The Conscious High

What really happens to your Ego when you are high or drunk? I had this theory that I developed with no scientific backup or academic citation by any means so please do not consider this post anything more than just a thought-provoking theory that was developed through a conversation I had with a colleague.

If we assume that the ego is a bundle of information that is protected by a fake layer of self that needs to be dissolved into nothingness to reach absolute poverty and inner peace, we can expect that such a theory would be extremely tough to achieve. However, man’s (especially youth) obsession with drugs such as weed and alcohol provide some sort of comfort to the individual by providing him/her a sense of escape from reality.

Ok, I know this a bit complex to comprehend but bear with me. Let’s assume that man does have an ego, and that ego is what promotes his fake self. The fake self is that which the conscious mind is unaware of. It was developed in your upbringing, adapting to social norms, education, media, etc.

The way to escape the fake self is by killing it. Killing it through natural means would require you to try some of the suggestions provided by those who claim they have done it such as meditation, prayers, or any other means of mystical practices. However, the youth, being young and wild, find a better way to reach that escape in an easier way using chemicals whether its THC or alcohol.

When you are high and not tripping out, you get the sense of being a child! Well not really childish like, but rather, the amusement a child gets in discovering the reality. He/She tends to find the smallest details fascinating and laughter is a natural cause-free effect. For some, feelings such as passion, love, interest, or even philosophy becomes of such significance. Everything is interesting. Doing laundry, washing dishes, or even sitting in an empty room is an adventure on its own.

Alcohol is more or less the same thing. An excuse to bring out the child in you! If we say alcohol for example has a 30% effect on your mental state, isn’t the remaining 70% a placebo that you have created in order to allow for a self that is free to choose what he/she wants to act like without any social or public expectation of discipline? You are provided with a “get out of jail free card” merely for the fact that you have been socially considered excusable for any action committed. Such justification enhances your mental activity to act as childish and energetic as possible without putting any filtrations that are usually provided by your ego.

Now please don’t consider this a promotion of any sort of drugs for that matter even though I might have failed to indicate otherwise. I guess what I am trying to stimulate is the idea that such individuals might be looking for exactly the same things that the other group of individuals consider these acts to be a taboo. Maybe we are all searching for the same thing which is in fact, to be loose of self! Those who practice mystical rituals or follow a higher consciousness are looking for the same escape from reality but by different means.

Maybe the problem is in our reality, or better yet, the way we are programmed or receive input in perceiving that reality. Maybe boredom or displeasure can be cured through our perception of what fun or being loose is. Maybe the reason they are forbidden in religious scriptures is because man is able to reach such a state of mind naturally through spiritual means. Or maybe man is not supposed to escape from reality and live in what the Buddha claim to be a life of suffering. Or maybe suffering itself is nothing but a perceptional error. We have a lot of maybes and no certainties, and that is honestly the beauty of reality.

Co-Exist

For the love of god, Love god. I always wonder why we are never satisfied with the idea of unity in diversity. Even though some religions teach such a concept, we always take steps and actions that totally contradicts with it. We are so ignorant in our understanding of God. Knowing God is by far the most annoying task mankind has to go through with almost a 100% failure rate. Having the illusion of knowing god is so wide-spread among mankind which results in nothing more than the reinforcement of ignorance in people’s mind. Awakening of the soul does not mean the death of the mind but rather the death of the ego.

Why do we always try to fight against any belief that is against ours and fool our self into thinking that we are the right religion by whatever justification needed! We justify our belief by falsifying others whether consciously or unconsciously. Why do we need certainty in a doctrine?!

Why can’t we all just be who we need to be in order for the world to become what it was meant to be? No one wins in the whole “my religion is the truth” competition because frankly, we are all ignorant in our own diverse unique way. 

For example, when we tend to look at a person struggling from his religious views, we take it as a positive reinforcement that what he is going through is the incompetence of his religion and that if he would search for the "light", he would come to the writings of “our” religion. However, when one from “our” own religion goes through the same struggle, we blame his spirituality, his priorities, or his lifestyle without even considering the fact that it might be the way we view “our” religion that is causing him discomfort. When will we wake up and stop this incredibly annoying habit of demanding perfection in our way of thinking and the method by which we evaluate our beliefs. We are too bias in our own religion and refuse or fear to seek the "truth" in order to stay in the comfort zone. 

