Directions
All the Infinite Places A Mind Can Travel
A personal chef-d'œuvre — a standalone meditation on all the infinite places a mind can travel. It moves through a five-stage contemplative exercise (Comfort, Darkness, Life, Descent, Arrival) before opening outward into the phenomenology of perspective: the many superposed realities a mind can move through, and the moral jays exchanged between them. Woven into it are the author's own summarized instructions for meditation, set down plainly and offered freely for anyone to use. It stands apart from the numbered series while sharing their vocabulary, and it arrived, in the author's own account, unbidden and long awaited — the piece a whole body of work had been quietly building toward.
It stands apart from the numbered series while sharing their vocabulary, and it is the piece the author names as a personal chef-d'œuvre. The meditation instructions woven through it are offered freely for anyone to use, and the essay's real subject is the one its title promises: the sheer range of places a single mind can travel, and the moral traces it carries between them.
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Directions
TO MY COUSIN BIBIANA
This prose literally “came to me” after reading the Vera Stanley Alder Fifth Dimension book you sent me — for the second time. I can’t thank you enough for all the keys you’ve handed me. Countless doors have been unlocked in my mind by your very hands. I can only imagine you have the same impact on others around you. Because even in being half a country apart, you still exist in my thoughts almost daily.
Love you.
What does a mind truly think about itself, once it finds out and accepts the true insignificance of the body it’s attached to?
I would imagine, it doesn’t think about much of anything, really.
But what of Time? What of Intent? What of Meaning? What of Energy?
What does it mean, to the brain that has fully let go?
Sometimes I try to let my mind wander to that place. I truly try to do this every time I meditate.
So follow my mind as I write, to my little bit of space, and take a look around, if you so please.
Sometimes in order to fully release the Ego, I have to step behind the Persona I’ve spent 42 years developing (oftentimes badly, as you’ve read) and really do the Shadow integration and balance on my own.
This is oftentimes not achievable through conventional methods for most minds. The Persona can be so deeply woven into the fibers of an Ego, the complexity of unwinding the pathways is far beyond anything I wish to speak on in this prose. I would only ask that a mind consider, regardless of its belief system: the body ends, and time continues.
With the fibers of mortality so deeply ingrained in the thoughts being translated by the Ego, oftentimes the mind will reach for things that make it mortal.
“What of my bills?” “What of my relationships?” “What of my belongings?”
What of them? Those are things, physical in nature. They have nothing to do with who I am as a person.
So what then? So what? So?
Oftentimes the simplest problems in life can be reduced to the smallest fraction of a thought, set aside to be addressed when it is appropriate.
“Of course, I have to pay my bills.” Then they will be paid.
“Of course, I have to maintain my relationships.” Then they will be maintained.
“Of course, I need to be appreciative of the belongings I have.” Then they will not be taken for granted.
The hinge occurs, like a doorway swinging open, when the mind truly and finally accepts that it is attached to nothing of significance.
How does a mind open its final door?
For me, it was meditation. A melding of many varieties of the same. Several small rapid “breakthrough” experiences led to a final “peak experience” near the beginning of June of this year.
What I saw there, in my space, was what I saw. But the traces of my perception have been placed in word after word, paper after paper, two books, a future rebuilt accordingly, and an unexplainable desire to help everyone I lay eyes on.
There are no words. There is just thoughts. The thoughts about nothing and everything are marvelous and fascinating at the same time. The flower and the bismuth, as I’ve said before. The Yin, and the Yang, but not in a positive and negative sense — more of a fourth-dimensional understanding of the negative being a part of the positive, and making it beautiful nonetheless.
This is a direction I did not intend to travel, in a prose on directions. My understanding with myself, my Ego, and the Self are mine, and mine to hold. I will speak through my actions, and those who are close to me can resonate with that statement more than anyone I know.
But a mind cannot read what another mind can see; it can only absorb teachings, lessons, overlapped realities, and adjustments made accordingly.
The mind is the most brilliant computer ever designed, and I’m the one mostly responsible for the coding of my own.
That being said, I will provide a brief exercise that I commonly use to find my space, in my mind, in my body.
I absolutely love all the various methods for meditation, and I have learned so many: Transcendental, Silva Mind Control, and Sanskrit mantra — japa, the old Vedic practice of repeating the syllables until the sound carries you — to name a few of my favorites. But every new one I learn adds a brilliant new “pathway” for the others I’ve already absorbed. Even my words crossing this page is a translation of the various things I have learned. So there is a method here, and I will describe it.
