CAUTION: Please don’t read my musings on the nature of the Universe, Reality and How To Live Your Life Well … unless you already know me or it’s just gonna piss you off …
I’ve been exploring the concept of teleology for years. That the future “pulls” the present towards it forms the basis of teleological consideration. Or maybe it would be better put to say that the present contains the future that draws it forward within it.
Understanding that the teleological consideration differs from the idea of historical precedent driving the system forward resides at the core of the consideration I’ve been exploring. In other words there are two primary explanations that are used to explain why the system evolves/unfolds as it does:
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The system is deterministic and like a billiard table the events that have been set in motion create effects in the system that continue driving the system forward until all the energy in the system is used and the system runs down in entropic ruin.
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The system is teleological and is heading to an end point that is given and pull the system forward in a particular direction in an ongoing way such that it cannot but manifest the form that is intended by the system in the same way that a seed cannot but produce the plant it contains.
I don’t actually believe in either explanation myself, and at the same time I am much more a fan of the latter in terms of the way I choose to organize my own personal experience on a pragmatic level. However …
I don’t believe the system even exists as is popularly expressed or experienced within the current paradigms … e.g.: religious, scientific, social, etc.
My personal experience is that the evolution/unfolding of the Universe is simultaneously unknown and complete, i.e.: the Universe is neither evolving or unfolding … and that our experience of it in ordinary terms is simply a reflection of a source experience that goes beyond anything comprehensible within the construct of a material Universe operating within the boundaries of physical laws (even at the quantum level), and/or constrained by space and or time.
The closet description I get of this comes from the work of quantum physicist David Bohm, and his work “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” where he poses that Information not Matter or Energy forms the essential structure of the Universe.
So the question, “Is The Future Of The Universe Uncertain?” becomes an essential, or “deep,” question. From this question we can begin to uncover what I refer to as what is “real” – the essence of what you can count on to be true based on your own self-verification alone. Answering a “deep” question becomes important only if you want to become free in the sense of becoming a fully realized adult human being, fully developed and mature in your own right
When you get beyond the childish illusion that life as you know it is “happening out there” somewhere, being able to self-determine your experience becomes the primary objective. It forms the entire basis for having your own life versus the one imposed upon you from birth. This is what I refer to when I use the words “free,” “freedom,” or “liberation” in the context of living your life.
We are taught two conflicting ideas that by the time most folks are in young adulthood trap them, A) that we are self-determining, i.e.: we possess free will, and B) that the Universe is deterministic and therefore our destiny is out of our hands, i.e.: we are the product of our ancestry, environment and personal history and trapped to live out our lives within those boundaries. In some cases there is a belief in a G-d or gods that also play into the equations tilting the deterministic trajectory of our lives one way or another. So we lose twice, A) we’re responsible for everything we do and must suffer the consequences therein, and B) we have no real control over our lives and therefore must accept our fate.
Yet what if both scenarios are simply incorrect, i.e.: the result of wrong thinking perpetuated by millennia of wrong thinking, deepened by theologians, philosophers and scientists ad infinitum???
What if everything we experience is simply subjective hallucination, phenomenological projection, imagination … what if our entire lives are just what we make up about them?
What if David Bohm is right, and the Universe is structured on Information and not Matter or Energy? What would that mean to living your life out as you know it?
Well this has been part of the essential quest I’ve been on for two and half decades. I’ve answered it fully for myself … and I’m what you can call both self-realized and self-satisfied, but I’ve continued seeking the means to articulate the premise I’ve been living in the work I do, including my efforts at writing about it … like here in Blognostra.
It continues to intrigue me that some folks want to know what the benefit of becoming self-realized and self-satified as a fully adult human being, i.e.: attaining fully maturity and the realization of our potential as human beings, is … and the answer continually comes up NOTHING … not a darn thing, other than the reward of being an adult human being.
The reward of being an adult human being of course is that you’ve stopped living the lie, the illusion … you’ve taken over your life, and you can begin to have the experience of living it … YOUR LIFE!
