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.

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!

 

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.

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?

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.