Category: mindsight

The Power of Belief

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I Believe in Life after Death

 

So many of us have stopped seeing the world as the beautiful place it really is. Our words and thoughts are filled with negativity. Having lost our Spiritual roots, we see death as final and tragic and something to be feared. It is all a matter of perspective. Yes there is pain, and the pain is real, but we can still heal our pain through the power of the belief – the belief that we have the ability to create and live a life of peace and joy.

I recently attended a Life Celebration for a ninety year old friend who had lived a full and rich life. As in so many funerals, thoughts turned to a hoped for afterlife. We all wished that he would fulfill his dream to rejoin the love of his life, his wife of sixty-two years. I know that beliefs in a heaven and hell are based on Christian mythology, but myths are just stories that reveal a hidden truth. I believe that this body is mortal but we also have an essence that is pure energy. We are spiritual beings cloaked in a human body. Since this energy can never be lost, I believe it is simply transformed into pure spirit.

I believe that death is not to be feared. There is no hell. I believe that there is an afterlife or another life, and this life will be free of pain and suffering. I believe that the power of belief is a gift from the source. It is the essence of faith and hope. It is the essence of out being.  It is the shoulder we can lean on when life seems too hard to bear.

 

     I Believe In Life after Death

 

Knowing all there is to know and being all there is to be,

It is now time to celebrate the last day of the last life

That I will ever live.

 

However, there are still these last few years to savor,

The thrill of sensing all that my eyes can see,

And hearing all my ears can hear.

 

And as I caress the substance of all my hands can touch,

My soul transforms all these gifts of my senses

Into feelings that expand into ecstasy.

 

As my souls captures the joys of this divine present,

It molds this ever expanding divine source of energy

Into a shape I know will last forever.

 

 

Self-Reflection as a Function of the Human Mind

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Much to my chagrin, I have discovered that science has coined a name or term for my way of thinking, and here I thought I was being creative and original. They call it the homunculus, or the mind within the mind, or by definition, the ghost within the machine. Not a very flattering term, but rather than being insulted, I have chosen to take this opportunity to do some “self” reflection.

According to neuroscience, this process of third thought, which I refer to as the higher self, results from the construction of states of mind that continually evolve according to the nonlinear principle of the Complexity Theory. It is believed that the human brain has constructed a wide variety of saved and stored states of mind. Once a collection of these states are activated by triggers in the environment, they interplay with one another in a random series thus creating new patterns of thought. According to the emergent and recursive principles of complexity, these states are then regulated by a system of internal and external constraints which allows the brain to evaluate, sort, and choose significant elements to build more complex structures within that state. The brain then rebuilds the state by forging new links within the billions of neurons of the brain with its trillions of possible connections. In other words, it is continually refiring and rewiring thus creating greater complexity of thought. The self then is merely a continuous shift in states of mind at any one moment in time. According to these theories, my belief of a higher self is merely an interplay of my own brain’s states of mind fueled by my desire to find purpose beyond the constraints of my brain. There is no overall me, it is just a collection of me’s that are responding simultaneously to my environment. I am not real; I am merely the ghost in the machinery of my brain.

And that is the age old question, isn’t it? Am I merely a biological computer employing a collection of programs simultaneously to somehow arrive at biological intelligence, or am I something more than that? Is every thought I think and every action I undertake merely a response by my brain to the environment? Is it merely creating a state of mind that is seeking for something beyond the horror of living a meaningless life ending in a complete and final death? Honestly, I have to admit – “maybe”. You see, I cannot be positive that I have a spiritual higher self because the scientific evidence is just not there. If I am honest, I have to admit that it is really only a theory. However, if the neuroscientists are honest, they have to admit that all of their intellectual gymnastics can only produce a theory as well. Then we both have to do what all theories require and that is look for evidence to support the theory.

I am suggesting that there is more evidence to support the existence of a pure energy higher self than there is for the brain theory of complexity. There is something inside of me that screams, “I am not just a ghost in the machine!” I am real. I am the presence, the being inside of but also beyond the neural pathways. I can feel me there when I put my brain to rest. I am not a state of mind because I exist outside the mind. I am a powerful energy-based, spiritual being in complete control of my life and yes, to all the naysayers, I am the presence within my brain.

My five applications to bisexuals (and everyone else for that matter):

1. We believe. I am not speaking of a religion; I am referring to believing in and experiencing the power of the energy within us. Whenever we feel that the pressures of this life are overwhelming our tired brain, we just stop the madness of the mind for a moment and just feel the power of that presence within us. We will sense a powerful peace-filled entity there that is the “me”, the “self”.

2. We allow the inner me to be present in our life. We awaken it during meditation each morning, and acknowledge its presence there throughout the day.

