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Who Cares Who We Are?

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

This is a question I’m asking honestly.  We can go on and on about who we are, what we are, but who among us cares to delve into these subjects?  I know I certainly do.  But who among us really wants to know?  Who wants the truth?  From an objective lens, we are the rapists of the Earth, destroying our planet ever more rapidly, just to extend our power and control over the environment in which we live.  From a subjective lens, we are whatever we think we are, or believe we are.  The subjective lens is a more empowering view of humans, but is that really what we need as a species?  Because it seems like, from an objective lens, that all we’ve done with this expanded power is cause more death, destruction, and control.  Sure, life is great for a select few in this world, but it is at the expense of others, humans and nonhumans.  From what I have seen, most of the world lives in poverty, which is not right, but that’s how it is.  We are not living with the great spirit within us as a whole.  But that can’t stop you from doing so.

We can tap into another reality at any time we want to.  We just have to know how.  We have to have the consciousness for it.  But what is the true nature of reality?  What is the real truth?  Which lens is most accurate?  The question is unanswerable, because for one there are too many lenses to look through.  Another problem is that different lens are more accurate for different people.  It’s hard to really know which lens is the most accurate, but we can explore different lenses to see which one works better than the one we are using.  Or we can use the multi-lens approach, tailoring each situation to the best lens for the job.  But I’m sure this takes years of practice to calibrate which lens is best for each individual situation.  I believe that subjective reality is one of the primary steps to getting your reality in better order, simply because it allows for what you believe to be true.

It is a creative belief system, with potentially unlimited possibilities, but the major limit being our own minds.  We can explore our inner space indefinitely, and this is a way to truly flourish, independent of the objective universe, although the objective universe is contained within the subjective framework.  But the objective universe is only there because we believe in it to be so.  But our belief is truly rooted there as of now because that is where our consciousness is wrapped up.  Sure, it has led to unbelievable understanding and advances in technology, so it is useful in the framework in which it works, so it cannot be completely dumped.  But relying solely on the objective lens creates fear and uncertainty.  It creates a feeling of lack of control.  But when the subjective lens is placed before the objective one, it can make the objective world a creation of consciousness, and therefore more flexible and less pronounced.  The subjective lens accounts for much more than just the objective world.  It brings that all experiences are possible and that if we wish to create them, we can by intending it to be created.

It reminds me of the mantra, “If you believe it, it is so.”  Very true.  But not always.  You’ve seen cult suicides, and other indoctrinated people who believed what they believed only because their consciousness was controlled.  You can believe whatever you want to believe, but it has to actually work for you.  It has to encourage growth, not stagnation.  It has to empower you, not disempower you.  It has to open your mind, not close it.  A closed mind is one of rigidity and clinginess.  People cling to their beliefs, even in the most contradictory experiences.  When you see something that contradicts your beliefs, you need to open your mind and find something that will explain it,  otherwise you are perceiving reality inaccurately.  And that would be a damn shame because it would hinder your ability to function in the real world.  The more removed from reality your beliefs are, the worse off you are.

A few years ago, I tried out the subjective lens, and intended money to come into my life.  I had absolute strangers giving me $5 where I worked.  At the time, I was a bagger at a grocery store and when I went outside to retrieve the shopping carts, I was finding money everywhere.  I was getting large tips from people I helped out, and this one incident threw me over the edge.  A man called for my attention when i was in the parking lot and said, “Come over here for a moment.”  So I did.  ”I just wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday.  You helped my mother bring her groceries to her car and I just wanted you to have this.”  He gave me a $10 bill.  I had never even imagined something like this would happen unless it had to do with my intention for it to happen.  I thought to myself, “Wow!  This is really true!  It made my life better in every way possible!”  Of course, we forget and go back to old habits, so I did, and lost parts of that belief system.

