The Blog That Ate Mind Chatter

Thank you to everyone who read my inaugural post about developmental levels, and to all of you who posted comments. I appreciate all the compliments! I’m hoping this blog will be a better way to communicate with each other. So far, I’ve posted every comment we’ve received.

Because we have hundreds of thousands of people using Holosync, I’ve unfortunately had to limit access to me to those who are in my Life Principles Integration Process online courses, or those who come to Centerpointe Retreats or other live appearances. It’s not that I don’t want to interact, but I have so many things on my plate that if I spoke to everyone who wants to talk to me I wouldn’t have time to do all the things I’m trying to do to deliver even more value to you and make your growth easier and more fun.

So, though I can’t answer every comment, or even post all of them, I do enjoy hearing from you. Your feedback will help me know what to write about, and how to best serve you.

Here are a few quick answers to a few of the posted comments:

In response to Tom:

Autofonix, our proprietary silent messaging technology that we use for the custom affirmations (chosen by you and recorded in your own voice), where the voice tones are frequency modulated into the high-frequency “dog whistle” range, is based on research done on the profoundly deaf, and cited in Science, Vol 253, July 5, 1991. The reserach was done by scientists M.L. Lenhardt, Department of Otolaryngology and Biomedical Engineering Program, Medical College of Virginia, and Ruth Skellett, Peter Wang, and Alex M. Clarke, also of the Biomedical Engineering Program, Medical College of Virginia.

Here are a few pertinent excerpts:

…eight additional normal, young adults (20 to 29 years of age) served as listeners when words were completely modulated into the ultrasonic range…In order to quantify speech recognition, the same eight subjects were given an abbreviated version of the Word Intelligibility by Picture Identification (WIPI) test, a closed-set, picture identification task. Each work was presented in the ultrasonic range, and the listeners were instructed to point to the correct one of six pictures…Mean recognition scores of 83% correct (with a range of 70 to 90%) were observed for both carrier frequencies. These results were well above the chance level of 16%.

Then, a bit later in the same article:

The present results suggest that some neural substrate is capable of encoding speech signals when these speech signals are modulated into the ultrasonic frequencies. This is true in the normal hearing individual, the older listener with compromised auditory function, as well as in the profoundly deaf person with no substantial auditory function.

So, you can see that there is good reason to trust that the Autofonix method of delivering affirmations (which is NOT subliminal) works. From my own studying of research on traditional subliminal affirmations, subliminals do not work.Also for Tom:You mention the Gamma Compassion CD and how much you like it. FYI, you can add this CD, with Autofonix affirmations, to any level of the program, with the same carrier frequency of that level, so you don’t need to do any home mixing in order to add affirmations.To Leslie-Ann and a few others who asked about past Mind Chatter articles:For now, the Mind Chatter archives are still there. The url is

http://www.centerpointe.com/newsletter/archives.php

These articles will soon be incorporated in the new service we’re creating, which is going to blow everyone’s mind and make Mind Chatter, as great as it was, look pathetic in comparison. More on this in a later post.

To Walt, who didn’t think he would ever see the email telling him about a new blog post, which meant he would never see this blog again:

Walt, just save the blog in your favorites, and visit every Saturday, or whatever. Or, sign up for the RSS feed, which will notify you without email. (I belief there is a link on Centerpointe’s home page, or maybe at the top of the blog–if not, it will be there soon.)

To Hildegard:

When I said in discussing developmental levels that I’m not saying that some people are better than others (that a higher level is “better”) I am saying that a broader, more encompassing perspective is preferable, more resourceful, and more caring than a narrower, more restricted perspective. A view that honors “all of us” is preferable to one that honors just “our in-group” of “just me.”

And, I am saying that a perspective such as that of a saint, who sees everyone and everything as a manifestation of God, and who has love for everyone and everything is preferable to that of a Nazi, who advocates killing innocent people and thinks some people are intrinsically superior and others are scum who should be eliminated. Yes, in an ultimate sense there is no “better” or “worse.” But here on the relative sphere of existence, there IS. Here on Earth, those who bring love are better than those who bring suffering.

