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altered states
February 2009 
High, low and in between
Posted on May 8th, 2006
by 
jpjako
jpjako
I watched Sliding Doors yesterday on TV. For those who haven't seen it, do see it. It's got an awesome story + Gwyneth Paltrow is starring. Anyway, the basic idea of the film is about two alternative versions of how reality might turn out if the main character (played by Gwyneth) catches or doesn't catch the tube on time. Watching the film really moved me and got me waxing metaphysical on the side. Could it be that this reality we inhabit is influenced by other parallel versions of reality - different possible worlds which are taking place at the "same time", or something like that. I'm not really the physicist type, but anyways, you get the picture without the geeky details.
These different worlds could inflict a lot of stuff that goes on in this reality. Let's say for example you get really annoyed for no apparent reason at all. You wake up in the morning all grouchy and can't figure out why. Now, I'm not going to lay clain that everything that goes on is because of different realities going on about their respective courses in God-knows-what-dimension; what I am suggesting, however is that just maybe we could explain some of the mysterious X-factors in our lives by referring to still unknown realities.
Our current understanding is at its best, IMHO, in Ken Wilber's integral model, which takes into account all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states and all types of occurances in the world - AQAL for short. In plain language that is for those who aren't familiar with Wilber's model that in considering the above-mentioned morning grouchiness we need to take an AQAL-stance in hoping to make justice to the complexity of All that Is. All quadrants are basically I, WE, and IT (psychological, cultural and objective/empirical-scientific); all levels are the levels of development one goes through (I might be having a teenage angst fit); all lines are different lines of development (grouchiness may have to do with emotial intelligence, which I might wish to do something about), all states refer to different states of consciousness (am I still dreaming? am I in an altered state due to too much/little morning coffee?) and all types are different personality structures each of us so uniquely calls their own (hopefully; being in close terms with one's own personality takes a lot of courage, to see oneself as one is, accepting and acknowledging both the weaknesses and strenghts). So sorting out why I'm feeling grouchy in the morning needs to touch bases with the AQAL model if I want to give the problem at hand a fair consideration. And btw, if I totally have misunderstood mr. Wilber's fine model in the above presentation please correct me - I'm no veteran of the integral wars, mind y'all ;)
So how the Sliding Doors come to play? Easy, you just call Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison in another parellel reality and book them... Lousy jokes aside, what I'm suggesting is that possibly some of the more mysterious aspects of our experiences could have something to do with another dimensions whose occurances have an impact in this dimension. Picture yourself getting angry at someone: why is it that we feel remorse of conscience? How can it be that we intuitively feel there is something wrong when our present level should not feel that? How is it that we can have a peak experience of unity with all of existence or at least with another human being(s) when our current knowing tells us otherwise?
How are these altered states possible? Well, how about the possibility that in another dimension there is another me who is a lot wiser. One who's enlightened, let's say. When I'm here being grouchy or angry or sarcastic and later feel remorse - or at the same time even - maybe I'm somehow connected to this another parallel dimension. It seems strange, but in a way I feel that all these seemingly disconnected dimensions and universes could be occuring here, right now - that I'm always everything: high, low and in between. How are these connections happening? I don't know.
What I've suggested here is probably due to eating too much thai chili dip sauce last night. However, if you've read so far you just might have something to say, so do feel free to comment. In any case, thanks for reading. I'll be posting more stuff later when I eat something strange again ;)
These different worlds could inflict a lot of stuff that goes on in this reality. Let's say for example you get really annoyed for no apparent reason at all. You wake up in the morning all grouchy and can't figure out why. Now, I'm not going to lay clain that everything that goes on is because of different realities going on about their respective courses in God-knows-what-dimension; what I am suggesting, however is that just maybe we could explain some of the mysterious X-factors in our lives by referring to still unknown realities.
Our current understanding is at its best, IMHO, in Ken Wilber's integral model, which takes into account all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states and all types of occurances in the world - AQAL for short. In plain language that is for those who aren't familiar with Wilber's model that in considering the above-mentioned morning grouchiness we need to take an AQAL-stance in hoping to make justice to the complexity of All that Is. All quadrants are basically I, WE, and IT (psychological, cultural and objective/empirical-scientific); all levels are the levels of development one goes through (I might be having a teenage angst fit); all lines are different lines of development (grouchiness may have to do with emotial intelligence, which I might wish to do something about), all states refer to different states of consciousness (am I still dreaming? am I in an altered state due to too much/little morning coffee?) and all types are different personality structures each of us so uniquely calls their own (hopefully; being in close terms with one's own personality takes a lot of courage, to see oneself as one is, accepting and acknowledging both the weaknesses and strenghts). So sorting out why I'm feeling grouchy in the morning needs to touch bases with the AQAL model if I want to give the problem at hand a fair consideration. And btw, if I totally have misunderstood mr. Wilber's fine model in the above presentation please correct me - I'm no veteran of the integral wars, mind y'all ;)
So how the Sliding Doors come to play? Easy, you just call Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison in another parellel reality and book them... Lousy jokes aside, what I'm suggesting is that possibly some of the more mysterious aspects of our experiences could have something to do with another dimensions whose occurances have an impact in this dimension. Picture yourself getting angry at someone: why is it that we feel remorse of conscience? How can it be that we intuitively feel there is something wrong when our present level should not feel that? How is it that we can have a peak experience of unity with all of existence or at least with another human being(s) when our current knowing tells us otherwise?
