



"Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord.

Heal my perception,

that I may know only reality."





I read this quote the other day (I'll tell you who by in a moment) and was nearly brought to tears. What more could we possibly and truly want? However, as many people know, Truth often comes at a very high cost. Jesus said, "The Truth will set you free." He didn't say it would make you happy or fulfill all your wants. It sets you free. In India, the word for 'enlightenment' is Moksha or Mukti, literally meaning liberated or freed. It is not so much the airy fairy groovy world that people think it is, but rather the space of absolute freedom from all your preconceived ideas, your hopes and dreams; all the things that make your life "Your Life".

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna's final instruction to Arjuna is Sarvadharman parityajya - "Abandon all your dharmas! Dharma, is typically translated as Religion or path, but the root of dharma is 'dhr', which means to hold or grasp. Traditionally, the thing people hold (or perhaps held) on to most strongly were their religious convictions. But in this case, Krishna is telling Arjuna to completely abandon (parityajya) everything (sarva) that he is holding on to. Not some of it, or the parts you don't like, but to abandon every idea, concept, thought, hope, that one is grasping to. That might even include the idea that Enlightenment or Liberation is something special.





This is why I am so moved by the above quote by the comedian Bill Hicks. If you are familiar with his work, you know that he was no saint. When speaking of the 'Powers that be', such as the government, corporations, advertisers, AND all those who blindly follow them, he would make such endearing comments as "YOU SUCK SATAN'S COCK!!!" Much like Eldridge Cleaver pointed out in the 60's, you're either part of the solution or you ARE part of the problem. So many people want only the good bits and not the bad bits. They want the eggs of the Golden Goose, but don't want to feed it or clean up it's shit. This is ILLUSION.





The Bhagavat Purana states: asa hi paramam duhkham nairasyam paramam sukham - "Hope/desire is the greatest misery; Freedom from hope/desire is the supreme happiness." Buddha made a similar point is his Fourfold Truths - that there is suffering and a way out of suffering and that suffering is caused by desire.





This prayer by Bill Hicks suggests something higher. It is saying, "I no longer wish to live in the world of illusion, to be blinded by what I want or think is right or correct. I want to be healed of these illusions and delusions. I want to know what is TRUE and REAL." Unfortunately, the truth is often painful, even exceedingly so. And I believe this is why so many people now are suffering. I often ask people if they can think of anyone who is truly happy. I have yet to come up with a name. Perhaps this is why 10 percent of the US Population is on antidepressant drugs, and only 1 out of 3 people who are severely depressed are on drugs. When you total that up, it means that close to a third of the U.S. population is depressed! Of course that's not hard to imagine when you know that a woman commit suicide every 90 minutes, and one attempts suicide every 78 seconds!!! That there are nearly 1,000,000 suicides per year and for each successful suicide there are as many as 100 who consider it.





Like Morpheus says to Neo in the movie the Matrix while offering him the red or blue pills, "All I'm offering you is the truth." And what happened? He ended up in a hellish world, eating gruel and wearing worn out clothes and fighting 'the Machine' world.





So how much different is it now? What's the truth now? The truth is we can't live the way were living. We are being systematically lied to by the government, the corporations, the pharmaceutical companies, and the media. We are being poisoned by radiation, chemtrails, fluoride, genetically modified foods. We are taught in schools to be obedient, to sit in one place for 8 hours doing what we're told. And once you're in college, they charge you a king's ransom to learn this useless shit. When we comply with the mainstream views of the world, even a little, we are committing homicide and suicide. When you pay taxes, more than 50% of your money goes to defense! That means you are paying to kill innocent people. Our so-called 'modern conveniences' are convenient at the cost of the planet, the waters, the air, the earth itself, and all of its creatures. When we eat meat, we are not only killing BILLIONS of animals, we are assisting in one of the greatest causes of global starvation and pollution. When we listen to the media (even much of the so-called education or alternative media) we are being fed lies, or at the very least concepts and cultural beliefs that just aren't true. When we vote for nearly any politician (and yes, there are a very few exceptions), we are voting for liars who, for the most part, really in truly don't give a rat's ass for you in the least. There are even politicians now who REFUSE to speak to their constituents! I mean, think about it. Why would anyone really want to be a politician? Because they want to help the world, or because they want the power to put forth their beliefs, and they want shitloads of money (which they don't get as pay, by the way).





Our entire civilization is based on an illusion called money. Remember, those pieces of paper and coins have little or no intrinsic value. They represent value. And now that there is no gold or silver standard, money represents ???? It represents nothing. It represents an idea of value. It is totally another illusion. And yet we base our whole lives upon it. How much do I have? How much do I need? I don't have enough. We're short this month. Do I buy food or medicine this month?





So, we live amidst these illusions, most of them fed to us, but without the discriminating intelligence to see through or beyond them. We choose to maintain our illusions for comforts sake. Who wants to accept that much of how they live and what they support is wrong? Who wants to know truth when lies are so much more comfortable? As Krishnamurti said, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." And yet, that's what we are. We are addicted to totally destructive and sick civilization, one that cannot last much longer. Look in history, virtually every civilization has eventually collapsed under it's own weight. Our collapse is coming soon.





I totally understand that many of these truths, when you really delve into them, are not in the least attractive. Far better, it seems sometimes, to maintain the illusion. To return to the Matrix, like Cipher, "Why oh why did I take the blue pill," and made arrangements with the machine to be reinserted into the illusion. The vast majority of us, like the billions of innocents trapped by the machines in the Matrix, have no desire to know the truth, enjoy being trapped in the illusion or Plato's Cave.





So, what to do? If you are sincere about Truth, then pray as Bill Hicks did:





Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord. Heal my perception, that I may know only reality.