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Xpressions

Midnight Blue

by Craig
written by Craig

There’s a curious phenomenon in our shared psyche as humans, and that’s the idea of “midnight blue.” A blue cast over the world in the middle of the night. You see it often in movies. I learned it in art classes. There are actually techniques in cinematography and editing methods for producing “midnight blue.”

However, in reality, experience of nightscape illuminated in blue moonlight is rare, a phenomenon usually witnessed only during the full moon. But we, as humans, tend to associate this illusion with night in general, and thus “midnight blue” is a popular motif used to establish mood during nighttime scenes in cinema.

It’s interesting how so many illusions pervade our collective unconscious mostly unquestioned. This point of ponderance appeared while reflecting on an event that occurred a few nights ago.

A young man in spirit, now an older man, but neither in dreamland, arrived at a residential development. Houses in a familiar neighborhood enveloped in midnight blue.

And there she was on the doorstep.

He was so relieved to see her as he approached. He had been searching for her for what seemed like a lifetime. She smiled as he gently gripped her face in his hands and kissed her. For him, it was the end of the Odyssey. For her, it was simply a kiss of ‘welcome home.’

In his relief he said, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He kissed her again.

She chuckled briefly as they parted lips. It was a chuckle of, “What are you talking about, silly man?”

She said, “I’ve always been here.”

He knew. He always knew. And he knew the neighborhood, the house, her smile. Everything. And moreover, he had always been there too. He had never left, but had been wandering in an illusory state of amnesia—a dream that they were separated and he had lost her somehow.

Then the man woke up. The warm light of the morning sun shined through the windows of his bedroom and he realized that he had only been asleep.

In his waking state, he had no clue where she was, if she was alive or dead, or if he had ever seen that midnight blue neighborhood before. Yet he felt a very deep and beautiful sense of peace.

For two days he pondered about that dream and why it felt so uniquely cathartic. And as he wrote it down later, the true message of the dream appeared to him.

 It was a metaphor about Consciousness.

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Xpressions

Xpression through the Visual Translation of AI

by Craig
written by Craig

I’ve been playing quite a bit lately with AI generated art. It’s quite amazing how this technology can interpret words of imaginative idea and translate those words into a powerful expression of visual form.

The following gallery of images was produced using Midjourney.

The Persistence of Dreams and Nightmares

Personally speaking, water has always been a resonant metaphor for the conscious, unconscious, and collective unconscious—the underwater world as the unconscious mind, and the endless sea as a metaphor for the collective unconscious.

While experimenting with blending techniques in Midjourney, AI produced a surprising base image that set imagination ablaze. Altogether, a dozen images were produced, composited, and blended in Photoshop to produce this composition.  

It’s labeled “The Persistence of Dreams and Nightmares” as a tribute to Salvadore Dali, the artist of inspiration. (One of Dali’s most famous paintings is titled The Persistence of Time).

However, it could just as well be named “The Persistence of Desires and Fears.”

The Garden

I was in the process of updating a talk using symbology from the Garden story in preparation for making a video when I was “guided” to AI generated art.

In the original 2019 talk, I used classical paintings from different artists rendered into vector to create a sense of unity in style. It worked for its purpose, but I always wished there was a way of creating a truly synthesized aesthetic. I also wished there was a way to create additional images to accompany points that weren’t illustrated in classical paintings.

By using AI generated art, all of this is possible. This series was produced by unifying the styles of Rubens and Rembrandt.

Isn’t it truly remarkable what happens when we ‘get out of the way’ and just let grace “do the how.”

Lucifer the Angel of Light

Click here to view some of Craig’s other personal Xpressions.

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Xpressions

Gifts From a Feral Cat

by A Friend
written by A Friend

Celebrations to Friend in The Way, Tian Wilson on the publishing of her new book!

In this gem of a tale, Tian shares her personal story about a scrappy black cat with a mysterious knack for connecting people and lessons in the magic of “hózhó” (living in beauty)…valuable lessons for perhaps all of us.

The book is available from Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle format: https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Feral-Cat-Story-Miracles/dp/B0BMSVSNCB

A True Story…

The old adage, “When a student is ready, the teacher appears,” doesn’t say teachers are limited to the two-legged.

