Radical love and awareness

Jesus didn’t just show us what we could be. He also taught that it is our natural state. He showed us this natural state through his character and actions. He showed us what unconditional love looks like. 

Now, we may get confused about what unconditional love means. To love unconditionally is to love no matter what. But a person that loves unconditionally can still demand things of others. Just not as a condition for love. Jesus demanded things of people. He said: “This is what you need to do to follow me” and “This is what you need to do if you want to be free and happy”. The world is what it is and it comes with its conditions. And no matter how much Jesus loves, as long as we live in a fallen world, he can’t help us out of our bondage unless we do what he says that we need to do in order to be free. 

In any interaction with another person, we can choose to meet that person with love and openness. This is our natural state. But from the day we were born, we have been programmed to respond otherwise. Therefore, what should come natural is hard for most of us. What should come natural is met with resistance. I am no exception to this. This is not something that I have conquered within myself. And this is where it has to begin: within ourselves. Actions and words that on the surface are identical, can have opposite meanings depending on what inner state that they stem from.

In any interaction with another person, we can choose to think loving thoughts about the person. We can choose what qualities to focus on. And every time we make such a choice, our hearts open or close a little bit. Love is a feeling that exists in infinite abundance, we can choose it any time and it is always possible to cultivate more of it.

Jesus said: “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies”. He also told us over and over again to look at our own shortcomings, instead of finding faults in others. These are very clear instructions. There is very little room for misunderstanding here.

So why don’t we always cultivate love. For me, at least part of the reason was that no one told me that I had a choice. At least not in a way that got through to me. And here is where the programming comes in. We learn so many things without questioning them. From movies, music, the news, people around us and other channels, we learn that we live in a hostile world full of selfish people. We learn that power struggles is a necessary part of life, that we live in scarcity and that we need to take what we can and guard ourselves against others. We learn that material possessions and status are important for a happy life. We learn that self esteem comes from putting others in their place and taking revenge. We learn that we should feel offended when we think that someone has wronged us. Just to name a few ways of functioning in the world, that have nothing to do with love, that many of us learn without questioning. 

It is very much a question of awareness whether we make a conscious choice about these matters or not. We may for example feel justified in our anger towards someone. Maybe the person has intentionally wronged us in some way. But if we manage to take a step back and observe what is going on, we can consider what course of action is most beneficial to all concerned parties. Hint: It’s usually not to go off on a slanderous rant as we vent our hurt feelings to a mutual friend. In fact, if we can stop ourselves at the level of our thoughts, this is usually the best way of approaching the issue. If we can keep calm and remember that our thoughts do not represent reality. 

The problem is that we are seldom fully aware of what is going on inside of our own heads. We often assume that we are. But upon closer inspection, we notice all kinds of nonsense in our minds. We notice that there is a constant chatter in our minds whether we like it or not, that we believe many thoughts without sufficient reason and that we often confuse thoughts and feelings. For example. 

We also notice something else, which is very relevant here. Namely that once a negative emotion gets hold of us, we lose our conscious awareness. Then the emotion starts to color our thoughts and perceptions, it becomes much easier to mistake our distorted perception of reality for reality and to start engaging in behavior that has no clear purpose. Such as saying something that we may regret later, to- or about another person. Such as acting in a way that is not loving.

But we often do have a few seconds where we remember, for example, a commitment not to judge. But then comes the justifications: “He or she did this or that to me”. Or we simply pretend that we didn’t hear the little reminder of our commitment at all. Our inner life is interesting in that way, in a rather frightening manner. We often know, on some level, that we have the choice of stopping ourselves. But another side of us doesn’t want to. And when this side wins we let go. And when we let go we go unconscious and words seem to flow more or less automatically out of our mouths. 

We may come to our senses after a while, much depending on our level of maturity. But not before having given ourselves another reason not to trust ourselves. For what reason? Why do we do such things? The only honest answer is: “I don’t know”. As with many, if not most, of our behaviors, we may think up an explanation for them. But if we are being honest with ourselves, it is just that - something that we have thought up. 

The good news is that the more awareness we bring into the present moment, the easier it becomes to make different choices. The easier it becomes to catch ourselves before we think, act and speak in an unloving manner. The easier it becomes to choose love. And the more we choose love, the closer we get to our rebirth in the image of God. In Christ likeness. Which is the goal of every human, whether we recognize it or not.