I – COMFORT
This is most important. If you sit in a position that makes you uncomfortable, your mind will only “see” that discomfort. Make all the adjustments you need before you begin so that this isn’t a hurdle you have to jump later. This can mean not sitting in a position that will have your foot fall asleep or your leg lose circulation. Transcendental meditation is done sitting in a straight-back chair. Some of my most successful breakthroughs have occurred laying on my back in bed. This goes all the way into making sure you’re not hungry, you’ve had a glass of water so you’re not thirsty. If you’re addicted to anything, it’s best that you only use enough to “feel normal” for a little while; do not overindulge. For instance, I used to smoke a lot of THC when I was younger. But I knew if I approached a meditation session “high,” that’s all I would be able to think about — how high I was. But if I only took a single puff to calm my nerves, sometimes, that was okay.
Comfort is important. Settle down slowly into your space. If you’re engaging with people around you, make sure you allow yourself space and time to be alone. Distractions will cause discomfort.
There are many other ways of finding inner comfort here too, from making a circle with your thumb and forefinger and “feeling” the place where they touch, to touching the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth, with your tongue.
Creating circles is only natural. Look at the way the Buddha sits. A flower of circles.
II – DARKNESS
Close your eyes. Prevent all light from entering. Sometimes it’s helpful to roll them slightly back in your skull with your eyelids closed, but sometimes not. It really depends on the person. The room should be dim, and you should be in a place that smells and feels comfortable to you, so that having your eyes closed doesn’t cause discomfort. This darkness is warm; it is not colorless like the other darkness. Find solace in the fact that you created this darkness yourself, in a place where you can live with it.
There are so many things to be said here about building your environment, making sure you’re in a “place of peace” for yourself. This is a place for the reader to build, and not my words. I’ll leave that part to you.
III – LIFE
Find a pattern in the mechanisms that keep your body in tune with its own life cycle. Breathing, swallowing saliva, humming a mantra to yourself that “resonates.” All of these things are important, because you have to establish a pattern that can be achieved by your subconscious while you think about other things. The last thing you want to interrupt your healing is “did I just forget to breathe?” That funny little thing we sometimes do when we’re almost asleep is also a silly little thing we do when we’re almost “awake.” I know that sounds confusing, but life is confusing. Sometimes just accepting that fact alone helps. Sometimes not. Every mind is so beautifully unique, and infinitely different than the next. To this day, I still move through this phase with a saying my cousin taught me when I was very young: “Breathe in the good. Breathe out the bad.” In with the positive, out with the negative. In with the Oxygen, out with the Carbon Dioxide. In with joy, out with despair. Smell the room around you; expel everything outside the room. Cleanse yourself with these thoughts, until breathing becomes second nature. The mind is capable of doing it while asleep. Allow it to happen while awake. Forgive yourself if this is where you get stuck — for me, it was several years until I found the next step down.
IV – DESCENT
This part is also very tricky for a lot of minds. When I say tricky, I mean any number of things. But the most important part of what I mean is how long this part actually takes. This is the space where a lot of your own Shadows are integrated with your Ego, giving you a new way to “look at the world,” or a completely new Persona as seen from a different angle.
For me, this is where the Sanskrit comes in. Before that, a quick suggestion on sadness and worrying (in lieu of depression and anxiety here — let’s assume the mind has used this place to integrate those Shadows already, and we’re on to some more simple thoughts about our Persona).
What of my past? What of it? It holds no chain to your present besides that which you let it.
What of my future? What of it? It is unwritten, and we are here, with the pen.
What of my needs? What of them? Address them, as needed. If the path is unknown, search for answers outside the mind, and come back. There is no shame in this.
Nothing a mind thinks about itself is any more grounded in reality than reality itself. The Persona is not a constant; it can be rebuilt.
What of my belongings? What of them? They cannot travel with you everywhere you go; they cannot leave this place with you when you pass.
This can be one of the hardest doors for a mind to walk through, depending on how woven the Persona is with things that matter not.
Thoughts come.
“Neti.” I am not that thought; that thought is not me.
Thoughts return.
“Neti.” I am not that thought either. That thought is not me.
Neti. I am not this.
Neti. I am not that.
Neti. I am not.
