Limits of an Infinite Self

The fact we must understand is that we are all sleeping.

Oh, we think we're awake. We know the difference between sleeping and waking. Sleep is when you drift off into dreamland and forget where and when you really are. While you're in the dream, you think it's real, but when you wake up, you realize it wasn't real, it was only a fantasy in your mind. Then you forget all the nonsensical dreamworld fantasies and get up and do all the real things you have to do all day, and in the evening you go back to sleep, and next morning you wake up and do it all again the next day. Or some variation of it all. It's the daily grind. You accept this. You have a role in life, in society, and you are content to fill it, whether you're a student or an employee or a small business owner or an unemployed. You may not be content with your life, but there are certain things you accept because they're just part of the way things are and the way they've always been done.

But what if something were to happen that shocked you out of this more or less willing acceptance of the way things seem to be? Something that challenged the very foundations of your understanding of the world? Then you would question that understanding, wouldn't you? You would seek to revise it to fit the new information.

What if, in the process of seeking satisfactory answers to these questions you couldn't ignore, you uncovered more new questions? And as you sought answers to those questions, you found still more questions? You would be led down a rabbit hole, wouldn't you? And where that path goes, nobody knows. But you're counting on it leading to the truth, because by now you're one of us: a seeker of truth.

Little do you know what you've let yourself in for! The path of the truth-seeker is fraught, fraught, fraught with traps and blocks and riddles and confusion. Also with a great many monstrous, frightening truths that you never saw and never would have wished to see. The deeper you go, the more you comprehend what a sham and deceit and half-truth is the picture of reality you once held. The institutions and the systems you once trusted with your money, your security, your life, even your eternal soul, all turn out to be the bars of a very, very craftily constructed prison. You realize that the planet you are on is a prison planet for human souls.

What is the way forward? This becomes the driving question. Can we defeat the guards and dismantle the prison, creating a more just, harmonious, and free world in its place? If so, how? And if not, then what? Do we wait for a saviour? Do we welcome and prepare for a chaotic armageddon and collapse of all systems, hoping to survive by our wits and our guts? Do we join the prison guards instead, hoping to be on the winning side? And most of all, what does it mean to escape, to win?

We see that it is all a grand chessboard, and we are the pawns. There are levels to reality beyond our ability to perceive, and it is from these higher levels that the game against us is being played, by forces unseen. As long as we are the pawns and they are the players, they will win. But now that we are aware we are being played, the game changes. We learn about their realm, and what manipulations they are capable of. What their motives are. What their tactics are. What rules they play by. And we begin to train ourselves to counter their moves. In addition to being truth-seekers, we now become spiritual warriors.

But we have not yet won. We are not yet awake.

If we had, if we were, we would not still be here.

The only way to win the game... is to stop playing it.

When we truly awaken, we will see it all for what it was: a dream that was only real in our minds.

That is the path of awakening.

I was going to write an entry yesterday, but found myself up against an impossibility. The problem was one that crops up time and again: the nature of ego. In starting this blog, I was (I believe) following my heart, doing something that I needed to do and was guided to do. However, when it came time to create content, I was paralyzed by twin voices of my ego: puffed-up self-importance and crushing self-criticism.

I am the center of my reality - or, more precisely, the perceived I is at the center of my perceived reality - so it is extremely easy, when considering myself in relation to the world at large, for the ego to begin concocting grandiose notions of my own significance. That then leads to exaggerated expectations and pressure to perform, followed by the realization that of course I can't measure up to that. I was crazy to think I could. Who am I to think that I, such a latecomer and minor-league player, a mere nobody, might have anything to offer that might make an iota of difference? What's so special about me? Of course, humility is needed, the sense of one's own specialness should be tempered with detached objectivity and realism. But the ego loves to play victim.

So it's been a little over 24 hours. I wrote a cathartic piece on my older blog, and that helped a little. I got a good night's sleep. This evening, just before writing this, I did a light workout and listened to an alpha-frequency brainwave entrainment MP3 to help me meditate. (I don't meditate or exercise nearly enough!)

I know how important it is, for the path I'm on and the things I want to write about, to overcome the traps of ego consciousness. So the conscious inner work on myself is really a prerequisite, and not only because of that "issue." I have a lot of issues, including some really big ones. But that's OK. I will do my best regardless.

I wasn't expecting to be this slow getting started, but I think quality is a higher priority than speed, anyway. To whoever out there is feeling the suspense or whatever, just relax. (I dunno who that would be, but I thought I'd cover that base.) All in god time. OMG typo. ;)

Back soon, I hope. Mustn't stay up too late, although I'm afraid it's already much past my bedtime. Bad BCth, bad. Eh, I blame these light nordic summer nights.

Welcome!

This blog is a project that's been lying dormant in the back of my mind for some time. I've often wished I could share my thoughts with people in a structured manner like this, as I feel so deficient at expressing them in person. ;/ I'm determined, though, to not bite off more than I can chew here, so against my perfectionist tendencies, I am keeping my expectations low, at least to start.

Those of you who know me personally (probably 98% of you at this point) know I am rather an oddball type in some ways. I keep a lot of secrets. It's not intentional, just a consequence of the way things are. Part of my inspiration for blogging is the deep-rooted desire to be better understood by the people in my life - egoic, yes, but valid just the same. I've also had a very vivid, compelling dream which strongly pointed me toward taking this course of action.

One reason for my seemingly secretive manner in person is that the thoughts in my head, to a large extent, simply don't fit the parameters of conventional, mundane conversation. The fact is, I have never been satisfied with just the conventional and the mundane. I have rather sought to discern the deeper meaning in things. Questioned the established order. Tried to pull back the curtain to see the hidden workings of reality. And in the past year, especially, this drive to seek knowledge has catapulted my understanding of how the universe works and why we're here to the point where it's no longer enough to just learn. Now I feel I must also diligently share - and apply - in parallel with the learning.

We are all teachers, whether we know it or not. :)

That much I do remember from my programming classes in college.

I'm not exactly a technophobe, but getting this blog thingie up and running, looking the way I want it, has been a lot more time-consuming than I expected. It's getting close to 4 a.m., and I figured I might as well break it in before I turn in.

She's still very bare-bones at this stage, but I'll be adding features and tweaking code as I go along.

I'll write up a more meaningful post tomorrow, when my brain is working again. :)