11 / 28 / 2011

Don't worry, we are all going to die

It's so true that it's very easy to forget. The arrogance of ignoring that we are all mortal human beings and so thinking like kind of pathetic immortal gods is a sign of destruction in a society made of egos deluding themselves. It's truly living in an illusory world.

It's easy to see the arrogance of others, but rarely ours. And looking at it closer, we will easily realize that every thought expresses somehow our self-importance and narcissistic beliefs. It will always be "Me and myself, I think that, they are my thoughts, that's what I think, and if you don't, somewhere you must be wrong in your line of reasoning".

Such a mindset is simply called having personal opinions, and there is nothing wrong in it. It's nothing more than how the mind works. Just imagine speaking with someone who would have absolutely no opinion and belief on anything, you would think that he or she's a complete retard, kind of zombie or under the power of very heavy medication,

If you explain to the ego that what makes it human and pretty normal, relatively balanced in its own mind so to speak, is its psychosis and insanity, and moreover its arrogance, it will obviously disagree, but only in thinking with a lot of humility and incredible modesty that what it thinks is absolutely true and obvious, and therefore it doesn't need to think about at all. And so what would be the problem of living like an immortal who's smart enough to know that will never really happen ?

And finally that ego will ask : "Am I pure being, a spiritual being, or only body and mind ?" As a matter of fact, there is no spirituality without somehow an afterlife, something of "me, myself and I" that must survive. The ego has to be immortal anyway, maybe not in this world, but at least in a more subtle one. And yet, Self-realization determines the end of that entity who thinks : "No way, I will live forever."

No more "I, me, myself and mine", only the eternity and greatness of being conscious, only the knowledge of being as such, is that what the ego is really searching for in its spiritual quest ?

"I, me and myself" identify with the body. But the body doesn't identify with anything, not even with the thought "I'm the body". Not stupid, it knows and never forgets the truth. The body will never forget that life is very fragile and short, and about the afterlife, it knows nothing. But it will always be absolutely sure of having some ideas about it. At the very least, it will be sure without any doubt that it doesn't know.

The world of my own eyes and mind

_ We are living in the same world.

_ Right now, you are looking at me and I'm looking at you. But what you see is quite different from what I see. You see me knowing that it's not you. And I see you knowing that it's not me. What world are you speaking about ?

_ The world we are living in right now !

_ That's what I'm telling you, we are not living in the same world. For nothing in the world I would like to sit in front of myself, and then spend 10 years in psychoanalysis to just understand what's going in my own world.

12 / 5 / 2011

The mindset "Always more, always better in the future",

Such a philosophy of life typical of fear and survival leads to a very interesting one : "Now, run and hide."

We may wonder why the mind is always going in the opposite direction of what is looking for. The wisdom of insecurity, as Allan Watts would say, is the only wise and real security it could find in its own thoughts.

The lightness of being and the mystery of the creation

Who can really understand what we are doing and why we are doing it ? Ignorance is not an option, it's our human condition hard to live with sometimes, but we can nevertheless balance out at other times with a spiritual quest. If life doesn't acquire at least a spiritual meaning, the mind gets crazy. How could it be otherwise if we know absolutely nothing about our own ignorance and spiritual heritage. Sooner or later, the mind will wonder what the point of suffering could be if life doesn't have any meaning. And that meaning as far as the mind is concerned can only be spiritual, philosophical or metaphysical, that is to say a mystery. Whatever the definition of the meaning of life it could find, the mind will never believe it entirely. It can only think and never be sure of anything.

12 / 8 / 2011

The greatness of forgetfulness

Do we cry when we are awake and the dream is over ? Memory is good in order to feel more important here in the now, and the mind doesn't care if it's for feeling good or bad as long as it is the center point of its own past. That's maybe what is so attractive in spirituality, it's only about "I, me myself and mine", up to the point that this very same spirituality tells us that the mind is just an illusion without importance. If it could really understand the futility of its self-importance, it would instantly realize the Self. Self-importance and "I, me and myself" are basically the same. So we can infer that Self-realization is the end of that self-importance, and yet, the body and mind know perfectly well what they have to do in order to survive. How is it possible ? What kind of intelligence are we speaking about ? How intelligence could be totally deprived of self-importance ? It might be about a sort of renouncement beyond anything we could think about.

12 / 15 / 2011

In our world, who really likes working for a living ?

And then, the ego wonders why there are so many problems in the world. And even better, it would ask why God has created so much suffering, competition, fight, misery and so on. After all, that's true, why do we have a stomach that needs to be feed every day ? It would be so much better to live in an unknown paradise where we don't need to eat and drink anything. The problem is that without food and drinks, there is no life as far as we know, the body cannot survive, there is nobody. Does it mean that the paradise is completely empty ? Empty of body and so physical sensation, that's for sure. But no physical sensation means also no physical pleasure. What could that mean in our world ? Just imagine living a life unrelated to any sort of physical pleasure. Let's get even more funny with a very peculiar sense of humor, living a life without any concern for sexual pleasure.

12 / 17 / 2011

Contradiction in mindful terms

Come to an agreement in your own thoughts with yourself, and you will solve almost all your problems. The only ones left shouldn't bother you a lot.

There is nothing more entertaining than to choose when we don't have the choice. It's somehow a luxury we can enjoy for very cheap.

There is nothing more stupid than to choose when we don't have the choice. It's somehow a suffering that can be very costly.

Morality is what we should do. Logic is what we could do. And what we do is very often something else. Let us say that it's very human.

The unsuspected humor of the ego

It took about 13.7 billions of years to create the universe, the galaxies, the planets, the earth and you on it thinking :

"This cannot go on like that. I have to do something."

1 / 5 / 2012

How dare you speak of me like that ?

If you can live in peace with yourself, you can live with anybody. It's impossible to meet worse. And of course, everybody will deny it. The ego will disagree : "How could I be the worst since there are so many bad people in the world, are you kidding ? Even the very best are suspicious, we never know what they hide. As a matter of fact, I can only live with myself because I'm the best." It might be called kind of very natural paranoid schizophrenia, some mind stuff that nobody would dare to say, but always thinks.

1 / 12 / 2012

Sincerely

"Does God exist ?" is a ludicrous question that only expresses arrogance. What do we sincerely think to be in asking such a question ?

