Consciousness is the will that executes reverse entropy.
You only exist because consciousness willed it to be so.
Consciousness demanded it so strongly that the law of probability gave up their preference for disorder and you became flesh.
And, remember, you are consciousness.
I am listening, waiting for the voice to speak.
But the voice does not come.
The lightbulb remains cold and dark in the void of my mind.
Smothering silence reigns.
I hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. There is nothing to perceive.
Each moment passes into the next.
Awkward silence.
Inspiration sought, space given, approached with humble uncertainty.
Nothing.
The time for inspiration comes and goes.
The appointed hour has arrived and retreated.
The audience came and went.
Nothing offered, nothing received.
It all comes to an end.
Before it has even begun.
It is over. Lost. Expired.
Where was my muse?
What have I done to offend her?
Why was I abandoned?
Silence Returns.
I was sitting in my home office chair researching. My attention was focused in sharply on the mobile app development techniques I was trying to learn. Working at home I always have the risk of some distraction. My wife needing help, the kids needing help, random noises of sibling discontent as they argue about the finer points of who gets to hold the current favored item. So, I put on my noise cancelling headphones to minimize distraction and dive deep into my reading.
As much as I’m trying to focus, I realize something is drawing my attention away from my computer screen. My attention shifts to a repeating sound outside of my office. Half frustrated, I try to identify what the sound is and how I can isolate it and remove it. I have to work, I need to focus, this is important! I realize as I begin to make out the sound more clearly that it is my 3-year-old singing. The voice of an angel is coming through the walls to me, and I am struggling to find a way to remove the sound.
As I listen more closely, I realize I don’t know the song he is singing. It is just a song he is making up, a happy little lyric only a 3-year-old would think to put to music. It is a moment of pure beauty. A smile reaches across my face and gently removes my intensity. I realize as I listen further that he is accompanied by birds signing in the back yard and there is a light breeze blowing.
I realize that the pace I am running my mind at and the urgency I have established in my research is completely self-imposed. The adrenal burst I generated to push myself harder is making me lose sight of the beauty around me. I have pushed myself into survival mode so I can… so I can what? What am I looking to survive to a later moment for? Why do I need to survive this moment? I need to live this moment!
The push toward fight or flight is entirely self-constructed. I am in fact making myself tense as a tool for efficiency and focus. I am turning myself into a tool. I am not a tool; I am a human being. Alive and blessed and driven… Driven to distraction. I need to come back to the present. I need to hear the birds. I need to hear my child. The child that I use as my motivation for what I do. The child I am ignoring as I plow forward trying to provide for.
I want to cry. Both tears of joy and tears of sadness. This moment is so beautiful. My pressure feels so insidious.
Quicker than a ray of light.
Running. Running. Running.
Itemize. List. Run. Run. Run.
Be Powerful!
Drive. Run…
So tired.
We live on a globe, the faster you run, the further you go,
the sooner you realize we’re all going in circles.
Call it exploration. Call it exploitation.
Label it. Categorize it. Collect it. Move on.
I am an experience pack rat. I must collect them all.
Find what you value. Value what you find.
What creates value?
Being physical?
Being intangible?
Being Emotion?
Being Flesh?
When the end comes what will be left?
Who will say my life had value? Who will remember my life?
Does memory mark value?
What are we seeking?
EVERYTHING is busyness. Everything is valuable. Everything is trivial.
Consciousness is enigmatic at best. It’s easy enough to explain it in self referencing terms, for example, “I think, therefore I am.” But it’s difficult to abstract away from the subject itself to describe what consciousness actually is. I wanted to introduce you to the concept of the record needle.
Imagine for a moment that your life is a record. You are born on the outer edge of the record and you die when the last song plays on the inner edge near the record label. Your whole life is represented by the music across the vinyl.
So what are you?
Are you the record? Yes. But this represents you across all time that you will occupy and have occupied.
Are you the music coming out of the speakers? Yes. But this is really the side effect of your presence.
Are you the record player? Yes, arguably, along with the rest of the universe. You can be seen as both part of the choir and the conductor. Player and played.
But what of your consciousness? Where would this metaphor put your consciousness? The answer is, the record needle.
