Your Meaningful Hierarchy of Delusion

There is NO “world.” Only an inner experience that you egocentrically superimpose referring coordinates, through which to ‘place’ your ‘self,’ so that when you look to find your ‘self’…

…there you are!

But even that is an experience of the mind. Outside your mind could be nothing more than undulating plasmatic phlegm or a ham sandwich. Nevertheless, that phlegmy ham sandwich has come to MEAN the “world” to you and so you experience it AS your “world.” Make no mistake, since the experience is IN you, it’s always YOUR world (although you stupidly tend to blame others for the content of your experience).

And in that experience of a “world,” you have imposed inequality. Thus, a ham sandwich is less meaningful than Filet Mignon and Filet Mignon is less meaningful than sex and sex is less meaningful than money and money is less meaningful than sickness and sickness is less meaningful than death (go ahead and impose your own order to things, since you do anyway). In your experience sometimes pain is more meaningful than pleasure and often war is more meaningful than peace, while suffering often completely overshadows the meaning of joy. In this hierarchy some people mean very much to you, while some mean less and some mean nothing at all. Some mean more because of your hatred, while some mean more because of your love.

But what's really “there”?

The ego-self demands something be “there” for which to reference ITSELF in contrast with.

You live in a fluctuating, but very “meaningful,” Hierarchy of Delusion and that hierarchy supports an inequality of value. Are you “awakened to truth” but see me as ignorant? Then you’re victim to your own delusional hierarchy. You may apply meaning to your unique experiences by labeling them “true,” but it is very unlikely that truth supports your inequality and that experience is nothing more than your own MEANINGFUL delusion.

The ego-self impregnates your mind with contrasting experiences. In fact, the ego demands other egos through which to define itself as egocentric. It’s NOT your individual identity you need dissolve… but MINE.

It’s all very simple. You define your ‘self’ based on your defining me, since it is how you define me that will determine the parameters of your interactions with me, thereby, defining you. In other words, you define your ‘self’ by the meaning you superimpose upon your experience of ME. It is from the meanings you superimpose upon me that you will adjust your ‘self’ in relation to me, thus, locking you into a perspective, or “story,” from which you behave and act upon your experience. And because I am doing the same in accordance to my defining “you,” we are both in a constant state of flux based on the numerous definitions we impose on others and our continuous adjustment accordingly. Thus, is the world made REAL.

You make the world and then adjust to it, negating that the experience is your construction from the start because you applied the MEANING.

Therefore, there is NO fixed or direct ego-self that you can reference as “you,” only alternating currents of delusional meanings projected upon the whole of your experience. The ego needs to envision other egos for which to self-define, otherwise, it could NOT know itself at all. You need me through which to define your ‘self,’ just as I need you in turn, because we both define one another.

So best to dump that idea of a well developed ‘self ‘down the potty. You're about as unique as a drop of water in the oil polluted ocean.

Would you like to transcend the Hierarchy of Delusion and experience the pure bliss of complete egolessness?

Best you jettison the ego you dumped on me first, because until that experience is erased…

…your ego is alive and kicking, Yo!

 Artwork by Scott G Brooks - "The Chosen One"

Unpacking Your BOXES.

What are you?

This is a question that an ego-self can never answer and until it is answered, what else matters? Until you can fully answer, what difference does does it make how you conduct your life, since an undefined ego-self knows NOT what life is for. How could it know?



However, the ego-self will always provide answers that only lead to more questions, such as “I am a self.”

But then, what is a ‘self’?

The ego does NOT travel lightly. It has many boxes and crates for which it identifies itself THROUGH identifying others and its ‘world.’ This burden is more than it can handle and it is so overloaded with ‘identifiers’ that it eventually becomes completely desensitized to the question and stooped from the weight of the answers.

Most egos recognize this weight as a burden. Hence, they go about unpacking their boxes in the hope of lightening their egocentric load. But the weight never seems to diminish, only becomes more oppressive. This is because they erroneously unpack the boxes which identify a personal “self,"’ when it’s the boxes identifying others that cause the most weight.

It's the identities you press upon a world of others that burdens you most. It’s your resentment of me that weighs you down. It’s not your personal egocentricity that is suffered through but your demand that others fit your boxes through their own egocentricity. It is from these boxes that you define yourself and, until they are unpacked, you will suffer from the weight of a world of your making. You will NEVER learn what you are, until you unpack what you demand THEY must be for YOU. They define you, simply because you demand it so... by defining them. This exchange is a never-ending continuum that is always on YOUR mind.

From the moment you were born and became cognizant of a separate identity, you began packing boxes. Each box was filled with what others gave you and you meticulously filled your boxes with these “gifts" and from those “gifts,” you began to define a whole world of others as they in turn defined you. What they gave you, you pressed back upon them in an alternating current of interdependent exchange. But the most important info exchanged was that, like them, you were a unique individual that was definitively…unlike them.

In being just like them, you demand being "different"... just like them.

And so it goes, the packing of the boxes year after year. It seems easy to define others in reference to the ‘self’ they gave you and that you return back to them. Your boxes insure that no one can fail to be KNOWN and categorized. Those who cannot be defined cannot be trusted (that has a box too). Thus everyone who defined “you” seeks to meet your definition of themselves, through the boxes they helped you fill and that you now help them in keeping CLOSED. In this way we all share the same burden and suffer through the weight of the same boxes. This weight of concepts is literally killing you. But nevertheless, you still claim to be free….LOL! But how can one who lives out of boxes ever be free?

It is your defining of me that boxes you in and never any self-definition you apply to your ‘self,’ because every definition superimposed upon the self…I gave you through our ongoing conceptual exchange.

One day, however, you may finally realize the cause of this weight and that it has little to do with “you” and much more to do with “them.” Make no mistake, the “enlightened master” who claims freedom from self, but still sees YOUR egocentricity, is nothing more than a “Master of Boxes.”

Artwork by Shawn Barber - "D.I.D"

Runnin’ With The Herd

The herd gave you everything. Even your desire to escape the herd is a gift of the herd.

Are YOU grateful?

The herd gave you your Super Bowl and your Spiritual Awakening. Your HDTV and your Eckart Tolle. Integral Theory and Dancing With The Stars. Hummers and higher consciousness. Chakras and Chocolate chips. Gurus and Gonorrhea.

The herd gave you all you desire to embrace and all you seek to escape. Everything you seek to find and everything you seek to lose is a product of the herd. Whatever you love and whatever you loathe…all gifts of the herd.

You can never “transcend” the herd… because the herd gave you that too…(hahaaa!).

The enlightened master and the pedophile. Charles Manson and Mahatma Ghandi. Adyashanti and Al Capone. The Dalai Lama and Jeffrey Dahmer. All products of the herd and all snug up in your mind. It's all up in your noggin' and all you need do is bring it into focus and....SEE...

...and you do!

But sometimes you loathe the ignorant masses and you actually hate the fuckin’ bastards out there… as if you were not apart of it. For chrisakes, the herd even gave you…your FEAR of the herd.

