The Role of Ignorance

Consciousness

Mar 28

The biggest barrier by far in living a fulfilling life, without exception, is ignorance. Ignorance is the absence of knowledge.

Those who are ignorant don’t know they are. You don’t either and neither do I. Why are you and I ignorant?

Truth is abandoned as a requirement of taking birth in order to play the game of becoming and in doing so, you forget who you are or why you’re here on the planet. The forgetting, the amnesia, is not accidental. It’s deliberate.

The fact is that there are a lot of crazy people running around and you and I are two of them. The truth of who you are has been wrapped and sealed in the confines of your mind and ego and it’s not particularly that far off base to think of it this way…a loved one has been kidnapped and it is your job to rescue them. That’s pretty accurate except in the example I gave, someone did it to you. In reality, you did it to yourself but you did it for good reasons, those reasons are also buried under the veil of ignorance, mind, and ego. But the reasons are there nonetheless…you just have to find them.

In the lives of individuals and groups, you can see the ignorance playing out but in some, you can see the ignorance receding, emerging out of the prison cell. It is very natural for a person thrown into prison to think of escape because there’s nothing natural at all about being imprisoned.

It is not only natural to escape but it is a quality that lies at the heart of being human…to enlarge, to expand, to be free of all constraints, to prosper, to possess.

However, it seems as if you are met at every turn by forces that seek to do the opposite, forces that oppose your will, wear down your progress, confuse your mind, and seem almost designed not to support you but to cripple you.

The unconscious path through these barriers is none other than the evolutionary path, your personal struggle. It is your becoming. The conscious path is the use of those very same barriers to achieve the knowledge of why and how those barriers exist and to understand their true nature and true purpose. In short, the realization that prison doesn’t exist is the first step toward freedom…even if you’re in prison.

It is a fact to state that each step of the way is met by opposing forces. Today, you get a raise. Tomorrow, your car conks out and needs $1,000 of repair. Today you sleep like a baby. Tomorrow, you come home to find your house has been broken into. The battling forces of up and down are found everywhere.

The vertical exists to counter those forces in the horizontal. In other words, the spiritual, the vertical provides the knowledge and the means by which to cause those negative forces to work for you instead of against you. But there is a point in the process when the horizontal, physical life has no choice but to begin to yield to the vertical, spiritual life.

Between the beginning point of trying to figure out how to get out of prison and actually executing the escape lies the quality of your life experience. Now notice, that even when a summit is reached, the game begins again for a new experience of mastery, a new summit, the experience of conquering the oppositional forces and so, the game endlessly continues. Your becoming, your evolution, is the eternal blossoming of a flower that was never anything but a flower in the first place…it just took a while.

The darkness and light are inseparable and until you understand this, the struggle becomes the noose around your neck dragging you into the mental, physical and emotional abysses of your mind. Everyone knows this and everyone has experienced this. And yet, so very few have ever gotten out of the mess. Now, just for clarification, by getting out, I don’t mean escaping but experiencing the freedom and grace of physical life while in the middle of the mess.

In spite of the obstacles you may face, you cannot not seek to enlarge your life. Just as the universe continues to expand, so do you. It is not an option but a mandate. It is part of Now, you can deny it, you can become lethargic and depressed and powerless but if giving up was OK, then you wouldn’t be bothered in the least. But you are. And we’ve all done it.

We’ve all had our moments when we felt hopeless and alone.

But then, something kicks in.

Life seeks to enlarge, to expand, but when it does it encounters the obstructions. And no matter how deep the desire, no matter how fierce the motivation, the individual will meet the barriers of everyday life, the ignorance not only of the collective but the ignorance of other individuals. Eventually, you must know death…and not just physical death, but the death of relationships of many kinds, death of meaning and purpose as your mind submits to these obstructions and gives up its hopes and dreams to focus only on surviving. In fact, eventually, each one will learn that

But when the mind begins the journey to awakening and begins the search for truth and meaning, a crack appears in the armor, in the psychological shield, that allows a greater nourishment to enter, a greater confidence, a greater light.

Yes, it is true that your progress will be met with barriers but make no mistake about it, these barriers harbor their inverse and inside of you, and I promise this is true, you carry within you an absolute negation of and transformation of your past. But that negation, that transformation, is not contained in the same place as where the problems were created. Therein lies the problem.

Now, as I frequently say, the mind is not capable of producing truth. It’s an organ of reaction, response, and judgment. And judgment always contains rejection of some form. Truth is often rejected in favor of a lie but the lie cannot become the Truth because it’s not the truth. It’s just stuff and in most cases, it isn’t even real…yes, to the believer it’s real but that doesn’t make it real.

This is a great starting place…to realize that your thinking is just stuff. Nonetheless, you are responsible for it because it is you that is the barrier in your life, not life. You are the problem.

The ignorance that prevents you from overcoming your barriers is not outside of you, somewhere out there in the world. The ignorance is you. You have all the information and all of the skills to live an extraordinary life, for your life to turn out perfectly but while you, your Self may have one agenda, your mind has another.

