PART FIVE
On Liberation from ego
and egoic Society
1.
The un-En-Light-ened (or egocentric) body-mind-"self" is founded on the activity of "self"-contraction. The "self"-contraction is enacted as the effective differentiation of the (thus presumed) separate "self" from the Inherently egoless Self-Nature, Self-Condition, Self-State, and Acausal Source-Condition That Is Reality Itself — and, coincidently, the "self"-contraction is enacted as the effective differentiation of the (thus presumed) separate "self" from every other form of thus presumed (or, by means of "self"-contraction, defined) "not-self". And the "self"-contraction is, likewise, expressed (via the "self"-contraction-definition of "self" as independent and separative) as the constant concern and search for the preservation of the (presumed-to-be independent) "self" (or ego-"I"). The "self"-based (or "self"-contracting, and would-be-"self"-preserving) orientation toward existence is manifested as the psychology of search and conflict relative to all that is presumed to be "not-self" — some and all of which is sometimes desired and sought, and some and all of which is sometimes feared (or reacted to with the seeking effort of avoidance), and even all of which is always limited, mortal, passing, inexplicable, and (therefore) inherently unsatisfactory. Therefore, the psychology of "self"-contracted (and, as a result, egocentric) existence is inherently disposed to seek control and dominance over all that is presumed to be "not-self". For this reason, individual egocentric lives are a constant expression of heart-felt (and total psycho-physical) anxiety (and even the primitive ego-moods of fear, sorrow, anger, and every kind of un-love) — and individual human actions are, on that primitive basis, always a more or less mechanical (or uninspected and irresponsible) display of strategic techniques of "self"-manipulation (intended to preserve "self") and "other"-manipulation (intended to control, or dominate, "not-self"). And the collective (or group) life of egocentric human beings is, likewise, dominated by the same exclusiveness, the same emotional base, the same inherent unsatisfactoriness, and the same motives toward "self"-preservation, and toward control of what is "outside".
Human societies are always tending to be modeled after the un-En-Light-ened pattern of the individual ego. The political and social systems of the present-day world are not generated by literally En-Light-ened (or even highly "evolved") leaders, ideals, or institutions. Human beings in this "late-time" (or "dark" epoch) live in the un-En-Light-ened world of egoic society — and this is why the signs of the times are so profoundly negative.
The entire world is now nearly out of control with egoic motives. Humankind, indoctrinated by materialistic philosophies, ego-serving technologies, and gross political idealisms, is possessed by the mechanical and emotionally negative efforts of "self"-indulgence (and anxious release-seeking efforts of all kinds), and chronically depressed by the frustration of the ego-transcending deepest and most profound impulses that are the inherent characteristics at the heart and root of every living being. The ego-"I", whether individual or collective, is eventually reduced to sorrow and despair (or chronic life-depression), because of (and as an experiential result of) the inability of life (in and of itself) to generate Happiness and Joy and Immortality. And that "self"-contained depression finally becomes anger, or loveless confrontation with the total world and every form of presumed "not-self" — including even (and especially) the Inherently egoless, and Acausally Real, Self-Identity (or One and Only and Non-Separate Self-Nature, Self-Condition, and Self-State), Which is "locked away", by means of conventional (or merely exoteric) ideas of "God Apart", and is (thereby) made into an "Other" by the egoic mind. And, when anger becomes the mood of human societies, the quality of fire (or the primitive and destructive intent of the frustrated ego) invades the plane of humanity. That fire is expressed as all of the aggression and competitiveness (and all of the resultant sufferings and painful illusions) of humankind, including all of the ego-based politics of confrontation. And that ego-fire is, finally, summarized in the acts of war.
2.
The differentiation of existence into ego-possessed units yields, in the case of each "one", the craving for entirely pleasurized and unthreatened existence. This craving (or obsessive motive of "self"-preservation and "self"-glorification) in turn yields inevitable conflict, fear, sorrow, anger, and all kinds of destructive acts in relation to "others" as well as to "self" (because the extreme exercise of "self"-preservation is, ultimately, an aggressive and "self"-defeating motivation that destroys "self" in the final effort to dominate "not-self"). Therefore, all egos (or un-En-Light-ened centers of identity, whether individual or collective) are in aggressive conflict with all other egos (and all that is presumed to be "not-self", or presumed to be "outside" the defined egoic center). All individual and collective egos are involved in programs of "self"-destruction (via patterns of ego-possession, "self"-seeking, "self"-indulgence, reactive emotion, un-En-Light-ened thinking, and so forth), as well as "other"-destruction (via all kinds of reactive activity, based on "self"-concern, that seeks to control, and, ultimately, to dominate, whatever is presumed to be "outside" the "self"-center).
