What in me is not a story?
What is the purest form of me?
Do I have even a form?

If so, what is the form that constitutes me?
Has this form not changed my whole life?
What is more me: the way I am now?
Or the way I was ten years ago?
Or the way I will be in ten years?

What is the truth of me?
Is it in my skin, my sex, my age?
How can I even identify with something as
abstract and changing as age?

Do I allow my body to define me?
Do I give any importance to how others define me?
Do I need to wait for others to see me as I am
before I can be what I am?
Am I dependent on others to be what I truly am?

No matter the circumstances, wasn’t my conception
in itself absolutely free?
Was I not born in freedom?
When did that freedom end?
Did it end?
Where is it now?

​How is it now?
Am I not free from every story, every definition? 

Spirituality is not a lifestyle or a concept. Spirituality isn’t synonymous with religion, prayer, belief, certain actions, looks or habits.

It is the most naked spot of you.

Your most vulnerable and least desired spot. The spot you do anything to avoid. It’s the rawest possible emotion, what you think you can’t survive. The simplest place of all. By having the courage to go there, paradoxically, you will also meet bliss and joy.

But you don’t go there to get anything, you go there to find the truth of what you are. You won’t go there without a burning desire that nothing but death can take away. This desire is not within your control. It may appear or not. If you go into spirituality to get or avoid anything – anything -  it is not spirituality. It is wordly.

​Spirituality is the process of removing everything that is possible to remove. It is not adding anything. Spirituality is having no answers, only an unshakeable desire to be nothing, do nothing, except what you deepest are. It is the association with a truth that knocks out everything you thought you knew. It is humbling, refreshing, intimidating and deeply blissful. 

​The truth is not hidden but because we love mysteries we say it is. All the beautiful messages of all the religions and sages around the world have changed nothing. It hasn’t made the world a better place. We still kill and hate one another. For thousands of years nothing has changed.
 
That is because thruth is nothing that you can read about and learn in the same way that you learn the ABC:s. Truth is something you find inside, even though there is evidence of it outside.
 
Truth is something that has to be discovered by each and everyone, individually. If they want to. That is why truth can be open in plain sight and still nothing changes. That is why truth can be told and not seen.
 
Truth goes beyond belief. Truth goes beyond what you think you are. Most people are not ready to give up what they believe is true in order to find actual truth.  But that is what is needed. The complete giving up of all beliefs. How else would you be able to make room for truth?
 
“Love is all you need” may be true but as soon as we start asking “how do I get love?” all is lost. Not even to ask “how do I give love?” is quite good enough. Because your idea of love is a belief and it may not tally with someone else’s beliefs and perceived needs. And what will you do if your love is rejected? If nobody is happier because of the love you give?
 
A better question to ask would be, what is love? Or better yet, what is true? What do I know for certain? What do I actually know that can never be denied in any circumstance? And be prepared to go wherever that question takes you.
 
That is the direction in which you will find truth, and love, and freedom. If you look hard enough, if you are willing to give up everythng. And I mean everything. And I mean willing.
 
But how many of us are really willing? How many of us even have that interest? And so the truth will continue to be in plain sight and continued to be denied. And the world will go on as always. This is no problem, really. The interest can not be manufactured. Either it’s there or it’s not. You will know if it’s there for you. The fire  inside is a sign, the continuous looking.
 
The trick is to not look for what you believe about truth, but for truth itself. Truth is not an object. Truth is not an acquisition. 
 
In a sense you are not the one discovering truth but truth is discovering you. You may not even know why you want it. But in the end you will discover that truth makes everything intensely interesting and vividly alive. 

This grainy moment frees itself from the grip of memory and anticipation. This grainy moment is all I  have. It’s beautiful in its harshness. The blinding light tenderly forces me to see what is. Not what I think about it, not what I wish from it but what this moment really, deeply, is.

See everything within yourself. See every untruth, every denial, rationalization and condemnation. Leave no stone unturned.

See every fixation, obsession, attachment, dependence. See the structure of how you think things must be. See every suffering you endure. See everything you shy away from. See everything that gives you a sting of unwelcome emotion.

See how you blame the world for the sting. See the ways you fight it.  See how you blame yourself and how you condemn your being.

There is nothing you need to do or fix. Only see the truth of yourself and that truth will set you free. 

If you are on a spritual path everything that happens to you has deep meaning. It’s what you need and what’s best for you, wether it’s good or bad.

