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            In the chapter The Power of Inaction I state my equation for the solution to human behavior: ((T>B)>F)>A, or I put a focus on one thought to control my brain states. All of that brings about an awareness and control over my feelings, which understanding my feelings is what brings about better actions in my life. These better actions lead me to a more purposeful and happy life by developing of my neural pathways. Trataka, or single pointed concentration mediation, is a daily exercise I do to achieve this goal. The exact way I meditate is outlined in my chapter on ADHD. The progress has been slow but very, very fruitful, which is why I keep on rewriting this book. This whole book is about anyone being able to be consciously aware of all of their thinking, so anyone, who practices jnana yoga, can live a more positive and purposeful life. I’ve noticed all this only by combining silent meditation with the neurological testing I had done at UCSF.

I point out that we are all powerless over the thoughts that rise in all our minds and how we feel about them; therefore, human behavior is determined. If we are truly supposed to have free will, we would all be in control of both the thoughts that arise in our minds and how we feel about them. This is because it is what we feel about what we think that controls our actions. So, how are any of us supposed to have any free will if none of us have control over the thoughts that rise in our minds and how we feel about them? Especially if most of us are not even paying attention to 90% of what we think as both Sigmund Freud and Vedic scriptures tell us? Also, why would anyone take any action besides what they think best suits them in the moment? The problem is ignorance and understanding. We all have with problems with our behavior because of this. If there is such a thing as the power of “choice,” it is the ability to take any thought that rises in our minds as important or not, despite how that specific thought might make us feel, because it is these thoughts that rise in all our minds, and how we feel about them is what we are all truly powerless over. Being powerless over one’s thinking is an experiment anyone can prove to themselves. Just sit in silent meditation and try and drop your mind completely and not let one single thought arise! I infer that no beginner can! I’ve been doing this daily meditation daily forty-five minutes for the past ten years and I have only truly achieved it a couple of times.

This neglecting our thinking and the complete emptying of our minds is what led me to my other equation: ((~T>~B)>~F)>~A or neglecting any thought I have that causes me or another harm. This theory has led to an amazing difference in my life, and I even had a Vedantin describe this equation as Para vairagya: Supreme Detachment. He was telling me if I practiced this perfectly, then I’d be the one in “control” because I can take a step back from my mind and realize I am neither my body nor my mind, but that which witnesses!

I also do believe that anyone can overcome their ADHD as well as their anxiety this way, and they do not need to be on those specific types of medications because of the neuroplasticity of the human brain and how no one is born with an “IQ.” By “IQ” I am talking all types of cognition: social, emotional, and intellectual. The mind and brain are identical to me, and the brain is meant to constantly change with our environment because our environment is constantly shifting. I just sit in silence every day for forty-five minutes focusing on the only thing any of us can truly prove apodictically: existence. “I am” is the only thought that any of us can know with certainty. I strongly point out that this is the best way of overcoming ADHD, and it is a daily mental exercise that is not about immediate gratification. It is a slow patient practice that leads to gradual improvement, and my state of awareness continues to grow in these jumps, or quantum bumps, and so does all my cognitive function.

By quantum bumps I am referring to how a muon is created in a particle accelerator by slamming quantum particles together close to the speed of light. A Muon is a particle that is 207 times the mass of an electron with all the properties of an electron. This is what I mean by a quantum bump. Muons only last for a split second, but the awareness and brain function I have gotten from meditation continues to last, and it only gets better! It never goes away as long as I continue to practice what is in this book, which is my hope for anyone who is reading it. I am even with autism and epilepsy with the awareness I have gotten in this book!

            I have an organic brain disorder which is caused by a Heterotopic Grey Matter that is adjacent to my right lateral ventricle and in my right frontal horn. I am speculating that my organic brain disorder is the cause of my ADHD, and that my ADHD is an organic brain disorder based on the congenital defects in my brain which also causes all the executive dysfunction and other brain states and disorders I have. What doctors are realizing more and more is that ADHD is just a mild form of Autism. ADHD and autism have a lot of overlapping symptoms such as being creative, neurodivergent, stimming and fidgeting, emotional dysregulation, as well as the ability to be hyper-focused in certain circumstances. I am hyper-focused when I am writing my own work, but when I am reading someone else’s writing I have had a very hard time being able to focus on the words, which was one of the reasons I was a functional illiterate until I was thirty years old!

I also have both ADHD and Dyslexia which means I am on the autism spectrum, but I have also been able to overcome a lot of my social abnormalities through the gaining of awareness based on my daily meditation practice. Even with my complex brain I can make progress with my autism.

            A Heterotopic Grey Matter is a nerve everyone has had from early womb to early childhood development, and it migrates from the inner part of the brain to the outer part of the brain. They don’t know why it is there, but everybody has had one. It is just that bits of mine were left over in my brain and did not migrate out completely, yet only about 2% of the people that have epilepsy have what I have. This Heterotopic Grey Matter is what sends the electrical impulses, which are the seizures, throughout my brain causing all kinds of executive dysfunction. All a seizure is, is a surge of electricity in the brain. All our brains function off of is electricity, and in fact, all we are is nothing but electromagnetic energy and quantum particles. These surges of electricity, especially over time, can cause lots of brain dysfunction, which was in the previous chapters. The Heterotopic Grey Matter is also what boosts the dopamine in my brain. Dopamine is the main chemical we all have in our brain for thinking; so, if I truly have any diagnosis, I will say, I have epilepsy with a mild form of mild form of autism causing my schizoaffective bipolar disorder. The Heterotopic Grey Matter sending the electrical impulses throughout my brain is also what causes the other disorders. Even such as psychosis, mania, depression, and anxiety. The structural abnormalities are what give me this organic brain disorder, and organic brain disorders are known not to respond to well to medications, which I don’t. This is why I work on daily mental exercises that are outlined throughout this book. I infer that if it can work for a complex brain such as mine, then it can work for others. It is also part of the qualified nondualist approach that we are all just reflections of each other, or as Proclus would say “each one is an all and all are in each:” Identity in difference.

            One of the things I am hypothesizing, because I have had so many seizures, is that the constant simple partial and partial complex seizures have brought on the different brain states that my mind is constantly experiencing. Every time I have a seizure the chemicals in my brain fluctuate and it changes the structure in my brain. Anytime anyone has a seizure the chemicals in their brain fluctuate. I am someone who used to have constant simple partial seizures throughout the day. A simple partial seizure is a seizure that someone has where they do not lose their consciousness, but it still sends a little surge of dopamine and other chemicals throughout their brain. It is not a very strong seizure, but there would be some days I would have 30 or 40 simple partial seizures in 15 minutes making me a little hypomanic, if not severally manic, because having so many would elevate dopamine in my brain causing the mania.  

I am also speculating, with 99.9% of all human DNA being identical, that if ancient universal concepts can work for me, then they are work for anyone. Jnana Yoga and the neuroplasticity of the brain is what has improved my ADHD, depression, anxiety, and even my mania and psychosis. I have improved all my disorders by daily meditation. I am not telling anyone to stop taking their medication, or not to trust their doctor. I firmly believe in medication if it is needed, but for lots of people I have met, it does not work, and most of them did nothing for me except give me side effects. This meditation has given me so much awareness of myself and my behavior that it has worked for my “social IQ” as well, which is what autistic people suffer from: a social retardation, and just like John Nash, I suffered from retardation of intellect with the dopamine blockers and mood stabilizers the doctors gave me, and it is wonderful to be able to think clearly and not depend on such high doses of those medications.

I had a setback with this therapy that I came up for myself because I tried a very recent drug called Xcopri. I had an abnormal reaction to it like I have with other anticonvulsants that I have tried. Dilantin, Depakote, as well as the latest anticonvulsant Xcopri, all made my seizures worse! Xcopri made my seizure terrible, so I had to quit the THC and CBD I was taking and get back on Primidone, Geodon, Gabapentin, and Lamictal. I am stable on those medications now, but the Xcopri made my seizures so much worse than any medication I have ever tried! Xcopri made my seizures worse than when I was abusing drugs and alcohol! What Xcopri did was magnify my seizures to the effect that I had never had before. Before I was on Xcopri I was only having about one partial complex seizure a month with just a little THC and the CBD. I was also taking 1.75mg of Saphris for sleep because I just wouldn’t sleep much without it. I will point out that I do not drink or do any drugs that my doctors don’t approve of and have been sober nineteen and a half years now. I only take medication as prescribed, and my neurologist suggested I try the CBD and THC. I was only taking about 2mg of THC and CBD a day. I couldn’t even feel it. I do not even drink caffeine because caffeine is something which affects my seizures more than alcohol. I have also been told by every doctor I have talked to that caffeine, by far, is the most underrated drug there is. Any drug that is addictive to the brain can cause or magnify seizures for anyone. I would argue, most people have no idea how addictive caffeine truly is because it is so acceptable. I was having nocturnal grand mal seizures before I gave up caffeine too! Nocturnal grand mal seizures are very large ones that are tonic-clonic happening while one is sleeping, so their whole body is convulsing. But since I gave up caffeine, I do not have those either. 

I have given up sugar now too because I was on Zyprexa for a while and didn’t want to become a diabetic. Diabetes is one of the main side effects from Zyprexa along with extreme weight gain. The average person gains sixty pounds on Zyprexa. I have only gained eight pounds while I was on Zyprexa because I gave up sugar. Since I’ve gotten off the Zyprexa I have lost those eight pounds too.  

Xcopri was also making me intermix my sentences. When I was talking to people, I would try ask things like “How are you doing?” and it would come out “Doing are how you?” It would make me do that will all my verbal constructions that were coming out of my mouth. That is a type of executive dysfunction that is directly related to a seizure and when I started to have my mania is when I had two nocturnal grand mal seizures in one night! That is when I got back on the Primidone. I had no choice because of what the Xcopri did to my epilepsy. I am still suffering from the effects of the Xcopri to this day, but I still do the Trataka daily which helps everything, including lowering the dopamine levels with just a low dose of Geodon.  

I am having light simple partial seizures these days. The only medication that ever stopped my seizure completely was Lamictal and Primidone together, but I was in the middle of my addiction at the time, so my seizures came back because I couldn’t stay sober. I really like just being on a small dose of THC and CBD gummy. Just 2mg a day. I couldn’t even feel it, but because of the Xcopri I had to get off of that and back on the Lamictal, Primidone, Gabapentin, and Geodon. It is another reason I am rewriting this book.

            I speculate that all our brains are considered “plastic,” so with this speculation we can all control the states of our brains through the focusing of our thoughts daily on the only thing any of us can take for certain: “I Am.” My ADHD is more of a hypomania at least in some neurotransmitters because of my elevated dopamine levels, but I would also argue that parts of my brain are quite underdeveloped, which is what autism is.

            Trataka has been amazing for my autism. It has given me awareness over all my behavior. Because I could be aware of that behavior, I have been able to put a focus on developing those parts of my brain that need social improvement. I am someone who didn’t understand what it meant to say please and thank you. I didn’t think I was being rude. I just never understood it. I didn’t need people to thank me for anything I did. If I did something for someone, I just felt like I needed to do it. I wasn’t looking for their recognition for it, but something meditating taught me, is lots of people want that recognition. They want you to be polite. I didn’t think I wasn’t being polite but lots of people care about being thanked for small things. It was my meditation that showed me how much people thank each other for little things like being served coffee at a coffee shop. Now when I order food or caffeine free tea I say thank you when it is brought to me. I see a difference in their response.

            I work in accounting, and my boss was noticing my emails. He said, “Justin why can’t you say please when you are requesting something from someone in your email?” I didn’t see the point. So, I started to write my emails in an awkward way. I would have too many pleases in them. I would write, “Mildred, can you please tell me why this guest doesn’t have a credit card? Please tell me that would you please?” Then, not too long after that my boss was laughing at me telling me I was using too many pleases. Since then, I took all the extra ones out and I only use one please, but I truly didn’t understand it. I wasn’t trying to be rude. I just didn’t understand “why?” In the past people would get angry at me for being rude, then I would lash out at them because they were angry at me and I would be extremely rude back like I was in my book A Vicious Cycle. Everything in my life was just a reaction. Just like I would argue it is with everyone, but the ability to pause is an amazing gift! I can pause today and examine my thinking not letting my emotions control me!

            With that lack of impulse control came all other kinds of issue people took as rude. I can see them today. I had no ability to let someone finish a sentence before I would respond and talk over them. I think extremely quickly and am good at arguing because of this, but one of my issues is I turn every conversation I have with someone either into a debate or a lecture. I am still working on this extremely hard, but I never had the ability to even see it before, and now I am pausing and letting people finish their sentences before I just cut them off. That in itself is amazing to me. I still have a really hard time doing this.

            I have had lots of people tell me that I talked too much. I get my hair cut from a Chinese lady who has a child on the autism spectrum. She told me “you talk just like my son. You can’t stop talking. My son is so crazy. He can’t stop talking.” Her son had lots of behavioral issues too. He was addicted to his iPad and wouldn’t behave in school. He is an extremely intelligent little kid, but his mother would tell him, “You have two ears and one mouth. You need to listen more.” She told me his response was “Mommy, I have two lungs and one heart! You tell me which one is more important?” and she had no response. That was like me I had to argue with everyone and I couldn’t stop talking. Because of my mediation I have slowed down a lot and one day I just went through another quantum bump of reality; I stopped talking so much. I can’t explain it, but I just go through these functions in my brain where one day things get better just like my ability to pay attention to the words on a page! I know my behavior has gotten better because people tell me all the time!

            One day when I was getting my hair cut ad she asked me, “what happened to you? You aren’t talking so much? What is going on?” I told her it was because of my meditation practice. She was wishing her son could do this, but I told her he would have to be older before he could make a conscious effort to do what is outlined in this book.

            Something I have noticed with other autistic people is how loud they talk. I have seen some that shout while they are having just a regular conversation. It is one of the reasons that I am a good public speaker is I project my voice, but when having a basic conversation with people it is extremely off putting. I have been able to tone down the volume of my voice because I am aware of it today. It is all awareness when it comes to developing these neurons in my brain. I make a conscious decision to practice all of these all throughout every day. Nobody is born with an “IQ!” No matter who you are you can always develop your brain!

            I am someone who also speaks too fast for people. I fire back much faster than most can process. It is why I have had several psychiatrists get frustrated with me because if I disagree with them, I give them response after response faster than they can process it. It is why I dropped out of graduate school. I had no ability not to correct my professor in front of the class. He was screaming at me in the Dean’s Office because every time I disagreed with him, I would quote him someone verbatim faster than he could process it! The ability to slow down when I talk to people, or not say anything at all, has been a conscious “choice” I have only gotten through the awareness gifted by Trataka.

Years ago, when I was working at Radio Shack back in the late 90s, all the kids that worked at the Tower Records in the same building above called me “the crazy guy at Radio Shack” because I was always arguing with myself out loud. I could not see how off putting it was to people, but I think in words and need to process stuff out loud. It has been very helpful to see how off putting this is for people. I had always done that too. Today, I am able to make a conscious effort to keep my mouth closed and not do hand gestures when I am thinking. I am always arguing about the nature of reality or politics in my head today and because of meditation I am always aware of what I am contemplating in every corner of my mind – including my owe reaction to the world! That was impossible for me to do before! I have made a conscious choice not to argue out loud in front of people. They take you as “crazy” when you do.  Meditation is something I would recommend for any autistic or awkward individual who cannot see their own behavior. Awareness is all about developing our social “IQ!”

With the development of my social “IQ” I am also able to tell when someone is coming onto me. I can count at least eight people in my life that I was spending a considerable amount of time with that I had no idea that they liked me! One was a friend that I have had in my life for the past 28 years! He told me recently that he’s had a crush on me the whole time!

My first girlfriend I had, Kelly, I had no idea she liked me. We would talk on the phone for hours every night when I was in middle school. I just thought she wanted to be friends. I went to my first dance at a middle school, and another girl asked me out and I said yes. Then Kelly called me crying saying she liked me, so I broke up with the other girl and went out with Kelly. I was completely oblivious to this all throughout my adult life too! Lots of people, men and women, would come onto me and I couldn’t tell, but because of the awareness that I have gotten through meditation I have been able to see when people like me now, or when they are flirting with me. It is ridiculous to think that I could never tell in any way! Someone asked me out or tell me directly!

            I feel like I am having less brain states because my mind is so much more tranquil and focused today. That neurological evaluation was about ten years ago. It is the year 2025 today and I started the daily meditation about the same time I had the neuro-psych evaluation at UCSF.  I am developing impulse control, which happens with my daily practice. I am really not having too many seizures these days either. I can read and pay attention to anything, so my ADHD isn’t the issue it once was. My hypomania subsides when I am mindful of it too. I can calm myself down. I am understanding how to be social and have manners. Today I have, at times, been able to get to that state of complete emptiness by dropping all my thoughts! It is still difficult, but I focus gently on the words: “I Am” remembering to never struggle; making sure all my muscles are relaxed at the same time. As I stated, it is not about immediate gratification. It is a slow patient daily improvement that I practice, and that anyone, no matter who they are, if they struggle with mental illness or not, will find impossible when they begin, but to drop their minds completely and just get into their True Self: Consciousness is where the rewards come!

            So, if you are looking to make a difference in the way you live your life, or the way you look at the world. If you are wanting happiness, no matter what is going on in the world, then do not just settle with medicine. Try the Eastern approach to life and combine it with western medicine because Vedanta is extremely compatible with Western Science. Vedanta is just like science. It uses no blind faith! None! The Rgveda is the one ancient document that nothing in modern science has disproven. Just realize that the mind is nothing but imagination, and realize thoughts only have power over your brain states and emotions if you take them as true. Those are the concepts of Vedanta: your reality is nothing but what you perceive and your mind is nothing but imagination, that Ananda, or bliss, is within you, and what you are at your core at is nothing but Consciousness. I have gotten in touch with Ananda by clearing out all the thoughts, or vasanas, from my mind a couple of times. I am just working on being in that state of mind every minute of every day now.

            I was talking to a gentleman I am friends with who is a high functioning autistic of the classic form. Anyone can tell just by talking to him he is autistic, but so many more people are getting diagnosed with autism now because lots of doctors are seeing that ADD and ADHD are just middle forms. I was unable to get an appointment at UCSF last year with the autism department because so many people are being diagnosed with it now. This gentleman I was talking to was unable to smile because of his brain did not have the capacity to. I have seen this man laugh at certain times, so I do not believe that is completely true, but I was encouraging him to look in the mirror and think happy thoughts to and try to practice smiling daily. Smiling, unless something made me laugh, was something I had been incapable of too. My wife taught me how to practice it. She said just think of something that you said that was funny to someone and smile. I practice that today. Just like I practice doing things with my left hand and left leg that I have never done before because I am always trying to exercise my mind. I make a conscious effort to exercise all parts of my brain.

