Category Archives: religion

Giant on feet of varicose veins

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At least I don’t claim to be one of those. Yet.

I went to work today, after two days of soup and relaxation, including brainwave entrainment.  I slept for nearly six and a half hour tonight and meditated for perhaps half an hour, so I was a little surprised that I was sleepy a few times during the workday.

I still have some pain while swallowing, but it is less than yesterday, and yesterday less than Monday, and Monday less than Sunday.  This is good.  My right foot hurts somewhere near the ankle. This is not good, but probably more likely to come from varicose veins than flesh-eating bacteria.  I have after all reached that age.

Thinking back on my life, there was so much I did not understand, did not even know, when I was young and healthy.  It is as if some kind of balance has to be maintained, that I cannot have strength and wisdom in the same body.  Surely this cannot be true for all, but it seems to be disturbingly common.

The thought has struck me that I might have become conceited, proud, a VIP in my own eyes (more than otherwise) etc if I did not have the sword of a failing body hanging over my head.  I am fully aware that it is still hanging.  Even today I am in good health for my age, where so many are already unable to work at all or suffering daily torture.  Still, I have these reminders, like the proverbial sword hanging by a hair, that I can never know when will drop.  It may be that I need this to stay humble.  If so, that is quite sad.

To me it seems that learning the Truth – or at least some approximation to the Truth – is making me more humble.  And I don’t say that as if humility was itself some kind of good work.  Humility, to me, is just a subset of realism.  There is no need to exaggerate my failures, because my lack of accomplishment would shame me even if I had done no actual wrong at all in my life.  (Which I have, but you don’t need to know all the details.)

Oh yes, I happened to finish the chapter of the “sixth dimension” in The Laws of Eternity.  No matter how I look at it, it is me.  I am just not very good at it.  But it is me.  The joy of knowledge and especially deeper insight, for its own sake, not for money or fame or impressing the women, but even or especially when I am alone, even when learning something I suspect no one will ever know that I know.  The absolute conviction that the Light is real, based on years of day to day experience. The drive to use my knowledge to help people and make the world a better place. Even, dare I say it, a certain natural leadership ability.

That last part certainly needs some explanation, because I am extremely solitary by nature.  When left to my own devices, I can be alone for weeks and enjoy it. However, I can also take initiative and bring people together, when my job requires it.  Back when I could still talk without too much pain, I was an instructor in my then job.  I would go on courses and seminars with other instructors, and when we first met, I would be the one to talk to people and get them together and get started thinking on our tasks.  When there was discontent because of bad leadership, I would put it into words and discuss what we would do about it. I would confront those who had misused their authority.  I had no fear of them and always saw them as equals at best.

However, when I had done whatever was needed, I would revert to my porcupine form, so that is probably how I am mostly remembered.

At the time, I did not know anything about the sixth dimension or why I was here on earth.  I guess I generally believed that my purpose in life was to remain celibate at all costs, or something.  I did not really ask myself why I was who I am. And even now, I wonder what will happen next.  Did I finally find this out when it was too late?  Or is there still something I am supposed to do?

There is a difference between Knowledge and Truth.  You can learn knowledge, but you are reminded of truth.  When you hear the truth for the first time, you think: “Yes, I always knew that, but I did not know that I knew!”  And that is why I keep reading this guy who thinks he is from Venus and used to be king of Atlantis, and this is why I keep reading this other guy who thinks Democrat leaders are literally possessed by demons.  For all that these two seem crazy to the casual observer, they suddenly start saying other things that make me go “Yes! That makes a lot of things fall into place, that makes the puzzle become a picture!”  This lasts for a shorter or longer time, and then suddenly they say something that makes me go “what planet are you on RIGHT NOW?”.

I wonder if Jesus was like that too.  I remember an episode where his family showed up to try to bring him home, convinced that he was not quite right in the head.  Or when he claimed to be bread from Heaven, and threatened that bad things would happen to people who did not eat him.

I wonder if I am like that too.  Perhaps some see a halo and some just see varicose feet. I guess they would both be right, although I dare say at present there is a lot more feet than halo.

Still alive & loving it

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I admit that I was more than a little worried about the rapid onset throat pain, but today it is hurting less.  I stayed home from work yesterday and today, drinking soup and doing some meditation.  If this is what we here in Norway call “3 days throat illness”, it should end tomorrow.  But even if not, I will be happy if it continues to withdraw at the current pace.

My vocal cords are still feeling kind of sandy, and I have been automatically trying to clear them a lot today.  It is almost impossible not to, it is like a reflex. Hopefully this won’t do too much damage.

I have also spent the last two days reading through my enormous Sims 2 archives, more exactly the Micropolis Prosperity Challenge.  I have returned to the game a little after that.  It may sound strange, but when I felt really ill and I thought back at my recent life to see if there were things that were not tinged with any regret, I saw this among them.  I feel that I truly got across some of my metaphysics and many of the values that I keep and that have contributed to my own happiness and that of many others.

