Ruminations on Non-Dual Relating

Your only purpose is relationship. What other purpose could an 'ego-self' have, but to dissolve its self-constructed distinction from another? What other reward does this 'life' offer?

Or is there something else you seek?

So what are you 'doing' then? Exploiting time/space and snatchin' up as much square feet as possible to put all your stuff... until time runs out?

There is a reason why learning to 'love' another is the most powerful experience one could encounter even in this dualistic dimension. There is a reason why the hardest work you will ever experience during this 'lifetime' is being intimately engaged with another. There is a reason the ego-self fears love more than death itself and many die never knowing it. 

If learning to intimately and fully engage with others is the only reward this life offers...is that NOT indicative of what you need do to "awaken" to the next?

The others await you because, contrary to pop-spirituality and new age non-duality tailored to egocentric individuals, "awakening" is a joint venture and non-duality is all-inclusive.

No one awakens until all do....(here is your new mantra)

Ha! But, never mind all that... your on a "hero's journey" and can't be burdened by other peoples sheit. You must blaze that solitary path to your "awakening" (allowed only to the privileged few).You must follow in the footsteps of the ancient wisdom seekers who came before you.

It's incredible how deeply mired in the ancient myths we have become...all these years of conscious evolution has only made us better victims of the past (and, oh, how we worship the past).

In your search for individual awakening, don't give up on the rest of humanity (or when you awaken will you finally save us from ourselves?). They WILL finally complete you, but not the "you" you've become accustomed to, nor the "me" the other identifies with in contrast to "you." All you need do is fully engage "them."

If the ego-self is a figment of your conscious imagination... do you really exist at all? What about their ego? Best to get together and engage in some deep intimate understanding...

...and find out which one of "you" is real. If you're lucky... it'll be neither. Ha!

We see ourselves as a pretty sick bunch and, as a result, we really don't trust each other very much. So why count on one another to find the promise land? Best to just "awaken" alone? Oh sure...we choose a few 'privileged' individuals to "love," but eventually we come to realize that there's alot about them we don't much trust or care for either (so much for "love").

I mean really...look what we do to each other and to our home. So much greed, corruption, murder, abuse and war...what's to like, eh?

Of course, you console your 'self' on the fact that you don't do what they do (you're on a "spiritual journey") and they are NOT. But deep down you know it's a lie, because your past is chock full of your own sheit (and your 'present' ain't so sweet either) making you really no better than they are, since to be IN a body demands an ego with a past.

The past...remember that? (how could you forget)

You could never forget what "they" have done to you and so, you don't much care for humanity as a whole and you find human beings a rather disgusting and petty lot.

I suppose until we can find some redeeming quality worthy of committing to, we'll probably continue to punish ourselves...

...into extinction.....

but that's okay, cause we only give ourselves what we feel we truly deserve....

...haven't we always?


Artwork by Heather Nevay - "untitled"

CHRISTMAS NEUTRALITY : "Happy New Year" (addendum)

Are you planning on a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year? Or maybe you plan to be miserable? Or even a little of both, depending on the situation?

Well... best you give up those plans and, as a result, it just might be...more than you could expect.

Give up all your plans for how it should be and you will not go into any situation or event thinking you know what you need to be “happy” – simply because the truth IS...

... you have no idea and "you" never will.

In fact, it is your belief that you 'know' what will work that causes all the trouble.

This is because you have become accustomed to adapting to what you perceive. Yet, what you perceive is an experience constructed from the past and that's why you perceive it. The ego constructs its own experiences superimposing what it 'knows' upon experience.

It can never be other than expected, which is why you are so often disappointed with what you expect.

Nevertheless, you cannot create experiences that are in your best interest simply because you do not know your best interests and, thus, continue to rely on what is perceived in order to adjust behaviors. All your many goals impede and conflict with one another and this often infuriates you because nothing ever seems to turn out as you EXPECT, even though all experiences are, in fact, planned and prepared for ahead of "time." Therefore, every experience is as expected and it is just this expectation that you suffer through.

What you perceive was constructed beforehand; else you would NOT perceive it at all. The egocentric 'mechanics of experience' are complicated because the ego-self thrives on an imaginative complexity that makes no sense.

Therefore, go into each and every situation with no predetermined or prepared responses, since it is your preparation that stifles “surprise. Allow it to unfold as it will, because it will unfold differently than expected, but only without your preparing for what you expect. This is because you have no idea how it CAN be, only an idea of how it COULD be, based on past conditioning...and who wants to be victim to the past?

The ego is NOT conditioned for “surprise,” and therefore, has no such expectation. It is conditioned for expectation and what you expect is what you will experience each and every time, but each and every time it will not be what you want and your disappointment is always added to the menu of expectation. The ego will not construct experiences except from that menu and, make no mistake, death is on the menu and you are preparing everyday.

Leave your expectations behind and prepare to learn what is in your best interests in the recognition that you don't know. Let “surprise” teach you that there are experiences outside expectation, but only as long as you believe you have NO idea what to expect.

Would you like next year to be a “happy” new year?

Best to give up that thought...

Artwork by Mark Ryden- "The Creatrix"

CHRISTMAS NEUTRALITY: The Gift of NOT "Loving it All"

I often find myself in disagreement with my non-duality buddies, who continue to recommend that we “love it all.”

....as if an ego has any comprehension of love. 

Oh sure, egos have relative ideas of “love” (over 6 billion, in fact), but after centuries of such relativity, we have come little closer to what love IS, thereby asserting “dualism” in the world of conscious experience or....what love IS NOT.

This makes me wonder why “loving it all” is so frequently advocated by non-dual teachers. Of course, hypothetically speaking, a non-ego might “love it all,” since relative concepts of "love" would not be superimposed upon experience.

But then… show me a teacher who has NO ego and I'll show you an elephant that flies.

However, its easy to understand the ‘feeling’ dimension of an egocentric 'self' and “loving it all” would certainly seem to 'feel' better than NOT “loving it all.” But this is the trap of presupposing that love has something to do with 'feelings' and egos should probably NOT make assumptions that they have NO way of testing for truth (like knowing what “love” should 'feel' like... feeling THAT... and then pronouncing that you’re “loving it all”).

However, stop feeling love for "it all," even for a nanosecond, and guilt may very well be the very next feeling...

This Christmas, I would suggest you cease your attempts to “love it all” simply because relative love merely asserts its relative opposite, resulting in the usual combative contrasts that egos never fail to identify and, unfortunately, act upon (in fact, couldn't we say that it's all this relative "love" in the world that's the world's number one problem?)

For instance, let’s say this Christmas, somebody snubs your precious gift giving. Well, of course, instantly the ego will assert relative suffering, or 'hurt,' which will then threaten the ego's "loving it all" perspective, causing it to quickly rush to reframe it’s relative suffering into relative “love,” which it can only suffer from equally, due to it’s relativity...

...because deep down you know your only scamming your ‘self.’ Notice the circularity?

