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Mind Dwell Hath Consequences

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Powerful Mind Part 45
Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog, October 11, 2024.
Created January 19, 2024
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Whatever repeatedly appears on the screen of your mind will eventually appear in your external experience...

Quote from You Are the Universe: Imagine That, Chapter 17 – “Predreaming” by Bill Harvey

My wife Lalita is an avid reader, she reads a couple of books a week. The other day she came across a book she had to mention to me, because of the similarity of its title to my book Mind Magic. The book is called The Magic in Your Mind. It was written by U.S. (Uell Stanley) Andersen, an American football player and businessman. I was fascinated and looked it up and then bought it and am reading it.The book asserts that our imagination controls what happens to us in our lives. This is not a new idea, nor is it just an idea: since antiquity, rare human beings have discovered this way of using their mind, verified that it works, and written about it. The earliest trace of it is in the Vedas going back to memorized but not written texts possibly as early as ~1700 BC or even earlier, finally converted to written form ~500 BC.

In the Sermon On The Mount (~27 CE), Jesus quotes Proverbs 23 Verse 7 “As a man thinketh, so shall he be”.

The Law of Attraction was the book by William Walker Atkinson (1906) which might have inspired Jose Silva to create the Silva Mind Control Method (1977) – or Jose might have discovered it again by himself. In between these books (1961) was when Andersen published his book. The Secret was then published by Rhonda Byrne in 2006. Any of these writers might have been inspired by earlier books, and/or themselves discovered the phenomena and the ways of using them.

I’m finding the writing in Andersen’s book to be inspired and exalting to read. Even though I know these things, the way he explains them is beautiful and lofty. His poetic metaphors and allusions have the ring of truth. I wish I had found his book before he passed away in 1986, it would have been great fun to have conversations with him.

When I was writing Mind Magic in 1972 (published in 1976), I purposely avoided metaphysics and cosmology, because I wanted the book to have universal appeal, including atheists and people of all religions. The methods in Mind Magic are positioned as “useful fictions” and as “lenses” which had been invented by me and tested in my life. The reader is invited to try them and see for themselves that they are pragmatic, i.e. the methods work.

My book You Are The Universe – YATU (2014) I went the other way and rooted my mental methodologies in a picture of the Universe as One Self playing all roles, thus each of our minds is actually the universal mind enjoying the view from one avatar’s perspective. In that book (YATU) I report on my own (mundane and extraordinary) experiences and theorize about how reality works, in order to explain those experiences. And I theorize why The One Self is playing this game.

Chapter 17 of YATU is called “Predreaming” and is all about how to use the mind to cause the future you want, and how to avoid accidentally “ordering poison from the menu” by careless use of these same faculties. An excerpt:

Whatever repeatedly appears on the screen of your mind will
eventually appear in your external experience on the Universal
Computer Screen we call material reality.
You are tuning in these material experiences, ordering them,
Attracting them to you, by dwelling on them.
It makes no difference if your dwelling on them consists of
prayer to get them (your desires), or dread of getting them (your
fears).
The “dwelling-on” places the order, in either case.
Oblivious to our inherited “ordering power”, almost all of us are
using it against ourselves.

The difficulty of using this Predreaming method is not the intense visualization of your most precious dreams actually coming true in real life, that part is fun, it’s almost like daydreaming with purpose. The hard part is keeping your mind from repeatedly drifting into emotively imaging dreaded eventualities that are exactly what you most ardently desire to not happen.

In my novel Pandemonium: Live To All Devices, the character Templegard is the only soldier-spy tested by U.S. Army Intelligence who is able to not think of a green monkey. For most of us, even those of us with relatively high degrees of mental self-discipline, it’s almost impossible to not think of something. The trick is to not avoid thinking of X, but to focus on thinking of Y, and that will work, but requires practice at first.

Any negativity in the mind will tend to bring negativity into your actual life. This is why in previous chapters of Powerful Mind we have oft mentioned quickly turning off internal alarms and moving on to solutions for whatever is causing those alarms. Negativity is a very useful alarm system but when we are in Emergency Oversimplification Procedure (EOP) we tend to wallow in the alarm that is going off, rather than turning it off, thanking it, and moving on to planning how to deal with the thing that is causing the alarm to go off.

