Mojo at Play in the Conceptual Fields of the Dream

“It can be very difficult for any spiritual teacher to get through to students like this, to get them to stop holding on to their fixation on an absolute view. This is one of the dangers of awakening: the tendency to grasp at a lopsided view. We grasp at the absolute view of awakening, and we deny anything else. It is actually the ego that fixates on the absolute in this way, using it as an excuse for dismissing unenlightened behavior, thought patterns, and divided emotional states. As soon as we grasp at any view, we have gone blind to everything else.” (Adyashanti, 2004-12-01,End of Your World, The pp. 45-46 Sounds True. Kindle Edition).

“Unenlightened behavior”???? This guys a bit “fixated” on the “Spiritual Teacher” role. Very prescriptive. Do this, do that, not that, not this.This concept is "good" (concept) and that one "bad" (concept).

But then, every pointer… points back at “you”  (concept) so maybe he's doing a good job at "spiritual teacher."

Egocentrics need “To Do Lists.” I need to be quiet. I need to be honest. I need to meditate. I need to commit to spiritual practices. I need to be NOT separated. I need to not do harm. I need to stop holding onto my fixations. I need to stop “grasping.” I need to surrender “unenlightened behavior.” I need to be “enlightened.”

High Mojo don’t care none about egocentric “Rules of Enlightenment” (nor any rules, to be more precise). However, there is a thrill in playing with rules you know are meaningless. Such "play" (concept) has often been labeled "infinite" (concept).

High Mojo (concept) is A-okay with “unenlightened behavior.” High Mojo plays infinitely in the conceptual fields of the dream.

“Enlightened” is as much a concept as “father.” If you believe in the concept as “real” (another concept) then you’ll conform accordingly and expect the outcomes that are associated with whatever concept you’re jelling with. If I play out the role of father based on the concept of “father” (which is really the only way to play) then I will expect specific outcomes associated with following those conceptual rules. If I play out the role of “spiritual teacher,” or “enlightened” dude, then I will expect the outcome attached to that concept. I may never get the expected outcome, but I will continue to adhere to the rules nonetheless, because it’s the rules that are defining “I-me” based on what I want to happen.

If it doesn’t happen, then I will suffer accordingly and seek out concepts that explain the failure and that prescribe what more should be done to get the payout attached to the concept. Those additional concepts will then define me based on the expectations attached.

It’s actually pretty fookin’ simple when you look at it straight on. But then, egocentrics tend not to look too closely at their concepts. But then, that’s the nature of the concept of “egocentricity.” Attached is the concept of “ignorance” and not to look too closely. But then, that’s okay too!

Ever notice how all your concepts tend to jell together. Like, the concept of “child molester” doesn’t jive at all with concept of “spiritual seeker.” The concept of “father” doesn't sit well with the concept of “recluse.” The concept of "spiritual teacher" doesn't jell with the concept of "alcoholic."

When concepts clash, peeps commit "suicide" (final concept).

So like, I’m “divorced” (concept) and was attempting to play around with the concept of “dating.” However, associated with that concept is the concept of “relationship” and “love” and, obviously, attached to those concepts is the concept of “rules.” Problem is that once the concept of “rules” come into play…I want to cut my throat with a rusty butter knife (concept). Concepts achieve power through emotion, but “emotion” is a concept too.

Emotion is a concept associated with the body (concept) and, theretofore and ergo, the concept of "helplessness" comes into play. I have played with the concept of "helplessness" many times in my "life" (concept) and always, attached, is the concept of "hopelessness." I must admit that the concept of "hopelessness" has been more helpful to me than any concept I have yet to consider. But it does appear that most will avoid "hopelessness" with incredible strength and vigor and often immediately attach to concepts that have as their sole purpose the avoidance of the concept of "hopelessness." I find this "fascinating"! (concept)

When Mojo rises, Mojo looks and SEES it all as a "concept" (also a concept) and when Mojo SEES it all for what it is, guess what happens?

Nothing….

Not a damn thing….(Ha!)

And that’s how you know your Mojo’s risin’ (which, of course, is also a concept).

Artwork by Yosuke Ueno - "Beginning the great Adventure"

Egocentric Absurdus Absentis Consilium

"Imagining living in a universe without purpose may prepare us to better face reality head on. I cannot see that this is such a bad thing. Living in a strange and remarkable universe that is the way it is, independent of our desires and hopes, is far more satisfying for me than living in a fairy-tale universe invented to justify our existence." LINK

Truth has no rules (other than being true) simply because it has NO limitations and that which has NO limitations cannot have egocentric 'purpose' (every purpose is egocentrically generated and defined otherwise you wouldn't know of it). Limitation is nothing more than an egocentric interpretation that unconsciously seeks to avoid, at all costs, the naggingly omnipresent possibility that it is has NO purpose. Hence, ego-self just keeps inventing limitations to define what it can never possibly understand.

Therefore, the first rule of egocentricity is that truth(s) must have limits that define its purpose(s). The second rule is that “I" am an individual that can ONLY perceive truth through the filter of limited purposes. Hence, this leads to the third and final rule of egocentricity which is that some individual egocentricles have "truth," while others do not, because some have less limitations in the growing realization that they have no purpose.The fear is that to fully realize absolute purposelessness, right straight through to its hollow center, would be the death of "you."

Alas, complete purposelessness, or 'consilium absentia,' tends to creep up on you until one day it totally overwhelms you. But you can't make it happen, because that which exists to devise purposes for which to know it exists cannot possibly be purposeless on its own.

However, until that Magic Moment, there must be limits to every game an ego plays because ALL egocentricles play games in order to define their purpose. Games are played within limits and require rules, because rules define purpose. Your purpose has always been to follow the rules (any rules).

Egocentricity believes that without rules "you" would drown in a purposeless sea of undulating green phlegmy plasma.

But one day you realize a sense of purposelessness and begin to consider transcending egocentric games. Which only generates more rules, because "you" (rule No. 2) keep looking for the Master Rule Maker (rule No. 3) which itself is a finite game with limits (rule No. 1). You seek The One who will charitably bestow upon you the necessary rules required to achieve your ego transcendent "awakening."

And there’s plenty of Master Rule Makers out there. You can go with Adyashanti or the mysterious Jed McKenna. Or how about Osho or maybe Tolle or Wilber. Why not Maharshi or Nisargadatta? You can jump on any band wagon you please. Maybe Advaita or Zen or Sufism or A Course in Miracles. Engage the heavy hitters like Buddha, Christ or Lao-Tzu.

But, eventually, when you microscopically examine all the Master Rule Makers and their master rule books, you’ll see that the rules have but one purpose and that is to engender some form of limitation. The rules are meaningless and simply do not matter to truth which has never been "perceived" through limitation (since the purpose of perception is to "see" the boundaries and limitations). So, if none of the rules matter, what rules should you follow?

If it really doesn't matter, why not make up your own?

You may find that it is impossible to live in a dream-state without rules and when you fail to follow rules you get stressed-out. To be rule-less in a reality surrounded by rule-lovers can be hard to get used to. So you'll have to follow some of the rules but with the understanding that you have a choice (while those around you may not yet have achieved that recognition)

Besides, egocentricles are not looking to wake from the dream (and no longer be egocentric-ish). They just want to be "happy" (with better sex and more money, yo!)

It’s your dream. So go ahead and make up your own rules. They all did.

Rules ALWAYS prescribe a method to an outcome, a means to an end. Rules literally assert necessarius finium (necessary boundaries). Maybe you should get jiggy with truth being an unnecessary outcome. But this would mean you can't control it through any rules you extract from somebody's rule book.

