TED Community » mirella jaber

More About Me

I'm passionate about

-the nature of reality; anything that relates to, or inquires into the nature of mind - from folk tales to science

An idea worth spreading

A most strange thing has happened that changed my life. Going through years of "life crisis" I just happened to scribble down some of my dreams that made the most impression on me. I had absolutely no idea about Jung, or his work on the psychology of the unconscious at the time, only, after some years by pure chance I came upon Jung's work on dream function & symbolism. His argument was that we undergo phases according to specific patterns of development, which he calls "archetypes", identifiable also in religion, mythology and alchemy. These processes happen without our awareness, but through dreams the unconscious tends to brief the conscious mind on the state of the process, called by Jung "individuation". Intrigued, I thought of arranging those scraps in chronological order, and, to my greatest amazement, I found that my dreams were almost perfectly similar to the examples used by Jung. This caused me a lasting interest in the way mind works and has become the focus of my life.

Talk to me about

-nature of reality; anything that relates to, or inquires into the nature of mind - from folk tales to science

My TED Story

I was researching on Daniel Kahneman and then I got into "the Riddle of Experience vs. Memory" - right on the TED page.

Comments

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• A reply on Conversation: HOW DOES OUR NATIVE LANGUAGE AFFECT OUR CONCEPTION OF TIME?

  Dec 2 2011: Many - if not all, actually - of ancient cultures perceive time as cyclic. From here a whole theory of the lives of the universe that go on indefinitely in definite cycles (see Vedas, or ancient Egypt, for instance). From remotest times we have the astrologic New Year and the mythologic one that coincides with it, but which usually was considered to reiterate cosmogony (see man's eternal return to a sacred time in Mircea Eliade).

• A comment on Conversation: After 8 years I believe I've cracked the code for Open Source Religion.

  Dec 2 2011: I “believe” in the necessity of a new, global approach to beliefs and religious beliefs altogether, which, in many people’s view, have become obsolete by now.
  But by “beliefs” do you intend “an idea or thing that is passed from person to person and is being (…) adopted for its usefulness or other purpose - in some cases becoming a wildly popular idea that can't be stopped” or that, at times, if proven useless, is “abandoned to die a quick and ignoble death” ? If such, you could be referring to “memes”, a concept dear in consciousness studies. As each era has its own, yours might prove useful and timely, or even, at some point from now on, “unstoppable”, who knows…
  I also agree with you that it is precisely this unprecedented surge in the “global mind”, or global consciousness that might allow non-confrontational and constructive (religious or not) encounters for the first time in human history, in terms of empathy and unification. Therefore, you could be right in your predicting that religion, (the three monotheistic ones that you call “proprietary religions”) no more can survive the way it has so far (as regional dogmas), but it has to suffer “natural progression and maturation” as you say, and acknowledge the “customized beliefs”.
  I have only one, major objection here, since we are talking about religion. Regretfully, as experience has taught us, it repeatedly happened in old and recent history that someone, having had some subjective, non-ordinary experience, has decided to found a new,“truer” religion, with himself at the helm, in an aura of divine light – but he only brought more ego inflation into the world: “I’m the One into the Right Religion!”. I’m only saying that, not knowing how to read what you say: you foresee “ a virtual empire and a new era in religio-spiritual experience”, “it is my dream to help bring Open Source Religion into that light”, and “I intend to be the Steve Jobs of religion”. Forgive me please, for being too cautious.

• A comment on Conversation: Each person is better served by self-reliance within the community of humankind than by subservience to ideologies.

  Nov 26 2011: Mr Philip: In answer to your talking of TEDsters, that they are above temptations: "TEDsters apparent sins seem so far above Christianity’s seven deadly ones: the seven seem obsolete", I have to acknowledge that I, personally am not yet above them: I still have a large share of those biblic sins. It's been a while that I have been trying to post back an answer to your last one, but, because of the posting restrictions to only 2000 characters, my numerous attempts have failed (even cut/paste). At the same time, I cannot drive myself to reduce the volume of my answer (1450 words). One can easily read here gluttony (I cannot have enough of a thing, here, words), greed (something as before), sloth (I wouldn't get myself to right a shorter answer), anger (why on earth do not they allow us 1400 words), envy (you have posted more than the allotted 2000 characters) and pride (I am proud of having things worthy of sharing). In the hope that I can some day amend to those traits of mine, yours faithfully, Mirella Jaber :)

• A comment on Conversation: Each person is better served by self-reliance within the community of humankind than by subservience to ideologies.

