Joe Dispenza

[pink]

I recently took a subscription on Gaia and have been watching Joe Dispenza's videos and did his meditation a few times. I get where he is coming from and as the series moved on, I actually wondered if people got to the point he is referring to in his videos. It is very difficult to get there and the more you try, the harder it seems. I then decided to stop trying, and just listen to what he says and do nothing. Then the change in me started. My thoughts became different, my body became different, I just feel different all together. 

[stardustpilgrim]

May 8, 2021 1:15:58 GMT -5 pink said:

I recently took a subscription on Gaia and have been watching Joe Dispenza's videos and did his meditation a few times. I get where he is coming from and as the series moved on, I actually wondered if people got to the point he is referring to in his videos. It is very difficult to get there and the more you try, the harder it seems. I then decided to stop trying, and just listen to what he says and do nothing. Then the change in me started. My thoughts became different, my body became different, I just feel different all together. 

I would say you are experiencing a shift out of the conditioned self, the cultural self. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. It can be either refreshing or disorienting. It can be a dramatic change. And sometimes you will shift back to the ordinary self, a real drag. It can be coming down from the mountaintop, and coming back to live in the valley.

Welcome.

[pink]

I think so too. It is refreshing, but I feel it is also a dramatic change. I don't expect it to last and that I will go in and out my ordinary shift. I think that is normal. The change is most welcome. It just needs to grow within me.

[Reefs]

So I finally started reading Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and being a die-hard Abrahamster I have mixed feelings about this book. I'm still at the beginning of the book, so don't take what I am going to say here as gospel truth, because that may all be subject to change later, but to me the book comes across as a mere translation of Ask and It Is Given into scientific quantum speak. I am not saying this to diminish the value and insights or even approach of the book, but it makes me really appreciate Esther having found her own set of words to talk about these universal truths. On the one hand, Esther's vocabulary is rather vague and so Joe's vocabulary can add a lot of precision here and there. Which is sometimes needed. However, since it isn't Joe's vocabulary but the vocabulary of the scientific community (quantum physics and neuroscience mostly), there's a bit of baggage and staleness to it. Esther's vocabulary, on the other hand, being her own creation and actually very poetic in comparison to Joe's, does have a certain freshness and directness to it. Which I definitely prefer.

Another thing I realized after reading a bit in Joe's book is how different this 'new' approach to life actually is, compared to how 99.9% of the population is living their lives. Now, I say 'new', because it isn't actually something new, it is actually our natural approach to life when we are born, but it has been trained out of us in the process of socialization. Abe occasionally make this point that in order to thrive, we should go back to the visionary mode of living and just stay there, because then everything will take care of itself, including the action part of life. But it seems to be this is actually Joe's main point. So basically, what Joe is suggesting with his 'quantum life style' is what Abe call 'living the life of a visionary' as opposed to living the life of a (re)actionary, i.e. pleasing yourself by following your own vision and desires and attracting from a state of being of satisfaction instead of blindly reacting to whatever shows up in your experience and then attraction from that state of being of frustration where you have to make up with action what you've messed up with lack of focus or lack of vibrational awareness.

Another point both Joe and Abe are making is that they don't actually teach positive thinking the way people normally understand that term (aka happy-face-stickering). They both say that we attract from our state of being. And this state of being is much more than the thoughts or even the balance of thoughts we tend to think. There is not only an emotional but also physical (chemical) component to our state of being. And this physical (or visceral) component usually gets totally ignored by other teachers of deliberate creation. Let's take The Secret for example, which didn't even mention the inner guidance component.

So I think this visceral component is key in the deliberate creation game, similar to SR. A lot of people come here who have 'realized' that self is an illusion, but when they log off, they go back to acting from a perspective of self again, because their realization is lacking that visceral component, which means they don't really own it, and so they go back to what comes most natural, and that is in most cases the perspective of self, not Self. Similarly in the deliberate creation business. People do their affirming of envisioning and when they are done, they are the same person as before, same state of being -  which means same point of attraction, and that means same experiences.

I'll post a bit more about this visionary life style, because this is an absolutely fascinating approach to life actually has nothing to do with 'pie in the sky' or 'heads in the clouds' but 'letting go' and 'allowing' and 'flow' and even 'non-doing'... So while this deliberate creation stuff may mostly be tailored to a perspective from self, like so many other teachings, if actually applied and followed thru, all roads eventually lead to the perspective of Self.

