Q: I went to a seminar at which they told us we need to raise our vibration in order to get the things and experiences we want in life. I must say it was a really enjoyable evening.
A: Did the feeling of enjoyment last?
Q: For a little while.
A: But now you feel like attending another such seminar, hmm?
Q: Yes! I would go every day if I could.
A: A familiar pattern.
Q: Do you think what they are teaching is valuable?
A: It depends what is being meant by valuable. Another word for vibration is disturbance. If a string on a guitar is disturbed by the plectrum it will vibrate. If the air is disturbed by someone shouting, it will vibrate. So to increase vibration is simply to increase disturbance. If disturbance happens to be considered valuable, then the answer to your question is yes. If it does not, then the answer is no. If neither, no answer is required. Of course, public speakers tend to use language well. It will tend to sound much more appealing to say 'I am raising my vibration' rather than 'I am becoming increasingly disturbed'. But they are essentially two descriptions of the same occurrence.
Q: But we all felt so good at the seminar. It was a great night!
A: Feeling or sensation is just another word for disturbance. If there is no disturbance, there is no feeling or sensation at all. So it seems there is a desire for this particular feeling or sensation you are calling 'feel good'. It might also be referred to as pleasure. When the disturbance is not there, then there is a craving to get it again. That craving can sometimes be referred to as boredom or restlessness.
Q: Well, why shouldn't I want to feel good? Isn't that what everybody wants?
A: Every body seems to try to chase after pleasure and avoid pain. But one is just a remedy for the other. If there is no pain, there will be no desire to chase after pleasure. The pleasure is just a pain-killer, an analgesic. The two are just the peak and the trough of the same wave of disturbance. It is not possible to get just the peak (or just the trough). A disturbance always includes both. The high and the hangover, the pride before the fall.
Q: So you are saying that raising one's vibration increases both?
A: You already know the answer to that question, you just don't want to face up to it. You want it to be possible to have one half of the wave of disturbance without the other half. But you know very well from experience that never happens, has never happened. Not once. If it could happen, all these seminar organisers would soon be out of business, just as if there were a wonder-drug that you took once and it gave a permanent high. There would be no need to go back to the drug pusher any more. But you said it yourself. You want to go back. You would go back every day if you could....
Q: So we should just seek no sensation at all? That is like being dead.
A: You have no idea what being dead is like, as death never happens. So that comparison is rather absurd. Should and should not do not come into it. Disturbances arise, and eventually they subside again. It is just a natural pattern which isn't under anyone's control. Some days the weather is stormy, some days calm. If it has been stormy for weeks, there is likely to be a longing for calm. If there have been weeks of dead still, then likely a desire for a refreshing thunder storm will arise.. and so on it alternates. Considering either one of these naturally alternating patterns as 'good' or 'right' things which ought to be continually sought after will likely be eternally frustrating. In a way, the seminar leader is just like a little child shouting 'Storm! Storm! Storm! Storm! Storm!' and trying to make out that doing so will change the weather for good.
Q: So you are saying that I should not attend any more of these seminars or read books and watch videos on the subject?
A: There is no choice. If you find yourself attending, reading and watching, then attend, read and watch. If you do not, don't. Either way, it will make no difference to the eternally recurring patterns.
Q: So what is the point of anything?
A: The sharp bit on the end.
Q: Your outlook seems so bleak. Listening to you, it is as if nothing matters at all, there is no purpose. It is horrible.
A: Well, it might seem horrible and bleak, but only if there is an idea that it matters that nothing matters. If there is some sort of notion that 'something ought to matter' or 'there should be a purpose'. But if nothing matters, then it can't be horrible, can it? Because it doesn't matter.
Imagine there are two numbers. There are zero and one and they come together in multiplication. The result is - zero. Now, from a position of 'one worship', this will seem totally abhorrent. The one has been completely nullified, destroyed. But from the position of the zero, it is just business as usual. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever does. Any number of any magnitude might come along and try to copulate with the zero and the (no-)effect will be the same. From the position of zero, the matters (numbers) don't really matter, they are just impotent imaginations. They have no effect, never can, not ever. But from the position of the non-zero numbers (the position where 'things matter'), this is a terrible calamity that keeps occurring over and over again without end, a terrible tale of wanton destruction.
"How horrible. How bleak. This zero fellow really makes a terrible spouse."
Q: My spiritual teacher said that we are not any individual person or thing, but the totality of consciousness itself.
A: The totality of consciousness itself is an individual person or thing. Just a grander sounding one. Supposed spiritual teachers have to have that special grand sounding thing as the lure or no-one would bother listening to them. Then they might have to go and get a regular job, which would be a real downer when you have got used to making a living talking shite to gullible suckers, oops, I mean seekers.
