I do not walk in darkness, I do not live in fear

I will, from now on, do my best to trust in God. Even though it has been my intent for many years, I felt somehow that I needed to write it down and put it out there. Because it’s so easy to forget this. Especially in the times that we are living in. I cannot do anything about my past unconsciousness. The people I’ve hurt. The opportunities that I’ve missed. The skills that I’ve neglected to learn. Neither can I do anything about the state of the world or my current lack of preparedness for what's to come.

But I can do something about the choices that I make today. I can do something about the bad habits that I’ve acquired in my past. I can choose how I treat the people and things that are in my life. I know that God exists and when I feel close to God I get nothing but an assurance that things will turn out alright. I don’t know how and I still believe that my choices matter, which means that I don’t think that sitting back and just wait for God to fix anything is a good option. When the storm comes, which it will, it’s best to be as prepared as possible. I think that it was Tony Robbins who said that, if you ask why you cannot do something you will come up with all kinds of great reasons for it. But if you ask how, you will instead come up with solutions. 

I must believe that things will turn out okay. The alternative is that God basically messes with me. Or that hope is already lost. And if this is the case, there is nothing that I can do about it anyway. So I can really do nothing but embrace uncertainty at this point. I cannot be afraid of doing something wrong every step of the way. I don’t know exactly what is going on, what is going to happen or who is right. But I know that I can always choose to do the best I can with what I’ve got in front of me, no matter if it is my relationships, my spiritual life, my job, my business, my creativity or something else. I know that I can resign to my weaknesses or do my best to transcend them. I know that I can lie to myself about what they are, how they affect my life and my ability to do something about them. Or I can sincerely do my best to do something about them. 

In the end, no one else can know what goes on in my mind. Only I and God can. So me and God are the only ones that ultimately can measure my efforts and struggles. One of those individuals I can hide things from. But somewhere deep inside I will know that I am. Somewhere deep inside I will know that there is much more that I can be, but that I’m not, because I allow my fears and need for comfort and instant gratification to hold me back.

This is not what I intend to do. I intend to see myself, my situation and the world around me as clearly as possible and face what I find with courage.

What does "spiritual" mean to me? PART 2

Continuing what I talked about in the last post: When it comes to practice and experience, I have a daily meditation, prayer and yoga routine. To me, this is also an essential part of spirituality. Spirituality follows me throughout the day, but it is also something I consistently practice while I’m alone. And just like with God, I think that even if some sort of daily routine is not a necessary component of spirituality, something is missing if one does not have such a routine. The same goes for trying to be a decent person by the way.

Spirituality to me also means awareness of the fact that I have an ego. The ego, the way I see it, is basically a lower self that is ruled by instincts, seeks instant gratification and cares only about its own little wants and needs. The ego is the unconscious beliefs that one is one’s thoughts and living from it means to live in a reactive mindset. Something happens and we react to it. Over and over again. The ego is absence of free will and the illusion thereof. Among other things. Spirituality for me entails a wish to transcend the ego so that it does not run my life anymore. 

Spirituality is finally a source of meaning. A belief, or in my case a knowing, that life serves a higher purpose than to just live in an ultimately pointless universe, die and then be gone forever. That there is a meaning to all of this and that we go on living in some way after we die. What this afterlife is I don’t know exactly. I don’t think anyone does. It’s hinted at in religious scriptures, but all of them, at least in a literal sense, cannot be right. And what is actual descriptions and what is mere symbolism is unclear. 

A higher meaning can be an antidote to the mindless hedonism and ego-gratification just mentioned. Because when life has a higher meaning, it becomes essential to try and be one’s best, so that one is capable of seeking and living this higher meaning.

What does "spiritual" mean to me? PART 1

Our language is full of words that we sort of, but not really know the meaning of or what they mean to us personally. That in itself is quite interesting.

“Spiritual” is a word that means many different things to many different people. To me, at the core, it means to have a belief in, relation to, knowing of and connection with something transcendent. To me, this transcendent is ultimately God. And forgive me if I step on some toes here, but I believe that any spirituality that does not include an intelligent, personal God that cares for us misses the, by far, most important component. But while I believe that this is an essential component in spirituality, it is not an absolute part of the definition of spirituality.

