Category Archives: review

Review: “Tips to Find Happiness”

Posted on by
Reply

Suitable illustration picture from the animated movie “The Laws of Eternity”, also by Ryuho Okawa. Florence Nightingale points out that it’s up to us to become the force of love. This book applies this to the family, for those who have that.

I already finished reading through the book “Tips to Find Happiness” by Ryuho Okawa. It is fairly short, and quite a page turner, so it did not take me long to finish it.

Like several of his books, this one is mostly down to earth. There is no way to guess from the book itself that the author is worshiped as a living Buddha and divine savior of all mankind by thousands of Japanese. Sure, he does recommend his own books and recordings of his lectures to help drive away negative spiritual influences, but then again he hardly consider these “stray spirits” a worthy adversary: He compares them to roaches. Clean up your soul and keep it bright, and they won’t appear.

Most of the book consists of practical advice in different situations of life, with focus on the family. It is clear that Master Okawa favors traditional gender roles, which are still common in Japan. Here in Scandinavia a woman is just as likely to work outside the home if her husband is rich as if he is poor, whereas in Japan it seems to still be a bit of a shame to need your wife to work to pay the bills. In any case, workplace stress is seen as a common reason for disturbances in the family, and the home is seen as a place to unwind in a constructive manner. Parents are encouraged to spend time with their children, and spouses to be accepting of each other’s faults and rather work on their own.

There are also other themes, like how to live with elderly relatives, and how elderly relatives should live out their life. An intriguing advice (also found in another of his English books) is to assume a lifespan of 120 years. If you are called home before that, so be it, but it would be a shame to end up finishing your life while still alive and have to just sit down and die for lack of reason to live.

(Master Okawa does not mention this, but life expectancy in the developed world is still increasing with approximately 5 hours a day. Yes, despite getting fatter, we are still living longer. So it is not entirely impossible that Japanese in particular, already a long-lived people, may actually live to see 120. A few people already do. I guess it would suck to spend the last 40 of those just tossing and turning in bed! But most old people die quickly when they no longer have anything to live for. This may well be a mercy.)

Overall, the small book, based on questions from his readers, is an easy read and quite practical. It will appeal only to conservatives and preferably those at least a bit religious though. I cannot imagine a liberal feeling happy about reading this book.

There is some reincarnation stuff, about how the spirits of future children match up with their parents and such. This makes up only a small part of the book though, and Christian readers can safely ignore this. Of course, Christianity also includes some degree of reincarnation (of the spirit, not the soul) but it is a fringe part of the religion and most Christians barely even know about it. Most of the rest of the book should be familiar to the western reader though.

Infinite Prosperity

Posted on by
2

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!

“This is my road”

Posted on by
Reply

di091018

Beautiful colors and beautiful music.

Lately I have watched some early episodes of the anime Guin Saga. At first I liked it: It was drawn with unusual beauty and rich colors that made the imaginary world seem intense and larger than life.  And there was the ending song, Saga by Kanon.  I was amazed to hear the beginning of it, which did not sound Japanese at all. And indeed it was not, at least not the lyrics: “Benedictus qui venit in nomine – in nomine domini. Hosanna in excelsis.” Then it switched to English: “This is my road” and eventually Japanese. The melody changed as well, though it is still beautiful, albeit not as ethereal as for the first breaths.  It flits fluently back and forth between English and Japanese. The girl pronounces the English perfectly (although she falters slightly at the Latin) – I have later found that there is in fact a full English version of the song, although it is subtly different from the mixed-language version, as can be expected.

The anime, unfortunately, let me down over time. There is a darkness running through it that disagrees with me (though I am sure many like it), an undercurrent of betrayal and helplessness, not only versus others but also toward the characters’ own feelings, an overwhelming fate which only the greatest hero can stand against, and even then with difficulty and the occasional help of some unknown greater power. The bleakness of the characters and their world contrasts painfully with the beauty of the art and music. It is unlikely to be resolved either, for the work on which the anime is based stretched well past 100 books and ended unfinished through the death of the author.  There may some kind of irony in this, and a lesson for me as well.

The song is still beautiful though.  It and the pictures gave probably at least some of the inspiration to the story idea I wrote about yesterday.  Certainly when I listened to the song afterwards, I could see how it resonated in parts with what I wanted to write.

