Oops, everything has gone non-linear and is appearing not to follow any rational course of events like it used to in the past.
Whereas one was previously able to make plans and follow them to an apparent logical conclusion, now it appears that 1+1 =3 or any other random number that might pop up without any reason.
Our little reign of the ‘I’ is almost over and along with it, our small dreams of ‘ruling the world’, being successful and any other self seeking pursuits we might have cherished, (that's 'Self seeking' with a large S, not self inquiry!) If we find this prospect grim and ‘negative’ it’s only because we are still in the clutches of ‘I, me, myself’ and are therefore still seeking some kind of resolution or conclusion to the endless dilemma that has plagued the mind ever since we stepped out of wholeness and into separation.
As soon as there is separation, there is seeking for wholeness and even though wholeness has never actually gone anywhere and has always been with us in plain view; that single tiny mad thought which hurled us into the dark reaches of aloneness has held its empire fast for countless millennia. It has imprisoned the senses and used them as its allies to keep us locked in a world of separation.
I never was much of a mathematician but if I were to give an equation for the current state, it would be something like this:
1 + 1 = 2, OR separation and aloneness (with a huge dose of guilt because we believe we’ve messed things up!) But it cannot be ‘solved’ by 2-1 to = 1 again, because that would still equal separation and aloneness. This is because the ego self or ‘I’ cannot subtract ‘I’ from itself, it cannot annihilate itself and in fact fears its own extinction most of all, so it NEVER can or will end its own reign over its imaginary world; in other words, unity or oneness cannot be entered into from a state of duality: It already IS. Therefore the only possible standpoint is to ‘see’ 1, as it is and has always been.
The moment is fast approaching where all will be revealed.
What this means in so called practical terms is that ‘mine’ and ‘your’ worlds are falling apart. There is no rhyme or reason in this and the more you try to find one, the more it slips out of your personal reach. All the beliefs and thoughts we have had about life and reality are being dismantled and although this may appear to be happening rather ruthlessly, (or wather wuthlessly if you speak like Jonathan Ross), it only appears this way because we have held on to these flimsy ideas for so long that we have forgotten our true identity and settled for a shadowy excuse for being alive.
Although, strictly speaking, we cannot enter oneness from two-ness, we can move towards the edge of the veil of duality and make a degree of preparation through willingness and readiness for Grace to come and pluck us out of the cycle at some random moment. This apparent movement seems to be occurring on a collective level with various structures falling down and coming to an end both externally and internally. The increasing revelation that there is NOTHING that we can do about ANY of this, is an enormous shock and disillusionment for the egoic ‘I’ self which has delusion ally believed that ‘he’ is in control of it all. Now, he must watch helplessly while the walls of his Jericho tumble down.
This ‘un-doing’ is a pivotal point in the evolution of the image of humankind, for although in the grand unlimited spectrum of all, nothing has or is actually happening, the appearance of this series of small and large events serves to shake down the ego, enough for oneness to override the illusion of duality and express the idea of ‘salvation’. This will bring the idea of cause an effect to an abrupt end, for it is only through cause and effect that we are kept imprisoned in the suffering of Samsara.
The mind is addicted to cause and effect, or, to put it another way, seeking resolution to its apparent separate state. If you doubt this, just sit quietly without external distractions and observe it for 5 minutes. You will notice that images and ideas bombard the mind constantly and due to egoic interference we imagine that these thoughts belong to us and are all seeking a conclusion and a destination. From this root delusion; i.e., that we must ‘do something’ about ‘our’ thoughts, the whole idea of sickness arises: I feel a sensation and memory tells me that it must be ‘this or that’; e.g., a sore throat must be a cold, an aching joint must be arthritis etc, etc, and therefore this or that will happen as a result of having this ailment or disease. Thus, my thought has reached a destination and I have drawn conclusions about the initial idea, placing it in a group of like ideas, in this case, ideas about disease, and constructing an imaginary reality about that thought.
It may seem to you that you have not ‘done’ anything except made some judgements and drawn various conclusions but this in itself is a subtle act of doing and creates division, fragments and factions; setting some thoughts up against others, e.g., good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure, and so on. Eventually, these thoughts are manifested in speech “I’m getting a cold”, and then in actions, “I’m going to the Dr.” These thoughts, conclusions and resulting actions run our world and form powerful imprints in our minds that become habituated into behaviours like anger, leading to thoughts and actions of vengeance. The ultimate manifestation of division is WAR, against ourselves and others.
The mind will ask of course ‘What can I do to fix it?’ and herein lies the problem; the more ‘you’ try to fix it, the more dualistic it will become because seeking to change something and make it ‘become’ something other than itself is perpetuating the cycle of cause and effect.
