Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The truth shall set you free?

I lie a lot. Well, sometimes I tell the truth but often I don’t. Therefore you can never trust me.

Most people are lying, not only politicians, businessmen and criminals. Both men and women cheat on each other. Some people are mostly trustworthy, some people are pathological liars, and the majority is something in between.
I am, I suppose, an average liar.

Thousands of Catholic priests in the US proved to be child molesters. Also, many priests in Ireland and Germany have been caught with their pants down. Were these guys average liars or were they real fucking liars? What did they teach in their sermons? What do you think?

How often do you catch yourself lying?
Do you feel strange when you catch yourself lying?
If all people are liars, more or less, does this not mean that lies should be fully accepted?

There are of course many different kinds of lies, white lies, noble lies, big lies, lying by omission and many more. There are good lies and bad lies.

To lie is also culturally conditioned. I saw a documentary a few years ago from Kamchatka. People up there don’t lie at all. They can’t understand how people can lie to each other. “How can you trust each other”, one of them asked, “if you lie to each other.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Spiritual materialism

I can understand what you mean when you talk about dreams or thoughts, because I experience them also. However, when you talk about God or spirituality I have no idea of what you mean. Actually, I don’t even I know what I mean when I use those words. They can mean different things different days. Is spirit something different from matter? Is God an old man with a beard on a cloud? Discussing spirituality is indeed very difficult.

The word materialism, (the belief that reality is essentially matter) is also pretty useless nowadays. Not even the cutting edge scientists know what matter is. What is matter really? Is matter a form of energy? What is energy? What does matter look like if no one is there and look at it? Is it just waves in empty space? If no one knows what matter is how can one be a materialist?

So, the words spirituality and materialism have had their day. Nevertheless, I think of myself as a spiritual materialist. Matter is something mysterious, something spiritual. Are you able to understand what I mean with spiritual materialism? If you are, how could that be? Isn’t language wonderful?

(Chögiam Trungpa meant something else with spiritual materialism. To him a spiritual materialist was someone who is strengthening his or her ego with spiritual ideas and experiences, someone who thinks of himself or herself as spiritual and more evolved than others because he or she has met so many great gurus and has such impressive credentials.)

Monday, December 27, 2010

Defense mechanisms and awakening

Defense mechanisms are, as you know, mental strategies we use in order to protect ourselves from an unpleasant insights and awakening. There are many different defense mechanisms, intellectualization, rationalization, projection, repression and many more. Well, here are a few other examples:

1. Denial.

a. I’m not an alcoholic. I don’t have a problem with alcohol, you have. Stop that damn complaining. Yack-yack-yack. Relax for fucks sake. Eat drink and be merry.

b. There is no global warming due to CO2 emissions. This is bullshit. Look at the cold weather we have. Fuck all that hippie environmentalist wacky communist shit.



2. Regression.

a. Regression is a reversion to an earlier stage of development. Religion, royalties and nationalism, for example, are becoming popular again here in Europe.

b. Adults play with their iPhones like kids plays with toys and they talk with childish voices. They have regressed.



3. Reaction Formation

I’m not cynical. I hate losers but I’m always kind to them. I’m, in fact, too kind. I try to be positive and loving. What’s wrong being kind, positive and loving?


4. Escapism

a. I have created a wonderful castle in the air. I can live my life here, all set, safe and warm, until the bitter end.

b. I work like a slave to find a room at the top. Success is everything.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

What happens after death?

Some believe that we will go to heaven when we die, or to hell.
Some believe that we will simply disintegrate and disappear.
Some believe that a part of us will reincarnate or transmigrate.

The Catholic Church teaches that the soul will go straight to heaven, straight to hell or to purgatory for cleansing before it will be sent to heaven.

Many Protestants believe that when a person dies, he or she enter into complete oblivion. However, at the second coming of Jesus, the dead will be called from their graves and those who have been saved will be given special bodies and go to heaven.

Hindus and Buddhists believe in reincarnation. They believe that some mystical part of us will be reborn in another body. Those who have been good will get a fortunate reincarnation and those who have been bad will get an unfortunate one.

In reality, it is even more complicated because there are many different Protestant beliefs regarding death and many different Hindu beliefs. There are many different Jewish beliefs and many different Islamic beliefs.

There are about 10 000 different religions in the world today and many more beliefs about death. Are the spiritualists right? Are the atheists right? Are the monistic materialistic scientists right? Maybe the agnostics are right that we will never get to know about these things. Or, what if the agnostics are simply afraid to see the truth and hesitate to look deep enough.

Someone has to be right, don’t you think?

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Donald Duck - Donald's Better Self (1938)!!!!



There is a devil and a saint in us all.
There is also a goof, a pain in the neck, a hero,
a wimp and a smart ass
in each of us.
A person is not just a person;
he or she is a busload of characters.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

God and money.

”Sell everything you have and give to the poor.”

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

”I'll say it again-it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!" ”No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

Those who are fond of literal interpretations of the Bible rarely interpret these sentences literally.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Comfort blankets

Many people with a difficult life situation find consolation in a religion, spiritual fantasies or in the bottle. This is not a problem. Religion, spirituality, or a bottle of wine does not necessarily mean something bad. If a religion, a spiritual belief or a bottle of wine make you feel better, enjoy life and other people, why not. However, there is a flip side of the coin.

