How do you explain this?

Yoo Ye Eun, a blind five-year old Korean girl, plays songs such as Beethoven's “Für Elise” on the piano after listening once and never having been taught.

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Re: How do you explain this?

In the sense that the human brain is endlessly mysterious, I certainly can't explain this.

However, in another sense, this is simply one part of her brain that's far more developed than another. Savant capabilities are well documented. These are often, but not exclusively, associated with autism.

Interestingly enough, these abilties often disappear when the autism or other underlying disorder is treated successfully, raising some questions about the ethics of changing a person's brain to be more “functional” and balanced. There are those in the autism community who insist that this is wrong, and that having autism is simply a different way of being that's not mainstream, like being gay. I disagree, to an extent. Acceptance of “what is” does not mean that one should never work to improve the situation, and is a classic Green-meme mistake: heaps instead of holons.

A well-functioning brain enables a person to function in human society, which autistic brains cannot do without a great deal of costly interventions and accomodations. It's unethical to place the burden of that on a society for the sake of honoring diversity.

I would also add that this kind of ability often does not come with a corresponding depth of ability to interpret it, and is a mere curiosity, not a gift to humankind like, for instance, Mozart was. I've known several autistic children who could read prolifically at the age of 2 or 3, and they didn't understand what they were doing at all.

(I went way off-topic with this, Mascha, and feel free to flail at me with your punishment of choice)

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

Liz, you ignorant slut! (That's for you old people out there.)

I thought of something else. This is an age-old conundrum. Of course, I have the answer.

If we could prevent all birth defects and heal all wounds that disable people, should we? In fact, it's already happening. Downs Syndrome births have dropped to nearly zero.

Are we depriving the world of the often sweetly joyous Downs people? Would I go back in time and give Stevie Wonder sight (might he have become an accountant)? What if Beethoven's mother had had an abortion?

These are misleading questions. We never have the kind of information that would give us a clear answer. The only integral way to make such a decision is to weigh all the available perspectives and make the best possible choice. We have to take action, even knowing that we can never know what the result will be. We do that every day anyway, we just don't think of it. This is not to say there's only one answer. I could see deciding to have a Downs baby if I felt called to that child. But I would know going in that it was a huge karma I was taking on.

Hm. A lecture just poured out of my brain. Perhaps there is a way to deal with this malfunction…

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

Liz, you're not off-topic at all. I understand that you have a (mildly?) autistic son, which would explain why your first reaction to the video would tap into your own reservoir of experiences to make sense of this child prodigy's talent.

It's not clear whether  Yoo Ye Eun is autistic, though. Other well-known prodigies certainly aren't, so there's room for much further exploration in this area.

Hugs,

m



 

Re: How do you explain this?

“Prodigy” is a tricky word. A vast majority are simply children with some talent with parents with a lot of ambition. It usually does not work out well for the children. Some are genuinely very different, and certainly not all are pathological in some way. But almost no child prodigies turn into healthy, successful adults. So I'm definitely biased against the kind of promotion that goes along with these things. It's almost always exploitative.

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

Hey! I will come back and explain a little more in a bit, but I wanted to post this. This is the opening of my current essay on Dramatic Intelligence.

______________________________________________________________________

In AQAL Integral Psychology, the talents, or ‘gifts,’ represent a special group of Developmental Lines or Streams. This group has for the most part been studied and is represented by Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory, some of the central principals of which are utilized in the AQAL model of lines, streams and waves as a whole. Ken Wilber, personal communication, 2007

Re: How do you explain this?

That last post was supposed to be deleted. Oh well.

Here is what I meant to write from my essay:

In AQAL Integral Psychology, the talents, or ‘gifts,’ represent a special group of Developmental Lines or Streams. This group has for the most part been studied and is represented by Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory, some of the central principals of which are utilized in the AQAL model of lines, streams and waves as a whole.

The talents are unique among the Lines because they can appear, emerge, develop, and behave quite differently than those grouped into the Self-Related Lines or streams and the Cognitive or Consciousness Lines or streams (the structures of which generally constitute the Levels, Stages or Waves of all Lines). This is demonstrated, for example, by exceptional individuals such as child prodigies or autistic savants; individuals in whom ordinary development is either profoundly impaired or has scarcely yet begun, yet extraordinary aptitude is displayed in one or several of an array of distinct performative-computational capacities (e.g. music, mathematics, geometry, etc.) The basic capacities themselves are fundamental abilities possessed by all human beings (and can be found variously in many primates [e.g. music-birds, space-rats, homing pigeons]) which support ordinary consciousness and functioning in everyday life, but which also, especially when proficient, represent the core capacities at work in professional fields that are highly valued by cultures and instrumental within societies. The most vivid examples of these capabilities emerging as talents find themselves realized in the arts and sciences, both today and throughout history, as represented in Figure 1. [which wont post here properly –oh well]

AQAL Groupings of Developmental Lines or Streams:

Consciousness/Cognitive

Baldwin

Piaget

Fischer

Aurobindo

Commons and Richards

Cook-Greuter (Perspectives)

[etc.]

Self-Related/Ego

Ego/Self-Sense

Values

Morals

Gender

Interpersonal (psychologist)

Intrapersonal (philosopher)

[etc.]

Talents/Gifts

Linguistic (poet)

Musical (composer)

Spatial (painter, sculptor)

Kinesthetic (dancer, athlete)

Mathematical (scientist)

Naturalist (biologist, zoologist)

______________________________________________________________________

The salient feature to understand for the talents is “The basic capacities themselves are fundamental abilities possessed by all human beings (and can be found variously in many primates) which [have evolved and/to ] support ordinary consciousness and functioning in everyday life.”

From an UR perspective (zone#5) the brain really can be thought of in many respects as a computer. Cognitive scientists (zone#5) speak of different ‘modules’ many of which really do have known biological correlates, in distinct locations in the brain (UR zone#6). To have astounding musical capacities such as you mentioned is really, literally to have something of a highly acute, advanced or sensitive musical ‘module,’ exactly like having an advanced program (software) and harware on your computer. And that’s where the things Liz said come in. I can have fantastic software and hardware on my computer (great program, tons of RAM and ROM, a super-fast processor) but it takes some consciousness to do anything with it (UL). That’s why savants and child prodigies don’t have the profundity of highly developed artists but might be able to lay them in the dust on, say, some kind of performative or information processing task (e.g. hear Beethoven once and play it by hear, with variations, etc.) Mozart wrote 'twinkle, twinkle little star' at five, but his Requiem at 26.

If you have ever had a tune stuck in your head then you are familiar with the workings of the zone#5 dynamic cognitive unconscious. It runs on autopilot and brings contents to consciousness (i.e. the tune ‘in your head’) but we do not have conscious or introspective access to how exactly it does it. We have to use empirical methods to figure it out objectively –which, we have to a large extent, or at least the basic architectures.

Just like someone can be born with innate potentials for high advancement in music, so too can someone, say, through brain damage to specific areas ('hardware') be rendered unable to access or process, comprehend or understand music in any way. E.g. the hardware/software is damaged. So too with all the other talents. Someone can lose their ability to talk and use language (aphasia) but maintain their ability to sing! Or lose their ability to sing (amusia) but maintain their ability to talk, etc. So too with math, space all sorts of different physical fine and gross motor skills (brain damage can cause you to lose your ability to dress yourself! But you can still walk, use tools, etc.)

Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory does account for all four quadrants, not just the UR, but what is happening in the UR with regard to these things is very important to gain understanding of these abilities and why they really are different than the rest of the lines. A savant isn't really, say, ultra-violet in the musical line. Although, by joe, it sure seems like that!

Re: How do you explain this?

Tim!!! I was almost going to reply to this and say you would have an interesting answer to this. I've contemplated it, and I really appreciate it now.

Best,

David

Re: How do you explain this?

Fantastic stuff Tim.  When do we get a draft of your book?

Re: How do you explain this?

Book? It will be some time. I finally came to the realization that what I had been working on for two articles was, oops, a book - I had over a 150 pages for what was supposed to be no more than 60. (Hmm, I'll bet no one can imagine such a thing ever happening to me … ) But there really was a crisis moment. I thought I was doomed to fail now. However, after a bit of calming and contemplation I churned out a 'non-exhaustive' introductory part one article in about a week and it landed at exactly 30 pages. So I am now focused on perfecting this one article for what is supposed to be June publication in AQAL Journal. Then, part two in another issue. Once I know those are done and underway, hopefully successful, etc. then I will focus on 'the book' which I am now thinking will/should have a single main purpose: to facilitate the taking seriously (and understanding accordingly) of acting, drama in academia -something which hasn't really yet been the case, really, or to the extent that it should for a number of complex, historical and interesting reasons. So anyway …


Yes, these talents/lines/gifts/capacities are tricky and tough. I always like to use the example of 'perfect pitch' or what is now less confusingly called 'absolute pitch.' Absolute pitch –for those who don't know -is the ability to identify musical notes exactly. e.g. that's a g#, a B, a C with no reference point and even such things as 'this entire piano is slightly out of tune' because it's tuned 3hz lower than it should be. Only a miniscule portion of the human population can do this, and to date it does to seem to be a capacity that can be developed; one must simply have the potentials innately. Obviously this is some kind of highly sensitive auditory function (or related) which allows someone to hear and process things which are not accessible to the rest of us. But what's interesting to think about is that the person with absolute pitch is conscious of something we are not. But then we can talk of someone being 'tone deaf' or 'color blind' etc. and it's all the same sort of thing.