Micropolis (meaning “very small town”) is a story, made in collaboration by me and the little people in the computer, about a few families who have lost loved ones and all they owned in a natural disaster.  Uneducated, friendless and mired in debt, they start building a new community under the guidance of a guardian angel that shows them how to realize their own inner potential to build an utopia on earth. By helping each other, learning useful skills and communing with their guardian angel, they make progress against seemingly impossible odds.  (This was all written before I had heard of Happy Science, by the way. ^_^)

Rereading it from the start, I was amazed to see how some of the things I said on the first pages were realized later in the game, long after I had written it, and without any prompting from me. The little computer people went off and did it by themselves, as if they had really heard my voice.  Or as if I had inadvertently seen their future.  Or as if someone above either of us had played us both according to a plan neither of us could see…

If I am treated like I have treated my sims, I am fairly optimistic about my life and, to some extent, even my afterlife.  And in some ways, it really looks that way. I know I joked that I treated them like I wanted to be treated myself, except they were not allowed to eat snacks.  And behold, I had to reduce my favorite snack intake due to the “fat poisoning” illness.  Well, I still snack, but rarely on snacks, if you know what I mean.  And I make more meals, just like my sims.  So it seems to work both ways…

And like the Sims of Micropolis, I have had years of amazing happiness.  That time still lasts.  Even now, I love my life.  I am not only afraid of death, although there is still a worry that I may have to pay for my idle years and for the weaknesses I hid in the dark.  But if I were to spend my afterlife with the Voice that taught me how to find happiness, I can stand an eternity of that. For now, however, I know from experience that I can have this happiness in the current life. And I am not eager to give that up.

To serve in Heaven, again

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“Nothing makes me happier than being able to help others” says Sawako from the anime Kimi ni Todoke (Reaching You).  It is a very family-friendly and inspiring anime that will teach young people truth, virtue and inner beauty, even though it is not made by Happy Science.  Highly recommended.  Still ongoing on Japanese TV.

Today’s entry was inspired by RyuhoOkawa on Twitter:  Those who think the world exists for them will go to hell, whereas those who think that they exist to serve the world will go to heaven.

Long-time readers may remember my entry “To serve in Heaven“, from February 2001. Time sure flies, eh? In it, I tell the imaginary story of two planets, both of them copies of the original earth, but one inhabited by those who want to rule (Hell) and one by those who want to serve (Heaven). Logic dictates that this goes badly for the Hellions, because even though they have a strong desire to rule, there is not a soul around who consents to being ruled! Obviously then in our world the same kind of people are happiness parasites, or should I say happiness vampires, who can only attain some degree of happiness at all because there are less egoic people around.

It is no big surprise that Ryuho Okawa sees it similarly.  I also think this is a pretty good hint that he is after all not The Antichrist, despite his eagerness to take over Christ’s job as savior of mankind.  (Without the pesky dying on the cross, obviously.)

I think it is a safe bet that Okawa is not the Son of Satan, given that’s Satan’s gospel is “You deserve better!”  If you look at today’s advertising from a higher perspective, you will know why we think the world is largely under his thumb. But that is not going to last.  The sun will rise. Of course, to us Christians, the Son has already risen.  But whether or not you are a Christian, the laws of the mind rule just as absolutely as the laws of gravity or magnetism.  If you follow Satan’s gospel: “You deserve better”, you will become unhappy and live and die in a state of bitterness.  If you follow Jesus gospel: “It is more blessed to give”, then your happiness will necessarily increase whether you want it or not.

This is because, as I also said before, whenever you let a blessing or a curse run through you toward someone, it will leave a residue inside you.  This happens regardless of whether the blessing or curse actually has any effect on the other person at all.  It certainly has on you, and this too is simply natural law and cannot be altered anymore than the world’s streams will start running uphill tomorrow and the sun rise in the west.

You don’t actually have to be religious for this to work either.  Even if you are an atheist, you still have to obey the law of gravity, as the clock runs just fine without your belief in a clockmaker.  It is the same with the laws of the mind. Conversely, religions will not actually in the long run let you get away with breaking the law. Sure you can get forgiveness from God (although people may still treat you like scum, get used to it) but the thing is, forgiveness does not mean that actions don’t have consequences.  Even if you deeply regret and repent of your years of gluttony and accept the Lord as your personal savior, you’ll still wake up fat the next morning, this I confidently predict.  And if you keep overeating and asking for forgiveness, you will get fatter and fatter.  Likewise, if you are a greedy bastard, you will be dark and hungry inside even if you are a religious greedy bastard.  This is a direct observation that anyone can make for themselves if they live long enough.

I want to serve in Heaven, not because I want a job in Heaven, but because to serve is Heaven, rightly understood.  I don’t mean in a sense of reducing oneself to cattle that can be used by anyone for any purpose they may see fit.  I talk about sharing happiness:  Love, hope, joy, courage.  Radiate it like the brightness of a clear lamp, like the warmth of a roaring fire. To be near such a person is a state of good fortune, but to be such a person – that is Heaven. Such a person will eventually be able to say, like the French mystic Madame Guyon: “If I went to Hell, it would be a problem – for the Devil.” (Not an exact quote, but it captures the meaning.)

(Speaking of Mdm Guyon, there are indeed saints and bodhisattvas who experience a “dark night of the soul”, but this is something else again.  If this is relevant to you, you have nothing to learn from me, quite the other way around.)

Beyond the Yellow vMeme

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To take the next step and become useful in the world of tomorrow, we need to re-integrate science and spirit.

