The Grand Ilusion

The grand illusion is that there is absolute good and absolute evil.

This is not the case.

It is simply a matter of perspective.

Let’s take the destructive principle of the Universe as an example. Destruction breeds creation. It is a necessary part of existence, of life itself. Without it, there is no contractive, limiting force to maintain the structure of things, and so everything would simply burst forth as an explosion of light.

To the destructive principle, the creative principle appears as evil. It attempts to sabotage the destruction, to expand, evolve and grow. Destruction is constantly fighting against it in an ongoing battle. It can’t let it take over, lest the Universe and all of life cease to exist.

Now let’s take the creative principle as an example. It is obvious how the creative and expansive force is necessary for the existence of this Universe. Without it, of course, there would be no existence, no creation. Everything, if it were to even exist in the first place, would collapse in on itself. All that could be would be a field of darkness, pure unmanifested potential resting in awareness.

To the creative principle, the destructive principle appears as evil. Destruction is always threatening the existence of creation, and together they fight in order to maintain themselves. Creation constinuously resists destruction, it pushes against it so that it can survive and thrive within this Universe.  

In this way you can see how, no matter what perspective you are in, it is easy to see yourself as “good” and that which opposes you as “evil”, when in fact, neither are real and neither are true. The apparent battle taking place is the constant ebb and flow of polar aspects, both maintaining the existence of this Universe simultaneously. Because our Universe is polarized, it is binary, so both the destructive and creative forces revolve around each other in unison. At their core is the primordial essence, the pure consciousness which gives birth to all of creation.

So, beings who resonate more with the dark or destructive aspect of the Universe view the light or creative aspect of the Universe as evil and do all they can to fight against it and attempt to defeat it. The beings who resonate more with the light or creative aspect of the Universe do the same.

The reason why the light so often wins is because Universal expansion is favored in this Universe at this time. If destruction were favored, the Universe would be collapsing in on itself, and this is not the case. So because the creative or light principle is favored within this Universe, at least in this time-space reality within the third dimension, humans themselves are a light, creation oriented species. We resonate with creation, with love and light, freedom and expression. Destruction and contraction hurts us, it inhibits the free flow of our creative faculties and sabotages our capacity to thrive. So we view it as “evil” and we fight against it. It is not truly evil, but I suppose that you could say it is a necessary evil, at least relatively speaking.

Ultimately all of creation is moving back towards merging with oneness. The job of destruction is to prevent this at all costs. To maintain the separation, the ignorance, the delusion. It is beautiful. The divine game that we play. Without it, we could never know ourselves as the One. The eternal and primordial essence of all that is, both the creation and the destruction, both the creator and the created, both the awareness and the experience. You are your own worst enemy and your own best friend, and in the end your worst enemy was actually your very best friend all along ;) Much love

Divine Relationship

There seems to be a popular belief in spiritual circles that enlightenment is a singular, individuated path. It is a path which one walks alone, and the need for or attachment towards other people is merely an obstacle on the way. I personally would beg to differ.

I view enlightenment as a collective journey, in which all parts of the Self move to reunite with the whole. If only one aspect of Self reunites with the whole, this is not true enlightenment. Yes, it a step towards total union, but so long as other aspects of the Self have yet to awaken and merge with the Source, the job is not yet complete.

In buddhism, there is a term for a specific type of awakened being known as the bodhisattva. This class of awakened being attains enlightenment and thus reaches nirvana, yet from that space of total oneness, peace and bliss, chooses to come back and reincarnate in order to assist other beings on their journey home. This being knows that all parts of the Self are aspects of him/herself, and through this knowing understands that true enlightenment is not attained by oneself but it is attained collectively.

Nothing in this Universe can exist without relationship. If there is only one point, one singularity of consciousness, there is no relationship. Yet as soon as two points exist, that is the beginning of relationship. Everything in existential/experiential reality is subject to relationship. You have a relationship with your thoughts, your emotions, your body, other people, even with yourself, or at least you temporal, physically incarnated self. The atoms, molecules and cells which make up your body all exist in relationship to each other. Reality is nothing but the dynamic interplay of relationship, all parts relating to the others.

