Where do I want to go with the blog?

This is first and foremost a blog about God and our relationship with God. Because ultimately everything is about God. Because whether you believe in God or not, God exists, has created us, loves us and wants a relationship with us. This is something I know for a fact and it’s something that I feel called to share.

I want this blog to serve as a gentle reminder of this. That even though we are facing dark times, everything is in God’s hands and all will be well. I want to use whatever little voice that I can claim to try and remind people that there are many things to be hopeful about, but that I believe that our rulers, that definitely don’t want the best for us, want us to forget about. There is so much love and beauty in the world. We were made to love each other and to be loved by our creator. This is our natural state. And no matter how numb we have become by following the ways of the world, we can always find our way back to this state.

There are however are many things about faith that I don’t understand, even if every day for me is a search for more clarity. So even if I’m very confident that God exists, most other things I’m not so sure of. And I think that there must be a good reason for this. I’ve been blessed with experiences that have more or less completely removed my doubt about whether God or a spiritual reality exists. But I’ve also found myself in a very strange time in the planet’s history. A strange time that many people within religious and spiritual circles have very firm beliefs about. And a part of me wishes that I could too. Because I’m tired of the uncertainty and I sometimes think that maybe I should just stop resisting and get with the program. But there has to be some reason that I can’t do that.

Some of the questions that I have and wish to explore are: What exactly is the spiritual reality that I referred to in the last paragraph? What does God want us to do? What is the good life? What happens if we stray from the good life? What consequences do our actions have? Are there actions and behaviors that, while not being morally wrong, still are spiritually wrong? Why is it so damned hard to do the right things all the time? How can I reconcile spiritual beliefs that, at least on the surface, seem incompatible, but that I have felt called to, or found truth in? 

Questions such as these I wish to explore here. But I’ve sometimes felt like I’ve wandered too far into esoteric territories. I don’t think that there is something really wrong with it. But I think that the basics of life need to be somewhat in order first. Basics that I’ve just brushed aside as less important, even though in many ways it’s in our everyday experiences that magic happens, if we just allow it to. If we don’t just treat it as boring nonsense that we need to haste through, so that we can get on with the important stuff. It’s in our everyday lives that we learn who we are. And it’s in our everyday struggles we learn about our less admirable traits. 

Furthermore I’ve made a mess of many things in my life. Both in a way that creates many unwanted things in my life, such as debts and negative habits. And in ways that, even though I don’t believe in a judgmental God, keeps me separated from God. However, when it comes to this separation, I believe that almost all of us experience it to one degree or another. And I’ve also made a few rather good decisions too.

No matter what, I’m not ready to give up and just accept the limitations that my choices so far have placed upon my life. But I obviously don’t want my life to be just a waiting for tomorrow either. 

As a sidenote, I do believe that we live in a rather harsh, unforgiving world dominated by tons of rotten values. But the world isn’t going to change just because I want it to. I believe that it will change eventually. But only because we change. Therefore I have to change, but somehow doing it in a way where I don’t swallow the world’s corruption. And even get rid of the corruption that I have already invited into my life. 

I know that many people feel hopelessness right now. I don’t. Even though I see more or less pitch black clouds on the horizon and even though my everyday life is filled with issues and struggles, I’ve also been given many things to be hopeful about. I must believe that God has let me experience the things that I have experienced for a reason, even if my faith often is so weak that even rather small setbacks seriously discourage me. But as long as I don’t stay discouraged forever and get up again, I know somewhere that it’s going to be okay in the end. Life might not become the smooth ride that I hoped for a few years ago. But still, I know somewhere that there is something good on the horizon. I can’t believe that all of the strange things that have happened to me are for nothing. So when things start to move for real, I will have my journey documented on this blog, together with the insights that I’ve gained about the conditions of our being in the world. 

Hopefully this can serve both as an encouragement for others, as well as some food for thought. Because I’ve dug I bigger hole that I have to climb out of than most people. It’s not the worst hole in the world and I think that I can do it. But years of unconscious living tend to mess up one’s inner life as well as one’s outer life. And the outer is a reflection of the inner anyway, no matter if we believe that we literally manifest our reality with our thoughts and feelings, or just make choices that are in line with how our insides look. Regardless of metaphysics, if the inside is chaotic and unfocused, that’s how life tends to unfold. 

