Love and The Ultimate Secret
To some extent, I should not really comment on this aspect of life until I am on my deathbed, however, I believe I have at least discovered a little part of what it takes to live in that way we all seek and so very few of us, if any, find.
Unfortunately it is not something I can prove to you empirically to a very definite degree. I say unfortunately because in general terms I am a pragmatic type of person and I appreciate the repeatability of the (honest) scientific or engineering method and as such it would be great if I could give you the option of the red or blue pill. But just as in the film, the process of becoming more and more free and more and more able to deal with reality (as opposed to the illusory constructs we all have in our minds) involves a lot of faith.
The red or blue pills can indeed be given to you, but only metaphorically and it is then to you to take the leap of faith required to make real progress in the freeing of your mind from old imprints that are not useful or based in any kind of constructive reality.
Happiness, that elusive prize reminiscent of so many mythological fables is indeed achievable as a relatively permanent state of being. Getting there requires courage more than intelligence, imagination more than knowledge and faith more than wisdom.
Allow me to tell you about The Ultimate Secret in learning to live well first in practical terms and later too in a couple of stories, because stories actually have a lot of power to help us see reality. Paradoxical as it sounds.
I concluded long ago, roughly at the age of 16 or so, that in life you really only need 5 things to be truly happy:
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Know Yourself (After all, it was the key concept inscribed at Delphi, the location of the most famous Oracle of the known world at the time) – In practical terms this essentially means removing your imprints as much as possible. Until you do this you are not free, but merely a reactive mess of the memes of your ancestors. This is the hardest part of all and most humans avoid doing it like the plague, because self-knowledge requires an uncommon degree of courage, honesty and faith.
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Someone to share it with. There are alternative lifestyle choices of course, whether this is to be a life-long bachelor, have a harem, multiple temporary relationships or whatever else, and while at a biological level the need for a life-long partnership is no longer really necessary to ensure the survival of the offspring, I do believe that at a mental level, the next evolutionary step probably needs to be one of life-long partnership. Primarily from a pro-creation point of view certainly, but probably also as a step towards greater maturity of what I can only refer to as spirit or character. Perhaps in a future far from now, a very libertine interaction from a sexual point of view will be perfectly socially acceptable and not even incongruent with the raising of similarly perfectly secure and healthy children, but we are certainly not here yet, and we will not be here anytime very soon. And if we do get there, we are to firstly develop those qualities that would allow us to have the ability to consciously and willingly choose to commit deeply and for life, before we can then also truly let go of useless emotions like jealousy, pettiness and small-mindedness, which of course would be a minimum pre-requisite for a healthy libertine society.
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A group of people whom stimulate you and whom you also stimulate. Essentially these can be simply referred to as friends. They may be temporary or permanent though as life is ever-changing some relationships will naturally also change, a balanced person is bound to have a mixture of old, loyal, permanent friends, newer ones that may join the ranks of the permanent few and others that form an ever-expanding ring of acquaintances and interactions. We must feel challenged by our friends and they by us if we are to continue growing and improving (the only other option is to stagnate and shrink), though this sense of stimulation need not ever be unpleasant. I am genuinely always extremely happy for my good friends whenever they do well, achieve health, wealth and happiness and I also know that in order for us to continue to find each other’s company interesting, stimulating and beneficial, I similarly need to continue growing in my own chosen ways. It does not follow that we have to have the same economic, cultural, social or intellectual background for us to be friends by the way, merely that in our own little sphere of the world (whatever and however we have chosen that to be) we are similar in our approach to life in terms of growing in happiness, in power, in ability and intellect.
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The ability to be master of your own time, space and interactions. This essentially boils down to money on planet Earth for the most part. As long as you work a 9 to 5 job, you cannot really be considered free. You may be a relatively content slave, but a slave you are. There is nothing to be ashamed in this, most of us have been slaves, some more, some less, but unless you can awake when you chose to, do the work you yourself decide upon and in a manner dictated by your own opinions as well as circumstance, rather than by someone else’s opinions, you are to some degree or other, a slave. Irritating, sad, hateful and rage-filled as this realisation may be, the sooner you accept the reality of it, the sooner you can begin to plan for your own freedom at a practical level. Remember though, to ensure your mental freedom before you try to secure your physical freedom. Point 1 above is more important than point 4 here. That’s not to say you have to do these points in a particular order or even one at a time, merely explaining that while neither situation is ideal, it is more likely that a free mind still trapped in a job (slavery) is more likely to find true happiness (eventually if not immediately) than an un-free mind that is physically unfettered. Or put more simply, money per se does not bring happiness. Even lots of it. Some of the most miserable people I have met were actually real-life billionaires (unbelievable as it may sound to you, I have actually personally come into contact with several actual billionaires in my life, and I expect I will probably meet some more down the line). A free mind and lots of money however, now there’s a good place to start!
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To do your thing for the world. Make your contribution to humanity. This may sound somewhat metaphysical, but I believe that every person has a potential gift to give to others around them. Whether this is limited to their immediate family or the whole world is not really the point. The point is that unless you fulfil that potential by actualising it, then some level of existential insatisfaction [1] will persist in your life. Biologically of course this also has some foundations in reality because humans are social animals so it makes sense that by adding our particular contribution to the group, (and thus improving the group overall) we should feel happier, since by doing so we have improved the genetic lot of the whole group.
Laid out this way life seems a lot simpler does it not? After all, it’s only five things.
The first one incidentally is the hardest and least worked on, and all the doors to the remaining four are really not going to be opened for you until you master knowledge of yourself first.
It is no coincidence after all that, as the story goes, when the Gods looking down on mankind realised man’s true power and felt fear that soon humans would begin to use this power and then may indeed become as powerful as the Gods and hence usurp them from their Olympian homes, they thought to hide man’s true power in the one place that man was least likely to look. Inside himself.
The Ultimate Secret is indeed Love, but truly understanding what love is and how to develop it, find it, have it in our life, requires first of all that you clear your mind of illusions (imprints) and begin to see reality as it actually is. Which is a far more exciting, mystical, wonderful and powerful world than the one you have been led to believe is “real”. The word love, truly takes on a completely surprising, deeper and yet also more subtle taste when it is really understood.
And though you may have been driven half-crazy, potentially homicidal and suicidal and utterly insane by “love”, and thus think you “know” what “love” is, I guarantee you that when you actually really develop a free mind, the word love suddenly completely transmutes into a dimension of reality that was never even accessible to you previously.
And with it, a reality, a way to do things and a way to be that will invariably leave you surprised at your own power and ever-grateful for your life and all the things in it.
A little effort in ridding yourself of the jailers of your mind (imprints) and later of the jailers of your soul (modern life “realities” like needing to have a “good job”) so that you may become free to explore the world and make new friends with which to do it as well as find that special person with which to pass on your wise, free, powerful, DNA, is surely worth it. So allow me to introduce you to the basic concepts required for you to begin to free your mind and get to really know yourself.
The Human Mind Part I (Overview)
[1] This is a deeper and infinitely more troubling sense of insatisfaction than the one which will more or less always exist in anyone’s life in varying degrees at different times —and which incidentally can and should be accepted as a positive sensation— relating to some as yet incomplete project or goal.
