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We are children of the divine light and pure beings from the kingdom of God. Over time, we have gradually become prisoners of our ego and this has prevented us from growing courageous, strong, healthy, wealthy and happy. "The Triumph Of Love Over Ego" makes the underlying cross-connections easily understandable and shows us ways out of our spiritual imprisonment. We are taken on a journey around the labyrinth of our inner prison and are shown countless pathways and wrong turnings. The insights we gain provide us with vitality and joy and guide us step by step towards the light. This is the path to spiritual freedom and the eternal Triumph Of Love Over Ego.
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Saeed
TRIUMPH OF LOVE OVER EGO
From the wisdom of God given to all
who are willing to take this into their hearts
Triumph of Love over Ego Title of the original: Triumph der Liebe über das Ego
Translated from the German by Gitta Wolf
All rights reserved. No part of this book – text or images – may be utilized in any way, shape or form without prior written permission of the author, Saeed Habibzadeh
This includes any kind of electronic utilization
Cover illustration: Saeed Habibzadeh
Layout and design: Samuel Schwarzkopf
Copyright: 2014 Saeed Habibzadeh, www.saeed.eu
Published by: epubli GmbH, Berlin, www.epubli.de
ISBN 978-3-7375-0730-1
My gratitude goes to the man
Table of contents
Preface
When I was a young boy, I constantly had a strange feeling that I could not describe. I felt that something wasn’t right with this world. But since the world of grown-ups was incomprehensible to me, I was unable to recognize what it was.
Later, I came to realize that this feeling was a longing for an ideal world, a longing that had been with me since childhood. I wanted a world like in a fairy tale, complete with happy endings. I always wondered what became of the fairy-tale characters, and whether they really did live happily ever after. I always wanted to know how it was that the world of grown-ups contained hardly any happy endings such as those in children’s books, and how come our world is not really as idyllic as the one in the bedtime stories that were read to us.
I closely observed my parents’ facial expressions and noticed that they were not really happy with each other or with their life. When they saw me anxiously watching them, they smiled like grown-ups do when intending to comfort a child. But as soon as they averted their eyes, their facial expressions changed and I could see how they really felt. I saw doubt, sorrow, worry and any number of problems that could not be solved.
I realized that there is a great deal of difference between the imaginary world of fairy tales and the real world.
Fairy tales only served to make us go to sleep easier and give us nice dreams. But the real world was a nightmare without happy endings. This made me very sad and often I secretly cried at night. I was especially and desolately sad when I witnessed the unhappiness and despair of my parents.
My mother and I had many conversations like this one:
“Why does Papa go out early in the morning and doesn’t come back until late in
the evening?”
“He goes to work.”
“Why?”
“Because he needs to earn money for all of us.”
“Why?”
“Well, we need money to buy food. Nobody gives you anything for nothing.”
“Why not?”
…
Questions and answers like these take place in all families, questions that are always terminated with the statement that we are just little kids and can’t understand these things yet. But later, when we became adults, we still didn’t get answers to our questions. At some point we just stopped asking, stopped thinking about these things.
When we were little, we had fairy tales read to us because the real world offers little of beauty. These tales were meant to reassure us, to detract us from reality and make life bearable. As adults, and without even realizing it, we lose faith in what is good and instead chase after unattainable dreams. Children are comforted with fairy tales and grown-ups are lured, cheated and sucked dry with dreams.
Pondering all this, I never quite lost sight of one question: why do suffering, hunger, violence, lies, cheating, wars and other ugliness exist in this world?
Why is everybody so unhappy?
I have never been able to let go of these questions. How could I possibly forget them, when this world reminds me of them every single day?
My observations always brought me to the same conclusion: we suffer because we act selfishly and so make life difficult for one another.
Our ego has created a great many misunderstandings and errors of thinking that turn our lives into a living hell. Often, these are handed on to us by other people, previous generations, our friends and teachers, and we just accept them at face value without bothering to question their validity.
In this book, I uncover and clarify some of the machinations of our ego. It would be great if it could contribute to making this world a more beautiful, more peaceful and happier place. However, this can only work if we all straighten ourselves out in whatever way we can.
Sincere readers will identify many errors of thinking and false assumptions within themselves and their fellow humans. This is the first step towards personal, collective and global happiness.
What we don’t recognize, we cannot comprehend. And what we don’t comprehend, we cannot improve!
If you let go of your own ego, step by step, you make an important part of our world more beautiful, more harmonious and more peaceful: yourself.
Whether we are aware of it or not, whether we believe in it or not, we all carry the same responsibility, namely to leave a better world for our children than the one we inherited from our parents.
The more people act accordingly and treat each other with love, respect, appreciation and a spirit of co-operation, the better our world will become.
