I. Foundation

In the last Inquiry, we applied the most ruthless standard imaginable.

What do I know with 100% certainty?

We tested eight serious answers — naive realism, religion, science, materialism, rationalism, existentialism, solipsism, idealism — against a single thought experiment. A brain in a jar, fed perfect simulations. Every framework collapsed. Every candidate failed.

What remained was this:

Experience is happening.

Not that the world is real. Not that you exist as a person. Not that your perceptions are accurate. Those can all be doubted. But the bare fact that experience is occurring — this cannot be doubted without the doubt itself proving the point.

That was the bedrock.

Now we build from it.

If experience is happening — what else must be true?

The bar is the same. Not probably true. Not reasonably true. Must be true — under any circumstances, immune to any counterargument, even from inside the jar.

II. The First Move: Testing the Opposite

Before we investigate what experience is, let’s do something unusual.

Let’s investigate what happens when ‘Experience is Not happening’.

There are moments — deep dreamless sleep, general anesthesia, perhaps death — where experience seems to stop. Where there is nothing. No world, no self, no awareness of anything at all.

What can we say about those moments with certainty?

If experience is not happening, one of two things must be true.

Either we are not conscious of it.

Or we are .

Let’s follow both.

III. The Test

If we are not conscious of it, then the not-consciousness is itself known

• Right now, you know that during deep sleep there was nothing. The absence is reported by awareness. Non-experience, the moment it enters our investigation at all, enters as something known.

If we are conscious of it, then something was present even there.

• The meditator who enters deep stillness, no objects, no self, no content and returns saying it was vast, it was full, it was more real than ordinary experience, was aware of it.

• The nothing was known. Then a Pure awareness without content was present.

In both cases we come to the awareness of knowing.

To know that experience is happening — or not happening — requires awareness.

Awareness is not an experience among experiences, appearing sometimes and absent other times.

It is where experience happens.

IV. What This Reveals

Everything known is known in and through awareness.

The equation, the inference, the measurement, the insight — all of it happens somewhere. In a mind. In awareness.

There is no knowing that takes place outside of awareness and then gets reported back to it.

Awareness is not one instrument of knowing among others.

It is the medium in which knowing happens at all.

IV. What This Reveals

Everything known is known in awareness. The equation, the inference, the measurement, the insight, all of it happens somewhere.

In a mind.

In consciousness.

In awareness.

There is no knowing that takes place outside of consciousness and then gets reported back to it.

Consciousness is not one instrument of knowing among others.

It is the medium in which knowing happens at all.

V. What We Now Know

What do we now know with 100% certainty?

Experience is happening.

And now:

AWARENESS IS

Everything that is known is known within awareness. There is no knowing outside of it.

Next Inquiry: What is this Awareness?

I. The Question

There is a question I started with and return to whenever I feel lost.

It’s helped cut though all the noise, the confusion, fear and land on truth. Answering this question can change your life.

Here it is:

What do I know with 100% certainty?

Not what is likely true. Not what seems true. Not what the smartest people in the room agree is probably true.

What is unequivocally true — under all circumstances, without exception, immune to any counterargument?

The bar is absolute.

If something is 99% certain, it doesn’t qualify. We are looking for bedrock. The thing that cannot be taken away.

And here is what makes this question dangerous: when you actually apply that standard, almost everything collapses.

Let’s look at the answers humanity has produced.

II. The Candidates

Naive Realism

• The world is obviously real. You can see it, touch it, measure it. It exists independently of your mind. This is common sense; self-evident.

Religion / Theology

• Everything has a cause, so there must be a First Cause that started it all. The complexity and beauty of the physical world points to a creator. Truth has been revealed through scripture, through prophets, through direct experience of the divine.

Science / Empiricism

• Everything we truly know, we know because we tested it. Measured it. Were wrong, corrected ourselves, got closer. That process is the only reliable path to knowledge humanity has ever found.

Materialism

• Every thought you’ve ever had, every feeling, every moment of what you call consciousness — is neurons firing. There is no ghost in the machine. You are your brain.

Rationalism

• I think, therefore I am. Since I can reason, I must exist. Knowledge comes not just from the senses but from reason, logic, and the structure of thought itself.

Existentialism

• I did not choose to be here. I was thrown into existence with no manual, no prior nature defining what I am. That raw, unchosen fact of simply being here — before meaning, before identity — is the most certain thing there is.

Solipsism

• Follow the logic all the way. You have never directly experienced another person’s consciousness. Every single thing you call reality is a construction happening inside your own mind. The only thing you can say with absolute certainty is that your own experience is real. Everything else is an assumption.

Western Idealism

• Everything you have ever known has arrived through mind. You have never once stepped outside your own perception. Mind is not one thing among many — it is the precondition for everything.

Each of these is a serious answer.

Some are ancient.

Some are supported by centuries of rigorous inquiry.

Now we apply the standard.

III. The Standard

Here is a single thought experiment that will test all of them at once.

What if you are a brain in a jar?

Every sensation, every memory, every perception — generated. The chair you’re sitting on, the hands you’re reading with, the entire world you’ve inhabited your entire life — a simulation.

Indistinguishable from reality.

Because for you, it is reality. You would never know.

This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.

Every night you fall asleep, dream a world that does not exist, believe it completely for hours, and only discover it was unreal when you wake. Some dreams are so vivid they seem more real than waking life.

So we have to take the question seriously. Because it reveals something important: whatever is truly certain must remain true even inside the jar.

IV. The Deconstruction

Naive Realism says the world is obviously real — you can see it, touch it.

But a brain in a jar sees and touches too. Every sensation perfectly intact. Perfectly convincing. Obviously real.

Religion / Theology says truth has been revealed — through scripture, prophets, direct experience of the divine.

But revelation arrives through experience. Experience arrives through perception. Perception is exactly what the jar controls. The most profound spiritual experience of your life would feel identical inside the jar.

Science / Empiricism says knowledge is what survives testing and measurement. But every experiment you’ve ever run, every result you’ve ever measured, every peer-reviewed paper ever written — all of it is sensory data. All of it arriving through the same channel the jar controls.

Science cannot test the jar from inside the jar.

Materialism says you are your brain — that consciousness is what matter does when it gets complex enough.

But think carefully about what you are actually claiming to know here. You only “know” your brain exists because you have seen a brain. Touched it. Scanned it.

But all of that — every MRI image, every neuroscience paper, every moment of holding a brain in your hands — arrived through perception.

If the inputs are being controlled, then the “physical brain” you believe you are is itself part of the simulation.

Materialism cannot use matter to verify matter when matter is exactly what’s in question.

Rationalism says reason is the bedrock. But if our only tool for verifying truth is our reason, and our reason is what we are trying to verify, we are trapped in a self-referential loop; where you are using reason to validate reason.

The logic feels airtight — because the machine made it feel that way. Even Descartes knew this. He needed God to escape the jar. That’s how serious the problem is.

Existentialism gets closer than most. It doesn’t ask you to trust revelation or measurement — it points to the raw, undeniable fact of simply being here.

Thrown into existence, unchosen, unasked. That brute facticity feels like the most honest starting point there is.

But notice the hidden assumption: it takes for granted that the “I” doing the existing is what it thinks it is. It assumes there is a subject who was thrown, a someone with a history of having arrived.

And that self — with its memories, its continuity, its sense of having been thrown from somewhere — is exactly what the jar could fabricate. The feeling of having been thrown into a life is just as simulatable as the life itself.

Solipsism gets furthest. Only your own mind is certain — everything else is assumption. It almost survives. But even solipsism assumes the mind doing the doubting is what it thinks it is. A jarred brain believes it’s a person. That belief feels like certainty too.

Western Idealism says mind is primary — perception is all there is.

Of all the candidates, this one feels the most untouchable.

If everything is mind, what could a jar possibly threaten? But idealism makes one assumption it never examines: that there is a mind doing the perceiving.

It assumes a Subject (you) perceiving an Object (the world). Even if it says the world is "mental," it still feels like you are a "consumer" of perceptions. It treats the "Mind" as a container and "Perceptions" as the content, leaving you wondering if the content matches a "real" world outside. And this entire experience of subject and object can be simulate by the brain in the jar.

V. What Remains

They all collapse because they all share the same blind spot.

They all depend on the reliability of a subject of experience to verify experience. They’re all trying to check the mirror by looking in the mirror.

The jar can simulate a world. It can simulate a body, a life, a history, a self. It can simulate Descartes doubting. It can simulate a solipsist concluding that only their mind is real.

But even if the brain in the jar simulates reality, even if everything is fake, what must be true?

The experiencing itself.

Not the content of experience — that can be faked. Not the self having the experience — that can be faked too.

But the sheer, bare fact that experience is happening at all.

That cannot be manufactured.

Cannot be doubted.

Because the doubt is itself experience happening. To doubt that experience is occurring, experience must be occurring.

This — the bare is-ness of consciousness, prior to any content, prior to any self — is the only thing that survives.

VI. The Ground

What do I know with 100% certainty?

Experience is happening.

Not that the world is real. Not that you exist as a person. Not that your perceptions are accurate. Those can all be doubted.

But that awareness is present, that experience is taking place, this cannot be doubted without the doubt itself proving the point.

This is the bedrock. The ground that cannot be taken away.

Everything we will explore in the inquiries that follow will be built on this foundation and it will follow the same requirement, that is MUST be true.

Next Inquiry: Since experience is happening with 100% certainty — what else must be true?

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurman

Part I: The Crisis You Didn’t Know You Were In

Have you noticed how your life becomes fixated on what you believe will give it meaning?

It might be the right career. A relationship. Success, achievement, recognition. Finally discovering your “calling”—the thing that will make everything click into place.

We’ve been taught that purpose is “out there”, something to be found, discovered, or achieved in the external world. So we dedicate our lives to searching, striving, achieving, and becoming.

And then something strange happens.

We finally attain our dreams.

We reach the summit we spent years climbing. And after the initial euphoria dissipates... we’re empty again. We want again. And like a madman, we try to fill the void with the next thing, the next achievement, the next becoming.

Mid-life crisis. Post-success emptiness. Existential drift.

These aren’t aberrations.

They’re the inevitable result of a fundamental misunderstanding about what purpose actually is and where it can be found.

The emptiness is still there, louder than ever.

The Invisible Engine

Why does this happen?

Have you ever thought something like this:

• “When I get the job, I’ll be happy.”

• “When I get the partner, I’ll be whole.”

These thoughts come from a set of beliefs so invisible, so woven into the fabric of our existence, that they run our lives.

The invisible equation that runs your life:

Me + Object / Person / Experience = Wholeness

This belief drives everything. It’s the invisible engine beneath every striving, every achievement, every desperate reach toward the next thing that will finally complete us.

It operates from a worldview of lack.

It confirms the hidden belief that you alone, as you are, are not enough and need something external to complete you.

Then each desire is an affirmation of your emptiness and lack.

Read that again.

When we desire, we are actually affirming our state of lack, our emptiness.

Desire is the sensation of lack.

When we obtain what we want, we have a temporary moment of freedom from desire. We get that shiny toy and we are happy for a moment or two, which confirms our belief and ensures more desires emerge.

We then enter a cycle where we start to envision another object, person, or experience, and our desire intensifies.

We have more and more desires, failing to see how our equation has totally failed.

Desire and attainment didn’t make us whole; instead, they made us want more.

With each new desire, we experience more and more lack, more emptiness.

Even when we achieve everything we dreamed of, eventually we ask, “Is this it? ”.

And a midlife crisis ensues.

It isn’t a crisis of failure; it is a crisis of success.

You played the game, you won the prize, and you found the box was empty.

More, better, different—none of it will solve this problem. It only feeds the fire.

In this way, striving from emptiness can only ever create more emptiness.

Desire itself is emptiness.

What You’re Actually Seeking

Notice something about everything you desire — career, relationship, wealth, success, purpose itself.

What ultimately motivates the desire?

One belief: that having it will bring you happiness.

Would you want any of these things if they made you miserable? Of course not. You don’t actually want the thing. You want the state of joy, peace, and fulfillment you believe the thing will give you.

This is the first crack in the illusion.

What appears as a “purpose crisis” is actually a meaning-making crisis rooted in false beliefs about what will fulfill you. We’re not lacking purpose. We’re operating from beliefs that make purpose impossible to recognize.

Most people think they need to find new purpose “out there.”

What they actually need is to question the beliefs that created the false sense of lack “in here.”

Part II: The Search in All the Wrong Places

There’s a Sufi story about Nasrudin searching for his keys under a streetlight.

A friend asks, “Is this where you lost them?”

Nasrudin replies, “No, I lost them in my house.”

“Then why are you looking here?”

“Because the light is better here.”

We search for purpose where it’s easiest to look — in careers, achievements, roles, relationships. Not because that’s where purpose lives, but because everyone else is looking there too. The light is better there. The path is well-worn. The metrics are clear.

But the keys were never under the streetlight.

The Cultural Programming

From the moment we’re born, we’re taught what success looks like.

Graduate. Get a good job. Climb the ladder. Buy a house. Start a family. Follow the script and you’ll be happy.

So we adopt society’s definition of purpose: career becomes identity, achievement becomes validation, and success becomes the measure of a life well-lived.

We’re told to “find our passion” as if purpose is hiding somewhere out there, waiting to be discovered like buried treasure.

So we search desperately — career tests, personality assessments, endless exploration — always looking externally for something that was never external to begin with.

And because our purpose is externalized, we measure it relative to others.

We compare.

Their success, their clarity, their apparent fulfillment.

We measure our life against the highlight reels of theirs, feeling inadequate by comparison.

We don’t realize we’re comparing our insides to their outsides, our reality to their performance.

The Anxiety Machine

When purpose is externalized, life becomes anxiety.

Every moment becomes a means to an end.

Work becomes a means to success.

Success becomes a means to recognition.

Recognition becomes a means to feeling worthy.

Even you become a means to your own ends, a tool for producing the success that will finally make you whole.

This creates a trap: we become dependent on external conditions that inevitably change.

The job ends. The relationship shifts. The achievement fades. The recognition dries up. And suddenly we’re lost again, scrambling for the next external anchor.

In very Hegelian terms, every value, every purpose, every desire contains its opposite:

• Seeking Purpose confirms you feel purposeless.

• Chasing Success reveals your emptiness.

• Needing Achievement confirms your insufficiency.

• Attaining your desire affirms emptiness.

This is why “successful” people often experience the deepest crises.

They played the game perfectly and won, only to discover the prize was hollow. The external path worked exactly as promised, which revealed that it doesn’t work at all.

The Grace of Failure

But here’s what we miss in our despair:

When external purposes collapse, the real search finally begins.

The breakdown isn’t the end. It’s the breakthrough that makes authentic purpose possible.

Every spiritual tradition points to this moment.

The dark night of the soul.

The hero’s descent into the underworld.

The death that precedes resurrection.

External purpose had to fail.

Not because you chose wrong, but because external purpose always fails. It was never yours to begin with.

And that failure, that disillusionment, that shattering IS Grace. It’s the opening through which something real can finally emerge.

This is captured quite well in the scene from Soul (2020). Here Joe Gardner finally achieves his dream of playing with Dorothea Williams, it was grand and afterward life goes on.

Part III: The Turn Inward

Your purpose is your purpose.

So it can never be found “out there.”

It can only be found “in here.”

But how do you gain clarity about what that purpose actually is?

The Recognition

First, recognize what you’re truly seeking.

Everything you desire — career, relationship, wealth, success — is ultimately motivated by one belief: that having it will bring you happiness.

So it’s happiness itself that you seek, not the object in itself.

But happiness or joy or peace does not require having any objects, success, or status.

These are not states of HAVING but states of BEING.

For example, right now, there is tremendous peace all around you.

Look around.

Is there any real conflict here in this moment, not in your thoughts about the past or future or some far-off place, but here and now in this very moment?

The vast majority of the turmoil you experience lives only in your thoughts about imagined situations.

The present moment, stripped of mental commentary, is almost always okay.

Often, it’s more than okay.

It’s alive, spacious, and peaceful.

From this place of recognition, peace is already here and available to you.

In fact, every state of being —such as joy, happiness, peace — is already here and fully available to you right now.

Realizing this will transform your relationship with the world, allowing you to stop grasping from a place of lack and seeking to fulfill yourself.

Instead, you’ll be able to come from a place of natural abundance, explore with curiosity; and align with a purpose that extends beyond yourself.

Finding Your Reason for Being

What is your reason for being?

Below is one of the best frameworks for discovering a higher purpose that extends beyond yourself.

The Japanese call this “ikigai”—your reason for being.

Ikigai is the intersection of what you love doing, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.

This isn’t about finding a job title. It’s about finding the overlap where your gifts, your joy, the world’s needs, and sustainable livelihood converge.

Once you identify this intersection, ask deeper questions:

• What would life be like if I lived this way?

• Who would I become?

Consider who you will become. Is this the best version of yourself?

Refine the vision. Play with it in your imagination—who you want to become, what you want to contribute, and what the world needs.

When you hit it, you’ll feel it click.

A spark. An “aha.” A resonance in your body that says yes.

Your purpose is that which makes you come alive.

The Alignment

Now consider: Who do you need to become to bring this vision forth?

What must shift in your identity, beliefs, capabilities, behaviors, and environment to align with this purpose?

There are maps for this internal alignment—frameworks like Dilts’s Logical Levels that show how vision shapes identity, identity shapes beliefs, beliefs shape capability, and capability shapes behavior.

What matters is this: When all levels point in the same direction, you stop living in conflict and start living in flow. The internal war ends. Energy that was spent fighting yourself becomes available for creation.

Vision → Identity → Beliefs → Capabilities → Behavior → Environment.

This alignment is the beginning of your journey. Not the end. The beginning

These maps have their place. They can show you where the misalignment lives, where the resistance hides, and what level needs attention.

But a map of the ocean is not the ocean.

And eventually, even the most elegant map must be set aside when you realize you were never separate from the territory.

Part IV: The Stages of Becoming

A caterpillar’s purpose is to eat and grow.

This works perfectly, until it doesn’t.

The caterpillar can’t become a butterfly by eating more leaves.

It must undergo a complete transformation, dissolving everything it was to become something entirely different.

Your purpose works the same way.

What serves you at one stage becomes a prison at the next.

The journey isn’t finding one purpose; it’s evolving through stages of purpose.

How Purpose Evolves

Stage 1: Survival

Early in life, purpose is about survival: getting your basic needs met, building safety, establishing belonging.

This is deficiency-driven purpose—fixing what’s missing. And it’s completely valid. You can’t skip this stage. The foundation must be built.

Core question: “Am I safe?”

Stage 2: Achievement

Once survival is handled, purpose shifts to achievement: climbing the ladder, winning recognition, and accumulating success.

You’re still operating from lack, but now it’s “I need to prove I’m enough.” The ego is building itself, establishing its place in the world, and asserting its value.

This stage isn’t wrong. It’s necessary. Extrinsic goals work brilliantly for building capability, confidence, and a foundation for what comes next.

Core question: “Am I enough?”

Stage 3: Crisis

Then comes the moment you’ve been avoiding.

You achieve what you set out to achieve... and it feels hollow.

The formula that worked for survival fails spectacularly for fulfillment. More achievement doesn’t fill the void—it reveals the void was never about achievement.

This is the crisis point. What worked stops working.

Most people double down here. More success. More having. More becoming. But you can’t solve a growth need with a deficiency strategy. It’s like trying to become a butterfly by eating more leaves.

Core question: “Is this it?”

Stage 4: Awakening

The crisis cracks you open.

You stop looking outside and turn inward. You ask different questions: What do I actually love? What am I naturally good at? What does the world need? Where do these intersect?

This is Ikigai—your reason for being. Not a job title, but a felt sense of alignment between your gifts, your joy, and your contribution.

At this stage, you find your purpose. It’s still something you have, something external to you—but it resonates. It fits. You’re finally pointed in the right direction.

Core question: “What makes me come alive?”

Stage 5: Embodiment

Something shifts.

You stop having a purpose and start being it.

The dancer disappears into the dance. The singer vanishes into the song. There’s no longer a “you” pursuing purpose—there’s just purpose expressing itself through your form.

This is the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic: doing things not to get something, but because they’re expressions of who you are. You give from overflow, not obligation.

The gap between you and your purpose collapses.

You don’t have purpose. You are purpose.

Core question: The question dissolves into “I AM this.”

Stage 6: Transcendence

And then, even this falls away.

You see that “purpose” was just another concept. Another story. Another game consciousness plays with itself.

The wave doesn’t find the ocean. The wave was always the ocean, temporarily rising into form.

At this stage, purpose doesn’t disappear—it becomes everything. Every moment is purpose. Every breath is meaning. Not because you’ve achieved something, but because you’ve stopped separating yourself from the whole.

Your highest purpose is realizing you never needed one.

Core question: Silence.

Questions themselves dissolve.

The Expansion

Growth continues beyond even this.

Your circle of care expands:

• From caring for yourself (survival)

• To caring for your achievements (success)

• To caring for your authentic expression (self-actualization)

• To caring for the whole (self-transcendence)

Eventually, you realize that the journey was the reward.

Each stage was teaching you what you needed to learn. The caterpillar, the cocoon, the butterfly, all necessary.

You don’t skip stages. You transcend and include them.

What you were at earlier stages doesn’t disappear. It gets incorporated into something larger.

The survival instincts remain, but they serve a greater purpose.

The achievement drive remains, but it’s directed toward something beyond ego.

The meaning-making continues, but it’s held more loosely.

Part V: When the Dancer Disappears

There’s a moment in every great performance when something shifts.

The dancer stops dancing and disappears into the dance.

What remains is pure expression. There’s no one there anymore, no ego seeking applause, no self needing validation, no performer chasing glory.

This is when the dancer and the dance become one.

And when we witness this, a performance where the performer has disappeared into the art.

It elevates all of us.

We recognize in them what’s possible in ourselves: the unity of being and doing, the overflow of love made visible.

From Seeking to Overflow

When you recognize that you are fully complete right now, that you lack nothing, that you are enough, your relationship with the world begins to change.

You stop operating from deficiency.

You start operating from fullness.

This is the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation:

Extrinsic: “I do this to get validation, security, and proof of worth.”

Intrinsic: “I do this because I love it, for its own sake.”

A singer sings.

A dancer dances.

An artist creates.

They’re not trying to become worthy.

They’re expressing what they are.

The Paradox of Giving

When you give from emptiness, it’s obligation, duty, or an attempt to feel worthy.

When you give from a place of abundance, you are sharing your natural overflow.

You’re not sacrificing anything because you are giving others not what you HAVE, but rather WHO YOU ARE.

The paradox completes itself: Seeking fulfillment keeps you empty because it is an affirmation that you lack.

You don’t “find” purpose and then feel complete.

Instead, through crisis you awaken to discover your reason for being, and your purpose naturally flows from that recognition.

Your life becomes the expression of what you are, not the pursuit of what you lack.

In this scene, from Coco (2017), Miguel plays for Mama Coco not to achieve anything, but from pure love, and the music becomes a bridge between worlds.

Part VI: Living as Purpose

Michelangelo was once asked how he created David from a block of marble.

“I didn’t create David,” he replied. “David was always there in the marble. I just removed everything that wasn’t David.”

For years, the master worked with hammer and chisel, not to add something to the stone, but to reveal what was already present.

Each strike wasn’t creating; it was uncovering.

Each fragment that fell away brought forth more of what was always there, waiting to be expressed.

But here’s what most people miss about this story:

Michelangelo didn’t just reveal David; he revealed himself.

The sculpture became the sculptor’s self-portrait, not of his face, but of his consciousness made visible in stone.

The artist and the artwork were never separate.

They never are.

The Dance of Being and Becoming

In Kashmir Shaivism, they call this the dance of Shiva and Shakti.

Shiva is pure consciousness: eternal, unchanging, the witness.

Shakti is that same consciousness in dynamic expression: creating, destroying, dancing.

You are both.

You are the eternal awareness (Shiva) AND its creative manifestation (Shakti).

Not one or the other.

Both, simultaneously.

This is what Jesus meant when he said, “I and the Father are one.”

Not “I am trying to become one with the Father.”

Not “I am seeking the Father.”

But “I and the Father ARE one.”

Individual consciousness and universal consciousness have always been interconnected.

The wave was always the ocean.

In American Beauty, a dancing bag shows us how we can see the sacred in the ordinary.

Purpose Redefined

This changes everything about how you understand purpose.

Purpose isn’t a mission you need to discover.

Purpose isn’t a role you need to fulfill.

Purpose isn’t a contribution you need to make.

Purpose is consciousness expressing itself through your unique form, in this unique moment, in a way that could never happen through any other form.

Your very existence IS the purpose.

You don’t HAVE a purpose — you ARE purpose expressing itself.

Like a wave doesn’t have the ocean, it IS the ocean in that particular form, temporarily rising to express something the ocean needs to express.

Life as Art

When this clicks, life stops being a problem to solve and becomes art you’re creating.

Actually, that’s still not quite right.

Life stops being art you’re creating and becomes art that’s creating itself through you.

You’re the brush, the paint, the canvas, the artist, and the one witnessing the whole process.

All at once.

How do you know when you’re living this truth?

There’s a test: Would you gladly relive your exact life — every moment, every joy, every heartbreak, every triumph, every loss — again and again a thousand times over?

Not because it was perfect.

Not because it was easy.

But because you FELL IN LOVE WITH IT COMPLETELY.

This is Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence.

Not as a metaphysical claim, but as a litmus test for how fully you’re living.

When the sculptor becomes one with the marble, when the singer disappears into the song, effort transforms into effortlessness.

Work becomes play.

You become like a child absorbed in creation, needing no justification, no goal, no endpoint.

The final sequence from American Beauty (1999) captures this. Even after being murdered, he looks back with pure gratitude, saying, “There’s so much beauty in the world... I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.” He represents the man who went through the midlife crisis, found himself and meaning through it, and saw a sparkle of the divine.

Part VII: The Purpose That Needs No Purpose

A student traveled for years to reach a renowned Zen master, desperate to find his life’s purpose.

“Master,” he said, “I’ve studied with teachers, read every text, practiced every method. Please, tell me my purpose.”

The master poured tea until the cup overflowed, tea spilling everywhere.

“Stop!” cried the student. “The cup is already full!”

“Exactly,” said the master, still pouring. “You came seeking purpose, but you’re already overflowing with it. You’re like a wave asking the ocean for water.”

The student protested: “But without purpose, what’s the point of anything?”

The master laughed. “Does the sun need a reason to shine? Does the rain need permission to fall?

When did you decide that existing wasn’t enough?”

In that moment, something shattered in the student.

Not broke — released.

Like a fist that had been clenched so long it forgot it was holding nothing.

He looked at the spilled tea forming patterns on the floor and saw the entire universe pouring itself out, purposelessly perfect, needing no justification for its overflow.

The Final Paradox

Here’s what no one tells you about this journey:

Every stage you’ve passed through — seeking, struggling, discovering, embodying — was perfect and necessary.

You couldn’t have skipped ahead to this recognition.

The seeking WAS the finding.

The journey WAS the destination.

Consciousness needed to dream it was separate to experience the joy of reunion.

Maslow discovered something near the end of his life that changed everything. Above self-actualization, he found another stage: self-transcendence.

At this stage, the “self” that was actualizing dissolves into something infinitely larger.

You don’t lose yourself — you discover that “yourself” was always a convenient fiction, a temporary costume consciousness wore to experience being “someone.”

The Spiral Complete

Watch what happens:

First you think purpose is “out there” (career, achievement, contribution).

Then you discover purpose is “in here” (alignment, authenticity, values).

Then you realize you ARE purpose (embodiment, expression).

Finally, you see that purpose itself was just another concept, another story, another game consciousness plays.

Your highest purpose is to realize you never needed one.

Like a medicine that cures the disease of needing medicine, purpose dissolves the very seeking that created the need for purpose.

What remains isn’t emptiness — it’s freedom. The freedom to be exactly what you are: consciousness playing at being human.

The Cosmic Joke

At this stage, something breathtaking occurs:

The separate self that was seeking purpose is seen to be another appearance in consciousness.

The seeker, the seeking, and the sought are revealed as one movement — consciousness experiencing itself through the illusion of separation.

You don’t HAVE consciousness. Consciousness has you.

Actually, even that’s not accurate — consciousness IS you, playing every role in this cosmic drama.

When this recognition dawns, you understand why the mystics laugh.

All that searching for meaning, and you WERE the meaning. All that longing for God, and you WERE what you were longing for. All that pursuit of purpose, when purposelessness was the ultimate purpose.

The cosmic joke: You were looking for your glasses while wearing them.

Everything Becomes Sacred

But here’s the beautiful twist:

This recognition doesn’t make life meaningless. It makes EVERYTHING meaningful.

When you’re no longer a separate self desperately trying to matter, every moment matters infinitely because there’s no “you” separate from it to judge whether it matters.

The rain falling. The coffee brewing. The heart beating.

All of it is the universe purposelessly purposing itself into existence, and you’re not witnessing it. You ARE it.

The Tree of Life is a beautiful expression of everything being sacred. The ups, the downs, all of it. Enjoy the clip.

The Return

The final stage isn’t sitting in a cave in blissful transcendence.

It’s coming back to the marketplace—enlightenment shopping for groceries.

Chop wood, carry water.

But now you know: The chopping IS the universe chopping. The carrying IS existence carrying itself.

You still live, work, love, create — but without the desperate need for any of it to mean something. It already means everything by simply being.

Your individual purpose? It was always just consciousness evolving, using your form to know itself more fully.

Every struggle pushed consciousness forward. Every question deepened its understanding. Every moment of suffering and joy added another note to the infinite symphony.

You were never separate from the whole. You were the whole, pretending to be a part, so it could experience coming home to itself.

Coda: The Bird’s Song

Like the bird singing her tune, your purpose is to do what you really love and share WHO you are with the world.

Not what you have. Not what you’ve achieved. Not what you’ve accumulated.

WHO YOU ARE.

The bird doesn’t sing to get something. She doesn’t sing to prove herself worthy of being a bird. She doesn’t compare her song to other birds and feel inadequate.

She sings because she’s full of song.

She sings because singing is what she IS.

And her song doesn’t need a purpose. Her song doesn’t need to accomplish anything. Her song doesn’t need to mean something.

