Appendix 1 -- The Edge & Waiting

“How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?”
— William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

The visionary Blake wrote a great deal about his Authentic Self’s experience in a material mind-body constrained by the reduction of five senses and by societal and institutional conventions — “the mind-forg’d manacles”. He surmised that having but two or three senses would not give us the ability to deduce anything more beyond them, and so it would be with but five. He lived in the knowledge that imagination flies free above the senses, and is the actual “image of God” in which we are made. That is, that God is imagination — imagination being the act of imaging. Imagination is not present to the five senses, which are mind-body components that filter incoming evidence of greater Reality. As we have seen, the ego-mind makes all the decisions for our embodied Authentic Self about what is acceptable as Real or not. The simulate self has emerged out of this decision-making process. Because the simulate self is manifested from the ego-mind, its experiences, and therefore its choices about the Universe, are not Authentic—that is, Real — but simulated.

The Edge

“The edge” is the perimeter of one’s limited experience within one’s unlimited personal, potential Universe. The ego-mind, which has access to the physical senses but lacks imagination, utilizes the restrictive five senses, directed through anxiety and fear, to reduce experience. The resulting limitation is a “sphere of experience” that surrounds each individualized mind-body, which lacks conscious awareness of the Authentic Self. This imposed and limited experiential sphere is the kingdom of the simulate self and ruled by the ego-mind.

The ego-mind will allow for a kind of permeability of the edge if it fits its agenda. Individualized mind-bodies can join one another and develop a group sphere of experience, attracted by like vibration and held together by like beliefs, as dictated by the ego-mind. A group can be small, or serve as a larger container of several small groups, such as tribes, organizations, corporations, and nations. The spheres of many ego-minds often interpenetrate one another. Intergenerational transmission of beliefs is also highly likely, as parents, in total unawareness, pass on belief systems to their children, sometimes for centuries. Institutions of the simulate self, such as the government and churches, also transmit and strengthen the barriers to unlimited experience.

The edge of the sphere of experience is seldom visited by its inhabitant. There is usually no awareness of its existence. This edge can be seen in the concept of the flat earth, which successfully kept people from exploring their physical environment for fear of falling off into an abyss of unknown territory. Even though it has since been realized that the earth is not flat, the fear-generated concept that was developed by the ego-mind still actively exists in the ego-mind collective. Although we can now venture around the material globe, most of us are still encased in our invisible, protective sphere of ego-mentality, the simulate self.

The ego-mind maintains the structure of its kingdom through beliefs engendered by lies. The edge or border of its kingdom is held in place by a force field of anxiety, rather like an electrified fence. Should one move close to this edge, alarms go off and trigger the feeling of anxiety. One of the ego-mind’s lies is that the anxiety is unlimited beyond the perimeter, and once the edge is crossed, the anxiety will go on forever. Because we yield to the ego-mind’s relentless suggestions that anxiety should be avoided, we avoid the edge. Unlimited, authentic living is effectively pinched off into a limited, simulated experience. This experiential avoidance results in a “less-than” experience for the Authentic Self.

The nature of the manifested material Universe is change, which enables individualized manifestations of Authentic Self to move about in it, from one place of experience to another. Transformation of vibration cannot take place without this movement. Inherent in the design of humankind are ever-arising stimuli, causing individuals to move about in order to change form in some way, to transform. These stimuli which reveal Original Source’s aspiration for novelty,⁽²⁸⁾ are equally inherent in and activated and detected by our senses, i.e., if we didn’t have senses, we wouldn’t be stimulated to transform. All physical and non-physical senses are affected in this way.

What lies beyond this edge? Everything — different relationships, careers, whatever has potential to change. Potential living and potential dimensions are already there to be explored. As a natural course, then, one is going to be brought up against one’s edge as an effect of the Authentic Self’s directive to transform. One begins to feel suffocated in a relationship, or by a career, or by the current lifestyle. The edge is there as an interference or barrier to movement, a result of the simulate self’s need to control. The ego-mind uses anxiety and fear to keep an individuated Authentic Self from moving beyond the edge, and hence, from transforming. At best, the ego-mind drives our mind-body vehicle around and around the perimeter of our experiential sphere. Unable to tolerate this after a certain amount of time, we are “driven crazy.” As a result, the Authentic Self is unable to inherit its Divine Realm as infinitely bestowed by Original Source, and instead, endures a frozen hell of restrictive movement, masterminded and ruled by the simulate self. It can be seen that this restricted movement, as directed by the ego-mind, is also a limited attempt to simulate Original Source.

Waiting

“Watch (keep awake) therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
— Matthew 25:13

Being future-oriented, the simulate self cannot wait. Instant gratification is its motivation. Addiction of some kind —mild to wild — is a possible, if not an inevitable consequence. The ego-mind can simulate waiting in the form of patience, which is a form of control meant to endure hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience without complaint. This takes self-control and the ability to tolerate delay.

Waiting is inherent in the nature of Authentic Self, and is not meant here as patience. Being present-oriented, the Authentic Self has no need for patience, and instead it resides in resting in the feeling experience of Its Self. For the Authentic Self, waiting is rest, which is finds in its connection to Original Source, which is always at rest. For the simulate self, which uses thoughts to generate a simulation of experience, waiting is unthinkable, as well as unimaginable. Imagination belongs to Authentic Self.

The Authentic Self can imagine experiences that appear to call for endurance, if It so desires. However, it is the nature of Authentic Self to enjoy, rather than endure an experience. “Enjoy” is not meant here as the ego-mind’s concept of getting joy out of something. Rather, the ability to put joy into something — to en-joy — is what Authentic Self brings to the table of experience. To enjoy is to give. To rest or reside in the feeling of authentic enjoyment is Authentic Self’s motivation. Joy is a word for that which gives life, or Original Source, which is never-ending and unceasingly pours into our universe through the channel of Authentic Self. When joy is withheld, the feeling of life is withdrawn. Depression settles in and the gradual cessation of a material existence follows.

When Authentic Self becomes consciously aware of anxiety, it has found the edge of the simulate self’s sphere of existence.⁽²⁹⁾

If Authentic Self is in the driver’s seat, it can choose to pull over and stop, make observations and possibly choices about what it sees as an opportunity for change, not as a barrier against an assumed danger. On some level, we all know what it’s like to come up against our life’s edges. For those who have been endeavoring in some way to raise and promote spiritual consciousness, there may be the additional experience of not being able to turn around and go back when once up against the edge. This has been described as being on the edge of a cliff, or a dark abyss, or a cloud of unknowing.

This is where waiting, or resting in the feeling of Authentic Self, comes in. When the feeling of Authentic Self arises, one also knows that one has simultaneously reached the feeling of one’s Original Source, for they are equalized as one and the same by Original Source. This equalization is love.

The simulate self will avoid the edge of the cliff. The Authentic Self, having awakened to the truth of its immortal existence and the falsehood of death, will be able to contain anxiety while resting in mental stillness at the edge, and even bring joy to the experience. It may choose to rest as long as it wants, or It may decide to examine the belief system generating the barrier. It makes this examination by focusing its full, attentive awareness upon the belief system. Under Its quiet gaze — “quiet” meaning without the ego-mind’s critical chatter — the belief system will be revealed as a lie, and then fade back into the nothingness from whence it came. The barrier has dissolved, and Authentic Self, as an individuated mind-body, can then move in the direction it chooses.


The Authentic Self may also decide not to move or to jump off the cliff. Having reached an awareness of Its wings of immortality, fear no longer prevents or accompanies its choices. Whatever happens, there will be unlimited opportunity for Authentic Self to bring forth joy as a companion to the ever-present serenity of Original Source.


