WORDS OF ME
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Here, you find words. Any meaning or truth among them is of your making – Your perception of yourself.
1. The illusion of independence
There is no single object in this universe that can rightfully be called independent, including human beings. Without the surrounding world we cannot breathe, cannot talk, cannot smell, cannot see, cannot eat, and cannot shit. Without the surrounding world it is impossible to think, to grow, to have fun, and to have an accident. With every breath you take, with every move you make, you are utterly and totally dependant on air/oxygen. What would you think about if there was nothing to perceive, nothing to make context of, and nothing to aim for? I know it sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, but if not pondered upon for hours and hours, you will inevitably fail to see through the illusion of independence. You have done nothing by yourself. The universe made a planet. Without that planet you would not exist. You need its water to exist; you need its air, its fire and its earth. If for one second only the universe should disappear, so would you. Further more, you are dependant upon its creatures and plants. Every time you take a walk you use roads paved by other people. Every time you buy an item, food, or clothes, other people have helped you. Every time you pull the tap to get a glass of water you are depending upon the plumbers that laid down the pipes, and the miners and factory workers that made those pipes for you. There were truckers involved getting those pipes into place, and there were fuel put into those trucks to make them move. Where did that fuel come from, and where did the trucks come from? Every time you hold or use an object, think about the number of people involved to get that object to you. Think about the materials used to make it, and think about that you could not possibly use the object at all if it wasn’t for the natural world surrounding and permeating your body. Human beings consist of 70% water, and they constantly need to eat. The surrounding world is what makes you possible. It is truly unfair to call it surrounding at all. Even now, your every thought is made up by the world. Try to think about a single thing that did not come to you from the outside. Did you invent the language you use when you think? Did you invent the forms from which you build your imagination? Is colour and light of your creation? What causes the emotions you have? What gave you life, and what will cause your death? It is not you. You cannot even kill yourself without help. You do not exist outside anything at all. You are a prisoner of the universe. There is no getting out. There is no freedom for any being anywhere. Independence is an illusion.
So you say you can choose what to do, and what to think. Only so because the universe gave you options. Without the world there are no options, nor are there any surprises or fulfillment of wishes. All you do is completely and most thoroughly depending on the world, as are these words and the thoughts spawned from them. Do not even think about independently questioning these statements. It is all in your brain, which is held together by food and water, which you did not create. To be able to question these words at all, you have to read them first. You did not write this, and you do not read this. What would your eyes be without water? What would this book be without its pages? How could you see the sentences without the air before your eyes? This book is the result of billions of years of change and thousands of years of civilization, as are you. It is the universe writing, and the universe reading. Accept that it is so, or stay inside the illusion of independence forever. Does a plant cause its own growing? Does the river flow by its own accord? No. You have never acted, nor will you ever act. All you can do is try to choose where to steer. Lie down on the couch if you like and choose to never do anything at all ever again. It will still not be of your own doing. It will be the couch giving you the idea and the air and earth making your rest possible, until finally the universe kills you off. I will say it again. You cannot walk, cannot lie down, cannot sleep, cannot think and cannot act without the universe. Independence is illusion. Read it all again. Read it a hundred times, and think of it until you get it. You never did nor thought anything by yourself.
2. The illusion of objects
Once the illusion of independence is completely shattered, we begin to carve our way through the illusion of objects, which is really the same illusion but seen differently. In our minds we daily think of objects as independently existing things. We know now that no independent thing really exists. The tree can spare the sunshine and the rain as little as its own roots. Without light the tree would die, without water the tree would die, and without the earth it would have no place to grow. No universe – no trees. It is as simple as that. Every object we see around us is dependant upon other objects to exist, and they in turn depend on still other objects. There is no object anywhere to be found that is independent. Objects are ideas created by us, and when we need or feel to, we split these objects into smaller parts, making new objects. With the tree we found a need to make roots, a trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves. These parts, these new objects, are not real objects but ideas. They are the tree called many different things, when we feel the need to do so. The leaf is the tree. The branch is the tree, the trunk is the tree. What else is a tree? It is only out of practical reasons, and because of limited thinking, that we have not added sunlight, earth and water into our description of the tree, and because it would not be practical. We did however find use for words like bark, fruits and resin, thus inventing new objects inside of the tree, just like we invented the tree inside the universe. Our senses make out some things more easily than others, and for practical purposes we make many words to describe the universe. It is all very logical. But as soon as we think of objects as existing on their own accord we are tricked, and as soon as we think of objects being objects anywhere but in our minds, we are fooled. If we had other senses, if we had other needs, we would make out other objects and other parts of those objects. The entire universe would look completely different. Can you see this? What is it that defines an object? Does it need to have a similar molecular structure throughout? No, a table can be made of several different materials, and still be called a table. Does it need to be surrounded by another matter? No, a snowball buried in loose snow is still called a snowball, and a current of water inside water is still called a current. Does an object need to be easily made out by the human mind? No, it is very hard to distinguish where the sandy beach of a desert country begins, and yet we say it is a beach. Well, how far inland does it reach? Even if we understand objects to be made from cultural agreements, the most important thing to see is that no object can exist independently of its surroundings. A lake needs a hollow in the earth and rain to become a lake, an axe needs a smith, a wielder, and a tree (or an enemy). The moon needs the earth and the space around it, and the galaxies need that creative force from which they came to be, and that holds them together. Nothing can ever exist outside of its context, save for the universe itself. The universe is not several parts built into one great thing. It is one great thing split in our minds into many. Because we see gaps we think that we see many things, but since the things are totally dependant upon the gaps for their existence, there are no gaps in truth. We call these gaps air, vacuum and space, but they are nothing but the universe. Without them we would not exist. Only one thing is real, and that thing we call the universe. Only that one thing exists independently. Should we ever find anything outside of it, we would do best to incorporate that thing into the word universe. Or we would need a new name to describe the holder of those two universes. Objects do not exist. Creatures do not exist. Human beings do not exist. Only in our minds (that do not exist) are these ideas made into objects. How can this be? Further explanations will be given in a later chapter. Do not begin though, to think that that part of the book is something else merely because I call it chapter. The book is the book, whether we choose to call it chapters, pages, words and letters, or not. If I remove the book all of the rest follows. Remove all beings and books would never be. Remove the universe and all beings would instantly disappear. We are the universe. The only thing that separates us is our names and our thoughts, just like with the states of the American mainland. Accept this, or you will forever be trapped inside the illusion of objects. Read this many times over. Think long and carefully about it. Try your best to define what an object is, why it has the boundaries it has, and how it came to be. See for yourself that it is nothing but a mind-construction. Hopefully you’ll understand this well enough to think of it further, because this illusion is hard to break. To say that objects are unreal sounds like the worst kind of crap. But when properly understood, this knowledge will make you free from all the imagined chains that hold you, and, most importantly, from yourself.
