Hippocampus is a part of the brain that is important for the formation of memories. If this part of your brain is damaged or destroyed, you may find yourself living in the eternal now. You will not even remember what happened thirty seconds ago. The future will also disappear. You will not remember that you have to go to the laundry to pick up your clothes or that you have an appointment with the dentist in the afternoon.
Eckhart Tolle and many other spiritual teachers put too much emphasis on the now, I think. To focus all attention on the now will not lead to spiritual transformation or awakening. Why bother about climate change, environmental pollution and injustice if only the present now is real? Why bother about anything if only what you have here in front of you, at this moment, is real?
However, to completely loose touch with the now is very harmful. Many people suffer from this disease in our modern societies. They’re always somewhere else. They’ve lost contact with themselves and the reality. Trying desperately to reach a goal or playing one’s old cassettes over and over, is to be gone. It’s very important to be able to be present.
It’s good for both mental and physical health to be present in the now. For example, Jon Kabat-Zinn has showed that psoriasis patients will respond better to UV-light treatment if they are mindful of the present moment during the treatment. Isn’t this an interesting discovery? Why would mindfulness of the now improve psoriasis treatment? In addition, you will more often be in a better mood if you spend more moments in the now.
The mind is planning for the future and looking back at what happened, but returns to the present, again and again. A normal healthy mind works this way. The now is very important but memories of the past and making plans for the future is also important. Without memory and plans for the future, we would need people at a nursing home or a monastery to take care of us.
Fantasies, daydreams, theories and ideas are also very important but we must not forget that all such mental bubbles will eventually burst. Our minds are often fooling us. The world is not as we think it is.
However, nothing is more important than warmth. A cold, intellectual analysis of life is the most serious delusion of all. This approach is to give up our humanness and settle in a theoretical reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The reality
If you look at the stars at night, you’ll look back in time. The stars you see can have gone out thousands of years ago, but you’re unaware of it. The twinkling lights you see have traveled for thousands of years before reaching your eyes. If our sun would explode, it would take eight minutes before we would notice it.
Moreover, if someone in another galaxy looked at our planet through a powerful telescope, he would see what was happening thousands of years ago. What’s happening here right now can only be seen in that galaxy after thousands of years.
The now is irrelevant from the cosmic point of view. Everything is irrelevant from the cosmic point of view. We’re stuck here at this time. If there are other civilizations out there, we will never be able to contact them because of the distance and the time difference.
Some people believe that there is no reality outside their own minds. Philosophers call this idea solipsism. What’s this idea good for? Is it useful? I don’t think so.
Others believe that highly advanced civilizations can travel faster than the speed of light or that angels and other strange beings can sneak into our dimension through mysterious loopholes. It may well be so. I don’t know. However, is it meaningful to speculate about such beings if you have never met them? In what sense do such speculations improve your life situation?
Pondering space and time may be fun, but it’s not particularly important. We need food and shelter, love and friendship. Such things are important. We don’t need war, greed, environmental disasters, or injustice. We spend too much time and energy on unimportant or idiotic things and too little time on what really matters. This has to be changed. We need to wake up.
The world is unimaginably huge, and life is unimaginably complex. Most religious and spiritual people make the mistake of believing that they know what everything is about. They know it all, but they arrive at different conclusions.
Many scientists have similar problems. They believe they understand what‘s happening, but they don’t. What they know is just a tiny fraction of the totality. They look at life as if they were on the outside looking in, but they’re not. No one knows what life is all about. Life’s an incomprehensible mystery.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
What is time?
What are we measuring when we’re measuring time? What is it made of? What is time really? Such questions are important for philosophers and physicists. To us everyday people it’s enough to know what time it is. It’s half past two here. I have to be at the wine shop before three o’clock because it’s Saturday, so I’m in a hurry. Time can be very important also from this point of view.
Physicists say that time was created at the Big Bang along with everything else. This means that time didn’t exist fifteen billion years ago. Nothing existed fifteen billion years ago.
Nothingness and timelessness are meaningless words for me. I don’t understand anything of what Buddhist monks and physicists mean when they talk about such matters. It’s like Greek to me. So, to me it doesn’t matter at all, if time is relative or if time is simply a social agreement. I live my life here at the surface of the reality ocean. The depths and the space are not for me.
Now I have to rush.
Physicists say that time was created at the Big Bang along with everything else. This means that time didn’t exist fifteen billion years ago. Nothing existed fifteen billion years ago.
Nothingness and timelessness are meaningless words for me. I don’t understand anything of what Buddhist monks and physicists mean when they talk about such matters. It’s like Greek to me. So, to me it doesn’t matter at all, if time is relative or if time is simply a social agreement. I live my life here at the surface of the reality ocean. The depths and the space are not for me.
Now I have to rush.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Free will
I can’t prove that we have a free will but I believe that this is the case. This is a useful belief, I think. It makes us responsible for at least some of our actions. (I didn’t pay the bills but don‘t blame me. I have no free will.)
There would be no point with doing anything if we don’t have a free will. There would be no point with paying the bills. There would be no point with booking the laundry for tomorrow. Equal rights and justice would be meaningless concepts.
However, what if our decisions are not really our own? Maybe we simply do what our parents have told us to do. Maybe we do what society has told us to do. Maybe our will is not our own.
