writings

[freemindflow]

Yet there is no duty to fulfill for the realised person who delights within the self, being fully satisfied within.

Srimad Bhagavad-gita - Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj

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The only thing that humans can be found guilty of is that they're uninformed/misinformed. And they're all guilty, regardless of actions.

Me, Just Now

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Wishful Thinking Block

A society of awake beings wouldn’t be possible now, as things stand. Not because current society stands in its way (or because we have fluoride in our water), but because awakening/enlightenment/truth realisation is something you do, it’s not a subject that you can learn or that can be taught. Where would such an activity even take place, assuming it would be possible at all? In class-rooms, in schools, in guru “groups”? At somebody’s feet[1]?

No, the realisation can only be gotten at alone. It’s not something one human, one being can pass on to another. Schools and groups are stepping stones, that can sometimes be important pit stops along the way. But what you will get from them, if anything at all, won’t ever be what you will go to them seeking. True learning can only begin once you acknowledge that you can be the only authority. It’s not that you should be the only authority for knowledge or truth, it’s that when it comes to yourself, you can be the only authority. That’s inviolable by definition. It’s extremely easy to verify for yourself if schools or teachers are actually effective at this. Wouldn’t you think a lot of people should possess this by now if they were? Let’s assume[2] they do have the “truth”, then wouldn’t their method be obviously faulty, because it sure doesn’t seem to be getting across. School is compulsory, after all, in most places, but that doesn’t mean most people possess even a basic understanding of chemistry. Just because your parents potty-trained you doesn’t mean that as a human, the only way to get information is from another human being. Anything worth knowing can only be discovered and glanced at by yourself.

The moment you’ve taken somebody else’s words as “truths” or try to walk in somebody else’s path, is the moment you’ve derailed your own. It’s your journey and you already know that things can only be understood for yourself. You just need to extrapolate a bit and apply this to what you come across on the path you’re on.

But hey, there’s no rush!

 [1] Does a person kneeling genuinely at somebody else’s feet seem like an awake or realised being? No? Than why do so many believe that throwing yourself at somebody’s feet is part of the process? [2] Given the current state of affairs, that’s an incredibly far fetched assumption.

[freemindflow]

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. [...] We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.

Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”

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Death Seems Incomprehensible

I now have the beginning of an understanding as to why death is so perplexing and as to why the thought of my own demise is so unshakeable. From the context of the human world, the only thing that can be said for sure is that I exist. That’s the only truth that can be stated; anything and everything else can only be assumed, if one takes the questions in the inquiry back to their logical foundation.  How can something about which it can’t be said that it’s known for certain to be true, falsify the only thing about which it can? An apparent contradiction. The key needed is the information that I exist IS and CAN only be at the present tense and can’t be conjugated; I exist doesn’t require or imply the existence of time. But, to have the notion that “you are going to” or that “you will die”, requires and implies the existence of time. I exist is a moment, death is a moment, but “I will die” requires time, it implies future. A “moment” is thought of as a unit of time, but a moment is infinitely small, it’s infinite, it’s nothing and thus can’t be something because it doesn’t exist and as such can’t be a unit of anything and can’t, accordingly, be a unit of time.

No questions or answers, only information that makes other information go away. Seen and understood not to be.

[freemindflow]

News and Novelty in Human Society

For the most part what’s called news is not really new, it’s just a variation on the context. News revolves largely around reporting on the atrocities of men: murders, wars, rapes and so on. But these are by no means new, they’ve been going on since before we became modern humans.

What’s really new and worth reporting on, are the things that human society has managed to accomplish only very recently, when compared to the lifespan of humanity. Things like space walks, amusement parks, roller-coasters, computers, aqua-parks, bungee jumping, skydiving, the internet in all its existence-changing glory and, to our delight, countless others.

Not only are these things new, but they are extremely fragile and could disappear due to only a slight shift at a more basic level of the human existence. Whereas murder, rape and war would most likely continue to exist, even thrive, if the human situation took a turn for the worst.

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Allowing Yourself to See

It’s true of this world that no man can see something because another man is describing it to him, each can know only what he has the ability to see. But a better way of phrasing that, a complete and more descriptive way, would be to say that each sees only what he allows himself to see.

