Eric's Esoterics

In this clip taken from my interview with Wendy and Max of Lightwaves Radio we explore the question of Who Are We?  And in doing so discuss God, Consciousness, Intelligent Design, the Big Bang, Evolution, Duality, Satan and the Ego.  If you enjoy the video and want to help me out, please be sure to like, favorite, comment, share and subscribe to my YouTube channel.  Thanks so much!

The Collective Evolution I & II are independent documentary films made by a group of young, conscious activists and friends in the hopes of inspiring and assisting the current "collective evolution" that seems to be happening in consciousness at the moment. Though I certainly have points of contention with the films, overall I'd say they are excellent and wholly worth watching. Check them out and let me know what you think below.

"No heart, selfishness and no consideration for the next man or woman but why? Only focused on our own situations, see somebody suffering and we walk by. They might approach you in need of assistance at a time when their fortunes are low. You look down on them like you're better than them but the truth is you just don't know. We got angels among us dwelling in our presence. God will bless us then place someone in front of us to test us. You can't get a large sum of money or a new car then look down on people because they might not be where you are. Drunk off possessions in the root of all evil but no man can rise above the condition of his people. Don't be arrogant, erring, patience is perseverance. Learn to look inside someone instead of judging by appearance.

Be careful how you treat strangers. You may be entertaining angels who came to protect you from hidden dangers. In disguise studying your ways is what they do. The deed you neglect to do could be the one that saves you.

When trials fall on us we don't look into them deep enough. We feel them through a real small lens. Instead of understanding that it's all a part of living we resent God and turn our friends. Then help comes to you one day in the form of a person that you might not know. But out of deep ignorance and lack of understanding we ignore signs and let help go. See? Have you ever met a stranger and had a conversation and it seems like he's familiar with your life's situation? And you know you never told him but his knowledge is surprising you, speaking wise words giving guidance and advising you. Striking mental chords, blood in your veins coursing, giving you the comfort and positive reinforcements, and you start to question in your mind how it's being done. I'm not saying it's for sure but you might be seeing one.

Be careful how you treat strangers. You may be entertaining angels who came to protect you from hidden dangers. In disguise studying your ways is what they do. The deed you neglect to do could be the one that saves you.

See? You gotta be aware of your surroundings at all times. Everything is not what it appears to the eye. The thing you look down on could be the thing that saves you. These marvels are far beyond carnal. They warn you of unseen forces that might harm you. Alert you of people and things that could hurt you and unknown to you from wrong steps they divert you. The place you started to go but then decided not to. And then disaster struck, if you were there they might have got you. The time when your finances couldn't last a month more and now the left field are blessing landing on your front door. Someone you never met just approaches and starts talking, touches you saying it's going to be alright and keeps walking. It happens quite often in weakened attitudes, being rude when someone exudes a caring mood. Angels all around probably see them all the time not to mention the personal one that lives in your mind keeping you from falling and guiding you on the low. That's why it's wise to respect all people. You never know."

While researching about the Ego and True Self I came across the following article which puts things into perspective quite well:


Do you really understand just how abusive your ego is? Let’s look at the analogy of your ego – as if this part of you was a separate individual.

Would you stand in front of someone while they were delivering a whole heap of unhealthy, insane, abusive, damaging and disgusting versions of you and your life and listen to it? The healthiest thing you could do is say, ‘I’m not listening to you’, disconnect and carry on with whatever you’re doing in the now.

There is absolutely no need for you to accept another’s version of you and your life unless you choose to stand there with them and take it on. If you know who you are, there’s no need to try and convince another person who you are and what you stand for. If they don’t get it and don’t want to, it really is none of your business.

Understand if you stand there and argue with an abusive individual, you get damaged. If you do this, you have serious problems with setting boundaries. Know that your ego is every bit as abusive as another damaging individual.

If you have a ‘fight with yourself’ you’re trying to justify yourself to your ego and convince it you aren’t this person, you don’t have these fears, you don’t have doubts and you really are capable. Your ego loves this because it will trick you into thinking that you can win the argument, that you can convince it and resolve the issue, and that you’ll receive peace after having this struggle with yourself. This is so untrue!