I have written in the past that I seem to function mostly in the Yellow vMeme (as seen in Spiral Dynamics). I also said that I very much doubt I will ever go beyond that. This is as far as it goes, I thought. I am no longer so sure of that. Given enough lifetime, I think the upward pull may continue to take me onward to the next level. But it is an uncertain thing yet, and will be a close call at best.

In the more religious terminology of Kofuku no Kagaku (Happy Science), the turquoise vMeme is called the 7th dimension, the realm of angels (saints) and bodhisattvas. These are people who live for helping others and keeping the world on the right track. In more psychological terms we may say they have transcended the ego as the center of their life. They obviously still have an ego, without which personal identity would not function. But the ego is no longer the axis on which their lives turn.

During the Yellow vMeme we gain a systemic insight in how the world works, and realize that we are a (not very big) part of it. With this humility and understanding, we can look for the points where we can be useful and help the world (or rather our tiny corner of it, usually) get on the right track. But we still kind of do this at our convenience and for our own reasons. We are not compelled by a deep insight that makes us consider our earthly lives little more than a projection of a higher plan that was in action long before us and will continue to go on long after our passing.

Compare to the Bodhisattva vows, some of which I found listed here. I was particularly smitten with this poem:

May I be a guard for those who are protectorless,
 A guide for those who journey on the road;
 For those who wish to go across the water,
May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,
 And a lamp for those who long for light;
 For those who need a resting place, a bed,
For all who need a servant, may I be a slave.

May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,
 A word of power, and the supreme remedy.
 May I be the trees of miracles,
And for every being, the abundant cow.

Like the great earth and the other elements,
 Enduring as the sky itself endures,
 For the boundless multitude of living beings,
May I be the ground and vessel of their life.

Thus, for every single thing that lives,
 In number like the boundless reaches of the sky,
 May I be their sustenance and nourishment
 Until they pass beyond the bounds of suffering.

The last line is the key. As long as there are other beings who live in ignorance, confusion and suffering, those who have found the cause of these things must live to help them. For there is no true difference between us and them, we are merely instances of the same origin, branches of the same tree if you want.

I have had the good luck in my life to meet people who were to some degree such saints. I say “to some degree” because people don’t actually fit into boxes. The levels we talk about are more like milestones along a road. And even that is not right, because humans are not that stable. We are more like waves. The sudden, foaming waves tend to fade as we grow deeper, but there are other, longer waves that I read about in the autobiography of saints. Some of these waves last for years. And there are still “peak experiences”, where for a brief time you see something you cannot understand in your everyday state of mind.

To make things even more complex, humans have different lines of development in their lives, and some lines may be far ahead of others. For most people, the cognitive line – theoretical understanding – is far ahead of the rest. This is why a child can agree and expound on why homework is a good idea in theory, as long as he does not remember that this may mean he has to do his own homework too. This is not actually hypocrisy, because you are on your way to it. The hypocrisy is to consistently pretend that you have already reached the level you have seen ahead of you. Mocking your children in such a situation will cause them to lose courage. This is expressly forbidden in the New Testament. I cannot offhand think of a similar injunction in other religions, but it should come automatically when you understand how the human mind works, whether or not you are religious.

The purpose of religion is of course not to control you, but to bring an understanding of the human world – which is mostly a world of the mind – in a consistent framework. The more you understand how the human mind works, the more your understanding will become similar to a religion. Neither Confucius nor even Gautama the Buddha intended to start a religion; their teachings were philosophies of the mind. But all you need to change that into a religion is to start worshiping the philosopher and add some decorative props.

In any case, whether or not you feel religious, you need to develop a deep understanding of the human mind, because that is where we actually live. The experienced human world is not made of quarks and gluons.

Actually, let us make a short stop right there. According to current scientific knowledge, quarks make up the neutrons and protons in the nucleus of the atom. Two Up quarks and one Down quark make a proton, while one Up quark and tow Down quarks make a neutron. There are many other types of quarks with varying properties and interaction, but only those two are part of ordinary matter and always in those combinations. Now, say that someone is an expert on quarks. He knows them all by name and can list off all their properties and interactions, as well as when they were theorized and by whom and when they were discovered and where. In short, our friend is a veritable quark genius. But unfortunately he has forgotten, or never learned, the rather narrow connection between this “realm of quarks” and the atomic nucleus. While he is surely a genius, his knowledge is not actually connected to the world he lives in.

This is how it is with many people. They know a lot of things but they don’t know how these things connect to the actual life we live as humans. I used to be like that too. I would collect random facts but I did not connect them in an unbroken chain to the actual life I lived.

A characteristic of the Yellow vMeme is the ability to see things as systems, to see them as integrated, to see where they fit together, see one thing as part of another. But there is still often something that is lacking: Seeing oneself in all this. We may see our bodies as part of an unbroken physical structure, but the actual experience of being ourselves is separate from this. We may have learned some theory about the mind being a product of the brain, and since we know a lot about matter and very little about mind (not to say spirit), we kind of take the easy way out by labeling the mind as a kind of by-product of the brain. So the brain, we think, makes mind in much the same way that the kidneys make urine.

If we stop at this stage, a disconnect continues to exist between what we actually experience as true and what we theoretically claim to believe is true. If we explore the world of the mind, we realize that it is very large, very detailed, and governed by its own laws. These laws can not be derived from the physical laws that govern the material brain.

