Saturday, May 31, 2008


I am never really here in the present moment. I am always somewhere else. In all my free time I’m almost always lost in a book. I can’t eat alone without reading something. I can’t even take a shit without reading. If I’m not reading I’m probably lost in computer land or some fantasy or the other, far, far away, high up in the stratosphere somewhere.

I have read Eckhart Tolle thoroughly, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and a number of books on mindfulness and Buddhism. I doubt that many people, who are not scholars, have read as many books on psychology, meditation and philosophy as I have. (I have of course read tons of other books as well.) I am like that cook who has read all the cookbooks in the world, but never cooks anything. If he is hungry he has a hamburger or a pizza.

Well, I’ve been listening to a lot of different mindfulness training programs on CDs, I have taken meditation classes and I have been to weekend retreats, but still, I am never really present here and now.

During my morning walks through the park, on my way to work, I always try to practice being “here and now”. I intentionally try to be here where I am, to be aware of my walk, in the now. But it is only for very short moments, maybe for a few seconds or so, that I manage to stay aware. Of course I know very well that this is how the mind works, but still, after years of practice?

*

There is nothing wrong with sitting meditation or Buddhism, but it is not for all people. I think it is for people of a special kind, with a special kind of personality. Some people like meditation, others don’t. Some people like running and physical exercise, others don’t. Some people simply love to hang around and do nothing, others freak out if they don’t have something to do.

This is what I have arrived at: There are many paths leading out from the forest. Everybody has to find their own way. But it is important to know though, that there are things that are common to us all. You can’t be a complete asshole and expect happiness as a result. You can’t lie too much to yourself and expect to find out something about the truth. You can’t bee to egoistic if you expect any progress on any spiritual path.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008




You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The ego is like an old dog. Jill Bolte Taylor had to have a brain hemorrhage to lose her ego. Something similar happened to Ram Dass. Eckhart Tolle had to be driven close to suicide before the ego lost its grip over him. There is such enormous power in ego. That is why we humans won’t ever change our evil ways. Words, books, seminars, weekend retreats, psychotherapy, years of meditation practice, nothing seems to do the trick. We will simply not change, even though it is possible. It is possible to give up smoking, and drinking; it is possible to change eating and thinking habits, but still, we won’t do it.

It is too difficult to break habits. So, stop trying to change anything, the world, your friends, your husband or yourself. Don’t try to be positive or realistic or optimistic. Do what you like or do what you don’t like. It makes no difference. Believe in whatever pleases you. I have given up the fight now. I have surrendered to an overwhelming enemy.

Some people speak in an affected way. They have an artificial dialect; like cultural snobs, politicians, religious fanatics, cool truck drivers or drug peddlers, just to mention a few varieties. They put on a show to impress others. They don’t speak with their own voice. They pretend that they are someone else. Their inner voices are most likely affected and artificial as well. Probably they have completely forgotten about their own true self.

Well, we have all been there. We are often forced to speak with another voice than our own? We have often to pretend that we are someone else in order to get away with something, stay out of trouble, or simply because we want things to run more smoothly. Sometimes we have to pretend that we are positive and optimistic, sometimes we have to pretend that we mourn. But after some years, if we completely have forgotten about our own true voice and our own true self, then what do we do?

How do we find a way back? Is there really a true voice in the head? Is there really a true self?

Is it not only after some kind of disaster that one begin to question things? Why should one question oneself if ones life is a success story? Maybe the catastrophes are blessings, necessary for us to wake up?

Sunday, May 25, 2008


Sometimes on my way home after work I stop at the pub to have a beer and a chat with some of my old friends. It is seldom very uplifting. They have as always been drinking and smoking pot all day so the communication is mostly of the one way kind, which means that I don’t say much. Well, I listen to their disconnected ramblings for a while, and then I go home.

Is this what it fees like, I think to myself, for an awakened man to talk with ordinary sleepwalkers?

*
Some are alcoholics or drug addicts. Some are completely hypnotized by some weird religion or ideology, like neo liberalism, neo Nazism, RaĆ«lism or Islamism. Some are racists, some are neurotics, or stressed out, or just out of it. Some suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, some are schizophrenics and some are health and fitness fanatics. The list could be made very long I guess. But how many of the earths population aren’t caught up in anything? How many people simply live their life without any particular ideas about it, without any activism for any particular cause, with no special goal, no agenda, no nothing? I think a lot of people do so. And I think that the only hope for the human species is that more people would get off whatever train they are on at the next station.