Contrary to many other people, I don’t make a clear distinction between “spirituality” and “religion”. The way I see it, both are relating to the same transcendent reality. Religion seems more oriented towards rituals, morals and tradition, while spirituality seems more oriented towards practice and experience. But personally, I think one needs both and that they overlap a great deal. There is something to be said in the defense of some tradition morals, as long as they don’t become stale. Namely that that which has been transmitted over generations for a long time generally has been transmitted because it has served some sort of function, even if it isn’t always clear what that function actually is. But if this is all that one’s religious/spiritual life becomes, I think that it loses its vitality. 

Back to spiritual. For me it also has to do with how I conduct myself in my day to day life. What I choose to fill my days with and what I choose not to fill my days with. Even if I’m far from perfect and do lots of things that I know that I shouldn’t do when my emotions get the best of me, the spiritual side is something that I always relate to in one way or another. It’s always in the back of my mind. 

Letting go of hell PART 3

I think that I may have stumbled on something important here, when it comes to hell’s absolute incompatibility with an all-powerful, all-loving God. Why? It’s not just that it is self-contradictory. It is that I truly cannot find anything more self-contradictory than this. God, the archetypal, loving father sends his children off to be tortured forever because they fail to understand his will? What?!

As I wrote the last sentence down, something strange happened. I felt a strong, pleasurable, energetic shiver and tears started running down my cheeks. As a matter of fact, I’m still crying a bit as I’m writing this and my body vibrates with energy. 

God’s goodness and perfect love and hell cannot co-exist, unless the idea of goodness that God himself instilled in us, runs totally contrary to the real idea of goodness. You cannot bring the idea of hell to its logical conclusion, without running into one total absurdity after another. 

Try it for yourself and see if you can find anything that that contradicts itself more than this: Absolute goodness and love, inflicting absolute pain and suffering for something someone has done because he/she didn’t know any better, for no good reason. Or even worse, because he/she failed to believe the right things in the face of insufficient evidence. This, I would say, is the perfect self-contradiction. The only way this could make any sense, would be if Satan was as powerful as God.

For the reasons presented in this series, I believe that the fear of hell is part of the fearful, negative programming instilled in us at birth. Thus, I believe that it is vital for each and everyone of us to do our best to let it go.

Letting go of hell PART 2

The original greek meaning of sin is something akin to “missing the mark”, which originally relates to archery. To be a good archer, you have to be able to keep your eyes on the target. And to do so, you have to be able to see clearly. This is very much in line with what I’ve been talking about in the last post in this series. Now, it’s clear that the world punishes us for making mistakes. But why would God do that? In a much more painful way than the world does? For all eternity? It is quite possible that I’m missing something here. But to me, this makes no sense at all. Some believers in hell claim that God has to punish people in this way. They usually invoke the idea of God’s holiness, justice or something similar. 

First: When does God ever have to do anything? If God does something, it must by definition be because God wants to do it. And invoking the idea of holiness or divine justice does not add anything to the conversation. Unless you can explain why the holiness and justice of God would require that God sends people off to get tortured for all eternity after death, these concepts don’t add anything to the conversation. 

Yes, I’m very aware of the limitations of human reason. So you can’t just label something as unreasonable and dismiss it because of it. But we cannot just dismiss human reason because it’s fallible either. And when it comes to hell, as I said in the first post, I’m hard-pressed to find anything that would be more incompatible with an all-powerful, all-loving God. Thus, I’m hard-pressed to find anything more unreasonable.

One thing that ALL WARS have in common:

They have all been started by leaders…

And in the absolute majority of the cases, these leaders are politicians. Because of this and other reasons, maybe it’s time for each and everyone of us to take our power back. Maybe the idea that the world would descend into chaos without a centralized government is just an illusion?

In 1970 there came out a movie with the title Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came. I haven’t seen the movie, but I like the message of the title. 

It is a given that a leader needs national support to start a war. And whether the media in our “free democracies” (LOL!!!) says that the leader is a good guy or a bad guy, propaganda is needed to garner support for the war. And no matter how much lies the propaganda is based on, it is never created out of nothing. This means that any war needs actions taken by leaders on both sides of the fence. And the leaders are always the last ones to take the hit. 

