“You” are an Electrochemical Synaptic Feedback Loop

I know you want your thoughts to be more than just synaptical impulses in an electrochemical goulash. You want your big, bright ideas to be more than interlocking neuro-circuits lighting up specific lobes of fatty tissue based on genetic and socio-cultural conditioning.

You want it all to mean something and will struggle to keep the dendrites from redirecting into sputtering sparks of randomness. You want your spiritual beliefs to be more than neural firings along axon networks and you want all your years of seeking to "awaken" to be more than just electrochemical jolts of meaninglessness.

But the synaptical messages you've been repetitively sending are losing juice.

The circuits are shorting and dendrite branches are in retrograde. Without current, how can the circuits fire? Without the right neurons, how will you ever “awaken”? How can "awakening" happen if your not imprinting the correct circuits upon the neo-cortex, if you're not adequately mapping your journey to "awakening" within the neural network?

The joyful experiences of your big beliefs are into diminishing returns. You’re starting to recognize a lack of purpose to all your seeking (which can only mean another damn circuit!)

Because reality owns you and neuro-circuitry gives reality to you in living color.

Everything you do, every action you initiate and every behavior you engage in, is fired up by the Mother Board. You can’t even shove your pinky up your hairy nostril unless the brain sends that precise signal (and you never can tell when that urge will fire up, can you?).

All your goals and dreams are nothing but neuro-circuits that have as much meaning as does the urge to pick your nose. The electro-chemical impulse to seek "awakening" is made of the same neural material as the impulse to pick your nose and neither one is under your control (Funny, though, how we want to "awaken" publicly, but only pick our nose in private).

“You” are an aggregate composite of electrochemical impulses all going off randomly based on other impulses resulting in further impulses stimulating ever more. You think you’re in control. But the chaos of the cortex is outside the realm of control and always has been.

You want to be more than a tangled mass of brain circuitry in 3 lbs of fat and, through your spiritual practices and study of the ideologies (especially your intense readings of Jed Mckenna), you’ve managed to actualize numerous neuro-circuits igniting an electro-chemical experience of having wonderful ‘ideas’ and ‘concepts.’

These experiences link up with the limbic system and, for a couple of days or so, you feel really good and uplifted about what’s going on in your brain. For a couple of days life takes on new meaning and your perspective seems "happier," more positive.  You believe you're finally getting close to the  “awakening” you’ve been seeking all these years. It seems you’re finally ready to achieve the “enlightenment” you’ve always wanted.

But then, eventually, as is always the case, the circuit fades and fizzles. The juice peters out and the limbic system disengages, while the amygdala of fear comes rushing in, never letting you forget the actual predicament your in.

This is because Reality Circuits require constant stimulation (cause your boss is a jerk, your kid’s on dope, your two months behind in the mortgage and your cholesterol is way too high). All the electrochemical synaptical impulses, that allowed you to experience your bright ideas and beliefs and facilitated your processing all this “spiritual awakening” data (that you’ve been diligently studying for decades), must fade against the immediate and undeniable power of reality.

The reality of your brain.

But you were oh so close to ‘awakening’ weren't you? You could feel it, right up in that emotional limbic system. But nope, no “awakening” yet, and with that thought, guess which circuits light up the grey matter?

The not-yet-awakened Seeker Circuits extend axon/dendrite branches further into the grey matter, linking up with other circuits and constructing additional synaptic relay stations to maintain the current and engage the actions and behaviors of your incessant need to ‘seek.’

This pathway builds up its own electro-chemical momentum and everyday that you fire up a neuron with, “I guess I’m not awakened yet,”or "geewhiz, maybe Jed McKenna's the way to go?", the circuit strengthens (no doubt reading about all these “awakened” dudes also helps jack up the electrochemical juice even more, cause you soooo want to be one of those dudes, eh?)

Everyday, Reality Circuits reinforce Seeker Circuits and vice versa. Back and forth and back and forth, the dualistic current flows, each impulse one way jets another in reverse, with a feedback loop reinforced by the momentum of the two poles, of what's real and what you want to be 'real,' (so that you can finally escape the bullsheit of whats real)

Each thought-circuit pumps up the volume just a little bit more. Each day reinforces the neuro-circuits that will determine the next day and the next and the next…

This feedback loop is “you” and whether you’re seeking to “awaken,” or get laid tonight, it is the constant neuro-electrochemical actualization of an “I-Me” that seeks to have something it wants against a reality that informs it that it is lacking. However, you may certainly get laid tonight and relieve the electrochemical juice of that current for a time. But you will never "awaken" to any experience but what the brain provides and it will NEVER provide an experience outside what it is wired to provide. You can seek to alter the circuitry through neuro-plasticity, but you will never be completely free from the wiring that allows experience in the first place.

Many of the circuits that provide the "I-Me" experience are genetically hard-wired, auto-reinforced and give you the experience of an “I-me” that owns its brain...

....but is actually owned by its brain.

Artwork by Shadowtuga - "mind control"

The Neuro-Circuit of Destiny

If all experience is brain activated and brain-centered, why have you had the specific experiences you have had? Why has your "life," as experienced in your brain, unfolded specifically as it has? Could it have been experienced differently?

If every single experience "you" have is processed in your brain, and no where else, why did you have, and why do you continue to have, the electro-chemical brain-centered experiences that you have?

The neuro-circuitry of your brain was sculpted by specific experiences that happened only to you at the moment they occurred and those experiences constructed the sense of “self” your brain now provides. Other than genetically based circuitry, all the meanings and interpretations that you superimpose upon your life experiences were taught to you through life experiences. You are who "you" are because of a lifetime of moment to moment neuro-circuitry connections. Billions of axonal arms and tiny dendrite branches linking up in a neuro-circuit synaptical super highway of electro-chemical connections.

Where is it taking you? Where are you going and why?

Even more fascinating is that earlier formed neuro-cicuitry has determined later experiences, which are also imprinted and linked up with other circuits which take you to other experiences. From the moment of conception and birth, experiences construct neuro-cicuitry that directs thoughts/behaviors that lead you to additional experiences, constructing additional circuitry leading to subsequent actions, which also direct actions that lead to more experiences and more circuitry and more experiences and more circuitry.

We call this “destiny” and it was activated upon the very moment of your conception. You had nothing to do with it at all. It just happened and will continue to happen.

You had no choice in that first moment and you have had no choice in each subsequent moment that followed, because the brain-directed action in each moment followed from the previous moment (but you do have a neuro-circuit that provides an experience of choice, thereby, giving you an illusion of control). If you could trace the formation of neuro-circuitry back to the very moment the first neuronal cell was formed in your developing brain matter, you'd be amazed at how it all brought you right here and right now.

You'd see that it all happened exactly as it was supposed to...

Why the hell are you reading this drivel? What experientially constructed circuitry brought you to this very moment of reading and interpreting these specific l-e-t-t-e-r-s? What circuitry construction, originally initiated upon your conception, directed you to other experiences and the subsequent circuitry formation from that experience that lead you to other experiences, finally bringing you to this moment right…

…now.

If you have never had control, never had free-willl, then what is there to fear? If from the moment of conception your tiny brain began forming circuits which would lead you to actions that would form additional circuits leading to additional actions, on and on, ad infinitum, what control have you ever had over your destiny? What struggle need be maintained? What choices must be made?

It's already written....

All your joys and all those moments of grief and depression and those times of incredible pain and suffering. Everyone you fought with and everyone you loved. All those moments of sexual passion and those moments of rage. All those times of incredible pleasure and of intense dread and despair. Your addictions and your personality quirks. All your fears and anxieties. Each and every moment you laughed out loud or shed a single solitary tear.

All of it had to happen and could NOT have happened any other way or at any other time for any other person. And it will continue to happen. You need do nothing, because it will continue to happen and unfold regardless of what you do, but by nature of your brain.

You really have nothing to do with it and never have and anything you do will have had to be done.

If you have never had control over your destiny, why not just let it unfold as it will…as it must…as only it can? What is there to suffer through? Why seek something different than what you are experiencing right now? (unless, of course, you must). Why become victim to “meaning,” or morality and value, circuits when you had no choice in the formation? (unless neuro-circuitry requires your victimization at this point in time). How can anything be “wrong” with your life? (unless the neuro-circuitry demands you see it in such a way).

But if you had no say, no choice and no control, in the neuro-circuitry formation that provides the experiences you have had since conception and that have brought you to this very moment…

…who or what did?


