The Eternal Traveler-a modern worldview

The Eternal Traveller – a Modern Worldview

Foreword

The following work is not original.

Thousands of years of thought support it, and many thousands of hours of thinking have spawned it, not only by myself but by many others.

In some cases, some of the thoughts that I have included in this work I originated, only to find that someone else had already thought it. In some cases, thoughts of others have inspired additional thought by me, and have led to additional ideas.

I have decided not to overtly smother the work in these ideas, as I believe it would take away from the message. Much of the war against thought is waged in the idea that a thought is something that is owned, something which needs to be traded in order to be used. It is ironic that in attaching value to thought, the world we live in has made it increasingly difficult to value thinking as a virtue in itself.

This work is a work of thought, designed to generate more thought not only in myself but in others. The worldview as explained here is meant to be challenged and built upon – never followed blindly like the various franchises that infect our world of the present. I would want the reader to be motivated to search for answers due to this work. However, as you will read further on, any intentions for this work are essentially unimportant, and I really don’t care if anyone reads or understands it at all. This is in line with the thoughts of almost every fearless mind over history, which have and will most likely remain in obscurity for all time.

Phillip Layton, Sydney, 2012

Introduction

Throughout the centuries, dogmatists have tried their utmost to relieve human beings of their misery.

It is their belief that human beings are their own worst enemy, and that misery and suffering is caused on the most part by human beings themselves. In an attempt to alleviate this, they have instigated rules, morals and various other codes of conduct in an attempt to save us from ourselves.

The regulation of the human spirit has for far too long blinded people from their fate. They sit in the protection of their societies, far too frightened to live life, happy to accept the most irrational inferences pushed upon them.

This is in stark contrast to the truth of the human condition. The great spirit that lies in the heart of every human being is a not a frightened animal – it is a being devoid of fear and token humility, who despises weakness and rewards strength in a mental sense. It is a spirit that does not need regulation, if it is to know its true self.

In modern times, all that this spirit craves is replaced by parody, mere images of what the spirit wants in order to placate it. Meanwhile, humans are made to pursue menial goals, fear trivial threats, and generally grind themselves into impotence by their own hand or mind, finally living a life full of meaningless pursuits. It staggers me that such a society can call itself great when every person on their deathbed can feel nothing but paralyzing fear of the unknown, or a peace manufactured by forced delusion.

There have been times when humans have been able to contemplate a reasonable understanding of the universe. Major non-Abrahamic Asian religions have, at the very least, come close to understanding the eternal nature of the universe, and have been able to find earthly peace meditating on it. However, these religions themselves have been mired in dogma, refusing to allow human beings to find their own path to spiritual peace and instead offering “instructions”. As a result, people from these traditions lose their way to peace, and become mired in the world of human suffering and misery.

The primary argument to be found here is that spirituality, the bond we feel with the great spirit that is with us and the spirits that are around us, need not be so difficult, and it should never be dictated. In essence, where a group of people believe blindly in a spiritual worldview that restricts them from communicating with their spiritual self, this is evil, and in my opinion, the only natural evil in the universe.

The following document outlines the nature of spirituality, a view of the universe that accommodates all worldviews and all beliefs. It will then question the role that human beings play in denying themselves this spiritual nature, and how they can ultimately resolve this.

The spiritual basis of the universe

Abrahamic religions teach that the universe was created and is controlled by god, a sentient being. Polytheistic religions separate this notion of god into many different sentient beings, essentially similar in character cumulatively to the Abrahamic god, but with specialist powers.

The basic premise of these religions is that sentient beings control the environment that we live in, and that a simple request to this sentient being will allow the environment to be manipulated to their advantage.

Many modern anti-religious writers, such as Dawkins, question the existence of God based on this basic premise – how can God possibly answer every request without conflict? What happens when the request does not eventuate?

While a valid and rational point, the question of existence cannot be answered using the argument that Dawkins uses. The nature of God and the existence of God are not the same thing.

Some have used Occham’s Razor to point out that the existence of God is a more complex solution to the question of the nature of the universe, and that in the absence of any evidence pointing towards a solution, the simplest solution, a universe defined by chaos, is the most likely solution.

This argument highlights how empiricism can be so terribly misused. The notion of the truth being limited to what can be experienced by human senses is the greatest enemy to the human mind, destroying both the ability to spiritualize and the ability to rationalize. Like the religion that it demeans so vehemently, it aggressively binds the human mind and the universe into a neat package that is easily digestable. Human beings need not worry about what they can’t see, hear, smell, taste or touch, because with all likelihood it isn’t there, in accordance with the empiricism that these deluded acolytes follow. We only need to keep our minds on the things we can control, as this is the only thing that will allow us to achieve our goals.