Okay, I gotta go!

Re: How do you explain this?

I sit here smugly knowing that I got Tim to post.

Re: How do you explain this?

Mission accomplished! High five!

Re: How do you explain this?

Nice Job, Liz.  :)

It sounds great about the book, Tim.

So–we'll let you go after this :)–would you say, in the case of autistic-type prodigies, that it's, in part, the absence of something in these people that lets the glory of the UR shine forth? The absence of self-consciousness, ego development, object constancy, something. An absence of something that makes things very difficult in other areas but in this one area is a great gift because it allows a person's UR capacities to have full, unfettered play?

I really liked the distinctions between the abilities of these savants and highly developed artists; that really cleared things up.

David

Re: How do you explain this?

Yes, the distinction between savants and artists, general development, etc. is something that I've really struggled with, Pelle knows, we've struggled with it in PMs (ass opposed to PMS :-)), and I think it's clear everyone more or less has. Ken only added this line grouping distinction, well, I don't know when, but he's not published writing on it-the info comes from concalls, but that really clears things up. Mozart's Requiem is the musical product of a.) generally mature consciousness (probably orange) and b.) more mature self development: refelction upon his father, their relationship, his father's death, etc. A bit more than the toddler hit 'twinkle, twinkle.'

Yes, there does seem to be patterns of 'advance' coming as a result of impairment or what-have-you in other areas. There are even cases where brain damage, for example, suddenly 'unleashes' abilities that someone did not have prior. Fascinating. Also, autistic people, with a lot of variations, do seem to use these skills to compensate for others. For example, say, using music to connect and communicate or to 'speak.' This, along with other things, highlights UL consciousness -and a dominant monad -operating through whatever means it has available on the gross, biologically. Brain damged folks also learn to 'compensate' with other skills and new neurological patterns emerge (depending on age, etc.) This is one of the cool things that shows, say, in MI theory that any information can be processed in numerous ways.

Then, of course, also, in ordinary folks, practice, exposure, etc. does, bring greater ability and sensetivity.

No time to spell check -sorry.

Yes, Liz and Mascha got me to post!!

Re: How do you explain this?

Re: How do you explain this?

Yes, well, if I am going to be stuck thinking about something for at least three days minimum it might as well be something I am already trying to think about. :-)

I think crucial is the AQAL structure of the Upper Quadrants, two quads -interior, exterior -and four zones -int. etx of the UL (conscious), int. ext. of the UR (brain and biology). (“mind” is usually, imho a combination of both) The salient feature is that all four need to not just accounted for but differentiated because all four have unique qualities and factors that contribute to the individual as a whole.

We've talked about zone#1 (consciousness) and zone#6 (brain) and to some extent zone#5 (computations, information processess, etc.). Standard, healthy musical development, as in the artist, would be zone#2, and there are identifiable and to some extent already tracked and recognized patterns of that development (in those lines.) Basically, Howard Gardner's work. I was, for example, both awe-struck and thankful upon reading Frames of Mind (his original book on multiple intelligences) that, holy crap, he's right!, I hit a standard 'crisis phase' in my own personal musical development about 15 years ago. And that is, 13 years before I read that it was something 'normal' and recognized by someone!

Gardner's big and great contribution was that, in studying developmental psychology, he realized that EVERYONE who contributed to that field so far had looked at development only in terms of their own abilities. e.g. science, particularly math and to some extent language. This huge bias holds to this day very strongly. For example, just this week my daughter took two placement tests for a new school. What do you think the subjects were? 370 MATH questions and a much shorter test on language. These, in other words, are the standards for development, etc. with a heavy slant toward math. Am I going off on a tangent?

Anyway, my really 'big thing; right now is thew orking of zone#5 and how important it is to understand them and it. Rember the tune 'stuck in your head.' When Ken explains he can read a kabillion books and then simply sit down and write his own in about three months, while all the important facts simply come to his mind without thinking about it that is zone#5 at work. There are unconscious, inaccessible computational capacities at work and, upon directing his mind (and probably often when not) the contents simply spring into consciousness. e.g. “Oh, Lovinger said this which is like Aurabindo who said this, which is the same as, etc.”

We have been heavily conditioned through our conventional education to beleie and operate under the assumption that a particular mode of conscious thought is the only way for this to occur. But this is simply not so. The little girl at the piano does not need to give much thought to it, Beethoven is simply clear and the construction on the piano, and here it is, having never been 'taught' a thing. Granted, she will excel more with more formal education but it's really tricky IMO.

Often, attempting to 'think' about it is exactly what hinders the process. And THAT may be why, say, with less to think about, or less to be able to 'think' you get savants and so forth. Maybe. I at least think that's a factor for sure, which seems intuitive.

Okay, by again!!!!

Re: How do you explain this?

Nice additions, Pelle. A comment and a question:

1) It seems like we need more than the word talent, maybe a word like genius as well, to describe true creativity or novelty. So if on the cognitive line you were above the cultural COG you might be capable of genius in a particular field; if not, you could still have immense talent in that field.

2) With regard to cognition as the actual fundamental structure of human consciousness, aren't there different types of cognition? Which type are we talking about as the actual fundamental structure of human consciousness? Or are we talking about a mix of cognitive lines and a general altitude?

David

Re: How do you explain this?

One more comment re; David’s last post. Another contribution of Gardner which is important is indeed his definitions of creativity (and his 'genius matrix' etc. -another subject.) He says, for example, his students talk of Big C Creativity and little c creativity.

The girl in the video is little c creativity -as, actually, is most creativity. True creativity, Big C, is when an individual produces something which has never been done before, is not even accepted in it's domain at first, but later becomes culturally validated as a legitimate contribution and influences thereafter. This is a rare feat. There are, obviously, very few in this area, but it is all the great masters we acknowledge.

There are tons of fantastic mathematicians out there, very few Einstein’s. Tons of great musicians, few Stravinsky’s. Great painters, few Picassos. And all of that, of course, has to do with the UL. What someone does with this information and ability.

Also, a survey of the history seems to show that most individuals have one, maybe two significant creative contributions in their lifetimes. One major, one lesser, usually. And there is even something of a 'ten year rule.' Along the lines of, roughly ten years to master a domain (for example, music). Then the Big C Creative contribution, and then roughly another ten years before another one.

Really freaking interesting, huh!

Okay.

Thanks for this!

Tim

Re: How do you explain this?

David: 2) With regard to cognition as the actual fundamental structure of human consciousness, aren't there different types of cognition? Which type are we talking about as the actual fundamental structure of human consciousness? Or are we talking about a mix of cognitive lines and a general altitude?

Yes, there really are several, or more than one, cognitive lines. I put in my example, Cook-Greuter, perspectives as a cognitive line. Perspectives is a cognitive line, but her real locus of study is ego development. Her scales -the opportunist, the diplomat, the achiever, magician, etc -are self-stages; perspective taking, cognition or consciousness. e.g. someone can be at 5th perspective, but only an acheiver in self. AQAL, Ken's relaly is the most sophisticated model there is at this point, to both include and differentiate these things. I'm not an expert, however, on what other lines are cognitive or consciousness, really.

Re: How do you explain this?

You've got my synapses firing, Pelle and Tim.

Okay, whenever you have time…  What is your take on the subjective, internal experience of talented people regarding the flood of information processed in what seems like almost 'no time'?

For example, Tim, you've mentioned that you were a musically gifted child. Now, how did you explain to yourself at the time what was going on when your fingers simply found the right keys on the piano and the compositions just kept flowing into your awareness?

Did you (and do you today) think you were accessing memories? Have there been any studies about the subjective interpretations of prodigies themselves?

I'm asking because in my own mind, I've always felt I was remembering things when foreign languages along with their rhythms and unique textures revealed themselves as instantly accessible (as opposed to the terrifying blanks I drew at even simple math! Lol) I recall a time in my early teens when I first read about the existence of Akashic Records - subtle memory banks like infinite libraries - and what a relief it was to have these 'abnormal' perspectives confirmed by someone - anyone - at all.

m

Re: How do you explain this?

WARNING: HUGE RAMBLE. :-) (heh, been away for a while.)

You're psychic to have mentioned the fingers because that is exactly what has been on my mind with regard to myself and the little girl.

Let's see, what we want to do is attempt to take all perspectives into account. And you are absolutely right more study, survey, etc. should and needs to occur regarding the subjective. It is also true that my own subjective experiences and musings on these subjects have far preceded any objective look and indeed led to it and to this moment fuels it and excites me about it. That said, let me try and tell it like a little story or something.

