The Perfect Man

The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep.

Chuang Tzu thoughts are expressed in a simple way, but the meaning of the word perfect makes them difficult to grasp, especially when we rely on the rational meaning of perfect. In order to connect to Chuang Tzu’s perfect the word must be redefined as something that is constantly changing; it is a reflection of a moment in now where all things exist. A mirror is a good explain of a reflection of perfect for it shows all manifestations as they appear, but it never claims them. It accepts all reflections, but does not try to control them; it releases them without judgment. Each time the external form changes, the reflection becomes another aspect of perfect within the limits of its own rationality.

The perfect man may be defined as an expanding consciousness floating in a series of reflections that mirror the self in some way. The self moves through the now of moments and an aspect of that self discovers the impulses of pulsating energy which create thoughts, perceptions, beliefs and choices. Another self tries to control as well as overpower these self created images, and we experience fragments of a confused ego, which is stuffed in the illusion of a limited as well as distorted perfection.

This aspect of self believes perfect is the ultimate, the pinnacle, and those beliefs create self inflicted stress and fear, which manifest as imperfection. We trap this aspect in low frequency pulsating energy. Each vibration brings more resistance to light in that frequency, but this self created separation from self is just the tool we use to eventually dig under the rubble of our own distorted vibrations because in truth, we always employ our mind in the calmness that grasps nothing.

Beliefs Regulate Our Reality

There are two types on the path. Those who come against their will, the blindly religious people, and those who obey out of love. The former have ulterior motives.

They want the midwife neat, because she gives them milk.

The others love the beauty of the nurse.

The former memorize the proof texts of conformity and repeat them. The later disappear into whatever draws them to God.

Both are drawn from the source.

Any movings from the mover

Any love from the beloved

Anyone who has read Rumi’s work will immediately recognize his thoughts. Rumi has the ability to travel through linear time and sit next to all of us. He used his imagination and created myths that bridge our psychological gaps in knowing. Myths help us connect our instinctive knowing with certain individualized beliefs. Rumi spent hours writing about myths and piecing ideas together so we could draw a mental picture of our consciousness. His work is simple, but his ideas are complex if we accept his words at face value. We have a diverse mixture of beliefs and Rumi has a story about each one of them. He understood that our ideas about who we are must be examined because they do materialize in the flesh. Our beliefs regulate our reality.

We are expanding our consciousness. Consciousness is not a thing; it is a characteristic and attribute. Expansion is related to desire and knowing. We know more than we believe, but we block that knowing using doubt, fear and opposing beliefs. We are a universe within a universe. Our cells are suns and planets. Each one is filled with energy from the conscious mind. Energy can be directed to any portions of the body, and if it is not blocked by disbeliefs any illness can be healed. Energy, as Rumi points out, moves us in this reality. Energy will continue to move us as we change our myths and expand our imagination.

A Fragment of the Mind

The term Prajna in Buddhist teachings is the awakening of consciousness in the unconscious. This awakening functions in two directions. One is towards the conscious and the other is toward the unconscious. The Prajna of consciousness can be called the mind with a small initial letter. From this mind a dualistic world takes it rise: subject and object, the inner self and the external world and so on. In the Mind therefore, two aspects are also distinguishable: Prajna-mind of non-discrimination and dualistic mind. The mind of the first aspect belongs to this world, but so long as it is linked with Prajna it is in direct communication with the Unconscious, it is the Mind; whereas the mind of the second aspect is wholly of this world, and delighted with it, and mixes itself with all its multiplicities.

D.T. Suzuki wrote those thoughts in his work The Zen-Doctrine of No-Mind published in 1969, which was three years after Suzuki’s death. The fact that the book was published attests to the nature of the mind and its ability to function in the state of no-time. Suzuki’s concept of two minds is a very ambitious thought. I don’t consider my self a plural, but the more I delve into consciousness, I begin to understand how plural I am. I express my pluralness in this reality, but look at it as something outside of my self; it’s not me creating my pluralness it’s a higher consciousness, but there is no higher consciousness than what I experience, there is only a more expanded consciousness, which is more aware of the energy which flows through all consciousness.

In this sense I have a mind and a Mind, which is constantly expanding as my mind centered in this reality expands. Each experience brings more awareness to the surface of mind and I experience these moments in order to expand my moment-less Mind. Every aspect of my reality is wrapped in a scented package of awareness that is freshly delivered by the fragrant impulses of Mind. I absorb them and then discriminate in order to sense what I desire physically. The mind is the vehicle of Mind; ever expanding in the waters of my non-discriminating Mind.

Why this happens is the rational question that haunts my Western thoughts. I am a double edge sword that cuts reality into fragments and then pieces them together in order to expand the whole within each fragment. Each thought is instigated by an impulse from Mind and then transformed into a dualistic enterprise that separates one self from another, but no separation actually exists. I live in a state of no-mind where both the mind and Mind interact constantly, but I’m taught and then believe that my Mind does not belong to me; I must earn it, so the mind develops a path of earning filled with duality and separation.

But when there is an awakening of the mind I realize that my unconsciousness is much more conscious than I believed, and a union takes place where fragments of my mind blend with my whole Mind, and I begin to experience the place called no-mind where consciousness senses itself in wholeness rather than in fragments.

Rhythm Of Grace

So long as our observation is limited to those conditions which preceded the opening of a disciple’s eye we cannot perhaps fully comprehend where lies the ultimate issue. Zen lies objectively among matters of everyday occurrences, so every one of us is a master before we are told we are.

