Phenomena & Apprehension
I’ve been having these unfamiliar weird “dream” states lately which I’m sure will later make more sense. I do a lot of different kinds of “meditation.” Meditation in English is a generic word which describes nothing useful. There is no real single word in Buddhism used to mean “meditation.” There are over a dozen very different methods of “mental exercises” or internal exercises which for some strange reason gets jobbled up into one generic word in English.
Dreaming is weird. I used to experiment with Lucid Dreaming which I like. You first train your brain to get into the condition of asking if it’s dreaming by consciously asking yourself at random moments if what you are doing is a dream. Then you do something I just call “Dragging,” which is when you take that self induced confused state of mind and “drag” it out during the day for as long as you can. After 3 month of that you start randomly waking to full consciousness inside your dreams.
I do most of my philosophical ramblings to myself when I drift off to bed; because “somebody” says I talk too much; and just when I come back to consciousness in the morning. So I usually literally hold internal dialogues with my self until I go unconscious, and as soon as that consciousness starts up in the early morning I resume philosophically rambling while still half asleep. In that deep Alpha upper Theta wave state, you end up getting a lot of insights. It my cheap shortcut to meditating: sleep yourself to Enlightenment!
I do that so often that I’ve been getting into this weird “crack” in between being conscious and unconsciously asleep. I don’t know how to explain it as I have never been “in” this “crack” before. It’s not that “boarderland” state where you are consciously awake while your body is asleep which you would experience before “astral projection.” It’s unfamiliar state is like you’re outside yard was waking reality and the rooms inside your house was the dream “world.” This “crack” I have been finding myself inside of would be like me waking up inside a hidden room in a wall between the house and the outside yard, where I can see “both” the outside and the inside.
In this “crack” I’m dreaming, but I’m not conscious enough to be Lucid or conscious enough to ask myself “Where am I.” But I am barely conscious enough to realize something mind blowing. I realize that I am unconsciously “day dreaming” the dream which I am in, which my dream self at the same times feels to be real. The only thing I can do in the “crack” is say to myself: “Huh, that’s weird; I’m not actually dreaming. I’m day dreaming it all.” When I do wake up in the morning then I can put my thoughts together to end up understanding that the act of dreaming, which I had always assumed was some sort of unconscious chattering from the unconscious mind is actually just the conscious mind day dreaming its dreams in an unconscious state. But yet there is a “me” “somewhere” “aware” that I am asleep and unconscious day dreaming the dream.
It’s not a great epiphany. It’s just realizing that the conscious minds seems to never shut the hell up, even when it is knocked out cold! But this essay isn’t even about dreams. It’s about Dhamma and Perception and how we Apprehend things which is a topic of discussion I have been having with myself in my cheap shortcut meditations as I drift of into that weird “crack.”
Dhamma
What is dhamma really and plainly. If I had to put dhamma into an exact English definition so we can do nerdy things with it, it would be: “An Observable and/or Experienceable phenomenon which is a part of the natural world.” That is what Dhamma is.
So to illustrate what dhamma is in Western terms we can imagine Sir Isaac Newton. Our friend Sir Newton is sitting under an apple tree reading his book. As he reads an apple from the tree falls onto his head. The apple hits his head and Sir Newton looks up and begins thinking thusly: “Hey, what the hell? What just happened? An apple fell. How did it fall? Maybe some kind of force pulled it down?” That observable and experienceable phenomenon of “Falling” is a dhamma.
Why did the ancient philosophers call phenomena “dhamma” if dhamma originally meant a blueprint? Because if I gave a group of 12 temple builders a blueprint they’d all build the temple according to the SAME blue print. Then when the temple is done and I were to ask any one of these 12 builder: “Hey, why does that temple look like that?” No matter who I ask I will always get the answer: “That’s the WAY it looks on the blueprint. We’re just following it.” Each of those 12 people apprehend the same fundamental document. Dhamma is just the “Way” things are and with Dhamma, everyone is on the same page.
