SniB,
I truly appreciate what you're feeling and it makes me angry that this is the strangle hold that religion puts on people. What you are experiencing is a solidification of the ego and that is the main tool which modern religion uses to control the populous.
Society and religion tells you that you are an individual with a boundary. This boundary is at your skin in physical space and at your birth and death in time. This is who and what you are and this thing arises in this world out of nothing (i.e. the soul is inserted), exists as a unique entity with an intrinsic identity (soul) and then is either extracted or simply disappears from the world at death.
This is the source of the frustration that you describe. And all these things that you've been taught to believe are a lie. They're a tool for keeping the social/religious beast that permeates our culture alive and kicking and propagating.
Here's the truth of the matter. It's the secret of the universe. It's the secret of your being.
You are not bound. You and I and all things are the same entity. We are all one and eternal. The ground of our being arises in forms like flowers budding and whithering. Like waves crashing on a shore, we arise, peak, crash, and return to the ocean and nothing has been created or destroyed.
Think about your brain. It's a massive interconnection of neurons that create memories, experience, and behavior. You have sensory inputs, memory storage, and processing capabilities unparalleled in machines that we know of. But what is this thing between your ears? It's a collection of cells connected to one another and translating chemical and electrical signals which trigger complex molecular and genetic changes which cause connections to change and adapt to stimuli.
Follow the light from your monitor into your head. It passes through your eye and stimulates your retina. The retina converts the light from this text into electrical signals and conducts the information back (through your optic nerve) to your visual cortex where the scene from both eyes is parsed and passed on to higher processing centers where things like text are detected and interpreted.
So how is the connection between you and me right now any different between the connection between your eye and your brain? Right now, I am a complex processing unit that is responding to the stimuli of your post (just as your brain is responding to your monitor's photons) and I am processing that information, comparing it to my memories and experience, and, due to the history that brought me to this point, I am creating this post.
When someone is with you and talks to you, they are creating vibrations in the air that stimulate your neurons just as your neurons create signals that stimulate downstream neurons.
The notion that you and I are some separate process is false. Just because my skin doesn't enfold your neurons doesn't mean we're not part of the same process.
Furthermore, NOTHING has intrinsic identity. Think of a flower or a table. Tell me what about that thing is intrinsically "table" or "flower." Each one is made of ENTIRELY non-flower or non-table components components. Wood, stem, metal, water, sunlight, dirt, etc. Each one of these components in turn is made entirely of non-it components. Just as you are.
You are a confluence of a events just like a tornado (see my avatar on these forums). A tornado is a confluence of meteorological events that creates something complex and powerful. You are a confluence of events and experiences that have been stored and compared in your brain and have adapted over time to the unique experiences that you have been exposed to. But every bit of who and what you are is an expression of the entire universe and NOT some isolated ego individual who has a limited existence.
The hindus have an image that they call "The Jeweled Net of Indra." This is an image of an infinite array of perfectly polished jewels in all directions. They are polished such that they reflect everything. If you look into any one jewel, you see all the other jewels in the net. When one jewel is moved, this motion reflects in every other jewel. Look into any one jewel and you see the entirety of existence.
The nihilism that you express here is unfortunate in my opinion, but it's just one reflection of the motion of the universe. It's driven by the actions of many other features of all things. I even love that word, "Universe." It sounds like it's saying "The one statement" - uni (one/unified) verse (statement).
If the human race extinguishes itself, so what? We are an expression of the entire realm of nature just as all other things are. You and I are both one process. The shared ground of all beings puts on and takes off bodies and assaults itself, loves itself, is indifferent to itself, and all manner of in-between interactions.
When you see this truth, you will realize that what you are will never die. Your ego that seems to have solidified so hard is part of the expression of nature just as every thought and experience you have is. This is the powerful truth that frees you from nihilism. When you realize your unity with the world around you and discard your notion of being separate from it. Then you see that all of that fighting and resource hogging and disagreement is all just the internal workings of a vast and beautiful network of nature. Each jewel reflecting those nearest the largest, but each jewel reflecting every other jewel.
That's what Jesus meant when he said "I and the Father are one." That's what all of Christianity misses out on. That we are identical with Christ and with the divine mystery of the universe.
Does that make any sense?
__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are |