Let me take another example. Let us say you have a coworker who is supposed to analyze data on his computer, but then the boss walks in and finds him playing a computer game instead. The unlucky fellow makes the following excuse: “But it was on the computer!” That’s pretty lame, don’t you think? But the fact is that a lot of people run software on their own brain that everyone with good sense should realize will not get the job done. You cannot just explain that by saying “my brain did it!” This is the kind of disconnect we have a lot of in our age, and we have to get past this to get to the next level.

Our fascination with matter is not quite a bad thing. Thanks to it, we now live longer and healthier lives, we can enjoy pleasures fit for kings, and accomplish what would recently have looked like miracles. Like communicate with people all around the world in the blink of an eye. But at the same time, there are epidemics of problems that stem from the mind: Avoidable depressions, substance abuse, eating disorders, obesity, diabetes and numerous other lifestyle diseases. Statistics show clearly that deeply, actively religious people are less exposed to these.

There has to be a way to integrate these worlds. To gain our spirit back without going back to the middle ages. And those who find the way are obliged to share it.

Grace – the vertical jet stream?

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This is how the humble people view the world:  “With all these wonderful people, I spend every day in happiness.” Because they are acutely aware of their own imperfection, they easily appreciate the effort of others who also have to struggle (and sometimes fail) to do the right thing. The resulting gratitude is typical of the people who practice self-reflection. In the middle of this world they live in the Realm of the Good, a paradise of the heart.

I am not a theologian, luckily.  And so I will happily skip the many detailed debates within Christianity about the nature of grace.  There is evidently a lot of confusion about this, much to my surprise. Instead, I will seek to extend the concept so that it can be seen as immediately useful by all except the extreme materialist.

(There are different degrees of materialism, of course. The common moderate materialist will act and talk as if spirit exists, or at least the domains in which spirit is manifest, such as truth & beauty & virtue.  However, if asked outright, he will claim that spirit is a secondary reality, which emanates from matter and cannot exist independently from matter.  An extreme materialist, on the other hand, will regard spirit as pure illusion, the brain’s mistaken attempts to understand its own workings.  To such a person, love is simply the genes attempt to perpetuate themselves, and grace is as real as luck, that is to say, pure fantasy.)

Now, if we accept – even if just for the sake of living within civilization – that there is spiritual dimension to life, whatever its origin… Then we can imagine this dimension as vertical, as do pretty much all the world’s religions, who agree that not only is it vertical, but higher is better. Obviously the modern reader will not take this literally, but rather as a metaphor.  In this context, we can think of grace as a force that lifts us up.  A kind of counter-gravity from above, or a rising wind, like a vertical jet stream which can immensely help us if we place ourselves in the right position.

The Christian Bible says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6.) The interesting part is that this does not place any other restrictions on the grace.  It does not specify, for instance, that God gives grace to the humble Christian or even to the humble religious person.  The humility itself seems to be sufficient.  If this is the case, then the Christian concept of grace merges with the Buddhist doctrine of salvation through self-reflection.  The purpose of self-reflection is exactly humility in practice:  To find our imperfections and see them as a serious problem rather than just comparing ourselves with someone who seem to behave worse than us. So even though the Buddhist does not (necessarily) believe in a god, he is still seeking the same grace in the same place where it is found by the Christian, namely in humility.

Now, I am not saying that all (or even two) religions are equal, or that it does not matter whether you are religious or not. It is not that simple, probably.  But it would seem that grace is a more universal concept than you would think from Christian theology.

I guess what I am saying is that regardless of all other things, having a realistic view of your own shortcomings and taking responsibility will make you a better person. Whether it will give you eternal happiness, I can’t say.  But it is certainly worth a try if only for the happiness you get down here.  When you have tried that for a while, you may want to consider your further course.

Letting the Light in

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Generally, light is considered a good thing. Here outside my little home, since invisible Light is a whole lot harder to photograph.

My (still unfinished!) Lightwielder stories are obviously fiction, but they do carry certain elements that I perceive as real.  More real, indeed, than our everyday rags and riches.  One of the central tenets is that the Light is not only unlimited, but more than unlimited.

Let me explain what I mean by that.  If the Light was limited, if it was scarce or in short supply, then Lightwielders would have to compete for it.  If there were two of them in the same area, one or both would find it harder to channel the Light.  If however the Light was unlimited, then you could pack together as many Lightwielders as the space allowed, and they would all be able to channel as easily as if they were all alone.

But the Light is not quite like that either.  Rather, as the fictional Book of Light says, “where two Sing, three are present”.  (Singing, or chanting as some of us might call it, is the common way of invoking the Light in my stories.  There are more general and more specific songs depending on what you want to achieve, and depending on your attunement.) When two Lightwielders are singing the same song, the Light is stronger than the sum of what they could channel alone.  Add more of them, and the effect grows stronger and stronger.  The Light flows stronger and more readily, like a fire when the burning logs are moved together. (And yeah, I’ve burned a lot of logs lately, thanks for asking.)