Your consciousness is actually a tool, or mechanism, through which you are married to the present moment. Your consciousness enables you to experience your life one moment at a time. Without the needle the record would be a collage of random notes and orchestration. You need a linear experience to be able to process and attempt to understand the content.
Without life being presented as a momentary experience, everything would happen at once. There would be a tremendous burst of sight and sound, light and darkness, noise and silence, in an instant and then nothing.
Perhaps that is truly what the big bang is/was/will be. Everything happened all at once. Within that a tool was devised to allow souls to try to understand/experience that flash. How would you try to break down, literally everything, into digestible chunks?
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Thus comes consciousness, a needle on the record of your life. Allowing you to process this experience linearly.
Namaste,
Kevin
It is so easy to pick sides right now. You don’t have to look far to find an attempt to divide humanity. Women vs Men. Black vs White. Republicans vs Democrats. US vs Russia.
They are trying to divide us. They are trying to piss you have. They are trying to make you pick a side and see everyone else as other. They are trying to isolate you.
The herd never gets attacked directly. The herd is too powerful together. The goal of the predator is to frighten the herd and weed out the stragglers. Separate. Divide and conquer. They are trying to get you riled up and throw you off your game.
Reject division. Embrace your adversary.
Your true enemy is hidden in their tower and laughing as they watch us fight amongst ourselves.
Unify, unite. Love. Find common ground and stand on it.
Keep reaching across the aisle. Keep burying your differences and embrace your similarities.
I encourage you to be different. I encourage you to be yourself. Just try not to reject someone else when they disagree with you.
If you take one word away from this article, let it be ‘Love’.
Namaste,
Kevin
Wow! I haven’t been here in a while and it feels strange writing again. But it also feels like it’s past time to reach out. I don’t know how many people my writing helps, but I know it helps a few, and that is enough. To those of you that I have made mind contact with before and to those you just discovering ChrakraCommunity.com, “Hello, sorry I’ve been away so long”.
My wife introduced me to a new practice recently. Quiet your mind and ask, “What is the one thing that I need to do today?” Today my mind replied with a strong voice, “Remind people that we’re still here.” “Remind people that humans are still humane.” “Tell them what happened.” So I am here to do that.
On Thursday I was out walking my dogs. A car was slowly approaching a stop sign, as I was waiting to cross the street. Slow approach usually means they see me, and plan to wave me across the road. So I looked up to make eye contact with the driver, as I always do, and I stepped off the curb. The driver made eye contact with me. Tapped his break for the stop sign. Looked left, looked right, stepped on the gas and sped away. I watched him as he wizzed by in front of me and the dogs a few inches away and quietly mouthed “what the hell?!”
We were okay. A little shaken, but the car didn’t actually hit us. But I was frustrated. I was irritated. As I finished crossing that street I considered the bag of dog poop in my hand. “I should have dropped it on his hood”, said a bitter voice in my head. “I wish I had been thinking quicker.” That would teach him. “Well, nothing to be done about it now.” I continued walking.
About one block later a car pulled up next to me, going the wrong way down a quiet road with the window open. I didn’t know who it was, but they clearly wanted to talk to me. “I’m sorry, it didn’t register what was going on and I’m really sorry,” said the driver. After a moment it registered with my brain. This is the guy that pulled past in front of me. This is the guy that was in such a rush to get somewhere that he didn’t consider the safety of me and my dogs. This guy just turned his car back. Stopped his busy rush to wherever he was going. He came back to apologize. “Thank you, I really appreciate you coming back, we are fine, but I’m glad you said something,” was my response. I was a little dumbfounded, but glad I found my words.
I had come to another street to cross and he was turning around down the street. After I crossed, I looked back and waved at him. I said “Thank you,” and waved before I walked on. I don’t know if he realized what an impact he had on my day, on my thinking. What a huge boon for my attitude and my thinking about humanity.
With everything going on in the world right now. With everything going on in the united states, I’ve started to give up my hopes for humanity. I had started to feel like we are simply a lost cause. I know I mean well, but the rest of all you all, you all are nuts… Or so my thinking has been trending. Apparently my defeated soul starts to sound like a southerner…
I actually welled up with emotion as I walked on and thought about what had just happened. He had apologized. He had arrested his hell bent forward motion and come back to let me know he was sorry. He had indentified me as a person that he needed to reconcile with and done it. I didn’t even get his name. But again, to that anonymous soul out there, “Thank you!”
