115. The third eye: Chapter 14 - The traps of ignorance

In the process of understanding the One and Only’s reality, we must minimally face the following traps:

1). The trap of concepts and names: If we cling to our learned concepts and word view we will not come to know the One reality, which requires instinctive, intuitive insight, direct perception, and experience. Concepts, terms, and names are traps because they can become fixed, unchanging, and last for generations. It's like when we're flying on an airplane and at a certain moment, the pilot announces that we're flying over the border between Germany and Poland, but when we look out the window, we don’t see any boundary lines because borders and limitations exist only in our minds. In reality, there are no borders. The moment we try to categorize reality into a class or a boundary, the life-like nature of reality is lost because it becomes reduced to concepts. Note: according to Socrates, if we clarify our concepts, controversial issues disappear. What are we, and what is the school, teaching our children today? Are we teaching them to tinker with concepts, or to cultivate the awareness of the true and the One? Why do we teach rational, analytical thinking rather than synthetic thinking that illustrates unity? The concepts we create break apart, analyse, and fragment the One and Only’s reality.

Names are invented by the mind to distinguish one action from another, enabling us to navigate the multitude of realities. Naming is also a limitation because by naming, we place boundaries on actions. It's similar to photography: it doesn't shows the original but always something different from what was before and after the moment. Photography shows the interruption. This is how the ignorant person could assign a name to the One representing the universal One, for example, God, who according to the old scripture is anthropomorphic (human-like), and can be communicated with through a certain language. In other words, the ineffable and the unnameable sacred was made profane (the sacred made worldly). We must be cautious with naming, as a name can be both a noun and a verb, representing action. Thus, God is a noun, and the verb is the One.

In ignorance, man equated God with himself, placing it in finite, transitory time. The One existed before man, and God entered our world through human naming. Naming reflects human consciousness's limitations and ignorance, and has nothing to do with the One reality, the dynamic and cosmic unity, the relational network of consciousness. On the contrary, it shows the particular, the separated. When ignorance divides unity and even attributes human qualities to the One reality—like Michelangelo, who painted the Sistine Chapel—what we name is actually a fragmentary reality, such as God. The one reality cannot be grasped by hand or seen with the eyes, nor can we converse or negotiate with it, because reality is outside and inside, above and below. To the ignorant, God is outside, somewhere in the sky. To the conscious, the Creator One is within us, in our universal self.

Some examples of erroneous concept creation:

a) salvation: our Initiation Master teaches us about liberation from the influence of the individual self and body- mind and the transitioning to the universal self. This is the spiritual task He accomplished, which is not given for free. To shift from the particular, from matter, from quantity to the universal, the spiritual, to quality, requires performing additional tasks, awareness, and participation in the creation and its maintenance with the One. He showed the method, but the execution is our task. Note: Augustine is said to have struggled greatly with the Greek concept “soter” which he translated as salvator, unfortunately leading to the misunderstanding in as "savior" or "redeemer" instead of "rescuer." Salvation is internal, while the rescue is external (by someone). Therefore, when we speak of a saviour, it refers to the transition (change) to the universal self. When miracles are mentioned in scriptures, according to Augustine, miracles only exist in nature. And he is right.

b) predestination: it refers to the self-transformation, self-realization, spiritual metamorphosis, the opening of the universal self, and the closure of the individual self. Man is inherently created for happiness, not for suffering for the sake of others. Salvation/transition is not free, but happiness is.

c) sin: a word invented by one person to dominate another, which in reality does not exist and should be removed from our dictionary. Consider how the concept of sin has changed over the centuries. What was once considered sin may no longer be, or vice versa. What the word "sin" covers is, in reality, ignorance, imperfection, deviation, the straying from the One’s prescribed correct path. Our ignorance results in matter and the body-mind ruling over the spirit, and the individual self-ruling over the universal self, leading to the "living-dead" existence, the sleepwalking life, life hunger, in other words, a wasted life.

Other conceptual confusions include: faith (self-awareness), confession (which doesn’t exist), the cross (a representation of the duality of horizontal and vertical), Christianity (which has existed as long as man), asceticism (spiritual practice), returning (turning back), our Initiation Master as the carpenter's son and so on. We do not need to follow the ignorance of our ancestors.

2). the trap of modern, so-called rational thinking: Our thinking uses far more concepts that analyse reality than those that synthesize it. Yet reality always represents the whole, the complete, the perfect, while our rational concepts represent only fragments of it. Let us ask ourselves: How attached are we to our learned concepts and definitions when we seek to know the One? To reach awareness, we must recognize that not all concepts are part of reality; some are distorting reality. Think of major private news agencies that network global information, distributing news they deem worthy to the public. Small interest groups continually decide which stories appear in newspapers, on radio, TV, and the internet etc. and which not. A few families or corporations control the world economy and the news associated with it, and the concentration of power, marketing, and deception seems endless. This holds true also for economic and political life and manipulation, for example see the tools of the City of London and Wall Street: their own money, own police, own media, etc. The failed, rational, Western way of thinking has greatly contributed to the transformation of faith into religion and morality, turning our behaviour into individualistic and pragmatic patterns, and shaping our lives based on reason and goal-oriented living because only in this way can we be "successful."