Egocentric "Needs"

It's fascinating how you have invented umpteen "rational" reasons for quitting a relationship, but usually only one irrational reason for staying..."love."

Unfortunately, there are 6 billion relative conceptual renditions of "love," indicative of the fact that we don't have a clue as to what "love" is or if it can even be defined absolutely or merely remain as relative as anything else that eventually fades away and dies. Make no mistake, your experience of  any "awakened" non-duality depends more on how you see him/her than on how you see your 'self.' The proof is in the pudding.

Your job is to screw up the conventional coordinates that chain you to your conceptual past. Because, if you 'think' you KNOW, then clearly you can only continue to see what you've always seen and this delays learning what IS. The ego sees what it 'knows' and nothing more is available.

How can we go in search of love, when we have nothing but a trail of abstract platitudes for which to follow?

Many often jump from one body to another in hopes of finally discovering that elusive experience called "love." At first, it seems to magically appear causing a psychological swoon of temporary insanity. The ego-self seems to recede back upon itself and is no longer as demanding or grasping. In the initial stages, the egocentric goal of self-preservation/actualization seems to evaporate, if only for a time. The fear of self-annihilation is suddenly overcome by the natural drive to fully engage in unification. The world slowly dissolves into invisibility, as you make contact with your non-conceptual and unconditional Deeper Spirit.

Nevertheless, eventually you resume your usual egocentric orientation to reality and gradually come to the realization (after days, months, years) that his/her love is not equivalent to yours. You have now come face to face with the absurd myth of incompatibility, as if any egocentric 'self' can truly be compatible with another. Subsequently, you come to realize that your “needs” are not being met and, as every ego-self knows, not to have needs met is not to self-actualize and egos must always self-actualize or die. In your world experience, there is either growth or death. The ego-self is a mass of conflicting desires, each negating or canceling out the other, as the ego-self struggles to maintain some enduring sense of itself. It's no wonder you need sleep, since you spend everyday in the exhausting task of holding your fragmented 'self' together and rigidly maintaining that fragile and tenuous thread to the "I" that is daily confronted with actualizing itself against other egocentric identities.

So, how rigidly are you attached to your “I"? How important are its "needs"?

Since that may become the deciding factor on whether you stay or you go. On whether you extend or contract. On whether you will or will not tolerate the intensity of their identity in conflict with yours. This is because egocentric “love” is a business exchange and to invest, demands a return on that investment. Make no mistake, every ego gives... to take. What the ego-self wants in return is that its “needs” are met. Unmet needs mean a non-actualized ego-self and an ego-self blocked from actualizing is a betrayed ego-self and a betrayed ego-self can become very vicious, indeed.

Yet, maybe you can agree to acknowledge that you have different renditions of love and discard them completely. This leaves you both open to discover the Deeper Spirit of each other, that can only be discovered together, and allow it to take you by 'surprise.' It may actually be something you’ve never contemplated (agree to discard your love concepts and this is guaranteed).

In fact, love may not have a damn thing to do with your getting your needs met, which means it doesn't have a damn thing to do with you, or that identified package of beliefs you unconsciously refer to as "you," over and over again, everyday, ad nauseam. Wouldn't it be a real humdinger if all your so-called 'unmet' needs were no longer the reason to quit and, instead, discovering what love really is becomes a reason to stay. To explore and discover together the non-duality of Christ Consciousness. To play infinitely in the world's finite games.

Nevertheless, make no mistake, every relationship you quit is an assertion that you KNOW what love is and the person you’re quitting doesn't…

…and that’s pretty damn arrogant of you, don’t you think?


 Artwork by Michael Hussar - "Daddy's Girl"

GUILT: The Death of Intimacy

Of all your fear-induced symptoms (anxiety, depression, anger, etc, etc, etc) guilt is the most deep-seated and often the hardest to penetrate and SEE. As opposed to other undesired emotions, it is entirely interior with little exterior manifestation and, as such, it is very difficult to observe within oneself. In fact, many claim guilt to be the origin of all your negative emotions and many have also claimed that it is NOT an emotion at all, but more endemic and defining to the whole personality or ‘self.’

Guilt is the darkest shadow of all the shadow-zones you seek to eradicate in order to further your evolving consciousness. Therefore, a total all-encompassing ‘innocence’ is seen as the final point of all spiritual pathways. Yet, how many could claim such complete innocence or even claim it for another? Maybe, this is why “sorry, seems to be the hardest word” (Elton John). 

