I want to be dependent upon God PART 1

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

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

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

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

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 6

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

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

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

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

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

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 5

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

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

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

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

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Non-resistance is THE game changer

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

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

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

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

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

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On pleasure PART 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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We don't need the SURVIVAL INSTINCT anymore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Vulnerability requires real toughness

In my past I used to put up walls around me. Me and my friends had a pretty rough way of speaking to each other and I definitely was one of the most active driving forces behind this jargon. I felt proud of not caring what anyone said to me. The positive side of this is that I can still take a joke and I don’t have to take everything that others say to me seriously. But the negative side is that this goes both ways. Just like I didn’t take in things that could hurt me, I didn’t talk about things that made me vulnerable either. 

When I started going through my real spiritual awakening, I suddenly found myself sensitive towards things that I previously would have brushed off as nothing. I had an initial awakening many years ago, but lost sight of it after a while. It became undeniable that something strange was going on first when I med my wife a little more four years ago and we started to have one strange experience after the other together.

But back to the main topic: vulnerability. I could suddenly not deny that others could say things that hurt anymore. Understanding this, I coul also understand that words can have real power. What I say can hurt. What we say to each other matter.

Now, I’m not talking about some politically correct nonsense, where we have to walk on eggshells around each other so that we don’t accidentally say something that can be interpreted as racist or sexist. I still believe that offence is taken and not given. And I believe that in this context we need to turn things around anyway. Turn things around in the sense that we stop demanding things from others and turn towards ourselves instead. We can complain forever about what others are doing to us and whether or not they are doing it on purpose. Or we can look at our own wounds, why certain things trigger them and how they cause us to say and do hurtful things. 

This is how we get out if this cycle of victims and perpetrators: we stop making others responsible for how we feel and open up to each other. Vulnerability is not the same as being whiny and weak. I was that for a while as well (and can still be sometimes), but this is not to be vulnerable in a positive, responsible way. But it’t easy to be vulnerable in this way when walls that one has built up around oneself during one’s whole life suddenly starts to crumble.

Vulnerability is about courageous trust. About knowing that others can use our vulnerability against us, but choosing to trust that they won’t. To accept the fact that some may and live with the consequences. Ultimately, as with so many things right now, it comes down to whether we want to live in survival mode or not. And in the times that we are living in, survival mode is inevitably going to turn our lives into nightmares. 

Trust and openness takes time to build and in the beginning many of us will get hurt. In a sense, this is a new type of battle. One that is the opposite of taking up arms together and going to war. Instead it’s about our individual, inner struggles and laying down our weapons and shields, both the literal and metaphorical ones. About giving others the chance of choosing not hurting us even if they can. 

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The journey to self-love

Self-love isn’t easy. Neither is it the narcissistic monstrosity that is promoter by our culture. That is the opposite of self-love. Our culture’s idea of “self-love” is about projecting an image based on pride and taking what we can from the external world.

Real self-love is about our insides. And let me right now confess that this is one of my greatest struggles. Why? Because I’ve done lots of things in my past that I’m ashamed of. Lots of things that I, at the time, thought that I could just bury afterwards. But the cliché, that we can never escape from ourselves, is true. We can pretend that our actions don’t mean anything to us till the day we die and not grow one millimeter. But the day that we truly start caring about ourselves and our lives, they will come back to haunt us. 

Therefore, self-love is about bringing all of our darkness to the surface so that we can forgive ourselves and let it go. Real self-love is not a happy-pill that we can take and instantly feel good about ourselves and our lives. It’s a bitter medicine that needs to be taken many times before it has any effect. Because in order to love ourselves, we first need to take responsibility for ourselves and our lives. We need to dare looking at ourselves and not shy away from what we find. 

What I’ve found going through this process, is that this is much like peeling an onion. And the more layers I peel off, the more hurt I find. I’ve thought that I’ve brought my most shameful aspects to the surface many times, just to discover that there is even more there.