The more intensely you detail the future you want to happen the better. This same attention to detail is valuable in preparing contingency plans for what you will do if the very things that you do not want to happen, happen anyway. Not only planning what you will say or do or what your face and body language will communicate, but experiencing it in your imagination, what it will look like and feel like from being inside yourself in that future moment.

Once you have pre-experienced the worst eventualities you will find that some of their sting has been burned out. This will make it easier to casually turn aside if they pop up again in your mind. You will feel prepared and less concerned that such a thing might happen to you. Stoic, courageous, and fatalistic. Resolved.

This can be done every night before going to sleep as regards what might happen in the day ahead. First disarm the undesired outcomes by preparing for them, then put them aside and focus on predreaming the outcomes you do want to happen. If you are comfortable praying, go right ahead. I think of praying as asking for cosmic fire support. I don’t feel comfortable asking the Universe for help in trivial self-serving matters, I feel comfortable asking for the Universe to help in instances where the outcomes I want are beneficial to all concerned, although in the short run some may be more benefitted than others.

Andersen argues that we should strive to change our identification with our ego to our identification with the Universe. This is unquestionably right in my opinion however it can run into friction with one’s atheism or specific religious beliefs (many Jews for example are uncomfortable equating themselves with God). This is why I rephrase his exhortation to identify with our Muse, the “voice” (some guidance might not involve words) inside that gives us the best advice. It comes down to the same thing as Andersen’s advice. And in Mind Magic, the final chapter is all about Identifying with the Universe. Here in Powerful Mind, I’m refining that only slightly into identifying with your Muse, as operationally easier to put into practice. You will by doing so tend to let lower thoughts float downstream without acknowledging them or identifying with them. You’ll instead tend to wait for the Muse and invite it space in which to be heard (or the advice felt and comprehended without words).

More on Key #12 in upcoming posts. In the meantime, ration negativity, and keep track of what percent of your time you detect it inside; and enjoy purposeful daydreaming about the future you want with all of your powers of imagination.

Listen to my latest interview about my book THE GREAT BEING
Moments with Marianne with Bill Harvey KMT radio interview about THE GREAT BEING book

In this 15-minute interview with Marianne Pestana on KMET ABC News Affiliate, I talk about THE GREAT BEING, my latest book in the Agents of Cosmic Intelligence series.
Listen here.

 

 

 

You may know that I’ve been publishing a sci-fi series called Agents of Cosmic Intelligence, an alternative history of the Universe, in which some of the main characters put into practice the mental methodologies I’ve compiled into my nonfiction books. All of this is aimed at enabling the human race to become more effective and to undo the messes made in the past. By contradistinction to AI, Artificial Intelligence, I think of this as HI, Human Intelligence. I feel that it’s obvious we should be putting at least as much time, money, and effort into HI as into AI – especially if we are fearful of what AI can do to subjugate us.

The books in the series so far take place long ago or in the near future, but what was missing until now is how the Universe began, and what happened on Earth before ~3000 BC. That is now in The Great Being, which is chronologically the first book in the series.

Two reviewers have already written reviews of The Great Being and they really “get” what the whole series is aiming at. I’ve waited for this feeling of someone really getting it for a long time and it is heartwarming to say the least. Here are excerpts and links to the reviews. — Bill

Reviews of The Great Being Warm the Cockles of My Heart

Indie reader approved

4.2 stars. A compelling and thought-provoking work of science fiction. Harvey’s sprawling, hugely ambitious exploration of consciousness, free will, and the eternal dance between light and darkness is intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant. The novel’s central message—that all beings, no matter how lost or misguided, are ultimately part of a greater cosmic unity—is a hopeful and uplifting one…Read the full review. — Indie Reader