It can be argued using Occham’s Razor that the concept of a boundary to the universe, whether it be based on the senses or on the belief in a controlling entity, is unnecessarily complex in the absence of truth. Why must there be a boundary to the possibilities of the universe?

As a result of these finite universes being built for us, we have no need to truly understand what is going on. We sink into our daily routine, mindlessly following our goals, pursuing our dreams, and bringing ourselves happiness, we concentrate on reaching our fulfillment in the limited time we have given ourselves.

While in the middle of this daze, have you ever dared to highlight your goals and dreams, and answer:

What created these goals and dreams?

Why are they important?

In almost every long term goal you may have in human life, outside of your animal instincts, you will find that they have come from something you have been told, something you have believed. You will then investigate further and find that each of these beliefs have originated in your being without any evidence to support them, and in all cases you have not sought the evidence to support them, as your ego has not allowed you to question them when they have been challenged.

Further along, you may decide to investigate these beliefs more thoroughly. What you will find may startle you, and cause great stress and fear in your person. EVERY ONE OF THESE BELIEFS IS FALSE. They are constructed truths, and in many cases have little relevance to any actual benefit to your person.

Examples abound of these false beliefs. Morality with regards to sexual relations has always revolved around the idea that all sexual relations must result in reproduction. Therefore, in all cases where humans have sexual relations with no result, this is considered immoral.

Despite the fact that no single person is exploited or injured in these acts, it begs to reason why it is considered immoral not to produce children in a sexual act. Why? What is the point of drawing a line at this distinction? It has no effect on a human being’s ability to reproduce, even if that was considered a real universal good.

The fact is that no reasonable moralist can fairly and rationally explain why these acts are considered immoral. Regardless of this, it continues to infect most human societies, to the point that people who ignore this moral code still feel that they are somehow cursed by their actions, and doomed to a nasty fate.

There may be an instinctive drive within the human psyche that manifests this moral code, and in many cases it has very little to do with logic and reason, and more than likely has to do with animal instinct. It is envy that drives this moral code – the envy in seeing another animal having more sexual relations than you are, and hence leading to the idea that in this case as is with many other moral codes, the instructions that many live by are meant to do nothing more than to keep the peace, to minimize violence even where only the potential for violence exists.

Even violence and victimization rests on shaky morality. Direct victimization is thoroughly punished in modern society, where the cause and the effect can be easily identified. However, victimization is never that simple. The powerful make decisions that indirectly victimize hundreds or more. Each action, regardless of the intention, will always have negative consequences on someone. Good or bad intentions have very little to do with good or bad consequences and they do not always match in a way that we would like them to in our perfect little microcosm. As a result, only those incapable of hiding their actions end up guilty of a crime. As a result, morality relating to violence and victimization is seriously flawed, and while the system of morality exists to protect the victim from the perpetrator, it is the perpetrator that receives the most protection from the system of morality. They are shrouded in doubt of their own design, and have morality to protect them from retribution.

You now look back on the world with these new eyes. You see a massive societal construct, totally committed to these false beliefs. In truth, you see the way in which this construct stops at nothing to perpetuate itself and infect all human beings with these beliefs. You see the people you love and respect, all infected, unable to pull themselves away from the delusion, blindly mimicking the falsehoods they have built their lives upon.

Thus we have come to the concepts found in Buddhism, the closest religion in the human condition to truth. Buddhism celebrates the elimination of society’s expectations on any one soul, and promotes the idea of interconnectedness and eternal involvement in the universe around us.

While Buddhism has come the closest to releasing the great spirit in every human being, it still restricts us with centuries of dogmatic thought, moral impositions, and expectations that leave their own adherents doubting their instincts. Like all religion, Buddhism has eventually become a victim of the fact that it is a human religion, and humans have ruined it like they have all the greatest spiritual thoughts that have originated amongst their ranks.

We return to the journey you are taking away from your societal chains. You have left all that you used to value behind, and are left as an empty soul with a hungry mind. You first come to the important questions of the universe in a simple manner, without symbolism or bias:

What is the universe made out of? Matter.

What governs the events of the universe? Time.

What is the nature of the universe?

