Now, before you get all triggered by the title of this article, I encourage you to take some deep breaths and center yourself before moving forward.
This will undoubtedly make you question some fundamental aspects of consciousness and human interaction. And remember, it’s a perspective, not a mandatory order or a claim of ultimate truth.
Let’s start with a simple question…
Who controls your life?
Are you the sovereign of your life? Or do you outsource your inherent sovereignty to an “authority” like a government?
That’s something to let sink in a bit. And if you feel like you need a government to tell you what to do, that’s fine. We all have free will.
Here’s another important question…
What are you consenting to?
Casting your vote is consenting to be governed.
Again, if you want people you’ve never met to tell you what to do, that’s fine. Then go out and vote on who you want to tell you what to do.
When you vote, you’re formally consenting to being governed and connecting your energy to the collective of that government. This means your energy is feeding it. This is fine if the collective entity you’re consenting to is harmonious and healthy. But I think everyone can agree that just about every government in his-story has been exploitative and parasitical to varying degrees. This is especially true of the current government of the United States.
Note: I also wrote extensively about not voting in this article: Why I’m Not Voting
Energy flows where attention goes. Consenting by voting means giving your energy to that collective entity (feeding the egregore). If you learn the basics of quantum physics, or engage in any spiritual practices, you’ll quickly learn that reality is not fixed, but a co-creative soup of all of our projections.
Most people are consenting to being governed, not because they think it’s a good option, but because they can’t see any other options. And this is by design…
I call the insidious form of control, which programs people into believing in severely limited options, “control by myopia.”
Under any government, the scope of voting options is a laughably small compared to the entire spectrum of possible forms of government (or lack thereof).
The scope of voting in any election is as asinine as voting on whether to hold your water bottle at a 33 or 34 degree angle while drinking. What about 90 degrees? What if I don’t want to drink out of a water bottle? What if I want to drink something other than water?
Control by myopia has us focused on asinine choices, when what actually matters is qualitative differences in the way we perceive the world and interact with one another.
It’s like walking into a restaurant every day and you only have the options of a hamburger with a piece of lettuce or a hamburger with a piece of spinach. You order the one with the spinach every time. Because that’s the party you’ve aligned with. You don’t even think about the fact that there’s more possible things you can put on a burger, or that there’s more food in the world than hamburgers, or that there are other places to eat.
Here are some more important questions:
Be mindful of what you’re consenting to. And realize your ability to NOT consent to things you do not wish to feed.
A fascinating concept related to human interaction and organization is called Voluntaryism.
Voluntaryism is the principle that all human interaction should be directly consensual. There is no use of force to get anything done.
Voluntaryism is in direct alignment with free will. It could be said that most governments are a perversion of voluntaryism. In the US, for example, this “consent” is through voting. As discussed before, the options with voting are laughably myopic. Then there’s the issue of vote manipulation. Then there’s the issue of the electoral college, which means that people don’t even directly elect candidates. And on top of all of this, the people don’t have a say on government decisions (the people “voted in” make all of the decisions). This is an extreme perversion of the idea of consent.
Governments are inherently violent. They’re mere existence limits freedom and they rely on force. Not to mention all of the manipulation, false flag attacks, conflict and wars that they perpetuate. To not vote is to not cooperate with large-scale violence.
In the United States, most people’s lives are already based in voluntaryism. Where we work is consensual, where we live is consensual, who we date is consensual…etc. The only part that isn’t is our interactions with government (taxation, government laws, government institutions and agencies…etc). And it’s no coincidence that most people’s interaction with government is much more tedious and limiting than other interactions. Why can’t government be just as consensual as every other aspect of life? That’s the obvious next step in our evolution.
Any big bureaucratic governmental system is too slow to adapt to changes in society. We have the wherewithal (technologically and consciously) to interact with one another without the need of a bureaucratic, controlling middle man. The emergence of cryptocurrency is an example of how we no longer need authoritative middle men to interact with one another.
If you want to explore Voluntaryism more, check out this article: Introduction to Voluntaryism
I’m not against government. In fact, I’m not against anything.
I just see it as unnecessary. It’s like training wheels. Training wheels are great when you don’t know how to ride a bike. But once you learn how, the training wheels become burdensome. It does no good to get mad at the training wheels or fight against them. All you need to do is gradually decrease your dependency on them until you can ride a bike without them.
At a certain level of human consciousness, government is necessary. But now, we’re evolving beyond the need for external authorities telling us what to do.
Most people see the silliness of organized religion, a patriarchal god in the sky who makes rules for humanity. Yet most fail to see that government is the same phenomenon! We take orders from a patriarchal demigod who sits in some office. Again, both of these are necessary when humans are at a juvenile level of consciousness. And both are becoming less and less relevant as we evolve.
