Intentionally-Distorted Memory, Cuckoos, Conservatives and Progressives

This piece describes and explains the unfairly biased, deceptive, even self-deceptive behavior of a certain class of human beings ("Cuckoos") -- otherwise known as "Trump Conservatives" -- as well as people brought up on the idea that the purpose of language is to get ones own way, rather than to convey the truth of situations to get ones way.

When we Intentionally remember something,
our intention either magnifies the memory in intensity and detail
or it spins off or generates alternative, imaginary memories
through acts of Imagination.

Alternative Imaginary ("intentionally biased") Memories are then taken
(or held to)
as actual, uncontestable memories of actual reality.

The words, "taken as actual, uncontestible memories", mean,
"giving imaginary memories the status of truth,"
to be used or acted upon as if, the truth,
as if they were the actual and accurate impression of the way things were,
as the way things are.

The words, "Alternative, Imaginary Memories", refer to
self-serving memories, imaginings deliberately departing
from the more vividly remembered memories of actual experience,
created to protect oneself from the expected consequences of actual memories.

This act of self-protection is called,
self-deception, unfair bias, and lying.

In practice, generating alternative, imaginary memories means
everything from wishful thinking, fantasizing and hoping,
to having the conceit to enforce ones own imaginings
upon the world, as if ones imaginings were absolute truth
and others' memories were the deviated, distorted ones.

It's self-deception through the imagination,
a departure from the truth
intended to be acted upon as if true.

When intentional attention intensifies a memory,
without otherwise acting upon it
the memory is magnified without
(much) distortion and is amenable to easier
memory modification (correction).

The relative freedom from intentional memory distortion
among two individuals
makes rapport relatively easy.
Their amenability to imagining
the intention behind someone's words and
remembering it so meanings fit together
makes communication possible.

Listening is openness to imagining.
Listening is receptiveness to remembering.
Listening is openness to and for communication.

Listening ~~ intensification of attention and
receptivity to remembering ~~
opens the communication channel.
Listening is the very foundation of communication.

This is how intuitive individuals experience
higher-order intuitive information and communication
beyond, with or without words or symbols.

Individuals who intentionally distort their memories
who engage in selective memory and self-deception
find it easier to be in the company of
similarly self-deceiving individuals.

They may be called, Cuckoos.

Because neither Cuckoo allows themselves to perceive what
they actually might remember,
they also let each other off the hook,
and allow, substitution, in the act of communicating
of shared, imagined memories,
in place of actually remembered memories.
They then may proclaim their imagined memories loudly and often.

They should be recognized, by
their confusion of shared, imagined memories,
with actually remembered memories based upon
actual, interactive experience,
as Cockoo.

When large groups of Cuckoos get together,
their shared self-deceptions enable them to form
large-scale flocks of Cuckoos,
flocks that appear many places the social structure.

Flocks of Cuckoos act upon their shared, imagined memories
as if those memories were based in personal interactive experiences,
rather than being sustained by mere shared agreement.

Cuckoos don't actually listen beyond their own memories
or what their memories allow them to imagine.
They also selectively override their own incoming intelligence
which comes in through the channel of imagination.

Such individuals are unwilling to go into mutual rapport with individuals who can tell the difference between imagination and memory. They don't want to have to face their own actual memories; they prefer their imagined memories (e.g., lies, distortions, and self-deceptions).

So they contest memory,
locked into self-deception through intentional memory distortion,
decrying others as fake, rather than
recognizing and acknowledging themselves as being fake,
attributing their own fault to others,
especially to other persons, groups, or parties
who call, "fault", legitimately.

This is how Cuckoos operate.

So, intentionally attending to a memory
magnifies it with increasing accuracy and completeness.

Intentionally imagining alternative memories
(sometimes called, "alternative facts")
divides attention between the alternative memories
and actual memories (and actual facts).

Divided attention is lower intensity attention.
With attention at a lower-intensity, self-deception and
deception of others can continue, unrecognized or unaddressed.

Cuckoos don't like more highly-integrated individuals
~~ sometimes called, "progressives" ~~
because in the company of "progressives", under their attention,
the self-and-other-deception of the Cuckoos
becomes less and less possible.

Instead, the intensity goes up.

Since Cuckoos can't take the intensity
they create distractions: drama through transgressions
small and large, misbehavior.
Cuckoos bleed off the surplus intensity
the surplus creative attention of
higher-integrity progressives
by means of misbehaviors that
seem to demand progressives' attention.

So, the activity is one of Intention acting upon Memory,
so as to avoid Integrity of Memory
to lower the intensity,
and intentionally to reinforce
lower intensity, lower integrity of function.

It's a wasteful situation.

Better for Attention to be drawn by Imagination
to the Mysterious Originating of Things unknown,
so that wasted intensity regathers integrity
(Remembered Integrity)
so that what emerges into Imagination
may be Captured in Memory
and then made Tangible for the Common Good.

That process of capturing intelligent impulses
mysteriously received and perceived in imagination,
saving intelligent impulses in memory,
making intelligent impulses tangible by creative action,
that process is a distinct teaching,
part of something larger.

There is a distinct teaching of that process.
Though that teaching may take different forms
its root basis or foundation is the same among all.

This writing stirred your intuition.
There's more stirring, possible.

#TetraSeedAwakening
#Global Cooperative Forum

Spirituality as Expungement

Spirituality as a path of relief,
seeks expungement of the confusions and contradictions
inherited from the history of ones ancestors and
from the ocean of psychic currents and noises of mind
that are ones experience of life.

Our race has come an adequate distance through the ages
to have accumulated a far mass of memory
from the times of rocks
to the cleanliness and relative precision of technological excess
and experimentation in ones own origins.

