Here's To The Mystery!

I was honestly thinking about awakening tonight. Yeah, I do it sometimes. I was thinking if I was to talk about it to anyone ever again outside my own small circle of defector buddies, what would I say? Maybe I would say something like this.

So there you are, you’ve heard of awakening. Have you ever wondered how you’ve heard of it because by now you’ve heard of all types of things and shit, so why this? Why after hearing about this one thing called “awakening” did it peak your interest? Maybe you’re out there now devouring videos by Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, or if you’re lucky, you’re reading yourself some Jed McKenna. Those of you in the last pick are maybe the lucky ones, but I guess it depends on what you think “lucky” even is. Everyone else, I doubt you’ll do it, but who knows, maybe you just start where you start and it either starts to consume you or it doesn’t. I shouldn’t really be judging. The point is only why this? Why not parachuting or mountain climbing, or just jumping up and down on a mini trampoline, I’ve heard a lot of people have really taken to that lately? I’m not really asking what you hope to get out of this endeavor at least not yet, I’m just asking if you’ve ever considered asking yourself, why this? Why awakening? Because it might just as easily have been long distance running, marathon dieting for maximum health benefits, or just mindfulness for stress relief. But it wasn’t, it was this, awakening, a little odd don’t you think? Is there even anyone around you right now who you could actually discuss it with, like maybe a close family member, any one near you at all who’d be interested in engaging the subject with you right now? The answer is probably no, right? No one you know is interested in this. They just say, “awakening, what’s that?” and probably look at you like you’ve gone a little crazy. Why do they do that? What are you introducing to them that is so threatening? Often they just make a joke about it, they want to make fun of you for maybe being so serious, shit man, can we just go out and drink a beer, let’s just let life be that simple maybe, we can get a buzz on, that’d be fun, forget about all this mind stuff, is going to help you? Yeah, I mean that the attitude. Everything and everyone you come across is basically dissuading you from it. Are they not? Maybe they even say, okay, yes maybe there’s something to think about here, but for what good, right now let’s just go and live a little while we still can, let’s eat, or let’s drink, or whatever the normal thing to do is there.

So yeah, it’s just curious right? I think you think it will help you in some way. Everyone thinks this in the beginning, you almost have to be because basically the gist of it is, your life sucks in some way and you sense there’s a better way, fuck, those guru guys always look so happy and serene, how about you get yourself a little bit of that? I’m sure you’re totally exhausted by now from all the shit your life has put you through, and that’s just the outside, the external parts of it, the worst parts are the dirty mud tunnels your own mind has dragged you through day after day, night after sleepless night, fuck, why is life so fucking hard and so fucking fucked the fuck up? If you’re drawn to awakening, that right there is your real question. Life no doubt has continued to slap the shit out of you no matter which directions you chose, it always winds up the same, back into the shit soup for another fucking day, another fucking year. Your hope is probably running pretty thin by now but good on you if you have some energy left, because if you’re really coming this way, you will need it. You will need every single bit of resolve and just sheer fucking grit to not fold in and up, maybe admitting defeat in some way, but probably not, you’ll find a layer of awakening that someone else has pointed to or described and maybe think, “Oh okay this is it. I did it. This is beautiful. I guess that’s all it was, wonderful. Just live now, there’s nothing to worry so much about.” And they’d be right, this whole worry thing is completely useless but it doesn’t really go away if you just ignore it. If if you succeed for a while, the shit will back again either tomorrow or the next day. So no, that is not the journey, sorry, yeah, I don’t really want to say this, because I wish it was a lot easier than it actually is, you know maybe if it was we’d have a real chance of reaching some kind of bizarre tipping point that flips all our human stories thus far and just reality itself upside down and basically topsy turvy. I think I’d kind of like that, but I’m not really invested in it either. I feel okay now which is all that matters to me. That’s really all that matters to you too right now, even if you don’t know it, maybe you think this will help you be someone, a good helper of humanity, God’s servant, you crave a little status, because why be a fucking nobody? I’ll tell you why, in the end you’ll be so happy to be nothing and no one special, it will be like the weight you carried around your whole life has rolled the fuck off your shoulders into the abyss. And you’d be damned to ever pick it up again.