I believe that those that really govern the world are part of the same little club. But whether you believe this or not, why not ask yourself why it should be self-evident that the masses should take part in the leaders’ power games and suffer for it? Peaceful non-compliance has always been a powerful “weapon”, as Gandhi might have been the best example of. You may be able to lie enough to get support for attacks on peaceful people in the short run, but peaceful non-compliance seems to have a way of winning in the end. When Jesus said “turn the other cheek”, those were not just empty words. He said something essential about real power.

How do we take our power back? Well, if we don’t want to have anyone governing us, we need to take responsibility for our own lives and not engage in criminal behavior whether it is lawful or not. And notice that I make a very clear distinction between criminal and illegal behavior. I of course believe that it is criminal to steal. But I also believe that it is criminal to scam someone, whether you do it illegally or not. But I don’t believe that it is criminal to use illegal substances as long as you do not harm someone. 

It all comes down to us as individuals. How we treat our inner lives and the choices that we make. We are not here to force the world to change. All we have to do is to be the change, open our hearts and stop complying with what our hearts tell us is wrong.

Letting go of hell PART 1

I believe that there are good reasons for throwing the idea of hell on the dust pile of history, at least as far as hell in a literal sense goes. Even more so after having written these blog posts.

I wish to say from the beginning that this is a three part series, that I will continue on Saturday, because I wish for as many people as possible to read it. The reason is that I, while pondering this question, truly think that I reached an important conclusion.

The reason that I believe that the question of hell is important in the first place, is because I find the question of choosing love over fear very important. Because whether we let love or fear guide us, has a tremendous effect on what actions we take and what kinds of persons we become. And I believe that the idea of hell, whether we believe in it or not, is a source of much fear in the world. I know that I fear it, even if I don’t believe in it. This fear has however lessened in later years, both because of the transcendent experiences that I’ve had of God’s unconditional love, and because of what I’ve observed with regards to human behavior, and the conclusions that I’ve drawn from these observations.

Here is what my observations tell me: If a person truly understand him/herself and his/her being in the world, that person would not wish to commit any sinful act. What is a sinful act is, is a different topic for a different post. Here it suffices to say that I don’t look at sin from a moral perspective. I rather see it as something that leads to undesired results. 

If a person sins in spite of seeing the actions from a clear perspective, it is because of brokenness and weakness and not because the person is evil. I’ve come to this conclusion because I have seen for myself, how egoistic acts bring me further away from God. Because acts that are not in line with God’s will bring me further away from God. And being separated from God is its own punishment, without anyone but ourselves having to to inflict the punishment upon us. When we see things clearly, we will know beyond any doubt, that we don’t need the threat of punishment to want to do God’s will. We will know that we do it because it is the only way to live a meaningful life. And because it is the only true remedy for the suffering of being. This makes hell superfluous. Something unimaginably cruel, inflicted on people for no good reason. By an all-powerful, all-loving God? I honestly have a hard time thinking of anything that would be more self-contradictory. 

Could we become totally separated from God? I find this unlikely, since it is possible to become severely corrupted and still turn around and earnestly seek God. What would be the meaning of having this possibility taken away by death? At the same time, I believe that the inevitability of death and the uncertainty of what comes after, should be an incentive to prioritize our spiritual life right here and now. Because we don’t know what we may throw away by wasting this life on trivialities. 

Learn focused, systematic thinking!

As with so many other things, this ultimately comes down to awareness. And I’ve thought a lot about the importance of what is going on inside our heads. What I’ve thought less about, is how we consciously direct these processes. How we can do so to focus and sharpen our thinking. 

Now, this happens spontaneously as I take the time to sit down and write down my thoughts on a daily basis, as I do with this blog. But I can definitely be more careful and stringent in my approach. I can be more deliberate in how I practice this skill. 

I believe that focused, systematic thinking is something that also fosters more present moment awareness. The question: “What do I really mean with what I say?” is not a trivial one. Because this is in no way obvious. To be clear, I’m here talking about both what we say in our day to day speech, and what we write. Which is two separate things, but also two things that overlap to a large degree. If you, for example, become more clear and focused in your writing, it will have an effect on your speech, and vice versa. But there will not be a perfect causal relationship, mainly because speech is direct, is generally a dialogue and entails a completely different kind of connection. This while writing is generally a one way communication that gives room for more afterthought and separates the sender and receiver in both time and space. 