And if you follow this line of reasoning, the ultimate question must be:
WHO OR WHAT AM I?
Ask this question, but do not think about the answer; do not answer with your mind and see what happens. By and by, you will see, you are NOT your thoughts.
We have reached the edge of the precipice; the end of karma: it is a place where the mind and the intellect cannot go. It is a place where thoughts do not own you nor do you identify with them; it is the place where all dreams begin and end and all identities fold in, fall away and diminish into the emptiness from whence they came.
Those who wish to perpetuate the continuation of cause and effect will continue to look for reasons and make adjustments to the ‘dream’; they will continue to identify with anger, fear and desire. Whereas those who wish to be freed will stand very still and allow the wave of actions and reactions to wash over them whilst they maintain focus on the arising and passing of various sensations that appear to be experienced within the field of the body.
And then, at the appointed moment, will jump into the waiting arms of consciousness and be caught with the unconditional love that has been waiting for us
Forever…
You cannot make it happen
But you can be willing and available
May we all fly like free birds
And end the cycle of suffering
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Guiltless and Free
There never really was a fall from grace. All that happened is a thought about separation which expanded into an entire scenario and became an imaginary continuum. Did you do anything wrong? No, because there never was anyone there to do anything. In actuality nothing happened- or is happening- except projections on a neutral screen of a movie called ‘my life’.
And yet the judgement of ourselves for what we feel is the responsibility – or more accurately – the reaction, to separating ourselves from the One Source is a life time of self inflicted pain; in every way we can imagine plus a few extra ones thrown in when the cat o’ nine tails wears out. (For those who have no idea what this is, it’s a type of multi-tailed whipping device that originated as an implement for severe physical punishment).
The pain of making ourselves ill, driving ourselves into the ground with achievement to reach a place where we feel better about ‘me’, punishing ourselves with diets, exercise, restrictions and endless judgements about how ‘bad’ we are, how ‘unlovable’ we are, how we can never be happy until… etc, etc. These are all the bitter grapes of a mind that is constantly reacting to a deep and often imperceptible state of guilt.
But you didn’t do anything wrong and there is no-one who is going to rack you to a cross and crucify you.
Except that is, yourself.
Recently, a realisation arose in my mind. It was that in all these seeming years on my journey through the apparent passage of time, I have lived in reaction to something. First it seems that these reactions are gross, for instance, I receive a bill and have to generate income to pay it, or I have an illness and go to the Dr. for medication, or another apparent someone crashes into ‘my’ car and I react by getting out and jumping up and down like a baboon. But the more layers that got peeled off through meditation, especially the Vipassana technique, the more I saw that these were simply guises for a less perceptible, more subtle disturbance in the flow of things. In other words, reactions within reactions!
Focusing awareness yet deeper, a primal chasm was revealed that had an association with separation from a singularity and a subsequent creation of ‘me’. This so called independent creation, supposedly invented by ‘me’, constantly expresses its fundamental flaw in the continual discomfort of separation; which is guilt and then judgement plus shame. This very low frequency state, i.e., guilt, has been defined as:
‘A feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offence, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.’ Emphasis on imagined!
It is fundamentally flawed because it is based on the illusion that we are separate entities in control of our lives, performing a series of actions for which we are completely and irreversibly responsible.
For some, to contemplate a life without guilt would cause a reaction of anger as they immediately reel from the idea that everyone is guiltless. Because who would be responsible for everything that is wrong with the world and especially all the things that were/are done to ‘me’ and ‘my’ loved ones. Not to mention, it would bring an end to all the Jerry Springer, Trisha, Jeremy Kyle BS shows in which people in supposed modern day situations are thrown to the lions of ignorance where they are judged en masse and given some version of a sentence. (Has anything really changed since biblical times?) We are actually quite addicted to it and find it hard to contemplate life without it.
The anger that arises in the mind when it is affronted with the idea that we are not what we think we are and neither is the so called ‘tangible’ world, is the consequence of limiting yourself to a set of circumstances and then, believing in them whole heartedly to the point where the constrictions of your ‘movie’ run your life. I.e., ‘I’ am human, this is ‘my’ life, this is my family, my house, my car, and my job and these are my things. These people are ‘good’, these people are ‘bad’. Anything that threatens ‘me’ and ‘mine’ is BAD and anything that enhances my idea of happiness is ‘GOOD’. I watch the news and judge that these events I have heard about are ‘bad’, therefore, the ones who I believe have perpetrated them are also ‘bad’ and deserve punishment. And so on and so forth until there are layers upon layers of stories about all kinds of imaginary things.