They gave you fear and loathing (what’d you think, you came up with that all on your lonesome, LOL). And you return the favor by fearing and loathing "them." The herd is your teacher and your mind is the classroom. Would you like to change the world? Sure, the herd gave you that.

Do you really think for a minute that the herd will let you go? That you can somehow go your own way?

Because every path you choose, was mapped out by the herd long before your membership was approved simply by fact of your birth. Without the herd, who or what would you be? Without the herd, what would you think? How would you define your ‘self’?

Are you a rebel? A non-conformist? A pacifist? An activist? An artist? A Buddhist? A Terrorist, a non-dualist, an academic, a master, a butcher , a baker, a candlestick maker? Are you conservative or a liberal? Are you a husband, wife, daughter, son? Are you gay, straight, round, lost or found? Are you depressed, happy, contented, sad, grieving, mad? Are you pissed off and not gonna take it anymore...LOL.

...don’t forget to thank the herd!

Do you follow the esoteric teachings of Zen Buddhism? Are you an advocate of Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory? Are you a Born Again Christian or a Muslim Jihadist? Have you experienced the transcendental bliss of the non-dual experience? Get a new car? Diagnosed with cancer? Waiting for Jesus? Lose your job? Win the lottery? Get laid? Get enlightened? Abducted by Aliens? Schizophrenic? Obese? At peace?

Do you sometimes enjoy reading the crap on this blog?

Just don’t forget to thank the herd for it’s bountiful beneficence and its myriad renditions of relative suffering and joy, all of which you have chosen at one time or another, and will continue to choose time and time again, always thinking your choice is "unique" and above the herd. Thank the herd for the cognitive cornucopia you conjure up and, through that, consider yourself uniquely SPECIAL.

Make no mistake, your uniqueness is a product of a collective consciousness just brimming with ideas, most of it nothing more than the same old hag dressed up in snazzy new post-modern mini-skirt.

You want to be free of the herd, to  transcend the vile masses? Yep, that’s provided too.

You’re NOT “unique,” just another member of the herd, demanding the herd approve your uniqueness. And they no doubt will...in fact, they will hand it to you. The herd will give you...

...your "self."

Because not one single solitary thought in your head is free of the herd….

Jump in and fully engage the herd, because you are never NOT engaged. You just like to think you’re not part of it all. You like to pretend that you have nothing to do with what’s out there, with what you see, with what you experience....

But keep IN MIND….ALL the shit you experience and accept as outside YOU…

Is an experience indisputably.... INSIDE YOUR HEAD….

…and nowhere else will you EVER experience it.

Hmmmm....now what do you suppose that means?

I've seen all good people turn their heads each day
so satisfied I'm on my way.
I've seen all good people turn their heads each day
so satisfied I'm on my way. 

Take a straight and stronger course to the corner of your life.
Make the white queen run so fast she hasn't got time to make you a wife. 

'Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time and its news is captured
For the queen to use.

Move me on to any black square,
Use me any time you want,
Just remember that the goal
Is for us to capture all we want, (move me on), yea,yea,yea,yea,yea (to any black square)

Don't surround yourself with yourself,
Move on back two squares,
Send an instant karma to me,
Initial it with loving care yourself.

'Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time and its news is captured
For the queen to use.

I've seen all good people turn their heads each day so satisfied I'm on my way. 

Artwork by HR Giger - "Landscape XVIII"

Collective Annihilation Through Individual Egos

Collective self-destruction by individual egos, if it ever happens, must surely be accidental.

On the surface, the collective certainly has no desire to self-destruct. But deep down in the depths of the collective mind, where we compulsively repeat the same patterns, over and over, ad infinitum...

…the collective actually loathes the individual ego and wishes to destroy it.

Yet, the individual ego equally despises the collective mass of human consciousness.

Neither wishes an end to itself, but both seek to destroy the other.

So which are “you”?

The ego fears and loathes the collective. It perceives the aggregate of human consciousness and belief as primitive, absurd and madly driven by gross fears and desires. It recognizes man’s inhumanity to man as a collective disease that only IT is immune to. The individual ego holds itself up as sacred, as it seeks its own personal awakening to a higher consciousness  and a higher truth not available to the collective mass of human thought. The ego believes it is on a “hero’s journey” to one day transcend the collective HELL that it despises.

The collective fears and loathes the individual ego. It understands self-absorbed egocentricity as the very reason for man’s inhumanity to man. It lives in chronic sadness and fear over the pain and suffering individual egos inflict upon itself. The collective sensationalizes all individual acts of cruelty as not apart of itself. It seeks to extract out the guilty and supports severe punishment.

History demonstrates that following every collective uprising, the ego takes over until the collective must rise again. This is easy to be seen, because with every political uprising, one individual ego is sought out as leader. Nevertheless, as always happens, that individual ego is eventually vilified by the collective in its desire for punishment.

The individual ego cannot escape the collective, because the collective GAVE IT LIFE.

The collective cannot escape egocentric individuality, because the ego KEEPS IT ALIVE.

The collective is OUTSIDE, seeking control over what is INSIDE YOU.

The ego is INSIDE, seeking control over what is OUTSIDE IT.

Thus, the collective will always withhold its wonder from the ego and the ego will share none of its magic with the collective.

When the ego sees the outside as inside and the collective realizes that what is inside has never left the outside…

...there will no longer be a difference to get hung up on and point to.

Artwork by Beau White - "Becoming A Man (bit by bit)"

Kid Guru

Ahhhh....are you experiencing a deep sense of self-contentment in your spiritual practices? Do you consider yourself consciously evolved? Do you swoon at the feet of your beloved master? Are you forever drawn to your guru’s words of wisdom in a never-ending need to absorb his every divine word? Do you idolize the immortals? Do your meditation practices take you to magical worlds of "pure consciousness"? Do you believe you’ve experienced the absolute oneness of non-duality, the direct experience of Buddha No-Mind, the Unconditional Infinite of Christ Consciousness?

Well, you might as well forget about all that, because until you meet KID GURU, all your spiritual hocus pocus is nothing but cheap baloney between two pieces of stale Wonder bread. Until you meet Kid Guru, you’ll continue to think your progressing to advanced stages of enlightenment….

...Ha! What a maroon!

Make no mistake, Kid Guru will show you how your only marking time, spinning rhymes of conceptual drivel that you idolize as “truth,” but that he laughs at.  You will be literally shocked at how Kid Guru will immediately demonstrate that your as enlightened as a baloney sandwich (in fact, the baloney sandwich is light years ahead of you). I'll bet you actually think you're parenting them...LOL! Now that's fookin' funny!

If you haven’t yet met Kid Guru, then I suggest you do so. I dare you to discover a more competent teacher for showing you the shit you don’t WANT to see.

Kid Guru will help you burn through layers and layers of even the most ridiculously reinforced egocentric bullshit. Go ahead, try to fool The Kid with your righteous platitudes, your "life-experiences," your silly vacuous value system, your asinine life goals and your petty meanings. You’ll be burned like toast, because nobody knows you like the Kid. You can hide all up in your egocentricity with the "beloved master," safe and sound. But the Kid will rapidly flush out ALL your fears for you to SEE... in vivid technicolor.