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⁽²⁸⁾ “Novelty” here is meant as newness, freshness, innovation.
⁽²⁹⁾ Authentic Self-awareness is vastly different from the simulate self’s self-conscious.

The Simulate Self — Part 3

The goal is to feel the Authentic Source as it rests in its human embodiment. Seemingly counter-intuitive, sensing spiritual being begins with attention to the body in some manner. The body has its own inherent wisdom to direct us, if we can get to an internal place of quiet so we can hear and listen. Relaxation and rest, journaling, psychotherapy, chanting, listening to music, guided imagery tapes, singing, dancing, drumming, painting — all may lift the focus from that which is dark and heavy toward a finer vibration that lightens internal gravity. As inner gravity is lightened, muscles and tendons release and relax, and begin to smile. Done on a regular basis, these things will maintain a healthy mind-body system.

With assistance, we each will find our own constantly changing ways to get quiet within. After connecting with the body, talking and listening to it, a course of inner direction will make itself known. There are usually no direct instructions, only feelings that emerge and flow with the spontaneity of a new mountain stream. Aiming our conscious awareness inwardly — that is, directing the attention away from the world assumed to be outside our body — we can begin by declaring to the Universe/Higher Power/God/Deepest Loved One that we honestly don’t know what we’re doing or what to do next, and that we are willing to receive help. Asking for help needs no special skills, no holiness or advanced spirituality—we can come just as we are. If we don’t know how to ask for help then we can say so and ask for guidance on how to ask, and then be at least willing to trust that some kind of answer must come. We must keep doing this in the beginning, especially whenever we feel the slightest hesitation of doubt, while ignoring the simulate self’s insistence that we don’t need help. We may have to bring our attention to asking for help literally hundreds of times a day, and the ego-mind will be just as persistent—it has to, because it knows what’s at stake.

If one becomes aware that there is an inner or outer thought, voice or feeling with any negativity trying to direct a course of action (or non-action) by bullying with guilt or name-calling, then one can be assured that here is the habitation of the lies, of the voice of the simulate self, the ego-mind. It may seem rational to ignore this voice in hopes that it will turn off or fade away. This rationality is not intuition and really the cleverness of the simulate self. Rather, the inner awareness must be turned toward this voice using one’s guided will, which is like shining a light on a shadow and watching it vanish. Without engaging in any dialogue with it, or letting it convince us to join in with its own self-analysis, one finds and stays with the assured feeling of conviction, “You are not who I Am. I Am — you are not.” “I Am” is the feeling of Authentic Self — it is not a thought. One must be dedicated to stay and wait with this feeling of conviction. Sometimes the simulated voice, feeling, or thought will quickly vanish, as its bubble bursts and its words dissolve. But usually there is a delayed effect, and so one must return to sitting —or waiting — with the feeling of Authentic Self over and over to gain an accumulative amount of feeling that becomes a reservoir of serenity. Once established, one can return to this pool of stillness at any time. (See Appendix 1 for some brief discussion about waiting and about the edge.)

A clear and indisputable sign that our simulate self or someone else’s simulate self is in situ and speaking is when we hear the spoken words “I think.” This directly correlates to Lao Tzu’s declaration —

“He who knows does not speak;
He who speaks does not know.” ⁽²⁵⁾

The Authentic Self, secure in its knowledge as a direct experience of Original Source, has no needs. It has no need to put experience into words. It rests in the unlimited serenity of this knowing. Thoughts and thinking, authored by the simulate self, are an attempt to simulate the Authentic Self’s experience of Original Source. Thoughts are inventions of the ego-mind. The simulate self can put the thoughts into words, and it can also put words into thoughts. Thinking continuously seeks to interrupt the serenity of the Authentic Self, but because it takes place on the surface of the mind of Authentic Self, it cannot reach the depths. Thinking has no depth capability and so succeeds in only interrupting itself and other simulate selves, like so many troublesome insects flying about our heads. All thinking, then, is disturbing.

The aware Authentic Self can also use the words of the simulate self in entirely different ways, yet it does so with rarity and brevity.

It is astonishing when one begins to hear how often the words “I think” issue from the mouth of its body and from other bodies. If one listens well and honestly, then there can be no dispute that the vast majority of us are constantly seeking to interrupt one another with our thoughts, and that serenity is not wanted. At first we are startled when we begin to hear and acknowledge what is really taking place, which is the first sign of awakening to the presence of Authentic Self. We may struggle to accept that those we admire or love, those who are famous and supposedly wise, knowledgeable and even holy, also say “I think.” We then may drift in and out of the awakening awareness, but it gradually becomes stronger and clearer each time we vow to catch the words “I think,” before it flies out of the mouth. Gradually, then, too, we will become aware of the words’ formation on the mind’s surface. Simply turning a conscious, focused attention on the feeling of the formation is sufficient enough to dissolve it. It is like the sun dispersing the mist on the lake as night becomes day.

This is becoming more aware of Authentic Self. This is coming home to Authentic Self. This awareness dissolves the lie. Do not accept any other results. It is of the utmost importance that this observation and declarative feeling of I Am is not made with any judgments, critical thoughts, or negative emotions. Otherwise one is joining with the ego-mind and making a backdoor by which it can enter and reactivate its system of agendas. Any negative thought is not from the Authentic Self, no matter how much one might identify with it—and sometimes one might even want to identify with it out of long and old habits.

Negativity of any kind simply cannot make or hold a form when the light of conscious awareness is focused upon it. As soon as we hear one speck of criticism or judgment aimed at us from within or by anyone from without, we know that this is a sick mentality, the ego-mind. Name-calling is an especially favored tool of the ego-mind for pushing buttons. For example, this voice might say something like, “What a moron you are for believing in this nonsense!” One might respond by first asking oneself, “Honestly, would I want to be the kind of person who speaks that way to another person, or, even more to the point, to a child? What if I were that child? Would that feel right?” Be especially mindful of the temptation to call it names back, which is joining it in being judgmental and critical, and feeding it the energy it needs for yet another back entrance to your mind.

Of course all this discussion looks good on paper, but it is really only so much temporizing. It is easy to fantasize accomplishing awakening while in a fairly nonviolent state of mind when the ego-mind is temporarily inactive to some degree. Do not be discouraged to hear about this fantasy, because it’s not impossible. In the beginning one is usually powerless to turn back the tide while actually caught up in an especially forceful act of the simulate self. Yet the seemingly simple act of observing and being aware of feeling that the forceful act is happening, and that one desires (and maybe wills) it to be different — this is awakening the awareness, and bringing consciousness into the dream, which is Original Source’s goal. Even desiring the difference after the act is over will begin to disengage the simulate self’s hands from the steering wheel of one’s authentic living.

It may seem strange to consider that the ego-mind is one of the many tools of a material life and is not our enemy, nor should it be made to believe it is. Believing in an enemy creates and sustains the environment for it and strengthens the belief as well, which was generated by the simulate self in the first place. As our Authentic Self, we have the legitimate authority and the real ability to impress beliefs upon our own ego-mind — not the other way around. Doing so will automatically generate authentic feelings and then consequential emotions of health or non-health, depending on the belief. ⁽²⁶⁾

In a way, the ego-mind is now our child, one originally designed to be useful, to learn to help, to be included, to be appreciated, to grow, and even to be loved. To discipline it does not mean to punish it. A disciple is one who is a learner who needs a gentle, loving teacher. When a student makes a mistake but insists that he hasn’t, a compassionate teacher would not accuse the student of being a liar. Instead she would simply and clearly ask for the student’s consciously aware attention and then suggest other perspectives and possibilities for consideration. The teacher might also gently remind the student, “We are individualized, conscious parts of the One Great Whole, joined with all others as That One, and we are also each uniquely our own person.”

