That Bias Against Not Knowing

 

If you've lived long enough, there is a deeply transformative event that has probably happened to you. I call it "breaking open". It's when your worst fears, your deepest separations, and the destruction of your most cherished beliefs, lead you to such a deep despair, you begin to question everything you knew to be true. You realize you just don't have ANY answers--you have NOTHING to offer, and a survey of your life reveals no value whatsoever.

The first time this happened to me, I was in a difficult marriage riding alongside an existential mid-life crisis. I didn't know what to believe anymore. I didn't believe IN anything--certainly not myself. I felt like there was no "me" there anymore. What finally returned me to a functional ego was a book by Dr. Gerald May, The Dark Night of the Soul. In it I found a sort of spiritual rock to cling on to while I rode out the existential storms of my life. In time, I found comfort in the embracing of that dark night, as it revealed to me the depth of my feelings, the breadth of my not knowing, and the cosmic panorama of who or what I might be.

The second visit to the dark end of the street, was the loss of my partner. Her death broke open my heart, where I could see all the ways and hidden recesses of my resistance to loving, and the terrible regret I now had that I never truly shared myself with her. It hit me much harder than I had expected, or I should say her death was not what hit me so much as the realization that I never let myself love her the way she loved me. The further shock was seeing how I lied about it, and denied my own heart. Why was I seeing this NOW after she's gone! I cried, I writhed in the remorse, and I went deep into the grief of how I had lost my own heart.

These two journeys laid me out spiritually, prostrate on the rocky shore of the threshold to divine communion--a kind of ego destruction where nothing is important, and yet it all seems to have impact.

What got me reminiscing about these adventures was a talk by Miranda MacPherson called, "Ego Relaxation". She describes her own "breaking open" of her spiritual practice that reduced her to an extreme state of not knowing. Not knowing who or what she was, not knowing if she had anything to offer the world, or herself.

She finally came to an awareness that these profound states of not knowing are also part of who we are. And, in fact, are a gateway to our own divinity. As corporeal beings living in this dualistic world of opposites, we form biases in favor of knowing. We avoid and fight our own ignorance, and take definitive steps to transform our ignorance into knowledge. Culturally, not knowing has negative consequences, and is all twisted up with trust issues and existential security.

We diligently seek "answers" when we don't know something, and mistakenly carry over that habit into our spiritual life where there is a whole other thing going on. We get confused between ego knowing and the awareness of self.

The ego says it knows what and who we are--it knows what we've done and why. It knows what love is, and is certain about its own potentials and purposes. These are all ego constructs, and they are the solid basis upon which we build our sense of what is real, and what we are willing to experience.

The conflict arises when we attempt to connect to the Universal. We don't reference ourselves as being everything, because then there is no individual-ness, no point of reference between who we are and God. MacPherson points out that this is where the real spiritual work begins. We can begin to acknowledge and relax all the ego constructs, we can begin to seek to de-construct all those decisions and choices about who and what we are, admitting the Truth that we are everything, and yet are nothing. Our life is created simply because we exist, and yet what we are is an ineffable single point from which all things proceed.

By laying out the ego and allowing it to be just as much a part of our being as the rest of our life, allows us a transcendence of the dualities of living. Our identity can be more truly seen as a loved and loving character, an avatar if you will, in this game we have gotten so caught up in.

Your identity is loved. Who you are at any moment is loved. And through that love is the eternal connection we all have to each other.

Greener Pastures and Silver Linings

Here's a thought experiment: Imagine a playing field, such as a soccer or football field. Now, at one end the playing field is a beautiful countryside with rainbows, beautiful flowers, amazing villages, children laughing, super-high-vibes--your happiest place. At the other end of the field are your worst nightmares--darkness, sadness, terror, injury, drama and dysfuntion. Now, go down onto the field. Which end are you closer to?

We all live somewhere on this dualistic spectrum--some days closer to the light end than the dark, and other days closer to the dark than the light. Within this dualistic mindset, is an aversion to the dark, and a longing for the light, and therein lies a trap of sorts.

By resisting the dark end of the spectrum, we expand it, and by longing for the light, we demonstrate how the light end of the spectrum is not what we are having, doing, or being. It is a sort of double jeopardy, where one end seems unattainable while the other seems to be continually biting at our heels. As Princess Leia of Star Wars said to the Imperial General, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

We have been acculturated to deny and run from the darkness within ourselves, and like so many societal "solutions" to undesirable states and conditions, the more intensely we resist and deny the darkness, the more solid it becomes.

"Greener Pastures" are always "over there" somewhere away from where and what we are being right now. That "Silver Lining" is always behind those dark clouds, seemingly out of reach, representing a day of divine blessing that never seems to come.

What is easily forgotten, or overlooked, is that the "dark end" of the field could not exist without the light end. And if we find ourselves at the dark end of the field, it means there must be an opposing light end. The other unacknowledged truth is that within each moment at the dark end there exists a gateway to the light. We have only to make that choice to go there.

By getting hung up about "how dark it all seems", we expand it, make it greater than we are. We lose hope of ever getting to the light, and tumble further and further into that Dark End Zone. We stop looking at the light end, throwing away personal power in favor of "fate" or a rescuing "savior" that will make it all go away.

News flash: We are all our own saviors, and we save ourselves by choosing and committing to that light end of the field.

When there is pain, we must acknowledge that relief co-exists with that pain. We choose relief and thus begin the hero's journey out of pain. When there is the loss of a loved one, we must acknowledge that connection, oneness and love is co-existing with that sense of loss. When there are financial setbacks and poverty, there can only be such things because prosperity and abundance exist within those conditions. Just as with any problem, the solution exists within it.

