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Martin Lass: S.O.L.A.R.®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality.
Toward the Complete Human Being…
The Limitations of the Senses
Part Two
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by Martin Lass |
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This month, we continue with our discussion about the limitations of our senses and about how this keeps us from experiencing greater enlightenment, healing, and wholeness, but how we can also transform this situation by understanding these limitations, what they are initially designed for, and how to actually use them on our Quest for enlightenment, healing, and wholeness.
5) Only Seeing What We Want to See
As we mature, top-down conceptual brain processing largely overwhelms our ability to process incoming information from the bottom-up, and to a large extent we cease to be conscious of the outside world and see only our own concepts.[1]
—Rita Carter, science and medical writer for the New York Times,
Washington Post, New Scientist, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph.
From the perspective of our potential enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness, the desensitization of the brain, which we discussed last month, is certainly alarming. However, the following is even more alarming: aside from constantly filtering out non-threatening experiences and putting your consciousness on auto-pilot, your brain also becomes increasingly selective in what it lets in. It then fills in the gaps (extrapolates) with information it already has—information from your past experiences and from your brain’s interpretation of these experiences. It ignores all the rest.
For example, when we look at a person’s face, our brain only sees what it needs to see in order to identify the person. It selectively picks out the person’s significant features—physical, mental, and/or emotional. It then proceeds to build, invent, and/or fill in the rest from its store of memories—memories that may or may not represent an accurate picture. This is most striking when we see a person out of the corner of our eye and think we recognize them. We don’t fully see them, but our brain fills in the gaps. However, when we turn and look directly, we may find that it’s not the person we thought it was.
Similarly, you may have quickly read a particular passage in a book or a magazine and thought you understood it. On second reading, you realize that you misread it. You “saw” words that were not there. You switched words around. You entirely missed other words. Why? Because your brain decided at a certain point that it knew what the passage was all about. It picked out the significant points, compared it to existing information in your brain, stopped at the first “match,” and then shut out further perceptions. The trouble is, the first “match” was not the correct one. Your brain then filled in the gaps (extrapolated) with what it thought the passage was about.
It’s like when a guy is driving along the highway and sees a billboard advertisement out of the corner of his eye. It says (so he thinks), “…see naked ladies…” On second glance, he realizes that he’s mistaken. It actually says, “…sale… neckties… last days…”
This might be funny, but it’s also frightening. We actually live our lives like this. While our attention wanders or “sleeps,” our brain is inventing our reality.
Our brain tends to censor our experiences, selecting only what it needs until it can “match” our experiences with its existing memories, information, and interpretations.
“Ah, yes…” we say. “I know that, I recognize this, I understand that,” and so on and so forth. Our brain constructs, invents, and paints the rest of the picture based on our existing (and invariably lopsided) personas. In truth, we know little, recognize little, and understand less, all the while thinking we know it all.
Our brain constructs our reality from a combination of censored/filtered incoming experiences and the “library” of our previous experiences, whether accurate or not.
Neurologists now suggest that as much as 90% of our experience of everyday life is an invention—a virtual construct, an illusion—built up by our brain. That means that 90% of what we directly experience is ignored by the brain. That means that, for the most part, we only directly experience 10% of what really goes on. That means that our view of life is almost hopelessly distorted, lopsided, biased, and colored and is mostly based on the biases of our preexisting personas. No wonder we have so much trouble communicating with others. We only hear what we want to hear, see what we want to see, and understand the way we want to understand.
The lower brain is built first for survival, security, and safety—for maintaining the status quo—
and not for higher consciousness.
Take all the preceding tendencies of the brain—habitual reactions (favoring older neural pathways), filtering out non-threatening life experiences (desensitization), and jumping to conclusions (selectivity and extrapolation)—and multiply this by a lifetime. This powerful cocktail of brain behaviors explains why we tend to notice certain things in our lives that we expect to be a certain way and fail to notice other things that would otherwise balance our lopsided expectations.
For example, it explains why we think our lane on the highway is always moving slower than the other lanes, no matter which lane we move to. It explains the irrational feeling that we’re an unlucky person or that the universe “has it in for us.” It explains “Murphy’s Law,” where it seems that if something can go wrong, it will. It explains why, in moments of resentment, blame, anger, and hurt, we “forget” most of the positive things people we are upset with have given us and done for us in the past.
