There are rules, man! Part 2

So, to understand this properly, we can’t think in terms of immediate consequences. It’s not like I tell a lie and the next second someone walks up to me and punches me in the face.

Instead we need to primarily look at our inner lives. My lies might or might not be revealed. But I will surely be afraid of it. This fear will make me less happy and affect my other thoughts. Even if it’s not obvious, this will in the long run affect my character and my decisions. One small lie will have a small, hardly noticeable effect. A big one will have a big effect. Depending on how I look at the lie, I may or may not feel guilty. But I will be afraid of exposure. 

On top of that, I’ve also met a couple of habitual liars, that don’t seem to know whether they are lying or telling the truth sometimes.

People may also pick up on subtle cues that I lie. They may have a gut feeling that I cannot be trusted. And if the truth comes out, it may have huge social consequences.

But there may be more subtle ways that for example lying affect us. I use lying as an example here, because most of us lie at least now and then and it’s what I have given most thought to. It’s also what is closest to me, since I don’t cheat or steal. But I do occasionally lie, even though I try not to.

What I’m talking about, is that lying might affect how truthful we are with ourselves. Because we do talk to ourselves. And what is to say that we don’t create patterns where we distort reality when we talk to ourselves, if we distort reality when we talk to others,. The concept of “lying to ourselves” is after all well established. And it must by necessity take place on an unconscious level, which means that it’s beyond our awareness and conscious control.

Now, let’s take this one step further. If you’re reading this blog, you probably believe that there is a spiritual side to reality. If there is a spiritual side to reality, there might also be real, unseen forces at play in our day to day lives. I have, for example, discovered that when I’m dishonest about something, something often happens that thwarts my plans. And if I get what I want through dishonesty, it often ends up being something that I don’t want. 

One question that arises, is whether all rules are created equal. I would say no and refer to the Bible. The pharisees are, among other things, a warning against making the whole of life about rules. Most of the time, Jesus seems to agree on the following of the rules. But he is very much opposed to the attitude that the pharisees take towards following them. And on a few noteworthy occasions, he and his disciples break them. From the context of the rule-breaking that we get from the accounts of them, it is also not at all clear that these are the most clear-cut cases where rules should be broken. In one instance, for example, the disciples don’t wash their hands before a meal, when this is what the Tora prescribes.

Thinking of this, I can only come up with one logical explanation. Namely that rules generally are there for us to follow them, but that depending on how much discernment we have, if we are being truly honest with ourselves, we are allowed some flexibility. The harder it is for us to stay on track and “do the right thing”, the stricter we need to be with our adherence to the rules. This also seems to indicate that it isn’t always on the surface obvious which rules we need to follow and which ones we can break. 

I would for example say that in general, we need to follow the laws of the country we live in. But a strict adherence to laws that we believe to be bad for one reason or another, is not called for. We might decide to follow them anyway because we don’t deem it worth the risk to break them. But I don’t believe that we have a moral obligation to follow them and if I’m right about this, this also means that reality won’t necessarily smack us in the face if we break them.

So, if this is correct, societal law cannot be neatly fitted into spiritual law. Mostly it can though, so we should be careful about breaking it. And it might not even be worth breaking laws that we deem faulty, simply because of the risk of getting caught and the stress that it causes us. As with many other things, the freedom that we can allow ourselves, from the perspective of our own and other people’s good, is in direct proportion to the development of our own moral compass, our ability to be honest with ourselves and to assess a situation. And unless we are prepared to take these questions seriously and give them some thorough, soul searching thought, it’s best to just do what everyone else are doing, unless what they are doing is clearly harmful.

There are rules, man! Part 1

The other day, I was listening to an episode of Jordan Peterson’s Biblical Series on YouTube. One thing that he said was “There are rules” and adding this stoner/hippie-like “man” that he sometimes does, which is so uncharacteristic of him.

I’ve thought of it a lot afterwards. And I think that he’s right. Basically, I think that there is an unseen reality of rules that govern the consequences of our action. I furthermore believe that it’s partially to be found in the unconscious aspects of our psychology.

This is what Peterson seems to mean: that there are rules written into the fabric of reality, or at least into our psyches. According to Peterson, you will never really get away from the consequences of these rules. They are not the same as the law, even though many are written into the law.

