A highly interesting article over at the Scientific American Mind. Neurosciene is still very young, we hardly know how our brains and minds work.
A highly interesting article over at the Scientific American Mind. Neurosciene is still very young, we hardly know how our brains and minds work.
Life is harsh when you kick start the human spirit.
Humankind has spent a long time worshipping gods - since the modern Cro-magnon appeared and kicked the Neanderthal out of existence. One of the main difference between us and our ancestors is our imagination and therefore adaptability. No other ancestor started language, cave paintings or complex cultures.
But our imagination is also our greatest enemy. Where we lacked knowledge we invented ‘things’ to fill the gaps. So in shock and awe about nature we invented spirits, ghosts and gods to explain thunder, death and a lot of other annoying things.
Me Artist! Me Paint! Me Talk to Horsy Spirit! Me Shaman! Bow to me!
As our mental capabilities expanded so did our cultures, language and religions. If you look at the history of religions you also see how their concepts and liturgy evolved in complexity. But the human intellect is an amazing thing - and once our basic civilization was established smarter heads started to questions the gods themselves (like Epicurus).
They already concluded that nature is everything and that the gods are nothing. Even things like the atom were discussed long before they had the means to research it’s existence. Human imagination can work far beyond your cultural and technological limits.
But religion also proved to be a great tool over power - and rulers always like to have a divine backing. The people can ruled much easier if their leaders are in favor with the gods - not matter how dubious those connections are. And almost all cultures have creations myths that make THEM the chosen ones. For example the Japanese track themselves back to the sun goddess Amaterasu. I personally like the imagination and complexity of Hinduism. You hardly find a more colorful universe of gods.
The Enemies of my Religion are also our Enemies. Let’s crush them, because we are the Chosen ones …
As religion is an attempt to explain the universe (and therefore a search for the ultimate truth) it leads to science. Almost all early European scientist were dedicated Christians, who were VERY curious how god managed to run the whole show. Too bad that they discovered that the old stories of all religions weren’t true: the earth was neither the center of the universe nor was it formed out of a slain giants body.
But parallel to the myths of religion (and fairy tales) we humans discovered spirituality, our own psyche, the secrets of our minds and a new love for the beauty of the universe. Almost all major religions have their smaller departments dedicated to more serious spiritual paths - which are often more demanding and more abstract then the normal liturgy for the common follower. A truely dedicated lifestyle of a Yogi or Jesuit priest is NOT everyone - it’s very demanding. And people are unwilling to really give everything for their gods. Self preservation is usually stronger then religion.
Are you a true follower of your God(s)?! Spiritual nakedness and Yogi tea are not for everybody you know …?!
Life - the last twenty thousand years - was quite harsh to humans. Simply getting enough food was tough enough. Life was always very unfair and scary. Religion also helped to cope with fear and survival - tight rules and rituals helped tribes to survive and unite under a common banner/purpose. Religion also helped us to ‘organize’ power and hierarchies.
Religion helped us to survive and was one of the first components of our cultures. But culture will continue to evolve - even the evolution of ideas is pretty unstoppable.
Many people say that science is the true enemy of the gods or any religion. But no - our cultural evolution is the true ‘enemy’ (if you can speak in such terms anyway).
Cultural evolution brings not only full stomachs, but a separation of powers, the rule of the law, a more mutual sharing of technologies, education, medical supplies and science.
In the early 1500s European Christianity was becoming more and more aware of those ‘other’ religions and world views - simply because travel and trade was coming back to roman standards. In a monotheistic religion/society it’s much more shocking to hear that there is an alternative to just the one ‘true’ god. Polytheistic societies never had that problem to such an extend - they could cope with (just) another god …
The same Country and same God - three different groups fighting to the Death. A bit odd isn’t it?!
Luxuries like human rights, democracy, free markets and the separation of powers didn’t appear until the late 1700s in Europe. Instead of just fighting for survival, we could dedicate (again) more resources to social evolution and exploration, because we finally had the understanding how to help ourselves and survive.