I'll bet you thought you were "done" with that...Ha! Nope...not quite yet...

Have you experienced “non-duality”? Well, the Kid will show you what your little head trip is really all about and psychologically slice you to ribbons with the greatest Koan of all time...

“yeah right... you’re an asshole!” 

Hmmm... now what Mr. Enlightened Non-duality? Are you gonna dazzle ‘em with your “No-Mind” persuasions, while he/she looks at you like you got two heads and both are plumb stupid?

Or are you gonna send him to his room?

Yep, works all the time, right? Now you can meditate in peace, God dammit!

I wonder…did anyone ever roll their eyes at Osho? Did Nisargadatta ever change fouled diapers? Did Ramakrishna ever get obnoxious back talk? Did Maharshi ever have to negotiate stubborn teenage defiance? Was Ken Wilber ever told to “shutup, asshole”?

Amatuers...all amateurs...

The “real” world awaits you and Kid Guru will bring it on home in all its existential majesty. So go ahead…go off and learn from the devout and venerable “master.” But make no mistake, when you’re finally done all that, the teacher awaits you and no amount of preparation can prepare you for what you will learn. 

But you will advance…

...light years.


Artwork by Heather Nevay - "The Visit"

The Invisible Mind

(post reprinted from Intimate Awakening which is no longer in operation)


Your problem is NOT that you have a body, but that the body has subordinated your mind. You believe the mind invisible and only the body can be SEEN and, therefore, what the body does is very significant to you. This is why the mind requires so little attention, except when attending to the needs of the body.

A mind engaged only with the pursuits of a body is called “ego.”

The ego insists that the mind be limited by the body (actions/behaviors/doing) and this gives the impression upon the mind that the body is more real than the mind. The mind has actually come to believe it is nothing more than a part of the body and since the body is bound by its limitations, the mind must be equally as limited.

If at any time bodily control is threatened, you immediately become vigilant to the mind in demanding control of the body. The ego believes that as long as the body is under control, the mind may think whatever it will and little to no control is required. This is because an uncontrolled body can be seen, while an uncontrolled mind is invisible to the naked eye. Failure to control the body leads to guilt and shame, while failure to control the mind is NOT of concern, except as it relates to the body.

That which the mind gives most attention to is always perceived as visible. You are actually relieved that the mind is invisible, because if others knew your mind you would be forced to control the mind more vigilantly than the body. In fact, this would radically alter ego dynamics by demanding that the mind be invested purely in control of itself and this would make the body invisible.

Who would care what the body did, or did not do, if the mind was unconcealed and fully disclosed? How could an “ego” conceal itself and live vicariously through a body if the mind were fully open to the world? 

The ego thrives upon concealment and omission and, through the body, the ego is a master of disguise. Therefore,  your “awakening” to truth is contingent on a fully revealed ego and to fully reveal the ego is to fully engage with others in order to be revealed with, and through, them. An ego that continues to insist on a private and invisible mind, is a self-protective ego fully engaged with the fear of exposure.

To proclaim your emancipation from the ego’s conditions is to deeply and fully engage a world of others without fear. Your private little experiences of "awakening" are nothing more than a covert egocentric manipulation to reinforce individual privacy and concealment. The ego thrives on experiences it can call its own and does NOT take kindly to the idea of sharing.

Look to everyone around you as vehicles to sharing of 'self.' Your purpose is to dissolve the limits of relationship, which are conditions the ego has imposed from fear. The ego’s need for privacy impedes your purpose.

The only way to free your mind…

...is to reveal it.

Artwork by Regino Gonzales - "Invisible Man"

Avoiding “Dark Alleys”

You seek to avoid threat and your seeking merely places it “there” TO be found. This demands a fear induced vigilance which consumes the mind and exhausts the body, although you simply consider it a “normal” part of living.

Yet, it was from fear that the ego was formed and made to seem “normal.” Therefore, the frightened ego-self demands that you avoid ALL “dark alleys,” even though the ego has never seen the light.

The ego is a seemingly impenetrable system of defensive fortifications constructed entirely from fear. You need not be aware of the extent of this system (which is so intricately complex as to be unbelievable) just the fear from which it was built. Without fear it cannot stand. Without fear, the world would not be as you now SEE it… a labyrinth of “dark alleys” which you must avoid and from which it seems impossible to find the safety of home. This is what you find because this is what you expect to SEE and so, look for, which demands the need to protect your ‘self’ from what SEEING makes REAL.

Surrender your fear and defenses dissolve and you will SEE that there was never anything “there” requiring protection. There are no “dark alleys” and there never were. The world is not as it appears.

Yet, you believe that there are some people you must be cautious with, just NOT those you claim to “love.”

But, the world’s “Love” is  a contractual obligation that can be dissolved at anytime if the terms of sacrifice are not followed. This is cause for your greatest fear and guilt is always the chief weapon of attack. You believe in your past wounds and so your vigilance is paramount to protect against future attack. These are the “dark alleys” that you seek to avoid. They exist nowhere but in your mind, because you made them up, but they make up the world you experience.

You have so rigidly normalized your defenses that you are not even aware of exactly what you are defending against. But you’re not aware of oxygen either, yet this does not interrupt your breathing. The ego does not require awareness, just your denial and continued self-protection.

The egocentric mind is so tightly wound and constricted that just the slightest reprimand or disparaging look, could instantly thrust you down a “dark alley.” The world is blinded by guilt and this is what consistently motivates ALL attack. You have experienced attack with those you have chosen to “love” and, although the ego demands denial, your walls have been securely reinforced as a result. Yet, how can love be extended from behind walls?

To dissolve your defenses is to realize that there is nothing to fear and, in that miraculous moment, perfect peace will surround you. 

There's NO freedom until you do, because it is only fear that keeps you in chains. The world you experience is perceived in fear and your brief moments of “happiness” only reinforce the fear which is always there before the “happy” event and must always come after. There is NO rest for the fearful.

The ego’s fear is religiously consistent, while your brief moments of pleasure are fleeting wisps of smoke disappearing on the horizon. Nevertheless, you have yet to come from behind the walls of fear that YOU made to protect from NOTHING. There is nothing there to harm you. Let down your defenses and experience freedom beyond measure.

You were not Created from fear, which means that there can be NO fear in you, other than what you demand. Conjure it up it no longer, as it serves NO purpose.

You have no idea what it would be like to be totally without fear. To not worry, get angry or depressed. To be free of your defenses and at peace in every moment seems virtually impossible. But to be “in the moment” is nothing more than to extinguish fear. All remnants and any residue must be wiped entirely clean.

There is little that can be said to relieve your doubt, except that you must give up ALL maps, because nothing in the world can offer directions to an experience that is FREE of all fear. The world is lost in fear and if you are “there,” you are lost with it. Yet, if only one SEES entirely without fear, all must SEE.

Does this mean that “you” should no longer wear seat belts or look both ways before crossing the street? Does this mean you should no longer avoid “dark alleys”?

