A: All religions, even Hinduism and Buddhism, are false. They assume too much about reality.

How can we prove, with empirical evidence, the existence of Bodhisattvas, or Moksha, or Nirvana, or Brahman? We can't. The best philosophy in the world is simply not knowing. Anything else assumes too much. B: Empirical evidence empirical evidence, what will that get you? Empirical truths.. We are seeking to transcend the truth which meisers like you want and seek the INFINITE. A: For you to ascertain that there is a truth to be transcended in the first place would constitute the need to provide for yourself evidence that such a truth exists. You came to this notion of a truth to be transcended via insight or sensory perception or experience, right? These are all methods of studying the world through one's perceptions in order to verify "knowledge" or "truth". I'm not a meiser, I'm just being honest with myself. My friend, it's very simple. Ask yourself: Where does the certainty that my words make sense come from? To assume you exist, is to assume an essence which is the primordial principle for you and everything else to exist. It's the rational mind, which is created, by empirical experience, out of metaphors that provide a pragmatic worldview, that comes to an understanding of this and all great religions provide a metaphorical tool to bring the dividing rational mind back to unity. You are your own unique empirical evidence. You walk your own path, by your own insights. But just as you learned a metaphorical language from your parents to address the right meaning to an apple when you see one, you can learn a metaphorical language about reality itself and by that address meaning to it. There have been great masters, which over and over again have come to the same conclusions: beauty, harmony, love, genius, nature, divinity and holiness. Your rationality keeps you locked in in it's own patterns. Read Spinoza. I think you will agree with me that your rational mind did not exist when you were born? It's been build up by experience. The upshot is that this rational mind is the key to become consciousness of itself, but that this rational mind comes forth out of something that is not rational. The rational mind separates reality and that creates an 'I' that 'thinks' it exists. So for the 'I' that comes forth out of the rational mind to truly understand itself it has to overcome the restrictions of the thing that brought this 'I' into existence by separating the oneness of reality: the rational mind. That's what is mend by that truth is transcendental. It's transcendental to the rational mind, it's just an inner harmonic truth for one that has been able to use the rational mind as a means instead of an end. It's the sense of deep natural harmony that indicates its truthfactor. Tao, Boeddha, Jezus, Maya, Nature, Genius, Beauty are true masters my friend A: Telling me to do this and that and speaking of metaphors and the like doesn't prove anything. How do we know anything is or isn't? Remember: all is but a metaphor. Science is developed a certain way to grasp reality and make effective use of some of its causal relations. There are many more causal relations that are not 'materialistic' and therefore ungraspable by natural science. It's only the mind itself that can come to an understanding of it. The mind is the scientific tool pur sang. To understand what I try to say I think you have to let go of your way of thinking about religion/spiritual teachings. Don't blame a master for being poorly represented by people that come afterwards and did not get the real meaning of what was said by the master. Religion in it's pure form was always mend as a tool for the individual to be in harmony with the universal rules of life/nature, but over time has been hijacked by (sincere) ignorance and will for power. it's up to yourself to find true masters who teach wisdom on how the mind makes up its own reality. Masters don't tell you what to do, unless you become a student. If you are interested try to find some text on the relationship between master and student. Tibetan Buddhism has most beautiful story's on this. The way the rational mind works is by using metaphors. An apple is a metaphor, a scientific theory is a metaphor, etc. The harmonic coherence of all metaphors of the rational mind is the thing that brings your reality into existence. That is what creates your worldview, its the program by which you make sense of the world. If you use only metaphors that explain reality in, for example, a certain materialistic, deterministic way than you don't have to really think about soul, magic, transcendence, beauty, genius, creation, wonder and addressing meaning. Then you are just an spectator of things happening before your very eyes. There are also people who realize that they are fully responsible for the reality they perceive because there is nothing

