Basic Intuitions

The essential spirit of exploration

The spirit of exploration is the most essential force behind the evolution of intelligence. This spirit of exploration is a force of nature that evolves as an integral part of nature's web of life. The spirit of exploration grows within all living creatures - seeking ways to create more complex and spiritual forms of senses, awareness, feeling and intelligence. Each impulse of exploration has the potential to take us outside the realm of conditioned thought and emotion - beyond the domain of mind dominated by habitual expectation, conditioned response, robotic-like behaviors. You will discover new kinds of awareness, senses, creativity, energies and intelligence beyond the realm of conditioned thought - but these discoveries can only be made when you follow this spirit of exploration within you.

This spirit of exploration is present in just about all kinds of living creatures. It's influence is felt in many dimensions - it's presence is found at every scale of existence - from the scale of DNA up to the scale of living planetary systems.

Without this impulse towards exploration the human race would still be primitive entities.

Occasionally we are inspired to explore the unfamiliar, the new, the unknown, the mysterious. The most influential innovations have come from this attraction to the unknown - to a willingness to explore beyond the boundaries of the known - to question the familiar.

This spirit of exploration has led to new ways of seeing things and new ways of handling knowledge. It is the thing that nurtures higher forms of intelligence.

The tentativeness and incompleteness of knowledge and belief

No matter how thorough the analysis, all knowledge is riddled with uncertainties. Beliefs are riddled with even more uncertainty. It is by exploring the limitations and uncertainties of our knowledge that we make improvements to our world model. Such exploration demands a willingness to meaningfully question even our most fundamental and most treasured assumptions. The outcome of your journey of questioning and exploration is a better understanding of the nature of knowledge and belief. This is the way to nurture a deeply spiritual wisdom.

Knowledge grows and it's growth relies heavily on organic processes. If we have noble intentions, and if it is feasible, we try to shape our knowledge to accurately model the world. But no matter how hard we try, no matter how accurate our knowledge becomes in some highly specific areas - there will always be substantial inaccuracies, vast realms of incomplete knowledge and all that we know will always be tainted with some degree of uncertainty.

Our ability to acquire knowledge depends on the ways that organic structures within the brain and body adapt and grow. When you memorize and organize information, your brain creates tracks of neural impressions. Our brain contains a complex web of these neural tracks - shaped by our experiences, by the ways we have learned to learn and adapt, and by the ways we accept and reject beliefs.

Our ability to analyze, organize and re-organize memory is the key to building our world model. Human language and communications allow us to evaluate each others experiences, world models, perspectives, and beliefs. Scientific knowledge evolves through constant criticism, reshuffling and adaptation of our world models through shared exploration and analysis of measurements. Human knowledge tends to be less adaptive to measurement, being shaped more by survival and emotional forces. Scientific knowledge uses technology to extend the reach of the senses. Human knowledge relies on evolution to develop our organic senses of touch, smell, taste, hearing, sight, sense of balance, sense of temperature, and other senses. Inwardly we evolve an awareness of bodily, mental, and emotional processes - these are also senses.

An honest scientist will acknowledge that there are limitations with all measurements and analysis. We need to understand the boundaries of knowledge. This understanding is as essential as the contents and origins of our knowledge. Beyond these boundaries our specialized knowledge will be less applicable - less accurate - less able to help us deal with our experiences in the world outside those boundaries. As we explore more, we discover more boundaries to our world model. As time progresses, science develops world models that seem stranger and weirder compared to our basic human-survival-based world models.

In contrast to knowledge - our belief systems are nurtured within an environment where we have lower expectations for proof or for consistency with real world data and experiences.

Our beliefs generally come from those people who have the most influence on us. When we adopt a belief system, we generally give up meaningful criticism of it's basic premises. Emotional conditioning - from culture, family, religion - has forged our acceptance of belief systems. The emotions of fear, rage, greed and hate are readily aroused when our precious basic premises are even slightly challenged. Emotional forces are an integral part of many belief systems - even scientific ones.

A scientific community depends heavily on funding from political or corporate bodies. Scientists have to put a twist on their efforts to raise funds. They have to accommodate the interests and belief systems of those in power. In this way - greed, business, and political forces shape the focus of scientific research - and can bias measurement technique and data interpretation.

If we are flexible, adaptable and willing to explore - our world model can be built on a very different foundation - one that is more creative, humane and more responsive to personal discoveries and in general more open towards questioning it's own foundation - thereby leading to improvements in it's own foundation.

