We live in Prison — an Overview: Part 1

Acknowledge to Transcend — What is Freedom

It’s not so much about escaping or breaking out of prisons as it is about dissolving or transcending them and, say, starting a farm and growing food. Of course, this is only but one step towards transforming all the prisons and embodying freedom.

Levels of Prison- a Working List

This list includes Macro Prison Systems — Micro Prison Systems will be addressed in future stories (the ones connected to the “justice system”).

Perhaps the Founding Fathers of the USA — many of them Transcendentalists knew something about happiness and kept it to themselves, putting force in the prison of expectation through the pursuit. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” If in Buddhist thinking, since we are enlightened, we must therefore be intrinsically happy. A “pursuit of happiness” puts the emotional state on a finite plane of existence as pursuing things and experiences that will provide temporary happiness before we must hit the road again. Goals and even the expansive philosophy of the United States coupled with continuous wars are one legacy of pursuit.

Prisons (parameters or states):

01. Eons — geological time 02. Epochs to Ages — geological times 03. The Human Body (prison and/or transcendent vehicle) 04. Emotions 05. Thinking 06. Language and Ego 07. Sense of Self/Sense of Other 08. Ages of Time (humans) — Yugas (See 09.1.1–09.1.5 below)

09.1.1 Satya 09.1.2 Satya — Clan 09.1.3 Treta — Recovery phase 09.1.4 Treta/Dwapara — Matriarchal 09.1.5 Kali — Patriarchal 09.1.6.1 Patriarchal (P)— Kings/Lords 09.1.6.2 P-Kings, Royalty 09.1.6.3 P-Oligarchies 09.1.6.4 P-Dictatorships/Democracies 09.1.6.5 P-Democracies/Oligarchies 09.1.7.6 P-Oligarchies/Commerce/Capitalism

10.1 Death of the Body (Afterlife)… 10.2 Reincarnation

The above belongs to the twenty-one prisons that we already have or are currently residing. These nested prisons are part of the systemic reasoning behind why our justice system has created the kind of prisons in which we are most familiar.

When humans as spirits complete their systemic prison terms, freedom is the logical next step as they move on. This may include evolving to a higher level of consciousness and/or returning to Earth as Bodhisattvas.

Precepts of All Prisons (see list below, except 01 and 02)

Embedded Contexts are nested conditions set up through the time parameters of Eons, Epochs, Eras, civilizations, cultures, communities, families, and our physical bodies.

From Wikipedia: “Eons are divided into eras, which are in turn divided into periods, epochs and ages.”

Precepts or conditions (meant systemically) of imprisonment are based on a great many embedded, set precepts/conditions, including:

• contexts
• traditions
• assumptions — both conscious and unconscious
• habits
• beliefs

Beliefs

We often think of beliefs, such as the belief in God, representing conscious beliefs as the only form of belief. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines belief as: “a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing”.

We know that Christian and Jewish beliefs reside throughout history, as evidenced through Biblical references. Extrapolating beliefs to other cultural, social, and intergenerational systems that we may adhere to are centuries old.

There have been 24 mass extinction events on Earth, some of which occurred before humans may have appeared. It’s a logical presumption that mass extinction events are hardwired into our biology on a genetic, cultural, and religious basis. The so-called pinnacle of civilization — corrupted and wiped clean for a reset into a new age is an example of a feared hardwired belief of endings followed by new beginnings. It may be evident from time to time in our consciousness — especially now as we have entered a climate crisis that may be unstoppable.

The psychologist William James has a few quotes on actions and habits, here are two:

“The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substituting a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes.”

“Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.”

Actions, habits, traditions, and beliefs allow for massive movements for change to occurs within the mantle of civilization ranging from the conscious to the unconscious sleep of many of those in uprisings and revolutions. Huge changes backed by belief has momentum when a wild craze consumes individuals. Belief, whether actual, mixed truths and falsehoods. or false, has been a rallying cry for War, Cultural, Religious, and Political Revolutions.

Belief may also be hardwired into our perception of reality as we see, feel (through senses), smell, taste, touch, emote and cogitate.