And so from that dhamma which Sir Isaac Newton experience he articulated that wordless dhamma into words referring to that dhamma he experienced as the “Law of Gravity” which is now an approximation of the wordless apprehension of dhamma. We know that this “Law” is not a policy or legislation of some type. Here the English word “Law” tries to describe a “Way,” “Rule,” “Principle,” or “Manner” in which a part of the natural world works and functions. This would also be why dhamma also means “Way,” “Law,” “Rule,” “Principle,” and “Doctrine.” Or as the Chinese refer it: Tao; which is the “Way” of Nature, as well as the “Way” of Taoism.
Two Truths
In Buddhism there are two types of “truths.” The Pali word for a Truth is “Sacca” [saccha] which literally means “What is Accurate,” or “What is not a Lie.” It doesn’t mean what “truth” has come to mean in modern English where “Truth” is some absolute and infallible divine ideation.
The first type of truth in Pali is Paramattha Sacca. This is most often translated in English as “Ultimate Truth,” which is a fair translation. “Parama” means “Highest,’ and also “Self Evident” and “Obvious.” Attha is the Pali version of the Sanskrit Artha which means a “Notion,” a “Meaning,” or “Concept.”
So if we were both looking up into the sky and observing the phenomenon/dhamma known as the “sun,” and I turned to you and articulated in words to you: “Dude, that is a Sun!” And you say: “No shit.” That is Paramattha Sacca, or Ultimate Truth. It’s an Obvious Suchness. Of course it’s a sun. But it’s obvious because you can observe the phenomenon yourself with your own eyeballs, and you don’t need someone to narrate for you what obvious things you are looking at.
The other type of truth is Sammuti Sacca. Sammuti means a “Something a group of people agrees on.” It’s a weird word that the Buddha himself may have just made up. Sama means “Together” as in the ancient Sanskrit word “Samgan” meaning a “Together-Gang” which eventually became the Pali word “Sangham” or Sangha meaning an Association.
Muti is the Pali form of the Sanskrit word Mati which generically means an “Opinion,” an “Inkling,” or a “Notion.” So together Sammuti means “Together-Opinion” or a “Notion We All Agree On.”
For example if we were standing with a group of our friends looking at the sun as the dhamma, and I first said: “That boys is a sun!” Then you say: “True indeed, sure is a hot sun that sun is.” Then one of our friends added: “Must be made of fire if it is hot, what do you guys think?” Then we all nod our heads and say together: “Yep, sounds about right.” That’s Sammuti Sacca. The sun being made of fire is an idea-inkling we as a group agree on. We have never seen the sun directly up close to actually know it is made of fire; but we agree that it seems accurate/sacca.
Sammuti Sacca is an extrapolation of dhamma which is not observable or experienceable but agreed by some group of people to be right. In English we call it “Conventional Truth.” Nobody in our group of hypothetical friends has observed or experienced the sun being fire. We just agree because it makes sense. With our Western Sir Newton analogy a conventional truth or extrapolation of an observed phenomenon would be when Sir Newton or an associate of his says: “Well if a force of gravity makes an apple fall in England, surely this force works on every planet the same way everywhere in the universe.” Have these hypothetical people ever been on every planet to test their extrapolation? No. But with a little math and understanding of mass we can be quite confident that gravity works on most planets in the universe. What do we call that confidence of belief? Sometimes we call it faith.
Svalaksana
In ancient times the philosophers in India were contemplating if they can break down Dhamma into its most basic and smallest observable or experienceable “components” or units. They figured out they could and they named such units of dhamma “svalaksana.” Sva means “Self/Oneself/itself” and Laksana means “Symbol,” “Sign,” or “Image.”
So if we observe the phenomenon of a rainstorm, we can break this rainstorm down into its basic constituent components: 1. clouds; 2. rain-drops; 3. wind; 4. lightning; 5. thunder; 6. fall of drops; 7. puddling of drops; 8. getting wet; etc. Each of those things is a svalaksana of a dhamma or a measurable constituent component of an observable or experienceable phenomenon of the Natural World.
Perception
Svalaksana is where I want to be, because this is where the process of Perception, Awareness, Recognition, and Discernment aka Consciousness comes into play. The word svalaksana literally means a Self-Symbol/Sign of something.
