(Short) In Remembrance of the Matrix

[AshvinP]

"For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this One also have something to offer. For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, 'See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.'"

- Hebrews 8:3-5

We previously considered how Time, as meaningful duration, is subconsciously spatialized by the rational intellect for narrowed purposes of science and technology; for measurement and analysis of phenomenal appearances. When we forget that Time has been 'eliminated' in this manner, we reify the abstract spatial dimensions from 'shadows of heavenly things' into idols. A property becomes an idol when it no longer points to qualities of meaning beyond itself, but instead it is considered functionally independent of our thinking experience and it only points our intention and attention back towards itself. Most people feel that the spatial dimensions are a pre-existing 'area' in which we experience and act. This idolatry then discourages any further thinking through the dimensions to mine their deeper layers of meaning. Although theoretical physics, psychology, and cognitive science of the 20th century has made the 'pre-existing area' concept untenable, abstract space is still naively idolized in this manner. Another name for the abstract spatial world is the "physical" world and for the world of durational meaning, the "spiritual".


"The new mutation of consciousness, on the other hand, as a consequence of arationality, receives its decisive stamp from the manifest perceptual emergence of the spiritual...

Two apocryphal statements of Christian doctrine clarify in their way what is meant here: “This world is a bridge, cross it but do not make of it your dwelling place,” and “I have chosen you before the earth began.” They point to the spiritual origin prior to all spatio-temporal materialization. We may regard such materialization as a bridge that makes possible the merging or coalescence, the concrescere of origin and the present. The great church father Irenaeus presumably had these sayings in mind when he stated: “Blessed is he who was before the coming of man.” We have seen him; he revealed himself in space and time. In his departure he was beheld by his disciples in his transparency, a transparency appropriate only to the spiritual origin (if anything can be appropriated to it), the transparency which a time-free and ego-free person can presentiate in the most fortunate certainty of life. The grand and painful path of consciousness emergence, or, more appropriately, the unfolding and intensification of consciousness, manifests itself as an increasingly intense luminescence of the spiritual in man."

- Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin


This relation of physical to spiritual is a polar One, meaning both aspects are inseparable relational expressions of an underlying Idea. The polarity of physical-spiritual, quantity-quality, visible-invisible, i.e. Space-Time, has been expressed throughout ancient mythology and philosophy in manifold ways. Some common images for it which are drawn from the sense-world are that of Darkness-Brightness, Shadows-Light, Ice-Fire, Moon-Sun, Lunar-Solar, and many similar images. These physical objects point to the underlying relation between subconscious activity and the conscious individuated ego; the newborn infant and the matured adult; the state of sleeping and dreaming and that of awakening. In more recent decades, many popular stories have also framed this relation in terms of the past and the future; the time of gods and the time of men; the dominion of man over Earth and that of machines. This polarity has developed into a very ambivalent relation in our modern culture. We are not exactly sure whether to applaud or recoil in horror when contemplating a near future of humanoid 'artificial intelligence', for example.

It is sensed by most, however dimly, that the dynamic of this relationship is evolving in some way; that the two poles appear to be converging and/or reversing their roles, somewhat like the North and South poles of Earth's magnetic field have periodically reversed over an average duration of 7,000 years. That duration of Time-experience would actually take us back quite close to the dawn of self-conscious and individuated humanity living in ancient India, Persia, and Egypt around 3,000 B.C. The realm of the gods, communities, nations, races, etc. is now perceived as belonging to the past and the era of digital humanity as belonging to the future, perhaps approaching a 'singularity' in which the two are fully merged together. There is no shortage of these images in popular entertainment as well - practically every fantasy, horror, or science-fiction movie directly portrays this relationship within individuals, families, communities, nations, and humanity at large. They unfold according to a very predictable threefold narrative structure of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

