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Quote by Roger Zelazny

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Lord of Light

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Author

Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny was an American science fiction and fantasy writer known for his unique literary style and rich imagination. His works spanned a wide range of genres from science fiction to fantasy, with his most famous series including 'The Chronicles of Amber' and 'Avalon'. Zelazny began his writing career in the 1950s, and his works have had a profound impact on science fiction and fantasy literature in the following generations. more

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“The subjective response... when a Philip Dick book has been finished and put aside is that, upon reflection, it does not seem so much that one holds a memory of the story; rather, it is the after effects of a poem rich in metaphor that seem to remain. This I value, partly because it does defy a full mapping, but mainly because that which is left of a Phil Dick story when the details have been forgotten is a thing which comes to me at odd times and offers me a feeling or a thought; therefore, a thing which leaves me richer for having known it. - Roger Zelazny in his introduction to Beyond Lies the Wub”

Science FictionIntroductionPhilip K DickRoger ZelaznyBeyond Lies The Wub
Book:The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
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“A tyrant, in the future, is about to retire and turn over the 3 or so planets he controls to a younger aspirant. The young wife of the tyrant, however, wishes control to go to her, and to prove to her husband what a dreadful leader the aspirant would make. All time-travel experiments have failed, but there is a theoretical possibility that alternate presents could be reached. Instigated by the tyrant's wife, a research crew begins the job. MEANWHILE, the aspirant has let no grass grow beneath his feet; he responds to Project Alternate by hiring one of Earth's larges industrial corporations to build a fake alternate world, in which he rules, and all is wonderful. Now comes the tour de force. The tyrant's young wife learns about the construction of a fake alternate world. Her response: she engages a team of clever experts—along the lines of that in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE—to worm their way into the fake alternate world and plant fake fakes there, which will give it all away when the tyrant is brought to visit it. All seems clear at this point. The aspirant is having a fake alternate world being made; the tyrant's wife is busily subverting it. But—aha! Everyone's scheme is brought down in a great crash when a real alternate present is reached. The tyrant sets out to visit it—naturally. But it bears no relation at all to their own world. It is a 'board-game' world, with squares and the possibility of moving from one square to the next. Each square is a sort of alternate world on its own; the squares differ that much from one another in tone, structure, mood, color, with the characters themselves altering to fit into the Geist of each square. On one square, for example, all food tastes marvelous. On the next square, milk is a deadly poison. And so on. Ultimately, the characters discover the nature of this world: each square represents a particular mushroom, and that of a poisonous mushroom is a poisonous micro-world . . . the morel square, of course, being nearly on a level with heaven.”

Roger ZelaznyDeus IraeUnwritten Ideas
Book:The Selected Letters, 1938-1971
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“The basic consciousness structure is perfectly organized according to the principles of sacred geometry, even though the physical structure of the Universe looks to be very random.”

Sacred GeometryConsciousness StructureStructure Of The Universe
Book:How to Kiss the Universe: An Inspirational Spiritual and Metaphysical Narrative about Human Origin, Essence and Destiny
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“The difference between supermind and Big Mind (if we take Big Mind to mean the state experience of nondual Suchness, or turiyatita) is that Big Mind can be experienced or recognized at virtually any lower level or rung. Magic to Integral. In fact, one can be at, say, the Pluralistic stage, and experience several core characteristics of the entire sequence of state-stages (gross to subtle to causal to Witnessing to Nondual), although, of course, the entire sequence, including nondual Suchness, will be interpreted in Pluralistic terms. This is unfortunate in many ways—interpreting Dharma in merely Pluralistic terms (or Mythic terms, or Rational, and so on)—because it is so ultimately reductionistic; but it happens all the time, given the relative independence of states and structures at 1st and 2nd tier. Supermind, on the other hand, as a basic structure-rung (conjoined with nondual Suchness) can only be experienced once all the previous junior levels have emerged and developed, and as in all structure development, stages cannot be skipped. Therefore, unlike Big Mind, supermind can only be experienced after all 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-tier junior stages have been passed through. While, as Genpo Roshi has abundantly demonstrated, Big Mind state experience is available to virtually anybody at almost any age (and will be interpreted according to the View of their current stage), supermind is an extremely rare recognition. Supermind, as the highest structure-rung to date, has access to all previous structures, all the way back to Archaic—and the Archaic itself, of course, has transcended and included, and now embraces, every major structural evolution going all the way back to the Big Bang. (A human being literally enfolds and embraces all the major transformative unfoldings of the entire Kosmic history—strings to quarks to subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to cells, all the way through the Tree of Life up to its latest evolutionary emergent, the triune brain, the most complex structure in the known natural world.) Supermind, in any given individual, is experienced as a type of “omniscience”—the supermind, since it transcends and includes all of the previous structure-rungs, and inherently is conjoined with the highest nondual Suchness state, has a full and complete knowledge of all of the potentials in that person. It literally “knows all,” at least for the individual.”

