Being introduced to ourselves and our egos

One of the most important insights on a spiritual journey, is that we have an ego. To begin understanding what the ego is. That this ego is something absolutely real and paradoxically an illusion at the same time. And that this ego is not our real selves. But also that we have a real self, which is the self that God intended for us to be.

One of the fundamental characteristics of this ego, is its lack of free will. Things happen in the world and the ego reacts to them, while deluding itself that it is making free choices. 

Lately both me and my wife have gone through rather rude awakenings. We’ve both become aware of behaviors that we were unable to see in ourselves, even though they were quite clearly visible. We discovered them in our interactions with each other. But we had to discover them for ourselves. When any one of us pointed things out to the other, it only resulted in defensiveness. Keep this in mind as you read on. Because just as this is true in relationships, it’s also true in other areas of life.

In some ways it was a bit easier for me to see these things, but not because of any flattering reasons. It has something to do with the quote from Jesus that he came not to “call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). While my wife has, for the most part, been a kind and well-ordered person, I’ve engaged in actions, words and thoughts that have been blatantly abhorrent. 

The point is that when we don’t stray too far from what is considered socially acceptable behavior, it’s harder to see our errors. Both because we constantly check our behavior against cultural norms and because we receive feedback from the people around us. 

This, by the way, ought to be a cause of concern, when cultural norms start to drift towards full acceptance and even celebration, of destructive behaviors. But we must never make the mistake of pointing fingers towards particular individuals or groups. If anything, we need to criticize our culture and the effects that our cultural values have on people. We always need to do it from a place where we first and foremost look at ourselves and what we are doing to contribute to the current situation. And whether our criticism comes from a genuine place, or from the ego, is not a simple matter.

When observing my and other people’s egos in action, I’ve noticed that it often adopts one of two ways of operating in the world. Either it wants to be totally free to follow whatever whim that currently holds it in its grasp. Thus it becomes a slave to desires and instincts. Which makes it a slave to the world.

Or it adopts a rigid belief system and navigates through the world using this system. Thus it escapes the tyranny of our animalness, but instead becomes a slave to a particular way of thinking and perceiving. 

And the thing is that both of these ways of functioning usually results in us pointing fingers towards others, rather than looking at ourselves. Because our belief systems give us a sense of moral superiority. This often, in turn, leads to a confused mess of wanting others to respect our freedom of expression, while at the same time conforming to our standards of what our egos have deemed as “right”.

To wrap this up, I want to go back to the core of the message of this blog post. Namely that we are usually blind to our own behavior and that we seldom make truly conscious choices. This is so crucial if we wish to understand our condition. We may, on the surface, be good, upstanding people. We may be well-adjusted and get along fairly well with other people. But it doesn’t mean that we are free. There may be all kinds of selfish, or even destructive, motives hiding behind our words and actions. We may be playing out pre-determined scripts , that make us just react to our experiences. 

Why did Jesus say: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17)? Because what Jesus did abolish, was blind obedience. Blind obedience that was necessary while humanity was in its infancy. But and obedience that would gradually be replaced by a life lived from a changed inside. A changed inside that transcends words and commands, but which still can be checked against one’s willingness and ability to do what is right. And if we want this inner transformation to take place, we need to take our focus from what other people are doing. Instead we need to shine the light on ourselves. 

This is at the core of what Jesus taught and there is no other way out of our problems. We can kick, scream, protest and feel offended and mistreated. We have the right to do this. And there are for sure things that we need to refuse to cooperate with if we want to avoid tyranny. But when we try to force our wills on the world and other people, rather than looking at ourselves, we only dig ourselves deeper into a hole. This is how it is whether we like it or not. And facts don’t care about feelings or opinions. 

What is the alternative? If we just make everyone think and act a certain way everything will be fine? How has that approach worked so far?

So, here's the deal

I feel that it’s time for an update.

So, here’s the deal:

I know that something huge is going on on the planet right now. Whatever spiritual awakening is, it’s happening. To lots of people. Undeniably. It’s not some wishful thinking or mass delusion. It’s not a question of “maybe, maybe not so let’s have a debate about it”. Having a debate about it would be like having a debate about whether the earth is flat. The connection with God on the inside is absolutely undeniable to me, even if it took a while for my ego to become convinced, and even if my ego sometimes still throws doubts in my way. Because it seems as if no matter what proof I experience in my life and together with my wife, my ego can still find ways of doubting. 