How are these altered states possible? Well, how about the possibility that in another dimension there is another me who is a lot wiser. One who's enlightened, let's say. When I'm here being grouchy or angry or sarcastic and later feel remorse - or at the same time even - maybe I'm somehow connected to this another parallel dimension. It seems strange, but in a way I feel that all these seemingly disconnected dimensions and universes could be occuring here, right now - that I'm always everything: high, low and in between. How are these connections happening? I don't know.
What I've suggested here is probably due to eating too much thai chili dip sauce last night. However, if you've read so far you just might have something to say, so do feel free to comment. In any case, thanks for reading. I'll be posting more stuff later when I eat something strange again ;)
Access: Public
hey jpjako… very interesting musings. have you ever read any of the “conversations with God” series? i think there's something in one of those books (or maybe it's eckhart tolle… damn that short-term memory loss) that refers to time being more of a spindle than a straight line (turn the line vertical instead of horizontal). in that manner, everything is happening at the same time. so, if you are a believer in reincarnation then that would translate into ALL of your lives happening at the same time. and if we were advanced enough, i.e., using a much higher percentage of our brains, we'd be able to move effortlessly between realities - or, i guess, jump to any portion of the spindle we wish.
i'm probably not explaining this very well, and it'd be best to actually find out which book i read this in!
fenix
Hi there, Fenix!
I have read the first three Conversations With God - books and I'm about to read the last one in the very near futu´re (Home With God). Those books have made a great impact on my thinking (and being, I hope) so that probably filters in the above post. Anyway, it's been a while since I last laid my eyes on those books so maybe they've had enought time to steep into my brain and come out as my “own thinking”. To an extent at least ;)
I'm not sure if Eckhart Tolle spoke about this time stuff, but his work is definately very interesting as well. He actually has got a new book out called New Earth or something like that. I very much enjoyed reading his previous books so I guess I should get that one as well. But nonethless, the idea of time being a spindle is pretty close to what I've tried to figure out above. That would include both horizontal time and vertical time so that all is now, literally - all that has gone “before” and all that will go in the “future”. Of course that is a kind of an absolute sense or conception of “time” which transcends and includes (or does it?) this relativistic conseption we think we have. I said “think we have” remembering a quote by Walsch in the last CWG book in the lines of “We can't change reality, only our conception of it”. So in way time/anything is what it is whether I believe in it or not.
You said it pretty well, Fenix, that if we were advanced enough (i.e. changed our reality concepts to more accurate ones which now might seem totally ridiculous; such as time being here now in its entirety) we'd be able to “move between realities … to jump into any portion of the spindle we wish”. Could it be that we get a sense of this in avery human level when we go up and and down the stages of our development having a momentary state of a different level of being? For example I might have a temper tantrum thus regeressing to a level in this vertical-lateral time spindle that has gone way before, and which I have passed as a stage years ago. In this I could be activating a certain moment in time which is always available to me as a state - and vice versa to higher dimensions.
Kind of like the second law of thermodynamics in a human sense, after reaching a certain point in the development of collective consciousness we tend to start decaying either in the form of stagnation or down right regression. Growth towards those “higher percentages” of using the brain is something which needs effort, creating new emergent levels from previous emergent levels - karma, is it so? One of my favourite esoteric teachers, G.I. Gurdjieff said that “Work is against the nature”. If I interpret hime correctly, I'd translate 'work' meaning the strive towards higher emergent levels of being. So yes, in a way, work IS against nature in that it is working against the basic law of more chaos.
But in the end could it be that as is chaos, the strive towards Kosmos is also inherent in nature - also, or better yet: not inherent but supraherent (being a non-native English speaker I feel free to twist the language to fit my evil schemes); or even better: not inherent, not supra-/transherent but none and both at the same time. Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense even to me, but what can I say. I had chili sauce again last night ;)
The point being that as chaos is a part of the world so is kosmos. The struggle between them is the old problem between good and evil, as witnessed in our own souls. We have a tendency to lay on our laurels, or even opt for the bad instead of good, but in the same time we have an inexplicable need to reach ever higher dimensions, altitudes and latitudes. The human being in itself and as a race has gone an incredible way from being a pool of whatever the heck was present at the Big Gang Bang in the beginning to this new age of the bleedin' Aqaurius that's oh-so-plain to see, even to the untrained eye. We can always see the glass as half empty heading towards chaos, or we can see it half full. It's all a matter of perspectives. And although we cannot change the way the glass itself is, we can change how we percieve it. I have a feeling in my gut that more and more folks are gonna get aboard the Integral Positive Vibes Express, and that alone could start to convince me that maybe, just maybe it was Known all along (all the time, that is) that in order to make the light visible we needed darkness, and that eventually the scale would tip towards the transherent kosmos which so delightfully remembered us with the faint voice of conscience of our true identity. Like the first book of CWG said it, “you need to know who you are not in order to know who you are”.
And I'm getting the feel that more and more are starting to know more and more of the latter. Is it Love? I reckon.