CONSCIOUSNESS VERSUS AWARENESS ● I. Consiousnes & Evolution ● II. Defining Awareness & Consciousness ● III. The Mystery of Awareness ● IV. Consciousnes as Nothing ● V. Consciousness as Something ● VI. The Ouroboric Phenomenon ● VII. The Embodiment of Ouroboros   FIELDS OF CONSCIOUSNESS ● The Super-Awake Flow ● Fields of Consciousness ● Group Meditation ● Meditative Pixelation ● Inner Body Spatialization

ADVERSITY AND SPIRITUALITY ● Integral Suffering and Happiness ● Trauma and Transcendence LOVE AND SPIRITUALITY ● The Glue of Love ● God wants to be Human   CIVILIZATION & CONSCIOUSNESS ● The inner and the outer Person ● Eastern versus Western Consciousness ● The liberation from or of the Body ● Modern Forms of Suffering   ● Civilization and Consciousness  ● Civilization and Consciousness Part II

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MEDITATIVE PIXELLATION
  Exploring Inner Sensations through Conscious Awareness

Be prepared for a long prologue. It begins with closed eyes. There is a profoundly important realization to be uncovered through the simple act of closing our eyes. The most fundamental meditation technique is also the simplest: closing your eyes while remaining fully awake.
   
What Happens When You Close Your Eyes
When we close our eyes, the body’s myriad sensations rise into conscious awareness, revealing a rich field of interoceptive perception.
Take a moment now to close your eyes. Notice the subtle sensations that arise within your body. These sensations are always present, yet often overlooked. This simple act marks the beginning of a journey inward, toward what I call 'meditative pixellation.'
  
In our typical waking state, consciousness registers only a tiny fraction of the body’s subtle yet vibrantly dynamic, almost roaring sensory experience. This disparity is striking.
  
We are Unconscious of What we are Contineously Aware of
The moment we close our eyes, the inherently outward-focused nature of consciousness spontaneously begins to align with the vast, ever-present, and infinitely attentive ocean of interoceptive bodily existence. This hidden life emerges under the light of consciousness but unfolds on a stage of awareness we may not have previously realized existed.
   
Consciousness is typically oblivious to awareness unless there is a sudden change in stimuli. For instance, body parts that function perfectly often escape conscious notice. Yet, if you injure your foot, it immediately demands your full attention. Similarly, imagine a loud fridge humming in the background. When it suddenly stops, you become consciously aware of its absence and, in that moment, realize you had been subtly aware of its sound all along.
This reveals a fundamental truth: we are often unconscious of what we are continuously aware of—a reality both ancient and primordial. Like consciousness, awareness is attuned to detecting sudden changes. However, it also harbors a deep undercurrent that operates in a state of continuous immediacy, effortlessly perceiving and holding what remains constant.
 
Consciousness, by contrast, is the "new kid on the block," captivated by novelty and change, still learning to navigate the ever-shifting and increasingly complex survival landscape of external experience.
   
I recall reading Robert Ornstein’s The Psychology of Consciousness, which described an experiment comparing an ordinary person’s ability to remain conscious of a ticking clock with that of a Zen monk. For the average individual, the ticking quickly fades into the background as the brain filters out repetitive stimuli. The Zen monk, however, demonstrated an extraordinary ability to sustain conscious awareness of the ticking for as long as he desired. This underscores a critical insight: consciousness is not a rigid structure but a profoundly adaptable, fluid faculty. As demonstrated by the Zen monk, it can be trained to remain present in any given experience. It possesses a Fluid, self-transforming capacity to reshape itself through itself.

To me, this ability of consciousness to reprogram itself is deeply interwoven with the ancient inscription at the entrance of the Temple of Apollo: Know thyself. By knowing ourselves we get the gift of liquid adaptation.
  
However, without introspective cultivation, we remain largely unconscious of what defines us most—the roaring yet silent, repetitive rhythms of life within our body.
   
The primordial awareness systems within us are even more oblivious to our present state as highly evolved, self-reflective beings. Just as ants traversing a highway cannot comprehend the nature of the cars speeding past them, these ancient biological systems are incapable of grasping the complexity of the higher-order cognitive structures that have evolved on top of them.
 
The good news, as demonstrated by the Zen monk, is that the most recently developed layers of consciousness possess, to some degree, the ability to consciously observe, understand, and integrate the older, more instinctual systems within us. This integration is what turns unconscious patterns into embodied wisdom.
  
Now, how does the trained ability to remain continuously conscious of something as mundane as a ticking clock translate into a deeper knowledge of oneself? To answer this, let us take a shortcut through a detour, drawing insights from the mystics who have walked this path before us.
 
Gurdjieff’s Insight
The Greek-Armenian mystic G.I. Gurdjieff proposed that a human being is not a singular, unified entity but rather a collection of a hundred different personalities—most of which remain unaware of each other. His insight highlights the fragmented nature of our inner world, where different aspects of ourselves take turns running the show, often contradicting one another without our realizing it.

To "know oneself," in Gurdjieff’s practice, is not merely an intellectual exercise but a rigorous process of bringing these disparate selves into alignment—a kind of inner negotiation that leads to the integration of our scattered psychological elements into a more cohesive, conscious being.