This Christmas, seek neutrality... it's so much easier than "loving it all." (of course, your ego is telling you that you MUST "love it all' or else you're not being non-dual, but just ignore all that)

Egos fear that if they don't "love it all" than they will subsequently adopt the opposite perspective. Yet loving "it all," as a means of replacing fearing/hating “it all,” is probably not a ‘best practice’ for egocentric individuals stuck in relative perspectives of “love” (but still wanting some kind of "practice"). This is because relative love can only assert a dualistic opposite and, as we all know, the opposite of relative love would be relative fear (and corresponding relative hate).

Now, some would say that since we “are it all” we must then “love it all" (kind of in-sequence) Yet this is a story of mixing metaphors. Stating that we “are it all” is an excellent non-dual “pointer.' However, “loving it all” is an egocentric relative concept, since egos do not know love, only relative love.

It seems logical that once we can finally give up our relative concepts of “love” we might then be open to apprehending what love is, which might then result in discarding all relativity (hypothetically speaking).

Until then, it seems logical that a neutral perspective might be more advantageous than a relative “love it all” perspective. Yet, it does seem that some “non-dualists” are really stuck in the egocentric, relativity of Pollyanna love. But who can blame them, social conditioning is deeply pervasive (relatively speaking).

So this Christmas, instead of “loving it all” give neutrality a whirl. 

This way you can't go 'wrong,' simply because you have not adopted one way or the other and your “loving it all” will no longer interfere with what LOVE can be...if you weren't out tryin' to "love it all."

Perfect Peace holds no perspective... one way or the other..so neither should a Peaceful Self.

So have a very neutrally merry Christmas!
(and avoid kissing hamsters.... kiss a Lemur instead)

Surreal image by Olivia - "Lemur Christmas"

To Experience the Opposite of "Meaningful".......Choose the Red Pill!

Eventually you must choose between the blue or the red pill.

It’s either meaningful or it means nothing at all.

If it is meaningful then, by all means, feed you head. But, what if all the important meanings you superimpose upon your experiences do nothing more than impede experiencing what is beyond your egocentric narcissistic meanings?

But can the meaningless BE experienced?

When you’re through superimposing your egocentric meanings upon the 'world' (that you experience), what will you 'have'? What will “you” experience?

Obviously, the ego-self fears the meaningless. To believe it could experience the meaningless would assert that the meaningless could exist.

If something with NO meaning could exist, then this would place grave doubt upon the existence of the ego-self, because an egocentric 'existence' is entirely predicated on meaning. Meaning is vital to all interpretations of experience. Therefore, the ego affixes meaning to every experience. Even to say something is generally “meaningless” asserts the opposite, since if it did not mean something, how would you be aware of it in order to judge it meaningless? However, to assert something as "meaningful" has no opposite, since the ego could never be aware of that which means nothing.

Yet, the ego-self believes there is nothing beyond what it experiences. This is why it invents concepts of transcendence (religion/spirituality) to aid in providing meaning to its experiences of "transcendence" (notice how even the word "transcendence" is packed with meaning).

A transcendent experience can never mean nothing and must always mean something and this is why you regularly fail to experience your "transcendence," simply because you have been taught what it means and that is precisely what you experience...egocentric meaning.

Eckhart Tolle claims to have experienced ego transcendence. Nevertheless, it was only after running his experience through the ideological meat grinder of past interpretations, that he was able to apply an egocentric interpretation that helped him make sense of what it WAS …

…but is that what it IS?

First, the ego injects meaning into the world. It then has an extraordinary experience, not easily identifiable from the normal menu of world-based interpretations. Nevertheless, it looks to the meanings already in the world to aid in making sense of its extraordinary experiences. Notice the ‘circularity of meaning’ applied to the meaningless, thereby rendering it virtually useless. (this may be difficult to understand for those who believe they have “discovered” what it all means).

The ego must superimpose meaning upon the meaningless in order to maintain its own experience of itself as meaningfully “real.” Not to experience itself as meaningfully real would be a one-way ticket to the looney bin (or non-existence). Therefore, the ego must SEE the meaning it imposes into the world and this is exclusively an internal operation and has little to do with an external world.

In fact, an external world need not exist at all (if it even does!) for the ego to superimpose meaning.

If you experience a "happy" or pleasurable world, then it is the ego that gives it that meaning. If you see a cruel, destructive or fearful world, again, the ego has superimposed this meaning upon its interior experience of a world. Yet, whatever meaning you apply must always presuppose its opposite as also ‘existing’ and this determines the inconsistency of egocentrically imposed meanings. Superimpose "happy" and an experience of "sad" is made "real." Such is the “dualism” of the egocentric This is why we often fail to accurately evaluate what it is we are experiencing and why “bad” experiences are frequently re-evaluated as beneficial or “good” only in retrospect.

But can an ego-self ever experience the opposite of meaning or complete meaningless?

If the meaning of all your experiences are egocentrically determined then, subsequently, this can only mean that the world you experience is meaningless until you give it meaning.

Therefore, the ground, or foundation, of all meaning is entirely absent of all meaning. 

The meaningless is infinite, while egoic meaning is finite and changes with time, since that's the meaning egocentrically applied to time (otherwise how could it exist as it does?).

For an ego-self to identify with its own egocentricity it must always choose the blue pill over the red pill. Choose the blue pill and you invite the ego to continue to impose meanings that it asserts as “real,” thereby insuring experiences continue to enhance or detract from itself (this is interpreted as "suffering"). To choose the red pill is to plummet from your warm and comfortable bed of meanings into an infinite universe of meaninglessness (this too is interpreted as "suffering," although it's a misinterpretation).

But don’t be afraid…because when “you” give up the finite games you’ve imposed meaning to, it all becomes infinitely meaningful (but not in anyway you could imagine at the moment).

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small,
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all.
 

Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall.

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.

Call Alice
When she was just small.

When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low.

Go ask Alice
I think she'll know.

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead,
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
 

Feed your head.
Feed your head.
Feed your head

(Jefferson Airplane)

Artwork by Fred Weidmann  - "Evolution Without Goal"

Shock the Monkey

To really understand your fear it's helpful to objectify the egocentric construct, or the part of the mind that makes and interprets fear.

Egos fear change and this will always impede any real constructive change, thereby, perpetuating status quo solutions or solving problems with the same mindset that creates them, which is always egocentric.
 
Our current climate change problem demands extremely substantive changes, and rather quickly, from egocentric minds that naturally resist any real changes out of fear. Clearly, the egos most afraid of change (social) are those most effected monetarily, since wealth maintenance and production is a chief egocentric preoccupation in regard to self-actualizing. The ego realizes its 'existence' through the numerous avenues the world provides for egos to self-actualize and increase self-esteem and improve self-image. Yet, obviously, if the world is illusional, these actualizing standards are delusional and meaningless (but don't tell that to your ego!)

