Plato…

I must have been about 15 or 16 years old when I read Plato at school. Plato, the Greek philosopher who lived from 427 -347 BC and is still regularly quoted to this day. I actually wonder now what I understood about his philosophies at that young age, but at the time I was not at all bothered. I found it interesting, we discussed what we read in class and I thought I understood everything very well. Plato’s most famous writing is, of course, the allegory of the cave in his work Politea (State). I am going to write that allegory here in my own words, but clearly based on Plato’s. With a conclusion of course, otherwise I could have suffice with a reference to Wikipedia.

Six people sit in a cave, all with their arms, legs and necks chained to the wall. As a result, they can only look one way, straight ahead. They have never been outside the cave. A fire burns at the narrow opening, leaving only a faint glow from the sun. People or animals passing by outside the cave or things carried alongside the cave are projected onto the wall by the fire, causing all the prisoners to see only shadows. It may look like this:

For the prisoners, the shadows are the reality, they don’t know any better, they’ve never seen anything else, and no one has the urge to ask questions. One day one of them escapes. Once outside, he doesn’t know what he sees as soon as his eyes have adjusted to the harsh sunlight. What beautiful, colourful pastures. And then those animals. He is totally overwhelmed by so much beauty. People look at him somewhat strangely, but kindly greet him and smile at him.

As excited as he is about his discovery that there is a completely different world outside the cave, he decides to go back to the cave and tell the prisoners about his experience. After his eyes have adjusted to the darkness, he starts telling his story. The prisoners start laughing out loud. They’ve never heard such nonsense. Colour? Beauty? A bright sun? Are you crazy? Ridiculous. The reality is here and nowhere else. Get lost.

There is nothing for the escaped person to do but to leave and begin his adventure outside the cave, called life.

The meaning of this allegory may be clear and seems to apply extremely well to the chaotic situation in which the world finds itself today. Government leaders try to keep us in our cave, putting fear into us, new knowledge is not heard by the governments and dismissed by the people in the cave.

Fortunately, more and more people are starting to wake up, protesting against the inhumanity and undesirability of the measures. Now the political leaders only have to admit that new insights have taught them that mistakes have been made. How difficult can that be? We all make mistakes and we learn from that. Don’t we?  Why not them then? Egos too big? Or maybe they should take a look at the extremely rich people getting richer every day. Follow the money and see where you end up. No surprise for me there.

I would suggest to listen to people on YouTube for instance who dare to ask questions, who organise protests and share their medical knowledge.

What can go wrong with that? You can always go back to your cave.

(edited by Julia Thomas)

To the movies…

My childhood was characterised by all kinds of prohibitions. Blatantly forbidden, invented and imposed on us by the very strict Reformed Church (gereformeerde kerk in Dutch)  to which my parents belonged. For example, we were not allowed to play outside on Sundays, buy an ice cream or go anywhere by bus. If you did, you would let others work for you, the reasoning was, and that was not appropriate, because on the Day of the Lord you were supposed to rest (and go to church, of course) because God rested after six days of creating. Counter-arguments were not appreciated. We were also not allowed to dance when we were in high school. That was just about sex and sex was found to be sinful and dirty. This was never said in so many words, because you didn’t talk about that.

We did not associate with people who were not of our church (the possible influence of people with the ‘wrong’ faith was apparently undesirable) and negroes had no soul. If you were to express this latter statement today, the whole world would fall over you, firstly because of the use of the word negro and secondly because of the content of this incredibly shocking statement. And … we were also not allowed to go to the cinema. As if the devil himself lived there.

And then suddenly we were allowed to go to the movies. The devil had probably moved out or had never lived there, or perhaps the understanding that “the” devil did not exist at all became clear. Who knows.

I’ve always been attracted to movies. My friend Loraine, the astrologer can pinpoint exactly why that is the case, but this aside. My father apparently felt the same way, because after the ban on cinema was lifted and I was fourteen years old, I went to the movies with him for the first time in my life. He had chosen the famous movie ‘Gone with the Wind’. The night before I couldn’t sleep because of pure excitement. I remember squeezing my father’s arm when the lights in the theatre went off and the movie was about to begin. A feeling that I have never lost.

The film was released in 1939, based on the book by Margaret Mitchell, who received the Pulitzer prize for it in 1936.

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The story is set during the American Civil War (which is probably the reason why my father ,being a historian, was so interested in this film), which took place from 1861 to 1865 killing hundreds of thousands of young men. The film received 8 Oscars, including one for the first Afro American actress Mattie McDaniel to receive one. The National Film Preservation Board praised the film in 1989 for its great cultural value. It became the most successful movie ever with sales of $ 4 billion. A film which must of course be looked at as a product of its time. If we watched this movie with our current eyes, we would probably think it was totally over the top. Well… I enjoyed it at the time, at that young age unaware of anything wrong with it.

