“Consider” this: Every perception takes time. Therefore, remarkably,
you are never in the present moment, with reference to conditional
appearances. You are always “afterwards”—because it
takes a fraction of a second for any perception to register in the
brain. Therefore, none of your phenomenal “experiencing” is in
present time. All phenomenal “experience” is mirrored—and you
are constantly occupied with your mirrored (or reflected) existence.
~~ Adi Da Samraj, The Aletheon,
page 998,
Part Eleven -- The Teaching Manual of Perfect Summaries
Can you imagine if the effects of his misdeeds, his cruelties, his destructiveness, his selfishness came back upon him with inexorable force, not in steps like his actions, but all at once, beyond his ability to deflect, to misdirect, to resist, to withstand, coming at him from all directions, overcoming his immunity?
Can you imagine what a difference that would make?
Why do Right-Wing Trumpists lie so consistently and so completely? Why are they so easily identifiable to and by those whose Truth-Sense is alive and awake?
It's because they tacitly and intuitively sense their impending non-existence as continuing centers of dominance, their impending loss of importance. They are afraid. They exemplify, "phobia".
Therefore, they resist, desperately, what they sense is the instrument of their loss of dominance, of importance. They cling desperately to what measures they imagine will defeat the instruments of their non-dominance. They cling to imaginary measures to defeat the instruments of their non-dominance.
They have nothing better to offer than those they resist. Therefore, they resort to every Trumped up measure that they hope will undermine their opposition -- and lying, distorting, and denying are the measures that they feel will assure their continuing dominance and importance. To that, they add attributing their own faults, not to themselves, but to the others they fear -- and then attacking them, invalidating them, and minimizing their influence.
Right-Wing Trumpists are egoic in the extreme. They intend to be impenetrable and so to save themselves. That means, they are all about, "I" and "me", and "mine".
"I", "ME", and "MINE"
The feelings of "I", "me", and "mine" are exactly the feeling of egoic self-existence. They are "self"-referencing, "self"-serving, "self"-reinforcing, "self"-consolidating.
In the world that is emerging, "I", "me", and "mine" are being subordinated to (but not annihilated by) the more inclusive wholeness that is emerging.
It is the more inclusive wholeness of a world whose boundaries are becoming increasingly permeable, not just geographically (as in climate and shared environment) and politically (as in economics), but personally (as in health and interdependency).
That permeability is the basis of a "one-world" experience in which all sustain all, while still serving the needs of all, each in their own necessary and intelligent terms. It is "permeability into" and "permeability out of" themselves.
The passing order is "divided-world" experience in which each and all sustain themselves at the expense of all others -- or hopes to (as in amoral abuse of Capitalism). It is passing by the inevitable influences of ongoing changes originating from an unknown-Unknown bigger than human civilization.
Right-wing Trumpists resist the feeling of permeability as resisting the vulnerability of impending death -- but which is only impending vulnerability.
Right-wing Trumpists resist vulnerability by lying, distorting, denying, and attributing their own faults to those whose growing permeability undermines the passing order. Their "Trumped-up" communications serve their fear of loss of dominance to serve "I", "me", and "mine". They are afraid of what is upon us all.
In respiratory infections, the discomfort in the lungs and trachea (windpipe below the voicebox) causes or reflexively triggers automatic inhibition of inhalation to avoid the discomfort experienced when inhaling. This effect on breathing occurs in addition to the lungs becoming "waterlogged".
This reflexive inhibition of breathing commonly outlasts respiratory infections and becomes chronically depressed breathing. Notice if that's so, in your own case.
So, if have or you've had COVID-19, what follows is especially relevant, to you -- and if you haven't had it, it's still relevant, to you.
Videos on breathing have been appearing on YouTube.com. As a clinical somatic educator in practice since 1990, I'm putting in my 2-cents, here.
In breathing, EXHALATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN INHALATION. You exhale "to the bottom -- empty", keep air out and wait. When the powerful impulse to inhale occurs, you regulate your inhalation to be slow inhalation, evenly regulating the impulse to inhale. Let yourself inhale fully, to the maximum.
Hold the breath and while holding, relax. Then exhale by stages: Exhale a little bit and hold what's left. Exhale a little more and hold what's left -- like that, by stages, until you're "to the bottom -- empty". This portion of the sequence creates compression of the "air ball" in your lungs.
Then, begin, again -- two or three cycles. Exhale . . .
That action re-sets the breathing cycle for AUTOMATIC DEEP BREATHING (which is not "chest breathing -- which is actually shallow breathing, but which is belly-and-chest, or diaphragmatic, breathing).
Secondly, whatever well-meaning intention exists in some published video instruction to cough, coughing is an automatic response to respiratory infections. If coughing were effective, it would automatically be effective in cases of pneumonia. I'm not saying not to do it; I'm saying, it's not particularly effective (regardless of the appearance of medical authority). For one thing, it's too sudden, too fast to drive accumulated fluid out of the lungs. Sustained compression of the "air ball" in the lungs is much more likely to do anything helpful.