Self-actualizing causes egos to congregate into groups to increase the self-actualizing potential of the individuals. 'Corporations' are a powerful type of egocentric congregate, which then further groups into syndicates or cartels in order to influence other weaker, less organized egoic groups (the U.S. Congress in particular, although any government or even the United Nations is a good model of a weaker ego-group). Egocentric congregates have an investment in avoiding substantive change, since this would result in a decrease in the continued actualization that the corporation was created to perpetuate, thereby, enriching individual egos in self-actualizing. Such groups employ fear to insure status quo solutions thereby negating substantive change.

Therefore, the only substantive change that can ever really take place must come out of 'crisis.' 

Without the sudden shock of crisis, convention is easily maintained. The collective ego must be shocked out of its complacency, otherwise it must always be "business as usual." This is similar to the sudden shock of "spiritual awakening" that many so-called "awakened" individuals claim to have experienced. For change to occur, there can be no gradual learning since the ego-self is highly adept in the skill of rationalizing anomalies or abnormalities into conventional perspectives. As history demonstrates, any significant deviation from the norm must be sudden and painful for change to take place.

For instance, no significant economic change can occur until crisis is clearly reached which, by then, may be too late. Unfortunately, governments have successfully offset the sudden impact of the current economic crisis and now we are only gradually heading toward the brink of economic destruction, which helps to anesthetize the ego-self and maintain its conventional hypnosis. . 

Gradual change is manageable, while immediate change, or crisis, can radically impact the collective consciousness creating dire consequences for egocentric groupings like corporations and governments. If I whittle away at your freedoms, gradually over time, you will easily comply, since any traumatic impact to your egocentric standards is mitigated. However, if I suddenly snatch all your rights away, you will protest vehemently and even resist. Can't have that happening now can we?

Therefore, with regard to climate change, the egocentric collective well simply dither, distract, deny and delay change until real environmental destruction makes change immanent.

Unfortunately such a high level of crisis may be prove too late even for any substantive change. Nevertheless, the ego-self is king of its experience and, even in its own self-destruction, will always remain in control...

...because egos are masters of control and will continue to assert control up until the final moments.



Painting by Kris Kuksi - "Orangutan the Messenger" 

Bridging the Chasm of Egocentric Alienation

The ego-self fears honesty and this is the chief cause of all your failed relationships. They have failed because of your dishonesty.

However, egoic dishonesty is not necessarily predicated on the ego committing a lie, but simply on the ego omitting itself. As long as thoughts are concealed the ego-self gains a delusion of safety.

Unfortunately, this makes you estranged from those you "love" and, ultimately, the world. Even though basic interaction levels are high, disclosure remains surface and superficial.

The ego, or the identity that you insist is “you,” is ultimately defined by egocentric self-preservation. This egoic survival instinct is not simply concerned with bodily survival, since encounters with physical threats are rare. More often, the egos chief focus is psychological survival, which demands ever greater experiences of self-actualization, as opposed to self-diminishment.

The ego requires actualization of itself against its experience of a world and this actualizing is always in competition with other egos (in fact, ego actualization is little more than simply ‘rising above’ other actualizing egos). The greater actualized an ego is, based on the worlds standards of "success," the greater the egocentric experience of “existing.”

These are the finite games we play every day in the hope of ever greater self-actualization through specific outcomes.

The more actualized the ego-self, the more you feel "alive" (learned behavior based on the world’s standards). “Loving” relationships help egos feel alive and aid in egocentric actualizing. Although the ego has no idea what “love” is (always defined in relative terms) it does have an obscure recognition that “love” is a powerful means of self-actualizing itself. Yet, it must use caution, since it fears this could ultimately destroy it....and it's rightl.

Because the ego does not know what love is (merely senses the presence of something more powerful than itself), egoic love is always based on egocentric standards and conditions, causing conditional egic love to essentially fail to actualize the ego-self. Therefore, egoic “love” is no different then any other means of self-actualization, in that it is predicated on egocentric self-preservation and defines “love” in egocentric terms and conditions.

Initially, when you first met your “beloved” full disclosure was high on the ‘to-do list' and because of the immediate sense of self-actualization experienced by both, you both engaged in a high degree of honesty and self-exposure. You revealed all the thoughts in your head (well, almost all, but no ego ever feels that safe). Your past, your dreams and aspirations, and even your weaknesses, were fully exhibited to the loved one. This degree of honesty creates trust and trust leads to further honesty and disclosure.

Nevertheless, full honesty and complete disclosure is threatening to an ego preoccupied with self-actualization. All it took was one episode of perceived attack from the ‘beloved’ for the ego to begin limiting self-disclosure, thereby, impeding honesty. As a result, thoughts are made private and, gradually, communication becomes superficial and surface oriented.

Because the ego is a survival machine, your beloved easily detected your withholding, no matter how veiled and camouflaged. This precipitated his/her withdrawal in response and gradually over time, (because moments of honesty can result in severe conflict) the ego increasingly begins to perceive honesty as threatening to self-preservation.

Because of this alienation (from lack of honesty) omission becomes the norm and alienation dissolves intimacy and results in increasing estrangement. From this, you are merely a hop, skip and jump away from dissolving all egoic remnants of “love” and the beloved gradually manifests as antagonistic, no longer deserving of honesty or trust. Now, you merely seek to avoid conflict and this requires thoughts remain increasingly more private and so the ego seeks to fortify the mind from honesty.

This is how your most intimate relationships, which once provided the promise of awakening to a love without condition, became a conditional hell on earth. The ego shuts itself off from intimacy for the sake of self-preservation and fear is preserved and estrangement is always the result of fear. The ego demands that thoughts be protected and concealed and, as a result, understanding dissolves into estrangement.

There is only one way to bridge the chasm of alienation and that is through honesty. But it is not the shallow or superficial honesty that renews and reconciles relationships, but the honesty that is absent all fear and allows complete vulnerability in its depth. But first, You must discover why you are protecting and from who...

Withhold the contents of your mind and you obstruct the Deep Understanding that two or more can realize and 'awaken' to. Seek to conceal your mind and you alienate yourself from those you’ve chosen to love and both you and they will suffer.

Against the ego’s protests you must free yourself from this self-imposed alienation and awaken to the one unifying field of the un-conditioned. Deep Spirit communication requires that two minds be prepared to give and accept total honesty. Close off the mind by picking and choosing what can and cannot be communicated and estrangement becomes the norm and you will continue to wonder why all your relationships always seem to fail.

Without total honesty, you have yet to experience your only purpose....


Artwork by Scott G Brooks - "Till Death Do Us Part"

The Meaningful Metaphysics of the Meaningless

To the ego, the meaningless is equivalent to non-existence.

This demands that egos make meaning from the meaningless. To make meaning from the meaningless the ego must ‘know’ and knowing requires learning.

But, if the ego constructs its own experiences (since it constructed itself) then it teaches itself everything it ‘knows.’ If that which requires learning, teaches itself, then it must know nothing of any value and therefore, its existence is meaningless. If it is meaningless, then clearly it does not “exist.”

