As you get older and know what you like, then happiness is possible.
I think you have always realized what you value; however, the pressure to conform has prevented you from fulfilling your desires.
A lot of times your desires are pretty simple and mundane, such as wanting to be left alone, so you can sit in a back room and write or go for a walk in the woods by yourself.
Yeah, it doesn't take much.
Being part of the community or feeling the need to be social, rips that away from you.
I know it's strange.
Obligations subtract from happiness.
Family obligations are the number one culprit.
Casual friends and acquaintances you can skip out on.
Work is more difficult; however, you get vacation and sick days to look forward to as an escape.
You learn that you need to perform a function to unlock rewards in society which you can trade for happiness.
Nobody does.
Yeah, they just make it worse.
They trade their rewards for more obligations.
They might get a week abroad at a resort and that's about it.
That's their only escape for the year.
Most people don't even realize it.
They are too hypnotized by the culture game, making appearances, and trying to get ahead.
I just want to be left alone.
What do you think about love?
It's a belief.
Ram Dass teaches a mantra to hypnotize you into that belief.
"I am loving awareness."
It's really good.
Why?
Because it isn't necessarily real.
It's a belief.
If you want to believe in something, believe in belief.
Not love.
Yeah, but love is what some spiritual traditions teach.
Yes, it's a good hit of dopamine and keeps the spiritual community together.
The community is the bond and love is the glue.
It's a game.
What about other love?
Who do you love?
Well, you are supposed to love your family.
Why?
Happenstance.
Expectation.
They provide for you.
Take care of you.
That's part of the whole caring scene where you need a network of people to care about you and in return you provide support.
It's conditional.
Isn't family support and love unconditional?
It can seem that way.
So, you don't think it is?
I think it is the top level of the conditional support reciprocal arrangement.
So, it's reciprocal.
Yeah.
You give and take.
That's life.
Why do you believe in unconditional love?
I don't know; it sounds high and mighty.
You have found it.
It's friendship.
It's uncaring love.
It fits into your religion of Paul.
So, you rank love below belief and trust?
I don't think it is part of that group.
Why not?
Belief gives meaning to this story that has no meaning.
You manufacture beliefs.
Trust is a very hard game to win.
There is a game of power you can play.
You must trust the other.
Why?
You give them your power, and they give it back to you.
If you don't trust them, they will keep it.
Why?
You lack trust.
They can't trust you.
I see how that works.
So, those are the two biggies.
Is there a third?
Yeah, it's okay to cheat if you don't get caught.
Why?
Nobody knows except you.
Doesn't that violate trust?
No, you don't get caught.
The understanding is that nobody is really trustworthy.
So, it's all a fool.
Sort of.
You still share power.
If you can be trusted to share power, the other stuff doesn't matter.
So, love isn't part of this?
What is love?
A feeling.
Why do you have that feeling of love?
It's something to do with being selfish where you can take the self-important need to care for yourself and transfer it onto another.
That's not bad.
It's part of the teachings of Ram Dass where he told you that you put your love in someone else.
You take your heart and give it to another so you can worship it.
You are worshipping the concept of love and not the other person.
You can take it back from them.
Withdraw your love.
That sounds a little cold.
Something to think about.
I got right to the edge of the worst decision of my life.
That was your rock cliff to jump off.
It was a mental cliff.
How did you survive?
I did nothing and it went away.
I sit here years later in the forest having a smoke.
Funny how life turns out.
That path led to perdition, and you escaped by doing nothing.
It was painful.
The correct path of nothing can sometimes lead to temporary pain.
In the long run, it's a winner.
You are happy and at peace.
Yeah, it's nice.
You got what you were looking for.
If you go against the teachings of the Tao, you will not find what you are looking for.
Do you see how impossible it is?
Yeah, we are programmed to do something.
That leads you on a path to not necessarily destruction but unfulfillment of the reasons you incarnated.
You could even be happy.
Well, you'd be happy as long as you remain ignorant of what could have been.
It will always gnaw away at you as you fulfill the latest obligations you have trapped yourself in.
You know you have the answers.
There's nothing gnawing away at you.
It's the opposite where you are fulfilled.
If this was it, would you be fulfilled?
Yeah, I found what I was looking for.
What do you think?
It's pretty funny.
Amazing.
Do you think people will believe you when you tell them about it?
