I was talking with a friend this morning about the belief of many ‘spiritual’ folk in a ‘new consciousness’ arising, and it inspired me to write a post again. Remember, loyal readers of this blog, how in the past I would blog about all of that (usually other people’s stuff, not mine, but still) – new consciousness, dimensional shifts, ascension, and how after waiting for the promises of the Poofs and Benjamin Fulfords of this world to materialise, Dec 2012 nonetheless came and went just as any other December had done, and now, in 2013, the world isn’t exactly looking like it’s ascending into anything awesome, but rather descending into further conflict, threats of war, deep recession, famine, crime and – well, you name it. Sure, there are marvellous things happening on this planet too, but generally it’s not strong or wide enough to tilt the balance from conflict to compassion and make any difference at the top controlling levels where the difference needs to be made. Were the positive changes to be making a big difference, listening to the News would be an inspiring piece of TV watching, not one that makes you want to go trash your TV down the dump there and then. (Btw try that if you haven’t already. My son and I sometimes take trash to the local dump and boy does it feel great to throw those heavy items with a bit of boost into their areas : ) )
Those who believe in such a great shift occurring are simply touting a belief that’s all. No different from someone with a strong religious belief, or from someone who believes the apocalypse is coming. It’s all just a belief. If of course such a shift occurs, then it occurs, but the need for belief is something else. There is knowing, and there is belief.
So the question arises, why do we, human beings, do this belief thing? And do it without cessation? If you at this point feel that I am exaggerating or making too much of thoughts then you have not taken the time to listen to yourself. Just stop and listen to what you’re saying in your head. For example, can you see those thoughts which suddenly give you a little kick, a hope, a vision of wonderful things to come, and suddenly your current feelings of boredom, or anxiety or even suffering are relieved for an instant? So you might suddenly think about money coming in, or how much you have in the bank, and how you are such a great person for being rich? Or an upcoming social event where you will be all dressed up and you know you will feel good because everyone will look at you admiringly? Or a great picture of you that someone took and that you can now post on Facebook and everyone will Like it and make ego-stroking comments? (Facebook is such an ego trip for many it’s quite hilarious.)
We are addicted to the idea of ourselves, of ‘me.’ Plain and simple. The vast majority of thoughts are spent on maintaining an image of ourselves in an effort to feel good. But when a going beyond this ‘me’ occurs, your searching and addiction to ‘me’ loses its attraction and it is now simply ludicrous.
Now, I am not saying all these things from a haughty position of perfection. I wish. LOL. I can say these things because I already got the t-shirt. A detachment from the false ego-self already occurred and there’s no real going back. And when strong thoughts, emotions or worries arise, then I’m in that scenario that I am describing, but it doesn’t last. But what it does mean is that after the attachment to a personal ‘me’ is released (not by your own will power or efforts I may add, but by and of itself) then you are fair game for life’s reality – for ‘what is.’ And if that ‘what is’ is painful, then that is what is so, and if ‘what is’ is pleasurable, then that too is what is so, yet neither mean anything about a self whose facade has been uncovered and thus there is no longer such a self in natural reality. If you listen to the experiences of ordinary folk awakening out of the illusion of a separate self, they will say that in fact after awakening, emotions can be of greater intensity because now there is no denial or game-playing. See this blog post for a great video about ordinary enlightenment. It is in fact a pretty hopeless situation after awakening – there is nowhere to hide, and so all is fair game.
And no doubt because of the fact that if you do not subscribe to a personal self (you / me / story / personality / ego-self) then you are in the unknown, and can no longer hide behind illusion – no doubt because of this, it is soooo very hard to notice your thoughts face-on and be honest about it. We are addicted to thinking, and to finding pleasure (or pain – as for sure some get off on pain) to relieve our boredom and sufferings. Without believing in you as an individual who is oh so great, what would you be? Now that thought, that thought there, the frightening one, that’s the beginning of the ego-self becoming ruffled in its path. That’s cool. Keep going. The fear is illusory. It passes.
Most people are attached to their roles in life as if stuck to them with glue. People who even describe themselves as spiritual or are therapists, or especially those who have big jobs and businesses – they get meaning from these roles without which they would be left bereft, and in some cases suicidal. I recently watched a programme on TV called Football’s Suicide Secret which revealed how many footballers, if hit by sudden injury putting an end to their footballing career, have tried to commit suicide – something that you don’t hear about much and is pushed under the carpets of football’s usual fanfare. The brave presenter who felt in a similar, desperate situation spoke of how he did not know who he was once that his footballing dream seemed to be over and indeed he attempted suicide.
That’s a sad note, but let’s move on.