From all indications everybody knows the truth at some level, even if it appears that the majority know it only at their most primordial. It never enters their consciousness, it’s not even close to it. Not because they lack the ability to see the truth, but because they have unbelievable mechanisms in place that don’t allow them to see it. Yet the truth seems to exist in each individual. The realisation of the truth, (unchangeable wether or not one allows for it), or its proximity to one’s consciousness, is not a matter of accomplishment, it’s a matter of allowing for it.

Take an example. By now, almost everybody is aware that other cultures with different values than his own exist and has some sort of knowledge of those values. From inside his culture those values seem obviously false, but from inside the other culture his own values seem obviously false. Both sets of values seem obviously false from the outside, from a third culture, or better yet from outside any culture. No culture is superior to any other. None of them matter. Nothing does. Yet the vast, vast majority live and die inside cultures.

The truth is very obvious, it’s not a matter of being able to see it, it’s a matter of how much of it are you allowing yourself to see. Of allowing the right question to enter your mind, and then discovering it has no answer, thus, that the question itself was a mirage.

P.S. Claiming a theoretical understanding of the concept creates another belief. But without the actual allowance it’s worse than nothing at all. It’s better to have nothing at all than an obstacle in the way of you allowing yourself to see. Otherwise, it’s just another belief to overcome, just another question to ask.

[freemindflow]

Conversations about Beliefs

People who consider themselves smart say it’s a bad idea to start a conversation on the topic of religion. What they fail to realise however, is that all conversations are about religion, because it’s all a belief system.

And extremely few people have experiences outside of the belief system.

[freemindflow]

Truth Allergies

The dictionary defines allergies as an “exaggerated or pathological immunological reaction (…) to substances, situations, or physical states that are without comparable effect on the average individual” or as “a feeling of antipathy or aversion”. According to this definition it could be said that people are severely allergic to the truth. Luckily they have multiple, seemingly impenetrable, layers of protection and the vast majority are never exposed to it. The diseased i.e., those who come in contact with the truth, are so rare, that their minority is not only negligibly small, it's so small that most of those who claim to have an interest in the matter, can’t recognise them and don’t even realise they exist.

All the best for all the rest.

[freemindflow]

Evil is Hope

There is no Evil, there’s only hope. Hope gives people the strength to carry on doing the same things even after they're repeatedly proven to be wrong.

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Art for Truth

There seems to be agreement around the opinion that art is the pursuit of all things beautiful, the attempt to convey beauty. However, that’s like saying “Art… well… actually… we have no idea what it’s supposed to be”, as beauty is entirely subjective. At some level everyone knows this, that’s probably why there’s not even an attempt at general human consensus. There are norms and trends, but never a convention; that should give you an idea about the state of things.

But art[1] can be understood to mean the attempt to express the truth (the pursuit of, and extremely rarely the discovery of it). When viewed this way, it becomes a very special thing among human endeavours; the one that seems to define the existence of the species.

But, of course, all endeavours are pointless, they’re all just a means to kill time.

 [1] When a word becomes murky, it stops being particularly useful, as it can’t be called upon to express something honestly, succinctly or directly. I see that happening when its meaning gets muddied and when what it intended to convey isn’t any longer clear. That’s the reason why I’m not particularly fond of that murky word.

[freemindflow]

Fictional Opinions

What would it seem like if, after meeting someone and starting a conversation on a subject, that someone would come up with something related to the topic but not related to what you said and have the impression he’s agreeing or contradicting you because he does or doesn’t agree with what he made up and now attributes to you. And if you would try to explain to said person, that you didn’t say anything like that, he would most likely ignore you and continue to agree or disagree with what he came up with (usually a very standard issue) and insist he’s agreeing or disagreeing[1] with you.

Wouldn’t that seem strange?

It seems very strange to me, even now as I’ve come to accept it as the most common form of “dialogue”.

[1] Usually the agreement is much harder to notice than the disagreement.

[freemindflow]

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

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I’m an outsider by choice, but not truly. It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out. I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from: being forced to choose to stay outside.

George Carlin. “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops.”

Although, if you think about it, any system, from the moment of its inception, before it has a chance to become good or bad is entirely fictional. So just move on.