Q: But you also have indicated that we are not an individual person or thing. What then are we?
A: Haven't a clue. The question doesn't even arise, as the question 'Are we?' has yet to be answered. If ever it gets answered, then maybe it will be appropriate to move on to the next question.
Q: What should you do when you reach the top of the tallest mountain on Earth?
A: 'ave a rest.
Q: Is there a God?
A: Haven't a clue. Who wants to know?
Q: I do.
A: Is there an I?
Q: Of course there is.
A: Of course there is? How so sure? Where is it?
Q: It isn't somewhere. It just is. It is obvious. Undeniable.
A: Obvious? Least obvious thing we have discussed so far, with the possible exception of that God fellow. Undeniable? There is no I. Oops, there it is denied. Ah, well. So much for undeniable.
Q: But the very fact that you denied that there is an I shows that you are there denying it, and so there is a you.
A: Does it really show that? Or is that just a common assumption, one based on nothing whatsoever? It is a bit like saying the very fact that there is a sun shows that there God is doing the old create a sun thing. So back to the start of the conversation. Perhaps these two questions are not so different, hmm?
Q: What are you talking about? Are you saying that I am God?
A: Nope. I am asking 'is there an I?' Doesn't seem to be any evidence for either an I or a God really. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as some completely mad idiot once said. So all that can be said with any verity is - haven't a clue. Don't know. No idea, Old Fruit. Haven't you got any questions that aren't bloody stupid? Like, is there any milk left? Or who are Chelsea playing this Saturday?
Q: You aren't taking this seriously.
A: Well, of course not. Absurd questions don't warrant being taken seriously.
Q: It is not absurd, it is very important.
A: Is it? Why? What difference will it make? Let's backtrack and pretend that I answered yes and gave some sort of proof that satisfied you once and for all. There is a God. Definitely. So what? What difference will that make to anything? It will make not a jot of difference. The question is just a way of avoiding carrying on with ordinary life. Just a mental spinning wheel. Pointless, unanswerable and repetitive. If ever it is answered, 'you' will be finished, because, essentially this unanswerable questioning is all that there is. A definitive answer either way would totally dissolve the whole process.
Q: It will make a difference to the way I live my life.
A: Will it? How so? Will you stop going around asking daft questions and get on with doing the washing up or finally finish decorating that spare room?
Q: I will devote my life to the worship of God.
A: Well, why not just do that anyway if it is considered important?
Q: I might be wasting my time.
A: Time just gets wasted either way, doesn't it?
Q: No! If there is a God and time is spent worshiping Him then it certainly is not wasted time.
A: Why not? What will be the outcome of that which is so terribly worthwhile? There was an unworshipped God and now there is a worshipped God. So what?
Q: So what? Are you serious? How can you be so flippant about something so sacred?
A: Just trying to point out that it would be a waste of time just like any other waste of time. Wasting time is the only option, really. Just countless different ways of wasting it. One of the ways is the repetitive and pointless 'is there a God' question way. There is also Scrabble.
Q: Shouldn't we try to be nice to other people as much as possible?
A: No idea. Do you feel like being nice to other people?
Q: Occasionally, yes. But a lot of the time, if I am being honest, I am so angry that I almost want to kill someone, or at least harm them in some way.
A: Hmmm... and you think that somehow this feeling should be resisted? What for?
Q: Because if we all went round hurting or killing one another then the world would be a terrible place.
A: So it is not already a terrible place? This killing and hurting business doesn't already happen on a large scale?
Q: Well, yes it does in some parts of the world, but there is no need to make it worse, and if everyone were more nice to each other, then the hurting and the killing would stop.
A: So, by resisting natural feelings that arise, by suppressing them, they are just going to go away, are they? There is no possibility that they might fester, build up pressure, and then at some point explode?
Q: But what else is there to do? Just act on these feelings without any kind of morality to hold them in check?
A: Does morality hold them in check now? Or does it just delay their natural expression until it has become explosive? Physical violence instead of a bit of an argument..... All-out war instead of a bit of a punch-up during the rugby match.... That reminds me, I must turn off the pressure cooker.
Q: But without morality things would be even worse. We would be like savages.
A: Savages, hmmm? I went to stay with a remote tribe once for several months. Sure they had a healthy rivalry with the neighbouring tribe, it kept them on their toes. There were little skirmishes here and there over territory, just like many other species have. But you could not really call it war as we would recognise. These terrible savages, who'd want to be like them? Perhaps you are right. Morality is what is needed to save us from that.
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