else but themselves that is perceiving their reality. They understand that they are the filter that brings their reality into existence and therefore they understand that's it's all about that filter. For these people an urge comes forth to understand how they make up their reality and how to deal with that it the most responsible way. And it's in this domain that religion/spirituality has done its explorations. Myth, legends, fairytales, are also examples of these explorations of the connection between the 'I' and reality, and these are efforts of making these 'insights' comprehensible for the public. Don't let yourself be infected by the negative image that has been brought forward by some lost individuals. Just try to understand and by that experience the meaning of these systems. There is a lot of soft bullshit around, you have to have the will to really understand and learn than, you will find good things. It depends on your capability to judge what is being shown. To answer your question: You are your own unique tool to connect yourself with life whatever way. You are the only one that is consciousness of yourself. So ask yourself: how did I become consciousness of myself? For me that is by my rational mind. So I asked myself how is my rational mind been made up? By the language I've learned and the experiences/things I have learned in the past. Those are the things my rational mind knows and therefore uses to address meaning that evoke sensations and sensations that evoke meaning. Then I concluded that my rational minds runs a principles that I might not even be aware of because my rational mind is not able to reflect on those principles because they are the very looking glass itself out of which this type of consciousness comes forth. With your glasses you cannot look at those same glasses. But without them you cannot even see. So you need a different way to understand the working of the glasses. So how did those glasses came into existence? By experience right? So then you can get into a train of thought that the glasses construct reality as it is perceived, but at the same time that those glasses come forth out of the same reality it creates. Then the question about truth gets a little but different then generally it is being put. Everything you experience is true. It's as simple as that. You are the only one addressing meaning to your experiences. Science and commerce have supplied humanity with metaphors that deal with reality in a certain way. They are 'true' in the sense that they 'work', they deal with certain principles of reality in an effective way. They bring forth certain glasses with certain perspectives. The ones to reign humanity are very simple and bring forth a one-sided, closed, superficial, soulless and uninspired connection to reality. Religion used to provide for the more deeper and spiritual connections to reality, but infection of the pure teachings by ignorance and selfishness and the significant results of science and the aggressive ways commerce infiltrates the human mind have cut loose humanity of a very real natural human condition. Humanity lost it metaphors for addressing a deeper meaning to life itself. Humanity wears certain glasses that locks humanity in in its own patterns of addressing meaning to life. The metaphors of those glasses work at a certain degree but then lack further effect. This is because they fail in establishing the 'circle of life', meaning: they fail to explain the connection of the glasses creating reality and reality bringing forth those same glasses. It creates a closed-loop mind frame that lacks proper attention for this principle. Those metaphors simple place reality outside the perceiver. You seem to demand a certain truth to be proven first to be followed. In the case of understanding the working of the glasses it works the other way around. As a certain rational frame of mind brings forth a certain perspective on life, you maybe can go along in the idea that thorough thinking about this paradoxical connection that creates consciousness brings forth ideas about the metaphors (or principles) that pay the most sincere tribute to this connection. It is by understanding that the rational mind can get itself to adjust its attitude towards life by trying to give meaning to reality in a different way that is not yet confirmed by experience. You have not yet experienced the effect of those metaphors because life has not provided you with those metaphors yet (which is very common nowadays..). You only use the metaphors that you understand and believe till so far and those determine which aspect of reality you are capable of of perceiving. And what you are capable of of perceiving determines what you are capable of of creating. If you can't see certain colors, you can't use them for your life's painting, it is as simple as that. The magic of consciousness is that it can become consciousness of it's own principles of how it makes up reality. You could say that quantum physics has hit rock bottom on this idea. For me that is the beauty of it all, that science itself must come to the same conclusions masters have come upon for thousands of years. So basically I'm saying that the truth of metaphors is a matter of thorough understanding of consciousness. The question should not be whether the metaphors are true in the sense that they bring forth a certain reality that 'works' for you, but whether you believe them to pay the most sincere tribute to the creative principles of consciousness itself.