It is endless; it is reactive; it perpetuates the cycle of guilt, revenge and suffering… and it is all occurring within the realm of perception. In fact, it’s all back to front just like Alice’s wonderland. Just a quick note here: I’m sure you remember from human biology at school that when light photons are projected into your eyes that your initial perception sees things upside down. It is only when the brain turns them the right way up that you ‘see’ what it is you think you are seeing. And our whole lives are lived back to front where we really believe that we are the victim of these image-inary perceptions
Of course, the instant reaction, when one has become aware of such flaws in our ‘reality’ is ‘well, how do ‘I’ fix it? And hence another cycle of events around ‘fixing it’ begin. But the truth is; you CAN’T fix it. Think of it in this way. If you were watching a film at the cinema, you wouldn’t try to fix it but merely enjoy it (or not ,if it’s crap!) and in any case observe it. The reason you wouldn’t care too much to fix it is because you would be aware that it s just a film, not a reality.
The ‘way out’ sign hangs over the spontaneous realisation that ‘I’ and everything in ‘my’ world is absolutely illusory – a phantom of smoke in the mist that can suddenly disappear as if it were nothing. However, this 'seeing' of the way things are rather than as you would like them to be is absolutely impossible to grasp with the ‘I’ because it is continuously occurring outside the format of ‘I’. Like a niggling itch that cannot be scratched, the ‘I’ forever seeks the dissolution of itself but through its seeking, ensures it will never attain the liberation it desires. Liberation is constantly and freely offered through every nuance of life itself but ‘you’ cannot have it. This is the grand paradox; it cannot be done. It can be, however, reached for with intent and the decision of renunciation.
Contrary to accepted belief, renunciation is not about reducing your wardrobe to a loin cloth and living alone in the wilderness with no external needs except the occasional handful of rice. Renunciation is more about recognising that what the world is offering absolutely cannot give you lasting happiness, freedom or anything that is permanently worthwhile or meaningful. You might protest and say – well what about this or that, what about love? But is love really an offering from the world, or an inner state that has nothing to do with externalities? Most of the deepest and most meaningful incidents in our lives happen outside of time and space, often through a mysterious movement of grace, and have nothing to do with the world, but in the true style of one who is imprisoned in the dream, we continue to credit them to the ‘world’: ‘If only I can get/have, then I’ll be happy…’. It is all a type of seeking, from coveting a gold plated Rolls Royce to attaining enlightenment.
In the cycle of suffering much is promised but very little is actually delivered and we remain in a constant state of longing for that ‘one thing’ that is going to end the constant search; the ‘one thing’ that will make it alright so that we may lay down our heads and finally get some real peace. We say, ‘that’s the way life is, that’s the way humans are’ etc. If you are content to live out your life in this manner then please, with all the goodwill in the world, go ahead. Traipsing down a path as narrow as a razor’s edge isn’t everyone’s idea of fun (not even mine) and there’s no guarantee of any results in this life or even the next 1,000 but if you are compelled then what can be done?
And this brings us back to the choicelessness of what you are. You may think you are in control, that you make decisions about this or that and choose different things and this is all true, in the dream. But when you awaken from that dream, you see that these choices held no substance because the scenario in which they ywere played out was entirely illusory. Nothing happened; You are not what you think and this so called ‘reality’ is not what it seems but one thing is for sure and that is, you are not guilty of anything at all.
In the cycling and re-cycling of souls we have all been everyone and done everything; played all the roles and are now ready for the final part of the play. It is the role of self forgiveness because your innocence is and always has been perfectly intact; what you have always searched for is right here. The difference between this time and the ‘old school days’ is that liberation is readily available in any moment now. Your case is dismissed. You can go Home! Any moment you start to see the stage instead of the actors, the screen instead of the movie. Any moment you see the background instead of the foreground which is where the quiet revolution is constantly and effortlessly occurring, offering itself to be seen…
Any moment now…
And yet the judgement of ourselves for what we feel is the responsibility – or more accurately – the reaction, to separating ourselves from the One Source is a life time of self inflicted pain; in every way we can imagine plus a few extra ones thrown in when the cat o’ nine tails wears out. (For those who have no idea what this is, it’s a type of multi-tailed whipping device that originated as an implement for severe physical punishment).
The pain of making ourselves ill, driving ourselves into the ground with achievement to reach a place where we feel better about ‘me’, punishing ourselves with diets, exercise, restrictions and endless judgements about how ‘bad’ we are, how ‘unlovable’ we are, how we can never be happy until… etc, etc. These are all the bitter grapes of a mind that is constantly reacting to a deep and often imperceptible state of guilt.
But you didn’t do anything wrong and there is no-one who is going to rack you to a cross and crucify you.
Except that is, yourself.
