Christ Consciousness: Frying the Motherboard

  “….Christ Consciousness does NOT make correct or incorrect choices regarding the body. Christ Consciousness makes NO choices at all, because it lives in absolute CERTAINTY. In certainty, there is NO NEED to choose. Every thought you think MUST be in the mind, because it has always been certain that you would think it. Therefore, it follows that every action is performed as it MUST. There is no disparity between the certainty of Christ Consciousness and the body’s acting in accordance to that certainty, since the body is only an egocentric idea. In the certainty of Christ Consciousness, no choices NEED be made, because all choices have been made as ONLY they could have been made.” (The Certainty of Christ Consciousness, 2011)

Free-will asserts that there is an autonomous “I-me” that makes choices free of influence and free of the causal WILL that directs the entire universe. Free-will asserts that there is some autonomous ‘being’ in your brain, that “you” refer to as your “self,” that volitionally chooses thoughts before you think them and that your life is completely under the control of a WILL that is owned or ‘possessed’ by that autonomous 'chooser.' Free-will asserts that thoughts don’t just arise, but that you have a personal responsibility to choose the ‘right’ thoughts before you think them and all your life you have been taught which thoughts are ‘right’ and which are ‘wrong.’ Free-will automatically claims that if you have a thought that is ‘wrong,’ and subsequently act on that electro-chemical impulse, you are personally responsible, because you should not have allowed that thought to arise the moment it did. Certain neurons should not fire and others should.

Christ Consciousness (Buddha Mind, no-mind, or whatever you wish to label it) realizes that every thought that arises must have arisen exactly as it did, directed by a WILL not your own and that “you” are not free from.

The very thought you just now had, was simply waiting to arise since the beginning of time. Centuries of preceding activities and situations had to occur, and trillions and trillions of other thoughts had to arise, in other minds, for you to have the very thought you are having right…now. There is no chance, coincidence or uncertainty to a predetermined causal order that continues to infinitely unfold in your head.

Christ Consciousness exists in the certainty that every choice made had to be made exactly as it was and every choice that will be made will unfold exactly as it must. Egocentric free-will must always be uncertain; because it believes it has a choice in what unfolds and can direct a ‘self’ outside the WILL of a predetermined causal universe.

Yet, when you understand that every choice made had to be made exactly as it was, what could you be uncertain about?

For centuries, the unawakened and progressively more unaware, egocentrica mammalia, has done everything possible to achieve certainty in his choices, only to become more uncertain as the social fictions and cultural fantasies that guide his choices become more and more complex and contradictory. He constructs huge centers of higher learning in order to increase his certainty of purpose, whilst the ‘self’ constructed fictions all around him begin to dissolve into chaotic obscurity. “I must learn more!” he exclaims, while his brain clamors for freedom from the mess of his own tangled neuro-circuitry and the 'thoughts' that arise from it. More and more “knowledge” only confirms the utter uncertainty of his existence and seems to remove him further from the predetermined causal universe, even though being separate from that causal whole is impossible.

The delusion is that your life should be different and that you can change it. The delusion is that in this very moment you should be doing something different from what you are doing and this delusion is as much a part of the causal unfolding as any other part, until it’s gone.

What you’re doing in this moment is exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. Whether you’re mindlessly masturbating to porn, while pumping down a sixpack of Bud, or actively and sincerely seeking to achieve “no-mind,” by meditating for many hours every day, neither choice is better or worse than the other. Whichever choice you have made is exactly what you should be doing simply because you ARE doing it, otherwise, based on a predetermined causal universe that you are totally enmeshed in and flowing with, you would be doing something else.

In an infinitely unfolding predetermined causal universe, the meditation master is no different or better than the beer guzzling pervert.

In a predetermined causal universe, masturbation and meditation hold no special significance to a causal order that values nothing over anything else, simply because it allows ALL to unfold and be experienced. Happiness and suffering are equally valuable to a predetermined causal order that allows both to be experienced. In the “Oneness” of a predetermined causal universe, life and death are not opposites, but equal in value.

Of course, to egocentrica mammalia, this idea sucks, because everybody knows meditation is more valuable than masturbation. He believes that life is more valuable than death and that a “happy” life is better than one full of suffering.

