Process Note: Hurt Shoulder, Typing Holiday

I want you to know how much I'm missing blogging for you! But my shoulder is resting, which makes us all rest, especially from typing and folding. Sorry. More soon.

cyd

Karyl and me in our UC shirts. It's the right shoulder that's acting up.



Is our Universal UC a gigantic autophagosome?

The cover of the March 26, 2011 edition of ScienceNews illustrates an autophagosome forming around some cellular debris. The second I laid eyes upon the cover, I was happy to see that this is very close to the mechanism I have been describing for the formation of our Universal Unit of Consciousness. Let's see how this might be a useful metaphor.

From the Wikipedia article, Autophagy,

A variety of autophagic processes exist, all having in common the degradation of intracellular components via the lysosome. The most well-known mechanism of autophagy involves the formation of a membrane around a targeted region of the cell, separating the contents from the rest of the cytoplasm. The resultant vesicle then fuses with a lysosome and subsequently degrades the contents.

According to the Science News article, Dining In, "In the first recognizable step of the process, a small, curved, double-membraned structure appears around the parts of the cell that are on the menu. That little bit of membrane grows to encase whatever the cell plans to swallow" (p.18).

Here's what the Simple Explanation says:

On this day that time began, consciousness wrapped itself around the expanding space of our universe, forming a border between us and infinity.

and again:

I'm suggesting that singular thought of limitless potential became a type of conceptual debris that needed sealing off from the undifferentiated metaverse. The torus shape suspends the singularity in the center zero-point field of our universe. Within our universe, time and space, matter and locality are held from the metaverse by this fractal membrane, the Universal UC.

Here's how I picture the process: imagine unfurling a large sheet, shaking it out above you, netting a big pouch of air, and quickly gathering up the corners in the middle. Voila--the Universal Unit of Consciousness, the prototypical toroidal shape, the essential fractal formula of creation.

The pouch of air inside the gathered sheet is our material universe, the sheet itself is the Universal UC, the fist holding the sheet corners at the middle is the ananda/joy/here/now point at the center of our universe, and the totality of the torus is the autophagosome container.

So, continuing with this metaphor, the debris that is this manifested universe will someday be simplified back to the building blocks of original consciousness and reabsorbed back into the undifferentiated metaverse.

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Changing gears, look at this beautiful illustration of little red autophagosomes lining up along the vortex of the toroidal shape that is cell mytosis. Isn't it gorgeous?

Fig. 1: Delivery of autophagosomes to lysosomes along microtubules.



Process Note: My Typical Day

Last year one of the guests at the inn suggested I write Process Notes in order to put a more human face (mine) on my blog. It's her thought that people will be more inclined to read the blog regularly if they feel connected to the writer. What do you think, readers? Will you comment below to tell me if you appreciate these personalized articles?

Why can't I turn out more of the philosophy articles? It's simply a matter of time. Here's my typical day.

Misty

3:00  AM.  The cat begins biting my arm to wake me up. I resist her until 3:15, at which time I give in and get out of bed. The two dogs also wake up and join us, and the four of us go downstairs. I feed the cats and dogs, and open the pet doors so they can go out.

3:30 AM. Computer is turned on. I look for inn reservations first, then open up the blogspot and check the overnight stats. Four people online right now. I look at where they are, what articles they are reading, and I back trace a couple of referring URLs to see how they came to my site. I read the articles they are reading and imagine their reactions.
4:00 AM. The dogs and I go back upstairs. My husband, Gary, is up and brushing his teeth. I give the dogs a couple of beef bones to keep them occupied while I do my bathroom necessities. I grind some half-regular/half-decaf coffee beans and put a pot on to brew.
4:15 AM. Gary and I do a Yoga/Chi Kung stretching routine together.
4:40 AM. We all go downstairs to the meditation room. Gary, the dogs, and I sit on the couch. Gary and I read outloud to each other from a variety of spiritual and philosophy books, while we drink a cup of coffee. This morning we read Chapter 5, Galatians (Bible, New Testament); a couple of pages of Richard Feynman's The Meaning of It All (philosophy of science); a couple of pages of Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy; and two translations of Verse 4, Tao Te Ching (Mitchell and Star).
5:15 AM. Meditation, followed by the Lord's Prayer.
5:45 AM. We go upstairs and get dressed for work.
6:00 AM. I listen to NPR while I make our breakfast blender drink and lay out the vitamins. We drink breakfast and listen to the radio.
6:30 AM. Gary walks the dogs and then drives to his job. I walk across the yard to the inn to begin breakfast preparations.

