Wisdom Quarterly; Sigmund Fraud (WakingTimes.com, Feb. 2, 2015)
The Buddha talked about four illusions, distortions, "perversions," seeing things as they are NOT. Enlightenment is waking up from delusions. We are not even awake to daily illusions. |
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“In prison, illusions can offer comfort.”
– former South African political prisoner Nelson Mandela
C'mon, ya don't really wanna read this. |
Comedian Russell Brand begins to see. |
We live in a world of illusion. So many of the concerns that occupy the mind and the tasks that fill the calendar arise from planted (conditioned) impulses to become someone or something that we are not.
This is no accident. As we are indoctrinated into an authoritarian corporate consumer culture, which now dominates the human race, we are trained that certain aspects of our society are unquestionable truths and that particular ways of being and behaving are preferred.
Psychopaths disempower many people in this way. They blind us with never ending barrages of suggestions and absolutes, which are aimed at shattering self-confidence and confidence in the future.
Bansky, the revered and elusive revolutionary street artist, once commented:
Wait, this is MY life? I thought I was in rehearsal! |
Advertising is just the tip of the iceberg. When we look further we see that the overall organization of life is centered around the pursuit of illusions and automatic obedience to institutions and ideas that are not at all what they seem. We are in a very real sense enslaved. Many call this somewhat intangible feeling of oppression "the matrix," a system of total control that invades the mind, programming individuals to pattern themselves in accordance with a mainstream conformist version of reality (the consensus reality), no matter how wicked it gets.
The grandest of the illusions that keep us enslaved to the matrix, the ones that have so many of us still entranced, are outlined below for your consideration.
1. The Illusion of Law, Order, and Authority
I can prove this is not an illusion. Obey! |
Police brutality and police criminality are rampant in the US, the courts favor the wealthy, and we can no longer even lead lives privately due to the intrusion of the NSA, FBI, CIA, NSC, DHS, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the "surveillance state" in general.
And all the while the illegal and immoral Orwellian permanent war rages on in the background of life, murdering, and destroying whole nations and cultures.
Occupy Hong Kong says no to China. |
Ukraine says no to its police, arrests them. |
2. The Illusion of Prosperity and Happiness
Why aren't you more beautiful, Ugly? |
True prosperity is a vibrant environment and an abundance of health, happiness, love, and relationships. As more people come to perceive material goods as the form of self-identification in this culture, we slip farther and farther away from the experience of true prosperity.
3. The Illusion of Choice and Freedom
We Donkeys and Elephants are opposites. |
Just look no further than the phony institution of modern democracy to find a shining example of false choices appearing real. Two entrenched, corrupt, archaic political parties are paraded as the pride and hope of the nation, yet third party and independent voices are intentionally blocked, ridiculed and plowed under.
The illusion of choice and freedom is a powerful oppressor because it fools us into accepting chains and short leashes as though they were the hallmarks of liberty. More
- Why interacting with a woman can leave men [distracted and] "cognitively impaired (Scientific American)
Those bot-generated adverts can be so seductive! How did they know we like sensuality? |
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