Arriving At The Beginning

Much of what we call ‘waking up’ or ‘enlightenment’ is really just about our finally becoming comfortable with living paradox, which is to say living as paradox.

Our usual modality is to live through the screen of the mind with its beliefs, judgments and preconceptions. Awakening isn’t really a choice so much as it is a conscious recognition of that which is happening regardless. What is it that is finally real? Who is this one to whom we attribute all of these thoughts, experiences and memories?

These are answers you will not find in any book.

When you awaken to the truth of who you are, you aren’t in a state of knowing or unknowing, rather you are in a state of authenticity. This becomes self-evident, because no further question emerges. Even calling it a state does not adequately pull together the breadth of awareness that transcends all states.

It isn’t something new that you come across. It is always immediately available as the closest truth of who you are. It can’t be an object of knowledge. There isn’t a separate someone to figure it out, and there really isn’t anything to figure out.

Our various traditions have played a part in advertising awakening as some kind of permanent removal from the challenges of earthly existence, in which we are removed to some distant heaven or nirvana in a perfected state. The trouble with this view is that our freedom is very intimately linked with our authentic engagement with this moment, wherever it is that we happen to find ourselves. In one sense, our ground of being is so ordinary we do not see it and we therefore completely take it for granted.

We have also inherited a notion of someone who as awakened to their true nature as being someone who has ‘arrived’ on a spiritual level, which is really another extension of the dream state.

These people can easily become attributed with all kinds of projected virtues and assumptions. This invariably leads to much confusion and disillusionment.

It is intoxicating to the ego to imagine that people have crossed over the threshold in this way, and the allure that we too could also achieve this, on the implicit condition that we follow instructions carefully and repeat the program step by step. In other words, if we act and behave just right, we will get it. Can you think of any other field of human life this condition has been promoted?

This is a remarkably dangerous misunderstanding. Everyone has seen the effects of this in our world. We worship those we think have made it, and this attitude filters down into every facet of life until our entire worldview and life structure is dictated by the insatiable need to arrive. The big ways are easier to see, but what about the small ways in which we give away our freedom?

For example, allowing others to decide when we are happy or upset, or placing our sense of worth in the eyes of others – as though we even knew what they were seeing!

This is all a very elaborate, coherent, and above all convincing illusion, and it is one we have all bought into at some point. Some of us continue to pay the subscription to this worldview, while others among us have grown to see it as flimsy and untenable, but are not really quite sure what could replace it as a foundation.

This brings us to awakening to yourself as awareness, which is simply the withdrawal of identity from the pervasive illusions of the mind-ego, and quite literally, coming to your senses.

This withdrawal from illusion is actually easy in principle. You simply stop investing your energy in what you recognise to be illusory. The mechanism is quite simple, only it requires a lot of honesty which is usually leveraged upon the total dissatisfaction with the consensus of illusory beliefs which form the status quo.

The difficulty comes from the tendency to withdraw from illusion being quite painful, at least initially. It can very often lead to pain in the same way that recovering from a foolish investment can be painful, because often there is a great degree of investment by way of time, money and resources.

When there is only who you truly are, then what will end is the mind’s fascination with the mythologised ‘other’ which is always frustratingly just out of your reach. Your hunger for spiritual attainment will naturally retire, and you will accommodate no opinion of yourself – yours nor anyone elses, because you will know that in the final analysis, none of this touches who you truly are.

This is not a theory, but an experiential transition. Be forewarned – you will not gain anything. In fact, you will lose your fictional world, and you will know your place humbly amongst your brothers and sisters. The only part of you that desires reconnection with what is real is the only part of you that is real.

We are so hungry for the imagined reality of this success that we will often bargain away nearly anything in the transaction, including our honesty, our integrity, our happiness and well-being.

People are often quite prepared to allow themselves to be brainwashed by whoever they have delegated authority to on the condition that they will be allowed to partake in their share of glory.