And what I'm also saying is that instead of 'tasting' reality and then know for sure that reality has a certain taste, the true magic of life is about having vision on how consciousness creates a reality that has taste and then use that particular consciousness about the creative rules of consciousness to bring forth a certain reality that has a certain taste. All master say that there is an end-state to understanding this principle, which is enlightenment. This simply means that the rational mind has been cleared from its ignorance and that the separated ego that was identifying itself with this ignorance is transformed into a self that is in complete harmony with its own essence and the essence of reality itself, which are one and the same: that endless, eternal, undivided emptiness that is filled with unconditioned potential. It's the absolute primal principle for existence to exist. It's the connection of ego/rational consciousness to this principle that the Buddha talks about, it's this connection Jezus talks about, it's this connection the Veda's talk about, it's this connection Mohammed talks about, it's this connection Rumi talks about, it's this connection Novalis talks about, it's this connection shamans are connected to for their healings, it's this connection the dreamspell is providing a tool for, it's this connection Sri Aurobindo is talking about, it's this connection the artist is connected to when he finds new metaphors to grasp reality, it's this connection science has trouble grasping because it's a matter of mind, which in the end does not matter. A master doesn't want to be followed, a master tries to pass on the understanding he has realized about consciousness and thereby becomes a enlightening truth for the student that understands the universality and therefore the personal meaning of the teaching. Within every system there are the ones that understand and pass on the knowledge and there are the ones that don't understand and deform the knowledge. Therefore you have to really think for yourself and experience for yourself whether things make sense. But when you wait for science to prove 'everything', you miss out on the most interesting domains of reality. Just dare to assume and experience the effect of the attitude that comes along with that. Life created itself by pure genius. Just look at nature, look at the jaguar. It's pure genius. It's that same genius that brought forth the life you are. The rational mind can be used a tool to connect yourself to that same genius. That means to be truly inspired by life. Well, that's about it I think, for now. Like to finish with two dear friends of mine. 'He who binds himself to a joy / does the winged life destroy; but he who kisses the moment as it flies / lives in eternity's sunrise William Blake Catch only what youve thrown yourself, all is mere skill and little gain; but when you're suddenly the catcher of a ball thrown by an eternal partner with accurate and measured swing towards you, to your center, in an arch from the great bridgebuilding of God: why catching then becomes a power not yours, a worlds.

R.N. Rilke

A Salute, Wouter (Geschreven 4 augustus, na het schrijven blijkt dat de witte tovenares M.M. op de achtergrond aanwezig is geweest.)

A: Again, you're throwing around all these metaphysical concepts that "all is but a metaphor", etc. Just because your spirituality allows you to speak in abstract terms doesn't mean it is the "supreme way to enlightenment" -- as so many of the Buddhist sutras speak of themselves. How do we know that enlightenment isn't just wishful thinking? Hmm? Amigo, have you read all I've written? You don't seem to get what I am talking about, but most of all you don't want to get it. You keep throwing questions I already answered. where does this 'supreme way of enlightenment' thing come from? All I've done is giving a description of how the rational mind is created out of nothing and how life magically forms a frame by which the mind filters and addresses meaning to the reality that comes forth out of that mind frame. There is nothing spiritual or metaphysical about that. All this says is that you are free to collect the most wise metaphors about life and consciousness to assemble the mind frame that satisfies you as a conscious human being. You tell me: how did you become consciousness of yourself? Do you agree with this: If I fully understand myself, then necessarily I must also understand the essence out of which my consciousness came forth in the first place? Could that be a state of mind that is non-rational? Could that be a state of mind in which the thinking/discursive mind has been silenced by the understanding it, step by step, got of itself and the primal source out of which it magically came forth? I'm not preaching any religion or what so ever here, I'm explaining the rational mind, it's strengths and weaknesses. And to correct you: it's my rationality that allows me to speak in abstract terms. What's all the paranoia by the way? Pull yourself through all these tiring trains of thoughts on certainty, objective truth and evidence. Those things come forth out of models that by definition exclude parts of reality. Scientifically very important, but not of much use in other realms of reality which the mind is also able to understand but which meaning will always be ungraspable by science. Giving meaning to reality is up to you and you do that by your plastic frame of mind. Enjoy A: I don't know what you mean by paranoia. Logic and sensory experience is the way in which we perceive reality. However our senses may lie to us. This may be an illusion. In the end nothing can be known -- one can't even know that nothing can be known. To believe with certainty that there is such a thing as a Buddha, bodhisattva, meaning or non-meaning, realms of reality is to make a claim about the numinous world which may be false. The only sound philosophy is epistemological nihilism/unknowing.