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Hatred is of all times, it is part of humanity. Hatred of women, hatred of gay people, hatred of Jews, hatred of Muslims, hatred of another race, the list is endless. Hate is based on fear. Fear that the people who are different in one way or the other or have a different opinion become overpowering. Too threatening, so you start a hate campaign.

The so-called Woke * people point out how racist this film is and that it shows a completely wrong, too rosy and romanticised image of reality. I wouldn’t be surprised that HBO (the American cable television network company that has the film in its library) was forced to remove the film under their pressure, but I am not sure.

All caused by the misbehaviour of the US police resulting in the death of George Floyd. It doesn’t matter that this man wasn’t exactly a law abiding citizen, the police should control themselves, but the reaction it has generated all over the world is completely beyond limits, as is the behaviour of the police. All over the world, the police are guilty of extreme violence against blacks, as well as whites and all other races, all the time. Ethnic profiling is the order of the day and totally objectionable. However, pulling the racism card is out of place here if you ask me, it is more an easy and obvious reason to riot, to go looting and to demonstrate en masse. Why does this suddenly happen? Now of all times. I think it’s because people are frustrated and much more emotional than usual because of all the draconic restrictions imposed on them. The death of a black man feels like a good reason to go completely over board not caring about anyone or anything.

Gone with the Wind is a film, a fictional story. If you don’t want to see it, then don’t. 

HBO also markets a series like The Sopranos. The fans enjoy no less than 6 seasons of the perils of mafia boss Tony Soprano. Romanticised? Of course! Is that bad? No. If you like Mafia stories, you watch it. And if not, you don’t. It’s simple. 

War movies? Romanticised? Of course! Reason to be banned? Don’t think so.

A film is not to be confused with a documentary in which all kinds of wrongs are exposed, such as racism or excessive violence. We all know that, right? Why then all the fuss about a film from 1939?

I received a nice joke from Julia, who expresses exactly what I mean:

• Woke is originally an Afro American political term used to address social and racial injustice. It has since grown (as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement since 2014) into a much broader left-oriented group of people who are agitating against everything that they believe is not (politically) correct and that is a lot.

• Who really wants to live in a completely politically correct society, in which you have to be careful about what you say and in which a different opinion isn’t appreciated. I hope we aren’t getting there.

(edited with love by Julia Thomas)

Fear…

From birth, our brains are bombarded with information, thoughts, beliefs and ideas from others. First from our parents/educators, then the teachers at primary school and high school, bosses at work, not to forget politicians, but also friends and acquaintances do their best to convince you of something they believe in and so it goes on. All your life if you don’t watch out, unless you suddenly wake up and think: ‘Wait a minute, you can think such and such, but I think very differently about that.’ We must realise though that our dissent is also based on the ideas of someone else, of who you think represents a better option at the time.

There is no such thing as an original thought. Everything has already been thought up by someone and if a certain thought appeals to you, you make it your own. You add something, you remove something and then you think, ‘Okay, that’s me.’ But after a while you hear another appealing theory and you add it to your original package and then you think, ‘Okay, that’s me now.’ Have you suddenly become someone else? Of course not. Inside you are exactly the same. So you see that you are not your thoughts, your beliefs. You have them, they arise, they go away (most of the time) and the next ones come up. What you are is consciousness, as already discussed in my blog about our ego of May 4th.

This story is not so much about our thoughts as it is about the nature of the information we are confronted with from an early age and which we then make our own. After all, it is information from people who have a certain authority over you, who are supposed to know what’s best, so you take it for granted. For example, your parents tell you that certain things are not allowed and that you will be punished if you do not obey (or in my case the wrathful God will no longer love you and at worst you will go to hell). On a more light-hearted note that you are told that Santa Claus exists and of course you believe it. More light-hearted, but here again the risk of punishment if you do not follow the rules.

You have to be on time, do your homework (if you want to pass your exams), listen to your boss if you want to get promoted or not get fired and be a good parent who tells his child about certain values. ​​

All the information, opinions and beliefs you get instilled are based on evoking fear. If you don’t follow the rules, then there will be punishment. Normally you are probably not aware of this, but this has changed in the last few months. Our leaders told us that there is a great threat to humanity in the form of a virus that would kill millions of people. Figures were based on a model developed by Dr Neil Ferguson from the UK. Mass mortality was our fate; everyone in a panic, and almost all leaders locked down their country. Out of fear. Not because it was investigated whether the model was correct (that turned out not to be the case and Ferguson was later fired, supposedly because of an affair). The population was threatened. Do not go outside, keep your distance, stay indoors, you have to close your business, the catering industry is no longer open, only essentials available, etc. The citizens knew no better than to obey, because you could count on a hefty fine and a criminal record. ‘The authorities know what they are doing,’ they thought. Just like when we were still children. And yes, the newspapers, they also knew what was going on and the TV talk shows, they all told the same story. It must be the truth, it is the right thing to do, what about the second wave, which is getting worse, etc. All pure fear based.