This is only true if you are serious about finding out what you are. If you are not on spritiual path you can rage all you want. Just continue to get angry, hurt or offended when things don’t go your way. You have all the right to do that.

But if you are on a spirtitual path you find that everything that happens has relevance. You never blame anyone for anything because you see the bigger picture.

If you are on a spiritual path no one is wrong and no one has wronged you. They just are where they are and express whatever they are able to express.

Everyone is where they are. Everyone express the love they are capable of expressing. No more, no less.

If you are on a spiritual path you never feel you are better than anyone else. As a spiritual being you know you are the same as the beggar on the street and presidents.

There are levels of ignorance but the truth is the truth. We are all the same.

When you are on a spiritual path you take everytning in stride because you have agreed to be taught. You have decided that growing is more important than getting what you want or being right.

The magnetism of the world has lost its power to attract you.
You will be tested.
You will be thoroughly tested.
You will have to show that you are sincere.
You will have to show that you trust.

It will hurt but you are able to see beyond. You allow life to teach you.

You don’t choose spirituality in order to get what you want. If you choose spirituality to satisfy your desires, whether they are spiritual, sexual or material, you may get what you want but you won’t be spiritual and eventually the dream will crash. Then you might start on your true journey.

Don’t create a spiritual persona. Just be who you are. Don’t identify with your emotions. Just watch what happens.

Spirituality and desire, unless it is of God, is mutually exclusive. As simple as that. There’s nothing wrong with desire. But it’s not spiritual.

If you want money or sex or things, go on, desire it. Enjoy it or miss it. Live it. Love it. Then when you are thorougly satisfied or thoroughly disappointed, God or spirituality is there for you.

Material success is not a proof of the goodness of your soul. Renuniciation is not a proof ot the goodness of  your soul either. The goodness of your soul needs no proof. You are it. What proof do you need to know you are?

It’s all a passing show. Something, you don’t understand what, happened to find a vantage point in your body and the world is suddenly observed through you. (You think it's you because you learned to color it with your preferences.) Some frames are nicer than others and you want to pause some parts. But the show goes on and you become miserable because your favorite part can’t be watched again. You desperately try to rewind or just stop it for a minute.

Or you want the show to be different. Now you want to rewrite the script for it to please you more. The one who came to observe through you doesn’t care, for her the show is perfect, but you are waiting for your special scene. You desire it with all your heart. When it’s not coming you want to rip the screen apart.

Do it. Rip the screen and watch what’s really going on. Meet the director and get to understand the mechanics of the show.

Or just enjoy the show, wholeheartedly.

Either way is fine. But remember you are not the director. You are so much more and so much less. How, then, could it not be perfect?

To have a positive mind and happy feelings are great. By allowing joy into your world you attract a chain of positive events.

It sounds simple enough: Everybody wants to be happy and if I change my thoughts to more positive thoughts I will have a great life. Or: If I practice loving kindness and focus on positive feelings, I will become compassionate, the world will be a better place and I will be a happier person.

But what nobody tells you is what to do with the angry, hateful, fearful feelings that life is so good at presenting us with. We are just told to focus on the positive and “letting go” of anger etc. Sure, that’s good. If you can do it.

If you can’t, and most people can’t, the result will be suppression and repression of your difficult feelings. Then nothing is accomplished. Nil. Nada. Zilch. Rien.

You just threw a blanket over the messy stuff. You just swept it under the rug and now admire your pretty room.  But the dirt is still there. Under a shiny layer of goodness the dirt goes on accumulating. You might even forget about it.

You are now living a lie. It’s a pretty lie but it’s still a lie. You and everyone around you are the victims.

This happens very often for people inspired by New Age where the belief is that our low “vibration” (bad feelings) will attract bad stuff. To remedy this New Age offers several techniques to “raise your vibration”. (This is basically what the famous Law of Attraction is all about.)

Those techniques often make people feel really good. For a while. Then it wears off and another technique is required. And another. And another.  Ad infinitum.

And all you’ve been doing is running away from yourself. Some people get addicted to  this cycle.

So, what to do with all those difficult emotions? Fear, anger, rage, anxiety etc. What to do if you are really, REALLY, pissed at someone or something? If you are terrified? Worried? Desperate?

Send out loving thoughts? Immerse yourself in light?

Well, around 99.9% of the population will not be able to do this without suppressing their emotions at the same time. To send out loving thoughts without emotional suppression takes tremendous spiritual maturity. Buddha was sitting under that tree for a really long time until he had it all figured out.