As usual, translation is almost certainly erroneous in some detail but tries to catch the impression on me when I am in doubt. The translation from Latin is pretty exact though, and the English words, which I will mark in the text, remain unchanged. For the time being, you can hear the original on YouTube.

Blessed is he who comes in the name – the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. / This is my road, it shows me where to go. Here I stand, this is where I am.  The faces of my parents are faded far away, yet when I close my eyes I can still hear their voice. This is my road, and I keep walking it, surpassing even endless time itself. This is my life, and I open the door; together with my destiny I make my own road.

Now that I look at it, it is disturbingly similar to my story idea, although I have probably bent both of them a little to get closer to each other.  But the concept in particular of surpassing or eclipsing or overcoming time is one I have specifically picked up from Japanese songs, where it appears in various forms.  In fact, the entry that kind of set off my new direction – six years ago already – was about “surpassing numerous destinies while one is alive”. Or at least that was how I saw it translated.  I understood even less Japanese then.  I suppose now that it could also mean “many people surpassing fate in their lifetime”, but I kinda like the idea of passing several lives’ worth of destiny in one lifetime.  If it was ever possible, this is the time, and we are the ones who are called – challenged -  or tempted? – to do it. You may say, that in September 2003 I started on another destiny.  I guess that is what some people call “midlife crisis”, except for me it is the opposite of a crisis, it is an opportunity, a door to brightness opening in a dimly lit room.

So if I get the opportunity to write that story, it will be about myself, in the most abstract sense imaginable.  As if condensing my life into one sentence, forgetting everything that made that sentence come into being, and expand it again into a book.

Perhaps I should stick with non-fiction.  But people would probably not know it was non-fiction or even believe it if I said it.   And yet, this is my road…

More happy science books

Posted on by
Reply

di0908026

Received two more books in the mail from Amazon.co.uk:Guideposts to Happiness and The Laws of Happiness.Well, actually these were the two first physical books, the other two were e-books from ebookmall. Since I am still in my Happy Science fad, these are books by Ryuho Okawa. And they are quite good too. Of course, I expected that, as I had read excerpts from them on Google Books before ordering them.

These books have no interstellar travel or sinking continents. Even the detailed strata of the spiritual world are toned way down. Instead they mostly contain heaps of practical advice for modern people, with some theoretical groundwork of why some things lead to success and others to failure, some to happiness and some to misery.

One thing I noticed is that Okawa does not use aphorism. There are few if any short soundbites that you can underline and make into a motivational poster. Instead he usually conveys a point over 2-3 sentences of average length. Just too long for a snap quote, but very easy to understand.

Another part of his writing, which is very refreshing, is how freely he admits that he has had to grow with his tasks himself. When Happy Science was a new and small organization, he had only a moderate number of followers who were all spiritual but with fairly simple needs. He felt quite adequate to the task and confident in his abilities. But then all kinds of different people started joining, and the first ones started to become quite advanced. Suddenly he found himself at his limits, but as soon as he acknowledged these limits, he began to surpass them. So even though he sees himself as a kind of Messiah, he has had to improve himself a lot. The good news is that anyone can do that, with the right mindset.

Overall, I find it hard to deny that this man has a high spirit. He seems genuinely interested in helping people improve, and has the wisdom to do so in a simple, practical way. He does not peddle a quick cure, like you see in some modern self-help books. And he certainly doesn’t go “Just believe in me, your savior, and things will get easy”. Not at all. For a supposed sect leader, he is amazingly practical and realistic in these books. In so far as he mentions himself and his organization at all, it is as examples, drawing lessons from his own history.

The Laws of Happiness even has a section on how to succeed in your job. That was quite an eye-opener for me. Perhaps I will write about it in more detail later.

The last half of the book is unabashedly religious, but still fairly generic, using well-known concepts from Christianity and Buddhism. Once again, there isn’t much sectarian about this. If you believe you have an immortal spirit (or immortal soul, as most westerners erroneously calls it) then most of it will make sense. If not, well, the book is cheap and the first half should be useful even for those who break out in rashes on seeing the word “God”. There is also a good deal of practical advice in the last half, if you can read it without getting upset. Taking time to reflect on what you have done, or believing that our thoughts affect our lives, is not something that requires a specific named god. Although having one does not hurt either.

For the curious, there is a section about IRH, the Institute for Research in human Happiness, the precursor to Happy Science. (The Japanese name was always the shorter version.) One amusing fact is that they originally required a written application and a test, but when they expanded overseas, they were told that religions are not supposed to have tests, they are supposed to be open for anyone. So they changed their policy on that. I must admit I kind of liked the original approach. If people had to take a thorough Bible quiz to become Christians, we might be spared some pretty noisy and offensive people claiming to represent our religion. Actually, I think you need something like that to convert to Catholicism, but don’t quote me on that, I have it secondhand. (Third hand for you, then, and who has three hands?)

Still reading Guideposts, but it has some fascinating stuff too. Things that make me go “Wow, I never thought of that, now it makes sense!” That is kind of disturbing, but I accept what I can use. I cannot afford to reject truth just because it comes from an unlikely source. I don’t believe just any spirit, but seek to try everything and keep what is good. Light willing, I shall try to share some of the goodness in the near future.

Or you could get the books yourself, I guess, but I don’t know… If I had read them 20 years ago, would they have helped me at all? Almost certainly not. Even five years ago, I am not sure I would have been able to see some of what I see now. It is as if there is this huge puzzle and I have been able to see an outline for a good long time, but only the last few years are a lot of pieces starting to come together at great speed, as if handed to me just in time. So I cannot guarantee that the books will do you good, or even that they won’t do you harm. But me, I am impressed.

Books: The Laws of the Sun / Eternity

Posted on by
1

di0908022

A world where benevolent spirits regularly assist humanity, and where humans again can become angels and help others? Who wouldn’t like that? (Picture from the anime “The Laws of Eternity”, based on the book with the same name.)

I got my first two Happy Science books! (Although it was called Institute for Research in Human Happiness at the time the book was printed, it is the same organization, Kofuku-no-Kagaku.) I mentioned this briefly on Thursday. As I try to write a review of sorts, I will treat the two books together, as they are very similar. The Laws of the Sun is more focused on history and giving an overview, while The Laws of Eternity goes into more detail on the Spirit World, but they are both set in the same world. They are part of a trilogy, with The Golden Laws still missing from my collection. That one is supposed to go into recorded history in greater detail, chronicling the lives of Moses, Jesus, Gautama Buddha etc.

First let me mentally prepare the casual reader that these books can be read in two very different ways. You can take them as a description of our reality, or think of them as describing an alternate version of our world. If so, it is a world with far more depth: This planet alone exists in 10 dimensions, of which we live in only 3. Our biosphere is surrounded by that of the fourth dimension, which again is surrounded by the fifth and so on. The total population of humanoids in these spiritual realms exceeds the people on Earth by a factor of ten, so it is no wonder the spirits are constantly interfering in life on Earth.

If you have a hard time thinking of anything supernatural that you have seen or heard of from sane people, you are probably going to treat this as science fiction. But with Happy Science already having about 10 million members after a generation, there seems to be a good number of people who think otherwise. And I can certainly see why: It is a world I’d love to live in myself. Unlike some religions, it really has a happy attitude. Hell is considered a corner of the fourth dimension, and plays the role of a temporary purgatory rather than eternal damnation. The vast majority of spirits are benevolent, and many of them are quite powerful. The people in this world can easily have the same kind of experience that I have of not being alone and receive encouragement and advice from an invisible companion.

The Laws of the Sun also presents a world with a far longer history of human habitation, going back to the age of the dinosaurs, and mentioning several waves of immigration from other planets. And continents rise and sink several times per million years, unlike the leisurely pace we are used to. This is because the planet Earth has its own godlike consciousness and reacts violently to human crimes, such as killing Jesus. We got away easy last time, but the Atlanteans were not so lucky when they buried him alive with most of his family. Jesus, Buddha, Newton and several others are fairly regular visitors according to these books.

When I just present these things out of context, you probably get the distinct impression that you have to be an idiot to believe these books and Happy Science in general. While it is certainly not hard to imagine there being 10 million idiots in the world, or even in Japan, this would be a grave failure. The books have a completely different side that I will now go into. They are deeply pious and contain treasures of wisdom.

This is the thing that keeps me confused about the books and the organization in general, as I already said before. When it comes to human life, there are profound insights that are likely to help the average person improve their lot in this world (and the next, if any) greatly over time.

There is also a calm acceptance of human weakness and folly, quite different from the fire and brimstone anger found in some religious books. It is as if the author has no dark repressed wishes that comes out the back door in the form of flaming hate against this or that particular type of sinner. For people familiar with American religion, for instance, this difference is pretty dramatic. Sure, you can go to Hell, but it is for your own good. Not because God is angry, or even because you deserve it. In Hell you get to play out those dark fantasies that you secretly believed in, and see what they result in. Hopefully you sooner or later wake up to your true nature as a shining diamond, a child of the Creator, and everything will make sense.

Now the Christian reader may find this theology unbearably liberal, but instead of going on and on about the eternal damnation, the books go on and on about the glories of Heaven. Or the Heavens, rather, as these are the afore mentioned higher dimensions. And Okawa manages to make them seem really attractive, places you’d want to go even if it means spending your free time polishing your soul. Whereas most people probably at one time or another has questioned the fun of playing harps on a cloud or singing Hallelujah for an indeterminable length of time, any good-hearted people would probably feel right at home in one of the many heavens described here. Take pride in your work? Like to make others smile? Come to Heaven! We have limitless job opportunities for people like you, and you can continue to improve yourself over countless eons until you have godlike powers to bless others. Of course, you won’t be able to use those powers for selfish means, but blessing others is the true happiness anyway.

And this is the red thread that runs through the books (and also other books I have read excerpts from). It is a deep and real understanding of what happiness is, what love is, and how it corresponds to everyday life. According to Happy Science, the primary source of happiness is a love that gives. Receiving love is important to humans, and can make the difference between despair and joy. Receiving love is like getting water in the desert. But far greater is the love that gives: It is like a river itself, that flows in cascading waterfalls from the higher heavens through the lowers until it reaches us here on earth, and even Hell itself will become a Heaven if reached by love. A person who is full of giving love will belong to Heaven already in this life.

I agree without reservation with this. As does Jesus Christ, evidently, since he is quoted in one of the oldest books in the New Testament as saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Jesus is, not by accident I think, also a favorite inspiration in Okawa’s books, despite his own Japanese background. Or perhaps because of it? I sometimes think that we have become immunized by the contemporary religion so that we don’t see the revolutionary message of Jesus, while a stranger may be astonished by it.

Apart from a theory of happiness, there is also one of the best definitions of love that I have seen so far (and I have written quite a few of those here over the years, as my own view has changed, generally becoming more cynical over the years.) To Okawa, love is the power that unites. It unites man and woman, parent and child, teacher and student, doctor and patient, coworkers, entire nations. Wherever we are pulled together into greater unity, the power of love is at work. As we ascend through the heavens, love intensifies, because we become more at one with each other. At the very top, after all, God is One, the Father of all. Therefore, the closer we come to The One, the closer we come to each other. Elementary, my dear Watson!

I hope you now see my dilemma. The clarity of this man’s practical spiritual wisdom is embedded in books that read like the manual of a science fiction roleplaying game. Which is it? Of course, some of the more blasphemous readers would say the same about the Bible. Woe unto you! Fire and brimstone… oh, wait…

The Laws of Eternity (anime)

Posted on by
Reply

di090807

Get on this spiritual elevator…  I think that is what the movie was meant to be too. But like this contraption, it will probably not work for everyone.

This animated movie is beautiful, preachy, thought-provoking, and made by a religious organization that encourages selfless service and high technology, thus their name “Happy Science”. The movie, as a good spiritual elevator, starts at the bottom, assuming that you know nothing about Happy Science. For most non-Japanese (and probably most Japanese too) this is a pretty safe assumption. In fact, the movie does not require more than the most cursory idea about religion at all.

It starts in New York, as three friends visit the Edison Museum. They read a newspaper article from when Edison was alive, claiming that he was working on a “spirit phone” that would let people talk to the dead. (Evidently this was a joke Edison really pulled on reporters, not just in the anime.) The three friends are the Japanese Ryuta, his blond Caucasian friend Patrick, and their dark Hispanic friend Roberto. Given that this is a Japanese movie, feel free to guess who the main character is. When they come home, they are joined by the girl Yuko, a friend of them all but particularly Ryuta. (She is Japanese as well.) But before that, they have met a Native American shaman with a message from Edison: How to build the spirit phone!

Through hard work and genius (and a little prayer from the girl, who goes to a religious school), our friends complete the spirit phone and make contact with Edison. He congratulates them, but fades away while saying something about trouble, danger and help. But how will our friends help someone who is in the other world? Luckily, the machine activates again and brings a message from an ancient Incan shaman, God Eagle. After Yuko teaches them basic meditation, God Eagle is able to take their minds to the spirit realm without dying first. This is where the adventure really takes off.