What I’ve realized is that it does not really matter how smart we are. If we acquire the habit of being sloppy with our thoughts, the thoughts that we produce will be sloppy. And even thought our thoughts is not the only tool that we have at our disposal when we try to understand ourselves and the world (there is also emotions, intuition and direct sensory experience), they are an important one. One that is indispensable if we want to orient ourselves in the world properly. And it all starts with being aware of what we are actually saying and thinking and what it implies. If you think that this is obvious, you probably engage in sloppy thinking.

Opening my heart and accepting everything

I can feel that a radical shift is happening within me. It’s been going on for quite some time now. But I still have a lot that I need to let go of. Because this is what it’s about: letting go. Letting go of wanting other people to change. Letting go of wanting reality to be something other than what it is. Letting go of vindictiveness, resentment, judgment, victim mentality and in general all of my lower emotions. 

I’ve realized just how much I’ve weighed myself down with all of the mental and emotional junk that I’m carrying around. 

So, what is at the core of the inability to let go? It’s attachment. Attachment to the need for things to be a certain way. Attachment to certain outcomes. I fall back into this attachment over and over again. I know that shouting at the world will not help one bit. And yet I’m there, over and over again. But I feel that I’m letting go more and more. I think that the best way of going about this, is to, as much as possible, accept where I am and not judge what I have not yet been able to let go of. Accept and bring as much awareness into it as possible. Because when I resist my issues they persist. When I feel the most connected with God, I only get the feeling that everything is okay. That I am where I’m supposed to be. 

This does not mean that my choices don’t matter. And definitely not that I shouldn't take action when it's appropriate. It's more or less the opposite. It's about taking exactly the choices and actions that I deem appropriate, regardless of the results that they may or may not lead to.

ASTONISHING and PROPHETIC predictions about the NEAR FUTURE

I predict that we will be hit with one “global disaster” after another during this year and the coming years. The media will faithfully report this to us and tell us that we have to be very afraid. And of course we should. Because there is nothing strange whatsoever that if it isn’t an infectious disease, it’s war, famine, hyperinflation or something else. And then another infectious disease. And then another war. And so on. It’s nothing but a coincidence that the super rich get even richer through this, through what has been called “the biggest wealth transfer in history”, while everyone else is getting poorer. Or that these same rich people are making money from the solutions to the problems. Or that when it comes to the problems that affect us directly, the world seems just fine, except for the measures taken to stop the problems.

If one thing seems to be under control one week, there is another the next. And there is absolutely nothing strange about this. Suddenly disaster after disaster hits us for no other reason than pure randomness and human folly. And this, strangely enough, occurs just as the global elite, that of course has nothing but good intentions for the whole of humanity, is planning a global control system called the Great Reset, through the World Economic Forum. A system that no one would agree to unless they were in need and scared into compliance. It is almost as if someone is causing problems and then presenting solutions that we normally would find reprehensible. It’s almost as if we’re gradually being trained into accepting that more and more liberties are taken away. 

But of course this is just crazy talk. You don't want to be some kind of whacko conspiracy theorist, do you?!

As a matter of fact, it’s just pure, random, bad luck coupled with some good old fashion human nature. And the reason that I predict that these events will keep hitting us, one after another, is because I’ve acquired supernatural abilities and am now able to see into the future . It’s not at all because something else is going on here, such as that events are orchestrated and/or blown out of proportion by the mass media, so that we will be scared into compliance and obedience. Remember this when the next catastrophe hits us. I predicted it because I can see into the future. So you should probably give me some money or something.

What do I truly believe in? What do I truly believe about Jesus?

I think that the broad question about what we truly believe, is quite an important one to ask oneself. Because otherwise, as with many other things that we don’t bring consciousness into, our beliefs risk running on auto-pilot. The idea here is that when it comes to lots of issues, there is simply no objective truth available. It doesn’t mean that there is no objective truth. But whether there is or not, we don’t have access to it. And when we don’t take time to make clear where we stand on different issues, it’s much easier to get swept away by what others believe. Or what we for one reason or another deem appropriate for the moment. Reasons that have nothing to do with our authentic selves, such as fears, cultural values or unconscious desires. 