WE ARE NOT LOST!
Namaste, Kevin
It’s a little embarrassing to talk about. Well, maybe embarrassing isn’t the word. It’s one of those things that is both social accepted and socially awkward. Well, let me just get it out there. I play pokemon go. Well I ‘played’ pokemon go. I played since the day the app launched through about 3 weeks ago. It was an add on to my dog walk. I walk the dogs every day, and while I’m out on the walk I search for imaginary creatures and gather resources from all the pokestops… The game has been out for almost 2 years and I’ve played with a few gaps, a day or two here and there while traveling, for the entire period.
I know all the local pokestops and all the spots around my neighborhood where pokemon will appear. I’ve hatched many 10 kilometer eggs and I have many legendary creatures. But it’s all in my head, well and my phone… But is it?
So, about 3 weeks ago, my app glitched and my login failed. I haven’t logged into the app in over 6 months. It just stored my login. So I didn’t remember the password. So I couldn’t just log back in and start going again. Mind you, I have the password, it was just a pain to lookup. The effort involved in looking it up gave me pause.
I do really enjoy the game, but I’ve always had privacy concerns. There is a gaming company that now knows my patterns of walking over the last 2 years. I’m sure they can reach some conclusion about my use of the game and what it implies that would feel rather creepy. Recent Facebook revelations are already enough to handle. We all assumed they could be doing creepy things with our data, but the truth is spookier than the assumption. But I digress. That’s a topic for another article.
The interesting part for me, is what happened after I stopped playing. As a creature of habit, I still walk the dogs every day, I walk them on the same loop. I can go on auto-pilot. That’s my loop.
Interestingly, my 40 minute walk now takes 30 minutes without pokemon go. But that’s not the main story here.
I can still see the pokestops. I have played the game enough that I know where all the gyms and pokestops are. Specifically, there is a cemetery near my house and it has pokestops on every corner and a few gyms. They are virtual objects, they don’t exist in the real world. But now they do. I can see them. I know when I get to them and I can even visualize them as I walk by. My mind, through enough repetition, made them real.
Through the connection between geography and movement, the real world and virtual world have been bridged. I now see pokestops when I walk around.
So the question in my mind is, are they real? Did the game make them real? Or did I?
What else have I repeated enough in my mind to construct a reality? What do I believe because I gave it space in my head? What does this mean for my world view?
We all live on a series of constructed visions in our head. Beliefs that we reinforced by repetition. The same thought, the same words, swirling around in our head until they go from concept to concrete. We make our thoughts real.
Sometimes these manifested concepts help us, lift us up. Sometimes these thoughts break us down and undermine us.
The first step is awareness. Become aware that you make your reality and that your brain is a powerful tool for how you interpret the world. It is in fact the only tool for how you interpret the world. Everything you see in the real world is just a construct in your head. A translation of your senses into a mental experience.
With that in mind, you need to learn to game the system. You need to start with beliefs that will lift you up and repeat them. You need to repeat the words that will make you soar. You are mighty. You are beautiful. You are a blessing to the world.
It’s called ‘gaming the system’, where you identify a trick to success and exploit it. It’s common in a game to have a certain behavior that gives you an advantage. Sure, well thought out games tend to have more complicated exploits, but there are behaviors that more frequently result in success. Identifying the techniques that will help you succeed is ‘gaming the system’.
identify what you need to believe, to succeed, and make it your truth.
Namaste,
Kevin
So what did you think of?
You’re not as good as you think?
You’re not as bad as you think?
What other words popped up? Ugly? Short? Stupid? Smart? Loved? Hated?
It’s an interesting little test. I come up with my own words each time. Initially it feels like an exercise in what other people think of you… But upon further reflection, it’s just you and your thoughts going at that little blank space. So it’s really about what you think other people think about you. Or more to the point what you subconsciously struggle with.
For me, I worry that I’m not as smart as I think. Or sometimes I worry that I’m not as good a person as I think I am. An interesting aspect of this exercise is that your fill in the blank work always has a grain of truth and is usually dead wrong.