3. The illusion of I, me and myself
What is the I? Where is it located? What does it consist of? Where is its centre? How far does it reach? We can all see that the I describes a changing thing. To state that some people never change is a lie. We all change and it is as clear to the naked eye as it is to the mind. A child uses the word I when referring to itself, and when that child grows up into a responsible adult it still uses the same word. The target of the word I thus changes both physically and mentally. It is not uncommon to hear people speak of their old selves, when mentioning past actions. Even people who loose most of their memories insist on using I, when speaking of themselves. The word I does not describe a fixed state of being, yet we stubbornly hold on to it. It feels right, and it’s practical.
When I cut my toenails I do not think of them as being I as I flush them down the toilet. Yet they were part of me only a moment earlier. A man that has lost his legs and arms still says I am here. A woman who has her heart fixed with a pacemaker still says I. A person severely disfigured facially and bodily uses the word I, while simultaneously saying: “I do no longer recognize myself in the mirror”. This all shows us that the I is nothing but a word container of what we consider to be ourselves. It is a construction that can be expanded when my car is hit, and I exclaim: “I was hit. You crashed into me”, and it can be pulled close when I do not feel comfortable with some parts of myself. The urine in my bladder is not really me, or is it? The I is an abstract container of that which I acknowledge as myself. The I is commonly suggested to be located in the brain, but that is due to the illusion of objects. The brain has no function without the surrounding world. It cannot operate without oxygen, food and water. When the thinking occurs, it is a process taking place not only in the brain but everywhere. Because of the winter around me I feel cold, which raises the thought of making a fire. Because of some trees around me the idea comes, that I should cut down some of the trees for firewood. But I cannot cut down anything without the trees, nor can I think of gathering firewood without wood. My thoughts come into existence because of the trees and the weather, and the trees are cut down when that situation constructs the thoughts with the aid of a brain. The world creates the thoughts, and the thoughts make actions that reshape the world…that reshapes the thoughts again. This process is not isolated in the brain. It is due to a series of events taking place all around me, as well as inside. The brain cannot think without the universe. The thoughts are not inside the brain. They are inside the universe. They are the universe thinking. The brain is an imagined object that inherits its existence and claimed abilities from separating that which cannot be separated. Show me one single brain that can think without the world. Show me one I that can declare existence without its surroundings. The I is not located in the brain. It is located everywhere. Remember that as you keep reading. The idea of the I is not conjured by the brain, or by the mind. It is conjured by the universe, and it is the universe. This is hard to realize. It is so far away from our ordinary way of thinking that most people will never understand this. But I am making your brain think right now. I am your brain at this very moment, as is the text before you, the air you inhale, and every event and action that ever took place before this moment. Realize this and you will see beyond your present limitations. Use the universe to think about what this means. Your I is not yours, and your real I is not limited to any physical body. We think it is because when the brain is destroyed the mouth no longer says I, but that does not mean that the I vanishes. It means only that we do no longer hear it – that it has no means to express itself vocally through a certain perceived body. The universe has made itself known and visible through the eyes of multitudes of creatures, and expresses itself by saying: I am here. This I is the only I that exists. From a certain perspective it might look like many, but there is only one universe, and without it no voice or thought can be. The I and the universe are the same thing.
Everything begins with I. I see you. I feel the wind. I will change the world. Whenever things are taking place before us it is starting with I. It is easy to think that Tom speaks to Anna, but that is not what is happening. What is really happening is I hear Tom speak to Anna. It is easy to think that the rain falls, but that is not true. What is actually happening is I see the rain fall. It is easy to believe that China is a big country in the Far East. Not true. What is true is that I have been told that China is a big country in the Far East, and I visualize that country based on the information I have received. Without I there is no reality. Without I there is no world or universe. It must all begin and end with I. Where are all the people, plants and creatures if not in your eyes? Where are they but in your mind? What are you but a conception created by this great I? Without the great I, what we call the universe is impossible. I make the stars twinkle. I make the planet spin. I am time moving and the smell of decay rising from the battlefield. Again I suspect you think all this to be nonsense, but have you any evidence at all of a world existing outside of you? Surprises. How can we be surprised if the world is all within ourselves? If there is only I, then why am I suddenly sick with a disease I did not want, and did not even know of? Because we do not understand what we are. We still think that we are a bodies, and bodies, created from the illusion of objects and from the misconception of I, are subject to the idea of disease, which is really nothing but change. If you limit your I to the idea of a body, you will wither away. But you are not limited to the body of a single individual. When you say I, you really should mean everything, because the universe has given birth to this I, and the universe maintains and governs it. Back to surprises. Did you ever experience surprises in your dreams? Have you ever experienced happiness, sorrow or pain in your dreams? I have. Where did those emotions, sensations and surprises come from? From within. All dreams come from within. Bodies come from within, and diseases come from within. All of reality is sprung from within. There is nothing outside of you. You cannot be in two places at once. There is only one place. There is only one I. In my dreams there is a past, a present, and a future. I am their maker. I dream now. The illusion of I is the hardest of all of these illusions to see through. I is not really an illusion in itself. The illusion consists of the limits you have put on this I. The illusion becomes reality when you imagine yourself to be a single individual limited to a well defined body, when in fact you are everything. Can you not see this? The entire universe sets your thoughts in motion. The entire universe drives you into actions. How could you possibly think and act by yourself? You are not what you have been taught to believe. You are the universe saying I. You are the universe entire.
