So for my first Blog article I decided to tie several of my interests together. For me, as a professional musician, it is important to integrate different knowledge bases and structures in order to create a more wholistic approach to making music, and even living. I've spent the last several decades attempting to do just that.  For  those of you who don't know me, my first teachers in music were students of Arnold Jacobs and/or his direct students. Unfortunately, as I was ready to study with him himself, he passed away. I am no stranger to the axioms he used.

Two of them have helped me through many playing issues. 1. Paralysis by analysis. And 2. The intelligence of a human being is conceived to deal with the phenomena of life outside the body. These are more paraphrases than direct quotes. They are actually saying the same thing different ways. Constant or too much self-observation throws sand in the gears prohibiting any forward movement to a goal. While no self-oberservation can also prevent recognition of some elements that we might want to improve, too many of us tend to go the other direction.

Inherent in our society is the constant comparison of ourselves with others or some distorted concept of perfection… our world is like a fun house with it's mirrors. This causes an enormous amount of stress. Our first stress reaction includes the fight, flight, or freeze reaction and disassociation.

Disassociation is a state in which we no longer view the world through our own eyes, but through some perspective outside of ourselves. It is useful when a real danger is at hand, or to gain perspective for short periods, but long term it creates a split between ourselves and how we are in the world. Some like to use the word Avatar. I prefer projection, as Avatar is first and foremost a religious term used in Hinduism, and then was adapted in the IT world. Dissociation can also occur when we feel as if some grand purpose or type of perfection exists for our life. "doing or being" some great thing can only be measured by looking outside of ourselves in terms defined outside of ourselves. Which in turn always creates a conflict. A conflict between what we or others think should be, and what actually is or is possible.

Our self-help industry is so optimization focused that it no longer is about connection with ourselves, but making ourselves into superhumans. The first and fundamental connection with ourselves or rather staying connected with ourselves is paramount to any real achievement. As it is the only way to be certain we are not fighting someone else's demons.

Kuji-in is based on the experience of the vajra state. I'm not going to go into all the philosophical and metaphysical aspects of Vajra, as it can be discussed at great length. It's fundamental idea is: our essence or soul is unnamed, undefined, unlimited, and without purpose in this life. To experience this is similar to self-integration. We do not need a name or a definition to live.. Names, definitions, etc enslave us to ideas, when they go beyond their usefulness. We use words, definition, etc as tools to communicate but a thing is best conceived when it is experienced. The best description is to experience the thing with our senses. Too often those words enslave us. Today we use words like left-wing, right-wing, boomer, millennial, and thousands of others to tie ourselves and others to some preconceived definition. To identify ourselves with those labels can add yet another chain of slavery. To ourselves' and to others' definitions. 

So back to Arnold Jacobs, his statement "the intelligence of a human being is designed to deal with the phenomena of life outside the body" is, in my opinion, incomplete. I would add, and smaller than oneself. While we can grasp things larger than ourselves, and understand that things larger than our comprehension exist, it is far better to use our cognitive functions to work on smaller things most, if not nearly all, of the time.

Our world (or at least the one in our minds) continues to hold up some narcissistic ideal version of ourselves, or others that simply does not and cannot exist. We identify ourselves with some sort of ideal or version or thing that is outside and in doing so, we create a projection of ourselves that quite simply is an attempt to shift responsibility and our very life force to something that is not alive, much like ancient cultures used an image or idol as a projection of their gods. Your true self is undefined, unnamed, without "purpose". An image, ideal, idol, or avatar simply creates a non-living projection of yourself. The ideals of our time use things like your ideal self, your optimized self, life hacks, etc in the same way the catholic church used things like indulgences, penance, saints etc to keep people enslaved to their power structure. The church had an innocence about it, as it used actual brute force to make people follow, today we use our ideals to enslave ourselves and turn ourselves into judge, jury, and executioner. 

So what can help this situation? A connection with oneself. The end of the disassociated state. To feel, to see, to taste, to smell, and hear the things in life. Refusal to apply more than necessary definitions, and then definitions themselves. To see the world through our own eyes, and stop the constant self-observation. It starts with remembering that state as a child where you no longer were watching yourself and found yourself(so many say lost yourself) in the thing you were doing. That place is where one is autonomous (or at least more autonomous).. in flow, and alive.