The discovery of who you are is the termination of the primary identity pursuit, and the ending of the persistent denial of one’s own inherent freedom and worth. Awakening is the end of existential insanity.

Fortunately, you never need to worry about trying to figure out who you truly are. All you need to do is to stop energizing every thought and movement away from your natural state, and witness that which is right in front of you. Your arrival at the beginning is simultaneously to comprehend the nature of the end. This unspeakable depth of experience is what is hinted at in the symbol of the ouroboros, the serpent eternally swallowing his own tail.

It is one thing to believe that there is neither beginning nor ending, but another thing entirely to bring forth that truth within your experience. This is the sacred invitation to living paradox. You must eventually come to arrive at the point that you always were. How could you do otherwise? What else is there worth doing? All that it requires is the complete willingness to forfeit every idea of who and what you are – just for one moment.

Simon P Murphy is a Nelson-based esotericist and philosopher, and author of His Master’s Wretched Organ, a brilliant collection of weird fiction stories.

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If You Want An Alliance To Work, Leave Out The Christofascists

Suggestions did the rounds again this week that the minority parties unite under one banner. This has been a perennial suggestion since my first time in the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party in 2007. Now, as then, egos prevented the suggestion from getting anywhere. One thing would make forming an alliance to get over the 5% threshold much easier: leave out the Christofascists.

Ironically, the most recent suggestion to unite was made by Brian Tamaki. But few are willing to work alongside Tamaki on account of his toxic reputation. Tamaki is a classic example of a Christofascist, Christofascism being “the political direction of all attempts to place Christ at the center of social life and history.”

Tamaki, like his fellows Elliot Ikilei and Leighton Baker, wants to use the State to smash people he hates: drug users, homosexuals and prostitutes being the usual targets. The Christian fascist logic is that these people shouldn’t be tolerated. Like other fascists, the Christofascist has a massively overflated opinion of their own moral judgment.

Christian fascists don’t work well with others. Combining the ruthlessness of the authoritarian right with the arrogance of the authoritarian centre, these fascists are everything politics shouldn’t be: narcissistic, pompous fanatics who literally believe they’re appointed by God to rule over the rest of us.

Few others are as obnoxious as the Christofascist. Like their Abrahamic counterparts the jihadists, the Christofascist exists in a perpetual state of war against all outsiders. This puts him in a mindset of antagonistic, spiteful aggression, exemplified by their rejection of cannabis law reform.

As was observed at the Wellington protests earlier this year, co-operating with Christian fascists is extremely difficult. Not only do they want to hog the stage and the PA system, but they have no respect for other points of view, are happy to negotiate on behalf of everyone else without getting their consent for it, and are willing to jump in at the last minute to steal the limelight.

This level of arrogance is not as great as the arrogance that launched the Inquisition or murdered Hypatia, but it’s getting up there. It’s an arrogance that can only be submitted to, not co-operated with. So the proposal of this essay is that we don’t co-operate with them, i.e. we leave the Christofascists to form their own party and let the true freedom movement unite under a separate banner.

This arrangement would leave New Conservative, Advance NZ, ONE Party, Vision NZ and any Brian Tamaki, Elliot Ikilei or Leighton Baker-related vehicles to form their own Christofascist party. This party could then have the policy of banning all drugs, homosexuality, prostitution, music, dancing and levity. They can even freely propose to again make it legal to rape your wife.

The non-Christofascist parties outside of Parliament won 138,455 votes in 2020, or some 4.9% of the total (New Zealand First 75,021, or 2.6%; The Opportunities Party 43,449, or 1.5%; Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party 13,329, or 0.5%; NZ Outdoors Party 3,256, or 0.1%; Sustainable NZ Party 1,880, or 0.1%; Social Credit 1,520, or 0.1%). If these parties would combine under one non-Christofascist banner, they could seriously challenge the 5% threshold.