One of Gurdjieff’s most illustrative stories of this fragmentation involves a man who sets out on a journey with the firm intention of reaching a specific destination. Along the way, however, each of his many "selves"—his different impulses, desires, and unconscious habits—interrupts the journey. One moment, his "self" that loves comfort convinces him to stop at an inn for a drink; later, another "self" that seeks adventure steers him in an entirely different direction; then a third, fearful "self" urges him to turn back. Eventually, the man never arrives where he originally intended—not because of any external obstacles, but because he was not truly one person. His inner divisions sabotaged his will at every step. Does it sound familiar? At least for me it does.
 
Gurdjieff’s teaching emphasized gradually witnessing the fragmented nature of the self as the first step toward inner unification. The ultimate goal was self-mastery—to transform the divided, conflicting personalities within into a singular, cohesive "I."

Mirabai's Oceanic Wisdom
The Indian Saint Mirabai says:

"Oh Friend! Understand
The body is like the ocean
Rich with hidden treasures."

Just as Gurdjieff’s many personalities operate independently yet contribute to the whole, Mirabai invites us even deeper—to explore the hidden treasures within the oceanic depths of our being. But why is her analogy of the body as an ocean so profoundly meaningful, even tangible, for those who journey inward?
  
We are with Mirabai called to consciously explore and understand the various archaic 'languages' of the body's bio-mass. As discussed in the chapter, Consciousness and Evolution, our bodies retain traces of our evolutionary journey from the oceans to the land. Most of the "civilizations" of survival systems accumulated over time within our body are recalibrated versions of ancient aquatic bio-operative systems. Even though we at some point in our evolutionary journey crawled from the ocean to the land we remain deeply watery in nature. Many of these ancient systems—such as the mechanisms driving our heartbeat—can trace their origins to creatures like sea anemones, already thriving in the pre-Cambrian oceans. Every cell in our body lives a miniature aquatic life, rooted in our ancient oceanic origins. The salt content in human blood plasma, extracellular fluid, and other bodily fluids is remarkably similar in composition to seawater, containing sodium, chloride, and trace amounts of other minerals. Even the hardest part of us, our teeth, evolved from the protective shells of ancient fish.
 
Consider this: Life spent roughly 3.5 billion years in the ocean. Life has spent only around 375 million years on land. This means that over 90% of evolutionary history was spent in water—we have been oceanic creatures for more than 10 times longer than we have been terrestrial.
 
In this sense, we carry a distant but massive memory of our aquatic origins, projected into myths like Atlantis, while our own inner "Aquaman" continues to live within us.
    
Mirabai’s ocean is not just a poetic metaphor; it is a profound truth, inviting us to reconnect with the depths of our watery being, where the treasures of life’s ancient memory continue to flow.
       
This perspective aligns seamlessly with the Tibetan notion of humans as flowing water-bodies. It reminds us that the rhythms and currents within us are echoes of our oceanic past, rich with evolutionary wisdom and mystery.

From there, the journey unfolds like walking—or perhaps more accurately, swimming—blindfolded through inner rivers, guided not by understanding but by what I would term 'innerstanding.' Innerstanding refers to an intuitive, embodied knowing that transcends intellectual comprehension—a wisdom rooted in direct experience, where the mind becomes an intimate knower to the ever-shifting flow of life within.

Let us now dive deeper into the unconscious nature of this inner ocean. As previously mentioned, the key to understanding this lies in the evolutionary development of the neo-cortex—a relatively new yet untrained aspect of our consciousness that is finely tuned to fast-paced, outward stimuli. Its primary task has been to ensure survival in ever-changing environments, scanning for threats and opportunities that require immediate response. There was little evolutionary advantage in registering slow, subtle movements within a seemingly stable inner environment.

Consider the well-known metaphor of the frog in gradually heating water. The frog fails to notice the increasing danger because the change is too slow to trigger its immediate attention. Similarly, our consciousness is prone to overlook the steady, continuous rhythms of our inner sensations, simply because they do not present sudden changes or urgent demands. Yet, it is precisely within these slow-moving tides and waves of inner energy that we find the profound, often hidden truths of our being.
 
Perceiving these quiet, continuous inner oceanic rhythms requires a different kind of conscious awareness—a Zen-trained mind capable of maintaining focus on something as subtle as the ticking of a clock indefinitely or a humming fridge. This deeper level of cultivated conscious perception allows us to become aware of the ever-present, roaring, yet silent flow within our inner body-ocean.
 
Through the cultivation of introspection, we allow consciousness to engage with these layered dormant and slow moving awareness systems, fostering an integrated understanding where broader awareness can become conscious of itself in an ever-deepening dialogue between the body and spirit.
 
This is not academic science but a both a poetic and practical invitation to explore Mirabai's ocean in the form of our Tibetan water-body.  
   
 
THE CONSCIOUS CHOISE
How, then, do we practice this? It begins with the simple yet profound act of closing our eyes while fully awake. This act is not passive but in most cases a conscious choice—a deliberate decision to turn inward. In this context, it doesn’t matter whether free will is an illusion or not. The French existentialist Sartre says: 'Even if free will is an illusion, we are still responsible for our choices because we experience them as such'. Embedded within the operative fabric of consciousness is the subjective experience of free will. Within that experience, it makes perfect sense to say: "I chose to close my eyes. I did it."

