WOW! ..I'm back in Nepal and it's just wonderful! Lovely weather and
loving to come back to all these places.. I'm staying in the same
guesthouse as last time. same good vibes! :) I know where to find parts
to fix my didgeridoo, what ATM givesmoney to me and where to eat a good
Yak-steak (what I will definitively do tonight ;)
today is national strike.. so the streets are free of motorized vehicles and most of the shops are closed. it's gonna be a relaxed day :) I already did my Yoga flow on the roof of the guesthouse, watching Annapurna peak while twisting into the Triangle ;) Yoga is just sooo vitalizing and I got a lot better since I started one year ago.
After breakfast I'll get my sticks and balls and go to the likeside and do some excercises (dancing and jumping around ;) yes.. my Kung-Fu got also a lotbetter. Looks actually pretty bad-ass and soon it will be tested of it'seffectiveness in the Philippines :)
since I left Rishikesh I was riding hard! first crossing Uttarakhand passed the point where I turned off to Auli four months ago. Arrived in Gwaldam when it got dark and stayed in a beautiful place with balcony, big ged and huge flat TV.. it's to bring a girl along for a stay like that ;)
the nest day I rode north along a beautiful river to Almora, got gas and made it through the mountains to Didihat (little detour to see how the landscape looks ;) , where I stayed in the only place I found. Wasn't exactly nice, but the guy organized me some food from the market and I did some Yoga in my room.
Then I headed all the way down to the boarder crossing in Banbasa. Managed this very day to cross the boarder, do all the paperwork, find an extremely nice and fairly cheap hotel in Mahindernagar and got a new battery for the bike, because the old one died completely.
From there a very, very long day.. 430km to Butwal. Only possible, because so flat and straight (allowing a high average speed). but mostly not so much to see.. this is the fast way to Pokarah.. on the way back, I'll go offroad through the mountains :) ..saw a ?monitor lizard? crossing the road.. the didn't want to be pictured though ;) after the flat road through the jungle there are some smaller mountains and finally Butwal, where I arrived pretty tired. Had a beer, tried to do some Yoga, but was definitively too hot :P
here every place has wi-fi, what is extremely convenient! heard accidentally about Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha and checked it out the next morning. Well.. not too stunning.. Best about it that it's free and that you can take your bike in and drive through it ;) pay 2USD to see a carved rock and a pilar (didn't do that, because I've seen thousands of carved rocks and millions of pilars already ;). There are temples from different nations.. German, Chineese, Korean and so on.. but they are all buddhist temples in the end and I've seen dozens already of those in India. On the free map, the place looks like a huge, nice garden, but it's pretty wild and overgrown, fenced area and for he has been born 2500 years ago, they would have had time to make that place a little nicer ;) anyway.. it was very inspiring to be there. thought about all the buddhist stuff and came to my own conclusion:
There are no Gods, no Soul, no Self, no Reincarnation and no such thing as complete Enlightenment. Sounds pretty provoking to everything I know and believed in so far. But seems to make sense to me now.
no Gods:
well.. if you hear all the stories about the gods around the world, you figure out that it's pretty fancy stuff. Would give a good fantasy tale, but is not to be taken literally but only metaphorically. The divine is within our self. and there is no other seperate entity as all the gods are defined on this planet. It just seems obvious to me as there are different languages, cultures, rituals that there are also different religions in this world. They can been seen same as the languages: different words to describe the same thing. What I believe in is Energy that by definition is omnipresent and undestructable. Can only be transformed, can and does shape it's form all the time (sunlight together with earth and water to life for example). I believe in Big Bang and that everything was one and connected (and still is). Creating Space and Time in order to experience and to allow the existence of this Universe. All of this is created through four basic forces: electrical, magnetical, subatomic and gravity. This is what holds it all together. I like to think of the cycle of this universe as a big pulsar, where everything would be in one place (big bang) and then expand to almost infinity in almost an eternity and then contract in the same amount of time to just explode again and shape all anew. But I don't know if the reversal of the Big Bang would be possible.
