Speaking MY truth?

There is a lot of talk within New Age circles about speaking one’s truth. But the issue that I’m going to talk about here is really an issue about how we view truth in general. I believe that there is one important question that we need to ask ourselves in this context. One that has big ramifications: Do I sincerely search for the truth, or am I looking for the “truth” that pleases me the most? This, I believe, is not a question that should be taken lightly. Because it’s very possible to say that we want the truth, but unconsciously look for the “truth” that doesn’t require us to change or put in any effort. How do I know? Because I’ve believed many such “truths” throughout my life.

As I’ve said in other posts, I believe that in the extraordinary times that we are living in, it’s important that we talk to each other. We don’t have to agree on everything. But in open, humble, friendly discussions where we assume the best about each other, we might be able to find out the truth together, in areas where it’s still unclear. There are people in the world with a lot of power that want to hurt us. And therefore it’s important that those of us that are waking up to this fact stand together. This is the reason why I want to have a conversation with the New Age community, while at the same time lifting issues that I believe concern everyone.

As with so many other ideas, “my truth” can mean more than one thing. This was sort of implied in the question I posed a moment ago. And as with so many other ideas, it can create a lot of confusion when we think that we talk about the same thing, while in reality we’re not. 

I firmly believe that the truth is to be found in the Bible, even if I think that we have yet to find it out completely. The concept of progressive revelation is quite firmly established within theology and other forms of biblical interpretation, so this is to be expected. This basically means that much of what was written in the Bible, was meant to be revealed in the future. Prophecies is an obvious example. But I also believe that many of Jesus’ sayings have an esoteric side. Some of this has been revealed to mystics. But I believe, as other things about the special times that we are living in are being revealed, more and more people will understand more and more these teachings.

The Bible is also a masterwork of statements with multiple meanings. For example: “The truth shall set you free” (John 8:32) can mean spiritual truth. But it can also mean that there is a natural law where lies enslave us, both on a personal and collective level. It can also mean that when we confess our secrets, something happens. We are no longer burdened by carrying the weight alone. Observing the effect this statement has when put into practice, is one way of discovering that there is a spiritual reality underlying our lives in the physical world.

This also highlights another issue. Are we talking about factual claims about our physical world? Factual claims about science, politics or standards for beauty? Or are we talking about the fundamental nature of reality? Or about moral truth? I’m talking about all of these things and I believe that when spiritual truth is the foundation, all of these things come together. And to make it clear, I’m an objectivist when it comes to all of them. I will explain more about what this means in a moment.

Another thing that I want to make clear, is that I don’t believe for one second that we have the right to interpret the Bible any way we want to. If something is there, it’s there for a reason. And neither science nor cultural norms are valid reasons to discard it. The only valid reason I can find, is when circumstances change in such a way that some particular statement does not apply anymore. And to be clear, I’m talking about actual, factual circumstances. Not our knowledge about the world or human nature. Or what we now think that we know. What qualifies as science within the soft sciences today, for example, is tainted by ideology. This distorts the lenses through which researchers view the objects of study. And much of what is produced in the universities today should be viewed as propaganda. Even though the propagandists often don’t realize that they are engaged in propaganda. 

So, where am I going with this? In the beginning I talked about how “my truth” can mean two different things, which is something that I’ve been trying to illustrate with the prior discussion. On the one hand, it can be the truth the way I see it, when humbly doing my best to understand it as objectively as possible. This view acknowledges that there is such a thing as “objective truth”, while also acknowledging that when it comes to most contested matters, we may be wrong in our beliefs. We try, to the best of our ability, to take into account as many factors as possible, that distort our perception, when we try to figure out the truth.

The second view is that there are no absolute truths and that therefore everyone carries their individual truths. This view means that we are free to believe what we want and no one is more right or wrong than anyone else. Except, perhaps, when it comes to hard, indisputable facts. 

In philosophy, the first stance would be called “objectivism” and the second would be called “relativism”. 

While the second option might seem humble and inclusive to many, it in reality leads us into a fantasy land where there is no common ground to stand on. It also sort of makes everyone the god of their own world, which does not sound so humble anymore. Furthermore, if there is such a thing as objective truth, we will almost inevitably end up in the wrong place if we discard the idea that there is such a truth. And in my humble opinion, there is absolutely and undeniably such a truth. Even when it comes to moral issues. I have a somewhat simple view when it comes to this. One which cannot be used in an absolute sense. But what I basically believe, is that the best way of determining moral truth is when a particular moral stance is put into practice. And most ideas have been put into practice, in one way or another.

For example, if our current cultural values create a well functioning society, happy individuals and leaders that lead our countries in a positive direction, then our moral values are true. If not, they are false.

