In search of the keys to the Universe – ESOTERICISM/SPIRITUALITY

After leaving London at the beginning of autumn 2016, I flew to Kazakhstan in particular to visit a friend in Astana. This trip, which was my first real stay in a non-European country, became the starting point for an awareness of the world around me. The vision I had of it, and which I had taken thirty years to build, suddenly collapsed, in a few weeks, leaving in me a certain nothingness that I had to fill slowly, to rebuild myself. Observing the world from the outside, this world in which we grew up and evolved, I mean outside our mother’s culture, can sometimes lead us to question the vision we had of it. Where the principles that we had, can be radically turned upside down. Travel can contribute strongly to this awareness but there is necessarily no guarantee that applies to everyone. These two months lived in Astana sounded the beginning of a long and deep reflection about this world that I thought I knew but which turned out to be a complete stranger. As Jean Gabin said: “Now I know, I know that we never know”. Indeed, we can be sure of only one thing, and that is that we are not sure of anything. My investigations, whether in fields such as finance, economics, medicine, geopolitics, history, spirituality, pushed me to put aside everything I had learned in the past in order to remain as objective as possible in my reasoning. The conclusion of my analyzes reveals that nothing is real around us, in the figurative sense of the term. It seems that we live in a world from a perfect simulation. As if originally, God, knowing absolutely everything about everything, took from an infinite boredom that became his worst enemy, starting to hate himself, decided to create this world and divide his unique soul into seven billion souls in an attempt to find himself again. This simulation that seems so real would be like a spiritual test and an experimentation of life itself where we, mere mortals, would experiment with physical matter. This world is a theater, whoever understands the rules will be able to make it his paradise. However, the search for the keys to the universe is a long way, a difficult undertaking that does not necessarily offer the guarantee of a result. Nevertheless, the hope of achieving this will always remain our ultimate motivation.

Our influence on this world as an individual is minimal. Because it is in any case possible to change only certain relatively limited things around us, such as our clothing style, our language, our professional career, on the other hand our influence on the rest is almost zero. Seeking to control the events that influence our lives, as well as to change the world in our image and to change the people around us, is an illusion or even a fantasy generated by our own ego. On the other hand, modifying our approach to our environment by adapting to it and anticipating the factors likely to alter our plans, is a more achievable goal. We all seek to change the world, only if it were so easy, the world would have changed a long time ago because many before us have already tried time and time again. Our world is not perfect, of course, but that’s what made us the way we are today, let’s accept this world a minimum. In the same way, let’s accept the people around us as they are, at the risk of causing frustrations inside us, preventing us from continuing our journey with complete serenity.

My vision of hell is a world where everyone would think and do the same thing as me, eventually ending up in exactly the same places as me, creating my own prison and making me a slave to myself. On the contrary, total loneliness would also become a hellish prison. It is better to be well accompanied in prison, than to be alone at large. The balance between the two is the most difficult to achieve. In the end, this plurality of points of view, tastes, decisions, allows me to keep my freedom. And you, what is your vision of hell? Anyway, this world is deliberately destined to be hard on us, but it is certainly to push us to react, to question it and to look for the keys to its mystery. If it didn’t break us, it made us stronger anyway. Mikhail Lermontov has well developed this vision that our death occurs only when our time has arrived, never before. We can cross a minefield without anything happening. Then when the twelve strokes of midnight approach, leaving home, a simple tile falling on our head will sound our end. During the first world war, my great-grandfather saw almost all the soldiers who made up his regiments decimated except for him, yet he was just a simple soldier. This is how he spent the entire war on the battlefields, from one regiment to another without ever being caught by death. The probability of crossing a street in a flood without getting wet is zero. The probabilities intervene in many areas, but as far as the fate of people is concerned, it’s a very different story. Certainly everyone has a guardian angel who watches over us.

Science, in particular quantum physics, admits that there would be an infinity of parallel universes, that is to say that other universes could exist and could be a quasi reproduction of ours with a few details. The physical matter that constitutes and surrounds us would only be pure illusion because we are composed only of pure energy, and physical matter would only be a representation of this energy. Given that the same electron, which is the basis of energy, can be found at the same time in several different places, it is strong to imagine that each person could have his own universe dedicated to him, making him the main character of this great play that is our world. On various websites, you can see what is happening on the streets of many cities around the world through their surveillance cameras. These sites are free and I invite you to experience watching what is happening through your screen, on a street in your city, then, a little later, to go to that same street and observe this time, the camera that filmed what you saw previously. The sensation of passing from the filmer to the filmed, from the spectator to the actor, will undoubtedly offer you a new impression. Couldn’t all these cameras that invade our daily lives be the cameras for filming our own movie? To ponder.

It is clear that we could very well be looking for the keys to the universe in the wrong direction. The very idea of achieving any goal could well be wrong. The secret could lie only in the power of the present moment. Indeed, we live almost exclusively in the past and the future. We are constantly obsessively recalling the events of the past, fiercely planning the future, where our thinking loses all feeling of the present moment. All the plans that we set for ourselves will turn out to be one hundred percent wrong due to the fact that we are never in control of any consequences whatsoever, and a single small initial change can, in the end, modify all of our plans. The same applies to the past; the details of a distant event may turn out to be inaccurate. In the end, only the present exists, the past and the future are only an illusion.

“Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past” George Orwell, 1984

Christ was an activist and a nonconformist, the association of the two led him to the cross. But his message, if we learn to read between the lines, can reveal something very different from what we imagined. Because our true enemy is inside us and this animal is the fiercest of all to tame. Our inner strength comes by putting our reasoning to the test, and this with a stoic approach, by being ready to do it on a regular basis, and by doubting everything and at any time. This is how the fog will fade and a clear vision of things will be offered to us. To achieve this, there are two essential methods that we are likely to work on. The first is to develop the ability to take a step back in the face of all emotional situations so as not to let our feelings take full control of our personality by evading our rational thoughts. Having too many emotions becomes a toxic poison, but conversely, not having any more is the worst thing. The balance between the two is the key to this method. A state that, however, is not acquired for life and that it is necessary to look for in each new emerging situation. The second method is our ability to stay focused on a topic for more than five minutes in a row. Our attention is distracted at every moment by a multitude of factors while granting us a thousand excuses to forgive ourselves for it. Whether external or internal, these perpetual distractions prevent us from becoming aware of those around us. It is very difficult for us to perceive each of the passing seconds, to spend every second feeling the breeze of the wind on our face, to focus our reflection just for a moment on the singing of the birds, and to devote the next moment to the very attention of our own breathing. Being in the middle of nature, alone, as well as meditating or praying can make us evolve towards this mastery.

You know, we can spend our whole lives looking for the keys to the Universe, but when we find ourselves in front of the door of the room that contains all the secrets of the Universe, we realize that the door is not only open, but that it has always been. However, we were too obsessed with our distractions to notice. Then, even worse, once we get inside, we realize that the room is completely empty, empty of its secrets. However, at the entrance, on the door was clearly displayed: “Inside is all the secrets of the Universe”. Yes indeed, it was true, very true, the poster had not lied in any way, we were now inside the room, and the secrets were housed inside us. Do not look any further, you have understood everything!

Written on March 20, 2023