Albion Inn's garden and back porch

6:30--7:00 AM. I open curtains, turn on lights, put on classical music, set the table, brew and set out coffee.

7:00--9:00 AM. Making breakfast. Notice toroidal flow in sliced apples and kiwis. 

The sliced apple demonstrates toroidal flow.

 9:00 AM. Serve breakfast.



Breakfast table at the Albion Inn

9:00--10:30 AM. Chat with guests during the meal. We talk about the plays they saw the night before, where they ate dinner, how their children are doing, what the weather will be like today.

We talk about the Word of the Day, which happens to be "factotum." Then we discuss the Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything for as long as the guests appear interested. I show them my new t-shirt and we talk about what the UC looks like to them.

10:30 AM. Clean kitchen. Load dishwasher.

11:00 AM. Give hugs to departing guests. Wave goodbye from door. Finish tidying up dining room and kitchen. Sweep floors. Put towels and sheets in washer.

11:30 AM. Go back to the owner's quarters across the garden. Change out of my chef's clothes into blue jeans and t-shirt.
11:40 AM. Take dogs to the woods for a walk. Commune with nature. Commune with the Universal UC. Hug trees, wet hands in icy brook. Say hello to other dog-walkers.

Franny and Zoey

12:30 PM. Stop at market on the way home to buy food for next day's breakfast.

1:15 PM. Move towels and sheets into dryer. Eat leftover breakfast food for my lunch. Watch TV. Bake cookies for guests.
2:00 PM. Sit at computer. Check emails. Take care of reservations and bookkeeping duties. Check in on blog.
2:30 PM. Go over to inn and set out cookies and apples on sideboard. Go back home to sit at computer until paged.

Cookies and snacks on the Albion Inn sideboard

3:00 PM. Check-in arriving guests. Unload dishwasher. Prepare pie crust for tomorrow's quiche. Grate cheese. Set out butter for tomorrow's scones.

4:00 PM. Fold sheets and towels. Iron sheets and pillowcases. Take linens back over to inn. Chat with guests about garden.
5:00 PM. Go back to owner's quarters. Clean up. Feed cats and dogs. Make salad for dinner.
5:30 PM. Gary home from work. We have a refreshing drink. We eat dinner and watch TV.
6:45 PM. I cannot keep my eyes open. I fall asleep on the couch. Gary plays a videogame (Tiger Woods Golf, wii).
7:30 PM. Wake up; bring in the cats; lock the pet door for the night. We go upstairs to bed.
8:00 PM. Lights out.

That's the daily routine. This is our life. Not enough time to write many substantive articles. This easy article has taken two hours to write and insert the pictures and the hypertextual jumps. A substantive article takes me about four hours to complete. So far, I've only been able to write on days when there are no breakfast guests, because I am at my best in the morning. So it's either write or cook. We've had a busy early spring, and I've been in the kitchen more than usual. Perhaps when I retire I can write full time...

This morning we laughed about using Twitter to spread the Simple Explanation memes rather than the blog. As if I could tweet the Simple Explanations that continually flow through my head... "pelicans find their young not through eyesight but through vibratory signatures..." ... "a tree's karma is visible for all to see..." ... "the Universal UC is the autophagosome of the metaverse..." and so on. Would anyone enjoy receiving such esoteric tweets? Let me know if you would...

Zoey, Cyd, and Franny

A Simple Explanation of Gossip

Here's the wikipedia definition of gossip:

•Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It forms one of the oldest and most common means of sharing (unproven) facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information transmitted. ...


Here's the Simple Explanation's definition of gossip:

Sharing, from your point of view, another's personal memes and karmic deeds with the aim of strengthening their consequences.

