“I’ll explain that shortly. For now, let’s focus back on this passage from The Holographic Universe that I read earlier…”
To catch a glimmer of what we are missing, he suggests we look at a child. Children have not yet had the time to form vortices, and this is reflected in the open and flexible way they interact with the world. According to Shainberg, the sparkling aliveness of a child expresses the very essence of the unfolding-enfolding nature of consciousness when it is unimpeded.
Michael Talbot
"I've noticed this with children as well," I said. "I've taught hundreds of kids how to code their own Minecraft mods, and they are so much fun to teach. I've also taught teenagers and a few adults, and the kids are much better learners.
Let's look at this in the context of a Bayesian brain. I told you how your brain forms a model of its reality using a Bayesian process. For example, when I throw this grape in the air, my brain predicts that it will fall back to the ground. All the data that has entered my senses since birth has led to that prediction. In my mind, there is a 100 percent probability that the grape will fall towards the ground.
But let's say the grape doesn't fall towards the ground. Let's say I throw the grape in the air, and it starts floating. I would get a huge prediction error — a gap between what my consciousness expects to happen, and what the information coming into my senses tells me is actually happening. A prediction error occurs when we are wrong about something.
But, if you think about it, kids are used to being wrong because they don't know anything yet. They are constantly exploring their world, trying things, making a mess, and attempting to form a model of their reality. Because they make so many mistakes, they are continuously exposed to information that proves them wrong. They're like little sponges, soaking up information without all these pre-existing belief systems getting in the way.
If our brains follow a Bayesian process, a child's brain would predict more prediction errors. Like, if you're getting prediction errors all the time, then the probability that you'll encounter a new prediction error is high. If you're wrong all the time, you'd expect to be wrong again. This keeps you very open-minded.
Contrast this with close-minded adults who think they know everything. They grow up and leave school and never step out of their comfort zone. They never really change themselves or challenge their own belief systems. Actually, this passage from Conversations With God sums it up well..."
I suppose we all have an insatiable need to know.
But you already know! I’ve just told you! Yet you don’t want to know the Truth, you want to know the truth as you understand it. This is the greatest barrier to your enlightenment. You think you already know the truth! You think you already understand how it is. So you agree with everything you see or hear or read that falls into the paradigm of your understanding, and reject everything which does not. And this you call learning. This you call being open to the teachings. Alas, you can never be open to the teachings so long as you are closed to everything save your own truth.
Neale Donald Walsch
I looked at Zac. "That's the society we've built, and it's dangerous. I can see it getting worse with the rise of social media. The Facebook and Youtube algorithms are literally optimized to show us content that confirms our own beliefs. This is causing so much polarization and lack of empathy in society, as well as stagnation all over the place. Physics hasn't made any real progress in the past half-century or so, and yet they laugh at and shout down anyone who dares challenge their materialist dogma.
Our society is in the midst of a cognitive crisis, and I find it very disturbing. Our education system has trained us to be cognitive sloths, and then technology exacerbates the problem. Very few people actually think for themselves. Here, listen to this…"
Reaching to the height of hypocrisy, some humans even kill in the name of God — and that is the highest blasphemy, for it does not speak of Who You Are.
Oh, then there is something wrong with killing?
Let’s back up. There’s nothing “wrong” with anything. “Wrong” is a relative term, indicating the opposite of that which you call “right.” Yet, what is “right”? Can you be truly objective in these matters? Or are “right” and “wrong” simply descriptions overlaid on events and circumstances by you, out of your decision about them?
And what, pray tell, forms the basis of your decision? Your own experience! No. In most cases, you’ve chosen to accept someone else’s decision. Someone who came before you and, presumably, knows better. Very few of your daily decisions about what is “right” and “wrong” are being made by you, based on your understanding.
This is especially true on important matters. In fact, the more important the matter, the less likely are you to listen to your own experience, and the more ready you seem to be to make someone else’s ideas your own.
Neale Donald Walsch
"That reminds me of something Charles Bukowski once wrote," I said. "People are strange. They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice."
This explains why you’ve given up virtually total control over certain areas of your life, and certain questions that arise within the human experience.
These areas and questions very often include the subjects most vital to your soul: the nature of God; the nature of true morality; the question of ultimate reality; the issues of life and death surrounding war, medicine, abortion, euthanasia, the whole sum and substance of personal values, structures, judgments. These most of you have abrogated, assigned to others. You don’t want to make your own decisions about them.
“Someone else decide! I’ll go along, I’ll go along!” you shout. “Someone else just tell me what’s right and wrong!”