We hurriedly plod through our meaningful, but absurd, “lifestyles,” acutely aware of all the misfortune and suffering that surrounds us, feeling helpless to stem the tide of that suffering. But what can we do? Oh sure, we give to our favorite charities, maybe volunteer our time and even become activists. But, alas, suffering continues unabated and deep within the contours of your mind, beyond all your comforting rationalizations, how can you NOT experience guilt? So how do you minimize the guilt of your helplessness that leads to inaction and indifference? How do you accept that you can only provide so much; that you have only so much to give? What rationale do you think up to assuage your guilt and comfort your ‘self’ as you walk on by the pain of others arm-in-arm with your own suffering?

There is a poignant discomfort to our individual and collective guilt that sinks even deeper than our normal everyday lies, deceptions and self-protective strategies. On the deepest level, guilt pervades your very BEING simply because you realize (but deny) that you are NOT BEING as you were meant to BE. Whereas, you might cognitively extinguish your anger and medicate your depression, guilt is impervious to such methods due to its primordial nature.

It’s as if we were all impostors living in ways NOT reflective of our a deeper WILL. Deep down you recognize that, in some strange sense, you are not ‘real’ and all your  entertaining endeavors and productive projects only magnify this sense of unreality and fraud. This ‘unreality’ is exhibited more in your relationships with others than in any other function you assign your ‘self.’ (Thus, you have “small talk” to aid in remaining in the shallows of deep interpersonal understanding and intimacy, for fear of the 'exposure' that might reveal your guilt).

You can easily blame the world and others in dealing with your anxieties, what depresses you, and even all the things that make you angry. But guilt is completely intrinsic to the belief in an exclusive, autonomous 'self' and often makes you very, very 'bad' in your own eyes, more so than any attempts by others to devalue your ‘self.’ It may take you many years and much excruciatingly painful honesty, to even start the process of facing your guilt and this is primarily due to the layers of guilt that serve as foundation for future guilt-building.

From childhood lies to adult deceptions, you seem unable to shake free of this self-constructed mass of guilt that tends to weigh you down and make progress through life so difficult and often wrought with suffering. Each idea of progress you rejoice in often seems blunted by an inner core of pervasive guilt, in the realization that all your worldly and spiritual ‘successes” may never be enough to assuage your guilt.

With the oppressive weight of guilt bearing down on us all, is it any wonder that free-floating, non-situational depression is becoming the most diagnosed mental illness. But does the treatment only provide minimal comfort from our symptomatic inner suffering, while the disease of guilt only continues to fester, eating away at the core of ‘self,’ thereby impeding access to Deeper Spirit?

INTERPERSONAL GUILT PROJECTION 


In your conflicts, you are always prepared for my indictment because guilt is the one thing you must avoid at all costs, since it only activates your deeper self-guilt. In the name of self-protection, your defenses are sharpened to perfection, as you cut me to pieces before I have the chance to defend my ‘self.’ However, I am acutely aware, often even more than you, of your weaknesses or, more specifically, that for which you claim guilt (those parts of ‘self,’ which you would like to change, deny or are ashamed of).

Therefore, our mutual attacks draw deep emotional blood. Each combative episode, like each puff of the cigarette slowly subtracting from the quantity of our lives,  dissolves away life-giving intimacy and deep understanding, never to return. I find it interesting that people are often more ‘intimate’ with their pets then with the people whom they profess to “love.” This clearly reflects the lack of guilt transference with animals and nature, since no matter how many times Fido soils the carpet, innocence is retained forever to that living ‘being’ that has no ‘self’ except that which we project onto it.

The problem is that guilt is so utterly inherent to egocentricity, that we tend NOT to engage with it, but simply deny, allowing it to fester and grow into the ‘stress’ that saps life and eventually results in all sorts of internal ailments, disorders and diseases. The medical establishment informs us that stress is the number one killer and this is because stress is nothing more than years of impacted guilt for every decision you ever made that impeded your desire for the perfection of that Deeper Spirit within. In every period of your life, what you did to impede evolution (and what you failed to do to consciously evolve) follows and defines your 'self.'

You seem unable to shake free of your guilt or that deep sense of somehow being wholly unworthy of your very ‘existence.’ The body is target to unending layers of guilt since it can never meet your concepts of perfection. You indict your body as easily as you indict the body of others. Too fat, too skinny, tall, short, ugly, deformed, defective, etc, etc, etc. Your demand for the perfection of Source/God (your choice) is erroneously transferred to the body in denial that Deeper Spirit or Infinite Mind is not limited by such form and that the body can never be more than a symbol of imperfection.

You sense an ‘ideal’ of perfection (Plato's "Forms"), and in contrast to that ideal you recognize how radically defective you really are, with all the body’s obscene functions, diseases, disorders and absurd self-constructed purposes and actions. You are virtually incarcerated in your concepts of imperfection and "guilty as charged." No matter how spiritually driven you are to offset such awareness through worldly distractions, deep meditation and continuing your absurd functional busyness, you live with your imperfection through a deep-seated guilt. Guilt rides piggy-back upon the ‘self’ and it seems your only option for shedding this heavy burden, that “old, rugged cross” of sin pressed into your mind, is to project that guilt onto others. In this way, by projecting your guilt onto me, you thereby enhance your innocence. Of course, this means you must deny your undifferentiated unity, oneness and almost absolute sameness with me. The world is a reflection of such collective denial.