And that is what we all wish for, isn’t it? A world where we don’t need to tell our children fairy tales to distract and reassure them. A world where the adults don’t have to make do with dreams-for-sale, but are able to attain a fulfilling and happy life.
If it is our wish to live in such a world, and especially if we want to be able to leave such a world for our children, we must be prepared to live and fight for what is good, true and beautiful. A fight against the personal, collective and global ego. Only if it is fought from a position of true and selfless love, can this fight ever lead to triumph:
The Triumph of Love Over Ego!
Saeed
Introduction
Dear Reader
Any distance leads to separation and loneliness, especially when it originates in the heart. I regard all of us as one big family. To me it feels as though the same blood runs through our veins. We are like parts of one body. When even the tiniest part is in pain, the entire body suffers. This is why I perceive and feel the pain of all humans and other beings as my own, and I try my best to help wherever I can.
Have you ever watched people standing at the traffic lights? When the lights turn red and everybody has to stop, some people look over at other cars and their passengers and try to make eye contact for one brief moment. Or, have you ever had these quite indescribable feelings when you were driving on the motorway and you saw people just standing on a bridge, watching the traffic flow by, or waving at you? Maybe you yourself have stood on a bridge, waving? These indescribable feelings are feelings of loneliness and sadness about this world, and above all, they are about our longing for friendship, for an ideal family, an ideal world, where we treat each other with kindness, peace, affection and cooperation.
We are all parts of the same body, members of the same family, sharing the same world. I perceive all human beings as my sisters and my brothers. All human beings are my friends and I love them, I am friend and brother to all. This is why I hope you will forgive me for addressing you like a close friend.
I am delighted that you are holding this book and reading these words that flow straight from my heart. You are cordially invited to immerse yourself in my thoughts and expressions of light and to take on board that which for you is good, true and beautiful.
About this book
The aim of this book is to uncover, in form of a brief summary, misunderstandings and erroneous thinking and to clarify their correlation in an easily comprehensible way. This is why the explanations focus on the most important aspects. Sometimes I had to quote examples to make particular correlations more understandable, but in other cases, I deliberate did not, so that readers would be free to recognize examples from their own lives.
I have chosen to omit certain topics from this book, for the simple reason that they warrant a book of their own – they are so complex that I would like to deal with them separately. They include God, esotericism, astrology, self-discipline, wealth, relationships, sexuality, happiness and similar essential subjects. Most dear to my heart is the subject of astrology, the reason being that for many years now, I have developed and utilized my own karma-astrology, which I call “Karmalogy”. The book about Karmalogy will provide wide-ranging education about true astrology and its true meaning. It will give unprecedented insights about human destiny and uncover the hidden interconnectedness of life.
I would ask you to put what I say in this book to the test and only take on what you yourself have experienced to be true. Whatever we come to understand through our own endeavours and power will more easily enter our consciousness and more deeply touch our soul.
Truth remains a very personal experience. Every person is wholly responsible for his or her own thoughts, words, actions and feelings. This responsibility is NOT transferable, however much we would like to make someone else responsible for our own mishaps, because that would be so much more convenient and comfortable than having to acknowledge our own mistakes. We all have to work out for ourselves what we will embrace and what we will reject.
I would recommend that you read this book several times, especially those topics that you find incomprehensible, unclear or even contradictory. It takes time for consciousness to expand. It is entirely possible that you can access a deeper understanding when you read it a second time. This happens because we constantly expand our consciousness, an automatic process to do with all we learn and experience and the insights we acquire in the course of time. The results are a heightened awareness and a sharper perception.
The more consciousness matures, the more it can absorb and process.
I would ask you not to generalize the content of this book. When I make a statement about people in a certain context, this does not imply that all people in that situation will be or act that way. I would not want to irritate you by having to repeat this every time I raise a point. The points I raise are to do with deficiencies that I believe stem from the individual, collective and global ego. These conditions can be found everywhere, but not everyone participates in them. Some people walk the path of selflessness.
As a rule, we only apply a generalization to others if we ourselves are that way inclined or if someone’s comments make us feel as though we are being treated unfairly.
Even though I reject a great deal of what we humans do, this does not mean that I reject the people doing it. There is a general misconception that causes us humans to identify with our egoistic actions. This is why we take offence when someone criticizes our actions. I would ask you not to take the content of this book personally, especially if you should feel criticized or take offence. I do not judge my fellow humans. I merely reject their egoistic actions.
Truth requires no justification. Rather, we humans require enlightenment.