But apart from this very noticeable effect, there is said to be a weaker non-local effect.  There is a saying, I believe it to be a commentary and not a direct quote from the Book of Light:  “If everyone was a Servant, all the world would be bright” and also, “If everyone was a Servant, every Servant could raise the dead.”   The Lightwielders believe that every time someone channels the Light into the world, it becomes slightly easier for everyone else.  This is a bit similar to the belief in morphic resonance, although more specific.

It should be obvious to those who know me that I hold similar beliefs.  The difference is that the Lightwielder stories take place in an imaginary group of worlds in which spiritual effects take a clear physical form.  In the normal world, this is not the case.  Most people don’t actually see light shine from someone who lives an extremely honest life of blessing and giving.  Some people claim to see this light (author Ryuho Okawa among them) but it should be clear that this is a visualization that comes from inside the observer, not a physical light made of photons that can be caught on film.  But people who have a reasonably unhurt soul are easily able to grasp the mental picture and agree that this is a good way to describe such a person.  For this reason, saints – not only in Christianity but also their counterparts in other religions – have long been portrayed with a halo or aura of light radiating from them.  If you were to portray such people with for instance leaves or brown threads protruding from them, it would not at all be obvious and probably disgust the onlooker, but the image of light radiating from a person is immediately easy to understand.

OK, I really ought to go back to writing those stories, shouldn’t I?  But the point I’m making today is non-fiction, or at least I certainly believe so.  I believe that there is a “Light”, for lack of a better word, outside time and space, but present everywhere and at all times.  Humans, probably no one else, can let this light in.  The purpose of most religious practice would be to find those cracks in the cosmic eggshell where the light can be seen, even if only as weakly as a twinkling star, and then pry the crack open, letting in more and more light.  You could also say that we are together in a huge dark room, and whenever someone opens their little window to the sunshine, the whole room becomes a little brighter.

Thus I posit that if one’s religious practice causes the world to become a darker place (in the long run, I mean), it needs a critical review. I don’t really have any grand revelations about the Dark Night of the Soul, but I am pretty sure that if one causes a Dark Night for everyone around, it is time for a re-think. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1. John 1:5).  Your religion or life philosophy may vary, but hopefully not in that regard.

Changed or painted?

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A new outlook, but is it not the same person looking out?

I have previously mentioned how I felt different here in Riverview than I did in the previous house.  But then I have only been here for a few days.  It is hard to say which of the changes are permanent, and which come from being uprooted and taken out of the “everyday” state of mind.

It is possible to paint over a rotten wall or a rusted car and hide the bad stuff somewhat for a time.  But this does not really change anything.  The rot and the rust keep doing their work. So I will not just automatically rejoice when I seem to have a fit of spirituality here.  It could be just from being around a man of prayer and good deeds for two days.  It could be just from a glimpse of how much money and time I have wasted on hobbies that now mean nothing or nearly nothing to me.  I could be just from being reminded that everything in this world is temporary, that the things we took for given are certain to change and leave us, or we them.

Is there anything I can do to wake up now that I am half awake?  Is there any way to secure my gain before it slips through my fingers again?  For it is obvious that if we take anything with us when we leave, it is not of this realm.  And eternity is hard to deny when you have seen it so many times.   It could certainly be an illusion, but so could the world.

I am not so much thinking “how can I know” but rather “how can I act on what I know”.  How can I avoid being fooled again and again the same way I was in the past.  I spent a small fortune (by my personal standards at  least) on CDs, another small fortune on computer games, another small fortune on clothes, another on comics and light fantasy /science fiction novels.  I still have remnants of all these things with me, even after having pruned them over and over. Like karma, they follow me around, remind me of my past stupidity, and force the question: Is there perhaps a current stupidity of the same size but invisible because I still live in it?

Another possibility is of course that my seeming change of mind is somewhat real. Perhaps it is because I am currently on my second reading of The Philosophy of Progress – after all, according to the product description on Amazon.com, “By repeatedly reading this book you will experience this extraordinary feeling that your soul is making great progress.”  As I said last time I quoted this, there may be a difference between making great progress and feeling that one is making great progress. (Although feeling that you should have made much more progress is probably a fairly reliable sign of actual progress.)

I picked up the small leaflet by Elias Aslaksen the other night, in Norwegian “MÃ¥ten Ã¥ ta det pÃ¥”  (the way to take it), where he explains the path to happiness in a few pages, lucidly and intensely.  Nothing other people do or say can decide my happiness or unhappiness, only the way I react to those things, and the way I conduct my own life. I may feel bad for them if they do something wrong, but there is no reason why this should make me do something wrong too.  After all, what I do is my responsibility.

This small tract made an enormous impact on me when I was about 15, and my life changed direction completely and never quite went back.  Actually I continued to act as if other people could move my mouth and my hands, because I forgot myself over and over. I still find the compass needle of my mind swinging like crazy because of other people, but there is a slowly growing space inside where I have the chance to correct myself before I derail.  Perhaps if I had read that leaflet over and over when I was 15, my soul would have continued to make progress until today?  Well, I guess in some ways it has, but wow.  It is very much like the movements of a badly drunk man.  I guess you could call it “staggering progress”… It is truly humbling (or should I say humiliating) to have wandered for 35 years and come back and see how much I truly had, if I had been able to see it.  But of course these 35 years may have been the only way to show me that, and even now I wonder if I can hold on to it.