Here's how it works: You either hear about or witness an event that you emotionally resonate to. Responding to that emotion, your mind quickly gathers up a chord of memes relating to the event. These memes will necessarily reflect your point of view, because that is who and where you are relative to the event. Even if the facts are accurate, i.e. correct retelling of the other's memes and of the karmic event, the meme chord also contains your personal assumptions, judgments, and position. In other words, you have added something to the equation.

Your ego then constructs a story--"the story of the meme chord"--and tells it to you. All of this activity is more or less out of your conscious control. Once you make a conscious decision to tell it to someone else, then it becomes gossip. Spreading gossip is like weaving meme chords and launching them into the air.

Why do people gossip? In order to keep that particular meme chord in play. If the gossip is pleasant and positive, then most people approve of it. If the gossip is slanderous and negative, people disapprove. However, whether positive or negative, the memes and karmic consequences are still being strengthened through repetition and transmission. This is the purpose of gossip--to deepen the karma of praise or concern for the "righteous," and of shame and indignation for the "sinner." And the further the meme chord spreads, the less it reflects the truth of the situation and the more interference it brings to the here and now.

Spiritual Consequences of Gossip

The Bible has many injunctions against gossip. Here's what the book of James has to say about it, in Chapter 4, Verse 11:

Speak not evil one of another, bretheren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?"

In Simple Explanation terms, the verse reads like this:

Fellow UCs, it is not our job to share others' personal memes and shortcomings. Spreading unhelpful information out of egoic judgment does not contribute to the metaversal plan. The metaversal plan transcends ego. Ego is too limited to grasp the causes or the consequences of one's own behavior, let alone another's. Do not interfere with another's karma.

Personally, I think of gossip as keeping a situation alive in time. As the meme chord is strengthened through repetition, the event stays in the present rather than passing into the past. It seems to me that God, or the Metaversal plan, or the Universal UC, is not about shame or praise, but favors moving forward and doing what needs to be done here and now. "Onward and Upward!" I think the game plan is all about forgiving and picking up the pieces, looking around to see what needs doing next, and working in harmony to help one another make the best of things
.

A Simple Explanation of The Perennial Philosophy

A philosopher friend of mine recently commented on the Simple Explanation, "Excellent retelling of the Perennial Philosophy!"

I was unfamiliar with the expression "Perennial Philosophy," so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Here's their essential definition:

Perennial philosophy is the philosophical concept which states that each of the world’s religious traditions share a single truth. Perennial philosophy asserts that there is a single divine foundation of all religious knowledge, referred to as the universal truth. Each world religion, independent of its cultural or historical context, is simply a different interpretation of this knowledge...

Yes, my friend was right. The Simple Explanation is all about identifying the universal truth embedded underneath ages of confusing memetic overlays.

And what is the basic truth that all traditions share when you strip away their superfluous memes?

• There is a Divine Reality underpinning everything; without This, no thing and no one would exist. 
• Ground, Sat, Undiffentiated Unity, Brahman, Godhead, Pure Light of the Void, Pure Consciousness, Metaverse

• This Divine Reality may be directly perceived under certain conditions.
• through prayer, meditation, near-death experiences, mystic revelation, psychedelic drugs, religious ecstasy, inspired ritual, super-rational intuition
• Humans possess a dual nature: the little, egoic "me" of day-to-day living, and a true Self that reflects the Divine Reality.
• egoic "me" is selfish, competitive, single-minded, short-sighted, meme-bound
• transcending ego, Self reaches out to others with love, help, and information for the betterment of all
• People long to reunite with that divine Reality from whence they came.
• salvation, enlightenment, Self-realization, Buddhahood
• Unification is only possible through denial of the earthly self and identification with divine Reality.
• focus on the here and now; drop unwanted memes

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The late Aldous Huxley wrote an excellent book on the topic in 1944 called The Perennial Philosophy. I've only read the first three chapters so far, but they are already marked up with happy scribbles. What a smart man Huxley was! Everything he is saying fits in perfectly with the Simple Explanation, so if you would like a fuller explanation of the Perennial Philosophy, I'd recommend Huxley's book.