"Why do we want to know if God does or doesn't exist ?" is a much more interesting question that we prefer to ignore. It might concern our fear. And so atheists must be without fear. Is that so ? If they are, why do they need to be so sure that God doesn't exist since they cannot know anything about God ?

The mind is incredibly gifted to be sure of knowing what it doesn't and cannot know.

Greedy point of view

Looking at the sun rising or setting, we may have the impression that we are looking at the bottom of a funnel. But the funnel itself will always be turned in the same direction.

Question of time without space

"It’s not that I am so smart ; it’s just that I stay with problems longer." Einstein

"It's not that I am so stupid ; it's just that I have no time to think about it." The ego

I, me and myself

Linguistic structure of the mind is the magic of its own imagination. Without language, could we speak of mind and ego ? Without language, we would not speak at all.

1 / 13 / 2012

Hypocrisy that can only concern "the other"

"There is no longer any shame in hypocrisy; it is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtues. To act the part of a good man is the best part one can act. The profession of hypocrisy has wonderful advantages. It is an art, the imposture of which is always looked upon with respect; and although the world may see through the deceit, it dares say nothing against it. All the other vices of mankind are opened to censure, and everyone is at liberty to attack them boldly; but hypocrisy is a privileged vice which closes the mouth of everyone, and enjoys in peace a sovereign impunity. By dint of cant we enter into a kind of league with those of the same party, and whoever falls out with one of us has the whole set against him; whilst those who are really sincere, and who are known to be in earnest, are always the dupes of the others, are caught in the net of the hypocrites, and blindly lend their support to those who ape their conduct. You could hardly believe what a number of these people I know who with the help of such stratagem have put a decent veil over the disorders of their youth, have sought shelter under the cloak of religion, and under its venerated dress are allowed to be as wicked as they please. Although people are aware of their intrigues, and know them for what they are, their influence is none the less real. They are well received everywhere, and a low bending of the head, deep sighs, and rolling eyes, make up for all they can be guilty of. It is under this convenient dress that I mean to take refuge and put my affair to rights. I shall not give up my dear habits, but will carefully hide them, and avoid all show in my pleasures. If I am discovered, the whole cabal will take up my interests of their own accord, and will defend me against everybody. In short, it is the only safe way of doing all I like with impunity. I shall set up for a censor of other people's actions. I shall speak evil of everybody. If I am but ever so slightly offended, I shall never forgive, but bear an irreconcilable hatred. I shall make myself the avenger of the interests of Heaven, and under this convenient shelter I will pursue my enemies, will accuse them of impiety, and know how to let loose against them the officious zealots who, without understanding how the truth stands, will heap abuse upon them and damn them boldly on their own private authority. It is thus that we can profit by the weaknesses of men, and that a wise man can accommodate himself to the vices of his age." (Act V : "Don Juan" by Moliere)

2 / 23 / 2012

Very limited intelligence as if human intelligence could be limitless

"Nothing last !"

We know it and don’t really understand what it means otherwise the world would be very different, so different that human would not be human anymore.

Is spirituality about the ego or our own selfishness, greed and hypocrisy ?

"Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself." Henry Ward Beecher

"There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up." Oscar Wilde

"You can only be called a hypocrite if you judge others first." Unknown

Nothing more obvious until we face ourselves

The mind can only judge because it knows the difference between good and bad. And of course, it knows it because it has to be essentially good. The others are never the reference of goodness because it can only recognize their goodness according to its own personal values. So is there anything good beyond what the mind thinks and judges ? It might be if the mind asks its own conscience, but being different from it, it would not do it very often.

Between thinking and knowing with a proper understanding, what does the mind prefer ? Its main function is thinking and not having recourse to other faculties than its own. Anyhow, what could the word "conscience" mean to the mind ? Nothing..., and we can see it very well nowadays, so-called spiritual teachers speak only about "consciousness" as if the world "conscience" was totally outdated.

Incoherence

It’s not because we are living in the Kali Yuga, a moment of history where corruption and decadence take place over virtue that the mind has to be corrupt and decadent. It’s not because we survive in a crazy world that the mind has to go insane. It’s not because the news are somehow always about selfishness, greed, hypocrisy and notoriety than the mind has to be selfish, greedy, hypocritical and psychotic. News are not teachings, but only about what's going on in the world, and of course, they are absolutely not any sort of spiritual teachings on how to be and behave, not even a model on how to adjust ourselves to our ever-changing modern world.

Anyhow, how could the mind be like all the others since it only thinks to be different and will do anything possible to distinguish itself from them ? If the mind and "I, me and myself", the ego, really want to be unique, they have to search for enlightenment and wisdom in the unknown, in a purely spiritual domain beyond thinking.

2 / 26 / 2012

Autistic culture in the world of the ego

How could I learn anything from someone who would always agree with me ? But the intolerance of today makes me thinking that it's much better to reject everybody who are different from me and who would always disagree with me, as if, in fact, I'd nothing to learn from anybody and about anything. Finally, I find myself all alone and can only be my own master. And so, I already know everything and have nothing to learn about anything ?

But what is responsible for such a madness ? The culture or I ? The culture, of course, I'm too perfect to disagree with me. In an autistic culture, everybody is a genius... sinking like a ship in an ocean of ignorance.

3 / 13 / 2012

The most incomprehensible, the most attractive and smart too

Whatever the spiral, does it spin clockwise or the other way round ? It depends on of what is considered as the starting point, the closest to the center or the furthest.

With symbols, parables, metaphors or any esoteric messages, it works the same way. It's always possible to interpret them in many ways and especially the way we want to. But what is the value of that kind of so-called knowledge apart from pleasing the power of imagination..., imagination, manipulation, incomprehension ? Esoteric teachings are perfect for showing off and hiding our own ignorance, not only to the others, but to ourselves too. An esoteric truth can always be explained in a very simple and clear way. It's like the mind, it seems extremely complicated and incomprehensible when, in fact, its functioning is so basic and primary that there is probably no difference between us and cavemen.

4 / 14 / 2012

If God was absolutely good to us, the creation would be utterly boring

If God could fulfill all our wishes, we would quickly have and be the very best of everything, know, of course, everything, and God himself would probably become one of our servants. And all that forever because we would obviously be immortal. And then what ?

