The Shattered Realm

The Self can act very abruptly in recognising thoughtless behaviour when we take steps towards enhancing our awareness. Awareness is the weapon that allows us to realise the distinction between Self and not-Self, Living and Existing, Being and unBeing, Life and Death. Thoughtlessness is the liquid contained in the poisoned Chalice of Hope, and hope is the delusion we are least likely to destroy. Even the most enlightened of us will always hope for something, be it long life, immortality, money, admiration, a great sex life, or a better body. None of those are achieved through hope alone.

Forget hope. Act. When you act however, remember that actions can in themselves can be the embodiment of thoughtlessness. This is especially the case in the form of reactions. To react generally means to rely totally on the intransitory sense that we name ‘instinct’. Instinct is a handy remnant of the primitive brain that lingers in the limbic system, a part of the brain unfamiliar with the concept of thinking. There are times when reacting is essential to survival or social mobility, but it is only through the art of contemplation that can one learn when to and when not to react inappropriately. When one opens themselves up to the instinctive centres, the intellectual centre has a predisposition to seek shelter, and in the case of reaction, the emotional centre runs free and unbound in it’s place. This usually leads to the same lacks of perspective that blind, obsessive love and copious amounts of alcohol can produce. By adding a thinking component to reaction we take control of the most primitive part of our brain. The ability to do this is an example of the uniqueness and separateness of the human species from the natural order.

If many of the ‘multiple I’s’ of which G. I. Gurdjieff spoke can be said to be those I’s that are without thought, then thoughtfulness can aid the unified Self come into existence by limiting the power and influence of the false personalities. By becoming Lord of the Mansion, the instinctive, thinking, and feeling centres converge, and thoughtlessness is banished. The gate is closed on all sorts of potential trouble and destruction when instinct and emotion are bound by thought. Listen to the news or read a newspaper and notice how many of the tragedies reported, whether accidental, incidental, or purposefully committed, are related to a person or persons acting mechanically or emotionally whilst remaining thoughtless.

What word could better summarise the sleeping, mechanical masses than thoughtless? What force is there that leads to so much destruction. If your life is prematurely stolen from you (with the exception of certain illnesses) it will be through the thoughtless actions of either yourself or others.. The couch potatoes, career criminals, thugs, and vacant masses who stain modern humanity squander their right to meaningful existence because of the Etins of thoughtlessness. What greater example is there of a virulent meme that unifies the essence of both Apep and Osiris into one easy to swallow capsule in the modern world?

The main catalyst for the spread of the virus of thoughtlessness is ignorance. Whether they know it or not, and despite how enlightened they might like to think they are, ignorance is the Raison d’Être for the major part of the human race. It is the deliberate, or at least unwitting, lack of thought that leads to the actualisation of self-annihilation, whether it be via the ignorance is bliss mindset of the comfortably numb, the pistis of major world religions, or the outwardly destructive hatred that leads to meaningless wars, jihads, gang-culture, and other bigotry related violence. Even those in our modern culture who would describe themselves as enlightened (mostly because they bear the modernist trappings of material humanism cloaked in either quasi-socialist guilt, or fractionally formed spiritual sympathy for others), are nothing but models of thoughtlessness, even if it is at least thoughtlessness with an agenda. Nihilism, that firebrand of the wannabe antinomian is of even less worth than ignorance. Belief in nihilism is to throw ones arms open to the destruction of thoughtlessness by choice. It’s path leads to nowhere but negative emotion, petty materialism, solipsism, personal apathy, and eventual destruction. It is the ultimate in self-fulfilling prophecies, believe in nothing, and you become nothing. You become the very epitome of thoughtlessness.

We have no excuse for thoughtlessness other than the failure to recognise the putrid veils of deceit which are placed cunningly over our eyes from the moments shortly after we are born. When we realise that these veils do not represent a part of our true essence, it becomes clear that they are in fact damp cloths placed over our eyes to smother our unique consciousness. Only when we can add the tinder of enlightenment by the exercising of Will can it begin to smoulder and burn away the dark material which binds and blinds us. This burning enables us to see ourselves as we really are and is akin to a surgical cauterisation used to repair the link between body and soul. The anaesthetic used in this surgical procedure is antinomianism, and it is only through the practice of that art that we can destroy the barriers society creates between the self and the Self.