The Great Square Within the Torus

The other morning we were reading Verse 41 in the Tao Te Ching and came across this puzzling line:

"The Great Square has no corners"

which the Simple Explanation might tranlate as

"Ideal Squareness lacks corners"

Naturally, I began wondering about the Great Square with no corners and how Ideal Squareness would arise from the toroidal shape. After a couple of weeks of passive pondering and mental modeling, this is what I've come up with.

Since I'm accustomed to working with a 3-D mental model, I upped the square to a cube.

Then I imagined this cube suspended at its eight corner points against the inner walls of a spherical torus. 

Here's an animated blue cube rotating inside a sphere I found on Google images. This will help to visualize what I'm talking about. The other Platonic shapes are rotating in there, too, but we will try to disregard them for now.

Click here to see the blue cube rotating inside a sphere.

Of course, we want to imagine the sphere in the above link is a torus.

The center point of the cube would also be the center point of the torus. Now remove any lines, walls, or corners you may have imagined for the cube and just sense its pure Form suspended there, framed by the torus. This would be an Ideal Cube precisely placed in the only position a cube can occupy within the Ideal Torus. Perhaps this is the Great Square of the universal UC.

Now consider the following chalk drawings where I build the square and cube from two essential elements of the torus: the pole and the plane of the equator. This will give us another way of conceptualizing the Perfect Square and Perfect Cube.

This is a cross section of a torus. In the Simple Explanation, the white star at the middle is the transdimensional zero-point field from which creation springs forth.



Torus with pole. There is only one line that goes straight up through the middle of a singularity or zero-point at the center of the torus without touching any curved sides.



Torus with pole and plane of equator. There is only one plane of the equator, which runs perpendicular to the pole and from side to side along the widest part of the torus, dividing the torus into top and bottom.

Torus with parallel poles, perpendicular to the equatorial plane, bisecting the toroidal tube.



Torus with perfect cube. The lines of the square/walls of the cube are precisely placed relative to the pole and equatorial plane. Once this shape is achieved within the torus, the Platonic shapes and all regular geometry are possible.

 

The chalk drawings below are the same series as the drawings above, but from a cutaway, topside view, looking straight down on the bottom half of the toroidal sphere from above.

   

Pardon my free-hand drawing. This is supposed to be a square touching the inside edge of the circle at four points, or a cube touching the inside edge of the torus at eight points. The center of the cube is the same as the center of the torus. All planes of the cube are either parallel or perpendicular to the pole and equatorial plane, thereby making the placement of this cube quite precise.



This is both a top-side cutaway view of the top and bottom planes of the perfect cube, and a side cutaway view of the perfect cube sitting in center of the toroidal tube.



This is also a view from the top of the plane of the equator radiating out from the center point until it bumps up against the inner walls of the confining toroidal space.



Here is the topside view of the torus, not cutaway. You can still see the white star at the middle from outside the torus looking down the funnel. The outside of this torus is white, just like the star at the middle, and the skin of the torus is feeding upward and wrapping over the lip of the funnel, then condensing toward the middle. At the middle, the outside metaversal energies turn inside out and push into the blue toroidal interior space, where material instantiates from energy and form.The funnel is barely visible; the white exterior is pouring up over the lip of the top of the torus and down into the funnel toward the ananada/joy zero point at the center.



Personal Note: Here I am in my UC T-shirt

Here I am in my UC t-shirt. Isn't it cool? It's like seeing into my heart chakra, isn't it? 

Cyd's UC t-shirts available at her Cafe Press store.



Meme Share: Simplify

Here's another helpful meme:

simplify

Simplify is good advice in all things.

We can simplify our lives with fewer projects, fewer responsibilities. Peel away the unessential so we are left with more space in the here and now.

We can simplify our cooking with fewer, more basic ingredients. Fresh food from nature, not chemicals from laboratories. Simple, wholesome recipes that nourish.

We can simplify our closets and our dresser drawers by giving away clothes we no longer wear.

We can simplify our homes by giving away anything we do not really want or need. We can throw away broken items hidden in basements and storerooms. We can clear out deadwood, inside and out. Chi is stagnated by clutter. Clean empty space provides room for inspiration.

We can simplify our expectations of how things should be and simply accept what they are.

