We've all heard it I think: Humans are evil; if humans became extinct the world would be better off for it; humans are the global cancer; humans destroy, that's all they're good at; humans are cruel, belligerant, primitive neanderthals that act on pure selfishness and will destroy the planet and all life on it...

The list goes on. When I get into a dismal mood I think the same. The funny thing is, lots of times I hear this from people that think eco-friendly, who actually want to do something good, help the world. And yet their thoughts on their own existence are so inherrently bleak that it makes me wonder how effective they could be at any positive work if they consider their race - so basically themselves - as incapable of doing anything good?

Now I don't have any solutions for the big environmental or psychological problems we as a collective face. But I have some problems with thinking so negatively about what we are capable of. We have lesser motives that result in abject behaviour and very miserable situations; we see this reflected in many things out there. I would not deny this. But the truth is, we focus on this far too much. What good will come out of it, if all we see is our own failings?
Throughout history humans have come a long way, from primitive formations of society to very complex industrial dictatorships and whatever other forms of communities exist. The point is, inbetween there was a lot of improvement in our preception of each other, our notions of right and wrong, our system of values, our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

We have antibiotics, we have womens rights, we have indoor plumbing, meditation, empathy etc. And what is more, we have the capacity to dream ourselves into great and brilliant beings that can perpetuate life, rather than destroy it. So far we have followed a path simply dictated by nature - following our desire to survive. This desire is projected onto everything that we create - our companies and industries, our political parties and clubs - they all become very ferocious when their existence is threatened. They will go to extreeme measures. This is only natural.

Humans are not evil. Humans appear evil because a part of us has already transcended the point where survival is the most important part. We can see beyond the very instant in front of us to a future and we realize that sometimes our actions are too drastic - while they may ensure our survival or our safety, they cause untold destruction in a bit of time.
But we have the ability to combat this. We have the minds capable of much more than primitive thoughts. We can think and move towards higher goals, find the high road.

I'm trying to make a point not towards actually doing good deeds or something like that, but rather thinking optimistic thoughts. Perhaps in a more loose meaning of the idea of the morphogenetic field (MGF) I feel our thoughts contribute to what our world is becomming. The more we become fixed on the idea that catastrophic pollution and the ultimate destruction is inevitable, the more it will become so. While if we can envision a future in which we evolve beyond selfish desires and outdated ideas/ideals, we will be feeding this energy to the MGF and encouraging something positive to come about.

Humbug, you say? Well, there is no doubt that our thoughts guide our actions. If we loath ourselves we will make decisions confirming the reasons why we despise ourselves so much. If we believe in an ugly and bleak future we will maybe even inadvertently take actions that will cause us to feel reaffirmed in our belief. In general a belief will also try to survive and thereby cause you to see it confirmed again and again. Our actions will inevitably bring about the destruction we dread.

On the other hand, if we are optimistic and hold to a belief of a positive developement, we may be open to find new ways to approach problems that we are dealing with. We may be open enough to appreceate life and beauty and art, and release the negativity that holds us to our most abysmal natures. And as for the MGF, perhaps we can help optimism spread, make it easier for others to move in a positive direction rather than spiraling ever downwards. Just by having a vision of our own highest principles. Our higher selves, our higher future. It's a tiny step, but it is one. A tiny push in a direction away from believing that we are an incurable disease, parasitic in nature, bound to destroy what nurtures us. We can be more than that, we ought to be. We are wonderful and unbelievably interesting beings. Stop focusing on what is bad. Focus on how to project what is good onto our pathes for the optimal trajectory.

Three little friends moved in with me yesterday on the ides of march. They are all three of them male rats, and after driving such a long distance very shy and tired. I'm looking forward to befriending them.

I will post a documentation on the building of the cage and post some cool pictures. All in all I had the impression it would take a lot longer than it did, from reading other peoples experiences on the internet. Some people suggested the building of a cage would take 4 weeks. I managed 1 week most of which I wasn't even working on it. Well, it's big and it looks really cool, so I hope the rats like it once they become secure enough to leave their little transport box.

