Archive for month: October, 2021

Ok, tijd. Het is er. Als het er niet zou zijn zou je een brood in een flits kunnen bakken, deeg kneden en laten reizen. Het grootste verschil tussen een goed en minder voedzaam brood is de tijd en aandacht, en dat is ook tijd, die het heeft gehad. De energie en liefde die er in is gestopt, al bij de boer, de molenaar, de bakker die mengt en kneed en de rust die het krijgt om te reizen, om vervolgens gebakken te worden. Tijd is dus ook volgorde. Het is niet mogelijk dit proces in een uur te voltooien en eert te bakken en daarna te kneden. Het graan heeft er net zo goed een jaar voor nodig om te groeien. etc etc. Mensen die roepen, er is geen tijd, tijd bestaat niet, dat zijn mijns inziens ook de mensen die graag willen dat er een tijd aankomt van onvoorwaardelijke liefde. De zwevers. Ze lijken zo 'ongevaarlijk'. Maar pas op! [embed]https://rumble.com/embed/vkicu1/?pub=4[/embed] Voor meer over Hira en ons samenzijn 

Are we good or bad? Please watch the Ted Talk by Jonathan Zimbardo.  At least three times and make notes. Skip the photo section if you need to.  So what is he saying. We were made to believe, at least in Christian countries that we were born in sin. Essentially bad people.  And although one might not be a Christian, do not underestimate how these types of perceived realities of the image of self, when engrained into society for ages, are present in almost anything, even if non-religious. It is in the way society deals with so called criminal behaviour. It is in the school system and what we teach our children about human morality. It is the level of trust we have in general when doing business with each other.  My son was quite young when het stole paying cards in a toy store. Not once, he did so multiple times. We gave him money and the shop was around the corner. He would buy a pack and the return home. In addition to the pack that he bought, he put one or more packs in his pocket and took them home. I think he was about eight years old. The store caught him on camera and called the police. The doorbell rang and there was my son, being brought back home by two officers.  It scared the sh.t out of him. The police were quite nice and we promised it would not happen again. We talked with our son and together went to the shop to ask how much money the required for us to compensate for the theft and say sorry.  For me it was clear. This boy, with the instinct of wanting to have more, gather, hunt, he used his instincts and thought he could get away with……  Of course he had no notion that he might have a store later, when being an adult, and that it would not be nice if people would steal things from his shop. There was no sense of reciprocity. He followed his instinct and took a risk. He got caught and that scared him so much, he definitely learned his lesson. For which I am very thankful.  This is what Zimbardo is also stating.  There is no way to define a person, or put some in category good or bad. And then, when being labeled, that’s it. For life. That’s just who you are.  Multiple experiments have shown this. We are all capable of doing ‘bad’ things, hurt other people, lie and cheat. We are all capable of doing that. And yes, we are also all capable of learning, growing, changing, redeeming and on the other side forgiving people.  Can people fall, fall deep. Yes af course. Some people become sound to a materialistic lifestyle fro a long period of time. Some even their whole lives. This does not mean, that there are people that do not have the potential to grow above a purely material and egocentric way of living with a lack of empathy for the people around them.  Society corrupts? The problem is the society in most places on this earth has not been very helpful to the younger versions or ourselves.  Osho states it like this:  ‘Every society, up to now, has been a corruptive influence on every child All cultures have depended on exploiting the innocence of the child, on exploiting the child, on making him a slave, on conditioning him for their own purposes, for their own ends - political, social, ideological. ... He becomes more hung up in the head, he forgets all about the heart - and the heart is the bridge that leads to being.  Osho - Maturity - p1   Voor meer over Hira en ons samenzijn 

Have we evolved Yes we have When I consider what has changed since I was born, which was in 1974…. If I wanted to know something about something, let’s say when I was sixteen, There was no internet. Computers were still performing only basic functions. I was still writing things for school in a typewriter and if the library had no books on a subject …. That was it.  Whatever was on the tv, we had to watch when it was broadcasted. No way to view things at a later stage, or record things. Let alone make our own recording and make it available to watch for all the world as is possible now.  When writing a book, one needs to have a final copy, before printing. Now, one can write online, for all to read and add or change the text whenever one wants too. Let alone adding sound pictures and video to your message.  