The World Is An Illusion When Your Purpose Is Unknown

If your mind is at war, how can you be at peace in your relationships? Minds at war with one another inadvertently create an illusory world, since this is not the purpose of the mind, nor is it the purpose of your world.

Make no mistake, the peace in your relationships will be experienced in direct proportion to the peace within your mind and the peace of deeply engaging others will magnify the mind's state of peace in a reinforcing loop.


Are you in the loop?

Do anxieties and fears consume your mental energy? Are you easily engaged by the outcomes and goals that the world prescribes as crucial to living? Does work and career demand most of your time and energy? Do you find yourself frequently moody and snapping at loved ones? Do you often feel bored and exhausted by the mundane chores of existence? Do you plod through the week in anticipation of the weekend? Do you find yourself feeling disillusioned when expected rewards, that the world provides, fail to satisfy?

Do you often find yourself wondering if this is all there is?

Peace of mind is easily transferable to those around you, but so is a conflicted mind. A mind in conflict is like a spinning vortex that sucks in those close to you. The conflicted seek the cause of conflict outside the mind and attempt to control others. The peaceful deeply engage with others in discovering the love “within” by recognizing that this is their purpose.

A conflicted mind seeks the cause of disturbance in others and swings blame like a sword of vengeance. You have chosen them to provide happiness, therefore, if happiness is absent, who else but they are to blame? If your mind is at war, you will bring that to your reality and find enemies were none existed before. War is waged by strangers and there is no love in battle.

Your only purpose in this world is to fully engage with others in the deep understanding that discovers love. Until it is discovered with another, it does not exist and this makes the world illusory, since the world then serves a purpose other than intended. You will see that unintended purpose instead of the truth and you will suffer accordingly.

Love does not exist until it is created by two or more and transposed upon the mutual experience of a ‘world’ and in that way it is discovered. Until then, your world is nothing more than an illusion because it serves a purpose other than intended. If you conduct your life in ways that do not allow for love to be discovered then you have denied your function and choose your goals from what the world determines is your purpose, thus maintaining the illusion. Look outward and see your world absent of love and clearly you have mistaken its purpose, thereby making an illusion of it.

However, there are pockets in the world where enlightened minds have learned their purpose and have attempted to teach it by learning to engage deeply. What other purpose could the world serve? What other purpose could your existence serve? What else is the reason for your Being?

Self-development? Yes, but only to disengage from self-absorbed egoic needs, thereby, dissolving the obstructions to self-discovery through others. Acquisition of wealth? Only if used as a conduit to deeply relating and not idolized as a means to an end. Improved health? Of course, since we can engage deeply when not thwarted by sickness and disease. Every goal the world teaches as useful and necessary can be used to learn your purpose and that purpose is to discover love by extending it and seeing it in the world.

Discover love and discover the real world.

Discovering love is the “enlightenment” that the ancient masters spoke of and it requires an unconflicted and quiet mind to be realized. A conflicted mind cannot possibly discover its purpose and will blame others for that failure.

The ego learns what the world teaches it and if you rely on that learning you will fail to learn your purpose and your experience will conform to the same patterns of war that the world believes is truth.

Make your experience of the world a pocket of peace and sink beyond the ego’s demands in realizing your purpose comes from a well much deeper than conditioned thoughts of finite outcomes and goals. Outcomes and goals may give fleeting pleasures, but not the deep and abiding joy generated by engaging with others in discovering love. Your purpose is with them, as theirs is with you. Enlightenment comes to the relationship that chooses a different path. Otherwise, it does not come at all.

Yet, you both have no idea what love is.

This is why it must be sought beyond appearances and it will be discovered through mutually realizing the obstructions, or walls, you constructed to protect the 'self.' Intimate Awakening demands you accept your vulnerability in surrendering your need for self-defense.

This is your purpose, which the ego self-construct (your belief in a 'self') has impeded by adopting goals that distract from that purpose. Now you remain victim to the past, since all goals and outcomes not established to actualize your purpose, come from the past and merely delay your truth, making the world an illusory place where, no matter how hard you try, you will never feel at home together. The past has no involvement in discovering truth, since love is experienced in the present and does not relate to a past or future.