Many of our brightest minds tell us that we are nothing more than intelligent, pleasure seeking animals. If this is true, those that put this philosophy into practice should be the happiest, most well functioning individuals in society. I can of course only speak for myself. But during the time when I put this philosophy into practice in my teens and early twenties, I was poor, lazy, overweight, emotionally numb and I engaged in destructive partying every weekend, which would have led to addiction eventually if I had kept it up. I know that I’m an extreme example. But I met many people like myself in my youth.

Now, let’s get back to the question of “my truth”. We can use the worn out analogy of the map. Let’s say that we are going to walk through a forest. This is not the typical kind of forest. It’s a forest full of traps. Luckily, many people have gone before us through to forest. So there is a map that they all have contributed to. Someone gives us this map. It contains both the right direction and the traps clearly highlighted. But we take one look at the forest and the map, whereupon we decide that we want to find our own way. Following a map is no fun and the forest is much more beautiful in places that deviate from the known route. I think the answer is obvious to the question of whether this is a wise choice.

Is this analogy correct? Or am I simplifying things too much? Well, in my experience we don’t usually really know what we truly want. Our capacity self-deception is almost endless. Many end up destroying themselves. And even among those that don’t, many reach the end of their lives realizing that they have prioritized the wrong things. Which leads to a bitter end to an, on the surface, successful life. And even if we don’t feel this way when we reach the end of our lives, it’s still possible that we have prioritized the wrong things anyway. 

This possibility is what I wish to wrap this up with. I’m not going to pretend that I know exactly what is going to happen after we die. Or if we are in danger of something bad happening to us after death if we make the wrong choices in this life. What I do know, is that life goes on after death in some way. Therefore, if we don’t view our life from the perspective of eternity, we will have the wrong perspective on a very fundamental level. 

I also know for a fact that God exists, has an intelligence, a will and is personal. I know that God cares for each and everyone of us. Therefore, if we don’t view our life from this perspective, we will have the wrong perspective on a very fundamental level. 

These two perspectives, if taken seriously, will have implications for how we view the factual claims about the world, as well as how we view moral truth. They will be the very mold that shapes our lives. They will demand things of us. Require us to change and become different from who we are. If we believe that we are going to live forever, many things that seem important from a finite perspective, such as career, wealth and social status, become unimportant. But I don’t think that the opposite is true. Our friends, family, our character and our moral choices are important both for this life and for the one to come. But some things that from a finite, atheist perspective are not just unimportant, but utterly nonsensical, such as going to church and in other ways spend time with God, become very important.

Therefore, I believe that these two perspectives need to be the foundation of the road that we travel on. They are true and written into everyone’s heart. And we don’t just need to believe that they are true. We also need to live as if they are. If we can’t feel them in our heart, it means that our hearts are numb. And if we don’t like the conclusions that they lead to and therefore decide to take a different route, we will inevitably get lost and fall into traps. This is why I believe that objective truth matters, no matter if that truth is about the physical world, spirituality or morals. In the end, when we start to see things clearly on a fundamental level, all of these areas fit together.

To my brothers and sisters in the NEW AGE (and everyone else)

Truth matters! More and more so in the extraordinary times that we are living in. And what lenses you view the world through matter gravely. Because these lenses shape how you see the world, what you think about it and how you act in it. So you have to be careful what you allow into your mind. And what you allow to control your mind. 

Before we continue I want to ask a couple of things of you: Forget everything that you think that you know about Christianity and the Bible. Embrace the possibility that within Christianity there is room for more love, joy, vibrant bliss and ecstasy than you could possibly imagine or find anywhere else. That when Jesus said: “the truth shall set you free” he really meant this. Which implies that if we view the Bible as a boring rulebook that hinders us from doing what we really want to do, we have misunderstood it. Because yes, the Bible asks things of us, which other teachings don’t. It asks us to do some things and give up others. But it doesn’t ask anything of us that isn’t for our own good.

If we wish to bring some more clarity into what may be called “spiritual confusion”, we need to start by asking ourselves the right questions: “Does this really lead me where it promises to lead me?”, “How does this actually benefit me and those around me?”, “Where is this leading me?”, “How is it truly affecting me?”, “Does it lead to more clarity or more confusion?”, “What is the purpose of this particular practice that I’m engaged in?” and “Does it truly fulfill that purpose?”. Another question that also most definitely is important is: “Does this truly make me happy?”

I’m not pretending to know what your answers are to these questions. I only know what mine are, which I hope will become clear throughout this text.

One thing that I do know for a fact however, is that regardless of prior beliefs, God is not just some abstract creative force. God is deeply personal, has a will and communicates with us in different ways all the time. And this is a good thing, because this means that we have perfect guidance to rely on. That we’re not left to our own faulty reason when it comes to figuring our how to think, speak and act. Because even if we need to use our reason to the best of our ability, on our own we will inevitably be led astray. There are so many forces, both within ourselves and in the world that confuse and deceive us.