There are spiritual "masters" who teach that your guilt is the origin of all your emotional suffering and since you indict your self as guilty, you indict others as "guilty by association." This is an aspect of our unified “oneness,” that does not escape you no matter how hard you judge others in order to reinforce your own innocence. If you are dripping with guilt, since you and I are the same in our humanity, I must be just as guilty. However, you delude yourself into belief that I am not aware of your guilt, since you keep it tucked up in the inner folds of your 'self,' and so even your own awareness of it is rare.

But, I am distinctly aware of your guilt because it is mine, although I too believe my indictment of your many transgressions allows me a facade of innocence. Thus, we can blast away at each other and demand justice for violations of ‘self,’ while claiming innocence through secrecy of mind. This is why the contents of your mind must remain sealed, for if I were to learn the full truth of all your guilt, you believe I could destroy you. We both MUST protect against such exposure and it would seem as though our very life depends upon it. Such is the often precarious 'dance of intimacy,’ which is really nothing but the dance of war.

Guilt is the death of intimacy.

Guilt impedes intimacy and demands your defenses be forever at the ready. I must NOT expose you, else your righteousness would be ineffective in offsetting your guilt. My identifying your guilt means you must face what I SEE and this you cannot allow. So you will crush me and I know you can, as you know I can wound you, and this locks us into the brutality and unpredictability of emotional combat. You may lose a round, but in recognition of the ongoing never-ending war, you will rejoin the battle with ever more destructive conceptual armaments.

Like storm clouds gathering on the horizon, our conceptual combat is barely perceptible except to the most astute outside observer. In fact, we have become so adept and skillful in our psychic battles that, to the uninitiated, your attacks seem almost charitable. But you are conditioned to my subtle attacks and prepared to perpetuate your own, in awareness of my subterfuge. So utterly instantaneous and barely perceptible will be our mutual attacks, that often none but the actual combatants will perceive the parameters of “another battle in our dirty little war” (Springsteen). This does not matter though, because we are always prepared and ready simply because I know your past and you know mine. The past is that aspect of ‘self’ we seek desperately to escape and is the one thing you recognize could destroy me and reduce me to inadequacy and impotency. But, I know your past and in recognition of your attacks on my past, I make note of those aspects of your past ‘self’ that will deeply wound you.

In fact, many teach that our guilt holds us securely in the past, since guilt is always in reference to a past ‘self’ and is never NOW. They say that our little 'guilt trips' are nothing compared to the guilt we experience in our failure to correspond with Deeper Spirit which is always NOW and never THEN. Not to live from that unconditional awareness seems to make us very guilty indeed and we then simply add to it. 

If your declaration of war against me, made secretly to yourself, is based on my past attacks, will you recognize that my attack of you is no different than your emotional assaults on me? Which came first, the chicken or the egg, is an analogy relevant to our circular, "loving" warfare. This is because in your eyes I am the ‘original sin,’ which is my 'loss of grace' and is the origin of your need for self-protection. But, in my eyes, you are the origin of my suffering and make no mistake, you will pay, as "vengeance is mine sayeth the lord."

In fact, I’ve even met those who, after years of conflict and attack, in which each mutually pound blame upon the other, will actually reference perceived attacks that occurred even before the marriage vows were taken. The tally was begun long before the union was officially sanctioned. Was this preparation for battle in order to shake free of guilt, a lesson of childhood? Are we so afraid to look at our guilt that we learn from our parents the most effective means of guilt projection as the only way to achieve innocence and grace?

FORGIVE TO FORGET

There is only one way out of this virtual self-created hell and that is to NOT TO SEE IT, because it does NOT exist. However, as opposed to the world’s repetitive renditions of egocentric guilt and punishment, Deeper Spirit forgives… ONLY to forget. 

This is because, if you are NOT living from Spirit you are essentially NOT living or at the least, mimicking 'life.' Therefore, contrary to your experience of ‘real,’ how can what is NOT living be ‘real'? In such a world of ‘unreality,’ who is victim and who is victimizer? Who is guilty and who innocent? (Perfect non-dualism makes no such distinctions, but we do and punish those who are guilty, including and most especially our own‘self’).

