"Pinkie Sense" Through the Lens of Non-Dual Spirituality
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Non-dualism is the idea that nothing is separate, that all appearances in nature are actually spontaneous manifestations of a single, indivisible entity. The mind, the body, all thoughts, beliefs, moods, actions, words, and objects are all simply appearances that arise and subside within the constant presence-awareness of Oneness that is God/Nature/The Universe/etc. Non-dual spirituality teaches that the individual as a separate or limited entity simply does not exist; through basic clarification of oneâs identity, all suffering may be resolved when the apparent sufferer is seen to have never existed. Any conceptual framework posited by the human mind to explain Nature is, at best, a series of general pointers describing a perceived territory, and no more. The actual nature of reality is non-conceptual, and the human mind, arising as it does within presence-awareness, cannot ever fully explain the events that occur around it. The mind itself is made of Nature, and arises and subsides along with the body and all else within its undying presence â how could it possibly understand? Non-dualism posits that âthe answer cannot be found in the mind,â but rather through the direct, non-conceptional -knowing- of what you are: the deathless, birthless, changeless indescribable constancy of being and awareness that is everything, that only the human mind bisects.
   The human mind evolved through eons as part of the human body, of which it is an essential part. Its tendency to classify, pattern, and conceptualize was learned through years of evolution. Humans, like any other animal, developed a niche that enabled survival and flourishing (check out the eerie way humans have carved the earth in their own image on Google maps: like neural pathways of social communication and transportation). Simply put, life favors life; what works, work. What does not, does not. Like the De-evolutionary Anthem: âThe fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live.â Evolution and biology expand and develop like any other phenomenon in nature: spontaneously, and without recourse to human standards of morality or good and evil. What works, works. What does not, does not. The human mind developed under these conditions and operates under them, taking into its judgment those things it deems good and bad through diverse conceptual frameworks. The interaction of these frameworks, the conflicts and exchanges of ideas, form society, competition, etc, and speed the growth and expansion of the human race (for better or worse, I might add; although, concepts such as âbetterâ and âworseâ do not exist outside the purely conceptual and quasi-fictional plane of human mental interpretation).
   In many ways, we humans have been raised to believe that we are our minds. That we are our personalities. That we, as individual entities, exist and have free will; this is, I would posit, pure insanity. Of course, that in and of itself is a mental assertion and as such holds no more or less weight than any other thought, if believed. The âchoiceâ is not âyours,â simply because your mind does not exist outside of its own context of biological and social conditioning. The mind, like all else, arises and subsides within the unchanging presence and awareness of the Universe. One important point here: thoughts are only an issue if they are taken to be true; if -belief- is invested in them. Outside of this, they are ghostly, insubstatial things that float across the screen of being. If they are not remembered and recalled into another present, they did not exist; just like when the human race dies out and the sun engulfs the Earth, if humans have not managed to spread their reproductive seed to the stars, it will be as if humanity never existed.
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Who is beating your heart?
Who is growing your hair?
Who is breathing your breaths?
Why are you existing?
Did âyouâ choose to be born?
Did âyouâ choose your âpersonalityâ?
What is the purpose of life?
If you answered, âto help others and to help continue the human raceâ: Why?
Who is thinking your thoughts?
Can you predict your next thought?
Who chose your sexuality?
Did you choose what you find attractive?
Who creates your dreams, and your actions within them?
Who controlled your body before you were capable of memory (ie, when you were younger than 1 year old)?
Who decides to be hungry?
Who decides to be angry?
Is it possible for you to do anything except what you want to do, on some level, at any time?
Who chooses what âyouâ want?
My own investigation has led me to see that there is no âchoice.â There is only spontaneously arising thinking and functioning, controlled by no one. It simply is; there is no meaning or reason or intelligence in the mind. It seeks to understand because it must. But it can never understand your true nature, what is behind the mind.
Despite all these things, non-dual spirituality asserts that you can be quite certain of one thing, purely, directly, non-conceptually: YOU EXIST. Not âyouâ as in the body, but âyou,â the presence that is -aware- of the body; not âyouâ as in the mind, but the âyouâ that is -aware- of the mind. You are not your thoughts or your body; to put it strikingly, you were never born at all and can never die. Existence simply exists. It cannot be explained or understood by the mind, because the mind is an appearance within this so-called oneness.
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Self-absorption is the worst trait in a human being because it builds its assumptions on the falsehood of the separate self.
Others can explain this better than I can. I recommend John Wheelerâs âYou Were Never Bornâ and âClear in Your Heart,â books that I stole most of my ideas from.
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Now comes the part where I lose all crediblity and connect the concepts (Ha! Iâm already sunk; concepts are only human graspings at non-conceptual truth) of non-dual spirituality to the basic message of Episode 15 (âFeeling Pinkie Keenâ) of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Perhaps Albert Camus and Pinkie Pie would be pleased; it seems The Absurd is alive and well.