The minds are saturated with the echoing and residual noises
of times gone into memory and memory and memory

so that the moment is drowned out and locked up
in the sins of mind and confusion.

The noises of chaotic memory
echo in our muscles and sinews and bones
so that there is no rest
and all is beset by the urgencies of necessary contingencies.

People are nuts.

The one direction, unsuspected,
is the cleaning of the slate, anew.

No mind need move.

When all that has been known has been made transparent
and so brought to rest
no mind ensues.

Then, when the creative signal comes
we "hear" it and are free to create anew,
what is emerging within The Unknown Unknown,
only to bring into existence
a new noise, a new sound
to the symphony of All and All

only to fall into indifferent rest, again,
sensitive to every motion,
unmoved.

Spiritual life
conceived as a path of relief
leads either to involvement,
or nowhere, at all.

Sometimes, we have to back up to move forward.

The inheritance of the ages and of the ocean of life
gravitate attention into involvement
until we recover our wholeness of parts
and realize that our wholeness
the unknown known,
faces the unknown unknown.

Authority vs. Authoritarianism: A Problem of The Times

These days, a polarization or "separation of camps" exists between authorities and authoritarians. An "anti-authority" sentiment has arisen in one camp that distinguishes poorly between legitimate, helpful, knowledgeable authority and illegitimate, detrimental, ignorant authoritarianism -- or "dominator authorities". 

A "pro-authoritarian sentiment" has grown in the other camp, a sentiment that resists and attacks the inevitable new developments of newly emerging authorities ("progressives").

Very often, people use the word, "authority", to describe both, indiscriminately, so that people mis-categorize persons of authority as authoritarians and resist or otherwise fail to support them, when their services are direly needed.

This polarization has crippled people's intelligence and rendered them more susceptible to manipulation by persons of malicious or self-serving intent.

This piece exists to clarify the difference, so that people exercise their intelligence, better and save themselves from the machinations of authoritarians.

Authority vs. Authoritarianism

There's a night-and-day difference between authority and authoritarianism.

The words authority and author are obviously related. An authority is someone with a comprehensive understanding of how things work in some aspect of life. Someone who writes it all down is called an author.

Authoritarians on the other hand, are people who believe in the right of the authority to control others. What's important to them is not understanding, but obedience.

To clarify that difference, let's make a distinction. And authority is rightfully a teacher. An authoritarian on the other hand, is a controller of others – a control freak. An authoritarian believes in the right of an authority to dominate, who expects to be dominated and, on the basis of that "chain of authority", expects to dominate others.

There's a world of difference between teaching and dominating, isn't there?

Teaching versus Dominating

Every competent teacher knows that teaching involves the voluntary cooperation of the student. The teacher presents information or a viewpoint. The cooperative student voluntarily internalizes that viewpoint or understanding. The teacher hands it off. The student captures it. The process of capturing it is known as self-discipline.

Authoritarians, on the other hand, believe that they have the right to compel cooperation. The words, "Thank you for your cooperation," then, take on an ominous tone.

Instead of relying upon self-discipline, the authoritarian relies upon enforcement or punishment. What the student of an authoritarian learns is not just the viewpoint or understanding of an authority, but also the likelihood of punishment for failing to learn it.

Just to be clear about the distinction, discipline is self generated from within; enforcement and punishment are imposed from outside.

Rebellion: the problem of the times

People confuse authorities with authoritarians. They expect that with authority comes the likelihood of punishment rather than caring instruction.

So, they become resistant to all legitimate, helpful authority.

And therein lies the problem. People are making themselves both dense and opinionated -- thus making their culture both dense and incapable of meeting the challenges of change.

Authorities are like good parents. Authoritarians are like bad parents.

A good parent teaches self-discipline; a good parent gives lessons. A bad parent punishes in the guise of teaching; a bad parent "is going to teach you a lesson you won't forget".

Authoritarianism leads to mistrust. Mistrust leads to the crippling of a society and to the incompetence of its members.

That incompetence leads to dependency. And that dependency leads to authoritarianism.

Why?

Because people are unwilling voluntarily to submit themselves to the instruction of authorities. They must then be compelled, even for their own good.

Because they don't distinguish cleanly between authorities and authority figures, "for their own good" becomes suspect to them. They suspect that every authority is actually an authoritarian.

And away we go.

Isn't that what we are seeing in these times?

Then, instead of going for, learning, people go for idle distractions, which are non-threatening, but ineffectual. Think, entertainment.

Ineffectual people, despite their resistance to authority, ultimately become more controllable by authoritarians, more manipulable, more gullible than competent people.

The authorities they choose are of their own choosing, rather than of the greatest competence.

Again, why?

Authority has Inherent Power; Authoritarianism Seizes Power

The communications of authorities in some area of knowledge embody a kind of forcefulness, the forcefulness of self-assurance, of competence, of integrity.

This, people who confuse authority with authoritarianism regard as a threat to their own autonomy, their right to decide, for themselves.

The communications of authoritarians contain the feeling of a hidden threat – or they may be couched in terms that pander to the concerns of listeners in ways that flatter the intelligence of listeners, rather than informing that intelligence.

In true teaching, there is no threat to autonomy. Rather, true teaching is empowering. True teaching gets people to discover, or test, things for themselves. That's where the true learning comes in.

An authoritarian doesn't want people to test things for themselves. An authoritarian wants people simply to believe the authoritarian and go along. This, people rightfully resist.

