Here�s excerpts from my private journal:
this is not my typical thinking. I hesitate to put it in cuz it doesn�t make as much sense as i would like, and seems cliche at times, but its feelings that transcend thoughts gets through i think. after all, aren�t thoughts and words just bound by experience; w/ out experience we wouldn�t have words. so it makes sense how feelings, art, music, can transcend words and logic.
�Sunday April 24, 2005
i was reading carl jung�s auto/biography and became disturbed. his attitude was to dive into the unconscious as if it was pure and the place to seek truth. he mentioned doing yoga to bring himself back to reality but said he only did it to gain control over his emotions so that he could then go back into researching the unconscious. he accused serious yoga practitioners of trying to obliterate the unconscious (�obliterate completely the multitude of psychic contents and images� p. 177 Memories, dreams, reflections by Carl Jung.) its frustrating when something you think is good, which you are told is good by several different sources is all of a sudden accused of being bad. but it does make me wonder what exactly meditation is doing. i must say i disagree w/ Jung. I see meditation as a way to bring yourself back to reality, more in tune with reality, and to loosen yourself from the control of an immature mind shaped by childhood. you learn to see the unconscious in a different light. and here is where jung and yoga/buddhism differ, but where they are also the same. they both think that inside of yourself (call it the unconscious if you wish, but i think buddhists would claim a deeper word) is where the truth lies. however buddhism thinks that the mind consists mostly of turmoil that must be calmed and quieted so that the truth can be seen. (like tumultuous water must be made still so that the �moon of truth� that is always shinning in it can be seen). the untamed mind is seen as the cause of much harm. i have to say i agree with the buddhists on this. i believe there is truth deep down inside of you but that a lot of it is water made muddy over years of living w/ out the tools to process mental stuff properly. but i think i can learn the following from jung: do not throw the good out with the bad.
as i was thinking about this i had the feeling that there was nothing i could trust, nothing i could listen to. even the mind i was given to decide what to believe i could not trust for it was built upon biases and shaped by the life i had lived. some people believe one way and it can seem convincing until you listen to someone else who believes differently. i felt that of my whole life i had nothing on which to stand. and as i laid on the floor i felt that i was nothing. i noticed my breath and it seemed like it encompassed what i was, performing its function but no more ahead of the game than it was the breath before. but at the same time i am comprised of life handed down by life for millions of years, and who knows how long really. as far as i�m aware we have no evidence of life coming from non-life so it seems reasonable to think that life has existed for eternity and i am a part of that chain. my biology, my heredity has been passed down to me from eternity. so in a sense, it feels like everything is inside of me. so i feel like nothing and everything at the same time. and how fitting w/ the analogy of the breath. one second i am filled, the next i am empty. and maybe the real key is in what i mentioned before, that breath is no more ahead of the game than when it started. what game? there is no game for breath it simply inhales and exhales. we eat and we shit. we are born, procreate, and die, so our children can do the same. where is this game i speak of? where is this line upon which you can gain ground and loose ground? trying to find meaning to life? trying to find fulfillment in life? for what purpose should i have a fulfilling life or a meaningful life? so that i can be happy? what purpose is there in being happy? but there is purpose in love that my mental faculties can not reason away. i have had this conversation with myself before. like when i was at the aquarium and felt sorry for the fishes meaningless lives in their tanks. then i thought that we are the same way. but then i realized that there is meaning in love. their is purpose in love. but there is no ground to make, or tower to topple. love is perfection each time it is given. sure one could get political about it and say that there is ground to make there. but thats not the love i�m talking about. i�m talking about love between one person and another. but then again you could look at the well-being/love of the world and see it in terms of progress and digress. but personally, internally, there is no ground to make, no finish line. love is a gift from God that is perfect. it was perfect when you were a kid and it is perfect now. all that has to be done is to give it. but there is no reason to be lazy to say that you have arrived at your destination. for love never gets old or boring and the need for it will never run out.
so in conclusion � the mental world is a confusing one, but love is good, and i think that may be all we really need to know. when there is love the details of how good your life is seem to disappear. whether or not you have an afterlife somehow doesn�t seem relevant when love is present. but this doesn�t mean you stop trying to clear the water of your unconscious, or make your job more enjoyable, or do little things to make your life more enjoyable. all that is still good stuff. its good to be happy, but its important to keep it in its place. love is perfection, love is fulfillment, but enjoy all the other stuff about life too.
this is all well and good for a 23 yr old, but what about as i�m lying on my death bed? will it sustain me then, will it suffice then? but what am i, what is it that will die that day? I am nothing and i am everything, and i was blessed enough to experience love. but no, there is something about me. am i really nothing and everything?
4-30-05
i started being fascinated w/ normal objects, any objects, lying around, my physical self included � after meditating one night. it came from an awe that this was all real and i could affect things, i am part of this reality. i can decide to pick it up, throw it around, do whatever i want with it. look at it from any angle. its real and so am i. i�ve continued to do this off and on and at different times. maybe looking at the birds or straight up at the sky like i used to do as a kid. well last night i dreamed i was doing this. i was looking at an object, noticing that the closer i got the more detailed it was. i felt it and said, �wow, its really real. its all real.� what an interesting dream. i like dreams like that. it made me completely reevaluate what i had been thinking about reality.
it made me think about the matrix:
what makes something real? if you can touch it or taste it? if thats the case then real is just electrical impulses going to your brain.
it made me think about edgar allen poe�s �a dream within a dream�
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
by Edgar Allan Poe
1827
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep�while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
THE END
it made me think about how i heard that in the Hindu religion they believe the whole universe is the dream of a sleeping God.
is it all like a dream? our dream? God�s dream?
i think subconsciously in the past (and still to a degree) i thought that it really all was a dream that i would someday wake up from. but believing that can make you not take life as seriously. but if this is a dream or not doesn�t change anything really. as long as you believe that it is a shared dream and that others are real and not a figment of your imagination. because it would be a long dream w/ a lot of suffering and pleasure involved. you would still want to make the most of it and love others. to me its a terrifying horrible thought to think that you are all that exists, and everything else is just your imagination. interesting tho, how i don�t feel alone in my dreams. the other people seem real and different.
i�m either going crazy or somehow all of this seems significant to me. like this is an important thing to think about.�
6:01 p.m. - 2005-05-15
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