This was enough for me to trash everything I thought I had when I began this journey, including trashing all the beliefs I had about what made being in the journey worthwhile, e.g.: fame, fortune, relationships … and I replaced those beliefs with a burning desire to become free. By “burning desire” I mean an internal fire that consumed me as I knew myself to be then … someone I long ago stopped being.
What I now know is that the future of the Universe is meaningless, largely because what we think of as “the Universe” doesn’t exist as we think of it … “IT” merely is and isn’t becoming anything it isn’t already … it’s done, and so are we … from the moment we are conceived.
I had to get there, to the conclusion above, after many years of burning away all the beliefs that had become stacked and layered and intertwined about the “real” nature of the Universe as a physical, energetic experience held in a space-time continuum, quantum or otherwise.
In getting there I had to burn away all the illusions I had about who I was … who I am … who I could … would … will be/become … and get that I am done, as done as the Universe already is done. I could make it simple or trite, depending on your point of view, by saying we are literally dying from the moment we are born, but that wouldn’t capture the truth of that simple statement within the paradigm of denial most people are living from today.
A bit less trite would be the more direct comment that life is meaningless … utterly, dismally meaningless … but, despite the truth of that statement, saying it that way would engender despair in many of my readers and prevent them from reading on to the deeper message I want to convey.
From where I stand today, the realization that life is meaningless is also meaningless … and that amuses me to no end. I get who I am … what I am … the singularity that is evident when you take but the time to look … and ask the questions that lead to the irreconcilable truth … the truth of what is real when there is nothing left to consider and you’ve reached in inevitable end.
So then,
After you’ve reached the end, decided to do the work required to grow up, toss aside the standard bullshit that surrounds 99% of what most folks consider ‘truth’ or ‘the way it is’ what they consider ‘real’ … and you come to the actual realization that no matter what you do you’re already dying and when it’s done it won’t matter a scat … you can begin to consider what to do with whatever time you’ve got left.
This is when it get’s interesting … and a teleological proposition comes in handy …
But let’s save that for another time, eh?
Joseph Riggio, Wise Fool – Provocateur Extraordinaire
Copenhagen, Denmark
PS – HEY … you wanna really be provoked … and maybe gain the life you’ve been missing?
Come to MythoMania 2012 at the end of the month in Princeton, NJ … register here:
MythoMania 2012 Register NOW
Two days with me … a few MythoSelf pros … food, fun and lots of naked romping in the woods
(NOTE: Just kidding about the naked romping in the woods part … unless you find yourself in the mood to organize that outing yourself after hours … who knows … MythoMania has been known to create more and few ‘unexpected’ outcomes …)
Mark Schwimmer says
NJ?…….December?……Naked Romping in the woods…….?
Could we wait til say June for that. 😉
Unless there’s a sauna at the end of the romp of course.
Mark
Joseph says
Mark,
Up to you baby … the world is your oyster, find yourself a pearl.
I understand the hesitancy to “reveal” yourself in the NJ cold of November, but again, you’ll be only as advantaged or disadvantaged as everyone else …
Joseph
Mark Schwimmer says
Yep, I guess that is the long and short of it…..
M
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
It’s MythoMania, not nymphomania, right? 😉
Des says
Hi Joseph,
Thank you for your provocative post!
At the overarching level I get the most illuminating ideologies would say at the deepest level we hold the essence of whatever the universal creative intent is and to apprehend this is to be at be at one with the universal creative intent. This is the position of non-duality as I get it.
If one just contemplates on we are born to die and ultimately there are no truths worth living by then, yes there are those who would be disheartened and flummoxed perhaps. However it’s like you have said even through the hermit goes to the cave to avoid human contact he is bound by the thought of no human contact.
So what is the information David Bohm was speaking of. Is it the sort of information, free of interpretation, that humans can identify and operate their decision making from? If it is free of interpretation then how is it possible in the human system/psyche to make the movement from it being from an implicate order to an implicate order? Or do we as likely hear voices and make anything up so that in the field of time we have all sorts of mythology, whether corrupted or life enhancing , as dandily as each other?
