What does it feel like, do you think, to be possessed by an evil spirit? Or what does it feel like to be possessed by a stupid spirit or a goofy spirit or a lazy spirit? There are wired spirits, cool, calm and collected spirits, selfish spirits, silly spirits, high spirits, low spirits. There are so many possible spirits to be possessed by, but what does it feel like to not be possessed at all? Would you feel like a horse without a rider? Would you feel like a bird without a cage? Would you feel like a slave without a master? Or would you feel like a dog without a home? Is it like not being hypnotized?

I once worked with a guy who was very selfish. He always tried to shirk the harder work and leave it to someone else. He stole what he could and he was always complaining about everything and everybody. Every now and then he informed us that he regularly sent money to a family in India to help them. "It feels good to help poor people", he explained. His charity was clearly just a way to disguise his selfishness, but I never told him my thoughts about it. Isn’t charity always just a cover for selfishness?

Some folks live pure theoretical life‘s. All they talk about and care about is what they have picked up from books. They have theories about everything. They have theories about how life ought to be lived, the true nature of man, the true nature of the soul, how the society should be organized, how science and religion is related
You name it. They live in a theoretical world

The conflict between Jews and Arabs is owing to the fact that Jews perceive themselves as Jews and Arabs perceive themselves as Arabs. Biologically, or objectively seen, there is no difference between them. They kill each other because they think that they are different and because they believe that different people have to kill each other. They have been seriously deluded.

The same thing happened in Yugoslavia. Croatians, Slovenians, Bosnian Muslims and Serbs believed that they were different even though they spoke the same language
and intermarried each other. The Croatians are Catholics, the Serbs are Greek Orthodox and many Bosnians are Muslims. Is this the reason they had to kill each other so brutally? They turned into something like British soccer hooligans who believe that supporters from other teams have to be fought in the streets, and if possible kicked to death. What magnificently idiotic beliefs!

Well, something similar happened in Rwanda. People had been told that they belonged to different tribes that they were either Hutu or Tutsi, and they believed it.
But the Hutu or Tutsi thing was created by the Belgians in those days when the Belgians ruled in Rwanda. The definition of a Tutsi was a man who was the owner of at least one cow.

Cultural differences are not real. Cultural differences are mind constructs imaginations, delusions, fantasies. They create nothing but war hatred, murder and the death or injury of innocent children. It has to be abandoned.

Four hundred years ago people believed that the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was the center of the universe. They had to abandon this belief, however, because it was an illusion and they had to abandon the illusion that the Church was infallible. (The Catholic church said that the earth was in the center
and the sun revolved around it. If you had other ideas about it you were sentenced to death.)

Two hundred years ago slavery was accepted. A hundred years ago racism was a mainstream ideology. Today racism and slavery are considered appalling by everyday people. It is the same thing with Cultural differences. They are made of illusions and appalling ideas and they have to be abandoned. A hundred years from now people will not understand how we could think that cultural differences was important.

To be afraid of thoughts is like being afraid of ghosts. But thoughts exist and ghosts don’t. Thoughts are real but ghosts are not. Ghosts exist only as beliefs, or thoughts. Well, in that sense ghosts are real.

The mind made self, the ego, the idea of who you are, is also real, but it is made of thoughts. It is like a ghost, a spirit. Without your thoughts about yourself you are nobody. It is different with the sense perceptions. They are also processed in the brain, but that is not something "you" do. That is something the brain does for you. You can see with your eyes and hear with your ears, you can feel the wind in your face and smell the horse dung from a distance.

What are thoughts made of? Are they made of electricity? Are they made of light? Are they made of chemicals? It doesn't really matter. Thoughts are sometimes interesting, yes but mostly quite annoying. It is better to ignore them. It is better to leave them alone. Treat them like you treat the drunkards at a train station.

But who is this you who treat the thoughts as drunkards? Isn't this "you" also made of something, chemicals or electricity or whatever? Yes, but you didn't create it. The brain creates it for you.

What is waking up in the morning after good nights sleep and what is passing out at night? What is panicking? What is stressed out? What exactly is experiencing peace beyond understanding?

"I have to do something with my life now", is a thought. "No, I don’t have to do anything with my life, everything is perfect", is another thought.

"My head is filled with thoughts, stupid thoughts, negative thoughts, ugly thoughts,
whirling thoughts, like dervishes. I don’t know what to do. I wish I had wonderful thoughts, like the movie stars and the celebrities. I wish I was enlightened. I wish I was awakened, like the Gurus in India, or the Tibetan monks. They don’t think. They are always happy, like born again Christians."

Thoughts like this are taboo. They have to be shut up in dungeons with other nasty thoughts where no one can hear them, like in a medieval castle. In the dining room,
the conversations are spirited and filled with humor and wit. Only the good thoughts are accepted here. I wish I could live all my life in the dining room and the parlors being up to fun with the giggling damsels. I wish the dungeons didn’t exist.
I'm only interested in certain parts of the totality.

Stop this bloody nonsense now. Wake up! The mind is not like an medieval castle. Jesus Christ! This is just fantasies.

