Tag Archives: A Course in Miracles

There Is Nothing BUT Artificial Intelligence

Posted by colettekelso in Expression, now and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There Is Nothing But Artificial Intelligence

We say “artificial intelligence” as though there were another kind. As if the mind that created it doesn’t make mistakes and hallucinate. What is the human mind if not a thought-generating machine trained on past data? A Course in Miracles says, “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”  Brings to mind an airplane restroom with the “Occupied” light on: already full, no entry.

Every thought we’ve ever had is a rerun, grounded in a belief-biased, interpretive database. We are language models of our own conditioning. Maybe the fear of artificial intelligence is not that it will outthink us, but that it mirrors how we already think — automatically, habitually, from the archive of what was.

It’s the past predicting, reliving and emulating the present, algorithms built on memory, feeding you what you already know. One biological, one digital. Both simulate wisdom from stored impressions. This is the secret the machines inadvertently reveal. They make our imitation obvious. They show us the puppet strings of language, the algorithm of identity.

The danger isn’t that AI will replace us. The recognition is that it already has — because “us” was only ever an idea trained on data. The human mind is not wiser than AI — only an older dog with no new tricks. Both simulate meaning from stored impressions. Both build worlds out of fragments.

Why are we afraid of what already exists? What is being revealed isn’t the birth of something new and dangerous. It’s the exposure of the mechanism of thought itself.

“Man is a machine, but a very peculiar machine, for he is able to be aware that he is a machine.” ~ G. I. Gurdjieff

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Do Not Presume to Stand Alone, or You Stand Alone

Posted by colettekelso in love, Relationship and tagged with , , , , , , ,

The belief in separation creates its own evidence. There are those you love and care for. Include yourself in that undivided circle. There is no division between that which you love and that which loves. You move within an Arc of Support. What you hold up, holds you.

“We are all responsible for all, before all, and I more than all the others.”
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“I am large, I contain multitudes.” ~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

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Perception Is Not Fact

Posted by colettekelso in perception and tagged with , , , , , , ,

Perception isn’t proof of reality. What you see doesn’t tell you what the world is; it shows you what kind of lens you’re looking through. It is an artifact of conditioning, a relic from the past projected outward and mistaken for truth. Whatever you’re experiencing, whatever gives you the most distress in your life—know this: You are a lens, an imaginative limit.

“Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I have given everything I see…all the meaning it has for me.” ~ A Course in Miracles

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Miracles

Posted by colettekelso in Being, love, Non-duality, Suffering and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lately, there’s been a kind of crisis going on here. Doesn’t matter what it is, but suffice it to say when something seems seriously wrong there is an extreme narrowing of vision. A miracle is a shift in perception, an opening of that constricted capacity to see. As defined by A Course in Miracles:

“A miracle inverts perception which was upside down before, and thus it ends strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to truth.” ~ A Course in Miracles

And in the midst of that crisis, at least 3 miracles happened, and they had nothing to do with the crisis itself, but with a whole new way of seeing and being. One of those miracles was from the most worldly source–the Grammy Awards show. Seeing Luke Combs and Tracy Chapman perform “Fast Car” destroyed so many boundaries, and crossed so many divides, that I know I was not the only one who got choked up watching the two of them sing that song. “Fast Car” drove straight across often seriously polarized lanes of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and generations–and since it was the Grammys, one has to mention–and otherwise fractionalized genres.

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

That was a miracle that cut through so many strange distortions.

Another miracle was a dinner invitation I received from a neighbor. I didn’t really want to go–crisis, you know, gotta stay tense and focused. My neighbor is a Catholic missionary, a consecrated woman, as she refers to her station in life, who works with the homeless in Denver. For her sake and mine, I won’t go into details, but this one, this miracle of sight, blasted away any pretense of division between secular and sacred, and of anything I thought I knew to be true. I have said and understood that no opinion is true, but in the peeling away of those presumptions, those blindspots, removing the log in my own eye–the thing that is true is just there beyond words, beyond what anyone thinks or says. It is always here, only obscured by that which I believe and think I see. Literally, “I was blind but now I see.”

No, Christ did not become my savior. Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna dissolve and become indistinguishable in this light. The crisis is still not resolved in the form it appeared in or as. But that which is far greater, or greatest, can be glimpsed regardless of circumstance. And in the midst of crisis (etymology the same as cross, crucifixion, crux, etc.)

I’m wishing everyone the gift of miracles today, the gift of sight. You are that. All of this is that. Miraculous.

Looking in the Wrong Direction

Posted by colettekelso in awareness, Being, Non-duality, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , ,

UnderstandascopeCropped_WordWEB.jpg

The Understandascope, by Michael Leunig

“The refusal to see the snake in the rope is the necessary condition for seeing the rope.”

“Somebody likes a particular concept and passes it on to his disciples, and he gets a following. But with that, they cannot get eternal peace or satisfaction. In order to get that satisfaction, you must find the source of this primary concept “I am.” And once you know that, you can transcend it. Then you do not have anything to tell the world, because the world wants only fragmentary modifications. They want activities. So this knowledge will remain only with yourself, and there will not be any customers for it.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

The spiritual marketplace is experience driven. One wants to feel good or just better, get a buzz, an insight, improve the life experience, and most of all, to understand–what cannot be grasped by the mind.