I want to try and describe something in maybe a unique way but we’ll see. Imagine that you were dead, let’s say you died like ten years ago, pick a death it doesn’t matter but you’re actually gone. Okay, now step back into your life as this dead person, there you are walking around except that you know you’re already dead, nothing else is happening, you’re pretty much just a ghost from now on doing whatever ghosts do, which is just anything. Nothing you do matters, you don’t get to change anything, because you’re literally just a ghost. Maybe you’re sometimes talking to other ghosts though, ghosts that don’t know they already died, so they think they’re living. For these other ghosts, life is real, they have a body, that body is real, actually it’s very important, they are constantly monitoring it for distress, and their environments for danger but in reality, they’re still just ghosts. That’d be pretty fucking weird right? Let’s say all events have already happened, like thousands of years of events, every tiny single event, already happened, they all happened yesterday but they’re just getting to you, there’s a time warp so you know it’s all just a little behind but there’s no changing any of it, it’s not a let me step in and redirect it sort of thing, mainly because there’s no need for that, the one true mover isn’t just good at it’s job, no one can do it better, not you, not anyone, that’s not a possibility, better doesn’t actually exist, so it’s just this or nothing. Your only choices with what’s happening is to reject it, fight it, or stuff it and suffer or flow along with it. That’s it, there’s no in between, no running interference, nothing like that but whatever comes up in your mind, whatever idea you have, places you want to go, things you want to see are options now, you can go anywhere basically, just as a ghost. Basically from now on, whatever realities the other ghosts think they are in, you know aren’t actually there, none of this is working the way the ghosts who think they are real think it is but their imagination makes them see and feel it in whatever way they learned to do that and because there’s so many of these entities all around you all the time, you are going to see some of whatever they do too. You had that too before you died and became a ghost, so you know the trap, but you’re not in it anymore. You can’t go back to being a person in a real world because you can’t convince yourself that it’s real or really there ever again, neither can you be real in that way ever again either. What’s more is this: say you’re looking at something, and you think yeah that’s kind of ugly, you’re not going to float over to it or worse follow it, are you? No, because you know it’s not real and if you turn your head you can just point your attention in another direction towards something that your heart likes better. Our hearts are pretty clear on the matter that they like the loving things best, at least mine does, it never liked anything else but you’re not here to change anything so what is there to do? Nothing right, just what comes up in your head, which might be something like this writing. There’s still life in you, because you are life, and life pushes stuff out, it pushes stuff along. That’s you now, you’re like a function without a head or a body. You might not know what the movement of life, which is a force unto itself will do with you once you’re a ghost, because who knows? This same force is directing all the other ghosts as well but because they think they are real, they basically have to fight or constantly reject everything, which is all they can do and yet they are your ghosts. You are seeing them through something, but this something gets thinner with time. There’s a push, and life moves them, and then this movement gets filtered through the realness and creates all sorts of dramas. To you it’s tragic and comical, because they’re all acting but just don’t know it. One thing you never know is how these things will react and be triggered, shit can fly south for them with a single word of your own tongue that you didn’t give any thought to expressing out loud. That’s really a good reason to always be mindful of your distance and your expressions. You can’t do anything about them not knowing any of this, only they can do something about that, which is what you did about your own situation, but if you made it anywhere on this journey you know that you got there all by yourself. Basically, the realness of this you that you thought you were dies. It literally gets sliced off and out one layer at a time, and there are many layers, no one knows how many, just all kinds of layers, and reality looks a little different and feels a little different according to how many either fall off, get scraped off, burned off, surgically fucking removed, or however they fucking come off until you’re just left with this ghostly thing which still contains layers, because without them, nothing is going to be there, and obviously you need it to be something. Who wants to sit with a load of nothingness? What can you do with that? I would say I’m more of a friendly type of ghost, more like Casper who is a little mischievous but lovable at the same time. Yeah, and that’s basically awakening, you become ethereal in a sort of strange way but it’s not a higher or lower kind of thing. There’s nothing too high or too low about being a ghost since what’s in a ghost to elevate or lower it? Not much right, kind of hollow in there, basically see through, you got the awareness feature, you can witness yourself as a ghost or witness whatever you see, but now it’s only a dream. The more you relax, the easier it is, that’s rule number one, to get the tension you were always feeling to dissolve. Before you were afraid, mainly because you knew you had to die and that’s terrifying, but here, you’ve not only come to terms with this, you’ve gone ahead and done it already. How’s that for changing it up? That’s like switching up the tables on the whole thing.

