Sunday, March 22, 2009

There are a growing number of people around the world now, who have lost their religious, ideological, social and psychological glasses; people who no longer look at the world through mentally dyed filters.

The first step in this process is loosing ones religion or ideology. Many are the disappointed people who fully realize that their so deeply embraced religion or ideology created nothing but horrors. Nazism, Communism, Liberalism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism… The list could be made almost endless. A liberal would say that I am wrong because he is still wearing his liberal glasses. He can't see that the slave trade and the colonialism was a result of the idea that egoism is good and in our blood. This idea has guided us all the way until today, though slavery has taken other forms in the Asian sweatshops. Many Christians would say that I am wrong because they can’t see that Christianity was a part of the slave trade, the colonialism, the oppression of women and children, the inquisition trials and the witch-hunts. The Christian churches have always sided with the rich and mighty, this king or that king, this warlord or that warlord.

Many people have changed their religious beliefs, Hindus have become Muslims, Protestants have become Catholics, communists have become liberals, but a small group of people couldn’t find anything new to hold on to. They have clearly seen the problems in their Church, sect or political club and left it, without being able to find a new better belief system. They no longer define themselves as anything, not atheists, not agnostics, not nihilists, not believers in science, nothing. This small group of people does not believe in anything anymore, and they don’t fell depressed or disappointed about it. They feel a relief. They feel that they don’t have any use for a new cage or a new belief system. No religion or ideology simply makes any sense to them anymore.

The second step in this awakening process is the shedding of all the psychological and sociological beliefs. I’m no good. I’m stupid. My noose is too big. I’m fantastic. I'm superior. I'm inferior. I really have to become something. She is ugly. I belong to a higher class… The list of useless psychological and sociological beliefs can be made almost endless. However, a growing number of people are now leaving their personal beliefs behind simply because they don’t make sense anymore. Ambition, self-invented depression, self-improvement, self-help books, private religion, new age; no mental constructions what so ever is important anymore. A growing number of people no longer care at all about beliefs, their own beliefs or someone else's makes no difference.

The third step in the awakening is the realization that the present now is extremely important. Eckhart Tolle and the Buddhists have opened our eyes to this fact but this doesn’t make us Eckhart Tolleists or Buddhists. It is not necessary to define oneself at all. I am a human being. I am sitting here at my computer, writing this and drinking coffee. When you read this, I am no longer here. I am somewhere else with something else in mind.

The forth step in the awakening must imply care fore other people, other animals and our planet, though this care is not based on religion or belief systems. Karen Armstrong explains that at the core of all religions, there is compassion and that compassion is far more important than belief. (Look at her charterforcompassion.com.) She is right, I suppose. However, what is the use for religion then, with this knowledge? What is the use then for dress codes, rituals, sharia laws and all the rules, regulations and dogmas that make up the religions? Why not leave the religions and go for compassion directly?

So, this is a charter for compassion and justice without religion, faith, ideology or science. This is a charter for the realization that we're all in the same boat, that we're all humans and that it is in our nature to care for others, not just to compete, fuzz and fight.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

In the eighties a new era begun. The sixties was long gone and the right-wingers took over completely. Thatcher, Reagan and Milton Friedman's neo-liberal ideas ruled and have done so up to now. Everyone became right-wingers. And the hippie movement turned in to the self-improvement movement, the "become successful, self fulfilled, enlightened and happy as a lark movement". It is at this time period when sadness, sorrow and blues was turned into a disease. The medical industry had invented the Prozac pill and began the marketing of the drug. If you suffer from an endogenous depression you need help with medication, for sure, but the medical industry wanted to sell their new invention to all people. If your wife finds another man, get a pill. If your parents die, get a pill. If everything is just too much, get a pill. You have to be happy, always. If you’re not, something is wrong with you. You need medication. The psychotherapies didn’t work really. The pills was so much better. And those who sold self-improvement books and week-end retreats said the same thing. If you are feeling low something is wrong with you. You have to be happy, self fulfilled, fantastic and wonderful always. If you are not, something has to be done. Today ten percent of the population in northern Europe and 20 percent of the Americans are on medication against depression, the rest use illegal drugs, booze, TV or use some other escape strategy.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Gods name is Baobab

A: “God is a great king spider, who is living on Mars with his huge spider army and his name is Baobab. He has been the ruler of this universe for almost 9500 years now.”