If you wanted to write to someone one first needed to have met the person and exchange an address. Now one can find almost anyone online and send this person a message.  If you don’t speak the language there is the option to use online functionality to translate.  And in addition to information, all of the money transfers can be done online as well.  Selling and buying a house does not even require to even meet the person you are selling to or buying from.  If we go back even further, ….. and look at other aspects of society…. In a classical role of the male and female, women were spending all day to clean, wash clothes by hand, prepare food and buy ingredients.  With the fridge, the washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, CV (instead of coal or wood burning to heat the house) the basic household has become way more efficient.  The same goes for the traditional male activities like farming, building a house, ….. With agricultural machines a single person can work the land, harvest by means of huge machines that required a large number of people in earlier days.  Ordering concrete, shooting nails, electric wood saw machines …….  Looking back many thing humans have been doing, and are still doing take far less time and effort because of the introduction, invention of new technology We can grow most food all year and are less dependent on seasons. We import foods from other places and have much more diverse and this potentially healthier diet.  And although so many things have changed, in some areas we seem to not allow ourselves to evolve in some areas. Although ending a boxing match with a kill is generally considered unacceptable, and in many countries children are being taught that they live in a free country, with equal rights for men and women, there is a general hesitance of leaving behind the concept of a controlled class society.  Like Krishnamurti said. It is an insane world. The insanity is mostly due to the fact that on the one had there is a lot of talk about what we can and can not do, in order to live or reach a state of civilised interaction and coexistence. Still When push comes to shove….. there is a persistence of a need for war to ‘get there’ and a need for more rules, regulations, taxes and other control mechanisms…… that only seem to have an adverse effect and do not resonate with the wording. A more civilised, more educated society would by means of pure logic require less rules, less regulation, less secrecy, etc  Evolution in other areas of our lives Zijn we geëvolueerd? Ja dat zijn we zeker.  Huishouden Kijk bijvoorbeeld naar het huishouden. We zijn veel minder tijd kwijt hele dingen waar men vroeger een hele dag mee bezig was. Taken in het huishouden als wassen, het huis warmhouder, inkopen doen, koken zijn veel minder werk. Het stoken op kolen  Je zou eens een paar dagen moeten leven als in de tijd voor de elektriciteit. Kijk dan eens, hoeveel tijd en energie een mens kwijt was aan de meest basale activiteiten die nu met techniek en vooral elektriciteit in een handomdraai zijn gepiept.  Ik vermoed dag het nog een uitdaging wordt voor de jeugd, om zich daar een voorstelling van te maken. En zo onze, en dus hun geschiedenis te begrijpen. Dat als je een afspraak maakt met iemand, dat je er dan op dat moment moest zijn, anders liep je elkaar mis, en je had niet de mogelijkheid met elkaar contact op te nemen. Ik raakte wel eens vrienden kwijt tijdens koninginnedag in Amsterdam. Een drukke stad vol met mensen. Tenzij we een plek hadden afgesproken waren we elkaar voor de rest van de dag kwijt. We konden elkaar pas weer bellen als we thuis waren. Met een telefoon aan een draadje, die je niet kon verplaatsen.  Boeren en voeding Als ik kijk naar hoe veel voedsel een boer nu in zijn eentje, of met beperkte hoeveelheid personeel kan oogsten elk jaar met hulp van de technische middelen die hij tot zijn beschikking heeft. Het aantal boerderijen, het aantal medewerkers per boerderij is in de afgelopen jaren afgenomen. Tevens is de opbrengst enorm gestegen. Met behulp van kassen, lampen en andere technische middelen worden het hele jaar door enorme hoeveelheden groente gekweekt op een zeer klein stukje grond.  Tegenwoordig wordt de warmte van grote computer serverparken bepruikt om de kassen warm te houden. Niet alles is positief aan het verhaal, want een aantal aspecten van de zogenaamde vooruitgang hebben de voedingswaarde van veel producten doen dalen en zeker als we kijken in de vleesindustrie is het dierenwelzijn er zeker niet op vooruit gegaan. De flats met bijvoorbeeld kippen, die het daglicht nooit zien krijg ik de rillingen van over mn rug. Niet de vooruitgang waar ik trots op ben.  Kortom, met de middelen die de mens tot haar beschikking heeft is het niet nodig dat er ergens op aarde honger wordt geleden.  Het delen van kennis en informatie Moraal It was a question the first arose when reading Marcus Aurelius. What an amazing mind/spirit. Why do people living in this time seem so far away, from 'truths of life' ...'discovered, described such a long time ago? https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/eece6303c019bf07b0d5285afbfdc7b1?q=Marcus I was struggling with that question. Why did people not seem te evolve. The were there people so much more intelligent, enlightened almost such a long time ago. Why are we not able to evolve, as a species?  