All the religions have crated and are still creating endless horrors, religious wars and terrorists. All the religions oppress women and children. All the religions work against equal rights. All the religions side with the rich. All the religions claim that without religion there would be no ethics and morals. This is a lie. All the religions are based on lies. (Christians, for example, have never bothered about ethics and morals. The slave trade, the witch-hunts and the blessing of the atom bomb are proof enough. How dare they talk about ethics and morals?)

Non-religious people who are interested in spiritual matters are usually not that aggressive. They are mostly harmless. I don’t mind if people believe in astrology or the healing powers of crystals. I don’t mind if people believe in reincarnation or ascended masters. However, to me they are like small children who still believe in Santa Claus and fairies.

At some point in life, we all stop to believe in Santa Claus and fairies. We all grow up whether we like it or not. This is not the end of the world. It comes naturally. In the same way, at some point in life most people stop to believe that Jesus walked on water or that he returned from death after three days. (Those who hold on to such beliefs in their fifties have probably psychological issues.)

Similarly, at some point in life, we may find ourselves not believing in anything anymore. Religion, spirituality, political ideology, philosophy, everything seem like kids stuff. This is not depression, negativity or misanthropy. This is the end of the tunnel. This is waking up. This is leaving beliefs and ideas behind. This is leaving the nest. This is a new chapter, a new spirituality, a new world.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Irrelevant definitions and labels.

Some people label themselves Jews and some label themselves Muslims.
Some label themselves Sunni Muslims and some label themselves Shia Muslims. There are so many definitions and labels to attach to oneself and to others, Catholic, Protestant, atheist, realist, spiritually awake, deluded, stupid, Brahmin, Shudra, left-winger, right-winger…

Many definitions and labels are just insubstantial mental creations and imaginations. Cultural differences exist only in our fantasies. They don’t represent any "real" differences. So many terrible wars have been fought because of these insubstantial mental constructions. The results have been, and still are, misunderstandings, horrors and madness.

Man and woman can perhaps be relevant labels. Men and women are different. However, in what sense is a Palestinian woman and a Jewish woman different? They hate each other because of their different labels. The Palestinian woman is upset because people who label themselves Jews oppress her and her family.

If you insist that your religion is important to you because it brings meaning, sacredness and a sense of coherence to your life, but refuse too see all the horrors it has been responsible for, then you are deluded.

Only if you are painfully aware of how many terrible things that have been caused by your religion can it possibly bring true meaning, sacredness and a sense of coherence to your life.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Destructive cults

You are probably also a member of a destructive cult but you are not aware of it yet. Cult members are seldom aware of the fact that they belong to a destructive cult. We are all indoctrinated. We need deprogramming, all of us.

You are born into a family of Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan or into a family of evangelical right-wingers in the American mid west. Maybe you happened to be born in a liberal upper middle-class family in Connecticut or in a conservative Brahmin family in Tamil Nadu. Wherever you are born, you are born into the idea that your belief system is sensible and other people with other beliefs are deluded.

You might say to yourself, “Some people are caught up in destructive cults, yes, but I’m not. I’m not a fanatic. I‘ve been working hard all my life. I’ve set up goals for my self. It’s not my problem if thousands of children starve to death every day Life is about to eat or be eaten. It‘s a jungle out there. It’s not my problem if people are exploited in Asia or if carbon dioxide emissions ruin the atmosphere. The kids in the Asian sweat shops are, after all, better off than the street kids, you can’t deny that, and I drive an environmentally friendly car”

Wherever you are born, you are born into a world of ideas and beliefs. The question is, is it possible to leave your belief system behind? Is it possible to live a life without a belief system, no religion, no atheism, no agnosticism, no political ideology? I believe it is possible, but it takes time to realize that one is misled by ideas. It takes time before it sinks in. Sudden, spontaneous awakenings are rare. Nevertheless, more and more people begin to understand now that the earth is not flat and that there are no gnomes or ghosts in the real world.

You are a Muslim or a Jew, a Catholic or a devout Neo Liberal. If you can’t leave your beliefs behind how can you expect other people to do it?

It is of course very difficult to leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a group of neo Nazis or a mafia family, but it is possible. It is also possible to leave the mainstream western “shop till you drop philosophy“.

It’s painful to take this step, it’s sometimes extremely dangerous, you will feel lonely, but it is necessary if you feel that awakening is important to you or if you feel that you need a deeper understanding of life. It is like an initiation to a mystery order but there is no order, no rules, no rituals and no doctrine.

If you, on the other hand, feel that awakening is not your top priority, or that a deeper understanding of life is unimportant nonsense, then you don’t have to consider these things at all.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Illusions

If you find yourself sitting on a beach, on an east coast, somewhere near the equator, watching the sunset, you can clearly see how the sun is sinking under the horizon. However, this is an illusion. The sun isn’t sinking. The sun isn't moving. The earth is turning.

You know that the sun is not moving. You know it because this is something you have learned, but this does not change your experience. You can clearly see, with your own two eyes, that the sun is moving.

