Consciousness is a characteristic of Man, both as history, rationality, desires, nature and relationships

Is it possible for the mind altogether to empty itself for its historical limitation?

The mind has many layers of images, both personal, collective and universal.

The so-called consciousness consists of these many layers of images, and there is an intercommunication between these layers, all the layers are dependent of each other and influence each other.

The whole of the consciousness of Man is not only a process whereby something is experienced, but also whereby something gets name, is designated and stored as memories.

Consciousness is therefore not only a characteristic of Man as a rational being. It is also, on various levels, a characteristic of Man, both as history, desires, nature and relationships.

Self-knowledge is the virtue in answering the above question.

If your mind can empty ifself for your images of life, it is something entirely else

Provided that the mind can empty ifself for the known, for your perspective, your images of life, then it is something entirely else; then the mind is something new, and therefore, according to Taoism, immortal.

Is it possible to act without that there is formed conceptions?

Is it possible to act without that there is formed conceptions; that is to say: so that there is seen, and acted, at the same time?

That is: an action where you have your being with you in your experience, where you are what you are in progress with, where there are no dreamer, spectator, doubter, within you - where you are your activity?

Because when we are facing a big physical danger, a crisis, then we actually are doing it: acting immediately.

Is it possible to live in such a way?

Only when the mind is new, creative empty, it can meet the new

The space between the old and the new is the same as the space between the thoughts, the passive listening presence.

In this space of silence there is renewal; here the new creation happens.

Only when the mind is new, creative empty, it can meet the new.

It is first when the mind no longer is tied to the old, to its images of life, that it can meet everything in a new way.

And therein is lying the joy of life, the source, which rises from life itself.

It is the thinking´s self-production which creates the separation of the observer and the observed

How is the individuality of Man formed, the Ego?

We all originate from life itself, from a special original energy, the source of life, the source from where all life-power and joy of life originate.

This energy creates, through its self-production, its own substance, namely sensation, observance and thinking.

It was this substance Descartes called the thinking substance (res cogitans), which is standing as opposed to the outstretched substance (res extensa).

The thinking substance you could call the abstract side of Man (logos).

The action and conduct of life is the practical, or concrete side (bios).

There exists of course not such an absolute division. Nonetheless it is the thinking´s self-production which creates the separation of the observer and the observed, the split in the thinker, who is standing outside his own actions and conduct of life, who distances himself from them, and relates thinking to them.

If the body isn´t healthy and strong, it will inevitably distort the thought, and contribute to insensibility

It is not only the clarity of the mind, the reason, and the emotional sensitivity, we must develop, also a complete development of the body is a necessity; a thing, we all the time must lay us in mind.

Because if the body isn´t healthy and strong, it will inevitably distort the thought, and contribute to insensibility.

This is beyond any doubt, wherefore we don´t have to discuss it in details.

It is absolutely required that the body is healthy, that it gets the right food and enough rest.

If the senses aren´t awake, then the body will hinder the complete development of Man.

Only in silence you can begin to discover deeper layers of yourself

Awareness consists in, that you observe neutral as in a mirror, without saying yes and no. Passion consists in feeling deeply and incisively, without seeking to achieve anything with it.

When practiced together they develop into passive listening presence, or silence.

In the passive listening presence you are letting the thinking be in calmness in longer periods, you are letting the space between the thoughts expand more and more.

Only in this silence you can begin to discover deeper layers of yourself, layers which have to do with the images of time - your perspective on yourself and the world – and which, through this voyage of discovery, open themselves from the personal, to the more collective and universal, and finally, to reality and truth.

Just like the solution to a problem is lying in the problem itself, thus reality is to find in what you are

Reality can´t come to that, which will become something, which strive after something, the will to power, the absent.

It is only able to come to that, which is being, that, which understand what you are, the present.

Then you will see that reality is not something afar, the unknown is not far away, it is in what you are.

Just like the solution to a problem is lying in the problem itself, thus is reality to find in what you are.

If you can understand this, you will know truth.

Are you dependent of things in order to achieve and keep an existential happiness and meaning?

As a Life Artist you must be able to ask yourself the question about, whether you are dependent of things in order to achieve and keep an existential happiness and meaning?