But I’ve done some major cleaning already. And more cleaning is happening every day. And just like the everyday stuff that I talked about in the beginning of the post, somehow the cleaning is part of the journey as well. It’s not just something that has to be done so that I can get on with the bigger, more important stuff. I need to love the now and look at it as just as meaningful as that which I believe awaits me in the future. Even though I truly believe that something amazing is awaiting me. Awaiting us: me, my wife, those friends, family and acquaintances and really really everyone on the planet that choose to reject what the rulers of this world have to offer.

If I’m wrong, those of you that follow me will at least have the opportunity to follow the train wreck as it happens. But there is not going to be a train wreck. There is some darkness right now. Both on a personal level and on a global level. This is also something that I may want to talk a bit about on the blog. But not in a doom and gloom kind of way. Because something better is coming. I know that whatever happens in the future we can get through it together, God is on our side and all will be well.

Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

Making conscious choices in every moment

What if things could be much easier than we make them, if we just train ourselves to approach life differently? What if we just need to get out of one big pattern, instead of having to fix every little single detail of our lives individually?

I’ve for a long time known that our lives to a large degree operate on autopilot. We live the same or similar scenarios from day to day. And if we don’t take a step back and decide to do something differently, we also respond to them out of habit. Our habits shape our lives. Are we satisfied with our lives? If not, we need to change our habits. But what if we don’t have to look at every habit individually? What if there is one habit that we can train ourselves into, that will automatically change all of our other habits?

I’m talking about the habit of making conscious choices. As with any habit, this habit needs training. When we train ourselves to do something, we repeat it over and over again till we don’t have to think about it anymore. Till we do it out of habit. 

What I’ve come to realize, is that when I make a choice that is not in line with how I want to live my life and who I want to be, it’s often not because of weakness or lack of character. It can be that too. Some desires and cravings are simply too hard for me to resist where I am at the present moment. But more often than not, I’m just not really aware of what I am doing. I’m not aware that I’m making a choice. Instead I just allow life to happen. 

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say that I have lots of work to do. But let’s also say that I need to cook. I feel a strong resistance to doing the cooking, because I’m also a little tired. And I don’t want to pay for a healthy, readymade meal, because if I want a healthy one, it’s more expensive. So, what ends up happening, is that I have the idea that I have to do both, but I end up wasting tons of time and energy because of the resistance that I feel. In the end I pay might miss doing work that would bring in 50 dollars, because I don’t want to pay ten dollars for a readymade meal. Money that I also could use to make healthier choices in the future.

The point is that I believe that there is another perspective here. I can just decide to be as conscious about the choices that I make every moment. Because every moment is a new moment. Life consists of literally and infinite amount of moments, where I have the possibility of making a conscious choice, or just act out of habit. So maybe instead of expending tons of energy on resisting strong desires and cravings, unless, of course, I have a desire for something that would have serious negative consequences for me and others, I can just relax a bit, make the conscious choice of indulging now and then? Maybe I just need to do these things consciously, with intention? Train myself to do everything this way, so that I can choose something differently when I don’t feel these strong urges. I have a strong feeling that many things will fall away on their own if I do this consistently. There will obviously be some difficulty to adjust to this in the beginning, but this difficulty will rather have to do with that my life is adjusted to the old way of doing things.

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UNUSUAL and IMPORTANT questions about how to make life run more smoothly

Banging my head against the wall doesn’t work. Neither does it work to just let myself go and just do whatever feels good at the moment. Both these approaches to life come from the ego. 

So, maybe, if I feel constricted somewhere, I need to make that a priority, in a way that works. I need to ask myself: why do I feel this tightness in my chest? Why do I feel blocked in certain areas of my life? Why does this or that thing not work the way I want them to? What do I need to make this or that thing run more smoothly? What is it that does work well? Can I get more of that? Why does it work well?

We often try to power through doing the same thing over and over again. Or we completely let go, give up and say that there is no point. 

Now, what I’m beginning to realize, is that everything is at the core energy in motion. And this sounds really vague and airy, but hear me out. How often do we stand back and really feel the energy of whatever we are doing? Of whatever situation that we find ourselves in? In the end, it all comes down to awareness. And bringing more awareness into our lives is everything. To experience more in the present moment. To feel more of what we actually are feeling. 

