Normalizing Insanity

The ego-self must try to negate the practicality of truth in order to prove it insane. You would never consider “driving a car,” “watching TV,” “paying bills” and “going to work” as insanity. In fact, you believe these activities are quite practical and necessary.

Make no mistake, your world has taught you what you require be learned and, in the ego’s need for insanity, this is what will be taught and considered extremely ‘practical.’

Truth is clearly insane to the mind that relies on insanity being normal and this is why you function in the world as if truth were absent. The ego fears that your functioning in the world would be impaired by the truth. You might just STOP everything and then, how would the ego know it exists if it weren’t functioning as it was taught to?

On the contrary, through acknowledging insanity, fear dissolves and functioning is enhanced. Don’t be afraid of insanity, because it’s NOT real and can have NO effect. However, you need to see it for what it is, otherwise, you will continue to believe you suffer from what cannot effect you.

The infinite player participates in the games of the world, knowing full well that they are absurd and this is why infinite players are not victimized by the rules. However, finite players believe the rules are very ‘practical’ and are careful NOT to deviate from insanity.

What you ‘do’ is of little concern to truth. Yet, the fact that it IS of concern to you must be evaluated. Is there ONE purpose behind all your actions and is that purpose consistent with every action you take? Or do you merely live through a confusing cacophony of contradictory and chaotic meanings and purposes?

If you allow the world to determine your purpose, then you adhere to many contradictory meanings, in which your purpose is inconsistent, chaotic and insane. Examine closely the actions you undertake on a daily basis. The tedious and mundane roles you perform every waking moment. Have you even considered what your purpose is? Or do you compulsively repeat what you were taught (and think you live an “authentic” life).

When an absence of fear is your only purpose, every function you fulfill will be miraculously transformed. Yet, such miraculous perception seems impossible to those who have learned fear and find insanity normal and have even come to find it quite comfortable. 

Yet, the ego’s capacity to learn is evident in how it has learned to normalize insanity and this is because you have taught yourself by demanding the world teach you. In denying the world this function, you fear that you are rejecting the world, which means the world will reject you. This is impossible because you fail to understand that rejection by the world is nothing more than a rejection of your ‘self.’

Infinite players reject nothing. Yet, paradoxically, neither do they accept. Any path that teaches one or the other leads nowhere but back to the start. If you start IN the world, you can only end up back where you started.

The first step is to fully realize that the world has nothing to teach. The world is a product of the ego and neither can teach you anything you need. However, there is a part of you influenced by neither an ego nor a world. That part sees the need for the right teacher. From that part, YOU will teach your SELF.

The world you SEE discourages you and, at times, even drives you to utter despair. You see it as cause of your suffering, but still require it to ease your pain. Yet, when the ego suddenly gets a glimpse of the real cause of despair, it seeks to prove it impossible by demanding continued despair in seeking relief from the perceived cause. This is how insanity is normalized. This is how intelligent people believe in war.

The world is cause of NOTHING. You gave meaning to the meaningless and you are First Cause of the ‘world’ you experience. God did NOT make your world. You did. It is your expectation to experience suffering that causes suffering and not the world. Your world has the power to cause nothing but what you give it power to cause and this includes your death.

Yet, that which is made to seem “real,” but is NOT true, exists only because you experience it “real” and then superimpose “truth” upon what’s NOT there. It has no other existence separate from what you wish. But be careful, your wishes run very deep indeed, and some you have no awareness of….yet.

Just look outside your head and SEE for yourself what you have wished for…


Artwork by Paul Torres - “Notrica 32nd Street Market”

The Healed Moment of Vertical Time

A healed moment is one in which you have escaped from the concepts of your mind, which imprison others and cause you to suffer because they fail to meet your criteria. The concepts are still there, but they cease to capture you based on what you demand from others and the 'world.'

We could say that in a healed moment the 'world' still exists. However, you no longer experience yourself as its victim because of how you now ‘see’ it and others in it.

When two or more share perfect equality, in a ‘world’ of confusing hierarchies, levels and degrees, time is experienced as vertical and not horizontal.