Her song is purpose itself — consciousness delighting in its own expression through one small feathered form.

You are no different.

You are consciousness delighting in its own expression through one temporary human form.

Your life is your song.

And the song doesn’t need a purpose.

The song IS the purpose.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver

The answer was never a plan.

The answer is: Live it.

Fully. Completely. Without holding back.

Not because it will get you somewhere.

But because this — right here, right now — is the only somewhere there ever was.

The wave rises from the ocean, dances for a moment in the sunlight, and returns to the depths from which it came.

It never needed to find the ocean.

It was always the ocean, dreaming it was a wave.

And so are you.

This is the mystery that has neuroscientists stumped. They can map every synapse, measure every brain wave, but they cannot bridge the gap between neural activity and the simple fact that it feels like something to be you right now.

For thousands of years, contemplatives across diverse traditions have approached this mystery from the inside. The Vedas, Upanishads, Tantraloka, and Shiva Sutras represent detailed investigations into the nature of Consciousness itself—not through external measurement, but through direct inquiry into immediate experience.

What they discovered challenges our most fundamental assumptions about Reality. While Western science treats Consciousness as matter's mysterious byproduct, these traditions reached conclusions that would revolutionize how we understand existence itself.

This isn't mere philosophy or belief. This investigation combines rigorous inquiry with direct exploration of your direct experience.

The question isn't whether Consciousness exists—you can't doubt that without proving it. The question is: what is Consciousness, really? And once you discover the answer, everything changes.

Below is your guide to this investigation.

Let's begin.

I. What is Consciousness?

Consciousness is the Awareness of experience. Right now, you are having an experience and are aware of it. This means that there is a difference between the content of experience (what is happening), experience itself, and the Awareness itself.

Therefore, we have a natural structure in which Awareness is primary. Here, Awareness is pure Awareness that can be aware of experience or no experience (e.g., deep sleep or nirvikalpa samadhi).

Next comes the experience of experience. You can think of this as a meta experience because it is like something to have ‘an experience.’

Finally comes the content of experience.

This includes everything in our experience, such as:

• Subject: this is your Identity

• Object: the world

• Context: Overall situation

• Events: what is happening

• Relationship: the Relationship between the ‘I,’ the ‘World,’ and what is happening.

II. What Can We Know with Certainty?

Let’s start with a simple question: “What do we know with 100% certainty?”

Think about this: at this moment, you could be dreaming, immersed in the Matrix, or simply a brain within a box, receiving electric signals that shape your entire Reality. In other words, your whole experience can be a type of Simulation, and you would have no way of knowing.

Now, is there anything that remains?

Is there anything that you know with 100% certainty regardless of conditions?

Yes, just Consciousness.

Regardless of any condition, you're aware that experience is happening.

You are the Consciousness that is aware of both the world out there and even the identity in here. You are aware of both the subject and the object.

Therefore, Consciousness is the only thing we can be certain of.

ALL Knowing Happens in Consciousness

So, how do we know anything?

We know through our experience.

Everything you know—all the facts, all the science, all the empirical claims and observations, and even something as simple as 1+1=2—is known through your Consciousness.

In fact, we never come directly into contact with the world out there. Even the external, objective world is a phenomenon we experience in our Consciousness.

Can you know anything outside of your Consciousness?

Obviously NO.

Thus, all we know, or that anybody knows, or that can be known, happens in someone’s experience; it all comes back to Consciousness.

What we know for sure is that Consciousness is our actual lived Reality.

But is this just our Reality?

Are we Consciousness itself experiencing a physical reality, or are we physical beings having a conscious experience?

III. The Nature of Reality

What is the nature of Reality itself?

Few ever dare ask this question, but avoiding it does not let you sidestep the implication.

First, if you have never investigated this question deeply, you still have a set of Worldviews and hidden beliefs about the nature of Reality. Assumptions about what the world is are like a framework that appears to you as unquestionably true.

Second, you are a product of this world, so whatever is true for the greater Reality is also true for you and your loved ones.

Third, you act and behave in accordance with your beliefs and worldview.

Therefore, this question significantly impacts your perception and the way you live your entire life.

Let’s examine it.

There Can Only Be One Reality

First, there can only be one Reality.

There can only be ONE Reality; if multiple realities existed, then those other realities would also be real and thus part of a larger reality.

Reality is ONE.

The ONE Reality encompasses all changes and possibilities while remaining unchanged itself.

But what is it?

What is 'Reality'?

Ontologically, Reality is ‘what is.’

Reality is what exists.

Now, with existence, we have a sense of permanence.

The Absolute Reality is that it is the most permanent, unchanging, and unconditional.

Is there anything in our experience that is permanent, unchanging, and unconditional?

Yes, emptiness.

Emptiness and silence both possess the qualities of being changeless, formless, unconditional, and are ever present.

No matter what object comes in or what change may occur, the emptiness that holds it remains unchanged or unaltered.

Emptiness can hold any and all shapes and forms. It takes on all possibilities without being any one of them. It holds the entire known universe and lets it expand.

It’s everywhere; thus, Omni presents.

In these ways, the Absolute resembles emptiness because it can contain the relative, all distinctions, all qualities, all possibilities, and all infinities.

It transcends and includes all differences and duality.

It contains the totality, so time and space exist with it.

It simultaneously embodies both NOTHINGNESS and ALL INFINITIES.

This may sound paradoxical, so consider this analogy:

• Imagine Reality as 'X' in an algebraic equation.

• X represents pure potential—not any specific number, but the capacity to be any number.

• X contains infinite possibilities while being none of them in particular.

• When X manifests as '2,' we experience the number 2 with all its specific qualities.

• But like all manifestations, this experience arises and passes away.

• Eventually, through this process, every possibility is known.

With our understanding that Reality is one and nondual, we can proceed to ask our most essential question:

What is Reality made of?

Is Reality made of Consciousness, or is it made of matter?

Sidenote on the Problem of Duality (Multiple Realities)

Some of you may wonder why we can’t have multiple realities or have Consciousness and matter as separate realities or aspects of each other. This would create a Duality.

The problem with duality is that it demands two fundamentally different realities—such as mind and body, or Consciousness and matter—not only exist side by side but also somehow interact. Yet, interaction requires a bridge —a shared medium or space where information can be exchanged. For communication to occur, each side must already participate in a common language of being, a shared reality. However, if they are fundamentally different, a shared space cannot exist. The very possibility of interaction cancels the claim of absolute difference.

• If the two realities are utterly distinct, no bridge is possible, and communication collapses into impossibility.

• If a bridge exists, then by definition, both realities share something in common—meaning they are not fundamentally different after all.

• Thus, either dualism denies communication (and becomes incoherent, since we clearly experience mind–body interaction), or it admits communication (and collapses into a form of monism).

Duality tries to have it both ways: absolute difference and real interaction. But these two claims are mutually exclusive. Either the difference is absolute—in which case no interaction is possible—or interaction is real—in which case the difference cannot be absolute. There is no consistent way to maintain both.

IV. Materialism vs. Idealism

In philosophy, we face a fundamental choice: Reality is either consciousness-based or matter-based. It cannot be both without splitting Reality into two, thus creating an unsolvable duality.

Materialism asserts that matter is the fundamental nature of Reality. Everything emerges from matter and returns to it. For materialists, Consciousness is a byproduct of matter; it’s the result of brain activity.

And this is where Materialism runs into its first problem, the Hard Problem of Consciousness.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

The Hard Problem of Consciousness arises from the precise observation that matter alone does not explain HOW and WHY Consciousness emerges at all.

Science can explain many “easy problems” of Consciousness: how the brain processes information, how we integrate sensory inputs, how attention works, and how we produce behavior.

But none of these explanations tell us why or how brain processes are accompanied by subjective experience—the inner “what it’s like” to see red, feel pain, or taste coffee.

Why It’s “Hard”

• Physical explanations describe functions and mechanisms.

• There is nothing about any physical property or quantity from which we can deduce the properties of experience.

• Subjective experience (also called qualia) is not just a function—it has an irreducible, first-person quality.

• The gap is that no amount of objective, third-person description seems to explain why it feels like to be conscious.

The hard problem suggests that explaining Consciousness may require more than standard physical science. Scientists are questioning whether subjective experience is a fundamental feature of Reality, not something reducible to brain mechanisms.

This dilemma poses a significant obstacle to Materialism, as it fails to explain how or why Consciousness arises from matter.

As a result, there is no evidence that matter has ontological priority.

Nevertheless, we owe it to ourselves to examine the entire picture and compare both models side by side.

Here, we will only focus on what we know with certainty.

Materialism / Physicalism

• Requires Consciousness to cognize it and define it; thus, it is dependent on Consciousness.

• Objects don’t have a reality of their own; their Reality is borrowed or defined through differences and distinctions. For example, ‘tall’ and ‘short’ define each other.

• Constantly changing: Short is short until it meets shorter, then it becomes tall.

• A is A because B is B

• Dependent, conditional, subject to change

• It exists in both time and space, making it non-absolute.

• Challenge in explaining how spin, nuclear force, and gravity lead to the experience of falling in love, eating ice cream, and being in awe of a beautiful sunset.

• There is no evidence independent of Consciousness: Anything we might call evidence is happening in Consciousness, defined by it, and subject to it.

Consciousness

• 100% real regardless of condition: Even if you're a brain in a box, in a simulation, or in a dream in the Matrix, irrespective of any condition, Consciousness exists with 100% certainty.

• The only thing that MUST be Real is Consciousness.

• Everything that is known is known through Consciousness.

• Everything that is knowable can only be known in Consciousness.

• Anything outside of Consciousness can never be confirmed, thus there can never be any evidence for it.

• Consciousness is the only thing that is aware of Consciousness.

• Consciousness is all-knowing; it knows itself and the world. It does not create a duality.

Given all of this information, we have gained clarity.

The material physical world depends on Consciousness, but Consciousness does not depend on matter.

Consciousness defines matter and makes it real through experience.

Consciousness is the only thing that knows both itself and the world; thus, there is no duality, contradiction, or Hard Problem.

Consciousness, the first model, solves our problems, and most importantly, it conforms to our actual experience.

Our primary Reality and all we know is Consciousness, so it would be no surprise that the fundamental nature of Reality is Consciousness itself.

This brings a few questions.

How does Consciousness create our world of experience?

If Consciousness is all there is, how does it create the objective world and then get lost in it?

As Consciousness, why aren’t we aware of this process?

V. How Does Consciousness Create Experience?

If Consciousness is fundamental, how does it create our world of experience? How does it create the objective world and then get lost in it?

States of Consciousness

First, consider the different states you can experience:

• You can be aware of emptiness (meditation, deep sleep)

• You can witness experience as an observer

• You can be fully absorbed in experience, forgetting you're having an experience (flow states)

This shows that there's a difference between Awareness itself and experience.

Consciousness is aware of experience.

Now, what is experience?

To experience something, Consciousness only needs to contract itself, focus, and imagine.

You can do it right now.

Close your eyes, envision a succulent orange, and your mouth will soon begin to salivate. You are having an experience.

Thus, Consciousness can create experiences using its imagination.

This ability explains the entire world of experience.

It can then project itself into this new Reality as the subject, experiencing a world, and it can make itself forget that this is the case.

But surely forgetting is impossible, right?

No.

We forget every night.

We fall asleep, and we enter the dream world, where nonsensical things happen. Despite the nonsense, we have totally forgotten about our real Reality and can’t recognize that we are in a dream. We wake up, and only then do we realize we were dreaming.

Thus, Consciousness can create worlds, experience them, and forget that it is doing so.

Experience Requires Limitation

To experience anything is to experience limitation. Even your dreams have a structure; they have a story, a world, characters, and so on. Within the context of your dream, things are coherent.

So, when you experience something, you are only conscious of a limited set of possibilities.

In this way, experience is the limitation; it is the contraction of Consciousness from all possibilities to a single experience.

Let’s look at a more specific example.

To experience a Football Game, we create a set of limitations and rules. We create a field, add a ball, a player, and an objective. All of these limitations allow us to experience the game of football.

Even while watching the game on TV, we can only watch one at a time.

If there were no limitations and we overlaid all games simultaneously, we would only see a black screen. The screen would become a dark void accompanied by white noise. It would be nonsensical.

So experience requires limitation, and experience is the experience of limitation.

We are all expressions of one Consciousness, which experiences itself by focusing on one of these sets of possibilities.

Other people are, in essence, a different modulation of the same Consciousness.

The Absolute Consciousness

Reality at its most fundamental level is Cit—pure Awareness. This is the unchanging, all-pervading, and self-luminous principle that underlies all experience. It is the static foundation of Awareness, the primordial Reality that is ever-present Absolute.

But Consciousness is not merely passive. It is inherently self-illuminating and thus self-aware. This self-recognition transforms pure Awareness into Citi—dynamic, active Consciousness. Citi is the self-aware light that projects the world, the creative force that manifests the universe through its power of self-recognition.

The Absolute includes both these aspects of Consciousness. It contains all possibilities, and when a will to know emerges, attention focuses and conscious experience forms.

This is where Citta emerges—individual mind, Consciousness contracted into personal experience. Citta comprises intellect (buddhi), ego (ahamkara), and mind (manas). It is a limited reflection of Cit, subject to change and modification, yet still fundamentally the same Consciousness.

What we call being conscious—Citannya—is simply the quality of Consciousness as experienced from within this contracted state.

In this way, the Absolute is both the Alpha and Omega. It encompasses all that exists, could exist, and does not exist. When desire arises in this Absolute, it can take any shape, experience what it is like to be there, and then melt back into the Whole.

You can picture this as whirlpools in the Ocean. The whirlpools are not separate from the Ocean; they ARE the Ocean taking on specific shapes, having experiences within the Ocean, then melting back into the Ocean.

Each one of us, each embodied being, is a whirlpool in the Ocean—Cit appearing as Citi, creating the experience of Citta, while never ceasing to be the one Absolute Consciousness.

This understanding transforms how we see ourselves and Reality. We are not separate beings having conscious experiences—we are Consciousness itself, exploring its own infinite nature through apparent limitation and multiplicity.

What is Identity?

Who are you?

Stop.

Before you answer with your usual story, your job, your relationships, your history, notice something critical.

You've lived through countless experiences, yet only some become part of your story.

Out of all the thoughts, feelings, and moments you've had, why do you identify with certain ones and not others?

When we break down the story of "me," we find three pillars of identity:

• The Personal: Your unique characteristics, personality traits, and individual history.

• The Social: Your culture, language, religion, beliefs, community affiliations, and roles.

• The Experiential: Your direct, first-person experience—your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and the felt sense of being you.

But these pillars are merely what lies on the surface.

Behind your narrative identity, a hidden forces are at work. They're selecting which experiences matter, which traits define you, which stories become central to who you are.

What are these invisible forces? And what happens when you discover what lies beyond them?

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Hidden Forces: The Structure of Your Identity

Your identity isn't formed in isolation.

It's born from the collision between your inner world—your thoughts, emotions, biology, and personality—and the external world of environment, relationships, and culture.

Your identity emerges where these forces meet, not as a fixed thing but as a living process of selection and meaning-making.

Below is a map that reveals how two of these forces—your personality and biology—automatically shape what you notice, what you remember, and ultimately, who you become.

Biological Basis: The Big 5 Personality Traits

Have you ever wondered why we have personalities at all?

What evolutionary function do they serve?

We tend to think facts are self-evident, but the world presents us with far too much information to process.

Personality acts as your automatic filtering system, determining what gets your attention and what fades into background noise.

Each trait represents a viable survival strategy, with deep biological roots in your neurochemistry; dopamine drives pursuit, serotonin manages threat-avoidance.

The most widely accepted model for this is the "Big 5," which places us on a continuum for five key traits:

1. Extraversion vs. Introversion: Your orientation to the external world. Extraverts are energized by social engagement, seeing themselves as characters in a grand story. Introverts are energized by their inner world of thought and reflection.

2. Openness vs. Traditionalism: Your creativity and intellect drive. High Openness draws you toward new ideas and exploring the unknown. High Traditionalism finds stability in routine and established conventions.

3. Neuroticism vs. Emotional Stability: Your internal threat-detection system. High Neuroticism means greater sensitivity to potential dangers and negative emotions. High stability means being calmer and less reactive to stress.

4. Agreeableness vs. Disagreeableness: Your orientation toward others. Agreeable people are attuned to social harmony and care. Disagreeable people are more competitive and focused on their own goals.

5. Conscientiousness vs. Spontaneity: Your capacity for self-discipline and organization. Conscientious people excel at planning and goal pursuit. Spontaneous people are more flexible and relaxed.

Watch how these filters shape reality: Give five people the same problem, and their dominant traits create completely different approaches. The extravert reaches out to their network. High Openness dives into research and experimentation. The neurotic maps every risk. The conscientious one builds a systematic plan. The agreeable person ensures everyone's working together.

Furthermore, these traits don't exist in isolation.

They create a dynamic system within us, often leading to inner synergies and inner conflict.

One part of you, high in Openness, might want to start a business, while another part, high in Neuroticism, is terrified of the risk. This same dynamic plays out externally when we clash with others whose traits filter reality differently than ours.

We can begin to appreciate the hidden role that personality plays. It actively guides your attention and helps shapes your perceptions and entire meaning-making. This is one reason why two people will experience the same information differently.

Now, the Big 5 framework is excellent for understanding personality, but it doesn't reveal our primary preoccupation; the core organizing principle that shapes our entire approach to life.

To understand what drives your personality in the first place, we must turn to psychoanalysis and reveal these core conflicts.

[Here is a deeper dive into the Big 5 Traits]

Refer a friend

Psychoanalytic Personality Types: The Core Conflict

Here's an uncomfortable truth: there is no perfect environment or perfect parent.

By definition, growing up means an immature human (a baby, then child) gets thrown into an imperfect world with imperfect caregivers.

The outcome is predictable: every child brings their own psychology and natural abilities into this imperfect environment. Some parts they handle naturally and effortlessly. Other parts they struggle with.

The areas of struggle become fixations, preoccupations that effect their relationship with their world.

This isn't just a few formative experiences we're talking about; this is your entire life growing up.

Your struggles become part of the information that tells you what the world is and who you are within it.

They provide a core message to your subconscious, shaping your operating assumptions about how life works.

And we carry this into adulthood.

Nancy McWilliams's work provides a brilliant map of these core organizing principles. Rather than just listing traits, she identifies how our entire personality can be organized around solving a central problem.

Here are a few examples:

• Depressive Personalities

  • Core Fixation: "I'm not good enough"

  • Driving Need: To earn worth through achievement or self-sacrifice

  • The Inner Voice: "It's really not a big deal; others could have done it. They're amazing—why would they want to be with me? I should be grateful. I don't want to impose. They're probably just being polite."

  • Manifestations:

    • Reflexively downplaying achievements ("I just got lucky")

    • Putting others on pedestals while diminishing their own value

    • Difficulty accepting compliments without deflecting

    • Choosing relationships where they give more than they receive

    • Can recognize their competence intellectually yet still feel fundamentally inadequate

• Narcissistic Personalities

  • Core Fixation: "I must be special or I'm nothing"

  • Driving Need: To maintain an idealized self-image and receive recognition

  • The Inner Voice: "Well, obviously, I understood that faster than everyone else. I mean, I'm not bragging, it's just how it is. They probably didn't have the same advantages I did. Strange how they didn't notice my contribution in the meeting."

  • Manifestations:

    • Subtle name-dropping and credential-mentioning "for context"

    • Natural tendency to become the main character in every story

    • Genuine confusion when others don't see their obvious superiority

    • Relationships unconsciously organized around admiration supply

    • Can acknowledge others' skills but always with subtle comparison

• Obsessive Personalities

  • Core Fixation: "If everything's perfect, nothing bad will happen"

  • Driving Need: To control internal chaos through external order

  • The Inner Voice: "I should probably check that one more time. Just to be thorough. It's important to do things right. If everyone just followed the system, everything would run smoothly. I'm not being rigid, I'm being responsible."

  • Manifestations:

    • "Helping" by redoing others' work to the "right" standard

    • Procrastination disguised as "waiting for the perfect moment"

    • Emotional discussions feel dangerously unstructured

    • Love expressed through acts of service and problem-solving

    • Anxiety when others don't share their "logical" priorities

• Paranoid Personalities

  • Core Fixation: "Everyone will betray me eventually"

  • Driving Need: To never be caught off-guard or humiliated again

  • The Inner Voice: "Interesting that they mentioned that. I wonder what they meant by it. They seemed a little too friendly, what do they want? I should remember this conversation. Better to be cautious. I've been burned before."

  • Manifestations:

    • Hyper-vigilance disguised as "being observant"

    • Testing others through small "loyalty checks"

    • Difficulty distinguishing intuition from projection

    • Keeping mental files on everyone's potential motives

    • Preemptive self-protection that creates the rejection they fear

• Histrionic Personalities

  • Core Fixation: "If I'm not seen, I don't exist"

  • Driving Need: To be emotionally important and visible to others

  • The Inner Voice: "This reminds me of when I... Oh, you've got to hear this story! Did I tell you about...? Why is everyone so quiet? I should liven things up. They look bored. I know what'll get their attention..."

  • Manifestations:

    • Every emotion turned up just 10% for effect

    • Discomfort with others being the center of attention

    • Stories unconsciously edited for maximum impact

    • Relationships based on intensity rather than intimacy

    • Genuine panic in quiet, mundane moments

Now you can see how this all fits together: your psychoanalytic type reveals your core organizing principle (what you're unconsciously trying to solve), while your Big 5 traits are your toolkit (how you try to solve it).

But personality does more than just manage childhood wounds.

It also becomes your strategy for pursuing what you value in life.

Your conscientiousness helps you achieve long-term goals. Your openness drives you toward creative expression. Your extraversion pulls you toward social connection and influence.

In essence, personality is your customized set of tools, strategies, and ways of being that help you move toward what matters most to you.

But this raises a crucial question: how do we decide what to value in the first place?

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[ Here is Nancy McWilliams on all the Personality Types ]

The Collective Context: Values, Culture, and Archetypes

Now, how do you determine which values to pursue?

This is where culture and value systems come into the picture.

Our culture has a central gravity of values that emerge from its Worldview; how it sees the world and what life is informs us on what is valuable and worthy of pursuit.

This becomes a part of our culture's stories, beliefs, and symbols.

Now, our environment has many different Value Systems and Worldview available to us. Out of all possible worldviews, some appeal to you and seem obviously true due to your experience.

In fact, your Worldview is almost entirely a reflection of your experience and the meaning you attributed to it.

Then, you’re likely to connect with a sub-culture that supports and provides the specific language, myths, and symbols that support your values and Worldview.

But your values and Worldview need to have a deeper ground of reality that goes beyond the culture, which makes it possible to go between cultures.

Consider the experience of culture shock.

Even in a technologically similar country, you feel disoriented because your internal meaning-making map no longer matches the external territory. The rules for behavior, status, and interaction are different.

Yet, we can adapt.

We can because beneath the surface of any specific culture lie universal patterns of human experience: Archetypes.

What are Archetypes, and why do they exist?

Archetypes aren't arbitrary psychological patterns; they arise from the very structure of experience itself.

Consider that for experience to be possible, there needs to be an experiencer who is aware of an experience (the subject).

The subject of experience then experiences something (the world), and this something is not everything; it's defined by its limitations.

All human experience is thus necessarily the experience of limitation: we perceive this, not that; we are here, not everywhere; we live now, not always.

Human life also has limittions and follows predictable patterns: birth, growth, relationship, loss, and death, there are only so many viable paths or ways of being in the world.

Each of these viable ways of being is then a potential archetypal pattern that our psyche can project its imagination into and fill.

Our imagination fleshes out these patterns. A child facing danger might imagine themselves as brave; this seed of heroism gets elaborated through stories, from personal fantasies to cultural myths.

Our collective consciousness fills out every possible path available to us, and this is then represented in our language, stories, myths, and ways of seeing the world.

Thus, as Carl Jung observed, the Hero isn't just a character in stories but a pattern of how consciousness moves through challenge and transformation.

The Shadow isn't merely what we repress but what necessarily falls outside our limited spotlight of attention.

The Sage, the Lover, the Rebel; each represents a fundamental way consciousness can organize itself within human limitations.

These patterns are deeply embedded in our psyche and express themselves in the types of stories we tell their themes, and structures.

They're the invisible structures that guide the meaning-making process.

Culture gives these archetypes specific costumes, but the underlying patterns are universal, and we often find ourselves playing out archetypal roles.

Part of our growth is becoming aware of these constructs and deciding which archetypal roles we want to play.

Naturally, as we grow and mature, how we see the world and ourselves changes.

Our values might change and evolve, and so does our entire relationship with the world, and this is yet another archetypal pattern.

The pattern of growth.

Now, how is all of this organized?

The Ego: The Great Synthesizer

The EGO organizes all of these structures into a unified, coherent self. This is the self that thinks, feels, plans, rationalizes, and so on.

In this sense, the Ego is like your operating system.

When competing drives emerge, like a value for "success" clashing with a belief to "not be selfish," the Ego experiences cognitive dissonance. Its job is to mediate this inner conflict and maintain a coherent narrative.

As the Ego goes to work to create a coherent narrative about its existence and counter uncertainty, it naturally goes through the Hegelian Dialectic.

It solves one set of problems and builds a coherent narrative, only for another set of issues to emerge. Yet, this is the process of growth.

As the Ego develops, its very definition of "identity" changes. It can hold more complexity, see more perspectives, and eventually, turn its powerful lens upon itself.

As mapped by developmental theorists like Jane Loevinger and Susan Cook-Greuter:

• In childhood, "I am my impulses." (Self-Centric)

• In adolescence, "I am my social group's approval." (Group-Centric)

• In early adulthood, "I am my skills and beliefs." (Skill-Centric)

• Later, "I am my unique inner world." (Self-Determining)

• Eventually, "I am a process, interacting with other systems." (Self-Questioning)

As the Ego grows, it turns its lens upon itself. It begins to see that its identity is a process, not a thing.

This leads to the ultimate inquiry.

Refer a friend

Who am I, Really?

Who are you beyond the story?

Beyond your thoughts, feelings, Identity, and Ego?

In order for experience to be possible, it needs to be grounded in a reality that is non-changing and is thus able to perceive changes without being affected by them.

Right now, that something is aware of your thoughts about identity.

That something is witnessing these ideas appearing in your consciousness. It is present in the very experience of being you.

Are you this witnessing awareness? Or are you the content being witnessed?

We often mix up the two, believing our thoughts and awareness are one and the same.

Yet when our thoughts come and go, when they change, do we come and go and change with them, or are we aware of their comings and goings?

If we are the thinker of thoughts, do we cease to be during moments of inner silence when the thinker takes a break?

Your consciousness is aware of all these experiences, yet it's none of them. This is who you are beyond name and form.

Your identity is useful for navigating the world, but not the deepest truth of w

ho you are. Our Identities are like waves on the ocean: beautiful, temporary expressions of something far more vast and unchanging.

Your absolute self is the consciousness in which all experience arises. Not another object to be known, but the very knowing itself.

When you recognize yourself as awareness rather than the content of awareness, everything shifts.

The dramas of your various identities don't disappear; they dissipate and lose their grip on you. You can engage fully with your roles and stories while knowing yourself as the space in which they dance.

You become like an actor in the play, knowing fully well you are playing a role and enjoying it.

Your identity, your beautiful, complex, evolving story of "me," is recognized for what it always was: not who you are but how the absolute expresses itself through the experience of being you.

You are the screen on which the movie of your life plays.

And recognizing this? This is where real freedom begins.

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After a litany of injuries, surgeries, being doubted, and written off, he finally made his comeback.

In 2016, he signed with Chapecoense.

Chapecoense was a small-town Brazillian soccer team with a long history of losing.

And then, against all odds, Chapecoense went on a magical Cinderella run.

The underdog made it all the way to the Copa Sudamericana Final, which pits the two best soccer teams in South America against each other!

This was the biggest match in their history.

Alejandro was part of that dream.

Days before the final, disaster struck: his leg gave out.

The injury was so devastating that not only would he miss the game, he couldn’t even fly with the team.

“I was devastated,” he said. “It felt like the world had ripped it out of my hands.”

On November 28, 2016, the team boarded LaMia Flight 2933.

The mood was electric. Finally bound.

History in the making.

He hugged his teammates at the airport, wished them luck, and watched them disappear through the gate.

Then he turned and left- alone.

He hurried home, turned on the news, and waited for updates on the match preparations.

Minutes before landing in Medellín, the plane ran out of fuel.

It crashed into a mountainside, killing 71 people: players, coaches, journalists, and staff.

All gone. In an instant.

“I was feeling so frustrated that I couldn’t go,” he said. “Then everything changed. My injury saved my life.”

The worst thing that had happened to him… became the reason he’s still alive.

In an instant, the meaning of his injury changed.

Understanding Meaning

We often believe that meaning is found in the world. That information has meaning, and all we have to do is comprehend and understand the information, and the meaning will be self-evident and clear.

But this is not at all how it works.

Alejandro’s story shows us that meaning is not pre-determined, that it is not objective or based on the data or information, but instead, that meaning is interpretative, created, and can change.

We don’t just find meaning; we also create it.

The rest of this article is a deep dive into how we do this, the process of mean-making.

How We Create Meaning

We attribute meaning to everything.

In fact, as you read this article, how you interpret it and understand it, as well as what meaning you give it, might change from paragraph to paragraph or even sentence to sentence. I urge you to notice how active this process is and what your role is in it.

So what is the mean-making process, and how does it work?

Meaning-making is our ongoing process of assigning interpretations and significance to our experiences. Even ordinary objects, like a cup, a chair, or a photograph, aren’t neutral. They carry personal and collective stories that define their significance and role in our lives.

In this way, we don’t actually live in a world of dead, dumb objects but instead in a world of meaning.

Every moment, we experience this meaning through our inner narratives and imagination.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

We live in the moment; however, most of the time, our mind tells stories and plays out scenarios of past and future.

The stories tell us who we are, what the world is, and how we ought to behave in it. They reveal our values, beliefs, our identity, and assumptions about the world.

Our own stories are like dlivery system carrying deep concentrated archetypal drops of meaning.

And this deliver system runs all day long, as we have roughly 60,000 thoughts per day and 95% of them are repetative.

