Understanding Acts of Knowing
(Part IV - The Cambium, Chapter 22)
Since intuition moved in
my life has been turned inside out.
〰 J. Ruth Gendler 〰
Dwelling Thereamong Bewilderment
The understanding which develops can liberate you,
From every shackle of suffering.
〰 Thich Nhat Hanh 〰
Suffering induces bewilderment. Any pain, dis-ease, illness throws the organism of human Consciousness off balance, causes turmoil and discord in the inner atmosphere, disturbing the inner sense of harmony.
While health is literally another word for wholeness or integrity ~ and a healthy state of body and mind gives the impression of ‘wholesomeness’ ~ ill-health is fragmentation. A fragmented physical organism shows up with incoherence as her mental companion. Coherence, by contrast, leads the organism towards health.
Aaron Antonovsky recognised this truth while developing his theory of Salutogenesis. He identified the sense of coherence as the golden thread to guide the salutogenic practice.
A sense of coherence as the touchstone for restoring health, resonates with the ancient Buddhist wisdom, suggesting that understanding relieves all suffering. This presents us with a paradox ~ a contradiction with no apparent solution.
If suffering is or produces incoherence, and healing requires coherence, how can we hope to reconcile these two opposite ends of the polarity of our fragile health-equilibrium?
During my journey with Synchronosophy I have often puzzled over this Buddhist concept. That the word understanding in this context does not imply rational comprehension is instantly clear. If grasping a problem intellectually was sufficient, then doctors would be able to heal all the suffering of their patients by explaining an accurate diagnosis in a language everyone can grasp.
Before we attempt to understand anything, lets look at the word understanding itself.
Understand [from Old English under = between, among + standan = occupy a place, continue, stand firm, abide] in its original sense, could be read as to dwell thereamong, stand in the midst of, be in the presence of. Contemporary definitions have reduced this word to grasping the meaning of something with the rational mind, or offering an interpretation of a story, or comprehending instructions.
All of these definitions lose the richness of the original notion of staying, or lingering for a while, or dwelling among the whole spectrum of an experience. The nearest current definition to the original word understanding, offered by Merriam Webster’s online dictionary, is to have thorough acquaintance with something and/or expertise in the practice of.
I believe that every organism of individual human Consciousness (IHC) is continuously working towards this kind of understanding in relation to their personal subjective experience, no matter whether the host of the organism (= like you and me) is aware of this fact or not. When experiencing positive events, this doesn’t appear to be a problem. It’s the so-called negative subjective experiences (NSE) which cause suffering because they are harder to understand.
Or perhaps, we struggle to understand our NSEs because we cannot bear to linger in their presence for longer than absolutely necessary. They bowl us over, stun us into silence, scare us to death, pull us off-centre, make us behave in strange ways we don’t recognise ourselves, or ~ in the worst case scenario ~ make us freeze and leave us stuck in the inner permafrost.
If you were able to stay long enough with the NSE, to stand firm in the presence of an overwhelming event that has disrupted your life, this ability would ‘liberate you from the shackles of suffering’, according to Buddhist teachings.
It sounds like an extraordinary claim. A wild promise, too good to be true. How can something as simple as ‘staying in the presence of a negative experience’ have the power to trigger the liberation from the event itself?
Having practiced ‘standing in the presence of NSEs’ ~ related to my own suffering as well as the suffering of fellow humans ~ thousands of times over the past two and a half decades, I think the key to this riddle is the unassuming word ‘develops’ in the statement. On repeated initial readings, my attention always got hooked on the catchwords understand, liberate, and suffering. This selective perception made me miss the operative codeword develops entirely, until now.
Finally the penny dropped. The act of standing in the presence of an NSE is not sufficient to ‘liberate’ me of anything. It is not going to make all my physical, emotional, and psychic wounds miraculously heal and all pain accumulated over ancestral lifetimes vanish into the ether forever.
Being ‘liberated from the shackles of suffering’ is not a promise that the suffering will disappear, if you only hang on in there long enough. The act of standing firm thereamong the bewildering suffering invites interaction between ourselves and our NSEs, while creating a space in which a profound transformation can take place.
Intuition out of the Closet
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And
that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves
are part of nature and therefore part of the
mystery that we are trying to solve.
〰 Max Planck 〰
Research in economic studies in the late 20th century revealed that entrepreneurs make important decisions ‘based on their intuition’, rather than logical calculations and rational considerations. The reasons are obvious. Where the Inner Expert (Intellect) requires many hours, days, or weeks to figure out the best strategy, the Inner Guardian (Intuition) has access to a source of inner knowing, which allows her to make decisions in a flash.
What is called ‘intuition’ in anthropocentric language, includes ‘gut feelings’ and a so-called ’psychic ability’ or ‘6th sense’ which draw information from places inaccessible to the ‘intellect’. The inherent connection of the Inner Guardian to deeper wells of knowing are often viewed with suspicion by the anthropocentric mind.
