Category Archives: Culture

Culture, development, Interglobal, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality, Science

“Unacknowledged, Unaccountable, Unconstitutional, Unspeakable and International”

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Unacknowledged, Unaccountable, Unconstitutional, Unspeakable and International

And also sparsely “Undocumented” by me as it might interfere with the flow of this rant!

The events of this summer, as Heidi and I became aware of them, have stuffed down our throats some most – to continue the parallelisms – “Unpalatable” mouthfuls.

Topping them all off has been the understanding that evil exists in all the horribly banal forms in which it has always been found.  In this case we’ve been exposed to the vomitably sickening account of the “real” story supporting the case to be made in favor of Russian interference in our last presidential election.  

Please don’t misunderstand…

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren

Please don’t misunderstand, I voted for Hillary simply because she was not Donald.  Bernie, running with Elizabeth Warren as his VP, would have been a combo I could have enthusiastically supported, even if not my “ideal” team.  Excuse the digression which is only to clarify context.

 

Apropos, I considered a couple days ago reading a recent article in The Atlantic, linked to a post on Facebook by someone whose name I’ve forgotten.  The author. Rosie Gray, titled her article:

 

Bill Browder’s Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee

Bill Browder
Bill Browder

(with this subtitle, still quoting Browder): “I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests.”
It was a bone chilling account of ruthless oligarchical mafiosi of the worst Russian sort and their battle with the equally “competent” Vladimir Putin.  The utter cruelty of all parties in their struggle to loot the rest of the world, now that the homeland itself has been cleaned out, recalls the extremes of Stalin and Hitler and Mao and all those Kim Il Somebodies in North Korea and elsewhere. Undercover of some ism or other, they stop at nothing to attain immense wealth and power.  Such (inset your favorite evil here) -opathy requires endless struggle against real or imagined enemies for which we all pay.

stunned with incomprehension

Sergei Magnitsky
Sergei Magnitsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky

I confess that I intuited what the article would recount and passed it unread on to Heidi, who was stunned with incomprehension at what Browder recounted in Gray’s article. With the (perhaps) unknowing enabling of American law firms and publicists, a great campaign was launched by Putin to repeal – or at least “defang” – the Magnitsky Act which had been passed by Congress in 2012 in response to brutal and fatal human rights violations of a lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who had been uncovering illegal pilfering of, among other activities, the Russian treasury by Putin himself – along with his cohorts. What he eventually uncovered was a veritable hoovering machine which provided Putin personally with percentages of the take of the cream of the oligarchs who didn’t want to end up like the wealthiest of them all, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, publicly humiliated in a cage for a trial that put him in prison for 10 years followed by exile in Switzerland.  In the course of the cover up exposed by Magnitsky, others were murdered, not always within Russia itself.

 

The Magnitsky Act enabled billions of Russian funds held in banks elsewhere, especially in the United States, to be sequestered.  This included Putin’s own money and that of his henchmen who no longer trusted that their money would be safe within Russia.  The Panama Papers added much detail to these operations.  

The Magnitsky Act enabled billions of Russian funds to be sequestered.

Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin

As horrible as these ongoing crimes have been, they are internationally recognised as illegal and subject to legislative control. Now I want to pass onto another huge area of concern, but in this case the events are not seen as illegal…because they are neither known nor acknowledged!

As such there is no law against these activities and no legal entity is responsible, right here in the good ol’ USA! The unmistakable ongoing presence of living entities from beyond this earth.

…they have…mastered faster than light limitations on speed

Dr. Steven Greer
Dr. Steven Greer

In the past few months, and especially since May, we have become aware, largely due to the tireless and decades long persevering research of Dr. Steven Greer, of evidence that Heidi and I consider convincing regarding:

  • The unmistakable ongoing presence of living entities from beyond this earth.
  • Their presence has been known by intelligence and military authorities since at least World War II.
  • Captured ET “personnel” and craft have been mined for information and technology which no civilian authorities, even presidents, have knowledge of, let alone control of.
  • These extraterrestrial beings have “travelled” so far from other star systems that they have, ipso facto, mastered faster than light limitations on speed (and mass!).
  • Since the 1950’s humans have been able to mimic some of their technologies, including “anti gravity” techniques.  Some are genuine and some are, shockingly,  choreographed to fool, intimidate, mislead, create war hysteria, sometimes even assassinate, others who have dared to speak frankly of these phenomena.
    President Eisenhower
    President Eisenhower



    The motives are simple enough: to retain control over existing forms of energy (fossil fuels, etc.) and the stranglehold of scarcity which generates unspeakable wealth among the very few who are privy to these programs which are unauthorised, and therefore unsupervised, by any constitutional authority (and hence Illegal) – or any authority outside than their own siloed compartmentalized realms.  No single conspiracy or cabal knows all the activities, being restricted to their own “need to know” areas.  Of course, the military uses private contractors for research, development and production, but the costs are unknown and no one “keeps books” on them.  Banks are involved, but they don’t know details of operations. Science and technologies are employed as needed, including great universities, media is controlled and corrupted, politicians may be included if they can be “trusted” or bought off.


  • …presidents are denied information as they have “no need to know”.
  • Briefly, presidents are denied information as they have “no need to know”. Military as high as the intelligence head of the joints chiefs of staff are denied even knowledge that these “Unacknowledged Special Projects” (USAPs) exist, let alone their contents.  
    UFO? OURS? THEIRS? If so, who are we, who are they?

    Dr. Steven Greer has painstakingly documented a huge dossier of information from highly credible sources – as well as his own observations which he has revealed in endless interviews, videos, and films since the early 90’s when he was asked by others who were too exposed or too fearful (or in some prominent cases, just too chicken shit) to risk their own political, corporate or academic careers.

To be sure, he too is protected by high and powerful agents, many ex-military, who enable him to continue his research and ongoing exposés. Heidi and I trust that anyone reasonably intelligent and open minded will also find him credible after some exposure to him.  An excellent place to start would be his just released crowdfunded video documentary “Unacknowledged” available for rental or purchase ($15) through Amazon. His earlier film from 2013, “SIRIUS” is now free on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C_-HLD21hA

Further media and references can be found on his Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Dr-Steven-M-Greer-194568653910069/posts/?ref=page_internal

Do not worry any longer about the ridicule of anyone.  It’s too late for that!

Mark Davenport

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

What are you waiting for?

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Today the answer is easy and quick: I am truly waiting for the super heat wave to finally pass. And then?

Waiting seems to be a fundamental human “activity” although it can appear in quite different clothes. Why are we waiting and what are we waiting for?

Being busy and waiting at the same time?

You might say: I don’t wait a lot, I have so much to do, and I have no time for waiting. You might exactly FEEL like that, but aren’t you waiting, anyway? Waiting for the work to be finally accomplished, for the boss to finally recognize your bravery, for the next pay check, for the next weekend, for the lunch break, for a coffee or a cigarette? You might not be actively waiting by sitting in the corner and thinking exclusively about what you are waiting for. You might be engaged in all sorts of different activities and the waiting component runs alongside, undercover, in your mind and in your organism.

Life is waiting

Pregnant belly
Waiting for new life

I was struck lately by the insight that all human (and animal) life consists of a permanent time stream characterized by waiting. A pregnant woman is “expecting”. Doesn’t that mean that she is “waiting” for the fetus to grow in her belly and then be born? Sometimes women are waiting far over time to give birth to their child, this is recognized as “waiting”, for sure. But before birth it was waiting, too; waiting for the unknown to arrive, waiting for what could happen the next moment – the movement felt in the belly or the lack of it -, waiting for the next week, the next month, the next year. We don’t know what will happen and we are waiting for the future to unfold in our lives.