To Matt:

When I said that The Secret is preconventional I’m referring to the idea that you can magically get what you want just by putting it out to the universe or wishing for it–but without taking action, and without that action benefiting someone. Such magical thinking is preconventional child-like thinking, though many adults do it. And, as I said before, the idea that you are going to control the universe with your mind is very narcissistic, another characteristic of the preconventional stage. There is a lot you can control, if you know how, but you aren’t going to control the entire universe.

However, the idea that all achievement begins with your mind, and that when you focus your mind on something you tend to attract it or make it happen (by taking action,  mind you), is true. So I’m saying that the magical part of The Secret, the idea that all you have to do is wish for something, is BS, but the idea that in focusing your mind you have tremendous power is true. I have an entire online course that shows you, in detail, how to master this power, and you can read all about it and listen to a free lesson (www.centerpointe.com/life/preview).

Okay, on to something else. 

I’ve become so interested in deeper aspects of growth (including the whole idea of developmental levels, which I intend to write quite a bit about in this blog) that I sometimes forget that people have lots of questions and concerns about Holosync. So, I want to talk a little bit about Holosync today.

Here’s what I like the most about Holosync: results. Holosync delivers results. Some traditionalists poo-poo Holosync because it’s high-tech, and because it promises to make meditation easier and faster. Traditionalists contend that there is a benefit to sitting for hours at a time, year after year, to doing it “the hard way.” “You have to pay your dues,” they say.

Actually, I agree. You DO have to pay your dues. There is no free lunch. However, consider this. At some time in the dim past, someone figured out how to meditate, and discovered the rewards of introspective contemplation. Before that, I assume that some humans were doing something to grow and evolve, that people were doing something to find answers to the age-old questions of what it’s all about, why we’re here, and so forth. Was doing formal meditation, when it was first conceived, “too high-tech” because it was faster? Did someone say, “You’re not paying your dues if you do it that way”?

Or, to use a more modern example, is it cheating if I fly from Oregon to New York, or would it be more appropriate if I ride a horse, or walk behind a covered wagon? People keep coming up with faster and more effective ways to get from A to B, and if they work, I’m all for it.

I was a traditionalist myself, prior to discovering that meditative states could be created using certain combinations of sine wave tones. When I first heard this idea, I thought it was far-fetched and immediately dismissed it.

Once I tried it, though, my doubts disappeared, because I was a very experienced meditator, and I could tell that the states I was experiencing were the real thing–in fact, deeper and more profound. Then, after using a prototypical form of Holosync for four years, and my entire mental/emotional/spiritual life had been totally transformed, and I was experiencing things I’d read about but rarely experienced for more than brief moments with traditional meditation, I was convinced that something remarkable was happening.

So for me, what matters are results. Does Holosync create the same changes as traditional meditation? Yes. Does it create some additional changes that would require the equivalent of sitting in a cave for many years? Yes, it does. Does it do all of this much faster? You bet.

And, do you still, in one way or another, have to pay your dues? Absolutely.

So what are those dues? The real dues, the real price you have to pay, isn’t sitting for hours each day in meditation (which, by the way, I am not against–I’ve done it, both with and without Holosync). The real price is dealing with yourself, and with or without Holosync you’ll have to do this if you want the pfofound changes meditation can bring.

When you begin to meditate, you have a certain perspective, a certain way of experiencing who you are and a certain way of seeing your relationship to other people and the universe as a whole. This perspective is like water to a fish–you are so immersed in it that you don’t see it. And, some parts of that perspective don’t work very well and are very often creating unhappiness, suffering, and other problems for you.

When you use Holosync, something quite remarkable happens (this same thing happens when you meditate traditionally, but it happens much more slowly–unless you meditate 5-8 hours a day). First, you become more aware. This means that you begin to observe your current perspective. Your immersion in your perspective diminishes (in other words, you are less caught in it), and you move from being it to having it.