Your ego will keep coming back at you again and again, and just like any abusive person who simply won’t get it, wants to project fears and doubts, and not find peace within. The argument will continue to resurface and never be healed.

Think about this – how exhausting is it trying to argue and justify yourself with a person who is continually abusing you? If you don’t disconnect and get away from them, you eventually give in and start agreeing with their version of you just to get some peace.

Inevitably if you keep hooking into your ego you’ll end up doing the same thing. Eventually you’ll be so worn down that you’ll accept and agree with the inner dialogue of ‘I’m worthless and a failure’. This is what depression is. Society’s concept of ‘ego’ has often been recognition of arrogant and bombastic behaviour. How many people realise this constructed false self is a cover-up for the painful torturous thoughts and feelings of unworthiness that the world doesn’t see?

Be very clear that the ego is also responsible for people who display insipid and power-less behaviour. The ego creates all ‘less than’ human behaviour. Your ego is your greatest problem in life. There truly is no fight going on outside of you. The only enemy is within.

Read This Entire Article Here

Has anyone seen the Guy Ritchie film "Revolver" starring Jason Statham and Ray Liotta? I saw it on DVD and thought it was one of the most underrated Hollywood movies ever. Then just recently I saw this excellent break-down of Revolver's main theme which is dissolving the ego. These videos do a great job explaining.

This guy StreetMUNKdotCOM makes some really interesting videos like this one. There's something about watching him that refreshes me. I guess it's his disarming and open persona. He seems quite comfortable with acting retarded on camera. I think it's that and his little tidbits of wisdom that keep me coming back to his channel.

Here are some great videos by Rich2150x demonstrating in real-time an example of forgiving self and others. Think of what needs to be forgiven and keep re-wording it until it makes you laugh. Laughter is the release necessary for true forgiveness to take place - anything less is mere platitude. Also check out this great forgiveness video by Dan the Man.

Thanks to Yolanda for sending me this excellent free ebook, "The Way of the Superior Man" by David Deida. This book has really opened my eyes to many important truths about relationships, spirituality, masculinity/femininity, and love. Even though it's called "The Way of the Superior Man," I highly recommend it for both men and women, as the wisdom transcends gender. Click the link above or have a look at some of my favorite quotes below. This post is dedicated to my #1 fan for 18 months :D Love you

"This book is a guide for a specific kind of newly evolving man. This man is unabashedly masculine—he is purposeful, confident, and directed, living his chosen way of life with deep integrity and humor—and he is sensitive, spontaneous, and spiritually alive, with a heart-commitment to discovering and living his deepest truth. This kind of man is totally turned on by the feminine. He loves to take his woman sexually, to ravish her, but not in some old-style macho fashion. Rather, he wants to ravish her with so much love she is vanished, they both vanish, in the fullness of loving itself. He is dedicated to incarnating love on this earth, through his work and his sexuality, and he does so as a free man, bound neither by outer convention nor inner cowardice. This newly evolving man is not a scared bully, posturing like some King Kong in charge of the universe. Nor is he a new age wimp, all spineless, smiley, and starry-eyed. He has embraced both his inner masculine and feminine, and he no longer holds onto either of them. He doesn't need to be right all the time, nor does he need to be always safe, cooperative, and sharing, like an androgynous Mr. Nice Guy. He simply lives from his deepest core, fearlessly giving his gifts, feeling through the fleeting moment into the openness of existence, totally committed to magnifying love ... It is time to evolve beyond the macho jerk ideal, all spine and no heart. It is also time to evolve beyond the sensitive and caring wimp ideal, all heart and no spine. Heart and spine must be united in a single man, and then gone beyond in the fullest expression of love and consciousness possible, which requires a deep relaxation into the infinite openness of this present moment. And this takes a new kind of guts. This is the Way of the Superior Man." -David Deida, "The Way of the Superior Man" (Intro)

