How complex can thoughtforms become?

[Tutor]

CPW,

rightly stated. thank you for the 'real' that you offer into this forum's often over imagined content, myself included.

tim

[dreamosis]

I don't have an inherent problem with the idea of self-awareness, and I have had experiences of awareness upon awareness of being aware, sure, but does that mean I have an individual "spirit" or "soul" that is unique and apart, or that other entities (trees, perhaps) do not have these things or.... ?

I don't know. However, my working definition of self-awareness(/individuality) doesn't attempt to prove self-awareness as a haveable thing or a thing in itself. Awareness of awareness relative to a perceived particularity of medium is a description of an experience, not a permanent condition per se.

The description of "individual spirit" I put forth -- the immortal essence of being with awareness of awareness relative to a perceived particularity of medium -- is built on assumption. Namely, the assumption that I can take the writing of other mystics (like Robert Bruce) at face value and can trust my own experiences (like seeing a vision of a past life). For me, accepting the words of someone else means that their words pass the test of consistency, sound reasoning, intuition, and experimentation.

The description "the immortal essence of being with awareness of awareness relative to a perceived particularity of medium" also does not argue for uniqueness, permanency of itself, or the reality of what is. It's also an experience. The description assumes that the essence of being is immortal, which is a necessary assumption within my own larger belief system which allows for the Divine, the Divine's eternalness, and its omnipresence. Meaning, whatever I am made of is the same thing which the Divine is made of, which is immortal.

Also, I didn't argue for the indefinite continuation of the experience of an individual immortal essence. My post made references to the opposite, i.e. "transcending particularity." If you transcended particularity what you would have is, according to me, immortal essence of being with awareness of awareness relative to a perceived particularity and infinity.

I did argue that there are things which don't perceive particularity. A rock is an example of a physical thing I think doesn't perceive particularity. A thoughtform is an example of an etheric thing I think doesn't perceive particularity.

By my own reasoning, both rocks and thoughtforms are composed of the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived particularity/infinity (God). However, I distinguish between orders of things and reflect on the teaching that the perception of particularity alters along the spiritual path. A lifelong dedicated mystic probably perceives less particularity than me. A spirit guide probably perceives less particularity than the mystic. A Higher Self probably perceives less particularity than the spirit guide. Whatever is meant by "archangel" probably perceives less particularity than a Higher Self. God, however, paradoxically, perceives all particularity, which is the same as saying God's perception is infinite. God is Self, or selves/Self. Language becomes confusing around paradox. Another way to describe spiritual evolution is to say that it's the expansion of perceived particularities (plural); that is, you are extending your perception from your own (currently perceived) particularity to the perception of other particularities. You could say spiritual evolution is expanding empathy. Total Empathy is God. By this same chain of reasoning, spiritual involution is shrinking empathy and concentrating as fully as possible on one's particularity. Although this can also be seen as a path to the Divine...

That I distinguish between orders of things is just me noticing that not all immortal essence of being is arranged in the same way. The essence of being that is a human being -- however temporarily, however illusory -- is shaped differently than the essence of being that is a rock. A human being and a rock are of the same essence, but they are not the same in function or effect within creation. To be brief, a rock is a chaotic assemblage of dense gradients of the essence of being, while a human is a highly organized system of dense gradients of the essence of being capable of sustaining itself through the intake of other dense gradients (including the minerals found in rock).

The materialist calls things that are highly organized systems "alive." To me, everything is alive in the sense that it's aware, but not everything is a highly organized system. A thoughtform created by a meditator can be a highly organized system or it can be just a blob of etheric energy.

Note that, according to my train of thought, a rock is aware; but, by reasoning backwards from the fact that it's possible to transcend particularity, I've come to the conclusion that it's also possible to "fall below it." What is "below" particularity? The same thing that's above it. Infinity. So the awareness of a rock is infinite, but unlike a human being or God, it doesn't perceive a self. It just is. What does it mean that its awareness is infinite (without particularity)? That's difficult to say, because to it, there is no it. There is only awareness. There is only molecules interacting with molecules. Atoms interacting with atoms. Flavors of subatomic particles dancing with other flavors. Light chasing light. Being. Is-ness.

As Above, So Below. As spiritualists we tend to think of the Divine as the ultimate intangible, but the Divine is also -- by the law of Correspondence -- the ultimate tangible. And this is what is meant by the saying that while the stars are above us, far into the deep, the stars are also within the stone of the Earth.

* Is the no-self of dense, unsystematized matter equal to the Self of God? (The Self of God being the awareness inherent in all matter, dense and subtle, unsystematized and systematized; no-self/selves, i.e. Self.)

* (Somewhat of re-phrasing of the above question) Are there two possible experiences of awareness or three? Do we have the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived particularity of medium vs. the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived particularity and infinity of medium? Or do we have the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived particularity of medium vs. the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived particularity and infinity of medium vs. the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived infinity of medium?

The simple version: self local vs. Self non-local? Or self-local vs. Self non-local vs. selfless non-local?

If we come to the conclusion that the answer to my first *question is Yes, then all we have is self local vs. Self non-local. If, however, we continue with those set of givens, then it dawns on me that there are actually six permuatations of awareness: (1) self-local (2) self non-local (3) selfless local (4) selfless non-local (5) Self- local (6) Self non-local.

