What is the Underworld?
The concept of an underworld exists throughout mythology and is featured greatly in both Egyptian and Greek mythology.
An underworld is a world that is underneath this world. This world then is on top of the underworld. In both Egyptian and Greek mythology, when someone dies they go to the underworld. To be clear, in this modern time the underworld is associated with hell; but this was not always the case. The underworld featured in mythology is not necessarily a hell, although it is often implied to be literally or metaphorically underground.
On the other hand, ‘heaven’ is associated with being above this world, and the imagery associated with which is castles in the clouds and angels with wings. Clearly the symbolism is an overworld, based in the sky. That gives us the concept of three places: underground (underworld/hell), on the surface (Earth), and in the sky (overworld/heaven.) The implication is that it’s better to be on a higher level. These metaphors are easy to understand, but what does it truly mean?
What is the Underworld?
In these modern times we can see the concept of the underworld physically existing with our very eyes, but few people have made the connection. There is a world of wires, pipes and sewers that literally exist beneath our feet and are the backbone of the world we live in. But they are hidden from view. These wires, pipes and sewers are hidden away in the walls and underground, out of sight. Yet they exist and this world of houses, roads and cities wouldn’t be able to function without them. As long as the infrastructure is functioning we are, like Osiris, deliberately ignorant of it, and only when it goes wrong do we pay it any attention.
The underworld is the foundation upon which this world is built. You cannot have a functioning bathroom without some form of sewer beneath it, but there is no sign of this sewer from the bathroom itself. You know that it’s there, but by design it is hidden from you. Whatever is flushed down the toilet or drain seemingly disappears, as if by magic, but it does go somewhere. The same is true in the physics of this physical world, there will be something underneath it which makes up the infrastructure of it, something that causes gravity, matter and energy, which we cannot see but we know it must be there.
The paperwork world is also an underworld. There is an entire world of paperwork that exists in parallel to the physical world. I have in my possession a paper document called a passport, which has a name; not even the same name that I am called by my friends and family in the real world; it’s the passport’s name. That passport then possesses other papers, such as licenses and bank accounts and credit cards (and a barony.) I don’t possess these things, they exist in the paperwork world only and are owned by the passport — which is itself property of the government. If I were to lose all of my documentation, all of the paperwork, then I’d entirely lose connection to this paperwork world. I would no longer be in that world and thereby unable to interact with it. I would be able to interact with other people and the physical world just fine, but I would not be able to interact with any of the bridges in-between the two worlds, such as immigration or ATMs.
When a human being is born a birth certificate is issued, which is then used to get a passport, driving license, bank account, etc. None of this is directly connected to the human being except by claim. The person has to say “this is my passport”, “this is my birth certificate”, they choose to be a part of that world. There is no concept of nationality; a nationality is just the organization which owns the paperwork associated with that person. It’s a parallel universe; an underworld. It’s not that all of this stuff doesn’t exist in reality, but it exists in a parallel reality, a reality of signs and symbols printed onto sheets of paper or on the screens of computers. You are not signs and symbols; you are not a paper document, and as long as you believe you are then you are owned by issuer of those documents.
The paperwork version of you is a commodity; it a product that works for the paperwork system and is a possession of the paperwork gods, those that issue the paperwork. The ‘paperwork you’ cannot escape from this system because it only exists within that system. But the real you does not have to play that game. Do not believe that you are a piece of paper; you possess it, it does not possess you.
So we live already in the underworld. The underworld is physically here, as is the overworld. All of these worlds physically exist in parallel. In heaven food grows on trees and water falls from the sky, that’s this place. And in hell everything is a competition, you are slave to the system and you cannot do anything without it being allowed/approved by the paperwork gatekeepers such as governments and banks. That’s also this place.
There are levels and levels and levels of worlds built on top of each other, all existing here and now. For example, computer hardware is built on physics, software is built on the hardware, and then finally you get to the interface (screen and keyboard), which then interfaces with you and affects you, you then interface with other people. When you type on the computer the keyboard interfaces with the software, which interfaces with the hardware, which interfaces with electrons, and them with whatever world is below that, and so on. Each world is another layer on top of another. All of them are here and now.
These are all games. All simulations. All realities. All underworlds. Each world is built on top of the world beneath it, in the same way that buildings are made of bricks, and cities are made of buildings. But the best level, the best game: that’s the one that was already here long before us. The world of the sea, the wind, the sky, the world that is always right in front of you but you ignore in favor of the manmade world of signs and symbols written on paper and screen.
Don’t believe the lie; you are not a piece of paper.
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