Saturday, May 24, 2008


Some people collect butterflies, some people collect stamps, and some people collect thoughts. Thought collectors always carry a small notebook to be able to quickly jot down interesting thoughts as they flutter by. Thought collecting is a weird hobby. What is the point with it? To eventually write a book filled with interesting thoughts and make some money? The whole thing is very sad. Isn’t it like trying to sell sand in the Sahara dessert?

Anyway, at some point in life most people realize that thoughts are not that important. The brain is constantly producing thoughts, like the kidneys are producing urine. But absolutely no one is collecting urine to show off.

Well, also many butterfly collectors eventually loose interest in collecting butterflies. What is the point with it really if one doesn’t have scientific reasons for it? It is possible to find butterfly collections in any museum of natural history. One can look at dead butterflies there. Or one can enjoy the living ones as they flutter by.

*

I don’t think that daydreaming is a bad thing. I think it is healthy. It is not possible and it is not necessary to always be in the “real” world. It is OK to be lost in dreamland every once in a while. The point is what kind of dreamland one is lost in. Is it a terrible place? Is it a dungeon where one is brooding on revenge, or is it a sexual fantasy where one is having a wonderful time? It is not possible and it is not necessary to, for example, be fully present when one is driving a car where the traffic is not to heavy. One can let the autopilot do the driving while one is listening to the radio and singing along with the music.

But, today many people live all their life in a virtual reality with almost no connection to the “real” world. This is a problem. Many kids today have absolutely no interest in the everyday reality. They shut everything out. Television, computer games, portable computer games, cell phones with computer games, iPod’s and all kind’s of technical appliances makes it possible be completely lost somewhere else. And the big problem is that it is not their own dream worlds they are lost in. It is someone else’s. Their own reality is a foreign land to them. Many people today can’t stand their own thinking, how they are, what they look like, what they are and how the world is functioning. It will be a long and hard way for them to reconnect even sporadically to their own reality.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Animals can’t create philosophies and religions, and they can’t smile. We, on the other hand, can certainly produce a lot of different philosophies and religions and we can produce a lot of different smiles.

Politicians have their special way of smiling when they want to look good on TV. Social workers have their kind of understanding and well meaning smiles, with the head bent a little. Many born again Christians produce an interesting holy looking kind of smile. Idiots have their idiotic smiles, car salesmen have their big Hollywood smiles and crooks have their nasty ones. Very cultivated and high born old ladies can smile wonderful smiles as they spread their sarcasms around.

Alcoholics have their special way of smiling. They produce a very stupid kind of smile. You can immediately see that someone is an alcoholic only by the way he smiles. Some people are not alcoholics but are filled with mendacities for other reasons. Their smiles are difficult to make out, but I have noticed that when they get older their weird smiles get more pronounced.

All this applies of course also to laughs. There are also many different ways of laughing. But not all smiles and laughs are false. There are also true smiles and true laughs, straight from the heart. These smiles and laughs are of a completely different quality. They originate from a completely different part of the brain.

There is also true religiosity, true spirituality and true philosophy. Not everything what people say (including one self) is false. And of course, there is a also a true self.
)
Some people are right-wingers and some are left-wingers. Some are devout Catholics, some are devout Muslims and some are Boston Red Sox fanatics. But some people are nothing special. They don't belong to any particular group. With such people I can feel at ease and be myself. In that group I can find friends wherever I go.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Many Germans explained after the second world war that they had never been aware of the concentration camps and what was going on there.

To buy stolen property in good faith is not as bad as if you know that it is stolen property.

It is better not to know. It is easier to be happy if you don't know what is going on.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

We are born somewhere and we will die somewhere. Life is about wandering about, like hens. Sometimes we bump into each other.

Trying to live a balanced life is like looking for something that doesn't exist.
It is extremely difficult to give up ones religion, ideas and political opinions. Not even when one finally gets totally convinced that the thoughts are crazy. Many devout Nazis had problems with that after the war. It is like giving up smoking. Some people are coughing blood and having serious difficulties with breathing but keeps on smoking anyway.

I am wrong. I have been completely wrong for many, many years. I am fooled and I am fooling myself. I am a complete idiot. That is a tough one to swallow.

This applies to all kind of ideas, beliefs and convictions: I am ugly. I have a huge ugly nose. I am no good. I am fuckin useless. Nobody loves me. Nobody wants me…

Or: I am very good and I am smart. I am from a good family, I have got an excellent upbringing and I sure look good. I have good genes. And above everything, I am rich. I am not like the Tom, Dick and Harry’s. That is why I am entitled to so much more than all the rest.

