We don't need to take it personally. The unanswered question doesn't need to become our question. We were summoned here without being asked, without giving permission. We are passengers on a ride we woke up on, driven by a faceless silent driver who doesn't answer. Outside the window, darkness. And we only have each other. This thing, being here, this isn't ours. This is not my body, not my mind. We can't even control our own minds. It's all just movement. A temporary construct dreamt by a nameless dreamer. Let go.
Tejo, twilight
High up on a pine grove.
Tejo surrenders, Atlantic.
Deep blue twilight, orange.
Late afternoon breeze, pine scent.
Laments of birds, departing the day.
Distant sounds, rattling pine cones, the world…
Thought dissolves into the rippling.
Something stirs, an echo, a reaching.
Light, fishing boat.
Memories ignite, faces, places, restless dance.
Give way, an absence...
A gentle silence whispers.
Nameless journey, its end.
Night draws near, a presence.
Already here, always has...
The tenderness of a goodbye.
Those I've loved, the moments, joyful, sad, forgotten.
Letting myself go...
Gaze blurs in a bleeding.
I welcome it, embrace it, let it open me...
The first star...
A mini-guide to institutional language: how power uses language to obscure Truth
The way institutions talk is a carefully crafted method of communication designed to protect power and deflect accountability. Once you learn to recognise these patterns, you'll see them everywhere - in political speeches, corporate statements, media coverage, and even AI responses.
Let's start with a simple example:
When someone punches you in the face, that's a clear action with clear consequences. But imagine if the attacker said:
"We need to consider multiple perspectives on this physical interaction. The very concept of violence is socially constructed, and from certain cultural viewpoints, this could be seen as a form of greeting."
Reality as Information: A Theory of Consciousness Clusters and Reality Rendering
What if our physical reality isn't fundamental, but rather a rendering of pure information? Like a cosmic video game where consciousness itself acts as the rendering engine, converting raw data into the reality we experience.
This idea emerged while contemplating quantum mechanics, particularly the double-slit experiment. When particles are observed, they behave differently than when unobserved. The fascinating part isn't just that observation changes behavior - it's that even the mere possibility of observation, even if no human ever looks at the data, causes this change. A recording device that's turned on but never watched still affects the outcome.
The Convergence: Where Power, Technology, and the Unknown Meet
We find ourselves at a unique moment in history where multiple forces are converging toward what appears to be an inevitable restructuring of global society. To understand our current situation, we must start with a documented reality that fundamentally changes how we view power structures: the existence of a shadow government. As Senator Daniel Inouye revealed during the Iran-Contra hearings, "There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself."
The Dual Edge of Human Progress: Navigating the Perils of Our Own Mastery
As humanity continues to make remarkable strides in various fields, from technology and medicine to art and communication, it's becoming increasingly clear that our progress is a double-edged sword. While we celebrate our advancements and the benefits they bring, we must also confront the unsettling reality that we are simultaneously refining tools and methods that can harm, deceive, and manipulate on an unprecedented scale. This realization raises profound questions about the future of our species and the preservation of our core values in the face of ever-more sophisticated systems of control.
The Crucible of Consciousness
From the primordial soup to the digital age, our journey has been marked by blood and brilliance. The same hands that craft tools of destruction also pen sonnets of transcendent beauty. We are the predator and the prey, the conqueror and the conquered, forever locked in a dance of creation and destruction.
Consider the grand irony: our greatest achievements often arise from our deepest sufferings. The cathedrals of human ingenuity are built on foundations of bones and tears. Yet, it is precisely this struggle that ignites the divine spark within us, pushing us beyond the comfortable confines of our ancestral trees.
But what of peace? That elusive state we claim to seek, yet unconsciously resist. For in the calm waters of contentment, do we not risk stagnation? Perhaps it is not peace we truly seek, but the eternal challenge that gives our existence meaning.
We stand now at a crossroads. One path leads to a numbing embrace of hedonistic distraction, a slow descent into meaningless comfort. The other, thornier path demands we face the harsh truths of our nature, to voluntarily embrace the struggle that defines us.
