Life Goes On Within You and Without You
(c) Robert Neil Boyd

Emotion is a sense, and a very primal one. Very Important! All things which exist have the sense of emotion. Emotions are experiences. Fact! One of my famous sayings: "Beliefs are traps." Perceiving Reality becomes simple when one learns the proper use of the capacities of the intellect.

On examination, it seems to me that at one level, the individual can become lost in the acculturization process, and in the indoctrinations which are imposed upon the intellect, the "programming", as it were. At the deeper level, the individual still exists as a Unique expression of Divinity. The issue is, to what degree is the Individual subsumed by the intellectual indoctrinations. Still, the Individual remains, regardless. But this is the problematic area: Whether the Individual is paramount, or the indoctrinations are paramount...

From a frame outside of the intellect, we have the capacity to perceive beyond what is true according to our thoughts, and to perceive the underlying Central Reality. Everything has Consciousness, remember? Each and every thing which exists is involved in this existence, and participates in the process of its unfoldment. This reality existed before we came here, and it will continue after we leave here. There is a Central Reality, an Absolute, as it were. It can be discovered through the senses. And it will be obscured by, and when, the attention is exclusively on thoughts, and the imaginings resulting from thoughts.

There are many interpenetrating realities! Not just one! If you explore some more in these directions, I am sure you will come to concur with my expression of the existence of multiple interpenetrations.

Mental constructs such as "Astral Plane" do not describe these interpenetrations, however. "Astral plane" is a label, a concept that limits facts that can be experienced directly; facts that are the Reality, not some concept about an aspect of reality which has never been experienced. The experience of a "flying dream," for example, is an out of body experience (OOBE), and not "Astral Travel". If you have done this, so what? Anyone can learn to do this, and more, in their awake and aware state.

Another mental construct is the confusion between imagination with Inner Vision. What is the origination of the imagination? The intellect. The intellect is limited and limiting, by Godel's Law. No way around this fact... So, if you are imagining something, you are in Disneyland. Go beyond your imagination, and see what is there, actually. The Inner Vision IS NOT a function of the intellect or the imagination. The Inner Vision is a SENSE, just as valid as the normal sense of sight.

A colleague wrote the following:

"The experiences of this world make themselves known to us through the unending series of emotional transformations through which people move. I and others have been taught to recognize the first faint presence of a negative emotion and to instantly move our attention away from it. This is not the avoidance of feeling, but the supra alertness to that which has survival value and that which does not. Once, I allowed a drop of jealousy to enter into my consciousness. As I gave my attention to it, it began to become an overpowering reality and I gradually lost my consciousness of who I am and what my purpose is. I had entered into an experience and the emotional transformation which I felt was the direct consequence of losing control of the movement of my attention. It is attention that determines where the body eventually moves. In like manner, but unknown to the majority of those caught within the illusion of intellect, our attention also governs the thoughts we think, the memories we have and the emotions we feel. Examine, if you are able, how easily attention becomes lost in the slightest thought, and before long, we have lost our awareness of who we are and come to identify with the very thoughts we think as if they are us."

The importance of this statement cannot be overly stressed! Whatever your attention is on, IS YOUR REALITY! The experience described above is an example of this.

Another construct that is frequently used in discussions of this nature is the term "The Mental Plane". Mental "plane"??? I prefer to use the more exact description of "condition". Thereby, this phrase would read, "the mental condition". There is an important difference, semantically.

Perceiving reality from a frame of reference other than one's current mental condition, and experiencing the resulting harmony is not a trap. It is a reward. Just because you have tasted some luscious new kind of fruit, does that mean that there are no more new kinds of fruit which one can discover and taste? Of course not! Why stop at the first fruit you find then?

The intellect is always hard at work, surviving! (Which is part of its job.). It does not take many lifetimes to realize that the Being is not the thought. I can bring such awareness to any Being, in this lifetime. As soon as one person gets it, everybody gets it. It is important not to mistake knowledge for truth or mental understanding for spiritual realization, but one does NOT have to die to gain a greater truth. What needs to happen is for the intellect to abandon all control to the Heart-Sense.

Let me quote a Buddhist aphorism:

"Whether sitting, or walking,
Silent, or talking,
The Essence Itself
Is always at ease."

Another mental construct that is often used is "Soul". What do you mean then, actually, when you use this word "soul"? For example, a colleague stated, "Soul must then rise from the ashes of Its illusions and discover the greater truths which await Its recognition." I think we need to find another label for this. Soul is not the right one. Many individuals refer to having a "soul". Conceptually, they think that they do, or that they ought to. But what have they experienced, actually? Does the "soul" have possessions? If you say "yes", you are wrong. And if you say "no", you are wrong. What do I mean by this?

How do we progress beyond the mental constructs, then? Many seek to create what they call spiritual awareness or greater consciousness through the use of substances. I recall an incident where a yogic adept was offered an inordinately large dose of LSD, which the adept consumed out of curiosity. The dose was so large that it would have rendered most people incapacitated. The adept remarked only that the effects were disappointingly shallow, when compared with the experiences he obtained from his yogic practices. The adept was not unduly effected by the large dose, thereafter. So the story is told...

Certain substances are available for those who need to get going on the right path, and have never had any prior experiences. A sort of "jump-start", as it were... But these are just to get the ball rolling. Then the individual must steer their own course, and never stop. The specific path of their unfoldment is unique to each unique individual, but there is a common element. We can put this in a single word. That word is: Devotion.

Remember that science is based on logical processes, and therefore is limited by Godel's Law. However, it is entirely possible to have supra-physical experiences which can be described mathematically, and then incorporated into the physics. I have been doing this sort of thing for years. There are greater laws that govern the laws of physics, however. It is very important to experience the facts of Reality, the core truths of existence. It is common to state that these core truths "must be awakened from within." No. Remember, everything has Consciousness. Everything can be a vehicle for The All. The awakening can more easily come from Without! Because, it is All One, after all, don't you see? The problem is that to encourage those with no prior experience to "go within" results typically in that person "contemplating their navel", so to speak, and getting no Direct Experience thereby, subsequently abandoning such an endeavor as useless.

In addition, the involutionary process is exclusionary. That is to say, such an approach removes one from the senses, from the Reality in which we Live. This results in limitations of the understandings about the Infinite. And limitations are thereby imposed on what can be directly experienced. An analogy would be to wear a blindfold until one develops the sense of hearing to some abnormal degree. Nice, but you're missing a great portion of the world, it must be admitted,

I could speak for the rest of my life about what I have discovered by exploring the Outside. Because, you see, the Outside eventually becomes the Inside.

Of All Things...

"Your outside is in
And your inside is out
Your inside is out
and your outside is in
So come on!
Come on!
Come on it's such a joy!
Come on it's such a joy!
Come on and take it easy!
Come on and Make it easy!
Everybody's got something to hide
'Cept for me and my monkey!
The higher you fly
The deeper you go
An' the deeper you go
The higher you fly
So come on!..."

-The Beatles

"Tat Svam Asi" - "Thou Art That"- (which you have your attention on)
So place the attention on the Divine, and BE Divine.

You are already.

It's in All Things.

"...And Life goes on within you,

And without you." [dual meaning is in this statement]

- The Beatles