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#Post#: 6896--------------------------------------------------
(just) another G.U.T.
DIR By: biisuto
Date: April 29, 2023, 2:06 am
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Sick, feeling a little sorry for my nonself and tucked up on the
sofa with my laptop today, I've just read the whole 'Thought is
fiction' thread through... thank you for this conversation. I
miss you guys and our little sandbox here.
Some high points of what I've read so far that seemed to invite
a response ...something like...
- ego is an organising principle for localised experience... a
(literally) self-reinforcing thought about thoughts, with
nothing but an inferred existence... and there is a massive
sense of liberation awaiting those who can fully grok this
heavily under-appreciated fact of their own fictionality, and an
opportunity to release any compulsion to act out an enslavement
story around it
- Jed and BK are not spiritual-bypass advocates. They both offer
tools to bring attention to this unquestioned monolith of ego,
that is simultaneously the source, vehicle and victim of
psychosocial trauma... or, as the Buddha would say, "suffering"
- humans seem unique in that we interact far more with our mind
toys then we do with (what may or may not be) 'the physical
world'
- detachment is the recognition that the thoughts and emotions
which waft through awareness have no owner and no power to
compel action or inaction
...not dismissing any of it. Great discussion!
...But I want to take this opportunity to empty out some
thoughts in a place where thought about thought is appreciated…
and posit another creation story that has grabbed me in the most
compelling way, alternative (in ways I cannot fully explain yet
feel deeply to be explainable) perhaps supplemental or at least
complementary to the one Jed shared with us… (likewise in ways I
cannot fully explain yet)…
…and that is the tantalisingly 'tutto di tutti' meta-story put
forward by Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith.
According to his book 'Freedom - The End of The Human
Condition', what we call 'spirituality' is in fact the blind
yearning felt by the human mind, emancipated during an adaptive
awakening some 2m years ago from the chains of our pre-sentient
instincts - which until then had nonetheless provided us with
the comforting certainty of Nature doing all our thinking for
us.
According to his work, what we recall as 'Eden' was a time
spanning some 10m years prior to this awakening. A time many
cultures and traditions hark back to, when we dwelt harmoniously
without competition from other threatening species in the Great
Rift Valley, one with the other animals. It was a time when
there was no cognition - and certainly no metacognition - and
things were just done the way they had always been… give or take
the odd adaptive mutation.
Our awakening as a thinking species was one such adaptation and
it gave us the power to second-guess Nature's wisdom, thus
taking us out of sync with and effectively ejecting ourselves
from its all-protective embrace…an awakening ironically
precipitated by the very idyllic conditions of our existence in
near-total safety as an apex species in a land of nutritional
plenty, nestled under a decidedly matriarchal umbrella that
offered above even the safety of such perfect circumstances, the
cradle-to-grave cocoon of unconditional love that naturally
arises (as seen in bonobo chimps) when a species sexually
selects by females, who choose mates based on their prospects as
responsible, sharing and loving caregivers, not as warriors,
hoarders or bullies.
'Eden' was the civilisation that arose from such conditions.
Successive patriarchal Regimes of the Ego have been our
comparatively miserable experience ever since, for the past 2m
years, give or take.
And (this is me here) 'spirit' is a grand term to describe what
neuroscience is calling 'neuroception', or simply, 'the gut
instinct', that science has reduced to the digested messages of
a 100trillion microbial cells along our alimentary tract,
communicating about our environment through the antenna of the
vagus nerve to the mere trillion (albeit very sophisticated and
highly specialised) cells we can call 'human'.
And this is but the smallest residue of the once total union our
now 'host' bodies used to know with our world and the universe
beyond but have, since the advent of the relatively
free-floating metacognitive intellect and memory, pushed from
our minds, incrementally replacing it with the 'imaginating'
machinations of a burgeoning prefrontal cortex.
AND SO…Because such communication arises in the mind as
thought-without-words but also thought-without-thinker, it
epitomises mysticism and, over time, has given rise to much
speculation about what it is.
It really IS our 'way home', just not in the woo-woo ways so
many seek to get there.