Let’s get into one of the heaviest questions right away: What do I believe about religious truth? Well, I believe that the truth is to be found in the Bible. But probably not among the most common interpretations of the Bible. And I believe that some, perhaps many, important books were excluded from the Bible. Among those, I believe the Gospel of Thomas to probably be the most important one. 

I also believe that religion and spirituality is the most important, most fundamental aspect of human existence. And I believe that any religious faith that does not make someone hurt others is better than no religious faith at all. And I don’t believe that, just because I believe that one religious faith is the truest one, it makes all of the other faiths wrong and sinful. 

In some sense, I believe that the life and death of Jesus Christ constituted a shift for the whole of humanity. I’m not exactly sure what. I think that it’s pretty clear that his life gave us a perfect ideal to follow. But I also think that this ideal life, lived out fully, represented something more. I think that it may have something to do with that we are all connected on a deep level. There are serious theories about this within the realm of physics and I’ve had some personal experiences that seem to indicate that this might be true. 

This means that what one person does, has an effect on everyone. At the same time, I want to be clear that for me, this does not exclude Jesus as the only son of God. And somehow I feel that this is an important question. 

If the whole idea of Jesus being the son of God, who died on the cross to save us from our sins, is true, then blind faith, if this is something that we are truly capable of, would probably be the best response. In other words, if we don’t just delude ourselves into blind faith because we are afraid of the consequences of not having such a faith. Or worse, if we secretly gloat over the punishment that we believe awaits those that are not capable of such a faith. 

I know that I am not capable of such a faith. But since I believe that the question of the person of Jesus, and not just the example he sat, is important, this is something that I need to think about. But for now, this is as far as I come. I hope that it can offer some food for thought.

How we label things and people PART 2

Another thing that we label is behavior. This can also include speech. It goes something like this: “This is what you’re doing is called.” And we often add: “And that means this.” And perhaps: “And that makes you such and such a person.” We can even discuss the label that we’ve slapped on someone with our friends, what it means and get them to agree that the person is bad because of it. 

A funny thing is that we can even do it in the following manner: “What you are doing right now is called labelling. That makes you a labeler. And labelers are bad people.”

What I’ve come to realize, is that the less you label, the more open you become to the world. It does of course not mean to indiscriminately say yes to everything. There are lots of things in the world that I’ve chosen to reject after careful consideration. And some after not so careful consideration. There are certain beliefs that don’t need much deliberation to be dismissed, such as racism or the belief in authoritarianism. But what we should be careful about, is slapping the label “racist” on someone that doesn’t consider him- or herself as such. 

We can even develop whole thought systems around why we are allowed the luxury of labelling someone while someone else is not allowed to do so. Why not, instead, just meet people with an open mind and assume that they mean what they say about themselves. In an existence that is so governed by unconscious forces anyway, it’s better to turn one’s eyes towards oneself to see if what one says or does means something else that what we think, than to try and extract the hidden meaning behind someone else’s actions or words and slap a label on them. And you can ask yourself how many times confronting someone’s behavior with a label. 

But by not labeling, you try to look at things simply as they are and not through a filter of pre-conceived notions about them. This is difficult and I’m certainly no expert at it. It is rather a habit that we need to keep reminding ourselves of over and over again. But with time, just with any change of perspective, we become conscious of it more and more often. The first step is of course to understand that there is such a thing as labelling, that we engage in it and that it affects how we treat other people and life in general.

How we label things and people PART 1

We use labels to judge things or people as good or bad. When we label something it invoke images in our heads with different degrees of clarity. 

This is a part of our inner life that I find interesting. Because when we attach a label to something we can dismiss it without looking into it any further. I like to use examples that have relevance beyond just serving as an example. Therefore I would like to use the label “New Age”. “New Age” is a label that has been attached to a variety of works within spirituality, of which many have very little in common. If we stick to books, they can be anything from books about interdimensional aliens, lost civilizations or spirit guides, to very practical books about mindfulness or how to release emotions. 

I’m very skeptical towards the whole “smorgasbord” approach to spirituality that we often find within the New Age. Because if we can just discard anything we don’t like, we risk missing learning hard but valuable lessons about how things work. And we also may end up with a lot of width without depth in our spiritual lives and hence end up going nowhere.

But this is just my experience. It might work well for someone else. In the end, all we can really talk about is our own experience. And even that is subject to loads of potential for error.