You come up with two answers to the final question:
1. Matter and time are infinite in the universe.
2. Both time and/or matter are finite in the universe.

You think about the concept of infinity, and what it means with regards to the nature of the universe. The idea of limitless possibility at the core of infinity is essential to understanding this nature.

You come up with the following two postulations regarding the nature of the universe, in line with the two answers above.

Option one: the universe is one of infinite possibilities. Everything that humankind has thought or contemplated actually exists. Not only is your consciousness endlessly replicated over time, but it is also endlessly replicated at any one time.

Option two: with matter and time limited, so are the possibilities of the universe. Any one human consciousness may have the opportunity to exist again, but this is not necessarily true.

With option one, mortality has little significance. Death may occur, but the journey between one consciousness and another will be instantaneous for the person experiencing it, less time consuming from that person’s perspective than a deep sleep. Under this rule, regardless of the consciousness we experience now, we will experience an endless series of uninterrupted conscious experiences ahead of us, just as there has been and endless series of uninterrupted conscious experiences behind us.

These conscious experiences will vary greatly, and none of them are likely to be on the planet you exist on right now. You are destined to travel the universe for eternity, experiencing a wildly diverse range of experiences, and will be probably mired in an endless range of new moral codes that would shock you from your current perspective.

In the second option, we see our existence as limited. However, with an absence of any evidence to show that our existence is finite, who are we to unnecessarily incarcerate our existence? In a finite universe, we are doomed without God. In an infinite universe, we have no need for God. To believe in a finite universe of chaotic nature, is nothing short of needless masochism. Atheists and nihilists who limit their universe for no reason, betray the reason that led them to reject the idea of god and morality.

The most rational postulation regarding the nature of the universe is that it is infinite in both matter and time. The massive scale of the universe we have already revealed to ourselves just shows more groups of matter, more bursts of energy. Like a fractal, the universe we live in shows its nature at more and more levels of magnification away from our natural senses. It is more feasible that this process would continue forever, rather than come to an end. Just as it is totally irrational to think that nothing exists outside of what we can sense with our human sensory tools, it is just as irrational to think that there may be a boundary to the timeline of the universe outside of the era we live in. It seems that as we continue to hurtle ourselves away from our small minded past, we continue to delude ourselves with Ptolemaic thinking, convinced that the universe is an island in nothingness that has a beginning and an end.

Even if the nature of the universe changes over time, it is still feasible that it will change into something still capable of supporting consciousness, even in a format we may not be able to understand.

As a result of this belief, the spirit within my body sees no limits in its relationship with the universe. To an eternal spirit, there is no such thing as morality. We are bound only to this earth for the experience of consciousness alone, and therefore any limits placed on this consciousness by others are both irrational and reprehensible.

Meanwhile, my spirit awakens in a limitless universe, a universe where everything that can possibly be thought of exists. I immerse myself in this new universe through the power of my mind, travelling as far as my conscious mind can take me. Without controls, morals, and superficial goals, my mind knows absolutely no limits to what it can understand and what it can believe. I take a new mantra, “I believe in everything” and explore the possibilities of the universe accordingly.

We may believe in god, we may not. What is most important though, is that it doesn’t matter whether god exists or not. Our journey will continue regardless of whether this journey had its origin in a conscious mind. So many great things exist in a limitless universe that even god becomes underwhelming. Essentially, the universe may have been created by a sentient being or otherwise, what is most likely true though is that this being would be unable to exercise absolute control over an infinite universe. Our journey continues in this limitless universe possibly because of god, but most definitely in spite of god.

As a result, you and I will know the true nature of our great spirits – we are eternal travelers, but not in the sense that we would understand in our little cage upon the earth. WE ARE TRAVELLERS OF THE MIND.

The nature of the eternal traveler

Once a person has evolved into a traveler, they will view society’s weaknesses and idiosyncrasies with more critical eyes.

The nature of being a traveler means that the consequences of every path taken in this life are incidental, and have little or no relevance to the spiritual self.

Life’s continuous path is twofold – the satisfaction of instinct, and the pursuit of spiritual enrichment, so that the consciousness we do experience is as enriched and fulfilling as possible.

While these two paths can be considered important to a traveler, no path is considered critically important. The most important rule to a traveler is that in eternity, nothing is important. There is no need to fulfil anything before death, there is no particular goal that is going to lead to fulfillment for a traveler. The traveler has the gift of a “glimpse”, and they may use or abuse it in any way they see fit.