Some thoughts about the movie The Shawshank Redemption PART 2

We are ultimately responsible for what happens in our lives. It doesn’t mean that it’s just or fair. Andy Dufresne is innocent of the crime that he gets convicted for. But he did find himself drunk outside of his house with a gun in his hand. He did toss the gun in the river. He let his emotions run his actions for a while. The punishment does not at all fit the crime. In fact, here there was no crime. Yet, had he remained in control of himself, he wouldn’t have been in prison. 

And we live in a world where punishments seldom fit the crimes. Someone makes a few mistakes and is in financial slavery for life, while those with enough money and/or power can commit genocide and get away with it. Someone commits a victimless crime and is branded a criminal, while someone else acts totally despicably, but within the confines of the law, and no one raises an eyebrow because no juridical transgression has been committed. This is the world we live in and whether or not we have an intent of changing it, we still have to live in it as best we can. And if we want to be free from the injustices of the world, we first need to be free in ourselves. Because this, as Dufresne says in many ways throughout the movie, this is the only freedom that no one can take away from us.

And when we do that we need to chip away at our prison walls one day at a time. We need to be patient with ourselves while doing it. Because our walls are thick and hard and we are going to have to do a lot of things that we don’t want to do on our way to freedom. And on the way, we need to accept where we are and do our best with it. While Dufresne is in prison, he does what he can to improve the situation around him. When he gets raped, he does all he can to fight it, and therefore he can still walk out of it with his head held high. He is always of the lookout for ways to improve his conditions and the conditions of those around him. And when it all comes crashing down, he allows himself a moment of defeat. But then he gets up again. 

Some thoughts about the movie The Shawshank Redemption PART 1

The ego is a prison. 

I watched The Shawshank Redemption yesterday. It was around twenty years since I watched it the last time and I almost didn’t remember any of it. 

What I wish to talk about is the prison metaphor and how it can be seen as symbolizing our own mental prison. It is clearly spoken of in some of the dialogue in the movie. And now I want to make it a bit personal, but hopefully in a way which many can relate to. 

This is a movie filled with symbolism. When it dawns on you that you are in fact in a metaphorical prison and that you through your unconscious thoughts, words and behaviors are the ones that got you there, it will feel hopeless and unfair. You messed up, but you didn’t know what you were doing, but no one is going to help you to clean up the mess and you see no way out. And crying and whining about it is only going to make it infinitely worse. Because there are merciless“guards” that are prepared to “beat you to death” if you do. 

In a paradoxical way, we are both innocent and guilty at the same time. “Everyone here is innocent”, as the character Red says, while soon afterwards admitting that he is guilty. He is the only one that actually admits that he is in fact guilty. But he committed his crime when he was young, stupid and didn’t understand what he was doing. But this does not matter. Thirty years later, he is still paying for it with his imprisonment. Whether or not he deserves his sentence, is up to each and everyone to decide.

This is where I’ve found myself. As a teenager and young adult, I adopted a very destructive philosophy of meaninglessness and nihilism. And really by any standard, my behavior was consistently stupid. For someone with an above average intelligence even more so. I often boasted of my intelligence, while constantly engaging in behavior not even fitting for someone with an IQ of eighty. And now, twenty years later, I’ve found myself in a prison cell of bad habits and unconscious beliefs. And believe me, I have cried and whined about it quite a lot. But the world doesn't care, so I'm still left with having to deal with it.

I would actually say that in many ways, my situation is quite unique, as I, in many ways, know and understand myself better than anyone I know. But on the other hand, I’ve made such a mess of myself in my youth, that I’m also facing gigantic struggles. This, I believe, is something that I can put into good use, if I handle it correctly. Because I can chip away at my metaphorical prison wall one day at a time and put into words what is happening while I do it. And since I’ve caused so many problems for myself - problems that I refuse to just ignore - hopefully I will also be able to help many other people as I deal with them a little at a time.

Bringing conscious awareness into everything

As with many other things, the first step to changing this, is to set the intention of becoming aware every time my focus starts to drift and consciously bringing it back to what's in front of me every time that it does. I believe that if I persist, I will become aware more and more often. This has worked when it comes to my job. And it works with many other things. 

What I've realized, is that at my job I’m pretty focused on what’s in front of me and do things very efficiently. But when I sit down with projects at home, I tend to lose focus easily and become distracted. And I’ve realized that this is actually a habit. I’ve allowed my work that I do in my spare time to become sloppy and unfocused.

This also goes beyond mere lack of efficiency. When I do things in this manner, I also much more seldom get into a flow state. This means that I more often do things from a place of ego and of trying to force things, which means that I get access to much fewer novel ideas than I could. 

