The Fool's Word

The Fool who persists in his folly will become wise. -William Blake

This is a whopper of an article, or an essay, that I originally wrote for my book, titled The Cosmos & Our True Self. So if you don’t have the patience to read it in one sitting, I’ll understand. It was seven pages long in the book.

I often wonder how does one know when they are truly free. A sensible person would reply that the more you can do, the more freedom you have. But the more you ponder that answer the more it makes another side to it apparent which is that the more you have to do in life to get by, the less freedom you actually have. So which is it? The following is an attempt to describe the paradox regarding the concept of freedom.

To put the paradox into one phrase it simply boils down to this: The more you do, the less free you are to do. All right. Maybe I have to explain that a little more thoroughly. So here it goes.

There is a massive project brewing called ‘order’ that is taking the world by a storm. Everything has to be properly managed, organized, scrubbed, cleaned, kept in line, patched up and being controlled. And the more order you have, that is control, the less freedom people tend to have.

As an example take airports. Airport security is a grim business these days. And innocent people are more inclined to kept getting thoroughly checked out at them, because of this massive cultural panic about dangers in the airport. In other words, it’s getting more and more likely at being scanned and prodded for no reason at all.

Another fine example of this is of course the fantastic amount of surveillance technology being deployed all around. Cameras and facial recognition in every street corner and stores, companies tracking and following their users through their mobile devices through the microphones, cameras and software applications being used, medical databases to help keep the patient information all in one place and DNA databases to keep track of every individual down to every fibre of their being.

Large entities are enforcing their policies regarding the very source code you use every day to develop your programs or products. They need to make sure it’s their order, not yours. What do people think the End User License Agreement was created for? It’s for enforcing control. Period.

One of the funniest dichotomies in our society is when we are being told to be free. You must be free, you are ordered to. As Watts points it out, “you are part of a democracy and you have to be part of a democracy. Crazy.” And the price we pay for being more organized, more protected, is our declining freedoms in that system.

To quote Watts: “The best forms of governments that ever existed, are the ones that simply muddled through. A kind of controlled anarchy.” Because whenever the control within a system gets too much, that system will break down and set itself free. So it has always been.

But for the sake of argument let’s take this order thing to its final steps. We’re living in the middle of a full blown dystopia, surrounded by a kilometre thick graphite wall. Inside, we have a population under constant scanning, privacy transparency, living in a completely trapped existence. Everything is being controlled by a tyrant who won at the god game and is overseeing everything. But the plus side to this is, everything is completely safe and secure. Now, what is the point of being secure when it only serves the people at the very top, and gives everyone else fewer and fewer things to do freely? This is the problem of order.

One could take this another step further and say that everything that has to do with our every day biology is also systematic order that defines our very behaviour. Like the rhythms we have to take part in, such as eating periodically, taking a whizz, or sleeping every single night. Smart system, I must say, keeping us in line like that, eh? The list of disappearance of choices is endless from the stand point of the physical processes of nature.

But the argument that having more freedom means having more choices and options, is a fallacy. Take the act of making decisions. As Watts remarks once again, “when you have to decide something, you don’t first decide to decide. You just decide. And you do it. People who get called decisive are usually called that, because they don’t stop to decide. They simply grab something and make it happen. Because choice is not a form of freedom. In other words, what choice is, is simply the moment of hesitation one has before making a decision. Like some people when they are about to write something down, they dither the pen in a circly fashion above the paper, before writing.” Because they’re not too sure what to write. And this state of dithering is hardly synonymous with being free.

Now, in this day and age, this strikes as the most backwards thing to say. Because we live in a culture where the abundance of choices is synonymous with being free. And yet it is only an illusion of abundance. People don’t really get to decide what to watch on the television.

It’s collection of pre-selected channels and streaming services with a narrow selection of the most crappiest movies and series one can find. If this is the age of abundance then goodness help us. Now, of course there are exceptions.

It’s the same with news feeds. People don’t have much of a choice unless they know how to search for alternative sources. Otherwise their main narrative comes from the same few places. Or even some cases, only one. And it’s always the same few topics.

An experiment was conducted not two years ago where a decision to refrain from all news outlets was made. Just to get away from the constant anxiety these stories are designed to produce. And lo’ and behold, when a return was made, the topics were exactly the same as they were 6 months ago.

So what truly is freedom in the end is not the amount of events one can partake in, but the amount of events one can decide to not to partake in when necessary, freeing oneself to do what they really want to do. Because the more we do, the more it sparks more reactions, which compels us to do something about events following the previous events.

So it starts taking up all your spare time. It’s a diminishing of freedom. But it simply means that you have to redefine by what you mean by being free. You can play it both ways. This is just one point of view.

Now, I am not saying that people who have much to do in life are being fools that should do less. Maybe that’s their particular vocation in life, to experience as much as possible. I’m only saying that the very situation of having countless things to do, is in direct contradiction of being freed from things to do. But there is another side to this, which is that you can feel the same experience in two different aspects. You can either feel, that you are a helpless puppet, being pushed around by everything. Or equally, that you are actually doing everything. You are completely free.

If you ask me personally, I’d rather practice the art of doing absolutely nothing more often. The hallmark of being free. And people never seem to stop and think, or simply just watch what is it that is happening around them. They are much too busy getting as much stuff done in order to do something.

Sleeping is one thing, but doing nothing because you can, or rather, cannot do it is another thing. The point is that you can describe existence from these two polar opposite views but you’re talking about the same exact experience.

You see, there are those who liken existence to be a kind of trap. And those who instead considers it a dance, of all kinds of patterns. Which of them is more “correct” in perceiving the universe? Or is there a middle-ground to which both of them adheres to?

In seeing the world as a trap, it strikes me that that very word, suggests a lack of something. What is it, which makes us feel like we’re trapped, in the scheme of things? We tend to feel hostile to the world. We need to get out of its grips immediately, because if we have no control of what’s happening to us, it’s as if the entire universe was out to get us.