Love is the "now" spoken of by the ancient enlightened master's and mystics.

A world that does not serve its purpose must be an illusion, until that purpose is discovered. Your experience of a world cannot be real if it serves the purpose of war. However, you can see it differently if love becomes the purpose that you share with others. Make this the purpose of everything you perceive in choosing to mutually discover love in your small microcosm of the world.

Change the world by changing your mind about your purpose. Realize why you are here. Until this occurs you will continue to perpetuate the same patterns of war that the world exhibits and those patterns have become very weary to your tired mind.

CONVERSATIONS WITH EGO: No Attachment

ego: Damn! That really sucks. Mike, what’re we gonna do?

Mike: (sigh) nothing need be done. Thoughts and feelings just arise and fall. There is no identification with them.

ego: What!? What’re you talking about? We just got ripped off royally! You’re out 500 bucks.

Mike: Money is illusion.

ego: So you’re not angry you just lost 500 dollars?!

Mike: There is no “I” to be angry. Anger just arises.

ego: Oh, you gotta be kidding me. There’s no “I”? What does that make me, chopped liver?!

Mike: You don’t exist. Thoughts and feelings just arise. There is no attachment.

ego: Yea well, you may not be angry, but I’m mad as hell. So go ahead and try to ignore me. That spiritual hocus pocus may comfort you some of the time, but there will be times when you gotta face reality.

Mike: Thoughts and feelings just arise and fall. I am not identifying with them.

ego: Oh right! If some crazed attacker “arises” at you with a knife, you’re gonna be the one falling. I’ll bet you’ll identify with me when I tell you to run!

Mike: I do what I do, there is no “I” attached to the doing.

ego: Ok, fine! Go ahead and “detach.” From now on I’ll let you know what needs to be done. Just go on pretending I'm not even here, I'll experience everything for you.

Mike: There is no need to keep chattering like a monkey. I have no need for the mind any longer. I am finally liberating myself from you!

ego: Ok, Ok! So the next time you have sex, I’ll make sure you don't enjoy it.

Mike: Uh...wait a minute…

ego: Ahaa! Looks like that brought you around, didn’t it?

Mike: (sigh)

Forgive Them Lord, For They Know Not What They Do

Spiritual paths and practices are a godsend (unfortunately, God, most likely, is not a participant).

Hey, did your spouse and kids piss you off? Not to worry! You’re on a spiritual journey and they are definitely NOT. At least, not yet, anyway. Obviously, when you get “enlightened,” you’ll bring them into the fold, but for now they must remain on the fringe of your spiritual journey to "enlightenment."

Of course, you’ll have to tolerate their ignorance because they just don’t understand, nor can they. Nevertheless, you will soon understand everything and, based on the "trickle-down" theory (not to be confused with the “shit rolls down hill” theory) they will soon partake of your abundant beneficence and enlightened wisdom.

Unfortunately, they are simply too ignorant to understand that you're doing it all for them! 

They simply do not understand and must be kept on the outside looking in. Oh sure, you can throw ‘em a bone from time to time, like “kids stop fighting, don’t you realize it's all illusion?” Of course, most likely you’ll become the “illusion” and they will tune you out for all eternity. But that’s the way it is with the ignorant ones, they know not what they do.

You, on the other hand “reside in the certainty of your goal." (they can thank you later)

When your wife asks you to do the dishes, you jump at the chance, because now you do the dishes the right way - “mindfully.” Ha! That’ll show her! Besides, what does she know about properly doing the dishes so that only the dishes are done. You are incredulous at how she sometimes does the dishes and talks on the phone at the same time. Nothing but pure ignorance!

Now when you come out of your sacred meditation, only to be angrily informed by your wife that you over-drafted the checking account, you merely respond with, "but honey, all the evil in the world, and all the unhappiness, comes from the I-concept. and failure to be one with Being."(Wu Wei).

Don't be concerned when she defiantly states that she's "getting a lawyer" (lawyers are ignorant fools!)