My first and lasting impressions of the movie “Jumper” are summarized as: “Oh it's one of those movies where the trailer has a better plot line than the movie!” It's not the worst movie I've ever seen – that title will always belong to the movie “Black Dawn” with Mr. Seagal... but let's just say it was easily one of the weakest movies considering character development and dialog that I've seen in a long time. The story was as straight forward as it goes to the point where I felt embarrassed just for watching it. And there were a few underdeveloped story lines that you kept hoping could provide for some kind of stimuli other than moving colors on the screen. But no, the audience, or at least I was left with the feeling it smelled kind of fishy... like a bunch of red herrings had unintentionally been left somewhere in the script to rot there.

And really, what in the world was Samuel L. Jackson doing in a flick like that? How many lines of dialog did he have? 3? The big twist at the end, turned out to be more than a let down: Mommy still loves me!? Yeah and she said something along the lines of a band title - “I love you, but I've chosen darkness”. Only not as cool as that. It was all a bit cornier and less deep. They shouldn't be making movies if they don't have any script-writers to write their screenplay. Any 13-year old should be able to put more depth into a story like that.

Enough ranting though....

So either whoever edited the movie left out like everything that made the movie interesting or it was never there to begin with. In either cases it's definitely not worth the watch. Watch the trailer for the amusing special effects and to get the gist of the idea, which I thought was cute, though not novel.

Hamlet said, that he could be bounded in a nutshell, and still count himself king of infinite space, were it not that he had bad dreams... The internal world is boundless, and no matter what our position on the outside, we can command this inner space. Yes, and no... On many accounts we confine ourselves externally and internally, while still groping for that Shakespearian line, like it was the holy grail. But I am still king of infinite space. Yeah, and you're still trapped in a nutshell, too. Personally I've always liked the quote for it's optimism, but lately I've begun to see it in a different light. Just because you can pretend, and make believe, just because you can claim the infinite space of your imagination as your kingdom, doesn't mean it's ok to confine yourself to any kind of prison. Nutshell, or dungeon or hell itself, it's not ok, no matter how much space you have in your personal lala-land. You're sedating yourself by saying you've got this vastness at your feet, and not realizing that YOU ARE IN A FUCKING NUTSHELL!!! It's a deathtrap to all but you, who can't see it. It's so tiny and you're all crammed inside and you keep telling yourself, hell, this is my kingdom... I'm IMPORTANT in here. I AM KING.

You're not. You're not the King of anything. If anything you are the infinites pace within, but it doesn't mean you have to keep it locked up. Au contraire, if you're after the deep questions, you'll never get anything out of your own personal delusions inside your little shell.

I'm trying to get the hang of it. I've been thinking that this was my kingdom for so long it feels unsafe to exit through the back door now. You can never tell what the outside is going to be like; not after you've been seeing only reflections of your self-brewed dreams and illusions since you can remember. But I guess this is it...

The question is, why do we want freedom, no, why do I want freedom. Before I can't answer it, before it's not my singular purpose, I might lack the strength to brake this cocoon I've woven myself into; and with such skill too. What am I if I am not free? A slave to a megalomanic impersonation of a human, played by ........ (drum roll) the ego... You are not the voices in your head, you are not your emotions or your thoughts and you are not the character on that stage you seem to identify with. All these things are part of your infinite space. Part of the abysmal darkness, that we need to cross over, before we enter into the turbulences of whatever chaotic and wild world is out there.

Like the Movie Zeitgeist I would like to view the topic of the sun as our image of god, but not in a cultural/historical context. The idea came to me while meditating on love and trying to find images of when I've really felt loved. Knowing myself and how I need to be affirmed in love I could hardly find any situation involving other humans where I've felt loved to the degree that my soul seems to be searching for. Instead the images that came to mind were ones where the sun shone on my face, or those times when you lie half naked in the grass on a hot sunny day, and you stare up into the impecaply blue sky watchign the blood in your retina pulse... or those times when you turn your head to catch the setting sun in the corner of your eyes, or the moments when you feel you can't wash the sun off your skin anymore. The truth is, the warmth felt by the sun is like the purest form of love you could every recieve. And in the christian sense – the sun is our god: The sun made light, the sun gave life to the planet, the sun sustains life and all energy comes in one form or another from the sun.

