Reference: “All It Is” Chapter 17: “Awareness & The Belief Barrier”
Thursday, January 12
David: Man, this chapter is really long! It’s the longest one in the whole book, isn’t it?
Walton: Do you think you can figure out why it is the longest one? Or would you like me to just hand it to you on a silver platter?
David: Since you suggested it, I think I will take the silver platter! And while you’re at it, put a few snacks on it while we visit?
Walton: Snacks, maybe. As long as you don’t mind that my little friend Franklin has already chewed and pawed his way through the box ahead of time.
David: Thanks, but no thanks. So, why is the last chapter so long?
Walton: In keeping with the whole theme of the PTP program, it is long, but simple. You notice that it is called a “process parable.” That means that it takes all of the information that you have studied in every single chapter so far, and it places it in the order of how it actually works in your life. A summary of the explanations, and a summary of the examples. If you previously understood what was in each of the other chapters, this last chapter is the glue that will hold all of those other pieces together.
David: Then let’s get out our scrapbooks, and let the gluing begin. I promise not to inhale (too often!).
Walton: “Con permiso, mi amigo,” let’s try something a little different here today. For this very special lesson, we’re going to take turns going down through this “very long” page of information. I’ve detected that there are just over a dozen phases, or stages, to the story of this ongoing “belief barrier battle.” I will demonstrate, or condense, the first phase, and then hand the page over to you to determine the next phase of the battle. And we’ll just go back and forth, simply summarizing each of the following sections, until we’ve reached, and hopefully won, the Great War of the human battle of the belief barriers! Sound fair to you?
David: All’s fair in love and words! Onward cosmic soldiers! Marching as to war!
Walton: With our words of genius, pouring out once more!
David: The first line on the first part of the page reminds me of a famous first line from a famous Rolling Stone song, “Sympathy for the Devil!” Maybe we can sing it?
Walton: Sing, or swim, right? Nah, this chore will be tricky enough without a musical soundtrack! In Phase 1 of this chapter, Awareness introduces and describes itself. So, in the very first words, we learn the idea that Awareness is actually speaking in the first person voice. Like a character in a play. “I am Awareness.” Since Awareness is the beginning of all that we are, that is why the whole chapter will be presented with this shifting point of view.
The most challenging part of this chapter is going to be trying to work with the label “Awareness” and its definition. People may find it difficult to comprehend that the “space between all things” is still a thing itself. The absence of something still creates something else. Examples of this are rare, and may be a bit hard to explore, but that is where Awareness exists. The absence of a thing is still a thing. Energy, its companion in this story, has infinite degrees of existence, right down to the smallest waves and particles. And at that point, it is surrounded by a space-based thing! That between-space has a quality similar to “gravity.” Awareness pulls and pushes the particle and wave space “stuff” around. And that is called Creation! Your turn!
David: Phase 2 discusses the ultimate “superpower” of Awareness, its One Primary Purpose: to experience the universe, by creating something, completing that something, and then contemplating what happens next. Using the premise behind the formula for the One Absolute Truth, “Awareness Directs Energy,” Awareness builds things. It creates stuff. Like in an artist’s workshop. It’s “ability” to direct energy is a pretty useful tool for working with that energy of the world, especially the waves and particles of the physical world. It is like a universal laboratory of creative possibilities. One of the first practical products that came out of that need to be creative was a vehicle, or solid body, that it could manipulate. Behold, out of the one-celled creatures of the land and the oceans, a humanoid vehicle became that tool for the purposes of creation. Arms, legs, a body that could work with physical objects. Possibly even a central processing unit located somewhere within that creation that could do what we now days hopefully consider the ability to think! A brain that could be trained to be strained!
Walton: And thus did Awareness in Phase 3 begat a bounty of bodies of various shapes and sizes. And in various places, located all over the multi-verses! The bodies’ initial intentional purpose was to act simply as a Sensory System, to be used for this explore/experience mission. And, with the advent of “parenthood”, the world also began to fill up with more and more of these Sensory System tools. Also known as “human children!” Bless them!
David: No thanks! But anyway, on to Phase 4: just what IS the purpose for this amazing creation creature? To detect vibrational signals by using the 5 senses it was endowed with. Collectively known as the Sensory System. These sense perceptors, like little microphones, would then change the signals into electrical impulses that could travel around inside the body along a neural network. Some signals were stored in the body’s tissue, some were immediately used for movement responses. Energy came in, and energy was then either stored for later processing, or it responded right away. Thus the fulfillment of the original purpose of Awareness within a Sensory System.
