Saturday, March 10, 2007
Tell me all your thoughts on god
Introduction
Regardless of religion, the primary conception of God among Westerners is that of an entity separate from the human race. Something huge, something massive, perhaps something or someone so extraordinary that our feeble minds are unable to comprehend it’s being. Perhaps, these people are right, but I tend to disagree. My version of God is the exact opposite.
I believe that God is anything and everything. This text is God. The poor old man who feeds the stray cats outside of my apartment complex is God. My trusty forest green Buick Lesabre with the cracked windshield and slow leaking rear tires is God. The trees swaying back and forth against the faint March breeze are God. And you, even though I hate you, are God.
Wait a second. Did I just say that my friggin’ car was God? Well, in a way yes it is. Let me take a few steps back. In this theory God is consciousness. Thus, anything the mind witnesses and projects is God (or the product of G0d). God is the manifestation of billions upon billions of conscious entities experiencing life in this moment. This view of God is a relatively abstract idea that I’ve been pondering for months now. Much of this view coincides with Buddhist philosophy and other Eastern religions that stress the importance of losing the ego.
What is an ego?
Your ego is your conception of yourself - it’s your identity, but is it real? At birth our minds are trained to think in terms of “I”. We have always believed that we are separate from our environment, and we always will think that way unless we train ourselves to think otherwise. Our minds imprison us inside the ego's bondage and the majority of us fail to realize it. We are seemingly left self-centered and disconnected from the ultimate form of reality.
How to kill an ego
Various drugs will likely do the job, but for all practical purposes the feeling is only temporary and will probably leave you fucked up for the rest of ‘your’ life. The formal practice for desentegrating the ego is meditation. With time and meticulous practice one who meditates can succeed in discovering the ‘large self (Self)’ – that is the collective consciousness or ‘God’ for at least a moment. Certain Buddhist monks and other extreme meditators have been said to have reached enlightenment (the discovery of the true state of reality). Whether this is humanly possible is unknown, but I’d like to think that one could at least get a taste of the ‘Ultimate Reality’ or ‘God’ through this practice.
What happens after I die?
You go to heaven if you’ve been good and hell if you’ve been bad – duh. Actually I have no clue (obviously) and I’m not going to lie, death scares me. If the theory of a collective consciousness is true then death really shouldn’t matter. However, I’m not a Buddhist monk, I’ve had no formal training in meditation/ego killing and I’ve been raised in an environment that embraces the individual (even if it’s the furthest concept of the truth). Buddhist philosophy tends to center around the theory of the reincarnation of souls, but I have a trouble confining my belief to any specific theory. I can however say with utmost confidence that our ego or conception of self ceases to exist upon the death of our material body. Sorry kids, there will be no gathering of souls at heavens pearly gates.
Nihilism vs. A Collective Consciousness
The essence of nihilism is based around a non-truth - we are here, for no particular reason, meandering about like headless chickens, assigning our own meanings and values to otherwise worthless things. While I can’t refute this point, I think nihilism and a collective consciousness can actually go hand in hand. It may be a paradox, but I believe the collective consciousness must have come first. That after reality has been constructed; the 'individual' must then construct their own interpretation of it. This means that nihilism only exists at a material level, that there is indeed no truth to the reality our collective consciousness has constructed but there is in the end, a truth beyond the construction of our subjective state of reality.
Conclusion
This is just a theory. I'm not basing my life around this idea - yet. It does however, seem to be much more practical than the idea of a supernatural being manipulating us like puppets.
Po - memoriesforsale@blogspot.com
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