There are NO exceptions. However, in a world made from fear, exceptions are necessary. The mind that makes fear real, must protect the body from death, because fear also made the body. But if you are a mind and NOT a body, what is there to fear? If all “experience” is of the mind, how can fear rule the mind if it can be easily banished forever with just a single thought? The body was made from fear and if fear is gone, so too must ALL its associations recede from view.

You live solely in the infinite mind of Being and that cannot be altered by any game you choose to play in denial of this FACT. Fear is the denial that changes NOTHING, because it makes NOTHING real. Your world was made to deny this simple truth. Believe it NO longer.

Artwork by Laurie Lipton - "Last Night I Dreamed of Murdering Mommy" 

 

You Don't Hate Me...You Hate Your Concept of "Me"

The world reflects the consequences of fearful avoidance and your relationship a microcosmic reflection of that macro-world.

Your ego-self is the package of beliefs that determines and defines" you." Many of the beliefs that compose this package are beneficial to you, many are not. Unfortunately, we tend to plod through life rarely stopping to consider what beliefs actually result in this mundane plodding. We tend to live our lives in default and our "love" relationships reflect this zombie-like existence.

One belief that is particularly damaging to relationships is that of avoidance. In avoiding conflict with others, you believe that your experience of conflict will also be diminished. Out of sight - out of mind.

All conflict is composed of what occurs outside your experience, and your actual inner experience of that conflict. It may be beneficial if you make this distinction as well, since your experience of the actual conflict is certainly different, and most likely opposed, to what another experiences and both may be opposed to what is actually occurring.

But how would you know since, caught up in your experience of suffering, it is your internal experience that becomes your WORLD (or reality). This is because the "world" is nothing more than an inner experience. So much happens 'under-the-radar' that, unless experiences are deeply understood, we become alien to one another (I love when people try to tell me what the "reality" of the situation is. HA!).

Is there a world outside your mind? Why that’s ridiculous, of course there is.

Ahh... but all you have to go on is your experience and often experiences are diametrically opposed and they will easily become opposed IF they are NOT shared (in fact, this seems to be the natural course).

"I'm not really sure who you are, so I'll just fill-in the blanks and make you what I think you are"

If you refuse to share your experience then, make no mistake, you will remain in two different, diametrically opposed, “worlds” and you will both be strangers to one another. Alienation results from the avoidance of sharing your experience, no matter how uncomfortable such sharing might be, over a gradually longer period of time.

Avoidance erodes, sharing evolves….you can't have both.

The longer this avoidance is perpetuated, the more FEAR you will accumulate about sharing, because sharing your world with a stranger (what the "loved" one has become) is always an anxious experience. So, why deal with such discomfort, just close down, right?

When you don’t know someone, you can’t predict their responses and your egoic self-concept does not interact very well with the unknown. The ego loves to predict and so shuts itself off from SURPRISE.

Essentially many egos have never truly engaged in intimacy with their own self-concept (internal belief system), let alone become intimate with someone else’s self-concept. In deeply understanding 'them,' you come to know yourself. For some folks that can be a scary process.

Yet, alas, this is why we have wars and clearly when minds fail to join through the sharing of 'world' experiences, strangers come to fear one another even within the self-created hell of 'love' relationships.

Sharing your experience of your own personal world is INTIMACY and when you come to deeply understand my 'experience,' and I understand yours, my 'inside' becomes more available to love... as does yours. This is an infinite process of self-mutualization.

So why avoid conflict? What are you protecting? Are you afraid of “fighting”?

I cringe when folks use that term “fighting.” No doubt that when you attack me, you make a stranger out of me, because your attack demonstrates that YOU DON”T KNOW ME. Therefore, did you ever? Contrary to pop psychology, you don't attack the one's you love. Therefore, if you are attacking, the question becomes, is there really love?

But if you don’t know me then what are you really attacking, me or your concept of me?

Obviously, if we have regularly avoided sharing our experience of the world with one another, then clearly you no longer KNOW ME, if you ever did. Contrary to the ego's past tenuous attempts at sharing, we now live in different 'worlds.'

If you no longer know me then you will simply fill in the blanks that may have materialized from our alienation of one another, due to our mutual avoidance of sharing our 'worlds.' In your mind you will conceptualize me as NOT what I am, but as what you decide I am, based on what your ego-self needs me to be. If your ego-self attacks me, then clearly you have made me a stranger.

But will you even try to share your ‘filled-in’ experience of me. Nope, you’ll keep it to yourself, but you will avoid me based on that self-created experience of “me," resulting in us both constructing concepts of one another that have no basis in truth whatsoever. This is the definition of "alone together."

In this process ‘love’ is a lie, simply because it has no basis in truth, just made up mental concepts.

I meet people that live out this lie their whole lives. The longer we avoid sharing our experience of one another out of fear, the larger that fear grows in consciousness. Of course, your fears are justified, just look at how awful your concept of me has become.

But is your concept of me, really me or just a mental picture you created to avoid me in the fear of having to face yourself? Because, if you ever truly get to know me, you will come face to face with YOU. Such is the discomfort of convergent unity. However, this 'discomfort' is based on a mistaken interpretation that has been lived out in millions of relationships. Make no mistake, when you first got together the goal was unity.

Then your ego took over...

So what's the goal now?

Artwork by Chris Peters - "Stranger in the Mirror"

Order Superimposed Upon Chaos....is Still Chaos

For the ego....chaos is the norm. However, the ego makes compromises with chaos, thereby, constructing  an illusion of 'order.'

Yet, because this 'order' is nothing more than abstract chaos, compromises break down and eventually lead to utter disillusionment with delusional order. We see this happening in the world today. Structures from which the ego define itself are crumbling as egos defiantly struggle to maintain these imaginary structures from which self-actualization is achieved.

But if the structures are delusional, so is your actualization. It never was and never will be...'actual.'

The world is experiencing what seems a break down of the actual 'order,' but only because order was never there in the first place, only a belief in order superimposed upon chaos.

The ego-self can never have anything but disorder and chaos, simply because it does NOT know what its 'purpose' IS and therefore, knows NOT what it IS.

A mind without purpose, can only experience chaos and be forced to make it work. Thus, you have installed all manner of purposes upon your experience of self and world.

Are you fulfilled by your career? Your family, your finances, your possessions? Do you demand your "life" be meaningful? Do you lead a "purposeful" existence?

How will you cope when all is finally exposed as delusional nothingness? When all your significant purposes and functions become nothing more than phantasmagorical delusion. What will "you" be? How will you define your 'self'? Will you seek to anchor your 'self ' to new beliefs? Will you become immersed in your "spirituality" and religion? Will you adopt a belief in "non-duality"?

Will you become angry? Will you fall into despair? Will you struggle to make it all REAL again?

Maybe it's time to start dissembling the ego. Maybe it's time to start dissecting the self. Maybe it's time to start accepting chaos and become an infinite player. Such a game has no outcome and no purpose....

...and in that...is your only freedom.

But can you stand it?