Imagine a world where every individual becomes a Lover of Truth. Not truth as a fixed dogma, but Truth as an ever-elusive ideal that we chase with passionate devotion. This Truth demands we question everything, including ourselves. It requires us to remain open, vulnerable, and empty – ready to receive whatever insights the universe may offer.
This path of the Truth-Lover is not for the faint of heart. It requires us to stare unflinchingly into the abyss of our own nature, to acknowledge the beast that lurks within our civilized veneer. Yet it is only by embracing this shadow that we can truly step into the light of our potential.
The journey towards this enlightened state is fraught with peril. Those who profit from our ignorance will not relinquish their power willingly. The siren song of comfortable ignorance will forever call us back to easier shores.
But there is hope. In the depths of our struggle, in the darkest corners of our broken hearts, a light shines. It is the light of our divine heritage, the spark of creativity that sets us apart in the cosmic dance. And it is fueled by the most powerful force in the universe: Love.
Not the saccharine sentiment of greeting cards, but the fierce, unyielding love that dares to hope in the face of despair. The love that chooses to see the potential for greatness in every flawed human being. The love that recognizes our shared struggle and reaches out a hand in solidarity.
As we stand on the precipice of an uncertain future, we must ask ourselves: Will we choose the path of least resistance, allowing ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security? Or will we embrace the struggle that defines us, using it as a crucible to forge a new kind of human?
The choice is ours. And in that choice lies the future of our species, and perhaps the very meaning of our existence in this vast, indifferent cosmos. For in the end, we must remember this eternal truth:
Our Divine Light shines through from within a broken Heart.
The Inner Cosmos
We find ourselves journeying through a landscape of the seen and the unseen, of the known and the unknown. The whispers of the 'Why' - that beguiling question underpinning the First Cause or the Big Bang (should such a singularity truly have danced its cosmic dance) - seem to dissolve in the echo chambers of time. For to hold that answer in our palms, we'd need to step outside of time's march, to observe what came before the First Spark. Yet, within our current grasp of reality, this stands an impossibility, rendering the question a mute enigma to the grand narrative of Science.
Yet, don't we sense a yearning, deep in the marrow of scientific exploration, to decipher the cryptic 'Why'? Beneath the stern facade of data, formulae, and observations, I believe Science harbors a tender heart, pulsing with the philosophical blood that once gave birth to its very existence.
In our pursuit of understanding, Science requires us to tether ourselves to the tangible, to tests replicable and observations scrutinizable under the collective gaze of discerning minds. But what if we dared to untether ourselves, if only for a moment? Let us wear the hats of the 'Truth Seekers,' our minds teeming with a child-like curiosity and a dash of intelligence.
Imagine, then, that we could peer into the vast expanse beyond the First Cause, to decipher the mysterious hand that moved the primeval pawn - our Great Mystery. Across cultures and epochs, human hearts have been imprinted with transformative experiences of unity, enlightenment, liberation - each a personal dialogue with the cosmos.
My own heart bears such imprints, ineffably real to me, yet often dismissed as whimsical or arcane. But let me share a wild hypothesis: What if the Great Mystery chooses to reveal itself to us not through the microscope or telescope, but from the inner cosmos of our being? Aren't we, as conscious beings, living embodiments of the universe's grand symphony? Could the cosmic conductor not play its melody from within us?
The conundrum lies in the intensely personal and subjective nature of these experiences, their ephemeral quality rendering them elusive to the firm grasp of empirical Science. The most we could achieve would be to observe their external manifestations - the brain's rhythms and the body's signals - and attempt to infer the inner experience. But the shadow is not the object. The measurement is not the thing measured.
What, then, might nudge Science to lend an ear to the symphony of subjective experiences? Could these be the wellsprings of the insights that propel our understanding forward? Could we, perhaps, imagine a new breed of voyagers - not Astronauts, but Psychonauts - who instead of charting the outer cosmos, dive into the nebulae of the inner?