Slowly but surely we wake up though. We question the information that comes to us, the statistics are often incorrect. The mortality rate is only about 0.2%, which means that 99.98% of the cases survive. A study of the effectiveness of Hydrochloroquine published in the Lancet appears to have been performed incorrectly because Zinc was not added (essential for its effectiveness). That is a first-class scientific scandal. Prompted by the ultimate goal of vaccinating everybody. Why ban a drug that has proved to have good results as if it is too big a risk and people could die from it? Doctors know they shouldn’t prescribe it to patients who take heart disease medicines, so of course they won’t do that in that case. It is criminal to withhold this from patients with the chance that they will die without it, until it is researched and labeled as safe. A drug that has been on the market for 60 years. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

It is criminal to deprive healthy people of their freedom of movement and declaring social distancing as the new normal for the future and telling the story that it may never change again. Never ever has research been done to prove that 1, 1.5 or 2 meters (this differs per country) distance prevent contamination. 

A Dutch researcher, named Maurice de Hond and Willem Engel, a Dutch bio scientist point out that so called aerosoles (tiny droplets which can contain a virus if released through the breath of an affected person), can float through the air. These aerosoles are only effective when in a confined space like a plane or a church for instance.  It is therefore advised to get as much fresh air in as possible by keeping doors and windows open.  Chance of contamination outside is as good as zero. The leaders however suffer from tunnel vision and are only focused on a lockdown and a vaccine. Dr. Pam Popper is also worth watching on YouTube if you are interested in a different opinion.

The draconian, fear-inspiring measures have a huge impact on our health, especially our mental health. People are social creatures. We need each other. The suicide rate in the Netherlands is already 10 times higher than usual. Could the government really not have imagined the detrimental impact of the rule that elderly people in nursing homes are no longer allowed to touch their children in their last weeks on earth, that children are afraid of ‘the other’, because he or she is a danger to them, that we cannot give our friends a hug because they have done something nice for us or to comfort them? I cannot and will not believe that.  You don’t have to be a psychologist to figure that out.

And then the fear of losing your business or your job. The consequences of either of that. The government is responsible for an unprecedented economic depression. They could have prevented a lot of problems if they would have had a mind of their own (like the Tanzanian President)* and had not blindly followed the WHO, would have admitted the wrong estimate and lifted the lockdown weeks ago. I am talking about the Dutch government here, but it applies to almost all political leaders.

And here in South Africa and in many other countries it is even worse, because you die of hunger, not of a virus, which with a good immune system doesn’t put you in any danger.

Interesting to see that articles which are not in line with the general opinions expressed by the mainstream media are being removed from Face Book, YouTube, Twitter etc. An outright form of censorship. Also inspired by fear by the way. Fear from the owners. Fear of an empowering society, fear of losing control, fear of exposure of who are behind it all.

• President John Magufuli got suspicious about the quality of the tests kits. He had samples of a goat, a pawpaw and a sheep with human names on the label sent to a lab. They came back positive for Covid-19. The kits were dismissed immediately. We need more of this kind of people.

(edited with love by Julia Thomas)

Our ego…

It cannot be true, it was still allowed yesterday. Where is this going? Gone is my holiday. It will take months, I am sure about that. Why can’t I touch you. We don’t deserve this. I am angry. I can not take it anymore. I’m right, but no one sees that. The politicians are all criminals, focussed on their own interest. We are gradually living in a police state. It drives me crazy.

Our ego is talking here. The ego likes drama, being dissatisfied, feeling unhappy, blaming others and complaining. If we let ourselves be guided by our ego, we live in the illusion of the past (everything was better yesterday) or the future (where is this going?). The past nor the future have anything to do with reality (I will write more about that sometime), with the now, the present. When we live in the now, our ego no longer plays a role. ‘It is as it is,’ we then say. ‘How could it be any different than it is?’ , we then conclude. If we are aware, living consciously, we see the possibilities of any situation, not the obstacle. We accept what is and by doing so we silence our ego.

I am the last one to say that this is easy. I have been struggling in recent days with the hypocrisy and unethical behaviour of our government, regarding the ban on cigarette sales. 

Especially because of the minister’s conflict of interest with criminals who make millions with illegal cigarette trade. Such people are in charge and can determine whether or not you light a cigarette, after all, they are our government, it makes you go ballistic.

‘Yes,’ our ego whispers, ‘go ahead’.

But then you may suddenly realise that these people and many politicians with them are not aware, they are living in the illusion of power and an even richer future for themselves. You ponder on what Jesus said on the cross: Forgive them Father for they know not what they do. He was referring here to his accusers, the high priests, the Pharisees and the people.

Nothing has changed. It is an excellent example of how the ego takes over and we thereby completely loose sight of reality.

In the case of Jesus it is the so called collective ego we are dealing with. The crowd follows the leaders without thinking for themselves. The ones who shout the loudest get the votes. ‘They know what’s best for us’, is what people think if at all. 

The collective ego of countries on a bigger scale, as another example, creates the completely meaningless wars (we are right, we will fight and destroy them).