Why can’t you just be the best Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Baha’i, or agnostic that you can be and work together to build the best civilization ever existed. Why do you have to spend most of your life competing on proving your religion to the world rather than providing the essence of your religion in action without any hidden agenda or aim for any converts to satisfy your ego and the so-called “love” to your manifestation that literally does nothing but feed your own ignorance/ego?

According to my limited readings, not a single manifestation gave any significance on the quantity of their followers as much as they cared that their message was well understood and applied in the world with a “label-free” strategy.

We are all nothing, and everything. We are amazing individuals. With the right education and tolerance, we would be mirrors of god on earth. We are beings that constantly demand the evolution of thought and progress! We are awesome creatures that were created to simply be awesome! Why are we so freaking lame with this whole childish competition!

Enough!

J Town

Jordan! I am here for about a year volunteering with a promising non-government organization called "youth energies society". My experience with the NGO has been mystical so far. We work with building capacities in the junior youth of Jordan. We follow a curriculum that is organized, analyzed, and evaluated on an international level. We focus on building a firm base for the junior youth as we believe that real tangible change will be through those highly intelligent individuals. We focus on enhancing their critical thinking abilities and empowering their social, material and spiritual dimensions. The program is Baha'i inspired but does not contain any sort of preaching material or religious motivation for that regard.

Jordan as a nation is very promising if the right tools and educational endeavours are applied. Nevertheless, it is still a very conservative nation. The political aspect of Jordan is stable in terms of sovereignty; however, people seem to differ on governance. The king is liked by the majority of the people and the royal family's reputation is in great shape historically. Life here is expensive compared to other neighbouring states. I might have not had a cultural shock when i moved from Bahrain to Canada since both nations are relatively liberal.  However, i find myself facing a cultural shock in Jordan. I guess this could be a great preparation if god chose my next destination to be back to Egypt.

I started my first week by being introduced to the NGO's operations and was introduced to the junior youth members of which I would animate. I am here on a mission. I am dedicating a year of my life to understand many things I have been questioning and I have been told that in service, you will find the answers.

I have been having a hard time blogging the past year as there was nothing really interesting to share. However, lately, I have been finding inspiration in the simplest things. A scenery would spark so many thoughts on a specific topic. Right now, I am working on the idea of “forbidden” in religion and a post will be uploaded shortly.

Hope you are all well and safe :)

The Truth

Whatever I am going to say “Shall be the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth, so help me god.” What is the truth? In fact, what is truth?

Truth is something in accordance with a fact or reality. The term truth in religion is being overly used to present its genuine divinity and attract mankind to the message it unfolds. A common question among today’s youth whether they are Baha’is, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, or etc. is whether the truth they hold is a fact or a belief. If each message is true, then how come we differ in our labels (another topic to be discussed in another post) or if each one has a firm believe that he/she holds the true message, then what is the truth?

It leaves an individual feeling lost and insecure. Part of it is doubt, the other part is inconsistency! We are beings that have a hunger for certainty which is challenging since such a notion contradicts the law of nature.  Investigation of the truth is a wonderful tool; however, it is not as lovely practiced as it is preached. One is left with an obvious paradox and a cognitive dysfunction. The truth is like an opinion, it varies from one person to another. The absolute truth is non-consistent in an ever-changing world. A truth is flexible in accordance to the perceiver, however, the perceiver has the ability to give such truth flexibility or limit its bound with certainty.

So what is the truth? In order for us to have a common vision of the truth, we need to have one common vision or understanding of reality which, again, impossible to attain. Awareness and understanding are two different elements. Understanding allows you to test a stimuli/event/data and be able to alternate it or fully comprehend its functioning whereas awareness makes you a part of that stimuli/event/data. In order for us to have a common vision, we need to have one common awareness as understanding could lead to a misunderstanding, however, awareness is universal and the truth is hidden in one of its realm.

The facts in accordance to my awareness are simple and do not need religion for citation. We are human beings in a world designed for our survival. We vary in shape, color, and culture depending on our historical background, geographical location, and dietary evolution. We live in a blue planet that someone back in history called Earth and it is filled with water in order to complement our own physical garment. We are primates mammals and are restricted to our animalistic nature, nevertheless, unlike similar/other species, we have the ability to innovate and present our superiority over the rest of species. Our cognitive abilities exceed other species in terms that we are aware of, as a result, our social integration has larger material outcomes that serve our needs. We have the ability to care, protect, or eliminate for/the rest of the species if we desired. We usually kill our own or other species for the misconception of survival. Reasons could include food, medicine, or material possession. We are constantly reminded by a creator or intelligent design of our mortality and insignificance by the act of death and the holographic view of our universe from our lovely planet. Our history repeats itself over and over again in terms of context. Our inability to understand our human nature forces us to repeat it unconsciously using “wishful thinking”. The laws of the universe/mankind are known to every man, yet, his attachment to his ego and animalistic drives limit his abilities to attain a higher status.