In the ‘real’ world’s value system, your forgiving me my transgressions exalts you above me and clearly constructs a hierarchy of value between us. Although you may grant me reprieve from your judgment, neither you nor I have forgotten my guilt and therefore, it remains to eat at the core of intimacy. Thus, I will not lose sight of what your forgiveness really means. In fact, the moment I lose sight of the fact that YOU are the exalted one who has forgiven ME, you will immediately resume your indictment with all the vengeance at your disposal. In this sense, forgiveness is simply another subtle form of victimization.

Even those who profess to “love” one another, perform this mirage of forgiveness quite often, depending on how many years of living separately-together has transpired. However, if forgiveness does NOT forget, then, although your forgiveness seems authentic, based on what the world teaches, your progression to Deeper Spirit is significantly delayed and obstructed. Deep down, in our moments of clarity, we all realize this fact.

But egocentricity MUST resist even...WHAT IS NOT THERE.

Nevertheless, eventually, guilt is reestablished intrinsically in you and therefore, sooner or later, you will extrinsically indict them once again. Unless my transgression is completely absolved from memory, as yours is absolved from my mind, we cannot go further together and, although we may remain together as bodies, we will die apart in Spirit since the Union with Spirit was never realized.

Spirit is NOT offered alone and cannot be discovered in solitude. This is because only TWO or more, engaged in that pursuit together, can make such a profound discovery.

What Do I Do When Lightning Strikes Me…

The air seems different lately or maybe it’s the light. Something has changed. The ego senses it. But a deeper part of you has known all along and it waits patiently. It has always known what you needed. But you don’t know that…yet.


The ego, however, is busy connecting dots, sniffing out trails, dusting for prints.

Then…the lightening strikes.

Long phone calls. Text messages passed between them, sometimes late into the night.

There’s no mistaking…

…the ego has been betrayed.

It feels like a swift and penetrating prize fighter punch to the gut. The chest is crushed, the throat constricts as your breathing becomes rapid, it’s hard to talk and…

…what’s that ringing in the ears?

As the blackness descends, you can’t breathe and the mind is racing ever more rapidly…

…over the cliff.

You were expecting economic collapse, a Great Depression, WWIII, explosive packages, errant missiles, electromagnetic pulses, even asteroids. But now Armageddon has finally arrived…and it’s ALL for you and you alone.

Did you not see it coming? How could you have missed the signs?

That doesn’t matter now. Now, the ego demands its pound of flesh, because guilt has ALWAYS required punishment…and you ARE the executioner.

The attack is swift and chaotic. The ego thrashes about like a hot wire in a hurricane.

“You fucking bitch….who is he…did you fuck him….oh God….how could you do this to me…why!”

But deep down under all your desperate fear is the voice that softly whispers…..

…“you know why.” 

But you refuse to listen and instead, the ego loudly stakes its claim…”But I loved you!”

The next day, after almost no sleep, you’re numb and exhausted. You go to work and marvel at how you could have possibly made it through this day so well. But, the drive home is ALL ego and it calls upon the demons of hell to come to your aid in demanding she be nailed to the cross and then burned at the stake. You see images of your own personal apocalypse and in your rage, it seems you’re only just one thought away… from actual murder.

That night, in a darkened room, completely immersed in your suffering….your mind goes to an even darker place.

Make no mistake…you are in HELL.

What else could this place be?

However, gradually, after many hours, you begin to get quiet. Very… very quiet. Again, there’s that other voice in your head. But this voice ignores your suffering. This voice denies you your pain. It whispers something much different than the ego… completely opposite, in fact.

This voice says…”do you really think you known what love is?” 

And very slowly, painfully slow… it comes to you… that, no…you really don’t….and you never did.

…and maybe that's been the problem all along.

But the ego, ever quick to nurture condemnation, screams at you… “but how can you blame yourself, she’s the one that broke the rules…

…she cheated!”

Then that voice again, unperturbed and very quiet…

“love does not require rules…only you do.”

And when you finally realize you have no clue how to go about it, you then become willing to learn and invite instruction…

…from that which knows.

What have I got to do to make you love me
What have I got to do to make you care
What do I do when lightning strikes me
And I wake to find that you're not there

What do I do to make you want me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I say when it's all over
And sorry seems to be the hardest word

It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
It's sad, so sad
Why can't we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

What do I do to make you love me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I do when lightning strikes me
What have I got to do
What have I got to do
When sorry seems to be the hardest word 

(Elton John)                                      

                                                                                               

The WILL of Christ Consciousness

A mind that acts against its WILL is a mind in conflict. When you do something that is against your WILL, you suffer from the stress of misalignment and disunity.

When THOUGHT and WILL are in accord, all fear is dissolved and a mind, absent fear, sees the world much differently.

The collective consciousness is deluded, not by individuality, but by the desire to separate itself from its own collective WILL. Individuality was never the reason you felt alienated from others and your world, but an individualized WILL must fear its disengagement, while still WILLING to disengage.