Curiously, the term 'Psychonaut' has been used for those who traverse psychedelic landscapes, bringing back tales of unity, of the dissolution of dualities, of a reality where 'the 2 becomes 1'. It appears that the potent substances stir dormant connections within our brain, quietening the Default Mode Network - the cradle of our individuality and temporal awareness.
Could it be that in this state, we touch the ineffable reality of the Now, of our shared being? Like explorers venturing into the unknown, we must bring back insights of manageable proportions - not monstrous behemoths that overwhelm us, nor insignificant trifles, but substantial ideas that nourish our collective wisdom, guide us through the labyrinth of our current predicament.
Returning then to our primordial questions of 'Why' and 'How', in the silent depths of our shared unity, we might glimpse an answer. A simple, profound truth: there is no 'why' or 'how', there simply Is. It is an invitation to let go, to Be, and to navigate this extraordinary cosmic dance with love for each other and for all that Is.
The Question
The most ignored questions are most often the ones that require our most attention. I'm talking about from a point of view of the common, everyday human being.
Asking these questions, or reviewing them and trying to conceive of an answer, places our consciousness on a road to a destination that, although we might never get to, will inevitably make us cherish more this moment and each other, and lead to decisions and actions reflecting just that.
Our day-to-day routines, habits, and cultures are distracting us, distancing our minds from noticing this ever-present questions. These questions are right here right now right in front of our eyes, constantly challenging us, like an itch, an unconscious unresolved fear or doubt that won't go away no matter how much we try to distract ourselves.
The fact that we have a mind that can ask these questions, or The Question, might just be what has separated us from the answer. Our burden is that we need to get back to the question and forever contemplate it, forever ask it. But asking it can at least allow us to find a path that redeems ourselves and lets us find a certain amount of release, peace, happiness, harmony, with ourselves and each other.
Trust the Flame
Life feels easier if we pass down responsibility of choice to something other than our own mind: Authority. We are socially conditioned to remain in a child-like state of mind and therefore, sadly, most of us do not realise self-awareness which is adamant to truly assume responsibility for our own thoughts, beliefs, feelings and choices: the entirety of our Being. That's what freedom is. And so we sleep and remain as children for ever searching for safety under our protectors' shadow blindly and happily followings its dictates.
Children come to this world as a bright Spark. This fragile Flame get's squashed by not being allowed self-cultivation and growth. That blockage of the natural growth towards self-awareness is brought about through a traumatising process which artificially diverts the natural flow of the Will from realising self-awareness, to a path of obedience and dependency.
After the fragile Flame fades, later in life, if we dare to listen to its whispering calls for attention and search for its source, we will be confronted with the pain of the trauma. This is one of the hardest things a person can do and most of us don't want to walk that path. We are weak, afraid and under a very strong spell.
The world is going bananas. Everywhere we turn we're being confronted with the most insane levels of irrationality, lies, propaganda and injustice that we've ever seen. This current situation has a positive side however: whenever we are confronted with information that has potential to make us question Authority or our internal reality tunnel, it is an opportunity for us to defy an unconscious father-like mental construct running on the back of our minds that was put there as a replacement for our True Voice. This mental form is the gate keeper which needs to be confronted and seen through before we can embrace our pain. It's not easy and once we see through it we become very vulnerable because now we have no guidance, no reality map, nothing is true anymore: the Dark Night of the Soul inssues. And after that dark night, a Star rises.
This present system looks like it is undergoing transformation and I suspect it carries the seed of it's own collapse. As this present paradigm becomes more and more irrational and destructive more and more we are being confronted with our own darkness. It's not going to be an easy ride for any of us that's for sure. Let us not be afraid of being afraid because we will be. Amidst the chaos we'll need to find the Courage to do, think, speak and bring about into the world that fragile Flame within.
Answer to ForbiddenKnowledge22
One
Buddhist teacher that I respect once said:
"If
it shouldn't be it wouldn't be."