In 1989 a single woman and her two cats moved to a small town in New Mexico. She was seeking peace, answers, and perhaps redemption. And a new understanding of Life. On Thanksgiving morning, what would turn out to be a mentor, healer, and friend arrived at her home in the most unlikely of forms: an ugly, beat-up feral cat.

Thus begins an intimate and uplifting story about the power of Love. Over the span of a year, she and her friends experience profound life lessons in tandem with personal transformation. As they discover the richness of wisdom in friendship and community, the strange cat leads them on a journey of discovery…and miracles.

Tian met Dr. Bob in 1976 and has been passing along blessings ever since. Today she plays the roles of business and life coach, author, and loving shepherd of cats.

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Xpressions

Illuminating the Tree of Knowledge (SAND19 Talk)

by Craig
written by Craig

In 2019, I shared a talk introducing Dr. Bob’s Picture of Man (POM) and Picture of Conditioned Man (POCM) to an audience at SAND19. For those unfamiliar with the conference, the SAND (Science and Non-Duality) organization hosts events every year providing a forum for sharing ideas with focus on non-duality. The SAND community is an delightful mix of spiritual teachers and students, philosophers, artists, physicists, cognitive scientists, and others—lot’s of unique voices all expressing a shared truth.

I hadn’t looked at that talk in some time. After discussing it with a friend recently, I revisited the presentation and spent a little time word smithing and updating the imagery. It’s posted below as a PDF for anyone interested.

The Fall of Man parable as used in the talk inspired the theme for this web site. Although discussion about Conditioned Man is adapted into symbology of the Garden story, the POM and teaching ideas are directly traced to Dr. Bob’s Science of Man.

Illuminating The Tree of Knowledge - SAND19

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Xpressions

A Special Invitation to Gogo

by A Friend
written by A Friend

Life delivers invitations in many ways. Sometimes bluntly through dervishes in coffee shops. And other times through more subtle means.

Have you received an invitation too?

Or is it possibly waiting to be found in a busy stack of mail?

Play Video

The poem at the beginning of the video is by J. Rumi. The clip afterward is from the 1979 movie adaptation of G.I. Gurdjieff’s book, “Meetings With Remarkable Men.”

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Xpressions

A Spiritual Work Lesson from the World of Spies

by A Friend
written by A Friend

In the games of national security, very rarely do intelligence services have complete and empirical information about situations. And mistaken understandings from faulty intelligence collection or analysis often result in costly and dangerous consequences. History is filled with examples of such intelligence errors including assumptions about Iraq’s role in the 9/11 attacks and WMD capabilities, Japanese naval activity before Pearl Harbor, and many others.

Intelligence services dedicate tremendous effort to reduce these errors by collecting information through multiple means when possible, careful vetting of sources, and using highly structured approaches when evaluating ambiguous and often conflicting information.

As one example of this point, intelligence analysts are trained to anticipate the influence of personal biases and the limits of collected information. And when writing reports, disciplined analysts rarely state inferences (conclusions derived from available evidence and reasoning) in absolute terms. Instead, they attribute a probability value (such as 90%, 0.9, HIGH, etc.) to describe their confidence in the accuracy of a statement.

For example, an intelligence analyst might state: “We are 90% confident that Russian military activity on the Ukrainian border indicates preparation for invasion.” Although the analyst may strongly believe this conclusion based on overwhelming evidence, the analyst admits uncertainty and presents the information accordingly.

Perhaps there’s a valuable lesson here for use in spiritual work.

Cultivating awareness of the difference between knowledge and unverified belief is a most valuable practice in the work of self-knowing.

Belief is defined as “something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction.”

Knowledge is defined as “facts and information acquired through experience.”

In the previous example, the intelligence analyst’s inference about Russians on the Ukrainian border is, in principle, a statement of belief. Not knowledge. The analyst does not ‘see into the mind of Russian leaders’ or possess a crystal ball of omniscience. And the disciplined analyst reports this belief to the customer (decision-makers reading the report) by consciously acknowledging the possibility of error.

To put this idea into practice, here’s an experiment to try…

Dedicate a sheet of paper to re-evaluating beliefs and information one personally regards as knowledge. Create three columns:

  1. ”I” believe (or call knowledge)
  2. Has this belief been tested?
  3. What is “my” degree of confidence?

