I know of the chinese system in a very rudementary way and while I have a great interest in it, would not risk advising people in it as it is not sufficient to do so. My recommendation is to get a expert on this field in specific.
I see the harvest as the point where your shadow self and higher self and you meet and have a discussion on the nature of "the all that is" in a way that you can not deny signifies your spiritual/divine source and nature. The actual details of that are left to the personas in question to figure out. The reason I prefer the ME3 ending at this time is that it due to its digital game like nature, the "starchild" / "catalyst" persona can be super close to the watcher. Its not that the ending in ME3 is actually "the harvest" but rather, that the game ME3 conveys our meme of the harvest in a digital format quite excellently. With all the potential intellectual and spiritual debates about the nature of the cycle itself and how the cycle itself perfects the method of integrating the crucible (which looks like a giant spermata) with the citadel (which looks like a giant egg/etc) and how that struggle in itself is what will triumph over "death" and how that struggle (Evolution through choice throughout generations) will eventually, even if not in our time, lead to a synthesis of all life in a framework of equal basis (larger life).
Combined with the rumors swirling about that the ME3 ending is actually a "indoctrinated" bad ending because of several of the logical faults of the catalyst conversation.
The reality regarding ME3 is that the writers and the fans are equally as confused as to what is actually going on in the ME3 world, and within that confusion they manage to paint a remarkably clear picture of the archtypes and their colorations and interactions with one another, even if the harvest itself is always subjective.
For me the dialogue with the starchild/catalyst/crucible was one of the most interesting experiences of my life and consider it to be on par, in terms of how "open" the interaction is spiritually, to the Adam Channelings in how clearly the "opinion" of the "loyal opposition" and why they do what they do is clarified. The whole game itself paints a very very interesting picture of why the opposite side does what it does, and how we are, in essence, the opposite side (ringing in ears, headaches, compulsions, you know all that stuff that people talk about.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGVJoQmmUA More explanation on reapers. (STS highly organized machine people)
Difficult to say how much truth there really is in any of these, but the LOO material when i read it, the related spiritual memes and thoughts and such do appear to other people as well (game programmers) and they interpret the same questions but in different forms. So, all we can do is discern what is the reality of the sitaution and go from there.
Hope that clarifies the Mass Effect facination.
I wrote a short book about the nature of the Kabbalah about a year back. While it is a "short" book it is still a sizable chunk of text. I'll post it here and see how it goes.
This was semi-channeled but felt to be in a pure state when doing so so should, in general, be pure, but may not be entirely helpful nor entirely short, but it is a explanation of the inner steps of the tree of life, as I see/saw them at that time. There are probably repeating words and other inconsistencies consistent with me not reading through everything super carefully, so take it with a grain of salt:
In this book I will take you through a journey to your mind, and your heart.
The book consists of 11 chapters, the chapters can be broken into 3 groups, those that deal with the emotions, 2:6:8 and those that deal with understanding or knowledge, 3:5:9 and those chapters that integrate the two into a complete picture 1:4:7:10:11.
The chapters themselves are broken into further 3 groups, the first chapters deal with the primary illusions, the second chapters with the secondary illusions, and the third chapter with the tertiary illusions. The integrating chapters start and end with the same thought, that of neutrality and balance, the parts in middle, 4:7:10 deal with what happens if you integrate into a false set of beliefs and the imbalance in your being that such a false belief will slowly manifest through your life.
The idea, in short, is to show you not in a strictly intellectual analytical way, what the different illusions are. So, bear in mind that while I might propose specific positions, I might not support them. To truly show the illusions and not just describe, I have to write from a position of illusion or the message will not get across, or will get misinterpreted.
There is an old Buddhist saying, a finger points at the moon but is not the moon.
In this age, with airplanes and jetpacks, imagine me floating in front of the moon with a megaphone and screaming “the moon is behind me” and when people look, I step out of the way to reveal the moon.
To that end, this book is only beneficial when it focuses your mind and heart to something that you have not seen or thought of or felt before. When this book becomes a burden for you, and instead of showing the moon, it becomes an object of burden and only serves to cloud the moon, throw it away, or better yet, give it to someone who you believe might benefit from it. There is nothing worse, and more human, than a vision meant to show something becoming the cloud that inhibits that something from being seen.
God knows how many messages of love humanity’s heard; only have it transmuted to a message of blood.