Ghosts are dreamers, that’s all. You can still think, because you’re thinking you’re a ghost, which you basically are, but thinking is still going on, because why not, before you were thinking you were real which sucked but now that you think you’re not, it’s much better. It’s nice to think I’d say, so much to think about. The real trick to being a ghost is mainly thinking, that and feeling or sensing, thinking and feeling are basically intertwined and how you get around in a dream but that’s all. Basically you use them to detect the flow that you want to be in now because life is ever flowing and when it’s not, that’s suffering again. It’s okay to suffer though, the goal in life if there is one isn’t to not suffer at all, because how would you ever have an adventure if you weren’t being challenged by at least one thing? Maybe there is no goal, I don’t really know, this word “goal” seems like a silly human concept to me at the moment, the word “challenge” on the other hand feels more beneficial as if it means something has arrived to move you or to force your hand in one direction or the other, maybe you’re backed up into a corner where demons of all kinds are drawing their daggers and trying to poke at you. You can cower or even try to pretend they aren’t there, maybe convince yourself this is perfectly normal so as not to even be alarmed or you can maybe investigate your options, do you draw your own sword and poke back, or do you find a secret passage way in the rocks behind you and escape through a long dark tunnel? You know what’s waiting for you at one end, all the demons, but you don’t know what you’ll encounter in the tunnel or where it leads, if there’s an exit or not, or whether you’ll encounter a little sign along the way like a road map that says, “Beach Access: turn right here.” So you turn and you don’t see anything, maybe they left out the part that says “Ten miles, keep going, stay on path and do not eat the mushrooms.” Then maybe you think, wow, that’s pretty odd about the mushrooms, I mean don’t most people know that it’s good to know what kind you can actually eat? Maybe it’s a trick then, maybe they’re really magic mushrooms and the reason they don’t want you eating them is because if you do, your mind brings you to a secret passage where a gold treasure lies. Well, you get the idea, probably we never know which way we are really headed and to what, whether we survive the journey or parish because we’re tempted to taste some mushrooms and they were poisonous. I am not by the way suggesting you eat mushrooms. I’ve heard some others talking about that but I can tell you straight up I’m probably never trying them. I have other ways I think, no need to trip my way out of anything, shit things are trippy enough if you ask me without adding to it.

Have you ever seen an in-depth video game? Well, I have because my son has shown me some. Basically the characters go around collecting shit that can be used later on for something, there’s many dangers along the way, so they are constantly engaged in some battle and then they get to the boss. At this point, they (the fictional characters which are a type of avatar) engage in a life or death struggle with a powerful monster but the goal of the game isn’t to run away, you have only one option, slay the fucking monster or don’t progress. A character in a video game might die a thousand deaths before he succeeds in slaying the monster but it never really cowers in fear, if it did, it wouldn’t be able to fight and no one would play the game. Most people would just think that’s stupid. Instead the player learns certain techniques that cause the monster damage and tries to become more proficient in them so he can defeat the boss monster, and win the game. There’s no winning the game without slaying these monsters, you can’t out think them with words or ideas, you can’t shame the monsters into submission, no you basically have to fight the thing, that’s it, that’s the only option there is but it doesn’t end there, because there’s always another boss a little later on in the game and when there’s no more bosses to battle, you’ve slayed them all, the game is over and you go out and buy a new one so you can challenge yourself again. Maybe life is more like this. You don’t really want to run out of these boss types because then what can you do, the game is over, and you have to try some other one or just sit there bored out of your mind. Boredom is also a type of monster, I’m sure it has probably led to more conflicts around here than anything else so just put that on your list of demons to be slayed.

I was thinking lately because as you know, I like to do it, but what if this human character that we play isn’t really wired for all this peace and fucking acceptance that all awakening circles promote so well? What if that’s actually what stifles us and causes even more problems? Could this actually just be a flow ending activity in itself? If you listen to them talk, you’ll soon find out that most spiritual teachers are constantly focused on the activity of non reaction, as if this was something you were going to actively cultivate and then put into action when something disturbing interrupts your life in some way. What if that disturbing thing isn’t something to react more peacefully with, but a flare going up that there’s a battle ahead and maybe get your sword out? It seems to me that if something was really conquered, some idea or some malady, some pattern you are constantly living out or coming up against, it would be gone. It would not be something that keeps coming up to test your peace keeping powers, or to see if you can react better to it this time around. It simply would not be there anymore, you’d have slayed the fucking thing.