The “problem” is, for me, that for one reason or another, I’m led to Christianity. In the sense that the answers are to be found there. Not just in the sense that some answers are to be found there, but that THE answers are to be found there. This does not mean that all other religions are wrong and of the devil. I believe, for example, that the chakra system of Hinduism, the philosophy of letting go of attachment and resistance in Buddhism, or the natural flow of Taoism all have valuable things to teach us. 

So many crazy things have happened in my life. Things on the inside mostly. But also weird synchronicities and messages that come to me and my wife. So the crux of the matter, is that while this is undeniably happening, there is no way of proving to anyone else that it is. If we could, we could go out and show people the true nature of reality, we could overthrow the tyrants that rule the world by simply refusing to comply with them, and we could build utopia on earth. But for one reason or another, God has chosen to let things play out a different way.

Anyway, what I wish to do with the blog is to explore this openly. A few important questions to ask here are: “Why am I drawn to Christianity”, “what does this mean?”, “if Christianity is true, why is it true?” and “how come that most people that wake up don’t seem to be Christians?”

It seems though, as if many people that have woken up are using more and more biblical references and Christian terminology. And I do agree with those that say that “Christian” is a label. I even agree with those that say that it is a problematic label. I think that it seems a little strange that one’s whole eternal destiny would be contingent upon wether one adopted the label or not. 

On the other hand, I believe that this still is a valid label, for someone that, with all his or her human frailties and weaknesses, aspires to live like Jesus.

A widened perspective on the Bible?

What if you read the Bible for the first time, with no prior knowledge about it, except the vague notion that it contains some kind of important truth about the world? I want you to really think of what this question means. So I’ll say it again: What if you read the Bible for the first time, with no prior knowledge about it, except the vague notion that it contains some kind of important truth about the world, that means that it cannot be dismissed as mere fiction?

This would mean that you didn’t know about literal interpretations or that there are people that reject it completely. You would neither know what theologians have been saying since the beginning of Christianity, nor would you know the doctrines of the different churches. 

You would also not know about ideas that Christians often reject because they think that they are incompatible with biblical teachings. And you might look at some of the stories as attempts to describe events that they would have understood very differently if they would have occurred today. You might interpret some things that today are looked upon as literal as symbolical and vice versa. 

What if you looked at everything in it, that doesn’t have an absolutely self-evident interpretation, with an open mind, but seriously enough to not fall for the temptation to say “everything is relative so I’m free to do what I want”?  

How wonderful it is to be a sinner

The title of this post is sort of click bait. What I’m talking about here is something akin to the parable quoted in the post-image.

The point is that I’m grateful for my sins, because they make it harder for me to judge others. However, I had to become aware of my sins for this to be the case. In the past, I didn’t see my own sins. Or more specific, I didn’t look at them as sins. As something disgraceful or hurtful, or whichever other label one might give to actions that fit under the label “sin”. So I judged. I still catch myself judging sometimes, I have to admit. In my thoughts, I catch myself doing it quite often, even though I catch myself quicker and quicker and do my best not to believe my judgments. 

Do I judge the pharisee? Let me put it like this: for most of my life I didn’t look properly at myself. So I judged. I could have continued not looking at myself, had it not been for the grace of God. I could have continued being just as bad as the pharisee regarding judgment and I did not get out of this mindset by my own effort. I couldn’t have, since I wasn’t aware of how I was acting. In many other instances, I’m probably still just as “bad”, or “worse” than the pharisee.

Grandness in smallness

Know that you are infinitely valuable to God. Jesus says that every hair on your head is counted by God. This means that no matter who you are in the world, God cares deeply for you. To God, you are not a small speck of dust. Yet, objectively speaking, no matter who you are, you are small and fragile. No matter who you are, you will grow old. You will die. And there is always someone bigger than you in the world and in the eyes of other people. In comparison to the vastness of the eternity of time and (possible) infinity of the universe, you are basically nothing. Compared to God, you are basically nothing. And yet, you mean everything to God. And the more we recognize this smallness, the more we grow in the eyes of God. The more we humble ourselves in our fragility and weakness, the stronger we become.

What the bible does say

In my post a week ago, I talked about things that The Bible doesn’t say, but where many people have absolute beliefs about the Christian stance anyway. Today I want to talk about what The Bible clearly says, but that we tend to overlook. 

