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.