Have you ever played a game in god mode?

Typically god mode turns all the cheats on in a game. You can do anything, go anywhere, be invincible. Suddenly without any effort at all, you can have all the coolest armor, all the best weapons. The boss battles that you would have struggled with, playing over and over again, are over in seconds. Things you’d have to spend hours doing during normal game play, are immediate, or you can even just bypass them.

You won’t have to trudge through the dessert to find the 7 lost ancient baubles, so you can make the omega key and open the chest of lost knowledge. It’s all handed to you at the click of a mouse.

I have turned on good mode in a few games and the results are often disappointing at best. Oh sure it’s interesting for the first few minutes. You can explore the places too dangerous for you to visit before. Wander the forest where everything would have killed you, knowing nothing can stop you now. But all too quickly, as you start to analyze what you’re doing, you realize, everything that had value previously, does not anymore.

The entire economy of the game has collapsed. Everything that meant something before, is meaningless. You don’t have to worry about getting the armor of great brilliance, because you can’t die. You don’t need a sword of insane awesomeness, because your hands are lethal weapons. You don’t need to defeat the boss of Swampy Evil, because you can just walk past her.

Now consider your own journey here as a human being. I think this is the reason the universe has seen fit to blank our memory upon arrival. When we arrive on this planet, for our human experience, we are given a clean slate. If we remembered everything about why we came here and where we came from and what was to happen, the game would appear rigged. There would be no incentive to proceed. There would be no interest. The adventure would be over before it began.

Without the illusion generated by complete amnesia there would be no perception of risk.

The stakes are high in this life.

We are here with the idea that this is all there is and that everything is riding on this life.

But if we had absolute certainty that this was only an elaborate illusion put together for our amusement and education we wouldn’t be invested.

The total amnesia that accompanies the arrival here into our humanity is crucial to keep life interesting.

If the challenge is gone. The risk is gone.

Life just becomes a tedious exercise of moving pixels around on a computer screen. The mental investment is lost and you are left with complex animation with no purpose.

On the other hand. If the game is complex enough, having higher knowledge can simply change the game. Alter your perceived values.

There are several ways to look at god mode functionality. Depending on the complexity of the game instead of breaking the game, it initiates a subtle shift in the game. Everything that mattered in the game doesn’t any more. Your perspective has shifted and you no longer value what used to have value. Instead you find a new economy in the game. You battle for higher stakes.

Maybe previously you were fighting for your own survival.

Now you are trying to save the native people from the onslaught of giant tree grubs.

If a game is complex enough and interesting enough you can actually find a higher level game, a meta game if you will, within the game. Suddenly your powers are required to pursue a higher purpose. You have gone from the victim to the maker. You have changed from a boat on the unforgiving river, to a mountain around which the river must alter its coarse.

When we do capture glimpses of the higher reality that brought us here it informs our values regarding the real economy.

It fractures that illusion that we must have the iphone of awesomeness and shifts our values to the higher economy.

What if we already entered the cheat code, and we’re playing in god mode, but we forgot?

Namaste,

Kevin

If you can read this line, odds are, you are awake.

No, seriously, I mean it. From a cosmic and spiritual standpoint, the simple fact that you are here reading this, implies that you have woken up. It implies that you are aware of the world around you and aware that there is something more. You are, as the terminology goes, “Awake”.

Please understand. This isn’t an ego thing. I’m not saying because you read my blog you’re part of an elite spiritual team that I hand picked and assembled. Though it’s mostly true, but really not my doing. So why do you come here?

I don’t cover my website in adverts with half naked women. Or tips on how to refinance your home loan. I don’t talk about sports or technology. I don’t often reference pop culture, though I am guilty of frequent science fiction and fantasy references…

The fact that you’re still here. The fact that you care enough to even read this far into my writings means you are a seeker.

What is a seeker? Well quite simply you’re looking for something.

Harry Potter has a perfect analogy for this in the game of quidditch. I don’t want to get too far off topic, so I’ll let you research quidditch if you’re not familiar with it. But the important part is, in the game of quidditch the entire team is focused on the main sport of scoring goals with the primary ball. But there is a special role for the seeker. He or she essentially ignores the rest of the game looking for a small, hard to catch, ball called the golden snitch. The team that finds the snitch first, often wins, because it’s worth so many points. It’s a game changer.

You are the seeker, you’re looking for the game changer. All around you are people distracted by the big game. But you know there is something more. You are awake to the larger reality.

So why am I even drawing attention to your waking state? Because it’s slipping. Because it’s so easy to lapse back into a sleeping state. The world around you is pummeling your senses all day. The constant barrage is making it difficult to maintain your spiritual consciousness. You are at serious risk of lapsing into a spiritual coma.

The simple solution is don’t fall asleep. Don’t let yourself lapse back into a sleeping state. But there is more to it than just saying it. Like a slogan discouraging kids from doing drugs, it’s easier said, than done. There is peer pressure and curiosity and all manner of distraction flying in the face of your effort to stay conscious. So here are some ideas and reminders of ways to maintain your alertness. Think of them as spiritual caffeine.

Seek your quiet place. The resolution to an abundance of noise is not more noise. You have to find the center of your worldly storm and visit it. The eye of your hurricane where you can see the storm, but not be the storm. Visit as often as you can allow. Even if it’s only once a week.

Sometimes it feels like the only time I have in the eye is when I’m sitting trying to determine what I’m going to write about for my blog. I’d like to say it’s for all of you, but that would be a omission of truth. I’m glad to have visitors here, but I write this because I need an excuse to visit the eye of my storm. Thank you for being part of my excuse.

Seek out other seekers. It’s biblical “like sharpens like”. Steel is used to sharpen steel. You can’t sharpen a knife with a watermelon. Seek out like minded people that are looking for the same things you are. You don’t have to agree on everything, in fact disagreement can be even more powerful than consensus. Seek for the seekers.

Filter your input to those items that invigorate your connection to the higher. I come from a world where this is an exclusionary statement. I grew up in a world where this would imply you need to shut down the internet and turn off the TV. Where the approved sources for inspiration are few and solitary. Where the items of input are approved by the proffered officials of your faith. I do not mean it that way. I simply mean that you need to filter your input and choose your sources wisely. I will be honest, much of my spiritual input comes from watching old science fiction reruns and filtering for the deeper truth. I don’t recommend it to all and I know I would be judged by many for this choice. But the pathway leads me to where I walk and the flowers here are pretty. To be sure my lizard brain enjoys the walk more than a reading through of the Bhagavad Gita. To all things there is a time and place. Walk your path, no one else can walk it for you.

Namaste,

Kevin