Finding “Other”
As a newborn, you have no distinctions of this world. All around you is a colorful, noisy mess of a constantly changing kaleidoscope of perception.
We first begin to know ourselves through experiences of pain and separation: ripped out of the warmth of the womb, cut off from our feeding line, spanked into taking our first breath.
A little later, happily feeding, and while we are still hungry, mom removes her breast before we are done. MMMmmmmaa, the first sound babies are capable of making evolves as an attempted command to that thing that feeds us. She might or might not come back, but in either case, we suddenly realize, she is separate from us…
Then we hit our head against a table: “ouch THAT hurt me… I would not hurt myself… THAT must be separate…”
Slowly the child begins to realize itself as separate from the world that surrounds it. And through expressions, first clumsy sounds, then words, we learn to distinguish what is what in our environment, and what we can and can’t control through our expression. And realize that there is an expression for us, our name. Then “ME” dawns… Welcome to the terrible two’s…
From here on out, we are continuing to learn distinctions, words, expressions for that which we encounter. First mostly through our parents, than through other children, teachers, media and our entire cultural environment.
Distinctions create actuality
One could go even further and daresay they create your reality. It is through our distinctions that we experience that which appears to be around us. Our mechanism of perception acts similar to a sonar. We receive data into our eyes, we evaluate concepts and determine distinctions, which we then “perceive” in our environment. Reality only occurs in our imagination. Our distinctions are the paint we apply to the canvas of our experience.
We learn distinctions
Distinctions are learned. Some are conditioned (e.g. most of the distinctions you learned in school were hammered in through a constant process of repetition), some are imprinted, which means they sit on a much deeper level and were created under states of neuroplasticity, or imprint vulnerability, the state of a newborn, and later through experiences such as fear, orgasm, or other trance states. They require special care if they need to be addressed.
We learn distinctions on multiple levels – physical, emotional, mental. Each manifest differently:
Physical level – Relationship to body
Babies spend hours delighting in their bodies. Few things are as much fun as to watch a baby giggling in joy at the sight of its own hands. Our body is also the root of our first experiences of pain and negative physical sensations like hunger, indigestion, teething etc. Our earliest imprints and distinctions around “Other” have to do with how we relate to our body, the first “Other” we encounter in relation to our primary point of perception, our sense of “I”.
Emotional Level – Relationship to emotion
As we begin to begin our explorations into space at the onset of mobility, we create imprints and conditioning around which distinctions fall into like and not like. We crawl towards mommy and daddy where we feel we “belong”, and are taught to stay away from strangers. We learn to move toward that which we like, and avoid that which we don’t. Within that, we inherit our parental and societal biases associated with distinctions e.g. around sub groubs of society, and prepare ourselves for our future choice of sexual partners.
Mental Level – Relationship to thought
Mental distinctions come in the form of words. And as we begin to learn words, we also learn about the persistence of objects. Peekaboo represents the child’s learning that distinctions exist across time. Once “I” learned words for things, “I” can ask “Where did __________ go?”, if I am not perceiving the things directly. Giving words to emotional experiences results in the ability to strategize based on past and into the future. “Good” and “bad”, initially felt as immediate sensations, turn into morality, and rationalization thereof results in subsets of beliefs and the beliefs of “Others”.
“Other” dances with “I”
When you find “I” again (we tend to get lost in identity attachments in the three levels described above), you are now aware that nothing and everything else is “Other”, and that you can learn more distinctions, refine your likes and not likes, and utilizes strategies around maximizing your physical pleasures while reducing occurrences of physical pain – for “I” and – the more you expand – for “Other” through your actions.
“Other” becomes a dance in which you have two options: fear (enforce separation) or love (overcome separation).
Fear!
Fear enforces the distinctions. Ask yourself how this supports you in your experience of “I”. Sometimes separation is required, sometimes it hinders. Ask youself: Does it make your feel better about who you are? How is it working for you to be separate from what is going on? What are the distinctions you are drawing? Where did they originate? Are they yours?
Or there is love…
“Love”, a much overused term, can be defined as understanding self beyond the boundaries of “I”. Distinctions to create more separation can be drawn ad infinitum, and they can be helpful to communicate subtleties. When you simply are with “Other”, there is no need to communicate (which occurs between two separate entities), since you are in communion, and at that point, distinctions disappear and you integrate ad infinitum, until you are beyond even part and parcel of everything. Love is that which bridges distinctions.
So, when you encounter “Other”, ask yourself: Why is “Other” in my life? Why is it “Other”? Whose distinction is that? And then, once you decided, ask yourself: How can I create the most benefit for “Other” right now?
We are all here to lovingly dance with each “Other”, after all, right? 
Finding “I”
Apart from the collection of identities who make up YOU, there are also a variety of different circuits that make up your consciousness. Each has its own function and evolutionary history. Each has its strengths, and in each we run programs that might or might not serve us.
Levels of Consciousness
Alfred Count Korzybski is one of the neglected brilliant minds of the last century, his work leading to the theory of general semantics, and also covering the curious question of consciousness. According to Korzybski, he observed three primary levels of consciousness at work on this planet:
- Chemical Binders – Plants - Physical intelligence that utilizes chemical elements for communication, processes inputs like light and water, and creates plant life. It corresponds to the intelligence of your body.
