You Don't Hate Me...You Hate Your Concept of "Me"

The world reflects the consequences of fearful avoidance and your relationship a microcosmic reflection of that macro-world.

Your ego-self is the package of beliefs that determines and defines" you." Many of the beliefs that compose this package are beneficial to you, many are not. Unfortunately, we tend to plod through life rarely stopping to consider what beliefs actually result in this mundane plodding. We tend to live our lives in default and our "love" relationships reflect this zombie-like existence.

One belief that is particularly damaging to relationships is that of avoidance. In avoiding conflict with others, you believe that your experience of conflict will also be diminished. Out of sight - out of mind.

All conflict is composed of what occurs outside your experience, and your actual inner experience of that conflict. It may be beneficial if you make this distinction as well, since your experience of the actual conflict is certainly different, and most likely opposed, to what another experiences and both may be opposed to what is actually occurring.

But how would you know since, caught up in your experience of suffering, it is your internal experience that becomes your WORLD (or reality). This is because the "world" is nothing more than an inner experience. So much happens 'under-the-radar' that, unless experiences are deeply understood, we become alien to one another (I love when people try to tell me what the "reality" of the situation is. HA!).

Is there a world outside your mind? Why that’s ridiculous, of course there is.

Ahh... but all you have to go on is your experience and often experiences are diametrically opposed and they will easily become opposed IF they are NOT shared (in fact, this seems to be the natural course).

"I'm not really sure who you are, so I'll just fill-in the blanks and make you what I think you are"

If you refuse to share your experience then, make no mistake, you will remain in two different, diametrically opposed, “worlds” and you will both be strangers to one another. Alienation results from the avoidance of sharing your experience, no matter how uncomfortable such sharing might be, over a gradually longer period of time.

Avoidance erodes, sharing evolves….you can't have both.

The longer this avoidance is perpetuated, the more FEAR you will accumulate about sharing, because sharing your world with a stranger (what the "loved" one has become) is always an anxious experience. So, why deal with such discomfort, just close down, right?

When you don’t know someone, you can’t predict their responses and your egoic self-concept does not interact very well with the unknown. The ego loves to predict and so shuts itself off from SURPRISE.

Essentially many egos have never truly engaged in intimacy with their own self-concept (internal belief system), let alone become intimate with someone else’s self-concept. In deeply understanding 'them,' you come to know yourself. For some folks that can be a scary process.

Yet, alas, this is why we have wars and clearly when minds fail to join through the sharing of 'world' experiences, strangers come to fear one another even within the self-created hell of 'love' relationships.

Sharing your experience of your own personal world is INTIMACY and when you come to deeply understand my 'experience,' and I understand yours, my 'inside' becomes more available to love... as does yours. This is an infinite process of self-mutualization.

So why avoid conflict? What are you protecting? Are you afraid of “fighting”?

I cringe when folks use that term “fighting.” No doubt that when you attack me, you make a stranger out of me, because your attack demonstrates that YOU DON”T KNOW ME. Therefore, did you ever? Contrary to pop psychology, you don't attack the one's you love. Therefore, if you are attacking, the question becomes, is there really love?

But if you don’t know me then what are you really attacking, me or your concept of me?

Obviously, if we have regularly avoided sharing our experience of the world with one another, then clearly you no longer KNOW ME, if you ever did. Contrary to the ego's past tenuous attempts at sharing, we now live in different 'worlds.'

If you no longer know me then you will simply fill in the blanks that may have materialized from our alienation of one another, due to our mutual avoidance of sharing our 'worlds.' In your mind you will conceptualize me as NOT what I am, but as what you decide I am, based on what your ego-self needs me to be. If your ego-self attacks me, then clearly you have made me a stranger.

But will you even try to share your ‘filled-in’ experience of me. Nope, you’ll keep it to yourself, but you will avoid me based on that self-created experience of “me," resulting in us both constructing concepts of one another that have no basis in truth whatsoever. This is the definition of "alone together."

In this process ‘love’ is a lie, simply because it has no basis in truth, just made up mental concepts.

I meet people that live out this lie their whole lives. The longer we avoid sharing our experience of one another out of fear, the larger that fear grows in consciousness. Of course, your fears are justified, just look at how awful your concept of me has become.

But is your concept of me, really me or just a mental picture you created to avoid me in the fear of having to face yourself? Because, if you ever truly get to know me, you will come face to face with YOU. Such is the discomfort of convergent unity. However, this 'discomfort' is based on a mistaken interpretation that has been lived out in millions of relationships. Make no mistake, when you first got together the goal was unity.