As an example, Craig believes Sandra loves him. He’s tested this hypothesis over the years (and maybe in more ways than one). So a confidence value of 99% is attributed to this belief. Although there’s been plenty of evidence observed during their marriage and he often feels love radiating when she looks at him, Craig doesn’t truly know what goes on in the inner experience of Sandra. So he can’t say 100%. Anything we state with 100% confidence is called knowledge (facts and information acquired directly through experience).

Likewise, Craig believes the Earth is round. He was told the Earth is round in school, watched documentaries about astronomy on TV, seen pictures from NASA, etc. There seems to be plenty of evidence to support a belief that the Earth is round. And at the same time, he has never personally viewed the Earth directly through the window of a spacecraft. Therefore, he accurately states “The Earth is round” as a confident belief. Not as a statement of knowledge.

Work with this for a bit and observe any realizations that emerge.  

Although introduced in this post as an experiment in self-knowing, it could also be regarded as an exercise in a beautiful process of liberation described in some traditions as Unknowing.

Additional Comments

Unverified belief is a proxy for knowledge. In the absence of complete knowledge about situations, we rely on belief to ‘fill the gap’ and provide context necessary for action. Although belief is essential to our functioning as humans, in our conditioned state, we often invest absolute faith in beliefs and equate them with knowledge. And this state of affairs results in a chaotic and contaminated spiritual body where illusion and falsehood are indistinguishable from truth and knowledge. And the sense of security and self-image (vanity) reinforced by rigid identification with beliefs demands vigilant defense by pride.

The purpose of this exercise is not to determine the truth or falseness of beliefs. Many beliefs are likely true. Others false. The aim of this exercise is simply to cultivate awareness of the difference between beliefs and knowledge, loosen identification with beliefs, and maybe crack open a door for new discovery.

Likewise, the confidence values we assign to beliefs are not very relevant for this experiment. Whether one is 70% or 99% confident is immaterial. Any statement with a value of confidence less than 100% is recognized as belief and disentangled from knowledge.

It’s interesting to see what may happen when one works with this experiment for a while.

Perhaps three of the most liberating words in the English language are “I don’t know.”

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Gurdjieff Mechnical Fourth Way
Xpressions

Make Up “Your” Mind

by A Friend
written by A Friend

As Dr. Bob explores in Lesson 1 of the Science of Man series, the first step on the path to freedom is recognizing the absence of choice in our state of being and how suggestion and circumstance dictate our emotions and behavior.

For many, pride strongly opposes this idea when first presented.The notion of being mechanically manipulated by external circumstances is a tough pill for the ego to swallow.

For others, there may be confusion between the topic of ‘choice of inner state’ and ‘choice of behavior.’ Most new students arrive at The Work with the belief they have free agency and choice of their actions. After all, “I make decisions every day.” Or so it seems that way.

If you have worked with Lesson 1’s experiment for while and have not thoroughly witnessed the mechanical nature of your inner experience, try the following as an additional exercise.

Make a conscious decision to be continuously happy for the next three days. Make up your mind that nothing or no one can push your buttons.

And as a tip, consider drawing a smiley face on the back of your hand or tying a string on your finger as a reminder. Remaining presently aware of one’s inner state and remembering “conscious decisions” are often quite challenging early in The Work.

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Xpressions

Some Fun At The Office

by A Friend
written by A Friend

Although people rarely perceive anything humorous about their own conditioning, there is something often comical about conditioned behavior when we observe it without identification. And one doesn’t need to be a student of The Way to see the humor.

Take the circus as an example. At the circus, the clown’s act is often just a rowdy exaggeration of Not-I behaviors. The audience, watching the clown’s behavior as unidentified observers, can’t stop laughing as the clowns play out a comedic narrative told by bopping each other on the head and other memed demonstrations of conditioned behavior.

And the Not-I’s are great recipe ingredients for sitcoms too.

For nine seasons, the hit television show The Office entertained viewers with its humorous portrayal of the social circus inside a Scranton paper company office. The show’s success is entirely based in its comedic depiction of the Not-I’s in the interactions of the cast members.

As an exercise, watch an episode or two of The Office and make a game out of counting how many times you hear someone complaining, sticking up for rights, blaming, pleasing others as a means of manipulation, putting on a front, or appealing to an authority.

Maybe microwave some popcorn and make an evening out of it. Who says Work can’t be fun!