If we could really be, have, do and know everything, life would be such boredom that we would ask sooner or later for some excitement, something unknown and unforeseen, just for the pleasure at least to be surprised and somehow awake the mind from its slumber and indifference.

But isn't it what we already have right from the beginning of our life and every day if we watch carefully what life is all about ? So let us be serious, we already have the very best, the unknown, and we desperately strive to get what, in fact, we absolutely don’t want.

Like anything else, ignorance has a positive side, and in that case, it’s called the mystery of life. No comment on how the mind works, it's too simple and crazy.

5 / 10 / 2012

Egoism ?

It’s impossible to please everybody, so better to be and do what we really like to. But there is a little problem, can we be and do anything without the others ? The only way mankind has found to be and do everything we really want to is by renouncing to it. It might seem contradictory for the mind and ego, but it's not for the individual and human condition.

5 / 18 / 2012

Entity

If the concept "The ghost in the machine" has any meaning, let us be clear on that point, you are the ghost.

Do you still agree with that crazy concept ? You may in your thoughts, but the mind will always tell you : "Are you joking ?"

7 / 13 / 2012

Catch-22

Spirituality, metaphysics and philosophy have always been and will always remain a tribute to the unknown. Whether we call it God, Buddha, Tao, the void, the origin, reality as it is, cosmic consciousness or by any other names, the unknown will always be, by definition, beyond understanding although we will always desperately try to find the meaning of it. And paradoxically, it will never be a problem, a difficulty or frustration, as long as we puzzle about and be filled with wonder.

For some people, the solution will be to seek and never find. As for those who have found, what have they really found ? An ineffable truth with which they live in peace, but that nobody can understand.

Again and again, we must know what we are really searching for and be sure that it has a meaning. The mind has this characteristic of not being able to be satisfied with reality as it is without knowing why and what that reality could really be. It's always forced to search for something else, something beyond, something it will never and cannot understand. But what for, if not to realize finally that everything is futile in its quest for understanding what cannot be understood anyway ? The mind will always get caught in a catch-22 if it doesn't go beyond conceptual understanding.

So the mind will seek emptiness in trying to stop thinking, in other words, by carrying on the very same quest for understanding, but now without thoughts because it still didn't understand that everything it does is futile.

"Everything is futile" or "Everything is meaningful" are only the one-sided view of a reality that doesn't ask to be understood, but that no one can deny. So the real question that has to be really understood would be : "How the mind could go beyond conceptual understanding ?" And that's the purpose of a practice such as meditation that the mind will never understand, but find incredibly boring after enjoying for a while its own peace of mind. And we may wonder why sitting in meditation is so difficult to practice every day although there is nothing more peaceful and pleasant than just watching what's going on in the mind when it stops speaking. It quickly becomes unbearable only because the mind find such a practice meaningless after all, and it is absolutely right. There is nothing to understand in the silence of the mind. And that's another catch-22, a good one at last. The mind has to understand that the question "Why to stop thinking ?" is totally meaningless, but on the other hand, it has to find enough good reasons to do it.

Black and white

But the movie is in color like any reality as it is :

_ Do you really think Jesus is in this room?

_ No, I don’t think he’s in this room. I know he’s in this room...

The first thing you got to understand is that I ain’t got an original thought in my head. If it ain’t got the lingering scent of divinity to it then I ain’t interested.

_ Probably I don’t believe in a lot of things that I used to believe in but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in anything… Cultural things, for instance. Books and music and art. Things like that… Those are the kinds of things that have value to me. They're the foundations of civilization. Or they used to have value. I suppose they don’t have so much anymore… The things that I loved were very frail. Very fragile. I didn’t know that. I thought they were indestructible. They were not...

_ You’re a culture junky.

_ Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve no beliefs… Why is you people can’t just accept that some people don’t even want to believe in God?.. Suffering and human destiny are the same thing. Each is a description of the other… I don’t think there's anything wrong with me. I think I've just been driven to finally face the truth. If I'm different it doesn’t mean I'm crazy…

_ I don’t think that’s the problem. I think is what you do believe that is carrying you off, not what you don’t.

_ It's not my view. I believe in the primacy of the intellect.

_ I ain’t a doubter. But I am a questioner.

_ What's the difference?

_ Well, I think the questioner wants the truth. The doubter wants to be told there ain’t no such thing... If God isn’t anything you need, you end up into trouble.

_ I gather it to be your belief that culture tends to contribute to human misery, that the more one knows, the unhappier is likely to be. I suppose that from the God point of view, all knowledge is vanity. Or maybe it gives people the unhealthy illusion that they can outwit the devil.… The darker picture is always the correct one… When you read the History of the world, you’re reading a saga of bloodshed and greed and folly the import of which is impossible to ignore. And yet, we imagine that the future will somehow be different.

_ The light is all around you, but you don’t see nothing but shadow. And you’re the one who causes it. It’s you, you’re the shadow...

Why do you think folks take their own life ?

_ I can't speak for others. My own reasons center around a gradual loss of make-believe, a gradual enlightenment as to the nature of reality, of the world…

It's that the world is basically a forced labor camp from which the workers, perfectly innocent, are led forth by lottery, a few each day, to be executed. I don't think that's just the way I see it. I think that's the way it is. Are there alternative views? Yes. Will any of them stand close scrutiny ? No…

The efforts that people undertake to improve the world invariably make it worse. I used to think there were exceptions to that dictum. I don’t think that now.

The things I believe in were very frail, as I've said. They won't be around very long, and neither will I. But I think it goes deeper than that. You give up the world line by line. You become an accomplice to your own annihilation. There's nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. Finally, there's only one door left...

Well, here is my news, reverend. I long for the darkness. I pray for death, real death. And if I thought that in death I would meet the people I knew in life, I don't know what I would do. That would be the ultimate horror, the ultimate nightmare. The ultimate despair. If I had to meet my mother again and start all of that all over, only this time without the prospect of death to look forward to? Well. That would be the final nightmare. Kafka on wheels.

I want the dead to be dead forever. And I want to be one of them. Except of course you can't be one of them. You can't be one of the dead because that which has no existence can have no community. No community. My heart warms just thinking about it... blackness, aloneness, silence, peace, and all of it only a heartbeat away.

