Watercolor on paper, back etched + painted acrylic, with aluminum hinged frame. 14.75 x 20″. 2023
II. Abstract:
Whether it is through “manifestation” or “letting go”, “Spiritual Awakening” is a trend that society is trying to intubate us with. Unfortunately, all these “Spiritual Systems” share very similar end goals: A sense of inner peace, oneness with everything and everyone, bliss, the “thousand petaled lotus”, having a brain orgasm like that “Ecstacy of St. Teresa” statue, enlightenment, ad nauseam. As the age old adage goes, “ignorance is bliss”. Do we really need a spiritual awakening to improve the quality of our lives?
III. Introduction
One theory states that everything exists because the universe comprises iterations of one “Infinite Creator”, who divided itself into multiple consciousnesses in order to experience itself/ its creation. Eventually, all these little sub-consciousnesses (pun intended) will return to The Source to make it whole once again. Reincarnation is one of the ways to return to The Source. Logically speaking, this makes gravitating or incarnating towards this Source which some call Nirvana is an inevitability, even if we have some “devolutionary detours” along the way.
Since we will reach enlightenment by default as long as we waddle around “Samsara” long enough, all this urgency to speed up the process is unnecessary. It actually tells us a lot about human nature, that most of us are willing to try anything to shortcut our ways through anything, even if there are NO SHORTCUTS to a meaningful job well done. Some call it a distraction from the present. Also, if a feeling of “oneness” with everyone and “inner peace” are rewards to look forward to, then the marketing strategy is not appealing enough.
III, IV. Method and Results:
All my creative momentum springs from maintaining MY sense of equilibrium in the disharmony of human existence. I don’t need a spiritual upgrade to achieve a sense of inner peace, just my work. Even if my enlightenment level is “gin tonic”, I can feel a sense of “oneness” with nature by being faithful to my lifelong quest of understanding light and shadow, or by doing things like making this drawing perfectly proportioned to the Golden Mean Ratio. Instead of chasing “Enlightenment”, I think we should all spend more time thinking about what really makes life meaningful, and qualitative. All these people who devote their lives to researching, and following other people’s instructions for enlightenment are escapists, because it’s easier to follow a manual vs. creating a new path.
V. Discussion
There are supposedly secret societies like The Order of the Golden Rosy Cross which have hidden headquarters’ in “holy places” like Switzerland, Tibet, etc. They are said to be very spiritually evolved beings who recruit people who also have attained a certain degree of spiritual excellence. As a reward, these recruits then get to help The Order in their quest to make humanity return to the “Infinite Creator” ASAP.
First, “serving humanity” doesn’t sound like much of a prize for fulfilling and maintaining spiritual “elitedom”. Why is service even considered as an incentive when we can serve whom we choose, and choose not to help underserving cravens as normal humans. If this is the case, might as well stay unenlightened because there’s more freedom. There is already something intrinsically wrong with the equation when you need a prize or reward as motivation for self improvement in the first place.
My biggest question here is why is “The Source” is in such a hurry to get us all back and become whole again? Why does IT need to recruit facilitators like The Order to speed up our race’s spiritual evolution? Since it’s just a matter of time ’til we all get “home”, why is IT even concerned? It is infinite, so shouldn’t it have an infinite amount of time? No need to rush at all.
What is rather blatant is how IT knows that the lure of catchy marketing terms like “bliss”, “oneness”, and the again pseudo-virtuous yet vague, “serving humanity” would suffice into convincing people into a prescribed path to enlightenment. Since humans are addicted to instructions, on even “how to be free”, IT certainly has an excellent marketing strategy to recruit willing victims who think they’re liberating their souls. Doesn’t all of this smell fishy? It’s brainwashing. I’m also slightly insulted.
In this light, and as ridiculous as it may sound, what if all this reincarnation/infinite creator stuff was made up by aliens? They certainly know the mindset of their target market quite well. It makes more sense that they’re using this enlightenment frenzy to make people doom scroll for meditation techniques and philosophies so that they can harvest whatever they need from us. One conspiracy theory says it’s dopamine. The bottom line is that the less we think, the easier we are to control, so let’s scroll and emoji-spam away! Hey, harvest doesn’t mean kill right?