There are three talents most prominent in my family, or which showed most prominent while I was growing up. The first was drawing (so, by MI standard, spatial ability coupled with fine motor skill to realize it on paper. Incidentally, although the 'cognitive' and the physical motor operations can be distinguished, and are sometimes not one and the same things, usually they are. In fact, it is probably notable with regard to children since they are at a stage of physical, body-consciousness, wit not even any substantial awareness of a 'mind' that can be separated in some way. All of the most progressive educational approaches take this into account. Children lead with their body, through doing. A subject that doesn't seem to come up again until green and the beginning of the integrated centaur bodymind. Sorry for the tangent. J ) Anyway, I was the youngest of six, and basically grew up in so many of my earliest memories to my older brother, B., the middle child, being a 'creative genius' with drawing and making comic books, etc. This highly influenced myself and my other brother, P. B. probably has/had ADHD which has to some extent been associated with 'creative' abilities, which may be something like what we were talking about with autistic savants. Some difficulty in a normal area, maybe all the energy and consciousness released or expresses itself in another, or, whatever we want to speculate, you get the point. Okay, but so, we accounted here for 'tribal' influence –nurture. I was always recognized as 'the best drawer' in the class and all of us as 'the best' in school to a certain point. (I lost interest in drawing/visiual art creation at about 12-14 when music interest took over.) But along with this nurture is indeed some kind of genetic nature. Our father … you should see his drawings! That was all he did as a kid too. But he never really influenced or instructed us (incidentally, all six of us) on this. The kids just started doing it. So, from an UR, biological, genetic, evolutionary, heritage perspective, it seems rather obvious that particularly sensitive potentials are biologically innate in the family –even when they have scarcely been used or generations! Who knows where it starts, but who really cares.

Before I go onto music, there is the second prominent, pretty obviously natural talent in my family –dramatic/comedic intelligence. This very clearly comes from my father too. In addition to being the 'best drawers' in school (and in addition to a more general trend of being somewhat geeky and some patterns of having trouble socially, and not being very good at sports) we were always given to be shown as the best actors when the opportunity arose. We were fortunate to have a somewhat good drama curriculum at our Catholic grade school, which I remain appreciative of. In 6, 7, 8^th grade, English class would devote a whole quarter (or four/six weeks or something) to drama. (Goddamn do I remain thankful for that!) Each class would put on a play for the whole school. There was also the Christmas play which to some extent usually had a short drama. My brother Brian (B), got to play The Grinch and I remember seeing it, at about 2-4 years old. I also remember the constant social resonance –“Brian was spectacular as the Grinch!” This definitely influenced me later when I reached sixths grade and the drama semester was due to be coming around. I expected to be 'the best actor' or to be able to excel, like it was right up my alley, and this wasn't in an egocentric or 'conceited' way either. It was – I knew I would be good at it and couldn't wait for the opportunity. (That's why such things and such diversity is so important in schools!) Turns out, I was right. The play was called “Super-duper Man” a Superman spoof and I got to be the villain –the best part! As all actors know – The Kryptonite Kid.

Okay, now, why? On thing stands out: I knew how evil villains laugh. And talk, and posture their body, and transform their facial expressions. I knew the villainous (stereotypical) affect and attitude patterns and could physical produce them, play them. (This is form of pattern recognition that supports acting. Called affective prosody.) Anyway, I'm probably off on a tangent.

Although it is obvious that other members of my family have this root talent, I am indeed the only one who perused it as an endeavor, profession, developed it. So here we go with UL. The basic capacity is there, they all have it in excess of average, but it never captured their interest so much, past whatever, just like I lost interest in drawing, visual and they maintained it and make me look so childish. They're incredible. (Hmm, maybe I should find some likens to my brothers website if he still has it.)

Okay, now, what is the subjective here. For me for acting, and drama … maybe mine is more acute than theirs. I know I would have 'dramatic images' churning in my mind all the time. Expressions of emotions, situations which evoked them. Following, this impulse to enact them somehow–either to create their enactment, or enact them myself. Indeed, this can be traced to the same objective capacity, but what on the inside? In at least one sense, Mascha, being a fellow adherent to a belief in transmigration/reincarnation, I am convinced that I dabbled in drama last time around, had great fun with it, it caught my karmic interest and quite simply I wanted to peruse it and go further with it again. (My view of evolution and development over lifetimes.) Even with that, we can still cite the 'genetics.' Some portion of 'memories' very easily could be, and probably is, quite simply these same creative-performative potentials laid down as impulses, urges, capacities by past individuals in my unique genetic line. Maybe even the desire resonance can be there too. Seriously. I can see some ancestor wanting to be an actor but prior to the 20^th this was not a reputable endeavor in large measure. Do patterns of that UL/UR energy come now to 'me?' I think so. Sure.

I would like to add a recent profoundly subjective experience along these lines … It's almost difficult to even talk about, it's so deep, the feeling, the 'echo'  of it. But as I have opened study here into the history of acting and actors … I swear to God, I swear by my life … I have touched the souls of past actors, echoing and calling out from the past to be UNDERSTOOD … all the way back to Thespis, the outlaw at first, Roscius in Rome, Talma (France, 17-1800s), Clarion, Siddons, Coquelin and Stanislavsky … It's one of the reasons I remain committed to assembling something finally academic ad definitive for the actor. There is indeed a Self in both them and me in this regard. Something should be left for those future selves who will find themselves beset with dramatic/comedic talent and a dramatic/comedic mind … and no reasonable, socio-culurally validated way to understand them. (And  mean, sufficiently. Sure, we'll send a few off to Hollywood, but that is not sufficient. Okay, NOW, I'm on a tangent!)

Okay, back to music.

I was clearly influenced by my older brother again Brain – in music. This is the most notable arising. There was no known musical history in my family. All of a sudden, 'out of nowhere' here goes Brian teaching himself to play the drums –and ardently desiring to do so. When he finally got  small drum set –after tons of begging –he was so excited he got sick for three days. A sad event in his educational history: the music teacher at his middle school refused him admittance into the band not just becase he was self taught, but the bastard actually said he was 'too good' as a result of being self-taught. “I don't want your father out there bragging about you.” Can you believe the bastard. (It's jealousy, in other words, but a devastating moment in a child's life. Fuckers.) Anyway, then he moved to guitar, and has 'dabbled' at least a bit on piano.

I followed him when I got to about the same age. I started first with the drums. If we want to talk about past life possibilities,I really do believe 'I was' in the military, possibly at West Point, and played in the band –snare drum, drums. I moved on to guitar myself and I feel nothing with regard to that except the sheer will to learn how to play it and a love for music and a desire to make it.

There is a difference between the musician and the composer. I always wanted to b a composer. First, sure, this was songwriting. I have a few fragments of my first songs, so copied from the radio in style, content and lyrics … but songs none the less, and appropriate for 12 years old. (amber to early orange). BUT … soon … I always had these visions of sitting at a table and writing down notes … like all the great composers of the past (for them, by candle light). This, especially when I learned more about music, learned notation, theory and by my own desire and accord started to study music history (the lives of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, the history (western) from chant to baroque to classical to romantic). Interestingly, I would fid my musical talents, desires and potentials realized most when combined with … drama. The first opportunity was in my enior year of HS. We did the Wizard of Oz and the girl who played the Wicked Witch of the West was too good a singer (and actress -ha, a former girlfriend) not to have a song. The director (later my acting/theatre and spiritual mentor) wanted someone to write a song. The music teacher couldn't do it. I had no partiular desire or aim to do it, or thought that I could or should (like the above about acting in sixths grade) but one morning, in the shower, I simply thought: hmm, well, what would a Wicked Witch song sound like? Pa ping, out came the beginnings of a melody. So, I went to the director and said “You know, I had an idea for a song …” and he started shoving all these papers at me with attempted lyrics he had been working on and said “Yes, please do it!” Since it had to be played by the music teacher, I had to write it out. So all of a sudden I found myself sitting at my desk in my room writing out notes like I had envisioned. You know, I mean, what is to account for this? Fully?

It was when I went into theatre that the same pattern arose again after a while. I decided I wanted to get 'back to music” (some time had passed) and was given the task to write a Christmas musical. At the time I could not play the piano. So, I had to write it out for our pianist. This was the time when I really felt this 'composer' vision was being realized. (There were still no computer everywhere in those days!)

But here are the juicy parts. One, … . aside from 'writing notes' when I did my own astrology chart back when I was a teenager there was some aspect that the book we used said something along the lines of 'individuals with this aspect' … blah, blah …' the sounds and the music of the spheres rings in their souls.' Whether astrology is accurate as a science or not THAT described my interiors. At my most fluent or silent moments … like around the time when I had my first Causal peak experience … I remember sitting in bed and …oh! … this Rachmaninoff type music -super complex, super-crazy -super, super - just springing into my mind. The trouble? How on earth do I write this down? I can hear it … but communicating it is another story. My opinion is that even at the most advanced theory and technology …well, it's just like Spirit: involving into the gross, it's too dense, it's like trudging through mud. You know. However beautiful we make make the music, which we can … and this remains the aim, the Eros or gross state evolution.

Now, the fingers.