Without exception, and your mind’s not going to like this, what you want in your life is the same thing as what you get. You always end up with what you intended to end up with but chances are, you were unconscious, unaware of those intentions. This is called ignorance.

Ignorance is the parent of darkness and all suffering in your life.

But when you add the ignorance of the world that you encounter every day, you can see the tremendous difficulties that you face in freeing yourself from it.

The typical manner in which your growth is activated is through pressure. Pressure forces physical matter to move, to change. Pressure forces you inward, step by step, lifetime after lifetime until you arrive at the center of your being and once there, it is entirely possible to consider that you are at last free...but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still difficulties in your mind. It means you have repurposed everyday difficulties into vehicles of transformation.

Crushing circumstances can, indeed, wipe away the old stuff but that doesn’t mean your life will be transformed. It simply means that the old stuff was wiped out. But if the only thing you know is what you knew before, it is only a matter of time before the old habits will return and you’ll be back in the cage before long. So, what to do?

The beginning steps of addressing ignorance which, again, is the absence of knowledge, starts with a movement inward. It starts with inner work, a realization that there is something more, something real, something meaningful and lasting. It begins with the acknowledgment that the source of all of your issues is you. And even though you may not know what to do about that yet, it begins with withdrawing all of your projections, all of your blame, all of your anger inward and owning them. Move to center. Move from the periphery of your life to the center of your being.

Stop spending all of your time on social media and spend time with yourself. Be still and begin to familiarize yourself with the inner chaos and stupidity…no judgment is needed or necessary…just notice.

Notice the discrepancies between what you say and what you do.

Notice the façade you display to the outer world to avoid the outer world seeing through your façade and seeing you and all your shortcomings.

Notice the addictions, patterns, desires, fears, confusions…just notice.

It is the awareness of the cosmic paradox of which your current life holds no key to its understanding or purpose.

And now the next step is creating the conscious desire to get out of your own mess…you don’t have to know how yet…the beginning step is to announce your desire to the universe, to God, to All-Pervading, the Unmanifest, the Immutable, the Divine. Today is the day.

Our work here at TruthSpring is about this moment, the time to create a bridge to a different reality, a different Truth that is comprised of different laws and principles, a truth that lies outside of your mind, a new consciousness.

As that step is begun and an ascent to the summit is undertaken, one can begin a simultaneous movement of ascending and descending, of increasing truth and discovery about your beautiful Self and returning to your everyday life to transform your everyday life into the truth of what you have seen, understood, and realized.

This necessity, this double movement, of ascending and descending, is the very consciousness, the very image that lies inside of you, that has patiently waited for its opportunity to break out of the mental prison in which it has been held captive. Even a glance will reveal to you that this spiritual order that is invisible to your eyes, undiscoverable by your mind, unknown to your physical senses, inexplicable to your scientific microscope, is more real than what you see with your eyes, your senses, your mind.

One of the efforts to transcend the physical pain, the depression, the fear, and worry of everyday life that has become popularized over the last 20 years has been through the use of a drug called ketamine. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic used in human anesthesia and veterinary medicine. Dissociative drugs are hallucinogens and ketamine users experience an almost complete sensory detachment. Many users report being separated from their bodies. It’s called going down the k-hole. And who hasn’t had their moments when they would like to be separated from their bodies? It’s also known as special K, super K, and vitamin k, and can be manufactured as an injectable liquid. In illegal use, ketamine is swallowed or evaporated to form a snortable powder. It is odorless and tasteless, so it can be added to beverages without being detected, and it induces amnesia. Consequently, it’s also considered to be a “date rape” drug.

From alcohol to LSD, from marijuana to cocaine, to a buffet of substances and chemicals, people have been trying to figure out how not to be here, how not to have to face life since humans appeared on the planet. Today, there are ketamine clinics all over the world that treat depression, mood disorders, PTSD, and other mental conditions. There are a lot of people who want out.

In a meeting in which I was involved several years ago, the discussion eventually focused on the condition of PTSD that was experienced by many residents of the facility. Feeling safe, I asked permission to ask a question. And then I asked, “Is there anyone in the room who doesn’t have PTSD?” Quiet fell in the room and after 10-15 seconds, someone changed the topic and the conversation moved on. It’s OK to talk about other people’s PTSD but apparently, it wasn’t OK to talk about your own.

My point is that if you’re human, you have suffered.

If you’re human, you have known fear and pain and loss.

Some will address their circumstances in a positive and healthy manner. The majority will not because the experience becomes the source of their understanding and when that experience is based upon pain, it’s a vicious circle. For example, the general understanding is that depression is linked to a complex variety of sources but that the #1 mechanism for treating depression is through a chemical process through once again, a complex variety of treatments. The World Health Organization estimates that 264 million people across the globe suffer from depression.

Now, my understanding and experience of the source of depression are very simple: the source is repressed grief in the horizontal and it is an existing problem in the vertical. You have not been trained in experiencing loss, abrupt change in your life. You have not been taught about your existence and what you’re doing here.

