It’s wretched that to become a whole human being is close to impossible in our modern world. But it’s less impossible than one might think.
In Platonic Surrealism we don’t talk about ‘Enlightenment’, though if you become ‘whole’, you put yourself in a position to be totally amazing. Whatever you want to call that. Of course, in your deepest self, you are already amazing AND ‘impossible’, but in this world our awesomeness is covered over with pain and scabs, that form to ‘protect us’ from ‘the world’.
So many people want ‘miraculous video game cheat codes to hack reality’, so that they can learn to remain the same person they are, while gaining magickal powers. It doesn’t work that way.
Now, why do I say, ‘preparing for the impossible’?
There are many systems in the world that promise if you do X, Y, Z, you will gain ‘powers’ or ‘favor with God’, or whatever your culturally conditioned misinformation happens to be.
There are many ‘psychics’, ‘occult’ ‘UFO’, ‘crypted’, ‘phenomenon’ researchers, who try to poke and prod ‘the phenomenon’ to get it to do stupid pet tricks, so that they can prove something to their egos, for whatever reason.
Have you noticed that doesn’t work? It doesn’t work. Those folks are POKING their ‘true selves’, selves which have massive power, presence and insight, while they as toddlers with a 2 IQ try to wrestle REALITY to the ground and make it squeal’. Reality is not the thing that will be squealing.
Now, ‘spirituality’ has a similar problem. Especially something like Yoga. Kriya yoga and Kundalini Yoga make great examples. Now supposedly, if you do various practices, they will result in ‘effects’. Reproducible effects. And for many, they do. (they did it for me).
But who is in control here? The unbound cosmic presence that is our true nature, or the little scheming ego.
So, all that we can do, is to prepare for the impossible.
Some people are born ‘quite psychic’ or ‘enlightened’, while others strive for a lifetime with ridiculous and harmful ‘spiritual practices’ and ‘nothing happens’.
Hell, some people get hit in the head with a rock and become completely ‘enlightened’. Something like that happened to my wife; she looked over my shoulder and saw me writing the first few sentences about Platonic Surrealism, and she was hit like with a thunderbolt. I watched Awareness of how reality works march across her face, from her right eye to her left eye (from the unconscious to the conscious) and she was permanently changed in a flash. Mind you, ‘Scully from the X-files’ was far less skeptical than my wife was. It was like the Pope converting to Devil worship.
So, people talk about ‘grace’ and that’s not a bad word. But really, our ‘larger selves’, REALITY itself, is the adult in the room, and we are movie characters, kicking the tires of what it’s like to be limited for education, fun and play.
To add ‘insult to injury’ we all, in a sense, are living in a read-only data archive. From ‘outside of time’ (where we live), this entire Universe already happened. So why struggle?
Indeed, why struggle? Nietzsche called this amor fati, or the love of fate. Nietzsche was extraordinarily wise.
But here’s the deal on that. We may already know, on some level, every last dot of how our life will unfold, but if you jump ahead to the end, the book or movie is spoiled. So, we go around with the limited perceptual interface and try to enjoy the show.
Does that mean we should lay about and say there’s no point in trying anything, doing anything, as it has already happened? Not at all.
If you don’t try, you would find the ‘flow spots’ and the ‘dead ends’. The ‘flow spots’ are when you are moving in a direction which is congruent with what will happen, and the dead ends MAY be thing that just won’t be happening, though sometimes, the ‘movie script’ is that we beat our head against the wall one-hundred times, then things ‘succeed’.
We may be ‘movie characters’ here, prancing around to the often-unheard drum beat of our TRUE SELVES, but I do recommend that if at all possible, you try to have a good time with it. That’s totally reasonable and allowed. Attempting ANYTHING is allowed but may or may not be a good idea.
Preparing for the impossible (wholeness) is like becoming more date-able. You go to the gym, you pick up a fascinating hobby, you stop bleeding on people and become strong, you get a house, a car, and then you have something to offer to a prospective partner. It’s the same thing with your limited self-courting, your ‘TRUE SELF’.
It’s worth doing all that, to ‘become whole’, no matter if you get a fascinating response ‘from YOURSELF’ or you don’t.
You may just have to be satisfied with contentment and frequent flashes of joy.
At the end of the day, ‘ALL THIS’ is about ‘the larger life, and the further evolution of the human species, and the species that will come around after we go extinct.
It’s not really about the individual, though individuals are subunits of culture, so we have parts to play as well.
So, quickly, what is this ‘wholeness’ that is not ‘enlightenment’, but which is actually the ‘real deal’?
Before you can ‘surrender’ to your ‘TRUEST SELF’, you have to first ‘surrender’ to your ‘local self’.
By this I mean, you need to make friends, on a habitual level, the following three ‘brains’ you have:
- The ‘Left Hemisphere’, the ‘logical/verbal brain’.
- The ‘Right Hemisphere’, the holistic vision, creative brain.
- The ‘Brain in the gut’, the Enteric nervous system (which has 20% of all our neurons in it!).
Now evolution has kept those three brains fairly separate, they all have specialties to attend to, and they should not be, cannot be ‘mashed together’.
In fact, the brain structure, the corpus colosseum, that thick band of nerve fibers which connect the two brain hemispheres is more about PREVENTING communication between the two hemisphere’s, rather than enabling it (though it does that too).
Still, Western corrupted civilization has put the rational mind/ego in charge of things, when it’s intended by nature to be the servant, to the big picture mind. That’s why why are all fucked up and rapidly eradicating all life on the planet. The ‘microscope’ (the ego of the rational mind)
doesn’t have the big picture vision of the ‘telescope’ (the holistic/creative mind).
If you want to increase contentment, decrease suffering, and to prepare for the ‘impossible’, Platonic Surrealism can help with that. But there’s no way to know the movie script in advance, to know whether the love nest you have made in your body will have amazing results in attracting your ‘TRUE SELF’ in the way you might want, or not.
Remember ‘you’ (the limited ego) is the JUNIOR PARTNER.
Two parting thoughts for you:
- You should read “Hide, Seek & Help” Not everyone is ‘destined’ to become sort of cosmic seer/miracle worker. Being a really good ‘puppy daddy’ or ‘crazy cat lady’ might be the entire move! All movies are EQUAL, though some seem more fun, sure.
- You should read “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, Ian McGilchrist, Yale University Press [2019]”.
Then you can make an informed decision whether to become whole or not, in any very active sense.
And remember the best news of all, you can stop fretting about the future, about whether you have screwed up; the movie has already been directed and ‘put in the can’ in the film vault. You can let go of all that pressure and stress. I can’t promise that your life won’t suck, it may, and
some movies just suck. We like horror movies too. We like all the movies. But you have the freedom that only comes, from having done your best work (whatever that turns out to be), and now you are cuddled up on the couch with popcorn, watching it all unfold.
Kevin Cann
11/25/2024