But they must learn to distinguish the difference. And authoritarians, and their followers, who are also authoritarians, resist learning from outside their accepted "chain of authority". They are like dogs who obey only their master. They resist exercising their own intelligence, resist taking "unauthorized" initiative. They want the assurance of their authoritarian superiors that they will not be threatened. So, they conform.

The true authority faces, that is, is willing to confront, authoritarians.

The true authority, and the student of true authority, has the courage to question or to refuse.

The authoritarian is a coward feigning the appearance of strength. The authoritarian uses the clichés of, the language of, entrenched power, or of tradition.

The true authority develops his or her own language of expression, coins his or her own terminology to express something new, something to be learned. Understanding that new language of expression or terminology requires a person to exercise their intelligence.

Authoritarians are afraid to exercise their own intelligence. They conform, but without intelligence -- if with cleverness -- to maintain the dominance of their (inherited) view. They conform, merely obediently.

That, indeed, is their stupidity -- and it is self inflicted. So, where authoritarians self-inflict stupidity, the students of an authority apply self discipline – which requires them to exercise their intelligence -- and also the courage to test and question.

Can you tell the difference?

On the Pathos of the Authoritarian State of Development | from an "Authoring Authority" Point of View

One difference between an authoritarian and an authority has to do with listening.

An authoritarian wants communication to be one-way: out to others. (S)he never listens long enough to get a sense of the other's experience, but only long enough to identify ways of undercutting the other, whose opinion differs.

An authority, on the other hand, listens. Closely.

That's how an authority gets to be an authority and to stay an authority -- by listening enough to get a sense of things previously overlooked,

• by staying open enough and long enough to sense things of which one was previously oblivious
• by allowing what comes in to resonate us and to relax any stresses that show up. To one degree or another, they do.

The authority stays an authority not by remaining fixed in stone. No, that's the authoritarian.

The authority stays an authority by staying current, by changing to incorporate the effects of experience in oneself, by incorporating the Unknown Unknown into ones worldview, so that new things may emerge.

The authority is not afraid of not-knowing or of appearing not to know. The authority knows that not-knowing is the entry-way, the mouth that feeds on the Unknown Unknown in order to generate The Known, all that is known by mind and stored in memory.

The authoritarian is afraid of not knowing, and so always purports to know (even when wrong).

The authority admits that, as much as we know, we don't know it all -- and therefore, we don't know beyond knowledge.

Therefore, the authority, who listens, who is affected, honesty acknowledges faults.

The authoritarian makes as the stock-in-trade, the willingness of silly people to tolerate his persistent faults being persistent. Therefore, (s)he is afraid of being found out.

The authority, not being concerned for the opinions of others because honest to begin with, is not afraid of being found out, since (s)he knows that whatever actions (s)he takes, they do not *come from* her; they come *to and through* her (or him). All the authority does is to consolidate into some persistent and hopefully, reproducible form, is capture what has been shown in imagination -- capture it in memory and as something tangible, that functions, that works to beneficial effect.

The authority is a benefactor.

The authority, because confronted with the mysterious origin of things the origin beyond himself, beyond all things ... is naturally humble about his personal credit for what (s) has invented -- and will take credit only for doing the hard work!

The authoritarian is a parasite.

Authoritarians want to make the way things develop be the way that will get the most approval from the prevailing power structure. Thus, authoritarians are strong on memory fixation and weak on open imagination.

What they imagine is shaped by what they remember of "where the bread is buttered" and by the expectation that it continues to continue.

Authoritarians feed off the system while impaired in the ability to provide a fair exchange. They plunder The System. Think, "financiers" -- and many others -- "fossil-fuel industries", "chemical companies", "military contractors". get the idea? Mooooooooooo$$.

Authority gets its persuasive prestige for the benefits that authorities channels into The System, by means of exercising their expertise. Their prestige is the prestige of being regarded as a source of benefit -- prestige that grows as more people benefit.

Authoritarians do not contribute what is needed because they do not listen. They do not wish to listen. To listen is to be affected. They do not want to be affected. They want a one-way channel: out. They want the power because they imagine that getting everything to go as they imagine they want it to will bring relief from their distress at being fixated in memory with stunted imagination compelled by inherited and now outdated senses of values.

Authoritarians come heavily laden with the inherited trauma of ancient ancestors, of recent ancestors, of childhood upbringing and social *commonalities* (NOT "norms"). They're full of it. And their inherited conditioning comes with a fear-laden threat: *Don't change any of this on pain of punishment."

So, authoritarians don't like true authorities. True authorities make authoritarians look bad, who then have to react (generally with lies and denials) to avoid the fear of the threat of punishment for coming clean. True authorities make authoritarians feel like imposters, who then retaliate with false characterizations of individuals who act like authorities (such as, "So-and-so doesn't know what they're talking about." "I have such contempt for "so-and-so", etc., etc.). They have "status issues".

I think that the "status issue" of authorities is about whether their work is used well, or not, about whether it gets the recognition it deserves for the benefit it can provide. So to speak. Other than that, authority is there to listen and to serve.

So, I've painted a pretty extensive picture, here.

There'll be a quiz on that sometime this week.


#TetraSeedAwakening

On Authoritarian Trolling in Social Media

Ladies and gentlemen, we've seen enough in the mass- and social- media for me now to offer you some instruction about authoritarianism and authoritarians. We have examples, here.

The first thing is, an authoritarian isn't a true authority, but only acts like one. The authoritarian gets his/her sense of authority from those whom he or she considers to be the "legitimate" authorities, rather from his or her own intelligence; it's a "surface" sense of authority, rather than a "core" sense of authority. 

A prime authoritarian institution that confers the "sense of authority" is the university system that confers degrees. The university system generates authoritarians who throw their weight around because they have the "permission" their degree confers. They may even cite their credentials or degrees as "proof" of their authority. 