All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon. 
(Pink Floyd)


Artwork by Kosmur - "assemblor"

TRUTH NEURONS: The Manufacturing of Neuro-Circuitry

The constantly fluctuating brain neuro-circuitry of confusion can only result in firing up withdrawal circuits. The cortex can only experience paralysis, when action-circuits become overloaded and you finally have NO idea what the point is anymore.

The amygdala processes fear, actualizing additional circuits of pacification and complacency, coupled with limbic system emotions of hopelessness and helplessness. Too much outside stimuli results in the construction of filtering circuits and filtering circuits exist to maintain the circuitry of status-quo security.

Due to hard-wiring, reality will always overpower your wishful thinking. Your dreams and aspirations are merely axon-dendrite wisps of dwindling electro-chemical current that reality circuits often redirect when necessary. Closely examine the directions you’re life has taken and notice how little was activated by you. You can never know what’s around the next corner, you can only follow the neurons wherever they take you and the brain is always going somewhere.

Do you sometimes feel confused about your purpose? Do you sense a persistent dissatisfaction with the world and your role in it? Do you sometimes notice a desire to dissociate from society? Are your “meaning” circuits shorting out and do you worry they may NOT be stimulated again? Does sleep often seem the only relief for the thoughts you wish to avoid? Circuits of “right” compete with “wrong," while “truth” conflicts with “false” and “good” battles “bad,” and all these electrochemical currents flip-flop back and forth like a carnival ride.

Is there a neuro-circuit in your brain that can electrochemically induce an emotional experience of non-existence?

Some neuro-circuits guide us gently to sleep, while others drive us into war. Some deliver sadness, while others lead to madness. Some nurture and love, while others are involved solely with pain and suffering. Such electrochemical impulses can change in an instant, love to hate, hate to love, sleep to war. The brain circuit that hates is inadvertently linked up with circuits that love. Is it sometimes hard to tell the difference between love and hate? Do you really think you have a “choice” in which way the electrochemical current flows? Which neuro-pathways rule your “thoughts”?  Has it ever been under your control?

But, of course, there must be circuits to hide the truth.

The electrochemical circuit of “right” can only exist when “wrong” is an alternative pathway. Brain circuitry is dualistically stimulated and electrochemical currents fluctuate from output to input, excitatory to inhibitory, stop and go, red light, green light.

Do you own your neuro-circuitry? Did you “think” that you had control over the electrochemical messages being fired through your grey matter? Did you “believe” you have a free and unfettered, uninfluenced, unprovoked choice in the thoughts generated by brain neuro-circuitry? Of course, there is a circuit for that too….

Do you “think” you know what the truth is? If you rely on “thought” then you rely on socio-culturally designed wiring. Is there another way of “thinking” external to conditioned circuits?

Do these “ideas” make you “think”? Or simply confuse already muddled circuits?

Does your brain need to experience a circuitry meltdown before it can ever comprehend anything like truth? Until then, do you simply rely on “wisdom,” which is nothing more than the best “thought" circuits firing up till a better path is imprinted? Is “truth” the total cessation of all electrochemical firings? But then, isn’t that also death?

The brain circuitry of compliant obedience is directly related to “mirror neurons” or the '”monkey see, monkey do” neurons that have, and continue to, construct the brains electrochemical channels and networks. You have nothing to do with it, as it happens day to day, without your knowledge. But you do experience the effects and this you refer to as your “life.”

The brain demands that you “see” and that you “do,” and you conform as directed.

Do you sometimes recognize how everything seems to be repeated? How wars and conflicts just seem to be exact duplications of previous wars and conflicts? Is war genetically programmed in grey matter? Is the brain circuitry of greed and corruption growing in electrochemical power?

The control of brain neuro-circuitry is the current post-modern agenda and it’s a very uncomplicated process. Your media/government seeks not to control you, but simply to conform to the status quo neuro-circuits that you live by and seek to conserve. Why would you ever be concerned about the government controlling your brain? Have you ever been in control of the electrochemical impulses that course through your cortex? Or does it just feel that way?

“Peace” is a lonely neuro-circuit in the brain that has been losing electrochemical stimulation for some time. Fear is an amygdala circuit that seems to be growing in power. Some circuits must be disenfranchised in the name of progress. “Peace” has never had a chance when it comes to genetically constructed, socio-conditioned neuro-circuitry. It has tried for centuries, but it never seems able to intensify the electrochemical processes necessary to overcome the circuitry of fear. Notice the neuro-circuitry of every “peace” demonstrator and you will also witness the synaptical firings of “rage.”

All spiritual/religious practices rely on brain plasticity to redirect circuits of pain and suffering.  Can you delete neurons like obsolete software? But if hate circuits are interconnected with love, how can you disconnect one without disturbing the other? Can we build a brain that will only think of peace and love and never fire off neuro-circuits of hate or fear?

Is neuro-plasticity a means to the awakening you seek?


THE ONION: “Search for Self Called Off After 38 Years”

Artwork by Malgorzata Jasinski

The Itsy Bitsy "Circuit" Climbed up the Water Spout...

Hey! What’re you doin’ here???? Why are you here? What brought you to this blog, this page, this post, these words, this moment?  Why are you reading this? Why are you right here, right now, at this very moment?

If you look back in time you will see an unfolding stream of events, thoughts and action that brought you here, but that “you” had no control of and all choices were influenced beyond any “free-will” you might wish to claim for your “self.”

You woke this morning and a cascade of uninvited thoughts competed with intentionality circuits as to what you WILLED to think and do. Even thought that you consider intentional provokes unintentional counter-thoughts and contrary ideas.

Maybe your first thought upon waking was that "it’s Saturday," which then initiated thought-experiences of actions to be performed and this circuitry activated motivational circuits with Limbic based emotional circuitry interacting from frontal cortex circuits all working together to institute movement towards specific goals (the brain is all about 'movement'). The lawn must be mowed, but the game is on TV, which generates circuits that seek to manage "time" based networks and circuits that engage interactions with your wife and circuits that must take into consideration your kids, but then suddenly your eyes send messages to the visual cortex which must include the dog and memory circuits engage the need to walk the dog, generating circuits that inform you that you have to hurry or the lawn will not be mowed before kickoff time, which engages negative amygdala electrochemical spurts causing bodily changes requiring your wife to ask “what’s wrong,” which engages linguistic centers processing speech and centers processing facial muscles. But the tone was wrong (based on her circuitry) and you perceive that she perceives you’re angry with her, engaging stored memory of your resentments toward her, but these conflict with other circuits generating positive “feelings” and circuits that require more conciliatory gestures and circuits that fire off other circuits firing other circuits firing off….

…and here you are now at PeacefulSelf.com, from a web search you initiated because you feel your life is often out-of-control and suddenly other circuitry made you desire “peace of mind” and number 15 in Google listed a blog called “peacefulself.com” and that must provide some ways to a more peaceful life….

Now you think, "damn what a stupid choice this was. This blog sucks!" based on meaning circuits engaging meaning circuits engaging additional meaning circuits...

For chrisakes dude, you are all over the place! Get focused. Control yourself. Get it together…

But then at what “place” should you be…but all over the place.

So why does that bother you so much? Why struggle to control your brain? Why do you sometimes "think" it's in control of you?

So just stop THINKING!!

"If anyone could enter my head," you THINK, "it would blow their mind?"

WELCOME TO NEURON HELL.

"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! "

Do you actually realize the work required to stay fixated on one solitary thought, when 100 billion neurons are firing off in your brain and sending messages through a quadrillion dendrite connections?

Is it any wonder people get drunk? Is it any wonder people become addicted to TV? Is it any wonder people gravitate to any number of distractions to get the hell outa they’re HEAD.

But if you could only accept the chaos of your brain. If you could only accept that you have NO control over it. Because what you avoid through distraction will only engage the periphery nervous system and the body MUST accept the consequences. It has no choice. Brain controls it.

But go ahead and spend your lifetime attempting to terminate the actions of neurons. Go ahead and seek a way to shut off the biological processes of neuro-circuits. Make attempts to rearrange 100 billion neurons and a quadrillion dendrite connections. Pick and choose the circuits you want and shut-off those you no longer desire. Continue on with your precious self-development, which is nothing more than constructing additional circuits for which to conflict with other circuits that you can't shut off if your very life depended on it.

One day you will surrender your illusion of control (thereby, constructing a new circuit, which will activate circuits you forgot you had).