Then your ego took over...

So what's the goal now?

Artwork by Chris Peters - "Stranger in the Mirror"

The Ego’s “Rules of Awakening”

The ego-self has imposed rules to all your experiences and the first rule is that rules must NOT be rescinded, changed or ignored.

These rules, or laws, are nothing more than ‘rules of perception’ and they limit WHAT you perceive, because they restrict HOW you perceive. The rules of perception are experienced as “truth,” but are nothing more than false compromises with truth in order to gain greater comfort through spiritualized concepts of "truth."

Truth changes perception. Perception does NOT change truth.

The ego NEEDS to ‘exist’ and it will coddle and appease the mind by constructing unusual or “mystical” experiences and insist that such states of mind are “truth," as long as "existence" is insured.

For centuries individuals have experienced mystical states, then provided interpretations (egocentric) and often became revered as “masters of wisdom.” These ‘false compromises’ pervade modern life and continue to be defined as “truth.” Yet, they are nothing more than rules of perception that serve to compromise truth.

One compromise the ego makes is that you can awaken to truth and still remain a body.

Obviously, this is absurd, since the body dies and truth is infinite. But the ego must make such a compromise in order to maintain and reinforce existence. Therefore, anyone claiming enlightenment, but still acting in accord with a body (death) may have awakened to a mystical state, but certainly NOT truth. Why would an ego dissolved by truth, continue to demonstrate that sickness and death are true (which is what an ego believes as true)? Truth does not die or suffer and to perceive sickness and death is certainly not true and most likely a false egocentric rule of perception.

Truth changes everything.

Another compromise the ego makes is that, for “you” to awaken to truth the world need not change at all.

Although “you” have achieved your coveted reward of “awakening,” your perception still reveals a suffering world full of death and destruction. As if truth was made for you and you alone. A general guideline might be that, if you believe you have awakened to truth, but when you open your eyes and still see a world of death, then most likely your truth is nothing more than an egocentric rule of perception (camouflaged as a "mystical state").

Truth changes everything. NOT just parts of the whole, but the whole shebang.

Obviously, truth does NOT compromise with itself in order to make egos comfortable with what they perceive. You cannot look for truth, but you can perceive through truth, which literally changes what is perceived. If what you perceive before “awakening” is what you perceive after, then most likely you are perceiving through the ego, which adores and idolizes its relative versions of “truth,” which are nothing more than false compromises with truth.

Truth is the only ‘all or nothing’ game and the ego’s rules do not apply. Either we all win (know truth) or we all continue to perceive loss. It’s time to see the compromises for what they are, merely rules of perception. Even though it’s taken centuries to get to this point, it’s now time to finally declare that the emperor has NO clothes. No one knows truth until ALL do and when that happens, it will literally change everything...

…for everyone.

This is what you need to awaken to, because it is the means of transcending the ego’s “truth.”


Artwork by Michael Cheval - "Windmill of the Time

The “Ego” has Landed and Mother Maya is Happy

Our shared world seems to be rapidly deteriorating. This is a clear indication that, contrary to the numerous attempts at unification and mutual exchange, egocentric division, alienation and estrangement, are escalating globally.

A preponderance of evidence seems to demonstrate that, in fact, the ego has landed and all attempts to redirect the collective consciousness to dissociate from fear in a unified reconciliation seem to be fading.

South Korea recently announced that one of their warships was sunk by a North Korean torpedo and they are calling for severe consequences. North Korea denies, proclaiming that any consequences might precipitate all out war. In the meantime, President Obama has just sent a carrier fleet to reinforce troop and armament buildup along the borders of Iran, while still engaged in war with Iraq and Afghanistan. Worse yet, civil unrest and mass uprisings in Slovenia, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand, Greece, Spain, Ireland and now France, are beginning to build steam against the IMF’s demand for “austerity measures” in countries that are financially bankrupt, while banks continue to reap astronomical profits.

Cities, states and even whole countries are making severe cuts to social services in an attempt to balance budgets that are billions of dollars in default and many may eventually declare total bankruptcy. Militia groups are on the rise, while sales of guns and survival products increase. Home foreclosures and bankruptcies are reaching historic levels and, despite the U.S. governments desperate attempts to camouflage the truth, the unemployment statistics rise weekly causing tens of thousands to rely on food stamps. All while millions of barrels of precious “black gold” spill into the gulf in what many consider the gravest ecological disaster in the history of the United States.