Economists fall into this class because economics is a bogus discipline (that gave us, "Trickle-down Theory" and that cites "economic forces" rather than "human habit" as the primary causal factors of the operating of economies. "Forces" have the status of unchanging natural law; "habits" can and may change.). 

Authoritarians don't penetratingly question their own premises or opinions. Why? Because they have them "on good authority"! 

Because their "understanding" is inherited, rather than generated from their own intelligence and insight, they can't refute an intelligent argument. They lack the necessary mental adroitness, depending, instead, on what they "know" (remember), on falsely criticizing or ridiculing those who disagree, with them, on overlooking points others have made, and resorting to presumed authority.

Authoritarians often use disparaging language against those whose opinions differ from their own, inherited, opinions. For example, they may use terms like, "profoundly stupid", "garbage", and "trash talk". Consider who first used those terms in this conversation -- and who resorted to disparaging or ridiculing "the communicator" instead of encountering and refuting the argument presented.

Because they lack imagination, but instead rely upon memory of what they have been taught by their chosen authorities, authoritarians also lack foresight. The only thing they "see coming" is what their existing economic models predict; they don't see emerging developments (except those that fall within their economic models) or they minimize their import (climate shift being one such emergent). 

This lack of imagination reduces the value of their opinions -- though it does make them sound "official" and gains the approval of other authoritarians and of the naive.

Authoritarians always see themselves as, "right" and others, "a danger". They're right in one sense: non-authoritarians are a danger to authoritarians -- which is why authoritarians resort to attacking non-authoritarians and, instead of addressing the arguments presented, change the conversation to irrelevancies and make false characterizations.

Lacking insight into themselves, they often attribute their own faults to others (often in namecalling). Psychologists call this behavior, "projection". We've seen plenty of it in this Administration and enough of it in this conversation.

Finally (for the moment), authoritarians get angry and defensive (offensive), when their psychologically immature behavior gets "called out". They don't like questioning themselves and resent when others prompt them to do so.

That should be enough to illuminate this conversation (and other conversations), don't you think?

So, we should listen carefully to the words of authoritarians, and when we discover them to be such, dismiss them.

The TetraSeed is a Super-Integrity that Consists of Four Integrities

INTEGRITY and DEFINED CONSCIOUSNESS

The TetraSeed is a representation of the structure of experience and of the structure of defined consciousness. It consists of four "integrities", each "integrity" combining with three others to constitute the structure of both intelligence and of experience-able reality. It's true! You can test it, for yourself. "Plug-In".

An "integrity", the way I mean it, is something that is made up of multiple "pieces" that all fit together to create a whole that is more than the mere sum of (or mere collection of) parts. An "integrity" is a "system", something that functions, rather than a "pile" -- that just lies there.


The four integrities the make up the TetraSeed are:

* attending* remembering* intending* imagining*

These are four "integrities" that are functioning in and as every one of us, in every moment. They are what makes up our experience in any moment.

EACH "Integrity", of which there are four, CONSISTS OF FOUR SUB-PARTS ~~ or LIVING, INTUITIVE ASPECTS. We speak of those sub-parts as, "TETRADS".

FOUR SUB-PARTS, INTUITIVELY DISCERNABLE, INTUITIVELY EVIDENT:

TETRADS

Each of the four integrities of the TetraSeed consists of tetrads-- four mutually reinforcing aspects, intuitively-aligned and resonant, as I present, to you, below.

Those triads are.

  ATTENDING <|> distinctness*location*otherness

REMEMBERING <|> relatedness*persisting*definition 

                  IMAGINING <|> originating*unknown*relatedness         

 INTENDING <|> existing*tendency*difference

I can help you advance the deepening of this understanding, in you, if you read and feel the meaning of each section, as each meaning spontaneously gets triggered, communicating to and through your intuitive faculty.

A direct way to turn on intuition of each of the tetrads and of the whole TetraSeed is to do the Crystal Crown Invocation.

ATTENDING

Attending to something (paying attention) is always about locating something that has a location.

In the "attending" triad, "locating" is a process, and so indeterminate, while "location" is defined by an object that can be located.

The two, "placing" and "location", constitute the process of focusing on something. Distinctness is necessary for placing*location.

"placing"(goes to)"location"

or

"uncertainty":(goes to)"particularity"

That's the mood of attention as a tetra-integrity.

REMEMBERING

Remembering always involves three other aspects: defined pattern persisting.

In the "remembering" tetrad, "pattern" means a unity of behavioral inter-relationships (not a mere collection of "parts") into a functional whole; "persisting" is the stability of those inter-relationships through time. The three, "pattern", "definition" and "persisting" ("defined pattern persisting"), synergistically combine to create a stable "something" that can be remembered.

All memories involve the persistence of something with integrity.

INTEGRITY PERSISTING

INTENDING

Intending always involves tendency and force to make a difference.

In the "intending" tetrad, "tendency" is a process occurring in relation to other things, and so always involves a direction, while "force" is "horsepower", or "push", and so, is non-directional. "Difference" is the contrast between "before intending" and "after intending".

For anything to be, it must comprise both tendency, difference from everything else, and the force of change).

FORCE   TENDENCY

IMAGINING

Imagining always involves the originating of something new. (If it's already known, it isn't new, and remembering is involved, not imagining. Imagining is necessary for remembering, but the pattern is already set.)

Imagining always involves, "unknown-ness" -- the process of making something "unknown" come into existence.

Imagining may be likened to "the mouth" and memory to, "the stomach".