A thought also floats into my mind about this attitude being a precursor for a certain kind of person, who thinks that Heaven or Hell will be their reward after they die. That in this four scores and ten they have their only chance to decide their everlasting destination, of possibly failing lamentably as a genuine person. And this notion strikes me as absolutely ridiculous. There is no such thing as Hell, except that as a state of mind.

Now, in thinking that the reward comes some time later than now, is the big fallacy. Because, taking the simple illustration of expectancy. If you’re always living in the next moment, you will never experience the moment which counts. And so I would say that the “trap”, is always either keeping yourself under the guilt of the past, or in the worry about the future.

But what if it was flipped to its opposite? Of not experiencing like we’re in a system of entrapment, but that of free-floating play of energy? Well let’s take a look at this. If existence is a state of play, or a dance of patterns, how does the individual relate to that? Well, for one thing, the person would not grab too hard at things they know are going to fall apart.

In other words, in the analogy of the trap, the person takes things very, if not too seriously. But in this other point of view, since things are playful in their nature, obviously one does not take them too seriously.

And I think it’s very important to be able to view things not-so-seriously on occasion. The other side of it all being playful is that you can view everything in our world in terms of games. There’s the butterfly game, the zebra game, the platypus game, the flower game and so on and so forth. In fact, you can view the whole of society as a game. But this is a dangerous thing to do depending on what kind of a social, psychological and emotional background one comes from. If you have a “screw loose” in the wrong way, and you demonstrate your game-view of society by breaking its rules, you haven’t quite grasped the point on it.

People still hurt, and they suffer every day. And by undermining their hardship by putting it down, saying that it’s a game and metaphorically “shoving it” to them, shows that you don’t have empathy.

And so keeping all this in mind, there is indeed a very real possibility of the person in question misusing the game-view in a certain way. And yet, there is this chance of seeing it all being a play, where things are not too serious.

Most people when they hear the word game might think that it means it is something trivial. But when I use the word I mean it in a more profound sense. You wouldn’t call Bach playing the piano trivial entertainment now would you? And yet it is play. Saying it’s a game is not a way of putting life down.

Life is incredible to me, with all its patterns and sensations and experiences. But one can live on two levels at once, where on the one hand, we can get fascinated by the details of life very thoroughly. But then on another level we can be relaxed, take a step back and say to ourselves, relax, because it’s a game. We are here for kicks. Why? Because it’s fun.

And so I think a sensible middle-way for all this is seeing it at the same time as play, and a trap, in the sense that one is under the “hallucination” of the past-present-future timeline mode of thinking. And we all do that. Some of us do it more often than others. And for my part, I can say that I’m the more often ones. But I can still snap back to the present, not easily mind you, but sometimes, when I get too much into my own head.

Now the next thing that we have to take up is the problem of change, because that ties into why we generally feel like we’re trapped. There was a boy once, who said that the dumbest phenomenon in life is not that one cannot understand things, but the refusal to understand them.

So why do we have such a resistance to change? We seem to dislike anything that moves our perception away from what it is used to. Whether it is the weather or other people. We do not seem to enjoy transitions or modifications to our environment.

Our ego, that is to say, our centre field of our consciousness, or the “troubleshooter” function, is designed to select features from its perception which it deems noteworthy and disregards the rest. We then come to feel isolated from everything else. It does not see the relationship, only the individual points. And this is what keeps the ego oblivious to the rest of it.

Coupled with this is the tendency to settle for features we select that seem to be more consistent than things that are on the move. Because moving processes takes more time and work to analyse than relatively stationary processes, such as personalities in human beings. And so we feel safe with still objects, and insecure with moving objects.

The need for consistency stems from the fact that our ego is looking to the past for answers. The majority of the things we think during the day are events that have already been taken place. Because the past is something stationary, something that is simply there. So it is safe. But of course it is not there. Then we worry about the future based on these past events. We never stop and watch what is happening right now. Because the present moment is ever-changing. And this “reiteration” is what keeps the ego trapped in a never-ending cycle of self-entrapment.

We fear change because we know that part of it is witnessing our own decay. And the price for being alive is knowing that one day we simply cease to be. And every little shift in our so-called external world has as its hidden premise that it will move us to a more uncomfortable territory.

Why are we so afraid? There’s no need to be. If everything is an constant state of flux, and appears, disappears and reappears, it should give some clue as to what it is. It is a cycle. And it comes and it goes. This should not be seen as a bad thing by any case. After all, the transiency of life is part of its splendour. It wouldn’t be so magnificent were it not temporary.

Now, there are people who will argue that we have to “fix” nature’s decay, which is ridiculous. Because the problem is not a problem. Since the scientific naturalism of the 19th century, we have thought that we have to to not only beat nature into shape, we have to interfere with the physical processes themselves, and manipulate them to suit our needs. And this is very dangerous.

Obviously, we have to interfere with physical processes all the time, when for example we eat another being. But there’s a difference between doing something and forcing something. And this is very well understood in certain Far Eastern arts such as judo, or even in the art of sailing. Where you cooperate with the field of forces in which you find yourself. In other words, you use change to your advantage.

We are always playing with fundamentally two forces. One is called order, and the other is called randomness. And these always arise together. And yet human beings seem to exhibit distaste for randomness more often than they do for order. Because we like to design buildings in the form of boxes and rectangles, along with our furniture and the likes. Everything is made up of squares. Because we want symmetry, which nature seems to be missing out on.

The curious faculty of pattern recognition in our consciousness, is selective. And the way it selects is by exclusion. It excludes the unimportant and so we come to focus on the figures. But the figures can hurt us, so we look for security. Time for example holds no security whatsoever. And yet people use it in a way that gives the illusion that it does. That things will be better some time later.

And we use primarily time to keep track of changes in our environment. We can predict, or we can see what alterations were made in the past. That is observing change. And if it doesn’t tick regularly, we get uncomfortable. Because we become slaves to the clock. And we generally do not allow ourselves to simply observe change without a clock pointer attached to it.