[Reefs]

So I've finished the book and I have to say it is most excellent! Apart from UG or yoga material it's rare that someone talks about this stuff from a mostly biological perspective. Granted, he isn't really teaching anything new (I sorta skipped the mediation section at the end) but he does present it from a new (at least to me) perspective. While I couldn't find anything non-duality related in the book (he uses some non-dualese though, but it's clearly not non-duality), he's got a chapter in his book (chapter 5) called "Survival vs. Creation" which is very much related to what we call 'the SVP perspective' and he explains quite well how we get hooked and actually can get lost in that rather narrow perspective which can lead to existential suffering. So I'll quote a bit from that chapter here, because I think some here who still struggle with overthinking or a generally negative outlook on life and who are looking for a way out might find it useful. After all, knowing your enemy is half the battle, as they say.

[Reefs]

Living in Survival Mode - Becoming a “Somebody”

JD: Think of life in survival mode by picturing an animal, such as a deer contentedly grazing in the forest. Let’s assume that it is in homeostasis, in perfect balance. But if it perceives some danger in the outside world—say, a predator—its fight-or-flight nervous system gets turned on. To prepare the animal to deal with the emergency it has detected, the body is chemically altered—the sympathetic nervous system automatically activates the adrenal glands to mobilize enormous amounts of energy… When the threat is no longer present, the animal resumes grazing, its internal balance restored.

Unlike animals, we have the ability to turn on the fight-or-flight response by thought alone. And that thought doesn’t have to be about anything in our present circumstances. We can turn on that response in anticipation of some future event. Even more disadvantageous, we can produce the same stress response by revisiting an unhappy memory that is stitched in the fabric of our gray matter… To our detriment, we turn short-term stressful situations into long-term ones.

Animals don’t have the ability (or should I say disability) to turn on the stress response so frequently and so easily that they can’t turn it off. That deer, back to happily grazing, isn’t consumed with thoughts about what just happened a few minutes ago, let alone the time a coyote chased it two months ago. This kind of repetitive stress is harmful to us, because no organism was designed with a mechanism to deal with negative effects on the body when the stress response is turned on with great frequency and for long duration… When you think about it, the real difference between animals and ourselves is that although we both experience stress, humans reexperience and “pre-experience” traumatic situations.

From a psychological perspective, overproduction of stress hormones creates the human emotions of anger, fear, envy, and hatred; incites feelings of aggression, frustration, anxiety, and insecurity; and causes us to experience pain, suffering, sadness, hopelessness, and depression. Most people spend the majority of their time preoccupied with negative thoughts and feelings. Is it likely that most of the things that are happening in our present circumstances are negative? Obviously not. Negativity runs so high because we are either living in anticipation of stress or re-experiencing it through a memory, so most of our thoughts and feelings are driven by those strong hormones of stress and survival.

Living in survival is the reason why we humans are so dominated by the Big Three. The stress response and the hormones that it triggers force us to focus on (and obsess about) the body, the environment, and time. As a result, we begin to define our “self” within the confines of the physical realm; we become less spiritual, less conscious, less aware, and less mindful. We grow to be “materialists”—that is, habitually consumed by thoughts of things in the external environment. Our identity becomes wrapped up in our bodies. We are absorbed by the outer world because that is what those chemicals force us to pay attention to—things we own, people we know, places we have to go, problems we face, hairstyles we dislike, our body parts, our weight, our looks in comparison to others, how much time we have or don’t have … you get the picture. And we remember who we are based primarily on what we know and the things we do.

Joe Dispenza - Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One, Chapter 5

[inavalan]

Jul 7, 2021 8:45:40 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Living in Survival Mode - Becoming a “Somebody”

JD: Think of life in survival mode by picturing an animal, such as a deer contentedly grazing in the forest. Let’s assume that it is in homeostasis, in perfect balance. But if it perceives some danger in the outside world—say, a predator—its fight-or-flight nervous system gets turned on. To prepare the animal to deal with the emergency it has detected, the body is chemically altered—the sympathetic nervous system automatically activates the adrenal glands to mobilize enormous amounts of energy… When the threat is no longer present, the animal resumes grazing, its internal balance restored.