I had a dream some time ago where I was traveling through space and came about (after a long time of travel) a magnificent star. But it was more than just a star, it was a sentient and very conscious being, far more advanced than I was. I understood and recognized this instantly and was so overwhelmed by its beauty that I did not want to go on with my life after having seen it. In fact I wanted to be like it, or in the dream I wanted to become a part of it. I wanted to be touched by it, merge with it. The star though did not want this for some reason and the dream ended a bit confusing with a few solaris elements in the form of George Clooney in it. However the dream and the feeling fits in with the idea of the sun as the symbol of absolute love and warmth.

If the word God or Divine is too abstract and muddled by cultural associations, then instead of aspiring to the divine, I would like to aspire to become a sun. This was the essence or result of my meditation. If the love I recieve from the sun is so profound then I must become lilke the sun to truly give love that can be felt by the souls of the other beings. It's more an idea or a metaphour than the physical sun of course, but the physical sun does make me feel awed and loved and without pain. I can hardly expect another being to give me this kind of feeling, because really it's something internal, but I can make the sun within me brighter and brigher so that others can be unknowingly warmed by my existence.

One more word on love – interpersonal love:

I've read a few texts about Yoga and Buddhism, and all seem to agree that interpersonal relationships containing sex and intimacy are to be avoided, because they are too hard. I find this notion a bit troubling and perhaps viewed from the male perspective a bit too much. I can hardly relate to my sexdrive being so overpowering as described in such texts and hence find it odd to conclude it is too hard to have a meaningful relationship, since it would always result in having sex to escape from worldly pain. In my oppinion interpersonal relationships are probably as claimed extreamly difficult to manage with the whole package of desires, possesiveness, obsessiveness, mistrust, love, dependency, control, and sex. However the idea to leave them be entirely seems somewhat life-negating. Without them the human race would not procreate, or only very rarely and by accident.

Instead this is a challenge for all of us – to understand the negative fluctuating emotions and forces within us, find their root and change them into soemthing positive. Transform mistrust/suspicion and control into communication and find faith in the others goodness and in your own strength to deal with whatever comes. Transform desire, possesiveness and obsessiveness into love and understanding, transform dependency into freedom and respect and courage regarding the difficulties of being unattached and living in a transient world. All things change, your relationships to others will change, as will they themselves. Choosing to be in a relationship together does not mean having to stay the same, but it means giving each other the room to change, without having to justify, fight or hide it.

Our feelings for others may be clouded by many superficial aspects of the person, such as social status, wealth, appearance, eloquence, chemistry and activities, so when in a relationship we need to filter through these things and find what our core-self sees in the core-self of the other. Accessing the divine nature in us will allow us to give divine love to all, but this is not what I am talking about. As individual beings, as which we have manifested within the whole that encompasses us, but which we encompass as well, we can love with our individually felt soul, not as a divine light but sub-divine, and yet above the superficial ego-love. It is love for the truth and love for the being that is experiencing itself there in front of us, with all its peculiarities and its feel for the energies that permeate it.

We are connected to all on the deepest level, but to some we are connected on higher levels. It is toward those that wee feel friendship and love more easily. It is for those that we would walk through the gates of hell by their sides and with those that we would like to reach the gates of heaven.

Denying that we are human and social beings in nature is denying the experience of the world as it is presented to us. Accessing the divine does not mean leaving behind all human traits. We have manifested in this form to experience it, as it is, and work with it – not to escape it. Interpersonal love and friendship have their place in our experience and in my oppinion are important. They can help transfrom you into a better person, help expand your openness and consciousness, they can empower you to move beyond your known powers and limits, they can help you create and shape the world around you. However they can also be a burden if not handled with understanding and skill. It is this challenge that we should meet, instead of turning away from these things in the name of purity.