So to experience the universe as benign or malign is already dropping out from the universe being meaningless and, if I get it, the universe doesn’t give a hoot either way. I can see how you find this amusing and maybe I do to!
All the best
Des
Joseph says
Des,
“If one just contemplates on we are born to die and ultimately there are no truths worth living by, yes there are those who would be disheartened and flummoxed perhaps.”
This is really the key Des. To contemplate your death to the point of recognition that we are all on a flat field, no advantages, no disadvantages … we all get the same outcome … death. Once you get that you know without question where you are going. The next thing to get and contemplate is that your life is indeed meaningless in the greatest scheme of things.
However, getting that you will die and no not the day or time, and that your life beyond this moment is meaningless, gives this moment glory and meaning. You use death in this way to give the moment you have in front of you profound meaning and depth. Death illuminates life.
The idea that folks are working their tails off to create some kind of deep meaning beyond this moment, i.e.: leaving a lasting imprint beyond the lives they directly touch … or building a wealth … or fame hoping that will give them some sense of immortality … all such endeavors … seems most meaningless of all to me. To live and to die well, i.e.: in alignment with yourself and the Universe seems the first great hurdle … to escape the lie in its entirety the real end run.
Joseph
Sam says
Hello Joseph
You can count me in the number of those who frequently do find the comments and responses as rewarding as the original post, and I very much enjoyed the veritable flurry of activity in response to your previous Blognostra offering. This original post, however, made me laugh out loud – the reward of being an adult human being indeed.
Here’s to controlled folly!
Affectionately yours
Sam
Joseph says
Sam,
Thanks … SEE, sometimes the post script is actually the script!
Joseph
PS – Are you coming to MythoMania 2012 in Princeton with me at the end of this month?
If you’re coming, you can register here:
MythoMania 2012 – 29/30 Nov
Sam says
Hi Joseph
The information currently in the environment suggests that I will have to give this one a miss. It’s been way too long though and you can count on a date in 2013.
S
Joseph says
Sam,
No worries … looking forward to 2013 then …
Joseph
Mark Schwimmer says
Des and Joseph et al,
Experiencing life sensorially becomes the only guidepost for knowing we are alive. We are having “an experience” the meaning we ascribe to that experience is framed in a story that is made up.
When I a say “sensorially” please don’t confuse it as a call to hedonism, but simply a knowing that I am having an experience as it relates to the experience I was having and so on until I cease to experience.
As I walked from the Upper West Side of NYC, an area comparatively unscathed by Hurricme Sandy, to the area of Southern Manhattan, where electricity and water had ceased to be available, I experienced a marked internal shift in response to the sights and sounds I met in the context of the comparison of what I was experiencing just moments before. I felt different sensations moving within. A gradual shift of awareness as I walked deeper into this no man’s land of shuttered storefronts, and the unlit gloom of the early evening, devoid of the street lights that were already brightly blazing just a few blocks north.
This is how I know myself to be alive, that I can have the experience, and decide from the awareness of data flowing in, what to do next.
I decided to head north again, to the well lit, streets where I felt a difference I call “more comfortable.”
Had I been on a mission of greater importance than just taking a walk, I would have noted the change within, perhaps reassessed my need for vigilance, recalculated the risk and moved further in to the darkness.
Mark
Joseph says
Mark,
Okay … first you don’t want to run naked … then you do want to experience things sensorially … MAKE UP YOUR MIND MAN!
All kidding aside, the first step in becoming mature as I suggest in this post, i.e.: becoming an adult human being, what Joseph Campbell suggests is possible when he refers to “becoming fully human,” is all about becoming aware of what’s going on … and that requires sensorial acuity.