The Fountain
“Asia, Europe are mere nooks of the universe. Every ocean is a drop in the universe: Mount Athos a spadeful of earth in the universe. The whole of present time is a pin-prick of eternity. All things are tiny, quickly changed, evanescent.Marcus Aurelius
All things come from that other world, taking their start from that universal governing reason, or in consequence of it. So even the lion’s gaping jaws, poison, every kind of mischief are, like thorns or bogs, consequential products of that which is noble and lovely.
So do not think them alien to what you worship, but reflect rather on the fountain of things.”
Meditations, Book Six, 36
Value
Happiness is measured by the unconscious through the experience and presence of Love, friendship, humour, gratitude, hope and Truth.
These elements are cultivated and paid for with sacrifice, resilience, loyalty, courage, Honor.
This is the true value of our lives and it follows us onto our next journey.
The rest stays.
These elements are cultivated and paid for with sacrifice, resilience, loyalty, courage, Honor.
This is the true value of our lives and it follows us onto our next journey.
The rest stays.
On religion, mindfulness and the Cosmos
Humans identify with certain religious beliefs out of a deep need for purpose and connection. I've had contact with Buddhists for a couple years and I could see that most of them got relief form delivering themselves to a group of people sharing the same set of beliefs and practices. And also by giving their hearts a honorable path to walk upon throughout their lives brought them purpose, guidance, safety and peace.
Buddhism is still a religion or set of beliefs yes but out of all those that our species as come up with, it's one that I can respect.
I believe that it would be beneficial to understand that ending with religion, criticising it, pointing it's flaws and so on won't solve the problem. Because those deep needs are still there no matter how much we fight religion.
Instead we could shift our focus and try to better understand those deep needs that drive human beings in identifying themselves with religion, cults or even political groups... This way we could present better alternatives to religion.
I for one feel in myself a very deep need in believing, pay respect and gratitude to some kind of higher power: the Cosmos itself feels to me like a very good alternative. I don't really know what the Cosmos is. No one really does. It's a mystery. But you can see it, taste it, feel it. It's all around us and within us.
Mindfullness is actually a very good tool in that it provides us a way to connect to this mystery and achieve some balance within ourselves.
Enter the flow
Practising BJJ helps me to develop a number of qualities which out of the mat are of great importance.
Desire for discipline
Human beings are part of an ecosystem of organisms whose main impulse is to survive. Survival to what? To entropy, violence, cold, the void.
We are surrounded by an infinity of possibilities that can lead us to failure of survival. There are obstacles surrounding us in every direction. This is true for all the species inhabiting our planet.
Humanity is the most successful species on this planet. Part of the reason why is because our ancestors did not shy away from difficulties. Rather those obstacles were faced and overcome with much pain and sacrifice.
A visit in a strange land
"In man's life his time is a mere instant, his existence a flux, his perception fogged, his whole bodily composition rotting, his mind a whirligig, his fortune unpredictable, his fame unclear. To put it shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.Marcus Aurelius - Meditations, book two, 17
What then can escort us on our way? One thing, and one thing only: philosophy. This consists in keeping the divinity within us inviolate and free from harm, master of pleasure and pain, doing nothing without aim, truth, or integrity, and independent of others' action or failure to act. Further, accepting all that happens and is allotted to it as coming from that other source which is its own origin: and at all times awaiting death with the glad confidence that it is nothing more than the dissolution of the elements of which every living creature is composed. Now if there is nothing fearful for the elements themselves in their constant changing of each into another, why should one look anxiously in prospect at the change and dissolution of them all? This is in accordance with nature: and nothing harmful is in accordance with nature."
Life Within, Life Without
The opposites are stagnation, the absence of flow, or isolation, the absence of connection, even rejection. The Life within us urges to connect to the Life without us.
The Cause of Suffering
Conditioning vs. Insight
- We can learn by way of assimilation of information (conditioning);
- We can learn by way of experimentation, testing, experience, realising or witnessing (insight).
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