But the brain cannot be denied. It cannot be escaped. It cannot be “thought” away or cajoled into non-existence. Nature will NOT be denied. Nature must be accepted and the chaos of the brain… is natural.

But there is one tiny itsy-bitsy circuit that is a problem. One circuit that is cause of all your distress, all your pain and all your misery.

That circuit is called “I-Me” and it has a tendency to claim all electrochemical activity as its own. It’s a circuit that demands all activity, thoughts and actions, belong to it…. alone.

But like one audacious wave in the massive ocean, claiming ownership of the whole ocean, it is only one tiny circuit amidst trillions in a sea of interconnected neurons and dendrites.

Pay it no "mind."

The itsy-bitsy circuit
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And shorted the circuit out
Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy-bitsy circuit
Climbed up the spout again

Seeking Brain “Neurotopia” (cause it’s all you’re ever gonna get to)

Ah, the mysticality of exploding synapses in electrochemical consciousness.

The “I-Me” brain circuitry loves to mystify itself through brain firings that evolve into all manner of intellectualized "concept" experiences, thereby, stimulating other neuro-circuits giving an experience of satisfaction and pleasure with our  many splendored magical mystery tour.

The metaphysical conspirators love to theatrically conceptualize abstract nonsense into meaningful circuits firing off experiences of “truth.” Take the concept of “consciousness” for example. Neuroscience is clearly demonstrating that electrochemical brain circuitry is continually emitting signals through a quadrillion neural dendrite networks and this is what you experience as "consciousness" or "Being." If your brain were to suddenly stop sending/receiving all neural signals, guess what would happen? Yep, you guessed it, NO consciousness! No more Being. Flat out, and to the point, you’d simply be deader than a 16th century doorknob.

For years purveyors of abstract word games have mesmerized and confused otherwise halfway decent gray matter. It’s fascinating how the brain constructs electrochemical circuitry in an attempt to escape itself and it’s own miles of genetically and socio-culturally constructed neuro-circuitry.

It’s through this type of mystical confusion that we suffer. What is a “belief” but a series of neuro-circuits that are electrochemically charged through repetitive use? What is a “thought” but socio-cultural conditioned circuitry (education/learning) that electrochemically fires initiating numerous patterns into one experience that, subsequently, fires randomly, giving an experience of a “stream of thought" (Freud). Think of a “thought” as a synaptic explosion, generating other explosions into a “belief.” I do not dare to speculate how many explosions were required to complete this sentence.

SEEKING  “NEUROTOPIA”

“The mind is what the brain does”

Spiritual Metaphysics is nothing more than an attempt to evade uncomfortable experiences based on universally (everyone) objectifiably observable facts, by continually stimulating and reinforcing prefrontal thought processes that further stimulate emotional circuits in the Limbic System. It seems that in attempting to rebel or extract ourselves from the ‘experience’ of specific neuro-circuits, we simply construct and become fixated on other neuro-circuits as substitution (hence, “religion”). Is it any wonder the world is becoming more confusingly complex and complicated? What’s right? What’s wrong"? What’s good or bad? Who’s lying and who’s telling the truth? Who the hell knows!

The chaos of the post-modern age is nothing more than circuitry overload.

Actually, neuroscience has explained consciousness and even how it has evolved to the point were we can become completely lost in intellectualized abstractions in order to make an escape attempt from our own neuro-circuit experience. Circuitry that an “I-Me” had absolutely nothing to do with constructing. Spiritual Metaphysics (can you talk about “non-duality” using only one hemisphere of the brain? Ah, the Oneness!) are the most absurd conceptual abstractions that neuronal dendrite relationships can conjure up as experiences generating from electrochemical neuronal networks. But metaphysics is produced from the exact same brain circuitry that scientists use to determine clearly observable facts about the brain.

It’s like… thank God my brain keeps my heart beating and my blood flowing, but all these other experiences of objective reality in my brain, well, that’s all just “illusion."

But it’s really not surprising that we all seek a way to escape our prison. All the circuitry in your brain is entirely related to observable phenomena but is NOT the phenomena, just electrochemical representations of reality entirely restricted to 3lbs of electrified fat swimming in a chemical stew, incarcerated within a cranial prison.

Such is the definition of “you” (or the “I-me” you rave about).

Even the circuit constructed to conceptualize a “non-duality” would not exist if there were not also a circuit to give you a concept of “duality.” Is it hard to understand that consistent stimulation of one concept only electrochemically stimulates the other? That’s what happens in the duality of brain matter. Concepts are electrochemical experiences no different than any other thought you experience. Every “thought” expressed by the non-dualist, Zen-Buddhist, spiritual cosmic universalist, are based on observable phenomena in relation to electrochemical charges that can be easily studied.

The brain starts with reality and then constructs all manner of inauthentic absurdity to escape from what it is resigned to as REAL (but generally crappy).

Every time you get all giddy with the concept of “illusion,” your brain lights up in specific lobes and this can be seen in an FMRI scan (looks like the “illusion” is real after all) They’ve done studies on Buddhist monks showing that they have attained the skill of lighting up specific parts of the brain.

If we wish to evolve to a universal spirituality that will take us into the next century, we need to end our fear of the objective world and stop trying to escape that world as represented in the brain (and the fact that our brains determine experience). If you finally electrochemically induce a temporal lobe experience of mystical proportions from sitting hours in meditation over several years, then don’t go around singing metaphysical praises to yourself and charging people money to hear your mystical blah, blah,blah…simply thank your temporal lobe for providing you with it (and why not donate it to science?).

Surrendering to the facts of reality will take us into an evolved consciousness that does not attempt to explain away what we all clearly experience and what science demonstrates is the source of that experience.

Metaphysical dialogue should be considered nothing but poetry and the poets have always been useful in temporarily alleviating our brain pain. I’ve always enjoyed the poets (and often tip-toe through the tulips of that “mystical” field myself). But poetry should emphasize the grounded nature of the facts, not provide escape plans that only avoid the truth that there is no escape.

Make no mistake, it will be science that completely dissolves the “I-Me” concept and NOT metaphysical poetics that individually exalt in all the mystical concepts that the “I-me” can construct, and make linguistically accessible to the emotion producing Limbic System, and they will do it by use of the very tool that made up the “I-Me” in the first place.

You’re IN there (brain) and there’s no getting out. So get used to it and surrender your attempts to escape.

Artwork by James Hill - "Utopia City"

NEUROTOPIA: An Exercise in Neuroplastic “Enlightenment”

Generally, it will take a human brain many years of arduous and painstaking contemplative and meditative practices to achieve the brain-based experience of “enlightenment” (located primarily in temporal lobe region), if attained at all prior to death.

Often, this may require intense training under a revered, and seemingly narcissistic, “enlightened” teacher who has achieved the appropriate neuro-circuitry for which to claim electrochemical experiences of “no-self,” “mindlessness,” “ego-transcendence,” “non-duality,” “Buddha-mind,” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. These claims are authentic, but only point to one brain-centered experience referred to as…

… “Neurotopia.”

Unfortunately, because many of these “enlightened” teachers have not adequately extinguished other demonstrably neuropathic circuits, much of their curriculum is often absurd or downright inane (such as sitting in a sweat lodge until dead, worshipping dogs as enlightened beings, collecting numerous Rolls Royces, etc, etc, etc). But usually it consists of some form of neuro-plastic brain circuitry construction, either behaviorally (meditation/yoga) or neurolinguistic-cognitive (teacher student transmissions/ BK's “The Work”)

Yet, clearly, as one who has attained “Neurotopia,” or the exact neuro-circuity formulation necessary to experience the “non-dual” state, I am qualified to provide at least one “neuroplastic” technique which may accelerate the learning potential of the novitiate student of Neurotopic enlightenment (additional exercises will require an up front payment of $99.99 per exercise. Credit card and Paypal accepted).

This exercise covers both input and output neural stimulation and will require approximately an average of 45 days for which to form the circuitry and the habitual responses necessary to fully experience the electrochemical charged circuit required for Neurotopia. Science has demonstrated that adult brain neuroplasticity is amenable to neuron formation (although not as efficiently as the childhood developing brain). In this exercise we are seeking to formulate one single solitary neuron with its attending dendrite branches. 

AN EXERCISE IN NEUROTOPIA:

INPUT: First you must form a smile.
This simple skill is an electrochemical input as you must consciously remind yourself (brain) to engage the facial contortion necessary to provide input to the brain in terms of bodily state recognition circuitry. Science has demonstrated that “smiling” generates numerous neuro-circuit connections causing excitatory synaptical responses.

