Temet Nosce!

(Latin axiom from the Temple Delphi: Know Thyself)

This phrase is usually depicted with an exclamation mark, signifying it is a command, as if to know thyself is a simple declaration, and once you accept it, you will know yourself. It is an ancient wisdom established in the mystery schools well before Plato began to use it as a theme in his writings.

What does it mean? What is thyself?

This is the question that hovers over this philosophical expression like a ghostly mirage. Everyone understands what it is to know something. You have experienced it, seen it, interacted with it, and you have knowledge of it as a result.

Thyself… that’s a little more precarious to pin down. That deals with the elusive consciousness—the part of us that is connected to something vaster than even our imaginations can conjure.

 

The case of butterflies.

Have you ever seen the handiwork of a lepidopterist (butterfly collector), who has pinned down a butterfly for display purposes within a glass box? The butterfly is usually displayed with its wings wide open in order to display their best color and full scale.

I remember seeing these as a child when I was about five years old. There were hundreds of butterflies at a museum in Barcelona. They were remarkable for many reasons, one of which was how often the open wings displayed features of an eye or multiple eyes. The patterns were there to dissuade prey—mostly birds—from thinking they were fragile, defenseless insects.

I remember thinking that a butterfly couldn’t be that hard to catch, considering all of those butterflies had been caught by scientists, and I had seen my share of scientists, and none of them had looked particularly athletic. I remember studying those butterflies, all lined up, categorized, and pinned down like tiny Persian rugs. I made a decision that day to catch some of my own.

Sparing you the details, I spent the better part of that weekend trying to catch butterflies in a flowered field only about three blocks from our home. By Sunday night, as the light faded from the day, I had one moth to my credit. Its wings appeared bruised at the ends, and its color was a cross between cinnamon and pale sand. No pattern. There was, to my dismay, nothing remarkable about it—apart from the fact that it was now my captive.

Butterflies were much harder to catch than I had imagined. As docile as they looked underneath their glass display cases at the museum, they were amazingly elusive in the wild. And that’s really my point as we return to the axiom to know thyself. You can pin down the know part. You can even think you know the “thyself” part. However, this axiom is deeper than that.

 

 

Just as the butterflies in the display cases seemed so knowable and representative of a butterfly’s essence—its color, shape, pattern, size and so on, the missing element was life. I couldn’t possibly know a butterfly by examining it in a box, yet that is how we often operate as “self-realized” individuals. We think we know ourselves. Our ego-personality laid out on display, all of the human traits recognizable, size, shape, intelligence, education, career, hair color, clothes, and a hundred other characteristics. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy.

 

Knowing what cannot be known is the paradox.

Thales of Miletus, the first Greek philosopher, was once asked, “What is the most difficult thing to achieve?” He replied, “To know thyself.” When asked what the easiest thing was, he answered, “To give advice.”

Even the revered Greek philosophers understood that the axiom to know thyself! is the most difficult task a human being can grapple with. It wasn’t simply taking an inventory of one’s unique traits, personality, physical, emotional and mental qualities. There was something fundamentally more… and elusive.

You can’t pin down and examine consciousness. You can’t “catch” it. You might find a “moth” or two, but these are shadows of the Self. As the poet Rumi suggested, “Who am I in the midst of all these thought streams?”

We are not the thinkers of our thoughts. Our thoughts arise from many sources, some of which have nothing whatsoever to do with our Self—that pre-quantum identity referred to as the Sovereign Integral. Thoughts arise from unconscious, subconscious, programmed consciousness and combinations therein. They can appear to be us, but thoughts actually arise as the artifacts and regurgitations of a programmed, consensual reality.

 

The strata of layers that form thyself.

What are the layers or dimensions that we are made of? The diagram below attempts to show the layers of the onion that comprise each of us. If you are in a human body, you possess each of these layers, and everyone will have an identity link to one layer stronger or weaker than another. Our linkages to these layers are, in part, what define our uniqueness.

 

 

If someone has formed a particularly strong identity linkage to their Conscious Self, then they are probably inclined to think of “thyself” as the sum of their successes and failures. If they have strong linkages to their Human Soul Self, they are more inclined to think of “thyself” as a formless spiritual presence that is learning and evolving to become a teacher or master. If their linkages are most strongly with the Physical Self, they are more inclined to perceive “thyself” as the force that propels them to survive the hostilities of the world around them.

