Application of Brahmajala sutra

Anniversary

In the post "stuff", I wondered about the Brahmajala sutra and what describes the universe the best. After that, I didn't really think about it as much.

Participated in the 5th anniversary of a project yesterday evening. Re-watched the documentary, enjoyed some sauna and discussions with different team members. Regardless of all the responsibilities weighing on me, I tried my best to enjoy the event as much as possible, and not let anything else get in the way.

Enjoyed to beautiful evening and fresh air. Visited the sauna for the optimal amount of time - left at the moment when I had started to feel pleasure all over the skin. There's a careful balance to sauna, and it's very easy to exceed the optimum so that it becomes exhausting. Felt very energized and had a mild euphoria after the sauna.

After the sauna, I discussed stuff with a member from India. He had an existential crisis of sorts - he had found that the universe is empty of meaning and in all its insignificance, mankind is busy trying to justify its existence. In other words, he had no goal for his life. He had been waiting for it to appear on its own, and it still hasn't.

I tried to explain to him that it doesn't even matter but he didn't seem to get it (I couldn't convey it elegantly enough). From time to time, other people intervened on the discussion. While he was frustrated that the majority of mankind is so stupid that they don't even get it, everyone that intervened, seemed even more intelligent in these matters than he was. I was amazed, inspired and for the first time I realized the awesomeness of the team. There's so much life experience and spiritual wisdom in these engineers. I hope he got some food for thought.

An excellent demonstration of the Brahmajala sutra and its importance. I was a bit surprised at my attempts to explain that eventually none of the metaphysics matters. It seems that I have at least grasped a part of it.

Dream: Abstract subspaces

There was something with water and fish. I was in the livingroom at the summerhouse. There was a cube subspace at a wall in the livingroom. Within the cube, there was a small cylindrical subspace at the wall closest to the livingroom wall. The cylindrical subspace was filled with water, and there were some fish in there. In the cube subspace, there was some water as well but it had non-uniform distribution (water was concentrated to one edge of the cube floor). In that edge, there were a few fish and a few plants that grow in the water.

Even though the cylinder was small, I wanted to put all fish in there. Still not sure why but I picked them from one subspace and stuffed them into another. After lifting a couple of fish from the cube into the embedded cylinder, I left the area. As I looked back, fish were leaping out of the cylinder. I was both disappointed as well as relieved, so neutral altogether.

I considered the dream odd because of the subspaces. I had not experienced anything like that before, and yet it seemed very elegant. Basically, substances taking form without anything to actually enforce the form. I think there was no glass around the cylinder, and there was no glass around the cube, either. Based on logic it sure seemed like there should be glass, but I couldn't see it, couldn't touch it (hand just went through) or anything. Also, everything was completely transparent without any visible seams or edges.

There was a faint invisible presence observing the whole thing but not interfering in any way.

Dream: Yuck

Some kind of a facility or something where I approached a dumpster to throw something in there. I hesitated a great deal because I knew what I would see once I opened the lid. Human body parts floating around in a goo that was alive, devouring the biological mass. WTF.

Hands-free touchpad

A geisting event today. I'm not very good at touchpads. A student's laptop .. tried to open the VSCode window in the background to double-check one of his functions. Having done so, I let go of the touchpad. For about a minute, the mouse cursor moved around the screen in complex patterns, clicking in random places, selecting text and then finally slowing down to a halt in the middle of the screen. The anomaly lasted so long that I could say "WTF", the student turned around and both of us witnessed the laptop .. alive. He even got to show it to another student - "Look, Sussch is moving the mouse without even touching the laptop". It did look quite responsive even though I did not think it was me doing it - maybe some static electricity, confusing multi-finger gestures or whatever.

After another 14h workday, took a long walk home. The lovely sunset and the sweet fragrance of the trees blooming. Awesome. Noticed that I could feel the trees slightly flexing around me. Walked slow but had a green wave for most of the way.