So, in short, this book is meant to be a glimpse of a short journey, from the point of view of what happens at any one point, not when you look back on the journey.
This book is a journey, not a destination, enjoy the journey.
This is the first chapter, the first point of view of balance.
As there is nothing leading to this state, there will be no motivation to exit from this state. Or to put this in another perspective, as this state is all that we’ve ever known and remember, there is nothing to compare it to, and therefore, no motivation to move anywhere other than by random chance.
The first state of balance is the state of inaction, where no action is taken as there is no momentum left. This is also the point of both enlightenment and awareness. This is a point where all is known and understood but no motivation is to be had.
This is a point where all motion stops yet all positions are known. As opposed to the opposite end of the loop where no position is known but all motion occurs.
From a quantum physics point of view, we are now at a point where we know the position of every particle in existence, but no particle has any motion.
To get from this to the 11th chapter, we need to embrace one of those entirely random impulses and see where it leads us, yet all the while being blind to it.
We need to reach out with our curiosity and grab a hold of one of these strands of fate that when you pull on, will unravel the tapestry of your usual calm understood and balanced world.
Therefore the journey from the first balance to the first imbalance is easy, take the first step.
How you choose to take that step will determine the rest of your journey. Do you hesitate, then your journey will be one of hesitation, do you embrace it, then your journey will be one of embracing it.
What you felt when you read the words, take the first step, is what you will feel and explore throughout the journey. The time of choosing is now behind you, and the next step, is the first plunge from the perfectly balanced sphere to the gaping maw of the imbalance of thought, like the rollercoaster at its peak, you are about to plunge into the world of emotions, the world that explores you, just as you explore it.
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Any change from a state of balance and stability must then come from the emotions, not the mind or the logic.
Therefore, the first step from our journey is to explore the first emotion you had when I sad you should follow a random emotion.
Firstly, it doesn’t have to many any sense, it is absolutely irrelevant if it makes any sense to you or anyone, but it is an emotion that you should follow. By follow I mean to let the emotion flow freely, without restraint, though action if necessary but it is also possible to simply sit and let the emotion come forth.
The mind, the ego, is the organ that seeks to balance you in any situation. It is the situational awareness of your surroundings and the desire to find a balance in said surroundings. Your biological mind is the result of billions of years of evolution and physics. It is tuned to automatically seek the best balance in the situation.
Therefore your mind will always and forever be hesitant or resisting of change, unless said change in itself has been proven in the terms of the mind to be of good outcome to the mind. It means that if the information that the mind has points to a particular change being unhealthy, then such a change will be resisted as it is seen as a hostile force to be pushed as far away as possible.
So then, as long as you know the desire with which you set out on your present path, the mind will retain its balance, but if you lose sight of the original desire you will find yourself very quickly back in square one.
The first step, and the 2nd chapter, is the act of picking a random thought in all the ones that you have and following it, logics or its conclusion will only enter into the picture afterwards.
To get to the goal, which is a new set of wider and deeper balance and understanding of the universe, we must begin by picking something that is entirely random, that is to say, entirely unknown. Follow said impulse through the rabbit hole to the other side, to the realm of the mind where you admit that what you see before, what you feel inside you, you do not understand. That is the first step.
It is not necessary to yet understand what you see or what you feel, only that you admit that you do not understand what you see or you feel.
Are you there yet? Can you admit to yourself that you do not know what you feel, and you do not understand what you see?
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The 2nd step, and the third chapter, is in what happens after you understand that you don’t understand. Want is what is now established, that you want to understand that emotion, that thought.
So, the first true step in the path of discovery has now been made, you have both taken the step into the unknown with one foot, and when you understand that you also want to understand that unknown, your other foot lifts off the ground.
You are now solidly on the journey of self discovery that ends with a new, wider and deeper understanding of the universe.
Now, you understand that you don’t understand, and you also feel that you wish to understand.
You have found something that both intrigues you and motivates you.
Now, take a step back from the book and breathe in. Stop reading for a moment, breathe and focus on yourself.
Done, I hope. Now the next stage is much easier to understand when you stop focusing on what I am saying, and start focusing on strictly what you are feeling. Remember what I said in the beginning, chapters 2-6-8 are emotions and chapters 3-5-9 are awareness.
