Nothing to Become

Why?

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know”. Lao Tsu

Hell of a mic drop. Pretty sound as well. That is until someone with an undying desire to try to explain the unexplainable using the crude tool of language just can’t keep his mouth shut. It doesn’t help not being any where near as eloquent as most if not all of the existentialists I’ve read. I have to say too that in recovery (good recovery), attempting to describe what an individual finds as a result of surrender doesn’t hurt. The words in Chapter 2 of the Big Book that reads, “We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed” pulled me in. So there are certainly exceptions to Lao Tsu’s quote.

Still, somethings are best left to a person to experience for themselves. During extreme circumstances however, what is there to lose? If it hadn’t been for a woman whose eyes were like mirrors and dressed in a glow telling me that I had a spiritual cancer of the mind and was blessed beyond imagination even though I currently resided in hell - I definitely would have snorted my way to an agonizing early grave. Ultimately it was my willingness to surrender that prompted my white light experience but…, there is nothing wrong with another who found much of heaven to offer at least a crumb of incentive. You might as well eliminate any and every school of thought or spiritual discipline if we are to keep quiet.

It really should be a matter of…, to what end or for what purpose is the individual talking about existential matters. Are they making money? Do they need to convince themselves by convincing others? Are they trying to grow a following? Is it ego? Is it programmed into them to proselytize? I think about these things when it comes to myself. I’m not making money, I’m poor by design. I certainly don’t want a following and the thought of that kind of responsibility makes me anxious. I won’t say that my ego is completely gone because I honestly don’t know that for sure. But I don’t get off on being right, and I don’t mind being wrong. So what is it? I’m positive the answer is no different than the reason why I buy a butterfinger wizard for a friend when I’m buying one for myself. I don’t think its anymore complicated than that. And if they don’t want it, , all the more crunchy sweet heaven for me.

Along with the sharing angle, another reason is the sheer curiosity I have in wondering if its even possible to explain (what I found when I surrendered my will). But the problem with even starting this endeavor is that there was a rumbling in my gut before the ice cream hit my stomach. There was hell before there was heaven. If the eclipse is not acknowledged it will remain. Any attempt to talk about the baking of the cake which focuses solely on how delicious it is and not the intense heat of the oven it was baked in is complete bullshit. And popular I might add. But as this article attempts to explain, I am of the belief that impermanent feel good metafizzler gunk is paradoxically the opposite of what they claim. They’re selling the idea that there’s something wrong with you that needs fixed. And of course they have the cure. And its a slow process to boot according to many of them.

We don’t live in wonderland and it is Not a matter of twisting our perception to make it so. Despite the most profound schools of thought, despite centuries of “progress”…, 582 million people are chronically undernourished on planet earth, over 120 armed conflicts are occurring globally, 600 million have either depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, or other types of mental maladies. And I don’t think its much of a leap to suggest that number is actually doubled when you count those who don’t seek help to receive a diagnosis to be included in that count.

What? Have we just not figured it all out yet? You feel the need to point out all the improvements we’ve made instead of acknowledging the realities? Or let me guess, “Well of course we still have problems but….”. Problems? I think there’s only one problem. Which is that people believe there are any problems to begin with. And they play this out for entire life times along with all the “solutions” that come with them. They even have religions based on it that you were Born with the ultimate problem. You’re a sinner. But wait, there’s a cure. Salvation, enlightenment, financial security, being a better “you”. Here’s some make up - fix the “problem”. It’s hardwired.

Sure, we can point out that no one is responsible for an earthquake that kills hundreds or a tsunami that kills thousands. But this really is nothing more than a logically fallacious technique called Selective Instances where support is drawn for a position by choosing only those cases or instances which back it up. Plus, there are far worse things than dying. Having your spirit snuffed out by your mind and the collective mind for an entire life time and the many manifestations that come with it - is far worse. Over and above, it is humans who make human’s lives difficult. I’ll take a tsunami over being forced in a box for 80 years. At least you can move further inland to avoid one.

Life is suffering all on its own but for some strange reason we feel the need to make it even harder. The suffering that life offers by default without human exacerbation is simply standard procedure for light slowing its vibration to become matter. It’s necessary for the sake of experience but the added fear and pain we inject into the stream greatly limits the experience we slowed down to have. The light illuminates in the dark, but when we are told and believe that we are the dark - the Dim begins.

Complete. Absolute. No accidents.

You were far more enlightened in the womb than you’ll probably ever be until the day the body stops. I don’t even know what the fuck that word even means. Having rainbows shooting out your ass? The problem isn’t “getting there” one day, the problem is that you’re already there and don’t know it. Oh, but actually you do know it. It gets buried under the excrement of the spiders. You know the spiders don’t you? The doubts. The reach. The satisfaction of the pellet until the cry brews again. It starts when you realize mom isn’t God. Can’t fit in. Work sucks. News feeds drain. Pom pom’s for the good guys, pitchforks for the bad guys. Friend betrays, spouse wants you to change, is that lump getting bigger.

