Message in a Bottle (The Obviousness of Infinity: An Ontological Inquiry)

I begin by providing a personal account of my life and thought processes leading up to and throughout my seeking years. Spurred in large part by the experience of losing my mother at a young age, this backdrop attempts to emphasize why I became so desperate to understand the fundamental nature of reality in the first place. The section following is a discussion of the "pros" and "cons" of enlightenment as it is defined in this work, and as such highlights key features of the enlightened state itself. One main objective of this "pros and cons" section is to illuminate what we (from the ego-identified standpoint) might consider the undesirable aspects of our true nature. It is our failure to acknowledge these aspects specifically that is perhaps the most common reason we do not see what is otherwise hidden in plain sight.

The sections thereafter entitled "Thought Experiments", "Pleasure and Pain", "Sexuality and Romance", "Free Will", "Absolute vs. Relative Purpose", and "Final Words: A Rehash" are mostly elaborations on the main theme of reaching the "end of knowledge" or "enlightenment". They guide the reader through lines of inquiry designed to deconstruct conventional perspective and default paradigms and to thereby reveal reality as starkly more open and infinite than previously imagined. They also try to describe fundamental principles of reality in so far as is possible.

Posing more questions than answers, I try to reveal how we can come to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that we can't actually know (and never will be able to know) that which we seek to know. The goal is to lay to rest the intellect once and for all in its insatiable quest for (ontological) knowledge, by revealing its fundamental inability to obtain that which it seeks. Knowing that you don't know (and can't know) is the key.

I am grateful to the many authors before me that have helped pave the way to wisdom, and as an attempt to give back to the community of seekers and readers who come after me I offer this work. May you benefit from this effort, and be blessed with happiness and clarity throughout your years.