This does not negate ‘time’ just allows it to be realized from a Deep Spirit perspective. Vertical time takes up no space and everything needed is contained in one moment and experienced in one moment. But it cannot be experienced alone, since that continually reestablishes the incompletion of your autonomous egocentric identity, which continues to require time and space, or horizontal time, for which to achieve its completion.

A healed moment is entirely absent of all conflict, because there is no right or wrong for which to distinguish needs. A perspective that emphasizes lack or deficiency seeks to blame the world for what is lacking in the belief that what is needed must be found in the 'world.' This is always cause for conflict and is why all true 'awakenings' involve the world. No one awakens alone, because "it takes a village" to teach and learn fear.

Therefore, only a collective can awaken to its own unified completion in order to end all fear and conflict for its members. This literally alters the physical landscape because space/time is useless to those who need nothing because they experience NO lack or deficiency.

If you experience a world of lack and deficiency, make no mistake, that experience is entirely 'within' you and is not contingent on an external world and in no way related to anyone but your ‘self.’ However, dissolving that experience must involve another; otherwise, it only serves to reinforce your egoic construct of autonomous fear. The ego will always fear what it experiences as apart from itself and this is why you often experience the world as a very fearful ‘place’ to be.

Examine closely any problem you experience and you will understand the causal interdependency of collective consciousness. All conflict must involve another and every individual problem is intricately interrelated to your experience of a world full of other minds interacting with yours. This is because every problem you experience comes from a lack and the ego will always recognize what it lacks based on what it believes others HAVE.

Did you find the “soul mate” who will finally complete you? Did you seek your completion through another only to find that they could not give you what you lacked, even though you perceived them as having what you needed? Does someone you 'love' reinforce your lack by what they have? Are they withholding from you because they believe you withhold from them? Do you really have what they need?

The ego seeks to claim from others what it lacks in itself and this is often misinterpreted as complementarity. Unfortunately, the ego that fails to access Deep Spirit will fail to realize the futility of such a search and only continue searching more persistently.

You lack nothing. However, the ego-self is nothing more than a belief in lack and everyone who has what you need, also wants what you have, because lack and need is how an ego-self defines “love.”

A healed moment experiences no lack because, in desiring to see another as complete, you immediately experience your own completion. In fully trusting another, you trust yourself. In seeking to experience perfect peace with another, perfect peace becomes yours and an experience of perfect peace is a healed moment of vertical time.

Although a healed moment is an experience of perfect peace through unified equality, the commitment to time returns. Nevertheless, the desire for another breathe of infinity is irresistible and you will seek out others for which to share in it. This results in an increase that exponentially magnifies its effects in the world each and every time it is shared.

The only resistance encountered is by those who still wish to awaken alone and pursue a continuance of that autonomy.

But resistance to truth is a futile endeavor and merely delays time. The non-dualism of unified atonement is an unbreakable chain that grows with the linking of each 'individual' mind and this provides an experience of accelerating time. You cannot know what is rapidly approached, but you feel it is ultimately momentous and profound and this feeling is always available when experiencing from Deep Spirit.

Therefore, since it is only a matter of ‘time,’ why delay?

Hey You! Who Do You Think "You" Are, Anyway?

You pride yourself on the delusion of being uniquely individual. Obviously, you get real angry at the suggestion that you’re nothing but a trained monkey in a cage and your core identity was manufactured in childhood through extensive conditioning that you had no choice in. But then, anger was learned as well.

Yet, you do believe you’ve made crucial choices in the sculpting of your 'self.' but this is also a delusion, since all choices were made from the same social menu we all choose from.

Nevertheless, any later additions to your self that you ‘chose,’ pale in comparison to the core personae, which was not your choice at all. In this sense, your “individuality” is an illusion and your 'uniqueness' nothing more than a fantasy, not even of your choosing.

So, can it really be "you" in there?

All of this insures the perpetuation of the collective order. Your values conform to that order and not to replicate conformity in the manufacture of personalities is to generate an eventual collapse of the collective order. This collective arrangement (which you agree to) insures that you stay put and any delusion of 'transcendence' reinforces that you are "here" and serves to keep you firmly in place (all warm and comfy, no doubt).