Active & passive waiting

dog waiting at the window
A dog’s active waiting

There is a difference between “active” waiting and “passive” waiting, or conscious waiting and waiting without being conscious that we are waiting. The fetus is waiting to grow and has no idea that he or she does so. Children become conscious about their waiting in increasing degrees. When hungry, the baby cries and waits for the food to arrive. Later children are told that they need to wait for all sorts of things. It is part of the training for life that children learn to postpone gratification, which means nothing other than waiting consciously for a goodie instead of devouring it immediately. Studies show that children who have learned this have a hugely higher probability of being successful in life. So waiting purposefully for something better in the future is a very useful thing, not bad at all.

 Conditioned for waiting

child looking through a fence
Too young for…

But when can “waiting” become a “bad” thing? Actually, the “bad waiting” demand creeps into our lives without us really noticing it. A 4-year-old is told that he or she has to wait until 6 to be able to do or get certain things; all children wait to become older, teenagers or “adults”, because they think that “real life” will start then whereas their child-life is somehow insufficient, not valuable and therefore to be gotten over as soon as possible. The joyful life of a child’s mind is erased by the desire of a promised future which needs to be waited for. Waiting for getting older overshadows the present and devalues it as “not ok”.

 

Later, when we get the scooter license we are waiting for the car driving license; we wait until we finally can leave school – which was my case, for sure – and then we can go to University, when “real life” promises to begin. Some time into University I was waiting for finally passing my exams and becoming an MA. Other people are waiting for their completion of the professional training because the “true life” will start with finding a good job. Maybe we have found a husband, wife or life partner in the meantime for whom we have waited since adolescence and whom we have expected to guide us into the promised land of a fulfilled life. Maybe we are lucky and it works out for some time, but aren’t we all waiting for the relationship problems to arrive which we have witnessed as “normal” among others. Or better, aren’t we waiting for them NOT to arrive? We are waiting, though, in one way or the other.

 

white figure Stepping up the ladder until...
Stepping up the ladder until…

In our professional career, we start waiting from day #1. Normally we begin at the bottom of the power hierarchy and we are told that we have to march up the ladder to success, as an employee as well as a solopreneur. We invest a lot of energy, of work and of learning and we are constantly waiting for the moment when all that will “pay off”. Some people seem to have reached what we want to reach and they promise to teach us how to do it ourselves – by feeding them money from our desire to abbreviate the waiting time for the fulfillment of our dreams.

Does waiting ever end?

Maybe your waiting ends in one particular field, but there is still enough waiting material in your life where you can continue to engage whole heartedly: your first, second or fifth child to be born, to go to school, to grow up, to become successful and what not; everything you were waiting for for yourself can become a waiting subject for you by transferring it to your children, or your siblings, your group, your society.

What are we waiting for and why?

So what are we REALLY waiting for? For a better future? For something miraculous to happen in our lives? For the world to change? For freedom, wealth, health, success, whatever? For being free from the burden of responsibility? The burden of living? The promised land after all the suffering which human life implies?

Active-passive, conscious-unconscious

You might insist that you are not waiting, you have a goal to achieve and you are busy the whole day to finally arrive there. This is a form of non-conscious waiting, non-active waiting, as your activity is bound and focused on that goal and you are not sitting around noticing the awkward burden of “just waiting” like you might know it from the doctor’s waiting room or before the results of an election are announced. Those moments I would call ACTIVE WAITING and we all are good in trying to get over that as soon as possible by distracting our attention from the burden of conscious active waiting. But it is still waiting when we watch a film, go out for dinner or dive into our work during these times of focused expectations.

 

I believe that, ultimately, we are waiting for the end of our life on earth, curious what might happen afterwards. This long waiting time is structured by the many worldly things we are waiting for. If it is the financial success, career fulfillment, becoming grandparents or reaching enlightenment, there is no real difference regarding our propensity for waiting. The object of the waiting process changes according to our age and stage of consciousness, to our inclinations and personality traits, but the waiting persists from birth to death.

 

Who are you in the face of – waiting?

So the question arises: What is it what you personally are waiting for? What did you wait for when you were a child, a young adult, in midlife and in your older years? Did the objects of your waiting change? And did you reach what you were waiting for and how did that feel for you? Did it give you the satisfaction and nourishment which you had expected? And in case you didn’t reach it: what was the consequence of it? Did you become disappointed and bitter, or did you succeed to get a kick into the future because of the failure? Only you can find that out, it will be different for everybody, at least on the surface, but probably not in the deeper layers of life. Here the question is: Did you learn and are you still learning from the outcome of the various waiting processes you were engaged in? Does it lead to your growing up into a differentiated and responsible adult? Or did you stay a helpless child in a grown up body?

Still waiting to grow up?

Mal person holding a Teddy Bear, both in red
Playing with the world like with a Teddybear

Looking at the present situation of our world it is easy to deduce that most people are stuck with the last option. A president who behaves like a 4-year-old. Military chiefs in need of new playgrounds for their insane games, scientists who try to bend reality to their theories, ruthless mafia gangs pursuing money and power: none of these display maturity as a human being but being stuck in egocentrism and omnipotent fantasies – a rather low level of possible development which is available to us humans today.

 

So where are you? Where am I and where are those around us?

If you have read so far I assume that you have traveled more of “the road less traveled” (Scott Peck). You are able to face your reality and that of the world and you are willing to explore what can be done to facilitate change for the benefit of the whole world, humanity, our planet and the whole cosmos. I am really glad to meet you here!

And now?

Now the question: what can we do, both together, and each of us by ourselves?

I suggest that we begin with noticing when we are waiting, again, and check what we are waiting for and what we try to avoid with this specific act of waiting. I am talking about our waiting for others to do what we desire and want to happen. Waiting for the state, society or whoever to resolve the problems we are facing. Waiting for the courageous people to step up and take the blame while we are hiding out behind the curtain of our cowardice. Or just waiting that the nightmare will stop, that we recognize reality as a dream where we can easily wake up and everything is fine – a dear and well-practiced illusion which we are far too eager to embrace by giving it the name HOPE.

Hope, motivation, inspiration, and engagement is needed.

We need the power of hope, but hope alone and waiting for things to change is not something to rely on. Sure, change will happen anyway, but without our participation, it most likely will go into a direction which we didn’t foresee and probably didn’t want. There are too many malevolent forces in this world who will take advantage to direct change towards their own interests as soon as there is “laissez faire”, a vacuum, which our lethargy, our fears, and inertia give to them. They, for sure, are highly motivated to direct the world where they want it to go.

We need at least the same degree of motivation and dedication  to counterbalance them. That means we need to get out of victimism and helplessness and begin to step up and DO. Do what? Well, begin and find out what the right thing is for you, for me, for the many others who want a positive change but are still holding back by indecisiveness.

 

What I am doing:

Paradiso Integrale in Italy - the home of the Wisdom Factory
Paradiso Integrale in Italy – the home of the Wisdom Factory

As for myself, I begin with writing down my thoughts and hold public conversations at the Wisdom Factory and I am trying to inspire others to do the same and distribute their insights to as many others as possible. I talk with people about edgy topics and do my best to help them see new perspectives on “old” things. I try to connect people and to create initiatives for collaboration and co-creation – which often can mean simply: listen to each other and engage in creative dialog to find ideas and solutions together which neither of us alone could have conceived.