See, like with the composer vision, long before was always this playing the piano vision. In fact, this was THE most prominent, consistent desire, aim, vision of them all. I always saw myself playing the piano. Yet, we never had one. The grade school had this wing where ever classroom had an old upright piano -every classroom (from the olden days of schooling!) I used to reason and fantasize that they could surely spare just ONE so we could have one at our house and I could use it. At one point my aunt had this stupid little organ (like a precursor to the modern digital keyboard). I was excited to get it. But the sound was so dumb it just did not capture my interest to try to play it. Then, my sister had an 'electric piano' from the 70s/80. I took this too. Same thing. Not a very inspiring sound. I stuck with guitar, stuck with drums, etc. Through the years I think I even said, oh, I'll never learn to play.

For a couple years prior to the point I just mentioned -upon writing the Christmas musical -there were indeed pianos around. But there was no serious motivation to play them. I dabbled a little, clumsily used them to try and teach voice lessons, and did use them to painstakingly work out notes for these compositions. Then …Two things happened. One, I started writing anther musical which I was particularly passionate about and two, our piano player quite. We couldn't PAY anything, No wonder. So if you ant music, better find some money (ha) or learn to do it yourself. At one and the same time, a.) I found i could play my own music 'good enough' to accompany myself, and I got better at it with time. b.) I foolishly committed myself to playing for a Gilbert and Sullivan opera!

Let me tell ya, there was a crucial point where I sat at that piano and realized 'I would NEVER be able to play Gilbert and Sullivan.' “It's TOO hard!” Yet, strangely afte this all out surrender … I suddenly began to be able to play it, little by little, more and more. Within about a year -a span of time that began before this and culminated just after this - people began to say the strangest thing I had ever heard. Constantly, people would tell me I was the best piano player they had ever heard. In one sense, sure, well, I could say I had always wanted to play, but I puzzled over why people kept reacting to my playing like that. The best? HA! What technique I had was extremely limited and also very poor -vagaries of being self-taught. So what was it? Well, I have always only been able to conclude it was ultimately the Interior I brought to the music. One thing is for sure -and a la the astrology thing above - I FELT it. And that is a HUGE factor in what we call talent. Lord knows super-technicians are a dime a dozen and computers make hallow music. Further, I DESIRED to play, with my life -and not 'paino' but MUSIC! (The sounds of the spheres.) So -that's Spirit That must be the Spirit and the Eros of talent. I have had a million students who were very 'talented' but desired little. Indeed, it is actually common for the best to be least interested, and the worst to be most. I think there is a patttern of boredom vs. Eros in there.

Anyway -in conclusion of this huge sharing:

The fingers.

Mascha, there was a point where I actually was able to take a look at myself, the movement of my fingers on the piano and say …”How?” “How in the Hell do I know how to do that? Or, better, how in the hell do these fingers know where to land and indeed, despite limitations and poor formal technique, there did emerge some elements that were … well, they looked like a trained person, or a master, or simply someone who knew what they were doing.

Honestly, I have always attributed this to past lives. To me it seems obvious I played in the past and thusly wanted to play again and quickly remember to some extent how to play again. Even now I wont really discount that. It just sees like the truth.

But, it is also true I find out in later years my mother always wanted to play. (Can you beleive it?) And nobody knows where this name 'Melody' comes from. Some musicians, composers in the past? Interestingly, the musical talent that is somewhat acknowledge comes from my mother's side. But my Dad, notorious for bad singing in church, has the name. Also interestingly, my mom did go back at one point and attempt to trace the family tree. She said 'everyone she found was some kind of artists, or poet, or in some way creative.' That really meant a lot to me. By God! We're not crazy! We were 'born' this way. Then there's also simply the idea of morphic resonance and Kosmic grooves and memories. Sure, the pattern having been laid down so heavily in the past by so many, human fingers just kind of know where to go when stimulated in the right direction in the right way and to the right extent.

So, it's all one.

I could say a lot more about the UL, subjective, but I think I've babbled enough for now. Though most profound experience I ever had - when that Christmas musical premiered? Which was a certain realized culmination of years of development both musical and dramatic, and supported by a spiritual bent - when it was received by audiences, and they laughed, and they cried, the whole thing, I knew that my Soul had grown. Not my body, not my mnd, my Soul had grown. Something was there now that simply did not exist before.

Thus, I like art!

TIm

Re: How do you explain this?

Tim! I had to interrupt my reading to give you feedback for that amazing piece you wrote when I got to this point:

I would like to add a recent profoundly subjective experience along these lines … It's almost difficult to even talk about, it's so deep, the feeling, the 'echo'  of it. But as I have opened study here into the history of acting and actors … I swear to God, I swear by my life … I have touched the souls of past actors, echoing and calling out from the past to be UNDERSTOOD … all the way back to Thespis, the outlaw at first, Roscius in Rome, Talma (France, 17-1800s), Clarion, Siddons, Coquelin and Stanislavsky …

The chill-o-meter went through the roof as I read that passage - my tried and trusted physical confirmation for truths that cannot otherwise be verified. The chills are the outermost manifestations of resonance and my gift back to you for speaking about such things.

Moved almost to tears because your ancestors are also coming through…

Honi soit qui mal y pense  :-)

Re: How do you explain this?

Tim does that to everyone. It's kinda freaky. lol.

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

It's the chill-o-meter for sure!!!

I do not think, in any good conscience, I can, if I complete what I envision, dedicate the product to anything but all of them. THEY have given this, through CENTURIES of effort, frustration, only a few short years to live in an art that is based upon ONLY this moment and gone the next (until movies, but even that is not the full-monty). You should read Coquelin … I did not even know he existed until a few months ago … how he tries to explain … . IGNORED! (for the mot part) … the actors who lived lives of poverty, traveling from town to town, city to city, outlawed, reviled . . for what? To ACT! To create drama and comedy! Barred from admittence to the midieval church drama's (why? Ya think there's a cultural complex?) where only amateurs were allowed … not lawfully to be buried in hallowed ground …

You know 'fame' associated with actors is NOT anything new. there is simply something about the ability that KA POWS through lives and souls and always has. Cicero says of Roscius, he was so famous and admired for his ability that anyone who excelled in anything was called 'the Roscius' of that profession.

And now, I cry …

Re: How do you explain this?

Wow. Damn! Tim, the goosebumps keep on coming. I will be gushing or else must fall silent. The Force is pouring out of you, man. And, of course, you gave the perfect lead-in to the next room in this mansion: Acting.

I consider it the most comprehensive discipline of all, a spiritual feat if done very well. Acting includes so many of the other arts, and you have to be keenly self-aware, able to completely detach from your own personality and identify with another one, which has to be fully felt and inhabited to such an extent that you are able to act unself-consciously as an entirely different being. Talk about getting loose and free and 'no boundaries'!

As you know, Tim, these combined skills can border on seemingly supernatural feats. Just look at the physical transformations seen in Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin - or Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in The Doors…. And there's still one other factor that needs to be added to the mix to get a really great actor: charisma - unquantifiable, but you came close  to naming some of the strands that surely belong in there, seeing what you wrote so far.

Well, just keep on going :)  and don't worry about tangents. You've got me by the….. pigtails, yeah!

m

Re: How do you explain this?

I think 'charisma' -as to be associated with acting, the real dramatic charisma -comes with the specific skill and sensetivity being mobilized in it's proper domain. This, then, is different than ordinary charisma or other forms that CAN seem to compensate for it, especially in movies -e.g. other factors that can attract, rivet, infatuate, even just someone's simply personality. This is very importatn in my mind to differentiate, becasue one can have those things but still be a poor actor, even find 'success' but still be lacking in genuine skill. (you know, and I'm sure any true professional in Hollywood knows too.)

So, the dramatic charisma is a domain-specific social skill, really. Think of what's-his-name who played Pee Wee Herman. Like many, no ordinary life 'social charisma' but mobilize him on stage, drama, comedy, whatever -a star.

The real skill is not what I can express so much, but what I can make YOU feel. And that's really why fame and all else follow. It's very powerful, even on a small scale social level. I was telling Jiki-Kerry a while ago about what happend to me in school. I went up to give a simple oral report for science class, like we all had to. I have no idea or memory of what I did, bu somewhere in the course of the reading were laughs and so on and after the teacher said “Do you double as a comedian?” The class responded 'yes' and through this authoritative social sanction ( pattern in history, incidentally) I suddenly became 'famous' for this in school. They would literally demand that I go up and perform if there was an opportunity, such as, say, in speech class a while later. They literally demanded that the teacher let me go up and improve another -and she let me. Outside of that performative mode, however, well, this new advent helped a great deal, but I certainly, like many, was no social magnet or something.

So these days I'm asking the question: what is to account for this? Little things at first. In my case some impulsive bits of expression did their little lightning magic on some people watching and, they laughed, they wanted more. Louis the IX said of Lakain “This man makes me cry. I, who never cry!” The Actor is the lightning shaman of the affective arts.

There is, however, another skill too. (As Yoda,: “No, there is another.”) This is the important locus of the transformation you speak of. Basically, imagination. Propositional imagination, being enacted, physically, in body and mind, emotion, etc. That is some really new research that has been long overdue, but it is why I have to at least have a two-part article.

The ability to construct, live within, fictional-imaginary worl;ds or circumstances - or, yes, personages. The amazing thing that has baffled throughout history is how a stable personality can be maintained through this. It's really simple, actually -although everything you said is still true, especially in a Flow state. Chekhov, for example, speaks of the gift of a Divided Consciousness even in what is Flow state.