Similarly, you may feel miserable because nothing is going your way. You may feel that you are a looser and that you have nothing to live for. This is also an illusion. You are all set. You have all you need. In fact, you might even be rich. You have a house, food in the fridge and friends. You know this. You have read tons of books on psychology, you have a therapist and you eat Prozac pills, but this doesn’t change anything right now, you feel unhappy anyway about your miserable life situation.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Hitler

The Nazi party got 33 % of the votes in the November elections 1932. They formed a government in January 1933 together with the German National People’s Party. Hitler became Chancellor (Prime Minister).

In mars, 1933 there was another election and the Nazi party now got 44% of the votes.

On mars 23, 1933, Hitler proposed a bill to abolish democracy and to give him dictatorial powers. All the right wing parties, the liberals as well as the Nationalist Party and the Catholic Centre Party voted for the bill. The social democrats voted against.

The Catholic Church, the Pope in Rome, the protestant bishops, the big business people, the small business owners, farmers, intellectuals, professors, the vast majority, were on Hitler’s side. They were shouting, drunk with enthusiasm: “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”

Indoctrination

Today people are indoctrinated with the belief that nothing but money counts. If you are rich and beautiful you are a winner, if you are poor and don’t look good enough you are a looser. We all know this. Kids of today know that this is a fact. They watch commercials, advertisements, movies and TV series all day long and everywhere they learn the same thing. Be rich. Be beautiful. Be positive. Be fantastic. If you don’t look good enough, have a surgery. If you’re poor, roll up your sleeves and set a goal for yourself. If you feel down or blue, get yourself Prozac pills.

Hide your greed behind smart clothes, charity, religion or spirituality because greed and egoism doesn’t look too good. Be fantastic! Be wonderful. Remember, there is absolutely nothing else to live for but money!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

We are only able to see as much as we need to see in order to survive. We need to find food, protect ourselves from enemies and find a partner. Our eyes have not evolved to sense infrared light simply because we don’t need this ability to get by. This is the biological point of view.

Our eyes can sense red, green and blue. Birds and insects are able to sense also ultraviolet light. Radio waves, X-rays and infrared light are invisible to all of us.

So, what we can see is only a small fraction of the whole spectrum.

Similarly, we can only understand what we need to understand in order to survive. We need to find food, protect ourselves from enemies, find a partner and have some fun. Our brains have not evolved to understand much more than this.

However, some people are not satisfied with what they have and what they can understand. They want to know it all. They want to see it all. They want to understand what they are not able to understand. Are there many more universes out there? Are there angels out there who protect us? What is God like? Is he a he, really? Maybe he is a she. Is the brain a prism that filters the universal consciousness or is the brain like a radio receiver? This is the spiritual perspective.

Most people are not interested in understanding things. They are like old people with bad hearing who only hear what they want to hear. They try to turn off as much as they can of the world. They put blinders on, and head sets. They live in very, very small worlds, like cage birds. This is the mainstream point of view.

I have arrived at this: Scientific speculations or spiritual speculations are the same to me. It’s fun with wild speculations. I love to read about cutting edge science, spiritual exploration and philosophy, but it is not that important. It is a pastime.

It’s so much more important with what I can understand, what I can see with my own two eyes, how I live my life and how we ought to live here on earth.

Is it really necessary with war and competition? As far as I can see, it is not. The idea that war and competition is important is an idea propagated by those who like war and competition. They believe that without war and competition there wouldn’t be any evolution. This is a justification, a thought, a mental construct.

We are not baboons. We are not chimpanzees. We are not living in caves anymore. We are not peasants filled with superstition. We are not living in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries any longer. We are living here and now, in this time period, after the Second World War, after the Vietnam War, after the discoveries made by the quantum physicists.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

 
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Beliefs

Beliefs can make you cynical and bitter. Beliefs can make you think that life is totally meaningless. Beliefs can make you think that you are a complete idiot and that life is not worth living.

However, beliefs can also make you happy. And beliefs can make your life worth living even under terrible circumstances.

It was a common belief in Germany in the nineteen thirties and the beginning of the nineteen forties that the German people was a superior race and that their destiny was to subjugate other inferior “races”. Those beliefs made the Germans feel self confident and strong. Those beliefs gave them a meaning to life.

People in England had similar beliefs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were deeply convinced that they were superior to Africans, Asians and Native Americans. Most people in Portugal, Spain, Belgium and Holland were also filled with such ideas. Slave trading and stealing other peoples land was not a crime to them.

They were also, somehow, able to reconcile their beliefs of superiority with their Christian faith. The various Christian churches saw no problem with this. The slave trade and the stealing of other peoples land and possessions were completely in consistency with The Bible according to the theological authorities.

It can be enormously liberating to realize that a belief is just a belief, a crazy idea, an illusion. It can be like waking up from a nightmare realizing that it was only a weird dream.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Social programing

Things in life are not just enfolding. We make hundreds of decisions every day but we are seldom aware of it. The decision-making is taking place in our subconscious mind.

The first unconscious decision we make in the morning is usually if we shall get out of bed or not. This first decision of the day makes us jump out of bed and do what we have to do in order to get to work in time.