We use our world model (consciously or unconsciously) to interpret our world and our experiences and memories. We see life from our own personal perspective. We frequently overlook the fact that there are many perspectives - and that our own perspective is technically limited - as are the perspectives of others. We generally choose to ignore or actively reject the fact that our perspective is limited.

A narrow mind is unwilling to entertain the possibility that another's perspective has value - and may be worthy of consideration and exploration. Those who are imprisoned by their beliefs are unwilling to accept the infallibility of their own perspective.

So-called divine knowledge is also limited - there is no such thing as an absolute knowledge - at least in a form that is available to us. There is nothing divine about anything that becomes part of the human domain of knowledge and belief. All experiences, even of the divine, are all subject to misinterpretation, misunderstanding, limitations of perspective, influence of survival-tribal drives, and poor hearing. Even if we were to have a divine experience, our ability to communicate that experience to others is limited - this is evidenced by the cultural and tribal influences that dominate religions - and by the very high degree of ambiguity and self-contradiction in most of the religious texts. Even if God spoke to the best of us, we would still get the message wrong.

All we know and ever will know is tentative and incomplete. There will always be a discovery that can radically alter how we see and work with the world. We all hope that our learnings will lead to a better life, or bring us to a better understanding of our existence. Compared to knowledge, beliefs are even more tentative, less complete and of even more limited perspective. We become very dependent on our beliefs, so consequently we are more defensive against criticism of them, and we are more willing to sidestep facts that contradict them. Therefore, they are more likely to become disconnected from reality, more likely to prevent us from becoming flexible and adaptive, and more likely to make us aggressive and oppressive.

The dangers of clinging to knowledge and belief

Knowledge, ideas and beliefs are like places to visit on our journey of exploration: if you get stuck in any of them, your journey ceases, but avoid them and you will miss some enlightening insight or healing wisdom. On the other hand - if you have ever felt threatened when your knowledge or beliefs are challenged, then you have directly experienced within yourself the root of all injustice, violence, exploitation and war. When we allow primitive survival instincts and emotions to be entangled with our knowledge and beliefs - we become prone to fear and hate - or seek to destroy even the most harmless things that (even slightly) challenge our basic assumptions and habits of thought/emotion. We would even destroy our own sense of reality and truth.

When you cling to knowledge or belief as if it was something absolute, beyond uncertainty, or even if you feel that a belief is essential to your survival - then the belief system - the idea - the ideology - and therefore each one of us - becomes the creator of territorial conflicts and violence.

The animal brain - your inner animal

Within each human is an animal brain - our "inner animal". It is the home of the survival instincts, the fight-or-flight-or-freeze responses, the triggers of basic emotions and moods. It's also the home of tribal, social and family instincts - we share some primitive forms of compassion, social responsibility, and even the spirit of sharing and generosity with some animals. Evolution is much more than survival of the fittest - evolution rewards those who feel, explore and respect the vast web of interconnectedness in nature - such explorers will discover more creative and powerful currents of evolution.

When thoughts and emotions enter your consciousness, you are actually experiencing interactions between many kinds of energies that move within the physical body. Complex structures of biological, cellular and neural memories come together to shape and direct these energies. Memories of various types - genetic, experiential, learned - are the fabric of our "inner model of reality".

Our primitive brain was educated by nature through evolution to develop several talents - including basic survival instincts.

Primal emotions come into being in this primitive brain. Emotions evolve through the effects of innumerable types of arousal and aversion on the structures of the primitive brain. With thousands of years of learning to live with nature, our emotional complexes come to improve upon those basic survival drives. We develop more sophisticated forms of emotion-driven memory.

Exploration is essential to survival - leading us to discover better ways of living that allow broader exploration. On the other hand, survival needs also tend to place boundaries on our explorations. The limits of our capabilities tend to shape these boundaries.

Collectively these instinctive, emotional and primitive memory organs form the main portion of an animal's brain.

The spacious mind

The spacious mind moves in a region of the brain that has potential for being highly creative and a great problem solver. It allows the emergence of states of mind able to explore beyond the basic drives, habits and conditioning associated with the animal brain. It allows playful creative states of thought, creative evaluation of memories, novel formation and adaptation of ideas and abstract concepts, imagination, inner vision, exploration and creation of new states of consciousness.