Or:Life is about competition. Life is for the strong. One has to fight like hell to reach the top. The only thing that really counts is money, you can’t deny that. The prettiest girls prefer the richest boys. All talk about equal rights and justice is just drivel. But religion is not something to look down upon. It is a perfect cover for your true ambitions.

All convictions are dangerous. Sometimes you are right, sometimes you are wrong, but you can never be completely sure when you are right and when you are wrong. Do not trust yourself. Do not trust your inner voice.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Earlier, many people used to think of New Age spirituality as mumbo jumbo. Now we can see that all ideas the mind come up with is mumbo jumbo; gobbledygook, misunderstandings, stupidities and madness.

Thousands of people was burned alive by the Catholic church during the witch hunts; hundreds of years of slave trade, the colonial robberies, the genocides in South and North America, the exploitation of fellow men and women in Europe, the communist reaction to the atrocities that soon turned in to new nightmares; and then came Fascism and Nazism; and when the cold war was beginning to get really hot in the early sixties, when the battle was about freedom and democracy against totalitarian communism, Afro Americans didn’t have many rights at all in America, not even the right to vote in a decent way. What kind of freedom and democracy where they really fighting for in those days?
And today’s fanatic neo liberalism that is completely ruining what is left of our beautiful little planet in the hysterical quest for more and more money.

All religions, ideologies, ideas and belief systems we come up with are madness. To realize this is the beginning of the waking up process.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008


Doing and being must be in balance. To constantly do things makes us crazy. We live in a culture where just being is looked down upon. To do nothing is almost a crime. We are not allowed to do nothing. (Hard work keeps us from sin.) If we have free time we have to fill it with something. Football, jogging, evening classes in pottery, yoga, almost anything will do as long as we do something. During our vacations we desperately have to do something really exiting, go somewhere, have a good time, travel around the world. No wonder we are crazy and our kids are stressed out. This is a serious problem. Human beings need a lot of time to do nothing, to just be. This is in our genes, in our true nature.

But to never do anything at all is not healthy either. To be unemployed, without any interests and no kids or other people to care for, will soon make one seriously depressed. One will find it incredible hard to even get out of bed in the morning. Everything becomes heavy, like trudging along in the mud in heavy rubber boots.

Our true nature is silly. People who are relaxed and among good friends will crack jokes, do silly things, sing and laugh.
But our true nature is also to be serious, very serious. What is right and what is wrong? What is the meaning with everything? Does some part of us live on after death? To ponder over questions like this is also in our nature. Sometimes we have to take life as a joke and sometimes we have to be deadly serious about it. We need both sides of the coin.

Everyone seems to know about this, but still, very few seem to be able to live a balanced life, at least in our modern cities. Why is that so?

*

Some people hide in a cloud of words, like octopuses hide in a cloud of ink. I have a friend like that. To sit down and chat with him is to drown in an avalanche of information’s he has picked up on the Internet.

*

The question is not if Georg Bush junior is a moron, if he is a crypto fascist, if he is just a rich boy who only cares for his family and his billionaire friends, or if he belongs to an secret organization with an hidden agenda to create a new world order. The question is why so many people voted for him. Why did so many people vote for Hitler? The majority sided with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Only a minority supported Robin Hood. Why do the majority of people, all over the world, always side with the bad guys? This is the question.

*

Many beliefs are just a cover. People pretend that they have certain beliefs just to please others. “Look what wonderful beliefs I have!” Such beliefs are not very interesting. Core beliefs on the other hand are extremely important. Core beliefs determine our actions. Should I stay or should I go? I am OK. I am a fucking idiot! We are all fucking idiots. It is OK with child labor in the third world if I can benefit from it. This is how the world is made. Should I take any action or should I not. Should I pay the price for the fair trade coffee or should I get a cheaper and better tasting unfair coffee? Are human beings essentially good, or are we egoistic monsters by birth? Are we cruel by nature? The only thing that really matters is my career. The only thing that really matters is money. Isn’t it, after all, better to cover nasty core beliefs with some pretty ideas?

*

How come so called “spiritual people” never mention the appalling injustices in the world? Are they only concerned about their own well being? Do they only care about themselves? They advocate the "First you have to help yourself, then you can begin to help others theory." Mostly they seem to get stuck in the "Help yourself" part. What kind of spirituality is that?