"If a woman suggests something that changes a man's perspective, then he should make a new decision based on his new perspective. But he should never betray his own deepest knowledge and intuition in order to please his woman or "go along" with her. Both she and he will be weakened by such an action. They will grow to resent each other, and the crust of accumulated inauthenticity will burden their love, as well as their capacity for free action. You should always listen to your woman, and then make your own decision. If you choose to go with your woman's suggestion even when deep in your heart you feel that another decision is more wise, you are, in effect, saying, "I don't trust my own wisdom." You are weakening yourself by telling yourself this. You are weakening your woman's trust in you: why should she trust your wisdom if you don't? When you deny your deep truth to please your woman, everyone will feel your lack of authenticity. They will sense that your false smile hides an inner division. Your friends, children, and business colleagues may love you, but they won't trust you, since you don't trust your own core intent. And, more importantly, your own sense of inauthenticity will burden your capacity to act with clarity. Your actions won't jibe with your core. However, if you listen to your woman, taking everything she says into account and making your own best decision, then you are acting in accordance with your core. You are saying, in effect, "My deepest wisdom is leading me to this decision. If I amwrong, I will learn from it, and my wisdom will have deepened. I'm willing to be wrong, and grow from it. I trust this process of acting from my deepest wisdom." This attitude of self-trust engenders others' trust in you. You may be wrong, but you are willing to find out, and thus grow from the experience. You are open to listening to others, but in the end, you will take the responsibility for making your own decision. There is nobody else to blame. However, if you give up your real decision to follow your woman's, then you will blame her for being wrong if she is wrong, and you will feel disempowered if she is right, having denied yourself the opportunity to act from your core and grow from your mistakes. Be open to changing your feeling based on whatever your woman might reveal to you—through her words or her body language—and then make your own decision, based on your deepest intuitive wisdom and knowledge. You may make the right decision or the wrong one, but whatever happens, it is your best shot, and you will strengthen your capacity for future action." (15-17)

"A woman often seems to test her man's capacity to remain unperturbed in his truth and purpose. She tests him to feel his freedom and depth of love, to know that he is trustable. Her tests may come in the form of complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him, or even undermining his purpose in a subtle or not so subtle way. A man should never think his woman's testing is going to end and his life will get easier. Rather, he should appreciate that she does these things to feel his strength, integrity, and openness. Her desire is for his deepest truth and love. As he grows, so will her testing." (47)

"Every moment of your life is either a test or a celebration. The same is true about every moment with your woman, only doubly so. Not only is her simple existence a test for you, but one of her deepest pleasures in intimacy is testing you, and then feeling you are not moved off course by her challenge. The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are Shiva, the divine masculine: imperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all-pervading. She cannot move you, because you already are what you are, with or without her. She cannot scare you away, because you already penetrate her in fearless love, pervading her heart and body. She cannot distract you, because your one-pointed commitment to truth will not bend to her wiles. Feeling this hugeness of love and freedom in you, she can trust you, utterly, and surrender her testing in celebration of love. Until she wants to feel you as Shiva again. And then the testing will begin anew. In fact, it is precisely when you are most Shiva-like that she will most test you. Perhaps you have been working toward some financial goal, and finally you have succeeded. After months or years of effort, you have creatively earned a large amount of money. You feel happy, full, successful. You feel great. You come home to your woman and want to share the news with her.

"I just made a million dollars today."

"That's nice."

"That's nice!!?? You know how hard I've been working for this."

"I know. It feels like I haven't seen you in months. Did you remember to pick up the milk on the way home?"

"Oh, sorry. I forgot. But who cares? We could buy a dairy farm now!"

"I asked you to pick up the milk three times this morning, and I put a note on your briefcase. How could you forget?"

"I said I'm sorry. Look, I'll go get the damn milk...."