But I’ve also found much of the more practical stuff in the New Age very helpful. Because there are a lot of teachings that have just brought out the essential of much older teachings. And these can quite easily be tested. I will not get into too much detail about how very different teachings get labelled New Age, since this is not the topic of this post. So I will just mention briefly that this in itself is another problem with labels. That they easily become very broad, so that very different things get dismissed under the same label.

The thing is that for a long time, I tended to dismiss anything labelled New Age as a bunch of mumbo jumbo, practiced by people that have very little understanding of what they are playing around with. I equated it with more or less living in a fantasy world. And so I missed out on a lot of things and judged people before hearing them out.

My point is simple. What I said above can be applied to anything in life where labels are involved. Especially if we attach a label to someone that does not define him/herself as such. Labels close us off. They make us stop listening. They make us right and others wrong. They make us think that we know what others stand for and what they are going to say. They affect how we interact with other people in a very negative manner. I know. Because I’ve done a lot of labelling throughout my life. 

Set clear goals!

Not knowing what steps to take has been my number one motivation killer. There is nothing that can make me hate any task faster than feeling insecure about what to do. And there is nothing that can make me end up doing something non-productive than this either.

I’ve of course read about the importance of goal setting countless times. But how much this affects both my productivity and the joy that I feel while creating has alluded me until recently. I’ve literally gotten maybe five times more efficient by just having the steps that I need to take written down, in as clear and specific language as possible. 

I know that this must have something to do with how our brains function, but I’m not really sure how. I think that it probably has something to do with how we waste enormous cognitive resources on having to decide what to do over and over again. This would also be in line with psychological findings about what is called “decision fatigue”, which basically says that we have a finite amount of energy for making decisions during the day. 

I would like to conclude with a reflection. It’s becoming more and more clear to me that there are numerous ways that we can improve our day to day lives to make everything run smoother. And that many of these things are common knowledge if we just go look for it. But most of us don’t. Most of us just keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. And so we keep getting the same results.

My self-doubt

Am I always going to make the right decisions? Believe the right things about the world and what is going on in it? Should I keep questioning myself endlessly?

Because this is where I am right now. As I’ve mentioned briefly in a couple of other blog posts, I’ve had quite a few rather strange experiences. Some with my wife. Simplified it can be boiled down to feeling the presence of God and having God communicating with us in different way. Never as a voice in the head, even though some thoughts that have entered our heads have, in different ways, felt distinctly as not our own. But, as a side note, how do you know if your thoughts are your own really? 

Many of these experiences have been so strong that it has been unmistakable that something out of the ordinary has occurred. 

And yet I keep asking myself: What if I’m wrong? What if none of these things are what I think they are? 

I’m worried that I’ve understood everything wrong. I’m worried because not many people seem to see spiritual matters the way I do. Mainly, most people don’t seem to want to reconcile Christianity and alternative spiritual beliefs. They are either in one camp or the other. So how do I contend with the fact that I strongly feel called to Jesus, but that I’ve at the same time for example had chakras opened and have seen the positive power of entheogens when they are approached in a responsible manner? I truly believe that what we are seeing taking place right now, is what is prophesied in the Book of Revelation. But I also believe that it has something to do with what in alternative spiritual circles is referred to as The Ascension Process. But it seems impossible to make these things fit neatly together. Then again, maybe it just seems impossible from my limited perspective.

I keep wondering whether I can make some serious error with regards to what I believe. What it one side is right and the other is wrong and I make some terrible mistake by staying open to both? 

On top of that, I keep asking myself: What if what I’m seeing on the horizon will never occur? I’m in the strange position of worrying about the future no matter if I’m right or wrong. If I’m right, there will be great upheavals and lots of pain, but ultimately something that will lead to something better. If I’m wrong, I will look like a fool and the world continues on its current trajectory, where basically anything can happen. 

Not only will I look like a fool in that scenario. I will also have to face that whatever I’ve experienced, it was not what I thought it was. 

I can keep going like this forever. On the other hand, I’ve finally started to get a grip on myself and my plans. And this is where I am right now. Things are moving fast in the world not and I cannot keep questioning myself every step of the way. It is healthy to take a step back and look at one’s beliefs, attitudes and the actions one takes that are related to them with a relative frequency. But what is not healthy is to live in a constant state of self-doubt. Especially not when you try to accomplish something. 