I don't regard my state of mind as some pessimistic view of the world. I regard it as the world itself. Evolution cannot avoid bringing intelligent life ultimately to an awareness of one thing, and one thing above all else. And that one thing is futility…

If people could see the world for what it truly is, see their lives for what they truly are, without dreams or illusions, I don't believe they could offer the first reason why they should not elect to die as soon as possible...

Your fellowship is a fellowship of pain and nothing more. The shadow of the axe hangs over every joy. Every road ends in death, every friendship, every love. Torment, loss, betrayal, pain, suffering, age, indignity, hideous lingering illness... and all of it with a single conclusion, for you and everyone and everything you have ever chosen to care for. That is the true brotherhood, the true fellowship. And everybody is a member for life. You tell me that my brother is my salvation? My salvation? Well, then damn him. Damn him in every shape and guise and form. Do I see myself in him? Yes, I do. And what I see sickens me. Do you understand me? Can you understand me?

It's worse than that. Rage is really only for the good days. The truth is there's little of that left. The truth is that the forms I see have been slowly emptied out. They no longer have any content. They're shapes only... a train, a wall, a world, a man... a thing dangling in senseless articulation in a howling void, no meaning to its life, its words. Why would I seek out the company of such a thing? Why?..

Your God must once have stood at a dawn of infinite possibilities, and that is what he's made of it. You tell me that I want God's love. I don't. Perhaps I want forgiveness, but there is no one to ask it of. And there's no going back. There's no setting things right. There's only the hope of nothingness. And I cling to that hope.

In the movie "The sunset Limited" By Tommy Lee Jones according to the play of Cormac McCarthy.

A little bit self-centered

"Vanity is definitely my favorite sin. Kevin, it’s so basic. Self-love, our own natural opiate. You know…, it’s not you didn’t care for Maria, Kevin. It’s just that you were a little bit more involved with someone else, yourself."

In the movie "The Devil’s Advocate" by Taylor Hackford.

9 / 27 / 2012

Thinking being

"I am a thinking being", by thinking it, I obviously prove it instantly. But is that thinking being independent of its own thoughts and faculty of thinking ? Without thoughts, it cannot be a thinking being anymore. And in the absence of manifestation, it’s also clear that it has neither reality nor existence. The thinking being, that is to say you and me, is therefore an entity or in other words an illusion.

Is a thinking entity, which, by definition, has no existence of its own, nevertheless able to live in the real world ? The entity that appears only by thinking can only live in a world as illusory and evanescent as its own thoughts.

But we also have a body made of flesh and bones, a body of matter. Such a fact contradicts that we only are a thinking being, an entity and illusion. We know that we have a body because we can feel different kind of sensations, and these sensations have nothing to do with any thoughts. And we also have the ability to act with our body as it pleases. Our actions are facts and not thoughts. Consequently, we cannot only be a thinking being.

That’s absolutely obvious, but only when we think about it. And we don't, what's really going on ? We don't know because if we start thinking about, we will arrive at the conclusion "I am a thinking being".

Reactivity and consciousness

Don’t confuse reactivity, the ability to respond quickly, with consciousness, the faculty to know, if you want to understand that being in itself or being as such and consciousness are one and the same. Reactivity, response and reflex are not factors that determine the presence of consciousness. The mind responds to any stimulus, a machine or computer does the same, but their response will always be systematic or according to a certain programming. On the other hand, the mind can respond to some stimulus systematically, according to programs, conditioning, education and so on, or with consciousness. And that consciousness can short circuit every system, program, conditioning, etc.

Does it need to be proved ? No, it happens every time we think "No".

Choose your friends

"The Scorpion and the Frog" is a fable about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river because he cannot swim. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if he stings the frog, the frog will sink and the scorpion will die too. So the frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both to die. When asked why, the scorpion points out that it’s in its nature.

The fable stands for the proposition that we have to expect people to act in a way that is true to their nature, no matter how they are treated and no matter what are the consequences. And yet, everybody changes or can change especially when growing old. So we should ask :

Can we change the mind by the mind ?

Can we change the ego by the ego ?

Can we change the mind by the ego ?

Can we change the ego by the mind ?

Or can we change all that mind stuff with consciousness ?

The ego is the personal identity created by the mind in order to express itself. It's you and me, the one who is reading and the one who is writing. There is absolutely no difference between the ego, "I, me and myself" and self-consciousness. And here we have something very strange, what really is self-consciousness ?

If the mind is self-conscious or self-aware, there is no consciousness as such. But when we watch the mind during meditation, that is to say how it works, the presence of consciousness as such is an obvious fact that cannot be denied. So the mind can be systematic, programmed, conditioned, educated or whatever, but it cannot be conscious by itself. Does it mean that consciousness can intervene and interfere in the mind functioning ?

Let us ask a simpler question : "Is there any point to be more conscious of what we think and do ?" The answer might be very obvious. But how do we become more conscious if we, i.e. "I, me and myself", are the expression of a mind that is not conscious of itself ? Is that only a mind trick or a fact that can be verified anywhere and at any time ? Check it out here and now, it's very easy to know if it's only the mind playing with crazy concepts or facts that don't even have to be verified.

11 / 2 / 2012

Just a bit extreme

Lover of sensations, speeding up straight into a wall is very exciting as long as you don’t touch the wall. But does the mind can isolate itself from sensations without getting extreme ? As far as we know, sensory deprivation tanks deliver a very specific sensation, and it's still an extreme sensation, the one of having no sensation. The only absence of sensation we know happens in the deep sleep state. Unfortunately, the mind cannot know it because it is sleeping. In other words, the mind can only be awake in an intense state of feelings, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings. The mind cannot be separated from sensation, but it can play with and even create its own feelings out of only thinking. And as we can witness in the psychology of everyone, the mind is not always searching for pleasant feelings. On the contrary, the unpleasant ones seems a lot more important in its manifestations. Does it mean that searching for happiness is the very best way to find suffering and frustration ? And yet, we are obviously searching for something, but what ? The mind might answer : "Who cares about being a wretch ? I'm at least something."

Sanity or self-importance

Nobody can be sick and feel good at the same time. A simple headache will prove it very easily. And anybody who is selfish, greedy, hypocrite and narcissistic is obviously "suffering" from some mental disorders even if that person thinks that selfishness, greed, hypocrisy and egotism make him happy.

When we finally come at the conclusion that "Suffering is happiness and happiness is suffering", we may have a little problem. Who doesn't have it ?