So then. We resist change out of fear. Fear of the other side. But this other side is no other than us. It is the necessary counterpart for our inside. The fact that we don’t see it as such in the ordinary way, indicates that we are in some way asleep. And the way back to seeing this as such requires not only our presence of mind in the present moment, which is the only time that there is, it requires also our ability to withstand change. Because what change is, is the relative motion of everything else to the way you are.

And so we get to the final point, which is boredom. The quintessential human problem. The problem. Because when people get bored, they have to do something about it.

And this is how trouble begins. They have to make a move, away from their current predicament. So, they fill the void with food, alcohol, drugs, porn, internet or what have you. And this is how addiction basically works. It is the fear of emptiness.

Now, what exactly is the issue people have with themselves so that they can’t stand sitting alone quietly? Well, it is quite simply put, lack of something. The need to seek. Only, this is false seeking. Because, people are not actually missing anything. They only think they are.

And this society does not leave one without thinking that they are missing something. Take advertising. It is designed to make one want things that they don’t really need. The whole of economy depends on people wanting things that simply are not desirable. Some people spend their days shopping because otherwise they would be sitting at home with nothing to do.

The artificiality of consumer products is astounding. To paraphrase Watts: “Take ordinary store bought bread. It is not real bread. It is merely symbolic. It's a vague attempt to mimic what mama’s new bread smelled and tasted like, a squishy styrofoam blob injected with vitamins. It tastes of nothing like actual freshly baked and heated bread. Another example of this is instant coffee. It is a punishment for being in a hurry to get somewhere.”

Cars that look like they have rocket engines underneath the chassis, but which are really nothing of the kind, poorly made fabrics in clothes, electronic devices that break down right after purchase, the list goes on. They are simply not very well made. They’re a hoax, designed to grab the attention of the consumer and walk out with a ghastly substitute for real happiness.

Because, true happiness only comes from within. It is being completely with everything one experiences. And there is nothing missing from that. One already is the works. What there is. Only, perception itself is selective. It picks out things to the exclusion of many other things. And this leads to playing favourites. “This is desirable, that is not”. So, one cannot really blame this on society alone.

It is the way in which one sees the world, which determines their reactions to it. What one believes is what they see. And if one believes they are missing something, then they will see the situation as such. So this then is the essence of boredom. When one feels a lack, then they can be persuaded by anyone or anything to replace it with something. Whether it’s an object, sensation, philosophy or a religion, it does not matter.

And this is the reason why we become unable to feel free. Like we’re trapped. Because we think we are missing something. And so long as we rely on the scarcity fallacy among other things, we will never feel like we’re truly not lacking anything. But one could of course argue, that if we stopped seeking something, whatever it is, that we would stop doing things in general, and become inert, as I indicated at the beginning of the article. Doing nothing. But the difference between doing nothing and contemplation is the tremendous impact it has on you.

Because nothing is more productive than taking a sufficient break from concepts. Because it gives a breather from the one process which keeps us in the so-called trap. And whether the act of having a choice is a form of freedom, well, that’s anyone’s choice. For me it simply means selection out of specific options. True freedom is knowing who you are, and seeing it as a game, instead of a drag.

P.S. If I have the ability to choose between two options, that is of course more space in which to act than having only one choice. So it’s easy to make the distinction that there is something positive about that. But is it really the same thing as being free? Well what does that even matter? You’re given the choice. So take it. I’m choosing to eat pizza now. As always, don’t take it seriously. I’m just talking about a point of view.

“…And on the fourth, we will be free.”

You know it strikes me rather funny, that so many people, especially here in the West, cling to the idea of reincarnation because it brings them safety. The idea being that the human being is a pilgrim, or rather their soul is, which gradually develops through myriads of lives on a quest to find out what’s it all about. When the objective in the East is the exact opposite. To get out of the wheel of Samsara. So that you are free from the round of birth and death.

This clinging is also true of Nirvana. The whole point of realizing it, is the cessation of suffering. But to me the notion that Nirvana would be this peculiar state of mind in which all your troubles are absent, is to put it crudely, stupid. Because we already know that once you have a state in which you are happy, that state is temporary and will wear off sooner or later.

So you cannot actually sustain this magical existence, where you either are in a perpetual state of security, or of bliss. Both points are moot. So the only way to counter this is to let go of the whole thing. Let go of security, and the pursuit of lasting bliss. And when you do, you might actually discover something even better. Where you won’t need a religion to carry you anymore, which by the way is in my opinion the real purpose of them.

As an analogy taking the raft and the river. When you cross a river in a raft, you don’t pick up the raft and start carrying it with you. You leave it behind. So the objective of Buddhism or any other tradition of this kind, is to ultimately make you shed the scaffolding so to speak, and let the building stand on its own.

A lot of people will have problems with this notion. They think that once you commit to a sect or a church, you’re in it for life. Well fuck that. Says who? It’s like Buddha said in one of the smaller sutras: take what you need, and throw the rest into the ocean. Meaning that one should only use the relevant things to their own situation, and discard the excess. I think this is also the appeal in secular spirituality. Because it gets rid of “surface decorations” of religion.

But the whole idea of Samsara or the Wheel of Becoming is that you are chained into it by iron chains, so long as you are attached. And a Buddha is one who instead of becoming attached to it even by golden chains, gets rid of the chains altogether. And there is an interpretation given by a Japanese scholar, who discussed enlightenment with Alan Watts that I feel is important so I will share it here.

He said to him that the reason Buddha countered the teachings of Hinduism by lecturing on Anatman or the concept of Non-Self, in which nothing in this universe contains any trace of an essence or some soul which endures even after death, was because it was meant to act as a shift in balance into the Middle Way. So the concept of Self or Atman found in Hinduism was balanced with Anatman or Non-Self, and the concept of life being pure pleasure was countered with him saying life is suffering and so on.