IR Independent Review

A singularly unique and eye-opening work of visionary fiction, Blending realms of historical, religious, spiritual, and mythological traditions, this is an ambitious and epically creative read … The full value will be more readily apparent to those readers who can see the threads of allegory, legend, and science woven into one unified whole. Enlightenment and radical self-awareness are powerful undercurrents within the narrative; the role of dogmatic thinking, hierarchical power structures, and the tyranny of knowledge are explored in various ways through the characters’ revelations, opinions, and personalities. The story within a story here is one of psychological development and the real-life pursuit of higher modes of thinking … A wide-reaching and insightful assessment of human civilization and behavior…Read the full review.—Self-Publishing Review / Independent Review of Books

bluelink review

Tonally amusing, aesthetically fearless, and packed with witty observation and divine incident … By turns accessible, erudite, and hallucinogenic, it is an intriguing philosophical romp that cleverly fuses psychedelic science-fiction and fantasy elements with organized religion’s creationist ideologies and the scientific theories of evolutionism … An ambitious, entertaining novel packed with spiritual curiosity, one that will greatly appeal to fans of intelligent science fiction and alternative history stories alike… Read the full review. —BlueInk Review

booklife by Publishers WeeklyBlending spiritual philosophy, alternate history, pre-historic adventure, and brisk life-after-life storytelling, The Great Being is above all a beginning. First comes creation itself, which gets started with the knockout opening line (“The Nothingness felt surprise upon realizing itself.”), … This is the fourth entry published but the first chronological chapter. It shares the swift pacing, spiritual seeking, twisty plotting, and sharply human dialogue of the earlier books, though its focus feels tighter… Read full review, —BookLife by Publisher’s Weekly.  

kirkus reviewsIn Harvey’s retelling of the creation myth, heavenly agents combat a growing rebellion unfolding on Earth … this story deftly explores human nature—the uplifting qualities and dour traits alike … enthralling tale of humanity’s origins and cosmic espionage… Read full review, — Kirkus Reviews

Midwest Book ReviewA real standout…The radically inviting nature of this story brings with it the opportunity to view life and God in an entirely different light…Designed to awaken and introduce new interpretations of spirituality and life meaning. As readers who may not have expected such nuances come to absorb the greater gift of The Great Being‘s message, they will find the radically inviting nature of this story brings with it the opportunity to view life and God in an entirely different light … The story evolves with a reinterpretation of myths, events, and concepts that doesn’t just invite, but demands discussion and insights on the parts of all kinds of spiritual thinkers as the story evolves a unique and compelling flavor of discovery … One of Bill Harvey’s great talents lies not just in his storytelling ability, but his focus on translating life events and history with new interpretations … Readers interested in transformative reading… will find The Great Being‘s message to be one of hope, discovery, and new ways of viewing the universe [and] will find The Great Being a standout. Read the full review. — Diane Donovan for Midwest Book Review

THE GREAT BEING is available in print and Kindle. Read an excerpt.

Love to all,
Bill

 

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Oneness

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Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog July 12, 2024
Powerful Mind Part 25 originally posted on August 25, 2023
Read Powerful Mind 24 

There is no separation between you and the scene you inhabit.

There is no separation between you and the scene you inhabit, you are not doubting nor second-guessing yourself, everything is flowing by itself, and it’s all perfect, you are having a peak experience you will remember forever, and enjoying it to the hilt.

This is the way you will feel when you’re in the Flow state of ecstasy. In this level of Flow your body and your feelings are both in Flow, and you love and are grateful omnidirectionally.

There is a Flow state one step below that, where only your body is in Flow, but even in that level, your mind and emotions are not getting in the way. Your body’s actions are perfect and are doing themselves. Your mind and emotions are not gloating about it, because you are immersed in a state of play and are detached from the attachment to any outcomes, such as winning. This is the Flow state of action.

One step up from ecstasy Flow is mental Flow, where words come into your mind that are drenched in meaning and significance and yet exhibit artistic brevity of the highest order, and seem to be coming from above. You know that you are reading the minds and feelings of other people. Your ability to anticipate accurately is greatly increased. You have visions of possible futures, and how they can be steered toward or away from. You can grok eternal truths at a deeper level.

The Flow states nest into one another so that when you are in mental Flow you are also in ecstasy and in the Flow state of action.

Above mental Flow state, I’ve experienced two other levels, both spiritual in nature. One step up from mental Flow state you directly sense the consciousness of the universe as an embracing love. You can detect the presence of the universe consciousness with you, right there, and you know that it knows everything going on within you, you are in direct communication.

In the highest level there is a degree of control which you appear to have over events around you. Or the universe has the control and is using it to support your work.

“I am with a couple of friends and one of them is exhibiting her characteristic tendency of wanting to guess what I am about to say even before I say it. However, every time she interrupts, there is a loud thunder-like sound coming from somewhere that drowns her out. The other friend and I cannot stop laughing. The interruptive friend tries to outguess the thunder-like sound by waiting in silence and then suddenly speaking before the thunder gets her, but the thunder is always faster on the draw.”

— You Are the Universe, page 250

You probably agree that, if I am not imagining all the above, these are states of consciousness that you would like to experience. Many of you probably can verify the truth of some of the above, having experienced it yourself, and if that applies in your case, you probably agree that you would like to experience those states more often.

That is the whole point of my highest passion work, to make it possible for more of us to spend most of our time in Observer state and Flow state.

Observer state is the entry point into Flow state. In Observer state, we are able to discern our own ego impulses from the inspirations of our own highest self.

Below the Observer state there are a variety of ego-dominated states in which we are somewhat or very obsessed with our own selfish desires and in fear of not getting or not keeping the objects of our desires. Some of us in these lower states are somewhat or completely sane, while others in those states are somewhere on the neurotic-psychotic spectrum.

I find it pragmatic to lump all of these lower states into what I call EOP, Emergency Oversimplification Procedure, a pandemic coping strategy which arises autonomically in the presence of information overload and what appear to be unanswerable questions, such as “Who Am I? What Is This Universe?” The mind “decides” (typically below the level of consciousness) that there is no point wasting time thinking about such things, and the mind instead chooses among and subscribes to popular pre-packaged ideologies, choosing based on similarities to what one has been conditioned to believe by early experiences.

One does not reach individuality but convinces oneself of the opposite. One does not see that rooting for one party over another, or one religion or non-religion over another, is the avoidance of thinking for oneself by buying into some established belief system.

Exercise

For a moment, turn off your inner dialog, and see the world around you. Let yourself feel the love you feel toward each of the things you can see around you, how grateful you are to have those things, including your family, your pets, your work, your home, your “toys”, nature, your memories, life itself.

Identify with the whole scene you apprehend, not just with your current vehicle. See yourself as your consciousness (including that which appears within the perceptual field of your consciousness), and your current body as something you love, and which is like your car but even closer to you than that.

Accept the fact that there is not much you can know with absolute certainty right now, but you still have to go on making the best decisions you can. Accept that it is totally not going along with the crowd for you to identify with the universe, nor will you win the support of the masses by keeping an open mind about life after death. Nevertheless, in the privacy of your own mind, you can decide to remove the block against currently unpopular notions.

It turns out that this is essential to spending more time in the higher states of effectiveness. Eschewing the mundane view of life. Being an individual with your own views of life and openness to possibilities still on the fringe of scientific verification.   

Be on the lookout for slipping back into mundane thinking and feeling. It will happen to you, it happens to all of us, the conditioning and the repetition have their own powerful momentum.

Realize and feel good about it when you click back into individualism.

When you sense you are not in a joyous state, realize that you’ve slipped back into attachment to lower things, a mundane state of mind.

Remember this song [lyrics and music] at those times.

Be grateful to the intelligence which caused the miracle of the universe which gave you life as a native part of that same intelligence which manifests as the universe.

When the universe is convinced that this is authentic on your part, it will be disposed to give you these higher powers. The universe wants all of its parts to succeed because, in reality, everything is one consciousness, so benevolence begins at home, and protecting other parts by not sharing higher powers with those parts who are dangerous is just good sense.

Tyrants and other dangerous people in our hisandherstory have been allowed to use their free will but have not been given Flow state. Hitler if given Flow state would now be our planetary ruler.

