Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Egocentrica Mammalia: Just a Fart in the Wind



There are many out there today, burning down the house in the ‘desire’ to experience the cold winds of the real. They stand outside watching it burn to the ground and then turn and walk away, with the understanding that they're "done."

Remaining in the comfy warmth of your spirituality keeps the fear at bay, but ignorance is your only reward. 

Like cute cuddly cute kittens huddling in a corner, egocentrica mammalia hides in his fabricated symbols, weaving ever more complex and confabulated fictions that fail to veil the death that started at birth and so, he never really lives, but remains in a comfy cozy trance-like state, till death actually awakens him.

Why wait?

You confidently proclaim your spiritually narcissistic blather completely ignorant of the predetermined causal order that gave you life in the first place. You reverently conform to your historically sanctioned sacred rituals and practices (while still proclaiming you've "let go of  the past") in the desire to achieve “enlightenment,” a state different than the one your in now, but forget that if there were no oxygen you would not be in the state your in now. You sit in your meditative reverie, seeking to transcend your made-up, mundane fictional realities by rising beyond your repetitively entrenched egocentric thought patterns, ignorant of the fact that if the earth stopped spinning you’d soon drop dead. Yet, your spiritual search allows you to deftly deny the undeniable fact that you would not be sitting in your spiritually self-absorbed, splendor-on-high, searching for some conceptualized nebulous state of blissful ignorance, if it weren't for the fact that gravity keeps your butt firmly attached to the floor.

But none of this matters in your narcissistic search for a more conceptually defined (what words can do it justice?) and higher order of narcissistic self-absorption. Egocentrica mammalian’s are the only life form that chronically seek a state of mind other than the one he is now experiencing and, in a millennium, has yet to find. Alas, will he never surrender his search?

Furthermore, that “enlightenment” you must have experienced had nothing to do with you at all and if your brain were not wired-up exactly as it is, and if you had not had the exact prior experiences you have exactly had, down to the tiniest detail which, thereby, rerouted neuro-networks exactly in the way it did, then the experience you claim as “enlightened,” would be no different than that whizbang, jiggy-yahoo orgasm you had following a night of furious fornication (and that too was predetermined).

When you attain that illustrious shift in consciousness, achieving your enlightened state of divine bliss, can you then quit your day job? If not, then how will you incorporate the bliss of “enlightenment” into shelf stocking at Walmart or enhancing you company's bottom line through expert stock picks? When you ascend to this higher, more sacred, state of consciousness, how will that affect the rest of the world? Will the earth continue to turn on its axis or will it pause in its infinite revolving to marvel at your new found, self-defined, psycho-emotional status?

Or are you victim of socio-culturally programmed neuro-circuitry?

And when that moment, long sought, of “awakening" has you struggling for just the right concepts to describe it to everybody, will you become expertly adept at peddling narcissistic drivel at discount rates on Amazon.com? Apparently, based on a recent historical perspective, the sole purpose of post-modern, spiritual “enlightenment,” or “awakening,” is to facilitate seminars and post vids on Youtube. What other purpose is served?

Does your “enlightenment” mean anything to the rest of the fooking universe or is it just another useless narcissistic brain fart? If it is intended by an egocentric, how can it be anything BUT egocentric? Nevertheless, it does seem the universe has set aside space for your delusions, else, you would not be deluded.

In fact, many bright and “spiritually” maligned minds claim we are approaching a massive shift in “collective consciousness” and they support this by pointing to the numerous social uprisings occurring around the globe (as if social uprisings are a new feature in the history of egocentrica mammalia). They seem to believe that overturning governments is proof that collective consciousness is somehow “spiritually” shifting, rising, transcending, even though each new fictionally defined “government” repeats the patterns of the last (can this not be observed as a definitive historical fact?).

I keep attempting to watch these “shift in consciousness” videos only to struggle to keep my lunch down as the same useless drivel is spouted with reverence by so-called spiritual teachers. I can only ask, does the predetermined natural order, an order that, if it did not exist neither would you, give a fook about your ability to “vote in free elections”?