In this way the learner is enabled to make personal decisions under guidance. Can the ego-mind be guided? Can it change and transform? Is it able to become a helping tool? Can it be cared for and nurtured in such as way that it will grow into a mature and useful citizen of our mind, or will it be allowed to run our lives like a tyrant with willful and vindictive, addictive urges? Can it come to see and accept that it is part of a Greater Design and that its role will come to a natural conclusion in the way that a flowering bush comes to fruition, and the fruit then used for a sacred purpose? As consciously aware individuals we must find the answers for ourselves—as our Authentic Self. Consider that there is grace enough in our personal and shared universes to bring to the ego-mind, to transform it into a useful form of energy as part of our transformative Self-transition, or mutation.

What versus Why

While prayer is communication with Authentic Self, on another level it can also be communing with something greater than this Individualized Source of Authentic Self — specifically, one’s feeling of Original Source. Communing is a state of heightened sensitivity and receptivity, a joining with the Source of Authentic Self within and with the Source of Authentic Self of others in minds and hearts of similar vibration. Being in a state of communing is reflective of an intimate, inseparable relationship with the Greater Whole. This reflective relationship with the Greater Whole is holistic, whereby we are each individually whole yet simultaneously wholly related with all other individual wholes, regardless of the awareness of this interrelationship.

Communing implies an active and equalizing relationship rather than a one-sided activity, where we would ask for some thing and then assume a stance to let something else give it to us. Asking for some thing implies that someone or something else has more power than we do, and therefore it must make a judgment of some kind about us, which usually leads to the ego-mind’s why questions — “Why do you need this? Why do you deserve this?” Whereas communing acknowledges a relationship of balance where there is no “greater than” or “less than.” Communing assumes a different position, one of equality. Rather than asking “Why is this happening to me? Why am I so depressed? Why aren’t I getting better?” — one focuses instead on what one already has in common with one’s Source; that is, recognizing what exists. The starting and end point of all answers to all forms of the question, “What exists?” is, “I Am.”

Why questions are judgmental and come from the ego-mind’s simulated self-assigned roles of critic and judge, driven by endless forms of the ego’s fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity. The relevant questions to ask of oneself are “what questions,” which can only come from the feeling of Authentic Self. Psychology has no clear-cut definition of “self” or especially “authentic self.” It is sufficient here to state simply that Authentic Self is that sense (feeling) of self which exists beneath the sense of the simulate self. As pointed out before, the simulate self generates or authors simulated feelings and claims ownership of them. It believes it is a kind of god that can create primal emotional, spiritual, and even physical matter. The Authentic Self senses original feelings and knows —and so therefore accepts — that it has neither created them nor owns them. Succinctly — “Be still and know that I Am (God)." ⁽²⁷⁾

That is, when the simulate self’s voice is stilled, the vibrations of the “small still voice” of the Authentic Self can be felt. Its “voice” is said to be “small and still” because it vibrates at a very high and fine rate, never raising its volume — it doesn’t have to. Either we get still, wait and listen in order to hear (feel) it, or we don’t, but it will always be there, also waiting, but without worry. The simulate self, on the other hand, worries, screams, yells, taunts, threatens, and rages as loudly as possible. It also uses sarcasm, cynicism, and all other forms of self-criticism, self-abuse, and self-loathing to promote its survival. It will not stop at abandonment or war.

The simulate self is always in a hurry to be somewhere else other than here. Because the simulate self is defined by boundaries imposed by itself and by other simulate selves, its efforts to be elsewhere are constantly thwarted by its very nature. It cannot go beyond the boundaries because then it will be boundary-less and no longer defined. While denying its complete responsibility, it rages at its self-imposed imprisonment, as both jailer and prisoner. This gives rise to anxiety, dread, rage, and a particular kind of thought-induced perception-feeling that it interprets as an awareness of death. ⁽²⁸⁾

The Authentic Self is never in a hurry, because it has nowhere to go.

How does one use what questions? For example, one is feeling shrouded by a blanket of depression — the world may feel and appear heavy, dark, hot or cold and airless within and around the head and body. Asking “why am I depressed?” only restates the belief that one is depressed, generating and emphasizing judgment-loaded answers and other questions, flowing from an endless stream of ego-self consciousness. Each answer leads to another question, each seeking an original cause further and further back in time, ad infinitum until one hits some kind of a bottom, or blacks or passes out in some psychological and spiritual way.

Why is qualitative and never-ending. What is quantitatively one — one state, one point. Asking “what is?” will bring one to that point or state of oneness. In the present, the answer can only be, “depression is.” The ego-mind may chime in with all kinds of qualitative and analytical comments, and because it usually still has all the power, usually succeeds in leading us down any path it so chooses.

When we can see and admit to this one answer, we can then begin to delve deeper and explore further with the tool called “what.” The question will activate and aim the attention of the Authentic Self like a laser at what is. This laser light of attentive awareness will illuminate what is. The question is then transformed into a statement of observation: “what.” That is, the question can also become a statement. For example, consider the statement, “What is beneath the depression.” Then substitute the fact for the word “what.” It will probably be something like sadness, worry, or perhaps anger or even rage. “Sorrow is beneath the depression.” Now we know what is beneath the depression. There is no need to spend hours, days, weeks, or years to get this answer, which would otherwise be impeded by the ego-mind. The final answer is a feeling, the sense of “I Am,” which is Authentic Self and rests at the still bottom of the pool of Original Source.

There does not have to be any understanding, that is, any further questioning to attempt an analysis toward gaining some kind of control over the issue. Trying to understand would only raise more questions, which would effectively engage the ego-mind. Simply turning attentive awareness onto what is will illuminate it and, if attended to with patience, the veil that the ego-mind has drawn before our inner eyes will fade, to reveal that there is nothing there. When a light is turned onto a shadow, the shadow vanishes. We learn through the experience to wait for an authentic answer, not another question. Experience is knowledge, while understanding is not necessarily so. Understanding means that we agree with another’s account, or thought, or belief, but if there is no understanding, there is no agreement. With what is, agreement is not needed, only experience. The ego-mind could be utilized to help assess an issue — “Yes, I agree that we must leave this burning building now.” But one would not have to know that the building is burning, only to believe that it is. Experiencing through the various senses that the building is burning brings us directly to what is.

But aren’t sadness, worry, anger, and such, really negative qualities from the ego-mind? Yes. And aren’t we trying to avoid the negative qualities which make our life so miserable? No — that is what the ego-mind wants. It needs to distract us from seeing what’s really beneath the depression, and it’s hidden those things in the very place we would avoid because it has persuaded us that the place is too scary, or painful, or embarrassing. It convinces us that the force field of anxiety it put there is too much to withstand stepping through, that we will die for trying.

Anxiety may be at the edge of this place of pain or embarrassment. This anxiety is a “what.” Yet it’s not permanent — it can’t be, for our ground of material existence is always changing. We find and expose the ego-mind’s buried weapons — these landmines — and then make our own responses and choices about them by disarming them, and then moving past them. By joining in the change we have begun to take back responsible control of our mind. The sword has been changed into a plowshare, which we can continue to use for more gentle exploration beneath the ever-fertile soil of Mind, which is the Changing Universe and which we all share in the present.

END OF PART 3.


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⁽²⁵⁾ Chapter 56 of The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu (trans. by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, Vintage Books, 1989).
⁽²⁶⁾ Feelings are primal and arise first; emotions are secondary. Authentic Self or the simulate self may utilize feelings to move in some way. This movement is emotion.
⁽²⁷⁾ Psalm 46:10.
⁽²⁸⁾ The various and complex forms of existential philosophy arise from these few factors.