In this episode, Twilight Sparkle plays the role of human mental interpretation and of the human endeavor of science; Pinkie Pie represents non-conceptual spontaneity and pure Being. Striving and suffering, non-duality posits, exists within the mind when it generates false concepts in reference to a seperate, incomplete self. In this episode, Pinkieâs âPinkie Senseâ predicts the future through various twitches and flinchings in her body. This ability becomes self-evident, as every single prediction invariably comes true, to Twilightâs chagrin.
Thus, in-universe, Pinkie Pieâs bizarre, inexplicable intuition is verifiable by simple investigation. When her tail twitches, SOMETHING IS GOING TO FALL. This proves true repeatedly. Twilight Sparkle asks, as any good scientist would, âwhy?â To which Pinkie Pie replies, âIt just does.â The human mind attempts to contemplate the infinite, and is frustrated. No explanation can be found.
(An aside:
Pinkie Pie only accepts concepts as works-in-progress, much like the ever-becoming language in James Joyceâs âFinnegans Wake.â Nothing is solid, and all is tentative and ever-changing. Wise Zen advice: âLet your mind alight on no concept whatsoever.â When her tummy rumbles, she can only conclude, âThat usually means Iâm hungry. Letâs eat!â Even basic, repetitive physiological processes are seen afresh each day, and placed on the same level of her âmysteriousâ Pinkie Sense. The illusion of separation of body/mind/other/nature/etc is seen through without the separation of artificial conceptual overlay.)
Twilight, by her nature inquisitive, -must- pin down the reasons for Pinkie Pieâs predictive abilities. Her mind works in contorted circles attempting to comprehend the patterns. It struggles and searches throughout the episode, continually frustrated by what appears to be increasingly chaotic behavior. The facts, however, remain, and the mind is the wrong tool.
Finally, at the end of the episode, Twilight is forced to admit that âPinkie Senseâ somehow âmakes sense,â despite a lack of ability to explain. In the same way, I would propose that non-dual spirituality simply âmakes senseâ through basic inquiry into human conceptual assumptions, but cannot ultimately be understood or explained by the mind; existence, pure, ineffable, and spontaneous, exists outside the realm of human mental comprehension, yet is directly observable through the right inquiry.
The only answer is to stop thinking and start believing, even though you canât always explain it. The facts are right there in front of you, to be examined as needed. Nature is. Reality is. You, as a separate entity, are not. What works, works; the mind invests belief in whatever hypothesis seems to make sense at the time. It is all tentative; a work-in-progress. Assertion of true âknowledgeâ is a foolâs game; any true scientist acknowledges this. Even the most revered âfacts,â at their core, are hypothesis and theories that have withstood -human- testing and limited evolutionary imagination.
(To haphazardly quote Wikipedia on the subject of famed âathiestâ Richard Dawkins:
"Dawkins distinguishes what he calls "Einsteinian religion" from supernatural religion, arguing that the former should not be confused with the latter. Einstein wrote that he was religious in the sense being aware of things beyond the mindâs grasp, "whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection".)
Pinke Pie and Twilight Sparkle can only understand what they can see, just like us. They can only exist in one plane; in their case, a television screen. The rest is just believing.
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But unlike Twilight and Pinkie, -we- exist in another, âhigherâ realm: âPinkie Senseâ can indeed be explained from my vantage: they are cartoon characters, and the writers modeled the characters on basic human tropes to impart a lesson about belief and explanation, possibly with an unconsciously non-dualistic message. âPinkie Senseâ predicts the future because Pinkie, Twilight, and their entire world simply exists as projections on a screen in another realm, forever incomprehensible to them. Like us, they are simply appearances, transitory lights moving across an unchanging screen of awareness. Conceptually distinct in the conditioned human mind (as âTwilightâ and âPinkieâ), but actually quite the same at essence.
Just like cartoon characters, âweâ do not actually exist at all. The script has already been written. The ever-present, infinite being that we truly are, and that all else consists of, shines on.
âŚ.
(Final Notes)
Things will happen, or not.
What is to be feared in death? Nothing is lost. You are less than a ripple; âyouâ are just a thought.
What is so great about humans? They are just the same as anything else.
Why suffer? Suffering comes only through ignorance or misunderstanding of your true nature.
Memory is an evolutionarily-determined function for the storage and retrieval of information.
   It is also the root of all mental suffering.
The root of the Cutie Mark Crusadersâ sin is their arrogance in thinking they can control Nature.
   This, in fact, is Christianityâs Original Sin.
I am wrong. Nothing I have typed is anywhere near the truth. It is pale. You are your own truth.
NEXT TIME:
Daft Punkâs âRandom Access Memoriesâ through the Lens of Non-Dualism.
(previews below, to consider in the meantime:
Lose yourself to dance.
Touch? Youâve almost convinced me Iâm real. I need something more.
You are the sky, you are the ocean; you are the sun behind the clouds.
To find our way we lose control.)
If you lose your way tonight, thatâs how you know the magicâs right.
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