 

Will you join the tribe who decides to abandon active waiting and step into active creating? You are so welcome!

 

Culture, Interglobal, Psychology and Spirituality, Science

Is that true? – Facing the Fake News Society

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Is that true? Believing vs. Knowing

 

“Do you believe that ETs exist?” a friend asked me lately after we watched the movie “Unacknowledged”. Do you believe that they exist? Is that true? I couldn’t answer the question, I stumbled over the word ”believe”. When do you believe something? When do you know it, or when do you intuit that something is true?

 

In the following, I will outline some thoughts about the different ways of judging if something exists or not, if something is “true” or not, and how we can judge about truth and “fake news”.

 

Hypothesis: Only what you can see exists. True?

 

Mathematical equations
Mathematical equations describe reality

Let’s begin with Mathematics. Does it exist? Do you believe it exists, or do you know it? Or do you assume that it exists, for several reasons; maybe because they tried to teach you something with that very name in school and so it must exist! One thing is obvious: you cannot SEE mathematics, you can use it by writing down equations, all sorts of symbols, and miraculously something meaningful comes out at the end – or, if not, you have made some error. So mathematics exists although it is a non-material “thing” which nobody has ever seen, but using its principles leads to interesting insights about what actually does exist in the material world.

 

So you probably don’t BELIEVE that mathematics exists, you KNOW it.

 

What about electricity? You cannot see it either, but touching a plug with a wet hand – or, worse, letting your hair dryer fall into your sink filled with water – you certainly have the direct experience of its existence. First, you better BELIEVE the warnings to be careful in similar circumstances and then you will KNOW it for certain as soon as you undergo such an experience or watch it happen to others.

 

So, do extraterrestrials exist?

 

Coming back to that question: You probably haven’t seen any yet, but does that mean that they don’t exist? Remember what we have shown with the examples of mathematics and electricity. You might have seen the famous movie “ET” and heard people arguing about the question if aliens really exist or if they are only the purposeful invention of someone or, alternatively, the hallucination of super crazy people who claim to have seen some spaceship appear in the skies. If it is so, you only have the choice to BELIEVE it or not, you cannot KNOW it. You might evaluate how trustworthy the sources of these pieces of information are, but you don’t really have the means of KNOWING as opposed to BELIEVING – or hoping or fearing or whatever.

 

If you should see yourself these super bright lights which they say accompany spaceships on the sky, would you then BELIEVE it? Or would you think you even KNOW it because you have seen the phenomena with your own eyes? This could well have been the case from the beginning of time until about 60 years ago. But now? Since modern technology is able to fake a spaceship there is much probability that somebody from this planet is trying to deceive you. (If you doubt this statement, get the documentary “Unacknowledged” or start with watching the movie below)

 

Don’t trust your eyes and what official manipulation wants you to see.

 

So in the case of extraterrestrials, you cannot use BELIEVE to answer the question but you need to arrive at KNOWING.

 

How can you arrive at knowing?

 

That’s easy when you know a little about humans and psychology. From innumerable studies – and from mythological stories like that of Cain and Abel (watch here Jordan Peterson talk about the biblical story of Cain and Abel) – we know that the individual hides everything from others which they don’t want them to know, and he/she envies, attacks and ultimately destroys everything and everyone who embodies their ideal, the thing or the being that they themselves most deeply desire to be or to possess when they realize that they can neither be it nor get it themselves.

 

Let’s assume that ETs don’t exist.

Ok, fine. Everybody could talk freely about the topic, nobody would care, it would only serve as a topic for films or a hobby for people who have no better thing to do than observing the sky. But how then could the phenomena be explained? What other explanation would be credible?

But if we assume that technology is able to do similar things, the urgent question arises: How? There is no easily accessible info on the Internet about how flying saucers are constructed and how they work. Does this information exist or not exist? Who is hiding it? And if it doesn’t exist, then the question remains what are these observed phenomena.

 

Now let’s assume that ETs exist.

Ufos in the night sky?
Ufos in the night sky?

So why don’t we all know about it? Why is there such secrecy around it? People who are ridiculed when exposing what they know – or in the worst case, as happened many times, killed? Why would you kill anyone who claims to know how the extraterrestrial spaceships work? Why were so many researchers assassinated who had developed alternative and low-cost (or free) functioning energy sources? Guess who is interested in NOT everyone having access to abundant resources and thriving lives? Well, we know who; those who would lose most when humanity would adopt the alternative energy systems.

 

Here is the principle which makes clear that ETs must exist:

Something is ever more likely to be true the more someone tries to hide it from the eyes of others.

 

Coming back to the initial question: Do you believe that ETs exist? Or do you know it?

 

brain, both hemispheres
Left brain hemisphere, the place for logical deduction

I cannot speak for you, but the logical deduction tells a clear story: ETs DO exist and they threaten the power of those who were able to gain unimaginable power over us, over the whole world, in the past century. It began with the US military who, by themselves, gathered all available evidence about ET existence – and locked it away in such a way that not even the president or CIA boss is granted access to the documentation. (Watch the below movie for the evidence of what I am saying here)

 

You might say that this is a conspiracy theory, and you are free to do so, when you BELIEVE it to be the case.  My BELIEF is directed to the credibility of the sources and the documented events and to the “misfortunes” which happened to so many people who seriously researched the topic. I believe in the information I get from people who I personally know as trustworthy or who I have observed for quite a time and have come to the conviction that they are speaking credibly.

 

AXIOMS are at the base of deduction 

railroad-tracks
On earth parallels never meet – an assumption which works fine here, but not in space

That is my basic “axiom” from which I start my logical conclusions. Axioms are those entities which cannot be proved true within the system itself and therefore need to be assumed as true in order to construct a valid and true conclusion from propositions within the system. When axioms change the conclusions change – you might remember the famous Euclidian parallels which never meet, and a completely new geometry arose when this axiom was dropped.

 

Regarding the existence of ETs in the Kosmos: The other axiom for my deductions is grounded in the laws of human behavior as briefly outlined above: “If you have nothing to hide why do you keep it secret at all costs?” Or better; whenever you use drastic means to keep things secret, these things are real and others knowing about them is highly threatening to you.

 

Therefore my conclusion: ETs exist.

 

For me, aliens do exist and they visit our planet to make sure that our destructivity won’t erase our planet and our species, as well as damage the whole Universe. Our human capacity for endless fighting and destruction for egocentric motives is exemplified in atomic warheads directed not only on locations on this earth but also into space.

An atomic explosion
The ultimate destructive power of ill intended humans

We humans are a menace, not only to ourselves but also for whatever might be living in the Kosmos – and NOT the other way round! Despite the fact that psychopathic leaders and those behind the official leadership carousel wanting us to believe in their story. They keep doing this in order to maintain the personal advantage which they draw from the present economic system of scarcity. Fossil energy as the basis of the world economy is not only depriving us humans from the clean air and water which we need for survival, they also keep us in artificial scarcity by means of which they are able to continuously accumulate material wealth.