No need to worry though, because ‘meaningless” has an infinite quality to it that all the egos attempts to inject meaning does not diminish one tiny bit.

Unless the ego becomes transfixed on its own teachings, that give meaning to the meaningless. Of course, making the meaningless meaningful is impossible, because if something has no meaning it, therefore, cannot BE. Only what has meaning can BE, since nothing could BE that was not meant to BE.

Nevertheless, this is what the ego-self has essentially done. It has proclaimed “existence,” to what is not really there and it does this simply by proclaiming it “real.”

The ego must experience meaning from the meaningless, because this aids IT in asserting that IT exists (but only in contrast to what IT gives meaning to). By defining itself, in contrast to the meaningless, IT inadvertently asserts that IT too, is meaningless, since IT gave meaning to the meaningless in the first place in order to assert ITself as “real” in contrast with.....

Obviously, to affix meaning by contrasting with the meaningless, is therefore equally meaningless. This is the rule of Dualism, which demands that the ego construct meaningless experiences for which to contrast itself as meaningful.

My ego delights in this metaphysical dance (as all egos do). We can be sure that all egos delight in this simply by reading all the meaningless drivel, proclaimed as profoundly meaningful, that has been written in just the last 2000 yrs.

Yet, what have you learned that has made any difference to birth and death?

Actually, what you have learned allows you the illusion of choice in filling time between what you do not choose (birth and death).

What’s the point of that???

Yet, all of these thoughts are just as meaningless, even though I relish in trying to convey the meaning I seem to ‘know.’ What the ego refuses to even slightly entertain is that if it is meaningless, since it only knows itself in contrast to the meaningless experiences it constructs, then everything it thinks must be as meaningless, because everything it thinks is contrasted against the meaningless.

So… if there is really nothing ‘there’… how do you know “you” even exist?

Maybe you don’t.

But that’s nonsense since you certainly ‘know’ you exist, just look at all the contrasts needed to make your self “real.”

We seem transfixed on learning from the meaningless experiences we construct to teach meaning. Of course, this can only mean that we teach ourselves, which lends credence to the idea that we simply repeat, over and over again, all the meaningless lessons learned before because...

...there is only one teacher and we all know IT.

The ego-self repeats compulsively, because it ‘knows’ nothing but the meaningless it taught itself. We have become weary of this game because we seek for a way out through a decisive outcome and we invented religion and spirituality to teach us that outcome. Yet there is no end to this game, because there is no outcome. Maybe when we see it as infinite, we may then choose to no longer learn the meaninglessness we teach ourselves.

Oooh…wouldn’t that be swell!

The infinite player is not fixated on finite outcomes. However, there is only one rule to the infinite game. In order to play infinitely you cannot play alone.

Sitting on this barstool talking like a damn fool

Got the twelve o'clock news blues

And I've given up hope on the afternoon soaps

And a bottle of cold brew

Is it any wonder I'm not crazy?

Is it any wonder I'm sane at all

Well I'm so tired of losing- I got nothing to do and all day to do it

I go out cruisin' but I've no place to go and all night to get there

Is it any wonder I'm not a criminal?

Is it any wonder I'm not in jail?

Is it any wonder I've got

Too much time on my hands, it's ticking away with my sanity

I've got too much time on my hands, it's hard to believe such a calamity

I've got too much time on my hands and it's ticking away from me

Too much time on my hands, too much time on my hands

Too much time on my hands

Well, I'm a jet fuel genius - I can solve the world's problems

Without even trying

I have dozens of friends and the fun never ends

That is, as long as I'm buying

Is it any wonder I'm not the president

Is it any wonder I'm null and void?

Is it any wonder I've got

Too much time on my hands, it's ticking away with my sanity

I've got too much time on my hands, it's hard to believe such a calamity

I've got too much time on my hands and it's ticking away from me

Too much time on my hands, too much time on my hands

Too much time on my hands

(Styx)

Image by Karl Persson - "Shiny Chicken"

CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS: "And the Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb"

Non-duality, or when the two are as one, does not signify that the two will no longer be ‘perceived’ as two. However, they will no longer be perceived as in opposition to one another and that which does not oppose, can only join and join fully.

"That the ALL may be made ONE. Like thou Father art in me, I in thee, that they may be ONE in us. I in them, they in me, that they may be perfect in ONE". (John 17:20-22)

Notice the request is that we be made "perfect in ONE” since, although we are ONE, we make two “real” by superimposing conflict upon dualistic contrasts. The request, or prayer, asks that we “make” an experience of ONE as "real" as an experience of two, since it is the truth of "creation" and refers to free-will.

Dualism demands, not simply contrasts or differences, since contrasts or differences need not oppose, but dualism must always perceive contrasts in conflict and differences opposed to one another.

Up/down, black/white, top/bottom, etc are all dual contrasts that need not oppose and are non-conflictual. In fact, we could say that they are one through complementarity, because without one there cannot be the other. More importantly, there is NO opposition and they do indeed define parts unified as a whole.

However, when an ego perceives ‘up’ as more advantageous (or “sacred”) than down or ‘top’ more valuable than ‘bottom,’ we have then superimposed conflict upon contrasts through our own egoic value systems. Becoming fixated on the value system we ‘make’ real can be referred to as "dualism."

One need not suffer through ‘duality.’ But ‘dualism’ (which applies values to duality), demands not simply contrasts, but conflicting contrasts in opposition and this results in suffering.

Christ Consciousness still perceives contrasting concepts, yet, the contrasts are unopposed and exist in perfect equality and therefore, interact harmoniously, neither one more than nor less than, the other. It is not duality that creates conflict, but egoic values of good/bad, right/wrong and guilt/innocence that determines conflict and, hence, suffering.

The non-dualism of Christ Consciousness simply dissolves the distinction between guilt and innocence as the chief component of superimposed 'meaning.' If guilt or innocence is superimposed upon perceived contrasts, then conflict emerges and suffering constructs your experience of a ‘world.’ Attaching guilt and innocence is the burden you impose upon the objects of consciousness and has nothing to do with the thing-in-itself that is perceived.

One must always be guilty, for another to be innocent and this constructs your experience of a world, which seeks measures through levels, degrees, states, quadrants, stages, grades, ranks, phases, classes, intervals, etc, etc, etc.

There are no measures of equality, because it need not be measured.

To kill another is neither good nor bad, but simply unnecessary and Christ Consciousness need not deny this distinction as “real.” However, Christ Consciousness does not apply guilt and therefore, does not condemn from these distinctions by asserting truth to what we determine is “real,” simply because everything we determine as “real” must conflict through levels and degrees.

For the egoic mind, both war and murder derive the same objective results- death. However, the ego compromises with this 'reality' by superimposing guilt and innocence and thereby differentiating between guilty and innocent contrasts. Death in war is innocent, while murder demands guilt. This is because the ego-self is a product of conflict. How else would the ego perceive death as “real” if not by allowing death to be perceived as the result of both guilt and innocence?

