The Cleverest Conspiracy Of All

We live in an age of conspiracies and rumours of conspiracies.  Even those who mock and deny their existence feel the need to talk about them in a disparaging manner.  Governments, corporations and intelligence services all thrive on their production, implementation and cover-up.  Educated populations, now mostly freed from the threats of eternal damnation, loosened with ever increasing leisure, and armoured as never before with access to information, demand ever more sophisticated cover-ups and plausible denials delivered with assurance and aplomb.  Children with considerably more than spare change, we now require sophistry on the level of myth, complete with the the panoply of dramatis personae we have come to expect down through the storytelling ages.

Some ancient battle between darkness and light, truth and deception, seems to be continuously reenacted on the world stage.  It is a drama of operatic dimensions that could easily grow a religion or two about it.  Who will save us from the lying demagogues of democracy, the chorus asks.  Who shall deliver us from the seductive pit of propaganda?  The answer is perhaps obvious: us.  Us and only us.  We the people, who are so much more than concerned citizens, but who have forgotten their divine origins and are dwarfed by those who would manipulate our ignorance into endless dependence.  We need not wait for all the Pinocchios to grow long noses.

All the political shenanigans, all the crafted assassinations, all the bombings with their stage managed radicals, all the wars over natural resources spin doctored into evil dragon slaying, all the drugs so carefully designed, all the spiritual wickedness in high places, it’s merely the play of Maya, illusions prancing their hour upon the stage.  It need not detain us, although it can and does, our fascination with baubles and blood being what it is.  But for those of us on our way to graduation, a not insignificant number I might add, the cleverest conspiracy of all is that of the Higher Self.

The Higher Self conspires, unfortunately with our full cooperation, to denude us of all cosmic consciousness, so that our delivery onto the physical plane through the medium of our mother’s womb is accomplished with such a narrowing of the psyche that the phrase blank slate is the most accurate for our tiny embodiment of life.  So although we are emanations from a virtually omniscient Monad (group soul, Higher Self), by the time we descend through the planes to arrive here almost emptied of our previous divinity, and proceed, through many trials and tribulations, to recover our heritage shorn of the illusions of ego and society, we are essentially starting out once again from the basement of consciousness to explore not only the house above but the many mansions which it magically contains.

And we essay these explorations as dim witted but boisterous children, eager for adventure but easily cowed by frights and cuts.  As personalities we grow with our family and society imposed definitions, all of which are useful within the parameters laid out before us, becoming independent and educated adults.  But as spirits in the material world these definitions become ties which keep us in bondage, too timid to explore the unknown and unseen.  And when, out of frustration or giddiness, we do reach out a seeking beam, they remind us to doubt and distrust, to return to the basement where being rendered stupid with safety is the community standard.

In our ignorance as state sanctioned citizens with rights and responsibilities we often remain, assured that we are contributing in an accountable and civilized manner.  But as citizens thus defined we remain ignorant of our greater selves, our original share of divinity, and we quietly assume our tiny spots in history, the subject of forces beyond our control, when in fact we have picked a life path of challenges suited to our needs, and only appear to be buffeted by the fates of disease, lousy weather and political repression.  Whether we have chosen wisely or been rushed by the prospect of thrills is another matter, but the metaphysical fact is that we have picked and are partaking.

But our ego based illusions about our limited and isolated selves conspire to keep us in our place, while attributes such as gravity and debt assure us we have made the smart choice.  Inside our separated selves, our much valued individuality, we look to sources of power outside us.  Whether natural, as in earthquakes or floods, or man made, such as banking or government, we feel dominated, threatened, conspired against, that there is a hidden order which executes plans in the shadows, regardless of our requirements or well being.  There are hidden orders conspiring contemptuously in the shadows, but they operate at the level of ego and ego gratification, and as such, live in even more illusion than yourself, the seeker and would-be disciple of the mysteries.

The cleverest and most cunning conspiracy of them all is the one you delude yourself with, that we all delude ourselves with: that no matter what your station in life, your race or gender, your degree of freedom or repression, you are in essence an unbounded being of light, a conscious contributing emblem of divinity, who is only pretending to be daft and lost and limited.