Ultimately, everyone goes their own way, because nothing is necessary except what you say (and usually what you say you learned MUST be said, which one day you'll see as complete hogwash). Choices made out of necessity must of necessity fail to sustain, simply because they are founded on a dream being “real.” Does it matter what choice you make, if all choices “you” make are unnecessary? Why choose at all if it makes no difference to future choices, since every choice only asserts an unnecessary past choice as guide? Why go backward?

When you feel the desire to choose arising from some purpose, try making no decision and wait for an answer. Don't decide how the answer will come to you and don’t even expect it to come as a thought, feeling or intuition. Only be certain that it will come and just prepare yourself to receive. Make no mistake, if you are waiting for the answer you demand, you will not recognize what’s offered, because you've shut it out by demanding it comply with your RULES.

And just cause it doesn't fit the Master Rule Book, doesn't mean it wasn't FOR you (Haha!)

In the game of "enlightenment," rules are a necessity to egocentricle players. But it’s only a game and you are free to play by any rules you choose. If you can’t get all comfy cozy with one set of rules, try another.

Maybe one day you will be rule-less, completely unfettered and liberated from all rule books, swimming in an ocean of "choiceless awareness" (I like the term, but forget which rulebook it came outa), which has no purpose whatsoever.

But that scares the sheit outa you....


Artwork by Femme Arbre - "Monster"

"Mix n' Match Spirituality"

You have such a hankerin' to find that special "framework" for which to see your 'self' and the world through. Some foundational filter for which to have it all make friggin' sense. And the post-modern spiritual magicians are happy to provide you their voodoo (for a fee, of course).

Whether it's Taoism, Christianity, Non-dualism, Integral Theory, Law of Attraction, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, you need a filter for which to construct meaning in your life. And all these post-modern spiritual programs promise some wonderful, death-defying outcome or reward. You believe if you could only find the right "path," and stay on it, you can discover your elusive "happiness."

But the ego-self has NO intention of ever finding anything. Realize that "seek, but do not find" (quote from someone famous) has always been your motto. You'll never find what your looking for, simply because that would end the looking...and then what would you do? Be "happy"?

Hahaa! I pity the fool...

So stop taking your silly programs and paths so damn seriously, while there's still time to enjoy your life. Because the only real path you're on is the one that has death as destination. So eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you friggin' croak fool! Ha! (and if you look closely you'll discern that every path is merely a means of evading or distracting from the THOUGHT of death).

So go ahead, play the games...but recognize they make NO difference to the only real path your on. Don't take any of this shit serious. However, since your an ego-self, you'll never be framework-free, so go ahead and adopt a new framework everyday. Today, I thought I'd be a Christian-Nondual-Taoist-Sociopath (yes, sociopathy is also a framework).

Tomorrow...hell, who knows! Maybe a Hedonistic Buddhist...

....hey! I like that one!

So go ahead, mix and match. Play around with 'em. Make up fun new rules for the whole family. Bring on more players!

Fookin' have fun, YO!

Just don't consider for a moment that it means a god-damn thing...


Artwork by Naoto Hattori - "Large Sticker Sheet"

She Works Hard To ‘Awaken,’ So You Better Treat Her Right!

The common denominator of the ego’s “reality” is constructed entirely from limit, lack, loss, scarcity or, more to the point, deprivation. Deprivation is the ruling paradigm and why all your moments of “happiness” must dissolve, since loss and deprivation are the FOUNDATION of every experience you have (and why you have NEEDS in the first place.). However, in order to relieve deprivation, the ego-self is committed to a “life” of SACRIFICE, which only further reinforces the experience of deprivation as REAL.

Essentially, your spiritual reality is NO different from your economic reality.  “Awakening,” or “enlightenment,” is a scarce “spiritual” resource and, in terms of resource allocation, experiences of "non-duality” or “enlightenment” are limited, which means that my gain is your loss. My attainment always reflects your lack thereof and keeps the egocentric system of deprivation and needs rolling along smoothly. However, the rule of the game is that “enlightenment” or “awakening” is not legitimate unless you can prove to others that it’s genuine. Thus, we have millions of internet characters seeking to prove to you the legitimacy of their awakened state.

I imagine this may make you angry. Especially if you’ve been sacrificing for years to achieve that coveted “Non-Dual” experience, that whiz-bang “enlightened” state, your “awakening to truth.”

You work hard for enlightenment, so I better treat you right!

We exist in a world conditioned almost entirely on struggle and sacrifice or "no pain, no gain." Happiness is not a precondition or a given. It must be ‘pursued,’ whether that “happiness” is founded on excess ownership or possession, financial accumulation, public power, sexual proclivities, achieving the “American dream,” unique spiritual experiences or some other esoteric variable, one must seek it out and work to procure it, because it does not exist a priori or before experience. You are NOT born with it OR you ARE born with it, but immediately have it extracted out of you in preparation for egocentric competitive existence. Either way, you are grounded in deprivation and need fulfillment, seeking to relieve that experience.

Thus, existentially, YOU are thrown into a ‘world’ with nothing but the primal experience of DEPRIVATION and LACK and your egocentric desire for relief through fulfilling needs keeps it ALL firmly in place.

Like accumulating material wealth, there are only a privileged few that WE collectively allow to HAVE “enlightenment,” as opposed to the majority of us who must remain HAVE NOTs. ALL finite games must conform to the “law of supply and demand.” Nevertheless, keep in mind that, whether we we HAVE or HAVE NOT, we have ALL agreed to the continuation of this fundamental, existential LAW. Furthermore, we also collectively and unanimously believe that in order to reap the rewards we must ‘sacrifice,’ because ALL rewards are finite and limited (which is why they are ‘rewards’ in the first place).

From this primary experience of deprivation you then go about seeking to relieve that experience through what the world teaches as the chief means of seeking relief, which is struggle or sacrifice or, more succinctly, WORK (viable employment = indentured corporate servitude). Now we get into the nitty gritty of the value system, since some work is more valuable than others, and thus, the whole foundation of inequality is neatly and rigidly maintained and supported by a unified collective consciousness of individuals all seeking reward.

Work then becomes the chief component of your self-identity and that is determined by the world's value system. Alas, in seeking relief from this delusional system, you then turn to spiritual pursuits, and all those promised rewards, ignorant of the fact that those belief systems comply with the same paradigm of deprivation you’ve actually been seeking to escape.

This fits nicely with the Christian belief system and the concept of “salvation,” allowed only a privileged few. Every "spiritual" belief system (or dogma) replicates this primal belief through its core teachings. Whether it be Hinduism, Buddhism, Non-Dualism (advaita), or any numerous multiple factions thereof, the theme is the SAME...everything is LIMITED and this includes spiritual truth. Although the masters uniformly report that everyone can HAVE what they themselves claim to POSSESS (the paradigm of proprietary truth) the prerequisite of intense sacrifice must be strictly adhered to, otherwise you’re identified as a fraud.

But why would you think TRUTH conforms to the same paradigms that rule ILLUSION?

Your experience of a ‘world’ has as its foundation, limit, loss and deprivation, since there is only a limited supply of everything, even TRUTH. Therefore, you must constantly ask, are you worthy? Have you sufficiently sacrificed enough? Are you ‘working’ hard enough? Does it hurt?

Remember... no pain, no gain!