Completely remove the distinctions of guilt and innocence from perception and what would be perceived? What levels or degrees could exist? What opposition would be experienced?

Christ Consciousness perfectly equalizes all objects of consciousness simply by denying the projection of guilt or innocence. To atone for guilt is to recognize that guilt has no meaning, but then, neither does innocence, since both concepts are a product of egoic fear. Therefore, guilt and innocence are not a part of perception and perception need not be controlled by the need to seek out guilt and innocence, because such perception naturally sees only perfect peace.

"And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them."

Isaiah 11:6 (New American Standard Bible)


Image by Jeff Christensen - "Just Business"

AWAKENING CHIC: The Path of the Walking Wounded

Awakening is all the rage these days!!

Seems everybody’s doing it, which makes you wonder... just how real can it be.

As the "awakening' movement takes hold we can just imagine future conversations at the country club: “Buffy, did you hear Chad had an awakening!” “No! Reeeaaally? I wonder how Margot feels about that?”

Awakening is chic....

(with it's own line of clothing!)

Nevertheless, you gotta be wounded first, or it simply isn't credible, and many of our modern spiritual teachers are themselves nothing more than the walking wounded (In my kids school, the walking wounded are referred to as the "emo" clique)

The "awakened masters" report that it was intense suffering that brought them to the “truth.” But, then why do they teach us to avoid that same suffering if it was, in fact, the way to truth?

Why teach that there is a "path to awakening” if they got 'it' completely by surprise? Even the most revered, Sri Ramana, had to experience the throes of death before “awakening” to the truth and Eckhart Tolle virtually became suicidal before his illustrious “awakening” (and his more illustrious collaboration with Oprah).

It seems that traumatic suffering is the way to “awakening." Only through trauma can we realize truth, but not just any old trauma... it must be a profound life changing trauma.
But then, do these teachers of “awakening” do us a disservice by providing spiritual ideologies and techniques that seek to make things easier on us (provide shortcuts) if, in fact, there is such a thing as “awakening?

It seems that everyone can “Awaken”…but first you gotta be royally fooked up!

Just another rule of conventional “spirituality” or “I once was lost, but now am found.”

Rarely will you ever hear: “I was rich, fat and happy… and then I became an awakened master.” Since it’s the disciples who choose the 'guru,' we would never choose a guru who did not pay his/her dues, since to be reputable one must be credible. Inevitably, they must conform to your demands regardless of what they think is “true," because they can only teach what you are willing and prepared to accept (and I'll bet you thought you had nothing to do with it).

In other words, you damn well better be close to death, or else it don’t count and we won't revere you!

You have to play the game of "struggle and sacrifice" before you can be a spiritual superstar. You have to traverse Dante’s Inferno before you can have the 72 virgins, walk through the pearly gates, attain nirvana or experience “awakening.”

Ha! But isn’t that like everything else in the world. No pain, no gain! Without enduring sacrifice and plenty of painful struggle, you can't win the 'prize' simply because that's how the game is played.

Nevertheless, once you finally do hit bottom, it’s easy to “awaken” and that’s because anything has to be better than the bottom.

Yet, what they often fail to convey is that, once at the bottom, you suddenly feel the need to reach out to others, because it was loss of ‘contact’ that caused your plummet in the first place. Therefore, the only truth you've awakened to is how much you need others. Nevertheless, as the enlightened ones always demonstrate, soon as you're standing on stable ground, others are discounted as having anything to do with the new and improved, awakened “you” (same as the old “you,” just a bit shinier).

What they fail to convey is that they have nothing to teach, because teaching is simply an excuse for deeply engaging with the world. Awakening proceeds from engagement, it doesn't result in it. It is deeply engaged in relationship from which awakening is experienced.

But individual ego’s don’t like hearing this, since it obviously negates the "personal awakening” that they alone, ‘achieved.’

Obviously, if you’ve come to love your ‘story’ of awakening then you might inadvertently discount other stories, but without other stories, there would be no story of “you.” Does your wife/husband have a story? Your children? How about your parents, your friends and neighbors?

"Ah…what do they know, they ain’t “awakened” yet!"

Ah.... so that's your story????

The parts cannot realize the whole as long as they remain fixated on parts. However, parts can realize “stories” that result in illustrious "awakening" careers.


Image by Caniglia - "Days of No Horizon"

Are You LIVING....or Protecting from Fear?

The ego is composed entirely of fear.

Yet, ironically, it has convinced you of the need to protect from fear, requiring you trust in IT to spot threats and alert you to danger.

This is a pact from hell (that literally makes hell “real”). How can what is created from fear protect you from fear? Therefore, in your trusting reliance on the ego-self, an experience of ‘hell’ is your reward.

The ego convinces you that fear must be avoided and it will help you do so. Yet, to be completely without fear would be to annihilate the ego, because the ego relies on fear for its very existence. In your fidelity to the ego-self, what you fail to realize is that the ego constructs the very fear it seeks to protect you from.

That which causes you the greatest fear is that which reflects back to you the fearful nature of your ‘self'...

.... other people.

It is not fear of death to be dissolved, but fear of other people. This is because when fear no longer comes between you and those you experience, life will finally be lived because death is no longer a consideration when one is finally living.

Are you living.... or just protecting from fear?

The chief defining aspect of hell is fear projected into a future based entirely on a past. This is the purpose you apply to everyone you meet and they, in turn, apply to you (notice the reflective effect of duality).

On the surface, our cordiality may often seem evident, but deep down what we deny is that fear keeps us alienated and estranged from one another (even in our closest relationships). Non-duality does not end separateness (or duality), but dissolves alienation (or dualism).

The non-dualism of Christ Consciousness realizes perfect peace because in eradicating its fear of others, fear no longer reflects back upon itself.

Without fear, time has no purpose and the present is all there is. As long as you are in time, you are relying on an ego that requires fear in order to know itself through time. This reliance on your "protector" automatically requires you fear the present, because the ego cannot protect you in the present, simply because in the present the ego does NOT exist.

Therefore, the ego must advise you to avoid the present at all costs and it does this by assuring you that the present could not possibly exist and you must rely on the past to inform the future. This is why every experience you encounter has been manufactured from a past solely for self-protection, providing an illusion of safety in the future. Yet, only in the present can you be free of protection, since the ego knows nothing, and prepares for nothing, but a past projected into a future. This is why your experiences often seem so typical and mundane simply because you only experience what you come prepared to experience and anything else is deemed unsafe and fearful.

There is only one way to secure your present as extended into a future (thereby dissolving both future/past). See no one else as having a past and be free of the need for protection, since all protection from others was learned in the past.

