Introspection - 7 : Illusion of Bondage

By Michelle Wiarda

Goal

We will attempt to gain a direct experience of the free nature of the Self and will see that there is absolutely no bondage of any kind.

Prerequisites

Nothing more than that which is already mentioned for other introspections. See introspection - 1.

Question your bondage

Ask – Who is bound? Who is not free?

Those who are identified with the body will immediately find themselves answering how they are not free to do this or to do that, to remain young and healthy forever and to evade death or to have all the riches and pleasures of the world. That is deep ignorance, but it is ok.

Happiness and Freedom

Acting in the World 

Having checked what the world is about we are now in a position of asking an important question. Given this world, and a body made up of worldly stuff, what is the optimal way to act here?  In simpler terms, how should one live his life in the best possible way? The short version of the answer is - actions must be such that they lead to more and more happiness and freedom. The long version is the following article. As long as there is a Mind, there will be worlds and bodies, and actions will follow. Our actions determine the quality of our worldly experience. So it is imperative to learn how to act here. Needless to say that our actions must be aligned to our goals, namely - happiness and freedom.

Why happiness and freedom? 

I'm glad you asked. Never accept blindly whatever they feed you. Question the teachings and then question the questions. What else you'd want, if not happiness and freedom? If you dig a bit here, you'd find that every human being or the Self having human experiences wants nothing but happiness and freedom. This is a necessity, not a choice. In other words, whatever you do, you do it for happiness and freedom. You are incapable of doing anything else. Lets examine more.

The Extraordinary Gift of the Mind:Part-8

Continued from Part-7

By Alex Grey

23.    Pleasure and Pain

We have seen in the previous articles that the Mind has an ability to perceive. It organizes the experiences gained via external and internal senses into knowledge. This is an evolutionary process, and is biased towards a certain goal, namely, the sustenance of the Mind. Anything that is unnecessary for the existence of the Mind is simply not organized or is organized very weakly. The goal of the Mind to remain in existence is auto-set, it is by necessity, because any other goals that may appear are destroyed sooner or later by the impermanence (continuous change, the Experiencing). This goal biases the perception process and almost all actions of the Mind and results in a reward/punishment system, that rewards (enhances) favourable perceptions/actions and punishes (diminishes) the non-favourable ones. Such a system is at the core of any evolutionary algorithm, as AI/AGI programmers/researchers know very well [1].
The rewards cause the behaviour/actions/perception helpful in sustenance and preservation of the Mind to repeat often and strengthen the structures, while the punishments cause the unhelpful or damaging behaviour/actions/perception to diminish and destroys the structures that cause these or creates new structures to prevent the damages. The reward and punishment are also perceived, they are the familiar perceptions of pleasure and pain. They appear as qualia, a distinct experience that cannot be shared with others (such as the experience of seeing colors), but can only be inferred. Why is there a need to perceive the rewards and punishments as “flavours” of pleasure and pain? This is same as asking why is there a need to perceive colors and why do they look like the way they look like, or in other words – why is red, red? These are just structures, non-physical ones, a result of unique experiences, created to help organize the experiences (As we have seen in the case of time and space). The pleasure and pain provide a useful tool for biasing the Mind towards continued existence. Their perception is a meta-process that aids in their recognition and memory formation. One tends to remember the experiences that cause extreme pain or pleasure. These cause very effective learning.

The Path of the Heart

    गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुर्गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः ।

    गुरुरेव परं ब्रह्म तस्मै श्रीगुरवे नमः ॥

I was introduced to the phrase "The path with a heart" many many years ago via some books by Carlos Castaneda about his teacher Don Juan[10]. I didn't understand much, the books appeared mostly cryptic and went over my head. Anyhow, the phrase made some impression on me, as later on, it became clear what he was talking about, it was something that I was searching for since the beginning. I have readopted this concept as "The path of the heart" [1]. This version of the phrase is somewhat more clear but less poetic, and we will now discuss what it actually is and why it is so important.