Every spiritual system adheres to sacrifice or work. Witness the busy aspirants bustin' they arse to get the coveted spiritual trophy. The system promises that, if your spiritual pursuits adequately conform to the paradigm of sacrifice, you’ll be richly rewarded. Years of meditating and mind control, studying the “great books,” scriptures and sutras, repetitive chanting of the platitudes, the sacrificing of sensual experience, attending the seminars and 'work shops' performed by the “modern mystics, “ colluding and conspiring with the like-minded that support the same sacrifices in pursuit of the same ‘reward’ (seems each sacrificial system has its own experts, books, newsletters and yearly conventions…Ha!)

It's the spiritual law of supply and demand and, as demand grows, fewer will reap the rewards, simply because supply MUST ALWAYS be limited. WE DEMAND IT! Make no mistake, as more claim "awakening," the rules will become more complex and complicated in order to exclude the many from what we demand be limited to only the privileged few. This is NO different from social economics theory and we all perpetuate this belief and have so for centuries. Social Darwinism has completely co-opted your SPIRIT.

Unfortunately, some wish NOT to see this (and have been leaving me some nasty comments all throughout this blog), since their whole identity is contingent on this not being an actuality. The ego makes many compromises with TRUTH in order to perpetuate the rewards of delusional belief. It avoids at all costs, fully recognizing that it’s ALL nothing but a house of cards, ready to fall at any moment. The ego-self (identified package of beliefs) is a very fragile concept...

…and so you’ve come to believe, and have rigidly conformed, to a belief system that demands you sacrifice and struggle to attain the transcendent rewards, limited to only the privileged few.

Although, there does seem to be a small, yet growing, number of infinite players who realize that this is all laughably ridiculous. It seems they have come to realize…

...nothing need be done.

Nothing at all...

Artwork By David Stoupakis - "untitled"

AWAKENING CHIC: The Path of the Walking Wounded

Awakening is all the rage these days!!

Seems everybody’s doing it, which makes you wonder... just how real can it be.

As the "awakening' movement takes hold we can just imagine future conversations at the country club: “Buffy, did you hear Chad had an awakening!” “No! Reeeaaally? I wonder how Margot feels about that?”

Awakening is chic....

(with it's own line of clothing!)

Nevertheless, you gotta be wounded first, or it simply isn't credible, and many of our modern spiritual teachers are themselves nothing more than the walking wounded (In my kids school, the walking wounded are referred to as the "emo" clique)

The "awakened masters" report that it was intense suffering that brought them to the “truth.” But, then why do they teach us to avoid that same suffering if it was, in fact, the way to truth?

Why teach that there is a "path to awakening” if they got 'it' completely by surprise? Even the most revered, Sri Ramana, had to experience the throes of death before “awakening” to the truth and Eckhart Tolle virtually became suicidal before his illustrious “awakening” (and his more illustrious collaboration with Oprah).

It seems that traumatic suffering is the way to “awakening." Only through trauma can we realize truth, but not just any old trauma... it must be a profound life changing trauma.
But then, do these teachers of “awakening” do us a disservice by providing spiritual ideologies and techniques that seek to make things easier on us (provide shortcuts) if, in fact, there is such a thing as “awakening?

It seems that everyone can “Awaken”…but first you gotta be royally fooked up!

Just another rule of conventional “spirituality” or “I once was lost, but now am found.”

Rarely will you ever hear: “I was rich, fat and happy… and then I became an awakened master.” Since it’s the disciples who choose the 'guru,' we would never choose a guru who did not pay his/her dues, since to be reputable one must be credible. Inevitably, they must conform to your demands regardless of what they think is “true," because they can only teach what you are willing and prepared to accept (and I'll bet you thought you had nothing to do with it).

In other words, you damn well better be close to death, or else it don’t count and we won't revere you!

You have to play the game of "struggle and sacrifice" before you can be a spiritual superstar. You have to traverse Dante’s Inferno before you can have the 72 virgins, walk through the pearly gates, attain nirvana or experience “awakening.”

Ha! But isn’t that like everything else in the world. No pain, no gain! Without enduring sacrifice and plenty of painful struggle, you can't win the 'prize' simply because that's how the game is played.

Nevertheless, once you finally do hit bottom, it’s easy to “awaken” and that’s because anything has to be better than the bottom.

Yet, what they often fail to convey is that, once at the bottom, you suddenly feel the need to reach out to others, because it was loss of ‘contact’ that caused your plummet in the first place. Therefore, the only truth you've awakened to is how much you need others. Nevertheless, as the enlightened ones always demonstrate, soon as you're standing on stable ground, others are discounted as having anything to do with the new and improved, awakened “you” (same as the old “you,” just a bit shinier).

What they fail to convey is that they have nothing to teach, because teaching is simply an excuse for deeply engaging with the world. Awakening proceeds from engagement, it doesn't result in it. It is deeply engaged in relationship from which awakening is experienced.

But individual ego’s don’t like hearing this, since it obviously negates the "personal awakening” that they alone, ‘achieved.’

Obviously, if you’ve come to love your ‘story’ of awakening then you might inadvertently discount other stories, but without other stories, there would be no story of “you.” Does your wife/husband have a story? Your children? How about your parents, your friends and neighbors?

"Ah…what do they know, they ain’t “awakened” yet!"

Ah.... so that's your story????

The parts cannot realize the whole as long as they remain fixated on parts. However, parts can realize “stories” that result in illustrious "awakening" careers.


Image by Caniglia - "Days of No Horizon"

Stick Out Your Can, Here Come the Garbage Man!

You discard your garbage into containers and place it out on the curb where it conveniently gets hauled away by the garbage man. Where does it go? What happens to your garbage after it leaves your curb?

Ha! Who gives a rat's ass!

What matters is that you no longer need be aware of it.

It’s not your responsibility any more and you can go about your life pursuing all your big plans for glorified self-fulfillment. Besides, you pay good money to have all that garbage hauled away, why should you have to worry about where it goes or what happens to it?

For many folks “spirituality” serves just such a purpose.

When you embark on your “spiritual journey” all the world’s refuse is conveniently hauled away and you need no longer be aware of it. War, starvation, poverty, economic collapse, unemployment, homelessness, child abuse, murder, disenfranchised groups, AIDS, injustices in the world, etc, etc, no longer need disturb you because “spirituality” has hauled it all away.

Now it’s no longer an obstacle on your “path” and you can simply focus on your pursuit of enlightenment, nirvana, bliss, awakening, realization, revelation, rapture, non-duality, God-consciousness blah, blah, blah, blah.

Hey! It’s okay if people suffer, because suffering is part of life, just another object of consciousness, the oneness of everything, karma, cycle of births and deaths, blah, blah, blah, blah.

As a devoted “spiritual seeker" you know that God doesn’t want you to sweat the small stuff, because it’s His job to haul it all away (remove it from your consciousness) so that you can focus on receiving what you’ve asked for.

So, just hunker down for a brief spell of meditative bliss and let the garbage man worry about the garbage.

For cryin’ out loud! You’ve got more important stuff to take care of and that’s the point of your “spirituality.” It’s not your problem any more, now that you’re “spiritual.”

But always remember, slip up just a little, or fail to vigilantly follow your “spiritual path,” and all that garbage will quickly make it’s way back into awareness and then you’ll be forced to engage with it because, in reality…

…the garbage man is YOU.

So stick out your can, here come the Garbage Man!


More of the same song and dance routines from:
mikeS


Image by Fred Einaudi - "Patriot"

The Rewards of Silly Wisdom Games

You struggle daily and work hard (working weekends!) to become "enlightened," because you believe that you have something to do with it. That's because you've been taught that you can make truth 'happen' and in some way 'manifest' the signs or symbols of an absolute truth.

This is essentially an unconscious hoax perpetrated by the "wise" seekers who have forced the "wise" teachers to play their silly games. If you didn't want it, they wouldn't teach it.

