Monday, January 31, 2011

Ilusions

Richard Bach once wrote: "In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice."

When we simplify things, label them or what have you in order to save "time", do we not put ourselves willingly in an illusion? 

Isn`t it a bit boring having just a few boxes in which we place one thing or the other, forgetting it is only an illusion, something that was simplified in order to save "time" and "energy". It has  really nothing to do with the truth or the essence if you ponder it for a while, does it? How can we believe in knowing that which we call the truth, that which we call the essence, if we gave it up a long time ago. We invented words in order to communicate and in the process, we started to believe a symbol, or a word, actually is that which it represents. Isn`t it interesting? We lost the essence behind the word, replaced it with an illusion. Did we not communicate before the birth of words? Lets ponder that for a while....

And if that were not enough......
Len Blank put it best when he said: "We depend heavily upon our senses i.e. eyes, ears, skin, nose and tongue in responding and reacting to the world. Yet, they are extremely limited in giving us an accurate reading of what is truly happening. There are many examples of this, and if we look at how acute animals’ senses are, through mainly instinct, we can begin to realize the limitations we face by relying solely on our five senses. As a result of animals being instinctive, for the most part, they rely heavily upon their senses to react to and interpret their reality. However, humans having an intellect, often times make decisions based on the limited information their senses provide, the outcome of which frequently results in less then optimal choices with their accompanying negative consequences. Therefore, does it serve any of us to rely so completely on our five senses for making decisions, and frequently life-altering decisions? No, but what is the alternative? It has been said that the Intellect seeks solutions through fragmentation, whereas Consciousness seeks balance through wholeness. The senses, which the intellect interprets, actually provide at best only partial information to us, so the result is that frequently decisions are made in a fragmented way."

To summarize: we perceive the world around us through a filter. A filter of our five senses and the labels of our mind. We use them so that we can save "time" and "energy". We call that which we get through the filter, and what we label and what we simplify and reduce, we call it the reality. Is it not an illusion, that which is perceived through the egoic mind and the five senses? We call this perception our reality? We are even willing to argue, defend and die for our beliefs and illusions? Isn`t it a little bit funny, or maybe a little bit insane?

But we do all of those things so we can feel safe and so that we can live fast and efficient?
In other word we sacrificed our ability to perceive and feel the world around us as it really is.

Let us not forget about our programming that is done through the upbringing of our parents, that of course did their best, but still, maybe Don Miguel Ruitz put it best when he wrote: “I want you to imagine that you live on a planet where everyone has a skin disease. For thousands of years people have suffered the same disease. Their entire bodies are covered by wound that are infected, and they really hurt when you touch them. Of course people of this planet believe this is a normal physiology of the skin. Even the medical books describe this disease as a normal condition. When the people are born, their skin is healthy, but around three or four years of age, the first wounds start to appear. By the time they are teenagers, there are wounds all over their bodies. Can you imagine how these people are going to threat each other? In order to relate to one another they have to protect their wounds. They hardly ever touch each other`s skin, because it is too painful. If by accident you touch someone`s skin, it is so painful that right away that person gets angry and touches your skin, just to get even. Still the instinct of love is so strong that people on the planet pay a high price to have relationships with others. Can you imagine yourself with healthy skin in a world where everyone has a skin disease? You can not touch others because it hurts them, and no one touches you, because they make the assumption that it will hurt you.”

“If you can imagine this, perhaps you can understand someone from another planet, who came to visit us and would have a similar experience with humans." 

But it isn`t our skin that is diseased, it is the human mind that is sick with the disease called labeling. Labeling  produces blindness and blindness produces fear, doesn`t it? Being afraid of that which we can not see is very logical isn`t it? Fear is also based on illusions, on something that may or may not happen, but because we symplified everything, we can`t really be sure, can we? Because we do not see the essence, the truth, we actually have no idea what is really going on. We base our life decisions on illusions. we do not even ask our surroundings for feedback, to confirm that the illusion we have made is even a functional representation of the essence. We are so sure in our illusions that we judge, blame and even kill, yes even kill, before we ask questions, before we have even a shadow of a doubt. Isn`t that interesting? Fear produced by illusions has us doubting everything around us, except the illusion which is buy itself a doubtful entity. The manifestations of the disease caused by believing in the illusion of assumptions and fear are: anger, hate, sadness, envy and hypocrisy....thus the suffering.

Maybe some got tired of suffering and started to realize that the drama is not a natural part of a human beings life. So then what? Some start to avoid conflict, because they are in to "peace" and "understanding", they do not want to react (what about pondering the difference between action and reaction). But is not expressing ones self really a path to peace, or is it a path to inner tension? Tension that can actually be felt in a form of energy by others around that person. Because yes, feelings also produce energy, that can be felt the same as touch, just on a different level. It is like somebody had an invisible bubble around them, made out of energy. The polarity of the energy around an individual depends upon the predominant emotions that he or she is feeling at the time. And how we perceive that person  in one point in time has actually everything to do with that energy bubble and nothing to do with labels that we attach to them. And it is obvious isn`t it, the bubble changes polarity as our emotions and feeling change. So if we perceive one person as such and such one day, because he or she may be having a bad day, and we put a label of "he or she is a grumpy person", that becomes the way we actually "see" that person as a whole. It is quite obvious that  this has actually nothing to do with who that person truly is and everything to do with how we perceive that person. 

So, yes there we have it, another illusion is born! On top of everything, we are not actually going to be able to sense and see that individual in all the beauty and uniqueness that he or she really represents, thus we are not able to love. It makes sense, doesn`t it?

