Closed Boxes in a Zombie World

Time constructs, while at the same time stripping away. Over time, we meticulously construct concepts of one another that strip away the possibility of awakening together.

You have constructed egoic concepts of those you profess to ‘love' and they conform like clockwork and from these concepts you believe you ‘know’ them.

How could they be any different than what you think they are?

Even when they seek to escape your conceptual boxes, you find a way to box them in by determining which box their attempted escape conforms to.

There is always a box available. The problem is that the same boxes used to contain others are also used to define your ‘self.' You cannot transcend your 'self' and still keep 'them' in boxes.

We are all victim to our conceptual boxes and this perpetuates self-containment and stifles freedom. In order to free your ‘self’ you must free others from your constructs. This is what was meant by “thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself.” By freeing them, you simultaneously free yourself.

The ‘world’ you experience is full of conceptual strangers, even those you do not ‘know,’ easily fit your boxes. You have determined that “happiness” is only available when the world conforms to your conception and you experience your world from that box.

All your concepts have been learned from the past so as to predict a future. This is why we compulsively repeat the past and why wars never end and peace is only a pipe dream.

Not to fit a box means it is unknown and the ego-self fears what it cannot predict. Sadly, this is why you have become predictable even to yourself, since fear of uncertainty has resulted in a neatly packaged self-concept that rarely sways from its original design (core beliefs).

The world is waiting for you to break free of your predictions and experience the infinite. How else can it be saved?

But, you believe that if you cannot ‘predict’ me, you cannot know me. Unfortunately, this is why you fail to know yourself and fear your own infinite capabilities. Once you find the right box for me (no matter how hard I might try to escape containment), my actions will confirm your judgments. If you cannot fit me into a box, something must be wrong with me.

But not to worry, there’s a box for that too.

Predicting my actions is paramount to our continued relationship, no matter how shallow and surface oriented we become. In this same way, "I" define “you” and the tangled webs we weave have been predicted long before we meet and are based solely on an egoic obsession with the past.

There is no intimacy in boxes.

Intimacy contained and stuffed into concepts obviously stifles Deep Spirit. Contained intimacy is NO intimacy, even though we may delude ourselves into thinking that “this is love.”

If your relationships are stifled, then find your boxes and open them. This not only frees your mind, but also the ones you have chosen to love. Love cannot be contained or limited and is impossible without intimacy, or the deep understanding that dissolves our strangeness and closes the gap between us.

The world is an infinite spectrum of experiences demanding to be shared.

If you box me into your concepts you suffer through your own self-containment and this not only disengages you from others, but from your world as well. Your world needs to experience the freedom of awakening through and with another, because your experience of a ‘world’ is entirely contingent on the experiences of others. “You" could not experience existence without "them." But you fear them and they fear you and therefore, all experiences are finite and limited.

Change is joyfully invigorating to an "existence" that realizes itself as infinite. But then, why do we seek to contain it in finite boxes? When will we choose to open our boxes and experience the infinite fields?

Your ego-self was constructed to anticipate events through inaccurate predictions so that preparations could be made (constructing boxes) to insure self-preservation. This capacity serves you well in preparing for things that might cause actual harm and we have learned effective means of insuring physical safety.

Yet, a problem occurs when insuring safety becomes an imperative for the egoic self-concept. Now you must predict my actions and behaviors to protect your own self-concept. Self-preservation demands fear and stifles intimacy. But, I must do the same, because in the past we have made mistakes in judgment resulting in attack. Although you extend an illusion of forgiveness, memory is impacted and you have now boxed me in for the sake of future self-preservation. And so continues the gradual erosion that affects all relationships and maintains a world of strangers bored with the mundane and tedious experience of ‘living’ from boxes.

In our mutual boxes, we have isolated ourselves and this is the ‘zombie world’ we experience; boxed in, frightened and disengaged. The world is an experience within you, don’t box it in by containing others. To free your mind you must extract from your experience the predictions you superimpose upon others, because living from boxes cannot set you free.

Open your conceptual boxes and prepare for the 'Surprise' that deep intimacy brings. It is a surprise that illuminates a shared world and is the only way we can save it.

The Two Gods We All Worship

There are two “Gods” on your mind. The God of Crucifixion indicts you as guilty, while the God of Resurrection immediately acquits you of all guilt, forever.