Unlike animals, we have the ability to turn on the fight-or-flight response by thought alone. And that thought doesn’t have to be about anything in our present circumstances. We can turn on that response in anticipation of some future event. Even more disadvantageous, we can produce the same stress response by revisiting an unhappy memory that is stitched in the fabric of our gray matter… To our detriment, we turn short-term stressful situations into long-term ones.

Animals don’t have the ability (or should I say disability) to turn on the stress response so frequently and so easily that they can’t turn it off. That deer, back to happily grazing, isn’t consumed with thoughts about what just happened a few minutes ago, let alone the time a coyote chased it two months ago. This kind of repetitive stress is harmful to us, because no organism was designed with a mechanism to deal with negative effects on the body when the stress response is turned on with great frequency and for long duration… When you think about it, the real difference between animals and ourselves is that although we both experience stress, humans reexperience and “pre-experience” traumatic situations.

From a psychological perspective, overproduction of stress hormones creates the human emotions of anger, fear, envy, and hatred; incites feelings of aggression, frustration, anxiety, and insecurity; and causes us to experience pain, suffering, sadness, hopelessness, and depression. Most people spend the majority of their time preoccupied with negative thoughts and feelings. Is it likely that most of the things that are happening in our present circumstances are negative? Obviously not. Negativity runs so high because we are either living in anticipation of stress or re-experiencing it through a memory, so most of our thoughts and feelings are driven by those strong hormones of stress and survival.

Living in survival is the reason why we humans are so dominated by the Big Three. The stress response and the hormones that it triggers force us to focus on (and obsess about) the body, the environment, and time. As a result, we begin to define our “self” within the confines of the physical realm; we become less spiritual, less conscious, less aware, and less mindful. We grow to be “materialists”—that is, habitually consumed by thoughts of things in the external environment. Our identity becomes wrapped up in our bodies. We are absorbed by the outer world because that is what those chemicals force us to pay attention to—things we own, people we know, places we have to go, problems we face, hairstyles we dislike, our body parts, our weight, our looks in comparison to others, how much time we have or don’t have … you get the picture. And we remember who we are based primarily on what we know and the things we do.

Joe Dispenza - Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One, Chapter 5

In my opinion, Joe puts the cart before the horse. It is like probing with an oscilloscope the signals in your tv, or computer, and concluding that those wave-forms are the source of what you watch on your screen. 

[Reefs]

Jul 7, 2021 13:56:29 GMT -5 inavalan said:

In my opinion, Joe puts the cart before the horse. It is like probing with an oscilloscope the signals in your tv, or computer, and concluding that those wave-forms are the source of what you watch on your screen. 

I don't see how this analogy applies here, especially in the context of the entire book, because when you actually read the book, you'll see that he really makes an effort to move beyond the Newtonian model of cause and effect or mind vs. matter thinking.

Anyway, the main point I took away from Joe's book is that the physical level is a factor in deliberate creation, which can work to your advantage as well as to your disadvantage. And not knowing about this is often the reason why people fail in deliberate creation, despite a clearly defined desire to change, despite a definite decision to make a change and despite the intention to do whatever it takes to achieve that change. So knowing about this additional factor and using that knowledge to our advantage can make it easier to achieve the permanent change we desire.

In a way, what he tries to teach is the mechanics of what is usually called 'miracles'. Because change doesn't have to be hard, or take a lot of effort or time. And - knowingly or unknowingly - that's where he enters LOA and yoga territory. You see, A-H, right from the beginning, called their teaching 'The Science of Deliberate Creation' and Yogananda was always talking about 'The Science of Kriya Yoga' and I always thought that was a bit pretentious. But after reading Joe's book, who mostly relies on the scientific models of Neuroscience and Quantum Physics, I finally see why that is and actually have to agree: deliberate creation, as well as yoga, is akin to a science because it does deliver predictable, reliable, repeatable and easily verifiable results if done correctly (some even say with mathematical precision). Also, in Yoga there's a lot of biology involved. And Joe's books are a great deal about biology, even though they hardly cover the bare minimum of what these yogis know about the mechanics of the human body and mind.