Back to the moment when you realise that this means there is no presence of awareness. You meditate or you just sit still and look around you. A smile appears on your face. You anchor yourself, you become aware, you are completely in the now, far away from all the distractions around you. You reach your essence, you realise that you are free, that nothing or no one can control you or do you any harm, because your essence is intangible and untouchable. (thanks to Loraine for this last realisation).

Another example of an ego playing up is when people rage on Twitter at someone they’ve never met, but whose opinion they don’t share. Foul language all over the place. These people are furious and far from conscious, totally captivated by the illusion that the world will be a better place if everyone acknowledges that they are right and the other is wrong. Or maybe they lack attention in real life and try to get that in the virtual world? Whatever the case, they are not in the now, but in the illusion of the future (you have to listen to me, only then I feel better).

Who are we? A question which we may think about more now than in normal circumstances. Our ego knows how to answer this and eagerly gives us a few options. ‘I am so and so and have a good profitable company,’ it says. ‘I’m a good mother,’ ‘I look good,’ ‘Look what a beautiful car I have,’ or ‘I did very well at university.’ All appearances with which we identify ourselves, but which have nothing to do with our essence, with who we really are. What we find important when we are not living consciously. When we are aware, aware of our essence and therefore living in the now, we immediately notice how different we feel. We can more easily be at peace with ourselves and with what is going on, there is calm and no more fighting.

So, the right answer to the question is awareness. Aware of being aware. We have a body and a brain in which that endless flow of thoughts arises, but we are consciousness.

Scientists are still not sure where to find that in the body. No wonder. It’s nowhere, we are that. And in that consciousness we are all one. Maybe more about that in another blog.

After we have been disappointed many, many times we may finally realise that our ego does not help us, on the contrary,  but also that it is still a long way towards awareness. So you actually could say that our ego does help in a sense, it keeps shaking us until we wake up and become aware.

You often hear that prisoners get a better understanding of who they are after being locked up for a long time, that their awareness is activated and that they therefore become a different, better person.

As humanity, we have suddenly become prisoners.

Let’s be still, reflect and thank our ego for the good service, but let’s say farewell to it. Perhaps a better humanity will emerge, a humanity which lives from the heart.

I conclude with the wise words of Mooji, a spiritual teacher, to whom I often listen:

‘All over the world there are problems. Everyone has a problem. But I tell you this; there is only one problem and it is caused by ego. Ego is the one source of all problems. It’s a form of ignorance. It’s just a distraction that prevents you from discovering who you really are. ‘

~ Mooji

this man radiates pure love

Ada den Hollander

On a different note…

 

103 People die from cardiovascular disease in the Netherlands every day, which is more than 3000 people per month. Unless it is a loved one or a friend you do not think about that. The coronavirus has killed 3916 people in the Netherlands since the outbreak in early March. Everyone thinks about it, urged to do so by the hysterical media, which is tied to the RIVM ( The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) , which in turn obeys the extremely corrupt WHO (I already wrote about this in ‘Mass hysteria’). Political leaders then seek advice from so called experts who have a conflict of interest in their DNA.

The average age of the deceased patients is 81 years of age, which is exactly the average age at which we die in the Netherlands. Almost 90% of them had an underlying disease, pure corona deaths hardly exist. Because that is not communicated by the mainstream media, there exists a completely wrong image of this virus. A Swiss study shows that the mortality rate is between 0.1 and 0.3%; that corresponds to an ordinary flu virus. (Source Café Weltschmertz on YouTube).

It is debatable how we got this virus. The bat story is increasingly questioned. It is much more likely that this is an artificially manufactured virus from the laboratory located next to the market in Wuhan and escaped from there. This laboratory is sponsored by the WHO. Intentional or not, I leave that to the conspiracy experts.

Due to the global overreaction to this virus (we are suddenly living in a medical dictatorship), the entire economy is ruined. And not only that, the mental health of people is also under pressure because of the 1 meter social distancing, the fear this has caused and because of being robbed of your freedom. How do we get out of this and how long will this take? We hear around us that we have to wait for a vaccine. Developing a vaccine takes at least a year. Does that mean we have to endure these draconian measures for another year? And you vaguely remember something about viruses, don’t you? They mutate, right? So this vaccine will be useless by the time it has been tested and approved. The financial importance of the development of a vaccine is enormous (follow the money), which is why it was immediately communicated that fortunately this virus hardly mutates, if at all. Very convenient.

A drug that has been successfully applied to malaria patients since 1955 and also helps with lupus and arthritis has been ignored, because the focus is entirely on a vaccine that could be made mandatory worldwide (Bill Gates’ wet dream) . Dr. Didier Raoult discovered that this generic drug, Hydroxychloroquine, which is inexpensive, without patent and can thus be freely produced, has a curative effect on corona patients. It happens sometimes that a drug has an unexpected effect on a different medical problem. Viagra is a good example of this. Dutch doctor Rob Elens saw 8 patients heal quickly in his practice, but he was forbidden to continue with his treatment. Why? There is, of course, a scientific reason given that it wasn’t proven to actually help (?), but of course it is about making money with a vaccine, just listen to Bill Gates. Everyone vaccinated and he is a few billion dollars richer. The same Bill Gates who has an interest in the vaccine-producing company of the extremely wealthy Poonawalla family in India and what did that man actually have to discuss with Dutch Prime Minister Rutte in 2016? There is a shortage of medicines in the Netherlands because we depend on only two players in this market: China and India.

