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?