Little patchwork here, little aid from mother’s little helper, hope from a movie about some super human that defeats the dark forces with his magic eyes, let those inhibitions down with a 6 pack, watch your kid graduate from school with honors, wish they’d call more years later, house will be paid off in 20 years, buy a lotto ticket, colonoscopy day, treat yourself to junk food, dog ate the cat’s shit again, think of moving out of the country to utopia, remember you’re first BJ, off to sleep again. Tomorrow will be different. Or maybe I’m just a cynical bastard.

All I know is that the last 10 years of physical discomfort/anguish along with the angsting about angsting - doesn’t quite seem worth it to me to have had to spend your entire life trying to get better, trying to get more secure, trying to become more conscious, trying to be….More. Waiting for the great unknown, hoping with every fiber of your being that the end is not the end. It is for you. Désolée. It isn’t for the current though. Could have let go to it. But the regret and the accumulation was so much more…, tangible wasn’t it? So much more…, familiar.

I’m actually in a pretty positive town and all I hear from anyone over 50 is what new meds they’re on, how tired they are, how pissed off they are at the government, who just died, how they want a divorce, how they “don’t give a fuck anymore”, and on and on. Exceptions aside, I actually think they should be pissed off. I think they should have problems - given the contract they either signed willingly or were tricked into with promises that never came true. “It is by no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” - Jiddu. Their towns and cities look like graveyards. Seriously, the tombstones are even laid out like houses - the big beautiful slabs or buildings that let everyone know how important they are/were. “We’re gonna get there.” If you’re not yet, it’s cuz you’re doing something wrong. Or you didn’t bust ass hard enough or weren’t bright enough to join the club. Loser. :/

For decades I’ve held that existence, in all its flavors and tangents, is absolutely undivided and complete. The word “perfection” takes heat for being subjective. It is. So what are the substitutes—quintessential, total, irrevocable? I use “perfect” to mean: the whole knows exactly what it’s doing and isn’t learning by trial and error—the Source, the entirety of all things. As I’ve alluded to in other pieces, we can debate the intent and purpose of the One until kingdom come, but I have no reason to suspect It doesn’t know precisely what It’s doing. It either does, or it does not. I am convinced that it does - with it in mind that our lives seem to be anything but a representation of this.

Once again and always I make this claim: infinity doesn’t need to increase. It doesn’t need to grow. Why would it—grow into what? If we are parts of a whole that isn’t yet complete and is moving toward perfection—ever growing, ever evolving—then sure, that’s a different ball game. But then we must ask: Will it ever arrive? Will it ever become whatever it is that it’s trying to become? I mean, what’s the purpose in trying to become something if you don’t have an end goal? What’s that exactly? The heat death of the cosmos? The eternal big crunch ping ponging of exploding stars and failed evolutionary mutations? A cosmic consciousness that achieves a final state of awareness of all things? Then what? Sounds like a dangling carrot. An addiction, even. Is there a finish line, or is it growth for growth’s sake?

I can’t even wrap my head around a collective life force that is spraying its projections into a void with no understanding of what or why it is doing anything it does in pursuit of some prize that in its Godhood it is somehow lacking. And it would have to believe that its lacking in order to “progress”. Like us. That’s a race with no end where runners swear they’ll “get there” someday. You’d think that if the acquiring of higher states of consciousness to pass the baton off after the body stops were the goal, someone would have contacted us from the beyond to let us know what the game is.

Some can offer anecdotals of intact personas that were channeled in séance - but at best the encounters are vague, at worse they are card forcing by charlatans. You’d think that just once someone would stick their head out of the clouds and say, “HEY. It’s all cool. Just keep becoming more aware cuz you’ll need it up here. Oh, and put down the phallic death toys. Seeya.” Nope. Not a peep. But wishful thinking is comforting. If people will believe God is a thing outside of them looking down on them in judgment…., they’ll believe anything. Even that grandma is knitting clouds and smiling down at you for getting that promotion.

Sounds rather harsh to come to the conclusion that you don’t get to keep your identity - which is the only rational explanation for why there isn’t even an out of service message when you dial 1-800-not-here. Growth is at best needed to teach why sticking your head in lava isn’t helpful when wanting to smell a batch of fresh doughnuts. Seriously though, you don’t really think anyone needs to be told to not jump up and down in bare feet on broken glass. Most of it is already built in. The specifics that need retained knowledge have to do with advancements in a system pre-built for our dependency. Much like being taught trigonometry in school and not using it once the rest of your life - do you really think after you’re dead someone’s gonna ask you how you managed to overcome your addiction to nicotine?

