thoughts

[LearnedStudent]

This song seems to be about finding religion, or at least a belief system. Maynard uses it to express his beliefs, which seem to be a mixture of Buddhism and some other ideas.

At the beginning, he views himself as near death, or soulless because of his self-indulgent lifestyle. "Peace within the emptiness" is an obvious reference to Buddhism, whose core belief is that everything is empty of intrinsic value. In other words the only "light" within us, comes from other sources, which Maynard realizes while looking at the moon. At the beginning, Maynard considers these beliefs pitiful, but by the end, he has found his salvation within them. He realizes he must take himself out of his current environment and change his lifestyle. He doesn't want to "pine away," or have to keep looking for salvation forever.

He combines these beliefs with collective consciousness. Maynard believes that if we are truly one mind, then anything could be possible. In the end, he hopes he can communicate this message to others to save them as well.

[LearnedStudent]

super-chimps come to the rescue
when none is needed
life is not something that is lived
it is the memory of a dream
that makes it infinite

[Yiakovos]

Originally posted by LearnedStudent
This song seems to be about finding religion, or at least a belief system. Maynard uses it to express his beliefs, which seem to be a mixture of Buddhism and some other ideas.


Maynard actually is opposed to ideas presented in a dogmatic fashion. I, and many others, think he is talking about all that people know is taught to them, and we can seek our own view of things by looking within.

[Reverus]

i think that people use the maynard believes nothing, or promotes a lack of belief much too often when they see things like that comment about budhism. I say that it is a NECESSITY to believe something or you will never get anywhere...

It is only good to believe in nothing temporarily when analyzing a new frame of reference to find if it has uses or usefull parts in the construction of our own perception of reality.

^
|
Ya see...if you can't shake your core beliefs/truths then you will always be scewed when you come into contact with a new explaination/frame of mind/idea....

BUT if you believe in notihing then you are truly not functioning on any level thus you make no progress spiritually...you only grow older with a closed and empty mind.

R E V E R U S

[Yiakovos]

Temporary belief systems i understand. I believe in science, but not really because I always inquire as far as possible into scientific theories because they can always be proven wrong. Therefore, by not believing anything I have an open mind, not a closed and empty mind.

[Anima]

If one looks to the past for insight to the future, one might recall the Temple at Delphi where the ancients consulted the Oracle of Delphi for insights of the mind and soul, of the past, present and future.

Carved on this Temple was a simple message. "Know Thyself"; a concept that has evaded mankind since the dawn of existence. At one point in our lives, we have all asked "who am I?"

Humanity has always answered this question through faith. Religion has always been man's comfort; it has always reassured him that he is not alone, and exists for a purpose.

Belief and religion is not bad in itself. It is when the leaders of religious factions/orders use their status for their own benefit, which will always happen if someone is given a position of power, that faith becomes amoral.

I think Maynard draws a bit of philosophy from several religious beliefs, from Buddhism to Wicca, not to mention astrology (it is a faith/science in itself) and kabbalistic beliefs, a sort of collaboration of several belief systems actually. Almost what Crowley wanted to achieve on a smaller scale. Maynard also makes reference to realizing "we are all one mind" which is probably referring to the Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious.

The moon gets its light from the sun. Maynard gets his light from his fans. friends and family, and on the spiritual level, from his religious interests. The "emptiness" might refer to a lack of fulfilment we all feel when we first ask the question "who am I?" and find no immediate reply and he doesn't want to pine away into the hopelessness of never knowing who he is or what his greater purpose is.

This can be applied to the same feeling we all have early in life. But as Maynard finds himself in song, he realizes that he, and mankind itself, is capable and destined for great things. To achieve this great destiny however, mankind has to finds itself as well. This cannot be achieved through isolationism and nationalism that dominates the world. We must view ourselves as all the same, all one mind. Communication is a necessity if we are to reach a higher plane of existence.

But, I really doubt Maynard ever wants us to know what he felt about the lyrics he wrote. He would want us to form our own opinion on them (and hey, look, we're doing just that) and use them to further develop our personality and spirituality and grow as a person.

[Animus]

Well spoken. "We are all one mind" is something i myself believe in a great deal. I find a great deal of truth in many of his writings, especially where he refutes the materialistic 'science' of psychology, and acknowledges that not everything is scientific, and there are great spiritual dimmensions to things.

Of course he also gave us the terms anima and animus :)

Jung is very present in AEnima, so it's not surprising that his concepts appear also in Lateralus. To me, most of Reflection is talking about very jungian ideas, "crucify the ego" seems to be about Jung's 'individuation'. This is the process by which a person makes conscious all of his unconscious, and therefore integrates the two realms of his mind into one. This is Jung's idea of the fully developed person. Reflection i think is the most openly searching song, it's a quest to find out who one really is, and then realize the specatular things we are as humans and can achieve as humans. (Spiritual things.)

The bit about the moon is interesting.. i never thought about it in detail before. But you're right, the moon doesn't light up by itself. But it's "as full and bright as i am", meaning i suppose that one's light doesn't come from oneself either. "a million light reflections"... does a person's light come from the collective? That certainly is Jungian, since he contended that there were a few basic 'archetypes' in the collective unconscious that give birth to each unique personality. Together we can create a tremendous light perhaps, if we all realise the collective and tap into it. It requires a giving up of self, a crucifiction of our egos. I think.

[Anima]

Well spoken yourself. Yes, if we all operated as one mind, the light, the power of the human spirit united and purified as one would be blindly powerful. We are each a part of each other, and give each other light. Man feeds off his surroundings, and mostly off those that surround himself.

Say a person was isolated, he would lack a defined personality, because in his lack of communication with other humans, he cannot find and define himself. His light dims.
We are all like moons in our own right, feeding off each others light, and off the light of greater forces. And yes, we must shed light to our own submitted unconscious and bring it to the conscious state.

What humanity needs to do is unite in thought and form. We must all find ourselves, and in doing so discover our link, our bond to each other. I am not saying we all must agree, for sometimes we even disagree with ourselves, but we must come to realize we are all one and are bonded by a tie that prevails time itself. Until we do this, a higher level that will ultimately lead to the collective unconscious being fully born will never be reached.