Conquer Yourself (Session 7): Embrace Death…
Peace,
Part 7 of the Conquer Yourself series…
Harmonics coming soon…
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I’m about to get into a set of philosophical perspectives, which, by their nature, can’t be supported by objective fact in the way the last six sessions can.
With that said, do what the NGE (Nation of Gods & Earths) calls “taking the best part.” Read with an open mind and take from it what applies to you…
——— The Nature of the Cause ———
Throughout the Conquer Yourself series, you probably noticed me constantly referring to the subconscious mind: primarily, I’ve been breaking down how things like poor self-control and procrastination are caused by things like fear of failure, fear of success, low self-esteem, and a false association between what you accomplish and who you are as a human being.
All of these issues are based on how your subconscious mind perceives your identity, and for session 7, I want you to consider entering a state where your identity no longer exist. I want you to consider letting go of the concept of “you” in order to identify with pure experience itself.
To be clear, this is what new age material refers to as “transcending the ego,” but I do my best to stay away from cliche terms like that, because I feel like the potency of an idea gets lost when its reduced to some generic term which is usually commercially exploited), here’s an example from an old lecture of mine:
“…the power of thought is talked about a lot these days. Like we got…what is again? “The Secret” now, and “The Law of attraction” is getting big, y’know? Everybody is into it: understanding how thoughts manifest and how thinking sets the tone for what goes down…
But one thing I’ve realized is that, even with the proliferation of that (material), what ends up happening is sort of a dismissal. Like you’ll talk to someone and say:
‘Y’know…your thoughts create your reality.’
And they’ll go:
‘Yeah I know…I seen The Secret’
Sometimes I tell people about my book and they’ll say:
‘Oh yeah…like The Secret, right?’
So automatically, anything dealing with that field of intelligence gets categorized and, in turn, given little attention at all. That’s how things are in general: once something proliferates and expands to a level where everybody knows about it, it gets overlooked.
Knowledge, once widespread, ends up becoming a lot less potent, so we want to make sure that even with this foundational stuff that we do know, we really do KNOW it.”
So yes, Echkart Tolle in The Power of Now refers to this as “present-mindedness” and you might hear quantum physicists say things like, “the observer, the observed and the process of observation are one.”
Bro. Phil Valentine in his video lecture The Book of the Earth calls this “The Pi-Point of Perception,” and I’m referring to it here as “Embracing Death” because to me, that’s exactly what’s going on.
When we step into transcend the ego, obtain present-mindedness, use the pi-point of perception or embrace death, a certain aspect who we are (or who we’re acting as) is dying. It’s as though we’re shedding the identity-level version of ourselves for a more eternal, all-encompassing self that actually feels like entering a void.
Here’s how we I make the differentiation:
“…When people ask us who we are, we respond with our name, followed by things like our profession, our belief system or ideology and our ethnicity or national name. However, these are aspects of our personality – the word personality coming from the Greek persona, meaning ‘mask’…
While we all have a character with a name, certain likes and dislikes, various titles and social roles, etc., that’s not who we fundamentally are. At the essential level, we’re simply consciousness: the self-aware observer…the spiritual energy that animates the physical form, or “The Ghost in the Shell,” and the information we’re about to build on can only be processed from that level.”
When you enter to this eternal state (eternal because it’s so present that it’s beyond time), things die in the sense that everything you invest meaning into is let go of, and this allows you to conquer yourself because it dissolves the psychological complexities that are inhibiting you.
The transition also requires a strong degree of courage (particularly over an extended period of time and specifically in social interactions) because the void that you enter is completely unknown.
For me, I had an awkward fear of it not only because it freed me from self-critical thoughts (since I was generally not thinking at all), but because it constantly put me in a position of power. The more I embraced death, the more I found others subconsciously giving me status and authority in almost all of my interactions, even in situations where it didn’t make sense (at my job, in school settings with teachers, etc.)
——— Symbolic Teachers ———
“The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily…when one’s body and mind are at peace…one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai.”
“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the moment. A man’s whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there is nothing left to do, and nothing else to pursue.”
I first heard those quotes in the film Ghost Dog: The Way of The Samurai starring Forest Whittaker (one of the best films I’ve ever seen, by the way). Check out the trailer here:
Not too long ago, a good friend of mine broke down to me how the film is based on the life of Yamamoto Tsunetomo, a classical Japanese samurai from the early 1700’s known for the wisdom contained in Hagakure (pronounced “Ha-Ga-Koo-Ray,” which translates as “In the Shadow of Leaves).
Hagakure is also known as “The Book of the Samurai”, “The Analects of Nabeshima (Yamamoto’s Lord)” or simply “The Hagakure Analects,” and in it, Yamamoto suggests:
“(that) becoming one with death in one’s thoughts, even in life, was the highest attainment of purity and focus. He felt that a resolution to die gives rise to a higher state of life, infused with beauty and grace beyond the reach of those concerned with self-preservation.” ~ from a Wikipedia article
Here’s a few jewels from it:
“People think that they can clear up profound matters if they consider them deeply, but they exercise perverse thoughts and come to no good because they do their reflecting with only self-interest at the center.”
“The word gen means “illusion” or “apparition.” In India, a man who uses conjury is called a genjutsushi (a master of illusion technique). Everything in this world is but a marionette show. Thus we use the word gen.”
“The priest Tannen used to say, ‘People come to no understanding because priests teach only the doctrine of ‘No Mind.’ What is called ‘No Mind’ is a mind that is pure and lacks complication .’ This is interesting…
Lord Sanenori said, ‘In the midst of a single breath, where perversity cannot be held , is the Way.’ If so, then the Way is one. But there is no one who can understand this clarity at first. Purity is something that cannot be attained except by piling effort upon effort.”
“There is a way of bringing up the child of a samurai. From the time of infancy one should encourage bravery and avoid trivially frightening or teasing the child. If a person is affected by cowardice as a child, it remains a lifetime scar. It is a mistake for parents to thoughtlessly make their children dread lightning, or to have them not go into dark places, or to tell them frightening things in order to stop them from crying.”
More coming soon…
Peace,
+B

More Science…
>> More on “The Pi-Point of Perception” (Rhyme Ciphers)
>> Session 2: Understanding & Overcoming Procrastination
>> Session 5: Native American Wisdom vs. Our Technological World
>> The Science of Stress & How to Avoid It As You Progress
>> Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
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