Five Basic Exercises in Philosophy as a Spiritual Practice

Streets of Naples, Italy

The hunger after doing something positive, opposite the negative, makes us strive after being something else; in this struggle we feel, that we are alive, that there is a purpose with our life, that we gradually can remove the causes of the conflict and the sorrow. We feel, that if we no longer were active, we would be nothing, be lost, our lives would be completely without meaning. Therefore we continue, and that will say: we continue the divisions, the conflicts, the confusions and the opposites. But in this process we at the same time feel, that there is something more which we all the time lose, that there exists something, which is quite different, something, which is above and beyond all this distress and misery. This feeling is the existential guilt, the guilt over the unlived life. In this way a permanent struggle is going on inside us.

Meditation as an Art of Life - The Ancient Logos

In my book A Dictionary of Thought Distortions I claim that the Sophists used thought distortions as a way of getting on in the world, while Socrates (the philosopher), used critical thinking. I consider this book to be a kind of philosophical diary on how I, during my spiritual crisis, used critical thinking (elenchos, the art of refutation) to distinguish base magic (New Age), which leaves everything to chance, and may lead its practitioners to consort with falsity and evil daemons, and higher magic or theurgy. 

Everything must be looked at in the critical light, where you neither justifies or condemns

The Idler must be critical towards everything in life, your short or long hair, your dress, the way whereon you walk, the way whereon you eat, what you think, what you feel – everything must be looked at in the critical light, where you neither justifies or condemns.

Then the mind becomes extraordinary sensitive, alive and reasonable.

And such a mind allows life to flow back to the present, where the heart opens itself in love.

Only such a mind knows what a happy and real life is.

The Life Artist is a philosophical rebel

The Life Artist can´t accept handed down truths.

You must begin to be critical, inquiring and discovering.

But you can nothing examine if you inwards are afraid.

To be critical is equivalent with revolt in philosophical sense, and that will say to create a new world.

The Life Artist is a philosophical rebel.

What you are coming up against is the politicians, who don't want us to revolt, because they want to control us, they want to model and form us, so we can fit into their ideological patterns; and as long as that is happening, life will remain being a torment.

The fact is that every society always is runned by some kind of ideology

An ideology is a malfunction in the human mind, which functions with Machiavelli´s implied, terrible, assumption, that the end justifies the means, and where the means to get there is to make people into slaves for this goal.

Today people undoubtedly are being made into empty consumer machines.

There is no doubt either, that we are being supplied with some kind of virtual reality through psychological theories, that seems to justify Machiavelli´s famous and notorious assumption - for instance through elimination of critical thinking.

To be critical is equivalent with revolt in philosophical sense

As a Life Artist you can´t accept handed down truths.

You must begin to be critical, inquiring and discovering.

But you can´t examine anything if you inwards are afraid.

To be critical is equivalent with revolt in philosophical sense, and that will say to create a new world.

The Life Artist is a philosophical rebel.

What you are coming up against is the politicians, who don't want us to revolt, because they want to control us, they want to model and form us, so we can fit into their ideological patterns; and as long as that is happening, life will remain being a torment.

Contrary to religion and politics, philosophy doesn't give answers, but asks questions

It is immensely important to ask questions; not only because you thereby expose your inner, but by questioning philosophical, by training the mind and the heart existential, you find the answer yourself. 

If you ask the right question, the right answer is lying in the question. 

Contrary to religion and politics, philosophy in this way doesn't give answers, but asks questions.

The Life Artist must be critical towards everything in life, your short or long hair, your dress, the way whereon you walk, the way whereon you eat, what you think, what you feel, what other people say– everything must be looked at in the critical light, where you neither justifies or condemns.

Then the mind becomes extraordinary sensitive, alive and reasonable. And such a mind allows life to flow back to the present, where the heart opens itself in love.

Only such a mind knows what a happy and real life is.