Growth isn’t required for experience itself. And most of the knowledge acquired that pertains to this reality serves no purpose in the quantum, in the numinous. Slowed vibrationally, here - other than knowing how to fix a flat to get you to the store to buy a blueberry pie most knowledge just takes up space. It would be a hell of a lot more vital if this was where you were gonna park yourself for an eternity. You can experience for the sake of experience without a book. If I smell a rose, I feel elation; I don’t add it to a ledger that elevates me.

Some have argued that a child needs to grow physically, mentally, and emotionally into adult hood to experience things that children cannot in the current state. Such as what? Riding a motorcycle? For every one thing named that a child cannot experience that an adult can, I can name two things a child can experience that an adult can’t anymore because they’ve cut themselves off in the process of becoming something other than what they are. Ever just stare at your fingers and marvel that you have things growing out of your hands that can move when you make them?

Ok so, a child can’t experience what its like to love their own children yet. That takes adulthood. Yet, that same experience of oneness they know full well about - although it may not be the same flavor of love. I’m not suggesting that a child shouldn’t experience different flavors as the result of development - I’m suggesting that one is not more important than another. Children are far more connected to the magic of the numinous than adults who have built eclipses to varying degrees all in the name of growth. We sign off on taking that away. For what? The thrill of financial success? Raising children?

Those things aren’t even guarantees. Most people never achieve financial independence, and most marriages either end or are unstable and even unhealthy. Don’t think I’m of the opinion that children should stay children either. We weren’t meant to stay here. But the connection to the source wasn’t meant to be drowned out as loudly as it does, nor was it ever meant to be predetermined. We are herded into the grubber breeder shuffle right off the bat. Get the girls playing house, get the boys fighting for territory on the football field. Origin of Species was about cooperation, not competition so stop with all that “it’s what we are” shit. The Angst, the neglect, the malady happens precisely because of the homage to the God of impermanence - entrench into the simulation, the gnostic Demiurge, the hypnosis of the veil of illusions, the religion of acquisition, the delusion that you can fix the imperfection. Notice that no one suggests that a cat needs to mature.

Well, mine does but…, do I even need to say it? The cat is already a cat and knows it. It’s not trying to become something more than it is. Let me guess…, “but we’re more intelligent, we are held in higher regard in the eyes of our maker being stewards of the animals, we have souls and they don’t, we’re at the top of the food chain and have more responsibility and thus more complexities and drive towards development”. It would be one thing if most people “became” something better than they were as children. They don’t. They become fearful, prejudice, attention seeking, manipulators, and sick. Sure, they “became” something alright. In many cases the exact opposite of what they really are. Think of what you would be if you didn’t try to be anything. If you trusted the energy in all things and simply let it take you wherever the wind blew you.

That, to me, is the nature of infinity—not to become, but to experience what it already is. This jars humans who are sprinting. Acquisition sits at the center—often not of things, but of identities: becoming a person, becoming mature, becoming conscious. Becoming something that was already something. Already something already complete. The processes here mostly attempt to eclipse something that never needed any work. Instead of helping facilitate experience, the mind began to have a mind of its own. It’s preservation became paramount. Instead of emulating, it began simulating. And even that is no mistake. It will experience what it is not. It’s just that…, it doesn’t need to bang its head against a wall 117 billion times. 116 billion was enough. Till then, Godspeed. Hope ya get there. Bring me back a doughnut.

The Diploma Myth of Betterment

Many seem to think that through effort, spiritual discipline, and climbing ladders of success or awareness, death will hand them a diploma from Perfection University. That mindset presupposes imperfection. Why else would you need to get “better,” more conscious, more mature? So despite reactions to my rantings, I’m not the negative one. I don’t believe anything is broken that needs fixing. You do. My view: we are already “perfect,” for lack of a better word—endless manifestations of a Source whose only drive is to experience itself, not to grow. I love the saying, “he’s in his own way.” His way…, was there before he got in the way of it.

Part of that eternal stream is - experiencing what It is not. That’s what I did most of my life—trying to get somewhere, to become something, to “improve.” Shuffling through various decks of player characters to try on outfits when what I really wanted all along was to be completely naked. Coincidentally(?) it’s how I arrived here. That entire project was exactly what I am not. Now that I’ve stopped, what remains is the experience of what I am—without being dragged into a world constantly performing what it is not. I wish I could say it more poetically, but this is where I am.