Stuff

AI

While walking home, discussed stuff with a student that I'll be supervising. At some point we reached the following:

• In general, we the people don't like to take on additional responsibilities.
• We would rather have someone else take the other responsibilities because we are already busy with our own responsibilities as is.
• Somebody has to take the responsibility for a group, country or even mankind.
• Becoming a politician is quite unappealing. However, if nobody wants to take the responsibility, then it makes sense to create an artificial entity that would do the dirty job.
• Mankind would have willingly developed an AI to enslave itself so that it wouldn't have to take the responsibility for itself and its own actions.
• No corruption, right? /s

Note that this is not really that far-fetched. For example, there's Duncan Cameron who claims to have visited the future and seen a similar system in action.

Some realizations

One day I realized that in reality there is no such thing as a plunge. There is only concentration and object(s) of concentration. I believed I had slipped or fallen but it was just me concentrating on a variety of fleeting feelings and emotions instead of the everlasting.

Discussed stuff with the student from India again today. Waved him bye and continued my walk home. While on the way, I realized that many years ago when I reached bliss 24/7, I simply lacked the concentration to penetrate the pleasure and became lost in the pleasure. It is not the lack of desire to evolve further that was the problem. Instead, I mistook the bliss as my goal. Having experienced now that the bliss is also impermanent, it's not a very good goal at all. It's not any better than bodily pleasure, just higher by a layer or two. There are many layers.

Dreams of dwelling

Dreams have become more of just sleeping somewhere else. Whether it's an imaginary bed in the livingroom or just grass with dew on it on a cold morning, the dreams are also brighter than before.

Waking OBE?

It was about two weeks ago that this happened, I think. Not sure, meant to blog about it but forgot.

Spent some late hours in the cleanroom at work. Stood up and noticed that something was off. Way off. Had to focus on walking straight because it constantly felt as if my head were tilted to the left .. as if tilted out of body. Quite disorienting. This lasted for about a week, fading away gradually.

Edit: Realized the cause today morning. I've been sleeping without a pillow for a while. I had probably slept with my physical head tilted off axis, whereas my astral body must've been sleeping straight.

Finite or infinite universe? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmajala_Sutta_(Theravada)

Expected more of the sutra. An enlightened master like Gautama surely must have seen the nature of the universe, and yet all he used to disprove the 18 beliefs was one sentence irrelevant of what the belief was about:

All of the followers of these beliefs defended and clung to their faith and didn't believe in other faiths.

Aversion or clinging does not make a theory become any more wrong. I would have expected him to mention which of the theories describe reality the best.

While thinking about it, I stumbled and fell onto Buddhist cosmology:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology

This seems a bit too advanced for me just yet. Would take a lot of research.

White dog

Had a long chat with a student from India, in front of a university dorm building. A lot of different topics. Then suddenly a white dog spotted me at a distance of about 30 meters, and came running at me. I didn't know how to react, especially due to having been bitten by a dog a while ago. However, the white dog had clearly recognized me and was running to me out of sincere happiness. The dog looked so happy, even though his master was frightened about completely losing control over the dog. The dog happily looked up at me while waving its tail, and then darted off back to his master.

I thought I recognized Pätu in a new body. Before passing away (ref), Pätu was a female dog, with a long jet black fur. If this white dog was indeed Pätu, then most of the bodily characteristics had changed .. except for the size and proportions. The white dog had short fur, and was male, I think. Very interesting.

Oh right, almost forgot. Had an OBE some days ago. Flew around the room, but forgot what else.

Thick field

Dream: Thick field

Landed at an airport somewhere in Colorado, I think. There was a group of us that had to hold a meeting somewhere. Somewhere less noisy than the airport. Someone from the group had access to a meeting room at a military installation and brought us there.