“Free energy” – the consequence of modern science and alien example

The aliens have mastered the “free energy” challenge and overcome gravity and other basic laws which civilian human science is still struggling with. They use what is presently called “free energy” which has been discovered by many individuals from about 150 years ago on. We all could already live on a clean planet if the main exponents of this KNOWLEDGE hadn’t been eliminated and their documents weren’t hidden. It is useless to hope that the change will come from those who have all the interest in keeping the knowledge hidden. The Internet presently gives us the chance that what has once been discovered can be rediscovered again – and every time it gets easier. (see “Cosmic Grooves” by Ken Wilber). The more that people come out with their ideas and devices and the more it happens in completely publicly, the more it will be difficult to kill all of them and to continue to hide what all humanity has the right to know and use for the benefit of EVERYONE.

The documents available

There is a movie to watch about this topic bringing many testimonies for the existence of what we have talked about here. The movie is a sort of summary of many hours of footage, much of which published on Youtube and certainly worthwhile to watch – if you need more evidence to get from “believing” to “knowing”

Culture, Life on earth

Where in the world would you like to live? – Taking a peak into the future.

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There were times, not too long ago, where the question of where you would like to live was not anything which would have concerned most of humanity.  Today it is a burning question for very many people on this planet although for completely different reasons.

Although the present situation seems very difficult and almost hopeless – and I will describe why – there is a bright light shining on the horizon. Keep on reading through all the problems described!

Many people have to leave their countries

Topic #1, not only in Europe but in many countries of the world: the refugees and the migrants. Refugees definitely don’t want to stay in their own countries any longer, or better, they CANNOT remain there where they were born because of war and devastation. Migrants might not be directly threatened to be killed in their countries by actual malevolence, but they feel that they cannot find what they need there, enough food, education or personal freedom.

So, most of the people in the world move away from their home places because they cannot meet their basic needs for survival as a valued human being. They don’t actually know where they “would like” to be instead. Anything better, for sure. The best possible, if they can make it.

The problems of refugee camps

Syrians or other Middle East refugees who end up in the refugee camps in Lebanon or similar countries might live in physical safety from the violence of a war. They survive, but they are kept like slaves in the camp, without a passport if they happen to be born inside the camp, and they don’t have the possibility to ever create a life for themselves, a career, a purpose for living. They are kept in the camps because the country lives on the money which it receives from the UNO to run the camps. If the refugees left the camps the main economic pillar of the country would break away. So they don’t get any encouragement or help to move on with their lives towards a better future.

Migrants who search for a better life

Mother and child in precarious situation
A mother searching for a better life for her child

Then there are the migrants who leave their countries to find elsewhere a better life condition. Migrations have been a normal thing since the beginning of humans on this planet. Today they are perceived as a problem because, definitely, the people living in poverty want to partake, at least a little, at the rich life in the Western countries. Those people often are filled with the illusion that here in Europe everything is better for everyone – and partly it is true. Still, everyone who arrives gets food and shelter, but the people in the rich societies are, generally speaking, not very compassionate. They don’t really want to share a lot and risk to fall back into relative poverty themselves. This is totally understandable but doesn’t solve the problem. The problem was initially created – and still maintained – by the rich countries which became rich by colonialism and exploiting those countries from where the people are flooding in now. How can we find a balance here? By closing borders and building walls? Well, some leaders and many people think so, but it won’t solve the problem.

Who can choose where to live?

A man with "refugees welcome" written on his shirt
Many refugees want to go to Germany. At first they were welcome…

So, most people cannot really choose where to live, they have to tolerate to stay where they are or aim for somewhere, some place of which they don’t really know anything, where they probably won’t be welcome and where they would be forced to live a 3rd class life. And still, they risk their lives for getting to that somewhere-place.

What about us Westerners? When we build walls to keep others out we certainly expect that we, ourselves, are not limited by those walls and that we can freely choose to go to the other side as we like. A new form of colonization?  Maybe  the new settlers in the land of the unwanted people will be their unwanted people there – and they are most likely OUR unwanted people:  those who don’t have enough money to maintain the same good life at home as their fellow countrymen who are fortunate enough to not have been swallowed by the technological progress and its subsequent elimination of workplaces.

Especially those are the losers who are not super intelligent or super industrious. And also the old people who don’t get a sufficient pension to afford a decent western lifestyle and all those who depend on a social support which gets cut more and more because there is no lobby for the non-productive people – and nobody cares.

Can we chose where we want to stay?

So the question gets turned upside down: can we choose to stay where we want to stay? Can we remain in the country where we lived for decades and in the house which we have built up with endless years of work and investment? Or do we need to leave to go nowhere because the banks don’t care if we have a place to live or not, and not even that we have already paid them a huge amount of money which doesn’t seem to matter at all. Nor do the governments care when they invent all sorts of new taxes to fill their holes in the budget. Once a fully owned house was a guarantee for having a safe space for the future. This has changed. If you own the house you have to pay all those taxes if you have the money or not if the house gives you any income or only huge costs of maintenance. You just have to pay, regardless if you have some money left for food or clothing. The state comes first.

What is going wrong in our societies?

We had the illusion that our societies were built in service to its populations, an organization for living together in the best possible way. We have come to the extreme where the normal population is subdued to what others decide, call it democracy or not. The real power is somewhere else, not in the will of the people. Don’t understand me wrong, I am not advocating any ideas which would lead to communist totalitarian states, but I do claim that the government should have an ethical direction and the will to serve the people instead of giving a few people the opportunity to infinite power over the well being (or not-well being) of most of the population.

Considering the present world situation:

Where would you like to live? And where would it be possible for you to live?

– Nota bene, these are completely different questions.

two people sitting on ta beach
Where can they afford to live?

The astonishing fact is that it is not only the case of refugees and migrants to have to go away from their home countries and not really be able to choose where to go. Increasingly it will be the same for many people of the so called rich countries. Old people are outsourced in 2nd or 3rd world countries the culture of which is completely different than theirs – but where life and support are cheaper and affordable for their small budget.  

Going down the rabbit hole? – Where the light comes in…

We are on the way, down the rabbit hole, unless a huge change happens which turns upside down our financial system and economic powers and renders them into institutions in service of life and prosperity.

An illusion and wishful thinking? No, not at all.

The end of secrecy and the transformation of our societies

Un artesian well for pumping water without electricity
The old way of harvesting free energy

We are already in the middle of a huge crisis – the necessary stage for something new to emerge. When we are able to expose the secrecy and malevolence of who is really leading our lives and who keep their power behind the scenes by oppressing all information  which, for instance,  would free us from fossil fuels and similar necessities of our present life; when this secrecy leaks and no longer works and the new and basically free energy is available to everyone, that would be the end of poverty and the end of  wars – because we don’t need what others have and for what we are willing to fight, because everyone can get what they want without needing big corporations who maintain their power by creating artificial scarcity. There won’t be scarcity because of energy, or better the manipulation of energy is on the bottom of all problems. With free energy available to all, literally every person in the world, all costs would be drastically reduced and we all, included the population of the Middle East, could remain at home and live an abundant life.

There won’t be scarcity because of energy; or better the manipulation of energy is on the bottom of all problems. With free energy available to all, to literally every person in the world, all costs would be drastically reduced and we all, included the population of the Middle East, could remain at home and live an abundant life.

 

Culture, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Why is it important to learn about history?

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What is HISTORY?

History is a subject in school like biology, languages, sports, whatever. It seems to be as much (or as less) important as those other subjects. I didn’t like it very much in my own school days and only now, many decades later, I come to understand why it is so important to learn about history, the history of our own country and that of those countries with which we were or are in close contact.

