Hi Mark, thanks for the clear reply and I hope you’re getting better now with the covid issue.
I agree with you that times are changing, nowadays we can definitely talk more openly about certain topics (just to name few, meditation, yoga, eastern philosophies, etc.) that few decades ago would have been taboo or at least confined in very small circles.
This is definitely good news, but I’m not convinced that this will help that much people moving on, for two reasons: one, I suppose the friction is so high that it will take more decades (centuries?) until it will penetrate society for good. Two, people really don’t know what to do with this new available information and the concrete risk is that it gets misinterpreted (voluntarily or not) and we can see this all around us with the thousands of yoga centers, yoga courses in the fitness centers, “enlightenment 101” and zen books in every library, buddha t-shirts, etc.
As with everything, the point is not what information you have but how you use it, and honestly I don’t see any good use, but rather a waste of it.
As per my view of the nature of Reality, it has changed a lot during my life (of course) so I will share the current one, which I assume (and hope) won’t be the last. During my youth I remember having some interesting insights like how we see colors (is my green that same as yours or my green is your yellow?) or about the futility of arbitrary concepts like nationality, but I was for the most part absorbed within society and followed a regular path of study. It was at age 25 when I started working and experimenting with some light drug that I began asking myself: “it’s that it? I studied 20 years just to wake up in the morning and go to bed exhausted? Day after day for the next 40 years???” So basically I went ahead with my life by changing job every 1,5/2 years with the illusion of progressing up the corporate ladder, while I was doing it just to avoid infinite boredom. I worked barely enough not to get fired (which eventually happened).
I tried yoga, meditation, read hundreds of spiritual books, but none of them could really alleviate my inner discontent. Until just recently I first discovered Advaita Vedanta (and it made a lot of sense to me, even though I still think it has some flaws), then some advanced quantum physics concepts (mainly the holographic universe and Bohm works) and finally I stumbled into Jed McKenna who’s message totally resonated with me. I can’t understand how people say they get depressed after reading his books, they brought me to heaven! Finally someone who was telling the real truth.
Eventually, I put all the pieces together and started to form my own vision of reality, until I began to realize that reality is not what we see, that we are living in a dream and all the people around me, family and friends included, are all zombies (at worst) or charachters (at best). I know I'm a characther myself and I'm trying to be awake as much as possible to notice the parts of my life where I'm just playing a part and not being authentically me (but me who?). I think I need some more time to really understand it, not just logically but feel it and absorb this view with all myself. Of course I know that knowledge is not what makes the trick here, but I guess I lack the rights words to express it. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
And last but not least, I finally stumbled into you, I just started reading your first book and I think it’s amazing! Can’t put it down! Finally someone who can tell in plain words what the hell is all about! After so many years I now understand what meditation is for (which I thought to be a useless and self-referential thing to do)! And if you don’t mind, once I finish it (which will happen very soon) and once I will have had the time to re-read it and give some more deep thought about it, I would like to ask you some questions in the parts which aren’t very clear to me.
That’s enough for now.
Take care,
Mario