Anyway.. even if this is a one time shot (and we are in a marble that some alien plays with ;) doesn't matter. We can't know what was before the Big Bang and when our sun used up all its fuel, then we will cease to exist and won't be part of this universe anymore (probably quite some before that ;)
no soul:
I believe that no thing exists out of itself, but dependently from other things. Every object is made from atoms and and atoms out of other stuff. Same to come alive, there need to be a mating act and in order to live, we need food, that grows because of sun, earth and water. The concept of soul is very comforting in many ways. It explains what part of you goes to heaven (another invention of mankind's mind) or how reincarnation works. But it also separates us.. this is my soul and there is your soul. Buddha realized that and by trying to find his soul, he found that it does not exist. Why? because there can be no such thing as permanence in this universe. Souls would have to be existed from the very beginning (Big Bang) and they would not change. But everything in this universe follows the law of change. The law of cause and effect. While I believed in an eternal soul, I put many questions aside that arise with the concept of soul. First of all.. how many souls are there? does a dog or a monkey have a soul? do Insects have a soul? if so, we talk about trillions and trillions of souls only in one of the many rainforests on this planet. These souls would have a very quick reincarnation cycle, right? but mostly being insects, otherwise there would be too many human beings on this planet. What happens when the sun explodes and takes the earth with it? (this would mean to the Buddhists, that they finally are free of Sankara, the cycle of reincarnation ;)
if there are souls and life is a one time shot and then you go heaven or earth, how does god do that? let them life their lives staggered? ;) and what was before Jesus came and talked about god.. the thousands of years where humans lived without religion? doesn't really add up to me in the end.. The conclusion I came to is so simple that it wonder why it took me so long.
no self:
In a certain way, of course there is a self and you can't deny it. but it is nothing that exists out of it's own. It's entirely made up by your mind. To me came the analogy of the heat of the flame. it's there and you feel it, but you extinguish the flame and the heat is gone. That's what happens if you die.. sorry.. that's the way it looks to me :) Your self is constantly changing and this is what makes you grow in life. A very good thing to have our mind, but we should know how to use it and especially know all it's tricks.
When I look inside myself, then I can understand who I am through what I experienced and lived in this life. I actually don't need the explanation of past lives to understand what I do and why I do it. It seems that we are mainly conditioned through how we got raised and the mix of genes from our parents we got (a good thing! evolution means to take the best from two parts and form something new!). You can see how beautiful people are that have parents from two different places on this planet.
This also why it suddenly means also a lot to have a family. Because this is the way consciousness changes in our society.
I believe that every single cell organism has a primitive form of consciousness that allows her to separate and reproduce. Multi cell organism as us for example consist out of different organs that work together. So I claim that the liver has a consciousness of it's own allows her to reproduce it's cells and knows what's its job. So in our brain there is this part "cortex" that creates our ego. Just one part of many parts but having a very important task. Reconditioning ourselves, reprogramming you to adapt to life and to find a prosperous way of living. And why does all of this exist? Simple, because it CAN! if there is room for live, it will find a way to come alive. But still.. this planet will not exist forever and everything is bound to perish, so something new can come to life. So yes.. this might very well be a one time shot, this life. The more, Enjoy It! :D I find being alive the biggest gift ever given to me and the least I can do is return the favor by doing what I think I'm expected to do. To Evolve, to find a new consciousness that leads to inner peace and happiness. Buddhism says it very clearly, find the right view to overcome your own suffering and help others to free themselves from the suffering they created around themselves. I find it very true to say: make your life meaningful! use it to do good for others! Karma is just a word, but it works very well for me. Maybe it's good to have good Karma when you die, but for sure it's good to have good Karma when you live. If you are honest and trustworthy, people will just see and treat you accordingly to it. It makes us feel better when we act like this (and it fills us with emptiness when you strife for material posessions).