Are these the theories of a self-centred lunatic, or can you see the truth in this? In any case, it is your choice. Make your universe any way you like. That is your right and your inevitable power. Simply say: “I do not believe this. I am a mortal man and a body”, and this book will not affect you.
The I you carry now has the ability to behold itself. It can love, hate and despise itself. The I can make judgments upon actions committed by itself, and it can wish to become a better self. The I can weigh options available to it, and it can ignore its own mistakes. How can that be? How can something pay witness to itself, and how can a creature evaluate its own thoughts? A human being can create an unknown number of personas or opinions within the same body. One of these I-persons might want to have a pizza, and another I-identity may consider pizza too fat and unhealthy to eat. These two I-guys can have a twenty minute argument about whether their body should buy a pizza or not, while a third I is watching them calmly and interestingly from above. Do you recognize this experience? Which of these I-characters are the real you? None of them are you. You are the silent and unaffected I that rests unbothered by the quarrelling in the centre of all things. All the rest are voices born from an objectified world concept, where new wills and fake I:s are constantly manufactured, produced from the idea of outside objects, and the craving that begins when seeing those objects from a limited and relative standpoint. The true I needs no food, needs no fear of over-weight-problems, needs no brain, and needs no instructions. It is forever content with the simple experience of being, here. Once the previous two illusions are thoroughly shattered, and the illusion of the limited I starts to yield, your many artificial I:s will calm down, and you will begin to merge with your true I. That I is not bound by any of these illusions. That I is all that exists. It is your true self. Most likely, you have not even begun to fathom its nature… your nature.
4. The illusion of change
Everything is changing. Not a single thing around us stays the same. It is all in a constant transformation. That is how we experience the world, these days. That is how we experience ourselves. There is nothing we can do about it. Or is there? The strange thing about all this change is that the change itself seems to be eternal. The word eternal is produced under the illusion of time. For as long as there has been time, there has been change. These two are very intimately connected. So, according to time thinking, change itself does not change. Change is forever. Change is constantly occurring. Even if time might not always have existed, something must have changed before time, to bring creation about. (A paradox which cannot be overcome unless we can see that there is no creation.) Nothing comes about by its own accord; there is always a cause and effect. Isn’t there? To witness change we need objects. The change we experience must happen to something. Since the illusion of objects tells us that objects are mind-constructions, and not actual things, the change we see happens only in our minds. If I do not call one part of the snow, snowball, I will think of it as snow among snow. When that snow – the ball – crumbles, I will not see change. I will simply see snow. I have heard that the Eskimo people have a lot more words for snow than the rest of us. That means they experience a change in snow where we do not. Are the changes they perceive actual changes, and if they are, how come the rest of us never mention them? The more we split the universe, and the more precisely we define it, the more changes we will create. Some “parts” of the ocean can be called waves if I want to, or they can be called the ocean. If I see waves upon the ocean, I can say that the ocean changes, but if I only register the ocean, then nothing ever happens to it. My senses register motion upon the ocean’s surface, and they register the rolling waves, but where does the actual change take place? It is by splitting the world into many different things that these motions are given their nature. The universe remains the universe, no matter what happens to it. I see change. I witness motion. If I did not experience these things, if I could not make them out, I would not come up with the idea of change. What is it that changes but your ideas of the world? You say you see a difference between the calm ocean and the stormy one, but you still call the ocean the ocean. This illusion is surely a tricky one, and I fear I’m not making sense yet. You must help me here. Use your thinking. When you make a castle in the sand, where is the change happening? Have you actually made the sand change into a castle, or have you only renamed the sand? When you cut a slice of bread, have you really created a new thing, or is the bread still the bread, only perceived differently? Change is in your mind only. When the water of the sea heats up, it turns to clouds and later into rain. That water seeks its way back into the sea and we no longer think of it as rain. Nothing really happens to the sea. Only because our senses register a difference and because we have put different names to the various forms of water do we think that changes occur. Water is water. We call it ice, snow, oceans, lakes, rain, clouds and so on, but still it remains water. We know that snow is water. We know that water is life. By splitting the universe in our minds, our minds begin to see objects, and suddenly there is change. The universe however does not change, only mind-objects change. It is said that the universe expands, but that is not true. Only the visible universe is expanding. It is said that the universe began with the Big Bang, but only the tangible, readable universe can have begun that way. There is nothing outside the universe that could have affected it. It must forever and ever have remained the same. I experience change. But no change really actually happened. I dreamed it. I created it.