It is of utmost importance for us to remember these physical and spatial images in Nature and Culture are pointing us towards a spiritual reality of meaningful and durational qualities. The spiritual is now manifesting within the physical with increasing intensity, but If we conflate the symbols for some purely physical state of affairs in the world around us, then we have simply lapsed back into the idolatry of space. Those who speak of a "simulation hypothesis" to explain the existence of our sense-world, constructed by many layers of higher-order machine intelligences, have done exactly that. Idolatry of this sort represents a gap in our knowledge which we fill with our own abstract creations, according to our likes and our dislikes; our attractions and our repulsions; our unexamined hopes and our fears. A deep sense of tension and uncertainty has always accompanied major transformations of human consciousness over the epochs of our existence, yet our current transfiguration from space-consciousness to TIme-consciousness is unparalleled in that regard.


"What is to come? ... As in any crisis there are two possible answers to the question of its outcome: demise or transition... Anyone who takes to heart the solution to our problems, and who has not forgotten that we partake every moment of our lives in the originary powers of an ultimately spiritual nature, will be willing to participate in this task."

- Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin



"We might say that the whole Omega Point of life lies in that verb (to see)... union increases only through an increase in consciousness, that is to say in vision. And that, doubtless, is why the history of the living world can be summarized as the elaboration of ever more perfect eyes within a cosmos in which there is always something more to be seen. After all, do we not judge the perfection of an animal, or the supremacy of a thinking being, by the penetration and synthetic power of their gaze? ... To see or to perish is the very condition laid upon everything that makes up the universe, by reason of the mysterious gift of existence."

- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man


The unfolding 'apocalypse' (revelation) of our current epoch partakes in an integration of the abstract spatial dimensions through the irruption of Time-experience into our consciousness. We can perceive that integration as it continues to manifest in various philosophical and scientific fields of inquiry, along with aesthetics and culture, but we can also develop our individual vision to perceive how spatial dimension is the phenomenal appearance of relativistic (relational) Time-experience. What does this development mean to us and for us, practically? For one, it means that our Thinking activity can penetrate into deeper layers of meaning which encompass more qualities of the 'past' and the 'future'. We can bring more qualities of the past (memories) and the future into our present consciousness, thereby transcending the abstraction of the Newtonian clock, i.e. linear time and hastening the becoming of who we are. That is the deeper spiritual meaning of the phrases, "end of days" or "end of time", which are frequently mentioned in relation to the 'apocalypse'. We are, hopefully, living with our thinking Spirit in that more integrated domain of Time-consciousness right this moment, as we write, read, and contemplate this essay.

“At that time Michael shall stand up,
The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people;
And there shall be a time of trouble,
Such as never was since there was a nation,
Even to that time.
And at that time your people shall be delivered,
Every one who is found written in the book.
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
...
Those who are wise shall shine
Like the brightness of the firmament,
And those who turn many to righteousness
Like the stars forever and ever.

But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

- Daniel 12:1-4

This 'book' is now being unsealed for all those who seek an active interest in awakening to read its pages. We simply need to open our spiritual eyes and take a spiritual breath as we are reborn into the higher worlds. When we internalize the spiritual nature of our participation in the process of World-Evolution, the phenomena we are most familiar with are seen in a new and higher Light. They are transfigured from mere whims, fancies, and curiosities, into the integral spiritual tools we can use to adapt and evolve. The remainder of this essay will focus on one such cultural phenomena which illustrated our unique situation by speaking to our spiritual organism with aesthetic bluntness. The original Matrix movie, released in the last year of the 20th century, was cinematically unparalleled in this regard. It was crafted to convey a very precise message about the modern abstracted soul in the most vivid, thrilling, and thoughtful way. Images of the unfolding clash between the physical and spiritual were seared into many young and impressionable minds. Awakening from mechanized sleep and dreams into the higher worlds of spiritual duration was henceforth known as taking the "red pill".

"There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God,

The holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved;

God shall help her, just eat the break of dawn.

The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved;

He uttered His voice, the earth melted."