Think about it. How can you accomplish or account for Duality in a state of Nonduality?!?

Well, it's as simple as how a child plays pretend. Fischer, for example, even accounted for how the human child has the ability to coordinat TWO or MORE SENSORIMOTOR SYSTEMS. That's astounding. We can indeed operate TWO bodies. None of this has reached knowledge of professional drama, however.

I think of Jim Carey in Me, myself and Irene. At the end, he not only create two sensorimotor system in addition to his obviously still stable primary (so three) but he makes them fight!

That's talent.

Kids are bad. Can't spell-check. Sorry!

Re: How do you explain this?

Oh, by the way, Mascha, I do have some thoughts on this:

“I'm asking because in my own mind, I've always felt I was remembering things when foreign languages along with their rhythms and unique textures revealed themselves as instantly accessible (as opposed to the terrifying blanks I drew at even simple math! Lol) I recall a time in my early teens when I first read about the existence of Akashic Records - subtle memory banks like infinite libraries - and what a relief it was to have these 'abnormal' perspectives confirmed by someone - anyone - at all.”

I would want to account for the apparently transpersonal (trans-gross, space-time-embodiment) resonances too, but you know, there are specific language related skills I have discovered existing within my search for acting ability. And this means, most particularly, spoken language.

There are two types of 'prosody' which are very much related, intertwined, but ultimately different. I mentioned affective prosody. That's all the affective and attitudinal expressions I simply cannot communicate here in a text based medium, except with limited resources. (emotions, punctuation, etc.) In real space, these are intonations, facial expressions, my gestures and behavior. That's, at least the Exterior of my Interior emotions, affects, attitudes, etc. (So, it's a psycho-physical skill, and it can be impaired. People lose their ability to express emotion, but still feel it.) Anyway, this colors up he spoken word. Why we get so much more if we talk on the phone. Emotion changes the sounds. Why actors are 'good speakers.'

However, there is another type of 'prosody' that is specifically linguistic. This includes what you mentioned, rhythms, etc. but it also includes accents and all sorts of other things that make languages different. Impairment can lead to 'foreign accent syndrome' where someone can't produce their native accent and something that sounds like another culture takes it's place. Point being, there is specific 'hardware' for this. And as you know, though not all actors have a proclivity for accents and regional dialects, idiosyncratic prosody (called 'idiolects -example, George H. W. Bush via Dana Carvey: 'not gon' d'it.) many obviously do.

So, although I would contend you have your memories and so on, I would also say you also have 'well-oiled' hardware and software for these unique aspects of languages (perhaps even stimulated by the 'memories?')

Make sense? It's cool to think about anyway. :-) Point being, it’s clear that some people do just excel in that specific area, and not necessarily actors either. We all have it innate from birth, that’s how we learn our native language (i.e. it supports that learning and use) and then some people it just stays top-rate. Or begins that way.

I keep forgetting to say …

The story.

Re: How do you explain this?

I think there is a temptation to characterize past life information as something very linear, when, I suspect, it is not. There's no reason that akashic or what-have-you memories should belong to one person or that a person should have this one soul that goes through a linear progression of lives.

If we're all simply manifestations of the ground of being, then having one separate soul doesn't really make sense to me. Why, if I am quite literally everyone, would I even have a “soul?” All of what people have done before me would be available on some plane of existence, if it's available at all.

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

True. But you are still unique. If you died today do you really think all of your desires would disappear? That's karma. Desire. Involution. You can exhaust them … but there's also that tricky thing of Spirit - YOU - (Big You) throwing Yourself  'out' into you and me and the hall of mirrors of everyone and everything in the first mysterios place, the reasons for which cannot be explained in words. But there is the notion of 'lila' or the sport and play. The sheer drama and fun.

You are playing a character. And this character has a story. Self-generated and AQAL-ly generated. Shit happens. Stories like to either finish or continue themsevels. That's how I see it.

Anyway, have to go kill a bug.

Incidentally, I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. As i said -or at least thought?- memories in the UL can be a host of things … easily mistaken fo 'past lives.'

Re: How do you explain this?

“If you died today do you really think all of your desires would disappear?”

No, Tim. I would still want sex.

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

You'd want ice cream too. Wouldn't you!

Re: How do you explain this?

Hm.

Would I still be allergic to it? This is an important consideration.

Re: How do you explain this?

Not in your new body!

See the fun! :-)

Re: How do you explain this?

Tim: “If you died today do you really think all of your desires would disappear?”

Liz: No, Tim. I would still want sex.

~

ewwww.  OK, I draw the line at necrophilia.

spirals,
Arthur

p.s. Welcome back, Tim!

Re: How do you explain this?

Tim, when you're back, you're back. This is a beautiful ramble.

When I read,”…memories in the UL can be a host of things … easily mistaken fo 'past lives.'  I recalled a session with a more or less famous British psychic (Dorothy Smith)when I was 16. One “life” that she mentioned might have been “mine” seemed to resonate completely with the interior stuff behind a poem ('Corridor') that I'd written a few months before the reading. Even then I came away with the sense that was said to be past life information was alot closer-to-home, a more immediate content, than is usually supposed when thinking about some present identity/past identity continuity. She claimed I died in Pompei when Vesuvius blew. The then-recent poem seemed to me to describe such a death.

Catching up up-thread I was reminded of another “life” mentioned in that reading…”one of Shakespeare's first actors” . : D

It's a delight to read of your relationship to the piano, and to music as FELT prior to being able to bring it into performance. I've got recordings of my music that, when heard these days, I ask how the hell did I play THAT?!  Maybe it's another domain specific aptitude. When in the heat of feeling only that music filling everything, when consumed in it, it pours out. These days I vaguely recall the visceral kinesthetic machinations of pounding out a particular flying peice at a speed that seems impossible to regain, but (particularly being recorded with one mic on one track) I find it impossible to retrace the fingering and unpack the componants of the composition. So in this too, it seems true that the ability to feel outlives the ability to express.

Seeing a short documentary on Yo Ye Eun last year I was moved but not surprised.

All for now,

K

Re: How do you explain this?

The continuum between interior and exterior expression -a big one. Stanislavsky, I think, of any artist I've ever read or been aware of had it perfect. 1.) indeed his goal was ultimately spirit -flow, inspiration, the 'superconsciousness' -his term burrowed from Raja Yoga. But he also, 2) seemed to be perfectly aware of the zone#5 aspect, although only had so much to support this in his day. But then, 3.) he was adamant about developing 'exterior' technique to be able to express this, should it happen, etc. and also that the development of exterior technique helped facilitate inspiration. Did all that just make sense? The technique is not the art itself, or the whole of it, but it is none the less necessary to expresses it and inspire it! That's Integral.

My acting mentor is convinced he WAS William Shakespeare. No, he swears by it. (“When I went to Stratford . . the feeling!.”) I never bought it. c'mon. Too … . 'obvious.' Maybe alive at the time? Maybe wanted to be an actor.Possibly was one? Or all just hooey and fantasy, moxed with some kind of real feelings of …something. But c'mon. The most famous dramatist of all time? … . something is 'okay, have your fantasy' in Denmark. ;-)

Main idea, however, while we're on the subject, is simply a continuity of consciousness, ultimately Causal, so 'empty.' But not necessarily wakefullness. I don't remember deep dreamless sleep, but I still wake up somehow the same continuation of yesterday …

And, incidentally, I think the linear part -a valid point/intuition/insight - is caused by the illusion of gross state time, or gross space-time and consciousness, which even Einstein proved was not what it seems.

I will be born in a land of garlic bread and toast next time. And with better typing and spelling talents …

Re: How do you explain this?

Synchronous swimming in vast blue seas, guys. I was going to bring up the nonlinear nature of time next (which throws the whole theory of past lives for a loop) - and, believe it or not, William Shakespeare. But then you already talked about that, thanks a lot! I really mean that. Seriously, the vistas that are opening before me when I read this kind of stuff are breathtaking, and language, let alone my typing, can't keep up with the floods of information.

Do you get a sense that this conversation is infused with something greater than the ordinary will to talk? I have a strong sense of being compelled, propelled here. And this hasn't happened in quite a while online with more than one or two people.

Listening and grokking the openness of you who have no fixed positions to maintain or defend. Making ourselves available for something new, unheard of before…

Inspiring.

Re: How do you explain this?

I'm telling you Mascha, this happens with Tim all the time. It's kind of superfluous to even talk to him. But it's great fun, so I continue to do so.

Tim, if you were my son, (ah, the sweet tenderness of that phrase!) we'd have a rollercoaster of a time, I'm sure. All that passionate caring and frustration over how things are! And I would utterly fail to teach you some important things, like making your bed and why it's important to get your homework done. (Just to fit in. That's all.)

BTW, Mascha, the title of this thread is so great. It works with every single post.

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

Liz: I'm telling you Mascha, this happens with Tim all the time. It's kind of superfluous to even talk to him. But it's great fun, so I continue to do so.


This is cracking me up. Has got to be the strangest thing I have ever heard someone say about me.

… But, by joe, I think I like it.