...Or, that's just a trick of language, and (2) and (6) are the same thing because without locality the self becomes the Self, and (3) and (4) are the same thing because without self there is no locality.

With that elimination we're left with (1) and (5), self-local and Self-local, which is the same as saying you have either the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived particularity of medium or the immortal essence of being with meta-awareness relative to a perceived particularity and infinity of medium. They're the same because "Self" is both a description of awareness and medium, of both transcendent consciousness and all possible points of existence. What is non-local to us is Local to the Divine.

* If all there is self-local or Self (non-)local, how do we incorporate the fact that part of existence is systematized and part isn't systematized? I guess we incorporate by realizing that it's ALL systematized, and "non-systemization" is a distortion relative to perceived particularity. We must conclude that the particularity that a rock, for instance, experiences is the same particularity that God experiences; that is, the rock perceives infinite particularity.

* As we evolve toward the Divine, are we becoming a less organized expression of being or more? Given that God is everything, and that we can observe both organization and chaos among being (or, to be precise, local systemization and local non-systemization), we can conclude that God is both high organization and high chaos simultaneously (or, perhaps, non-local holosystemization with local appearances of non-systemization that are actually the result of universal order). But is an angel, for instance, a less or more organized expression of being than a human? I don't know. My best guess is that with an angel, the organization of its being while having some of the local aspects of a human (though not the physical aspect), has more non-local aspects than a human being -- or it simply has more conscious access to more non-local aspects. Or, you could say, it's transcended locality, which may be the same as or very similar to saying that it's transcended particularity.

[dreamosis]

I'm replying to my own post to say that I've made a few errors in thinking.

Intuition tells me that the simplest "islands" of awareness are: <selfless>...<self>...<Self>. The "..." between the types indicate that, in actuality, there are degrees of experience between the types. In other words, at some critical point, self-awareness becomes Self-awareness (with "Self" standing for the Divine), but there are stages leading up to it.

Likewise, there are grades of experience between <selfless>...<self>, with consciousness reaching critical mass of self-awareness, but having several shades of selfless/self experience leading up to it.

This is what I feel is true. I was bothered by what I posted yesterday, and now, that I'm going with my gut, logic is kicking in too and showing me where I erred. If God is everything, and everything includes experiences of self-awareness -- however temporary or illusory -- God includes those experiences. And if it's possible to transcend self-awareness, a bias toward particularity of medium, then God also includes those experiences. We have a tendency to want a transhuman definition of God, but if God is all, God cannot be other than the sum total of experience. Therefore, even the experience of self-awareness (what the Buddhists call separation) is God.

[CFTraveler]

That's why the architect whose name I have forgotten said "God is in the Details".

[dreamosis]

"God is in the Details".

I always feel like simpler is better, but as I walking home last night I felt like "self-local vs. Self non-local" was a false dichotomy and that I was missing a detail.

[mick]

If you consider that possibility, and consider the fact that thoughtforms are basically energetic machines, don't you begin to wonder how complex thoughtforms could become without actually possessing a spirit?

Gemma, over in the "What do you make of this?" thread, speculates that thoughtforms could become self-aware. But what does that mean?

Does being self-aware mean that they acquire an individual spirit? Does it mean they acquire freewill?

Could you tell the difference between a highly complex, seemingly self-aware thoughtform and a highly complex, truly self-aware thoughtform? Could you tell the difference between a highly complex, seemingly self-aware thoughtform and a truly self-aware, living Neg?

The fact that thoughtforms eventually degenerate without support suggests that they lack something: spirit. Compare this with the idea of the etheric shell left on Earth after the spirit departs for the afterlife/further incarnation. The abandoned etheric shell essentially becomes a thoughtform that living people, even advanced psychics, may mistake for a deceased person with living intelligence.

Have been wanting to post to this for a while but am usually told that my IP address is permanently banned, however today have been allocated one that is not blocked...

I think that this is an interesting point and is something that I too have reason to ponder. A few years back we were coming across a number of forms that raised the same question for us. That is that the input was that these forms were in a state where they sought permanence or that is how it read. That they were aware that they lacked some spark that made that possible for them. As a result they engage in activities that might provide that "spark". It would be easy to assume that they were all the product of some fabrication but other scenarios also present such as entities out of place for some reason that need further "sparks" in order to anchor themselves closer to this space.

As for identification, something that others have added to, the more obvious explanation of assuming cast off shells is one line of thought, another is the actual source for the current make-up of the form, be this from their creation process maybe and/or from the continuing process of survival that is drawing in imprints from other sources. Some of which may be directly involved or simply passive contributors. Such connectivity when pushed will give all sorts of info and maybe misdirection.
As well as adopting say a shell, another effect that we note is that forms, be they constructed or perhaps from elsewhere will by "co-habiting" take on the sense of the location in which they have taken residence and gain signatures that can then be picked up and be potentially misleading as to the real source.

Addition:
What's the use of pondering this? Well, it could offer encouragement in the case of thoughtform-Negs, including ex-humans Negs without a spiritual core. If you're a living intelligent being dealing with a machine, you have quite an advantage: as you interact you're capable of expanding your intelligence by order, while they're only capable of getting smarter by degrees within the set confines of their closed design.

Yes, would say that sometimes these limitations can be evident and is often a clue as to what is being encountered.

Not answering the question as to whether this apparent limitation can be cracked but thought that my observations might add to the picture. In some cases the creation process is one that limits perhaps by design the potential evolution options.