First I found this implausible. People lie, cheat and steal and get away with it all the time. But if you look at what lives these people live, it’s usually not very happy lives. Even if someone goes through his or her life breaking the rules in the ways I just mentioned and still become successful, there might be some real agony once death approaches. And even though I don’t believe in hell, I can’t say for sure that it does not exist. And even if there isn’t any eternal suffering awaiting anyone after death, there might be other consequences. Perhaps consequences that are more akin to a father disciplining a disobedient child.

But successful liars, cheaters and thieves are a small minority. The vast majority, at least among those that do it on a regular basis, are ridden with negative emotions. The vast majority also live in poverty or in fear of retaliation or the law. This is usually proportional to the quantity and severity of the behavior. 

I talk too much part 4

How can I become more conscious of my speech? I guess that one way might be to get away from thinking about how others perceive my speech, and into thinking about who I’m being with the way I speak. Because if I act like what I have to say is more important than what everyone else has to say, what does that say about me?

I talk too much part 3

As with everything else that is dysfunctional in one’s life, too much talking is mainly a matter of unconsciousness. At least for me. I’ve on certain topics acquired a habit of speaking in a way appropriate for a lecturer. As a matter of fact, I have in general acquired quite an impressive sets of patterns for how I speak, that emerge as soon as I’m not conscious of what I’m saying or how I’m saying it.

I talk too much part 2

I can’t really say that I love the sound of my own voice. But I sure act like it sometimes. When I get going on a subject that I’m passionate about, there is no stopping me. I sometimes, quite often actually, do have some worthwhile things to say and now and then I manage to say something funny that make people laugh. So I’m not one of those people (thank God I’m not one of those people! ;)) that go on for hours about things that no one is interested in. But I do brag sometimes, I ask too few questions, hold monologues, don’t listen properly and I often catch myself waiting for my turn to speak when someone else is talking.

I talk too much part 1

Why is it so hard to STFU!? 

I started to realize that I’m not in control of my thoughts somewhere in my early twenties, even though I didn’t begin to undestand to what extent that this was true until my mid thirties.

But I’m still in control of what I’m saying, right? If I truly believe that, have I ever consciously observed myself when I’m speaking?

Changes require consistency part 2

So why don’t we remove the things that aren’t consistent with the change that I wish to see from my life? Why don’t I do it?

When I ask myself this question, the answer that comes up is that when I have the ability to choose, I manage to convince myself that I might need those things in my weaker moments. But of couse this is utter nonsense. The only thing these things do, is help me to avoid dealing with my real issues. They help me to distract myself from my problems till I get tired, go to sleep and wake up to other distractions, when what I might need, for example, is to think through my situation carefully, or have a good cry.

Can we trust ourselves? Part 2

Maybe we can learn how we can trust ourselves? Maybe if we can clearly see the state that we are in and with God’s help find the tools to transcend it, we can recognize the voice of God without having to rely on external sources, confident that we won’t be led astray by the forces inside and outside ourselves. Maybe Neale Donald Walsh’s books should be read in this way. That is, not as a literal conversation with God, where God’s words are coming through perfectly. But rather as one man’s attempt to discern God’s voice, among all of the other voices that occupies his mind. Maybe, if we’re cautious of our impulse to accept different teachings as gospel (pun intended), we can study different spiritual teachers without fear of being led astray. 

This is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. As my spiritual journey progresses and I gain more experience as I go along, the lens through which I view what I read becomes wider, since I can compare it with my personal experience. I don’t think that there is any point for me to take to heart that which I cannot relate to. It doesn’t mean that I have to dismiss it altogether. Sometimes I might sense that there is something with certain teachings, even if I don’t understand them as I’m reading them. I know that this was the case when I first read Eckhart Tolle. I intuitively felt that he had understood something. And now that I am more present in the moment, now that I can see more clearly when I am resisting what is and now that have gotten more in touch with my inner body, I understand what he’s talking about. And I can see myself moving closer to the state of inner peace and silence that he’s talking about.