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Xpressions

A Single Page Essay on the God Question

by David
written by David

As certain scientific truths have come to light, many older forms of religious expression seem no longer tenable. But, rather than lead to an increasingly secular milieu, these insights of science can clearly lead to a deepening of human spirituality.

Through a series of complex selection, this billions-of-years-old, expanding universe has evolved our human organisms to be vehicles in which it can achieve awareness. While the sentient experience certainly exists in variant degrees in other species, there is a qualitative difference in the ability of homo Sapiens to engage in, and act out of, reflective consciousness. It seems likely, this has occurred in other places in the universe, perhaps to an even greater degree, but as of yet, we know nothing of that. We only know the role we have been cast in.

To be this fulcrum, this sentient, cognitive psyche-center, in which the universe can become conscious of itself. What an august privilege, to have been given this role, and what an Atlas-like responsibility it puts on our shoulders. To maintain an appreciation of our ability to sense and reflect. Wanting to see, to hear, clearly–without blemish, without deceit. Wanting to speak words that are true. And translating this underlying sense of the whole in the simplest things we do.

This tie-in to the whole has produced in the history of our species a childlike wonderment – a sense of awe – a sense of what we call, “the sacred.”

In the course of our history, this sense of the sacred has expressed itself in various communicable insights – taking the form of religious traditions. Taoism and Zen being perhaps purer and simpler forms of such expression.

Not so simple a religious tradition is the projection of the whole in terms of a parental-type matrix– an addressable external psyche-center we’ve referred to as “deity.” Even going so far as to give this projected psyche-center attributes such as creator/designer, or even overseer.

Such a religious tradition is certainly being questioned today with our advancement in the sciences. We now know individuation only comes about through the interplay of the whole. Forms are not pre-designed, but evolve slowly in relation to their surround – making the notion of a creator/designer deity seem unnatural. And events in both planetary and human history – make the notion of a divine overseer, implausible.

And not just unnatural, not just implausible–even harmful. By postulating a transcendent all- knowing divinity, we abnegate our role in the evolution of the Universe as a here and now, individuated fulcrum of awareness.

We buy into oppressive, destructive statements like, “there is nothing new under the sun,” instead of experiencing “beginners mind” and spontaneity in seeing and hearing. We adhere to religions based on denial and immolation instead of the affirmation of life. In the social order, we lazily tout simplistic phrases like “god-given rights” and “absolute ethics” instead of working to refine our cultural mindset to actually want to afford a better life for our species and our planet.

In trying to fathom the “mind of God,” we loose direct touch with nature … with what’s really going on here.

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Xpressions

Self-Knowing and The Treatise on Being

by A Friend
written by A Friend

A short extract from The Treatise on Being attributed to Ibn ‘Arabi.

No one sees Him, except Himself; no one reaches Him, except Himself; and no one knows Him except Himself. He knows Himself through Himself and He sees Himself by means of Himself. No one but He sees Him. His very Oneness is His veil since nothing veils Him other than He; His own Being veils Him. His Oneness is concealed by His Oneness without any condition.

No one other than He sees Him. No sent prophet, nor perfect saint nor angel brought close knows Him. His prophet is He; His Messenger is He; His message is He and His word is He. He sent Himself, through Himself, from Himself to Himself; there is no intermediary or means other than He. There is no difference between the Sender, that which is sent and the one to whom it is sent. The very existence of the letters of the prophetic message is His existence. There is no other who could cease to be, or have a name or be named.

Because of this, the Prophet (may God bless him and give him peace) said, “He who knows himself, knows his Lord”. He also said, “I knew my Lord through my Lord”. What the Prophet meant by this, is that you are not you but you are He and there is no you; and it is not that He enters into you or comes out of you, or that you enter into Him or come out of Him. He did not mean that you have being and you are qualified by this or that attribute. What he meant was that you never were and that you never will be, whether through yourself, or through Him, or in Him or with Him. You have neither ceased to be nor are you existent. You are Him and He is you, without any of these imperfections. If you know your existence in this way, then you know God; and if not, then not!

Most of those who claim to be knowers (of God) make the knowledge of God dependent on the cessation of being and on the cessation of that cessation. That is an error and a clear oversight; the knowledge of God does not require either the cessation of being nor the cessation of that cessation, because things have no being and whatever has no being cannot cease to be, since cessation implies the prior existence of the thing that ceases to be. If you know yourself as not having being and (consequently) not ceasing to be, then you know God; and if not, then not!