In short, if our dominant personas tend to see things negatively, then we will tend to be a pessimist in regard to our life’s experiences. Each new negative experience is noticed and confirms our negative perspective, and each new positive experience is not so noticed. On the other hand, if our dominant personas tend to see things positively, then we will tend to be an optimist in regard to our life’s experiences. Here, each new positive experience is noticed and confirms our positive perspective, and each new negative experience is not so noticed. In truth, both perspectives—the pessimist and the optimist—are equally lopsided ways of seeing the world. They both set up unrealistic expectations and conditions—the expectations and conditions of Material Nature—that try to deny that there are two equal sides to everything in life.
The media—newspapers, TV, radio, and so on—personifies the pessimist viewpoint. It exaggerates and focuses on the negative aspects of life while, to a large degree, minimizing and turning a blind eye to the positive aspects. In this way, it supports the common view that the world is messed up, that there’s little balance or justice in the world, and that, overall, “evil” currently has the upper hand. For this reason, if we really wish for enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness, perhaps the nightly news isn’t a good starting point! At least, it would be wise to seek a broader perspective on the media news, looking for the flipsides of the otherwise lopsided views and pictures presented. In short, there’s always another side to the story… or, maybe, many other sides.
6) The Lies and Guesses of the Left Brain
Neurologists tell us that the right brain (right hemisphere of the brain) tends to live in the moment and doesn’t attempt to find meaning in the world. It’s not interested in what caused this or that or in the results of events and circumstances. It simply records exactly what’s there, all at once. In this way, the memories of the right brain are a whole lot more accurate than those of the left brain.
On the other hand, the left brain, being the analytical side, tries to make logical sense of the world. It tries to put each new experience into a bigger picture. To this end, the left brain has the tendency to 1) generalize, 2) jump to conclusions (extrapolate), 3) fill in the gaps (interpolate), 4) look for causes and effects and, where there is not enough material to work with, 5) create false information.
The left brain creates whatever it needs to complete an ordered and consistent picture of the world, even if what it creates and the final picture are both completely incorrect.
In other words, the left brain, when faced with insufficient information (immediate experiences plus memories), creates false memories.
One might think, “I don’t do that! Crazy people do that!” Sorry to shatter a myth, but we all do it, whether we’re aware of it or not. There appears to be an evolutionary advantage to this behavior (although the accompanying lateralization of the human brain—i.e. the left and right brains adopting different tasks—is seen as an evolutionary backstep). In short, by seeking explanations—even false narratives—for the meaning of our experiences, we’re better prepared to deal with unknown future situations, as and when they arise; it adds to our repertoire of possible responses and solutions.
However, if we’re seeking higher consciousness, this left brain behavior can continually sidetrack us and take us on wild goose chases. How will we find Truth amidst the left brain’s lies and guesses? The only answer is to question every memory; and to try to recover the lost halves of these memories—recover the flipsides of the events and circumstances of our lives that become repressed and hidden when the brain initially sized up these events and circumstances.
Your every memory—consciously remembered or not—is a piece of you. The answer is to bring together all these pieces—bring together all your expressed and repressed personas. This is the true meaning of the word “re-member.”
7) The Illusions of Time and Space
Our sense of three-dimensional space is also an illusion built up by the brain. A baby has little sense of space and only develops this sense after the brain is programmed by life experiences. What we see of the world is filtered, interpreted, and distorted by the way our senses “see” it and by the way our brain interprets what the senses see. For example, if you were to look at the world through a gamma-ray detector, it would look completely alien.
Not only this, but our subjective experience of time changes depending on which of the sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous systems dominates at any given moment. It’s also been shown that attention directly affects our experience of time. For example, when you’re immersed in a good book, time passes quickly and unnoticed, whereas, if you’re late for work and the traffic is slow, every second feels like an hour.
More than this, though, it’s been demonstrated (through studies of brain-damaged people) that the awareness of time and space depends upon the proper functioning of certain brain “modules.” If these modules are damaged, we can lose awareness of space and distance (known medically as neglect), or we can altogether lose the sense of the passage of time (such as in cases of catatonia and certain brain tumors).
In addition, our normal experience of the passage of time is a result of a loop of dopamine-generated neural activity, which cycles about every one tenth of a second.[2] Change or interrupt this brain cycle, and it changes or interrupts our experience of time.
The bottom line is that the brain creates our subjective experience of time and space so we can survive in the dualistic material world. Although this serves the evolution of the species, it also puts the brakes on the possibility of higher consciousness.
Don’t get me wrong… I’m not in any way suggesting that catatonia is the way to go or that deliberate mutilation of the brain is the way to higher consciousness! There’s a big difference between the timelessness and spacelessness experienced by people with damaged brains and the timelessness and spacelessness that can be achieved through spiritual pursuits. As we’ll see in what follows, by using the healthy brain in a certain way, we can dissolve the illusions of time and space. The net result is not decreased consciousness, as in catatonia, but increased consciousness, as in enlightenment.