The non-duality of Christ Consciousness equalizes all opposites. Death and destruction are as much a part of the causal universe as life and construction. Hence, when all values exist in a non-dual equality, choices are no longer made based on free-will, but are just simply made with the understanding that they must be made exactly as they will be made.

Valuing one thing over another is also part of the causal order, until the ‘chooser’ disappears, never to be experienced again, while choices still continue to be made as they always have.

A lot of folks are getting close to this, based on their suffering from the Symptoms of Approach. These symptoms are outside your capacity to control and you will mostly likely seek relief from them as they can be quite uncomfortable and even frightening.

When the fictional realities of a fictional ‘self’ living in a fictional social order, along with other fictional selves, begins to lose value and recede, a deep sense of depression results, since there are progressively less anchor points for the fictional ‘self’ to actualize itself as real. In addition, a tendency to isolate may become demonstrative due to the extreme discomfort of participating in socially scripted interactions, through meaningless roles, masks and gestures. You may gradually find yourself no longer caring about things others find immensely important. None of this can be explained to anyone, because they do not see what you see. Marriages fail, friends fade away, as relationships become almost impossible to maintain. Many things may drop to the wayside, family, activities, hobbies, interests, desires, goals, aspirations, etc, and other things may require seemingly super human effort to even engage at all (socializing becomes a test of endurance). But you’re not approaching some watered down version of truth, but the brute, raw reality of your existing non-existence.

This path to awakening can be a lonely one indeed and some have yet to realize they are on this path. But you have never had a choice in this. You are not the driver and only along for the ride.

The Symptoms of Approach merely indicate that you are coming closer to a complete neuro-circuit overload. A frying of the mother board, burning up useless circuitry in a total shock to the system. This is not a brain disorder like Alzheimer’s, but simply the natural discontinuation of electro-chemical current that fires up circuits not related to truth. Yet, like Alzheimer’s, it is simply not under your control to alter or change in any way and all efforts to do so have been predetermined as part of the causal universe.

You cannot “choose” to take this path, because in a predetermined causal universe, all choices have already been made. There is nothing you can do to alter this path. You cannot slow it down or speed it up. However, all attempts to do so are part of the process and choosing to medicate the symptoms is also part of the process. This may ebb and flow, over many years, in fluctuating waves of engaging the process and running from it in fear, in moving forward only to quickly pull back again. You have been on this path since before you were born. Advancing toward emptiness can be a very frightening experience and many have compared it to death, because it emphasizes the nothingness of all values currently held dear.

In order to get to nothing, you must first be disillusioned by everything and that’s not a good feeling (for all the bliss bunnies out there).

There must be a shock to the system, a complete overhaul of perspective, a gradual frying of the mother board toward the realization that there is no free-willed, autonomous self making choices of its own volition, free and separate from the WILL of a predetermined causal universe.

I mean, think about it…

Who really wants to achieve that kind of certainty, in which everything you were once “certain” about is completely null and void?

I didn’t.

I wanted “bliss.”

In the end, you will die and you will “know,” nothing more than you now know in this very moment and…

…that's “enlightenment.”

Artwork by Zach Johnson

Freedom is Absent Free-Will...

“The distinction between “higher” and “lower” systems in the brain offers no relief: as the conscious witness of my experience, I no more initiate events in my prefrontal cortex than I cause my heart to beat. There will always be some delay between the first neurophysiological events that kindle my next conscious thought and the thought itself. And even if there weren’t— even if all mental states were truly coincident with their underlying brain states— I cannot decide what I will next think or intend until a thought or intention arises. What will my next mental state be? I do not know— it just happens. Where is the freedom in that?” Harris, Sam (2012-03-06). Free Will (p. 9). Simon & Schuster, Inc.

What will your next ‘thought’ be? You have no ‘idea’ until you think it and what comes up will be influenced entirely by the variables of the moment, such as external stimuli, and your response to those variables will be determined by genetic and socio-cultural programming, all of which you have no control over. In fact, neuroscience is studying how trauma, experienced by your ancestors (parents, grandparents, etc) has genetically shaped your current day neuroses.