This is why, by the way, human religions are so popular. It almost doesn’t matter what the belief system is, as long as it’s firm, consistent, clear in its expectation of the follower, and rigid. Given those characteristics, you can find people who believe in almost anything. The strangest behavior and belief can be — has been — attributed to God. It’s God’s way, they say. God’s word.
And there are those who will accept that. Gladly. Because, you see, it eliminates the need to think.
Now, let’s think about killing. Can there ever be a justifiable reason for killing anything? Think about it. You’ll find you need no outside authority to give you direction, no higher source to supply you with answers. If you think about it, if you look to see what you feel about it, the answers will be obvious to you, and you will act accordingly. This is called acting on your own authority.
It is when you act on the authority of others that you get yourself into trouble. Should states and nations use killing to achieve their political objectives? Should religions use killing to enforce their theological imperatives? Should societies use killing as a response to those who violate behavioral codes? Is killing an appropriate political remedy, spiritual convincer, or societal problem solver?
Now, is killing something you can do if someone is trying to kill you? Would you use killing force to defend the life of a loved one? Someone you didn’t even know?
Is killing a proper form of defense against those who would kill if they are not in some other way stopped?
Is there a difference between killing and murder?
The state would have you believe that killing to complete a purely political agenda is perfectly defensible. In fact, the state needs you to take its word on this in order to exist as an entity of power.
Religions would have you believe that killing to spread and maintain knowledge of, and adherence to, their particular truth is perfectly defensible. In fact, religions require you to take their word on this in order to exist as an entity of power.
Society would have you believe that killing to punish those who commit certain offenses (these have changed through the years) is perfectly defensible. In fact, society must have you take its word for it in order to exist as an entity of power.
Do you believe these positions are correct? Have you taken another’s word for it? What does your Self have to say?
There is no “right” or “wrong” in these matters.
But by your decisions you paint a portrait of Who You Are.
Indeed, by their decisions your states and nations have already painted such pictures.
By their decisions your religions have created lasting, indelible impressions. By their decisions your societies have produced their self- portraits, too.
Are you pleased with these pictures? Are these the impressions you wish to make? Do these portraits represent Who You Are? Be careful of these questions. They may require you to think. Thinking is hard. Making value judgments is difficult. It places you at pure creation, because there are so many times you’ll have to say, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Yet still you’ll have to decide. And so you’ll have to choose. You’ll have to make an arbitrary choice.
Such a choice — a decision coming from no previous personal knowledge — is called pure creation. And the individual is aware, deeply aware, that in the making of such decisions is the Self created.
Most of you are not interested in such important work. Most of you would rather leave that to others. And so most of you are not self-created, but creatures of habit — other-created creatures.
Neale Donald Walsch
"Sheep and drones," I said.
"Yeah," Zac agreed. "Sheep and close-minded drones with pubic hair growing from their chin!"
Then, when others have told you how you should feel, and it runs directly counter to how you do feel — you experience a deep inner conflict. Something deep inside you tells you that what others have told you is not Who You Are. Now where to go with that? What to do?
Neale Donald Walsch
"Ummm… story of my life," I interjected.
The first place you go is to your religionists — the people who put you there in the first place. You go to your priests and your rabbis and your ministers and your teachers, and they tell you to stop listening to your Self. The worst of them will try to scare you away from it; scare you away from what you intuitively know.
They’ll tell you about the devil, about Satan, about demons and evil spirits and hell and damnation and every frightening thing they can think of to get you to see how what you were intuitively knowing and feeling was wrong, and how the only place you’ll find any comfort is in their thought, their idea, their theology, their definitions of right and wrong, and their concept of Who You Are.
The seduction here is that all you have to do to get instant approval is to agree. Agree and you have instant approval. Some will even sing and shout and dance and wave their arms in hallelujah!
That’s hard to resist. Such approval, such rejoicing that you have seen the light; that you’ve been saved!
Approvals and demonstrations seldom accompany inner decisions. Celebrations rarely surround choices to follow personal truth. In fact, quite the contrary. Not only may others fail to celebrate, they may actually subject you to ridicule. What? You’re thinking for yourself? You’re deciding on your own? You’re applying your own yardsticks, your own judgments, your own values? Who do you think you are, anyway?
And, indeed, that is precisely the question you are answering.
But the work must be done very much alone. Very much without reward, without approval, perhaps without even any notice.
Neale Donald Walsch
"This God guy is dropping some real wisdom bombs, isn't he?" Zac said.