But thoughts that "slip by" can teach us something

When we stop believing our thoughts and instead start thinking of what they are saying about us, something happens. We can start looking for clues to what is broken inside of us, or what negative beliefs that hide inside us. This is very liberating. I, for example, have noticed quite a few judgmental thoughts inside my head. But when I chose to just observe them, while knowing that they are not me, they lose their power. As with so many other things, we take control simply by bringing awareness to them.

Don't let thoughts slip by

This is sort of a continuation of  yesterday’s post. This realization came because of something I experienced during meditation yesterday. I’ve been aware for quite a while, that thoughts disappear when I observe them and that when they do, I become present in the moment. And other things seem to happen, such as that my third eye seems to open up and I lose my sense of the physical, of my body and the rest of the world. 

But sometimes thoughts come through that don’t seem to disturb my peace. I’m fully present with them. And they are distinctly different from my usual thoughts, in that they seem to speak to me and they seem true in a sense that my other thoughts aren’t. Yet, at the same time as they seem to speak to me, I’m in more control of them than my usual thoughts, in that as long as I’m fully present, only thoughts that I accept into my mind comes into it.

But as soon as I lose focus, other thoughts can creep in. In fact, I’ve realized that when it comes to any thought that is derived from any other state than present moment awareness, are not fully my own. They slip by, often undetected. And if I’m not careful, I might very well end up believing them.

Think only about now

Something struck me while meditating a while back. When my thoughts were focused on what was going on in the present, such as how my body was feeling, the slight movement that my body did by itself to adjust my spine etcetera, the thought didn’t seem detrimental to my meditation. But as soon as they drifted off into the past or future, my focus was disturbed and I got lost in them. 

Thinking of this afterwards gave me an interesting insight. Almost all thoughts about the past and the future are useless. Not only useless. They profoundly disturb my peace for no good reason. The only time that I can find that it’s useful to think about the past, is when I consciously wish to learn something from it, or when I consciously conjure up a positive memory to elevate my emotions and/or strengthen it. And the only time when it is a good thing to think about the future, is when setting conscious, clear intentions about it or when I think about what I’m doing in the now, in relation to my intentions for the future.

It is interesting and a little scary to notice, that I, and more or less all people that I’ve ever known or come into contact with, have given very little thought to how our thoughts operate. And that we habitually let our thoughts just go where they please. We do this even though it doesn’t take that much to just become aware of what is going on inside our heads from time to time and give the thoughts a nudge in a preferred direction.

Start acting as if everyone knew what you are doing

It is probably true that most people are too occupied with themselves to notice how you behave. But don’t we want to be genuine, open and honest? Doesn’t that sound better than false, closed and dishonest? Then maybe if we started to act as if everyone knew what we were up to, we would come closer to the former and further away from the latter.

An interesting observation about worming

In my old life, I often tried to worm myself out of taking responsibility for different things. What I’ve noticed on several occasions, is that I still feel like this is what I’m doing, even when I’m giving an entirely honest explanation. I end up feeling guilty, before I take a step back and realize that, wait a minute. That’s actually exactly what happened and/or my motives were exactly what I said that they were.

Cleaning up our thoughts

I have for most of my life believed that thoughts are a private matter. That it’s up to me what I choose to fill my head with and that it doesn’t matter much either to myself or anyone else. That they are a private matter is in a sense true. But that they don’t matter is not true.

I used to fill my head with all kinds of negative thoughts about other people. Sometimes I thought thoughts akin to “if you only knew what is going on in my head right now.” I also indulged in all kinds of fantasies and played up little scenarios of taking revenge in all kinds of ways on people that I believed had wronged me. In a particularly hurtful situation, I fantasised about writing a suicide letter to the person that hurt me so that she knew that it was her fault that I was dead and then hang myself. 

Now, I’ve stopped believing in the Law of Attraction. At least as some mechanical law that says that we attract what we focus our thoughts on. God might decide to give us gifts or harsh lessons depending on what we fill our heads with. But that is something completely different from how we usually see Law of Attraction.

And here is the point. Here is one of two main reasons why our thoughts matter. Our thoughts affect us. That’s a given. They affect how we feel. And not just those really negative thoughts. All of them. If I’m judgmental towards other people in my mind, I become more judgmental in general. If I’m kind towards others in my head, I become kind towards others in real life. If I engage in destructive fantasies, I increase my chances of starting to seriously consider what I’m fantasizing about. 