- Psalm 46:4-6

Taking the red pill is the act of choosing a healthy transition into a Time-liberated life over a terrible demise by way of mechanized routine. The most important aspect of the red pill was not the Truth revealed to those who chose it, but the opportunity it presented to the chooser; the opportunity to consciously participate in a single realization which carries the potential of cascading our souls into the very heart of Zion, the City of God. This opportunity manifests for us because we are conscious of, not only the choice we are presented with, but also our act of perceiving the choice and perceiving the act of choosing. Unlike our ancestors in their respective apocalyptic phases, we are now choosing in full clarity of consciousness. Therefore, we are also perceiving ourselves participate in this decisive battle of the awakening Light against the darkened forces of slumber. We can perceive how our courage, daring, and ambition, previously sensed only as vague memories of bygone heroes, is now reborn through our thoughtful consideration into our immanent living experience.

"But Father Sleep, out of the multitude of his thousand sons, raises

Morpheus, a skilful artist, and an imitator of any human shape. No one

more dexterous than he mimics the gait, and the countenance, and the

mode of speaking; he adds the dress, too, and the words most

commonly used by anyone."

- Ovid, Metamorphoses 

The red pill initiates the Neo-phyte into higher knowledge of the spiritual. He then enters the imaginal realm of the pure white, dimensionless 'Construct'. We are told that this same 'anomalous' initiation had occurred with 'chosen' humans in five previous incarnational cycles, and the current Neo is the sixth incarnation of the One. Unlike the previous chosen ones, he is the One who is motivated by his sacrificial Love for Trinity, i.e. the Godhead who lives eternally in Goodness, Beauty, and Wisdom. Neo is led there by Morpheus, the ancient Greek god who appears within our dreams in human form. Since the time of the Greco-Roman civilization, the dream world was recognized explicitly as the threshold between the physical and the spiritual; between dreamless sleeping and awakening. Our current dream-experience is a dim remnant of this threshold of spiritual consciousness. It can serve as a reminder to us of just how much of our rich and meaningful experience is forgotten each and every day.

However, these ancient memories of how the Matrix was formed do not simply disappear from existence after they are experienced. Mnemosyne (Memory), as the ship who chariots souls across the threshold, is still patiently waiting for us to board her vessel. Memory unites the chasm between the past and the future; between the physical and the spiritual; between Space and Time. In the words of Nietzsche, she is "a bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms". Once we board her vessel safely, we are reunited with long lost friends and family members; our spiritual companions. We are not cut off from the Matrix, but rather we can observe it, and sometimes influence it, from a higher vantage point of four-dimensional meaning. Now, we can make sense of what occurs within the Matrix and what was otherwise opaque to our thinking consciousness, such as experiences of deja vu or 'synchronicities' between our 'subjective' experience and the 'objective' world. All of these events suddenly take on a new significance and naturally fill the voids in our Cosmic puzzle.

“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!"

- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The story of Cosmic awakening becomes the story of our own daily lives as we embark on a journey into higher worlds of Soul and Spirit. Like Alice in her journey down through the rabbit hole, we can be led to the red pill of awakening in the most diverse, and perhaps bizarrely curious, ways. We then find ourselves in a Wonderland filled with meaning and  unencumbered by routine physical constraints - a world of grins without the cats. What the recently released fourth installment in the series - "The Matrix Resurrections" - highlights, however, is a caution for those who are fortunate enough to behold this spiritual Truth. It highlights how, even after the Truth is revealed to us in its transparency - awakening and kindling a fire within us - we are still at risk of falling back asleep. Truth always remains on the precipice of half-truths, in danger of being reduced into yet another deception by way of abstraction and incompletion. Many times we will bend over backwards to convince ourselves that the once-revealed Truth is now only illusion and deceit. This relapse into the idolatry of space is especially likely when we are only motivated into the awakening by pleasure, greed, or other purely selfish desires.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