I see government as an impediment to humanity. The existence of government is inherently antithetical to freedom. So instead of giving energy to “the lesser evil” by voting, I choose to not feed the collective parasite of government and focus my energy on other things.
If you’re waiting on the government’s permission to do something or change something, you’ve already given away your sovereignty. Again, the need for authority figures to make decisions for us is only necessary at a juvenile level of consciousness.
What happens when you allow yourself to unwind from all of the distractions of the world? You feel peace, serenity and love.
Yet when you’re fully immersed in the world of distraction, you’re stressed and fearful. It’s only common sense that to bring more peace and love into the world, we need to participate less in the madness.
Take a moment to observe. The more involved in politics people are, the more hateful, angry, fearful and divisive they tend to be. I’ve seen friends who claim to be all “love and light” get angry and demeaning when they identify with a certain political position.
If you have an “us vs them” mentality, all you’re doing is bringing more fear, hatred and division into the world.
There’s also a weird phenomenon when it comes to voting. Most people believe that they’re choices in life are insignificant, and they’re passive victims in the world. Yet when it comes to voting, they believe they’re vote actually matters.
How about we live life on a daily basis, in a way that’s aligned with our highest good? (But this means that we have to take responsibility for our lives, which is scary to most people who would prefer to be victims.)
We actually have to do less to make the world a better place. Yes, you read that correctly.
If you think about it, we need less war, less violence, less rules, less junk food, less stress, less material “stuff”, less noise, less distraction, less manipulation, less prescription drugs, less alcohol, less pollution…etc.
And our basic needs have been gifted to us on a golden platter by nature (we’ve just over-complicated things and programmed ourselves into believing otherwise). For example:
Yes, there will always be some basic things we need to do to sustain our physical bodies. Yet to have a more harmonious world, we actually need to stop over-complicated things, stop creating problems, stop self-sabotaging and do less.
We’ve all seen people that drive themselves crazy. They over-complicate things, self-sabotage and create drama, to try to fulfill silly egoic desires. This is what we’ve done on the collective level with governments. We’ve created so much unnecessary complexity and drama – that will continue to loop in endless cycles – until our state of consciousness changes.
The most effective prescription for any change in the world is a change in consciousness.
What I mean by a change in consciousness is a change in the fundamental way we perceive ourselves and reality.
When the majority of people operate from a place of love, guess what? Our means of interaction become love-based. We only have these government structures and disharmonious systems because most people are disharmonious within.
A change in consciousness is the only real way to change things. If you study quantum physics, or have had any metaphysical experiences, you know this to be true. Even from a common sense perspective, a change in consciousness equals a change in thinking, which equals a change in actions.
Here’s the kicker with creating a change in consciousness… You can only do it for yourself! You can’t do it for anyone else. This means that the most important thing you can do to create a more harmonious world is to create harmony within yourself!
Changing the world is so vague. It’s a cop out. How do you “change the world”? You can’t, because the world is just a concept. But you can change yourself. And you can be kinder to others.
Harmonize yourself and bring that harmony to those around you. It’s so simple, yet requires a massive paradigm shift of consciousness.
Most people are governed by fear and at war with themselves or others. And we’re going to keep creating that in the world until we heal ourselves.
If I were to tell you exactly what to do to make the world a better place, I would be violating your free will. And it would also be based in control. If you notice, this is what governments and religions do… “You have to do X, or else…”
All I’m saying is create a more harmonious, loving state of consciousness, and everything you do will be from a place of love. From there, new ways of living and interacting will emerge that we would’ve never imagined before.
When we embark on this journey of transformation, the path illuminates itself as we walk it.
So what are some ways to create a more harmonious, loving state of consciousness?
Now we’re going to bring everything full spiral and embrace paradox.
Guess what? Everything is perfect as it is. Everything that we perceive is exactly what we need for our soul’s evolution.
There’s a beautiful lesson in the society we’ve co-created, and this lesson enriches the learning experiences of our souls. There’s a lesson for us in living under a government. There’s a lesson for us in being subjected to laws. There’s a lesson for us in having wars on this planet. There’s a lesson for us in having some dude in a suit, who we never met, telling us what to do.
When you can realize your inherent freedom, regardless of circumstance, then you’re truly free. If you need to be living in the woods, without any government, to be free, then you’re dependent on circumstance to be free (which isn’t freedom at all).
As the great poet Kabir said, “Living in bondage I have set myself free: I have broken away from the clutch of all narrowness.”
I am free, regardless of circumstance.
You are free, regardless of circumstance.
We are free, regardless of circumstance.
We embrace the paradoxical merging of full acceptance of what is, while moving towards a vision of a world more aligned with our essence. Now, that’s freedom. Feel it in your soul.
Sending Love & Blessings.
Stephen Parato
PS – If you want to make the world a better place, do something kind today. Perform a random act of kindness, even for a stranger. Make this a regular practice.