And this focus on biology is also interesting in the context of UG's model of enlightenment. UG talks about a calamity, a transmutation on the cellular level, which can be easily explained with the models both yoga and Joe are offering. Advaita obviously can't explain it or doesn't care. But really, if Self-realization doesn't affect one's being on the most fundamental level, the visceral or cellular level, then, unfortunately, it does remain a mind game. And a lot of deliberate creation that does start as a mind game often remains a mind game. But it doesn't have to be that way. And Joe shows us a new (or seemingly new) way. Yoga shows another way. A-H another still. And yet, they all are more or less teaching the same, just with a different emphasis and from a different perspective. Quite fascinating when suddenly start connecting the dots and see the similarities in all these seemingly unrelated teachings.

[inavalan]

Jul 8, 2021 8:21:33 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Jul 7, 2021 13:56:29 GMT -5 inavalan said:

In my opinion, Joe puts the cart before the horse. It is like probing with an oscilloscope the signals in your tv, or computer, and concluding that those wave-forms are the source of what you watch on your screen. 

I don't see how this analogy applies here, especially in the context of the entire book, because when you actually read the book, you'll see that he really makes an effort to move beyond the Newtonian model of cause and effect or mind vs. matter thinking.

Anyway, the main point I took away from Joe's book is that the physical level is a factor in deliberate creation, which can work to your advantage as well as to your disadvantage. And not knowing about this is often the reason why people fail in deliberate creation, despite a clearly defined desire to change, despite a definite decision to make a change and despite the intention to do whatever it takes to achieve that change. So knowing about this additional factor and using that knowledge to our advantage can make it easier to achieve the permanent change we desire.

In a way, what he tries to teach is the mechanics of what is usually called 'miracles'. Because change doesn't have to be hard, or take a lot of effort or time. And - knowingly or unknowingly - that's where he enters LOA and yoga territory. You see, A-H, right from the beginning, called their teaching 'The Science of Deliberate Creation' and Yogananda was always talking about 'The Science of Kriya Yoga' and I always thought that was a bit pretentious. But after reading Joe's book, who mostly relies on the scientific models of Neuroscience and Quantum Physics, I finally see why that is and actually have to agree: deliberate creation, as well as yoga, is akin to a science because it does deliver predictable, reliable, repeatable and easily verifiable results if done correctly (some even say with mathematical precision). Also, in Yoga there's a lot of biology involved. And Joe's books are a great deal about biology, even though they hardly cover the bare minimum of what these yogis know about the mechanics of the human body and mind.

And this focus on biology is also interesting in the context of UG's model of enlightenment. UG talks about a calamity, a transmutation on the cellular level, which can be easily explained with the models both yoga and Joe are offering. Advaita obviously can't explain it or doesn't care. But really, if Self-realization doesn't affect one's being on the most fundamental level, the visceral or cellular level, then, unfortunately, it does remain a mind game. And a lot of deliberate creation that does start as a mind game often remains a mind game. But it doesn't have to be that way. And Joe shows us a new (or seemingly new) way. Yoga shows another way. A-H another still. And yet, they all are more or less teaching the same, just with a different emphasis and from a different perspective. Quite fascinating when suddenly start connecting the dots and see the similarities in all these seemingly unrelated teachings.

Thank you for this detailed explanation.

[stardustpilgrim]

I'm 25 minutes into this, it's very good. Joe describes our life as operating 95% out of habits. So we have multiple feed-back loops where thinking perpetuates negative emotions which perpetuate thinking. The very definition of habit is unconscious processing, the 95%. Joe describes how we can stop the feedback loops.

[Reefs]

Living in Survival Mode - Living as a “Somebody”

JD: Most of us embrace the traditional notion of ourselves as a “somebody.” When we become this somebody, this materialistic physical self living in survival, we forget who we truly are. We become disconnected and feel separate from the universal field of intelligence. The more we live impacted by stress hormones, the more their chemical rush becomes our identity.

If we fancy ourselves solely physical beings, we limit ourselves to perceiving only with our physical senses. The more we use our senses to define our reality, the more we allow our senses to determine our reality.
We could say that the survival-oriented emotions (emotions are energy in motion) are lower-frequency or lower-energy emotions. They vibrate at a slower wavelength and therefore ground us into being physical. We become denser, heavier, and more corporeal, because that energy causes us to vibrate more slowly.

So it might make sense that if we inhibit our more primitive survival emotions and begin to break our addiction to them, our energy will be higher in frequency, and less likely to root us to the body. As our emotions become more elevated, we will naturally ascend to a higher level of consciousness, closer to Source … and feel more connected to universal intelligence.

Joe Dispenza - Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One, Chapter 5