We tend to limit ourselves

David Hume and other 'skeptics' taught us that we make a huge number of assumptions about the world which are not justified.  Simple psychology can demonstrate that our notions of 'reality' are highly problematic, conditioned, and often faulty. Hume would love Don Juan's metaphor of the mind being a 'foreign installation' of 'The Flyers'. These ‘flyers’ not only determine what we perceive, what impressions we receive, but also how we will interpret them. This foreign tyrant pretends to be our own mind, and thus we own its validations of its own interpretations and impressions. Thus the loop is seamless, and also seem-less. Unless we suspect, like Hume, that things are NOT as they seem, and begin the laborious and painstaking process of revealing TROONATNOOR for ourselves.

Cognitive neuroscience can scientifically demonstrate that all our experience is constructed inside our heads.  Sub-quantum physicists will tell you that there is no real 'outside' or 'inside' to distinguish between. 'Reality' is nothing more than a lot of electromagnetic 'soup'. 

Everything we can claim to 'understand' about TROONATNOOR legitimates and validates the most ancient of philosophical and spiritual traditions.  It may take experimentation with psychotropic drugs, or experiences that produce extreme stress or spiritual insight, before you will consider it justified to 'take a closer look' at your own assumptions, preconceptions, and beliefs about TROONATNOOR. However my TROONATNOOR books offer you as much 'intellectual' argument for doing so as you are going to stumble upon anywhere else in your random readings or even the most diverse, conscientious, and disciplined of academic studies.

For most of human history the 4 minute mile was considered as impossible as moving faster than the speed of sound. However as soon as one person overcame their conditioning and actually ran a 4 minute mile, showing others that it was in fact possible, many others began running 4 minute miles. Once the 'mental barrier' of the 4 minute mile was overcome, people continued to set new records. As Henry Ford is quoted as saying 'Believe you can, or believe you can't. Either way you will be right'. 

Of course in our dreams this is truer than anywhere else. For whatever you believe you can do in your dreams, you will be able to. Maybe one day we will extend this to our 'consensual waking reality'. Tibetan dream Yogi's and Afghan Sufi's believe, like Schopenhauer, that the world is mere will and preconception.  I explain the nature of primary, secondary, and 'social reality' and how they are constructed and interact, in my TROONATNOOR books.  There is nothing mystical in those descriptions. However they lead me to accept more and more that I would have previously defined as mystical, as completely reasonable and rational and logical.  I ultimately discovered that my own conclusions had been reached thousands of years ago by the Hindus. I stumbled upon Zen. I rigorously investigated 'religion' and found that it was mostly about tricking the masses into voluntarily submitting to the beneficiary classes’ enslavement of them. But within the most religious texts, among the rubbish and mystification, I usually found valuable principles of Zen. 

In fact I have constantly been surprised to find Zen principles at the heart of every truly philosophical and spiritual practice. Many of the ideas expressed by Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and Jain, would be familiar to the student of Zen, and the Zen practitioner.  My most recent encounter with Zen came in the form of Carlos Castaneda's books based on the teachings of Don Juan, a Jaqui Indian 'seer' from Sonoro, Mexico.  His teachings, like Hinduism and Zen Buddhism, offer the best, and only life affirming answer to the question 'What is the meaning of life'. 

Don Juan describes how we construct this consensual world in a way that would satisfy the most rigorous of social psychologists and sociologists. He refers to the 'first ring of power' by which we are conditioned, from birth, to define the world in particular ways.  In this way we construct, from the electromagnetic soup of the primary reality, a social reality.  Zen frees us from this conditioning using what Don Juan calls 'The second ring of power'. With this we are free to escape history, both our personal history, and the historical consensual social reality which we inherited at birth, which tends to continually reproduce itself. We are then free to experience states of 'non-ordinary' reality. We are free to enjoy all the unlimited possibilities of existence which are currently withheld from us by our social conditioning. As most people find it very hard to open their mind to TROONATNOOR, they require experiences produced by psychotropic drugs, auto-suggestion, hypnosis, and 'stories' to force the first 'crack' in their social reality and to, as Aldous Huxley might put it,  take the first step in opening up 'The doors of perception'.  Few people are able to 'break on through to the other side' in a purely sober state of mind. However the Zen practitioner seeks, and often attains this, through meditation on TROONATNOOR.

