Harmonia's song

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to the wonderful world of cognitive dissonance, otherwise known as the thought field. You are exactly where you need to be, here, steeped in the glorious cacophany of dissonance, convinced that things are wrong, which somehow need to be put right; thinking, thinking thoughts for all you're worth, driving the natural ecology of mind, where thoughts live and grow biologically, bringing things to fruition, into being. Behold the mindscape down below: see yourself labouring to make sense of the confusion, the chaos of things floating on a tide of contradiction, cross-currents of competing beliefs and ideologies, warring matters of fact in a sea of paradox...

God, it's a mess. How on Earth are we to make sense of this shitty cacophany? Why on Earth do you call it this wonderful world of cognitive dissonance, when nothing could be further from the truth? 

Anger, frustration notwithstanding, consider the metaphysics: where else could you immerse yourself in a constant stream of thought, if not here?

Anywhere else and before too long you’d sense the metrics of thought, and awareness would surely interrupt your live thought stream, but here, no.

Here, you can enjoy the thought field uninterrupted while thoughts lead you again and again in circles of rational logic and reason, constantly revolving round the central axiom, the central assumption, the central belief which you may not question, you may not even simply observe in its entirety – within the broader context of all that is – for the thought field does not permit it. Were you to step back and view your central assumption, your core belief, your holding position as is – you would immediately sense an other – no matter what, no matter where – an other that completely shifts how you perceive, how you interpret this core belief, this axiom, this basis for whatever you think you are whatever you think. It would be like a moment, the moment in cinematography when the camera suddenly swizzles around the action frame – which is momentarily frozen – which we first saw in the Matrix with Trinity jumping mid-kick. It’s the moment when you suddenly realise that you’re actually dreaming – and instead of waking up in confusion – accept this and now dream lucidly, directing your dream consciously. At this moment the mouse running on the wheel may continue doing so – you can continue dreaming or thinking, for the two are intimately related, by you now do so aware of the fact that this is not all that you are – you’ve caught a glimpse of the dreamer/ thinker in the mirror and you keep one small part of your mind’s eye on the dreamer/ thinker – watching his/ her response to things that are happening – comparing that response with what you yourself are actually thinking/ feeling in your now hyper, or broader, awareness. You see, the moment we become aware of something – it means we’re now operating from a deeper or higher perspective – one part of my me continues as before, assuming this is all there is, assuming things within my field of view, my field of thought are all there is, all that exists, while the deeper/ higher me calmly, curiously looks on – knowing that the process of observing with awareness is in itself shifting that frame, that field of thought into a new life, a new world. I was dead. I was operating thingly – a shell of me, a thinkingness – unaware of the cognitive dissonance my thoughts helped create, unaware, because I was still only half alive, only half real – and the background noise of cognitive dissonance was like a signal I needed to generate, I needed to feel, to remind myself that I still exist, I’m still able to think, even if I’m not yet alive, not yet able to sense the whole, the perfect asymmetry, made perfect, made whole when other is brought into play, when other is introduced to the equation – other which cannot, does not, need not fit into the rational mind, which is where I zero in and out, where I flow back and forth across the event horizon of in-finity. 

This is a quiet hallelujah moment – when suddenly you become aware that you’ve always been aware – you just weren’t aware of the fact that you were aware – contradictions, tautology be damned.

I was not alive – I was not life itself because I was busily being someone or something – I was wrapped up in my own field of thought – which was self-referencing – which looped round and round the central fact, the central axiom that is me, all the while failing to observe the edge, the catch, the flaw, the portal, the person opposite lying on the couch, reflected in the mirror, simply failing to observe, failing to see me – the part of me that was and is outside any particular construct, any particular frame, any particular field, any particular paradigm or dream or reality I’ve inserted myself into. Failing to see my self – how the same mind embedded in my thought field is present on the opposing side of any position I have ever taken – how I was always arguing, fighting, contesting with myself – and doing so beautifully, passionately, vociferously – convinced that I am right, convinced that things will only be put right if I can get it out – if I can share what I’ve already figured out in my thought field, with the broader field of thought – which is not yet in tune with me.

So there’s a general desire to assist the greater field of thought – a belief that I can help tune it into right thinking – if I use the right words, if I express myself correctly – that words and thought can do the trick – can put things right – because things and thought – we assume – are inextricably linked – which they are.

I repeat: things and thought are inextricably linked – two sides of one coin. The assumption that we can make things right by thinking of a solution – is perfectly rational -  I mean PERFECTLY rational, because the rational mind sees and knows that things are in fact of the same essence, vibrating the same way as thought, and yet the idea that we can fix things by telling the world our solution, by arguing calmly, carefully or passionately, is false – because the field of thought has two sides to it, roughly speaking.  One side is the world around us, the other side the non-material side of things – what we could rudely refer to as consciousness. If we apply pressure to one side – if we try to fix things by thinking them right, by finding solutions, by putting things in order mechanically, we can only ever fix one side. Everything we fix, everything we set right will be offset by something else behind us which annoyingly, unreasonably, weirdly, supernaturally, strangely, frustratingly, bizarrely slips out of place. Eventually we may figure out that we’re at the centre of a circle, and that prioritising one side – trying to fix it without perceiving the whole is, in fact, absurd, an exercise in futility. But how? the rational mind contends – how could I possibly fix everything at the same time? How could I look in every direction simultaneously? I lack 360° vision. It can’t be done.

