#thomknoles

[its-dawns-blog-blog]

Attended another Thom talk @thomknoles in Williamsburg about the topic around suffering .... we all know stress is killer. What a lot of us don't know is that these stresses in the physiology bring lack of clarity. Lack of clarity in what's coming, what's in front of us, and in what is now the past. This lack of clarity makes us behave in repetitious and irrelevant behavior. Behaviors that don't serve the need of the time such as fear, hate etc.. •Suffering is a cultural norm for westerners but for humans it's something that should be foreign. Here we have been conditioned to think that suffering is the key to creating masterpiece art and that we should gravitate towards suffering to tap into creativity. Coming home from a "hard day" , we try to one-up each other over who has had the "worst day". We want suffering trophies 🏆 and to hear things like "I cannot believe how you handle everything. Life is so hard for you." We do it to the extent that we have become hypochondriacs. I have elder relatives who can't participate in life because of their many created diseases. "Oh I can't come to the picnic because of this that and the other".... I have friends so triggered by alcohol they can't use hand sanitizer. The amount of handicaps we hold onto is astounding. We have enough illnesses to go around and this does not serve the need of the time. •These behaviors make us miss life that's right in front of us. And because we're stuck (in suffering)we also can't accurately foresee what's ahead or what is now past. And in actuality creativity branches from the 2% of our brain power. There's potential for much more if we eliminate stress. There's also the potential to bounce back from stressful situations at a more rapid speed. Because we are capable of adaptivity. I've noticed that in myself, after an argument I forget why I was mad shortly after. (Then I have to remind myself in order to remember appropriate boundaries). •If you're not a meditator, you could have so much stress inside the body that even if you ate the most organic nectar it could digest as poison. The digestive system operates amazingly without stress. #nomoresuffering #forefrontonthewaragainstignorance (at Williamsburg) https://www.instagram.com/p/BUxy774AJiL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[writersstrike]

I recently embarked on a journey in the meditation realm. I’ve enjoyed hours of silence and hours of conversation. I’ve become a student once again and it has been revealing. . This quote I found from @emaroutian’s book, ‘thirty’. It reminds me of the topic of discussion during the Veda I course this past month. The process of meditation isn’t about stilling the mind or trying to change the function of the mind. After all, the mind is doing what it knows best. Instead, meditation is a way to connect our soul back with its creator and its inhabitant. . My teacher @mattcardonemeditation has used the term ‘humanness’ when describing the faults of our nature as human beings. Fear, instinct, and defects of character are all attributed to our function as humans and we often get lost in it all. Connecting with our true selves, the Self that doesn’t need or look for approval, the Self that doesn’t react but instead responds, the Self that has always been Love, that is the purpose of this journey. We are simply here to remember that. . . . #poetry #writersofinstagram #shewrites #writersstrike #bookstagram #kindle #meditation #westpalmbeach #vedicwisdom #vedicmeditation #thomknoles #jeffkober #love #god (at Don And Ann Brown Theater)

[lisavonweise]

Celebrating the silver light ☄of the #harvestmoon 🌚 #chandra #fullmoonwalk #eclipse 💫 #thomknoles ✨

[lauriekeith]

A talk by #ThomKnoles: Awakening Limitless Energy and Intelligence. ✌️#meditation #vedicmeditation #transcendence (at SVA Theatre)

[lotusmeditationcentre]

August 8th, 2013 Los Angeles Knowledge Meeting in Santa Monica WHAT YOU REALLY DESERVE The True Story of Karma. It's better than you think. You do actually deserve the best. 

Another beautiful explanation from my teacher Thom Knoles. Grab a cuppa, sit back and relax while you listen.

www.lotusmeditationcentre.com

[tobenyc]

maharishi mahesh yogi's LOVE&GOD xx very rare book, very special gift from my #guru & best friend #thomknoles xx #thankyou #soblessed #loveisalluneed xx (at LaGuardia Airport (LGA))

[laura-poole]

Alex Grey is an incredibly talented visionary artist from Ohio and this is his TEDx talk. He speaks of his own personal evolution as an artist and how it mimics the evolution of consciousness. The artist as a vehicle for Divine consciousness to be expressed in the physical world is a beautiful image in itself. His talk is a really interesting look into the world of Grey and his journey - what he has learnt as an artist over time and the conclusions he has come to. Namely that there is only one thing (consciousness - tick) and we are all interconnected in a network type of web (collective consciousness - tick) and that the ultimate goal is unity with that highest aspect of our self (self-realisation - tick).

What I'm not promoting here is the use of drugs to elicit this state of 'Divine Vision.' Experiencing higher states or visions is actually a by-product of de-exciting the mind and expanding your state of consciousness. Below is my teachers response when I asked him a while back what the effect of taking hallucinogenic drugs would have on my state of consciousness and more importantly their effect (positive or negative) on my evolution and expansion into higher states of consciousness. Watch the VIDEO then enjoy the KNOWLEDGE. 

