TRANSCRIPT

The teaching of bliss is a false teaching. That is why people take chemicals, drugs, any substance to alter their psychology and their being, because they're in pursuit of that state of bliss, instead of doing the true work in their souls and hearts and minds that provide that foundation to do the work, to be in that state of bliss. They take shortcuts to get there; through the drugs, through the medicines. It doesn't matter if it's plant medicines and healthy or not. Anything that you do out of God's will, and timing, is a shortcut.

“Nothing You Do Matters Unless What You Do Matters”
I’m Amadon DellErba and this is “Get Real or Die Trying”

How we doing tribe? Welcome to episode 29. “Ignorance is Bliss.” What does that saying mean? I wanted to have a podcast to discuss my thoughts and share my ideas on that saying from a spiritual perspective. You know, I have found that there's an interesting dichotomy that occurs, I think, in the pursuit of us attaining more knowledge and wisdom, and that dichotomy seems to be exaggerated when we truly, truly strive to attain more spiritual knowing and wisdom. A dichotomy exists because of the spiritual laws of nature and the universe. And so when you become spiritually aware of the reasons and meanings of life and, I think, why things happen, there seems to always be a tinge of suffering coupled with this knowledge. It’s interesting that the more that you begin to become aware and know, the more you suffer. And the idea that sometimes it's better not to know the truth is really the crux of what “ignorance is bliss” means. Is it dangerous territory to be lacking in knowledge? Or is it sometimes a blessing in disguise? 

You know, it really seems that by gaining more awareness and consciousness, you're also gaining both peace and suffering, like I said. And so you can gain peace because you understand the laws of the universe and nature more, and how things work, and by gaining more knowledge, usually it's coupled with gaining more peace, because you have an understanding of things in life and situations, and you can deal with things better. You know, more knowledge is always helpful for temporal peace with our fundamental existence. Yet,

we can experience suffering because we are rendered helpless, at times, to change the things that we see around us. And this realization can be painful. The more that we see, the more we want to change, but sometimes can't. But what is most painful, I think, that I've discovered personally and in talking to many people, what they've shared, is that sometimes the more that you ascend spiritually and the more enlightened that you become, the more lonely and separate from others, you become. 

I think this is because the newfound higher consciousness can separate us from those around us who really dwell in a lower consciousness. I don't mean that in a condescending way, but when you start to become aware of things and you start to gain that spiritual knowledge and truth and others around you don't, there's going to be a natural separation. And there has to be an acceptance of that separation. I think anybody who's been on a spiritual journey of growth and awareness is probably finding that. And so thus, you know, our own ignorance can often be our own bliss, because knowing deep spiritual truths really leads into making decisions that are deep and to making spiritual sacrifices. It leads to transformation and transformation and growth can be painful. Anytime you have to change something about yourself it can be painful. The process of transformation is really coupled with the gaining of more knowledge and wisdom. It requires you to transform, to ascend, to grow, to change. All of those things (no matter what any false guru may tell you) is not easy. It takes work. It takes commitment. And really the more you begin to learn, the more you really have to unlearn. The more you discover, the more you must release. All of our old understandings, our preconceptions, the boxes, our judgments, we have to release it all. The things that we think defined us, defined our lives, define the people around us, the more knowledge that we have, the more we're expected to release the old ways, the things that don't serve us anymore. Again, that's not always easy either because we get caught in our comfort zones. 

The more you gain spiritual knowledge the more pure you really become; the more responsible you are for refining your character and living the things that you are learning. And that's the most important part; living the virtues and the teachings that you're learning about. And if you fail to do this, you really enter into the dark realms of hypocrisy and self-righteousness which, unfortunately, are very prominent states of being for many supposedly “woke” people. I think I've found that some of the most self-righteous people I've ever come across, claim to be the most spiritual or the most religious or the most intelligent or the most whatever. And interestingly enough, they're quite self-righteous. But ignorance really can be bliss because when you exist in a state of not really knowing anything, or the complexity of our ascension path to paradise, and all the universe absolutes, the precepts and concepts that exist. You know, you can actually exist in a temporal state of peace and bliss because really you're numb to the suffering of the world. You're not aware. 

When you become aware of the suffering, you also suffer. That's compassion. Compassion is really the root of many spiritual virtues and principles. And so some people choose not to be compassionate because they don't want to suffer themselves. They don't want to suffer with the other person or peoples or nations or countries, or all humans who are suffering. A lack of compassion is a lack of willingness to suffer with your brothers and sisters. And you know, to me, I think this is why millions of people choose to stay ignorant because they actually don't want to know. With knowing comes tremendous responsibility. You know, with knowing you're held accountable. 

And some new research out of Ontario University suggests that less people know about important complex issues, such as the economy, energy consumption, the environment, spiritual truths, because they want to avoid being well-informed; because once they're well-informed, they have to change. They have to do something with this new found knowledge. They are responsible to change the way they think, do, and live their lives.

On a fallen world like ours, the more spiritual you become, often the more you suffer because you can hardly stand to live in a world of injustices, inconsistencies, and incongruencies. You know, your sensitivity is increased and the world is not a nice place at times. And so it can be quite difficult, I think, to witness and perceive the injustices of man. And the more spiritual you are, the more you long for justice and order. And when things are out of order, you feel it more. Knowledge really is power. And when you have power, one has responsibility to use it in the highest way. You see, the more you know, the more responsible you are for your actions.