Where the Attention Goes, the Prana Flows
Within this same realm of choice, we can consciously direct our awareness—to our hands, our breath, or anything else. Whether free will is an illusion or not… isn't that a miracle in itself?
    
Like Chinese boxes, this small miracle of conscious directional choice reveals yet another hidden within it. Both the ancient Indian tantric and later Chinese Taoist traditions encapsulate this second miracle with the principle:

"Where the attention goes, the prana (life-energy) flows."

A transformative power seems to follow the path set by our conscious choice to direct awareness in a certain direction. In your daily life, practice directing your awareness to different parts of your body. Notice how this simple act can invigorate and calm you.

Now consider this example: offer another human being your undivided and nonjudgmental conscious attention. Almost without fail, this person will feel uplifted.
 
The same principle applies to our own body. In fact, it is vital to put this 'oxygen mask' on ourself first. Simple, focused, high-quality awareness directed inward enlivens the body and even holds the potential to heal. This act of consciously choosing where to direct attention unveils the profound interconnectedness between awareness and the 'pranic' life-force—a little miracle hidden in plain sight.

The first human being we must befriend in vitality is our own body, and that friendship begins with conscious awareness directed inwards. You, as 'I' must befriend 'me.’ And the path to this connection starts with the simplest act: closing your eyes.It’s that simple. Just close your eyes and—BOOM—you’re already on the path of a friendship that will, from there, flow outward, rippling into ever-expanding circles.

Strength and Quality of Conscious Awareness
The inner energetic life of the body is profoundly shaped by the strength and quality of our conscious attention. The more awareness we direct inward, the more this inner life responds, growing increasingly dynamic and vibrant. This creates a feedback loop: as awareness fuels inner energy, this awakened flow, in turn, nourishes and strengthens conscious awareness, reinforcing the cycle of deepening presence.
  
The Value of Countless Repetitions
As an electric solo guitarist, I know that behind every well-played riff lie countless repetitions. Yet the intellect, in its illusionary superiority, assumes that once a statement is made, repetition becomes unnecessary—deeming it redundant and dismissing its transformative power. Yet, the deeper layers of human understanding resemble a tense muscle—they require repeated massage for the blocks to dissolve. Similarly, transforming undesirable habits into something positive demands constant, gentle nudging.

This is in fact the true meaning behind the use of a mantra. This mantra is worth repeating as a self-reminder. Gurdjieff referred to it as the practice of 'constant self-remembrance'.  
    
Let me now consciously repeat: Consciousness is drawn to change, while much of our ancient awareness systems are rooted in continuity and repetition. Consider a few examples of such natural repetitions—more accurately, pulsations: the heartbeat, the morning shit, the breath. These rhythms have accompanied life since the time of stardust, endlessly cycling through existence. In meditation, the deliberate use of repetition acts as a bridge, allowing us to become consciously aware of these primal rhythms that have quietly sustained us through the ages.

The Danish existentialist philosopher Kierkegaard struggled with the eternal repetition of mundane life cycles—waking up, eating, going to bed, over and over again.  His frustration was with the unreflective, mechanical repetition of life without conscious engagement. He found it absurd and draining, a never-ending loop that weighs down the human spirit. Although I’m not a general fan of Kierkegaard’s intellectual labyrinth, I still find gold in his works. Here’s a poignant insight:

"Of all ridiculous things, the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. What, I wonder, do these busy folks get done?" (Either/Or, Part I)

Are you and I among the busy people Kierkegaard ridicules here? The ones briskly rushing from task to task, never pausing to reflect? I must admit that, despite all my spiritual work, I too occasionally fall into this trap. In modern terms, we call it stress.

While sitting in meditation, you might suddenly realize that you’ve been in a state of constant stress without even recognizing it. This insight can feel deeply unsettling. And that’s one reason why meditation often feels uncomfortable. The discomfort doesn’t come from the practice itself, but from its remarkable ability to reveal an uncomfortable truth—the frog sitting in gradually heating water is, in fact, you and me.
 
Let me repeat our new mantra: Ordinary consciousness, preoccupied with change, often fails to notice ongoing states of being because it struggles to detect continuity. In contrast, a Zen-trained consciousness, attuned to the steady rhythm of awareness, can perceive persistent malaise and respond to it with clarity and deliberate action.

By incorporating deliberate repetition in meditation, you gradually cultivate the ability to consciously detect repetitive patterns within yourself—particularly the insidious rhythm of chronic stress. These subtle patterns, unnoticed by the untrained mind, operate in the background like a continuous hum. Meditation trains consciousness to recognize these hidden loops, breaking the cycle of unconscious tension and bringing them into the light of conscious awareness.

When you become aware of the repetitive undercurrent of stress, you gain the power to disrupt it—not by force, but by simply noticing its presence. Through this awareness, the cycle starts to loosen, and what was once an unconscious burden becomes a conscious choice to release.
  