So yes, I focus on the “what we are not” as essential as the real. I don’t hate the dark. It’s the way for the light to illuminate in. But if you take on qualities of the land of “what we are not” or even believe its what you are - count on all manner of malady to set in. Count on a life long endeavor of reaching. Count on…., weight, heaviness. Trying to become lords of this realm, masters of the dark. This would be just peachy if its what you are. You’re not. But you are welcome to gallop along from A to B collecting souvenirs and clutching the ground during your slide back home to slow the impact of your exit.

We won’t agree if your premise is “we’re headed toward betterment” either. There’s no such thing as bettering that which already is…, everything (of which you are joined at the hip despite your amnesia). The refusal to acknowledge the purity of the One—disguised as higher states, maturation, and the treadmill of goal-setting—is precisely why most don’t know why they are here or what they are. We were told we were missing something from day one. Salvation, security, selfhood. Basically playing God by believing we need to improve upon perfection. And with this endeavor comes imperfection - we give it life and wonder what the cure is. Why do bad things happen? Seems rather simple. They happen because most are living out entire lives thinking they and everything needs fixed or improved. They need improved because they are lacking. You want to live in and nurture that perception - don’t expect bliss.

Progress, Evolution, and the Longevity Fix

If evolution equals betterment, explain why it’s “superior” to invent weapons that kill millions in seconds and systems that starve tens of millions—over monkeys picking lice off each other in trees. I’m not seeing “progress.” The common reply: “We live longer now.” To do what—sit at home missing a departed spouse? Spend the last decade in discomfort, waiting to die? The obsession with longevity looks like kicking the can down the road—anesthesia for our fear of death. Live longer for that extra 10-20 years so we have more time to fret over our mortality and incompleteness.

This isn’t cynicism—that’s your territory. You’re the one insisting we need to get better because we’re not yet what we should be. We must “become more conscious,” right? Conscious of what—the very thing we already are? I’m convinced we already are exactly what we’re supposed to be. What I’ve watched all my life is a parade of humans trying to prove they already are what they already are. It’s madness. They never fully convince themselves. They settle into a pocket—an eye in the tornado—and defend a persona that’s neither stable nor eternal. Then comes the notion that after the body stops, they get to keep their “Self,” a patchwork assembled from defenses and barbed wire, always changing—and many times not for their own always morphing concept of “the better”.

When the fixing stops and the advancement stops, experience remains. Apologists have become so nimble they claim growth puts you in a better position to experience, to experience more richly. Really? How many years of “development” does it take to feel a sunrise? Tell me how much richer your enlightened experience is than a child rubbing noses with a kitten, grinning ear to ear. If anything, the developments have a tendency to block that innate ability to vibrate with the One. Most people are working themselves to death for necessities, though scarcity is largely manufactured.

They’ve actually been convinced that doing something they don’t want to do is essential to being what they really want to be…, eventually, maybe, one day. A Forbes poll I saw a year ago showed 7 out of 10 disliked their job, and 1 out of 10 said they loved it. And when and if they eventually “get there” to reap the rewards of their toils, they end up mostly incapacitated by their aging and slowing minds. How’s that growth-cult working out? More gas, more work, more rent, more angst of bills, more power hungry playing chess with the world, more being forced to tap dance on Maslow’s lower level while the privileged float in the sweat of the slaves. All this “progress” makes me all warm and toasty inside.

Illusions, Utopias, and Identity

What utopia, exactly, are we chasing? What ideal being are we supposed to become? Who sets the bar—Christ, who said he brought a sword? Buddha, who said life is suffering? Those who see through the veil talk a lot about the veil and the need for its…, exorcism. Why is that? Kind of hard to come back home when you don’t think you’re away. Need to acknowledge the virtual reality isn’t real or else you’d have no reason to put down the headset. Why become conscious of an illusion? Only if you believe it’s real—and then you’ll defend it to your last breath because your identity depends on it.

It’s a perfect case study in experiencing what we are not. But eventually, there’s no reason to take any of it seriously enough to keep experiencing what we are not. Unless you think its what you are - then you’ll dig in like a tick. But if and when the curtain drops, if and when the pretense out grows its welcome and relevance fades, what’s left has no adequate name. You know it when the show stops like an old friend that you had completely forgotten about who shows up as if he never left. It was there before we believed we had to become something; it will be there after we’re done trying to convince ourselves. It doesn’t matter whether it happens while here or not. No position is superior. But you don’t have to wait for death.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is laid out before men, but men do not see it.” - Christ

They’re too invested—roses trying to become roses, building sandcastles right before the tide. The problem isn’t the art that gets made, the castle that gets created…, the problem is in thinking the creation is more important than the creativity. They think the creations are what they are. You’re not a creation - that implies a before and after. Those are ideas that creations create to give them a sense of permanency. What you really are is the unending, undying stream of potential - inseparable and same with limitless power underlying everything - even the illusions, even the “creations”. Here though, we have this normalized glitch that when we paint a painting, that the painting has a life of its own. It is its own being. It is disconnected in part. No, the painting will fade. It will be burned or stolen or owned or sit there in an empty room.