Every whole contains parts and when those parts are aligned with the WILL of the whole they experience harmony, diversified as ONE. When the parts are aligned against the WILL of the whole, the whole experiences chaos and confusion. NOT one part of the whole consciousness that we share, realizes that consciousness is shared and therefore, WE share nothing.

Consciousness is a shared field of awareness, shared by ALL minds that experience a ‘world.’ All experiences derive from a deep well of ALL THAT CAN BE EXPERIENCED. Collective WILL determines the purpose of ALL experience. When you are detached from that WILL, you experience NO purpose and thus, lose your way. The lost must always experience fear, until they find their way again.

Although we ALL share in the objects of consciousness, and its changing multiplicities, we resist sharing ONE WILL. Such is the delusion of the collective mind, in which parts are dissociated from the WILL of the whole. Its not drops in the ocean that suffer by denying they are part of the ocean, but the drops in the ocean fighting against the current of that ocean. We ALL fight that current.

Look outside your eyeballs and you will see billions of unaligned parts, each asserting an individual WILL against the whole. Does your lifestyle cause you to feel disengaged and lost? Are you exhausted by all your efforts at finding and sustaining happiness? Do you often feel that your life is a sham, without purpose or direction? Do you often feel as if you do NOT belong ‘here’?

Christ consciousness is nothing more than the thoughts and feelings of individuals aligned with the collective WILL. This does NOT negate or nullify individuality, but joins and unifies individuals under ONE WILL. We move equally as ONE without losing our individuality and your individuality is enhanced and magnified beyond the suffering of divided egocentricity.

The modern masters who pontificate on their precious concepts of “oneness,” fail to realize the full implications of what they teach and so the teachings are deluded. Oneness does not destroy or dissolve individual minds in one blob of undifferentiated consciousness, but simply unifies ALL minds under one TRUTH. But that truth can NOT be experienced in a world of disengaged and alienated ‘individuals’ each asserting a WILL opposed to truth.

Do you believe you are special? That your thoughts are unique and your feelings are your own? And does this belief aid you in disengaging from the world you experience? Does you mind show you a world disjointed, deluded and confused? A world of chaos and contradiction, in which hypocrisy is valued as a crucial component of survival? Are you on a path that seeks to transcend this world you experience?

You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave (not even the dead are really ‘gone,’ since we do not WILL to be concerned with bodies).

Make no mistake, it is your desperate attempts to disengage from what you see, that demands you see it in the first place, because not one experience that enters your mind is free of the collective MIND. Your thoughts and feelings are NOT your own, but the extracted experiences of a collective consciousness. The ‘self’ is not constructed in isolation. ALL Experience is available to ALL minds, if they so choose. No matter how we all seek to assert are own experiences as unique and exclusive, even the experience of “uniqueness” is an extracted construct of a collective mind deluded into believing individuals can WILL SEPARATELY from one another. That parts can be dissociated from the whole.

You certainly can conjure up thoughts that have yet to be experienced by anyone else, but this does not make you a magical mystic, because we all pull our rabbits out of the same hat. The definition of individual ego is a mind that believes that its magic is unique and available only to itself. Thus, an ego suffers in resistance to the WILL of a collective mind. Egos resist joining with other parts under one harmonious whole, because loss of individuality is a negation of egocentricity.  You only lose your suffering, because the WILL of consciousness demands freedom from the objects of egocentricity, which you have always felt victimized by.

The collective consciousness allows for your individuality. We all engage that paradigm and there is NO escape. However, if we continue to thwart, resist and remain unaligned with the very WILL that is meant to steer that consciousness, we must all suffer chaos and confusion.  How can you transcend delusion, while still seeing it in others? How can you overcome the dream while others remain dreaming?

This is what the infinite player has experienced. Nothing more than the complete absence of all fear and conflict between what is thought and what is WILLED. Total and complete alignment leads to infinite harmony.

You are not unaware of that infinite WILL, because no matter what you possess or own, no matter how far your feet can take you, no matter what thoughts your mind can invent, you still seek freedom, because you still feel chained.

The infinite player merely plays in Christ Consciousness and experiences total alignment to a WILL invisible to those who WILL to be alone and separate. You can think individual thoughts and feel your individual emotions. But to deviate from the collective WILL asserts that there is NO purpose to your thinking and feeling. You are alone in everything and this is the current from which all thoughts and feelings are derived.

Consciousness does not determine purpose. Only the WILL of consciousness reveals your purpose and it is beyond anything you could imagine or contemplate, while you still fight against your WILL.

The holy refrain was never meant to be “I AM,” but…

“I WILL.”