It seems the human mind is fractured, or perhaps it is its nature to see all things in parts. The mind, body, soul trinity, the different stages of evolution, the different states of consciousness, nature-god-human separation, the subconscious-conscious differentiation, they all split and slice everything up. Especially when reading spiritual texts that speak about different types of the self I feel disturbed by these concepts. The more I envision myself connecting to my higher self or reaching a different state of consciousness, the more I feel like I'm losing sight of something: There is nothing to connect to, because my higher self is already there, it's not outside of me, waiting for me to pick up the receiver... Using ten thousand names, cutting up each aspect of your whole self creates an illusion of separation from the divine source. An illusion of non-enlightenment, an illusion of powerlessness, an illusion of negativity. Our beings exceed all of these pessimistic phantoms, and we know it! We are just a little distracted at times and so we identify with our distractions and the turbulences they cause in our minds.

The whole integral approach in my opinion is to make whole what we have sliced up into pieces. Make whole our view of the world – me and you, us and them, I and the world, humans and nature, the soul and God... But in trying to explain how to do this they still use more concepts dissecting the fabric of our being as if they could pull it apart and reduce it to some parts. Can we not approach evolution and integral being by incorporating all views to form one whole versatile and fluctuating view, instead of cutting everything into ever smaller pieces and saying, these must be taken together and integrated BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME...? If they are integrated fully, then the idea of separating them with words and quadrants becomes redundant, no? It's all a question of identity. We are not fractured, we are whole beings, and we are the whole cosmos in this holographic universe.

Strength and Courage! And HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

No I'm not talking about little demons hiding in the shadows, or money-sucking vampires, though both of these images come close to the profit-hungry industries that control our every-day sight- and sound-space. I mean the advertisements of these industries, promoting unhealthy lifestyles, unhealthy foods, unhealthy or environmentally catastrophic luxury goods; promoting desires for things that are a waste of time and energy if they are harmless and detrimental to our sanity and physical health in the worse cases. All just to make money and keep perpetuation an economy built on lies and waste.

Nutrition and health are a good example: The dairy lobby spends lots of money for their marketing strategies, using a very effective and insidious technique: education. Instead of big ads with celebrities and fancy special effects like Coca Cola, the milk-industry promotes milk and dairy products in schools from the very beginning to get kids to become life-long milk-consumers. This sounds much like an H-dealer trying to get his clients hooked on junk. By helping finance school lunches and providing false nutritional information that makes dairy products appear healthy and beneficial for children and everyone, they get to people from the start.

But milk is healthy, right? Wrong! As far as I can tell dairy products stand in relationship with all the major western diseases, though of course, I'm no nutritionist. Read the China Study for information on it, it's a real eye-opener! In any case, the milk-industry has little kids hooked on milk, even though there are many studies that conclusively link milk to higher risks of various types of cancer, heart-disease, diabetes in children etc. They don't care, nutritional information isn't about health, it's really just another advertising-scam to make people buy the things the industry wants us to buy.

Diets promoting eat-more-meat plans, or lose weight without exercising and any effort, end up making people first buy the books, and then buy the supplements in order to treat the nasty side-effects of these unhealthy diets that ultimately will neither lead to long lasting weight loss nor to long lasting health. On the contrary, these diets seem to be the fast-lane to chronic illnesses and death. But of course, this isn't all bad: diseases are a great way to make profit. While they're (the diseases) not too bad, people start taking all kinds of supplements to make them healthy, they try a different dietary plan, buy more books, take more pills, start taking medication for the conditions brought upon by unhealthy eating habits and the doctors-bill just add up. Yes, there are people out there making fortunes off of our misfortune, if we may call it that. They are profiting from our misinformed choices about health, and they will do damn thing to tell you how to get better. They'd be cutting off their cash-flow. Doctors are backed on more than one level by the pharma-industry (though personally I've had some good experiences with doctors, so they're not all bad!) and they're also included in the dairy-educational marketing-scam, and pharma-marketing scams, so they might really believe that the regular western diet is healthy, and the way to heal all ailments are drugs with ingredients you can't pronounce and have side effects that really make you wonder...

