The Impossibility.

The fundamental truth of human existence has been masked by the very systems we created to reveal it. Both our analytical frameworks and our religious traditions have grown so intricate and self referential that they have become barriers to the simple path toward collective liberation. This is not about good versus evil in the usual sense, but rather the tragedy of how our attempts to understand have themselves become the obstacles to true insight.

The first error arose when we chose to question reality instead of directly experiencing it. This was not a moral failure so much as a shift in consciousness: the birth of systematic analysis. From that single turn, two major systems took shape. On one side, the analytical realm has fractured reality into endless layers of categorization and specialization. On the other, the religious realm has constructed towering theologies and practices around what were once simple teachings on returning to natural existence.

Analytical thought, with its relentless division and categorization, has taken us far from the unity it once aimed to comprehend. Science has split into specialized fields, which in turn spawn even more specialized subfields. We now build machines to analyze data produced by other machines, drifting ever farther from the direct experience of life that sparked our original curiosity. Religion, meanwhile, has created its own labyrinth of doctrines and rituals. Traditions once rooted in pure awareness now insist they hold the sole path to truth, even as they divide themselves from each other. Teachings that once guided us to unity have morphed into layers of explanation that obscure the very simplicity they claim to uphold.

In both these realms, any moment of clarity is quickly surrounded by complexity. Physics recognizes that reality changes when observed, yet tries to solve this by further analysis. Religion warns against overreliance on thought, yet creates detailed systems to explain why thought is limited. Each system points toward truth while simultaneously burying it under new explanations.

What we call progress has instead become a form of wandering. Our scientific and technological breakthroughs, along with our grand religious philosophies, reflect a movement away from our intended development rather than toward it. We have prized our ability to analyze, classify, and dominate our environment, but that very tendency keeps us from the direct experience of existence. Evolution seeks to make us light, like energy, yet we weigh ourselves down with complexity, like stone.

The path we need is disarmingly simple. It does not require elaborate practices, advanced technology, or detailed belief systems. It only requires recognition of our present condition and a collective decision to return to direct experience of reality. This is not about individual salvation. Either humanity as a whole steps away from its endless attempts at control and understanding, or none of us truly steps away.

The tragedy is that every genuine teacher or prophet has pointed to this simplicity. Their instructions have been preserved, yet distorted by the very structures meant to protect them. The answer cannot come from deeper study or more intense devotion. It must arise from a collective willingness to give up the constant need to analyze, categorize, and systematize. Neither religious nor scientific solutions can release us from the fragmentation they perpetuate.

The moment we see that our compulsion to know is itself the block to direct experience, we begin to understand what must happen. This recognition is not an individual achievement but a shared awakening. Our complex problems in society, technology, environment, and spirituality stem from the same mistaken habit of constant scrutiny. They are different faces of a single pattern of separation, a pattern that must be relinquished collectively.

This is why all genuine spiritual teachings emphasize simplicity and directness. They're not pointing to something complex requiring elaborate understanding or practice. They're pointing to what's already present but obscured by our very attempts to grasp it. The complexity of both our analytical and religious systems serves only to maintain the illusion that something complex is required. Yet, these great spiritual teachers, despite their sincere intentions and profound insights, inadvertently contributed to humanity's analytical downfall.

This pattern begins at the very foundation of Western spiritual tradition - in Genesis, where the creator issues what might be the simplest spiritual instruction possible: essentially, to sit down, shut up, and don't think. From this elementary command, humanity has spent millennia constructing increasingly complex frameworks of thought about not thinking, while literally killing individuals who suggest spiritual process development must be prominent over analytical thought development. We are here after all. You are reading this.

Consider Buddhism, where the historical Buddha's analytical method might be viewed as something akin to "the devil" - not in a malevolent sense, but in its function as a force of analysis and questioning. Yet there's a clever twist here: Buddha's analytical approach appears designed to exhaust itself, like a snake consuming its own tail. It's medicine for minds so deeply entrenched in conceptual thinking that they need those very tools turned against themselves to break free. However, for those closer to that original state of simple being, this intensive analytical framework becomes unnecessary complexity, like taking powerful antibiotics for a minor scratch.