I was sent a very special video by a friend that got me going on this--a talk by Miranda MacPherson. She speaks about the practice of non-duality being a frontal assault on everything we've decided we cannot be. Everything convinces us that we are not good enough, strong enough, smart enough or conscious enough to experience joy, grace and unconditional love in our lives. By fully embracing the entire spectrum of dark to light, and truly accepting and allowing both ends as eligible for unconditional love, we rise to the awareness that all is good, all is joy, and all is love. There are no excuses for our perceived weaknesses, as those are a denial of our strength. There are no excuses for our stupidity, as that points directly at our innate intelligence--how we learn and grow to appreciate our choices.

As we become inclusive of ALL of who and what we are--the entire spectrum of densities from that carbonized black goo to the glorius effulgent light of infinite being, we gain a mastery over our choices. We gain a truly deep appreciation for everything we've gone through across the entire spectrum of experience, for it has brought us to this place of true understanding.

We become free to run and jump and roll around anywhere we please on that Field, in the full knowing that no matter where we go, we are loved, we are cherished, and we are infinitely free.

The Strange Angel of Being

I kept scrolling past the TV Series, "Strange Angel" on CBS All Access last week. I watched the trailer, and wasn't really that interested in yet another series having to do with Luciferianism or magical thinking. Just not in the mood. Later, after exhausting all other viewing options, I finally broke down and tuned in.

"Strange Angel" is basically a recruitment film for Luciferianism, set in the 1930s, with sumptuous art direction and impeccable set design. The actors are all unknowns, but the casting is excellent.

The story revolves around a chemist with a rocket obsession--he wants to go to the moon, and stumbles on a "new kind of religion" that he believes will deliver him his lunar dream. The story addresses all the common "misconceptions" about Luciferianism, and the practitioners are all harmlessly framed.

Back in the day--way back--I had made some inquiries into this sort of belief system; reading stuff by Aleister Crowley, Madame Blavatsky, and even John Dee. It all seemed relatively harmless, even useful, from a manifesting point of view, but I ended up not following up on it much because there was something a little "off" about it I couldn't put my finger on.

Well, after watching Season 1 of "Strange Angel" (they are renewed for Season 2 this fall, BTW), I finally found where to put my finger, and realized what that "splinter in my mind" about it was: Intent is presented as a replacement for being. In other words, this belief system touts the Will as something separate from being.

Aleister Crowley's famous meme and cornerstone of these sorts of intent-centric belief systems, "Do what thou wilt", in my view, is an error, and this is why. Yes, humans have the ability to project their will on the world, and sometimes observe it "bending" to that will. But this is a misinterpretation of what's actually going on.

A strong desire, or will, or focussed intent has its genesis in being. You can't "will" something to happen without first being that thing, or more accurately, being the thing you would naturally be in light of who you are. And if such practices as Luciferianism are guilty of anything, it's over-simplification.

True, there are such elaborate tricks as "spells", "curses", and other versions of Mesmerism--all having to do with the manipulation of another's karmic time line with repetitious symbols and chants to gain resonate entrainment. A person is as susceptible to these things as they have perpetrated them on another, or who are in large denial about who and what they are.

Hence, any studies having to do with meditation, mindfulness, higher conscousness, and such, are attacked and discouraged by those on the black end of the magic intent spectrum--such as the inner sanctum of world cabals and the dark, soft underbelly of the Deep State controllers, who sanctioned such "research" as CIA MK Ultra Mind Control experiments, electromagnetic brain influencing, and Pavlovian television experiments--all still active today behind the curtain of government "black ops" programs. If you can keep a populace distracted, sick and stressed out, it is much easier to manipulate.

Okay, back to being. There is such a thing as being in "congruence", or in alignment with who you are being in the world. This is key, because there is a complication when it comes to manifesting one's preferences or desires: there are TWO points of attraction around which the universe coalesces. There is the "higher" self--the self that is outside of time and space; and then there is the "temporal" self, down here on the ground, all wrapped up in "3D" physical timeline existence. What you may desire down here in the trenches, may not align with what your true, inner, oversoul desires.

So this is where Crowley and his ilk are wrong. They disregard this dualism--saying that whatever you want, you can have--a gross oversimplification and a misleading come on to gullible spiritual seekers. It is, in fact, how such Luciferian movements as "The Secret" film and the generally misunderstood "Law of Attraction" got traction.

Yes, the Luciferians make a good case for non-duality, which I personally embrace as a spiritual practice, but, as they effectively demonstrated in the "Strange Angel" TV Series, it becomes a platform for the ends justifying the means, and that personal power lies beyond such concepts as "good" and "evil". This ignores the fact that humans are hard-wired to protect and preserve themselves, the species, living things and life itself. Those destructive or murderous outliers are victims of extreme epigenetic factors, outright "possession", or are carrying a massive load of karma.

There is no need to "intend" anything. Just be. What you are experiencing is the way the universe is forming around who you are being, not what you "want" or "desire". The denial or rejection of who we are is what creates conflicts, "bad luck", and other life maladies. So when things get tough or difficult, the tendency is to want something other than what is going on, instead of embracing that toughness or difficulty as an unacknowledged part of being that is screaming for attention.

The allowing and embracing of ALL of what we are is what creates an abundant life, because there is nothing left wanting, and nothing but fulfillment. We fulfill ourselves, and the universe simply forms an abundant, fulfilled life around that.

I have pointed out certain complications of living, but that doesn't mean it's complicated. It gets complicated when we separate what we think we want from who we actually are. We abandon who we are for what we want, without realizing that we already are everything we could ever desire.