- John 3:16

While some reject the red pill altogether, fixing themselves in an abstract spatial prison, other will take the red pill and grasp only for the purely temporal, as a means of  bypassing the gradual stages of spiritual evolution; as a means of 'escaping' the physical sense-world and leaving many others behind. We will forget or disregard the fact that there are still those who are in need of salvation. There are those humans who remain fast asleep, but there are also those 'evil' machines and digital agents who created and maintain the Matrix deception. The latter are no less deserving of spiritual redemption from Karmic debt than anyone else. They are no less deserving of our sacrificial Love. That is the deeper spiritual meaning of gratefully "loving our enemies"; of sheltering, clothing, feeding, and visiting one of the "least of these" brethren; We should not judge and condemn, for vengeance does not belong to us. It is neither our right nor our duty to dispense spiritual justice to others. All-being is our brothers and sisters; All is responsible for All. In our remembrance of the eternal Wisdom of Cosmic evolution within and through the Matrix of our physical birth and spiritual rebirth, not One single spiritual being shall be left behind.

[Cleric K]

...

Thanks Ashvin!

I was thinking to skip the new Matrix because it seems to me that nothing essential can be added to the story. It looked like they simply decided it's time to cash in on the brand a little. But maybe I'll give it a go after all.

This morning as I was watching the Sunrise



I thought I would like to add something about two types of Matrices.

The first can be sketched thus:



On the left we have our classical situation of an inner world enveloped by the Natural world. On the right we have the same thing but the digital world (the Matrix) has been inserted in between. We can call this horizontal or flat Matrix. The reason is because the inner world and thinking are simply copy-pasted on the right. We can even have Matrix within a Matrix within a ... but still the inner world and thinking would be essentially the same. This is the naive way of conceiving the spiritual worlds too. When people imagine Heaven they practically copy-paste their inner world and simply imagine that it will be enveloped with a different environment.

Contrast this with the following:



The blue arrow represents our thoughts. Instead of fantasizing different kinds of (potentially nested) envelopes around our inner world, we realize that there's deeper/higher spiritual activity (purple) concealed within ordinary thoughts (blue). The higher spiritual activity is also a part of a higher world.

Most people today more or less can feel their body as something that their essential self is only clothed in. For example, even if we lose a limb or have an organ transplant, we are still the same "I". The major milestone in evolution that we're at the threshold of today, is that we should realize that even our thoughts are only clothes of our deeper spiritual being. We can more or less sense that this is the case when we consider that we can think in different languages, in hand-sign language, in symbols, images, music, etc. It's clear that with our being we weave in meaning that is dressed in various mental clothes (blue). That's why I emphasize the importance of turning attention to the actual thinking gestures that we perform. Through this we gradually begin to gain consciousness in the purple stratum. This we can call vertical or depth Matrix. We're not simply copy-pasting our atomic human consciousness around but we find how our essential being weaves in the rigid thoughts. This was visualized from another angle in the post here.

Another metaphor is to consider hard diving suite. Our ordinary thinking is constrained by the most various joints which allow only for limited degrees of freedom. Yet we need these joints in the course of our evolutionary development. Our nervous system is like helping wheels or orthopedic braces for our spirit. Even though they constrain the degrees of freedom through which our spirit can express, nevertheless they give us the initial support around which our spiritual activity coalesces. As our "I" strengthens, we can give the form of our thoughts with less and less external support.

It should be once again reminded that the mystical state of pure awareness or the psychedelic ego-death state do not give us the higher spiritual activity. They give us only perception of the totality of the inner world. Before we can develop higher cognition we must start with ordinary cognition - that is, we must know ourselves as thinking spirits. Only when we meditate on the (T) experience of our thinking, we begin to gain consciousness of the leeway between the rigid orthodontic braces (blue) within which our normal intellect flows and the higher order spiritual activity (purple) which flows in them. The former is represented in the visualization as the erratic thought-movement. When through concentration we stabilize the thought-image, we begin to gain consciousness of the expanding world of which our higher spiritual being is part.

[Eugene I.]

This we can call vertical or depth Matrix.