Walton: But wait, boys and girls! Don’t be frightened. But here begins the Big Belief Barrier Battle! That “storage thing” you just discussed. In the early days of the body’s existence, the Sensory System could easily keep up with the information that it was receiving. Comfortable amounts of information, stimuli, messages, came into contact with the body. However, what wasn’t expected is that, apparently, the physical geographic location, like Earth, where this body was growing up tended to have a lot more environmental potential for a painful experience rather than a pleasurable experience. And the body, not able to keep up with the perception and response to all this painful data, began to fill up its storage areas with too many messages to respond to right away. This is where is the almost accidental creation of a third system, which later became known as the Belief System. Stored information about the world in which the body existed. To be later processed and remembered.
David: But also, low and behold! In Phase 6, the stored belief patterns began to out-number the new incoming Pure Perceptions. This led to a bit of a family feud! Who’s in charge here? Who gets first attention? Simple worldly perceptions, or nasty pain-filled possibilities of destruction? So, the “Survival Beliefs” Clan started directing their own previously programmed plans for the Sensory System. The SS got overwhelmed with potentially painful or pleasurable stored creations. Too much data! Brain strain! Hard drive out of storage capacity! Not enough space to process! Not enough time to process it all. It wasn’t long before this third storage system, the Belief System, had to start taking control over the physical body, simply to keep up and to protect itself from this rather painful planet!
Walton: To simplify even more, in order to create the Belief storage system, Awareness increased its attention, to use a physical body, the Sensory System. The Sensory System detected energy all around it, and based on its need to protect itself, created energy packets within that Sensory System. These energy packets, later known as Beliefs, were to serve as reminders of the need to protect the physical body: to re-experience pleasurable events and to cease experiencing potentially painful events. A “stimulus” plus the immediate “degree of sensation” plus a chosen “response” is we obtain the belief unit formula. “S & R”. This simple equation is the formula for what a single belief is. For phase 7, it means that a “Belief” (also called a “Creation”) equals the S (input stimulus), & (degree of sensation level evaluated), and R (the sensory system’s chosen safety response to that incoming stimuli.)
David: For Phase 8, we simply create a kind of multiplication pyramid. The basic formula for a single belief is just one stimulus connected to one response, or “S & R”. A primary belief is single belief that was created early in life, probably at the very first moment any particular stimulus was experienced. Secondary beliefs are those based on pre-existing primary beliefs. It seems kind of unusual, but the Secondary beliefs were NOT the original personal experience of a stimulus, but were the creation of a memory or a previously created belief! And to further build on this pyramid of beliefs, a Cluster of beliefs are when the pyramid gets broader and broader based ONLY on past thoughts and memories, not an original direct stimulating experience of Energy. Our sometimes massive brains, then, are nothing but a collection of Cluster beliefs. The stimulus may be the same in those clusters, or maybe the responses are all the same in those clusters, but none of them are as simple as the original primary belief. Clusters and Clutter are closely related!
Walton: And Phase 9 defines a very simple overwhelming plan for all of these collected beliefs: to ensure the survival of the human being itself, especially the survival of the belief system itself! By now, this belief system is referred to as the Ego, or Self. As a matter of fact, we will find that the belief system is more interested in protecting the beliefs themselves rather than the physical Sensory System body. Unfortunately, this particular situation occurs when people become suicidal. They would rather take measures to end the survival of the body in order to not address the confusion of the mind, or their BS. Sad indeed.
David: So what we have discussed so far simply describes the creation of the physical human being, and the creation of the Belief System which is stored in that human being. All of this activity was originally done at the initial intent of the Awareness System. Now, I hope, we get to shift to what needs to be done about the battle between the Belief System and the poor Sensory System itself. The Battle begins. Who will survive?
Walton: So for Phase 10 and beyond, how do we even begin to consider ways to initiate a breakup of these long held and programmed Belief System patterns ? We are now at a very rare condition in the span of typical human existence. Most humans, those who we call the Trance Ants, are quite blindly content to live in this stage for the rest of their lives. Why mess with something that is at least covering the basic human needs day after day ? Is there more to life than the hard scrambling for basic survival needs ? A choice has to be made! Or, at least, a choice has to be externally forced upon the Trance Ant human non-being!
David: Phase 10 seems to be a single moment where serious changes must be considered. Am I happy? Is this all there is to life ? Is there more that I am missing ? And if so, how do I get to that life of greater Awareness and less programming control by my BS? To even ask these kinds of questions triggers what the chapter calls the “battle” for control, pitting the creative force of awareness versus the stubborn, stored Beliefs. One might call it “Free spirit versus blind mind.”