The Cleansing of Mental Debris in Consciousness
The next step, repeated a million times, is to consciously engage with all bodily sensations in a state of innocent yet deliberate 'aha-conscious' awareness.
   
What do I mean by 'aha'? By 'aha' I mean taking notice in childlike innocence.
 
Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to capture a natural photo of someone who is self-conscious about being photographed? Metaphorically, we all adopt performative "silicone lips" the moment we pose for the camera. Achieving innocence within consciousness is similarly challenging. Consciousness seems designed to analyze and manipulate the external world, and for this reason, it inherently lacks innocence. Awareness, by contrast, does not comprehend consciousness—it operates instinctively, acting without intellectual understanding, and remains in this sense innocent.
  
As mentioned, the holy grail of meditation lies in uniting these two operative systems, bringing them together like knights at a round table. However, this unification requires cleansing consciousness of the evaluating system that has evolved so closely alongside the pure mirror of consciousness that it has formed a near-symbiotic relationship. This partnership causes us to mistakenly equate the thinking process with consciousness itself. But they are not the same.
   
French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre remarked that humans are "condemned to self-consciousness." Sartre’s notion of being 'condemned to self-consciousness' reflects the human condition of constant self-evaluation.
In this context, I re-interpret this as the "silicone lip" moment—when Adam and Eve became ashamed of their nakedness, realizing their vulnerability after they became conscious of their bodies. In other words, it was the moment they began to think. Shame is a form of thinking self-consciousness.
   
It is the thinking machine, embedded in the fabric of consciousness, that has lost innocence. Consciousness, in its essence, is like a mirror—untainted by what it reflects. This understanding has countless implications, but the key takeaway here is that for consciousness to merge with awareness, it must be cleansed of concepts, words, and understanding. It must return to its innocent 'aha-state.' In meditation, we aim to transcend this judgmental consciousness and return to a state of innocence.

You might now rightly ask: Is this project itself not a consequence of a thought process? Does it not embody the very paradox illustrated by Ramana Maharshi’s analogy of a policeman trying to arrest a thief, aware that he is the thief himself?

Here, I draw inspiration from a powerful insight shared by Nisargadatta Maharaj: Conscious, thought-based insights cannot create anything primordial. They can only produce symbolic representations within the mind. However, while thoughts cannot reveal our true nature, they hold immense power over what we mistakenly identify as "self"—that is, everything we are not. This is the essence of neti neti—"not this, not that."

When, on a cognitive level, we grasp that we are not confined to thoughts, something remarkable happens: thoughts lose their grip. They begin to fade, starved of the attention that once fed them. And in their gradual dissolution, a deeper reality emerges—what was always present but hidden, much like a coastline revealing itself as the fog lifts.
 
This process is not about forcing thoughts into silence. It is about recognizing that they are not who we are. The silence comes not through suppression, but through 'innerstanding'. In that innerstanding, we rediscover what Ramana Maharshi referred to as the eternal, unshaken self—clear, vast, and untouched by the waves of thought.
   
In summary, we purify consciousness by gently, politely and persistantly choosing not to listen to our thoughts, allowing it to return to its natural mirror-state of innocence.

In fact, I would suggest that the key difference between a meditator and a narcissist lies in the ability to refrain from indulging in thoughts and spinning elaborate dramas or narratives.

 
INNER PIXELLATION - BEYOND UNDERSTANDING

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
Rumi

After this long but important prologue, it is now finally time to talk about pixels.
 
Resting in innocent body-awareness, and always capturing feelings before they capture us, can ultimately lead to a process I term "meditative pixellation."
 
Now, what do I mean by 'pixellation'?
    
Here is a summary of what I mean by the term: As you become more attuned to observing the myriad sensations within your body, you gain the ability to move beyond the wall of meaning created by naming and labeling. In this abstract, primal reality, differences and boundaries dissolve. We become part of a fluid continuum—a boundless, pixelated existence.

Within this inner world, dualities fade away. There is no "observer" in the conventional sense, but rather a "senser," embedded in abstract sensing and fully immersed in pure conscious awareness.

Pixels Are Neither Bad Nor Good
Just as images—whether of Jesus or the devil, good or bad—are fundamentally composed of smaller, neutral elements, so too are our sensations, feelings, and emotions. Imagine a digital image. As you zoom in closer and closer, the picture gradually loses its original meaning, dissolving into a 'Rumian grass field' of neutral pixels. Similarly, in meditation, hyper-focused conscious perception transcends conventional notions of good and evil as we magnify the intricate beauty of our inner life. Just as digital images dissolve into neutral pixels when magnified, our emotions, when observed closely, lose their labels of 'good' or 'bad.' They become raw sensory experiences, free from judgment.

In this pixelated state, there is an inner-sensed experience of tathata —suchness. By sensing our inner body-self free from concepts—so closely and intimately that all we perceive is the flow of neutral micro-sensations—we begin to 'innerstand' that sensations and feelings are neither inherently good nor bad. Beyond the wall of naming and judgement, pain and pleasure lose their distinctions. Evaluation dissolves, leaving no space or need for thoughts to navigate this landscape.
 
