Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
“Truth exists, delusion does not.” So why is it so hard to get past the one and all the way into the other? If the only “badness” of ego—and all the dark conspiratorial forces that stem from it—is due to its illusory nature, how is it that the spell is so tough to break? Isn’t the beauty, reality, and supremacy of truth self-evident? A no-brainer?
The idea of falseness may exist, but that's not the same as falseness existing. There is no Moon made of blue cheese in reality, only the recognition that there is no such thing as a blue cheese Moon. (Assuming there isn't such a thing - if we dare!). If the idea of a separate ego-self is false, then all that is true is the recognition of that falseness.
It is often said that enlightenment a) doesn't happen to a person, and b) when it does happen, it is recognized as always having been the case. Presumably this is because the recognition of the falseness of the idea of an ego-self—which only takes an instant—allows for the erasure of a lifelong (mistaken) perception of living through and as that self. In other words, once enlightened, always was enlightened—because with the false self goes the illusion (all those false memory implants) of ever having been anything else.
Does that even make sense?
The idea that "only truth exists" is a tautology. Beliefs about the Moon do not change or in any way affect the nature of the Moon. Belief does not interface with reality. It only create false realities that come between ourselves and Truth. If the only purpose of false realities and the illusion of a separate ego self is to keep out the Truth, then surely there is no great need to dispel that illusion? All the harm that comes about from an allegiance to an illusory self is itself also illusory. Truth—our true nature—cannot in any way be affected, much less harmed, by that false allegiance.
I can see no other destination for the quest for enlightenment than one of utter futility and despair. However, this is the correct and necessary destination, because once we have begun to glimpse the total futility of our existence—and beyond even futility, the fundamental falsity of it—it is no longer possible to return to the sort of activity that once upheld the illusion of meaning and purpose—of validity—to our individual life-paths.
When the cell recognizes that its choice of a volitional path has turned it into a cancerous cell that, if allowed to continue, would destroy the whole body, the cell has only one honest recourse: suicide, or self-sacrifice. Did Jesus die to save humanity because he recognized his cancerous nature as “King of the Jews”—and to undo the Mess he had created by accepting the role of Mess-I-Ah?? Thereby setting the only honest and true example for the rest of us—who are all wanna-be-messiahs, following not Christ but Lucifer, trying to squeeze our egos through the eye of the needle and reign in Heaven, but winding up by refurbishing Hell one more time and hoping we won’t notice the difference?
Holy, holy, holy. The mind is its own place. Surrender to the divine comes on the heels of seeing the futility of everything else. There are a billion seeds we get to sort through, but only one is going to give fruit. Abandon hope then before entering, because if you are still hoping to find it, you haven’t faced the facts. The facts of life and death.
Jesus said, you have to lose your life to save it. You have to lose your life to save it. And if you love your life, you aren’t going to want to lose it. “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”
So Jesus says, Hate your life. Not too many bumper stickers with that on, is there?
22 comments:
"Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it."
My belief system tells me that that statement refers to a choice between:
a) A person identifies with and becomes trapped in the time process, attached to the appearance of things, to the flux and transformation of phenomena and striving to maintain appearances and fighting off change. In this way the person gets attached to objects, people, possessions, the body, striving to survive through an attitude of struggle, control and possession of others and oneself. This attachment produces ignorant and dualistic mindsets and is harmful (cancerigenous) to Nature.
b) A person chooses to "let go" of trying to survive and becomes a detached observer (consciousness, life, present moment) of the time process (flow). In this way becoming more aware, capable of seeing beyond the Ego (survival mechanisms), and the thought process (beliefs, concepts, duality). It's about getting into a position of having nothing to lose or not giving a fuck. This attitude results in more awareness, intelligence, honesty and so on.
I say intelligence because to me it means the capacity to see beyond limitations, conditions, illusion, it's about using imagination to the extreme.
So those who seek to save (or identify with) their ego (identity, mental construct, illusion) shall lose their Soul (life force, or the connection with the Wholeness/Nature/Cosmos). Those who let go of ego shall preserve the connection with the whole.