If you seriously try to answer this apparently simple question, you will discover how complicated your thoughts and life of feelings are.

You can only act in the Now, but the action is so insecure, that we arrange ourselves after ideas

Time is the displacement between idea and action, the disproportion, which is created by emptiness and loss.

The purpose with an idea is of course that you want to protect yourself; it is an idea about safety and secureness.

But the action is always immediately; it doesn't originate from the past or the future.

You can only act in the Now, but the action is so dangerous, so insecure, that we arrange ourselves after an idea, which we hope will give us a certain secureness.

Anxiety is to have your identity in an absence, in the constant becoming something

Anxiety is to have your identity in an absence, in the constant becoming something. In this self-production there is no being.

Anxiety is therefore anxiety of nothing, anxiety of an uncertain threat.

The uncertain threat paralyses the identity, precisely because it is uncertain.

The inhibition in the anxiety is lying in the paralysation. Because the identity is paralysed in the anxiety, it is suspended.

The hold, the grip of the world, which the identity is, is suspended.

Anxiety is therefore an experience of an identity crisis. The whole of the situation is paralysed, and the space narrows around you.

Why do humans continue to live without living or loving, but full of anxiety, until they die?

When you as a Life Artist see the whole of the battlefield of life, not as an image, but as something you are facing, and in fact are observing, then you ask yourself what it all is about.

Why do human beings continue in this way until they die, without living or loving, but full of fear and anxiety?

Albert Camus opens his book The Myth of Sisyphus, with saying, that there only exists one real philosophical question, and that is the question about the suicide.

Why do we not commit suicide in a meaningless world devoid of both faith in reason and faith in God?

Language and thinking carry each other. And the collective language is lying in nature in form of projected energy

In close coherence with thinking exists language.

The thinking functions in language. And language is not only words and sentences. Language is music, mathematics, myths, archetypes, symbols, signs, etc.

Language and thinking carry each other. And the collective language is so to speak lying in nature in the form of projected energy.

The universal language though, is not projected energy, but is lying beyond Man, it is the actual foundation for the creation of the universe, it is the great vision, God´s plan you could say, the dream-tracks and the songlines in the artwork of the universe and of Man.

It works in synchronism with the Now, and therefore with life itself, and not projected in past and future.

If you are the thought-process present in passive listening, the thought is understood as it is

We must, in order to understand our minds, slow down the speed of our thinking – not stop it – but slow the speed down in order to be able to study it, follow it to its outer limit.

A help to this is to keep philosophical diary.

If you are the thought-process present in passive listening, the thought is understood as it is.

And in this practice you are not self-assertive, desirous after power, after a name, after position.

You are what you are, simple and nobody.

Then the thinking no longer is self-producing, but self-forgetful. 

It is made transparent in being, and then you discover something beyond imagination.

You can only observe a problem closely when you in self-forgetful way are one with the problem

A central theme in the philosophical life-practice is, whether there at all is any problem when you are the problem present in passive listening; that is to say: when you observe it incisively, very closely.

That will say: you can only observe the problem closely, incisively see wherein it consists, when you in self-forgetful way are one with the problem, when the observer is one with the observed.

And then there no longer is any problem, because then there is no reflections, displacements and darkness between the observer and the observed, but on the contrary a presence of something, which not is hidden, a presence of something apparently, something the individual has a clear understanding of.

It is a presence of something straightforward, a presence in naturalness.

Analysis is not the answer to anxiety. When you have analysed yourself for years, you are still anxious

Analysis of anxiety includes, not only the analyst and the analysed, but also time; time in the sense, that there are so many reactions, associations of ideas and memories, which have to be analysed.

But also time where many other factors arise, which will give the whole thing another direction: the comparison with earlier, and the hope and the desire after something else.

And then, when you in many days and years have analysed yourself, you are still anxious. 

You are not one with yourself.

We like rather to live in the past or the future, than to see the relations in which we are in the moment

The relationship is a mirror in which you can see yourself.

This mirror can either distort or expose the truth about yourself.