Through this process, the first layer of mental interpretations dissolves. The body’s inner sensory space transforms from a stage for emotions and thoughts into a field of super-aware micro-dots of "something" in its pure suchness.
 
When feelings and emotions are perceived on the level of pixels, they lose their capacity to be hijacked by elaborate thought dramas. In this sense, the pixel-state is innocent, free from the entanglements of the disembodied world of thoughts.

Let me offer a brief example. Many years ago, a group of us were hiking in the Indian Himalayas, watching a stunning sunset. Some of us sat quietly in awe, fully immersed in the experience. Others spoke softly, saying things like, "It’s beautiful," or, "It looks like gold." Then, one man suddenly broke the silence: "This reminds me of a sunset at a beach last year in Denmark. We were a group of people, had a few drinks, and ended up in an argument about the political situation back home. Speaking of politics—what’s your opinion of our prime minister?"
 
This example illustrates how easily the mind can be pulled out of a raw, sensed experience into the world of narratives and thought spirals. The man’s comment transformed a moment of direct sensory awe into a mental rabbit hole of unrelated stories and opinions, distancing him and others from the present reality of the sunset.
  
Sensing the Warmth of Light
The pixel-state invites us to remain present, anchored in the raw sensations themselves, without allowing thoughts to spiral into distracting narratives. This is the simple path to inner freedom: be consciously aware of yourself—know and "aha-aware" thyself—not as a detached observer but as a non-judgmental senser in awe. It is not about seeing the light, which implies separation and distance, but about experiencing its warmth in subject-object union. To truly sense the light is to feel its presence intimately, dissolving the barriers that divide perception and sensed being.
 
Pixels as 'Energy'
At this profound level of conscious interoceptive awareness, words may still hold value, albeit words nearly devoid of conventional meaning. Thus, I from here metaphorically name this 'something' as 'energy.' This pixel-energy can manifest in myriad forms and shapes. Henceforth, I will employ the term 'energy' along with 'pixels'. 
 
What you once called pain, before coming close enough, is now just an endless morphing pixellated stream of what we could also metaphorically term 'atoms'. Just as particles in quantum physics fundamentally consist of frozen energy or light, the building blocks in our inner world are revealed as made out of liquid wave-energy  when we come closer to be consciously aware of them. However, remember these terms are only beautiful metaphors inspired from a quantum world that I only know little about.  
 
While terms like 'pixels' and 'energy' are still fundamentally thoughts, they lack the structure required to evolve into narrative storytelling and, more importantly, do not spiral into the drama-filled rabbit holes of mental reality. Instead, they stay closer to the simple, raw, and unembellished impressions they represent.
 
Beyond the, in this sense, barren terms of 'pixels' and 'energy,' there lies an intriguing observation: the deeper one ventures into this abstract realm of inner energies, the more energized and rejuvenated one feels afterward. This might explain why Eastern traditions coined the term 'prana,' equating it with life-energy—the subtle, vital force flowing through and sustaining us.

However, I deliberately choose not to use that term here, as it has been heavily monopolized by Eastern thought and comes with a set of cultural associations that could distract from the path I wish to point out. My aim is to stay rooted in a direct, experiential understanding, free from preconceived notions tied to established traditions.
  
The Challenge
For anyone willing to explore the inner world of sensations and feelings through courageous introspection, here is the challenge:

Any sensation, feeling, or emotion—no matter how pleasant or unpleasant it seems—will ultimately dissolve into pure, neutral "energy" for the one who continues to observe it with vigilant innocent conscious awareness.
 
State of Simple & Sensed Amor Fati
In this pixelating state of observation, focus solely on the phenomenon of feeling itself, without attempting to change or eliminate sensations through mental strategies. Resist the temptation to weave stories around them. The key lies in mentally ignoring the age-old instinctual urge to "do" something—especially in response to unpleasant sensations—while offering them your full, non-cognitive conscious attention.

Ignore Yourself in full Conscious Awareness
This form of non-doing meditation emphasizes the direct encounter between your innocent 'aha' awareness and the interoceptive sensations themselves. You become passive yet present, ignoring yourself while simultaneously giving yourself full, undivided conscious attention. This state can be called a state of simple sensed amor fati—a loving acceptance of what is, exactly as it is.

THE SECRET LIFE OF OUR BODY
We are now ready to embark on a journey into the secret life of our own body. With the torchlight of consciousness, we will explore the largely unknown landscapes of our inner biological beingness. With each passing minute, day, month, and year, we deepen our mastery of this practice. It is truly an art in which we are both the artist and the masterpiece.

Socrates' famous words, "To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom," take on a new meaning in this context—one that invites us to become intimately familiar with the subtle energy formations within our body.

At the core of this exploration lies the axis mundi of pixelated energy, running from the base of the spine to the top of the head. Along this axis are key hotspots where energies can surge, sometimes becoming difficult to contain in neutral conscious awareness due to their intensity. These energies may traditionally labeled as negative, manifest as discomfort, offensiveness, anger, or anxiety.

You may wonder, Why engage with these energies? Why not simply suppress or control them? The answer is simple: the more unpleasantness you can hold and digest within your conscious field of awareness, the greater your capacity for emotional healing and bodily intelligence becomes.