Here's how drugs all work, and how they may cause temporary illumination, but at the cost of lockdown from illumination.

In the wall of certain cells is embedded a sophisticated bio-device known as 'a receptor'. Each receptor is specific to receive very specific molecules that are produced in the body. There are receptors that interpret drugs (hereafter known as "exogenous molecules") to be a command to create super normal sensory perception or expansive consciousness states. These same receptors took millions of years to evolve into the status that our bodies are today, as passed down by our parents from our ancient ancestors.

When drugs such as Dimethyltryptamine (DMT, as found in ayahuasca or a dealer's test tube), or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, from cannabis), or Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), or heroin, or morphine, etc. enter the body, their specific effect is caused by the fact that their molecular shape adequately mimics (or 'counterfeits') the molecular shape of certain proteins and peptides, known as "endogenous neurotransmitters" (brain chemicals) that are released as a by-product after transcendence or celestial awareness has already been attained by the mind.

Either a drug (exogenous molecule) or neurotransmitter molecule (endogenous) in proximity to a cell will trigger the cells' appropriate receptors to capture the molecule and dock it. Then the molecule is "read" by the cell and the body is commanded to respond with super heightened sensory perceptual capability.

The molecules that are produced endogenously (the neurotransmitters) are the product (after-effect, or epiphenomenon) of an already-attained heightened consciousness state that was caused by the mind learning how to go beyond; the neurotransmitter simply is triggering the body to participate with heightened sensory/perceptual capacity to correspond with an already-attained mental phenomenon; the body's reaction, though it can be ecstatic, does not inform the mind of anything new: the body is gifted with super subtle sensory data to verify and validate the pre-existing mental experience. In other words, the mind, having informed itself experientially, in order to complete its perspective, then triggers a physiological chemical reaction that allows the body's senses to experience subtlety. 

Counterfeit molecules, "drugs" (exogenous molecules), are mistaken by cells' receptors to be endogenous neurotransmitters so that cells respond with causing the senses to awaken into super-subtle sensory perception. But the mind has not learned first and created molecules second. Regardless of this, the body goes into super-subtle sensory data detection mode, but the mind is left without a mental framework to interpret completely or to put into perspective the super-subtle data now being brought in by the senses.  

Using exogenous molecules, the surprise subtle perceptions can be stressful. This is unlike the subtle perceptions resulting from endogenous neurotransmitters, which come along after the mind expansion has already occurred and are accompanied by the molecule-cocktail of a de-excited state (e.g., meditation).

The receptors that capture and read all candidate molecules -- be those exogenous molecules or endogenous molecules -- were not evolved over millions of years to capture and read the exogenous counterfeit molecules. The receptors are design-specific to capture and read the endogenous neurotransmitters.

Indeed, unless the animal (human) HAS the receptors designed to receive these certain endogenous molecules, then, interestingly, even if the exogenous molecule is injected in doses that would be lethal to a human, the exogenous molecule (LSD, THC, DMT, etc.) will have NO EFFECT on the organism.  For example, goannas have no receptors for LSD (or, properly speaking, for its endogenous model), so you can inject a goanna with as much LSD as you like and it will not respond with altered behaviour.

In a human, exogenous molecules' (DMT, LSD, THC) shape is imperfect for the receptor.  After all, they are counterfeit and not the real molecule for which the receptor was designed by millions of years of evolution.  Consequently, exogenous molecules get "stuck" in the receptor, then block the docking of a legitimate, endogenous neurotransmitter, should one of these appear.

When our endogenous molecules are blocked at the receptor level so that naturally-occurring molecules cannot dock into their receptors due to those receptors being filled by stuck counterfeits, we pee out the legitimate endogenous molecules. Our bladders and other urinary conduits are lined with other receptors that audit the loss of precious endogenous chemistry. Once loss is detected, the body's endogenous bliss-chemistry factory shuts down in order to save precious building-blocks.  

You see, under the effect of exogenous counterfeits, the body receives the impression that all available cells are filled with endogenous "bliss chemistry" so that no more need be produced.  With no endogenous bliss chemistry production (where we need a certain minimal amount), our body turns enthusiastically demandingly to its only known source: the exogenous counterfeit chemistry that triggers uninterpretable super-subtle sensory data but in return for which the mind learns nothing except its body's super subtle perceptions and has these experiences without a context in which to place them, and then craves more, in order, futilely, to understand what was experienced. This process becomes "addiction".

When we meditate regularly and let go of drug induced experiences, we achieve something that makes meditation alone far superior to meditation-slowed-by-drugs.