Everything in Buddhism is always balanced with its opposite to arrive at the middle. Why? To get people out of their extremes. In other words, if you were stuck at a particular point of view, let’s say, clinging to God, they would demolish your belief in the Madyamika or The Middle Way School of Nagarjuna, and take every kind of “fixed point of view” away until there was nothing left for the student to hold unto. Because they believed that one doesn’t need any extremes, because they have a tendency to make one myopic. If you get stuck in a point of view, there is less chance to see the whole picture. So Buddhism is always trying to get people out of their ruts of not seeing the whole picture.

And this is in my opinion the reason why Buddhism was developed, not because it brings people safety, but because its goal was to get you into a place, where you don’t need safety anymore. That you won’t need a religion to carry you anywhere. That you are in fact, a Buddha where you sit right as you are. And this is more or less what Bankei Yotaku was trying to say with his teaching of the “unborn mind”, a Zen master living in Japan in the 1600s. You are a Buddha, even before you take up the path. Because if you weren’t, then Buddhism would be wrong in saying that there is no path. In the Diamond Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, it is said that when Buddha attained complete and unsurpassed enlightenment, he didn’t attain anything. And that means, that there is nobody to attain it. Because you’re it, and always were.

That very same sutra says, in Huineng’s own words: “The difference between the gradual school and my Sudden school, is that where as they both share the same destination, the gradual school is for slow witted people, and the other is for fast witted people.” In other words, not everyone needs to sit on their legs for 30 years to get the point. Because there’s a saying, all roads lead home. And that is I think, one of the hidden truths of Buddhism.

There is another sense altogether in which the Samsara can be thought of as projecting continuation on one’s actions, so that what appears as the person, as they move from the past, through the present moment, into the future, is a hallucination. That you are “being reincarnated”, that the links in the chain, are nothing other than your projection of the past and the future. And so you are keeping yourself in the Wheel, so long as you think in time. So the only way to be free, is to step out of time completely.

That doesn’t mean that you become dead, or just passive. But that you don’t act in a way that drags the past behind you, or equally worry about the future. This is as hard as it sounds. Almost nobody that I’ve ever met, has been able to do this. But it is possible to live with the attitude where they won’t let time affect them negatively. It also means that you can still make plans, provided you’re not attached to some coming date.

What I mean by attachment in this context is not grabbing things at too hard. It doesn’t mean that you give up desire completely. Because we need desire simply to breathe or to sleep. So that is another misunderstanding in my view, that people who take up these practices ought to give up desiring completely. As the dialogue in Buddhism shows, trying to give up desire is just the opening step in a series, and its objective is to get you further than might initially appear.

Now, I’m not an expert on Buddhism or any other tradition for that matter. But what I’ve learned over the years is that people go to great lengths in fooling themselves regarding various things in the “spiritual scene”, and forget that there has to be a human element and some rationality involved. Otherwise we become too spiritual, and that is a very real phenomenon. Where the person reeks of excessive spirituality.

And there enters into what I call “anti-worldliness”, where we think that entering into the spiritual requires the disappearance of the physical world, and that we should refrain from sex, among other things. Because of the notion that we get too attached to the physical pleasures of the profane. And so to get rid of them altogether is preferred. But this is false in my thinking. Because asking the simple question: if the objective of life was to get rid of physicality, why a physical universe at all in that case?

But Samsara also can be thought of as not simply a trap that we should get away from or escape, but a game in which we can have fun and participate in everything life has to offer. So one has to live on two levels simultaneously. One where they won’t grab too hard, and also enjoy while it lasts. And this is the fourth or the “final” season I started this article with. We are free as soon as we change our whole outlook and approach to the Wheel. So that the three seasons that went before weren’t all for nothing. Satchitananda.

T.F.

I find that madness, can be divine at times. That is to say, it can show us more than just what it appears as. The depths can give insight to the person going through it, and they can in turn inspire others with that insight. A lot of people are not aware of something called “sensitivity to the forces.” So I’ll try to explain that in this article.

What I mean by sensitivity to the forces is the level of frequencies one is tuned into. See, there are countless of “radio stations” one can dial into with their minds. And the weirder the frequency, we call them hopelessly insane. Since the 20th century, people have shoved a sticker and label many of these frequencies, to the point that almost every kind of deviation in one’s cognition and psychology can be pointed out as being “sick” in some way.

Either you’re “above average” or “below average”. If you’re sad you’re depressed. If you’re happy you’re euphoric. If you’re angry you’ve got an issue of control. If you’re hopeful you’re optimistic. If you’re sarcastic you’re a pessimist. And so on, and so forth. Almost every attribute we can think of, can be nowadays substituted with a diagnostic classification. And the reason is that it supposedly makes it easier to work on these things, as if they were problems.

And so nothing strikes us more with the demand to repair it, than being crazy. But to me being crazy, is something I would not give up for the world. I’m fond of being crazy. Why? Because it gets me off many, many hooks. And I would imagine that a lot of people who have mental illnesses, while not necessarily fond of their condition, nonetheless have this distinct attitude of “being nuts”, that they would not easily shed. And that is why I distinguish having mental illness from being insane.

The latter can be highly luctrative, depending on how one uses it. It can be contributing to creativity in large parts. It can make one see more in things that would otherwise be easily dismissed. So being insane has tremendous value in many people’s lives.

And being insane can be fun, provided you know how to handle it. I know many people who are full of zest, and life, because they have a screw loose. And I speak for myself when I say that I enjoy it. And people who don’t see that life itself is crazy as crazy can be, are themselves crazy in a different sense.

So what is the condition of being insane if we exclude usual mental illnesses? Well, ponder for a moment, and ask the question: for what reason would people stare at you like you’ve got a horn growing out of your forehead, and start scoffing at you and arguing against you immediately? Or we could put it in Christian terms: for what reason were the heretics in the middle ages burned at the stake? What is that great herecy?

Well one thing comes to my mind. And that is that if you claim to anyone that you’re God. But this is the thing I’ve been trying to put forward with all these articles of mine. That we’re ALL God in disguise, pretending to be ourselves, with all our unique problems. And nothing is more insane, historically and present day accounted for, than that.