Most of us see in the relationship, in the mirror, what we preferably want to see, but we don´t see that, which is real. We like to condemn, justify, compare, or escape, and rather live in the past or the future, than to see the relations in which we are in the moment.

In this way the present, as Pascal said, only becomes used by the past as a passage to the future, and therefore the relationship – which is something that is in the moment, and not in past and future – becomes meaningless, wherefore there arises unreality and absence.

Passively to observe and feel the past´s activity is an act without past

When the Taoist monk is sitting and observing a tree passively without any kind of thought-activity, then it is an act, which isn´t defined by the past.

And passively to observe and feel the past´s activity is also an act without past.

To be the past present is to be one with your past, without that there is any displacement or distortions between the realizer and the realized.

We can´t imagine a condition, a being, where all conflict have ended

When you as a Life Artist understand the question about the creative activity, you will perhaps be able to understand what people mean by striving after something.

Is the creative action a result of an effort, and are we aware about the moments where we create? Or is the creative action a feeling of complete self-forgetfulness, a feeling, which arises when nothing intervenes disruptive, when you not at all feel the movement of the thought, when there only is an altogether rich and complete being? Is the creative condition a result of drudgery, of struggle, of conflict, of an effort?

We have all noticed that when we do something with great ease and quickly, then it costs no effort, then there not at all is talk about any struggle; but because our existence in the main consists of a line of conflicts and struggles, we can´t imagine a condition, a being, where all conflict have ended.

The will to become something leads to isolation

The act of the will leads to confusion, because the will, though it can be very sublimated, still is the tool of the desire.

The will to become something, to be something else - also when this ”something” is worth the effort, and very noble - can suggest a direction, can clear a path through the confusion; but such a process leads to isolation: the Ego that places itself outside, and is creating displacement and distortions.

It is not possible to live isolated

To be is to be in connection with something, and without such a connection there is no life.

What do we mean with the close connection?

It is a mutual active challenge and reaction between two humans, between an I and a Thou, the challenge which the Thou gives from itself, and which the “I” takes up, or whereon the “I” reacts, and also the challenge which the “I” gives from itself to the Thou, the challenge from the I to the Thou.

The challenge and the reaction give themselves expression in language as question and answer.

In this way life gets in language a dialogical character.

Habits are the most stagnating factor, because they hinder us in thinking in a creative way.

We hold the symbol in honour and attribute the word the greatest importance, and to do this is highly distorting. There namely happens that, that the word, the symbol, the image, becomes the most important. 

It is in this way, that temples, churches and the many different organized religions and ideologies, with their symbols, doctrines and dogmas, become factors, which hinder the mind in reaching forth, and discover truth.

The philosophical counselor must therefore all the time remind the guest about not letting him be catched by words, by symbols, which automatically create habits.

Habits are the most stagnating factor, because they hinder us in thinking in a creative way.

If your conscious mind is aware, the subconscious mind is much more receptive and can find an answer

We can reach to clarity over the underlying conscious and subconscious activity, if we give the subconscious mind a chance, because it is much faster in reacting than the conscious mind.

If your conscious mind is aware, and in silence is thinking and observing, the subconscious mind is much more actively awake and much more receptive; therefore it can find an answer.

The ability to see our problems - without in any way being distracted - is the only solution

How can the mind be completely empty?

The intellectual would probably claim, in order to defend his theories, that an empty mind is the same as being in a condition of apathy, idiocy, or what he might call it, and he would probably react instinctively by disclaiming this condition.

But a mind which is extraordinary silent, a mind which isn´t being distracted by its own thought, a mind which is open, can see the problems much more directly and simple.

It is in other words immensely reasonable.

And it is this ability to see our problems - without in any way letting yourself be distracted - which is the only solution for the Life Artist.

A silent mind, a mind in peace, is a requirement.

An idea is a manifestation of the past, which uses the present as a means to the future

Time is the displacement between idea and action, the disproportion, which is created by emptiness and loss.

The purpose with an idea is of course that you want to protect yourself; it is an idea about safety and secureness.

But the action is always immediately; it doesn't originate from the past or the future. You can only act in the Now, but the action is so dangerous, so insecure, that we arrange ourselves after an idea, which we hope will give us a certain secureness.