And I do suppose it is much better than phrases such as “Tim. For once in your life shut up!” …


Totally unrelated. Did anyone see that skit on SNL this last week with : “I am going to drink your milkshake.”

Back to my Dunkin Donuts “turbo” coffee. (A needed medication.)

Re: How do you explain this?

Mascha said,

Do you get a sense that this conversation is infused with something greater than the ordinary will to talk? I have a strong sense of being compelled, propelled here. And this hasn't happened in quite a while online with more than one or two people.


When I started communicating and writing on forums like this, it was in the beginning always because I felt compelled by some will or force I could not own as my own intention.

I had never before been attracted to communicating through writing. Actually I loathed the very idea. Writing was my poorest subject in school, and I have also all my adult life considered myself to be an awkward writer.
 
However a few years ago I started to hear from deep inside suggestions to find appropriate forums on the net to discuss and share my ideas on certain topics. I resisted this idea strongly because I felt it to be foreign to me, and because I felt I could not express myself eloquently enough, and did not even have the necessary time to spend writing on the net.

However I finally I gave in as you can see. Every time I had sent a post, I started wondering why did I do it, have I lost my senses? 

And then I started to feel compelled to write on English forums. That was even worse. Even if I have been occasionally reading some books in English, I very seldom have had the opportunity to speak English, and when I do, I realize I cannot even find words.
 
But when I started writing  and  when I could not find a word, I often observed a word was internally suggested to me. However I had to check it from the dictionary, because I was not sure if it was the word I was searching for. Usually it has been, even if I don't always immediately find it, because I don't get the spelling of the word correctly.

I'm curious how you would explain this?

Irmeli

Re: How do you explain this?

Irmeli: “……But when I started writing  and  when I could not find a word, I often observed a word was internally suggested to me. However I had to check it from the dictionary, because I was not sure if it was the word I was searching for. Usually it has been, even if I don't always immediately find it, because I don't get the spelling of the word correctly.

I'm curious how you would explain this?”

There are many ways of expressing what I'll try to say. Some sound more freaky than others. Let's see… how to put this to get the intended meanings across as lightly as possible?

Sentient beings are receivers/transmitters (among other things). Bodies function like relay stations in spacetime. Depending on their sensitivity, these relay stations pick up signals from any number of dimensions, some further away from and others closer to the Source, which might be called Emptyfullness or Being (or whatever term you prefer).

Everything that exists is alive. Everything is energy. And energy is just the active face of one coin whose flip-side is unmovable Beingness. Energy/Being are not two. This is what is meant by “ShivaShakti”: one word for all the pairs of opposites in union.

If we grant gross physical beings a relative existence and therefore validity, we also have to grant the same to subtle non-physical forms of being. Like electricity, for example, or sound waves beyond the range of human hearing. Remember, in the universe that I perceive, nothing exists that isn't alive, and everything is simultaneously formless AND potentially able to express itself in form.

 IOW, if we agree that your aunt Millie really did show up yesterday at your house for a visit, we also have to grant any number of subtle forms (or beings - who can be organic as well as inorganic) the status of “relative existence” - unless we want to proudly proclaim we're flatland reductionists.

Thus, some kind of subtle form might indeed have shown up in your house yesterday for a visit. And if you are a fairly sensitive relay station, you might have picked up some of the signals these non-physical forms emit. The validity of such communications is determined by the benefit they bring, and that can be both, totally subjective as well as objective alterations on some level resulting from the interaction.

Evidence *for* the existence of non-physical entities of varying densities and effectiveness in our human realm here on earth is overwhelming if you ask those whose track record qualifies them as experts. Throughout the ages and in all cultures there are reports that can be researched on the net.

I don't know about you, Irmeli, but I've been aware of many realms of existence, populated with all sorts of different entities ever since I can remember. And it took a long series of shocks over many years to realize that this kind of awareness is not commonly acceptable in European societies. I spent a good deal of time growing up wanting to leave my body and “go home”, terribly frustrated by the numbskulls around who couldn't feel or see or hear what to me was pretty obvious, but who obscenely strutted their cruel, self-satisfied, mind-numbing stuff as the one-and-Only-Correct Way to Be.

So, okay, how do I explain what's coming through when you're writing those posts, Irmeli? It would be safe to say your higher self. Or you're tapping into the collective Superconscious. But frankly, apart from that, I also think you're channeling a number of immensely beautiful and dedicated beings in the subtle who are working with you in various ways. Same with Tim.


 

 

Re: How do you explain this?

Thank you Mascha!

We have plenty of similar kind of perceptions.

I have for long perceived myself to be just as you describe a receiver/transmitter in a connecting field of many other receiver/transmitters.

My first perceptions of the internal presence of others is from 1980, when I started to periodically experience few days of intense, luminous bliss. Simultaneously I felt inside the presence of others. Cconsciously I was not doing anything to initiate the bliss. Rather I felt I was drawn to participate in it. I also started to observe that during these days of intense bliss, thought forms appeared that were not otherwise going on in my mind. Sometimes I also felt I received some gentle suggestions. Although I usually did not obey them. I pick up those ideas only, when I find them to be useful, or it does not really matter to me which way certain things are done. Basically I'm the boss in my internal reality, even when it is crowded by all kinds of entities and presences in form of very subtle energies.

In 2000 this internal reality of mine became even more lively and crowded, and has been going on all the time since then. I started also hearing very subtle voices. First a very loving male voice. I fell in love with this presence.

Hearing deep inside subtle voices is not a problem for me, because they subside, when I'm communicating with people on the gross level, or there is something going on that needs my full attention. But when I'm on my own, there is automatically a meditative state going on, and I can feel these presences all the time in that state. Also during nights, when I'm not in deep sleep.
Mostly I feel these presences as a loving glow in my heart area. It is a mutual love between us. For me this is heaven.

There is however also another side to this. Namely an intense work done with subtle energies, or something that could be called kundalini energies. This is something we do together. I could not do it with that intensity alone. And this is the challenging part. One has to be capable of doing this kind of work to be able to participate.

I suspect that people, who are not proficient in handling intense subtle energy work, end up also visiting these domains. The effect can be disastrous, if they don't find their way out, or learn to do the work. Hell and heaven are  two sides of the same coin.

I have often wondered if these beings I'm connected to, have also a physical body on this planet. I suspect some have. Although they are mostly beings, who live isolated in monasteries and other secluded locations.

It is very interesting that you can see these beings Mascha.!

Once I invited a friend of mine, a long term meditator to bicycling with me and my husband for a day in the beautiful archipelago of South-Western Finland. It was a beautiful summer day. The sea was glimmering around us in amazing ways. The whole nature could be felt to be infatuated by very special subtle radiant energies. My friend felt she was in heaven. When we sat in the evening at campfire, she told me she perceives around me a whole bunch of subtle beings with fine energies. I have never told her about these internal experiences of mine.

Irmeli

Re: How do you explain this?

It's a pleasure tuning into the inimitable flavor you transmit, Irmeli. Always was, right from your first post. I guess t'was a case of 'love at first taste'.  “I savor your flavor,” said the bumblebee to the bluebell in bloom. Same with many others here who, unfortunately, don't write all that often anymore.

Re: How do you explain this?

Re: How do you explain this?

Pelle said: ...I will venture a guess (which i wasn't going to but anyhow), and that is that my feeling is that our soul may impact our present morphic grooves through the imprints that were made in previous lives. Similarly some of us who are sensitive enough to tune into the akashic records will have that information affect us, and even somehow be downloaded into our system and thereby affect our morphic grooves. So in that sense it is all a smooth progression, which includes genes/biology/nervous system, family morphic grooves, soul and akashic records. It all affects us and sometimes it may be hard to tease the various variables apart.

Re: How do you explain this?

Tim, Mascha, Yall -
I love your wild insightful ramblings too. Amazement.

Check my ramble of the day below:

Laying in bed, eyes closed. Chanting the Maha Mitrunjaya mantra – for probably about 3 hours. It was a time when I was spending hours on end at a time mantra-ing out. I am a mantra queen, in the case that you don't know. Waste of time? no baby - I don't think so. Not for this closet monk my friend.

Anyway, chanting and chanting - then something clicks open and images/snapshots - even look like photographs, one a second of different people flash in front of me, with miniscule clarity. All black and white. Some faces I recognise - The Mother, Sri Aurobindo, all these layers and layers of people one a second. Hari Krishna! Immenseness… This was then followed by a huge flash of light, seemingly from outside the body then going through the body like being struck by lightning - reaching all parts of body at the same time, followed by a swirling of an entire galaxy of plantary activity (think image of black void peppered with galactic material) happening somewhere in the region of the top left section of my back. That was it… :) Just an average day in paradise hey! 

Lisa :)

Mahamrityunjaya Mantra
(Mahamrityunjaya Audio CD)

For your info: Mahamrityunjaya Mantra (maha-mrityun-jaya) is one of the more potent of the ancient Sanskrit mantras. Maha mrityunjaya is a call for enlightenment and is a practice of purifying the karmas of the soul at a deep level. It is also said to be quite beneficial for mental, emotional, and physical health.

Om Tryambakam Yajamahe
Sugandhim Pushtivardhanam
Urvarukamiva Bandhanan
Mrityor Mukshiya Maamritat

Re: How do you explain this?