The God of Crucifixion demands you suffer for your redemption. This God requires sacrifice and the only acceptable sacrifice… is you.

The God of Crucifixion requires that you sacrifice your life for “The Truth” and that you endure many years of suffering so you may finally ‘awaken’… before you 'die.'

However, the God of Resurrection demands no sacrifice in God’s name and teaches that there is NO “death” and thus, no suffering. This conflicts with the God of Crucifixion, because crucifixion claims that 'death' is a fact of 'life' that only a fool would deny.

The God of Crucifixion is the God of guilt and only the guilty feel called upon to sacrifice in order to meet God’s standards. This is why they must endlessly atone for their guilt. Yet, they can never be certain as to exactly what they are guilty of. Nevertheless, the God of Crucifixion assures them that they are all guilty and so they struggle mightily under this burden their entire 'life' (although, many do sometimes wonder if it is truly worth "living" this way).

The God of Resurrection pleads for your innocence in a meaningless world, because what you are guilty of cannot be ‘true.’ That’s because you made the world true, NOT God. All you need do is surrender your "truth" and claim innocence. Only those who know they are innocent are truly free.

The God of Crucifixion demands you be victim to time and so, you must struggle to make each moment count, before it’s too late. This makes ‘time’ an extremely valuable commodity that must be preserved at all costs. Otherwise, you merely waste your time.

The God of Resurrection is infinite and thus, a million years can be experienced in a moment and a moment in a million years. No sacrifice is necessary to what cannot suffer, because what does not suffer must have given up the belief in “death.” Life is lived infinitely by those unaware of time, but for all others, death makes time desperately meaningful.

The God of Crucifixion demands your guilt because you were born wrong (sin) and there’s little you can do to make that right (redemption) and so you must be guilty. In a world of right and wrong, some are punished so that others may be redeemed. A world of crucifixion is nothing more than a 'place' to separate the righteous from the damned.

Which are you?

The God of Resurrection makes no such distinctions, because a world of right and wrong could not possibly have been created by God. What was NOT created could NOT possibly exist, unless you invent it. Your world is full of inventors, but no creators.

The innocent cannot worship the God of Crucifixion. Therefore, to realize your guilt, you must see guilt in everyone else. The God of Crucifixion demands you seek vengeance for all the potential that was taken from you by those who sacrifice to the God of Crucifixion.

The God of Resurrection is aware only of innocence. To know the God of Resurrection you must realize your own innocence. The only way for you to realize your own innocence, is to be aware of the innocence in others. There is no other way.

The God of Crucifixion is only experienced through the body, because physical form is your highest, and only, calling (until death do you part). The God of Crucifixion demands that you learn what the body teaches, so that you too, can experience the pain and suffering sacrifice demands.

For the God of Resurrection, the body certainly ‘exists.’ That is, until you change what it means, which changes how it exists for you. Resurrection teaches that only the mind can create and the only purpose of the body is to facilitate that learning and nothing else.

The God of Crucifixion is above and beyond you and demands the ancient rights of sacrifice so that you may finally transcend your inadequacy and ignorance and 'know' God. The priests of crucifixion teach that you must sacrifice in order to obtain your just reward, because, "how can you have any pudding, if you don't eat your meat."

The God of Resurrection is unified with and indivisible from you. God is always right before your eyes (when you no longer seek sacrifice). You need do nothing to resurrect, because everything that could be ‘done’ only attests to the God of Crucifixion, who requires many sacred and profound acts be performed first.

Look around at your world, because what you 'see' determines the God you worship.

What do you see?

The Healed Moment of Vertical Time

A healed moment is one in which you have escaped from the concepts of your mind, which imprison others and cause you to suffer because they fail to meet your criteria. The concepts are still there, but they cease to capture you based on what you demand from others and the 'world.'

We could say that in a healed moment the 'world' still exists. However, you no longer experience yourself as its victim because of how you now ‘see’ it and others in it.

When two or more share perfect equality, in a ‘world’ of confusing hierarchies, levels and degrees, time is experienced as vertical and not horizontal.

