Old cats are excellent meditation teachers. They know the art of just sitting there, being. In that state of 'no mind', they don't bother whether life has meaning or not, whether there is a God, or if consciousness is a construct by the brain. They don't wonder if there is an afterlife.
Logic, scientific explanations, philosophical and religious explanations, or simply everyday nonsense, are all mental constructs made of words. And words are only a tiny part of a human being.
Do you believe in God?
What do you mean by God?
I mean a higher power, much more powerful than humankind.
Do you mean electricity of sorts?
What an idiot you are! Do you believe that we have a father who cares about us?
Do you mean someone like Donald Trump or Homer Simpson?
Something is seriously wrong with you. Do you believe in Jesus?
Yes, I believe in Jesus. But who was he? Was he God? I believe that he was a Jewish preacher who taught that the end times were near and that God would overthrow the evil forces and create a new kingdom on earth. But the evil forces grew tired of him and killed him.
So, you are an atheist?
No, I'm not an atheist. I believe that there is a God, but he is oppressed. The dark forces are so much stronger. The Devil is a malignant Narcissist, a powerful authoritarian. What is your God like?
God is like Jesus.
Ok, but how do you explain that all the different churches have always sided with the rich, with all the war crazy kings and presidents? How do you explain the witch hunts, the inquisition trials, and all the horrible religious wars? How do you explain that he never helps the poor and downtrodden, no matter how sincere they are in their faith and prayers? Why is he only helping the wealthy and successful?
The inner world and the outer world are, in fact, the same world. There are not two separate worlds.
13,8 billion years ago, the universe was just a tiny, tiny little dot. This mysterious little dot exploded, and enormous heat was released. After some time, the heat cooled down, and galaxies and stars formed. Ten billion years later, life arose, simple forms of bacteria. Then came multicellular organisms, love and hate, right and wrong, words, fantasies, and delusions.
And now you are here, right here, reading this.
You are an idiot.
Throughout history, people have held beliefs and convictions that later turned out to be wrong: the Earth was not flat, the sun did not circle the Earth, the world was not created 6000 years ago, and witches and gnomes did not exist. The Germans are not a superior race, and sins do not cause cancer.
What if your convictions and beliefs also turn out to be wrong? What if also your ideas about God and how life must be lived are delusions? What if your firm conviction that spirituality is pure nonsense is simply small-mindedness? What if there actually is a God somewhere, but all religions have it completely wrong? What if all religions are created by human authorities as a cover or a way to make you obey them?
You are only aware of a small part of yourself and a tiny part of the world.
Sometimes I am an atheist, other times I am an agnostic. Sometimes I am deeply religious, but it is a religion of my own invention, not someone else's. Sometimes I believe there is an afterlife, other times I don't. Sometimes I am convinced that it is important how we live our lives; other times I believe it doesn't make any difference: we simply die one day and that's it. There is nothing more to it. Sometimes I have a naturalistic worldview; other times, I think there is also a spiritual dimension.
There are approximately 4,000 different religions on the planet. Moreover, there are thousands of different kinds of Christianity, thousands of different kinds of Hinduism, different kinds of Islam, and different kinds of Buddhism. There are thousands of different creation stories and beliefs about the nature of God.
This implies that you can also invent a creation story and an idea about God. Your story is as valid as anyone else's. In fact, it is essential that you develop your own belief system rather than simply adopting someone else's. It can be dangerous to let someone else take over your mind. You must be cautious to avoid downloading malicious software.
But it is also essential to question your story as thoroughly as you question others. Your mind can also cook up crazy stuff. You must ask yourself, "Does this make any sense?"
We may have free will, but we can seldom use it. Throughout history, people have been forced to do things they hate. They have been slaves, serfs, and cannon fodder. Today, most people have to work doing things they don't want to do in order to make a living. Some people are trapped in a marriage because they don't have the funds to leave. Some are trapped in a belief system; they are stuck in a labyrinth where they can't find the exit. Some are addicted to alcohol and drugs. They want to stop drinking and drugging, but they can't.
Brain scientists and philosophers can debate if free will exists until they get blue in the face, but who cares? Free will is irrelevant to most of us.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
But one of his favorite angels betrayed him and overthrew him. God fled with his closest associates and set up a camp in a deep forest. The new evil God claimed that he was the original God, the lord of everything, and that he is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. Humankind was fooled by his charismatic narcissism and began worshiping him, which they still do.