It bothered me, while at the same time, we did progress in many ways. I was born with a cesarean. It is long after Marcus Aurelius that the first woman survives a cesarean.  ‘1794: Elizabeth Bennett delivers a daughter by cesarean section, becoming the first woman in the United States to give birth this way and survive. Her husband, Jesse, is the physician who performs the operation.’ 1794 ( funny I was born in 1974) In addition it is quite clear we have evolved. Killing the loser of a boxing match because the viewers have text messaged a thumbs down, is an unacceptable fantasy. The life of a human being has become more valuable. And although there is still is such a thing as slavery, it is all but something that people find agreeable.  So on moral something did change.  Nature and domination A lot of other things have changed as well. The air where we live is much cleaner than 250 years ago, when our house was build. The place was called black nazareth. In most cities people were burning coal, and the air must have been thick with smoke in the winter months and in summer, when people were cooking.  The canal in front served as an open sewer. Now for the past few years our children have been swimming in the canal and they only get a skin rash of the chloride in the swimming pools, nothing from swimming in the canal.  Beer used to be a cleaner something to drink than water.  Society An aspect of society that did not change is that we are organised in a pyramid type structure. And in most countries there have been so called class societies. Mostly dividing people in two classes, and in some countries a more divided system of more classes.  An although for many years, especially in the west there is supposed to be no discrimination. People are supposedly free people, and in many countries people have are free to travel the world, in times like these one should, could seriously question such assumptions and statements. There seems to be either een ‘verwrongen’ perception of the word free, or it has been a lot of marketing on the surface, but underneath the old class society system has still been the modus operandi.  In addition, there is supposed to be a lot of democracy in many countries on a local level, and at the same time it is becoming more and more clear that the word seems be steered by a small group of people that have plans made which are being rolled out on a global level. Whether it is the ‘dwangmatige’ approach to a health crisis, or the plans for a new economy of how to deal with a supposed environmental problem.  Not just in the political arena, but also in business and areas like entertainment global organisational structures that are pyramid, or triangle shaped have emerged.  And although this naive author was expecting a downsizing, of organisations when there was a general consensus  that some organisations were ‘too big to fail’ (not my words) these organisations were not cut into pieces that were small enough to fail, which in my view would be a very sensible thing to do, the ‘market’ seemed to have an opposite perspective and these organisations got bigger instead of smaller.  The only problem with bigger, that when being one big pyramid, when it does fail, it can only go one way. Just like any and most empire did. Like the saying says, all things must come to an end. And the end of something that can not grow ant bigger, is to become smaller.  Do not confuse wit these words with what I wish to happen. This is pure logic.  And yes, in many ways I do think in all areas of life there are economies of scale. At the same time maybe there should also be a saying for something that is oversized. In a way nay of these structures could be perceived as monopolies, but for a strong reason are not.  In addition to this issue of the structure and size there is the issue of class society. It presupposes a non equality of humans. Whether through birth and thus bloodline thinking or other ways that society allow for people to become extremely unequal in for instance what people own, whether people are allowed to travel, etc. In many ways when looking at the universal human rights, I do not think there is a country that currently does well on honouring those in relation to all its citizens.  And although I personally thought that I was living in one that was very close, with a ceremonial monarch, the past years have made me come to the conclusion I was successfully fooled in many ways.  When I heard the words of Alan Watts saying: ‘The universe is not a monarchy’, I immediately understood what he was saying.  So I have come to the conclusion, that earth still has to experience the first day of real civilisation. History books (or maybe Herstory books) will remember the people (most probably those currently leading the class society but initiating a change, allowing for humanity to really become of equal worthiness) that will allow for this change to happen.  So yes, we have evolved and still we have some way to go. It will be a very small step, with huge consequences.   Voor het hele verhaal, ga naar Hira_dut