This reminds me of Arno Gruen's theory on the betrayal of Self. He mentions that most people in society have to some extent been forced to betray (ignore, or making it unconscious) the Self (Soul, source, origin, true self, intimate self, etc) because of education. In other words, the social programming we've been subjected too has forced us (when we were kids) to break the connection with the Self (imagination, feeling, intuitive knowledge of the unity of things) in order to receive love and approval from parents and other educators. This connection with the Soul/Self/Unconscious he says it is possible to recover later in life through therapy. He's coming from a psychological context, but I think this is related to this "spiritual" stuff you mention. Maybe Jesus was just a kind of old school psychologist/philosopher that was just mentioning that the best way to go through life, and to bring about peace, is not attach to illusion (form, thought, appearance).
From my limited perspective and experience this kind of existential frustration and anxiety you sometimes mention (i guess) only come when my mind starts wondering and analysing over and over again my being alive, my existence, my contradictions, shortcomings, failures and so on. This obsession with the thought process analysing over and over is still ego in my view, it's still habits and conditioning carried in my head since I was a child. But it doesn't matter because it's just form, illusion, echos, it's still a condition of mind that makes us less intuitive and more doubtful, paranoid. The trick is not a rational theory of everything, but a very simple and practical one. I feel the Buddhists are right when they talk about mindfulness. In fact, it should be called mindemptiness. It's the ability to BE the awareness and just live by it (they say it's taking refuge in the Buddha, the one who knows, but who knows? the observer knows, the knower of Dhamma, the way things are), instead of identifying with the noise in the head. The noise in the head always brings about doubt, fear, and so on. The spiritual path is one of letting go until the day we die, rather than accumulating knowledge and thinking over and over and over again.
But its impossible to hate life 100%, there's always a degree of fondness for something, hating is an extreme 'doing' rather than a natural detachment or gentle acceptance happening as a result of simple understanding of the dream-like nature of the separate self.
I don't disagree. Jesus, like Jed, was a radical.
When I was 22 I wrote these words: "Speculation is indulgence. We receive, we transmit. We enjoy the transmission."
That's all there is to know. The body is made of the same dream stuff as the rest of Maya's Matterspell, but it has the potential to be a receiver-transmitter for what's not-Maya, the creative Spirit of Truth. For that to happen, Spirit needs to willingly enter all the way into the prison of Matter - meaning that the desire of Spirit (to be imprisoned, and so to live) is at odds with the desire of the flesh, which is to be free (to die).
To make space for the Transmission requires clearing out all personal desires, because even a little desire creates noise in the system that prevents us from receiving and following the signal.
One - perhaps the best - solvent for desire is despair. Despair allows for letting go, one by one, of all the ways we have learned for keeping the Abyss at bay - and the Abyss is the emptiness that's necessary to create within us in order to become fully ensouled - to embody spirit.
It's really about outer vs inner focus - the more hopeless our outer-directed lives become, the more hateful they will be to us, and the more that frees us up to shift our focus inward to the life force, to enjoy the eternal delights of simply being - a receiver-transmitter for life.
It seems like for whatever's said there's also an arguement for the exact opposite to be true.
Recieving/transmitting is an experience and therefore fleeting transitory, whereas enlightenment is perhaps an understanding and therefore never lost. Experience varies depending on the state of mind and context of the experiencer and so always varies. Understanding is something that outlives or endures through varied experience.
What if a person is optimistically in despair and then some small hope comes along, all that hard earned despair would be instantly worthless.
I want to be educated! Not just hairy!
Hmm. Life's in cinerama.
Submerged like the titanic...
stay down till it's Finished.
Green coffin, center stage...
shake it like a polaroid pic.
Wedding ring in the toilet...
truth is KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.
Antero Alli talked about energy drains - 'the "poor baby syndrome" and its debilitating force of self-pity,' and how 'the energetic body can also be drained by the (cannibalistic)romantic obsessions of "courtship compulsion", ie., searching for "The One" and unconsciously projecting (throwing away) charged psychic energies (anima/animus) onto others.'