B: “How can you believe such rubbish? What is your problem?”

A: "What do you know about these things? You can’t prove that I am wrong. My belief is as valid as your’s. Your belief is also a belief. You are a non believer. Isn’t your belief a sad and poor belief? How can you live without a belief system to guide you and comfort you? Nihilism is dangerous. Life has to have meaning. Baobab will for sure punish you. Spiderism should absolutely be thought in schools, not just science."

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Misunderstandings

A human being can be deeply convinced that the world was created six thousand years ago or that Barac Obama is the Devil in disguise, or that whiskey cures common colds. Human beings can be deeply convinced and completely wrong. We can totally misunderstand things. Depressed people is another example. They often believe that they are totally useless, stupid, ugly, afraid of everything or in some other way not as good as others. If they suddenly realize one day that they have got it all wrong, that realization is an awakening. The depressed person then might say to himself: "Bloody hell! I’m OK. What an idiot I have been. I am what I am. We’re all in the same boat. Jesus Christ! I've been so fuckin blind."

We can fantasize, which other animals can't. Other animals can’t sing, and they can´t tell bedtime stories to their children. It is absolutely necessary with stories. In places where they don’t have TV people tell fantastic stories. They often have special story tellers. Made up stories are absolutely necessary to us. The only problem with stories is if we believe in them. Small children begin to cry if a story is too sad or too scary. They enter into fairy tales completely. It is same thing with us. Everything is all right as long as we understand that a story is just a story.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

What does it feel like to be spirtually awake?

To travel is a way to wake up a little. A bored European, for example, can find it extremely exciting to have a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts in some jerk town in America. To the Americans it is just a coffee place where they rush in to have a quick coffee. To them the weather is terrible. It is rain and snow slush outside, they are in a hurry and they have their eyes closed to everything around them. The foreigner is wide-awake. He finds everything extremely cool. The smells, the cars outside, the way people walk and talk, how they are dressed, the way they wear their baseball caps, their shoes, the stressed out woman behind the counter. Everybody looks so interesting. He expects Al Pacino or Jack Nicholson to pop in any second or at least some kind of detective. The Americans do not recognize anything. They just want their coffee. They are hypnotized to an everyday trance by their work, eat, shit and sleep kind of lifestyle. They probably need to go to Paris or Rome to wake up a little, to open their eyes to what things look like, to feel the atmospheres and smells.

This heightened awareness or alertness in unfamiliar surroundings is due to hormones, if I have it right, adrenalin and cortisol among others. All animals are more alert and apprehensive in unfamiliar surroundings. However, some people can wake up to this heightened awareness without going anywhere and some people don’t seem to experience any excitement at all even if they go to the most fantastic places, the Himalayas, Macu Pichu or Serengeti. Why is that? Some people have to use heavy drugs or weird sex or mountain climbing to create some action in their brain cells, others do not seem to need almost anything to get their juices flowing. They are like children. Small children can be extremely enthusiastic just because they have found a pool of mud in the back yard. What do they see that we don't?

What does it feel like to be spiritually awakened or enlightened? Are awakened people never out of sorts? Are they never tired or ill or sad or angry? Are people awake just because they are happy, because they are in love? Is sadness and worry always a sign of spiritual slumber?

Saturday, March 7, 2009

On mysticism and spiritual materialism



Is there something more to a human being than the body and the personality? The word personality originates from the Latin word persona, which means mask. Is it possible to find someone or something behind the mask? What do you think?

The mystics of all religions have much in common. They claim that they have experienced what is behind the ego, behind the personality and the body, behind the psychological and physiological functions, but they can not really communicate it because language is not made for this purpose. They try the best they can by using words like: the formless world, Brahman, pure existence, existence beyond all existence, Nirvana, God or Dao, but those words doesn't explain much to us everyday people.