*

Is life a lottery or is it a contest? Some people win and most people loose. Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, some are clever and industrious, some have simply good luck. Some are born in terrible families where nothing really matters but drugs and alcohol. The winners seldom want to share their abundance with their fellow human beings. If they do it is mostly in form of charity to enhance their egos and what they give is mostly a tiny little fraction of what they have, the crumbs that are left on the floor. Sometimes they blame the unfortunate ones for being lazy or negative or not aligned to the source, sometimes they feel sorry for them, or they explain everything with the karma theory or Gods way to treat sinners. They come up with, like we all do, all kinds of explanations.

*

All this what I write here is nothing but words. Words originate from a group of cells in the left brain hemisphere. Words and explanations sometimes seems so very important but they are really just a fraction of a human being. I know this from before but I got it very clearly today after listening to Jill Bolte Taylor on Oprah.com. The right hemisphere of the brain has been totally ignored in our culture. I have ignored it all my life because I have been conditioned this way. This is wrong. I can see it clearly now. But the left brain hemisphere is also important. And even if the language center is small and often creates a lot of problems it has to be there, it serves a purpose. Without it we would be seriously handicapped.


(Crypto-fascism is the secret adherence of a party or group to the doctrines of fascism while attempting to disguise it as another political movement. It can also refer to an individual who admires or desires fascism, but keeps this admiration hidden to avoid social persecution or political suicide. The term is used in a similar fashion to crypto-Judaism or crypto-Christianity, referring to the secret practice of one faith while adhering to another religion publicly. From Wikipedia)

Saturday, May 10, 2008


I am not only my body and my thoughts. I am also the trees, the ground, the sky and the birds. I had a glimpse of that feeling yesterday morning when I was walking through the park on my way to work. I am not only an egotistical little human being, not only an egomaniac. I am also something far greater.

In the old days people complained about dreamers and told them they had to wake up to reality. Today we know that everyone is dreaming and that reality is just a word, a noun.

What is consciousness? Think of it. What does it really consist of?
And what are thoughts? Are they nothing but electric activity in brain cells? But what is electricity? Look it up somewhere? Try an encyclopedia or a textbook on physics. Ask someone. What the hell is electricity? What are electrons? Are they tiny little particles or are they some kind of waves that really consist of nothing, or are they both?
What is light, really? What are dreams? What is matter? What are we talking about when we talk about reality?

What are we? Misconceptions? Misunderstandings? Imaginations?

I know people that are wonderful, but who think of themselves as complete failures. And I have met truly mean and evil people that really think of themselves as wonderful.

Some people are very stuck up. When they get turned on by spirituality they can get amazingly stuck up. They begin to think of themselves as Gods. They begin love themselves, they begin to trust themselves, they begin to believe in themselves. You can see it in the way they carry themselves, the way they arrange their faces, holy, advanced, awakened. You can meet many western people of that kind in India.

If you have a right-wing bend, a right-wing conditioning, you will read the bible with your right-wing glasses on and find passages that confirm your beliefs. And the passages that don’t confirm your beliefs will be reinterpreted to your own liking. The same thing happens if you have a left-wing bend. This applies to everything. A right-wing professor in history, or biology or economics, will find only the truths that confirm his ideas about everything.
So how can one free oneself from conditioning, left-wing or right-wing, life is meaningless or life is about whatever conditioning. Is it possible? Is it possible to free oneself from habitual ways of thinking? Is it possible to free one from habits, eating habits, smoking habits, ways of looking at oneself and the world habits? I think so. At least for short moments. This is when you focus your attention on the now, or happens to focus on the now, on the present moment. Then the mind will automatically return back to the old way of being. But I believe that it is possible to extend those moments of non conditioning, by practice. I also believe that it is possible to completely leave the old thinking pattern behind. It is actually possible in any moment, but we forget about it. Over and over again.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Some people don’t like pickled herring. What’s wrong with them? Pickled herring is a delicacy.

Some people love Mc Donald’s hamburgers. How on earth is that possible? Mc Donald’s hamburgers are terrible. It’s not food. Are they really meant for eating?

Some people like chili peppers, others don’t. Some like tripe; others rather starve to death than eating shit like that. Some like to have sex with someone of the same sex, others think that homosexuality is revolting.

There are,in the same way, different ways to try to satisfy one’s spiritual needs. To some people Eckhart Tolle tell exactly what they want to hear, to others he is nothing but a wolf in a sheep’s clothing. To some people strenuous yoga and meditation practice is the solution; to others the idea of practicing mental and physical gymnastics in order to later attain a higher consciousness is ridiculous. To some people nobody but the Prophet Mohamed has all the answers.