In other words, everything about “you” has been taught and learned and nothing is uniquely free of conditioning. And so continues the ancient hatreds and fears, as well as the ephemeral pleasures and joys, that you've inherited from your parents as they inherited from their parents and theirs before them and so on and so on, etc, etc, etc.

Deviance from this is frequently attempted, but only within the approved boundaries, simply because deviance is helpful in reinforcing collective order.

In fact, many cultures are adopting the western individualistic paradigm of competition, thereby, manufacturing a global cultural homogenization of conforming to the collective delusion of individual “uniqueness" or "me" before "us."

This is inevitable because the collective must remain joined in delusion in order to stay convinced of their separateness (even though we are all the same). So, go ahead have your “awakening” and your “enlightenment,” and continue playing the serious games that have always been played. Follow the rules like good boys and girls, because the games never end.

Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that what we seek to transcend, through the various religio-spiritual “enlightenment” ideologies (and their attached sacred paths of "peace and love") is nothing more than the social conditioning that we have been indoctrinated into and held captive by. But, make no mistake, your path to enlightenment comes from the same social menu from which all conventions are derived. These are the same old song and dance routines that have entertained us since time began.

It’s all the same shit, just a different day.

Yet, you were trained to take pride in who "you" are as a person and demand others recognize and applaud your unique ‘individuality, which, of course leads to higher ‘self-esteem.’ It is rather disappointing to consider that the self we take pride in, is nothing but a conditioned amalgamation, or composite, of the learned values of childhood social conditioning.

We can always expand the intellect, but the core egoic personality (belief system) is virtually unchangeable and the core self remains intact until death do you part. It seems that without a more intrinsic change the intellect will continue to fail us as it always has.

So how much of “you” is really you and how much is nothing more than conditioned responses based on early childhood socialization? It’s not just mom and dad, but all the institutions that shaped your personality or ‘self’ (who you ‘think’ you are) by indoctrinating you into the dominant system of values.

Are you even aware of who you really are, absent the indoctrinated beliefs that anchor you to social convention, demanding you take the games seriously by playing by the rules?

Essentially, we’re not seeking to awaken to some grandiose 'godhead,' or transcend into some whimsical nirvanic state of heavenly bliss. No, actually you’re simply trying to get free of collective hell by stripping away all the layers of delusional beliefs that collective indoctrination has burdened you with and that you have inadvertently passed onto your children in the belief that they can’t possibly thrive (or even survive) without them.

You live your “life” by perpetuating a “story” that you believe is uniquely your own. But this is delusional, since it was never “your” story to begin with.

Hey you, out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old
Can you feel me?
Hey you, standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles
Can you feel me?

Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light
Don't give in without a fight.

Hey you, out there on your own

Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with your ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?

Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I'm coming home.

But it was only fantasy.
The wall was too high,
As you can see.
No matter how he tried,
He could not break free.
And the worms ate into his brain.

Hey you, standing in the road always doing what you're told,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall,
Breaking bottles in the hall,
Can you help me?

Hey you, don't tell me there's no hope at all

Together we stand, divided we fall.
(Pink Floyd)

Invasion of the Truth Snatchers

Whenever I'm informed that there's some important distinction that must be made, some profound idea that need be known, my first response is to minimize the importance. This is often seen as my being an unbelieving contrarian. Yet, for me, "important," "profound," "significant," "necessary," "must," "have to," etc, etc, merely signify serious rules somebody made up in order to win the game. In order to win, you must take the rules seriously, because if nobody takes the rules seriously, how can anybody win the game?


So what game are you seriously seeking to win through serious rules? "awakening," "non-duality," "enlightenment"?

Whatever you think you know, doubt it. Unless, of course, it's "important" that you know?

There is a freedom in doubting everything your ego informs you must be true. This does NOT have to interrupt your games and merely serves as a conduit to more deeply engaged play. This is not only helpful to the "awakening" or "enlightenment" games, but also in the numerous life games you engage in with the hope of injecting meaning into the meaningless or creating something out of nothing.