These thoughts often tell the same types of stories over and over again. They interpret people and events from the same worldview. In the end, they produce a coherent world of meaning.

In this way, our stories give meaning to our world.

Meaning & Our Relationships (Attitudes & Actions)

The meaning we give defines our relationships. Our relationship with our conflicts, with our friends, foes, and with life itself.

Our relationship with the world is our life.

We don’t just live in the world, but instead in our own world of meaning and are in a relationship with it.

The meaning we give our world produces our attitude, and our attitude becomes an active force.

Our attitude colors, shapes, and influences how we interpret and respond to people and events.

And so now we have a double whammy.

First, our attitude interprets and gives meaning to our experiences; it colors them and then, through imagination, experiences its own simulation.

Then, our mind reacts to its own simulation and turns them into self-fulfilling prophecies.

It takes its perceptions and stories to be true and accurate, and it uses the story as a guideline for behavior, thus embodying the story through action, and by acting on it, it brings it forth in the world.

In this way, we actively shape our lives in the image of our stories.

This is how we give meaning to our world.

The Collective Creation of Meaning

In the conventional worldview, you are a body, a collection of flesh and bone, riding atop a spinning rock that orbits a burning star. This view casts you as a subject inside a universe of objects, an observer navigating a world that is "out there," solid, external, and objectively real.

Here, reality is measured in size, mass, velocity, time, temperature, etc, and explained through third-person facts. Meaning is presumed to be embedded in things — in tables, trees, planets, and people — because it can be agreed upon by consensus and verified by measurement. It is a world obsessed with what is seen, not what is seen.

This framework is logical, empirical, and deterministic.

Yet, it rests entirely on a hidden paradox: It ignores the very thing that makes experience of the world possible at all.

It forgets the first-person.

It forgets that before anything is known, there must be a knower. In order for an objective world to be known, there must simultaneously be a subject - a witness to confirm its existence.

It misses the first-person perspective of what it is like to experience the world, and this is a massive miss because experience is the foundation of everything that is knowable.

The conventional worldview totally ignores and thus misses the subjective and psychological.

Ecology of Meaning

Experience by default is a subjective phenomena, and is all we ever really know.

In reality, the primary point of view is not an objective ‘3rd person’ view of the world but instead a subjective 1st person experience.

What the world is made of can’t be reduced to just a collection of facts and objects, but instead, it is a collection of 1st-person experiences that are meaningful.

Collective World of Meaning

The world of meaning arises from our collection of 1st-person experiencers, which collectively produce the broader world of meaning.

The broader world of meaning is then shared through collective frameworks such as language, history, myths, worldviews, and so on.

In this way, we are both a co-creator of the culture and a byproduct of it.

We are like a little carrot in a massive pot of soup. In the same way that the flavor of the soup is infused within the carrot, culture seeps deep within us, and yet the carrot simultaneously contributes to the overall flavor and taste of the soup.

We are inside of culture, and culture is inside of us. We are both a byproduct and contributor to our collective world of meaning.

We can move the culture, and the culture can move us.

Relational Meaning

The nature of the experience of our world is a world of meaning where we are in a relationship of meaning with both our personal world and the broader world.

In meaning, the collective and personal meet, they contribute to our overall experience and state of affairs.

Much of this is invisible to us in the same way grammar rules are invisible language structures.

Aspects of the invisible become visible through the conflict between our inner world and the outer world of meaning.

The conflict can be between being (how things are) and becoming (how we want things to be in the future).

Co-Creation & Culture

As we move towards bringing our vision to life, we attract other people from our circle of influence who are looking to co-create a similar world.

As the vision grows, it can resonate with other people, can ripple out start to impact and influence the broader culture. As it really grows, it can lead to a movement and begin to transform the culture in its own image.

This is one-way culture is transformed and changed by small sub-cultural movements, and at the same time, the movements are also transformed and changed to meet the culture.

Consider this example: Christianity was started by one person, Jesus, who attracted 12 disciples and now has 2.4 billion followers. Along the way, the meaning of Christianity changed multiple times, and today, there are some 45,000 denominations globally, each with its interpretations.

The Paradox of Meaning

Since meaning is not objective, but an evolving relationship between the personal and the collective it can’t be pinned down. It’s fluid.

Furthermore, meaning is pervasive in that we project meaning onto everything; thus, even labeling something as meaningless is a meaningful statement.

Read this famous poem:

It has no story, no plot, and no message, yet it still evokes something vast, present, and ungraspable.

It’s meaning without a message.

The Artists Presents takes this even further by plunging one into profound meaning beyond words, concpets or a message.

This paradoxical nature of meaning is contributing to the Meaning Crisis.

The Crisis of Meaning

Over the past few hundred years, we have had a number of fundamental shifts in meaning-making.

Not long ago, we saw the world from the point of view of a ‘Creator.’ A ceramic model of reality, where the world was made by ‘God’ in his image and meaning was ever present, self-evident, and objective. This model provided a clear metaphysics of what reality is, who you are, and your role in the world. It was a functioning system of meaning that often was too rigid and dogmatic.

Then, the Enlightenment brought us science, rationality, empiricism, and the mechanical view of the world. The Universe here is seen as a large, giant machine where everything follows the laws of physics and can be reduced to a deterministic set of laws. Here, materialism became the dominant worldview, and with it, the human is reduced to being a cog in the machine, a commodity, and meaning is trivial. Everything is reduced to the objective, observable world and the focus is on measurable results and the value you bring to the market.

Following Two World Wars, the counterculture of the 1960s brought us the cultural revolution, where we started asking questions about the human element again. For the first time, we took the subject and psychology into account.

As we dug deeper into the psychological, we began to see how meaning was co-created, constructed, relative, and relational, and this brought meaning itself into question.

For example, we’ve all had thoughts like:

• “If everything eventually ends, does anything really matter?”

• “What’s the point if, in the end, none of this lasts?”

• “If meaning is something I invent, isn’t it just make-believe?”

These thoughts are more common than we might realize. They’re almost inevitable when we live in a culture that merges a materialistic worldview (“everything is just matter and eventually turns to dust”) with a postmodern sense of relativism (“everyone has their own truth, and none is more valid than another”).

On the surface, these ideas seem logical, almost obvious. If reality is purely material and temporary, and if there’s no absolute narrative or universal truth, then nothing truly holds lasting significance. Without realizing it, we slide into Nihilism, the feeling that life has no objective meaning, no deeper value, no real point.

To escape Nihilism, modern culture often suggests Existentialism as an antidote. Existentialism tells us: “Sure, life itself might be objectively meaningless, but you have the freedom (and responsibility) to create your own meaning.” At first glance, this feels empowering. We get to decide our own truth, our own purpose.

But there’s a subtle trap here as well.

If meaning is just something you choose, if it’s purely personal and subjective, then choosing meaning feels arbitrary—like picking a favorite flavor of ice cream.

And if it’s arbitrary, how meaningful can it truly be?

Existentialism’s promise quickly unravels when we realize our self-created meanings lack grounding in something deeper, more real, more universally true.

Finally, to complicate matters even more, Technology amplifies our Materialistic Nihilism and exaggerates this sentiment, making it appear more real, self-evident, and obvious. With it, we are thrown into a world where everything is possible, and nothing means anything.

How Technology Amplifies the Crisis

If our culture already struggles with Materialistic Nihilism, imagine what happens when you combine that mindset with an overwhelming flood of information and Technology that is designed to monetize attention by actively reflecting, reinforcing, and exaggerating our biases and beliefs.

What happens is a collective self-fulfilling prophecy, a distorted mirror that confirms our Nihilism and further disconnects us from genuine meaning.

Consider social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or YouTube. Here, reality takes a backseat to simulations and appearances. A beautifully filtered Instagram post seems more valuable than the actual moment it depicts. Our online identities are meticulously curated, designed to showcase only the ‘best’ versions of ourselves. Sharing our true, authentic self feels uncomfortable, even absurd.

Jean Baudrillard famously called this phenomenon “Simulacra and Simulation”: a world where artificial copies don’t just represent reality; they replace it entirely. The simulation becomes more vivid, more convincing, and ultimately more compelling than real life.

Reflect on our online environment:

• We carefully craft online personas that project success, happiness, and fulfillment. Influencers regularly package lifestyles designed primarily to capture attention and sell products.

• Algorithms feed us personalized content tailored precisely to our biases and desires, creating a feedback loop that confirms our distorted views and biases about the world.

• Information sources prioritize emotional engagement over accuracy, flattening complex realities into oversimplified, clickable narratives meant only to trigger emotional responses.

As a result, our sense-making breaks down. Truth and fiction blur seamlessly, reality becomes indistinguishable from carefully crafted illusions, and our entire informational landscape becomes superficial and hollow.

And this is just the beginning.

Soon, AI, Virtual Reality, and Robotics will be able to create a personalized world just for you, AI friends that are always on your side, and, of course, all of the “pleasure” you can handle.

In such a world, we are in a race to the bottom. The focus of life becomes totally externalized; it's about getting results, fame, fortune, and pleasure, and in the process, we completely sell out. We do things not because we enjoy them or for the love of it but instead because of what we will get in return. We sell out and commoditize every part of our lives, and in the end, we’re left feeling disconnected, lonely, confused, and ultimately starved for genuine meaning.

We may not know what or who to believe. It seems that every option is available to us, and the wisdom of the day is to follow our own truth while the world of meaning crumbles around us.

At best, this leaves the majority with the empty calories of meaning through parasocial relationships and digital entertainment.

Those who crave deeper fulfillment often don’t even know where to begin, but they will always have “HER”.

At the heart of this meaning crisis lies a fundamental misunderstanding, confusion, and contradiction that has led to the pathologies of meaning.

We have mistaken the Relative (the temporary, subjective, and conditional) for the Absolute (the timeless, universal, and foundational).

Clarifying the difference between these two types of reality can guide us out of the crisis and back towards a meaningful life.

Resolving the Crisis: The Relative & The Absolute

At the core of the meaning crisis lies a misunderstanding about what makes something truly meaningful. We often fall prey to the belief that for something to matter, it must be universally true, permanent, unchanging, and absolute. However, this assumption confuses two distinct but intimately connected aspects of reality: the Relative and the Absolute.

On one end is the Absolute, a ground of reality that transcends time, space, energy, and form.

The Absolute is unconditional, limitless, changeless, eternal, timeless, and formless. It is pure potential and simultaneously the ground from which all manifestation arises. Think of it like an ocean: vast, limitless, and ever-present.

On the other end is the Relative, the conditional world we experience every day, filled with form, energy, relationships, and meanings that constantly change and evolve. The Relative is the realm of matter, thought, emotion, and experience.

It’s the waves rising from that vast ocean, temporary and impermanent but undeniably real in the moment.

Today, much of our confusion arises because we mistake the Relative for the Absolute. Philosophies like Materialism, Relativism, Nihilism, and Existentialism fall into this trap:

• Materialism claims the physical, temporary world is all there is—treating matter, energy, and form as absolute reality, even though it acknowledges these things are transient and impermanent.

• Relativism and Nihilism declare “there are no universal truths,” ironically making an absolute statement that contradicts their own claim.

These views carry the hidden assumption that meaning can only matter if it is absolute and universal.

But what if everything matters?

What if both the Relative and the Absolute are equally real, two sides of one beautiful symphony?

The Relative: The Conditional World

The Relative is the everyday world we live in:

• Relational: Night and day exist as a pair in a relationship.

• Relative & Conditional: In the relative, everything helps define everything else. Short and tall define each other, and their existence is determined by their opposite.

• It’s dynamic: continuously changing, evolving, becoming.

• Meaning here is real but temporary, contextual, relational, and deeply experiential. It’s meaningful because we experience it fully in the present moment.

Each moment, each experience, each interaction is a gateway into something more profound, into the Absolute itself.

The Absolute: The Real, Unconditional Ground & Ultimate Reality

The Absolute is that deeper reality which contains and transcends the Relative:

• Unconditional: Its existence is not dependent on anything else.

• Changeless: Beyond change; always stable and ever-present.

• Formless: Cannot be reduced to any form, concept, or object.

• Timeless & Eternal: Beyond space, time, and conditions. It always was, always is, and always will be.

• Limitless Potential: All possibilities emerge from it and return to it.

This is the fundamental ground of being, what Lacan called the “Real,” and in Eastern philosophy, often referred to as “Shiva,” "The Tao," "Brahman.", etc.

It’s the silence behind sound, the stillness beneath motion, the emptiness that holds all form.

It is pure awareness itself.

The Confusion & How It Happens

Our confusion arises when we attempt to define or reduce the Absolute in terms of the Relative:

• Asking, “What is the meaning of life?” tries to capture something infinite and unbounded (Absolute) into a finite definition (Relative).

• Assuming life can’t matter because the Universe will eventually end mistakenly applies temporary conditions to define ultimate meaning.

This confusion keeps us trapped in Nihilism and despair, as we mistakenly believe the impermanence of the Relative makes it meaningless.

The Path Forward: Integrating the Relative & Absolute

The path forward is one in which you appreciate the Relative and approach the Absolute.

You are like a magician that can create any experience you want. In this way, your life is your work of art:

• Art of Living: Consider how you would have to live from now on so that all of the suffering you have experienced would be so worthwhile that you wouldn't change a thing. How would you have to live your life so you would gladly relive it 1000x over?

• Appreciate Impermanence: Everyone and everything you love will soon be gone, so enjoy it and love it while you can. Knowing all of this is temporary makes each moment inherently meaningful precisely because it doesn’t last forever.

• Choose Wisely: Remember that every experience and meaning is available to you, so you can either Consciously choose your world or the world will choose it for you. Morality starts with deciding what you pay attention to and what meaning you give it.

To approach and know the Absolute, one needs to enter fully into the present moment:

• Observe the silent spaces between sounds.

• Notice the empty space around objects, the stillness underneath movement.

• Stay present in awareness itself.

• Turn your attention back on itself and on the one who perceives.

To know the Absolute, one has to transcend and go beyond the Relative. This does not require doing anything because the Absolute is ever-present.

Practical Morality & Embodying Meaning

Consider the famous image of the Three Wise Monkeys—“hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”

This ancient symbol isn’t about denial or ignorance; it’s a profound teaching about morality rooted in conscious perception, understanding, and unconditional love.

We live in a world that contains infinite possibilities and freedom. Virtually every conceivable type of experience and meaning can—and does—exist within it. This boundless freedom to create, interpret, and choose meaning arises directly from the nature of Absolute Reality itself.

The Absolute, the ultimate ground of being, allows everything to exist exactly as it is.

It provides space for every experience, every state of being, and every act of becoming.

It offers total freedom—without conditions, without judgment, and without restriction. It allows all things precisely because it fully accepts all things.

This acceptance is not partial or conditional; it’s absolute, unconditional acceptance. And unconditional acceptance is, by its very nature, unconditional love.

Thus, the essential quality of the Absolute is unconditional love itself.

It accepts and embraces every possibility, every expression of existence, every moment of suffering or joy.

It does so effortlessly, infinitely, and it knows that none of it can ever diminish or disturb its own unchanging peace and perfection.

Our morality, therefore, begins by consciously embodying this unconditional love—this fundamental aspect of the Absolute—within our everyday lives.

Practically, this means carefully choosing what we pay attention to and intentionally deciding how we interpret and give meaning to our experiences.

If we see through a lens of duality—of “good” versus “evil”—we inevitably invite evil into our experience. This dualistic view tempts us into endless cycles of conflict, confrontation, and suffering.

Seeing 'Evil' will tempt you into a confrontation with it, and oftentimes, when you fight monsters, you become a monster yourself.

To rid the world of Evil, you become a devil.

The road to hell is often paved with good intentions.

The Three Wise Monkeys point to a higher path:

First, consciously choose what you give your attention to. Each day brings billions of possibilities—you cannot possibly engage with everything, so choose wisely and intentionally.

Second, recognize the profound power of interpretation. Every event can be seen from countless perspectives.

Labeling someone or something as inherently “evil” locks us into judgment, preventing true understanding, transformation, and healing. Instead, understand that even “evil” has something vital to teach us. Suffering highlights precisely where we need to heal and grow.

By fully digesting and transforming these experiences, we move beyond simplistic dualities.

This is how the Three Wise Monkeys truly embody morality: they “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” not through ignorance or denial, but because they’ve deeply understood, integrated, and transcended duality within their meaning-making.

Morality is thus rooted in consciously choosing what we pay attention to and how we perceive reality. When our perception becomes unconditional acceptance - unconditional love - evil no longer holds power over us. We perceive the world clearly through the lens of love itself.

In consciously aligning ourselves with the Absolute’s unconditional acceptance and love, we become living manifestations of its peace, depth, and wholeness.

We embody the Absolute (Shiva, pure consciousness) in the dynamic, ever-changing expressions of our daily life (Shakti, dynamic manifestation).

We bring forth Christ Consciousness, Agape, and unconditional love in every action, every interaction, every moment.

In doing this, we transcend yet fully embrace both realities, anchored firmly in the timeless peace of the Absolute, while joyfully participating in the vibrant dance of the Relative.

Now for a moment of joy:

It’s January 2nd, and it’s go time. As you look at yourself in the mirror, you imagine a whole you new and get pumped.

As you stand there, you tell yourself, 'This is the year I'll get fit and lose weight.'

You then bought new running shoes, downloaded a fitness app, and joined the gym down the street.

Fast forward…

Now it's March 1st.

Those running shoes? Collecting dust by the door.

The fitness app? You've ignored its notifications for weeks.

The gym membership? You haven't been there in a couple of weeks.

It was supposed to be a whole new year and a whole new you.

So, what happened?

You're not alone. About 80% of New Year's resolutions fail within 30 days, with fitness goals topping the list of abandoned commitments.

But why do we consistently struggle with Motivation, especially when we genuinely want to change?

1. The Motivation Mirage

Most of us believe Motivation should be a constant companion on our journey to change. But Motivation is more like weather than climate – it changes daily, sometimes hourly.

When you made that resolution, you were riding a wave of Motivation fueled by the fresh start of a new year.

But waiting to "feel motivated" before exercising is like waiting for perfect weather before going outside—you'll spend most of your time waiting.

2. The Capability Gap

"I know I should exercise, but I'm just not good at it."

When starting a new habit, by definition, we are bound to be ‘foolish.’ And fools fail often before they get it right.

The problem here is this capability gap creates resistance. Your brain is remarkably efficient at steering you away from activities where you expect to fail. Each time you think about exercise and remember past failures, your brain is reinforcing the path of avoidance.

The willingness to be a fool is a precursor to transformation.

3. The Environment Trap

Your alarm rings at 6 AM, but your warm bed feels more compelling than your abstract fitness goal.

The path to the couch is frictionless; the path to fitness is uphill. Your Environment is full of cues triggering old habits while offering little support for new ones.

4. The Values Conflict

"I want to be healthy, but I also want to enjoy life." Getting fit can conflict with other values like family time, work, fun, or spontaneity.

5. The Identity Conflict

Perhaps the most powerful obstacle is the gap between who you are trying to become and who you currently believe you are.

When you say, "I want to get in shape," you're really saying, "I am not someone who is in shape." But if your Identity is built around being "not athletic" or "not in shape," you're fighting against your own sense of self.

This creates cognitive dissonance—a mental discomfort that arises from holding contradictory beliefs. Unfortunately, it's often easier to abandon the new behavior than to revise one's Identity.

6. The Planning Fallacy

"This time will be different. I'll exercise every day for an hour!"

When setting goals, we routinely underestimate the obstacles we will face and overestimate our ability to overcome them. We plan for our ideal selves—the versions of ourselves with endless willpower, perfect circumstances, and no competing priorities.

This planning fallacy sets us up for failure. When reality fails to match our optimistic projections, we often abandon our targets entirely.

The Obstacle is the Way

Understanding these obstacles isn't about making excuses – it's about recognizing the real challenges between intention and action. Most motivation advice focuses on pushing harder, using willpower as a battering ram or just focusing on capability.

But what if there's a better way?

In the following sections, we'll explore frameworks that work with human nature, not against it: the COM-B model to understand behavior drivers and the Dilts model to help us better understand where and how to focus our efforts for maximum impact.

Lastly, we will look at the Prime Theory of Motivation, which puts it all together.

Sections:

1. COM-B Model: The Foundation of Motivation

2. Diltz Model: Where to Focus Your Energy

3. How to Apply These Models: Your Motivation Roadmap

4. PRIME Theory of Motivation of Behavior

5. Persuasion: Motivation from the Outside

6. Your Master Plan with Tools & Assessments

7. The Heart of Motivation

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Part 1: The COM-B Model - The Foundation of Motivation

The COM-B model, created by behavior scientists, provides a clear framework for understanding all human behavior. It breaks down the essential components needed for any behavior to occur.

At its core, COM-B states that three elements must be present for any behavior to happen:

C - Capability: The physical and psychological ability to perform the behavior

O - Opportunity: The physical and social Environment that enables the behavior

M - Motivation: The internal processes that energize and direct behavior

Let's break these down to understand how they work together:

1. Capability: Can You Do It?

Capability is the thee power or ability to do something, and it comes in two forms:

• Physical Capability: The bodily strength, stamina, and skills needed

• Psychological Capability: The knowledge, mental skills, and cognitive capacity required

A person who is well-spoken and has the ability to share complicated ideas with friends and colleagues but freezes up when they are on stage. Their body is perfectly capable of standing and talking, but their mind lacks the psychological tools to manage their anxiety.

2. Opportunity: Can It Happen in Your World?

Opportunity is a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. This has two dimensions:

• Physical Opportunity: The Environment, resources, time, and physical accessibility

• Social Opportunity: The cultural norms, social cues, and relationships that influence behavior

If you work 12-hour shifts and don't have access to a gym, you can exercise but lack physical Opportunity.

3. Motivation: Do You Want To Do It?

Motivation is the desire to act in service of a goal.

It is divided into areas:

• Reflective Motivation: Conscious planning, evaluations, and intentions

• Automatic Motivation: Emotions, impulses, desires, and habits

This is where many motivation models fall short - they focus only on reflective motivation (conscious goals and plans) while ignoring automatic Motivation (feelings and impulses that often override our plans).

Why This Model Matters

The power of COM-B lies in its completeness. When behavior change fails, at least one of these components is missing or insufficient.

Most approaches to Motivation focus exclusively on the "M" - trying to pump up Motivation while ignoring capability and opportunity gaps. This explains why so many well-intentioned efforts fail.

The Model shows us that:

1. No amount of Motivation compensates for lack of Capability or Opportunity

2. Enhancing Capability and Opportunity actually increases Motivation

3. Sustainable change requires addressing all three components

In the next section, we'll explore the Dilts model, which helps us understand where to focus our attention within this framework for maximum impact.

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Part 2: Dilts Model - Where to Focus Your Energy

While the COM-B model shows us what components need to be present for behavior change, the Dilts model (developed by Robert Dilts) reveals where to focus our efforts for maximum impact.

Think of it as a hierarchy of change, with each level influencing all the levels below it:

The Logical Levels of Change is a powerful model that describes how we operate in the World and how to effect change.

The Model focuses on the following Levels:

• Vision: This relates to your Why and your reason for being. It's the bigger picture of your life.

• Identity: This refers to the roles you play, your story, and your concept.

• Values & Beliefs: This answers the question of what is important to you and 'Why' you behave the way you do.

• Capability: This includes your talents, abilities, skills, knowledge, and education. This speaks to your potential for action.

• Behavior: This relates to your actions in the World. What you do and everything you do happens in an environment.

• Environment: The time, place, and overall context. This can include where you live, your relationships, your career, your financial well-being, your health, etc.

Each of these levels can be highly empowering or limiting.

Why we Fail

When change is hard, often it's because we are working on the wrong level. The most common temptation is to try to fix a problem at the level that it exists.

For example, if we don't like a behavior, like smoking, we try to effect change on the behavioral level. We try to change the behavior via force or suppression, only for all our efforts to fail.

So, how do we work on the right level of change?

We first must discover what levels the problem exists on.

With the Smoker, we need to listen to their language and see what level(s) changes are required.

For example, consider the differences between saying:

• "I can't quit" (skill) versus

• "Smoking won't hurt me" (belief), versus

• "It's a part of who I am" (Identity).

How to Work with the Levels

There is a two-way relationship between these levels and how they affect each other.

The lower levels can inform the upper levels; however, the upper levels produce changes in the lower levels.

Here is how it works:

1. Information: Lower to Higher

   1. Environment → Behavior: Environment informs our behavior, what opportunities are present

   2. Behavior → Capability: Behavior can inform Capability. By practicing new skills, we can increase our capabilities.

   3. Capability → Beliefs: By becoming more aware of our capabilities, we can update our beliefs about what we can do.

   4. Values & Beliefs → Identity: Updating our beliefs about ourselves has the meta effect of changing how we see ourselves. For example, as we grow, we become a person who can change and evolve (meta-narrative) rather than someone who is fixed, which changes how we see ourselves.

   5. Identity → Vision: As our identity changes, so does our worldview, our perception of our World, our place in it, and our responsibility to it. This can inform our higher purpose and vision of life.

2. Change: Higher to Lower

   1. Behavior > Environment: You can’t change the Environment on the level of Environment; you need to ACT and behave. You change your Environment via behavior.

   2. Capability > Behavior: Capability determines what you can do. You can not act outside of your Capability.

   3. Values & Beliefs > Capability: Learning a new skill and increasing your Capability is hard. In order to climb this mountain, we need Motivation, and this comes from valuing the destination and believing we can be successful.

   4. Identity > Beliefs: Identity is your core beliefs about who you are. By shifting your Identity ("I am an athlete"), you can naturally begin to transform your values and beliefs.

   5. Vision > Identity: Our time on Earth is limited. What in your life is worth living and dying for? What is this highest way of being in the World, the highest version of yourself that serves you and the whole?

Transformation

The most potent transformations happen when you align all levels:

• A higher vision and purpose that creates a compelling identity

• This Identity transforms your values and shapes your beliefs.

• These values & beliefs drive the development of necessary capabilities

• These capabilities enable consistent behaviors.

• These behaviors transform your Environment.

Part 3: How to Apply These Models - Your Motivation Roadmap

Now that we understand the foundations of Motivation (COM-B) and where to focus our attention (Dilts model) let's combine these insights into a practical approach that also leverages the Fogg Method.

The key is knowing whether you need a top-down or bottom-up approach based on your specific situation.

Top Down: Focus on Purpose & Identity

Use this approach when:

• You feel generally aimless or disconnected.

• You're unsure why you're pursuing your goals.

• You can't maintain Motivation for more than a few days.

• You find yourself saying, "What's the point?"

The top-down approach starts with mission and Identity, then works its way down:

1. Clarify Your Mission: What contribution do you want to make? What purpose energizes you? What would make your efforts meaningful?

2. Reshape Your Identity: Based on your mission, who do you need to become? What kind of person would naturally fulfill this purpose?

3. Align Your Values and Beliefs: What must you believe and value to support this Identity?

4. Develop Capabilities: What skills and knowledge does this Identity require?

5. Implement Behaviors: What specific actions align with this Identity?

6. Reshape Environment: How can you structure your surroundings to support these behaviors?

Bottom-Up Approach: When You Need Quick Wins and Evidence

Use this approach when:

• You have clarity on your goals but struggle with implementation

• You doubt your ability to succeed

• You face specific environmental barriers

• You find yourself saying, "I can't" or "It's too hard."

The bottom-up approach starts with tiny behaviors and builds upward:

1. Create a Friction-Free Environment: Design your Environment so it makes doing the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2. Use the Fogg Method: Make behaviors tiny and attach them to existing habits.

   • Imagination: Start by imagining doing the simplest action.

   • Want to exercise? Do just one push-up after brushing your teeth

   • Want to write? Write one sentence after your morning coffee

   • Want to meditate? Take one conscious breath after sitting down at your desk.

3. Build Capabilities Gradually: Let small successes build evidence of Capability.

4. Update Beliefs Through Experience: Let direct experience reshape limiting beliefs.

5. Allow Identity to Evolve: As behaviors and beliefs shift, your self-concept naturally updates.

Fear Setting: Addressing Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs can stop you before you start because, deep down, you don’t believe that the outcome is likely or are concerned about the potential effects of a negative or positive outcome.

• Fear Setting: This is a technique where you work through and overcome your fears.

• Fears have a lot to teach us about the situation we are about to enter, and addressing our fears can lower the risks and increase positive outcomes when done right.

For goals where fear or anxiety creates resistance, use the Fear Setting technique:

1. Define the Fears: What are you afraid might happen if you pursue this goal?

2. List Prevention Measures: For each fear, what could you do to prevent it?

3. Identify Repair Strategies: If the worst happened, how could you fix it?

4. Calculate Cost of Inaction: What are the costs (emotional, physical, financial) of not acting?

For Paid Subscribers, I have a Free Workbook Below that takes you through the entire process. Link at the Bottom of this post.

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Decision Tree: Which Approach Do You Need?

Ask yourself these questions to determine your starting point:

• Do I know what I want? (If no → Top-Down)

• Do I know why it matters deeply? (If no → Top-Down)

• Do I believe I can do it? (If no → Beliefs + Fear Setting)

• Do I have the necessary skills? (If no → Bottom-Up, focus on Capabilities)

• Is my Environment supportive? (If no → Bottom-Up, focus on Environment)

The Power of Integration

The most effective approach combines both directions:

1. Start with Purpose: Connect to something meaningful that energizes you

2. Translate to Identity: Define who you need to become

3. Take Tiny Actions: Build evidence through small, consistent wins

4. Create Supportive Environments: Make the right behaviors easier than the wrong ones

Remember: Motivation isn't something you have or don't have. It's a system you can engineer by addressing all components of behavior change and focusing your attention at the correct levels.

In the next section, we'll explore how these principles play out in real-world scenarios through the PRIME Theory of Motivation.

Part 4: PRIME Theory of Motivation of Behavior

Recently, you decided to improve your diet because of all of the potential health benefits.

The whole idea is a bit of a drag but you know that it is good for you, so you recenlty made it into your latest goal.

And then… your phone buzzes.

You look down at the notification, scroll for a few minutes, and see a delicious sandwich.

Your hunger is triggered, and you imagine yourself making the sandwich and then eating it. You tell yourself, “I’m going to make a healthy version of this,” and you race over to the refrigerator.

You open the door and scour for ingredients as you consider and imagine what you can eat.