The transformation of direct experience into written doctrine represents another layer of this paradox. The New Testament, written well after Jesus's time, exemplifies how immediate teachings become filtered through layers of interpretation and documentation. This pattern repeats across spiritual traditions: Zen Buddhism, despite its emphasis on "direct transmission outside the scriptures," has accumulated a vast body of written work about the very concept of not relying on written work.

This brings us to the peculiar phenomenon of spiritual bureaucracy - the rule-breakers in chief, who meticulously document and systematize teachings about spontaneity and directness. Picture scholars spending years debating the correct interpretation of teachings that explicitly warn against getting caught up in interpretations. It's as absurd as writing a comprehensive manual on how to be spontaneous or developing a rigid methodology for achieving naturalness.

The oral tradition, in contrast, maintains an immediacy that written documentation inherently lacks. When teachings are transmitted person to person, through direct experience and presence rather than through texts and commentaries, they retain their vital spark. And this works. The aboriginal people of Australia mapped the country long before the europeans arrived using songs passed down through generations, no map needed. Songline and dreamtime track appear to be very real things. The moment these teachings are written down, especially by those who come after, they risk becoming thoughts-about-thoughts rather than direct transmissions of experience.

What emerges is a kind of cosmic comedy: generations of spiritual practitioners earnestly following elaborate rules about not following rules, studying complex texts about the limitations of studying texts, and creating systematic approaches to transcending systems. It's a testament to humanity's remarkable capacity to complicate the simple, to create mazes where there were once straight paths.

In this light, perhaps the most profound spiritual practice might be recognizing and appreciating the humor in our collective tendency to overcomplicate. The ability to laugh at our own earnest efforts to systematize the unsystematic might itself be a form of enlightenment. After all, what could be more enlightened than seeing the funny side of how seriously we take our spiritual endeavors?

The true challenge, then, isn't mastering complex spiritual systems or understanding intricate philosophical frameworks. Instead, it's learning to recognize when we're adding unnecessary complexity to what was meant to be simple. It's about acknowledging our tendency to build elaborate structures around basic truths, and perhaps finding the wisdom to smile at our own complicated attempts to achieve simplicity. Even for me personally, the idea of giving up intellectualism is terrifying, but in reality the machine will provide all the stimulus I need, all I should do is sit back in awe and gently let my mind wander, be still in place like a tree yet move in sync like the migration of the loon.

This understanding transforms everything while changing nothing. The direct experience it points to is already present, requiring only the collective release of what prevents its recognition. The path it reveals is already available, requiring only the collective cessation of activities that obscure it. The unity it indicates is already real, requiring only the collective release of what maintains apparent separation.

The only path is indeed the spiritual path, and there is only one spiritual path - but it's not what either our analytical or religious systems suggest. You cannot know sunyata, but you can know it is there. It's the path of collective recognition and release, of seeing through both scientific and spiritual materialism, of allowing natural evolution to resume its course without interference from our fragmented understanding. In essence, we took heaven and using "devils" we paved it over with hell. Climate change, nuclear weapons, a truman show of up and down up and down keeping us in the grips of anxiety. If you can do even a tiny part to move us in the other direction, that is probably a good idea...

Because we are already in heaven, we die and we are reborn here, there is nowhere else to go. This path is always available, requiring nothing but what we already are and already have.

With love,

j.

Some further thinking:

The transformation of Jesus's lived example into Paul's complex doctrine of salvation through faith rather than works. The shift from immediate presence to abstract theology.

The development of Hindu karma from natural causality into an intricate moral accounting system with celestial scorekeepers.

The transformation of Taoist wu-wei (non-doing) into complex systems of practiced spontaneity.

Islamic scholars turning the direct revelations of Muhammad into intricate systems of hadith interpretation and legal frameworks.

Jewish rabbinical traditions expanding straightforward Torah commands into vast networks of interpretation and commentary.