Why is she being this way? Because she simply wants to deflate your success? No. She is challenging you because your success doesn't mean shit to her, unless you are free and loving. And if you are free and loving, nothing she says can collapse you. She wants to feel you are uncollapsable, so she pokes you in your weak spot. Of course she knows how much this moment of success means to you. This is precisely why she is negating it. Not because she wants to hurt you. But because she wants to feel Shiva. She wants to feel your strength. She wants to feel that your happiness is not dependent on her response, nor on you making a million dollars. She wants to feel you are a superior man." (47-49)

"Keeping your word" is a masculine trait, in men or women. A person with a feminine essence may not keep her word, yet it is not exactly "lying" In the feminine reality, words and facts take a second place to emotions and the shifting moods of relationship. When she says, "I hate you," or "I'll never move to Texas," or "I don't want to go to the movies," it is often more a reflection of a transient feeling-wave than a well considered stance with respect to events and experience. On the other hand, the masculine means what it says. A man's word is his honor. The feminine says what it feels. A woman's word is her true expression in the moment… Whenever you are surprised by your woman's actions, and you say to her, "But you said...," you are forgetting that she has a feminine essence. What your woman says is like a cloud passing in the sky: well-formed, coherent, and unrecognizable moments later. The cloud is an expression of the precise physics of water, wind, and air. Your woman's words are expressions of the physics of her feelings, your relationship, and the nuances of the present situation, seen and unseen. A moment later, these factors will change, and so will your woman's expressions. You might ask her, "Do you want to go to the movies?"

She might reply, "Not really."

Then you hug her and spin her around and say, "Let's go to the movies!"

And she says, "OK!"

She is not talking about her desire to go to the movies. She is talking about the feeling of your relationship in the present moment. If after she said she didn't want to go to the movies, you said fine and sat down to watch TV, you would be missing the point. She is not really saying she doesn't want to go to the movies, even though that is what she's saying. This is not lying. For a man, or for anyone speaking in the masculine style, to say something that is not true is lying. But, for the feminine, truth is a thin concept compared to the thickness of her flow of feelings. The "truth" of the feminine is whatever she is really feeling, in this present moment." (56)

"When a woman gets emotionally intense, a mediocre man wants to calm her down and discuss it, or leave and come back later when she is "sane." A superior man penetrates her mood with imperturbable love and unwavering consciousness. If she still refuses to live more fully in love, after a time, he lets her go. If you are like most men, you probably aren't too fond of feminine bad moods and hysterical emotions. You may find yourself wondering, why is she so complicated? What's her problem? You may find yourself saying, "Just calm down and take it easy." The feminine bad mood is so foreign and dark to you that you may actually find it somewhat repulsive. And when your woman really goes wild, a part of you is afraid of the damage she might do. Her emotions are so much more wild and less predictable than yours that you'd rather not be around them. Basically, most men are afraid of, or disgusted by, feminine emotions. That's why you try to fix them or escape from them. "I'll come back later when you can act like a reasonable human being," you might say. One of the deepest feminine pleasures is when a man stands full, present, and unreactive in the midst of his woman's emotional storms. When he stays present with her, and loves her through the layers of wildness and closure, then she feels his trustability, and she can relax. The way you relate to your woman's chaos reflects the way you react to the chaos of the world. If you are the kind of man who needs everything placed neatly in its nice little box, then you will also try to box your woman's emotions. If you are the kind of man who would rather hire other people to take care of the chaos in your attic, or the chaos of your finances, you would probably also rather leave it to someone else to take care of the chaos of your woman. You can, however, train yourself to master the world—financially, creatively, spiritually—by learning how to be free and loving in the chaos of your woman's emotions. And you do so by standing your ground and loving so strongly that only love prevails. You can't quit when you seem to fail, but rather, you must learn from your failures and return to love. Give your gift. Like wrestling a steer or surfing ocean waves, mastery involves blending with your woman's powerful energy and feeling the rise and fall of the moment, without lapsing in presence for a second." (73-74)

"Your woman says, "How can you spend so much time in front of the TV when our rent is due in a few days, we're behind on car payments, and you just lost your job?"

"Don't worry about it. I have a job interview tomorrow."

"Well, why don't you get off your butt! You said you were going to clean out the garage weeks ago. I can hardly get to the car!"

"OK. OK. I'll clean the garage this afternoon."

Your woman stops talking and goes about her business, but you can feel her simmering anger and tension. You don't like to be around her when she's like this. You want to get out of the house. "I'll be back in a few hours and I'll clean the garage," you say, as you grab your coat and head for the door. You hear a glass break in the kitchen, so you go in and find your wife furious. "I can't take this any more!" she wails.

"What? I said I'd clean the garage. What's going on?" you wonder.