Problem is that this "ancient wisdom" is based in reality (learning paradigm, which demands you first be stupid and then get smart) and found in the world (it's 'ancient' and comes from the past). Yet, ironically, they claim that if you 'learn' what the world teaches from the 'past' you can transcend the world and "awaken" to timelessness.

Yea, right, in your dreams! (literally)

Nevertheless, this is what you demand they teach and they've had no choice in the matter. But, if "enlightenment" was not taught in the past, then how would you learn it? Yet, if it's past info, then what good is it anyway? It's the student that determines the curriculum and not the teacher.

Spiritual paths, no matter how ancient or austere, simply help you negotiate a very absurd reality and nothing more than that. Even calling the absurdity "all beautiful," instead of "completely absurd," is merely one way to cope with the absurdity. So, in that sense, you must follow the prescribed "Path" in order to minimize or mitigate your conceptual suffering. But recognize, it serves that purpose only and stop 'expecting' more, which only maintains your absurd suffering.

The world you experience 'exists' only for 'seeking'... not for 'finding.'

Or have you found something and now must teach the world? The problem is that if you 'found' the truth, then there would be no one to teach, because it would be known. Unless, of course, you think you're separate from everybody else and that you can get "The Truth," same as you got your high school diploma.

Enlightenment is a certainty. That is, until you attempt to learn it and, by doing so, put everything in doubt.

Spiritual concepts are convenient in allowing you brief, sporadic respite from guilt. Spiritual and religious ideologies have existed for centuries as the means of getting all "jiggy with it." The religions of the world serve no other purpose than helping you escape guilt (by making it more "real," through concepts like "karma" and "sin"). That's because if we all have to die, then we must be guilty of something, right?

So just keeping repeating your mantra, "I AM, I AM, I AM..." and the guilty ones can all go piss off.

For instance, if I slap the spit outa you and call you “a good for nothin’ butthead,” that’s okay, because my slapping the spit outa you and calling you "a good for nothing butthead" is a part of 'oneness.' HA!
Everything is a part of oneness and oneness is the essence of everything. Every choice is the only choice that could be made and therefore, we can define it as a “good” choice. It must be, since it was the only choice that could be made, based only on the fact that it was made.

Whew! Lucky you. Now you don’t have to experience guilt, remorse or regret, because... well... everything happens as it must and "everything is beautiful" (sing along with me brothers and sisters!).

However, the devout would argue that "I" just don't understand 'oneness' or "non-duality." I can only respond that if it is not understood by just one single separate mind, it's not true whatsoever, just more conceptual hogwash that you must eat with a spoon so you don't miss a drop.

Truth available to only a few, might be "real" just not true (but then, you really don't want the truth, just for your truth to be real). If you don't already know what they're teaching, then it ain't worth learning. And you thought that after all that hard work, it finally belonged to "you" (sorry, bro, we're all in this together, cause although "you" are certainly "real" you're just not true).

Let me put it to you in a different way:

Nothing “you” experience is a part of “oneness,” because "oneness" is not a 'part' of anything. You won't find the whole in the parts, but the parts are in the whole. See parts and, rest assured, you have missed the whole. Duh!

The ego is incredibly brilliant in the ways it seeks to avoid others in an attempt to find itself and the “I AM” is probably the most subtle.

"I AM not speaking to any 'body'.
I AM not speaking to any 'mind'.
I AM speaking to THAT I AM that I AM,
to that PRESENCE AWARENESS,
that expresses through the mind as the thought I AM.
Just THIS and NOTHING else."
(Sailor Bob)

In your egoic state, negate other bodies and you automatically negate other minds. But then, who will help you find "the promise land"? Do “you” know the way to enlightenment (or just the way to San Jose?) You are your own savior? Just “I AM” and nothing else?

How convenient!

Thank God you don’t have to rely on anyone else! Just think... what if your "awakening" was contingent on everybody else awakening with you? Now that would suck and make all your hard work and sacrifice a fools errand.

Good thing "you" know the way to San Jose, cause enlightenment ain't on the map.

"Do you know the way to San Jose

I’ve been away so long

I may go wrong and lose my way

Do you know the way to San Jose

I’m goin’ back to find

Some peace of mind in San Jose"

"LA is a great big freeway

Put a hundred down and buy a car

In a week, maybe two, they’ll make you a star

Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass

And all the stars that never were

Are parkin’ cars and pumpin’ gas"

"You can really breathe in San Jose

They’ve got a lot of space

There’ll be a place where I can stay

I was born and raised in San Jose

I’m goin’ back to find

Some peace of mind in San Jose"

"Fame and fortune is a magnet

It can pull you far away from home

With a dream in your heart you’re never alone

Dreams turn into dust and blow away

And there you are without a friend

You pack your car and ride away"

"I’ve got lots of friends in San Jose

Do you know the way to San Jose"

(Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick)


(Image by 'Libby')

Hell Is Other People, But Then, So Is Heaven

The ego is a disorganized complexity demanding order from its own manufactured chaos. Stress is a psychological fear response of an ego-self experiencing lack of control over the chaos it conjures up.

We certainly have little control over other people and this is a fearful and confounding prospect to an ego, which must always predict its actions based on the actions of others. Therefore, to an ego, hell is other people and hell is the foundation of fear.


Nevertheless, the greatest joy you experience result from engaging in a world of others. Hence, heaven is other people. 

If you had little time left to live, your fear would not be loss of self, but the loss of a self as engaged with others. If you were the only existing 'self' in the world, death would result in minimal suffering and this is because it is others from which you receive your greatest joy and you fear that loss more than anything. Even joys that seem individually invented are magnified exponentially, when shared with others. Meaning is mutually defined and not solely developed by any one person.

The self is always constructed in reference to other selves and without others there could be no self-concept or “you.” However, in a dualistic world, that which brings intense joy must also be the foundation for fear. Fear has many symptoms, from mild nervousness to paralyzing panic. It can be so debilitating as to drive ones mood into a self-abnegating ‘nothingness’ referred to as depression. Fear can also manifest as anger and rage and many bright minds have theorized that, when enraged, even the most mild-mannered are only a thought away from the act of murder.

Of course, fear is also experienced as guilt, embarrassment, remorse, regret, etc, and these responses are grounded in the memory of past failed actions or inactions. In fact, some claim that the pressing burden of guilt alone keeps us locked in the past, seeking freedom. This is because the self is an invention of the past seeking to become free of what it believes constructed it. As a result, the past is your "Creator," not God.

Experiencing the stress of fear responses is directly related to other people and, thus, it is others that we seek periods of escape in order to mitigate or seek relief from fear responses. We believe that by reducing physical proximity to others, fear is mitigated.

By removing your body from me, you believe you are safe from psychological fear and this is because you believe you are more a body than a mind. 

Let’s face it, if you’re alone with nature, you have no fear of judgment, whereas, with me, you may need to be vigilant to the contents of my mind which, although I may not directly disclose, you may feel forced to decipher my judgments and that can initiate psychological fear responses or stress. Therefore, it’s easy to understand why so many seek the sanctity of solitude and some seek it above all else making it the most sacred of relationships.

Seeking to sequester ones self-concept from other self-concepts may very well be absurd, since the self-concept is purely abstract and is not in any sense ‘real,’ other than what the mind invents. Yet, protecting your self-concept from “me,” certainly reinforces its reality for “you” and sometimes such conflict paradoxically makes us feel that the self-concept is “real” and that we are truly “alive.”

If only you could be free of my judgments, but then this will mean freeing me from your own, because my judgments are yours.