So, imagine it like this, then, if you know the position, direction and strength of all emotions and thoughts you have, then you can truly be known by simply observing, which means then, that someone else simply observing you would also be able to determine who you are, by simply observing you intently enough. If that were the case then the moment you are truly understood your destiny is entirely predetermined, unless, by knowing that destiny you can change that destiny.
If I know with absolute certainty that I will die tomorrow, there is one way to avoid it, by dying today.
Therefore then, you can see why the element of randomness is your best protection against the tyranny of others. You always retain the right to choose to be something different, the emotion you felt that random spike in your mind, that most people would suppress, that is your individuality, your very essence crying out. Saying, “Notice me.” to your mind that is asleep in a sea of known variables and predictable patterns, it yearns to awake.
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3rd step, and the fourth chapter.
With now knowing both the random desire, and understanding why that random desire is the most valuable part of yourself, you are able to integrate yourself into a new paradigm. THE paradigm.
The paradigm where you understand, why you exist. You exist, on the simplest most fundamental level, because you are unpredictable.
The concept of you, the entity that is able to make seemingly random choices is, at its core, what makes you an individual and not just what inhabits in your shoes and picks up the kids. The ability to be random is the ability to be alive.
So then, you integrate that to your being, and you are left with a simple answer.
If when I am predictable I am not alive, then if I am completely random I am alive.
Without opening that thought up more than that, it is easy to declare it false. Simply by saying that any pattern that repeats itself over and over again exactly as it was is a false belief, as it is predictable and as we live in an endlessly expanding and repeating universe, if the answer was strictly predictable one way or another a previous incarnation of life would have figured it out already and the universe never repeats the same question twice. In a billion years, there would never be the same you, with the same questions as you have, you are, in that, unique, and thus, unpredictable no matter how you work.
But then, always doing something in a given pattern is predictable, just as never doing anything in the same pattern is predictable. Both can be used and abused by both you and those around you. So simply you + randomness is still not a sufficient basis, then there remains only two possible choices, trying to integrate these 4 chapters into a single whole, and failing, as it would be predictable.
So, to be random is the start then, but it is not the end of the journey.
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4th step and the 5th chapter.
It is then logical to once again return to the home of the mind and re-observe what we have learned.
Let us then recap.
1st, that all life strives for absolute balance and harmony.
2nd, such a balance is only possible when consciousness ceases to exist, as it carries with it inherently the possibility of shaking that balance by randomly feeling the need or the desire to understand a new thing. And as all creatures that are both conscious and alive are less than everything in existence, so it is impossible for any single creature to entirely understand everything. So, you have an infinite amount of creatures in an infinite universe trying to understand itself, you have a process that is at its core at an eternal imbalance.
3rd, the imbalance itself is what you should embrace, as that imbalance is what keeps your existence possible. As soon as that imbalance ends, your existence ends. Therefore, random actions to shake that balance up for no reason other than to shake it up are necessary to promote evolution, and through that, survival of the whole.
4th, integrating those ideas into a whole with no greater understanding will result in a being who’s only motivation is to act in a fashion where no discernible motivation is apparent. And since there is an apparent motivation, to be without an apparent motivation, such a creature can be predicted, contained and through that, understood and returned to the first stage through misguidance.
So we are here then, at the 5th part of the road to self discovery, where I show you that any distinct pattern of action will always be counter to creation, no matter how said pattern is formed. Even embracing randomness itself is no answer, as to become randomness itself is to become something that is always unpredictable, and the attribute of you being always something is the same as the first attribute, which is to be always at balance.
So, the mind then wonders, what is the answer? If there is no individuality in balance, nor individuality in randomness, what is the answer?
The smart get it at this point. The answer is neither to be random, nor not to be random, the answer is to do.
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The sixth step is, from a state of totally random to a state of what might be paradoxically called, controlled uncontrolled random.
It is a state where you seek to break all loops, all predictable patterns and all seen and unseen illusions. Where your only desire is to break everything you see or perceive, as all patterns are prisons.
It is an understandable situation, but it is one which, once again, leads to nowhere. Since then the only desire you have is to have no desire. That too, is a desire, and it can be predicted.
The novice at this stage cries bloody murder, how can there be an answer if you cannot go forward, nor backwards, if you cannot go left nor right, nor forward nor backwards.
The novice is a curious creature indeed, the one who recognizes his own status as a student and not as someone who is dead, dead is to say predictable for you could be either and still be the same.