Hey -

Fer dems might be in'rested in th' subjec', I've posted a draft excerpt of the current article on my blog.

The Dramatic Bodymind

Re: How do you explain this?

Great stuff, everyone. Thanks for those answers a while back, Tim.

David

Re: How do you explain this?

Oh! Wow. Y'all have just made my day.
Yeah goosebumps, and then Lisa throws in the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra and I'm all shiver me timbers! (even more.)


Perhaps this is too much of an aside but I'm reading a cool book right now called The Brain that Changes Itself and it basically blows to bits the fundamental theory in neuroscience that the brain is hardwired and mechanical. If you like Oliver Sacks, you'll like this. Dust jacket description below.

The brain can change itself. It is a plastic, living organ that can actually change its own structure and function, even into old age. Arguably the most important breakthrough in neuroscience since scientists first sketched out the brain’s basic anatomy, this revolutionary discovery, called neuroplasticity, promises to overthrow the centuries-old notion that the brain is fixed and unchanging. The brain is not, as was thought, like a machine, or “hardwired” like a computer. Neuroplasticity not only gives hope to those with mental limitations, or what was thought to be incurable brain damage, but expands our understanding of the healthy brain and the resilience of human nature.

Norman Doidge, M.D., a psychiatrist and researcher, set out to investigate neuroplasticity and met both the brilliant scientists championing it and the people whose lives they’ve transformed.

A riveting collection of case histories detailing the astonishing progress of people whose conditions had long been dismissed as hopeless.

The result is this book, a riveting collection of case histories detailing the astonishing progress of people whose conditions had long been dismissed as hopeless. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, a woman labeled retarded who cured her deficits with brain exercises and now cures those of others, blind people learning to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, painful phantom limbs erased, stroke patients recovering their faculties, children with cerebral palsy learning to move more gracefully, entrenched depression and anxiety disappearing, and lifelong character traits altered.

Re: How do you explain this?

Left and right.

Re: How do you explain this?

Love that video. Arthur posted it somewhere, and I think I “stumbled-upon” it before that…I think what makes it so incredibly moving is that the woman “reads” like a total flatlander rationalist at first. Then, wow.

Liz

Re: How do you explain this?

Lauren: [Hey Lauren!:-]I bring it up here because I suspect that an understanding of neuroplasticity as a more accurate description of a UR phenomena (the functioning of the human brain) than the still-prevalent theory of extreme localization and hard-wiring (discreet, perfectly boundaried physical areas in the brain that are entirely and exclusively responsible for discreet and distinctive capacities; unrepairable if damaged…) might evolve towards an answer to How do you explain this? And I expect that if I fully understood the implications of neuroplasticity and undertook to exercise my brain as the book recommends, I'd probably learn to craft a less clumsy sentence.


Yeah. I think 'neuroplasticity' really brings up the reality of the constant 'interaction' or tetra-arising of the four quadrants -evolutionarily, developmentally and at all times. It's actually been one of my difficulties in this study to not get stuck into something of an 'it all begins with the brain or UR' idea; quadrant absolutisim -which, is really hard when you have to read all this stuff, mostly, if not entirely coming from an orange level.

Still - it is important that the neuroplasticity reality or idea not be taken too far also, in the sense that it can lead to an overly-green view; or green-ish. Plasticity is not an absolute either, even from birth and in the very early stages of 'wiring' in infants. Some easy anecdotes, I think, can point to this. The fact of the matter is that no matter how hard I might try, how much 'exposure' -for example -I might have to it, instruction, etc., I personally am just not going to be a math wizard. That can't be reduced to the brain either, but something in there about it, and the whole biological make-up has to be a factor -especially when you see patterns in families.

The other factors -including the lower quadrants - I find also especially important is that of domains. The neurological patterns and qualitative systems correspond to the fact that, for example, music just is not the same thing as math or affective expression or space, however much they overlapp or interact etc. So, from an evolutionary point of view - actually, my own idea is that all of these differing 'domains' are/were originally fundamental potentials in the Logos. This means, for example, physicists say that at the moment of the Big Bang the laws of math were present. So, carry that forward to the laws of music, the laws of space, the laws of drama -as fundamental potentials in the (already finite) Kosmos.

Does that make sense?

We do not get born into this life as 'blank slates.' (That's what I mean by the greenish idea.) Billions of years of evolution have evolved the domains and then the system patterns, as clear potentials, correlative to them biologically. (Gardner defines an intelligence as a biopsychological potential to process certain kinds of information which can be activated in a cultural setting, etc.)

In the smaller sense, when I mention genetic above (and this is a response to, I think Pelle too) I am really thinking a 4Q, 8zone, AQAL morphogenesis -and then with obvious 'particulars' to, say, what emerges 36 (oh, god almost 37!) years ago as me.

Anyway … not really sure I've said anything or am done with this post but gotta go!

Tim

Re: How do you explain this?

Tim: (Hi Tim!) “Still - it is important that the neuroplasticity reality or idea not be taken too far also, in the sense that it can lead to an overly-green view; or green-ish. Plasticity is not an absolute either, even from birth and in the very early stages of 'wiring' in infants.”

I agree with this. I do not believe we get born into this life as blank slates.
Nevertheless, we may yet be far more “neuroplastic” than we can imagine. Some of the stories in this book seem highly improbable. Capacities that by any current measure of medical understanding should be entirely unrecoverable, turn out to be in many cases recoverable. For example someone whose retinas are damaged learns to see by training skin and touch receptors to substitute for the retina, and the brain reorganizes to process visual information via atypical pathways – for it is ultimately the brain that sees, not the eyes.

And consider this: a woman who had damage to many parts of her brain, and had numerous, crippling deficits, was considered “retarded” in some contexts but had a photographic memory with which she compensated for decades, decides to train her weakest functions instead of depending on her strongest. She could not read a clock, the symbology made no sense to her, she could not process that information. For weeks she intensively worked with flash cards of clock faces showing different times, with the time written on the back (by a friend). Eventually she started to get answers, and so she made it complicated by adding second hands and a hand for sixtieths of a second. After many weeks “she noticed improvements in her other difficulties relating to symbols and began for the first time to grasp grammar, math, and logic. Most important she could understand what people were saying as they said it.” She came back from incredible deficits to an average level of functioning.

Neuroplasticity doesn't explain those forms of genius and mastery that inspired this conversation. You're right. But, I'm left wondering…
Is it only past experiences and training (past life in many cases) that lead to genius? Are there other things, other types of training, other levels of awareness that may be awakened through diverse means that may “turn on” mastery or great skill in a particular line? At a certain level of development (pretty darn awakened), would it be possible to rapidly develop capacities that usually take decades or lifetimes? At a certain point in development might genius become “transferable”, from one line to another, through conscious choice?

Love,
Lauren

Re: How do you explain this?

Yes, I agree too. What's most interesting, perhaps, is that I actually believe an individual's degree of plasticity itself is probably predetermined to maybe propose a funny 'paradox.' One may or may not have a 'genetic predisposition' to flexibility, adaptability, plasticity.

Generally speaking, thought, plasticity is itself, well,  the physical locus of evolution. Were it not there, there is no other way to explain evolution except that God periodically decides to deliver new versions of human being 2.0, 2.7, 3.5. LOL

As far as something like predetermined proclivity toward adaptability, a late teacher of mine was a prima ballerina who had been struck with polio and told she would never dance again. Working with a family friend who was an athletic therapist and through her own creativity she developed a system of basically tension freeing, relaxation and alignment exercises -which she later called American Yoga (because she became enlightened in the process) and healed herself within four year. At 76 years old she could still kick her knee up to her shoulder. Now, supposedly, so a certain story goes, her father was actually way-back-when struck with a heart condition and told he had only so long to live. Somehow the prophecy never came about and he lived a long and healthy normal life and was noted for simply rejecting this prognosis. Supposedly when he did die it was discovered he had actually grown a second heart. In addition to whatever else this might say, it is indeed IMHO interesting that the family displays this 'willful' and stubborn pattern toward resigning themselves to illness, infirmity and death.

I am actually really fascinated with the relationship between consciousness and the body. Last Jan. I, with three others (Pelle being one) was one the first concall Ken did after having his brush with death and still recovering. He talked about the whole thing and said he was certainly open to any question we might have about it -spiritual questions, so on. None of us ever brushed the subject, probably about of respect for his personal privacy, etc. But I was really interested in asking him what he thought about, no just his physical fitness in relation to surviving and recovering from twelve grand mol seizures, but, you know, what is the relationship to consciousness itself and the bodies ability to survive such extremes, heal and recover?

My feeling would be that there has simply got to be a big relationship. I mean, we see this all the time anyway. Someone with a good attitude is more likely to recover than someone with a pessimistic attitude. Humor and love are well accounted for in assisting recovery. Moving into more spiritual things healing and so on are definitely something real. There are then such things as the 'incorrupt' bodies of saints taken account of by Catholicism. Sure, some may be 'hoaxes' but divinity infused within a body seems to have its effect on the very cells, etc. There is also the phenomenon of the 'rainbow body' in Hindu and Buddhism -where beyond being preserved like the 'incorrupt' the body disintegrates rapidly after death, leaving only hair and nails and in the process no foul smells but beautiful fragrances and accounts of people having visions of light. (I actually think the 'rainbow body' -'rainbow' actually means the five elements in Tibetan Buddhism - is the most plausible account for the 'resurrection' of Jesus. Been meaning to at least write a blog about that -thought of it on Easter. Maybe next year.)