Energy never disappears, it only “changes” form. Change is in our minds. The seed of an oak does not hold the entire oak inside of it. When it starts to sprout, we call it a sprout. The sprout turns into a seedling, and the seedling grows into a majestic tree. What a wonderful transformation! But to grow the tree consumed sunlight, it drank water and it sucked up nutritive from the soil. Inside the tree there is now sunlight, there is water and there is the nutritious soil. Nothing really changed. Only in our visual and cultural interpretation of the universe did a change occur. The universe remained unaltered. Change is about perspective.
5. The illusion of cause and effect
Following the illusion of change is the illusion of cause and effect. This illusion should be rather easy to shatter, but due to our egocentric world-view, for most people this illusion is hard to grasp. When a car hits an icy spot on the road and ends up crashing into a tree, most of us would say that the cause was the deceitful weather. Some might blame the speed, others the inexperienced driver, and yet others the shameful condition of the road. We could also name the worn tires as being the cause, or perhaps the tricky turn. But when interviewing the passenger it turns out that she takes full responsibility, since she was giving the driver a hard time and kept distracting him. A wise man might say that all of these elements together were what caused the accident. But even he is under the illusion of cause and effect. How could this accident ever have happened if cars had never been invented? The inventor of the car is clearly the cause of this. How could this accident ever have happened if the driver’s mother had stayed a virgin, and become a nun, as she once planned? The charming father of the driver is clearly the cause of this. The chain of cause and effect is very long indeed. The friends that the driver was going to visit must surely be blamed, since had they not called to invite him, he would likely have stayed at home. How could the driver have driven if he hadn’t eaten food? The farmers that manufactured his food must be the cause of this misfortune? Hopefully you can see where I’m getting at. The chain of cause and effect is imagined. There could be no driving unless there was an earth to drive upon. There could be no earth without the universe. The universe caused this accident – this change – nothing else did. The chain of cause and effect is no chain at all. The changes that we consider dramatic enough to notice are made into effects or causes in our minds. The passenger is the cause of the accident, and the accident is the cause of the driver’s broken leg. The driver’s broken leg is the cause of him missing work, and missing work is the cause of reduced income. Reduced income is the cause of selling the car, and selling the car is the cause of dating the car seller Victoria. What is the cause of the driver marrying Victoria? Well, since they fell in love on a particularly romantic full moon night, the moon must be the cause. Nonsense! There is no beginning or end to the chain of cause and effect. There is no cause and effect at all. It is all made up within our minds and we call whatever action or object we seem fit cause and/or effect. It is all so intimately interwoven that no such thing as cause and effect can truly be established. Nor can objects and thus no changes at all. Sure, I experience events taking place, but I must begin to realize that they take place inside of me. I am their maker. It is I who differentiate objects and give them meaning. I name my experiences, I define myself and because I limit myself to body-being, I see a surrounding world, and I begin to search for its cause. If there is any need for a cause at all, it is I, the universe. I, the creator.
6. The illusion of time
Time begins when the witness experience change. Time ends when the witness no longer sees transformation. When the witness, I, behold nothing but my own unchanging self, time is deconstructed. Time measures changes. Time, as the scientists presently think of it, began with the Big Bang, when the visible universe came into existence. What caused this? From what source did the universe spring? Something cannot come out of nothing. Time is a way to think and to make sense of experience. As long as we witness change, time will hold us prisoner. As long as there is in our perception a subject-object relationship, time will govern it. But time did not create the universe, nor does it govern it. The universe made time and holds time. That which existed before time is beyond definition, because it eludes the way we think. Our language is constructed from a subject-object perception. It cannot cover what lies beyond it. This was put very elegantly by the evangelist John, in the Bible: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This passage holds the key to the universe as it is. It is no secret. Anyone with a right set of mind can grasp this, and it has nothing to do with the Bible. You just have to look around and question what you see. There were no objects before time, nor are there truly any objects now. The objects are words and their changes are words. Without those ideas there is no time. To measure time you must define a beginning and an end. These definitions take place in your mind. They are defined by you. Why does time seem to slip by faster when we get older? Because we change less drastically and because our surroundings become ever more predictable – they become familiar. When we quit studying the surrounding world with the curiosity of a child’s mind, experienced time moves faster. When we encounter nothing new, we don’t pay as much attention, and we overlook the change. Once the cycle of the year has been witnessed thirty to forty times over, we don’t really think of it as that much of a change. The year is the year as it always has been, but the first few times we lived it, it was dramatic. If you want time to move slower, you must pay closer attention to the world. If you want time to dissolve completely, you must see beyond what your eyes and your culture shows you. The universe isn’t changing. When I speak of the universe, I want you to think of it, not as planets, stars and space. Those are objects within the universe. Think of the universe instead as all that is. Stars, planets and galaxies are born and they die away, but the universe endures. It has always been and it always will be, whether the human mind can conceive it or not. Time is an idea created by the universe, experienced by the universe, and bested by the universe. You are the universe. You exist beyond time, because it is you who imagine the planet, and it is you who believe it spins.