 

This article is inspired by what I learned recently about my own country, Germany, by reading books which told me many things I didn’t know. They often are not available in English, but here is an article in English which I came across only a few days ago and which gave me other info which I hadn’t known: (Read here)

 

Why do we re-invent the wheel whenever we can?

 

Letters for printing
Letters and numbers for printing

We certainly would all agree that it wouldn’t make much sense to invent again letters and numbers in order to write down what we say. The writing was invented a long time ago and its use is still valid. We can invent some new fonts, that is fun, but we wouldn’t invent completely new symbols for the sounds, it just wouldn’t be worth the effort and lead to no better outcome. We hold the way things are written in our collective memory as we learn it in early years in school and we understand why we need it for our everyday life.

 

This is different with history. We learn in school about wars and similar ugly things in the past, the exact years of some historic events (mostly famous battles or beginnings and endings of wars) in order to pass the exams in school. And then we forget everything as soon as possible. In our young and adventurous mind, we might not want to hear about these horrible things which live somewhere in the unreal past. We want to do something good in the world, at least many young people do. We are full of idealism and energy, we run to object to what is not working right now and we are determined to make it better. And, unfortunately, with our limited knowledge, we also believe to be in the possession of the truth and the only working concept to make everything happen for the best outcome. We intend to re-invent the wheel and are not willing and able to realize that the wheel we are riding on had been broken time and time again in the past. We haven’t understood anything about history because we didn’t really get in touch with it in our own lives. And so our most positive enthusiasm and energy will bring us most likely to the exact opposite of what we had foreseen in our ignorance and blindness.

 

How long can we go on with “more of the same”?

 

Everybody needs to make their own experience and suffer the consequences of their decisions. Well, yes, this is fundamentally true. But do we really need to re-invent the wheel or the written word? Isn’t there a possibility that the next generations can learn from what has worked in the past and what has not?

I believe that this is the only way for humanity to survive the present challenges. As long as we were only a few humans working with an ax and scythe we couldn’t create much damage even when committing the worst errors. With the number of people on the planet and the easy buttons for virtually everything we just cannot allow everyone to experience their destructive thoughts and actions before becoming wise. The damage might be fatal. We as humanity need to not fall into the same errors ever and ever again!

 

Why do I write all this?

 

Because I am learning about the cause and effect of not knowing what is important to know for getting oriented in life instead of bouncing around with all sorts of undesired outcomes.

And also because I realize that we humans have a hard time to learn from history for several reasons:

  • We are humans and want to have our own way, At least at a certain level of development, we don’t tolerate that others tell us what to do or not to do. Resistance is a major trait in humans, as well as egocentric orientation.
  • What we learn in school about history is biased according to the dominant political position of the society we are living in. In history books, facts might be listed, but many are not named, they are “white lies”, and the interpretation of the facts are one-sided and intentional to create a certain outcome.
  • Some “facts” are not evident to be that. Today we would call that “fake news”. An objective view on history is very difficult and to teach it to others in an understandable and motivating way even more.
  • We just don’t listen to enough different views and perspectives on the past to really become able to understand on what ground our own life is based.
  • We use the easy button, motivated by all the difficulties and inclinations mentioned above. Accordingly, in a naive conviction to be willing to do our very best, we go out in the world and, by doing that, we increase the chaos and the problems instead of resolving them. Against our good will we become part of the problem, not of the solution.

 

With that, I begin to understand why so many attempts to do good in the world end in disappointment, frustration, and even destructive behavior; the total opposite of where it started from. And I also begin to understand that we neglected the study of the past, our own past as a human being, by not discovering our dark sides and our still unrealized potential; as well as the past of our cultures, of our ideas and how they worked out when adopted in real life.

 

Germany’s predicament

 

German Flag in front of the Reichstag
The Symbol for Germany

Maybe that now is the right moment to tell you what inspired me to this post. It was the article as mentioned above, but also books and films about my native country Germany which tell a different story than the one we heard in school. History lessons stopped before WWII when I was at school and no word about the mindset and the specific German traits which were the basis for such an outcome to be produced. Nobody really wanted to talk about the recent past where so many murderous things have happened. There was the collective attempt to just forget all about it. Otherwise, people of my country, every single person, would have needed to question themselves about the degree of their participation and their enabling of what has happened. There was a huge silence in the families, we became oriented into the future, the past was over and we didn’t get to know anything, especially not about how our family lived in those times.

 

What we knew and didn’t know as children in Germany

 

The three elder siblings with the hated aunt Erika
The three elder siblings with the hated aunt Erika

Well, yes, we knew that my mother went 2x25km with a very primitive bike to get a sack of potatoes from distant farmer relatives. We knew that my mother married my father during the war, during his second holiday days from the war line. (So they knew each other for maybe 10 days altogether before marrying). We knew that she went to the prisoners’ camp and succeeded that my father was released already in 1947 while others were kept prisoners there for many more years and under terrible circumstances.

My mother: The fourth child of five has arrived
My mother: The fourth child of five has arrived

We knew that my father couldn’t proceed with his University studies which he had begun in the first year of the war, but that he did a crash course to become a primary-school teacher, and that he hardly succeeded to feed his quickly growing family with what he earned. Yes, we got to know these things, but we never got an emotional impression of what they had gone through, they never wanted to talk about what had happened with their Jewish neighbors and how their position was towards the Nazi party and its ideologies. And as children, we even didn’t know that there was something that we could have asked. Silence everywhere in the society which was eager and busy to build itself up again.

 

Confronting the past

Bettina Alberti wrote a book (Bettina Alberti on the post-war generation ) – and most impressively talked about it at the conference I attended last month – about how the silence has impacted the children and grandchildren of that generation. In the past 30+years, many conversations took place in Germany to come to terms with our collective history, mainly by members of the younger generations. The victim/predator generation was caught in amnesia of frozen fear and terror, psychologically unable to face the topic. Germany has done a lot to finally face its past, to acknowledge the guilt and to try to do some amends:  For instance, the beautiful gesture to welcome all refugees by remembering how difficult it was for German Jews to find a secure place in another country. (It was by no means that countries like America opened their heart and doors to German Jews – unless they found someone already in the country who would take over reliability for them – a fact that too easily is ignored when talking about the generosity of other countries in the face of Hitler’s horror regime).

 

Overcoming and healing the past to become able to face the future properly

 

Today Germany is called again to take over leadership in the world and to not leave vacant this position to the detriment of all, as it would allow those forces to grow and reign which would certainly contribute to a further destabilization of the world. Other countries are somewhat fearful to have seen Germany rise, and Germany itself is hesitant to take over the leadership role in remembrance of its past. We Germans have still a weird relationship to our nationality and our nation. And that means that, despite all the efforts, we haven’t yet transcended and included our past.