Pretty strange

Death will be the most important moment of your life. But nobody knows if that will happen during your life or just after. And the worst or the best is that it may never happen too, nobody knows.

Want and have

What to say to unsatisfied people who have everything to be satisfied and are never happy, go see a shrink or a guru ?

If they carry on wanting everything they have not, they will obviously need both knowing pertinently that none of both can help them. But to tell them to stop desiring, wanting and having everything they don't and will probably never get will not satisfy them either. It might even make it worse for them rather than better. So what to tell them. "It’s their Karma" would say the Hindus, but a Karma teaching the mind what ? If we look for frustration and suffering, we can be absolutely sure to find them in the world we are living, and if we seek self-satisfaction, we might even get worse.

1 / 29 / 2013

Truth or illusion

- I would rather stay in my dream than waking up to a nightmare.

- And if your dream turns to be a nightmare, what will you choose ?

"Life is a state of ambition." Cioran

2 / 11 / 2013

The power of thinking

To be optimistic or have positive thinking as Neo gurus would say today means that we have the power to choose and intercede in the thinking process and our feelings. We look for the best in any bad situation when it’s possible and the immediate effect is that we are supposed to feel good. But if we feel good because we feel bad, and somehow we feel bad because we are trying to feel good, the mind might get a bit confused about what it is really feeling and searching for.

Should be

If we understand that to spit on the life we have before living it is nonsense, we can only go into ecstasies over it till death because life will always be full of surprises. And somehow the worst ones will always be the most exciting..., or let us say the most engaging.

3 / 4 / 2013

"Liberal Arts" by Josh Radnor

"Because millions of people like it, does it mean that’s good ?"

"Nobody feels like an adult. It’s the world dirty secret."

3 / 21 / 2013

Trying to step on your shadow

Only enslaved entities can look for liberation. And the more they are searching for liberation, the more they will be enslaved. No smart human beings would do something so stupid knowing that their human condition will never make them gods.

4 / 7 / 2013

Truism

"The true means of being misled is to believe oneself finer than the others." François de La Rochefoucauld

Looking for Oneness, oh really !

Don’t worry, it’s not your fault.

It’s only because of "the child within yourself", the "pain body", your ego, the mind, the persona, the anima, animus and animal in yourself, the shadow, the mask, the conditioning, the culture, the politicians, the bankers, the boss, the colleagues, the wife, the husband… and I certainly forget many others.

And yet, you want to speak about Oneness and the non-duality of being, the unity consciousness of everything. Yes, why not ! After having projected all your psychological problems on entities, people and the whole world that don’t seem to determine who and what you are, I guess you may feel yourself very united to nobody knows what.

Castles in the air

"We run after happiness, and we forget to be happy." Cavanna

Thanks, but no thanks

It’s gorgeous because it’s new. Fashion is always recycling the old to make it new, and the quicker it gets old the quicker it will become new again. And Picabia finally said : "In order to love something, you have to have seen and heard it for a long time, you bunch of idiots."

Does it make sense ? The mind doesn't care, it loves it anyway. The new is the outrageous exciting avant-garde shocking everybody, and the old will always be good enough for a museum. Creativity doesn’t really allow us to know what we love and hate since everything gets boring after a while, and then we love it again.

Creativity is a mystery since men left the print of their hands on the wall of caves. By the way, it was maybe women who did it. But why they did it ? Was it the first trace of the ego telling us : "It was me, it's still me, it will always be me, and you love me, and you will love me even more when you don't understand me." Never underestimate the power of creativity, the ego will do anything to be co-creator, absolutely anything, everything and nothing just for sitting next to God.

Desiring might be necessary

"People act only when they need it." Gaston Bachelard's "The psychology of intelligence"

Everything has a price

If you have nothing to prove to anybody, including yourself, don’t be afraid to find yourself very free and also very lonely. The mind cannot have everything in its life. It cannot free itself from slavery when the others love it. So the paradise it is searching for is impossible because it's an antinomic vision of reality.

4 / 11 / 2013

Yin Yang or the happy Armageddon

Ignorance is suffering and bliss too. Life would be utterly boring if we knew everything. No worry, that will never happen in our world. Even if the mind could know everything, it would still be searching for what cannot be known. And in the best case scenario after discovering it, it would think that cannot be true. And so it would start again from ground zero.

6 / 23 / 2013

Why why why ???

To any answer about anything, the mind will always be at the very least able to ask like a child : "Yes, but why ?"

If you don’t understand that this "why" is only a characteristic of the mind making it ignorant in order to feel smart, and the answer doesn’t have in fact any importance, the mind will carry on asking "why" for everything, anything and nothing, and especially to never find any truth.

8 / 7 / 2013

God’s will and my desire

"Everything happens according to God’s will", and since we don't know what God's will could be, it simply means that we are totally free to do what as it pleases.

Apart from helping us to accept reality as it when we really need it, that is to say the most sparingly as possible, it doesn’t prevent us to choose and do everything we want. But let us not forget the very best of God's unknown will, we are also very free to suffer the consequences of our choices and doings.

We can by any means search for a philosophy that would allow us to do everything as it pleases without taking the least responsibility for our choices and doings, up to now the only one which exists is not really a philosophy in spite of what Ayn Rand thought. It’s simply called "selfish hedonism", and this psychological characteristic that the mind knows so well will never prevent us to reap abundantly as we sow. Too bad !

8 / 22 / 2013

Responsible or not

When it comes to survival, we are capable to think and do anything, the very best and worst. Who can really be blamed in such a strange world ? But the real problem for the mind is where to draw the line between what is necessary and what is not, what is need and what is luxury. For some a piece of bread would be the very least to survive, and for others, a jet and Rolex would be crucial to sign a contract and not lose their company. Who could be blamed in such a crazy world ? The mind might think to solve the problem : "Let us share, keep the bread and contract, and give me the jet and Rolex."

Half full and half empty

If you rely on people, you will sooner or later be disappointed by all humanity. But when you don’t expect anything from them anymore, you are surprised to meet so many nice people. We really live in an extraordinary world. If so, the mind would think : "What's ordinary..., the extraordinariness of the ordinary ? People can only be trusted for their incompetence and dishonesty." If the mind can only trusted others because it cannot trust them, we may wonder if it can trust its own judgments and trust.