And because until Griffith's work we didn't understand the
origins of consciousness, our curious monkey minds - intolerant
of vacuums in understanding - needed origin stories to try and
explain it, as best we could… which wasn't too bad, all things
considered… it's just the stupid wars and conflicts that arose
when such stories inevitably conflicted, or were told in ways
that advantage certain monkeys over others.
…And now we know, we can give up all the fear-based selfishness
and get back to providing our kids with the unconditional,
lifelong loving attachment their genetic blueprint keeps rightly
insisting is their birthright but the reality we provide them
has been so deficient, so disappointing, for so long now that
we've normalised dysfunction and dysphoria…
…I realise the whole unsubstantiated arc of this is waaaay too
much for a simple post, but I'm seeing in it a very solid
foundation for what seems nothing less than the elusive 'grand
unifying theory' our species has been seeking since forever -
comprising a mashup of the conclusions of (Non-dual philosopher)
Jed McKenna (et al), (Physicist) Thomas Campbell, (biologist)
Jeremy Griffith... and (God, as voiced through psychologist)
Helen Shucman in A Course in Miracles. (...I'm sure there's
other quantum-sciencey bits that can help here too, but hey I'm
no expert).
…. and you read it here first. ;D
#Post#: 6899--------------------------------------------------
Re: Another G.U.T.
DIR By: Plato
Date: April 29, 2023, 10:49 am
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God I love this post, for many reasons but I will start here,
Griffiths postulation just "feels right" even if I've only
gotten the synopsis through your reading of him, I'll be looking
for a book... Another reason this seems to come together so
tightly here is that I've just watched the first 2 episodes of
Chimpanzee Empire on Netflix and everything you've spoken to
seems evident in Chimpanzee social structure vis a vis
pre-cognitive/metacognitive and pre language humans. These are
pre-humans in this show, it's mesmerizing watching what can only
be seen through the lens of "OMG these are human traits in an
entirely (well 2%) different species".
Yes there is editing and anthropomorphic posturing from naming
animals and so forth but there is no denying the powerful
experience of watching what feels like a trip into human history
about 5 to 10 million years back. The way the troop moves like a
single organism when a leader makes a decision lends credence to
the wisdom of the "gut", without language they move in an
amazingly unified fashion and yet there is the patriarchal
divisioning and it's inevitable conflicts...Amazing. if anyone
here hasn't seen it yet, it is a must.
So good to here from you Mic, hope you get feeling better soon!
#Post#: 6901--------------------------------------------------
Re: Another G.U.T.
DIR By: Not-Joanna
Date: April 29, 2023, 12:58 pm
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My gut tells me it's the time of Atlantis we miss and long for.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDNgKPFKo-Q
#Post#: 6907--------------------------------------------------
Re: Another G.U.T.
DIR By: biisuto
Date: April 30, 2023, 9:23 pm
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--- Quote from: Plato link ---
>
> ... Griffiths postulation just "feels right" even if I've only
gotten the synopsis through your reading of him, I'll be looking
for a book... Another reason this seems to come together so
tightly here is that I've just watched the first 2 episodes of
Chimpanzee Empire on Netflix and everything you've spoken to
seems evident in Chimpanzee social structure vis a vis
pre-cognitive/metacognitive and pre language humans. These are
pre-humans in this show, it's mesmerizing watching what can only
be seen through the lens of "OMG these are human traits in an
entirely (well 2%) different species"...
> So good to here from you Mic, hope you get feeling better
soon!
>
--- End Quote ---
Thanks mate. Feeling like crap still but the arc of healing is
improving... we've slipped into Autumn down here, so with that
the cold and flu season as well.
Yes, it was exactly that, the 'feels right-ness' of his theory,
that kept me rivetted on it when I stumbled over it about 6
months ago... mere minutes after a making a prayer, actually,
asking for direction with my work... I love when that happens.
Griffiths himself seems a pretty down-to-earth, interesting
dude, with a sometimes distracting writing and speaking style...
he's obviously met a lot of opposition to his theory because his
main book is lavishly annotated with all kinds of references...
he himself is fascinated with chimp vs bonobo vs human
evolution. His online community has a kind of cultishly
protective air about it, but I think the almost paranoia arises
from the desire to avoid being infiltrated by nutjobs.