The novice mind is still grasping for answers out there, as the quest began out there, by grasping something from out there so it could be brought in here. The quest began as a desire to understand something that is not yet understood, to connect with something that is disconnected.
So, when the mind of the novice is told that there are no answers that exist out there, the novice easily falls and returns to the first step, the step where the novice says to itself, “If there is no answer out there, then I should never try to reach anything out there.”
That is entirely incorrect. As the novice does not yet observe himself observing himself.
He only observes that there is this place called in here, where he feels powerless, and this place out there, where he sees the source of that power. When he is told that it is possible to feel the power within by taking the power outside and forcing it within. Such a process is impossible, but the act of trying is not.
So, the novice then slumps his shoulders and says, “Then I shall not try.” But try you should. For while you cannot run yet, pulling yourself up is the first step. You watch others run and then in your mind you think, what if I steal their feet, will I then too run. But it is not you who is running, if you steal their feet.
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Once again we come to the point where both the emotion, and the knowledge, has to be combined into one whole.
The previous merging was from the desire to be truly free, and to truly understand.
Such a merging is impossible, as such a merging would produce a God self capable of controlling everything in the universe instantly. Such a creature would revert to the first step again, and in an effort to improve, it would create a self which it does not understand, and then begin the cycle again.
So, the merging of the desire to be truly free, and to truly understand, is something that no creature can maintain. It is a state to pass through, but never to stay in. That is, until you are ready to accept your own death. Then the whole game changes entirely.
To be dead, is to be the epitome of predictable, to be without motion or desire, understanding or knowledge, you will cease to be entirely. Then, it is truly possible to understand, as you are outside that which you seek to understand.
It can be said then, that the next stage for the novice to integrate the whole, is to die.
For in his death, he will see all that there is, was, or ever will be, for he himself as he is now, will never influence the world that he sees. For him, it has become predictable. If he now gathers all knowledge there is, it will once again be just a predictable model, all of creation becomes for him, predictable game with nothing new, ever.
The new that must then be integrated is this, you must die.
To accept that inevitability is the next step in the novice’s journey. To go beyond what freedom and power that can be attained from this confined loop, you must seek to escape from it. And the only true method of escape is through the act of dying.
By dying, I mean to become completely still, to become completely detached, to float to the surface of this sea of collective illusions we call the existence.
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To be completely still is to feel everything, yet to be attached to nothing.
To be still is not to feel nothing, that is the first stage not the 8th state. The 8th state is to embrace all that there is, was, or ever will be with absolutely equal love. Through that you can become detached from all that there is, as the chattering mind is no longer making any value adjustments, for there is no value to adjust to.
If you seek and desire a balance in a state in which you understand everything, yet grasp for nothing, you will reach a balance of unity with the universe. But this unity is only for the soul, the mind relaxes it is true. The mind no longer has to reach for the stars and defend you from all that there is, for you fear nothing, you feel only love. You are detached since there is nothing that can be done to you that you do not already accept as inevitable consequences of existence.
When you simply lay back and accept that all that is, is just the way it is and you love all of it equally, from the best to the worst, from the most heinous to the most chivalrous. None of it has any value to you other than being loves absolutely equally.
It is then easy, at this stage, to differentiate between the master and the novice, the novice is one who progresses through the path, and knows forever that he never knows anything with certainty. The master is a creature that knows everything with certainty, but progresses in no way at all.
So, the master is one who has come to a standstill, and is waiting to emerge again, and the novice is one who moves now and will come to a standstill later.
Through that, all experiences, emotions and realizations are shared equally between all entities. As one entity teaches, another invariably learns, and there is a balance in all things, equally, always.
For every mover, there is always, by the definition of that word, something that is moved. If you move yourself through the path that you choose, you are both your own novice, and your own master.
It is there, and in this realization of karmic balance that again, most people fall. It is easy to assume that if all is forever in balance, it is alright and approved for me to go on a rampage of destruction.
Because it is.
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The invariable understanding that comes with spiritual progress. The understanding that you will eventually die, that all you could ever do is always in balance, as there is no other way for it to be. That no matter what happens in heaven or in hell, on this world or on another, there is never any state that is outside of balance. Such an understanding for many, leads to a life of delinquent violence against others. The unraveling of their societal masks reveals the beast within, when given the choice of being anything, or doing anything in existence, they default to violence, to death, to images of fights, wars of heroic battles against oppressive forces.