And that is why people are apt to stay quiet about it. Because the consequences are feared, especially that your family or relatives might call the white jackets on you after spilling the beans. But this claim has been throughout time, suspect and prone to stoning, crucifiction, burning at the stake, murder, and as said, admitting one to the hospital.

But this knowledge, that one is the eternal universe, is the goal of most spiritual practices. That is really the inner secret of it. And so it strikes me rather odd, how people are at the same time trying to get to the point at which they can be labelled as insane, while trying to prevent others from being that. But of course, they don’t know that. Even I don’t know that. I’m just insane. And if there is any wisdom in that, it’s that the cosmos is more strange, that anyone could or will ever imagine.

T.F.

P.S. I know this is short, especially on a subject I could go on for a while, but I decided to keep it that way because it’s a sensitive topic and I feel like I would just introduce more landmines for myself the longer I wrote.

There is something appealing in going against arguments. They practically demand it sometimes. One can even make it an entire hobby to take contrary positions in conversations. It’s fun. But what happens when you’re contradicting yourself in your position?

When I make statements regarding the mystical, partly that it’s problematic is because of the way our language works. Language as a method of communication has a serious limitation. And that limitation is the outer perimeter of the box the words are pointing to. Let’s suppose that we’re talking about a chair. Are we talking about the word chair, or an actual chair in the world? If it’s the latter, the only reason we know that it’s meaningful is because at some point we had to have seen a chair.

But the trouble with the mystical is that nobody can really reference it and give people a solid image of it. And that is why it’s been the subject of heavy disputes over the centuries. So taking a contrary position to it seems only natural and comes easily to those who don’t really know what I’m talking about. They might’ve heard about the term, but unless they themselves have felt it in their orifices, it’s almost absolutely futile to try to describe something as exotic as the mystical vision. Note that, almost.

Because even when we have no clear picture of what we’re trying to describe, or talk about, does not mean that you can’t play off of contrary positions. In fact, you can pretty much do it with anything, in matters of language at least. And that is why the whole art of creative writing is partly based on contrary imagery. It enriches the subject matter greatly, if you can “polarize” it.

But this self-contradicting, is bad form in terms of philosophical discussions. The participant will feel defeated if it’s known that they have contradicted something they said. But it can also be contributing to the discussion, provided that you’re trying to use it as a device to arrive to a new point of view. For example when I say that all birds are black. That is an obvious contradiction with the facts of simple biology. But if I take that position in the spirit of showing that our assumptions of how language is intended to work is undermined, then it’s another matter.

Koans in Zen Buddhism work this way. They are often non-sensical passages, with the intent to make the reader “drop” their assumptions of language and meaning, or in other words, their social programming, even if temporarily. And the reason is that we are generally so hypnotized by words and language, that we forget the true nature of reality. And the contrarian in this respect has a parallel function, of reminding you of the “polarity of life.” But I’ll save that term for another article. The point is that it’s the opposite view, that can sometimes bring about the most insight to arguments.

And that is why I believe that it is always necessary to include all possible lines of sight. So that we don’t become near-sighted or myopic. The picture needs all pieces to be complete. This could be called the “multiple perspectives theory”. Which is a term of my own devising. It states that no point can survive on its own. It is always in relation to its surrounding or opposite points of view.

Contradicting of one’s self can be inconsistent, but it can simultaneously be inspiring. It all depends on the nature of what is being discussed. If the point is to make somebody over, to convince them of something, then yes, you’ve probably failed like a fucking dingus. But if the objective is to explore ideas, and it is used creatively, then no opposition is truly wrong.

The reason I’m writing this piece is to show that if you’re ever backed into a corner philosophically, all you have to do is strip naked, and demolish the floor from under your own two feet. Why? Because nobody can really defeat somebody with nothing to spare or to hide. Now I’m using the word defeat playfully. Obviously it is often that we’re not looking to simply defend our own positions. But that we’re open to new ones.

It is only saying that if the opposing view was truly opposing and had the capacity to make us update our views, it certainly won’t come by dismissing it or ignoring it. That’s why I try to use opposites as often as I can. So that we don’t become fixed to any specific view. Because as was said, you need all of them to make an informed decision.

T.F.

As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

This passage in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, is probably one of the most vivid depictions of ephemerality ever produced in the written arts. It says really, that all is perishable, or temporary, no matter what we do. But just because they are temporary, that does not make things any less valuable. The transiency of life, is the same as its splendour.

We go to great lengths in preserving something, and then we get anxious, depressed or generally sad when they disappear from us. We don’t on the whole like it very much that our lives are fleeting. Some people even think that death is a serious problem, and that we ought to “fix” it. Fix nature’s decay. Which is ridiculous to me.

Ever since the dawn of time, human beings have observed this decay and asked the question whether there is anything eternal that endures. And modern science would tell you there isn’t. The Big Rip, or The Heat Death of the universe will happen some day. And we get bothered about that.

But as I’ve observed my own life, especially in the past few years, I’ve had this intuition that there is this element of continuity in all things and events in the universe. That a pattern’s appearance and disappearance, implies its reappearance. And I tend to feel that the same thing will be true of the universe. That its disappearance is but a link in a chain that spans all through eternity.

And this idea is very much prevalent in Hindu thought. They call it the Days and Nights of Brahma. Where every inbreathing is the creation of the universe, and every outbreathing is its undoing, until it moves into a “cooldown period” called pralaya. And then it starts up all over again. And this goes on for forever and ever.

It is not entirely unique to their philosophy, but it may be that they were the first people to depict the cosmos as a series. But it reminds me also that many astronomers now are beginning to see this as a possibility. It makes zero sense to me to think that the universe came out of literal nothing. Nothing can come out of nothing. You have to have something to have something. But then again, this begs the question I’ve been wondering for a long time: how can a first cause be at the same time causeless, and its own cause? It seems logically impossible. And yet, that is the Ultimate Principle or Brahman in this cosmology.