That's exactly right. It's still a Matrix, a construct, but only vertical and multi-layered one. So, the red pill Ashvin was talking about is not really the Red pill of getting beyond the Matrix, but only a "pink" pill of getting from lower levels to the higher ones of the same Vertical Matrix. This is for the souls that want to stay within and the Matrix and continue their ascending way up the hierarchy of the levels of the Vertical Matrix staying compliant with the higher order of the Matrix, and that's fine if they choose to do that. Yet there is another choice - the Red pill to get us beyond this whole Vertical Matrix construct.

It should be once again reminded that the mystical state of pure awareness or the psychedelic ego-death state do not give us the higher spiritual activity.

The state of "pure awareness" is a state of the highest spiritual activity beyond the framework of the Vertical Matrix.

[Cleric K]

The state of "pure awareness" is a state of the highest spiritual activity beyond the framework of the Vertical Matrix.

OK Eugene, you win Your pill trumps all. Even though we can't distinguish pure awareness of a brain within a materialistic universe (Sam Harris) from one in spiritual universe (a general mystic). Even though the pure awareness doesn't tell us if consciousness survives death. Even though it doesn't tell us if we can at all speak of One consciousness (how do we know we're not experiencing simply the purity of our own personal bubble?). Even though we have no clue how reality comes about. Even though we have no clue how our thinking is steered by blind desires, prejudices, sympathies and antipathies. But nevertheless, yes, pure awareness is the highest of all, outside and beyond all matrices.

[AshvinP]

...

Thanks Ashvin!

I was thinking to skip the new Matrix because it seems to me that nothing essential can be added to the story. It looked like they simply decided it's time to cash in on the brand a little. But maybe I'll give it a go after all.

Cleric,

It's pretty hard to watch Keanu's acting in this one But yes still worth it. I didn't realize it would be released on streaming just a few days after it hit theatres...

This morning as I was watching the Sunrise



I thought I would like to add something about two types of Matrices.

The first can be sketched thus:



On the left we have our classical situation of an inner world enveloped by the Natural world. On the right we have the same thing but the digital world (the Matrix) has been inserted in between. We can call this horizontal or flat Matrix. The reason is because the inner world and thinking are simply copy-pasted on the right. We can even have Matrix within a Matrix within a ... but still the inner world and thinking would be essentially the same. This is the naive way of conceiving the spiritual worlds too. When people imagine Heaven they practically copy-paste their inner world and simply imagine that it will be enveloped with a different environment.

Contrast this with the following:



The blue arrow represents our thoughts. Instead of fantasizing different kinds of (potentially nested) envelopes around our inner world, we realize that there's deeper/higher spiritual activity (purple) concealed within ordinary thoughts (blue). The higher spiritual activity is also a part of a higher world.

Most people today more or less can feel their body as something that their essential self is only clothed in. For example, even if we lose a limb or have an organ transplant, we are still the same "I". The major milestone in evolution that we're at the threshold of today, is that we should realize that even our thoughts are only clothes of our deeper spiritual being. We can more or less sense that this is the case when we consider that we can think in different languages, in hand-sign language, in symbols, images, music, etc. It's clear that with our being we weave in meaning that is dressed in various mental clothes (blue). That's why I emphasize the importance of turning attention to the actual thinking gestures that we perform. Through this we gradually begin to gain consciousness in the purple stratum. This we can call vertical or depth Matrix. We're not simply copy-pasting our atomic human consciousness around but we find how our essential being weaves in the rigid thoughts. This was visualized from another angle in the post here.

Another metaphor is to consider hard diving suite. Our ordinary thinking is constrained by the most various joints which allow only for limited degrees of freedom. Yet we need these joints in the course of our evolutionary development. Our nervous system is like helping wheels or orthopedic braces for our spirit. Even though they constrain the degrees of freedom through which our spirit can express, nevertheless they give us the initial support around which our spiritual activity coalesces. As our "I" strengthens, we can give the form of our thoughts with less and less external support.

Thank you for this great illustration! It is definitely very easy to idolize the spatial 'boundaries' when contemplating these depictions, thereby missing the core point of the ever-present spiritual existing within the physical and only veiled by our spatial idolatry.