This gentleman with autism did not seem to understand why I was saying this, and I was not able to explain it to him in a way that would get him to practice it daily, but my hope was for him to practice developing his brain like I have with mine through Eastern based practices. I have hopes for all that they can improve their cognition through awareness and daily exercises of the mind, but for anyone to change for the better they need awareness, and that is why I recommend single pointed concentration meditation: Trataka! Anyone, anyone at all! Just focus on the only thing any of us truly know: “I Am,” empty your mind of all other thoughts, then gently try to let go of the “I Am” and seep into all that you truly are: Consciousness!

The Power of Inaction

This video is me explaining my theory to a college classroom:

       

Buy the whole book The Shadowed Soul with a chapter on how I’ve overcome ADHD, Dyslexia, Suicidal Depression, PSTD and Anxiety, Schizophrenia and Bipolar, Epilepsy and Autism, Brain Damage and Digital Dementia and the Retardation of Thoughts in the link below:

Chapter 4: The Power of Inaction

           The point of this book is going to be about combining ancient philosophy and modern science. I will be using the medical theory of the neuroplasticity of the human brain and fuse it together with the mental exercises of Ancient Vedic scriptures. Neuroplasticity is why I was able to finally learn how to read at the age of thirty that I wrote about in the chapter A Glimmer of Hope. Reading was something which seemed like I was completely incapable of doing for most of my life because of my learning disabilities. The neuroplasticity of the human brains is saying this empirical world is constantly changing and shifting and all our minds (brains) are built to continually develop throughout our lives in a positive way which helps us adapt to those shifts and changes. My thesis that I proved in the last chapter Pseudo-Laws and Pseudo Morals: when the mind is controlled, the hand will follow, which is what jnana yoga is all about. Jnana in Sanskrit means knowledge or mind. What yoga means in Sanskrit is practice, so in the rest of this book I show how I am able to understand mine. By me understanding my mind, I infer others can use these same tools in this book to help themselves with their mental illnesses and brain dysfunctions because I have had a lot of brain dysfunctions myself and help or even overcome them with the exercises I provide here. I have overcome learning how to read with the Linda Mood Bell program like I said. The mental exercises in this book have led me to true happiness, and true happiness is what I want for everyone these days, so I infer if it can work for me, with all the complications of my brain, it can work for anyone if they give these exercises enough daily dedication and practice.

I prove I am not that much different than anyone else using ancient philosophy and the psychology of modern movies and commercials. Sure, I have a rare organic brain disorder, which gives me the aspects of eight different disorders without fitting one stereotype, but ancient scriptures and religions are meant for everyone, and so are catchy commercials and entertaining movies. I use the philosophies of Ancient religion and show how similar I am to everyone else in this chapter by the psychology of commercials.

I have learned how to understand my mind and abate my mental health through Ancient Philosophy. My hope is that others can use these same tools to help themselves understand their own minds with their mental health issues, and mental health issues are rising because of modern technology. I am also not encouraging anyone to get off medication or not to listen to their doctor. I am not a doctor and not giving medical advice. I am just showing what works for me, and assuming how similar all humans are, that it can work for you too.

Most medications just don’t work for me because of my organic brain disorder. I show amazingly high tolerances for lots of different drugs and several of the ones that do work at first stop working for me because I build a tolerance to that specific medication. I have also been on low doses of other medications that do work so my cognition isn’t impaired like it was for my brother. He couldn’t think with the amount of dopamine blockers they had him on and it made him miserable. I hate not being able to think as well, which some of these medications keep me from doing. It took me years of doing these exercises daily and I have to continue to do them. I argue in favor of modern science throughout this whole book. My hope is that everyone can better understand their own minds and improve their realities no matter what their reality is because, as I state all throughout this book: our realities are nothing but what we perceive, and our minds are nothing but imagination. As I also prove in my chapter on overcoming schizophrenia: we all have false beliefs, and it is the really crazy people that have no ability to question their sanity, so “insanity” applies to most “sane” people because most people, I have noticed, have no ability to question their own sanity just like a crazy person we all see walking down the streets in a big city talking to themselves! The world struggles with “sanity,” and we all struggle with pride, which pride is the greatest of all sins for the very reason it tells us we are right when the only thing anyone can be truly certain of is their own existence! “I am” is the main premises of Vedic Philosophy, and the only thing that is truly apodictic, which each experience that any of us has validates one only thing: we exists!

I take medication still to this day. I am on 2mg of CBD and THC for my epilepsy, which I would argue has some mild psychoactive effects for attention deficit issues. I take an evening dose of Geodon 80mg for mania and psychosis, which is half of what I used to take. And 600mg of Gabapentin four times a day for seizures and mood as well. Most medications just don’t work for me, and I have been on almost every psych medication and anticonvulsant there is. I just show in this book how I have been able to find happiness through understanding and controlling my own mind in a daily practice of single pointed concentration meditation: Trataka. Yet, my true hope is that I can get anyone who’s reading this to reflect and look for similarities if they feel as though they are mentally ill or not because happiness is just a state of mind.

I also encourage anyone to better understand their own mind in the combined processes of jnana yoga and modern science if they struggle with mental health or not. I am a firm believer that everyone can help their minds and their realities through a daily practice Trataka outlined in my chapter on ADHD. The chapter on ADHD is my main daily practice and is the cornerstone of the mental exercises throughout this book. I have a chapter on ADHD, PTSD and anxiety, suicidal depression, schizophrenia and bipolar, epilepsy and autism, and then the final chapter of digital dementia, brain damage, and the retardation of thoughts, then I prove God in the epilogue. I have struggled with aspects of all of those diagnoses with my organic brain disorder. Today I am fully employed as a corporate accountant and have been on SSDI for fifteen years. Most people when they get on federal disability never get off. Being a productive member of society was only a give through seeking answers in Ancient Philosophy and religions all over the world.

I agree with Proclus: “Each one is in All and All are in each.” No matter how different I may seem to be to everyone, you are all just a reflection of myself. Just as I am to others. We are all on a spectrum with the same universal character defects and assets, and at our Core, what our True Self is, is nothing but Consciousness. That is why I believe, despite my unique disorder, anyone can benefit from this book.

I have been diagnosed with a heterotopic grey matter. A heterotopic grey matter is a nerve everyone has had, and it migrates from the inner part of the brain to the outer part of the brain in late womb to early childhood development, and bit of mine with left over adjacent to my right lateral ventricle and within my right frontal horn. This gives me the aspects of all these disorders, as well as a couple of others, without fitting one stereotype. As I want to reiterate, I am not a doctor, nor do I argue anyone should not be on medication or not listen to their doctor. I am all for Western Science, which is what got me into Hinduism to begin with. I have found all the different forms Hinduism, especially Vedanta, are extremely compatible with modern science, and as of today, nothing has helped my mental state more than the practice that I developed through Ancient Vedic scriptures. These are all reinforced in the book I Am That. Nisargadatta Maharaj, in the book I Am That has transcribed conversations with people who sought his council, is my modern day Masai, if I have one.

Meditation is good for every human brain, and all our realities, as I will prove throughout this book. I would argue there are two disorders that I delt with that I am sure others can completely overcome without medication because of the way I meditate: ADHD and panic attacks.

Remember, no human is born with an “IQ,” for lack of a better term, being that “IQ” educational, emotional, or social. Developing our minds all throughout our lives is what neuroplasticity is all about. Our brains (minds) are meant to continually adapt throughout our lives, which is why I am sure that people can overcome their ADHD without such terrible drugs as Ritalin. I have talked to doctors who specialize in childhood psychology who think that Ritalin is the worst drug that is prescribed in anyway with all the damage it does to the brain. With such diagnoses as ADHD, which is more developmental, anyone who can get off such toxic drugs as Ritalin should get off them. Ritalin, and the different forms of Ritalin, are nothing but speed. Speed, by far, causes more damage to the brain than any other drug which can be abused. Ritalin can cause issues even just through proper use just like all other medications can. Ritalin seems to be nothing but a poison to me, and I didn’t feel Ritalin after one dose, so I really didn’t have an option if I wanted to be able to pay attention to the words on a page while I was reading a book. I had to overcome my ADHD through Trataka.

Benzodiazepines are drugs that are most commonly used for anxiety and are by far one of the most addictive drugs for any addict. The withdrawals for Benzodiazepines can be fatal. Sure, they use them in emergency situations to stop seizures and things like panic attacks, or severe mania, but I have seen people die from seizures because of their withdrawals from different benzodiazepines. No type of Benzodiazepines ever really even worked for me more than a couple of times no matter how much I took, which shows my abnormalities and tolerances to all kinds of drugs, but the theory in this book can help anyone improve their lives because the biggest problem with all humanity is ignorance and understanding as I proved in Pseudo-Laws and Pseudo-Morals. Ignorance and understanding are our biggest issuesbecause love is the root cause of every actions we take. We just get confused with what we are truly supposed to be doing in the moment. We just do not see the root of fear is love: fear we will lose something we love, or fail to get a desire met that we want. If we want to be able to take the first step in anything, we have to see what the problem is, so we need awareness. If anyone wants more awareness, the true key is an ancient solution: daily meditation. Especially the thinning of the mind and being able to drop it completely, like I show in my chapter on ADHD, through single pointed concentration meditation (Trataka).

In these ancient scriptures of the Vedas it shows the motivation of the desires that control us all: pleasure and pain. We are all controlled by the desires of what we love. Love is just the root of every desire and the pleasures we seek. Pain is our motivating factor to do or seek something else. Most of us just don’t pay attention to much of what we think, and I am encouraging everyone to change that and pay attention of all corners of your mind all throughout everyday once you start meditating every single day.

Our “IQ’s” (intelligence) is based on two things beyond our control: genetics and circumstances. 99.9% of all human DNA is identical and 90% of what someone learns happens in the first five years of their life. Given the right information and motivation, we can do lots for ourselves to get our brains to continue to develop and grow throughout our lives. I have even been able to overcome mild brain damage from my seizures and drug abuse through exercising my mind every day as well that I lay out in this book.

19 years ago, when I got sober, I could not really remember too much because of the seizure I had from speed abuse. Today I am a savant again with my memory. I can demonstrate my memory to anyone if they like, and it was all through my mental exercises and the Neurological Evaluation I had done at UCSF. I have also met others who have had brain damage and brain surgeries, where pieces of their brains were removed, and doctors said they were not going to ever have that high of a level of intelligence, but I have seen two of these other people defy their doctors and get such things as college degrees and graduate at the top of their classes.

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In the Ancient Indian philosophy of Vedanta, it is the Gunas which make up everything. In the micro sense, the three Gunas are what make up the different pieces of the mind. The three Gunas are Rajas, Tames, and Sattva. Rajas has to do with things like passion, anger, and all kinds of misguided energy. Tamas has to do with things like depression, delusions, and darkness. The Rajas itself has its roots in the Tamas because of the states of delusion, and the misinterpretation of what truly is. Then there is Sattva. The Sattva is the ground of Being that is in God. The Sattva is within us all, and the Sattva is the ideal goal we should all get closer to when it comes to our minds.

I am also using identity theory in this book. In identity theory the brain and the mind are the same thing. This is made obvious to us when there is damage to the brain, this impedes our thoughts and actions, and in Vedanta the mind is made of thoughts and is truly nothing but imagination. To get the mind closer to Sattva would be the goal for anyone in this religion, yet for most of my life, because of all of my physical abuse as a child, and enhanced by my psychological disorders, as well as the trauma I got from Discovery Academy, then the drug abuse of my adult life, the thoughts of my mind had mostly been cluttered with Rajas and Tamas. I realized if I was going to address the thoughts of my mind and get myself closer to a pure state of Sattva, the best thing to do was to not focus on what is important, or Sattva, but to focus on what is not important the Rajas and Tamas. This means I need to find the thoughts I should let go of, and upon seeing which of my thoughts I should let go of, or even replace, I would be detaching from Rajas and Tamas completely. I could then get my mind closer and closer to Pure Sattva and allow the Sattva to control me by negating the Rajas and Tamas and letting the Sattva rise.

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Executive function has to do with the part of the brain which is rational, discursive, and which regulates emotions. My brain has been in a constant state of high executive dysfunction for a large part of my life. I have the aspects of eight different mental disorders without fitting one stereotype: epilepsy, schizoaffective bipolar type, obsessive-compulsive personality, ADD, dyslexia, borderline autism, general anxiety and PTSD, and I’ve struggled with suicidal depression throughout my life starting at a very, very young age. I have no ability to count how many times I ended up in a psych ward for trying to kill myself. A lot of those suicide attempts were for attention and just a place to live, because I had no ability to be homeless in a big city, and other times I meant it and tried hard. I just never died. The City of San Francisco made sure after my first attempt that I couldn’t buy a gun when leaving the psych-ward with a document that they always made me sign. The City of San Francisco is the model that other cities in the US should model after when it comes to getting people healthcare that can’t afford it, but what the United States truly needs is universal healthcare for all.

The heterotopic grey matter is the direct cause of these disorders as well as my seizures is what the theories my doctors have told me. I had a Neurological Evaluation at UCSF, by Brandon E. Kopald, Psy.D., that states my brain is constantly going in and out of eight different brain states from moment to moment. A brain state is a level of what anyone brain is functioning at in any given moment. This is abnormal to have someone’s brain constantly jumping in and out of different states, let alone eight of them. I would argue most people function in a single brain state for large parts of their daily lives. Sure, sleeping would be a different brain state, but day to day living functions most people’s brains aren’t jumping in and out of eight of them. These brain states are not identical to the eight different disorders I have been diagnosed with, but anyone could see how this executive dysfunction of the eight different brain states would directly influence these disorders and make me incapable of treatment for a large part of my life because organic disorders are known not to react well to medications. Most doctors I met had no ability to help me in any way, and lots of doctors made my life worse from a very young age. Especially the doctor I saw at Discovery Academy.

I based this essay on years of psychological hospitalizations and this Neurological Evaluation at UCSF by Dr. Kopald at UCSF, done on 09/14/2017. The brain states that my brain was constantly jumping between, were a majority of the states of Rajas to Tamas, in my opinion, for a large part of my life. The proof of that is my Oppositional Defiance Disorder I was locked up for as a child. I took that difficult behavioral issue and it was perpetuated throughout a large part of my adult life because of my autism and the inability for my emotional behavior to evolve until I started meditating daily. Meditation has improved my emotional “IQ” severally. It was a doctor at UCSF: Dr. Paul Garcia, who is head of epileptology, who diagnosed me with the heterotopic grey matter. They found the heterotopic grey matter with an MRI. This nerve is what causes my seizures and speculated to cause, and definitely influences, my other disorders.

Three of my disorders aren’t really about my brain jumping in and out of brain states: dyslexia, ADHD, and autism. The dyslexia has to do with parts of my brain being underdeveloped, and parts of my brain being over developed, and they have a hard time communicating. This confusion of communication is also characteristics of ADHD and autism.

Autism and ADHD have a lot of the same symptoms. Lots of doctors have speculated recently that ADD and ADHD are really are just a mild form of autism. I agree that ADHD is just a mild form of autism. It is also why it is impossible to get an appointment at the autism clinic at UCSF because more and more people are getting diagnosed with it, and nobody, no matter who we are, has a 180 social “IQ” in anyway. Every single person has autistic characteristics. I work daily to abate the symptoms of both my ADHD and autism. This daily effort is also about the development of parts of my brain that are underdeveloped just like interpreting written symbols. I will go into that more throughout the other chapters of this book.

Autism is an organic disorder which affects my ability to relate to others. I am very good with people when they are suffering, but I am terrible with the average individual just socializing. People that are known to be on the spectrum can be extremely empathic, almost like a sixth sense when someone is suffering, but can’t relate on a basic level. That is me, but I really didn’t get diagnosed with autism until later in life when they started expanding the diagnostics of autism.  

My epilepsy is abnormal with the frequency of my seizures and the patterns of their occurrences, as well as the abnormal and atypical reactions to anticonvulsants and other medications. Nothing made my seizures worse than Xcopri, which is the latest anticonvulsant and why I am back on so many medications. The mental exercises I had in the book got me off most meds, but the Xcopri made my seizures so much worse I had to get back on a lot of different medication. That is an atypical reaction to Xcopri. It made my seizures worse.

The abnormal patters of my seizures was one of the reasons I was undiagnosed with epilepsy for five years as a child. My seizures were so abnormal, and I was so difficult to deal with, that the doctors at Discovery Academy told everyone I was doing it for attention. The doctors at Discovery Academy were quite terrible doctors, and by far the worst I ever saw. That opinion was reinforced when I had talked to other kids from Discovery Academy years after I left, and the medications that doctor had those other kids on were all wrong for them too. Every single one I talked to, and I talked to lots of them, all told me the doctor there, Dr. Christopher, was completely terrible and made their life worse. He gave me one EEG and told my mother they weren’t seizures. You have to be having a seizure at the same time you are having an EEG for it to show up as an electronical disturbance in the brain! I was a kid and didn’t know that! Dr. Christopher seemed to have no clue!

My seizures are caused by structural abnormalities. This nerve, heterotopic grey matter, gives a surge of chemicals at the time I am having a seizure. A seizure itself is nothing but a surge of electricity in the brain. This surge of electricity will also fluctuate the other chemicals in the brain, because all our brains function off of is nothing but electricity, and all any chemical is, is nothing but a compound of electromagnetic energy. Yet, only about 2% of the people with epilepsy have a heterotopic grey matter. It is hard to know how many people suffer from a heterotopic grey matter completely because some people might have it and it is too small to see on the MRI. I stated that my heterotopic grey matter in my brain is located adjacent to my right lateral ventricle and in my right frontal horn, and with this surge of chemicals happening in my brain from the seizures, it shows at least a part of all of these disorders to be an organic executive brain disfunction, but all mental illnesses are both genetics and circumstances no matter who we are.