We feel to heal.

Through this process, we come to know ourselves more deeply, developing the courage of a warrior to hunt and consume what we once labeled as "negative" life-energies within our body’s inner animal kingdom. Instead of rejecting or repressing these energies, we absorb and integrate them, transforming what once felt overwhelming into a source of strength and wisdom.

This is the path of embodied self-discovery.

Biochemical Sensing Instead of Known Feelings
Take any feeling, especially one that is fresh and prominent. If time and space allow, lie down and examine it closely. It could be a cluster of fear tightening the stomach or a tension constricting the throat. When contemplating someone you love, you might feel warmth radiating from the chest or a pleasant lightness spreading throughout the body. Notice the sensation of lightness when feeling happy—how it subtly manifests in different areas of your body.

Now, as you step into the anatomical landscape of these so-called familiar emotions, you may uncover a profoundly simple truth: behind the culturally and linguistically defined labels of anger, joy, jealousy, love, offense, or well-being lie abstract biochemical sensations rooted in various locations of the inner body. What I refer to as energy is nothing more than biochemical sensory phenomena displayed on the interoceptive stage of awareness. And, as I’ve repeated like a mantra, all we do in meditation is add the light of pure consciousness to this inner experience.
 
In reality, what we think of as familiar emotions are, when broken down into their core components, spatially expanded electrochemical energy phenomena.

Let us revisit the previously mentioned images of Jesus and the Devil as a metaphor. Before we begin to magnify these images into pure pixelation, there exists an intermediary field where we can still perceive forms, shapes, and clusters of colors. Similarly, in the inner world of emotions, there is a state of observation where our named feelings—such as anger, pride, or joy—shed their traditional identification markers and stand before us as clusters of sensations with distinct qualities, textures, and shapes.

At this level of perception, it also becomes easier to spatially locate where these energy phenomena are experienced within the body. Love may manifest as warmth in the chest, anxiety as tightness in the gut, or offense as a burning sensation in the throat.

The key to transforming our emotional landscape lies in moving beyond conceptual labels and directly feeling these raw, pixelated clusters of sensations. By doing so, you shift from reacting to your emotions as fixed stories to experiencing them as dynamic, ever-changing energy flows within your body’s sensory landscape.

In this pixelated state, emotions and feelings lose their habitual instinctual pathways. Imagine a person or situation that has made you unhappy. When you attentively and meditatively look inward, you'll discover that what your mind interprets as 'unhappiness' is actually a sensory phenomenon within your own body. You may feel a knot in your solar plexus, accompanied by butterflies or a sensation akin to jellyfish in your stomach. If you are not present at this moment, you'll start engaging in a dialogue between your burning jellyfish-self and your thinking self. These two will create a feedback loop that, if you're not careful, becomes your unending re-enforcing narrative. This narrative becomes your reality—a reality where you live and jump around like a frog at the bottom of a well rather than getting the over-view as a free bird in the sky.

Consider this simple experiment: The next time you feel irritated or angry at someone, resist the impulse to focus your mental energy on crafting a cutting reply. Instead, turn inward and investigate what is happening inside your body. Notice the electrical tension or tightness in your gut or throat. If you bring conscious awareness to these sensations, it is almost certain that your reaction will change.

However, this is not an easy task. The more prone we are to anger, the less consciously aware we tend to be in those moments.

To move beyond the conceptual wall and fully reside in the world of sensed clusters requires patience and practice. It is a journey of a lifetime—a gradual peeling away of layers until you no longer live in the world of stories but in the reality of direct, embodied experience.
 
Every Energy Bundle Represents a Distinct Bio-Operative System
The next step in life is to consciously explore the energy formations within various parts of your body. For example, allow your inner conscious light to merge with the awareness in your hands as they rest on your stomach. Notice how the awareness in your hands and stomach begin to blend into a unified sensation. You might feel something akin to the famous “butterflies” in your stomach—tickling, crawling, burning, nervous, or electric energy. These sensations often resemble pain. Let them flow freely and integrate with the more neutral energy ball in your hands, allowing both areas to harmonize.

As discussed in the chapter Consciousness & Evolution, the human body is a living archive of remodified and recycled genetic information stretching back to the beginning of life.

A friend once told me that during both of his LSD experiences, he felt as though there was a hostile, meat-eating plant residing in his stomach. To me, this indicates that his stomach was not happy and had been unable to communicate its discomfort—until the psychedelically tuned brain gave it a voice in the form of dream-like symbols.

Each body part, each organ, and even clusters of organs possess their own unique energy signature. These distinct energy bundles form the wordless language through which our ancient biological systems attempt to communicate with us. The vast majority—99%—of these systems do not understand verbal language or cognition. Therefore, we must meet them on their own terms, engaging with them through direct sensory awareness.

The Shapes and Movements of Inner Sensory Patterns
These internal, abstract sensory shapes consist of bundles of electrochemical energy that continuously fluctuate in myriad forms and variations. They are unique to each individual and each moment, evolving in response to both the external environment and our thought processes. These sensory patterns can feel constricted or expanded and typically have distinct locations, shapes, and dimensions.