Big BangIntegral ConsciousnessSupermindThird TierBig Mind
Book:The Fourth Turning: Imagining the Evolution of an Integral Buddhism
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“Finally, in terms of overall spiritual intelligence—which we have been briefly tracking—on the other side of the leading edge of evolution we have 3 or 4 higher, at this point mostly potential, levels of development, including levels of spiritual intelligence. Individually, their basic strcture-rungs are referred to as para-mind, meta-mind, overmind, and supermind; collectively, they are called 3rd tier. What all 3rd-tier structures have in common is some degree of direct transpersonal identity and experience. Further, each 3rd-tier structure of consciousness is integrated, in some fashion, with a particular state of consciousness (often, para-mental with the gross, meta-mental with subtle, overmind with causal/Witnessing, and supermind with nondual, although this varies with each individual’s actual history). Previously, in 1sst and 2nd tier, structures and states were relatively independent. One could have a state center of gravity at gross and yet structurally evolve all the way to Integral without fully objectifying the gross stage (i.e., fully making it an object, fully transcending it). But beginning with the 3rd-tier para-mind, whenever you experience that structure, you also implicitly or intuitively understand or experience the gross realm as objectified, which means that state is intimately connected to the structure at this level, which gives rise, or can give rise, to expanded states such as nature mysticism (this can be experienced at earlier levels but not inherently, and is interpreted according to the Views of those lower levels; but at this level becomes an inherent potential). Likewise, because of the conjunction with the gross state, this level often carries variations of the realization that the physical world is not merely physical, but is rather psychophysical in its true nature. This can also evoke flashes of higher state presences, such as Witnessing states or even nondual. And so on with the subtle state and meta-mind; causal/Witnessing and overmind; and nondual Suchness and supermind. Those states are all “minimally” connected to those structures, in the sesne that, for example, a person at meta-mind might have already and previously moved his or her state center of gravity to subtle, but if not, the person cannot proceed beyond the meta-mind without doing so at this point. And likewise with causal/Witnessing and overmind; and nondual Suchness and supermind.”

WitnessingIntegralIntegral SpiritualityIntegral ConsciousnessSupermindThird TierOvermindIntegral Psychology
Book:The Fourth Turning: Imagining the Evolution of an Integral Buddhism
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“In contrast, he describes spiritual transformation as an ‘established descent of the spiritual peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the awareness of the self and the divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole consciousness to that’.18 The path to spiritual transformation leads the seeker through several experiences and realizations: temporary stages of peace, calm and silence; the discovery of the Self and its experience on various planes of consciousness; and experiences on the higher planes with its different layers—Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Overmind. Not only to receive influences from these planes, but to actually live in them is, according to Sri Aurobindo, ‘a definite stage in the movement towards transformation’.19 Finally, we learn about the two main and alternating movements leading to spiritual transformation—the ascent of the lower consciousness towards the higher, and the descent of the higher, of peace, force, light and Ananda, into the lower to transform it. These and the experiences connected with them end this remarkable journey from the first opening of the inner veil to the psychic and spiritual transformation of all the planes and parts of the being, opening the gate to the essence and crown of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga: the supramental transformation.”

Spiritual TransformationVeilSupermindOvermind
Book:Reading Sri Aurobindo
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“With advanced quantum computational systems in place, we could have computed the COVID-19 vaccine within hours, if not minutes, of its discovery. Perhaps, any kind of life-threatening virus, since it is nothing more than a piece of code, will be completely preventable with the advances in quantum computing and computational biology. The question is, then, if we could eventually shield ourselves against the common viral micro-threat, what would a macro-threat of unknown nature mean for the human-machine civilization? We might soon need to decode another message from the transcendent realm edging us ever closer to the Cybernetic Singularity of some sort.”

Covid 19VirusVaccineQuantum ComputingCybernetic SingularityComputational BiologyHuman Machine Civilization
Book:NOOGENESIS: Computational Biology
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“As biological beings, we humans - anchored to our biology - can only experience a thermodynamic arrow of time in one direction but given our rapid technological advances and the forthcoming Cybernetic Singularity, that might change for good. The ultimate effects of future developments may appear quite strange to us, present-day humans, as the emergence of things like personalized 'non-linear' reality and fluid distributed identity could challenge our current biological and cultural assumptions. The resulting 'identity' architectures will transform our notion of personhood and form the kernel of posthuman civilization.”

IdentityPersonhoodCybernetic SingularityArrow Of TimePhysics Of TimeCultural AssumptionsPosthuman CivilizationSubjective Time
Book:The Physics of Time: D-Theory of Time & Temporal Mechanics
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