CHRISTMAS NEUTRALITY: The Gift of NOT "Loving it All"

I often find myself in disagreement with my non-duality buddies, who continue to recommend that we “love it all.”

....as if an ego has any comprehension of love. 

Oh sure, egos have relative ideas of “love” (over 6 billion, in fact), but after centuries of such relativity, we have come little closer to what love IS, thereby asserting “dualism” in the world of conscious experience or....what love IS NOT.

This makes me wonder why “loving it all” is so frequently advocated by non-dual teachers. Of course, hypothetically speaking, a non-ego might “love it all,” since relative concepts of "love" would not be superimposed upon experience.

But then… show me a teacher who has NO ego and I'll show you an elephant that flies.

However, its easy to understand the ‘feeling’ dimension of an egocentric 'self' and “loving it all” would certainly seem to 'feel' better than NOT “loving it all.” But this is the trap of presupposing that love has something to do with 'feelings' and egos should probably NOT make assumptions that they have NO way of testing for truth (like knowing what “love” should 'feel' like... feeling THAT... and then pronouncing that you’re “loving it all”).

However, stop feeling love for "it all," even for a nanosecond, and guilt may very well be the very next feeling...

This Christmas, I would suggest you cease your attempts to “love it all” simply because relative love merely asserts its relative opposite, resulting in the usual combative contrasts that egos never fail to identify and, unfortunately, act upon (in fact, couldn't we say that it's all this relative "love" in the world that's the world's number one problem?)

For instance, let’s say this Christmas, somebody snubs your precious gift giving. Well, of course, instantly the ego will assert relative suffering, or 'hurt,' which will then threaten the ego's "loving it all" perspective, causing it to quickly rush to reframe it’s relative suffering into relative “love,” which it can only suffer from equally, due to it’s relativity...

...because deep down you know your only scamming your ‘self.’ Notice the circularity?

This Christmas, seek neutrality... it's so much easier than "loving it all." (of course, your ego is telling you that you MUST "love it all' or else you're not being non-dual, but just ignore all that)

Egos fear that if they don't "love it all" than they will subsequently adopt the opposite perspective. Yet loving "it all," as a means of replacing fearing/hating “it all,” is probably not a ‘best practice’ for egocentric individuals stuck in relative perspectives of “love” (but still wanting some kind of "practice"). This is because relative love can only assert a dualistic opposite and, as we all know, the opposite of relative love would be relative fear (and corresponding relative hate).

Now, some would say that since we “are it all” we must then “love it all" (kind of in-sequence) Yet this is a story of mixing metaphors. Stating that we “are it all” is an excellent non-dual “pointer.' However, “loving it all” is an egocentric relative concept, since egos do not know love, only relative love.

It seems logical that once we can finally give up our relative concepts of “love” we might then be open to apprehending what love is, which might then result in discarding all relativity (hypothetically speaking).

Until then, it seems logical that a neutral perspective might be more advantageous than a relative “love it all” perspective. Yet, it does seem that some “non-dualists” are really stuck in the egocentric, relativity of Pollyanna love. But who can blame them, social conditioning is deeply pervasive (relatively speaking).

So this Christmas, instead of “loving it all” give neutrality a whirl. 

This way you can't go 'wrong,' simply because you have not adopted one way or the other and your “loving it all” will no longer interfere with what LOVE can be...if you weren't out tryin' to "love it all."

Perfect Peace holds no perspective... one way or the other..so neither should a Peaceful Self.

So have a very neutrally merry Christmas!
(and avoid kissing hamsters.... kiss a Lemur instead)

Surreal image by Olivia - "Lemur Christmas"

To Experience the Opposite of "Meaningful".......Choose the Red Pill!

Eventually you must choose between the blue or the red pill.

It’s either meaningful or it means nothing at all.

If it is meaningful then, by all means, feed you head. But, what if all the important meanings you superimpose upon your experiences do nothing more than impede experiencing what is beyond your egocentric narcissistic meanings?

But can the meaningless BE experienced?

When you’re through superimposing your egocentric meanings upon the 'world' (that you experience), what will you 'have'? What will “you” experience?

