No thing actually exists, separate from the whole. As I tried to point out in my last post ‘Any thing’ we can point at the heart of everything but the edges of nothing. That’s because those edges aren’t there. The thing is made-up and everything is connected.
Everything is an appearance in consciousness. We apply the concepts. We make up the things, the separateness. We make up the past and the future. We make up ourselves and the other. And we somehow imagine the external world to be more real than the consciousness it all appears in.
But doesn’t it make much more sense that things are the way they appear? Patterns in consciousness, all connected, all without meaning and without things. One big happy pattern, forever changing in the current moment…
Stuff doesn’t have consciousness. Stuff appears in consciousness. Not someone’s consciousness. Just consciousness: the container that holds the dream that is everything.
What you normally refer to as yourself appears in consciousness just like everything else. Hold out your hand and look at it. Now look past it at something else. What’s the difference? They appear in the same dimensionless space that is awareness, in exactly the same way. Listen to a thought, then listen to a sound. Both appear in the same way in consciousness, unprompted, from nowhere.
There is no difference between the appearance of your hand and the appearance of say a chair. What you refer to as ‘you’ is in no way different from any other experience.
Just try to delineate a boundary between you and the rest of the universe that makes sense and holds up under scrutiny. What are you, exactly? Your body? Your consciousness? Your thoughts and memories? Where do you begin and where do you end? In time, in space, down to the molecule, where exactly and why?
It can’t be done without choosing arbitrary borders. Then what is the alternative? The only option is left is this:
You are not separate from the rest of the pattern. You do not exist separately. There is just the totality. And the bits that you call you are an integral part of it.
And what is God if not everything?
You are an integral part of God. And so am I.
The only way that you are you is in your imagination. The only way that you can do other than what cause and effect dictate, is likewise in your imagination. You don’t exist and you don’t have free will, neither are real, both are illusions.
The only sense in which we have free will or agency is in the sense of the whole. God has free will, but God is no puny human, God is all of everything. The you that you imagine yourself to be is an integral part of that whole. As such, you are just as much part of God as everything else. But you (as a human) are in no way responsible for any of the outcomes. So relax! Leave it to God.
The universe unfolds the way it does. You have no power to change anything. The universe is ever changing, you (whatever you imagine yourself to be) are therefore also ever changing.
Let’s assume you could change yourself to be some sort of perfect version of yourself. Let’s say you reach the ultimate goal, enlightenment, perfection, whatever. Big success!
The universe will change… then what? You will have to change with it.
But what happened to the perfect state that you thought that you had reached? Gone! Why? Because perfect implies, finished and done. And nothing can be perfect, finished or done in a universe that changes constantly.
But, but wasn’t I supposed to work towards a goal? A finish line? When will I be done?
Done doesn’t make sense in an ever changing universe. Perfection is a load of nonsense. Accept whatever is as a temporary state in an infinite sea of change.
It’s all perfect already. Just never done. You don’t have any responsibilities. Leave it to the universe. It’s perfect already in its imperfection and it can’t be any different than it is. Go do something fun. It’s all a dream anyway.
Thanks for coming to my TED-talk 😘
Or, listen to Alan Watts talk about the same thing.