What’s a sign? What’s a sign do to your brain? When you See a Stop Sign what actually goes on inside your head. The Stop Sign itself is a meaningless design. But culturally or socially we agree that such a sign has a what? A Meaning. So when we See a Stop Sign, we consciously recognize it and then after recognizing it we ascribe to it a meaning: the physical act of stopping.
It’s the same process that goes on in our heads when we See the svalaksana of a “tree.” We see the Self-Sign of the thing, and then we recognize it. How do we recognize it? Our discerning faculty of our brain draws up a meme “Tree” and ascribes that meme to the Self-Sign.
But because of how our memory apparatus works, that meme “tree” is automatically linked to a chain of other memes related with the original meme drawn up. What do I personally think of when I view a “tree?” I think of “Rain,” “Dirt,” “Leaves,” “Fruit,” “Pollen,” “Allergies,” “Lighting.” Etc. Those would be the other memes “hovering” in the “background” of my mind/brain when I see a svalaksana of a “tree.”
So what’s that mean? It means that everything we perceive is “tainted” with “subjective” background noise. It means that sometimes a racist Blackman cannot actually see a White man as a singular svalaksana sans the “background noise,” because the “image” this Blackman sees is tainted with a flood of his own subjective ideas, thoughts, and emotive opinions. It means that very little of what you are subjectively apprehending is actually in the Real.
For example if I were to tell you that one day while walking I saw an unfamiliar silver object in the sky. How would you apprehend that in your mind? You may think to your self if you are a realist: “She saw an airplane.” If you are prone to an irrational thinking you may say to yourself: “She saw a UFO.” If you are prone to having your active imagination run wild you may say: “She saw aliens; they were those reptilians that Icke dude was talking about.” I actually saw none of those things. All I said was I saw a silver object in the sky.
Or even you yourself. If you experienced a strange apparition one night while camping in the woods, what “background noise” is attached to that experience? It depends on what type of mind/person you are. As a Satanist, when you perceive or think of Christianity, how much of what you see in your mind is Objective and in the Real? As a Jew when you apprehend in your mind National Socialism, how much of it you are seeing in your mind is Objective. Can you even tell the difference between your subjective apprehension of National Socialism, what National Socialism as a memeplex is, and Germany’s Nazi version? When we each apprehend Reality, how much of it is the Actual Stuff, and how much of it is the paradigmatic chattering of our own weltanschauung-samsara: our own words, intellectualizations, philosophications, interpretation, etc?
Natural Philosophy
The World of Phenomena belong to no religion or memeplex. Directly observing and experiencing Life, Nature, Phenomena as an act belongs to no religion or memeplex. The Phenomenal World of Experience is just something we are all born into. We come into this world free from the fetters of our memetic chains. But as we grow in age we collect for ourselves a memeplex. When that happens we can no longer see the world with Natural Eyes, because that memeplex now filters what we see.
As a Christian you will see the reality in a Christian manner: a perfect creation of God the creator. As a materialist you will see the same world as a lifeless accident. As a dalit you will see existence as a punishment for past evil karma. As a urban commoner you will see the world as a struggle. As a crook the world is a vast opportunity waiting to happen. As a Satanist reality is the Adversary.
In such instances when you can no longer perceive Reality objectively As-Is, you have been Mastered by your memeplex; entrapped by it. Limited and controlled by it. How so? Because what we perceive influences and gives rise to how we think/believe. What we think and believe influences and gives rise to our emotions. What we feel influences and gives rise to behaviour and action. What we do in Life manifests Fruit. Your “eyes” controls your mind, heart, and actions.
For example, let us say that you perceive civilization to be the masterpiece of human genius. This perception influences you to think/believe. You believe that civilization is an expression of human genius. This belief governs your feelings. Such that when your people colonizes other landmasses and you encounter “uncivilized” peoples something happens. Your beliefs emotionally attaches your identity to your own people and your civilization, and you now reject the “uncivilized” people as being “primitive.” That feeling governs your actions and behaviour with such “primitive” people. What will you do? Give such primitive people the gift of civilization by force. We don’t deal with the “civilization” rhetoric today. Today we use the “democracy” rhetoric. It’s perfectly acceptable tot go into a sovereign nation like Iraq and decimate the place to bring its people democracy isn’t it?