However, the original God and his associates are still alive. They fight guerrilla warfare against the evil God, like Robin Hood fighting the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Which side are you on? Do you support Robin Hood or the Sheriff of Nottingham?
I believe there is a spiritual dimension. But you can't get in contact with it through mediums, spiritual sessions, or Ouija boards.
I also doubt that you can get in contact with angels and gods through prayers. Most people are praying to a fantasy God. Some worship a God with an elephant's head and four arms, others worship a right-wing evangelical God, and some worship the sun as a God. I believe if you get in contact with the spiritual dimension, it's because someone there has contacted you.
You may notice this in a synchronicity or some other mysterious event and realize that something strange happened to you. You are an idiot, and someone in the spirit world was trying to help you, or maybe punish you, because you are an idiot who refuses to understand something. A spirit directed your steps and the steps of someone else, which caused you to bump into each other.
Some people believe that there is no spirit world. Well, that may be so. There are many different kinds of beliefs in the world.
Some people believe that God is vengeful and jealous. Others believe the universe was created from nothing fourteen billion years ago.
Some still believe that they belong to a superior race and that they must kill or exploit inferior races because this is the law of life.
Some believe that human history is now coming to an end, while others believe that a fantastic future awaits us.
There are many beliefs floating around in the world. Some are harmless and innocent, while others are destructive and dangerous.
I believe it's all in the mind. There is practically nothing outside the mind. This is not solipsism. I'm not talking about my mind only. All minds are connected into one mind, like raindrops forming an ocean. Nothing important is left when all lifeforms with a mind have died out. Well, elementary particles are there, perhaps. Or it could be just waves. Who cares? Gods, angels, and demons, love and hate, confusion and clarity, exist in the mind only. The battle between good and evil is taking place in the mind.
It's essential to get off the train you happen to find yourself on, whether it's a religious train, a particular philosophy, a political ideology, or an idea about what you should strive for in life. Many people have succeeded in leaving their religious cult or their drinking buddies. It's hard, but it's possible. It's possible just to be a human being. You need love, food, and shelter, but you don't need dogmas or teachings. You can live very well without them.
You can leave the train at the next station, but you can't spend the rest of your life at a train station; you have to go somewhere. If you jump on another train, you will be in the same situation you just left. So, what shall you do? I don't know. You have to find out for yourself. Maybe it will unfold naturally; maybe it won't.
Birds don't care about ornithology, and the stars don't care about astronomy. Plants don't care about botany, and the Gods don't care about theology.
In most forms of meditation, you have to learn to let thoughts come and go. They are like cars passing by in the street outside. They are nothing to pay attention to. You notice them and then continue with your practice.
Another way of dealing with thoughts is to listen to them carefully. What is going on here? How can my brain produce so much crap, nonsense, and nasty stuff? How can I be so grumpy, small-minded, petty, and stupid? I want to be a good person.
So, because you don't want to listen to all this BS, you turn on the internet on your mobile phone or your TV set. If you are driving a car, you will probably turn on the radio. I have used this strategy all my life, and it works quite well. I don't want to hear all the stupid shit my mind produces.
However, if you continue listening to your mind a little longer, you can learn more about yourself. You can also challenge yourself, your ideas, beliefs about the world, lies, pretexts, justifications, rationalizations, and spinning. You can discover that you also have genuinely warm and not stupid thoughts. You can find that you don't have just two voices inside your head, one good and one bad. Moreover, you can also discover that one part of you is observing the internal debates.
This is thinking meditation.
Brain scientists and Buddhists claim that the sense of self, the ego, is an illusion. But isn't the world itself an illusion? Isn't the world as we know it created in the brain? Your eyes detect light waves and convert them into nerve impulses that are transported to the brain, where an edited video is formed. But this is not the reality—it's just an edited tiny fraction of it. As Kant said, what you experience is not the reality itself but the reality for you.
What would the world look like if no one was there who could perceive it? More than 99% of an atom consists of space between the nucleus and the electrons. According to the physicists, "the real world" is an endless empty space with a few elementary particles here and there bouncing about.
Are synchronicities, ESP, and miracles real, or are they delusions? Isn't everything a miracle? The more you learn about life and how a living cell and living organisms are constructed, the more astonished you will become.
So, you conclude there must be a superior intelligence behind it all, and you become religious. You become a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, or something New Agey. This is a mistake, I think. You don't need all the junk that comes with religion to marvel at the great mystery.