There are large regions of the brain with highly fractal organization - capable of creating, searching for and organizing highly complex associations - which are the foundations of knowledge. Few species have nervous systems that can entertain this level of complexity. This larger region of the brain is a space in which there grows new kinds of memory, new kinds of thinking, and new ways of steering the emotions.

These regions - the pre-frontal cortex and others - are the medium in which a more spacious mind can come into being - "spacious" because it has many opportunities to operate outside the confining influences of our inner animal - it has the potential to be free of our conditioned nature.

Relationship between the inner animal and the spacious mind

Our potential is more likely to be actualized when the animal brain and the spacious mind work together in a way that is free of the influence of attachments and aversions, cravings and fears. The influence of these attachments and aversions are intensified under the control of our reactive conditioned ego - this ego is formed when the animal brain shapes and restrains the energies and structures of the spacious mind in a way that inhibits exploration.

This spacious mind is barely conditioned at birth. It becomes more conditioned with time. It's early conditioning is dominated by the animal brain, and most of us remain dominated by the animal brain for most of our lives. Some people make an effort to consciously teach the spacious mind - to develop knowledge and analytical skills. Others train it for imaginative, artistic, creative skills. A few are able to integrate many different skills, talents, perspectives - to seek an optimal balance between many diverse and sometimes opposing beings. All this is what we call intelligence and creativity.

The emotional inner animal has many channels of influence on how the spacious mind grows. So, the spacious mind has fewer opportunities to come to it's full potential while the emotional inner animal is constantly over-stimulated or turbulent. When there is a state of healthy cooperation between the inner animal and the spacious mind - there are more opportunities for fruitful inner exploration.

When all parts of the brain sense that cooperation and integration can benefit them all, then the mind can discover many opportunities to be launched into new worlds of inner exploration.

Complex living networks of sensory energies

There are innumerable kinds of inner senses. Inner senses and consciousness go hand in hand. They are the same. Shifts in consciousness occur when emphasis changes from one inner sensory network to another.

There used to be a theory that the mind is an inner sense. The theory was weak because it did not realize that there are many more than one single inner sense. Consciousness is made from many kinds of inner sense.

Many of the processes in the brain and body each have some form of sensing mechanism. There are many different types of these processes and senses. Bring all these sensory mechanisms together under some integrative global mechanisms, and you have consciousness - the outcome of the complex living sensory fields that emerge from cooperation between billions of cellular-level processes.

The mind comes from many different types of sensory biological mechanisms coming together in the field of your life forces. Mind is the outcome of many inner senses - ranging from the sense mechanisms within living cells, to higher order mechanisms that emerge when billions of tiny components work together.

These vast networks of inner senses are capable of resonance - of tuning in to other networks within one's own body. While alive, the living creature sustains this highly integrated state which in turn generates a living field that is responsive to changes at all levels of our inner being, and to changes in our environment. Disruptions in our ability to sustain high levels of integration in this living field leads to all kinds of problems.

We should be open to the possibility that our networks of inner senses can tune in to networks in other people, in other biological
systems, maybe even non-physical entities in other universes, or even to the source of all things.

Creating new senses

We can create new forms of senses - inner and outer. Sensory evolution can be influenced by our inner state of being. Integration is the key to creating new senses. By exploring primitive inner senses and integrating them in creative and imaginative ways - we form new ways of sensing inner processes, and the fields of life that connect all living things.

These networks of inner senses are higher order processes that emerge from billions of simpler biological processes working together. Within these fields, there are even higher order fields and processes that simply don't exist outside these complex biofields.

All of these fields can work together to form or alter the nature and abilities of our inner senses.

In this way, we have the potential create new forms of inner senses, new kinds of consciousness.

Basic drives and our conditioned nature

The spacious mind begins as an almost empty canvas - the picture that emerges on that canvas is what defines us. These pictures are painted by our experiences and by biological forces.

Living cells respond to nutrients by absorbing them, and respond to damaging substances by repelling or avoiding them. Put billions of different cells together in a highly integrated system, and you have a creature that is a highly complex collection of myriads of processes that conflict or cooperate with each other in a huge variety of ways .... this a a structured but chaotic system ... dependent on balances between both conflicting and cooperating processes on a vast scale...

These basic forces of attraction and repulsion at the cellular level affect how the whole organism feels, thinks and acts. At higher levels of organization - attraction and repulsion become clinging and aversion. As the mechanisms of memory become more diverse and complex - these behavioral forces become emotions, mood tendencies, desires. At this level living creatures are deeply driven to acquire sources of pleasure, strive for a comfort or security zone, and respond to threats by running, fighting or freezing.