What the Bible does say quite clearly, is that we need to be humble before God. Not only that, but humility seems to occupy a special place among the virtues, within Christianity. It seem to be tied into many of the other prime virtues. Thomas à Kempis, the writer of the classic: The Imitation of Christ, gave it the utmost importance.

The Bible does most certainly call us to follow Jesus’ example, to forgive others and look at our own shortcomings, instead of finding faults in others. It tells us to love God, each other and ourselves. All of this is pretty clear. It is written in very plain language and illustrated in numerous examples. Yet, how many of us really contemplate these, obviously very central aspects of Christian faith, and think deeply about what they mean in our everyday lives? If you are like me, you probably easily get lost in speculations about matters of which you cannot possibly have any absolute knowledge, rather than actually use the same mental effort to reflect upon how to apply these very clear and central aspects of Christian fait to your life. To tell you the truth, even though I know that I would benefit from it, I’m scared of taking the question of truly following Christ in all aspects of my life seriously. What consequences it would have, which things I would need to change or prioritise differently, if I truly made the question of following Jesus central to my life. 

The idea that we should give primacy to the clearer and seemingly more important parts of The Bible, does of course not mean that claims about unprovable facts are unimportant. But arguing about factual claims, whether they are historical, contemporary, spiritual or worldly, that cannot be proven or disproven in any absolute sense, might be counterproductive. Especially if it takes focus from the central message of unconditional love, non-judgment and forgiveness. This arguing often even seem to downright contradict this message, when it turns us against one another. As with many other things, this does not just apply to The Bible. It applies to any situation, where we come to judge and resent one another because of differences of opinion or worldview. 

The Bible seems, at its core, to call for us to express love in all that we are and do. This, I think, seems to be the primary command of The Bible, personified in the figure of Jesus Christ. How could it be otherwise? 

What I’ve found helpful, when it comes to expressing love, is to examine the motifs behind my actions and words. If I’m being honest with myself, I find that my motifs, most of the time, are more or less different from those that I consciously presented to myself before examination. Unconscious motifs can often be such ones that do not express love. I believe that this is true for other people as well. If so, at least to me, this leads to the conclusion that, if we wish to be better att expressing love, we need to make self-examination a priority. As the Bible quote in the post-image says.

Here’s what I think. If we choose to live from this radical place of love, where we in all our brokenness do our best to imitate Christ, to make it our life-mission to do so, we have something to measure what we find during our self-examination against. No one expects us to be perfect at it. If you are like me, which I think most people are in this area, you are spiritually lazy. Even if it ultimately leads to nothing good, it’s convenient to deceive ourselves. And this self-deception of course entails finding excuses for not doing what we know we should, or do what we know we shouldn’t, even though we know that it is within our power to do otherwise. 

What The Bible doesn't say

How do you approach The Bible? Or other religious or spiritual texts for that matter?

Let’s get a little wild here. I think we can afford it, as long as we try to refrain from drawing hasty conclusionst.

During biblical times, as far as we know, people had no idea about the vastness of the universe. So thoughts about UFO:s or inhabitants on other planets would at least have been very different fro our thoughts about such a subject and most people wouldn’t have thought of it at all.

For different reasons though, many Christians are skeptical about life on other planets. One of the main reasons seems to be the centrality afforded to the human race in The Bible.

On the other hand, most Christians also recognise that The Bible was written by humans. Humans that were faulty and that had limited knowledge of the world, trying to communicate something coming from an ultimate, perfect, unlimited reality. 

This also brings up two other questions. Namely why God chooses to make his presence known the way he does and what can be said about it. Ultimately, this leads to the question: Why isn’t God’s communication direct and clear? 

Since there is, as far as I can tell, no fully satisfying answer to these questions, even though many have tried to give such answers, I believe that this should call for some openness. Openness should though not be mistaken for permission to interpret everything any way that we want. And this is a very important point, so please don’t rush by it. Give it some thought. Because it is very easy to get confused about openness and permission to interpret everything in any way that we want. And it seems to me, as if it should be easier to interpret scriptures if we keep that distinction in mind. 

We make so many implicit assumptions about how to interpret The Bible and other religious texts. And any other information that isn’t crystal clear for that matter. Often without taking into account just how different the lives and understanding of the world, of those that wrote it were. We all bring with us our personal experiences and the beliefs that we have chosen to accept and reject. We bring with us our limited perspectives and degrees of openness. 