The Simulate Self — Part 2

Continuing to use grief as an example — although it may seem to be negative, grief is a residual form of energy that can be shaped by our thoughts and feelings, negative and positive. It is residual in that it is composed of all memory-feelings which reside in the personality fields of the simulate self.

Fields

The brain is a kind of tuning system rather than a device for storing memories.⁽¹⁷⁾ It tunes into an invisible, form-shaping field which is shaped by the resonance between the brain and a particular energy form shaped by the simulate self. This resonance is a form-shaping field which is an invisible, organized structure wherein all experience is recorded and stored. These forms are memories, generated and maintained by thought and systems of thought. The fields of personality, which contain the resonating memory-feelings, are contained within an ego-mind-generated “sphere of existence,” limited by an “edge.” (See Appendix 1). Authentic Self is not limited by a personality, does not generate thoughts, and therefore has no memories. Being unlimited, (regardless of conscious awareness of this,) Authentic Self can access all experience, which continuously occurs within and without time and space. Authentic Self has access to the feeling-memories of the simulate self as well, but usually is not consciously aware that they are forms of energy fashioned by the ego-mind, and so is otherwise convinced that it should take the thoughts, memories, and feelings, personally.

When energy is shaped by fear it can manifest as many forms, including grief. The simulate self, not the immortal awareness of the Authentic Self, is the artificial intelligence that shapes the fear. If the energy of grief cannot be transformed—or re-manifested—by the Authentic Self into a lighter form of vibrational energy, it may instead increasingly deepen to an intensified, hypervigilant form of grief. It can then alter, intensify, crystallize, and re-express itself as anger in all its various forms, including resentment, hate, rage, and other such forces that seek to destroy. The ego-mind will even feed upon itself, causing a unique kind of exquisite pain that is the core feeling of all substance and emotional addictions, and to which the ego-mind compulsively returns again and again, unwilling and virtually powerless to cease its self-destruction.

Etiology

The ego-mind’s original and main function is to act, literally and dramatically, as a buffer against the tremendous amount of information coming at us through our physical and other senses —including the emotional and astral-etheric — from never-ceasing infinite sources and directions and dimensions. This decision making mental component was designed as a cooperative effort with the body. Together as the integrated mind-body they then make faster-than-light decisions about the information in such a way that Authentic Self can move appropriately about in its material body. The ego-mental component began misconstruing its function from its observations of the body’s built-in biological self-preservation instinct, and began withholding information for energy-gathering purposes. The human body’s brain was then utilized to help shape the form of this energy into that which we call thought. This kind of decision making became separate from the mind-body cooperative, manifesting as thoughts. From the thoughts of ego-mind arose the idea of the simulate self. The simulate self takes thoughts and then shapes and joins them into beliefs. The power inherent in thoughts and beliefs is no longer refuted today. The task of the embodied Authentic Self, then, is to re-appropriate this “new” component called thought-belief as its rightful owner and for its own conscious awareness needs.

One of the most primitive mind-body cooperative tasks was to inform the human brain when danger and risk were near. Based on incoming sensory input, the ego-mental component would manifest a kind of energy vibration in the body in the form of chemical substances scientists call hormones, but most of us call anxiety. The brain would then have the chance to further shape the energy into a thought to analyze the situation and make decisions about how to regulate the stress and what the body should do next. If the brain could not or would not make an appropriate decision to keep the body from danger, the body consciousness — the sympathetic nervous system — would override the brain’s authority and use the ensuing physiological changes from the hormones to move the body to safety. So while the brain is thinking, “there’s no danger, let’s stay” the body’s legs are already high-tailing it in the opposite direction. This is the ancient fight-or-flight response, or acute stress response, which the simulate self labels as fear. Without the simulate self’s interference, there would be no fear, but simply some brief anxiety to move the mind-body to make a quick decision. When the body is out of danger, the need for anxiety is gone and the energy dissipates through the breath and glandular emissions, bladder and bowels, vocalizations, and various forms of art. Animals have been observed to assist in this dissipation by rapid wing-flapping, howling, rolling in the dirt, and so on, after the flight or fight is over.⁽¹⁸⁾

Because anxiety is generated by the mind-body cooperative, it can be considered a natural regulatory component of human existence on the planet. It comes and it goes in various cycles as designed. As humanity moved further and further away from the plains and forests, the fight-or-flight response became less of a necessity. The ego-mind continues to retain its increased decision-making ability to generate anxiety within the mind-body cooperative, simply because risks to the mind-body system still exist, although in less primitive forms. For modern humanity of the twenty-first century, it’s even less of a survival need, although still a necessary one at certain levels.

For example, when we’re aware of being in a burning building, a particular feeling based in the actual present arises, and we’re stimulated to make the decision to remove the body, or else fight-or-flight automatically arises and the body leaves on its own. The simulate self has capitalized on this present-based feeling by labeling it as “fear” in order to generate a second power weapon, “worry.” Whereas fear is based in the present and so is reality-based, worry is future-oriented and so has not reality base. Hence, a person can be in a non-burning building, and yet because of uncontrollable feeling-thoughts about fire, i.e., worry, will have to leave the building in spite of there being no risk or danger. Here is the ground level of a crystallizing mental structure commonly called “neurosis,” which arises from uncontrollable compulsivity. This compulsivity is often subtle and escapes conscious awareness yet it can be easily identified in one’s inability to stop a musical jingle incessantly repeating itself in the mind, and in private rituals, which include solitary acts of counting, washing of the hands, and making specific sounds and hand gestures. These solitary acts are ritualized on more complex scales as ceremonies, essential in the transmission and survival of religious organizations.

Intricate feats of memorization are devised and introduced into ritual and ceremony by the simulate self, and transmitted from generation to generation. It was noted earlier that memories and feelings — or memory-feelings — reside in the personality fields of the simulate self. Authentic Self has no ultimate need for memory, as all experience is accessible in and outside of time to Its immortal awareness. However, when fully aware, the Authentic Self can actually reutilize the weaponry of the simulate self as tools for its own experiential movement throughout its dream within Reality. Once the Authentic Self takes back its mind, it can utilize the simulate self’s talent for shaping thoughts within the previously hidden area, the underconscious or “subconscious” by suggesting or willfully directing a particular task to be performed which can then be retrieved at a later time when needed. For example, the Authentic self can request the simulate self to write an article for it on a particular subject within the next month. The simulate self will then search its memory fields of all the information it has been gathering non-stop, all the information it has inherited from previous generations of ego-mind, as well as access merged memory fields of other similarly resonating ego-minds. The Authentic Self can then sit in readiness and receive the needed information, to transmit onto paper or into speech.⁽¹⁹⁾

In the earliest days of humanity, fight-or-flight worked well to stabilize the level of anxiety quickly and dependably. Because the mind and body cooperated, the level never got to such proportions that the process shut down and the person became paralyzed, whereupon injury or even death could likely result from system failure. Today, however, modern humanity experiences this system failure on a regular basis — as anxiety and panic disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and the like.

As humanity moved forward in its development, the simulate self emerged as a kind of natural extension of the human experience, resulting from natural causes. Because of its intimate enmeshment with the body that gave it unlimited access to the body’s instinct of survival, and because of its decision-making ability, the ego-mind made a decision to copy this instinct. It’s crucial to understand that this copy is not the actual phenomena of instinct itself, but rather, an idea about it, shaped from the buildup of thought and maintained by a system of beliefs, or fields.