A sensory pattern may extend its tendrils into the arms, legs, or head, but its core generally resides within the torso. Think of the torso as the “Rome” of our inner body—a central hub from which countless “sensory pattern civilizations” extend their pathways, stretching from the sphincter muscle up to the top of the head and outward into the limbs. These abstract energy patterns often manifest as independent entities with a central core and tentacle-like projections that traverse the body's inner ocean.

As we become more familiar with these ancient operative systems, we discover that different “zoological” sensory patterns belong to different regions of the body. For example, some might resemble writhing serpents, others like pulsating jellyfish, each with its own rhythm, intensity, and form.

Naming the Inner Phenomena
One might argue that assigning names to these internal phenomena risks falling into the trap of thought-based storytelling. And indeed, if we begin creating new stories, dramas, or identities—especially victim identities—we risk losing the purity of direct experience. However, metaphorical naming, when used as a tool rather than a crutch, can serve as a bridge for consciousness to explore new inner territories.

Of course these homegrown symbols can act as a new mental trap for ego-identification. I must admit it did so for me on my journey inwards. However, used wisely they can act as mental anchors, guiding us deeper into uncharted realms of our internal landscape without dragging us into narrative distractions. The key is to use these metaphors lightly, allowing them to serve as helpful signposts rather than definitive labels. When used wisely, they enhance our capacity to engage with the hidden sensory life within us, bringing conscious awareness to the ancient and ever-evolving bio-operative systems that sustain our being.

"There are people who, through concentration and other yoga exercises, can bring the subconscious up to the conscious level where they can discern and judge, and thereby benefit from the unlimited treasures of the subconscious memory, among which not only the memory of our previous lives is stored but also the past of the lineage, all pre-human forms of life, and the memory of the consciousness that makes all life in the universe possible."
Lama Anagarika Govinda

Inner Jellyfish, Fire Coral, and Sea Nettles
Continuing with zoological imagery, this is entirely my own poetic way of describing something that is difficult for the conscious, cognitive mind to grasp. These metaphors help me 'innerstand' and connect with my interoceptive sensations, but you might find different imagery that resonates more with your experiences. What inner creatures might you discover within yourself?

In summay, the journey of pixellation begins with deconstructing familiar feelings into abstract pixellated energy. Once this is achieved, the next step can be to use new metaphors to visualize and relate to these internal phenomena. You might also choose a path where you entirely give up name and form. It is up to you.

In the deepest realms of meditation, oceanic metaphors make sense for me to describe these three-dimensional energy patterns or clusters. The shapes and movements of these inner sensations often resemble aquatic life. Let me introduce my inner jellyfish—a slow-moving sensory pattern that drifts around my stomach, with tendrils extending into my arms, legs, and head. Depending on the intensity of the sensation, it can transform into something more like a fire coral or a sea nettle, emitting prickly or burning sensations. These jellyfish-like creatures, along with countless other inner life forms, seem to live autonomously, swimming through the body’s dark, primordial ocean.

Anyone willing to introspectively explore their inner landscape can embark on a hunt for these ancient Cambrian creatures lurking namelessly within the body’s inner darkness.

It’s utterly fascinating to realize that we carry within us such a varied sensory aquarium without being aware of it. How astonishing it is that we can know so much about the external world and yet remain profoundly ignorant of our own inner world.

The Inner Zoo:  Ancient Life Forms and Land Creatures
It’s not just primordial aquatic creatures we find within us. Our bodies also harbor land creatures, representing different evolutionary stages. We all carry snakes, reptiles, mammals, prey, and predators within us. As we move up the evolutionary ladder, these energy forms become more dynamic and fast-moving.

The ancient, pre-Cambrian energy forms—like jellyfish—move slowly, almost like tidal waves. In contrast, the inner monkey leaps rapidly from branch to branch, making it a challenge to track and contain. At first glance, one might assume that catching a jellyfish would be easier than taming a monkey. However, the paradox is that the older the bio-operative systems are, the more difficult they are to grasp, and thus harder for consciousness to penetrate. Their very slow-moving, continuous nature makes them elusive to a mind wired to detect change and quick patterns. It is precisely their timeless, unhurried rhythm that consciousness struggles to comprehend.
 
Communicating with the Inner Creatures
Our conscious a-ha awareness becomes the lingua franca for communicating with the ancient, remodified life forms within us. The highest act of love is simple, conscious attention. When we offer this loving attention to our inner animals—often frightened, wounded, or confused—they begin to relax and find peace within their own natural rhythms.

Where should we begin?

In my experience, it is far more important to engage with the Cambrian creatures within us than with the more evolved reptilian, mammalian, or early human parts. The deeper we go into these ancient cellular life forms, the more profound the transformation becomes.

If we can transform the jellyfish so that it no longer stings, even the restless inner monkey seems to calm down. The relaxation of our inner world begins with conscious love and attention directed toward the primordial depths of our being. From this core of ancient awareness, healing radiates outward to all later layers of these zoological energy creatures, gradually restoring balance and  harmony across the entire inner ecosystem.
 