In playing life games, seriousness can lead to mental disorders. Just look at all the current economic-based suicides as the wealth game suddenly becomes meaningless (as if it ever was meaningful). But then, mental disorders are also a game that we think we must play because we have no choice. Therefore, like the wealth games, we take it very seriously.

How many games do you play in which you feel you must play and, therefore, must play seriously? As if I were to take this blog seriously (although there are alot of serious bloggers out there).

However, this does not mean that you can't seek truth (that's a game too!), only that doubt protects you from getting fixated on 'serious rules' that somebody, who has snatched up "truth," calls "The Truth."

You see, "truth" is the trap, not your doubt. Discovering an end to your doubt is like finding an end to infinity, as if truth were finite. Do you really believe there is something you can actually 'do' to get "The Truth," some path you can follow, some ideology you can memorize. Sure, all that leads to 'knowing' something, but probably not truth. However, feel free to doubt that, too.

You can certainly play with other theories of "truth" in the belief that they bring you closer to truth, but closer to truth is your only reward and, of course, that's not truth now is it? Accept anything as "The Truth" and you merely accept a delay, because eventually you will discard your acceptance and move on… and on and on and on....

Even though you'd like to see an end, there is no end in sight nor will there ever be. Truth is an infinite game. But not to worry, you won't be penalized for "delay of game," simply because time does not matter. Recognize that you WILL never stop playing and have fun playing infinitely.

You can’t get stuck in doubt. Your doubt simply keeps the game in play because your not fixated on this or that "truth." In some way, we all play the "Game of Awakening," simply because we doubt we “know,” and we deeply want to know and seek out the rules to 'get' it. This makes finding "truth" a finite game and all finite games have an outcome so that someone can be declared the winner.

Whenever somebody informs you that they 'know' the truth, or the 'way' to truth, I would advise you to head for the hills as fast as you can. Otherwise, you too, may become a 'Truth Snatcher' and they're everywhere these days. Turn over any rock and, sure enough, you'll find somebody preaching "The Truth"

Proclaim that you “know” and, in that serious moment, you have applied rules to the game, because to know is to assert a direction based on that “knowing.” Once you assert a particular direction, you then automatically cancel out other directions or outcomes (as if there were a specific direction to truth)

Actually, that's called “religion.”

I used to envy the ‘Truth Snatchers,’ who somehow have miraculously dug up truth from where it never was, but I realize I could never be one, because I'm a 'doubter.' Unfortunately, this doesn’t get me many friends and I’ve been asked to leave numerous groups of Truth Snatchers because of my incessant, confounding doubt (READ: "pain in the ass") and Truth Snatchers don't doubt. This is because, for most folks doubt perpetuates an unknown factor and that sucks, because we want, more than anything, to know the truth and thus, knowing is considered the only positive resolution to doubt. So we seek out the 'Truth Snatchers' in the desire to resolve our doubt.

Do you really think anyone in your world knows anything more than you? Ha!

But what if truth is merely infinite doubt? Seems to me the drive-to-question (hyphenated to signify unity) is the one thing that never ends and if truth is infinite, why should it?

The world has been invaded by Truth Snatchers. Feel free to play along with them, but only to further stimulate your drive-to-question and the glorious doubt that fuels it.

If It Makes You "Happy"! (then it can't be all that bad)

Does your “spirituality” make you “happy” because you believe it's “true”? Does your religious ideology include your death?

Death is probably the only aspect of life that we’re not too happy about. In fact, all religious ideologies have their origin in the fear of death. Just think, if you could never die, what could you ever worry about?

So what happens when the venerable “awakened master” dies? I love the neo-advaitist platitudes, “if you are not a body, then what dies,” as the exalted one scratches his illusionary butt (which seems to prove the body still has some control).

Well, I guess if it makes him happy…

It’s probably not a question of what you ARE or what you ARE NOT. Note the either/or paradox that even the priests of the non-dual struggle with. Of course, you are not a body AND you most certainly are a body. Duh!

Isn’t it great that you can have it both ways? Doesn't that make you happy?