no reincarnation:
Personally I'd wish for it, because I like this life and thinking of all the next ones are getting even better.. why not? :) but then the Buddhist took a huge effort to explain reincarnation without soul. It's called "Karmic Impulse" and the concept is interesting, but doesn't makes sense to me all the way through. And then why not reincarnating on other planes, other universes or even other dimensions? I think the Karmic Impulse is like a reflection of the collective consciousness of the existing society (this collective consciousness is what we have to change in a more loving and caring way for each another). So every next generation is a bit more civilized and grows to be more open minded and understanding. Still a very long way to go, if I look at the things as they are at the moment But still.. it's possible. Whether we can do it or we will perish. So when did the reincarnation start? when we became self-aware? (then dolphins reincarnate too ;) or all the life does this all the time? what is with the extinct species? where are the dinosaur-souls? was this us long ago? ;) ..to me again very simple: life happens through the sexual act. No more mating, no more babies. Extinction within one generation ;) we don't do, because having a family is vital for surviving in many places and still desirable in other places and having sex is just fun! ;D but this is how nature works.. there is no supernatural power working, just biology :)
still isn't too bad to accept that I wouldn't come back. Makes me living this life more and being more aware of everything. If there would be reincarnation, it would apply anyway to all of us, despite if you believe in it or not ;)
no enlightenment:
I think we can grow more and more "enlightened" every day. Become wiser in other words. But there is no Bit "Enlightenment" that can be " = 0" or set to "1". You can loose a lot of your ego, but will always be have a part of it (we need it to get along in this world). So Jesus and Buddha where very wise and gave a wonderful message to this world, but it's not they had some shiny Aura around them ;) One main aspect with the Buddhist way is that if there is no self, how can you overcome it? you can just overcome the illusion of self, but what would that change? if there would be reincarnation, wouldn't it be part of the cosmic laws and meant to be? if being here is so bad, why would we be here in the first place? and then how does reincarnation work between animals and humans (it doesn't, because a worm consciousness would stay worm consciousness and can't do any Karmic actions whatsoever).
and finally.. when the white giant (our exploding sun) consumes our tiny, little, insignificant planet, where to reincarnate anyway?
so the idea that enlightenment frees your from coming back (inhibits the Karmic Impulse or so), doesn't make sense to me. More I find the more insight you get, the more you understand this universe (or multiverse) and it's people, the more happy you become in your life. Not creating dramas anymore or causing suffering, but doing the right thing because you know it's the only thing to do.
there is also no past (just memories that though make what we are) and no future, just infinite possibilities and we make the things happen.
We were and are and will always be part of this big thing called Creation! all is interconnected and will ever be and all is the way it's meant to be. And it's still going on.. creation. It hasn't finished the sixth day.. it's fully ON! :D
even if we think about what time is, how we time perceive and that we can't perceive most of the things happening. All the small little processes and electrons jumping around, all the change, we just got a blink at it. We're looking up in the sky, seeing stars that exploded millions of years ago and light from other new stars is still on the way, but will never reach the human eye, because we are just of temporary existence. And it doesn't frighten me at all.
today is national strike.. so the streets are free of motorized vehicles and most of the shops are closed. it's gonna be a relaxed day :) I already did my Yoga flow on the roof of the guesthouse, watching Annapurna peak while twisting into the Triangle ;) Yoga is just sooo vitalizing and I got a lot better since I started one year ago.
After breakfast I'll get my sticks and balls and go to the likeside and do some excercises (dancing and jumping around ;) yes.. my Kung-Fu got also a lotbetter. Looks actually pretty bad-ass and soon it will be tested of it'seffectiveness in the Philippines :)
since I left Rishikesh I was riding hard! first crossing Uttarakhand passed the point where I turned off to Auli four months ago. Arrived in Gwaldam when it got dark and stayed in a beautiful place with balcony, big ged and huge flat TV.. it's to bring a girl along for a stay like that ;)
the nest day I rode north along a beautiful river to Almora, got gas and made it through the mountains to Didihat (little detour to see how the landscape looks ;) , where I stayed in the only place I found. Wasn't exactly nice, but the guy organized me some food from the market and I did some Yoga in my room.
Then I headed all the way down to the boarder crossing in Banbasa. Managed this very day to cross the boarder, do all the paperwork, find an extremely nice and fairly cheap hotel in Mahindernagar and got a new battery for the bike, because the old one died completely.
From there a very, very long day.. 430km to Butwal. Only possible, because so flat and straight (allowing a high average speed). but mostly not so much to see.. this is the fast way to Pokarah.. on the way back, I'll go offroad through the mountains :) ..saw a ?monitor lizard? crossing the road.. the didn't want to be pictured though ;) after the flat road through the jungle there are some smaller mountains and finally Butwal, where I arrived pretty tired. Had a beer, tried to do some Yoga, but was definitively too hot :P
here every place has wi-fi, what is extremely convenient! heard accidentally about Lumbini, birthplace of Buddha and checked it out the next morning. Well.. not too stunning.. Best about it that it's free and that you can take your bike in and drive through it ;) pay 2USD to see a carved rock and a pilar (didn't do that, because I've seen thousands of carved rocks and millions of pilars already ;). There are temples from different nations.. German, Chineese, Korean and so on.. but they are all buddhist temples in the end and I've seen dozens already of those in India. On the free map, the place looks like a huge, nice garden, but it's pretty wild and overgrown, fenced area and for he has been born 2500 years ago, they would have had time to make that place a little nicer ;) anyway.. it was very inspiring to be there. thought about all the buddhist stuff and came to my own conclusion:
There are no Gods, no Soul, no Self, no Reincarnation and no such thing as complete Enlightenment. Sounds pretty provoking to everything I know and believed in so far. But seems to make sense to me now.