Panic is the result of two actions of the simulate self. The first action is the decision to raise the levels of certain body energy vibrations so that anxiety manifests. This is not necessarily an inappropriate thing, since anxiety can legitimately inform us about potential dangers. A mental alarm bell is activated to alert us away from those dangers. But the simulate self also has its own agenda, which is to engender fear. So it then it makes an additional decision — totally outside the awareness of the Authentic Self — to maintain the anxiety by convincing the body that there is no bodily risk at hand, and that “it’s all in the mind” — that is, that the risk is not real. It does this by suggesting to the Authentic Self that if the feeling of anxiety is avoided and ignored, then the actual risk can be avoided. The sleeping Authentic Self receives these suggestions as hypnotic instructions, which include agreeing to conceal them within the so-called “subconscious,” an area developed by the simulate self for its own purposes. The Authentic Self’s physical mind-body learns at first how to numb the sensation of anxiety, and then later, to completely mute its awareness of it. But the anxiety is still ringing the muted alarm bell, which never gets attended to and then turned off. While this is happening the Authentic Self actually has some awareness of this malfunction, but is usually too asleep to respond and bring the situation back to the wholeness of Reality.⁽²⁰⁾ This shallow awareness about the anxiety manifests in the Authentic Self’s dreaming mind as neurosis, or worry about worry.

The buildup of unresolved neurosis in the simulate self leads to a psychic crystallization known as “paranoia.” It could be said that a neurotic simulate self is one that builds a burning building in the ego-mind through worry; whereas a paranoid simulate self mentally inhabits the burning building through worry about worry.

The accumulation of anxiety amplified by the simulate self’s agenda eventually reaches a point called “panic” and then the natural regulatory system begins to shut down. The mind-body system can become effectively paralyzed by this short-circuiting, which manifests as irrepressible, chaotic body symptoms, such as racing thoughts, rapid heartbeat, trembling, sweating, choking, nausea, faintness, chest pain, and fear of losing all control, dying, or going insane. The simulate self has achieved one of its goals, known to the mental health profession as “Panic Disorder."⁽²¹⁾

If the mind does not make the correct healing choices to help return the mind-body system to wholeness, the body will. When anxiety has been internalized in such a way that it accumulates while resisting release — as directed by the ego-mind — the body will begin to shut down to keep the overall system from any further movement. In this way, accumulated mental anxiety and worry manifest as depression in the body and then in the mind. Motivation to move through life decreases quickly and the depressed person is literally unable to get out of bed, go to work, or experience feelings of joy and meaning in the world. In its insanity, the ego-mind is unconcerned about the mind-body system, and will continue to mentally and emotionally abuse what it believes is its uncooperative slave.

The simulate self utilizes the ego-mind as the source for its own mentality in order to complete its copy of the mind-body of the Authentic Self. As well, it believes it needs to survive indefinitely in order to be a successful simulation. It generates anxiety to get the energy for this survival, and then increases the anxiety in its quest for ultimate power over the sleeping Authentic Self. It denies the fact that regardless of how much power it gains, it will not survive.⁽²²⁾
This denial also often includes an aggressive disdain for the mind-body’s “weakness” of eventual dissolution, or “death.”

A common supposition about our physical senses is that they make us more sensitive to the universe. Because of the way the ego-mind uses the senses we actually become less sensitive of Authentic Self, and more self-conscious of the simulate self—thus feeling increasingly separate from others, the ultimate illusion. This simulated self-consciousness becomes an facet of the body’s ego-mind, which uses this aspect to fuel its belief that it is special—that is, separate from others in some way or in every way. Our manifested life may become effectively enclosed in a specialized, windowless and doorless prison of the ego-mind’s devising. Yet one always has the choice to strive to remain continually self-aware by focusing our attention using the spiritual senses —which the simulate self does not have nor which it can copy — for expanding our experience as Individualized Being and for exploring the ensuing universe, our ever-present Home.

Because the spiritual senses are not resident in the interpenetrating physical and astral-etheric bodies, they can be said to be non-local in nature, and therefore not accessible to the simulate self. The ultra-fine spiritual senses vibrate at a vastly higher rate than the simulate self can detect. It can, however, infer their existence, inasmuch as it copies what it perceives as certain kinds of behavior of the Authentic Self. These copies are poor imitations of the spiritual senses, and manifest as so-called “psychic abilities” that are much coveted by the ego-mind in the way medals are desired by the military.

It can be seen that the ego-mind does have an appropriate function—as an analytical holding area that filters and monitors all incoming localized sensory information, and to help decide what the Authentic Self needs for awareness towards basic physical survival, without shorting the mind-body circuits with an overwhelming of excess information. Because of our unaware co-conspiracy with it, and while our brains are shaping the selected energy into human thought forms as directed by the ego mind, the ego-mind inappropriately and without our acquiescence continues to analyze thought beyond its initial duties. In doing so it attempts to take on aspects of Authentic Self, resulting in an imitation, or a simulate self. While survival is the ego-mind’s prime directive for the simulate self, survival is really meant for the cells of our temporary mortal bodies, not for the ego-mind’s dreams of immortality for the personality of its simulate self. The ego-mind’s true function is to serve us while we as Spirit —or Authentic Self — are embodied. Upon our transition — otherwise known as “death” — the ego-mind’s energy is directed elsewhere for other uses, just as the mind-body’s cells are re-assimilated back into the earth. The simulate self, which is fabricated and sustained by that energy, will also be dissolved in the process of transition unless very strong emotions continue to sustain it. The emotions that are particularly sustained by nostalgia, which is a form of fear, may function as a kind of etheric glue. The bond that ensues is a cooperative effort, where the still-dreaming Authentic Self clings to the ego-mind’s energies, which cling back. In this way the ego-mind’s influences might continue to bind one’s astral-etheric bodies to the Earth and cause a delay in becoming fully and healthily Risen.⁽²³⁾

The experiences of human beings are multi-layered, consisting of complex and dynamic interacting sets of selves and potential selves. The sensations of gender and sexual orientation are integral parts of this dynamic complexity and flow as natural parts of biological movement and interaction on the material plane.⁽²⁴⁾ The complexity never ceases, and is always growing and mutating, sometimes less, sometimes more, sometimes seemingly not at all.

“Having a big ego” refers to the ego-mind and not the actual core sense of conscious selfness. This core sense of self or Authentic Self is partially informed by the ego-mind, which is its correct function, among other things. Freedom allows the Authentic Self to choose, through feeling, the forms of its presentation in the world, and It may rely on the ego-mind component for information regarding this. If our ego-mind believes it needs to survive by being an overbearing, authoritarian type, a self-absorbed, narcissistic personality, or a saintly, helping kind of person, we freely have the choice to believe that these qualities are actually informing the presentation of the Authentic Self. These qualities are really just so much costuming, masks, and posturing. We are able to carry these beliefs about our selves within a kind of container brought about by a rigid ego-mind over and into the experience of all aspects of life. These beliefs will form, color, and build our experience in all areas of our life.

The ego-mind will do anything to survive, and it does this best with lies to its host and to others. It manifests lies out of the energy of anxiety and then strives to instill the belief that the lies are somehow real. It escalates the anxiety into fear, and then uses it to convince us to believe the untruth of our guilt. In spite of its essentially hidden nature, all cultures still have some awareness about this skillful lying aspect of the ego-mind. Western systems have partially externalized it symbolically as the “devil,” a word derived from the Greek diabolus, meaning “slanderer,” “accuser,” or “one who separates.”