If your immune system is strong, there is nothing to worry about and you don’t need a vaccine at all. Apart from the fact that a vaccine contains harmful substances and is therefore not really beneficial to your health, such as preservatives and pollutants that arise during the production process.

Due to the measures, more than the virus itself, the world has turned into chaos. The Netherlands has a big budget, but for how long? How long will the current situation be accepted? Protests have already erupted in France. And what about countries with a lot of poverty, such as South Africa? People are starving because of the total lockdown, because the authorities promise support, but many have not seen anything of it (one month later). Looting is, of course, the result of this. Suppose you don’t have money and you are hungry. And no prospect of a job for the time being. What do you do? An unacceptable situation. We are going from stage 5 on May 1 to stage 4. A little more space for a number of sectors, which is an improvement, but should the number of corona cases increase, we will immediately go back to stage 5, Ramaphosa said threateningly. And the police see to it that you stick to the rules. A position that is easily abused. Instead of issuing traffic fines, which is difficult without traffic, people are now intimidated and fined because they go for a walk. Cigarettes will be available again from May 1, probably prompted by the fact that tobacco manufacturers threatened to sue the state. Hopefully the wine farmers will do the same.

‘Compulsory vaccination, ultimate control, It will probably last my time’, I often think. But what about the youth and the people who have seen their jobs go up in smoke? 

People are resilient and after a setback you often come out stronger. 

Let’s consider what is going on as an appeal to all of us to have compassion for those who are struggling and do what we can to help. 

I hope we all do that.

(edited with love by Julia Thomas)

Yesterday…

 

(I am wide awake at half past three. ‘You can forget about going back to sleep’, says the voice in my head. As soon as that thought comes up, you are lost. But …, how to avoid it. I don’t know how to do that. So I’m going to think about what next I am going to post on my blog. I had quite a good day yesterday so I decide that that’s going to be the topic. Instead of letting it go and trying to close my eyes again, I start writing the whole story in my head, with punctuations, corrections and changes and all. I have no idea how long I have been ‘writing’, I may have dozed off for awhile, because suddenly it is seven o’clock. It’s almost light, firstly I am doing my meditation, then I am getting out of bed, it is light now, I do a few stretching exercises (not too fanatic), 3500 steps around the complex, go shopping at Woollies and now I am going to write down the story …)

The days are strung together like an endless string of beads, which I see no end to yet (you can only come up with such a sentence if it is pitch dark and you cannot fall asleep). Now that all appointments in my agenda have disappeared, all days are more or less the same, a daily routine as described above. I am not unhappy about that, because my circumstances are extremely good compared to those of many others. I’m not thinking about the canceled trips, not thinking about the fact that South African Airways is likely to go bankrupt ( I did submit an application for a voucher because my trip to Louise at the end of April is not going to happen, but I doubt if I will ever be able to use it ) and I am also not thinking about the usual weekend lunches with the ‘lunch club’. In other words, I am (mostly) in the present moment, I (mostly) accept everything as it is and enjoy (mostly) what I am still able to do.

 

Since the end of January, a package of books from my bookstore Minerva in Amsterdam is on its way. Normally that takes about two months, but of course the virus is now a good excuse to need more time for the delivery. I don’t know if the post office is open, I ask around but nobody knows and the website looks like there is no problem at all. Somewhat against my better judgment I decide to drive to the village. Even that feels like a pleasant break. The distance from my home to the centre of Wilderness is five kilometres. Anneke and I easily walk that distance (that is to say, back and forth) on the beach if we feel like it. But the beach is off-limits (for some unclear reason the beach was already closed off a few days before the lockdown, as if there are always crowds of people on the beach) and as you are not allowed to walk along the N2, I go by car. I take my driving license with me and R 100, in case I have to pay VAT on the package. I notice that there is a lot of traffic on the road. People get probably tired of sitting indoors and just get out for a short trip.

I park at the P.O. boxes. Two shabby young men are standing in front of the corridor along which the P.O. boxes are located. They step aside, they say something unintelligible, but you can guess what, and I walk toward my P.O. box with my eyes lowered. No package, so I walk back to my car. Suddenly a huge feeling of guilt creeps up on me, while I am already inside my luxurious, shiny car with one leg. The hundred rand is burning in my pocket. ‘I can’t just drive away, can I?’ ‘How are those men supposed to survive?’ ‘Maybe they have a family to support.’ The R 100 is now out of my pocket, I pull my leg out of the car and I walk over to the men. I tell them to buy food with it and that they need to share. They both grin exposing a toothless mouth, they nod and thank me. I see them running away. To the Spar? To the drug dealer around the corner? Who knows. It’s out of my hands. ‘Maybe I should have bought bread and peanut butter and give that to them?’, I think. ‘Five loaves of bread for that money,’ my mind continues. 