To begin, you wake up to the reality of your senses and make the sensory data primary over the ideations you hold and contemplate. So on your walk you hold your primary attention on the sensory data, and keep the idea of where you’re going or what you intend to do secondary. This allows you to keep updating in real time and check what the signals in the system are, what they indicate and how to best navigate your next course of action, i.e.: the very next behavior you enact.
This is critical vis-a-vis personal/professional performance, and for most folks the ability to create the quality of life they desire. In the larger context it’s the first baby step to what’s possible.
Joseph
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
I’m sure I’m out of my depth here, but what I did realize long ago is that if I’m depressed by life being meaningless, I’m attributing meaning to that meaningless.
Apart from that, I could share this, which I just happened to be reading:
“The first beginning is for the sake of the last end. God Himself doth not rest because He is the beginning, but because He is the end and goal of all creation. This end is concealed in the darkness of the everlasting Godhead, and is unknown, and never was known, and never will be known. God Himself remains unknown; the light of the everlasting Father shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. May the truth of which we have spoken lead us to the truth. Amen.”
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/eckhart/sermons.pdf
Joseph says
Dagfinn,
Nice. Thanks.
Where is the quote you’ve offered actually from?
I know you’ve placed a link, but is it a book you’re reading or the PDF only?
Joseph
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
Actually, I have a book of Eckhart’s sermons in Norwegian translation, and that’s where I read this originally. I found this version here: http://www.ccel.org/e/eckhart/sermons/
Leo says
Joe,
What do you mean by this: “that our experience of it [the Universe] in ordinary terms is simply a reflection of a source experience.” ??? Here is what I get: our experience of the universe in any given moment is dependent on what imprint we are experiencing the experience of the moment from.
–
What is the experience of being a fully self-realized and self-satisfied adult from the inside out? You’ve described it in these last two posts as a lot of things it is not … I’d like to read what you think it IS like. And what are the markers that someone looking from the outside in can identify someone as self-realized?
Looking forward to Mythomania … expecting the unexpected … and enjoying the not-knowing …
Always already!
Leo
Joseph says
Leo,
What I mean is kind of irrelevant.
Here’s the evidence that seems evident … the Universe as we “know” it contains the totality of what is (excluding any conversation of multiple dimensions, or multi-verses) and is therefore “the singularity.”
Within that singularity that is the Universe we exist as much as it’s possible to exist. But the unsolved question is what happened just before the Big Bang? What it really a singularity contained in a single point, or did it emerge from something else?
Here’s my proposition …
Being precedes matter and what we perceive as matter is an emergent quality of being, how we perceive matter is a reflection of what really “IS” … and what really “IS” isn’t perceptible to us directly. This is the distinction that Bohm points to as “explicate order” which unfolds from the “implicate order” which in turn is organized at the level of the “super implicate order” … I’m a Bohm fan you see. So read “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” and it will all make a bit more sense … or not.
Joseph
Beryl says
Thought provoking stuff Joe. Would you like to come on our web TV show and explore these ideas further? We love this kind of talk.