This does not negate ‘time’ just allows it to be realized from a Deep Spirit perspective. Vertical time takes up no space and everything needed is contained in one moment and experienced in one moment. But it cannot be experienced alone, since that continually reestablishes the incompletion of your autonomous egocentric identity, which continues to require time and space, or horizontal time, for which to achieve its completion.

A healed moment is entirely absent of all conflict, because there is no right or wrong for which to distinguish needs. A perspective that emphasizes lack or deficiency seeks to blame the world for what is lacking in the belief that what is needed must be found in the 'world.' This is always cause for conflict and is why all true 'awakenings' involve the world. No one awakens alone, because "it takes a village" to teach and learn fear.

Therefore, only a collective can awaken to its own unified completion in order to end all fear and conflict for its members. This literally alters the physical landscape because space/time is useless to those who need nothing because they experience NO lack or deficiency.

If you experience a world of lack and deficiency, make no mistake, that experience is entirely 'within' you and is not contingent on an external world and in no way related to anyone but your ‘self.’ However, dissolving that experience must involve another; otherwise, it only serves to reinforce your egoic construct of autonomous fear. The ego will always fear what it experiences as apart from itself and this is why you often experience the world as a very fearful ‘place’ to be.

Examine closely any problem you experience and you will understand the causal interdependency of collective consciousness. All conflict must involve another and every individual problem is intricately interrelated to your experience of a world full of other minds interacting with yours. This is because every problem you experience comes from a lack and the ego will always recognize what it lacks based on what it believes others HAVE.

Did you find the “soul mate” who will finally complete you? Did you seek your completion through another only to find that they could not give you what you lacked, even though you perceived them as having what you needed? Does someone you 'love' reinforce your lack by what they have? Are they withholding from you because they believe you withhold from them? Do you really have what they need?

The ego seeks to claim from others what it lacks in itself and this is often misinterpreted as complementarity. Unfortunately, the ego that fails to access Deep Spirit will fail to realize the futility of such a search and only continue searching more persistently.

You lack nothing. However, the ego-self is nothing more than a belief in lack and everyone who has what you need, also wants what you have, because lack and need is how an ego-self defines “love.”

A healed moment experiences no lack because, in desiring to see another as complete, you immediately experience your own completion. In fully trusting another, you trust yourself. In seeking to experience perfect peace with another, perfect peace becomes yours and an experience of perfect peace is a healed moment of vertical time.

Although a healed moment is an experience of perfect peace through unified equality, the commitment to time returns. Nevertheless, the desire for another breathe of infinity is irresistible and you will seek out others for which to share in it. This results in an increase that exponentially magnifies its effects in the world each and every time it is shared.

The only resistance encountered is by those who still wish to awaken alone and pursue a continuance of that autonomy.

But resistance to truth is a futile endeavor and merely delays time. The non-dualism of unified atonement is an unbreakable chain that grows with the linking of each 'individual' mind and this provides an experience of accelerating time. You cannot know what is rapidly approached, but you feel it is ultimately momentous and profound and this feeling is always available when experiencing from Deep Spirit.

Therefore, since it is only a matter of ‘time,’ why delay?

More Egoic 'Do-Do' from the Enlightened Master of Bullshit

The question respectfully posed is “Out of curiosity, is there a goal attached to dispelling all indoctrinated conditioning and beliefs? What would the world be like, in your opinion?”

Obviously, to an ego-self writing these essays, a goal is assumed, no matter how mightily the writer may wish to assert being goal-free or egoless. Every post on this ‘blog’ has some degree of conditioned belief due to the very fact that “I” am conveying some sense of meaning to “you,” which must always rely on what was learned from the past, since that’s “where” I come from (as do you).

Therefore, I could never convey any sense of "The Unconditioned" (serious stuff), other than to say that it will be a delightful 'surprise' beyond anything you or I could possibly conceive (obviously, since all conceived is conditioned). But, alas, my friends, even that expression is conditioned from the past and should be blatantly ignored.

There have been many reports of breaks with reality or the “reality orientation model” that we seek to be free of. Unfortunately, these are conventionally interpreted (through that same model) as insanity or “enlightenment.” We disregard insanity, yet, you will find such "enlightenment" interpretations all throughout the internet, usually beginning with “because Buddha said….”