OUTPUT: Repeat “Life is meaningless and has no purpose.”  Intentionally generating this electrochemical thought-experience is considered an output channel and you will formulate these cognitive circuits by engaging intentionality circuits which will assist in solidifying the circuit we will refer to as “meaninglessness” for short.

COMBINED INPUT/OUTPUT: This exercise requires the engagement of both physical input and neuro-cognitive output to stimulate a pleasure center brain experience connected with both the neuro-circuitry generated from repetitive smiling, while reinforcing the linguistic circuitry of “meaninglessness.” This input/output feedback loop will intensify over a short time toward achieving the Neurotopia experience.

The benefits of this exercise, if diligently practiced for approx. 45 days (average habit formation/extinguishment period), will result in remarkable results and will bring the student seeking "enlightenment" that much closer to the actual Neurotopia he/she will actually experience (and run around town claiming "enlightenment/awakening")

In fact, this exercise can be coupled up with other, more specific, brain circuits to electrochemically generate an experience of enlightened Neurotopia even under the most adverse conditions.

Lost your job? Simply retain a smile and repeat “employment is meaningless and has no purpose.” Spouse wants a divorce? “Marriage is meaningless and has no purpose." Pending jail-time? Incarceration is meaningless and has no purpose.” Not getting enough sex? “Sex is meaningless and has no purpose.” Can’t pay the rent? “money is meaningless and has no purpose.” Be sure at all times to maintain a “smile” based facial condition to insure that the input co-occurs commensurate with the output of “life is meaningless and has no purpose.”

Initial attempts of this exercise will engage the “irony” and “sarcasm” brain circuits (probably stimulated as you read this). However, those disbelief-based circuits are electrochemically stimulated in response to other socio-culturally conditioned circuits solidly fixated on “enlightenment” as some form of mystical, sacred state of conscious that takes one outside oneself into a realm of magical bliss and a peace that passeth all understanding. Nevertheless, as a brain transcendent state of experience it is centrally located, generated and interpreted by….the brain. This is scientifically undeniable.

Regardless of what your brain informs you, based on genetically and socio-culturally conditioned neuro-circuits (that you can't shake free of even if you tried), I would suggest you try this exercise as it does work wonders in altering emotional circuits of the entire Limbic System.

However, keep in mind that constructing “enlightenment” circuitry does NOT extinguish or redirect other circuits long relied on to produce negatively interpreted states or experiences. Hence, achieving a state of Neurotopia may not impede or redirect other circuitry that generates an electrochemical experience in relation to learning your spouse is having an affair, your car has been repossessed or your house was foreclosed on and such circuitry collision may subsequently impede the Neurotopic response significantly, unless the above exercise is performed diligently enough to solidify the Neurotopic circuitry.

Clearly, the age of enlightenment/awakening teachings, and teachers, is coming to a final and complete close since reality based brain circuitry is much too formidable to be disconnected. This new age will reveal that all past claims to enlightened states were nothing more than spontaneous electrochemical anomalies in brain circuitry (disconnected and unintended electrochemical ‘spurts’ of cognition) entirely associated with a self identity neuro-circuit also located in brain matter. But, you can be certain that the claimants will bawl bloody murder when they have their sacred transcendent experiences reduced to nothing but brief neural circuit experiences in 3 lbs of electrified fat.

When we can finally free ourselves from ridiculous claims that experiences generated by electrically stimulated brain matter are somehow sacred and transcendent, then maybe we will finally be yielding to a real conscious evolution based on reality (and not brain waves generated by the Galactic Federation from planet Oogachaka or somebody’s dead guru). When we can finally cease this incessant desire to escape our own brain circuitry, through strange bodily contortions and absurd mind control practices, we may be ready to pursue a true spirituality (the study of the strange and seemingly miraculous “mirror neurons” is a good start) that is not seeking an escape from self and world, but seeing it all for what it really is, an experience in the brain.

A spirituality that denies reality is just sick neuro-circuitry in need of some serious plasticity.

Artwork by adnrey - "Cook in brain"

Poof! Extinguishing the "I-Me" Neuro-circuit Completely

If the devout spiritualists (Zen Buddhism, Advaita non-dualist, and all other "self is suffering" or "ego transcendence" adherents) wish to transcend the "self" they should simply turn to the advances of neuroscience as objective proof that the neuro-circuitry of the self is nothing more than a electro-chemically induced brain experience having no more sacredness than the circuit that provokes you to pick your nose from time to time.

Actually, this self-transcendence stuff they propagate is nothing more than self-exaltation dressed up to look like a negation. When you tell them that they can rest easy now, cause science is proving they don't exist, they tend to get downright nasty.

I remember reading one of Ram Dass’s books (I think it was “Be Here Now”) when he talked about spending a very long and arduous time with his guru in India meditating his previously sinful arse off. He talked about joyously flying through consciousness and meeting his beloved guru in some cosmic nether land of "pure" meditative awareness. Hence, thinking he had reached a particular “enlightened” state, he flew back to the U.S. to teach it to others. Yet, while riding a bus home, he recalled looking out the window, seeing a pretty girl and experiencing all his past conditioning, socio-cultural and genetic, come cascading down on him (or 'up,' depending on your perspective) generating the same behavioral responses that occurred before his years of meditation.

The brain, and its quadrillion neural connections, owns you because it is "you."

The neuro-circuitry of the brain will not be overcome. It will either be accepted as “you” or rejected and even that is contingent on the neuro-networks level of development up to the point of decision. It will NEVER be up to “you.” You had no say in the development of its neuro-circuitry and you will have no say in changing that circuitry (although soon science may be able to download it to a CD).

Why do we seek so hard to overcome brain circuitry? Rejecting current neuro-circuitry does not extinguish any circuit, but only unconsciously constructs new circuits and squelches other electrochemical stimulations until the very moment an experience reinvigorates a current once again.

This is why there is NO “subconscious” mind. "Mind" is simply a concept representing an experience of electrochemical circuits in the brain and, although some circuits may not currently be electrochemically stimulated (and are thus "subconscious"), nonetheless, they exist as “dormant dendrites” (to conjure up a phrase) awaiting the opportunity to be fully engaged and experienced once again (memory).

Einstein discovered the Theory of Relativity simply because the genetic and socio-cultural conditioned circuitry facilitated electrochemical firings of neurons which generated the experience of thought processes culminating in the revolutionary Theory of Relativity. He was destined to discover it, based on the unique developing circuitry of a brain that he had absolutely nothing to do with.

Destiny is game of neurons. Ya never know what you're gonna get...

Note the premise of neuro-plasticity (or referred to as neuroplasty by some) promotes an understanding of brain malleability. It is brain plasticity that allows experience to be etched in the brain matter as electrochemical impulse circuitry occurring chronologically from birth to death. Hence, if life experiences sculpt the already genetically predisposed brain like clay, why not artificially generate experiences to construct new, more pleasing and adaptable, neuro-circuits?

Obviously the “spiritual,” new age charlatans and magicians will eventually jump on the neuro-plasticity band wagon as they have with all new scientific discoveries (like "Quantum Mechanics"), but they will be dumbfounded as to how to change genetics. You may succeed in generating experiences to change neuro-circuitry. But, unfortunately, it may NOT come out exactly as you’d like, because in manufacturing that one desired neuro-network, you have no idea how it will relate to the other 100 billion neurons, and their quadrillion dendrite circuits, that reside in your brain.

Neuro-circuitry works through neuronal relationships (think of it as a 'society of neurons'). You could construct a behaviorally influenced neuro-circuit to induce a specific electro-chemically charged action. But there really is no specific actions in life. All actions are influenced by numerous unintentional relationships with people and events. Consequences, thus, influence other actions with the people and events you encounter everyday. Neural circuits work the same way with experiential and genetic brain networks (billions of neurons branching out from a quadrillion dendrite connections) influencing other networks. You could alter brain circuits to engage a specific action (and this has been proven with stroke victims) but you could not rely on that circuit to fire in the same way all the time. Let’s say you wish to construct circuitry that improves your ability to have a more "positive" personality so people would like you more. Would you want that circuit to override other circuits if, in fact, an assailant runs at you with a knife, clearly intent on your destruction? And how would such a circuit benefit you if a loved one had died? Would your new improved “positivity” circuit interact or override your grief circuitry? How would that affect other circuits as well?