Below is a link to a short mental exercise he walks readers
through...
HTML https://www.humancondition.com/freedom-the-story-of-adam-stork/?scroll_to=Adam%20Stork&scroll_num=1¤t_search=Adam%20Stork<br
/>
And when I read that in his book, my immediate thought was, "Of
course! Why don't we all already know this?!"
Perhaps because of my work, I was able to link what he writes
about immediately as THE source of our human attachment issues:
we are genetically hardwired to expect (and give) unconditional
love from birth. Because our conscious, egoic mind is and has
been so disruptive of our instincts, the mayhem that arises when
that doesn't happen makes our collective insanity make perfect
sense to me now.
But there's a lot more to it than that. He says that our
consciousness has spent the past 2m years trying to understand
what happened, how we got ejected from Eden and deprived of the
love that was our birthright for some 5 times that span.
And so everything we've done has been in service of reaching
this understanding.
And now we have it, and the merry-go-round of suffering and
mutual self-torture can stop.
Don't know about you, but I find this rather appealing.
(And thanks, Joanna... got about 30mins into your video. As I
was listening I remembered that my parents were totally into
Atlantis/Mu/Lemuria stuff. No dismissal, just no gut feeling to
want to go further... seems a dry hole to me.)
EDIT: Sklato, you mentioned the chimps being patriarchal…
interesting difference with the matriarchal bonobos, given
they’re almost identical animals. Griffith goes into detail
about how this happened historically, by virtue of which side of
the Congo River they evolved on!
2nd EDIT: Joanna, my shorthand response must have indeed seemed
the very dismissal I claimed it wasn’t. That wasn’t my
intention. Those stories are variations of the Eden story,
aren’t they? That was your point, right?
#Post#: 6909--------------------------------------------------
Re: Another G.U.T.
DIR By: Plato
Date: May 1, 2023, 12:37 pm
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--- Quote from: mic link ---
>
>
>
HTML https://www.humancondition.com/freedom-the-story-of-adam-stork/?scroll_to=Adam%20Stork&scroll_num=1¤t_search=Adam%20Stork
>
> And when I read that in his book, my immediate thought was,
"Of course! Why don't we all already know this?!"
>
> Perhaps because of my work, I was able to link what he writes
about immediately as THE source of our human attachment issues:
we are genetically hardwired to expect (and give) unconditional
love from birth. Because our conscious, egoic mind is and has
been so disruptive of our instincts, the mayhem that arises when
that doesn't happen makes our collective insanity make perfect
sense to me now.
>
>
--- End Quote ---
This is so chock full of connecting tissue to "The
Understanding" that I can't wait to read it all so I can start
filling in my own pieces to the puzzle of "what the hell has
happened here?" One of these puzzle pieces from my own
experience has been the part that Grace plays (how and why) in
one's efforts through and past the instinctual vs intellectual
conundrum; which I totally recognize as my own version of
psychosis prior to autolysis and mind shut down. Grace appeared
here through a momentary but all encompassing recognition of the
lies I had been telling myself my whole life (the psychosis
Griffith mentions) and the near complete ego implosion that
subsequently opened Grace's door. This concept is nothing new as
all religions "talk" about having to "give up" the natural man
to gain closeness to deity but it's one thing to understand that
concept intellectually and entirely different thing to actually
experience it.
Grace was the element that opened insight into unearned
"universal love" or the feeling of being loved [I]regardless of
worthiness or in spite of unworthiness[/i] by the Infinite/God
which changed the equation in totality from the prior psychosis
of trying to "prove" myself worthy. This had never been felt
before (maybe in fleeting moments) but has now (through Grace)
come home to stay. This didn't "solve" my issues but it opened
the door to a faith that they could be solved (eventually
through Autolysis) and sustained "the self" through the
difficult work of "further".
This is the elemental effort that has currently flowered again
in the MDMA, Psilocybin and Ayahuasca studies (and underground
medicines/shaman) that lower or eliminate one's ego structure
enough to "simulate" a Grace event and in turn gain "The
Understanding" through a shortcut of sorts, this work is
extremely exciting and constitutes what could be an actual
[i]direct transmission[/I] as talked about in eastern philosophy
circles.