When we sit in our car on our way to work, we are often not even aware that we are driving a car. We are somewhere else, listening to the morning news on the radio or lost in a daydream. Our subconscious mind is doing the driving for us. Isn’t this weird? We act like programmed robots. We are, it seems, to a very large extent programmed robots.

Anyway, life gets too complicated if we begin to question what we are doing. This is probably why we avoid the questioning. To question what one is doing is to throw a spanner in the works.

I have had many crazy ideas in my life and I have taken many decisions from this confused state of mind. I have been driven by stupid ideas, laziness, egotistical ideas and other people’s ideas. Those ideas took me to California, Mexico, India, Africa and many other places. Those stupid ideas have also showed me many interesting synchronicities, which to me is proof that there is a mystical dimension operating from underneath or outside my conscious and subconscious mind. This level of consciousness has also a finger in the pie. Isn’t this strange? Maybe delusions, self-deceptions and stupid ideas serve a purpose after all.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Transitions

The herd instinct in is very strong in human beings. We follow the herd. We have an inborn desire to belong to a group. We feel lonely and miserable when we don’t have a group to belong to. Some people can to do almost anything to be accepted by a group.

You feel safe and more relaxed when you have found a group who accept you; a group with a set of ideas and beliefs to fall in with, a gang, a pack, a religious or spiritual community, a political party, a bunch of pot heads, a bunch of activists, a bunch of would be artists, a bunch of down and outs, a workplace, a company, a family, an identity…

However, the flock behavior looses its grip over us when we grow older. Older people are no longer desperate to fit in. We loose interest in dress codes and social codes. We need a group who accepts us, yes, but not at all costs. We don’t need to become something anymore. We don’t need to prove how good we are. We don’t care too much about belief systems any longer.

Some older people, though, hold on too tightly to their beliefs and outdated worldviews. They have a problem with the transition. They have been conservatives, racists, or social climbers for so many years and they believe that there is nothing else in life to live for but status and money. It is similar to when teenagers have a problem with the transition to adulthood. It is like when thirty years olds act like teenagers.

It is similar to when 10 years olds still believe in Santa Claus.

It is also similar to, for example, when the Catholic Church refused to accept that the earth was not at the center with the sun and the moon revolving around it. The scholastic authorities refused to even look through a telescope. Galileo was wrong. If he was right, their worldview would fall apart and this was of course impossible. The church was infallible. The Catholic Church kept Galileo’s books on astronomy on the index of prohibited books until 1835.

Religious and political fanatics, mainstream fanatics, sports fanatics, criminal gangs, drinking buddies, there are so many different groups of people we can end up with and which we eventually have to abandon in order to grow.

It can be very hard, though, to abandon a group, a sect, a worldview, a false belief, a political opinion or a religious misconception. It can be as hard as it is for an alcoholic to give up alcohol.

We have to face it. Either we keep on drinking or we don’t. Either we keep on trucking, or we don’t. Either we wake up or we don’t.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

No self in Buddhism

 
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Reflections and shadows do not exist, if nobody is there who sees them. They do not consist of anything. They have no weight and no fixed shape. You cannot touch them or smell them. They are immaterial.

The sense of being here and now, awake and conscious, is like a shadow or a reflection in the sense that it is immaterial; it does not consist of anything. However, a reflection of a birch tree in a pool of water is a reflection of something. The sense of being here right now is not a reflection of anything. Or, maybe it is? Who knows?

A birch tree consists of something, molecules, atoms and whirling electrons, but it is not really a tree until someone is there who notices it. Physicists say, “If the nucleus of an atom were as big as a pinhead, the atom would be as big as a football stadium”. Also real stuff consists of practically nothing. The observer is necessary to make reality real.

Maybe the observer, the sense of being here, noticing the world, arises not just because of a number of neurons are firing. This sense of being here, right now, awake, is maybe also a reflection of something. Without firing neurons, no sense of being here would emerge, of course, and without a sense of being here, noticing the consciousness of being here, there would be no firing neurons. There would be just empty space with a few vibrating particles here and there, and electromagnetic fields between them.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Your head is filled with all sorts of beliefs, theories, ideas and opinions, liberalism, racism, psychology, philosophy, new age spirituality, old age spirituality, Catholicism, Kundalini, Tantra, Buddhism, Vedanta, astrology, Darwinism, Eckhart Tolle...
You can fill your head with so many interesting things, but what does the world look like, do you think, if you don’t fill you it with anything?

Monday, September 20, 2010

Picture a man who has spent twenty years in jail. If this man, for some strange reason, suddenly one day would realize that there is no jail, that he had fooled himself in some weird way, the jail was just an illusion, would he become happy, do you think, or would he become angry?

Friday, September 17, 2010

What we know
is like a speck of dust in the universe.

The unknown part of the we world
is a mystery to us.
What can we do but speculate
or fantasize about it?

Dogs can hear sounds I can’t hear
Those sounds means nothing to me.

Butterflies can see colors that doesn’t exist
in my world.
What do I care about such colors?

To discus the unknown
is like when the deaf discuss music.

Our senses are limited.
We’re like prisoners peeking out through a key hole
and all we see is a brick wall.

But not only that
We have also psychological limitations
acquired limitations.
We have blinders
colored sunglasses
filters
strange ideas
beliefs
misperceptions
prejudices…

It is all this electro chemical mind stuff
which create our dream world.