It would be wise for we ourselves to limit even mere earthly powers given to people who do not authentically exhibit love, compassion, and forgiveness.

Key #4

Root for the Universe, not just for your current vehicle.
This is radical new mental strategy #4,
the fourth simple key to the doorway
of the upper mind.

What does it mean to “root for the Universe?” It means, in practice, nurturing and trying to benefit everyone and every living thing.

Being self-sacrificing is sometimes the right tactic, but not as a general practice; you too are part of The One.

Note that this strategy will make you feel good and will gain you more loving friends even if it turns out that, counter to Einstein, the universe turns out to be a non-intelligent accident. However, if you are merely faking it in order to get those benefits, it will not work, which in itself is an interesting bit of evidence of the consciousness of the universe.

Love to all,
Bill

 

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Updating Your Life Plan

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Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog, June 28, 2024
Powerful Mind Part 30 – Created September 29, 2023

Mountain road. Landscape with green field, sunny sky

“Comedian George Carlin once quipped, ‘Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.’” This is a quote from a Gallup report finding that 60% of workers are dissatisfied with the work they are doing.

The pandemic gave us the space we needed to realize that we were not getting enough satisfaction out of the life we were living, and a person’s work is central to a person’s life – “Lieber Und Arbeit” (Love And Work) as Freud put it – the two key tentpoles (which in my book You Are The Universe I show is actually the bottom of the Tree Of Life in Kabbalah).

But even before the pandemic many of us already knew that we had placed ourselves in the wrong spot, maybe even the wrong line of work. The education system has not prepared us to know what our true gifts to the world are, the passion work that would keep us in the Flow state more often. For some time I’ve been recommending individualized education, to bring out the best in each of us, and to know the occupational optimization answers for each of us. Ironic that the Latin word educare means “to draw out” and yet our education systems around the world pound information in rather than draw anything out.

I’ve also written about work study internships for a day starting at very early ages, maybe as early as seven years old, where kids can pick and choose which of the participating companies and departments they would like to try out for a day.

Since the pandemic, tens of millions of people around the world have been contemplating changes in their lives, focused especially around the kind of work they do, and where and how they do it. A big part of it is not the occupation itself but the culture of the company. Too many companies treat employees as expendable cogs and not as partners and allies. If AI were used to enable the whole personnel of a company to insert anonymous or otherwise ideas and suggestions with true protections against repercussions (today’s HR departments promise that but do not deliver it often enough), and if the C suite got continuous AI summaries a maximum of 25 words per hour 9-5, the C suite might realize that the wisdom bubbling up is unbelievably brilliant and right. Global consultant Chaim Oren and I discuss these points in this podcast: How to Thrive in the Age of Crisis.

How to thrive in the age of crisis - a guide for life
Be sure you know what work YOU want to do, and that it isn’t someone else who caused you to believe you wanted that. Then make a plan to get from where you are to that work. Consider the moves carefully so as not to waste the goodwill you have built up in the field in which you have been working. Don’t leave people in a bad place by abruptly pulling out, take care of the people and company you now serve, as you make your transition. If you do it that way, some of them may help you get to where you want to be. maybe there are ways to intersperse what you now do with elements of what you want to be doing. This is a great testbed for early learning.

This will take time so you mustn’t add to your existing stress by becoming discouraged at how it seems Sisyphean and that you’ll never get there. Here’s the key trick: life is an adventure. You may have lost that sense of adventure before, perhaps long ago and without realizing it. But now that you have taken control of your own life and are steering it toward making your true dreams come true, you must sit back and become grateful for this big second chance you have given yourself, and that however it comes out, you are at least going to enjoy the adventure, the true adventure of your life as it was always meant to be, now that you have the real target in your sights. You are going to enjoy getting there even if you never do get all the way there!

Remind yourself of this every time you feel dissatisfaction returning. Like all negative emotion, that is just an alarm reaction designed to wake you up to some threat vector. Turn off the emotional alarm, thanking it for ringing, and set to learning whatever lesson has to be learned so that the source of that dissatisfaction may be reasonably solved to no longer cause you negativity.