Meditation is a word. Different people mean completely different things when they talk about meditation. It’s the same thing with awakening, for example, or love or Judeo-Christian ethics and moral values. Different people mean different things when they use words. We are not on the same page. Judeo-Christian ethics and moral values? What do you mean when you talk about Judeo-Christian ethics and moral values? Inquisition trials? Torture chambers? Witch hunts? Bigotry? Colonialism?

If I point at a book on a table and say: "Go and get that book for me, please.", it means something. However, if I say, "I don’t believe in God" or "God is love", it means different things to different people. "God" and "love" are but sounds. What use do you have for words with hundreds of different meanings?

A woman I know told me yesterday that she has now been diagnosed with liver cancer. She doesn’t sleep well because her skin is itching. She spends the nights thinking and scratching herself and waiting for the morning to come. I didn't know what to say to her. Should I have said: "Oh, I'm so sorry" or "Chin up. Life's a miracle.
Soon the spring will be here"?

If there is a God who really cares about us and even knows how many hairs we have on my head, he must be evil, incredibly evil. The way he arranges things is truly sadistic.



From Wikipedia
“A taboo is a strong social prohibition or ban against words,
objects, actions or discussions that are considered
undesirable or offensive by a group, culture,
society or community."

The Dodo is an extinct species

I learned on Wikipedia that 99,9 % of all species that have ever lived
is now extinct.”

So nothing is weird or pessimistic with the thought that also
human beings will disappear, that we will be extinct soon.
It is a natural process.

Reach for the moon.

The truth shall not set you free. The less you know about the world the easier it is to be optimistic. This has been proved scientifically and you can find more information about this in Martin Seligman’s book `What You Can change...and What You Can't´, page 198-199.

Optimists are happier, have better health and perform better in school and at work.
But pessimists are more realistic. They see things more clearly.

So, I guess I have to find myself a pair of rose colored glasses now. I don’t mean to be sarcastic. I understand now that this is what has to be done. The benefits of optimistic unrealism outweighs clearheaded realism.

I consist of
forty thousand billion cells
working together according to a plan
a blueprint.

I consist of fifteen gallons of water
and a lot of hot air
thoughts, imaginations, dreams.

99, 9 % of me is empty space
space between the nucleuses of the atoms
and the electrons whirling around them.

What are thoughts
really
or imaginations
or dreams or a memories?

Will it ever be possible to understand
the chemical and electrical activities
in the neurons?
Chemicals are released in the synapses
they bind to receptors at other neurons and thereby create electric impulses
but how on earth do all those chemical and electrical impulses
create such amazing images in my head
when I'm asleep?
What are the images made of?

And the observer
the I
the dreamer
who observes all these images
is also what I understand
a product of chemical and electric activities.
Are not all these activities
truly amazing?

Meditation is not about climbing to reach higher and higher levels.
It is about climbing down.
Nor is meditation about going deeper and deeper
to discover what's down there, like a deep sea diver.
It is more like ascending and safely getting back on the boat again.
Meditation is not about self hypnosis and programing.
It is about deprogramming.
It is not about learning something.
It is about unlearning.
And it is certainly not about spiritual exercise and inner fitness.
It is about spending time in the present moment.

Human beings get easily possessed by horrible and mad ideas.
In the nineteen thirties and forties many Europeans were possessed by Nazism and today we all know what those ideas brought about.

The eighteenth and nineteenth century Europeans were possessed by similar ideas but they didn’t call them Nazism. The Colonialists, the slave traders and the slave owners were deeply convinced that they belonged to a superior race and could, without any scruples, purchase small kids cheaply and force them to work to death in silver mines, coal mines or factories.

Today Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism has captured the minds of the rich and mighty and their supporters. Neoliberalism is basically the same philosophy as the Classic Liberalism from the early nineteenth century. The basic ideas are that egoism is the only true motivation force in man and that the government shall not interfere with the market and its egoistic competitors. The market shall be absolutely free. Today we can see the result of this philosophy. The manufacturing industries moved to the third world countries where they didn't have restricting environmental legislations, labour legislations and taxations. This have created an endless misery in the sweat shops and not only a local but a global environmental catastrophe. The earth’s atmosphere is now ruined for good. We can now but wait for the end of the world.

It is very, very important for all of us to free ourself from all kinds of crazy ideas, ideologies and religions. There is still time to wake up. We can still have fun, enjoy life and celebrate. There are still tickets left.

The very first step, when you begin to learn meditation, is to learn how to observe your own thoughts. As you continue with your practice you learn how to let the thoughts come and go without getting caught up in them.

And later, after many years of practice, as an experienced meditator, you are still "struggling" with the same thing. It is, from a meditation point of view, as if you’re a first grader in school for the rest of your life. You can not advance in your meditation studies as you do in an ordinary school. You will never reach higher levels. If you do, this is a clear sign that you have got caught up in mind stuff again.

So why practice meditation for years if it doesn't lead anywhere? Well, why sleep at night? Isn't sleeping just a waste of time?

(I'm a highly advanced sleeper? If you pay me well I can teach you how to do it right.)