In this context, other questions could be asked: What theologians have shaped our thinking? Do we have primary or secondary knowledge about their ideas? Are we open to the texts that were excluded from The Bible it the first council of Nicaea? Why / why not? Did we know that such a council took place before reading this blog post? Did we know on what grounds the texts were accepted or rejected? Do we find those grounds reasonable? Reasonable enough to have complete faith in them? 

The answers to such question and how thought-through they are, all shape how we understand The Bible. Another interesting fact to consider, is the fact that the first council of Nicaea was instigated by the emperor Constantin I. In fact, this wa something that I had completely forgotten about, until I googled the council just now. Should we trust the converted pagan emperor that turned Christianity into a political religion? And yes, the last question was a loaded question. I believe that there is good support both in The Bible and in history, for the stance that politics and religion should not directly mix, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean that religious people should never act within the political sphere.

Furthermore, it seems clear that many parts of The Bible have both a literal and a symbolical interpretation. Sometimes it might even have many symbolical ones. We can also add the normative interpretations of mainly the New Testament, that go beyond the legalism of the Old Testament. And on top of the, we have the personal meanings that we find when we read The Bible and find books, chapters and verses that seem to speak directly to us and where we’re at.

All of the above serves to illustrate the argument that I wish to make here: that The Bible leaves room for much that many exclude. As said in the beginning, The Bible does not say that there can’t be life on other planets or whether the inhabitants of said planets might be visiting us. It does not give clear cut answers to what spiritual realities might exist beyond this physical one. 

It does also not set absolute limits for what humans are or what we can do. On the contrary, all the way from the beginning, it states that we were made in God’s image. Jesus says that other humans will be able to do what he did and more. The apostles Peter and Paul raised the dead, just like Jesus. Faith can move mountains. And so on. 

The difficulty of letting go and just trust

I believe that I have enough reasons to just let go and trust God in whatever is happening in my life. It has at the core something to do with an inner change that I’ve been going through the past few years, that has been so remarkable that it should leave little doubt. I’ll leave it at that. Maybe I’ll talk about why in the future.

But no matter what happens on a spiritual level, I seem to be dragged down by everyday life. I still worry about finances, bills, debts (yeah, all my worries can basically be boiled down to money). 

I know that there is a divine plan. And I’m starting to suspect that everything that happens in my life, happens for a reason. That everything is just as it should be. That I don’t have to worry about getting old and realise that my life has just passed me by. Because when I think about it, even though some parts of my life are a mess and I’m living a fairly dull life on the outside, there is so much going on that is nothing short of miraculous. So miraculous that I should be content if life happens to just pass me by and I die with all my dreams unfulfilled. Because I know that in one form and another, eternity awaits me after death, even though I’m not sure what it entails.

But when I’m not present, I don’t see. When I’m not present, I tend to forget, because my thoughts drift into worries and things that my ego wishes to be different. And even when I am present, I have a hard time not making things important, which should only be important if they are part of God’s plan.

I remember reading or hearing somewhere, that Mother Teresa had her religious experiences when she was young and then had to go through life, with all her acts of selflessness, trusting in what she experienced in her youth, without any new experiences to add fuel to what once happened to her. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. It’s not important in the context.

The thing is that, in my naiveté, I thought: If you’ve once had them, how can you start doubting. Now, I’m no Mother Teresa ;). I’m a huge sinner that has mostly lived a selfish life. And I’m not saying this in the humble way that saints do, once they become aware of their shortcomings. I’ve done some truly crappy things in my life. Things that most people would not do.

But you can of course go back to the bible and see all the places where doubt is mentioned, to see that even those that lived closest to Jesus had doubts about incredible miracles that they had seen with their own eyes. 

I now understand that this is how it is. Memories fade. It doesn’t take more than a year for doubts to creep in. What once was so real, gets questioned. Did it really happen the way I remember it? I don’t remember all the details, so how can I be as sure as I was then? What I most have to lean on, is my former certainty. 

But it’s not just that memories fade. It seems as if the ego cannot comprehend anything spiritual. It doesn’t matter how many amazing things that happen. After a while, I’m drawn back into my trivial everyday-life worries. No matter how much God reassures me that he exists and that everything is as it should be, I cannot trust when I’m overwhelmed with financial worries and other issues that tend to bog me down. Why is it so hard to trust God, when he has since way back removed all my doubts about his existence? Why does it seem as if there is a thick wall between my spiritual and my material life? 