Similarly the textile industry puts poisonous chemicals in clothing to make them smell and look better on the shelves, our fruits and vegetables are sprayed with pesticides so they look better, they're bread to all have the same shape and color, to appear more healthy and appealing to our eyes. More round, more symmetrical, more uniformly colored etc. But in the end these fruits and vegetables are inbred genetically mutated, denatured cripples, sprayed with toxic chemicals that may cause anything from allergies, to migraines to cancer, all in the name of profit. Ever notice how the peppers you grow yourself all have different shapes and colors are never quite the same; the tomatoes from your backyard are never quite as round as the ones in the supermarket, but they kind of taste better? The wild apples might have little brown spots that do nothing to the taste, they're not perfectly round and they have different shapes and sizes, not like the ones you buy in the supermarket, where they all look like clones of one another. Ever wonder about that?

For some reason we are lead to believe that these clone-fruits and vegetables are better and more tasty, when they have less nutrients and minerals and have less taste. Of course you won't find any insects nibbling away at your fruit, but the real enemy is invisible and takes much longer to reveal itself. And when it does you won't know where it came from, because all these chemicals in your body just add up and all the unhealthy foods you eat promote the damage they do. I'd rather take the risk of finding a little worm in my apple.

Telling us we are living good and healthy lives while we are suffering from various chronic diseases that shorten our lives, cost us endless amounts of money and make us and our loved ones suffer, is bluntly stated, a big fat lie, but possibly one with an agenda. Thinking we are doing everything right and ending up with a horrible disease, makes us feel powerless and at the mercy of the system. This of course is right where the system wants us. We surrender the ability to control our own health and lives to the system until we are fully controlled by it, mindless, numb slaves, doing only what we are (sometimes indirectly) told.

This is not just about nutrition, it's about everything we buy, everything we see and hear through the media, the billboards or the little adds here and there. They all want control over your desires, your fears and your dreams. If they have that, you are nothing but an empty shell, for them to program.

But, who are they? Who knows; there may be a real conspiracy behind all of it, the free-masons, the illuminati, the bankers; But there doesn't have to be. People who want money will always try to manipulate you out of it. The industries trying to sell their products have simply gotten very efficient at making you believe you need their product, because they need to sell it, in order to make lots of money. The market is regulated by supply and demand? Technically speaking yes, but it can be manipulated, because demand can be created by the right advertising. And that's all that's happening. We are being lulled and sucked into the big profit-hungry and life-devouring monster of a profit-over-people economy we have created, leaving us confused and empty, feeling powerless and subhuman.

Time to wake up folks!

The word Etymology is derived from Greek and means, studying the true meanings and values of words (étymo(s) true + lógos word, reason). We have just discovered the etymology of the word etymology. Personally I find the understanding of etymology very helpful in both realizing how I feel about certain things according to which words I use, and which words to use to precisely express myself.

People have been known to disagree with me on this, claiming the way we use the words today is not always how they came into existence. We see this especially in slang with, for example, words such as cool or hot. But even with these words, understanding their origin gives insight about what they are supposed to express. Not knowing their origins or etymology limits their expressibility and their associations in our minds. This may be preferable in some situations when only one thing is meant, without consideration of etymology; but the fact is, our minds are amazing and work on many many subtle levels, and many times we do know the origin of the word without being entirely aware of it. This means that on subtle levels we are hearing cold, chilly, ice etc. when we hear the word cool. This may have some influence over how we feel about what ever it is we are being told.

Creature vs Being

One of my favorite examples of how etymology affects our world view are the two synonyms creature and being. The word creature is derived from creation or the verb, to create. Thus it implies the act of creation and thereby also a creator or at least some mechanism by which the given creature was created. By using this word the focus is subtly shifted to the above notions of creation and depending on how sensitive we are concerning the word creation one could feel a slight draft towards the Christian beliefs

I just finnished watching the movie Zeitgeist and I'm positively impressed! It was a well done movie, with a lot of interesting material presented as a very strong case! The basic topic of the movie could be summarized as: It's all conspiracy and no theory, but it lacks the whole freemason occult paranoia feel that a lot of this kind of information comes drenched in. It focuses more on the profit idea of control and power.

Admittedly it reduces most of our problems in the past decades to one big banker-conspiracy with its tentacles in government and media, but it does not do so explicitly. It simply points to which problems seem directly caused by this, leaving out the other ones that arose during the same time periods. Knowing of course that monocausalities don't exist, things are probably a little more complex as depicted in the movie, but there is certainly some truth to it.