7. The illusion of space
Space as we know it has no boundaries. A box has boundaries, because we think of the walls as being something else than the “emptiness” inside of it. But we have not seen any end to the space where spaceships fly. As far as we can tell, it has no end. It is impossible for us to imagine an end. If space was to end somehow, what would be beyond that end? If space was so constructed that you could encircle it, and come back to the point where you started, it must have a shape, and what would then lie outside of that shape? Why do we not feel trapped inside of space? Is it because it is so vast, we could never in our life-times reach its end? What if it was smaller? What if it consisted of our solar system only? Would we then feel imprisoned and limited by it? It is an interesting thought. I am sure that we would never settle with a wall or enclosure. If such a thing was to be discovered, we would spend our lives working out a way to breach it. There must, to every imaginable way of reasoning, be something behind it. Emptiness, surely, if nothing else. We have come up with a word for that too! Isn’t it strange that we have made up multiple words for that which is not? Nothingness, nil, naught. Of course there is no such thing as nothingness. It has never been discovered, nor can it be imagined very well. Nothingness is an emotion, it is an experience, but it does not exist in its absolute sense. But infinity does. There is no end to space, because space is a room experienced when perceiving objects. When there are no objects, there is no space to find. What would move in that space? What would define its volume? The universe isn’t big. The universe isn’t small. It is, if I am forced to put a word on it, infinite. To be able to describe the universe, or its size, you must have an object to compare with. But since there is nothing outside the universe there is nothing to compare it to. A universe is exactly one universe wide. How many yards is that? Well, if you make up a yard-stick, with a clearly defined beginning and end, the universe will seem vast in comparison. But even if you should invent a stick so long that it was a million billion yardsticks in length, you still would need an infinite amount of those to measure the universe. So how long is the stick? It is exactly one stick long, which really means nothing unless you know the size of the universe, or make up another stick to compare with. You see, infinity is nothing like a really big multi-zeroed number. It is no number at all. Infinity negates numbers. It destroys them. Infinity rips the meaning of numbers and distances out of existence. When you realize infinity, numbers become vain. They become pointless. Only in a mind-made limited room do such things as numbers and space hold meaning. If you live in a house numbers have a very practical use, and the same goes if you live on a planet. But once you realize that houses and planets are mind-constructions, and you want to discover the absolute, you will see that space is a concept of mind too. Space doesn’t really exist. There is only here, and what you make of it. When were you ever there? You are always here. To break out of the illusion of space you must forget above, forget below, forget behind, outside and beyond. All that exists is here. This is it. Describe it if you like to. Make words to compare and define the rooms that you encounter, but understand that they are conceptions of mind – an imagined dollhouse within infinite existence. You are not bound by it, because you are its inventor.
8. The illusion of numbers
This illusion, like many of the other illusions is really only a variation of the illusion of objects. There is only subject. There is only you. (And I do not refer now to the body among many bodies that you currently believe to be you. That you is an invention. The real you has no boundaries.) When we, in our every day lives, struggle to get along, we constantly depend on the illusion of numbers. It is helping us so much in our relative and limited existence that we hardly dare to question it. But even within this relative existence there are several clues to the illusion of numbers. A mother looses her child and grief pulls her down for a decade. The same mother sees a plane crash and 300 people loose their lives. It makes her feel uneasy for a week. In this case closeness means more than many. One man is six foot tall and another man is five. Who is the most valuable? Was life worth less when the Earth’s population only counted one billion? Is the life of a ninety year old man more meaningful or valuable than that of a seventy year old man? Is a 2000 mile long journey more educating, more enjoyable, or more important than a 500 mile journey? Is a civilization that exists for 4000 years more important than one who lasts for 2000 years? Is a really huge planet of more importance than an Earth-sized one? Who makes numbers meaningful? Who makes them real? A declaration of love can mean as much when said one time, as when said a thousand times. Numbers get their meaning from who you are, what you want, and how you perceive the world. You decide whether seeing only one bird in your life makes your life less important than if you had seen 200 different birds. For ages, beings who decided to seek the true nature of things have gone into solitude, or chosen to live their lives in simple surroundings and with simple means. They understood, intuitively, that meaning was not to be found in many, or in size. If there was something important to be found in life, then all men had access to it – the poor hermit as well as the king. So to realize the true nature of things we must look away from numbers. It is not about how many hours, how many days or how many miles. And it is certainly not about how many dollars. Numbers come from counting… and to count we must again split the universe into many. This can be done in the mind, but not in reality. Therefore numbers do not exist. The infinite and eternal universe cannot be many. Pluralis is an idea. The universe cannot become two. There is only 1, and that number is only named and necessary once you invent 2. As long as you make numbers important, you will never see this. Try to reach what William Blake expresses in his poem Auguries of Innocence, and you will be on your way.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
9. The illusion of duality
Duality is one of the most devious of these illusions. The eastern idea of Yin and Yang realized that those two opposites were in fact part of the same disc, and that only together could they make the world whole – balanced. However, we should see here, that these opposites are imagined, and that only the full disc is real. No real darkness ever existed, nor did the light. Listen. When we split something we create a relationship between the parts, like big and small. One of the parts looks big compared to the other, which is therefore named small. If one part looks brighter, then the other part is called dark. Duality is born from comparison, and to compare we must have at least two objects (that are not real). The Christian Church, for example, made the dreadful mistake of inventing a devil to make God seem brighter. The evil defines the good, and the good defines the evil. All through human history we see this severe mistake of creating a common enemy, over and over again. If They are well defined, then We become stronger. It is all done under the illusion of duality. Rich-Poor, Weak-Strong, Beautiful-Ugly, Blessed-Cursed, and so on. The world we live in is permeated with dualist notions. Our entire modern culture is built upon it. And yet, dualism isn’t real. There is only one universe. Or, in religious terms: There is only one God. The universe (God) is not good. The universe (God) is not evil. It is not big or small, nor hot or cold. It is not old or young, nor dangerous or safe. It simply is. Example: Some kids play in their playground when big machines come and level it to the ground. A parking-lot is to be built there. The children, and their parents say: This is bad! The men owning the shopping mall further down the road say: This is good! The children and their parents say: This is an act of destruction! The owners of the