Habits and Actions Without habits, our lives would be severely disabled within our complex culture and social milieu. When we learn something new without frames of reference, a guide, VR, or teacher introduces specific actions are shaped into complex sets of behaviors that become habits. Habits lodge in our bodies and are remembered just below consciousness ready for retrieval and use.

When we begin an action concerning a task, the body functions to carry out the complex array of actions through learned habits, when we draw attention to habit patterns, we can pull the actions out of the habits. This rarely happens because the pace of civilization is so quick we don’t have time to use our attention for awareness of the actions embedded in habits all the time or even an eighth of the time at least at the beginning of work on ourselves.

Contexts Minor sets of contexts could be self, relating to our self, couples, and/or the family, though I’m sure there are even smaller contexts. A larger context in which we are not often aware, especially amongst many men, is the patriarchy. Women may be acutely aware of the patriarchy. Oppressed minorities ranging from people of color and the LGBT communities are also mindful of limiting and oppressive restraints of the patriarchy.

Out of contexts arise traditions that are handed down from one generation to the next. While the rulers of the patriarchy may be thought to be “free”, they are just as much slaves to those they oppress in ways they are blind to themselves.

While there are more extensive contexts, the patriarchy and its so-called “leaders” — mainly white upper-class educated men of wealth are the ones that are currently dictating the “norms” and marching us all into the jaws of the climate crisis and the extermination of humankind.

Three Through Seven: Human Faculties — the Paradoxes

In upcoming stories I will discuss the paradoxes of how we are trapped and/or paradoxically freed through the five sets listed below:

03. The Human Body Our bodies are intrinsically neutral. Our thinking aka thinking/ego objectives the body in a variety of prison sets where we are trapped. And yet our body when honored as a neutral vessel can be an instrument of transformation. 04. Emotions There is one emotion: Love. When ego or self falls into ignorance, denial and constriction(a lessening of light or darkness); Love becomes polarized into Fear. The thinking brain delineates emotions that come from Love into its many variations on the positive side. The opposite of Love is fear and these emotions are divided by the thinking brain and named. Emotions both positive and negative can be the fuel for attachment and/or liberation 05. Thinking Thought is recycled in the Kali Yuga. Some have abilities to transcend the limiting sets of these two Yugas and access original thought and thoughtforms. This is rare. However, through a mindfulness practice without expectation, original thought and complete thought forms may be accessed. 06. Language and Ego There’s no definitive way to know which developed first, language or ego. It’s likely that a sense of self — without the ego functions we know today came first and that ego formed with the advent of community, city-states, with agriculture as the driving force. While excessive use of words ego loses access with the divine and gets attached to illusion. Limiting verbiage externally and internally may make a space for the divine to re-emerge — again if expectation is not present. 07. Sense of Self/Sense of Other A strong ego and self with firm boundaries, good self-esteem, adequate social skills usually know how they are connected to others in community. This may not be conscious, but it is known through meta rules and etiquette of social interactions. Without a strong ego with firm boundaries releasing/surrendering it is increasingly arduous.

Soul Age

Soul Ages continue to span the entire history of the human experiences on the planet and grows through reincarnation.

According to the Michael Teachings there are five Soul Ages and 7 levels within each of the Soul Ages The Five Soul Ages:

Infant Baby Young Mature Old

7 Levels (each of these levels exist within each of the 5 Soul Ages): 1st fresh incarnation where tentative exploring begins.

2nd Push-Pull. A desire to push forward for achievement and understanding

3rd Are fully perceptive of their soul age and yet are shy about being fully present

4th Are integrated and consolidated in the inner and outer worlds

5th Pushing through their comfort zone for growth

6th Karma is paid back

7th are comfortable and in a flow with purpose

Beyond Old Souls:

Transcendental Souls — are integrated soul fragments from all lifetimes and yet they have not tamed their egos for the most part.

Infinite Souls — are integrated at At-One with All that is. They are enlightened and completely free. As a result they can manifest based on nothing.

Other Precepts

Transgenerational genetic imprinting, trans-lifetime body memories, and a wide array of other beliefs-memories both past and future help define the sets of the prison that denies freedom in it’s ultimate expression. These reincarnational arcs are also part of the foundation for overcoming them while embodied and living from transcendent enlightenment.

Check out Part 2: Prisons — Freedom’s Snapshot

©2021 F.K. Ontario