Of course, ‘intuition’ can make mistakes. So does the ‘intellect’. Scientists themselves, who are supposed to rely entirely on logic and rationality, have referred to the history of science as a sequence of epic failures. Two centuries of scientific scrutiny and fact-finding have come up with realisations that there is no such thing as objectivity, that matter doesn’t exist, and the so-called ‘impartial rational mind’ is not immune to being infiltrated by emotional aquifers. The 21st century has even seen the birth of a ‘science of failure’.
Undeterred by such scientific facts, pseudoscientific ISKIM (= Indie Self Knowledge and Improvement Management) teachings have come up with a theory that we can ‘train the subconscious mind to function in accordance with our wishes and commands’. Following studies which showed that mental imaging, envisioning and visionboarding has little effect, when humans ‘sabotage themselves through negative beliefs’, theories emerged, proposing that such beliefs could be ‘reprogrammed’.
I remember listening to a popular belief-researcher some years ago, suggesting a process reminiscent of catching a wild horse before breaking it in and submitting it to the superior human will. The proposition went something like this:
‘To outsmart negative beliefs, you have to coax them to the surface. Be kind to them, tell them how much you appreciate their services so far. Then imagine an inner closet and lock those outdated beliefs up inside.’ (I’m paraphrasing here.)
The suggestion of having an ‘inner closet for outdated beliefs’, where you can lock the little beasts away, to prevent them from pouncing on you at inconvenient moments and sabotage your perfect plans for a perfect life was an idea that struck me as bizarre, although at the time I couldn’t explain what was wrong with the concept.
Now I know the reason. No matter how ‘respectfully’ you conduct such a procedure, the intention and attitude are revealing. It is the supremacist mind at work, serving the anthropocentric agenda, attempting to subdue the ‘subconscious mind’ to the control of the allegedly ‘rational intellect’ or ‘reasonable conscious mind’.
There is nothing rational about this proposal. Does any researcher really think our beliefs are that stupid? Do they genuinely reckon that inner creatures can be fooled or stuck into fictitious closets? Do they honestly believe there even is such a thing as ‘closets’ within the living organism of human Consciousness? The only one you can fool with such an exercise is yourself, temporarily.
The Anatomy of a Belief
Intuition is a sense of knowing how to act spontaneously,
without needing to know why.
〰 Sylvia Clare 〰
Some years ago we received a request from a neighbour regarding a small rental property we owned nearby. They were looking for accommodation for family members and asked whether our property was available.
We made a verbal agreement to offer our house for rent. Before the tenancy started, however, I had an unexpected nightmare ~ a rare occurrence for me ~ about these potential tenants wreaking havoc on our property. Based on this information we decided to upset the proverbial apple-cart, cancelled the tenancy agreement, and instantly lost contact with the people.
Two years later, at a social gathering, a friend of ours who had ended up renting her property to ‘our’ prospective tenants, took me to one side for a private conversation.
“How did you know?” she asked, and proceeded to tell me stories about the ‘tenants from hell.’
“I had no idea!” I replied and shared my co-incidental nightmare and following guidance of my intuition.
The Inner Guardian shows up frequently in interactions with people and events in the outer world, especially when we are faced with an important decision or find ourselves in any kind of danger. For example, when a wildfire is approaching, do you pack your bags and leave? Or do you stay to protect the house?
In the absence of evacuation orders, when the fire fronts are closing in, the Inner Guardian may be the only one to rely on for such a decision. Even if we cannot always trust her inner knowing, and despite perhaps having little practice communicating with your Intuition, inner guidance is her expertise.
Hunches, inklings, and gut-feelings ~ messages from a mysterious source beyond the rational mind, nudging you to take a certain action ~ are acts of inner knowing produced by the Inner Guardian. They relate to current situations in acute circumstances demanding a short term response.
A lesser known, equally important function of the Inner Guardian is the management of our belief system. Belief is defined in our dictionaries as a ‘mental attitude’ or a ’special sort of feeling’. In everyday language, the term belief is used synonymous with thought, opinion, conviction, judgment, attitude, point of view, suspicion, and a long catalogue of other mental functions, too many to list here.
This generic meaning of belief is too vague in the context of Synchronosophy. If we want to address a so-called ‘negative belief’ in the hope to stimulate lasting changes, we must work with greater precision.
All ‘beliefs’ anyone hopes to ‘reprogram’ are specifically ‘negative self-beliefs’. They are not thoughts, or opinions, or general attitudes, although any of these can result from a negative self-belief. They are obstinate self-sabotaging beliefs, which often undermine a person’s plans and intentions, interfering with everyday life.