Correct. That’s a good starting point. Or rather – it can be done if you don’t try to do it rationally – if you’re willing and able to act at the quantum level – or “spiritually”, but it can’t be done at the mechanical level of things – obviously – because pushing the unevenness out of one part of the hoop, merely transfers it to another part. Obviously.

Sooner or later this awareness returns. It’s not anything new. We’ve had it before. It’s coming back, inevitably, such is the nature of things – that they go through a period of disorder – a period of madness, dissonance, a kind of death. Then, all of a sudden, snap – they’re no longer rushing around like headless chickens, no longer insane, no longer banging their heads against a brick wall, no longer trying to fix things by papering over the cracks or shoving words onto paper and calling them laws – we’re back in Harmonia – a world where things simply feel right – we get it – we feel the underlying, the overarching harmony – and anything that doesn’t fit we simply discard – without necessarily knowing or caring why – because the why side of things, the what, the how – the endless questioning is what the rational mind does when something deeper is missing – when we’ve lost our fundamental sense of knowing – when we simply don’t feel the whole – when we’re still on the outside of our mind trying to get back in, trying to remember harmony, trying to recreate it rationally – tee hee – you have to laugh or cry! the absurdity of what we’re trying to do – with our rational intelligence.

Observe the rational intelligence at work. Observe, if you will, the things which secretly, deeply disturb you – the things you don’t want to admit to, the things you’re secretly ashamed of, terrified of, cowering from, observe the people whom you secretly fear or hate or despise – observe the situations you’ll do almost anything to avoid, observe the things that make you what you are, the things that shape your thoughts – observe how you are constantly avoiding invisible monsters, invisible snake filled pits in the underworld of your sub-consciousness, and observe how your rational mind will do almost anything to avoid confronting the limits, the fundamental contradictions in any given rational frame or field of thought. Disheartening? perhaps – but not necessarily, because there’s more to you than meets the eye – there are shoots just under the earth, peeping up through the snow, waiting to burst forth in a spontaneous re-emergence of life, just as soon as the snow has thawed.

So how? How can I thaw an entire winter? It’s beyond my power?

Not so. Nothing ever was, no thing ever could be beyond your power once you accept that you never had any power as such – you were always part of an in-finity – an allness, a oneness, a wholeness – which you are able to tune into – to re-be.

But I’ve lost the connection. The Lord cast me out of paradise.

Yes, the Lord cast you out of paradise because you chose to enter a field of thought, a world of cognitive dissonance – because that was an essential part of learning to be alive – of learning – that was your way of experiencing death.

What?

Precisely. You experience death through no longer knowing – no longer being in tune with all that is, with all you are, with “God” – though we don’t call it “God” when we’re in tune.

Why not?

Because the word, the label “God” has the sound, the poetry, the feeling of “got”, of “dog”, of “git” or “hit” of “hat” or “shit”. It’s a very, very thingy word, a word which rightly reveals where you are at this moment of time, at this moment in your temporal field of consciousness.

Temporal field of consciousness? What on Earth is that?

Well, you stopped being aware. You’re aware of things, but you stopped being consciously aware – which is Ok, which is good as that’s your journey of discovery – but when you start to observe how that happens, the mechanism of not-being aware – you observe how your consciousness was locked into, locked onto a temporal field – which you’re proceeding along snail like – creating criss-crossing tracks, and trying to figure it out linearly.

Oh.

Indeed. So, in your present state – which is a temporal field of consciousness – you refer to Harmonia – the goddess of light and perfect, natural being – as God, in the same way you refer to Theodore as Ted, Robert as Bob. It’s convenient for you to abbreviate things, cutting them down to their barest component – the lowest common denominator so to speak.

Is there anything wrong with that?

No, not wrong – it’s merely symptomatic of where you are in the field of thought right now. You see, when you start feeling God more deeply – you’re not feeling a belief, or a religion, or an idea – though there will always be beliefs, religions and ideas which correspond with what you’re feeling.

Oh.

You’re feeling a feeling, and you know what it is, because you know without any doubt – so when you do something completely irrational from a rational perspective – you’re like Harry Potter when he took Felix Felicis – the liquid luck potion. He starts doing things which seem completely absurd, which are counter-intuitive – in order to extract a vital memory from Professor Slughorn. He succeeds because he stops playing by the rules – he stops being rational – because he says things and does things he never normally would – thanks to this magic potion. Well, the same is true of humanity today. The same is true of us. Once we feel it, once we know, once we’ve caught again that haunting melody, that music of the spheres, of the soul, that whisper of in-finity, that presence of God – no thing, nothing is going to shake us. We’re going to hold onto it and do whatever it takes, to stay aligned, to stay attuned – and if it takes us off the edge of a cliff – we’ll discover there’s an invisible bridge, or a portal to another world – or perhaps we’ll die – but it won’t matter – because once we’re feeling the God-ness – the song of Harmonia – nothing can shake us, nothing can affect or disturb us – so called “death” is irrelevant,  we slice straight through the boundary field like a knife through water – the boundary, the field itself – was never any more than what separates one dream from another – only solid, only an obstacle until I become lucid in my dreaming, aware in my consciousness.

Cuckoo la la! I say. Blessed be Harmonia. She has many names, but none of the names matter in themselves, for they are but hyperlinks that enable me or you to re-tone my dissonance – to feel her presence throughout, and suddenly I become aware of me – the vast unfolding ness of me – extending beyond my physical space, and everywhere I go, and everywhere I look, and everything I see there is another aspect of me revealing itself before my very eyes, and it is good, and I cannot but smile and laugh with joy – for I was lost and now I’m found, was blind and now I see.