My friend, you are absolutely very poor in understanding what I have said. Once you have met a true master maybe, at that far horizon, a glimpse of a new paradigm of thinking will arise. By paranoia I mean your skepticism about everything that makes a claim about the physical reality, let alone the non-physical reality. You don't even understand your own way of coming to an understanding of your own philosophy. That's okay, but restrain yourself from any debate then if this is your philosophy. Be silent. Then truly be that ascetic world-renouncer and reject any sensory input, even hunger and push yourself to the limit of that attitude and see for yourself if that still makes sense to you in the end. But when you fail and act to satisfy the most basic need, like drinking when your thirsty, than admit that there are fundamental principles of life. Question: is there such a thing as riding a bike? Is there such a thing as being inspired by a poem? Is there such a thing as learning a language? Your attitude is the one I had 10 years ago, the mistake is that your exclude yourself from the equation. You are three things: you are the input to the equation, you are the output of the equation and you are the understanding of the harmonic balance of the input/output ratio of the equation. Your attitude leaves you with reality as a black box you will never open because it appears to you as impossible to open and see, grab and hold its exact content. You are right: there is no exact content But there IS a black box (reality), isn't there? And again: it will always be only you who is experiencing the effect of the awareness of the existence of this black box. It's up to you to discover and explore the magic rules of the interconnectiveness of the subject/perceiver and the object/perceived. It's up to you how they coexist and co-depend. Your closed- or openness will decide what the magic black box has to offer. There is no inside to this box, there is only the shape of the box. Question: Did electricity exist 10.000 years ago in the black box? Did radio waves exist 10.000 years ago in it? Do they exist now? Only by a certain (scientific) standard this quality of the black box reveals itself, doesn't it? Just like fire. How many more qualities may be still hidden in this wondrous box of high potential? But your attitude is the right attitude to start your expedition, your journey of exploring the black box' mighty mechanisms. First cut yourself loose from all input that you've unconsciously processed and out of which

your mind frame has been created. But then let yourself be inspired by life's genius, the beauty and magic of nature, music or art to establish a deep and personal bond with life itself and figure out the most natural laws and ways to let this connection flourish. 'The one who knows the truth, has no business with it'. It is not about believing with certainty that Buddha exists, it's about the meaning the metaphors he represents have for your own understanding of how your mind frame makes up your reality. You can block that difficult path by a simple trick of the rational mind. Reality may be an illusion of the mind, but then it is still interesting to figure out whether it is possible to control that illusion and its effects by controlling your mind. I think it would be interesting for you to meditate/contemplate on understanding. What is understanding, what does it mean to understand, how does it come about, is it a feeling, does all understanding ground in the same principle, what then is this principle, what are the conditions for understanding, are there different domains of understanding, what is the use of understanding, what is the effect of understanding, why does understanding exist, may it be the most fundamental principle?

A: I don't know. And neither do you.

Good to know, thanks. I will try to understand. But hey, let me know when that thing has happened that changed your mind about huh? You have my email. Personally I will try to show my surroundings what the effect is of what I think I know. Just for the sake of honest recreation itself. Let us finish this thing simply with: to be or not to be. All the best, WS (ps: try not to be scared when reality starts working on that mind frame you deal with on a daily basis, it's just you) A: I didn't realize Buddhists such as yourself, who seem to be so high and mighty about their sense of compassion and wisdom, were disposed to snide sarcasm and petty insults. It's good to know that I can be reaffirmed of the fact that once again religious people are arrogant and down right mean. Poor thing. Can't see the good shepherd throws them stones for his own sake. I'm truly sorry. Once you become brave and open up you will see that it was never mean at all; it was just beautiful and necessary. Know your always welcome in this magnificent realm of beauty, magic, love and wonder. I'm glad that you have to walk your path on your own, all I have to do is to shine my light when paths cross, which so far only seems to blind you. I'm sorry, I'm still learning everyday ~oOo~ (off the record: Life of Pi will be in cinemas soon, maybe you can grasp its essence without all your negative religious connotations holding you back from understanding the way mind manufactures reality and how you could get a grip on that)

A: You know, I was going to read the book but I think that due to your comment that ship has sailed.

I know.. you think? Man you are really entertaining the people! Thanks, keep me posted! Realize that me being a poor subjective and ignorant wannabe teacher keeps you away from the universal light in this way. Please don't do this to me, the supreme Being will never forgive me. Please??

A: Furthermore, I've read Spinoza. He was a very intelligent and wise man but I simply don't agree with all of his views/=. Is the primal essence Love? A: Yes. i will walk my own path. We all do in a way. Now could you stop ever so subtly suggesting that you're "more enlightened" than I am? Sorry bro, I'll I have done is providing you a tool to become a masterwizard of your own reality. YOU are the Creator. Suit yourself. And maybe you are The One already and playing with me, I would be honored by that.

All I know is that my point of view is providing me a certain reality that is trully amazing, out of the ordinairy and inspiring to others. Respect and Love,