What is Psychology?

A body of knowledge relating to the origin, ways and means of the human psyche and its pursuit of happiness. Empirical evidence is considered a sine qua non.
This pursuit wavers between the poles of passivity (coping, etc) and aggression (war, criminality, tyranny, etc.) Also, the extremes of rational and irrational are taken into account. Pioneers are the house hold names such as Sigmund Freud (the Pleasure Principle), Carl Gustav Jung (Collective Unconscious), Wilhelm Reich (Character Analysis), Alfred Adler (Will to Power), Carl Rogers (On Becoming a Person), Abraham Maslow (The Further Reaches of Human Nature), Viktor Frankl (Logo therapy), B. F. Skinner (behaviorism), et al...

What is Philosophy?

A series of statements relating to the origin, ways and means of thought and its bearing on the meaning of human existence. Philosophers have often been labelled “lords of thought”. Obvious western examples would be Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, et al.......S. Gautama, Lao Tzu, & Confucius represent, among many others, the east ....

What is Theology?

A series of statements relating to the origin, ways, & means of the energy charging the universe. The absence of empirical evidence is not held against the theologian. Examples from the middle ages: Duns Scotus, Meister Eckart, Thomas Aquinas, William of Occam...Moderns include Martin Buber (I & Thou), Paul Tilich (The Courage to Be)
C.S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters)

What is Conditioning?

Conditioning relates to the influence of environment and heredity on the mind...  It begins at conception.. it ends at death… It is like a fluid in which the mind soaks… Never ending. Karma and conditioning are analogues, if not homologues.  Hamlet might simply say “The whips and scorns of time...the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to…”

What is Karma?

The sum of all words, action and thoughts of one’s daily life… Karma is also the negation of the above. (Non-actions all non-thought, all non-word communication.)

What is Meditation?

Meditation is the continuous energy necessary to rethink one’s life...Successful Meditation results in the mind seeing itself.

What is “Cosmic Luck”?

The great “X” factor. The favor issued by the energy driving the universe.... “May the force be with you.”

What is Mind?

If your life was a film, your mind would be writer, director, producer, male lead, female lead, supporting actor, script supervisor, cinematographer, sound engineer etc. In Short, It is your everything. It is the focal point of meditation.

What is fragmentation?

The result of competition with other “me’s”... The Conditioned (sleeping) mind, seeks advantage in every field of activity. This “seeking” results in fragmentation… Fragments can be likened to viruses… e.g. racism, sexism, nationalism, status, rank, authority, addiction(s), etc.

In today’s idiom each fragment is a “rabbit hole” in which enormous energy is expended in pursuit of advantage over other “me’s”...e.g. pursuit of money, power, prestige, etc.

What is Time and Space?

Time can be physical, e.g. let’s meet at the cafe at noon. Time can be psychological i.e. past, present, future... e.g. what are your plans? What is your background? What are you studying nowadays?
The negation of time(that which it is not) is simply NOW....

Space can be physical. E.g. a room, a country (France), a planet (earth), this galaxy, etc. Space can be psychological; e.g. roommate, Parisian, world, star travel, etc. The negation of space (that which it is not) is HERE..
The negation of time and space is therefore here and now.

What is “nothingness”?

The realization that time and space are to be recognized and therefore understood. This understanding is freedom… Simply put, nothingness is the negation of time and space.

What is Enlightenment?

Satori, or Enlightenment, is simply the mind recognizing and therefore knowing itself…by hook or crook, aka “cosmic luck”. Light has been thrown onto the mind’s structure.

What is Occam’s blade?

The basic explanation of any phenomenon that reduces the number of theories to the simplest until proven different....attributed to the Franciscan monk William of Occam (1285-1349) a controversial force in medieval theology...more familiarly known as Occam’s Razor.

What is the philosopher’s stone?

For our purpose it is simply “knowledge of mind or self via direct observation”

What is ego?

Ego is a mechanism of the conditioned mind which competes.. It competes in every field of human endeavor such as pleasure, power, financial security, beauty, knowledge, and even enlightenment. Competition is also another word for comparison.. One “me” comparing itself to another....endlessly...

What is the unconscious or subconscious?