Avoid not one encounter, especially those you distrust. Engage fully without a care for protection, no matter how vehemently the ego screams in condemnation of your ignorance. Recall that the ego constructs experiences that reinforce itself and the only means of reinforcement it knows is fear. This has nothing to do with bodily protection, because our everyday fears seek to protect the ego and not the body.

If you take away its food (fear), it will starve and you will realize its death throes by the joy and peace you experience with, and through, others.

Sex, Drugs and.......Meditation!

The research is indisputable and there is no denying the beneficial effects of meditation upon the body and mind. It lowers heart rate and cholesterol, normalizes blood sugar, strengthens the immune system, improves sleep, etc, etc, etc, on and on and on (Sedona Meditation Research).

If this is all we expect than there shouldn't be any problem. But oh, how we love to stimulate our brain chemicals! Some people live for it (and, as I remember, not much else).

Drug addiction is a misnomer. The addiction is to neurochemicals stimulated through the potentiating effects from introducing a synthetic chemical to the natural mix, creating a lovely neurochemical cocktail.

Nobody’s really addicted to sex, but to the end product of sexual activity (orgasm) which is nothing more than the hyper-stimulation of neurochemicals, i.e., serotonin, dopamine, melatonin, and the opiate receptors of the brain.

It seems there is always a reward that drives us ever onward and for some, that goal is nothing more than neurochemical stimulation.

In fact, some have made that neuro-stimulation a “sacred" reward.

The wonders of science has accurately identified the stimulation of brain chemicals through meditation (Spiritual Competency.com). It is now scientifically established that if you sit in seclusion for long enough, eventually you can be certain that some degree of neurochemical stimulation will occur.

In fact, just like heroin or LSD (been there done that) can cause one to sink into an effortless reverie of pure bliss or synethesia (hearing colors, seeing sounds), meditation is equally effective (just takes a bit longer) at stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain and providing the same neuro-stimulation without the dangers and illegalities of heroin or LSD.

In fact, it seems reasonable to expect that the longer and more disciplined your meditative efforts, the more intense might be your neurochemical stimulation (the Big Buzz!). Therefore, you can essentially train yourself to get 'high.'

However, this appears to pose a problem, since the more intense your brain chemical stimulation the more likely the ego will superimpose some grandiose “sanctified” interpretation (extracted from past religious/spiritual ideologies) upon the neurochemical experience. This inadvertently results in the desire to interpret these intoxicating whiz-bang neuro-stimulative encounters as episodes of spiritual “enlightenment” or “awakening,” “revelation,” “nirvana,” etc, etc, etc.

Unfortunately, the ancient wisdom traditions could not benefit from modern medical science and knew nothing of neurochemical imbalances. However, today when we read about the excesses of the modern gurus, the sexual indiscretions, the greed, corruption (and frequent need for lawyers) we can be confidant that it’s nothing more than clinical bipolar disorder or significant neurochemical imbalances resulting in mood disorders.

If you want your mood-altering neurochemical states to be ‘sacred’ than by all means, call it an “awakening” or even "enlightenment."

However, most likely God will refuse to meet with you until you get off the neurochemicals.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,

A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she's gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Ah... Ah...

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain,
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies.
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,

That grow so incredibly high.

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds,
And you're gone.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Ah... Ah...

Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties.
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile,
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,
Lucy in the sky with diamonds,

(Beatles)


Image by Martina Hoffman - "Lysergic Summer Dream"

Jesus Is Just Alright With Me

"Christ" is an archetype within the collective consciousness projected outward as form (which some sad fool named "Jesus").

The problem with embodying archetypes in specific individuals is that it tends to deny that, to be an archetype, it must be in each and every mind. The ego denies the archetype by extracting and stripping itself away from it, thereby, separating and dissociating itself from the archetype.

There are many archetypes within the collective consciousness. However, there is only one archetype of truth, although the ego cuts itself off from that truth through numerous forms (living and dead).

If the ego-self is separate and dissociated from the truth (since the ego has given it a form separate from "you") then you're under no obligation to live out and personify in your own form what is separate from you and not a part of you. Truth is therefore, available only to other forms (made "sacred" by the ego) but not the form you identify with as "you." To the ego, "you" are guilty and anything but "sacred."

Therefore, you're off the hook and need not take responsibility for truth in any way whatsoever.

The ego conveniently does this by making forms "supernatural" and "sacred," which is alien and unattainable by "you." Examples of such sacred forms are Christ and Buddha.

Christ could love the 'garbage' and even become the garbage. This is because we made "him" a supernatural embodied incarnation of God, rather than simply an embodiment of a collective consciousness that your localized consciousness is indelibly linked to.

The ego requires sacred forms for two reasons. First, bodies must be conduits to truth, in order that your existence as a body be upheld and reinforced and, second, truth can only be limited to a scarce few bodies, which aids in denying that it is available to all.

Thus, it's easy to resign your 'self' to the fact that you could never do what they did and this is why, after 2000 yrs, no one else ever has and as long as you believe "Jesus Christ" existed...

...you never will.

There never was a form (person) called Jesus Christ nor one called Buddha. However, they both mythically represent archetypes that we all have access to, but must egoically deny. This "story" is in every mind, but if every mind believes only a few can have it, only a few ever will and, as 2000 years demonstrates, only a few ever have. You demand truth and so the ego gives it to you, but only through specific forms, which makes it a very scarce commodity and unattainable by you.

This is the "revelation" that we will eventually realize and "awaken" to and when we realize this collectively, then I imagine there will be nothing we can't do, since all the powers inserted into the forms "Jesus Christ"or "Buddha" will then be available to all of us. Unfortunately, until we can engage in it together, we'll continue to perceive it in only a few "sacred" forms.

Until then, the forms will continue to dazzle the mind with the miracles we could all perform if only we end our idolization of the forms.

Jesus is just alright with me

Jesus is just alright, oh yeah

Jesus is just alright with me

Jesus is just alright

I don't care what they may say

I don't care what they may do

I don't care what they may say

Jesus is just alright, oh yeah

Jesus is just alright Woh oh oh

I don't care what they may know

I don't care where they may go

I don't care what they may know

Jesus is just alright, oh yeah

Jesus, he's my friend

Jesus, he's my friend

He took me by the hand

led me far from this land

Jesus, he's my friend

I don't care what they may say

I don't care what they may do

I don't care what they may say

Jesus is just alright, oh yeah

(Doobie Brothers)


Image by Salvador Dali

Stick Out Your Can, Here Come the Garbage Man!

You discard your garbage into containers and place it out on the curb where it conveniently gets hauled away by the garbage man. Where does it go? What happens to your garbage after it leaves your curb?

Ha! Who gives a rat's ass!

What matters is that you no longer need be aware of it.

It’s not your responsibility any more and you can go about your life pursuing all your big plans for glorified self-fulfillment. Besides, you pay good money to have all that garbage hauled away, why should you have to worry about where it goes or what happens to it?

For many folks “spirituality” serves just such a purpose.

