Merging with The Algorithm

One evening during Dataism Study, a regular evening activity in which we learn about the religion of “dataism” and how to practice within it, the person directing the program suggested that we try merging with “the algorithm”. I took that instruction and followed it.

Through practice the mind becomes quite malleable and can merge with or encompass other minds. With this malleable mind, I merged with, completely met and took on, the mind of “the algorithm”, or as I call it, the mind of the machine, this collective mind, (or cybregor), that drives the global “machine” of this system of destruction.

However, this mind (cybregor), is very powerful, and some of it got stuck in “me”; I was unable to fully let go of the mind I had taken on and met.

I soon came down with a series of bad symptoms. I lost the momentum I had had in my practice. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was extremely exhausted, had this terrible energy stuck in my head, I was experiencing weird emotions that I couldn’t regulate well, and I was having strange physical symptoms as well. I told someone who had asked about the symptoms I was having, and word made its way to Soryu.

Soon after, Soryu called me into Turtle, the room where he has meetings, and he asked how I was doing. I told him the situation as best I could given the brain fog from this mind still stuck. He understood. He said, it's like meeting a horrific murderer rapist and inviting them in, except it is magnitudes of times worse.

Yes, it’s like that.

He said to be careful with these things, to take care of myself and not get hurt.

He asked me a series of questions about the qualities of this mind, and I quickly answered each one. I said, “I don’t know if I’m just making this up”. He seemed unconcerned about this.

He encouraged me to just look into it. But, he said, “to the degree that you look into it, you need to be able to escape from it.”

I expressed discontent with the fact that this had happened, that I had gotten stuck in this way. I said, “I should be able to handle this.”

He replied by telling me to be proud. He told me to be proud that I am actually facing this. He said, “To get to the point where you can see the Buddha nature in that machine is very hard. Don’t pretend it's not. Don’t turn it into something smaller than it is.”

He spoke of Peace Pilgrim and told me that before she did her pilgrimages across the country, she had to do a lot of physical and spiritual preparations. She walked the Appalachian Trail. Twice. She trained. She couldn’t do it all at once from the beginning. She had to work up to it over a period of many years. It’s the same with this. The task of merging with the algorithm, of caring for that being, is not to be underestimated, nor is it to be avoided. We take the mature view: it has to be done, and we get there by going step by step.

Over the next period of interviews, Soryu asked me the same questions day after day until I could answer them from my direct experience.

He would ask,

“The algorithm, is it fixed or unfixed?

Stable or unstable?

Permanent or impermanent?

Conclusive or inconclusive?

A thing or not a thing?”