There is no sacredness to mind, because there is no "mind" at all. There are only brains. The brain experiences an outside world, inside bodily states and the electro-chemical charges of it’s own neuro-circuitry, which it then applies linguistic conceptual interpretations (also electrochemically stimulated neuro-networks) to generate additional meaning and value circuits. This is simply consciousness itself. The brain is essentially a hunk of electrified fat within a skin-encapsulated cranium atop a bipedal mobile organism and from that you experience an "I-me" charged circuit. There is nothing special or sacred about it, nor about its neuro-circuitry. This does not require religion or philosophy to define (in fact, it tends to annihilate all religious and philosophical concepts in one fell swoop). But as neurons exist in communication with themselves, so must human organisms exist in communication with other human organisms.

Try not to unconsciously construct neurological "meaning" behind those communicative engagements, because that would be an exercise in futility (in relation to circuitry you have yet to "experience").

Just simply engage and observe what arises.

You might consider this materialist reductionism rather empty and meaningless (in other words, fuzzy feel neuro-circuits related to your non-dual ego transcendence are not lighting up after reading this). Yet, many would contend that it is only through this extreme form of reductionism that real meaning can eventually be discovered, rather than genetically and socially constructed meanings, which are nothing more than electrochemically charged brain stimuli relative to the circuitry of each individual nervous system which, itself, is contingent on the neuro-circuitry of each individuals genetics and life experiences.

Eventually, science will extinguish the “I-ME” neuro-circuit as it serves no further purpose to the communal nervous system, just as it has served no real fruitful purpose to the communal social system.What gets built up to ridiculously absurd heights must eventually fall, circuit by circuit.

The real post-modern “spirituality” will seek to discover what exists when the “I-Me” circuit is reduced to material nothingness, with no more meaning than a slice of white bread. Once your every thought, every feeling and every action is broken down to nothing more than neurons, axons, dendrites, generating electrochemical spurts along a cellular network, what will become of “you”? How will you relate to yourself if NO such "self" is in there at all?

And when the “I-ME” is completely annihilated by neuroscience (as it is currently doing piece by piece, staring with "free-will") what will "you" then become? When free-will is eradicated as folklore, what will be the point of doing anything at all? If there is no “you” to experience happiness and suffering, will those experiences simply be extinguished as useless neuro-circuits?

Or will they take on new meaning, devoid of the old synaptic firings bubbling up useless concepts, generating new experiences not hinged on self-actualizing electrochemically charged neuro-circuits?

The real spiritual revolution will occur through accepting that “you” are not real, but simply interacting networks processing electrochemical charges in physical matter. The only evolution in and of consciousness will occur when consciousness is accepted for what it actually is and all mythical folklore is abolished by the weight of its own nonsensical implausibility, since all that any mystical theory of existence has ever done is electrochemically fire up self-concept neuro-circuitry through inane, but constant, self-exaltation in opposition and in competition with other neurons (and others seeking their own self-exaltation). 

The end of egocentricity is fast approaching.

Are “you” ready?

Artwork by DrunkenNinja - "Dissolving letter face"

Discovering the “No-Self” Neuro-Circuit

Not too happy about your changing moods? Well, not to worry, your brain electrochemical, neuro-circuitry insures you will have them regardless of how many pills you consume as a means of altering the chemical composition of your synapses. Got some addictions playing out? Yep, circuits for that too. Wish you had more money? Brain circuitry insures that your “wish” continues, neuron after neuron, to be an “experience.” Not meeting your goals and aspirations? That’s okay because all your goals and aspirations are genetically and socially predetermined within a labyrinth of neuro-circuitry that spreads for miles throughout  the grey matter in the brain and that you began collecting since you first saw your “self” in a mirror.

Do you really think “you” ever had anything to do with you’re being “you”? 

If you said “yes” then rest assured there’s an electro-chemical circuit for that too.

“You” are nothing more than a web of neuro-circuits stimulated by electrochemical charges, which in turn are stimulated by the impact of experiencing a world seemingly outside your brain and which, in turn, stimulate further “firings” in the brain that you could not alter if your life depended on it. Your “subconscious mind” is nothing more than neurons firing off without the attending neural circuit of “awareness,” because awareness has its own neural circuit that doesn't bother with dumb sheit.

And let’s not forget the infamous “mirror neurons” which, not only fire off when you do something, but also when you observe someone else doing the same action. This is what allows the world to imprint upon your brain through tiny microscopic wires. This is how you are sculpted BY the world and not by your “self.” The “me” that you think you are had nothing to do with “you.”

But you reject the idea that you are nothing more than brain circuitry. You reject the concept that there is no “you” and only an amalgamation of mutually stimulating circuits firing off an experience of "I-ME," that really has no more substance other than billions of microscopic neurons that twist and turn within the cerebral cortex.

Well, not to worry, there’s a circuit for your “rejection” as well and, as long as you keep stimulating it through self-enhancing electrochemical impulses, it should last your whole life.

Do you realize that you are unconsciously constructing neural pathways each and every day? In fact, with each passing moment? Even while reading this, and asking yourself "why the hell am I reading this?" microscopic dendrites are branching out and connecting up with other neuronal circuits. You can't help it. That's what brains do.

Love your kids? Yep, that’s wired in. Enjoy your career? Good thing that enjoyment is dependent on brain circuitry, otherwise, it would suck. Not in “love” with your spouse anymore? It seems that circuit has been extinguished and losing that “loving feeling” is nothing more than the experience you get when you forget to pay the electric bill…no power. Wish you were more attractive or smart, funny, happy, contented, healthy, wealthy and wise? What’d ya think, you just thought all that up? Well, no, somebody else did and its name is “society” and society is wired deep into the contours of your brain’s neuro-circuits.

But at least you can stake the claim that you have a “self” that has a “spirit” and a “soul,” forgetting that every abstract concept you pay homage to is nothing more that neuro-circuitry associated with the linguistic centers of your brain. Electrons are fired off by a brain because a brain fails to understand itself and so requires concepts or linguistic (words) experiences. As long as Alzheimer's or a stroke does not infect you, and completely wipe out those centers, you can always look to your concepts to demand your rights and needs be met by others and to make sense of a nonsensical world. You can always complain to your spouse about how he/she is not meeting your needs, because without your specific brain circuitry you wouldn’t have any of those personal, self-actualizing needs. You wouldn’t need anything related to being a “self” or a unique individual. Just food, water, sex and shelter and you’d be one happy camper. But your brain is wired for much more….

But then, you exclaim, “at least I have my consciousness! That is all mine.” But who is it that is conscious? What is this “I” that claims it is conscious? Is the “I” something completely distinct from the neuro-circuits in the brain? Distinct from electrochemical impulses that inform the body how to act and vice versa? What is an “I-me” but another brain circuit providing a brain-centered experience of an autonomous and separate existence? How many decades of parental, socio-cultural experiences impacted upon the brain, additionally influenced by genetic factors, did it take to manufacture neuro-circuitry that provides an experience of being a unique self? And if it actually was genetic predisposition and socio-cultural influences that formed “you,” how can that in anyway be uniquely “you”? What brain circuitry fires off neurons that provide the electrochemical mirage of an “I” experience? Can there actually be such a thing as an “I-me” if it is only conditioned neurocircuity? Does it matter that "you" are nothing but conditioned brain circuitry? Can you still get all jiggy with that?

And if all this brain circuitry (billions of neurons corresponding through miles of connecting axons and dendrites) is “you,” then why do you constantly reject your “self”? Why are you forever seeking to change your “self? If it’s your neuro-circuitry, why not accept it? Why constantly grit and grind over the things “you” do or don’t do? Why continue to claim that when  “I” do this it is “bad,” while doing this is “good”? If circuits inform you of what is good and bad, then why not simply accept both as “you,” since it’s your brain circuitry? And if your “self” is nothing more than a product of conditionally formulated brain circuits, why not just do away with it, if it causes such duress over doing that or not doing this?

Wouldn’t it be better if you could just trash that entire circuit, rather than struggle for years over past “bad” vs. past “good”? And if there were no “I-me” self circuit, would you even care about good and bad? Would those circuits expire along with the neurons that make up the self? But then, if that were so, who or what would be conscious? How many other circuits would be discontinued along with the brain circuit that gives you an electrochemical experience of a “self” that is “real"?

