THE INDIVIDUAL AND WHOLENESS

And it seems to me that for thousands of centuries, our common beliefs supported an individual and cultural priority of doing things for the common good.

But, these days apart from those who we love (and true love is a rare commodity), we have become our own most important focal point.

There are a lot of philosophical discussions about if the self and it's ego, is illusory or real.

The practical point is that our modern sense of individuality is unintentional and involuntary.

The Modern Focused Human

Focusing is always in a specific direction. Focusing is by nature a selected specific narrow perspective, it separates life into specific bits.

One of the consequences of this is, that in order to find a sense of wholeness, we must make associations to join the bits together again in relationships. This is in the nature of focusing.

Our modern feelings and ideas about 'self and others', are a natural result of generations of focusing with our senses and our minds.

This approach to life is embedded in our thinking. It is understood in every sentence we think; subjects must have objects. Our psychological sciences emphasise the individual; our sociological ideas stress the importance of relationships between individuals.

These ideas are confirmed by almost everyone. It's part of our herd mentality, probably the only thing we still all agree on.

It's so normal that it seems to all make sense. But it's ridiculous. It's life from only one specific perspective.

We have created a fascinating and ludicrous situation which no animal or human in any previous culture has ever experienced, or even imagined.

Once we started to develop this very self-satisfying sensation of independent individuality, it created an energy of self empowerment. It gave us hope for our own pleasure and security, it created something we feel as want, it promised purpose and reasons. And this became a perpetual self repeating process. This is the vicious circle of our individuality.

We may sometimes try to broaden our perspectives, to explore new ideas and beliefs, but we're always trapped in the same old box, just looking for new things to focus on, new purposes and intentions, new things to want next.

I'm not only saying that our modern sensation of ego is a mental imbalance. It's a chronic condition, meaning it gets worse with time. And it's pathologic, in the sense of it being uncontrollable, compulsive almost addictive.

Greed and closed-mindedness are extreme symptoms of the illness.

We are dominated by focused sensing and thought. The best of us feel we have to focus on fighting greed and closed-mindedness, or focus on encouraging intelligence and creativity.

But we're oblivious to the way any sensible animal would react, by stopping still for long enough to notice what's going on around us. We've become blind to the panaral way of sensing reality.

This feeling which is 'me' is being understood exclusively with focused constructive thought. What we are as humans is so much more than just our focalised individuality.

This direct connection with the environment counteracts the need for any self-realisation or self-belief and even self-identity.

When we open our eyes and ears panarally – fully alert and ready to respond at the first instant – we can't want anything at the same time, we can't even develop a constructive thought. If we did that, we would instantly lose our panaral awareness.

We need focal points in order to get anywhere and do anything, but for our focused activity to be safe and wholesome we must alternate it regularly with the panaral experience, as all other animals do.

It's vital to be able to stop thinking for a moment and sense life in its selfless wholeness.

We think we need to find ourselves and believe in ourselves, even be 'authentic individuals'. But these are all consequences of focused sensing.

If we ever think about our panaral senses, we'd conclude that they're irrelevant and useless. We don't need them any more to save us from mortal danger – but they're still vital to our psychology.

Gurus tell us to let go of posessions and desires. People idealising this life without desire subsequently focus on it. But what we are blindly and unintentionally holding onto is focusing.

If we recognised the importance of panaral sensing, we would probably think we need to let go of focusing, or to focus on not focusing... in simple reality we just have to start panaring.

It is not so much the lack of intention and desire which we need in our modern lives, it is this regular experience of wholeness and selflessness.

This is another way of looking for answers... this is another way of looking at everything... just stop thinking, it's easy for a few seconds with panaral listening... then open your eyes, really, just open them.

We have forgotten this natural behaviour.

This is another basis for understanding and living. It won't change things overnight – i think we will always come back to focused thinking to understand it, but if it became part of our herd mentality there could be a massive shift in cultural consciousness.

It's not even a state of interdependence, that's only how we can describe it from a focused perspective. From its own perspective, it's simply directly aware, here and now.

This isn't a theory... it's clearly demonstrated by every other animals' behaviour – it's practical – watch any squirrel stop for a few seconds on the lawn. Perceiving in a panaral way is itself the solution to the problems caused by constantly focusing.

This isn't a belief... Animals don't believe in it to do it. It isn't really even a skill. It's simply something we were all born with and have forgotten.

Every animal except the human develops it to expectantly, pre-emptively wait for any possibility of a sign – still, receptive, anticipating and open, waiting.

Every animal except the human uses panaral sensing as an integral part of their everyday existence.

The connection only needs to last a few seconds at a time, but we need it, regularly, in order to be and stay psychologically safe.

Feeling psychologically safe, whole, alive, and real, all at the same time, only happen occasionally by coincidence or luck, as when being in love, when sensing in a focused way – but they do so always and naturally when panaring.

We have forgotten this way of sensing the world and being in it. Mankind has lost part of how we always sensed the world around us, part of how we managed to survive for millions of years.

Please continue with Safety and Beliefs

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