How the Brain’s Survival Tactics Keep Us Imprisoned
Your personas, once established in the brain (as myelinated neural pathways, loops, regions, connections, and disconnections) tend to fight for their survival. They fight to maintain the status quo of apparently successful survival patterns, as interpreted by the lowest survival levels of the brain, not the highest.
In other words, your personas strongly resist and oppose challenges; they see challenges, opposition, and conflict as painful, harmful, and/or dangerous; they consider these as threats to their lives and react accordingly.
Your personas react accordingly, because they will die in the wake of greater Truth, Light, Love, and Oneness. They will die, but, in the process, new personas of greater consciousness (lesser in number) will be born: the birth of higher, more aligned, and more unified consciousness. In the end, what is it that dies? Only your illusions, half-truths, and lies; only your sense of separation, aloneness, isolation, and alienation; only your biases, judgments, and blame; only your complaints and grievances; only your Woundedness.
So, your Material Nature (mirrored in the lower layers of the brain) is not only persuasive, alluring, and hypnotic, it’s also resistant and clever in its ploys to maintain the status quo of your lopsided perspectives. Consequently, your Quest for enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness will take considerable conscious and intentional effort. Not only this, but you might require help from those who have walked the Path before—help from genuine spiritual guides.
The Truth is revealed to us when the flipsides of things—mirrored in our repressed and hidden personas—are brought into the open, thereby balancing our expressed viewpoints and stances. However, seeing the Truth can be painful at first. Our lopsided personas don’t want to hear what anyone else has to say, much less look for the flipsides of things. Not only this, but we can’t do it all at once. The full Truth would be unbearable all at once. So, we naturally tend to take it at a pace we can deal with, moving slowly and carefully, step by step, persona by persona, and issue by issue. Otherwise, it would be like coming up too quickly from a deep dive and getting the bends. As we rise in consciousness, from density and darkness to ethereality and lightness, time is required to adjust to the finer atmosphere.
In this way, the protective mechanisms of your personas act as a counterbalance, regulating your speed along the path toward enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness.
In short, although your personas generally hinder your Quest in the beginning, they also protect you from moving too fast and burning yourself, so to speak, in the brightness of the Light of higher consciousness. All things Serve a larger Plan, even your personas.
Our Saving Grace: The Mirror of Life
After everything that’s been said so far, you might begin to think there’s no hope. It seems that your brain will always fight to stop you from attaining enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness; it will do anything it can to preserve and maintain the dualistic and illusory world of Material Nature.
However, there is a saving grace. If there wasn’t, then there would no point in talking about enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness or about the possibility of creating the life your innermost Heart desires. As it happens, though, life itself provides the other half of the equation. Life itself provides a mirror that reflects everything that you are—the expressed sides and the repressed sides. Let’s see how…
As we’ve already explored, life constantly challenges our one-sided personas—challenges our lopsided, distorted, and biased perspectives and viewpoints. This is the Gift of conflict. Whether we like it or not, our stances “attract” people, events, and circumstances that continually present us with the other side of the coin. In this way, we are constantly challenged to discover a broader perspective, a more inclusive view, and a more balanced appreciation of the world, our lives, and ourselves.
When challenges, opposition, and conflict happen, the battle isn’t between “good” and “evil” or “right” and “wrong”, despite what we might think or what we’ve been taught. “Good” and “evil” and “right” and “wrong” are the judgments of our expressed personas as they try to defend their lopsided positions. In truth, the battle is between our visible expressed personas (stances) and our hidden, denied, and disowned repressed personas. Our “enemies” mirror our repressed personas.
What we see in our “enemies” is what we are denying, disowning, hiding, ignoring, or secretly judging in ourselves. Life is a perfect mirror. We will explore this idea further a little later.
When the winner of the battle is one side or the other, it’s a victory for Material Nature and the stage is set for further battles. On the other hand, when we resolve the conflicts and integrate our perspectives with those of our challengers, the two sides become one and we are taken from Material Nature into Spiritual Nature. Again, the enemy is not “evil.” “Evil” and “wrong” are judgments made by our lopsided personas in order to protect themselves. The real enemy is our lopsided perspectives; it’s the dualistic and illusory world seen by Material Nature.
The real battle is for a broader perspective, for a more inclusive view, for balance, alignment, and unity of consciousness—for the perspectives of our Spiritual Nature, including that of unconditional Love.