It’s never good enough with a head like mine. Rather tiring.

 

Among all the funny, bland, hilarious and very good jokes on WhatsApp is a message that the international space station ISS will be seen at 7.13 in the evening. Really? With the naked eye? Or is this fake, a silly joke, causing countless people to stare at the sky for nothing? Coordinates are given, it says that the station will move eastward from George. That is great because Wilderness is east of George. To be on the safe side, I set the alarm two minutes before the moment supreme.

Of the perhaps more than a hundred jokes I’ve seen, I still prefer this one:

The one polar bear says: what are you going to do today?

‘Nothing’, comes the reply from the other one.

‘I thought you were going to do that yesterday’, says the first one.

‘I couldn’t finish it’, comes the reply.

Priceless.

 

My friend Paddy came up with the idea that Lilian and she and I will continue to watch movies (on Netflix now) and then discuss them, like we did with the movie club. She gave it the name Film Society, pretty chic. She also created a WhatsApp group. We had to figure out how to communicate amongst the three of us (via Zoom? Skype?). It appeared very easy though, because you can just call the group via WhatsApp and with a camera as well, which we all wanted. We usually are in agreement. And today is no exception. 

We wholeheartedly agree that the movie “6 balloons” is not worth watching.

 

Buffelsbaai is a small coastal village with many holiday homes about forty kilometres away. About eleven houses are currently inhabited. A number of people decided to take a walk on the wide beach there. Some others could not tolerate that and called the police. They handed out hefty fines of R 1000. 

How can you live with yourself if you do that? Betrayers in WW2 came to mind.

 

The alarm goes off. I walk up to the terrace upstairs and see a clear sky full of stars. My neighbours are also coming outside. Have they also fallen for it? But then ….. the space station is suddenly clearly visible. Like a big star, it moves steadily through the sky. People are in there! I want to raise my hand. I am in total amazement. After a minute or so it disappears further east. The ISS is 255 miles away and is traveling at 17,500 miles per hour. There are two Americans on board and a Russian. ‘Is there ever a disagreement on board?’, I wonder. After all, their respective countries do not really get along very well. Or does the fact that they are in this project together overcome all differences? 

They are also stuck, but voluntarily, that is the big difference.

 

What kind of world will these astronauts return to? Draconian measures have completely disrupted society, ruined the economy, frustrated  the children, broke up marriages, increased domestic violence and damaged the mental health of many. 

I would stay upstairs if it were up to me.

(edited with love by Julia Thomas)

What do you do?…

Suppose you have been brought up well, you know how to behave, you grow up in reasonably luxurious circumstances in the Netherlands, you consider yourself a civilised person. You derive that civilisation from your circumstances. You go on a shopping spree, your bags bulge, you see a homeless person, you are already late. What do you do?

Suppose you grew up in Germany in the 1920s. You are brought up well, you know how to behave, you consider yourself a civilised person. Civilisation derived from your circumstances. The circumstances are beginning to change. There is restlessness in the country, the economy is increasingly going down because of the reparations related to what the country did in the First World War. There is a need for belonging to something and a strong leader. You are invited to become a member of the Hitler Youth, the leader presents himself in the guise of the man with the characteristic moustache. The Hitler Youth was founded in 1922 and approved by Hitler in 1928. What do you do?

Membership was made compulsory in 1939 and in 1940 it had 8 million members. 4 Million young people still managed to stay out of it despite the risk of severe punishment. What do you do?

Suppose you grow up in a township in South Africa. Your mother (your father has not shown himself in years) makes just enough money every month to stay alive because of a job here and there. You are brought up well, you know how to behave, you live below the poverty line (R 547 per month, like 10 million others in that country), you are often hungry. Many people think of you as uncivilised. Uncivilised because of your circumstances. You can’t find a job. What do you do?

Suppose you grow up as a white person in South Africa, where the difference between rich and poor is the biggest in the world. You are raised well protected, you know how to behave. You live in fairly luxurious conditions, far away from the townships. You consider yourself a civilised person. Civilisation derived from your circumstances. Deep down you don’t think blacks are civilised, but you won’t speak your mind about that. You see a beggar reaching out to you mumbling something, you are already late. What do you do?

Suppose you manage to find work as a caddy. You take care of your family, you live just above the poverty line. You do not have an official contract of employment, but you manage to keep going. The country will soon be in lockdown, you hear. You have no money to stock up with beer or cigarettes which will not be available anymore. What do you do?

Suppose you are an avid golfer. You are called upon by your club to support the caddies in their dire circumstances. What do you do?

Suppose you run out of your little savings, your income as a caddy has ceased, you’re hungry. What do you do?

Suppose you hear to your great relief that alcohol and cigarettes are for sale on the black market. Illegal and for a sky-high price. What do you do?