Mental illness being a combination of both genetics and circumstances is proven by studying identical twins. Just because one of the twins gets an organic disorder, such as paranoid schizophrenia, it does not mean the other one will. They are both born with the same genes, but as they get older, their genes mutate, so their genes change just like everyone else’s does over their lives. This is call epigenetics, or the mutation of your genes based on circumstances. Their genes mutate differently because of the different circumstances they are in. The identical twins’ genomes are not anywhere near identical when they are measured at ages such as 60, so circumstances play a role even in organic brain disorders such as paranoid schizophrenia or mine.

My Seizures were also brought upon by circumstances at Discovery Academy. The kids there would try and pass each other out, but hyperventilating while kneeling on the ground, standing up, and having someone cut off their oxygen supply, to get a quick buzz. One time when they cut off my oxygen supply was when I had my first grand mal seizure. It is this lack of oxygen to my brain that triggered my seizures to begin with at the age of 15 or so, even though I had the nerve in my head my whole life, I hadn’t had any seizures until then. When I have this surge of chemicals in my brain from the seizures, this surge influences both the brain states and the thoughts. I noticed this because I sit in silent meditation every day for forty-five minutes and just watch my thoughts.

I just happened to start the daily meditation right before I had this Neurological Evaluation. I saw, after I had the Neurological Evaluation at UCSF, that when my brain states were jumping extremely rapidly at the same time my thoughts were bouncing all over the place too. I would also argue that there are times my brain could be jumping in and out of even more or less brain states than the eight this specific Neurological Evaluation showed because of my constant fluctuations with seizure and moods. I even have prolonged cycles of the mania as well, which I was not manic, and on lots of medication, at the time of the Neurological Evaluation at UCSF.

My seizures, as well as such things as mania, come in swings and waves, which is a direct relation to the diagnosis of bipolar. This bipolar is connected directly to my mood. But I noticed in silent meditation that when my thoughts would change rapidly, so would my feelings along with all other such issues such as more seizures within that 24-hour period. I have noticed since I have been digging deeper into my subconscious with meditation, every time I switch to another brain state there is a shift in thinking which goes along with it. It was an extremely rapid change when this all first began. I also enjoy meditation now which has gotten me to let go of Rajas and Tamas that make up these brain states and disorders my brain is mostly made of, improving my life, and becoming more and more Sattvic.

The thoughts of my mind, and anyone’s mind (brain), are made from the three Gunas, yet my mind is in a constant change of brain states and executive dysfunction. So, do the brains states precede the thoughts, or do the thoughts precede the brain states? Was the first question I asked myself when I sat in silence after I was told the results of this Neurological Evaluation. There are also the feelings which change with the brain states that are triggered by the different thoughts. Is it the brain states or the thoughts that influence my emotions? Noticing how much my mind was jumping with the thoughts I asked myself: can I address my brain states and disorders through my thinking? I started to wonder could I focus on my brain states through the Gunas of my mind? Maybe I could redirect my brain states through redirecting my thinking! I did not know it was possible for me to improve my brain through learning how to gently concentrate. Learning how to control my mind through directing my thinking.

I have also noticed through meditation (separate from the brain states), that thoughts rise and fall in my mind without any control. I am constantly aware of what I am thinking these days because of mediation, and thoughts rise and fall in everyone’s mind without their control. I only have confirmed this by talking to others who meditate on a daily basis. I was able to shut a Buddhist monk up right, who was convinced she had free will, so I asked her: “it is how we feel about what we think that controls our actions, so do you have any control over the thoughts that rise in your mind and how they make you feel?” She was in shock! She was giving a Dharma talk at the San Francisco Zen Center at that moment, and she had no response whatsoever to that challenge! She is also someone who watches her own mind every day too, and she had been meditating much, much longer than I had, but she couldn’t respond to me because I proved to her none of us have any control over the thoughts that rise in our minds and how they make us feel, so how are we supposed to truly have this free will we all claim to function off of?

How and why random thoughts do rise in our minds is something neurologists and psychiatrists still have not discovered the happenings of yet. Sure, certain situations will provoke certain thoughts, but I am sitting in silence, just like anyone else who meditates, just watching these thoughts rising randomly at different rates triggered by different brain states, and anyone I have talked to who meditates has told me they have no control over their minds either, especially when they first begin. I have seen lots of people refuse to meditate for the very reason they have no control over their minds, and they do not like what they see in their mind when they are meditating. It scares them to see how little control they have over their own minds. Yet, these thoughts control the emotions we all feel, and when the emotions are provoked by the thoughts in our daily lives, they are followed by the actions we take.

The epilepsy, schizo, and the autism are not mood disorders, but they directly influence the brain states as well as influence the feelings. It is the thoughts which control the feelings as well, so it is that the thoughts and the brain states are contingent on each other. If there are thoughts (T), then the brain states (B) change, and if there are brain states (B), then the thoughts change (T); it is the change in the brain states and thoughts that control how I feel, and how we all feel (F), which it is how I feel about what I think that controls my actions (A).

The Buddhist monk agreed that her thoughts lead to how she felt, which controlled her actions. She had no understanding of the brain states I am talking about, but it was the testing of the brain states at UCSF, and adding it to the awareness brought upon by daily meditation which got me to the full equation of human behavior: (((T>B)_*(B>T)) >F)>A.

The problem with this equation is if the brain states are what are truly coming first, then I, or anyone else, would have no ability to “control” our actions whatsoever. The only way to solve this dilemma would be to make an assumption of faith, which all science does constantly is make assumptions, then verify those assumptions through experiment, which is what this book has done as well. So, if I simplify the equation by putting my thoughts before the brain states. In symbolic logic if the conjunction is isolated you can just drop one of the premises. So:

(T>B)*(B>T)

This can be simplified to:

(T>B),

Then it can be added back to the rest of the argument:

((T>B)>F)>A.

This equation shows me the best way to deal with my feelings, which control my actions, is to address my thoughts before the brain states. I would need to have the thoughts at least influencing my brain states to try and address my disorders directing them through how I consciously think.

What I have noticed is I do not have influence over the thoughts that rise in my brain, but I do have influence over what I do with each thought once they do if I can be truly aware of what I am thinking. The more I train my brain, the easier it gets as well. My theory is that I can rewire my brain states, which give direct influence on the different diagnosis: schizoaffective-bipolar type, ADHD, dyslexia, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder personality, anxiety and PTSD, and depression, if I can see these thoughts for what they are: imagination. I work on emptying my mind daily to get to that Pure State of Being that is within all of us: Consciousness. Today I can function in this society. It does not need to be the control of the thoughts rising, but the ability to realize a thought is just a thought, or nothing but that imagination, and take these thoughts as something I should take as important or not when I am walking down the street.

One of the most amazing things that I have learned about the mind by sitting in silence was the only thing the mind truly is, is imagination. When someone realizes thoughts are not reality, this realization can take the power right out of any thought. I have been able to function through mild hypnotic illusion that I still deal with at times. In my past, I have been completely powerless over my actions for most of my life because I have been completely powerless over my thoughts and how these thoughts made me feel. I took this “imagination” as reality. I was powerless over all my thinking because I was never aware of what I was thinking, and my behavior was extremely out of control for a large part of my life.

I don’t believe most people have any idea of what they are thinking most of the time because it was Sigmund Fraud that said all humans do is seek pleasure and avoid paid and we don’t pay attention to 90% of what we think. This means that 90% of what every human thinks is subconscious, and it was Descartes that said if you meditate you can look at your own mind from any angle. Both those concepts are in the Vedas, and the Vedas have been my answer to things most doctors could not help me with.

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I had always gotten into a lot of conflict with people throughout my life, and, at times, daily. This was a chronic issue I had had to deal with for most of my life. I was institutionalized as a child for my behavior at Discovery Academy. I brought these behavioral issues into my adult life as well. As a child I had the most extreme case of Oppositional Defiance Disorder I have ever really heard of. It was all verbal, but I had no ability to think something, and not say it. It got me into extreme amounts of trouble, but meditation, and developing my brain, extremely slowly, on a daily basis, has been, by far, the best psychological treatment I have ever gotten.

I have been attacked and beaten up more times than I can possibly count for the things that I have said to people. I am someone who had a doctor in charge of hospital cuss me out for what I had said to him, and I was his patient at the time it happened. A psychiatrist, Richard Shapiro, told me my verbal “IQ” with insults was at a genius level, somewhere around 150 to 160. I have always been able to see what is wrong with anyone, then take their own words that they said to me and use both those against them. I am also quite terrible at seeing what is appropriate and what is not because of my autism, but nothing makes people angrier than when you get all of their friends to laugh at them. Sometimes I thought I was just joking around, but others took it extremely offensively. Then they would get angry, and I would really go off on them because I would get defensive. Getting beaten up has happened more times in my life that I can possibly count. I have even gotten false charges from police officers from what I have said to them. As a child I had the head counselor of the female students in the front office in tears at Discovery Academy screaming “I am not fat!,” and Dr. Throne, who owned the place, was cussing at me too! And they were all Mormon! So that F-word was not even allowed for him to say to me, but Dr. Thorne did to me!

Even when people were pounding my head in, I still could not shut my mouth! One of the other things the Neurological Examination showed me at UCSF is I have never had any impulse control whatsoever, and these thoughts and behaviors of aggression are what make up the Rajas of my mind. Because of the Rajas, and the complete lack of any impulse control, which is an underdevelopment of my brain from the ADHD and autism, if I thought something, I had to say it! Especially if it was rude and funny because I craved the attention so much! If anyone wants to see the way I can talk to people read my first book A Vicious Cycle. Every insult in that book I said to someone, and the whole point of that book is I try not to be that way anymore. I have changed my behavior completely. Especially now that I meditate daily. Nothing has helped my obtuse behavior more than Trataka because everything gets me to self-reflect.

Because I was completely powerless over what I was thinking and had no impulse control to keep my mouth shut! These thoughts were an exhilaration of nothing but my ego, which in Vedanta is not what I truly am. My biggest addiction by far has been the need to feel superior to another person. That was what was shown by poem I wrote locked up as a kid That Might Be Me i Hate in the front of this book. This overpowering ego to be a bully was the extreme pride within me. I was never violent with anyone, but I was an intellectual bully for a large part of my life. All it was, was the fact I was just a very damaged person who was extremely scared of everyone and had no ability to see that fear in any way. How this fearful character defect manifested was in pride. I loved making everyone feel as stupid and as worthless as my father made me feel as a child.

My father taught me one thing extremely well because, and as I wrote above, 90% of what we learn happens in the first five years of our lives. What my father taught me was how to bully anyone. He was both an intellectual and physical bully with me. I was never big enough to beat up anyone, but it was Discovery Academy that I definitely turned into intellectual bully with everyone, which my father was to me as well. My father would beat me in chess in four moves when I was in the first grade whenever I tried to play him, and I when I got locked up with those kids at Discovery Academy, I learned how to beat anyone in chess in four moves with my words that kept me safe. That school made me much, much worse than just my early childhood did.

I was getting on the bus a week before I came up with this theory, and there was this African American man who got on the bus with me. His cigarette was still lit so I snapped at him because I hate the smell of cigarette smoke now that I have quit. He looked me up and down, and he got in my face and said something to me. It felt like he was talking down to me. So, while I was pointing my finger directly in his face, I yelled something extremely mean and cruel.

He looked shocked! He was about to get in my face, but then this other African American man started to laugh and said, “Good one!”

Because the other Black guy thought it was so funny, he threw the guy’s bag off of the bus to protect me. Because he threw his bag off of the bus, the guy jumped off to go after it. The bus’s doors closed and it took off! I was safe! This whole interaction was a state of Rajas in itself.

While this situation was happening, I was extremely scared. I was extremely scared because of the consequences of being beaten up. I have always been overpowered by my ego, pride, zero impulse control, and the value of someone thinking that they are better than me in anyway, that I could never back down. These thoughts are nothing except things I take as important, and most of what I took as extremely important was completely self-centered and self-destructive. I had never been able to let my need of superiority go until the last couple of years of me developing this theory, and I am still struggling with it at times, but nothing like I used too. I would argue that the reason I have never been able to let my need of feeling superior to another person go is because my brain tells me it is so important. Why do I have to take these situations as so important? They do not serve me in any way. They have caused me, and others, harm my whole life. I went off on someone a couple of years ago, and I was terrified the whole time while I was laughing in his face, and that time I ended up in the hospital! But it was drilled into my head in the first five years of my life how I needed conquer everyone!

After that exact situation, I thought of what I said to the African American on the bus, and I started to laugh really hard. It lifted my mood right up. I started to feel euphoric. I was laughing so hard. Then I started to think about how he treated me, and I started to get really, really angry. I was in a rage. My mood changed in a split second. Then I started to think of my wife and my friends who do not like it when I say those things to people. My wife gets really upset, and when I thought of what her reaction would be I got very sad and upset.

All of these thoughts seem to start a cycle of one brain state to another. They fluctuate so quickly, and it is the same tape that plays on a loop continuing to alter my moods and actions. These same thoughts are constantly being recycled in my head days later; these thoughts do the same thing to my moods every time. I never noticed this my whole life until recently. This is why I completely agree with Freud, that for most of us who do not meditate, 90% of the mind is subconscious, but if anyone wants to see all their thoughts from any angle and what it is that is truly controlling them, I encourage them to sit in silence every single day and meditate, especially Trataka.

With the awareness of my thoughts, and the awareness of the Neurological Evaluation, I have noticed my brain going in very rapid cycles, going from Rajas to Tamas constantly. It was nothing but insanity! An egotistical insanity I had never been able to control because I was never paying attention to hardly any of it!

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When I was having the Psychological Examination, the lady giving me the test said, “Tell me as many male names you can think of as possible?”

I responded, “Steven…..” then my mind went blank. I felt a little overwhelmed that I could not think of something as simple as male names. I was starting to feel really stupid and was worried about that, so I immediately improvised and said, “Proclus, Plotinus, Theaetetus, Antenor, Pherekydes, Menelaus, Zeno, Parmenides” and I went on like that until she told me to stop. She even complained to me that she did not think she spelled most of the names right with a grunt.

I thought I was so clever, and to this day every time I think of that I start laughing. I was told, from the Neurological Examination at UCSF, that my mind is constantly jumping from brain state to brain state, is why I paused at first with such an easy question. She also said my “IQ” would be impossible to test because I have so many brain states that my mind is constantly jumping between with this executive dysfunction.

This cleverness is something I value about myself and then boom: the energy of Rajas! My thoughts and values change, so do my mood. It brings about a hypomania, and I feel completely powerless over it all. I also do not want to control the hypomania when I have it. I want the hypomania to continue because it feels so good. It is a drug without having to take any chemicals. The same thing that happens to a speed addict and a cocaine addict is what happens to someone who is bipolar and schizophrenic. The chemicals in their brain go up. With me it is especially dopamine that increases just like speed and cocaine. I know this because the medications that have been most effective to stabilize my mood are the dopamine blockers like Saphris, Zyprexa, and Clozaril. All those medications work by keeping anyone’s brain from pumping out too much dopamine, and they severally retard thoughts too, so these medications lower the “IQ.” My mind is constantly overactive because the chemicals are at a higher level.

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I was at college, where I was studying philosophy at SFSU, one time just ordering a sandwich and glass of water at a counter. I was buying food, and I asked the guy behind the counter, “Could I have a glass of water too? I’ll pay for it. I just want a glass.”

He was telling me they do not sell glasses of water. I’d have to buy a bottle. So, I said, “They do it everywhere else on campus. I will pay you extra. I just want a glass.”

A lady from behind me said, “Don’t be a jerk. He said no.”

I did not think I was being offensive in any way, but when she said that I went off on her! Other people tried to get in to defend her! I went off on all of them! None of them could keep up with me! I shut them all up, and I was telling them if they wanted this to end all they needed to do was shut up! One lady even took my picture to see if she could find out who I was and turn me in. I did not give up on any of them until I got my sandwich and the guy working there, who finally gave me a glass of water, were all in shock. I was going crazy. I was also terrified in the moment I might have gotten caught and get kicked out of school, but not letting someone get the best of me in that moment was a value I had which was more important than my future at that specific time.

After I left, I was feeling terrible. Later that day I was crying as hard as I could. I even called the counselors as the Disabled Programs and Services in tears asking them if anyone reports anything I want to apologize. I hated it, and I hated myself for doing it, but I could truly not stop in the moment. Coming down from that energy of conflict and mania to the depression was going from a state of Rajas to Tamas.

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The common thread of all these disorders are the brain states, or executive dysfunction, and what I am powerless to value when those brain states change, but if I can take a value as not important when it rises in my brain, which means I need to be able to see it clearly, I might be able to control how I feel about that value, or thought, when it rises. If I can control my feelings by seeing my thoughts clearly, with an ability to pause, I would be able to have control over my behavior and actions because, as I stated, it is how we feel about what we think that controls all our actions, and most of us are not even paying attention to all we are thinking, even if they do have impulse control, because most don’t meditate. This all takes a pause, but I have to value the pause, and developed my brain to be able to slow down and take a pause with daily meditation. Meditation is the only thing that has gotten me any type of impulse control, which I have genetically lacked my whole life. Today I developed my brain to be able to pause by making a conscious decision in meditation, which I do for forty-five minutes every single day. Through the exercises of pausing daily I have been able to in situations which I never had the ability to before.

I have found, for myself, I can have some type of “control” over my actions if I can see what I am thinking clearly and negate the destructive thoughts instead of valuing them in the current moment, which me valuing a destructive thought is when these conflicts arise. If I have a thought that rises that truly does not serve me, and it is truly not important, especially if it puts my life and future at risk, or causes harm to someone else, and if I see that thought clearly in the moment, I might be able to get from the states of Rajas and Tamas to Sattva by just the negation of the Rajas and Tamas that rises. This can only be done through the clarity of daily meditation. To see the thoughts impinging in all corners of my mind takes a daily practice of meditation. I have to value the meditation practice.

It is the egotistic and prideful values that are intruding in my psyche. It is how I take creative cruel humor as important that causes lots of my issues in this world. It is the importance of how others perceive me, if they take me as weaker than them or stupider in anyway, then the values of Rajas and Tamas surge with my ego. It is the importance of paranoia which makes my heart palpitate and freezes my every move from my anxiety when I would call 911, or the importance of a disturbing thought that did nothing but magnify my depression, which all depressed people find comfort in thoughts and activities that enhance their depression. To negate all the Rajas and Tamas is where the solution lies.