Most of the spiritual 'doers' teach you to “discipline” your thinking. Ha! Discipline?! As one who spent 6 years active, in the United States Marine Corps, discipline facilitates many types of thought processes, but “Awakening” is not one of them.

Nevertheless, notice how many modern masters rely on previous teachings, as if the past was in any way valuable. This is done in order to assert credibility (because only the credible can win finite “awakening” games), as if somebody named “Buddha” actually existed.

Buddha says: "Get down and give me twenty, maggot!”

So what would the world look like if there was no “truth”? This is because truth doesn’t exist until you make it up. It doesn’t ‘exist’ and has never existed and, therefore, it cannot be found and there’s nothing “you” can do to find it. Therefore, "truth" can be anything you want it to be...

... and it's always what you expect.

Whoa! I just lost 1000 readers! Damn, how will I ever make divine, superconscious, “master” grade, unless I can drum up the required credibility.

You demand techniques from ideologies and I come along to inform that it’s all friggin’ bullshit (which negates my credibility and any chances of attaining the coveted title of 'awakened"). All of it and, yes, even this, is bullshit. In fact, in contrast to your "Enlightened Master," I’m the "Master of Bullshit" so ignore all the 'do-do' I prescribe.

You (ego-self) need to ‘know’ the facts and so you seek out the proprietors of truth who specifically delineate a prescribed “path” or a ‘way’ that always involves ‘doing’ something and the ego must do-do all over the place in order to feel meaningful.

If you keep demanding this 'shit,' they will keep providing it.

This 'opinion' goes against the conventional pop-spirituality views and it is why this blog will soon be resigned to disintegration, simply because it deviates from the spiritual status-quo (I sense it is fading away even now). The ego demands a plan, but this blog asserts that there’s nothing “you” can do to find truth. Yet, only when “you” finish up all your ‘doing’ will you realize that nothing needed to be done. Isn’t it wonderful to “know” that “you” need do nothing to find truth, simply because there’s nothing you can do? But is that the “truth”?

Absolutely NOT!

Simply because that makes absolutely no sense to an ego-self determined to 'know.' So go ahead, homeboy, “crack that whip!” Make “truth” happen!

Crack that whip
Give the past the slip
Step on a crack
Break your mommas back

When a problem comes along
You must whip it
Before the cream sits out too long
You must whip it
When somethings going wrong
You must whip it

Now whip it
Into shape
Shape it up
Get straight
Go forward
Move ahead
Try to detect it

Its not too late
To whip it
Whip it good

When a good time turns around
You must whip it
You will never live it down
Unless you whip it
No one gets away
Until they whip it

Now whip it
Into shape
Shape it up
Get straight
Go forward
Move ahead
Try to detect it
Its not too late

To whip it
Whip it good

(Devo)

Hey You! Who Do You Think "You" Are, Anyway?

You pride yourself on the delusion of being uniquely individual. Obviously, you get real angry at the suggestion that you’re nothing but a trained monkey in a cage and your core identity was manufactured in childhood through extensive conditioning that you had no choice in. But then, anger was learned as well.

Yet, you do believe you’ve made crucial choices in the sculpting of your 'self.' but this is also a delusion, since all choices were made from the same social menu we all choose from.

Nevertheless, any later additions to your self that you ‘chose,’ pale in comparison to the core personae, which was not your choice at all. In this sense, your “individuality” is an illusion and your 'uniqueness' nothing more than a fantasy, not even of your choosing.

So, can it really be "you" in there?

All of this insures the perpetuation of the collective order. Your values conform to that order and not to replicate conformity in the manufacture of personalities is to generate an eventual collapse of the collective order. This collective arrangement (which you agree to) insures that you stay put and any delusion of 'transcendence' reinforces that you are "here" and serves to keep you firmly in place (all warm and comfy, no doubt).

In other words, everything about “you” has been taught and learned and nothing is uniquely free of conditioning. And so continues the ancient hatreds and fears, as well as the ephemeral pleasures and joys, that you've inherited from your parents as they inherited from their parents and theirs before them and so on and so on, etc, etc, etc.

Deviance from this is frequently attempted, but only within the approved boundaries, simply because deviance is helpful in reinforcing collective order.

In fact, many cultures are adopting the western individualistic paradigm of competition, thereby, manufacturing a global cultural homogenization of conforming to the collective delusion of individual “uniqueness" or "me" before "us."