Natural Philosophy – or the study of the Natural World of Phenomena – is the Real way of gaining an understanding of who we are and what this Cosmos is. But to “truly” understand who we are and our place in the Cosmos we must first work on either silencing our conscious minds, shutting up our subjective background noise, and objectively observing Nature in the Real sans memeplexes.
Nature as a Book of Life gives you the words and letters to read. Each phenomenon is a word. Each svalaksana is a letter. It can be said that “dhamma” is the doctrine of study of a Natural Philosopher. Insofar as dhamma meaning “Observable and experienceable phenomena.”
There is a saying I hear my Chinese grandpas say: “The Tao, Nature, and Man are the same thing in different forms. If you know one, you know the other two.” Which is to say that as an inquisitive individual on a Quest for Self Knowledge, if we do not know what we are, or find it hard to study our Self, then we can study Nature. The more we understand Nature, the more we gain an understanding of ourselves; and vise versa.
Science
Back in circa 500BC the “size” of a svalaksana was limited to the organic power of your sences. Which meant that although people back then were empirically studying the Natural world to gain an understanding of it, there was a limit to how far or deep they can go. A svalaksana is the smallest constituent unit of a phenomenon of Nature which you can observe or experience. Thus there was a limit to how much Buddhi – Knowledge – you would have extracted out of Nature at that time.
Today with our current technology augmenting our senses plus all the sophisticated mathematics, the “size” of an observable svalaksana has literally been shrunken down to the size of atoms, subatomic particles, and photons.
Thus we can say that Modern Science born in the West, is a natural evolution of the Natural Philosophy of the ancient world: Post-Brahminical Hinduism; Greek Philosophy; Chinese Taoism; and Buddhism. The only major difference is the size of the svalaksana.
The ancients uncovered a whole lot with what they were working with way back then. But as we break down the Cosmos further into smaller parts, we seem to be getting closer to a core understanding of the Cosmos. And this Cosmos we are dis-covering seems to work like a chess game or star game or some artificial life digital program. It has very simple basic rules, but is open to complex development.
Closing Remarks
The reason why I have brought up Natural Philosophy and Science is that no religion has ever shown us the Actual “real stuffness” of the Universe and of our own Nature and Being. What have we observed most world religions manifesting instead? Irrational concepts and fighting. Whereas science just goes on uncovering veil after veil of Reality.
Science doesn’t schism. It doesn’t stagnate. It naturally progresses and evolves over time in tandem with our level of understanding, mental capacity, and instrumentation. Science and Natural Philosophy is universal, because the world belong to no body.
But there are things science cannot do. Science can’t inspire us with mythos. There is more to Life and Human Nature then just nerdy science. Contemporary materialist science must be balanced with the other – right brain side – of being human. Balanced with art, music, poetry, mythos, ceremonies, love, community, Numinous Life Force.
Which is where something like the ONA comes in. We already know that “Anton Long” has written somewhere several times that Natural Philosophy is an inherent way of the ONA. As a Drecc or Satanist working with Life and Pathei Mathos, one must learn to understand that going to doctrines devised by Man has lead us as a species nowhere. Especially when we glorify and beatify such doctrines as being infallible concepts.
As Dreccs or Satanists on the Quest to understanding the Living Cosmos and your self/person in this world by studying Life and Natural Philosophy you must question your reality. By first asking: “What is Reality actually made of?” The answer is Phenomena. And you go from there. It doesn’t matter how you approach Natural Phenomena, whether with Buddhism, Vedanta, or Empirical Science. Phenomena is where you start, not doctrines. Doctrines have never done anything constructive for us as a species beside blind us to the Real. If you continue to be blind to the Real, then how are you any better then the Mundane?
But seek to balance that animus apprehension of life, with the more softer and inspiring anima essence of Life such as mythos, music, dance, art, literature, traditions, culture, clan, community, fellowship, and Passion. Which is something the ONA has plenty of. Or if it doesn’t, make it so.
Chloe 352
Order of Nine Angles
122 yf