Obviously, the ego-self fears the meaningless. To believe it could experience the meaningless would assert that the meaningless could exist.

If something with NO meaning could exist, then this would place grave doubt upon the existence of the ego-self, because an egocentric 'existence' is entirely predicated on meaning. Meaning is vital to all interpretations of experience. Therefore, the ego affixes meaning to every experience. Even to say something is generally “meaningless” asserts the opposite, since if it did not mean something, how would you be aware of it in order to judge it meaningless? However, to assert something as "meaningful" has no opposite, since the ego could never be aware of that which means nothing.

Yet, the ego-self believes there is nothing beyond what it experiences. This is why it invents concepts of transcendence (religion/spirituality) to aid in providing meaning to its experiences of "transcendence" (notice how even the word "transcendence" is packed with meaning).

A transcendent experience can never mean nothing and must always mean something and this is why you regularly fail to experience your "transcendence," simply because you have been taught what it means and that is precisely what you experience...egocentric meaning.

Eckhart Tolle claims to have experienced ego transcendence. Nevertheless, it was only after running his experience through the ideological meat grinder of past interpretations, that he was able to apply an egocentric interpretation that helped him make sense of what it WAS …

…but is that what it IS?

First, the ego injects meaning into the world. It then has an extraordinary experience, not easily identifiable from the normal menu of world-based interpretations. Nevertheless, it looks to the meanings already in the world to aid in making sense of its extraordinary experiences. Notice the ‘circularity of meaning’ applied to the meaningless, thereby rendering it virtually useless. (this may be difficult to understand for those who believe they have “discovered” what it all means).

The ego must superimpose meaning upon the meaningless in order to maintain its own experience of itself as meaningfully “real.” Not to experience itself as meaningfully real would be a one-way ticket to the looney bin (or non-existence). Therefore, the ego must SEE the meaning it imposes into the world and this is exclusively an internal operation and has little to do with an external world.

In fact, an external world need not exist at all (if it even does!) for the ego to superimpose meaning.

If you experience a "happy" or pleasurable world, then it is the ego that gives it that meaning. If you see a cruel, destructive or fearful world, again, the ego has superimposed this meaning upon its interior experience of a world. Yet, whatever meaning you apply must always presuppose its opposite as also ‘existing’ and this determines the inconsistency of egocentrically imposed meanings. Superimpose "happy" and an experience of "sad" is made "real." Such is the “dualism” of the egocentric This is why we often fail to accurately evaluate what it is we are experiencing and why “bad” experiences are frequently re-evaluated as beneficial or “good” only in retrospect.

But can an ego-self ever experience the opposite of meaning or complete meaningless?

If the meaning of all your experiences are egocentrically determined then, subsequently, this can only mean that the world you experience is meaningless until you give it meaning.

Therefore, the ground, or foundation, of all meaning is entirely absent of all meaning. 

The meaningless is infinite, while egoic meaning is finite and changes with time, since that's the meaning egocentrically applied to time (otherwise how could it exist as it does?).

For an ego-self to identify with its own egocentricity it must always choose the blue pill over the red pill. Choose the blue pill and you invite the ego to continue to impose meanings that it asserts as “real,” thereby insuring experiences continue to enhance or detract from itself (this is interpreted as "suffering"). To choose the red pill is to plummet from your warm and comfortable bed of meanings into an infinite universe of meaninglessness (this too is interpreted as "suffering," although it's a misinterpretation).

But don’t be afraid…because when “you” give up the finite games you’ve imposed meaning to, it all becomes infinitely meaningful (but not in anyway you could imagine at the moment).

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small,
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all.
 

Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall.

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.

Call Alice
When she was just small.

When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low.

Go ask Alice
I think she'll know.

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead,
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
 

Feed your head.
Feed your head.
Feed your head

(Jefferson Airplane)

Artwork by Fred Weidmann  - "Evolution Without Goal"

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" 

Bridging the Chasm of Egocentric Alienation

The ego-self fears honesty and this is the chief cause of all your failed relationships. They have failed because of your dishonesty.

