it's all you

When I read messages people post about finding your true self I always stop and try to answer the question, "What is my true self?" It's common that those on the spiritual path insist their true self doesn’t include the parts of them they don’t like or the carefree pleasure seeker. Instead, it is a perfect image of themselves crafted from the positive feedback of others. They are enlightened and figuratively running through a field of flowers with the midday sun shining directly down upon them.

Spiritually fingering the ego as the bad guy allows you a scapegoat so you can transfer blame instead of taking responsibility for your mess. If that isn't enough, then fingering desire as the devil who made you do it is continuing to be in denial. Not identifying with the chattering voice in your head allows you to claim you are in touch with your true self; whatever the fuck that is.

I did all this so though I might sound sanctimonious, I'm actually making fun of myself.

You will never sort through this mess and find peace if you insist you are splintered and can transcend yourself. You can't bypass the human and you have to recognize and come to terms with it all. You are loving, you are a rascal, you can't be trusted, you are incredibly giving, you have questionable thoughts, motives, plus occasionally you scarf down a whole pizza. Yes, that's you! Which one is your true self? Oh, it's the loving and giving one, that's really me. Fuck off, it is all you.

dreaming the world into existence

Remember when you were in grade school sitting in creative writing class and the teacher had you write a short story? The most difficult part of the exercise was trying to end the narrative and at some point you learned the ultimate cop-out which is “I woke up and it was only a dream. The end.”

I’m sailing on the eternal ship of fools; the one where you seek ultimate truth and it’s like a benevolent Kafkaesque journey which doesn’t have a final destination. There are many ports of call and you are encouraged to disembark and not return to re-board the ship, but the captain never stops you from boarding if that is what you wish. Everybody does get off the ship at some point, even if they have to throw you overboard when you die and you find your resting place at the bottom of the sea. I’ve stuck around and worn out my welcome but I’m still venturing on. I’m at the point now where I have had a breakthrough. I think I got it!

The source of this universe is the collective dreaming mind of all of us. We cycle from unity to self and repeat. At point unity is the dreaming and self is the actor. We all bring the world into existence through mentation and we all channel our thoughts into keeping the illusion going. The self from unity keeps the game going, does the dance, and creates the drama. Unity provides the vibrational energy that powers each manifestation of self. When your vehicle expires you return on the energetic wave to this unity. You wake up from the illusion and declare “This has been only a dream. What a trip!” Those who have already completed the journey have a good laugh, welcome you back, you reintegrate into the collective consciousness and realize you have made this journey infinity plus one times. After a rest period you’re going to do it again!

The ship’s horn is sounding a prolonged blast. I think it’s ready to set sail again. I wonder where it will take me this time? 

i think therefore i am

I was on my deck smoking mapacho and contemplating the sheer incalculability and the favourable conditions needed to birth and sustain life upon earth. From just a cursory look at it, the earth is at an optimal position away from a star that gives off the optimal amount of heat and energy. The earth needed to be seeded with the building blocks of life and then conditions had to be present to enact a spark that put it all in motion. Subsequently, the atmosphere had to cool and carbon removed in order for life to gain a foothold on land. Eventually, the species I lay claim to had to exist in trees to avoid being eaten by the predators that roamed the earth and then some event had to occur that evolved our brain size and cognitive skills. The result is I’m sitting down in front of this computer entering my thoughts into something called a word processor that I can then share with the rest of my species on this planet. I’ve left out a great deal of the steps needed to get to this point! However, it is quite incredible that this is the situation at hand. What dawned on me was this is so implausible that I figure it is the closest proof I will ever get to the theory that the universe’s source is the mentation of a mind at large who dreams the world into existence and I guess by dream I mean creates by fiat through mental processes that manifest as vibrational energy. I wonder if the process is even aware of the physics involved in concocting this fantasy realm that we live in or if it just does it? I mean it sounds ridiculous except for when we scientifically investigate the structure of existence and get into subatomic particles where it is a non-stop rabbit hole of discovery, we think we have found the source and natural physical laws. Further investigation reveals it gets fuzzy again and breaks out into chaos and vibrational patterns and on it goes from particles to waves and so on.