One energy, of self pity, contracts, summits into helplessness, wants to die, withdraws into the foetal position, wishing to become so small and insignificant as to disappear, the other energy of courtship is seeking, expansive, possesive. Taken to extremes either energy would lead to imbalanced behavior. But the play and balance of opposite energies within a vessel is like only petty drama. Enlightenment, apparently, is about the awareness behind.
Ramsey Duke said 'The magical method is to act 'as if' a theory is correct until it has done it's job, and then only then to replace it with another theory.' I think I attempt to live 'as if' this theory is correct.
<“Truth exists, delusion does not.” So why is it so hard to get past the one and all the way into the other? If the only “badness” of ego—and all the dark conspiratorial forces that stem from it—is due to its illusory nature, how is it that the spell is so tough to break? >
I think that when it is "so hard to get past the one and all the way into the other" it is because of my refusal to say I'm sorry and to petition for forgiveness even while I see that I've been and still am playing delusional games ... thinking that I can hide from Truth. I've got a lot of love and gratitude (I'm not afraid to express it) but do my best, most of the time, to stamp out the remorse/shame which I often have been terrified to express. That remorse/shame are the only real expressions (when they are expressed through repentance and the petitioning for forgiveness) that allow for a knowing of Truth because they, quite possibly, are the only real and perfect expression of Truth, as far as it can be expressed.
* truth = death
* illusion = life
* belief is objective ( we go through the illusion with a reason (if we believe) )
With regard to the statement that enlightenment entails the dismissal of previous 'non-enlightenment';the idea of enlightenment is removed from it's truthful nature.
The idea of enlightenment is contingent upon its objective truth. In other words,
how intimate are you with Death?
...my jed is better than your jed..
I imagine it might be difficult to reconcile the 'jed' from the books with 'jed' on a forum because people's voices do change with the medium. For instance, you come across as an arrogant bullshitter in your forum responses and yet on audio you seem suprisingly reasonable.
Hi Jed! Awesome that you took the time to come to my humble forum - wait till I tell all my friends. Oh wait, I left Facebook. Darn.
If I may be so bold as to disagree, there is relatively little difference between written word at a forum and written word in a book. Certainly not enough to account for the weakness of Jed's, sorry - your, voice over at said forum, as compared the the vigor and bite of your amazing (though flawed) books.
As for the arrogant BS-er - my guess is that it has more to do with you not liking what I had to say (assuming you refer to the "JM" forum) than anything. Though I will admit that there is a big difference between writing and speaking, and sometimes I do give out the wrong (unintended) vibe when I write, and have made an effort to correct that (though not so much now).
However, BS is BS in any medium, and can be contested as such. So far no one has, including yourself.
Drop by any time!@!
...did I really just pass myself off as the true false pseudonym...or even the true pseudonym?!
I'll have to use this nick more often - it gives me undeserved kudos.
"you come across as an arrogant bullshitter"
takes one to know one
Not sure if this is an argument worth pursuing but seeing as I started I may as well carry on.
It seems odd to assume jed in said forum is not the 'real' jed who wrote the books because his forum posts where not up to the standard of Jed's writing in the books - when recently you said the same thing about Whitley Strieber ie some of his writing is absolutely 'top-notch' while a lot of his other writing you find poor and dissapointing ,and therefore don't trust him as a source, - and yet we haven't (yet) heard that there are two Whitley Strieber's - one of which is fake. My point being Whitley illustrates the fact that writers writing varies in quality, therefore your argument that Jed from the forum is not Jed from the books does not hold up.
Your reasonong was that Whitley's writing was perhaps channelled, well couldn't the same be said for Jed's books - ie he 'channelled' the best bits (or was stoned or not stoned). Perhaps when you read Jed's books sometimes your assemblage point moves to fit the assemblage point of Jed's when he had been writing it. A temporary phenomenon. But it seems you want to find a teacher/mentor who is consistent, perhaps out of some social need rather than as a genuine quest to learn. Perhaps you have a tendancy to want to project the best of yourself onto a teacher? You are seeking an authority rather than looking for truth yourself, within yourself or whatever, which is what you accused others of doing regarding Whitley.
