In Being Kegan 4 is dumb, 2026-01-31, I explored a useful visualisation/pointer given by a mentor, re: unscrunching from your Kegan 4 worldview/key axioms that you might be scrunched with in the moment
E.g., something like āwe have to do it this way!!!ā re: a work project, which makes you rush something through without getting insights from others, because youāre possessed by the notion that the thing is Definitely A Problem that you need to fix ASAP (vs if you unscrunched, youād realise that itās one of a thousand possible problems, etc)
I found the visual of the massively multidimensional object of preference spectrums, and the word āunscrunchingā as a direct pointer for the mental/physical move of stepping back and dropping the current obsession/focus/axiom-and-the-implications-of-the-axiom really useful, and itās been on my mind since (and used occasionally)
However, I didnāt grok the real insight, and how it connects to other things that I have known
Really, unscrunching is a direct, meta/macro-pointer back to Deep Okayness, Brahman, the perfection of ultimate reality
I was Deeply Okay, briefly
As I wrote about in āConsensus-ism part 2ā - I had a Kensho experience in Feb 2024 (2 years ago now, wow).
This involved āforegrounding the backgroundā, foregrounding awareness/layer 1, which led to permanent shifts including the ability to be Deeply Okay because youāve seen experientially that thereās this untouchable awareness that is you and is always holding you etc
This led to realising (and involved the experience of): āholy shit, everything is perfect how it is, my striving exists in level 2, thereās nothing I need to Do, I am Deeply Okayā
But I donāt abide in Deep Okayness
Looking at how Sasha describes it in his post:
Greater feelings of immersion in the world, sense of the sublime beauty of existence
Greater affection for other people, directly connected to less worrying about what they think of me
Less worrying about what type of shithead I am for not getting things done, more getting things done
Less guilt, more skillful action to repair things done wrong in the past
Easier time reaching deep meditative states, due to massive decrease in inner conflict
Everything more pleasant
The kensho/stream entry experience shifted me massively in this direction, for absolute sure. There was a huge and permanent ābefore-and-afterā
But, I think the thing that interferes is your conditioning. So, I can experience all of the above, and often do, but I still have a giant pile of conditioning (Technical debt) to work through, and that Iāve been working through, in my haphazard way
Conditioning that keeps me out of Deep Okayness
Thereās somewhere to reach (āOut-There-ismā) (the big one)
Intellectualisation, conceptualisation
Left-hemisphere capture
Discomfort being around people
Judgementalness
Out-There-Ism
This is the big one!
Most recently for me, this looked like āoh shit, what I need to do is meditate for 3+ hours a day to get to access concentration, so that I can experience the shamatha jhanas to make my concentration really strong, so that I can do insight meditation and see through the fetters/become enlightened and stop being deluded and confusedā
This is pretty compelling, and would no doubt work. But, itās an instance of āOut-There-ismā (which I coined in the shower yesterday). The implicit belief is āand then I can relax/be happyā.
Vs, what about dropping the whole thing (Unscrunching), and being ok now?
After all, the whole thing of enlightenment is a subtractive process. The whole āthereās nowhere to get toā thing. The whole āyou have Buddha nature right nowā thing.
āI canāt enjoy life/chill/relax/Do Nothing/do things that arenāt part of the Spiritual Path (e.g. dating) right now, because I need to prioritise meditating as much as I canā.
But of course, even though Iām not permanently in the non-dual, Brahman-foregrounding state that I was in during kensho, the conclusion reached by seeing that state (there is a perfect untouched awareness/oneness and nothing needs fixing) still applies.
I donāt need to do anything. I donāt need to do xyz so that one day I can be ok. Okayness is my baseline state. I am deeply ok
Intellectualisation, conceptualisation
See the bit on the 2 thorns, below
But basically, becoming obsessed with conceptually grasping the thing, becoming obsessed with your philosophy of what happened, which actually just creates layers of bullshit on top of the thing which requires no concepts. Itās a subtractive thing and youāre adding shit on top of it.
This is also where Unscrunching and āNeti netiā comes in. Whatever youāre identifying yourself with, you are not that. Stop it!
From Gemini:
Neti neti is a Sanskrit expression that translates to ānot this, not thisā or āneither this nor that.ā It is one of the oldest and most powerful analytical tools in Hindu philosophy (specifically the Upanishads and Advaita Vedanta). It is the āsubtractiveā path to finding the Truth you were asking aboutāthe process of peeling away everything that isnāt you until only the absolute remains.
The logic follows that if you keep saying ānot thisā to everything you can perceive, you eventually run out of things to negate.
What is left is pure consciousnessāthe āWitness.ā This āleftoverā is what the texts call Brahman or Atman. It canāt be described with words because words are āthings,ā and the Truth is the source of things.
The two thorns analogy of Advaita Vedanta
A mentor told me about this a few days ago
First thorn = ignorance, e.g. the belief that Iām in a Buddhist Nihilism Phase
Second thorn = knowledge, e.g. the realisation that actually no, itās not true that things are meaningless because they canāt save me, itās true that I donāt need saving/improving, so everything else is like, a bonus that I get to interact with
And then, you drop them both!!! You donāt cherish both thorns, think about them, hold them in place.
āOnce you have realized the ultimate truth, you no longer need the concepts, words, or teachings that got you there.
