I believe that people who know who they are and what life is about has fooled themselves. I believe that all religious leaders, all self improvement gurus and all scientists are talking through their hats. They think that they know but they don’t. They think that they know and manage to fool both themselves and others.

What we know is just tiny little fractions of all that there is to know, like the light we can see is just a fraction of all electromagnetic radiation. We are all pond frogs. When you realize this things change. You are waking up.

We are fooling ourselves and each other. We trust our leaders because we are pack animals and don’t want to think for ourselves. We are desperate to get the answers from someone, someone who can tell us what life is about. It doesn't really matter if the answer is pure madness. We are not like frogs, we are like dogs. A dog doesn't care what his master is up to as long as he get some food in the bowl. This is why we are ruining our beautiful little planet.Our leaders are crazy for money and power and we do the best we can to help them with their obsession.

So, to realize how little we know about how things really are, is to wake up from a dream. It is the first step out through the door that opens up to the garden, the mystical garden.
-What an amazing firework this world is! Isn't it?

Donald Duck has sometimes a little devil sitting on one shoulder whispering devilries into his one ear and a little angel sitting on the other shoulder telling him to be nice and kind with a soft and priestly kind of voice. These figures are of course portraits of his inner voices.

We have also inner voices, not only one as some people think, and not only two as in Walt Disney’s animated films, but many.

Listen carefully to your present inner voice as you read this over and over again. Listen to the accent and the intonation. The words are mine, but the voice is yours. Isn’t it so? I have hypnotized you for a few moments. I have taken over your mind.

Listen now to the response in your head. Listen very carefully. What do you think? Are the answers really your own or have you got also them them from somewhere. Can you hear your mother’s voice? Can you hear your gurus? Can you hear your best friend from your teenage years? Most probably you have learned how you should think and most probably you have learned a number of different ways how to think, but is there an answer there in your head that is truly your own? What do you think?

Sometimes the inner voice is complaining endlessly about this or that, stupid workmates, stupid politicians or stupid spouses. Sometimes the voice is singing idiotic little songs, sometimes it is formulating elaborate defenses or excuses.

One voice is saying: “Oh! I feel like a cigarette and an ice-cold beer. Health fanatics are such boors.”
Another voice is saying: “What an idiot you are! You have given up smoking. Smoking is not good for you. You know that very well.”
A third voice is saying: “I can hear clearly what is going on in my head. I have you two guys sitting there arguing how to live, but I will not listen to any of you. I’m putting my awareness to the present moment instead.”

What is this I made of, who can put the attention to the different parts of reality? Is it made of thoughts?

One I want to go this way and another I want to go that way. A third I want to go in a third direction. Is there really a true I?

-I just want to be myself.
-But what if your will is not your’s. Maybe it is your mother’s will you are following, maybe it is your fathers. maybe it is your friends. Your mother always wanted you to become a lawyer; your friends want you to be silly; your girlfriend want’s you to be presentable. Whatever.

There are different ways to be disillusioned. You can, for example, be depressed because things did not turn out the way you had hoped for; or you can feel a relief because you are finally no longer fooling yourself with a particular illusion. “How could I be so stupid? I’m so glad this is all over now.”

There are also different ways to be happy. You can be very happy because you are drunk or in some other way temporarily oblivious about all the troubles; or you can be so very happy just because you are alive and this world is so amazing with all it’s bombastic cumulus clouds and chirping little birds and crazy little children and everything is fantastic in spite of all the hypocrisies, evil, exploitations and injustices.

Many people who call themselves Christian are not Christian at all. Their Christianity is just a cover. They lay up for themselves treasures on earth, and go to church on Sundays with pious expressions.

However, all people are liars, not only Christians. We are born into a world of liars. Some are big liars, some are sometimes truthful, some are mostly truthful, but all of us know what it feels like to tell a lie.

Just because someone says that he believes democracy is the best political system it doesn’t necessarily mean that he supports democracy. He might even work franticly against it.

Just because someone swears that he didn't steal the car it doesn't means that he didn't steal it.

It doesn't mean a damned thing if someone says that he is deeply concerned about the future of coming generations and wants to take steps to save our planet. Maybe he cares, maybe he doesn't. It can be a strategy to win votes in an election or simply a way to present oneself as a responsible person. It is impossible to tell. One cannot trust anybody to a hundred percent, not even, as I have said before, oneself.