Another point regarding what you said about there being 'relatively little difference between written word at a forum and written word in a book.' I disagree. Forums can be very territorial, social and combative, I think a person writing in amongst all that social chaos is in a very different environment from a person writing a book alone, where they are writing to an imaginary audience of their choice. - angela
Hi Angela
have I seen you over at Spiritual teachers forum? I'm glad you posted here anyway, as you make some worthwhile points. You seem to believe the JM at the forum is the author of the books, is that right? Or is your argument more hypothetical? Reason I ask is that some of the points I have made which you question stem from my strong sense that it's not the same guy; so they aren't so much arguments to persuade as ways to explore and express the strong intuition I have. In other words, it's a GUT feeling which, for me, my rational arguments seem to back up pretty well - but I guess without the gut feeling, no argument is really going to stand up that well, especially against an opposing gut feeling - which perhaps is what you have?
As a matter if fact, I HAVE posited more than one Whitley, both figuratively, as regards multiple personality disorder, and, less publicly perhaps, with the idea that there are various authors, and even a think-tank, behind his books.
Authors have their voices, and the stronger that voice is, the easier it is to identify. The book ART OF DREAMING is said to be written by Castaneda, but I'd bet a lot of money that either it wasn't, or it was written by him in a state of mental or physical breakdown. It has a totally different (weaker) voice than the other books. That's indisputable, though not everyone notices it (a lot have though).
As for my looking outward for spiritual authority and "accusing" others of doing that in the Strieber piece, you certainly seem to have misread what I wrote, which was the exact opposite of your remark: I am identifying that tendency in myself and using Strieber and his cultish following to do so.
Regarding the last point, it's a fair one, the difference let's say between speaking in a group and making a voice recording alone. I would still expect an identifiable voice, however, in both cases.
What makes you so sure that the JM at the forum is the real JM?
I don't know if he's the real Jed, never having read his books, I just felt that your argument was illogical and also, I'm quite surprised that you would pursue the matter at all if you don't resonate with the guy on the forum's writing. Somehow your thoughts about there really being more than one Whitley makes me trust your judgement less. It's almost like your desire to deconstruct identities has resulted in you literally splitting people in two in your own mind at least, if that makes sense, (but then I know nothing about Whitley so you might be right.)
'Accuse' was probably the exact wrong word to use about your observations of Whitley's 'cultish following' , I might well have misunderstood your position from what i heard on Mike Clelland's interview - how then do you feel about your own tendency to look outward for spiritual authority, is it something you want to change?
I'm not from the spiritual teachers forum, I first heard of Jed in Leo Hartong's forum, it was there people were speculating that he'd chosen his pseudonym out of respect for Terence Mckenna who'd I'd never heard of before but became instantly interested in. I'd been following Wayne Liquorman and other teachers for years but was quite disenchanted by then with the 'quest for enlightenment' and so, inspired by Terence, immersed myself into the psychdelic community - that brought me to reality sandwich where I posted as ada. I've since become more cynical about the new age-ish ideals of 'saving the world' (or perhaps just disgusted with my own complete disinclination to take 'responsible action') and become more interested in the nondual/mystic perspective again, which kind of brought me here. I feel quite distrustful of my own online habits, websites can become like 'narcissistic supplies' and identities can become like investments torwards wrong motives, which is why I've posted anonymously here and will probably continue to do so.
btw I'm reading 'Lucid View right now and finding it excellent.
"I'm quite surprised that you would pursue the matter at all if you don't resonate with the guy on the forum's writing."
I was there, I smelled BS and so I called it as i smelled it. Simple as that. Not that anything is ever that simple! Yes, it's a compulsion for me to challenge delusion/deception where I see it (or think I do).
"Somehow your thoughts about there really being more than one Whitley makes me trust your judgement less."
