Bliss is Ignorance

One thing I am odds with my religion over, is I do not believe in an afterlife. I do believe that the entire universe is one consciousness, because it is- in physical- terms one vast information network. If thought is possible in the universe, the universe does it.
It is all deterministic. Therefore, it is God.

I also believe that Christ's teachings ARE the way forward. If we could transcend our base animal urges and overthrow our sense of self- the real point of his teachings- then the ideas which we say won't work because of human nature- Free Love and Communism- WOULD work and society would be a better place for it.

Christ, Marx, Nietzche and Darwin- link them together, humanity's path is clear.

But no, I don't believe in an afterlife. Not really. I think it's a bribe to get us to be good.
I think the real state of contentment is something deeper.
The Buddha spelled it out.

Nirvana. The highest state of consciousness. Complete understanding of the universe.
Beyond pleasure, beyond pain.

When you reach Nirvana, you no longer feel either.
Can humans strive for this?

I don't know. I'm not sure those who reach it ever really had a choice.
I think Jesus reached it, in a sense.
I think I see HOW it is reached. It is all about understanding, and it is a double edged sword.
Both the Buddha and Christ, in fact many prophets, philosophers, messianic figures generally seem to have begun their 'missions' at thirty.

I guess it takes that time to realise, you can't live a lie any more.

Understanding carries a cost. In a sense, you do sell your soul for it.

I have always been driven I guess, to understand, to comprehend, to get to grips with the world.
It has been my prime driving motivation. More than that, it's obsession. Everything else in my life pales by comparison. Everything else is just a microcosm, a part of the picture.
I want the WHOLE picture.
I want the GRAND vision.

It's a lofty aim, I guess, but I really want to see inside the mind of God, before I die.
It either drives you, or it doesn't. For most, it doesn't.

As my twenties have progressed, my range of interests has widened. I have felt compelled to take on new areas of study, so as to increase my understanding of the whole.
Because to understand the World, you need to understand history. To understand history, you need to understand politics. To understand politics, you need to understand economics. To understand economics, you need to understand sociology. To understand sociology, you need to understand psychology. To understand psychology, you need to understand biology. To understand biology, you need to understand chemistry. To understand chemistry, you need to understand physics.

It's all interlinked.

But it's no use just knowing this stuff. You need to apply this knowledge to what you see. The connecting of it all, and adding your own real life observations to it is the key. The truth really is in front of your nose.

Remember, Darwin hit upon his idea of how evolution worked by reading an economics tract- Malthus theory on population. Darwin figured, if that was how human society worked, all animals must be subject to the same laws, and over time, those laws would have effect.

When you start to understand how your own pleasure and pain motivators are wired up, you question them more. It's not good enough to just feel happy. You need to know why. Happiness does stop becoming its own reward, when you start seeing yourself as you truly are, an organism, capable of being conditioned.

Pleasure and pain are not objective, they are neurological responses. They may let you down.

Put another way, mankind has an instinctive fear of spiders, most psychologists agree. it IS actually programmed in. Why?
Because of our ancestors, those who had a fear of spiders, but not trees, tended to live longer than those who had a fear of trees, but not spiders.
Pleasure and pain are programmed as they are for sound biological reasons, but they cannot actually approach true logic.

Objective logic MUST override your individual happiness every time. That is what makes humanity special. The ability to override our animal natures.

A good example of this is liking sweet things. We know too much sweet food is bad for you. So why does it taste so good?
Because in the wild, sweet things are hard to find. But we need them, in tiny doses. But we needed to be incentivised to go and find them. so we are encouraged to scour the forests looking for these nice tasting things.
Now we can create them on demand, that particular programming is a bit of a handicap.



In a nutshell, you can only truly be free when you have the power to endure suffering and to reject happiness.
When you really can rise above your instincts and know yourself.

That doesn't mean you should live in misery. Take happiness, when you can, when it doesn't stand in your way, when it doesn't sidetrack you, when it isn't offered as a bait on someone else's hook.

But there is a sense, really, when true understanding precludes total happiness.
I suppose one day that might not be the case, but not as things stand.

When you truly get your head round the situation we live in, when you see humanity in all its awesomeness- or awfulness, when the scales finally drop from your eyes, somehow, everything else just seems irrelevant.

How can you ever really find contentment , when you see it, in all its naked glory?



A species ruled by a minority controlling them by pressing the pleasure pain buttons.
A species that points missiles at eachother, but can't be bothered to go back to the moon.
A species that thinks marketing Pokemon is worthwhile, building hospitals in Africa isn't.
A species that bands itself into tribal units for the purpose of hating its fellows.
A species lied to, manipulated, conditioned, enslaved and wasted.

A world where so much energy, so much opportunity, so much love is held back.

All to maintain the Matrix of Power.
So that a few fat cats can enjoy the sensation of owning the world. Of owning US.

Not so they can do anything constructive with that power.
They just want to HAVE it, for it's own sake.



It really is a Matrix world we live in. Once you see it, once the truth hammers home through the skull they have spent years thickening, so that truth would never get through, you can never see anything the same again.

Do you wish you took the blue pill?
Sometimes, yes.

Bliss is ignorance.
I want more than that.

The truth will not make you happy.
But it will set you free.

PS I'm away this weekend.
Pleasure seeking.
It's OK, as long you don't lose sight of reality.