I’m going from personal experience when I say that intention-manifestation does work, but it only works to the extent you believe in it.  If you have doubts, those doubts will appear in your manifestations.  If you don’t actually believe you can manifest $50,000 dollars just by intending it, you won’t.  If you think these things are impossible, stop reading now.  Your beliefs will stop you from experiencing anything beyond your realm of possibility.  In a subjective framework, anything is possible.  Your only limitation is if you don’t truly believe this.  I’m not quite there yet, but using reference experiences and other people’s supposed experiences, I figure that it can only enhance reality, not degrade it, so it is empowering by its very nature, to say that you (consciousness) are the very creator of this reality and are everything you experience, not just your physical body.  It is the dream scenario in my previous post.  You are all that exists, all that you are aware of, all your thoughts and the thoughts that you perceive to the in the global consciousness.  It’s all you.  Other people are you.  The planet is you.  The universe is you.  Everyone and everything is connected.  There is no you and I.  It is all I.  Or we.  We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.  Life is nothing but a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.  Einstein proved that, so why haven’t we taken it seriously yet?  Because we (I) am not ready yet.  But I’m getting there.

And when we believe that we are all one, all part of the same whole, in this together, we start to have compassion.  Compassion for all that is.  We realize that to hurt another is to hurt oneself.  To hate someone is truly to hate a part of yourself.  Non-duality.  A belief in this can create quite an interesting life I bet.  It is a very empowering way to view reality and no matter what happens, you know you are safe, even beyond the death of your physical avatar.  If you die in a dream, you don’t die for real.  Your physical body is but a manifestation of consciousness and is just another one of your creations.

I’ll expand on this later when I have more time.  I just manifested a lunch with my grandparents.  But I hope I have convinced you that you should care about who we are and that we should get to the roots of reality to perceive it accurately.  Remember, an accurate belief enhances your life and the lives of those around you, while an inaccurate belief causes problems, especially if it closes your mind to other schools of thought.  This is why subjective reality is the most empowering belief I’ve found so far.  It encompasses everything and anything, as long as you are open to it.  A jack of all trades.  It is how we all live our lives, but with many belief systems tacked onto it, some that even negate the subjective paradigm.  A God making himself powerless.  Anyway, happy existence to you!

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Posted in Anti-establishment, Inspiration, Intentions, Nature, Religion | 2 Comments »

Who am I?, Part 2

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Last night I asked a lot of questions in this post, and I did not really provide any answers.  It’s because I wasn’t there.  And neither were you.  But how can we use this uncertainty to live a better life?  Is it possible to believe in anything when we simply do not know what the real truth is about our origins?  Well, I would say yes, but only in a way that allows us to flourish as human beings, not one which provides true understanding.  Sure, living a good life is fine and dandy, but what is the deeper meaning of it?  Sure, you have rich experiences and have tons of joy in your life, but what does that all mean in the greater context of all that is?  I guess it will be easier to live out your “sentence” on this planet and will make living that much more fun.  And a life well-lived is something that can have a very deep meaning to you, to me.  Even if it doesn’t answer all of those nagging questions.

People who live lives based in spirituality or other belief systems could have it all wrong.  But many of them do not suffer for it.  Especially if it is a consciously-chosen belief system, not a socially-conditioned one.  A socially-conditioned belief system is nothing more than dumb luck, the family you were born into, the culture you live in indoctrinate that belief system into you.  You mostly associate with those who believe the same as you and rarely ever go beyond the box of your little belief-created world.  Many people never even change one belief about their spiritual practices in an entire lifetime.  Even if they do have questions, social pressure holds them back from getting answers.  They just go with the flow of their little world.  Outsiders are different, so they are deemed dangerous, much like the condemning of the Muslim faith in American media.  When’s the last time you saw a lead story about a peaceful Muslim movement?