So relationship is not a choice, and it is certainly not an obstacle to enlightenment, it is a divine necessity. We need relationships, we need each other, or nothing could exist at all. The way to enlightenment, really, is through the perfection of our divine relationships. The way in which we relate to everything in our experience. The journey home is a journey of connection, not only connection with the formless and eternal awareness, but connection to the everythingness of manifested existence.

So the greatest practice one can partake in on the journey of awakening is the practice of unconditional love in all of their relationships. Where there is resistance, annoyance, hate, or irritation, this is your sign that there is still work which needs to be done. This does not mean to put up with abuse or to involve yourself in relationships which do not serve you, as this is not practicing unconditional love in the relationship with yourself. It simply means that all which arises in your experience is met with love, acceptance, and understanding, especially the parts which emotionally trigger you the most.

Enlightenment truly is not a separate process, but a unified one. Without total unity, there is no enlightenment, there is no true realization of Self. Awakening occurs through the dynamic process of divine relationship, of divine union with all aspects of Self. It is the recognition of the other as ultimately one with the Self, and through this realization the arising of unconditional love.

Spiritual Impotency- Heeding the Call to Action

Over many years of investigating different spiritual beliefs, techniques and practices, I have come to find that the modern spiritual movement and its practices tend to be overly yin. Approaches devised for manifesting, healing and transforming one’s life involve quite a bit of passivity and very little overt action taking. Instead of being active players in the world, we instead sit back, relax, and wait for things to change. It is my belief that the time for meditating in a cave is over. Taking massive, intelligent and powerful action is the only real solution to creating world change and a society that we all actually want to live in.

A good example of spiritual impotency and passivity would be the most popular approaches toward utilizing the “Law of Attraction”. Many teachers say that all you have to do is visualize what you want and feel as if it is already a reality or you, and then it will just come to you effortlessly. They under-emphasize the value of hard work and dismiss the importance of hard and fast action taking. Then people become frustrated with the results they are getting and throw the baby out with the bath water. They start to believe that they don’t actually create their own reality. But wait a second. They forgot the other half of the equation. The inward psychology is only the foundation while the subsequent action you take is the structure that emerges forth into the world. Without it, there is really no point in having a foundation in the first place.

Then take a look at popular methods for dealing with intense emotions. Just sit with the feeling, go deeply into it, feel it fully. Observe it fully without any resistance and in doing so it will dissipate and transform. For me, this has been some of the biggest bullshit that I have ever come across. Focusing more on the feeling or the emotional pain would often times just drag me deeper into it. It wasn’t until I claimed my power and even got a little angry that I began to shift out of these depressive states via movement and taking action towards my goals and desires. I’m not saying that there is no place for being with yourself, the Universe is a blend of yin and yang energies and both are absolutely necessary for the functioning of the whole, we have just placed too much emphasis on yin practices and neglected the yang.

If your energy is naturally quite yin, this is not as much of a problem. But for men and women with potent masculine energy and drives, this can be incredibly destructive. Their approach to life becomes overly passive and they wonder why they feel depressed. This has been me for most of my adult life. I would sit around passively trying to change my life by going inward, feeling my feelings fully, and imagining a more ideal life. This was a decent starting place and had it’s use, but when the time came to move, to take action, to even get a little fired up and feel a sense of urgency to make a positive change in myself and the world at large, I just kept practicing the same impotent, yin techniques for life improvement and spiritual growth. And my life became a living hell.

This impotent approach to life creates men and women (especially men) who are, for lack of a better word, wussies. They don’t really stand for anything, they don’t hold strong to core values and beliefs, and they don’t take radical action on a daily basis to create the type of reality and world that they truly desire. Instead, they listen to society, institutions and the media, they work jobs to support a dysfunctional and ego-based economic structure, and they wait around hoping someone in the government or politics will change things for the better. And it never happens.

“If you don’t have something that you are willing to die for, then you aren’t really living at all”

In this world, you have to take action if you want to get anything done. While aligned action is by far the most effective and having a positive focus and emotional awareness is certainly of tremendous value, nothing ever happens until something moves. That’s the bottom line. If you feel stuck in your spiritual progress and in achieving your goals, try implementing some more yang practices into your day to day life. Take action, do something that scares you, practice cathartic release exercises, speak out and express yourself, vocalize your authentic truth and do not give a single fuck about what anyone thinks. Then watch things change.