True, logic does not even begin to touch true eternity. It has its limits, such as that you can’t have a system of logic, which defines its own axioms. The consistency of an internal logic always has to be defined in terms of a higher system. And so how do you apply a higher system to the already highest point? See, you can’t explain things by their cause alone. If you keep asking the question “how” long enough, it becomes an infinite regression at some point, in which you’re left with nothing; the question vanishes along with the cause.

And so you can think this long enough until you come to the realization that all finite things are explained only against the background of the ever-lasting. That’s how they are able to “flip” in and out of existence. Which is the very nature of a wave or a pulse. It flickers in and out, in and out. And this prompts another point of view to my mind.

There is a general feeling among people who say that the distinction between good and evil, as an example, has to be an eternal distinction to be important. And this is false. To say that a finite distinction is of lesser importance, is a highly hypocritical thing to make. Because after all, your own organism is not eternal, yet it is important. So the distinction between good and evil, does not have to exist in eternity to matter on this level of being.

And the reason people insist that it has to be eternal, is that they have a personal vendetta against all wrong-doers. And that makes certain sense. Punishment has to be attributed to those who transgress the rules. But note that “rules” is also a finite concept. But imagine if good and evil really did exist in eternity and were not temporary game rules, how horrible and dire things would be. We would have hells in which people would suffer literally for all eternity, as is the case with Christian Hell.

And this strikes me so horrible as a concept, that I’m choosing to wipe my ass with it. Nothing will last, except the ever-lasting. So I’m making the claim that everything in this universe, is temporary. But what underlies the universe, is what I can only point to with the term non-dual. It is at the same time ephemeral, and yet eternal. That is to say, our real identity is the eternal aspect.

So cheer up. We’ll be here for a while.

T.F.

When people say “you’re weird,” to me that means nothing except a compliment. I think it’s the highest honour when you’re being called weird. Nobody should be ashmed of it. Being weird means you stand out. You’re unique, peculiar, or in other words, interesting.

Of course, there are two branches of being weird. One is the negative sense, the other is the positive. But I figure that majority of the occasions, even when it’s intended to be taken negatively by someone, I try to take it well and say thank you. It means you’re zapping someone’s pressure points. You’re keeping them on their toes so to speak, which is a phrase I’m borrowing from the late George Carlin, a comedian.

Being weird also has the advantage of getting rid of people if you play your cards right. That is if you want to get rid of them. Let’s say you’re in a party you think is fucking lame. So you throw some fuel into the fire by shouting something embarrassing right the moment the music stops. And so suddenly, all eyes are on you. You can then make an “impressionistic” exit if you so choose.

But there is a deeper sense in which being weird not only makes the people around you hooked on what you say or do, like a great performer, you have the capacity in those moments to really affect people and make strange impressions that ordinarily would be difficult to surface in an ordinary social situation.

I’m talking about spirituality in particular here. As I’ve experimented this first hand, but you have to be subtle in your interactions. And the “subtle art of being weird,” is I think one of the most important attributes a human being can have. Because it enables social situations, though rare, that “unnerves” the moment. Where you see an honest rascal in front of you, who does not seem to care whether they are embarrassed in front of you.

I know, I’m being weird. But life is weird. It’s damn strange. In fact, nothing is more peculiar than the cosmos. The more we seem to have it wrapped in terms of how it works, it surprises us with new discoveries. And one philosopher went so far as to say that whenever we look into the universe, the universe has to escape its own examination to get away from us. It wouldn’t do that if we stopped chasing it. Now how’s that for weirdness?

It means essentially that we will never stop discovering new things. And that to me is the supreme weird. So, there is definitely no harm in being weird. On the contrary, the whole mystery of life is based on things being odd, out of place, confusing, and baffling. But people are not readily to admit that they are just rascals, a bunch of goofballs going around pretending to be serious. And so this is where I come into the picture. To remind you, that things being weird, is the same thing as their vitality.

The occasional surprises that come our way, are absolutely essential to the game of life. Without them, the whole system would’ve committed suicide a long time ago. But what’s weird in this, is that the number one rule that we play, whether we’re aware of it or not, is that this game is not a game. Instead we’re morbidly serious, especially in church and in a court of law. Why is God so uncomfortable with chuckles in his presence? I think that’s fucking weird!

Well anyway, weirdness definitely has its place in matters of social, societal, scientific, philosophical, or every which way you can think of. But people who want to claim that we should take things seriously, well I agree with them up to a point. There’s such a thing as too serious. And that’s where I begin to have problems. If you want to claim that existence is ultimately serious, then you can’t really come to terms with the fact that our brightest and most cherished moments, involve laughter.

You’re a stuck up stuffy skeleton if you think that existence is a serious business, with a serious goal. Sure, it can be fun in its own way to consider things being more than trivial, but being trivial and being playful are two distinct things to me in this regard. In fact, I equate playfulness or play with the highest sense of being there is. Going as far as to claim that you are God in disguise, pretending to be your ego. How’s that for weird?

T.F.

The Principle is the underlying aspect in the entire system. It is the goal of most spiritual practices. The methods reaching it may vary but all of them have the same basic characteristics. Firstly, it requires the recalibration of one’s consciousness. Secondly, it requires redefining one’s relationship with the rest of the universe. And thirdly, it requires letting go of personal “baggage” and reconciling of one’s opposites.

More than few schools of thoughts have advocated various methods to attain this state, usually less successfully in doing so. As the person will come to realize in the midst of their practice, “the more it changes, the more it stays the same.” In other words, try to arrange your life so that it was all upward and nothing was downward, it can’t be done. Ergo, all attempts to attain what is known as Nirvana or enlightenment are futile, from this basis.

However, The Principle does not abide by any fixed rules or restrictions, it resides beyond them. Therefore, to say that meditation should be discarded because it makes no difference, is not quite the point. The difference that is made is in the attitude and approach to it.

