The inner voice

Human beings think; optimistic thoughts, pessimistic thoughts, fantastic thoughts, stupid thoughts… This is one characteristic which makes us different from the animals. Certain areas in the brain (the language centers) process and produce thoughts. Our brain is wired for thinking. All human beings think, the Zen monks, the Yogis, all of us. Problems begin when we create beliefs and belief systems with our thoughts and then mistake our mental creations for the truth. And the crazier beliefs we create, and the more we believe in our crazy beliefs the more problems we create to ourselves and others.

Thoughts are not a problem, if we don’t make them into a problem. Those who are in the beginning stages of meditation practice often turn thoughts into a big problem. Those who have practiced some sort of meditation regularly over a longer period of time know that thoughts do not disappear. It is a matter of finding ways how to deal with them in a relaxed way. I can have wonderful, warm and friendly thoughts. And I can have amazingly stupid thoughts. Wonderful thoughts never create problems and stupid thoughts are just stupid thoughts popping in. I am not stupid because I have stupid thoughts in my head. A part of me can observe the thoughts and question them. This proves that I am not my thoughts.

The less energy we put into the thoughts, the less problematic they become and therefore we think less. We no longer create huge catastrophes within ourselves and around us.

The question is: Who is this observer of the thoughts? Who judges them? Who believes that they are true? Who notice that they are just thoughts?

Malicious design

I am home from work since two days now with a terrible cold. I don’t think it is the swine flu but it is pretty bad anyway.

The word materialism have different meanings but in philosophy it usually means the idea that all things are composed of matter. All phenomena, including consciousness are a result of material interaction. Materialists are non-dualists. They don’t believe in a spiritual world or a God or a bunch of Gods separate from the material world.

However, what is matter, really? Today most people know that solid matter, to more than 99,99 % consist of nothing, empty space between the electrons and the nucleus of the atom and empty space between the atoms. Isn’t this weird?

14 billion years ago the universe was much smaller than a tiny grain of sand. Suddenly, this tiny, tiny little grain of whatever exploded and our marvelous universe came into being. Matter, space and time were created in this Big Bang. Later, at some point in the evolution of things, the universe began to think and wonder and love and sing and dance.

I think that the materialist creation myth is as fantastic and spaced out as any of the religious myths.

If there is a God, a being, who has designed all this and who has a plan with it, no doubt this God must be incredible evil. How can someone come up with so many terrible diseases? How could he let the Holocaust happen without interfering? This is the question why I prefer to think of myself as a materialist.

All this is of course mind constructions. I can see this clearly, thanks to Eckhart. My description here is not a true description of how things really are. It is my ideas of what the reality is like.

We all have different ideas about the reality of things, what life is about and what is right or wrong. We all have different ideas about what awakening is. We have different ideas about what transformation is. We have different ideas about everything. But the ideas are just ideas.

Beliefs or knowledge?

A lot of problems are created. I think, when we mistake beliefs for knowledge. Here is the root cause of all the religious and political wars and the reason for conflict between people. If you believe that something is absolutely right and I strongly believe that this is a missunderstanding, we will soon find ourselves arguing. If you believe that the world was created 6000 years ago, I believe that the world was created 14 billion years ago and someone else is believing that the world was never created, that it has always been, then we are not on the same page. None of us know, but we believe that we do. The beliefs have separated us.

We can live with different ideas about how the world was created or if it is possible to communicate with the dead, the real problems begin if you believe in racism, for example, that some are stronger and the weaker must die, or if you believe that nothing really matters, that everything is meaningless There are so many fights within families because of different ideas about how life should be lived or how kids should be raised. There are so many fights on this planet about things we don’t have a clue about.

Do you believe that everybody is happy in his own way? The Islamist suicide bombers are happy because they “know” that they will go straight to Paradise and the fundamentalist Jews are happy with the belief that they are Gods chosen people and that they have rights that the Palestinians in Gaza don’t have.

It would be better, I think, if we all could see that beliefs are just beliefs, castles in the air. I think that this is what waking up is about.

We don't know much.

Science don’t know how life originated here on earth. Scientists have of course different theories about it but none of them knows for sure.

It is different with the religious people. They have all the answers. God created the world 6000 years ago. Don't play no tricks with me. Some say that the universe has always existed and some are totally convinced that life was introduced here on earth by a highly evolved civilization from another galaxy.

Billy Graham, for example, knows exactly what is right and what is wrong. He says that God gave us rules to live by. “You can’t play football without any rules.” He is totally oblivious of the fact that there are thousands of different "rules" that different Gods have given to mankind.

Some people talk about the Source and glimmering lights, some talk about complicated chemical reactions, some talk about aliens from outer space and some talk about Brahman.

Isn’t it about time to agree now that we don’t have a clue what life is about, why we are here, where we are coming from and where we are going. We are lost, all of us. We are right here, right now but we don’t know why.

We don't need the religions

I believe that at the core of a human being there is friendliness. Yes, we can be pretty nasty with each other but this happens only when we are off track. We are friendly when everything is ok, when we have nice friends around, when we are relaxed. Friendliness is our true nature. We don’t need any religious teachings for this friendliness.

The religions and the philosophies are superfluous. We don’t have to believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins if we want to make ourselves a cup of coffee. We don’t need any spiritual teachings at all to go for a walk.

All religions should be abandoned

I have read a few of Karen Armstrong’s books and found them very interesting, however, when she writes in a `Charter for Compassion´ that the principle of compassion lies at the hart of all religious traditions I don’t agree with her.

At the heart of Hinduism you will find the cast system. High cast Hindus show very little compassion towards low cast Hindus or outcasts. They have a lot of interesting old scriptures and philosophies, but the practice have always been about who is more and who is less worth.

Christianity was created about 325 AD when it was decided which were the true words of Jesus. Christians have never in history showed much compassion towards non Christians or those with a different view about what Christianity is. Yes, there are some nice words in the New Testament but there are also a lot of rubbish.

At the heart of Islam was Jihad, the holy war. The Arabs were warriors who conquered the world. All the different clans were united in the new faith. All men were equal. Their faith made them strong.

I think that all the religions should be abandoned. Religions belong to the past, they belong to the Old World.

Also the ideologies should be abandoned, I think. Nazism, Fascism, Social Darwinism, Biologism, Communism, Liberalism, Modernism and Postmodernism, all ideologies and mental constructions belong to the Old World.