Possibly this would have to be a Winston Peters-led movement in order to get enough votes, and he might reason that he has a better chance by himself with New Zealand First (which is fair, considering that he’s been in Parliament with them before). Some might not think favourably of Peters, but he has one quality that contrasts him with the Establishment – he’s a nationalist.

An anti-Establishment, anti-Christofascist alliance would inevitably be nationalist in character. As such, it’s fitting for Winston Peters and his party to be at the centre of it. This might make it hard to integrate The Opportunities Party, who are led by – of all things – a foreign ex-Goldman Sachs banker. But integration of the others would not be too difficult.

The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party is already nationalist in the sense that the vast majority of their voters are New Zealand-born, and very few of their voters are immigrants. An alliance that explicitly rejected the War on Drugs could easily win the support of ALCP voters, and this would suit a nationalist vehicle, as the War on Drugs was an imported foreign concept from the beginning.

The Outdoors Party, Sustainable NZ and Social Credit have several quality candidates in (among others) Sue Grey, Vernon Tava, Chris Leitch and Amanda Vickers. If candidates like these could ally with the high-IQ Kiwis in The Opportunities Party (like Dr. Ben Peters), with a token representative from the ALCP, and under the paternal guidance of Winston Peters for one last crusade against the Establishment, they could do well.

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Why The Government Lets Violent Criminals Run Rampant

Many were stunned by the news this week that Daniel Havili, who killed Fau Vake with a coward’s punch in Auckland, was sentenced to a mere 33 months’ imprisonment. Havili will, in all likelihood, be released after serving a little over a year. Considering the historical severity of sentences for killing people, this is very close to getting away scot free.

This incredibly light touch comes in the wake of other soft sentences for violent assaults. In one notorious recent case, Mongrel Mob chapter president Terry Berryman was sentenced to 23 months’ imprisonment for an 18-man gang home invasion that stomped on a man’s head in front of his children. Most of the gang members involved were not prosecuted.

This has prompted many to ask: why such light sentences for such barbaric crimes?

These sentences seem incongruous with the fact that cannabis growers such as Harley Brown get a similar amount of time in prison for growing medicinal cannabis. Brown was sentenced to 27 months’ imprisonment for a piddling amount of cannabis – at most $100,000 worth. This is for an “offence” that not even 51% of the New Zealand population believes should be an offence.

Other working-class whites, like Philip Arps, don’t even have to grow cannabis. Arps was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment for sharing the Christchurch mosque shooting video.

So why do violent criminals almost get a free ride from the courts, when peaceful people get smashed? Why would sharing a video attract a similar sentence to a gang leader doing a home invasion in which children are subjected to the sight of their father getting his head stomped?

The answer lies in understanding the motivations, intentions and aspirations of the ruling class.

Everyone who knows anything about psychology knows that violent criminals cheer at such weak sentences as the ones listed above. For professional criminals, arrests and prison time are just part of the cost of doing business. The lighter the sentencing, the lower the expenses. Therefore, the lighter the sentencing, the more crime pays.

These weak sentences mean that criminals can freely intimidate other people with threats of violence, knowing that the judicial consequences will be minimal. When sentences are as weak as they are in the West today, violent criminals get to reign in terror over the vulnerable (usually working-class) communities in which they reside. Even if the Police deal to them, they’ll be out again soon enough, and in most cases barely inconvenienced.

This end result – widespread terror – is not accidental. It is, in fact, the entire goal of having a justice system in which violent criminals are left to run rampant. In a state of terror, both individuals and populations are unusually willing to forfeit their rights, needs and desires. As such, it’s easier to rule over a terrorised population than a free one.

The Government allows violent criminals to run rampant in New Zealand for one simple reason: to terrorise the rest of us into submission.

VJM Publishing wrote in a previous article why the Government lets in terrorists like the New Lynn supermarket stabber Ahamed Samsudeen. The reason is the same. They let violent criminals run loose for the same reason that they let terrorists run loose: to maximise the degree of fear the average person feels.