The causal order that spawned you is indifferent to your constant whining about “freedom” and demonstrates this indifference by shutting off your heart whenever it damn well pleases and you have no fooking freedom to change that.  But as long as you still have the full capacity to buy boat loads of plastic Chinese sheit, you proudly proclaim you’re free. No doubt when that “freedom' is absent, you too will seek to overthrow governments. Such is the delusional nature of egocentrica mammalia.

After centuries of evolution, post-modern spirituality still looks to the Mayans for truth. Egocentrica mammalia can fly to the moon and back, but still demands 2nd century Buddism inform him how to conduct his life. Egocentrica has tomes of technologically advanced knowledge stored in countless libraries, with the ultimate potential to save everybody and everything on earth, but still relies on a 2000 year old book for its most significant data on how to organize and conduct his life.

Is egocentrica mammalia a causally ordered fooking joke? If so, why does he take himself so seriously? Why can’t egocentrica laugh too?

Why not choose an ideology that provides evidence to support its facts. Why not look to neuroscience, which is rapidly demonstrating that you have no choice in what you believe, since all belief is provided to you from birth and hard-wired into the fibrous fatty tissue betwixt your ears.

Or look to the ideologies of medicine, which demonstrates that, with billions of hormonal, electro-chemical, cellular, molecular, neuronal, dendritic, etc, etc, actions taking place in the body, there is no point in time for which a ‘self’ makes a choice separate from these processes and all of these processes actually serve to define the exact ‘choice’ being made by that ‘self,’ external to any specific deliberation or intention.

If these processes occur entirely without autonomous egocentric “choice,’ what makes you think a “you” exists at all? If science can determine what you think before you think it, then who or what is actually thinking? Where do your thoughts come from, if not “you”? If it ain’t “I-me,” then who or what is doing all this fooking useless thinking that leads to nothing but more useless suffering?

Is the same WILL that intends the planetary orbit around the sun not evident in you?

I have no more responsibility for the sheit I write on this blog, than you have in complaining about what I write on this blog (in the comment section). But I can see with crystal clarity the predetermined causal factors that have led me to write this ridiculous drivel (and not a serious bone in my bod cares a spit). Can you see the predetermined variables that have led you to leave your insipid comment? Something brought you here and keeps you coming back for more. What electro-chemical impulses are being stimulated? What parts of your brain are literally lighting up as you read this, while for others, not even the barest of sparks?

There are some who are getting very close to understanding this WILL, which is only a hop, skip and a jump to the end of “you.” Those peeps are hanging by a fragile tenuous tether, in which any wrong move could snap it completely.

Then what?

An egocentric ‘self’ contingent on free-willed, deliberate, intentionally, self-determined choice is like a fart on a windy day, gone before you can get a good waft of the wretched stench, leaving you to wonder…

…did that fart really exist after all?

Artwork by Mark Ryden

16 comments:

  1. Hey Mike,

    what a rant! You rant best, dude! And sometimes you ring true too. That's more than nothing.

    Here is my one sentence on what "thinking" is:

    A coherent flow of information that can be decoded, understood and appreachiated by like-minded fellows who are 1.) entertained, 2.) entertained, 3.) entertained by that kind of thinking.

    Thanks for the fish,
    Quark

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  2. The electro-chemical current that is experienced and, subsequently, conceptualized as "thought," has as much value as the electro-chemical impulse to shit (but considering the current state of egocentric social existence, most likely of less value than the impulse to shit)

    The difference is that egocentrica mammalian's believe, in opposition to the rest of the causal order, that they choose their thoughts and, hence, own the impulses that arise.

    But they have no prob in accepting the impulse to shit is owned by the body and that they have no control over that.

    Wait'll they finally get that they have as much control over their "thoughts" as they do over the impulse to shit.

    Glad you enjoyed my rant,
    Mike

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  3. But wait...once I fasted for quite a long time and...what happend?