Don Juan describes the 'way of the warrior'. The warrior acts with integrity, and efficiency, according to heuristics, taking the world as it is, and acting within it ‘impeccably’.  However the warrior suspends their final judgment and ultimately takes nothing at face value. This perfectly describes David Hume's authentic, skeptical, philosopher. He acts as if the world were real, while never assuming it really is. There is no contradiction. He maintains integrity by keeping his position clear. He acts within the world as he finds it, as if it were real. However he never assumes it is real. He is always suspicious and skeptical. This is not the same as denial. Denial is about unconsciousness. The 'impeccable' warrior is completely conscious, of both the apparent reality, and the possibility of other realities that he can access through authentic Zen practice in every moment of his life.

If he or she does so, the warrior will discover 'The mystery of the dreamer and the dream'.  They will come to understand that we are all luminous beings. We are 'feelings'.  We are clusters of luminous fibers with awareness. We are awareness. We are the effects of a formless source.  Reason and talking are limited to describing these effects. They can never describe the 'source' itself.  However Don Juan describes the 'body' as an egg-shape formed of luminous fibers.  He refers to the 'Eight points on the fibers of luminous beings'.  The points relating to reason and talking are located in the 'head'. The 'will' is located just below the navel. 'Feeling' is located at the tip of the sternum. 'Dreaming' and 'seeing' are located on either side of our ribs.  Reason and talking are isolated. Feeling, Dreaming, Seeing, and will, are connected.  Thus it is that we need to 'switch off' reason and talking, as genuine Zen practice. Then we are free to experience with feeling, seeing, dreaming, and pure will. We can 'step out of' history, out of the social reality which our reason and talking continually reproduce from moment to moment, and into a 'non-ordinary' reality, using our 'second ring of power', the power to define reality for ourselves, and to experience realities that do not conform with the limits of the social reality we inherited. This is all completely consistent with my own arguments in TROONATNOOR, which I came to before I had any real exposure to Zen.

Once we have learned to 'stop the internal dialogue' which constantly reproduces the 'ordinary' social reality we inherited, we are free to experience 'non-ordinary' states of reality while completely sober.  We will not need access to any rituals, psychotropic drugs, or other 'tricks' to find a  'gap' in the reproduction of social reality where we can step out of it. We can 'turn off the internal dialogue' at will. We can access the 'Bardot' between thoughts, between ideas, between moments, where we are free from the constructs of social reality.  Thus we gain access to 'The second ring of power'.  In this state we can witness our 'ally'.  Allies are formless, and known only by their effects.  These effects are produced within our consciousness as sensations, images, feelings, or sounds.  The 'Ally' of the sorcerer, the seeker of knowledge, often chooses to manifest to sorcerers in the form of a huge moth whose wings are covered in a golden dust, 'golden specks of knowledge'.  In this form it is called 'The giver of knowledge' and 'The friend and helper of Sorcerers'. 

Consider for a moment the fact that a huge moth has large golden wings, covered in fairy dust, and the image of angels present in most religions may make more sense!  Angels are the helpers of most religions, just like Don Juan's 'Ally'. Only they are slightly more anthropomorphised for a more anthropocentric hegemonic culture and social reality.  Anyone who has read 'the magic mushroom and the cross' will also be interested in Don Juan's visions, under the influence of psychotropic mushrooms, his 'little smoke',  of humans as having a 'mushroom-like' appearance.

Also consider how Don Juan states that a man of knowledge, a sorcerer, must 'wrestle' with their 'Ally', often for a very long time, in order to yield the knowledge that this Ally has to offer them. Anyone who has read the Old Testament / Torah / Pentateuch / 5 Books of Moses, and is familiar with the story of the Koran, will know that Jacob's name was changed to 'Israel' after he wrestled with god / an angel.  Mohamed, the founder of Islam, is...