That God is personal, has a will and communicates with us I know as absolute truth. This I know from personal experience. I’m not asking you to take my word for it. What I’m asking is to try this way of viewing God out for yourself, pray about it, meditate on it and use it as the lense through which you view the world. Take it seriously and see where it leads you. For me, it also finally led me to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. These are now real to me. Not just abstract figures that I can read about in the Bible. And my relationship with them is growing every day.

Now comes the part where I might really lose you. Therefore I feel the need to explain what I’m saying before I say it. I believe that there is a reason behind why mainly Christians and New Agers are waking up to the state of the world. Because of this and other reasons, I’m not prepared to dismiss everything within the New Age, even though I firmly believe in the truth of the Bible.

Now, there is an awakening happening on the planet. One that is spiritual in nature. And I don’t think that anyone knows exactly what this awakening is. More and more people are awakening every day. We are awakening to the true state of the world and what powers are truly governing it. What powers are governing us. We are awakening to more and more spiritual aspects of our physical reality. And we are awakening to more and more aspects of what is going on inside ourselves. For many of us, this has become a lived, undeniable reality.

Furthermore, I firmly believe that everything that is true about this awakening is 100% biblical. This means that everything about it that is true must be compatible with the Bible. And everything that we ever need should fit into this framework. The only things that we need to discard, are empty things that don’t benefit us anyway. Things that just cause us pain and confusion. Again I urge you to ask yourself the right questions. Because it’s so easy to get lost in what sounds good on the surface, but does not keep its promises. And at least for me and my wife, it has been difficult to admit to ourselves that what we have invested much time and energy into, has not lead us where it promised. Where we hoped that it would lead us.

What exactly this means I have yet to figure out. Some people say that you should stay away from any spirituality that is not from the Bible or about the Bible. While I respect these beliefs and do not wish to dismiss them, I don’t feel that I, in good conscience, can accept them without thorough examination. 

For example, I find nothing in the Bible that contradicts the idea that we need to cultivate a non-reactive mindset. When we learn to just feel the emotions that come up in different situation without reacting to them, we can begin to allow the emotions to guide our actions instead of controlling them. Just like we should often not act on the first thought that pops into our minds either. If we learn this, I believe that it will make us better Christians. We may even clear the path for the Holy Spirit to act through us.

I also know for a fact that suppressed emotional energy gets stored in the body as tensions, which authors that often get grouped within the New Age, such as David Hawkins, have pointed out. 

And here we come to the crux of the matter. There is so much dead weight in the New Age. And what I believe is that the Bible will help us to understand what we need to shed and what can be kept. Here I find two questions helpful: “Does this have any demonstrable practical use?” and “Is it compatible with Biblical teachings?”

I have just shown two examples of what I believe can be useful. Now I’m going to give you an example of what I believe should not just be discarded, but shun like the plague: I believe you should stay far away from channelers. For those that don’t know, channeling is when someone allows their body to be taken over by a spiritual entity so that it can communicate through them. 

The Bible is full of warnings concerning this type of activity. This is simply because we don’t know what these channeled entities are. And as far as I’m concerned the channelings that I’ve read about or listened to have not given me anything of practical value. It has mostly been either gibberish or ideas about the world that can neither be confirmed nor falsified. I believe that if these channeled entities really are higher beings, that are here to help us, they should be able to tell us things that are useful and not just feed us claims about how the world works. Claims that, again, cannot be confirmed or falsified. 

Besides, the Bible clearly says that after Jesus left his earthly life, God sent us his Holy Spirit. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is with us all the time and that it has the same power to help and guide us as Jesus. So why would you need to turn to other spirits for help?

In other words, my experience tell me that, with regards to channeling, the answer is “no” to both of the questions that I just posed.

I would furthermore advice anyone wishing to study authors labelled New Age to approach them with caution. It’s so easy to buy into a whole package when we see that it contains some truth and wisdom. Me and my wife have both been led astray by teachings within the New Age that we now can see are not sound. 

In other words, I don’t believe that everything about the New Age is evil or satanic. But I do believe that most of it leads us astray. And I do believe that some of it would qualify as Satanic. At least when taken together. 

I believe that just like we can check what is sound against the teachings of the Bible, we can actually check what is unsound against the teachings of the Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor Lavey. I believe that Lavey, in very clear language, has laid out satanic doctrine in exact detail, while promoting it as a common sense philosophy. 

The idea that we are our own gods is the first satanic idea that comes to mind. Another one is that everything is relative. That there are no absolute truths. Together with this one comes also the trivialization of everything. That nothing is really serious and that we are mainly here to have fun and explore. And yeah, the idea mentioned in the beginning, of God as just an impersonal force, can actually also be found in the Satanic Bible. What I’ve noticed is that when we have no absolute truths to rely on, our perception of reality becomes distorted. When we take nothing seriously, we end up excusing all kinds of behavior by saying that “ultimately it doesn’t matter anyway”. And when we view God as just an impersonal force, we miss the whole point of religion and spirituality.