Control and Power for personal profit and who knows what motives seem to be the main theme in the people pulling the strings of our economy and politics. At any cost, of course, mainly at the cost of our freedom, wellbeing, health and lives. This could of course be an externalized neurosis of their inner being, meaning that within these people have not reached a state of harmony and cannot embrace their lives and the world they are a part of. They are at war with themselves, constantly agonizing over their own existence and so perpetuating self-torture. But being in the position that they are in, they try to, and can, impose this dark inner world onto the external reality of our world, the one we all share together; making it a living hell for all of us.

Personally I cannot comprehend the motivation to control the world the way they plan it. How much wealth and power does one need to feel satisfied, and why is it they always want more? The question is, is it really about power and money, or is there something else that they need this for? Does it sooth their inner pain, or is there some global black-magic ritual they want to perform? Whatever it is, ideally the motivation to follow your own desires at the cost of so much pain does not exist in higher levels of consciousness, because your desires become contextualized within the framework of the entirety of the cosmos.

Hopefully this will be the case.

So, who are we really kidding, when we bring up arguments like: Eating meat must be good because humans have been doing it for thousands of years. Or, these meals are traditionally so, hence they must be good. First of all, there is plenty of evidence that many traditional meals from various cultures are loaded with unhealthy fats and so these meals are not actually good for you. And the fact that we have been doing it for thousands of years and that it's just natures way, is simply a bad argument! Humans have been killing other humans for as long as we know, we've been fighting wars over things like pieces of land or abstract ideas such as honor or even elusive religious beliefs, but mainly for power... for millennia! And yet most people will agree that it is not quite good, that it is morally objectionable to say the least. Humanity is about progress, and to argue about something that was done in the past is denying our ability for this progress. People used to throw their feces out the window, onto the street. Having no hygienic code for living in crowded areas, the plague caused the death of thousands of humans. We do not have this problem any longer, because we progressed beyond this stage in our societal evolution, we learned to change our habits, instead of insisting on this 'tradition'.

We no longer burn 'witches' at the stake, we no longer have the inquisition, we hypothetically no longer live under the rule of the man with the biggest club, we have the human rights, we have medicinal care, penicillin, equal rights for different genders, religious beliefs and ethnicity (at least on paper)! Humanity has always been moving forwards, while some of its members always try to hold on conserving their old way of living. But the change is inevitable, it washes over the world in an inexorable [yes I like these words] wave! We have new diseases now: Cancer, Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Obesity, Alzheimer ... while some of these cannot be prevented entirely, there are reasons to believe that there are factors that can reduce the probability of these diseases to take hold in our bodies: A healthy, animal-fat free or low diet with many enzymes (meaning lots of raw food!), and staying away from pesticides (yes, if it kills the bugs, and we are distantly related to bugs, it's probably not all that good for us either, and anyway there are studies!) and other poisonous chemicals, especially the long-enduring ones that collect in our bodies. Regular exertion, meaning sports also strengthens our immune system and accelerates the metabolism, helping us sweat out and process/get rid of the toxins in our bodies.

My point is, we are intelligent beings who have come this far, by using our intelligence. And so we should keep on using it and follow the evidence we are given, to progress beyond the stage we are in now. Not all that is from the past is bad, but we have much information to decide which habits and traditions are worth keeping and which are better left behind. Only because we've been doing something for a long time, does not mean we have to continue doing it, if we find out that it is NOT GOOD FOR US! We have rules and laws against killing, even though we might have said 'it's just nature'. I know these rules are not always kept, and we still have unavoidable wars, but the idea is that allowing to kill is going to lessen our ability to continue our existence and evolution. This law protects civilizations and communities from brute-force rulers, because they cannot murder and club their way up the power-ladder. For this we gave up the freedom of killing others.

Choosing a healthy life means giving up something too: it means giving up the freedom of being ignorant to what we do to ourselves. Killing ourselves inch by inch and then feeling unhappy about it, is then no longer an option.