But I think that I’m finally starting to get to the core of the issue. And it’s strange to see how all of this struggling and complexity was in some way necessary. But that it at the same time led to a simple end. Namely that at the core I just ensnared myself in a bunch of thoughts. Thoughts that have nothing to do with who I really am and that I’m free to either believe or dismiss. 

I’ve done lots of destructive things. But in my confused state I actually believed that I was doing something totally justifiable. And every moment is a new moment. I’m free to choose something better. And every time that I become aware of an unwanted thought, I can just let it pass. I know that my relationship with God, myself and other people, plus what I believe that I came into this world to do, are what’s important. And anything that is not in line with this needs to go. 

I don’t need to believe thoughts that run contrary to who I really want to be. Who I know that I already am behind all of the layers of ego that I am not. I already love this person. That which I cannot love about myself is an illusion.

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 4

I have come to strongly believe in openness and understanding. I believe that the truth is to be found in the Bible, first and foremost in the person of Jesus. But I cannot believe that all other teachings are false. This does not mean that I believe that everyone should believe the same things or that everyone is equally right. But I believe in the importance of unity among those of us that believe in something higher and that want a better world. And I believe that we can and must discuss our differences in an open, respectful manner. 

I know that something very strange is happening on the planet. That the world isn’t what it seems. I know that there are people that run the world from the shadows and that they don’t have our best interests at heart. Ultimately, I believe that these people are as misguided as anyone that does harm to others, albeit in a much more sinister and elaborate way than the average sinner. And I believe that the correct response to this is to build something better, be clear on who we are, live as authentically as possible, do our best to simply avoid what these people have to offer and turning the other cheek if we get attacked.

If we want to do all of this, I believe that it is crucial that those of us that truly want something good for the world an humanity, start setting our differences aside. That we start cooperating and listening to each other with open minds and hearts. Not because we need to change anything unless we want to. And certainly not so that we can find fault with each other’s views, so that we then can set them straight. If we truly believe in the rightness of our beliefs, we don’t convince others of this by talking. We show it through the people that we are, who we are becoming, the lives that we live and the lives that we are creating for ourselves. 

We need unity and not division if we want to be as strong as we need to be in the times ahead.

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Getting clear on what I believe and stand for PART 3

I know that we have so much more potential within ourselves than we have been lead to believe. We are not little pointless creatures that live meaningless lives where we have to grasp for every little pleasure that we can get our hands on, before we wither away, die and descend into oblivion. 

It doesn’t mean that we should always take ourselves dead seriously. But I believe that we should treat ourselves with a bit of dignity and respect. We were not meant to work jobs that we hate so that we can watch TV-series, play video games, eat junk food, and chase likes on social media on our spare times. Or pay off debts because of over-consumption. Or get drunk out of our minds and chase sex in the weekends. If this truly makes you feel fulfilled, then go for it! But if it doesn’t, maybe there is something better out there. I would say that this type of life, even if we live under the illusion that we are making free choices, is not a life that we choose freely at all. It's just stimulus response, stimulus response, stimulus response... Sensory gratification, instincts and habits.

Therefore I truly believe that it is time for each and everyone of us to take a look at ourselves. At how we choose to live our lives and what we choose to give our time and attention to. There are some tough times ahead of us. But those tough times are meaningful times. If we understand this we can find joy in our hardships. Not just because we know that they are leading to something wonderful, but because we know that they contain a meaning that was not so clear before. Because we know that we walk with God while we experience them.

We can still suffer even if we are pain-free and sometimes, struggling and dealing with hardships is what makes us feel most alive. And no matter what, if we try to numb ourselves and run away from our challenges, life will catch up with us eventually. It did for me. I choose to accept that and do my best with it. 

I know that I would gladly trade comfort and security for true meaningfulness every day. Even if it means that I have to struggle, feel negative emotions and take risks. I believe that everyone who truly and honestly thought this through would. 

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