There is a deeper part, a deeper layer to every human, that is the essence of each individual. That witch does not get touched by the ego, or by all the labels. It is pure, it is so pure and bright, we can, for the sake of argument, call light itself. It is a part of us that has been there since we can remember. Even when we were very little, that part was there and it did not change through time. It is a constant, if there is such a thing,  that which we can call the essence. The essence shines through each and every one of us and the less illusions we have, the more it shines through.

Love, labels, power and purpose...

What is there in life that is so special? Is it the witnessing of all that is around us, is it the laughter or is it the pain that is something that we are all hooked on in one way or the other? Let`s stop ourselves for a minute and breathe and than ask ourselves what is really going on.

Where is our true purpose on this Earth? Is it really watching television, working our asses of at work and being all grumpy about our lives, because we do not have enough this or that, or maybe enough time? Time for what may I ask? For gossip, spending money, bragging and feeling over the moon about some accomplishment? For feeding in to our ego`s needs which ever way is more satisfying to us and the environment that we come from? And what else do we do just for our own amusement? Let`s not forget about a team sport that is very popular in our society: putting other people down and making them wrong, so that we can feel superior and worthy. So our ego can say back to us: "Yes, I am the best, I am right, I am more, etc". And that is all going on while explaining to others how conscious, how very good and righteous you are, because you recycle, or give to charity, or............

Maybe you see yourself as peaceful because you do not confront people when faced with a problem, or a dilemma and you applaud yourself for being such a good person. Never mind all that passive aggression that comes from not expressing oneself. What about all that "beautiful" unloving ways put in to the environment in a form of judging, labeling-putting people into boxes, making assumptions and gossiping? Is there a true purpose or reason in contamination of the environment with all the "beautiful" emotions and energy that comes from passive aggression?

What actually happends is that  an emotion is manufactured, one that lurks in the background like a silent virus, polluting our environment and a natural flow of things, called nothing other than....yes, that is right: hate.

And yet our ego claims to us that we are so "loving" and "good", because we recycle, yes let`s not forget that we recycle. So we must be doing something "good" for the planet, right? If you feel your ego is getting in the way, maybe this is a good read for you:  Eckhart Tolle`s, New Earth.

A friend of mine once said, and I quote: " Life is free. It's all those things that make it more "comfortable" that are expensive, how much do we have to pay for the sunlight, the air?"  But is that enough? No, of course not. Because we need and need, a better this or that, and we must buy, buy, buy... But, that is not free, we need money to empower our needs, our egos, so that we can feel better, so that we can successfully compare ourselves with others and judge ourselves more worthy than others. After a while an emotion starts to get stronger and stronger, when we realize that we like our position and we do not want to lose our "power" or our possessions or whatever else we deem that we really need. We start to fear loss, or a little thing called change. Oh yes, we fear change, the very essence of life itself. So egoic fear is born. Everybody around us is seen as competition, as the enemy. Enemy to whom? Enemy to life, or to the egoic mind? What does that mean, really? In nature our competitors would get food instead of us, and if we were not bigger, stronger, or what have you, we would starve, even die maybe. We have named that survival of the fitest. So, that meant, that if we were not the "fitest" we could die? Hm....so, we became afraid, and fear guided us to reject everything that was potentially threatening to us and might prevent us getting the food we needed for survival. So, let us ponder this for a minute or two..... We became afraid of everything that might prevent us from surviving-a probability not reality? Isn`t that also called an illusion?

Right, so we had to disarm and disable everything around us that was potentially "harmful" to us, and because we had to conserve with our energy (because we needed it for survival), we did not ponder everything, instead we made a thing called "a label", that was very energy efficient and used it to label things in accordance to our emediate or distant probability of a threat, that could be, or not be real. Reality of something was not very important as long as the energy was saved. Awareness actually consumes energy, so why waist it, when we have labels? So we saved evergy and labeled animals, plants and people according to our imaginary , yes that`s right imaginary feeling of importance and threat.  But it did not stop there, oh no, why would it, if you have something so time saving, why stop there? So, we labeled everything from the smallest butterfly, to the biggest mountain, because you never know where the danger lurks. It`s better to be safe, than sorry we said, and lets not forget also we also know of labeling just for the fun of putting everything in to a box. We invented systems, and boy do we have a lot of systems! We are so proud of our system theory and cybernetics, where we even study the structure of regulatory systems, systems that are merely symbols of the little thing called reality. But we had to sacrifice something that was very important when inventing labels and systems, we sacrificed the truth.

But, never mind that, as long as we were saving energy by labeling. We were able to decide quickly about something being "good" or "bad", "better" or "worse", "beautiful" and "ugly"....and so on. Than one day our ego came to the conclusion that "labeling" is not just a survival kit, it can also be used for feeling better about ourselves, for feeling strong in comparison to others. How you ask? Simple, by labeling something or someone as "less", as "lower" than us, never mind the little thing called the truth as long as there is a little moment of empowerment that comes from doing this ego based labeling, it is worth it. There was just one ingredient left missing so that the false feeling of power could be complete, that little thing is called hate.

A friend of mine once said, and I quote: "If you cannot live without hate I advise that you start investing into the material and the superiority, for hate is not free, you have to sacrifice love for it! Love on the other hand is free, it can't even be bought it's that free, even if you give it you still end up having it, unlike your shoes."

And that we did, didn`t we? We sacrificed our love for being better, for being right, for labeling, because we are perhaps to lazy to feel a persons soul, to look inside and actually see a being, without any preconceptions, to see the uniqueness that is that being. We judge and speak of others in a non accepting way just to feel safe, or better. Well, so where is the happiness and the joy? If this is the way it is supposed to be, is it possible that by labeling everything, judging and being so wonderfully right, we are actually sucking the life out of everything around us, us including?
 
If we look at the grand scale of things, really, that is our life´s purpose? Having a content ego full of "goodness" and superiority? Seriously?