I´ve danced with the beast, i´ve bin a complete mad man raving at the top of imaginary mountains, i´ve bin destroyed and dilluted, but i´ve come out the other end and i just wanna share some words with you guys conveing what i (think) i finally grasp.
Psychedelics are substances which, in my opinion, are capable of casting a new light upon reality. They however do not show you anything about reality, they induce a brand new illusion; a illusion even more directly steered trough thoughts since it´s your personal illusion. One can look at these images and take them at face value, analyse them as fact and come to incredible conclusions like the existence of different planes of existence, a soul and god. Conclusions not rare but rather common, conclusions which could not be more wrong; conclusions which I myself held close to my hearth for more than a year.
But when you truly push these substances to their limit and beyond they too break down, the illusion ends as thoughts cease and you can clearly see there´s only being, it´s the processing by us that gives definition and meaning to things, psychedlic or not.
Goals are the walls of the prison, life itself is the prison. Whatever you have, whatever you are, wherever you are; there´s always something beyond. Something, someone or somewhere better.
Almost. Almost my friends.
These as just the ever changing walls of our multi-layered prison, and like any prison you can´t break free from it until you have the entire thing figured out, otherwise you´ll run at walls forever; playing games with yourself never figuring out you are doing just that, playing games.
And the prison is a flawless system, upon it´s walls an instant projection is made of your internal world, a shadow of the self is cast. And like any shadow it´s the form without definition, it´s the story without context, it´s an shallow fragment stretched towards infinity and beyond. This is from where the something, someone or somewhere better arises; it´s a shadow, an illusion.
The material prison is the most common in my world, the western world, and it´s a rather simple but efficient one, it also the one which failed to hold me first.
It´s the system of gaining stuff, filling the internal void with the external world. It´s trying to steer life towards a situation in which happiness persists and bad feelings are eliminated. And this is both its fundamental flaw and primary engine keeping the system afloat. When happiness starts to persist, or any feeling for that matter, you inescapably become numb to it. When the material world still has you trapped this will have you locked tightly in place. The numbing of your senses to the stuff you have, to your so called pleasure or happiness, creates the need for a new source of stimulus. A stimulus greater than the one you currently have, a goal to strive for, a road to despise as you grind along towards your destination; you plus a fulfilled desire. Depending on your nature you can now enjoy this fulfilled desire for a set amount of time, moving comfortably towards numbness again, a new goal, a new road. A wall ever changing but never seen beyond.
So the problem of materialism is the achievement of your goals, it creates the need for new goals. It does fix this feeling of being lost, after all you still have the illusion you are going somewhere. It´s to be loved for what it is, not looked down upon and frowned. For life gets complicated when this prison fails to contain you and the need for a new one arises.
The material prison can fail in two distinct ways apparently different yet much the same. It can happen either by beating the game and reaching it´s end or by being beaten by the game, reaching your own end. The first happens when you realise you have everything you could ever want, that anything beyond this point is simply a variation of the things and experiences you already had and that none of those solve the problem of being you. What ever you do, whatever you have, you are still you being you. The alternative to this is consistently failing at getting what you want, making you finally give up on the external world and venture into the internal one. Once gain you realise that whatever you can´t do or don´t have, it´s still you being the one that can´t do or doesn´t have. No material thing is going to help you escape you.
This is where the spiritual prison comes in to save the day!
When the material world is a square prison, the spiritual world is a circular prison within this. The spiritual prison will erect walls closely surrounding you safely locking out the material world. The path towards ego dead may now be treaded upon, once again you are heading somewhere! And somewhere is still this place where happiness persists and bad feelings are eliminated, this time trough the act of ´enlightenment´, better described as detachment.
Whilst the walls of the material world are immensely diverse and complex and keep your attention firmly upon the external world, these walls will turn you inward denouncing the external world. Craving the endless pleasure material things can never bring, the spiritual seeker is lost and needs a leader. This is where guru´s and mystics come in; the only difference between them and a madman being the way in which they are capable of presenting their ideas and the crowd upon which they do so. A wiseman is nothing more then a man which has lost faith in the external world, seeing trough the illusion or failing out of love with it, presenting his viewpoints with confidence upon a crowd of seekers. Seekers are by definition people lacking any form of confidence, disillusioned with the lie they lived all their lives and desperately searching for a new one, a new escape from being.
A guru will happily provide you just this, he´ll always present you with an image you´ll never reach. He´ll be wise beyond infinity and posses skills ordinary man can hardly imagine being real. The guru apparently has no ego, yet he sits in front of a vast crowd starring at him like he´s a god swimming in their faith. But how does a creature of no ego end up in a situation like that, what drives a creature of no ego? Is it love for humanity? The believe the truth needs to be heard? A truly wise person knows there is no truth, so is he knowingly lying to you by stating there is such a thing as enlightenment? Freedom from your attatchments trough detachment? Whatever he is doing, the very fact there is doing means he´s just like you, only leading instead of seeking; but you´re both going nowhere.
The unreachable is once again the primary engine keeping the prison functioning, yet it´s also the very thing that might destroy it. The primary question that might lead to the collapse of the spiritual prison is what do you do after reaching enlightenment? The only people in the public which are apparently enlightened are the very guru´s advertising this state, they are still stuck in the same world being themselves.
When these prisons collapse true enlightenment may be reached. This is not a state of mind but a deep understanding of that which can really not be understood. It´s the intimate knowledge you are going nowhere whatever you try, the situation will always be the same; you. The best avenue is now plain acceptance of what is, its finally grasping the concept of what heaven can be. Its living with a profound sense of attached detachment; playing the game without any stake in it´s outcome.
For heaven is the experience of happiness, it´s an experience born trough the experience of unhappiness which itself can only be reached trough happiness; it´s the endless feedback loop oscillating between contrasts, its live and that my friends, is plain heaven.
Only life persists trough death.