Whatever can help me increase that space, that bubble of expanded Now between impulse and action, I want more of it.  As long as I still have time to play The Sims, right?  Right?

Millionaire of the mind

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Some people are easily fired up, but does that fire cause them to truly change, or just to glow for a while before they return to their previous state?  (Picture from the family-friendly anime “Kimi ni Todoke”.)

Earlier this week, I finished reading through Ryuho Okawa’s book, The Philosophy of Progress. After this, according to the back of the book, I will be a “millionaire in the world of the mind”.

That may not sound like much.  One image that comes to mind is the little old ladies who line up at the lottery counter in the supermarket.  Lotteries are surprisingly popular, considering how small the chances are of winning more than you lose. But I believe these people don’t take part in lotteries because they earnestly believe it is a way to get rich. Rather, it provides them with a sense of excitement. You risk something in the hope of gaining something of far greater value.  Well, I hardly have any need for that, when you realize that I am risking my very soul while I hope for spiritual immortality and enlightenment.

But the world of the mind, as Okawa sees it, is hardly a vague and hazy daydream.  It is the Real World, of which our 3-dimensional world is only a small part. Nor is it a private place.  Billions of spirits are active, far outnumbering the people on Earth, and some of them are watching over us at any time.  (Well, I suppose there may be times when modesty would cause them to look another way, but maybe not. If a spirit is sufficiently high, it is not disturbed by any event of earthly life. Or that’s what the presence in my head seems to tell me. I am not quoting Okawa on this, although the voices in his head and mine seem to agree on a lot of things.)

You will remember that shortly before I heard of Okawa or his organization “Happy Science”, I would eagerly tell you about how this physical world was just one of many world-layers, some of which were higher and some lower.  The lower worlds will be familiar to all who have daydreamed, to take an extreme example.  Such a world is private, easily malleable, and very temporary. In contrast, higher worlds are more permanent than everyday life, but also harder to change. You can vote to change a Democratic senate seat to a Republican, but you cannot vote to change the value of Ï€ or the speed of light. In the same way, you cannot change moral laws even with a filibuster-proof majority. Even though they are “all in the mind”.  Even if you cannot reach the higher worlds with an elevator or even a rocketship, they are in a sense more real than the physical world which they govern.  To learn the laws of nature and adapt to them (rather than trying to change them) is how science has made such great progress in the last few lifetimes.  Now it is time for the Science of Happiness to do the same.

I say this again, you may think that a world we can touch with our fingers must be more real than one we can visit only with our mind.  But this is not always so. It is certainly USUALLY so, because usually we visit worlds of daydream, either private or collective. But there are worlds that are prior to the physical world and rule over it, such as the laws of physics and mathematics.  These laws can not be invented, merely discovered.  In the same way, religion (properly understood) is a science of discovery.  This is why I can read a book centered in Buddhism and find useful commentary on important topics in my life as a Christian.  If religions were simply daydreams of their founders, any overlap between them would be random.  But as it is, the overlap increases the deeper you go into them.

That is not to say that there are not substantial differences of opinion between the Christ and the Buddha.  In one of his other books, Okawa narrows this down to a principal disagreement: The Buddha is far more optimistic about the strength in humans, while the Christ is focused on their weakness.  Okawa, who believes that he and the historical Buddha each come from the same spirit (of which each of them constitute about 20%), obviously sides with the more optimistic view.  He says essentially, I am not going to help you. I am going to tell you how to help yourself.

(Let me add that Jesus would likely agree about the disagreement. After his famous parable about the lost sheep, he says that there is more joy among the angels in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous who don’t need repentance.  That is a weird statement, because who are those 99 who don’t need to repent?  Have you ever met any of them?  I have my thoughts about this, but they are not yet mature enough to serve.  In any case, it is with St Paul we really get the doctrine that every human being is a totally, utterly, abominable stinking carcass of irreparable evil.  Paul gathers a selection of the harshest descriptions the Old Testament comes up with for God’s enemies, and declares this to be a full and fair description of every one of us.  I can understand Paul too, because compared to the beauty and majesty and purity of the divine, even glimpsed trough a glass darkly from a great distance, our natural condition certainly seems more like a badly wounded criminal on the run than a millionaire in the world of the mind.)

In any case, I did read the book. Now to read it again. And again, presumably.  It is rare indeed to see a publisher recommend that you read a book several times.  Normally they would want you to buy the next book; after all, that is where their money lies.  So they must have a lot of respect for Okawa to include his recommendation in their blurb.  But they do: “By repeatedly reading this book you will experience this extraordinary feeling that your soul is making great progress.”

Of course, feeling that you are making progress is subtly different from actually making progress, and I will try to bear this in mind.  After all, millions of Americans felt that they were making progress when they elected a progressive President a bit over a year ago. Many of them don’t feel that anymore.  Which of their feelings is the right one?

I believe that human minds are not easily transformed in substance. But they can more easily undergo a phase transition, like when a solid melts into a liquid and perhaps even boils and evaporates.  But when the energy from outside is removed, they condense and congeal again, to solidify in a form that may be somewhat different from before, but similar as it is of the same substance.

If I become a millionaire in knowledge but does not invest that fortune in a small grain of precious selfless love, then I am fooling myself. I am pretty good at that.