At this stage I would like to point out the following: I do not belong to any religion or any church. I believe in God, our Heavenly Father, and Christ, our brother and saviour. So, whenever I mention God or Christ in this book, it has no connection with a religion, the bible or the church and should not be read as such. I am neither a member of any political party nor a member of any sect, religious community or similar. I have no interest in evangelizing people and steering them into a particular direction, nor do I regard this as my purpose in life: in fact, I would regard this as manipulation. My aim is to educate people and to uncover misunderstandings and erroneous thinking. God’s truth is free and independent of human-made endeavours such as the economy, politics, religion, science or philosophy. It is and always will be on offer to us and we are free to accept or reject it. What a person believes in remains his or her individual choice. This is a freedom granted by God and must not be curtailed, manipulated or exploited by man. True faith can easily be determined by finding the answers to two questions. Firstly: who benefits from people adhering to this faith? Secondly: do the leaders of this faith practise what they preach? We recognize trees by their leaves and fruit, and people by their deeds, not their words! We can therefore determine whether a faith is true or false, egoistic or selfless, man-made or of God, by checking whether it serves a small group of egoists dreaming of money and power, or whether it serves all humankind and is aimed towards selfless and communal - in other words, divine - goals. True faith sets people free from the individual, collective and global ego and leads them towards unity, equality, fraternity, liberty and justice. If you choose to follow men, you have not yet recognized the truth. Because God is the Way and the Truth and the Life. Despite wrongdoing on an unimaginable scale being committed in His name, He is untouched by and independent of the works of man.
The content of this book will only be understandable to you if you comprehend its meaning: overcoming the ego by dealing with events in a factual, honest and impersonal manner.
I have taken great care to position the various subjects in a logical sequence. However, this was not always possible or even sensible, and I sometimes decided to abandon logical sequencing all together. I am doing this with the intention of enabling you to obtain certain insights by looking at different contexts in different parts of the book, and from different perspectives, and for you to experience the so-called aha effect. This is the only way to ensure that an insight, its application, effects and consequences are carried through into everyday life.
I would be very happy if this book would make a lot of readers think, because that would mean that we are recovering one of our most precious abilities, one we had as children but were trained out of and lost as adults: the ability to ask questions!
We need to learn to question things again, with honesty and sincerity, so that we can track down our erroneous thinking and false values. When we do not question, when we are not observant, truthful and sincere, we will believe anything anyone tells us. We are constantly being bombarded by the media with all sorts of ideals and dream images. When we obtain our values and ideals from outside of our own heart, we will sooner or later end up suffering from disorientation of the spirit. Human beings find true values inside of their own hearts, where their conscience beats strongly and their longing for truth, justice and love resides.
When you stop asking questions, you stop searching for the truth. When you stop searching for the truth, you stop living.
Saeed
Notes for the 2014 edition
Dears Friends,
I have had many intense discussions with people who read “Triumph Of Love Over Ego” in its first German version. I have taken the insights gained from these discussions into consideration when I revised, expanded and completed the second edition of this book and would outline them as follows:
This book does not aim to ban ego and egoists from this world – that would mean all of us would be banned! There is no shame in being egoists, because we were not taught to be anything else. We are all egoists, to a greater or lesser degree. And yet we need to pull together and work together for a better world. This is why this book has no interest in judging or condemning egoists and egoism. Ego originates from a lack of love, and egoists are people who have had no, or very little, experience of love. Love is the only way out of ego. That is why we should treat our own ego, and other egoists, with consideration, patience and love.
The more an egoist is exposed to true love, the more his ego shrinks in size and the more he grows in spirit.
This book is written in simple language, so that it is accessible to anyone. But this simplicity should not deceive us into assuming that we’ve comprehended all there is to comprehend by skimming or speed-reading through it just once. It is really important to understand that this easy-to-read text has very deep and far-reaching consequences, but we need to be prepared to comprehend it and act on it!
My next point is the fact that a mere understanding of something does not necessarily get us anywhere: 1) we need to really grasp the insights given in this book, and their consequences; 2) we must compare our own life to the content of this book, to acquire self-awareness; 3) we need to correct the weaknesses we have identified in our character and our life by putting our newly acquired insights into practice. Any insight is useless if we do not act on it and integrate it into our life. It is only by amending our behaviour that we are able to master our own shortcomings and distinguish ourselves from the egoists. It is also important to realize that even simple insights need to be implemented. Implementation tends to be much more difficult than simply understanding something.
How to read this book: we can read this book in any way that makes sense to us. We can open it haphazardly and read whatever we find. We can pick out those topics from the list of contents that are currently of interest to us. But I would urge you to read this book all the way through. Only then are you likely to be able to comprehend the inner principles and the essence of this book in its entirety. When watching a movie, it pays off if you resist the temptation of fast-forwarding to the exciting bits, and it is the same with this book: try to resist the temptation of first reading only those chapters that you are particularly interested in. Many topics build on and complete each other. I have written this in a way that repeats important insights in different contexts. This way I can support you within every topic and every chapter, so that we can advance together towards the inner triumph of love over ego.
