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isism.org
Stop living and start existing. |
0 Why 0.5 The Experiences 1 Everything 2 Everything Else |
| 0 Why This website exists because I have had some remarkable mental experiences in the last few years. These experiences gave me a palpable realization of the bleakness of existence. They were short periods of escape from the envelope of circumstances, all circumstances. Each lasting less than a second, perhaps. None consciously induced. None resulting from any participation in organized religion or pursuit of the nebulous "spirituality" thing. All probably resulting from years of trying to come to terms with the fact that I can understand nothing. Most occurred at the boundary between sleep and wakefulness. One occurred while I was awake. After such experiences, one acquires a degree of control over one's sanity. Relinquishing sanity starts to look like an available choice. The enigma of existence ceases to be a mere conundrum; it turns into the fabric of life. You stop puzzling over the question and start living it. These words are not for rhetorical effect. Life changes. Into nothing. But it also becomes immensely thrilling; at any moment you can feel prodigious drama simply by remembering that you exist. This altered state of existence fed into my dreams. I had some indescribably unnatural dreams—truly beyond any sensory experience one might ordinarily expect even in the most fantastic of dreams. I have described all these experiences in the section called "The Experiences." They haven't happened in a long time. But I permanently breathe bewilderment; I only have to pause for a moment in my daily activities to get in touch with the raw state of existence, defined totally by the wrenching knowledge that I am and there is nothing to know. I made this website primarily because I am puzzled that people can discuss metaphysics as if it is a curiosity or something to be studied. I am puzzled by the large number of patently useless words expended on the question of existence, expended without engaging or stimulating the real, raw, exceedingly troublesome sensation of existing. The way I experience it, you cannot say "metaphysics" without starting a struggle to retain your sanity and some reasons for living. This website is intended to convey an idea of the conclusive state of mind I have arrived at after years of naivete—I am. In bewilderment. That's as much as words can do to convey my meaning. There are three reasons I don't care if I'm repeating what has been said before. First, I want to document and share my personal journey of development, the new state of mind acquired at the end of it and the profound mental sensations experienced along the way. Second, by going through this journey internally, I have realized I have nothing to learn from external sources. This is a tranquil realization devoid of conceit. Third, it seems to me that people are very wordy on the subject of existence (though this belief must be viewed against the following background: I have consciously avoided reading much on this subject so as not to contaminate my personal process of discovery). I can sympathize with the view that this formidable mystery must be tackled with a phalanx of words, but that view is not right. The section of this website called "Everything" contains everything that can be said. Further embellishment by addition of structure, hypotheses or reasoning is plain wrong. There is nothing to rationalize and a lot to feel. My message, in a nutshell, is what to feel: stop living and start existing. |
| 0.5 The Experiences Shedding the cloak of circumstances. This is the main experience. It happens at the instant when I wake up from sleep. For a split-second, I have no identity or memory, my thoughts are not against the usual background of my years of existence. Instead of a background of a lifetime worth of circumstances, I have a background of nothing. But I am awake. I can reason. I know I am. I get a strong "feeling-knowledge" that this is all. It is indescribably strange, quite scary. The experience usually ends here; my circumstances catch up with my naked roaming mind and drape it again. On rare occasions, the experience goes further—I am actually able to think a short chain of thoughts in this brief time. The first thought is always as described above. The next thought is the last, but it is a reaction to the first thought. I would characterize this second thought as acceptance of and sinking into the idea of the first thought—"This is it." I have had this experience perhaps a dozen-or-so times, all in the last few years. I had just woken up on each these occasions, but there was one separate occasion when I had the experience even though I hadn't just woken up. These things don't happen to me anymore. Haven't happened in a while, rather. You may feel that this is the normal state of disorientation most everyone experiences once in a while after waking up. I feel I felt something beyond that. Remembering I exist. What does happen to me all the time. If I take my mind off the mundane activity of the moment and remember that stuff exists, thrill arises losing grammar now electric realization—I am! things are! why be? question not form question existence am at the bottom no more questions beautiful? hah! ugly? hah! fear? hah! progress? double hah! science? hah! math? hah! god? hah! truth? double double hah! logic? triple double hah! purpose? hah! why? hah! hah? hah! hah? hah! complete bewilderment final bewilderment thrill am and.  