That is, by this vast collection of basic cellular forces - you have the human, with all it's survival drives, emotions and desires. The most fundamental drives are aversion and grasping. Through these forces of behavior, the living creature becomes conditioned, programmed, to find a set of behaviors that matches it's basic needs to it's environment.

Grasping-aversion manifest at all levels of a creature's being. In humans the animal brain is dominated by the fight-flight-freeze conditioning in the limbic system of the brain. Emotions are shaped by our moods and by the fight-flight response. Within this framing, our emotions have evolved to seek companionship, community, comfort, cooperation - and offers compassion, giving, sharing in return. This all depends on the cultural, tribal and family training. Unfortunately many cultures tend towards aggression, war-seeking and killing - these occur in cultures that operate without compassion, giving and sharing - in which it's people are constantly exposed to threatening situations. In a culture that emphasizes power and domination of any kind - in which it's people are trained to be war-like or to have expectations of conflict - act's of violence infect all levels of that culture's existence.

Conditioned nature can change because living creatures are adaptable. A culture of violence can change as the people begin to see that they are simply programmed "animals" trained by the conditioning forces within their culture. When you see that you are nothing more than a slave to conditioning - your spirit of exploration kicks in - and you start to look for alternatives. Be careful, however. Those who have a vested interest in keeping our culture bounded to conflict and violence will try all means possible to distract you from creating new kinds of culture that might lead to more peaceful, intelligent and creative ways of solving global problems ....

Self-sustaining stress

So much of our inner being is dominated by stress-conditioning that it becomes it's own source of stress. When exposed to the wilds of nature, our basic fight-flight-freeze responses improve our chances of escaping a predator, or of catching some food, or hiding from some danger, or finding a mate. When these same responses are constantly aroused by ideas, or social, cultural, family, environmental, religious or political forces - then we have destructive stress. When our minds and emotions are conditioned by exposure to this destructive stress - our own minds and emotions turn against us by self-stimulating those same responses.

Our bodies can sustain a high level of arousal for some time. If sustained beyond this healthful interval, the body starts to anticipate extended periods of arousal and begins to shut down many of it's healing processes. The brain also begins to reprogram itself to lower it's threshold of tolerance. In time, the brain becomes easily aroused, meaning that our inner healing processes are less effective for more of the time. Our ability to relax, rest and heal diminishes.

Where do these arousals come from? Primitive humans would respond to threats (predators), or to opportunities (preys) by automatically elevating energy levels, thanks to the fight/flight/freeze response, and sexual/feeding drives.

Humans also encounter threats and opportunities within their culture, religion, family, society - and also within their own imaginations and reflections. These invented threats/opportunities elevate our level of arousal just as those natural events do. Our invented threats/opportunities are also more persistent - they explode into our consciousness almost constantly.

This all acts to keep us at a high level of arousal most of the time. Our heart rate will elevate while thinking about some situation. Our blood pressure is kept high more of the time. Our brains start to focus more and more on the things that keep us aroused. Eventually the capacity of our brains to support explorative and expansive activities diminishes. Our ability to heal also diminishes.

This is the state of self-sustaining stress. It is a common state of being - almost all humans are captured in this state. It is a state in which negative destructive emotions and urges flourish - and is responsible for leading the human race towards fear, greed, hate, rage, distrust, readiness to anger, and eventually leads to uncontrollable lust for power, territorial ambitions, conflict, killing, and war.

This feeling of being empty, lost, frustrated, afraid, anxious - our inner pains

At many times in our lives we have felt some inner discomfort or pain - a feeling of emptiness or a painful sense of loss - or unbearable frustration, fear or anxiety. These inner pains stimulate our basic survival responses. We feel we have to be constantly on the move, looking for anything to distract us from these inner pains. Or we may feel anger or rage at whatever we feel is the cause of our pain. Seek the source of this pain and there's a chance you will be liberated from it. If you continue to fight or fuel these inner pains, you will fall deeper into the clutches of self-sustaining stress.

Self-sustaining stress is fueled by those states of being that arise in response to these inner pains. They can be either conscious or unconscious.

At the root of all this is grasping and aversion...

... the type of grasping that begins when DNA learns to hold onto a gene sequence, or a cell clutching to some nutrients, and leads to (for example) someone afraid to let go of a memory, or leading to furious greed and ambition.