I’ve often noticed that when I remember to do this, feel the energy of what I am doing and what is going on, I can quite easily feel how energy either flows calmly, smoothly and efficiently or if it feels slow and inert. Or if it’s agitated and erratic. My body is often the first to tell me. Do I feel light, full of life and joy? Or am I heavy or tight and tense somewhere? Can I really feel my body and the energies that flow in it? Or Does it feel numb and and blocked? 

Am I in a mode of acceptance or resistance towards what is? If I resist, I block the energy flow. And I cannot be present in the moment and resist at the same time. Resistance always impies a loss of consciousness. And a loss of consciousness always blocks our energy. And so on. So we need to be present, accept what is and feel what we really feel. All of it fits together. We can’t have one without the other. And when it falls into place energy flows. Life flows.

Photo by Tobias Carlsson on Unsplash

Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 9

In this final post in this series, I will talk about something that I believe is crucial when it comes to the times that we are living: to shift the focus from changing the world to changing ourselves. 

Even if we cannot know many of the ultimate truths, we can always understand ourselves better. We can get clear on who we are, who we want to be and what is truly important to us. We can always understand life and the world better. We can always become better. We can always become more present and pay more attention to what is going on. We can always widen our perspective.

On the other hand, I don’t believe that self-improvement should lead us away from feeling worthy. And I don’t believe that life should be an endless quest of self-improvement either. So, what do I believe when it comes to this? That is what I am going to try and bring some more clarity into here.

In a paradoxical sense, we are all already worthy, at the same time as we all fall short of what we potentially could be. On the one hand, we need to be tough with ourselves and constantly push ourselves out of our comfort zones. And on the other, we need to be kind to ourselves, forgive ourselves for our mistakes and shortcomings, and allow ourselves to simply feel pleasure and enjoy life. And somehow, we need all of this, the tough struggles, as well as the soft and playful, to feel meaningful and enjoyable. There is no sense in struggling for struggling’s sake. And there is no sense in empty sensory gratifications either. 

Where we need to begin, I believe, is in self-observation. We need to observe how we behave and speak, as well as what is going on inside our heads. This can be quite shocking at first. At least it was for me. When I started looking at myself throughout my everyday life, I found an almost entirely different person from who I thought that I was.

This is something I believe that we cannot get away from. If we wish to grow we must get to know ourselves.

If we want to do this in a healthy way, I believe that it is crucial that we compare ourselves not with others, but with who we were yesterday. I can honestly say that this has been a problem for me. When I see all of the people that have taken leaps out of their little selves and stepped into their bigger selves, I often feel discouraged. I’ve had to eat a lot of humble pie since the time when I walked around looking down at the world. And humble pie often comes with a bitter aftertaste of self-judgment and self-criticism. 

Then, at the end of all of this, I believe that there is some point where we can give up all of this speculation about what things should be and what they shouldn’t, just let go, always act out of love and follow the flow of life. I believe that this is a really simple state. We just need to realize on a deep level that everything is okay and as it should be. You might look at the world and say: “Are you kidding me?!” But if everything is in God’s hands, how could it be otherwise? And maybe it’s just my ego that likes all this complexity. That enjoys these endless speculations about life and my being in the world. But so what? I like to think about what it means to be human in general and what it means to be me specifically. Even if it’s ultimately possible to just let go and allow God to carry me through life. 

But I’m not there yet anyway, and in the meantime I need to think of how I best can live, grow and enjoy life while I’m still to a large degree governed by my ego. Besides, if I look at those that have arrived at their destination, it seems as if they all have had to take the road of complexity, before arriving at the simplicity that has been with them all along. And I have a feeling that when I reach it, I will look back at my journey, with all its struggles, pains and feelings of hopelessness, with nothing but joy and gratitude for all that it has entailed. 

Photo by Nandhu Kumar on Unsplash

I want to be dependent upon God PART 4

This series turned into something that I had not at all expected. But now I think it’s time to wrap it up. And I think that from the darkness and philosophical speculation that I’ve talked about, I will turn back to the light and to something rather simple.

