Put on an iron shirt

Maybe hoping for a change is a dream

Maybe life ain’t as bad as it seems

But if dreaming is the best I can do

Then I’ll be dreaming my whole life through

(Tanya Stephens)

I have been doubting to write this for over two hours now, and I think the fair thing is to give it a try.

What I want to say is difficult for me to put into words. It is like a whole message that is screaming in my head to come out.

I would not write this, you know, I would scream this.

In your face.

I am so angry. I am so angry with people not getting a chance. I am angry with disease and I am angry with the devil.

You see, in our world, in this material reality, it is all about the pressures of the mind. The mind is like a force, weighing on us, depressing us and pushing us down. The mind is a powerful enemy, it is a must and it is without compassion. What needs to be done, needs to be done. What you need to have, you need to have. There is no arguing it seems, there is no ‘but’. It is just ‘this thing’ and that is all.

Freud was not the first to notice that the mind was a disease, though he was perhaps the first big figure in the West.

The Buddha has claimed that the clinging of the mind was suffering. And it is.

Imagine, which is not so hard to do, that there is something you always need to have, something you always need to do. Perhaps you need to wash your hands every fifteen minutes, perhaps you always need to do something else. Perhaps you always need a cigarette when you go to the bathroom, perhaps you always need more money than the rest.

What is it, that you need to have, what is it that you need to do?

It is a need, isn’t it, and it is a pain in the ass.

You may say, why do I always need… It is like the basic characteristic of addiction. Perhaps you need another beer, perhaps you need another line of cocaine. You need, you need, you need.

It is there, right in your head, it is there with force, it is there with pressure, and it pains you, and it will not let you be.

A friend of mine made a shamanic journey for me one day, and the final vision was that of a world of ice that melted and all sorts of beautiful flowers coming to life.

This is what it’s about! This is what it’s about in the end.

For Freud has pointed us into the direction that the mind is a kind of resistance, it is opposing the energies that are living in our souls. We suffer from the forces of the mind because we are keeping things down. The mind is keeping things hidden and down. The mind is freezing the free flowing of our consciousness and our awareness.

In fact, the mind is not about enjoying life at all. On the contrary, the mind is always keeping us from experiencing bliss, experiencing joy, experiencing ecstasy and experiencing eternity.

It is probably redundant to quote William Blake, saying the if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

You see, there is a conscious awareness flowing through creation, there is a sensitivity that inspires all. It inspires you, it inspires me, it inspires my dog and it inspires the plant on my living room closet. Everything is aware, everything senses. The cat walking by under the tree senses the tree sensing her walking by.

Reality is awake.

It is only man, only us, the human race, who suffer from a force that opposes this naturally flowing intelligence, this divine trait of awareness, wakefulness. It is only man who suffers from the blinding of the senses, the occupation of the drive by what has become characterized as the ego, the image of the self.

It is because of our self-image, that we repress certain emotions, certain thoughts and feelings. Because they cannot be part of who we would like to think we are.

It is even as strange, I believe, as to say that it is our self-image which represses parts of who we are, because of what it does and does not want to be.

And what about us, the true us, the real us, do we have a say in who we come to be, in who we see ourselves as being, in who the ego wants to show itself to be? Do we agree to the identification with this image, or do we tend to fight it?

Do we say, it is perhaps surprising, but I have feelings of anger, and I have feelings of shame, and I have feelings of grief and sadness. And I do not agree, and I want to rise up in my feelings of refusal and rebellion.

I am not what you think I am.

I am not that image.

Of course you are not. You are seeing that image. That image is there, like on a canvas, a living moving canvas, like a theater movie screen, or a 3D hologram if you like. And you are here, you are where you are, and you are watching it.

You may look in the mirror sometimes and say ‘well, that is me’. But it is not. It is there, you are here.

And you are not what the image wants to display to you, you are not what your ego feels that needs to be.

You are not all the pressure of the mind.

You are the one suffering from it.

Suffering because you are not awake. Suffering because you think you are the ego, the image in the inner mirror.

The Buddha taught us about the vision of the no-self. He said you are not the ego. Observe, and you will find out. One day, the self will leave you in peace, one day, your mind will no longer pressure you.

And like breathing, like breathing for real after ages of holding your breath, you will be free for the first time and you will be blissful. Your world of ice will melt away and the flower that you’ve always been will bloom in full grace and freedom. In surrender, in joy and ecstasy.

It is this, that is the Way. It is this that is the human evolution from being imprisoned by the mind and a slave to the ego, to finding the pearl and diamond that is the treasure hidden within, hidden by the dark force of the self.

It is when we free ourselves, through finding ourselves, that we come to lose our selves, and find that which we are, that miracle scientists are wondering about, and which is the miracle of consciousness. Feeling, sensing, being aware. Having an experience at all.

So the way is to melt. The way out of the resistance of the mind is to disagree, is to rebel, is to say ‘people think I am this or that, but in fact, you know, I feel these and these things too, although I never show’. The idea is to find ourselves, to find our soul and to find our vision of what it is we really want to create, to do with our lives, in order to realize our soul’s potential and let the light shine that lives inside.

It is a way. It is a way of healing, it is a way of shedding tears and shedding skins. It is a way of seeking, it is a way of transformation, it is a way of patience and compassion, but it is a way of growing, it is a road to wholeness.

It is the only way really, to end addiction, to end the slavery to the ego and its realm of mind. If you always feel forced to do certain things, if you always feel pressured into being someone you are not, then you should ask, with Freud, what it is your ego is hiding. What is your self-image not letting be? What thoughts, feelings, experiences are being repressed in your living existence? What fears are holding you back from being who you are?