However
this is not an absolutely true account
of my life experience.
Somehow
sometimes
it is possible to catch a glimpse of something
behind that door.
There is something going on out there.
This is not
all there is to life.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

What you see is not what you get.
What you see is just one aspect of me
in this particular situation
filtered through your colored glasses
through your preconceived ideas
your mood
your state of mind
your religion
and ideology
or your resistance against religion
and ideology
or whatever
your world view
your conditioning.

Who am I
really?
Who is the real me?
Who is the real you?
Is there a real me and you
and a false me and you?
What do you say?
You can be completely different
together with someone else
can't you
not shy at all
or tense
or irritated?
You can be so sweet and soft
and happy
Is this the real you?
The dark sides
are they not really yours?

Who are we
really?
We have played so many roles in life
haven’t we?
The Princess, The Prince
The Old Witch
The Stupid Fool
The Loyal Knight
extras
you name it.

We have been tiny little fetuses
like naked young mice
new born babies
stupid brats
winners, losers
under pressure for years
and someone under pressure
often act strange.
He or she is not himself or herself
really.
What do you think?

Well
now we're here.
Who are we?
Or should I ask
what are we
a river of situations
a dance
a theater ensemble?

Thursday, September 9, 2010

God is a word
with many different meanings.

What do you mean when you say that you believe in God?
Or maybe you don’t believe in God.
What do you mean if you say that you don’t believe in God?
Probably you don't have a clue.
Your mouth is talking by itself in your face.

I’m listening.
Your words arrive at my eardrums as waves in the air
like waves on a seashore
and there they are transformed
into electro-chemical nerve impulses
and travel in to my brain
where they are worked up
and a response is somehow formed
all by itself
automatically
almost instantly
and my mouth begin to talk.

You and I have almost nothing to do with this.
It is rare that we manage to stop ourselves
which is mostly good
I think
Conscious talking is so contrived.
You may believe that you are awakened
or on a journey to awakening
or you may believe that you are saved
and that you will go to heaven when you die
but what if you have fooled yourself?

All people are fooling themselves.
This is normal.
We’re all like pond frogs
living in different ponds
in backwaters
in a bourgeois pond
listening to Beethoven and Mozart
practicing mindfulness meditation from time to time
or maybe in a working class pond
listening to the Rolling Stones or U2
eating sausages.

We don’t care too much about other ponds
in our day to day life.
We pretend sometimes that we care
about other people in other countries
or in other shoes
because we have read somewhere that this is something good to do
but mostly we don’t give a damn.

You may love yourself
and you may love what is
in your beautiful living room
with the wonderful view over your garden
but this is not awakening
this is not salvation
and this is not to be present here and now
with your whole being.
This is only a part of yourself
the tip of an iceberg.

So how do I know about this
you may ask.
Am I not a pond frog
just like you?

Of course I am
but human beings are not just a pond frogs.
Somehow we can also change into birds
and see things from a bird perspective.
This is in our nature.
This is fantastic
and this is why you are able to understand what I am talking about.
We can wake up
from our everyday slumber
at least for short moments.
Isn’t this amazing?

We are not just pond frogs
or wolfs or eagles or chimpanzees or pigs
We are human beings
for Christ’s sake.

Awakening must serve a purpose
in the biological evolution.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Sunday, May 2, 2010

What difference does it make to you
in your life
if an electron is a particle or a wave
or both?
What difference does it make to you
if God created the world six thousand years ago
fourteen billion years ago
or if there is no God
and the universe has always existed?

Thursday, April 29, 2010

A reminder

Colors don’t exist
if no one is there to see them
and sounds are not sounds
if no one is there to hear them.
Rocks are not solid
and sunsets are not beautiful
in the real world.
The real world consists of almost nothing
empty space between the electrons
and the nucleus of the atom
and empty space between the atoms.
We are somehow creating the world
with our senses
and our being.
However, our senses and our being
are also a part of the creation.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Monday, April 26, 2010

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

 
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I saw an eagle today, a sea eagle. Isn’t that something? In a big city. Fifty years ago they were close to extinction here in Northern Europe. Hunting, DDT, PCB and mercury almost killed them all. Conservation actions, restrictions on pesticides, and winter feeding helped them to recover.

Things can change when people realize that things can be changed, even if it may take years. Indifference, ignorance and greed are not the only options.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Perfection in inprfection

 
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Blue anemones need wood ants for their propagation. When the seed is ripe the plant will bow down to make it easier for the ants to pluck them. The seed is coated with a sweetener which wood ants are crazy about.

However, on their way back home, one ant or another will drop it’s seed and the seed will grow and form a new blue anemone.

Without wood ants who make mistakes there would be no blue anemones.

Mistakes are an important part of life.
 
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Friday, April 16, 2010

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Monday, April 5, 2010

A part of us is always genuine, warm and friendly
no matter how much we try to dissemble ourselves with
a cool attitude or sophistication
or protect ourselves behind armors of explanations,
ideology and creed.
We are not complete idiots, none of us.
We can be fooled, afraid, mistreated or brainwashed
but a small part of any of us will always be free and human.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Positive thinking is dangerous

Positive thinking is a philosophy of life or a self help method which has it's origin in the early twentieth century but it became extremely popular in the nineteen eighties and it is still very popular. The idea is that we should get rid of negative, dark thoughts and replace them with positive and optimistic ones. We should change our minds.