 

Becoming a healthy and trustworthy nation, unfortunately, is not a question of neither decision nor contemplation of the collective guilt. Every one of us has to look deep inside and search for the personality traits which have enabled the behavior of our parents on one side, and on the other side, we need to clearly see and name the abuse which deliberately has taken place by the ideologists. We need to separate the wheat from the chaff and stop throwing out the baby with the bath water. Our ability to commit, be faithful, do things well and be enthusiastic for idealistic goals has been betrayed and exploited in the worst possible ways. But, after all, we are still operating inside of this framework! And as long as we don’t bring our personal shadows at the light and find out how far they are embedded in our unconscious and how we can get some hand on them, then we can by no means be sure that we wouldn’t repeat the same old errors.

poster: The courage to feel
The courage to feel

We need to FEEL what it means to be a victim, and to FEEL what it means to be the perpetrator, we need to understand that we, individually, are capable of the most horrendous things in situations that favor our worst parts to be acted out – unless we intimately know them and can decide wholeheartedly against them. We as humans have the whole spectrum of possible ways of being, the noblest ones, and the very worst ones. Unless we don’t get acquainted with the murderer in us we cannot be a good person. Unless we recognize the dictator inside ourselves we will unconsciously work towards becoming one – or be his or her victim. (Read my blog post on the conference “The Courage to Feel” here)

 

Whoever told you these things in your history lessons? Whoever told you that evil does exist and that it dwells right inside you and will command you unless you get to know it and take over the command yourself? Goodness is not automatic, it needs to be desired and worked towards wholeheartedly!

 

If you want some inspiration about what everyone of us can do to avoid the errors of the past, individually and collectively, here some resources (click on the links below)

Videos:  Jordan Peterson: Pathological Belief Systems

A film about pre-war childhood in Germany: “The White Ribbon” (trailer) 

Books
Sabine Bode on the post-war Children
  
Bettina Alberti on the post-war generation
 
Barbara von Meibom about Reconciliation with the Shadow
 

 

 

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

The courage to feel – the path to peace in the world

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You might think that you don’t need courage to feel, that “feeling” is something natural and you just feel what you feel. Well, yes and no. Most of us are longing to feel joy and happiness and run away into distractions of all kinds as soon as unwanted feelings present themselves. Alcohol is a means of eradicating negative feelings and, as we all know, our societies drink a lot. Doesn’t that mean that we don’t want to meet our negative feelings? That we don’t have the courage to face them, directly, and find out what they want to tell us?

During the last weekend, I attended a conference about the “Courage to Feel” in Berlin and we addressed those feelings which are buried in the shadow of our country, those feelings which we try to avoid and which we fear to feel. Beginning at the personal level it turns out that newbies have a hard time to just look right into the eyes of another person for a few minutes. What comes up often is awkwardness, fear, shame and all sorts of thoughts which want to convince us to turn away our eyes. We fear the intimacy which arises when we REALLY look closely and attentively at something for a certain period of time. And we fear the feeling of intimacy with a person we have never seen before.

Power – the eternal predicament

The  exercises we did were all about becoming conscious of what is going on inside, the feelings and the thoughts around them, and to bring all that into the context of us and our nation, Germany, which is confronted with the huge challenge of taking over leadership in the world again while still carrying the shadows of the past. We are aware that POWER WITHOUT LOVE leads to violence. We are also aware that our nation holds power and has a huge conflict with that fact. And we are aware that we need to heal the past in order to avoid a repetition of history.

Hitler
Hitler – a symbol for severe abuse of power

Germany has recognized the guilt for what it has caused in the 20th century, but we Germans, collectively, have not yet transformed the guilt into the power of positive change. We haven’t integrated our shadows and made available the positive force which appears when completing this process. The true liberation from guilt and shame, which is still haunting us up to the fourth generation is needed for Germany to be able to use its strength and power to become an inspiring leader in the world, to co-create a world community which leaves behind ethnocentric behaviors and embraces the human existence as what it is: a unique whole where everyone and everything is connected, where no one can win at the cost of others because it will impact them as well.

The victim – perpetrator cycle

war memorial
Soldiers are victims of the system and perpetrators by command. An unresolvable conflict for the soul.

We know from psychology that the victims become perpetrators and vice versa – and we see it everywhere. The perpetrator is haunted by what he has done and/or gets victimized by the other side as soon as the situation changes. Permanent winners do not exist; this is an illusion. It is time that we all understand that and therefore work towards a world which doesn’t know “winners”. and “losers”, but only human beings who collaborate to create the best future possible for everyone,

But how can that become possible? The only true answer is: Become yourself a full and grown up human being. That means, first of all, get to know yourself well, on a very deep level. Learn about your hidden motivations, your conditioning and learn to feel fully how your body feels, how your emotions move you, what your unobserved habits are.

What we need to learn

Your thoughts and feelings, what quality and direction do they have?  Are you fearful and suppress the fear instead of feeling it? Do you become aggressive instead? Or do you freeze in the face of fear and challenge?  If you don’t know well your feelings and the consequent thoughts and behavior patterns you have very little chance to meet the problems of life in an adequate manner. You will try to manipulate the world in order to avoid these feelings if you are a private person or the President of the United States. You will be a part of the problem, not of the solution.

The courage to feel

The organizers of the conference welcome the participants
“Mut zum Fühlen” – The courage to feel: Beginning scene of the conference in Berlin

In Berlin, we worked on it in depth, in personal exercises, and in a mega constellation to heal the wounds of the Nazi regime. I had the role of “frozen feelings”, a behavioral and psychological pattern people often adopt to protect themselves in horrible situations – and which allows them to terribly mistreat others as they cannot feel their pain and meet it instead with contempt. During the 2 hour process, I realized I was finally melting, a transformation was taking place.

I hope that this work will liberate the frozen energies in so many of us who are afflicted with the same pattern, knowingly or not. I am sure that 130 people at the conference, doing this incredibly deep healing work, have added a piece to the big puzzle of the liberation of humanity from the everlasting oscillations between conflicts and wars on one side and “helpless hope” toward a different future of peace and harmony.

The freedom to generate the right decisions

If we really want to create peace in the world then the future needs to be built on solid ground where we humans explore deeply our human nature, embracing our inner parts, including the victim and the perpetrator and all the others, and become able to freely decide to choose as opposed to being driven by uncontrollable emotions into destructive behaviors to the detriment of all.

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

Fifty years later: Making Peace with Christianity

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My personal experience with religion

I left the Lutheran Church at 21 after I had lost my faith at 14 because of a minister who was a total failure, unable to respond properly to the questions of a mind that was entering into rational thinking. He certainly isn’t the only one, then or now, who have not the least ability to awaken and maintain the interest of young (and older) people in the transcendent reality. Otherwise, religion and Christianity wouldn’t be so denigrated and undervalued in the West as it presently is.

I am coming to a deep understanding of my roots embedded in Christianity now, after 50 years, thanks to a person who can explain these things in ways that people grounded in rationality can understand and realize with awe that we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. There are so many things to discover which help us understand ourselves and the world as it presents itself today!

Children like the biblical stories!

Drawing Biblical stories
Biblical stories

Like many children, I was attracted by the biblical stories. They were fantastic, like fairy tales, and children adore this kind of thing. At 12 I had to go to the preparation lessons for the confirmation, an initiation ritual of the Protestant Church which you don’t want to miss as a child. For the first time in life everything is about YOU, relatives from all parts of the country come together in their best clothes, they watch you when you “perform” in the service where your heart beats when being officially admitted in the congregation of the adults, and, well, the many gifts you get that day. I got enough money that day to buy a tape recorder, those huge and heavy things which were the technical highlight then. So no wonder that I didn’t really have the choice to not go to the preparation lessons although I disliked them and the minister. The previous excitement about the Bible turned into aversion and the desire to get away from all that and as far as possible.

