The Mighty Master

In the beginning, was the suffering, the world was created and we wandered in it innocently. The suffering grew, and we lived in it hoping. The suffering dominates, and we are still expecting!

There was suffering before all things. Gods created the world, created the earth, created all living beings, and they gave them all the suffering and told them: “What we gave you for free, you, in turn, should give for free”.

Thus it all started and thus it continues!

And there was Creation, to multiply and subsist.

With creation, woman’s entrails are torn apart and babies are tearing themselves away from the warmth of their mothers’ wombs. She struggles and runs herself out to deliver them to a world she already learned to hate and they tense their bodies up and endeavor to throw themselves in the arms of a world they will later learn to hate. As if suffering, the Mighty Master, from the first moments, wants to show us his colors, to make us hear his roar, and to impose on us his dominance. As if the Master is telling us: “I am the only path. All things and beings are here to serve my design, quench my thirst and fulfill my desires.”

Blessed are those not yet born! In their inexistence lies their bliss.

Cursed are the riders of life! In their existence lies their misfortune.

And there was Eating and Drinking, to live and continue.

With them, started the fear of thirst and hunger and the strife to defeat the ensued suffering. A suffering that pushes us to ease it with another suffering: the baby cries asking for nourishment and the parents rise on the sounds of alarms and march in the cold and rain, in the heat and traffic jams, looking for their kids’ deliverance and their own. After one hour of crying and one day of labor, the loaf arrives soaked with tears and drenched with bitterness. We eat and we drink, then to our beds, we go.

Blessed are the affluent! In their wealth lies their peace.

Cursed are the needy! In their labor lies their struggle.

And there was Sleep, to rest and self-preserve.

With sleep, comes an attempt to forget the sufferings of the day past and to think of the suffering of the day to come. After a little forgetting and a lot of thinking, sleep takes us towards the illusion of a world devoid of suffering. A few seconds, in our sleep, sometimes with our eyes open, are sufficient for the Master to give us a glimpse of all the beautiful things that we can aspire to and all the ugly things that we can avoid if we work hard enough. We call the former, dreams and the latter, nightmares; they are the first big allies of the Master. We wake up the next day, determined to continue the effort to fulfill that promise. We are sure that if we want, we can; we saw it in our dreams. But, really, where are these promises except in our dreams? Aren’t they just a delusional drug for our brains, so we can march on, firmly, with the disciples of the Master, towards some improbable goals and sure suffering? Dreams are the engine; the Master is the operator. They are the bait; he is the sweat and tears collector. They are the juicy meat and the tasty cake; he is the indigestion!

Let us prohibit our dreams from manipulating our decisions, channeling our energies, and imposing their will on the content and pace of our lives. Let us not follow them on the paths of futile hopes! Let us keep our dreams as dreams! And if we succeed in doing that, then we will win our first battle against the Master.

Blessed are the dreamless! In their lucidity lies their freedom.

Cursed are the dreamful! In their dreams lies their imprisonment.

“Only a few seconds of dreams while sleeping, I can do better than that to mobilize the masses and make them join the ranks of all those who are fighting for my glory!” said the Master with a smirk on his face.

And there was Love, the second big ally of the Master!

With love, comes sex, treason, jealousy, arguments, distance, separation, failures, and despair. Love is surely the most fatal ally of the Master. It transforms few seconds of dreams during the night, into days, months and sometimes years of awaken delirium. With love, comes the feeling that mystifies people's brains, and makes the impossible possible, and the improbable probable. With love, every pain, chagrin, and sorrow becomes acceptable for love and in the name of love, but in reality to fulfill the design of the Master.

Blessed are the indifferent! In their indifference lies their emancipation.

Cursed are the passionate! In their passion lies their slavery.

And, of course, there was Friendship. A pale and a superficial word!

A concept deprived of real depth, empty of important meaning, lacking substance and authenticity, and despised by the Master! He only gave it a whiff from his soul and few drops from his venom. There is no suffering before, during, or after friendship. Suffering caused by friendship is pure foolishness in the eyes of the real sufferers.

Blessed are the friendless! In their aloneness lies their wisdom.