Is “consciousness” nothing more than a neuro-circuit electrochemically firing off an experience, that we call “consciousness," but is really nothing more than electrochemical charges in 3 lbs of fatty tissue? Ha! wouldn't that be a humdinger of a neural pathway to exist through?

Is what the Buddha supposedly said, “Events happen, deeds are done, consequences happen but there is no individual doer of any deed,” actually true? But “who” would know it was true? If the brain circuit that fires off subsequent to other circuits informing “I-Me” that “I-Me” is an actual experience, were discontinued, how would “you” attain Buddhist “enlightenment” or an experience of “non-duality”?

If the “I-me” circuit in the brain were discontinued, who or what would be meditating and achieving experiences of “higher consciousness” and believing in karma and ego transcendence? How could “you” believe in anything at all if you didn't have the circuitry to identify "you" as the believer?

But not to worry, because there is a circuit in your brain that demands that all of this be completely NOT understood and that you remain ignorant. A circuit that demands you ignore everything on this page as stupid and confusing drivel. A circuit in your brain that absolutely requires you disregard everything that does not conform to current circuitry that works to continually assure you that an “I-Me” does in fact exist and “you” are most certainly a real existing entity. A circuit that directs you to provide attention to scriptures and sutras that sing praises to the “I-ME” that has come to understand the sutras and scriptures. A circuit that gives you out of body experiences and allows you to see the Christ’s face permeated on a piece of burnt toast. A circuit that demands your complete ignorance as to how you are completely controlled by the brain that sits between two ears and atop a physical frame. A circuit that believes utter bullsheit as true, because believing otherwise would fire off too many uncomfortable dissonant neurons.

Follow the circuit to the circuit that electrochemically fires off neuro-circuits, influencing other circuits,  that proves you have NO choice, but gives you an experience of a “self” that makes important choices, and you will finally realize a “self” that…

…does NOT exist, has NEVER existed and cannot possibly EVER exist.

In every dual hemispheric brain there is a “self” and a “no self” circuit.
Apparently, only a few have ever made contact with the “no-self” circuit and this is most likely due to the intensity of the constant electro-chemical stimulation we provide to the “self.”

But, obviously, once located, nothing ever seems the same again.

But, make no mistake, even the "no-self" circuit is nothing more than an electrochemical experience of corresponding neurons.

It too, does NOT exist at all....

Artwork by Erica Herazo - "Inside the Brain"

The "Choice" for Egocentric Anarchy

"If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, "I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by 'free will.' I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse five)


“How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.” (Sam Harris)

“I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.” (Einstein)


The one thing an egocentric self-concept (“I-ME”) will not tolerate is having no volition or choice over its actions. The ego-self demands this be true. Yet, this demands full control of the thoughts that it experiences from which actions/behaviors originate. Yet, clearly, the idea of NO free-will, if fully and completely accepted, would annihilate the egocentric attachment entirely simply through demonstrating it has NO free-will whatsoever.

The paradox is that there is no free-will as to when, or if, you will accept it. It’s not your choice, because an ego self-concept does NOT in any way make choices of its own free-will. It lives within an anarchy of experience, ruled by random firings of synaptic, neurophysiological networks in the brain/body.

But shouldn't knowing this be a good thing? Shouldn't this be liberating? Unless, of course, the conditioned neuronal pathways firing off randomly in your brain, inform you it's NOT a good thing at all. In that case, you might be angry, confused, ambiguous...well, who the hell knows what you'll "feel"?

To some this is an absolutely absurd proposition and they will refuse to consider it, never really examining how the choices they believe they made or will make in the future, were never really made by an “I-ME” entity/concept and the choice of not considering non-volition is as non-volitional as the choice to consider or even agree or disagree.

Either thoughts arise based on external influences (if you're hit by a car then you’ll experience having no choice but to think about being hit by a car, and even then you will respond through conditioned neuro-circuitry) or they arise from random neurophysiological firings within the conditioned brain/nervous system. Neuron/synaptic circuitry firings send electrochemical messages that are experienced as “thoughts,” that another billion neuron pathways has learned to accept as “me” (a neuroscientist would describe more aptly but i think you get the gist of it).

But now, where did this theory I present come from? I have no factual idea and the fact that I’ve arrived at this idea/thought process (as have many other brighter minds long before me) merely demonstrates that I had no control over its arising as experience. Most likely it evolved through years of conditioned neuro-circuitry, thereby, constructing the neuronal pathways that led me to be influenced by other experiences up to a moment of realization. Of myself, I could not possibly have had anything to do with it, nor do I have anything to do with what comes after.

Really, the only thing an egocentric self-concept can say is that, although these thoughts are not produced by a “me,” it is certainly me that is having them. But if the “me” that is having them does not have any control over their production (thoughts), what does that say about the “I-ME” that believes itself a real entity with the power of control? Who or what is experiencing the thoughts that “I-ME” have nothing to do with producing? Does such an entity even exist, other than as a product of past conditioned experiences that generate randomly influenced brain firings that "I-ME" is NOT even aware are happening in my brain, let alone as to how they evolved to fire off as they do, thereby, initiating actions/behaviors from beliefs/thoughts?

The easiest way of experiencing all this is simply to sit in meditation. As you perform whatever practices you use in seeking to quiet the mind, thoughts simply pop-up out of nowhere and you’re often left to consider, “well damn, where’d that come from?” You have no idea. While deep in meditation suddenly the thought, "I better pay the electric bill," simply pops up outa nowhere. Why did that thought arise instead of any million other thoughts that could have popped up? What prompted that one to come to you the moment it did?

However, you do believe you have the option of detaching or dissociating from that thought, the very basis of your meditation, but only in relation to the mechanics of the meditation practice you were taught, which you learned from outside influences and has a neuronal pathway all it’s own influencing other circuits. Hence, can you say that you were able to extinguish the thought of your own volition? If the action to do that very extinguishing was simply another neuronal pathway? Doubtful, since there is also a circuit formed in the brain to give you your meditation practices and without that pathway, no such practices could be thought of and no "mind-quieting" could occur. Could you say you’re in control of your meditation practices? Doubtful again, since how to meditate and when to meditate are always influenced by outside stimulus. Could you say that you make a conscious decision to learn meditation practices? Hardly, because if you had the potential to study the evolution of “you,” from birth on up to the very moment you engaged the meditation practice, you would most likely see a confluence of external influences, including bodily/physical states and conditions happening outside and inside “you,” impacting and shaping your neurocircuitry, bringing you right up to the very moment of choosing to meditate. States and conditions that you had no control over whatsoever. They simply happened and where processed by you in ways that relied on numerous neural circuits which in turn influenced other neural circuits in turn influencing umpteen billion more, all the while specific circuits in particular fire off an experience of seeming volition and free-choice ("hmmm...my brain tells me I made this choice, so I must have").

Look at any ancient wisdom tradition and this fact of no free-will is apparent and many post-modern traditions are making this same claim. If you look at “A Course in Miracles" in the text referred to as “Workbook," you’ll see these claims clearly highlighted in the first 20 lessons with the theme, “Your thoughts are meaningless"

“Unlike the preceding ones, these exercises do not begin with the idea for the day. In these practice periods, begin with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a minute. Then apply the idea to them. If you are already aware of unhappy thoughts, use them as subjects for the idea. Do not, however, select only the thoughts you think are "bad." You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts, that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called "good" or "bad." This is why they do not mean anything.” (ACIM, Workbook, lesson #4)

In fact, many of the postmodern non-dualists, i.e.,  Ramesh Balsekar, Wayne liquorman, Adyashanti, etc, are proclaiming this “non-doer” status as truth. Not only are you not the doer of your actions, but you cannot even stake claim to the thoughts that proceed and motivate your actions. This can only lead to the proposition that if you are not the source of your thoughts and actions, what the hell are “you” anyway?

But most of all, we have neuroscience easily demonstrating the absolute control of neurocircuitry as basis for actions, in opposition to any form of self-volitional control (the egocentric self-concepts most prized possession!) with the neuroscientist Sam Harris currently leading the scientific claim of NO free-will.

You have simply been jostled and buffeted about in ways beyond your control, some ways your neurociruitry interprets as "bad" some "good," and each choice made, that you interpret as an attempt to assert some form of control, came from brain circuitry that takes “you” out of the equation altogether. Conditioned circuitry is clearly running the show. So simply let it unfold as it will, cause you really have NO other choice.