Waved at the guard on duty and entered some kind of a security scanner. At first I thought it was just a regular X-ray scanner but it wasn't. I was fascinated by what it felt like - it was as if I was suspended in a thick field of energy. I was a bit worried about any potentially harmful effects on the body but most of the energy only penetrated the surface of the "body" (or whatever it is in a dream). It caused a slight tingling sensation. As I walked through it, it felt like walking through water, or perhaps, through a bio gel refrigerator.

Asked the guard what kind of a field is used there. He described the properties of the field, which in my mind associated with a bio gel refrigerator the most.

I had spent quite a bit of time in the field, and after leaving, my "body" produced quite a bit of sweat.

Very interesting..

What the hell

Need to practice mindfulness.

Dream: Mountain, the other side

A couple of nights ago I had a dream where me and sister were walking up the alley. We approached a mountain that we had been climbing each night. Out of habit, we started to climb it from the side on our right. On the right side there were a few trees, but not much else - a difficult path but since we had practised it for all our lives, we could easily climb up and down in just a few hours. We were proud of that. Moreover, I could just as well fly up there and fly back down again.

In order to take the most out of the training, I suggested that we try the other side of the mountain, for change. We approached the other side, which at first glance looked a bit easier to climb because it had steps and platforms for resting. This was deceptive, however. After climbing for a while, I noticed that I could still touch the ground with my hand - I had barely progressed at all. Looked at how sister was doing, and noticed a chest a few steps downward. Hopped there and basically let distractions get in my way.

The next few dreams were all about distractions.

Dream: Washing machine

I was washing clothes but the washing machine kept leaking from everywhere. Then there was something wrong with the electronics - some wires loose or whatever. Patched the wires while the washing machine was still running. A lot of debugging at runtime, and a lot of water on the floor. Ahem, the whole room was a mess.

Dream: Ignorance

Walked around the town when I spotted a young boy with a bicycle. He caught my attention because there was a string from him to his father, and this string kept pulling him to places. His father was drunk-driving around, and didn't care about the way he was dragging his son around.

Followed the boy, called the police, told them our location and where we were headed. The location did not make sense - signposts with garbled text, however, we were headed towards a building and a street that I knew anyway (access to the rational mind from within dreams).

His father stopped. The boy gave me a camera to gather evidence of his father and the car. I took the camera (some weird device that did not really look like a camera at all), set it recording and started walking around the car. The car was stuck and could only budge a little. Perhaps because it was so dented and beaten by the man's crazy driving.

As I approached the car, I sensed the danger that he might run me over. However, the license plate on my side was missing and I wanted to at least get the license plate on record. Not sure if it was the front or the rear end of the car that was towards me - the car was only partially defined and glitchy like in a dream that's not particularly vivid. Even though I remember seeing the front radiator, logic says it must've been the rear of the car. I moved around the car and got eye contact with the man .. while still recording it all. The man was furious about me recording the whole thing because he felt defensless.

He pulled a pistol and aimed at my head as I arrived around the corner. Instead of trying to avoid provoking him any further, I moved closer to get the gun on camera as well. With reflex, I jerked my head left as he pulled the trigger. It might not have been enough. Saw the muzzle flash, heard a loud bang and felt it with my head, after which I heard / felt something like periodical zapping or arcing of high voltage across the hemispheres. For a split-second, we were both dumbfounded, then the man was scared. Then I failed to control my emotions, waltzed to the driver's seat on other side of the car and started banging his head against the doorframe of the car.

Managed to hit his head twice before I woke up thinking: "Just what the hell am I doing?" Seriously, I was warned several times, ignored all the warnings, got shot and then still thought I had the privilege to hit this guy's head in front of his kid? Wtf, dreaming or not, this was very barbaric of me. About 3 AM, so it must've been one of the deeper dreams.