Neti. I am and I am not.
Where my mind goes from here is a picture I cannot paint for you. I will only be able to guide you with the sensations associated with it, by describing mine.
When you arrive at the door, you will know. Very much like how the heart knows when it is in love. Words have no place in the vastness of nothing. Feelings are all that is left.
V – ARRIVAL
For me, this is one of my favorite parts. I can only liken the sensation to the very same mechanism I use to achieve lucid dreaming, and I will describe that sensation as best as I can.
I lay in bed, I’m almost asleep, and suddenly I feel as if I’m falling, and I jolt awake.
Sound familiar?
Laying there, perfectly motionless, and somehow falling.
But where?
The trigger mechanism for realization for this moment can be different for any individual, but the only thing I can say is “practice letting go.” Allow that fall to happen, and see where it takes you.
For me, behind closed eyes, there is a fractal swirl, spiraling outward to a single point of light. The tunnel is made of orange and blue plasma — if you’ve ever played the game Portal, you already know the two colors I mean, and you know they are two ends of the same door.
For me, laying in bed, sleeping, it is the start of separate sleep states. Full lucidity of the mind and REMN of the body simultaneously — REM-Neurological, the sleep state of the body, left behind like a resting remnant while the mind travels. In bed, these can be fun. Fly through what I think space looks like, check on my loved ones, go over things in my mind, plan my next day, week, etc. Whatever “floats my boat” in the never-ending stream of thought.
For me, sitting while meditating, it is the start of separate awake states. Full lucidity of the mind and REMN of the body simultaneously.
See what I did there? The mechanism is the same — the falling, the letting go, the landing.
Then? That’s up to the mind. Who really knows what happens next, except the exploring conscious finding its own place and purpose in time.
NDEs, Dreams, Meditational Breakthroughs — to me, they all seem like very much the same thing. But with over 8 billion vehicles to get here, I can only imagine the space looks vastly different to the observer.
Let us travel one more direction.
Sight.
Within the darkness, somehow “sight” is still managed. The third eye, as it would be called.
Understanding.
Of a mind’s own place in geography and time.
Namaste.
The humbling of the mind upon realization of the vastness of Self.
Life is a very complicated design, but everything inside it operates on roughly the same principles. The same computer commands at the base of programming, in a sense.
IF something, THEN something.
IF something, AND something, THEN something else.
OR… maybe the entire universe is built this way. A neural network of thought and observation. Infinite realities superimposed over one another to create the reality we see today.
So much suffering. But one must think: do not observe, and it does not exist.
But what of… it just doesn’t. It might exist for some, for many, and that is very important to them, and an empath would feel their pain in ways not explainable.
Connection to the Self, if nothing else.
So what of Intent?
IF every reality created by a mind is its own, THEN every reality must be real.
Hold this as we continue.
One mind reality, set beside the next, beside the next.
But all “see” the same thing, right?
With our eyes, yes. But not with our mind.
Put your hands up above your head. Now lay down flat on the ground. Hands still “up”? To you, of course. But to someone walking by, your hands are out in front of your head — if they can assume your head is pointed forward, and not your feet. Direction doesn’t matter physically, but it matters exponentially, mentally.
The empty soda can will look like a landfill to a tidy roommate, but to the disorganized one it can be a link in the chain of actually needing to tidy someday. The tidy roommate will clean the can, and the disorganized one will feel bad about it, and as long as they don’t kill each other over the ordeal, they will learn to become coherent.
“The kingdom is within.”
Do I believe in God? Is that even really a question? Seven major faiths and a design we can’t explain — something is happening around us we’re always just “one step short of explaining” in the gap. Does that answer your question?
The kingdom is what we make it. Hell, as it would be, is also within.
For the mind of a saint next to the mind of a sinner are the same mind, viewing the world in two different ways.
One exists in its own variation of “Heaven,” and the other in its own variation of “Hell.”
They can coexist, but the likelihood that they can become coherent is slim. It really depends on the willingness of either to understand the other. I would only imagine that the mind living in hell would want the hand. I can only imagine that the mind living in heaven wouldn’t often care — but once the Ego is removed from the equation, it becomes natural.
Understanding that this other person is very much a mirror. One and the same, on a different path — a different variant of the same creation, trying to find their way.