The purpose and the aim of this book is a transformation in our consciousness and in our soul. This means that we need to truly consider the content of a chapter, so that we can absorb it. Only when we revise our thinking can insights from this book be of use. Similarly, we need to revise our emotions, feelings and perceptions. The transformation in our spirit helps us to attain more divine, harmonious and benevolent emotions that lead us towards our true being of light, love and perfection. This way, we are more and more able to leave behind negative and ugly deeds, thoughts, feelings and intentions and instead become more beautiful, healthy, wealthy and happy! So – let us be light in our consciousness and in our soul. Enlightenment is entering into a state of light in our consciousness. Salvation is entering into a state of light in our soul.
Let there be light!
Saeed
For a new humanity born out of love for
Becoming or dying
Living is constantly growing, constantly becoming. Someone who is disinterested in spiritual growth grinds to a halt and leads a meaningless life. Unfortunately, we keep experiencing this in our partnerships, friendships and other relationships.
The eternal law of life is eternal becoming.
This law is particularly important for us human beings because we need to understand that life is a permanent process of maturation. Life is learning. If you are not prepared to learn, you will suffer. Only where we are not prepared to learn our lessons do we reap blows of fate, illness, separation and pain.
Becoming means overcoming the limitations and constraints of our consciousness, it means growing wiser and more mature. It also means gradually overcoming our own ego and becoming more selfless and loving. It is the only way for us to become ever more noble, kind and complete.
Physical death is not the only kind of death. Most of us die a little more every day, but we do not realize it. When all we do is work and work just to make ends meet, then we are no longer living but are merely surviving, meaning that although we are still alive, we no longer get any enjoyment out of life because we are forever struggling to ensure our livelihood. This is how slaves used to live in the ancient world. The only difference today is that modern-day slave drivers are invisible. If our entire life has turned into a fight to solve our problems, we reduce our quality of life day by day and our days become a process of dying rather than living. Being truly alive involves joy, growth, abundance and happiness. We can only appreciate the beauty and glory of life when we stop viewing life as a struggle for survival. Life is an immeasurable gift from God, enabling us to live in happiness, harmony, abundance and love.
Many people are longing for death. They believe that they will find salvation in death. That, however, is not the case. When we die, all that dies is our earthly body – that is literally all that happens! We slip out of our earthly, physical overcoat, which makes us invisible to the physical eyes of our fellow men. But that does not mean we are dead. Salvation and death have absolutely nothing to do with each other – they are two entirely separate concepts. We die because physical matter is transient and our time on earth comes to an end. But salvation is the gradual liberation of the soul from stored-up negativity (karma). Therefore our death does not automatically lead to our salvation.
Many people, especially young people, believe they can escape all their problems by committing suicide. In fact, the opposite is true! When we die, we take with us all our current problems and are faced with having to solve them in the other worlds. What we do not solve, we take with us. But suicide brings with it many more difficulties than an ordinary death: suicide is a form of murder and as such is inscribed in our soul as a massive negative charge. This makes the life of a soul a lot more difficult in the other worlds and I urgently advise against all thoughts of suicide or any other longing for death.
We are not in this world to die, but to learn. What we do not learn, we carry with us as unsolved problems.
If all we do is concentrate on problems without looking at solutions, we choose to live our life negatively. We also negate life if we give in to the whining of our ego and spend our days complaining that our life is not as we want it to be. Living means starting the day with joy and gratitude, and ending the day in love and harmony. When we choose a positive life, we work on ourselves and we welcome every minute of our life with joy and gratitude. We do not let our problems overwhelm us but we enjoy finding solutions for them. Choosing a positive life gives us vital energy, zest for life and true strength. If this is the way you approach your life, your life will richly reward you with health, wealth, success and happiness!
Transformation or change
Our soul loves life and eternal transformation, since life is constant transformation and eternal becoming. Our soul always provides impulses, suggestions and ideas so that we know what we need to change to improve the flow of life and, as a direct consequence, our own happiness. While our soul is rooted in eternal life, our mind is firmly focused on impermanence and does not recognize anything else. This is why our soul’s longing for true inner transformation is often misunderstood as a longing for a change in circumstance. And so we think we would be happier if we found another boyfriend or girlfriend, or if we had another job or a lot more money. In other words, when our soul identifies a transformation and sends us a signal, our mind perceives this as a change in circumstance. This is because our mind looks towards the outside and only knows and acknowledges matter, being of matter itself.
All change in circumstance originates from a longing for our true, authentic life. We only long for what we do not have. This means that we are longing for an authentic, meaningful life because we have ground to a halt inside and our life is nothing but a repetition of boring routines and habits.
True transformation takes place in our consciousness and materializes in our surroundings. The consequence of such a transformation could be moving house, separating from a partner who was not right for us, the start of a happy relationship, changing from job to vocation or similar.
While true transformation is an essential part of life, change of circumstance is merely an adjustment.