I know that I do my best not to engage in wishful thinking anymore. I sincerely wish to know the truth about myself and the world, no matter what that truth tells me. And in spite of past mistakes that still haunt my behavior from time to time, I know that I have a good will. I don’t want to live just for myself, my own pleasures and comforts. On the contrary, I believe that true fulfilment comes from giving one’s life to something greater than oneself.

I don’t think that I can do much more than that. We basically have two sources to navigate our way in the world from: On the one hand the facts and other external inputs that we have about the world and our direct interpretations of then, and on the other our intuition or inner guidance. And none of these take me further than what I have just described. So from now on I’m going to move forward on the path that is in front of me. And pray to God that God will lead me on a different path if I go wrong.

Seeing the speck one's brother's eyes

If you understand what I’m saying here it should scare you and change your perspective on things, unless you’ve already realized it.

Until a few years ago, I didn’t see just how much I whined and complained about things. We generally don’t see such things, because while we treat others as if they are totally aware of their actions, we are strangely unaware of our own behavior. I didn’t see how egoistic I was, while I believed that others were fully aware of the same behavior. I didn’t see how manipulative I could be, but I believed that others were obviously plotting and scheming deliberately. 

There is something that I find so fascinating with the Bible: It contains so many very human representations of unconscious behavior, which, when you first look at it you think: I would never do that. And as long as you think that way, you will never know yourself. What is fascinating is just this: That these depictions are so very human, but until we start to truly look at our selves, they don’t appear that way.

When Jesus says: “You hypocrite!” he is speaking to most of us. But no one is consciously a hypocrite. No one wants to be one. But we don’t see our own words and actions. We are not aware of the thoughts that go on inside of our heads. 

There is so much more to be said about this. Because I truly feel that I’ve discovered something that was hidden in plain sight for most of my life. And I want to conclude with a somewhat broader and more personal reflection. We tend to often get carried away into wild speculations about other people, or about spirituality, philosophy, the world and so on, while missing what is right in front of us, such as that we are most of the time not aware what we are thinking about, how we treat other people, that we are not present in the moment, or even our postures and how we breathe and how these things, that are present all day, affect our moods and how we conduct ourselves throughout the day. We are so occupied with what is going on with others and the world, that we miss even the simplest, most obvious things about ourselves.

Playing roles

“Just be yourself” is one of those clichés that I really don’t like. I don’t like it because it assumes that it is easy to know what it means to be oneself.

What does it mean to be authentic? I know that I’ve caught myself playing roles many times. I have had some image of who I’m supposed to be and then I’ve tried to live up to that image, both in my lifestyle and in how I’ve interacted with other people. And on some level I’ve felt like a phony because of it. 

How often do we take a step back and think of who we really, truly desire to be? What is our true, authentic self? Maybe you become more authentic by not thinking about these things and just trying to not care who you are in the eyes of others? Who we are in the eyes of others most certainly differ greatly from who we are in the eyes of ourselves anyway. 

I was blind to my own inauthenticity for most of my life. When I look back at my life, it’s quite embarrassing to think of how desperate I was to make other believe that I was in this or that way. And eventually reality hit me in the face, and I had to re-evaluate everything about me. What I’ve realized is that in order to truly find out who I am, I’ve had to stop wishing and wanting to be someone that I’m not. A question that presents itself is: Have I been aiming too high or too low? 

What's important is how our actions shape us...

...not how our actions shape our material lives. 

Honestly, I’m sick and tired of Law of Attraction teachers that tell people to just effortlessly attract abundance. It is true that life doesn’t have to feel like a struggle. But that is not because everything is easy and we don’t have to make an effort to get what we want. It is because when we truly do something that we feel is worthwhile, we discover that we have much more energy and are much more capable than we thought that we were. 

There may or may not be ways to be certain of the outcomes in our lives. I believe that if our wishes are in line with God’s wishes, they will come true. But this is out of our control. What is not out of our control is how our actions shape us. If I lay on the couch all day doing nothing, the problem is not that I am not productive. There are more than seven billion people in the world, so my actions ultimately matter very little to the world. The problem is what kind of person I turn into. In all likelihood, this person is a selfish, tired, depressed, slothful person. And if I constantly act selfishly, I will in all likelihood become shallow and live a life lacking deeper meaning. It doesn't have to be this way, but the chances of this increase dramatically.