The big pharmaceutical companies had some new promising antidepressant pills to put out on the market in the beginning of the eighties. Unhappiness, frustration and anxiety were, as they saw it, medical disorders that could be cured with medication. A lot of people suffered from unhappiness, sorrow, anger and frustration. The market was immense.

Psychotherapy wasn’t very successful in those days. People could spend years in therapy without feeling better. So many psychotherapists needed a new approach and became positive thinking gurus.

Positive thinking was, and still is, a very good business for the pharmaceutical companies, the therapists, the authors of self help books and the publishing houses.

The establishment was in hot water after the Vietnam war. They had to do something. And they did. On a grand scale. They embraced the positive thinking philosophy and filled the newspapers, magazines and TV shows with the optimistic message: if you are a looser it's your own fault. Stop complaining about injustices, war and environmental pollution. Do something. Become something great. Women don’t want to marry losers. They want dollars, big cars and swimming pools. And big Hollywood smiles.

Positive thinking is a very dangerous philosophy. You have to learn self-hypnosis and how to reprogram your unconscious mind. The crucial point is what kind of stuff you program your subconscious mind with. Is it the establishments ideas of success? Sales results? The meaning with life is to get rich, no matter how. Success is measured in dollars.

Since the nineteen sixties the clinical depressions have increased with over a thousand percent. (See Martin Seligman’s book Authentic happiness) The sub clinical depressions have of course also increased but I don’t have any figures. We feel like shit. We are getting more and more depressed. We sink deeper and deeper in the mire. Nothing seems to be of any help. Sometimes depression is called “the common cold of the mind”, everybody suffer from it from time to time, but what if common colds had increased with a thousand percent in 50 years, wouldn’t you have wondered what was going on?

So, are we doomed? Is a change to something positive impossible? If change is possible how does it come about? Is it a gradual and slow process or is it instant? Is it something we can do to make it happen? Is it something we have to realize? Do we need to practice more meditation? Do we need to pray?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWfDm_bqwUU&feature=related

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Non confessional

It's a mystery to me why so many people of today still hold on to
all the ancient superstition they teach in the churches, temples,
synagogues and mosks.
After thousands of years of terror, inquisition trials, witch hunts,
religious wars, racism, oppression of women, children
and low cast people,
how dare the religious leaders speak about ethics, morals and love?
How dare they? Are they out of their minds?
How come they are not ashamed?
And why do people still listen to them?

Well, organized religion has lost most of it’s power in Europe.
All kinds of private superstition have replaced the old dogmas.
However, to me it makes no difference if it’s a priest,
a New Age Guru or my own head
that is creating the beliefs.
All beliefs are made of the same stuff, imagination.

I don’t believe in reincarnation.
I don’t believe in a heaven or a hell where we end up after death.
I don’t believe that a benevolent God has created the universe
with a purpose.
I don’t believe in career planning.

Not even the scientists are of much help.
They have always been sellouts.
And they seem to, exactly like the rest of us
mainly base their world views and interpretations on speculation.
Very little of what they have to say about the world
is based on scientific proof.
All scientific truths seem to be replaced with new truths
some ten or twenty years later.
How can this be?
Were the old truths not really truths?

And I don’t like the political parties.
I don’t want to vote anymore.
I’ve had enough of politics.
To my mind all politicians are the same.
They're all identical, with identical hairdos and identical wives.
They’re all chanting the same empty phrases
and they all dress up in the same limousines.
Some wear a red tie, though, and some wear a blue.

So, what do I believe?
Where is my heart?
This is my last post here on this blog.
I’ll give up bloging in English now.
I feel it’s time to move on.
I’ve been going on and on for years now about what I dislike.
But before I leave, I should try to explain
at least something about what is important to me.

I think it's very important to wake up.

I think it is important to give up alcohol, pot and tobacco.
Alcohol, drugs and nicotine
will make it impossible to stay awake.
This is because the psychological suffering,
the inner fuel for awakening, will be destroyed.
The inner fire will be put out.
(I doubt that Nisargadatta Maharaj really was fully awakened.)

All the religious, philosophical and political ideas
are just ideas, imaginations, fantasies
and they serve exactly the same purpose as the drugs,
they sedate us, they seduce us, they put us to sleep
like opium
or make us crazy, like amphetamine.

It is much more pleasant
to have a nice and warm belief system to hold on to
than being awake and aware of what is going on in the world.
A warm belief system makes life easier.
White lies are better than the truth.
However, I still prefer the truth.
Are you walking out on me?
Are you in love with someone else?

It is normal to question other peoples beliefs, ideas and opinions
but if we forget to question our own thinking
then we will easily be lost in delusion.
Debate with yourself, argue with yourself.
Is it really true that life has no meaning?
Where did you get that information from?
Is it really true that you are an idiot?
Is it really true that life is about competition and being the best.
It's important to realize that all thoughts in the head
are just thoughts, not the truth of the matter
but either you make use of them
or someone else will.