Walton: If Phase 10 is when we experience such a rare moment of questioning one’s life, the next few phases must involve ways of getting the Trance Ant to wake up ! Very often, phase 11 is triggered by a very drastic life-threatening situation, usually one of health or physical pain due to some kind of accident. It could be as major as something that requires hospitalization, or it could be something that requires a major change in relationships, like a divorce or a physical moving away to a new geographic location. Something energetically has to be reshaped or reformed during this phase. You might call it a “forced” self-reflection for survival needs.
David: And the trigger for those changes, those major changes, won’t just happen because somebody gets better in a hospital setting, or someone finds another somewhat compatible marital partner, or a move to another state. Those are very external, outer surface physical changes that could be made. A new place, a new person, a new position. They don’t really require any important internal changes just yet. Only by considering some internal contemplations that are going to lead to a change in mental, emotional, and also physical increased states of happiness and awareness.
Walton: So for phase 12, once any external changes have really produced no improvement in one’s life, the human is going to have to start to looking inward. Not just into their thoughts, but actually retraining their Awareness to study the insides of their own physical bodies. Here is a description of what that exercise might look like :
It is an exercise in which a human simply directs the search within their own physical body for a sensation of some kind. They are aware that something may hurt, and they might passively accept the fact that it hurts, and try to justify triggering a long list of avoidance responses to deal with it. Or they can direct their Aware attention to that spot of pain and simply study it, and measure it. This is an active process, not a passive process. But what they are actively doing is basically called “watching, observing.” No intent to change or modify or move. Just watching. So with the question of what is Awareness, is the Belief system watching the painful area ? Or is this sensory system, which is the thing that hurts, watching itself ? By removing the needs of the physical sensory system body, and removing the programmed responses of the belief system, all you have left is the Aware watching of the area. Intentionless. Calm, observant. Just watching that spot. That is the simple art of Awareness. Just watch the spot!
David: One of the exercises that I found very useful in starting to make this change, which I will label phase 13, lucky number 13, is the list of unusual questions to ponder. There’s a list of those questions in the chapter near the bottom of the page. And they are basic questions about what is truly real and what is not. What is truth and what is not? What is the connection between physical pain of the body and mental pain which is more like a state of confusion? Simply meditating on these types of questions for a good long amount of time, will assist with breaking up the patterns of past thoughts and feelings that they’ve previously been controlled by. One of my overall favorite challenges, when talking about thoughts and feelings, is to ask myself: is this a concept or is this something that is concrete and provable ? Most people like to cop out by talking in terms of concepts. For example, the concept of Love. Love isn’t an actual physical, measurable, observable thing. But until you can actually physically prove the existence of sharing energy with someone else, use of the word Love is indeed pretty useless! Show me Love! Prove it! Prove that the thing you’re talking about is actually real and necessary to confirm our experience of the concept of Love.
Walton: The Phase 14 reward for going through questions like those, is that the awareness system will wake back up! It will realize that it is of some importance, and actually a necessary requirement for the survival of the human and their self-stored belief system. The Aware human being wakes back up and is reminded of the important role that pure Awareness and Awakeness plays in the creation of a happier and more contented and loving life. Not only will every single day be filled with more direct sensory experiences, but an active and regular increased Awareness will help begin to clean up a lot of the crap that has been stored for years in the belief system, the BS.
David: And thus begins the final everlasting phase 15: regular mental maintenance exercises asking those same types of questions. A continued and increased simple focus on the physical body, the sensory system, and a continued focus on the content of the belief system. Not to be any further prolonged and protected, but to be cleaned out, completed, and released in order to make space for newer and more creative experiences. Getting the human being back to its original purpose and intent: to experience the world in its pure and simple way as possible. To expand one’s creative endeavors. To once again feel the pure and unadulterated flow of Energy through one’s body and mind. One’s return to the early days of the totally creative experience. Although the belief system will still exist, the battle to break down the belief barrier comes to an end. Awareness and awakeness have returned to their rolls of directing the sensory system as well as the now restructured belief system.
Being Here Now. The Trance Ant stage is over. You now will become Trance-End-Ants!
Still Ants! But now free to do what you want with the rest of your earthly existence!
Walton: Hooray! We made it. Good job. Thanks for the Assistance with this final task.
David: Whew. And now what?
Walton: Hasta mañana, muchacho!
David: Hasta Pasta, viejo loco!
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