mall, and their customers say: This is an act of creation! No further examples are needed. It is clearly seen by this situation alone that the same act is good and bad simultaneously. Creation and destruction is the same thing, seen only through different perspectives. These descriptive words of dualism are invented by human beings. We decide their meaning, and when their use is appropriate. It is our egoistic wills that makes us call one thing good and another thing evil. There is no supreme independent judge that can make that call for us. If you want to use the word God, understand that God did not invent such things as good and evil. Human beings did. Or do you mean to suggest that God would take the children’s cause, and throw the builders of the parking-lot into hell? God is beyond such ideas. What we consider creation is nothing but an experience of change. If change is beneficial to us we call it an act of creation. When you “create” a house to live in, you might simultaneously destroy the home of a mole, or an ant-hill. You most certainly destroy some little bug’s nest or cosy corner. It is all a matter of perspective, and what you want. The day does not exist without the night. Winter does not exist without summer. Experience is still there, but it is not defined the same way. Call your experiences whatever you like. Define them however you please, but know that dualism is an idea alive only in your mind, and how you see things are totally dependent on your will and your cultural perspective. You think it is good to be healthy, and you think it is bad to be ill – to have a disease. Only so because you have an egoistic preference, and a dualistic set of mind. Why is disease bad? Because you think you are a human being. You have a will to live, and you want to feel strong. Some days though, when you feel like reading a book, or watching a film, a cold suits you just fine. When you have a cold, you don’t need to go to work, and you have a reason for remaining rather still. What about cancer, and what about pain, suffering and death? These are all changes. Changes that you approve of, you call good, and changes that you dislike, you call bad. But they are not good or bad anywhere but inside your egoistic, wanna-feel-good-and-live-long-mind. For the sake of future population-issues it is good that you die. The guy replacing your position at work thinks it is rather splendid that you could no longer go on working, and the cows that eat the grass nurtured by your ashes are doing quite well from your death. Change isn’t good. Change isn’t bad. It is merely change, and as we have seen earlier, change is not real, but from a limited and relative standpoint. Life and Death is one of those dualist ideas that hold no real truth. They both create each other. Without death there would be no life. Without life, there would be no death. Forget them. There is only a single infinite and eternal universe that experiences itself now. That is where you are, and that is what you are. Pain and Pleasure are imagined by you. When you fully realize this, they can no longer harm or frighten you. You are the immortal all-pervading One.
10. The illusion of God
God is what we are. Through all cultures in all times mankind has been restless. Always have we tried to reach outside ourselves, to communicate with the dead, to reach into the world of spirits, and to find a life beyond death. We want to know everything. We make libraries to gather our knowledge. We seek out and examine every little plant, creature, and insect. We go on dangerous explorations into unknown lands and make detailed maps of our surroundings. We climb the highest mountains, and we dive into the deepest seas. We gaze into microscopes and we stare, hungrily, at the telescopically enhanced heavens. We journey now into space, and we send robots to other planets. Physicists and Mathematicians examine the laws of existence, and there is no greater wish among them, than to find the one formula that explains it all – the one that unravels the universe before their eyes. Mankind wishes to expand. It is clearly seen in our quests for fame, power, glory, and riches, and it is seen in the emperor’s bloody conquests. What are these but vain attempts to reach further, to become divine? Most cultures express, in their mythologies, this present state of dissatisfaction with the idea that once we were greater. Once we lived in a paradise-like divine condition and thrived, until one day we disgraced ourselves, and a great deluge changed the world forever. Where do these ideas come from? Why are we never satiated? Why do we never say ‘enough’? Because we are not what we think we are. We are not puppets tied to these illusions, but free. We feel it in our inner selves, and we try in every conceivable way to get there. The Hindu Saints speak clearly about the way to Moksha – liberation. Buddha gave us a path to Nirvana. Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated, and preached ardently of a way that would take us there. “The Kingdom of Heaven is close”, he said. See that he speaks not of time or of distance, but of perspective only. And when he said “I and my father are one” what he meant is precisely that which these chapters have tried to convey. The Brahman-Atman concept of Hinduism expresses the same thing. There is no distance between Man and God. There is no difference whatsoever. The only thing that separates my I from the I of God is my lack of God's perspective. If I was for a second only to completely see though all of these illusions, I would instantly become the universe. I would become God. So what hinders me? What stands in my way? To get there I must do the one thing that feels unnatural to my ego, and act in a way that contradicts everything that my culture is about. I must become smaller. To become God I must surrender my present identity and die away from my limited self. A man cannot become God, but if an empty shell appears, then God will fill it. The universe does not allow emptiness. It fills everything. God cannot deny an open soul. God will enter it. As long as I am attached to any part of me, or to the limited world of my imagination, this will not happen. I must let go of all the things I find precious and see that no single tree in the forest is more valuable than the other. I must accept that the world is what it is, and I must embrace it as it is. Even should I wish that every single man and woman lived in prosperous peace forever, it would be my wish – my hope for the future. The universe is the universe. If I fear, if I feel danger or anger, I will strengthen the wall I have built around my identity. To open up to the Universe I must destroy my every protection. I must love the world and undress completely before it. I must open a great wound of love in my chest and let the world carve me as it wants. I must welcome death and let go of life as I know it. To become God I must leave myself behind. I have no name. I have no body. I must bow to God and ask (his) acceptance or simply step right into (him). Either way I must renounce all other treasures. There are many ways to God, but none of them are easy. I will speak no more on this matter here. If you’d like to know more about the path, I must send you on to masters like Eckehart, Theresa of Avila, Swami Vivekanda, Sri Ramakrishna, Dogen, Lao-tzu, Rumi, and their kind. Study their writings and learn meditation. Read the Cloud of Unknowing, study the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Dhammapada, and look to the Koran and in the Bible. Do not care about the differences in these texts but look for that which binds them together. They were written in many different ages and cultures. What they reveal are stated differently, but the core message is the same, and the ways to God that they prescribe all work with the right knowledge and aspiration. And please, for the love of the Universe, do not interpret them as you would a modern book of facts. They were written to describe that which cannot be put into words. If you look at the words instead of their meaning, you will go wrong. Finally; God is a word, made by humans. There is no God to find. If you do, go past him! Look for (his) source. There is only a God to be. It is all about being.