However, egoic dishonesty is not necessarily predicated on the ego committing a lie, but simply on the ego omitting itself. As long as thoughts are concealed the ego-self gains a delusion of safety.

Unfortunately, this makes you estranged from those you "love" and, ultimately, the world. Even though basic interaction levels are high, disclosure remains surface and superficial.

The ego, or the identity that you insist is “you,” is ultimately defined by egocentric self-preservation. This egoic survival instinct is not simply concerned with bodily survival, since encounters with physical threats are rare. More often, the egos chief focus is psychological survival, which demands ever greater experiences of self-actualization, as opposed to self-diminishment.

The ego requires actualization of itself against its experience of a world and this actualizing is always in competition with other egos (in fact, ego actualization is little more than simply ‘rising above’ other actualizing egos). The greater actualized an ego is, based on the worlds standards of "success," the greater the egocentric experience of “existing.”

These are the finite games we play every day in the hope of ever greater self-actualization through specific outcomes.

The more actualized the ego-self, the more you feel "alive" (learned behavior based on the world’s standards). “Loving” relationships help egos feel alive and aid in egocentric actualizing. Although the ego has no idea what “love” is (always defined in relative terms) it does have an obscure recognition that “love” is a powerful means of self-actualizing itself. Yet, it must use caution, since it fears this could ultimately destroy it....and it's rightl.

Because the ego does not know what love is (merely senses the presence of something more powerful than itself), egoic love is always based on egocentric standards and conditions, causing conditional egic love to essentially fail to actualize the ego-self. Therefore, egoic “love” is no different then any other means of self-actualization, in that it is predicated on egocentric self-preservation and defines “love” in egocentric terms and conditions.

Initially, when you first met your “beloved” full disclosure was high on the ‘to-do list' and because of the immediate sense of self-actualization experienced by both, you both engaged in a high degree of honesty and self-exposure. You revealed all the thoughts in your head (well, almost all, but no ego ever feels that safe). Your past, your dreams and aspirations, and even your weaknesses, were fully exhibited to the loved one. This degree of honesty creates trust and trust leads to further honesty and disclosure.

Nevertheless, full honesty and complete disclosure is threatening to an ego preoccupied with self-actualization. All it took was one episode of perceived attack from the ‘beloved’ for the ego to begin limiting self-disclosure, thereby, impeding honesty. As a result, thoughts are made private and, gradually, communication becomes superficial and surface oriented.

Because the ego is a survival machine, your beloved easily detected your withholding, no matter how veiled and camouflaged. This precipitated his/her withdrawal in response and gradually over time, (because moments of honesty can result in severe conflict) the ego increasingly begins to perceive honesty as threatening to self-preservation.

Because of this alienation (from lack of honesty) omission becomes the norm and alienation dissolves intimacy and results in increasing estrangement. From this, you are merely a hop, skip and jump away from dissolving all egoic remnants of “love” and the beloved gradually manifests as antagonistic, no longer deserving of honesty or trust. Now, you merely seek to avoid conflict and this requires thoughts remain increasingly more private and so the ego seeks to fortify the mind from honesty.

This is how your most intimate relationships, which once provided the promise of awakening to a love without condition, became a conditional hell on earth. The ego shuts itself off from intimacy for the sake of self-preservation and fear is preserved and estrangement is always the result of fear. The ego demands that thoughts be protected and concealed and, as a result, understanding dissolves into estrangement.

There is only one way to bridge the chasm of alienation and that is through honesty. But it is not the shallow or superficial honesty that renews and reconciles relationships, but the honesty that is absent all fear and allows complete vulnerability in its depth. But first, You must discover why you are protecting and from who...

Withhold the contents of your mind and you obstruct the Deep Understanding that two or more can realize and 'awaken' to. Seek to conceal your mind and you alienate yourself from those you’ve chosen to love and both you and they will suffer.

Against the ego’s protests you must free yourself from this self-imposed alienation and awaken to the one unifying field of the un-conditioned. Deep Spirit communication requires that two minds be prepared to give and accept total honesty. Close off the mind by picking and choosing what can and cannot be communicated and estrangement becomes the norm and you will continue to wonder why all your relationships always seem to fail.

