Seventeen years ago, I read a book called The Evolving Self [by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow]. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, it profoundly affected the direction of my life. Here’s the section of the book that became a splinter in my mind and resonated the most with me:
“In order to gain control of consciousness, we must learn how to moderate the biases built into the machinery of the brain. We allow a whole series of illusions to stand between ourselves and reality…. These distortions are comforting, yet they need to be seen through for the self to be truly liberated… to come ever closer to getting a glimpse of the universal order, and of our part in it.”
Since reading that, I have dedicated my life to coming “ever closer to getting a glimpse of the universal order, and of our part in it.”Truthout
Transcend Conditioned Consciousness: None But Ourselves Can Free Our Minds
David DeGraw, Notes From the Underground | News Analysis
3 comments:
From the article:
“In order to gain control of consciousness, we must learn how to moderate the biases built into the machinery of the brain. We allow a whole series of illusions to stand between ourselves and reality…. These distortions are comforting, yet they need to be seen through for the self to be truly liberated… to come ever closer to getting a glimpse of the universal order, and of our part in it.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery
NONE BUT OURSELVES CAN FREE OUR MINDS
Transcend Conditioned Consciousness
BREAK ON THROUGH…
David DeGraw
From the perspective of that SELF, I mean the Self behind all manifestations of consciousness, I would imagine it would be a bit like asking the Sun about how to free oneself from enveloping darkness, replying: ‘What darkness – wherever I go all I see is light’!
So, what stands between us and reality?
Well, confusing the self, the identity, the ‘I’, the conditioned mind, the external world with reality - the SELF - is one reason.
On this basis you cannot free your mind as you (and it) are a part of the created. You cannot transcend conditioned consciousness for the same reason. You can gaze through the veil, by the power of feeling and know the SELF within. Then perhaps that will change you. I would think so because the kind of energy that the self perceives as emanating from the SELF - we label as Love, Kindness, Clarity, Peace, Knowing, Illumination etc. So hopefully that will change human consciousness and redirect the ‘I’ into something less self-destructive; ‘modify the machinery of the brain’?
From the article:
“In order to gain control of consciousness, we must learn how to moderate the biases built into the machinery of the brain. We allow a whole series of illusions to stand between ourselves and reality…. These distortions are comforting, yet they need to be seen through for the self to be truly liberated… to come ever closer to getting a glimpse of the universal order, and of our part in it.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Emancipate Yourself From Mental Slavery
NONE BUT OURSELVES CAN FREE OUR MINDS
Transcend Conditioned Consciousness
BREAK ON THROUGH…
David DeGraw
From the perspective of that SELF, I mean the Self behind all manifestations of consciousness, I would imagine it would be a bit like asking the Sun about how to free oneself from enveloping darkness, replying: ‘What darkness – wherever I go all I see is light’!
So, what stands between us and reality?
Well, confusing the self, the identity, the ‘I’, the conditioned mind, the external world with reality - the SELF - is one reason.
On this basis you cannot free your mind as you (and it) are a part of the created. You cannot transcend conditioned consciousness for the same reason. You can gaze through the veil, by the power of feeling and know the SELF within. Then perhaps that will change you. I would think so because the kind of energy that the self perceives as emanating from the SELF - we label as Love, Kindness, Clarity, Peace, Knowing, and Illumination etc. It is an evolutionary energy. So hopefully that will change human consciousness and redirect the ‘I’ into something less self-destructive; ‘modify the machinery of the brain’?
Oh yes - for those who for any reason do not wish to learn how to 'gaze through the veil' or believe that it is all nonsense - fine: all that is necessary is to practice kindness, and the machinery of the brain will still be modified (perhaps slower), and the 'I' and the consciousness change for the better - definitely feel a hell of a lot freer ...!
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