āCherishing the knowledge (becoming arrogant about being āwiseā) is just as much a binding attachment as ignorance itself.ā
In the teachings of sages like Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, the point is that Truth isnāt a āthingā you find or a new piece of information you acquire. Instead, Truth is what is already there, but itās currently covered up by both your mistakes (ignorance) and your concepts about reality (knowledge).
šØ šØ šØ
āThe Truth is the reality that exists before you even start thinking or labeling yourself.ā
šØ šØ šØ
So, I experienced this state, ultimate reality. And then I went back to my conditioning, because of course, itād be mad if I didnāt. Thereās a Shamil Chandaria graph of the path where the x axis is waking up and the y axis is cleaning up your conditioning. I āwoke upā somewhat but my pile of conditioning (Technical debt) remained, by bad habits remain. So, including Out-There-ism and intellectualisation, this also included:
Left-hemisphere capture
Iāve been super left-hemisphere captured. Always in problem-solving mode, collapsed awareness, ādonāt talk to me whilst I make my coffee because Iām in a collapsed awareness state holding tension in my body because Iām in work modeā
Always listening to podcasts over being with my own thoughts (for years). Etc.
Discomfort being around people
I wrote about this recently - I often have the sense that Iām not āOkayā around people, because Iām not being interesting enough, charming enough, energetic enough, etc.
Experience the Brahman-foregrounding, background-foregrounding state during kensho, and āoh shit, wow, everything is perfect as it is, thereās nothing to do, Iām Deeply Okayā
Like a year later, shortly after a ā2nd pathā experience where I experienced the kensho state again and could make much more sense of it: āoh shit, this (access to deep okayness) means that nothing can hurt me, ultimatelyā. Awesome sense of how this pure awareness canāt be harmed by anything that happens (e.g., I donāt need to be intimidated by people because they canāt hurt the pure awareness that exists)
And then shortly after that, the opposite insight: āoh shit, this means nothing can help me eitherā.
And then, I failed to get this right, to see this correctly, incorrectly landing in nihilism. āShit, nothing can help me, therefore thereās no point to anythingā
Vs actually no, the point (and I only realised this a few days ago), is that nothing needs fixing. So yes, nothing will āhelpā, but that doesnāt mean things are useless or meaningless, just that help isnāt needed
Nihilism, Kensho, No Self, āneeding to meditateā
āThings are dukkha (unsatisfying) and canāt help me, wahā ā thatās ok because I donāt need help
āI need to meditate for 3+ hours a day so that I can be saved at some point in the futureā ā I donāt need to meditate for 3+ hours a day because I donāt need saving
Blending with āI canāt be ok until Iāve gained x knowledge/experienceā ā actually no, the way to be ok is to drop all of that, right now in this moment
See the two thorns analogy above
Conclusion
So where does this leave me?
Iām deeply okay right now. I donāt need concepts. I donāt need to explain myself. I donāt need to hold all of the above in my head, like a tangle of thorns, in an attempt to get me back to that state, one day.
==āThe Truth is the reality that exists before you even start thinking or labeling yourself.ā==
And what about my conditioning?
I wonder if meditating could help with this. I clearly still have a huge amount of technical debt, and actually, the Technical debt analogy comes from Mark of meditationbook.page, so yeah, I imagine meditation would definitely help
But, with the rememberance that I donāt have to āclear up enough technical debt so that I can be happy one dayā. Happiness/okayness isnāt āOut Thereā some time in the future.
(Another path for cleaning up conditioning is the āintegrationā pillar that Romeo Stevens describes in āthe threefold training)
And of course, morality, sila.
So thereās still lots to do to keep operating at higher levels, but I donāt have to do shit. If I want to clear out some technical debt, become more moral, kind, compassionate etc, then hell yeah, what an awesome extra thing that I get to do
Talking about this with people = cherishing the second thorn
Hereās an interesting nascent insight Iāve been vaguely approaching:
I talk about this stuff a lot. I live in a community, and when people ask me how Iām doing, what Iām up to, I often tell them about this stuff, about my new insights, the previous insights to give context, etc
This feels suboptimal for two reasons:
It makes me veryā¦ one-note. This stuff feels the Most Important, so I donāt talk about more like, chill/fun things, itās always Serious Talking Time where I explain my big Insights and their Implications. Itās also inherently hyper-personal, so may be illegible to others, totally about me, etc. And inherently hyper-self-centered, therefore.
Itās the thing of cherishing the second thorn. āIām really excited about my new intellectualisation, new concepts, that help me understand my ignorance a bit better!ā. Itās me holding both of the thorns in place, cherishing them
Really, if the point is to discard all the thorns, then talking about my thorns and intellectualisations is the exact opposite thing
Iāve made my whole life about this stuff, for years. It has meant that I have very little to talk about with my family, because they are hyper-removed from this stuff (and this is why tpot/post-rationalist people like hanging out, because they can talk about their journey re: the thorns that theyāre collecting and cherishing, and be legible to each other, and hope that they might stumble across a thorn from another person which might be added to their own tangle of thorns in a way that feels useful)
Vs, if you drop all the thorns, what remains? What can you talk about then?
Maybe in this space, you can be playful, tuned into the other person, spontaneous, free.