It is true that mind and body are related, but there IS a sequence: consciousness (mind) is primary and body follows, printing out whatever the mind becomes. During meditation, the mind gradually builds an experiential framework of access to baseline transcendence; the unknown becomes The Known. Next, one builds familiarity with perpetually-manifesting celestial phenomena at the layer from which the unmanifest consciousness/matter fountainhead incessantly is manifesting the world. The important thing here is that consciousness is coming before matter. The brain's own endogenous bliss chemistry TRANSMITS the mind's experiences to the body, allowing the body to catch up upon what the mind already knows how to repeat.

Conversely, exogenous molecule use (meaning ALL exogenous molecules, including Ayahausca and cannabis and their plant-sourced cousins, heroin and other opium-poppy derivatives, and, of course, laboratory-synthesized happy chemicals) can cause addiction.  In addition, exogenous molecule use gives no knowledge or guarantee of repeatability. This should be clear from the fact that it is difficult-to-impossible to name an iconic person who attained the highest states of enlightenment by blazing doobies, or even by guzzling Ayahausca; certainly we have no record of the Heroin Method of Gaining Enlightenment. Repeatability and familiarity of the experience of transcendence/celestial awareness brings about stable enlightenment with sustainable biochemistry.

Once your mind goes to its source spontaneously and effortlessly to inform itself of cosmic structure, your brain manufactures supreme molecules, molecules far superior to the exogenous molecules of any plant or laboratory on earth (or other planets).  

It never ceases to amaze me that people think that a body-led experience can drag the mind into enlightenment. Placing matter before consciousness is one of the classic errors described by every spiritual tradition on earth. Consciousness is primary; molecules are secondary.

Thom Knoles is one of my teachers that has and continues to be a guiding force. He's holding a retreat in India January 2014 that I would suggest any keen meditator to attend. Ask Thom for the time and he'll tell you how to build a watch. And trust me, you'll love every minute of it.

[its-dawns-blog-blog]

Met Thom Knoles @thomknoles last night, a #maharishi who knows his shit.....He did a talk about defining #enlightment and how suffering happens when you don't experience stages of #consciousness ..... for instance if you don't #sleep (sleep is a state of consciousness; sleeping state) then you will suffer from exhaustion or if you don't experience the waking state (another state of consciousness) and just sleep all the time you suffer from loss of muscle tissue etc.... well we as a culture and many cultures don't experience the 4th state of consciousness (there are 7), that can be experienced with daily meditation...... can't stress enough that we are endanger if we don't re-evaluate our norms.... let us #endsuffering ,, let's make meditation the new norm. It's no wonder they say meditation cures #anxiety and #depression and many other forms of suffering #vedicphilosophy #thelawsofnature #science #physics #naturallaw #lawsofnature @mndflmeditation (at MNDFL) https://www.instagram.com/p/BUa1UQYAVmJ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[lotusmeditationcentre]

September 14, 2014 Los Angeles Knowledge Meeting @ Skirball Center Life Without Fear: Cultivating Personal Invincibility To harness the constructive aspects of change requires higher consciousness. 

I highly recommend grabbing a cup of tea, curling up in a comfy chair and listening to this enlightening talk by my teacher Thom Knoles about living life without fear and cultivating personal invincibility.

[tobenyc]

here we go again xx training group five of six consciousness minus all the thoughts = experiencing essence... #thomknoles #essenceisspirit #spiritislove #loveisalluneed (at casa faraz)

[tobenyc]

what is your sense of personal identity? what makes you happy? if all of your certainties are externalized then the only way to be sure you're happy is to control them all. with meditation, you internalize your certainty- this is how perpetual happiness is achieved. #thomknoles #treeoflifetalks #theartofhappyliving #regram @gerald_forster xx (at lover's rock)

[tobenyc]

this makes me so #happy, 1 of 3 groups we initiated this week in the single most important #gift I give myself: #meditation xx next week we will start again- visit #thomknoles.com for details xx (at casa faraz)

[tobenyc]

screening the first cut xx #thomknoles #treeoflifetalks #theartofhappyliving #meditate #love 📷by @gerald_forster xx (at Neuehouse)

[tobenyc]

so long #rishikesh xx already miss these two crazies, I mean like crazy:))) @brenda_buck @ruppstar123 xx #magicalindia #thomknoles #retreat #love (at Laxman Jhula)

[tobenyc]

#stevegorrow student of @thomknoles for #levis xx #learntomeditate #vm #thomknoles.com (at MTA Subway - 8th Ave/14th St (A/C/E/L))

[tobenyc]

three down, two to go: sept21@930 & sept21@noon xx intro to #vm w/ #thomknoles.com #learntomeditate thanks to our hosts gemma & mark xx (at casa marrone)