Artwork by Luis Lorenzana - "The World is Full of Lonely People"

"Free-Will" is on the Menu (but we all chose the menu)

Are you an individual? An individual actor pressing against the world in order to self-actualize as an individual with goals and dreams, lodged solely in your mind, dissociated from a world of other minds?

People make choices everyday that demand you makes choices in response, demanding choices from them that again, demand you make choices causing choices again from them, etc, etc, etc, on and on and on, ad infinitum.

This is the infinite game that we all play. Although many deny this contingency and become finite players, actually believing they have individual "free-will."

You have no authority over your 'self.' But then neither do 'they.' We are so deeply connected and intricately intertwined as to negate and nullify the 'self' almost entirely. But still... the thought of being a separate individual 'self' persists even though our whole life as been directed by a world of others that direct us as we direct them.

However, it does feel good to think that you have separate authority over your self and make choices that are not contingent upon anything but "you." Ha!

Such is the myth of individuality….

The physical body has nothing to do with it. Animals have a physical body, but they lack a 'self.' Possibly, nature fully realizes its contingent interdependence and therefore, it has no need for individual 'selves.'
We are absolutely contingent on one another. You may choose not to share or cooperate on the surface, but below the surface, your existence is absolutely contingent on an interdependence with others, whether you like it or not or wish to be aware of it or not. It can be a frightening thought for an ego to consider.

Let's cut to the chase shall we... Do you use the word “I” in reference to your 'self.' So where did you come upon this identification? Did you simply conjure up this 'self; out of thin air? Most likely your learned to be a 'self,' so in essence, “you” would NOT exist if not for others. It's too late to consider returning to the forest to live out some primordial feral state of "non-self," because the self you learned to be, will only keep getting in the way. Your individual authority is absolutely contingent on there being 'others' for which to contrast a 'self' as opposed to, or in harmony with, others.

No others = no self.

You might as well engage in the interdependent flow, since disengaging is delusional.

Every choice is contingent on others being 'there.' Even the choice to completely disengage and live as a hermit in the forest, presupposes others for which to disengage from. Your Being is contingent on their Being as their Being is contingent on yours.

But wait, it gets better!

Because “you” were not constructed in isolation from a world of others, not one thought in your head belongs exclusively to “you.” (this includes everything I write in this blog and anything you read in every other blog....all absolutely contingent).
 

I'm not saying there is NO free-will, just that there is NO free-will exclusive to an individual “you.”

This interdependent contingency is absolute, even to make that statement “I am not absolute anything” demands others for which to contrast an “I” as not absolute. We are interdependent on one another and all choices are contingent on choices made by others, which are contingent on choices you have made.

We exist together interdependently, deluded into a belief of independent individuality. Watch how your ego squirms at the idea that individual "awakening" is a delusion and "you" can never have it independent of others. You will have something, but this is no more than individual delusion and any experience you interpret comes from a menu of experiences that we have all constructed together.

You can continue to exercise authority over yourself until the cows come home, but essentially, it makes little difference. You may choose to do anything you like, but your individual authority will always be contingent on the authority imposed by others who share an experience of a world and that world experience comes to you through a mutual exchange. “Free-will” is contingent on the free-will of others, which cancels out all individual free-will. All your choices are made in relation to a world of others and therefore, are never entirely free of that contingency (although this is often unconscious, maintaining the delusion of free-will and choices made separate from a world of others).

Certainly you may feel free to exercise independent choices, but you may wish to surrender the delusion of your choices being freely made. We live in a world of contingency, where the existence of "you" as a concept is contingent on the concept of 'them.' Your individual free-will is contingent on "free-will" being a menu choice. But only because we agree as to what is ON the menu. This makes your free-will choices entirely contingent on choosing from the menu, which means it is NOT free at all.

Free-will is real, but individual free-will is delusional. This is why individuals cannot "awaken" to anything more than what is on the menu.

It's all a 'given,' since you have no choice but to CHOOSE from the menu that the world offers and that menu is a mutual construct we have ALL manufactured collectively. You and I and every mind that thinks as a 'self,' has constructed the menu from which we all choose. If there is only one menu (world of others) to choose from, how are you then implementing free-will? 

We can create a different menu, but only together, because the menu we created is contingent on all of us choosing from that menu for it to exist at all….and we always do.

You and I and everyone are contingent beings, entirely contingent on others defining us from moment to moment as we define them. There is no escape from contingency, best to engage it.

You are NOT free to claim "enlightenment" or "awakening," because if it weren't on the menu, you could NOT claim it at all.

You don't just live WITH others, you are contingent ON others as they are contingent ON you. We are all interdependently contingent on one another, but in our demand for individuality we are intoxicated with the self and so fail to see that, without others, a 'self' could NOT exist.

We may finally awaken, but never individually, simply because we are absolutely contingent on one another. We do not create ourselves in isolation from other selves. We construct the self contingent on other selves being 'there.' No one has any idea what a self-construct manufactured without others would be like and this is why contingency is absolute.

You and I are unique, but only in relation to the menu from which we have chosen our values in order to construct the self. The menu is, and always will be, an interdependent construct that we all created. No one chooses free of the menu, until ALL choose to discard the menu. Until then, individual free-will is a delusion, that we have yet to weary of.

Are you seeking to "awaken" to truth?

Luckily... that's on the menu too.

Bon Apetit!
mikeS


Artwork by Karl Persson - "Lunch Monkey"

AWAKENING: A Product of Perfect Communication

Awakening is a transcendent communication that has nothing to do with God. 

Nor does it involve participation from any "Divine Consciousness," "Source Mind," "Universal Mind," or any other metaphoric concept connoting a supreme being or transcendental source.

The communication that we awaken to is perfect communication between ourselves, thereby, facilitating an experience we call God.

This is why awakening can never be an individual experience of truth. How could such an experience be available to 'individuals'? How could truth be transferable, or even identifiable, to parts (individuals) of the whole? Truth can be discovered together as a whole, when the choice to realize truth is not an individual preoccupation, but a joint enterprise of mutual exchange.

However, neither is truth available to minds communing in relationships conditioned by limits (parts interacting only on the surface from fear of depth) since perfect communication has no such limits and is not conditioned by parts. Perfect communication escapes the surface by exploring the depths of others in order to realize the depths of 'self.' Intimacy is our final frontier and until fearlessly explored by dissolving fear, we remain surface strangers, condemned to rely on our mutual ignorance, as opposed to combined genius.

Egocentric parts impose limits on the depth of mutual intimacy by presuming they know the truth outside relationship.

Because such “truth” is relative, communication between localized minds is limited. Limited communication conveys nothing at all (although the ego may interpret what is communicated as valuable to itself) and what is relatively valuable to an ego-self has NO value to communication and what has no value to communication communicates nothing and what communicates nothing remains ignorant.

“Thus, we see that communication between minds can occur because Consciousness is nonlocal, even though minds are separate and local. Nonlocal Consciousness connects minds together just as, in classical physics, classical fields connect objects together.

We know that individual minds (worlds) are highly correlated with each other because many of the same objects and events appear in different minds. Thus, both your body and mine may appear in my mind as well as in yours, but the images in my mind are different from those in yours, so the bodies are different. The way we know they are the same bodies is because of nonlocal communication between us."

