Category: Tuning

How to change perception with meditation

Tuning–Tribes & Stories

Most of us believe in an objective reality that is universal for everyone, and we think our personal view of the world is that universal objective reality. Most of us live in a culture or extended family that holds the same views of the world and reinforces our idea that we perceive the correct view of reality. We will call this group our Tribe.

What should rid us of this idea that our view of reality is universal is when a member of our Tribe goes rogue and disagrees with us about the-way-things-are. Then we exile the rogue member from our Tribe and sever communication with them. This keeps our Tribe pure, allowing us to continue to imagine that our view of reality is correct. That’s what we do, demonize anyone who fails to see the world as we do and eject them from our family or cultural group. These people are labeled: wrong, deluded, insane, criminal, traitors, terrorists, enemies, evil, or various other names used by our Tribe to discredit wrong-thinking outsiders.

What we fail to realize when we reject the views of others is how small our Tribally-defined world is compared to the views of the rest of the world. Our Tribe of like-thinkers may be a dozen or so out of a world population of some 8 billion. Our assumption that all right-thinkers agree with our views may not be justified.

The truth is we all live in separate worlds determined by the Stories that we tell ourselves. Stories are the tales we tell ourselves and other members of our Tribe about the world we live in, who we are, and how we came to be who we are (or think we are). Shared Stories are those held by all members of our Tribe that hold the Tribe together. Personal Stories are those that hold a personality together, giving that person a consistent way of interacting with other Tribal members and the world. Stories define us and the world we live in.

Ethnic shared Stories may describe how the world and people came into existence, how the people overcame adversity and evil, often with the help of divine power, and how virtue or divine power gives them the right to their land. Personal Stories may describe how that person achieved success through effort or deserved success because of virtues. Personal Stories for those their Tribes label as failures may include how they were raised poorly, how people harmed them, and how good fortune eluded them. All these Stories are deemed essential to the people who believe them, because they support their worldview.

If we attack or discredit people’s Stories, they will push back, often violently. Often the Stories of people or Tribes conflict with the Stories of other people or Tribes, causing the conflicting people and Tribes to try to harm one another. Anger, pain, killing, war, and other forms of chaos result. To avoid chaos, we have to know and understand the Stories of others in order to build shared Stories that promote harmony among people and Tribes. We may have to change parts of our Story that result in conflict, or at least accept that their Story is their Story and coexist.

Ideally we should try to combine our Stories into a harmonious shared Story. The only way our personal Story will not be detrimental to other people and the earth is if our Tribe expands to include the entire world and all the creatures dwelling there. Our worldview must encompass the world. I think we must become global in our thinking. What do you think?

Tuning

We all live in different inner worlds. We project this inner world on our outer world, distorting our view of the world around us. In other words, we tune our minds to perceive the world in our own unique way. If you do not like the world you live in, learn to tune your mind to a different reality. As the Buddhist masters say, “If you would change the world, first change your mind.”

We start life with chaotic minds. Everything vibrates. As Spiritual Children (see Glossary of Terms), our attention flits from here to there, from bright, shiny objects to interesting sights and sounds, to pleasures and pains of our bodies. As we mature, we gain some control over our minds and can focus our attention on tasks as long as we are not distracted by outside events or compelling thoughts from our own minds. Some of us take up meditation and encounter a constant stream of distracting thoughts, called the “monkey mind” that tightly grasps a thought and reaches for another before letting go of the first, like a monkey swinging through trees from branch to branch, never still. Always oscillating.

Watch a young child try to tune an old-fashioned radio, the kind with a dial that changes the frequency in order to “tune-in” to various frequencies that have radio stations. You may have to visit an old person or ham radio operator to find one of these radios. When a young child tries to work this kind of radio, they rapidly twist the dial one way and the other and hear nothing. They think nothing is there. Hand the radio to an adult and they turn the dial slowly, and a host of different radio stations are found. Do this with a short-wave radio, and an entire world of communications opens up to us.

We all have such a radio within us that is capable of tuning in to a universe of possibilities in the Spirit world. We also have the five senses of the body, each sense pre-tuned to a specific energy type, frequency, and range of energy: light, heat, touch, smell, and sound. These pre-tuned senses allow us to operate in the world, even with immature monkey minds. Those with Child minds think that if they cannot sense something, it does not exist. But time, space, love, hate, dreams and many other things exist and affect the world, even though they do not register within the pre-set range of our bodily senses. Skeptics notwithstanding, there is a sixth sense capable of tuning in to the Spirit world, and all of us can learn to use it.

Step one is learn to control your mind, teach it to be still. The monkey mind of a Child cannot hold its attention on one object long enough, like trying to tune that radio by spinning the dial. They hear nothing but static. Meditation is the training to quiet the mind, especially shine (shi-ne, pronounced “she-nay”), shamatha, calm abiding, single-pointed meditation, zazen, centering prayer, and similar methods. This takes practice.

Once you can focus your mind reliably on a single object or thought, or no thought at all, the next question is what do you want to see? What world do you want to live in? The Spirit world contains everything that can be imagined, infinite possibilities. Heavens and hells exist there, and everything in between. If you have a mindset that pits you alone against a hostile world or particular groups at war with others, that is the vibrational state your mind is tuned to, and that is where your mind will go to dwell. That is hell.

We put our minds in heavens and hells in this life and the next by the power of our beliefs, by the aspects of reality we tune our minds to. Fortunately, if we have control over our minds, we can retune our Spirit world perception to a different reality. We can leave hell and live in heaven, even in this life.

All established religions have rituals and practices designed to put us in a heavenly state of mind, and have commitments to help keep us there. The Western Tantric method is to visualize yourself as a divine or heroic archetype, and see yourself surrounded by others who are saints, angels, heroes, buddhas, and developing Children with those potentials. Try to help others at all times in any ways possible until you find yourself loving everyone and hating none. This tunes your mind to that vibrational frequency. When you drop the boundary between yourself and others while tuned to a loving totality, your immortal stream of consciousness will be in heaven, even while still in your human body in the world as-it-is, a perfect place to learn to be human.

A word of caution, when you drop the boundary between yourself and the universe, you will have access to the feelings of others, as well as other worlds and states of being. It’s best to have a firm commitment to a religion, philosophy, or personal code of ethics before tuning in to other worlds in the Spirit realm of imagination. Try to find guides in the physical world and the Spirit world who can help you if you find yourself on a meditation “bad trip.” Take baby steps in meditation and tuning your mind, and be careful until you can fly. Let us know what you find.