Also we started to rule ourselves less by divine appointment, but by social and political ideas. The concept of the national identity was supplanting religious identities - especially in Europe after those devastating and fruitless religious wars.
So in some way Martin Luther’s idea split the Christian atom (much more then the catholic (western) and orthodox (eastern) separation before). This big bang lead to the Age of Enlightenment. But it was paid with a lot of blood and burned bodies.
He challenged the Power of the Church and tried to put believe back into Christianity.
Looking back in our history one could say we have fought many wars between conflicting cultural ideas: from tribes uniting under one religion, to great religions fighting each other and social ideas fighting religions to establish a new order within a bigger cultural context.
Overall our cultures evolved to ever increasing social structures: from tribes to kingdoms, from kingdoms to nation states, from nation states to continental entities (like the EU).
But old ideas never completely die: we still have tribalism as well as religion amongst us. The wars of the 1990’s in the Balkans and current conflicts between Muslims and Christians show how deep these old ideas are still embedded in our cultural DNA.
The Founding Fathers of America - one of the greatest moments in History. They put the Nation before God, the Citizen before their Rulers.
The idea of the nation state or even atheism are pretty new - hardly a couple of centuries old - compared to tens of thousands of years of tribalism and religions.
I say no more gods please - they had several thousand years to enlighten us, put an end to suffering, spread universal love and understanding. Gods and religions have failed to do so - although they had more then enough time and cost us a huge amount of life’s.
We are currently struggling to implement new concepts into our cultural evolution: a truly global society, universal human rights, total religious freedom (or betters say to protect ‘true’ believers from each other) and a free flow of information. No surprise people are scared and more blood is shed. But overall our current democratic, socialist and capitalist ‘ideas’ have feed and clothed more people then ever - safety and education are still on the rise although we still experience huge humanitarian catastrophes (like in Darfur or Africa in general).
Since democracy, technology and science have started to spread - we as a race have prospered more then ever. Gods didn’t build schools and hospitals, fed and clothed the poor, educated and explored the human potential - and this potential also includes our spirituality and imagination.
*repost from 2005*
How often do you really hold your own destiny in your hand? And how often do you carefully shape your own path? Do you leave it all to the universe by accident and pure faith? Or do you simply function?!
How often do we really apply our powers to shape our future in a conscious state of mind & spirit?
Isn’t love great? Somewhere out there waits your perfect soulmate for you. Right? Wrong! If there is one idea in the spiritual scene that drives me nuts it’s the illusion of the soulmate, because it’s so wonderful egoistic and blatant unspiritual …
The very idea of the soul mate is so very appealing: the great cosmos has just the perfect match for you in store. You now longer need to surf russianbrides.com or draw angel cards in the morning to find him or her.
What is your soul mate supposed to be? First of all, this person connects to you on an extremely deep level - yay - it’s not just the usual shared interests and screwing all day - this time it’s spiritual!
I just wonder what a connection on ’soul level’ really means? Total understanding? That would rather imply you are clones of each other, not very exciting. And why is total understanding so important that makes it such a top priority to most people within relationships?
It’s one of the main mental fixations of stressed modern individualists that hardly anyone understands them. Why does nobody understand you - simple in most cases: people hardly communicate and care for each other anymore. To know a person well and participate in their lives takes a serious amount of time and dedication. Sending an eCard from work and met once in while to have a latte together hardly counts as ‘involved’.
In an era, where many people suffer from loneliness, depressions (harhar) and single lifestyle - nobody wants to embarrass themselves or their friends by being ‘emotional’, ‘high maintenance’ or ‘too serious’. It’s the age of easy friendships, fun and laughter … join the party and don’t you dare to come depressed. Join the fucking prozac nation of happiness.