No one has a single linkage. No one possesses all perfectly symmetrical linkages to the eight layers. No one has fixed linkages. The linkages are in flux, they operate situationally, they form attachments to layers that reflect where they focus their attention.

When you see the axiom to Know Thyself! consider which layers you place your focus and attention on. Is there one in particular that you have formed a strong identity linkage? If you were to know thyself as that layer, or perhaps a combination of layers, is that even you? Maybe you are more like the butterfly caught in the wind’s play, and not pinned down beneath glass. Maybe you activate your imagination to stretch beyond the strata of the normally defined “thyself,” and in these brief, but profound moments, you touch into the Sovereign Integral consciousness.

Thyself is infinite. It cannot be defined. To know it, is to know its shadow. For that which is truly you cannot be known, because knowing is facilitated by the mind, and the mind cannot comprehend this pre-quantum presence that dances beneath and above our sightlines and the arc of our human consciousness. It is better, perhaps, to form a new axiom. Let’s give it a phrase: Live as I AM WE ARE!

 

Behavioral Wisdom

Social and Emotional Intelligence

For those who have read the works of WingMakers and Lyricus, you know a distinction is drawn between the mind’s knowledge of social intelligence, and the heart’s insight of emotional intelligence. They are unique environments from which you can operate and express.

The mind receives impressions about how the world works. This is sometimes called social programming or conditioning. The mind collects its programming from various sources—some clear and explicit, like school and family, some less obvious, like genetic predispositions or media programming.

Heart insight is an intuitive faculty that uses the power of emotions to shift experience and situations to a deeper and wider perspective, which is to say, a more integrated and harmonious picture. It’s easy, as we all know, to lose our sense of harmony and stability amid stressful times and events. Heart insight supports our innate ability to reset and move through challenging situations with a sense of purpose and poise.

Thus, head knowledge helps us navigate the social order and be successful in it, while heart insight helps us navigate the emotional order and reset and rebalance unsettled situations and negative emotions. These are their respective roles.

 

Social Intelligence: Consensual Reality

Overarching the mind and heart realms is the infinite consciousness. In the WingMakers materials it is referred to as the Sovereign Integral consciousness—that which is simultaneously connected to earth and infinity (I AM), and all life (WE ARE). This state supersedes the mind and heart—encompassing them both.

The mind uses words, images and numbers to communicate. The heart uses feelings and empathy. Our consciousness uses behaviors. This is an important, if not key understanding, because our consciousness oversees our mental and emotional states. It is the larger sphere that encompasses the mind and heart. Thus, consciousness is that part of us that is infinite and boundless. It is not contained in brain matter, body tissue or even the emotional energy of the heart. Yet it is individualized as us.

The Sovereign Integral consciousness identifies with us as individuals and the collective us as all. As it pertains to us as individuals, it orchestrates us—the parts of us. It is the unification cord upon which our various “pieces” like the mind, emotions and body are strung. And while our minds speak words and our hearts express feelings, our consciousness expresses its presence through behaviors.

So the question is, if our higher self uses behaviors to express itself, why is there so much dysfunctional behavior in the world?

The mind, aligned to social intelligence, has appropriated the human body. The mind inhibits the body from receiving guidance from the higher self. Behavior is a physical thing (the body is required). We cannot transmit our higher self through our behavior if our body is ruled by the mind or ego. This is part of the social programming: keep the focus on social intelligence—the rewards of glamour, success, influence, power, independence, even sheer survival—and the consciousness of the infinite self can be sidelined as immaterial.

The eclipse of the higher self by the mind and ego is a well-kept secret of consensual reality. The infinite being, we’re told, is a myth, unprovable, an imaginative abstraction, merely wishful thinking in the minds and hearts of the naïve. Or, if it is allowed as an abstraction, it is cloaked in allegorical veneers like cherubs and angels.

Social intelligence dominates our world. Emotional intelligence is expanding. Behavioral wisdom, a mere infant in its reach upon earth, is quietly orchestrating the new human consciousness.