Self-sabotaging beliefs are now recognised as long-term companion symptoms of unprocessed traumatic experiences from the past. In an unfortunate twist of fate, the same beliefs can also become causative or contributing factors leading to further traumatising experiences in the future.
This signals an inborn effectiveness infused into any belief populating our inner mindscape. Beliefs, negative or positive, have the unique power to become self-fulfilling prophecies.
In Synchronosophy we define a belief as an intuitive act of knowing ~ based on the theory of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela that “every act of knowing brings forth a world.” (See also Chapter 16). Different species of acts of knowing (aka Acknows) are produced by all vital Faculties.
Beliefs live in the territory of First-Notion Reality, born and raised by the Intuition. In contrast to the acute acts of intuitive knowing described above, beliefs are considered chronic acts of intuitive knowing. Every single belief is a cluster of instances of intuitive knowing, formed over time.
Similar to a network of neurons in the physical organism, we can imagine a belief as a ‘plexus of intuitive instances of inner knowing’. The accumulated intuitive Acknows contained in a belief cover a much larger range of potential situations than the acute intuitive Acknows mentioned in the examples above, relating to specific moments.
Even though we can identify and distinguish between individual beliefs (and hunches, inklings, etc), they are all connected to each other, again comparable to a whole system of neural plexi, forming a vast web we call belief system. The connection between individual beliefs facilitates exchange of information between individual Acknows.
A belief system is a web of multiple networks, varying in complexity, size, life-span, and range of influence. A belief is the result of acts of knowing, more specifically called believing.
The verb believe [from Old English geleafe = to have faith or confidence in something or someone] shares its root ‘leafe’ with leave (= permission, licence), love (= to cherish, delight in, approve, feel love for), lief (= dear) and German loben (= to praise). The Old English prefix ge- is a collective morpheme, which was later changed to be-.
The collective prefix be- (originally ge-) supports the idea that a be-lief is an aggregate of many instances of acute intuitive Acknows. The beliefs we are dealing with in the work of Synchronosophy are rarely acts of knowing we have deliberately chosen or formed in our own lifetime. Many, if not all of them already existed before we were conceived, passed on to us by our elders, culture, and/ or environment. They might carry historical knowledge going back many generations.
Tracking down a Wild Belief
Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder,
spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
〰 E. E. Cummings 〰
In Synchronosophy, intuitive Acknows in the form of a self-sabotaging beliefs are also called wild beliefs. They are known by this name because they live in the inner wilderness. Or more precisely, a negative self-belief turns into a wild belief as soon as it reaches our awareness and is met with acknowledgement.
Unlike other familiar models of human consciousness, the Noctarine map doesn’t distinguish between a ‘subconscious mind’ and a ‘conscious’ one. If we define every individual human as one living organism of Consciousness, such a distinction doesn’t make sense. The separation between ‘conscious’ and ‘subconscious’ establishes a hierarchy, underpinning the anthropocentric theory of supremacy, which implicitly believes that ‘conscious’ is superior to ‘subconscious’ and therefore the former has a quasi-divine right to control the latter.
The result of such a mindset is that we block and interfere with potential natural organic processes of growing. Healthy developmental phases become stunted. Changes and transformations we yearn for and desperately need for true regeneration are squeezed through and into the narrow pigeonholes of outdated ancestral collective mental patterns.
Instead, the Noctarine differentiates between landscapes within the inner world, which can be clearly distinguished via our own subjective experience. The inner permafrost (introduced in Chapter 7) for example, is such a zone. The inner wilderness is another.
The inner permafrost is a relatively confined area, surrounded by wide stretches of the inner wilderness. It protects trauma memories from releasing overwhelmingly ’toxic vibes’ for an indefinite period, until the host on individual human Consciousness (IHC) is ready to release, welcome and integrate the frozen creatures who carry those memories.
When a frozen inner creature gets released it finds itself naturally in the surrounding inner wilderness. This can be readily explained by the circumstances. The trauma memory is imprinted into an immature infantile creature related to the occurrence of the trauma in the person’s life. Like any newborn, this creature will perceive the world in which it has just landed as ‘pretty wild’. Both zones, the inner permafrost and wilderness are effectively created and sustained by the experience of the inner populations.
Wild beliefs are not frozen. They live in the inner wilderness and maintain it. They are bound to remain in this area through their intimate relationship with frozen emotions conceived during traumatic events.
Wild beliefs can also trigger a swarm of painful feelings connected with unprocessed trauma. As long as these emotional creatures live in the inner permafrost, the related wild beliefs are not free to leave the inner wilderness.
Much of this activity takes place off the radar of our awareness, labelled ‘subconscious’ or ‘unconscious’ in conventional psychology-jargon. Meanwhile, they are living within human Consciousness, contributing to everyday experiences in significant ways, which are neither ’sub-‘ nor ‘un-‘ conscious.
