I’ve been writing a lot recently about Enlightenment, and my journey in its general direction.
If you’ve read my previous pieces, then you’ll be getting to the uber understanding along with me.
Firstly, it is important to state that you have never NOT been enlightened, this is the truth.
We all arrive in this game with total enlightenment.
The game is then to pile so much rubbish on top, that by the time we are fully cognisant, we have lost all understanding of the original state!
It’s a bit like the kids game, where you have to put on as many pairs of clothes as you can in a set time, to be the winner! Eventually, you end up with twenty jumpers on, you win! You soon find you can’t move on the other hand!
So too, with the game of Human Life. You put on so many differing personalities, you add so many layers, you become such a complex beast that you can no longer see the wood, for the trees!
Enlightenment – means becoming lit, but in my analogy, it also means getting lighter, shedding the layers! If only it were as easy as taking off twenty jumpers to return to your source essence of self!
What you didn’t notice was that you were carefully taking the time, as you put each jumper on, to stich them together, and then add a layer of glue, before you put the next one on!
Rules
The Bible, the Torah or the Koran provide very good manuals for how to behave in the religious part of the game.
Your Parents provide a set of rules for you to follow to when you emerge into society.
Your school, refines your parents rules and the religious rules, whilst (in theory…) preparing you for the next stage of your life – work
The Workplace shapes you with it’s own sets of rules, “How to be a good worker” – “how to fit into management” – “how to run your own business” and so on.
At some stage you might consider taking on the role of rule maker yourself; teaching your children and colleagues…
Society and your peers help you to shape the final part of life, “how to die gracefully…”
These structure are all part of this wonderful game we play, called “The Game of Life”
Some people miss the start point entirely! Some. But very few..
Some more escape the machine in the tiny gap between education finishing and work starting.
Some crash out of the game, when illness strikes, when they lose a loved one, or their career crashes spectacularly.
For most, it’s a life spent being squeezed out of a tube, until the last drop is gone and the tube thrown away.
Web Trends
I attended a “Web Trends” seminar about ten years ago, it was run by industry insiders, who were there to predict the way forward.
To a man, they told us of the rise of “Apps” and that every process in our lives would become “Gamified”
Everything in our lives has become rewards based. I get points from my supermarket, my bank, my online shopping site, my diet app, my Credit Card and my smartwatch.
It makes life fun for a few weeks…. “men your age only took 4827 steps, you have beaten the average every day this week!”
The enjoyment wears thin, and the Apps just become a terrible nag!
Shekel
The real gamification of our lives started with the Mesopotamian Shekel nearly five thousand years ago, and we’ve been chasing the dollar ever since.
What fun! Go to work today, and earn £80! (minus tax of course)
Rinse and Repeat.
Can you imagine playing Monopoly without there being any money! What a bore!
When we are not working, what then?
The gamification of life continues. What are you going to spend this cash on?
New house? New car? (Gas bill, Electricity bill, food shopping…win more points!)
When you’ve covered the basics, what then?
Now we need entertaining.
Bored
Kid’s used to say “Dad!! I’m bored!!” – Boredom was a big thing in my childhood.
These days we’ll do ANYTHING to be inoculated against boredom!
Somehow, it all just seems like going round in ever decreasing circles.
Reading novels – waste of time; watching TV – waste of time; going to church – waste of time; pottery classes – waste of time, watching negative news – a real waste of time!… you get the idea?
We work like slaves to gain cash
We fill our spare time with ANYTHING we can, to stave off the boredom.
Round we go again..
Have you found a purpose to this game?
That’s right, there isn’t one! Leastways, not one that you can benefit from!
The main player is Universal Consciousness, God, Total Awareness or whatever you choose to term this concept.
For Awareness to experience itself, it has to play this 3D simulation, called the “game of life.”
Each of us is a subroutine in a computer programme, feeding back our experiential data to the cloud.
“With my free will, I have decided to drink myself into the grave!”
“With my free will, I have decided to become a religious Guru!”
“With my free will, I’m going to become an astronaut who believes in aliens!”
You get the idea!?
God runs all these simulations to understand himself or the Universe better.
You think you are important, but as we know, The Universe can switch you off, in a moment.
Escapees
What about that group of people, who don’t get fed into the machine, what of them?
There’s a Matrix feeling to this, or perhaps it’s Catch-22!
They can often THINK they have escaped the machine, and have found a spiritual path, just to discover that they jumped out of one programme, straight into another programme entitled “Alternative Game of Life”
They can become Spiritual Gurus, they can become Channels for Guides, they can become Mediums speaking to the dead, and they can all be JUST as deeply plugged into this reality created by God, Awareness, Truth, whomever..
Awakening
Can you imagine that! Spending your whole life believing that in your meditations you have escaped the earthly bounds, only to discover that it’s just another subroutine of the same damn programme! Meditation can keep you asleep for YEARS
Finally, there are a few people who use the stillness, that you can achieve by studying Qigong, Meditation, Yoga or your navel, to awaken from this dreamstate, and experience the True nature of your Trueself.
The “raw” state of the Universe, outside of the programme, as it were..
(I have to accept that this may just be the next level of clever programming too!)
This viewpoint allows you to stand in a state of awareness, and look back at the game.
Finally, you see the game for the total fraud it is.
What’s to be done about this Universal Fraud?
Nothing much!
Just keep playing! When it’s your turn, smile, nod, throw the dice, move a few squares, collect more money, gain your points, and relax.
When things get boring, never forget that boring is just a mindset, step back from this daft charade, have a good laugh at the nonsense that people believe is true, reset and go again..or not..
The choice is always yours…
Please don’t feel cheated or defeated though!
It strikes me that happiness should your default setting, stay in the flow, at least you seem to score more points if you play the game that way! It really is the best game in the whole Universe!