Without total honesty, you have yet to experience your only purpose....


Artwork by Scott G Brooks - "Till Death Do Us Part"

The Meaningful Metaphysics of the Meaningless

To the ego, the meaningless is equivalent to non-existence.

This demands that egos make meaning from the meaningless. To make meaning from the meaningless the ego must ‘know’ and knowing requires learning.

But, if the ego constructs its own experiences (since it constructed itself) then it teaches itself everything it ‘knows.’ If that which requires learning, teaches itself, then it must know nothing of any value and therefore, its existence is meaningless. If it is meaningless, then clearly it does not “exist.”

No need to worry though, because ‘meaningless” has an infinite quality to it that all the egos attempts to inject meaning does not diminish one tiny bit.

Unless the ego becomes transfixed on its own teachings, that give meaning to the meaningless. Of course, making the meaningless meaningful is impossible, because if something has no meaning it, therefore, cannot BE. Only what has meaning can BE, since nothing could BE that was not meant to BE.

Nevertheless, this is what the ego-self has essentially done. It has proclaimed “existence,” to what is not really there and it does this simply by proclaiming it “real.”

The ego must experience meaning from the meaningless, because this aids IT in asserting that IT exists (but only in contrast to what IT gives meaning to). By defining itself, in contrast to the meaningless, IT inadvertently asserts that IT too, is meaningless, since IT gave meaning to the meaningless in the first place in order to assert ITself as “real” in contrast with.....

Obviously, to affix meaning by contrasting with the meaningless, is therefore equally meaningless. This is the rule of Dualism, which demands that the ego construct meaningless experiences for which to contrast itself as meaningful.

My ego delights in this metaphysical dance (as all egos do). We can be sure that all egos delight in this simply by reading all the meaningless drivel, proclaimed as profoundly meaningful, that has been written in just the last 2000 yrs.

Yet, what have you learned that has made any difference to birth and death?

Actually, what you have learned allows you the illusion of choice in filling time between what you do not choose (birth and death).

What’s the point of that???

Yet, all of these thoughts are just as meaningless, even though I relish in trying to convey the meaning I seem to ‘know.’ What the ego refuses to even slightly entertain is that if it is meaningless, since it only knows itself in contrast to the meaningless experiences it constructs, then everything it thinks must be as meaningless, because everything it thinks is contrasted against the meaningless.

So… if there is really nothing ‘there’… how do you know “you” even exist?

Maybe you don’t.

But that’s nonsense since you certainly ‘know’ you exist, just look at all the contrasts needed to make your self “real.”

We seem transfixed on learning from the meaningless experiences we construct to teach meaning. Of course, this can only mean that we teach ourselves, which lends credence to the idea that we simply repeat, over and over again, all the meaningless lessons learned before because...

...there is only one teacher and we all know IT.

The ego-self repeats compulsively, because it ‘knows’ nothing but the meaningless it taught itself. We have become weary of this game because we seek for a way out through a decisive outcome and we invented religion and spirituality to teach us that outcome. Yet there is no end to this game, because there is no outcome. Maybe when we see it as infinite, we may then choose to no longer learn the meaninglessness we teach ourselves.

Oooh…wouldn’t that be swell!

The infinite player is not fixated on finite outcomes. However, there is only one rule to the infinite game. In order to play infinitely you cannot play alone.

Sitting on this barstool talking like a damn fool

Got the twelve o'clock news blues

And I've given up hope on the afternoon soaps

And a bottle of cold brew

Is it any wonder I'm not crazy?

Is it any wonder I'm sane at all

Well I'm so tired of losing- I got nothing to do and all day to do it

I go out cruisin' but I've no place to go and all night to get there

Is it any wonder I'm not a criminal?

Is it any wonder I'm not in jail?

Is it any wonder I've got

Too much time on my hands, it's ticking away with my sanity

I've got too much time on my hands, it's hard to believe such a calamity

I've got too much time on my hands and it's ticking away from me

Too much time on my hands, too much time on my hands

Too much time on my hands

Well, I'm a jet fuel genius - I can solve the world's problems

Without even trying

I have dozens of friends and the fun never ends

That is, as long as I'm buying

Is it any wonder I'm not the president

Is it any wonder I'm null and void?