Fascinating stuff! Thanks for opening this door Bii!
PS. Yes I was aware of the patriarchal and matriarchal
differences between the two chimp cultures with their power
structures, overall demeanors and sexual proclivities being the
most obvious differences but this seems to open a broader
perspective that I am eager to explore.
#Post#: 6910--------------------------------------------------
Re: Another G.U.T.
DIR By: biisuto
Date: May 3, 2023, 3:17 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Plato link ---
>
> This is so chock full of connecting tissue to "The
Understanding" that I can't wait to read it all so I can start
filling in my own pieces to the puzzle of "what the hell has
happened here?" One of these puzzle pieces from my own
experience has been the part that Grace plays (how and why)
...and the near complete ego implosion that subsequently opened
Grace's door. This concept is nothing new as all religions
"talk" about having to "give up" the natural man to gain
closeness to deity but it's one thing to understand that concept
intellectually and entirely different thing to actually
experience it.
--- End Quote ---
Yeah, so many 'aha' elements reading it. The guy is really onto
something, that just seemed to click for him, opening up a door
where there seems to be a wall. It made perfect sense to me,
straight out of the box. ... including most maybe all of his
discomforting explanation of male/female roles, how politics
works as an extension of this whole seeking a solution to the
human condition. I wondered what I was missing when he kept
talking about 'the deaf effect'...never happened here, just went
"yup" (and I think ND is the reason, so many threads to pull
indeed!)
--- Quote from: Plato link ---
>
> Grace was the element that opened insight into unearned
"universal love" or the feeling of being loved [I]regardless of
worthiness or in spite of unworthiness[/i] by the Infinite/God
which changed the equation in totality from the prior psychosis
of trying to "prove" myself worthy. This had never been felt
before (maybe in fleeting moments) but has now (through Grace)
come home to stay. This didn't "solve" my issues but it opened
the door to a faith that they could be solved (eventually
through Autolysis) and sustained "the self" through the
difficult work of "further".
>
--- End Quote ---
Grace is the (whatever the mental equivalent of 'visceral' is)
grokking of what 'higher power' actually means, opening
access... no... releasing blockages against the calibre of
'flow' that mere rote practice can never deliver. It's like
waking up inside a Gundam suit... without the urge to launch
missiles from your a$$ or stomp the sh1t out of Tokyo.
But key for me is I credit JG's work with resensitising me to
this elusive idea of unconditional love, which sweeps away
notions of 'worthiness' as meaningless (and cruel, given what
we've done with it) bartering chips for something that is your
birthright as part of what you are and can never be taken away -
and thus why we so yearn for connection... right down to the
roots of our very nervous system.
As Johann Hari wrote, "We are the first civilisation that has
actively sought to dismantle our tribes." and of course he is
speaking to the power structure that has dominated for at least
the past few thousand years, slowly tearing away and undermining
the fabric of not just all our little localised micro-societies,
but society itself... starting sometime since the advent of
agriculture, about 12,000 years ago right up to now ...and our
seeming so very close to Skynet AI endgame stage...
In this sense - 'click' ...as a perfect overlay to ACIM (much to
JG's dismay perhaps, given his dismissal of its entire mystical
ilk) - he is in effect saying that our very awareness... this
consciousness that 'I am' ...that has also in many ways been our
human curse for the past 2m years (give or take) ...is the very
product of an environment where LOVE is never not present.
And I just know there's gotta be something in that... it cannot
be coincidence.
But there will sure be a lot of therapy daisy-chains and
foot-rub circles when people wake up to it, that is fo SHO!
#Post#: 6911--------------------------------------------------
Re: Another G.U.T.
DIR By: Plato
Date: May 3, 2023, 10:07 am
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Headed out of town till next week for work but I'll try to spend
some time with the online JG stuff, haven't been able to shake
free of deadlines to open any time for exploration of his stuff
yet! :'( ::)
#Post#: 6917--------------------------------------------------
Re: (just) another G.U.T.