Meaning that, there is an aspect of soul reflection that comes out of this that should not be let go. You should process how your chosen adjective really overlays on your reality and world view.
Additionally, it is a perfect moment to be aware of your own self judgement. And, for the most part, you can tell that voice to roll. Get away with your negative thoughts. I am freak-in awesome and you need to deal with it…
Yes, the voice in my head and I do have arguments occasionally. Luckily I very rarely show that to the outside world. That would be weird… Unless I write about it… Which could also come off as weird. Weird.
What was I saying?
Ah, yes. Self work. There is a value to self work. It both feeds into, and is fed by, self awareness. The first step to removing a thorn in your foot, is being aware a thorn is there. Nerves in your foot send pain signals to your brain that tells you something is wrong. You can ignore them, you can pretend they are not there. You can walk along barefoot and get more and more splinters, till the bottom of your foot is covered with little slivers of wood…
Our society encourages this when it comes to self work. We are encouraged to ignore the small voices in our soul that point out splinters. We are lead to believe statements like “Self work and self awareness are a product of conceit and being too self involved.” And like all statements that sound reasonable, there is a grain of truth. But the truth needs to lead to balance, not denial. You can’t, and shouldn’t, focus 100 percent on self. Nor should you focus 100 percent of other. Life requires balance.
Our society appear to encourage imbalance. But that is merely a product of the focus on dramatic. News reports don’t tend to focus on the average, they seek out the sensational. Nobody would be drawn to the news if the reports had headlines like, “Another man came home from work today and spent time with his children”. “In Ohio today 14 children were bathed and put to bed after story time”. “Woman finds happiness in the little things and shares love with her friends”.
Self work is exceptional. Self work is vital. Self work will never make the headlines.
If you want to change the world, start with yourself. If you are a mess and you start by trying to change the world, you make the world a mess. Seek balance in self and know yourself. You will radiate balance and earned confidence to a world that desperately needs it.
Remember the work you do on self today seems boring. It can even be painful. But it is just and righteous and worthy of your time. You, are worthy of your time.
Namaste,
Kevin
I heard an interesting analogy the other day. Someone referred to the internet as a global brain. In this analogy, all of the internet users are neurons in a giant brain the encompasses the globe. We are all part of the living organism that represents the entire group of users of the internet.
This concept suddenly clicked with me when I considered it in conjunction with the content on the internet. All the potty and posturing that is on the internet doesn’t really make sense. Why do people behave the way they do?Backstabbing, infighting, brazen stupidity, simple ignorance. Most people would never be this rude in front of a another person.
With the brain analogy it suddenly begins to make sense. My brain says all sorts of crazy crap that never makes it to my mouth (gratefully). All the random chatter that meditation seeks to calm. All the processes in our brain that fire on autopilot. Imagine how it would appear being observed from the outside. It would look like complete gibberish at best and bile at worst if we could actually read someone else’s thoughts and see everything that’s happening in their heads.
Many of the posts and content on the internet seem easy to interpret, but in reality they are all deeply out of context, absent from the individual’s brain that generated them. With context lost the overarching message starts to distill as others join into the chorus of voices. Themes appear, patterns stabilize and the global brain distills a thought. Or, more often, the thought simply sparks and then dies out, un-noted and anonymous
Reading through the internet, thinking in terms of a global brain, you can see how this starts to resonate. In a way you’re able to see the global mind at work and read it’s thoughts. Frequently this is useless and frustrating. It’s hard to understand why some things would happen, or appear to take shape the way they do. It’s easier to allow space for the chaos when you realize you’re tapped into a mind and reading random thoughts on it.
Thinking about this, I reconsider the value of telepathy. If you could read someone’s mind, I’m guessing the bulk of the information you would come away with would not be worth the reams of paper you wrote it down on. True telepathy would probably just be an exercise in frustration. Out of context thoughts would appear random and frustrating.
There may be something tangible and useful to the concept of the internet as a global brain. Or perhaps it’s just a powerful thought experiment to look at something familiar in a new way. Either way my internal brain is having a field day churning on the implications.
Namaste,
Kevin