Then there’s that other catchy phrase “You are not your mind”. Even if it is theoretically possible, it sure sounds like we aren’t responsible, and therefore accountable for our thoughts. Huh? Since the body comes with a mind, it’s probably better to spend more time training it, than meditating to determine where the brain ends and consciousness begins. After all, if we can control our thoughts, we don’t need to escape from them. Keeping the mind quiet doesn’t necessarily mean disassociation or detachment either. A state of enlightened ecstacy sounds like an altered state or diversion from reality. Isn’t that simply running away from the problem? Hey, I may not be my underwear but when used properly, it serves me well. Meanwhile, there is definitely something out there that doesn’t want us to use our brains.
What about “You are not your ego”? Why do they make the ego sound like an involuntary or parasympathetic force that’s also beyond our control? My ego has allowed me to push myself beyond my own capabilities because I wasn’t satisfied. A healthy ego combined with personal goals and standards can be a force of nature. It’s really a matter of management, not denial. Why do all these concepts want us to surrender our sentience like we are victims of our mortal cells? I will constantly be the natural adversary to all this “letting go lingo” by doing the exact opposite: By creating a new ego-fueled reality with each new artwork, with the secondary objective of snapping individuals out of “autopilot” along the way.
VI. Conclusion
I tend to believe that the Universe is dual in nature. Without opposing forces, we have nothing to compare anything against. We don’t need a fancy degree to know that good times are much more appreciated when we’ve gone through hardship. Without that element of contrast, the eternal bliss and peace of making it back to The Source sounds like eternal monotony.
All the urgency to get our asses back home via the reward-based facilitatorship mentioned earlier brings up another hypothetical possibility: That all our consciousnesses are a result of a massive catastrophe of Universal magnitude. What if our Source was in battle with another “Universal Being” and bled all our consciousnesses out of an injury? What if it’s still bleeding? Then it would make more sense that the “Infinite Creator” desperately needs us to return, so that it can recover from this weakened state.
The fact that all these “spiritual systems” are trying to convince us that there is only one big happy ending affirms the likeliness of multiple end-game scenarios. Isn’t the primary goal of all propaganda to dissuade you from other options? It only means that Nirvana is just one of them, and not an inevitability. Please pardon my undeveloped human brain, but just the thought of feeling “one” with someone who can gratuitously harm animals makes me want brand X, immediately.
If we really want to evolve as a species we need to outgrow all this “monkey see, monkey do” business. This overlaps with the overcoming the fear of being responsible for oneself. By copying someone else’s method, there is always the safety blanket of blaming something other than oneself when shit happens.
While we’re on the topic of enlightenment, I might as well touch upon the thousand petaled-lotus concept. With a “Kundalini Awakening” we transcend this reality and feel that sense of oneness(again) with all life and the Infinite Creator. Please refer to the illustration above, which is a standard diagram of what the world recognizes as a “wormhole”, with the seven chakras superimposed over it.
Doesn’t anyone even notice how funny the accepted diagram for a wormhole is? Even if we go through the hole, we’re still in the same dimension, which I’ve marked as X for clarity. Same thing when religious teachings draw the human energy field as a torus, which is like my drawing above in 360 degrees. Why are people satisfied with the idea that going through a donut will transcend you onto a different plane of existence? This is yet another good example of how people accept what they are told so easily.
While there is definitely something out there that is distracting us from looking in other directions, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that it’s still of “egregoric” proportions. Perhaps instead of “The Source”, or “Infinite Creator”, a clue would be my first band’s name.
To give credit where it’s due, whatever it is that is trying to control us actually divulged some useful information except for the instructions on how to use it. This is why I decided to make my own diagram of a wormhole so that jumping through dimensions would make more sense geometrically.
There is so much iconology *cough*advertising*cough* e.g. the Caduceus, that tries to divert our attention so that we would believe that there is only one comprehensive formula for all existence, one grand finale, and how we can even briefly experience what it feels like to return to The Source with our mortal flesh. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be any visual representation for stepping out of this underwhelming “default”.
When I integrate my Light/Shadow Theory with the concept of different chakra combinations, it’s easier to see how there are many ways out. Horizontal is really diagonal, and “reverse” and “negative” are not interchangeable, making “all the way down” completely different from what everyone supposes. With these ideas in mind, even all the mystery behind 23.5 degrees fits perfectly into the puzzle.
It’s about time someone creates new iconology and iconography for the grossly unrepresented potential of creating one’s own system. I’ve gladly accepted the task.
Instead of enlightenment, let’s pursue excellence, and truth.
The black one is Zonor. I don’t know the names of the white or the two headed one yet, but the latter is “True Bi-pass” LOL.
We don’t need more dicks in the world, we need balls.