ό άνεξεταςτος ϐίος ού ϐιωτός άνθρώπω
(The unexamined life
is not worth living) - Socrates
Oh me, who art in my brain, [your name] be my name.
Thyself now hear: Thyself now heal.
For what is faith? What is mysticism, religion or belief,
but a device with which to map the human mind? A method of surgical extraction,
to remove points of turmoil, bones of contention, and transplant them to an
external sphere.
There are the Buddhist Bodhisattvas, onto whose statues supplicants
transfer their emotions; anger, compassion, serenity and the like, in order to
give them external form and meditate upon
their qualities. Then can they, with better understanding, be reintegrated back
into the internal whole.
The Greeks and Romans built temples to their gods, gave
votive offerings and held feast days to each and all. Yet these gods did not
demand fealty or fidelity, merely recognition of their existence. They were
personifications of elemental forces which dominate human life. Bodhisattvas to
base nature.
To be suppliant before Poseidon or Zeus was to be reminded of
the awesome power of nature.
For women to pray for fertility before statues of Isis or Artemis
was to extract and augment the primal desire to reproduce. Implant in both womb
and brow a concentrated vision of fecundity personified. These goddesses were a
direct link back to the days when women gathered and sewed seeds and were the
mothers of the earliest civilisations, before man came home from the hunt to
take credit and recast them as Eve, destroyer of paradise.
Religion was at one time empowering to civilisation and to the
individual themself. Before the dark times. Before monotheism. The motives for imposing
monotheism on society are political, nothing more. For one god, read one ruler,
one president, one king. And one king equals one mindset. One society. One
ruling elite, with one true path to salvation, promised only to those who pledge
a lifetime of obedient subservience.
Yet a good scientist knows that any force removed to a point
of infinity can exert no influence upon the here and now. Just as evil is a form
of good, darkness a form of light, silence a form of sound, so the net influence
of an omnipotent being upon the real world is zero. Monotheism is the
destruction of democracy in favour of monarchy. Monotheism is the destruction of
individual power in favour of the state. Monotheism is the destruction of self
(as any wicked usurper knows well). Fascism by any other name would smell as
vile.
We are pagans once more. We worship before household goods
and pop stars. The cult of flickering celebrity has replaced the ancient
pantheon of inanimate statues, but we have still to regain the position our ancestors
once held. Fame is as much an unattainable delusion as the hereafter and even
to gain brief admittance to that fabricated vision of heaven here on Earth, one
has to suck a lot of corporate cock. Through spiritual subsidence, paradise has
sunk down into purgatory. Nothing is as good as it once was.
Search for answers from within. Here is the place where
infinity resides. Call it God, call it Buddha, call it Artemis, Diana or Dave,
but know that it is you. Religion is useful, but only a personal religion,
transformed for your own means and ends. Preconstructed ideologies will always
fail you and you will always fail them just the same. They required no investigation,
they required no soul searching, they came to you for free. You get what you
pay for. You disrespect that which cost you nothing. Anything worth having takes
actual effort to attain.
Only you have lived this life. Only you have seen through
these eyes, thought these thoughts, felt these things. You are a unique blend
of influence and experience. You are a subjective creature. You interpret the
world in your own special way.
Look at dreams. Current scientific thought has it that
dreams have no specific purpose. Dreams are simply what happens when consciousness
is suspended through restful sleep. With no guiding intelligence, random
neurons fire in the brain, giving rise to a miasma of unconnected thoughts and
memory.
Yet to adopt this mindset is to fail to take account of the mind's
subjective nature. What dreams are is as nothing when compared to how the
individual interprets them. After all, a screensaver running random photographs
contains no significance, except to the owner of the images. These words have
no significance to anyone illiterate or who speaks no English.
Like Bodhisattvas of the Brain, dreams can help transport dilemmas
and difficulties to a fresh sphere for re-examination. Indistinct issues are
given form: given substance. Chaos theory teaches us that order can spontaneously
form out of randomness. Horoscopes have no scientific rationale and yet their
very arbitrariness can, on occasion, appear as a dart hitting a bulls-eye.
Mainstream religion has survived this long exactly because
it is as vague as a dream or horoscope.
We each find a meaning we are looking for and disregard anything that doesn't
fit. Yet to cherry pick from one source alone is to become hostile and sterile.
Harvest and imbibe of multiple crops. Be fruitful and you will multiply. Take
what you need, take what applies to you and throw the rest away.
Be fearless in your distinctiveness. Be not a sheep. Is a sheep
happy? Shepherded and shawn, bleating stupidity even as it is led away to
slaughter. Be not the wolf either. Preying on the weak. Be unique and you will
never fear anyone who seems different to you. You will praise difference, even
as it extenuates your individuality. You will be as an example to others. You
will be a beacon to illuminate the dark. You will be as a stream in the ocean. Open
to mixture and variation, but always following your unique course.
You will be greater than the sum of your parts.
You will swell beyond the confines of self.
You will be boundless.
You will be limitless.
You will be worshipper and worshipped united/combined.
Yes.
You will be god.
Go!
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