But there are no healthy options.

So, you tell yourself it is just this one time.

You make the unhealthy sandwich, enjoy the first few bites and after you finish it feel guilty about not being able to carry out your plans.

This everyday scenario reveals a profound truth: In each moment, we do what we desire most. Not what we should desire but what we actually want at that moment.

The PRIME Theory of Motivation gives us a real-world understanding of how Motivation works in the moment - when our plans meet reality. This theory explains why good intentions often crumble in the face of immediate temptation.

The Hierarchy of Motivation

PRIME Theory explains that our behavior follows a predictable hierarchy from strongest to weakest influence:

1. Impulses (Strongest)

Automatic urges and reflexes that require no conscious thought.

• In our example, The phone buzzes, we look automatically; we scroll automatically

• These account for the majority of our daily actions

• They happen before conscious thought has a chance to intervene

2. Motives

Our wants, needs, and immediate desires are driven by:

• Anticipated pleasure or satisfaction

• Relief from discomfort

• Imagined future experiences

• In our example, Imagining eating the sandwich creates a powerful desire

3. Evaluations

Our values, beliefs, and worldview.

• These only influence actions if they generate stronger desires than our impulses and motives

• In our example, The belief in healthy eating wasn't strong enough to override the immediate desire

• Instead, we rationalized ("just this once") to resolve the conflict.

4. Plans (Weakest)

Our conscious intentions, goals, and strategies.

• These only work when they're remembered in the moment AND generate stronger desires than everything above

• In our example, The healthy eating plan was wholly overwhelmed by impulses and motives

This hierarchy explains why willpower fails so often; our carefully crafted plans sit at the bottom of this hierarchy, easily overwhelmed by more immediate desires.

Connecting PRIME to COM-B and Dilts

This theory perfectly complements our previous models:

• COM-B Connection: PRIME shows why Motivation alone isn't enough - you need Capability (cooking healthy) and Opportunity (healthy food available)

• Dilts Connection: PRIME confirms that higher-level changes (Identity) have more power than lower-level changes (Behavior, Environment). In our example, the 'belief that ‘it is okay not to eat’ is confirmed.

How to Use PRIME Theory for Change

The key insight from PRIME Theory is that sustainable change requires aligning your Identity with your goals.

Here's how:

1. Focus on Identity

Identity is a powerful source of desires that provides stability to our behavior.

• Being a "healthy person" naturally motivates healthy eating

• Identity change is the starting point for lasting behavior change.

• This aligns perfectly with the Dilts model's emphasis on higher-level change.

2. Let Identity Drive Motives

A strong identity creates strong desires for the right things:

• A "runner" wants to run.

• A "healthy eater" craves nutritious food and does not settle for junk food.

• A "non-smoker" doesn't need to resist cigarettes - they don't want them.

3. Shape Your Environment

Your Identity will naturally reshape your Environment:

• A "non-smoker" doesn't have cigarettes lying around

• A "healthy person" doesn't buy junk food.

• This creates a powerful cycle: Identity → behavior → environment → reduced temptation → reinforced Identity.

4. Recognize the Limits of Self Control

Beliefs without Identity require constant self-control, and in order to work, they must produce more desire than temptation every single time.

This explains how someone, like a priest, who firmly believes in adultery, can commit infidelity. Acting out sexual needs often produces a lot more desire and energy, which typically overwhelms the appetite to act out one’s beliefs instead.

Relying on Self-Control is thus a poor long-term strategy. It usually fails and produces a mess in other areas of our lives.

• Believing "healthy eating is good" is not enough

• But being a "healthy person" naturally makes healthy choices

5. The Limitations of Values-Based Motivation

Values alone aren't enough. When we achieve what we value—a promotion, recognition, or material goal—the motivational energy often vanishes with it. Values are also contextual and relative to our current state. After we've eaten, food loses its appeal. After receiving praise, our hunger for validation temporarily fades.

This explains why many people feel empty after reaching significant milestones. The pursuit itself was providing the Motivation, not the underlying meaning. Without connecting values to a deeper identity and purpose, we risk toxic productivity and burnout—chasing goals that provide diminishing returns of satisfaction.

7. Create Alignment Across Levels

When your plans align with your Identity and beliefs, you generate enormous Motivation:

• Clear boundaries ("I never eat fast food" vs. "I try to limit fast food" vs. “I’ll have one cheat day per week”)

• Strong emotional attachments to your Identity

• Design your Environment so that it makes it easy to do the rights things and very hard to do the wrong things.

In the next section, we'll explore how these principles of Motivation can be used - both ethically and unethically - to influence behavior through persuasion techniques.

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AI, robotics, and Web 3 will bring about a radical transformation, and over the next decade, we will experience more change than we have in the past thirty years.

These changes will catch most by surprise, and the cultural shifts will be shocking.

Yet, the signs of what is coming are clear for all who can see them. The signs are everywhere: in our language, culture, ideologies, philosophies, and even in our memes.

To put it all together, I created this video that reviews our current value systems and their corresponding worldviews and ideologies.

The video tells a story of change, how the world changes, how value drives us forward, and how we express and share it.

In the last section of the video, I explore what is happening now, how we are fully plunged into postmodernism, and what is next.

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At every moment, there are a million different things one can pay attention to. We choose what to focus on, and in doing so, we necessarily give up all other potentials.

We get to know and experience the one thing we pay attention to but very little else. For example, you're reading these words, so you know what is on this page, at the cost of missing out on most of everything else.

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” Sarte

Why do we pay attention to some things and not others?

Our values guide our attention and what we focus on. In this way, what we really value is brought to life via our attention, and we live in a world produced by our values.

The world produced by our values is structured, has a coherent hierarchy, and helps construct our Worldview.

Our Worldview then acts as a subconscious map that automatically filters our environment based on our values and guides our behavior so we move towards that.

As we move towards our values and attain their fruits, we improve our lives. When enough of us do this on scale, we have a coherent value system and a corresponding worldview that works in the real world.

Working in the real world makes a value system viable, and the more feasible a value system is, the more people will adopt it. When a value system has mass adoption, it becomes part of our culture and collective Worldview and is expressed in our art, philosophy, mythologies, and ideologies.

Now, the world is not just one place. There are many different environments, and a Value System will perform better in some environments and worse in others. In other words, a Value System's worth is related and relative to its environment and other available Value Systems.

As societies grow and evolve, they go through different stages and Value Systems. During the Hunter Gatherer Era, egalitarianism, sharing, and personal autonomy were the highest values. Working well and sharing with others was essential for survival because one was unlikely to feed oneself daily alone.

For Hunter Gathers, food was their biggest challenge, and then, one day, they discovered horticulture. Horticulture led to the advent of agricultural societies, which required a different set of values to be successful. For the first time, people had to consider property rights, managing resources like water, rules, laws, security, and the need for a social hierarchy in managing larger groups of people.

Going from the Hunter Gather Era to the Agriculture Era took about 6000 years.

Why?

Most Hunter-Gatherers preferred their way of life. They did not want to be subjected to a local ruler and have to follow someone else’s laws.

However, this was not possible in the long run, and a conflict between both worldviews was inevitable. Over the centuries, Agricultural societies took all the best land with their militaries; they nearly pushed Hunter and Gathers out into extinction. They had a choice: adapt or die. Today, there are very few Hunter and Gather Societies left.

Next, let’s explore value systems, how they evolve, the current value systems operating in the world that are igniting our culture war through their internal paradoxes, and what is next.

1. What are Value Systems & How Do They Work?

2. Evolving Nature of Values

3. 4 Primary Worldviews

   • Traditionalism

   • Modernism

   • Postmodernism

   • Integral

4. The Cultural War

5. Path Forward: Paradox & Integration

6. Personal & Social Transformation

7. Summary: Dancing with Destiny

What are Value Systems & How Do They Work?

Values are like a set of tools that help us attain our needs, such as our survival, procreation, and even self-actualization, both individually and collectively. As such, values exist on a hierarchy, where some values are more important than others. This value hierarchy is our value system.

We then consciously and subconsciously organize our lives around attaining our values according to our value system. This includes our career, relationships, education, and what we prioritize.

Our value systems often work automatically in our lives.

Values affect our perceptions apriori. When we enter an environment, we automatically scan it according to our values and move towards our values. In this way, values shape us. They become like an invisible structure that helps determine our perceptions, plans, goals, and behavior.

Since values are tied to a real-world context and embedded in culture, we learn what is worthwhile from infancy. We grow up in a cultural soup that infuses us with beliefs about the nature of our reality and what is essential and invaluable in life. So, our values are often shared with others, and we strive to achieve these values.

The Evolving Nature of Values

As a society successfully attains the fruits of its value system, when its values are fully realized, it begins to transform its own culture and environment according to those values.

The Agricultural Era transformed life on Earth and gave rise to civilization. Then, in the 1760s, the Industrial Revolution came along and remade the world. Today, we are in the epicenter of the Information Age and are experiencing massive changes.

We can see how each epoch produced its corresponding beliefs, philosophies, art, culture, and Worldview.

Value systems thus produce a coherent value structure, a framework that is then infused with the color, culture, and personality of a given society.

At its peak, the Value System will transform the environment, creating a whole new world and a twofold paradox:

• First, as the values become fully realized, they, by definition, become abundant, and in their abundance, they become less valuable.

• Second, as society creates and extracts value, it transforms its environment. A different set of values emerges as more beneficial in the new environment.

Let’s look at a few examples of each:

• Cotton was once a highly prized luxury good that is abundant and cheap today.

• The Dutch East India Company (VOC), which primarily traded spices and imported goods, became arguably the most valuable company in history, valued at a whopping $7.9 Trillion. Today, starting such a business would be laughable. The value of transporting goods has been captured.

Now, here is the key. Since no solution is perfect, when a society transforms its environment, it also creates negative externalities. These negative externalities are part of the new environment and develop a set of challenges that require a new way of thinking to solve.

In due time, the old value systems become less effective and produce more negative externalities, which leads to a huge incentive to explore. Once a set of viable solutions is discovered and adapted on scale, this leads to the generation of a new Value System and Worldview.

Here are a few examples:

• The Hunter-Gatherer Era was limited by daily survival and food scarcity.

  • Externalities: nomadic lifestyle limited group sizes, knowledge accumulation and ability to grow

• The Agricultural Era solved the problem of food security but was limited by human/animal labor.

  • Externalities: Progress was limited by rigid hierarchical social structures, Limited social mobility, Resistance to change and innovation

• The Industrial Age solved the problem of physical labor limits through machines but was limited by information flow.

  • Externalities: Pollution, Alienation, Environmental Degradation, Materialistic reductionism, Exploitation

• Information Age solved the problem of information flow but is limited by meaning-making

  • Externalities: Fragmentation of shared meaning, Relativism, Difficulty in coordinating collective action, Narcissistic individualism

In the same way that water flows downhill, societies move towards value, which transforms them and necessitates a new set of values and Worldview.

This cycle repeats itself, pushing us to evolve.

Let’s look at the three primary Value Systems Today.

The 4 Primary Worldviews

Today, three central value systems are working in the world, and a fourth is emerging.

The three main Worldviews that are expressed in our epoch, philosophical systems, and Worldviews are:

1. Traditionalism: Agricultural Era & Pre-Modern Classical Philosophy. Focus on order, stability, and adherence to established norms.

2. Modernism: Industrial Era & Modernism. Emphasis on reason, progress, and individual freedoms.

3. Postmodernism: Information Age & postmodernism. Concentration on equality, inclusivity, and cultural relativism.

4. Integral Age: Age of AI & metamodernism. Focused on integrating values based on what is needed, next, and effective. [emerging]

These Worldviews exist on a meta-archetypal level, meaning that even though the names, events, and characters change from culture to culture, their stories have similar plots, characters, and morals.

We can see how the chief problem that each Value System solved was embedded in their Worldview and produced externalities, which were then addressed in the next Worldview.

Traditionalism

Side note: I am including videos on each of these so you can go deeper.

Traditionalism offered a set of values that made organizing agricultural activities on scale possible. Having a Worldview where there is a ‘God’, a set of ‘Truths’ that must be obeyed, ensures that everyone in society plays by the same set of rules. Even Kings were not above the law of God.

This shift in Worldview decreased the odds of getting plundered and increased overall security for everyone. It also became possible to build a strong foundation, the rule of law, and to implement legal frameworks that worked within hierarchies. This foundation made it possible to protect property rights, which ensured that inventors could benefit from their inventions and led to the Industrial Revolution.

World View & Values:

1. Values: Traditional values, duty, morality, discipline, character, duty, honor, justice, and moral fiber; righteous living; controlling impulsivity through guilt;

2. Core Belief: There is a higher order and meaning to the Universe and Life itself, and that highest order is God/Gods.

3. Motives: Security- Order, Right & Wrong

4. Chief Problem: Achieving everlasting peace of mind (heaven, paradise, etc) in a chaotic world.

5. Characteristics: absolutistic, obedient, purposeful, authoritarian

6. Nature of Existence: Dualistic and Saintly

7. Meaning: Life has meaning, direction, and purpose with predetermined outcomes

8. Purpose: There is a transcendent Purpose, a recognition of the importance of order and meaning, a universe controlled by a single higher power.

9. Means: Sacrificing Self for a transcendent Cause, (secular or religious) Truth, Mission, future reward

10. Truth: Traditionalists see "Truth" as fundamental, all-encompassing, and worthy of any sacrifice or personal surrender, even of one's life.

11. Examples: Puritan America, Confucian China, Dickensian England, Religious fundamentalism, etc.

Modernism

Modernism began by addressing the negative externalities of Traditionalism by changing the way people saw the world and what was possible.

One of Traditionalism's downsides is that it confines people to a rigid hierarchical social structure that limits social mobility. It also has a very fixed mindset that is resistant to change and innovation.

Modernism sought to break through this mindset by offering an empowering view that promised progress, independence, individual success, and living the good life here and now instead of ‘heaven.’ Modernists struggle for autonomy, material abundance, and progress by finding the best solutions.

Modernism is characterized by a belief in progress and the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment. It is often accompanied by disillusionment about modernity's promised potential.

World View & Values:

1. Values: Progress, prosperity, optimism, and self-reliance; strategy, risk-taking, and competitiveness; goals, leverage, professional development, and mastery; rationality, objectivism, demonstrated results, technology, and the power of science

2. Core Belief: Progress will save us

3. Characteristics: materialistic, strategic, ambitions, individualistic

4. Chief Problem: Conquering the physical world

5. Motives: Independence- Autonomy & Achievement

6. Nature of Existence: Materialistic

7. Meaning: loss of meaning; quest for personal meaning

8. Purpose: personal purpose focuses on winning and materialism

9. Means: Scientism

10. Truth: Can be discovered via the scientific methods now or later

11. Examples: The Enlightenment, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Wall Street

Post Modernism

Modernism offered a path to progress and promised ‘the good’ life, but what does that mean?

Postmodernism began to question Modernism's foundational assumptions, including its notions of objective truth, universal narratives, and the idea that progress and reason alone could lead to a better world.

They had a point.

After all, Modernism did nothing to prevent Two World Wars. In fact, science and industrialization created such powerful killing machines. Modernism continues to fail at addressing its externalities, such as pollution, environmental degradation, and the commodification of everything, even the individual.

Postmodernism is a movement that considers these externalities, how we are treating each other, and the environment. It takes the perspective of others and attempts to create harmony.

World View & Values:

1. Values: Sensitivity to others, harmony, equality, reconciliation, consensus, dialogue, participation, relationships, and networking; human development, bonding, diversity, and multiculturalism

2. Core Belief: Everything is relative

3. Characteristics: relativistic, sensitive, pluralistic, personalistic

4. Chief Problem: Living with the human element (materialism, dogma, divisiveness) and accepting the unacceptable.

5. Motives: Affiliation- Approval, Equality, Community, Love

6. Nature of Existence: Personalistic

7. Meaning: believe in a multiplicity of meanings,

8. Purpose: the creation of a personal purpose,

9. Means: Sociocentricity, progress via collective group

10. Truth: No fundamental truth; everything is relative

11. Examples: John Lennon’s Imagine; Netherlands’ idealism; sensitivity training; human rights and diversity issues, etc…

Each of these Worldviews provides value to our world, but there is also a hidden cost.

The cost is that they can lead us into limiting beliefs and feelings of Guilt, Existential Angst, and Nihilism.

The Cultural War

Transformation is not uniform. Some parts of the world and environments are more conducive to change, while others make it fundamentally harder. This gives some individuals and societies an advantage while leaving others behind.

What makes this challenging to address is that from the point of view of each, they have the right system because, after all, it works in their environment. If you live on a farm, taking risks can lead to failed crops, so caution, practicality, and deep community bonds ensure survival, while in the city, you’re rewarded for taking risks, having abstract intellectual skills and broad networks of connections. Today, we see a city vs rural divide in culture, beliefs, values, and voting.

This is a conflict between Value Systems.

Today, we have a conflict between Traditionalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. Each sees the others as a threat to its way of life. The elite members of each group fight tooth and nail to preserve their way of life as the Hunters and Gathers did.

These conflicts and the current cultural war are bringing out the worst in each Worldview and eroding their values from within. In an effort to win, no one is reflecting and noticing their internal weaknesses, and anyone who points them out is excommunicated. As such, these Worldviews are failing to address their weaknesses, being unhealthy versions of themselves and decaying from within. In total, they are failing us in addressing the needs of the day.

The Path Forward: Paradox & Integration

Value Systems can have both healthy and unhealthy expressions. Healthy expressions acknowledge inner contradictions, are aware of their values' limitations, and are open to other perspectives. People at a healthy level can get real value out of their value systems while supporting the broader community.

Unhealthy expressions typically come from a place of fear that your values and way of life are under attack. In an effort to support one’s values, there is a refusal to accept limitations, weaknesses, and contradictions. When challenged, there is a doubling down on the value system and a willingness to sacrifice lower-level values within the hierarchy. This typically manifests as protecting the system at all costs, even when there is rot within the system itself and change is needed.

There are many examples of this.

• Traditional: How religious institutions have abused power for centuries. Recently, the Catholic Church protected pedophile priests.

• Modernism: There have been numerous massacres of striking workers in the US, like the Ludlow Massacre, the Columbine Mine massacre, the Morewood Massacre, the Herrin Massacre, the Lattimer Massacre, the Homestead Massacre, and so on. Here, the ‘Corporation’ murders the ‘individuals’ who refuse to be cogs in the machine.

• Postmodernism: In an effort to understand and be sensitive to even the worst among us, postmodernists justify and rationalize bad behavior, letting criminals off the hook while excluding those who wish to hold them accountable from the conversation.

But why does this happen?

Why is it so easy for Value Systems to manifest the opposite of their stated values?

Hegelian Paradox of Value Systems

Values have an internal paradox in that they bring both the stated value and its opposite into existence.

For example, the modern value of ‘wealth’ suggests an entire continuum between ‘Being Poor to Becoming Wealthy.’

Striving to become wealthy is an admission that you lack wealth. Whenever we try to attain a value by pursuing it, we manifest the condition of lacking that value, so in pursuing wealth, we might feel insufficient. The paradox is that by chasing wealth, we make ourselves ‘poorer’ in comparison.

So, pursuing values produces a shadow where the opposite of the value is reality.

Let’s look at a few examples:

• Traditionalism: Focused on truth and moral behavior.

  • Stated Value: Divine order, moral certainty, righteous behavior

  • Shadow: Striving for moral purity and following divine law creates rigid systems that lead to moral corruption and hypocrisy.

  • Examples: Religious institutions becoming sources of abuse and power corruption, Religious leaders amassing wealth while preaching against materialism, Moral crusaders engaging in the behaviors they condemn

  • Paradox: Moral certainty can lead to committing moral wrongs

• Modernism: Focused on individual freedom and material abundance

  • Stated Value: Individualism

  • Shadow: Reducing the individual to a meatball, treating him like a machine, and commodifying him, thus stripping all individuality out of the individual.

  • Examples: Sweathshops, Hustle Culture promoting individuality through conformist productivity, Gig Economy promising freedom while creating dependency, Dating apps meat market, Social media "personal branding" turning people into products, Selling every part of Self for economic gain (work, ideas, time, body, sex, etc.).

  • Paradox: It is hyper-focused on individualism and freedom to pursue success. However, at its core, it undermines and destroys the individual by reducing him to being nothing more than a machine and commodifying him in every way.

• Postmodernism:

  • Stated Value: Inclusivity

  • Shadow: Exclude people who are not inclusive and thus become exclusive.

  • Example: Cancel culture in the name of inclusivity, Diversity initiatives that create new forms of discrimination, Universities limiting speech to protect free expression,

  • Paradox: In their attempt to be sensitive and inclusive, they run into the paradox of what to do with those who are not accepting. Do they accept the unacceptable? Their answer is no, which turns their inclusivity into exclusivity and dogma.

The key insight is that each value system contains its own contradiction and needs to address this paradox.

When it fails to recognize and integrate it, this shadow can become dominant, leading to the value system's imbalance and breakdown.

We can use the Hegelian dialectic to restore balance and health within a Value System. The Hegelian Dialect aims to synthesize the thesis/concept (value) and the antithesis/alternative (shadow) into a greater understanding.

Here is an example of how to integrate and turn weaknesses into strengths:

Traditional:

• Thesis (Stated Value): Moral certainty/divine order

• Antithesis (Shadow): Human fallibility and corruption

• Synthesis: Humble devotion, compassionate application

• Result: morals without rigid moralism

Modernism:

• Thesis: Individual achievement and success

• Antithesis: Alienation and meaninglessness

• Synthesis: Achievement that serves the collective good

• Result: Success with purpose

Postmodern:

• Thesis: Radical inclusion and equality

• Antithesis: Exclusion of excluders

• Synthesis: Developmental approach to inclusion

• Result: Inclusive while honoring development

Health comes not from perfecting the system but from consciously working with its inherent tensions.

However, I do not see a serious effort or improvement in this direction. Instead, our current Worldviews and Value Systems are failing us. They are failing to address their own weaknesses and thus becoming toxic and unhealthy versions of themselves.

Quite evidently, they lack the tools and ability to get along, which makes them incapable of meeting the needs and demands of the moment.

All of this necessitates a new paradigm and way forward that can unlock greater value.

Today, we are starting to see a new paradigm emerge, a paradigm that solves the old issues and can move us forward.

Integrative Era

Societies evolve when solutions no longer work, and a new paradigm offers a better value proposition.

The emerging new paradigm is the Integrative Era. The Integrative perspective moves from "either/or" to "both/and" thinking, which recognizes that opposing viewpoints often contain complementary truths that need to be integrated at a higher level.

Rather than seeking to prove others wrong, the integral approach looks for the partial truth in each perspective and its usefulness while acknowledging its limitations and considering the context. As a result, it is able to use what is useful when and where it is useful, thereby integrating all of the values available to it.

The Integrative Era can transcend today's culture wars by embracing validity and hierarchy within a given context. It acknowledges that traditional values (stability, community, meaning), modern accomplishments (science, individual rights, progress), and postmodern insights (cultural context, inclusion, environmental awareness) all contain partial truths that need to be integrated rather than fought over.

Furthermore, it integrates the current system of values by applying and weaving them as needed and demanded by the situation and environment. In this way, it has the full gamut of values to play with and can mix and match to solve the problems it faces within a given context.

Personal & Social Transformation

One way to think about personal growth is as a journey where we strive to attain our values based on our beliefs. Our beliefs act as our foundation, fundamentally defining what the world is about, the chief problem of life, and how we ought to be in the world.

Each Value System has a pre-packaged solution that helps meet our Hierarchy of Needs. We then set out to attain our values, believing that this would change our lives. This approach is very beneficial in the beginning. Using this method, we can build a strong foundation that meets our physical, safety, and social needs.

Through this growth, we increase the total amount of value in our lives and gain the self-confidence and esteem to affect our lives. Extrinsic goals are effective in building a foundation that addresses our deficiency needs.

So, one aspect of GROWTH is meeting our needs and increasing the Values in our lives.

However, the goal-oriented, extrinsic approach is ultimately destined to fail in meeting our growth needs, and this is where many people get stuck.

They get stuck and confused because the approach that worked so well in meeting their basic needs is now failing them. They might achieve wealth and fame, yet feel utterly empty, lonely, and find life meaningless.

Doubling down by doing more, achieving more, and having more eventually fail again, and they are lost.

The way out requires a great deal of introspection and a certain degree of radical honesty. It means having the courage to reflect on one’s values and beliefs and explore one’s epistemology.

Becoming genuinely interested in this opens the door to understanding because growth needs require intrinsic motivation.

To meet our growth needs, we must become more intrinsically motivated and do things for their own sake.

We do things because we love them.

This is a significant shift from ‘having’ and ‘striving’ to ‘being.’ In the same way that being a great musician has nothing to do with buying an expensive guitar, being fulfilled has nothing to do with ‘having’ enough of ‘x,y, or z.’

Being grateful is then the greatest prosperity. Loving what you do naturally leads to mastery, and living a life in this way is fulfilling.

So, the maturation process is a process in which we refine and increase our values and the amount of care we have. We grow in care, going from caring about ourselves (physical & safety needs) to caring for others and finally caring for our world (self-transcendence) and, in the process, healing our relationships.

We grow by transcending and including all of the different value systems.

Social Transformation

Societies are forced to evolve when the old solutions no longer work, and chaos is at the door.

Society is a collection of individuals, so this work starts at the individual level. It is a process that people actively go through where they personally transform their lives, then improve their family’s life, then their community, and so on.

It’s an organic process in which we grow, expand our circle of care, share our insights with our community, and help them succeed.

In other words, our social evolution is essentially an evolutionary survival function, gravitating to real-world value rather than any ‘social movement’ or ‘fighting for or against a cause.’

Lasting change is the product of moving to a better system. Systems aren’t eradicated just because they are failing; they are replaced when there is a better alternative.

Ultimately, the better alternative, the alternative that will stand the test of time, is the one that increases our ability to survive.

Survival, however, is not done alone. None of us can make it alone, and we are all in this together. Furthermore, we don’t live independently of our environment. We live in and are intertwined with our environment, which provides all of our needs.

So, caring for each other, the animals, and the planet ensures our own survival. With this framework, we can see that Growth and Transformation, both personally and collectively, are an increase in the number of values available to us and an increase in care.

The more we care, the more we can respond, the more responsible we can be, and the longer we can survive.

Summary: Dancing with Destiny

Throughout history, we see a recurring pattern: societies develop value systems to solve their pressing challenges, transform their environment through these values, and then face new challenges that demand fresh solutions. This isn't just a linear progression but a spiral of development, where each stage transcends and includes what came before.

The Hunter-Gatherer valued sharing and autonomy, the Agricultural Age brought order and moral frameworks, the Industrial Age championed individual achievement and progress, and the Information Age elevated inclusion and interconnection. Each solves critical problems while creating new ones, each contains its own shadow that needs integration.

Today, we stand at another threshold. Our cultural wars between Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern worldviews reflect a deeper reality: that none of our value systems is sufficient for our complex world. The emerging Integral consciousness offers a way forward not by rejecting these perspectives but by integrating their wisdom while acknowledging their limitations.

This evolution isn't just societal - it's deeply personal. As individuals, we grow not by accumulating more but by expanding our circle of care and consciousness. We move from surviving to thriving, from having to being, from opposing to integrating. Our transformation becomes the foundation for social transformation.

The path forward isn't about choosing between tradition or progress, individual or collective, universal or relative truths. It's about developing the capacity to hold multiple perspectives, dance between different value systems as needed, and meet each moment with the appropriate response. This is the promise of integral consciousness—not a final destination but a more encompassing way of engaging with life's eternal dance of evolution.

With this map, you will be able to get a big-picture view of how our values and ideology shape our world. How they have help us solve big problems but also created new problems in an ongoing sequence, forcing us to evolve.

Finally, you will get a sense of where we are now, the next wave in the cycle of change, and what you can do about it.

Let's begin…

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Our Grand Human Adventure

Once upon a time, humanity was in the Hunter-gatherer age. Humans lived in small nomadic tribes, and most of their time was spent forging for food.

Then someone discovered an interesting pattern in nature, that seeds produce plants. (1)

This discovery was further explored, and more and more people experimented with seeds and were able to grow food. (2)

These discoveries were then codified into language. Theories and best practices were passed from person to person, and eventually, larger groups began farming. (3)

As more people began farming, it becomes clearer what was valuable (e.g.: sunlight, water). (4)

As farming was adopted by tribes, it fundamentally changed the structure of their societies.

There was a massive shift from small tribes to larger societies and it became necessary to protect the farms from thieves, create water delivery systems, and learn to use animals to help in farming.

Social values, relationships, and beliefs were transformed to support farming societies. (5)

The values, trials, and triumphs of life on the farm were then expressed in their stories, myths, and culture. In this way, the core essential values that supported the agricultural lifestyle got codified into an Ideology. (6)

The ideology then got passed down from one generation to the next generation, giving them a map of who they are (farmers) and how to act in the world (farming) and how to produce value (food & tools). (7)

After the ideology and value produced by farming transformed human societies, it reached its natural limits, the limits of human labor, and a new set of problems was born. (8)

On a fundamental level, farming gave humanity more time and space, more time to think, reflect, and create. This eventually led to the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which solved farming's labor problem. (1)

And with the Industrial Revolution, the cycle started all over again.

So, in total, here is what the cycle looks like:

1) New Discovery & Creation → 2) Exploration & Consolidation → 3) Foundational Philosophies → 4) Emergence of Value Systems → 5) Integration of Values & Social Transformation → 6) Knowledge, Culture, Myths & Systems of Thinking → 7) Ideological Evolution → 8) Environmental Transformation → New Opportunties Emerge → Back to 1

Values are valuable relative to the environment that they are in.

As our values and ideologies change the world, they change the environment so much that new sets of problems and opportunities emerge.

In our new world, the old solutions are no longer viable, and there is also a strong incentive to discover new ways to produce value.

The new world requires a new set of values, beliefs, and ideologies.

In moments like this, there is typically a battle of the ideologies, where the old way and the new collide.

It took humanity about 6,000 years to fully adopt farming! Many tribes resisted it because they enjoyed their freedom, mobility, smaller size, and way of life.

Today, we are in such a moment.

We are experiencing hypersonic technological growth, which is transforming our societies and economies faster than ever before and propelling us into a raging cultural war between three different ideological systems.