I attended this old online awakening circle I used to belong to but dropped out of. This one was about aging in spirituality so it was all people my age or older, I think they were mostly older, either that or I feel much younger than I actually am. Strangely enough, a lot of them are having age related problems, one has cancer that’s supposedly in remission (where have I heard this before?), another suffered a stroke, the other had something I’d never heard of but she wasn’t looking all that fit anyway so that made sense. I think I was the only one who was actually still working. I could have felt bad about that, because just look at all the leisure time these guys were having, a couple of them talked about going abroad in a wheel chair and how the cobblestone roads were a bit of an issue. WTF, is that any way to wind up? The girl that runs the group is very educated and I know her from before, we were friends so I like her. She was the one that got cancer and she actively implored me during the meeting to go get a CT scan or something explaining that if I did have something wrong if they catch it early enough, my chances of survival are so much better. I gracefully declined that suggestion and said I would never because I know how hard it is to get rid of something you have learned is true. It’s much harder than getting rid of something you never knew was there to begin with and I’m not trying to add anything. If you don’t know it’s there, is it there? My question would be where does experience begin, with what? Can something you don’t know exists, exist without you knowing about it? Or does it come into existence for you only when you become aware of it? You come in contact with some convincing story, and believe it’s true, and viola, now it is. You’ve created a storyline, a frame of drama to step into, and deal with. Well, that’s not my kind of storyline, I’m not saying it couldn’t happen because I don’t know what that is, but I’m not trying to create it either.

It’s like look, I was driving all around town for three whole months with very expired tags and so was my son. We go a lot of fucking places, a least a few each day and they aren’t close by, they involve all sorts of roads and traffic, so why did it take so long to get pulled over? Clearly, my tags were expired this whole time but no one noticed, not just me, but no one else either. I did not know my tags were expired so the whole expired tag thing did not exist for me, if I’d have known they were I can tell you it would have caused me quite the discomfort and probably some real paranoia at getting caught with out the proper car papers. Did anyone actually see my car then? Or did I just imagine everything and in my imagination, everything was fine so it was? Until it wasn’t, but then again I got off with a warning so there’s that, all that ends well is still well. I also learned that had it gone on another ten days, my fine would have been significantly higher than it was, which was under a hundred bucks. Yeah, the lady behind the tag counter told me that, she was like, “Wow, that was close, another ten days and you’re really screwed.” I was just like, “I agree, very lucky, I didn’t even know. I thought I was on the two year plan”. I wasn’t, she also informed me of that. And all dream stuff, the gate keeping mechanisms are there to pull you in, snag you really, they don’t just want your money like you might think, no they are there for other reasons, to make sure you never forget you are a part of something else that has requirements you can never forget about. That’s really how they do it. That’s how you have a name now, and a number, so you can be cataloged as belonging to not just any world, but this one. Maybe if they hadn’t done this, hadn’t instigated this system, no one would ever be able to keep track of you, because you wouldn’t actually exist to them. In order to exist in relation to something else, you have to believe you do and everybody does, until maybe they don’t. Maybe they figure it out. I doubt it but it’s possible. Here’s a Jed quote that sums that up. ”In my few and nap-riddled meditations on the nature of consciousness, I have not come across anything I would consider impossible except knowing more than I Am”, Jed McKenna in the Theory of Everything.

So can we just know whatever we want then? Do we have to know what anyone else wants us to know or is it all perfectly optional based on one’s preferences? I think it’s the later. I’ve seen enough evidence to suggest it is, as long as past beliefs aren’t in the way to counteract your new beliefs or intentions, it might be some very smooth sailing. Are there really any rules to any of this? Probably fucking not, right? We tend to go along with shit because we don’t know anything else. We have nothing to fill the voids of what these things we know fill for us. It’s our own fear of being ostracized, we fear looking crazy, but if we knew no one else was actually looking at anything, then what would we do? How might we start writing the stories of our lives then? Would we keep to the script we learned then or burn it the first chance we got? Mainly, most of us aren’t so bold, we’ve learned too well that awakening and just spirituality in general is cultivating a meekness and a humility of some sort, but this is also misunderstood in some way. Instead of becoming awed with what we really are and how everything really works, and developing a healthy respect for a power that far exceeds our own, we think it means just keep doing what you’re doing, live as small as possible so no one will notice how strange you really are, probably just let them think you’re this warm loving being who’s just here to help anyone who needs it to meditate better.