  Nov 26 2011: It basically says that when we come into this life we are a complex of physical and subtle, non-physical aspects. In as much as we can affirm that we can know and delimitate the body, it is then possible for us to know our physical dimension (a very relative assertion), but as long as we are still bounded to this physical perception we cannot access more subtle aspects of ourselves – briefly, the soul and the Spirit. In it might enter our mental activities, our intellect discrimination – power of decision, or will-power – and the impersonal spiritual happiness, translated in what we know as our being connected to the universal Spirit.
  Their mutual interaction can be explained by the example of the computer – based on a modern interpretation of the ancient knowledge (Bhagavad gita 13.3) as follows:
  our gross physical body can be compared to hardware; the next one in terms of subtlety is the subtle/astral body - the software, then our ego (our self-identification, ahankara) to the interface, the prana to electricity, and the soul (jiva, or atma) to the user; above all supervises Paramatma, a “system operator” that controls a network of many computers which may be the human society as a whole (and not only that)- in our concept, God, or whatever name we can give it.
  And, of course, the functionality of this system in continuous interaction with the material world strictly depends on the condition of our bodies, like degree of maintenance, age, health, abilities and so on. What’s more, and our western religions do not agree with, is that when one gross body is completely out of use, the functionality is not there anymore, and, therefore the reason for this body – then jiva (the soul) has to leave it through the process we know as death, and for the next stage, in accordance with the system’s laws (Paramatma, the super-soul, or Spirit, or God, or Universe), a new destination (body) is being assigned, process known as reincarnation. “For indeed our consciousness doe

• A comment on Conversation: Each person is better served by self-reliance within the community of humankind than by subservience to ideologies.

  Nov 26 2011: It seems that, going back in time to study human society it becomes easier to understand the need for rules and regulations, as maybe back then populations were less conscious than populations are today. By reducing human errors to the basic seven sins, the Church only made a synthesis of what was available back then in terms of ethics – woe to those who, with time, finished by getting overly zealous and fought human weakness with scourges (Inquisition, mercenarism, bigotry, etc) worse that the evil itself.
  In fact, I wanted to say that, with good will and awareness, we can turn gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy and pride into moderation, chastity, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility (if only there was enough motivation).
  Next, I did allow myself to use the argument of the soul because I strongly believe (better: I know) that our weaknesses are being fed by our egos (very useful for a “local”, limited stage in human society’s progress), and that, as our passage to the next stage we can only perfect ourselves (progress) by letting go of the ego and replacing it with a more universal, “whole” personality centered not around the ego, but around the soul; as a concept, it comes under many different names, but I just want to delimitate it to that aspect of us which is not the body.
  Actually there is this ancient, very rigorous and structured ancient knowledge from the Vedas that seems to me quite explicative and pertinent, in my opinion.

• A comment on Conversation: Each person is better served by self-reliance within the community of humankind than by subservience to ideologies.

  Nov 26 2011: Mr Philip,
  I acknowledge that I am myself dismayed at the amount of comments that I have posted in response to your question – I must have let myself going, animated by a subject that touches me at a very personal level.
  For the greatest part your account of my response is accurate, with a few exceptions - I can only regret that I hadn’t made myself clearer.
  The real sense of my words is not that “Maturity does not come easily, because it requires “overpowering [subservience to our] emotions.”, but what I really wanted to say was that maturity does not come easily because it requires emancipation from under the “overpowering [subservience to our] emotions”, among many other things.
  Next, I reminded the sins in the Bible only as a quick and widely known reference, not wanting to send you over to previous codes of ethics that date as back as the codes of law in Babylon, Sumer, India, Egypt, etc. In the Dharmasuttras subjects are tackled on various aspects of social life:
  
  “intense disputes and divergent views on such subjects as the education of the young, rites of passage, marriage and marital rights, the proper interaction between different social groups, sins and their expiations, institutions for the pursuit of holiness, crimes and punishments, death and ancestral rites. In short, these unique documents give us a glimpse of how people, especially Brahmin males, were ideally expected to live their lives within an ordered and hierarchically arranged society” (from: Dharmasutras: The Law Codes of Ancient India - Oxford World's Classics)
  (I can recommend also: h ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_law)
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  A comment on Conversation: What can you share with the world?

  Nov 25 2011: The knowledge that I would like to share with the world would be a pearl of ancient Indian wisdom that says: "keep clean the house of your thoughts", because it is your thoughts that create reality.
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  A reply on Conversation: What can you share with the world?