True transformation takes place in our consciousness. It removes the old and outdated and puts something new in its place. An adjustment does not bring anything new; it simply relocates the existing parts or mixes them up like cards in a card game. This is how our ego deceives us: it simulates changes that in fact have not occurred. It does not matter how often we redecorate our flat, it is still the same flat. The renovation may improve ambiance and comfort, but it cannot compare with moving from an unsuitable flat to one that feels right.
Another important point to make is that we would often rather replace the need for inner transformation with some outer change. If, for example, we separate from our partner without having learnt the relevant lessons, we will repeat our mistakes in our next relationship and will end up with the same problems. We will have changed the actors on the stage of our life, but the screenplay remains the same!
Making changes on the outside without changing the inner, spiritual essence, results in even more pain and misery, since it has no substance. True transformation takes place in our heart and consciousness and it automatically leads to the materialization of more happiness on the inside and on the outside.
Learning or suffering
We basically have two possible ways of dealing with our life and its daily events: we can either take everything personally and suffer because our life does not unfold the way we would like it to, or we can look at life objectively. Meaning, we focus our attention not on our emotions, but on the inner message of what is happening.
This way we recognize that everything that happens has its own history, message and objective. If we are constantly personally affected by everything that happens in life, we will constantly be suffering and trying to change life to comply with our own egoistic ideas. The problem with egoistic ideas is that, even when they do come true, they do not make us even the slightest bit happy, the reason being that they do not originate from our heart, but only mirror our superficial emotions and moods. We can only be happy when we fulfil our true heart’s desire. Our true heart’s desire does not cause any pain or suffering to us or our fellow men. Fulfilling these desires makes us strong and happy, but fulfilling our egoistic desires makes us lonely and unhappy. The more egoistic we are, the more we suffer. We are egocentric; we regard everything in an entirely self-centred manner. We use our ego as the measure for judging everything around us as pleasant or unpleasant. The result is that we suffer, because we keep isolating ourselves more and more from those around us by our egoistic behaviour. We lose touch with reality, because we make up our own reality and live in a world of make-belief.
But when we proceed to take things less and less personally and continue to realize that they intend to convey their specific meanings and messages to us, we no longer regard our problems as enemies to be annihilated, but as friends that have information for us.
We only suffer when we are not prepared to learn and instead blame others for our mishaps.
At this point it has to be said that true willingness to learn can also carry its own problems, conflicts, illness and suffering. This is because we leave behind that which is old and outdated and are open to that which is new. This transition from the old to the new life holds many changes, some of which may be uncomfortable. For instance, our circle of friends may change, the way we relate to our family may alter and our relationships may change or break up. All these are possible consequences of transforming our consciousness.
When you change the way you think, feel and act, then you will be less able to relate to people from your past.
These often sad and uncomfortable experiences are only a short phase of life – the transition from old to new. If you treat yourself and your life with honesty and sincerity, you will gradually leave the old behind and find more and more delight in being your own person in your own life. It is important not to lose courage. Travellers on the road to truth must not allow themselves to be discouraged and unsettled.
Nothing is lost, it merely makes room for that which is new, better, necessary or inevitable.
It is essential that we are willing to learn. However, learning is particularly difficult for us when others keep pointing out our shortcomings. There is no point in taking offence. Of course some will immediately defend themselves by saying things such as: “I’ve had no complaints so far!” But the fact that we have received no complaints cannot be taken as evidence that we have made no mistakes. This is a very superficial and dangerous attitude, because those people are in effect saying: “We won’t change and we’ll just carry on as before until something goes wrong – and maybe then we’ll change it.”
When someone goes to the trouble of explaining something to us with courage and care, or points out to us a mistake we made, we need to understand this as a sign of love and affection. We should be grateful to this person and work on our ability to handle criticism. It does not matter what motivates someone to say these things to us, it only matters whether what they say is true. The validity of their motives is their own business and responsibility. Our responsibility is our willingness to learn and we need to work on our own shortcomings, not those of our fellow humans. True friends point out our weaknesses out of love and just want to see us happy. They boost our self-esteem and self-confidence and help us find solutions to our problems. False friends use our weaknesses to make fun of us, feel superior to us and destroy our self-confidence. What is important for us is to stay true to ourselves and not worry about what these people’s true motives might be. If you love the truth, you will be able to learn from both true and false friends.
If you love the truth in your heart, you will always be able to learn, wherever you are.
Objective or personal
Basically, we have two ways of perceiving and processing information.