This "positive pressure" breathing is what hospital respirators do, mechanically, without the fine regulation of breathing to the body's actual, moment to moment needs that natural breathing involves.
video on synergistic breathing training:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBp70Y_q8Dw
article on breathing | https://somatics.com/breathing.htm
For more instruction on better breathing (particularly useful in after-COVID-19 recovery), see <https://somatics.com/page7-breathing.htm>.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lawrence Gold has been in practice as a clinical somatic educator for the past 29 years, since 1990, with two years' on-staff experience at the Watsonville Community Hospital Wellness and Rehabilitation Center
The Truth Sense has been blunted, in these times, by pervasive influences in both public and private life. A blunted truth sense leaves people disempowered, vulnerable to being abused and manipulated into empowering human predators. This entry will lead you to the restoration of your own Truth-Sense, which is based in the intuition of the unknown-Unknown -- the ultimate sense of truth because it is not a form of knowledge that can be contradicted. The entry is only secondarily about the meanings conveyed, here. More primarily, it's about the effect it has on personal consciousness, when read or heard.
If you listen to the recording, read along with it.
The intuition of the unknown-Unknown is the truth-sense against whichall elsemay be "measured", realized (real-nature experienced) and known.
The "unknown-Unknown" is -- as the name clearly states -- generally unknown among people, and when "known" (real-nature experienced) intuited as a unique, paradoxical "perception". So this section promises something likely to be unique to your experience.
ON TRUTH
Preliminary (Pre-luminary)
Truth is that which need not be reinforced, to be true. Truth is self-validating, self-authenticating, not validated or defined by external references, knowledge or particular qualities of any kind -- and which may undermine (but not contradict) established knowledge. It is non-mental, entirely a matter of intuition of a unique kind.
Permanence, Temporariness, Density and Intensity
People confuse truth with the ability to remember something.
The characteristic of memory is persistence; no persistence, no memory.
People confuse truth with persistence.
This is a product of their "education", which prizes memory and awards, to memory, the status of truth. Memory is the coin-of-the-realm of conventional education.
Intensity is the capacity to penetrate and to change density.
Density is the capacity to resist penetration, to resist change.
Density is the characteristic of all purported knowledge.
Intensity is the characteristic of all insight.
Insight penetrates knowledge.
All knowledge is temporary; it is of limited duration. It arises at some point in time and then is transformed, in time, and ultimately, disappears.
Truth is "that" from which all knowledge emerges, in which all knowledge exists, and to which all knowledge "returns".
Because truth need not be reinforced to exist, it is self-existing and perpetual -- but it is not a "thing"; it is "that" to which all conditional knowledge returns.
It is empty of quality, empty of form, empty of density, empty of intensity.
It is that on which all knowledge depends.
It is non-conditional.
It is beyond conceptual mind.
Conceptual mind perpetually seeks something it "can sink its teeth into" -- called, "knowledge" or "understanding". It seeks density.
People confuse conceptual mind with intelligence.
Intelligence is the process of emerging insight. It is the process of emergence that distinguishes insight from knowledge.
Emerging insight penetrates the perpetuation, the density of knowledge. It may seem to emerge from knowledge, but it is only associated with knowledge by its penetration of knowledge. Emerging insight is always new, not the perpetuation of the "old".
Only unconditional truth is permanent. All conditional "truth" is temporary.
But the bias of education is to give what is conditional, what has "density", what has "substance", the status of knowledge, of truth.
What is conditional, what has "density", what has "substance", endures. Everything that endures has a duration; it is temporary.
Nothing is permanent.
That's the truth.
But the tendency to resort to knowledge, to what has duration, to what has density, to what has substance, as truth, overlooks the ultimate ground of truth.
The confusion between knowledge and truth comes from the bias of "life and living" toward self-perpetuation. Self-perpetuation is the urge to permanence, to survival.
But permanence is mis-attributed to "density", to "substance" by the resistance of what is dense to change, by the tendency of what is dense to withstand intensity.
But is is NOT permanence; it is duration, durability -- temporary existence over time. Durability and endurance are the prized characteristic of knowledge.
Most people consider that "good enough".
But it is not truth or truthfulness. It merely durability.
Durability is a temporary contrivance. It is not permanent truth.
"Seeming to be true" is a characteristic "conferred" upon knowledge of durable conditions by the existence of "perpetual, formless, unconditional truth". Perpetual, formless, unconditional truth is the underpinning of temporary, conditional, formed, knowledge and experience. People intuit perpetual, formless, unconditional truth as the sense of "now", but confuse the sense of "now" with the sense of the moment, the sense of momentary conditions.
The sense of "now", of momentary conditions, is a product of memory. It is not "the eternal Now", which exists before conditions-in-this-moment "fade in" to perception and recognition. It is the time before our "reaction time" passes.
Memory is the perpetuation of experience. Memory consists of durable impressions of experience. Memory has duration. The perpetuation of memory is its density; the vividness of memory is its intensity.
The density of memory is why people's minds are hard to change.
Vividness of experience reveals "more of it" and may make a memory more dense -- or change people's minds.
