Grounding

We’re all projectionists … even though we don’t work in a theatre necessarily.  The Ramtha material explains how we do this with the brain and how the brain gets uploaded with imagery stored in neural networks that become our language for life.  Our visual art and media are all about projecting real and imagined events.

Buddhist practices are very much focused on perceiving the original form of every moment … i.e. the moment without all of the overlays of projections.  Buddhist literature speaks of the five skandhas … five overlay’s that we do without thinking when we “perceive” what we think of as a moment.  Grounding and consciously placing the attention in the raw awareness of the moment is key to disengaging from the ego-based “monkey chatter” and blinding projections of our mundane world.

If we think of these skandhas as layers then from inner to outer they can be briefly described as follows:

• Layer 1:  raw sensory data of the physical formations in the arising moment … an experience of undifferentiated oneness (no self and “not-self”, this could be called “oceanic consciousness” – like that of a fetus in the womb)
• Layer 2:  primordial feelings arising in the moment …. e.g. pain, pleasure, etc.
• Layer 3:  ego-based differentiation of subject and object (i.e. perception of ”me” and “not me”)
• Layer 4:  thoughts arising in the moment (mental formations)
• Layer 5:  ego-based, dualistic, mundane consciousness that we all know

See for example http://www.mangalashribhuti.org/sites/default/files/PDFs/5skandhas.pdf

“As creatures dwelling in time and space, your senses provide you with highly specific data, and with a cohesive-enough physical reality.  Each person may react to the seasons in a very personalized manner, and yet you all share those natural events.  They provide a framework for experience.  It is up to the conscious mind to interpret sense events as clearly and concisely as possible.  This allows for the necessary freedom of action for psychological and physical mobility.  You are an imaginative species, and so the physical world is colored, charged, by your own imaginative projections, and powered by the great sweep of the emotions.  But when you are confused or upset, it is an excellent idea to return your attention to the natural world as it appears at any given moment – to sense its effects upon you as separate from your own projections.”

(The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Session 812)