When I went to the university, I talked to a rather smart girl that later went on to become a doctor. Once she told me, pretty straight forward, in those words, that she had a rather childish belief in God, where she more or less looked at God as an old man sitting on a cloud. It was obvious that she had given her faith quite a lot of thought and ended up in this place. 

For me, I think I want both. I want the ecstatic, mystical experiences. I want the philosophy and the difficult questions (even if I don’t want the pride that pops into my head from time to time as I engage in such thinking). But in the end, I want to put my life in God’s hands in the simplest manner possible. I want to just trust and feel like a little child, embraced and held by my heavenly father. Held by this being, whose love and wisdom I cannot even begin to fathom. 

I want a balance between the crazy and the simple. Between the extraordinary and the mundane. And in the end, I never want to stray too far. I’m an adult now and I want to interact with other people as an adult. But in my relationship with God, I still want to be a child. Does this make any sense? I don’t know how to explain it in any other way. There is an innocence here that somehow permeates life and existence itself, behind all of the darkness and complexity. An innocence that was never lost. Something that can be felt in such simple experiences as petting a cat. Or listening to the right song at the right time. Such as the song that got me thinking of this series. That’s fun to think about, ending this on sort of a philosophical note: A simple song and my emotional reaction to it was what started this whole stream of thoughts. It’s something to think about when we decide what to fill our lives with.

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 8

My interests don’t compete with your interests. I believe that this is an illusion. Sure, if we believe that we are just decaying matter, destined to brief, pointless existences before we return to total oblivion, we might get the idea that we have to stimulate our five senses in ways that feel pleasurable as much as possible before we die. Not that it ultimately matters. But if we are no more than smart animals, why not live in a way that is consistent with that belief?

This used to be my belief until I started to understand that God exists. That there is such a thing as a spiritual reality. My belief was basically that when you die you die. And whatever you have experienced up to that point won’t matter, since everything that you are and ever have been will be as if it has never existed. And since these are the conditions everyone else lives under as well, whether my life makes the world better or worse ultimately makes no difference.

Now that I know that God exists and that life does not end with death, this changes everything. I don’t need the threat of punishment or the promise of rewards in the afterlife to want to become a better person and live in harmony with the world and other people. I know that from this perspective, even though pleasure is not unimportant, the pursuit of consumption and pleasure as the highest priorities in life means that one totally wastes one’s life on nothingness. From this perspective, which is the correct one, our relationship with God must necessarily come first. And our relation to ourselves, the world and other people must come in second. And all of these things are tied together. If you are dysfunctional in one of these areas, you will be dysfunctional in all of them. And almost all of us are dysfunctional here to different degrees. 

Do you understand what I’m getting at? When we realize beyond any doubt that life has meaning, and that we need to look at life from the perspective of eternity and not finiteness, everything changes. Our priorities change. It makes no sense to compete for resources, strive for power and glory, seek gratification of the senses, or even to spread our genes for their own sake. We can still do all of these things if we find joy in them and can do them in a non-harmful way. But everything in our animal natures, that which is related to the survival instinct and places us in the frame of “survival of the fittest” becomes null and void in the face of a higher reality. Simply put, when we see that something is more important to us, and something is less important to us, it makes no sense to choose that which is less important, if it comes into conflict with what is more important.

With this higher perspective in mind, I don’t have to fiercely protect myself from others either, because it’s your loss and not mine, if you do something as stupid and pointless as hurting me for your own gain. 

The conclusions that I draw from this line of reasoning come in the form of a few questions: If you know that God exists, love is at the core of everything, that you will live forever and that all that belongs to your animal nature are things that you will have to leave behind when you die, what things are important to you? What do you need to prioritize? What is meaningful? What leads to true, meaningful happiness? I think that seen in this light, the cliché that “the best things in life are free” holds true. So why should I compete and cause harm, when there is something so much valuable in life that does not require any of that?

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 7

I believe that it's important to put things into perspective. To understand oneself and oneself in relation to the world. And to understand what world one sees when one does that. So, where do you stand in relation to the questions that I've asked myself during this series? What questions do you find important?

In this post I’m going to talk about what I believe about the world and the times that we are living in. I know that our political systems today are thoroughly corrupt. And I know that today there is a sinister political agenda for world domination centered around the World Economic Forum. Since I’ve written other posts about this, I don’t want to dedicate a whole post to this right now. I’ll leave links to these at the end of the post plus a link to a video explaining the whole situation. I know that there is a small chance that I and others are wrong about this, but everything so far points in this direction. At this point it’s more or less out in the open on WEF’s own homepage.