When you embark on your “spiritual journey” all the world’s refuse is conveniently hauled away and you need no longer be aware of it. War, starvation, poverty, economic collapse, unemployment, homelessness, child abuse, murder, disenfranchised groups, AIDS, injustices in the world, etc, etc, no longer need disturb you because “spirituality” has hauled it all away.

Now it’s no longer an obstacle on your “path” and you can simply focus on your pursuit of enlightenment, nirvana, bliss, awakening, realization, revelation, rapture, non-duality, God-consciousness blah, blah, blah, blah.

Hey! It’s okay if people suffer, because suffering is part of life, just another object of consciousness, the oneness of everything, karma, cycle of births and deaths, blah, blah, blah, blah.

As a devoted “spiritual seeker" you know that God doesn’t want you to sweat the small stuff, because it’s His job to haul it all away (remove it from your consciousness) so that you can focus on receiving what you’ve asked for.

So, just hunker down for a brief spell of meditative bliss and let the garbage man worry about the garbage.

For cryin’ out loud! You’ve got more important stuff to take care of and that’s the point of your “spirituality.” It’s not your problem any more, now that you’re “spiritual.”

But always remember, slip up just a little, or fail to vigilantly follow your “spiritual path,” and all that garbage will quickly make it’s way back into awareness and then you’ll be forced to engage with it because, in reality…

…the garbage man is YOU.

So stick out your can, here come the Garbage Man!


More of the same song and dance routines from:
mikeS


Image by Fred Einaudi - "Patriot"

The Ego's Directly Experiencing "Direct Experience"

Are there some experiences that are not interpreted by the ego-self construct?

How can that be when, in fact, the ego-self defines experience, because it defines the individual ‘self’ that has an experience. In fact, couldn't we say that to have an "experience" there must be a defining or "framing" of the experience by the 'self' claiming the experience for itself?

In other words, for you to have an experience, there needs be an egoic defining of 'self' before the experience occurred. "you" have set the parameters for every experience you encounter, otherwise, it would not be encountered. Kinda like, "ho hum, la dee da, looks like everything is as usual... oops, what was that! "I" seem to have had an 'experience' of some sort... wow!" (of course, this is a oversimplification).

It seems to me as long as there is a defined "you,” all experiences will be defined by that very same "you," regardless of the content of the experience. What is an experience but 'thought' framed as an 'experience'? Or could it be an ‘experience’ framed as ‘thought’?

You can never know truth without doubt, since the moment the interpretation of truth is made by an ego-self package, doubt is inherent to the interpretation because the ego-self must doubt it exists in order to maintain existence. This is because the moment the ego asserts an absolute existence, or a 'knowing' completely devoid of all doubt, it must cease to exist, since the ego-self is always a relative approximation of itself.

Without relativity, there could be no "you."

We are all nothing but vague and obscure relative concepts of 'self.' There can be no clarity, ever. But, we will seek it and we must forever "seek, but NOT find." Finding anything absolute would immediately spell "your" doom.

Yet, maybe the clarity is in the doubt. I'm not so quick to dismiss thinking, although I do realize at some point thinking will most likely become extremely nonsensical (just read some of the posts on all those non-duality blogs you love so much). However, I think insanity is bit too overly vilified and possibly we all could benefit from some brief swims into the depths of madness (been there and back a few times myself).

Many teach that you should surrender the intellect and the ego’s need to categorize experience. But “who” is surrendering “what”? Here again we have a splitting-off of the experiencer from the experience, through the abnegation of ego-self. I am not 'this,' but 'this,' is a finite game with an outcome, whereas, "not this, not that" (neti, neti) will always keep the game in play.

Your ego loves when you attempt to surrender it, since what you're really doing is surrendering TO it.

The intellect is the ego and the ego is mind and both are nothing more than experience. Seek to reject parts and how can you experience the whole? Can there be a compartmentalizing of experience as if to say, this is egoic intellect and this is "direct experience"? Can there be experience unadulterated by interpretive functions?

Or, can there be a before, during and after to your "direct experience" of “awakening” or "enlightenment"? Who or what determines that? If you say, "once I was ignorant, but now am enlightened" that very statement asserts your continued attachment to time and negates any experience unconditioned by time.

But then, let’s say that this is true and that you can have your “direct experience” separate from the ego-self ("you"). It will be the ego that informs you of that very differentiation you attest to as separate from ego-self. Again, assert a before and an after to your "direct experience" and you prove your attachment to an identity in time, because to be in-time, you must identify with an anchor point or a "you."

But the "enlightened ones" do this all the time and we eat it up, because it's truly the breakfast of champions.

You must first know the ego-self before you can differentiate an experience as ‘not ego.’ In fact, without an ego, how would you ever realize 'egolessness.' This makes the ego a very valuable experience, so why do you wish to transcend what has determined your wish to transcend? (seems kinda silly when you get down to it).

Desire “transcendence” and you inadvertently reinforce the opposite. When you experience anything, you will incorporate the wholeness of the experience employing the whole mind, including your ego.

The ego is not meant to be excluded and that’s because nothing can ever be excluded! In addition, the ego can never be asserted as subordinate to some other 'experience' because this merely asserts inequality, which is a condition of time.

The Tao excludes NOTHING!

If you wish to classify certain, ‘special’ experiences as “awakening,” or "enlightenment" then by all means do so. If you wish to have a “direct experience,” as differentiated, sequestered and partitioned off from other 'experiences,' please feel free to have it. But, allow your whole experiential 'self' to have the experience fully and do not deny your ego is a part of that experience, otherwise the whole truth might be missed.

Good grief man, it was your ego that brought you this far, seems a bit disingenuous to trash it after all that work it did for "you"!


Image by Andy Clarkson - "Soul Searching"

Let the Guru Bow to You

Your words enthrall me, your thoughts are clean. You tell me everything is not as it seems.

Are you my teacher? Are you the wise master-guru that "I" seek?

The egoic self-construct will discard that which is not already there IN the student. The idea that there is something new to learn is a trick the student plays on the guru.

This way, the 'self' can be retained as not 'realized,' but forever seeking realization.

The dynamics of the 'enlightenment game' are cyclical, since you can dump all your ignorance on the exalted guru, who's job is to dump it back on you. This is how you maintain the 'cycle of ignorance' and your experience of the world never changes (Yet, you claim to be getting 'closer,' which, of course, only takes you farther away).

However, you can break from the 'cycle of ignorance' when you trust in the ignorant to teach you, because the ego will deny learning anything at all. In that denial, realize that you have learned more than could be learned from a million wise gurus.

But this is virtually impossible, because the ego-self seeks out what is useful based on its own requirements. Even before the teacher speaks, the ego-self knows what is said and so...

...listens intently.

If it resonates, then most likely it's what you've asked for... but not what you need, because you don't know what you need. (and if you don't know what you need, then it's best to trust in everything except what you've asked for).

The real teacher is the one that bows to you. But, most likely, "you" will have none of that, since that would negate the enlightened teacher and your goal to be 'one' (...of them).