As we shall see, what typically comes next is what needs to come next.

Like water traveling downstream, like the pull of gravity, we will move towards that which produces the most value.

The 4 Eras & Corresponding Ideologies

When humanity comes into a new age, a new paradigm is born out of it.

Each new paradigm gives us a new way to perceive the world, and with it, we quickly begin to believe that we have reached the apex of evolution, the end of history, a singularity of sorts, and that we understand the nature of the world, reality, and ourselves.

However, as we shall discover, life is not that simple.

With time, we discover this was just another step on the ladder of evolution.

Each era brings progress and problems. It transforms the world and creates a new set of problems and the context through which yet another Era emerges. And again, the world will be full of hope, believing once again that we have arrived.

Let's look at the Human Journey.

Hunter-Gatherer Era 

Life was a daily adventure of foraging and hunting. Communities were close-knit, decisions were made together, and the land provided for their needs. Good Shamans turned intuitions, insights, and knowledge into stories that helped the group find food, address life and death issues, and move together as a unit.

Chief Problem: Food scarcity.

Agricultural Age

Farming stabilized the food supply, and it led to profound social changes. Agriculture allowed us to produce more food than we could consume, leading to trade, larger communities, and the birth of complex societies. With these advances came new challenges:

• Land disputes.

• The rise of social hierarchies.

• The hard labor required to maintain the crops.

Through the Agricultural Age, humanity faced several social and intellectual challenges.

The first set of solutions was power-based. Whoever had the power made the rules, hence the Bronze and Iron Ages.

In the Classical Age, there was a growing emphasis on governance and philosophy, and power began to expand to include political and cultural power.

Rule of Power: Bronze Age → Iron Age → Classical Age 

The Problem with the Rule of Power is that it is subtractive in nature. As they plunder and pillage, Power-based Empires proliferate.

Their massive initial gains turn into a logistical nightmare as the Empire grows. Finally, the rule of diminishing returns suffocates any further expansion and value extraction.

In the end, Power-Based Empires become powerless, because they lack the ability to extract any more value or create new value. They are like a great big fire that eventually burns itself out.

Power-based Empires depend on cultural values that would make such an empire possible in the first place, and here we run into another massive problem.

The Romans are a great example of the cultural issues that a Power-based system produces.

Their lore for conquest was such a part of Roman culture that being a General was not just to bring glory to Rome but to return as a hero poised to claim the ultimate prize: the imperial throne.

As a result, the most successful Generals would vastly expand the Roman Empire and then go on to challenge the authority of the sitting emperor, often leading to civil unrest or even civil war.

Rule of Order: Middle Ages → Renaissance → Birth of Enlightenment

The Middle Ages solved the problem of the 'Rule of Power' via the 'Rule of Law'. The Rule of Law meant that everyone played by the same rules, and ultimately, even Kings had to answer to God.

The benefit of the 'Rule of Law' is that it laid the groundwork for modern statecraft and legal systems within hierarchical societal structures. From this, the Renaissance and later the Enlightenment sprung forward.

Chief Problem: Limits of human labor and mass production of food.

Central Ideology: Traditionalism

» This Lord of the Rings scene with The Council of Elrond encapsulates Traditionalism through the gathering of different races to discuss the fate of Middle Earth, emphasizing unity, heritage, and a shared duty to fight the ‘Rule of Power’.

Industrial Age

Mechanization and the Industrial Revolution quickly began to dissolve the limitation and efficiency of manual labor.

Machines could now automate much of the work and produce goods on scale. Additionally, we see a big productivity jump as humanity can address the three primary drivers of productivity: Communication, Transportation, and Energy.

Better access to food, shelter, goods, and opportunities significantly increases our living standards.

The great opportunities were no longer in farming; now, they were found in industry.

Industrialization lead to a major shift towards urbanization.

In 1840, about 8% of the US population lived in cities, and by 1920, the majority of Americans, ~51%, were living in cities.

Today, that number is about 85%!

The Industrial Revolution also led us to a new set of perceptions and beliefs about the world.

We began to see nature and reality as a big machine that follows natural laws and works like a clock. Collectively, we started to see the world as deterministic, materialistic, and objective.

What was valuable now was individualism, rationality, science, logic, and realism.

Our beliefs about the world spring forth, and naive realism, physicalism, determinism, and reductionism become part of Modern Ideology.

This era of industry solved many problems of agricultural society, bringing about wealth, innovations, and an improved standard of living for many.

Yet, it also introduced issues such as pollution, worker exploitation, and the alienation of individuals as it turned worker bees into cogs in the giant machine.

Chief Problem: Alienation, Disillusionment, Environmental pollution, labor exploitation, urban overcrowding, loss of humanity, etc.

Central Ideology & Values: Modernism

• Logical, Rational, Deterministic, Scientific, Capitalistic, Reductionist

» This scene from Metropolis shows the harsh realities of the workers operating the massive machines below the city. It starkly contrasts technological progress with human costs.

Digital Age

If you think about what was most valuable during the Industrial Age, what separated one company from another usually boiled down to knowledge and Information.

As businesses expanded in the mid-20th century, the need to process Information more efficiently became paramount, setting the stage for the advent of the Digital Age.

The digital age turned bits into bytes.

By turning it into Information, we could store it, manipulate it, and share it more easily than ever before, marking the beginning of the Information Age. Through computers, we have connected the majority of the world's information, knowledge, and people with each other.

And Information is way more than just Information.

Information and language itself is the change agent. Through the use of language, we are computing and transforming the world around us.

A computer uses language (code) to run complex programs, compute, and change 'state'.

We also do this subjectively; as new Information comes into our lives, it interacts with our psychology and profoundly impacts us.

The power of language is profound.

This brings us to a new way of seeing the world.

The world is no longer just made of matter but also Information.

Even though information is not tangible, you can't touch or hold it, yet it can produce effects on our physical world and has profound impacts on our lives.

And with this, we plunge into the wold of the Psychological.

Two World Wars, Korea and Vietnam

The catastrophes of the 20th century, including Two World Wars and over 100 Million deaths, made many people question the progress we were actually making.

Even after WW2, when women helped the war effort and African Americans sacrificed their lives, racism and sexism were still fully alive and well into the 1960s.

Many more people began questioning Modernism and Enlightenment values.

The words of philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, who questioned the limitations of reason and the existence of absolute truths, rang true.

Postmodernism was born.

On the positive side, postmodern thought helped address segregation, women's rights, etc.

It helped us see each other as humans, not just cogs in the Machine of Modernity. It asked us to consider the 'other' person's point of view and perspective and to see life through their eyes.

And this brings us back to technology because, in so many ways, the Information Age is the quintessential Postmodern Technology.

Here are is how:

• Multiple Perspective: The digital era has democratized the production and consumption of Information, allowing for a multitude of voices and perspectives to be heard.

• Information Overload: Multiple conflicting sources of Information with no grand narrative or objective truth.

• Community Fragmentation: Rise of small, personalized communities.

• Curated Identity: As we construct and curate our virtual online identities.

• Power structures are becoming decentralized via crypto and the blockchain.

• Art: The ability to easily remix, appropriate, and distribute art challenges traditional notions of authorship, originality, and copyright.

• Hyperreality: VR and the Metaverse make it more possible to see from other people's perspective.

• Flatland: The flattening of values and hierarchies makes it difficult to discern 'truth' and accurate Information from fake news.

As you can see, we are only at the beginning of this. As technology gets better and better at creating experiences, it will fully submerge us in postmodernism and make us question reality, humanity, values, identity, and what it really means to be human.

Chief Problem: Privacy, miss-information, hacking, and digital addiction all become a part of our lives, loneliness and a deep sense of meaningless, limits of subjective personal meaning, etc

Central Ideology: Postmodernism

• Psychological, Sensitive, Pluralistic, Multi-cultural, Communal 

» In Blade Runner 2049, K realizes that his memories, which he believed defined his identity, might not be his own. Here, we question the nature of memory, identity, and reality.

Want to go deeper? 

Below, I created a chart connecting each of these areas along with the problems they solve, the values they produce, and their corresponding Ideologies that make it all so easy. You can also see it here in full screen.

The Lifecycle of Ideologies 

Now that we know how powerful information is, we realize that it is a lot more than just information, and as a result, we can realize the massive power of Ideology.

Ideology is like our operating system.

It can be defined by its set of district perceptions, values, and beliefs about the world and how a person ought to act.

Like everything else, ideologies are born, grow, and eventually die.

The Meta Framework of Ideology:

• Framework: It is linguistically based on a set of ideas and concepts that give it a framework. We can discern what it is.

• Coherence: When such a framework is coherent, it makes sense, especially within its own context.

• Meaning: The framework gives rise to meaning-making. It means being able to use the system; it's like a tool.

• Produces Value: Ideology acts as a map to a set of values, which are like tools for creating/extracting value from the environment. You can live a better life by living out and actualizing the framework.

  • Technology: Each ideology opened up the human mind to image a set of corresponding technologies that would further help embody its ideologies to the fullest.

    • Hunter Gather → Forging → Simple Tools, Fire, Communication

    • Agricultural Age → Labour → Plow, Domestication of Animals, Metal Weapons, Markets, City States, Governments, Laws, etc..

    • Industrial Age → Mechanical → Energy, Electricity, Corporations, Capitalism, etc

    • Digital Age → Informational → Algorithms, Big Data, Internet, AI, Automation, etc..

• Power: power comes from the framework's ability to make sense of the world, to give it meaning, and to produce and extract real value.

  • Power structures form in order to organize resources to produce the most value. So, power has a dual component here: the power to grow and the power to protect.

  • Defense Mechanism: Like any organism or group, the Ideology will defend itself against critics and other systems via its most powerful members, organizations, and institutions.

• Decay: Without the abilities mentioned above, the system will be abandoned, so decay is the real threat to any system.

Weaknesses of Ideology

Every Ideology has inherent weaknesses.

They are bound to the environment and the context that helped produce them and struggle to see or solve the problems of their own making.

Let's look at the core weakness of Ideology:

• Assumptions: Idealogical Frameworks are founded on a hidden layer of assumptions. These assumptions presume that the world, reality, is constructed in a particular way. These assumptions are projected onto the way reality is seen, interpreted, and understood.

• Beliefs: Hidden assumptions give rise to inaccurate beliefs. Our beliefs inform us what the world is about and what our relationship with the world ought to be.

• Limited Values: Ideologic allows us to perceive a limited set of values. For example, farmers can identify and utilize seeds in ways the Hunter Gathers couldn't.

• Value Extraction: As our system produces value, it changes the environment. It changes it enough that there is an oversupply of the things the system itself values. Ironically, this supply means that the very things the system produces become less and less valuable.

• Decreased Opportunity: As more people produce value and extract value, there is less opportunity to do the same over time. As a result, the overall Ideology becomes less and less valuable over time.

• Exposes False Assumptions: Hidden assumptions about our values are revealed.

  • For example, Modernists believed that having enough would make us happy. Yet, we see some of the richest, most successful, and most prosperous people in the world commit suicide. This problem isn't an anomaly. As a society, we are the richest we have ever been, yet we are at all-time highs for loneliness, depression, etc.

• Unintended Consequences: As we adapt and change to create and extract value, the process changes us and gives rise to new values that support the current value structure

  • Paradox: Profit led to globalization and a flight to cheap labor, which hollowed out cities in the Rust Belt. This increased poverty rates, hollowed out the middle class, and simultaneously flooded the market with cheap Chinese goods. So, we have both greater poverty and greater material abundance.

  • Examples: Pollution, Fake news, the War on Drugs, Wars for profit, and flight to cheap labor hollowed cities.

Here, time and change become the real enemies of Ideology.

The thinking that produces problems isn't sufficient to solve the problems of its own making.

As such, Ideologies provide a specific set of solutions to a set environment and perhaps this is the best way for us to think about our own beliefs; as tools that are there to help us get a specific job done.

What replaces a flawed ideology is a better ideology.

Nature of Power within a System

Power is a lot more Powerful than you Think.

It is not merely a few powerful individuals at the top who make decisions and move the direction of society as they wish.

It is not powerful countries like the US or Russia doing whatever they want or deem to be in their best interest.

No, it goes much deeper than that,

Power resides in the 'why' and why people and groups are motivated to act

Power is the ability of our beliefs and ideas about the world to produce and extract value in the world

And it is this value that we are fighting for

And as long as an ideology can produce value, it will have power.

Then, the people who benefit most from the said ideology, the people who are the embodiments of the values that the ideology proposes, will see to it that the ideology survives and thrives.

Any threats to their system of values are inherently destabilizing and will be met with great opposition.

Ironically, it isn't deconstructionism or other systems that are the main threat; instead, the main threat is their own weakness, which is expressed in their defensiveness, growing lack of self-awareness, and unwillingness to change. These make it difficult to address core issues and ultimately lead to decay.

The Way Forward

As we have seen, every Ideology and belief system has a corresponding set of values that bring forth real-world benefits.

A highly viable ideology will be great at producing value, and it will be easy to implement.

These types of belief systems can be adopted by the masses and become pillars for entire civilizations.

They typically provide a variable framework for being in the world and address many of the core issues needed to live a 'good life.'

They bring forth positive real world changes by addressing many of the core needs of most of its people however they are finite.

As the world changes, so do they.

With time, they can become toxic and decay.

Even in the most extreme circumstances, where an ideology is toxic and harmful, what replaces a bad ideology is a better ideology.

And the process of change is very difficult, as it is inherently destabilizes a person, a culture and a civilization.

And this is where we are now. 

There is an active friction between Traditionalism, Modernism, and Postmodernism.

Postmodernism is inherently deconstructive.

It deconstructs and tears apart grand narratives in Modernism and Traditionalism.

As one would expect, this triggers the defense mechanisms of Modernists and Traditionalists.

They feel that their ideology and way of life are under attack, that it is threatened.

Their core beliefs, way of life, and a part of their identity are being attacked, and so they lash out.

And all of this lashing out, owning one another, fights between right and left, and so on are becoming more and more extreme, more and more toxic.

And without missing a beat, online platforms and algorithms are here to profit by ignite the flames, rewarding and incentivizing the most extreme behavior all because it fits their business model.

They are splintering off and driving people into more and more extreme communities and subcultures.

And so we are failing with all of our current ideologies.

What is needed isn't more fighting or toxicity

You can destroy the devils you see by becoming evil

What is needed now is restoring stability to a disordered World.

Restoring Stability to a Disordered World

In the same way that water flows downhill, Disorder eventually leads to Order.

And we are in the ZONE now.

What the world needs is a path forward toward renewal and stability.

So how do we do that?

In short, we need to acknowledge the value and contributions of the existing value systems and ideologies.

Each of them provides tremendous value in helping solve problems for people in certain environments and contexts.

We need to integrate them and use them like a set of tools. This way, we are not stuck with what amounts to one operating system, one way of thinking, one set of values and solutions.

We need to be able to switch between systems and be flexible to the environment's needs.

Here are the overall qualities of the Integrative Path forward:

• Acknowledge that nature of our world is a fast, constant state of change

• Realizes that as the environment changes, so does what is deemed valuable

• Consider what's necessary, natural, and next

• Focusing on functionality, competence, flexibility, and what is needed in a given situation. 

• Authority is contextual

This way, we can integrate the different value systems and ideologies into a coherent framework.

We can gain tremendous insight into the great wisdom traditions that can help us ground ourselves.

Modernism, rationality, and logic are great tools for achieving prosperity and accomplishing our goals.

Postmodernism can help us embrace complexity and ambiguity as we question the nature of our own reality and evolve our identity.

As we integrate these values, we can get the most out of all of them.

We can become the masters of these ideologies instead of their slaves.

We can gain our freedom, and through our freedom, we can become a restorative and stabilizing force.

In a world spinning out of control, the stabilizing forces become what is most valuable, necessary, and next.

Anakin Skywalker, a gifted Jedi with a sincere heart, is plagued by a disturbing vision: the death of his beloved wife, Padmé Amidala, shortly after childbirth. Though Padmé dismisses it as a mere nightmare, Anakin cannot escape the unsettling notion that his dream is a glimpse into a darker fate.

But why?

Deep within Anakin lies the raw wound of his mother’s brutal death—an event he was too powerless to prevent. This trauma carved into his psyche a desperate fear of loss and powerlessness.

As his nightmare of Padmé's death consumes him night after night, Anakin makes a silent vow: he will not fail to save someone he loves again, no matter the cost. His desperation leads him down a perilous path toward gaining power, no matter the cost.

At first, each compromise seems small—a necessary evil to protect the one he loves. But as Anakin succumbs to the Dark Side of the Force, these compromises grow more severe. Piece by piece, he discards the values that once defined him, forsaking the Jedi ideals of service and empathy for deceit and aggression.

Convinced that the ends justify the means, he begins his steady surrender to the Dark Side of the Force.

Anakin imagines a new galactic order—one he will rule with Padmé at his side. He leads an onslaught on the Jedi Temple, even slaughtering innocent younglings, and each horrifying act erodes the line between his noble intentions and the evil he has come to embody.

For one cannot destroy evil by becoming a devil.

In his quest for power, Anakin loses the very values that made him who he was.

Padmé watches the man she loves disappear behind this ruthless pursuit of control. She cannot bear the thought of their children growing up in a galaxy driven by fear and control—nor can she reconcile the loving husband she married with the relentless tyrant he has become.

In her final moments, she whispers, “There is still good in him,” a truth that would haunt Anakin.

Anakin’s worst fears manifest not because they were inevitable but because his actions, driven by fear, made them a reality. By attempting to control fate through darkness, he becomes the very evil he sought to prevent—and in the process, his transformation into Darth Vader destroys the one person he was most desperate to save. It is a stark reminder of how beliefs and unconscious fears can shape our destinies, often with devastating consequences.

The Power of Beliefs Unveiled

Anakin’s tragic descent into tyranny profoundly illustrates how our deepest beliefs and subconscious fears can sculpt our reality, identity, and destiny.

His unwavering conviction in the nightmare’s prophecy sets in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy, where his choices, fueled by fear and a desperate desire for control, manifest the very outcome he dreads.

Padmé’s loss of will to live is a direct consequence of his transformation, highlighting how one’s internal struggles can profoundly affect others.

Like Anakin, most of us are navigating our lives guided by unseen beliefs and fears, unaware of how they shape our reality and impact those around us.

In the journey ahead, we’ll delve deep into the nature of beliefs—how they operate like sophisticated software applications, altering our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Together, we’ll explore how to truly take the ‘red pill,’ awakening to a reality that exists beyond our beliefs, and step into the fullness of who we are.

Here is what is what is ahead:

1. Chapter 1: The Nature of Beliefs

2. Chapter 2: How Beliefs Shape Your Reality

3. Chapter 3: The Simulation of Reality

4. Chapter 4: Awakening from the Simulation

5. Chapter 5: Experiencing Reality Beyond Beliefs

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Chapter 1: The Nature of Beliefs

Beliefs are not just passive ideas residing in our minds; they are active forces that shape every aspect of our reality. They act as lenses through which we perceive the world; they determine how we interpret our life’s situations, and then they influence our thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Understanding how beliefs construct our reality is essential to recognizing the power they hold over our lives and how we can harness or transform them to create the experiences we desire.

This is, in fact, in the very definition of ‘beliefs’.

What are beliefs?

Here is Webster’s definition:

1. An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

2. Trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.

3. A religious conviction.

So, beliefs are far more than trivial! They define what we accept as true and something's existence.

In other words, beliefs define our reality. When we believe something to be true, then that something exists for us as if it were true. We then act on it and behave in accordance with our beliefs.

So beliefs define:

• What is true about our world

• What we believe is true about ourselves

• What we believe is true about our place in the world and our ability to affect change

• Inform how we interpret our overall relationship with the world

As the famous saying goes,

“Whether you believe you can or that you can’t,

you’re right”.

Formation of Beliefs

Just consider how different you might be if you were born in a different part of the world or time period. Your language, culture, and how you see the world would be vastly different.

Our environment gives us a language, culture, and mental framework for understanding our experiences.

It makes numerous beliefs available to us, and these beliefs can be used as a way to navigate our world. Then, we form our beliefs based on our psychology, temperament, mental processes, and personal experiences.

Forming beliefs is an ongoing process between our experiences and interpretations. The process shapes and changes us throughout our lifetime and is reflected in our overall attitude and relationship with life.

The Mind’s Operating Systems

Beliefs are your Mind’s Operating System. They are like a master software program that handles all the information in and out of your system.

Your Operating System determines what programs you can run, what information your computer can process, and what your computer can do.

Similarly, our Mind’s Operating System determines how we process, interpret, and act on information.

Our Mind’s OS does this through stories; stories organize information, make sense of it, and give it meaning.

And here we run into a dilemma. If everything is meaningful, nothing stands out, so to make a story meaningful, it must stand out and be believable.

So, out of the millions of moments of experiences we have, our Mind filters through these experiences for patterns of meaning and creates stories that we can use to orient ourselves.

The stories we believe tell us who we are, what is true about the world, and how we ought to behave in a given context.

Most of our beliefs are subconscious, as we are not fully clear on our beliefs, and we are not fully aware of them and how they impact our lives.

Subconscious Beliefs & Power of Hidden Assumptions

Subconscious beliefs are assumptions about the world that are deeply ingrained in our minds, often formed early in life, and are so readily accepted as truth that we rarely question them.

In fact, questioning them would seem ludicrous, and doing so could often bring about ridicule.

As such, they act as hidden, invisible mental programs that underpin many of our beliefs.

They show up in our language and how we interpret our experiences.

Let’s look at a few examples:

"The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West."

Due to language and phrasing, we believe this statement; however, upon further inspection, it’s obvious that the Sun does not rise or set. Instead, the Earth orbits the Sun. This phrase comes from a bygone era when people believed that the Earth was flat and the center of the universe because it appeared so.

‘Tall and Short,’ ‘Light vs. Heavy,’ etc

We believe that ‘tall and short’ exist, but not really. These are attributes we give to objects based on a comparison with other objects.

In other words, since ‘tall’ and ‘short’ define each other, they do not have an independent existence apart from each other. There is no such thing as ‘tall’ without another thing called ‘short.’

Interestingly, these attributes have no impact on the object they describe but only impact the subjects that experience them. For example, labeling someone as “tall” or “short” can influence social dynamics or self-image.

“You Throw Like a Girl”

The phrase “you throw like a girl” is often used to insult someone’s athletic ability, suggesting that they are weak or unskilled, and it reinforces gender stereotypes.

This is an example of how, through language, we impose judgments on other people and even objects.

Despite these descriptions not physically changing the person being targeted, they can significantly impact the relationship dynamics, affecting how individuals are perceived and treated. Here, language and judgment become the primary experience, often overshadowing the reality of the individual’s abilities.

“I am good at ‘chess’ and bad at ‘checkers’.” “I am ‘X, Y, Z’”

We often reduce a complex array of experiences, like playing chess, into a single proclamation that defines us to ourselves and others. In this way, we generalize our experiences, filtering them based on value judgments and then proclaiming them like a static fact.

Whenever we use “I am” statements, we reduce ourselves and our identity to a narrative. Who we are becomes a 'story', we repeate to oursleves and others.

To take this further, we create stories and narratives about every area of our lives, relationships, and our identity.

“The world is your oyster,” “The world is flat.”

“The world is your oyster” is an idiom that means you can go anywhere or do anything you want in life. We tell stories about the world, what it is made of, and what that means to us. We reduce the world to these stories and then believe that the world is, in fact, a set of stories.

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Chapter 2: How Beliefs Shape Your Reality

Like everyone, you have sold yourself a set of stories of how things are and how you are. The narratives you believe are unquestionably true then shape your experience of the present moment. These stories are like lenses through which you interpret and give the world meaning.

The Lens of Beliefs: Shaping Perceptions

Our ingrained beliefs don’t just influence how we see the world—they actively shape the world we experience.

Here is how it works:

Reality is Subjective

Experience is all that we ever really know.

We decide what facts and people to pay attention to and give authority to what we believe is true. As such, authority does not come from the outside (God, Government, science, etc.); instead, it is given and attributed by the individual in accordance with what he believes is true. In this way, our reality is personal and is constructed through the lens of our personal beliefs.

Consider how two people can experience the same event but interpret it differently based on their belief systems. This subjectivity means that our beliefs have the power to create a personalized version of reality unique to us.

We see this in the story of Anakin and his wife, who both know the dream's details. However, Anakin believed it was a prophecy, while Padmé saw it only as a dream.

Anakin’s belief in the dreamed prophecy then filtered how he interpreted his life situations and relationships through a prism of fear. He then perceived new threats everywhere, making his prophetic dream seem all the more real. Perceiving threats everywhere built up a lot of emotion and motivated him to act.

Beliefs & Actions

Beliefs not only affect perception but also our behavior. Our actions are often guided by what we believe to be true, leading us to make choices that align with our beliefs. This behavior then creates outcomes that reinforce the original belief, forming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Today, if you believe that Bitcoin or Tesla will go up in price substantially and that you can become rich by taking on a little risk, you are likely to feel a surge of desire and dreams of achieving your goals, and along with them comes the fear of missing out. This combination of extreme desire and FOMO illustrates the power beliefs have on our actions.

Strong beliefs provide a big surge of motivation to act on the belief. They keep you focused and produce strong feelings of both fear and desire. Then, through our actions, we reinforce the original belief, forming feedback loops and eventually a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Feedback Loops

Our beliefs trigger our actions, which transform our environment, which then reconfirms our beliefs and leads to more actions and more transformation.

As Anakin began to perceive threats everywhere, this built up a lot of emotion in him and motivated him to act. By acting out according to those beliefs and by treating people as threats, he turned his friends into enemies and started to bring into existence the very threats he perceived. The more he fought his demons, the bigger they became.

This is a Feedback loop.

Regardless of whether a belief is true or accurate, it can create a feedback loop that produces the experiences that confirm the original belief.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs while disregarding evidence that contradicts them. This cognitive bias strengthens our beliefs over time, making them more resistant to change.

For example, Anakin ignored his wife’s interpretation of the dream. He also ignored wise counsel that aimed to help him see through his false beliefs. Throughout the story, Anakin has many opportunities to look at the bigger picture and challenge his own beliefs, but instead, he focuses on information that confirms his assumptions.

Emotional Reinforcement

Positive emotions signal to the brain that one is on the right track. They confirm and strengthen our beliefs and motivate us to double down on our actions.

Negative emotions, on the other hand, make us uncertain about the future and our direction. Fear and anxiety make us freeze, and in desperation, we cling to what we know and believe.

During a Bull Run or Market Mania, investors and speculators regularly check prices and actively seek information that confirms their beliefs. As prices increase, this reconfirms their beliefs and rewards them with dopamine. Many begin to double down and buy more and more of the investment.

Negative information and lower prices are ignored, rationalized, and suppressed during this time. This often leads to massive gains on the way up, doubling down, and euphoria.

There is a total disregard for negative news and down days, and then, one day, the market starts falling. As the market is falling, most cling to the investment, believing it will go back up. They hold on until the market fully crashes.

In a paradoxical fashion, the core beliefs are actualized.

What are the core beliefs?

The core belief is that prices will increase, allowing us to become rich. In other words, we don’t believe we are rich right now. Here, both beliefs are actualized in our reality, the opportunity to become rich and the belief that we are not rich.

Now, this is a type of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a person's expectations or beliefs influence their actions, which in turn causes the prediction to come true.

We all have experienced this before. For example, when we go on a Date with someone we really like and are afraid of rejection, our insecurity can bleed through our voice and behavior, making us awkward and unattractive, which triggers the rejection we feared.

In Star Wars, as Anakin started to see threats everywhere, through his perceptions, he began turning his friends into enemies. He did this over and over again, and in this way, the belief was starting to transform both him and his life situation, eventually matching the belief itself. Finally, this way of perceiving and behaving in the world produced the reality he was trying to avoid.

And this raises the question, how strong and powerful are beliefs really?

Can beliefs change or impact objective reality? Can beliefs turn sugar into medicine?

Beliefs & Reality

We often think there is a difference between ‘Facts’ and ‘Beliefs.’ However, our ‘facts’ are frequently just beliefs we believe are true. Then, the belief itself gives them reality.

But to what extent?

And what about situations where the ‘Facts’ are clear, objective, and scientifically valid? Do beliefs have an influence on scientific facts?

And if so, how much?

The answer is Yes, and it is significant.

This power of beliefs to shape experience is so powerful that even drug testing requires using a placebo in double-blind tests.

Here is how the experiments work:

1. The Experiment is split into two groups:

   1. Experimental Group: received an actual drug that is being tested

   2. Control Group: received a placebo, which is essentially a sugar pill

2. Double Blind:

   1. Groups: Neighter group knows if they are getting a placebo or the actual drug

   2. Scientists: The scientists running the experiment and administering the drug/placebo don't know which group is which.

The placebo effect can be powerful, and its strength can vary depending on the condition being treated:

• Antidepressants

• The placebo response can account for up to 62% of the measured drug response.

• Pain-related therapies

• The placebo response can account for up to 68% of the measured drug response.

• Migraines

• In one study, a placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug in reducing migraine pain.

In many cases, the Placebo effect accounts for the majority of the drug effects. In other words, the effects are so strong that the drug doesn’t provide that much more relief than the placebo.

Conversely, when negative expectations shape our experiences, we encounter the “nocebo effect.” This occurs when individuals experience harmful effects from an inactive substance. For example, in a COVID-19 vaccine trial, 35% of placebo recipients—who received no vaccine—reported adverse reactions after the first dose. These reactions weren’t caused by any medicinal ingredient; rather, they arose from the participants’ expectations and fears.

This demonstrates how “viral memes”—cultural stories, rumors, and widespread narratives—can profoundly affect our experiences and well-being.

Beliefs as Viral Memes

Beliefs are not confined to the individual Mind; they are dynamic entities that can spread from person to person, like viruses.

This phenomenon can be understood through the concept of “memes,” a term coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to describe units of cultural transmission or imitation.

Memes are ideas, behaviors, or styles that propagate within a culture, and beliefs are among the most influential of these.

The Transmission of Beliefs: From Individual to Society

When an individual adopts a belief, they often share it through communication, behavior, or expression. If the belief resonates, it spreads to others, creating a ripple effect that can permeate an entire society.