There’s something very subtle going on in most awakening circles that almost no one notices and that’s that they almost always uphold the reality that everyone already knows. They may even be talking about how everything is a dream, but then add this whole non reaction thing, which subtly suggests that you are going to be adjusting to an outside reality that does not change. There’s literally no mention that if you change the inside you will exponentially change the outside, it’s always framed as “you” as this awake person who is navigating shit as it’s always been, basically the common structures that most people believe in on a daily basis. Let me say this again, the frame is always that there is a “you” who is adjusting to a set of circumstances, basically confirming there is a set of circumstances, and your job is to adjust to them, usually by bringing love and light wherever you fucking go. If this is not the definition of going from one trap to another, I don’t know what is. I think in the end, what you really notice is how all traps are basically the same, they use all of the same hooks, really the hooks are basically interchangeable which is how no one ever escapes. You’re led to believe you’re fighting something or adjusting to something which being outside of you, is unchanging and it’s just not so. There is absolutely no rule that says reality can’t be whatever you want it to be, just none, you’re not adjusting to anything, you’re creating your own world every single second of the day and it’s not 
“out there”. It’s simply always your own brainwashing that makes it seem like it is.

To say it bluntly, there’s nothing even special about awakening other than you will like it a whole lot better when you know you are in charge of your own beliefs. You are the only one who can erase the past that lives in you and keeps appearing on the stage you keep climbing up on to say your lines. What’s more is no one is hearing your lines, just you are. What are they hearing? They’re own lines, not yours, they hear whatever you say as it pertains to their own story, and yes if you’re in their life, you’ve both agreed to do this, one for the other and visa versa, all I might add without ever knowing you’ve agreed to anything. The social contract is in place to do just this: it’s an imaginary box you live from without ever knowing you’re in one. How’s that for some deception? Even God is in on it. God is your real keeper, an imaginary judge, which is really just the echo of your parent, albeit blown up into huge proportions, both savior and destroyer now all rolled up into one. Stay small and you won’t get hurt is something a child learns along with don’t fight back you can only lose. You can be yourself but only as it pertains to the box you agreed to live within.

What’s the bottom line to total everlasting freedom then? There’s only one. You either destroy your own belief in this box and all that entails and discover your own movements and proclivities as they arise, or you stay where you are and play the games you’ve always played. Is it better to take your chances with the tunnel? You don’t know where it leads, that’s true, but can you really stay here? There’s no victory to be had for trading one prison for a nicer one, is there? I don’t think so. I saw on the news that they were going to be live streaming the death of some criminal by firing squad. Shit, is the species headed towards reliving the medieval time period when public executions were a sort of entertainment ritual? Strange how these patterns circle back around on a global level, isn’t it? Are we still evolving, getting brighter, bigger, and better or is this proof that ego can’t evolve, it never will? I think if you keep any trace of the false ego in regards to functioning, you can be sure, even if you learn to tolerate it better, whatever lurks in there is still coming around again. Maybe keep that in mind while you decide what to do with yourself tomorrow. You might learn how to release and excavate your stuff, or just live through another day as if it was fine the way it’s going. Me? I keep digging, I keep reaching inside to find something else that doesn’t need to be in there. I might never stop. Whatever shit is attached to my being, I’ll actively continue to rid myself of it. I think that’s what a daily practice is actually for, not gaining something but losing it.

All in all though, sometimes I notice that whatever seems true for me today, tomorrow could totally smash any one of my illusions. It could also totally surprise me as well, it often does. Maybe, there’s no end, perhaps it’s impossible to fully understand life, after all, if its infinite, how much is that to understand, you’ll never finish. Mostly now, even as I find things that work, and notice what doesn’t, it’s still ends up being some type of mystery, a mysterious doing.

What can you do with that? Who knows? You’ll know if you end up knowing but sometimes you don’t, sometimes you find out you’ll never know something. So let’s end there. Do your own investigations, just because I think something is true doesn’t mean it is, I’m the first to admit it and yet, I go with what I think I do know just like anyone else. Here’s to the mystery then! Sometimes all I need to do is pet my dog, or maybe do the dishes so someone else doesn’t have to and can take a break instead. You get what you give, maybe that’s a belief, but if it is, it’s still one that works. That doesn’t mean go out and save the world, it just means take care of your own in the best way you know how. That’s always enough.