This is inevitable because the collective must remain joined in delusion in order to stay convinced of their separateness (even though we are all the same). So, go ahead have your “awakening” and your “enlightenment,” and continue playing the serious games that have always been played. Follow the rules like good boys and girls, because the games never end.

Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that what we seek to transcend, through the various religio-spiritual “enlightenment” ideologies (and their attached sacred paths of "peace and love") is nothing more than the social conditioning that we have been indoctrinated into and held captive by. But, make no mistake, your path to enlightenment comes from the same social menu from which all conventions are derived. These are the same old song and dance routines that have entertained us since time began.

It’s all the same shit, just a different day.

Yet, you were trained to take pride in who "you" are as a person and demand others recognize and applaud your unique ‘individuality, which, of course leads to higher ‘self-esteem.’ It is rather disappointing to consider that the self we take pride in, is nothing but a conditioned amalgamation, or composite, of the learned values of childhood social conditioning.

We can always expand the intellect, but the core egoic personality (belief system) is virtually unchangeable and the core self remains intact until death do you part. It seems that without a more intrinsic change the intellect will continue to fail us as it always has.

So how much of “you” is really you and how much is nothing more than conditioned responses based on early childhood socialization? It’s not just mom and dad, but all the institutions that shaped your personality or ‘self’ (who you ‘think’ you are) by indoctrinating you into the dominant system of values.

Are you even aware of who you really are, absent the indoctrinated beliefs that anchor you to social convention, demanding you take the games seriously by playing by the rules?

Essentially, we’re not seeking to awaken to some grandiose 'godhead,' or transcend into some whimsical nirvanic state of heavenly bliss. No, actually you’re simply trying to get free of collective hell by stripping away all the layers of delusional beliefs that collective indoctrination has burdened you with and that you have inadvertently passed onto your children in the belief that they can’t possibly thrive (or even survive) without them.

You live your “life” by perpetuating a “story” that you believe is uniquely your own. But this is delusional, since it was never “your” story to begin with.

Hey you, out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old
Can you feel me?
Hey you, standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles
Can you feel me?

Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light
Don't give in without a fight.

Hey you, out there on your own

Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with your ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?

Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I'm coming home.

But it was only fantasy.
The wall was too high,
As you can see.
No matter how he tried,
He could not break free.
And the worms ate into his brain.

Hey you, standing in the road always doing what you're told,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall,
Breaking bottles in the hall,
Can you help me?

Hey you, don't tell me there's no hope at all

Together we stand, divided we fall.
(Pink Floyd)

Invasion of the Truth Snatchers

Whenever I'm informed that there's some important distinction that must be made, some profound idea that need be known, my first response is to minimize the importance. This is often seen as my being an unbelieving contrarian. Yet, for me, "important," "profound," "significant," "necessary," "must," "have to," etc, etc, merely signify serious rules somebody made up in order to win the game. In order to win, you must take the rules seriously, because if nobody takes the rules seriously, how can anybody win the game?


So what game are you seriously seeking to win through serious rules? "awakening," "non-duality," "enlightenment"?

Whatever you think you know, doubt it. Unless, of course, it's "important" that you know?

There is a freedom in doubting everything your ego informs you must be true. This does NOT have to interrupt your games and merely serves as a conduit to more deeply engaged play. This is not only helpful to the "awakening" or "enlightenment" games, but also in the numerous life games you engage in with the hope of injecting meaning into the meaningless or creating something out of nothing.

In playing life games, seriousness can lead to mental disorders. Just look at all the current economic-based suicides as the wealth game suddenly becomes meaningless (as if it ever was meaningful). But then, mental disorders are also a game that we think we must play because we have no choice. Therefore, like the wealth games, we take it very seriously.

How many games do you play in which you feel you must play and, therefore, must play seriously? As if I were to take this blog seriously (although there are alot of serious bloggers out there).

However, this does not mean that you can't seek truth (that's a game too!), only that doubt protects you from getting fixated on 'serious rules' that somebody, who has snatched up "truth," calls "The Truth."