So if awakening is such a big deal (happy, happy, bliss, bliss!) why are so many awakened ones dying from painful diseases like the rest of us miserable sinners? If awakening is about transcending the body, why is the exalted "master" riddled with cancer? Seems like the body won that bet!

But I thought he said he was NOT a body? So does that mean the body has taken on a life of its own, without the mind?

I guess whatever floats your boat…

What if the point is to realize that you ARE your body, your mind, thoughts, and yes, even your ego? And the fact that you keep trying NOT TO BE what you ARE, keeps you from being what you’re supposed to BE, which, of course, is what you are NOT? (Ha! Love this sheit!)

Sorry. I question everything because I don't "know" (and it makes me happy!). Some people no longer question, because they "know" and "knowing" makes them happy (and they go around "teaching" everybody else what they "know" and that make's 'em happy, too!)

The question is, how could so many have gotten it so wrong, for so long? (centuries, in fact). Worse than that, the blind still lead the blind! The spiritual materialists continue to righteously bypass what they see by denying it’s "there."

...because it makes them “happy” (and it's "true," yo!)

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with denial (we're experts at it) and I guess if it makes you "happy," then your righteous denial can’t be all that bad. I usually allow the "Non-dualists," and the avatars of "awakening," to be ‘right,’ because they can get downright ornery when they’re unhappy.

"If it makes you happy
It can't be that bad
If it makes you happy
Then why the hell are you so sad."

(Cheryl Crow)

Awakening From The Dream of Dreaming You're Awakening

Can you really awaken from the "dream"? What will you find? Who will you be? Nirvana, pure bliss, absolute truth, heaven, universal consciousness, pure awareness, yourself, God?

Or will you merely awaken to another dream? Much like the last dream, but still, a different dream in which you again dream of "awakening" from the dream? Only to "awaken" to another dream of "awakening" and then another and another?

If truth is infinite is there a point at which the dreaming stops and finally becomes "real"?

Why seek to transcend the illusion, when there is nothing "real"? Note that your term "illusion" is entirely dependent on its contrasting opposite, the "real." Maybe “real” is a concept your ego conjured up so that you wouldn’t have to take responsibility for the "illusion"? Gee, isn't that convenient.

You seek to transcend the illusion, rather than change it, simply because it's not "real" and is an "illusion." Whew! Lucky for you. Just imagine if all that death and destruction were real! Then who would you be? Obviously, you would then have no choice but to seek to change the "hell" you made and if you experience "hell," then no doubt you made it. If it's all illusion, then make no mistake, it's your "illusion."

What about your loved ones? What about your children, are they illusion? Why would you love what is NOT "real"? Or maybe your "love," too, is illusion?

If it all just "arises," do you ever wonder why it arises specifically as YOU seem to experience it? Why do some seem to experience great wealth, abundance and happiness? Obviously, to be conscious OF something is to make it "real," isn’t that what quantum physics now tells us?

Maybe parts of the illusion are real, since how would your ego-self finally come to the conclusion that the world is illusory, if there was not something real IN the "illusion" that informs it of this fact? What part of the illusion informs you that it's all illusion? What are you using to illuminate the contrast between your illusion and the something else you call "real"? If it weren't for the "illusion" you would not be chasing the "real." Therefore, are you not grateful to your "illusion"? But would your gratitude make it "real"?

“Real” and “illusion” is one experience that you split in two. Illusion is as much a part of truth as anything else, otherwise why would you be 'aware' of it. Stop throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Illusion is real and real is illusion. Wrap your mind around that and stop trying to judge between the two. You can’t split truth in two. The whole is not available to the parts, but all the parts are included in the whole. Attach to one part, in contrast to another, and miss the whole entirely.

What’s the matter, don’t you like it 'here'? Then stop your spiritual whining and fix it. But then, why engage an "illusion," right? The perfect copout!

"The world is an illusion" teaches an invalid conclusion based on a faulty premise. The premise being that there is something other than “illusion” that is not "illusion." So rather than remain fixated on your spiritual brainwashing, by continuing to repeat the tired old slogan, "the world is an illusion," try closely examining your concept of ‘real.’

The ancient teachings that point to the "real" come directly from your experience of being IN a world and are part of that whole. However, the teachings seek to negate part of your experience as illusion.

