There is really only one way to salvation and that is through the recognition that there is nothing “there.”
Otherwise, “you” will simply repeat the same games over and over again, relying exclusively on the same rules to achieve the same rewards that have never sustained “you.”
But what other choice do you have? The stories and fantasies are always the same (even the story of being a story).
The chief story of egocentricity is "The Fearful Fixation." Look at what you rely on to “save” you, to bring you “happiness.” Nothing lasts and everything fades, but the fear of deprivation quickly grasps for compromise through its pleasurable fixations, which it calls its "saving grace." But a fixation is uncompromising because no matter how many times you fail to succeed, the ego returns once again to repeat the pattern.
Egocentric Enlightenment is composed of nothing more than this: “I would give up everything…except that!”
Thus begins a cascade of fixations all contingent on being “real.” Look deeply into the eyes of every “enlightened master” and discover what they will NEVER sacrifice no matter what. Always a strand, a tiny thread of “reality” holds the ENTIRE edifice firmly in place.
There are parts of your dream you will not surrender, else it will be a “sacrifice” and sacrifice only reinforces the egocentric deprivation that makes up the whole of your dream. Only deprivation dreams of “success” and “failure.” Only deprivation sees a need for “enlightenment.” These are the concepts from which “reality” unfolds before your “eyes."
As you ask, so shall you receive. Time and time again.
Fixation on parts of “reality” reinforce the whole and thus superimpose meaning where none before existed. It MUST be patently meaningless in its entirety, else your meanings will continue to give it life. But why does the meaningless cause you so much fear?
The egocentric self fears the meaningless and cannot exist in a meaningless “world.” Imagine if nothing meant anything. If a “chair” did not conform to what it has always meant for you? If the “person” you know as “Bill” no longer conformed to your concepts? If your “pleasures” could no longer hold out the promise of meaning what you require?
Could you exist in such a wasteland? What would you fixate on as “real”? How would you respond to perception that only reflected an absence of mental constructs or concepts? What would you “love” and what would you “hate”? What would you ever have to fear if “death” had no conceptual basis in your egocentric thought system? Could you “die,” if death had NO meaning? Could you "live" if there were no "death"? Would you be “alive” if there were no concepts in your mind to represent “living”?
The ego-self will never surrender its conceptual anchor points. Primarily because its concepts define IT. Was there a chair before a concept of a chair? Was there a “chair” before there was an “ego” to interpret it as it was meant to be? The ego-self claims, “of course!” Everything must have existed before it could be perceived, because if the concept made it real then the ego has more power than it could ever admit to and egos must be powerless to remain egocentric.
Egocentricity is contingent on complete powerlessness.
Hence, a powerless “world” conforms to what you interpret your “self” to be and not what the world determines you ARE. You interpret the world as oppositional to you when, in fact, you only oppose your “self.” You hate what you are, but seek a way to “love” yourself and this “loving hatred” is reflected back to you. Everywhere you look you perceive a world of other minds hating what the mind seems to show them, but desperately seeking for a way to love what they fear. This is how you conceptually interpret your “self” and, thus, it stands to reason that you would SEE your world this same way.
The dream unfolds as nothing more than an interpretation on "you."
Artwork by 'gnato - "f f"
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