High Spirits and history

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“The cherry blossoms have not changed at all in the last thousand years….” Some things change daily, some not in a thousand years. Telling these apart is in itself a very useful skill, and can make a fool wise.

If we are to believe Happy Science (the Japanese religion movement, not just any happy scientist) there is a limited number of super high spirits for this planet, like archangels and saviors, and they are being incarnated from time to time to put history right. So this coincides with the conservative view of history I mentioned, that history is largely the work of a relatively few people, while the rest more or less drift with the currents, unaware of their part in the larger picture.

To make it worse, each of the High Spirits will show up repeatedly, making the numbers even smaller. For instance Newton was formerly Archimedes, and Buddha was Hermes (at least to some degree). So even though most of the really important people through history was one of these, there are only about 500 in total. So far Happy Science.

According to the substantially less happy science we know from ordinary history books, things were pretty harsh in the past. Life was poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short. (Not so sure about the solitary part, since people had to crowd together with aunts and cousins in tiny houses or even tents. But nasty for sure. And smelly, let’s not forget smelly. Life was poor, smelly, nasty, brutish and short. The reason Hobbes forgot to include smelly was probably that at his time, life was STILL smelly. It was also still considerably shorter than now, on average, not least on his continent.)

If we go back a few generations from Hobbes, we also have another problem: Eyeglasses were not invented yet. Therefore the few sages who actually existed (and who did not die to war or plague or infected hangnails) were rendered unable to read on their own around the age of 50. Since those who had lived that long were likely to hang on for another 20 years or so, the invention of glasses would effectively double their time as a sage. (You aren’t born a sage, you know. Well most of us aren’t.)

Now what I am trying to say is that having even a limited number of non-idiots in the past is a miracle of Biblical proportions. Even if you could read, how many books were you likely to see in a lifetime before the printing press? And how broad would the background be of those books? What were your chances of gathering the wisdom of two or three or more different cultures or religions? Add to this that some of the great minds of the past were not scribes at all, but warriors or shepherds or some such.

While some of the famous people from the past were more known for their deeds than their thoughts, it is certainly true that some had a very high level of consciousness. They had an overview of life that is rare today, even though we are so well informed. They did not have our encyclopedic knowledge, but from the knowledge they had, they came to insights that have stood the test of time.

In contrast, many people today have a fairly low level of consciousness, even though so much knowledge is readily available. They continue to blame others for problems they could easier fix by changing themselves. They believe in random conspiracy theories that are easily disproved, and their beliefs make them unhappy.

Let me take a random example, not sure if I have mentioned this before. In the western world, a very large number of women (and even some men) believe that women are systematically paid less for their work than men. This would certainly look so if you look simply at the pay checks. But let us take a few seconds to draw this to its logical conclusion. If women were generally paid less for the same work, then you could start a business and hire only women. Businesses who hired only women, or almost only, would constantly earn more money, and eventually squeeze the competition out. This would cause massive joblessness among men and lack of female workers in the private sector, causing the men who were employed at all to mainly work in government-funded jobs where profit didn’t matter. Reality check! Is this your world?

Obviously any individual woman may be underpaid. The way to find out is to look for an employer who is willing to pay more. This is the same for women, men, eunuchs and hermaphrodites. It is also the same as a potato farmer trying to sell his potatoes. He may strongly dislike that people are paying more for wheat, even though potatoes are superior in every way and deserve a much higher price. But reality takes precedence. There is no worldwide conspiracy of billions of potato-haters, and likewise there is actually no such conspiracy of misogynists. Life if tough for everyone. Projecting the cause of our unhappiness on others may seem to help for a short time, but it also keeps us from making the best out of what we actually can change, namely ourselves.

There are many, many such projections. People blame the Jews, the Muslims, the Whites, the Hispanics, the Gypsies, the Republicans, the Democrats, their parents, teachers, employers, neighbors. All of these people who are blamed have actual, real faults. Who hasn’t? But because people have a low level of consciousness, they trip over the various faults of others which they rarely can do anything about, and forget to correct their own faults which are right there for the taking. Seen from a higher perspective, these are much like an animal in a cage, which claws randomly on the walls because it is unable to figure out the fairly simple lock to the cage.

By listening to the words of high spirits, whether you believe they come down from Heaven or grow up from the Earth, you can learn from them and become more and more like them. After all, humans are born with a phenomenal ability to learn. Just to go about your daily life you need to know a large number of things. You need to know how to dress yourself, how to find your way in a town or city, basic economic knowledge like having to pay for food, and of course you probably keep track of a large number of human relationships. By applying this learning ability toward the words and deeds of the people whose lives shine across history like brilliant lights, you can rise up to become a brilliant light yourself.

It’s gonna take its sweet time though, judging by myself. Well, all the more reason to get cracking!

Infinite Prosperity

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Screenshot from the anime “The Laws of Eternity”, also by Ryuho Okawa. The protagonists visits the angelic realm in heaven and is surprised to find a number of famous Japanese industrialists there. Because creating prosperity for others is the will of the Light / God / Buddha. Just in case this wasn’t obvious, he also wrote a book about it.