It isn’t difficult to ascertain what the reason is for people to pursue this “wrong point.” On the whole, we feel inadequate. Like there is something missing from our lives. And so we seek, seek, and seek for the missing piece. Some get it from joining a movement, others get it from a cup of morning coffee.

But as most things in life go, the rush is temporary. And so we repeat or switch to some other thing that might bring us satisfaction again. And so this is one of the reasons why we feel the need to “get enlightened.” It is to change our minds to a more satisfactory state, one that doesn’t wear off. At least in theory. But as Buddhism itself states, this is impossible.

There is Nirvana, no doubt about that. But it isn’t a state in which you so much attain, as it is realizing that you were always at the place you are trying to get to. Nirvana is already here, in this very moment. And to miss it, is the same thing as postponing the knowledge of it. That is why in the Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, The Diamond Sutra, it is said that when the Buddha attained perfect and unsurpassed enlightenment, he didn’t attain anything.

Of course, there are varying intensities of the experience of the mystical. Sometimes it can be a very strong one. And you’ll remember it for the rest of your life. But as long as you are trying to achieve this positive thing and eliminate the negative, you are under illusion. Because the one cannot exist without the other. It is only when we give up the pursuit, that it is most likely to come to us. When it isn’t sought out.

But people who think that they need to pay a sufficient price for the mystical, will have to go through the hoops and steps. They will not accept it, until they have felt like they have reached it by an adequate effort. And so they will do their exercises, and practice. On the other hand, they are not wrong in going through it. Because it might be the only way for them to get anywhere.

But this is basically my criticism with enlightenment as it is today. It is with the way in which people approach it as a project of self-improvement, like they would do of psychotherapy. But if they do it that way, they are not practising what is known as dhyana or zen. They are actually preventing real meditation to begin, so long as they think they will get something out of it. Real meditation is simply watching it all happen.

I would even go so far as to say that real meditation should be fun. It can be extremely joyful and pleasurable, to contemplate in the moment. And then you’ll notice how little all your worries are present in that moment. Eventually, you might even start “floating”. And make some strange insights. Who knows, you might even get flipped into some new and peculiar states of consciousness.

T.F.

There is a notion in mysticism that one can intuitively sense our ultimate destination. And because of this intuition, there’s nothing to worry about. The idea is that no matter what path or course one takes, it will eventually lead them to the same place as everyone else. This could be called the “consummation of the world,” in which everyone and everything is enlightened in the end.

This concept is prevalent in several traditions, at least in Buddhism and Hinduism. There are other schools such as the Gnostics, who believed that one’s inner experience with the divine is analogous to this intuition. Anyone who’s ever had the mystical experience, knows surely in their bones what we’re in for.

Now, how can I claim at the same time since I’ve never personally had the experience that I know where we’re going? Well, I can only say that my intuition is off the charts. The rest is good old belief. You can’t after certain point get out of the fact that you’re to large extents operating in life because of belief in different things. People who can’t admit this, who think that navigating in this world is purely a matter of instinct or rationality, are living in delusion.

There was a very wise woman who once said that you believe in what you see. And this perceiving of things being synonymous with believing in them is I think the answer to why we’re so hypnotized by so many things. Our attention after all goes to the relatively moving, instead of the still, to the highlighted, instead of the diffused, as was worked out by Gestalt psychology in the previous century.

Because of this selection, we get taken in by the details of life. And so we forget the underlying things. And what I guess I’m doing then is trying to point with my finger to this underlying reality. And I’m saying that there’s no such thing as the wrong kind of detail, in which to get absorbed. They are all part and parcel of the same massive event.

And I keep reminding you. Someone has to. I’m reminding you that you are not a stranger on Earth. Coming from some place else. But that you, in your deepest sense of self that there can be, are absolutely essential to the cosmos. If you weren’t, nobody else would be either.

And so this idea is one where it doesn’t matter what kind of mistakes one makes, what sort of peril or dire situations they get, because they are divine in their most fundamental aspect. That doesn’t mean, that you go out and do whatever the hell you like because it doesn’t matter. It means the exact opposite. It is because everyone is divine, that they deserve compassion and respect.

Then again, this might all be taken as the most bullshitty sugary garbage ever produced, and that’s fine. It’s not for those people. It’s for nobody. It’s for whoever feels like they’ve got nothing better to do than read a bunch of random fucking articles on the internet in the hopes that maybe they’ll learn something. Well guess what? I’ve got nothing to teach. Go away.

But if you’re enjoying these things, then stick around. Maybe we’ll actually realize something in the middle of it all. Or maybe not. In any case, whether the world will ever be enlightened or what have you is anyone’s guess. I don’t even think enlightenment is used correctly as a term, in the sense that somebody is going to attain anything. It’s not a separate state which somehow heals you.

But I’ll leave my criticism about enlightenment or Nirvana to another article. Right now I need to walk around before I start growing vegetables. Satchitananda.

T.F.

Why do we question things? Or rather, why wouldn't we? In all the history of the world, there has always been someone who questions the status quo. And the obvious reason for this is that if we don't, we become stale, flattened out. There has to be always something that makes people wonder and thus ask questions. Even when a person is not very articulate, or is incapable of formulating coherent arguments, they should nonetheless ask questions.

Now, I question anything and everything, on the basis of challenging the assumptions that people have how things should be. And that goes for matters of philosophy, metaphysics, and even science. I don't subscribe to anything that is merely in the theoretical stage. So for example, I don't believe in a multiverse, or the simulation theory. I question even my own beliefs and ideas. Anything that is relative, is up for grabs. So basically, the entire universe.

You start with a question regarding any given topic. You flip it on its opposite. You flip it back and examine it carefully. Why should that be the question? How could it be different? What its implications are. You examine it from the outside. You look at it from all angles. You take it apart. You reassemble it differently. You answer it and see what it's results are. You change the question but keep the answer, you change the answer but keep the question. You take them both off and you end up questioning the question itself. Why are people suggesting that must be the question?