It is perfectly normal to tell lies. It can be a means to get away with something or to keep oneself out of trouble. The survival instinct uses lies as a tool, so one shouldn’t be to judgmental about it. But if a man want to know the truth he will soon find that it is not that easy. It is difficult to get reliable information’s. Everybody seems to know but all have different stories to tell and everybody point in different directions. What is happening to us when we die? What is the right and what is wrong way to have sex? Is it OK to be a thief? Was Columbus at thief or a great explorer? Is there really a judge somewhere that judge what we do? Are we sent to hell if we have been bad in this life? Is some part of us reincarnating?

Science has developed methods to try to find out if someone is talking rubbish or not. A scientist who claims something has to show proof. If someone else can prove that he is wrong he has to change his mind or come up with some new more compelling proof.

However, to prove something that cannot be measured is impossible. If I, for example, have experienced some very strange and interesting synchronistic phenomenon’s and want to tell abut them, I can not expect to be taken seriously. I simply cannot prove that what I am saying is true. I cannot construct an experiment that proves I am right. There are billions of fantastic stories in circulation. Everybody has stories, ideas and opinions that are complete bullshit. Human beings talk an incredible lot of nonsense. Maybe all the hot air is contributing to the global warming. There is simply no way to tell the difference between true and false statements that can't be measured. That is why I am reluctant to tell about my synchronistic experiences. There is no point with it.

Among “spiritual” or religious people proof and truth is completely irrelevant. That is one reason spirituality and religion cannot evolve. It is doomed to stay on the level of fantasy. The Lord of the Rings, The Bhagavad-Gita and The Bible are made of the same stuff, imagination. Maybe you are going to heaven when you die, maybe you are going to the underworld, maybe someone takes you there on a boat across a river. Maybe Jesus will come back and the dead will rise from their tombs. Maybe you will reincarnate. Maybe the body is a costume; maybe the soul is made of wind. So what?

Again, just because there is so much gravel, dust and sand, it doesn’t mean that there are no spiritual pearls to be found. There are, but when you have found one, know that you can never show it to anyone and that you can never sell it. It is invisible.

I am,
at least, three or four, different persons. Sometimes the dark and serious one is at the driver’s seat, sometimes the bohemian. Sometimes a hard working and responsible man is driving, sometimes a nut. So, which of all these people is really me? It depends, I think. Sometimes it is the dark and serious one, sometimes it is the nut…

Most people are not aware of that they really consist of many different persons, that we all have multiple personalities. Maybe this is because only one of them have done the driving for so long. They have been lulled into the illusion that there is only one driver. However, when things changes dramatically, after a divorce for example, many people notice that someone else has taken over the wheel; or in a war situation, when ordinary family men turn into monsters.

However, not only catastrophes changes people. Alcohol, poor sleep, stress, natural mood shifts, even the full moon can turn someone into someone else. A love story or a new job can change a person completely. A depressed man with alcohol problems can turn into harmonic sheep farmer with a wonderful wife and three lovely daughters; a punk rocker can suddenly turn in to a well-dressed stockbroker. Nothing is written in stone in this world of form.

If I, in my youth, am sent to a school of economics, I can be transformed into a neo liberal fundamentalist. If I, on the other hand, happen to go to an art school, I might turn into an artsy bohemian. Or I might get saved or turn in to a Buddhist. There are many options.

No, nothing is written in stone. There is no real me, no real ego, no real driver. All of me is conditioned by circumstances, biology, family and culture.

But who is going to do the driving if there is no driver, if there is no ego? Who is going to the pub? Who is going to work? Who is deciding to not go to work? Who gives a shit?

Even though the ego is illusory, insubstantial and ghostlike it is what operates us.

Without identification there is no ego, says Eckhart, but the problem is that the identification is to such large extent unconscious, we are not aware of what is driving us. Jealousy, revenge, laziness, crazy ideas that we need a make over, that we need to become successful...

After Eckhart experienced his Awakening, he was sitting on park benches for a couple of years, living of his savings. Then he won money on a lottery ticket. He had good luck. But those who don’t have any savings to live from and who don’t win any money on their scratch tickets, what shall they do? They have to go to work, work for endless hours with stuff they don’t want to do.

But you shall do what you love to do! You shall have good luck. Luck will come to you when you are aligned to the greater source. Fantastic opportunities will line up.

To live such happy, loving and awakened life is for the rich and lucky few. They can walk barefoot along the Hawaiian beaches and pick seashells or listen to the songs of the dolphins.

