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“The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.” ~James Baldwin
What is the mind of God? It’s the infinite interconnectedness of all things, “whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere (Joseph Campbell). It’s that silent voice that speaks a “language older than words (Derrick Jensen).” It’s a mytheme that subsumes all myths and all memes. It’s the almighty fountainhead overflowing. It’s a quantum question mark in juxtaposition with so-called answers.
It's our mind, if only we can tap into it. For we are questions, not answers. We are stumbling fumbling question marks going through the motions of not knowing that we don’t know. Just as Truth (the mind of God) is not sharpened by answers but by further questioning, so too is it with the human mind.
Understanding the world is more about opening our minds to a plurality of imperfect depictions than it is about settling our minds on a particular ideal. Therefore, hacking the mind of God is foremost about hacking through the brambles of ideas and ideals that are preventing us from a breakthrough. Let’s break it down…
1.) Remember, reality is just a useful illusion:
“Receive without pride, let go without attachment.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Foremost, hacking the mind of God is letting go of our ego’s attachment to rigid ideals and inflexible boundaries. It’s a deep understanding that nothing in existence is an island. And to the extent that it appears to be, it is nothing more than a useful illusion. It’s useful because we need the illusions of boundaries to navigate the universe and to create finite meaning despite the infinite meaninglessness that surrounds us.
Hacking the mind of God is hacking through the caught reality (preconditioning) and the taught reality (cultural conditioning) in order to disclose the ought reality (reconditioning). We do this to arrive at a state where we are free to create meaning despite our conditioning. As Henry Miller said, “Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.” When we arrive at a place where we are free to create meaning we realize that the meaning of life is whatever we want our lives to mean.
But the ought reality will always push back. The ought reality (universal law or cosmic law) dictates if our opinions are valid or not. It is our responsibility alone to figure this out. Often, our caught/taught reality clouds our perspective regarding the cosmic law of the ought reality. Our ability to reason is not a given. It must be taught, untaught, retaught, and then revised again and again. And when our ability to reason fails, we must be held accountable by those whose ability to reason has not failed.
Applying ‘reality as a useful illusion’ is a powerful way to hack the mind of God because it turns the tables on conditioning. It flips the script on small picture perspectives. It squares the circle. Where the circle is the infinite interconnectedness between all things (God), the squaring is the Camus-like rebellion, and the result is the magic elixir (the meaning) that we bring back to the world.
2.) Embolden your shadow aspect:
“Truth-seeking is the path to self-annihilation and thus to liberation.” ~Bernardo Kastrup
A powerful way to hack the mind of God is to transform our demons into diamonds, our wounds into wisdom, and our existential angst into providence. We do this by integrating our shadow, by tapping latent aspects of the Self that have been repressed or oppressed, and then using them to empower ourselves.
When we embolden our shadow aspect, we unleash our courage. We learn how to be fierce. We learn how to be ruthless. We learn how to be audacious. All of which will be needed to take on the greatest task of all: destroying our naïve idea of God.
Yes, in order to hack the mind of God, we must first destroy our idealized depiction of God, and then reinvent a God that’s in sacred alignment with reality. Seek God; kill God; rebirth God. As Bruce Lee said, “Learn the Form, master the Form, forget the Form.” Inform; reform; transform.
As Michel de Montaigne said, “There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.” Killing the ideal of God is a defeat more triumphant than a victory. Why? Because it gets us out of our own way. It cleanses us of our insufferable clinginess. It rids us of our codependent placation. It washes us clean of ourselves. As Rumi said, “Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.”
Cultivating our shadow aspect teaches us how to wash ourselves of ourselves. It teaches audacity and tenacity. It gives us teeth sharp enough to bite through the culturally conditioned throat of God so that we are free to tap the bloodroot of Infinity (the mind of God). It gives us eyes keen enough to see through all the religious/political bullshit. It gives us the ability for ruthless inquiry which we can use to think through indoctrination, conditioning, and brainwashing.
3.) Embrace fractal weirdness:
“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” ~Charles Addams
You are not merely weird. You are weird at every conceivable scale of resolution. Zooming in on any point of your worldview finds beliefs exactly as weird as your entire worldview. You are weirdness all the way down perceiving weirdness all the way up. Embrace it.
This is a powerful way to hack the mind of God because it allows you to be free. It allows you to be playful and humorous. It unleashes the imagination. It unfetters the creative urge. It liberates paradox. It tears down the obscenely tall walls of the comfort zone and reveals that nearly all boundaries can be transformed into horizons. Most importantly, it prevents you from taking yourself too seriously.
Allow yourself to be imperfect, fallible, and prone to mistakes. Then flip the script on that shit. Be curious, not certain. Be creative, not convinced. Be eccentric, not conformist. Be humorous, not full of hubris.
Be the glitch. Practice the ability to embrace paradox and to hold the tension between opposites. Learn how to live with uncertainty. Learn how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Reimagine imagination itself.
As Bill Murray famously said, “Weird is just a side effect of being awesome.” Indeed.
When you allow yourself to be weird, you free yourself to be whatever you want to be. Fear of the unknown dissipates. You become the unfamiliar, the strange, the quixotic. All fetters fall away. Boundaries dissolve. The world unlocks. Suddenly everything is permitted, and both your curiosity and your creativity is heightened.
Destiny becomes a plaything. The will to power is trumped by the will to humor. The Infinite Game reveals itself, and you are the gamemaster.
4.) Laugh into the abyss:
“Like they say in Zen, when you attain Satori, nothing is left for you in that moment than to have a good laugh.” ~Alan Watts
Mortal dread is all too real. Death is ever-looming. Existential angst outflanks us all. What is a mortal to do with such fleetingness, such inept impermanence? How do we react to such transgressive transience? We meet it with humor and courage. We meet it with audacity and tenacity. We meet it with honesty and honor. We “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
There is a sacred tomfoolery hidden within each of us. It gives us the strength to mock authority and power. It gives us the endurance to withstand tragedy and loss. It gives us the audacity to topple ivory towers, kneecap high horses, and melt down golden idols.
Forced to gaze into Infinity, only a few things become clear: Absurdity rules. Certainty is folly. Security is an illusion. Rescue isn’t coming. No God is coming to save us from our sins. No so-called authority is coming to bail us out. No hero is coming to liberate us from taking responsibility for our own freedom. Unless…
Unless that hero is you, living a courage-based lifestyle despite a fear-based culture. Unless that authority is you, questioning all things. Unless that God is you, hellbent on destroying the hell that surrounds you with a will to humor that trumps the will to power.
Laughing into the abyss is a revolt against hell. It’s a revolt against meaninglessness, senselessness, and pointlessness. It’s a revolt against anything seeking to force itself down anyone’s throat. It’s the spirit of revolution, the heart of insouciance, the soul of audacity. It’s an ecstatic celebration in the face of impending doom. It hacks the mind of God by transforming gravity into levity.
On a long enough timeline, we outgrow the problem of mortality and death. We outgrow the problem of perfection and God. We outgrow our need to pigeonhole infinity. We outgrow by letting go. Rather than cling to our ideals, we wring out our ideas. We grow our consciousness. We bring more of the universe into being. We synthesize the one and the many, the ego and the eco, the individual and the individuation. We become bigger than we are by hacking the mind of God.
As Carl Jung said, “We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.”
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About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (4 Ways to Hack the Mind of God) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.