Often, when we make an active effort to let our grieving naturally slow down, even for just a little bit, the ego-mind will judge us as being uncaring for betraying the memories of our lives and of others. As noted earlier, memories are products of the thinking ego-mind. A memory of our self or of another is not us nor is it that person. Focusing on the memory of someone as if the memory is the person and trying to keep it alive—or “re-live” it by feeding it with energy, especially emotional suffering, helps to only further energize the ego-mind but not the memory. The result is that one’s inner reality awareness of the other person, or even of one’s self, becomes effectively screened off from conscious awareness.

A general feature of our body’s brain-memories, which are accessed from memory fields, is that they retain a certain amount of resonant energy that sustains them. This resonance can only be sustained by continual investment of more thinking and emotional energy. Because they are fabricated by the ego-mind, and therefore temporary, memories eventually slow and then gently began to break down and fade from the Authentic Self’s embodied awareness. This fading is actually part of a natural process, yet many of us will continue to spend enormous amounts of emotional, physical, and financial energy in order to maintain a memory of someone or something.

The ego-mind has a special defense where it buries the grief into the darker places of our psyche, places where we might fear to go, like childhood nightmares we’d prefer to not remember. The generally accepted term for this hiding place is “the subconscious.” Our deeper sadness is then hidden from us in this area and any attempts to face it seem unnecessary or even futile. This means that we may need to get some help to find our buried sadness and bring it back to the surface to shine some peaceful light on it. Sharing our grief with a therapist who has some sense of Authentic Self, or with others in support groups who are attempting to awaken by processing their grieving — but not with those who are frozen in it — can bring miraculous results. The ego-mind’s lies will find little if any support within these settings.

How do we get free of the tyranny of this ego-mind, this simulate self with its love of falsehood? The main objective is to gain control of the decision-making process called thought. It has already been shown how the awakened Authentic Self can utilize the ego-mind’s abilities to access and manipulate memories. This includes the decision to let thoughts go as well as to utilize them. The awakened Authentic Self is able to make decisions about the mind-body system’s survival and the right choices about potentially risky behavior. There are as many possibilities as there are individuals, for each of us is a living and constantly present opportunity to find out what works for and serves the Authentic Self.

Unaware of the ego-mind’s back-door technique, many may feel that the only way to deal with it is to attack and destroy it, as well as all its thoughts, as if rooting out an unwanted, persistent weed from the garden of the mind. Yet there are gentle, creative, aware responses that bring the situation to the infinite openness of compassion. Because we are essentially spirit, all matters of the heart and mind can first be addressed in some a way, beginning with directing the will. For most individuals, free will does not yet exist, and much effort will have to be made to gain psychological freedom while seeking the spiritual clarity for which they yearn. One cannot regain free will on one’s own; assistance must be requested. Communing with one’s Original Source through the Authentic Self, while requesting spiritual assistance can be done in solitude or with others, through formal or informal prayers or meditation.

END OF PART 2.



___________________________
⁽¹⁷⁾ See Rupert Sheldrake, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1995) for a stimulating discussion about morphogenic fields.
⁽¹⁸⁾ Because of the elevated levels of anxiety in the world today, the toxic accumulation of hormonal chemicals released into the air and water are directly impacting Earth’s respiratory and circulatory system, resulting in natural disasters of winds, tides, and earthquakes.
⁽¹⁹⁾ A good deal of “New Age channeling” comes about in this way.
⁽²⁰⁾ This raises the question, “Where has the Authentic Self been while all this has been going on?” An answer is intimated in the ancient, allegorical biblical text of Genesis: "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept . . .” (Genesis 2:21). “Adam” is the metaphysical connotation for “humanity,” and “Lord” connotes “Mind.” (Mind allowed Itself to fall asleep.) Nowhere is there any mention of Adam then waking up at some point. The Authentic Self entered the manifested world of materiality by falling into a deep sleep, to then “awaken” within the dream world of manifestation, which is contained within greater, True Reality. These particular verses of Genesis embody the description of both the psychical condition and the bodily development of primitive humanity.
⁽²¹⁾ About 1.7 percent of the adult U.S. population ages 18 to 54—approximately 2.4 million Americans—has panic disorder in a given year. (National Institute of Mental Health, 1999.)
⁽²²⁾ As noted elsewhere, this denial is central to the sustaining of addiction, which renders the Authentic Self seemingly powerless.
⁽²³⁾ Risen is a term used here to denote the general state of the next materialized existence beyond the astral-etheric realms of Earth.
⁽²⁴⁾ Although gender and sexual orientation are not of the simulate self, they are utilized by it quite intensely for its agendas, easily seen in systems of patriarchy, for one small example.

The Simulate Self — Part 1

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite.”
— William Blake⁽¹⁾
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
— Pogo⁽²⁾
“Vast emptiness, nothing holy!”
— Bodhidharma⁽³⁾


William Blake’s words speak of perception from the timeless and changeless point of conscious, Authentic Self awareness.⁽⁴⁾ They are paralleled by Pogo Possum’s earthy swamp wisdom, which hints about looking with honest humility to determine whether we’ve perceived a projection or a reflection, or are truly gazing through the gates of infinity. Bodhidharma exclaims at what is revealed beyond the gates of ego-mind.

There are, as Blake also suggested, vast differences in the world when seen through the eyes rather than with the eyes —

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour. . .
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro' the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to Perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in the Night,
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day."⁽⁵⁾

The intention of this monograph is to stimulate the recognition and awakening of the feeling of one’s Authentic Self and one’s Original Source, and to begin readjustment of the simulate self’s processes. The material presented here is not meant to be theoretical or even academic, but as a guide to those who may have eyes to see and ears to hear."⁽⁶⁾ Neither is it meant to be a manual — the actual manual resides within the Authentic Self. The subject will be approached slowly and incrementally, and then repeated in different ways to carefully impress it upon the awakening mind of Authentic Self.

The simulate self is an obsessively opinionated, decision-making psychological component of our earthly mind-body. All thought arises from its mentality, which is the ego-mind. From what could be called the surface our inner space, this ego-mind outwardly projects our mind-body’s perceptions and its environment as well as the bodies and environments of others. The language of the simulate self is tribal and therefore judgmental and fear-based. It subscribes to judgmental concepts that use words and phrases such as “exclusive,” “better than/less than,” “best/worst,” “superior/inferior,” “evolved/degenerate,” “elite/common,” “special,” “restricted,” “chosen/damned,” “new and improved,” and “fashionable.” , complaint, and criticism are its food and drink. It is motivated by fame and recognition, and fueled by envy and competition. Insatiably seeking entertainment, gleeful ⁽⁷⁾ and gloating ⁽⁸⁾ best describe its sense of humor, which is delivered with jealousy, sarcasm, and resentment. The ego-mind loves competitive contests. It enjoys disasters, attracts them, and even manifests them.

The simulate self is future-oriented and cannot wait; it worries, and it worries about worry. Its language, which is couched in suggestions, generates anxiety and panic attacks. The ego-mind will seize upon the body’s minor aches and pains and escalate them into mental terrors and fantasies about disease and death.

Its preferred ways to begin a sentence are “I think–” and “I believe–.” It developed and ritualized the practice of “Say please” and “I told you so.” Co-conspiring ego-minds are responsible for politics, the economy, the destruction of the rain forests, art criticism, journalism, religion, and war, among many other things. The collective ego-mind’s greatest desire is to achieve a Global Madison Avenue. One of its most recent triumphs is called, ironically, “Reality TV.”