Civilisation is a relative term. The one moment you are civilised, you think, and the next you are not at all.

A little less judgment and a little more compassion won’t hurt.

Mass hysteria …

 

Mass hysteria is caused by a rumour based on fear of losing control. People then become gullible, they no longer think clearly, are sensitive to propaganda and blindly follow a leader. There are numerous examples of mass hysteria. Fans of pop stars who scream and shout when they see their idol and incite one another and even pass out, sometimes before he has sung one note. Only then you can call yourself a real fan. When the time is right, people like Hitler can easily whip up a frenzy and convince people that they are right and people’s critical ability is completely lost. When the time is right, everyone buys toilet paper in a panic, because you may run out. Someone has that thought, talks to someone about it, that person is sure that there will be a shortage and then we all rush to the supermarket to supply us with an essential survival product such as toilet paper.

Mass hysteria is highly contagious and anxiety and panic are bad for your health: dense and dry throat (your throat is pinched with anxiety), heart irregularities due to stress, liver problems due to an excessive production of cortisol, tense muscles (stiffened with anxiety), mental illness and stomach problems (knot in your stomach) and all this affects the immune system. If we then catch a virus, it is much more likely that we become seriously ill. The question then is what actually caused death. Mass hysteria is perhaps even more powerful than the now infamous coronavirus.

Mass hysteria about corona has been cultivated by the media. By extra news broadcasts, by repeating facts, whether or not true. By showing people who are dying, by listening to virologists who blindly follow the guidelines of the World Health Organization. An extremely corrupt organisation headed by Dr. Ghebreysus, an Ethiopian who at the time of his public health ministry covered up a cholera epidemic in his country three times. The organisation is sponsored by Big Pharma, companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffmann-La Roche and Novartis, which of course want nothing more than many sick people, for whom they can then develop and sell vaccines. And then of course our benefactor Bill Gates, who has left Microsoft to take care of the health of the world population with his foundation. By requiring everyone to be vaccinated with vaccines from companies in which the foundation has shares. Well …

There are many stories about how the coronavirus was thrown into the world (see the internet) and whether or not it is deadly. Scientists contradict each other, nobody knows all the ins and outs. Many people die from diseases other than corona, but are counted as corona deaths. How many? Unclear. However, drastic measures are being taken worldwide, causing the economy to go down and especially small companies to go bankrupt. Overdone? Your guess is as good as theirs. There is also a political side to this virus. Far-reaching measures which limit the freedom of citizens are accepted, because people are afraid. Dutch prime minister Rutte’s reputation has improved because of his adequate plan of action. An opportunity presented by the virus. Positive impact on next year’s elections, no doubt.  Ditto for french president Macron, who did not know how to handle the protest from the yellow vests and saw his popularity rise from a meagre 40% to a whopping 90%. Thanks to the virus. And so there are countless leaders who use the virus to strengthen their position. That is how politics works.

The moral of the story:

Do not let the media drive you crazy. Trust your intuition. Fear is a bad advisor. We may one day find out who all have been lying to us. Or maybe we don’t want to know that at all and move on with our lives as best we can. Hopefully with more compassion.

Do not watch the news, all that information doesn’t help you. Read a nice book, listen to beautiful music or watch a good movie.

(edited with love by Julia Thomas)

Dead. Or not at all?

 

My friend Loraine knows that I am interested in the afterlife. For my birthday she therefore gave me the book by Deepak Chopra: Life after Death and she arranged for Anneke to give me the book by Suzanne Giesemann: Wolf’s Message. Suzanne is a medium, which means that she makes contact with deceased people (their soul, spirit or consciousness) or I actually have to say that they make contact with her when she does a reading for a client who has lost a loved one or a child for example. I was occupied with my presents for a while, I talked about them to another friend who promptly lent me a book on mediumship: Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by Gordon Smith, a spiritist. I was completely immersed in a different world, that of spirits.

 

 

 

For many years now, I myself have no doubts about our consciousness living on after our body has died. Our body is the shell (vehicle) for our consciousness to be able to live on earth because of the density of the atmosphere. So we are not our body, we have a body. Just as we are not our thoughts, but have them. As with everyone else, thoughts go through our minds the whole day. About three thousand every hour that we are awake. That we don’t go mad because of it can be called a miracle. Of course it sometimes becomes too much for some people, but luckily those people are a minority. Yet we regularly sigh that we would like to turn our minds off for a while. I am digressing though.

There are quite a few people who don’t believe in spirituality at all and ridicule you if you suggest that life doesn’t end when the body has stopped breathing, oxygen is no longer supplied, our brain has stopped working and so ‘we’ have been declared dead. These people are convinced that dead is dead. This assumption immediately raises the question for me what the hell can be the meaning of life if we frolic around here for about eighty years and then turn into nothing. They think that you are talking nonsense because they cannot grasp it with their minds. It can’t be true because there is no evidence, they claim. Well … there is plenty of evidence, if you take the trouble to delve into it by reading about it.

