Enlightenment

Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.

                                                                      Adyashanti

Who knows

Maybe you're not a Highly Sensitive Person, maybe you're a neurotic person.

Maybe you're not laid back and relaxed, maybe you're just lazy.

Maybe you're not outspoken and straightforward, maybe you're an asshole.

Maybe you're not awake, maybe you're a space cadet.

Maybe you're not neurotic, maybe you're a Highly Sensitive Person. 
Maybe you're not lazy, maybe you're not an asshole, 
maybe you're not a space cadet.
Nobody knows, not even you.

Know thyself

To get to know yourself, you need to observe yourself. You need to observe yourself in action, closely. Your explanations, rationalizations and ideas about yourself are uninteresting. It's when you do something that you have a chance to catch a glimpse of yourself, when you refuse to call her back, when you suddenly decide to go to the pub, when you stuff yourself with pancakes, etc.

To make friends with oneself can be very unpleasant. It can be like trying to make friends with a pisshead on a park bench, a priggish little jerk in a lunch room or a just a common fool... 

You think that you're sensible, but you're not. The sensible part of you is just a part of you. You are not just one person. You consist of several personalities, much like a small family business that is run by a family.

Hello!

How are you?

What's wrong with you?

Haven't you received your diagnosis yet, and a prescription?

Who are you?

What do you think?

Who are you, really, ultimately?

Electron swarms and quarks?

And what is an electron?

A particle or a wave?

A particle or a wave in what?

What is matter, really?

Energy? Condensed radiation?
Isn't materialism an outdated notion?

What is the soul made of?

Fantasies, delusion, spirit?
How do you define the word soul?

What is consciousness made of?

Electromagnetic fields in brain tissue?

What is outside of our universe?

Where is the universe situated?

Why did all the questions arise in the universe?

 

Jump off the bandwagon

It is immoral to send Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan. It is also immoral to send back refugees from Yemen, Congo-Kinshasa, Libya and Syria. There are millions of people in the Middle East, Asia and Africa who are escaping religious terror.

Religions create terrible misery in the world. And it's not just Muslim extremists who are on the war path. Jewish fanatics fight for their Greater Israel and  the evangelical christians in the US voted for Trump. They want even better nuclear weapons because they want to be well prepared for the final battle.

The Muslim terrorists are often social misfits. But behind them are religious teachers and imams who have influenced their worldview. And behind the fanatic imams are powerful religious leaders in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. For decades they have spread their extrem form of islam across the world through religious schools and mosques. We can not criticize them. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are important trading partners and, moreover, religious beliefs are not something to be criticized.

But it is not just religious ideas that create problems in the world. Political ideas and ideologies can also make us mad. Both politics and religion can make us completely crazy.

We ought be many more, who clearly rejected solid beliefs. We ought to be many more who stopped following political and religious leaders. We ought to be many more who jumped off the bandwagon.

Worldviews

You are holding on to your worldview, 
like a two year old to a security blanket. 

Don’t be ashamed of your attachment. 
Have a tolerant approach.

Abrupt removal of the blanket is likely to backfire
and make the transition process take much longer. 

Identities

It's difficult for Jews and Palestinians to get along.

The same goes for sunni muslims and shia muslims,

right-wingers and left-wingers, born again christians and atheists,

religious fundamentalists and pluralists, bigots and liberals,

spiritualists and materialists, rich and poor, extroverts and introverts, 
educated and uneducated...

Our identities divide us.

But, what is an identity, really? What is it made of?

Ideas? Thoughts? Vivid imagination?

Identities seem so extremely solid and unshakable even though they're not.

Left-wingers can change and become right-wingers,

religious people can become atheists and an atheists can become religious. 

Nothing is written in stone.