The Intellect And The Spirit

 I have long been intrigued with the struggles of intellectuals and artists to come to terms with what seems to be the chaotic destructive madness of the world as they experience it.  Poets, novelists, philosophers, administrators, legislators and the like, all look to be permanently on the edge of hopeless gloominess about humanity’s performance and potential.  They feel we are constantly beset by greed, deception, craven ignorance and cruelty.  But when confined to their modes of artful expression they can be inspiring and intoxicating, veritable oases of style, wit and understanding.  We feel beautified and blessed in their presence.

      Their overall negativity about the human condition often drives them into an embrace of either traditional religion or its mirror images, atheism and humanism, with communism and science as the regular go-to ports of call.  But as they plumb the depths of their minds, hearts and educations, they stop short of reaching and embracing their own spiritual understanding.  Whether they lack the know-how or the courage, or perhaps both, they usually settle for some ancient sacred text or the current foundational prophets of their discipline, the Freud’s, Marx’s, Darwin’s, Einstein’s and the like.  Praying and making formulas and analyses takes precedence over the meditational practises of the inner journey.

     Are they afraid of discovering their very own spiritual understanding that might leave them standing on their own pinnacle with breathtaking views but few or no friends?  Yes.  Are they playing the game by the rules for the benefit of family, career and professional credibility?  Sure they are.  And given the plethora of charismatic cultists and true believers cluttering the cultural landscape with their dogmas and fanaticism, who can blame them?  The inner journey is awash with imposters, plunderers and general no-name dementia.

    I came across an example recently in Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night, as fine a study on the institutional and cultural history of these knowledge repositories as I have come across.  Let me quote from page one:

     “Outside theology and fantastic literature, few can doubt that the main features of our universe are its dearth of meaning and lack of discernible purpose.  And yet, with bewildering optimism, we continue to assemble what ever scraps of information we can gather in scrolls and books and computer chips, on shelf after library shelf, whatever material, virtual or otherwise, pathetically intent on lending the world a semblance of sense and order, while knowing perfectly well that, however much we’d like to believe the contrary, our pursuits are sadly doomed to failure.”

     So, does it fall to those on the mystic path to know purpose and meaning, those who abjure the benefits of  accumulating knowledge for comparison and analysis for the risky submission to vision, a vision free of categories and definitions, an embrace of the all including that you would rather not encounter?  Despite the strivings of social and political activists, it would indeed seem to fall to us, the meditator, the psychedelicised, the projectors to grasp the purpose behind the chaos.  And once you submit to the rigours of the journey, it is really not that difficult to see.

     We are here to spiritualise matter with our own ever increasing vibration, to raise it, after centuries of counter measures facilitated by the masters of the left hand path feeding the appetites of the fearful and selfish to keep them in the separations of ego, tribalism and nationalism and as far away from the embrace of internationalism, brotherhood and the love and mercy for all.  Our slowly increasing appetite for unconditional love for all sentient beings does indeed up that vibration, but so imperceptibly as to be the endless victim of shifty doubts.

     As we marry outside the tribe, producing grandchildren of indeterminate ethnicity, light the planet with electricity, obscuring both the stars and the our shadow, own up to our interactions with the alien visitors, remember our ancient bond with the devas and elemental spirits of nature, see our past lives as  not only personal projects of a developmental nature but as contributions to the rise and fall of empires and civilisations, each with its manifestations often lost to the physical plane but ever present on the astral, and know our prized cultures as gifts brought to the planetary party to be served at the banquet, before, during and after the entertainment, we slowly come to see the meaning of our travails, that what was lost in one life or culture will be regained in another and taken for granted in a third, and that in all this crazy gift of time, given to us by ourselves, we are rising from ignorance to knowing.

   Can all this be argued, footnoted and proven, say the sceptics and intellectuals.  No it cannot be proven, it can only be experienced.  Observing the dance is but the first step to joining it.