To conclude: Mine and my wife’s experience with New Age can be summed up as follows. We did find some usefulness in some authors often classified as New Age. The aforementioned David R. Hawkins is one of them. Two others that come to mind are Eckhart Tolle and Joe Dispenza. But for the most part, it sent us on a wild goose chase. We ended up seeking more and more knowledge, self-development and abilities, while in reality getting nowhere. We found that much within it that promises healing, power and knowledge actually breaks us, disempowers us and causes more and more confusion.

When we finally decided to embrace the message of the Bible and discard everything that was incompatible with it, we invited peace and healing into our lives. While that which on the surface seemed reasonable within the New Age didn’t hold up when tested against reality, the opposite proved to be true when it came to the Bible. What on the surface seemed unreasonable in the Bible, proved true when tested against reality. And the more we studied the Bible, the more we started to see the infinite depth that it contains. This while other teachings more and more revealed the shallowness behind their often many words. Which for us at least shows the truth in the saying of st. Paul, that “…the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God” (1 Corinthians 3:19).

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Christianity and New Age?

I believe in unity and not division. I believe in having an open conversation, rather than condemnation. I believe believe in hearing people out instead of putting a label on them and dismissing them because I already think that I know what there is to know about them. 

I also believe that we can have an open conversation with other people without trying to convince them that we are right and they are wrong. A conversation where we embrace our commonalities rather than fight over disagreements. Commonalities such as a belief in God or that we are living in, from a spiritual perspective, extraordinary times. 

Let me also propose that there are more important things to consider, than the labels that we attach to ourselves or what these labels mean to us personally. Such as what kinds of people we are or the fact that we are living in, from a spiritual perspective, extraordinary times. 

I repeat myself here for an important reason. Namely that I believe that those of us that live spiritual lives that we take seriously are facing a situation where we cannot afford to be divided anymore. For some reason it’s mainly Christians and New Agers that see the control system that is emerging for what it is. 

I am someone that has spent time with people from both of these groups and I willingly confess that I’m standing with one foot in each group, while having reservations with regards to ideas within both. I believe in one, personal God, I believe in the message of Jesus and I believe in the importance of living a moral life in line with Christian values, when it comes to my interactions with other people. But I also have had personal experiences with the chakra system (Hindu in origin, but adopted by Westerners within the New Age). I’ve seen the benefits of yoga. And I’ve experienced the practical value of several books that by many are considered New Age, even if the term is so vague at this point, that it encompasses things that I believe has no place in it. 

I believe that there are good reasons to be cautious with what ideas we choose to adopt on both sides of the fence. And as said, we don’t have to change anything about our beliefs in order to have an open dialogue with others.

I want to conclude with a point. At the basis of it is the classical statement that “Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew.” This is quite important in this context. Because basically none of what is Christian today existed during the time of Jesus or his first followers. And I would like to bring up the altar dedicated to an unknown god in Athens in the Book of Acts. These athenians were honest, spiritual people even if they did not know the one God. And they were recognized as such by st. Paul. My point is that there may very well be people in the world today, that are good, sincere seekers of spiritual truth, but that do not know or understand the message of Jesus. There are things about Jesus that I still wrestle with, even though I’ve studied him and his message for quite some time. 

And maybe, just maybe, the most important thing isn’t whether someone calls him- or herself a Christian or not. Maybe it is more important if the person, knowingly or unknowingly, tries to follow the example set by Christ.

Just a few thoughts. If this angers anyone, so be it. All I'm saying is that maybe we should talk to each other and try to understand where other people come from.

My spiritual awakening part 8

During our conversation by the mailboxes, Jessica asked me if I wanted to come over for coffee some day. So the next day, I wrote a message on Facebook, asking her if I could take her up on the offer. And a few days later, we were having coffee at her house. 

We ended up talking for several hours. It turned out that we did not just share many spiritual views. We also had many copies of the same books in our bookshelves, we were both vegan, not particularly fond of political correctness, we both came from Värmland originally, had jews among our close ancestors, had lived in Gothenburg at the same time, had backgrounds in the metal subcultures and we shared many other similar life experiences. 

It feels good looking back at this now. We’ve been together for almost four years now and gone through much together. We’ve struggled and had conflicts, like most couples do, but we’ve never lost the respect for each other and we’ve never resorted to petty stuff, such as name-calling. But even so, it’s easy to forget these beautiful moments, when things get tough, the miracles stop (yeah, real miracles! - I’ll get to that later) stop happening and the struggles of everyday life kick in. It’s easy to focus on the bad rather than the good, thereby holding on to the painful memories, while allowing the joyful ones to fade. This is what I, sadly, to a large degree did for a long time. And I did so while Jessica shut her eyes to everything that was not working, while only seeing the good.

And it’s true that you keep memories alive by thinking about them. So if the past is considered to be part of reality, I guess that in a very provable way, you actually do create your reality by what you think about. I guess this would be true about the future as well. If you think about all the good things that might happen, you live in more positive expectations, thereby creating a positive future in the now, independent on what will actually transpire in the future.