Joseph says
Beryl,
I love this kinda talk too 😉
Let’s connect off line and chat … joseph.r@josephriggio.com
Best,
Joseph
Maria Giovina says
Si tratta Joseph di mollare tutto? Di smettere di cercare, smettere di trattenere il mondo? Posso ancora guardare le stelle, restarne affascinata e sapere che quello spettacolo è partito prima che io nascessi per arrivare a me.. e quando arriva a me.. è finito già da molto.. molto tempo? Quell’istante è durato forse milioni e milioni di anni.. tuffati in una minuscola retina.. come posso racchiudere quell’immenso bagaglio di tempo in quel minuscolo punto. .. Questo non c’entra nulla con le mie giornate .. Ma è straordinario pensare che sono quelle benedette giornate che non rientrano in tutto questo… Essere liberi vuol dire sentirsi parte di quell’intero processo, che non ha un tempo e lo contiene tutto ? Perchè quando vedo un cielo stellato tutte le dimensioni svaniscono e una forte sensazione di nostalgia profonda mi lascia impietrita? A volte penso di essermi persa qualcosa e guardando dentro e fuori la vita quotidiana riporto quelle sensazioni e misure immense li dentro e… che meraviglia! … Quanto si può trattenere questa consapevolezza? Ora ancora pochi attimi.. poi tutto diventa frammentato e scandito – e rumoroso… E’ straordinario salire sul palcoscenico dove ha cantato Pavarotti e ascoltare ancora la sua voce… tutto questo si sente e si vede… Quanto di questo universo è qui con me ora? La domanda, forse è .. Quando quest’universo è qui, ora.. Siamo noi allora che decidiamo di essere in questo momento attraversati da miliardi di eventi, e abbiamo la pretesa di trattenerne solo una minima parte, quando potremmo essere la totalità degli eventi stessi…?? Così la mia storia non ha più senso : è già bella e finita prima ancora di cominciare… una bella liberazione , non c’è alcuna storia da raccontarsi o da raccontare.. che sollievo! .. La prima cosa (buffa) che sento in questi momenti è quella di “tornare subito a giocare” come quando ero bimba– fregandomene dell’intero universo!! 😉 Buona giornata a tutti!
Veronica says
I just So agree with what you write… but you see for ME there are too many words,
though i read this one all through… almost…. 😉 (Not born english speaking!)
There IS nothing pissing off more than TRUTH! it is my experience… so don’t focus on what other may or may not think /react… waste of time, the ones ready will see/recognize what is the message, YOUR message it will expand them…& the others they are not ready & their reaction will always be of either denial -rejection- make fun of – or threat -anger- etc… before one day they will accept because then it is NOT new any more… I Love when People- You- Shine their own Truth without apologies fear worries of reaction…. The only part reacting to Truth is the UNtrue part in any human beings…. why bother focusing on that part? it is the part that will never agree, because it needs to be right in order to BE! it has no real existence, just in the opposing/reacting/fighting/resisting/threatning… & FRankly Time is UP to finally Live from the GREATER part of our selves ALL of us HUMAN Beings! So Do Please SHINE your FULL Truth… with no concern what so ever about those who do not want to! Pleaseeeeeee 🙂
Joseph says
Veronica,
I am apologetic at all … just cautionary to those who really don’t want to do the work required. I’m not of the clan that thinks this is all “free” so to speak … the surrender I’m encouraging is the most difficult task anyone could ever undertake.
The world we are surrounded by encourages us from our first breath outside of the womb to “BE” as defined by “DOING” … we learn that we are our DOING, and that our BEING is merely an artifact of what we DO.
What I’m suggesting is to arrive at NOTHING … simply to stop the world and it’s illusion long enough to perceive what’s truly real, and once you’ve seen beyond the illusion you cannot go back really … if you recall Cipher couldn’t not know he wasn’t really eating steak … despite the illusion that it was delicious.
Most people are living in the illusion, and I don’t want to wake those who slumber peacefully, leave them be (my first rule … “LET PEOPLE BE” … taken from the work of Dr. Clare Graves … from what I can tell I’m one of the few who actually act on that admonition though … most “spiritual” folks want to be or become activists, fixing the world according to their magnificent insight).
Joseph
Dennis Meurer says
This post and your book, The State of Perfection, reminded me of the Buddhist search for nothingness as explained, for example, in “Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go: Waking Up To Who You Are” by Thich Nhat Hanh, and the priest’s comment to the slave Bahkitah who later became Saint Josephine of Ethiopia. “As a slave you have nothing, but you have given me so much.”
Joseph says
Dennis,
Thanks for the reference.
I’m not a Buddhist or a Buddhist scholar by any means. I love some of the Buddhist writing (the older stuff mostly) and find most of it utter bullshit designed to keep seekers in seek mode, never really finding … just going through the motions required to prove to other Buddhist seekers that they are “Doing” earnestly. But, as I’ve said I’m neither a Buddhist nor a Buddhist scholar, so take my comment with more than a grain of salt … a whole truckload is probably closer to what’s necessary.