However, someone has to empty the garbage bins, someone has to do the cooking in the restaurants, someone has to clean the hotel rooms. Someone has to pick the grapefruits we eat for breakfast. How shall that work be organized? Shall it be ten or twelve hour days? Shall it be extremely badly paid. There are billions of people out there who need to read more self-help books and lift themselves up by the booth straps, who need to align themselves with the greater source, who need to be more positive. What shall you do with your awakening when you are forced to work like a dog?

The world we live in is a terrible place. Men with horrible ideas have all the power.

When the American government declared war on terror they forgot that they are the greatest terrorists. In the eighties CIA armed and organized the Contras guerrilla in Nicaragua. They terrorized civilians and killed them by the thousands. The aim was to throw spanners in the works for the legally elected government. In the seventies CIA organized the coup in Chile to overthrow also a legally elected government. This happened in September 11 1973. To Chileans 9/11 has different meaning than it has to north Americans.

The list of CIA’s well-documented terrorist activities could be made very long. Now these guys are going to save us from terrorism. In the name of freedom and democracy.

Again, how come spiritually inclined people never even mention all the hypocrisy, the evil, the idiocies. Is it because they don’t care about this world? Is it because they don’t care about other people? Is it because they are filled with -`You get pie in the sky when you die´ kind of ideas or `I'm so happy and spiritual because I'm rich?´

To wake up, I think, it is important to first of all become aware of all the madness and all the mad ideas that we are surrounded by and conditioned by. If we can’t see this, if we live our life with our eyes closed, there is not much point with prayers, mindfulness meditations or positive thinking. A true spiritual path can not be a path of escapism, delusions, hypocrisy and lies.

When you can see the madness clearly and you as a consequence turn away from ideologies, religions, crazy belief systems and crazy beliefs, things begin to open up. Then you can begin to see the real beauty around you, the real mystery, the real magic.

We are all fools. We are all fooling our self. We are all in the same boat, but some of us know about it and some of us don’t.

However, the moment you fully realize that you have deceived yourself, you are not deceived anymore, simply because you know now that you have been deceived. It can be an extremely unpleasant experience. So you desperately grasp for another illusion, something to hold on to, almost anything will do, and the story repeats itself, over and over again.

Eventually, after a number of terrible blows, all bullshit is burned off and you will be born again, like the Phoenix. Now you will not be anybody's fool any more, not even your own, at least not in five hundred years. This can happen when you are in your twenties or in your seventies, or it may not happen at all. Maybe most people die without knowing that they have have been completely fooled all along.

Why is life set up this way? I have no idea. How can one part of me fool another part? Are there really two or more different me’s. Are there really a swindler and someone who is being swindled? Who is that fool that let himself be swindled so easily? Why are we so easily deceived by our self?

Should one take life seriously or not? Now I’ve got it, at last. Sometimes one has to be very serious about things, sometimes one must not be serious at all. Only crashing bores are always serious, and only complete idiots are never serious about anything. How can one laugh and have some fun if one is dead serious, and how can one discuss a serious problem that has to be solved with someone who feels that life is but a joke?

*

Yesterday I was very, very tired. I felt like lead, worn out and burned out. I’ve been working too much and I haven’t had enough sleep for weeks now. But, as I walked through the park on my way home from work, I suddenly felt very happy, for absolutely no reason at all. It was a wonderful summer afternoon. The air was fresh after a rain shower, the sky was blue with a few white clouds and the trees where luxuriant green. I took a photo of a puddle. Isn’t it silly for a man in his fifties, to take photos of puddles? A boy was playing with his German shepherd pup on the big lawn and I was thinking about how strange life is. “I have absolutely no reason for being this happy now. Isn't this unconditional love? I love everything for no reason at all.”

Today, as I write this, I’m back in a more normal state of mind. I have a day off from work and I plan to do as little as possible.

Just before I begun to write this I was watching Elisabeth Lesser being interviewed by Oprah Winfry on her soul series. I was thinking: Life is not necessarily a school. It is a good way to look at life. It makes life worth living, it makes life easier to digest, but it is not necessary how life really is. It is a world view. “Life is not a school. The deathbed is not a braking-up. Life is not a meditation practice, not a rehearsal. All this is just thoughts.” This is also just thoughts. How is life really, if one doesn’t have any thoughts at all about it? Isn’t thinking what makes us human? Is life about finding a good world view?