The idea is the manifestation of the past, which uses the present as a means to the future. You are therefore absent either in the past time or in the coming time. The past sucks life out of the present. Memories and hopes are transformed into reality, while reality becomes emptiness.

The unreality in this consists in, that you only really exist in the hope about a richer future, or in the dream about a lost past.

The will to power leads to, that the observer distances himself from the observed

The desire after experience produces the Ego, the observer, the one who experiences, the one who accumulates and remembers.

The will to power leads to, that the observer distances himself from the observed, and that the thinker places himself outside the thought.

And this is unreality, falsehood. You are absent from the surroundings, and absent from your thoughts, in the sense that you are on a distance from them, they have so to speak moved outside you, where you relate theorizing, timorous, or agonized to them.

The reason why we don´t understand human relationships is because we use them to achieve something

The relationship is in connection with identity the mirror, in which you can discover yourself. Without the relationship you are nothing. To be is to be in relationship, which is the actual life. You only live in relationship, otherwise you don´t live, then life is without meaning.

So it is not because you construct your identity that you live. You live, and have your identity, in the ability to be self-forgetful engaged in the relationship, and it is the lack of ability to understand this, which causes conflict.

The reason why, that there no understanding is of the relationship, is, that you use relationships to achieve something, become something, to be remoulded, to be something else than what you are.

The mind, which is passively aware, allows life and energy to flow into presence and reality

In order to be able to see the truth you must also be able to feel, you must be endowed by passion after discovering, and having a great energy.

When you observe a tree and the moonlight on this tree, then there is beauty. Beauty is passion. In order to, that you can see the beauty in a tree, or the beauty in the moonlight on a tree, there must be passion, there must be intensity. In this intensity - this passion - there is no sympathy or antipathy at all, and therefore not the feelings, which follow these. The intensity is not personal, not yours or mine.

When there is lust there is yours or mine. But the mind, which is passively aware, allows life and energy to flow back from the past and the future, into presence and reality. The energy and the life, which are invested in sorrows and bindings, plans and problems, are flowing in, filling the Now, increasing the intensity and the consciousness in the Now.

Only by being aware about what you are, you have a possibility for releasing yourself for conflicts

The thoughts and the feelings are limited by their own cause: the desire after becoming something, which is time-binding.

What creates a conflict in Man is the desire after becoming something: to have luck and progress here in the world and inwards: to achieve a result. But as long as our thinking is concerned with time, with what we will achieve with our position, there will inevitably be this conflict.

The mind is after all a product of time. The thought builds on yesterday, on the past, and as long as the thought works within the area of time and is concerned with the future, with becoming something else, with winning and with achieving, there will be opposites, and then we can´t see the real, the Now, the existential conditions.

Only by realizing, by understanding, by - without wanting to choose - being aware about what you are, you have a possibility for releasing yourself for the dissolvent factor, which a conflict is.

First when we can relate relatively to the relative, we can relate absolutely to the absolute

We are absolutely locked inside our self-centered becoming something, our images of life, our ideas and attitudes. Shortly said: language.

We must therefore begin with relating relatively to the relative. That is in Kierkegaard´s language: ”Die from the immediate.”

We must learn to relativize ourselves and our samsaric-temporal becoming something (the will to power). And it happens through self-knowledge and through relativizing of the Ego and the temporal life.

First when we existentially concrete can relate relatively to the relative, we can begin the next great work: to relate absolutely to the absolute.

The question then becomes whether the mind can be free from language?

If you the day through are yourself and the surrounding world present you will not dream at night

There are superficial dreams, and dreams that really have a meaning.

The superficial dreams are those, which are created by bodily reactions, indigestion, overfedness etc. These you don´t need to take into consideration.

The other dreams are signals from deeper layers of consciousness. Such signals have with the separation of the observer and the observed to do, the disproportion in relationship with the surrounding world, and the Now.

You don´t need to go through any process of dream interpretation in order to reach to the subconscious. If you the day through are yourself and the surrounding world present in passive listening, yes, then you will not at all dream.

Then there will be a presence of something, which not is hidden, because the mind is empty and creative.

If you deny the possibility of complete freedom, you deny that you at all can investigate, inquire or discover

Far most humans only know two answers to the question about whether the mind can be completely free. Either they say that it is impossible; they say, that the human mind under any circumstance must let ifself be limited historical. Or else they begin to dream from one or the other romantic image. In both cases it is the thought, which is the answer.

Philosophical counseling offers a third option, the art of life, the existential training of the mind and the heart, where Man as a Life Artist begins to experiment, to investigate, to discover his existence as a whole.

If you from the start claim that it is impossible, you have of course not any chance of breaking through.

That you claim this can be due to, that your experience is very small or very large, or it can just be a faith, which you are accepting. But when you claim this, then it means that you deny that you at all can seek anything, that you at all can investigate, inquire or discover anything.

You deny the actual possibility of philosophy.

Only when the mind not is overloaded, it can be in the middle of life, and the new can reveal itself

If you allow the thinking to come into power, it sucks life out of the present, and there will no longer be anything new in life, because you make the known, your perspective, into reality, and the reality into emptiness.

It is the eternal recurrence of the same.

If you therefore as a Life Artist want to discover something new, then the past must be passive, the mind must not be filled up with thoughts, fear, lust and all kind of other things.

Only when the mind not is overloaded, it can be in the middle of life, or the Now, and the new can reveal itself.

To be interested in something is not the same as self-assertion

We can add to the word ”self-assertion” multifold meanings. In art of life self-assertion is based on becoming something, and therefore anxiety.

But if a boy for instance is interested in becoming an engineer, because he is inclined towards raising beautiful buildings, to create wonderful bridges, to build excellent roads, then this is because he loves that act; and that is not self-assertion.

It is an expression of what he is, and therefore there is no anxiety.

In love there is no anxiety.

You can´t be afraid of death, the unknown, because you don´t know what the unknown is

Death is the unknown, which always threatens the known, the patterns you have created.

The paradox is, that you can´t be afraid of the unknown, because you don´t know what the unknown is, and therefore there is nothing to be afraid of.

Death is a word, and it is the word, the image, which creates anxiety. The word is a manifestation of your self-image and world-image.

For as long as the image exists -  the image from where the thought origins - the thought must constantly create anxiety.

Then you rationalize your mortal dread and build a defence against the inevitable, or you invent countless faith-conceptions, which can protect you against the anxiety of death.

Your world-image is inseparable connected with your self-image

The self-image manifests itself as a certain perspective, so that everything you are seeing, is your own perspective.

The world-image is a projection of yourself, only you divide yourself from it, in the formation of the Ego.

What Man identifies himself with, is always the self-projected, whether it is the highest, the state, or the family.

The identification is, regardless on what plane it takes place, a process of the Ego.

Identification with the greater is still a projection of the small, and reverse.

What you identify yourself with, when you identify yourself with the greater, is the idea. The idea is the Ego identified with for instance God or the state.

Such an identified action only creates more discord, larger confusion, distress and misery.

Your real interest will emerge by itself, when you are in a passive listening presence

You shall not seek your real interest; the real interest will emerge by itself, when you are in a passive listening presence.

If you consciously try to find out what your real interest is, there is a danger that you just choose one, weigh it up against another, calculate and judge.

This process is only a cultivation of resistance; you use your powers on speculations about whether you have chosen correctly etc.

But when there is passive listening, and not a positive effort to find, then the movement of the interest steps into this presence.

When we identify the description with the described we only see our own perspective

When we think that the description is the described, yes, then the thing we see is nothing else than our own perspective.

To cleanse the perspective consists in being aware of how the perspective is made dull, muddy, unclear.

And what makes it muddy is the lacking discrimination, the lack of ability to understand that the description not is the described, that language not is the reality, that the map not is the landscape.

It is the perspective, which is captured by words.

It is the perspective, which is the description, the language, the philosophical mapping.

But if you don´t understand this, then the only thing you see, is your own perspective, the eternal recurrence of the same and the known, and not the dawn of the new and unknown.

Is it possible not at all to dream while sleeping?

In order to be able to find out whether it is possible not at all to dream - so that the mind seriously is fresh when it awakes in the morning - you must, as a Life Artist, understand yourself as a communicative being, you must be your communicative life present in passive listening, be aware of hints and signals.