"Nonlocal communication between minds is directly experienced as an interpersonal connection which transcends verbal communication. This is most clear whenever ego conflicts between minds are not so strong that they obscure the nonlocal connection. Such connections are clearest in many parental and filial relationships, sibling relationships, close personal relationships, support groups, therapy groups, and meditation groups." (Stanley Sobottka, University of Virginia, “Course in Consciousness” p103, see blog sidebar).

Communication is valuable when it engages in awakening to, and through, other minds. Such communication is perfect when minds communicate absent egocentric expectations, even though the decision to communicate originates from an agreement between two or more egos.

In the above quote Professor Sobottka accurately points out that non-egoic communication is more often available through the familiar significant relationships we all engage with in everyday 'reality.' However, often these relationships can become the most egocentrically obstructed relationships (consumed by fear and the need for self-protection) and it’s through these relationships that our ego-dynamics are exhibited in full fury. Yet, it is through these relationships that depth will be facilitated much more rapidly.

Nevertheless, individual mind control techniques or spiritual ideological practices are valuable when directed toward enhancing communication between individuals and not between some transcendent source or state. This means all practices and all spiritual paths should have this as the only goal, because it is from such “perfect communication” that individuals become catalyst to each others “awakening” to truth.

Most religio-spiritual ideologies and practices continue to advocate pursuit of communication with a transcendent source as the product of “perfect communication” and this is a major misinterpretation of the ancient texts. It may be true that perfect communication engages with a transcendent God-mind presence never before experienced, but an individual mind cannot of itself realize such an experience, simply because it believes it is an individual mind having an ‘individual’ experience. Only through a joining of minds can we access perfect communication between ourselves, thereby annihilating the self, which is a state of imperfect communication.

It makes little difference what ideology you choose to fully engage under, if full engagement is the focus. Even the non-dual religions are advantageous in supporting such engagement, even though most non-dual practitioners and advocates are hypnotized by the ideological concepts they seek to promote. They fail to see the goal of engagement as the point of all their ideological premises and become immured in, and occluded by, their non-dual concepts.

In fact, in full engagement with others, ideologies fall away as unnecessary, because they only result in distracting comparisons, which impede the experience of intimate depth with another who relies on a different ideology or dogma and this promotes exclusion as opposed to full engagement.

You are weary of relationships because you have come to believe they are limited in the ability to enhance you. Therefore, you go off in search of your individual "enlightenment" or "awakening," discarding relationships as having any capacity to provide you truth and so you refuse to recognize how you have applied limits and that all limits are yours. Perfect communication between ‘individuals’ dissolves individuality as an obstacle to awakening. A moment of perfect communication is NOW and has no past or future to impair its affects. Perfect communication applies to both the receiving and transmitting, as they become an exchange of ONE.

It takes only two minds to realize that a communion of all minds is the ONE reality, because it creates that reality. Individuality impedes the willingness to open channels of communication, long since closed off. This is a chief priority, because your individuality is your only obstacle …to God.

Artwork by A. Andrew Gonzalez - "Saltatus Aeternum"

Shock the Monkey

To really understand your fear it's helpful to objectify the egocentric construct, or the part of the mind that makes and interprets fear.

Egos fear change and this will always impede any real constructive change, thereby, perpetuating status quo solutions or solving problems with the same mindset that creates them, which is always egocentric.
 
Our current climate change problem demands extremely substantive changes, and rather quickly, from egocentric minds that naturally resist any real changes out of fear. Clearly, the egos most afraid of change (social) are those most effected monetarily, since wealth maintenance and production is a chief egocentric preoccupation in regard to self-actualizing. The ego realizes its 'existence' through the numerous avenues the world provides for egos to self-actualize and increase self-esteem and improve self-image. Yet, obviously, if the world is illusional, these actualizing standards are delusional and meaningless (but don't tell that to your ego!)

Self-actualizing causes egos to congregate into groups to increase the self-actualizing potential of the individuals. 'Corporations' are a powerful type of egocentric congregate, which then further groups into syndicates or cartels in order to influence other weaker, less organized egoic groups (the U.S. Congress in particular, although any government or even the United Nations is a good model of a weaker ego-group). Egocentric congregates have an investment in avoiding substantive change, since this would result in a decrease in the continued actualization that the corporation was created to perpetuate, thereby, enriching individual egos in self-actualizing. Such groups employ fear to insure status quo solutions thereby negating substantive change.

Therefore, the only substantive change that can ever really take place must come out of 'crisis.' 

Without the sudden shock of crisis, convention is easily maintained. The collective ego must be shocked out of its complacency, otherwise it must always be "business as usual." This is similar to the sudden shock of "spiritual awakening" that many so-called "awakened" individuals claim to have experienced. For change to occur, there can be no gradual learning since the ego-self is highly adept in the skill of rationalizing anomalies or abnormalities into conventional perspectives. As history demonstrates, any significant deviation from the norm must be sudden and painful for change to take place.

For instance, no significant economic change can occur until crisis is clearly reached which, by then, may be too late. Unfortunately, governments have successfully offset the sudden impact of the current economic crisis and now we are only gradually heading toward the brink of economic destruction, which helps to anesthetize the ego-self and maintain its conventional hypnosis. . 

Gradual change is manageable, while immediate change, or crisis, can radically impact the collective consciousness creating dire consequences for egocentric groupings like corporations and governments. If I whittle away at your freedoms, gradually over time, you will easily comply, since any traumatic impact to your egocentric standards is mitigated. However, if I suddenly snatch all your rights away, you will protest vehemently and even resist. Can't have that happening now can we?

Therefore, with regard to climate change, the egocentric collective well simply dither, distract, deny and delay change until real environmental destruction makes change immanent.

Unfortunately such a high level of crisis may be prove too late even for any substantive change. Nevertheless, the ego-self is king of its experience and, even in its own self-destruction, will always remain in control...

...because egos are masters of control and will continue to assert control up until the final moments.



Painting by Kris Kuksi - "Orangutan the Messenger" 

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')

Interlocking "Stories" Create Worlds

Certainly we are always in relationship to everything in our experience of a world. Yet, the primacy of all self-defining is through others first, everything else is a sloppy second.

Who "you" are is contingent on others, because they have defined "you" and "you" have defined them (although "you" like to take all the credit).

The German philosopher Heidegger emphasized that there is no experience as "man" or "human being" as a separate isolated experience or 'story.' Of course, man and human being are separate ideas or concepts that can be strung together in numerous narratives. But the experience is only in relationship, or "Being-in-the -World," as unified

You experience your greatest joy and your most intense suffering through and with others. But "you" believe this is not to be trusted and so rely primarily, and often exclusively, on your 'self.'

Make no mistake, sitting on your cushion meditating is not free of others, since who "you" are, or the concept you identify with as you "meditating," is an interdependent construction extracted from a world of others. Your 'world' provides you with everything you need and even your belief in transcending the world was given to you from your world. But if the world is "you," and there is no division, you give to yourself.

