If a baby is born in to a dysfunctional family with nothing but violence, drugs, and criminality around, no one will be surprised if he runs in to trouble later in life.
Well, aren’t we all born into a dysfunctional mankind? What can you expect from us?

But not all children born in rough neighborhoods under horrible conditions turn into gangsters. How can that be? Not all people in this evil world are evil. Not even a majority. How can that be? In fact, most people are pretty much OK. Most people are fooled and we deceive ourselves, but we are not evil. The core problem, I think, is that we are pack animals. We follow the head ape. If the head ape is nasty and tell us to go to war and kill little children, we will go to war and kill little children. If the head ape tell us to work like hell for peanuts, we will work like hell for peanuts. If he tell us to go to hell with him, we will go to hell with him.
We don’t want to feel odd and left out, and we have a problem with authorities. This is our problem.

“ A significant portion of the earths population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die. A still relatively small but rapidly growing percentage of humanity is already experiencing within themselves the breakup of the old egoic mind patterns and the emergence of a new dimension of consciousness.” Eckhart Tolle

Dear Eckhart. Do you think that the Catholic Church will ever give up their egoic mind patterns, that is their belief system? Do you think that the Muslims will ever be ready to give up their belief system? Do you think that the economists voluntarily will give up their Nobel prize winning theories? Are you serious? Do you think that there will be a day when the executives in the big corporations are saying: “We have been completely crazy. We have been after nothing but money. We need to change that.”? Do you think that the George Bush mob will ever change their ways. How about the KKK and the neo Nazis, how do you think they feel about what you are saying? And people in general, do you really think that they are willing to give up their egoism? Are you actually saying that we are egoists?

What do you think? How big is the percentage today that are willing to give up their belief system, their egoic mind pattern? How many people of that sort have you met? A hundred? Ten? Two or tree? How I wold like to get in contact with them. Hello! Where are you? Hello! Answer me!

It is possible, I think, that a person here and a person there will be able to wake up from delusions, but the large majority will never wake up. I have spent at least 25 years on a serious quest to rid myself from delusions and nonsense, but I haven’t had much success. I am still stressed out about everything. I rarely experience any peace of mind.

In Germany, in the nineteen thirties, everybody was screaming their lungs out: “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” Scholars, priests, ordinary farm workers, everybody was screaming. Today everybody is working like hell to be able to shop. If we relax the shopping thing the stock market will go down. That would be the end of the world.
There is no hope. I’m sad to say it.

Thoughts like this shouldn’t be expressed, I suppose. Thoughts like this should be stored away in a dungeon somewhere. But all the accepted thoughts are welcome to the great ball, dressed up in pink and green and blue, and the most wonderful of them all shall marry the prince and they should live happily ever after.

In Mahayana Buddhism, by the way, the monk who is on the brink to enlightenment, refrains from his enlightenment and accept the unenlightened state of mind in solidarity with all the rest.

Well, I don’t refrain from enlightenment. I am not even near it. I am a stressed out and disillusioned middle aged man without much hope. I am not desperate. I will not kill myself. I will have visitors here in a little while and we will have some fun maybe. Maybe we are going to a restaurant later. I don’t know. Tomorrow I am at work again.

What I can’t understand is all the synchronicities in my life. Why do they appear? Is there any meaning with them? I plan sometimes to make a list of them, but what is the point with that? Synchronicities happen to me all the time. So what.

It is raining here today. It is raining here almost everyday, nowadays. Due to the climate change we must prepare fore more rain, the experts say. Around the Mediterranean, though, there will be less rain. The Sahara dessert will expand north to Greece, Italy and France.

I feel a weird bodily irritation today. I don’t know what's going on.

Is it not possible that some people just pretend to be awakened like many religious people just pretend to be religious? What does it mean to wake up? What does it mean to be religious? What does it mean to pretend to be religious?
George W Bush is a deeply religious man. He is impressed by Dalai Lama. He feels that Dalai Lama is a truly religious man, like himself. Silvio Berlusconi in Italy is also a deeply religious man and he models his life after Jesus Christ. How is all this possible? One of the richest men in Europe believes that he is modeling his life after Jesus Christ and the president of the United States believes that he is guided by God. If he is wrong God is wrong.

Is it not sad if someone truly believe that he has been saved , that he will live for ever and God knows what, when in reality he has been but fooled by some crazy preacher?

Don’t be judgmental about people that lie, put on shows and deceive themselves. Without their lies, shows and self-deceptions they might not have anything at all to live for.

Life is terrible. Reality is terrible. It is hard to find words to all the horrors. Not only Nazis killed little children just for the fun of it. In South America the natives where hunted for sport, like foxes. Little children are sold as prostitutes everyday, in China, in Russia, in Thailand, in India, in Kosovo. This is big business. The atrocities are endless.

So, to survive in this terrible world you have to construct a castle in the air, and you have to make yourself comfortable there, you have to come up with a good fantasy, or you will drown in all the horrors.