    No shit came out of my body!

    What does that mean?

    I have some kind of control over shitting or not shitting!

    Maybe thought-fasting is possible too...who knows?

    Have a nice and sunny day,
    Thinky

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  4. Hi Mike, just a question...

    You refer to enlightenment frequently. I take that term very narrowly, roughly as "the loss of the sense of a separate identity". No bliss bunnies, more evolved selfs, etc, that is all out of scope. You write of selfs with no autonomy/freewill which I could interpret as the same thing. Likewise, your description of your personal tack *sounds* kinda the same. The only difference might be that you consider there still to be a separate identity which has as one of its attributes, no autonomy.

    I'm sure you've addressed this in your trove but you are much too prolific for me. Besides, I sense a constant shift through your history, so where you at on that subject now, bro?

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  5. "Besides, I sense a constant shift through your history, so where you at on that subject now, bro?"

    Ha! Excellent observation. I always marvel at the fortitude of the so-called neo-advaita masters who doggedly remain mired to one perspective, one teaching, one way of conceptualizing, year after year after year, as if blocking the plasticity of neuro-circuitry. Someone once suggested I write a book and my response was, that wouldn't work cuz a week after the book was published my circuits would be busy refuting the book and extolling a new "theory of everything." (and this is clearly apparent on this blog, since it spans approx 8 yrs of inquiry) The more circuits that get fried, the less I believe anything.

    Indeed, there can never be a complete loss of identity autonomously chosen. Hence, Alzheimers disease is the emptying of the vessel absent volition. There can never be a "choice" for self-disassociation and this emphasizes the absence of free-will.

    Hence, in the gradual understanding of the absence of free-will there is a sense of freedom, but only because past guilt and future anxiety recede.

    If I have no responsibility for past and future actions, what need have I for guilt and anxiety? Yet, this is not experienced as a 'lightening strike," which tends to be the usual "spiritual" perspective, ie, Eckhart Tolle.

    It's a slow ripping, shredding, tearing, frying, burning, kinda process that I found more reflective of McKenna, Balsekar and a few others. But I only looked for representative after the fact, which means I may be totally off in identifying with those reps and it could, in fact, be something completely different.

    But then, I love surprises and often wait for them...
    Mike

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    1. Even though I longed for the instantaneous non-event (enlightening strike?), it really was out of laziness. It slowly dawned on me that the whole process has to be gradual and really, never-ending. That was the point I was making to J about the immutability of the mind... by its nature it cannot be static, it is always changing, pre/post strike. So Balsekar gets all enlightened, waxes philosophically, and in his last years starts mixing it up with the girls in a most inappropriate way. The acolytes howl in indignation and judgement when it was probably good old fashioned advanced dementia, a continuance of the never-ending brain/mind processes. There are days I wish it were prettier but I don't know where that thought came from.

      However, there is a switch that happens at strike, there is a before and after. Once the truth about Santa Claus is evident it can never revert to re-belief. Hmmm, maybe with appropriate brain trauma though... damn I just revalidated Mike's position. It's plastic all the way down.

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  6. Hey Mike and Chris,

    and yes, Balsekar was not a true jnani (someone who knows him/herself). He was just another sucker who posed as "enlightened". But "there is no enlightenment. If you know that you are enlightend."

    Self-knowledge is what is needed first. First things first. What do one actually know if one don't even know oneself? So first one have to inquire into the true nature of oneself and when that is known everything else becomes appearent anyway.

    And IF one knows oneself, knows itself, no other (outer) knowledge is needed anymore.The one and only secret is revealed. But most of the people look on the "outside" for knowledge and never ask the relevant and proper questions that lead to self-knowledge. Why is that?

    Because self-knowledge can be dangerous. Self-knowlegde can be the cause of intense feelings of guilt, shame and sorrow or it can be the opposite. It depends on the result of the inquiry. It depends on what one discovered about oneself. Therefore most people in the "field" of "knowledge" pursue a path that leads to outer "knowledge" rather than inquire into the nature of oneself. Out of fear....unconscious fear. The fear to discover ones true nature as...EMPTY...as nothing more than "a fart in the wind".