Your "story" is not about you, but about you in relationship to other stories that relate to other stories, which relate to other stories, on and on, ad infinitum (such are the tangled webs we weave). Yet, your desperate attempts to identify and isolate an individual 'story' against and in contrast to other individual stories is the root of your suffering.

Even in the relationships you claim as your most intimate, you barely touch the depths of intimacy even though you sense that all experience is unified. Unity frightens the poop out of the sociopathic ego, which revels in its separate individualism, but wouldn't know itself from spit if it were not for the shared experience which defined it. So it adopts complicated and austere 'spiritual' practices, which only reinforces its desire to revel in itself, denying that it would not even exist without 'others' to give it meaning.

Nothing wrong with meditation though, especially when used by ego to come out from its protective shell and engage with its experience of others. Only then will it know itself as engaged with a world in which its greatest joy is from shared consciousness.

Certainly engaging with a 'world' is crucial to the 'self' since without the experience of a world there could be no experience of 'self.' Nevertheless, all experiences are intensified when combined. This idea is so counter to the usual mode of your egoic relating that it's hard to grok and you become acclimated to separating your relationships from your spiritual practices in the belief that once your "spirituality" has sufficiently intensified (whatever that means), the trickle down theory will then insure that your relationships benefit accordingly.

Yet, this is counter to the fact that relationships are your spiritual practice and your only purpose.

I meditate fairly regularly (actually, I just call it 'sitting still for a spell') but for me this is nothing but prep for engaging in a world of others. It's the old parable, "seeking the face of Christ in another" is "awakening," since it's through others that such a maximal experience is attained. Intense solitary experiences are grand, but I contend this is multiplied exponentially when engaged in sharing with and through another. This is how we learn who we are in truth. Yet, it's also how we create a shared experience of reality that may not be true if our purpose is denied.

The Interdependent Non-Dual Nature of Christ Consciousness

Ego’s experience pain and suffering and because of that, we fear each other above all else. This is because nothing causes more pain and suffering than "man's inhumanity to man." In fact, it is often our most significant others that cause the most pain.

Yet, the inverse is that those you have joined with to experience “love” are often cause for the most joy (you may even have briefly touched this, but have long since forgotten due to the desensitizing angst of daily egoic existence).

To trust in your ability to heal yourself, you must trust in the healing ability of another, because the world is an interdependent unity of transference and counter transference and you cannot extract your ‘self’ from that experience, because it is inherent to your ‘Being.’

Not one concept of your ego-self was constructed in isolation from other self-concepts. Waking from the dream is an interdependent project, because we do not dream alone.

But then, why do we seek to ‘awake’ alone?

See everyone as facilitator to your awakening, even those whom you judge has having little or no value. Since, who are “you” to judge?

Nevertheless, the ego-self expects ‘healing’ on its own terms. It will seek out healing through conflict, because it was designed from conflict and in conflict, and it believes that it alone has the power to heal itself, because it alone made it what it is.

The ego seeks out conflict through which to define itself in opposition to the world. Therefore, the more actualized the ego, the more it believes it has transcended conflict. It believes that through actualizing itself in the world, the world will heal it, based on the world’s rewards (in other words, “if only this, than that”). Only by following the world’s prescribed ‘laws’ will you achieve your ‘reward’ and the world reflects that expectation in widespread discouragement and despair.

The law of the jungle is survival (everybody for himself) and the more "enlightened" and powerful the 'self,' the greater your reward and the more your chances of survival (in this life and after).

Your ‘self’ is an abstract concept developed purely to protect from fear and, through that function, actually manufactures the fear you seek to evade. The irony is that what you protect from is what you made “real.”

To replace the “real” with the truth you must let down your defenses. But, the world can be a very frightening ‘experience’ and you need a ‘self’ you can count on to protect “you” from what’s ‘out there,’ denying that what’s ‘out there’ is entirely experienced ‘within.’

Instead of seeking to protect from it, through your concepts, maybe it’s time to engage with it?

What was developed in the need for protection (ego-self) merely magnifies your alienation from others. Make no mistake, it’s not others that threaten you, but your inner experience of others. There is a very distinct difference that you will not realize alone through intellectualized ‘spiritual’ games. You need others to aid you in unifying what seems a distinct division of mind.

Unification of these two distinct and opposing perspectives is the non-duality of Christ Consciousness and it is an entirely interdependent experience.

Your world is your experience, both inside and out. Many spiritual paths emphasize that by changing the ‘inside,' the ‘outside’ cannot harm you and this alludes to the “kingdom within." Yet, what they fail to address is that you cannot change the inside alone, as this only reinforces that you are alone and separate from what is ‘outside.’

Healing is an absence of conflict in all experience and there are many you have chosen through which to encounter that perfect peace. Did you think that 'they' came into your life by coincidence? Is it all simply a matter of chance?

Take a long look at the one next to you. Extract from that “look” all past concepts, or expectations, superimposed upon them and then communicate to them what you see. When you superimpose your concepts upon physical “sight,” you lose vision, because your concepts are hinged on egoic self-preservation and, therefore, based in fear.

Fear obstructs vision through self-protective, seemingly impenetrable, veils. Healing is nothing more than seeing through the self constructed veils of fear and realizing perfect safety. Do you feel perfectly safe with everyone you have chosen to love? Can you reveal your ‘self’ to them with excruciating honesty? (or must parts be kept undisclosed). If not, then you have abdicated your function as healer by denying this function in them and this is because you believe that healing is impossible from them and this makes it unavailable to you.

If healing is impossible from them, this only means protection is still necessary, because only egos require protection. You believe you must heal your ‘self’ regardless of the fact that the self was not constructed in isolation from them and they are as much a part of you as you are of them.

Individual fixation on your ‘self’ does not change this equation. Every individual problem you experience is always in correspondence to others. It has been said, that we are like the walking wounded, numbed by fear and closed off from any depth of engagement and so we do not understand one another and have given up trying.

Relationships steeped in the depths of intimacy are healing “places” for all who enter and join. We all feel the pull toward healing, but deny the source could ever be with another, because the experience within you cannot be trusted and so, neither can they. The ego-self must engage and engage deeply.

The ego will contrive strategies to evoke conditioned love as a way to personal happiness, but this is an egoic ruse and is destined to fail. Your lacking the motivation to heal the ones you have chosen to love, means you have simply refused to be healed by them. Love is interdependent healing exchange and, if you are not healed, than there was no love, but only conditioned behaviors rigidly based in conventional self-protective duality.

There is no other way to spin this, although your ego will try.

Does Adyashanti Cherish Illusions?

Adyashanti is currently one of the most revered of the internet's neo-advaitist’s messengers. I enjoy reading and listening to his philosophical discussions. However, over time I’ve come to recognize that he is as deluded as any other postmodern Non-Dual/Zen "teacher" and this delusional mindset is contagious, since the message is passed from one idolized messenger to another.

The quotes used here can be found at Adyashanti.org, “The Quest”

“The quest for enlightenment is the quest for truth or reality. It’s not a quest for ideas about truth—that’s philosophy. And it’s not a quest to realize your fantasies about truth—that’s fundamentalized religion. It’s a quest for truth on truth’s terms. It’s a quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence.”

