Currently viewing the tag: "Ehipassiko"

True SelfReceiving sound advice from a wise soul is invaluable. Who better than a person of experience, who has faced certain turmoil, and has lived through elements of life for which we yearn, to impart on us all that they have learned along the way. Many of us will even pay good money to sit at the table of an old sage to absorb his or her wisdom. But in the end, does it really matter?

Even when in earnest we listen thoughtfully to those we hold in the highest esteem, we never really come to understand a thing until we experience it ourselves. Wisdom imparted makes us reflect and ponder, and it may even have us believing that we are better off for having heard it, but without the personal experience what can we truly know?

Try describing the taste of an apple without saying it tastes like apple. How could you explain it to a toddler other than handing her a slice? And the color red to a person with protanopia – a form of color blindness where the person’s red cones are damaged and thus they see black instead of red – how would you describe it? What about being in love? Try explaining it to a toddler and you will find you can only do so in the most trivial manner – the essence of what you feel can really only be effectively expressed to another who has experienced it as well.

Similarly, nobody can convey to you what it feels like to play the piano…you just have to play one to understand. A wealthy person cannot tell you what it feels like to be rich; he or she can only point you in the direction of the mind set you must have and the actions you must take to increase your chances of amassing great wealth. It will be up to you to actually do what it takes in order to achieve and experience it in totality. And this is true of becoming an athletic champion or a great artist as well. No one can teach you. They can coach you and guide you, but ultimately, you must learn by doing.

This is most true then when it comes to spiritual wisdom. You can spend time with a guru, but the guru can never teach you enlightenment; she can only show you the way to ready yourself and the direction you must walk to get there. The Buddha would say, “Ehipassiko,” or “Go see for yourself.” Take nothing on authority. Seek. Find. And only then will you Know Truth.

Nature of RealityWhy is this? A guru cannot make you into what you already are. All he can do is show you how he himself arrived at his Self-realization. The guru simply encourages you to come along to where he is. Can he tell you what he sees, what he experiences? To some degree he can show you, he can share with you energetically, but words can never fully describe what he experiences. For this you must seek and find for yourself. Ehipassiko.

When the seeker comes to understand that the real guru is within, then there is no longer a need for an outer guru. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And when the student becomes aware that the teacher is, and has always been, the Self, then all external manifestations of the guru merge into one within the seeker/student. All the books one has read, all the instructors one has put trust into, and all the wisdom one has earned on his or her path of spiritual seeking become part of the realization that all was just a remembering of what the Self has always known.

It has been said that spiritual practice is helping to ripen the fruit of the mind and prepare it for awakening. My advice would be to practice the methodical self-awareness of mindfulness, train the mind to attune to the perfect balance of non-duality of the Self, and dedicate time every day to enter into states of pure being and silence to experience the true reality of your existence. This may sound wildly unreachable to one who has not investigated the practices I am suggesting. But I assure you the actions are simple. Contact me if you would love to learn the simplicity of attuning to your Self and bearing the fruits of your labors. If you want to live mentally well-balanced, creatively, and with infinite riches in any area of life which you value, then listen to me and follow my guidance. I cannot move beyond these words and show you exactly what I mean; you will have to do that for yourself. But if you take the time to do as I advise, you will find that eventually you will come to see what I am suggesting – a new dimension of reality which is yours for the taking. But like the Buddha said, “Ehipassiko” – you must go see for yourself.

Earth's spheresIn the last post, I discussed a few benefits that come from regular meditation practice. One benefit which warrants its own piece is that meditation makes the mind ripe for inspiration. To understand this phenomenon, I will have to introduce a concept, one that is similar to the notions of God, soul, or Higher Mind (next post). Having no way to prove the existence of any of the above, and also having no way to falsify them, these abstract ideas are unprovable and fall into the realm of faith. However, I would like to point out that, despite there being no rigorous way to prove or disprove the forthcoming concept to others, you can gain experiential proof for yourself by doing what the Buddha always encouraged of his students; he’d say, “Ehipassiko,” or come see for yourself.

