H
ow would you describe something that is instinctual? For example, how would you describe the taste of sweet? This is the task that I have been faced with in describing the Innate Guide using the Seven Simple Steps . That is why I created an image to help me explain those natural concepts. I discovered that with the help of this image, everything gets clearer for people. I call this image, The Maya Matrix. You may consider it a simple theory to the foundational questions I wrote about in the previous chapter: “What is reality?” and “Who am I?” After introducing the Maya Matrix image, you can choose to reconfigure your core beliefs in a way that empowers you and makes the manifestations of your intentions, a choice rather than a fantasy. You can now reawaken your dreams, but this time believe in them, follow your passion and trust life, as if life and you are one and the same.
After I explain The Maya Matrix Image in this chapter, I will reference it throughout the book. I will also reference it while explaining different terminologies. Remember, you don’t have to believe in the Maya Matrix to make the Seven Simple Steps work for you. The Seven Simple Steps do not require anything from anyone, because they are innate . As the Zen proverb says, “the finger that points to the moon is not the moon.” The Maya Matrix image is like your finger. Once you touch what is real, you don’t need the image anymore. However, you may find that you want to modify the image to fit your already-established beliefs.
Let’s begin…
Somewhere in time, before time and space existed, there was an event that took place … an intention to experience … an initiation of life … a life to be experienced individually, where each being is unique and is meant to go through unique circumstances and experiences. Just like the sun sends infinite rays around itself, the source of life has sent many rays of light from itself. Each ray is different than all the other rays because each ray carries with it a set of intentions that makes it unique. Since there is no separation between the one source of life and the rays that have been created from itself, this intention of life was agreed upon unanimously. Each ray honored its mission and its unique intentions. This one of a kind event has been described in many sacred writings differently, but the essence has always been the same. You, as a part of Source, will undergo a seemingly separate experience, but will not really be, and never will be, separate. A manifestation of dual consciousness, one part of your consciousness will remain with the One Source focused upwards towards it, just like the sunflower looks at the sun without blinking. The other part would plant a seed for an individual and a physical life experience.
Each ray is creative, limitless, deathless and infinitely connected to its source. We will call this ray: The Soul. That is your Soul and your true essence that carries your life purpose with it. The Soul lives in absolute oneness with everything. It has access to all knowledge and it sees the broader picture of all life. It also has access to the manifesting power of the One Source of all life.
Since the Soul intends to initiate experience and experience can only happen in duality, the Soul had to make itself believe in duality. To accomplish this ruse, a disconnection from the Soul’s realm of oneness is required. The Soul’s consciousness creatively put together ways to manifest its mission and purpose. So it created layers that filter the Soul’s Light from reality, as we know it. These layers prevent us from remembering the answers to those two foundational questions, “Who am I?” and “What is reality?” Not knowing the answers to these core questions is the basis of the illusion of reality called “The Maya Matrix.”
Imagine you are wearing a pair of sunglasses that change the colors of everything you see. The sunglasses here are those layers and your eyes are your Soul’s awareness. Now imagine you are wearing those glasses on all of your senses.
Transcending those layers, the veil of unknowingness, is the purpose of life. Our purpose is simply to co-create our higher intentions and to realize our true identity. Understanding the layers of unknowingness helps us understand how to transcend them. You can imagine those layers like computer programs: the operating system and the software.
The first layer of your computer is the operating system (e.g., Windows, Mac IOS, Linux). They help facilitate the interaction between you (the user) and the software. If you want to read a document on your computer, the operating system helps you see the words and gives you the ability to interact with them. It provides the environment in which all software live.
The second layer is the software. There is an endless amount of software. There are word processors for text editing, there are video and music players, internet browsers, calculators, etc. Each software is unique and has its purpose. They need the operating system’s environment to be able to function and fulfill their purposes. The Maya Matrix has two layers as well: the Environmental Layer, which I also call, the Platform , and the Mind Layer.
This layer is directly underneath the Soul … it is where the basis of reality, as we know it, lies. It is an incredible work of art that reflects the signature of life, laws of biology, physics, gravity, time, light, energy and so on. It also contains all basic instincts and survival mechanisms. This program makes us see ourselves as separate from other people. This layer is responsible for helping us see, feel, hear, touch and experience life as we know it. The desire to reproduce, the desire to survive, aging of the body, the cycle of birth and death and the entire code of existence, has been created in this layer.