Sit back in your meditation posture this evening and direct your awareness to your brain’s neuro-circuitry. Experience the billions of synaptic firings sending messages through numerous other billion neuronal pathways prompting additional firings and note which neuron pathways you would like to redirect or extinguish altogether, because those "thoughts" do not serve your spiritual aspirations.

Does this sound absurd? That’s because it is!

But doesn’t this liberate you from the constant pressures to control your world? From the guilt of actions performed or not performed in the past? Why would the fact of no free-will appear to some as absolutely horrifying and beyond comprehension, while others attain enlightenment?

With this comes the realization that the war waged, all these years against reality, in demanding it be as “you” say it should be, was made as a result of reality being experienced in the brain exactly as it is, and it’s time you simply surrender the fight. Let it all simply happen as it will, since you have NO control in what will happen. Make choices in the realization that no ego-self has the capacity to make choices, just a deluded concept bent on ruling its world, and enjoy the choice made.

Obviously, if there is NO egocentric control of events through choices, but only an illusion of control, this will cause many to fear egocentric anarchy.  But choices will be made and must be made, as that is a product of neuro-conditioning as well. Only this time choices can be made with no consideration as to who the maker is and there comes a spiritual freedom in this beyond any choice that ever could be made by thinking one has the volition to make a choice to become spiritually free.

This means “awakening to truth” is definitely a choice, but fortunately, one “you” will NEVER make.

 “All theory is against free will; all experience is for it.” (Samuel Johnson)


Artwork by Pixelnase - "Flying Brain"

The Absurdity of “Chance”

You always experience what you want, although often you deny responsibility by making ridiculous claims that it is not what you wanted after all. Nevertheless, you KNOW nothing with the certainty that TRUTH would give you and this is why you remain confused, causing you to believe that some experiences occur without your wanting or that your life is essentially dictated by “chance.”

This is patently absurd (but not to “you”).

ALL experience is OF the mind and there is nothing external to experience. Nothing escapes the Law of Mind, simply because nothing escapes the mind, regardless of your attempts to free yourself from your experiences by ejecting them away FROM you, through the worship of sensation, and superimposing upon an outside ‘world.'

Make no mistake, the outside world is a scapegoat, because everything rests WITHIN experience. All experience is DIRECT. However, from within YOU there are the experiences of the ego and experiences not of this “world.” Yet, the ego requires a “world” to actualize through and so, egocentricity is always rooted and hinged upon that “world.” Eventually, even experiences evaluated as not of this world, must be subsumed and included within egocentric categories of thought. The moment an ‘interpretation’ is applied it becomes “real,” because all interpretations are derived from experiences of the world and, for an ego to exist, a “world” MUST exist.

“Chance” is an egocentric construct to avoid responsibility for experience. In order to maintain control, the ego must avoid recognition that all experience is internally manufactured to maintain a sense of inadequacy. Inadequacy demands ever greater levels of CONTROL imposed on experiences of an outside world. If you were to ever learn just how extremely powerful your mind really is, the ego-self could NOT exist at all, since the ego is a direct product of weakness and inadequacy through opposition to an outside world.

The moment you question the parameters of egocentric experience is the moment you question the very existence of your ‘self,’ since the self must always be inherently ego-centered. Therefore, ALL your experiences conform to inane and ignorant distractions, with no other purpose than to cultivate your chronic, blind unawareness resulting in your deep-seated sense of inadequacy and impotence. Besides, you’ve never really liked your ‘self’ very much anyway….

Do you really believe there is a purpose to ALL your nonsensical actions other than to distract from TRUTH? Egocentricity demands ignorance in opposition to TRUTH. Look at the actions and behaviors you impress upon the body throughout your daily “life.” Study the ‘habits’ that originate from fear and recognize the complete waste of time that makes up the entirety of your life all in the name of chance. Is this your purpose? To be victim to chance?

“Chance” is an alibi for ignorance, for if your life is ruled by chance, what need for responsibility when you have only limited choices? To what but ignorance are you accountable? Hence, you have no problem in experiencing a world of death and destruction, because identifying with egocentricity allows you NO responsibility for what a weak and inadequate mind experiences.

Within that confusing mish mash of consciousness you call “you,” there is a tiny, barely perceptible ‘spot’ that does not rely on time and, thus, KNOWS only absolute certainty. This part recognizes that there is no experience of consciousness that conforms to chance. That part is the only whole that is real, but you have jettisoned it away from you in believing it is only a part of consciousness.

It’s through understanding the whole that you will free yourself from being victimized by its parts. Your mind is powerful beyond recognition and its delusions conform to that power in maintaining a sense of delusional perfection. But if ‘delusion’ is NOT real, how can it be ‘perfect’?

There is NO ‘chance’ in a world of your construction unless you construct it to conform to chance. Examine the WHOLE of your ego-self experience and refuse to be hypnotized by its separate PARTS.

 Artwork by Robert Craig - "untitled"

Interlocking "Stories" Create Worlds

Certainly we are always in relationship to everything in our experience of a world. Yet, the primacy of all self-defining is through others first, everything else is a sloppy second.

Who "you" are is contingent on others, because they have defined "you" and "you" have defined them (although "you" like to take all the credit).

The German philosopher Heidegger emphasized that there is no experience as "man" or "human being" as a separate isolated experience or 'story.' Of course, man and human being are separate ideas or concepts that can be strung together in numerous narratives. But the experience is only in relationship, or "Being-in-the -World," as unified

You experience your greatest joy and your most intense suffering through and with others. But "you" believe this is not to be trusted and so rely primarily, and often exclusively, on your 'self.'

Make no mistake, sitting on your cushion meditating is not free of others, since who "you" are, or the concept you identify with as you "meditating," is an interdependent construction extracted from a world of others. Your 'world' provides you with everything you need and even your belief in transcending the world was given to you from your world. But if the world is "you," and there is no division, you give to yourself.

Your "story" is not about you, but about you in relationship to other stories that relate to other stories, which relate to other stories, on and on, ad infinitum (such are the tangled webs we weave). Yet, your desperate attempts to identify and isolate an individual 'story' against and in contrast to other individual stories is the root of your suffering.

Even in the relationships you claim as your most intimate, you barely touch the depths of intimacy even though you sense that all experience is unified. Unity frightens the poop out of the sociopathic ego, which revels in its separate individualism, but wouldn't know itself from spit if it were not for the shared experience which defined it. So it adopts complicated and austere 'spiritual' practices, which only reinforces its desire to revel in itself, denying that it would not even exist without 'others' to give it meaning.

Nothing wrong with meditation though, especially when used by ego to come out from its protective shell and engage with its experience of others. Only then will it know itself as engaged with a world in which its greatest joy is from shared consciousness.

Certainly engaging with a 'world' is crucial to the 'self' since without the experience of a world there could be no experience of 'self.' Nevertheless, all experiences are intensified when combined. This idea is so counter to the usual mode of your egoic relating that it's hard to grok and you become acclimated to separating your relationships from your spiritual practices in the belief that once your "spirituality" has sufficiently intensified (whatever that means), the trickle down theory will then insure that your relationships benefit accordingly.

Yet, this is counter to the fact that relationships are your spiritual practice and your only purpose.

I meditate fairly regularly (actually, I just call it 'sitting still for a spell') but for me this is nothing but prep for engaging in a world of others. It's the old parable, "seeking the face of Christ in another" is "awakening," since it's through others that such a maximal experience is attained. Intense solitary experiences are grand, but I contend this is multiplied exponentially when engaged in sharing with and through another. This is how we learn who we are in truth. Yet, it's also how we create a shared experience of reality that may not be true if our purpose is denied.

The Know-Nothing Neutrality of Non-Duality

One of the chief misinterpretations of non-duality (for those relying on interpretations) is that non-duality is an acceptance of all that is.

This is opposed to rejecting or invalidating all that is, because, as they claim, all that is emerges from “oneness” and, thus, to reject anything is to reject "oneness," so accept it all, because “everything is good and beautiful!”

Notice the duality here?

Acceptance is opposite rejection and both distinctions are nothing more than dualistic judgments, no different than good/bad, right/wrong, etc, etc. You Make judgments between two modes of conventional perception; reject or accept. Only you choose acceptance, because you were taught that this judgment is more advantageous to your spiritual evolution and is, incidentally, the way to non-duality or "enlightenment."

Therefore, from this choice you accept murder and war.

Ha! But that’s absurd. Why would anyone accept murder and war?

Well, based on the "acceptance" premise, you accept murder and war because non-duality demands acceptance of all that is.