  Nov 25 2011: Let me see if I get it right: ''The idea is to write a book that inspires people to do what the book says"."Think of the book as a screenplay or business plan for the world". "The idea is to write a book that inspires people to do what the book says". "Think of the book as a screenplay or business plan for the world". "The plan is to use the book to tell people about ideas, people can then buy (...) and on a daily basis feel they are doing something big". "Reality starts to mirror the book and the ball is rolling". "My idea is simply to get as many people that can agree, to agree". "People are asked to do something they were going to do anyway". "Make it as easy as possible for people to do what you want them to do". "Make it so everyone can see everyone who is participating, and who is not". "The idea is to write a book that inspires people to do what the book says". "The book should be as accurate as possible as to be the manual". "Showing people what to do and what will happen when they do". "The plan uses these ideas to create momentum". "The name of the book "Urania, Starry Messenger, Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile".
  
  For God's sake, Faja, the idea looks to me very scary, as the history of the world is red with the blood caused by too many such books that wanted to inoculate people with their ideas and make them follow smart people's agendas - the difference, yours is "selling" them the ideas - a "sweeter" coercion. No matter what your intention behind, beware not to make again "Earth cry". As good God gave brains to everyone, let's allow people think their own ideas, without us making them any "fishing poles" to lure them into our own ideas. The more so as these ideas are seemingly aiming at building a consented "Urania" type discipline and hierarchy, where, as you say, "The way I see it, H2OPE and The A.R.C. help in both directions the have-rs, and the have nots". Please let go of it.
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  A comment on Conversation: Each person is better served by self-reliance within the community of humankind than by subservience to ideologies.

  Nov 21 2011: Yes, basically this is what I am trying to say. As products of nature, up to some point we are absolutely similar to any other of its living things, even though each species have their own, different "agenda". We get to be born, develop into adult beings to then disappear. Up to here, where is the finality of life, and why are we here? Maybe, to come up with solutions to calculate and predict or control the future, but, in this case, we need to be something more than our predecessors on the evolutionary scale, conscious enough to control and dominate our self-destructive nature. Until here, religion and society played this role, and that is why people needed to be conditioned and submissive. But at some point in our individual development - and next, by cumulation of individuals, to be achieved at the whole scale of society - we need to take responsible control over our own will and destinies, so self-reliance is one step to take us there. I believe that up to some point the process is subconscious, and that there are at play unconscious evolutionary programs, which, similar to the DNA's role in the biological development, act as triggers to make us take the Big Dive into self-discovery. It usually starts with the big questions of life, as of who we are and why are we here. The process in itself is painful, and has been defined by the antics as a "symbolic death", where the old personality needs to die off to make place to the new, higher one. Jung describes it as the process of "individuation", where the old, ego-centered personality makes place to the new, centered around the soul. The resulting individual is "psychologically mature" and does not need neither society's whip (any form of coercion or correction), nor society's crutches (status, power, riches, and so on) to be well in his own skin. At this point, hubris gets to be replaced by humility, competition by cooperation - all for a higher good.

• A comment on Conversation: Each person is better served by self-reliance within the community of humankind than by subservience to ideologies.

  Nov 21 2011: What is being intended by "psychologic maturity" is achieving a level of personality where we should be free from the entrapment of any conditioning, be it of our biological drives or from the overpowering rule of emotions. This is not supposed to mean that we need to transcend to the "level of the spirit", it only means that our physical processes ensuring our existence should take place consciously and not compulsively. Instincts are nature's programs to help us cope with survival challenges and fulfill our duties towards our species in terms of survival and perpetuation - so far, nothing different from the rest of the species with which we coexist. Only, with an increase in our mastery over the resources on this planet our drives and ambitions have come to interfere and conflict others, both other humans and other living beings. We came to believe lately that we can get along enjoying life without putting any restriction to our hedonistic drives, although ethics and religion have been warning us all along against them (without being quite a religious adept,I invoke here the seven capital sins of the Bible). Today we are a global society whose impulsive nature is powerful enough to endanger life on earth if our consumerism and global economic - political ambitions go unrestrained. Basically, our advanced knowledge - however academic - and our technologies did not free us from under the overpowering drive of our emotions or impulses. So far we have only been using them to condition and manipulate tastes and opinions, to create more, unsustainable "well being". Yes, we might very well put it as having been acting "unconsciously", in as much as unconscious "id" (immediate satisfaction) and the unconscious part of our ego (self-centeredness) have been in the drive seat lately. And yes, I can increasingly see a pattern of awakening to our true nature, that of Conscious Creators, with the necessary awareness to contain ourselves before we rule the universe.