On the contrary. They are bewildering. They cause confusion, irritation and incoherence. They often attract significant unwanted attention via experiences of which we become very much ‘conscious’ and self-conscious.
As a general rule we may assume that all negative experiences in everyday life are linked to negative self-beliefs, which have the potential to go wild at any moment. Although shy and withdrawn creatures, often difficult to spot directly, their intimate connections to negative emotions and NSEs enables us to track them down through the kairotrophic treasure hunt we started in Chapter 20.
Taking any NSE triggered by any irritating event as a starting point you can begin this process. Don’t try this practice with some major traumatic event from the past. Remember the benefit of small steps and do go gentle into that wild night!
Pick a minor annoyance from your present life. Ideally a situation where you surprised yourself with an inexplicable overreaction to a relatively small incident. Like the road rage mentioned in the last chapter.
1st clue › What happened? Describe the incident from the perspective of your Inner Ally (Body) In other words, what happened in your Incarnal Reality?
2nd clue › What was my rational assessment of this event? Describe the incident from the perspective of your Inner Expert (Intellect). I.e. what happened in your Mential Reality?
3rd clue › How do I feel in response to this event? Describe the incident from the perspective of your Inner Healer (Instinct). I.e. what is happening in your Inner-Ocean Reality?
4th clue › What story or movie does this emotional experience trigger in my mind? Translate the feelings into a fantasy scene, or series of images. Describe the incident from the perspective of your Inner Artist (Imagination). I.e. what is happening in Fictional Reality?
5th clue › What is the central theme of the story projected by my Imagination?
At this point on the treasure hunt you will be able to identify a core topic. If you were asked to give a title to the story or movie produced by the Inner Artist, what would that be?
In the road rage example a title might be something like ‘Attacked. Again!’ Once you have your title, you can reformulate it directly as a negative self-belief, e.g. I believe that I am being attacked.
These two stages are essential preparation for tracking down a wild belief. This preparation will enable you to claim your wild belief:
(A) identify the title of your inner movie.
(B) Transfer the title to a negative self-belief.
(C) Claim your wild belief.
The execution of this exercise is very simple. Nevertheless it can be a challenge because it feels counterintuitive.
Claiming a wild belief means that you are asked to embrace the negative self-belief as your own by replacing the little word |that| with the preposition |in|.
In the road rage example it would look like this.
Negative self-belief ~ I believe that I am being attacked.
Wild belief ~ I believe in being attacked.
It is important to follow these guidelines as precisely as you can to make sure you are not making up a random negative belief. If you correctly identified a negative self-belief, claiming it as a wild belief may feel repulsive initially. It may appear absurd, as if you are enforcing a negative and unwanted experience.
In reality you are merely highlighting what already lives within you and taking a few all important steps towards accepting and integrating this stray inner creature roaming the dark unknown terrain of your inner wilderness.
Find further explanations and tips how to identify and interpret wild beliefs ~ including a three-way conversation, two shortcuts, and a game ~ in the attached downloadable worksheets.
Missed the earlier chapters? Click the links
The Rootstock of Synchronosophy
Chapter 1 The Mycelium of Synchronosophy, Chapter 2 Sub-Soil of Synchronosophy, Chapter 3 Nutrients for Synchronosophy, Chapter 4 Adjustments to an Unnatural World, Chapter 5 Loss of Self and Identity, Chapter 6 The Destructive Trail of Trauma
The Heartwood of Synchronosophy
Chapter 7 Emotional Messengers, Chapter 8 Love Thyself, Chapter 9 The Birth of the Noctarine, Chapter 10 Subjective Experience, Chapter 11 The Inner Wilderness, Chapter 12 Polarity and Wholeness
The Sapwood of Synchronosophy
Chapter 13, Symphony of Senses, Chapter 14, The Rainbow of Consciousness, Chapter 15 Ancestral Will, Chapter 16 Acts of Knowing, Chapter 17 Powers of Knowing, Chapter 18 Structures of Knowing
The Cambium of Synchronosophy
Chapter 19, Growing a Human Life, Chapter 20, Experiencing Moments of Living, Chapter 21, Translating Inner Languages
Love love love this exploration friend. I carry a Rupert Spira quote around with me, and it mirrors what you’re sharing here and feels like the truest encapsulation of my own experience of physical suffering.
“When suffering is welcomed so completely that there is not the slightest resistance to it, what we were seeking, by trying to get rid of it, is revealed at its heart.”
I need to read this again. I'm very interested in the differences between Inner Guardian (intuition?) and intellect. Wouldn't you say that one informs the other, and vice versa? It's been my belief (a dangerous word in my opinion, for a lot of reasons) that they are intertwined, that gut feelings are more an result of past experience and intellect. Either way, I'm loving your discourse; it brings me back to school and I tend to have a couple dictionaries open when I read your letters, which excites my brain.