All our usual pathetic attempts at control, based on imaginary money and threats of war, are slowly increasing, thereby, allowing egocentric chaos to escalate. Desperation results in the chaos of hysteria and rage, fueled by ever increasing levels of fear.

The egocentric belief system is composed entirely of fear-based needs and, as fulfilling those needs begins to appear hopeless, the ego-self must seek to impose ever greater levels of control upon a delusional world. The egos only response to fear is more control, which then fuels more fear. Currently, we see egocentric, fear-based governments and financial monopolies beginning to apply ever greater control over economies and territories. This can only escalate on a global scale as individual egos collude to counter control measures through application of their own chaotic means of control.

To the fear-based egocentric mind, surrendering control as a means of reducing fear is preposterous and absurd. But this is exactly what must occur, for change to ever be perceived in a fear-based delusional world fixated on lack, loss and scarcity. 

Unfortunately, the likelihood of a collective consciousness dissolving fear-based belief systems of control seems essentially non-existent, since the postmodern age has evolved almost entirely from fear-based systems imposing control through technological advances. The ego-self has come to rely on technology to sustain its delusion of ‘existence,’ even though technology has also increased the chances of its destruction. Because of technology, relationships have receded to the background as advanced methods of achieving monetary wealth (high frequency trading, credit default swaps, etc) and more ingenious methods of waging war (high altitude drones, GPS guided missiles, etc) have proliferated.

The purpose of your existence, that of engaging in the infinite, spirit-enhancing depth of relationship, has been almost completely deleted from the mind by the egocentric fear-based need for ever greater levels of control. Engaging in a unifying exchange, under a banner of “oneness,” seems to have disappeared from the collective horizon. Now we are turning to the “Lifeboat” paradigm of every man (ego) for himself.

As we gradually begin to descend down Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” (as opposed to ascent), fear based physical survival and safety will be considered paramount by egocentric minds and the concept of a 2012 will begin to seem no longer conspiratorial or crazy. Fear is a collective contagion that spreads like wildfire, creating self-preservation “memes” in the collective consciousness, easily enlisting cultures around the globe in an orgy of fear-based thought processing and self-preserving judgments. Racism, xenophobia and bigotry will reappear and nationalistic fervor will reinforce boundaries and limit communication between countries, states, cities and even small villages. Suspicious strangers do not communicate well, if at all. However, they are adept at exchanging destruction on a mass scale.

Unfortunately, even the most advanced spiritually enlightened mind is still a product of collective consciousness and if we ALL go down, rest assured, no one will be left behind. Make no mistake, the world is a product of collective belief.

Mother Maya (the delusion of ‘appearances’) counts on our collective fear and the more you fear the world, the more delusional and insane it must appear. For quite some time it seemed the Mother was content with our absurd lives of suffering through superficial materialism and nationalistic conquest, but she has become bored with the old games and wishes to witness the “shock and awe” of egocentric physical survival in a techno-fascist world. The Mother feeds on our fear and as our fear grows… she grows.

Control is a finite game that demands an outcome, but infinite players do NOT seek outcomes. Infinite players play with boundaries, limits and rules and they lack the serious intent necessary to win the finite rewards the world claims as “real.” The illusory world of Maya is about boundaries, limits and rules. Therefore, Maya cares little for infinite players, because they lack the fear necessary to keep up appearances and, for Mother Maya, it’s ALL about appearances.

Infinite players do not fear appearances, simply because they desire nothing from what appears, except to play with it, infinitely. This absence of fear tends to change what appears, because the infinite player has no interest in controlling appearances. But they are deeply engaged with everything that appears, because they do not fear what they SEE.

There is really only one choice (but even that may be too late to reverse our present course). Egocentric fear must be nullified so that reunification can occur and relationship become the purpose of ‘existence' (what other purpose could there be?). The world needs more infinite players in order to dissolve the boundaries and limits of finite games.

Demonstrate to yourself and those you relate with that there is NO need for control, simply because here is NO need for fear. As fear recedes, appearances must change because it is fear that makes them real. Play infinitely with your fear, but do not resist what appears.

There is still time to change your mind, but minds must be changed if we wish to change appearances.


Artwork by Terrance Lindall - "The Stone Eater"

Finally, The Secret of Infinite Play - Revealed!