Here’s my direct challenge to the most of the Buddhists I’ve met … “What does ‘Kill the Buddha on the road when you meet him.’ really mean to you?” And, of course what follows is “How many Buddhas have you killed recently … I’d start with His Holiness myself … 😉
Now that that’s out of my system … Buddhist nothingness … BRILLIANT STUFF!!!
Joseph
Maria Giovina says
This is Joseph to give up everything? Stop trying, stop holding the world? I can still look at the stars, restarne fascinated – and know that the show started before I was born to get to me .. and when it comes to me .. is finished for a long .. long time? That moment lasted perhaps millions of years .. dipped in a tiny retina .. how can I enclose the immense wealth of time in that tiny spot. .. This has nothing to do with my days .. But it is extraordinary to think that those blessed days are not covered in this … Being free means being part of that whole process, which does not have a time and contains everything? Because when I see a starry sky all sizes vanish and a strong sense of deep nostalgia leaves me numb? Sometimes I think I missed something and looking inside and outside the everyday carry those feelings and immense measures in there … and what a treat! How much can you … keep this in mind? Now even a few seconds .. then everything becomes fragmented and marked – and noisy … It ‘s extraordinary onto the stage where he sang Pavarotti and hear his voice again … all you hear and see … How much of this universe is here with me now? The question, perhaps it is .. When this universe is here now .. We then decide to be right now crossed by billions of events, and we demand to retaining a only a small part, when we could be all of the events themselves …? So my story does not make sense: it is already beautiful and over before it began … a nice release, there is no story to tell or to tell .. what a relief! .. The first thing (funny) I feel in these moments is to “go right back to playing” like when I was a child-caring about the entire universe! Good day to all!
And forgive my english 😉
Joseph says
Maria,
Your comment is beautiful … and even more so in the original Italian, “La Bella Lingua” … no?
You have touched on the most essential quality of the post, i.e.: the essential quality of awareness where ‘self’ begins to merge beyond ‘self’ … and the mystery of being human is that even when we perceive that with great clarity we remain in some way … fully present, fully human.
Millie Grazie,
Joseph
T-dog says
“being able to self-determine your experience becomes the primary objective” What if everything we experience is simply subjective hallucination, phenomenological projection, imagination … what if our entire lives are just what we make up about them?
Hi,
I was re-listening to a soma-semantic audio you made available a while ago to your subscribers. There you talk about Mastery as being auto-poises or an aesthetic self-generating…..So an innate self-determination is the Mastery you speak of? Can you speak about Mastery as it relates to this posting?
Is it simply a subjective hallucination or simply an inter-subjective hallucination and are these the same/different/other?
Best,
Tivo
Joseph says
T,
First things first … not so many questions, huh? It muddles things when there are many, many questions to be answered as though they are all about the same thing, when in fact most things are this and NOT that.
Let me answer generally …
Ultimately it’s all aesthetics. When we drop all the illusion that we surround what’s real with all that’s left is aesthetic arrest.
Aesthetic arrest can’t possibly subjective … and it can’t possibly other than subjective … the “arrest” is the resolution of that paradox … self falling into and out of self simultaneously … into nothing and everything that is as a result.
Clear???
Joseph
Mike Gray says
Your remarks on NOTHING remind me of something I read recently:
“In some patients emptiness needs to be experienced, and this emptiness belongs to the past… to understand this it is necessary to think not of trauma, but of nothing happening when something might profitably have happened. It is easier for a patient to remember trauma, than to remember nothing happening when it might have happened.” … “It is the death that happened but was not experienced that is sought”.
Joseph says
Mike,
Of course …
Good reading.
Joseph
Thomas says
Hey Joseph. One of your best posts yet. lol
Joseph says
Thomas,
TAK! (I’m still in Denmark)
Joseph
Thomas says
Hey Joseph it dawned on me last night that every industry in this culture is based on a problem mindset. It’s no wonder this culture is insaine.
Joseph says
Thomas,
Yep.
