A complete development of the body is a necessity; a thing, we all the time must lay us in mind

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.

In order to understand yourself you must understand that Man is an inviolable whole

In order to understand yourself you must understand that Man is an inviolable whole, not only a determined being, as for instance a society being with his particular assigned job: a worker, a citizen, a consumer, or a political being, right wing or leftist, or a religious being, Christian, Moslem, Jew, - but a complete whole in which an interaction and a reciprocity takes place.

Most of us see in the relationship, in the mirror, what we want to see, but we don´t see the real

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.

Why has Man always created a conflict in himself and in the relationship with the others?

Why has Man always created a conflict in himself and in the relationship with others  - and consequently violence, and the hope about achieving something through violence?

Man has tied himself to a way of life, which leads to war, and yet he at the same time wants peace and freedom; but it is peace and freedom exclusively as an idea, an ideology.

And at the same time Man is historical limited by everything he does.

The new is never there, because you always meet the new with the old

Since we meet any challenge from the past´s conditions – and because the challenge always is new – our reaction to the challenge will each time be utterly insufficient, and from this comes the contradiction, the conflict, and all the sorrow, distress and misery, we have inherited.

You shall not renounce the world, because you can´t live in isolation

As a Life Artist you must try to find a process, which can help you to understand yourself, and it is not a process, which will isolate you.

You shall not renounce the world, because you can´t live in isolation.

To be is to be in connection with others, and it is neither possible, nor required, to live in isolation.

The reason why there are conflicts, distress and misery, is that our relationship with the surrounding world is not right; our world might be very narrow, but if we can change our relationship with others, precisely in this narrow world, we will start a process, which spreads like rings in water.

Where absence weaves images, presence releases the mind for images

Where absence weaves images, presence releases the mind for images.

This is very simple.

If you become thoroughly present in passive listening when you for instance are angry, then it is not absence, which allows the past to push itself in and create reflections, and disturbing the actual sensation of the immediate anger.

The philosophical counselor is no authority, no teacher or guru

The philosophical counselor must suggest the guest not just to accept what he himself says, since he is no authority, no teacher or guru.

If he was a guru, then the guest would be his disciple, and in his quality of disciple the guest would, in philosophical sense, destroy both himself and the counselor.

The past or the future sucks life out of the present

You can either be absent in the bygone or the coming time.

The past or the future sucks life out of the present.

Memories, plans or projects are transformed into reality, while reality becomes emptiness.

The thought makes ifself independent in relation with your reality, and it becomes the whole of reality.

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

The consciousness can´t be separated from a human´s actions

The consciousness can´t be separated from a human´s actions.

But often the consciousness keeps itself outside them, so that it can achieve a feeling of continuation and endurance.

And it is especially this isolating process - the Ego - which the Life Artist is seeking to understand.

Self-knowledge is the virtue of art of life.

Dreams are a sign of that there is disturbance, discord between the thought and the conduct of life

When there no dreams are, then the consciousness can enter deeper and deeper down into itself; that is to say: into life itself.

Dreams are a sign of that there is disturbance, discord between the thought and the conduct of life, that there is displacement between the thinker and life itself.

But when there no disturbances and displacement are, and the body during the sleep is very calm, when the mind is quiet, you will, when you wake up, find, that you haven´t dreamt, but that a renewal has taken place, a renewal, which constantly takes place, because there all the time is ending.

This renewal is the creation, the source of life, because you in the silence rest in the middle of life itself.

Far the most people confuse their perspective with reality

When the mind is quiet you begin to gain discrimination, the ability to discriminate between the known and the unknown.

The known is your perspective on yourself and the world, it is your self-image and world-image, which originate from the images of time.

The perspective distorts reality, because everything you see, is your own perspective, the known, the image.

You don´t see reality itself, truth or the unknown.

Far the most people confuse their perspective with reality, the description with the described, the word with the thing, the map with the landscape.

As a Life Artist you must study the whole structure of the thinking

As a Life Artist you must study the whole structure of the thinking, and see what place the thought has, see where it isn´t a necessity, and only then you will discover, that the mind functions in a reasonable way, both when the thought isn´t active, and when the thought has to be active.

Any decision, which is defined by a choice, exposes a person, who is confused

Any decision, which is defined by a choice, exposes a person, who is confused, who is unreal and absent, who places himself outside and creates reflections, displacements and darkness.

A person who is in the middle of his own existence, experiences on the contrary a presence of something obvious, something the individual has a clear understanding of.

Such a person´s mind doesn´t choose, there is only the power of action and decisiveness.

The lack of clarity, and therefore reason, arises when there is a division between the observer and the observed, and there slide emptiness and loss in between.

To see and feel without dividing, choosing, ruling and controlling, is the act of love

This act, to see and feel without dividing, choosing, ruling and controlling, is the act of love.

The ethical life is this act, and all life is this act.

The real life is the being where you are one with yourself, with life and love.

You are in the middle of the stream of life.

When the thinker places himself outside the thought, the problem will continue

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.

In the unreal existence the actions of Man come to rest on ignorance; that is to say: prejudices

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.

Is it possible to be death present in passive listening?

What is death?

How can you find out without that it only is a belief you adopt?

Is it possible to be death present in passive listening, not another's death, but your own death?

It demands that you don't identify yourself with something, what of course is very difficult.

Most of us identify ourselves with our furniture, with our house, with our wife or husband, with our government, with our country, with the image we have of ourselves, and we identify ourselves with something greater – the world-image, which perhaps is a tribal feeling that expands to embrace the nation; or you identify yourself with a special property, a special image.

A problem arises when the thinker distances himself from the Now by comparing and desiring

In the Now there are no problems, only facts, existential conditions.

A problem arises when the thinker distances himself from the Now by comparing, wishing etc.

The thinker slides off from the Now´s facts.

And the Now´s facts, seen from the thinker´s perspective, the past and the future, thereby become a problem.

Something of the most difficult is to communicate with another person

We must linguistically communicate to each other, that is obvious, but it is for instance Martin Buber´s intention to show, that we can communicate on a much deeper plane; that is: not only linguistically, but in solidarity, where two parts meet on the same plane with the same intensity, with the same passion; only then there is real solidarity, and that is much more important than sheer communication.

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 life Artist 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 Life Artist is a philosophical rebel.

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.

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

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?

These are the questions of the Life Artist.

When things become a requirement for your psychological and existential wellbeing, they get an all-important meaning

When the things only are of physical necessity for you, you limit them reasonably; but when they become a requirement for your psychological and existential wellbeing, they get an all-important meaning.

Being aware of that is to understand the satisfaction of your senses and your desire for lust.

If you want to understand the true, you must break away from such bonds.

In order to be able to break away from this desire for lust, you must begin with observing the needs you are familiar with, and in this is lying the right basis for understanding.

When we strain ourselves to become something, then we ourselves have projected this something

The conscious effort, the will to understand and create, to accumulate, the will to become something, is a continuation of the past, perhaps modified, but still a continuation.

When we strain ourselves to become something, then we ourselves have projected this something.

When we conscious strain in order to understand and create, it is the noise of our own accumulations we hear, the noise of all the life we have sucked out of the present and into thinking and time.

And it is this noise that precisely hinders the understanding and the creation.

The goal of the Life Artist is to go into an investigation of the turbulence of the mind

We try incessantly to become this or that, to achieve a special condition, to get one kind of realization and avoid another, and in this way the mind is eternally occupied by something, namely the Ego.

Constantly the mind is in action: thoughts, feelings, sensations, arrangements.

Always the consciousness has something in mind.

Always the mind is in progress with changing, making plans, commenting, remembering, creating images, and throwing out projects.

Both the German Idealists, Nietzsche, the Existentialists and the Marxists, took this restless, or ”creative” turbulence of the mind, as a presumption they didn´t investigate further.

The goal of the Life Artist is - in opposition to them – to go into an investigation of this turbulence of the mind, and find out what happens if it stops.

That to be interested in something, is not the same as self-assertion

That 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.

The thinking becomes, when it identifies itself with me and my, time-binding

What you as a Life Artist must study, understand and neutralize, is the Ego´s time-binding characteristic, which identify itself with the memories.

Strong demands, especially the lustful, is about achieving something for the Ego, and it is the memories, which gives ”me and my” an identified continuation.

The thinking, which always is in motion, always streaming, becomes, when it identifies itself with me and my, time-binding, and gives identified continuation to memory, to the Ego.

It is this memory - which always grows and increases - you must give up.

What you overlook in the process of analysing yourself, is the analyst

What is it you overlook in the process of analysing yourself?

What you overlook is the analyst.

The analyst is your perspective on the analysed, and the desire in this perspective is the desire after achieving something, being something, acquiring something, being something else than what you are.

Therefore you overlook, that the analysis becomes a means with the purpose of changing what you are to something else.

What you are, the fact, the existential condition, becomes in other words a problem.

You are not able to be one with yourself.

This is clearly enough what happens when you analyse yourself.

There is only real thinking, when there isn´t any reaction from the memory

We are ceasing being creative, when we imitate, when we as natural beings only reacts on the bases of memories.

Answers from the memory are usually called thinking.

But such thinking is only reactions from those preconceived conceptions, which are memory.

It is only a reaction in the brain and not real thinking.

There is only real thinking, when there isn´t any reaction from the memory.

In this awake and passionate emptiness there is creation.

And when you are in this condition all stimuli and demands of life vanish.

There is only mutual connection with the observed when there isn´t any inner observer

Truth is coming when there is a non-linguistic presence, an observance and a love, which are without conclusions, without explanations, without words.

The inner spectator, theorist or doubter, are constructed by words, which again are manifestations of a self-image.

The Ego consists of explanations, conclusions, condemnations, justifications etc.

There is only mutual connection with the observed when there isn´t any inner observer and calculator, when you in self-forgetful way are open for, and engaged in, the observed.

Only then there is understanding, freedom from the problem.

Art of Life is to understand your natural needs, without clinging to the things

Most peoples´ minds are busy with things, and it requires understanding to grasp our right relationship with them.

It is not about asceticism, or love of lust, not about giving renunciation, or gather into barns, but about being yourself present in passive listening, and herein understand your natural needs, without this clinging to the things.

It was this realization Buddha came to after he as itinerant ascetic in 5-6 years had practised all possible penances, where he, among other things, tried to live of one corn of rice a day.

He realized that this self-torture didn't lead to enlightenment; that does instead the middle way, where you give the body what it needs, but without being in the control of the senses.

When you understand this, it is no sorrow to give up things, or an eternal fight to keep them.

Art of life is about bringing the self-producing thought-activity to an end

If your life shall be real, the self-producing thinking must stop.

And the whole of the art of life is about bringing this thought-activity to an end.

This is very important to understand, because the thought is a product of time, of the experiences of yesterday.

The thought is caught in the net of time, and that which is of time, can never grasp the timeless, the life which happens fully and which is in the middle of itself.

Unless we meet relationships completely there arises conflicts in the meeting with the challenge

The human being who observes and meets life, as if it for instance only is limited by the economical, or intellectual relationship, is not a Man of wholeness, and his conflicts are countless, because life is the connection with everything; with things, humans and ideas, and unless we meet these relationships completely, correctly, there arises conflicts in the meeting with the challenge.

Our life-expressions become self-circling.

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.

If you understand what the known is, you will experience an unusual peace, which is not caused

If you understand what the known is - that is to say: your perspective on yourself and the world, your self-image and world-image, and all the symbols, ideas, opinions and conceptions which are manifestations of these images – if you understand this, you will experience this unusual peace, which is not caused, which is not forced, the creative emptiness in which only reality is able to enter.

That which is finished is subject for renewal, while that which continues is of time

Our common everyday thinking is a self-producing way of thinking, it is the whole of the mind´s stream of words, images, feelings, sensations, intuitions, inner monologues, comments, logical reasoning, memories, plans, etc. etc.,  - which all are about becoming something and achieving something, and which therefore is controlled by the will to power.

This way of thinking is not renewing itself, but is repeating the same themes again and again, because it is not completed, not finished.

It is the eternal recurrence of the same, where you preserve the thoughts in a linguistic form.

The thinking sucks life out of the present and transforms thoughts into reality, and reality into emptiness

The question for the Life Artist is whether the mind can disengage itself from its own structure.

Can the mind empty itself for its own structure?

That is the problem.

The mind, as we know it, has belief and knowledge as historical background, is feeded by desires, wants, the desire after safety.

In this way the thinking sucks life out of the present and transforms knowledge and belief into reality, and reality into emptiness.

And in this way the Ego is made independent in relation to the individual´s reality.

As long as the mind is distorted it can´t listen and observe

The Life Artist must seek to understand the nature of experience, the beauty in observing, in seeing neutral as in a mirror, and in feeling deeply and incisively without seeking to achieve anything.

As long as the mind of Man in any way is distorted – by neurotical impulses and feelings, by fear, despair, by self-assertion, snobbery and striving after power – it can´t possibly listen, observe, see neutral.

But this art of seeing, of listening, of observing, is nothing you just can choose to do, and nor is it a question of thinking, which develops towards something else.

The mind is characterized by a thorough restless, or creative, turbulence

Constantly the mind is in motion: thoughts, feelings, sensations, arrangements.

Always the consciousness has something in mind, always the mind is in progress with changing, choosing, planning, throwing out projects, commenting, remembering and creating images.

Always it is worrying, and is creating problems, because it compares facts with earlier, and is hoping and desiring something else.

Always the mind is in a condition of becoming, caused by the thinking´s fundamental construction of the reality of the self-image and the world-image.

The mind is therefore characterized by a thorough restless, or creative, turbulence.

What happens if this turbulence stops?

Self-forgetful thinking is thinking, which releases itself from time. Through time the timeless can´t be grasped

Usually the thinking is a self-producing process; that is: the process where the thinking creates the reality of the self-image and the world-image, and therewith the separation of the observer and the observed.

When the Ego is standing in the centre, then the whole of our life, the whole of our perspective on life - rests on the choices we make, and the desire in this process, the movement of time where we are seeking to achieve something, become something, acquire something.

Self-forgetful thinking is thinking, which releases itself from time, because through time the timeless can´t be grasped.

The timeless is the Now, and self-forgetful thinking is thinking which is one with the Now, with the facts, with reality.

That way self-forgetful thinking is not based on the personal or collective images of time, which work in sequences in past or future, but on the universal images, which work in synchronism with the Now.

The wish to become something is the beginning of all complications

Driven by a still increasing desire after becoming something, inwards or outwards, we accumulate or renounce, cultivate or deny.

As we see time steal everything, we cluster to the timeless.

This struggle after becoming something, positive or negative, through attachment or separation, can never be solved by any outside gesticulation, discipline or method.

But the understanding of this struggle will, natural and spontaneous, evoke freedom from the inner and outer accumulation, and from the conflicts it is implying.

Meditation is not concentration, prayer or worship, and it´s not a method

Instead of thinking you must put meditation.

Meditation is not concentration. Meditation is not prayer. Meditation is not worship. Meditation is not a method.

Meditation is a condition in which you discover yourself as you are, without deception and illusion.

Self-knowledge is not a goal in itself.

Self-knowledge is this, to discover the desire of becoming something.

When you as a Life Artist have examined the many different sides of yourself in activity, you have discovered, that there only is one process, and that is, that you only are interested in becoming something, in continuity.

And this is the will to power.

We live in symbols, and dreams are a part of this symbolic process

The mind denies seeing the things directly, to be them present without the word and the symbol.

You for instance say, that the sky is blue. The one who hears it, interprets it from the conception he has about blue and reproduces it to you in his own code.

In that way we live in symbols, and dreams are a part of this symbolic process.

We are not able to perceive directly and immediate without the symbols, the words, the prejudices and the conclusions.

Philosophy as an Art of Life is not the chase after a thought or an idea

Philosophy as an Art of Life is all thinking´s essence, which is to go beyond all thought and feeling.

It is, as Plotin said, the thinking´s journey back to its own Source.

Not until then philosophy is a movement into the unknown.

To meditate is a voyage of discovery into the known, into your own perspective and history, into the whole of your world of ideas, knowledge, faith and experience, and through discrimination, to be released from it, and thereby to enter into the unknown, into the Source of wisdom.

On this journey you are in company with Odysseus, Dante and Faust.