    So Balsekars "no pride no guilt" is bogus. Just his little attempt to get away from what he realy was. Although being with the sat-guru Balsekar missed the point completely. But he was wellcome by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj because he was a very good translater at least.

    Oh happy day!

    Anja

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  7. Hi mike you posted a video of rupert spira not long ago, with the caption (THIS GUY KNOWS WHAT HES TALKING ABOUT), He states that there is no separate entity to have free will, but he also meditates and sells shed loads of books, so what is your view on him now? And also some people believe that we make ourselves suffer because we judge and hate some but love others, so we are doing it all to ourselves as who would we be without our suffering? But if there is no free will then are we doing it all to ourselves? Or cant egocentrics help it? Im confused as you might have guessed ha! X

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    1. I don't know the guy nor have I read his books (reading spiritual based material will only cause me chronic nausea these days).

      He may be a bat shiet crazy elsewhere, but my assessment was wholly based on what was said in that vid. In fact, the post I currently have in the hopper tends to follow that line of thought a bit further.

      Furthermore, indeed, "we are doing it all to ourselves" but if the causal order required we do differently, we would do differently. Hence, we cannot be held responsible because, as you say, we literally cannot help it, change it, make it anything other than what it is, unless so directed by a causal WILL we cannot be separate from. I recognize the purveyors of change do not accept this, but simply examine the whole history of egocentrica mammalia and it become obviously apparent. The chronic efforts of egocentrica mammalia has changed nothing, but fails to accept this fact as absolute. For instance, many will point to the fact that, although egocentrica mammalia constructed the insitution of slavery, he also ended it. Alas, the truth is he did not end it merely diluted it and substituted other forms of enslavement. Egocentricity is founded on power structures such as slavery and have been so egocentrica first found a "self' swimming around between his ears.

      Thanks,
      Mike

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  8. Mike, I think this needs your subtle touch.

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    1. Perused it, but am at work at will have to give it a deeper reading.

      Clearly, we will see a major backlash from philosophers and psychologists with regard to neuroscience, because the science will completely annhilate yrs of conceptual bovine excrement.

      Thanks,
      Mike

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  9. The interesting thing about pieces like this is that they follow the logical "automaton lacking free will" argument so far but eventually get a case of the heebie jeebies and suddenly switch their tune. They somehow rationalize a vertical model with causal behavior below a certain line, but all of a sudden free will kicks back in (to paraphrase Vonnegut). Why would there be some arbitrary point where things switch over? It would be as if the brain decides to run the colon and decide when shitting happens. I suppose there's some point where self-awareness turns on (above dog somewhere?) but that's not the same thing. All it means is you can be aware of the automatic processes running.

    I sure am glad I never think about stuff like this because it could be very depressing...

    Since I was thinking about dear departed Kurt, here's another gem of his:
    "If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, "I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by 'free will.' I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will."

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  10. O.k., fithuminated dudes...here we go again. On "free-will" of course...lame...but...here we go:

    1. None of us HAS free will. That's a fact.

    2. Some of us CAME here out of free will. And...some just don't...

    3. All of us are pervaded by a certain forces...

    4. The question is: WHAT kind of forces. Shitty or titty? THAT is THE question!

    5. Have a good night and do not smoke cigars if you are not supposed to.

    6. Fuck less and feel more!

    Hari Om Tat Sat,
    Anja

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  11. Hello Mike S,
    Like the way you think and admire the articulation, but a word to the wise; your Reductio Ad Absurdum should carry a health warning for the elderly as I nearly hospitalised myself laughing!...thanks.
    PS...anyone who has a pussy on his lap must be doing something right...or is the chemtrails?

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    1. Glad you like Reductio (not many get it...)

      Thanks!
      Mike

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