Many people, for instance, are caught in their emotions. They have no perspective on them. When strong emotions happen, they are swept away by them. At such times, they are their emotions. A higher level of development, though, involves being able to see yourself having these feelings, to observe yourself. This is a higher, broader perspective, and it comes from having greater awareness.

Other people are caught in their beliefs, their point of view. Again, this is a “fish in water” sort of thing. And, if your point of view, your beliefs about yourself, other people, and the world, are creating negative results for you (which I see all the time in students), the way out is to develop the ability to step back and watch, to observe these beliefs and what they are creating. To do this, you have to develop a new and higher perspective, and this takes awareness.

And Holosync creates this awareness.

In fact, all development involves steping outside of your current point of view, your current perspective, and watching. And, it’s harder to do than it sounds. If it was easy, there wouldn’t be so many people creating unhappiness for themselves. Everyone, including me, is immersed in a certain way of being in the world, and when you can step outside of it and observe it, you move to a higher perspective. This is what personal and spiritual growth are really about.

This gift of awarness gives you choice. Taking a meta position to wherever you are allows you to see the aspects of your current perspective that don’t serve you. This tends to shake up your current perspective. As a result, it becomes difficult to continue to relate to life in the same unconscious, fish-in-water way. Your view of yourself changes, as does your view of others, and your view of how you fit in to the rest of the universe.

You can see, I hope, that something that pushes you to adopt this meta-position is very helpful in creating growth.

If you resist these shifts, though (which a lot of people do), you will experience some upheaval, which could be mental, emotional, or physical. THis is why I place a lot of emphasis in the support material on how to deal with your own resistance. If you master resistance (in other words, stop doing it, or at least do less of it), to that extent you end discomfort and upheaval–not just in relation to Holosync, but in life in general.

Why do people resist these changes? Why do people resist moving to a broader, more functional perspective, especially given that such shifts create such positive change? Because they associate their current perspective with safety. They’ve suffered some sort of trauma and they figured out, given their situation, the best way they could come up with for being safe, or at least as safe as possible, in that situation. Then, when something comes along that tries to pry them out of that perspective, even though the end result is going to be much better, they unconsciously hold on to the old way of being in the world because they believe it provides safety. This resistance is one of THE causes of suffering.

The shifts created by Holosync are developmental, which is one reason why I’ve decided to write a lot about developmental theory in these posts. When you leave a particular perspective, you evolve into a new one, and the available perspectives have been researched by some very smart people. And, they must be experienced in order (sorry about that, but it’s true), without skipping levels. One evolves into the next, which evolves into the next, and so on. Each is broader and more inclusive, and you must stop at each in order to integrate it. Holosync doesn’t allow you to skip levels, or to avoid stopping at each one to situate yourself, but it does dramatically accelerate the process.

The price to be paid, then–the dues–involve dealing with yourself, with your resistance, with your tendency to cling to the old perspective instead of allowing the new one. As you move from one perspective to the next, you must deal with and ultimately leave behind ways of being in the world that won’t work in the new perspective, and this tends to be hard for people. It turns out to be well worth it to allow the change, but it often doesn’t seem that way while you’re going through it. We often make these shifts kicking and screaming (think about it–the big positive shifts in your life probably happened at the most intense and uncomfortable times). These shifts feel intense–and they feels even more intense if you resist them.

Holosync allows you to create these developmental shifts (through increasing your awareness and your ability to step outside of your current perspective) without waiting for some sort of intense life situation to force you to adopt a new perspective. And while Holosync accelerates the developmental process, and makes it possible to get to the place where changes start happening a lot faster, there is no way to escape the fact that you have to deal with your stuff. This is why we provide support for you. This is why I write so many articles and provide so many other ideas and resources. I want to make the process as smooth as possible.

In other posts I’m going to describe these developmental levels in more detail, so you can recognize where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you are going, and I think you’re going to find it very interesting–and, very useful.