11. The illusion of meaning
The quest for meaning comes from the feeling of incompleteness. “What am I doing here?” is a question asked by the unsatisfied soul. When we reach fulfilment all questions will go away. No one asks for meaning when they are having a great time. A great time usually is a moment when we forget ourselves in the company of others, in drugs, in an act of love, or before breath-taking scenery. Only when we slow down and begin to think about ourselves in a certain situation do we start to ask for meaning. The child, lacking the established idea of individuality, never asks or thinks of meaning. It might wonder about death, but meaning is not within its mind. The truth is that there is no meaning of life. The phrase “The meaning of life” was made by mankind. Every individual has the right to answer that question for himself. Some people believe that God will answer that question for them, but God is unable to do so. God is one. There is nothing outside of God (or the universe, if you prefer a secular word). God is everything. When nothing is outside, there cannot be a meaning. God is infinite and eternal. God always was. How can God have a meaning? We, ideas/perspectives, inside of God can imagine a meaning because we do not see the big picture, and we do not understand. We can look out from our small place and wonder how we got here and for what reason. God can do no such thing. Why did God create the universe (as in why does he have the ability to experience life from a limited human perspective and experience himself as a universe full of objects)? Because it is God’s nature. There is no other answer to it. God did not choose it to be so. God cannot change what God is. What would make God act at all? Remember, changes and causes are illusions. God is all there is. When God is God, God feels no reason to act at all. God feels no hunger for knowledge, no need for food, no need for heat or any lack of anything. God is everything. From God’s perspective there never was a creation. If this state sounds boring to your human mind, remember that those who claim to have experienced that state all describe it as liberation or bliss. From that perspective there is no need for meaning. It is fulfillment absolute. Do not look for meaning. Look for life, and look for the fullest way to live it. Look for your true self. There is nothing more satisfying than a deep and thorough knowledge of the self. Knowledge of the self is knowledge of the world.
12. The illusion of love
Love, the most cherished of all things in human culture. Who can tell a person enamoured that love is unreal? Who can say that your love is false, or that it has no value? I certainly cannot. I think love is the foremost of all the things we have named. It pulls us together and brings us closer to what we are. It can be felt in a man or in a woman, in the beautiful sunset, in a pet, in an idol, or in a deity. The object of our love varies, but the feeling is unmistakable. I want to join with the love of mine. I want to get closer and I want to drink it as deeply as I can. When we really love a person there is no getting enough. The strongest and most intimate of embraces never really feels sufficient. We want to merge, and to become one. That is the nature of love; to re-assemble that which we have taken apart (when becoming many in our perception of ourselves). Love is the Universe saying; I am one. The isolated individual feels the lack of belonging, the lack of being one with everything, and finds an object of love into which he or she canalises this yearning. Love is a heavenly experience when such a merger works, but can become a hellish nightmare when misused, unanswered, or misunderstood. Love of a single object do rarely if ever fully satisfy, but the love of God/The Universe is different. By fully embracing the love of God the subject begins to merge with the target of his/her love. The love of God means the love of all things, but is not limited to any special thing. The love we feel for each other should be expanded to include every single thing, and to see them all for what they are. That is why loving your enemy, and loving all the aspects of life is so important. What we experience is God on earth, in various forms and aspects. What you see is your true self displaying itself before your eyes. Love yourself! See the divine/absolute nature in all things. Do not love one especially attractive tree. Love the entire forest which includes that tree. Do no love one particular being. Love all beings and see that they are one. I’m not saying, divide your time equally among every person, or start a family with every single person. Nor am I saying that you should express your love in the same way towards every person and object. But in your mind you should love everyone and everything. Try to think of them not as single independent objects, but as absolute existence – the divine nature. You see a snake bite down upon and consume a rabbit. Some people, drawn to cuteness, will love the rabbit and hate the snake. Other people, drawn to efficiency, will love the snake and care little for the rabbit. Other, more open-minded people will love both of these creatures, and understand that even if we consider the act of the snake vile, it is the snake doing what it knows and it’s necessary for its survival. Still all of these views are limited object thinking. Do not place your affection in the rabbit, in the snake or in both of these creatures. Love instead that which makes the snake and the rabbit possible. Love that which makes cuteness and swift efficiency possible. Love that which makes soft fur and hard scales possible. Love that which makes killing, consuming, fearing, and death possible – That which is in the pretty little bunny-nose and the predatory reptile alike. Love the Universe. It made and encompasses both of these creatures. Love thus and your consciousness will expand to include all things. It is a way to divinity. Love is God yearning for your return. It is God mending the world. Love is your ache for your true self. It is everywhere. Start with respecting, and work your way up from there. Again: Love is not love. It is the Universe refusing to remain parts. It is the Universe calling you home.
13. The illusion of ethics
From the rise of civilization there has been within human societies codes of ethics shared by large parts of the populations. Upon these ideas of ethical behaviour – about right and wrong – laws and constitutions have been established. Some of these ethics arise due to practical purposes but mainly from general agreements, based upon our feelings of right or wrong. If there is within the society a feeling of rape (for example) being wrong, there is soon a law written prohibiting rape. When the gap between law-justice and the ethical ideas of the population is too wide, there will be protests, and rebellion. Emotionally we can be very sure of acts like murder being, in their nature, absolutely wrong. Such an emotion alone is enough to spawn a system of ethics. Many would defend their views on murder with the simple statement: I know that it is wrong. But then, to defend our ethics before others, and to make ourselves positive about our own ethical truth, we begin to formulate also a theoretical and more logical base to our ethical code. Ethical ideas always begin on an emotional level, but may be transformed once intellectual and logical approaches are included.