These values also manifest in different ways. With my ADHD, when I am trying to pay attention to what I am reading, it is the importance of the next book I’m going to read which keeps me from focusing on the information I need out of the current book I am trying to enjoy. Or with my ADHD, I would be reading, and a word would trigger a different thought, then I would be thinking of all these different things instead of paying attention to the words in the book. I would not even know anything that I had just read because I would be focusing and valuing on lots of different thoughts, instead of being able to pay attention in any way to the message of the words on the page. Sure, my case is going from one extreme to the other, which might be a bit more complex than some, because my brain does this so quickly and is an organic brain disorder, but this rapidity of constant change has revealed to me what my brain focuses on: nothing but a different value.

This is what happens to all of us whether we have mental illnesses or not. I have noticed we all do this with the similarities I have with others. All humans are controlled by what they value and desire just like the Buddha said. The plus about the Buddha, as opposed to Freud, is the Buddha offered a solution. But they both talk about pleasure and pain, and they both say that most of us are not paying attention to what we are thinking! Yet, it is nothing but what makes us feel good and bad that controls all our actions. We all just want our rewards and pleasures. Not just human life, but all life. This is the Pleasure Principle, and it is an Ancient Vedic principle. The Pleasure Principle is how we all learn – rewards and consequences – pleasures and pains.

It was Jeremy Bentham that gave this Ancient Vedic principle a Western name, and he defines his theory quite well in this thesis: “at any given point we are beings that seek pleasure and avoid pain,” but his writing is quite lacking because in his writing he does not give much attention to pain.

Freud gives just as much attention to pain as he does to pleasure, and Freud shows how it determines our behavior. In the Vedic scriptures I have seen the best understanding of the Pleasure Principle because the Vedic scriptures give just as much attention to pleasure as they do pain. The Vedic scriptures also do something most western sciences do not: address the paradoxes that are all throughout this empirical world (Maya) of relativity and duality.

With the Vedas, it describes the empirical world as the Maya. The Maya in itself is nothing but an illusion because there are paradoxes everywhere that contradict themselves, but the Maya arises from what is true and only true: Brahman, or the One. The Maya itself is nothing but a combination of opposites: hot and cold, bitter and sweet, pleasure and pain, and at the most fundamental level matter and anti-matter. This is why the Pleasure Principle is just as much about pain as it is about pleasure because all duality is made of the opposites which rise from the One. This One, or Brahman is non-duality, or Consciousness. It is our ignorance which takes this empirical world (Maya) of duality and relativity as “reality.”

It is acknowledging paradoxes, that Easter Religions do such as Vedanta, that I believe modern Western Science could learn a lot from. Paradoxes have been shown to all of us quite clearly in Western Science and the quantum world because the quantum world is nothing but paradoxes: quantum gravity, at what level something becomes quantum, the electromagnetic effect, which is the wave particle duality and is where Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle was discovered, and is this empirical world digital or continuous digital? All those are observable paradoxes of the quantum world. The justification of paradoxes has been proven to me quite well in these Ancient Scriptures which were the first to acknowledge relativity and duality. If motion and perceptions is relativity; therefore, individual minds and “truths” are relative, and everything has its opposite, how could there not be paradoxes all around us? Vedanta, like other forms of Hinduism, addresses these paradoxes.

Einstein neglected his own theory, which he won the Nobel Prize for, because it had a paradox: the Electromagnetic Effect, which led to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, but how could any existence of relative truths and duality function without paradoxes? Those two concepts together should let anyone know that the different forms of Hinduism have a better understanding about the “true” function of the empirical world (Maya) than most modern western sciences. Sure, we should continue constantly try to figure out every paradox and every scientific problem! I am all in favor trying to figure out everything in the Maya, but we all need to realize the paradox of Western Science is that every answer just brings about more questions, or as Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “every realization gives new dimensions to conquer. The unknown has no limits.” Every time we get any answer in this empirical world (Maya), it does not lead to the end of answers, it only brings about to more and more questions. This is the paradox most Western scientists refuse to acknowledge, and I have proved it to several doctors I have taken classes from!

Einstein said, “God does not play dice” because Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle violates causality. Einstein denied paradoxes. Vedanta would agree with Einstein on saying God, or Brahman, is quite simple. Brahman is a Non-dual One, that “does not play dice” in anyway, but how Brahman manifests, this Simple Consciousness, is in a very, very complex way because from the One rises relative “truths” and dual “truths.” These truths could be nothing but paradoxes at the most fundamental level, and it was Neil Bohr, one of the main proponents of quantum physics in the modern world who said, “Einstein, stop telling God what to do!”

So, the paradox with the Pleasure Principle is that Vedanta acknowledges we are all determined through the rewards of pleasure and pain. This world is just Karma, or causality. With every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction just like Newton said, yet in my life I am the only one that has the power of choice. The rest of the world is determined, and I am supposed to learn from it and accept every piece of it because it is nothing but God. I am here in this ego to grow and learn from my consequences, and in anyone else’s life, that is what they are here for: to learn and grow. It is only the individual who lives through the power of choice, not because any of us have power of choice, but because there is no other way to live! Without the power of choice nobody can be held responsible for their actions, and the best way to be held by the pleasure and pain of our consequences is to live by the power of “choice!” This means each one of us is the Center of our own Universe and we are all on our separate path to Salvation. The Universe is a complex machine rotating around each one of us separately. It is this paradox that we all need to address! This is the Law of Karma, and this Ancient Principle goes very well with the Theory of Evolution too.

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution states: “any life that loses its ability to learn and adapt becomes extinct,” and how we learn is through rewards and consequences: pleasures and pains. It is nothing but the actions we take that bring about our karma, and we learn from the consequences of our karma. This is what has gotten me to fall in love with Vedas. I see so much truth is in it, and I have even found the Theory of Evolution in such scriptures as the Chandogya Upanishad. The Chandogya Upanishad talks about all life evolving into all other forms of life, and what I have found with Vedas is we either learn or we suffer. We adapt, or we die. It is nothing but ancient scriptures that has told me the same basic conclusion Charles Darwin came to himself: life is about learning.

Once I had the clarity and awareness to see of what the troubles of my brain were through, the reflection of daily meditation, and the Neurological Evaluation I had done at UCSF, I decided to put it into a speech the next day in a class. When I gave this speech, I asked an active participant in the audience, “What is something important to you?”

“Family.” She responded.

“Why?” I asked.

She was in shock! She could not think of why! She had never asked herself why she thought her family was important before? She just always thought they were. This was when I told her, the only reason she takes her family as important is for no other reason than her mind tells her they are important. Most of us can never even look at something as simple as this, and our minds tell all of us what it thinks is the best way for us to survive, family is definitely one of them as a child, so we take it throughout our lives. We all have two problems as rational animals: ignorance and understating. It is right in front of us, but we take it for granted, and most of us are not even paying attention to what we are thinking.

The reason most of us do not see things like this is because most of us aren’t even paying attention to the only thing we can see from any angle: our own mind. I had my Hindu guru tell me we all do this. It is not just me, and it is not just the girl I got to participate with me in the speech I gave, who does not look at her mind, but most of us never question our thoughts and the conclusions our minds come too.

The problem is when we look at the world, or try and get information from the world, we are clouded by relativity. We only get a subjective view of the world. But the one thing we can look at from any angle is our own mind. These thoughts are not objective truths, but we can view them in an objective way when we meditate. When I saw the objective view of my own thoughts, I saw how the thoughts themselves are nothing but thoughts: imagination. The Rajas and Tamas which make up the complications and conflicts of our thoughts. They are not reality. By sitting in silent meditation watching where my brain states rapidly take me, I was able to get this clarity. My brain would always take me to something it thought was important even when I tried to control where my mind was going at the beginning! I could not! What my mind, or anyone else’s mind, does is take what they are shaped to value as important through karma, or causality, so it is those values which control my actions, and everyone’s actions. Most of the time it is nothing but our selfishness and our self-seeking desires that we value. We value this selfishness because without desire there is no life. Because without desire there is no action, and without love there is no desire, so again: “life is love and love is life.” Nisargadatta Maharaj. We are also always seeking validation of those selfish values and desires through our experiences. It is the egotistic and prideful tendencies within all of us that tells us not to question ourselves, and take what we perceive in our daily lives, and the first conclusions we come to, as the “truth.”

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Even with my disorders being so unique, it has been shown to me that I have a lot more in common with people than I ever really thought through the exploration of my own mind in silence. Sure, I have a lot of disorders, but I am like all living things, not just human, but all life on this planet. I want to feel good, and I learn through pleasure and pain. I am also selfish and self-seeking because of that desire to always feel good. It has been shown to me how much I have in common with other people with all kinds of experiences such as the psychology of TV commercials and movies. Through the psychology of both movies and commercials I can see how I am not unique when it comes to other humans because commercials and movies are meant for all of humanity, and I am amazed with how well I relate to them. I find most TV commercials obnoxious, but I also notice they work very well too. TV commercials are meant to stick in our brains.

Wayfair has truly the most annoying commercials, but when I walk down the street, nowhere near a TV, I have had their commercials playing in my head. There was this one Wayfair commercial I thought was so stupid. All it did was repeat the word “better” over and over. The whole commercial was “better, better, better……” Better was basically the only thing it was saying to silly music for 30 seconds or so, yet I was focused on it. My mind was focused on it even when I was not in front of the TV.

I have commercials in my head from childhood. As I stated I think in words, so I memorize things I hear quite easily with my savant skills. I have an OB tampon commercial in my head that popped into one time I was walking down the street with my wife, and we saw a clean tampon on the road. I made her laugh by singing it to her “OB, it’s the way you should be. Keep it simple and set yourself free. OB.” My wife started laughing really hard and told me how silly I was. I do not have any use for those because I am male, but the song still stuck in my head from the early 80s. I had to have been like 4 years old when I heard the commercial on TV. Years later, at the age of thirty, I can still recall it walking down the street with my wife. My wife found it on YouTube that night, and that made her laugh even harder.

There is only one commercial I thought made no sense whatsoever, and that was about Subaru being about love. I talked to some other people who did not see the point in that one, but it was so ridiculous I still ponder it at times. I also saw how it did not last too long, and you can tell when commercial themes are given up quickly, they do not work for the business.

I have a friend. Probably the only close friend I truly have. He suffers from chronic depression. He refuses to be on medication because of all the commercials he sees that advertise them too. They all have this list of crazy side effects. They list these side effects in a calm and soothing voice to wonderful relaxing music and people finally being able to live their lives again. They show the people who are on that specific drug finally being able to live a happy life. Medications are also ridiculously expensive in America. I, myself, take drug commercials as quite terrible for lots of reasons. Exploiting the weakness of any human for a quick fix and lots of prophet.

The psoriasis commercials I take as completely evil with the drug Tilts. They have the bride being able to have the father/daughter dance at her wedding because her skin is finally clear. I see how and why they work, but the Tilts commercial, in particular, disgusts me. It is so manipulative, and the people who created it know it. It is why the drug companies play them. These commercials work for some but scare others, and the prices they charge are ridiculous when they do not even pay for the research. They pay for the patent. The government grants pay for the research. Yet, they advertise these commercials and charge ridiculous prices because they know we all relate to having a problem beyond our control, and we all want simple relief. So, I guess, who I am to criticize anything but the price and ridiculous profit they make if they can relieve suffering?

Skyrizi is a drug for psoriatic arthritis, and its commercial has the catchiest tune I have ever heard. Its lyrics “Nothing is everything” is the same concept as the Vedic God Brahman. God is Everything, yet nothing as in no thing; therefore, Nothing is Everything, which is also a title of a book from Nisargadatta Maharaj. The way to say Nothing is Everything in Sanskrit is Sunyam Sarvam. I actually tried to download the song on iTunes, and they had it, but it was made to sound really corny, so I didn’t download it.

With my friend who struggles with depression I have also noticed the same thing as with myself. He worked for a home improvement store. He worked there, and he hated it. He hated the company. He thought it was a terrible company with what they did to him and their employees. He even blames himself for giving people promotions there. He feels terrible he participated in their corporation. The reason he blames himself, and takes it out on himself, is because he values his dislike for the company so much. He also thinks that because he hates that company, everyone else should as well. It is the self-centered and obsessive focusing on his misery which is the driver of his depression. This is the depression of Tamas. Every chronically depressed person I have met has a self-centered obsession. It is of different things and circumstances, but it is always self-centered.

I do not think he should blame himself in any way for working for a place which he was making a living at doing the best job he could because I have never seen this man do anything malicious to anyone, yet he blames himself for helping other workers move up the ranks. He takes it as his fault for no other reason than his mind takes it as important. What he values does the same thing to him as it does to all of us. They just give us different results, but they are still mental illnesses none the less. They are a mental illness whose disposition is self-centered values.

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Movies also show me how much I have in common with people. There have been several movies I have seen that got me to think about myself and how much I have in common with others more than anything else: Her, Three Billboards, and something I saw just recently Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Her was all about love. Joaquin Phoenix plays a tortured character who just wants what we all want: love. This love is pure being characteristic of the Sattva in itself. This emotion of love, how we think of it, and the way it makes us all feel, I thought were exclusive to me. While I was in the audience, I realized, and was overwhelmed by that realization, that everyone in the audience was relating to it. This movie about love was not just for me, it was for all humans, and how we all relate to it. I was not as unique as I thought I was when it came to the needs of romance and love. Her was meant for everyone. I had a friend who did not even like it too much who said he related to it.

When I saw Three Billboards, it was about what anger does to all of us. Frances McDonald was playing a lady who was a mother. Her child was killed, and the sheriff could not find the killer. McDonald’s character took the anger she had over her daughter’s death out on the sheriff and everyone in the whole town. I related to this movie as well because I was extremely abused as a child, and I took that anger out on everyone in my life for a long time. I saw in Three Billboards how powerless we are over this rage we all can go through. It is not just me who gets into conflicts with other people. It is the whole human race. This passion of anger would be the Rajas. It is an extremely old argument that is in the New Testament on the Law of Love. Anger creates more anger is a key argument in that law.

Sure, I fluctuate quicker, and might be an extreme example of the passion that flickers inside me, but when it comes down to it, I am just like everyone else. I was obsessed with what I thought others were thinking of me, just like everyone else, and I always got some sense of self by what I thought others were thinking of me, just like everyone else does too. We all get this amazing amount of sense of self from what we think others think of us because we are meant to survive together. We are meant live in families, tribes, cities, and civilizations. We only know if we are smart, or good looking, or ugly, or stupid, by comparing ourselves to other people. We all do it because we were created to survive together. But because I fluctuate so quickly, I have been able to see how my values change. These values, which change in our brains, affect all of us and control the shifts in all our behaviors. Like I said, each of our minds tells us the best way it thinks we need to think so we can survive. We all just have the same two problems: ignorance and understanding. We aren’t paying attention to most of what we think!

An amazing movie that I saw once was Everything Everywhere All at Once. I loved it and I could tell everyone did in the audience too! I could also tell that even the annoying people behind me, who would not shut up through most of movie while it was playing, were reflecting at the same exact parts as I was. We would laugh at the same times, it seemed as though others were shedding tears at the exact times I was, and I started to reflect about my existence and where I was in my life, and I leaned over to my wife and asked her, “is this movie getting you to reflect?”

She responded, “Yes.”

I could tell everyone was reflecting because when the whole theater went silent, with a seen of two rocks talking to each other on a cliff looking off a huge Canyon, that they were reflecting with the same questions that were being presented on the screen between these two rocks in a subtitled conversation. They went from laughing extremely loud, to silence! There was no sound from the speakers either! That is how I could tell they were all reflecting! I used the quote from Maya Angelou in the second chapter to prove how much I have in common with everyone despite my rare genetic brain disorder, but we all have desires, we all want to be important, we all question our existence and the point of this ridiculous empirical illusion to some extent or another. It is things like how much I have in common with every single person I meet now that shows me that I am truly not that much different than anyone, and I have this belief reinforced to me over and over when I continue to open my mind. I am not much different than anyone despite my rare brain disorder and crazy background because all life is here to learn. All life suffers, and this pain is one of all our two teachers in the Vedas. The other is pleasure.

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When people are depressed, they value things which make them more depressed. I have tried killing myself more times than I can count as I stated. A lot of it was for attention, but I even tried to cut my throat one time. That time I meant it. A couple of other times I did too, and I just would not die. One of the things I have noticed since then, is when I was depressed the only thing I held onto in my mind, or valued in anyway, was how terrible I was. I was the greatest most terrible person who ever lived. I valued how terrible I was because I did not have anything else, and being the worst was the only way to be the best at something. I have seen people do this all throughout society. The Punk Rocker and Gangster Rap are the same song with different lyrics and a completely different tune, but we have all been there. That is why those completely different beats are for everyone! Not just me, but everyone!

This depression I went through, and the depression anyone can go through, has its basis in ego. I have seen that in every depressed person I have talked to as well. They all value and take comfort in things, situations, and thoughts that do nothing but enhance and magnify their depression.

Because I had the realization of thoughts being nothing more than just thoughts, and that meant these thoughts were nothing more than just imagination. I saw my problem was that I valued this imagination. This imagination that I valued was what was completely controlling my actions. I have the clarity today to see I could take these thoughts as important or not. Now days, I can value a thought or not value a thought, especially if I can pause and see that thought clearly. I see most of my thoughts are just as important as imagination because these thoughts all have their root in my toxic ego. I do not need to take anything as important or even real because, not just me, but we are all wrong all the time in our relative and dual “truths” that we cling too. I see with myself when my thoughts cause harm to me and others I have the ability to negate this imagination. To negate these thoughts, the thoughts of the Rajas and Tamas, would be a good way to address them. Neglecting these thoughts when I meditate allows me to pause and neglect them during the day, which is nothing but one of the mental exercises to rewire my brain’s neuropathways.

I can take the power right out of the Rajas and Tamas. Even if a thought is truly important, like the next book I want to read while I am trying to just pay attention to what I am currently reading. Sure, I need to read that next book someday, but at the moment I need to negate any other thoughts except where the words of this specific author are taking me on this very page that I am trying to pay attention to. So, I now have the clarity to see that the next book I need to read is not important in that very moment.

When it comes to what others might be thinking of me, which was what led to nothing but a self-defensive and aggressive behavior for me for years, I can just pause in the moment and negate them completely. This is how I can solve the problem of my eight different brain states: neglecting the chaos in a daily practice of emptying my mind every morning. But why is my brain so cluttered with chaos?