What I want to spend a little time talking about is what I believe should be done about this. Because I don’t think that this is a battle that can be won through resistance. Neither do I believe that we have to fear the future. I believe that fear is the last thing we need in the situation that we are in. This is because in the end, the basic choice in our lives is one between love and fear. The WEF want us to choose their solution out of fear. Fear of not being able to take care of ourselves, fear of the future of the planet, fear of scarce resources, fear of debt etcetera. What they don’t want us to do, is to come together in love, harmony, respect and unity to build something better. So this is what I, and many others believe is the solution to the situation that we are in right now. I/we believe that the way out is to build something better that is not dependent upon these structures. 

I can honestly say that I give in to fear now and then. I can often feel stressed out because I have allowed so much of my life to slip through my fingers. And because I have so much mess to clean up in my life. But I know that there is a higher meaning to everything. One that is hard to see the full scope of from my current limited perspective. So I have to do my best to trust that things will work themselves out, if I just do my best with what I’ve got. I know that me and my wife are not alone in this. Many others are waking up to what is happening on the planet, both the good stuff and the bad. So we won’t be alone with whatever is left of our mess when things really start to move. And in this everyone is valuable. I'm valuable, even if I haven't got everything together and my life puzzle completely figured out.

I also have a feeling that we are protected from the worst disasters that can befall us, even if this is something that I cannot say for sure. Whatever the case may be, I know that my and everyone else’s souls are immortal, which does provide lots of courage for the times ahead. The worst thing that can happen is that this life ends. Seen from the perspective of eternity, it’s probably not the disaster that we often make it out to be. It’s probably a good thing to not wish for death, to do our best to avoid it, but at the same time realize that fearing it is futile, as well as irrational and detrimental to our wellbeing. It’s both inevitable and not final.

Link to a really good YouTube video about the Great Reset (not mine)

My posts about the Great Reset:

We will not comply!

Changing the world?

Will we have a dystopian future? PART 1

Will we have a dystopian future? PART 2

From today I'll post three times per week

Even though this post is an announcement, I’ve tried to make it into some food for thought as well.

From today I’ll post on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. This decision came after taking a step back and looking at how effective I am with what I put my time into, how it affects me and what results that it leads to. 

The basic reason for this is quality over quantity. I will in all likelihood be able to do more with less this way. At this point I expect that very few will read my posts every day, so it’s a better choice to spend a little more time and energy on the posts that I’m making.

If you want to get notifications about new posts, please like my and my wife’s Facebook page, Awake & Aware, where I always post them. I also post them in my Facebook feed.

I was also feeling that daily blogging became a stressor for me. I always try to have a few blog posts ready, so that I don’t have to write every day. But I haven’t always managed to do so. And if I have a bad day it’s difficult to produce content, since so much of this type of work is fueled by emotions. If I’m in a bad mood, I cannot write inspiring, spiritual texts, since I’ve noticed that anything that goes against my emotional state feels fake, until I change my emotional state. It can even feel a little fake to post an upbeat post that I’ve written some other day, if I’m in a bad mood. It’s probably a little silly. But that’s still how it is.

I also want to have more time to think about my posts, since I often figure out what I truly believe and think about the different subjects as I write. Since this is the case, I don’t want to rush things.

Finally, I need more time for other projects. So eventually there will be other stuff instead of blog posts here. But for a while there will be only these three posts. I’ll try t get the other projects going as soon as possible.

Photo by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash

I want to be dependent upon God PART 3

This little series is turning into some rather free speculations. Which has been interesting. But I think that I’ll go ahead and pick up the thread of undeserved grace. For me, this grace that has been bestowed upon me, would be more understandable if I had committed some truly atrocious acts. It would somehow seem more fitting to make an example of underserved grace if I was a person that for example was spending life in prison for murder. 

I do have a past that I’m not proud of. But I haven’t committed any really serious offenses. Maybe it’s my thoughts? I don’t know. I don’t have access to other people’s thoughts. But for most of my life, I’ve allowed my thoughts to wander freely into places that are not pretty. On the other hand, from what I can tell, many people do. From what I’ve read, many just have very little knowledge about what is really going on inside their heads. 