Why did it feel so terribly wrong when he brutally maimed my friend? Why do I feel injustice committed against me? How can I construct a line of thoughts and arguments to prove that my emotions are just? That is how ethics and the idea of justice begin. The answer in this case might result with the “eye-for-an-eye revenge”-ethics, or it might become the “ten years in prison with therapy”-ethics. In either case it is a result of the initial emotion.
Why do we have these emotions? Are there any universally incorporated absolutely true ethics?
Man likes to build, and create things. We build houses, we build families, we build corporations, we build friendships, we build personalities, we build trust, we build security and we build careers. What we usually do not like to see is having those buildings come apart. Again this can be seen as having our units torn into pieces. That is: Murder tears entire lives apart, and it tears families and communities apart. We emotionally recoil from the murderer, and the murderer must become emotionally cold (distant or aggressive) towards his victims. Stealing tears homes and financial security apart, and it creates an emotional distance between the thief and the victim. With all the major injustices committed against us we can make out a ‘deconstruction’ of what we have built and want to keep building. War – the most horrible thing of all, to most of us – rips entire countries and cultures apart, and tiny crimes, like spreading unfavourable rumours, creates fissures in communities. The conclusion is that any action that creates a mental distance between people, and that (without our approval) takes apart that which we have assembled, is wrong – according to our general sense of ethics. This sense of ethics spring, according to me, from the true nature of the Universe. Since the universe is one, we tend to react, intuitively, against those actions that separate man and his constructions, mentally or physically. Farewells are painful, unless a crack is already created between the persons involved. This is not only a cultural emotion; it is an emotion that springs from a subject-object perception, inside a universe that has no real objects.
The reptile ripping the rabbit to pieces sees no problem with its act. To invent an ethical code you first have to mentally separate yourself from the universe as a whole. Then you begin to favour emotionally that which means a lot to you. First at that point can you become emotionally affected by seeing the snake consume your loved ones – the little cuddly rabbits of your choice. The illusion of ethics is constructed from the illusion of objects. It is real at a relative and personal standpoint, but holds no absolute truth. God is neither good nor evil. The Universe did not say: Thou shalt not kill. Human beings felt the uncompromising one-ness of everything, and interpreted that emotion as: Killing is wrong. It matters not if that voice came to us in visions or if we said it ourselves. It is of our creation. Once you realize your true self, you shall see clearly – there is nothing to kill. The rabbit and the reptile is the same thing. No killing takes place. Because you invent the rabbit and the reptile you see action, and because you prefer one thing before the other (misplaced love) you see crime. There is no harming the Universe. Eternity cannot cry – it will not make judgement. Bring people together. If you cannot turn the other cheek, then kill the reptiles if they try to eat you. But remember; No creature holds a greater value than the rest, and no man is holier than another. Love God in all of them. They are you. If you don’t see this, you will push the reptiles away from you, and you will make a mental barrier around you to protect you from the hostile world. That barrier is what makes you blind to ultimate reality. That barrier is why you fear death, why your life is a struggle, and why you are never really at peace. It is your prison. Leave it.
14. The illusion of illusions
In spite of the language used by this book nothing is ever unreal. It is all about perspective, or mental states, if you wish. Dreams, generally thought to be unreal, are not unreal at all. They produce emotions and actions, both inside the dreams and in the world that we call real. I can wake up and shiver with fear for several minutes, and what I dreamt of might affect my actions for the entire day, or for years, if the dream was potent enough. Night-time dreams change the world. They affect how we think and feel. That makes them real. The same goes for hallucinations and illusions. They have the ability to affect our thinking and emotions, and they may lead us to actions in the “real” world. I had a real hallucination. I had a real dream. Reality is not limited to one state. It is a dualistic word that rises from comparison between experiences that differ in tangibility and consistency. When every day life is experienced the dreams seem unreal, and if “God-state” is reached then the ordinary life we are used to will seem unreal in comparison. So from whatever plane, state, or perspective a man experiences life we must acknowledge it as real. Nothing that bends emotions and thoughts can be called unreal. Thus the unreal world that we experience, due to the illusions described in this book, is not a state outside God-Universe. It is part of it. Whether we call it real, unreal, a dream, or an illusion, it exists in the mind of the witness. You cannot escape your dreams, and you cannot completely escape relative existence, while inside the body. But sometimes when you dream, you know that you dream, and you therefore feel less confined and less affected by the dream events. The knowledge of the dream being a dream gives you a sense of freedom. And when you wake up from a nightmare you feel a great relief that you were in fact only dreaming. Now, do you want to wake up? Do you want to feel the great relief? Do you want freedom, and the joy that comes with realizing your true self? It has been called Heaven. It has been called Moksha and Nirvana. If you want it, or not, is completely up to you. You see, even if you are not aware of it, you are the Universe – the immortal God, and you always have been. The question is only; how you want to experience your self.
I am the wind that breathes on the sea
I am the wave, wave on the ocean,
I am the ray, the eye of the Sun
I am the tomb, cold in the darkness
I am a star, the tear of the Sun
I am a wonder, a wonder in flower.
I am the spear that cries out for blood, the word of great power
I am the depths of a great pool
I am the song of the blackbird.
Who but I can cast light upon the meeting of the mountains?
Who but I will cry aloud the changes in the moon?
Who but I can find the place where hides away the Sun?
Poem by 6;th century Irish poet - Amergin Glungel