DIR By: Crystal
Date: May 15, 2023, 10:21 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I've read the 67 page short version of the book and watched a
couple of the videos so far. Griffiths says understanding why
humans are the way they are, frees and liberates us, and yet, he
was persecuted for his version of understanding and it almost
cost him his health/life. The pandemic was a really good
example of how people will do anything to keep the narratives in
place and the persecution of anyone trying to bring sanity to
the table.
I don't know how many times so many of us did not listen to our
instinctual self, but employed the mechanisms of our thinking
brain to just end up being in conflict with ourselves, that I
agree with, going with that gut instinct. However, as we are all
wired for survival, I do think we would instinctively fight
under threat.
Someone who read part part of the book, had this comment:
When Mother Nature is mindless and cruel in its indiscriminatory
indifference. People are not only good or only bad. They are
both. Whether goodness or badness will manifest - is always
defined situationally. [/i]
#Post#: 6918--------------------------------------------------
Re: (just) another G.U.T.
DIR By: Plato
Date: May 16, 2023, 5:13 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Crystal link ---
>
> I've read the 67 page short version of the book and watched a
couple of the videos so far. Griffiths says understanding why
humans are the way they are, frees and liberates us, and yet, he
was persecuted for his version of understanding and it almost
cost him his health/life. The pandemic was a really good
example of how people will do anything to keep the narratives in
place and the persecution of anyone trying to bring sanity to
the table.
>
> I don't know how many times so many of us did not listen to
our instinctual self, but employed the mechanisms of our
thinking brain to just end up being in conflict with ourselves,
that I agree with, going with that gut instinct. However, as we
are all wired for survival, I do think we would instinctively
fight under threat.
>
> Someone who read part part of the book, had this comment:
>
> When Mother Nature is mindless and cruel in its
indiscriminatory indifference. People are not only good or only
bad. They are both. Whether goodness or badness will manifest -
is always defined situationally. [/i]
>
--- End Quote ---
You seem to be a bit hung up on what "others" do. The game we
are playing is more along the lines of how the "I" responds, not
only to what others do but to it's own thoughts that occur
regarding what others do. Your thoughts seem to be on an anger
loop toward "other" and their seeming control of humanity, this
is the dream you want to awake from if you are spending time in
this forum.
Yes, an ape has nothing but instinct from which to exert a
response and humans in their pre-awakened state are barely a
step above instinct as they are controlled by "programming"
which dictates what path they choose. The awakened individual is
aware of instinctual motivations as well as their programming
but they are not limited to these two options, there is the
third option which emanates from "The Understanding" the version
of being-ness that Christ, Buddha and many others point toward.
That is the goal of searchers the world over, to find this third
option and fulfill the promise of their human potential. To live
free of the bindings of Plato's Cave and the fear of what
appears to be the unknown.
#Post#: 6919--------------------------------------------------
Re: (just) another G.U.T.
DIR By: Crystal
Date: May 17, 2023, 10:59 am
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Yes, what “others” do, most certainly affects us all. Despite
the fact that in the Jed work there are no “others”. Griffiths
amongst “others” have repeatedly stood up in the midst of
persecution to create a better world. “I” respond best to who
want to create a loving world and say no to the repeated abuse
of others, animals and the environment. Do you? That to me is a
big step in waking up and not sitting on my couch, saying
“forgive them for they know not what they do”, “everything is
perfect as it is” and other platitudes that do not stop the
ongoing insanity. I would say this is what keeps the insanity
in place, being “complicit.
The abusers always try to destroy the ones standing up.
Griffiths was exposed to 15 long years of this. My heart goes
out to him as all he was trying to do, was say, come on people
this is not a natural way to live. Was Christ himself not taken
to task and persecuted and yet he stood up. Perhaps I am not
special enough to have been graced by the “understanding”, as it
appears only a few handful have been. I am ok with that. But I
will always stand up against abuse. I don’t need to be special
for that, but use my instincts and common sense.
The statement about Mother Nature being indiscriminate, I
thought was very thoughtful. As when a tornado rips through, it
doesn’t make any distinctions between whether one purports to be
a Buddha, the Abuser or the Bonobo.
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