What is Hope?

Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: “expect with confidence” and “to cherish a desire with anticipation.” It is an anticipatory emotion.
~ Wikipedia

And the dictionary definition:

a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen

For most people, hope can also be defined as “wishful thinking”. For many, hope is a wish or a desire for things to work out in the way they want them to work out. In other words, for the outcome to be favorable, and also comfortable. Psychological and emotional comfort for most people depends on life going as per their expectations. So hope for most people gets reduced to life going as per their desires, expectations, and wishes.

We can call this lower hope, meaning this is hope based in lower consciousness.

When hope is such that it is based on perceived external circumstances being favorable to your personal expectations, then depression is the natural result in a world such as ours. Because this world is not meant to please and fulfill your expectations. It may have very well been designed to do the opposite, some may surmise.

We hope for pleasure, fun, happiness, wins, success. We also hope not to be disappointed, not to fail, not to be wrong, not to be humiliated, rejected, betrayed, and a host of other things. In fact this is what we secretly hope for the most. Whether or not we get the positives, we most certainly do not wish to get the negatives. Many people would prefer stillness rather than a negative outcome. That stillness, dullness, deadness is what becomes a state of depression. An aversion to life. The end of risk, the end of disappointment, the end of hope.

Many times we delay disappointment with the hope of this disappointment never arriving. We postpone disappointment by making false promises and pleasing others, hoping that the inevitable moment of disappointment will somehow magically be averted. If it is to disappoint another, we start hoping for a miracle that will suddenly fix the problem or cause of disappointment. Perhaps we even secretly hope for the other to die or disappear so not to face that moment of disappointment and the confrontation that may follow. In the infamous words of George Costanza in the Seinfeld episode “The Invitations”: “I’d rather be unhappy for the rest of my life than go through something like that.” Our aversion to disappoint our self and others, is one of the greatest reasons for corrupt hope.

Osho says “Drop hope”. Lower hope is circular, it is a projection of incomplete past experiences into a future that never arrives. Drop the hope that lives in tomorrow. Live so intensely now that there is no need for a tomorrow.

There are wise ones who will tell you “Don’t lose hope!”. I prefer to listen to idiots like Osho and lose hope as soon as possible. Don’t just lose it, go kill it, swiftly and surely. So you may create space for …

A New Kind of Hope

Higher Hope, or Hope of consciousness, cannot be found while still having personal desire. Transcending personal desire is essential to accessing Hope. When we speak of personal desire, we mean the desires that arise from lower consciousness. Those desires that wish to satisfy the arbitrary and bizarre social-cultural norms.

A genuine desire for higher consciousness is not a personal desire because it necessitates the end of the “person”. A person that genuinely moves towards higher consciousness doesn’t desire the way people do when they live regular lives. That is the quality of higher consciousness, it literally changes how and what you desire.

But it is important to note that every higher aspect has a lower counterpart. Quoting a brilliant idea from The Matrix Resurrections: “This is what the Matrix does, it takes something important to us and makes it trivial.” Most people that profess a desire for higher consciousness nowadays have a lower version of it. They desire it so they may fit into the new trend of society, to look cool, to look woke, to satisfy the expectations of others. Most people who claim to pursue higher consciousness don’t have the slightest idea what that means, and have even less of what it takes to actually get there.

There is another version of hope which most people are unfamiliar with and may never even have heard of. Gurdjieff — who introduced the world to The Fourth Way, one of the most profound and effective methods for consciousness development — speaks about Holy Hope or Higher Hope, while also speaking of Holy Faith and Holy Love. He also terms these as Hope, Faith, and Love of Consciousness. His primary intention when speaking in this way is to distinguish it from the general ideas, beliefs, and experiences of everyday love, hope, and faith.

As per Gurdjieff:

Conscious love evokes the same in response.
Emotional love evokes the opposite.
Physical love depends on type and polarity.

Faith of consciousness is freedom.
Faith of feeling is slavery.
Faith of body is stupidity.

Hope of consciousness is strength.
Hope of feeling is cowardice.
Hope of body is disease.

What is Holy / Sacred / Higher Hope?

Genuine, pure, Hope is the search for a better world — a better inner world and a better outer world. And when we say it is “the search”, we must emphasize that searching is an active act that requires conscious movement. You cannot search for a better world while wistfully wishing for an utopia. You cannot do it while bingeing Netflix, or gossiping about random nonsense, nor while complaining about the sorry state of affairs.

