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

This book marks the culmination of a decade-long inquiry into Truth. After years of a nearly obsessive desire to understand the true nature of consciousness and reality, Elias finally arrived at the "end of knowledge" and considers himself "enlightened". This book is his attempt to share his experience and aide you in your pursuit as well.

The book begins with a personal account of the author's life and thought processes leading up to and throughout his seeking years. Spurred in large part by the experience of losing a parent at a young age, this backdrop attempts to emphasize some underlying reasons behind the desperation to understand reality. 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 obvious and unhidden.

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.

Posing more questions than answers, this work attempts 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. Let us satisfy and lay to rest the intellect once and for all in its quest for ontological knowledge by revealing its fundamental inability to obtain that which it seeks.

After spending years trying to figure out life, death, God, Satan, the Devil, heaven, hell, suffering, Buddha, Krishna, Christ, love, sex, dreams, eternity, infinity, samsara, nirvana, mind, matter, energy... and just about everything else of the sort I could possibly get my hands on... I finally reached the 'end of the line'. At 29 years old I realized directly and undeniably that knowledge of the type I sought is fundamentally impossible. With this I also realized in the most complete sense that there is no such thing as a permanent 'ego' or 'self' as I'd always previously assumed by convention.

Having experienced these strange and wonderful but somewhat terrifying realizations about the underlying nature of mind and reality, I felt compelled to share. While books of this kind cannot communicate what is incommunicable (of course), they certainly can help one lay the intellect to rest (or at least, such was my own experience). They can help show that ontological knowing according to any conceptual framework whatsoever is in fact fundamentally impossible, and that ego (or 'self') is really just an ever-changing, never-fixed construct of mental phenomena. Hence the book, "Message in a Bottle: The Obviousness of Infinity: An Ontological Inquiry", my feeble attempt to offer what I've learned (or unlearned, I might say) to anyone who similarly seeks 'the end of seeking'.

I also like to write fiction (particularly short stories), and generally tend to blend elements of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and the supernatural. My first release is the short story collection "The Wispy Woodsy Willows and Other Strange Stories". I hope you enjoy!