Embracing The Specter Of Systemic Collapse
By Tristan A. Shaw
14 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Let us evaluate our collective despondency as activists (the categorical minority of those who care) attempting to sustain the existence of human life. We think our role is defined by the perpetual struggle against imperial empire and capitalism – that the elite class must be vanquished through repeated protests and social organization. But limited is our mental landscapes, for their does exist an unrecognized alternative out of which our efforts will culminate great impact and change.Its essence can be discovered within your latent potential as a spiritual being, an inscribed message from our ancient past.
Awakening to this extraordinary realization – of intrinsic human wisdom – sets in motion an organic process of personal transformation. It unravels from a sacred seed of timeless beauty, spoken to by all great movements of old. And once this seed is implanted within your consciousness, you recognize the vital philosophical error in externalizing moral culpability and blame. That we, as those who care, are the only ones who cultch in our hands the destiny of human life, not the elite and its corporations. Our actions comprise the future, our behavior determines the outcome of the human experiment on planet Earth, no one elses.
Protesting the excesses of the system, although important, is not the ultimate demonstration of alternative avenues of being, as liberals believe. The system will inevitably buckle under its own weight of hubris and stupidity. Even if all protests were completely successful, if Wall Street capitulates and the Albertan tar sands is left in the ground, our global dissonance of systemic darkness would surely persist. It is a fight against the symptoms of disorder and does not strike at the root-cause of illness. Indeed, the collapse of industrial civilization is an irrevocable reality that must be assimilated into our reckoning. All endeavours to sustain our current system, through faith in modern science or some sanguine hope in a mass awakening, will, in the end, only deepen our philosophical apathy.
But there are those among us who are demonstrating the Gandhian method of “becoming the change you want to see in the world.” They access a higher octave of mind by harmonizing the creative intelligence between Heaven and Earth, Fire and Water, Male and Female, Logic and Intuition. They understand that our institutional conditioning is designed to unbalance mind with the discord of hypermasculinity – left-brained instrumental rationality. Thus, the justification of the entire system is made possible. Patriarchy is the ultimate perversion of nature, and its result is the elevation of those who can best exploit, manipulate, and dominate others. It describes how we all operate within the modern epoch: we serve the idea of linear time, of a virulent professionalism, individual self-promotion and a blind faith in the presupposition of belief. We organize our whole realities to suit this gross fabrication, this deluded worship of the Male polarity. Because when you can effectively bring those two polar dimensions into equilibrium, by virtue of nature’s perfection, we break through our imposed mental confines, our imposed intellectual prison, and instantaneously become the living, breathing solution to all our ills.
The intelligence of the human heart, spoken to by so many, becomes palpable, and therefore we begin to “feel” the travesties of modern materialism. Nihilism is the engine that compels the masses toward perpetual consumption and blind subservience; inner harmony rejects this endless pursuit to fill a spiritual void. No more searching for answers, like how to bring about external revolution, for the answer lies only within. From the Emerald Tablets of Thoth:
“Seek ye forever in the veil of the darkness,
somewhere ye shall surely find Light.
Hidden and buried, lost to man's knowledge,
deep in the finite the Infinite exists.
Lost, but existing, flowing through all things,
living in ALL is the INFINITE BRAIN.
In all space, there is only ONE wisdom.”
“Turn thy thoughts inward not outward.
Find thou the Light-Soul within.
Know that thou art the MASTER.
All else is brought from within.
Grow thou to realms of brightness.
Hold thou thy thought on the Light.”
Thus, the corruption of liberal thought, and the mainstream scientific world at large, is made evident. We saturate our day-to-day lives in a constant repetition of liberal analyses, the same old monolithic approach to current affairs. An ancient principle of philosophy is that one must be challenged by a plural contrast of honest thinkers. That we all ascend within an infinite degree of spiritual development, and therefore, to truly illuminate Truth, discourse must seek to challenge and question the honest difference between intellectuals. This eviscerates blind subservience to an institutionally crafted, socially perceived ideal (what I call the liberal method). And if we accept the premise that it is only our group of committed, caring activists who can determine the human outcome through irrevocable collapse, what analytical value does someone like Noam Chomsky provide? If we really do seek a pragmatic articulation of our current purpose, how does Russell Brand challenge our perception? Or does someone like Chris Hedges repeat to us a kind of liberal sloganeering against capitalism and its elite that is already overwhelmingly unambiguous and clear? We cannot seek to enlighten the benighted hide of mass human ignorance (those who do not care), for such an attempt will always fail. Hence, liberal thinking actually restricts our psychologies; it doesn’t challenge us in any form. By externalizing the moral responsibility of our crisis we ignore the ancient truths that speak to us from the depths of history.