And these you can only discover in the relationship with the surrounding world, when you listen to your relationship with others without condemning, evaluating, when you merely are noticing how you behave and react, when you see without first having found an option, merely listen, so that the hidden, the subconscious, your perspective, your ideas, attitudes, conclusions, and their consequences for your way of living, actions, relationship with others – is exposed in the day-time.

You can only observe violence with an open mind, when you become aware of your justifications

As a Life Artist it is important to pay attention to, that when you for instance observe violence, then you often try to justify it, as you say that violence is a necessity if you shall live in this barbaric world, that violence is a part of nature.

Why do you do that?

You are used to observe in this way, to condemn, justify, or to make resistance.

But you can only observe violence with fresh eyes, and an open mind, when you become aware, that you tighten what you see, together with conceptions about what you already know, your own perspective, individual as cultural, and that you therefore not are observing it in a new way.

As long as we don´t solve our philosophical struggles - the structure of society must necessarily be crushed

Our striving is a combat, or a struggle, in order to transform what you are to something you wish to be.

I speak exclusively about the philosophical struggle, where you seek to produce yourself, the struggle of meaning, not about the struggle, which has to be led with a physical problem, as for instance an engineering project, or a discovery, or a change, which is of purely technical kind. I only talk about the philosophical struggle, which always overshadow the technical.

You can with the utmost care - as you draw advantage of the limitless knowledge which science has granted us - build a wonderful society. But as long as you don't understand those philosophical sticking points, the philosophical struggle which is going on - as long as these philosophical overtones and streams not are being solved - the structure of society must, how wonderful and solid it might be, necessarily be crushed, in the way it, through history, again and again has happened.

The total perception of life is within the mind, not within the brain

The brain can be aware, aware about itself as a part of the whole movement of the mind.

But love, for instance, has only importance in the total perception of life, which is in the mind´s area, and not in the brain´s area.

So the brain can´t see the wholeness of life; the brain is a part, regardless how educated it might be. It is not the wholeness.

Only the mind can see the wholeness, and within the area of the mind is the brain.

But the brain can´t contain the mind regardless what it does.

If it doesn´t do anything there can come an insight in the wholeness, and this insight can change the brain, but insight itself is beyond the brain.

Can we receive signals and hints through our dreams?

Do the dreams want to tell you something?

All kinds of signals and hints have with Man as a communicative being to do.

Signals and hints therefore only come to expression in the relationship with the surrounding world, or differently said: in the Now.

But the conscious mind is so occupied by its daily activities, annoyances, anxiety, that it is unable to receive signals and hints in the course of the day.

However in the sleep there is a resting state, which also is there even when you are dreaming.

When the superficial mind falls to peace, then this resting state makes it possible for the many layers of the mind to project themselves to this, and then you are dreaming.

It is in this state you can receive signals and hints.

The same is happening when the conscious mind is going into a meditative state.

Freedom from your perspective, the old, is truly an ethical life

Can you, as a Life Artist, without interpreting the present reality on the bases of the past´s conditions, observe the reaction in a new way, with an open mind?

Can something else than the old react?

Can there be a space between the old and the new reality?

Can the old be awaiting, and in this way make it possible for the new to occur?

This is the problem of the Life Artist.

Freedom from your perspective, the old, is in this way truly an ethical life. It means that you have discrimination, and don´t pull your perspective down over others.

But it doesn't mean, that the old is deleted, but that there is introduced a completely new dimension, where you are the old present in passive listening, where the old so to speak is made transparent in being and openness.

If the thinker is the thought present in passive listening, then this will be a presence of clarity

Far most people think that the thinker is separate from the thought – and it is precisely this, that all the images in time, all the theories, ideas, religious persuasions, political ideologies, etc., are based on.

But when the thinker places himself outside the thought, the problem will continue.

However if the thinker is the thought present in passive listening, then this will be a presence of something, which not is hidden.

It is a presence of something obviously, something you have a clear understanding of. 

It is a presence of something straightforward, a presence in naturalness.

And herein you will become released from the source of all problems.