The universe inside - thoughts and emotions aside

I've been a little sick. Nothing too important, but a hassle when you are traveling, which I have been. Suddenly there is no energy to do what you want and your body claims rest, rest, rest.

On the other hand this has become such an opportunity and a fascinating way of delving into the physical body. The sense that there is something in the body trying to work out itself, trying to come back to balance. A fight that goes on between the good little bits and the not so good ones.

There is so much to see in regards to the physical body. Most of it remains unseen, unnoticed.

Isn't it amazing that all the time there is something going on inside us - thoughts and emotions aside? There is something happening to every single person in this planet: all these interactions happening in our cells to hold some structure that allow us to think that we are individuals... And we are vaguely aware of it. We go on, doing our thing, living our lives and these systems working their magic in the background. Unless something goes wrong, we don't have to think about how to breathe, how to send the air to the lungs and then tell the blood how to extract the CO2; we don't have to think about extracting the nutrients from our food (if any) and send them around to be optimized; we don't have to tell our left leg 'move after the right', so we can walk....

It's just amazing. There is a universe happening inside every second. Movements in all sorts of ways doing all sorts of things with such precision (most of the time) and wisdom. How is this possible?

Wow.

The five senses - part five

My last observation - for now - on the topic has to do with a question.

Which of the five is the most refined?

I found this quote by Robert Delaunay, a French painter labeled as Orphist:

"The eye is the most refined of our senses, the one which communicates most directly with our mind, our consciousness."

I am not sure I agree here. His paintings, for example are almost musical. Interesting that his work was called "Orphic cubism", being Orpheus son of the god Apollo (in Greek mythology - a fascinating tale, btw) and a fantastic poet and musician, who perfected the lyre created by Hermes.

Rhythm, Joie de Vivre

Seeing Delaunay's work is as if he was perceiving visuals as sounds. Which makes me think of synaesthesia.

Synaesthesia is the ability for the senses to be mixed up in the brain, producing for example the perception of a sound as a smell, taste as touch, visuals as sound... or you name the combination. It is often present in artists and people that meditate a lot. Notice that I called it an ability and not something that's wrong with a person - modern psychology labels this phenomena as some sort of problem (sigh). It allows you to perceive your environment in a very deep and fascinating way, making it not just more alive, but also more rich and 'informational'.

So, in not agreeing with Delaunay, I would say that sound is the most refined of all senses. Why, because sound is one of those things that can become very, very abstract. Just think of the connection between music and mathematics...pretty abstract. The fact of not being completely aware of what is happening with the sense of hearing doesn't make it less refined than seeing.

A bit of a digression... Maybe the question here is what is my parameter to call something more refined? What makes something more or less refined? To me something refined has the ability for abstraction and a high level precision. So refined, in this context would equate with precision and abstraction.

Considering the above I'd say that a sound (coming from the external environment) could take someone deeper and higher into abstraction, out of their mind (ordinary mind: the gross block, the blahblahblah), closer to Reality than visuals (coming from the external environment). Since the five senses have to do with the information coming from the outside, I'd insist on saying that the sense of hearing is the most refined of them all.

But, that is just me... what do you think?

Sixth sensing your environment with technology

I recently received a link to this video on ted.com and I decided to post it here.

There was a time in my life when I was addicted to science fiction. I devoured most of the usual books on the topic, a classic one being the Foundation series of Asimov. Science fiction fed a part of me that is not too easy to satiate.

Nowadays there are sooo many cool things being developed that were just hints in those books. Some which are probably not too public yet. This video shows one of many gadgets that exemplify how virtual realities are going to interact more with real reality. It's really cool.

It's called sixthsense and it is a device (mix of mobile device, camera, mirror and projector) that gives you more information of real objects through hand gestures.




Also check Pranav Mistry's website (one of the developers). He has other really interesting projects.

Thinking about technologies in the next 10 years just blow my mind. Just imagine what the combination of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering can create (for good or not so good). The world as we know it promises to be a very, very different place not too far from today.

Your belief becomes _your_ reality. Not _the_ reality.

Let this be the first real post.

Among the many musings that I have there is one that has been very present today.

I often think about how people's beliefs create their reality. What sort of beliefs? All sorts: religious, financial, cultural,... you name it.