Artwork by Martin George Oscity - "Expansion of Love"

The Guru Sleeps in Your Bed

I simply take centuries of axial age teachings, which speak of a non-dual consciousness, and suggest that it is achievable, but only through minds joined in the project of transcending concepts to ascertain truth and NOT through individual minds enmeshed in relative concepts supporting egocentric mental states interpreted as higher (“enlightenment”).

If one seeks a unified experience, then engage with other minds and find the space between minds in which concepts are absent. If you’re on a ‘hero’s journey’ best to grab a partner, otherwise experiences interpreted egocentrically don’t amount to a hill of beans and the world currently reflects that lack of meaning and purpose.

If you want God in the "big picture," then fine, I've no issue with God. I merely point to a means of fully engaging to encounter an experience beyond ego-self. Labeling that experience is unnecessary, but “God” or “Greater Field” is okay by me. I merely suggest that individually divided and alienated minds cannot engage in a unified multiplicity (truth) when transfixed and entranced with ‘heroic journeys’ seeking episodes of individual “enlightenment.”

Relationship is the means and the purpose. It’s what you’re here for (simplistically speaking). The self was not created in isolation and will not transform or transcend itself fixated on its own concepts of individual experiences of a “Godhood” entirely exclusive to itself.

Nature must certainly be part of an overall unified consciousness, but the ego-self has relegated it to the back room. We don't fear nature, the world or the universe, but we do fear each other and until that alienation can be bridged, nobody’s changing anything fast (including nature or “Gaia”), both intrinsically or extrinsically (since there is no difference except to egocentricity).

The self is a mutual construct formed in an exchange with and through other selves. We construct and deconstruct one another from moment to moment and no self was constructed in isolation from a world of others (Heidegger's "Dasein" or Being-in-the-world). Therefore, it stands to reason that individual's seeking enlightenment do nothing more than magnify egocentricity at the expense of collective reconciliation and unity.

The exterior reflects the interior and things haven’t been lookin’ too good lately, huh? No one gets ‘it,’ until all do. Time to fully engage with those in your sphere of care and concern, since that’s the reason we’re here. Freudian transference and counter-transference is the method of ‘awakening’ that Freud missed in his focus on ego boundaries.

If we wish to go beyond a unified experience, I see no reason why not, since it’s all infinite. However, nobody goes alone, since that is contrary to the purpose of relationship. You wish it to end with God? I’m not setting limits to “What Is” and, in fact, allow for “What Is” to be Infinitely Surprising.

It might be a bit premature to conceptualize beyond unified consciousness, since we have yet to experience unity even on a surface level. You can certainly conceptualize beyond fully engaged minds, but that's not the purpose of this little blog. I don’t set limits on what can be experienced together, merely suggest that our estranged disengagement has set the limits to what CAN be experienced together by requiring it be experienced alone.

The guru sleeps in your bed.

Indeed, there is a certainty to truth that makes it true, contrary to our conceptual parsing. So in that respect we are “already there.” To be more concrete: minds are alienated and estranged and that is reflected through our interior and exterior experience and we are unified in that experience since there really is NO denying “what is.” Centuries of axial age wisdom teachings have been co-opted and interpreted by egocentricity to advocate individual truth encounters (awakening). This results in deteriorating internal and external conditions and ever greater alienation. The ego-self interpretation of humanity is that it is inherently ‘bad’ and so, not to be trusted to engage with in discovering truth. Thus, other ‘people,’ are relegated to the back of the bus, while ego-self grandiosity seeks out truth for itself. In a nutshell, I merely suggest that this is NOT the way and never has been. However, clearly ego resistance is fierce.

I leave the ‘Great Beyond, Beyond’ to the Non-Dual integralistas and the bobblehead Buddha’s. This blog addresses fully engaging in the joint venture of awakening through and with one another. Relationship is our only purpose. However, because we find humanity contemptible, most proclaim seeking depth of relationship with the ‘world’ (nature) or the universe as the Grand Purpose. This denies the fact (or magnifies it) that we don’t fear the world, nature or the universe. What we fear is each other and that in itself sets limits to experiencing the world or the universe. Obviously, the only way to dissolve fear is to join in that purpose.

There is NO proprietary truth transmitted from master to student. The truth experienced is a result of the depth of the relationship between teacher-student and the info each possess or transfers is subordinate to that relationship depth. It’s not the space between thoughts but the space between minds that is our final frontier. But, of course, ego-self co-opts that fact and makes it it’s own.

The guru is right next to you, lives in your house, shares your food and sleeps in your bed. Fully engage in those relationships, since they are NOT coincidental. Relationship is the purpose and the truth, but this is diluted by the ego who wants the jewels for itself and so, relationships are relegated to the bottom of the barrel.