"I just can't take it!" she cries out, pulling away from you, closing up, and not letting you touch her.

"I don't get it. I said I'd clean the garage. I have a job interview tomorrow. Everything is going to be fine. What do you want?"

You've probably had some version of this conversation with your woman. It holds a key to masculine growth in freedom. And it reveals a common mistake men make with their women. The thing your woman is complaining about is rarely the thing she is complaining about. It is a mistake to believe the content of what she is saying, and then respond to her complaints, point by point. When she complains about financial issues, she is usually feeling a lack in your masculine capacity to direct your life with clarity, purpose, integrity, and wisdom. The money itself is secondary. If you were poor but totally conscious, happy, full of integrity, fearless, humorous, loving and giving your fullest gift to the world and to your woman, she wouldn't complain about lack of money. When you say you will clean the garage, and then weeks pass by and you haven't, her complaint isn't really about the garage. Sure, she'd like a clean garage, but this is a superficial issue. The deeper issue is that you didn't do what you said you would. You gave her your word, and you didn't follow through. She can't trust what you say. And this hurts her, deeply. She might seem to be overreacting to you. Why is she so hysterical? It's only a garage. But she can feel your lack of integrity. Not having cleaned the garage yet seems like a small thing to you, but it shows that you don't follow through with your word, with your purpose. Your word is a demonstration of your purpose, of your masculine core. When you don't follow through with what you say you are going to do, she feels that your masculine core is weak. She feels let down. She can't trust your masculine direction. And so she feels a great loss. Over time, she will begin to build up her own masculine protection against your lack of integrity. She will begin to guard herself against the hurt that your lack of carry through causes. She will harden herself, becoming angular and tense. To you, the garage seems trivial. To her, you have failed at your word. She can't trust you." (118-120)

"If she can't trust you with living your life from your deepest wisdom and fullest capacity, she can't trust you with her life. She can't trust your masculine impeccability, so she naturally will compensate by overdeveloping her own. She is not only being masculine for herself, now she's being masculine for you. If she's got to remind you of the job interview or the mess in the garage, she's supplying the masculine direction for the both of you. And this results in stress. Her body will begin to show it. She will become less radiant and less relaxed in her feminine power and glory because she has to compensate for your failure." (122)

"A man's track record means nothing to the feminine. A man could be perfect for ten years, but if he's an asshole for 30 seconds his woman acts like he's always been one. The feminine responds to the moment of energy, forgetting her man's history of past behavior. A man's past behavior is irrelevant to his woman's feeling in the moment. But men base much on another man's history of behavior, so they think their own track record should count for something. But to a woman, it doesn't. For you as a man, it is probably easier to forgive and forget an occasional mistake made by another man who has a great track record. What pisses you off is when a man lacks integrity and continually fails at his word. But even big mistakes are fairly easy to let go of when made by a man who is otherwise impeccable. You know he really does his best, and this mistake was a rare exception. But, for the feminine, the past is entirely irrelevant. One wrong word in the midst of a five hour lovemaking session that was otherwise perfect could collapse your woman as completely as if you had spent two hours making mistakes. Instead of getting angry because she's so upset that you made one little mistake in a long series of successes, instantly shift the energy between you. Remember, history is irrelevant to the feminine, so your mistake is as easily forgotten as your successes. As soon as you see she's upset, immediately assume happiness. Shock her with your love." -David Deida, "The Way of the Superior Man (127-8)

These last two articles by Thaddeus Griebel at the Mind Unclouded blog are excellent and so important. He exposes false teachers and false doctrines of New Age Gurus, Mainstream Media Pundits, Anti-Religious Conspiracy Theorists, Integral Spirituality Gurus, Christian Televangelists, and so-called ‘Enlightened’ Gurus of the East, focusing on David Icke, Peter Joseph, Rhonda Byrne, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen, J. Z. Knight, Joel Osteen, and Shri Mataji . Please read through and comment below. Peace

False Shepherds (part 1)

False Shepherds (part 2)

Here is an enlightening conversation between Ozay Rinpoche and Craig Hamilton Parker about free will, reincarnation, consciousness, and self-knowledge. Parts 1 and 2 above, here are Part 3 and Part 4.