The computer operating system helps us interact with it and interprets unseen signals from the air around itself and turns it into a video that you can watch and hear. Similarly, the Environmental Layer manipulates the unseen Soul’s awareness and creates this physical life as a platform for infinite possible experiences.
The Mind is like a software that lives underneath the Environmental Layer/Platform, similar to how the computer program MS Word lives within the Windows environment. It is responsible for storing every thought that has ever been thought and every experience that has ever been experienced. You can imagine it to be like a database program that has no power of its own. It has no purpose without thoughts (data) and thoughts have no existence without awareness. It is very important to distinguish between awareness and thoughts. Our mind cannot be a mind without awareness. A mind without awareness is like a software program inside a computer that is disconnected from the power source. Awareness is the only power source that grants the mind its functions.
The light of the Soul travels through, penetrating the dense clouds of the Maya Matrix. It shines through your awareness. You are this light. It is your consciousness; your awareness and it is your true identity. Your awareness carries with it the unlimited power and knowledge of the Soul. When you pay attention to anything, you bring it to form. When you withdraw your attention from anything, you take away its form. You cannot lose your awareness, but you can distract yourself from it with thoughts.
When you scatter your awareness into thoughts, you are actually investing your power into rejecting yourself. You disconnect from your conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is the ability to direct your awareness anywhere you choose. Some people call this ability to choose “free will.” If you direct your awareness toward illusions, you create illusions and when you direct your awareness toward awareness itself, you realize Truth, you awaken. You are now meeting the building blocks of “life” at its core.
“Not creating delusions is enlightenment.”
– Bodhidharma
Thoughts are the content of our minds. One basic manipulation of the Environmental Layer is to point our awareness outwards through our five senses. Thereby, our attention is primarily being directed outward. We internalize thoughts from our families, cultures, traditions and environment. These thoughts are like the whales in the ocean. Whales seek the surface of the ocean to fill their lungs with air, then they dive back for another cycle of life. Your thoughts also seek your awareness. Your awareness is their only source of existence. When you pay attention to the thought, it will have the power to live for another cycle and it manifests its qualities in your reality.
Imagine millions of thoughts looping and orbiting in our minds, creating a thick cloud that prevents the full light of our Soul from shining through. That is the basic purpose of the Maya Matrix, distracting us from being aware of ourselves. This is how the Matrix sustains itself. We can control thoughts or we can be controlled by thoughts. When we believe in and give power to thoughts, we become limited and our reality becomes limited.
Now that the Soul has created the two layers of the Maya Matrix to filter out its knowing of itself, it created the ego as a substitute sense of identity, living under the limitation of thought, in the Maya Matrix environment. The ego is like an avatar. It is a representative of the self, but it is not the self. Since the ego lives under the cloud-like layers of the Maya Matrix, it is unable to see the truth about itself. The ego cannot answer a simple question like “Who am I?” The phrase “I am” does not mean anything to the ego. The ego will ask “I am what?” The ego doesn’t have access to absolute knowledge, so it resorts to relative terms such as: I am a father, I am a child, I am fat, I am an accountant, I am a kind man, and so on. The ego only lives with thoughts and identifies itself as beliefs about itself.
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The Ego is a substitute sense of identity, created under the limitation of thought, in the Maya Matrix environment. |
This book is focused on transcending the Mind’s core programs about ourselves and about our reality. Theoretically speaking, there is nothing we cannot do when we learn how to transcend the Mind. If our awareness is the power source that fires up the mind’s core programs, then we have the power to make any changes we want. We can create new beliefs that make us succeed beyond our wildest imagination. We can attract love, abundance and the greatest qualities of life.
We can transcend the mind’s perceptions directly by making the mind change itself. Or we can transcend it by allowing the Soul’s light to flow into it, therefore making all desired changes. One method is on the mind level and the other is on the Soul level. In this book, we learn both methods of transcendence because both are essential.
On the other hand, it is harder to transcend the Environmental Layer because it is closer to the Soul. But we do have experiences of transcending this layer such as in meditation and dreams.
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Dreams: When we sleep, we withdraw our attention from the Mind and from our senses and we turn inwards. Turning inwards disconnects the Mind and the platform Programs. Dreams occur while the light of awareness is dim which allows a direct experience of the underlying activities of the mind. |