Yep.
And, we’ve just completed one of the most insane cycles in our shared culture (you and I) … we have just elected the Emperor, er … President.
Before folks go off thinking this is a comment about President Obama, or a Democratic/Republican thing … or any kind of polemic political comment … it’s not. What IT IS, is a comment on the structure of the system we’ve moved into that every politician now lives in relation to and within. It’s also a comment on the society that allows and supports that possibility … the “industrial/military/political” complex that President Eisenhower warned us about and unfailingly moved forward while he condemned it … unable to resist the pull of history.
We are stuck in the class warfare we so often hear about without doubt … except the story we’re being sold isn’t the one that we’re living. The story better told would be the elite “political class” and the rest of us. The politicos at the Federal level, President, Senators, Congressmen and Congresswomen … all live a lifestyle that is beyond imagination to the folks who fought for and formed the nation. They fly in comfort coast to coast at tax payer expense, they have housing paid for by their constituents, they live with benefits that exceed the wildest imaginations of the average working class man or woman, they live outside of and above the law except for the most blatant and egregious disregard for all decency … and so do their family and friends.
The “corporate state” formed by the melding of the government and the private sector allows the elite within it to live as royalty had in the past relative to the serfs. Without the alliance between these two neither could perpetrate the crimes upon the people that we are witnessing. If there were the same prohibitions against the corporation and state as there are against the church and state we might again be a free people, but I don’t think that’s possible any longer.
Now step back …
Realize that this is just the shadow play … the illusion … a virtual game that seems real … and has the same effect on you that your experience in the Matrix has on the real you sitting outside of the projection. The only way out is to recognize the projection for what it is … and then to recognize you are still in the projection even when you are aware of it … the only real way out is beyond.
Joseph
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
This post gets better the more I think about it. What was subliminal on first reading becomes clear. And part of it is like “we need a guy to tell us what to think, and if the guy tells us life has no meaning, we’re in despair, so let’s buy from another guy”. But it’s all a ridiculous left brain trick. “Life” has “meaning”, or not, so there are two different “things”, “life” and “meaning”, and one of them is missing in relation to the other.
And where did it go? It’s magic.
Joseph says
Dagfinn,
Mange takk.
It’s in the loops of illusion that we get caught … part of Maya’s trickery. Instead of noticing that you’re in the illusion you struggle to free yourself of the loops that bind you … and then when you have you think your free of the illusion they are contructed of as well …
Joseph
Hamand says
When I was in my early twenties, I went for a walk on my lunch break in a direction I hadn’t been before. I ended up at a small “spiritual bookshop” oddly placed in the middle of nowhere. The shelves were filled high with all manner of interesting books and I noticed a distinct lack of “Healing your inner child” or “Think yourself happy” kind of books, the likes of which I’d seen way too many times at other bookshops of a similar ilk. Here was Gurdjieff and Castaneda, philosophy and psychology, critical thinking and comparative relgion… all manner of interesting things indeed. I browsed for a while and after ten minutes or so, wondered who on earth would be running such a place. There was nobody around, so I peeked my head around the back office, and found an old man in his seventies or so, mumbling in a cheerful and annoyed manner to his computer. I wanted to talk about the shop but he was far more interested in asking if I knew anything about computers. Of course I did, I said, I work in IT. Can you help me with this? he asked, I’ve been struggling for hours.
I had a look and solved the issue easily, and he was so grateful, as if I had performed some technological miracle. We talked about the shop and our reflections on reality, meetings with remarkable men, and the like. I asked how long the shop had been here and he said “Oh a few years, but I’m about to close it down forever…” He’d made his fortune from seven patents he held and had opened the shop for his own gift to the world. It operated as a NPO. When I asked why it was closing down, he said he couldn’t find anyone who would work there for free on the weekends. And thus a beautiful friendship was born. I was straight in there the following weekend and for seven years after. I love books, and here I was, allowed to read all the books I wanted and really be a provocative pain in the butt for any new age wankers who would come in and try to tell me to heal my inner child or similar drivel. I challenged anyone who wished to give me secondhand knowledge. I didn’t care about “just making the sale” or “repeat business” … all I wanted was to have interesting conversations with people, recommend books, challenge thinking, be challenged immensely. It was a joy. I was given such freedom to source materials and run things how I wanted.