So a ‘good understanding’ of another person can be achieved with some work and time - you don’t need a soulmate for that one. To connect to other people is a simple set of social skills, not a big spiritual task.
Back to the ‘connecting at soul level’ - another illusion about the soulmate is the reincarnation myth. Would it be great walk the path to nirvana with friends, lovers and family from former lifetimes?
I personally believe in reincarnation, but that’s as much thought I give about the whole thing. Why? It doesn’t matter that we already lived once or a hundred times. I am living now! I must take responsibility about people and actions I do in this lifetime. Spending to much time thinking about reincarnation is like trying to insure yourself against life …
People love the whole karma thing, because it’s an easy way to score points for being a good person! The concept of good and bad karma is very ‘logical’ and appealing for spiritual types (like saving points in your local supermarket - but only for the next life). But it confuses most of them. It transforms them into karma nazis: ‘Oh look at this crippled guy over there, he must had have bad karma in his last life, that’s why he is so disfigured in this life.’
Why do people love the idea of karmic relationships - lasting several life spans? It’s a nice romantic idea: life lasts only once, love forever. This idea seems to appeal especially to women or men who like to cling to their partners. ‘Hey, I will be stuck on you for several reincarnations - how do you like that?’ Yuck!
Since nobody can proof we really incarnate, there is also no proof our souls come back as the same or similar package. And this is a stupid idea anyway. The whole idea of the karma cycle is that you try improve yourself and come back as a more evolved soul (depending what you did last time and what you have to learn on your next tour). Some traditions say that our soul lives start as insects or other less aware life forms. We hopefully graduate with each experience on this earth to finally exit to nirvana anyway.
What would be the point of reincarnation, if the same old boring you would come back like a television rerun? This would be like Groundhog day, repeating yourself with the same people and mistakes until you ‘get it’? Nah …
Most boring of all: why would you spent your next lifetime with the very same souls you already met last time? If this cosmos stand for one thing it’s diversity and complexity - there are billions of different stars, alone on this planet we have millions of species and again billions of life forms walking this earth. I bet my life that the spiritual cosmos is at least as complex, colorful and chaotic as the real one (if a separation exists at all!).
And in this universe nothing gets lost nor wasted. My guess: like matter gets reused to build stars, dogs and biscuits - spiritual energy won’t get lost, but recreated into a new soul.
Let’s get to the most egoistic part of the soulmate thing: that there is an exclusive partner in the universe just for you to love and live with. What an ego centric view of spirituality. First of all we are ALL soulmates! It’s the very idea of almost all religions and spiritual traditions is that we all have a soul and are equally created before God(s).
Another very basic spiritual idea that speaks against the exclusive soulmate is the concept of universal love. An enlightened being should be able to love everyone and everything the same way. An exclusive soulmates does ‘not compute’ within the equation of universal love.
And speaking of love or rather lovemaking we come to the last, but deepest illusion about the soulmate. Screwing your soulmate is supposed to catapult you to a higher state of consciousness - the perfect cosmic fuck guarantees the perfect cosmic bliss. Heaven on earth. The ultimate union between two people, surfing the spiritual energy wave. Enlightenment by super pussy and long dong lingam.
I certainly subscribe to this very idea, since I have done tantra and still adore many of it’s ideas. But the ultimate orgasm is not the end nor the means to enlightenment. It’s a great moment, you relax, you are happy, you are loved and love. But does it really make you a better person?
But using a soulmate as a substitute for your own happiness or enlightenment is a feeble excuse: ‘When I’ve found my soulmate everything will be fine.’ Nah, spiritual work is your own lonely duty.
Once again the idea of the soulmate is just used by the ego to promise itself a better life … another illusion to get rid off to come closer to this state of existence.
Soulmates? They are all around you. Don’t try to screw them all, start by with accepting them in their crazy variety and with all their sins. Most of all: start loving yourself in an universal way and share that feel to everyone and everything …
*repost 2003-10-05*
Some people are down to earth. Others like to fly between the clouds. The extreme ones go for the moon and stars. And the pros are one with the whole universe.
