What is Reality? Joe Rogan

Are you Experienced?

I moved to a new town my senior year of high school.  At some point during that year my friends told me a story (they all told me this story – the ones who did it and the one it was done to) about hijinks involving Jeff and the Acid.

I tell you this story now because it came to mind while thinking of all the bullshit enlightenment one finds on the internet.  There are scores of people out there who claim to be enlightened or advanced and take every chance to jump all over others and tell them how wrong they are.  About anything really.

So, Jeff and the Acid.  Jeff decided that he wanted to try acid.  Four of the other friends decided to tell him that they could get it for him.  Great!  He was excited.  So the four friends go off and tear off a small square of notebook paper and draw a black circle in the middle of it.  They take this fake hit to Jeff and he puts it in his mouth.  Within minutes Jeff is telling them how wild his trip is and all the weird things he is seeing.  Twenty minutes into this nonsense and the friends burst out laughing and tell Jeff what they did.  He was not amused, but obviously got over it since he was in with them telling me this story.

Lately I am just watching Facebook and not participating because of what I see going on that reminds me of the Fake Acid.

I am in no position to say in what form anyone’s spiritual enlightenment comes.  It’s not possible, because it’s individual.  And that’s beautiful.  I would love to read about each person’s experience and whether it matches my spiritual experience or not, and comment how great that is.  Because it is.

But the Facebook gurus tell us otherwise.  They see anyone post about spirituality and they jump all over it like a monkey on a cupcake.  They want to correct that person and tell them how wrong they are.  How they don’t get it.  And one day they might just get it like they do.

Now you might be thinking, “But you are saying that they are wrong.”   Yes, because I’m not negating their spiritual experience, I’m questioning the attacking.  One’s spiritual experience is their own.  And they come in more flavors than anyone can comprehend.  It simply is that way.  Making someone else wrong isn’t spiritual experience and so can be discussed.

“So what the heck does fake acid have to do with people on Facebook?”  When a person has a real spiritual experience it knocks you back into something beyond the experience of this world.  It is indescribable, but it’s definitely not here.  The Oneness and profound love are beyond any previous experiences of that.  Everything is suddenly so right and profoundly ok.

So just as Jeff pretending to others, and to himself, that his Fake Acid experience was real and profound was really nothing and false, telling others that their spiritual experience is wrong is a giveaway that we took the fake acid, aren’t really enlightened, are faking orgasm, and are sadly like the girl at the college party our freshman year who pretended to be way more drunk than she really was.

You might think you’re acting and playing the part quite well if you haven’t really experienced those things.  To someone who has, the person seems like the unfortunate understudy in one of the less well done community theater productions.

But the good news is that just like Jeff in high school went on to procure some real acid, if they really want it the fake Facebook gurus will at some point probably find themselves falling into a real experience of Profound Reality.  So what is there really to complain about?  For them or me?

Scents can make you buy things

Here it is people.  Apparently everything can be used to sell us things.  Using scents in a particular way – one scent at a time instead of combinations of scents – can make us by 20% more than would otherwise be purchased.

This is a good reason to know how the mind works and use it for our own good.

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3469-smells-shoppers-spend-more.html#ixzz2DSCFUKds

 

Scent …

What role does scent really play in a situation?

It’s part of the environment, and generally we respond to our environment even more than we already think that we do.  We know we like perfume and cologne.  The smell of food definitely gets a reaction.

And of course there are numerous studies that have been done on human scent, attraction and fertility.  That’s easily looked up if you are interested, so I will leave that to you.  New Scientist is where I’ve gotten most of my info on scientific studies that don’t have anything to do with the particulars of my university education.  The studies coming to mind have to do with females liking different scents based on their time of the month, the health of the male, and the male having as different of an immune system as possible compared to the female doing the sniffing.

So scent is clearly important, even if it doesn’t feel like it is.  So how much can a scent affect a person in general as we go about our day?

Aromatherapy clearly is of the opinion that scent plays a significant role.

I will look into this.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I just watched the American version of this movie.  I saw the original in the theater.  I had forgotten how disturbing it was.  It’s such an interesting movie, but the disturbing parts I had clearly blocked from my memory for a bit because I now remember that I felt exactly this way after seeing the first one.

It’s an excellent movie, but I don’t like this feeling.  It’s … disturbing.  I was listening to a lecture yesterday that was saying that when people see others act with kindness, the same neurons fire as if they were doing and receiving an act of kindness themselves.

I’ve always known that what a person lets into their awareness affects them.  Those things act as hypnotic suggestions, they tell the person something about the world, and they also have a vibration that one receives.

The hypnotic suggestions aren’t to do something in particular, but to accept the thing as normal.  Everything around us is telling us about the world all the time.  What it comes down to is that question of do I live in a kind or dangerous world?  And everything has vibration.  Absolutely everything has a frequency / vibration.  I’ll skip the explanation of atoms and electrons – more than enough people have written about that that it would be redundant here.  If you can be aware of something, you are within its vibration.  Whether it’s seeing it, hearing it – anything – even just thinking about it.