Recently, a realisation arose in my mind. It was that in all these seeming years on my journey through the apparent passage of time, I have lived in reaction to something. First it seems that these reactions are gross, for instance, I receive a bill and have to generate income to pay it, or I have an illness and go to the Dr. for medication, or another apparent someone crashes into ‘my’ car and I react by getting out and jumping up and down like a baboon. But the more layers that got peeled off through meditation, especially the Vipassana technique, the more I saw that these were simply guises for a less perceptible, more subtle disturbance in the flow of things. In other words, reactions within reactions!
Focusing awareness yet deeper, a primal chasm was revealed that had an association with separation from a singularity and a subsequent creation of ‘me’. This so called independent creation, supposedly invented by ‘me’, constantly expresses its fundamental flaw in the continual discomfort of separation; which is guilt and then judgement plus shame. This very low frequency state, i.e., guilt, has been defined as:
‘A feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offence, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.’ Emphasis on imagined!
It is fundamentally flawed because it is based on the illusion that we are separate entities in control of our lives, performing a series of actions for which we are completely and irreversibly responsible.
For some, to contemplate a life without guilt would cause a reaction of anger as they immediately reel from the idea that everyone is guiltless. Because who would be responsible for everything that is wrong with the world and especially all the things that were/are done to ‘me’ and ‘my’ loved ones. Not to mention, it would bring an end to all the Jerry Springer, Trisha, Jeremy Kyle BS shows in which people in supposed modern day situations are thrown to the lions of ignorance where they are judged en masse and given some version of a sentence. (Has anything really changed since biblical times?) We are actually quite addicted to it and find it hard to contemplate life without it.
The anger that arises in the mind when it is affronted with the idea that we are not what we think we are and neither is the so called ‘tangible’ world, is the consequence of limiting yourself to a set of circumstances and then, believing in them whole heartedly to the point where the constrictions of your ‘movie’ run your life. I.e., ‘I’ am human, this is ‘my’ life, this is my family, my house, my car, and my job and these are my things. These people are ‘good’, these people are ‘bad’. Anything that threatens ‘me’ and ‘mine’ is BAD and anything that enhances my idea of happiness is ‘GOOD’. I watch the news and judge that these events I have heard about are ‘bad’, therefore, the ones who I believe have perpetrated them are also ‘bad’ and deserve punishment. And so on and so forth until there are layers upon layers of stories about all kinds of imaginary things.
It is endless; it is reactive; it perpetuates the cycle of guilt, revenge and suffering… and it is all occurring within the realm of perception. In fact, it’s all back to front just like Alice’s wonderland. Just a quick note here: I’m sure you remember from human biology at school that when light photons are projected into your eyes that your initial perception sees things upside down. It is only when the brain turns them the right way up that you ‘see’ what it is you think you are seeing. And our whole lives are lived back to front where we really believe that we are the victim of these image-inary perceptions
Of course, the instant reaction, when one has become aware of such flaws in our ‘reality’ is ‘well, how do ‘I’ fix it? And hence another cycle of events around ‘fixing it’ begin. But the truth is; you CAN’T fix it. Think of it in this way. If you were watching a film at the cinema, you wouldn’t try to fix it but merely enjoy it (or not ,if it’s crap!) and in any case observe it. The reason you wouldn’t care too much to fix it is because you would be aware that it s just a film, not a reality.
The ‘way out’ sign hangs over the spontaneous realisation that ‘I’ and everything in ‘my’ world is absolutely illusory – a phantom of smoke in the mist that can suddenly disappear as if it were nothing. However, this 'seeing' of the way things are rather than as you would like them to be is absolutely impossible to grasp with the ‘I’ because it is continuously occurring outside the format of ‘I’. Like a niggling itch that cannot be scratched, the ‘I’ forever seeks the dissolution of itself but through its seeking, ensures it will never attain the liberation it desires. Liberation is constantly and freely offered through every nuance of life itself but ‘you’ cannot have it. This is the grand paradox; it cannot be done. It can be, however, reached for with intent and the decision of renunciation.
Contrary to accepted belief, renunciation is not about reducing your wardrobe to a loin cloth and living alone in the wilderness with no external needs except the occasional handful of rice. Renunciation is more about recognising that what the world is offering absolutely cannot give you lasting happiness, freedom or anything that is permanently worthwhile or meaningful. You might protest and say – well what about this or that, what about love? But is love really an offering from the world, or an inner state that has nothing to do with externalities? Most of the deepest and most meaningful incidents in our lives happen outside of time and space, often through a mysterious movement of grace, and have nothing to do with the world, but in the true style of one who is imprisoned in the dream, we continue to credit them to the ‘world’: ‘If only I can get/have, then I’ll be happy…’. It is all a type of seeking, from coveting a gold plated Rolls Royce to attaining enlightenment.