... the type of aversion that begins when DNA learns to reject a gene sequence, or a cell repelling another kind of cell, and leads to (for example) someone running away from a memory, or fearing and hating someone or something unfamiliar.

In the spirit of inner exploration, discover ways of letting go of all grasping and aversion. Only then will you have even a tiny chance for discovering the source of all things. But it's not easy to practice this deep level of letting go. We need to learn how to let go, to release, at ever deeper levels. This is a never-ending learning - but every step brings some healing - and takes us closer to freedom from pain and fear.

As this releasing goes to deeper levels, we begin to sense a connection between all things, an intimacy with all things that transcends time and space - these come as we remove the obstacles to being aware of the spiritual energies that move within the Great Spirit - which are a transcendent, boundless, ego-less and non-physical kind of love. All existence is a dance within this timeless spirit of boundless love.

Inner healing

Moods are states of mind and body. They are sets of biological processes and changes. Moods determine which kinds of emotions steer our energies and they determine the tone of our actions. Moods and emotions interact with states of mind, beliefs, thoughts, memories and other kinds of inner conditioning. Positive emotions and moods provide opportunities for the mind and body to heal themselves. These positive emotions include compassion, forgiveness, generosity, patience, humility, gentleness, peacefulness. Certain kinds of moods give plenty of playtime to these positive emotions - they are moods that emerge in states of peacefulness, exploration, creativity, wisdom, integration and openness. Our inner healing forces shape and give strength to these positive webs of mood, emotion and states - while our inner healing forces are in turn formed from these same webs - they are intertwined, interdependent. We need to constantly explore and nurture those inner healing forces, and those positive calming states of mind, mood and emotion - and firmly plant their seeds in our hearts and the hearts of others.

When our inner being is dominated by self-sustaining stress, then our emotions, thoughts, beliefs, recollections and state of mind are negatively programmed - we become trapped in negative conditioning - our ego becomes rigid, inflexible - we loose the capacity to explore and grow new inner senses - we're in the rigid ego syndrome.

When someone's inner animal is constantly pushed, it becomes easily aroused due to the condition of self-sustaining stress. Constant stimulation of the fight-flight-freeze responses will result in them being stuck in the "on state" for longer periods of time - and more easily triggered. We need to help ourselves and others recognize these conditions, and to encourage ourselves to explore ways of inner healing. We need to explore ways of teaching that help us all to recognize these conditions of self-sustaining stress.

Sometimes we sense our inner condition, and begin to seek ways of healing. These are moments of profound transformation.

We need to overcome the effects of self-sustaining stress. We need to sooth the inner animal - find ways to stop it from being over-aroused for long periods of time. We need to reprogram the spacious mind to work it's way out of it's negative conditioning. We need to find ways to commune with our inner being, to sense the forces at play within us. We need to begin nurturing positive emotions, the healing forces, of compassion, forgiveness, generosity, patience. One step towards fulfilling these needs is to explore the various kinds of meditation methods, mindfulness, awareness training, relaxation. Learn to sense the forces of clinging and aversion, and learn to let go, to release from the grip of these forces.

By shedding those things that hold us in this rigid-ego-syndrome, we begin to discover the wholeness and richness of our inner being. It's like cleaning dirt off a mirror - as the dullness is swept away, we begin to see with increasing clarity that there are many more different types of reflections of reality than we could ever imagine.

Our inner being is a reflection of all that we and our ancestors experienced. When we are dominated by the rigid ego, we are mostly affected by the negative, self-limiting forces within our conditioned nature. With a little guidance and training, we can begin to explore ways of lifting our minds and hearts out of our limited nature.

One of the most influential and destructive emotions is fear. Especially fear of death. Why do we fear death? Is it because our sense of identity is based on a sense of continuity of our desires and memories? Are we deeply afraid that death is the ultimate threat to the continuity of our sense of self? What really happens when we die? All things physical die. Are there some aspects of our being that are not physical? What of those parts of us that are built on the discoveries of our connections to the timeless infinite Spirit? Is there some aspect of these discoveries that are not physical? Are those things lost too? Or are they somehow remembered for eternity in the heart of the Spirit - and in the hearts of all those who engage in the same kind of exploration? In other words - when you die, ego-identity-self dies too - but the results of your explorations could be stored in the Web of Spirit - that vast matrix of diverse/subtle living fields, resonances and interconnected energies that moves within the infinite Spirit.

Is there a mysterious component of our being that is not physical? Has anyone ever encountered it?