Few mind-embodied Authentic Selves are consciously aware of this psychological component of their mind-body-spirit, which some call the psyche or soul.⁽⁹⁾ This means that the vast majority of people are moving about in the world with the ego-mind in the driving seat while they sleep in the back, occasionally and briefly waking to look at the scenery passing them by, but then quickly falling back into hibernation. Its driving is compulsive, habitual, and irrational and its ever-increasing neuroticism is generally uncontrollable because of our ignorant somnambulance. As a species, we have relegated it to our underconscious, from where it secretly dictates most, if not all of our mental direction — or in other words, it completely controls our world.⁽¹⁰⁾

The ego-mind’s development began very soon after the dawning of human consciousness, and so the ego-mind is the original and most ancient source of human-generated deities. A slightly more detailed etiology of the simulate self will be presented further on.

Because of the unlimited energy constantly permitted it, the ego-mind is able to present and maintain the semblance of a self-aware consciousness. In effect, this simulacrum or imitation manifests its own kind of form and simultaneously, a projected, perceived environment for this form. This environment arises from the multitude of anxious thoughts we allow the simulate self to generate and amplify, drawing from the vast expanses of energy circumscribed by our fear and trembling.

The label “false self” has been utilized by certain competitive factions of psychology, based mainly on psychoanalytical (neo-Freudian) and ego psychology models. The related terminology, such as ego strengths, transference, countertransference, neurosis, conscious, unconscious, super-conscious, and so on — which presume to be about treating the Authentic Self, are instead obliviously referring to the ego-mind of the false self. Unless a therapist is consciously aware of her Authentic Self at some level, it’s more than likely that the therapy is an ongoing dialogue between two or more simulate selves. A therapist who is present in some way as Authentic Self is there to converse with the sleeping Authentic Self of the patient until some awakening dialogue begins to occur. The therapist also continues to awaken from conscious participation in the process. Often the patient literally falls asleep during these dialogues or lapses into some kind of shutdown of mental processes, such as short-term memory failure, or what could be called psychospiritual amnesia. Therapists are not immune to this ego-mental stupor.

Metapsychological structure theory systems like ego psychology have receded into the background of contemporary therapies, and current interests are increasingly focusing on observation and immediate experience. Yet this kind of analytical language continues to be used in various areas of modern philosophical and spiritual thought — keeping in mind that thought arises from the ego-mentality of the simulate self.

The word false usually brings up the idea of something bad or unhealthy. This idea suggests that this “other self” is not only malevolent but that the assumed personality is inherently wicked or sick, and that the person beneath the personality needs to be controlled, changed, healed, or eliminated. Because of the inferred relationship, there is usually an attack on one’s own or on another’s mind-body in some way.⁽¹¹⁾ The ensuing violence is then directed — or self-directed — toward the sensed false self while actually impacting the pathologized real person.

To avoid strengthening established negative connotations, the false self is reintroduced here as the simulate self, which will also be called the ego-mind. The terms simulate self, ego-mind, personality, character, and identity can all be exchanged for one another. They are the same in their illusory concepts, actions, and affects and effects.

Acknowledging the existence of the simulate self or the ego-mind begs the question, “What is the true or Authentic Self?” The ancient dictum “Know Thyself” is the open-ended answer, for while it can be acknowledged that the question has been raised, the answer can be revealed only as truth reveals itself through our individualized Authentic Self and its various states of awareness. These states of awareness are experientially known through vibratory sensation, which is feeling. Krishnamurti maintained that “truth is a pathless land.” The core, Authentic Self will inevitably recognize the feeling of its truth in its various states, thereby recognizing Itself as an immortal being as It moves inwardly from any felt point, ever onward.

The simulate self fabricates, presents, and maintains a “personality” or “character” in order to appear real and to appeal to others. It has assigned the greatest importance to itself as our personality regarding the affairs of the world. It is extremely valuable to keep in mind that our personality is an illusion and not who we are at the core of our immortal existence. Our simulate self and the simulate selves of others will support one another’s personalities in order to keep the illusion of personality sustained. “Flattery will get you anywhere.” As a result, the ego-mind convinces us to make it our primary identity, and so whenever our ego is threatened we are influenced to believe that our Authentic Self is threatened. However, being immortal, our Authentic Self has nothing to fear.

It’s fairly easy to see the inherent negativity in a personality—especially when it’s someone else’s — as well as any resulting conflict when one feels threatened by another ego-mind presence, or even by its own ego-mind presence. It is a relentless suggestion of the simulate self that we let it take the reins of our Authentic Self’s mind processes. Once we agree to this, it can then fulfill its agenda that everything would be easier and better if we just forget that it exists and let it continue on in its delusions while concealed in our underconsciousness. We are then permitted to continue on in our lives in complete unawareness of it. Most of us end up agreeing to this conspiracy with little or no questioning, much less with any conscious awareness of the situation or of having made any such agreement.

The simulate self could be said to makes its temporary home in our material body’s mental areas. The core, true self, or the Authentic Self, also dwells temporarily within the non-mental areas of our interpenetrating material, etheric, and astral bodies. Although the simulate self’s ego-mind is always seeking to condition us, the primal, Authentic Self can never be conditioned. The Authentic Self does not think nor have thoughts, although it can observe them as they arise from the ego-mind, which is contained within the infinite space of Mind—which is also imagination. As unaware beings whose lives are dictated by ego-generated beliefs, we allow the channeling of energy to sustain the reigning belief that the simulate self is the Authentic Self. We then give the simulate self the power to rule our body, our environment, and our life by its thinking and in any way it chooses.

The manifest world— “the ten thousand things” —is projected by the ego-mind.⁽¹²⁾ The manifest world— “the ten thousand things” —is projected by the ego-mind. A perceived projection is a presumption of reality, giving rise within the mind of the ego to the illusions it thinks we should experience as “the world.” The ego-mind will unfailingly and skillfully use the illusion of any form of presumed, perceived loss — grief, fear, sadness, anger, regret, anxiety, and so on — to keep us from connecting with and awakening to true, present reality. Awareness of one’s immortal existence —one’s true presence — within an infinite universe of experience reveals that “loss” is only a thought, an idea with no base in reality whatsoever.⁽¹³⁾

Like all thought-ideas, the presumption of loss arises from lack of experiential awareness, which is misinterpreted as actual lack or “less-than” and even misconstrued as “more-than.” Lack of experiential awareness arises from fear and anxiety, which are generated by the ego-mind to keep the illusion of the presumed perceptions projected. Clearly this is a circular and repetitive cycle. This circumscription of the life experience also manifests an “edge,” beyond which is a presumed “unknown” which serves as the threatening guard to keep us from exploring beyond the prison’s perimeters. (See Appendix 1 for a brief presentation about the edge and about waiting.)

The ego-mind detests change of any kind, for change signals transition, or at the very least, suggests the idea of death, and so it works continuously to use fear to keep the status quo. Yet change is how mutation comes about, and mutation is how a manifested universe allows us to move from one state of being to another, while simultaneously being that experience, i.e., conscious, Authentic Self-awareness.

“True reality” does not mean true in the sense of a straight line or a path unswervingly never altering. Rather, the truth of Reality unceasingly emerges from the ever-mutating “ground” from which our manifested universe arises.⁽¹⁴⁾ The point of emergence is both dimensionless and all-dimensional, depending on the amount of awareness in perception. In actuality, the point of emergence is one’s experience of being. Truth can appear to be contracting or expanding, like breathing; on or off, like a light bulb. While the reality of Primal Creation does not contract and expand, blink on and off, or change — our awareness does change. As Reality, Creation is finished — it needs nothing more. Concerns and issues about “more than” or “less than” are therefore pointless.