Why do people need to be someplace else with their minds & souls - except to stay in the here and now?
I have searched far and wide - but I haven’t found a single religion nor spiritual discipline that made pathetic behavior for it’s followers mandatory. Do you know one?! But people love being pathetic, doesn’t matter if they are new age incense burners or old school Catholics. They all go for it! You can see sparkling eyes and hear thundering voices during sales presentation as well as in churches and meditation centers. Being pathetic seems to work like an universal fudge to help us poor humans to make ourselves and our believes larger than life - whenever we need to feel bigger …
The show must go on! Why do we love pathos? Does it help us to be better believers or sinners?
Religious or spiritual practices mostly work with rules and rituals to help, educate and guide it’s followers to god/enlightenment. It doesn’t matter if you go the way of the Yogi, Buddha, Tantra or Catholic, you are expected to follow certain rules or better say ‘frame of mind’ to reach enlightenment. Since practice makes you perfect, this is always an ongoing process with no brakes and bonuses. Spirituality mostly means working with yourself, which can be pretty boring, annoying and most of all very personal.
We are all idiots on this world - because none of us has figured out what’s it all about. But we can share the madness, beauty and laughter - and finally die in the end.
And dying is a stupid thing to do anyway … but we all do it.
Hey, this spiritual stuff is real work!
In our age of convenience food, easy to swallow capsules and easy credit there is also a big need for instant enlightenment. Although every language seems to know it’s own version of “no pain no gain” the effort to do the inner or outer journey to a more fulfilled life is not very trendy - unless it comes with the label new age and can be done during a weekend workshop.
So what about it? Can’t spirituality be done with a bit of crying, drumming and tree hugging in a safe space where everybody can breath deeeeep aaaand leeet goooo?
Eeeeep! Wrong answer. Surely tree hugging might help, but spirituality is a constant process of change, reflection and renewal. Sure a weekend is great to kick it off or go deeper into a particular subject, but this might only be milestones on your personal journey.
I feel alive - when I am drowning!
Spirituality is like swimming, you simply can’t stop doing it while you are in the stream of life, otherwise you go down.
Your constant movement in your own waters should help you to reach for a higher state of consciousness, which supports your journey.
First a few words about consciousness. Most people confuse their minds or analytical abilities with it. Joseph Campell - great writer and mythologist - once said “where energy is, there is also consciousness”. Plant’s and animal have consciousness - and even your body has it’s own form of consciousness, it not just the mind by itself.
Consciousness connects you to the world, it’s awareness of what is happening, it let’s you change/direct energy, feel it and relate to it, it opens yourself to the outer and inner world. Thinking in these terms it makes a lot of sense to get into a higher state of consciousness, since it allows you to do more, be closer to yourself and your path.
Hey, it’s all so easy!
We all know situations in our life’s when we are distracted, stressed and out of focus - altogether a lower state of consciousness. Almost every known form of spirituality offer exercises or methods to recenter yourself and find your inner balance. For someone it might be running, the next person prays, meditates or simply watches the sky. Any method is valid as long it centers yourself and helps to achieve that higher state.
Another great value of the higher and complete state of consciousness is, that it can much better deal with paradoxes, confusing emotions and inner pictures. Our normal mind is usually trained to deal with “cause & effect” logical problems. So if we hit a road bump that goes way beyond simple human logic our analytical self gets confused, stuck, frustrated. Sheer willpower seems often to make it worse then actually pulling us out of our misery.
Most of our personal problems are way beyond logical/mental conflicts. It’s usually a mixture out of your ego, interpersonal barriers/communication, emotional needs/wants and social interaction. A very potent mixture that is way beyond simple “yes”, “no” and “maybe” thinking.
