Photo By J.Prophet
Brand “Enlightenment”
There is an amazing shift happening today within the consciousness of society. Wouldn’t you agree? Masses of seekers are out there exploring and trying to find or create meaning for their lives; seeing the “one in the all,” and so on. It all sounds great on paper. Given that everything goes our way, one may never notice the little inconsistencies in the story we have set up for ourselves.
Ultimately, I feel all the silliness that sometimes accompanies this search is a needed part of the ultimate journey. This movement towards true awakening, though, seems a bit stilted when it is compromised by ingrained ideas about who we are collectively and how we still buy into the old primal tendencies of control, power, ownership, greed and, of course, fear, even when it is nicely glossed over by enlightened language. I know life will play as it plays but I do feel my role is to be the monkey wrench in this mix of “brand enlightenment” and happily and with love call “bullshit!” as it presents itself.
The slavery of words.
I love words, don’t get me wrong. I write songs which use words. I speak and use words. I mean, hey, they are useful things to have around. Given the fact that gnosis is free flowing in the current times it is not surprising that so many people know the language of enlightenment. It has become a brand in and of itself and we have words to thank for this.
What we tend to miss, though, by putting too much emphasis on the word, is the actuality of a thing. The IS-ness of it. This can only be experienced directly, and it is this direct experience that creates for us the actual integration into the body that shifts us out of understanding something purely on an intellectual level and into resonating on a vibratory level from our cells.
All of the ideas that we read about, listen to in lectures, and watch on videos are a mass of symbols, mostly for concepts that don’t have a material counterpoint, unlike a tree or a cat or a person. This largely second hand knowledge is what reinforces the ego into thinking it’s got something that others don’t have. It is another of the ego’s tricks to get us engaged with it so that it has a reason for existence. It is an entity that, like all primal entities, has the will to live.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not vilifying the ego. We all have one as long as we remain in this form and that is a fact. No, what is on trial here is language itself. Language, while necessary, is divisive by its very nature. Language is a symbol for the thing it’s meant to describe. Most of us mentally understand this but it is a shallow understanding which we do not live by and so, we have subsequently gotten deeply lost in the maze of symbology. We have let language become our master instead of our servant.
You will hear people say “words have power”. They do not. How can you test this? Simply go to a country where you do not know the language and piss a few people off quite by accident. You will quickly see how little power language has over you. They could be saying the worst things about your mother and it will just slip right on by. Why? Because, you have not the need or understanding to imbue their words with any power. You know they are upset by their tone but you’ll just smile and say “oh sorry, sorry” and try to excuse yourself as soon as possible. But if you’re a normal human being not looking for excuses to be offended, you take nothing by way of offense from it. How can you? You have no idea what was actually being said.
Language has no power other than what we give it! Learn this one thing, absorb it deep into your cells, and you will see a whole new world of essence and truth open up. Words again, I know, but meant to be felt and experienced. In this world those in power already know this, and our ignorance of this fact is a weapon used against us.
Politics, religion, PR, and Marketing agencies all know this and wield the knife deftly so often to our collective detriment. Just look at how Yoga has been branded to be cool, spiritual, hip, and look at all the products that now accompany Brand Yoga. If if you’re not buying into those somehow, you’re not in club. Community is great but this is about collective herd mentality and it is how civilizations ultimately fall: when they start living vicarious lives and stop questioning the validity of second hand experience.
Spiritual concepts such as Adviata or non-duality begin to whittle away at the power of language by intentionally confounding the mind with a premise of ultimate oneness. All ancient religions touch on this within their mystical sects. It is a way of understanding our inherent limitations as carnal creatures bound by time and space to a single point of perception. It is a way of experiencing viscerally that which we gather through our limited senses, but reveals only fragments of a whole tapestry that we simply cannot see so long as we stay identified with this delicious meat sack we call our bodies.
So, what am I getting at here? If anything, it is this. Reality is, as it is, beyond what our desires are for it to be. Desire is part of the ego’s process which is how shit gets done in this world. This is as it should be. You can’t use the “law of attraction” to make hair grow on your head nor did you will the hurricane that destroyed your house and everything in it. Your fragile little ego doesn’t have that much influence, so sorry to say. Life is happening whether you are here or not. You can flow with it or try to swim upstream. Both are needed at times, but the sooner you get this “forced fiction” that we all live in and have for the most part agreed upon, the sooner we can start living the kind of freedom that actually can transcend the realms of what we know reality to be.
This stuff called matter that we are all made of is rather malleable. Look at what we have done with it. Yet, we still live in a world where some beings don’t get to eat or are unable to maximize their own potential as beings due to lack of education, basic health care, or nutrition. Simply put, we can use the phrase “we are all one” as much as we want, but it won’t actually be true until we all put that idea into action and actually live as if that were the case. “As above so below.” In this dualistic consciousness we are fragmented. This need not be the case, but it will take more than just lip service to see this truth manifested in our reality anytime soon.
If you would like to learn more about Adviata and the teachings of non-duality, feel free to connect with me. Otherwise, feel free to comment and share with friends.
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Cheers
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