Of course, those that choose their spiritual lives consciously have most likely tried at least a few belief systems and found one that worked best for them.  There are even those who have multiple religions or perspectives when it comes to spirituality (see Steve Pavlina).  These are conscious choices and are more certain beliefs in my book, because there was at least a period of spiritual exploration that took place.  There were questions asked.  Answers given.  And there was growth beyond the socially-conditioned path of spirituality.  It makes more sense to try out different beliefs about reality and see which resonate with you than to just pick one and stick with it, no matter how close-minded it may be.  Even atheism doesn’t explicitly claim, “There is no God,” just that there is no proof of God.  At least they are man enough to say, “I don’t know.”  Or maybe I’m thinking of agnostic.  Even Buddhism does not say whether or not there is a God and does not say what happens after death.  Why?  Because these people are not dead.  At least they are not making false promises, or creating delusions that most people would regard as insanity from the outside looking in.

Experience is the only tool we have to create our belief systems.  Everything else is what I would call “a leap of faith.”  Unless we have directly experienced it, then we do not know whether or not it is true.  For example, suppose you read in the paper that some building got bombed in another country, killing hundreds of people.  Then the next day, an article comes out saying the first article was false, a mistake, a hoax even.  But it was real yesterday, you say.  But the only thing that was truly real to you about that whole experience is you reading the article claiming that a bomb went off, killing hundreds.  You weren’t there to witness it or the after-effects.  So you don’t know whether or not it is real.  I’m sure it would be out of your way to go all the way over there and verify, but you don’t have to do that.  Because it didn’t even happen, as you will soon find out.  But how do you know the retraction is true?

This is why I find it hard to put my trust in ideas or philosophies I haven’t tried for myself and enjoyed the results.  Sure, taking a leap of faith can help sometimes, like if it makes your life that much better, go ahead and do it.  But I feel like taking too far a leap into the wrong faith can corrupt.  The only thing you can ever be sure of is the present moment and what is around you.  Everything else is a leap of faith.  Your reality is what it is at every moment, and nothing else.  That is the only thing you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Your experiences are only real because you were there.  Otherwise, they are pure fantasy.  So wouldn’t a belief system focused on the present moment make a lot of sense?  Or at least a belief system based on the culmination of all your present moments up today (i.e. your experiences)?  To do anything more would be taking a bit of a risk, but you can always come back to first principle.  You can keep an open mind about all belief systems, but know in your heart that all you know for certain is that you are here right now, existing, doing whatever it is you are doing.  And it is then that you have no need for answers because all the answers you seek are right in front of you.

So, I am advocating a belief system based on experiences and the present moment.  It is logical, but at the same time spiritual.  You can have spiritual experiences and they are valid because you yourself experienced them. You can keep an open mind and experiment with any beliefs you want, but they are not your identity.  You don’t need to rely on someone or something telling you how it is because you know how it is based on your experience.  It does not claim there is a God, or that there is no God.  It does not claim anything, other than what you actually, tangibly experience.  It is certainly grounded in reality.  It is certainly fool-proof.  It cannot be wished away or simply changed.  It is what it is and that is all.  Simple, yet very profound.  It needs no labels or converts.  It simply just is, for now at least.

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Evil Corporations

Friday, May 28th, 2010

The going mantra for corporations is: grow or die. Expand or disintegrate. It is true of most corporations. If it is not getting bigger in the most bloated sense of the word, then most likely that corporation is a failure. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds a lot like civilization. Something that has to expand or else people will die. Something that keeps expanding, regardless of the cost to the world around it. Or what’s left of the world around it. Most corporations follow the standard civilization doctrine: exploit those below them, expand indiscriminately, buy out competitors, and always keep the consumers in the dark about what really goes on. It’s very similar. Civilization has always exploited the poor people in their lower class, expanded due to its growing population, “bought out” competitors by either killing them or having them join you under threat of death, and keeping the public in the dark about the inner workings of the civilization.

I would say then that most of these corporations are evil because their very foundation is one of evil. In the world that we live in, it is impossible to “get ahead” except when you do the cutthroat things that everyone else does. I know that is a generalization, but that is the way most people do feel. It’s always about being better than your competitors. “Better” being a subjective term here. Better may mean exploiting your third world workers better so that you can afford to charge lower prices. Just ask Walmart about that. Or it could mean providing a better value than other companies that do similar work. The latter is grounds for an enlightened company, while the former is standard practice in the business world. Instead of increasing value, these companies cut down the overhead by belittling those low on the totem pole to increase profits while not really providing any more value.