Paraphrasing A. R. Orage, a student of Gurdjieff:

Conscious Hope is effort, not wish; an effort to make it so and not a wish that it may be so.

Hope must be grounded in reality, not in fantasies and beliefs

The search for a better world can only begin when you acknowledge the present reality and understand precisely what is dysfunctional and broken. Then you actively start looking for and materializing solutions. Yes, the search for a better world implies the active act of materializing that better world. Not just googling it or dreaming it and waiting for it to be created by “others”.

We must actively use our imagination and resources while staying grounded in the present reality if we are to Hopefully materialize a superconscious reality. The key for Hope is knowing how to transform the existing reality by blending it with evolved energies and gradually moving towards a higher, more conscious, reality.

“Hope of Consciousness gives strength” precisely because it requires one to use their power. Consequently, the more you use your power to materialize a better world, the stronger you become. But this power and strength is not the same as the power and strength celebrated by the mindless society. It is not a personal power or strength that one uses to dominate other beings. It is a power and strength that spreads to others empowering and strengthening the world around them.

Sacred Hope is in the present.
It is in the search. It is in the materialization of the ideas that appear while searching.
It is active.
It is acting.

A Personal Account

This content has come from a personal struggle with depression and the search for a way out. After many years of passive dreaming and many interspersed moments of active searching, it dawned on me that Hope was present while searching and materializing. And this dawn inspired me to awaken the Hope within. The deathly feeling of depression was eviscerated and the life within resurrected through actively Hoping.

The ideas presented above by Gurdjieff, Osho, Orage were only really understood when I myself arrived at this point. I had heard the same ideas in different forms before without actually understanding the real meaning of it. I believed I understood them but didn’t really until I was actually doing the real work of Hoping. There was only an intellectual understanding that didn’t have any “real” meaning until I was actually in the doing and being of Hope.

I thought of different ways of sharing this message. One possibility was to share my story, the way I perceived things, talking about the dread and misery and the practical details of coming to life. But I chose to share a refined message that delivers the point. Because no matter how it is said, the message will not get across to you until you have actually done the work and arrived at the point. And if I were to share my story there is a high chance you may think it was the way I did things that got me to where I am today. And then like most fools you may attempt to imitate my way of doing and being. But that again would be your false hope misleading you, which is where most of the self-help world is todayv(watch vodcast or read article about failure of Self-help). My path is mine and my circumstances are the least of what has contributed to my awakening.

The Void Between hope and Hope

Losing hope and becoming permanently hopeless is a common occurrence nowadays. And quite understandably so. If you are to look at the world we live in without filters that attempt to diminish the horrifying reality, there is no way to keep hope.

Unfortunately for most people, they land up in the dead space between hope and Hope. It is ultimately necessary to lose hope in order to awaken Hope. But most people never encounter the circumstances and teachers that could help them awaken Hope. Perhaps they don’t because they don’t have even the remotest unconscious desire to put the effort required to awaken Hope. In which case this entire message will do nothing for them. And this message is not intended for those who have no desire and intention to make the real required effort.

But if you do have the desire and intention, then this is not a message of hope. This is a factual piece of information that can be proven simply by you putting the effort to witness the evidence. Be sure to realize that this is not a promise for a better world. That is an inane and bizarre promise. It is the search and effort to materialize a better world that produces Hope. The better world may not be realized in your lifetime, or in any lifetime. But that is not the point or purpose of the article. Whatever reality we live in, it is lived better with Hope.

One of the intentions of this article is to kill any hope you have left. Your remaining lower hope. For you to drop the hope that lives in the outer world. When your hope lives outside you, when it depends on external circumstances and conditions, it becomes a toy for the forces of life to play with. And toys can be fun for a while, then they break, get fixed, break some more, get lost, get found, and eventually disappear, forever forgotten. hopefully, you replace this toy with something more concrete and permanent.

Only when hope dies may it be resurrected as Hope… Note that it must “be resurrected”. It is an act of will. Unlike hope which is given to you from the outside, Hope must be awakened by an active will from the inside.

What I chose to do was to plant a seed, which if you will and wish, can blossom and take you on the journey of the active search and materialization of Hope. This seed can be a light to help you through the dark passage between the world of hope and the world of Hope.

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