In the cycle of suffering much is promised but very little is actually delivered and we remain in a constant state of longing for that ‘one thing’ that is going to end the constant search; the ‘one thing’ that will make it alright so that we may lay down our heads and finally get some real peace. We say, ‘that’s the way life is, that’s the way humans are’ etc. If you are content to live out your life in this manner then please, with all the goodwill in the world, go ahead. Traipsing down a path as narrow as a razor’s edge isn’t everyone’s idea of fun (not even mine) and there’s no guarantee of any results in this life or even the next 1,000 but if you are compelled then what can be done?
And this brings us back to the choicelessness of what you are. You may think you are in control, that you make decisions about this or that and choose different things and this is all true, in the dream. But when you awaken from that dream, you see that these choices held no substance because the scenario in which they ywere played out was entirely illusory. Nothing happened; You are not what you think and this so called ‘reality’ is not what it seems but one thing is for sure and that is, you are not guilty of anything at all.
In the cycling and re-cycling of souls we have all been everyone and done everything; played all the roles and are now ready for the final part of the play. It is the role of self forgiveness because your innocence is and always has been perfectly intact; what you have always searched for is right here. The difference between this time and the ‘old school days’ is that liberation is readily available in any moment now. Your case is dismissed. You can go Home! Any moment you start to see the stage instead of the actors, the screen instead of the movie. Any moment you see the background instead of the foreground which is where the quiet revolution is constantly and effortlessly occurring, offering itself to be seen…
Any moment now…
Wednesday 1 September 2010
The Choicelessness of What you are
The illusion of choice is one of the greatest fabrications projected from and onto the human mind. It is the idea that keeps you searching and struggling when the truth is infinitely and eternally simple and ever present.
If I were an egomaniac – and, make no mistake, ‘I’ am, I would want to be in control of all things in the range of my awareness and choose among the illusion of infinite possibilities that are presented by my perception so that I could maintain a charade of power over ‘my’ domain at all times.
But what would be the purpose of such limiting behaviour?
A sense of security for the illusion of the I; a crazy idea that ‘I’ will live forever; some insane belief that ‘my’ domain is indestructible and the maddest of all, that ‘I’ can take ‘your’ energy, make it my own, conquer ‘you’ and increase ‘my’ power and, of course, rule the world.
Now that’s what I call ridiculously deluded, but it’s a game that we love to play. In fact, we’ve played it for so long with such gusto that we really, really, believe in its authenticity and have all kinds of ideas invested in this chimera. Actually, we are obsessed with these games and take them very seriously indeed. All of these games are about power rather than love. One of the things associated with taking power from others is the recurring dream about MONEY. This particular illusion causes more neurosis than almost anything else and is actually the cause of disruption, destruction, death and any other negative position you can think of that begins with ‘d’ (if your short on pointless activities to pass illusory time).
Everything around it is extremely sombre. For instance, ‘I’ (at least I think it was me), was walking home one day when I saw a security man transferring money from a bank in an armoured case, to an armoured car with an armoured expression on his stony face. He had various weapons about him, including a truncheon and a gun – notice money and guns are often seen together- just in case someone came to relieve him of the paper squares with pictures on them, which were locked in this reinforced container. People who attempt this are often placed in other reinforced containers or violently assaulted with weapons, and then their faces are broadcast on the television or in the newspapers.
I just wanted to burst out laughing, it was so comical to witness the bizarre appearance of this clumpy man and his artillery in a high street filled with people trying to improve their lives by purchasing items of limited use. They were also carrying paper squares with pictures on them, but theirs were ‘legally owned’ ‘ because they were ‘earned’ by performing activities known as ‘work’ and they were therefore permitted to possess these paper squares until they were exchanged for objects. After this, the paper shapes would again be returned to the bank where they would later be carried out in another re-enforced box, ad infinitum.
Sounds utterly preposterous when you put it that way but the world wants you to be so stressed about money that you can’t see straight. There’s a stupid game we all take part in called; ‘listen to me whine about my bills’. In this game, the players make depressed, anxious faces and bleat at great lengths about their lot and how hard it is for them to survive in the world. In the midst of this, their features usually contort and display a great deal of tension. Many of the people who take part in this game do have some money and are usually able to meet their basic needs, but there is a struggle related with their version of life that they believe comes down to the paper squares with someone’s face on them.
The point is, that it is the association that causes the depression, not the object that it is projected on. I recently decided, that after years of not having very much money – i.e. the kind of amount that can purchase luxury items of greater financial value than those purchased at, say, shops where items are normally made of low grade polyester, that I would conduct an experiment or, if you like, play a game called, ‘I am rich’. In this game, I would conduct behaviours that emanated the performances of the extremely prosperous and thereby magnetise my surrounding field to draw financial abundance in my general direction. This would accomplish 2 things: 1. it would break the spell that I have projected upon myself concerning belief in poverty and 2. It would provide me with enough paper squares to accomplish feats that required greater amounts of them… I’ll keep you informed on results!