Maybe there is some kind of clue here. You see, even though I’ve embraced much of my darkness throughout the years, I can still sometimes be shocked by what I find out about myself. So I can only imagine what would happen to someone that regarded themselves as basically good, but that had allowed their thoughts to roam free without paying much attention to them. And this is something that both intrigues me and scares me. Namely that even though I’ve done some quite serious introspection and observed my actions and behaviors, I’m still to a large degree a stranger to myself. A stranger that is to a large degree oblivious to my behavior. 

A few years back, I made the mistake (or apparent mistake) of reading and watching some rather vile books and movies. And since for example the writings of Marquis de Sade must be representative of what was going on inside his head, I don’t think that my thoughts are the worst in the world either. And nowadays I’m doing my best to clean them up and not allow them to drift too far into things that could be deemed “ungodly”, whether it’s my own fantasies or something that I’ve read or watched. 

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

I want to be dependent upon God PART 2

It’s true what many say, that God does not force himself on us. God might give us a tap on the shoulder sometimes. As God did with me almost twenty years ago, when I was a stubborn atheist that looked upon religion and spirituality as self-deception. I was full of pride and arrogance at the time. Stains, by the way, that have been hard to wash away and that sometimes still make their presence known. So I don’t understand why God chose to give me definite proof of God’s existence. I know that I’m not the only one that has had this type of experience. But I can think of so many that haven’t, that would deserve it better, if you see it from the perspective of their actions and their overall effects on people’s lives.

I’m of course familiar with the concept of undeserved grace. And that in some sense we all fall short of what God intended us to be. Whatever that means. Was our fall into something lesser an accident? If so, did God make a mistake? I guess that in the concept of almightiness, there must be room for creating creatures that can make choices that are out of the almighty being’s control. If God was forced to be in control of everything, and/or know everything, God wouldn’t really be almighty. 

This is also another reason why free will truly deserves attention. Because it is by necessity so central to religious life. And I know nothing that comes with so many difficult questions. Such as the one just mentioned. Or the fact that when we start looking at what seems to be free choices, these are really reactions to stimuli, driven by unconscious emotions, desires and a number of other factors that we are not consciously aware of. And yet, free will seems to be what characterizes being human. Animals don’t seem to make free choices, as far as we know. And without free will, we cannot be accountable for anything and the idea of consequences for our actions just seems cruel, since no one could do anything but what they in fact do. On the other hand, the consequences happen by necessity as well, no matter what they are, since they, by necessity, must have emerged through the actions of individuals that are only acting under the illusion of free choice. And so on. 

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I want to be dependent upon God PART 1

I’ve know for quite some time that we are not nearly as in control of our lives as we often like to think. So thinking of our lives as dependent on God is not as disempowering as some would think. In fact, it’s the opposite, I would argue.

The other day I listened to some music by Rebecca st. James (a rather huge leap from the industrial and black metal music that I usually listened to before and it feels great to, nowadays, have zero identity tied to the music that I listen to) at my job. I think that it was the song You are Loved that got me thinking of the fact that I like being dependent on God. To know that my life is in God’s hands. That God loves and cares for me.

Does this mean that I stop making my own efforts? No. Honestly I don’t know exactly what it means. Just not that. I’m not really sure what the proper relationship is here. At what point do I let go and allow God to take over? 

I think it has something to do with recognizing that my life is in the hands of a being that is so infinitely more powerful and wise than I am. A being that loves me more than I could ever imagine, as the song says. To really put this understanding in its proper perspective and allow myself to be humbled by it. And to allow God’s loving presence to be felt throughout my days, in good times and in bad times. Sometimes, when I can really feel this presence, feel what it truly means to me, I can get this overwhelming feeling of joy and my eyes tear up. The feeling can be triggered by such a simple thing as hearing the right song at the right time. 

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 6

I know that there is a spiritual awakening going on on the planet. Whatever that means. I'm still trying to figure this out.