I'm kind of off on a tangent, aren't I?

As far as abilities … You know, I cannot tell you how many times as a teacher I have had to deal with the primary block to someone' ability to sing being only the horrendous fact that they are convinced that they 'can't' or that they are 'bad'-and, that this being convinced that they 'can't' comes from social realities, where people just love to say that someone 'can't sing.' I think the fundamental necessity for singing is the ability to match pitches. From there, anything can develop. Even the ability to match pitches, although clearly at a significant deficit in some, can be developed with time, patience and practice. Few hopeless cases exist.

Yet none the less we usually deal with one of two things:

1.) an attitude that 'ya got it or ya don't.' which is true in certain respects but is massively partial and terribly ill-informed. Those that 'got it' need to still develop -in fact, the more 'ya got' that harder the work you must do - and those that supposedly 'don't' reall do got the basics or the fundamentals, it's just a matter of choice and work.

But the other is

2.) th green attitude where everyone has 'got it' so qualitiative distinctions are bad.

Both of these hinder and discount and undermine development and annoyed the living sheet out of my teal sensibilities for years.

Okay, once again, I'm not sure if I really said anything of value or in response. :-p :-)

But still a fun conversation none the less.

Tim, Timmy, Timothy

(Whose name in the dictionary means 'dried grass made for hay.')

Re: How do you explain this?

PS -a footnote

I think the primary attitude one has of the 'solidity' of self or ego, is the salient factor. How 'solidly' do you define 'yourself' and how strongly do you hold to that idea. Indeed, everywhere this drastically hinders the natural processes which may occur, do occur, and the natural potentials which may come forth and exhibit themselves.

In fact, I think the only way you can find out what exactly there is about you as a gross state embodiment that is fairly 'fixed' is to adopt the loosest attitude and hold possible on what that is. Ya know? Only then, when conscious 'hold' and predetermination is out of the damn way are both the genuine potentials and genuine  limitations going to be freely seen, emerge.

And yeah, we will find there are some things which are kind of just there like 'sediment' as Robert Masters once put it in an IN interview*, but beyond that, maybe even more so, we will discover something else: some pretty darn endless surprises and possibilities.

Again, that's fully one half (at least) of how the Kosmos has worked this far anyway.

*this is my opinion. He mentioned this in an IN interview, no matter how hard he worked through the years some things just don't ever seem to change. That, to me, would be taking the UR (and probably all other quadrants) into account. And in large part, the other side of the story, the, if you will, fallacy, of the blank slate.

Heh, funny, I'm thinking even in terms of, say, weightlifting and bodybuilding. I read somewhere recently: “Mo matter how hard he works, Drew Carey is not going to be Mr. universe.”

Re: How do you explain this?

Goodness… Coincidences are piling up related to this thread… eight miles high, which I consider too much to be accidental.

I'm nearly incoherent. Must be the left hemisphere exerting pressure on the right brain to address at least six salient points in one posting.

Then comes Lauren.

And so I watched that video she linked to. Here it is again. I thought it bears repeating:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jill Bolte Taylor - My Stroke of Insight

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened – as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding – she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Before watching that, I was getting ready to write a little bit about how everything is first and foremost energy to me. Right from birth, this was my predominant perception: Overlapping fields of vibrantly colored energy, moving in multiple layers of patterns – which either reveal their meanings instantaneously (like being hit by a “waterball” filled with information), or the patterns make no impression.

In there somewhere, I was gonna mention how difficult it is for me to distinguish left from right. When sitting in a car for example, and giving someone directions. I have to deliberately focus and make an effort to remember the names for the two horizontal directions, or else we'll end up driving, driving…… but not so much arriving. ( Thankfully, I do know up from down without having to think. Otherwise - oy, that would be hilarious. At least from an outside perspective).

Oh no, I'm out of time. More later then. Thank you all for giving me the chills.

Re: How do you explain this?

Yes, that's amazing alright - I posted about it in a thread called How a neuroanatomist studied her own stroke as it happened.

Jill Taylor also has a book on the subject called My Stroke of Insight (google books), available in a hard copy or download from Lulu.com.  I ordered the PDF version ($10) and got this auto-reply:

~~~

Dear Lulu customer, thank you for your purchase.

I believe in the ability of the brain to recover and heal itself. If
 you have purchased "My Stroke of Insight" because someone you love has
 experienced some type of brain trauma, I am happy to speak with you after
 you have read this book, to help tailor my "recommendations for
 recovery" to your/their situation. If you are reading this book for the
 Stroke of Insight information about your own brain, I wish for you easy
 access to your  joy and deep inner peace. 

I hope you enjoy the ride!

My sincere best,  
Dr. Jill 

~~~

I found her offer to talk with someone if they have a loved one with brain
trauma very touching.  She's amazing. :)

spiral out,
Arthur

Re: How do you explain this?

I still have to watch that whole video -was only able to 'skim' it. But I can't wait.

You know, in light of the present conversation it might be interesting to share how exactly I came upon the neurological correlates or supporting, domain specific mechanisms (or what have you) for dramatic intelligence.

It started after I read Matt Wrentsler's Integral Art paper -which caused me to go to sleep and have a dream encounter with my deamon. But anyway, in the paper he basically covers briefly every line associated with the arts, 90% of which come from Howard Gardner. The main thing was that when I finally read Gardner it became so obvious to me somthing was sorely missing. I just immediately thought that there had to be something equivilent associated with acting ability -and this was also, mind you, after years of working with students and seeing, so often, what it is like when the 'something' -the definitive whatever -is missing from a performance, or an attempted one. And the difference when it is not. Also, how whatever it was clearly developed. Some kind of pattern recognition. And mind you, this was not easy, becasue the dramatic art is so complex as a whole. It actually utilizes every intelligence (like Mascha said above).

So, one night I decided to make the intention to bring the matter to the Subtle -that is, the dream state, or subtle state, 'dream yoga.' I went to sleep with the intention to be told what it was.

In the middle of the night, as was usual at the time, Wendy woke up and I had to get her back to sleep. So as I drearily stood there with her in the dark, I remember to think about it and what came to my mind was 'affective patterns.' Oh, … there are affective patterns. (or affective patterns.) Now just to figure out what they were … how to define them.

The next day there were several weird 'confirmations' that I was onto something so I wrote to one of my friends and said 'here it is. If I turn out to be right this email will be the proof I got it from the subtle.' (LOL)

The next night the same thing occured and I woke up with 'affective rhythmic patterns.' Now I was really on to something and it started to make more sense. The notion of 'rhythm' in drama is pretty consistent, and then there was Stanislavsky's search for “affective rhythms.”

I worked with this idea for months. I was convinced the notion could fulfill every one of Garner's eight criteria for an intelligence …except … the first one: “the potential of isolation by brain damage or other circumstance.” In other words, I was not optimistic about finding anything brain wise to date recognized. I thought I would just have to outline something and propose research. I asked around, wrote to professors, no one knew the slightest what I was talking about.

Then, finally, one day I had the awe-inspiring idea to simply type “affective rhythms” or something to that effect into Google. I found some article that looked interesting and somewhere in the first two paragraphs it used this term 'prosody.' Hmm? I almost gasped. I went back to the computer and typed in affective prosody and lo and behold there it was. On finding one of the most important articles I simply could not beleive how accurate and appropriate it was. The tests they had patients perform were exactly like working with a playscript. (i.e. say the line with this emotion, now that emotion, now another emotion.)

When I later wrote the leading researcher and without any further question he not only agreed but told me how and why he thought in the actor this was an expert skill … well. Trust the Subtle.

(The 'expert skill' notion is significant. It has been shown, for example, that when the average individual listens to music it is the right hemisphere that 'lights up.' However, when a musician listens it is the left hemisphere. Which seems to suggest, for the musician music is (has developed into) a propositional language. He told me he thought the same of affective prosody and the actor. Affective prosody is uually a right hemiphere function. However, 1.) he has had at least two patients with sever RH damage and no loss of the capacity -and both were actors! AND, he also had the opportunity to meet Oscar winning actresss Patricia Neil after she had a major RH stroke. He said “she still had a commanding stage presence” and no loss of prosody. Meaning, it was the Left Hemishpere for these folks. They possessed it as a propositional lanauge.)

Yes, I just about flew through the roof.

PS on this. One of the problems has been that emotion and 'the brain' have been sorely divided for a long time, or indeed simply emotion and science, emotion and academia, and certainly emotion and intelligence and skill. You know. It was first proposed in 1878 that the RH was particularly important for the expression and communication of emotions. But it took until 1975 for anyone else to take the notion seriously.

Re: How do you explain this?

How do you explain this?

 

Not feeling the impulse to explain this little beauty
nor the other beautiful expressions in this thread.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention Mascha!

love

e