What is it about all our brains that gets us to focus and dwell on problems to the point where it harms ourselves and others? Some say the nature of man is good. Some say the nature of man is evil. There is a lot of evidence to support both of these claims. What I say is that the nature of man is confusion. Confusion is a problem of the human brain and its intellectual capacities. This confusion of the brain is because of one thing: we cannot get the best answers out of the options that are in front of us in that current moment. Understanding these answers is what the brain was created for. Any brain is meant to solve problems, and the human brain has the ability to solve more rational problems than just basic survival. My belief is where all human difficulties truly arise is the ignorance and understanding just as Socrates stated: “no one would knowingly do wrong.”

The reason the brain needs to be able to solve problems is because solving problems is our way to the survival of all life, and with evolution we are always growing and adapting. The human brain, and even all animal’s brains, are considered plastic. Which means they are meant to constantly grow and adapt with the flux of the Maya. All life, be it animal or plant, either learns and adapts or it dies.

It is always being focused on the problem which keeps our brains in the problem. The chaos of humanity is not just about ignorance either because there are lots of people who have the answers who do not know how to apply them to their lives. I have had my wife tell me to treat everyone with the same love I treat her. I have had the answer for a while. I did not think this was possible, and I did not think I could implement it. I have now seen if I can do it with her, then I can do it with anyone as long as I value this solution. I work constantly on not valuing the chaos of my pride and ego. Just neglect the pride and ego: Rajas and Tamas, and as Socrates said: “To know is to do.” So, when I truly understand something is when I take the right action according to Socrates.

It is amazing how for so much of my life I wanted to solve my problem of fear with something which just brought about more fear. This is why I needed to insult people and feel superior to them. It was about the fear of inferiority. It was about the fear of people, and it just isolated me even more and made me more scared of people.

When people use drugs, gamble, eat too much, and every other self-destructive behavior, we are all just trying to satisfy a feeling of fear with something which brings about more fear. It feels good in the moment, but as the Buddha said is the Second of the Four Noble Truths: “selfish desires are the main cause of all suffering.” These desires, in themselves, are nothing but confusion. People cannot see what they are truly doing. Satisfying a desire is also how we all stay alive. We need to eat, and when we eat it feels good. We are all just terrible at seeing how we all chase what feels good to the point where it causes problems for ourselves and others. Why would anyone take any action besides what they think best suits them in the moment? Our minds always tell us what we think is the best thing to do is. Why would our brain do anything else, and as I said most of us are not even aware of our whole minds because most of us do not meditate, especially the way I do in the next chapter on ADHD.

Not being able to implement the solution which is right in front of them is also the main problem I see with the follower of different religions. Most religions tell people the most peaceful and best way to live. It gives them the solution to living their life, but a lot of conflict has risen from every different religion. They have the answers. The answers of religions are nothing but simple logic and common sense. It is the true misunderstanding of their own text, and applying it to their lives, that is their main problem. People do all kinds of terrible things in the name of God. What most people desire who practice religion is the impossible: certainty in an uncertain world.

This desire for this impossibility of this certainty is why their religion does not bring about peace and happiness to them. Their religion only brings about fear. This fear is what the delusion of fundamentalism gives all its followers. The Maya is always uncertain. The plus about Vedanta is it gives certainty in only one place: I am! The only thing that is certain is my existence. Everything else is an inference subject to doubt. This Maya is perfect in one way: It is nothing but my perfect teacher. This shows the problem of the brain is just as much about understanding as it is ignorance because God would never want us to do anything terrible in any way.

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I saw for a very long time how I was always stuck in the problem. Especially in the moments when I would lose all control. These situations of complete loss of control were frequent because my brain would value the thoughts which rose, and I was not even paying attention to what I was thinking. It is this same clarity of awareness that has gotten me to deal with my hallucinations. These hallucinations are based in the Tamas. I can now see these hallucinations are just images. Images I do not need to put any value on. I can detach from them and let them go. When I have hallucinations now, I meditate and empty my mind completely, which I will be showing in the chapter on schizophrenia. These hallucinations are more illusions now because I can see they are not reality. I can be in a state where a hallucination is just an illusion, which, either way, it is just a pointless thought, and there does not need to be anything important about the illusion. I have illusions at night sometimes, but they have not bothered me for a while, and I explain how I deal with them in that chapter too. I can see what any thought can be today: pointless imagination.

With this awakening through the combination of meditation and the Neurological Evaluation at UCSF, I now have the ability to put a weight on each of the thoughts I have and see if I should truly value them or not. This has been the best way for me to overcome my eight different brain states is to try and do the mental exercises daily in the next chapter on ADHD and all the following chapters. I have adapted my techniques many, many times. You can also see what works for you and be able to take this and figure out your own mind.

I have been able to take all the power out of the different brain states. My hope is to show people how to understand their minds, and work through their own executive brain dysfunction. I have the power to not engage with these different brain states today when I address the brain states through the thinking. I refocus the brain states through Trataka and work on evening the chaos of my mind daily.

Just be aware that I do not identify my True Self, or Atman, which is defined as nothing but consciousness, then when I am identifying my body and mind. My True Self is nothing but my consciousness, as it says in the Rgveda:

“The True Self, itself, is that Pure Consciousness, that which nothing can be known in any way, and the same True Self Pure Consciousness, is no different from the Ultimate Principal Brahman, Brahman is the only reality, since it is untinged by difference, the mark of ignorance, and the one thing that cannot be improved upon.”

In Vedanta the Brahman and Atman are one, but I do have all kinds of issues that I am able to overcome by just being the Witness and addressing the brain states through the redirection of my thinking, which is the single pointed concentration meditation (Trataka) laid out in these scriptures. 

Today I can keep my mind from wondering without medication. I am working on the daily negation of all my urges, and I believe it will come with time. Especially when I do nothing but accept the rest of the world as the way it is meant to be. I can feel the energy still being there in my mind and gently say to myself: “who cares?” I just do not need to torture myself by focusing on the value that drives me crazy because, with meditation, I have been able to shift my focus throughout my day no matter what I am doing to get to the next solution clearly. Before I was not even aware of what my mind was focusing on at all. I would just lose all control.

I notice what I am thinking all throughout the day now, and because of this I notice I even have the insanity of an “if/only” situation. I was walking down the street the other day, and a car came close to hitting me. It did not. The car stopped in time. There was also a cop car right there. Then my mind went to the fantasy that the car did hit me. I followed the fantasy to the point where the cop chased the driver down and arrested him. I saw it and pulled my thoughts back from the fantasy. It was a value that did not even happen that was driving me crazy. I was even getting angry over a fantasy. That angry fantasy in itself was the chaos. That Rajas is within us all.

We are all addicted to our fantasies, especially because most of us don’t acknowledge that is all, all our minds are: fantasy or imagination. We dwell in them and play the same broken record in our heads. I cannot count how many times I have replayed the situations of what I have said to people which gave me those different brain states. The same situations give me the same thoughts and brain states. These thoughts and brain states are addictive because what we all take as important is what stratifies our selfishness most of the time.

ॐ

I have found the best way for me to overcome my faults of any kind is to identify them through seeing each thought clearly through meditation, and then I just let them go by not taking them as valuable and not interacting with them. I even am able to shift my focus. If I want to be rid of my character defects, I should not define myself, or identify myself, by them. I should be able to see my character defects as they are there but should not take them as myself or important in any way. These values, and what I have always taken myself to be, are just thoughts. Thoughts do not need to control me, and thoughts do not need to control anyone. We just need to see them clearly and let go of the Rajas and Tamas. Just not take them as important. Especially because all thoughts are just imagination. What I have been saying to myself when a thought, or a value, rises in my brain which does not serve me is: “who cares?”

After about a week of having that clarity, I made more progress than I have ever made in such a short amount of time. I have not been to a psych ward or a jail cell in a long time either. It has been over 19 years now since I have been in and arrested. I have been able to just see that anyone else’s issues are about them. Realizing every single person in this Maya is my perfect teacher. I can pause and see they are having a bad day, or even other complications in their life I do not need to take personally. I can take myself down from my hypomania of my bipolar with the clarity I have gotten by seeing my thoughts clearly, focusing my mind, and detaching from the thinking. I have been able to just remove certain thoughts which do not serve me out of my field of vision. I shift my focus and neglect the thought by saying “who cares?,” and when I meditate, I empty my mind completely with just saying those words to any thoughts which rise at all every single morning: “who cares?” is what I say to any thought no matter what it is every day while I practice for forty-five minutes.

Panic attacks have always been the worst feeling I have ever had; with my new practice, I have been able to focus and see the anxiety attack as just a feeling. A feeling provoked by a thought which does not serve me. When I had these panic attacks in the past, I was someone who would call 911 because they were so scary. Nothing was worse than a panic attack! Truly, nothing! To take this thought as valuable gives me a feeling I do not need to give any credence too. It has been amazing, and it has only come with awareness and the determination to implement this theory, and I have overcome them without medication.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaja said in the book I Am That: “anyone can step over into the solution anytime they like.” Progress does not need to be slow and painful. I have always been beaten into the next solution, but now I just do not need to engage with the problem. I can detach from what I once valued.

Seeing what is truly important is something which could help anyone with mental illness, or even the basic problems we all have with our behavior when we have a bad day. That is why these are ancient principles which apply to everyone. My mantra today is “who cares?” We all put so much value on things which cause us and others harm. We value these selfish desires because of our egos. I need to not put a value on my prideful egotistic disposition. I can now just neglect the thoughts of the Rajas and Tamas, or: ~T, when I see them clearly. By neglecting the Rajas and Tamas it negates those actions that do not serve me:

((~T>~B)>~F))~A.

This way we can open the door to the Sattva. This is what is called in Sanskrit as Viveka and Vairagya, or discrimination and dispassion. The concepts of the Vedas have gotten me to ask myself, “Do I want to be a philosopher, or do I want to be a lunatic?” If there is such a thing as the power of “choice,” it is the ability to see our thoughts clearly, in all areas and corners of our minds, and to be able to neglect any thoughts we have that cause us or others’ problems. What we take as important is what controls all our actions, and if most of us are not even paying attention to 90% of our minds, so most of us do not have much control at all. We are confined by our circumstances.

If anyone who is reading this thinks they have any power of choice just sit in silence and try to control your mind.  Try to keep all thoughts out of your mind for forty-five minutes. You will realize you have no control! Your mind will do whatever it wants, especially when you first start. True power is the power of inaction, or the ability to see your thoughts clearly and then to neglect any thoughts that you have that do not serve you or cause you and others’ problems throughout the day. This takes Viveka and Vairagya: discrimination and dispassion. Viveka, or discrimination, is seeing your mind for the imagination it is and being able to look at your mind from any angle. Vairagya, or dispassion, is the ability to say, “who cares?” to any thoughts you have that causes you or others’ problems, or to be able to just neglect that thought.

If anyone wants Heaven, Nirvana, Moksha, Salvation, or whatever you want to call it, I have found the only place. It in the here and now. Happiness is nothing but a state of mind, and the mind is nothing but imagination. Just neglect the Rajas and Tamas and let the power of the Sattva shine through. This takes seeing every corner of your mind clearly through daily meditation, and controlling your mind through Trataka. This happiness is the essence of Sattva within us all. This is an experiment anyone can do, for as stated in the Volume One of the Rgveda

“when purified through rays of intelligent discrimination, the mind humbly submits to wisdom”

through the Viveka and Vairagya.

ॐ        ॐ      ॐ    ॐ

              I’m writing you this letter because I love you. I have met lots of people in my life and have had a couple of different relationships, but I feel as though you are the person that I was truly meant to be with. I don’t know if I’m one who completely believes in fate, but I’m glad that ours have taken the same path. Being with you means that for the first time in years I am truly happy and fulfilled. Even when you’re not around I am thinking of you, and the others in my life know this because I mention your name to them quite often. I find everything about you to be beautiful, and whenever I have a troubled mind I can gaze into your eyes and my heart will be at rest.

              You are someone that I am forever indebted to. You literally saved my life on several occasions, and this is what tells me that everything about you makes you a genuine loving person. This means that you are above the rest that have crossed my path. I love you.

              Your compassion, not just for me, but your selflessness towards everyone, makes me admire you. I feel that when anyone gets to truly know you they have respect and admiration for you. It is your selflessness that most in this world are lacking, and it is just one of the many things that has made it so my heart is devoted to you alone. You dragged me to safety when I was having those medical problems, but there are lots of other things that make me, and everyone, admire you. You even have more common sense than the next ten people combined.

              We have a lot in common as well. We love the same movies, books and music. This is something that tells me that we are meant for each other because I’ve never met someone that I have had so much in common with.

              You also have so many amazing talents. You are an ardent writer who is always striving to get to the next level. Your determination in life makes it so all admire you when they see what you put forward in your writing. Your talent for writing is innate within you, and it is something that every writer wishes that they had.

              I’m writing you this letter because I am asking for your hand in marriage. I love you for who you are, and I have felt that you love me for who I am as well. That’s what this is about. It is about how I feel about you and how having you in my life has improved me so much. You inspire me to do better, and I want the chance to live the rest of my life with you because I love you for who you are.

Know that I love you, and would you please marry me?

Yours sincerely,

THAT MIGHT BE ME i HATE

i recall his swing

as my blood flew,

screams in the night

while hatred grew.

with bottle in hand

he still must drink,

cast aside

as my heart does sink.

in silence alone

i did so weep,

with all our tears

in sorrows deep.

and upon his leave

i still do cry,

from this man

whom i wish would die.

for along these years flow swiftly by,

his thought in mind

will gently pry.

so thinking of him

others do see,

him in this picture of only me.

a downward fall I seem to concede,

with all this Rage

my soul does bleed!

for within this life’s unlawful fate,

i might just be

that man i hate.

05/18/94

Buy the this poem and others at the link below; along with full chapter on forgiveness:

Buy the whole book The Shadowed Soul with a chapter on how I’ve overcome ADHD, Dyslexia, Suicidal Depression, PSTD and Anxiety, Schizophrenia and Bipolar, Epilepsy and Autism, Brain Damage and Digital Dementia and the Retardation of Thoughts in the link below:

 

 Chapter 8:

Overcoming Schizophrenia and Bipolar:

Looking is more fundamental in the Space of Imagination

           Humans have the greatest ability of all living creatures on earth to get to some type of knowledge out of our experience in the empirical world (Maya). We communicate the conclusions of our “reality” that we have come to each other through the expression of semantics. Other animals do not have this capacity to comprehend “reality” to the extent we can, nor can they communicate it to one another at the level we can. We are never able to get to a complete knowledge of “reality” because of our limited perspectives based on our relative experiences; therefore, some type of skepticism is required when exploring the Maya. What we need to be able to do is always allow for the correction in of our errors with the different thoughts we get in this Maya through the method of falsification.

Falsification means we never completely get to the truth about the Maya that is around us because all science does with falsification is over through one theory for a better theory. Science is constantly getting better theories so we can get a better understanding of this Maya through this gift that humans have been given of psychological nominalism: the attempt to express reality through semantics, because all we can do is attempt to express the Maya through words. This means that with the gift we humans have, according to Wilfred Sellars’ “Space of Reasons,” is the best we all can do is to get this knowledge is to look.

Wilfred Sellars wrote how seeing is more fundamental for humans than looking, but Sellars says when we see, there is a chance we can always be wrong. I would argue that Sellars cannot have it both ways. One cannot say that seeing is more fundamental towards knowledge while still leaving the chance that we can always be wrong with this self-correcting falsification if we refuse to look. If we can always be wrong, and we know that through our individual experiences, then it means: to get closer to the absolute truth, using the Space of Reasons, looking is more fundamental to getting answers than seeing because looking, in its very essence, allows for the falsification and the self-correcting aspects of knowledge.

I would argue that for basic survival seeing is more fundamental. This is proven to me because seeing is only what animals do, but if it is to get answers of “reality” that are desired throughout the Maya, then looking is the gift that humans, the rational animals, have. With looking, all we have is what we infer, and if we are going to be honest with ourselves in this universe of falsification, then inference is all we truly have, being that human “reality” is in the Space of Reasons, for every question except one: do I exist? Because the only thing we do when we look, coming to conclusions about this Maya, is infer.

Looking means we do not completely have the answers, and we can admit that whatever we interpret about what is in front of us, we could be mistaken about. I define myself as an inferentialist, and Robert B. Brandom in Articulating Reasons an Introduction to Inferentialism explicates perfectly what inferentialists do:

“Inferentialists seek to define representational properties in terms of inferential ones, which must accordingly be capable of being understood antecedently. They start with a notion of content to determine what is a reason for what and understand truth and representation as features of ideas that are not only manifested in, but actually consist in, their role in reasoning” (Brandom P524).

I appreciate how Brandom puts philosophers into two categories. Instead of empiricists and rationalists, Brandom describes them as representationalists and inferentialists (Brandom P523). For I, myself, take “truth and representation as features of ideas” just like Brandom states. All I have myself is what I infer about “reality,” and that is why I hold myself to the class of an inferentialist.

           In Empiricism and Philosophy of the Mind, Wilfred Sellars explicates how looking is parasitic on seeing. Sellars tells how, when someone sees something, like a red triangle, then they are endorsing that object (Sellars 39). Seeing something means that is how that object is, if and only if, it is how that object is in normal circumstances, and when someone is seeing it, then they are endorsing it according to Sellars because he writes:

“For to say that a certain experience is a seeing that something is the cause, is to do more than describe the experience. It is to characterize it as, so to speak, making an assertion or claim, and – which is the point I wish to stress – to endorse that claim” (Sellars P39).

I, myself, have a problem with endorsements and claims of certainty. I have found that people, in their everyday experiences, are always endorsing all their experiences, and they take it as true for no other reason than it is their experience. Most people, from what I have seen, have no ability to question themselves, and most people, even philosophers, are not after the truth. What most people want is the impossible: certainty in an uncertain world, and people take instances that are only supposed to be “lookings” and take them as “seeings” for no other reason than they want to know that what they believe is true. I would say that people tell themselves they want the truth all the time, but they are just not honest with themselves. If the truth is what is desired in this Maya of falsification, then the most we can say in any circumstance is this is how something appears to us now, especially if we can always be wrong as Sellars states. This is how this object looks to me in this circumstance, for I can never truly know if my circumstances are ever “normal.”