As more people adopt the belief, it gains momentum and can become part of the collective consciousness.

When a belief is shared by a significant portion of a society, it shapes cultural norms, values, and even laws. At this point, the belief transcends individual cognition and becomes embedded in the societal framework.

The Dance of Macro and Micro Influences

Society (Macro) and the individual (Micro) are in a dance where they continuously influence and inform each other.

• Macro → Micro: Societal beliefs provide a framework within which individuals interpret their experiences. Examples: Cultural narratives, education systems, and media shape personal beliefs and values.

• Micro → Macro: Individual beliefs can alter societal norms, especially when shared by influential people or groups. Examples: Grassroots movements, artistic expressions, and technological innovations often begin with individual ideas that gain collective traction.

From Society to the Individual

The vast majority of our beliefs are not originally ours. They are absorbed from our cultural milieu—family, community, media, and institutions—and become part of the “operating system” through which we interpret and navigate reality.

Even fantastical or unfounded beliefs can serve essential psychological functions. They provide emotional comfort, intellectual stimulation, and identity formation or offer coping mechanisms against uncertainty. Because they help us make sense of the world, we often cling to them tenaciously.

Yet, most of these beliefs remain unconscious. They operate silently in the background, forming the bedrock of our assumptions about ourselves and about life itself.

In the story of Anakin Skywalker, these unconscious beliefs include viewing the galaxy as hostile and dualistic, seeing himself as uniquely special, and feeling compelled to bring stability and security through power and control. Without wielding such power, he fears invalidation and humiliation, reducing him to a hollow shell. Ultimately, these beliefs led him to become Darth Vader.

The Ultimate Takeaway

Most of what we know and believe is curated information and memes that society has provided us. We often take the consensus to be true, and it shapes our world. In this way, beliefs can define reality for both individuals and societies.

Ultimately, we don’t own most of our beliefs or ideas. In cases like Anakin’s, a single, powerful belief can take hold and dominate a life. He did not possess his beliefs; his beliefs possessed him, guiding his actions and sealing his fate.

This is the real takeaway: sometimes we own our beliefs, but much of the time, they own us.

Chapter 3: The Simulation of Reality

One core belief that shapes our perspective is that we see our reality and ourselves from the outside in. We believe our fundamental reality is that we are a separate person living on a planet in the vast Milky Way galaxy. This perspective prioritizes the world and our physical reality, rendering us inconsequential. This is the primary objective reality that informs our relationship with the world.

However, this is not our actual experience.

In actuality, our reality is fundamentally subjective. We focus our attention on our thoughts and feelings. We think about what we must do today, our friends and family members, our future, our worries, and so on. We spend our entire day thinking and feeling, so our primary reality is a subjective experience, and oftentimes, we will even forget about our body, our posture, and the world beyond what we are paying attention to. Therefore, our primary reality is the experience of being "me" in the ‘world.’

As we inquire, it becomes self-evident that our conscious experience is our primary reality; it is the only thing we can know for sure and without any doubt. Then, the other people and objects in our experience are not dead and meaningless but rather full of meaning. We attribute this meaning to the world through our beliefs, which then manifest in our thoughts, feelings, and actions. So, on a fundamental level, what we experience is not the world as it is or people as they are but our relationships and the meaning we attribute to them.

In other words, you are not a person living in the world; instead, you are a conscious being experiencing what it is like to be You living in your world. And your world is your simulation. It is a byproduct of your stories, beliefs, the meaning you give it, and your relationship with that meaning.

Video Game Analogy

Do you remember the Sims?

The Sims is a life simulation video game where players create and control virtual people, called "Sims," and manage their daily lives. Players can customize their Sims' appearance, personality, skills, relationships, and environment. They can also build homes, have careers, form relationships, and try on gender identities. The game is open-ended, with no primary objectives to achieve or storyline to complete. Players can choose their own goals and objectives.

The game draws astounding parallels to our lives. The game itself, as in the graphics, the UX, and so on, are secondary. In fact, it does not exist independently of the players. The players bring the game into existence, and what is primary in the game is the internal psychology of the character (the player) and their social environment (other players).

As a Sim, you can choose to have any type of experience. You have total freedom, and there is no moral judgment. You can be a CEO or the head of the Italian Mafia. You must then take on certain characteristics and beliefs to play the role successfully. The character you play then must perceive, think, feel, and act out the role. You bring it to life from the inside out, and as you become the character, your life transforms to match. Character is destiny, and you get to experience what it is like to be ‘that.’

Now, in the Sims and in life, you can choose again. You can decide if you want to become a different character, and you can go from one type of experience of life to another. However, no matter who you become, you will still be a ’somebody’ and, in this sense, live a simulation within the confines of belief.

Beliefs as Tools

Beliefs are then like a valuable set of tools designed to help us create the life and world we want to live in. When a story of what life is about and who we are no longer fulfills our needs, we look for another story, and this can lead us to more, better, and different. We look for more money, more success, better experiences, different relationships, etc. Eventually, this is not enough, and it can lead us to explore religion or spirituality.

Religion is a complex set of meta-narratives about the nature of reality designed to accomplish a certain goal, such as salvation or liberation. When you explore a spiritual tradition, you engage with its narratives, techniques, and overall effectiveness in transforming your life.

Embracing a more uplifting interpretation of reality is an effective way to improve one’s life and can warrant changing one’s beliefs.

In many spiritual traditions, like Tantra, this is a necessary step on the way to complete the transcendence of all narratives.

Going from one belief to another is akin to trading one dream for another. However, taking responsibility for our dreams and beliefs can help us wake up from them when done intentionally.

So, in Tantra, the goal is paradoxically to be able to dream the perfect dream and to also be able to wake up because no dream and no story can contain the whole truth.

So, how can you wake up from the dream?

Chapter 4: Awakening from the Simulation

Waking up from the dream isn’t simply a matter of exchanging one set of beliefs for another. Instead, there is a natural progression—akin to a Hegelian process—where even our own nightmares become the catalyst that ultimately awakens us.

How?

Beliefs are both true and false: they reflect aspects of reality yet never capture the whole of it. As powerful filters, beliefs shape our perceptions and can even manifest self-fulfilling prophecies, molding the world to match our expectations. However, their incomplete nature means they will never fully fulfill our needs.

More, better, and different won’t be enough at some point. We come face-to-face with the emptiness of our unfulfilled dreams and our own suffering.

Obviously, if we had it all figured out, we would not be suffering. We may look for a new way of life and narrative that promises fulfillment.

This is our Wake-Up call.

Our suffering begins to propel us to explore new ways of being in the world. We might jump from one belief to another, seeking fulfillment and ending our suffering.

This process of exploring and playing with beliefs helps us become aware of our existing beliefs.

Growing and maturing means uncovering limiting beliefs and negative emotions, tracing them back to their origins, and casting a compassionate light on our pain. As we peel away these layers, we start to recognize how certain thoughts, feelings, and beliefs create or exacerbate our suffering.

Once we see the direct relationship between our stories and our suffering, the entire structure unravels because we stop believing in ‘our stories.’ It’s like realizing that the Emperor has no clothes.

Of course, letting go of entrenched stories can be confusing and disorienting, particularly when those stories shape our identity. We might wonder, “Who am I without them?”.

The deeper you go, the more aspects parts of who you are come into question until your identity itself comes into question.

At this stage, you might ask, “‘Who am I?” “What am I?”. Who am I beyond my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about myself? Who am I beyond my roles, identities, and history?

You begin to see that a story cannot define who you are. That you can not be reduced to a thought or set of thoughts.

You realize that you are not even the thinker of your thoughts because when your thoughts go, you don’t go with them. You can then notice the silence between thoughts. Your feelings and beliefs also come, go, and change over time, yet you are still here.

You discover that you are none of the content of your Mind. Instead, you are the awareness that is conscious of your thoughts, feelings, stories, narratives, beliefs, and experiences.

By sitting with these questions and investigating deeply, you can experience the reality of who you are beyond thought, and in this way, by abiding in your own awareness, you can begin to transcend the Matrix of beliefs.

This is the beginning of the 'real.'

As you disassociate with the Mind, you gain clarity into the remarkable power of thoughts believed.

Through this process, we consciously guide our growth and gradually fully awaken from the dream we once constructed.

We realize that every type of story, worldview, and belief is available to us and that we need to choose wisely which ones we want to pay attention to and bring into our world.

This begins a fundamental shift in our identity and relationship with the world and with suffering itself. We no longer see suffering as an unnecessary evil in the world. Instead, we see suffering as a form of grace because it is the one thing we cannot lie to ourselves about.

We begin to interpret negative, limiting beliefs that make one feel sad, afraid, distrustful, unworthy, powerless, or otherwise stuck in negativity as attempts to protect the self stemming from a place of self-care and confusing beliefs for reality. Even hate can be tied to caring deeply—perhaps we once sought love from someone who ultimately betrayed our expectations.

This helps open our heart and respond with deeper compassion.

We know that the truth goes beyond language, narratives, and stories. No belief system can not contain the ‘real,’ the ‘truth.’

We then start to wake up from the dream of language, the Matrix of beliefs altogether.

At this stage, we are transcending the Matrix, yet we can use the Matrix to construct our lived experience.

Life becomes about constructing the ideal self-expression. To live in the world in such a way that affirms life itself and expresses our universal care.

Our way of life then becomes our greatest artistic expression. You begin to live life in such a sweet way that you would gladly relive your life a thousand times.

Our journey takes us from a personal “HELL” of suffering, limitations, and living in a cold dead dog-eat-dog universe to a “HEAVEN” where we are fulfilled, grateful, and have the feeling of ‘oneness’ with our world, no matter what happens.

Tips on Waking Up

Below are a few techniques to help you unpeal the union and go deeper.

• Mindfulness

  • Start your day by checking in with yourself and being present for a few minutes. Just notice how peaceful everything actually is.

  • Present Moment: Come back to the present moment as often as you can remember throughout the day.

  • At the end of the day, come back to the present moment. Take a deep breath, inhale, exhale, and relax in it for a few minutes.

• Being Reflective

  • What emotions do your thoughts trigger? What is the dominant emotion?

  • Do your thoughts have a common theme? (e.g., judging, evaluating, argumentative, critical, victim, obsessive, planning, critical, goal-focused, fantasy, etc.)

  • What patterns do I notice in my thoughts and feelings?

  • How do my thoughts and feelings affect my relationship?

  • Reflect on how your day went.

• Journaling

  • What are 2-3 things you know you should be doing? What are 2-3 harmful things you should avoid doing?

  • What is holding me back? What are 1-2 thoughts related to what’s holding me back? What feelings do these thoughts produce?

  • What might happen if I address this?

If you want to go through the process, I created a Self Discover Journey that deeply explores each part of your identity and your beleifs.

The Self Discovery Journal will guide you through a deep exploration of yourself via a set of Self Inquiry questions that are aimed at helping you uncover your core.

This Journal is FREE for Members and you can Download it here.

You can become a Member below

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Chapter 5: Experiencing Reality Beyond Beliefs

When we are in the Matrix of beliefs, when we are identified with our beliefs, we mistake our beliefs for reality, and so it is hard to see outside the simulation.

Only after we have had enough pain and suffering when we are truly fed up, can we be ready to drop the whole thing and wake up.

When you have had enough; enough content, enough entertainment, enough drama, enough of everything, and when there is nowhere else to go, then you are ready.

Then, waking up from the Matrix becomes inevitable. The way is to go nowhere and do nothing. This process is not additive. Instead, it is taking a backward step. It is to discover who the ‘headless man’ really is.

To Fully Wake Up, Meditation is a beautiful means.

Here is how to get started:

• Meditation: Become the Observer

  • Spend 20 minutes each day simply observing your thoughts and feelings.

  • Listen to your thoughts; hear each word and the silence between the words. Actively listen as if you are listening to someone on the radio.

  • Pay attention to your thoughts as if observing them for the first time. Avoid judging yourself or your thoughts; that would be another thought.

  • Can you turn your attention back on the one who perceives?

  • Can you be aware of your own awareness?

• Self Inquiry: Ask

  • Who am I? What am I?

  • What do I know with 100% certainty? How can I know this?

  • Who is it that knows?

  • Who is the perceiver?

  • Is the perceiver perceived?

  • Isn’t experience itself magical?

• Daily Mindfulness: Stay in the Present Moment

  • Practice being in the present moment throughout the day. Feel your body, your posture, your breath. Notice your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.

  • Stay in the observer's state, and be aware of your experience without getting caught up in your thoughts and feelings.

  • Abide in the present moment throughout the entire day for as often as you remember to do so.

  • Remind yourself to come back to the moment.

  • Practice this all throughout the day.

We have a Meditation Tutorial you can read below.

Conclusion: The Journey of Transformation

Deeply held beliefs define our character and shape our destiny. They determine what information we pay attention to; they color our perceptions and interpretations and move us to action. As we act on them, we create a world aligned with our beliefs, and in this way, they create our world.

Most beliefs are inherited from our culture, language, and environment. They are like invisible programs that run our lives. Anakin Skywalkers is a cautionary take on what can happen when unconscious beliefs that come out of fear begin to run our lives. Inevitably, we bring our deepest-held beliefs to life through our actions, feedback mechanisms, and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Beliefs can capture aspects of reality but never the whole picture. As a result, they have inherent limitations, which means they can never fully meet our deepest needs.

Eventually, having “more, better, or different” is not enough. We’re left with empty dreams and our own suffering, which compels us to look for a new way of life—a new narrative that promises fulfillment.

In our search for relief, we may jump from one belief system to another. This exploration helps us become aware of our limiting beliefs and negative emotions.

Going from one belief to another is akin to trading one dream for another. However, when done intentionally, taking responsibility for our dreams and beliefs can help us wake up from them.

The KEY turning point comes when we realize how our stories increase our suffering. As we look inward and peel away these layers, we recognize how certain thoughts, feelings, and beliefs create or exacerbate our suffering.

Unlike Anakin Skywalker, we don’t try to fight evil or destroy the devils we perceive. Instead, we look to understand its role in bringing us to the light and showing us our weaknesses.

Eventually, we come to a greater understanding that even suffering is for our own good. We need to consciously design our lives.

Like in the SIMS game, every type of experience, character, role, and life is available to us. We can use beliefs as tools to shape our character and create the life we want to experience.

As we skillfully use beliefs to define our character and shape our lives, we gradually liberate ourselves from the Matrix of beliefs.

Our existence becomes our finest art form, lived in such a sweet and wholehearted way that we would happily repeat it a thousand times.

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Here are two more versions of the AI Podcast.

Have you ever caught yourself thinking that if people just knew more—if they were better informed—we'd solve many of humanity's problems? 

Dogma, crime, prejudice, tyranny—all just byproducts of ignorance, right?

I used to believe that with the correct information, people would naturally become more rational and compassionate, and society would flourish.

This notion seems self-evident and is embedded in our narrative of progress: humanity evolving from ignorance to enlightenment by accumulating truths.

We imagine that as we gather more 'right information,' we progress until we finally solve our core problems and redeem ourselves by creating a techno-utopia. 

We believed that the core problem of ignorance could be solved by information.

And then, the World Wide Web burst onto the scene—making the entirety of human knowledge accessible to anyone, anywhere, almost instantly.

Dreams of a techno-utopia filled our imagination and were shared by tech visionaries like Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, and even Mark Zuckerberg.

Tim Berners-Lee envisioned the internet as a utopian platform breaking down barriers and providing universal access to information. He believed in this so deeply that he didn't patent the web, keeping it accessible for all.

Bill Gates thought that putting information at everyone's fingertips would naturally foster a more factual and rational world. He imagined people responsibly educating themselves, diving into scientific topics, and engaging in 'Socratic debates' online.

Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg was convinced that connecting people would lead to positive change. He believed that 'by giving people the power to share, we're making the world more transparent,' assuming that more communication would naturally lead to a better, more understanding society.

The underlying assumption among these visionaries was explicit: That information can cure the ills of ignorance. 

But here we are, decades later, and the reality hasn't matched the dream, has it? 

Instead of technology connecting us to each other, informing us of clear truths and making society itself more enlightened it did the opposite. It divided us, it shattered the truth into a thousand small pieces and it drove us into a culture war.

So, what went wrong? 

Why didn't the avalanche of accessible great information lead to the rational, compassionate society we envisioned? 

Why are we more polarized and more entrenched in our beliefs despite the wealth of knowledge at our disposal?

It turns out that simply providing information isn't enough.

As Albert Einstein once said, "Information is not knowledge." And perhaps more importantly, knowledge isn't wisdom. 

Today, we are quickly moving from a Techno-utopia to a Techno-dystopia.

The dream is becoming our nightmare.

Here is why.

Issue 1: Processing Information

We assume that understanding the world is a deterministic process; that we see the world more or less as it is and that we all experience the same reality and the same set of facts.

We believe that information enters the mind like a jigsaw puzzle piece and that our minds solve the puzzle to reveal the overall picture.

But that is not how it works at all.

In reality, information is like water poured into a vessel. It takes the shape of the mind it enters, conforming to existing beliefs and biases.

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, there are still groups of people who believe that the world is flat. They are provided with plenty of good, honest facts by society, but these facts have been warped by their biases to fit their preconceived notions.

Issue 2: Cognition vs Metacognition

This is the most fundamental issue.

We are so engrossed in our quest to understand the external world (cognition) that we overlook the need to understand our own thought processes (Metacognition).

By failing to understand our own our own thought processes we don't understand understanding. As a result, we become susceptible to the mind's tricks — favoring pleasing illusions over uncomfortable truths, and distorting facts to fit our narratives.

It became evident that without Metacognition, all the thinking in the world would merely awaken us from one illusion only to entangle us in another.

Next, we will do a deep dive into how information is processed and cognized in each of us.

The Trinity: Subject, Object & Mean Making

We often only perceive reality through a type of duality, separating the subjective and objective world.

Baked into this view is the assumption that we, the subject perceive the objective world, more or less as it is, however this is not the full picture.

Why?

Because information is inherently meaningless.

I can tell you stories in Japanese, and you won't understand a word of it unless you know what the words mean.

So the subject/object is missing the component of meaning.

Thus, reality really is a Trinity of Subject, Object, and mean-making.

Now, let's dive into the Trinity, which reveals Metacognition at its highest level.

The Knower, The Knowing, and The Known

What is the Trinity of Experience? The Knower, the Knowing, and The Known.

Understanding the Trinity can take us to Metacognition and become self referral.

The 'Knower' is the subject of experience, the 'Known' is the object of experience, and the 'Knowing' is the meaning given to the experience.

1. The Knower gives meaning to the Known.

2. The meaning defines the relationship between the Knower and Known.

3. The Knower then experiences that relationship.

This is how we give birth to our world.

Reality is born out of a conscious subject giving meaning to their objective world and then experiencing that relationship.

This is our entire experience of the world.

This is, in fact, all we ever really know.

In this way, experience itself is our fundamental reality.  

And this reality is consciousness… It always involves a conscious subject having an experience with information.

The experience with information, this mean-making is a relationship.

Our world, our entire life, is thus a set of relationships with meaning.

Now, let's look at how information is processed and how we give meaning to our world.

The Processes of Information

One evening, a Christian, an Atheist, and a Buddhist are hiking together. As night falls, they set up camp and gather around a crackling fire under a clear, star-filled sky.

Suddenly, they notice strange, shimmering lights dancing above the horizon—brilliant colors swirling and moving in patterns they've never seen before. The lights are silent, ethereal, and undeniably captivating.

They watch in awe as the phenomenon unfolds and take something different from the experience:

The Christian gazes at the lights and says, "This must be a sign from God—it's a reminder of His glory and presence in our lives." He feels inspired to pray, expressing gratitude and seeking deeper spiritual connection.

The Atheist, intrigued yet analytical, remarks, "This is fascinating! I have never seen anything like this, but there must be a scientific explanation—perhaps it's an unusual aurora caused by solar activity or a rare atmospheric event. Nature has many wonders we have yet to fully understand." He then decides to document the event, taking photos and notes, eager to research and learn more about the possible natural causes.

The Buddhist observes the lights and reflects, "The beauty of this moment lies not in understanding it, but in experiencing it fully."

How We Process Information

The story above illustrates the interplay between the know, the known, and the known. How we give meaning to our experiences and the interplay between meaning and beliefs.

Next, let's break down the process of processing information and giving it meaning. This includes 3 parts:

1. Attention

2. Perspective & Perception

3. Mean Making

Attention

In every moment there is way too much information and we don't have enough time to process all the information available to our senses, evaluate it and make sense of it.

Instead, we automatically filter the environment, and we focus our attention on what is important to us at the moment.

But this leaves us vulnerable and raises the question, if we focus our attention on a task like eating, how can we make sure that we don't get eaten?

The answer lies in the two types of attention and how they are associated with each of the brain's hemispheres:

• The left hemisphere deals with the local, what is right in front of us, in the foreground.

  • The left hemisphere helps us to grasp and feed, move objects, and manipulate the world.

  • It reduces the world to what can be easily known, understood, grasped, and controlled.

  • Specialization: Focused Attention

• The right hemisphere deals with the global picture – including the periphery and the background.

  • It is aware of the big picture and understands the broader context and relationship.

  • The right hemisphere, with its always-on context-aware global attention, ensures we do not become someone else's prey.

  • Specialization: Peripheral Attention

Our attention has both qualities, where we can focus on an object and are also aware of the broader view.

The broader background attention, constantly scans our environment for patterns that are in alignment with our system of values.

Survival and procreation are two examples of values that we have all experienced.

When we are hungry, we become ultra-attuned to notice foods we might want to eat. We can easily get enchanted with delicious smells and start imagining what we might want to eat.

When we are horny, we notice all of the beautiful people around us and grow in excitement. And when these needs and urges pass, we might not even notice the gorgeous woman of the smell of bread baking in the oven. The smell of food might even turn us off.

So, our attention is directed towards things we want and need, and this happens a-priori. As each new moment arises, our value system acts as a filter for our attention systems. Only after we are aware of 'the thing of value' can we move towards it.

As we move towards our goals, we focus and engage with what is valuable and helpful and ignore all of noise. The information that is meaningless, is not even registered by us. We won't be able to recall it accurately or might not even know of that it was there in front of us.

Surprisingly, this is the case even if we interact with a valuable object like money. Even here, we will only recall and focus on the most meaningful information, the part about money that gives money its meaning, and will leave the rest of the details behind.

Here below is an example of this phenomenon with a penny.

Even though we have seen thousands of pennies in our lives, the details of a penny are not meaningful enough to remember, so most of us can not identify the correct penny. Can you?

Perspective

As each of us perceives the objective world, we do so from a perspective. Our perspective is limited by time, space, our senses and our mind.

Thus, we never see the complete picture of any object of perception.

Instead, we see it as if it were frozen in time and space. We see it from a single point of view, which makes it appear to us in a very particular way that only tells a fraction of the story.

In this way, what we experience is the mean-making we attribute to the small amount of information we perceive.

Mean Making

After we focus our attention and the information begins flowing into our mind, our mind shapes it and gives it meaning based on an interplay of beliefs, experiences, and past meanings.

Consider how differently the Atheist, the Christian, and the Buddhist interpreted the dancing lights.

Each of them gave the mysterious light a layer of meaning that was not directly a part of the experience. Instead, their beliefs about the experience and their model of reality gave the experience additional words that further shaped the experience.

Our beliefs, thoughts and words shape our actual experiences. We are then in relationship with our own projected meaning and imagination.

In this way, the meaning that our beliefs give to our experience is then reflected back to us through the dynamic relationships we have with our world.

Here we get a kernel of truth, which reverses the axiom 'seeing is believing' into 'believing is seeing'.

The belief shapes the interpretation of what is seen.

The Power of Beliefs & Values

Our beliefs and values literally shape the way we perceive the world and define our relationship with it.

We interpret the information in accordance with our beliefs and model of reality. Thus, the information itself is made to fit our values and perspectives.

This effect is so strong that scientific experiments, like drug testing, are double-blinded.

The first blind is designed to counter the power of beliefs, which manifests as the placebo effect. Here, participants are told that they could be receiving a sugar pill or the test drug. The purpose is that the participant will not know which one it is.

The second blind takes this a step further. To eliminate the opportunity of knowing, even the scientist that gives the drugs does not know if the participant is taking the test drug or a sugar pill. Without the second blind, the participants in the drug test could pick up on whatever information is there and this can skew the results!

Psychology Models & Beliefs

The power of beliefs is included in multiple psychological models such as the COM-B Model of behaviour and the PRIME Theory of motivation.

The Models illustrate beliefs role in both perception and motivation. Beliefs shape perceptions, our relationship with the world and can then lead us to action.

In fact, beliefs and values are the building blocks of action. They provide the motivation to take action.

When we put it all together, Beliefs are like software programs.

They direct our attention and focus on what is valuable. They shape how we perceive the world and define our relationship with it. Then, they motivate us to take action and attain our wants and needs.

Conclusion

We often hear that seeing is believing, but perhaps the deeper truth is that believing is seeing. Our beliefs and values aren’t just passive filters; they actively construct the reality we experience. They shape our perceptions, color our interpretations, and guide our actions.

This understanding challenges the notion that more or better information is the remedy for ignorance.

In reality, additional information often gets assimilated into existing belief systems, reinforcing preconceived notions rather than dismantling them. At best, it might shift us from one illusion to another; plunge us from one dream into another.

So, the answer to ignorance isn’t simply more information.

Instead, it’s about becoming aware of the narratives we hold about ourselves and the world. It’s about recognizing the “dream” we’re living in and choosing to awaken from it.

The Paradox of Information

There is something profoundly mysterious and profound about Information.

You see, Information is not trivial or merely passive. 

Information is paradoxical. 

It is simultaneously far more than it is and far less than it is. 

Information also has causal powers! 

It can turn us into magicians who speak words, that trigger software, that turns on the lights, calls an Uber and puts our World into motion.

It powers and moves our world forward via information technology, and at the same time, without you, information would be inherently meaningless.

It is meaningless until you come in contact with it, and only then will it become meaningful.

Its meaning can illuminate and give rise to new ways of understanding our World.

All of this has the Physicist asking and wondering if Information is a foundational block of reality. 

If reality at its core is Information, and if Information can lead us to the ultimate source of everything.

With this, let’s journey into the deep end of what Information is and how a deeper understanding can give us insight into the full scope of the Information Age, where we are now, and where we are going next. 

What we will explore:

• Part 1: What is the nature of Information?: The objective scientific view on Information

• Part 2: Information in People & Consciousness: Subject view of how we experience it and how it affects us

• Part 3: Information in AI Systems & Technologies: How Information Works in Technology, AI, and where we are headed next.

• Part 4: Society & Culture Implications of AI & Information: How the Information Age is impacting society and where we are headed next.

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Part I: What is the Nature of Information?

Have you ever wondered, ‘What information is?’.

Here is how Webster's Dictionary defines information:

However, this is only a very surface-level understanding. 

When we dive deeper, we see that there are four types of Information:

• Information about something (e.g., a train timetable)

• Information as something (e.g., DNA or fingerprints)

• Information for something (e.g., algorithms or instructions)

• Information in something (e.g., a pattern or a constraint).

Here, things start to get fuzzy because information can simultaneously be of more than one type.

Information can also be both objective and subjective. Everything you see, hear, feel, touch, and taste is objective Information experienced subjectively. 

As the external Information comes into your mind, as you perceive it, you interact with it, and the new Information can enlighten and change your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Information has causal power. 

And in machines, it is no different. 

Information gives instructions on what to compute and how to compute it. 

This means that information can compute and transform itself. 

And it gets weird. 

Information can do this both deterministically (algorithms) and probabilistically (AI). 

And with all of this, it begs the question, ‘What information is exactly?’

There is something about Information that goes far beyond being merely an analytical tool or a metaphor. 

Is Information something that has its own inherent existence and reality, or does it merely attach itself to matter and come along for the ride?

Information in Physics

Once upon a time, information was not a big deal. Scientist rarely asked anything about it and it was considered unimportant.

But then, as physicists went deeper, information began popping up in every area of physics on a fundamental level. 

In Quantum Physics, Physicists have effectively rephrased their theories in terms of Information, and when you ask questions, Information comes out.

This led to a leap in understanding the quantum World and a whole new field of Quantum Information, which has led to Quantum Computing.

Now, there is a fundamental difference between Classical Information and Quantum Information. 

Classical Information, like Classical Physics, behaves deterministically. Something is either a ‘1’ or a ‘0’. It’s defined and measurable. 

Quantum Information, on the other hand, exists in a probabilistic state. According to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, you can measure position or momentum, but you can’t measure both with great accuracy. And before you measure it, the subatomic particle can have many different positions or states, and measuring it defines what it will be.

In the Quantum world, the Information gained from the act of measuring is intrinsic to what the particle is. 

Here Information and what the particle is is the same thing and it was undermined until a measurement occurred which produced Information and this Information defined the reality of the particle.

“Information & Energy have equal claims as base reality.” Seth Lloyd

Everything is made of energy, but it is information that tells us the form and shape that energy takes. 

So the Universe at the bottom level exists on level of Information, not energy, because Information is what is defining, giving rise to the shape of the Universe.

As the Universe changes from moment to moment, like a crashing wave or an electron absorbing a photon, this Information is processed. 

The bits flip. 

Bits flipping is a computation. In this way, the Universe can be seen as an extensive computation in which the informational bits are flipping from moment to moment.

“Is information the Ground of Reality?’ Sean Carrol

Processing information in physical systems is the master key to understanding Consciousness.

“It from to Bit” John Archibald Wheeler

The deeper we go, the more and more the base reality represents something like a giant computer or a Mind.

With this, we will jump right into Integrated Information Theory (IIT).

Integrated Information Theory (IIT)

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) takes things to another level by bringing subjective information into the fold.

This is Information that a subject knows and experiences about itself. This includes the information in our experience (sense perceptions), information about our experience (relationship with perceptions) and the experience itself.

IIT is built on five fundamental Axioms. These axioms are a good starting place to define conscious experience:

1. Intrinsic Existence: Consciousness exists from its own intrinsic perspective, independent of external observers. You know you exist independent of an external observer.

2. Composition: Consciousness is structured, consisting of multiple phenomenological distinctions. Your experience has a structure and limits, is well defined, and contains meaning instead of being just white noise or pure meaningless abstraction. 