Your real love is the guru, meditation or text and the ancient hallowed path of ego-transcendence. Ironically, like the alcoholic’s primary love is the bottle and nothing else matters, you are a lover of "enlightenment" and nothing else matters. Your head’s not swimming with booze, but koans, sutras and witty advaitist sayings like, “There is no becoming, ALL IS,” or the constant inner drone of I AM, I AM, I AM, etc, etc, etc.

Let's face it, nothing else in the world, is as important as transcending the world. Hell, even Sri Ramana had to be stuffed with food to keep his body alive. Nobody dared ask him to do the damn dishes, for crying out loud!

So, when your coworker gets promoted over you, you don’t blink an eye simply because you know that “ALL IS.” Sure, you’re “in it,” but you know damn well you’re not “of it” (although sometimes that can be hard, especially on the freeway). Let him get that raise in salary (ignorant fool!) your kid’s education means nothing to you. Money is maya! (except when the price of gas goes up, but you're still working on dissolving that one).

Of course, it may take several decades until you reach your coveted goal of “enlightenment.” But hey, everybody’s gonna have to be patient and trust that "your goal is certain." 

If only you could figure out how to make them understand that through your “awakening” they'll all be saved. If only they understood that the hell you’re going through is not for you (that would be selfish), but ultimately it's all for them.

Then they might be a little more respectful, for God’s sake!

Deep Spirit (part 1)

There is something deeper than what you see on the surface of your relationships. The ones you have joined with in love are more than their behavior and even more than their thoughts and feelings.

You know this simply because you have always sensed there is something more within you and you are correct. But since you chose to experience this fact alone, you have yet to experience it.

If only we could see this ‘something more,’ this deeper aspect of the ‘self’ that has nothing to do with the body or even an outside world. The problem is that the world we live in has exiled this interior Deep Spirit experience, while appearances and forms have become much more important. "What you see is what you get" is the chief paradigm of modern engagement.

Our actions and behaviors take priority based on the world's (society's) teaching as to how we should act and what must be done. This is called social conditioning. However, it goes much deeper than mere socialization and this conditioned, scripted response to others has stifled our need to authentically relate to others from Deep Spirit. As time rolls on, we feel the distance growing and our interactions take on a displaced and scripted surface quality that leaves us feeling that life is devoid of meaning. This is because, make no mistake, your meaning comes from engagement with others. Meaning is available only in the space between two individuals, and this is why they came together in the first place. Yet, they must consciously choose to seek Deep Spirit together, since alone, it cannot be found.

If we engaged the world directly from this Deep Spirit experience, everything we say and do would be correct, because Deep Spirit informs from the level of Being and in that sense it is primordial and underlying all appearances. Unfortunately, the world is absent this Deep Spirit and, therefore, cannot teach it. There may have been a time when it could be learned from the world, but those days have long since passed and we now move farther and farther from this natural impulse to joyfully relate to the world in direct engagement with others. In the modern world, our lives become increasingly more bereft of meaning and we feel more lost and alone in an absurd world that makes no sense.

Deep Spirit makes sense and, upon mutual encounter, wipes away all confusion as to our purpose and function and causes us to see others and the world in a new light. In fact, it is this deeper aspect that indelibly connects us and unifies us. From Deep Spirit, you will know me and I, you, though we had been strangers before.

Unfortunately, you cannot encounter Deep Spirit alone or in solitude (although solitude can provide a preparation) nor can anyone else “seek within” and find this essence by him or herself. This is because it requires two or more through which to create the foundation, or 'grounding,' from which it can be directly experienced. It will start with two, because two is a condition that the world has not yet negated, although it has been reduced to mere appearance. We still seek to join with another, although even this natural predisposition is beginning to wane and dissolve.

Some have called it the “Tao,” “Awakening, “Enlightenment” or the “One.” Yet, if they experienced it alone then they were mistaken and merely relied on concepts instead of direct experience. There is nothing conceptual about Deep Spirit. It does not conform to words and need not be expressed. But it does require another through which to realize the experience. Together they will simply know, since the experience is unmistakable.