 

Wholeness of the Journey

The idea that the higher consciousness can direct our behaviors by synchronizing the body, heart and mind as a team of expression can seem irrelevant in a world that wants easy power, control, money and fame. However, this social program is in the process of destruction. Imagine a large building that is being demolished with explosives, and you were able to watch its implosion one frame per day. Every other part of your life was in normal time, but the social program from which you were nourished was being demolished in ultra-slow motion—almost to the point you didn’t notice.

That is what is happening. The social program must be destroyed in order to activate people to the real value of their infinite selves. This conductor within you can orchestrate the body, heart and mind as tools of expression. Like an artist who can create inspiring art, you can create inspiring behaviors of forgiveness, appreciation, humility, compassion, understanding and valor.

 

 

The interesting thing about behavioral wisdom is that it arises within and nowhere else. It is the creation of our infinite selves in the expression of oneness and equality. Our mind, heart and body must be part of this oneness and equality so our behaviors can be authentically expressed. This is the new “building” that will be built in the rubble of social intelligence.

Behavioral wisdom is our future home. The vanguard has begun. We anchor it here on earth in our bodies, hearts and minds. We embody this alignment without fanfare or title. We forgive shortcomings, understanding that they are part of the wholeness of the journey that supports our infinite selves. We hold firm to the commitment of our purpose.

Commitment is the engine.
The practice of behavioral wisdom is the fuel.
The vehicle is you.

 

I AM WE ARE

James Mahu

We are specks of sky,

a silent choir of pounding hearts.

We are an eyelid

the size of a galaxy,

opening like a rising sun.

If you look out of it

you are absorbed in

I am we are—

whirling in the curvature

of a universe cathedral.

Sound is unity.

Long waves lack horizons,

their roadmaps

penned from the Creator’s heart,

boomerang.

Listen…

do you hear the subtle, undulating seams

through which you can pass?

There…

there…

and there…

∞

Behind the overgrown weeds

the song leads to

I am we are.

It may seem unlikely

that what is small

and commonly ignored

is powerful,

but

root

feeds

leaf.

True power waits in the whisper.

Beneath the ground state.

It is rested.

It does not flex,

pounce,

grip,

or grab,

for it is not of muscle.

Or bone.

Or mind.

Or even humanness.

Remember that.

Power is not

what you have

been taught.

Power is

the internal gaze

that discerns

I am we are,

and then dresses our every deed

in that finery

and nothing more.

In the same way that white light

is nothing more than

all colors.

∞

We are bodies of air.

Deeper, we are not bodies at all.

We are the

Sovereign Integral…

That which is

I

and

we

at one time.

One place.

One and equal.

No dominance.

Equipoise.

We are invisible numbers

more than gathered letters,

atop the Periodic Table.

Sound

more than mass.

Depth

more than skin.

We are a bucket brigade

to the fires of ego and separation.

Our “water” is

I am we are.

∞

We arm-wrestle the limbless soul.

We point our fingers at the mirror

that dares to lecture.

We stare into ourselves

and test:

“Am I?”

“Are we?”

“Really?”

Beautiful clarity,

the sated view

is often heard first

and followed least.

We grow in unseen places.

Come alive in the music

of quiet spaces

porous with pauses

and the rounded sound of soaring feathers.

∞

The eyelid opens.

Canopied hues of blue, green, brown, and gray

come alive,

endless in their bidding to discover

I am we are.

It is this and nothing more,

in the same way that white light

is nothing more than

all colors.

 

The Origins of Ascension and Karma

Origins are murky and always ancient.

In the new age community, ascension is a popular word used to describe many different experiences and processes. I’ll define ascension as broadly as possible for the purposes of this article in the hopes that it will include most perspectives.

At its core, ascension is the realization that we are more than a physical body, and our consciousness is a multi-layered perceiver that is distinct from the body and can ascend into non-physical dimensions. This ascension is not necessarily an after-death experience or process, but can begin at any time that the individual has an awakening or activation.

This belief goes back a very long time. Original Sin, coupled to redemption, is related to the concept of ascension. We have “fallen” into a physical body, into sin, into darkness, into ignorance, and we are redeemed by some form of grace—Christ, God, Spirit, etc. The grace of redemption is an activation, awakening or rebirth. Following this activation, we set a course for spiritual destinations of a higher vibration, a purer state, a state of love and harmony.