Carl Jung said: “Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.” So let’s just be straight for one moment. You are not that amazing person you would like to think you are or would like others to think you are. That’s the bad news lol. For you know if you’re honest, that’s just papering over the cracks. You know, if you’re honest, that you’re playing a very dissatisfying and tiring game that actually does not reap the lasting satisfaction that you crave. You know this, because you are living this moment to moment. You just have to be honest. Carl Jung also said: “Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.” And here’s another related quote of Carl Jung that made me smile: “A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.”
The good news is that you are amazing but not because you look so beautiful or are so successful. And not because you think you’re amazing. You are amazing just as is. Period. In and of yourself. There is no ‘because’, no reason, no cause. Except for – You are amazing because you are that Something that so intricately allows for this false ego game to continue. You enter into a game to try and be something that you think you should be, only to find you’re already amazing. No matter the story outwardly.
I would love to go on writing, but the other illusion of time nudges me to do some key stuff I need to this weekend. Wordly life calls : )
I leave you with another blog post from Peaceful Self, whose blog posts I enjoy reading. This blog relates to fictions and illusions on the wider political scale in many ways but essentially of how we live – and love – fictions in our own lives and thinking. Enjoy.
And last but not least, I’ll leave you with a quote of Jiddu Krishnamurti: “Do not think about yourself, but be aware of the thought, emotion, or action that makes you think of yourself.”
Comments, as always, welcome.
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Your Fictional “New World Order”
There seems to be a lot of talk these days about some elite conspiracy to create a “New World Order”
Yet, the history of egocentric mammalia has been nothing less than a collective endeavor of extracting itself from the natural order, as ordained by universal causality, by neurotically inventing fictional world orders for which to dissociate itself from a causal determined universe that denies free-will. Hence, in order to maintain and reinforce a free-willed illusion of control, egocentricity becomes more deeply transfixed in its fictional realities and this provides an illusion of being removed from the causal order of the universe.
Through the psycho-symbolism of superimposing abstract concepts upon a material world, egocentricity seeks to dissociate itself from the natural world order. Obviously, dissociation from the determined causality of your existence is utterly impossible, since the universe allows you to exist and death tends to have a way of proving this rather consistently and without question.
Nevertheless, egocentricity gets all jiggy with the psycho-emotional experience of being dissociated from the natural order through symbolic fictions that seem to glorify its existence above mere causal determinism.
But a symbolically ordered reality can never be inherently real and egocentricity has had little success in dissociating from its cause, by chronically propagating the belief that egocentricity is cause of itself and its world. Nevertheless, the tenuous fragility of your beloved symbolic world could crumble at any second into a million scattered pieces with even the slightest provocation, simply because it exists as a fantasy in your head. Fully understanding this is often referred to in the east as an “awakening,” but in the west we call it “schizophrenia” or “delusional” and immediately prescribe drugs.
You can even note this phenomena in your personal life in which the slightest look of “The Other” could send your “awesome” day spiraling into the netherworld of suspicion and paranoia. Or a word, uttered in anger, could smash to smithereens the “positive” mood you’ve worked so diligently at protecting and preserving. Such is the utter fragility of egocentrica mammalia in its belief that it constructs and controls its personal universe.
Some claim just such a “crash” is quickly approaching for all of egocentrica collectiva, which relies on symbolic abstraction to transfer its own superficially fictional meanings upon the natural world. However, it does appear we may have to experience many more years of inventing senseless conceptual dribble, through which to magically medicate the egocentric condition, before all egocentrica mammalians simply go stark raving mad trying to make sense of all the fictional contradictions and hypocrisies that make up their symbolic reality.
Egocentricity will essentially crumble in upon itself through its own chronic schizophrenic babbling about which fictional world is more “real” and “true,” without ever questioning the fictional concepts of “real” and “true.”
The essential purpose of all technology is to allow for egocentric dissociation from the very universe that gave egocentric mammalia existence. Egocentrics demands a “better world” for which to glorify the sacred goals of its otherwise meaningless existence.
Every year some “visionary” pundit explains how it’s possible for the future of mankind to be better if only we simply make this or that change. However, as with all symbolic realities, it’s easy to discern how egocentric progress is actually heading for a train crash of symbolic chaos and this becomes more apparent with each passing day.
In this post-modern world it’s really not that hard to see that in a symbolic reality, anything can mean anything, depending on who says it and how many invest belief in it. It’s just that simple.
For instance, if the President of the United States (a fiction) claims that “drones” are necessary to keep the country (fiction) safe from terrorism (fiction), egocentrics will never question the fictions, but only the degree the facts (“drones) should be managed to protect the fictions.
Nevertheless, the natural order of the causal universe requires no control or governance, because it exists as fact. Its laws simply unfold and regulate reality through a general functioning that has no egocentric meanings or concepts to make it “real” or “true.” But because egocentricity wishes to separate itself and not be victim to the causal determinism of the natural world, it constructs imaginary realities that require fictional governments. The fictional realities of egocentric herds must have limits and this is facilitated through the fictional demands imposed by fictional governments.