The search for the independent preservation and ultimate enhancement of the separate "self" is the universal model of un-En-Light-ened egoity. Therefore, suffering, power struggle, and war are inevitable in egoic society. And, if the capability for political manipulation and war becomes technologically profound, universal suppression (via aggressive political efforts) and universal destruction (via war) become the common expectation and destiny of all human beings.
The present "late-time" (or "dark" epoch) is just such a time of technological sophistication, in which the egoic model of humanity and human society is the universal basis of mind. Gross materialism (in science and politics) gives human beings no option in the mind except that of the trapped and threatened animal. Therefore, a fiery mood is abroad — full of gross desire, frustration, fear, despair, and aggressive reactivity. The egoic motive of "self"-preservation is approaching its most destructive mood — the mood that appears in the moment of ultimate entrapment. In that mood, there is no longer any will to preserve "self" or world or any others. There is simply explosive fire — based on the deep motives of egoic "self"-preservation, but reduced to action that is most primitive and entirely destructive of both "self" and "not-self". In the collective mind of humanity in the present and growing extremes of entrapment, the explosion of great nuclear bombs merely represents the archetype of anger itself. And it is for this reason that the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, in the extreme moment of the now rising political confrontations, is an irrational — and, therefore, entirely possible, if not inevitable — event.
Past societies have, in their extreme moments of confrontation, destroyed themselves, as well as their opponents. This is because ego-based societies function in essentially the same manner as egoic individuals. Individual human beings kill others and themselves every day. Therefore, groups and societies, confronting one another in egoic fashion, likewise threaten one another with destruction. And, in the extreme moments of confrontation, when "self"-preservation achieves its peak of righteous irrationality, it is profoundly likely that nuclear war will result.
The motives of present-day society are the same as those of past societies. The only difference is that, in the present day, the technology of both communication and confrontation has become both globally extended and profound. Therefore, when globally communicated confrontation reaches its peak of irrationality, war-motives will willingly destroy the entire world — just as readily as, in the past, less technologically sophisticated war-makers have wiped their petty local warring tribes from the face of the Earth.
3.
Many people are now trying to influence governments to abandon nuclear weapons. However, even if they succeed, irrational individuals and groups can still threaten and destroy the common order with "terrorist" tactics and "home-made" bombs. And the "limited" (or non-nuclear) warfare that might still erupt between governments that agree not to make nuclear war is just as much a threat to humanity as any nuclear war.
Therefore, it is now time to accept the political necessity for an end to confrontation-politics, and the establishment of a unified political entity to directly and truly and formally and accountably serve the right collective interests of humankind as a whole. Human beings must abandon their ancient egoic principles and renounce their political, social, and cultural provincialism. Individuals within the collective order of humankind may yet suffer the un-En-Light-ened and immature disabilities of egocentric personality — but governments themselves, as well as institutions and leaders in every area of human endeavor, must abandon the egocentric, subhuman, merely materialistic, non-cooperative, and intolerant (or loveless) posture and style of life. Indeed, humanity as a whole, in the form of a Global Cooperative Forum, must come forward and accept responsibility, in a unified (and truly representative and accountable) manner, for the indivisible representation of its collective interests.
Have you not had enough of the brute, stupid, childish, and (otherwise) adolescent, exploitative representation of human (or, really, subhuman) existence that is played out daily (in the name, and on the lives, of each and every born human being) by competing governments, politicians, militarists, scientists, technocrats, social planners, educators, exoteric and fundamentalist religionists (who aggressively propagate the provincial religions of ego-salvation, rather than practice the universal, and ego-transcending, religion of love), and media hypers (who thrive on the invention and exaggeration of conflict, and dramatically showcase the worst of human instincts in the unending "gotcha" game that denudes and exposes and trivializes and hypocritically mocks the highs, and the inevitable lows, and even the natural ordinariness in the struggling efforts of humankind)? Is it not evident, in your deepest feeling-psyche, that this Wisdom-renouncing world is now being controlled by the worst and most superficial conceptions of existence?
It is now time for every one, and all, to understand themselves, and to reclaim the world from the dictatorship of the ego, and from all of those who play at politics (and life in general) as if it were a TV sporting event that is supposed to excite and entertain everyone.