They arrive in the fourth dimension, which we may call the first heaven. People here get used to living as spirits. Because they can now move freely along the time dimension at all, the people here have much more freedom than those on earth. However, not all are found worthy to get here. Probably the most disturbing part of the movie is the judgment of the recently dead. They are required to watch a movie of their lives, with their thoughts in life as soundtrack, together with their deceased friends and relatives. After that, the audience advises them on whether they should go to Heaven or Hell. O_O This is where I think the movie loses its otaku audience: If you’re an otaku, you know quite well that your dead great-grandma would tell you to go to Hell, if she saw you spending your days watching anime instead of studying. You would not feel inclined to take her advice though.

Actually, you don’t need to. Because the afterlife is entirely maintained by the mind, you can go to Heaven and still end up in Hell if that’s where you fit the best. This is shown on two occasions. First, right after arriving in the fourth dimension, Patrick and Roberto get into a quarrel, and the ground opens beneath their feet. They are snatched in the fall by God Eagle. However, having failed to learn their lesson in full, they eventually get jealous when their Japanese friends get through The Narrow Gate to the seventh dimension and they don’t. This time they go to Hell proper and are captured by Nietzsche and later chased by Hitler and an enormous, evil armored elephant. Hey, it’s an anime after all!

Unlike Dante, however, this movie is much more interested in showing off Heaven than Hell. So before this problem with Hell, all our friends move on to the fifth and sixth dimension. They find a place of striking beauty and a heavenly laboratory where scientists continue making inventions and artists continue making art. To get to the world of the angels and bodhisattvas, however, they need to do selfless service. This is where our foreign friends fail: They do their service, but they expect to be thanked and rewarded. They could have stayed in the pretty sixth dimension (that would be the third heaven), but they just could not get over being snubbed by God. They grow evil inside and utter blasphemy. Down they go!

Meanwhile the angels in Dimension 7 explain the meaning of many things to our main characters. Trying to improve the lot of others through selfless service is what angels /bodhisattvas do. (In this movie, angels are treated as former humans, rather than separate creations. Actually they correspond more to the Catholic and Orthodox notion of saints. But again, this is translated from Japanese, so give them some room. Even many westerners don’t know the difference.) These holy beings may choose be born on Earth to make some difference here. Some of them even go down to Hell to rescue the damned who have had some time to reflect on their present condition.

This is borne out in the movie, and we have some high drama and action. Ryuta turns out to have unsuspected spiritual powers, and his girl friend (who is by now starting to realize that she is also his girlfriend) seems to amplify them. They defeat Nietzsche, then Hitler by the power of their love and escape from Hell with their friends, an army of demons on their heels. Luckily the angels have been warned and stand ready to defend Heaven from the dark incursion. Order is restored, and Ryuta and Yuko are rewarded with a ticket to the the ninth dimension, the home of the world’s highest humanoid gods: Jesus, Moses, Confucius, Newton, and the big boss himself, El Cantare, formerly known as Buddha, Hermes and several others.

Unfortunately, this is where the movie goes downhill in my eyes. Not that the 9th dimension is not impressive, but our hero goes there specifically to learn the reason for the world’s existence and secrets like that. In the end, however, the secret knowledge he is given, is unlocking his memory of his incarnation in Atlantis, and finding out that Yuko was his girlfriend already then.

Perhaps I am just crazy, but if I got an appointment with GOD in Heaven, I would not be interested in who my soulmate was, but rather something more cosmic, please. Then again, this may be because I don’t have a soulmate. Or perhaps this may be why I don’t have a soulmate… Anyway, Ryuta and Yuko seem very satisfied with the revelation, and vow to live lives worthy of the truth they have seen in the spirit realm. They seem to also have gained the ability to see the radiance of angels that are incarnated as babies. After a long love song, the movie ends.

This review may sound cynical, but the truth is that I found the movie surprisingly uplifting. Part of it is probably that its worldview has so much in common with my own, what with the successive layers of reality being ever more luminous and powerful, but also ever more demanding of those who would visit them. I have written a lot about this already, have I not? I was around 20 when this notion started to burrow into me, and pestering me to write a novel about it. I still haven’t managed to write that novel, but now I have realized that we all visit other worlds with our mind, that the body can not follow. As such, the plot of this movie hits home.