We could call it “love” and many have briefly touched this experience when bonding with another. Yet, the problem with this concept is that it is defined differently by every individual mind that considers it. In addition, experiencing love with another eventually conforms to the world’s rituals and expectations, thereby, losing contact with this deeper, more primordial, essence. This is why we call it "Deep Spirit" because it must be defined by two minds for it to be experienced by either one. It is not available to an individual apart from others and the world.

However, it is absolute and unconditional by nature and this makes it available to all of us.

Following the Reactionary Paradigm

There are many internet spiritualists that claim that your mind, and its thoughts, must be sacrificed and denied if you wish to awaken from the "illusion." These paths inform that you must transcend the mind, which is cause of all your suffering.

But if it is cause for your suffering, might it not cause joy? Are we not first cause, deluded into acting as if second best?

Thoughts give great joy as well as suffering and this thinking is authentically honest and real. However, the teachers of transcendence would deny you your thoughts and the joy that allows you to extend and share that joy with others. Of course, they seek to eradicate your suffering and pain, yet thoughts of love and joy are equally discounted, unless they are the product of some enigmatic “enlightened” state of “no-mind.”

If the ‘self’ is a mental construct that you made up, shouldn’t it be constructed to provide the most peace and joy possible? Why should the peace and joy prescribed by the “enlightened master” be the only legitimate experience? Why is the joy of the 'common man' negated and marginalized while the austere joyful experience of so-called “pure awareness” or “direct experience” the only authentic joy? And just consider how much sacrifice and suffering are prescribed and promised before this bliss is available.

Transcendent joy has its price. No pain, no gain, right?

This is a theme of the world and will not serve to transcend it. The world will not be discarded because it demands you live through it as a construct of experience. But it can be seen differently within, thereby reconstructing experience causing radical changes to an "external" world. The "kingdom of heaven within" does not deny or eradicate the world, but magnifies it through the parameters you construct.

The problem with the world today is fundamental to a disengaged encounter with living in the world and in that disengagement you are estranged and alienated from the world, others and, most of all, your experience of 'self.'

Is the extension of loving joy from parent to child any different from the joy your master teaches you to seek? Is the joy between lovers less than the joy of these prescribed “enlightenment” or “awakening” experiences? Why are the normal joys of living contraindicated and illusory?

Throw it all away, they teach. It's merely a trick of the ego.

As long as you fear or hate the “illusion” of reality, and make this the basis of your “awakening,” you will remain bound to your perception of an illusory world and it can never be anything more than that.

This is the "reactionary paradigm," in which you react to suffering by seeking a means of escape, while the world continues to reflect back more of what you wish to escape from causing your meditative escape 'practices' to become that much more intense and even desperate.

What makes you think the masters "enlightened bliss" is any less an illusion than your suffering or fear? The choice is not transcending an illusory world, but a transformative engagement by deeply embracing the experience of living IN your world. The most profound spiritual exercise you will perform is deeply engaging the experience of your world and those whom you encounter in that world.

Reach out into it in a loving embrace and be awakened. There is no "I AM" separate and isolated from relationship. The I AM knows itself through relating to and extending into a world.

Stop hiding from your experience of living through spiritual and religious platitudes and austere mountain top practices. Come down from your mountain hermitage. The world cries out to become your home, if only you would engage deeply with your experience of a world and make it so.

You will know your truth by sharing it with me and I will know mine through you and that merely confirms the truth that we are ONE. You can encounter hell in your world, but only when you refuse to be part of it.

Being cannot be experienced without 'relationship.'

To BE is to extend outward to a world of your choosing and, make no mistake, you do choose. There is no such experience as "pure being" without an experience of a world for which to BE PURE FOR. God extends and experiences Being and therefore, you exist and will realize your Being through extension, not contracting into a world of religious and spiritual concealment and undisclosed meditative solitude. Tear down the monastery of your 'self'!

Disclose your 'self' to yourself by Being in your world with others experiencing the infinite game.