It’s also very important to avoid being an complete ashole.
It's important to care about children
and to feed the birds in the winter.
Asholes are never spiritually awake.
And if they wake up they are no longer a complete asholes.

Perfectionism is unnatural.
To search for perfection leads to neurosis and disease.
We all make mistakes. We all slip and slide.
It is very important to realize this, I think.
Mistakes is the language of life.

It is also important to take a clear stance against injustice
exploitation, racism and hyper egoism.
You will never wake up as long as you desire to get rich
or if you want to keep your riches, if you are rich.
Awakening is not for the successful folks.

I have experienced many incredible synchronicities
or meaningful coincidences in my life.
This has proved to me that there are a lot of important things going on
which I'm not aware of.

Life is hard. That's for sure.
Life can be incredible hard to some people.
I have no idea why this is so.
There must be some kind of reason for this.

What I can see, and feel and know
is just a tiny, tiny little speck of it all.
Maybe there is a meaning or a reason for everything
which is not possible to put into words.
Maybe there is a meaning or a reason or whatever
that we will never get to know about.
We don’t expect chimpanzees to understand much
why would we?
We are, after all, just a little bit more
evolved ape.

I am

Ego repeats
over and over again:
I am, I am, I am,
like a mantra.

I am eternal.
I will never die.
I am God.

I am, I am, I am.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

One is crazier than the other

Some believe they are saved,
some believe they are awakened
and some believe they are doomed.
All people are convinced they are right.
Communism is the solution
or Islam or liberalism or mindfulness meditation…
No one suspects that they might have got it all wrong.

We are such idiots, all of us.

We will all die, that’s for sure.
We don’t have that many years left.
We will die from cancer or in car accidents.
We will drown or die from food poisoning.

Why bother if people join destructive religious or political cults
or if they drink themselves to oblivion?
Why bother if people are greedy hypocrites
and serve both God and money?
Why bother about anything?
Soon we’re all dead and gone, anyway, aren’t we?

Will thoughts like these make you happy?
If not, what good will they do?
What end will they serve?
Aren't mumbo jumbo and fairy tails
a better way of looking at things
as long as they make us happier or bring some comfort?
Who cares if they're wrong?
We'll soon be gone, all of us, anyway,
won’t we?

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Saturday, February 13, 2010

In the grip of bad ideas

You can make the world very small and meaningless.
“Life sucks and then you die.” That kind of thing.

Well, to be more precise,
you don’t make the world small and meaningless,
you have been fooled to believe that this is the case.
Your parents, your friends, school,
TV, the Hollywood stars...
They have all fooled you
and they have all been fooled
exactly like you have.

We can bee fooled to believe almost anything.
We can be fooled to go to war and do the most terrible things.
We can be fooled to live our lives in the most amazingly stupid ways.

We can be fooled to believe that we belong to a superior race
or that our God are better than their God.
We can be fooled to believe that nothing really counts but money.
We can be fooled to believe that we are stupid, not good enough,
from a good family or from a bad family…

So,
you can make the world small and meaningless
or you can be fooled to believe that the world is small and meaningless
but you can also wake up from this hypnotic sleep.

It is possible to wake up and see
that all the bad ideas, beliefs and misperceptions
are nothing but bad ideas, beliefs and misperceptions,
hypnotic suggestions, magic spells.

Awakening is not something fantastic
that suddenly comes about after years of meditation practice.
Awakening is, I think, similar to realizing
that one has been victim of a fraud.
For example, if you have paid a lot of money
for a timeshare apartment on the Canary Islands,
then, when you at last realize that
there is no timeshare apartment waiting for you on the Canary Islands,
when it eventually it sinks in that you have been deceived
this is to wake up.

To wake up is to realize that the world is not
what you think it is.

Some people think that the huge cathedrals,
mosks and temples
are symbols of the grandeur of creation.
To me they are symbols of power
bigotry, small mindedness, we against them nonsense and evil.
I don’t visit cathedrals and I don’t want my children to visit them
for other reasons than historical education
in the same way as they may visit Auschwitz
to learn what we are capable of.

Friday, February 12, 2010

The inner voice

Does your inner voice sound like a sports commentator,
like a talk show host, or like a news anchor?
Listen carefully.
Listen very carefully to the dialect and the intonation.
Who’s talking?

How did you get here?
How did you find this blog?
Are you like a tourist,
innocently strolling about, blind,
with a huge Nikon digital camera
unaware that this part of town can be dangerous?

Are you like a schoolteacher,
grading a paper or some kind of examination?
Are you like a confessor or like an art critic?

It’s very sad. It’s pathetic.
I try to be smart but it’s all for naught.
By the way, did you know that the word pathetic
stems from the Greek word pathos,
passion?

Who are you?
What are you?
Why are you here
on this page?

Listen to your inner voice as you read this.
Listen to the dialect; listen to the intonation.
Why do you read so fast?
Are you in a hurry somewhere?