And what I can also see, is that the more I am in this state, the easier it is for me to have discernment. For one, I pay attention much more, which makes it easier to see what is relevant in any given situation. It also makes it easier to pay attention to the voice of God inside. And maybe the truth is that simple. That when functioning from this calm, present, silent state, discernment becomes easy. Effortless. But, as I said in the beginning of this post, as long we are not on this state constantly, we might need to know as much as possible about the condition that we are in. I believe more and more that Jesus’ teachings are what will come naturally to us, once we function from this state and not via all of the ego-voices that are not really us. This might be why some say that the ego doesn’t really exist. Because what we truly are, is completely natural and effortless. The rest is just constructs in our minds. It is not real. At least, this is what I’ve come to believe. I’ve also come to believe that the more we understand about our condition, the easier it is to see when we’ve gotten off track. Maybe this means that in the end, complexity and simplicity converge naturally and turn out to be two sides of the same coin. As above, so below.

Can we trust ourselves? Part 1

I want to begin this post by asking a second question: Can we trust any authorities? 

These are quite troubling questions for me. On the one hand, I understand enough about self-deception, the unconscious, unconscious motives, manipulative forces in society and a bunch of other stuff that imply that “no” would be the correct answer to the question in the title of the post.

On the other hand, I can’t see how the answer would be to just blindly follow everything in the Bible no matter what. I’ve experienced enough strange and wonderful things, that traditional Christian teachings simply don’t seem like a viable option. 

Let’s get into the absolute beginning of my spiritual journey. I was a Laveyan satanist (basically ago-affirming atheism, at least on the surface), from the age of 17 to the age of 23. I actually started questioning my beliefs a year earlier. But this was when stuff happened that gradually, over a few days or months, shattered my beliefs. I don’t really remember what exactly took place in my mind, but afterwards I’ve just received more and more reasons to strengthen my belief in God and a spiritual reality. 

Since I had vacation to take out, I took a week off from work to think things through. At the time, I lived in Gothenburg and in connection with the vacation, I visited the big shopping mall called Nordstan at the core of the city. I thought that I wanted something to read that could… What? Stimulate my thoughts and help me make sense of things I guess, even though I probably didn’t put it into these exact words in my mind. So I visited a regular bookstore. And as I remember it, the first book my eyes fell on was Neale Donald Walsh’s Tomorrow’s God.

So, I bought the book and read it over the week. And even though I felt a bit uncomfortable with the style of the book, where the author does sort of an interview with God, the book rang true somehow. 

But maybe Satan led me to the book to trick me somehow, just when salvation was within my reach. I’m not kidding here. If Satan is real (something I mostly don’t believe in a litteral sense), wouldn’t this be exactly what could be expected of him, when he sees that he’s about to lose his grip on my soul? The question of the devil deserves to be taken seriously, until we can dismiss it on firm grounds. We are after all talking about the beliefs of hundreds of millions of people, and it is a part of the narrative of 2.5 billion people, even if all of them don’t believe in him. And 200 years ago, the absolute majority of the people in the Western world believed in him.

But I’ll leave that discussion for another post. The point is that we have a tendency to filter the information we take in, keep what we like, discard the rest and view it in a way that supports the “truth” that we prefer. To make matters worse, we don’t always prefer the most favorable truth. Our culture and upbringing shapes what we wish to believe in as well. Plus that we have a bunch of other biases as well. We might have a tendency to believe boring or painful “truths” more, since we might have a tendency to believe more in someone that says something uncomfortable, than someone that just seems to tell us what we want to hear.

So maybe this is the truth. That there are no ultimate truths. And that we therefore are free to do what we want with no spiritual consequences whatsoever. Or maybe we can at least just discard everything that cannot be agreed upon from a religiously neutral stance. This idea seems pretty appealing, doesn’t it? We can just go out, have fun and enjoy life in any way the we please and then we’ll go to heaven when we die. Or reincarnate as a better version of ourselves in another life. I know that I find such thoughts appealing.

But then we come back to the problem of our bias towards believing what we wish to be true.

Changes require consistency part 1

I want to stop seeing crappy movies with no other value than entertainment and I want to stop eating unhealthy food while I watch them. So, it could probably be a good idea to not have these movies or that type of food at home. It’s a very small sacrifice, so why don’t I just do it? Why don’t you do it? It seems as if we just made the right decision when we have the strength to do so, we could avoid giving in to temptation in our weaker moments.