Starting with what I know

I know that God exists. I cannot say that I exactly know who God is, or the nature of God. I believe that I can be fairly certain in ascribing certain attributes to God. These would be: “intelligent”, “personal” and “having a will”. 

I can also be certain of that there is some kind of unseen spiritual reality. What this reality is exactly, I again cannot know.

These things I’ve seen enough evidence of in my own life, to be certain of. I know that I can’t prove them to anyone. Or that God exists at all. But from personal experience, I can know this for myself. I’m not asking anyone to take my word for it. But with a bit of openness, I believe that anyone can find proof that God exists. Just not the kind of proof that can be tested in a laboratory or be objectively verified in any other way. 

I can also see the truth of what Jesus taught. I have no idea when it comes to historical claims. I simply wasn’t there. It doesn’t mean that they are unimportant or that there is no way of at least determine probability. The resurrection, for example, is believed in by many scholars, because of the amount of witnesses, and certain circumstances around how it was told and who the witnesses were. 

I’ll might look more closely into this and other claims in the Bible later in my life. Probably. 

But what I want to get at, is that the more I look into what Jesus taught, the more struck I become by how hard it is to live by, not because of what it demands of our bodies or intellects, but because of the humility it demands. And also how easy life would be if we could live by it. All we have to do is to swallow our pride.

So why is this so hard? As an example: I’ve been tricked into buying crappy cars three times in my life. Once for me. Once for me and my wife and once for my wife’s son (sidenote: when writing this, I realised that all three times, I wanted something to happen fast. Don’t ever let your decisions be governed by wanting something to happen fast!). If I want to seriously follow Christ, I need to pray for these sellers and do my best to feel no grudge towards them. 

Or, me and my wife were tricked into a rental contract of five year for a machine for our company, that had a forced insurance that made the monthly payment twice as expensive. Also in this case, I will need to do my best to love my enemy and turn the other cheek. At the times when this happened I didn’t think this way though. In fact, I said loads of angry things about these people. I can even still get angry sometimes, since we’re still paying the penalty fee for breaking the contract with the company. And at the fact that there are dishonest people in the world in general. And so on. But none of this changes the facts of my life or of the world. 

I could give more examples. But what this amounts to is to a large extent acceptance. Lack thereof. And pride. “These things happen, but they shouldn’t happen to me, because I’m so great…” 

Jesus taught humility and acceptance. And looking at these examples and numerous others, it’s easy to see ho much easier life would be if we practiced these things. And that we really have nothing to lose from doing so. But we don’t. If we did, our lives would be very different. We would feel different. A huge burden would lift from our shoulders. But we prefer to be angry because circumstances aren’t the way that we think that they ought to be.

These are some of the things that I do know. Things that I think that I could work with.

Be like children 2

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:3

Now, I don’t believe in the story of Adam and Eve in a literal sense (but if you believe otherwise I respect that and you’re welcome to try and change my mind). But I think that it has a lot to teach us. I actually read this in another blog. 

What I believe that it has to teach us, is that before the fall (again, I believe the fall should be seen metaphorically), Adam and Eve lived in complete trust and vulnerability before God. They had an absolute faith in their father’s will and had no wish come up with a better solution to life on their own. 

Now, we know that it’s not that easy. Because we have egos. Therefore, we can’t just read the bible, or any other text for that matter, and expect to find God’s will there in a form that we just can believe and accept. But I think that meditating on the call to “become like little children” can help us along the way.

Be like children

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:3

This bible verse has stood out to me for a long time, for some reason that I can’t fully put my finger on, even if I will try to do my best. I think that it has a significance for everyone, but that it has acquired a special significance for me. I think this is partially due to the fact that on the one hand, I’ve gradually lost my innocence through the way I’ve lived my life, while the childlike awe and wonder has gotten buried deep under tragic events and parts of my life. And on the other hand, I’ve instead acted childish by refusing to take responsibility and taking a general immature stance towards the events in my life. I believe that this state is true for most people to different degree. Some, like me, have more of it in their pasts than others. I also believe that if we want to be truly happy, this is something that we need to work on changing, with the help of God.