The secret of Infinite play is quite elementary, but extremely difficult for an ego-self (IN the world) to even consider, let alone grasp entirely. Yet, in the apprehension of this secret, play easily becomes infinite and the games of life are NO longer suffered through.

The secret of the infinite player is that…

…there is NO world.

Of course, this is clearly incompatible with what you believe, because you believe that for "you" to exist a "world" must contain you.

Nevertheless, “world” is an interior experience that you apply meaning to and, apart from that, does not exist at all, since what has NO value to an ego-self, could NOT be perceived by an ego-self. But then, you may ask, why do I perceive death and destruction, since I don’t value that. Again, if you didn't value it, it simply could NOT ‘exist' to be experienced.

Obviously, this is no secret and for centuries the "ancient wisdom masters" have made the claim that the world is illusionary or intricately steeped in “Maya.” Nevertheless, many proved the opposite of what they proclaimed by disengaging from what is NOT there, as opposed to engaging it. When you seek to disengage from what is NOT there, what is NOT there can only appear, because your disengagement makes it “real" while your engagement gives it NO power to victimize you.

To play infinitely is to no longer be victim to appearances. The infinite player freely engages ALL appearances completely without fear.

Obviously, you do ‘perceive’ a world, and it is very “real." That’s called ego-self and ego-self has no doubt that what appears is “really” there, in fact, its very life depends on it. The ego-self is a finite belief and, therefore, it must construct finite experiences to magnify its belief in its own finite existence. Therefore, there is NO world, but there is a finite experience of a world (with “you” in it) and in that experience you play finite games that you believe were invented by a finite world.

But the infinite player understands the fundamental fact there is NO world and, hence, can play infinitely with all finite experiences (thereby, changing the nature of the experience itself).

Could the infinite player get run over by the finite bus? Of course, but the infinite player recognizes that, although this may be a ‘game changer,’ it is definitely NOT the end of the game. The infinite player is only prepared to play and cares little what game is played because he/she understand the games are infinite.

If there is NO world, then the finite bus is NOT there, although upon impact, it may be experienced as ‘there’ for a finite player. Yet, for an infinite player the experience may be quite different, since outcomes are unnecessary. In fact, the ego-self trained to play infinitely would most likely NOT construct finite egocentric experiences at all. Why would an infinite player wish to construct finite experiences of suffering, when suffering is clearly a finite outcome? Why would an infinite player consider the outcome of ‘death’ as an end to play if the games are infinite?

The ego-self can learn to play infinitely, because the ego can easily understand that all of life’s activities are nothing but games. However, what the ego may have difficulty comprehending is that the games never end. But, make no mistake, once the ego grasps that crucial concept, it then no longer seeks the outcomes or rewards offered by a finite world, but still continues to fully engage quite freely in all the games available.

An ego-self that has learned to play infinitely will actually begin to construct experiences that conform to infinite parameters (which, eventually, may dissolve all boundaries and limits).

Of course, this may take time and practice, especially for those who, up to now, have been playing finite games expecting finite outcomes. But now that you know the secret of infinite play you have an edge and can begin to play infinitely in the many splendored games of life completely without fear, always remembering that…

there is NO world….

Have fun!

Artwork by Vladimir Kush - "Atlas of Wander"

A Self-Actualized Hell

Technology has allowed the ego-self to become more comprehensive in its endless pursuit of self-actualization. The ego is fixated on techno-gadgetry and finds technology a more advantageous relationship than engaging with other egos (except for mechanistic processes such as sex). Technology has paved the way for complete self-absorption and the growing dis-ease of alienated minds estranged from one another

But this benefits the egocentric self, because it has become increasingly repulsed by relationships, often dissolving correspondence at the slightest provocation. Intimate understanding recedes to the background as strangers merely share time and space in bodily proximity (and even this has become threatening).

The chief goal of every ego is to self-actualize. Self-actualization is consistently facilitated through what the world offers in order to experience the ‘self’ as actual, real and truly ‘living.’ The experiences we seek do not simply reflect existence (since any ‘thing’ can exist) but a conscious egocentric experience of being “alive.”

The ego wants to be TRUE, but the very fact that it seeks experiences for which to make itself TRUE, proves it’s FALSE and not actual…and really nothing at all.

The ego, thus, projects meaning upon its experiences in order to magnify the experience itself, which when acquired, magnifies the ego. However, much of what it seeks to magnify it does so in order to possess or acquire, because experiences must be located and brought into consciousness from an “outside.” The ego is never satiated and every experience of acquisition or possession only reinforces the need for acquiring additional experiences of self-actualization.