I am not that interested in the existence beyond all existence. I am interested in what is here in this world and what I can experience with my senses, what I can see with my own two eyes and what I can understand with my limited little mind. The time will come, for sure, when I no longer have any senses and no sense of I. I will cross that bridge when I come to it. When I am dead, as I see it, the time is ripe to "experience" existence beyond all existence. Sometimes I feel that many so called spiritual people do not care much about what is going on here in this world. They don't care much about the play. They are like actors who leave the play to search for the truth behind the scene. They search in the basement of the theater and in the attic. They do not seem to care if a decent man’s pension is dependent of how many land mines Raytheon Company manage to sell. They do not know about such things. They never speak up against injustice, exploitation and the insane greed of the rich. Why do those who have seen the reality behind the reality, neglect to explain that it is evil to sell land mines or exploit poor people to become richer?

Friday, March 6, 2009

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Kissinger and the peace prize

You cannot change your personality. You have to accept the way you are, like you have to accept the way you look. If you miss an arm or a leg you have to accept it. To be gay is as normal as being left-handed. To be very empathic is as normal as being a psychopath. You cannot change a psychopath to make him more kind. And a psychopath cannot change himself to become a kinder person. An artistic and bohemian kind of person cannot change himself into a well-structured social climber just because his family wants him this way. Fifty years ago, they tried to force left-handed kids in school to use their right hand when writing and they tried all conceivable ways to make the gays straight. It did not work. You have to accept your own personality and you have to accept that all people have different personalities. Animals have also different personalities. Some dogs are hyper sensitive and some dogs are lazy.

Anyway, Hitler was a psychopath, but the Germans in general were not. So why the hell did they vote for him. Why the hell did they get so hysterically enthusiastic about him? Henry Kissinger is a psychopath. How the hell could he be rewarded with the Nobel’s peace price after the Christmas bombings of Hanoi 1972? 40 000 tons of bombs were dropped in 12 days due to his advise. As I see it: Those who were fanatic Nazis during the Second World War and those who gave Kissinger the peace price were in a deep hypnotic trance. They lived in a fog or a deeply unawakened state of mind.

In the old days, and maybe even today, many gays were forced to create a false straight personality. They married someone they did not love and produced children just to please their parents. Many are the artistically bent people who have tried to make themselves into bankers or lawyers just to please their demanding mothers. Many are the left-handed people who have through big efforts learned how to write with the right hand. Many, many people have, through the years, been forced to change their personality into a false but more accepted personality. So many people have been forced to live their life with an false identity. Even today many people yearn to to come out from the closet.

Nothing is strange with this. All people are sleepwalkers. All people know what it feels like to pretend. All people have spent years of their life pretending that they are someone else. I am by no means different. Sometimes though, for short periods, I feel like I can see the sky. To wake up, I believe, is not impossible, and it is not like trying to change ones personality. Awakening is, I think, a change in the way we look at the world and ourselves.

I do not think, though, that awakenings or changes in the way we look at the world, is something that comes about through psychotherapy, meditation practice or by reading self help books. Some people meditate for years and years or spend years and years in therapy, and read tons of self help books, but still don't wake up. Why is it so? If people wake up, they seem to wake up because of no particular reason at all.

Well, an awakening can be small and concern only minor things and it can be dramatic and change a person’s life completely. An awakening can come and go; it can last for a few seconds or it can change someone for the rest of his or her life. In real life nothing is written in stone.

Sunday, March 1, 2009



Some people believe that they will go to heaven when they die, some believe that they will reincarnate. Some believe that on the judgment day the dead will rise up from their graves, some believe that the dead turn into ghosts or spirits. I do not believe that any part of me will go anywhere when I die. I believe that I will simply disappear, disintegrate, dissolve. However, all these different beliefs are nothing but thoughts. All beliefs are made of thoughts, also my beliefs. I can see this now. All beliefs are nothing but speculations and imaginations. Not even science is of much help. They care only about things that can be measured. And what they know for sure today will be considered a misunderstanding tomorrow. Nobody knows for sure about anything, not even the great gurus. Gurus only pretend that they know. They are like priests or popes or mullahs, make-believers. This is of course also a belief. I am serious. Don’t try to understand what is going on. It is meaningless. It is ridiculous. Live life as you please. But don't be too egoistic. You will never find any happiness if you are too egoistic.