Cursed are the befriended! In their relations lies their foolishness.

And there was Pleasure. We eat, we drink, we get drunk, we talk, we laugh, we fornicate, and we fornicate some more!

We drink until we collapse and we make love until we hurt. We do all this to escape from our painful reality. We indulge in pleasures to avoid suffering; only to discover another facet of the latter. We ride pleasure to get away from the Master; then pleasure leads us to his stables. We use pleasure as a shelter from suffering, just to realize that it is nothing more than a trench leading to more violent sufferings.

In this state of ecstasy and lust, we dream of future more joyful days, and at this exact moment, our bitter defeat against the Master crystalizes. Drink, eat, sing, smoke, fornicate, … these are all victories for this hypocrite. Your pleasures are prostitutes in his palaces, and you are his valuable customers.

Blessed are the abstinent! In their abstinence lies their clairvoyance.

Cursed are the epicureans! In their voluptuousness lies their blindness.

And there was consciousness and conscience. The mean couple!

The consciousness of the difficult present, the unchangeable past, and the uncertain future! With consciousness, comes the truncated understanding of oneself and the other, the partial knowledge of the truth and the lies, the realization of our ignorance, the discovery of the unbridgeable gaps between people, and the revelation of our inability to change anything. Long ago, "consciousness" mated with "conscience" to give birth to the famous twin, Good and Evil, and their relentless little sister Guilt. Guilt was fed and developed, by her parents and her twin brothers, into the top agent of the Master. Many more loyal agents (right and wrong, reasonable and unreasonable, allowed and prohibited, rational and irrational, …) of the Master were born out of this fertile union. Led by the twins and their sister Guilt, they perpetually take hold of our souls and continuously invade our brains.

Blessed are the unconscious! In their unconsciousness lies their peace of mind.

Cursed are the conscious! In their consciousness lies their anxiety.

And there was Power. Always working harder, longer, and more to acquire more power, at all levels (spiritual, material, intellectual, and physical), and at any cost.

Sweat, tears, blood are all cheap change compared to the currency of power. Treachery, deceit and cunning are the means that justify the end. But, in our quest for more power, we always forget that the Master is the means and the end. So who is fooling whom here? And who is winning over whom?

Blessed are the immune to power! In their immunity lies the starving of the Master.

Cursed are the power-hungry! In their hunger lies the greed of the monster

“To live in suffering without an ultimate purpose or a sublime reward, even the imbeciles would abandon. Abandonment doesn’t play in my favor!” said the Master. “I need to find an antidote for despair, as this feeling impedes people from serving me. There needs to be some emotional and intellectual motivation, which incents the masses to carry on, to push forward, to strive and to suffer.”

So, there was the third and surely the biggest ally of the Master: Faith!

The faith in a better tomorrow, in an unimportant present and an eternal future! The faith in a wonderful beyond full of hope and bliss! With faith, came the pathological and much stronger form of faith in faith itself, faith2!

When faith gets you, then the Master knows that you are his, forever. You can be whipped for hours, carry your cross up a mountain, be nailed on it, be given vinegar to quench your thirst, watch your beloved suffering from watching you being tortured, be harpooned with a spear, bleed all your blood, and finally die on that cross, all this suffering to preserve your loyalty to your faith. Faith, what an ally! The masterstroke of the Master!

Blessed are the atheists! In their atheism develops their intelligence.

Cursed are the believers! In their faith prospers their stupidity.

Boastful and satisfied, the Master was contemplating his preys and slaves.

Despising all these creatures, he was waddling on their bodies and their souls doped by dreams, energized by love, invaded by pleasure, aching from consciousness and guilt, drugged by faith and hope. Mocking the scholars, encouraging the ignorant, counseling the believers, and enslaving the free, the Master told life defiantly: “I am the beginning, the means and the end, and you are here to serve my purpose”. On hearing these words, life uttered a loud and frank laughter and turned her back to the Master, so this latter can meet his own Master …

Blessed are the dead! In their graves they find their rest.

Cursed are the livings! In their lives, they cannot escape from their Mighty Master.