“But wait!” claims the self-absorbed and grandiose ego-self, “once I get enlightened I’ll come back for you.” This lifeboat mentality makes the world victim to egocentricity and it’s clearly reflected in the world’s estranged disengagement and failure to cooperate in saving itself. The truth is in the practice (relationship) and not a result of the practice, because there is no 'outcome' that egocentricity could envision.

I have an fundamental knowledge of “Integral Theory” and the disorganized complexity of those intellectual pursuits. Ken Wilber (in accordance with his revered ego-trippin’ teacher Adi Da) has constructed an excellent theory demonstrating the extent ego-self will go to pursue individual enlightenment. The right and lower left quadrants are fully explained, but the spirituality of the top left is complete bullsheit because it perpetuates the egoic control of axial age teachings through individual levels of inequality. Logic holds that truth does not conform to levels or degrees, but the integralists demand that some have it, while some do not. This theory is nothing more than victim to the egocentric world.

The richness of relationship has yet to be realized, even though it constructs our experience of a "world." I merely suggest infinitely playing in, and with, that experience, devoid of ideological predictions and preparations, which only seek to assert control. Invite truth by leaving it alone. Let it be what it will and just engage deeply in your experience of others and the world.

Prepare for 'surprise' and nothing more than that. Anything less, is indicative of fear and, unfortunately, truth and fear do NOT mix well together.

Jump in the water....

Sweet little princess, let me introduce his frogness
You alone can get him singing,
He's all puffed up, wanna be your king

Oh you can do it, c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon
Lady kiss that frog

Splash, dash, heard your call,
Bring you back your golden ball
He's gonna dive down in the deep end
He's gonna be just like your best friend

So what's one little kiss, one tiny little touch?
Aah, he's wanting it so much

I swear that this is royal blood, running through my skin
Oh, can you see the state I'm in

Kiss it better, kiss it better

Get it into your head
He's living with you he sleeps in your bed
Can't you hear beyond the croaking
Don't you know that I'm not joking

Aah, you think you won't, I think you will
Don't you know that this tongue can kill

C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon
Lady kiss that frog

Let him sit beside you, eat right off your plate
You don't have to be afraid, there's nothing here to hate
Princess, you might like it, if you lowered your defense
Kiss that frog, and you will get your prince...

Jump in the water, c'mon baby jump in with me
Jump in the water, c'mon baby get wet, get wet, get wet
Kiss that frog, lady kiss that frog
Get wet, get wet

(Peter Gabriel)

Artwork by Chris Peters - "The Lovers"

Lay Down Your Defenses

Anger is a protective mechanism of the ego-self that serves no other purpose but to defend by projecting guilt outward. Anger, as a 'normalized' reflex, is easily projected outward without hesitation. We often feel justified in presenting our anger. Yet, ironically, we are often more likely to express anger to a “loved one” than a stranger.

In many “love” relationships, expressing anger is more common than expressions of “love.” In fact, for many relationships, anger is patterned and rather predictable. Often, the "dance of love" is nothing more than brief reprieves from attack.

To deny the underlying power differential between individual egos is naive. The ego demands control and its only purpose is to perpetuate itself through persistent self-assertion into an uncontrollable world. The developing ego-self learns that it must engage the world by 'pressing' itself against its experience of a world, in competition with other egos also engaged in finite 'pressing' games. Parents endeavor to provide the tools necessary for their child's success, when success is defined as ever-greater self-assertion and more effective and strenuous 'press.' This is often referred to as “self-esteem” and includes 'justifiable anger' in the service of self-protection. Hence, not only are we seeking to self-actualize, but at the same time seeking to self-protect. Quite a confusing mix of hide and seek, but this is the game we ALL play, nonetheless.

WHAT GOES AROUND... COMES AROUND

The task for relationships is not to identify the details of this power differential, but to seek out the patterns. Conflict patterns are circular and your reaction to me is based on my reaction to you, which is from your reaction to me resulting from my reaction to you, on and on, ad infinitum. It is crucial that egos miss the patterned circularity of their conflicts, in the need to be absolved of guilt by projecting it upon the other.

In your never-ending ego battles you struggle to indict their transgressions and defend your own, while they, in turn, do the same. Because you have normalized, and become comfortably accustomed to, your defenses, you fail to see the perpetual circularity of ALL conflict.

This is poignantly evident in the larger, ‘more serious’ world, in which this circularity leads to perpetual suffering. The Israelis indict the Palestinians, who easily absolve their guilty by projecting back the same indictments upon the Israelis. In either case, each sees themselves as victim, while the other victimizer. This goes round and round in a never-ending circularity. This is not only true in the episodic chaos of the present, but the history exhibits centuries of pure unbroken circularity. These perpetual hatreds need be exposed so that mutual guilt can transition to a mutual innocence. If we are all guilty, then logic holds, we must all be innocent, since innocence is always perceived in opposition to guilt.