The truth remains that man is constantly striving to rise above his animalistic nature for a more noble station. He does have the ability and capacity to reach such a station but will require a high level of self-awareness in terms of self-assessment and evaluation. We do vary in backgrounds whether cultural or religious, at the same time, we are all connected whether we like it or not. We are all visitors of earth and so will our offspring as were our forefathers.

In our exciting era, globalization is getting us closer and the realization of our oneness is slowly unfolding its crystallization. One man’s story in Tunis moved millions of its citizens leading to its revolution inspiring bigger movements around the world. One physical square in North Africa filled with individuals inspired movements in Europe, Asia, and North America. On the contrary, an insurance company in USA degraded the lives of billions of individuals around the world. This is Earth! Earth is the truth and the truth belongs to its seekers around the world!

We are Earth, we are the universe, in fact, collectively, we are a presentation of the intelligent design. That is the truth! Let the message of your religion be a reflection of your awareness, not the other way around! The final truth is, we are one species, one being, one divinity, one earth, one universe, one intelligent design, and one truth. 

We are the truth!

The Third Person

“Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: Your mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Deep sympathy. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.” – Albert Camus

This is the first sentence form Albert Camus's book, “The Stranger”. I remember I was totally in love with this book for some weird reason. After reading it, I was convinced that Camus was one hell of a great writer. The book had many existentialism elements which makes one embrace such a school of thought. I am not afraid to share the fact that I have been going through derealisation/depersonalization for the past three months. As scary as it gets sometimes, it makes one appreciates so much more. The way I can describe it defers from one person to another. For the first segment, the description is simple and consist of “imagining a state of mind where you are on a marijuana bad trip constantly, ultimately, losing touch with reality, consciousness, and self”, for others, its best described as either “a constant state of deejavu” or “an unintended feeling of material detachment which is filled with all sort of existential questions about life, god, death, purpose, and meaning”.

Even though these questions might appear normal and a phase that most individuals in early adolescences go through, however, in a state of DP/DR, such questions are much more concentrated in an obsessive manner. I must make a clear distinction that DP/DR is not a form of depression, even though; such a state of mind could lead to it.

Psychology links it with anxiety or life stresses, but honestly speaking, what is psychology? It is a new branch of science that is in its early form that does not comprehend the human condition to an adequate level and base its scale of normality in a uniformed sense.  It treats the intangible with chemical symptoms to mask them instead of heal them without considering our own ability to chemically produce any deficiency in our brain using different forms of techniques such as meditation, positive thinking, or other means. Most importantly, it neglects any sort of spiritual realm in its attempt to address such symptoms. I am not attacking psychology as a discipline, but rather, giving it its appropriate value in according to my perception.  

I, along with many individuals around the world can be going through a Quarter life crisis, spiritual crisis, dark night of the soul, existential anxiety, or an awakening for all I know. Or, I could just be labeled to have DP/DR since I fit 5+ symptoms of anxiety disorder. Its trigger could be the fact that I received traumatic news about a death of a friend (which made me think about death) or it could have been cannabis intake and the consequence of college life. Regardless, it is there, it exists and it’s not fun to have.

On the positive side, one really gets to appreciate the importance of the conscious mind and its ability to be in control! One really understands the humanitarian aspect of the universe and how each individual has an active part in the universe. I know I exist, I just don’t know why and for what reason! I know I will die, but I don’t know when or where to, if any. The one desire I have is to get back to who I was in terms of consciousness, yet, not change the good qualities that was developed during the experience such as taking care of my body, socializing with individuals, sense of understanding, sense of detachment (to an extend), and finally, asking the big questions of life that differentiates me from an animal or a robot.