Also we have not conquered all the old diseases: we still have the worst diseases of all destroying and killing many lives – frightening ignorance, boundless greed and stupidity. Unfortunately these cannot be healed by a healthy diet, or sports, traditional or even modern-day medicines. However they can be healed by education and communication, activism, art and enlightenment.

All this is viewing it very isolated though; Living a healthy life to me means not only health for my own body, but allowing the world around me to become healthy as well! This means communication and activism again. It also expands the reasons as to why I do not eat meat or animal products: We are destroying our planet to feed the animals we eat. Much more land is needed for these animals in proportion to the amount of food they produce, compared to what we would need, if we would all be vegans. The animals also produce large amounts of methane. And then there is the whole compassion thing: Since I am connected to all things in existence all their pain is shared by me and my pain is shared by them. By torturing them I am torturing myself and only creating distress for the whole cosmos. By choosing compassion and reducing the pain caused by my existence, and also reducing my own pain and health-issues I can help further prosperity and sustainability of life.

Veganism, however is not enough! It is only a beginning, a base without which all compassionate action would be hypocrisy. From here then I would like to reach out to transform the world and myself, to further connect, to reduce suffering, to save and regenerate nature in all its beauty (and necessity).

Strength and Courage!

The word ”complain“ in german is called ”beschweren“ which in turn has several meanings in the german language. Aside from being used for complaining, it is composed out of the prefix be- and the main word schwer which means heavy. Together the word means to load, to weigh something down. To complain, in german, ”sich beschweren“ means to weigh yourself down! This to me is an interesting thought, when we really want to get the load off of ourselves when we complain, in the german language we are weighing ourselves down even more by doing so. I guess in life this is not very uncommon though, since our complaints don't really make things better; we whine about how bad we are feeling and in so doing feeding our negativity. We whine about how horrible things are going, instead of making them better, or adapting. We take the things we aren't happy with and load them onto our backs, making us heavier, keeping us down.

On the other hand there's a word in the english language which we often associate with light, as in the frequencies of energy-packeges that our eyes can detect and record, bright. The word is ”Enlightenment“! But the word light has two meanings in english: it could also mean unheavy, weightless. To be enlightened could then mean to feel less weight, less loads to carry around with us, less worries, less Beschwerden! Because of this double meaning I prefer the word enlightenment to the word illuminated - even though I'm guessing the word originally was not designed to mean what I described here. However the idea has a certain appeal to it, in moments of peak-enlightenment we feel spiritually weightless as well as endoluminous and brilliant! I can only extrapolate to what it must be like to be permanently enlightened...

In any case, I know I still complain a lot, especially about what I dislike about the people or the world around me, or about myself... so today I insist on my optimism concerning these issues. My warmth extends to whoever reads this, and much further.

Strength and Courage, my friends!

Advancing through the stages of consciousness we often encounter intrinsic barriers. Some of the more prevalent barriers are hypocracy and denial, because they are often so subtle or hidden in our habits. We rather turn up the volume of some distraction than face that annoying little sound somewhere at the back of our mind, pointing at some inconsistency in our aspiration. Striving for something higher but not willing to go all the way, not willing to sacrifice or let go of the things that keep us down. Change always requires change, and if we're not willing to give in to the change or even to create it, the change we are seeking for will not happen. We feel we are up against a wall, an invisible barrier keeping us trapped in some state, while it's really some choice we're not making.

For example how can we expect to become part of the divine if we are not willing to give up our ego? It is hypocracy to take pride in accomplishments of spiritual nature, because that would be an ego-trip-kind of thing, and negate any spiritual accomplishment. We detangle our Self from the long obsolete survival mechanism ego in order to be caught in the greater cosmic consciousness. Instead of trying to accomplish this for your self though, which really doesn't make any sense without the ego, you do it as an instrument for the whole. But if you can't give up the ego, if you are not willing to lose that habit of self-involvement and involution then the cosmic spirit evades your grasp or better, you keep yourself from reaching out to it.