Hungary

First time there. The first images that I got of Budapest, were very sad and uncertain (but it could've been just me). Basically, I saw a small transformer building with kids shoes and clothes, and got a vivid image of happy kids unwittingly slipping into the world of drugs .. with the following issues with their friends, family and so on. The abrupt extinction of the potential that youth provides. Tried to find the registration desk which was supposed to be at the first floor of the university main building. Entered the building and found myself in some cellar corridors which looked as if they led to interrogation chambers from the soviet era, with old machinery and pipes everywhere. Well, cool .. walked through the maze twice, and eventually still asked where the reception desk is supposed to be. It turned out that there were 2 ground floors before the first, so I had to go to the "3rd floor". Silly me, but at least I caught a fairly rough feeling of the university. I'm impressed by the university and how advanced it is.

When asked how I find Budapest, I said "interesting". Typically when I've been to some country or a specific city, then there's a feeling to the place that uniquely describes it. Although Budapest is large (could easily fit the populace of Estonia .. even that of Latvia), it's well planned, beautiful, and the people seem very friendly, something's off. While staying there I couldn't shake the feeling that something's not right - perhaps because I couldn't find the feeling that would uniquely describe the place.

Met a Latvian (friend of a friend) with common interests, and he said he had been puzzled by the same thing. In an attempt to catch the feeling, he had walked the shady corners of the city but the unique feeling had still eluded him.

This makes me wonder if perhaps Budapest (or maybe Hungary as a whole) is shielded, or somehow shifted away from the rest of the world. Or perhaps it's just so diverse that there no longer is a solid construct of the place. Anyway, weird.

Hotel

A bit too fancy, imho. However, apparently I was not given a non-smoking room. Smoke constantly propagated through some ventilation shafts or whatever.

Double bed just for me? Why? Well ok, took the side of the bed with a slightly brighter aura. Couldn't sleep for the first night .. actually couldn't sleep too well the next nights, either.

Anyway, the first night. As I closed my eyes, I found myself surrounded with flowers of different colors. It looked as if the space itself consisted of flowers. There was an obvious presence of a woman. She had her problems, but she also had her joys so all in all the entity was neutral or perhaps slightly positive. I just had to make her acquaintance in order for her to let me spend the night on that side of the bed.

Regardless, the next couple of nights were a bit nightmarish. A tunnel collapsing due to a bus crashing into the wall or something. Couldn't do anything except perhaps getting people to places with a bit higher probability of survival. Then some classic dreams of somebody chasing me, and so on.

The hotel was so fancy that the fanciness confused both me and the personnel too, I guess. Took a bottle of mineral water from the minibar and left a bank note to pay for it. Based on some simple detective work, this confused the janitor who had taken the minibar log, called their boss, nervously stuffed the minibar log back onto the table, and readjusted it on the table just before leaving the room. Oh well =) .. took the minibar log and bank note down to check-out on the final day to explicitly state that I would like to pay for it in cash.

Weather

A couple of days before leaving for Hungary, it was +23 *C in Estonia. The next day it was perhaps +2 *C or something. In Hungary, the weather forecast had said it would be cold, but it was over +20 *C for most of the time.

Smalltalk

Tried to acquire a reasonable amount of contacts but tried not to be too annoying. Got along pretty well with guys, but things were different when I tried to talk to a girl sitting next to me at a restaurant. She seemed more interested in my age than in the topic at hand, and my age was the end of the discussion. Sigh. I need to learn communication (not RF, mind you).

Suithike

Following a Gala dinner on the Danube river, most of the people decided to go to some bar. A few of us decided to enjoy a hike up the Gellert Hill, in suits. Nice discussion on theoretical physics and electronics. After the descent from the hill, a white city jeep passed by real slow, going uphill. Everyone inside the car stared at us for a long time while passing by. The car engine died, they restarted the car while it was rolling back downhill, and then parked it with great skill. Us: Wat just happened?

Yup, finally bought a suit before the Hungary trip. Used to despise suits but proved to myself that I can also enjoy a suit. Realized the influence and importance of traditional robes. It's a ritual that works through the expectations that people have developed in their minds.