I was born in a country that was somewhat forced to adopt Catholicism as the way to relate to the Divine (God, That, or whatever you want to call it). Having had always a sense of 'a something else' a lot of the times I was taken to church by my parents (backed by a very Catholic grandfather) I was bored, and amused at the same time. My amusement came not from the sermons that the priest would call, neither from the sense of being in a holy place. In fact, it was very much the opposite. I found the words empty, the people around me hypocrites and pretenders and I just couldn't understand why they would hit their hearts three times saying "I am guilty' ("guilty of what?" I thought... "I am not guilty of anything, don't count me in!"). These visits felt heavy and gray. My concept of something else was very different, so different that I would never had thought that perhaps some of my experiences could be considered divine.

Memorable moments were those during the night in which I would wake up in my room, to the most sublime silence (to whatever extent one can understand the concept of sublime as a child) and the most beautiful light and sound with it (yes, silence can have sound of a very different type). It would hold me deeply and I would soon fall back asleep. There was lightness, joy, and something that felt open and fluid - very different to the heavy, gray, limiting aspects that Catholicism represented to me.

And so I grew up, became quite cynical, forgot about the blessed moments of awe and wonder and existentialism took over. A complete questioning of every aspect of my life. Who am I? What do I want? And so on... It was only later, perhaps as a result of that intense questioning, that I started to reconnect back with those heart-warming experiences that I felt as a child and denied as a teenager. It was a long journey - it still is, and I am very grateful for it.

So, what does this have to do with people's beliefs and reality? Well, I look around and see people (and myself in the mirror) so caught in their religious 'shoulds', their financial 'worries', their social 'fears', and many, many more... Ideas that are only mental and conditioned, followed because of the society, the group, what the media says, what has been done before should be, what the perceived limit is. Many of these rarely come as a result of the true essence of the person shining through. Ideas that limit people instead of opening the doors of freedom, the real freedom.

Think about it. What would society become if at least half of the population created their reality based on their highest, innermost being? People that instead of listening to the bs sensationalism generated by the media could see that there are other ways, other means and that by choosing to fall into the bunch they are becoming it? The beliefs create their reality.

Now pushing this further. Beliefs will never be reality itself. To know reality one has to have the experience of it. By reality I mean what is beyond appearances, that which has to do more with the inside than the outside.

No, don't get me wrong... there is a world out there.
There are cars and houses, and pennies and dollars and euros, and oceans and trees and human bodies. It is NOT an illusion. The illusion is what we make out of these things, what we believe these to be. What if we could really wake up and see things for what they are? Can you imagine the type of world we could actually build? The social, financial, political... systems? (Or call them whatever you want.)


Just spare with me for a moment here.... OMG!

Perhaps for many these are ramblings of an idealist... and that is ok. You can choose your beliefs (or probably more something like let your beliefs choose you.) What I choose is not to believe, but to experience. This means a possibility, a possibility of creating a reality, with the physical means that will actually support the core of being human and not deny it. Or at least that is my goal. And no, I am not looking for another theory or another set of beliefs. I want to be able to create, to whatever extent possible giving the reality of the physical existence, something that holds That.

Can this be possible? Somewhere inside I know it is (just don't ask me how just yet).

Those brief moments of silence experienced as a child were more real than any sermons given in the church. They conveyed something that felt more True at least to me. Something was alive and that something was not imposed. There were no beliefs, no doctrine, no dogma, only experience. In a way, one needs not to talk about religion to find similar things. The speeches of politicians, the disinformation of the media, the trends generated by the materialistic approach, these can be for a lot of people doctrines and dogmas, only sometimes the preacher or priest is more difficult to spot.

Let me be clear, what I am suggesting here is not the fact that everything you believe is real. Or that by constantly repeating affirmations you will magically materialize a pet, or a house, or a million in your account. Those to me are beliefs too and I don't follow the Secret's style of life. Au contraire, what you believe is not necessarily the reality, but your reality. Things in this world are something, regardless of what you believe they are. The key is to see things for what they are, beyond their appearance. And then create with those real ingredients that which will bring you closer to you.

So what if the experience is painful? How painful, I would ask. Is it really painful or is it a belief on top of the pain that makes it a suffering? Not all experiences in this world are pretty. For sure. However, how many times do we believe that these are horrible? Experiences are experiences. What we put on top of them is a different thing. And there are experiences that will bring you closer to you and others that will separate you from you. But only you will know which are these. They do not follow a set of rules, or doctrines and they are far beyond the judgmental noise of the mind.

In a world of growing confusion and ignorance, the key lies in the silence, where no belief exist and just existence is.

Quoting Thomas Keating* "God's first language is Silence. Everything else is a translation."

(*who incidentally is a monk from a strict Catholic order)