My spiritual awakening has entailed a component that is very much Christian. This is however not true for most that go through these awakenings. And yet, from what it seems like to me, this Cristian component is universal and not just particular to my or a few people’s spiritual awakenings. This does not mean that I believe that everyone else is wrong or evil. What I believe that this is a piece of the puzzle that is not yet in place. It’s not for me either I might add, since I myself am not sure what to make of this yet. All I know is that it isn’t leading me to any type of conventional Christianity. Neither the conservative nor the liberal kind. Basically I’m much too open to ideas, teachings and perspectives outside the Christian world to be conservative. And I can’t say that I buy in to every word of st. Paul, even if I take the things that I have a problem with seriously. 

On the other hand, I do believe that the Bible offers many valid teachings and valuable perspectives, that clash with our current secular morals. This includes questions that woud place me outside of the liberal Christian fold, even if I try to never be judgmental here. I don’t believe in eternal damnation, but I do believe that we can damage ourselves through our actions, and not just those that cause obvious harm to us. And I believe that we can create our own personal hells here on earth if we fall deep enough into our unconscious behaviors.

So, this is a little something about my beliefs about Christianity. I look at the Bible and the life of Jesus as blueprints for how to live and what attitude we need to take towards life, if we want to live in harmony with God, each other and God’s creation. In other words not as a set of laws that we can break and get punished for. Or a set of beliefs that we need to force ourselves to believe, also in order to avoid punishment. 

My thinking about this is a work in progress though. But this is what I've concluded so far.

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 5

Tying the previous two posts in this series together, I want to talk specifically about the potential I believe lies dormant inside each and everyone of us. As I said, I believe that the truth is to be found in the Bible. But I don’t believe that it’s wise to dismiss everything that other religions and spiritual systems have to offer. I want to emphatically state that this does not mean that I’m a proponent of some “anything goes” liberal theology. I believe that there is a natural flow behind everything in life and when we choose to engage in actions that run contrary to this natural flow, there are always consequences. 

However, what I believe is that if we find something inside ourselves, such as the chakra system or different energy channels, they must have been put there by God. These at least are not spelled out in plain words in the Bible, but can be found in other religions and spiritual systems. I don’t think that they are necessary for our spiritual lives and our connection with God either. But if we feel inclined to explore these things, there might not be anything wrong with it either. Maybe what is most important in the Bible, is what Jesus taught about how we should treat each other. And maybe the warnings against other religions are open to some interpretations. 

What I’ve come to believe, which is what I brought up in the beginning of this post, is that at the heart of everything is connection. In other words interaction with other living beings. Ultimately interaction with our creator. This is why the message of Jesus is the most important message of all religious doctrines. Jesus taught us how to live fully with God and with each other. But if opening our third eye or our heart chakra can help us to become better at living as Jesus lived, should we then conclude that this is wrong because this was discovered by Hindus? Or if Buddhist psychology, that tries to understand the nature of suffering, as it relates to our habitual resistance and attachment to our experiences can deepen our understanding of what Jesus taught, should we regard this as wrong? Or if meditation and yoga can help us to let go and live in acceptance of what happens in our lives, in other words of God’s will, should this be regarded as wrong?

I know that I may be wrong about this. And I don't believe that any of the above is necessary for living a good, spiritual life. But if I feel called to these things I don't think that I can allow fear of making the wrong choices dictate my actions.

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Non-resistance is THE game changer

It’s strange to think that I’ve been doing all of this searching to come to this simple conclusion. The basics are as follows. Life consists of an infinite amount of moments, since time is infinitely dividable. In every moment we have a choice of whether to say yes or no to what is happening. We always have this choice, even if the circumstances affect how easy or hard it is to see this choice. 

The foundation of saying yes to the present moment is to be present with it. We are present with it by being here and now. To do that we allow as much of our experience as possible. We are present inside our heads, really see what it is that we are seeing and really feel what it is that we are feeling. Every time that we feel a tension inside our heads or our bodies, we are resisting in one way or another. When we are not resisting, everything flows naturally. If everything does not flow naturally, we are resisting. 

Most of the thoughts that we have in our heads are resistance in one form or another. They bring us out of the present moment, tell us why the present moment is not as it should be and distract us in different ways. 

What I have noticed is that when I don’t resist things, everything is effortless. Problems in my body correct themselves. The things that I do have a natural, totally efficient flow to them. I feel a peaceful relaxation inside myself, my breath flows naturally and I expend very little energy doing the things that I do. I pay attention to what is going on and do things in a systematic way. Solutions to problems seem to present themselves out of nowhere. 