I had another one of those aha moments because of this. My thought processes lately have been a gradual letting go of anything concrete to rest my conception of the fount of existence on. I let go of unity because I realized I was objectifying it and using it to declare the self as an illusion. I finally came to the understanding that they are one process and a continuing pattern of energy that cycles between unity and self and neither can lay claim to truth or being the ultimate state of anything. It’s an interesting perspective and it opens up another pandora box of thinking. It’s like the situation where I have said before I can listen to Alan Watts over and over again and perhaps on the tenth time listening to a lecture I will finally get it and have an aha moment. It’s become obvious now why as I keep unlocking blocks in my thinking processes that when I clear them finally allows me to understand what he is talking about. The man is a genius and his philosophy is all laid out but you end up missing so much of it until you evolve your own thinking processes and then it becomes a wondrous journey again and again. The same approach works well with my curiosity and speculation upon existence.

It’s got me thinking about the illusory structure of matter that breaks down into vibration when you examine it. Everything alive is always on the move and changing so to pinpoint matter or nouns of any nature is fundamentally illusory. Just like you and I are illusory because we are just temporary and our bodily existence will perish. I should probably use the word temporary instead of illusory as it will probably lessen the confusion however I have to admit the word illusory has a mystery behind it and is more impactful in the way that it challenges your thinking. It is important to challenge your thinking as that is how you grow intellectually and your thoughts expand and mature. I mean when you say it is all illusory what the hell are you talking about? It’s constant change. Pause here so you can grasp this concept. So, anyway with my new thinking processes I can now see that matter is actually part of a process; an ongoing pattern of life where the energy becomes form, densifies, and creates matter. Matter goes through a dissolution process and returns to free flowing energy but it is all the same pattern. One of my hang ups was I insisted matter be a state of permeance as opposed to a temporary stop on the energetic path; just like unity and the self are stops along the way of the process which I like to describe as a flower that comes forth from the seed, blooms as the metaphor of self, and then returns to its origins. Matter is the expected result of an energy system that is in constant flux and really isn’t illusory, just like you aren’t, but temporary.

The path to the realization of self and its opposite no self involves riding the thinking wave. Physically, we recognize the boundary of our body encapsulated by an epidermis even though fundamentally we can't separate it from the environment. Mentally, we enact the separation by thinking about what we are sensing and then we start to delineate based upon perception. Thinking is the crowning achievement of self. Light is its symbol. 

In closing, I’d like to give a shout out to the use of substances that can facilitate a change in consciousness that unlocks the potential of the mind and its thinking processes. I’ll present myself as exhibit ‘A.' So much of psychedelic use and its modalities have been forced underground, trivialized, stereotyped, or you have to travel far distances to participate legally in a plant medicine ceremony making it a pipe dream for most. They are not to be taken lightly and their potential to evolve our consciousness is vast. I have to admit I was fortunate to come into the care of a great organization that guided me through this process and gives me now the knowledge, courage, and open mind needed to help humanity realize the great benefits of the evolution of consciousness that must take place if we are to survive as a species.

humpty dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Are you doing the seeking dance and then you trap and limit yourself in someone else's conception of life, religion, or the universe and then you frustrate yourself trying to find the carrot they are talking about? Welcome to the fun world of spirituality with so many paths to choose from. I’m going on a trip to find unity by striving to transcend the self and dissolve into the ocean of consciousness thus feeling within the inseparability of all. I picked up the pieces of self, my own personal Humpty Dumpty, and tried to put the pieces back together but was unsuccessful. My search for unity was like trying to put the egg man back together again! It's true you came from unity and to unity you will return but to try and recapture unity before its time is asking for chronic frustration. I went on that trip. I first discovered the route to unity went through the heart and then I realized unity through a shiny black piece of obsidian that reflected myself and my surroundings back at me. I had this startling realization that I cannot separate myself from my environment, which is totality, and through this I sensed the unity for which I longed. Even while the egg man was shattered, I discovered that in pieces I still go with everything else in a giant universal ecological system. Trying to realize complete unity in this lifetime is the myth of Humpty Dumpty. You can't put the pieces back together but if you let it be it will dissolve into the all and through death and renewal is how you will experience unity and then cyclically once again the self.

