The 3 Illusions of Life Blocking your Progress — Part I of III
You are your biggest enemy.
The above statement is an illusion created to block you from your own progress.
Your belief in the statement is the strength of this illusion.
Your disbelief is the hammer which will shatter this illusion.
For the last ten years, I have been on a quest to understand life. I graduated from the top universities in India, worked initially as an i-banker, then as a strategist and finally as a sales head. And all these years, there always remained a hunger in me to understand life at its core. This hunger drove me to silently observe life, digest each and everything going on and read hundreds of books of wisdom and philosophy. Experimenting with what they preach and making sense of our world and of my experience as a human.
These things cannot be learned in one blog article but there can be a start. And I always like to start with the ancient Hindu philosophy of Life as an Illusion — the philosophy of Maya.
At the simplest level the philosophy of Maya means the world is not what it seems.
Before getting into Why Maya Happens (To be covered in another series), we need to see How Maya Happens.
And seeing the How of Maya becomes easier with the First Illusion of Life — as it is visible everyday in our lives, though most of us still end up getting trapped in it.
This illusion is caused explicitly and has an industry of it’s own, popularly known as the Marketing Industry.
Whenever you brush your teeth, you should remember a guy called as Claude Hopkins.
He is not the guy who invented toothpaste.
He is the guy who made it your daily habit. In return, he got lots of stock of Pepsodent.
in his phenomenal book ‘ The Power of Habit’ details this story.You have truly joined in Hopkins created Pepsodent super-spiral whenever you train your small children to do this unnatural thing of brushing teeth till it becomes a natural habit for them.
And when they grow up, they will do the same for their children. And like this for centuries to come.
The question is, how is it possible for a guy like Claude Hopkins to change the habit of so many people, so much so, that the next generation takes the act of putting a brush in their mouth as a total natural act, without knowing anything about Claude Hopkins.
Understanding how the toothbrush ends up in your mouth every morning is a key to understanding the First Illusion of Life.
Now, tell me — did you propose, (or were you proposed) by your sweetheart with a diamond ring?
How much did you spend on it?
Or is it three months now?
Who do you have to thank that for?
This tradition of buying a diamond wedding ring is so deeply ingrained now that till the time a woman doesn’t show the diamond on her finger, no one believes that she is engaged.
Have you ever stopped to think how did this custom come about?
Is it possible to get American men to spend over $7 billion of their hard-earned money every year on what is believed to be a deeply ingrained tradition without anyone wondering for whose actual benefit this tradition was made?
De Beers cornered over 60% of diamond supply and got banned from America. This in no way stopped De Beers and its ad agency NW Ayers from attacking the very delicate moment of betrothal, when a man seeks to win his beloved’s hand. A very delicate moment which should be perfect in every way and with so much social validation involved. The moment on which the ego of every man and the value of every woman rests. And the underhand attack — make it appear that it’s a social norm to seal a marriage proposal with a diamond ring.
The result.
A two-month salary tax on that sacred moment one betrothal at a time, even yours.
Sneaky isn’t it?
And moreover, did you know it? Or do you still think that this is a centuries old tradition?
Now tell me, if somebody ransomed you — how many dollars will you have your loved ones pay for your life?
Hundred Million? Ten Million? One Million? Or Ten Thousand?
For only ten thousand dollars of profit per person, our smoking brethren’s lives have been put on the cancer death block.
Marlboro man — what an amazing piece of advertisement. Sales zoomed from five billion dollars to twenty billion dollars within two years.
If creating a Marlboro man gives such handsome returns, who wouldn’t want to do that.
Over 300 million dollars were spent just to find the perfect Marlboro man.
It is another matter that four of these Marlboro men died of cancer.
Literally, advertised to death.
And the price on your smoking life — just ten thousand dollars.
Appalling isn’t it?
These three examples demonstrate a subtle phenomenon of the the First Illusion of Life which blocks your progress. I like to call such Illusions as Mayatic pollution.
Remember the concept of Maya — the world is not what it seems.
Mayatic Pollution is the ability of our environment to influence and modify our behaviour without us knowing anything about it.
Without us even finding out that the environment is deliberately getting manipulated. Like a fish going to eat food, but ending up taking the bait and giving up its life.
Humans are very good at creating baits not only for animals but also for each other.
I’m sure many families will just pay the ten thousand dollars ransom to the cigarette companies and get their loved ones back. If only they could. But apparently, that’s not a legal deal. Whereas, creating Mayatic pollution, creating the bait, is a legal deal. The law, designed by reason rather than on understanding of these Illusions, says that the fish should have been smarter than taking the bait.
Somehow, just like the fish, this magic of being smart, of actually knowing ourselves enough to know when our natural instincts are leading to our own death is sorely missing.
Due to the ignorance of these Mayatic Pollution, we assume that the environment is true, it’s legal, without going into the complexity of verifying whether it’s really true or is actually manipulated.
Advertisers modify your environment to propagate Explicit Mayatic Pollution for their selfish gains. Sometimes for the positive, sometimes neutral and many times for the negative.
Advertisers pay for your attention. They pay prime money for prime TV. They pay prime money for prime hoarding spots. They pay prime money to buy your personal data from your web footprints just to serve you with tailor-made Mayatic pollution which is just right for you.
They make you your own personal Hotel California — personally programming to receive you. Allowing you to check in at any time of your liking, but never allowing you to leave.
The current influx of Fake News is just the continuation of this Explicit Mayatic Pollution. And given the nature of humanity, its not going to stop any time soon.
You may not be a drug addict or an alcoholic. And, you may think that you are immune to Mayatic pollution. But if you smoke or you have bought a diamond ring, or you brush your teeth — I would suggest that you think again.
I use advertisement as the first example of the medium which easily propagates Mayatic Pollution — because of advertisement’s deliberate nature.
In the generation of advertisement based Explicit Mayatic Pollution, there is a clear first mover, there is a clear motive to profit, there is a clear thought out strategy of What, Where, When, Who, Why and How to modify your environment and there is a clear effect of the final modification in the changed behaviours of the masses with the final result of upsurge in profits of the first mover.
Hence, it is far easier for us to recognise and identify the Explicit Mayatic Pollution stemming from the advertisement industry.
But this is only the First Illusion of Life.
The question is what other forms of Mayatic Pollution are manipulating us without our knowledge, without any form of examination and questioning on our part.
The dogma’s and traditions on which we dutifully pay our taxes without even realising that it’s a tax we are paying possibly for someone else’s benefit.
For knowing more remain tuned for my Part II and Part III of this blog series which will cover the more pernicious illusions which are more difficult to spot. (Edit: Part II is here)
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For its only by connecting with the world at large, learning from the world and sharing with the world that I and you will be able to make a genuine difference to the world. This is my life’s purpose and I am really serious about this. Take care for now. Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time.
Originally published at https://kindlethemaster.com on February 13, 2020.