Being educated and spiritually intelligent, always comes with side effects. The side effects of knowing means you have to answer to your consciousness. 

An example is if you wear a diamond ring, yet you know that that diamond ring likely came from a mine in Africa, harvested by slaves. And much suffering and death and slaughter and injustices came about to get that ring on your finger. You may reconsider wearing it and you might realize it's just a shiny rock. And so much emphasis and suffering and lack of consciousness came about to bring you that rock. Now, when you don't know that you wear the ring. I think a lot of people choose not to want to know about that rock so that they can continue to wear the ring. Yet people make the choice to not want to learn the facts so they can remain in their comfort zone. That's it. It's the same thing with eating certain types of food or living a lifestyle that could be destructive on other people. Americans, we over consume and we waste. The more that we learn about that waste and that over consumption; you would think the less we would do it, the more we would not want to do it. But people actually just don't want to learn about it. They don't want to realize that half the food that this country produces goes to waste. And this is what we see all throughout the world actually with social and environmental issues.

And of course, with spiritual issues, it's a huge, huge problem because people are so used to turning a blind eye. You know, the choice to remain ignorant is what's chosen because knowledge means you will have to change what you're doing and change takes work and human beings are innately lazy. 

So I encourage anyone listening to this to take a minute and assess… “Where do we, as humans, choose to remain ignorant? Where do we take shortcuts?” You know, we need to analyze our lives and figure out what areas we choose to do this in; to turn this blind eye in. Sometimes we do this with the ones we love most. We don't want to see certain aspects of them. We don't want to see their lower nature. We choose to be ignorant about their personality defects, because once we know about them, we're responsible to: one, help them change; and two, hold them accountable, you know? We have to, if we love this person, they're our spouse or brother or sister, we have to help them change. And we have to help them be accountable, which could be uncomfortable. And people avoid work. All of these things take work and we're lazy. It's incredible how human beings can ignore serious, serious red flags and can ignore even great injustice and evil in somebody, because they're gaining something else from that person.

It's the sin omission. It's weakness. It's not courage. And we do it all the time. 

When I say we (because I make mistakes too, we all do) I'm talking about human beings, the entire race of homosapiens. I'm talking about the study, the anthropologic study, the psychology of man, and these are things that we can refine and overcome. You know, we must all commit to becoming as conscious and aware as we can. And as educated and informed as we can. We must then commit to make changes in our own lives with this newfound spiritual knowledge. 

And so ignorance is bliss. I say that because I've recognized it, because the more that I, myself, have personally learned, at times the more I've suffered. And this ignorance is bliss concept is something that is actually less involuntary than we think. People, you know… the statement is supposed to be a joke. It's supposed to be an idiom; not supposed to be true. But it actually is true and so people actually then pursue staying ignorant. Think about it. Once you realize that it's bliss, wouldn't you want to stay in a state of bliss? And once you become “woke” and you realize that true bliss takes tremendous spiritual work, that's not just, you know, that's actually becoming knowledgeable; that getting to a state of bliss is very hard and it’s actually temporal and transient. Bliss, and experiencing peace in the mind and heart and soul, it's not always a constant state of being. It is with true spiritual masters, but even true spiritual masters have times where they're not in a state of bliss.The teaching of bliss is a false teaching. That is why people take chemicals, drugs, any substance to alter their psychology and their being, because they're in pursuit of that state of bliss, instead of doing the true work in their souls and hearts and minds that provide that foundation to do the work, to be in that state of bliss. They take shortcuts to get there; through the drugs, through the medicines. It doesn't matter if it's plant medicines and healthy or not. Anything that you do out of God's will and timing, is a shortcut.

So to summarize and to wrap it all up, my friends, I feel that we as individuals, as Change Agents, as woke souls, as people who are trying to spiritually better our lives and the people around us; we have to pursue spiritual knowledge and spiritual wisdom and whatever that means in our lives, and not pursue “bliss.” Thousands, millions of people are obsessed with the pursuit of bliss. What they should be obsessed with is the pursuit of spiritual knowledge and truths and wisdom, so that then they can actually apply change in their lives to have true bliss, not temporal bliss. 

I want to close with a quote from The URANTIA Book, which I've actually been studying since I was a child and now I'm studying as a grown man, an adult in the University of Ascension Science & the Physics of Rebellion in Rio Rico, Arizona. If you want to learn more about The URANTIA Book and this university, check out UASPR.org. But here's a quote from The URANTIA Book that I think is a great reminder and needed perspective change for many people. This is from paper 100. 

“Religion is not a technique for attaining a static and blissful peace of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service. It is the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God and serving man. Religion pays any price essential to the attainment of the supreme goal, the eternal prize. There is a consecrated completeness in religious loyalty which is superbly sublime. And these loyalties are socially effective and spiritually progressive.”

So to me, what that’s saying is that religion itself is not the technique for attaining a place of blissful peace of mind. Religion is the means for working towards, and organizing, a life of dynamic service. Think about it. Service to one’s others. It is the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God and serving man. 

That's it, my friends, that sums it up. It's a beautiful quote. So thanks for listening to my podcast. Be sure to like, subscribe, share with your mother, share with your sister, share with your friends, share with everybody. See you next time.

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And remember: "Pain is Temporary. Victory is Eternal."