Judgment is nothing more than mutually superimposing a past upon one another and the greatest joy we can ever experience will be in sharing a moment free of the past.

The greatest suffering (hell) will be imposing a past upon one another in an attempt to control chaos and diminish our mutual hell.

Therefore, we are both heaven and hell to each other and any proverbial “awakening” must be mutually attained, otherwise individual enlightenment is nothing more than a figment of our collective imagination.

The "Enlightenment" Disclaimer (that you ignored)

Sit at the guru’s feet and eventually you will hear the disclaimer: “only those ready for enlightenment can be enlightened” or “You must be prepared for ‘awakening’ in order to awaken.”

There’s only so much enlightenment to go around, so we gotta weed out the undeserving (who are simply unprepared) It’s the law of supply and demand. A law found in the 'world.'

So how does one prepare for enlightenment? Do you just gotta want it real bad? How can you be ready to “awaken”? The “master” tried to give you truth. Yet, even though you’ve struggled and sacrificed for most of your life, obviously, you’re still not ready. Make no mistake, you have no one to blame but yourself. So forget that refund, because it’s not the master’s fault you’re still ignorant!

However, if you happen to get your coveted “enlightenment,” be aware that, like everything else in the world, it has no guarantee. This makes it no different from anything else the world gives you and everything in the world is impermanent.

Everything dies and nothing lasts.

Then why do the wizards of awakening teach that enlightenment is the means of “transcending” the world? or your suffering? Or, most importantly, your ‘self’? 

What gives, yo?!

If “enlightenment” is transcending the world, and the world is impermanence, shouldn’t enlightenment be permanent and that permanence be absolutely guaranteed to last forever?

After you received your enlightenment (first paying the required fee), did you perceive the same world you saw before?

Well then, rest assured, you haven't transcended the world (nor the ego that perceives it). This is because perception is sensation and sensation is a function of the body and the body stands directly on terra firma (solid ground) because gravity insures that it doesn’t float out into space. Ha!

Looks like you got schnuckered, because you’re still in the "illusion." But don’t sweat it! If you were taught to better negotiate that cold, cruel world, then maybe it was worth the price. Problem is, the world, no matter how cold or cruel (or loving and joyful), is impermanent. Therefore, your enlightenment product cannot last and, eventually, must disappear like dust in the wind.

Hey, NO problem. Just buy another one! Otherwise, your only other option is to stop seeking “enlightenment.”

It’s a lot of fun to play with paradox, just don’t take it too serious and think that you “know.”


I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

[Now] Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.
(Kansas)

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES: There is NO "Unconscious"

Every part of your world; every tiny detail you experience, is purely a product of your mind. Knowing this, and living from that knowledge, is freedom beyond your wildest imagining.

Student: I believe that the problem is that many of my thoughts and beliefs are unconscious to me. Therefore, what obstructs knowing my Source are the thoughts in my mind that I am not conscious of.

Teacher: You have invented imaginary “places” in the mind for which to conceal your fear. These places, or layers of your mind, are not real, but you do believe that you have much to hide. There are NO unconscious "levels" of the mind through which to safely lock away your fear.

You simply project it "outward" and there is where it is revealed to you as separate from you. However, in your refusal to accept ownership of the parts of your mind that you fear, you refuse to acknowledge parts of YOU and this is the purpose of your projection. This refusal is what you call “unconscious.” But, make no mistake, you are aware of all the thoughts you idolize as "truth."

Student: You’re saying that I do not have an unconscious and that the things of my mind that I do not wish to know because of fear, I do not repress, but project outward into my consciousness and it is there that I see it apart from me.

Teacher: The world IS you and you are your world, but you have projected your belief that the “experience” of a world is external to you and thus, you hide from what you fear. Therefore, it remains where you place it and, although you frequently suffer from it, you believe it is not your responsibility simply because it is NOT a part of YOU.

If you continue to believe in the "experience" of an outside world, there is no doubt you will fear what you believe is "outside" and, therefore, it must continue to victimize you. This must continue until you take responsibility for the origin of what you SEE and see differently. Essentially, in seeking freedom from victimization, you seek freedom from yourself, because you are victim and victimizer.

Student: What about the "pleasure principle" and my need to reduce inner tension?

Teacher: You have no idea of what is pleasurable, so why take the trouble of assigning it to some vague and unknowable place that you have labeled as “unconscious.”

How could you know what is in your best interests when you have no idea who or what you are? I continue to ask this question and you have yet to answer, although you continue to "live" as if the answer is known to you.

Conducting your “life” based on self-deception is unreliable and has failed to bring you pleasure of any permanence, but has clearly allowed you to fluctuate between pain and pleasure, often in complete confusion as to which "state" you experience. Do not rely on your old and worn out mental constructs of what you believe is in your best interest. Merely admit that you do not know and leave your ‘self’ open to learning, otherwise you will remain confused and victimized.

Student: I certainly know when I am in pain as opposed to pleasure.

Teacher: Once again, you have confused the body WITH the mind in your denial that the body is a delusion OF the mind. Pain, as a bodily stimulus, is easily recognizable since you do believe you are a body and the body must survive for the self to "live." Pain merely informs you of this obscure and confusing need to "survive" and, in that function, you embrace it.

Imagine if you were infinite and had NO end; what use for "pain" in that which cannot die? Obviously, pain would have minimal effect in alerting you to bodily needs, since a body that “lives” forever could not embody a "self" that believes in death.

Yet, physical pain does NOT concern you as much as the "suffering" that you require in order to maintain awareness of your "existence." Would you choose to suffer, if suffering were completely under your control? I teach that it IS, simply because you cannot die. Only that which dies can suffer.

Pure, unconditioned joy is impossible to that which is concerned with survival and you interpret suffering as symbolic of your being “alive.” Imagine if you did NOT suffer, how would you know your “self”? If the self could NOT suffer, it would experience only joy. Essentially, this is our goal because you do demand unconditional joy and there is NO reason why you should NOT have it, since it is the gift that awaits your acceptance.

Nothing else exists.... except in your mind.

Student: But there is no doubt that we perform irrational behaviors based on reasons we are not aware of?

Teacher: There is much you are not "aware of," but denial is a choice and not some deep dark place of unknown and unknowable “drives” and “motivations” that victimize you against your will. Look to your world and there you will clearly see what you contend is unknown to you. "There" is where you placed it, in fear of what you made that contradicts what you ARE.

You cannot hide from the mind through the mind. But you do believe you can hide from the mind through a "world." I teach that there is nothing to hide FROM. Nothing you now believe makes any difference to the Truth.

Student: But what about my upbringing and social conditioning? Clearly, these early factors influence my behavior.

Teacher: Once again, this is only true because you require it. Make no mistake, you require your own victimization. The self-identity that you worship must suffer from a past that will culminate in a future that you have determined must include your death. This is what you fear more then anything in your world and this is what you “repress” and defend against by simply projecting it outward INTO your world. However, recall that I teach that there is nothing outside your mind.

Student: But what about the ego? You have frequently used that Freudian term to indicate what it is that I must transcend.

Teacher: You seem very committed to “transcending” what you believe is REAL and, make no mistake, your self or "ego" suffering makes it very REAL for you. But if you did NOT suffer through it, how real could it be?

Your suffering makes it REAL!

I ask that you transform what you believe, otherwise you will experience sacrifice and this will only serve to intensify your commitment to an "ego." To "transcend," or rise above, merely asserts that you are somehow below "something" that must be above you. You are below NOTHING, not even God.

