written 31 January 2021
published 7 February 2021
As I have said many times before, the core dysfunction of our time is believing the illusion of separation in the face of unity reality. One of the manifestations of this illusion in the conceptual realm is the notion of a secret: "something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others".
The Newtonian perspective of matter incorporated the flawed prevailing cultural perspective of separation, but it was superseded a century ago by the quantum perspective, which understands the world as fundamentally connected by wave resonance. While unity reality has always been known by some mystics and indigenous peoples, the widespread social manifestation of that connectivity has become more obvious in the last few decades, with the rise of electronic communication founded on the physics of quantum mechanics.
The first smartphone, defined as both computer and cell phone, was introduced 25 years ago, and Apple produced the first iPhone only 14 years ago. Now 1/2 the planet has smartphones and an additional 1/5 have cell phones. With such informational interconnection, enduring secrecy is increasingly fleeting.
At the mundane level, Wikileaks showed that the National Security Agency, and all the other three letter agencies, may know everything we communicate on electronic medium. All the social media platforms keep track of what you are looking at every second so they can make money selling ads. The 11 virtual assistants, like Google's Now, Amazon's Alexa, or Apple's Siri, are always listening. The cell phone system keeps track of, and records, the general location of every active cell phone, in order to quickly direct the signal to the proper phone. Any project that includes more than three people is likely to leak information eventually. The news is full of hackers breaking into "secure" systems. This can be motivated by legitimate law enforcement, criminal personal profit, foreign national security interests, or to effect social transformation by the public disclosure of damaging, previously secret, information.
At the more esoteric level, consciousness and awareness have been shown to be "non-local", operating outside the space/time limitations. Remote viewing has been demonstrated in people, animals, and even plants. Reincarnation is believed by a significant portion of the planet, including a quarter of Christians. Australian aboriginal "dreamtime" is an accessible record of a continuum of past, present, and future, which has allowed them to live in a difficult environment for over 65,000 years. For those who believe, Santa Claus knows if you have been good or bad, and God knows every thought, emotion, word, or action.
A recent example of the failed illusion of secrecy in our digitally connected age is the story of Parler. According to Wikipedia, this self-proclaimed "free speech" social networking service launched in August 2018, quickly developing a user base of Donald Trump supporters, conservatives, and the far right, posting extremist content, antisemitism, misogyny, and conspiracy theories such as QAnon. After reports that Parler was used to coordinate the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol, the site was taken offline on January 10, 2021, when Amazon Web Services canceled its hosting services. The website's poor security allowed an outside researcher to download roughly 80 terabytes of Parler posts, including more than 1 million videos, including GPS location data, just before Parler went offline. These people never expected that their secret plotting would be made public, but the data dump was posted online to be used as evidence against those who took part in the insurrection.
The participants further aided law enforcement by posting their seditious actions on social media, which have already been used as evidence in bringing charges. One site scoured all the posts, and pulled out and posted 6000 different faces, asking for public help in identifying them all.
It is a radical step to abandon the illusion of secrecy. Secrecy is an attempt to avoid responsibility for, or the consequences of, our actions. The alternative demands complete responsibility, living our lives committed to the integrity of everything we think, say, and do. Considering the consequences of our actions, we then choose to move ahead with our choices, willingly accepting the results. This can lead to increased morality, as spiritual teachers have pointed out for millennium, because recognizing the illusion of secrecy comes from recognizing the unity of reality. This is the essential understanding behind the Golden Rule.