A business’s main motive today is profit. That is what guides nearly every corporation on the face of this Earth. It is not their service that guides them. Sure, they have good service, but that’s only because it increases their net worth over time. They don’t really care about their customer base, except to the degree that it will increase their net profits. It is not about anyone, not even the CEO. It is about their stock price. It is about their balance sheet. It is about their expansion. It is a group of people working for the expansion of this entity that is almost imaginary, because it exists only on paper. But all these people devote themselves to serving this “master,” as if it will give meaning to their lives, or simply allow them a place to live and food to eat in this unforgiving society.

It’s really hard to think of many corporations that don’t operate this way. I’m sure there are some, but they are few and far between. Where are the companies that have a primary motive or service and profit is simply a byproduct of the exceptional service they provide? I’m sure we’ve not heard of many of these corporations because they remained small and thrived that way because it is likely it is run by a small amount of people who truly believe in their service first principle. A large corporation gets too muddled to maintain that value system across the board. Once it reaches a certain size, it can no longer be one of the “good guys.” At that point, it needs to keep expanding or crash and burn. See Starbucks as a prime example. It just had to close a ton of stores due to its over-expansion. It used to be one of the “good guys,” but it became too big for its own good and look what happened.

I would liken most corporations to that of a cult. It is always looking for new followers and uses underhanded tactics to get them. For example, some of the supermarkets around here are now selling gasoline at a lower price if you spend so much money inside the store. Like I said before, it is a way to beat out the competition, or to be exactly like the competition, so that the corporation doesn’t miss out on any missed opportunities that other corporations have taken up. When you take out your supermarket club card, it is further proof in brand loyalty. They actually call these cards “loyalty cards.” They take down all your information and start tracking your spending habits. They give you coupons in exchange for your “loyalty.” The little reward for being a part of this particular cult.

It is rather amusing in its own little way, how corporations have perpetually conditioned us to like them. We even feel we need them to provide for us. In Walmart we trust. This reminds me of Project Mayhem. In case you are unfamiliar, it is a group from the movie Fight Club that basically tried to destroy the corporate culture in very unconventional ways. And the funny thing is that they had almost everyone on their side. All the people in the bottom rungs of all corporations were secretly a part of Project Mayhem, so there was no stopping them. Sure, they may have gone too far in blowing up all the credit card companies, but who in this world would benefit from them staying functional? Besides, all the buildings were empty.

Now, I’m not advocating for any violence towards any corporation, but it seems like that would be the only thing that these bloated beasts would understand, other than a total bankruptcy, which is something we can also work to create. For example, we are the lifeblood of these corporations. Without us, they crumble to the ground. We support them, feed them, and even work for them. Some of them are better than others, but most of them are pretty much the same. What if we only supported local businesses that were smaller, autonomous, and were more concerned with service than profits? One of two things would happen. The first is that the local businesses would become larger and larger to support the demand, thus becoming yet another large, bloated corporation. Or they would only accept as much business as they need, thus staying the same size, yet still being able to thrive. The odds are going for the expansion because most of these small businesses yearn to be bigger and make more profits. But those that have the courage to stay small and still thrive are the companies I would support because at least they are setting up a model that doesn’t lead to Walmart or Target. They are not evil corporations, but self-sufficient cells that serve the larger body of the economy.