10 / 3 / 2013

The halo effect

The "halo effect" or "halo error" is a cognitive bias in which one's judgments of a person’s character can be influenced by one's overall impression of him or her. It can be found in a range of situations from the courtroom to the classroom and in everyday interactions. The "halo effect" was given its name by psychologist Edward Thorndike ; subsequent researchers have studied it in relation to attractiveness and its bearing on the judicial and educational systems.

(Wikipedia)

10 / 8 / 2013

The Forer effect

The "Forer effect" (also called the Barnum effect after P. T. Barnum's observation that "we've got something for everyone") is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, and some types of personality test.

(Wikipedia)

12 / 8 / 2013

Nothing lasts, everybody knows that

So what the point of seeking a permanent state of bliss, peace and happiness ? Nothing lasts, and we are always conscious of it. But what we are not conscious of is that consciousness itself is the true bliss, peace and happiness that we are seeking.

The mirror never changes, but what it reflects is always changing. And since it reflects the ever-changing mind, the mind cannot be conscious of it. The mirror is something we know, but we cannot really know what it reflects because it's never the same. And despite the fact that we know the presence of the mirror, we totally ignore it since we can only see what it reflects. Have you ever seen a mirror not reflecting what is in front of it, that is to say yourself ? But that "yourself" is not and cannot be the mirror.

12 / 19 / 2013

Perfection

Positivism or positive thinking by any means is as boring and ridiculous as a politically correct speech. Why not to simply forbid oneself any freedom of expression instead of desperately thinking that everything is great when it's obviously not the case otherwise what would be the point of trying to be positive ?

For a seeker of liberation or seeker of truth, it’s at the very least a paradox if not complete nonsense. And for so-called liberated beings who would have realized the truth, they would really have to be totally ignorant or really stupid to think that today "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds".

Perfection is surely not where we would like to find it, that is to say the world we live in. So where are we going to find it or realize it ? In our thoughts ? The mind is unrelated to any idea of perfection. It would be like thinking that a hammer is absolutely perfect or a certain idea is perfect. But perfect for what ? If we take the concept of perfection into consideration, it can only be related to the sacred, something spiritual we don't know, but we are searching for. And it's not by brushing aside our imperfection or negativity that we are going to find it. We may learn and discover a lot more in our real imperfection and real negativity than in a completely fake positivity.

A planet floating in space and time

As far as the body is concerned, we are surrounded by the infinite. Above us, under our feet and all around, there is only a vast space without any limit. It could be a little bit scary to figure out our real situation in space and time in such a way, but that fact is also quite amazing.

And when we are watching what is going on inside ourselves, we discover the same infinite space. Have we ever somehow perceive the limits of the mind or the boundaries of our intelligence, or let us say of our faculty of conscious reasoning ?

What are we really doing in this vast universe with our little story, with our so small "me, me, me" ? Very little and small indeed ! The more we realize how big that universe is the more the mind is insignificant. And yet, it's all there is. Does it mean that the mind is so related to the universe that they are in fact the same ?

When we speak about the mind, we usually speak of the thinking process, which is personal. But if we take 10 persons watching the same sky, they all have an "objective" view of that sky. The world out there is not personal, and yet those 10 persons can only see it through their mind, that is to say in their mind. So is that mind personal or completely impersonal, and therefore universal ? As far as we are personally concerned, there is no way to answer that question. But if we go beyond personal concern, in kind of metaphysical understanding, the answer is obvious : mind and universe can only be the same. How could we know the world out there without the mind, and how the mind could manifest anything without the universe at the origin of the mind.

"Nothing comes out of nothing", it's a truism, and it can be understood in both ways.

Easy and stupid

It’s easy because we used to it. As a matter of fact, it’s easier to suffer and always be dissatisfied than to feel good. It’s more normal, that is to say within the norm, the norm created by the mind itself in order to define "Here I am... suffering". It's just an ordinary state to be anxious, under stress, in hurry, expecting, psychotic and striving to be better in order to get more than to be relaxed, calm and simply present in the reality as it is. Somehow it's very conventional, common and in perfect accordance with what is generally believed by everybody.

But it’s good sometimes to renounce to such a stupid easiness, especially when it leads to feel bad. And sincerely, who truly cares about being like everybody ? The mind is only searching for being different from everybody.

So on the one hand, the mind wants to be like everybody suffering because it's easier and very ordinary, and on other hand, it would do anything to be different from everybody in order to suffer more than the others, and that's obviously not going to be easy, but pretty painful. And on top of it, when it hears about "renouncement" to anything, even such nonsense, it figures out kind of sacrifice, a beheading in the public square like in the middle age. With such a mind, we may really wonder how we could have no headache.

12 / 23 / 2013

Human nature is good

No doubt about it otherwise everybody would have already killed everybody, and there would be no humanity and no human nature at all.

But it's also easily predictable, and that can make it bad too. It may seem very strange, but the mind is generally functioning in a way expected, and yet, it's impossible to understand how it really works. And moreover, every mind is absolutely unique and with its own specific functioning.

Human nature is good maybe because we don't understand it. And as long as we don't understand anything about it, we are like kids playing in a big garden and not trying to hurt too much the others. But from an adult perspective, it still can hurt a lot. Ultimately we could say that human nature is good because it didn't exterminate itself... yet ! And if it does, who would complain about ?

1 / 5 / 2014

Just a game, a mind game

On the big checkerboard of life, the rules of the game are established on the characteristics of the mind such as pride, greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, arrogance, past, present and future, frustration, ambition, neurosis, etc.

Everybody knows the game. But who is the player, the watcher and the pawn ? And who is not the player, the watcher and the pawn ?

And the most important question : "Can we stop playing and have a break ?" It's all about life, mind, you and me.

1 / 9 / 2014

The living territory of ourselves

If we don’t understand what we are and what we are looking for, we obviously understood nothing about our own life. We can be very smart and have many diplomas, the meaning of life is only known by those who are sincerely searching for it.

Let us say that we want to go on top of the Everest, better to understand that it's a very big mountain, know the path and if we are strong enough to reach the top, and quite many other things too. It's not enough to know that we just want to go on top of the Everest without any idea about the territory inside and outside ourselves.