[freemindflow]

The Newborn and the Bookshelf

Imagine a new born baby with the ability to read, a human consciousness blank aside from this ability. The baby is standing in front of an unimaginably large bookshelf. A book shelf that contains within it all the books that have been and could be written. He can read any book he desires, he doesn’t know any rules, he isn’t limited by anything. The baby extends his hand and reaches for a book, he picks it up, opens it and starts reading. For him reading is the same as seeing, he doesn’t distinguish between the two; he’s not aware of the fact he’s reading, the same way you’re not aware of your heart beating, or your lungs breathing.

He finishes the first book and puts it back, again, there are no rules, he could pick-up any book as his second. Yet he choses a book close to the first book. He does that for his third and fourth and will continue to do so for the rest of his life, he’ll only read books close to what he has already read. In most cases there won’t be a connection between the books aside from their physical proximity; but that won’t matter to him, he’ll become the connection as long as the books are close enough. The summary of those books will become what he will view as himself, even though he’ll never stop reading. 

This describes the life path of most people; and almost nobody ever stops reading.

[freemindflow]

Letters from Myself

I'm calling these writings Letters from Myself. I've been calling them that ever since I started collecting them in one place. That's what I see in them, letters (writings) from a past me to a future me, if that future me happens to come. A link between what I am seeing and have seen, to what I’ll look upon. It's not a diary as these are not writings about myself[1], they're about connections that come when I look upon the world. I won't pretend to understand where they come from, or try to bestow any relevance to them, as I know that there never is any to be found. I just write because I can't not write.

For most of them the future me already came, and went, and sometimes came again. The chances of a future state of consciousness looking upon them are high, considering I can be disconnected from what I’ve written just a few hours after having written it. From then on, from the point the disconnect happens, I read them as if they were new to me, which I guess they are, at least new for reading. So I read them as anybody else would, except for the fact that I can totally identify with them and in most cases feel what’s going to come.

In the mean time, before I’ll read them again, I’ve decided to make them public. Enjoy.

Update: I write and receive two types of letters to and from myself. I classify them according to the viewpoint I perceive myself to be writing from: from outside the human world, looking at the human world in general, as a general view is all I have from the outside; or from the inside of the human world looking at particulars of the human world. Till now I believed this difference to justify the separation and publication of the two on two different websites. But knowing that a) in a way, because I made the journey that took me out of the human world, I can’t really be inside it; and b) I’m in the human condition/state momentarily, meaning that I can never really get a viewpoint from outside it; I decided that there really isn’t any difference between the two types of writings[2], and thus there’s no reason to keep them separated on two different sites. As such, I’ll suspend the existence of the second site (or rather I should say first site, as that one has been in existence for a couple of years longer than this one) and move all my existing writings from that site to this one. I’ll date the writings I’m going to move over with the date they were initially finalised on. 

P.S. : Regarding the way the writings are going to be dated. After considering the issue, I decided to post them with the date I’ve written them, in case they need only minor edits and spell checks before I’m willing to post them. In case the writings are at the idea stage, or if they need a lot more to be added (or rewritten) before I can hope that anybody aside from myself can make any sense of them, I’ll post them with the current date. For this reason I believe that if you have the intention of keeping up with the new writings I’ll be posting, Twitter is a better choice than following the site itself, as sometimes I’ll post new writings, but date them a few years or months back. However, I’ll tweet after making each new writing public, and they’ll appear in that order. 

[1] They wouldn’t be about myself even if I wouldn’t be aware of the non-existence of such an entity aside from what I can be bothered to summon.

[2] Maybe this inside/outside business will have you thinking that there are two separate states to my existence and that I undergo some-kind of a transition between the two; but that’s not the case, “from the outside” refers to a view from which I recognise all things to be equally irrelevant, while “from the inside” refers to a view in which I pretend that the things I’m considering or expressing at a given moment are more relevant than others, a thing I do even while maintaining the awareness of the fact that that’s not the case.

[freemindflow]

Selling your Soul

I will never understand how you do it. Get up and sell your soul like that. And I’ll never understand how they can encourage you like that. But I guess for them, and you, it seems normal. Everyone around you is selling their soul. It’s like they never had one to begin with.

And you will never understand how I can’t get up and sell mine.