It is true that you are a unique little snowflake, but “you” were shaped by preceding events and factors that had to occur to make your existence an actuality. The core ‘self’ is genetically hard-wired in your brain and any changes made are a product of already formed circuitry and, thus, were entirely predetermined. The fact that you quit smoking exactly when you did was preceded by numerous influential factors that shaped that decision right up to the moment it was made.

You struggle mightily against a predetermined causal order in an attempt to wrest some crumbs of control from an indifferent, but infinitely unfolding, universe. Sometimes it seems you have succeeded, only to look back and find that all your failures and successes were pre-scheduled as part of a preordained causal order that began long before you existed, but made your existence possible.

Egocentric ‘control’ is different from the control found in the rest of the natural order. While a lion must control his thinking to acquire an antelope, in order to assuage his instinctual requirements, egocentrica mammalia demands control of his “thoughts” because, as opposed to the instinctual influences evident in the entire natural world, he believes he has free-will over what he thinks and this is his chief delusion and cause of all his suffering.

A lion is certainly in control of his thinking, as he concentrates on the antelope selected for dinner, but this is entirely influenced by the instinctual need to eat and the factual food before him. Hence we cannot say that the lion ‘controls’ his thinking, but that programmed instincts and external conditions specifically control what is thought, when and why, allowing the lion no free-will to think anything other than what is demanded in the moment. His reality is purely factual and there are no fictional considerations for which to concern his thought processes. He need not concern himself with fictional realities, such as what “clothes” to wear for dinner or whether there is enough “money” available to purchase his dinner, because there are no fictional realities involved in filling his belly with food. He has no ‘self’ for which to make fictional preferences as to what antelope he might devour since clearly he will eat the exact one he can most easily catch.

Human egocentrica mammalia thinks that he chooses his thoughts. However, if this were factual, shouldn’t he always ‘think’ only the most advantageous thoughts he could ‘choose’? Why is egocentrica mammalia so fooking miserable? If he can choose his thoughts, why is he then not immensely “happy” every moment of his life, regardless of external conditions? If he can choose each and every thought in his head, why not choose only the most positive and “happy” thoughts? If he can choose a thought before thinking it, why would he choose a thought that causes him to suffer? If he could choose what to think, why think a thoughts that causes anger, anxiety or depression? Why is it so hard for egocentrica mammalians to be “happy” if, in fact, they are in control of their thinking?

The answer is obvious...

Instead, he often thinks thoughts that he would rather not think, but feels compelled nevertheless, because of the suffering those thoughts entail. This demonstrates that he has no free-will to choose his thoughts, because his thinking is entirely owned by the fictional and factual realities of a predetermined causal order that determine his “thoughts” for him and every one of those thoughts are wired up in the circuitry between his ears. Egocentrica mammalian thought processes are often so disparaging and dreadful that he turns to drink and drugs to anesthetize the electro-chemical impulses (thoughts) coursing through his grey matter. An entire fictional world, referred to as “entertainment,” needed to be constructed as a means of distracting him from his own neuro-circuit impulses.

Just like the lion, egocentrica mammalia cannot “think” outside his neuro-circuits and the external conditions that determine which circuits fire up in response to those conditions, thereby, provoking actions and behaviors that the “self” claims are chosen volitionally. This demands that he generate more circuits through a process of “education” which allows him to construct ever more complex fictional realities through which to control his body and his personal world as a means of continually actualizing as fact his fictional ‘self.’ The lion has no fictional ‘self’ wired up in his noggin and, thus, must only give attention to the factual needs of the body. The lion cares not if his thoughts are positive or negative, good or bad, right or wrong. He has no choice in his thinking and moves with the predetermined causal order as that order directs him.

Egocentrica is controlled by his fictional realities, demanding he find ever more ingenious methods to escape that control and thus be in control of the predetermined causal order. “Crime” is a fictional reality that seeks to circumvent fictional “laws” and actualize a fictional ‘self’ outside the predominant fictional realities of the fictionalized social order. But the criminal is as much victim to the fictional realities as those who reverently adhere to the fictional laws. Fictional realities of the social order determine what you ‘think’ and you have never had a choice in that and nor do you have a choice in when you will think what you think as external conditions will prompt conditioned programmed responses to be exactly as they must.

