deeper meaningful perspective. This is TCT. What is called curvature of meaning and so on is the musical depth of our own being. We must be open that the depth is there and that our self-image will certainly change when our spirit begins to Think within the higher order chords of the soul, within which the mechanical words/notes of the intellect are arpeggiated.

We must pass through the center of existence to discover the existential dimensions as expression of depth of meaning. Only in this way the path for evolution is open. Simply because together with the expansion of the existential dimensions we also discover them as expression of Cosmic Speech, imbuing them with deep meaning.

[Eugene I.]

A agree, Cleric, the TCT is indeed the entrance gate point into the depths of these dimensions, both existential ones and the dimensions of thinking and willing activity and meanings. It is only when Thinking/Consciousness turns towards itself and starts exploring and knowing itself in all its aspects where the entrance to the depths in these dimensions really opens.

[Soul_of_Shu]

The more we move towards the trunk, the more we find how everything fits into holistic harmony.

Might work this into my next song lyric

[mikekatz]

Hi Cleric
Thanks for the huge amount of effort you have put into this!
And thanks, Eugene and Ashvin, for clarifying comments.
I need to practice and read for awhile to process all of this. Also, I need to wait patiently for part 2, without which I doubt I'll understand fully or correctly.