You see, "truth" is the trap, not your doubt. Discovering an end to your doubt is like finding an end to infinity, as if truth were finite. Do you really believe there is something you can actually 'do' to get "The Truth," some path you can follow, some ideology you can memorize. Sure, all that leads to 'knowing' something, but probably not truth. However, feel free to doubt that, too.

You can certainly play with other theories of "truth" in the belief that they bring you closer to truth, but closer to truth is your only reward and, of course, that's not truth now is it? Accept anything as "The Truth" and you merely accept a delay, because eventually you will discard your acceptance and move on… and on and on and on....

Even though you'd like to see an end, there is no end in sight nor will there ever be. Truth is an infinite game. But not to worry, you won't be penalized for "delay of game," simply because time does not matter. Recognize that you WILL never stop playing and have fun playing infinitely.

You can’t get stuck in doubt. Your doubt simply keeps the game in play because your not fixated on this or that "truth." In some way, we all play the "Game of Awakening," simply because we doubt we “know,” and we deeply want to know and seek out the rules to 'get' it. This makes finding "truth" a finite game and all finite games have an outcome so that someone can be declared the winner.

Whenever somebody informs you that they 'know' the truth, or the 'way' to truth, I would advise you to head for the hills as fast as you can. Otherwise, you too, may become a 'Truth Snatcher' and they're everywhere these days. Turn over any rock and, sure enough, you'll find somebody preaching "The Truth"

Proclaim that you “know” and, in that serious moment, you have applied rules to the game, because to know is to assert a direction based on that “knowing.” Once you assert a particular direction, you then automatically cancel out other directions or outcomes (as if there were a specific direction to truth)

Actually, that's called “religion.”

I used to envy the ‘Truth Snatchers,’ who somehow have miraculously dug up truth from where it never was, but I realize I could never be one, because I'm a 'doubter.' Unfortunately, this doesn’t get me many friends and I’ve been asked to leave numerous groups of Truth Snatchers because of my incessant, confounding doubt (READ: "pain in the ass") and Truth Snatchers don't doubt. This is because, for most folks doubt perpetuates an unknown factor and that sucks, because we want, more than anything, to know the truth and thus, knowing is considered the only positive resolution to doubt. So we seek out the 'Truth Snatchers' in the desire to resolve our doubt.

Do you really think anyone in your world knows anything more than you? Ha!

But what if truth is merely infinite doubt? Seems to me the drive-to-question (hyphenated to signify unity) is the one thing that never ends and if truth is infinite, why should it?

The world has been invaded by Truth Snatchers. Feel free to play along with them, but only to further stimulate your drive-to-question and the glorious doubt that fuels it.

It Doesn't Matter to an Infinite Player

One of the most ineffable “spiritual” realizations you will eventually stumble upon (not by choice, however) is that nothing you can think of matters. This is because everything your mind currently holds is entirely relative to your ego-self and, therefore, meaningless.

As a result, every image, thought, feeling, behavior, action, etc, cannot possibly matter.

Alas, most fear to consider this idea and so, the same “meaningful” ideas are repeated over and over again, ad nauseam, without the slightest nick in time. You ‘know’ what you were taught to know and nothing more than that.

Fortunately for you, nothing you ‘know’ matters or is the least bit meaningful (which is true of everything on this blog).

Because if nothing matters, then everything is meaningless and every choice you make is as meaningless as any other. Finally, you're off the hook for all the stupid things you've done in the past, simply because doing anything other than what you did is as meaningless as what you remember doing.

In fact, if everything is meaningless, you no longer need to choose between what is important and what is not and, make no mistake, that is the egos only purpose. Take away the egos purpose and what do you have? No meaning and nothing matters.

You say: “but if nothing matters, then I should just sit on my rump all day and do nothing?”

You could sit and "do nothing," but in choosing to do so, you have then made that choice meaningful which places you in opposition to the choice to do otherwise.

It’s not a question of doing or not doing, but a question of the meaning, or value, that determines what you do or do not do. I merely suggest that both doing and not doing are equally meaningless and do not matter. So go ahead, continue ‘doing’ everything you do now, simply recognize that everything you do, or do not do, has no meaning and does not matter.

You say, “but if I don’t eat I will die.”

