Chapter 2, Day 1. MORALITY.

Day 1, 10.05pm

Joyful. Freedom is graspable.

Another server joined the team today. A little baker angel who goes by the name of Meredith and has already blessed us with cookies and bread. She speaks some Swedish J.

I have reflected upon morality

I define morality as follows:

Individual conduct that is wholesome to self and others.

There are two kinds of morality, they are:

Sincere morality and Insincere / imposed morality.

Personally, I have become an expert on the latter. I built up an image of what I considered to be the impersonation of a genuinely good character and then did my best to impersonate that image.

The only problem with this, was that as soon as something came up within me that did not fit into the description of my perfect character, the mental committee I had assigned to keep me on track would slam the hammer in the table, deem it unacceptable, and suppress it.

Angry? Not ok – suppress.

Horny in public? Not ok – suppress.

Jealous of somebody for logically ridiculous reasons? Not ok – suppress.

Envious of somebody for their worldly possessions? So not spiritual! Suppress.

Resentful and judgmental of someone’s habits? Not ok – Suppress.

And on it went until at some point the steaming pit with suppressed negativity got so hot that subconsciously my mind would device different strategies to keep the heat isolated or lead it into other places. All while the moral committee kept slamming their hammers in the tables at an accelerating speed, because the more suppression, the more negativity stored in the mind, and the more negativity is bound to color our perception. These strategies of ‘protection’ would manifest as a desire to get drunk or do drugs, have excessive sex, binge eat etc. The latter being the main issue for me. Eventually this method of suppression led me down a dark path where I found myself in a suicidal state, resenting almost everything and everyone, with the exception of a few moments here and there where I saw the light and remembered that In truth I was not all this misery.

Most of all I resented myself for having had become almost the total opposite of that neat little self image I had engineered.

Fast forward a while and I have this insight. That if we attempt to impose morality, it may very well end up with catastrophic, often opposite results of that which we originally intended. Imposed morality is what most parents attempt to program their children with in our extremely dysfunctional society. Suppressed energy takes perverted expressions. What is a pervert? Somebody who has gone on suppressing for so long, that the means of releasing the pressure have taken the most morphed expressions, such as pedophilia, necrophilia, schizophrenia, rape, murder, etc.

What then, is sincere morality?

Sincere morality is the blossoming of a free spirit, of somebody who has been allowed to play with the opposites, with both sides of the coin, with the extremes of each pole.

It is the natural conclusion of having tasted both the bitter and the sweet.

How can somebody know creation if she has not known destruction?

How can someone know stillness if he has not known motion?

As humans, we have an inherent compass that will guide us in the right direction as soon as we stop clinging to what we believe is the right direction. If we think north is right but never walked south, we can never be 100% sure until we walked south.

I am entering the most liberated period of my life so far, and all I have done is to make a conscious effort to allow myself to do that which I fear may cause me harm, but to do it consciously, really feeling and experiencing it fully.

Sincere morality comes from a place of knowing what is good for us, whereas imposed morality comes from a place of believing what is good for us. Believing comes from the mind and it is bound to produce insecurity, as we are not sure, because we haven’t tried the opposite prescription. Knowing is of the Heart, and is as indestructible as the space between things.

A little fresh example. I know it’s not good to eat just before sleep. Especially not cookies and stuff. That’s what my imposed morality or social conditioning tells me.

So, I do the opposite. I eat some nuts and fruits.

And then the thought of having a cookie enters my mind.. Oh no, that would be outright immoral at this time just before bed, besides I already had 3 earlier today.

You know what? Screw it. In this moment I want a cookie, so I will have one.

But, I will have it consciously. Sitting still and focusing on nothing else than eating that cookie as I am eating it. And as soon as I can really pull this off with a single pointed mind, guess what? The desire vanishes. Whereas if I do it while in a state of judging myself for it and creating lots of tasks and thoughts to distract myself from the experience of feeling judged, the desire just intensifies and I end up wanting MORE, MORE, and yet MORE…

And once a kink like this has been consciously experienced with acceptance over and over, it settles, and stops being an issue. We could visualize it as trying to flatten dough with a rolling pin. If we do it violently and want to get it done quickly, we are bound to create a monster of a loaf, but if we do it slowly, gently, and patiently, it might just turn out beautifully.

Sincere morality, then, comes from allowing oneself to be both good and evil, as one desires to, and listening to the needs and wants of the moment rather than endless habits, plans, impositions etc.

For me, meditation has given me the possibility to do just this, to hear my own inner voice in the moment, and thus being able to stop living like a conditioned robot all the time. I can now allow myself to feel whatever comes up in the moment, without trying to run away or distract myself just because it is something uncomfortable, hurtful, or painful. A teacher of mine once said that the only thing that can ever get hurt is our pampered little ego.

Once this allowance is there, we will naturally land onto the conclusion that certain thoughts, words, and deeds make us feel good, and others make us feel less than good. This conclusion can not be reached though, until we have fully allowed ourselves to do that which we fear will wreck our progress, our success, our life, our relations, etc.

To conclude, the most precious gift we can give any other person, and ourselves as well, is our full and unconditional acceptance. For it gives each individual space to play with their extremes in a space of non-judgment, and thus naturally arrive at their own true potential. To live and let live we must learn how to love.

1.08am

Just awoke from an intense dream. I was on something that resembled the Burrard bridge in Vancouver. But on this one the distance down to the water was much much higher. There was a big parade going on upon it, heading north, which in reality would have been towards the downtown Vancouver side. Lots of people dressed in fancy costumes were parading, horses, elephants etc where there. I was running against the stream of people, I was small, and had to watch out not to get stomped by the big animals. Everything felt very massive and threatening. It was night, skies were dark, perhaps it was raining. Waters underneath looked still and glowing. I was pushed towards the bridge side repeatedly. I could perceive the elephants deciding that they were going to chase me, so I started running, suddenly changing direction. I ran at the speed of a high speed train and the elephants were not much slower. I soon realized that the bridge was collapsed on the north side, or perhaps I just decided to jump off of it. Reaching the end of the bridge, I thought I should jump before the land strip begins underneath, so I could land in the water, but then I realized my speed was so high that anyway I would sail to land before I landed. So I let go of my attachment to being alive and I jumped off the left hand side of the bridge, avoiding the elephants threatening stomps, sailing through the air with closed eyes towards my destiny. The dream put plenty of stress on my nervous system and while sailing I woke up. This is just a rough recollection of what I remember. I know that before I was walking in opposite direction of the parade on the bridge, other events were taking place.

Going to try to get back to sleep now. Good night.