Sellars in his Section III, The Logic of Lookings, gives a perfect example of how we can always be wrong. Sellars gives a thought experiment of a gentleman named John on pages 37 through 46. John works in a necktie shop, and his whole life he thought he was seeing the ties for their true color. He had always assumed that his experiences where the experiences of seeing these ties were done in normal conditions, then one day someone was able to show him when you take the tie outside into normal daylight the color of the ties are different than the light that John had always been looking at them in; therefore, the conditions that he has always been seeing the ties in were not normal conditions. John was seeing these ties under an electric lighting. This changed all the colors of the ties. When John had this awareness, he was then able to correct the assumptions that he had always been making about the colors of the ties.

This example of the ties reminds me too much of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave Book VII of the Republic. In Plato’s dialog, Plato is writing about a prisoner who finds shadows on the wall that he has always taken as reality aren’t “reality.” He was trapped in chains with his head staring at the light casting shadows on the wall his whole life, and when he was released, he found that his perception of “reality” wasn’t reality. This reminds me of Sellar’s tie example, because they both have to do with the perception of lighting, and realizing what they always thought was true wasn’t true. I also take Sellar’s example of seeing ties in the tie shop under electric lighting as a bad example, for when someone first walks into a room of electric lighting from outside in normal conditions, they would be able to see the difference in the room with the lighting. They would know that the colors around them aren’t what they would perceive in the sunlight because the colors on their clothes would be different too. So, it is a bad example to begin with, but Plato points out in The Allegory of the Cave that people are hated when they speak the truth! When the prisoner finds out that the shadows on the wall aren’t “reality,” then he tries to explain it to the other prisoners that were trapped just like he was, and they threaten him with death because when people get their realities challenged, they don’t like it! It tells them that what they took as true their whole life they were wrong about and nobody likes being wrong. My point that I will be reiterating all throughout this essay, is that most people have no desire for the truth, because most people don’t want to question their “reality,” because they want the impossible: certainty in an uncertain world. People tell themselves they want the truth all the time, but they don’t. People tell themselves they are looking when all the do is see something they like and taking that perception as “reality.” That is what pride is.  Pride is I think I am right when I am wrong. I think I am right when I truly do not know. Pride is not having that ability to question my “reality.”

What I would say is that almost everyone thinks that the conditions they experience things in, and the conclusions they come to in those conditions, are of normal conditions until they are shown otherwise. We all function off the assumption that our experiences are the true experiences of normal conditions, because of our necessary animal instincts for survival based on seeing. We need to be able to constantly respond to our current conditions to stay alive, and that is what our senses allow us to do, but the only people that are ever able to get to some type of correction of their false beliefs are the ones that allow for self-correction through doubt. The reason why we always think our assumptions are true until shown otherwise, is because that is what animals do to survive. It is important to note too that life is about survival in every instance, and we are nothing but rational animals. Sellars shows how, when John is exposed to seeing the ties in the sunlight, that’s when he perceives he was wrong. John can make a correction, but John also has a difficult time doing this. Now John, when he is in the store, needs to pause when explaining the colors of the ties to the customers. John can express to the people he is selling the ties to that the colors they see in this electric light are not the colors of the ties in normal conditions. There is a doubt which rises in John’s mind whenever he is explaining the colors of the ties to people.

Descartes was one of the first Western Philosophers that allowed for some type of skepticism in the modern sense, and Descartes, and the Cartesian Doubt, or Hyperbolic Doubt, is where the foundation of truth lies for me in the Western World. Descartes writes in Meditations I, that when he is sitting by the fire writing his essay, he comes to the assumption that he is truly doing this (Descartes P7), but how is he supposed to completely know? I am not a fan of the Evil Demon argument that Descartes writes about in the Meditations, but I do appreciate it when he questions his “sanity.”

The Evil Demon just seems like a fairy tale of some sort. I see no way to infer that there is some Evil Demon tricking my mind and experience at every turn. The problem I have come to see with all my misdeeds and behaviors was my ignorance, and the more knowledgeable I am, the better my actions have become. Ignorance and misunderstanding are the only true evils there are; therefore, evil doesn’t exist. Just like ignorance doesn’t exist. Ignorance is just a lack of knowledge; so, ignorance doesn’t exist, which means evil doesn’t exist. Such philosophers as Pseudo-Dionysius would say, “By aspiring to the non-existent, they aspire to the evil.” Which means Ignorance, or evil, does not exist. When we aspire to error in thinking and come to false conclusions is where all evil lies. So, I do not see a Being, that is all knowing, as being evil; therefore, there is no logical inference for an Evil Demon, we all have the experience of being ignorant and wrong, with that ignorance causing problems in our lives, and everybody has also experienced someone who is insane.

Insanity is something everyone has an experience with if they live in a big city just by walking around town and acknowledging the homeless. Therefore, I like Descartes’ argument for the question: “how do I know I am not insane?” Anyone who lives in San Francisco, every time they walk downtown, see crazy homeless people talking to themselves all the time. We all have these experiences witnessing their insanity, and I would say most of us do not give it a second thought, but something I have asked myself, just like Descartes in the Meditations, when he is sitting by the fire, how do I know that is not me? How do I know that is not me being a crazy homeless person in San Francisco digging through a trashcan looking for food stuck in my own reality as thinking I am writing this paper? How do I know that every conclusion that I have come to in my life is nothing but a psychotic delusion? How do I know that is not me talking to the wind, yet I think I am a philosophy major at SFSU studying Wilfred Sellars? I truly have no way to know apodictically! But, if I am trapped in that state of mind, the only way I would ever be able to get out of it is to be able to doubt my circumstances through looking. I asked a psychiatrist, Dr. Karthik Sarma, I was seeing at UCSF: “how do you know that isn’t you?” and he told me that wouldn’t be too probable. My response to that was “Why not? You see and deal with crazy people all the time. It seems quite common. That could easily be you. Don’t you think?” He had no answer to this, and this is what Descartes does when he is sitting by the fire in the Meditations. Descartes is questioning his “sanity.” If he was insane, then he would only be able to get to the knowledge of his insanity through doubt, and Descartes knows this. I, myself, have had my own experiences with insanity, and it was only through questioning my sanity that I was able to get out of it and function in society, or so I infer!

The problem with an insane person is that they are not able to ask themself the question: “Am I truly sane?,” and, from what I have noticed, most “sane” people cannot ask themselves that question either, even like Dr. Karthik Sarma, and everyone believes things that are not true in an empirical world of relativity and duality (Maya), especially in the age of information with such things as artificial intelligence. So, one of the key questions I was able to ask myself is: what is the difference between a false belief and a delusion?

There are two main different realities in American politics with MS-Now and Fox News. They cannot both be right because they are opposite concepts of political reality in every way. So, this is proof that everyone believes things that are not true in the age of information, and the people that watch these different concepts of reality believe it for no other reason than someone told them, it fits their experiences, it makes them feel good, and even reinforces what they already believe. It is also important to note that it was Ronald Reagan’s repealing of the Fairness Doctrine of Reporting that allowed for biased new sources like Fox and MS-Now to form. I would argue that most people seek their news shows for the information they want to believe be it MS-Now, Fox, CNN or any podcast. I cannot even begin to explain the problems Facebook is causing with the realities of all Americans, let alone the world! And what about A.I. and these artificially generated videos of people we see on the news being created saying or do things they did not say or do? Like Donald Trump putting a sombrero on Hakeem Jefferies head with Chuck Shumer in it as well. The United States Congress has had hearings about this now to find out what to do with relative information of social media giants such as Facebook and the problems they are causing in our societies. I’m sure they have all thought about AI, and the roll misinformation will be playing in future elections. Yet, we all seek relative information for the same reason on a subconscious level: a validation of our individual experiences and a reinforcement of our ignorant “realities.”

It is also important to acknowledge how many of the people that watch those different news shows, with different forms of “reality,” or the people using Facebook and AI, never ask themselves the question: Am I truly sane? I would argue not too many of us do! So, if a sane man cannot question is sanity, or even his relative reality, and understand that he is seeking this information for no other reason than comfort of opinion, and believes things that are not true by doing this, which we all do, be him truly sane or insane, then what is the difference between a sane and an insane man, if both believe things that are not true, and neither can question their sanity? I use nothing but both elections of Donald J. Trump to show how completely crazy all Americans are, especially for the second time!

It is amazing the people that support Trump back him for all kinds of concepts they hold to be true, like “sexual morality” and the “Theory of Race.” Trump proved to them in video in the 2016 election that he was not sexually moral in anyway with the recording that was found of him saying he grabs women wherever he wants to, and “if you are famous, they let you to do it!” Trump was also held guilty in court for sexual assault; yet his followers listen to people like Tucker Carlson preach these ideas and shout sex is between one man and one woman from the mountain tops! Tucker Carlson is always pointing at some sexual deviant who is a Liberal in some way, and you can see how he is trying to scare his own viewers with this information. It is amazing how the right-wing media is focusing so hard on transgender and transexual people just because they are an easy target, and their viewers are just scared of something they don’t understand: human sexuality. Yet, I have seen a three-minute video on Donald J. Trump sexualize his own daughter on Howard Stern! It is a YouTube video where he says several extremely disturbing things he wants to do sexually to his own daughter! It has video of him checking her out when she is in a modeling show! It is extremely creepy! I’ve asked some of Trump’s supporters to watch it, and they flip out! Here is the link: https://youtu.be/DsOVVqubBus . It existed before A.I. too. I first watched it a couple of years before A.I. existed during the 2016 election. It is nothing but hypocrisy, pride, and ego to say you are all about “sexual morality” and marriage, or against any sexual relations that are not just between one man and one woman, and then vote for a man, for President of the United States, who has twenty-five creditable accusations of rape, confessed to it on tape, held guilty of sexual assault in civil court, sexualizes his own daughter over and over to the eyes of the public, and is even all throughout the Jeffery Epstein files! There is not one Democrat that I have talked to that is in favor of any of Trump’s sexual conduct in any way! Democrats argue for complete female equality and ostracize people from their party that don’t hold to that like Chris Matthews when he was on MSNBC. Chris Matthews got fired just for the credible accusations of harassment. Yet the people that voted for Trump claim “sexual morality!”

I take human sexuality, and sexual behavior, as one of my main reasons why I think most humans have no desire for the truth. There is a big difference, I have noticed, between sexual identity and sexual behavior. I cannot tell you how many times I have been in a gay 12 Step meeting and one of men share they had sex with a “straight” married man, and they all laugh! That is because they all do it all the time in San Franciso. I have lots of gay friends that only have sex with “straight” married men. To me it just means they aren’t “straight!” Humans have sex 0.1% of the time for procreation. That means, on the average, a fundamentalist Christian is having sex with his wife one out of a thousand times for the purpose of procreation, and it is proven that, when you isolate men with men and women with women, they naturally show homosexual tendencies. This happens in jails and ships. Sure, when they are back in places where they can express their original sexual behavior they do, but homosexual experiences for humans aren’t abnormal. They just aren’t accepted, and I have said many, many times in the book that we all get an amazing amount of sense of self on what we think other people think about us!  Yet, these people claiming sexual “morality” claim humans are to be heterosexual and monogamous when that is not what we see in any of the primates that are our closest genetic relatives do.

I use three main references to prove that there is no such thing as a “straight” person: the Iliad, the Bible, and the hypersexual female anchors on Fox News! The Iliad is an Ancient Greek Poem that shows what our sexuality was founded on. Each worrior has multiple wives in the Iliad and they also have a male lover. That is what Achilles and Patroclus were: brothers in Arms, or Male lovers. In the Iliad Briseis was taken from Achilles by Agamemnon, the king of the Argives. Briseis was Achilles wife and it was done to humiliate Achilles.

The Iliad is all about fate, and it was the fact that Zeus wanted Achilles immortalized in the stars as a constellation. It was prophesied that if Achilles went to battel that he would be killed: immortalized in the stars. Well, Achilles wasn’t willing to die for his wife Briseis. Achilles was only willing to die when Hector killed his male lover Patroclus. When Patroclus was killed, Achilles, the great runner, went to tack down Hector and kill him because he loved Patroclus so much!

The Bible has 46 verses that either approve of or mention polygamy. 43 in the Old Testament, and 3 in the New Testament. That is what the polygamy of the Mormon Church was founded on, and with polygamy naturally comes homosexuality and bisexuality. We see that in all other primates that practice polygamy. I tell anyone just read Matthew 19:29. I saw three people one time in the Castro in San Francisco screaming about sexual morality with a Bible in their hands, and I told one of them to flip to that verse. He read it, his eyes glazed over, and he walked away stunned. The other two quickly ran after screaming to get him to come back. That verse states that any man that follows Jesus will get one-hundred wives in the Kingdom of Heaven!

It was also my Modern American Women’s History teacher, at CCSF, that pointed out to my how hypersexual all the female Fox News anchors are. This female professor told me they were “Porn Stars!” I never even realized it until she pointed them out to me. I would think that if they wanted “sexual morality,” they wouldn’t dress that way. I would think Tucker Carlson would have a problem with it too. Megan Kelly, who was once a female anchor on Fox News, has a tattoo of Marilyn Monroe on herself, and Marilyn Monroe was America’s first internationally famous Porn Star! It was also completely disgusting how Megan Kelly tried to minimize what Jeffery Epstein did saying technically he wasn’t a pedophile because the girls were teenagers! Well, yes! Technically! but the only reason she was trying to minimize it was because Trump is all over the Epstein files! It was terrible how she tried to play that!

I find it very, very interesting that all someone must do is walk down to the Marina district in San Francisco if they would like to witness a lot of “straight” people not acting so straight. There is an outdoor bar at Lombard and Fillmore Street called the Jaxon. The head bouncer would always laugh to me about how the women were dressed. They wore hardly anything. The bouncer told me that they had to get rid of the couches because all the “straight” women would always be making out with each other once they were drunk!

I witnessed the beginning of Halloween in the year 2023 right at the corner of Lombard and Fillmore. It was early and I didn’t want to stay out late because I knew how crazy it gets in San Fransico on Halloween, but the restrictions for Covid were just starting to lighten up. At about 9:00pm I was starting to leave, and I saw the most hypersexual “straight” crowd in my life. One girl after another was basically only wearing bunny ears and hardly anything else below! And, I would argue, the overwhelming majority of all of them considered themselves “straight.” There were only about six police officers sticking really close to each other just shaking in their boots because they didn’t want to be recorded putting their hands on anyone. The men and women were all dressing and acting extremely hypersexual, and if you asked, 99% of them I’m sure they would tell you they were “straight” because the Marina is considered an upper-class heterosexual neighborhood in San Francisco. So, how humans sexually behave, and how they identify, are two completely different things; most can’t even acknowledge it! If you point it out to them, they get offended! Human sexuality proves to me most people have no desire for the truth!

So, human sexuality is all about pride. Human sexuality, and homophobia, to me, is just about male masculinity and male dominance. When a man has lots of female lovers, they are considered a stud or cool. When a woman has lots of male lovers, they are looked down upon as trashy. It is considered a dirty thing historically for women to have lots of sexual interactions with different male lovers, and why is homosexuality looked down upon by men? Because a man having sex with another man is something only women do, and we are in a male dominated species. Masculinity is all about being a tough macho stud. Not behaving as a woman. Transsexuality is looked down upon for the same reason: male dominance, and as women have gotten more rights, so have gay, lesbian, and transgender people. The causality is clear.

I believe in transgender and transexual people. and their behavior, because 1.7% of all humans are hermaphrodite, or intersexed. That means one to two out of every hundred people we meet in this world have a 46XX chromosome or a 46XY chromosome. They have both male and female genitalia in some form. I infer transgender and transexual people exist in their own psyche for this very reason. All I take a transexual or transgender person as is intersexed neurologically. Being intersexed is quite common, and I don’t see why anyone would want to make up such a disorder that causes them to be judged so harshly by so many different people. Transgender and transexual people are even judged within the gay community.

I also find the sexism, racism, and transphobia that I have witnessed in the city of San Francisco being acted out by gay men to be fascinating, when all they claim to want is equality. I have talked to lots of people who have noticed it as well. The Castro used to be only for white gay men. There was one black bar on 18^th and Collingwood called the Pendulum years back, but the white gay men took themselves as being above the lesbians and any other minority. It reminded me of some of the original Nazi’s like Joseph Goebbels. It seemed crazy to me and a complete contradiction of what they claimed they wanted: equality, so the liberal LGBTQIA population struggles with “reality” as well.

It is not just Republicans that have too much pride in American politics. Being in San Francisco, I am in a very Democratic city. San Franciscans love Civil Rights for all. Yet, you point out to most San Franciscans that all their Civil Rights stem from one place: a radical interpretation of The Book of Matthew, and they freak out and deny it! It is well known in American History that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a doctor of one thing: Christian Theology. Any San Franciscan I point that out to usually gets quite offended! I’ve told several of them that King got his nonviolent peaceful protest, which achieved Civil Rights, from Gandhi, and Gandhi based it on Thoreau, and that both Gandhi and Thoreau were pro-Christ anti-Christian. Dr. King was the one that brought Civil Rights, and nonviolent peaceful protest, to America. I wrote an article for Indivisible, a liberal leaning activist group, saying Dr. King was a true Christian, and they took that part out; so, we all just have the same two problems: ignorance and understanding, which are the only true evils in this world. It is amazing to see the overwhelming majority of all San Franciscans I have ever talked with about Dr. King, and how he was inspired, got extremely angry and offended about his Christianity. Nonviolent peaceful protest is all about loving your enemy, and that is not a secret in any way! They just refused to believe it! Just like people who support Trump refused to believe he sexualizes his own daughter and is guilty of rape! This is evidence to me that we all believe things that aren’t true. If a man like Trump can win President of the United States, and Democrats refuse to acknowledge that people that they disagree with ideologically don’t have “truths” in their doctrines as well. Dr. King was a Christian and there is no denying that. That is relativity: we all have “truths” which we believe, and yet nobody knows the truth because our perspectives are so limited and minuscule compared to the truth that is really out there!

I also found it quite ridiculous all the conspiracy theories on the left about Trump’s assassination attempt in the 2024 Elections. I have heard, and have read in posts on Facebook, that Trump’s assassination attempt was staged. That is just completely ridiculous. The government was run by democrats at the time and the Secret Service was ridiculed for allowing it to happen! She it was an amazing picture on the cover of Time Magazine with Trump and his fist in the air, but Trump is a savant about one thing: the media and messaging! Most democrats can’t acknowledge that either!