Any fairy tale will do, Santa Claus, the Easter rabbit, any religion, as long as it works for you, as long as you can believe in it. I have changed my mind now. It is wrong to complain about religions? I have stopped to complain about religions from now on.

I shouldn’t feel the way I feel. I shouldn’t be so damn nervous. I shouldn’t think the way I think. I shouldn't write about what I think. I shouldn’t believe the way I believe. I shouldn’t look the way I look. I need to lose weight. My nose is too big. I need to have an operation. I need to have a complete makeover. I should stop complaining. I should be more optimistic. I should be more creative, more positive, more confident. I should take a class in yoga or NLP, some kind of therapy that really works. I need to be more consistent with whatever I do. I shouldn't give up so easily. I really need to do something. I really need to realize something. I should be more grateful. I should love myself. I should be more loving. I should be more lovable. I should be more successful. I shouldn’t be so damn lazy. I should have more energy. I should pay more attention to what I eat. I should be more thoughtful. I should be more fulfilled, dynamic, forgiving, attentive… I need to find my true self. There are so many books around, so many therapies, so many PhDs. There are gurus everywhere. Answers. We have now reached a point in history when we have all the answers.The world is filled with them. We are at the end of history. This is the last dance. I should stop worrying. I should stop brooding. I should realize that there are no should s. I should relax now.

Suppose you were a man or a woman living in Germany at the end of the nineteen thirties. Suppose you had experienced some kind of awakening. Do you think that, under those circumstances, you would have had feelings of frustration, sadness or anger about what was going on around you? Or would you have experienced feelings of bliss? Will awakening always mean that you suddenly begin to love everything, as it is, because everything is in perfect divine order?

And what about today? People that wake up today, will they not also feel frustration, sadness or sorrow for how this planet has been ruined? Or would they simply jump for joy. "Hurray! I’m awake! I’m saved!"

What does it mean to wake up? Different people seem to mean different things when they talk about “waking up.” It is the same thing with the religions. Since the beginnings of Christianity, historians say, about 22, 000 different interpretations has developed. Think of it, 22, 000 different interpretations of the same book. Catholics, Mormons, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses…

I have definitely not experienced the kind of awakening Eckhart Tolle talks about, when the mind suddenly is filled with a lasting peace, but I am listening carefully to what he has to say. He is not an bullshitter, I think. I am listening to you also. What are we experiencing? Is it something similar as Eckhart? I still have an endlessly babbling inner voice, though, but nowadays I don’t care too much about what it has to say, and I still get carried away by stupid emotions, though not as intense as when I was younger, I can experience moments of peace but it doesn’t last very long. Is it possible to extend those moments?

In Indian spirituality the aim is often to rid oneself of all emotions. Fear, sadness, melancholy, worry, jealousy and anger are considered disturbances. An enlightened spiritual teacher has successfully deleted those programs from his mind. This path is not my path. I think that some sadness is healthy and some sadness is idiotic, some fear is good and some fear is bad, some jealousy is completely understandable and some is not. So how can one come to know which is which?
Animals also experience fear, anger and sadness. Those emotions must have some kind of biological source. But to wake up to what is, as I see it, must also involve an acceptance of the mind as it is, and how it functions.

So what about the delusions? If you accept the mind as it is, why don’t you accept the delusions? Isn’t delusions also something that makes us human? Why can’t you accept that some people turn themselves into Nazis or Neo Liberals or Muslim fundamentalists?
Well, Nazism, fundamentalist Islam and neo liberalism are mind constructions. Buddhism, Christianity and Psychotherapy are also mind constructions. Mind constructions are like castles in the air, fantasies. Fear, sadness and anger on the other hand is biological mechanisms, like digestion or the immune response.

Thoughts are also something one has to accept, I think, as long as we are able to question their contents. Thoughts has also a biological source. They have survived in the biological evolution because they proved to be useful. They made it possible for us to make up plans and strategies for how to survive in this or that hostile surrounding. So don’t try to rid yourself of thoughts, but learn to see them for what they are. Almost nothing, really, weak electric currents in the head that are sometimes useful.

To sum up, this is how I look at things: Don’t try to rid yourself of fear, or jealousy, or anger or thoughts. To me waking up is to be aware of these things. However, try to get rid of your definitions. They are completely useless. I am a Christian, I am a liberal, I am a neo conservative, I am a socialist, I am an idiot...

“How smart I am, when I think of it. How clever I am. I am awakened. I am enlightened. After all these years and years of esoteric studies I have finally reached this incredible high level. I am superior. I am fantastic. I am a God. Bow before me so I can bless you.” This is what I think of as an serious mind problem. And those who bow before such guys has even worse problems. The blind is leading the blind.

But how can we explain the synchronicities? And how do we explain Pim van Lommels findings that people seem to perceive things when the brain clearly has stopped to function? And how can we explain the dreams that seem to tell us something? How can we explain the dream world at all? How can we explain anything, the self, the mind, the body, all the billions and billions of chemical reactions that happen every second? What is life about? How come it all started? Isn’t it strange? Everything? Really!