So eat! Just recognize that it’s meaningless and does not matter (we'll get to the concept of 'death,' shortly). But be careful, because if you choose NOT to eat, then not eating would instantly become meaningful and matter (this has been tried numerous times). The point is that nothing is meaningful nor does anything matter. Choose NOT to do something you ordinarily do and that choice becomes as meaningful as was the choice to do it.

“but if I don’t go to work, how will I pay my bills?”

By all means, go to work, just recognize that work is meaningless, as are paying bills (I’m sure you'll agree).

Actually, this is not a nihilistic perspective, simply because truth IS very meaningful and does matter. Only “you” (or that which you identify as ‘self’) have no idea what truth is.

Therefore, how can “you” possibly know the difference between what matters and what does not? (although the world reflects unequivocally that we ‘think’ we do). Until you can dissociate from what does not matter, you will most likely not know truth and nothing "you" know matters in the least.

This is because, TRUTH IS NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN CHOOSE.

But you say: “So death does not matter?”

Death is the keystone of all choices and, out of everything that you consider meaningful, death matters most and you will do whatever necessary to avoid it. The problem is that the only experience you have of death is actually not death at all, but 'grief' from the death of others who are meaningful to you and matter. You have not experienced your own death (assuming that you’re reading this) and thus have no idea what it is your avoiding.

Nevertheless, that’s the meaning you give it (avoidance) and therefore, avoiding death makes life really meaningful and matter a whole lot.

You say: “so I should just go ahead commit suicide?” Once again, you could choose to die, but this does not nullify or change the meaning of death in any way. It merely asserts that life was not worth living, which makes death matter more simply because life mattered less.

We could state the inverse and claim that everything matters and is meaningful (which many of the non-dualists 'love' expressing). Unfortunately, from this perspective, the ego-self manufactures seemingly infinite levels and degrees of meaning and this is exactly the type of relative ‘world’ you currently experience as ‘meaningful.’

From this perspective there can be no void of meaning, from which truth can be availed, only an ongoing array of relative choices that you feel forced to choose from, even though what is ‘chosen’ could never be truth, because truth is not a choice. However, you actually believe that some choices are better than others and thereby, make the absurd assertion that ‘you’ know truth.

You say: “So my choosing to commit murder is equal to my choosing to save someone from a burning building?”

This hierarchical value system, that we all seem to share, merely asserts that you have chosen life over death, as if you knew the difference. This only reinforces the contrast between them, because it is the choice for “life” that automatically makes death an option. If life had no meaning and did not matter, what would be the point of death? How could there be “murder”? If life was not meaningfully lived in avoidance of death, life would be lived remarkably different than you now live it. You fear death and, therefore, life matters (whether it does or not is a moot point).

The infinite player recognizes that the games we play in ‘life’ don’t matter, but can be played quite well from that meaningless vantage point, since we don't have to fear the meaningless. In fact, when the outcomes of our games no longer matter, playing them is less of a struggle because we are free from making choices based on relative meaning and not truth.

Finite players demand the need to choose so that the games matter, while infinite players find meaning in NOT choosing because any choice is as meaningful as another. Any game is as good as another whether you’re playing at being a international banker or the school janitor. Each is as meaningful as the other, simply because all are meaningless.

The finite player demands that what he does matters and, thus, the 'right' outcomes are very meaningful to him. Therefore, when he fails to achieve the desired outcome, suffering is the result, but only because the outcome mattered. If it didn’t matter how could he suffer?

Paradoxically, the infinite player can embrace everything equally, simply because no one aspect of experience matters more than any other. There is NO uncertainty or doubt (fear) in that perspective and, thus, you become free of fear and fear is the only obstacle to truth.

However, keep in mind, whether you choose to be an infinite player or finite player, in the games of life, it really doesn’t matter...

...in the end.

HA!
mikeS

Dissolving the Conditions of Fear

The most incredible joy you will ever experience is in relationship with others.

But you doubt that this is true.

The ‘self’ can invent all manner of experiences for which to extract an exclusive, individual sense of satisfaction and pleasure for itself. But let’s make no mistake, any solitary satisfactions are ephemeral and based in fear.

The ‘self’ was constructed through interaction and engagement with others, although you think of it exclusively as ‘you’ and, therefore, have found it easy to deny this cooperative exchange.

"I don't really fear other people," you say, "I just don't trust them very much."

