Relax…You are Only Receding

You were taught symbols to superimpose upon a material world as a means to enhance the meaning of your egocentric existence. Cars, houses, money, sex, possessions, work, bodies, clothes, food, relationships, entertainment, etc, etc, are constantly being formatted and reformatted within your gray matter to increase symbolic value and, thereby, enhance you existence by making "you" special, unique and more meaningful.

The symbols experienced are nothing more than ‘thought' or electro-chemically induced synaptical currents (did you ‘think’ it something more mysterious?) and you have millions of miles of networked dendrites all generating random electrochemical "thought" currents, circuitously linking up to numerous other dendrite branches to become the closed circuits referred to as “belief systems.” There are numerous belief systems within your cranium and, because you have so many, you often have difficulty making correct decisions because of the tangled up mess in your head. Your daily "stress" is nothing more than  the constant battling of neuro-circuits, each vying for the most electrochemical current for which to pull your puppet strings.

Yet, no need to worry, since you will always do what the programming requires. You have no other “choice” but to make the choices your programming requires and, no matter how intensely you seek to claim ownership of your choices to assert your unique specialness into a  world that doesn’t seem to give a crap, what other choice could you make than the one you will make? There was never a better choice than that. Based on the development of your cranial circuitry, that was the choice that had to be made.

Of course, the exalted “Return to Pure Consciousness” folks have a problem with such a deterministic equation. They want all solutions to be 'mystical.' Nevertheless, when you do finally return to “pure consciousness,” after all your years of diligent efforts to shut off your neuro-circuitry; will your brain still function well enough to get you to the toilet on time? Will engaging with pure consciousness cause you to forget how to drive a car, ride a bike or even walk? Will sex still feel good in your brain? Or will you simply exit reality for the the magical nirvana of Shangri La? (actually this, or something very close to it, is the conventional belief taught in most new age seminar/retreat groups)

Hence, “Returning to Pure Consciousness” has its drawbacks. But, how ‘bout giving a little credit to the neuro-circuitry that, fortuitously, linked up the exact dendrite branches, thereby, allowing you to ‘think’ about “Returning to Pure Consciousness”? (otherwise, you might be drinking a Bud and watching NASCAR).

Nevertheless, cultural programming requires no conscious effort, because recognition of the programming is instantaneous and unreflective, making the symbolic representations in your occipital lobe patently obvious to you, based on the herd mentality through which you identify (not to mention that any effort made is based on conditioned neural impulses anyway, so why bother). You will always do what the circuits demand. You will think the 'thought,' perform the action, behave as directed, speak the words you are destined to utter and take offense to what others say and do just as your programming requires.

This begs the question, can people change? No, they cannot. Particularly if we mean by "change," altering circuits outside or external to the already conditioned circuitry through free-will. Which is to say, the script of your destiny was written in your formative years. Now you're just reading the lines someone else (the world) wrote, in direct accordance with your experience du jour.

However, if this cultural programming is somehow short-circuited by a traumatic event, the symbols that make up your comfort zone could suddenly be smashed to smithereens, causing neural networks to short-circuit and electro-chemical currents to cease firing, resulting in varying levels and degrees of irrational fears, delusions of grandeur (Eckhart Tolle), phobias, nervous disorders, mood instability, behavioral compulsions, addictions, mental illness, suicide, murder, institutionalization, etc, etc, etc.

However, there are egocentrics whose cultural programming has resulted in a compelling desire to generate circuits for which to judge the existing network that reflects the symbolic representations of self and world. This is not a choice, but simply the result of years of evolving circuit formation literally directing "you" to a point where the symbolism can no longer be relied on for accuracy and so they actively begin to question the symbols that the world relies on for meaning. Indeed, this can also result in trauma symptoms, due to the fact that many of their most basic assumptions about ‘self’ and world will be totally smashed to smithereens. But, based on the preceding influences from already formed circuits, they've had no choice in this whatsoever.

Some neural networks must remain “asleep,” lulled to complacency by the conditioned cultural programming, and we see this fact in the majority of egocentric mammalians existing today, demonstrating the incredible power of conditioned brain circuitry to fully direct every aspect of communal herd existence. While others, due to the direction their programming has driven them, will burn away circuits one by one, all the while feeling that they are somehow deviant or deranged, because they have no desire to graze with the herd.

Apparently, when certain symbolic meaning circuits lose electro-chemical current, they cease to fire and, thus, the symbolic meanings are no longer experienced as before. Obviously, this impacts other circuits causing radically new perceptions of sensory data input, which completely alters interpretations, thereby, changing responses. This is similar to altering neuro-chemical composition through various drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, ecstasy, etc, but unfortunately, altering neuro-chemistry is temporary, while altering entire brain circuits is more consistent and, hence, “abiding.”

Nevertheless, for this very reason, there are those among us who can SEE the dream consistently and are no longer controlled by the symbols within the dream. 

Even though the experience must be different for each separate, individual neuro-circuit network, there do seem to be signs of this type of neuro-network development.

Maybe you are one of those who seem to interminably question everything even, and especially, that which is most obvious, to the constant dismay and agitation of those around you? Maybe you find it a struggle to participate in the symbolic socio-cultural games that others have been programmed to believe crucial to achieving “happy” and meaningful lives?

Have you become overtly aware of the social games as vapid and vacuous? Do you find yourself avoiding most interactions even, and especially, with those closest to you, due to the shallow verbiage necessary to maintain social engagements? Do you find yourself barely able to control fits of laughter at “inappropriate” times, because the symbols tend to lose boundaries and merge into one another in a strange purple haze? Do you often have absolutely no motivation to perform the symbolic functions of life and feel no guilt about that failure in recognition of its meaninglessness? Have you at times realized that everything you do seems consistently repetitive, as if your reactions and responses are not of “you”? Does everything that happens in your world, no matter how sad or happy, often seem exactly the same?

These may be signs of the direction your circuits are taking you, with no volition on your part, and this is why there really are so few  individuals who can consistently ‘abide’ in this state and most only have brief experiences, which they then refer to as "enlightenment" or "awakening."

Without your culturally programmed symbolic representations of the world, there could be no “self’ to exist in that world, because the self is nothing more than a total composite package of symbolic representations. It is the symbolic ‘self’ that must accept a symbolic world, for without the symbols you would exist no differently than your pet dog or cat, completely reliant on mammalian impulses and instincts in relating to an outside world.

The truth is always behind the symbols and a symbolic existence can only be false by nature of its symbolizing. What is "real" when  the real is unknown? Yet, Egocentrica Mammalia recycles and reformats its symbols because there must always be meaning in its world for IT to exist as meaningful. Egocentricity cannot fathom its abject meaninglessness and still function.

So if you are one of the very few in which the symbols seem to be gradually failing you, one by one…

…relax, it only means “you” are receding.


There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb


Artwork by Sam Weber