Nevertheless, essentially, you teach yourself. The "teacher" only confirms what is already known by YOU. In that sense all teachers are useless and any enlightenment, realization, awakening, etc, etc, you give yourself, as there are no intermediaries for the contents of your mind since all intermediaries are content too. (although we tend to project it outward in the desire for an external reference point, but that's just Freudian "wishful thinking"). The "guru" always gives you what you ask for, although you may deny awareness of the asking.

Seems kinda silly when you really get down to it.

However, there are those who can give you what you do not want, nor ask for, but need. They are all around you. When will you bow to them in the realization that they are your teachers?

The real learning happens when you excuse yourself from the classroom.

Well the dawn was coming,
heard him ringing on my bell.
He said, "my name's the teacher,
that is what I call myself.
And I have a lesson
that I must impart to you.
It's an old expression
but I must insist it's true.

Jump up, look around,
find yourself some fun,
no sense in sitting there hating everyone.
No man's an island and his castle isn't home,
the nest is full of nothing when the bird has flown."

So I took a journey,
threw my world into the sea.
With me went the teacher
who found fun instead of me.

Hey man, what's the plan, what was that you said?
Sun-tanned, drink in hand, lying there in bed.
I try to socialize but I can't seem to find

what I was looking for, got something on my mind.

Then the teacher told me

it had been a lot of fun.

Thanked me for his ticket
and all that I had done.

Hey man, what's the plan, what was that you said?

Sun-tanned, drink in hand, lying there in bed.
I try to socialize but I can't seem to find
what I was looking for, got something on my mind.

(Jethro Tull - The Teacher)


(Image by Saturno Butto)

The Rewards of Silly Wisdom Games

You struggle daily and work hard (working weekends!) to become "enlightened," because you believe that you have something to do with it. That's because you've been taught that you can make truth 'happen' and in some way 'manifest' the signs or symbols of an absolute truth.

This is essentially an unconscious hoax perpetrated by the "wise" seekers who have forced the "wise" teachers to play their silly games. If you didn't want it, they wouldn't teach it.

Problem is that this "ancient wisdom" is based in reality (learning paradigm, which demands you first be stupid and then get smart) and found in the world (it's 'ancient' and comes from the past). Yet, ironically, they claim that if you 'learn' what the world teaches from the 'past' you can transcend the world and "awaken" to timelessness.

Yea, right, in your dreams! (literally)

Nevertheless, this is what you demand they teach and they've had no choice in the matter. But, if "enlightenment" was not taught in the past, then how would you learn it? Yet, if it's past info, then what good is it anyway? It's the student that determines the curriculum and not the teacher.

Spiritual paths, no matter how ancient or austere, simply help you negotiate a very absurd reality and nothing more than that. Even calling the absurdity "all beautiful," instead of "completely absurd," is merely one way to cope with the absurdity. So, in that sense, you must follow the prescribed "Path" in order to minimize or mitigate your conceptual suffering. But recognize, it serves that purpose only and stop 'expecting' more, which only maintains your absurd suffering.

The world you experience 'exists' only for 'seeking'... not for 'finding.'

Or have you found something and now must teach the world? The problem is that if you 'found' the truth, then there would be no one to teach, because it would be known. Unless, of course, you think you're separate from everybody else and that you can get "The Truth," same as you got your high school diploma.

Enlightenment is a certainty. That is, until you attempt to learn it and, by doing so, put everything in doubt.

Spiritual concepts are convenient in allowing you brief, sporadic respite from guilt. Spiritual and religious ideologies have existed for centuries as the means of getting all "jiggy with it." The religions of the world serve no other purpose than helping you escape guilt (by making it more "real," through concepts like "karma" and "sin"). That's because if we all have to die, then we must be guilty of something, right?

So just keeping repeating your mantra, "I AM, I AM, I AM..." and the guilty ones can all go piss off.

For instance, if I slap the spit outa you and call you “a good for nothin’ butthead,” that’s okay, because my slapping the spit outa you and calling you "a good for nothing butthead" is a part of 'oneness.' HA!
Everything is a part of oneness and oneness is the essence of everything. Every choice is the only choice that could be made and therefore, we can define it as a “good” choice. It must be, since it was the only choice that could be made, based only on the fact that it was made.

Whew! Lucky you. Now you don’t have to experience guilt, remorse or regret, because... well... everything happens as it must and "everything is beautiful" (sing along with me brothers and sisters!).

However, the devout would argue that "I" just don't understand 'oneness' or "non-duality." I can only respond that if it is not understood by just one single separate mind, it's not true whatsoever, just more conceptual hogwash that you must eat with a spoon so you don't miss a drop.

Truth available to only a few, might be "real" just not true (but then, you really don't want the truth, just for your truth to be real). If you don't already know what they're teaching, then it ain't worth learning. And you thought that after all that hard work, it finally belonged to "you" (sorry, bro, we're all in this together, cause although "you" are certainly "real" you're just not true).

Let me put it to you in a different way:

Nothing “you” experience is a part of “oneness,” because "oneness" is not a 'part' of anything. You won't find the whole in the parts, but the parts are in the whole. See parts and, rest assured, you have missed the whole. Duh!

The ego is incredibly brilliant in the ways it seeks to avoid others in an attempt to find itself and the “I AM” is probably the most subtle.

"I AM not speaking to any 'body'.
I AM not speaking to any 'mind'.
I AM speaking to THAT I AM that I AM,
to that PRESENCE AWARENESS,
that expresses through the mind as the thought I AM.
Just THIS and NOTHING else."
(Sailor Bob)

In your egoic state, negate other bodies and you automatically negate other minds. But then, who will help you find "the promise land"? Do “you” know the way to enlightenment (or just the way to San Jose?) You are your own savior? Just “I AM” and nothing else?

How convenient!

Thank God you don’t have to rely on anyone else! Just think... what if your "awakening" was contingent on everybody else awakening with you? Now that would suck and make all your hard work and sacrifice a fools errand.

Good thing "you" know the way to San Jose, cause enlightenment ain't on the map.

"Do you know the way to San Jose

I’ve been away so long

I may go wrong and lose my way

Do you know the way to San Jose

I’m goin’ back to find

Some peace of mind in San Jose"

"LA is a great big freeway

Put a hundred down and buy a car

In a week, maybe two, they’ll make you a star

Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass

And all the stars that never were

Are parkin’ cars and pumpin’ gas"

"You can really breathe in San Jose

They’ve got a lot of space

There’ll be a place where I can stay

I was born and raised in San Jose

I’m goin’ back to find

Some peace of mind in San Jose"

"Fame and fortune is a magnet

It can pull you far away from home

With a dream in your heart you’re never alone

Dreams turn into dust and blow away

And there you are without a friend

You pack your car and ride away"

"I’ve got lots of friends in San Jose

Do you know the way to San Jose"

(Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick)


(Image by 'Libby')