My spiritual awakening part 7

Back to my time at the university. After having tried a few different courses, I decided to major in Religious Studies. I had realized that if all of this spiritual stuff was real, which I absolutely believed, then I wanted to dedicate as much time and energy as possible to it, so if I could dedicate my education to it, this was what I was going to do.

In my spiritual search I had started to become drawn to the the occult (the type that wants to be a force for good), so I decided to specialize in Western Esotericism. For quite a while, I even wanted to become a professor. But towards the end I got disillusioned with the whole academia, plus that a few things happened that made me just want to get away from everything. So instead I sold my apartment and moved to a village called Fåglavik, outside of Herrljunga.  

This was where I went through what you could call a second awakening. I moved in next door to the woman that is now my wife. We met by the mailboxes two weeks after I moved in. I was picking up my mail and she came home from the grocery store. I introduced myself and we ended up talking for, as I recall it, about half an hour. It was a pretty long time anyway. She told me that she had a partner that she was living with and I remember thinking: too bad. She was cute. 

I also picked up on when she told me that she liked the energies in Fåglavik. This made me wonder if she had an interest in spirituality or if it was just a figure of speech. 

Little did I know that this meeting would be the beginning of my real spiritual awakening, or that I through meeting Jessica, would learn just how much other people affect how you evolve as a person.

My spiritual awakening part 6

When I first went from atheist/Laveyean satanist, to a believer in God, I was pretty alone with this. I started buying books on religion and spirituality. Any books on these themes really, since I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. So I started ploughing through anything from purely academic books to books written by Eastern mystics.

I had been living in a very deep unconsciousness when I started to wake up. As I said in an earlier post, I was still partying pretty hard. And I was also largely hanging around with the same friends.

I also had tons of other patterns and other issues that stemmed from this unconsciousness. Actually, I believe that a part of my life’s journey, is to learn how to deal with all of the problems that one causes for oneself. 

One major thing that I did, that I didn’t realize quite recently, was that I pushed down my emotions to the point where I felt kind of shut off and probably acquired some kind of world record in bodily tensions, which in turn messed up my back. I think that this started when my mother, whom I was living with and was very close to, died when I was 13. This messed me up pretty bad. The adults around me at the time did the best they could from where they were, but they honestly didn’t handle the situation very good. Basically they wanted to change a lot of thing in my life, where I still to this day believe that it would have been better, if they would have as much as possible allowed me to continue living as I did with my mother.

A teenager cannot be expected to get a grip on things and start making conscious choices in the face of a tragedy. But honestly, I allowed it, together with the bullying that I also went through in my teens, to continue affecting me through my adult life. I turn 40 this year and I still haven’t let go of the pain. I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but I can feel it as a lump in my chest. Like a heavy, physical lump, pulling me downwards. 

I’ve noticed that a disproportionally large amount of people that are waking up, carry different kinds of traumas from the past. Often from their childhoods and teens. And even though it wasn’t our faults, it’s our responsibility to fix it. Fair or not, no one else is going to do it for us. And the ones that will suffer the most if we refuse are we.

My spiritual awakening part 5

While I was writing this, another memory came up. When I was six years old, one of my classmates asked me if I believed in God. I said no, whereupon he said that he did. This memory stuck with me. My thoughts were already back then something along the lines of “no evidence = no God”, even if I didn’t use those words. 

This shaped my beliefs until I had my initial awakening at 23. 

Obviously, my this awakening left me with a lot of doubts, even though I didn’t recognize them as such. I knew that I had found something precious that I needed to hold on to, but it was resting on a pretty shaky foundation.

I feel that I also need to mention that from my early twenties, I experimented a lot with psychedelics, and not in a very responsible way (sorry for messing up the timeline here). And I started to have what I would call spiritual experiences. At the time, I had no idea that there was a spiritual culture around them. Thich is quite interesting, since I had no prior knowledge that could shape my experiences and I was very anti when it came to religion and spirituality in general. And actually, even before I got robbed, I had started looking into Buddhism a bit, as a consequence of the things that I started experiencing. Since there was no God in most Buddhist teachings, this was a pill that was a little bit easier to swallow, for someone that had called religious people idiots for most of my life. 

My spiritual awakening part 4

I forgot to mention two of important things in the previous post. One of those was that I cannot really remember my thought processes at this time, except for what I’ve just mentioned. But one thing that I do remember, is the other one. You see, I took out one week’s vacation from the post terminal that I was working at when this happened. I just wanted to take a week to myself and think things through. 

The first day of my vacation I was in central Gothenburg and I wanted to find a book to read. I went into the bookstore and my eyes immediately fell on Tomorrow’s God by Neale Donals Walsh. I did have a feeling that I was guided to it, but then I knew next to nothing about what I know today, so I didn’t think much of it. After a while, I didn’t think much of it, even though the book gave me some real food for thought and seemed like just the book I needed to read. Today I don’t believe that everything that is said in it comes from God. Because now I have some experience of hearing the voice of God myself, and I know that it’s often hard to distinguish from one’s own thoughts. 