Contrary to what the world wants you to believe, money does not save lives nor make anything better but might merely provide an energetic means to anaesthetise you to the conditions of the dream and make them seemingly more pleasant to tolerate.
Bear with me; I am getting to a point
Another game that is frequently played is ‘I am the authority and you are under my jurisdiction.’ In this game, burly people with very stern faces exhibit hostile behaviour with the intent to make you feel intimidated so that you may cower in their presence and possibly confess to some crime you had absolutely no association with (yet another game called crime and punishment).
For example, you travel to a foreign country, say, the USA. You arrive at the passport control and are interrogated by men or women with very; very serious faces asking very, very serious questions in robotically monotonous voices that make you query whether their original forms have been replaced by pod men in the middle of the night. The inquiries are usually concerning ‘the nature of your visit to the U.S. because everyone who isn’t ‘me’ is a potential terrorist. ‘You may be carrying sharp items in your luggage such as eyebrow tweezers or toothpicks with which you may perform crimes that constitute a threat to the welfare of the state and therefore I must ask you to come with me’. Well, guess what; the dictionary defines terrorism as: ‘a person who terrorises or frightens others’ and trust me, after an encounter with the American inquisition, you will definitely feel terrorised.
Yes my friends, we have become so wrapped up in these BS stories that we are falling further and further into the bottomless pit called ‘my narcissistic neuroses’ (and friends). So how did we come to this?
Well, let’s see:
Once upon a time there were these life forms that became so used to believing in separation that they started to think that they were real people with real lives who owned houses, cars, children; had jobs, relationships; got ill, grew old and died– And these people started playing more complicated roles because they forgot what they really were and where they had come from. Eventually they became so wrapped up in their own BS, they actually started trying to destroy each others projections in an effort to uphold the pretence around their silly stories, eliminating anything that might threaten their illusion… and this, in a nutshell, is the definition of life in our world.
If you think that this could not possibly be us try this quick quiz:
Quiz title: Are you willing to let go of everything that defines you and fall helplessly into the bottomless pit called zero with absolutely no assurance of survival…
1. Someone disagrees with absolutely everything you stand for. Do you
a) Shoot him
b) Take him to a Japanese torture camp and systematically brainwash him until he doesn’t know who he is anymore and agrees with anything and everything you say
c) Watch crap soaps on TV until your eyes turn square and you can’t remember who you are , who he is and what he disagreed with in the first place
2. Someone bashes a hole in your car door with a large hammer. Would you
a) Bash a hole in their head with a larger hammer
b) Sell them as a slave to the black market slave trade and reimburse your car fees
c) Have a cold one and forget about it
3. You have everything you’ve ever worked for and owned swallowed up by a huge tsunami called the taxman. Would you:
a) Rob a Mafiosi member and reimburse yourself
b) Wail to God until you sound like Rod Stewart and then get a mullet to complete the image
c) Have cup of tea, eat Mr Kipling’s cakes and contemplate life without any possessions
4. A huge mammoth like creature comes out of a space ship in the middle of the night and demands your lifelong allegiance to a cause you’ve never heard of. Would you:
a) Finally use your years of geek study and speak to it in Mammothian Yekula pointing out the errors in the spaceship landing and how you could swap navigation lessons for your freedom
b) Explode the weapons of mass destruction you have had hiding in your cellar in the event of times such as these
c) Tell him you need to go to the bathroom and slip out the back way for a swift half at the local. Once there mull over the implications of sharing the planet with large mammothites and whether or not they would hog the remote on TV nights
(Note: this ridiculous quiz does not bear any relation to anything at all and is merely there for distraction and entertainment purposes in the bland hope that we might forget about our neurosis for an instant and slip into holy awakening)
I could go on but I think I’ve drivelled enough…
Furthermore, there are stories about lots of other things like lawsuits, domestic feuds, robberies, riots, politics: a quick word here -this is actually a very entertaining game where the actors conduct a play full of twisted half truths, unfulfilled promises, bluffs and gargantuan mistakes followed by limp apologies and never enough compensation. These displays are generally performed by players who believe that putting on a stripy blue suit alone should win them an Oscar but they are, in fact the most delusional of the entire array of contenders – next to the religious fanatics. Other stories include relationships, careers, the pharmaceutical industry, different kinds of animal flu and their own special vaccinations, spiritual seeking, new- ageism, drug and other addictions and so on and on, and on; all of these taking place all over the vast stage called ‘the world’.