This is what we do. We think we are disconnected in part. We think we have a life of our own. Most of us don’t even know the painter. We think we are the painting. Some of us suspect we are in fact the whole, but for most - they live entire lies/lives thinking they are different than everything else. Until the tide comes back in. Until the churn. And how sad everyone is when it happens oblivious that up is down and down is up in this house of mirrors. And when the painting fades away and the body and identity stops - it is the greatest day they’ll ever know. Back into the ocean, back into the soup - which they never really left.

Masters, Dreams, and Other Clues

Where are the masters who reached the 13th level of Gurulalamanamanawoowoo? Dissolved back into the essence soup they came from—without their exalted enlightenment. It’s not needed. It never was. Infinity doesn’t need. It doesn’t thirst. It doesn’t even hunger for experience; it is experience—experiencing. Pull up the chair of Self at the table if you like, but in a blink the dream fades and you’re gone, against your own will. No more you. Just like while and when you were pretending you were. What is left after consciousness is the warm wind where everything is possible simultaneously. Super position. Nothing is No Thing in particular. Which is exactly why it is everything - simultaneously. The vibe only slows briefly for the sake of experience. It’s when entrenchment begins that disease is birthed. Like the Self. You aren’t taking anything with you sunshine. Infinity experienced an aspect of itself through your eyes. Next.

Clues about the whole game arrive nightly. Dreams say, “Once a day I’ll show you how flimsy control is.” In dreams the “Self” scatters into fragments to prove you must check out of your precious perceptions at least once a day. Last night I was licking honey from alien flora with limbs. The whole dreamscape scrubbed any recollection of a coworker who angered me the day before—no matter how I tried, I couldn’t remember the argument while the flora offered nectar.

Memories are useful here: don’t grab the burner a second time. But once that alley is blocked, the actual childhood memory goes dim. I can’t tell you where or when; I only know it happened because my mother said it did. Lately, in waking life, I stop often and marvel at colors, sounds, faces, vibrations—like I do in sleep. Call it detachment; the petty deity of the habit-rail calls it a diagnosis, treatable with pills.

Simulations, Death, and the Big Book

It’s people watching simulations inside the simulation unaware that they are simulations themselves—wealth, porn, and superhero saves—so they can sniff what life could be if not for drudgery. But few are inspired to rebel deeply. The majority scoff at them or institutionalize the unwilling as Doodles. The Noids just cling to driftwood; learning to breathe underwater is “fantasy” to them.

“All I can guarantee you is that as long as you are searching for happiness, you will remain unhappy.” - U.G. Krishnamurti

People fear ending their contract with the waking dream—death—because the “Self” comes into question. But everyone is infinitely more than that finite construction that much like a photon in the double slit experiment, isn’t even there unless you look at it. And even then it only seems like it. The very thing blocking the infinite is the very thing they’re petrified to lose.

“We must be rid of self.” —Alcoholics Anonymous

The addict’s collapse looks like a special case, but most people have their own altar. When the self gets out of the way, the Rush rushes in, and you wonder why you took anything—especially yourself—so seriously. But you can’t evict the self with the self. It grows like a virus; removing it after years of calcification is scary work. That is until you realize it’s only through the admission that you can’t remove it but are willing to have it removed - that it can be. But it won’t be you that does it. It won’t be years and decades of prayer or meditation. Trying to achieve “oneness” is like trying to catch your left hand with your left hand. But oh how busy the savior/guru marketplace is.

Control Theater and Recovery’s Silver Lining

What’s comical is that we were never in control.

“Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.”

The only way to appreciate Home is to “leave” it—except we never do. We just believe we have. We roam anywhere we want—or believe we do—until we’re done pretending.

To those in recovery who are shattered and near death: you’re more blessed than you know. You require absolution—absolute surrender. There’s no “a little bit pregnant.” When you let go completely, every wall has to fall. All of them. Then grace—pure Source energy—pours through unfiltered. For others seeking a little spirituality, surrender in a few zones brings joy, but the stream isn’t as intense. It doesn’t need to be. I find this…, unfortunate. But considering how rare the soul is that lets the storm tear down everything, maybe the builders and breeders drank to heavily from the pool of forgetfulness to even consider such a thing.

Death Here, Not Just Later

Whatever the circumstance, death burns away baggage and pretense. But it can happen here. It doesn’t ultimately matter, because it will happen anyway. I just didn’t want to wait. I’m not wise, not particularly smart, not hoarding secret knowledge—just curious. Maybe too curious. Curiosity only killed the cat’s delusion of separateness. You scratch the surface to see what’s underneath. At first you hope for a winning ticket. Losing turns out to be the best outcome. Winning gives you hope that you could win again. Losing may make you want to keep trying harder but…, eventually the money runs out.