Now I have lots of experience of being guided to books, movies and documentaries. I believe that God speaks to us all the time. We are just too occupied with thoughts about the past or the future to notice it. So for most of us, myself included, it’s just when God hits us in the face with a message that we actually take notice. I think that the robbery that I told you about in the first post in this series was such a message.

My spiritual awakening part 3

Just because I found meaning didn’t mean that my old patterns were gone of course. And among other things, I had developed the habit of lying to myself and others. Even though I wanted to be a force for good in the world, I was excellent at making myself believe my justifications for bad, destructive behaviour. But even then, I started to remove the worst stuff from my life.

I went back and forth for a bit, basically between living quite clean and partying quite hard. I tried some yoga and picked up a meditation practice. I don’t remember the exact times for everything. But somewhere around 26 I stopped smoking, started working out and went to the university. 

It’s interesting to look back at these things now. To see where I’ve made major decisions that have affected my life in a positive manner. And you can say what you want about the university (you learn a lot of nonsense there), but my time there taught me how to think in a different manner, to understand texts better and to sharpen my speech. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to get into the debt that I am in to get these skills. But I had fun and it changed me quite a lot in a positive way. It was an experience that both boosted my confidence and humbled me. It boosted my confidence to see that I did quite well in an academic setting and humbled me because I was constantly around loads of people that were smarter than me. And again it boosted my confidence, because I got to see how these same smart people could come to really stupid conclusions, when these conclusions were too shaped by their opinions. 

A little further down the road, I realized that my own opinions often skewed my perceptions of the world. It’s always easier to see these things in others than in oneself. 

An important lesson here, is that accurate thinking is very dependent on one’s ability to free oneself from one’s subjective opinions and views of the world. 

My spiritual awakening part 2

Before this event that set me off on my spiritual journey, I was a nihilist. I was into Laveyean satanism (basically ego-affirming atheism, at least on the surface) and I believed that life was completely pointless. You live and you die and when you die nothing matters anymore. I didn’t really care if I died tomorrow or in a hundred years and basically felt that I might as well grab hold of whatever little pleasure that came my way while I was still alive. Not that it was right or wrong. It just seemed like the thing that came most naturally when I just let myself go.

When I went through this back in 2006, I had very few to talk to about it and no one that knew exactly what was going on. And even though I never lost my faith in God, I slipped back into many of my old patterns after a while. But from this point, my life was less chaotic. I would say that meaningfulness was the big thing here. I cared whether I lived or died because I believed that there was a purpose with my life. Looking back on this now, I think that this is actually very significant. Because our attitudes towards life affect how we think, feel and act in pretty profound ways. I know that this could be considered speculation, but at the same time it’s undeniable. When you suddenly feel like there is meaning to your existence, you care if you live or die and then you start caring about your actions. It follows logically that this will have an effect on your actions.

My spiritual awakening part 1

I’ve written a lot about my awakening here on the Blog. But I wanted to collect the essentials under one heading.

For me it started way back in 2006. Basically I had started to question my former atheism a while back, when I got robbed as a direct consequence of the life that I was living. The same day I had had a hunch that something was going to happen, but since I didn’t believe in intuition and only a very vague openness to anything that went outside of the five sense reality, I ignored it and soon forgot it. In the evening it knocked on the door. I opened and four guys that I didn’t know stood outside. You can fill in the rest.

Afterwards I got a very strong feeling that this was God telling me something about the life. Had I known what I know now about religious psychology, I might have been more skeptical. The psychological literature says that traumatic events and rough periods can trigger sudden changes in religious beliefs. But I’m glad that I didn’t know this, because today I know that even though I trust the research on this, nothing happens by accident. Today I know that everything is in God’s hands and that God talks to us through every single little moment in our lives.

Is everything energy on higher levels?

So, I’m starting to suspect that those that say that we are multidimensional beings are right. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this and writing this down is one way of doing so. At the core seems to be that we interact with reality in many ways simultaneously, but within our “normal” perception, we only see and experience this reality. At the same time, all realities are the same. It’s just our perception of them that has different levels. But perception is everything, since what we focus on determines where we direct our energy.

What is happening, is that I’m more and more starting to feel the energy behind what I’m saying and doing. And if I’m focused on this energy, I seem to be able to direct it, which plays out as a flow state in this reality. In other words, if I’m focused on the energy, my mind and my body will act in accordance with the energy, without my little ego me having to use any force to make it happen. But if I feel into this energy, I can let it guide my behaviors and actions. Heck, I could maybe even allow it to direct my thoughts. And consequently let my thoughts tell me what state I’m in, rather than, as we usually do, identify with them and. believe what they say about reality and other people.

