Everything I Know About Life I Learned from Super Mario.

Many of us that grew up through the 80s had the great fortune of being able to spend hours with an NES and a little Italian plumber that was apparently into psychedelics, named Mario. I spent a sum total of at least a year of my life, living through this two dimensional little guy in a strange and magical world. It was such fun and the point was only to play, although it was just as much fun to forget that and take it super seriously and play with a Wolf of Wall Street level intensity. I could get so upset and frustrated at difficulties and was certainly not above pressing the reset button- a lesson that did not translate well into adulthood, still haven't found the real life reset button and there have been times I've looked. The closest I have found are mushrooms- coincidence? That is not why I have brought up the NES classic Super Mario Bros however. The reason that I have mentioned Mario, is that I have found it a wonderful analogy for explaining the illusion of individual existence and individuality- and it's necessity.

Picture Super Mario Bros and Mario moving to the right through the game. Now imagine Mario has sensations through his pixelated sense organs, also imagine Mario has memory, and a sensation/feeling/thought known as "I am." Mario given that input has every reason to think and believe "he" (I am) exists in the game. "He is" (I am) an individual, according to that input, with a beginning and an end, and there are angry mushroom creatures and freaky turtles- some throwing hammers- that want to bring about that end. Stuff just got real for Mario!

Now imagine further, that by giving Mario all these sensations/feelings/thoughts, we have also relinquished control. We no longer are holding the paddle, no more A or B button. However the only way to do that and still be able to experience the game through Mario, is to hop on inside as an observer, and go along for the ride. Plugged in completely, not just with our eyes, but through all of the sensations Mario experiences, including his sense of individuality and existence- and by accepting that, our reality and existence as the external player must be, and is forgotten and we are invested fully. We can only experience the game through one perspective at a time. We can only experience Mario by fully committing to Mario. We cannot experience Mario and a mushroom simultaneously even though we certainly are Mario and a mushroom simultaneously. (Side analogy during this analogy- on a TV set all channels are available simultaneously, all are existing simultaneously, and only one comes through at a time by necessity. If all were to be experienced together it would be an overwhelming blur of indecipherable white noise.)

Back to the Mario analogy. Now we are fully committed, completely convinced we are Mario and fully stimulated through the game. We reach a certain tube, go down, and are transported to a new warp zone. We jump down that tube and meet a new Toadstool like guy with a mushroom head who tells us, "Guess what, you and I are the same. So is the warp zone, the turtles, the mushrooms, all of it. It is all one and it is a game. None of it exists separately and individually. Nothing comes into existence or disappears from existence, it is all the ever changing dance of energy far below the sensations of experience."

Fully invested in the game as experienced through Mario, identifying with Mario, that bit of truth from the Toadstool guy is going to seem completely crazy, impossible, and possibly dangerous. You'd very likely reject it outright and yet shifting back to the perspective of the paddle holding video game player looking at the screen, its all the same electronic coding. No one took an external Mario from somewhere else and put him in there. He isn't independent from the same code that makes the tubes and mushrooms, or even the sound effects- its all the same stuff, just expressed differently with the appearance of individuality.

Without the voluntary limits of the sense organs and the illusion of individuality there would just be indecipherable white noise, not a very captivating game. In fact, no possible experience could be had at all. How does a knife cut itself? How does an eye see itself? How does a mouth eat itself? Without limitations and the illusion of others, whether real or imagined, experiencing anything is impossible. Individuality and others are both necessary illusions for reality to exist, but they are just illusions, no different than a magician's trick. Having been a magician most of my life, I understand the necessity of illusions to be impenetrable to not just be effective, but to exist at all. The object is floating mysteriously, it's an awe inspiring illusion- but one glimpse of a support or thread and instantly the entire illusion is shattered and will never be seen in the same way again. It may be appreciated from the new perspective though having peeked behind the curtain, that would be akin to the perspective held by those enlightened masters, mystics, bodhisattvas, and more. And once this is understood, one can still slip back into superficial identification with the avatar and the pull of the dramatic- however the game becomes lighter, in the midst of the challenges there are reminders to take it less seriously, it's a game after all.

All is one and you are an avatar of that one playing a game that cannot be played without first forgetting that is what is going on.