To understand what I am about to share, you must first understand the spheres which surround the earth. Although Earth has seventeen known spheres, I will only touch upon five: the geosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. A sphere is a three-dimensional shape equivalent to the two-dimensional circle, of which every point on its surface is equidistant to its center. The Earth itself is a sphere. One may think of Earth’s spheres, then, as smaller to larger orbs in, on, and surrounding the globe. The first and smallest is the geosphere, which occupies the space within the Earth’s core. It is the molten rock deep inside the Earth’s surface, magma as it is called, and also the mantle and plasticky-layer known as the asthenosphere. The geosphere is what makes up the inner core of the planet.

Next sphere layers outward start with the lithosphere, which is the rocky crust of land on the surface of the Earth. Litho- means “rock,” and thus the lithosphere is the mountains, volcanoes, and other rocky surfaces of the planet. Along with the lithosphere, the hydrosphere makes up the surface of the Earth. As its name implies, hydro- means “water,” so the hydrosphere is the Earth’s bodies of water. The biosphere is all the living things on the planet, including humans, animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and viruses. And then there is the atmosphere, which surrounds the Earth in a sphere just larger than the planet itself. The atmosphere contains the gasses needed by living things to breathe and carry out photosynthesis; it maintains pressure sufficient for the presence of liquid water, and it also provides protection from the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays.

Each of these spheres contributes to Earth’s many functions, or to the ecosystems residing on the planet. Another sphere, and the one which I wish to introduce as the abstract, unprovable concept, was postulated by two thinkers at approximately the same time (and through mutual influence on one another). It is called the noosphere. This sphere is the hypothesized sphere of information, named after the Greek nous-, which means “mind” or “intellect.” The two founding conceptulizers of this evolutionary biospheric development are French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky. I will not discuss their complete conceptualization of the noosphere. For that, I recommend further reading, specifically Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man (Harper Perennial Modern Thought). I merely wish to discuss how you can use the concept of the noosphere to understand from where inspiration may come, and how you might be able to tap into this potentially ever-present source of information.

I think it is most useful to think of the noosphere as a “cloud,” very much like the information cloud in which we store our digital data. The noosphere is all the information that has ever existed or will ever exist. So unlike the internet cloud, which is the information humans have access to currently, the noosphere contains all that, along with all past unknown or lost information, and all future information as well. According to this concept, individuals do not create information with their neurology, but instead tap into the cloud of information that is the noosphere, and as such download that information as a stream of ideas and inspirations. Think about it—all mathematics, all music, all art, and all technological innovation come from the noosphere, where each individual (monad) taps into and downloads the information. We all do it. Every idea you have ever had comes from this sphere of information.

Clear MindNow how do some ideas lead to innovation that ends up influencing humanity for years, generations, and even millennia?  Why do some people get big ideas while others seem to think diminutively? The answer is more complex than I can do justice in this one article, but the simple explanation is that some people are proficient at clearing their minds of the relentless mind-chatter I have referred to in a previous article on mindlessness. As a result, they clear the receiver, and thus enhance the transmission channels from the noosphere. Furthermore, while almost everyone gets great, inspirational ideas from time to time, not everyone acts on them, which a big mistake in my opinion. A discriminating mind is obviously needed to determine which ideas should be acted on and which shouldn’t, but it seems more common than not for the average person to disqualify their inspirational ideas as crazy, undoable, or unworthy for whatever reason people do. Again, as a result of my understanding of the noosphere, I think it is a mistake to discount your downloaded inspirations.

While meditation is not the only practice which can increase your transmissions from the noosphere, it is a simple tool which you can utilize immediately. There is a right and wrong way to meditate, as simple as it may sound, and I find many come to my courses without having had the proper instruction on technique and philosophy behind an effective meditation practice. Both elements are necessary as philosophy without technique is empty, and technique without philosophy is blind. So my recommendation is to learn both. If you would love to learn the hows and whys of meditation, as well as other techniques which will strengthen your ability to both tap into and increase the transmission from the noosphere, please contact me. Every great idea has been downloaded from the noosphere; yours are no less great, you simply need to act on them. Tap in, download and act—it really is that simple. Contact me and I can help you with each.

Copyright © 2013 Dr. Nick Campos - All Rights Reserved.