The “quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence” is not found in solitary excursions through the mind, since this only results in egoic conceptual “fantasies." It is encountered in the depth of relationship and that is "the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence" and the reason you're 'here.'

Truth is not available to separate individuals outside relationship, since this makes it 'proprietary truth,' which must belong to an 'individual' (just not you). The truth, simultaneously experienced by two or more who have encountered it together, is not relative to any individual ego-self. However, truth encountered together can be negated as truth, especially for those who believe 'truth' belongs only to the individuals we have designated as specialized "Wisdom Masters."

“In your quiet moments of honesty, you know that you are not who you present yourself as, or who you pretend to be. Although you have changed identities many times, and changed them even in the course of a single day, none of them fit for long. They are all in a process of constant decay. One moment you’re a loving person, the next an angry one. One day you’re an indulgent, worldly person; the next a pure, spiritual lover of God. One moment you love your image of yourself, and the next you loathe it. On it goes, identified with one self-image after another, each as separate and false as the last.”

Yes, however, this 'wise man' (with the Hindu name) fails to address the fact that all of these “identities” are manufactured in relation to engagement with the identity of others. The ‘self’ was not constructed in isolation, but immersed in relationship with a 'world' of other identities. Even the illusion is communal and was constructed in collaborative engagement. Unfortunately, this may make it “real,” just not true and it is truth that we must seek together.

Therefore, if the “real” was constructed in cooperative engagement, the truth will be discovered in the same way and this lends credence to the fact that we are powerful beyond belief (since it is belief which limits us). The illusion is that by seeking the truth as an individual, more illusion is what you will find. An individual must always discover illusion, because an “individual” is a concept that 'we' made "real." If your "quiet moments" were truly "honest," then a desire to engage the 'others' of your world will be the result, in the realization that this is the only way to encounter truth.

“When this game of delusion gets boring or painful enough, something within you begins to stir. Out of the unsatisfactoriness of separation arises the intuition that there is something more real than you are now conscious of. It is the intuition that there is truth, although you do not know what it is. But you know, you intuit, that truth exists, truth that has absolutely nothing to do with your ideas about it. But somehow you know that the truth about you and all of life exists.”

Therefore, from this "unsactisfactoriness of separation," seek out the ground of truth through relationship (why choose any other 'individual' path?). From a depth of engagement with the illusion, together we overcome it in realizing we united to make it “real.” Now we simply unite to make it true.

It’s not the space between thoughts that need be discovered, but the space between minds that need be converged because, from that space, ”individuals” emerged and, in that alone, illusion was made “real” and egoic compromises, or distinctions, were manufactured to define illusion as “real.” Unfortunately, we have yet to realize the true, simply because we seek to find it as 'individuals.'

“Once you receive this intuition, this revelation, you will be compelled to find it. You will have no choice in the matter. You will have consciously begun the authentic quest for enlightenment, and there is no turning back. Life as you’ve known it will never be quite the same.”

Although the revelation (or revealing) is through another, the ego will insist that you engage the "authentic quest for enlightenment” alone. This is because individual ego-self relies distinctly on distrust and, thus, alienation, from others in order to advance itself through delusional inequality.

This is why so many fail to realize truth undiluted by egoic constructions simply because they seek to attain it as an individual, while other minds remain in absentia of that truth. Unfortunately, “master teachers,” such as Adyashanti, perpetuate that same delusion and, therefore, become victims themselves, as the past is repeated, ad nauseam, from individual to individual.

“Seeking truth can be a game, complete with a new identity as a truth-seeker fueled by new ideas and beliefs. But ceasing to cherish illusions is no game; it’s a gritty and intimate form of deconstructing yourself down to nothing. Get rid of all of your illusions and what’s left is the truth. You don’t find truth as much as you stumble upon it when you have cast away your illusions.”

The one illusion you must cease to cherish is that you, alone are "truth-seeker" and can access truth, because that “game” is finite. Discard only this illusion and “what’s left is the truth.” We will certainly “stumble on it” together, but only in realizing it cannot be discovered alone. Until we all join in the infinite game, individuals will continue to access finite outcomes and call these individual rewards "enlightenment," "awakening," "revelation," etc, etc, etc.

“Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are. Seeking what you are is as silly as your shoes looking for their soles by walking in circles. What is the path that will lead your shoes to their soles? That’s why the Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth.” Instead, cease cherishing illusions.”

Which is exactly what we do, as the ‘ego-self’ travels in circles by following itself. All the self need do is realize that even its illusions are not manufactured in solitude. This halts the ego-self in its tracks, as it must now join with another to finally understand itself. It is this collaborative understanding that ceases to cherish illusions and discovers truth together as one.

“To cease cherishing illusions is a way of inverting the energy of seeking. The energy of seeking will be there in one form or another until you wake up from the dream state. You can’t just get rid of it. You need to learn how to invert it and use the energy to deconstruct the illusions that hold your consciousness in the dream state.”

Exactly. But that “energy” remains contained and limited because “you” seek to deconstruct “you.” Go ahead and deconstruct "me," as "I" simultaneously deconstruct “you,” and from that ground of relating the Truth-of-Being (hyphenated to denote unity) will be discovered together, because no one individual could possibly realize the absolute and unconditional, in which making such a discovery is conditioned solely on an ego-self. The idea that one must first become "enlightened," or experience the non-dual, and only then teach others, is absurd and makes suffering true for all but the 'enlightened masters' like Adyashanti.

“This sounds relatively simple, but the consequences can seem quite disorienting, even threatening. I’m not talking about a new spiritual technique here; I’m talking about a radically different orientation to the whole of your spiritual life. This is not a little thing. It is a very big thing, and your best chance of awakening depends on it. “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” And if you’re like most spiritually oriented people, your spirituality is your most cherished illusion. Imagine that.”

There is nothing threatening about solitary seeking and the ego relishes the chance to be the ‘one’ to spend years "discovering truth" and all the paradigms of the ‘dream-world’ piggy-back off this basic delusion. But truth discovered by an individual can only be relative to that individual and therefore, NOT truth at all.

The most "threatening" ego endeavor is to discover truth through, and with, another, because in that discovery love is experienced unconditioned by egoic constructs. Yet, in that discovery “you” cease to be experienced as “you” now know your ‘self’ and “we” takes on a new perspective never before encountered.

There is nothing radical to Adyashanti’s teachings, only the same conventional wisdom pointing to the way that “you” can find truth. Unfortunately, what “you” find is what Adyashanti has found, only more illusion. Sadly, this distorted view continues to be the path of the neo-Zen, non-dualers and this individual “hero’s journey” will only continue to demand seeking truth by inadvertently excluding it.

However, the truth available in the depth of relationship was always the archetypal Christ/Buddha message until ego-self got a hold of it and made that message it’s own. Now we have lost the message, but have gained many messengers still cherishing illusions.

(Artwork: "Delusion Dwellers" by Laurie Lipton)