One way consists of taking everything and everyone personally. We do this whenever we use our own taste, our ideology and other personal preferences as the standard to measure everything against. In other words, we do not really care what it is that is actually happening at the moment, we only care how it affects us. Our ego decides whether we like or dislike something, whether we regard something as beautiful or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant. The more you let whatever happens during your day affect you personally, the more touchy, irritable and vulnerable you will become. You will be more difficult to get along with, because you judge everything by your own moods and not by what actually happens. It is not important to you what happens, you only care what it means to you. Egoistic people have no interest in the truth; they would rather invent their own truth and make it fit their ego. They judge and condemn, and they act entirely as they please. One of the egoists’ more interesting characteristics is their tendency to interpret everything. They value their own interpretation above all else. They regard as true only that which they imagine they see, and not that which is actually happening.
Constantly taking everything personally turns us into isolated, lonely and bitter individuals. If you take everything personally, you always regard yourself as a victim of circumstance and are likely to end up paranoid.
Objectivity is the application of love to truth.
Objectivity is a completely different way of approaching our fellow humans and our daily lives. When dealing with the events of the day, we are truly objective only if we manage to give the highest priority to the facts and not to our ego. Being objective means regarding an event in terms of itself, and not in terms of what it means to us personally. If we act and react objectively, we act with intelligence and as appropriate to the situation. This approach uplifts us, increases our self-esteem and self-confidence and may even save us from making the wrong decisions. Intelligent people do not place value on packaging and appearance – they place value on content and reality.
Intelligent people do not lie to themselves or to others, which is why they are not easily betrayed by others.
Packaging and content
As we have seen previously, there are two possible ways of perceiving what happens in our life. The first and more convenient choice is to build our perception around the way things appear to be. For our ego, this is a very comfortable choice, since there is no need to make any effort or to question anything at all. We need not bother to look for the truth; we just settle for what things look like. And so we keep our perception at a superficial level and will never discover the origin of something or its underlying background.
When we decide to settle for appearance, we decide to settle for packaging. We will never know what the content is. When we want to give a birthday gift, we use nice wrapping paper – there is nothing wrong with nice packaging. The mistake would be to concentrate all our effort on the packaging and treat the actual present, the content, as an afterthought. When something happens to us, it is either a blessing or a mishap for us. We concentrate on whether an experience is lovely or horrid, whether we like it, whether we enjoy it. The birthday gift is not about the pretty packaging; it is about the gift itself. That which matters is inside the packaging. To find it, we need to open the packaging and look through it to what is underneath. It is quite the same with our experiences. However unpleasant they may be, they always carry a beautiful and liberating message for us. Every experience is a lesson to be learnt, a lesson to extend our consciousness.
This means that everything that happens to us happens because we need it so that we can grow spiritually. Every experience wants to lead us to a new self-awareness. We experience on the outside that which we have not yet perceived within ourselves. We meet our lessons on the outside. Everything we experience wants to help us to identify our content, the ugly as well as the beautiful! If you refuse to accept your experiences and refuse to learn from them, they will return to you again and again. It is just like refusing to accept a parcel from the postman, the difference being that the spiritual postman will keep ringing the doorbell louder and longer every day, until finally we open the door and accept the parcel.
Every experience is about self-awareness!
Discovering and inventing
This is the greatest problem for humankind: the difference between discovering and inventing. For everything we do or want, we need some means of orientation, and the basis for spiritual orientation is and always will be the truth. With regard to the truth, we humans basically have two options: we either search for it conscientiously, sincerely and selflessly, or we take the easy option and invent our own truth. In the beginning, we are all of us searching for the truth, but somewhere along the way, most of us stop. We become contented with smaller realizations and some victories over our ego. This contentment misleads us into dropping our search for the truth all together and resting on our laurels. Many people, especially esoterics, like to regard this condition as some kind of spiritual mastery. Caught up in their vanity, they regard themselves as masters and enjoy being admired by others. When you love the truth with all your heart, you could never regard yourself as a master. You are, and always will be, a student of truth.
When your search for truth is powered by love, truth will happily reveal itself to you. But if you intend to misuse it for your own selfish goals, you will end up with your own invention and an ego-driven falsification of the truth.
This is why those who search for the truth should be aware that the greatest dangers lie within themselves. These dangers are the egocentric susceptibilities and shortcomings within their own consciousness.
The invention of truth starts when we place more value on our own interpretation than on facts. These interpretations isolate us from the rest of the world and we start to build our own reality. We do this without considering the facts. The resulting isolation makes us lonely, and this loneliness leads to fear, insecurity and poverty in all its many forms.
If you truly wish to search for and find the truth, you will have to overcome the limitations within your consciousness by liberating yourself from your ego, step by step. But this is only possible if we are prepared to amend our behaviour. Our behaviour is the sum total of all we think, say, feel, do, want and wish for.
Judging and acknowledging
Every judgement is a condemnation.
The German word for judgement is “Urteil” and it illustrates more readily than the English term the power and intention behind it. “Teil” means “part”, “Ur-teil” denotes the partitioning and separation that destroys inter-human connectedness and turns people against each other. At the onset of civilization, people were not only closely connected, but also supported each other. Since they started to judge one another, they have gone their separate ways.
