(This blog entry notes a few aspects of living in unity consciousness and trying to spiritually help others. These are basically notes to myself, made public. (There is also more than a bit of rambling, which I typically edit out.) As terms and broader context go unexplained, they are not intended for the casual reader, or even for one in iğnorance. You should have at least read my books The Red Pill: Mastering the Matrix and Clarity: The Path Inside before bothering with this entry.)
Spiritual Teaching:
The guru experience is laughable in several ways. You can’t clue the clueless is just the beginning (and the end).
The landscape is blighted because most self-claimed spiritual teachers are ignoramuses that are ego-tripping: gleeful to be recognized as wise for dispensing psychologically soothing tripe. These spiritual charlatans know nothing of the science of consciousness. That observation goes for 99+% of spiritual and self-help books published.
I have found social media (Twitter) incredibly challenging and laughably disgusting regarding spirituality. Condescension to my target audience gets old: simplification to please results in obfuscation as much as revelation. Hard core spiritual tweets are never liked. The Collective don’t quite equate spirituality to mental health, thinking spirituality has some secret sauce to it. Spiritual fakirs promote that very (secret sauce) notion: like being spiritual is somehow like being sexy on the inside. In sum, no one in iğnorance appreciates that reaching enlightenment/mental health is the most dedicated, excellent skill – and that having a good teacher of the craft is practically essential.
The root problem with spiritual teaching is that levels of consciousness are paradigm shifts, not just gradual elevations. Someone in iğnorance can only imagine what enlightenment is, and, even then, only do so badly: thinking in terms of emotion, never in clarity and awareness.
However clearly the concepts can be put by a teacher, they are impenetrable to someone still in iğnorance. It’s like trying to tell a dichromatic creature (which can only see grue (green-blue)) what red looks like (trichromacy): imagination simply cannot fill the gap.
The only reason anyone seeks enlightenment is that some aspect of iğnorance, usually emotional duress, is intolerable. (For me it was the intense vexation of frustration, and the attendant anger that ensued from it.) In other words, rather severe mental illness drives one toward mental health. It’s a rare adult indeed who can overcome their mental illness by sheer act of will.
Traditionally, iğnorance has often been overthrown via faith in a guru, and thereby their teachings. Especially in the West, there is no such tradition: either of enlightenment as an admirable goal or relying upon gurus as a spiritual guide. The situation is worsened by spiritual fakirs successfully posing as gurus. (The absurd Ken Wilbur jumps to mind. As does Dalai Lama, who got his guaranteed gig as a youngster, and has made a quite passable impersonation of a guru, though who consistently fails to convey the nitty-gritty of the process. But then, Buddhism is encrusted with a lot of spiritual rubbish.) Ignorant people don’t know the real thing from a fake.
Even legitimate gurus are often not very good at their craft. I meditated and followed Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s teachings for over 3 decades, to little avail beyond being a bit calmer as a baseline. Few TMers (Transcendental Meditators) reach enlightenment, because Maharishi didn’t teach the hard part, instead focusing on bliss. (Maharishi was contemporaneously criticized by other Indian gurus about this. As it turned out, what broke Maharishi from the pack, and brought him celebrity, was a friendly visit from the Beatles. Maharishi was savvy enough to promote his positive meditation vibe into billionaire status. That his teachings weren’t especially effective seemed almost beside the point. After all, those in the Collective don’t know what enlightenment is.)
It wasn’t until I read Nisargadatta Maharaj that I found somewhat decent instruction. And even then, Maharaj’s teachings were terribly diluted, because he never bothered to write them himself. Instead, all that are available are transcripts of his tutelage of seekers, recorded and transcribed by disciples. To get to the meat of Maharaj’s teachings requires considerable diligence in sifting through the abundant dross. (The dross arises from Maharaj addressing the confusion seekers bring.) Alas, as evidenced by their commentaries, it seems few of Maharaj’s closest disciples managed to truly comprehend his teachings. The distillation process certainly wasn’t easy for me.
Historically, spiritual teachers have relied upon parables, allegories, and analogies to get their points across. (My book The Red Pill uses the movie The Matrix as its parable ballast.) It makes most spiritual work read like bad fantasy literature. The ancient Vedic texts, for instance, are ridiculous.
My approach has been to employ science to prove energyism, and so promote an intellectual paradigm shift that facilitates understanding that levels/stages of consciousness are an inner metamorphosis. That hasn’t worked (failed dismally so far, actually), as people are so insufferably stupid: their spiritual candles snuffed by their minds, determined to feed off them in iğnorance. Even those who might like to think they are open-minded remain utterly blind.
It helps not a whit that I live in a culture that has lost any regard for intellectual knowledge beyond what celebrity it can bring. Those in the Collective are so mentally institutionalized that they confuse celebrity for knowledge, and vice versa: if you’re not famous, how could you possibly have answers?! Not to mention that few spiritual seekers, it seems, are interested in science. (As an aside, most popular science books are trash: more “human interest” than science. Even good science textbooks are uncommon.)
Spiritual teaching is mostly bad comedy: making fun of others by trying to teach something which cannot be learned, regardless of earnest eagerness – like holding a treat for a dog always just out of reach. The feeling of compassion that compels spiritual teaching effortlessly transforms to disgust when applied to the hapless Collective, which is the common case (especially in using social media).
The real reason realized beings spend so much time in solitude is that the iğnorant are insufferable – so ripe with stupidity from believing their miscreant minds. Few indeed are those who have primed themselves toward enlightenment and only need a bit of tailored instruction to take the final step into the light.
And what conversation do you have with someone else who is realized? There’s no reason to talk shop (about consciousness). To prattle about the Collective is droll, like laughing again at an old joke.
The few people I’ve talked to who were enlightened were boring after the first flush of pleasantry. What is interesting to talk of are topics of knowledge and insight: of science, craft, and art – things not about consciousness, but which are elevated by the perspective of being at a higher level of awareness.
Spirituality is a craft beyond concepts. I’ve already discovered the pitfalls of trying to teach mental health to the hopelessly clueless. Commiseration on the topic with another guru is simply souring on a sore subject. It’s gratifying to help someone, but any expression of enthusiasm at being a guru is mere bluster.
Bliss:
Bliss is the key to will to live. Without bliss, suicide would be the norm, and multicellular life could never have arisen: a cell could never rely upon another not to check out at an inconvenient moment.
Bliss is itself an awareness fog, albeit the most confectionary imaginable.
While those transitioning to enlightenment find bliss wonderfully significant, the effect of bliss in realization is as a counterweight against pervading apathy.
Even those enlightened are accepting in life ending, content to be in now. To see through all the deceits and charades that constitute life and existence is itself a mental baggage made lighter by bliss. In other words, crudely put, life is a shitshow made tolerable by bliss. Like honey on sour fruit, bliss sweetens the meal.
At this stage, I find bliss simultaneously pleasant and annoying. The annoying part is knowing how necessary the constant drip-feed of bliss is to keep smoothly sailing. I suspect Maharaj had similar mixed feelings (though perhaps not for the same reason), as he once said, “I disapprove of the universe.”
Being realized means knowing that all that awaits is another challenging adventure, next incarnation. The way the shitshow works, odds are that next episode will be even more trying. Having climbed the summit this time around, why not enjoy the view from the peak just a little longer, with bliss brightening the scenery. (This perspective is a day-to-night contrast to the iğnorant who live in fear of death, especially religious fools who believe in heaven or some such moronic paracosm.) It may be just a game show, but it’s the only game on offer.
Bliss momentarily dispels the gnawing knowing that light only hides the darkness of nothingness, and that struggle is inherent in the game of life, with bliss a meager compensation.