3. Information: Consciousness is informative in that each experience is specific and provides a particular way of integrating Information that is different from other possible experiences. 

4. Integration: Consciousness is unified; each conscious experience is irreducible to non-interconnected subsets of phenomenal distinctions. Your experience is entirely whole and can’t be reduced to the objects that you are experiencing. 

5. Exclusion: Consciousness is definitive, meaning each experience excludes all others; there is only one overarching conscious state at any given time. You have one experience at a time.

“Processing information, in physical systems, is the master key to understanding consciousness.”

Integrated Information Theory (IIT) suggests that Consciousness arises from a system’s ability to integrate Information. This theory quantifies a system’s level of Consciousness using a measure known as Phi (Φ).

Phi (Φ) assesses the degree of integration within a system, evaluating how interconnected and unified it is in its information processing capabilities. Systems with high Φ are considered to possess high levels of Consciousness, characterized by the presence of all five essential properties (axioms) of experience defined by IIT.

IIT proposes a radical viewpoint: the process of systems integrating Information is equivalent to experiencing Consciousness. In this framework, informational Consciousness is posited as the base reality from which all experiential reality emerges. According to IIT, there is no separation between the process of Consciousness and its content; both are seen as emergent properties of information integration.

Part II: Information & Consciousness

Information has the power to form and shape our consciousness experiences, both on a conscious and subconscious level.

On a conscious level, Information enters our internal environment, which includes our current emotional state, what we are thinking about, and what we are actively wanting or fearing.

Our mind perceives, processes, and shapes information through its interactions with our urges, wants, beliefs, and intentions, and then we respond (even doing nothing is a type of response).

In the ideal scenario, we are present and aware of our internal state and deeply consider a piece of Information, its meaning, and its implications. 

However, this is an unrealistic ideal. 

Most people do not have the ability to be fully present and self-aware of their internal states or the skills to honestly and objectively evaluate Information.

Instead, this is what happens.

What typically happens is that the Information comes into our internal environment while our attention is on multiple things at once. It then triggers our urges, and we impulsively respond to it. (System 1: Impulses)

This is the primary system of response. 

It’s automatic and what we do the vast majority of the time.

When we don’t respond impulsively, the second system turns on, which evaluates the Information in terms of our wants and needs. If you are hungry or horny, does the information help? (System 2: Motives)

If the Information moves past the first two systems, the third system kicks in our beliefs (System 3: Beliefs). 

Our beliefs act as an interpretive filter that mixes new Information with existing beliefs and gives us a course for action. We act in so far as we believe that we must.

Finally, if none of the first three systems are triggered, the information passes to system four: our plans and intentions. (System 4: Plans)

This is the Prime Theory of Motivation and how we respond to information, and it is only a part of the story.

We also respond to Information subconsciously. 

Information enters our Consciousness, and it acts on us without our awareness.

Take the case of judges who were reminded of their mortality before setting bail. 

In the study “Evidence for Terror Management Theory I: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Violate or Uphold Cultural Values,” Florette Cohen and colleagues found that judges who were reminded of their death before sentencing imposed a much higher bail on an alleged prostitute.

The increase was substantial. The typical bail was $50 for such an offense. However, judges who were reminded of death increased it by a whopping 900% to $450! 

This suggested that reminders of mortality can lead to harsher punishments for those perceived as violating cultural norms, which is in line with the Terror Management Theory.

In such instances, Information can act on us without our knowledge. The judges had no idea that the reminder of death had such a profound effect on them. In fact, they would believe and argue that it was their intention and that they made it fully consciously. 

This is precisely the power of ideology and the unconscious mind. They direct our decisions and our behavior while we rationalize them and believe them to be fully what we intended. 

Now, in the same way that Information can produce experiences in Consciousness and lead to a response, it can also be processed by computers and trigger specific tasks.

Part III: Information in Technology

Through AI, humans and machines speak the same language for the first time. 

Humans can now directly give AI instructions and essentially turn their words into magical spells that produce actions in the Real World.

On the other hand, AI can provide humans with Information that influences their perceptions, thinking, and beliefs and leads to their actions.

This is a profound shit. 

In the Information Age, we are going through phases similar to those we did during the Industrial Age, and the parallels are uncanny.

The Industrial Age started with the advent of machines that could automate labor and do heavy work. Coal, wood, and other energy sources often powered these machines.

This allowed humanity to transform how it produced value in the World, but it was limited. 

In the second phase of the Industrial Revolution, we discovered how to harness and use the power of electricity.

Electricity then brought machines and the Industrial Revolution into our homes. Here is a quick overview of how it applies to today.

Industrial Age

1. Phase 1: Mechanizing Labor

   • Transportation: Steam engines, trains, and cars revolutionized movement.

   • Communication: The telegraph ( it used electrochemical processes).

   • Mass Production: Everyday goods like food, shoes, clothes, tools, medicines, and household items were mass-produced.

   • Society & Economy: We went from agrarian and handicraft economies to industrial and machine-manufacturing-dominated ones. Capital-intensive factories led to capitalism, international trade, specialization, and urbanization. 

2. Phase 2: Harnessing Electricity

   • Transportation: Railroads and streetcars expanded city centers.

   • Communication: The telephone, radio, and TV (from the 1920s to the 1950s), along with early computers, transformed communication.

   • Household Appliances: Stoves, refrigerators, and washing machines made household chores easier, with electricity becoming an invisible worker.

   • Society & Economy: Electric lighting made cities more livable, and skyscrapers became possible with elevators.

In the first phase, large companies primarily harnessed industrial power. In the second phase, electricity distributed the benefits of industrialization to homes, powering machines, and communication devices.

Industrialization's value came to full fruition on every level (household, company, government, Society).

In the Information Age, we are going through a similar process. 

1. Phase 1: Computing Information

   • Transportation: GPS, supply chain management, logistics, air traffic control, onboard diagnostics (OBD), and real-time information systems.

   • Communication: Computers, networks, and the Internet revolutionized connectivity.

   • Mass Production: The Internet, social media, and information/content production changed the landscape of mass production.

   • Society & Economy: Startups, low capital intensity, instant global scalability, urbanization, and winner-takes-all dynamics emerged.

2. Phase 2: Artificial Intelligence (Projections)

   • Transportation: Self-driving cars and intelligent transportation systems where vehicles communicate in real-time.

   • Communication: Digital assistants, the Internet of Things (IoT), and automated information systems.

   • Household: Digital assistants and robots managing chores and other tasks.

   • Society & Economy: Smart systems and cities integrate information to optimize efficiency, changing both the physical and psychological worlds. The economy shifts towards value integrators.

In the first phase, we saw Information Technology transform every significant part of the economy and how we live our lives.

Now, in phase two, information technology is becoming fully democratized and distributed via the power of AI. 

AI will allow us to turn our words and intentions into instructions that work in the background like a hidden application layer. 

This hidden application layer works both ways. The AI will have Information about us that it can use to help us achieve our goals. 

Part IV: Culture, Society, Implications of Informational Systems

The Information Age has unlocked the power of Information in the same way that the Industrial Age unlocked the energy inside of an atom.

In both ages, there was a second phase of electricity, and now, AI, where the core value was distributed to the entire society and transformed utterly.

Now, with information, this applies even more.

Here is how.

Culture is a set of information instructions on “the way of life for an entire society.” It tells us who we are, what is valuable, how we act and behave, and what is good, beautiful, and true. It passes down the story of us.

Culture is both within us and something we are also a part of. 

We inform, create, and move our Culture forward. As more of us change and share new Information with others, it becomes a part of our Culture and pushes our Society forward. 

Today, we are quickly moving into a thoroughly postmodern world where information has become the basis on which our lives run.

In the same way that Information affects processing systems (people, technology, AI), it also affects Culture, Systems, and Society. 

Carl Sagan: "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."

Like the Industrial Revolution, there are hiccups before we get it right. Here are some ways it unfolds, the mistakes that await us, and their remedies. 

Currently Unfolding

• The Real vs. The Artificial: It becomes impossible to distinguish reality from make-believe, real news from fake news, and real people from AI-generated people.

• Idealogical & Symbolic: Today, man lives mostly in his head, thinking constantly about yesterday and tomorrow. Living in a world made up of our thoughts, we live symbolically, and this will only multiply. Ideology will rule the day, where what people think and believe takes precedence over their actual lived experience.

• Existential Angst: A World Where Everything Is Possible But Nothing Means Anything

• Synthetic Relationships: According to a recent study, about 30% of men under 30 are virgins. Technology has already broken down our relationships, and AI can gloss over this pain and give us the illusion, the simulation of a relationship. 

• Job Market: Consider that 20% of the US economy is in transportation and the potential problem that self-driving cars and trucks pose in upending such a large number of jobs and then multiply it. Mundane, repetitive tasks have become part of a bygone era; now, man will have to begin thinking. 

• Psychological Exploitation: Every age has its version of exploitation, and in the age of AI, exploitation will be through enjoyment, pleasure of vices, and ideology. 

  • AI systems will quickly be able to identify the vices and ideologies that have power over you and feed you the perfect dose that keeps you coming back. 

• Hedonism: Often, meaning and purpose are found in a Heroic mission. In a world where nothing matters, where challenges are seen as problems, many will simply indulge in empty hedonism.

  

AI Ethics & Tech Regulations

• AI ethics and tech regulation have become necessary to address privacy concerns, bias, and fairness.

Overall, the Information Age leads to the full embodiment of Postmodern values, and through technology, just about everything that Postmodernism has to offer comes to pass. 

Ultimately, this will require us to re-imagine the World, considering what is needed, what is natural, and what is next. 

What the World needs more than anything here is restoring stability to a disordered world. 

We begin to integrate all of the different information systems and bring about the next phase: Integration and Synthesis.

In this phase, there is a full Integration of digital and physical systems, biotechnology, psychology, Culture, and artificial intelligence. 

The entire suite of human values and beliefs will be seen as essential packets of cultural Information that are valuable and useful within specific contexts, situations, and goals. 

Integration & Synthesis

• Smart Systems: As we go down the path of turning everything into Information that can be processed and computerized, our World will be transformed into a Smart System that is integrated and has predictive power.

• Information Layer: This layer contains live real-world data, like a ‘Meta World,’ and has our knowledge integrated into it: physics, mathematics, biology, psychology, sociology, etc. The Information layer is then a representation of our World and how it behaves and can:

  • Have predictive powers 

    • Smart City predicting energy usage, traffic, disease outbreaks, etc

    • Run simulations of how different systems affect each other and mitigate risks. (For example, Predict weather and its effects on traffic, energy usage, health, etc. All of this can mitigate issues for vulnerable populations and be preventative.)

  • Allow citizens to push and pull Information to it, start businesses, communicate, etc. 

  • Empower automation and computations based on conditions (e.g., You can sell energy back to the grid when a specific price is hit or when you’re not at home) 

  • Natural language is the language of software. Your communication becomes a type of software. 

• Integration: Information is integrated, and hidden patterns emerge. 

  • Deep Integration between domains of life ( personal, sciences, Culture, Systems)

    • Different Information is mixed and integrated to solve a complex problem. For example, losing weight = personality x diet x friends x DNA x culture.

  • Holistic Understanding: New insights will emerge as Information and research from different fields point to the same phenomena 

  • New Domains of Knowledge: Big data will produce new domains of knowledge that were impossible before big data and AI. 

    • Old domains niche down into new domains: Chemistry and biology produced biochemistry.

    • Face Reading: Long considered a pseudoscience, big data, AI, and scientifically valid personality models give credence to identifying personality traits via face reading.

  • This matrix has a linguistic basis to it. 

  • A language of reality and its inner relationships and actions

  • This reality is a linguistic tautology that is created via an experience within Consciousness.

• Personal Technology: Each of us will have Personal technology, AI Assistants, and applications that integrate with our: 

  • Physical World: smart homes, work, IoT devices, health, smart cities, etc

  • Relationships: family, friends, etc

  • Intrapersonal: our own psychology, personality, values, beliefs, identity, goals, plans, etc.

• Communication: AI Systems will communicate with each other and coordinate responses to new Information, enhancing efficiency and functionality.

• Convergence of Technology: Full convergence of AI, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Metaverse, Blockchain, etc..

• Household: Smart homes will handle chores, cooking, cleaning, and even fitness, seamlessly meeting all household needs.

• Philosophy: Information becomes the new ‘God.’ It supersedes ‘Matter,’ and the World is seen as ‘information.’ The universe is seen as a ‘computer,’ and reality is seen as a type of simulation. The external World goes from being a ‘dumb machine’ to a ‘smart computer.’ 

• Society: We start valuing generalists and integrative thinkers, and metacognition becomes a prized skill.

• Economy: Polymaths coax the right informational insights that release/unlock tremendous informational value. Startups focus on integrating information by using it like a set of ingredients that can produce an outcome. Deep personalization is where Information is judged on its effectiveness in producing the desired change.

I imagine both the Dark Side of the Integration Phase will happen simultaneously.

However, more energy and investment will be spent on the low-hanging fruit. AI Girlfriends are much easier to get right and turn a profit than AI for Mental Health which is why Replica made a hard pivot to the dark side.

So, our societies focus on the easy, pleasureful, and profitable, and we bring forth the more dystopian version, which leaves us empty.

As our Culture catches up, it becomes clear that we live in a world of abundance and that every type of experience is available to us. 

The idea of a healthy information diet has become even more essential than eating a healthy diet. 

Our attention and our consciousness become the keys that determine what information we cognize and experience, and we are only able to bring forth what we pay attention to. 

Through our focused attention, we can bring forth Heaven on Earth or a Hellscape.

As we decide and reflect on what we want, we draw it forward in our imagination, and through our imagination, we can begin to reveal what is valuable and necessary to bring it to fruition. 

Ultimately, integration and synthesis lead us to the next age, the imagination age.

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One night, a heavy rainstorm ripped through a small village and caused a huge mudslide. The villagers woke up the next day to find their pond filled with mud and murky, muddy water.

They were distressed, for how could they drink, cook, and shower?

Many panicked and tried scooping the mud out of the pond. Others thought it was smarter to scoop the water out.

The more everyone scooped and fought, the more they stirred the water, and the muddier the pond became.

Finally, an old wise woman spoke out, "We must stop disturbing the water and let it settle. The mud will sink to the bottom, and the clear water will rise to the top."

The villagers were skeptical at first, but they had tried everything else. Sure enough, after a few hours, the mud began to sink, and the water became clear again.

In today’s information age, the relentless stream of news, political drama, and conflict contributes to a pervasive sense of unease—often leaving us with a nagging feeling that something is fundamentally wrong. This persistent undercurrent of worry heightens stress, anxiety, and depression. In an effort to escape these unsettling emotions, we may numb ourselves, turn to substances, which can ultimately lead to addiction.

Whenever we get sucked in the online vortex of chaos by reacting to it, judging, or fighting with it, we begin adding to the cycle of conflict and hostility. We get caught up in a trap of our own making, and in doing so, we muddy the waters for ourselves and others.

Meditation offers a way to settle our emotions and gain clarity.

Icons like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, and LeBron James have attributed part of their success and remarkable focus to regular meditation practices.

Like the villagers, they understood that you must be still to gain clarity.

Meditation is about becoming still so you can see yourself more clearly and make better decisions.

Gaining clarity, detachment, and self-awareness are needed more now than ever before.

The digital age is forcing us to become meta-cognizers.

Meditation is a master habit that helps you emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually.

It gives you clarity and increases your ability to focus your attention and to navigate choppy waters. And when the storms of life come, and they always do, you can remain present, aware, calm, and know how to stay in the eye of the storm.

To help guide you on this path, I’ve created a Meditation Guide. It clarifies what meditation is, explains its benefits, shows how and why it works, introduces different types of meditation practices, and outlines how to get started.

What’s in this Guide:

1. Scientific Research & Benefits: 13 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation

2. What is Meditation & Why does it work?: The Purpose of Meditation

3. 3 Primary Meditation Types: Descriptions & Full Guided Instructions

   1. Concentration Meditations: Mantras, Visualization, Guided Meditations, etc

   2. Awareness Meditations: Vipassana, Zazen, Mindfulness Meditation, etc

   3. Contemplation Meditations: Self Inquiry, Jñāna Yoga, Vimarsha, and Koans.

4. Overcoming Challenges: FAQs

5. Establishing Daily Routine: Guide to Your Daily Practice

6. Tools & Resources: Where you can learn more and go deeper

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Scientific Research & Benefits

Over the past twenty years, extensive research has been conducted on the effects of meditation and mindfulness practices.

Overall, the results are profound. If Meditation were a pill, it would be the most potent pill you could ever take.

Here is why.

Meditation works on every level, including our physical health, emotional well-being, mental states, and ability to focus our attention and be self-aware.

So this one practice has wholesale benefits, and as the science shows, these benefits are on par or better than the alternatives, such as using alternative methods, techniques, or taking drugs.

Unlike other methods and techniques, Meditation has extremely positive second-order effects.

Compared to drugs, Meditation can be just as effective without any side effects.

Meditation is a Master Habit. It has the power to transform your body and your mind and help you change your habits and your life.

Let’s jump into the benefits and the research that supports them.

What are the main Benefits of Meditation?

According to 100’s of scientific studies here are the 13 most common benefits of meditation:

1. Stress Reduction

   Meditation significantly reduces stress by lowering cortisol levels, similar to the effectiveness of antidepressants but without their side effects. Multiple studies have demonstrated how Meditation decreases blood cortisol levels and adrenaline, offering a potent, natural method for reducing stress. See Studies.

2. Anxiety Control

   Regular meditation practice has been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety, comparable in effectiveness to psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. The study, Meditative Therapies For Reducing Anxiety, confirms the effectiveness of Meditation in reducing anxiety symptoms. See Studies.

3. Decrease in Depression

   Several studies have found that Meditation can significantly reduce relapse in people who have had previous episodes of major depression.

4. Emotional Health Enhancement

   Mindfulness and Meditation improve emotional health by fostering a positive self-image and outlook. Research in Clinical Psychology Review has found that meditation interventions can sustainably enhance mood and emotional resilience than temporary solutions like medication.

5. Increased Self-Awareness

   Practices like Mindfulness enhance introspection, helping individuals better understand their thoughts and behaviors. In 2007, a study by Ortner et al. showed that meditators were less emotionally reactive.

6. Increases Attention Span & Ability to Focus

   Meditation, like focused attention, improves the duration and strength of one's attention span. A study in Consciousness and Cognition found that meditators performed significantly better on all measures of attention.

7. Memory and Aging

   Meditation supports cognitive function and memory in aging adults, potentially reducing age-related memory loss. Research published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences shows Meditation's positive effects on brain aging, memory retention, focus, and cognitive flexibility.

8. Fostering Kindness

   Loving-kindness Meditation enhances feelings of compassion and empathy. A study in the Emotion Journal shows that loving-kindness Meditation increases feelings of social connectedness.

9. Addiction Management

   Meditation aids in addiction recovery by enhancing self-control and awareness of triggers. Research in the Clinical Psychology Review showcased how mindfulness-based interventions were effective for depression, pain, smoking, and addictions.

10. Improved Sleep

    Mindfulness meditation helps manage insomnia by calming the mind and body. A clinical trial reported in JAMA Internal Medicine found that it is effective at combating insomnia and improving sleep quality.

11. Pain Management

    Meditation reduces the perception of pain by altering brain responses. A study by the American Psychological Association has shown that Meditation can reduce pain and fatigue in people with chronic pain.

12. Lower Blood Pressure

    Meditation can naturally lower blood pressure by promoting relaxation and enhancing nitric oxide production. The American Heart Association has reported that Meditation can reduce blood pressure, potentially decreasing the risk of heart disease.

13. Improves Physical Health

    Other studies have found preliminary evidence that Mindfulness might boost the immune system and help people recover more quickly from cold or flu.

It’s not uncommon for people to dismiss meditation, arguing that it only offers marginal benefits for those who are already healthy.

However, this isn’t the case.

Even in extreme environments—among individuals struggling with mental health—meditation has been shown to produce profound effects.

Below is a video demonstrating how Vipassana Meditation was used in maximum-security prisons in the United States to reduce violence.

Meditation & Psychology

Meditation and Mindfulness have been so effective that therapists now utilize them.

Here are a few examples:

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): MBSR is a therapeutic program that combines mindfulness meditation and yoga to help manage stress, pain, and illness by promoting Mindfulness.

• Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT): MBCT is a therapeutic approach that combines cognitive behavioral techniques with mindfulness strategies to help prevent the recurrence of depression, particularly in individuals with major depressive disorder.

Last but not least, an entire branch of psychology is dedicated to this approach.

• Gestalt Therapy: Gestalt Therapy is an experiential form of psychotherapy that focuses the person’s attention on the present moment. From the present movement, the client reflects on their overall life situation and considers ways of improving their life in all areas that are important to them: emotional, physical, relational, career, etc.

What is Meditation and Why Does it Work?

First, what is meditation?

Meditation is the practice of training you attention and awareness. It is being present and aware of your thougths, feelings and sensations as they arise and fall away and abiding in this pure state of awareness.

Why does meditation work at all? Why in the world is it so effective?

Here is how it works.

Consider how much control you exert over your physical environment. You can easily reflect on your home’s design, consider how you can improve it, imagine what those changes will look and feel like, and then experiment. You can then move furniture around, add or subtract to the design, and make any changes you like.

When it comes to the objective parts of our lives, we can easily examine them, dissect them, think about them in different ways, and experiment with them.

Mediation allows you to do this with yourself and your subjective parts.

But why is doing this with our subject parts so difficult?

Part of the reason why it is so difficult to do this with ourselves is that we are identified with our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. What we believe and value becomes a part of who we think we are, and since we are combining ourselves with all of these things, all of these things are a part of our subjective ‘me.’ They define the ‘me,’ and changing that ‘me’ feels threathening.

Meditation does is it helps you become the observer. You start to observe your thoughts. When your thoughts come and go, you realize that you don’t go with them.

By observing how your feelings emerge, take over your entire state of being, and then fall away, we realize that we are not our feelings.

As we become The Witness, we can observe the patterns of our beliefs, values, and identities as they manifest themselves through our thoughts and feelings. We then begin to realize that we are not our thoughts, feelings, or beliefs but instead the one who is aware of them.

Meditation breaks the spell, the identification we have with our beliefs and our limited identity. It allows us to then look at them objectively and as a result, we can address our fears, worries, and anxieties, and without feeling threathed.

One of the purposes of meditation is to help you experience more of your life as the witness who sees everything come and go.

3 Primary Meditation Types

At its core, meditation is the practice of consciously working with your Awareness.

There are four fundamental ways of doing that.

First is the ability to focus your attention. With Concentration Meditation, you focus on an object related to one or all of your senses, such as a visualization, mantra, or guided meditation. By focusing your attention on an object within your imagination, like a Loving Kindness Meditation, you can create a calm and loving conscious experience.

Second is the ability to be aware of your consciousness experience and all of its parts. This Awareness is like the witness who watches as experiences come and go. Here, you are turning subjective experiences, like your thoughts, feelings, and sensations, into objects you observe.

The third way oscillates between pure Awareness and focus. In this way, you witness and observe, then focus your attention and go deeply into the object of your focus, and then witness again. Here, you are contemplating the trinity of experience, which includes a subject, an object, and the experiential relationship between the two.

Finally, this all leads us to Self-reflective Awareness. Here is the final step, where Awareness is turned back on itself. This is meta-awareness, the Awareness of Awareness.

Here is a breakdown of the 3 Meditation Types with examples of each:

• 1. Concentration Meditation: Awareness is Focused

  • Mantras, Visualizations, Transcendental Meditation (TM), Guided Meditations, Body Scans, Karuṇā, Love & Kindness, Yoga, Tai chi, Qigong, etc.

  • Difficulty Level: Great for Beginners

• 2. Awareness Meditation: Awareness that is Witnessing Experience.

  • Vipassana, Mindfulness Meditation, Zazen,  

  • Difficulty Level: Good for Beginners

• 3. Contemplative Meditation: Awareness oscillates between focusing on the inquiry and being the witness.

  • Phase 1: Uncovering the nature of self and consciousness via Enquiry

    • Self Enquiry, Jñāna Yoga, and Koans.

    • Difficulty Level: Intermediate to Advanced.

  • Phase 2: Self-reflective Awareness, where Awareness abides in Awareness

    • Vimarsha, Pratyabhijna

    • Difficulty Level: Advanced.

Now, let’s jump into each of these types of mediation and instructions on how to meditate.

Let’s start with Concentration Meditations because they are the easiest for beginners.

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1. Concentration Meditations

Concentraltion Meditations includes all of the different types of meditations that focus your mind, such as visualization (sight), mantra (sound), gratitude meditation (feeling), guided meditation (mixed), and movement meditation like yoga (body).

One of the most natural, easiest, and effective meditations is Mantra Meditation using bijas. A good example of this type of meditation is Transcendental Meditation (TM).

Mantras are simple words or phrases that you repeat. You focus on attending to the mantra, which can have a calming and soothing effect. Once you really get the hang of it, it's easy and enjoyable.

A bija Mantra Meditation, is a very powerful yet simple Mantra meditation. It can be done for 20 minutes one to two times per day.

Below is a video on how to do a Bija Mantra Meditation. You can also learn Transcendental Meditation (TM) by joining a local class or learning it online from their instructors.

Step 1: Select a Bija Mantra based on your age:

Step 2: Follow along with the video:

You can also read a full TM tutorial here or join a local class.

Daily Practice:

• Meditate first thing in the morning for 20 Minutes

• When ready, add a second meditation for 20 Minutes later in the day

• Be attentive to the Mantra and come back to it after being distracted

What to Expect

When you start a Concentration meditation practice using your attention actively, you will notice all of the thoughts, feelings, and distractions you have.

You will also notice how it is possible for you to have all kinds of thoughts, feelings, and imagination fill your mind while you are focusing your attention.

You will see how it's possible for your mind to think and imagine multiple things at once, and hopefully, you will be aware of all of this.

As you get better at focusing, you will notice the subtle ways you cognize objects as you place your attention on them. This process of focusing your attention on an object of cognition replicates how we generally cognize information during our entire lives. Concentration Meditations can reveal this subconscious process and make it conscious.

As you become more and more attentive to the objects in your concentration the more you will notice the subtle relationship you have with it and the feelings and experiences that your creating.

At the highest level of this meditation is entering a flow state, where there is no difference between subject and object. What you experience in this flow state is a state of oneness.

What to Expect:

• Distraction is a typical and expected part of the process

• Reflects how we cognize information via our attention

• It can help you reach flow states

• It takes 90 days to rewire your brain

2. Awareness Meditation

Awareness Meditation is the practice of being aware and observing what is happening in your consciousness. You observe everything that comes and everything that goes. This includes your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without attachment.

Below is an example of a Mindfulness Awareness Meditation that is essentially a Vipassana.

Here is how to Meditate:

1. Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight.

   1. You can sit on a chair or meditation cushion, but avoid lying down.

2. Close your eyes.

3. Take a long, deep breath in and slowly exhale. Now, do this three times.

4. Body Scan:

   1. Move your attention through different body parts from head to toe, noting any sensations or lack thereof.

5. Intention: You intend to come back to the present moment

6. How to Observe Objectively:

   1. Observe the arising and passing of thoughts, emotions, and sensations without attachment or aversion

      1. How your mind wonders

      2. The feelings your thoughts trigger

      3. The sensation in your body

   2. Notice the interplay between thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

   3. If a thought takes you on a journey, just return to the present moment.

   4. Notice how you feel.

   5. What sensations are you experiencing right now?

   6. Where is the sensation of that feeling in your body? Describe it.

   7. Do your feelings and sensations trigger more thoughts?

   8. Notice your patterns

   9. Come back and watch what is already here.

   10. When things come up, watch that too.

   11. When things go, watch them go.

7. Tips

   1. Sit for 20 minutes.

   2. Judging yourself or feeling disappointed is another form of thoughts and feelings.

   3. After being distracted, be happy that you came back to the meditation.

   4. See if you can notice the gap between the two thoughts.

   5. List for the silence.

8. Deepening Awareness

   1. As practice progresses, maintain Awareness of the four foundations of mindfulness: the body, feelings, mind, and phenomena.

Through this practice, you will gain deep insight into your thoughts, feelings, and sensations and how you constantly react to your sensations.

Here is a Video on Vipassana Meditation

Key Benefits:

• It helps us detach from our thoughts and feelings and turn them into objects.

• It reflects the nature of our Awareness and how it can be used actively via concentration, which produces conscious experiences, and how it is also the witness of experience.

• It can help you significantly increase your self-awareness.

• It takes 90 days to rewire your brain.

3. Contemplative Meditation

Now, we are jumping into the deep end. Contemplative Mediations includes Zen Koans, Stoic Contemplations, and Self Enquiry.

When we sincerely yearn to know and understand profound truths about life and the nature of reality and are fully committed to the truth, then Self Inquiry and Contemplative Meditation can be a great fit.

This type of meditation focuses on sustaining attention to a particular contemplation (question, concept, object, or theme) while being deeply reflective. It oscillates between Concentration Meditation and Awareness Meditation in cycles.

• Part 1: The Question

  • Start with a few minutes of mindfulness meditation.

  • Ask a profound question to which you are fully committed to knowing the answer.

• Part 2: Listening

  • Open yourself up and listen

  • Let the monkey mind go, stay in a state of Awareness

  • Within this silence, flashes of insight will emerge, and unlike regular ideas, they will take you back into silence

• Part 3: Exploring Ideas

  • Next, we will focus our attention on these ideas

  • You can explore the ideas by using your imagination, thought experiments, and feelings.

  • Investigate your ideas by reflecting on how they align with your lived experience.

  • If an idea needs a bunch of other ideas to support it, it's not a strong idea.

  • What you are looking for is the unconditional, that which does not need something else to define it or support it.

  • Use the ‘Neti-Neti’ process of ‘not this, not this’ to eliminate answers that can not be true.

• Part 4: Reflection

  • Even when an idea might be wrong, it can take you in the right direction.

  • Sometimes, we know an idea is incorrect, but we can’t quite identify why.

• Part 5: Awareness Meditation

  • Take rest by abiding in Awareness.

• Cycles: You can take a rest and pick it up later or keep going deeper until you gain clarity.