I don’t see myself bowing down to worship El Cantare, honestly. But I feel that I have gained an added respect for my own religion, and many other. This would probably not have happened if I was at the “science must die so Noah can live” stage of religion (the Blue level in Spiral Dynamics), but at the “Adam & Evolution” stage (Yellow level) I am willing to try everything and keep what is good. And that, frankly, is what one should do even if not religious at all. If it makes you feel like you want to do good to people and be impressed with the universe, it is probably worth watching. And watching again.

Too many bodies!

Posted on by
Reply

di090315

Aaaaaa!  Dr Manhattan can’t understand why his girlfriend would want one of him but not two. It only gets worse as she finds the rest of him. Unfortunately the movie is not available for my picture taking yet, so the comic shall do.

Much as I tend to sympathize with Dr Manhattan, my problem is somewhat different. It is with the supposedly non-fiction book I’m making my way through these days, Integral Life Practices. I have finally made my way through the Mind module; it was quite long, as could be expected since the book was overseen by Ken Wilber, and the AQAL theory is his gift to the world. Then I came to the Body module. I expected various smart training techniques, but the first thing that happened was that I was told I had 3 bodies.

Oooo-kay. Uhm, I seem to have 3 bodies all of a sudden.

Now, before we consign our new friends to the loony bin, there is a question we need to ask ourselves. Do we ever dream lucid dreams? Not as in dreaming about Lucy, although I suppose that could happen too, but dreams in which we know we are dreaming and yet we keep doing it. I know I have done that, but only a few times and not for long. I have not specifically sought it out, to be honest, because I like to have some time off and my dreams are definitely “off”. I am known to do things in them that I would not dream about doing in waking life.

Some otherwise normal people do some lucid dreaming, however. And people who have greatly expanded their awareness through years of meditation can, from what I understood, not really avoid being conscious even if they happen to dream. Or even, eventually, during deep dreamless sleep. I have only once, by accident, been down there with my awareness. It’s a pretty weird place. Anyway! When you are dreaming, you seem to have a body. Evidently this is the “subtle body” which is your second body. And then there is the even more subtle “causal body” made of stillness, which you have during deep sleep. So that’s the excuse. I guess it makes sense, for sufficiently obscure translations of “body”.

Regular readers of the Chaos Node may notice that the three bodies seem to map fairly well to my concepts of body, soul (psyche) and spirit. I suppose the concept of them all as bodies may be for the purpose of combining them, as the rest of the chapter does. As can be expected of an integral practice, their recommended exercises combine all three: Infusing physical exercise with the energy and feeling of the psyche and the witnessing presence of the human spirit. More exactly, each exercise starts out with “grounding” in the witnessing presence, then doing energy-raising exercises, then the actual strength training, then a cooldown and finally a repeat focus on the witnessing presence.

More weird English: The typical way of invoking the witnessing presence is to “Notice the such-ness and is-ness of this and every moment.” I assume this is translated from Sanskrit or Pali or some such, it is certainly not English. Although I suppose the German noun “Dasein” may have inspired one of the phrases. (Not to be confused with Dasien, an online comic superheroine who has never suffered from Wilberitis.)

More about this later, probably, if my own body / bodies hold up.

Bringing awareness into everything

Posted on by
Reply

di090314

Open your mind… and look inside.

I have continued reading Integral Life Practice, which I guess is a small form of integral life practice on its own.

I mean, there is reading and there is reading and there is reading. On one end of the spectrum there is escapism reading, the “trashy novel” and such, which lets the reader enjoy a freedom from the normal restraints, and escape into what I call “lower worlds” where you feel powerful and your surroundings easily conform to your fantasies. On the other extreme is the contemplative reading of Holy Scripture, in which your purpose is to ascend to a “higher world” which is greater than you and commands your awe and obedience. And of course in between these you have the purely informative non-fiction, which sets out to inform us about the “real world” in which our bodies already live.

Integral Life Practice does not qualify as Holy Scripture – Ken Wilber’s AQAL is a philosophical system rather than a religion – but neither is the book purely informative. It seeks to inspire the reader to grow toward his highest potential. As such, it transports the mind to a slightly higher reality which you then have to move your real life into by living a disciplined life to some extent. The discipline in this case is the Integral Life Practice from which the book has taken its name.