This is the egocentric self-actualizing hell the ego constructs through the mind's capacity to experience. Since all experiences have a result or outcome for which to prove acquisition, it is extremely difficult for the ego to play the world’s games and NOT require an outcome be acquired or possessed. 

The infinite player does not seek experiences for which to self-actualize, but seeks experiences for which to share. The infinite player actualizes by engaging players to determine truth. If it cannot be equally shared, it cannot be true. This leads to a self-mutualization in which the truth of any experience is measured by how many can share in the experience together. Infinite players realize that the individual experience of truth as nothing more than fear-based delusion.

The world is inundated with individual claims of discovering “truth” (enlightenment or awakening) none of which can be shared, but only boastfully proclaimed and chronically talked about. At the same time technology increases the dilution and shallowness of any exchange of truth that could be engaged through relationship. The finite world becomes an experience of numbing, mindless, self-actualizing zombies all competing for control, consistently pressing the self into a delusional “world.”

The truth is in relationship and awaits your engagement with it. 

Infinite players play with the rules of relationship in order to dissolve boundaries and go deeper in the understanding that there are NO limits to how deep two or more can go. Your awakening is through others and not for an individual ego-self. Truth is found between minds and not locked up in any one cranium.

There are many "proprietors of truth" in the world. Yet, note that following their exciting “enlightened” episode, the self-proclaimed wise ones immediately begin engaging others (even Jed McKenna, the king of disengagement, needed to write books). The ego may claim this as the need to “teach,” but under this egocentric subterfuge is the irresistible desire to deeply engage with others in relationship. Your mystical experience is a lesson in engagement, even though the ego seeks sole possession.

You were created from extension and you have a natural affinity to extend. Infinite players are not bound by rules invented to constrict and limit. Infinite players extend beyond rules (even while following rules), while finite players are captured and constricted by rules and limits. Self-actualization is an egocentric rule that extends nothing, but constricts the self and impedes extension. Your self-actualization is in relationship with a world of other minds waiting to extend to you.

There is where you will find the truth that belongs to everyone.

Artwork by Anthony Falbo - "Hell, the alternative"

“Love” is an Infinite Game

Relationship is a state of mind. You are either deeply engaged in the infinite process or seeking to become finite strangers. The intimate love relationship has NO obligation and, therefore, is your greatest test (as opposed to the obligatory familial relationships connected by ‘blood’).

The ego has co-opted the relationship for self-actualizing increase and egocentricity must seek to negate the purpose of relationship and that is to share increase between two or more. What you get as one is NOT true, but what is shared equally must be truth because it breaks free of egocentricity and is a non-exclusive equality.

Inequality, by its very nature, shares nothing but conflict and that experience of suffering will be exclusive to each individual. 

Every relationship has the potential to awaken to truth, but only when you surrender the “truth” you have imposed upon it. You don’t ‘know’ because those who taught you did not ‘know’ and if you inherit ignorance you can only pass it on until you finally realize what it is. You have every means at your disposal to disengage, alienate and estrange, because you were taught how to fear. But you are completely at a loss how to deeply engage in order to share the truth such engagement discovers.

You were not taught how to love and nowhere in the world is that teaching available, because every teacher teaches an outcome. There is no outcome to love because it is an infinite state of mind that cannot be conceptualized through individual egocentric thought.

Do you believe you have discovered love? best keep going, you’re not there yet. Love is an infinite game and you have yet to begin playing.

This is the real “Hero’s Journey” and it’s traveled together in the joint enterprise of mutual discovery. Intimacy is the final frontier and infinite in scope. To fully engage in the infinite game of relationship you must understand the rules you play by and determine the outcomes you each hope to achieve…

…so that they can be dissolved and you can learn your purpose together.

This is how the self invents itself and knows itself in sharing fully with others. Full engagement opens the mind to full exposure. This is how the self changes, not in the solitary exodus to find spiritual truth, but through the rabbit hole of infinite understanding. Dare you go there?

If you wish to awaken to truth, then you best engage the one your with, because your truth is with them, as theirs is with you and it has always been this way. This requires no special knowledge because relationship is a natural as breathing (although most breathe very poorly). No need to review the textbook because there is none. No need to refer to the research because science doesn’t have a clue, since it always demands a finite outcome. Love is a mutual reward and there are only winners.