You're starting to lose it. You ponder the ramifications, its premise, the conclusions, the possibilities and before you know it you find yourself walking from the store having no memory of going there in the first place. Do I even recall what the original question was? Ah, yes.

And this way of challenging all things, whatever they are, is in my opinion essential this day and age. So many people do not seem to do this, instead they are too busy going from point A to point B. And so it goes. And as a result of this non-questioning, we wonder when certain craziness in the world takes place. The fact that they do take place is symptomatic of the kind of society where we live, in which we don't take the time to allow ourselves to reflect on things enough. Because if we did, we would be more aware of our own actions towards that society.

Furthermore, my entire notion in writing these articles is not only that I enjoy talking about the subject matter, it's to “jolt” people into the possibility that there might something more than a single line of sight to anything. I'm not trying to make anyone over, other than point towards the myriads of potentialities outside the accepted norms. And that is why I often make the point, that one shouldn't take anything I say seriously, only sincerely. Because I'm sincere in writings them, but I don't take them seriously myself, that is to say, I don't settle for anything I say.

I may say something contradictory, or paradoxical. Part of it is because of the way our language limits the processes outside itself. But also, because I use opposites or contradictions as a method, to ask the question: “How seriously do you want to take this thing?” And lastly, because I'm batcrap insane. But I've found a way to sound as if I was making sense, but in a certain sense, I'm not really making any sense. I merely ask questions.

One of my favourite questions is “Who am I?” And this question, is probably closest to what I would consider to be the ultimate question. It asks really, who are you behind all your social labels, statuses, positions, and views, that witnesses all that's going on. People seem to not do this very often. And that fascinates me. As said, I question absolutely everything. Because I believe that once we stop asking questions, in a way we've given up.

Now, you don't need to have a degree to ask questions. Even little kids ask them all the time. But it seems that the older we get, the less we ask questions. And I think it's a good time to remind people that finding that inner wonder that we used to have as children, is paramount to questioning the system. If we don't wonder, it's as if we became the sort of people depicted in the most ghastly dystopian science fiction novels. Where everyone is just going in lines, to the office, obediently.

Now, my assumption is that if you're reading this article in the first place, you must have some kind of idea that things generally are not what they ought to be. We wouldn't question things if they were perfect. So I have within my power now, to make a difference to the reader. So I would say, just keep asking. Until you find a peace of mind in the midst of chaos. We ask questions because deep down, we know that things aren't what they appear to be.

But some people takes this to the extreme, where they think everyone is out to get them. They're overly paranoid, and so they tend to dip into the conspiracy forums and things of that nature. And I know this because I'm speaking from experience. I used to take part in a rather popular forum of this kind. And what I learned in the end, as my best friend put it, is that the only true conspiracy on this Earth is human greed, and that explains 99% of all conspiracies.

We all want to know the truth. And I could go into the personal discovery where I even questioned the truth itself, and what the universe really is, and our place in it. But I'm choosing to leave that as a separate post, because it is quite a tale. And as it is said, the truth has a way of always making its way into the light. So never give up, and always question the system. That is all I wanted to say.

T.F.

Water. That essential life giving element. It always seeks the line of least resistance. What if you could somehow harness its essence?

Water has some peculiar properties and aspects. One of it is that it always seeks the lowest point, which people generally abhoar. It is gentle, yet you can't cut it down with a knife. You can’t squeeze it, nor can you compress it. It can shape the contours of entire landscapes. It’s the most gentle, yet strongest substance in the world.

And this brings to my mind certain people, who have these same attributes. Of going with the flow of nature. But there are other people, who don't seem to see the flowing aspect of things. They talk about firm foundations, rock of ages, and mighty fortresses, as the basis for certain aspects of life, not realizing that we are living in a floating world.

Majority of Earth is water, and we are furthermore floating in interstellar space. And so an attitude to living which could be considered ideal, is not where one is cluching on to rocks, but learning how to swim. It doesn't do any good grabbing on to rocks that are falling with you.

This attitude of going with the flow, just because it is the flow of life, or a natural process, you cannot capture it. One can't shut off wind inside a box and expect it to behave like wind, or catch flowing water in a bucket, because then it is no longer flowing. Never swim against the stream but with it, wherever it takes you, and you'll have the entire force of the stream with you always.

Another way of saying the same thing is, always assess the field of forces in which you find yourself in. As an example take a slum. Now this slum, has a very delicate and sensitive ecology and hierarchy going. And going in there with a bulldozer will only rile up and disrupt that ecology.

You need to consider in what ways are the people there involved with each other and outside contacts. It is the same thing with anything in nature. All environments have this delicate ecosystem. And “being natural”, is a state in which you are aware how the ecosystem works and how its parts interact with each other.

So one then thinks: “How can I be naturally natural? How can I flow within the course of nature? How can I let my mind think whatever it wants to? Because the moment I start doing that, I realize I'm doing it for an ulterior motive; I'm trying to contemplate, I'm trying to achieve something spiritually. And that ruins the entire thing.”

Well, when one has strived and tried for a long time to get the right approach, and found out that all the approaches that one gets are false ones, then one comes to the realisation that there's nothing they can actually do about it, that it doesn't make any difference to anything. Then one simply “gives up”, and in doing so, gains the strength and energy one was searching for.

By giving up I don't mean that you become lifeless, inert and generally passive. Nor do I mean going with the flow of nature is like that. Because taking water again, it's never in a state of doing simply nothing. We can't really help ourselves moving to different directions in life. Life is motion. And to think we need to somehow settle for a rigid rock, instead of knowing how and where to move when the time is right, always going with it, instead of against it, is the kind of person that could be called a truly virtuous in its real sense.

So water, is life, it is living. We all need it, just as we need each other. We might occasionally go “against the grain” of things, and don't see the bigger picture, but even that is actually part of nature. After all, there is nothing that is happening apart from it. And to understand what the watercourse way of life entails, one has to stop on their tracks from time to time, and assess their relationship with the total environment.

T.F.