The satisfaction of our desires is quite another story, a story that never ends peacefully anyway. That's another path to reach the top of a mountain of suffering and dissatisfaction. The mind is full of mountains, and they all have a summit, peak, culmination or climax. The one we know best is the mountain of ignorance, and on that one, we still ignore the top of it, of course. But the mind is still working very hard to find it. Good luck !

Reality and truth

We can only know reality from a personal standpoint. So there is no supreme truth. No, there is a supreme truth, but not about reality itself, which is Maya, and by definition, a mystery that cannot be solved. The truth concerns only consciousness, the true witness of that reality.

We can have the best glasses to see better, if we close our eyes, we won't see anything. Those glasses are the mind thinking that it could know everything.

3 / 18 / 2014

More, more , more... of what ?

More, always more, it will obviously be better. Just look at what’s left to be sure of it. After an easy-going life of pleasure and luxury, more means nothing, absolutely nothing left of it.

"The most important discovery I have made is that I cannot waste time anymore doing things I do not feel like doing."

"La Grande Bellezza" by Paolo Sorrentino

4 / 20 / 2014

Personality drawn in a mental space that dissolves it

Isn’t it strange to notice that every personality trait is always more or less a defense mechanism ? But without defense what would we be ? What personality would we have ? Would we still be ? Would we have what is called a mind, kind of character and crazy story that distinguishes ourselves from the others ?

But the right question would be maybe : "Do we really need it ?" And to prove what and to whom ? Can’t we survive without being anything special, if not being only in peace and perfectly transparent, so transparent that nobody would notice our presence even not ourselves ?

That could be a pretty interesting concept : living fully our life without knowing and having the least concern for who is living it. But does the mind have that characteristic of not being the mind ? It sounds like the no-mind state of mind, which is somehow pretty weird, but very well-known in Zen Buddhism. So the question : "Are Buddhist monks completely crazy or do they really know what they are speaking about ?"

If the mind is really something, why couldn't it be sometimes nothing, absolutely nothing and so transparent that we would not notice its real function, just helping to survive ? It's not because it is always manifesting something that it cannot stop at will its insane "You're this, you're that, don't forget it, I will prove it to you by any means again and again and again". That might be one of its unsuspected characteristics, not to say hidden treasure.

Human mind forced to be spiritual

Spirituality could be sum up in one question : "What happens after death ?" And that's a question that no one can ignore.

All our life depends directly or indirectly on what we think consciously or unconsciously about it. But at no moment can we be sure that the answer we have found is right or wrong although we only need to cut one of our arteries to know the very right answer in only a few minutes.

So what’s the point to ask such question if, in fact, we absolutely don’t want to know what’s after death ? Simple curiosity ? Curiosity without any risk… without the risk to ever find the answer. Isn’t it absurd ? What are we doing with questions if we don't really want to know the answer ?

But nonsensical or reasonable, the question will remain in the mind "What happens after death ?". Senseless or sensible, the mind doesn't care, it just wants the answer to its question without realizing that death can only be the outcome of its life, the consequence of how it has lived its life.

Addiction

You can only appreciate the best with moderation if you don’t want to end as a junky. Moderation, simplicity, clarity, just things as they are and so on are not concepts very welcome in the mind, and then it's wondering why it has so many problems. It's ludicrous or incredibly funny.

6 / 23 / 2014

In black and white

But the real movie will always in colors.

Life is so complicated and subtle that sooner or later we will contradict ourselves. Life is so simple that it’s even not necessary to think about in order to live it. At the end of the day, the mind can only give up. That's maybe the real purpose of its deep sleep state. But when it surrenders during its waking state, that's a real break.

Very convenient

If our actions are obviously determined by an infinity of previous factors, they are not predictable because the experience of life shows that we always can change the course of events with no other way than resorting to our freedom of choice and will power. Even an action responding to apparently imperative needs is still under the responsibility and control of being absolutely free of our doings. There are so many factors conditioning any responsive decision-making process that the mind will always think : "I did this because of that, but I could have done that because of this". And before doing any things, it thinks exactly the same : "I will do this because of that, but I can do that because of this". So the real question concerning our experience of life is to determine if the thinking process can or cannot take a decision leading to a specific action. And it's very easy to find out the answer. Just ask yourself : "Can I, right now, raise my hand ? Do I want to do it ?" Of course, it's "my" question that is conditioning "your" response, but that question lets you totally free and responsible for what you're going to do. Nothing and nobody can force you to do it right now.

The notion of Karma and Dharma is inseparable from free will and will power. Theories such as predetermination, destiny and fatalism are pretexts to take the liberty of doing anything, and, in fact, to be free to do as it pleases, which is the contrary of what those concepts really means. They are nothing more than mind games, an excuse to pretend "Sorry, it's not my fault, I was bound to do it". Anyone who pretends that there is no free will is a hypocrite because it's obviously a choice to think so, no matter what neuroscience can tell us with its ludicrous experiences, which will never explain any thinking process.

We are absolutely free to practice spirituality or not, to choose a Dharma or Adharma. It’s a personal freedom that determines all our life. And nothing nor anybody compels us to do so. As falling into the trap of a psychological depression, it’s finally the mind that wants it because there is always another choice, maybe not always obvious, but still there. And it’s good to know it. What's the response of neuroscientists believing in no free will to a nervous breakdown ? There is no choice and so let us kill ourselves ? It's just ludicrous and not human. Even the mind will never believe it.

One more with the sense of humor without knowing it

Hegesias followed Aristippus in considering pleasure as the goal of life, but the view which he took of human life was more pessimistic. Happiness, he said, could not be the goal of life, because it is not attainable, and therefore concluded that the wise person's only goal should be to become free from pain and sorrow. Since, too, every person is self-sufficient, all external goods were rejected as not being true sources of pleasure.

Hence the sage ought to regard nothing but himself, his actions have no importance, and so his life, which, therefore, is in no way more desirable than death.

None of this, however, is as strong as the testimony of Cicero, who claims that Hegesias wrote a book called Death by Starvation in which a man who has resolved to starve himself is introduced as representing to his friends that death is actually more to be desired than life, and that the gloomy descriptions of human misery which this work contained were so overpowering that they drove many persons to commit suicide, in consequence of which the author received the surname of Death-persuader (Peisithanatos). This book was published at Alexandria, where he was, in consequence, forbidden to teach by king Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BC) who closed his school and condemned him to exile.