You did not create the fictional realities that currently demand your participation and that give fictional meaning to your factual life by determining how and what to think. I imagine that most people, if they had a choice, would not participate in half the silly social games they now feel compelled to engage with. Fictional realities were thrust upon you with absolutely no choice as to when, where or why. The education and learning of fictional realities packed tightly in your cranium makes all the choices for you based on programmed circuitry that you had no personal responsibility in developing.

The essential fictions were programmed into your head and you now automatically respond from that programming. As much as you try to control your fate, it has already been predetermined, unless of course, the predetermined causal order removes you completely, but you have no choice in that either.

All this may sound fairly bleak; however, for some it could result in a ‘surrender’ to the WILL of a predetermined causal order, but only if the circuits take you there, since it is electro-chemical impulses within fatty tissue that makes choices and not “you.” There is no “you” in there and there never was.

Essentially, a sense of dread and defeatism is often experienced with the realization that every ‘choice’ ever made had to be made exactly as it was, which will inevitably lead to other choices being made exactly has they have to be made. Your ‘life’ is exactly how it should be in this moment based on all the moments that brought you to this moment, because you are always ‘in the moment,’ regardless of how you evaluate what is happening in that moment (also predetermined) and each moment is completely influenced by the moment preceding. You will still make ‘choices,’ but you can rest assured that any choice you make had to be made, regardless of your evaluating it as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ after making it. You cannot act any differently than you do act in any moment, as each moment shapes the context of the next since the very moment the universe first came into being.

There is no reason to feel guilt for actions as all actions happen as they must or they would have happened differently. You may claim that you should have acted differently than you did in any moment, but if you could have acted other than you did, and “you” are in control of your thinking, why did you not choose thoughts that allowed for a different action? What is actually occurring is that you’re simply responding on auto-pilot to external stimuli in ways you have been socio-culturally programmed to respond. There was no volitional ‘choice’ involved at all. Actions impacted upon the grey matter years ago, in turn, determine behaviors occurring in this very moment, just as this very moment conditions the brain for future moments.

You are on a path not of your making, but that path has been unfolding long before you were even born.

Although you are certainly making decisions that provide direction, the decisions are merely programmed responses to external events, both of which are outside your control. You cannot understand the ‘purpose’ of the path you are on because it is interwoven with a trillion other purposes that were predetermined to be followed before you were born to be who you are, that had to be made for you to be who you are, and your path is interwoven with other paths that must be followed simply as a result of your manifesting and being who you are. Make no mistake, entire civilizations had to fall, world wars needed to be waged and millions had to live and die exactly as they did for you to be in this moment right now.

Whether saint or sinner, your only purpose is to go where the circuits take you and you will do that, because you cannot exit from that path because “you” did not choose it, but it was determined for you long before you existed. However, you can live in a state of surprise, in which little control is necessary and you ride the causal waves without predicting or preparing for what unfolds before you. Or not... depending on the circuitry.

Since you have no idea what your next thought will be, there is little need to worry about the future. Unless, of course, that just happens to be your next ‘thought.’ But that’s okay too, since it had to arise exactly as it did, exactly when it did and, hence, there is no need to fret about it unless, of course, you’re wired up to fret about it in the moment you do, which is exactly what was supposed to happen as it obviously did or else it would not have happened exactly as it did.

The predetermined causal waves you ride each and every moment have been occurring long before you came on the scene and will continue long after the worms have completely devoured your rotting carcass. Your actual freedom is defined by the complete absence of free-will in the recognition that your life will unfold exactly as predetermined. There is nothing you need do about it, because there is nothing you can do, but watch it happen exactly as it must and how you evaluate each moment is as much destined to be a part of the next moment as the previous moment’s actually occurring exactly as it did.

Based on circuited responses wired up in your brain, you will either joyously ride the predetermined causal waves or suffer through years of madly swimming for some fictionally safe shoreline. Either way, the choice has never been yours to make, but it will always strangely seem that some nebulous shadowy “I-me” experience is ‘choosing’ to madly pump out ‘thoughts’ within a calcium shell and making choices based on its own free-will. This will seem real until the time comes that it recognizes it has never made a choice that was not part of predetermined causal order outside its control, but that it has never been separate from. In the universal ‘oneness’ of an unfolding causal order, every choice made was predetermined to be made long before the experience of making it had occurred.

Your WILL has never been your own.

Artwork by George Grie