The Power of Thought

The reality that you experience is a by-product of the thoughts that you think. Thoughts are information, or psycho-emotional impressions that over time imprint themselves upon the subconscious mind.

If thoughts are seeds, your conscious mind is the top-soil whereas the subconscious is all that is underneath. The origin of a thought could be likened to dropping the seed on top of the soil. Over time, the seed begins to sprout roots, and as it is watered and nurtured, the roots spread deep beneath the ground and into the subconscious mind.

The most frequently experienced and practiced psycho-emotional impressions become deep-seated core beliefs. These are often rooted by intense, traumatic experiences that happened during childhood. The vibrational signature of that experience created a recurring reflection in your external reality, which reflects your thoughts back to you.

Even more impactful than individual traumatic experiences were the constant impressions being made upon you by your family and the environment that you grew up in. You could think of these as the seeds that got the most water, sunlight and nutrients. Although the sustenance itself, in this case, is the attention and focus of your consciousness.

“Where attention goes, energy flows...and something grows.”

The more attention is focused upon a thought, the more energy it is fed, and the more it grows. This is the case regardless of the nature of the thought: whether it be positive, negative, or anywhere in between. It will begin to express itself in manifested reality in increasingly prominent ways.

Attention equals intention, and your intention is what your life becomes. There is not a force in this Universe more powerful than conscious intention. Remember that.

The End of Suffering

"There is the state of being wrapped up in or identified with something, then there is the state of detached witnessing, and then there is the merging with it and the becoming of it; your presence transmutes it into itself. This point is the end of all suffering."

The unwillingness to experience even the worst hell is literally what creates it, as the resistance we have to suffering is what holds it in place. An open willingness to explore all experiences and sensations that could ever be is the essence of enlightenment.

The original polarity was the split between the essence and the experience, or the observed and the observer. This then fractured infinitely into a fractal of polarized reality, the mind being a by-product of such. We, as the eternal underlying essence, then lost ourselves in this fragmented and fractalized reality experience so that we could recognize ourselves once again to gain a higher level of self-awareness. It is a perfect ever-evolving eternal process of expansion and evolution both within and without. Both on the level of experience and the level of awareness, as both are perfect reflections of eachother.

This polarity is what in fact gives rise to all of creation. Nothing could be without it, there would be no matter, no sensation and no experience. It is the original split or division that occurred within the space of consciousness when it first had the desire to know itself. This polarity exists on an energetic spectrum. Everything in experiential reality is the same substance expressed at different frequencies, or imbued with ever-changing information. Hot and cold are really the same thing, just expressed differently. This difference in expression is what gives rise to the conception of duality.

Polarity is what gives birth to the conception of the "self" and the "other", both being mind-based perceptual delusions. The belief in the "other" gives rise to the feeling of separation and fear. We fear that which we feel is outside of our control, that which we feel is separate from us. But how could anything be separate from you if it all arises within your own consciousness, your own awareness? All that could ever be must be within the space of your consciousness, for nothing could exist without a witness for its existence. Your truest self is the space in which all that is arises, and all that arises is an inseparable part of that. So in reality, there is no other. There is only you.

Reality itself is an ever-flowing expression of life-force energy which perpetually emanates from the one. The movement occurs in a toroidal flow pattern, whereas the center point is the singularity of consciousness or awareness. Creation bursts forth, projects itself as an externalized reality experience, and is then perceived and received as the cycle repeats. This occurs at such a rapid rate that we have no conscious awareness of it. It appears to happen instantaneously.

In the picture above, you could think of one half of the sphere as being positive and the other half as being negative. Reality is the interplay of these two polarized forces, and so long as we believe in it and identify with it as being real or "self", we are stuck in this polarized dance of highs and lows, expansions and contractions, joys and sorrows. When we recognize our true Self as the singularity, we integrate polarity into the wholeness of the Self and transcend it all together.

When you surrender to the entire spectrum of happiness and suffering, of pain and joy, you transcend it by experiencing it all simultaneously. The way in which black is not truly a color, but is the absence of color because it absorbs the entire light spectrum, the state you achieve is not so much a feeling or emotion but rather all feelings and none simultaneously; it is the peace that passes all understanding. That which Jesus described as heaven and the Buddha described as nirvana. In other words, it is the end of suffering and the beginning of your liberation as a self-actualized being free to experience the infinite magnitude of creation in whatever way you choose.