This is also in line with the chakra system, which says that we have different energy blockages in the body that affects our physical reality and what we experience in it. What I’m beginning to see, is how when I run into an energy blockage, which in this way of perceiving reality manifests in the form of a tension, I’m yanked out of the present moment and so I’m back in 3D-reality, with the struggling and forcing that goes along with it. And so I go unconscious. I don’t exactly understand the mechanism behind this. But it’s as if I wake up for a while, until I unconsciously run into an energy blockage. And then I continue to be unconscious till I become aware that this has happened. 

When I become aware, I have the choice of going into this higher state again. At this point, my ego will offer up some irrational resistance, telling me stuff like “you’ve already messed up, so it’s not worth the effort to get up again”. Even though it takes no effort at all. It’s just about switching the inner state.

At the highest level, I suspect that it’s about opening up to God and allow God to take control completely, while I still maintain my volitional control. It’s a paradox that I believe to be true, but which I cannot fully understand from my current way of being.

This is hard for me to describe, so please, if anything is unclear here, ask me a question.

There is something strange happening in the world. Part 2

So, what can we do? I believe that the only thing that we can do, is trust that God wants what’s best for us, and do our best to be our best, towards ourselves, each other and the world. I cannot believe in some final judgment where the saved go to heaven and sinners go to hell. There is no way for me to reconcile this with the idea of a good God. Not if God also is omnipotent. I don’t understand how an omnipotent, good god could make/let even the worst person in the history of mankind suffer forever. But I’m open to the possibility that there is something I don’t understand here.

What I do feel is important right now however, is that we do our best to be our best. Not because of some reward or punishment down the road, but because this is what God calls us to do. Because it is what is going to give us the best possible outcomes, and because there might be some hard lessons in store for us otherwise. 

I wish to interject that being our best, does not mean to be flawless. On the contrary, being our best often means to accept and embrace ourselves as flawed creatures fully. To allow ourselves to make mistakes and accept that we sometimes act against our own interests. Because this is part of being human.

So maybe, just maybe, this is not a time where God will let fire rain down on earth in a literal sense, where the saved will get to live in paradise, while sinners will face eternal suffering. Maybe this is rather the time where we really start seeing that living for our own selfish interests and instant gratifications will do nothing good for anyone. Maybe this is a time where we finally see our madness and confusion for what they are and choose to let go of them. 

And I don’t know. Maybe in the end it is as simple as letting go of fear and embracing love. But maybe things are a little more complicated than people make them as well. Maybe we don’t have to be afraid of anything. But maybe, when it comes to certain things that we need to let go of, we will find a few things that are rather difficult to do so with. Maybe things that we have made parts of our identity and that we are very defensive about. I know that this has been the case for me. And it took som pretty deep soul searching to see these things and how they affected my life and ultimately who I was as a person.

There is something strange happening in the world. Part 1

In New Age circles there is talk about “The Ascension Process”. In more biblical contexts, people are talking about “the apocalypse”, “armageddon” or “the end-times”. 

Personally, I find labels like this one problematic, since labels bring with them certain ideas and expectations, exclude others, brings some to the forefront and others to the back. 

A very common human trait seems to be that we want to know. And we don’t just want to know. We want to belong to the group that knows something that the others do not. This is of course one of the many ways that the ego tricks us and I don’t think that we can say “I don’t know” enough these days.

But I find it interesting to look at the ideas of the Ascension Process and The Apocalypse together. Because both of them have some merit. 

On the one hand, we have a huge amount of people reporting strange things happening with them, that seem to point to some magnificent revelation of us being much more than we seem, when we perceive the world through our physical bodies with our physical senses. I’m one of those people.

On the other hand, we have enough biblical end-times prophecies coming true that I believe it warrants at least enough concern, that we cannot just brush it off lightly. We of course have the verse from Matthew that says “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.” We also have several places in the Bible, where it is talked about how people are going to be in the end-times. One usch place is Timothy 3:2-4: “People will be selfish, greedy, boastful, and conceited; they will be insulting, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, and irreligious; ³ they will be unkind, merciless, slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good; ⁴ they will be treacherous, reckless, and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God.”

I’m not saying this to condemn anyone. I don’t think people are this way because they are bad. And these are all traits that I myself wrestle with. And… I’m actually going to write something completely different here than I thought. I honestly don’t think that these traits are more prevalent today than in Jesus’ times. It’s just that we recognize them as something bad today and we actually have a bigger chance of catching a glimpse of who we really are today than in ancient times. So this could actually be a prophecy that is unequivocally positive throughout. People are as they’ve always been, but now they have a chance to see it and recognize it as something that doesn’t make either themselves or anyone else happy. 

I guess that I believe that we can’t just condemn everything that belong to the category of New Age as bad or evil, because I’ve seen how this stuff works and how it is helping me to become a better person. Besides, what has been crammed into this labe is everything from letting go of negative emotional energy, to tarot cards and astrology, to channeling and contact with spirit guides.  