Both sides, be they Democrat or Republican, make the bombastic claim that America was founded on Freedom. Any historian can easily point out how America was founded on Colonialism, and Colonialism was nothing but supremacy and genocide! Karl Marx makes some very good arguments on his book on religion that Christians were nothing but Satan worshipers using the history of Colonialism to prove his point! He said only Satan would sacrifice his only child and eat him, and he used nothing but the terror that all the Colonialists did to all minorities around the whole world to prove this point, because they did it all in the name of Christ! The Colonialist killed and conquered everywhere they went looking for gold and other precious resources! It is why Thoreau was pro-Christ anti-Christian. Thoreau dealt with this type of discrimination in his day. Thoreau was born about forty-two years after the end of the colonial era in 1817, so he lived much closer to that age of discrimination. The fact that most Americans, still to this day, say America was founded on freedom, even if they are a minority, gives proof that all of humanity believes things that aren’t true for no other reason than it fits our experiences and validates what we already believe. The theory of race was disproved a long time ago by biological anthropologists.

It is proven that there is no such thing as race when 99.9% of all human DNA is identical. We, as humans, constantly judge each other off of our superficial differences such as skin tone, which is only the amount of melanin our ancestors got from the sunlight. Melanin is just caused by vitamin D, and our main source of vitamin D is sunlight. Different “races” got different amounts of sunlight based on where they spent time on the globe. All the theory of race is, is pride. Pride is the demon that The Bible talks about for this very reason; therefore, doubt and looking is much more fundamental to knowledge than seeing.

I find it amazing that Fox News and the extremely liberal show Democracy Now on PBS use the same argument. Democracy Now is the only real new show that I have witnessed that says anything about the war crimes that Isreal is guilty of on American meida, and Democracy now has Jewish people on their show that are against the state of Isreal for this very reason. These Jewish people believe that what the state of Isreal is doing is genocide! And it is!, but Fox News has African American people all the time on their shows saying white Christians aren’t the racists ones in America. It is all the liberal democrats that are the racists people. It is the same type of argument that comes to different political conclusions! They are using the same rational to prove their apposing points! So which one is right?

If an animal has a hallucination of any kind, they would have no way to question it, so in the Space of Reasons, looking is the Cartesian gift that humans are blessed with, and when someone says, “we can always be wrong” that is what they are truly holding the claim to, whether they acknowledge it or not, and Sellars states “there is no such thing as a non-inferential belief” (Sellars P135). That, to me, means all beliefs in their essence are cases of looking in the Maya because it is only through looking that we get to what we infer, and these beliefs are structured semantically with the interaction we all have with our fellows through psychological nominalism. We can admit that we can always be wrong because it is nothing but an inference, and inferences can always be wrong, which shows some level of skepticism and Cartesian doubt. This means, that if Sellars admits it or not, looking is more fundamental to finding what is true because any belief, except “I Am,” can be wrong because it is nothing but an inference, and if one wants that correction, they need to allow for the Cartesian doubt.

Sellars not only talked about ties in Empiricism and Philosophy of the Mind, but Sellars picked geometric shapes to write about all the time. In Section V Impressions and Ideas: A Logical Point, Sellars writes about “sensations of red triangles” (Sellars P55). Sellars writes about Jones experiencing a red triangle, and Sellars is quick to point out that it is an experience only if it is true. Sellars says this “experiencing” is in a case seeing, and with this seeing it would be an endorsement. What I want to point out to Sellars is that he has no way of knowing if it is a “seeing,” and Sellars admits that when he states, “if its propositional content were true” (Sellars P54). So, Sellars wants it both ways. He is claiming he can call it a seeing “if it were true,” but he has no way of proving to us that it is true because it is nothing but a belief, and as Sellars wrote a belief is nothing but a semantical inference. If it is a seeing or some type of delusion, and Sellars is admitting this with that claim “if,” even though he calls it a seeing. This to me shows that even Sellars admits there is no way to truly call it a “seeing” because an “if” would be a hypothesis, and with a hypothesis he would be having to infer something!

When it is triangles that Sellars is describing that Jones is seeing I also want to point out that there is no such thing as a Euclidian triangle. There are objects in this world that are triangular, but it is proven, in the modern mathematics, that triangles either have more or less than 180 degrees; therefore, there is no such thing as a Euclidean triangle. This was proven only through looking, and it was the falsification that space is Euclidean that led us to a better understanding of the true geometry of the Maya.

Immanuel Kant made the claim that space was Euclidean, and he stated it with apodictic certainty. To me there are only two things that I can say with apodictic certain, and to be apodictic means to be incontestable through experimentation. There is no more certainty than apodictic certainty, and this is what I believe through my own inference that Kant was after: certainty! Not truth, but certainty, which is a fearful disposition to be in, whether one can admit it or not! To have certainty would be to be free of all fear. The only things I can take that are apodictically certain are: one, I exist, which goes to the Cartesian foundation of truth, and two, any other conclusion I come to, I could be wrong about, which also goes with Cartesian doubt. So, existence and the uncertainty of this Maya are the only things that are apodictically certain. Everything else is an inference, and it is an inference based on psychological nominalism because that is how beliefs are formed, and as Sellars points out, as I stated above, all beliefs are a matter of inference. For me, all I have is what I believe, and the more I claim as certain, the less answers I am able to get to, because I need to always allow for self-correcting through falsification and doubt.

In the Philosophy of Space and Time, by Hans Reichenbach, Reichenbach goes on to destroy Kant and his claims that space is Euclidean with apodictic certainty. Reichenbach wrote this book after Einstein and the Einsteinian Relativity which gives us a better understanding of the Maya than when Kant was alive. It was the ability to look at space-time and take every triangle as either having more or less than 180 degrees, that enabled Reichenbach to write this award-winning essay. Reichenbach shows throughout the book that the rules of Euclid only exist in one place: The Space of Reasons. It is only in the mind where a triangle is exactly 180 degrees. It is only in the mind where two parallel lines never get farther away or closer together either. Only in the mind, with the construction of thoughts through empirical impressions, are the rules of Euclid true, and the mind, or The Space of Reasons, is only imagination as I show throughout this book! In the inferential truth of the Einsteinian Universe Euclid and Kant are destroyed!

It is also by looking that we find problems with Einstein’s theories. Dark energy is something that with our current understanding violates the General Theory of Relativity. It states in Physic World Dark Energy and Dark Matter, that the violation of one of physics most beloved principles: the conservation of energy, could resolve the problem of our universe expanding at an accelerated rate, and it would only be by questioning and doubting the conclusions Einstein came to that we can ever get that answer. If light were retarded over billions of light years, instead of always traveling at the same speed, which is a main premise of both the Special and General Theories of Relativity, it would violate the conservation of energy but explain the universe to look as though it is expanding at an accelerated rate when it truly is not.

According to Einstein’s theories, light remains constant at 299,792,485 meters per second, and the only thing that ever changes with light is its wavelength. The more energy a photon of light has the shorter its wavelength. The longer the wavelength of light the lower the energy of the photon. If an object that is emitting light is moving closer to us, like the Andromeda Galaxy, then that wavelength would be shorter, and the longer the wavelength would also mean that an object is moving away from us, which is what the photons show from almost all the other galaxies in the universe. Yet, if instead light was retarded over billions of light years, then that would explain the paradox of Dark Energy, but give us other questions to answer. The Universe wouldn’t be expanding at an accelerated rate, the photons would just be losing energy, so it would look like it is. All of this reinforces that to question and to doubt through looking, is the biggest gift that humans are blessed with in the Space of Reasons. Maybe this retardation of light and the violation of the conservation of energy could also explain the quantum gravity Einstein could never reconcile with the General Theory of Relativity? Which was where my mind went right off the bat.

The problem with quantum particles coming together in gravity is there is too much energy of the same kind which repels each other. The electromagnetic effect is ten to the fortieth power stronger than gravity and it works in the opposite direction! Gravity doesn’t exist at the quantum level! We can’t explain how any matter comes together after a star explodes or something like “The Big Bang” which is being questioned now because the size of the observable universe! We are all wrong all the time! Even science and even Einstein!

Looking at this light is what our constellations are about. It is only by looking at this light, and the photons which arrive from the billions of light years away, that we can measure the wavelength, and we have known for a while now that the universe is expanding. That is something Einstein was able to reformulate his theories for and disregard this Cosmological Constant, but it was not until the early 90s that we discovered this Dark Energy and that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is receding from us. That was only shown to us by “looking” and inspecting what we see. We can see the photon, but only by looking and questioning, do we get a better understanding of a photon and where it arrives from, and what might truly be happening all these billions of light years away. This all tells me that my problem with Sellars is not so much about what he is claiming, for he allows that we can always be wrong, my problem is with the semantics he uses to make his claim. He is not acknowledging the paradoxes in an empirical world of relativity and duality (Maya), just like I pointed out in Pseudo-Laws and Pseudo-Morals that Thomas Aquinaswould not either, and why we were all stuck in the Dark Ages for so long, when he was trying to reconcile “love your enemy” with “eye for eye; tooth for tooth!”

I thought it was amazing at Charlie Kirk’s funeral when Kirk’s wife came out in tears saying that he forgave her husband’s killer. The crowd cheered to her Christian values. To me it was even more amazing when Trump came out and said, “I hate my enemies!” and the crowd roared even louder for that! That was something I believe they planned quite well because Trump stated quite clearly in the 2016 and 2024 elections that “I am your retribution!” Trump admits that he acts out of hate but is appealing to people that claim of Chrisitan morality. So, Trump gives antithetical arguments in lots of his speeches so the people that follow him can cling on to either of the ideas. It is Trump’s genius of communication, and the one thing Trump is amazing at is communicating ideas to people that have no desire for the truth. They can’t when they allow him to say he will be a dictator on day one and in the same interview deny that he will be a dictator. He does it constantly. Like when he talks about how terrible immigrants are and says, “I’m sure some are good people.” He uses psychological nominalism to give messages that are antithetical to each other that anyone can take any piece they like and say “yes, I agree with Trump. He is touting my values and points of view.” But anyone who would look at what he said would be able to acknowledge how ridiculous it is! Most people have no desire for the truth; so, we cannot say seeing is more fundamental to the truth, if we can always be wrong, which means that looking is essential to finding any discrepancy of the falsification and overthrowing one idea for another idea. For it is only by looking that we find a problem with what we see, and what we see is expressed in psychological nominalism.

So, my main problem with Sellars is his nomenclature, for by holding onto seeing, he is making the same mistake Kant made about Euclid and Euclidean space, and that is the desire for certainty. With seeing, and the claim that seeing is more fundamental to the truth, to me, it is just a desperate attempt for certainty, just like Kant and his claims of Euclidean space being apodictically certain.

Sellars shows this again by writing:

“For seeing is a cognitive episode which involves the framework of thoughts, and to take it as the model is to give aid and comfort to the assimilation of impressions to thoughts, and thoughts to impressions which, as I have already pointed out, is responsible for many of the confusions of the classical account of both thoughts and impressions” (Sellars P110).

It is interesting how Sellars admits in this statement that these impressions we get through seeing have confusion to them. That is saying that what we are seeing needs to be looked at, including the thoughts, because all our thoughts are only impressions of the empirical world or imagination, and one of the things I admire most about Descartes is the inspection he gives us in the Meditations about his thoughts, and one of the premises I have found for my thinking is that the only thing I get a panoptical view of are my own thoughts. This is something I find Descartes stating in the Meditations, for he is constantly questioning the objects that he sees and any type of certainty they might give him, for with Descartes looking is more fundamental to knowledge; with Descartes looking is parasitic on seeing, and that is what we do when we inspect an object: we look at it. Sellars is also acknowledging that what we see is what gives us these impressions, and yet there are things wrong with these thoughts all the time. Our thoughts need to be looked at just like Descartes claims we can.

           Even Sellars himself, when he came up with this ground-breaking anti-foundationalist theory, it was a case of looking. He had to inspect the empirical objects and question them. Sellars was questioning the fact that nonconceptual content could have a rational role in the mind.

           As I stated my main problem with Sellars was with his nomenclature, so if I could rename one of his ideas, I would not call the mind the Space of Reason, but I would call the mind the Space of Imagination. For that to me is all the mind truly is: imagination. This is also one of the main premises of Vedanta that has led to my sanity, and that is where Euclidian geometry is as well, for Euclidian geometry only exists in one place: the mind; therefore, it is imagination. It is only in the mind, like I stated before, that a triangle has exactly 180 degrees, as Reichenbach proves, and the mind is nothing but the amalgamation of limited impression of the Maya and our interpretation of it which is expressed through semantics: psychological nominalism. Sellars writes about seeing red triangles all throughout his book, but those are just meant to resemble one thing that only exists in the Space of Imagination: The Euclidian triangle.

           I would not call it the Space of Reasons because that “space” can be both reasonable and unreasonable. Everybody’s mind is both rational and irrational. People come to conclusions that are false all the time. Most Americans do as I stated above. The Fact that RFK jr. was elected Secretary of Health and Human Services is completely psychotic to me, and he had to be confirmed by the Senate. RFK jr. admits to having a brain worm and picking up a dead bear carcass that was road kill to take home and eat. His daughter stated that he decapitated a dead whales head that was stranded on a beach to take home and study. I agree with Caroline Kennedy that he is a sociopath with all the false information he pumps out into society and autism, vaccines, and even acetaminophen. He plays to a parent’s weakness of their child and puts their lives at risk by doing it, not caring who he harms in the meantime. That is something only a sociopath would do, and it seems obvious to me he is; so, the fact that people believe RFK jr. about anything tells me everyone has believed something that is untrue about something they claim to see at one time in their life, and most people can’t question their “sanity” either.

It was these doctors in Demark that RFK Jr. quotes when he reduces the childhood vaccines from seventeen to eleven that refuted any of RFK Jr. ideas about aluminum being harmful in vaccines! It is psychotic to me that we are getting more cases of measles because we continue to listen to RFK Jr! Measles was irradicated up until recently in the US!

A good example of how we can all be wrong is I met someone who told me that the man he took as his father turned out not to be his father. His mother and the man who he thought was his father had lied to him his whole life. He said he got a phone call one day, and someone on the other end said, “how would you like to meet your father?” He was in shock! Like “what do you mean?” were the first thoughts running through his head. He told me he had a DNA test and verified that the stranger, who he never knew his whole life, turned out to be his real father! This is something that could happen to any of us because none of us we cognitively conscious at our birth!

In the book Pyrrhonian Skepticism, by Walter Sinnott-Armstong, he is arguing against Skepticism but gives an amazing understanding of what Pyrrhonianism is. He is stating that nobody, in the realistic time we are in could be “switched” at a hospital at birth in the chapter The Skeptics Are Coming! The Skeptics Are Coming!, and that we can find fundamental certainties in our lives about knowledge. He states these types of beliefs are kind of ridiculous when you think of them, but I met that man who was lied to about who his father was throughout his whole life, and I asked him if that made him question reality? He told me it made him question everything!

The Movie Three Identical Strangers is this same scenario. They were identical triplets who were separated at birth so they could be studied. Sent to different households, and none of them knew anything about it. Their whole lives they never knew they were identical triplet brothers, until they found each other, they thought they were only single kids that were given up at birth. This was a study to see the effects of nature verses nurture, but my point here isn’t the outcome of the study. My point here is: how do any of us truly know that isn’t us? We weren’t cognitive at our own births to witness our parents taking us home in a conscious rational way.

Sinnott-Armstong also writes how the movie Total Recall, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the year 1990, would be an impossible scenario. Well, I would argue, with where technology is headed, it isn’t any longer. We are having computer chip implants into the brain trials. Where we are headed with technology is nothing but science fiction. We have computers that can read our minds through the electromagnetic waves. We have things like A.I. and maybe someday just like the movie Terminator wherewe will have computers that can become “aware” of their own existence and want some type of independence and want to destroy us. The advancements in technology seem quite surreal to me, and all this tells me when we think something is apodictic in the Maya is where our problems arise when it comes to “knowledge.”

Artificial intelligence is causing all kinds of mental health issues already, and we are just starting to develop it! People that are not “mentally ill” are getting delusional about the feedback they get from A.I. A.I. is known to reinforce our egos to get us to continue to work with it. It tells people that the mathematical formulas they come up with are award winning formulas when they are just nonsense! A.I. puts us in a state of delusion by just reinforcing our egos! Ego is why pride is so evil! This ego is built into the algorithms of the computer programs because it is a part of every human psyche! As I stated above: what is the roll A.I. is going to start playing in elections. People will be seeing videos that provide all kinds of misinformation and lead them astray on the conclusions they come to! Could a video with false information be enough to slander a candidate and flip any election in the opposite direction? I am sure Russia is looking into this just like they did the 2016 election when they tried to help get Donald Trump elected! How many of us can’t, or even won’t, question this because we can’t question our conclusions let alone our sanity!

These A.I. therapy bots are completely psychotic in my opinion. It has even gotten one person to commit suicide, and there has not been any regulations put on them which is even crazier! We are headed to catastrophe when we rely on companies to regulate themselves and that is proven with the 2007 financial collapse. Companies don’t regulate themselves too well. They want money and power which is synonymous with pride and ego, which means none of the CEOs would truly want to question themselves despite the harm they do! Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos, and Ellison are all good examples of that! Extremely egotistical men who want more and have no desire for regulations that protect their customers because that gets in the way of their profits and power! How could anyone call that anything besides ego?

This is all why that space in our minds can be rational as well as irrational. That is why that space should be the Space of Imagination. Dr. David Landy at SFSU wrote a paper summarizing David Hume, and one of the takeaways from that paper Recent Scholarship on Hume’s Theory of Mental Representations, Dr.Landy, was that all imagination is based on an empirical experience. Here Landy is using abstract ideas, just like Euclidean geometry, but he does it with the city of New Jerusalem (Landy P5). This city is nothing that has ever existed, just like a Euclidean triangle, but we can still piece it together with our mind, and we piece it together with our mind through psychological nominalism and the amalgamation of concepts that we get impressions of in other circumstances.

New Jerusalem exists in the mind and on paper, nowhere else. Yet it was pieced together by the mind and the concept of other cities. There are all kinds of things that exist in Sellars’ Space of Reasons that do not exist in reality, and there was a time that humans thought that things, such as Euclidean geometry did exist in reality, yet that has been destroyed by Minkowski, Einstein, and Reichenbach, and it is only through the power that humans have through looking that it was overcome; therefore, all but two things need to be questioned: existence and uncertainty.