3. When we feel an anxiety based tension, we know it is our brain or mind overworking to solve make-believe problems. This is different from the energy tension we need to accomplish the necessary life and work tasks. It is a restlessness. It is the brain that is searching for meaning and purpose. It does not matter how hard we try, the brain cannot solve the problem that itself has created. It will just keep on building more and more complex states of mind. We now simply turn this feeling of restlessness over to the higher self and wait for a response. It will be in the form of a feeling of peace and contentment.

4. If we are struggling with our gender issues, this is merely the brain working over previous states of mind and trying to reconnect them with other mind states that may be stored in implicit or explicit memory. There are no brain based answers to these problems. We merely refer them to our higher self. The gender issues will dissolve immediately. We will feel the contentment of knowing that our bodies need for sexual gratification is merely a biological urge. We can either ignore or act upon it. We do not have to process our actions through the judgment of previous states of mind. That one just goes round and round through the brain without a solution.

5. We seek like-minded sexual partners or mates with whom we can interact without the constraints of states of mind related to blame and shame. We meet the biological needs of our bodies and allow our minds and higher selves to mingle and enjoy each other and allow the positive feelings, and yes, love, to enfold us.

Mindsight, and the “Self” Function of the Mind

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)According to Daniel J. Siegel in his book The Developing Mind, there are two ways of thinking. I think there are three. He concludes that the self is created by the neural activities of the right hemisphere of the brain. I believe that there is much more to the self than just the activities of the neural pathways.

In his chapter on Representations, he states that there are  two ways of thinking due to the activities of the left and right brain. He prefaces this with the caution not to be too dogmatic about left and right because neural activity involves the two hemispheres working together. However, he makes a strong case for the duality of the mind. We are indeed bilateral beings. We have a left hand and a right hand, a left eye and a right eye, and we also have a left brain and a right brain. Our brain makes sure the two sides are coordinated through the corpus callosum and by having the left brain operate the right side of our bodies and vise versa.

One way of thinking evolves from the left brain. The left hemisphere creates words to categorize objects and combines these concepts to form abstract ideas. It uses these linguistic representations so that we can experience a logical and higher order of consciousness. It allows us to create new combinations in our mind and in the world. It breaks down reality into small symbolic chunks that allow us to communicate in social situations. As we noted in the last blog, there is power in the word.

On the other hand (pun intended), the right brain gives us our second way of thinking. The right brain approaches life holistically. It perceives patterns within the whole in the form of sensations and images, ties them together with emotions, and is able to relate these patterns through a holistic sense of awareness or consciousness. It has a great deal more interregional links than the left side which gives it the ability to combine information to construct its own visual and abstract reality. This ability of the mind to create gives us a sense of our own mind that we can refer to as mindsight. Therefore it forms the basis of the self. It is able to relate to other minds through its sense of self relating to another person’s right brain with its own sense of self. We can then share thoughts through the left side and humor, painting and poetry through the right.

I believe there is a third way of thinking. The brain is merely a tool that we use to experience and process the environment in which we live. The brain by itself is like a very sophisticated robotic computer, but it does not operate itself. The functions of the brain in a sense do create mind but we are more than the mind depicted by science as a product of the functions of the right brain. By some fluke of nature or some divine plan from an infinite being, we have soul. Our soul or self, is an entity composed of pure energy that functions beyond the processing components of the brain. It is the substance of thought and the substance of life. In fact, it is the energy that controls and employs the brain to carry out the functions of living.

I believe that the part of us that is pure energy has the potential to grow into something beyond the confines of the left and right brain. Whether we are eternal beings or not is insignificant brain noise. We simply are. We have this moment to be whatever we want to be. We are beautiful powerful creatures in the here and now. We create and we live and milk whatever we can from this period of time we call life. We have a wonderful brain that we employ to make sense of our world, but it is limited to those areas that involve reasoning and ordering of thoughts and other brain functions. In order to find meaning and purpose the answers exists in the energy of the soul.  The purpose is to live, experience, expand, and enjoy. The rest will be revealed (or not) the moment these brains cease to function.

Here are my five applications for bisexuality:

1. Let’s not fall into the left brain trap. We do not need labels. We are simply individuals who enjoy sexual experiences, period. It can be with either men or women. We are led to sex by the biological urges of our bodies. Sex is sex. Enjoy it.

2. We are also sentient beings. Our right side of our brain wants to get involved. It wants to feel the sensations of the body, create emotion, and turn them into perceptions of something greater. We should listen.

3. If we just have sex, and for some of us bisexual men this can be an anonymous encounter, we are often left with a hollow feeling. Where the body ends the mind is just getting started; it feels left out. The left side of our brain wants to turn the sexual experience into an opportunity to relate on an intellectual level. It wants to form a physical/mental bond.

4. Where the mind ends, the soul is now just getting started. It wants to linger in this exchange of positive energy. It wants to form an energy or spiritual bond. It wants to create and enjoy the resonating vibrations of one being uniting with another.

5. When we engage in sexual activities let’s go for the touchdown. Let’s not be satisfied with encounters. Let’s look for relationship. We may discover that there really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.