A path of seeking can branch off in all directions. All cultures set up an accepted path for those who get this call or have the inclination to take up the spiritual path. The seeker is a wild card, with the potential to cause havoc and upset within society. When psychedelics were rediscovered last century it was an unfettered gong show! All these hippies running around talking peace and love and not working for a living. Sticking it to the man! That lasted a decade and then the agents of consciousness were criminalized by the establishment as the serfs were running amok! The use of these catalysts for change went underground and were resigned to the fringe. It's been in the last fifteen years or so that the next wave has returned, in part driven by the awareness of shamanism practiced in third world countries which use time tested plant remedies as a way to heal the ill. It's a holistic approach treating the mental state of the patient as the underlying cause of the manifestation of the physical disease and it's quite an enlightened way of thinking as compared to our western approach where we react to the physical manifestation. Within this healing modality is the key to change consciousness and discover a spiritual world which had been hidden from view. There are the world's great religious traditions and then there is shamanism. The great religious traditions have beliefs and if you want to identify with them you need to accept those beliefs. Shamans aren’t priests. Shamans don’t tell you what you should believe. Shamanism points you to the door of knowledge and you decide what to do from that point. Through an experiential modality you "see" and how you then want to spin that knowledge is up to you. There’s no requirement to believe anything or anyone nor do you need to get or attain anything.

Love is the light which will illuminate the left hand path in order to get back to unity. We will all eventually get there but those with love in their hearts will find the way quicker in this lifetime. They will help the shattered pieces find happiness, love, sharing, and caring. The right hand path will further separate the shattered self from unity and eventually the forgetfulness will reach a point where you no longer recognize that you once were the complete egg man. Lost on the path, eventually you reach the end of the road and there's nothing there. You are just whistling in the wind. At that point all roads turn left and it's Nascar all the way home. LoL!

The right hand path leads to the pinnacle of self which is realized by competing with others to get to the top of the mountain and becoming self-actualized. There is a misconception that taking a spiritual path automatically means you are doing it for the greater good and some altruistic purpose. It sure seems that way though as your enlightenment will help humankind achieve greatness. Actually, the spiritual path has the tendency to devolve into every other human pursuit which is self glorification through power, fame, wealth, and worship because we are all tempted with that and it’s a pretty good sales pitch. At least with the greed impulse within us it rings true and we aren’t fooling anyone; those in search of wealth are brutally honest in that regard. The spiritual game played by those on the right hand path used for gain is the worst because of the dishonesty within it and the taking advantage of people who do have a sense of altruism at heart.

Our roots as a species go back to a primal survival of the fittest dominated by fear, anxiety, and mistrust. Civilization is the march towards an understanding that we are all in this together and leads to a social pact between us such as the family unit, community, caring for others, sharing and so on; however, this conflicts with the economic and political basis of the society we have created. We left behind the savage survival of the fittest paradigm within the confines of an untamed world; however, now that we have tamed that aspect we have transferred our savagery onto advanced forms of the game because it seems that is our underlying nature. We now recreate our primal instincts of survival through our business and politics and try to hold off the encroachment of socialism upon our "free" enterprise. Of course, there is much to be said for this as history has shown the socialist is usually just a power monger wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing on the lookout for power or enrichment on the backs of the genuine who do seek to make the world a better place. I was reading up on survival skills needed in the event of a major catastrophe to hit the earth and the one thing that really struck me was that in the event something like this happens you are going to need a gun to protect yourself. When we revert back to survival mode, your neighbour is going to be desperate and come and take what you have and kill you. I realized that there is some truth to this though I’d like to think we have progressed beyond this behaviour; however, you see it whenever law and order breaks down and the looting commences. So, I got to thinking that maybe this earth game is an exercise in learning cooperation and from that we will evolve into a civilization who is one big family. Humanity would be the trajectory of walking a left hand path.

I do believe the advancement of civilization should and will lead to caring social structures encompassing the planet. It does seem undeniable that eventually we will get there though it may be quite painful. And I don’t know if we currently are going to get to the ideal without a major catalyst or catastrophe which would require us to come together. Disasters and global change tend not to respect political borders; so, the impetus to transcend boundaries and unify would become paramount. Perhaps Humpty Dumpty is trying to teach us that we are looking myopically at the self and trying to put that together again. Instead, the key to put the egg man back together resides in the unification of humankind.