But the illusion is what is teaching you it’s an illusion.

Non-dualism seeks to separate off parts based on the dualistic premise that there are some experiences that are NOT 'part' of the illusion. If it’s not illusory then, of course, this means there is a part of your experience that is "real" (or more "real") than what you now experience. Unfortunately, you just haven’t had the "real" experience yet. Too bad for you.

So what part is "real"? Well, the rules state that the ultimate reality cannot be talked about, since words only relate to the "illusion" and are symbols of symbols. Therefore, you must follow the path of austerity and realize "the real” and this realization is referred to as “awakening” or “enlightenment.” Yet, this premise has resulted in your negating one experience, while seeking out another and the villain in that negation is not the real “you,” but your ego-self.

Thus, the illusion seeks a way out of the illusion.

The claim is that, without the ego-self creating all these illusory experiences, you would be free to experience the real "you" instead. Note how the illusory “you” must now search for the "real" you, which you have not yet been acquainted with (experienced). But don’t worry, says the illusory “you,” we will find the real "you" someday, if "you" sacrifice and struggle hard and long enough in your spiritual practices. HA, what a maroon!

The ego informs you that your “Being” will finally become the ‘experiencer’ of reality, while the ego will essentially cease to exist. Yet, does an ego-self not have Being? Maybe "Being” is nothing more than experience, experiencing itself as ego? Without an ego-self, who or what will experience anything?

Ally yourself exclusively with any part and you deny the whole and this includes "real" vs "illusion." There is no separation to experience and if you choose a part of your experience of ‘world,’ as teaching you that there is no world, then you have divided experience. Experience is what you ARE. It's ALL in your experience. It comes from “you” as a whole and “you” split it in two by negating a part as unworthy of your "awareness." To "Be of one voice" is to be of one experience. The only awakening you need to experience is understanding your ego-dynamics and, not for the purpose of rejection or exclusion of the ego-self, but simply to "know thyself" (Socrates).

Know your experience of ‘self’ and experience surprise in what “you” really are, which does not exclude anything, but includes all of it. The game is infinite because truth is infinite, which means "awakening" never ends. Therefore, this means that there is NO "awakening" and dreaming never ends.

It's all a dream and the dream is real.

Sweet dreams. Hahaa!
mikeS

Non-Dual Me, Baby!

I’ve been checking out my bookmarked “non-duality” sites again and I’m always amazed at the self-absorbed and self-interested bloggers advocating that we all follow their lead and sink into ourselves in attaining the insight that we are not a ‘self.’

If you spend 10 to 20 years in self-absorbed meditation (and these are the authentic zenners and advaita jockeys, as I no longer read the 'instant-awakening' folks) you will eventually attain the insight that there is no subject/object division.(yet, in the meantime, your experience of a regressing and eroding world will continue to regress and erode as usual)

Here’s a quote from Ken Wilber’s "Spectrum of Consciousness":

"Similarly, the dualism of subject vs. object is as illusory as that of the past vs. future, and its illusory nature can be as easily demonstrated. For, at this moment, can you actually find a separate self, a separate “subject” apart from its “object”? When you hear a sound, can you ever hear yourself hearing? When you taste something, can you taste the taster? Smell the smeller? Feel the feeler? When you see a tree, can you at the same time see the seer? As you are now thinking about all of this, can you simultaneously find a thinker who is thinking about it? Is all this not the clearest demonstration that there exists no separate subject apart from objects? Invariably, the sensation called “yourself in here” and the sensation called “objects out there” are one and the same sensation. As we said in connection with Yogacara, at this moment you are this page reading itself!

This type of teaching ignores an existential aspect of living referred to as “facticity.”

In the works of Sartre, "facticity" signifies all of the concrete details against the background of which human freedom exists and is limited. For example, these may include the time and place of birth, a language, an environment, an individual's previous choices, as well as the inevitable prospect of their death. For example: currently, the situation of a person who is born without legs precludes their freedom to walk on the beach; if future medicine were to develop a method of growing new legs for that person, their facticity might no longer exclude this activity. Wiki.