What most people don’t know–and have no way of knowing–is what it’s like to come out the other end of the process. Yes, the change process can be intense, but the rewards are so huge, so worth it, that if any person really, really knew what was going to happen, and what their life would be like, they would walk on their knees over broken glass to get there.

That’s why I offer my perspective on what it’s like on the other side. Twenty years ago I was totally screwed up, and as I used Holosync my process was incredibly intense because I was super-resistant. But as I persisted in meditating with Holosync, day after day, even when it was hard (and, though it was hard for me quite often–I made it hard–it was also quite often wonderful) changes happened that I never would have conceived.

If someone had told me twenty or thirty years ago that I would be the person I am today, living the life I live now, knowing the people I know and doing the things I get to do, I never would have believed it. So I try to provide a glimpse of what it could be like for you. Your life won’t be like mind because you’re you and I’m me, but the possibilities for you are just as huge as they have become for me. That, I promise you, is true.

So all I can do is encourage you to keep on keeping on, and to take advantage of the support we offer. If you do, you won’t regret it.

My plan is to dig more deeply into this whole subject of development, since I think it is crucial in understanding yourself, other people, the world, art, politics, religion, and just about every other aspect of human life–as you will see.

Okay, enough of that. Here are a few news tidbits and a comment about a really amazing research project:

I leave on Saturday, October 20th, for Los Angeles, where I’ll be speaking at Raymond Aaron’s “The Truth About the Secret” conference, along with Jack Canfield, Lisa Nichols, and Hale Dwoskin (and maybe a few others I don’t know about). Then, on Monday, I leave for Austin for Centerpointe’s Fall Retreat. These retreats are always amazing, so I’m looking forward to seeing those of you who will be there. Once the retreat is done, I fly to Denver for a 3-day Integral Institute President’s Circle meeting with Ken Wilber and other Integral Institute teachers. Finally, on November 1, I’ll be home again.

Look for an announcement soon about a 2-day workshop Genpo Roshi (the highest ranking Zen master in the world, outside of Japan) and I will be conducting in Los Angeles in February. Genpo is mind-blowingly amazing, as you will see, and I hope to see you there.

On another note, I spent 3 hours on the phone on Tuesday with Clifford Saron, the lead scientist in a huge study being done by the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. The Santa Barbara Institute is the brainchild of Alan Wallace, who has been a translator for the Dalai Lama, and spent 14 years living as a monk with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan teachers. He has a PhD from Stanford, speaks Tibetan, Sanskrit, and several other languages, has been a part of the Mind and Life conferences between scientists and the Dalai Lama (you may have read one of the dozen or so books these conferences have generated), is the author of many books about spiritual practice and the connection between science and spirituality, and is probably one of the most highly evolved spiritual teachers in the West, if not on the planet.

Alan has put together an amazing team consisting of some of the top scientists in the world in the area of consciousness studies (and a few other related fields). These brainiacs are studying the attendees at a three month meditation retreat as they do some very deep meditation work under Alan’s tutelage. The scientists are measuring dozens of different things in these subjects, some psychological, some biochemical, some physical. This is without a doubt the largest and most elegantly constructed study of the effects of meditation ever done.

Because I know Alan–and Cliff Saron (the lead scientist)–I’m going to be able to funnel information about this study to you as I learn about it, so stay tuned (it may be a while before I learn more, but you’ll be the first to know when I do).

Also, to deal with all they data they’re gathering, they need funds. As you might imagine, this sort of thing isn’t being funded by huge drug companies or other powerful interests. I’ve given them a very healthy donation, because I think what they’re doing is extremely important, and extremely interesting.

If you’d like to help, go to http://www.sbinstitute.com/research_Shamatha.html to read more about the study, and then click on “donations” to help them financially. Anything you can afford to give will help. I hope you’ll give $1,000 or more, but if you can only give $10, please do that. It’s tax deductible, so you save the money on the taxes you’d pay on the amount you donate. This study is HUGE, and it’s your chance to be part of something that really will change the world.

Until next time, be well.

Bill

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.