I wrote that as “one in the same” for most of my life; I was much older before I learned the idiom carries an “and.” But I’m not sure I was wrong. One in the same: one mind inside the same substrate, one variant inside the same creation. I’ll give you both, and let you keep whichever is true.
Coherence can always be achieved through understanding, but that is very much a two-way street.
Do not wreck your inner peace for the darkness of another, but shine the light where they’ve never looked, help them plant and water seeds, and watch what blooms. Maybe nothing, but what’s it matter?
Matter isn’t real. Nothing matters.
So what of Intent?
The “Jays,” as I’ve said. Little “angels and devils,” bouncing around between us as we interact with each other. Ripples in time. Positive and negative, both traveling in every direction in time.
Sometimes never stopping.
But. Somehow still reflecting off of others.
The government raises taxes. The company suffers. The boss takes it out on the employee. The employee on their partner. Their partner on their child.
Typing that part made me well up and cry. The child. The sweet innocent mind that has no idea about the taxes, somehow suddenly caught in the crossfire.
But what of change?
The company suffers. The boss leads. The employees thrive. The family blooms. The child grows, never once understanding why they’re so blessed.
The cookie crumbles, and the crumbs trickle all the way down, as far as we let it.
If you do me one favor, for all these words I write, do me this:
Please do not let the children, the future of our world, suffer through the madness we face. They do not understand, nor are they required to.
When a child asks how your day at work was, there’s a large difference between them growing up holding “My job sucks because my boss is an ass” versus “It went amazing. I love my job, and I contribute in ways that make my boss proud.” As a previous manager of a large chain distribution center, please stop sending young adults into this world thinking the former is normal. Any employer would much rather the second walk through the doors.
I’ve lost direction — I just get so emotional about this part. My children suffer from things the world has done to them, things that I didn’t know I was doing to them. It wasn’t until I decided to stop that I watched their growth change “directions.”
Let’s change directions one last time. Allow me to move my thoughts into my perception of the “next dimension.”
Infinite realities, super positioned over one another.
Infinite.
Sit with that.
Not just the ones we see, but the ones we don’t. The ones from the past that have already happened, the ones we “remember.” The ones from the future that haven’t developed, but we can “perceive” if we think hard enough.
Premonition, or motivational dreaming? Irrationality, to the non-believer. All that is asked of any person is to believe in themselves. Only themselves. The rest comes, as it does.
Let’s take two of these realities, side by side.
Let’s take the mind of an average human living in any number of mechanisms of suffering; let’s call him John. Let’s set it next to the mind of a conscious observer of themselves and others; let’s call her Jane. These are two names commonly chosen for anonymity; the individuals will be nonbinary for this comparison.
John does not like Jane. Jane is happy, for reasons John can’t explain. Therefore, John looks at Jane, and John sees a photographic negative of the reality Jane sees.
Jane says, “Look at how the clouds have formed, with the sun shining through. See the rays and how they split?” John says, “That is silly. I see nothing but clouds and the sun, and it’s hot, and you’re always talking about these weird things.”
Jane cares not what John sees; Jane sees the beauty of the world for what it is. Jane only wishes John would see the world the same.
John cares not what Jane sees, but John has somehow made a different variant of the same reality. One that, quite honestly, in my opinion seems pretty bleak.
If we allow the Shadows to overtake our sight, of course the world will look dark.
There is something important here to hold. Jane very likely sees the beauty in everything they do. John very likely only sees the flaws in everything they lay eyes on, including themselves and others.
Jane is already living in “Heaven.” Jane needs not explain this to anyone, other than to describe the beauty of existence in so many ways. Words and actions.
John is suffering through one of the layers of Dante’s Inferno, experiencing it inside their head, in real-time alignment with their position in time.
Jane has sent Jays into the world with everyone Jane meets. Jane’s reputation precedes them in many conversations: “Jane is such a wonderful and kind person.”
John has sent Jays into the world with everyone John meets. John’s reputation precedes them in many conversations: “John is kind of a grump, but we love them anyways.”
See the difference the small interactions can have for both John and Jane?
Oh, a tool I forgot was on the shelf. The Quantum Lens — I haven’t written of the scope of life in a while.
I want to take you on a theoretical pathway here. Into the future, if you will. Coherence becomes reality for those it happens to; incoherence becomes reality for those it happens to.
Infinite realities.
Every time we come to a crossroads and exercise free will, these realities split at a subatomic level into various unseen outcomes.