Non-dualism denies the "facticity" of the human experience by deconstructing that diverse experience into an anonymous cauldron of homogeneity, in which experiencing the deep joy of intimately engaging with others is minimized against an anonymous subject/object clumping together of all experience.

Why do we hate the ‘self’ so much? Why do we so deeply wish to experience homogeneous anonymity?

Non-duality seeks to escape authentic existential experience by deconstructing that experience down to nothingness rather than reconstructing it in discovery of what it could be together in our diversity. The intimacy of two or more becomes nothing but a mere aspect of the dualistic "illusion," even though it gives us more joy than any other existential experience.

Non-duality is not so much an escape from self as it is more an escape from other selves. It is a way to offset guilt for the collective experience we all partake of and that the ego-collective constructs.

Non-duality seems to inform that since we have done such a lousy job of constructing our collective experience, best to just trash it all and seek anonymous bliss through an equally anonymous mass of subject/object merging. In other words, fuck the self and give me the bliss of anonymity. Now I can deny that I hate you for all that I’ve done wrong and completely disassociate from you as the vehicle I must seek to engage with in order for us both to know the ‘self' fully in an enlightened evolved state.

Meditation, with the goal of non-duality, is a defense mechanism against reality and attempts to deny our mutual "facticity."

Insight is available for experience, but only through others and the world.

However, these non-dual teachers and advocates are certainly an interesting lot. With all their non-dual principles, ideologies and practices, they still seem to get a big kick out of engaging with others in constantly discussing the theory of non-duality.

I just hope this type of consistent engagement with others doesn’t mess up their practices in achieving the non-dual state.

; )

mikeS

EGO DYNAMICS: Master Your Contextualized Experience

The ego-self is nothing more than a comprehensive and all-encompassing experience of the 'world' and the 'others' who seem to inhabit it.

It’s not “real’ in any absolute sense, except in the context of an ego-self demanding and contextualizing it as ‘real’ (I am assuming that you consider your ‘self’ real).

This experience of ‘reality’ is what the ancient wisdom traditions refer to as “illusion.” However, for centuries this reference has been rather inconsequential to the grand scheme of reality as the same experiences are compulsively repeated, on and on, ad nauseam. This is because the so-called “illusion” is contextualized by the ego-self (“you”) as a ‘reality’ that is deeply engaging and, therefore, is experienced as anything but illusory. This creates expectation as to the parameters of your experience. Consider how rarely your experiences deviate from your repertoire of expectation.

Teaching that your experience of reality is an “illusion” encourages disengaging from the richness of that experience because, as they teach, it is not ‘real’ but an “illusion.” Yet, the teachings essentially seek to aid you, because within this "illusion," that the ego-self contextualizes as “real,” comes a great deal of attendant suffering. Suffering that you experience as personal and as related to others and the world. Therefore, it would seem logical that the less engaged you are with the “illusion” of reality the less suffering you will experience. Anyone who claims that seeking "enlightenment" has nothing to do with an escape from suffering is fooling you and merely demonstrates that they are compromising with truth in their addiction to the ancient "enlightenment" agendas.

Nevertheless, the contradiction is that any reduction of suffering through disengaging merely further reinforces the experience of suffering as 'real.' Why else would you desperately seek a way out, if the suffering were not so vividly 'real'? From these ancient teachings, we have large pockets of the collective participating in 'insight practices' to aid in understanding this ancient teaching of illusory reality (maya).

But what drives them to seek an exit are the experiences of suffering that they have made real.

Note that to contextualize your experience of reality as "illusion" you must detach from it through practices that essentially seek to aid in attaining insight into the nature of reality as “illusion.” Once again, this engages you in a reinforcing circularity. Seek to understand it as illusion and you make it real simply through the desire to know it as not real or illusion.

However, what you may come to realize is that 'reality' is nothing more than experience (internal and external) that you have contextualized as 'real.' This does not deny your experience but puts it in the proper perspective.

Although the insight practitioners feel the outcome is worthwhile, the world is seemingly unaffected by these ancient esoteric wisdom teachings which attempt to countermand and essentially annihilate all your attempts at controlling your ‘reality.’