Umm. Why would you want to trust my judgment? Havent you got enough on your hands learning to trust your own?
"It's almost like your desire to deconstruct identities has resulted in you literally splitting people in two in your own mind at least"
We are all fragmented. With Whitley, I'll admit the reasoning was based in dream logic, literally. I had a dream once that he belonged to the Tavistock Inst, or some similar sort of elitiest think thank deal. He does appear to be pushing some sort of group agenda - even if he thinks it the Grays one.
" (but then I know nothing about Whitley so you might be right.)"
And nothing about McKenna either. So it's fair to say you don't much what you are talking about? ; )
"how then do you feel about your own tendency to look outward for spiritual authority, is it something you want to change?"
Yes. It is an on-going self-investigation. I have been bouncing from one outside authority to the next my entire adult life.
Glad you like the book.
gim·mick
noun
1.
an ingenious or novel device, scheme, or stratagem, especially one designed to attract attention or increase appeal.
2.
a concealed, usually devious aspect or feature of something, as a plan or deal: An offer that good must have a gimmick in it somewhere.
3.
a hidden mechanical device by which a magician works a trick or a gambler controls a game of chance.
4.
Electronics Informal . a capacitor formed by intertwining two insulated wires.
verb (used with object)
5.
to equip or embellish with unnecessary features, especially in order to increase salability, acceptance, etc. (often followed by up ): to gimmick up a sports car with chrome and racing stripes.
Anthony Burgess
'Language distinguishes between the autosemanteme (or word containing meaning) and the synsemanteme (the morpheme which assists in the making of meaning but has no meaning in itself), but in music all units are meaningful, there is nothing that is purely structural. Music deals in sounds without clear referents. Music is multiguous, since it is capable of many interpretations. Music, one might say, is Hopkinsian.'
It takes a long time to gain, by browsing over a field, the protein available in a quick meal of meat. We old offer the meat of education; the counter-culture goes back to grass.
'We are all fragmented.'
But presumably some of us are more fragmented than others - and a particularly fragmented individual would tend to project, or notice that quality in others more? (I notice your artwork seems to show fragments of personalities rearranging themselves). So what you see (ie one person assumed to be two people) would depend on what model or sort of paranoia you're seeing things/people through. I'm probably quite gullible but I tend to assume 'jed' in the forum is the jed who wrote the books because he seems decent enough, and so I would have thought that if he had been deceiving people, then after a year or more of deception his conscience would have got the better of him.
Not sure what you mean by ''We are all fragmented.' - I tend to think of myself as being fragmented in the sense of being self conscious and awkward, as if I am too detached from myself, (which ironically from a spiritually seeking perspective seems almost like a good thing.)
As for knowing nothing about Whitley, I'm quite glad of it, because I know I could never know enough to know the truth of any conspiracy theory (and still hold down a day job). But it's an intruiging thought non the less, that WS is wittingly or unwittingly involved in some scheme of mass mind control - for the purpose of scaring the public about alien invasions and therefore make them more docile and willing to accept leadership and control - or something? It's a funny coincidence you mention the word 'Tavistock' - it being the name of my local town and a place I went to school.
I would agree that I am more fragmented than average.
So, trying to make sense of it for myself - lets say a person from an early age becomes fragmented due to stress, so they are not able to be wholly immersed in physicality - because a part of them is absent. They appear somewhat 'fake' to themselves because they are not able to fully engage themselves in life, like their playmates. But say if this missing 'fragment' is somehow behind/above them 'outside' the world drawing them further out of immersion in the world, making them in a sense look backward/upward for the source of their own self-obsession. So comes more detachment, more distance from their 'meat puppet' to be able to observe it. Or it's like looking at something up close, you start to see the grains, or pixels of what it's made up of and closer still you see the gaps between. The personality components of habits, biases, 'tics', predispositions start to become clearer more defined and yet also loose their power somehow, as if 'caught in the act', and the personality is deconstructed - the more split apart one is, the easier it is to see through oneself and there is a subtle distance of perspective from the body, which is in a sense the freedom.
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