There are also those who stick by what the Church says about the subject, claiming with their hand on the Bible that souls should rest from all the problems and misery they endured during their earthly lives. I will come back to this later.

Mediumship is practiced in different ways. Either in a room full of people (Derek Ogilvie is an example of this), or in a Spiritist church or during a private session. The most compelling evidence is of course given if you personally experience that the medium is irrefutably communicating with a deceased loved one by providing information that only you and the deceased can know. I will give a pragmatic example of this. A few months after Rolf died, I went with Louise to a medium in Cape Town. I was sitting opposite her for just a few minutes when she said that he (don’t remember if she also used Rolf’s name) liked the fact that I still wore the shoes I had bought in Bergen (village in the Netherlands) when we first met. I looked down and saw that I was indeed wearing those shoes. Plenty of evidence I would say. Some stubborn people then say that the medium just reads your mind. In fact, they should also deny the existence of that phenomenon, because that also cannot be explained with our mind. I can tell you with my hand on my heart that I really wasn’t thinking about my shoes when the medium passed on that message.

In my case, I was more curious than desperate, but people who really suffer from the loss of a child or another loved one find enormous comfort when it turns out that the deceased is happy and advises not to grieve because there is nothing to grieve. The deceased may not be visible, but he or she is always approachable and always proves to be more than willing to say that everything is more than okay and that the relative must continue to live and be happy. The worrying thought that it is such a pity that the deceased can no longer experience this and that event on earth is based on a misunderstanding. He/she is where they want to be. So it is more our idea, the living, caused by grief because of a loss. Maybe someday we as Westerners can evolve to the extent that we are able to be happy when someone has passed on instead of just thinking about ourselves and getting lost in self-pity. There has been a trend for a number of years now that we gather to celebrate the life of the deceased with a drink, so we are getting there.

A spirit does not need to rest, because there is no longer a body that hurts or a brain that does not work anymore. The soul has come home and continues to live and learn. First in the dimension of the spirits and perhaps later again with a body on earth (or another planet?).

I have never heard or read that a deceased person said he did not want to be disturbed and left alone. That’s why I think the Church is wrong here. I am afraid that out of fear of losing control, the Church created this doctrine. The Church prefers that the congregation should not think out of the box. I prefer to paraphrase on the expression: a dirty mind is a joy forever by saying: an open mind is a joy forever.

(edited with love by Julia Thomas)

Real? For sure…

 

Panta Rhei is, as I learnt at school, a doctrine, which was introduced by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus from Ephesus in 500 BC. So it has been a while since he announced that everything is flowing (panta rhei), that everything is constantly changing (universal flux). For example, it is not possible to step into the same river twice, he clarified, or, as Plutarch paraphrased the same principle: it is impossible that a person can contact with another person twice in the same state of mind.

 

Heraclitus also said that opposites coincide. We know duality on earth: hot/cold, day/night, but the unity of opposites refers to an assumed (divine) reality where all opposites coincide. 

He also said that fire is the basic material of the earth.

If you are interested, you can find more information about this on the internet, so I’m not going to repeat that here, but I want to explore panta rhei a little further. Heraclitus was an early classic philosopher in the Western tradition, followed later by philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, all Greek, all teachers and pupils of one another. I would have loved to attend their discussions.

Heraclitus was far ahead of his time with his panta rhei. Today we say that everything is energy, everything vibrates on a certain wavelength. Whether it’s your body, or a plant, a tree, an animal, a table or a Universe, everything is consciousness and everything is moving. In all that mobility we are all connected in consciousness, in sync we can also say and therefore we influence each other. Not only are we all connected, but we are all one, one collective consciousness. This premise explains for example how it is possible that two scientists living miles apart can come up with the same invention at the same time. And also that people can tune into another person and read their state of mind. I am an example of that myself. And that a medium can make contact with a deceased person, because our consciousness is immortal and simply continues to exist.

It will probably surprise you if I tell you where I am going with this philosophical story, because it’s about ants. After I hadn’t been bothered by these ‘cleaners’ for a year, they suddenly appeared again and in larger amounts all the time, especially in the kitchen and the dishwasher. Two weeks ago I started calling Simon, the ant man to make an appointment, but anyone who answered, not Simon. I left messages, sent a text message, no response. A few days ago I didn’t see a single ant on the counter top. I thought the ants had finally understood that they were not welcome and had decided to leave. I will send a text message to Simon that I no longer needed to use his services because the problem had resolved itself. I had hardly thought these thoughts when the phone rang. Simon. Did I still need him. I didn’t have the guts to say that the problem had miraculously disappeared, so I made an appointment and Simon did an excellent job. Inside and outside, no more ants.

That evening I open my blog to answer a reader’s comment and I see that someone has read my story of March 17, 2018, called The Ant. About how ants destroyed my coffee machine. Unbelievable, I would have said in the old days. I now know better.

 

 

 

panta rhei, also these flowers over the container

(edited with love by Julia Thomas)