no Gods:
well.. if you hear all the stories about the gods around the world, you figure out that it's pretty fancy stuff. Would give a good fantasy tale, but is not to be taken literally but only metaphorically. The divine is within our self. and there is no other seperate entity as all the gods are defined on this planet. It just seems obvious to me as there are different languages, cultures, rituals that there are also different religions in this world. They can been seen same as the languages: different words to describe the same thing. What I believe in is Energy that by definition is omnipresent and undestructable. Can only be transformed, can and does shape it's form all the time (sunlight together with earth and water to life for example). I believe in Big Bang and that everything was one and connected (and still is). Creating Space and Time in order to experience and to allow the existence of this Universe. All of this is created through four basic forces: electrical, magnetical, subatomic and gravity. This is what holds it all together. I like to think of the cycle of this universe as a big pulsar, where everything would be in one place (big bang) and then expand to almost infinity in almost an eternity and then contract in the same amount of time to just explode again and shape all anew. But I don't know if the reversal of the Big Bang would be possible.
Anyway.. even if this is a one time shot (and we are in a marble that some alien plays with ;) doesn't matter. We can't know what was before the Big Bang and when our sun used up all its fuel, then we will cease to exist and won't be part of this universe anymore (probably quite some before that ;)
no soul:
I believe that no thing exists out of itself, but dependently from other things. Every object is made from atoms and and atoms out of other stuff. Same to come alive, there need to be a mating act and in order to live, we need food, that grows because of sun, earth and water. The concept of soul is very comforting in many ways. It explains what part of you goes to heaven (another invention of mankind's mind) or how reincarnation works. But it also separates us.. this is my soul and there is your soul. Buddha realized that and by trying to find his soul, he found that it does not exist. Why? because there can be no such thing as permanence in this universe. Souls would have to be existed from the very beginning (Big Bang) and they would not change. But everything in this universe follows the law of change. The law of cause and effect. While I believed in an eternal soul, I put many questions aside that arise with the concept of soul. First of all.. how many souls are there? does a dog or a monkey have a soul? do Insects have a soul? if so, we talk about trillions and trillions of souls only in one of the many rainforests on this planet. These souls would have a very quick reincarnation cycle, right? but mostly being insects, otherwise there would be too many human beings on this planet. What happens when the sun explodes and takes the earth with it? (this would mean to the Buddhists, that they finally are free of Sankara, the cycle of reincarnation ;)
if there are souls and life is a one time shot and then you go heaven or earth, how does god do that? let them life their lives staggered? ;) and what was before Jesus came and talked about god.. the thousands of years where humans lived without religion? doesn't really add up to me in the end.. The conclusion I came to is so simple that it wonder why it took me so long.
no self:
In a certain way, of course there is a self and you can't deny it. but it is nothing that exists out of it's own. It's entirely made up by your mind. To me came the analogy of the heat of the flame. it's there and you feel it, but you extinguish the flame and the heat is gone. That's what happens if you die.. sorry.. that's the way it looks to me :) Your self is constantly changing and this is what makes you grow in life. A very good thing to have our mind, but we should know how to use it and especially know all it's tricks.
When I look inside myself, then I can understand who I am through what I experienced and lived in this life. I actually don't need the explanation of past lives to understand what I do and why I do it. It seems that we are mainly conditioned through how we got raised and the mix of genes from our parents we got (a good thing! evolution means to take the best from two parts and form something new!). You can see how beautiful people are that have parents from two different places on this planet.
This also why it suddenly means also a lot to have a family. Because this is the way consciousness changes in our society.