The nature of the traveler eliminates a large portion of the misery and suffering that paralyses humans into complying with the shackles placed upon them by their own society. This is because, in the vast majority of cases, misery and suffering is caused by a lack of fulfillment, due to the fact that human beings have been given the burden of goals and expectations. Once these goals and expectations have been removed, human beings become creatures dedicated to instinct and the removal of pain.

With a simpler life ahead of them, travelers are allowed to follow more spiritual pursuits, able to enrich themselves and enjoy their glimpse as much as they can. They are enlightened, in the true sense of the word – nothing burdens them, and they may approach their consciousness as pure spirits. What those pursuits are is inconsequential to all others. It is a true expression of the spirit, unadorned with the expectation of marketability or popularity. The pursuit of religion is poison to a traveler – it represents a spiritual compromise, a cheating of the spirit for the purpose of collective acceptance. Although every spiritual pursuit is considered truth to a traveler, a traveler’s mind cannot be shackled by what another may think of the nature of the universe – it is for every individual traveler to pursue their own understanding of the universe, and religion, in its more rigid, procedural and moral sense, has no place in that understanding.

Morality in general becomes an unnecessary burden to a traveler. To suggest that there are rules to follow in the pursuit of life are nonsense to a traveler – in seeing all possibilities of the universe and recognizing the lack of importance in any one period of consciousness, no rule or tenet that binds us in this world (including the crime of murder) is truly unshakeable. While this is the case, it is also true that many of the symptoms that cause these morals to be broken will not be part of a traveler’s psyche. Insatiable needs, necessary pursuits, and a desire to make a mark on society will not be important to a traveler anymore. Sensual pursuits will not become as important as unlimited contemplation, a pursuit that is enhanced by sobriety and prudence. Therefore, a traveler is less likely to be a criminal, as crime (as it exists in current society) will rarely be a pursuit that will satisfy their need.

At the same time, victims of a crime who are travelers will not have their “glimpses” ruined by the perpetrators. Their expectations of consciousness, now non-existent, allow them to approach all experiences as being part of the glimpse. They see shock, fear, and pain as some of the many things a person may experience in their glimpse, and count the experience as part of their journey. Where the victim experiences a robbing of consciousness such as in murder, the glimpse ends and they immediately begin another glimpse in their conscious experience.

The end result is a decreased desire to commit criminal acts, and a decreased reaction to them. Society will have no need for moral codes or laws, as they only have the effect of restricting the abilities of the traveler to experience their universe, and only allows those who wish to exploit a traveler to be able to do so without retribution.

The modern world and the eternal traveler

The consequences of the life of an eternal traveler have considerable consequences for modern society. Essentially, all that human beings have constructed in their modern civilization is bogus, an amalgam of brittle ideas, feelings and pursuits that mean nothing to the eternal traveler and therefore must be eliminated.

The primary construct that acts as an enemy to the eternal traveler is morality. This can be construed to mean many things, pigeonholed to mean something very specific when it actually refers to all rules and means of regulating the human will.

Morality is represented in modern society throught the deplorable actions of three entities, a “triumvirate” if you will: RELIGION, GOVERNMENT and CULTURE.

The effect that these three entities have in enforcing their idea of compliance can be either active or passive. Active compliance is where an entity punishes an individual for defying its rules of morality. Passive compliance is where the entity publishes the rules, and manipulates the individual into believing they need to be followed. In most cases, government uses active compliance and the other two entities use passive compliance.

In all cases, this force of compliance is against the nature of the eternal traveler, and is a threat to their fulfillment. As a result, where this form of compliance is active, it should be reacted against with deliberate force, in the manner that an eternal traveler would handle any direct threat. Where this compliance is passive, it does not necessarily force the eternal traveler to act against their nature, and is therefore not a direct threat. In this case, it still must be ridiculed, belittled, and forced into submission.

The basic transition from modern society to a society that accommodates the eternal traveler requires the destruction of power in all its forms, whether this be through direct action or through rebellion. The new society should have no government, and all individuals with any semblance of power will know that the abuse of that power will almost certainly mean their downfall.

It must be said that why this societal transition is important in the fulfillment of an eternal traveler, it is not essential. It is not necessary for an eternal traveler to take an active role in destroying the society in which they were born, in many ways this is just the replacement of one meaningless goal with another. The eternal traveler’s spirit thrives most in an absence of structure, a chaotic environment. This way, it is not distracted by any false aspirations.