Thanks to Ant for recommending this excellent work by Roger Stephens, "A Dangerous Book," which covers almost every subject I delve into on this website:

Read or Download "A Dangerous Book" Here Free

Ego

Since we take our own egos so seriously, we take everyone else's seriously as well. We have become convinced that these egos are real and are who and what we really are. We learn to take things personally: we get angry whenever our egos are questioned or misunderstood, and we get disappointed when other egos turn out to be something other than what our egos thought they were. Based on a false understanding of the players, the dynamics of human interaction quickly become bewildering and frustrating, giving rise to whole generations of psychologists, counselors, and advisors to provide our egos with excuses for why things are not right in our lives. (12)

Consciousness

With my index finger, I can touch lots of things--the keys on my computer, my nose, and so on. I can do this only because these things are not the tip of my finger. The one thing I cannot touch with the tip of my finger is the tip of my finger. In the same way, I can touch, look at, or perceive many things with my consciousness: I can objectify my surroundings, my fingertip, my thoughts, even who I think I am (my ego). I can do all this because these things are not my consciousness. I cannot, however, objectify that same consciousness which is aware of these things. It is, as Alan Watts once remarked, like trying to bite your own teeth or sniff your own nose. We can't be aware of consciousness in the same way we are aware of the objects of consciousness, just like we can't be aware of our fingertips in the same way as we are aware of the things we touch with our fingertips. Consciousness can never be made the object of its own inquiry because it is beyond the polarity of objectivity and subjectivity. (20)

Spirituality

Here's a parable, an analogy, which comes from India, from the Upanishads, and is thousands of years old. It presents a parabolic answer to the root question of all religion and philosophy (Who am I and what is this?), and does so in a way which everyone can relate to. In the beginning of the world (and though it probably had no ultimate "beginning" as we think of them, you have to start somewhere), there was only Brahma. Being all there was, and therefore totally known to himself, Brahma soon realized that this totality of awareness would eventually become extremely boring . . . after all, when you know everything there is to know, then there's no surprise, nothing to keep you interested. It's like reading the same book for the seventy-eight millionth time. Anyway, since he was omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (all-everywhere), Brahma decided to create a diversion for himself, a way of introducing the elements of surprise, intrigue and drama into his experience. He thought, "What would it be like to forget who I really am?" So, he invented the game of cosmic hide-and-seek. According to the rules of this game, Brahma would pretend to break pieces of himself off from the whole so that to all appearances they would seem separate. That's the "hide" part. Then, as the apparently separate consciousness at the center of each of those apparently separate pieces, and through their apparently separate and unique perspectives, he would "seek" to rediscover who he really was, which was, of course, everything. Imagine seeing yourself from an infinite number of different perspectives, each one initially ignorant of its relationship to all the rest. Imagine going to sleep and dreaming a different lifetime each night, each lasting for more or less years, each complete with the full range and variety of emotional life and death details. Imagine having the same dream but playing a different role in it each night, seeing it through different eyes each time. Well, guess who those apparently separate pieces are? Since there is only one I Am in the universe, one consciousness, it's all a game of hide-and-seek, and each one of us is in the same state: I'm IT AND You're IT! (22-23)

After I shook the dust of organized religion from my sandals, I learned that the link between big 'ol God and little 'ol me was no more and no less than consciousness. And each of us, at and as the very center of us, have this same feeling of I Am, for the not-so-obvious reason that each one of us is really God (Brahma) pretending to be each one of us. There is only one I Am, there is only one God, one Brahma, one Tao, one beingness ... we both see the same world, because we both are the same world. But we have so cleverly and convincingly hidden ourselves from ourselves that we really believe that we are separate entities. That's the hide part of hide-and-seek. Humanity has become hide-bound. (56)