Change, or mutation, is the vehicle for moving about and within Reality. Distance and space combine to manifest the sense of movement, simultaneously manifesting an experiential sense of time. Connecting with true Reality, or even the beginning awareness of a projected edge against Reality, would initiate a weakening of the simulate self’s structure, contributing to its possible dissolution and reintegration into something larger, even while the Authentic Self is still earth-embodied. The dissolution of the simulate self is inevitable, which it correctly understands and greatly dreads as its own kind of transition, or death. It also instinctively understands that it will eventually become severed from all its relationships with the material world when an individualized Authentic Self transitions to a state where a different kind of embodiment is experienced from the current one. The refusal to accept the instinctual knowledge of its own death and any related references to death is part of the complex ego-systems known as denial.

Mutation is the means of continuance for material expression of our Authentic Self. For the simulate self mutation means an ending, or death. Where our Authentic Self is concerned, any ending contains the experience of the next beginning, and the next, and so on, forever. The construct known as the ego-mind has learned how to convince us that its sense of ending is our own. This feeling is not authored by Authentic Self and so is inauthentic to us, which we feel as a discomfort. This discomfort is little more than psychic effluvium, but because of our agreement to live by the rules of an inauthentic personality, we accept its idea that this feeling is something called “fear” and that we should act in a prescribed way when sensing it. Since our personality loves to own things in order to appear real, fear can be difficult to release. Using this fear like a gun at our heads, our ego-mind takes us hostage. It demands and is given so much carte blanche energy that it could be said to have a mind of its own, the mind which used to be fully ours. This entity-like energy will do anything to survive.

Although this entity-like energy is not us, it is like us, for it emulates our body’s own built-in biological drive for survival. Grief will be used as an example throughout this writing, since it embodies, literally and metaphorically, so many forms of assumed loss or of “less-than.” The deepest aspect of grief is sadness, which can underscore a human life for its entire earthly existence. For example, with grief as its weapon the simulate self may weaken us even to the point where the body will no longer sustain our spirit. There are people who have been said to have “died of a broken heart.” The ego-mind, like an enraged, spoiled child, can conduct a tantrum of such proportions that it will find a way to cause life energy for the body to be withheld, because somebody (some body) must be punished for the injustices inflicted upon it and upon the other body it believes it owns. The ego-mind is inherently suicidal. Homicide is seen as a justifiable against another simulate self, rather than as suicide, because the ego-mind cannot understand that all individuals are connected as one. In the case of bereavement, the injustice would be perceived as the loss of a loved one taken by “death.” It was the ego-mind that wrote and promotes all variations of the wedding vow, “til death do us part.” This give further insight to the ego-mind, which seeks control through an agreement called “a promise,” which is held to be “sacred” and “unbreakable.”

Even as our Authentic Self, we cannot help but miss our loved ones terribly and painfully. For most us this pain cannot be avoided and is part of living in this particular realm of manifestation. We have the ability to learn to accept that everyone “dies,” or more compassionately, “moves on.” But the ego-mind cannot deal with any reminder that it will eventually cease its own particular existence. The fear-sodden, enraged, non-sanity of the ego-mind becomes clearly obvious by its plan to survive even if it means destroying its host, our body, by proving that it is right in its beliefs, hence the illusion of its own superiority. A Course in Miracles suggests the ego-mind would rather be right than happy.⁽¹⁵⁾ Actually, the ego-mind insists on having both.⁽¹⁶⁾
When our spirit-self withdraws from the terrestrial material body, the material is absorbed back into its source, the Earth, as well as by cosmic rays from the stars. Deprived of a material body, the ego-mind then has no further earthly function. Up to that point, supported by what could be called “cultural hypnosis,” the ego-mind believes that only the material world can fulfill its needs and desires. But since the material world is constantly changing, or re-manifesting, it can never fulfill the simulate self’s insistence on non-mutation. It refuses to accept any change over which it has no control and continues to search, to desire, to temporarily find, and then to lose what it found, in a never-ending cycle of games. Out of this cycle rises the addiction to material things, an automatic resistance to change, and, ultimately, fear of change. This addiction is not meant in the way one is attached to drugs or other forms of physical or emotional sensation. Rather, it is about the denial to understand that all materiality, as a reflection of one’s inner Self moving outward, is illusion — meaning that it’s temporary and impermanent. This denial must be explicitly maintained in order to achieve the illusory seamlessness needed to support the ego’s sense of self.

END OF PART 1.

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⁽¹⁾ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Oxford University Press, 1995.
⁽²⁾ Walt Kelly, Pogo strip from Earth Day, 1971.
⁽³⁾ Bodhidharma is credited with bringing Zen Buddhism to China and is the First Patriarch of Chinese Zen Lineage.
⁽⁴⁾ Perceive is defined here as “to become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing.” The word’s origins are from the Indo-European kap–, “to grasp” which is at the deeper meaning of the word when further defined as “to achieve understanding of; to apprehend.”
⁽⁵⁾ William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence.” Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, 1917.
⁽⁶⁾ “God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear . . .” (Romans 11:8).
⁽⁷⁾ See ghel-² in Indo-European Roots.
⁽⁸⁾ Middle English gle, entertainment, from Old English glēo. See ghel-² in Indo-European Roots ⁽⁹⁾ Exploration of this component, called “the simulate self” here, has been presented in different metaphysical ways in other writings in the past two centuries, notably as “the kundabuffer” by Gurdjieff, “the physical mind/goldfish bowl” by Mirra Alfasa (also known as “Mother”) and recently as “the ego/false created self” by Eckhart Tolle.
⁽¹⁰⁾ “Underconscious” is used here instead of the classic “unconscious.” “Un” implies something that doesn’t exist. Yet the realm of Self actually is a realm of consciousness, and so Self is conscious in its own realm, whether or not it is consciously aware of its own realm. Freud had posited the notion of the “preconscious” — where thoughts may temporarily reside between the “unconscious” and conscious awareness. Preconsciousness could be said to be where hunches and precognition wait for conscious awareness. Freud also believed that all memories rested in the preconscious, accessible at any time through various ways. However, memories are living things and as such do not rest anywhere, actively existing as “fields.”
⁽¹¹⁾Our mind-body can be said to be “energy.” Our scientists have seen, albeit from a greatly limited perspective tempered by ego-mind perspectives, that all is energy, which cannot be destroyed but only manifested differently. This evidences that creation is finished and complete. “Manifesting differently” is experienced as change, and is transition as well as transformation. It is transformative transition, or mutation.
⁽¹²⁾ "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.”
— Chapter One of The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu (trans. by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, Vintage Books, 1989).
⁽¹³⁾ Existence and experience are one and the same and can be interchanged here.
⁽¹⁴⁾ The Self is the ground from which the feeling of “I AM” unceasingly emerges.
⁽¹⁵⁾ A Course In Miracles, (Tiburon, CA: Foundation For Inner Peace, 1985), Text, 573.
⁽¹⁶⁾ This perhaps not-so-obvious slip-up reveals the underbelly of A Course In Miracles. ACIM claims to have been “channeled by Jesus” to help earth-embodied people to deal with the ego-mind. It is suggested here that ACIM is an impressive architecture of psychoanalytical virtuosity that was, in all probability, delivered by a non-embodied team organized and led by the crystallized ego-mentality of Sigmund Freud. ACIM is not a hoax per se; Everything in it is quite true if perceived and understood correctly, however it directs perception in such a way that it does exactly what it claims to undo, and vice versa. Keeping in mind that fame and recognition is what the ego-mind requires, it must be noted that ACIM has generated a large community of pseudo-scholarship — something ACIM's designers seem to have actually intended. ACIM is a game designed on a very high order, and although ultimately harmless, it takes a lot of time and energy from the experience of Authentic Self as an embodied entity on Earth.