If I go left, another me goes right, in a place I can’t see.
Unless I’m looking in a mirror.
The implications of that last statement are tremendous, but not a direction I want to travel today.
Every decision we make creates a reality in which we didn’t make that decision. In our minds, in the minds of others, etc. Not that we can “see it,” but we “know it exists.”
So imagine the mind of a conscious observer, constantly making sure every Jay sent out is a good one.
Every Jay returned becomes a good one.
The reality for that person might very well be heaven on earth.
I wouldn’t know, because I’m still absorbing dark Jays I sent out in my youth.
But what of Love? What of Intuition? What of Grace? What of Healing? What of Truth?
I may be absorbing dark Jays I’ve sent in my past, but I’m only sending light Jays going forward.
The reality I see in doing that, I can only imagine, is about as Heaven on earth as Heaven gets.
Everything I see is beautiful, to no fault of mine. I can see the complexity and balance between the flame and the water, the sky and the sea, the sun and moon, the love and the hate. It hurts to see, but it’s comforting to understand.
The only doubt that challenges that is the mind of the observer reading.
But alas, I love them too. The doubt. For my reality is my reality. Not an argument to dispute. I implore that you not doubt me, for I am humble in holding my view of things, knowing it is my philosophical “opinion” and nothing more.
But also, I would ask the reader not to doubt themself.
They share the same neurological symmetry as I do. As the world does. As the universe does.
They were created of the same substrate as the next person, harboring a thought, traveling through time.
So what of difference?
The legible traces a life leaves as it travels through time.
Now, we get into really theoretical territory.
But alas, it’s this very thought process that aligns my moral compass, so read my words with an open mind.
Do we reincarnate?
I would think, maybe yes.
The big bang to the light at the end of the tunnel is the distance of a life from birth to death — the same as the birth of the universe to the… well, let’s not travel too far in that direction. Let’s stay local.
I would imagine an individual like John, who only sees the darkness in the world, goes back to the darkness they remember. The past. Forced to live a life, and relearn a lesson not learned in the life they left. Another layer of Dante’s hell. Perhaps I would consider the end of life for a Ku Klux Klansman: descending into the mind of an African American Civil War victim. Don’t even let my imagination drift to a “hell” for a devout believer of orthodox faiths who constantly thinks of the sin of homosexuality — a hatred inscribed by man, not heaven, to serve a different end — until the moment they die. I’ll tell you about a hell to some that seems like heaven to others, in a strange way.
Hold these as metaphors, not maps. I paint them only to keep my own compass pointed somewhere worth traveling, not to chart the afterlife of another. Pictures, not prophecy.
But what of the time travel paradox?
Lest we forget the sheer vastness of “Infinite.” The reality which we can see, and the reality we can’t, but can feel. That very same “John,” passed backwards to learn a quick lesson through suffering, could then be reborn into an opportunity.
What of rebirth?
Jane, I would imagine, having built an individual variation of “heaven on earth,” would get propelled into the future. A future, in the infinite possibilities of reality, in which all are Coherent, with Jane.
Oh, but the future — it is not written.
Infinite. This means… no limit to possibility.
Possibility of choice absolutely matters.
Take a good step, albeit a small one, and the patient mind sees the outcome long before the results.
Take a bad step… you get it.
But what of reality?
What of it?
This is mine. Call it a “dream,” call it understanding.
Call me strange, call me anything. Call me Jamison. Call me “Jamie” and I’ll still probably turn my head, even though that hasn’t been a common occurrence in my life since I was a child.
Call me, and I’ll listen. I’ll hear. Whatever is said, I’ll entertain it as real. I have to. My reality is my reality. Others belong to others.
When I talk about being timeless, I mean it. Not just in leaving a legible Trace. I mean looking towards a future I can’t see, and knowing it’s more beautiful than the one I’m in.
That’s a direction I’m willing to spend my life traveling.
I’m not asking for a following.
I’m asking for coherence.
I’m asking for love for one another.
Is that a direction we truly can’t travel in 2026?
I will turn the other cheek to that thought, and proceed.
This has been fun.
I never expected so many words to come out.
Seems like it all happened so fast, too.
Almost as if, I didn’t think…
But I remembered. <3
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Banner artwork Andreas Cellarius, Scenographia Systematis Copernicani, from Harmonia Macrocosmica (1660). Public domain or CC0 — full list in the image credits.