I have used the term “ego” because you know it well and we can only work with what your mind provides. You believe you are a mind in a body and within that mind is an ego that you associate as your “self.” This association serves only to dissociate from Truth. That was the purpose you gave it and now I teach a new purpose for the BELIEF that you demand be “you.” Do not become confused by your own absurd concepts, but allow me to aid you in transforming what you once believed was true.

I only provide that which you desire to know, WHEN you desire to know it. I can provide all that you would ever need. As to "when" you need it, that is your choice.

I teach that all the contents of your mind are available for observation and you observe these “unconscious” processes in every moment. Yet, WHAT you observe is not as important as HOW you observe it. There is only one way to see your "world" and that is what you require I teach you. I will fulfill my function, because it is your purpose that I do so.

Your Own Personal Enlightenment

Many teach that you must seek “awakening” for your ‘self’ and then your world will magically bend to join with your awakened mind.

I merely suggest that it will be through your relationships that awakening will be experienced and the world will bend to join the two that have become one, because the world was created from that merger and so were you.

However, this is absolutely absurd to some.

Healing happens in relationship. An enlightened mind is a healed mind and we all agree that the world is sorely in need of healing.

But when you achieve your coveted, and deeply sought after, personal “enlightenment” will you bring along the sick, the weak, the needy and frightened? Will you be grateful to them for your freedom and free them with you? Or, have you left them behind as too burdensome for your personal journey?

Have you relinquished your burden, and thus your responsibility, in the bliss of non-duality and personal “awakening"? Have they ceased to 'exist'?

If the truth you discover is for your mind only, how can that be true? If the starving masses of Ethiopia do not get ‘it,’ how can you have ‘it’ without them? Does that make truth, denied to the many but granted to the few, still an illusion?

Do they receive gratitude for your awakening? Do you give them rest for which to lean upon for a while? Are they grateful for YOUR enlightened mind? Will you “teach” them how to become enlightened... just like you? Is teaching the only task the “enlightened” can perform? Why do they NOT perform miracles? When will they raise the dead?

Do you really believe that you can awaken without the rest? Who could have taught you this?

Ancient history is confounded by billions of egos all claiming a different interpretation of “truth.” This merely proves it is NOT known. Because of this, we have much “spirituality,” but are absent of spirit.

Is your neighbor awakened? What about your wife or husband? Your children? How can you be and see them as NOT? But, if they ARE, then who do you teach? It’s a swirling vortex of hypocrisy with the claim that if you are not “awakened” then you do not understand.

Like the rich man who plays golf to prove he’s rich, the religious “awaken” to prove themselves “spiritual” and they will teach you this much (and, make no mistake, it's all "religion"). The hypocrisy is the same and, as the rich man ignores poverty and suffering in his right to personal wealth, the spiritual ignore it in the right to personal enlightenment.

If “non-duality” is your ‘church,’ can anyone become a member? Is spiritual enlightenment exclusive to a select few? What is the cost of membership? Whom do you exclude?

If the world is NOT awake, you will most likely not awaken without it since, as the priest’s of “Oneness” rightfully claim, you are the world and the world is you.

However, if by chance you interpret yourself as having experienced an “awakening” of sorts (and there seem to be many sorts of awakenings) it’s best to just give it away. Because, until they have it also, “you” have nothing of any value. If you refuse to part with it, and clutch to it religiously, then realize that you can’t take it with you because it is of no value and what is of no value must surely be left behind.

Ahh…but I’m sure your personal awakening is very valuable to you. Because it's the truth, right?!


Your own personal jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares

Your own personal jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there

Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone

Lift up the receiver
Ill make you a believer

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith

Your own personal jesus...  
(Depeche Mode)

The Crypt-Keepers of "Ancient Wisdom"

The paradigm of individual enlightenment clearly supersedes all other paradigms of discovery. In fact, most spiritual ideologies prescribe solitary spiritual pursuits as superior to collectively engaging to discover truth.

But then, how else would the 'proprietors' of truth maintain their ownership? The "Crypt-Keepers of Ancient Wisdom" hold the key to your salvation and only they can unlock the door.

Yet, why would truth be available to certain specific individuals and not others? (that's called 'relativity'). The Crypt-Keepers of Ancient Wisdom tend to advocate that you must first be 'awakened' to truth "within" and then somehow this is miraculously transferred, or superimposed, to others and the world.

Of course, "you" have to get enlightened first, before you can spread that "enlightenment" around to all the ignorant, and only the Crypt-Keepers can teach you how.

Until then, well, everything just has to suck for awhile longer because you're still a miserable, ignorant, sinner waiting for your big break. In the meantime, just keep doing your practices and studying your egoically preferred ideology (as taught by the Crypt-Keepers) and before ya know it -POOF- your enlightened!

Try to go against this current and resistance is fierce. You'll go up against the modern day "Crypt-Keepers" of the ancient axial-age teachings that, sadly, have had little influence on a postmodern world careening toward mutual destruction.

The Crypt-Keepers peddle postmodern egoic truth-potions that they claim are direct from the "Crypt of Ancient Wisdom" and will lead to your salvation or "awakening."

Psychotherapy and psychopharmacology have demonstrated effectiveness in negotiating a difficult world. Ingeniously, the Crypt-Keepers dress up this modern psychology in the disguise of "ancient wisdom," thereby making everyday psychobabble, 'sacred.'

However, my chief issue is with the spiritual enlightenment or "awakening" programs that imply, or flat out claim, that you must completely transcend your ego-self and only then, can you suffer no more. Yet, you must endure austere sacrifices and struggle your entire life in order to receive this reward. This is false advertising and, in fact, is not what the world needs (as illustrated by the current state of affairs) and therefore, most likely it's NOT what you need (although they may have successfully convinced you otherwise).

What we need to experience is the love that comes with the extension of Being and is the only way Being is realized. However, you will need to join with 'others' in order to facilitate that experience, so look to the one standing next to you. Yet, for the Crypt-Keepers, others are not as significant as the "ancient wisdom," which actually promotes disengagement from your "illusionary" world and those that inhabit it. Therefore, you must join only with the Crypt-Keepers if you wish to be saved.

Unfortunately, many egos do not discover the truth of Being until their final moments when "a hand to hold seems more important to most than any other comfort or wisdom" (great quote from an anonymous commenter)

Relationship 101

The micro is the macro and everything that happens in your little corner of the universe mirrors the same happenings in the global, macro-world. The same cruelty and neglect, in your tiny relationship enclaves of "love," is also available for witness in the interactions between whole populations and nation-states, just as the same random acts of kindness in your relationships can be seen in the larger world (when you look real hard).

Seek to engage your corner of the world in the deep level of mutual understanding that inevitably annihilates your fear of strangers. The sad case of postmodern man is that even those who profess abiding love for one another are essentially abject strangers in denial of this pervasive epidemic of alienation. The ego fears engaged intimacy because, in its own self-absorption, it must deny that the "master teacher" has been there all along. Yet, if that's true, then it must realize it has wasted a great deal of time (a couple of centuries) and realizing that would really suck, big time.

The ego demands truth be sought, and not created, and the Crypt-Keepers are here to cater to that desire. But the unspoken rule, that they will not utter, is that you must forever seek, but never find and such is the state of our shared world.

But who wants to realize that? Good grief, they don't even teach relationship 101 in grade school. How do we expect children to become caring adults with the capacity to nurture the planet and each other, when all they're taught is the same self-absorption and selfishness we received? "Study hard, so you can get a good job, kids. Just in case the world still exists when you graduate."

We can't even save our own personal "love-relationships," how do we expect to love the world enough to save it?

We fear the depths of deep understanding that intimacy naturally engages. We cannot lovingly engage the world until we do so with each other, simply because there is no separation.