Control is anathema to the eastern religious ideologies. Yet, non-control is anathema to the ego-self.

This hypocrisy is unavoidable as you engage in practices that seek to inform you of the "illusion," yet still find yourself destitute due to the current "economic crisis." If you have a family to maintain, embracing the ideology that reality is an illusion does little to alleviate your fears for the future. Such fear can only obstruct your plans to attain some awakening insight into the actual nature of reality.

I would suggest that if you decide to invest belief in an illusional reality, get some good life insurance for your family. Thus, when you finally exit the 'world,' at least they will be protected. In addition, if you wish to follow the ancient teachings I would advise you to physically disengage from your family and the world at large and seek residence at a local monastery where you can, based on the teachings by others who supposedly disengaged, physically and mentally disengage with the world you so desperately seek to exit.

CONTROL VS NO-CONTROL

Or you may wish to consider that reality is nothing more than experience that you contextualize as ‘real" and that it has no other 'substance' or' form' other than what you project upon that experience. In so doing you can seek variable degrees of control to that experience and your meditative insight practices can be tailored to this effect simply because:

You are cause.

All religious-spiritual paths assert either ‘control’ or ‘non-control’ in the search for greater insight into your “true-nature.” Yet, both seek to change your current experience from one of suffering to one of bliss. The problem with 'non-control' is that it contradicts your current efforts at seeking control and thereby reducing suffering through various actions upon 'reality.' These actions serve to magnify and reinforce your further attempts to reduce suffering through acting upon your world.

Did you consolidate all your credit cards to reduce your debt? Problem solved. Did marriage therapy help save your eroding marriage? Problem solved. Did medical treatment alleviate your symptoms? problem solved. Did you apologize for your error? problem solved. Notice how your acting upon reality and seeking to control conditions contradicts the eastern teachings that “thoughts arise,” and experiences simply occur, so just forget about it, you have NO CONTROL.

"But wait, I just got a new better paying job, so how can I have no control?"

You cannot avoid feeling hypocritical in your attempts to control parts of reality, while engaged in practices that assert non-control of the whole. In altering physical reality, what you are acting upon is nothing more than your ‘experience’ of a world, since ‘reality’ is nothing more than experience and has no physical properties other than the contexts and concepts of the ego-self.

Surrender 'sensation' as conduit for experience and seek change at the source.

Your experiences are impermanent and therefore, extremely malleable, but only by attaining the deep insight of yourself as causative agent can you 'act' upon your experience in knowing that the ego-self is causative agent of all your experiences.

However, the rub is that the ego-self employs the parameters of past experience to engage with future experiences of ‘self’ and ‘world’ and this speaks to the adage that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Therefore, the only way to engage with any changed experience of ‘reality’ is to disengage from past experience as that which informs the ego as to what can be expected in the future.

You may contend that you often engage with experiences that seems wholly unexpected. Yet, I would respond that every experience you have ever encountered is completely predictable and not unknown to an ego-self that only realizes itself through ever-changing experiences within the realm of expectation (death is the only experience the ego-self cannot predict, yet it does vigilantly prepare through various means for that end).

However, if past experience is composed primarily of denying ‘self’ as cause, why would that not continue to be the primary factor in all future experiences? In fact, discarding expectation built on past experience will eventually culminate in the most unexpected and surprising experience that could ever be constructed.

That of God.

You may ignore this theoretical proposition as patently absurd. However, keep in mind that what you consciously ignore now is solely based on expectation from past experience. The past informs what can be currently accepted as conventionally “real’ in this present moment. The ego-self allows nothing more than what it expects and prepares for and this severely limits what can be experienced now. Unfortunately, you will not resolve your experience of suffering by employing the same experiences that caused the suffering in the first place. You will need to leap beyond what you know and experience beyond the boundaries of everything you have ever been taught to experience as 'real.'

Nevertheless, what all the ancient masters teach is that eventually you will understand reality as nothing more than your self-constructed experience of a reality that essentially does not exist, except as an experience in your mind.

Master the dynamics of the ego-self and master your experience of reality.

Good Luck With That!