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Mindfulness means equilibrium

What's the very first thing you remember about your life? What would you say was your earliest childhood memory? How old would you say you were when you experienced your first ever memory? What do you think?

My point here is that mindfulness is never something you have to 'achieve'. It's not something you have to seek either. It's not something someone else can teach you. Mindfulness is who or what you are in your most natural, primal state. Mindfulness is how you were born.

Okay so let's dig a little deeper into this. Think of a small child. An infant. A toddler. A small human being living purely on the basis of mindfulness.

Such a small child has no concept of time. Such a small child has no concept of either the past or the future. All that exists from the perspective of the small child is the present moment, the here and now. A small child sees the world and their environment totally differently to the way you see the world. A small child is much closer to reality and far more in tune with reality - actual reality - than pretty much most adults.

Small children see the world in a way which is unfiltered, mysterious, fascinating, sometimes frightening, but always fascinating. All small children are natural mystics, simply because they are always willing to explore, experiment, ask questions, learn, try out different things to see what works and what doesn't, learn and discover.

Social and mental conditioning

So if mindfulness is our natural state of mind and state of being, then why is it so hard to find ourselves back in that mental state or 'zone'? The answer is simple - we go through a process of social and mental conditioning, language learning, education, upbringing, all of which come together to create a process of socialization.

Out of this process of socialization, which is necessary because we learn how to behave and interact with other people in society, we learn what is important and what isn't, and we learn how to function in society we develop an Ego and a sense of self.

Now I get into more about reality, the Ego and so on in the related blog post How do you know you exist in reality? (note that clicking on the link opens the post in a new window/tab), but what happens is that your natural perception of self and other, and your relationship with your environment becomes conceptual. This is what takes you out of your natural state of mindfulness (and psychological and emotional well being). This transition out of your natural state of mindfulness is usually permanent.

Mindfulness and enlightenment

Assuming that you're relatively new to all this mindfulness is - as I've already pointed out, a state of mind and being which is based on equilibrium and a state of emotional and psychological well being. In terms of the occult this state of being is usually described as being 'centred', 'rooted' or grounded. You're feeling at one with everything and everyone around you, there's a sense of harmony, and everything just kind of 'flows'.

So what is enlightenment?

There are various techniques, belief systems and methods to achieve mindfulness, for example yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, and meditation. Enlightenment here is either the process or the end goal or objective. Both Buddhism and Taoism talk of enlightenment, or nirvana, which might also be the case in terms of yoga (or they might use the term 'moksha', which essentially means 'liberation'). Liberation here means liberation from your Ego, your conceptual image of Self and reality.

But what I want you to do is to forget that, because Qultura is not about either Buddhism, Taoism, meditation or yoga. Qultura takes a completely different path to mindfulness through mysticism and magic, which, if you're prepared to do some reading (all here on this website) and get involved in a community (the Qultura community, also here) you can fairly quickly and easily find your own way back to your natural state of mindfulness all by yourself.

sinking building

In life perspective is everything. Take for example the image above which is taken from Montmartre, a large grassy hill in Paris which is near the Sacre Coeur church. From the perspective of Montmartre, a nearby building looks as if it is sinking into the ground. But this is only possible from a distorted perspective.

You have a similar distorted perspective on life which is as a result of all the social and mental conditioning you have been put through throughout your life.

impossible triangle

Through your social and mental conditioning you have been taught various things as truth when they're not, and you're also led to believe that certain things are possible when they're not. As a result, just like the impossible triangle illustrated above, The triangle above is known as the Penrose Triangle, and it illustrates the fact that while something might seem possible in terms of a concept, in reality it is not possible.

These distortions from your skewed perspective affect pretty much all aspects of your life - the way you think, the choices you make, how you feel about things, what language you use, and so on and so forth.

Liberation from Ego

When things go wrong in life, or don't turn out as expected, most people (and you might be among these people) look to their environment as to the reasons why. It's often the case that this person did this, or that person did that, or it's the Government, or someone is to blame, or it's someone else's fault, or some reason based on a meta-physical illusion - it's God's will, it's fate, it's destiny, and so on and so forth.

Even when you look towards yourself and look inward, you still often think you made a mistake, you got something wrong, or you misunderstood. It's this way because in being conditioned to believe that there's certain societal rules which are sacrosanct and always right, we make the assumption that who we are is based on our Ego, our sense of self, our sense of identity, and we never really call this into question.

This is important because the Ego is all based on assumption and is nothing more than an illusion. The Ego is a concept, an image of who you think you are and believe yourself to be. It's a social construct. Please keep in mind that the Ego is based on the assumption that there is some permanent, unchanging 'you' that exists in reality. You cannot believe in 'self' without also believing that 'you' are separate from everything else, everyone else, and that you are somehow permanent and unchanging in some form.

Rubin's vase

Consciousness has no physical form

I'm going to give you here a third (and final) optical illusion. This one is called Rubin's Vase. What do you see in the above image? Do you see the black Rubin's Vase, or do you see two white faces in profile facing each other? It's possible to see both. The first thing you saw was what your focus of conscious attention connected to - the consciousness in the image, through which you created a physical form. What you didn't see was the background, which you also created.

So if you saw, for example, the two white faces, seeing the white faces was only possible by discounting the black Rubin's Vase in the centre and discounting it as space. If the black Rubin's vase was white you would see nothing. The exact same thing is true if you saw the black Rubin vase first and discounted the two white faces as space or emptiness. Likewise if everything is black you would see nothing.

I'm just showing you this to illustrate just how important your individual conscious perspective is. You understand that consciousness exists I'm sure just as you understand that space exists. Your life is your individual experience of existence. You create that experience through your individual conscious perspective and what is known as the Felt Sense of Immediate Experience.

It's not important to understand what consciousness is and isn't, just as it's not important to understand everything about space and reality. Both consciousness and space are infinite, and they change much faster than you are able to perceive. Let's be very clear here what I'm saying - neither existence nor reality can ever be fully understood, known, explained or defined. Forget it. All you have to go by is physical form, or energy, but see energy and physical forms constantly change. Your body is constantly changing, your environment is constantly changing.

But if you're going through life with a distorted perspective not understanding who you really are, and not understanding how things work in reality, then you leave yourself wide open and vulnerable to all sorts of illusions and false beliefs. This is going to inevitably affect the nature and quality of your life experience.

magic

The Principle and the Process

So let's take existence - all existence - and strip it down to the basic, most fundamental principles. The 'how' and 'what' of existence. Existence is a principle. Creativity and interaction is a process. That is all there is to both life and existence - the principle and the process. What something is and how something exists.

The universe has a principle and a process. This planet has a principle and a process. Everything in nature has a principle and process. You have a principle and process. I have a principle and process. Everyone else has a principle and process.

Now if you can accept that reincarnation means a great deal more than some swirly life after death belief in the Afterlife, and you can understand that everything that is real about you has no physical form then you can begin to understand the truth about your existence.

Qultura is a system through which you can learn about the basic, fundamental mystical principles of existence. These mystical principles are arranged into a relatively simple methodology which has been made freely accessible to you. If you are prepared to explore, experiment, learn and discover with nothing more than an open mind, then you will learn the secrets of the mystical principles, develop mystical insight, and be able to find your way back to a natural state of mindfulness without needing to make much effort.