Goodbye to Religion

What was intended the first day of belonging to the religious community turned out to be my one and only day there. Many years later I led the choir of the German church in Rome. When, after a long time, they found out that I was not an official member of their church I was pushed to become one again. I compromised myself by doing it in order to be able to continue my job there, but the negativity I felt as a 14-year-old arose again, strongly. It certainly didn’t foster my relationship to religion and Christianity and it continued to keep me in ignorance about the foundations of the religion.

Christianity is at the root of our Western Culture!

During my early adulthood, Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation became a fashion among us “different” people. It seemed to be normal to become a Buddhist but I always hesitated. It didn’t feel right to me, although I couldn’t articulate why not. Later, in the 90ies, I began to learn meditation and many other “esoteric” modalities. It was very useful for many reasons. I had been very interested in Psychology and only very slowly did I discover my yearning for Spirituality. But still, the fashion was Eastern Spirituality. Western religion seemed old and odd and had nothing really to offer which could have attracted me.

Detail in a volt
Art born in Christianity

Nonetheless, I was sure that, whenever I would dive deeper into religious thought or belief, it would only be possible with Christianity. It has completely formed my culture, we Westerners have breathed it in from birth, if not with “church” so with all the achievements of our culture, from art to music, philosophy, science, architecture, everything. Adopting another cultural system seemed interesting but certainly, wouldn’t bring me to my roots. How could it.

Making Peace with Christianity

So I remained “homeless” religion-wise until I discovered Jordan Peterson. He gives me back my religion. He can explain the things in a way which makes complete sense to me without returning to “belief” as the traditional religions do. He is opening my mind to an understanding which really blows me away and leads me to a deep gratitude towards our ancestors and their relentless attempt to reach understanding and wisdom – by telling stories.

This is what helped me to integrate my culture more fully

The awe started in the first talk of his lectures on the Bible called: Introduction to the Idea of God. God is an idea, not a “reality” of any kind, let alone the old man with a beard sitting on the cloud.

Video Cover on Youtube
Jordan Peterson’s first lecture: 337.000views in only 3 weeks! People yearn for this message!

And yet, I began to understand why “He” is represented this way: it is the attempt of wise people in their time to tell a story which couldn’t be articulated in any rational ways. Rationality had not yet emerged, as we know from integral theory. This happened in the Renaissance fully, but the Bible is so much older than that and needed another way of explaining: telling a mythological story.

I certainly cannot summarize with half a paragraph a 2-hour lecture and maybe for you, something else stands out when you watch it. But I want to tell you about another big insight I received when listening to the third lecture: Christianity seems to be based on different principles than Buddhism. So far, to me, both seemed to be completely different. In “God and the Hierarchy of Authority” Jordan Peterson comes to a description of the Trinity in Christianity which seems to match the basics of Buddhism. He defines the three elements in the Trinity as such: “God” is the infinite space of possibility from which all form arise (the ground of being which I heard mention so often in meditation practices). The “Holy Spirit” is Consciousness itself and “Christ, the Son of God” is Consciousness in its specific form in space and time, the embodiment of possibility.

Understanding what we have ignored – a huge gift!

I hope I got that right with these few words. Listening to Jordan Peterson’s thoughts is a continuous “click, click” in my understanding, and history is opening up to me in an unexpected way. I begin to appreciate the past, the endless endeavor of humankind to understand life and how best to live it. The dismissal of previous times which is an underlying thread in our Western world, the arrogant feeling of absolute superiority of our present world, which declassifies everything else as “primitive”, has been dismantled and transformed into recognition and appreciation of the past. We are the result of thousands and millions of years of endless attempts to evolve a culture where we humans can find meaning for our lives on earth. We don’t just “begin” with our birth as a blank slate where we can write our life story at our own individual will. “It is more complicated than that”, using Jordan Peterson’s words. We, modern people, want to have everything easy and simple. But life is not like that. And striving for the easy button and believing that we are separate entities, independent from others, from the past and future and only existent in our physical reality deprives us of the richness of existence and the depth of experience. And most likely it causes us to fall into deep pits because of our self-induced blindness towards the complexity of existence.

Presently we humans dwell near the border of a self-created abyss. If we continue to ignore the lessons of the past as well as reality which is not based purely on the material world but which includes the invisible and transcends our being, we have a good chance to fall into that abyss and we will have a very hard time finding our way out again. Maybe hundreds or other thousands or millions of years depends on how good we are in understanding the real threat we are facing: the destruction of our culture without envisioning any alternative. Humans are capable of total destruction, you and me and everyone else. Unless we dig deep into our own psychology and understand this force in ourselves, we inevitably act it out in the opportune moments without then having the possibility to stop what we are doing.

Wordcloud with important words for growing up
Speaking the truth – important for all aspects of life

We need to grow up and to wake up to the whole reality of being in this world. Deliberately ignoring one part or the other leads to any sort of fundamentalism with all its destructive powers. We need to learn and understand and hold the space for multiple perspectives. Then we need to step up and speak “the truth” about what we see and understand. No longer believing in doctrines and ideas which transform us into “innocent” and ignorant sheep, victims of who knows who. And seeing the Bible and Christianity with new eyes we can learn our ancient innate knowledge about the psychology of humans – which hasn’t changed very much, after all, during the last some thousand years.

Culture, development, Photos and videos, Psychology and Spirituality

Do you believe in God?- Don’t you like that question?

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So, do you believe in God? What would be YOUR answer to the question?  And what would it have been 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years ago?
Let’s assume for a moment that your answer is “no” right now. Many people in our western world would give that answer because they believe in rationality and science and not in the old man with the long beard sitting in the clouds or setting bushes in fire. Fair enough.

Not the right question to ask!

Probably still yesterday I would have answered similar to: “I don’t believe in God, but I am a spiritual person”. And, actually, I never have given a profound thought to the question, I just repeated what I heard others say and which seemed to suit me as well. Then I watched the following video – and I became aware of the inappropriateness of the question itself which is so commonly asked in all times and everywhere.

 

Jordan Peterson makes it very clear that not everyone gives the same meaning to objects or words. We all have our own ways of perception and interpretations of what we perceive. Nonetheless, this is not a completely arbitrary process and you can observe some patterns in the way people perceive the world.

The Evolution of GOD

When we talk about GOD, the development of the “image” of God and what people believed God to be and to do, you can read a very interesting book called “God 9.0”. The entity we consider “God” has changed in fundamental ways since the beginning of time and today we can envision “version 9.0” of what we connect with the word GOD. Read the book (you can get it HERE) and you will understand why religious wars have reigned on earth, why you yourself believed in the almighty God as a child if you grew up in a “religious” family and why some people are seeing the world in the same old way while you have lost your faith in God and, maybe, now you believe in energy, crystals, psychotherapy, science, atheism and what not.

So when Jordan Peterson doesn’t answer the question whether he believes in God but challenges it as meaningless, he exactly responds to the insight that the terms “God” and “believe” are absolutely unclear and need a much longer answer than “yes” or “no” in our evolved societies. There was a time when you were supposed to say “yes” or you were burnt on the pyre if you dared to have your own ideas about God, the Divine and the Sacred. This, unfortunately but understandably, is still the case in parts of the world, regarding religion or political belief systems.