There you go. As you can see, this cannot be done without going cuckoo. I thought I'd put together a coherent description, so I put myself in the state, and the above is what I spat out. This state of mind is not the same as the uncloaked-by-circumstances state I described above. I keep the cloak here, but I also realize I'm wearing it. Barren dreams. Once the waking-up experiences and the remembering-I-exist experiences became a part of me, I had similar experiences in my dreams. These were the "barren" dreams, where I got an acute and troubling sense of nothingness, against some dreadful backdrop such as a lunar rockscape or outer space. These are the least exciting of the strange dreams I've had. Explosive dreams. Without a doubt, this is the most spectacular thing I have ever experienced. It is a type of dream (that I've had perhaps thrice) in which the main sensation is that of turning into energy. Now, I say "sensation" here, because I actually feel it in a very non-dreamy way. This is less a dream and more a waking state of euphoria. This is why it is completely different from any other dream I have dreamt. Any description of this dream is necessarily crude, but I'll try my best. The sensation comes out of nowhere; it is not the consequence of anything in the plot of what I dream before it. I imagine, no I actually feel I am a burst of energy, am separating into my constituent atoms, atoms are dispersing at great speed, I can see every one of them individually, there are so many atoms this process will never end, I am this explosion of atoms, I'm surely a blaze by now, I am moving at great speed in no discernible direction, immense happiness, feeling of universality, completeness and sublime achievement, immense happiness, the pinnacle of happiness, release of energy, I am energy. This experience lasts a few seconds and is so strong that it wakes me up, ending the dream but leaving me sensationally excited. Once, however, I actually came half-awake in the middle of this dream, without interrupting the dream! I lay in bed, practically awake, aware that I was "dreaming" this stupendous dream. Unfortunately that didn't last more than a few seconds either. It was absolute euphoria, though. I don't assign any meaning or significance to this dream. Why the chemicals suddenly fired in my brain in this way I don't know, but the dream is relevant here, because of the way I felt and because I believe it arose out of the general state of mind I had developed due to a concentration of the thoughts I have described above. Other strange dreams. (For completeness.) During the period when I was going through all these experiences and dreams, I had other strange dreams that I don't consider strictly relevant to the content of this website. I can send descriptions if you'd like to compare notes. |
| 1 Everything "Meaning of existence" is an empty concept. Like, say, "square root of a snake." Or. The word "God," when used properly, is a short form of "meaning of existence." Saying "Perhaps it is possible to know the meaning of existence" is a little like saying "Perhaps it is possible to find the square root of a snake," or "Perhaps it is possible or day perhaps, in a pickle," or. A similarly void, useless statement is "There is no meaning to existence." There is no talking about the square root of a snake and there is no talking about the meaning of existence. Books on metaphysics are useless. This is because they are books. They believe there is a lot to say. A book gives people the impression that there is much to understand, structure and relationships to learn about. There is nothing to understand in metaphysics. All that is, is. Think no more, and you will not need to write books on what is and what is not. There is absolutely nothing more to be said on the subject of "the meaning of existence." No further clarification is possible. There will never be answers, because there is no question. If your mind is not in a mad state of frenzy now, you do not understand me. The idea here is not an academic viewpoint. It is an idea to sit and be frightened of. This is metaphysics and spirituality in their entirety.  |
| 2 Everything Else This section is not essential to my message. It has a set of loosely related writings whose number will grow over time. Some of them will be concerned with the practical necessity of continuing to live. Life is a bodily function.
All these and more reside here. |
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