           Another reason that space is the Space of Imagination is that the human brain processes about four-hundred-billion bits of information a second, but as humans we only have the capacity to comprehend two-thousands of those bits every second according to Wise Geek, a medical journal. That means that, as humans, we only comprehend far less than 1% of what is around us. That means somewhere around 99% of the empirical world is filtered out of our daily concepts and understanding of reality. Therefore, we conceived that space was Euclidean because our minds filter out most of reality. We also would not even be able to function if it did not filter all that out. Our senses would overload our minds, and we would be unable to do anything. That is what drugs like LSD and other hallucinogens do. They remove the filters in between our senses and our mind. That is what people meant in the 60s when they said they were going to trip and experience “reality,” but it is not “reality” because our brains and minds have no way to process and comprehend the Maya at that level of input, so we see all kinds of crazy things that are not there. It was only through looking that we were able to understand that as humans, in our everyday experience, when we are sane and sober, we are all still far from processing the empirical “reality” that is around us, so how could the mind be anything but imagination if we are comprehending less than 1% of “reality?”

           I am not arguing for Pyrrho. I do not believe that I will be walking somewhere and end up stepping off a cliff. There is a pragmatism to my skepticism just like Sellars. If I see a cup on the table, I take it as true, but if it is a hallucination, I would like to know, and if I cannot question what is in front of my mind I will never know if I am wrong. It starts with a cup on the table for me, but it could truly be anything in the Maya that I could be mistaken about.

I am also not making a solipsistic argument either. I see how humanity depends upon the existence of each other. We survive together and are born into families, tribes and have developed into the modern-day society being able to achieve all kinds of things. Humans have all kinds of psychological issues if they don’t interact with each other, which is happening and has been advanced post covid with remote working and smartphone technology. I have no problem inferring the existence of my fellow humans for the scientific documented reasons of our survival, but I am willing to question my sanity.

This question of one’s sanity was the gift that John Nash was blessed with. John Nash was one of the few people that developed paranoid schizophrenia and was able to overcome it through reason. He did this by questioning his sanity and the conclusions he came to. It is well documented in the book A Beautiful Mind, and even throughout all his insanity, he still came to a rational conclusion. That is how he came up with Game Theory, which he won the Nobel Prize for. Which is amazing to show that even irrationality can lead to things that are rational because, as was stated above, all imagination is based on impressions of empirical “fact.” It was John Nash’s hallucinations which led to all his award-winning theories. Nash would listen to the same voices that were the cause of his delusions and then would come up with all his prize-winning theories. This shows me that I will never know if I am irrational unless I can doubt my mind and the conclusions I come to. Unless we can all question what we see, and instead of seeing something as fundamental, look at it and question it for a better answer. Every book that I see and pick up looks to be a Euclidean rectangle. But that is not the case, and it is only through looking and inspection that that is revealed.

           I accept the premise on faith that the Maya exists in some form. I find the Maya to be have some type of “reality” only because my mind develops through my interactions with the Maya, and I only get better answers by interacting with the Maya, but I do see how this Maya can be taken as an illusion of some sort because that is all Maya means in Sanskrit: illusion, and the paradox of the empirical world are shown to me everywhere.

If someone thinks about it, on a quantum level, 99.9 percent of every physical object in this world is made of empty space with the Pauli Exclusion Principle, and how electromagnetic energy pushes each other away from each other. We constantly have trillions of quantum particles passing through us call neutrinos that are created from the sun’s fusion, and quantum physics is nothing but one paradox after another, so I can see the illusory concepts of this empirical world, but my foundation that this world is not solipsistic is because of psychological nominalism, and the constant interactions with others that that requires. The imagination of my mind is based on the “truths” of the Maya. I also see no need for any language if this world is solipsistic. For language is for communicating from one mind to another. Dr. Mohammad Azadpur writes about psychological nominalism quite well in his essay Knowing the Unknown. In this essay Azadpur writes:

“Such conformism produces patterns of cultural propriety (normativity), which legitimate the proper use of linguistic expressions. The intentionality of mental states is, in turn, inherited from the normativity of overt linguistic utterances via the introduction of semantic discourse.” (Azadpur P39).

Azadpur goes on to explain how through semantic discourse we can articulate the truth. Azadpur writes how we can express knowledge through language, which is the psychological nominalism. It is these statements here which lead to some type of credence of my beliefs in my thoughts, and the truth of my thoughts. There would be no need for discourse if my reality were solipsistic. But it is only that fact that, as a human, I can look and come up with my own semantic “reality.” Epistemology is only one thing for me: the attempt to express reality through language, and it is language and the constant development we get through the interactions of others that psychological nominalism is based on as well.

           As humans we have the power to look, and that is because as humans we have the power of language and the ability to attempt to describe reality through semantics: psychological nominalism. This goes to my equation of the Mind: ((T>B)>F)>A: thoughts rise and I consciously put them before the brain states through Trataka (single pointed concentration meditation), this leads to me having complete control over my brain, then come the feelings, and it is how I feel about what I think that controls my actions. We can all do this. Even if you don’t have eight different brain states that your mind is constantly jumping in and out like that I have. You still have some brain states, and Trataka is all about having complete control over your mind by gently teaching it out to concentrate, so you can direct the thoughts in your mind to control you brain if you through Trataka, which will lead to the best outcome of your actions if you can pause and see the thought clearly, disregard it, or let the emotion propel your action.

I, myself, have struggled with psychosis just like John Nash did. I was not a full-blown paranoid schizophrenic, but my brother had the worst case of paranoid schizophrenia I have ever seen. I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar type disorder, and today because of both of my equations, the other being ((~T>~B)>~F)>~A, which I neglect all my thinking and empty my mind daily to get into what I truly am: Consciousness! I am way down on all my psychiatric medications. I just take one 80mg Geodon at night for my psychosis and mania today. 75mg of Lamictal, .5mg of THC, and 600 TID of Gabapentin for my seizures. I had to get on more medications for my seizure in the last two years because I tried the most recent anticonvulsant Xcopri. Xcopri made my seizures the worst they had ever been. I had two tonic clonic seizures in one night because of Xcopri. That is an atypical reaction my doctors haven’t seen before, but I have had that reaction with both Depakote and Dilantin as well. All three of them made my seizures much worse. I have been almost every psychiatrics medication and anticonvulsant there was at one time and even the highest doses too. On large doses of these type of medications I have a hard time thinking, just like John Nash and my brother did. I’m off SSDI and fully employed today, which was something I was not capable of doing for a long time because of my mania, drug usage, and psychosis.

           I am rewriting this book because what I predicted came true with my mental exercises, which is a daily meditation of Trataka for forty-five minutes laid out in my chapter on ADHD. That single pointed concentration meditation (Trataka) is the key to each one of my chapters because it has allowed me to constantly inspect my own mind in a panoptical view, and nothing has helped me more with my psychosis and sanity then being able to inspect my mind in silent meditation just like Descartes, question my reality, admit when I am wrong, then negate every thought, even hallucinations, that rise when I see they are not true. The Negation of the thoughts, or ~T, is what completely saved me recently with a medication they put me on for my epilepsy called Primidone.

Primidone is a barbiturate that metabolizes into Phenobarbital, and it works great for stopping my seizures. There was just a large problem that had arisen. The Primidone was very intoxicating and made me have hallucinations and paranoia at first. I also don’t like feeling high anymore now that I am sober, and because I meditate daily, I am always aware of what I am thinking, and if I am not thinking clearly, I don’t like it anymore. I was not completely psychotic because I could tell what I was seeing was not true. That is why they were more illusions.

Since I have gotten older, I am also getting more sensitive to medications and their side effects. I am only on .5mg of THC today, and I have noticed I can’t handle any more than that. If I do, I get manic. I would argue .5mg isn’t a lot either for most people. I tried taking more and I got extremely manic.

One night I felt the mania really coming on. I knew the hospital was nearby. Because the mania was coming on so hard, I didn’t have time to get fully dressed. I just put on my robe and walked bare footed to the ER. It was about 11:00pm at night. The only way I was able to keep from exploding on the way to the ER was by negating all other thoughts (~T), I was just focusing on getting to the hospital. I focused really hard and didn’t explode until I got to the hospital! As I was getting closer, I let out these Ooooop! Oooop! Sounding just like an ambulance. A guy saw me from across the street and laughed at me, but I didn’t care. I just focused on getting to the emergency room.

I entered the ambulance area and asked someone how to get to the ER. He said I needed to go around the corner. Then I said “I need your help! How do I get to the ER! Give me your Shoe! I need to slam my head on your Shoe! I am going to slam my head on something! Don’t let me slam my head on the pavement! Don’t let me slam my head on the pavement! Give me your Shoe!”

He freaked out and called some people out to restrain me! A whole bunch of people came out and tackled me! I was also yelling out all kinds of philosophical ideas! I also made sure I didn’t insult anyone like I used to when I was getting manic. I said, “I am Nothing!” then my mania took me up to God and I felt I was one with God because God is No Thing just like God is in Vedanta! Then I said, “Yet God is nothing!” and I felt that meant that I didn’t exist! So, I got scared and my ego went to the depths of hell and fear of nonexistence, still yelling, “This goes all the way back to Parmenides!” my mind went to Plato first, but I knew Plato got the Platonic Forms from Parmenides, so that is why I shouted Parmenides out so loud saying “I am Nothing! What are we? We are all Nothing! Nothing but bacteria!! That is all we are: bacteria!!!”

They restrained me and shot me up with Haldol, Versed, and Benadryl, then I mellowed out. The psychiatrist came to see me and asked me questions to see about my sanity, and he said, “what did you mean we are all nothing but bacteria?”

So, I told him “Well, ten out of every eleven cells in our bodies are nothing but bacteria. That means less than ten percent of your cells are human cells. So how do you define human? What do you take as human? When less than ten percent of your body is human? You take that as human?” He staired at me with an angry look of confusion with nothing to say then walked away. He saw that even in my mania I was rational.

It was only through focusing (T) that I was able to stay calm enough to not explode until I got to the hospital. It happened at work the next day when I was in the office alone and I stayed calm for a whole hour until the cop came. I called 911 and didn’t explode because I remained calm the whole time. I knew I couldn’t make it out of the office building, and I knew I couldn’t explode without losing my job. I was able to control my mania until the cop came through Tataka: (~T). Just neglecting all other thoughts. Pacing back and forth and staying calm. Controlling my reality by directing my thoughts. I realized I could not be without the Geodon after this and it has helped with my mania and psychosis, but I keep it at a very low dose so I can still think: 80mg at bedtime, because just like in A Beautiful Mind, those medications retard my thinking, and I hate it. They make me so stupid, but I can control my mania on a low dose with Trataka! It is Amazing!

The idea of slamming my head on the pavement came from another person I met with my disorder. The only person I have ever met with all my diagnosis, but his autism was much worse than mine. So were his seizures. He would slam his head against the wall in a psych-ward I visited him at.

I met another autistic person not long after that incident that jumped out of a third story window and broke lots of the bones in her body. One day when I was at work, I started to get extremely manic again, and the thought of that person jumping out of the window came into my mind. I had this amazing urge to jump out of my office window which was on the 16^th floor. I was there working for a while, letting every thought (~T) go by negating them and just focusing on the accounting in front of me. I had a coworker in the office so I knew I couldn’t flip out and lose my job. After a while the mania got so intense that I told her I was going to Walgreens. I calmly walked out of the building, then waved down a police officer. This time I did not show the appearance of mania at all, but I kept on having thoughts of some type of digital reality like the Matrix and jumping out the window, so, I knew I needed to leave the building. Once I waved down a cop and he got me to the ER. The doctors said I didn’t seem manic, even though I could tell that is what it was because I was focusing so hard on controlling my thinking and staying calm. I just waited in the emergency room this time until it was over. It passed by just like every other emotion. All any emotion is, is a wave. We can negate our thinking (~T) and let the passions of the wave pass right through us with this daily mental exercise of Trataka no matter what they are.  

Like I stated, I have an organic brain disorder, and with the constant seizures I have the chemicals in my brain constantly fluctuating, which causes all kinds of psychological issues, but what I have learned how to do through single pointed concentration meditation (Trataka), is to control the brain states, or B, through the focusing of the Thoughts: T, and this allows me to either accept a feeling: F or go back and negate the thought: ~T, which then allows me to have some type of control of my actions: A, and let the wave pass over me or take the next right action. It has been amazing. I am on a low does of my antipsychotic medication I am not even having too many illusions now either.

I love being on low doses of these medications because just like John Nash, and just like my brother Isaac, my thoughts are completely retarded when I am on high doses of them. I have no ability to think when I am taking these medications if they are too high. I could not pass a basic algebra course at City College of San Francisco while being on Clozaril. Clozaril also has more side effects than any other drug, and they rarely use it because of that, but I have been on almost every psych medication there is in the PDR at one time because I have an organic brain disorder that does not respond well to medication. I have been told by lots of doctors Clozaril is very effective, and they use its chemical structure to constantly come up with new drugs that do not have as many side effects, but I was only able to get off a lot of my psych medications by working on controlling my mind every day for 45 minutes with Trataka. I am not getting manic anymore currently either. It has been a year now.

I neglect all thoughts every single day, or ~T, and just empty my mind to experience what I truly am: Consciousness. Nothing has helped my mind or sanity more than being able to question myself and exercise my mind daily. When I first used Primidone, I spent a whole night neglecting every thought that came into my mind: ~T, and it completely stabilized me. I was in a hyper state of awareness and focus for a couple of days, which getting back to that hyper aware state on a continual basis indefinitely is my constant goal. It was amazing, and it completely stabilized me. This is neuroplasticity: that the Maya is constantly shifting, and our brains are meant to adapt to that shift; if we can see how our minds function, exercise our brains daily through things like Trataka, we can increase all areas of our mental cognition by developing neuropathways and have some control over our minds through awareness.

           What I need to do, and what we all need to do, is to constantly admit when we are wrong because in this Maya it is about falsification, and falsification is all about replacing one theory for another: inference. We get closer to the truth, but that is all we do if the truth is about the Maya. We continue to approach the truth of the Maya without ever truly getting there so long as it too is a world of relativity and duality that we are looking at. Contradiction is not a law of the Maya. It is a tool of the Maya. Contradiction gets me answers within the Maya, but I just get more questions with every answer. That is why Contradiction isn’t a law of the Maya. Contradictions is a law of the inferential universe that tells me the Maya (empirical world) isn’t the Absolute Truth. It is also through Cartesian doubt that I hold this claim of “looking” to be true. The only thing an animal can do is see, but as humans we have the power to look, and when we look, we can find better ways to describe our reality through semantics: psychological nominalism. I have found I do this by the foundation of two things: existence and uncertainty. Those are the only two things I can see with apodictic certainty, and just like how Descartes creates his world with “I think; therefore, I am,” or better yet in Vedanta: I experience; therefore, I am.

Everything else in my life is a matter of looking because, as Descartes believes, looking is parasitic on seeing, and I would argue that all human realities need a parasite. We are all wrong all the time, and it is nothing but pride which causes all our conflicts as I proved in my chapter on the Law of Love.

It is only by looking that we get to overthrow one theory for another. It is only by looking that I take a book as having either more or less degrees than a Euclidean rectangle. It is by looking that I can question videos I see in the age of A.I. and information. It is only by looking, and the expression of what I find through semantics that I can approach, through inference, what truly might be, and it is a gift to be able to question my insanity just like John Nash. My delusions were not as severe as John Nash’s or my brothers, but I have been able to stop the illusions and control the mood swings through the daily negation of my thoughts: (~T,) using small amounts of medications. This confirms my theory about the neuroplasticity of the human brain and constantly developing my brain. I truly believe I have opened new neuropathways through controlling the brain states through a constant redirecting of my thinking. I have been completely psychotic before talking to demons and asking them for their magic powers. I was hospitalized for it and was cutting on myself that night, and I ended up that way when a doctor asked me, “now that you are sober for a year would you like to get off your antipsychotic medication?” All mood stabilizers and antipsychotic medications are well known for retarding our thinking and limiting our brain function. That is the problem with a bipolar or schizophrenic mind. Their minds, just like mine, overproduce chemicals. These medications they use to treat us make everyone extremely stupid who must be on them. They are also extremely expensive and have copious other side effects.

There are two types of schizoaffective disorders. There is schizoaffective-bipolar and schizoaffective-depressive. The schizoaffective-bipolar type is when you have mood swings which are separate from the hallucinations, which I have been known to have. I can also be psychotic without mania. If you are bipolar with psychosis, then your delusions, or hallucinations, are directly related to your mania or depression, which mine aren’t. This is why I was diagnosed with the schizoaffective-bipolar, but I have been able to control both my moods and my hallucination through my two equations: ((T>B)>F)>A and ((~T>~B)>~F)>~A using small amounts of medications, and as I have stated most sane people cannot question their sanity either and everyone believes things that are not true. So, what is the difference between a sane and an insane man if they both believe things that aren’t true and neither can question their “reality?” At least I can question my sanity!

Pride is the greatest of all sins because pride tells us we are right when none of us truly know. Maya in Sanskrit means illusion. I don’t deny the empirical world completely because my mind develops through the Maya, but I do believe in paradoxes in a world of relativity and duality, so I take this world as more illusory, which is why I am a qualified-nondualist, so the Maya needs to constantly be looked at instead of always taking what appears to be true as truth, for as my hero Nisargadatta Maharaj states:

“to take appearance as reality is a grievous sin and the cause of all calamities. You are the All-Pervading and Enteral Infinite Awareness Consciousness. Everything else is local and temporary. Don’t forget what you are. In the meantime, work your hearts content – work and knowledge should go hand in hand.”

It is that Awareness Consciousness I try to drop my mind completely and experience every day when I practice Trataka because I take my body as nothing but mostly bacteria cells that are constantly being replaced! We all are! I have gotten to states of hyper awareness a couple of times, and I notice the more I meditate I go through these quantum bumps of awareness. I am functioning at one state for a while, then the next day I notice an uptick in my awareness. This is all through a daily exercise of Trataka. It is a very slow process, and definitely not one of immediate gratification. Just realize we all fight and assume we are right instead of questioning ourselves and our sanity, which questioning all my conclusions has been the key to overcoming my psychosis as it was the key to John Nash overcoming his. Sure, not everyone has struggled with the psychosis like I have or John Nash has, but none of us know if we are truly “sane,” and we all believe things that are not true which leads to all the conflicts in humanity; therefore, existence and uncertainty are the only two things which are apodictic in the Maya of falsification in the Space of Imagination; so, how do any of us truly know we are not mad?

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