Never before have I paid attention to the so called conspiracy theories, nor economics, nor politics. Those things didn’t really interested me, I saw them as trivial, banal and so much lacking of inspiration. I was interested in science, philosophy, psychology, religion and the esoteric. I remember about ten years ago reading in a book on Kabbalah by Papius about a magic head, just head without a body, that was able to speak and that gave answers to any question that its owner asked. A talking head with infinite wisdom that held the answers to everything. Wow. I remember I was so impressed by this supposedly existent magical source of knowledge, that I dreamed of owning such a head, I thought I would do nothing else but ask it questions until there are no questions left without an answer. On another occasion later on, doing a sacred incantation guided by another book, The Keys of Solomon, I made a wish to an all powerful dark angel demanding that “I want to know everything. I want wisdom and knowledge of it all.” I was 17 or so, alone in my room, sitting in a circle of salt surrounded by hand-drawn magic squares and symbols in front of the mirror. I saw nothing in it but my own image that almost shapeshifted the longer I starred at it. No eternal wisdom struck me at that time and I finished the ritual rather disappointed.
Back then I still didn’t knew that knowledge and wisdom are the result of much effort and persistence in learning and that those weren’t something that just come out of nowhere as a divine revelation neither are something that necessarily come with age. One doesn’t necessarily get wiser the older one gets if one doesn’t puts conscious effort in thinking. Even learning alone is not enough, one has to think, to contemplate and comprehend, to analyze and synthesize.
I began reading a lot, books and in the almighty Internet, watching documentaries was also something I used to do a lot, I’ve had periods doing just that all days long. Yes, you can call me a retard in a way I guess. I mean, I was 17 when I just discovered the riches of learning. But it was rather a rediscovery. I’ve been an inquisitive child ever since I learned to speak and an excellent student up until the fifth grade. But then in my early teenagehood I fell under the influence of bad company in bad social times. Between the ages of about 10 and 16 I used to drink, a few beers were all that I needed and then later the bad company I hooked up with introduced me to hard drugs, so I got addicted. Crazy huh, all this at such a tender age. A child. I was escaping family turbulences and I guess I needed some sort of everyday meaning that the drugs just provided. Anyway, the dark ages of my youth were ended for good at the age of 16, when my father finally took some parental responsibilities, beat me up seriously and locked me up at home for over a month. That was his way of dealing with family issues. We changed neighborhoods too and this was the beginning of my personal Renaissance. He left us after a few years and this was the end of the beginning of my new life without oppression and domestic tension.
And so my conscious quest for knowledge and wisdom began. I was mesmerized by the profound mysteries of the esoteric teachings and religions. Back on track in search of God after I got disillusioned about Her, never answering my prayers when I was 10 about peace and love between mother and father. By that time (after my dark ages) I already had come to the conclusion that there was something else guiding human behavior and relationships, so I got interested in psychology. I read two thick books of Pier Dako and a high school book on psychology before stumbling upon a book of Carl G. Jung’s. Not sure which of his works was the first I read, I think it was EON, in line with my esoteric interests as well. I also marveled at the amazingness of the Universe and began reading cosmology articles in astronomy websites. Then biology, the mysteries of life and evolution. Little by little, piece by piece the big picture of everything assembled in my mind. Sufi poetry filled my heart with bliss and inspiration. Zen sayings brought food for contemplation, though that was further later on. I read the entire bible and the quran too, along with some idiotic literature like the bible of the mormon. Lastly came quantum physics to the reaches of my horizons, connecting the big pieces with the little ones, the vastness within with the vastness without. Gradually I began realizing things, some of those were so profound to me that I was stunned for days. By then I realized another thing, that I didn’t needed a talking head, I had a head of my own and that no answers come to you until you are ready for them and also that wisdom takes time, apart from effort.
The big picture assembled from the beginning to the end, from the composition of atoms to the fusion of galaxies, from carbon to single celled organisms and following the logical branching and workings of evolution up to Homo Sapiens. Everything was getting clearer and clearer the more I learned and the more I contemplated. The old wisdom was finding its peculiar correlations with modern scientific ideas and observations on the cosmos. Then one day I thought, that the nature of black holes or Singularity was closest to that supreme God entity that esoteric teachings envisioned. Then I noticed the patterns in evolution and that there was no beauty in nature, but only pragmatic behavior, every element in it had a purpose and was directly related to another element with which it interacts. Every single design detail has a purpose that is directly influenced by the environment to which the organism is adapted. The different levels of evolution, some are really fast paced and other take tens of hundreds of years.
One of the most altering realizations I’ve had was about religion and that it is a product of human mind and the collective need of social order. Religion is quite a complex phenomenon of human society indeed and it is composed of many different levels. The most superficial are those related to framing society in order to create social order, which was essential in the development of civilizations and the most profound levels spring deep from the hidden layers of the human psyche. Human psychology is a very intricate and complex mental structure too with its most basic frame rooted in our mammalian instincts. That is why the God figures throughout the Evolution of Religious Thought always bear strong parental qualities. I realized that the religious concept of God is a projected construct that served a major balancing role for the human psyche and that without it humans may have as well gone mad. Not that they are not behaving quite insanely with it, fighting and killing each other off because “Your god is not my god”. So ridiculous, if only people could realize it and go through this realization without going mad, since the psyche is such a fragile structure, so easily destabilized and illusions can prove so hard to let go of. There are so many humans in this world whose sole meaning in their lives are their religious beliefs. So sad, who knows how long this will go on. Of course, the lack of a religious God-figure in this Universe does not by any means make it a cold and pointless space. Not at all. There are levels of truth and levels of reality. The Universe, it seems, is an amazing quantum structure of energy that behaves as a system, an organism even that we are all part of.
It was tough to realize that the grown ups aren’t really grown up in their minds. The realization that mostly just the bodies of people aged, but their minds remained on more or less basic levels of knowledge and understanding without ever going beyond the dogma and paradigm discouraged me greatly. Such a tough coming to awareness. The more I realized the more lonely I began to feel, seeing that this uncommon knowledge was not in the possession of many, none of my peers. I’ve always wanted to have a teacher, as described in the esoteric books, I never met one anyway. But then I realized that the Universe itself has become my teacher and this became my personal “religion” if you will. The Universe is always around and one is always in her embrace, like a womb that cares for you, even if at times somewhat indifferently. But that again, most of the times things do flow in ways that correlate, fit in my attitude, my mindset, my path, Synchronicity is something I experience a lot, not to mention the strange telepathic-providence instances that I’ve been through on many occasions that still remain rather inexplicable and beyond willful control. Though quantum physics does shed some light on these, still a lot to learn, a lot of expanses beyond the horizon to be revealed. Not long ago I understood what they meant by “Wisdom is a heavy burden”. It is. Though, I can bear it and much, way much more.