I heard someone describe what we allow around us once as food.  Anything in your awareness is being taken into you just as food is taken in to you when you eat.  Consider that when you think about what you want to focus on.

But the thing is, most people can watch movies or be around negativity without it bothering them.  I don’t know how they do it.  It’s as if they just are walled off from the things around them.  They don’t seem to feel the vibration of things.  But then again, maybe they are just very good at letting things go?  I can’t assume.

What I do know is that I have to find something to do right now to counteract this so that I’m vibrating right again.

I’m pretty sure I have more to think about on this.

Enlightenment

What is enlightenment?  Or a better question is:  What do I mean by enlightenment?

And enlightened person knows the Truth of this reality.  And enlightened person is happy, or at least not unhappy, because they know that this reality isn’t as real as we think it is, and so there’s nothing to be upset about.  An enlightened person has a high vibration, and because of that other people feel good in their presence.  An enlightened person by existence alone brings up the vibration of wherever they happen to be.

An enlightened person lets go.  They let the thoughts that run through their mind and the events that happen in their life just flow through.

An enlightened person can choose to do something and then do it, because they don’t have inner resistance.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t think there are any qualities one can say that indicate enlightenment.  I think it’s a vibration.  And I think that there are characteristics that usually go with that, but that are just what we see from our own level.

Enlightenment is a high vibration.  And from there they see the transparency of life.  And so they don’t feel the need to grab on to anything, so life just flows through them.

Love Brings All

“If you seek something, love it, and note that it loves you.”  – William Wallace

Calling it Out

What are the rules in this place we call earth?  I’m pretty sure there’s a manual somewhere and I just didn’t get my copy.

When I was in high school and I would see someone treating someone else rudely, I would say, “You don’t have to treat that person like that.”  And all of a sudden I was the bad guy.  What the eff?  People treat each other in all sorts of horrible ways – from the boss who berates the employee in front of everyone when it really wasn’t needed to insulting a clerk who wasn’t trained well enough to know what to do.  Of course it’s frustrating when an employee messes up – do we have to try to humiliate them in front of others?  No.  Of course it’s annoying as hell when a clerk doesn’t know anything and clearly should.  But if they weren’t trained then it’s the company at fault.

But whatever the reason for someone else’s eff up, how would we want someone else to treat that person if they were our kid or significant other or relative?  Aren’t they our human relative?  So why not be nice.

So, when I was in high school I would call people out on this.  I really just don’t like seeing other people treated badly.  But then I would find that somehow I had turned into the bad guy.  I wasn’t supposed to say anything.  We are supposed to just stand by and not say anything.  We’re supposed to ignore it.  I would never step in and try to make anyone do anything different – I just wanted to put it out there that I see the person being a jerk, and the other person can know that someone cares about what is happening to them.  But no – I’m supposed to ignore it.

So a person can be a jerk, and that’s ok.  But if I try to step in with kindness, that is being a jerk.  So jerk = good, and kind = jerk.  Great.

How is this reality?

Do Something

One point to emphasize is that we do not need complete information to solve a problem. What we do need is a willingness to do something about it. If we do nothing, nothing will happen. If we do something, something will probably happen.

– Raymon Grace

Back to Reality

Here I am living a life that I’m pretty sure isn’t mine.  This is not  how my life was supposed to go.

I have had two enlightenment experiences that would make most people hang out their shingle as an enlightened guru, start writing books, and go out on the lecture circuit pontificating about how amazing they are and promising you the same if you’ll just fork over $1000 for their weekend retreat and buy their cd programs and books conveniently offered at the back of the room.

But the thing is, my experience was profound enough that I know that any enlightening experience is no more important than the everyday experience of daily life.  Yes, when we haven’t had one we think the enlightenment experience is special.  But when we have had one we know that it isn’t.  Life is a tapestry of everything.  All possibilities are happening all the time.  Why should I try to get others to have an experience like I had when whatever they are experiencing is perfect as it is.

Now, one topic that I have seen so many self appointed gurus talk about lately is that the profound bliss doesn’t last.  Why?  I have no idea.  But my life sucks right now.

Sure there are so many things in my life to be grateful for.  And I am grateful.  But really all of my friends are successful.  They have jobs, they have cool things, they have money.  And good for them – I am happy for them.  But where’s MY stuff!  I have been so focused on the spiritual that I haven’t brought to myself any material success.  We do get what we focus on.  Our attention calls things into being.  I want cool stuff and money, but as much as I try to value those things over spirituality, I can’t.  I know better.

So this blog is about my spiritual thoughts, my frustrations, the highs and lows of my daily life, and any random topic that is entertaining me for the day.

Just because.