Without an understanding of the forces of life, how is it possible to master the forces of life? As Sri Aurobindo says, “The perfection of Faith lies in the truth that all things are the workings of the Supreme Being. That nothing which happens in or around us is in vain or without its appointed place and just significance. That all things are possible when God takes up the action. That all which has been done before and all he will do hereafter, was and will be according to his infallible and foreseeing guidance and intended toward our perfected evolution and life work. This faith will be more and more justified as wisdom grows and higher knowledge opens. Then we will see the great and small significances that escaped our limited mentality and faith will pass into knowledge. We shall then see that all that happens occurs within the working of the one will which is infinite wisdom."

According to this understanding, every loss that occurs in your life is playing out its just an appointed role whose task it is to drive you closer and closer and closer to the center of your being where you will experience the Truth of who you are and in doing so, will become the master of those forces. I want to be sensitive and I don’t want to come across as sanctimonious, but simply as an individual who dealt with depression when I was younger that ruled my life and an individual who was trained to see and experience a different reality than the one my mind dictated as a result of the horrific childhood experiences I had. As a result, I have never had a single moment of depression since then. It is the absence of the true reality of who you are, the absence of the Truth of your life, and what you’re doing here that is the problem.

Ignorance is your problem and nothing else.

Now, I have had plenty of moments in which I experienced sadness and even heartbreaking moments since those early days but sadness is healthy, expressed version of grief whereas depression is an unhealthy, repressed version of grief. Depression isn’t the problem. Ignorance and self-oblivion are the problems. Your lack of understanding of your existence is the problem. Ignorance is the absence of Truth and negativity never expresses the Truth.

In the remarkable videos I have watched of individuals going down the K-hole, I am struck by the question, “Why?” The side-effects of ketamine use are terrible enough in and of themselves with the most damaging being the development of the idea that the only way I can be OK being here is by not being here. Many marriages function that way. The only way I can be in this marriage is by not really being here in the marriage. The only way I can function in my job that I hate so much is by daydreaming all day long about being in another job. The only way I can get someone to love me for who I am is by being someone I’m not and on and on and on. Ignorance is a mechanism of evolution and the most transformational way to address evolution through knowledge.

Dealing with the pain of being here on the planet by not being here doesn’t solve a thing.

It’s difficult not to connect a ketamine patient’s statements of “I’m fucked up” with “This is really therapeutic.” Who has not experienced the release from the daily grind by being high, drunk, out of it? Again, it’s hard to miss the relationship between the sense of emptiness the individual feels and the need to escape the emptiness. It’s understandable. But the chemicals don’t change the presence of the emptiness.

The emptiness can only be postponed. But I’m among the first to agree that there are as many paths to the vertical, spiritual realm as there are people. So, to each his own. The psychological dependency that is developed over the use of any platform that is used as a mechanism to escape is as damaging as the physiological side effects. There is no physiological experience without a psychological reaction and vice-versus.

If the presence of something greater which we refer to as the vertical, the spiritual, was not true and that it did not exist, then you would never experience pain or suffering or discomfort or dissatisfaction. You wouldn’t be bothered at all. But the presence of suffering has always revealed to you that there MUST be something greater but you don’t know what it is.

The role of ignorance is to force over time the awakening of the consciousness that lies inside the individual, physical being. It is an ignorance and an unconsciousness that you have to know but also has to master in order to become happy, fulfilled, and complete. You cannot live in a happy, fulfilled, and complete manner as long as you are aware that there is something greater but at the time, have not realized what it is.

The denial of that greater consciousness, the denial of aspiring to that greater existence will result in the futility of your existence and if you can’t existence model you have created for your life that has only resulted in misery, then the mind will abandon the life form and see it as a cosmic mistake, a technological game of meaninglessness, the cruelty of a loving God.

Seeking and seeking in the outer world to find the fabrics and textures that relieve you of your pain, you find only temporary relief. And the game continues. The role of ignorance is to force you away from your outer world to your inner world. Now, it would be easy to assume that nothing is going to change until you have this miraculous out-of-body experience in which you merge with God but that is not the case. It is the conscious path inward, the aspiration to become aware of that greater consciousness that changes the very nature and role of ignorance.

Where before, you saw the role of ignorance, the role of unhappiness, struggle, incompletion as the reality of life, you begin to see through the ignorance and see a different reality and that pain, suffering, and inner turmoil was never necessary in the first place but it was the pain, suffering, and inner turmoil that served as a catalyst in the evolutionary process that moved you forward.

The aspiration to a greater consciousness, to the knowledge that comprises that consciousness is powerful enough to begin to liberate you from many of the mundane dynamics of human life which for most people is a life of suffering.

It is the inertia of being consumed in the unconsciousness, in horizontal daily life, the condition of always seeking but never finding, the meaninglessness that you confront on a daily basis that are the effects of the ignorance your mind practices. But this is its role! It is the path to the spiritual and the aspiration to reach the spiritual that will mark the moment in your life that the imprisonment ends and the need for learning through ignorance, pain, and suffering will end.

Now, the role of ignorance changes to the path of awakening, and, at last, you are free to become who you were meant to be and master the dynamics of your life.