Nuclear disarmament is a relatively positive, but still too superficial and piecemeal, effort. It is not a truly curative means, but only another palliative and temporary move in the midst of humankind's traditional advance toward future trouble. There is something more fundamental than the disarmament politics whereby enemies come to a gentlemanly agreement on how to kill one another without destroying one another! What is more fundamental, necessary, and truly curative is that human beings, individually and collectively, understand and transcend that which is in them that leads them to confront one another as opponents and enemies.
It may sound naive to speak of the necessity for the childish and brutishly adolescent governments and institutions to understand themselves and renounce the "self"-imagery and the techniques of enemies — but the feeling that it is naive to speak in such terms is merely a reflection of egoic frustration and despair. Human beings everywhere must now transcend that very frustration and despair if they are going to prevent the enslavement and destruction of humankind.
Humanity is living in bondage now. Humankind is already — presently, globally — bound to egocentric and materialistic idealisms that are suppressing the human freedom to live by Wisdom and Realize the Truth. If human beings do not shake loose from this regime, they are going to suffer the extreme fulfillment of collective egoic destiny, in a "Narcissistic" holocaust that will either enslave humankind (via a technologically robotized political and social order) or (otherwise) destroy humankind (via technologically engineered warfare).
It is not naive to suggest and expect a profound change in the conducting of global human affairs when those who could make the demand for change number in the billions. Nor is it folly to try to re-orient humankind when the only alternative is universal slavery and the culture of death. Therefore, all must commit themselves to understand the patterns by which they are now (and have traditionally and historically been) living (both individually and collectively), so that they can then change those patterns and the destinies those patterns will (otherwise) inevitably inflict upon them.
The egoic model must — from now on — be intensively "educated out" of the collective order of humankind. The total collective of all of humankind must be educatively re-informed, to understand the primitive egoic basis of the present and traditional collective order. That same universal re-education must, profoundly and immediately, transform the techniques whereby governments and societies enter into relations with one another. However, it is only when they are faced with the indivisible and immovable demands of the rightly re-oriented human collective that the governments and institutions of the world will voluntarily change toward a cooperative and benign mode of association with each other. Indeed, if this does not occur soon, humanity will be entering into what has the potential to be the most destructive period of political confrontation in its history.
4.
A benign and tolerant and cooperative (or thoroughly ego-transcending) view of existence (and, thus, of politics) must now arise in the collective of humankind as a whole. At the present time, human beings are being led to enslavement and destruction by benighted materialists and "self"-seekers in every area of common human endeavor. The Principle of Wisdom has been replaced by the principle of power-through-knowledge — and knowledge has come to mean the views and presumed knowledge determined by the culture and method of scientific materialism, or all that can be achieved or supported exclusively by the intellectual efforts of materialistic philosophy. Science (which has characteristically identified itself with the archaic and false philosophy of materialism) has itself, thus, become identical to technology (or the materialistic power-machine of the "known"), and materialistic technology (along with its like in the form of all the materialistic idealisms that appeal to human egoity) has become the primary instrument for world-manipulation — not only for the material manipulation of the so-called "material" world, but for the political manipulation and gross (physical and mental) control of collective humanity itself.
The political ideals and means of the present time are materialistic, based on a gross and ego-based conception of human existence. There simply cannot be any ultimately effective change in the collective human situation until the true (and inherently egoless) voice of humankind-as-a-whole is made to be heard, and is fully and rightly represented by a morally-enlightened leadership. Only when required to do so — by the global collective of humankind — will governments transform their "technique" from a process of "self"-preserving and "other"-controlling confrontation (of their own members, as well as other societies) to a process of cooperation, unification, and a worldwide creative order, based (necessarily) on pluralism, tolerance, and freedom.
The problem of the automatic (and even unconscious) creation of suffering and destruction is inherent in the egocentric form of individual existence. It is this principle that all must observe and understand in themselves. Human beings must learn from this observation of the ego (in both personal and collective terms), and so equip themselves to freely (both personally and collectively) abandon the egoic model of existence.
5.
The life-principles of abandoning the gross style of ego-based political confrontations and ego-based social participation, or non-participation, must become a matter of active practical commitment on the part of the global collective of humankind — or else humanity will collectively move toward intolerable enslavement and even nuclear (or otherwise war-made, and cleverness-made) destruction.
Therefore, every one and all must consider, and, then, actively embrace every form of true and benign social and political cooperation and all-embracing social and political tolerance — since such cooperation and tolerance are the prerequisites for true social and political peace.
All of humankind (now, and forever hereafter) must actively embrace, and universally declare and promote, and actively require and measure the universal real fulfillment of the simplest Law and Measure of right human life: Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace.