High Hopes

This song is about the difference between our human experience and our true nature, to which we will be returning as one being very soon.

"Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young In a world of magnets and miracles Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary The ringing of the division bell had begun"

When we were children, we were still very close to our true nature, which is our conscious experience, in which we are guided magnetically (literally). We still have access to our conscious experience, but as soon as thoughts entered our minds when we were children, and we were taught concepts and ideas about our reality, they started to replace our true reality with an artificial one: a reality that only exists in the mind.

This is "the ringing of the division bell". It's our world of duality. Yin and Yang. Everything has a counterpart in this divided world. However, in reality, we never have been separated from one another, except for in the mind only. When we were babies, we experienced everything as one, but this was (temporarily) undone by everything we have been taught to believe in.

"There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps Running before times took our dreams away Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground To a life consumed by slow decay"

The illusion of time is what is keeping us all captive. We truly have become "slaves of the clock". But time is only a human invention, based on the rotations of our solar system, while our whole solar system is a projection of light- and soundwaves to begin with. So we are all being held captive by an illusion that only we ourselves hold onto: mental slavery.

The "myriad small creatures" are all the petty, daily trivialities that we keep ourselves busy with, and that distract us from what we really are. Succumbing to the trance of our illusory world, our collective soul - split up in the mirror images that we are as humans - keeps running in circles, and sentences us to a life "consumed by slow decay", because we will never break out of the karmic life for as long as we keep believing in our illusory world. Also see "Wish you were here" for vivid symbolism about this predicament.

"The grass was greener The light was brighter When friends surrounded The nights of wonder"

When we break out of the illusion of separation, our collective soul will reunite again, the way it once was before our division became reality. This is what is known as "paradise".

"Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again Dragged by the force of some sleeping tide At a higher altitude with flag unfurled We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world"

We can never go back. Our physical reality is a running program that evolves, no matter what we do, simply because we are not in control. Life is in control. As individuals, we can only be consciously aware of what is going on, but we will always be guided to do whatever it is we do, no matter what thoughts may arise about those actions. There is only one outcome in reality, but there are many different illusory outcomes within our thought structures.

The "glowing embers" are a reference to what is going to happen to this world and our human forms. It will most likely be destroyed in nuclear warfare that will have its center in the Middle-East (the United States are already well on their way with this). Armageddon it is.

But this is a good thing, because it's part of the program. This world has turned into a disaster. Everything's torn apart. Individualism is all-pervasive and unity will never come about by playing the game of this world. We all have been able to witness that the game of this world only leads to greed, poverty, war, murder, crime, disease, abuse. In short: sin. And quite a bit of it. Nevertheless, we are in love with this world ("how green it was on the other side"), but still we have to burn this bridge to evolve.

All this while, we have been taking steps forward, but also reverting to many mistakes. This is all part of our inner tide, that is guiding us through life. The moon (which is also responsible for real-life tides) seems to play a big part in our mind-dominated world. References to the moon are recurring in Pink Floyd's music, but none so much as in "Dark Side of the Moon". Check out "Brain Damage" for revealing clues about our current path as humanity, and Syd Barret's visionary prophecy.

Despite all of this, we will reach the heights of our dreamed of world. This is the huge change in consciousness that is already happening around the world. People are awaking from the dream, and becoming more conscious with every turn of our solar system. This is at "a higher altitude", because we will then have shed our "human skin", and collectively ascended as the higher beings that we really are. This is the unification that is our next step in evolution.

"Encumbered forever by desire and ambition There's a hunger still unsatisfied Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon Though down this road we've been so many times"

We have now been given a glimpse of our next stage as one united being, but as long as we individually keep being "encumbered by desire and ambition", we will only perpetuate this fool's game. We will keep trying to satisfy a hunger that cannot be satisfied. Eventually, all of us get worn out by the game of life, that can never be won by playing it. We should know this, because we've been "down this road so many times". This is because you and I are not separate from any other human being that ever lived, now lives, or yet has to live. We are constantly re-spawned in this karmic game, and all of us have to begin over and over again, learning everything we have learned, and then unlearning everything we ever learned to evolve into higher, spiritual beings.

The game of life is the endless river. But we will transcend the game altogether, and reach the other side.