What if you are hypnotized,
right now, at this very moment.
I have borrowed your inner voice.
Your inner voice speaks my words.
You are under my control.
Wake up!
It’s time to wake up now!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Positive thinking

One of my work mates is back to work after a three weeks holyday in the Philippines. The weather was wonderful. The beaches were fantastic. “What wonderful clear blue sea. How nice and friendly they are the Philipinos.” Last year she and her husband spent their winter holyday in Thailand. Thailand is also wonderful. Thailand has also wonderful beaches, and wonderful hotels.

She lives in a wonderful world. I have met many people who live in this wonderful world. Mostly I don’t involve myself too deeply with them. I don’t tell them how I look at life. If I do, they immediately begin their, “It's important to have a positive outlook on life. Don‘t you think?”

It's like talking to children. You don’t tell all the details how grandmother died to children. To children you explain that grandmother is now in heaven, with all the angels, and the cat is there with her. Kids are perfectly happy with this kind of information.

This is why spiritual and philosophical teachings often come in two versions, one esoteric and one exoteric version, a secret and a public version. What you hear and read about is almost always the exoteric version. The exoteric version is meant for those who are not ready yet to discuss the deeper levels of truth.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Change is possible

It is possible to give up tobacco. It is possible to give up alcohol. It is possible to change. Many alcoholics have managed to stop drinking. Many hard-core nicotine addicts have managed to beat the habit. Even millions of junkies have been able to stop using drugs. They had to walk through hell, but they survived and came out on the other side.

Some people refuse to listen. Some people believe that change is impossible. They give up and surrender to the way things are. Some people believe that change might be possible and try to do something. Some people believe that change can only happen by itself, by luck, like winning a million on a lottery ticket. Could it be that all of them are right? Is it not so that what we believe in our hearts influence our conscious decisions?

Is it not so that beliefs are extremely important in spite of the fact that they are illusory?

So, isn't the question how to change our useless beliefs?

Friday, February 5, 2010

The truth

The truth shall not set you free.
It is better, much more practical and warmer
with a pinch of self-deception,
an identity, a salary and a family,
two kids, TV nights,
Eurovision Song Contest, ice cream.

Go home.
Find yourself a wife and a family.
Don’t be stupid.
You won’t find anything but cold winds out here.

Don’t get upset if your friends are interested in astrology.
Don’t get upset if they find comfort in simplified
religious ideas and superstition.
Don’t get upset if they have a right wing bent
without knowing why.
Human beings are cut out this way
superficial, misunderstanding things easily
and mistaking misunderstandings for the truth of the matter.

You’re like a pig that disdains pigs
dreaming about being a bird.
 
Posted by Picasa
 
Posted by Picasa

Boys with brains

 
Posted by Picasa
Joseph Mengele

Baboons and chimpanzees appall us.
What disgusting creatures!
And macaques, what good for nothings!
How different with us, humans.
We know how to behave ourselves.
We have intelligence and sophistication.
The other apes know nothing about ethics and moral.
They know nothing about religion.

I am sarcastic, yes of course.

Imagine a highly advanced civilization in outer space
who is observing us trough powerful telescopes.
Suppose they saw the First World War.
Suppose they saw the Second World War.

Suppose they saw the medical experiments
Joseph Mengele and his colleges did on humans.
These guys had brains.
They had passed the tests
and achieved degrees in medicine.

Suppose they saw the atom bomb over Hiroshima.
Suppose they saw the priest who blessed the bomb.
Suppose they saw the terror bombings of civilians in Vietnam.

Suppose they saw the slave trade,
the witch hunts, the inquisition trials...

What conclusion do you think they would arrive at?

http://www.ushmm.org/research/doctors/twoa.htm

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Crap

Fill your head with crap.
It makes life so much easier.
Stuff yourself full.
TV is good; FOX News,
Computer games, idiot pop, patriotic hymns,
celebrities and royalties…
Be what you are, stupid!
Drugs and alcohol can also be very helpful.
Work like hell to get rich.
Find yourself a religion.
Keep on like this till you die.
Don't give up!
You can make it.

Evolution

Homo habilis died out almost two million years ago.
Homo erectus disappeared three hundred thousand years ago.
Homo neanderthalensis disappeared forty thousand years ago.
Homo sapiens will also disappear and evolve into another species.
What will this new species be like? What do you think?

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Bullshit

Here in this country the newspapers are obsessed with a high police commissioner who was caught with his pants down. His special interests were bondage sex and pedophilia.

What makes matters worse (if that is possible) is the fact that he was very active giving speeches all over the country and also in the UN, about equal rights for women and the importance of showing respect to other people.

This is just another tragic example of the utter meaninglessness with words. What people talk about may be true or it may be just bullshit. You will never know. No words, no matter how beautiful they are, can be trusted.

Al Capone was, in a radio interview, very concerned about all the criminality in Chicago.

In 2002, the Jon Jay report listed 4392 catholic priests and deacons in the US against whom allegations of sexual abuse have been substantiated. (Wikipedia) Thousands and thousands of people must have listened to their bullshit sermons, without knowing that they had other interests than the words of Jesus.

The list of bullshitters could be made very long. In fact, all people are, have been or will be talking bullshit. This is my firm conviction. Not all people are as magnificent bullshitters as the police commissioner and the priests who sexually abused children, but all people talk a lot of bullshit. I know, because I have been listening to my own bullshit all my life.

Saturday, January 30, 2010