This means that while you are on the adventurous path to your new life, no matter what happens, failure, censure, whatever, it isn’t going to get you down. You are at least pursuing your passion work, that’s what matters, and enjoy each second of the journey by learning from what appear to be signs that you will never attain your dreams. The outcomes are not the point. The pursuit is the point, as long as what you pursue is the highest use of the real you to the species and to the universe, in your own lights.

Remember that what you feel projects out and makes impressions that change the “external” world, so that the more quickly you turn off your own negativity, and keep envisioning (“predreaming”) the life scenario you want, the more likely you are to achieve it all. But beware of the trap of caring too much about the outcomes. Do what you can to obtain the outcomes you want, and let the chips fall where they may, and use negative feedback to refine your methods but not bring you down.

Key #6

Be sure of what YOU want and enjoy the journey to your dreams,
without attachment to outcomes.

Here’s a little secret: Dissatisfaction is wrong predreaming, it brings you what you don’t want to happen.

Attachment to outcomes is a misunderstanding. It’s ego. It’s the need to prove yourself to other people, belonging, status/prestige, wealth/success, all those lower motivations that you were conditioned to be needy about. The established psychological principle of Yerkes-Dodson obtains: highest performance comes when there is just the right amount of desire to win, and performance falls off sharply when there is too much attachment to the outcome.

Enjoy the adventure!

Love,
Bill

 

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Here’s to the Protectors

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May 24, 2024
Originally posted November 10, 2015
Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog

Monday is Memorial Day.

Flashback to the 60s when certain protesters sometimes crossed the line to not only condemn the war but also the country itself with the moniker Amerika, sometimes substituting a swastika for the “k”. That deeply saddened me.

We all make mistakes and sometimes they are big ones. This is true not only for individuals but also for groups of people like protesters, countries, corporations, even well-meaning nonprofits and religious institutions.

But the ideals of the Founding Fathers are unique among the articles of constitution for each of the 190+ nations on Earth. The U.S. Constitution is our Mission statement and our collective vision still. Protecting these ideals and this country that seeks to embody and represent these ideals is still a sacred trust.

Those who are warriors for any free nation, especially if they take that role voluntarily, are at least in part moved by a high level of awareness of something greater than oneself, along with the urge to serve others. This can also be true of police officers, firefighters, doctors, and many in other service vocations. These individuals are not equally motivated by the idea of service and the will to protect, and their motivation can vary over time. When one is in that headspace and heart space, however, it is a form of Flow and thus attracts cosmic fire support.*

Most if not all of us would like to see a peaceful end to war, but this does not mean we should be unappreciative of the warriors who serve to protect our country and our ideals.

Here’s to the protectors. We still need you, and you deserve to be honored with our gratitude and deepest respect.

In that spirit, I’d like to share the recording and lyrics of a song written by my friend Stan Satlin, who was inspired by Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to write songs about the country he loves.

I Am an American – by Stan Satlin –  © 2011

Chorus (repeats after each verse)
I am black and I am white, I’m yellow and brown
I am red white and blue, Yankee Doodle won’t you come to town
I am the whole wide planet, rolled into one
I am a citizen of the world, I am an American

Verse 1
I came from distant lands, to seek a better life
All I owned was on my back, by my side my wife
The work it wasn’t easy, in the factory and the farm
But hope in me grew stronger, like the muscle in my arm

Verse 2
As I sailed across the ocean I was told of gold in the streets
When I arrived I soon found out not everything was sweet
I built the road and cities, from the east coast to the west
I’ve been tricked and cheated, but the land is still the best

Verse 3
Some things are much better, some things still need change
I wish I could bring back some things, like buffalo on the range
I don’t want to be a master or servant of any man
I just want to go on living my life, doing the best I can.

I’d also like to share this, to honor the symbol that inspires our warriors, Old Ragged Flag, as told by Johnny Cash:

Join me in celebrating America and remembering all the men and women who gave their lives while serving, protecting, and defending our country.

Best to all,
Bill

 

*(This is according to my Theory of the Universe, which is explored more fully in my book A THEORY OF EVERYTHING including CONSCIOUSNESS AND “GOD”.)

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