I want to make one thing clear: There is nothing wrong or dangerous about having so called negative feelings.

(Note: I’m not talking about mental disorders or destitution here, just normal human behavior in more or less normal situations).

What is bad, though, is entertaining negative thoughts that you keep repeating over and over again. But on the other hand that is really easy to change. It’s just a matter of changing your thinking habit. Most people who try report dramatic and lasting positive change. Your thoughts don’t own you anymore.

But our emotions are not as straightforward as our thoughts.

In my experience, the only way to deal with difficult emotions is, paradoxically, to accept them and feel them, over and over again. Every little feeling has to be accepted and embraced. Then, eventually, they will disappear on their own. This can take a really long time. Often years.

I know. You don’t want that. Nobody does. You want it NOW. Because we live in a society where waiting just one second for a web page to load is insufferable.

Once you have gotten over that this might take longer than one second, one of the biggest pitfalls is trying to understand and make sense of your emotions. Please don’t try. They simply don’t make sense on the level of the mind. Just feel and accept, feel and accept. If you try to attach stories and explanations to your difficult emotions you might be stuck in their net for real. That’s like having ten pages up that never load.Or sweeping yourself completely under the rug. 

But don’t despair. There is one other way – and it can be instant: Surrender.

This means that you give up trying to control or understand. It means to even invite your difficult emotions when they rear their ugly heads, to welcome them lovingly because that is the way you are feeling right now and everything about you is holy and therefore these feelings are holy too. This takes a lot of courage.

Surrender is, as you see, also a form of acceptance. The deepest acceptance: acceptance through the heart. You don’t even try to understand what is happening to you. You have accepted that these feelings are within you and you don’t even try to change anything.  You have surrendered your desire to be free of them.

For this trust is required, deep trust in yourself, in life or God,

Surrender goes against the grain of our society. We have been taught to never give up, to keep fighting. But sometimes never giving up means that all you do is banging your head against the wall or knocking on doors that never open.

Sometimes it’s good to give up. (Don’t tell anyone I said that!)

You are your own teacher. No one can tell you what will happen or how long it will take for your emotions to be freed. If you are really ripe it can be instant. Or you can surrender gradually over months or even years. Whatever you are ready for it will be a beautiful process, divine in its purity. 

In the end, you will find yourself in the unique, unfathomable youness of you, the deepest love imaginable. You’ll be living in grace and wonder. And time won’t matter. Not even in waiting for a web page to load.

I’ve been thinking of truth lately. What is true in life? What is false? What is it in my life that I can always trust?

First I came to the conclusion that joy and love are the only things in life that are really true – they help us transcend ourselves. I then thought beauty does that, too. Often neglected, or judged as superficial, beauty is important because it opens the heart to love and joy. It expands the heart.

Life has a funny – or not so funny – way of showing you what you need to see. A turn of events showed me clearly that even the idea of joy and love can be false and, as we all know, beauty fades. Things break or get worn out, things are sometimes taken away.

I found that while love and joy may be true in essence, the mind has a very distorted way of understanding and interpreting the world. The mind has an idea of what love is, an idea of what brings joy and then gets disappointed when that idea doesn’t work out.  

Mind makes love relative and joy elusive. Mind isn’t capable of absolute love, unconditional love. For that mind needs to be transcended.

Mind somehow recognizes the essence of beauty and love, a faint memory perhaps. Mind searches for it, longs for it, thinks it has found it but discovers again and again that it wasn’t what it seemed. It was all an illusion.

 What’s left then? What can I trust? What is the simplest, purest form of life? Where is true love, true joy, true beauty?

So I came to the conclusion, which others have come to before me: the only truth is my sense of being, my sense of presence, pure beingness; the I completely free of all descriptions such as age, sex, nationality, etc.

This sense of being never changes over the course of a life. It has always been the same. When I was three it was exactly the same as it is now. In thirty years it will still be the same.

This sense of I is identical in all humans and I think in most animals, mammals at least. It’s often overlooked. The world is loud and the spirit speaks silently. When this sense of I recognizes, and is recognized back, by another sense of I there is pure joy and pure love. Blessed are those who experience that.

Interestingly, just holding on to your sense of I brings love and joy. So I’m back where I started. Love and joy are true. Only this love and this joy aren’t depending on the world outside. It’s there as soon as I feel my beingness. It can never fade or disappear. It’s always with me. Only I can step away from it or forget about it.  It never leaves me.

It’s holy. It’s what makes us supremely equal. It’s what makes us divine.