I have now come to the Mind module, the second of the four main modules. A central tenet of ILP is that you have to practice something from each of the four modules every day, even if it is just a tiny 1-minute exercise. The Mind module centers on the AQAL system itself. It sees reality as consisting of four quadrants. Things can be either internal (to the mind) or external (physical). They can also be either individual or collective, or should we say singular and plural. But all these things are explained lucidly by Wilber himself for free on the Net. Likewise the concept of lines, in this case lines of development. For instance you can be highly developed along the cognitive line (you’re smart!) but poorly along the moral line (you’re a scoundrel). Likewise you can be spiritually advanced but neglect your body. And so on – there are a number of lines, mostly taken from decades of science done by others.

Now the idea is that you can use the “practices” to shore up the lines that are lagging disastrously, especially if they are main lines. (Your musical skills may or may not have a bearing on your life, although they could certainly enrich it if you have the opportunity. Your interpersonal development is pretty much essential, unless you are a hermit in this life and aiming for Nirvana – extinction – in the next.) Besides getting out of trouble with your weak spots, you can also identify your special talents and develop these for the good of the world. Evidently mediocrity does not command much sympathy in the AQAL camp – there is little mention of the lines where you have just trudged along passably.

The authors make special note of the fact that several spiritual teachers of great repute have had their life and teaching marred by sexual misbehavior. This is not a purely American thing, I remember the elders in the Christian Church pointing out the same trend among the more airy wing of the Pentecostal movement. This is what happens when one thinks spiritual growth can run ahead without Shadow Work. The Church was big on Shadow Work, at least in its early years. The thing is, if you have this kind of weak spots, they can totally ruin all the good you thought you could do.

The purpose of the Mind module is basically to make the reader aware of all the different facets of daily life: The quadrants, the lines, the levels and the types. By bringing awareness into everything, we get new choices. We don’t need to react automatically, as we often do. Merely knowing that things have different sides, and that people are different in so many ways, can be helpful. But awareness is something more than just bookish knowledge. It requires us to be present and witness the things we are aware of. This is where the practices – exercises, if you will – come in. And that is why we should think of AQAL every day.

I think this is a most excellent idea, to shine awareness into every corner of our daily life. Whether this really is the ultimate Theory of Everything, and whether it does a better job than certain other life practices, is open to debate. But given the human tendency to shrink back from awareness and into an automated life, I can only cheer on this attempt to go in the opposite direction.

Shadow work

Posted on by
Reply

di090313

You don’t need to know what a Kokuchi is – the link to darkness is true for even the most trivial of “possessions”.  Whenever we have to say “I don’t know what possessed me”, the shadow was there.

Let’s continue looking at my latest purchase, the book Integral Life Practice which I wrote about yesterday. The first of the four essential modules is the Shadow Module. I think this is an unfortunate placement, albeit understandable.  The authors have reason to be excited that they have included this module at all.  If you think “shadow work” is an alien phrase in mainstream literature, imagine the New Age movement where people start their day with positive affirmations of the type “I am God. I attract health, wealth and happiness.  I deserve to be happy.  I manifest everything I want by the power of my mind.”

Long time readers will be familiar with my studies of automisanthropology, the science of why I, of all people, am up to no good. I have been at this since my youth, and consider it a major reason why I am generally happy in my near-hermit life. Living closely with oneself without having done shadow work is likely to be uncomfortable if not outright dangerous. So yeah, shadow work for the win!

However! In the book, this is the first of the four basic modules. And while the authors sensibly mention that a good therapist is the common way to go about it, they don’t let this stop them for long. After all, you may not be able to or willing to see a mental health practitioner. So they quickly move on to their quick, bare-bones gold star method for assimilating your shadow, the 3-2-1 method.  This name comes from the starting point of thinking of the shadow in the third person, as something remote and external; then talking to it in the second person, as a “you”, and finally assimilating it into the first person, I.

This probably works, with some practice. And the book is all about practice – it’s actually in its name. But perhaps you should wait a little longer before you set off to reclaim the parts of yourself that you have thrown down the stairs to the basement and locked the door after. Because there may just be a reason why one would go to such an extreme step with a part of oneself.

Shadow work is not a hobby, to be undertaken for the excitement of it. At the very least pick your shadows carefully, because you really don’t want them to take over your house and throw you down the stairs to the basement, then lock the door.

The authors have been practicing various self-strengthening techniques for many years. In order for you too to be able to face your own shadow, you should first make sure your body, mind and spirit are not a total wreck. If you worship a god, be sure to enlist its help too. I agree that shadow work should be done concurrently with the other three, but I would like to put it at number 4 rather than number 1. It should be approached with great caution, after careful preparation.  But approached it must be, eventually.