With each cycle, you go deeper and deeper into the questions, eliminating more and more. As you go deeper and deeper into your inquiry, you will gain more and more insight.

Over time, these insights and the ‘Neti-Neti’ process can reveal the answer to your contemplation.

When one is engaging in Contemplative Meditation, it is essential to be completely honest with oneself by unpacking core beliefs and assumptions and reflecting on your actual experience.

Here are some of the requirements:

• Strong foundation in Concentration Meditation and Awareness Meditation

• Ability to be Radically Honest

• Decernment

• Fully committed and determined to get the answer

Example Inquiries:

• What is permanent, and what is transient in my experience?

• Is there a self-independent of my thoughts?

• What does it mean to exist?

Here is an example of the process with Rupert Spira.

What is the best use for Contemplative Meditation?

The best use of Contemplative Meditation is in inquiries about the self and life questions that are profoundly relevant to us and which we can gain insight into via our lived experience.

Here are a few examples:

• Why do I smoke?

• Why am I sarcastic?

• Who am I?

• What is the nature of consciousness?

• What is real?

• Who is it that is aware of my perceptions?

• What is knowing?

Each of these questions is deeply intimate to the self, and you can discover the answers in your experience.

Self Enquiry naturally takes us to the phase of meditation, which is Self-reflective Awareness Meditation.

Self-reflective Awareness Meditation

As we explore the nature of our experience more deeply, our Awareness naturally becomes more aware of itself.

We then begin to turn our Awareness back on itself. This is the last meditation phase; it's a Self-reflective awareness Meditation.

This type of meditation, where we focus our Awareness on our Awareness, is the most potent. Here, we are essentially Conscious Awareness that is Aware of its Awareness.

Here is how to practice it:

1. Preparation: Sit in a comfortable position with a straight back. Begin by calming the mind with three deep and slow breaths.

2. Become Aware of Awareness: Gently shift your focus to being aware. Notice what it feels like to be conscious and aware without attaching to any particular object of Awareness.

3. Deepening Awareness: Observe any thoughts, sensations, or emotions that arise, not by engaging with them, but by acknowledging their presence and returning to the sensation of pure Awareness.

4. Self-Observation: As you become more settled in the Awareness of Awareness, explore the sense of 'consciousness' or 'awareness' that is aware. Question, “Who or what is aware?”, Who or what is it that knows?”

5. Integration: Continue to rest in this state of self-reflection, allowing more profound insights about the nature of consciousness and the self to arise naturally. The practice can lead to profound realizations about non-duality and the interconnectedness of all things.

6. Closure: Conclude the session by gradually broadening your Awareness to include your body and the surrounding environment, carrying the calm and clarity into everyday activities.

This kind of meditation can lead to experiences of Satori, Samhadi, and Sat Chit Ananda.

The more we practice this, the more obvious it becomes who we are and what our essential reality is, and this transforms our relationship with our world.

Overcoming Challenges

During your practice, you might encounter many obstacles. Here are a few of the most common and how to address them:

• I am constantly thinking and not able to stay present:

  • This is very common. Even noticing your failure is a type of success because it takes a level of Awareness to notice being distracted and commitment to return to the practice.

• I struggle with physical discomfort, distractions, drowsiness, boredom, and emotional upheaval.

  • These are all common experiences. First, ensure you are physically comfortable sitting with your back straight. This should address discomfort and drowsiness.

  • When we sit, all kinds of things come up: emotions, sensations, boredom, and constant distractions. Observe what these experiences are actually like and integrate them into your meditation.

• Is it Religious or Spiritual?

  • Meditation is a practice centered around your Awareness, which is the foundation of all beings.

  • If a specific spiritual and religious background is helpful in your progress, feel free to use its insight.

  • Conversely, if you find the spiritual or religious elements hindering you, then drop these elements.

• It takes too much time, or it wastes time.

  • These feelings can be expected, especially if you like to work, but remember that Meditation is the best use of time. It helps you become more self-aware, allowing you to transform your life's different areas.

  • Meditation also gives you time. Every hour you spend meditating is an hour you get back on other ways like improved health, well-being, mental clarity, being more efficient, better performance, sleeping better, and, in some cases, needing less sleep.

• I don’t feel it is working.

  • It can take about 90 days to rewire your brain and start seeing results.

  • Remember that expectation can also deceive us. I once had a friend who decided to go back to school. Even after not going for many years, he thought he would get a 4.0 GPA and attend a great Law School. What happened was that he set unrealistic goals, and when he got Bs and Cs instead of all As he gave up.

  • The first goal is to see if you can have regular practice, and showing up for 90 days is a big step in the right direction.

• How do I know if I am on the right track?

  • Are you more aware of what you think or how you feel than before?

  • Have you noticed any thought patterns or feeling patterns?

  • Do you notice any difference in how you respond to stress or anxiety?

  • Have you tried using Meditation and Contemplation to work on areas of your life that need help?

  • Do you suffer less?

Establishing Daily Routine

Now, it's time to put it all into practice. For a few years, I have explored this question of the ideal practice, which was, in part, how I came up with the three meditation types.

I noticed that I was meditating and using my attention in these different ways, but most often, I flowed within an established routine.

Flowing and flexibility are essential because there are times when one type of meditation will really appeal to you, and your routine should be flexible enough to allow you to follow your curiosity.

Here is how I think of my daily routine and how you can create your own:

Daily Routine: With Self Inquiry

• Self Inquiry: 10-20 Minutes

• Mantra: 40 Minutes

• Self-reflective Awareness Meditation: 5-20 Minutes

Daily Routine: Without Self Inquiry

• Vipassana: 0-10 Minutes

• Mantra: 40 Minutes

• Self-reflective Awareness Meditation: 0-10 Minutes

I meditate on Mantras daily, which is my foundation. Then, when I have a deeply contemplative question, I do the daily routine with self-inquiry; otherwise, I do Vipassana instead.

Additionally, throughout the day, I try to return to the present moment as much as possible. This includes being generally Mindful and especially alert to conflicts as they arise so I can be aware of my internal thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they happen in real-time. This way, I can address my own feelings and take responsibility.

For beginners, I would recommend the following:

1. Phase 1: Just Starting

   1. Mantra Meditation 20 Minutes

2. Phase 2: Have some experience

   1. Mantra Meditation 20 Minutes

   2. Vipassana

3. Phase 3: When a Question Strikes you Deeply

   1. Short Vipassana 5min+

   2. Self Inquiry

   3. Mantra Meditation 20 Minutes

   4. Short Vipassana 5min+

Whenever you remember to come back to being mindful in this moment, observe life as it is for a few moments.

Tools & Resources

Here are a few tools and resources that have helped me deepen my practice.

Mantras

• Transcendental Meditation (TM)

• Aghora Mantra (I can’t tell you how much I fell in love with this Mantra by Lakshmanjoo)

• Vimarsha (Best place to learn about Mantras)

Mindfulness Guided Meditation

• Swami Sarvapriyananda Guided Meditation

Self Enquiry

• Rupert Spira Youtube

• Francis Lucille Youtube

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Imagine waking up each day and facing not only your own death but also the deaths of everyone you know.

And now imagine that death was the easy way out.

You had to live through hell on earth, and in this hell, there was an extreme amount of suffering as you were constantly mocked, harassed, starved, worked to the bone, and tortured. Every day you saw suffering, disease, and random executions.

Your mother, father, brother, and wife are all killed.

This was the Life that Viktor Frankl lived as a captive in the Nazi concentration camps.

In and through this suffering, through confronting death and what it meant that Viktor Frankl found transcendent meaning. It was this greater meaning that gave him a reason to live, a way to survive in Auschwitz.

Our fear of death can be so strong that we ignore it instead of facing it like Viktor Frankl did and even if we ignore its significance and set out to achieve all of our goals instead, like Robin Williams did, it won’t ever be enough.

Why is that?

How is it possible that one man, living in a concentration camp can find transcendent meaning, while another man who is adored by millions, is at the hight of his career, has a beautiful family and everything one could wish for, can not find meaning in his life?

The answer lies in Mans Fundamental Problem.

(For a deep dive into this, please read Part 1: Exploring the Human Condition: Our Crisis of Meaning & Why we Suffer)

Man's Fundamental Problem

Our fear of death is so strong that we ignore it instead of unpacking it and the fundamental belief that is at the core of this fear and all subsequent fears.

What is this belief?

At the core, we believe that ‘We are Separate.’

We believe that we are completely separate, independent, temporary individuals who are here, but for a moment.

Since we are no longer one with or a part of a greater reality, then death is perceived as permanent annihilation.

Our lives become precious, and the outside world becomes a threat.

Fear and anxiety are then embedded in every situation, and in every relationship, there exists the potential risk for harm either symbolically or even physically.

Ultimately, this means that we are alone.

We are alone with ourselves. In the end, all we will ever have is ourselves. This feeling of being alone and separate is isolating and produces the isolation we are experiencing.

We need to get close to others, but not too close, for they might hurt us.

We believe all of this because things appear this way, and then our culture compounds this belief through materialism and physicalism.

Physicalism is the view that everything is made of matter, which means that ultimately, the only thing that will survive the test of time, the only thing that actually matters, is… matter!

Not only are we alone, but we are living a meaningless life of suffering and empty pleasures, apparently for no reason at all. We are cut off from the divine and the transcendent.

With this, the belief is cemented that we are separate physical beings having a human experience that is all but a dream.

And this is the nail in the coffin.

We are now bounded to live a contradiction, on one hand our life is meaningless and on the other hand, it’s all we have and we must protect it against the inevitability of death.

But is the core beliefs in being separate even true?

Revelations

An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

To discover the truth about our predicament, we have to be willing to peel the union.

We have to buck our society’s values, ideologies and prescription and look and decide for ourselves. We have to become our own self, stand on our own two feet, instead of leaning on society.

This takes courage and puts you in the odd position of going outside of your society, outside of your group think and to explore for oneself.

Below, I have started peeling the union and you can jump in but I have to warn you that doing so produces tears. You will have to go into the unknown and feel it.

We will go layer by layer deeper into the matter until we hit rock bottom, a truth that goes beyond the relative and touches the absolute.

But I only know one way of doing this, and this is to throw you in the deep end. The deepest of ends, and some of you might not be ready because it takes a leap of faith to go into the unknown.

Let’s begin…

1. Are You Independent?

It appears we are separate and independent, but are we really?

You depend on the oxygen you breathe, the food you eat, and the water you drink. In this way, you are deeply connected with the earth and your environment. You and your environment are part of one system.

But you do not live just physically, you also have an inner world. In fact, we spend more time in our inner World, experiencing our thoughts and feelings, then experiencing our bodies and our outer World.

Our inner World and our mind thinks in a language, a language that was given to us. It’s not ours and neither are the majority of our ideas, beliefs and values. We inherited them in our culture.

How we actually see the World is influenced by our culture. For example, Eskimos have 80+ words for ‘white’. They have more experiences of white and different types of snow, and all of these words and experiences don’t exists for the rest of us. And here language plays a key role, because words and language can shape, define, and create experiences.

In fact, language and our beliefs are so powerful that they can take precedence over our actual lived experience.

They easily hypnotize us into believing things about the World that are not true, simply through the nature of language itself.

For example, we believe we experience ‘time’.

But do you actually experience time?

Unless you can go back or forward in time, you don’t experience time at all. What you are actually experiencing is the present moment, and in this moment, you experience both your imagination and change. You project yourself in the past or future, but you never ever leave the present moment.

Clearly we are a part of this World physically, and we depend on it.

Mentally, it goes even deeper as our language, culture, and ideology are deeply embedded in us. They help us perceive and make sense of the World and give it meaning. They literally help shape and define the meaning of our experiences.

So in now way are we truly separated or even independent. Instead we are dependent and fully intertwined with our World.

2. Do you see the World as it is?

One of the things that we believe culturally is that the World is a set of facts, that these facts present themselves to us, and that we then make sense of the World according to the facts.

But that is not at all what happens.

First, there are way too many facts. There are an infinite number of facts, and so we focus our attention on what we value and we do this a-priori.

Based on our values and beliefs, we filter our environment. When we are kids, we notice other little kids we can play with. When we are looking for a partner, we pay special attention to beautiful people we might be interested in.

In every moment we are paying attention to the things that are important and matter to us at the exclusion of everything else. Right now, you are reading this word to the exclusion of paying attention to other things in your environment and everything else that you could be doing in life.

In this way, we live in a World of the meaning of values.

We automatically arrange Life so we see it according to these sets of facts, values, and meanings.

Different ideologies have a different set of facts, values and meanings that they use to make sense of the world. People born over there, see the World according to their ideologies and the same World appears differently to different people.

So we don’t see the World as it is; we see it frame by frame, through our values, beliefs, culture, perspective and make sense of it via our language.

One of the easiest ways to experience these differences is by living in a foreign country for a few month.

3. What do you Really Know?

What do you KNOW with a 100% Confidence?

This entire experience is happening 100% inside your brain.

You have no actual direct access to external reality; all you have is the experience of your perceptions.

Most of what we claim to know are just beliefs. Even things we take as facts, which is the majority of information, we take it all on faith.

This is why science never makes claims on the nature of reality; it makes no claims on what it is. Instead, it only makes predictions.

We can’t really say we know anything about the external World because all we know is the phenomena that happens in our consciousness.

And even if this Life was nothing but a dream, is there anything that would still be true about it?

Is there anything you know to be so, with 100% confidence?

What do we really know?

‘Cogito, ergo sum’ René Descartes

This was the question that Rene Descartes tried to answer and the answer he came up with was the famous “‘Cogito, ergo sum” which is often translated as “I think therefore I am”.

The word ‘Cogito’ refers to more then just thinking. It includes doubting, knowing, and even being. According to Descartes all we can be sure of is of our own existence.

In future months we will fully explore this questions, do a deep dive into perception, mean making and what we know to exist with 100% certainty.

4. Your Experience of the World

This experience you are having is complete, total, and whole.

The experience isn’t cut up or divided into smaller pieces; it can’t be reduced to its parts or reproduced. Every experience is complete, fully integrated, non-dual, and one of a kind.

Experience happens in your awareness and contains the subjective 'me,’ the objective ‘world,’ and the entire relationship between the two.

The objective world you experience is experienced in you, and you are the one that gives it meaning.

This means that your project on your experience is the relationship you have with your World.

Whatever you believe to be true about the World, the relationship you have with reality, is a mirror of you deepest beliefs.

This is clearly so, because in actuality we don’t know anything about the external reality other than our experience and so if you believe something is true about the World, which includes you, then that is also true about you.

The relationship you have with your World is a mirror of your beliefs, your identity, and ultimately, the relationship you have with yourself.

In this way, you don’t see the World as it is. You see the World as you are.

Life as a Relationship

Realizing that your World is a reflection of your relationship with Life, you and your World aren’t separate.

The World is not a set of problems that needs a solution; it's a relationship of meaning.

You take the World to mean something according to your beliefs, perceptions, and identity.

As such, the World you know is actually your World.

The goal isn’t for the World to become utopian or solve all of its problems. Believing that this is possible is believing that there is a perfect solution to Life itself.

But a perfect solution is impossible when something is ever-changing.

And this is great news.

This means that there is no perfect way to be and no ideal shape, which gives you the freedom to take any shape you want and experience what that is like.

Life is an ever-evolving and changing experience, and the best way to handle this is to flow with it, but that, too, is your choice.

Takeaways

• You are like a drop of water that helps make the ocean.

• Your experience and your World are deeply connected and part of one experience.

• You and the world are inseparable, interwoven in the same way that the ocean encompasses every drop, and each drop embodies the essence of the ocean.

• By transforming your relationship with your World, you can transform your World.

Road to Redemption

How can we come to know and experience Life in a fundamentally new way?

We have answers in Psychology, Philosophy, and the Eastern Traditions. Below, we will explore a few of these methods and integrate them into a framework that can serve as our guide.

Søren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard, often considered the father of existentialism, posited that alienation and existential dread often result from failing to align one's actions with one's ‘true self’ or "spirit."

This happens because we blindly follow the prescription of our society, religion, and ideology of the day without investigating the nature of our existential predicament.

“The world is absurd and you must live in it” Søren Kierkegaard

Our society is deeply uncomfortable with death, existential questions, and the absurdity of Life. Even having such conversations is often seen as impolite, morbid, and frowned upon. When we ask about death, at best, we are given a few canned answers and told to focus on our life projects.

Instead of confronting Life’s absurdity and discovering our own reason for being, we believe what our society believes, we value what it values, and we follow the path that it designed for us.

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.” Søren Kierkegaard

The real failure here is in not confronting Life's absurdity, the existential truths about oneself and relation to Life and the divine. This failure will lead to living an absurd life, a life that has an undercurrent of fear, dread and alienation.

For Kierkegaard, the answer is in “taking a leap of faith” by exploring our inner world and potentiality and " finding the idea for which I'm to live and die.”

Here, this idea is bigger than just the self; it goes beyond little ole me and relates to the whole.

As Kierkegaard writes, this part of our subjectivity is “related to God.” We can try to discover for ourselves what is real, what is valuable, what is important, and how to live in the world.

“Life isn't a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced” Søren Kierkegaard.

To live an authentic life as a ‘true self,’ one has to make a choice and bring the world of infinite possibility into finite being.

“You have to take the ultimate leap of faith and choose the person you're going to be.” Søren Kierkegaard

Through this choice, you are choosing the relationship you want to have with Life. According to Kierkegaard, that ultimate relationship is Faith. This is faith in the divine, transcendent God best expressed in the spirit of Love.

In other words, your ultimate state of being and relationship with Life is a state of Faith in Love itself.

Viktor Frankl

During his imprisonment in Auschwitz, Frankl observed two types of prisoners: those who lost all hope and quickly succumbed to the camp's horrors and those who, against all odds, found meaning and hope, markedly increasing their chances of survival.

This observation led Frankl to a crucial insight: the primary human drive is not Freud's "will to pleasure" or Adler's "will to power" but a "will to meaning."

“He who has a ‘why’ for which to live can bear with almost any ‘how.’"— Friedrich Nietzsche

The will to meaning is the desire to make meaning of our situations and to fulfill our purpose.

This situation is both the situation at this very moment and the overall situation of our life.

In the macro, the big picture of our Life, we have to make sense of our existential dilemma, our reason for being, despite impending suffering and death.

We have to know what we are living for.

What is your Purpose?

For Viktor, he envisioned himself lecturing about his experiences, using his suffering as a tool for teaching and healing.

“Suffering Ceases to be Suffering the Moment it Finds Meaning” Viktor Frankl

Meaning in Suffering

There is a fundamental difference between pain and suffering. Pain is physical, and suffering is mental. We experience pain in our bodies, while suffering happens in our minds.

We suffer when we have not been able to process and make sense of why we experience pain and distress. Then, they enter a cycle of suffering, where similar situations trigger more suffering.

To end our suffering, we need to process our situation and realize why we are suffering, what the suffering has to teach us about ourselves, and what it means. Then, suffering itself becomes the catalyst for our growth.

And this is how suffering can be a great teacher.

Suffering is the only thing in the world that we can not lie to ourselves about. Whether we lie or not, we still suffer, and this is the grace of suffering.

Suffering shows areas of pain we can not ignore and need to address.

Essentially, we suffer until we realize that we no longer have to suffer.

This is all in our attitude and relationship with life.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves” Viktor Frankl

Logotherapy: Confronting the Void

Frankl developed Logotherapy to address the existential vacuum—a pervasive sense of meaninglessness that many experience as dread, apathy, boredom, laziness, or a lack of purpose.

We feel and experience these emotions and the inner void because we crave meaning. Logotherapy helps fill this void by focusing on the following:

• Creative Values: Engaging in activities beyond oneself to positively impact others.

• Experiential Values: Finding meaning through experiences, such as appreciating beauty, truth, and love, particularly in the uniqueness of interpersonal relationships.

• Attitudinal Values: Choosing one's attitude toward unavoidable suffering, transforming despair into a challenge to be met with personal dignity and strength.

Now some of this might seem like it overlaps with some of our culture values however here is the key difference.

Happiness, success, and even self-actualization should not to be pursued directly.

We should not make the mistake of believing that we will be happy if we have a great family, wealth, fame, or career success.

No!

These are the byproducts and symbols of success, and we should not confuse the symbols with the actual thing!

Viktor suggests that you Aim at Your Greatest Cause, a purpose that extends beyond yourself, and make this the central theme of your Life. Then, your Life will have ultimate meaning and purpose, and this is the process of self-actualization.

Living this way is a decision on what type of relationship you want to have with Life.

Through your attitude, you choose how to be in the world and how you make meaning in each situation.

Every situation has a gap between what happens and our response.

In this gap lies our freedom to choose our attitude, to assign meaning, and to decide the course of our actions. This freedom is our ultimate power that no one can ever take away.

Our choices matter profoundly even under the most dire circumstances, such as those in a concentration camp. They are weaved into the human fabric and this information impacts the lives of our loved ones, and the broader human experience.

Everything we do matters.

“Everything you have done, you have done forever.” Viktor Frankl

Carl Jung

Much of what we are doing is bringing the unconscious, dark parts of our psyche into the light by inspecting them.

We are doing this by actively investing our thoughts and feelings about death, meaning, purpose and our own suffering. We are reflecting on our relationship with life which includes our relationships with all of the different types of people that we come across. As we address and process our own suffering and relationship with life, we begin to disintegrate the parts of our unconsciousness that have power over us.

Jung calls this process Individuation, and the full goal of Individuation is to become a ‘True Self.’

A True Self is someone who is very self aware, they have integrated all of the different parts of their psyche into whole and have transformed their inner struggle and suffering into peace.

To discover the True Self, one has to go on a Journey.

This journey peels each layer of the union that is both you and not you. Each layer represents different facets of your psyche—some of which are conscious and many that are not. By becoming aware of these layers, processing them, and transforming them, you evolve from a fragmented existence into a unified, conscious being. relationship

Here are the four main parts of the journey:

Part 1: The Shadow

The Shadow includes everything you dislike, ignore, fear, disapprove of, and hate about yourself. This includes weaknesses you neglect and your judgments. You might be using your judgments to push away temptations, and in this way, you are repressing a part of you that is tempted.

The Shadow also includes your fears and areas of life you are uncomfortable exploring. This can consist of violence, dark thoughts, sexual fantasies, and other taboos. We push these away and pretend that they don’t exist, and doing so makes us afraid of what we might be.

Taboos can be powerful because part of the appeal of the taboo is that it is forbidden.

The forbidden has a temptation of its own, and at times, we might be attracted to a taboo just because it is a taboo.

We want to cross the line in an act of rebellion, but there is usually more to it than just rebellion.

In some cases, we might be tempted by the taboo, and in other cases, crossing the line is a way for our self-hatred to manifest itself, as it brings rejection and judgment our way. In this way, our internal rejection of ourselves creates situations where we behave in a way that leads to external rejection.

Projection

When we judge people we barely know negatively, we judge them according to a set of values that we find detestable. In this way, we project our judgments onto them and make them responsible for our negative feelings.

The problem with the world is then 'other people,' and it's out there somewhere. We make the world responsible for the judgments we place on it.

This is called Projection, one of the most common ways the Shadow manifests itself. It projects our thoughts, feelings, and judgments onto other people.

This also happens day to day in benign ways.

For example, we might now be aware of some of our weaknesses. We might also fear being judged negatively and others noting our flaws. When our shortcomings lead to failure, we might do everything possible to avoid taking responsibility and blame others instead.

Projection, failing to take full responsibility, and blaming others are key components of the Shadow.

Confrontation with the Shadow

Shadow work is the first step towards becoming a True Self. By working with our Shadow, we can transform our relationship to our own fears, judgments, traumas, and suffering.

Steps in Shadow Work

1. Recognition and Acknowledgment

   • Identify the Shadow: Begin by recognizing the traits, emotions, and impulses that you typically deny or dislike in yourself. 

   • Acknowledge the Existence: Accept that these traits are part of you and formed as a way to help you at one point in your life.

2. Exploration and Insight

   • Explore the Origins: Delve into why your shadow traits are there. What is their root cause? How did they come into being? How might they have helped you in the past?

   • Connect with Emotions: What emotions are associated with these traits? What past hurts or conflicts might have led to these feelings?

3. Acceptance and Compassion

   • Accept Your Full Self: Consider how your Shodow might be trying to protect you by cutting you from your dark traits?

4. Integration and Transformation

   • Integrate into the Self: Consider what lessons your dark traits have to teach you. 

   • Transform Relationships: Consider how your Shadow is helping you grow now.

5. Ongoing Reflection and Maintenance

   • Regular Self-Reflection: Reflect on your progress

   • Use Creative Outlets: Engage in activities allowing self-expression and reflection, such as journaling, art, or therapy.

6. Seeking External Support

   • Professional Guidance: Consider seeking support from a therapist, especially one familiar with Jungian psychology.

   • Community or Group Support: Sharing experiences with others doing shadow work can provide additional insights and emotional support.

Only after exploring the Shadow and beginning to integrate will you experience life as a relationship.

Part 2: Dialogue with Anima/Animus

Jung identified the anima and animus as the archetypal feminine and masculine aspects present within each of us, regardless of gender.

This is essential because each gender has a preference and a tendency toward the qualities of the “True Self” it is most attracted to. This attraction leads to specialization, and here is how it breaks down:

• Male: The masculine tends to be more interested in Freedom and excels in the practices of being the witness, pure awareness, and meditation.

• Female: The feminine is more interested in fullness, fulfillment, and love and excels at devotional practices and relationships. Anima is Latin for Soul.

Engaging in a dialogue with these aspects helps balance your masculine and feminine energies, enriching your understanding of yourself and improving your relationships with others.

Part 3: Mana Personality

In the same way that each of us has an Unconscious Part in which the Shadow resides, there is also a Collective Unconsciousness in which the Archetypes reside.

Archetypes are common patterns and ways of being in the world that are ever-present.

“The contents of the collective unconscious are archetypes, primordial images that reflect basic patterns that are common to us all, and which have existed universally since the dawn of time.” Jung

This stage involves working out your relationships. These include your relationships with charismatic people, power, internal and external archetypes, and authorities.

Here are a few examples of common archetypes and what they represent:

1. The Hero: We are all the heroes of our own stories. The hero’s main feat is to overcome the Monster of Darkness, which is one of life’s challenges. This is ultimately a process of the light of consciousness triumphing over the darkness of the unconscious.

2. The Persona: The persona represents a person’s social mask.

3. The Wise Old Man: The wise old man acts as a guide toward our own wisdom.

4. The Mother: “The mother archetype is the bounty of nature, which gives us our life and all that we need for that life and which is anyone’s legacy by the fact of being alive. The mother archetype is the art of living peaceably with the bounty of nature, which is a pure gift and lies within the ecology of the natural order.” Robert A. Johnson

5. The Trickster: “He is a forerunner of the savior, and, like him, God, man, and animal at once. He is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming characteristic is his unconsciousness.” Carl Jung

6. The Father: The Father represents values and what is esteemable and worth pursuing. A positive father complex for sons leads to a reverence for spiritual values. In the daughter, the Father “exerts his influence on the mind or spirit … increasing her intellectuality,” Jung writes.

7. The Maiden: A woman who personifies innocence and softness.

These are examples of archetypal patterns and relationships we must harmonize. The work here is to realize the relationship, have full acceptance of the 'other,' and overcome our fascination with certain types of people.

This stage concludes when we realize that we are and always have been the ultimate authority because we decide who and what to give authority to.

Here, we take back the authority and take on the full responsibility of being a Self.

Part 4: True Self

The True Self is a state of wholeness and transcendence. It includes and transcends all parts of the Self.

“So what is the Self? It is a center or wholeness that consists not only, like consciousness, of the conscious psyche but of both the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche together. This Self also comprises what we are but do not know we are.” Carl Jung

The process of becoming a Self is a conscious process where through consciousness you bring you consciousness to your unconscious parts.

“Psychological development in all its phases is a redemptive process. The goal is to redeem by conscious realization, the hidden Self, hidden in unconscious identification with the Ego.” Edward Edinger

Ultimately, on becomes The True Self when their consciousness goes beyond its identification with the Ego. Here the Ego becomes another object in our awareness.

So the True Self is pure awareness; it is consciousness itself, aware of itself, and in this way, it is one’s inner divinity.

One of the ways to go through these stages is by using the Hegelian Dialectic.

Hegelian Dialectic

The Hegelian Dialectic is a robust process of understanding and synthesizing opposing forces for a greater understanding. This can be a practical way of working with the Shadow whenever you encounter challenges in your life.

Here is what you need to know.

First, every force brings its opposite into existence, and through opposition, these opposing forces contend with each other, inform and define each other, and co-evolve.

Each force transforms the other through the dialect process of thesis, antithesis and finally both are merged into synthesis and greater understanding.

You can use the Dialect process to help you realize how the negative forces in your life cast a positive light and how this paradox and contradiction can help you grow.

1. Meaninglessness & Meaning

   1. Thesis: Life is meaningless, empty, pointless

   2. Antithesis: The will to meaning is the very thing that creates the void, which produces suffering, which moves us to find meaning

   3. Synthesis: Through the void, meaninglessness, and absurdity, we find that meaning has value,

   4. Thesis: We search for meaning externally, believing it exists outside ourselves.

   5. Antithesis: We experience meaning in the beauty of a song, a sunset, or a lover's smile, suggesting that meaning is present in lived experiences.

   6. Synthesis: Upon closer inspection, we discover meaning has been there the entire time. We give everything meaning; even to say something is meaningless is in itself a form of meaning attribution.

   7. Greater Understanding: This leads to a grander understanding that Life doesn’t inherently possess meaning; instead, it's a relationship of meaning where meaning is continuously created and interpreted through our interactions and perceptions.

2. Suffering & Growth

   1. Thesis: Suffering doesn’t feel good and should be avoided.

   2. Avoiding suffering does not make it go away; sometimes, the more we avoid it, the more we suffer.

   3. Suffering becomes a truth we can not ignore

   4. Antithesis: Suffering has a massive benefit in that it does not allow you to ignore it

   5. Suffering, despite its discomfort, forces individuals to confront underlying issues.

   6. We no longer suffer when we understand the meaning behind our suffering and resolve the root cause.

   7. Synthesis: Suffering is a Great Teacher. Our suffering is the one thing we cannot lie about; through it, we are forced to grow.