On a final note, I want to send out a message to the many youth that are experimenting with drugs and consider cannabis as a drug without a side effect! You are wrong! There is a reason why you do drugs and it is more spiritual than mental to be honest. Drug makes you feel “good”, you should consider why you can’t feel good “naturally” and change your lifestyle accordingly. You feel like you want to get lose or escape from reality, but the truth is, reality is what we treasure the most and our will to change it becomes weaker when you submit yourself to chemicals that provides an illusion or a temporary mask to reality! Keep your head up and believe that life is never comprehensible over a session or two. What you went through, going through, or will go through will only make you stronger to face bigger tests and difficulties.  Don’t look around you and compare your situation with others because as Plato says “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”

Much love people! 

Endeavoring Enlightenment

A few weeks back, I faced a branch of anxiety known as “derealisation”. After receiving a couple of shocking news, I believe my mind had to protect itself by changing its frequency upon a state of complete detachment. Of course, such detachment being experienced without preparation generates a fear of fear or as it’s known by the scientific community, an intensified “fight or flight” response. For the first time, science was unable to “fix” me. The scientific approach to such a state of mind was labeling its symptoms and perhaps provides therapies to mask them. Everything felt like it was a dream and I was living my life through an overhead camera. Life felt like a complete illusion and its events are merely theatrical.  In such a state, your worst enemy is your mind and silence is your ultimate remedy. After a couple of weeks, you realize that every thought is branched out of one category, Existentialism.  What triggered the derealisation is the “realization” of one’s mortality. Of course I knew that we all die, but did I really understand it?

Why do we exist? What the point of our existence? There has to be a god! What does god want from me? Why couldn’t he create us the way he wanted us to be? Why is religion the main form of dichotomy among men? If Reason and faith are separate entities, how do I acquire faith, or let alone understand it. If some questions are unanswered, then why did god create my mind’s ability to question them?

Suddenly, it hit me! It was a fight between my Ego and self. I felt, for the first time in my life how ignorant I was. It hurt so much but brings so much joy at the same time. I felt that I knew nothing! All the books I have read, all the philosophies I have analyzed and wrote papers about, all the education I was entitled to meant nothing! I am ignorant about self, society, reality, and notions beyond reason!

I started reading more about the Baha’i faith and try to deepen my understanding of its precepts. I was fuelled with frustration as the material being read was presented in an extreme form of complexity and the language being used requires a great level of articulation. (The case with almost all religious scriptures)

I reached a point where I couldn’t comprehend the material as I believe it was too advanced for my mind. I expressed my frustration to god using words both of us could understand. A few days later, I received a text from one of my friends in Jordan asking me if I would like to attend a course known as ISGP (Institutes for Studies in Global Prosperity) which I heard a lot about from some friends in Canada and India. I immediately told my dad about it and was grateful to have his support. A couple of days later, I was on my way to Jordan. I took my derealisation with me in an attempt to improve its condition and my understanding of reality. I honestly had no idea what to expect from the course except that its context should be rational.

The course was designed to be intensive.  It discussed topics such as Science and religion, Extended Family, community, society, social discourse, socio-economic development, consistency in a framework, evaluation of previous development approaches, defining spirituality, two-folded purpose, and other interesting subjects.

We went on a field trip to an NGO called YES (Youth Energies Society) where a group of volunteer work on building capacities in villages around Jordan. It’s a small NGO aiming to grow gradually with a great vision in complementing material growth with spiritual (ethical and moral) development.

After coming back to Bahrain, I have a made a decision to dedicate a year in serving such an outstanding organization. Its management, core-values, and philosophy motivate one to be a part of it and be of assistance to its gradual, yet inevitable growth.

I finally got my passion in writing and in the next few weeks, I will be sharing a lot of my thoughts with yall!

And Publish

I am not able to write anymore. I can’t take a stand point on anything due to the complex debates trapping every aspect of life. Politics is endless with debates that are dry in nature and lack any sort of relevance due to its contradicting references. Religion gets scary when two or more segments of society have the ability to have an equated faith in their own separate belief system and share the common outcome of conflict. Philosophy divides the intellectual thoughts to ideas that if one adopts a single view, it would destroy the philosophical foundation of the discipline.

Is diversity in thoughts a bliss or is it working against our limited reason. “One common goal” was the slogan of mankind after realizing their human nature as social agents. How can we unite on an idea that is variously defined by the many?

I can’t write anymore because I have a problem in preparing or defining the context of my perspective. I simply cannot accept the idea of not having a gray shade.
I had to write this post in hopes that I might be able to understand my symptoms. I have to publish this post to define my writer’s block. It might have something to do with my brain not learning anything new academically ever since I graduated. It might have something to do with 2011 and its stressing events.

I apologize in advance for this post but it had to go out.