5 Easy Tricks To Avoid Enlightenment
August 7, 2024
Enlightenment can be a scary thing. Who wants to have “full comprehension of a situation” anyway? Sounds way too serious. In that vein, here’s a simple guide to make sure you never “wake up” and have to “deal with cause, effect, and the nature of suffering.” That doesn’t even sound like fun.
Some guy named Joseph Campbell had a made-up job called “comparative mythologist” and he came up with this theory called the Monomyth, a story that forms the basis for the Hero’s Journey (and the original Star Wars trilogy.) He’s most well known nowadays for a phrase that he coined, “Follow your Bliss.” Now, 99% of the people who use that quote don’t understand what he actually meant, and why should you, anyway?
“Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat-Chit-Ananda. The word “Sat” means being. “Chit” means consciousness. “Ananda” means bliss or rapture. I thought, “I don’t know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don’t know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.” I think it worked.”
-Joseph Campbell*, author of The Power of Myth
That all sounds awfully complicated and foreign, doesn’t it? Don’t worry about it, just do whatever makes you happy right now! Who wants to do the hard work to figure out what their true passion or calling is, and to give up anything that is preventing them from achieving it?
No one wants to think about the future, it’s so far away. Who even knows what’s going to happen, anyway? If you just focus on the here and now, everything will be fine. Don’t worry about the consequences of your actions, or try and fix any mistakes you made in the past. The only thing that’s real is right now, and right now you don’t have to deal with any of that stuff! So what if the same bad things keep happening to you? So what if you’re setting yourself up for failure? That’s a problem for a different moment, right?
Why would you go around asking questions? There’s nothing to worry about, just like Bob Marley said! Obviously that guy knew what was up. If you worry, you ask questions, and what do you do if you don’t have any answers? Things are fine the way they are! If you ask questions, you might find out something you don’t like! And then what can you do? Search for an answer? Try a new way of doing things? No way, that doesn’t sound chill at all, and besides, there are no real answers. Right and wrong are just things that the man uses to keep you down. There’s no truth, only opinions! Just don’t worry and be happy!
There’s no point in trying to make yourself better, we’re all perfect the way we are! In fact, the only thing you should do is go around telling other people what they’re doing wrong and that they should be more like you… perfect the way you are! The blind lead the blind, right? And if we’re all blind, then it doesn’t matter who leads. I can’t see a one-eyed man anywhere, anyway! Besides, if you fix yourself, how is anyone else supposed to feel? You’ll just make everyone realize that they’re not as good as you! Better to stay down here with the rest of us.
Don’t think about where your feelings come from. If you’re mad, be mad! Your gut knows better than you! Feelings are natural, and everything that’s natural is good! Since facts are just something that rich people made up to control you, you don’t have to worry about whether your feelings make sense! Just go with the flow, trust your gut, and never try and figure out why you feel the way you do. Your thoughts just appear and disappear, and there’s no rhyme or reason to why they are the way they are. If it feels right, just do it!
With these five easy steps, you’ll never have to deal with any harsh truths ever again! There’ll be no chance that you might learn anything unpleasant, or have to deal with the so-called“consequences” of your so-called “actions,” because free will is a lie and no one is responsible for anything bad that happens to them. Right? Don’t judge! Who are you to point the finger? You can’t blame me, it’s not my fault! I don’t want to be enlightened!
Right?
*(Campbell is reported to have once grumbled, “I should have said, ‘Follow your blisters.’”)