Every judgement is also a condemnation because it distorts our vision into seeing only our own version of truth and makes it impossible for us to recognize the truth. This is because by casting our judgements, we create our own version of truth and become separated from the truth. Judging also separates us from others because to be able to judge them, we have to distance ourselves from them. A much better way would be to seek closer connection with them, so that we can better understand what they feel.
It is so much more interesting to listen to our fellow humans and grow to understand them - especially those that are different to us - than it is to judge and condemn them.
When we perceive something, we can either judge it or we can acknowledge it. When we judge it, we make up our own truth about it, which clouds our perception. It does not matter whether we do this for scientific, political, religious or philosophical reasons, we still no longer look at the facts but we concern ourselves with our own interpretation, our own image of what happened.
If you place your own interpretation above the truth, you not only judge but also condemn your fellow humans, and with that, yourself.
We humans have neither the power nor the right to decide what is true and what is not true. We cannot decide whether something is right or wrong. The truth is and remains untouchable. All we can do is acknowledge it and live by it. Humanity will only survive if it acknowledges and lives by the one unifying divine truth in justice, liberty, fraternity, equality and unity.
Actual and perceived reality
Most of the time, we do not want to see the truth. When we see it, we turn away and pretend that we did not see anything. We may not be able to do this for long, but we keep trying!
This is largely because we only want to see what we think the truth should be. We do not see things as they are, but as we would like them to be. Big difference!
We all have different perceptions and opinions. For the most part, they are different because of our character, our life history, our feelings and emotions, our view of the world. Our personal reality is the sum total of our personal opinions, emotions, feelings and images. Most people live within their own reality and are therefore quite isolated from those around them. They are concerned largely with themselves and only perceive what concerns them directly. But the context, the environment in which they live, remains alien to them. This is why we constantly wonder how it is that we know so little about one another, how it is that we show so little concern for one another.
The maelstrom of our thoughts, emotions, worldviews and opinions serves to isolate us. We no longer have a direct perception of the world, instead we concern ourselves with the image of the world we have created for ourselves. This is a subconscious image made up of personal, collective and global interpretations, conclusions, worldviews and such like. The way we treat one another is quite similar. Most of us are not really concerned with others unless there are particular reasons we have to be or it is likely to be to our advantage.
When our interactions are not sincere, we live in a make-belief world where all we can do is dream of living. But life is interactional exchange!
Actual reality is the sum total of all that impacts on us. We are part of it, without even being aware of it. Actual reality affects all of us.
Whereas actual reality serves to connect us, perceived reality serves to divide us. It isolates us because we concentrate more on our own world than on the facts. The only way out is by overcoming our own perceived reality, and by letting go and opening our hearts to the concerns of others. The more we become open towards other people, especially different-minded people, the more we can learn from one another and grow together. This is the only way to build a harmonious community and civilization.
We can tell by the number and the might of the lawyers, judges, courts, prisons, police and military units to what degree a society lives by divine love.
One day, divine love will render all earthly laws obsolete.
Where humans act and react selflessly and with love is where the highest law of creation rules: divine, selfless and unconditional love.
Wrong address
We all know this scenario: we drive to work in a bad mood and we return home in a bad mood, and the result is that we do not solve our problems – instead we take them along with us to places where they can never be solved!
It gets even more complicated when we try to transfer our problems onto someone else, someone who really has nothing to do with them. That’s when we take out our bad mood, our anger and aggression, our frustration and whatever else happens to bother us, on someone who has not caused them.
But why would we do such a thing?
Because we are neither courageous nor honest.
Most of the time we do not solve our problems where they originate. Instead, we choose the path of least resistance. And who offers the least resistance? Our nearest and dearest! So, is it just and fair that we should offload our problems onto those who love us the most and therefore have the most patience with us? This has nothing to do with solving problems and everything to do with passing the buck to someone else, from sheer lack of courage and honesty. Instead of letting those that caused these feelings know that they have wronged us, we push our emotions and feelings aside. The result of this non-communication is an escalation of inner pressure until we suddenly explode for practically no reason at all. And who ends up in the firing line? Those who are not even involved: our nearest and dearest!
Coming home from work in a terrible mood and venting our emotions and aggression on our kids does not make our problems grow smaller; in fact it adds another lot of problems. If we do not solve our problems where they originate, they remain unsolved, grow ever larger and end up affecting other parts of our lives. Our children no longer feel comfortable within their own family and start looking for a sense of belonging and security outside of their home. However, this makes them feel more and more uneasy because they miss the comfort and security of the family. Having to brave it out in the outside world, coupled with a lack of security, makes them increasingly anxious and aggressive, which increases their susceptibility to alcohol, drugs and an inclination towards violence. Most negative behaviours displayed by young people originate from despair and pent-up aggression that they try to discharge by criminal activity.