Love is an Infinite Feedback Loop

Love is a feedback loop that when extended, only comes back around to the mind extending, even when receipt of that extension is denied by the love object you are extending to.

This loop originates with extension TO another, but is not conditioned on extension FROM another.

To know love you must extend love, yet it makes no difference if love is extended back from another. In this way, one can BE love and this BEING is not conditioned on anything other than that BEING.

Nevertheless, according to your ego (the conditioned and socially trained part of your mind), for love to be experienced, all extension, or giving, must be conditioned on ‘getting’ in return. Therefore, your extension TO another is specifically conditioned on their extension TO you. If a return is not forthcoming, based on your extension, your egoic mind will purposely obstruct or even fully terminate the loop that originates from your mind.

Love requires extension to another in order to be experienced, but it is not contingent on another returning it. Mother Teresa was steeped in love for the sick and suffering in her care. Yet, the extent of their sickness may have made it impossible for a return extension. Nevertheless, her love to them magnified love within her experience of self and the loop was completed, and maintained, like an unbroken electrical circuit.

Love magnifies YOU and this magnification is contingent on nothing but extension. This is because the only way to experience love is to extend it.
Of course, you need not be a Mother Teresa, sacrificing your life for the sick, to experience such magnification within your own experience of “self.’ However, there must be another for which to extend. Those we extend to are often family or loved ones of our choosing. Unfortunately, the ego chooses primarily for what it can ‘get’ and less by what it can give. This impedes the feedback loop that is not contingent on receiving anything at all.

A feedback loop in the extension of love can have no interference for the impulses you send out to return to you in a magnified form. Love conditioned as contingent on return impulses from another only impedes what you extend from returning to you. Love is a state of mind and, although physical manifestations are available for observation, unconditioned love is an enlightened state of mind available to all minds.

Love is the nature of Being and extension is our natural predisposition. Demanding extension be contingent on return will cause the loop to eventually contract in upon itself. Many live their entire lives in the experience of a contracted and obstructed feedback loop and never experience the love that serves to magnify life itself.

The difference between this feedback loop and other forms of feedback is that your experience of love is contingent on the impulse you send out being returned in a magnified form, but that magnification requires nothing from anyone else and your only focus is extension. Therefore, you cannot obstruct this extension of mind through imposing conditions on that extension.

This requires a secure sense of ‘self’ in which your security is not contingent on a return of extended love. In this sense, your giving love to another is free and clear of the egoic imposition of any factors whatsoever. Love is not a dependent state and must be free of conditional dependencies that your ego defines.

Surprisingly, (and many have experienced this), what actually takes place through this feedback loop is that, because there is no dependency on a return extension, that return naturally occurs.

When the loved one you extend to experiences that you have no demand for the extension to be returned, the natural predisposition is to extend as well. To experience diminished egoic involvement in extending love is to be inspired through it, and touched by it, instilling a desire to replicate the experience for oneself.

If you extend to me and all my hatred of you does little to impede or terminate that extension, I can only marvel and seek to emulate the experience I reckon you must have encountered. This is because deep down I know this experience and have wanted, longed for it, all my life. We all long for the freedom of an extension of love that makes no demands. This is bound up in our Being and is a natural condition of Being, in fact, it is the only condition of your Being.

In a spiritual sense, there is only one way to experience your Being, free and unfettered from egoic attachment, and that is through the extension of your Being (defined as love) to another, with no condition on whether this is returned or not.

This is the nature of your existence. But a more important point relates to the magnification of the experience of love. This magnification within the feedback loop is infinite. Therefore, increase will continue to occur as much and as far as the mind will allow, based on increasingly diminished conditions. Thus, if another agrees to join the loop you have extended, this serves as an addition to the wholeness you magnify through your own mindful extension and magnifies them in their mind as extension is mutually engaged together.

Love is always an increase to 'self' regardless of who does or does not participate. Yet, make no mistake, participation is naturally compelled in the minds of those so touched by the experience you model through your own secure feedback loop. Take away egoic impositions and the circuit cannot be broken.

See for yourself.