It has been recently brought to my attention that I am a negative person – because I see this world as a negative phenomenon and I see all the “positive” efforts here as either outright delusion or as attempts at self-medication by focusing one’s attention at things that are opposite to this world. Basically, by doing good you fight the evil nature of this place and oppose it. If you live “in harmony with nature”, you’re basically choosing against transcendence, and surrendering to spiritual darkness and evil.

So, yes, I’m “negative”, and the fluffy bunnies from the “spiritual circles” should avoid me, lest they be contaminated by my nastiness. I don’t see why they should have a positive opinion of me, since I have a very negative opinion of them, and it is both fair and logically consistent that both sides be balanced in mutual contempt.

In my defense, I would say that I am in good company. Vedanta clearly states that only brahman is real, and everything else is an illusion (brahma sathyam jagat mithya), which is meant in a way that is properly translated, in context, as “brahman is hardware and all perceivable worlds are software”, because “illusion” in this context doesn’t mean something that is a fiction, but something that is a derived reality, a reality less real than a deeper reality that maintains it in itself. According to the Upanishads, brahman permeates the perceived world the way butter permeates milk, which is perfectly consistent with the concept that hardware permeates every aspect of the software that’s running on it, but, as Vedanta also states, every single thing in the world is “not that, not that” (neti, neti), meaning that brahman can’t be positively defined in terms of the world – it’s not the biggest thing in the world, not the greatest thing in the world, not in one thing more than in another, and yet nothing can exist apart from it and without it, and it’s the foundation and existence that supports all. Of brahman it can be said that it is unknowable (acintya) and without properties (nirguna), and yet it is sat-cit-ananda, reality-consciousness-bliss, which is in fact what we perceive, in a very densely filtered form, as points of meaning and purpose in the world – things that are real, blissful and conscious, things that are life and awareness and greatness, things we strive for, love and aspire to, but we are deluded if we think them to be of the world and attainable through the world. No – they are the dim aspects of the light beyond, the transcendental reality, consciousness and fulfillment that is brahman, the true light that manages to shine through even the darkest night that is this world.

So, yes, I think this world is the darkest night and evil, and if you find this to be negative, then I’m negative. However, I don’t see this world as darkness and evil because I am blind to the tiny specks of light that are present in this world, and which someone might find so desirable and fulfilling; no, I see it as a dark pit because I saw the true light and I know it. Don’t expect someone who saw the light of day to worship the glow bugs in the night; to me, this entire world is unimpressive, dull, boring and, as a whole, unworthy of either existence or my attention. I am not here because I like it, and I have sufficient perspective to see it for what it truly is. You might ask why I’m here, but you might not like the answer any better than you like my negative and abrasive person.