Religion, as mentioned previously, is a means of restricting the fulfillment of a traveler. While theology, spirituality, and mythology are all noble pursuits for a traveler, the notion that a large group of people could have an identical spiritual awareness is ludicrous. From a traveler’s point of view, the religious are ironically the least spiritual of all people, and as a result they are actually less in contact with the god they worship. Any spiritual connections they make with their universe are formed in a way that most likely betrays their human spirit. Many human beings keep connections to their religion for the purposes of gaining an advantage, or pleasing people they wish to please. While these goals may seem important, they are like any other goals and aspirations to a traveler – meaningless. Essentially, a traveler has no use for religion.

Culture is often intertwined with religion and has meaning essentially associated with its environment of origin. In the modern era, this has manifested into a wide variety of token procedures and material items that represent a distinct “club”, one that people have been willing to defend to the death for its survival.

A traveler will experience culture in their future glimpses, just as they had in their past glimpses. What they will understand from this is that while in each of their glimpses they will be taught to embrace and live by a particular culture, if the cultures of a past or future traveler were ever to be compared, the discrepancies would be vast, and to each other frightening.

As a result, the concept of defending culture (for example, cultural pride movements such as Nazism and others) would be considered laughable if it wasn’t taken so seriously so often. The notion that a person would influence another into following the same procedure of life for the purposes of keeping the peace is incredibly foolish, and has the effect of acting against the traveler’s spirit. Just as with religion, a traveler finds no answers in a procedure of life, and any procedure not in tune with their own spirit restricts the quality of their “glimpse”. As a result, culture should be as it was originally intended – a procedure in line with the environment the traveler lives in, fluid with the movement of the traveler’s mind and with the places they go to.

Government is the greatest travesty ever devised by human beings, an amoral monster devised to feed on fear (of which there is an incredible abundance of), and creating an output designed to punish the brave and to reward the cowardly.

Those that have the courage to embrace their glimpse will never be able to defend themselves from government and its overwhelming reach over all that makes a human being special. Even those with the wealth and power to exploit them are so completely protected by the government, and allowed to freely frighten people into compliance. It is ironic that government has been so effective at portaying themselves as the protectors of the powerless, when in fact they are the complete opposite – government and law exist for one purpose only, to protect the powerful. It will always be the powerful that gain from government, and the more totalitarian the government, the more powerful these people are.

At the very least, a traveler will feel compelled to openly defy any form of government. Where threatened by a government, a traveler should not feel conflicted in reciprocating that threat against that government.

The future for the eternal traveler

Regardless of whether any real change will happen to the society in which a traveler exists, the most important change that happens is within the traveler themselves. Once this change is complete, the traveler becomes detached from their society of origin, and any changes, updates or other meaningless adjustments that are made in that society become nothing but noise to the traveler.

The traveler will always fight against those that wish to confuse them, manipulate them and restrict them in any way. There are ever more sophisticated methods being used to trick people into acting against their nature, and there are a multitude of powerful or power hungry people willing to use these methods to control the weak. But if you are not weak or fearful, you become less susceptible to manipulation. In doing so, the powerful become powerless. The rationality and inner peace that comes with being a traveler is enough to bring down these systems of control through apathy. Apathy is the greatest weapon against these zealots – they have no way to combat it, and in many cases, such as in religion and in democratic government, they fear it immensely.

As mentioned previously, they may react against the apathy with ever increasing violence and attempt to force people to bend to their will. This violence is best to be met with more violence. Violence against the powerful is a virtue in the eyes of a traveler. The death of a powerful figure should be a time of celebration rather than a time of mourning. The fact that the opposite is true in the society we live in (coupled with the fact that the humble and the hard working die ignored) is the greatest indication of what a travesty human society has become.

The future will hopefully be a society where each individual is king over their own mind. People are able to freely express ideas without the fear of retribution or ridicule, never pining for the aspiration that they may be universally agreed with.

There will be no government. Culture will be nothing more than a pastime. Those wishing to oppose change will be ridiculed for preserving an aesthetic value worth something only to themselves, while those advocating change will be accused with advocating regulation on the traveler’s mind – these people will live their lives under perpetual threat.

A church will exist for every person on the planet, and each person will be the pope of their own church. There will be no sheep to lead to slaughter, and no shepherds to lead them.

Essentially, in a world full of travelers, there will be nothing left other than incredible enjoyment of all that is consciousness, and no need to fear its end. People will only experience freedom if they free themselves of themselves. Once that has happened, there is no limits to what they can experience.