As hugely tragic or entertaining as it may appear to be, once we have played our roles with vigour and expectation, we will always find that all that is waiting for us is a laughing skull where our face used to be, which although bears a grotesque countenance, is at least the only loyal chaperone when all the others have gone. No winner ever takes anything home because there are no winners, losers or reality in any duality. All there ever was and is, is existence playing roles through reflections of light; having a relationship with itself through the idea of you and the story of your life.
Which brings us back to the start; it’s a choiceless observation that cannot be grasped. It cannot be controlled or managed or altered in any way.
It doesn’t matter what you do to adjust the ever-changing to suit your needs, it’s like trying to catch flour with a sieve. Better to realise that I am that.
In the dead of the night, I surrendered all ideas to the great swirl of electric existence
Sensations arose and passed away
History was made and ended
And another story began.
With or without me
It made no difference…
If I were an egomaniac – and, make no mistake, ‘I’ am, I would want to be in control of all things in the range of my awareness and choose among the illusion of infinite possibilities that are presented by my perception so that I could maintain a charade of power over ‘my’ domain at all times.
But what would be the purpose of such limiting behaviour?
A sense of security for the illusion of the I; a crazy idea that ‘I’ will live forever; some insane belief that ‘my’ domain is indestructible and the maddest of all, that ‘I’ can take ‘your’ energy, make it my own, conquer ‘you’ and increase ‘my’ power and, of course, rule the world.
Now that’s what I call ridiculously deluded, but it’s a game that we love to play. In fact, we’ve played it for so long with such gusto that we really, really, believe in its authenticity and have all kinds of ideas invested in this chimera. Actually, we are obsessed with these games and take them very seriously indeed. All of these games are about power rather than love. One of the things associated with taking power from others is the recurring dream about MONEY. This particular illusion causes more neurosis than almost anything else and is actually the cause of disruption, destruction, death and any other negative position you can think of that begins with ‘d’ (if your short on pointless activities to pass illusory time).
Everything around it is extremely sombre. For instance, ‘I’ (at least I think it was me), was walking home one day when I saw a security man transferring money from a bank in an armoured case, to an armoured car with an armoured expression on his stony face. He had various weapons about him, including a truncheon and a gun – notice money and guns are often seen together- just in case someone came to relieve him of the paper squares with pictures on them, which were locked in this reinforced container. People who attempt this are often placed in other reinforced containers or violently assaulted with weapons, and then their faces are broadcast on the television or in the newspapers.
I just wanted to burst out laughing, it was so comical to witness the bizarre appearance of this clumpy man and his artillery in a high street filled with people trying to improve their lives by purchasing items of limited use. They were also carrying paper squares with pictures on them, but theirs were ‘legally owned’ ‘ because they were ‘earned’ by performing activities known as ‘work’ and they were therefore permitted to possess these paper squares until they were exchanged for objects. After this, the paper shapes would again be returned to the bank where they would later be carried out in another re-enforced box, ad infinitum.
Sounds utterly preposterous when you put it that way but the world wants you to be so stressed about money that you can’t see straight. There’s a stupid game we all take part in called; ‘listen to me whine about my bills’. In this game, the players make depressed, anxious faces and bleat at great lengths about their lot and how hard it is for them to survive in the world. In the midst of this, their features usually contort and display a great deal of tension. Many of the people who take part in this game do have some money and are usually able to meet their basic needs, but there is a struggle related with their version of life that they believe comes down to the paper squares with someone’s face on them.
The point is, that it is the association that causes the depression, not the object that it is projected on. I recently decided, that after years of not having very much money – i.e. the kind of amount that can purchase luxury items of greater financial value than those purchased at, say, shops where items are normally made of low grade polyester, that I would conduct an experiment or, if you like, play a game called, ‘I am rich’. In this game, I would conduct behaviours that emanated the performances of the extremely prosperous and thereby magnetise my surrounding field to draw financial abundance in my general direction. This would accomplish 2 things: 1. it would break the spell that I have projected upon myself concerning belief in poverty and 2. It would provide me with enough paper squares to accomplish feats that required greater amounts of them… I’ll keep you informed on results!
Contrary to what the world wants you to believe, money does not save lives nor make anything better but might merely provide an energetic means to anaesthetise you to the conditions of the dream and make them seemingly more pleasant to tolerate.
Bear with me; I am getting to a point
Another game that is frequently played is ‘I am the authority and you are under my jurisdiction.’ In this game, burly people with very stern faces exhibit hostile behaviour with the intent to make you feel intimidated so that you may cower in their presence and possibly confess to some crime you had absolutely no association with (yet another game called crime and punishment).