The practice is simple. Once a week spend one hour (or more) together with no distractions and in that hour focus on the rules of your relationship. See how the rules imprison, rather than free the mind. You are estranged and alienated because the correspondence was lost as rules were imposed. The world does not support intimate depth, because the world is a product of egocentricity and individual egocentricity only skims the surface. The fear is down deep and to get to it you must both plunge inward together.

Look to the state of your mind to measure depth. Gradually the fear of alienated strangers will be replaced with the increased understanding of intimate knowing that has NO limits. Love is a state of mind entirely free of egocentricity, because it's an infinite game.


Artwork by Laurie Lipton - "Remote Control"

Dead Man Walkin’

The ego requires you pay little heed to your thoughts, but attend primarily to your actions. This is why you often act unconsciously, because the unconscious is nothing more than your failure to be aware of thought. Conditioned thought tends to run on auto-pilot, with little need for awareness.

Being unaware of thoughts helps you to remain ignorant of the rules you follow in conducting your life. The ego insists that thoughts are unimportant and what you DO, should be the chief focus of your thinking. What you DO is entirely contingent on the body and therefore, the body, more than the mind, defines “you.” This aids the ego in maintaining denial of the mind, thereby remaining transfixed on your body and other bodies.

When you really get down to it, you are an absurd belief system in which the chief priority is never looking too closely at just how unbelievable “you” really are. 

Nonetheless, you believe in “you” and are vigilant in reinforcing that belief as often as possible and through every means at your disposal. The ego-self demands that every interior experience conform to the belief in an exterior world, through which to contrast your finite, self-containing exterior body.

From the moment you were born, you were taught to be a victim and, from moment to moment, your entire hopeless existence demonstrates this as you come that much closer to death. Death is a finite game everyone plays and the rules cannot be violated. You were born to lose, since the game was fixed from birth and your entire “life” is contingent on the rule that death can come at any moment.

Death is really the only absolute truth that escapes no one, but we spend a “lifetime” desperately seeking to escape IT.

If your spiritual path does not directly deal with death, then it directly denies the only absolute truth we know with universal certainty. The only truth we all agree as certain is that you MUST die. Yet, you spend each and every day ignoring, avoiding and denying its inevitability. The only FACT of existence and the ego will move heaven and earth to delete it from consciousness (because the ego controls consciousness).

The most expedient way of diminishing the controlling ego-self is to force it to confront the fact that it has NO control of death. Authentically engage your death, look fully and deeply at it and all your grand plans of wealth, fame, spiritual enlightenment, may just turn to fumes of utter nothingness. All your plans of attaining "spiritual enlightenment" can be instantly dashed to the wayside by one erratic drunk driver.

You may feel this morbid proclamation is a recipe for clinical depression, yet the only way to play infinitely is to engage your finality head on. Finite games may never seem the same again.

Every religious ideology, every spiritual belief system exists simply to aid in denying the only certainty you know without doubt. Best to give all that up, because it’s all ridiculous bullshit, while your death is the unadulterated perfect truth.

Embrace it…

Artwork by Lauri Lipton - "Death and the Maiden" 

Making Egos Real (or Jed Mckenna is one big fat ego)

There seems to be a great deal of interest in the “enlightenment” of the mysterious stranger who calls himself “Jed McKenna” but who hides his identity under a pseudonym. This is a follow-up from my previous post on Jed Mckenna, "Populist Gurus and Spiritual Cowboys."

Not only are “you" an ego-self, but your ego-self needs “me” to be one too.

You wanna know how you can tell if you’ve really awakened to truth?

While blissfully dwelling in the belief you have finally transcended the ego-self, take a look outside your eyeballs and if you perceive an ego in me (and everyone else) then...

….you might have experienced a euphoric state of expanded consciousness…

..but NO truth (and ego-self is alive and kickin’).

The ego-self conforms to the experience of lack, scarcity and loss. The ego, or self, is nothing more than an experience of needs, seeking to be fulfilled. It seeks to fulfill its needs, or 'self-actualize,' from what the world offers, but because the world is full of egos, the entire world also subscribes to the basic experience of lack, scarcity and loss.