It should be once again reminded that the mystical state of pure awareness or the psychedelic ego-death state do not give us the higher spiritual activity. They give us only perception of the totality of the inner world. Before we can develop higher cognition we must start with ordinary cognition - that is, we must know ourselves as thinking spirits. Only when we meditate on the (T) experience of our thinking, we begin to gain consciousness of the leeway between the rigid orthodontic braces (blue) within which our normal intellect flows and the higher order spiritual activity (purple) which flows in them. The former is represented in the visualization as the erratic thought-movement. When through concentration we stabilize the thought-image, we begin to gain consciousness of the expanding world of which our higher spiritual being is part.

Indeed. And thank you for the excellent illustration on the Memory thread! I will be reading over it again more carefully soon.

The standard nondual mystical and religious fundamentalist mentality is what I had in mind for the last paragraph, i.e. those who over-spiritualize and seek to 'escape' the physical. Eugene does not realize this yet, but the grasping for 'pure awareness' is a way of ignoring the hard work which needs to be done within the sense-world. The Spirit needs to infuse all of our scientific inquiries and technological applications if they are to keep bearing fruit, rather than working as a major obstacle to progress, as they mostly do now. Those who observe impartially can see how obvious this is - if we arbitrarily deny the possibility of developing higher cognition through our normal waking consciousness, then we have practically condemned the physical world of appearances to its current state. We have 'washed our hands' of its blood and declared, "this is not my problem... you guys deal with it while I bliss out on my 'pure awareness'!"

Beautiful sunrise! I will also add my own recent one:

[AshvinP]

It should be once again reminded that the mystical state of pure awareness or the psychedelic ego-death state do not give us the higher spiritual activity.

The state of "pure awareness" is a state of the highest spiritual activity beyond the framework of the Vertical Matrix.

As Cleric mentioned, this view is practically no different than a Sam Harris or a Joel Olsteen, seeking to absolve itself of any responsibility for the current state of the world we live in or the possibility of improving it from within. You aren't even trying to make your arguments have coherence anymore... just letting your thinking flow wherever your unexamined antipathies of esoteric spiritual tradition lead it.

I understand that and I'm fine with it. My only concern with popular non-dualism is that practically something like "Knowing that Knows only Knowing" is accepted as the final frontier. But it is really only the current way the "I" can express its understanding of itself. If the "I" was at a much higher Divine level it wouldn't reflect itself into verbal words but the Word would be the Stellar arena itself. This is what is generally missing - the evolutionary gradient between the micro- and the Macrocosm.

So when we say "Knowing that Knows only Knowing" it shouldn't feel as the ultimate wisdom because we're still a human perspective on Earth. There's depth structure behind the arrow cascade tip which speaks these words. The funnel is One. Further in the periphery we can find the Word that speaks the funnel and we fill in the details further down the stream.

I agree. Some non-dualist schools indeed teach that their "Knowing" is the final frontier, but I believe it is a distortion. Teachers like Spira or Adyashanti, as well as older traditions like Mahayana schools, don't teach that, but instead teach that such Knowing is only a gate to active developmental path liberated from distorted dualistic perception of reality.

[Eugene I.]

The standard nondual mystical and religious fundamentalist mentality is what I had in mind for the last paragraph, i.e. those who over-spiritualize and seek to 'escape' the physical. Eugene does not realize this yet, but the grasping for 'pure awareness' is a way of ignoring the hard work which needs to be done within the sense-world. The Spirit needs to infuse all of our scientific inquiries and technological applications if they are to keep bearing fruit, rather than working as a major obstacle to progress, as they mostly do now. Those who observe impartially can see how obvious this is - if we arbitrarily deny the possibility of developing higher cognition through our normal waking consciousness, then we have practically condemned the physical world of appearances to its current state. We have 'washed our hands' of its blood and declared, "this is not my problem... you guys deal with it while I bliss out on my 'pure awareness'!"