Widespread fear makes the population submissive, and is necessary for any authoritarian government to maintain control. Without the fear, the population would rise up against authoritarianism and overthrow it. The fear beats them down and makes them suspicious of their neighbours and workmates, so that no-one organises any resistance.

The control system has many ways of spreading fear through the populace – the foremost of which is the mainstream media – but violent criminals serve this purpose as well as terrorists do.

The surge of adrenaline people get from seeing a patched gang member in public, and the adrenaline fatigue that inevitably follows it, primes people’s minds to submit. Engendering this submission, as George Orwell showed us, is the end goal of all political action and is the ultimate aspiration of the control system.

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Ranks Of The Soldiers Of The Information War

Edward Bernays wrote about the need to manipulate the perceptions of others if we are to shape human behaviour in our favour. But, because different people have different ideas about how society ought to be run, there is conflict over who gets to manipulate perceptions, who gets their perceptions manipulated and to what degree. As such, we live in a state of informational warfare, which could be said to constitute a Third World War.

The ranks of this information war relate to the amount of influence a person has in shaping the perceptions of others. This essay describes a simple base-4 logarithmic scale that ranges from the most passive and receptive consumer of media to the most influential producer of media.

To act as someone’s main source of information means that a media channel sets the agenda for that person, shaping their basic reality. It tells them what to worry about, who to hate, and what to talk about with their peers. If it’s quality media, it will also tell them what will happen in the future or give them hidden insights into the nature of either the physical or metaphysical world.

As a basic rule of thumb, a media will be the main source of information for a number of people equal to the number of subscribers to that media divided by the average total number of media those subscribers are subscribed to. So a FaceBook channel with 1,000 subscribers, and to which the average subscriber is also subscribed to about 50 other media, will control the perceptions of about 20 people.

Another way of looking at it is that the average person consumes media for between 300 and 500 minutes every day. Taking 400 minutes as an average, that means that controlling 400 minutes of eyeball time is the equivalent of controlling the perceptions of one person. Therefore, a content creator whose content is viewed for 8,000 minutes per day will control the perceptions of about 20 people.

Yet another way of looking at it is in terms of votes. How many people’s voting decisions does this media control? After all, the main benefit of controlling a person’s voting choice is that it means you can destroy your enemies with the arms of the State, namely the Police and the other security services. As such, you have a strong incentive to try to climb as high as possible in the hierarchy of information warriors.

0. Cannon fodder/Civilian.

People at this level don’t even know there’s a war on. For them, war is something fought with bombs and machine guns, and those aren’t killing people right now, therefore there’s no war on. Any talk about informational warfare is “conspiracy theory”. People in this category range from the borderline skeptical at one end to those who believe 100% of what the television says at the other.

The cannon fodder in the information wars are those who watch the television news, listen to the radio or mindlessly click through YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter. They are the receptive principle that is battled for by the ranking officers of the information war: the middle-aged soap opera-watching housewives of the digital age.

1. Corporal (control 1-4 viewers)

This level is when a person controls the perceptions of a handful of other people as well as themselves. It corresponds to Aristotle’s idea that the head of a household was the basic unit of political structure. It’s roughly the amount of influence wielded by a part-time op-ed writer for a small town newspaper – just enough to tip the balance for a few people.

Someone at this level will control up to 1,600 minutes of eyeball time every day. This is like having one article of 800 words read 320 times, roughly the rate of a high-quality post on a decent-sized Internet forum. It might be equal to the ability to make a handful of sales per day.

2. Sergeant (control 5-16 viewers)

This level is equivalent to a person who has moderatorship of one medium FaceBook page or Telegram channel, or ownership of one small FaceBook page or Telegram channel. Someone at this level will control up to 6,400 minutes of eyeball time every day. This is like having 1,280 reads on one’s articles.