I liked this post a lot. It brought back some fond memories, reminded me of the New Thought attitude at its cleanest, and the 1960s TV show “The Prisoner” which talks of knowledge and politics and expression of self… and the post made me laugh for other reminiscent reasons, because all this talk of “making *new* enemies in the spiritual universe” reminded me of some wise words you shared back in 2004. 2004!! The whole post provides a great context and here’s a glorious excerpt:
—
There are two aspects of “Being” that are present in most Western
Philosophical disciplines. The first is the dualistic aspect where both self
and other, this and that, here and there,past and future … exist. This
equates to “ordinary” perception in terms of cause and effect and linearity.
The second aspect is the singularity where all sense of self and other, this
and that, here and there, past and future … collapse, what remains is the
unified point of pure experience. The second aspect of Being expresses most
closely what we aim at in the MythoSelf work.
In other words the experience of the experience as it unfolds without
interpretation or filtering. The totality of the experience fills and floods
the experience of the individual so completely that all sense of boundary
dissipates and dissolves. In assimilating the experience time ceases to
exist and the individuals stands at the center of the Universe while
extending to its outermost edge. Like this … all sense of self proper also
dissipates and dissolves into that which is Greater Than Self (referred to
in the MythoSelf work as GTS). The individual is left experiencing only the
pure rush and exhilaration of the epiphany of Being.
—
Stories are peculiar, wonderful things. Thank you so much for weaving them so gracefully, and providing a never ending stream of possibility. As I read this post, I received the email for, and signed up to the Organisational Metaphors training in Denmark tomorrow.
See you then. I cannot wait, but suspect I will have to. 🙂
Joseph says
Hammand,
Nice … it’s always surprising to me what I’ve written somewhere else in space and time, that you somehow know is there.
I love the bookstore story … I’ve love to here more about your bookseller friend, and how he got to choose those titles and not the others.
Tomorrow I begin again … and you’ll get to see that in the video replays as part of the Simulcast, then on Saturday and Sunday we’ll spend some more time around stories … the good, the bad, the ugly … and yes, even the beautiful.
Joseph
Hamand says
Cheers Joe.
FYI, that gem is from the deepmind group. Yes, that’s right, it’s not just the mythoself-tm group that I obsess over, ya know… 😉
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/deep-mind/message/1028
Michael Roach sent it to me a few years back and it’s one of my favourites, but then I say that about all the ones I link to! Outrageous!
I would make an excellent stalker… hopefully in all senses of that term.
I’ll see you in eight hour and fifteen minutes,
Ham.
p.s. google “Chernobyl Stalking” for a bit of an interesting concept.
Mike Gray says
Ohh, Ham, have you still not healed your inner child?? I’m so sorry
Freada says
Ahhhh…have to say I feel like I’ve digested a good meal after reading this post.
Thank you.
Freada.
t says
Hi,
I’m exploring that being in the Ready State/Position is to be in or on the ground of Nothing and therefore Everything that we have the capacity for is available and possible from this very original and special place.
From the Ready State one can cherry pick the information that’s congruent, resonant and emergent with Nothing or being clean and centered in the Ready State.
How is this?
Best,
T
Joseph says
T,
Not necessarily … the Ready State is the Ready State, and Nothing is Nothing.
I would be willing to propose that being in Nothing means by default that you’re in a Ready State, but not visa-versa.
Joseph
T says
Hi,
Being I’n nothing is default of ready state and ready state is defaul of everything. Yessssss!!!!!!!
Ashleigh says
Joseph,
Great post. Some serious percolating going to be happening internally for me after this one!
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
That’s right, it stimulates your percolation. 😉
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