I believe that every single cell organism has a primitive form of consciousness that allows her to separate and reproduce. Multi cell organism as us for example consist out of different organs that work together. So I claim that the liver has a consciousness of it's own allows her to reproduce it's cells and knows what's its job. So in our brain there is this part "cortex" that creates our ego. Just one part of many parts but having a very important task. Reconditioning ourselves, reprogramming you to adapt to life and to find a prosperous way of living. And why does all of this exist? Simple, because it CAN! if there is room for live, it will find a way to come alive. But still.. this planet will not exist forever and everything is bound to perish, so something new can come to life. So yes.. this might very well be a one time shot, this life. The more, Enjoy It! :D I find being alive the biggest gift ever given to me and the least I can do is return the favor by doing what I think I'm expected to do. To Evolve, to find a new consciousness that leads to inner peace and happiness. Buddhism says it very clearly, find the right view to overcome your own suffering and help others to free themselves from the suffering they created around themselves. I find it very true to say: make your life meaningful! use it to do good for others! Karma is just a word, but it works very well for me. Maybe it's good to have good Karma when you die, but for sure it's good to have good Karma when you live. If you are honest and trustworthy, people will just see and treat you accordingly to it. It makes us feel better when we act like this (and it fills us with emptiness when you strife for material posessions).
no reincarnation:
Personally I'd wish for it, because I like this life and thinking of all the next ones are getting even better.. why not? :) but then the Buddhist took a huge effort to explain reincarnation without soul. It's called "Karmic Impulse" and the concept is interesting, but doesn't makes sense to me all the way through. And then why not reincarnating on other planes, other universes or even other dimensions? I think the Karmic Impulse is like a reflection of the collective consciousness of the existing society (this collective consciousness is what we have to change in a more loving and caring way for each another). So every next generation is a bit more civilized and grows to be more open minded and understanding. Still a very long way to go, if I look at the things as they are at the moment But still.. it's possible. Whether we can do it or we will perish. So when did the reincarnation start? when we became self-aware? (then dolphins reincarnate too ;) or all the life does this all the time? what is with the extinct species? where are the dinosaur-souls? was this us long ago? ;) ..to me again very simple: life happens through the sexual act. No more mating, no more babies. Extinction within one generation ;) we don't do, because having a family is vital for surviving in many places and still desirable in other places and having sex is just fun! ;D but this is how nature works.. there is no supernatural power working, just biology :)
still isn't too bad to accept that I wouldn't come back. Makes me living this life more and being more aware of everything. If there would be reincarnation, it would apply anyway to all of us, despite if you believe in it or not ;)
no enlightenment:
I think we can grow more and more "enlightened" every day. Become wiser in other words. But there is no Bit "Enlightenment" that can be " = 0" or set to "1". You can loose a lot of your ego, but will always be have a part of it (we need it to get along in this world). So Jesus and Buddha where very wise and gave a wonderful message to this world, but it's not they had some shiny Aura around them ;) One main aspect with the Buddhist way is that if there is no self, how can you overcome it? you can just overcome the illusion of self, but what would that change? if there would be reincarnation, wouldn't it be part of the cosmic laws and meant to be? if being here is so bad, why would we be here in the first place? and then how does reincarnation work between animals and humans (it doesn't, because a worm consciousness would stay worm consciousness and can't do any Karmic actions whatsoever).
and finally.. when the white giant (our exploding sun) consumes our tiny, little, insignificant planet, where to reincarnate anyway?
so the idea that enlightenment frees your from coming back (inhibits the Karmic Impulse or so), doesn't make sense to me. More I find the more insight you get, the more you understand this universe (or multiverse) and it's people, the more happy you become in your life. Not creating dramas anymore or causing suffering, but doing the right thing because you know it's the only thing to do.
there is also no past (just memories that though make what we are) and no future, just infinite possibilities and we make the things happen.
We were and are and will always be part of this big thing called Creation! all is interconnected and will ever be and all is the way it's meant to be. And it's still going on.. creation. It hasn't finished the sixth day.. it's fully ON! :D
even if we think about what time is, how we time perceive and that we can't perceive most of the things happening. All the small little processes and electrons jumping around, all the change, we just got a blink at it. We're looking up in the sky, seeing stars that exploded millions of years ago and light from other new stars is still on the way, but will never reach the human eye, because we are just of temporary existence. And it doesn't frighten me at all.
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