D.T. Suzuki wrote those thoughts in his 1949 work Essays in Zen Buddhism. Most of us have some sort of idea about what Zen is, but it’s safe to say we don’t spend a lot of time trying to understand it. Many of us believe that Buddhism is a form of Zen, but Zen is not about religion. Zen is an action within the energy of our consciousness. Zen is the form of energy that makes us a master before we are told we are.

We don't try to create Zen thoughts because trying is not part of Zen. Zen is always part of our thoughts. It may be hidden or blocked by our beliefs and the associations attached to those beliefs, but it is waiting to express itself physically. Every one of our ideas has an element of Zen floating through it. Our thoughts move to the rhythm of Zen. When we allow Zen to play the music of life, we begin to graciously dance through our experiences.

The Core

The core of every fruit is better than its rind:

Consider the body to be the rind,

And its friend, the spirit, to be the core.

After all, the Human Being has a precious core;

Rumi's words dance through the air like the music from a fine-tuned orchestra. His work Precious Core is brief description of the conscious mind and the inner self. The psyche is a complex form of energy that splits itself in portions, but never leaves the whole. That description is hard to imagine using our educated ego. The ego is the eye that see reality and the conscious mind sends signals to the inner self using areas of the brain. Our core or our essence receives those signals as well as sends them. The cycle of the being the subject as well as the object is not the typical way to describe the physical self so we create stories that make more physical sense.

But, Rumi does use those stories to describe the self. He senses different aspects of his core, and writes about them using 13th century religious beliefs. We all use beliefs to create stories we can understand and experience. Those stories come from our core. They hold elements of the whole in them, and they also contain ego elements that protect our physical image. Our physical image is a projection of our beliefs. When we consider the body our only self, we begin to believe that life after death does not exist. But when we believe that we are more than a body; more than an ego, and more than a conscious mind, we discover our divine inner self. That self is our core and the core of all consciousness.

Electromagnetic Reality

A man annoys me; I become angry and I want to hit my adversary. Let us analyze what takes place in me in the course of this scene. We will see that my inner phenomena are divided into two different reactions that we will call primary reaction and secondary reaction.

The primary reaction consists in the awakening in me, of a certain amount of vital energy; this energy was lying, latent, in my central source of energy until it was awakened by my perception of an energy manifested in the Non-Self against Self. The foreign aggressive energy stirs up in me the manifestation of a reactive force which balances the force of the Non-Self. This reactive force is not yet a movement of anger, it has not yet a precise form; it is compatible with the substance which is going to be poured into a mould but which has not yet been released. During an instant, without duration, this budding force, mobilized at my source, is not yet a force of anger; it is an informal force, a pure vital force.

Hubert Benoit, in his 1955 work The Supreme Doctrine, explains how our thoughts creates experiences. We are volcanoes filled with energy. We are constantly erupting and spewing energy into different belief molds. We call these molds experiences. The energy itself comes from the inner self. We can move this energy from one physical place to another using other thoughts. Any belief, and the emotion attached to it, can be altered or changed. We can move energy from one belief mold to another belief mold.

The inner sounds of our thoughts creates an electromagnetic reality. These inner sounds have an effect on our cells. We speak to our body and it listens. Inner sound is formed by intent. Intent and words merge, and when they do we experience this electromagnetic reality. That reality changes as our beliefs change. When beliefs change, intent changes with it. The inner sound value of our thoughts has been underestimated. We create inner noise polution when our thoughts are scrambled, self-contradictory and random. Those thoughts are products of our beliefs. The inner self always tries to maintain body and mind equilibrium, but our inner noise polution triggers an eruption, and we physically experience it in some way.

Educated Ignorance

A reality, or the world we all know, is only a description.

For the sake of validating this promise Don Juan concentrated the best of his efforts into leading me to a genuine conviction that what I held in mind as the world at hand was merely a description of the world, a description that had been pounded into us from the moment I was born.

He pointed out that everyone who comes into contact with a child is a teacher who incessantly describes the world to him, until the moment when the child is capable of perceiving the world as it is described. According to Don Juan, we have no memory of that portentous moment to compare it to anything else. . .

For Don Juan, then, the reality of our day-to-day life consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations which we, the individuals who share a specific membership, have learned to make in common.

Carlos Castaneda, the Peruvian born author, wrote those thoughts in his 1972 book, Journey to Ixtlan. Castaneda’s books are based on the teachings of a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Matus. The teachings of Don Juan explain a different energetic configuration about the experience we call reality. There is a forgotten aspect of knowing in our ordinary reality. Other realities are part of our existence, but we only focus on one. These other realities are considered negative beliefs by some of us. The thought of being a complex form of consciousness is a very scary idea.

Ideas form our reality. But we block some of our ideas with our personal belief structure. We like to follow the beliefs of others because they feel common and we have been educated to be common. The description of reality has been pounded into us since the day we were born and that description is filled with the hot air of educated ignorance. We teach our children using our own version of ignorance. Our version of ignorance is in a constant state of change so our reality changes with it.

We are moving toward a natural state of grace. That state is an illumination where the conscious mind as well as other levels of the psyche are in balance with the body. It is the spiritual and biological recognition of our wholeness. We sense the power of our inner self and we enjoy the portentous moment when we know who we are.