Is it any wonder I've got

Too much time on my hands, it's ticking away with my sanity

I've got too much time on my hands, it's hard to believe such a calamity

I've got too much time on my hands and it's ticking away from me

Too much time on my hands, too much time on my hands

Too much time on my hands

(Styx)

Image by Karl Persson - "Shiny Chicken"

CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS: "And the Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb"

Non-duality, or when the two are as one, does not signify that the two will no longer be ‘perceived’ as two. However, they will no longer be perceived as in opposition to one another and that which does not oppose, can only join and join fully.

"That the ALL may be made ONE. Like thou Father art in me, I in thee, that they may be ONE in us. I in them, they in me, that they may be perfect in ONE". (John 17:20-22)

Notice the request is that we be made "perfect in ONE” since, although we are ONE, we make two “real” by superimposing conflict upon dualistic contrasts. The request, or prayer, asks that we “make” an experience of ONE as "real" as an experience of two, since it is the truth of "creation" and refers to free-will.

Dualism demands, not simply contrasts or differences, since contrasts or differences need not oppose, but dualism must always perceive contrasts in conflict and differences opposed to one another.

Up/down, black/white, top/bottom, etc are all dual contrasts that need not oppose and are non-conflictual. In fact, we could say that they are one through complementarity, because without one there cannot be the other. More importantly, there is NO opposition and they do indeed define parts unified as a whole.

However, when an ego perceives ‘up’ as more advantageous (or “sacred”) than down or ‘top’ more valuable than ‘bottom,’ we have then superimposed conflict upon contrasts through our own egoic value systems. Becoming fixated on the value system we ‘make’ real can be referred to as "dualism."

One need not suffer through ‘duality.’ But ‘dualism’ (which applies values to duality), demands not simply contrasts, but conflicting contrasts in opposition and this results in suffering.

Christ Consciousness still perceives contrasting concepts, yet, the contrasts are unopposed and exist in perfect equality and therefore, interact harmoniously, neither one more than nor less than, the other. It is not duality that creates conflict, but egoic values of good/bad, right/wrong and guilt/innocence that determines conflict and, hence, suffering.

The non-dualism of Christ Consciousness simply dissolves the distinction between guilt and innocence as the chief component of superimposed 'meaning.' If guilt or innocence is superimposed upon perceived contrasts, then conflict emerges and suffering constructs your experience of a ‘world.’ Attaching guilt and innocence is the burden you impose upon the objects of consciousness and has nothing to do with the thing-in-itself that is perceived.

One must always be guilty, for another to be innocent and this constructs your experience of a world, which seeks measures through levels, degrees, states, quadrants, stages, grades, ranks, phases, classes, intervals, etc, etc, etc.

There are no measures of equality, because it need not be measured.

To kill another is neither good nor bad, but simply unnecessary and Christ Consciousness need not deny this distinction as “real.” However, Christ Consciousness does not apply guilt and therefore, does not condemn from these distinctions by asserting truth to what we determine is “real,” simply because everything we determine as “real” must conflict through levels and degrees.

For the egoic mind, both war and murder derive the same objective results- death. However, the ego compromises with this 'reality' by superimposing guilt and innocence and thereby differentiating between guilty and innocent contrasts. Death in war is innocent, while murder demands guilt. This is because the ego-self is a product of conflict. How else would the ego perceive death as “real” if not by allowing death to be perceived as the result of both guilt and innocence?

Completely remove the distinctions of guilt and innocence from perception and what would be perceived? What levels or degrees could exist? What opposition would be experienced?

Christ Consciousness perfectly equalizes all objects of consciousness simply by denying the projection of guilt or innocence. To atone for guilt is to recognize that guilt has no meaning, but then, neither does innocence, since both concepts are a product of egoic fear. Therefore, guilt and innocence are not a part of perception and perception need not be controlled by the need to seek out guilt and innocence, because such perception naturally sees only perfect peace.

"And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them."

Isaiah 11:6 (New American Standard Bible)


Image by Jeff Christensen - "Just Business"