That is what we need in this world. A ton of small, diverse corporations that provide unique and valuable service, not cookie-cutter corporations that essentially give the same service for essentially the same value. I say we boycott the big boys in the corporate world and start looking for smaller, more independent companies that provide value and service in the ways we wish the faceless, bloated monsters would. A company that connects with the consumer one on one is much better than a company with no connection other than their giant logo out front and on every sales flyer. I just feel it is a much better model and it is definitely a step in the right direction. Whether humanity as a whole will wake up to this new way of doing business is yet to be seen, but I believe the tides are shifting in this way of consuming and it would certainly be a breath of fresh air in a world where brand names and logos are now the most recognizable symbols in this society. Service first, profits second. Just some food for thought…

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Every Multinational Corporation is Evil

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

I also should include the big American corporations as well. Any corporation that has tons of franchises and is ever-expanding is serving the gluttonous civilization and its pathological nature. If the corporation has two options, grow or die, then it is evil. The more it grows, the more it will take away from the small businesses and the Earth itself. There will be more and more exploitation of workers as time goes on, especially if these corporations have factories overseas. Their loyalties are not to their employees, but their shareholders, so profit is the only motive. That and power. It’s not about treating employees with respect and dignity, but about increasing bonuses for the upper-echelon of the corporations. The people at the bottom suffer for this while those at the top benefit either way unless, of course, they go bankrupt and also spend all their stimulus money on bonuses.

I’m just saying that in order for these corporations to get to the size they are today, they had to exploit someone or something to get there. They had to walk over hundreds of other corporations just to be on top. And is that the world we really want to live in? A zero-sum game, where those who are willing to sleaze their way to the top are honored and not reprimanded? We truly need to think about this part of the economy just as much as how many jobs there are. I will follow up on this idea later because I believe that it is important.

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Civilization Addiction

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

What we really need is map to our reality to create a world in which there is no war, no exploitation, no coercion, no hierarchy, less people, no money, cooperation, holistic thinking, non-duality, care for all creatures on Earth, abundance, joy, understanding, passion, and so on and so forth.  We need to create a world where there is balance as well.  We can all agree that we could have a wonderful world if we all just jumped on board and made it happen.  But there is something holding us back.  Is it fear?  Or resistance to change?  Or attachment to the only life we know?  We are so socialized in this world we now live in that we cling to it, like an addict clings to his drug.  We are civilization addicts.

If you think about it, an addict is someone who continues to use a drug (or other substance) over and over, even though it is having a negative net effect.  The addict may get a short burst of momentary bliss or distraction, but it is short-lived and transitory.  Let’s look at civilization.  It’s only been around for maybe 10,000 years.  In that short amount of time, we have used up most of the planet for its resources, extending our power beyond what we ever could have thought, but at the same time having a substantial negative net effect on the planet and all of its creatures.  Sure, we made ourselves feel good and powerful, but at what cost?  How many genocides did we perpetrate?  How many wars have we fought?  How many ecosystems did we obliterate?  But we don’t want to know that.  We just need a new way to extend our power and contract our empathy.  We need to remain willfully ignorant of the suffering of the world in order to enjoy our shiny new toys built by 5-year olds in China.  Regardless of consequence, we keep doing the things that are destroying us as a species and the planet as a whole.  If that’s not an addiction, I don’t know what is.

A symptom of this addiction to civilization is the addiction to oil, which is the fuel this current civilization runs on.  Oil powers most of the machinery of civilization, and we will do anything to get it.  Take for example the offshore drilling we just did that caused the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  This is analogous to a junkie getting so desperate for drugs that they do something reckless, like rob a convenience store to get the money for it.  We needed the oil bad because without it, our civilization (our addiction) may crash, so we were willing to take a large risk in order to produce a small momentary gain.  Now it’s turned into a giant mess that is killing more sea life and destroying more ecosystems, further proving that our addiction has gotten out of control.  I bet soon enough, rich white men who own this country will inject oil into their veins while the rest of us go through serious withdrawal when most of the oil is gone and our civilization is struggling to power itself with weaker “drugs.”

What is it about civilization that makes it so enticing?  I would have to say, bar none, it is the power people get from it.  Power is addictive in itself.  For some reason, our brains are wired to achieve and sustain power over others.  Not all of us are wired this way, but a good majority is.  Perhaps it is a symptom of culture, I don’t know.  But before the advent of civilization, there was no central hierarchy or coercion, but cooperative tribes where you pretty much did what you wanted most of the time and spent minimal time on survival-related activities.  Today, the way the system is set up, you have to work hard and get a “good job” to have any power in this world.  You have to gain tokens of power, called money, to be able to get anything accomplished.  Cash rules everything around us.  Everything is owned today.  Money flows from the poor to the rich in disproportionate quantities because those in power are the most addicted to civilization.  This simply because they have the most power and would stand to lose much more if it was dismantled.