Between God 2.0 and God 6.0 – that’s where the problems come from

Our western world has managed to, basically, step up to “God 6.0”, while other parts of the world are still between 2.0 and 4.0. Let us make sure that we keep up the development and go towards 7.0 and higher – instead of allowing terrorism, conservative security needs or liberal utopian ideas to crash that which we have already achieved. Let us not fall back into political purging of “others” through fascist or communist ideology, and let us overcome rationality as religion as well as New Age Pseudo Spirituality. Let us open our minds to ever more comprehensive and differentiated ways of seeing the world. Although the answers we can give will often be “I don’t know” (as Jordan P. is demonstrating with all his honesty in the above video), we are coming nearer and nearer to the truth – which is never merely yes or no!

Culture, development, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality

How can you actualize your potential?

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The term “potential” is used constantly in recent decades, understood with a desire to “unlock” it. Many people earn a lot of money by hooking people with courses or books. It doesn’t mean that those resources are necessarily bad, most likely they are not, but they don’t consider the prerequisites people need to truly reach before they can become able to step up to their potential.

 

What if parents don’t do their job?

Before introducing the Ted Talk by Dr.Jordan Peterson I want to briefly tell you my personal story about how one word of my parents decided upon my possibility to develop my potential or not: As a child and teenager, I sang in a choir and quite rapidly climbed up the levels. I liked singing a lot, but, as so often in that age, sometimes I would have preferred to hang out with friends instead of going to the regular appointments with the choir. One day I just didn’t want to go when my mother said: OK, but if you don’t go today you will never go again. Boom, splash, ugh. I had to decide and my decision would have consequences for which I would be responsible. I chose to go – and later I became a classical singer, a voice teacher, and therapist.

Children and young people need to learn to follow rules in order to later be able to become free of them again. They first need to adopt a system that works to figure out who they are and what is possible for them, for later be able to break free from the rules and develop their own ways. All developmental psychologists talk about that: we cannot skip levels of development. We cannot “allow” children to decide for themselves things which are too advanced for them – which was the mistake of the approach of the “anti-authoritarian education”.  A 4-year-old just cannot decide where to go best for holidays and a parent who thinks to give them equal part in the decision, or even have them decide alone, does not fulfil their task of guiding the young person, but tries to get out of their own responsibility for the welfare of the child – and their own, btw. Too!

Children want to know from grownups what the right ways of behaving are. They want to get to know the limits and boundaries which give them a safe space to experience themselves. In time they will push against these boundaries and expand them. But first, you need to have something to expand which is not complete chaos and uncertainty. And children need food for their minds and bodies in the sense that they need to be shown things, get acquainted with many realms of life without indoctrination, but just as an offer to taste and try out if they like it. A 6-year-old fervently demonstrating for political issues is abused quite as much as the one who is forced to decide about the family holidays. Indoctrination is as bad for the child’s development as is abandonment, whether physical, emotional …or educational.

 

Getting to know what we are really interested in needs inspiration and possibility.

We can develop our potential when we are deeply interested and drawn to something in our lives. If I hadn’t been drawn to singing – and then made responsible for pursuing it by my mother – I wouldn’t have discovered my abilities in that field. Many people today say they don’t like or cannot relate to classical music. If no one has ever given them the inspiration and the access to it, how can they know if they like it or not? What we don’t know, we cannot like.  How could we?

 Classical music

Kinder mit klassischen Instrumenten
Fotokredit Heinz Wagner from his article on the  Simon Bolivar Orchester visiting  Austria

 is by no means an ancient thing nor has it anything to do with higher social classes. An excellent example is the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra from Venezuela which results from a dedicated person going into the slums of the big cities and teaching children a classical instrument. Learning the violin or the oboe is a very demanding job – and it has the potential to excite the souls and lead people to a potential which otherwise they never would have discovered. Visit their YouTube Channel here

 

What is your potential and how can you realize it?

Finally, now we’re coming to the talk of Dr.Jordan Peterson about how to think about potential and how to develop it. First of all, it is clear that your potential is something innate in YOU and specific to you. Sure, all humans have a certain potential in common, but if you have more regarding creativity or, let’s say, science, that is specific to you. You can learn and study also the things where you are not really gifted for and you will arrive at a certain level, but it will be very hard work and not very inspiring for you.

This is an indicator: something “comes to you easily” probably means that you have quite a potential for that thing and that your soul will be happy when you pursue it. It might not be easy for you for all sorts of reasons, especially for social-political reasons, but for you, that thing is real and gives meaning to your life. Without it, you would be latently unhappy and unfulfilled.

 

Not only transcend the past but include it!

I don’t want to transcribe the Ted Talk which Jordan Peterson has given and provided a good outline of his thinking. He is a very strong voice against the usurpation by the hardcore materialism, the beliefs of which include: everything is material, dead material, and everything else is illusory. As we know already from Integral theory, these ideas are on the bottom of the overall crisis of the world as the concept of reality is one sided and reductive and therefore cannot give an explanation, let alone pride guidelines for our lives. Jordan Peterson makes clear that “reality” is not what we have believed during the past hundreds of years and he shows ways how we can re-integrate into our present life what we have lost along the way.

Watch this inspiring talk with open ears and open hearts and consider that you can be part of the solution to the present problems when you are inclusive enough to reconsider the past and the core value of TRUTH.

 

Culture, Life on earth, Psychology and Spirituality, Science

Freedom of speech – freedom to use violence when you feel like the “victim”?

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They behave, already grown up, like little children who scream to get the attention of others. Always the same phrases, insulting and blaming and using the power of loudspeakers to shut down who they don’t want to grant freedom of speech which they consider to belong exclusively to them as the eternal victims.

Blind to the own blind spots and contradictions

Woman reading in a book
What do we really learn in life to become responsible adults?

I am always amazed how sufficiently intelligent people can be so completely caught up in their contradictions, so unaware that they are doing themselves – massively – what they blame others for. How they, so easily, overstep the rules of society which holds them safe – and even forgives their adolescent blindness – to take as granted to themselves that which they are not inclined to allow others. How can people convince themselves to be right, with no exception and no discussion about it?

How can they proclaim and promote their violence against peaceful people, how would they enter into total war and try to provoke the other side to cease and play the role of the enemy? It is a dangerous game, not only for others, but also for themselves. The revolutionaries of the first hour rarely ever have been alive for long after their destructive victory!

Would you be able to handle such a situation?

This is what came to my mind when I watched the following video. It is loud – but scroll ahead when you have heard enough of the always same phrases and screams, the important part comes in the second half!

Dr.Jordan Peterson trying to speak at McMaster University

Please watch it and ask yourself: Would you have been able to respond to the chaos in a similar wise way as Dr.Peterson did? He has understood that opposing these blind forces only creates more of it.

So what can we do in the face of it? No wonder why other panel guests withdrew from the event because of the harassment. I surely wouldn’t be able to handle a similar situation, would you? Dr.Peterson was calm – and finally gathered the people who wanted to listen to him, somewhere outside the building, and answered their questions and gave them advice about how to meet similar situations in their lives.

This is a lesson in what it means to be an adult and a responsible person in the face of the chaos created willfully by others. This is what we more insightful people need to learn: get free from our triggers, bring our own shadow to light, and then BE THERE and face the situation without the primordial reactions flee, freeze or attack. Then we can be part of the solution, not of the problem!

We are called to stand up and say what we need to say! Even when we consider ourselves non-political, introverted or whatever!

Please watch also our conversation How can we stay inspired to work towards a sustainable future

WOMEN MATTERS

Conversations at The Wisdom Factory