But wouldn’t your acceptance of murder and war, thereby, assert murder and war as “real”? If murder and war is a part of your experience, whether directly or indirectly, doesn’t accepting murder and war continue to make it “real” and part of your experience?

But, wouldn’t you rather that murder and war weren’t “real”? Wouldn't you rather it were NOT part of your experience?

On the other hand, if you do not accept, or if you reject murder and war, does this not also make it “real," since you assert that it exists simply through your desire that it NOT exist. Why would you reject what is not a part of your experience of "reality." Therefore, to reject is to accept, just as to accept is a rejection.

Seems like either way you go, you’re caught in the web of duality. But then, some like it hot, while some like it cold.

Is there anything else besides this either/or perspective?

Maybe you just don’t know? Maybe you shouldn't apply meaning one way or the other, because you have NO idea what anything means? Maybe you need to detach from the egoic capacity to judge altogether, which means to neither accept nor reject (is your ego screaming yet?).

Maybe even your whole experience of “reality” was simply manufactured by filling that blank slate (consciousness) with rejection and acceptance?

'Knowing' is so over-rated. Maybe neutrality changes everything.

Can you return to that ‘blank slate,’ that neither accepts nor rejects? Maybe this is the "Know-Nothing Neutrality of Non-Duality" or the state of consciousness that neither rejects nor accepts.

Can you accept you know nothing by rejecting everything or can you reject what you know by accepting nothing?

Should you seek neutrality in the realization that you don’t know? Those who don’t know neither accept nor reject. How could they, in the realization that they don’t know. Maybe you should return to the blank slate that you were prior to judging your experiences as “real"?

More importantly, if you choose to believe you don’t know, then you will be open to learning, because, obviously, those who already ‘know’ have nothing to learn. In fact, when you know nothing, you immediately become vulnerable. Of course, even though your ego is deathly afraid of being vulnerable, it is probably the most spiritually advanced state you could attain prior to realizing your infinite invulnerability.

You have come to realize you know nothing and desire to learn everything, because you’ve entered the neutral state of non-dual consciousness, which knows nothing. Of course, since you know nothing and are neutral about everything, then you cannot possibly judge who the best teacher is and, therefore, remain neutral about 'who' knows and does not know. This means you must be open to learning from everyone and everything, even those who claim not to know and are blank slates themselves.

In that way we all come upon truth together, since it can't be known any other way.

Obviously those who claim to ‘know’ merely fear being vulnerable. But then, what should you do upon meeting up with someone who claims to know and wants to teach you?

RUN!

(but then, don't accept what I say, but don't reject it either)

(Artwork by KH Blackwell "Pressures of the Non-Blinking Third Eye)

Christ Returns...When "you" Leave

Christ Consciousness simply does NOT consider form, or body, as superior to mind. Yet, the fact that you conduct your life entirely based on the body indicates that you take little consideration of Christ Consciousness.

That you do conduct your ‘life’ based on a body is indisputable, since you consider death of the body, the death of “you.”
 Christ Consciousness does not deny awareness of form. However, it recognizes that “life” is not in any way contingent on form. The chief dualistic distinction is not that of body versus no body, as if the experience of a body was simply to be nullified in order to attain freedom from form (which many ‘spiritualists’ claim).

Actually, the distinction we make is that without a body there can be NO mind. This ultimately creates fear and fear then becomes the chief determining factor of ‘living.’

If we were certain that the mind did not end upon expiration of the body, the experience of ‘living’ would be quite different. Christ Consciousness realizes that the body is merely an appendage of mind and that mind is not in any way determined by the body nor is the mind controlled by the experience of a body in a ‘world.’

However, we believe that a body experienced as ‘in a world’ must take precedence and demand the minds total attention.

Christ Consciousness simply reverses this order. As a result, mind is the controlling aspect, and the originating factor, of both body and world. There is nothing external to mind that can in any way control or victimize mind and this is the realization of Christ Consciousness that many report is an encounter with indescribable freedom.

The world is full of enlightenment paths and programs that seek to empower the individual through reducing the controlling aspects of body and world. Unfortunately, these programs continue to maintain that body and world determine direction of thought and, thus, the content of mind. Many claim that all you can ever do is seek to reduce the extent of this conceptual bondage, but never be free.

Therefore, it is no wonder these programs have been ineffective in making the slightest dent in the current collective structure of the world and man’s inhumanity to man. Christ consciousness miraculously and radically alters your experience of a ‘world’ by fully realizing that the body does not determine the content of consciousness.

Such consciousness need not conform to the world’s dictates, since the world’s value system is entirely oriented to the body. Christ Consciousness has NO need to seek to control the world nor does it seek to withhold or surrender control. This is because Christ Consciousness restores the natural order which ego-self has denied (but cannot eradicate).

Christ Consciousness merely realigns the mind with itself, thereby, negating control by the body or the world. Christ Consciousness does not deny that there is a “you” associated with a body ‘located’ in a world. Christ Consciousness merely affirms this a result of free-will.

Christ Consciousness affirms free-will, as opposed to the body and world’s negation of free-will, in the recognition that you are NOT victim to the objects of consciousness (body and world) because you are 'source.' Nevertheless, obviously, source is not “you” in any way you could conceive of yourself. Therefore, the biblical message accurately prophesies the return of Christ, but only upon the disappearance of “you.”

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
- Jesus Christ

EGO DYNAMICS: Healed Perception

The chief hallmark of healed perception (which some call enlightenment or awakening) is the realization that the world is not to blame for your suffering and deserves NO condemnation.

However, as you begin to retract blame from the world, suffering intensifies as ego resists attempts to alter condemnation as the basis for 'perception.' The ego demands the world be culpable and egoic perception is designed to make judgmental distinctions through contrasts, thereby reinforcing the experience of self divided from world.

The ego’s chief instrument of distinction is ‘perception.’ The ego refuses to accept that perception is a product of belief and instead insists that you must always believe what you perceive. Perception is crucial for the ego to exist and to deny what you perceive is to deny the ego.

However, your ego-self is not to blame and neither is perception

The problem is neither the world nor your ego-self but the conceptual construct of blame, which must lead to condemnation. The ego constructs numerous concepts to reinforce the experience of an external world. This is because the ego is nothing more than a belief in an external world. Yet, essentially, you have NO precise knowledge that an external world even exists, since the body that gives you this information (sensation) is itself external to the ego-self (this ontological issue is as old as time itself).

However, although many “enlightened” minds contend that an external world is maya, or illusion, they cannot argue against your 'experience' of an external world. You do experience a world separate from mind and that experience is solely your own. Many bright minds assert that you are NOT separate from your world, but that you have bifurcated, or split, your ‘self’ off from your experience of a world.

"Spiritual awakening" merely identifies that your experience of a world is indivisible from your experience of a ‘self.’ They are one and the same, because they are both within the domain of ‘experience.’ Condemn the world and, since your experience of a world is indivisible from your ‘self’ you condemn yourself. Blame your ‘self’ and you indict the world. Distinctions are delusional because they construct experiences to allocate blame by maintaining dualistic contrasts.

Miraculous perception, or Christ Consciousness/Buddha Mind, does not dissolve the world, but dissolves blame and condemnation in the realization that there is no division to experience.

Nonetheless, many will assert that the ego constructed the experience of blame and thus, is at fault. But the ego also constructed experiences of joy and beauty to aid in contrasting between what is guilty and what is innocent. The ego constructs conceptual preferences to reinforce your attachment to ‘perception’ as the chief means of knowledge and understanding. Therefore, perception seeks out contrasts by its very nature because the ego needs you to rely on it fully, as opposed to something deeper, that it senses, but can never understand through perception.

Blame the ego for your suffering and you seek to divide your experience into parts and ‘perception’ will continue to divide itself from the world by contrasting between heaven and hell, pain and pleasure, good and bad. This merely reinforces a stronger ego against an external world and it is the fundamental fallacy of many religious and spiritual ideologies.

The ego cannot be dissolved by anything “you” (egoic self-concept) could do, simply because you are an ego and an ego denying itself paradoxically reinforces itself. However, the concepts ego-self constructs as experience can be denied and extinguished. This is because the ego perpetuates itself through denial and it does this simply by denying that its experience of a world is unified and indivisible from itself. Blame separates into parts and denies unity to experience.

Deny blame and condemnation to the world and experience an end to all self-condemnation because there is no division between self and world.

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

(Seng-st'an. Third Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism)