The human being, who truly is satisfied, is a human being, who understands what he is

Striving means a struggle of changing what you are to something else, to something you ought to be, or ought to become.

It will in other words say, that we all the time struggle to avoid facing what we are, or we seek to escape from what we are, or to transform or limit it.

But the human being, who truly is satisfied, is a human being, who understands what he is, and is putting the right importance in it.

This is the true satisfaction: the one who doesn´t worry about the number of possessions, but about understanding what he is, when he is himself present in passive listening, not when he seeks to remodel, control, or change it through the will to power.

Death is the landscape which meditation enters into

When we speak about life we usually mean life as a continuation-process, where there happens an identification.

When we say life, we often mean I and my house, I and my wife, I and my bank account, I and the experiences I have collected.

To live is therefore a process whereby something is continued in memory, conscious as unconscious, with the multifold struggles of the process, all the quarrels, episodes, experiences. It is all this we call life.

Opposite is standing death, which means, that all this is being brought to an end.

Therefore, we create an opposition, life and death. Life is the known, the perspective we have created on the background of the images of time. Death is the unknown, the landscape that can't be mapped.

This landscape is what meditation enters into.

The being of Man includes both the state of the mind and the conduct of life

In the unreal existence, the actions of Man come to rest on ignorance; that is to say: prejudices, inclinations and demands.

And it results in absence, and therefore suffering.

In this way, the human existence becomes a friction, a conflict, and herein there is no reason.

The being of Man includes both the state of the mind and the conduct of life, logos and bios.

But the Ego is formed by an interaction between the activities of the mind (demands, prejudices, inclinations) – and the hindrances, which the challenges of life create, and therewith you have the unreality.

The mirror of the relationship can either distort or expose the truth about yourself

The mirror of the relationship can either distort or expose the truth about yourself.

Most of us see in the relationship, in the mirror, that, we preferably want to see, but we don´t see that which is real.

We will preferable idealize or escape, and rather live in the future than seeing the relationship in which we are in the moment.

As an Idler you must ask the question "Is there a meaning to Life?" with the whole of your being

As an Idler you must ask the question Is there a meaning to Life? with the whole of your being in order to be able to find out, not intellectual, but by observing the question calmly and passively, with strong eyes, without judging or evaluating.

And then you can ask the next question: whether Man ever can change radically, essentially, existential, so that he can observe the world anew, with other eyes, with another heart, a completely other mind, no longer filled with hatred, resistance, racism, but a mind, which is extraordinary clear and which possesses a mighty energy, that gives life back to the present, opens the heart and fills the existence with vitality, urge to live and joy of life.

The nihilistic moment is a possibility for spiritual practice

In philosophical counseling the “nihilistic moment” is a very important moment.

Therefore, I often ask my guests to read Albert Camus´ two small novels The Stranger, and The Fall, as ways of getting the counseling practice started.

The nihilistic moment is a so-called Bardo state, a possibility for spiritual practice, a possibility for opening yourself in towards the Source.

It namely also implies the question of, whether there can be a complete philosophical freedom, wherein the human mind is facing something, which not is of time, not is pieced together by thoughts, and which still not is an escape from the facts of the daily existence: the timeless, the absolute, truth or reality.

Philosophy always talks about the wholeness, not a part of it

If the individual person only acts in a special corner of the extensive area of life, then he acts without any connection with the wholeness.

You must therefore remember, that philosophy always talks about the wholeness, not a part of it.

The smaller is in the larger, but the larger is not in the smaller.

The individual person is the tiny image-limited, stagnated and despairing being, who is satisfied with his tiny gods and his tiny traditions, whereas the welfare and weal of all, the sum of the world´s necessity, misery and confusion, are engaging Man.

The thinking, which is a result of the past, can´t understand the present

The absence, and the following conflicts, worries and problems, arises because we use the present as a passage to the future, instrumentally. 

Read for instance about the problem of time in Marcel Proust´s In Search of Lost Time, or in Thomas Mann´s Magic Mountain.

The Ego is a result of the past; without past there is no self-producing thought-activity. 

Without the historical background, without this limitation, there is no such thinking. 

But the thinking, which is a result of the past, can, as Kierkegaard said, not understand the present, since it only uses the present as a passage to the future.

The flower itself is the movement of the experience when there no inner observer is

The tree, the flowers and the stars can't be experienced by an inner observer; they are the actual movement of the experience when there no inner observer is, when you in self-forgetful way are open for, and engaged by the observed, when the experience is characterised by fulfilment and middle.

Then there doesn´t exist any discrepancy, any displacement and reflections between the observer and the observed; there is no time, no emptiness and loss, in which the thought can give rise to itself.

The thought is there never, but there is being.

This condition of being can't be made into an object of thinking; it is nothing you can achieve. The inner thinker and calculator must stop evaluating.

Only when this happens, there is being. And in this movement of silence, the timeless exists.

The split in ourselves either leads to self-construction, or to self-destruction: insanity

The contradictions in ourselves grow illusions and pain, and in order to get away from them we take our refuge to a line of self-deceits, which only increase the conflicts and misery.

And when the inner contradiction, because of crises, or violent challenges, becomes unbearable, we conscious or unconscious seek to escape through insanity, or through death; or we dedicate our life to an idea, to a group, to a country, to some activity, which completely can swallow up ourselves; or we subject ourselves to the organized religion with its dogmas and rituals.

In that way, this split in ourselves either leads to self-construction, or to self-destruction: insanity.

If we don´t know, how we can think self-forgetful, we don´t know how to think at all

There is a true solution to each problem, but it requires self-forgetful thinking, and not only a wish to solve the problem.

The point for the Life Artist is not what you shall think, but how you can think self-forgetful.

There can only be natural and spontaneous act, when there is self-forgetful thinking.

If we don´t know, how we can think self-forgetful, we don´t know how to think at all.

What you concentrate on, is accentuated by the expense of something else

Concentration is the nature of the will to power, and it is the thinking, which concentrates itself.

Something is accentuated by the mind, is being brought in focus, something else is excluded, steps in the background.

Concentration is a choice.

What you concentrate on, is accentuated by the expense of something else.

It is a kind of isolation and exclusiveness, reserve.

In order to be able to discover something, you must observe yourself

In order to be able to discover something, you must observe yourself, but not on the bases of a certain image of life, or a certain thought-system, nor from some certain religious viewpoint.

You must completely reject all this, so that the mind is free and is able to be aware of itself in relation with the society, in relation with ourselves, with our families, with our neighbour.

When you are the situations present it is possible to reach beyond them.

Can the past´s reaction be delayed, so that there not immediately is formed an image?

The past always reacts immediately; and to postpone the past´s reaction – when you are facing a challenge - so that there is a space between the challenge and the reaction - is to make an end of the image.

In the same way, there are no images in the space between the thoughts.

If this doesn´t happen, we will always live in the past.

We are the past, and there is no freedom in the past. We have our identity in an absence. This is consequently the way of our lives, a constant struggle, the past which, modified by the present, moves into the future – and that will say that it still is the past, the self-image and the world-image, which is moving, though modified.

As long as this movement takes place, Man can never be free, he must always live in conflict, in sorrow and confusion, in wretchedness and misery.

The question becomes whether the past´s reaction can be delayed, so that there not immediately is formed an image?

Some kind of will to power is always the cause of conflict

You must try to become clarified about your thought-process.

Therewith is meant that you in your daily life must seek to be your will to power - and its miserable consequences and results - present.

When you realize the difference between the natural need and the will to power, then the right basis for your thinking is formed.

Some kind of will to power is always the cause of conflict, to unscrupulously national hate and masked brutality.

Unless you understand and get grip of your will to power, you will never be able to understand the reality, which is transcending all struggles and sorrows.

You must begin with yourself as a communicative being; that is to say: with your relationship with things and to your fellow men.

Self-assertion is a kind of self-interest which makes the mind mediocre

Self-assertion is a vice.

Self-assertion is a kind of self-interest, where everything turns around the Ego, and therefore makes the mind mediocre.

To live in a world, which is controlled by self-assertion, without being self-assertive, means, truly, to love something for its own sake, without seeking a reward, a result; but this is very difficult, because the whole world, all your friends, your relatives, struggle to achieve something, to accomplish something, to become something.

The thought can´t enter the unknown, and therefore it can never discover or experience reality

Kant was right, that the thought is forming, modifying, coloring in compliance with the pattern of experience.

The function of the thought is to communicate itself, not to be in the experiencing condition.

When the experience has gone, then the thought takes over, names it, and places it within the known´s categories and forms of experience. Therefore Kant discriminated between reality in itself – ”Das Ding an Sich” (the things in themselves) – and the reality as it appears for us – the world of experience or phenomena ”erscheinungen” (the things as sensed appearance); that is: our perspective.

So, the thought can´t enter the unknown, and therefore it can never discover or experience reality. The thought is a result of the known, of our perspective, which is time as such, and therefore it can´t embrace the unknown, the timeless, that, which can't be known.

It is the desire after more which gets you to accept or believe something, and it leads to illusion

In accordance with the Buddhists it is immensely easy to lead yourself behind the light, to convince yourself about anything. The feeling of, that you shall become something is the beginning of the deception, and this idealistic attitude leads to multifold forms of hypocrisy.

What does the illusion consist in?

Yes, one of the factors is the eternal comparison between what you are and what you believe you ought to be, or could be – (you are evaluating the good and the evil and the distance between them) – the thought that is trying to improve, the memory about a lust, which is trying to achieve more of this lust, etc.

It is this desire after more, this dissatisfaction, which gets you to accept, or believe, something, and it must inevitably lead to any kind of deception and illusion.

It is the anxiety and the desire, the despair and the hope, that are projecting the goal, the conclusion you want to experience. Therefore, this experience has no presence and therefore no reality.

When you have become what you desire, there immediately comes a new desire

The philosophical becoming is the factor that makes the daily life a torment, a competition, an extensive conflict: the philosophical striving after becoming something more, which we find in the priest, who wants to be bishop, the disciple, who wants to be master, etc.

In this becoming there is a positive or negative striving; and that is the fight for changing what you are to something else; the fight in order to control and form truth, happiness and reality; the fight that makes one or the other thing into a foundation of life.

You say: ”This is what I am, and that I would like to become!” But this becoming generates a series of conflicts. When you then have become what you desire, there immediately comes a new desire, and that way it goes on indefinitely.

That is due to, that you still are in a state of becoming, and don´t know how to go into being; the problem of Marcel in Proust´s In search of Lost Time.

You must go from just having some images of life, to having a philosophical way of life

The question about whether Man can be changed from the ground, is a question which affects the whole of your being; it includes observation, truth, beauty, love.

And these are in philosophy as an art of life something else than words, they are something you directly experience and are in.

The Philosophical Globetrotter must find a way in which you can live so that they become reality.

You must go from just having some images of life, personal or collective, to having a philosophical way of life.

It is herein the philosophical revolution is lying. In that sense the Philosophical Globetrotter is a philosophical rebel.

The vast majority think, that it is unavoidably that you become historical limited

The vast majority think, that it is unavoidably that you become historical limited.

Against this you can put the question about, whether there at all are anything, which is unavoidably – except death, perhaps; whether the inevitable process not is a thought-process.

In philosophical counseling there is neither answered yes or no.

On the contrary, the guest is being encouraged to be this inevitable process present in passive listening. And this presence is not mechanical.

But if the mind on the contrary is the thought-process absent, either conscious distancing ifself from it, or unconscious being absent in it, yes, then it becomes mechanical.

There is a difference between the individual person and Man himself

What am I, as a human being?

Is there nothing else but this ego, which most of us consider as the most important in Man?

If you look philosophical at it, there is a difference between the individual person and Man himself. The individual person is a located being, who lives in a particular country, belongs to a particular culture, a particular religion.

Man, on the other hand, is not a located being. Man is everywhere.

To be in the Now can´t be something mechanical

What will it say to be in the Now?

It can´t be something mechanical. It can´t be weighed down by the whole of this weight of knowledge, of tradition - that is to say: it is a mind and a being which really from the ground are free – free and without anxiety.

It has with life-feeling, spontaneity and self-forgetfulness to do, an openness for own and therewith also all others´ being, a being where being and reality fall together, where you live with, are included in something which happens, where the other fills you out, where you become drawn into, and are melting into in a unified wholeness.

As long as we don´t understand the will to power, there will necessarily rule conflict

The images in time, both the personal and collective images (therefore the whole of mankind´s storeroom of belief and knowledge - the Akashic Records) are the common human structure of consciousness, the recognition-processes which form the inner calculator, the Ego, which is driven by the will to power.

And as long as we don´t understand the process of the will to power, where it works from our belief and knowledge, there will necessarily rule quarrel, conflict, sorrow, and humans will be turned against humans – and this is after all what we every day are witnesses to.

If you therefore as an Idler realize - that is to say: if you are enough aware - that this process forms yourself from a belief, as an expression of the desire for inner safety, then your problem isn´t that you should believe this or that, but that you should disentangle yourself from the desire after safety.

Can the mind then disentangle from the wish for safety?

This is the problem, and not what you should believe, or how much you should believe. That would only be an expression of the urge for philosophical safety; that is: being convinced about something, when you don´t have any philosophical life-teaching and practice, and everything else in world is uncertain.

Memory isn´t able to maintain the light-wealth of eternity

When you see the thought-process, the process it is to become something, the will to power, when you really are it present, without feeling tempted, without making resistance, without justifying or condemning it, then you discover that the presence is able to receive the new, and that the new never is a sense impression; therefore, it can never be recognized or re-experienced.

When Dante - after his laborious journey through Hell and the Purgatory finally has reached Paradise, and is looking into the light-wealth of eternity - then his sight is rising so high that language can´t contain it, nor is the memory able to maintain the observed.

Dante compares it with the one who has a sight in his dreams and later doesn´t remember anything: only an imprint of the feeling in the dream is left, a dripping of the sight´s sweetness in the heart.

It is not only on the conscious plane you shall listen, but also on the hidden plane

To be present in passive listening without that there is any inner calculator, will say, that you look at your partner, your children, without having any conceptions about them.

A conception is perhaps of superficial kind, or it is lying dwelling, deep down in the subconscious. And in the Life Artist it is not enough to listen to the conception you have pieced together outwards. Also the conceptions you have innermost you must be aware of – your conceptions about the race, about the culture, the historical perspective in the conception you have about yourself.

So, it is not only on the conscious plane you shall listen, but also on the hidden plane, deep in yourself. In all the most distant corners of the mind, there must be created a listening presence.

Love can only arise when the Ego is not present

The main character in In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust  - the main character, Marcel, is seeing the things around him in the light of his projects; that will first of all say his love affairs. When his being in love has faded away, the things appear meaningless and ordinary. It is a nihilistic moment in the same way as in Albert Camus´ novels. It is the entrance of the labyrinth.

On the one hand these reactions are an expression of Man as a natural being, on the other hand they are also an expression of the historical limitation of Man, and therefore the instance, which under various forms makes it possible for the Ego to continue. The historical limitation is time and its images, the perspective you have on yourself and the world. The Ego is this historical limitation. The Ego is therefore a philosophical ego.

In such a process, there can´t be any openness, devotion and love.

Love can only arise when the Ego is not present.  

When the Ego is not present, then Man, and the Otherness, can fill each other out. This happens in the devotion. True love is devotion, where you in self-forgetful openness give yourself away with the whole of your being.

That is the reason why the Philosophical Globetrotter must understand the whole of the process of mind, which is the thinking´s process: the labyrinth.

Understanding the labyrinth is the guiding force which will lead you to follow the thread back.

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

Freedom from your perspective, the old, is 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.

This is the necessity of  ruins, showing a traveling universal image in time:  the way of the ancestors.

You can also say, that where the old before was characterized by personal and collective images, which worked in sequences in past and future, then the old now is characterized by universal images, which work in synchronism with the Now.

It was this Karen Blixen described as the ancient, the original, and which she always was seeking as authenticity, autonomy, possibility, freedom and adventure. It is a return to the Now, to the timeless eternity.

It is the end, the beginning; following the thread back, back to the beginning.

As Rabindranath Tagore said: ”The light is young, the eternal ancient light; the shadows are a brief moment´s matter, they are born aged.”

What it is about for the Idler, is to look destiny in the eyes

Man, as a natural being, lives in a challenge-reaction relationship.

What it is about for the Idler, is to look destiny in the eyes; that is to say: to become your reactions present in passive listening; to observe and feel them completely with the heart and the mind; to observe them neutral as in a mirror without saying yes and no; to feel them deeply and incisively without seeking to achieve anything with it.

Shortly said: to omit dividing your reactions in likes and dislikes, good and evil, pleasant and unpleasant.

That´s the call of destiny.

At the very moment you divide them, you become the reactions absent, you relate doubtful, evaluating or offended to them. And then you don´t understand them.

All our relationships largely build on image-formation

It is clear that a human relationship, which rests on various fate-weaved images of life, never can be peaceful, because these images of life is fictional and you can't live in an abstraction.

And yet this is what we all do: we live in ideas, in theories, in symbols, in conceptions we have created about ourselves and others, and which haven´t anything with reality to do at all.

All our relationships, in respect to property, ideas or people, largely build on this image formation, and therefore there is always conflict. 

That´s the labyrinth with the tortuous path and the shadowside.

Without passion, there can´t be created, and everything goes in dissolution

Passion is the strict simplicity of self-forgetfulness, in which there is no ego, that places itself outside life. 

That´s the secret of soulful travel, the glorious journey, the splendid prism of love, and the traveler´s lamp.

Therefore, passion is the innermost essence of life. It is that which is moving, creating and living. But when the thought introduces all the problems – to acquire, have and preserve – then passion ceases.

Without passion, there can´t be created, and everything goes in dissolution. Precisely what happens in society today.

The wholeness can´t be assembled, and produced

The nature of the mind is the emptiness in which the things of the mind can exist, but the things are not the mind.

Because of this emptiness time and space begin to exist.

The brain, and the brain´s things, can cover an entire field of life; it is occupied by multifold problems. But the brain can´t catch the nature of the mind, because it only functions in division; logical analyzing in the one as different from the other, emotional evaluating in sympathy and antipathy, ethical in good and evil, religious in holy and profane, sexually in gender, the reality in the observer and the observed.

None of these parts can produce the wholeness. And yet the brain is occupied by putting the many contradictory parts together in order to produce the wholeness. Just like the thoughts the brain functions philosophical.

But the wholeness can´t be assembled, and produced. The sacred circle would in that case be broken.

Unreality can both consist in being absent in, on the one hand, possibilities, on the other hand, in necessities

If you say, that it is impossible to change human beings, who have been as they are through thousands of years, you have already blocked for yourself, you will not go ahead, you will not ask and investigate. But of course, it can also be problematic purely and simply to say, that it is possible, so that you only live in the world of possibilities, and not in the world of facts.

Unreality can both consist in being absent in, on the one hand, possibilities, on the other hand, in necessities.

In relation to possibilities, and what you are, unreality consists in absence from the given, for instance that you deny, or expel, the conditions of existence, wrapping yourself in illusions, in idealizing or romanticizing life.

In relation to necessities unreality consists in absence from that which could be different, for instance a denial of potentials.

Possibility without necessity leads out in the world of fantasy. Necessity without possibility, or necessity, which spoils possibilities, leads to, for instance, fatalism, philistine narrow-mindedness. 

All this leads the reluctant pilgrim to the labyrinth and the tortuous path with the shadowside and the dragons of dissapointment.