In the "imagining" tetrad, "originating" is a process, and so unknown until it has already happened and made an impression in memory.  Imagining (in its pure form) is a process of something coming out of the unknown Unknown into the known.

INDETERMINACY ACTUALITY

Imagining involves the "confrontation" or intuition of mystery, or the Unknown Unknown ("transcendental source"). Newness emerges from the Unknown Unknown, into the known (as knowledge, or memory).

Anything actual is subject to attention, to memory, and to intention.

Take your time as you rest your attention on each pairing. Alternate between them until an intuitive sense of it consolidates -- or do The Crystal Crown Invocation.

THE SUPER-INTEGRITY : The TetraSeed

Each of those triads is an integrity.

Four triads exist.

Together, they form the SuperIntegrity that may aptly be called, The TetraSeed.

The TetraSeed has a "shape" in mind-space that may be intuited as a two "TetraHedra" ~~ four-sided triangular shapes.

Just gaze at it until you can make sense, of it. Feel what it does, to your intuitive sense.

Now, look away at anything else and notice what anything else has in common with the feeling you got from gazing at the TetraSeed's geometric structure.

The (already and always) functioning of the TetraSeed shows up as the seeming substantiality or existence of everything, everyone, and ourselves. Never mind merely mentally understanding my words. Mentally understanding them barely gets you started; you've got to feel them, intuitively. The feeling is of your own condition, moment to moment. 

Test my words.

Go back and "taste" the TETRADS. Go back and gaze at the TetraSeed until your attention steadies and you intuit its shape, as the image (a merely momentary shapshot that doesn't show movement or pulsation) shown. You have to intend to imagine the movement and pulsation of it. Then, look back at the world and feel how everything is a version of it.

It seems to pulsate, doesn't it?

FAULTY INTEGRITY and GOOD INTEGRITY

All four integrities of the TetraSeed are needed for anything to exist or to be perceived.

When any one or more of the four -- attending, intending, remembering, or imagining -- operate unconsciously during any experience, that form of experience seems beyond understanding or out of control of the individual. By "operate unconsciously", I mean, with impaired memory, unclear intention, with faltering attention, or habituated imagination.

Likewise, without location, persistence, tendency, or continual emergence into existence, nothing exists.

If and when the four tetrad-integrities become accessible to your intuition and integrated with each other (generally, through formal TetraSeed Awakening Invocation practice), missing "information" surfaces and then the sense of existence softens and changes, producing a sense of malleability (making experience mutable or transmutable) and then, often, dissolution of the sense of something being an insurmountable problem. Free and more effective courses of action often surface as the tendency to spontaneous-right-action.

A mental (merely conceptual) understanding of what I have said is worth nothing; it produces no insight-value, causes no change that makes this all seem to make sense.

Specific procedures (the TetraSeed Awakening Invocations and related processes from other sources) bring all this to life as a vivid experience that lends itself to intuitive understanding and practical application.

The Superficial Personality Front, The Deep Personality, and Personal Evolution

 

E

fforts to address personality patterns commonly due so from a relatively superficial perspective:  the perspective of the thinking mind and conscious will.

However, for change actually to occur, unconscious (submerged) controlling behavioral tendencies must also change, and that entails making them conscious (getting them to emerge).

That emergence, I call, "personal evolution", here.

In this piece, I address the superficial and deeper domains of personal evolution.

The deepest domain seems to emerge spontaneously as a result of dealing with the two others.

The Superficial Personality Front

What people commonly refer to as, "personality", is the Superficial Personality Front (SPF -- not to be confused with, "Sun Protection Factor", although they are related).

It is the socialized facade -- and also all that a person is conscious of, about themselves. It is more than "who they think they are"; it's also what they "want others to think they are". It's all their learned ways of staying out of trouble or of getting out of trouble with others and of getting what they want. It's all the ways we have of strategically managing others, and of behaving, ourselves. It's a big front.

It's what Adi Da has referred to as, "mummery".

Deep to the socialized facade (SPF) are all that a person is, but of which (s)he is unconscious, unaware, or perhaps fleetingly aware and dimly aware, or only intellectually "aware" (not directly aware, at all, but cognizant in a conceptual (word-mind) sense as 'knowledge-about themselves'. Deep to the socialized facade are all the ways we have learned to be under the influence of the relationships and exposures to the situations of life. These are automaticities, automatic feeling and response behaviors seeming out of ones control, and since inevitable, "necessarily right".  Stupidity.

All of that comprises our automatic or unbidden emotional responses to situations that shape our relationships.

The Deep Personality shapes and informs the Superficial Personality Front; the Superficial Personality Front is a range of behaviors lived within the constraints of the Deep Personality -- even if behaviour in the moment is intended to be opposing or rebelling against, those constraints. Behavior in the moment is a play upon (and within) Deep Personality constraints.

We do not see these things about ourselves -- but others may see them and observe them, about us. These are automatic-involuntary states of readiness; attitudes; of tension-in-readiness, of self-contraction that characterizes the common mode in which we live, as ourselves, persistence of the play of behaviours within the range permitted by deeper personality.

Perception of this deeper personality has faded and lies hidden from our ability to put attention on it, so familiar is it to us that we have ceased to notice that we are taking for granted that "life is that way".

It can be "surfaced", brought to our own attention as a "tension-set-feeling". That is how it can be experienced -- when "surfaced". As a "tension-set-feeling", it is automatically the way we feel, when moving, and the way we feel when resting, when "unready for anything".

That is what's below the surface.

It's also what Adi Da referred to as, "mummery". It's just more deeply unconscious than the social personality (SPF).