That sweet sick feeling of knowing you’re screwed. Bitter sweet. But the game was always rigged. We don’t seek and find; we seek until we put the microscope down. We don’t stop digging until the shovel breaks. Then you realize what you were digging for - you couldn’t find in the dirt because it was in your very core the whole time. Someone or something very convincingly sold you a shovel. Many disagree because they haven’t reached the last Russian doll yet.

People spend lifetimes believing they’re getting somewhere when the thing they’re seeking is the thing they’re seeing with - unbeknownst to them. The mind that is the problem can’t solve the problem. But its not what the mind thinks the mind is that runs the train. And its certainly not the tracks. It’s the electricity, not the toaster. The toaster gets replaced; the current remains. As for piercing the veil—it isn’t something you do. It happens when you stop doing. That defies most disciplines (which offer some wisdom, yes), but mostly they teach more trying.

“There is no try.” —Yoda

If you refuse to try anything or to do anything - you’ll breathe no matter what. You’ll go looking for experience when the will is not involved, when the head is not involved. It’s what we are. We don’t need it, we are it. We no more desire experience than a river desires to flow. It just does. It’s what it is. It’s not what this civilization is though. This Zoo. This abomination that tells you what you are - as if anyone ever needs to be told. It injects you with the idea of wants and needs and then measures them out for you based on your compliance to it. The only thing we must have…, is a connection to the Source. Which we have. But the Architect of this reality along with its myriad of acolytes needs you to believe that that connection is severed and it can fix it for you. It convinces you that you need its guidance. Its tracks are chains. It is a monolith of solidification. Matter that long forgot it was energy and now is nothing more than simulacra given relevance by…, Lifers.

Vulnerability, Atheism, and the Numinous

Losing, admitting defeat to a game we refuse to play anymore is paradoxical. Defeat is victory, victory is defeat. Life is death, death is life. In that vulnerability we stay open to a force that floods in when defenses drop. Declaring, “There’s no way to know, so there’s no reason to think there’s anything beyond material reality,” can clear out dogma, sure—but often it isn’t followed by the willingness to let Source connect where defenses once blocked. There’s a more elegant way to say it, I’m sure, but this is the free version. I’m glad the Four Horsemen still spoke respectfully of what Hitchens called the numinous. Even they didn’t dismiss it.

I don’t have answers. The secret is that there is no secret. Put down the hammer; the scaffolding is blocking the sunrise. No one can tell anyone else what lies beyond their constructs. But we can say it’s already there. It was there in the womb’s pink, wet love. Before the do’s and don’ts marched in. Before they told you to be something. Before the building.

Dogs, Empires, and the Demiurge

“Notice how dogs don’t build civilizations,” a gnostic teacher once said. “They know the pack, the alpha up front, the guardian in back—but no empires, no classism, no taxes, no pill ads, no isms. They’re wired for survival—already connected to essence.”

Pups fend for themselves early; humans need 18 years. So we built constructs. We built systems. We tuned ourselves to the Demiurge’s frequency—commutes to make components for cluster munitions disguised like toys, so the 15% that don’t detonate can maim children years later.

I’ve watched adulthood cosplay all my life. Many are children in grown costumes. The breast becomes status, “higher” states (often ego dressed as superego), security, tricks to impress. At least infants were loved—mostly—by the bearer of milk. Now toddlers in designer suits seek validation via shiny objects instead of stuffed animals. Beneath the polish they still want the unconditional acceptance of infancy and settle for the conditional approval of peers.

Wounds, Substitutes, and Dissolving the Quilt

My life keeps teaching me through pain. Teaching me how futile teaching is. The worst thing happened early—my mother left when I was just aware enough to remember. I asked her for God’s phone number at the agency so I could beg to stay. She pried my fingers from her hand and walked away. I sought my mother in drugs because the substitutes others used didn’t touch that wound. Not chasing those other substitutes meant I wasn’t attached to them like many are. A blessing in disguise. Sometimes a little poison inoculates against the toxic antidotes society peddles. Although I never feened for status, drugs were a mother fucker. All that I have ever “learned” is that I was never in control of anything. But then, I always knew that. I just forgot.

I argue for dissolving the Self—it’s a patchwork quilt stitched from insecurity and longing. Beauty isn’t in mending the quilt; it’s in laying it down. I don’t even believe that only the Jungian lower self should be dropped so that the higher Self can come through. I see no reason for self in any form. A child can experience the magic of the Source before the identity has even formed. One could argue that a persona is necessary in this world - but even if this were the case it overstays its welcome in most. It becomes the all. It is not.

