Before I go into this topic, I want to share where I am coming from. I used to be a highly rebellious individual for the long part of my short life. I vehemently hated any form of control and system, especially governments, educational institutions, religious institutions, science, and anything that represented authority or a form of “knowledge” where the other believed they knew better.
Idly Idealistic
My rebellion led to a descent into substance abuse and later into addiction. I was highly depressed with the way humanity was structured, and kept wishing for things to be different. This wishing was not based in any kind of effort to change things either on the outside or in myself. It was just a wishing for things to change automatically. More appropriately, I was in denial about the reality of the situation.
Ironically, even though I hated all forms of spirituality and religion I knew at the time, I was equally idealistic about how the world “should be”. There is no need for war, sickness, poverty, and all the other evils that are an integral part of our society! For a short period I delved into conspiracies. When you are deeply polarized and in denial, anything can seem like a sensible and acceptable explanation for the state of the world.
The Veil Lifts
Things changed “overnight”. I say overnight because there is not a specific instant I can highlight where my opinions changed. After an intensely profound ayahuasca retreat experience, I went deeper and started working with ayahuasca full time as an apprentice for 5 years.
It was during this period that my views shifted. Of course, it was not magical or instant in any way. It took a long time and a tremendous effort to make this shift. For the first few years, I went deeper into denial and embracing all kinds of explanations and idealistic beliefs about the state of the world. If I wanted, I could have stuck to this worldview like many or most other people who go down these paths of idealism and denial.
But in a certain moment, the illusion started shattering. I started realizing the depth of my projection onto the reality of the situation. The illusion was shattering because I was exhausted with blaming others and feeling powerless, just preaching and “hoping” for a better world, without really changing things within myself. Prior to this, even though I had been making changes, I realized these were quite superficial. I was just flitting from one belief to another. But I was not going to the depth of the issue.
Hope in our society is deeply corrupted. Hope for most people is a wishing of things to change or go away without making any effort. Genuine hope is that which gives strength and courage to make the effort to materialize the potential we wish for. But just wishing for things to change or go away without any real deep transformational effort on our part is not going to result in any change.
This was the realization that made me start shifting my perspective. I realized the unbearable pain and suffering of just being alive on this planet was something I had never consciously faced. There is beauty, but it can easily get masked when there is a deep amount of repressed pain.
The Beauty of the System
It is quite amazing that just changing your perspective about something can change it completely. From being a hater of the system, I have fallen deeply in love with the immense beauty of this amazing matrix of intricately connected matrixes. This external love is a reflection of the love and acceptance I feel for the totality of my self.
Of course, being an early fan of The Matrix, I was deeply influenced by it. The general opinion about the trilogy highlights the evil in the system as a control mechanism to keep you living in an illusion. But after watching the trilogy over 30 times in the last 15 years, while also undergoing this transformation, I can say that even those opinions are a great projection of each individual onto the movie itself. The movie may not be saying what we think it is saying.
The matrix is highlighting what we think about reality rather than giving us an idea about the reality of reality…
The illusion is in our minds. It is our beliefs about reality that keep us trapped in the illusion. And this denial about how we trap ourselves is what we project outward onto the system, calling it evil, corrupt, and a million other things.
The reason I say that the matrix / the system is beautiful, is because it is a pure reflection of the collective. The matrix is the materialization of the human collective consciousness / unconsciousness. And each individual gets from it what they need and truly want.
Most people are deeply disconnected from their true desires. While there is a lot of superficial wanting and wishing for nice things, beneath the surface, our desires are deeply self-destructive if we have not taken the time to address our repressed material.
The collective human repression is immensely greater than the repression of each individual. As a collective we have greatly failed to accept the reality of ourselves. Projecting arbitrary ideals as the “way to be”, we have ended up in a state of deep denial.
Chaos and destruction is the inevitable manifestation of a society that is based in repression and idealism.
Even so, the matrix is beautiful because in reflecting how we treat ourselves, it simultaneously gives us the way out. Neo was not the savior of the human race. Neo found peace within himself by facing the darkest part of himself — and he got the fuck out of there! The final surrender to his dark side — Agent Smith — was him accepting the totality of himself. But until he was ready to do that, Neo projected his darkness onto the entire Matrix, resulting in Smith “duplicating” himself and taking over the matrix.
And once he was free from this projection, he was neither “in the matrix” nor in the “real world”. The survivors projected the goodness onto him, without realizing that they are still trapped in what they believe to be real. And this is the most beautiful reflection of us as a society. We believe that there are saviors who sacrifice themselves for us, but those are not saviors nor are they sacrifices. Those people are gone, and the ones who did not understand what actually happened are still enslaved by their own illusions.
The Reality of the Matrix
This is the reality of our individual and collective situation. The more we project evil and good outside, whether it is in the form of reptilian conspiracy theories, our opinions about the “reality” of what the matrix was trying to tell us, or any other projection onto public figures in our present reality. As long as we keep putting evil outside and try to preserve an image of “ideal” beings. As long as we keep chasing enlightenment in the form of an ideal state of being. WE ARE DOOMED.
There is no freedom in these projections.
Idealism creates a prison for our present and future selves
If we get attached to our ideals, because they sound nice and noble, because they make us feel accepted in a society that is deeply sick, we are imprisoned by our own beliefs. If we cannot accept all parts of ourselves, we lack the freedom to be spontaneous, because all our energy is spent repressing the reality of who we are.
This is the reality of war. One side trying to repress the unacceptable parts of their unconscious when displayed by another. An attempt to dominate and control others so they do not show us the reality of who we are. And in this futile attempt, we end up bringing out the reality of who we are. The more we try to escape that which we are ashamed of, the more we enact it in alarming and bizarre ways.
The best part is that the system or the matrix, as a conscious entity, doesn’t want to keep us trapped, even if that is all we have known and believed for most of our lives. This may be the most difficult thing to digest. Because many people’s identities are centered around the fact that evil is outside. That we are in a war with evil forces and we must free ourselves. The system wants us free so that it doesn’t have to keep bearing the unbearable burden of these ridiculous projections.
If we can digest this idea, it is the fastest way to “liberate” yourself. Not from the system, but from the illusions that you create to keep yourself a prisoner.
Because the reality of the matrix is that it is a perfect mirror to each individual and for us as a collective.
Faking positivity or projecting idealism is not the solution. Praying for peace and preaching “love and light” is not going to change the reality of the matrix in any way. Because the matrix is a purer mirror than our beliefs. It is able to reflect even that which we choose to deny about ourselves.
Entering the Paradox
While I have started loving the system, I also dislike parts of it. There are many things about myself I have still not discovered and accepted. And this may be a perpetual reality. The journey of self discovery could be eternal. Or more appropriately, it culminates at the end of time.
Being able to love and hate something simultaneously has a freedom in it unlike either pure state. Giving ourselves permission to do this can lead to a life that is far more exciting than all the idealism we can imagine.
To see the beauty in the world while seeing the sickness is to enter the paradoxical reality. Which may be much more real than anything that “makes sense”.
Logic is highly overrated, at least the rational kind.
Irrational logic on the other hand may make more sense if we can open our minds a bit. Irrational logic is the domain of the paradoxical reality. And it is in this realm that we can thrive, because in this realm everything is acceptable.
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