Such "mummery" exists out of sight and becomes visible only when prodded; we are oblivious, to it. Even if pointed out to us, it remains in place, seemingly anchored in place by unrecognized unconscious impulses that we cannot control.

We cannot control it because aspects of it are below the threshhold of attention of what we can feel. Someone pointing something out to us may momentarily boost our ability to put attention, on it -- but they have "lent us" their intention to put attention on it, for that moment; when we are by ourselves, we must locate the integrity of the intention to put attention on it and remember that's what we are doing long enough that a new wordless-perception can come in.

The Personal Evolution Part

Fortunately, there exists ways to enable people to do that, to be able to sense that to which, in themselves, they have been oblivious -- to sense the "submerged material" -- to cause it to surface like a submarine.

The way to cause the submerged material -- sub-conscious and unconscious -- to surface is to turn up our power of attention and to drive attention into, or in the direction of, the submerged material so that we get a direct experience, of it, more vivid than the word-mind can provide.

We find, "in the direction of" submerged material by locating where attention is drawn, noticing its persistence, its effect (existing activity), and where it seems to be leading or opening to.  One or more of those is under-functional. There's are procedures for determining what's what.

In those procedures, we use attentive, purposeful, deliberate application of the word-mind to drive deeper below the words into the feeling underlying the words. Yes, we use words as instruments to self-drive deeper into ones own non-verbal experience -- the Deep Personality.

The act of driving deeper involves sequences of words in repetitive, organized, structured rhythms -- rhythms and cadences and sequences that stabilize the integrity . . . . .

of our intention . . . . .
to put attention somewhere . . . . . and  . . . . .
to keep it there,
to intuit (apperceive) what's there . . . . .
previously unnoticed.

What's there isn't a word description.  It isn't a set of concepts or word-ideas. It's not an explanation, a rationale, or any "food for reasoning". It isn't a reasonable conclusion. It's not any kind of conclusion.

It's a direct, intuitive feeling-perception -- a feeling from which sudden recognition and sudden intuitive understanding may arise of why our life has, in certain ways, gone as it has -- a recognition, a deeper and more complete understanding, of The Deep Personality as which we live, in person.

There are the TetraSeed Awakening procedures for that exact purpose.

That's why they're called, "Awakening procedures".

NEXT
AN EXPLANATION OF THE WORD, TetraSeed

The AQAL Matrix and The TetraSeed

Integral (Theory)( Practice) recognizes deep structures of psycho-physical adaptation that underlie "surface activities". The deeper the underpinnings located in a way of life, the more similar that way of life seems to others existing in parallel. There's a convergence from "difference at the superficial level" to "similarity:identicality" at the deep levels.

The AQAL Matrix identifies four fundamental perspectives:

Upper Left: simpler subjective holons

Lower Left: more complex,higher integration intersubjective, resonant holons arising the the interaction of personal:subjective holons

Upper Right: simpler objective holons

Lower Right: systems of higher-integration holons made of simpler objective holons

As the graphic shows, there's another deep-structure-of-fourness: The TetraSeed (tetrahedral diagram).

The TetraSeed operates in every quadrant of the AQAL Matrix, in every line, at every level. It comprises a subjective fourness (central figure) and two objective fournesses ('sunburst' figure: one:process; the other:product).

It is the deep structure of all experience. the deep structure of all holons, whether subjective or objective, Left Quadrant or Right Quadrant, Upper Quadrant or Lower Quadrant.

Click here for the next article explaining how the TetraSeed functions (like the Net of Indra), as the Universal Focusing Device for and on All Forms of Particular Experience.

We are,
Reality is,
both holographic
and fractal,
composed of strange attractors
related in arrays and relationships
by their commonalities in attention.

A "reality" scenario forms when strange attractors
come into a mutual dynamic equilibrium
in a resonant display
of forms and functions
illuminated by attention
toward which we enliven intention.

A "reality" scenario starts to form as soon as there is one strange attractor
toward which attention gravitates
and which captures and captivates attention
in a kind of gravity well.

That is how memories form.

A "reality" scenario is a dreamed "reality" or dreamed actuality.

The "reality" and "actuality" pertain to memory.
The "dreamed" pertains to imagination.
"Scenario" applies to both.

In actuality,
our attention moves,

oscillating among numerous strange attractors
(attention captivators)
sometimes ricocheting like a b-b in a shaken bottle.

quieting and centering on a single strange attractor

quieting and centering in a matrix of closely related strange attractors
in unity equilibrium

or resting between all strange attractors
not particularly gravitating toward any
floating.

In any case, a "reality" scenario is an experience of any or all of these "strange attractions".

Here's the holographic part:

A hologram is a photograph that
if cut into pieces, each piece now contains and shows
the entire photograph.

The difference is that the sharpness of the images
on the smaller pieces,
is not as sharp as the original full photograph.

The difference is a matter of the density of reference points
and a their relationships.

A "reality" scenario works in an analogous way.

The more "strange attractors" we put together into a single "reality" scenario,
the more the picture sharpens up.

One attractor, by itself, produces a very, very blurry image that looks like a spherical galaxy.

Two attractors produce a dumbbell shaped galaxy formation.

Three attractors produce a triangle-shaped galaxy formation.

And it continues to go slowly, like that, at the lowest levels of complexity and integration.

However, we, at the human, sentient life level of the continuum of existence
are quite complex and fairly-well integrated, at average.

So, already there are zillions of points in the "strange attractor" field
and that makes for a pretty high-definition "reality" scenario.

The next step is to recognize patterns of integration within the overall "reality" scenario --
apparent objects, persons, or conditions.

Like a galaxy, each has a central, most dense core,
and becomes more and more ephemeral
toward the outside periphery.