Thus, we remain surface strangers forever giving 'lip-service' to "oneness," while essentially ignoring and neglecting one another to go off on our separate "hero's journey" in solitary seeking of spiritual enlightenment ("hey, I got mine, how 'bout you?!"). We fear the depth that intimate engagement would demand and so we become victim to small-talk and egoic social norms which perpetuates our apathy and boredom as surface strangers. To escape our mundane existence we desperately dive head first into austere spiritual ideologies and practices, seeking freedom from our self-created, shallow hell.

This only serves to further remove us from the awakening that is shared.

If this continues, then I fear the planet may be doomed because we are forever doomed to repeat the past. Our house is burning simply because you can't possibly feel comfortable in your home, if you fear the ones you live with because they're all strangers. Self-preservation is top priority.

Best to just let it burn and keep seeking for the guru who will save your 'self.'

The general consensus holds that such intimacy, or engaging in deep mutual understanding, is simply too exhausting. Yet, what exhausts us is our lack of intimacy and the mind-numbing despair of our surface existence. Why do we fail to recognize that such depth between two or more is the ground of awakening which can liberate us from our self-imposed strangeness and mutual alienation?

It is not a deeper seeking within the 'self' that need occur, but deeper seeking with each other.
That was both the Christ and Buddha message, which has been completely co-opted by the individual egoic ideological, "ancient" agenda and the Crypt-Keepers who insist we conform.

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are altogether." (Beatles)

Truth is not granted to individuals based on meeting the expectations of the wise, old, "Crypt-Keepers of Ancient Wisdom" so that they may transmit it to you. Truth is created and thus, discovered, by the many in realizing their need to unify in that creative discovery. In that sense, truth does not yet exist until we create it together by deeply engaging to do so.

Awakening with the "Dream Police"

The intellectually elite ego adores the concepts of “non-duality” and "enlightenment." That’s because these concepts allow the ego to make compromises with its own personal constructs of 'reality.'

The ego compromises with truth by allowing itself to ‘realize’ only parts of the truth, while still embracing parts of the illusion. Now you need not awaken from the “dream” all at once and truth can be served up in convenient bite size slices; just take what you want and save the rest for later. It's all up to you.

The problem is that this denies the fact that it’s either all true or all not true. You can’t pick and choose what you want to be true since that merely makes it all not true. No one can make compromises with truth.

Except for the Dream Police who know how to compromise with truth and will teach you the skills needed to make anything "true."

So, when you awoke from the dream was your ‘self’ still affixed to a body that has needs? Well then, most likely you had a fantastic neurochemical whizbang - natural, no drugs - but no “awakening.”

But don’t fret, because the “Dream Police” are here to help. Here’s an email I received from Integral Life:

Dear friend,

I am excited to reach out to you since you listened last year to Ken Wilber and Bill Harris discuss Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. The Power of Now is a truly sensational book and in 2003 was the catalyst for my own spiritual awakening to what Ken spoke of as a "non-dual" state of consciousness. I walked around San Francisco for 3 days in a state of pure bliss and mystical union (which gradually diminished over the following 4 months) [funny how it always seems to “diminish”]. It was a profound and life-altering experience (and as a deeply rational entrepreneur, a bit of a surprise, to say the least).

Now, millions of others have heard the story of how Eckhart Tolle awakened to this same super-conscious state – a timeless, transcendental state that mystics maintain is the doorway to liberation. Although it is trite, accessing this state of presence is indeed about waking up. (Waking up to what? To what is real, to who you really are. A reality which you swim in every moment, now, and now, and now...)

But here's what's interesting: the mystics were only half-right.

Because even after my awakening, I still faced the challenge of tapping into my deepest passion. I kept wondering, how can I simultaneously be at peace and be fully engaged in my life with passion? The peace of being versus the passion of becoming. This paradox didn't make sense to me until I found Integral...

What I learned from Ken's integral map is that while a state of presence is a key spiritual teaching of major religious traditions and is a true doorway to liberation, there are actually two forms of enlightenment and only one has to do with my "state" of consciousness. The other has to do with my "stage" of consciousness, and how I interpret this liberating state of presence will be dictated by my stage of consciousness development.

You see, my state of consciousness has to do with my being, but my stage of consciousness has to do with becoming. And my life is a calling to do both simultaneously!

According to this 'awakened guy,' your reward for finally awakening to “truth,” is to learn how to become more "passionate" about the illusion, but only because you're "awakening" is a "non-dual state of consciousness." Now you can blissfully have your cake and eat it too, because there are two forms of "enlightenment" and "the mystics were only half right."

Stupid mystics!

Being is boring, but “becoming” is where it's at, yo!

Good grief, “Two forms of enlightenment”? Really!? I always thought enlightenment was about “awakening” from the illusion to realize truth - one and done!

But not for the “Dream Police.” In fact, for the Dream Police ('awakened guys') there are hundreds of enlightenment "forms." In fact, there are levels and degrees, stages, tiers, quadrants, states, etc, etc, etc, on and on, ad infinitum.

The Dream Police recognize that we live in a postmodern technological 'world' that thrives on conspicuous consumption and, as discriminating consumers, we should have as many “enlightenment” products that the 'dream' can offer...

...in order to awaken from the dream.

Yet, more importantly, the Dream Police know that egos don’t want to awaken to a 'truth' completely devoid of all illusion. Because, if the body is part of the illusion, when truth finally dawns on you, ‘poof’… the body’s gone. I mean, if it’s part of the illusion, how could it stay around when truth comes to town? But then, without the body, how will you enjoy great sex or decent glass of aged Bordeaux?

Nope. Not your “enlightenment”! But that's okay because, for the Dream Police, “special orders don’t upset us, all we ask is that you let us serve it your way.”

The problem is that you think you know, but you don't have a clue and neither do the Dream Police. There is NO awakening to truth that "you" could even come close to comprehending. You can’t blissfully enjoy non-dualism, since there can be no “you” for which to experience “bliss" since you cannot experience anything that has an opposite.

If you're still ‘here,’ then you ain’t ‘there’ yet (and don’t give me that “I must stay and teach the ignorant masses” BS). But not to worry, because there is nowhere to 'get' and you’re right where you need to be.

The “Dream Police” feed your ego because it always needs 'something' and they aim to provide what it wants. They love to fill your head with ideas and they plan to teach your ego all they 'know.' They use words like “non-duality” “enlightenment” and “oneness,” as if such distinctions were necessary. But then they disclaim what they teach, by claiming they only "point" to truth but, as everybody knows, it's impolite to point.

The Dream Police want to teach you how to awaken from the 'dream.'

Unfortunately, they are part of it.

Beware the Dream Police!

The dream police, they live inside of my head.
The dream police, they come to me in my bed.
The dream police, they’re coming to arrest me, oh no.

You know that talk is cheap, and those rumors ain’t nice.
And when I fall asleep I don’t think Ill survive the night, the night.

Cause they’re waiting for me. They’re looking for me.

Every single night, they’re driving me insane.
Those men inside my brain.

"There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here"

It’s interesting that many have chosen to escape from their experience of the world by seeking to dissolve that experience through neo-Advaitsist concepts.

I'm sure we can all agree that the experience of living is often very painful, so the ego-self has devised a complicated, but ingenious, method of escape through concepts that point to non-conceptuality and non-identity. The non-dualistic platitudes of "oneness" are poetically expressed in a herculean effort to resolve the paradox of the one and the many and this is performed simply by fallaciously denying the many.

You cannot transcend the 'transcender' and even if you do, the interpretation of transcendence proves the interpreter still believes it 'self' as “real.” In the game of non-duality the outcome, or goal, is a self which conceptualizes itself as null and void.

