Everyday Enlightenment

The mind takes its energy from us. Without us constantly giving it our energy, it would not survive. That’s why the mind must constantly try to find a game for us to play.

The mind uses concepts out of the collective consciousness and sets up really fun premises like “You aren’t good enough”. If you aren’t good enough the way you are, then there are an unlimited number of things that you have to do to try to become “good enough”. It’s a never-ending game. Capitalism is a perfect match for a mind-based reality. There’s always something else you can buy to make yourself better, or at least to placate your insecurity.

Advertising is the perfect handmaiden for capitalism. “Product image” is often more important than the product itself. How many people can tell the difference between the functionality of a product and its image? How many people have stopped to consider that the image is just a concept, and isn’t real, but only a perception, a belief that has been sold to them?

Descarte’s “I think, therefore I am” was an expression of truth insofar as it perfectly expressed the symptom of our disease. We identify with our thinking process.

Those who actually use their ability to think can control their thoughts. Perhaps that is the draw, that there is something that we can control, when everything else seems beyond our control.

Unfortunately, most people don’t actually think their own thoughts. Their thoughts are provided for them by the collective consciousness. When we don’t think our own thoughts, we can easily fall prey to the mental images that fill the collective consciousness. For most of us, it’s really, “I have thoughts, therefore I am.”

If I am the thoughts I’m having, then a lot of things become true, and a lot of them are contradicting. That these thoughts aren’t your own, and that they contradict themselves, causes a drain of life force energy and lead to a life that is diffused in intention and purpose.

The Western mind is an entity unto itself. It is created by the concepts that we inherit that aren’t our own. The mind only has a life because we give it our energy. The mind is enforced by the collective consciousness, which is almost entirely a collection of rules, things which constitute right and wrong.

I say “collective consciousness”, but it’s really mostly collective unconsciousness. You can tell when someone’s speaking for the collective when they blurt out something that is supposed to be a truth for everyone.

I heard a young man suggest something to the effect, “Everyone knows that women have to shave their legs. Otherwise it’s just gross.” Apparently, a woman has to fit into a preexisting image of what she’s supposed to be. Is her body not good enough the way Mother Nature provided it?

I police officer once told me, “Taking any job is better than no job at all.” It’s a perfect thing for someone who is primarily concerned with order to say. Forget about soul searching, or trying to create a life truly worth living. “Just get back in the box so that my reality is as safe as possible.”

There is nothing wrong with physical care, safety and freedom. The problem comes with the overly simplistic, black and white, interpretations of the collective mind. “Being a good citizen means having a job. It’s part of being responsible, of not being a drain on society.” What if your job is unhealthy to you or to the environment? What if you hate your job? What if you’re passing your disgruntled obedience on to your children? Is a half-lived life better than no life at all?

In “democratic” societies, we consider ourselves to be free citizens, but we are almost completely controlled by the rules of the collective consciousness. At an alarmingly fast rate, these rules are also being turned into laws. We have begun to enforce morality.

Very few people have the audacity to ever question this bag of rules in any meaningful way. These people are often considered geniuses. They are also sometimes thrown overboard, their “wild notions” perceived as being too risky for the general populace.

Questioning the bag of rules is something that we should all do. It isn’t until we’ve made our own decisions about things, and about life, that we actually begin to live our own life, instead of just following that which has been laid out before us, and laid out mostly unconsciously.