- Space Binders – Animals - Emotional intelligence and emotional territorial consciousness, the ability to move toward that which you “like” and away from that you don’t like, and to know what’s what. In addition to that the ability to know how to create emotional states in others.
- Time Binders – Humans - Mental intelligence. Through assigning agreed upon symbols to the world around us (language), we create persistence of objects and the notion of a continued experience of self.
The levels are not a hierarchy, but a holarchy, meaning, there is no better or worse, but they continue to add to each other, e.g. an animal also has physical consciousness, a human has physical, emotional and mental consciousness.
Charlie cut my finger
Really, he didn’t. But cutting your finger is a good example to make the above a bit more personal. Imagine you cut yourself in your finger. Your physical consciousness is freaking out at the violation, it’s rushing white blood cells to the area and attempting to figure out how to deal with the breach in the hull and contain infection. If you were only in our physical consciousness, you would probably go into shock and overwhelm and pass out.
If you were only in your emotional consciousness, you would experience, based on your operating system, an emotional freakout in the form of “Oh my G-d, I cut myself, how horrible, poor me!” or “Stupid #%^#%! &%*@$%!”.
As you shift into your rational, mental body, you figure, it would be a good idea to get a band aid and stop the bleeding.
You have probably met people that are not able to shift between the different levels of consciousness. I know people who will pass out at the sight of blood – especially their own. I also have observed people running around the room screaming in self-deprecation and anger. And I have met people that take this situation totally calm, do what is rational, and hardly notice that there are experiences on these other levels.
Who is the Observer?
If we look at our example above and what happened in the shifting process, there seems to be a fourth level of consciousness at play. The one, who realizes all the other three, and chooses the appropriate course of action. What level of consciousness is that?
Delicious Brains!
The first three circuits of consciousness can be mapped to corresponding brain functions. In a way, we have three very different brains:
- Our brain stem – our “reptilian” brain, the oldest part of our brain, regulates all the basics and can be associated with physical intelligence
- Our limbic system – controls our emotions and has centers for bliss and violence, which tend to activate each other through induction currents if one gets too excited
- Our neo-cortex – the most “human” part, where we process all the higher human symbolic functions
But where is our 4th brain? The one that is observing the other three and that makes distinctions between their respective experiences?
Is there a 4th brain?
There is a new level of consciousness we are developing as inhabitants of this planet. Acting on the third, the mental body, the age of reason, and ultimately the information age has created a new opportunity for awareness. While many still think reason is our highest capacity, we can also easily observe how many people fall short of it every day. And if we assume that rational mind is the highest human capacity, it also makes sense to allow machines to run our lives (as in Jean-Luc Goddard’s “Alphaville”, or more recently “The Matrix”) – welcome Singularity! Resistance is futile.
The new level of awareness were triggered by a variety of factors from technology that allows us to see to the other end of the world and keeps us from ignoring what is happening there, to pictures of the earth from space, which made us aware of the fact that we are on one planet together, and that there is only one human species.
Grokking I-other
In order to have a distinct sense of self, beyond the physical, emotional or mental experience, invites a true center point of “I”, which then uses our three different bodies as interfaces into the reality we are experiencing. But you are not the interface and able to hold “I” without being overwhelmed by the fact that this means EVERYTHING ELSE is “OTHER”.
Where angels fear to tread…
It’s a frightening place to go. It’s the place where you accept that as soon as you say “I” you are completely alone. It’s a dark place. An empty place where you realize that nothing has inherent meaning and that all meaning comes from you. It is a place where you take full responsibility for all of the reality you are experiencing, the good and bad. And it is also the place, where you take your rightful self-aware position in co-creating this reality with the underlying bandwidth that makes up all possible experiences.
How do I get to it?
There are many ways to allow you to get to the root of your operating system, that which determines how you operate, everything you know about everything you are aware of. Over the years humanity has collected an array of tools. E.g. yoga is a collection of tools that allow your body to be still (through asanas, the physical exercises), your emotions to be still (through pranayama, breathing exercises), and your mind to be still (through meditation, focus on one object, a specific focal point like a mantra, or even nothingness). In Western Magic, or other Shamanic traditions, aspects of the different bodies are externalized, e.g. through visualization of demons or projection through animals.
Which is the right tool?
That is for you to determine. You do it through your religion - that activity that makes you feel re-connected (from Latin re-ligare, as in ligament) after realizing “I”, and that gives meaning to you through your interpretation and assessment of your experience in this material world. Religion is a personal responsibility. No priest, no shaman, no guru, no teacher can create it for you. They can all serve as guideposts, but beware of allowing them to point you in any direction but the one that starts with owning full responsibility for “I”.
Where to start?
Start with owning “I”. And start with deciding that “I” is supposed to have a great experience on this planet. Ask yourself in any moment that does not feel like it: “Who is “I” right now?” You will find that most “negative” experiences result from attaching aspects of one of your three bodies to something outside of you. You are physically, emotionally or mentally “addicted”. Something outside of you is creating an experience for you. Own your center. That which animates all others. Live, play with your interfaces, but BE in your center – whatever gets you there.
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