The higher consciousness (the whole yourself) has a much better chance of solving the problem, since it will connect to your problem on many levels. It should also include your subconscious which helps to develop creativity and visions. You need these “tools” to break and expand your current abilities or current perception of your situation.
I have problems - therefore I am.
Now this is very important: Most of our problems arise from a limited vision or knowledge of a situation. If it’s a simple logical or knowledge problem, your mind will do to acquire a new piece of information, integrate it in your life and solve the little bugger. BUT if your problem/limit is more complex you need a more complex set of solutions and tools.
Here is a simple problem with a typical logical dilemma - and a more expanded solution:
I want to have a walk in the park and enjoy the sunshine, but I am stopped in my tracks by a bloody sign that tells me to go off the grass. Now my mind faces a very common dualistic dilemma: either I accept to get overruled by that sign I am frustrated, because my day in the park is spoiled OR I ignore the sign and risk social confrontation.
I am stuck with two logical choices, both with their own not completely satisfying solutions.
In a higher state of consciousness I can observe that my little ego wants something and it wants it right now, so the little sign is frustrating my ego big time. Looking beyond my anger/frustration cycle I am becoming aware of other solutions, like going to a different park or growing out of similar situations where I bring myself into conflict with an authority.
This was simple - right? Now add to that situation a charming lady I want to impress plus a policemen and maybe some other elements and you can see it can get pretty complex pretty easily.
But let’s go back to deeper personal problems.
Wakeup from your own limited matrix.
Like I said before we are mostly limited by our own egos or visions, like if I can’t see myself as the new departement head I will never go for it. We can’t manifest “actions” in real life if we lack the vision, confidence and relationship for them. So this is not just a case of “do I have the right qualifications for the job” but a more complex inner problem.
Here it helps to work with your consciousness and subconscious on your inner limits - so what’s holding me back to become the department head? How do I feel about this job? Do I really want it? Why am I holding myself back - what are the motivations behind that? Why do I have such strange associations with success that I am holding back?
This is soul searching at it’s best!
If one faces negative or destructive inner patterns, lack of motivation and visions then creativity is needed to create new patterns, visions and associations. If your inner world is limiting you - how can you grow. Humans need to grow like plants. If their pot is to small there will be a lot of pain …
Everybody dreams of bigger mice to catch.
This is why a good connection to your subconscious is so important, since it’s the best source for inner pictures/visions that might explain what’s holding back as well as creating better ones. Instead of “thinking it all thru” you expand your complete inner cosmos to deal in a better way with a more complex life. You not only get new insights but also happier life.
For example if I start my positive reprogramming by dreaming about myself in that new position that would help to dissolve old barriers. Another way is consciously sitting down and imagining myself to do this job. Every great athlete knows this kind of exercises, like running the track in your mind before you actually start. A new job might be a lot of work, but dissolving my barriers would enrich my life and new perspectives.
So soul searching is a constant process of a higher consciousness sorting out old and useless associations and visions you might have and replacing them with vital and healthy new ones. It might be painful to let go of some old and beloved ideas/visions, but they simply limit you … get the expanded new version for free from your subconscious and have a happier life.
*repost 2003-08-03*
Ed sent me this amazing video featuring the voice of Dechen Shak Dagsay. It’s rare that one finds anything remotely artful and spiritual on the YouTubes - but this video is pure bliss. Thanks for another great link Ed.
Almost every religion starts with the creation of the universe or the god(s) themselves: Jehova (Judaism), Ptah (egypt) or Brahma (Hinduism). Even the scientific view of the universe starts with creation: the big bang.
So how sexy is creativity?
So many spiritual and religious people expect a payback or rescue team from their favorite Gods for being ‘good’. But there are no angels out there to watch out for you. God’s gift to you is a brain and a heart that are very capable - they will save you if you are willing to use them.
Just in case you are sometimes wondering what life is all about and why this shit is only happening to you - you are not alone! There is about six billion of us just wondering about the same darn thing …