When for example a man has problems with his dominant mother but he does not solve these problems with her, he will keep meeting dominant women and continue to go through the same conflicts with them and hopefully be able to solve those problems eventually. This is only because he avoided confrontation and resolution of the problem with his mother.
Now let us imagine another man who was spoilt by his mother and who still refuses to take responsibility for himself and his life – it is after all so much easier and more convenient for him to remain a child. Later, he will continue to attract women who prefer to have a child rather than a life partner. If he gets involved with a woman who likes being a mother more than being a partner, the two of them will click together in a perfect fit. Funnily enough, couples like that will tell you how lucky they are to have found each other, since they are so perfectly matched. Unfortunately they do not realize that they have found the perfect partner for their egos, not for their true personalities. There is no chance of a true partnership under those conditions, since egoists only seek satisfaction for themselves and are unable to have a true relationship with another.
Without spiritual growth, an interpersonal relationship is loveless and dead. It consists only of routine and habit. A partnership based on egoistic motivation does not provide happiness, because life is eternal growing and becoming, but the ego refuses all transformation. Where the ego begins, the ability to have a meaningful relationship ends.
In the example quoted above, the mother is scared of losing the child if he were to grow up and lead his own life without her. And the man is scared of growing up, because he would lose the mother and would have to be responsible for his own life. As long as he does not take responsibility for his own life, he will not look for a partner but instead for a surrogate mother, and that is precisely what he will find. So, if you are looking for a partner but constantly end up meeting potential candidates that act like children, this may be a sign pointing towards false motivation on your part.
How others act towards us can give us information about –
Who we are
How we act
What we truly want
Where we are headed
We may not get on with those around us and we may decide to replace them, but that will not solve our problems. Our problems originate in our own consciousness – they are difficulties we have within ourselves.
We seldom have problems with others – most of our problems are with ourselves!
Our difficulties, inadequacies, negative traits and thoughts manifest themselves in our relationships. A change in outer circumstance will achieve little where there has been no transformation in the person’s consciousness. Most of us believe that we can solve our problems by changing our partner, our job or where we live. But if we do not learn the required lessons, then there will be no true transformation. All we have done is changed the actors, but the script remains the same.
Wherever fear brings people together and rules their relationships, neither love nor life can flourish.
Many people become lawyers because they have a deep sense of justice. Maybe this is because they feel that they have not been treated justly themselves. Others become bankers to fulfil their dreams of wealth and fortune. People who feel unnoticed, misjudged or unloved are obsessed with becoming famous and successful, so that finally they will be valued and loved. We often subconsciously try to replace that which does not work with something else, without researching the root cause. But what we really need to do is tackle our problems where they originate, namely, within ourselves!
If you speak out courageously and honestly and tell others how they appear to you, you will grow ever more successful and happy.
If you do not accept and deal with your problems but instead choose to ignore them, push them aside, deny them or cover them up, you will carry them with you wherever you go.
Solution or quick fix
When confronted with our problems, we tend to be impatient and want to get rid of them as quickly as possible, by almost any means. Many people are convinced that anything that helps must be good. Is that really true?
Modern medication can make our headaches vanish in no time at all. But is that really a good thing, if we do not bother to check out the root cause? A quick fix usually disappears as fast as it arrived and leaves us out in the cold without having provided a lasting solution to our problem.
The truth is that we would much rather use all kinds of aids and implements than actually look at the root cause of the problem and find a solution. We do this because it is nicer and more convenient for our ego. It is a fact that we can only solve a problem once and for all by adjusting our consciousness and our behaviour. If we want to solve our problems, we need to amend and ennoble our thoughts, actions, opinions, moods and wishes.
We simply need to realize that we ourselves are the root cause of our problems, even when it appears that they are thrust upon us from the outside. The more egoistic we are, the greater our problems are. We only end up with difficulties in areas where we act unkindly, superficially, carelessly – in other words, egoistically.
Of course there is nothing wrong with using whatever help is available to us. But this does not provide a lasting solution. It can never be a substitute for adjusting our consciousness and behaviour. “Quick-fix” aids do just that – they provide fast, short-term relief, but they are not a solution to our problems. This is why a smart person does not rely on aids and implements for quick relief, but tries to find the root of the problem and deal with that. Successfully adjusting our behaviour is only possible when we liberate our consciousness from our ego.
Solving or fighting problems
Everything we experience has a particular message for us. Every problem provides guidance, every illness a piece of information. Our problems and illnesses are not enemies to do battle with; they are friends that want to deliver us from the burden of ego. If we take our problems personally, we will suffer more than ever. But when we look at them as divine information and guidance and really listen to them, we will find the liberating message they contain.
Your problems show you how strong you are!