When all they have ever done, is return to the first. In their inability to understand that they themselves create the violence, the system and the oppression they so heroically fight against, they fail to understand that what they do, is purely, and solely for their own amusement, and nothing more.
As long as they hold onto an illusion, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant, of there being A plan behind all this, a plan where with a specific outcome that you can fail, then there will always and forever be, in their mind, a state of internal struggle. It is a sad state of affairs indeed, when given everything one could ever desire, that someone would be so afraid of it, so terrified of unbridled love, so as to create a world filled with such hardships and such suffering, when none of it is ever required or expected of you.
This is the last stage of the defensive self. When the ego grows too powerful, and starts to envelope the personality itself, the person forgets one thing, the ego is useful, as long as we all live in a world of limited resources.
When in a world of limited resources you compete with other creatures of limited resources, the way you can most efficiently guarantee your outcome over their outcome is to be better at struggling for it than they are.
The longest necked giraffe gets the most food.
But that all falls apart when you realize you are slowly entering the world of unlimited resources. Where your only true barrier is your own mind, and as your mind is infinite, your existence is infinite.
That, to the ego, is the most terrifying thing of all, to know that spiritually, physically, or emotionally, its existence is only a hindrance to the evolution ahead. To spend time thinking of threats is beyond the present moment, it was what carried us, as creatures, here from the 3.5 or so billion years of limited resources, for the world ahead, the ego, the predictable self, is of no use, and only a burden.
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Then we come to the second to last point of unification, of merging both the mind with its understandings, fears and knowledge, limited scope and limited abilities. With the infinite love and infinite scope of the heart.
We are, creating a singular entity with both the will of an animal, seeking to expand, to understand. And the soul of a God, such a mind takes 3.7 billion years of evolution on this world. The soul to match such a mind must be at least as old.
So a thousand lifetimes? Hardly, starting from the first bacteria that you were, that your biological mind was. You’ve lived a trillion times a trillion lives to come to this point. First by one splitting into two, then two merging into one, all life is connected, and all our ancestors are shared, except for the very recent past, on the evolutionary scale.
We have 3.7 billion years of similarity, and only at most a million years of difference, likely only a few hundred thousand years.
When you look at the night sky, many of the stars that you will see are young stars, at the early parts of their cycle. When your ancestors crawled out of the primordial ooze and for the first time were startled, and then hunted by others, where failure leads to death. Many of the stars themselves weren’t even born.
Such is the burden you carry in your mind. Trillions of generations of your ancestors, of billions of years of pain, suffering and death screaming at you, never let go, never surrender; never go quietly to the slumber.
That is where the force of the ego, the protector, the automatic guidance kicks in. It sees true liberation, a world without limits, a world without boundaries, without death or birth, without endings or beginnings as something that is inherently dangerous, to the ego, it is.
For the Ego, the final step in releasing from the cycle, is to accept death, but for the human who that ego belongs to, it is the first step, and the last step, on your eventual liberation.
It is a hard step to take that last step, to simply lay down and die.
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If you followed me thus far, you will see a simple truth emerge.
The end is as the beginning was, but from a different angle.
Nothing has changed around you, or within you. You are now just as you were before, but still, all feels different, all seems different. As you have now become aware of where you were before. You were alive, but now, you are dead.
In the world of the dead you may transition from one possibility to another, from all that you observe and love, yet commit to nothing. Until something that sends sparks flying in your soul comes along, and you take that plunge into the deep, where you forget that you are always dead, and only imagine living for that imagine of living to be mesmerizing, you must forget that its, in the end, just an image.
You may sit still, in that moment of death for as long as you wish, you may live, work, eat and mate from day to day, and still remain entirely detached from all that is, since it is all, after all, an illusion.
But then that one moment will come along, when something strong enough, and vivid enough, sparks your interest, and for a moment you forget that you are always dead, and for that moment, you feel you are alive, and then you find yourself back in the first chapter.
And the cycle begins again.
And like all good cycles, this book repeats forever.
If you wish for more info on religions and spirituality and such, i recommend this series of games on the easiest for a quick and easy dialogue showing of the heros journey and why religion is, essentially, a neccesary step to all life, or at least, almost all life. I think it is possible to go without that step but difficult.