How to lose fear of death If you do not have fear yet. It will come. Don’t worry.  Young people can have a tendency to feel unbreakable. That’s why they can be quite careless, or taking a lot of risk when driving a car or motorcycle for instance.  I know, because I did. Had a bad accident when I was only nineteen. Really scared me. Still it did not develop a real fear in me. I was able to stay away from the subject, except for the funerals I had attended of my grandparents. Especially that of one of my grandmothers was quite special, because I had the opportunity to sit with her, when she was lying still on her bed, after she had died in her sleep, and say goodbye.  So when young, don’t be careless, and do not worry. Still when getting older, the topic becomes unavoidable. Especially when your own parents die.  And for people that still live with a lot of fear of death, losing ones fear does not mean, that it’s ok to die. Losing ones fear in my experience goes hand in hadn’t with looking at death in the eye and by doing so, life becomes much more precious. There is more appreciation of life, my own as well that of the living things around me. And no, it does not mean, I think we should not kill animals for food. Death, hunting, is still part of nature.  That is something completely different, killing for food, then people killing other people, because of some disagreement, because of fighting over …… whatever reason. Still animals fight in nature, not with the objective to kill (unless it is for food). And when there is killing in nature, it’s in nature, that is different than killing animals that have been caged for a ver short lifespan.  Human being can achieve greatness, and at the same time have shown to make normal the most of gruesome acts that animals, which are sometimes referred to as beast are not capable of.  (Although I have seen serial rape of ducks, eventually killing the female with 12 chicks that were left to die…. We saved them…;-)) Other experiences with death I had in my life were losing a friend that hung himself.  I witnessed Sensei die in hospital at the age of 67 from a cerebral infarction And I did some ‘exercises I will talk about later in relation to death.  Books - Ervin Yalom - looking into the light Neitzsche got me really scared when I was younger Paulo Coelho wrote about a wonderful exercise In my work I used the eulogy In Korea to counter the rising number of suicides there is a technique to play ones funeral while being alive. Liver through the process, ending in a coffin and landing there for about 20-30 minutes, then te be opened again and at which point you are being asked the question what you have experienced and why living is worth living? We have done the same exercise with a group of men during a weekend retreat.  Probably the best way, to connect with life and death is by killing a chicken. Taking care of it for a few days. Looking at it, observing. Then very consciously killing the chicken, after which it is cleaned and prepared. And after which the bones are used to make a healing broth.  Satish Kumar points to the lack of authentic leadership.  JFK on the overkill of secrecy. Carl Jung calls it nullification.  J Zimbardo refers to the barrel makers that create a context in which people are bound to live and meaningless live, that is filled with hatred and unnecessary violence.  Looking back to the supranational organisations like the UN, EU, Security council and many NGO’s one might wonder how it is possible none seem to have reached even a fraction of what the were aiming for and have stated so in their maiden speeches. In many ways, the opposite seems to have been the case.  Just like the self labelled philanthropists are growing richer in a time of crisis, during which a childish mind would expect them to use all their assets to help those in need, for the good cause.  Instead the general population is being driven into more debt and those that pose themselves as saviours grow richer by the day and even seem to have a contest going on who ends up on top. And others are cheering because corporations including banks and companies that make products to protect our health are benefiting and are proud of making billions of profit.  At the same time it has become generally accepted to change a child’s sex and that most children because of obesity and diseases like diabetes are likely to die younger than their parents.   Because the above is not in sync with the mainstream media narrative, it is labelled mis-information and thus dangerous. Which makes the author a conspiracy theorist. The media will also consistently repeat that conspiracy theorists think certain things about elites. No one seems to wonder how the media knows what certain people think. Or wonder why they do not seem to know who they are, why they are not invited for an open dialogue….. or why none of them is arrested, since they are currently considered the most dangerous terrorists walking the earth. etc etc.    Voor meer over Hira en ons samenzijn