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.

I just wrote something to someone privately and I think it’s too broadly useful to be kept in the dark, so I’m reposting it here:

What came to my mind as the answer to your question is St. Augustine’s view on this.

God is Eternity, beyond space and time, but this Eternity is also present in space and time as Ariadne’s thread in the labyrinth, and is also an attractor that pulls us towards itself, if we allow it. If we follow the Ariadne’s thread, it shapes our lives in the shape of Eternity, so that we can leave space and time behind and never look back. But there is also the opposite force – worldly attachment, pride, habit and vice, that tries to make us into the shape of the world; all the weakness is of the world and for the world, and all the true strength makes us in the shape of God, where we become Eternity in space, on the path of time.

So this is my answer to your question. Hold on to all the pieces and aspects of Eternity in space and time, and you yourself will become an aspect of Eternity in space and time, and the shape your existence takes on that path will be appropriate for your salvation.

Surrender to God is not letting go, it’s the brilliance of mind that allows you to see, understand and act of God.

There is a very significant question that might legitimately be asked when someone sees how much I talk about Satan, because people tend to trivialize it by saying that God is so great and awesome that Satan is basically just a big nasty bug in comparison. That is a consequence of Greek thinking – find the root causes, the fundamentals, and everything else is meaningless. This is in fact as deceptive as it is useless.

OK, God is the deepest reality, He is the “mind” in which all other realities, beings and things are merely thoughtforms. Nothing exists outside of God.

However, if God is the great supercomputer that runs all of reality, Satan is a big crocodile that lives in the lake beside your village, which is the only water source. A dismissive attitude of “oh, it’s all in the mind of God” basically means that whether the crocodile eats you and your children when you go there to get water, or not, both possible outcomes will still be only thoughts in the mind of God. However, from your position, the outcome where you and your children don’t get eaten is preferable.

Another analogy is that God is the creator and maintainer of the real world, together with all the souls that live there, and Satan is the owner of a virtual reality engine, offering souls a unique experience they will get when plugged in, after they sign a release form, of course. When this virtual reality engine suppresses your memory and overrides your senses, the fact that God creates and maintains the real world will be of limited benefit to you, in your particular situation.

Yes, God is absolutely great and awesome, and yet this doesn’t make the issues I’m dealing with illegitimate, or minor. They are great and real enough that Jesus had himself crucified in order to attempt to solve them, and for Buddha to postpone nirvana in order to attempt to carve a path out of them for others to follow. One would say they are the cornerstone issues for anyone in our position, in the same way slavery is a cornerstone issue for slaves, and food is a cornerstone issue for the starving.