Infinite prosperity — wouldn’t that be nice around now? What with the move and the frozen water pipes and all. But I am talking about the book I ordered from Amazon.co.UK before Xmas and which I found in my mailbox when I came home late yesterday. Another book by Ryuho Okawa, its full title is The Philosophy of Progress – Higher Thinking for Developing Infinite Prosperity. Both Okawa himself and the publisher inform us that the book will need to be read several times, but what don’t you do for infinite prosperity. Or even for higher thinking, I suppose. Your enthusiasm about thinking may vary. Then again, so may your prosperity.

The book is, as usual, made from several sections that originated as speeches and were later adapted to written form. They vary in tone, more than usual, with one being very simple, as if aimed at children or people with well below the IQ of the average Japanese. Okawa strives to be easy to understand, but this was unusual even for him. Anyway, the different speeches help see things from slightly different angles, which should be helpful.

This is not a New Age book about “attracting” wealth, like the popular understanding of “The Secret” and “Think and grow rich”. The idea of attracting wealth is an abomination to Okawa, as it is to any right-thinking person. On the contrary, the purpose is to CREATE prosperity, so that it flows out from you, not toward you.

In contrast to the right-thinking person, who wants to create prosperity and let it flow out to others, I sometimes talk about “left-thinking” people, who want to draw in prosperity from other people and consume it. This is of course a kick in the shin to socialism, which by historical accident has become associated with the left hand. But it actually goes much further back, to the Old Testament, where Ecclesiastes says that “The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.” (Ecclesiastes 10:2) The idea that we should all divide the cake and not bother about baking it is as foolish as they come. But this is not merely, or even mainly, a political problem.

For instance, you may feel that someone does not give you the respect you expected. A left-thinking person will say, out loud or in their mind: “You better respect me!” They may then go on to treat the other person with disrespect and even encourage others to do the same, to restore the balance. But a right-thinking person will first jump to another conclusion: “Perhaps that person sees some flaw in me that I have overlooked, or perhaps I have just not done enough to merit their respect. I have to do better.” It may of course be that the other person lacks respect and gratitude in general, but unless you are their parent, this is not something you can fix directly. And it could certainly also happen that you just haven’t done anything particularly impressive. (I know this is generally the case for me, but then I don’t expect much above bare civility either.)

Now in all fairness Okawa is mainly a spiritual teacher, and so the prosperity he talks about is mainly spiritual. But he certainly isn’t opposed to a little cash for the true believers. He does discuss Jesus’ warning about rich people, camels and needle eyes. Much like me, Okawa believes the problem was attachment to material things, rather than the things themselves. (Not unexpected, since Okawa claims to be the Buddha reborn and the Buddha was very much about getting rid of attachment.) Unlike me though, Okawa is fairly optimistic about people having lots of money without getting attached to it. That may be doable for someone who vividly remembers being king of Atlantis and stuff like that. But for us commoners, it is hard to not get carried away by riches. I would not be so sanguine about it. I’m more with Jesus on this one. Big surprise, eh?

Okawa does make the valid point that these days, if you go the route of poverty you will be tempted by communism. Jesus presumably did not have that dilemma. Also, according to Okawa, it would be a problem if only bad people got rich and not good people, because the bad people would have way more power compared to their numbers, and there is plenty enough of bad people in power as is. My problem with this is the good people who turn to bad people when they get rich, because they fall in love with the power and prestige and forget their original purpose in life. I tend to hold the attitude of Proverbs 30: Give me neither poverty nor riches, “Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD ?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” Of course, “not poverty” today is a bit different from 3000 years ago…

Luckily Okawa goes on to focus in great detail on the purpose of progress in this world. It is not to hoard stuff for ourselves, but to expand our mission of causing as much happiness as possible in this world while we are here. And financial progress is only one contribution to that, not the goal. For instance, a company cannot be said to truly make progress if the employees don’t feel joy about working there. A company should be run in such a way that the happiness of the employees and business associates increases over time. The company should also contribute to society through taxes. Okawa foretells continued decline for America as long as the nation continues to see tax evasion as an admirable activity.

(As leader for the Happiness Realization Party, Okawa favors drastic tax cuts in Japan. What he refers to in his book is presumably not having as high taxes as possible, but being as honest as possible and paying the taxes intended by the society you live in.)

The book is quite multifaceted, as are his books in general. One of the unsuspected jewels appears while he discusses the hells relevant to greedy people, the Hell of Hungry Spirits and the Hell of Strife. While there anyway, he stops by the Hell of Lust for a paragraph or two. I think I will write about that in a separate entry, if ever.

Anyway, to not get completely lost in the details: Prosperity is not about having lots of money. That’s incidental, although people who know the Truth cannot possibly become destitute. True prosperity is about manifesting an ever increasing amount of happiness: First in your own life, and as soon as practically possible to begin spreading this happiness to people around you, in ever wider circles, until the whole world is brightly lit with hope and joy.

Okawa should know what he speaks of in this regard. From being a fairly ordinary young man he has brought forth an organization that is dedicated to creating utopia through love, wisdom, self-reflection and progress. Millions of people have bought at least some of his books, and if they enjoyed them as much as I do, that is a good amount of happiness right there.  And take my word for it, it is not easy to write in a way that fills people with hope and strength of will. I’m still working on it though!

As I said when I ordered the book: “When I have infinite prosperity, I’ll be sure to share it with my friends.” Work in progress!