A person at the sergeant rank of information warrior should be able to influence others to further propaganda from the sergeant on their own initiative. This means that at least some other people will seek out the sergeant for information, and will repeat that information to others.

3. Lieutenant (control 17-64 viewers)

Someone at this level will control up to 25,600 minutes of eyeball time every day. Assuming two minutes of reading time per page, this is like having 12,800 pages of one’s material read in book form per day. If all this reading was done on Amazon under the Kindle program, it would pay some $US80 per day.

It’s a level of influence roughly equivalent to the amount wielded by a clan representative at a council meeting of village leaders, i.e. someone who represented half a dozen or so families. Someone at this rank will be expected to create original content and disseminate it to followers.

4. Captain (control 65-256 viewers)

Someone at this level will control up to 100,000 minutes of eyeball time every day. This is the equivalent of someone’s 800-word article being read by 20,000 people, or someone’s 10-minute-long video being seen by 10,000 people. It’s enough influence to rile several dozen people up into action.

It’s roughly equivalent to having up to 50,000 pages of your material read on the Amazon Kindle program per day, which would easily pay enough money to live on in most parts of the West. This is a significant amount of influence, because it means that someone at this rank can work as a full-time propagandist (or information warrior).

5. Major (control 257-1,000 viewers)

To rank as a major in the information war means to be the main source of information for between 257 and 1,000 people. This is about the amount of influence wielded by one news anchor or chief journalist at a regional (i.e. subnational) television station, or by a YouTuber at the top of a small niche.

The larger bloggers are at this level, those getting at least 100,000 hits a day. They are comparable to majors because they will direct the perceptions of dozens of people who will themselves go on to direct the perceptions of dozens of others each. To fully control the perceptions of around 1,000 people is the equivalent of partially controlling the perceptions of a few tens of thousands.

6. Brigadier (control 1,001-4,000 viewers)

Such a person would be the main source of information for between 1,001 and 4,000 viewers. This equals roughly a million minutes of daily eyeball time, like holding the attention of a small city for long enough to recite a civil defence broadcast.

Being a contributor to the single most-received media in a major city or minor country would qualify a person for this rank. It reflects a significant level of responsibility, as someone at this rank will themselves control the equivalent of half a dozen full-time information warriors. A brigadier ought to be able to summon enough warriors to significantly alter public perception on minor topics.

7. Colonel (control 4,001 to 16,000 viewers)

A colonel in the information war controls several millions of hours of eyeball time per day. This means that their content either has a minor global presence or a major presence in a major country. Such a person will have many tens of thousands of other people discussing them and their propaganda on a daily basis, all around the world.

Information warriors at the rank of colonel will heavily influence those who themselves have significant media influence. Legions of people will come to them directly every day to hear what the agenda is, or what to think about certain major issues.

Examples of colonels in the information war would be Alex Jones or Jordan Peterson.

8. General (control 16,001+ viewers)

A general is the highest rank of the information war. The perceptions of the whole world are effectively under the control of people at this rank. Such a person would either be a global celebrity reknown for their opinions, or in charge of a major global media channel, such as chief editors of the most influential global magazines, or chief directors of major 24/7 television news channels.

Some might argue that controlling the perceptions of 20,000 people isn’t really very many, but most people’s perceptions are already tightly controlled by previous influences over the course of their lives and, as such, can only be influenced to a limited degree. So a person who ultimately controls the decisions made by 20,000 or more people is extremely powerful. It’s the equivalent of partial control over the perceptions of millions.

An example of someone at this level would be Joe Rogan.

The main network television news in New Zealand gets 750,000 viewers a day for a 60-minute program. Assuming that 30 minutes is watched of that program on average, that equals 22,500,ooo eyeball-minutes, or perceptual control over more than 50,000 people. The hundreds of people who work on these broadcasts would reflect the efforts of several colonels working together with their many underlings.

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