Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 4:16 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 6:13 AM

Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I have just discovered that there’s a name to the image that I have been seeing in a number of different versions during meditation: the flower of life. Should I do something about this? Or should I just enjoy the esthetics of it and remember that it’s impermanent and not me? I have a feeling that it is related to the sudden need of constructing multidimensional models that I have had lately, as described in my practice log. Apparently, the flower of life symbolizes the connectivity pf everything, which is exactly what I have experienced.

Any recommendations for practice or resources to learn more about this would be most appreciated. Or warnings, for that matter, if that is needed. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 8:41 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 8:41 PM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I guess it’s not so strange that the same images pop up in different ”individual” minds, since they are visualizations of mathematical functions that show up basically everywhere. Still, I thought it was pretty cool to suddenly find all these images.
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Noah D, modified 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 9:29 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/14/19 9:26 PM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 1211 Join Date: 9/1/16 Recent Posts
first thing would be basic mental health self care - https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/wiki/health-and-balance

then i would say reread samatha /vipassana jhana sections of MCTB to take it as object. you can also understand this in the context of the powers.  but if you want awakening, best to not get to enthused over it.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 5:16 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 5:06 AM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

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I'm also in the "don't get too enthused" camp.

My brain has always been really good at creating multidimensional models and they help me understand the world. A lot of my own private nonverbal conceptual language is in that symbolic form. There was a period of practice many years ago where a variety of powerful visions were coming up very frequently--annoyingly frequently, and sometimes with the powers showing up as well--and my skill at creating those models increased a lot. It happened to be during a particularly intense period of my professional training, which may have been a blessing because I just didn't have time to get engrossed in them and more or less just noted them away and moved on as quickly as possible. That sort of thing can be a real distraction from awakening and some people get sucked down the rabbit hole never to make it out. But it's just sensory experience--particularly bright, shiny, fascinating sensory experience--and nothing to get excited about. 

We have to learn to be moved by neither heaven nor hell.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 7:59 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 7:58 AM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Thanks to both of you! Yeah, I was just going in that direction myself, but it’s good to have it confirmed in case I get overly enthusiastic again. Andromeda, I relate very much to what you said. That’s basically how I make sense of the world to. And I don’t think that’s problematic per se. There are other dimensions to it, though, that I should be cautious with: mind spinning, distractions and powers. I’m not heading for the rabbit hole.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 8:57 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 8:57 AM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 393 Join Date: 1/15/18 Recent Posts
I agree, totally not problematic at all per se (and actually quite helpful for the most part). It's how we relate to it that can potentially be problematic. But the novelty eventually wears off and it's just not a big deal, at least for me that's how it went down. I sometimes forget most people don't experience the world that way.
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 10:26 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 10:26 AM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Yup. I think this way of experiencing the world actually overlaps with what Shinzen Young refers to as wisdom function. It is probably called something else in other traditions. It is important, though, to distinguish between these intuitive expressions of insight and what the mind makes of them, because they can very easily be distorted. And for those whose wiring doesn’t work like this, all of it can look like mind spinning and even tempting infuences from other realms if one believes in that sort of thing. The core of it isn’t, though. It’s just another way of conceptualizing insights at a high abstraction level. Apparently others have conceptualized it in a smilar way. Maybe they were also neurodivergent. Making it into a religion of its own and attaching all sorts of dogmatic ideas to it is not something that I believe is helpful, though, and we seem to agree on that. Conflating it with magic thinking could be dangerous, whether one believes that there are alternate planes of existence or not. If there are, it’s a bad idea to sign up for something the implication of which one doesn’t grasp. If there are no such things, the power of suggestion can still be very unhealthy if used in a way that isn’t skillful. So I’ll be careful to avoid stepping into that rabbit hole.
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Andromeda, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 10:47 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 10:47 AM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 393 Join Date: 1/15/18 Recent Posts
That sounds about right. I actually used to think of it as being a type of scientific thinking when growing up because I was mostly using it to understand things in the natural world. My hypothesis is that because I tend to take in such a huge amount of sensory data, it tends to collapse into what are basically just concepts in the form of multidimensional symbols which are far more information-dense and manipulatable than words. Useful and often with good predictive value, but still just as fallible and variable-dependent as any other form of modeling and not to be taken as Absolutely True and Certain like a mandate from God. 

And until science can provide us with some kind of Vulcan mind-meld technology, it's still a private language and so we'll have to just keep flapping our lips and banging on keyboards...
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 1:35 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/15/19 1:35 PM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Exactly. The models are constructions just like language is. They are just less linear.

Oh, how I have wished for that kind of technology sometimes!
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Cameron, modified 4 Years ago at 4/16/19 11:30 AM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/16/19 11:30 AM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 13 Join Date: 1/2/19 Recent Posts
Are you saying that you didn't know what the flower of life was before you saw it in your meditation?? Is there any chance that you saw it earlier in your life?
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 4 Years ago at 4/16/19 1:09 PM
Created 4 Years ago at 4/16/19 1:09 PM

RE: Sacred geometry - how can I work with these images?

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
I didn’t know what it was, but I’m sure that I had seen at least one of the versions as illustrations to things like youtube videos of binaural beats, so it’s not like it was completely new. I think what was most surprising for me was being able to see anything at all. It replaced the murk, and that was new to me (except for in dreams and dreamlike visions). Only a few months ago I could barely recollect a visual memory of a loved one’s face. I had to imagine the touch and smell of the person in order to then zoom out and ”see” the face, and even then it was more like one small detail at a time and definitely not as clearly as replacing the murk.

I was also a bit surprised that all of these images had the same name.

I guess it’s possible that I had seen them all although I didn’t remember it. That would be something of a miracle, too, because my visual memory (the active part of it, not the recognizing part) is so poor that I very often have no idea what the building or entrance looks like for places I go to regularly. People usually have a hard time believing me about this until they see it for themselves.

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