For the mind is not your friend, the mind is not your way to life, fulfillment, bliss and ecstasy. Your mind is what is keeping you from it. The needs, the many needs and obligations, that which you may call your personality, it is what is functioning in a manner as to keep down the real and authentic, living, breathing you.

And as long as there is mind, as long as there is suffering, you know you are still frozen.

Melt, melt like the glaciers in these days of doom.

Melt, feel, speak, and have compassion. Find compassion. Be a little more real, be a little more you.

All that pressure is not you, all that needing is not you, all the compulsions and the obsessions are not you.

They are the psychotic despair of your ego, wrestling with the living, breathing, spontaneous and authentic, aware soul that you are.

They are not what make you who you are, they are what make you not who you are.

They are holding you back.

So I was thinking about the pressure, and I was thinking about the hierarchic structure of capitalism. The elite with all of their ego, pressuring the working class to produce whatever is burning in their mind.

And I was thinking, what if we gave the elite a slice of LSD, what if we mixed some magic mushrooms into their spaghetti? Perhaps they would melt a bit, perhaps they would display an ounce of emotion. Perhaps they would lose part of their pressure, and they would no longer make the working class work so hard.

And the working class, they have their minds too, they have their dreams, they have their needs too. They do not live in bliss, just because they are not so enslaved by their egos. But the thing is, they are enslaved by the egos of another, they are slaves to the egos of the bourgeoisie. They are pressured, not by their own self-image, but by the display another person, higher up the dollar chain, wants to portray of him of her self.

Of course this is bullshit, but it makes me think, what hope is there for the working class? Always working for another man’s display. Does he dream of working for his own display? You would not blame him. It is not the way, but it is better than having to say ‘o me, well me, I am just wearing a blue collar, I am no one. I go dressed in rags and I am no one in particular.’

And if that working man or woman were then able to experience his emotions, and live as the rising of the awareness within… But he is not allowed to rise, and I am certain there is a hell of a lot he is afraid to feel. But he cannot put an ego on top of it, to keep his soul down. He cannot put his own ego on top of his soul, instead, he has to put another one’s ego, his boss’s ego, on top of his soul.

So in a way, he identifies with his boss, with his ‘superior’, in the understanding that his boss will keep his soul down. The ego of the boss, thus regarded, is in fact keeping two souls down, or more than two. It is keeping down the soul of the boss himself, as well as those working for him.

And the poor man, the working man, maybe dreams of having his own ego one day. Or tries to scramble pieces of it. Perhaps an earring, perhaps a tattoo, perhaps a cigarette or a corona beer.

It is a sad thing capitalism. It is a kind of parasitism. It is a thing of inflated egos and partial egos.

Then what should we say? To each his own ego?

Or no egos at all?

To say to each his own ego seems better than capitalism, but it is perhaps a freedom and equality that is more of a doom and a curse than of a blessing. It is like a sentence: ‘I sentence you to suffer from your ego. I sentence you to freeze. I sentence you to wrestle with the devil, I sentence you to the demons of the human race.’

But at least, the working man could wrestle with the enemy within, as could and would and should his former ‘superior’. To each his own demons, is perhaps in the end more fair than to say now all these people working for me in my factory will wrestle with my demons. My demons will be the demons that need to be overcome.

And will they? Will the boss’s demons be overcome? Will the boss melt and find compassion, and find the flower of love and light living within his heart and soul?

In fact I sadly think, why would he?

Because although he himself is stressed and suffering, his demons are very happy. And as long as he thinks he is the one he’s seeing in the mirror, I guess he may assume that he is the one who’s happy.

But the working man’s mind is less gratified, satisfied. The working man does not even really have the right to have a mind of his own. He cannot look in the mirror and see himself. No, when he looks in the mirror, he sees his boss, he sees the one superior. Can he really identify with him?

So a lot of demons, and none of them we need. We need to rise up, we need to rebel, we need to feel and speak and become aware and sensitive. We need to find this mystery we call consciousness within and find that the greatest miracle of all creation is us, it is our soul, our sensitivity, awake, aware, and forever and always just who we are.

We need to fight for our truest core, to speak our most native truth, to let our most innate light shine and chase away the shadows, the demons, the dark force.

It is not only a matter of personal liberation I believe, it is as well a class struggle and it is all about what reggae singer Max Romeo has dubbed ‘chasing the devil out of Earth’.

I believe there can be no personal liberation without a collective arising and breaking through.

I believe it is impossible for the working man to fight another man’s demons. Is the working man a therapist to his superior? Then, even then, and surely then, he should not gratify him. There should be some frustration, in the therapeutic spirit of raising the spirit within his superior, of bringing his inner light to shine.

For in the end, gratifying all the egos on top of you, does not make your superior any more joyful or alive. It just keeps him hypnotized by his ego and enslaved to the workings of his mind.

So not only for your sake, but really, for the sake of saving your boss’s soul, refuse, resist.

Rebel and chase the devil out of Earth.

This thing don’t work, this system is not getting us anywhere. If anything, it is the death by freezing of all we are, and what we are, is all that is.

Awareness, the first, the last, the only.

Use your senses, come to your senses and wake up the person next to you, and next to you, and next to you.

We’re all in this together, and we may as well all help each other get out of it.

Find another way, if where we’re going is just were the demons are leading us.

To hell?

Return to truth and life itself, if that’s the only way to live, the only way to be.

And the truth, perhaps, is in the heart of your superior. Frozen, dead, seeing only the ego and the mind. Pressured, stressed, forever more. Do not become like that, but show to the world that there is another way. That there is a way of smelling a rose and smelling eternity, eating an apple and eating eternity, looking at the sunset and seeing eternity.

This too, shall pass.

But we never stop to be, one, one, one forever with eternity.

Namasté, bless the divine within you.

No pressure.

Just the love.