I have started to see just how much things shift inside my head. I convince myself of all kinds of things. Things that often begin just as an idea that flies through my head. Sometimes I manage to convince myself of the exact opposite of what I originally intended and I often lose sight of what is important, when passions start to drive me in some direction. Sometimes I manage to convince myself that what is driving a clearly passion driven decision, is really rational considerations. 

Knowing all of this, I realize very clearly that it’s time to clean up my thoughts. And I will remember this until about thirty seconds after writing this post. And then my thoughts will start living their own lives again. But hopefully, with time, I will become better and better at reminding myself of just how unreliable my thoughts are.

Obsessive thoughts

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I’ve noticed that my thoughts get obsessive over certain things. These thoughts have a peculiar character. Because it is as if I come under a spell. They seem undeniably true and I find numerous signs that confirm them. While I’m under their spell, my mind keeps coming back to them over and over again, I become absent-minded and they fill me with a strange, anxious, restless energy. 

Yet, what often happens is that something happens that breaks their spell and suddenly they seem no more real than any other thought. 

I wonder what other such things go on in my mind that I haven’t really put my finger on.

How does everyday stuff work?

Do you think about how your thoughts operate? Your emotions? Your breath? Your body? How these things correspond? I know I didn’t for most of my life. But aren’t the things that are always present in your life important enough to give them some consideration?

Asking ourselves why we engage in certain thoughts part 1

More and more, I come to realize how many options we have with regards to our inner lives. For most of my life, I’ve just treaded along and let whatever came up in my head come up, letting more or less arbitrary things decide which ones I would or wouldn’t believe in. I also didn’t really separate my thoughts. They were just thoughts, whether they were the result of deliberate thinking, or rumination fueled by negative emotions. 

How do I use text?

For someone like me, that works with producing text on a daily basis, this question is especially important. But I think that it is important to anyone. Because how we use text says something about who we are and what we believe.

For example: Do I sacrifice readability for style or fancy words? Do I write “The Bible” as “The Bible” or “the bible”? How bound up am I by language norms? How aware am I of them? When I choose to consciously break language norms or rules, why do I do it? For what purpose?

As stated in the beginning, these questions, especially the last two, can tell me something about who I am and what I believe. 

Useful and useless thoughts

I often hear that in the modern world, we seldom take the time to just think. We always want to distract our minds in some way. Which makes us alienated to ourselves, since this means that we don’t take time to figure ourselves or our lives out. 

I’ve been there. In so many ways. When I was younger, it was a lot of mindless entertainment. Then, as I started to find some meaning in life and became at least a bit ambitious, it was books. And still some mindless entertainment now and then. 

But there is another side to this. Because when I decided to just sit down and think, or at least not listen to something every time I did household chores, I found my thoughts skipping randomly between topics. When I was done, I had thought about things like bills, what people thought of me, my body, groceries, tv-series etc. Consequently, when I was done being alone with my thoughts, I hadn’t grown any wiser. In some instances, I had even managed to get my mood down, by thinking of some problem that I couldn’t do anything about, or someone that I was mad at, or someone that was mad at me. 

This happened even if I decided to be present with my thoughts. Because it took ten seconds for me to forget to be present with them. Only now, many years after I first made this attempt, I am starting to remember to have a conscious relation to my thoughts when I’m alone with them. 

That last sentence sounded a little weird. Re-read it again to make sure that didn’t just read it, but understood it as well.

We can't stop thinking

To many, this isn’t news. But to many it is. It was for my very intelligent grandfather when, seven years ago, when he was 96, I told him this. We didn’t speak much more about it, but I think considering that he was a very curious person all the way to his death, he must have found this fascinating. Thinking about it, I wish that I would have followed up the discussion some more. We could have probably had a very i interesting talk about it. But sadly, this was before I started to realise just how unconsciously I was approaching many thing in my life.

But I’m getting off track here. Maybe there is a point to getting off track sometimes though. 

What I want to get at, is that we have this constant wordmachine going on in our heads, that also generates diffuse images, sounds, songs, scenes etcetera. And for a long time, I more or less unconsciously assumed that I was this wordmachine, without giving much conscious thought to how it functioned. Or why it was there and did what it did. I even, again mostly unconsciously, assumed that I was in control of it. 

I believe that the above description of my thoughts is more or less true of most people. And the more I think of this, the more interesting (and also a bit frightening) I think that it is. To repeat: We have a constant wordmachine etc. in our heads that we unconsciously assume is us, and this is something that many people go through their whole lives without reflecting upon. With this reasoning in mind, I want to conclude with a question: Do you or don’t you think that thoughts play a significant role in shaping our actions and lives?