All of this sounds good until you realize that the destination is selfish and consists of abandonment. It’s selfish because you are focused on your own spiritual goals and not the whole. It is abandonment because you desire to leave the human levels of earth to explore the higher domains of heaven. You are abandoning earth in favor of heaven. I am not criticizing this orientation. I’m merely pointing out the reality.

 

The Issues of Selfishness and Abandonment

Let’s take the first issue: selfishness. Most of us have heard of the concept that in order to help others, you must first help yourself. In other words, focus on yourself, learn, learn, learn. We must learn the lessons in order to ascend and keep ascending, or we unhappily return to human (or lesser) form. This is how karma connects to ascension. Karma is the gravity that holds one in bondage to the lower dimensions of experience. It is the countervailing force of ascension.

If we live as an infinite being within a human form, if we truly believe that we are one and equal with all life, where exactly are we hoping to go when we ascend? Can one ascend and leave another human being behind in the clutches of karma and confusion? Can one have enlightenment in a world where wars, poverty, depression and abuse thrive, and truly call it enlightenment?

 

 

Ascend into heavenly bliss or nirvana. Is this not selfishness? My point is that you cannot hold the frequency of equality in your heart and focus on ascension for yourself. If you embrace the I AM WE ARE consciousness, if you live to the best of your ability as a Sovereign Integral, you are of the people. You are one and equal. You operate in the interest of achieving realization for all life, and therefore you are not ascending as an individual, but rather gathering the realization of our shared infinite self for all to understand. You are bringing this realization to earth and humanity therein in whatever way you can.

Ascension is a personal deployment of energy and time for personal interest. It can serve a positive purpose, but my point is that it can also deceive you into thinking that you are doing it for the benefit of all, when indeed ascension is birthed from the construct of separation.

Think about it. I ascend apart from those who stay mired in the grip of karma. It makes me better than those who remain stuck to the “spider web” of deception and illusion. It makes me separate. I am with the spiritual elite instead of the enfeebled humans who slog it out in the muds of ignorance. I’m climbing the ladder of consciousness and improving myself. How can that be bad?

It’s not. I’m not judging it as bad or wrong. I am pointing out that the perspective of the Sovereign Integral is that we are equal in our infinite selves. The covering of our infinitude is the human instrument that we all don on earth and this human instrument was designed to refract all quantum objects as being separate from ourselves. The human instrument—its perceptions of experience—reveal only the program, not the infinite being that it so cleverly conceals.

Thus, embracing ascension, as a process, encourages us to be separate. There is no eliteness in the consciousness of the Sovereign Integral. In fact, it is the opposite. It is recognizing that we all live in oneness and equality, and to the best of our abilities we express this in our behaviors. This requires us to pull down pretenses that might otherwise seem advantageous and even transcendent, so we can express our virtuous heart authentically without barriers and judgment.

Let’s take the second issue: abandonment. If we abandon earth and humanity for the sake of spiritual ascension, and that higher place to which we strive remains a fixture of illusion, we abandon one place of illusion for another. How is that improving us?

We’ve all heard the phrase, heaven on earth. It is a very real construct of the Sovereign Integral consciousness. It is the notion that living in a state of realization of one’s infinite self is possible within the human instrument. Until one is realized of their infinite self, they are deluded into thinking that the higher worlds, the light of enlightenment or heavenly realms are their goal.

They are like the woman who leaves her children to experience love with a stranger in a strange land. The love is not real and therefore does not last long, and when she returns to her children they have left her. The maternal bond has been disconnected. When we abandon the material world for the grasp of the spiritual, we lose the bond with the human dimension and the possibility of our role in birthing heaven on earth. We forget that we are all midwives for establishing heaven, or the Sovereign Integral state of consciousness, upon earth, for all human beings to share.

I realize many see the human instrument as the reason why heaven can never occur upon earth. As long as we are human, we are limited and vile. We seek pleasure and survival. We are animals. I understand this belief, but the scope of this process—of birthing the Sovereign Integral consciousness on earth—is not left to chance. It is the purpose of our species to free itself of our delusions, illusions and distortions and look clear-eyed into our depths, and to do this while living on earth in a human body.

This is our calling. Our collective purpose. However long it takes. However hard it is to achieve. It will happen.

A paraphrase of Captain Jean-Luc Picard seems appropriate: we will make it so.