Yet, the pattern in both world affairs and our 'intimate' relationships demands that for them to be innocent, you must be guilty. The ego-self can only sense 'unified oneness' and never know it fully, since such a unification is perceived as death to the separate self, since it is guilt, in contrast to innocence, that defines all egos.

IT IS NOT ATTACK, BUT DEFENSE THAT YOU SUFFER FROM

The real problem is not so much in the attack, but in the need for constant defense. Attacks, although patterned and often chronic, are essentially episodic or intermittently explosive. Yet, it's these episodes that prompt your need to live in constant state of defense and once defenses are emplaced, they tend to wall of the ego-self continuously in preparation for battle and every battle only further reinforces the fortifications. The psychological ego-self essentially becomes entombed in its own preparations against attack. This can only drain the élan vital that is the joy of living with and through others.

Certainly, we have “loving” moments, good days and even weeks, but the patterns are rigid and defenses lay in wait. The ego-self must be protected from psychological attack. This is no different than if your body demanded survival tactics in the wild, thereby, preparing for the body’s protection from wild animals. Your senses would be acutely honed for gross incidents of physical attack. However, psychological attack requires more persistent vigilance, since the attacks can be less gross and much more subtle. Nevertheless, as the body is always instinctively prepared, so is the ego-self.

The subtleties of psychological attack require that you know my weaknesses and I learn yours. Covertly, we gather ‘intelligence’ over many years of sporadic incidental conflict and little 'mini-betrayals.' Early in the initial stages of our ‘love,’ we exposed ourselves in the full trust of this “love” and the belief that it could never be breached. We could tell each other everything, so sure of protection through love.

Yet as "reality" weighed upon us, mistakes were made and disagreements formed. From those mistakes the initial fantasies were replaced by battle lines. You didn’t even realize that gradually, over time, you were developing strategies of ego-self-protection. The old adage “the past only exists when you think about it” is the chief rule of engagement, because it is imperative that you “think about it' often. How can you not think about what I’ve done to you, yet conveniently, you will forget your role in our circularity of attack. You may forgive, but you will not forget and thus, the defenses stand fast and grow.

Therefore, you have limited an intimacy, or Deep Understanding, that was supposed to be unlimited and entirely transformative. Now you will limit what I can know about you, as you gradually build your fortifications. At first, this emotional embargo is barely noticeable even to your ‘self.’ But eventually the mutually imposed fortifications become apparent on both sides, often too late. Rigid fortifications can be virtually impossible, and take enormous amounts of time, to dismantle and, in our busy postmodern world, who’s got the time?

THE SOLUTION IS EASY

Nevertheless, you MUST surrender your defenses and embrace your vulnerability.

This is opposite the conventional solutions that seek to reduce offensive conflict episodes, but fail to fully understand the emotional suffocation in the ego's need to maintain in a constant defense, a ready alert, repetitive vigilance. This is most likely because conflict is externally observable and measurable, while your inner defenses are known only to you. Yet, after each episode of conflict, you secretly applaud your readiness and reinforce yourself for future engagements. Although you still claim to "love" the other, the fact is that love has no reason to defend. This rule is why we limit who, and how many, we love, because from the center of egocentricity, "love" is truly a battleground.

Only strangers attack and defend, since obviously, love is NOT war and, in your defenses, NO love exists. You cannot attack whom you love. Therefore, through your defensive fortress, which walls you off from fully experiencing others, you make them all strangers.

It is the constant preparation for conflict that stifles the mutual joy of intimacy and NOT the conflicts themselves. What are you defending against? What do you actually fear? In preparation for attack, intimacy is stifled and cut off. Even when conflict is visibly absent, defensive preparations lay in wait.

If intimacy is stifled, the entire ego-self concept must wither, since it transforms and grows only through intimacy, or deep engagement with others and the world. Yet, the ego believes its defensive fortifications insure its self-actualization. Is it any wonder why we are all so estranged from one another? In your defenses how can you know your 'self' except that which seeks continuous defense? Is that how you wish to know yourself?

Here is the key to letting down your defenses. The same defenses you embrace to protect yourself, you project onto the other. You cannot see my defenses, but since your armor is in place, the assumption is that I too, am so prepared.

Therefore, the ‘me’ you protect yourself from is YOU.

See me as defenseless; otherwise, you will never surrender your own fortifications. If we are both defenseless what then, can we be guilty of, since a defense presupposes guilt. Make no mistake, what you see in me, you acknowledge in yourself. What is shared can only be strengthened. Share your defenselessness and inadvertently, you will share love.

Only through infinite vulnerability, do we become completely invulnerable.


Artwork by Ron English - "Grade School Guernica"