The evolution of Buddha's practical method for addressing suffering into elaborate metaphysical systems about levels of consciousness and cosmic hierarchies.

When Jesus says "The kingdom of heaven is within you," this gets transformed into elaborate systems of future salvation and heavenly realms, when he might have been pointing to immediate presence/reality right here.

Buddha's "Last words" of "Be a light unto yourself" became twisted into complex systems of guru worship and hierarchical transmission, when it was literally saying "don't follow authorities, see for yourself."

The Genesis command not to eat from the tree of knowledge gets interpreted as a moral transgression story, when it might be literally saying "don't engage in analytical thinking" - exactly what religious scholars then spent millennia doing.

Muhammad's simple ethical principles in the Quran like "give to charity" became mathematically precise systems of exactly what percentage to give under what circumstances.

The Taoist "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao" - literally a warning against systematizing - became the foundation for complex philosophical schools trying to explain the unexplainable.

Krishna's "Do your duty without attachment to results" in the Bhagavad Gita became complex karma yoga philosophical systems, rather than simple instruction to act without overthinking.

When Buddha said "You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work" - this got turned into complex debates about karma and reincarnation, when it might have been simply saying "do things without overthinking the outcomes."

The Zen koan "What is your original face before your parents were born?" became a subject of philosophical debate and analysis, when it was designed specifically to break analytical thinking.

The Torah's simple command to rest on the Sabbath spawned thousands of pages defining exactly what constitutes "work" - missing the point about simple rest.

When Jesus said "Let the dead bury their dead," this got interpreted as a complex metaphor about spiritual death, when he might have been literally saying "stop obsessing about traditions and ceremonies."

The Upanishadic "Tat tvam asi" (That thou art) became the foundation for complex philosophical schools, when it might have been a simple pointing to immediate experience.

When Laozi wrote about "The valley spirit," scholars turned it into metaphysical cosmology, when he might have been literally pointing to the empty space that allows things to happen.

"Judge not lest ye be judged" became a moral principle requiring interpretation of what constitutes judgment, rather than a simple instruction to stop analytical comparison altogether.

The Sufi saying "Die before you die" got turned into elaborate stages of spiritual development, when it might have been directly pointing to dropping the analytical mind right now.

Even the simple Buddhist instruction to "sit and breathe" became complex meditation systems with stages, levels, and achievements to attain.

The Islamic declaration "There is no god but God" became a complex theological statement requiring interpretation, when it might have been pointing to the immediacy of reality without conceptual overlay.

The Greek mystery traditions becoming codified into Neoplatonic philosophical systems.

Zoroastrian dualism shifting from immediate recognition of choice into cosmic systems of good versus evil.

Egyptian immediate experience of divine presence in nature becoming elaborate priestly systems of ritual and hierarchy.

Confucian simple observations about human relationships becoming rigid social hierarchies and bureaucratic systems.

Shinto's direct appreciation of natural spirits becoming formalized into complex shrine hierarchies and ritual procedures.

Sufi direct experience of divine love being transformed into elaborate systems of spiritual progression.

African traditional religions' immediate connection with ancestors becoming complex systems of mediation and ritual.

Aztec recognition of cosmic cycles becoming increasingly complex sacrificial systems.

Maya understanding of time cycles becoming increasingly complex mathematical and astronomical systems.

Vedic direct experience of reality becoming structured into rigid caste systems and ritual procedures.

Jain emphasis on non-harm and letting nature find it's own order, becomes complex systems of dietary and behavioral rules.

In each case, we see the same pattern: what began as direct experience or simple instruction became layered with interpretation, systematization, and bureaucracy. The interpreters - usually educated, literate classes - created complex frameworks that required specialist knowledge to navigate, effectively moving spiritual truth from immediate experience into the realm of abstract thought and analysis.

This systematization often served social control functions, turning direct spiritual experience into regulated religious practice that reinforced existing power structures. The original revolutionary or simplifying messages became tools for nothing, creating more nothing, feeding more nothing, taking us far away from everything.