 

 

Imagination: The Telescope of Consciousness

The role of imagination and why it is underutilized.

In a world of utter separation and disillusionment, it can be a very difficult task to imagine how we, the human race, could ever become unified through the expression of love as our primary behavior. Love expresses itself in the attitude of oneness and equality, and perceives all life as infinite beings, no matter how they are veiled in terms of personality and human cloak.

However, we are programmed to rush to anger or defensiveness anytime something or someone threatens, diminishes, impedes or aggravates our will and sense of security. In a world of constant surveillance, of diminishing freedoms, of steamrolling secularism, it is not easy to deny our programming.

This programming is based on two interdependent and primary features of human reality:

1) Separation

2) Deception

Each of us is separate and each of us lives in deception. This is a simple fact.

Separation begins the moment we don a human body (birth). We are instantly separated in three-dimensional reality. We are sealed away inside our body. It is a very strange experience to begin to see the world as separate from ourselves and that we exist separate from everyone and everything else. We become programmed by this prominent feature of reality to feel vulnerable and dependent.

The deception of our world is its illusory basis that describes our consciousness as an 80-year lifespan (on average) that is human with a possibly divine, yet undefined spiritual component. Because of this potential divine spark, we are allowed to believe in soul, but it remains only a belief, and therefore the deception is complete—we do not know our true self. (You might want to read The Fifth Interview of Dr. Jamisson Neruda for more detail on the Hologram of Deception).

The Suppression of the Imagination

The imagination is a faculty within the heart and mind of every individual. It is that part of us that can exercise a vision that is counterintuitive to the reality that surrounds us. Just as our eye-brain can use a telescope to see distant galaxies, the imagination is like a telescope of our consciousness. It allows us to reach out to the infinite. We are each inundated with stories and images of war, social dysfunction, freedom-stealing policies and technologies, all of which instill a sense of doom and gloom. Our imaginations are sat on by these heavy objects that we can generally call suppression events.

These suppression events introduce, over time, a false sense that we are fundamentally flawed and disempowered. We begin to believe the lie that our lives—or parts thereof—are mistakes that demand corrections or modifications. And where do you suppose those corrections will come from? Which government or religious institutions will correct our mistakes? The same institutions that design and issue the suppression events in the first place? Exactly.

The problem is that we have allowed our imaginations to be programmed by the suppression events and our imaginations have largely become atrophied as a result. Our imaginations are likened to a muscle that must be exercised in order to lift a heavy weight. In order to throw off the suppression events that literally sit on us, we may find value in using our imaginations regularly.

Applying the Imagination

Now the question becomes, in what manner or method do I exercise my imagination? In the Fifth Interview of Dr. Jamisson Neruda, I recommend a specific practice called Quantum Pause. This is a good starting point to exercise and expand the imagination. I say starting point, because I strongly suggest individuals adapt the Quantum Pause practice to themselves.

Imagination has been marginalized by academia in much the same way as words like myth or intuition. These are word concepts that sit at the fringe of acceptability, and yet they are, in many ways, the power concepts of our time. How these words became marginalized is an interesting study in itself, but the focus of this article is not on that, but rather on suggesting that each of you might want to find a way to exercise your imaginations.

 

 

But equally important is the way you apply your imagination, and to that extent, I suggest you have a look at Quantum Pause, and see if there are any aspects of that tool that you could use to formulate your own technique. These are some of the key aspects to consider when developing your own:

• Rhythmic breathing

• Visualization of specific imaginative activities

• Gathering inward (reception) and expressing outward (transmission) in a cycle

• Connection to earth, life and infinitude

• Appreciation to Creator in communication

• Integration of the heart virtues

• The paradox of empowered humility

The Quantum Pause technique is an inner technology based on the imagination and human physiology operating as one. It is designed to ease the suppression events’ impact and effect on our emotional and mental attitudes, but more importantly, to enable us to lessen the density of the veil that surrounds us. This helps us see with greater clarity and to understand our infinite selves a little more.

Tiny effects can shift the well-being of an individual. Similarly, tiny changes in the imaginative faculty when it is aligned to the heart virtues and the expression of love, equality and oneness, can assist all of us. Those seven key ingredients mentioned above are a recipe for your imagination to grow in its potency and to ensure it is applied to the benefit of all.