The system fosters its continuity, its longevity. What a perfect trap…, to claim to need something to survive something that that something made to begin with. “If I don’t work half my waking day, I won’t be able to buy fuel from my vehicle that gets me to work to buy fuel for my vehicle that…” It’s like the parasite that attaches itself to a host’s brain and convinces the host that it would die without it while it slowly sucks its blood.

This talk provokes defenses, and I get it—especially if life feels rewarding, character defects aren’t howling, and family, work, and play are in relative harmony. The common challenge is “What else is there to do?” Or: “If you ignore the world for some afterlife or abstraction, you cause the world’s problems.” The apologetics are legion, the gymnastics are boss mode. “I like who I am, and I’ve grown into a better person despite all the hardships so don’t tell me that my identity is in the way of anything.” Doesn’t matter what you’ve become, you’ll never outdo the feeling you had while basking in the glow of your mothers love being held in her arms - before your “ascension” into selfhood. Tell me who you are when time stops in mid orgasm. You think that’s just some pause, some treat, some temporary state before going back to the separations?

Teleology, Enlightenment, and Other Carrots

And the only reason why falling in love or giving birth was so divine in your adulthood is because it reminded you of wholeness, it reminded you that you are not separate from the Source. It had nothing to do with your identity, So let me check the story: we arrive with no memory of where we were, with a purpose hidden from most, and leave a few decades later for a place no one agrees on—or even agrees exists. But in the interim we’re suppose to chase little green pieces of paper, play by the rules, and make more people who also don’t know what the fuck’s going on? Sounds airtight. ;)

We come into this reality with no persona, we exit without a persona - but in the interim we’re suppose to develop one that’s comfortable and helps us get what we want out of life. All for the purpose of creating something we don’t keep. And the few among us that drop it while alive describe the result as beyond extraordinary. But we need to build a masterpiece of a self here to navigate towards complete comfortability in a reality that ends when the hourglass runs out of sand? And the comfortability rarely happens. The number of pathologies in this reality that set in rivals the number of grains of sand.

Or this one: “We’re here to become conscious, to become enlightened.” And then what—deliver our enlightenment to some queen bee to enlarge the hive? What of the majority who never flip the right switch—are they reprocessed and respawned, ignorant of past “failures”? Conscious of what, exactly—God, the self, consciousness itself? We’re becoming conscious so that we can become Gods ourselves don’t ya know? lol. And then we can make more baby god’s and we’ll just keep getting bigger and better and better and bigger. We’ll become so conscious that we won’t be able to comprehend just how conscious we are. :)

What does enlightenment look like…., Zoroaster, Shankar, Sadhguru? None of these individuals who let go of self, who let go of this “reality” were too keen on staying here and “developing”. They didn’t have too many nice things to say about it. And the one’s whose doctrine centered around improvement and acquisition of higher states, made millions pandering their wares here (to followers who needed to forever feel better about themselves). But hey, maybe you’ll grab that carrot someday? Are you stacking sessions? Get a high enough pile to stand on to separate yourself from the floor huh? It’s on fire ya know. lol. “Transcend” means to rise above a limit— too bad the bubbles pop and the decent keeps happening. Drink some more jesus juice ya drunk. :)

If it brings peace, fine. No harm in applying a little ointment to a burn. But the whole thing reminds me of a quote about arms. “Once weapons were manufactured to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured to sell weapons.” - Arundhati Roy. Everyone’s gotta have the sickness, cuz everyone seems to need the cure. Why not invite the itch, cuz the scratch feels so good. In my town, TM devotees talk like they’re mid-transcendence toward secret knowledge—far beyond quieting the mind for a bit of relief. Some even believe levitation is coming—after bouncing on mattresses in golden domes. Oh…, its for real. Boingy boingy boingy…, Ohmmmm. They’re gonna “get there” one day don’t ya know. How empty a person must feel they are to buy into the promise of being more than human, to be “higher”, to be granted sacred knowledge. To be “invincible” - like the tower of invincibility that is built between the two golden domes. From an aerial view it all looks like an erect penis between two breasts.

Run…, rabbit run. Dig that hole, forget the sun. Extreme habit rail? Maybe. There are worst things in the world than ohmming yourself to Palookaville. Live however you want to live. But…, try to project your itch on me that I’m in need of some discipline that requires a light switch installed into my psyche and I’m going to treat you like the child you forgot that you were. The only thing you’ll ever be more conscious of - is how pretty the colors are in your own dome, how fantastic the peacock feathers are growing out of your ass. You’re not special, you’re not higher, you’re imagining yourself as more than you are because you feel deficient.