Therefore, egocentric individuals seeking to self-actualize (literally to believe one is 'actual' or real) in a world of scarcity, lack and loss must compete with other egos to increase, or actualize, their self-construct. Obviously there are levels to this competition. Most won't seek to compete for wealth with Donald Trump, however, we may seek to enhance our wealth in comparison to our neighbor. We certainly don't expect the fame of a Madonna, but we do wish to appear more important than our coworkers. We may not seek to attain the so-called “enlightenment” of a self-proclaimed “enlightened master,” but we may seek to convince those around us that we are consciously and spiritually ‘advanced.’

This is so deeply ingrained in the mind as to be on a subconscious level and the rules of the game are readily apparent for all who wish to see.

We teach our children NOT to achieve the greatest experience of life by deeply and fully engaging with others. Rather, because we love them, we teach that they must subordinate this experience to competitive values of self-actualization through the world's games. We want them to "succeed" IN the world and ON the world's terms. Therefore, we insure our children are well-fitted to compete in order to achieve "happiness." This is what we have inherited and passed onto them and they in turn will pass it onto their children. Is it any wonder we have become fixated on experiences of ‘individual’ enlightenment. The individual paradigm fits like a glove.

Jed Mckenna provides good training for stripping the self of its layers of social conditioning. Unfortunately, his approach fails to transcend our fear of one another, which is the most delusional fear of all and the fear that obstructs the progress of ALL individual seekers of “enlightenment.”

Jed McKenna epitomizes the "Christian Soldier" battling its nemesis the evil ego-self. This paradigm is as old as time itself, but it seems McKenna's "enlightenment" is stuck in time.

The ego-self believes it lives in competition with other egos. The ego is an experience of needs seeking fulfillment and it channels all need fulfillment from what the world offers. Therefore, to transcend the ego and its needs, all other egos must transcend as well. The “outside” merely reflects the “inside” and if you experience an ego IN me, make no mistake, it is IN you.

But note how your ego struggles and rebels against this idea, in wanting “enlightenment” for itself.

Jed Mckenna rages against egos. He sees them everywhere and is literally surrounded by them to the point of suffocation. In his self-proclaimed egoless “enlightened” state, he has disengaged from the egocentric world the rest of us inhabit. He even proclaims California as “ego Mecca” and dislikes the entire state all the more because of this. He is fully engaged in nothing but observing, and complaining about, egocentricity in all its manifestations and this is his rationale for completely disengaging from the illusion (and authoring 3 best sellers).

But why would an egoless mind perceive egos? Does ego transcendence still demand attachment to illusion? Why would a mind that has transcended the ego-self still fear egos?

Each chapter of McKenna’s 3 books describes his revulsion of human egocentricity. From middle class lifestyles to new age ideas, McKenna scoffs, so much so, that he appears misanthropic. Indeed, what McKenna sees is exactly that which he fears most…other people... and he avoids them like the plague (except when he is in complete control of the interaction).

Ironically, McKenna's various approaches are excellent for overcoming the seemingly infinite layers of social conditioning and he may have come quite close to an intrinsic center. Unfortunately, his fear of ‘people’ can only obstruct further progress, causing Jed to remaun stuck. As long as he can control the relationship, he’s quite comfortable. However, without that control, McKenna’s fear picks him up and he runs (like when speaking to a group of Gita devotees, requiring he make a hasty retreat out the nearest exit).

That’s called egocentric self-preservation.

McKenna's “enlightenment” is merely an excuse to disengage from the silly human race, but such disengagement is historically accurate in relation to other so-called “ego-transcended” teachers. McKenna does nothing more than carry on the inherited ideology of the past.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend McKenna’s 3 books as guides toward the shedding of social conditioning. His concept of “Human Adulthood” is admirable and should be used as model for an integrated egoic state. However, the truth seems absent from this process.

Mr. McKenna certainly sees that we are separated egos, but why does he negate relationship as the means of integrating?

Be forewarned, Jed McKenna’s “enlightenment” despises human engagement (he even negates his own capacity to engage in “human relationships”) and teaches the conventional paradigm of the “hero’s journey” of detachment. Unfortunately, the world is weary of individualism and beginning to show the effects of universal alienation and estrangement and not the cooperative shared engagement of an integrated consciousness.

Make no mistake, any awakening to truth that still perceives egos in an a world of egocentricity has awakened to nothing more than individual egocentric grandiosity. 

Back to the drawing board, Jed, you’ve got more work ahead of you.

But that’s okay, because we all do….

(and by the way, Jed, stop hiding under a pseudonym. Come on out and fully and deeply engage your world).


Artwork by Chris Mars - "The Nullifier"