No, the state of "pure awareness" has nothing to do with "bliss-out", it is an active and liberated life beyond the dualistic structural order of the Vertical Matrix of samsara, but it is unknown to you guys, that is why you have so distorted and shallow understanding of it. The fundamental problem of samsara is mitigatable but essentially not fixable, and the only ultimate solution to it is to take the Red pill and go beyond the order of Vertical Matrix. And that is the ultimate way to transcend its limitations and to transform it through a liberated higher-order cognition.

[Cleric K]

No, the state of "pure awareness" has nothing to do with "bliss-out", it is an active and liberated life beyond the dualistic structural order of the Vertical Matrix of samsara, but it is unknown to you guys, that is why you have so distorted and shallow understanding of it. The fundamental problem of samsara is mitigatable but essentially not fixable, and the only ultimate solution to it is to take the Red pill and go beyond the order of Vertical Matrix. And that is the ultimate way to transcend its limitations and to transform it through a liberated higher-order cognition.

OK, let that be the case. We've established many times that this is your preferred vision of Heaven. We're only saying that the pure awareness state doesn't in itself speak of all these things as nirvana, samsara, reincarnation, etc. And this is so obvious. I asked many times - how do we know that pure awareness is not simply a borderline brain state in a materialistic universe, where the brain loses all its familiar anchor points and experiences a 'wildcard' state which it fills according to its preferences?

I'm not asking you to abandon your faith. I'm only pointing out that such a faith can't be grounded in pure awareness alone. If that was the case Sam Harris would also speak of samsara and nirvana.

[AshvinP]

The standard nondual mystical and religious fundamentalist mentality is what I had in mind for the last paragraph, i.e. those who over-spiritualize and seek to 'escape' the physical. Eugene does not realize this yet, but the grasping for 'pure awareness' is a way of ignoring the hard work which needs to be done within the sense-world. The Spirit needs to infuse all of our scientific inquiries and technological applications if they are to keep bearing fruit, rather than working as a major obstacle to progress, as they mostly do now. Those who observe impartially can see how obvious this is - if we arbitrarily deny the possibility of developing higher cognition through our normal waking consciousness, then we have practically condemned the physical world of appearances to its current state. We have 'washed our hands' of its blood and declared, "this is not my problem... you guys deal with it while I bliss out on my 'pure awareness'!"

No, the state of "pure awareness" has nothing to do with "bliss-out", it is an active and liberated life beyond the dualistic structural order of the Vertical Matrix of samsara, but it is unknown to you guys, that is why you have so distorted and shallow understanding of it. The fundamental problem of samsara is mitigatable but essentially not fixable, and the only ultimate solution to it is to take the Red pill and go beyond the order of Vertical Matrix. And that is the ultimate way to transcend its limitations and to transform it through a liberated higher-order cognition.

It is not unknown to Cleric. He has personally experienced what you are referring to and broken it down by way of many detailed illustrations in plain English, in all its nondual variations, whether from Spira or anyone else, so the only question is whether we are choosing to ignore them because we don't like what they imply. That has been your choice for almost a year now. I could not think of a better personification of "taking the blue pill" if I tried.

[Eugene I.]

OK, let that be the case. We've established many times that this is your preferred vision of Heaven. We're only saying that the pure awareness state doesn't in itself speak of all these things as nirvana, samsara, reincarnation, etc. And this is so obvious. I asked many times - how do we know that pure awareness is not simply a borderline brain state in a materialistic universe, where the brain loses all its familiar anchor points and experiences a 'wildcard' state which it fills according to its preferences?
inting out that such a faith can't be grounded in pure awareness alone. If that was the case Sam Harris would also speak of samsara and nirvana.

Of course we are talking about metaphysical beliefs, be it materialism, idealism, universal nonduality of awareness, or your beliefs in the Sun Man, higher order beings and hierarchical ideal structure of the universe. It would be silly to deny it. I haven't met a single person who would not have some sort of metaphysical beliefs, but most people simply do not recognize and do not admit them as beliefs.