This is subtle, kinesthetic perception.

In any case, that's how we are (and reality is) holographic.

The other element or aspect
is that we are
and reality is
fractal.

That means it's made up of points of detail
that can be looked into more closely
and we can see more detail
the more closely we look.

Fractal means
"The more you look,
the more you see."

Why The TetraSeed Awakening Invocations

A T T E N T I O N:
P S Y C H O A C T I V E

INSTRUCTION IN THE ABILITY
TO DISSOLVE INVISIBLE GRIPS IN YOU

  THAT KEEP YOU STUCK
Finding Yourself Out and the Way Out

________________

-- preparatory "horse training" --

-- You're the horse. | You're also the trainer. --

1. People of mediocre or even exceptional bent seek consolations for the chronic distresses of life ("stress") by fulfillment of egoic motivations for successes and even victory -- consolations to distract, counteract or cover up the distresses.
   
   
2. Others seek relief from distresses by exempting themselves from the world -- or relationships.
   
   
3. The native or inherent state of the Ground of Being is without form, center, location, boundary, size, signal, or quality. It is the Ground of Being -- everywhere and nowhere in particular -- void of definition -- but is not a state of annihilation, nor is it potentiality. It is the substance of all else, but most essentially, consciousness, the substance of space from which all things and persons arise, consolidate, and move, inherently present, eternal.
   
   
4. The TetraSeed is the deep structure of all egos, whatever an ego's form or content may be. It is the structure of reality. But its nature is inherently void of definition. By assuming all conditional forms, it assumes definition -- temporarily -- and becomes the functions of ego and of all experience. The TetraSeed is the universal identity of ego and of world because it is without identity of its own, but becomes all.
   
   
5. Whatever strategies egos assume for the sake of consolation -- fulfillment, success, and victory -- or for relief by self-exemption from relationships, those strategies are temporary configurations of each individual self. Those strategies are artifacts of mind, not of inherent reality, and are untrue.
   
   
6. Because it is inherently void, the TetraSeed is essentially one-and-the-same as the formless Ground of Being. Because it temporarily assumes all forms and identities, it is essentially one-with-conditional-reality. It is both and limited to neither. It is the "channel between" the unmanifest and the manifest, inherent in all living beings.
   
   
7. Represented by concepts (such as, IMAGINATION, INTENTION, MEMORY, and ATTENTION), it is not those concepts. As an actuality, it is undefined intensity that can nevertheless be felt, intuitively. It can be registered as such only when attention is free of ensnarement by the qualities of existence, which otherwise distract from the bare feeling-intuition of the TetraSeed as the Primal Integrity. Concepts are only a means of drawing intuition wordlessly to what may only be intuited as the substantiality common to all matters of existence. Everything feels like a "something there", regardless of the particulars. Some call it, "is-ness" or "I-am-ness".
   
   
8. When the TetraSeed is intuited as Primal Integrity, the force of ego is revealed and intuited as a mere intensity of density, no longer as "self". The confusion of ego identification with conditions (the grip of memory) ceases and ego loses its density, its form, and its status as an identity. "The dreary, skin-encapsulated ego" is freely witnessed, no longer "identified with", while the formless Ground of Being is tacitly assumed as, "natural self".
   
   
9. Then, the distresses that motivate programs of fulfillment, success, and victory -- or of self-exemption -- no longer motivate. They dissolve and dissipate. In that awakening, The Ground of Being in its native state is spontaneously intuited as the native or inherent condition of self -- formless and natural.
   
   
10. Over time, this process of awakening becomes increasingly comprehensive.
    
    
11. Because the TetraSeed is the primal structure by which the unmanifest spontaneously forms into forms, intuition of its Primal Integrity gives rise to intelligence and capability without the confusions of ensnarement in limiting conditions. The channel of imagination opens without (or with progressively less and less) ego-noise, creatively giving rise to forms that are functionally clear, to coherent creativity (rather to arbitrary "creative ego-noise"). Duality (which is a concept, only) becomes less and less binding, but freely usable.
    
    
12. That's why The TetraSeed Awakening Invocations are a viable means of both functional fulfillment and of release from ego, conceptual mind, and apparently binding conditions. That's why The TetraSeed Awakening procedures are sufficient as a means of both fulfillment and of transcendence of conditions -- seamlessly combining with and effectively supporting programs of fulfillment, success, and victory, whenever they are followed -- and making self-exemption unnecessary.
    
    
13. Those seeking only (1) ego fulfillment -- however idealistic -- or (2) ego-self-exemption will overlook The TetraSeed Awakening Invocations because they involve ego-transcendence, rather than ego-glorification -- and true awakening from and transcendence of ego-mind and its programs is not part of their program of seeking.
    

So, now, I ask, "Why?"

yours truly,

PS: The sense that what is written above is "elusive", or that its meaning quickly evaporates, is a sign of its truth, since it represents the "channel between" the manifest and the unmanifest.

Be well, eat your vegetables -- and never argue with a mime.

All Notions of Good Posture are Grossly Incomplete and Obsolete

Why are all notions of good posture grossly incomplete and obsolete?

They're incomplete because they apply to a non-moving position -- and life is altogether about movement.  If it isn't moving, it's dead.

So, to take "spinal curves", for example, the lower-back (or lumbar) curve exists to distribute the weights above (chest, shoulders and head) and below (pelvis and legs) for balance.  When you bend over to pick something up, your curve changes.  If it doesn't change, you're stiff.