Happiness

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

-Henry David Thoreau

Most adults suffer a dull, indistinct unhappiness which is so habitual that it has become inseparable from their daily lives, however they may smile to mask it. They have been talked out of themselves. From the earliest age they have been brainwashed into the belief that as they were born, and as who they were born, they aren't good enough, that they must continually prove their worth, that their bodies are fallible and liable to disease, that their passions are unnaturally sinful and must be harnessed and suppressed, that their duty is to serve the aims of the majority. Down deep, they are convinced that they aren't good enough. Their consciousness started out cosmic, attuned to the oneness of all existence, but has since been pared down to a strictly utilitarian fraction of its totality. That naturally universal attunement has been filtered and reduced to a trickle, which is then called normal or ordinary consciousness. After decades of propaganda and worldly and/or other worldly teachings, the vast majority of adults have resigned themselves to trying endlessly to be what they are not, and the frustration they quite naturally feel is expressed as fear, hatred, intolerance, greed, and all of the other social maladies we see around us. Look at almost anyone when they don't know they are being watched, when they are not performing . . . what sort of a face are they wearing, what does their expression convey about their prevailing thoughts? Their faces cannot help but mirror how they feel about themselves. Even professional actors cannot maintain a false persona indefinitely, and habitual worry lines are telling. (32)

We all want to be happy. We all want to recreate the state we existed in when we first arrived here, we all remember the feel of it, even though we may not be able to recall the details. Having been kicked out of the garden, we spend the rest of our lives trying to get back in, and having been talked out of our true purposes in life, we have little alternative but to try our best to recreate that happiness from the paltry tools available through religion, or power, or worldly possessions. But happiness is not a commodity, it is not a noun. Neither is real happiness a state of mind, because happiness is, eternally, while the mind can deal only with things temporal. The words "happy" and "happen" both come from the same root, and for a good reason: happiness happens when we have gotten out from behind the yearnings and frustrations of the mind, which keeps it hidden from us. Happiness is not conditional on circumstance, because happiness eternally is, while circumstances come and go. When you base your happiness on the right job, or the right mate, or having lots of money, then you are as much as saying that your happiness depends on things you once didn't have and which you one day will again not have. That may be called pleasure, but it is not happiness. Nothing that can be taken away from you is yours, including your possessions, your reputation, your body, even your mind. None of these is the source of true happiness. (82)

Meditation

Meditation, as both a practice and a way of life, has emerged in recent times to offer a workable, if not vital alternative to people who are fed up with living frantic, anxious lives, and who have found no solace in the worn out mantras of organized religion. Meditation is a way to get reconnected with who you really are and what you are really here to do and be. Meditation is like catching a glimpse of the backstage props to remind you that the play is really a play, that the so-called worldly realities are also part of the play, and that you are really the actor, not the role. For only then will you be able to play your role, to dance it instead of working it to death. (57)

Therefore, meditation, as a practice, presents us with a very curious problem. It is not an end in itself, but more of a means, a reconditioning which allows us to really live, sort of a process of retuning ourselves. An orchestra in which all the players are out of tune is a cacophony, not a symphony; being in tune is essential to harmony. But neither would we think much of an orchestra in which the players spent all their time just tuning up; they are tuning up so that they can play in tune. If you practice meditation for its own sake, as an end in itself, and unless your meditation serves merely to clear the screens, then you never end up playing anything. You become a meditation junkie. Meditation doesn't get you anywhere; it shows you where you are. And in this sense, meditation is medicinal, not dietary. Its only purpose is to get you back in tune when you are out of tune. When you are stressed out, and can remember that being stressed out is not what you are here to experience, then meditation is very helpful in getting you back to your center, back to the point where you realize that you are not your thoughts, you are not your ego; you are that which is conscious of these things. (60)

Entheogens

Although you won't hear it in public very often, and certainly not from organized religions, recreational medicines make available certain perspectives and descriptions of life behind the veil which are uncannily similar to those recorded by mystics and prophets from all cultures, from the Tibetans and the Taoists to the early Christian mystics and nearly all indigenous cultures, descriptions which are far too similar to be dismissed out of hand. The mystical state is the direct experience of reality without the filtering and objectifying processes of the socialized mind getting in the way. While this state seems to be available to the devotees only after years of meditation and/or other rigorous ascetic practices, it is becoming clear that there are other paths up that particular mountain. How do we get beyond the curtain of maya ? What might we find if ever we should momentarily slip into an altered state of awareness. (104)