Forget the world, forget others, forget you and only through identifying with your newly discovered narrative of non-identification will you escape the hell of living. If the 'self' is a made up concept, so is the concept of 'no-self' that the 'self' makes. Even Ken Wilber, the "integralist" protege of Adi Da Samraj, advocates exapnding the self before erasing.

Ahh…but if such concepts give you comfort, who am I to protest.

Now you can detach from suffering and pain because, well... “you” don’t exist. Such is the sad dissociation of non-dualism. But there is a lightness in their step because this theoretical foundation, that their ego-self has adopted, gives them hope (although "hope" is obviously denied and merely 'arises'). Now the ego-self can claim joy in no longer being an ego-self, but of course, as 'no-self,' joy must be denied as well.

Yet, the ego is not a very good liar, especially when developing itself through deconstruction.

Non-dualism is a method of spiritual bypassing resulting in disengagement, dissociation and denial. The emotions are blunted by concepts that define dissociation. Nevertheless, upon close inspection we find that they are NOT dissociated by any means and their rigid attachment to a dogmatic ideology is clearly apparent for all to see.

However, many contend that detaching from identity results in a greater identity in your engagement with the world. But, make no mistake there is always an 'engager,' whether that be "real" or an imaginary construct, is beside the point, since how do we define "real."

To be real or not to be real, that is the question.

But "who" is it that speaks of non-identity? Have you no self, no history, no story to represent the speaker? Then how are we to engage? Obviously we cannot, since the dissociated can only engage in their non-associations, which is no engagement at all.

In the manifest world such dissociation and derealization is deemed "sociopathic," but for the teacher of the non-dual it is taught to be truth.

Of course, the moment words are used, the ego sneaks out, regardless of the effort to non-identify with the “arising” self and oh, how they must teach and the pride in that role is apparent. But "who" is it that teaches and "who" learns "what"? What credibility reinforces "your" message? So it is, after all, a paradox that their “pointers” only confuse. But they rigidly stick to the script, passed down for centuries, that “points” to the moon, but is not the moon and, of course, although they point, there is no one pointing.

Employing concepts to ingenuously dissolve concepts, they are an elite group of intellectuals!

But how do you know you’re not an ego-self? Who or what makes such an interpretation? It "arises," is all they can say and because the revered and austere ancient "masters" have said it, how can it not be true. Their austere philosophy is legitimized by the past and, make no mistake, once words describe 'experience' you are philosophizing. This is how egos revere the past in the realization that ego-self can never detach itself from a past, even if the past they adopt claims that there is no past and that they have transcended time.

Concepts piled atop concepts, the non-dual attached 'self' is often the most conceptual in its rigid formulaic philosophical perspective. Why seek to identify as non-dual if not from a fear of experiencing the dual? But they believe they have found the exit door to truth. In non-duality we can make a pretty pink picture of hell by no longer calling it "hell" simply because it all merely "arises" and can have no effect.

But a rose by any other name still "arises" a rose.

Non-dual is nothing. It does not engage, nor does it disengage. It is not the "arising" of experiences that engages you, but your relationship to what arises and this they attempt to dissolve. Between the doing and the doer, the thinker and the thought, the experience and the experiencer, is the ground of being and there you ARE in the relating, down in the existential trenches...and this is good.

The ego-self is an intellectual dynamo and, because it has never been at home in its experience of “being-in-the-world,” it constructs magnificently complex theoretical prognostications in an attempt to increase its comfort. These serious theories (and they take their theories very seriously) serve to increase its comfort by attempting to remove it entirely from its experience of a world, while claiming that such dissociation intensifies experience. But for "who"? Everyone? Nope, just the practitioner of the non-dual. Silly human!

The problem with this conceptual dissection is that in order to remove the ‘self’ from it’s experience of a world, the ‘self’ must be equally eradicated, because the ‘self’ cannot perform in the infinite drama without a supporting cast (which includes the body, world and others).

But what is an ego-self but a process of continuously changing performances interpreted in ways to insure it “exists.” This structural constructivism is infinite and has no finite outcome while, clearly, "non-duality" is an outcome. Have you achieved your non-duality today!

The non-dualist is extremely goal oriented.

Therefore, if the ego-self wishes to escape its nasty, uncomfortable world, it must escape itself as well. It does this by attempting to collapse itself as a concept of the mind. In fact, to do this it must conceptually annihilate the mind entirely (bad mind, bad! Sit, stay!)

With no mind there can be no ego-self to make interpretations of its own experiences. Now experiences simply “arise” in awareness, but the ego-self must deny ownership of these experiences, simply because now it doesn’t exist to itself, since "who is it that experiences." However, prior to this theoretical incorporation, the ego-self ‘allowed’ itself to experience itself as existing, it just doesn’t 'allow' it anymore.

Yet, notice how “to allow” is a verb signifying action. But "who" is acting? Such is the active dis-action of the non-dualist on a quest for the coveted title of guru in denial that this is the goal. But it must be, since the only practical value the non-dualist can provide a weary world is being a non-dual teacher. I'm sure the suffering masses are thankful for that!

Thus, in one fell swoop the ego-self annihilates its own conceptual history, because without a past to identify with, the ego-self must vanish. Yippee! There is no "I" and "I" am finally free! But "who" interprets freedom?

Now it will respond to experiences simply through the emancipation proclamation “WHO is it that experiences.” This simple claim, repeated ad nauseam, works to convince itself that it is not “real,” even against any and all experiences to the contrary. Yet, make no mistake, what you attempt to deny is automatically reinforced and magnified exponentially and this is an undeniable law of being. Being is experienced through your relationship in extension, whether what you extend is 'self' or 'no-self.'

The non-dual self, or no-self, becomes a mighty self-contained world unto itself.

Yet, the ego-self realizes that this could be construed (by others, because the non-identified "self" still somehow seems to 'identify' others who must be taught the truth) as an attempt to escape the world, so it ingeniously decides that rather than escape the world, which would only reinforce separation, it becomes ‘one’ with the world.

"Oneness" is the idol of this dogma, but this does not negate it as "dogma.'

The problem they deny is that ego boundaries cannot be turned on and off at will and, make no mistake, in order for us to have a relationship there must be boundaries between your ‘self’ and mine for us to realize that boundaries can be infinitely payed with and thereby ignored. But the non-dualist needs boundaries too, for if there were no boundaries to differentiate between us, who would be student and who teacher? Note how, for non-dualism, the roles of teacher-student seem never to dissolve.

Hmmm....it seems that be non-dualist there must be dualism for which to apply oneself against in contrasting opposition and the non-dualist lives through that contrast.

Therefore, the only real relationship the non-dual ideology insures will continue, is that there must be a teacher and a student. That relationship must endure, while all others are subsumed into nothingness.

I’ve met many non-dualists who have become completely disengaged from the world in an attempt to extract some sense of egoic comfort out of their experience of a world. They live in a self-imposed solitary confinement that borders on solipsistic self-absorption. Obviously, their relationships are strained since who wants to hear “who is it that is angry?” all the time, even when, undeniably their whole persona is physically quivering in rage. Yet, in the “arising” of emotion, it is dissociated from as part of a ‘self’ that simply does not exist.

However, clearly for the non-dualist the ‘self’ does exist, no matter their claims to the contrary, because I’ve never met folks more rigidly committed to a dogma.

Well... maybe the Christians are a bit more dogmatic. But at least they don't deny they are the innocent ones entrusted with the task of judging and persecuting the guilty.

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

(Dylan & Hendrix)

mikeS