Those in power are the ones calling the shots, so they want the status quo.  They don’t want change because they have it real good right now.  They will do anything to maintain their power and control, sacrificing whatever it takes to maintain their addiction.  Equal participation in power and equal rights are the scariest thing in the world to the powerful people of today.  If everyone truly has an equal voice, imagine the changes that would take place.  Well, maybe not today due to the fact that most people are too fearful to abandon the current model in hopes of developing a better one.  But just give it a few more decades when more people have woken up and realized that the world is not the way it should be and get frustrated enough to do something about it.  We need a bottom-up movement to take down Leviathan.  A grassroots effort.  We need enough people to envision a better way of life that emphasizes the positives in the world and drops the negative aspects of humanity.  No doubt that this will require the dismantling of civilization.

This is not a bad thing.  People ask, “What are we going to do without running water and television?”  Trust me, there’s plenty to do in a world where we see ourselves as cells of the same body instead of individual cells, all fighting each other for dominance.  If you truly think about it, this is a fundamental choice between fear and love.  Fear wants us to get bigger locks on our doors and a larger military.  Love wants us to work cooperatively as a species and a planet to create abundance and joy.  When you see us all as separate (duality) it creates fear.  When you see everything in your experience as truly one (non-duality), you embrace everyone and everything and understand that if we’re all in this together, then we surely should not exploit another in any way.

By hurting or exploiting someone or something else, we are in turn hurting/exploiting ourselves.  Civilization teaches us this zero-sum competition, fear-based model where someone else’s loss is your gain.  It creates the fear-based thinking that we all need to “get ahead,” and be better than our neighbors.  What did Jesus Christ say about that?  “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”  What was he saying here?  If you look at it through the lens of fear, it is saying, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.”  If you look at it through the lens of unconditional love, it means, “Love thy neighbor because he is a part of you and to harm yourself is the greatest crime of all.”  So, still going with the addiction analogy, we are force-fed civilization since birth (our drug of no choice), much like a crack baby who is addicted to crack before it is even born.  We have no choice but to adapt to this pathological system and therefore become dependent on it.  We are conditioned to view the world as something scary and chaotic so that we hold ourselves back from making real change due to fear of the unknown.  Society wants to maintain the status quo.  And as long as you are an active part of this civilization, you are aiding and abedding this resource-consuming monster.

So what do we do to break our addiction to civilization?  First off, I would say become self-sufficient by learning skills that allow you to live without the aid of civilization.  This may take years, but it will be a godsend when civilization finally crashes and you don’t need it anymore.  This will not be easy, but it will be worth it.  Secondly, it will definitely help to be more cooperative with the people around you so that if you need help, these people will be glad to assist, barring you would do the same for them.  It is what I call mutual assistance.  Bartering is another term for this.  It is certainly more direct than the money economy and if done right, there is no exploitation involved.  Third, the basic understanding that many of the aspects of daily living we take for granted are temporary and unnecessary luxuries that humanity has thrived without for hundreds of thousands of years and can be done without.  The less you need, the more free you are.  Your expenses are your chains.  This is probably one of the hardest actions to take because we’ve all grown up with electricity, Internet, television, and running hot and cold water.  But these are very recent inventions.  We really don’t need them.  They are a distraction, a drug as well.

Once we break our addiction to the modern world and all its flaws, we can finally look for a better way to live where we have complete freedom and control about how we live our lives without any central authority telling us what we can and cannot do.  A world where we pursue our passions with unbridled enthusiasm and become what we truly are–human.  In the absence of a demonic culture, we can create cultures that reward cooperation and diversity, rather than uniformity and competition.  We will all be one in helping the body instead of just serving the individual cells.  This is my vision. Let’s make it happen.

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