Overall, we aim to gradually increase awareness in our lives.  Awareness is the silver bullet, the panacea, the skeleton key, the cheat code to the game of life. (OK, actually it is more like the “sudo” command in Linux, in that you have to use it over and over, not once and for all. But you get the point.)  As we gradually raise our awareness in all parts of our lives, we cannot avoid becoming aware of our projections and our repressed parts. In which case we have to either take a good hard look at them, or give up this whole awareness thing and shrink back to a more constrained state of mind with fewer choices and more slavery.

As I said on September 16, 2001: If you want to see the rainbow, you have to face your own shadow.  I mean that literally:  This is the way light works in the natural world. But it also has some deeper meaning. The rainbow, in the ancient Hebrew myth of Noah’s Flood, was God’s promise that he would never utterly destroy the world.  But if we want that hope, we have to face our shadow.

More about the book later, Light willing.

Integral Life Practice – first look

Posted on by
Reply

di090312 Proof that I have at least unpacked it!

So I have cracked open the book I got in the mail the other day. I have even read the first chapters. Obviously I can’t give anything like a sensible review until I have either read it through or thrown it in the recycling bin. Even then, I shall have to be cautious, for this is a book that could save or damn the world.

The concept of integral life practices looks very much like what I in my near future fiction called “the Innerways”. This is not surprising, since when I made that concept, I already had a cursory knowledge of Ken Wilber’s theories, and had taken an interest in them since they resonated with my own writing about what I call “the Next Big Thing”, the necessary shift in human consciousness to enable our new role as stewards of the planet rather than simply one of its millions of species. The way from our current halfway apelike state to that frightening responsibility goes through the Innerways, the practices that prepare each of us to reach our highest aspiration. The book Integral Life Practice is an attempt at just that, guiding individuals onto the beginning of those paths.

For those who haven’t read or don’t remember my series of essays in 2005 (starting June 18), let me briefly state my own position. This is one of the most important things I have written about. In fact, it is one of the few important things I have ever written. So bear with me for a paragraph.

Our ancestors until around 60 000 years ago did not have culture as we know it. Well, recent findings show outbreaks of it here and there in Africa, but scattered and temporary. Mostly they lived like their ancestors a million years earlier, despite having the same body and brain as us. At some point there was an explosion of creativity, traditionally associated with the invention of abstract language, although we don’t really know that. There has been a lot of upgrades since then, but none nearly as fundamental. There is a gaping abyss between any healthy human today, even the naked Stone Age hunters of the jungle, and our ancestors who knew nothing of inspiration or aspiration. A similar leap, I believe, is about to happen again. The Ice Age mind will give way to something so much greater that it is hard to believe we are the same species. Either that, or we’ll all die terribly along with most of the planet’s higher life.

The Innerways – or integral life practices – are the perfectly natural, non-magical things we can do while we are ordinary humans, but which will at the same time move us toward the next stage. It may be that we who live today will never be part of the next phase – actually, I am pretty sure of this – but we have to move in that direction, so that the next generation can stand on our shoulders and reach for the stars. We may not become more than human, but we have an obligation to become more human than we were.

The genius insight of Integral Life Practice is to serve a “balanced diet” of such practices, which can mutually strengthen each other. This is not a new concept – “a healthy soul in a healthy body” is an ideal that has lasted for millennia. But it is extended to four core areas: Body, mind, spirit and shadow. (Shadow here refers to the subconscious, not to demon worship or some such.) I know many people today think that spirit may be an epiphenomenon, kind of like the sun seems to rise and set while in reality it is the earth that rotates. But even if you don’t believe the sun rises, you would still be a fool to think the night will last forever. In the same way, spirit is an experienced reality, and you ignore it at your own cost. Spirit – in the form of aspiration and inspiration, at the very least – has been with us since we became human.

This was pretty random, as can be expected of a chaotic mind in a sick body after a brief look at the beginning of a new book. I am not going to recommend it just yet, but I sincerely hope to complete it and test its basic ideas – to the extent that I have not accidentally tested them already. The terrain seems strangely familiar.

Oh, and one more thing: The book is a very accessible read for something so groundbreaking.

PS: I found that the book was also recommended by Bill Harris, of HoloSync fame. It is a small world Integral movement after all!