THE INNER MORPHING
If an anthropologist visits a Stone Age tribe that has never had contact with modern civilization, the tribe will change irreversibly the moment that contact is made. It will never be the same tribe again, and there is little possibility of returning to its original state. The same is true when you consciously visit your own body.
 
Conscious awareness profoundly affects the inner zoo of energy systems residing within us. As we bring conscious awareness to these inner creatures, they begin to morph and transform. This process is a journey of self-discovery, where the rigid constructs of our inner world melt into fluid, dynamic patterns.
 
As we descend into deeper levels of life, these energy systems begin to shift their configurations. They no longer remain static but begin to evolve, almost like plants responding to sunlight.
 
Through personal observation, you may notice how these sensory patterns evolve—from being rigid and fixed to moving in slow, sweeping motions, much like seaweed gently swaying in the ocean. This transformation from static to dynamic patterns depends entirely on the quality and intensity of the conscious awareness with which you engage them. It is the sheer presence of warm vigilance—wordless and fundamental—that nudges these patterns into a state of flux.

In fact, there are two distinct morphic phenomena at play here.

The first is a natural, ongoing process that has been present all along. The energies within your body were already in motion, slowly morphing and shifting beneath your conscious radar. The only difference now is that you have become aware of them—similar to how you become aware of the fridge's hum only when it stops. This is a simple realization: you are now conscious of what has always been happening in the background.

The second phenomenon, however, is directly initiated by the pure light of consciousness and the healing water of awareness. When these two forces are consciously applied, the energy signatures begin to grow, shift, and morph at a noticeably faster and more intense pace. This dynamic process of accelerated transformation is precisely the meaning behind the previously mentioned quotation:

"Where the attention goes, the prana (life-energy) flows."

The Inner Blocks
As we begin to consciously aware this inner body flow, we’ll inevitably notice areas that resist movement. These blocked parts often correlate with muscular tensions, held tightly within the body. In our normal outward-focused state of consciousness, we remain largely unaware of these tensions. Yet, as soon as these rigid areas collide with the enhanced flow in the more resistance-free rivers of energy within us, we become painfully aware of their presence.
  
The key is to persist in gently awaring these unpleasant blocks. With time and patience, they will begin to dissolve, much like ice melting in the sun.

The Tibetans, with their profound wisdom, offer a beautiful metaphor for this process. They liken the human experience to that of an ice-body filled with energetic blocks. Through the tantric practice of tummo—the cultivation of inner heat—this rigid, frozen state gradually melts into a flowing water-body, symbolizing liberated energy in fluid conscious awareness.

William Blake, in his poetic genius, also speaks to this transformative phenomenon:

"If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear to man as it is: infinite."
William Blake

Blake's insight echoes the Tibetan perspective, reminding us that the infinite oneness of conscious awareness is always present, waiting to be revealed through the melting away of inner barriers and the cleansing of perception. When we dissolve the frozen constructs within, what emerges is the boundless flow of life itself.

THE INFINITE ONENESS OF CONSCIOUS AWARENESS
Now what reveals itself on the level of identity when we continue to pixellate ourselves into abstract sensations of energy in the ever ongoing process of melting inner blocks of resistance? As we enter deeper levels of conscious awareness the various clusters of pixels seem to exchange into a common currency, a united abstraction leading into a world with less and less names and forms. Metaphorically we could say that we have reached back to the primordial ground of stardust. Hence energy, not even confined to signatures or clusters becomes more and more relevant as a 'lingua franca'.
  
In the next little session I invite you to observe and explore the sensations coming from the surface of the skin in your hands. Now fold your hands and close your eyes once more for a while.
  
After coming back: Did you notice that the skin borders between your hands seem to disappear when the energy, as a ball of oneness, makes the hands merge into each other? Our external senses tend to divide everything, while the internal senses, at least as experienced on a subjective level, seem to unify everything. As perhaps the most close and intimate sense, the mechanism of skin sensationing seems to be able to do both. As you sit with closed eyes, observe how the exteroceptive skin sensations of sitting, the places where you are in contact with the pillow or chair, seem to blur into oneness. This oneness also includes the interoceptive sensations of the inner body in the same area. There seems to be an evolutionary link between outer skin sensations in a given body area and an enhanced ability to feel the deeper 'energies' emerging from the organic life beneath the skin.

Now is that not amazing how much we can 'learn' or rather unlearn from just simple observations of hands holding hands?

Close your eyes again for a few minutes and verify again for yourself how 'awaring' hands in hands plays out in your inner laboratory. Remember to base your meditation practice on what you yourself are able to verify, not on what I or others say to you. In meditation, we get inspired from outside, but we only follow the voice(s) from inside.
 
Let me, in this context, make a claim for you to test: Just by the very act of closing our eyes, we unify ourselves and, through that, the world. This simple act is the beginning of the doors of perception being cleansed, leading to life becoming infinite. By holding your own hands, you make peace with yourself in the morphing, growing ball of abstract energy. Now, can you imagine what happens when you hold another person's hand? I leave it to you to explore the expanded adventure of holding a friend’s or even a stranger’s hands in a state of meditative pixellation.

Link to Meditative Pixellation as a Technique
 

With warm regards,
Gunnar Mühlmann
gunnars@mail.com