By making the knowledge of God dependent on the cessation of being and the cessation of this cessation, there is an affirmation of polytheism. The Prophet said, “He who knows himself, knows his Lord”. He did not say, “He who ceases to be, knows his Lord”. The assertion of something other than God is incompatible with its cessation; or else this assertion is impossible, and it follows that its cessation is also impossible.

Your being is nothing and whatever is nothing cannot be placed in relationship to anything else, whether it is capable of cessation or not and whether it is existent or non-existent. The Prophet alluded to the fact that you are non-existent now as you were non-existent before creation, because now is Eternity-without-beginning and now is Eternity-without-end and now is Timelessness. God is the very being of Eternity-without-beginning, Eternity-without-end and Timelessness even though (in reality) there is no Eternity-without-beginning, Eternity-without-end nor Timelessness. If it were otherwise, He would not be alone, without anything being associated with Him, and it is necessary for Him to be alone without any associate. His associate would have being through its own essence, and not through the being of God. Then that associate would not need God and would therefore be a second Lord, which is impossible: God has no associate, nor equal, nor like.

For those engaged in The Work as presented on this site, click below for another translation of Ibn ‘Arabi’s text.

Another Translation

No one sees “X,” except “X;” no one reaches “X,” except “X;” and no one knows “X” except “X.” “X” knows “X” through “X” and “X” sees “X” by means of “X.” No one but “X” sees “X.” “X’s” very Oneness is “X” veil since nothing veils “X” other than “X;” “X’s” own Being veils “X.” “X’s” Oneness is concealed by “X’s” Oneness without any condition.

No one other than “X” sees “X.” No sent prophet, nor perfect saint nor angel brought close knows “X.” “X’s” prophet is “X;” “X’s” Messenger is “X;” “X’s” message is “X” and “X’s” word is “X.” “X” sent “X,” through “X,” from “X” to “X;” there is no intermediary or means other than “X.” There is no difference between the Sender, that which is sent and the one to whom it is sent. The very existence of the letters of the prophetic message is “X’s” existence. There is no other who could cease to be, or have a name or be named.

Because of this, the Prophet (may “X” bless him and give him peace) said, “He who knows himself, knows his Lord”. He also said, “I knew my Lord through my Lord”. What the Prophet meant by this, is that you are not you but you are “X” and there is no you; and it is not that “X” enters into you or comes out of you, or that you enter into “X” or come out of “X.” He did not mean that you have being and you are qualified by this or that attribute. What he meant was that you never were and that you never will be, whether through yourself, or through “X,” or in “X” or with “X.” You have neither ceased to be nor are you existent. You are “X” and “X” is you, without any of these imperfections. If you know your existence in this way, then you know “X;” and if not, then not!

Most of those who claim to be knowers (of “X”) make the knowledge of “X” dependent on the cessation of being and on the cessation of that cessation. That is an error and a clear oversight; the knowledge of “X” does not require either the cessation of being nor the cessation of that cessation, because things have no being and whatever has no being cannot cease to be, since cessation implies the prior existence of the thing that ceases to be. If you know yourself as not having being and (consequently) not ceasing to be, then you know “X;” and if not, then not!

By making the knowledge of “X” dependent on the cessation of being and the cessation of this cessation, there is an affirmation of polytheism. The Prophet said, “He who knows himself, knows his Lord”. He did not say, “He who ceases to be, knows his Lord”. The assertion of something other than “X” is incompatible with its cessation; or else this assertion is impossible, and it follows that its cessation is also impossible.

Your being is nothing and whatever is nothing cannot be placed in relationship to anything else, whether it is capable of cessation or not and whether it is existent or non-existent. The Prophet alluded to the fact that you are non-existent now as you were non-existent before creation, because now is Eternity-without-beginning and now is Eternity-without-end and now is Timelessness. “X” is the very being of Eternity-without-beginning, Eternity-without-end and Timelessness even though (in reality) there is no Eternity-without-beginning, Eternity-without-end nor Timelessness. If it were otherwise, “X” would not be alone, without anything being associated with “X,” and it is necessary for “X” to be alone without any associate. “X’s” associate would have being through its own essence, and not through the being of “X.” Then that associate would not need “X” and would therefore be a second Lord, which is impossible: “X” has no associate, nor equal, nor like.

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