Is there anything in this Web of Spirit that can carry part of us beyond physical death?

How would you find out? Is it meaningful to seek the answer from our numerous religions? They will give you a prepackaged answer based on their belief system - which is likely to be tainted by political and territorial influences. Is that the way to seek truth?

We need to explore free and independent avenues of spiritual exploration. Without sincere exploration there are only fictitious beliefs about these issues, manipulated by those who seek control of your hearts and minds through the fear of pain and death.

Inner healing demands letting go, inner/spiritual exploration, and especially demands that you move away from those who believe they have an absolute right to dictate what you should believe.

Great Spirit

There is something mysterious, vast, timeless - all things exist within it. It can not be fully comprehended. Occasionally we might sense it's presence. Whenever we try to describe it, we only succeed to mislead.

Just as inner senses, intelligence and emotions emerge during the evolution of complex and highly integrated living organisms, there is also a sense that the universe and the energies with which it plays, also show some kind of cosmic-scale intelligence. This is not the intelligence of a "creator god" - but is the natural outcome of the evolution of the universe itself. It seems to emerge out of evolutionary processes taking place for billions of years on a cosmic scale - as some strange and mysterious aspect of the universe's vast degree of integrated complexity.

In other words, the Great Spirit is the intelligence of the universe - it evolves along with the evolution of the universe.

Now, at some much larger scale of cosmic reality, there are many more dimensions that are not dominated by space-time. In those dimensions beyond space-time, there is a state of existence that is timeless - there is a sense that time does not unfold as we know it. All moments of time are present as a single timeless structure of energy that moves in unrecognizable ways. All points in space are present in a single point while each point reflects infinity. Through mysterious transformations, this multidimensional field of energies takes on the dance of time and space. Time and space are the side effects of some cosmic maneuvering taking place in a higher dimensional mode of being.

In those higher dimensions, the cosmic intelligence (that appears to evolve in this universe) has always been in existence in it's fullness. In this realm of spacelesness and timelessness - there is this unity and completeness of the Great Spirit.

In other words, the Great Spirit that seems to grow along with the evolution of this universe, is also the Great Spirit that exists in completeness beyond these dimensions of space and time - before, during and after, outside and inside the realm of all known existence.

Mysteriously this Great Spirit is all things - including us - all stuff and all stufflessness is one!

Somehow, the Great Spirit is a timeless spaceless unity - a creative intelligence - complete but evolving - beyond all knowing - both created and uncreated ....

Yet somehow, the Great Spirit is also none of these things - because these "things" are our mental models of the mysterious movements of the Great Spirit - and our models are always incredibly inadequate.

When the Great Spirit moves - energy is mysteriously transformed within it's own being, a thought happens, an eye blinks, infinite universes are created and dissolved, all things move as one, and infinitely diverse pulses of energy are given a chance to explore space and time - to play with the notion of bringing sense and comprehension to the darkness. The Great Spirit's transformations of energies leads to separation of energies - forming light and dark forms of matter and energy - which go hand in hand with the evolution of space and time.

Belief in the Great Spirit is always limited and always becomes troublesome. On the positive side, this belief acts as an inspiration for further exploration. On the negative side - to cling to a belief is a distraction from spiritual and inner exploration.

To allow a belief to inspire further exploration is the way of wisdom - it is the way of heaven. To indulge in fixation on a single belief system is the path of self-destruction - it is the way of hell.

No matter how clear and pure our vision of the Great Spirit - any ideas we develop from this vision of the Great Spirit are riddled with speculation and uncertainty.

Sometimes we are visited with a primal vision or intuition that points to a presence that is beyond space and time. This is often an intensely clear vision or intuition.

If you have ever had this vision, you will understand that there is an overwhelming sense of sharing this presence with every point of space - with all living creatures. It brings together all moments of time in a state of timelessness. The human brain becomes very awake when it is touched by this experience - but the forces of grasping and aversion have been put to rest, at least for a moment. As these forces sleep, the mind becomes quiet, thought ceases to consume the brain, emotions are softened, mood becomes peaceful and gentle, dormant sensitivities begin to awaken and you begin to sense the energies that connect life's diverse manifestations.

Again - any beliefs about something as vast as this Great Spirit must be flawed. But as long as we don't become dependent on those beliefs, the notion of some infinite cosmic being or unity can spur new avenues of exploration. It is this inspiration to explore that gives the belief some healing value - but - it is territorial attachment to this belief that leads to violence.