Governments are popping up everywhere, imposing a seemingly endless array of spurious laws and utterly absurd rules to regulate your fictional experiences and, because they govern fictional realities, they too must themselves be fictional. Nevertheless, egocentric mammalia demands a fictional world through which to emancipate itself from the causally determined universe and this requires numerous fictional governments and governmental departments, committees, bureaus, offices, agencies, etc, etc, for which to control and limit symbolic egocentric fantasies. Although such fictions have no actual reality, we cannot deny that the causal determinism of the universe has allowed these fictions to assume a reality simply through the “Illusion of Control.”
Egocentrics both demand and abhor governments. They live in a dualistic tension between wanting absolute freedom to do whatever they wish, but with a need to limit and structure to their busy scurrying about doing stupid stuff. Like little lambs they bleat and whine about wanting more control from their governments, while demanding fewer restrictions to manage their personal egocentric delusions of grandeur.
The dilemma is that governments are made up of these same fearful little lambs. You cannot have honesty in a fictional reality and, as a means of controlling your fictions, governments have extracted themselves even further by constructing their own fictional realities as a means of controlling the fictions you idolize as “real” and “true.”
Note how the causal universe always has very discernible consequences that are clear and concise each and every instance. Yet, in a fictional reality consequences occur based on the power of the fiction. We can see this in the post-modern world today. National government has now become an immensely powerful fiction that proclaims itself “true” above and beyond any other fictions conjured up the egocentric masses. It has extracted itself not only from the fictions of the egocentric herd, but also manufactured its own fictions that are essentially immune to any consequences. Hence, it couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what you think, because it has transcended your fictional expectations almost completely and thus, does whatever it wants, whenever it chooses, without consequence. Other than bleat and whine about it, fictional governments recognize that to protect your fictional fantasies, there is very little you can do to limit their own.
For example, the fiction of the Federal Reserve is not actually protected by a historically fictional “charter,” but by the fact that it will pursue the fiction of monetary value exactly as all other egocentrics do, only on a much greater scale. Hence, egocentrics may complain to holy hell of an abuse of power, but all egocentrics desperately support the fiction of “money” and want as much for themselves as they can get.
This can readily be seen with governments in this post-modern era, in which egocentrics complain that the fictional powers granted to fictional governments is being fictionally abused through fictional constructs egocentricity has originally supported as a means to control, limit and structure the fictional fantasies of the egocentric mammalian herd.
But in a fictional government, fictionally elected by a herd of fictionally self-caused egocentrics, there is really nothing that can be done because the fictional government now sees you as a fiction and itself as more real, true and completely necessary. Hence, it can easily avoid consequences which the fictional egocentric collective herd may demand it face. It merely need justify its fictions and you can just shut the fook up, which most of the egocentric herd conveniently does as expected as a means of preserving their own fictional realities psychologically constructed through the Illusion of Control. They will never fully analyze how much of their lives they actually control, since the conclusion could only result in utter despair.
You must have seen this coming? For centuries the fictions have been piling atop one another constructing an incredibly ludicrous, but powerfully persuasive tower of babel, in which you now can no longer claim your fictional “civil rights” or any right to a fictional “privacy.”
Popes and presidents, democracies and dictatorships, corporations and consumers, etc, etc, these fictions are simply made up out of thin air. The conduct of your life is entirely based on your investment in fictions and you are so deeply invested that you have not the means nor the brain circuitry to perceive fictions as fictional.
Indeed, the causal universe has ordained egocentrics to exist in fictional realms of meaningless fantasy and to stress and strain, grit and grind over the self-imposed limits of those self-constructed fictions. But there are those who neither fight the injustice of the fictions nor participate in emphasizing the fictional as real.
Yet, alas, to egocentrics, these folks are fictional…
Artwork by Gitannah – “Mystery Shadow”
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BA, H-hp Dip, Dip. Spiritual Counselling
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Another good thought provoking piece Reena – even if those thoughts include that’s right, that’s wrong, I don’t understand that, maybe, neutral and meh 🙂
Some of it resonated with events in my past week. For a few years now I’ve been hanging out with musicians, and they are subset of people where egos can be particularly prominent. Observing the extremes can have a very levelling effect on your own ego. In the past week I’ve observed one person whose ego was positively ugly, and others whose modesty is almost saintly. From my perspective it is the biggest “I am’s” who contribute the least. Some take their craft so seriously that I think they forget that their “job” is to entertain, and simply aspire to become soulless robots playing perfect notes to a perfect beat while proclaiming how great they are. Give me fun and sponteneity over perfection any day (unless the playing is truly awful !).