Turn around and see what’s behind it all, prior to experience. You can’t make sense of, or solve a problem within, the context of a dream. There is a whole lot of dream-fixing going on when really,  isn’t it much simpler to simply wake up from the dream? Isn’t manipulating images within the illusions ultimately futile and tiresome? Doesn’t it surprisingly and constantly shift and become something else, requiring more fixing, manipulation, and adjustment?

If I was observing you in the midst of a dream of being chased by a bear, would it make sense to tell you to run faster, or talk about bear safety? Wouldn’t it be kinder to jostle you out of sleep–so you’d just wake up and see there was no bear, literally never had been a threat at all, while you slept?

Can a problem be solved by moving images around or barking orders in a hologram? What does this mean? It is opposite land, literally. Instead of looking “out there” and relating to experience as a problem to solve, or something to find and gain there, how about looking in the opposite direction? The lens of the telescope is what distorts or enhances the experience, is what creates the images with which you seem to struggle. What is behind the lens, and looking through? 

Notice that something is in front of you on the screen now. Before you even read the words, or try to understand what they mean, what you truly need to know, is this awareness that comes to the page, that is already always here. Not one word that you read or see or hear is more important than that awake, alert, awareness that attends to everything that is read or seen or heard. There is no need to read a book about consciousness, or attend a spiritual event, if the awareness that precedes it–as in aware that the book is there in your hand, as in the same awareness of walking into a room and hearing noises, as in this same awareness of the screen in front of you–is simply recognized.

If you don’t come to know that, you will know nothing, no matter how many words you read or hear. If that is seen and brought to the forefront, then the Source of everything is known. What you are precedes all that is experienced. All questions dissolve here, not “out there.” And here and there merge as one.

“Deny illusions, but accept the truth.” ~ A Course in Miracles

 

 

 

 

Nothing to Fix. Just Look!

Posted by colettekelso in Being, Expression, Non-duality and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What is paid attention is what is noticed. “Notice” is derived from gnosis. What is noticed is what is known. What is known is what is, is what you are. To know is to be, I am. Why attend to “the problem,” when the whole world shows its perfection? We have only to pay attention, to notice.

By Way of Introduction: Beginnings

Posted by colettekelso in Expression, Non-duality and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

There really is no teaching, no philosophical or religious “truth” to be imparted. There are only ways of looking, of inquiring. What is already known, but perhaps forgotten or obscured, is simply remembered. All that needs to be known, or recalled, is in the question, in the looking that the questions evoke.

The response is then often, “Oh, yes…” Or even an occasional “duh…” And then we go about our business. Yet this “busyness” is seen and engaged in, in a whole new way. Ideas of how things are, or should be, no longer create the tendency of willfulness, want, need (suffering, in a word) the way they used to. You come to see that you are the web, not that which is caught in it.

Hope you enjoy this. iMovie is being learned on the fly, so enjoy the “limits” of technological ignorance, if you’re so inclined.

Thank you!

Specialness: The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Posted by colettekelso in Suffering and tagged with , , , , , ,

Snow WhiteWhen you see through the need to be special, no one and no circumstance can hold you hostage. And lo and behold, everyone else appears to be just fine.

But first, you need to look and see, to find, that need. If you’re in conflict with others, it’s there–no matter how humble or self-effacing the facade. Sometimes, those who have a secret not-special identity, and who Ironically tend to be experts at letting others know they’re not special, seem to have the greatest need to be special. It’s just harder to see, harder to find, but running the game (the separation game) nonetheless. Pain is running the game, often disguised as self-assurance, or even arrogance. Spot it; you got it.

People strive to be special simply because they don’t feel special. Those who can’t abide specialness don’t either. Forgive it all.

Specialness is the ultimate gatekeeper, the burly bouncer at heaven’s door. Oneness precludes special. You can’t have both, and there really isn’t both, only the painful illusion of special and not-special. They are the same misapprehension. It hides well, wears many masks. Look for the need to be special, and/or the adverse reaction to seeing it rear its head in others. Specialness is the perennial itch that gnaws, whether you scratch it or pretend it doesn’t exist. It is the pea that keeps the princess/prince in constant discomfort, obscured as it is by so many mattresses.

The need to be special will knock you on your ass, over and over. Or, if you pay it no mind, it will slowly, silently, take down your house like a drywood termite. The false self, this character we play, will always strive to be special, boldly or in stealth, but it will never succeed because it is false; because it is only a character in a short-run play. Because it is not real, even in its most stellar moments.

Postscript: all posts here are written from personal experience. This ain’t book-learnin, nor is it a YouTube-generated epiphany. What I would learn is this: I am neither special or not special, but I have discovered it is a very heavy suitcase to lug around, and when I stop long enough to open it, it is surprisingly empty.

“Specialness is the seal of treachery upon the gift of love.” ~ A Course in Miracles

Relationship: Seeing Innocence

Posted by colettekelso in Relationship and tagged with , , , , , , ,

thsud00zWhat is Relationship? If you look at it from the “No two people ever met,” perspective (from Byron Katie), it gets stranger and stranger, but perhaps only better and better.

Whether it is relationship with family members, friends, coworkers or lovers, is there an element of defend and protect, or cherish and keep? Both of these interchangeable stances create the intractable difficulties we experience in all our relationships. Is it true that “Hell is other people?” Or, if you take out the judgment, expectation, fear, and all our assumptions about who all these other people are, what’s left?

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