For example, you travel to a foreign country, say, the USA. You arrive at the passport control and are interrogated by men or women with very; very serious faces asking very, very serious questions in robotically monotonous voices that make you query whether their original forms have been replaced by pod men in the middle of the night. The inquiries are usually concerning ‘the nature of your visit to the U.S. because everyone who isn’t ‘me’ is a potential terrorist. ‘You may be carrying sharp items in your luggage such as eyebrow tweezers or toothpicks with which you may perform crimes that constitute a threat to the welfare of the state and therefore I must ask you to come with me’. Well, guess what; the dictionary defines terrorism as: ‘a person who terrorises or frightens others’ and trust me, after an encounter with the American inquisition, you will definitely feel terrorised.
Yes my friends, we have become so wrapped up in these BS stories that we are falling further and further into the bottomless pit called ‘my narcissistic neuroses’ (and friends). So how did we come to this?
Well, let’s see:
Once upon a time there were these life forms that became so used to believing in separation that they started to think that they were real people with real lives who owned houses, cars, children; had jobs, relationships; got ill, grew old and died– And these people started playing more complicated roles because they forgot what they really were and where they had come from. Eventually they became so wrapped up in their own BS, they actually started trying to destroy each others projections in an effort to uphold the pretence around their silly stories, eliminating anything that might threaten their illusion… and this, in a nutshell, is the definition of life in our world.
If you think that this could not possibly be us try this quick quiz:
Quiz title: Are you willing to let go of everything that defines you and fall helplessly into the bottomless pit called zero with absolutely no assurance of survival…
1. Someone disagrees with absolutely everything you stand for. Do you
a) Shoot him
b) Take him to a Japanese torture camp and systematically brainwash him until he doesn’t know who he is anymore and agrees with anything and everything you say
c) Watch crap soaps on TV until your eyes turn square and you can’t remember who you are , who he is and what he disagreed with in the first place
2. Someone bashes a hole in your car door with a large hammer. Would you
a) Bash a hole in their head with a larger hammer
b) Sell them as a slave to the black market slave trade and reimburse your car fees
c) Have a cold one and forget about it
3. You have everything you’ve ever worked for and owned swallowed up by a huge tsunami called the taxman. Would you:
a) Rob a Mafiosi member and reimburse yourself
b) Wail to God until you sound like Rod Stewart and then get a mullet to complete the image
c) Have cup of tea, eat Mr Kipling’s cakes and contemplate life without any possessions
4. A huge mammoth like creature comes out of a space ship in the middle of the night and demands your lifelong allegiance to a cause you’ve never heard of. Would you:
a) Finally use your years of geek study and speak to it in Mammothian Yekula pointing out the errors in the spaceship landing and how you could swap navigation lessons for your freedom
b) Explode the weapons of mass destruction you have had hiding in your cellar in the event of times such as these
c) Tell him you need to go to the bathroom and slip out the back way for a swift half at the local. Once there mull over the implications of sharing the planet with large mammothites and whether or not they would hog the remote on TV nights
(Note: this ridiculous quiz does not bear any relation to anything at all and is merely there for distraction and entertainment purposes in the bland hope that we might forget about our neurosis for an instant and slip into holy awakening)
I could go on but I think I’ve drivelled enough…
Furthermore, there are stories about lots of other things like lawsuits, domestic feuds, robberies, riots, politics: a quick word here -this is actually a very entertaining game where the actors conduct a play full of twisted half truths, unfulfilled promises, bluffs and gargantuan mistakes followed by limp apologies and never enough compensation. These displays are generally performed by players who believe that putting on a stripy blue suit alone should win them an Oscar but they are, in fact the most delusional of the entire array of contenders – next to the religious fanatics. Other stories include relationships, careers, the pharmaceutical industry, different kinds of animal flu and their own special vaccinations, spiritual seeking, new- ageism, drug and other addictions and so on and on, and on; all of these taking place all over the vast stage called ‘the world’.
As hugely tragic or entertaining as it may appear to be, once we have played our roles with vigour and expectation, we will always find that all that is waiting for us is a laughing skull where our face used to be, which although bears a grotesque countenance, is at least the only loyal chaperone when all the others have gone. No winner ever takes anything home because there are no winners, losers or reality in any duality. All there ever was and is, is existence playing roles through reflections of light; having a relationship with itself through the idea of you and the story of your life.
Which brings us back to the start; it’s a choiceless observation that cannot be grasped. It cannot be controlled or managed or altered in any way.
It doesn’t matter what you do to adjust the ever-changing to suit your needs, it’s like trying to catch flour with a sieve. Better to realise that I am that.
In the dead of the night, I surrendered all ideas to the great swirl of electric existence
Sensations arose and passed away
History was made and ended
And another story began.
With or without me
It made no difference…
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