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What else can we simplify? Please leave any thoughts that come to mind here under "comments."

Praying Within the Toroidal Flow

For the past couple of years, since meditating upon the torus shape and toroidal forces, I've noticed a certain energetic pattern to the Lord's Prayer that I'd like to share with you.

Here's how I imagine the flow of the prayer. Picture yourself sitting within a person-sized torus and try to visualize these patterns as I describe them.

When saying, "Our Father which art in heaven," my eyes are closed and I am using my third eye to look upward and out of the funnel at the top, toward what feels like God or the metaverse out there in the blackness beyond the torus.

When saying, "Hallowed be Thy name," I am small, still, and receptive, honoring the power and majesty of God "out there" in the very large.

When I say, "Thy kingdom come," I begin pulling the energy flow down into the funnel from the top. By the time I say, "Thy will be done," the energy and I are part of an ongoing flow pouring into the zero point field at the center of the torus, and when I say, "in earth as it is in heaven," the energy shoots outward from the center, flowing from the metaverse out into the world. Now the torus around me is as big as the earth and we are here in the world, no longer looking toward heaven, but engaged in creation.

"Give us this day our daily bread," has the ananda/joy energy proliferating from the middle throughout the torus, creating the "chewy blue middle" (as I like to think of it) of material creation as it spirals out from the center. Here is the material that instantiates "our daily bread," a metaphor for all that sustains us. The Lord's Prayer covers all potential petitions to God with this one short phrase; there's no need for details or repetition.

By now we are fully engaged in creation and our eyes are naturally on ourselves and our neighbors, our fellow inhabitants of this creation. "And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," is recited while imaging reaching out laterally from within my torus to the UCs on either side of me. In the torus model above, the "forgiveness" dimension is along the plane that bisects the toroid's top and bottom. This is the widest point of the torus and my UC's imaginary arms are flung as wide as possible to ask for and give maximum forgiveness. My torus is centered with earth's torus and I am including all of creation. This holding of both toroids is also an energetic balancing act, as I acknowledge that my received forgiveness is equal to the forgiveness I grant others, and I hold myself fully open and vulnerable.

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," is the energetic tipping point, and the spiraling energy returns back from out in creation, falling back and "drilling down" toward the toroidal core at the middle of my being.

And now, by this time in the prayer, I (my personal UC) and God (the universal UC) are synchronized and nestled together at the heart of our zero point fields. The drawing below illustrates this state, as my green heart chakra is co-extant with the ananda/joy center of the universal UC.

And finally, when I say, "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever," I imagine waves of energy, force, and white and gold light (power and glory) emanating from the center of my torus and filling up the universe and beyond.

Amen

I hope this is of some assistance to you.

A Simple Explanation of the Lord's Prayer

When his disciples asked Lord Jesus how to pray, Jesus taught them the following prayer. Here is its most common translation, from the King James Version of the Bible (Matthew 6:6):

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy wll be done, in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever.

Amen.

For a few years now, I have only prayed the Lord's Prayer and no other. For me, prayer time is not a time to petition God for favors. I figure God already knows better than I do what needs I have. I also have an abiding faith that God/the Tao/the Universe has my best interests at heart, and so I trust in God/the Tao/the Universe to take care of me. My husband and I recite the Lord's Prayer out loud together after each morning's scripture study and meditation. We recite the King James version above.

I provide the Simple Explanation translation below, not as a replacement for traditional versions, but simply for mapping Simple Explanation terminology to Christian memes for purposes of clarification.

Here's my Simple Translation of The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father from the metaverse, we address you with humility and respect.

We invite your plans and principles to inform and bring order to our universe, trusting that your intention for us is best.
We acknowledge that you are the source of all that is needed to nourish and sustain our lives.
We realize that our karmic shortcomings can only be forgiven to the same extent we forgive others for their shortcomings.
We desire to avoid any memes that stand in the way of doing what is best for ourselves and others.
We trust you in all things, for your authority and power transcend this universe, and we are but humble echoes of your perfection.

Amen

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The section of this article, Praying within the toroidal flow, has been moved to its own blog article. You may read it there.