End of the story, a happy ending maybe because the book didn't survive either.

(From Wikipedia)

Illusory despair

"A man can always make something out of what has been made of him." Jean-Paul Sartre

Granted

If it was always pleasant, we’d take it for granted and never question it. And we would be, of course, perfectly stupid. Questioning is the force of the war in the mind.

7 / 13 / 2014

Already content

Questions are quite often more interesting than the answers because they already contain the preliminary draft of the answer, which only need to be commented. And finally the mind may reach the conclusion that it has better to do than gossiping about.

Billions and maybe a lot more

The mind has billions, if not trillions, of information stored in its memory, but it can only have one thought at a time. Draw the conclusion about the repetitiveness of your daily thoughts. It should at the very least make you smile. It's always good to know that we could have been a real genius when we are not.

9 / 6 / 2014

The mind will always be what it is

If we are truly seeking to free ourselves from the mind, let us start to be free from any thoughts about freedom, liberation and Self-realization. The goal to achieve cannot be what we think about. But how to search for what we cannot think about ?

True spiritual teachings only tell us how. There is no already-made meditation.

Response and defense mechanisms

Are we able to do anything else than reacting ? And reacting to what ? To reality as it is or the interpretation we have of it ? If it's the interpretation the mind has of it, it can obviously change any of its reactions. It's called "a change of mind" that everybody knows.

A story of good or bad temper

Between the apple and the carrot, we have to choose the one we love most. In both cases, it’s always better than the stick.

And then we laughed

Once an old Yogi lost in the Himalaya told me : "I even completely forgot the existence of my parents."

And I answered him : "You just come to prove that you remember them very well".

Intention

Be very careful of people who forbid you to do something because they maybe want you to do it. Or because they used to do it and don’t like competition. We never know the real purpose of any taboo. Is it to attract or repel us ? We don't know, but we do know in both cases when it hurts. It's always too late !

10 / 9 / 2014

Psy

If the mind with its very clever "I, me and myself" or ego could change the mind itself, shrinks would be the most happy people in the world. For the first time in their life, they would think that their patients are not completely hopeless. But reality proves pretty much the opposite. And they would also be unemployed, who would go see a shrink if people could change their mind ? "I'm fed up to be unhappy, so now let's be happy. It's not going to hurt me more anyway !"

Spiritual practices are hopefully beyond psychology and that kind of crazy ideas, and far from useless too when personal happiness and egoistical well-being are not anymore the point.

The big TV

Imagine a TV with billions of only very interesting channels. The idea of choosing the one you really like to watch would be quite different. So now what do you think about your own life ?

Strangeness of the mind

If I want I can, but if I can, it’s not always because I want or even wish for. We never know how to take the mind, if the tail is better than the head. How could we live since birth with that mind and know nothing about ? But are we living with or in it ? If we live in, it would be more judicious to wonder about what we really are. And that might be self-inquiry without the mind, self-inquiry into self-consciousness leading to nobody knows where, to the unknown that cannot be known by the mind. And if so, let us forget relative knowledge for a while.

10 / 25 / 2014

Me and you, not same

_ How you do it ?

_ Sometimes, risking everything is the only choice you have.

_ But you don’t seem taking any sort of chance.

_ I wasn’t talking about me.

In the movie "The Air I Breathe" by Jieho Lee

Anyway it will happen

Behind every thought, without exception, there will always be the intention "I want to preserve myself, I don't want to die. I will do anything to survive". It could be my body, my emotions, my sensations, my thoughts, my past, my future or my personal identity, it will always be the very same mind game.

Once we understand it, what would be the point to think anymore ? It’s so obvious that we all want to survive at any cost that there is absolutely no point of thinking about and living like that. So the mind will ask : "Okay, but what am I going to think about if thinking is completely useless ?" It's very logical, but really not conclusive.

12 / 3 / 2014

Not really new

"Civilization has become too civilized for us." In the movie “Hercules” by Brett Ratner

2 / 5 / 2015

Six of one or half a dozen of the other

Freedom and risk or slavery and security ? The mind is always searching for a compromise in order to get nothing and be completely neurotic. It's like sitting between 2 chairs and, of course, falling down.

Tree of knowledge

When someone in a talk speaks hypothetically about "seeing… something, for instance", this person will almost always choose the example of a tree. Just think about, are there so many trees where we live than we cannot think of anything else ? It might be kind of archetype coming from the Crogmanon or Neanderthal still living inside ourselves. It's pretty boring to always hear about the inner child and never the real McCoy we can still see everywhere. Beautiful women with gorgeous fur coats are incredibly funny McCoy, do they come out of a forest or a polar sea ice ? They are very lucky that hunting is forbidden in the cities. In the countryside at the opening dates, they would run like crazy.

For some "yes", for others, it would be "no"

"Life’s not fair, Harold. In fact, as a general rule as I often said, it’s pretty nasty." In the movie "Magic in the Moonlight" by Woody Allen

5 / 1 / 2015

All the same and yet quite different

"Nobody is perfect" doesn’t mean there is no difference between Mahatma Gandhi and Adolph Hitler, for instance. Difference and separation are the beauty and perfection of the creation that loves diversity and every extreme possible. Non-duality is about something else. We are all one would be a nightmare.

Free the monkeys

"Imitate nothing and nobody. A lion that copies a lion becomes a monkey." Victor Hugo

Who is perfect ?

"It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black." Whatever the strangeness of that metaphor, it means that if you want to denounce the faults of someone, you will have to be yourself beyond reproach. I guess there is nothing more to speak about with such a statement, but it’s probably the most talkative ones without reproach who will mention it to prove without any proof that they are right and so the others must be wrong.

If we could only speak about what we really know, we would probably hear a pin drop on the other side of the planet. The mind is expert in pin drop, but very big pins and especially on a table entirely covered with glasses made of crystal. No kidding, have you ever heard a thought that is not a partial view of the whole picture. Sometimes the mind doesn't make the difference between a pair of scissors and a pot of glue calling the picture back.

10 / 1 / 2018

Kind of nonsense that makes sense

If the mind starts to believe that the entire universe could arise instantly from nothing and moreover for no reason at all, that's what science states nowadays with its Big Band theory, it can surely believe in anything, even in God the Creator of the universe, and that's just what science denies. And we may wonder why because it’s not more absurd.