All I’ve seen from TM’ers here is arrogance and an unquenchable need to throw “Maharishi” into every conversation. Reminds me of a Doug Stanhope bit about having to throw your astrological sign into every conversation, or your ethnicity. “Sorry, that’s just my Virgo coming out. We have a natural tendency to…” Bleh. “Well I hear you but Maharishi said that…” Just sounds like Charlie Brown’s school teacher afterwhile. “Waaa Waaa, Wa Waaaaa”. Anyone who teaches a way to become better is trying to convince you that you aren’t good enough. Might as well be selling the idea that you’re a sinner in need of redemption. It’s the same thing.

At least religion offers a one-time fix instead of some process that takes years or a life time: “I accept Jesus,” and—presto—cupcakes forever, no matter what follows. For those who can’t silence the obvious questions, there’s the eternal-burning clause as backup incentive. A perfect God makes imperfect beings with free will, then punishes them for using it. Sure. Don’t eat from the tree of knowledge I planted right in front of you or billions will scream in childbirth. I don’t blame Jehovah; Jehovah doesn’t exist. I blame the early church editors who piped fear into the stream. Imagine living your life believing that if you suppress the thought of fucking the redhead next door, you’ll dodge your Maker’s wrath. Or…, we’ll all achieve collective cosmic consciousness and be blinked out of existence by a gamma ray burst. I’m not avoiding, dismissing, or demonizing this reality. It’s just not what I am underneath the residual self image. And I damn sure ain’t a child of this motherfucker:

The Sales Pitch of Chaos

Is existence so horrific and chaotic that we never question these absurd ideas? I don’t think existence is horrific; the sales pitch is. Chaos is the billboard strung across the highway so we keep buying maps at the same booth. Fear is a loyalty program. Call the cosmos a burning building and people will thank you for any door you paint on a wall. The door isn’t real; panic is profitable.

Belonging is the sweetest drug, and most doctrines are membership cards dressed as revelation. You keep the card because it earns nods in the right rooms and saves you from staring too long out a window. I don’t blame anyone for clinging; blankets were issued in a storm. We just mistake the comfort for the climate. We can fold the blanket, set it down, and check the weather for ourselves.

“Subtraction is the only honest growth I trust.” - unknown

Not “add a rung,” but “why is the ladder welded to my hands?” The sunrise doesn’t grade posture; it shines anyway. A jam-faced kid doesn’t need a mantra to laugh at a dog. Experience doesn’t improve with medals; it brightens when you stop auditioning for judges who never show.

Shadows, Theaters, and Small How-Tos

You can’t amputate a shadow with a shadow. But you can stop standing under the same lamp. When I quit feeding the actor, the show kept playing for a while—muscle memory, syndication, reruns. Then the audience went home. Not because I argued them out of their seats, but because the music stopped when I stopped conducting.

If you need a how-to (we’re industrious apes), here’s the least heroic: skip one reflex a day. Don’t correct the stranger online. Don’t rehearse the comeback. Let the thought rise, fizz, and die of natural causes. That’s not a discipline; that’s ending the fantasy that the tide needs your permission.

Tell the Truth Earlier

“Raise the bottom” simply means tell the truth earlier. Name the wall by its function, not its paint: “This keeps me safe by keeping me small.” Rooms change shape when that sentence enters. Grace doesn’t wait for diplomas; it rushes any opening, like air into a vacuum. You don’t chase it—you stop caulking the cracks.

Death gets all the press for dissolving pretense, but Tuesday afternoon is fully qualified. God laughs at plans because Home never left; maps are the joke. We “wander” like a dream character pacing a city that evaporates when the dreamer stirs. The punchline is kindness: the city was convincing, the footsteps loud, and still you were never in danger.

There’s dignity in being ordinary again. Wash a cup without writing an essay about mindfulness; it still gets clean. Let the sacred be small enough to fit on a dish rack.

Refusal as an Art Form

Refusal can be an art, not a tantrum. Refuse the algorithm trance for one evening. Refuse the headline diet for forty-eight hours. Refuse to convert reality into content. Belong without beliefs if needed—show up for your neighbor without submitting your metaphysics. Hands beat brands every day.

So I circle back: nothing needs to become a rose to be a rose. Drop the tape; stop measuring petals. The sword was for cutting the net; you don’t sleep with it. Let the sandcastle end the way beautiful sand ends. Home didn’t move. When trying ends, what remains was here first—nameless, laughing, already enough. The system does not want you to become anything other than what it concludes it needs you to be. You didn’t come here with a persona, you won’t leave here with one. Make all the arguments for differentiating yourself from everything else. Maybe you need to for a while to survive. But you don’t need to to experience. However inflated, however grand, however famous, however conscious you may be of yourself here in material reality…, you are infinitely more already. The rose reaches to experience the light. It doesn’t reach to become more than it already is.