I wanted to re-post this (slightly updated) article, because I think it speaks well, and with some immediacy, about what we see going on more and more these days. I hope you enjoy it. It starts with this:
"Yeshua said: If you bring forth that which is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
Logion 70, The Gospel of Thomas
Denial is ignorance, accepted as truth through the force of will. Our personal will, and our collective will.
Popular Media and Science justify and enforce this will, misdirecting us from the self examination that makes us face our collective truths realistically, and psychically cornering us in the "The Way Things Are." They preoccupy us with good enough reasons for why things are like they are – and why they have to be like they are. Much of Media and Science is created and used to obscure the truth and replace it with a designed objective, to sell an idea or product – turning the truth into an obstacle that needs to be suppressed, where it becomes, as stated in our Gospel of Thomas quote again: "That which will destroy you." We end up confused, walking through a false world trying to find what's real. This is the Maya (or illusion) of Media and Science.
It may sound funny to call this Occultism, and to suggest that media operatives and scientists are occultists, but unfortunately it does work for a couple definitions of the word, in 1. The sense of using supernatural or paranormal means and methods: Media people know they are manipulating dark fears; and 2. In the sense of it being only for the initiated: Scientists and media people consort amongst one another to keep their stories straight. They both harbor scary secrets about what motivates them, shared only by a select few.
Popular Culture often harnesses the psychic energy of cruel self-judgement, "that which would destroy you," as it's chief attraction. The Collective Ego is always on the lookout for something to prove that humans are not particularly Divine and that we don't measure up, and so there must be something that can fix it – something that can calm or repair our shortcomings. So Media constantly stimulates those hot buttons of judgement and comparison – Fear, and the pathology of self-enhancement, to trick you to quite literally buy into it:
My clothes must be right. My lifestyle must be right. I must have the "right" friends, and the proper idols. My country must be right. My religion must be right. If you don't keep in line with these artificial demands, you won't measure up, or deserve material reward and the acknowledgment of others – which in reality can do nothing to assure happiness or fulfillment. You're made to fear that you might not even deserve Love unless you've achieved some cultural standard – and we all know the truth – that Love is the only thing that really assures happiness and fulfillment, and it's available to everyone for free.
These common fears are manipulated, heightened and kept activated by an intentional ever-increasing exposure to explicit violence, explicit selfishness, and explicit narcissism, without which there would be practically nothing on television, or increasingly at the movies, or on the radio either. And lately these fears are increasingly exploited to define our political choices too. In mainstream media's earlier years, human foibles were often pointed out as a lesson, or morality play. News programming reported events fairly objectively. But nowadays a corporate business model prevails that requires media to ruthlessly divide the audience by exploiting human faults and fears, in every format where selling products, ideas, or candidates is possible.
Television and film must be be watched very selectively to avoid these base, destructive urgencies; and while the internet also allows for content choice, you musn't forget the greatest selectivity of all: You have the choice not to take part in it at all, if you don't feel it's serving your best interests. And if you must take part, don't invest yourself in it spiritually. You simply will never find happiness with an unhealthy spirit; TV programmers and political strategists know that.
Remember what Marshall McLuhan said: "The medium is the message." If you are constantly carrying, sitting in front of and looking at a device that keeps you constantly attached to a false world, it will be impossible to live the easy, authentic, love-filled life that everyone deserves. If the forms of input you receive are superficial and fragmented and designed by people who don't have your best interests at heart, your life will always feel the same. Attachment to current media results in the collapse of your consciousness into a dark and selfish place.
In a generally (though not always) less intentional way, Science does the same thing by manipulating the agnosticism of the seeker. It's kind of like a religion whose dogma is always changing – a religion of logic, of data, of "empirical" observation, based solely on what our current senses and devices permit us to perceive and calculate. In the past, these means were limited, but even in those 'dark ages' Science was still very sure of itself and its authoritative description of the world. As means of observation improve, the world and being itself changes –according to Science – but still needs to be subjected to a healthier, more spiritual interpretation.
Now, as evolving Consciousness allows perception beyond our five senses (and is verified scientifically), and technology enables us to observe more and more of our (formerly invisible) nature of being, Science begins to resemble a dogma chasing a tale that Mysticism has been telling for a long, long time. And here's how that tale ends, and what it tells us about the real nature of our reality:
Everything is connected and interdependent; and, if we aren't willing to investigate the truth behind our being, and the motivations that suppress that truth, then "That will destroy us."
But there is a form of Maya that can free us from the delusional limitations of the other (scary) three: We can switch to a Maya of inner experience and collective ecological sanity...The Maya of Nature. Turn off your mind, open your heart and your senses to the beauty and balance alive in the natural world, and the truth will rise up out of the ruins of our false structures of ego—media and science.
The Universe is an awesome and beautiful mystery, activated by our shared Consciousness. If we bring forth that Universe that is within us—that we all share—then what we bring forth will save us.
Read about this and much more in:
Fabulous article. It spoke to me and all the wisdom shown here makes me want to listen to you tonight on coasttocoast radio and to buy your book.
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