Another example is of course compassion and the practice of it, which is substantial in spiritual practice. It's a result of losing the ego, because once you feel the immediate connection to every other living being and every thing existant, all things suffering are incidently you suffering. But even before that state is reached emotionally and integrated into your regular outlook on the world, we are instructed to practice compassion in all forms, by all our religious and spiritual leaders and texts. It is the main priniciple of our morals. And yet we can't fully practice it. We try somehow to help the homeless and donate money to some good cause, support green peace or something, but on the other hand we still eat meat? This is hypocracy at its best, and it's denying all that we know about this issue. Everyone has had contact with those animals we so readily put on our plates and gobble down with glee. We've all looked these creatures in the eye and barely any of us would have the heart to put them through the torture we commit them to regularly. Everyone knows how these creatures would react to pain, we all know that they are to some degree sentient and aware, that they fear and that they have a strong will to survive. How can a compassionate person dismiss all these thoughts? No wonder they never get anywhere with their practices, if they are so inconsistent inside. They loop right back to the starting point and repeat the steps towards compassion again and again, like a mantra missing the last syllable, incomplete and crippled by their denial. Their lack of commitment to their cause.

While it seems like a great sacrifice, to give up meat and dary products etc. or to give up the ego, it really isn't. It's extremly rewarding, but it's difficult to see that if you haven't tried it.

I'm not trying to say: become vegan! Though I would like that; I am trying to emphasise consistency in your practice of life. We are in a time of change, things are moving and more and more people need to become part of this motion. To become part of this movement we need a more integrative view of the world, we need to feel and see the connection we have to each other, as a gigantic network of living beings, capable of so much. Find a way to feel connected, find a way to transform the world and help it along in its evolution towards something divinely beautiful and amazing! Stop pretending it's not happening or it costs too much to participate. You are already participating anyway, you just may be playing for the wrong team if you don't evaluate your position carefully!

In spiritual practice there are mainly two pathways. One is the noetic, the path of wisdom and knowledge, where the highest goal seems to be escaping the realms of suffering which are inherrent in every Being, and entering the devine.

The other path is the ontological path, where Being is central. The highest goal of this is to fully Be in every moment, integrated in the world, more fully and more intensly than every previous moment.

Perhaps it is merely the common public knowledge of the first path, that makes it unattractive to me. Searching for Nirvana or personal enlightenment is all very nice and good, but it does sound a bit selfish. Describing the whole world as suffering and trying to escape it sounds like denying the real problem. I doubt that this is what the path is really about, but this is what it sounds like to me most of the times I hear about it. It sounds like an escapist and life-negating philosophy for unsatisfied and frustrated people. - Again I am not saying this is what it really is, but this is what it sounds like!! Wisdom and knowledge are both worth striving for and we would be barbarians without either. If all the sages used them for personal enlightenment and entered a state of no-suffering though, the rest of the world would remain barbarians.

On the other hand the ontological path to me is very attractive. It is the path of compassion and life. To Be immersed in every moment is to connect to the unity of the universe, but not transcend it, but emerge from it and re-merge with it at the same time. It is the path of awareness - awareness of beauty and awareness of suffering, and everything in between. But concerning suffering, you don't shy away or fear it, you don't flee. What you can do, fully part of this pathway is protest against it and try to change it. Practice compassion by acting.

I'm not talking about tax-deductable charity organisations (thank you Bob) - though that's an option - but every little thing you do, do it with awareness of what impact it will have on others and yourself. Save a rainworm, try to be enviromentally friendly, buy fair-trade products, don't support sweatshops, don't support the animal-torture-industry, practice understanding and patience with the people around you, support your friends with your love and positivity, don't eat or drink poisons!

Be modest but don't treat yourself as worthless! This is something we must not forget: when practicing compassion, we have to include ourselves in our own compassion. We are a part of a big mesh of beings and our suffering is thus part of the worlds suffering. By protesting against suffering, we also protest against ours, so we must also act against our own suffering! Being copmletly selfless doesn't work. It's about integrating your self into the greater scope of things.

Of course these two pathes are not exclusive and shouldn't be. It's just the goal and motivation that is different. Using both tools from the noetic and ontological path one can worl towards a better future and a better self!

Also there is the theory of the morphogenetic field, and if it does exist, there is no such thing as personal enlightenment - all states of enlightenment contribute to the evolution of our universe towards something good and beautiful. Not that it isn't already!