It can be compared to a basement of a building.. A storehouse of memory...some memories are painful such as parental abuse, cruelty or criminal activity.. These memories are “repressed” or shunted into the “basement”...as they are brought upward the pain becomes either too much (please see Arthur Janov, the Primal Scream, 1970) to relive or is looked at frankly and absorbed into the conscious..... Every therapist deals with this on a daily basis....
Sigman Freud said the subconscious can be compared to the unseen (unseeable?) portion of an iceberg.

What Is religion?

A meditation on the existence of the energy driving the universe. A rejection of the theory that life is a game.

How do I select a teacher?

“When the student is ready the teacher will appear”. This is the cliche’ to end all cliche’s, but is SO true. Your teacher/mentor/guide is strictly to your taste. Another cliche’: There is no explaining “taste”

One route (non route?) is simply the “no teacher” path.Rene’ Descartes (The great doubter) (1596-1650) of “cogito ergo sum” fame...would probably be the prime example. As a relative youth, he openly stated, “I am only going to read the book of the world”. No more libraries, tomes, scholastics, etc. Just his own observations & methods.
But, if I may offer, for the rest of us “mere mortals”, a good/great teacher is a MUST...but how to select?
Start at your favorite local bookstore (amazon?) where there is nearly always a section devoted to this pursuit....Also, “You Tube” is absolutely LOADED with credible gurus.....e.g. Jiddu Krishnamurti (“K”), Osho (tantric sex Guru), Paramahansa Yogananda (self realization), Werner Erhard (est), Eckhard Tolle (eck), et al...the point? Find one (after sampling many?) that simply hits you “right between the eyes”, etc.
Of course there are the standard issue “authorities”: S. Gautama, (the Buddha), Jesus (the Redeemer), Paul (the Apostle), Moses (the Law Giver), Mohammed (the Prophet), Aquinas (the Scholar), Vishnu, (The Pervader) & Krishna (the cow herd & flutist)
TO SUM UP: EASY DOES IT, BUT DO IT...

Can One truly" ‘Break thru” to the other side?

Yes, but, the “but” means that one has to be very lucky as well as have the willingness to work on this. The positive is that the progress is constant even if not dramatic. Yesterday is no longer desirable. nostalgia ceases. Tomorrow is just a mirage. It can definitely be labeled a ‘trudge".’ The challenge is to keep my life in TODAY, let alone the NOW.

What is faith?

Placing one’s confidence in the viability of an entity seen or unseen. This confidence generally expects something highly desirable in
return such as eternal life, knowledge of mind or financial security.....faith can also be dangerous, e.g. faith in the
nation state can lead to death on the battlefield. Faith in a religious ideal such as a god espoused by high clerics can elicit loyalty oaths which can lead to wars like the crusades which can also be deadly. The opposite of faith is conscious contact with say a god such as the energy that runs the universe....faith is short circuited by direct knowledge of the entity in question...satori is the opposite of faith. It is simply a fact that one can reach tangible knowledge of mind/self.....it also lacks authority, rank, status (is anonymous) because of non-scientific (unverifiable) nature of this knowledge.

What is Stress?

The space or gap between “what is” and “what should be,” the idea can be labeled stress. Suppose someone said, “I should be earning more than im earning, Therefore i need to improve my competitive position in the marketplace, I need to get professional accreditation, get a more dynamic and cooperative partner, etc.” This “effort’" is stress.

How do I “invent” my own religion/ philosophy?

By reaching satori you will gain leverage on the universe and will “attain.” C.L.U.E stands for cosmic luck and universal empathy. The universe gants me unsolicited or unearned favor. Empathy in this context means deep appreciation for everything that crosses my path and its backstory. For example this glass I am using to hold water was once nothing but a clump of sand. Someone went through the trouble of melting, shaping, manufacturing and distributing just so I could drink from this usable flask, etc... This holds for everything in my so- called life.

What is war?

An endeavor by tribes, countries, or individuals to settle disputes in a “winner take all” manner. The stakes can be prohibitively high ( life & death.) The proximate cause can be economic (natural resources), religious (blasphemy), Ideological (systems of government and economies,) sociological ( arrangement of elites,) psychological (revenge.) The philosophical reason is the inability to unify the" “observer /observed” divide in which each party sees the other as separate and distinct and not part of the whole. In layman’s terms, its the failure of both parties to put themselves in the other parties shoes..