Each of our personas represents a journey, a question, and a quest for higher consciousness. We “try on” each one, like a hat or a coat, to see how it fits. Now we’re thoughtful… now we’re incensed… now we’re excited… now we’re depressed… now we support this cause… now we support that cause… now we see injustice… now we don’t care… and so on. Each one attracts different people, different experiences, and different challenges. Every challenge represents and mirrors our hidden repressed personas. Every challenge offers us the flipsides of our visible expressed personas (stances).
In this way, the outer world is a reflection of your hidden nature. It’s a projection of your denied self.
The Gift of the dualistic world and of your Material Nature is that they present a mirror. In this mirror, you can see all of yourself—the visible and the hidden—if you have the courage to look. The Gift of the mirror is that it offers you the possibility of learning to Love yourself—all of yourself—just as you are.
When confronted with this mirror, you have a choice. You can meet the challenges, or you can continue to avoid or ignore them. You can fight the challenges, continuing to hang onto your lopsided perspectives and creating more conflict, or you can strive to resolve these challenges and integrate the results with your own perspectives. This last choice—resolution and integration—requires effort that you may or may not be ready or willing to make. If you choose to make the effort, then attention, supported by intention, will be your greatest tool, as we’ll explore in what follows.
In Summary
Now we’ve explored how our brain creates and maintain the world of duality in which one side of things is expressed while the other side is repressed. In short, Material Nature’s perspectives are built into the brain. It’s all a matter of how we first “see” things.
Everything you perceive is first filtered and distorted by your brain, according to patterns that serve physical survival, safety, and comfort.
Everything you perceive through your Material Nature is initially a distorted, lopsided, and misinterpreted fraction of a greater Truth—a greater Truth that’s available to your Spiritual Nature.
On the other hand, we’ve also seen how the dualistic world provides a mirror in which we can see the hidden sides of ourselves, reflected in the people, events, and circumstances around us. If we have the courage, honesty, and persistence to look in this mirror, we will find what we require in order to experience enlightenment, Healing, and wholeness.
However, before this, it’s necessary to understand how the dualistic world affects us not only physically, but also emotionally and mentally. It’s necessary to understand how our emotions and thoughts, like our physical brain, also see but one side of things while missing, ignoring, or denying the other balancing sides. This is the subject of a later chapter.
In the meantime, let’s have a quick look at where our Material and Spiritual Natures “live” in our bodies.
Material and Spiritual Natures in the Body
Where do Material and Spiritual Natures “live” in the body? Where are their homes, so to speak?
Material Nature—the world of our lopsided personas, of expressed and repressed personas—has its “headquarters” in the solar plexus nerve bundle (and the chakras below it). Astrologically, the solar plexus is ruled by the Moon. The solar plexus is the seat of duality, of the material perspective, and of our lower emotional nature. Here’s where we experience emotions, impulses, instincts, attractions, repulsions, and reactions. Here’s the place where conflicts are born and fought. The themes of the solar plexus are holographically mirrored in the lower layers of the brain—in the thoughts, pictures, and concepts of our lower mental nature. (The solar plexus is connected to the brain by the vagus nerve.)
On the other hand, Spiritual Nature—the world of unified and balanced consciousness—has its “headquarters” in the heart plexus (and the chakras above it). (For simplicity’s sake, we will refer to the heart plexus—physically and energetically—as the “Heart.”) Astrologically, the Heart is ruled by the Sun. The Heart is the seat of unity, of the spiritual perspective, and of our higher emotional nature. (Our higher mental nature has its seat in our crown chakra.) Here’s where we can experience inspiration and where we can receive the higher messages of Spirit. Here’s the place where conflicts are resolved and dissolved. The themes of the Heart are holographically mirrored in the upper layers of the brain (and in the crown chakra).
(See the following diagram…)
)
Truth, Light, Love, and Oneness,
Martin Lass – S.O.L.A.R.® First Facilitator
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Martin Lass,
The first S.O.L.A.R.® Emissary, Astrologer, Author
& Musician
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The first S.O.L.A.R.® Emissary is Martin Lass. His background includes over twenty years spent studying in two separate mystery schools, each with a direct lineage extending back into antiquity—one school coming through Egyptian traditions and the other from a hidden Central Asian tradition combined with the Sufi Way.
He is also a professional astrologer, astrological/spiritual counselor, accredited practitioner of various healing modalities, musician, composer, and published author.)
S.O.L.A.R.®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality.
Toward the Complete Human Being…
www.solarjourney.org
info@solarjourney.org
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