To live a happy life, I believe you need two things:
A sense that life has meaning.
A sense that the afterlife has meaning.
The first one is, of course, to make this life happy. You’re here for a purpose and that purpose gives your life meaning and meaning gives happiness.
The second one is to give even death meaning.
Both is needed to give your life balance.
If you only believed in 1, you’d probably live in fear of death.
If you only believed in 2, you would rob your current life of meaning, and also of happiness. (And, worst case scenario, join a death cult or something similarly crazy… :))
If you believe that life has a meaning, you can go into bad situations, even horrible ones, with the mindset that you’re going to learn something, find the meaning, understand the purpose.
Even if the purpose is to only experience pain and sorrow, these are experiences, and they are important to you, and the path you’re on.
Maybe one meaning of life, as we live it on this planet, in this universe, is to learn to deal with randomness?
Life is a dream of the spirit.
– Do you believe in God?
– No, I think people make some things up just to make themselves feel better.
– If that makes you feel better, then by all means, be my guest…
God doesn’t have a plan… God has a million plans, and it’s your job to choose one… you may even change plan along the way…
If you talk to God, using whichever name and ritual your religion requires, then surely God is almighty enough to be there and listen.
Paraphrased quote from an unknown Tibetan monk (if you know the source, and the correct phrasing, please feel free to comment!)
God beyond religion?
The closest I’d come to a religious symbol would be the tao/yin-yang.
I like this quote because it speaks of a God beyond religion. A God that does not take part in religious conflict or war. Whatever name you use, God will be there and listen. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc, etc.
This quote tells, at least me, religion is not important, God is, and speaking to God is what matters, not the ritual surrounding it. I can use whichever ritual I like to communicate with God. If I communicate with God by standing on my head, singing a song, or even if I lash out in furious despair; God is almighty enough to be able to be there and listen.
If God can listen, perhaps so can you?
If you remove religion from the equation, how do you get to know what’s right and wrong? Perhaps God is not only almighty enough to listen, perhaps God is also almighty enough to speak to you?
Sure, mankind is not known for being the best of listeners – or even when we hear – the best of believers. But perhaps the only way to really know what’s right and wrong in your life is to listen, not to your religion or religious/political leaders, or even parents, but listen to God.
Does it feel right?
Does it feel right?
I don’t mean in your wallet, or your pride or sense of duty or the kind of right that comes from pleasure, food, drink, or happiness. Nor do I mean, the best thing to do right now.
I mean, does it feel right in your heart? Uncompromisingly right? In the deepest room of your conscience? In that place where there is an inner observer, this being that is your true self – that can see thoughts and emotions but is not part of them – if it feels right in there… then perhaps it is right?
You’re a flock animal!
So, we’re supposed to just go around and do what feels right and everyone else be damned?
Would you like to live in a world where everyone else were damned? I wouldn’t!
We’re flock animals, we depend on each other. We cannot solve our problems alone. If you were the only person on the planet you wouldn’t even get out the door… if there even was a door.
To figure out what’s right and wrong, legal and illegal, we should have democratic elections to elect representatives to draw up laws. In very small societies we could have direct democracy, but in larger societies it probably need to be representative.
The point is, use politics to come up with the juridical rules (murder, theft, etc) and use what feels right to come up with the personal and social rules (those that you won’t go to jail for, but that you may lose friends over…)
So, Programming, Creative Writing, Mind Techniques… and now Spirituality? Does it fit together? Can someone spending the days programming computers really believe in something beyond the mere physical and pragmatical?
In fact, seeing how dumb computers are, and how brilliant (sometimes) humans are (well at least in the “potential” aspect… but then again… perfect is boring and not much of a life journey, is it?) I fear the more time I spend around computers, the more I become spiritual.
Besides, I spent years, decades even, doing performing arts, both studies and some performances (mostly happy amateur stuff) long before I started doing the coding, so…
And besides, who ever decided you can only be one thing? A revolt against that notion will follow (if I do not decide to revolt against the revolution, that is…)
And then there’s the notion that programmers are artists, and I don’t think I know one programmer that doesn’t believe (somewhere deep down) that we need to be true magicians as well in order to make the digital stars align…
This is what you might call a pseudo scientific article on Metatron, an angel whose exact origin got me thinking. I also got the name from the movie Dogma. But as you may notice, this is not real science, just playing around for fun…
Some people say, “I’ll believe in God the day he or she show themselves to me…”
Well… ever watched the TV-show Stargate SG-1? Just imagine it. We go travel to the stars and bumps into a civilization on the stone-age stadium. Now, will they think we’re Gods? Perhaps.
That’s the reason a real God can never show themselves to us, or prove themselves to us, because if they could prove themselves in the material world, would they not just be flesh and blood but far more advanced than us?
Nope. God has to be something completely different than the physical world we’re living in.
Side-note: Never underestimate the knowledge of those more advanced than yourself, and never reject this knowledge just because you may not understand it… they could give you cure for cancer and world peace without having to be gods…
Ask yourself, “what would I do, right now, in this situation, if I was living in the best of all possible worlds?”
Your action will be an action of a person living in the best of all possible worlds, and as the echo of your action reverberates it will spread the quality of a best possible world around you.
Now think about how you usually act. What world do you usually believe yourself to be in? Are you surprised you are not living in the best of all possible worlds?
Can you agree that if everybody was acting as if they were living in the best of all possible worlds, then we would be living in that world? Can you also understand that if no one ever acts towards the goal of a best possible world we will not even be close?
Is it not then in your best interest to at least act as if the world were just a little bit better than you believed it to be? To give just a little more than your instincts tell you to? And to believe others to be just a little bit better than you believe them to be?
Yes, you may be fooled. They may take advantage of you. The risk exists.
But as you consider this also consider the risk you are taking by believing you live in a world worse than it really is, or giving less than your instincts tell you, or believing people to be just a little worser than they really are.
It is a cumulative development, and you are the one deciding if it should be cumulatively worse or cumulatively better. Trust me when I tell you this. In the end it adds up. It adds up tremendously. In fact, your life and your happiness depends on you making the right decision here and now.
This is not something you can save for later, or do once a Sunday now and then, this is something you have to do right now right here, because if you do not do it now, in this moment, why would you do it in any later moment?