Ah... and so begins your self-reliance, as if you conceived your 'self' out of thin air and thus, need not rely on anyone but yourself to transcend that which "you" made. Unfortunately, this is delusional. "They" made "you" as you made them, and neither faction will give up so easily.

Nobody leaves alone.

The ‘self-concept’ is a creature of the world and cannot exist without that correspondence. Your belief system has been constructed in direct correlation with those who share in constructing the experiences of a 'world.' Quite simply, the self looks to others as reference for its own 'self-construct,' because we share in everything (by the way, who taught you that you could "transcend" the 'self'?).

Yet, the ego-self must deny this in fear for its very 'existence.'

So get ahead, hunker down on your cushion for a long meditation in seeking self-transcendence. Is that your goal? Maybe "we" will let you transcend your 'self' (but I doubt it). Ha!

Do you really think "you" can leave without "us"?

One of the chief ingredients of every self-concept, and that which we all share equally, is fear. Relationships conditioned by fear eventually wither and die (and thus, we're constantly seeking the means of 'resurrecting' our "love" from the dead). Fear stunts growth and impedes evolving consciousness, because it demands conditions, or limits, be imposed.

An enlightened perspective is absent all fear and naturally extends from unconditioned consciousness. Fear demands conditions be fortified against fear and those conditions are what we superimpose upon our relationships (and then wonder why our relationships suck).

Deep Spirit engagement is stifled by conditions, but rarely do we engage the world, others and ourselves without conditions. Failure to engage others from Deep Spirit, causes our experiences to become desensitized, blunted and apathetic. This is why so many become numb, and immune to joy in the "declining years", as the ego’s conditions have walled off Deep Spirit engagement almost entirely, allowing only the fear of death to predominate.

Nevertheless, even engaging with others from Deep Spirit will automatically predispose one to egoic fear.

There have been times in your life when you have engaged with others from this deep well of unconditioned awareness. However, most likely the engagement was brief, as the ego quickly clamped down on the mind, imposing conditions, thereby, squelching the intense freedom within the experience. This is called 'being in the moment' and, contrary to your guru, you cannot avail it alone.

The authentic guru can facilitate an end to conditions, but if he/she cannot unconditionally reciprocate in the exchange, neither will touch the joy of unlimited freedom.

The ego-self fears Deep Spirit engagement, simply because such engagement requires absolutely nothing from an ego-self. It comes from a natural space of consciousness that identifies with no concepts and is intricately unified with others and the world.

There are very few moments in your life in which identification with your ego-self is nonexistent. However, in corresponding with Deep Spirit, dissociation from the ego is experienced and the experience is utterly intoxicating. Nevertheless, in order to engage with Deep Spirit, another 'self' is required because it cannot be accessed alone (sorry...).

Although brief, such an experience is rarely forgotten, although it can remain dormant for many years and, for some, may never again see the light of day. The brevity of the experience is associated with a fear of self-annihilation or the loss of self. Becoming unified with your experience of another, directly threatens your egoic identity and the ego-self will forcefully resist by quickly inserting conditions upon the exchange. Conditions are always the result of fear. Conditions assert an autonomous ‘self’ in opposition to other selves, all competing for control and dominance.

Very simply, two or more can agree to engage without condition and, thus, relate without fear. Such a mutual goal demands peace be the underlying foundation. The conditions of fear must always create conflict and, whether between nations or loved ones, conflict will eventually result in war.

You can come from a different place in all your relationships if you so choose. However, you must choose, otherwise the ego will always choose for you, because the ego always comes from the past.

To relate without condition is not a difficult as it would seem. Recognize that all conflict is born from conditions determined by your individual egoic fear. Simply admit this to each other and allow Deep Spirit to rise up and gradually dissolve egoic conditions.

Deep Spirit engagement is known for its excruciating honesty, since all reasons for hiding, or concealment, is dissolved, along with the fear that commands concealment. Deep Spirit, when fully realized, has no conditions whatsoever and is an experience of "perfect peace."

Between two or more 'individuals' no other experience comes close to the freedom of letting go of your conditions, or "perfect peace," in mutual engagement. It is the most natural joy one could ever encounter and many have described this ineffable feeling with the label of “enlightenment,” while others believe it a correspondence with God.