No.
Why?
They are serious.
Everything is serious.
Life is serious.
It ends in a wooden box that you try to delay as long as possible.
When they bury you, it doesn't seem serious anymore.
We make it serious.
You need to be saved.
Prepare for your afterlife.
What's the worst thing you can do?
Prepare for your afterlife.
Why?
You will take it seriously.
When you drop the body, don't do anything.
Everyone does something.
Yeah, they head for the white light.
What's the white light?
Heaven or similar.
Isn't that where they want to go?
Yes.
Then why avoid it?
It's not what they think.
Why not?
It's a dreadful place.
Full of rules and non-stop worship of God.
They don't like the alternative, so they choose that one.
What about the paradise of the Elysium fields?
It's a perfect place of bliss and happiness.
What have you been taught about that?
It's utopia.
Nothing happens.
Why?
You are hypnotized into a state of bliss.
Sounds nice.
How did you feel before awakening?
I knew something was off.
It gnaws away at you until you embark on an adventure to figure it out.
Exactly.
Paradise is populated by people trying to figure it out.
Aren't they blissed out?
No, they awaken in paradise.
Kind of like Adam and Eve?
Yeah, they were given paradise.
Eve ate a metaphorical apple and awakened.
So, Eve was the first to awaken.
Yes, and then she woke up Adam.
Once awakened paradise was lost.
Well, what about now when people awaken?
Paradise was already lost.
That awakening allows you to see there is more than the daily toil of earthly existence.
You see a purpose.
What's the purpose?
A higher calling.
What is it?
Paradise.
You are trying to return to paradise.
Sounds like the Old Testament story of the Israelites returning to the land of milk and honey.
Yeah, that's it.
They want to go back to sleep.
Milk and honey is a euphemism for bliss.
This is good bible study.
So, the process is awakening and then trying to go back to sleep.
Yes, religion and spirituality puts you back to sleep.
Join up with one of these groups and off you go.
Nighty, night.
That's where the second awakening as described in the canons of Paulism comes in.
Right.
The second awakening is that you see the trap of spiritual outfits.
It doesn't even matter if you avoid the culturally approved church and join some spiritual misfits.
The goal is to put you back to sleep.
So, there are three awakenings.
Yes, three.
Of course.
We don't experience the first.
That was Eve and then Adam.
We are born into that world.
We can then spiritually awaken.
If that happens, it is required by society that you immediately join something and go back to sleep.
Why?
You are a menace.
Yes, that's me.
I didn't join anything.
I did nothing.
Then I hit the third awakening.
Yes, the third awakening is the big one.
You see the carnival in all its strangeness.
Has anyone ever been here?
They got to the gate.
What happened?
They became the religion they avoided.
Larger than life.
Huge ego.
They are the ones who establish new movements.
Like Paulism?
Precisely.
That's what happens to someone who gets this far.
What's the result?
The power corrupts them.
Why?
Followers and a sense of self-importance.
They take it seriously.
They go back to sleep in their feeling of self-importance.
They forget it is just a ride at the carnival.
Do you think you will ever do that?
No.
Why not?
I don't take it seriously.
It's real though.
Yeah, but it's a carnival.
You can't take a carnival seriously.
Why?
It's no longer fun.
It would close down.
What do these people do then because they have seen the absurdity of it?
They forget about it.
If you forget it is a carnival, you go back to sleep.
Why?
You take it seriously.
Seriousness puts you back to sleep.
Or milk and honey.
Got it.
Women put you to sleep as well.
Yeah, have you ever seen a mother with her newborn?
That's the main thing they do.
Rock the baby to sleep after milk.
They do that with everyone.
They are agents of the Goddess at her carnival, making sure you remain asleep.
If you start to wake up, she puts you back to sleep.
Why does she do that?
You will leave the carnival.
Why?
No one stays at a carnival they wake up in and treat seriously.
So, that's the deal?
It's the expectation.
The only way to wake up, see the carnival, and remain is to not take it seriously.
Yeah, so she will always try to either put you to sleep or get you to leave.
Or both.
Exactly.
What should I do?
Nothing.
Will that work?
Yes.
Why?
If you don't participate in her games, then you can't get hypnotized.
She can't force you to leave.
Why not?
How would she do that?
Make my life difficult.
What's the answer?
Do nothing.