Yes, with regard to one’s actions having little significance in the world, I know about the argument “what if everyone thought like that” and yada yada yada. But the thing is that none of this matters. Because if we take actions that shape us into people that we actually want to be, we will also take actions that are good for the world. This is the little secret to life. There is no conflict between our interests and the interests of others. We might think that there is. But when we look at what selfish actions do to us and our lives, instead of just the material gratifications that they offer, this illusion vanishes pretty rapidly.

This is primarily why actions are important. This is also something that we actually have control over. Which should come as a great relief - that which we actually can control with our actions is in fact what is most important to us.

And make no mistake about it. Every action that we take has an effect on our character.

Is it too late?

Have I woken up too late?

I’ve often asked myself: Why didn’t I wake up sooner? Why did I have to wait around 35 years, messing up my life completely along the way, before I started seeing the troubled state that I was in? I think that it might be because not everyone is supposed to wake up early. And that’s okay. Because no matter where we are in our lives lives, once we wake up, whatever else may be in our lives, this is a glorious, meaningful event. 

Come to think of it, maybe it's more than okay. Maybe it even has some significance that I'm unable to see right now, but which will be more clear in the future.

I actually started waking up a long time ago. But I had no idea what was happening. So I stayed in many of my unconscious behavioral patterns and cemented many of them as time flew by. And it wasn’t until I met my wife, more than ten years later, that I started waking up for real. First it was wonderful and I thought that from now on life would be easy. Then I started seeing all of the things that I had been hiding from myself. Which was A LOT! Enough to throw me into a depression. My personal problems were so vast, that I felt like just giving up. Especially since I more and more clearly could see all of the choices that I had made, that had led me to the place that I was.

Today, four years later, I’m in a completely different place. Sure, I still have my downs. I still have a lot of cleaning to do. But I feel confident that I can handle most situations that arise. I’m much more focused than I ever thought that I could be and I’m able to think in a constructive way about most things in my life. 

It took me just four years to get here. And even if I would die tomorrow, I would say that it was worth it. Why? Wouldn’t it have been better to just live comfortably, if I’m not going to live to enjoy the fruits of my labour anyway? No! For one, I know that life doesn’t end when we die. And I believe that, unlike with the stuff that we own or the pains and pleasures we’ve experienced, we take our personal growth with us to whatever life we enter into after we die. And I know that life is not about how much pleasure and comfort we experience. That such things are completely meaningless, regardless of what else we believe. I know that I’d rather experience pain and discomfort if it helps me grow, no matter where I am in life, than pleasure and comfort, if that pleasure and comfort leads me nowhere. If I go beyond intellectual hedonistic philosophizing I can feel that this is true. I think that anyone can.

Are we just automatic reactions?

Am I talking to sets of automatic reactions? 

I keep coming back to the disturbing question of determinism - basically the idea that, in one way or another, free will is an illusion. To begin with, I believe in free will and I think that the answer to the riddle, as with so many other things, lies in conscious awareness. 

But once I truly started seeing all the forces, both within and without, that govern our behavior, it was an overwhelming experience. One that continues to overwhelm me. 

Three of my main negative driving forces, are low self-esteem, the need to be seen and a sense of powerlessness. My behavior and the choices that I make can often be boiled down to these forces.

This does not always lead to bad results. All of these forces can lead me to take action. But they can also lead to feelings of hopelessness and that there is a sense of desperation in the things that I do. And either way, I am not free to act in an authentic way. Wounds that I have attracted during my life, rather than my authentic self, drive my behavior. 

This is fueled even more by how I imagine that I’m expected to behave. Either by culture, society or the social group that I’m already in. Or to be consistent with what I unconsciously believe to be my personality. 

All of this was not easy to see. The mind can always come up with a rational reason for unreasonable behavior. If it even has to. Oftentimes my behavior just passes me by without me even thinking about it.

But the more I bring conscious awareness into my life, the more I find myself being able to observe what is going on, both within and without, and make a choice that is proactive rather than reactive. The more I am also able to see what drives my behavior in a certain situation.