Observe and allow. Part 2

The more I am in the now and the more awareness I can direct at the present moment, the more smoothly everything flows. And as soon as I’m back in my head, thinking about the past or the future, I feel resistance and I mess things up. The funny thing is that when I lose focus, I notice how my brain tries to convince me that I’ve been present the whole time.

Observe and allow part 1

I am more and more starting to find this state within myself, where I can just be present and observe what happens. When I’m in a flow state, where I can just observe my body as it moves and breathes. This attentive state lets me respond in an appropriate manner to what is going on at the moment. I just need to allow what is going on and my body somehow knows how to act. 

Teachings outside the Bible? Part 1

This is something that troubles me quite a lot. I feel called to Christ. I can’t deny that this is where my experiences have been pointing me. This, I believe, means that I have to take everything in the Bible seriously. But I also cannot deny that my experiences have led me into territories far outside of conventional Christianity.

Being as honest as I possibly can, I find certain attitudes about religion and spirituality troublesome. Among them are the attitude that says that like from a smorgasbord, we can just pick and choose anything we like from different spiritual traditions, that we can do whatever we want without consequences and that discard anything that we don’t like. But I also find the view that everything that comes from religions outside of Christianity is the work of the Devil equally troublesome. Furthermore And the idea that sinners will suffer for an eternity, I find most troublesome of all ideas.

I noticed that I find lots of ideas troublesome. But at the end of the day, since I have no right to decide for anyone but myself and I’m no authority on truth, they are mainly troublesome as far as my personal relationship with them goes

Anyway, when it comes to the ideas about the Devil and hell, I have not found anyone giving a real argument as to why this would be necessary. All I see is other statements presented as arguments, such as that it has to be this way to motivate us not to sin, or that God also has to be a just God. I mean, why would we have to have punishment to motivate us to not do what’s best for us? Aren’t the inevitable negative consequences of sin, the ones that play out either in our inner or outer life right here and now, whether we are aware of it or not, enough of a punishment? And what kind of justice is there in eternal torment?

But there might be something here that I don’t understand. The more I struggle with the Bible, and spirituality and religion in general, the more I’m forced to confront the limitations of my own thinking. And if I’m wrong about the incompatibility between a good God and eternal punishment, I sincerely want to know about it so that I can change my beliefs. But I won’t take any sloppy argument, that often isn’t an argument at all, as proof that I am.

But I can not walk around in fear of every unsubstantiated claim that someone makes. If I sound a bit angry when I talk about unsubstantiated claims in this context, it is because I am. Even for someone with a fairly developed capacity for critical thinking, it is difficult to always apply this to all input that we are confronted with. Especially input that triggers fear. And on the other hand, if there is something to the claim presented to us, we might discard it altogether, if the person presenting the claim does a sloppy work with it. In this case, the claim, if I try to present it to the best of my ability, be: “There is one true religion, one true religious worldview and anything that comes from other religions, that cannot directly be found in this religion and religious world view will lead me away from the only right and true path.”

Having laid this groundwork, I will explore this more deeply in the next blog post on the topic.

My slow insights

There is something strange going on in the world. I see it out there and in my life. And for some, everything seems to fall into place fast. For me, it has been a very slow ride. Partially, it’s because I’m very cautious about believing things that I don’t have sufficient reasons to believe. I don’t know if this is always a good thing. Because I believe that it often gets in my way of letting go and just trust. 

Another, definitely more negative reason, is that I’ve been dragging my heels when it comes to my self development. I’ve been slipping back into old habits, procrastinated and made excuses for it. 

But maybe this is how it should be. You see, I’m going through some sort of spiritual process. Within Spiritual / New Age circles, there is talk about the Ascension Process, which is supposed to be a global shift in consciousness. I’ve been studying this a lot, because there is something big happening. But it could also be the apocalypse. The one in the Book of Revelations. It could be both (this is what I’m leaning towards), because it is by no means certain that the darker aspects of the Book of Revelations are to be taken literally. Apocalypse means something akin to unveiling or disclosure (the literal translation is “from cover”, which makes little sense unless you know the intended meaning).

The most common scholarly approach, is that it was written in a cryptic way to pass under the radar of oppressive Roman authorities. This I believe to be at least partially wrong, but I won’t get into detail about it. I just believe that it’s worth bearing in mind when our speculations start to move towards some violent end of everything.

So, why did I suddenly fly off into this area? Well, because I want to document, as truthfully as possible, the process that I’m going through. Because something is definitely happening with me. And with other people. And the world. And maybe things in my process are just the way they should be. Maybe they are slow, so that I really have time to see what is going on and analyse it. So that I can truly see all the pitfalls that I fall into, why I fall into them, what they mean and how they affect me. 

And maybe I won’t be able to speak to people that find the more esoteric stuff hard to swallow, unless I’m truly one of those people. Just a thought.