Michael Parenti has long challenged the limitations of liberal analysis. They have been called the “liberal gatekeepers,” a name denoting their function as institutional guardians of the system. They call on us to look at the implicit effects of capitalism and elite control, but ostracize those who involve conspiracy within their thinking. Noam Chomsky tells us that nano thermite found within building 7’s rubble is meaningless to anyone who isn’t a professional (that is, institutional) engineer or physicist. He sidesteps the issue, as all liberals do, by blindly adhering to formal structures of institutional power. We are taught not to question these professional fiefdoms of knowledge, these hyper-specialized disciplines, for if we cross that invisible line we breach established parameters of permissible thought and challenge the very basis of our hierarchical system. Philosophy, as an art, is inter-disciplinary. It seeks the attainment of existential relevance by unifying fields of knowledge – a holistic approach lost to the institutional methodology.
Free your Self’s from the prevailing darkness of disease. Realize the pathologies that pervade our dialect. Be fooled and pacified no longer. Despite what a textbook or modern writer may tell you, there are super-essential qualities underlying the manifestation of the material universe: there does exist both immutable and mutable forces within the cosmos. This is naturally apprehensable to a purity of intuitive-reason, that deep within the Eternal Present Moment, the self-emergent awakening of human consciousness is unveiled. The universal intelligence of Spirit, spoked to by Einstein, reveals the absolute beauty of natural law, of divine wisdom. Harmony is achieved when the higher mind, the higher Self, is activated through reconciling the infinite with the finite, the absolute with the relative, spirit with matter, soul with body, Heaven with Earth, micro with macro, and so on. We have not outgrown the usefulness of philosophy in a technological age, we have merely regimented and repressed its intrinsic value ... because it competes with the way in which we all think and behave.
So let it be known once again: carnal desire is the manifestation of sickness within the human condition. Whether that desire be for material objects, the accretion of financial wealth, or prestige, or, more subtly, for the implementation of some conceptual ideal through external revolution. Know this above all else to be true: that all human discontent stems from the same frequency of imbalance. The Buddhist articulation of enlightenment through “nirvana” is a recognition of naked Truth preeminent within nature’s perfection, a recognition of the larger cosmic beauty that compels humility and appreciation. We all have the capacity to channel this sacred impulse, this transcendent state of mind, if we could only extinguish the inordinate noise of Western culture.
Conditioned to flee from our moments of silence, we are taught to replace the tranquility of emptiness with things, to distract ourselves from ourselves. But deep within these fleeting moments of silence, of what has been called ‘secret Silence’ or ‘Divine Darkness’, deep within this ‘no-thingness’ state of mind, lies the golden key that may open the many doors of awakening. “Know thyself and ye shall know the universe.”
Conclusion
We all stand upon the cusp of modernity’s complete annihilation – a global breakdown of such magnitude that the very existence of our species is challenged. The questions are yet to be answered: does the human race have the capacity to overcome its spiritual impoverishment? Will we employ the necessary moral codes that will ensure the maintenance of our species? Can each one of us consummate the radical transformation of consciousness that will spawn a new narrative throughout the world? Or will the human race descend into collective barbarity and primitivism? Human destiny will unfold according to our ability (not the elite’s or the mass’s) to implement spiritual awakening, to demonstrate the only pragmatic solution, the only pragmatic alternative, to the virulent mutation of modern culture.
So ... the solution, dear brothers and sisters, is not found within the battle between rich and poor. It is not found within any particular protest or ideology. It does not concern itself with the plethora of rational treatise that outline an ideal state and society. It is not measured by the accumulation of ammunition or of Heinz beans. Free yourselves from confusion! The sanctity of Spirit, silently awaiting our recognition, is impervious to such mortal scheming.
Instead: to successfully vanquish the great seismic implosion of industrial civilization, of complete and utter systemic breakdown, to carry our kind through the impending chaos and mass panic, we must (each and every one of us) ground ourselves to the universal wisdom that defines our potential for greatness as a species. We must unlock our beauty as divine beings. From predynastic Egypt to the Renaissance, all human artistic and philosophical achievements point to this one great eternal truth: we are all divine beings endued with the creative intelligence to determine our fate through time. So just remember: spiritual power is infinitely larger than all the world’s financial and military power combined. Once this sacred seed sprouts within your consciousness, when you awaken to your intrinsic human wisdom and reharmonize your body with Spirit, reality will transform itself into something so joyful and awe-inspiring (so beautiful and happy!) that the cosmos becomes one perfect, harmonic symphony emanating the pure light of compassion and love.
The collapse of modernity is not such a problem after all. In fact, it is the solution!
Tristan A. Shaw is a young writer residing on an island off the West coast of Canada. He may be reached at "[email protected]".
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