To some people everything is very simple. If you are hungry and feel like having something, treat yourself with what you like. Have a sandwich with pickled herring and a beer or get yourself a Big Mac at Mc Donald’s. Go to church if you like or to the Mosque. Or stay away from organized religion and take a walk in a park instead. If you don’t like jogging, don’t jog! Don’t try to convince people who don’t like pickled herring that they are wrong. And, of course, don’t kill people just because they like tripe.

I had this realization last night. I have spent so much time trying to convince other people that they are wrong, that organized religion and ideologies is terrible and that Mc Donald’s hamburgers are uneatable. What a waste of time and energy.

But I’m not a relativist. Everybody is not right about everything. Some people simply love alcohol. I know people that have managed to stay drunk for decades. I love to share a bottle of wine with a good friend, but I know that if you drink a bottle of whiskey every day, not only you but also other people around you will suffer. That is a truth. Everybody knows that, except the drunkard.

Alcohol, religions and ideologies can cause immense sufferings. That is a truth. But religions, I understand now, can also be like sharing a bottle of wine with a good friend. Religions is not my cup of tea, but I can accept now that other people enjoy it.

Truth exists. And truth is not relative. There is a spiritual dimension. The problem with our culture is that most people seems to believe that only ego and the materialistic dimension is real. To complicate things many seriously materialistic people pretend that the spiritual dimension is important to them. We live in a greatly unbalanced culture.
But there is a spiritual dimension. That is also a truth ,a very important truth. Though many people don’t know about it.

Sunday, May 4, 2008


Worries and anxieties about meaningless things are not a big problem as long as they don’t completely overwhelm you. Unpleasant, yes, but they don’t kill you. They are a part of human life and should not be medicated. It is the same thing with selfishness. To be selfish is to some extent healthy. And it is not necessary to be 100% truthful about everything. Sometimes one has to add a little, sometimes one has to keep things to oneself. Problems begin when one is lying too much or if one is too selfish. Many people are extremely selfish and thundering liars. They lie to themselves as much as they lie to others. Their whole life is nothing but lies, self deceptions and mendacities. Some people are completely crazy abut money and power and stop at nothing to get it, but they hide it behind a mask of big warm smiles, Christianity and charity. That is a problem.

*

Why Hitler became such an evil man is really not that interesting. Did he have a terrible childhood, did he suffer from syphilis, was he maybe possessed by an evil spirit, was he a victim of circumstances and his time in history? These are uninteresting questions. What is interesting is why so many people came to love him so madly. Professors, priests, office clerks, farmers, workers, everybody was shouting hysterically at the mass rallies. Many women who met him personally has testified that they where trembling with excitement when he looked at them. “Oh, Hitler! I love you so.”
It is hard for us today, when we look at old newsreels, to understand what people saw in him. To us he looks like nothing but a yelling and shouting little crackpot.

*

What difference does it make if the world was created 6000 years ago or 15 billion years ago? Is that something to argue about? Maybe it was created 300 billion years ago. So what? How we live our life here and now is, as I see it, so much more important.


The Great Scandal: Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazis
by Gregory S. Paul

The following is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 4.

“You know what happens when atheists take over—remember Nazi Germany?” Many Christians point to Nazism, alongside Stalinism, to illustrate the perils of atheism in power.1 At the other extreme, some authors paint the Vatican as Hitler’s eager ally. Meanwhile, the Nazis are generally portrayed as using terror to bend a modern civilization to their agenda; yet we recognize that Hitler was initially popular. Amid these contradictions, where is the truth?

A growing body of scholarly research, some based on careful analysis of Nazi records, is clarifying this complex history.2 It reveals a convoluted pattern of religious and moral failure in which atheism and the nonreligious played little role, except as victims of the Nazis and their allies. In contrast, Christianity had the capacity to stop Nazism before it came to power, and to reduce or moderate its practices afterwards, but repeatedly failed to do so because the principal churches were complicit with—indeed, in the pay of—the Nazis.

Most German Christians supported the Reich; many continued to do so in the face of mounting evidence that the dictatorship was depraved and murderously cruel. Elsewhere in Europe the story was often the same. Only with Christianity’s forbearance and frequent cooperation could fascistic movements gain majority support in Christian nations. European fascism was the fruit of a Christian culture. Millions of Christians actively supported these notorious regimes. Thousands participated in their atrocities.

What, in God’s name, were they thinking?