The only problem is that every moment offers the possibility of forgetting this state. So I have to keep reminding myself to live in this state over and over again. It is a completely effortless shift, but because I’m so used to struggling, the shift will be accompanied by some discomfort. This discomfort is however illusory. There is nothing hard about this whatsoever. It’s just about learning a new way of functioning from.

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On pleasure PART 2

I’ve come to feel that often when the same pleasures are repeated over and over again with no variation, they just become empty gratifications of the senses. I think food is a very good example of this. If I eat something that I enjoy, but which I know isn’t healthy for me, over and over again, it doesn’t contribute anything beyond the momentary pleasure that it gives me. 

And it gives me some pain. Because I don’t feel good emotionally if I know that I’ve indulged in something that I know is bad for me. And in the long run my body obviously suffers as well.

Strangely enough, the emotional reaction doesn’t seem to occur if I enjoy something that I only have access to occasionally, or something completely novel. Or maybe it isn’t so strange. Because here one time is more or less no time. If I enjoy an ice cream from a cozy ice cream café with some exotic flavors in the sun a couple of times a year, it won’t affect either my weight or my bank account in any significant way. But if I buy an ice cream at the super market every other day, it will affect both. 

I will also have a harder time to completely enjoy the more refined pleasures, if I have already gratified my senses too much in other ways. Because then I’m adding more to that which is already too much.

Furthermore, this also affects our self-discipline. Because it’s about delaying gratification until I can experience pleasure in a meaningful way. 

If I manage to keep this principle, it will in all likelihood both enrich my life and help me keep my health. I believe that principle should be applied with some moderation. I should not beat myself up if I don’t manage to follow it completely all the time. We set intentions, we aim to follow them to the best of our ability, but we accept that change is hard and that we will fail and fall back into old habits from time to time. This goes for how we approach pleasure, as well as everything else where we wish to see a change in how we handle things.

At least, this is the best approach I can come up with.

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We don't need the SURVIVAL INSTINCT anymore

Jesus said: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” 

As with many other quotes from Jesus, I believe that this one has several different meanings. I believe one of them to be that when we make survival and things related to survival the most important thing in life, we will waste our life. 

This is especially true in the times that we are living in right now. People’s survival instinct make them stockpile money way past when they have enough to get them through hard times. It makes us live in constant fear of the future, fight each other for resources and do all kinds of things to preserve our lives. It makes us agree to things that we normally never would. Something that we have seen a lot of during the past three years and which we will in all likelihood see more of in the near future. 

The survival instinct causes us to live in fight or flight mode, in a society where the natural threats are gone. And instead the emotional energy is stored in our bodies as tensions. It’s what turns those that we love into enemies, because our brains interpret them as threats to our lives when we get into conflicts with them. It’s what causes us to see other people as enemies and competitors in general. The survival instinct hinders us from coming together and cooperate, instead of “looking out for number one”. 

We do not need this anymore. In abundant countries there is no such scarcity anymore. And this is not even a necessary state in poorer countries, even if a change is a few steps further away in those. 

I think that it’s hard to completely get away from the fear of death. Even if I know that life goes on after I die and I have a strong belief that I will find something wonderful on the other side, the unknown is still scary. But if I let this fear guide my actions, I will probably be even more afraid in the future, when I look back at an inauthentic life, where I may have acted against my conscience to preserve it. 

If I on the other hand live after what I truly value in spite of the dangers that it may entail, chances are that when the end comes, no matter when it comes, I can look at my life as meaningful. If you want to see a good story about this, I would recommend the movie Million Dollar Baby. 

And I don’t think that it’s ever too late for this. Sure, our individual lives come with their limitations. But no matter where we are, we can always start choosing to say no to survival mode. Not in a way where we start taking risks. It could be that. But what I’m talking about first and foremost, is to stop taking actions out of a fear of dying.

Many people are losing their hope of the world. On an individual level we can always surrender to the present moment. Accept what is and what the future may bring. Maybe this is what we need to do on a collective level as well. Maybe we can flip the dystopia that we see looming on the horizon. Maybe if we stop trying to desperately hold on to our lives, we can turn the dystopia into a utopia.

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