It’s possible that we don’t have a free will, absolutely. Maybe the free will is an illusion similar to the illusion that the sun is moving and descends under the horizon. Cognitive neuroscientists have in fact been able to show that a decision, such as moving an arm for example, is preceded by specific brain activity up to a second before we become aware of the decision.
I don’t know how to interpret these findings. I may be wrong but I still find it more practical to believe that we have, at least to some extent, a free will. I’m still not totally convinced that free will is an illusion. Moreover, neuroscientists are also admitting that we always have the option to say no. We don’t have to act on all impulses.
Our free will may be very weak and it is often that things get in the way, but still, it’s there to be used if we want to, I believe. We don’t have to live all of our time on autopilot mode.
Some people assume that we don’t have a free will and that only the Gods, or chance and natural laws, are governing the course of events, but most people assume that we have a free will. I’m with the majority in this matter.
None of us knows for sure who is right. It’s a matter of how we look at things, our worldview, our attitude, not how things actually are, I believe. The scientists must also interpret their results and the theologians must interpret their scriptures.
Anyway, I don’t care if my intention to move my arm needs some processing time. I need to do my bills today.
This way of looking at things is similar to the question if an alcoholic a selfish idiot who is afraid of himself or if alcoholism is a disease, a kind of allergy? It depends on how you look at it. You can’t prove that alcoholism is an actual disease but this idea has proved to make it easier for alcoholics to recover. It’s therefore a useful belief.
I think that the question if we have a free will or not is actually a rather silly question which we can leave for the scientists and philosophers to debate. It’s simply not a relevant issue here in the everyday dimension.
Of course I get irritated if I don’t get done what I want to get done, and it’s unpleasant to feel irritation. This is the downside with the belief in a free will. However, irritation is not dangerous if you don‘t get to much of it. The belief that we don’t have a free will has also its downsides. Perhaps your bills don’t get paid. This causes also a lot of trouble.
There would be no point with doing anything if we don’t have a free will. There would be no point with paying the bills. There would be no point with booking the laundry for tomorrow. Equal rights and justice would be meaningless concepts.
However, what if our decisions are not really our own? Maybe we simply do what our parents have told us to do. Maybe we do what society has told us to do. Maybe our will is not our own.
It’s possible that we don’t have a free will, absolutely. Maybe the free will is an illusion similar to the illusion that the sun is moving and descends under the horizon. Cognitive neuroscientists have in fact been able to show that a decision, such as moving an arm for example, is preceded by specific brain activity up to a second before we become aware of the decision.
I don’t know how to interpret these findings. I may be wrong but I still find it more practical to believe that we have, at least to some extent, a free will. I’m still not totally convinced that free will is an illusion. Moreover, neuroscientists are also admitting that we always have the option to say no. We don’t have to act on all impulses.
Our free will may be very weak and it is often that things get in the way, but still, it’s there to be used if we want to, I believe. We don’t have to live all of our time on autopilot mode.
Some people assume that we don’t have a free will and that only the Gods, or chance and natural laws, are governing the course of events, but most people assume that we have a free will. I’m with the majority in this matter.
None of us knows for sure who is right. It’s a matter of how we look at things, our worldview, our attitude, not how things actually are, I believe. The scientists must also interpret their results and the theologians must interpret their scriptures.
Anyway, I don’t care if my intention to move my arm needs some processing time. I need to do my bills today.
This way of looking at things is similar to the question if an alcoholic a selfish idiot who is afraid of himself or if alcoholism is a disease, a kind of allergy? It depends on how you look at it. You can’t prove that alcoholism is an actual disease but this idea has proved to make it easier for alcoholics to recover. It’s therefore a useful belief.
I think that the question if we have a free will or not is actually a rather silly question which we can leave for the scientists and philosophers to debate. It’s simply not a relevant issue here in the everyday dimension.
Of course I get irritated if I don’t get done what I want to get done, and it’s unpleasant to feel irritation. This is the downside with the belief in a free will. However, irritation is not dangerous if you don‘t get to much of it. The belief that we don’t have a free will has also its downsides. Perhaps your bills don’t get paid. This causes also a lot of trouble.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Self inquiry
It is better to observe your actions than your thoughts if you whish to gain some knowledge about yourself. However, knowledge about oneself is seldom pleasant and it will not always be helpful. To see things clearly can make you downhearted or depressed.
Most people think they are more generous than they actually are. Most people overestimate their intelligence and their knowledge. Psychologists call this phenomenon illusory superiority.
Observe yourself when you don’t give money to a beggar Observe yourself when you give money to a beggar. Observe yourself when you try to get in first to get a better seat. Listen to yourself when you tell a lie or talk bullshit. You will be surprised.
The thinking mind is not reliable. You have to observe your actions if you want learn about yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
Most people think they are more generous than they actually are. Most people overestimate their intelligence and their knowledge. Psychologists call this phenomenon illusory superiority.
Observe yourself when you don’t give money to a beggar Observe yourself when you give money to a beggar. Observe yourself when you try to get in first to get a better seat. Listen to yourself when you tell a lie or talk bullshit. You will be surprised.
The thinking mind is not reliable. You have to observe your actions if you want learn about yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
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