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I found this great article today regarding individualism vs. collectivism. Here an excerpt about the portion of the psyche termed the Persona:

A Persona is a fake personality that we display for others. It is a mask, a character we play in public in order to either fit in with the group, or to make ourselves “appear” different from the group, even though fundamentally we have not grasped true individualism at all. Jung despaired at the problems of Persona, because not only does it keep people from knowing their true selves, it also makes them incredibly susceptible to mass manipulation. In a sense, it is a form of self-hypnosis. People who are slaves to Persona are constantly fixed on the tides of mainstream thought, always changing their views to match the predominant ideas of the time. By default, whoever controls the predominant ideas of the time (mass media) also controls those who are dependent on Persona.

Even men who use Persona to make themselves appear different from the group are ruled by the mainstream, because often these men automatically choose the exact opposite position of whatever view the mainstream holds. To use as an example once again, Atheism was created as a direct and opposing reaction to the widely held views of Western Religion, which are based on faith. But at its foundation, Atheism is just another belief system based on faith, for how can one know for certain that there “is no god”. The wise man who has issues with the idea of faith would simply say, “I don’t know if there is a god”, but many Atheists make the mistake of choosing their beliefs out of Persona and projection, blindly reacting to the mainstream, instead of developing their perspective through self awareness and individualism. The only way to break a Persona is through the act of self awareness. Jung called the act of breaking a persona “Individuation”. He believed that a deep understanding of Archetypes; the inborn qualities of our own psyches, could help people to become individuated.

The writer of this article has also made an interesting 30 minute documentary on the same subject matter called Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light:

I came across this interesting article today and a lot of its analysis of the ego resonated with me:

In this article, I’ll describe how I see myself, the world and the people who live in it. By doing so, the reader will be looking over my shoulder at the workings of the human psyche, or at least my interpretation of the psyche. What you will not find is the consensus view on this subject. For that, all you need do is pop open a standard psychology 101 text book and dive in. The reason I leave the beaten path is simple. The really interesting ideas are usually found way out on the fringe and deep in the weeds. That’s not to say you can’t find “truth” or accurate knowledge within the consensus, just that cutting edge ideas and concepts aren’t tolerated well among the establishment. In my opinion, the established leaders rarely go into areas that aren’t well traveled and seldom stray from their own fields of expertise. Ironically, in a discipline that devotes much ink to the discussion of the ego, the principal players’ egos prevent little more than incremental forward progress. When you’re sipping from government and corporate grants, you don’t often make waves.

Read the entire article here

An enlightening and humorous talk on how to bring presence and leave the ego out of relationships.

The big wave who wanted to be as vast as the ocean - eventually gave up trying to get bigger and bigger - it dropped down, forgot itself and became.

Only an ego searches for enlightenment as an ego is the only thing that is not enlightened. The only fake in reality is this idea of self.

When ego finds what it selfishly seeks it finds the absence of ego. Realizing itself as nothing but an idea, it renders itself Extinguished.

What reality finds when it is rid of ego is that ..

You can not become what you already are.

This nugget delivered from TaoWow

Alan Watts - The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

I just finished reading this for the second time. It's such a great book, a must-read for the spiritually-minded. Here are some of my favorite passages:

“This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated ‘egos’ inside bags of skin.” -Alan Watts, “The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are,” Vintage Books (8)

“An ardent Jehovah’s Witness once tried to convince me that if there were a God of love, he would certainly provide mankind with a reliable and infallible textbook for the guidance of conduct. I replied that no considerate God would destroy the human mind by making it so rigid and unadaptable as to depend upon on book, the Bible, for all the answers. For the use of words and thus of a book, is to point beyond themselves to a world of life and experience that is not mere words or even ideas. Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.” (11)

“The cat has already been let out of the bag. The inside information is that yourself as ‘just little me’ who ‘came into this world’ and lives temporarily in a bag of skin is a hoax and a fake. The fact is that because no one thing or feature of this universe is separable from the whole, the only real You, or Self, is the whole. The rest of this book will attempt to make this so clear that you will not only understand the words but feel the fact.” (53)