Balance-in-movement is the overriding "imperative" (or necessary purpose) of all posture; balance is what makes possible all other actions. If you're out of balance, you're unstable -- and then what happens to you, whichever movement or activity you are involved in?  Your curves change continually, as you move, to maintain easy balance.

This is not to say that there's no such thing as too much or too little curvature in the spine. There are such things -- but they can't be corrected by adjustments or by holding on to "good posture".  Adjustments don't last and holding on to good posture doesn't lend itself to good movement.  You can't go through life holding on to "good posture"; as soon as your attention goes to something else, you forget about posture. So, that approach is entirely impractical.

That's why notions of "good posture" are obsolete.

What's the alternative?

Good movement.  Good movement takes care of good posture, automatically.

Improving Movement ("Muscle") Memory

Good movement isn't something that you maintain by moment to moment discipline, by efforts to maintain good movement.  That's no more practical than holding on to "good posture".  Good movement is "good movement memory" -- done automatically and fine-tuned by the movements of the moment.

How do you develop good movement memory?  You develop it the same way as you develop any other memory:  repeated experience until the memory forms.  It's a temporary discipline.

It's also a discipline that few undertake.  With movement, as with most other activities, most people stop developing with the minimum learning needed to get by, just as with handwriting, cooking -- and walking.

Next time you're out in public, watch people walk.  How few are a pleasure to watch!  Many people lumber; some plod; some bounce; many lean to one side or come down heavier on one side than the other -- or come down heavy on each side, as they walk.  So many are ungainly -- and it isn't genetic; it's movement memory.

Few efforts to improve movement memory work.  Most involve stretching and strengthening.  Just try stretching or strengthening any other kind of memory and see how far you get, changing it.

To be fair, let's look at each:  stretching and strengthening.

Stretching

Stretching muscles generally involves pitting one muscle group against another -- even the muscles of one person against the muscles of another (as in assisted stretching, massage, or professional adjustments).  

The experience is generally uncomfortable and, if at all successful, is only temporarily so.  Old muscular tensions (and posture) reappear in short order.  (That's why there's a term, "chiropractic lifestyle".)  So, movement memory isn't changed, but only temporarily overpowered.  

Now, apply that to other kinds of memory.  Think of an unpleasant memory.  I'm not suggesting this to torture you, but to illustrated a point more quickly.

Stretching an unpleasant memory would be like trying to avoid remembering it -- or practicing denial.  How effective is that?  You tend to react the same old way in a similar situation, don't you.There's always a strain, isn't there?  

Movement memory is just that: the memory of the feeling of a movement (how to move) that controls action.

If you want to change movement memory, you need another approach, one that deals with memory the way memory actually works.  I'll get to that once I've dealt with strengthening.

Strengthening

Strengthening muscles to improve posture means only one thing:  that those muscles aren't strong enough to overpower their opposing muscle groups, which are always tight.  

Generally, those "weaker" muscles aren't really weaker, but just tired from working against their opposing muscles.  They don't need strengthening, but refreshment -- and that refreshment is possible only when their opposing muscles relax from being tight all the time. 

Another effect of muscles being held tight (by movement memory) is that your brain causes their opposing muscles to slacken to allow the tight muscles to cause movement without counter-interference.  We feel that slackening as weakness, but it isn't weakness; it's how coordination works.  Although strengthening muscles to improve posture may be meant to work against that, it doesn't work.

By the way, tight muscles are usually ticklish, sore to pressure, or painful from muscle fatigue --  so, you've got painful muscles on one side and "weak" (tired) muscles on the other.  Tight muscles drag you out of good posture and that make good posturing tiring.

Do you think you're going to strengthen muscles to correct your posture and have it stay "corrected" under those conditions?  You'll only make them tighter and sore -- and make yourself stiffer. 

Good posture is natural only as a condition of freely coordinated balance, not as a condition of effort (which you can't maintain under ordinary conditions of life because you can't continually pay attention, to it).  You've got to free the tight muscles, not make the tired muscles stronger.

Now, let's take on memory in terms of strengthening.

That would be like trying to convince yourself that things happened differently than they did, that the old memory wan't real.  That's known as self-deception.  You can work really hard to convince yourself, but how effective is that?  You will still tend to have stress and strain in that area of life, won't you?

So, we've dispensed with stretching and strengthening as approaches to good posture (because they don't effectively deal with movement memory) and with the standard notion of good posture, itself.

We're in the home stretch, now (pun recognized!)

Improving Movement ("muscle") Memory

By, "improving", I mean "developing a more satisfactory experience of something".

A more satisfactory experience of movement memory is a more satisfactory experience of movement -- both in terms of comfort and in terms of motion or action.

There's an alternative to stretching or strengthening that's entirely natural and that everybody's experienced in a simple form.  It involves relaxation, rather than stretching, and refreshment, rather than strengthening.  It's called, "pandiculation".

I'll let the video tell and show you, about it.  Click, below:

If you want good posture, learn pandiculation to free yourself of muscle tensions that drag you down, out of good posture, and that make good posture tiring.  Learn pandiculation to make good posture natural.  Learn pandiculation to refresh yourself.  Learn pandiculation.

So, that's why all notions of good posture are grossly incomplete and obsolete -- and what you can do that feels better and works better at making good posture easy and natural.


Lawrence Gold has practiced clinical somatic education professionally since 1990, with a world-wide clientele composed generally of people needing to get out of pain.  All of his clients end up with better posture and movement, along with being pain-free.  You can free the tight muscles that drag you down, by yourself, with  the general program of somatic education (pandiculation) exercises called, The Cat Stretch Exercises (involves neither a cat, nor stretching).

This article is reprinted from Somatics on the Web (https://somatics.com/wordpress/2052-2/), by the author.