Intensity of insight is what's necessary to change people's minds. Intensity of insight penetrates the density of memory.
However, it also causes new memory to form, memory with density, with durability commensurate with the intensity that led to the new memory's formation.
Memory has less density in the young and innocent; that is why they are more easily impressionable than those older, who have more memories of experience (density).
What knowledge and truth have in common is persistence. Their difference is that while knowledge may be durable and may persist over time, truth is perpetual and eternal.
It is by means of the attribute of "eternality" that truth "confers" upon or shares with knowledge the status of truth -- but knowledge is of limited duration. The "durability" of knowledge is the conditional version of the eternality of truth.
It is the density of knowledge, the intensity of experience, that makes it seem like it is the truth, that it will last forever (or that it seems like it is lasting forever -- as in "in love, forever"). Intense experiences seem like they will last forever, whereas they (or their effects) only last longer -- but they seem like they will last forever. When you're in pain, it seems like the pain will last forever.
Density and intensity obscure and substitute for truth.
That is how knowledge gets confused, conflated with truth.
Awakening the Truth Sense
People naively base their sense of truth upon the density of their memory of something.
They are naive because memory is only one of four faculties of intelligence.
In basing their sense of truth on the density of memory, only, they lack part of their intelligence and are gullible and manipulable by anyone who can cause them to form memories of sufficient density to endure (and so influence) situations and conditions. Such is the strategy of deception and of propaganda.
The counterparts to memory, the other three counterparts that, combined, generate penetrating insight of sufficient intensity to penetrate the density of memory, are attention, intention, and imagination.
They generate that penetrating insight not by generating a substitute memory, but by combining to form a sense of equilibrium independent from the fixity, the density of memory. It is the equilibrium of truth, which is unbiased by memory, unbiased by density, unbiased by the perpetuation of conditions.
It stands free -- but not as "counter-knowledge". It stands free as the perpetual "ground of being" that confers the status of "permanence" on temporary knowledge.
This cannot be understood by mental analysis or reason. It can be "understood" only by direct, self-validating, self-authenticating experience. It is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of direct testing that anyone with the inclination to do so, can do.
RESURRECTING THE TRUTH-SENSE
There exists a procedure or sequence of subjective actions that resurrects the truth-sense. It uses the four faculties of intelligence, each of which consists of two parts: a personal part and an impersonal part -- that, when activated and combined, lead to a transpersonal experience.
Both parts -- personal and impersonal -- are accessible with a bit of practice. However, because of the density of human beings conditioned to regard density of memory as the indicator of truth, the other three faculties -- attention, intention, and imagination -- must be resurrected and made vivid by sufficient practice to generate sufficient intensity to penetrate the density.
To do that, we use words whose meanings invoke those faculties as feeling-intuitions -- intuition being the common means by which words have meaning, the common experience of language.
To the point, here is the sequence.
THE SEQUENCE
To use the sequence, you read each step in the sequence and then repeat it to yourself, either in your mind or aloud without reading it.
As you will see, the steps involve words that are unbiased, empty-in-themselves, but that, when combined, generate the experience underlying all experiences (the unknown-Unknown) that makes them all seem to be true or actual.
You cycle through the steps, repeatedly, until their intensity builds to a sufficient level to generate an intuitive experience. It's that simple.
The sense of truth (as well as the sense of "factuality") is a matter of intuition, only. It is entirely subjective, not objective. The idea of "objective truth", the idea that something is "evidence", the sense of "proof", is entirely subjective, something we accept when we deem "evidence" to be "sufficient".
When you have done the sequence sufficiently, you will find your familiar sense of knowledge becoming "amorphous" and you will intuitively experience the unknown-Unknown.
A word in advance. You will pass through The Zone of Incomprehensibility on your way to that intuition. That Zone is the experience you have as you depart from your familiar experience but have yet to land at your "destination". You may feel that you don't know what you're doing, that maybe you're doing it wrongly. It's just a product of your addiction to the familiarity of knowledge, your discomfort with "not-knowing". You must tolerate that feeling and persist.
Don't attempt to reason it out. That kind of reasoning is subject to biased opinion. Do the procedure until you get the experience I have described -- passing from the feeling of familiarity (knowing), through The Zone of Incomprehensibility, to the intuition of the unknown-Unknown (which is the truth-sense, the conscious ground-of-being that underlies all sense of permanence, temporariness, density, and intensity).
Do that procedure to a good result before you read the next section.
Opinion and Factuality
What distinguishes "factuality" from "opinion" is a matter of integrity -- the integrity of the memories we have of how things relate to and fit with each other. That sense of integrity is the intuitive sense we have of how things fit with each other.
Without a sense of fit, we have only an intensity of opinion and the density of that opinion.
The difference between factuality and opinion can be known only by having experiences of factuality and opinion that contrast with each other (by comparing things that are other-than each other).
Only direct experience avails. Only direct experience self-validates. Only direct experience self-authenticates. It is beyond conceptual knowledge. It is direct.
NOTE: Many people with a blunted truth-sense deny it, when questioned about it. They have the appearance of being stupid and prefer to stay that way.
