I don't really buy the reincarnation thing, though it does mess with me that some people believe in past lives. What are some opposing views you have with reincarnation?

You don’t have a self, you have a habit. What you call “me” is repetition. The same thoughts, the same reactions, the same emotional patterns, over and over again. Repetition creates familiarity. Familiarity creates identity. And suddenly, a pattern feels like a person. You say, “That’s just who I am.” But if it were truly you, it wouldn’t change based on mood, environment, or memory. Most of what you defend is not you. It’s conditioning you’ve practiced long enough to believe. That’s why change feels hard. Not because it is hard, but because you’re trying to change what you’re still identifying with. There is a moment where you begin to see this clearly. Where you notice that thoughts come and go, emotions rise and fall, reactions appear and disappear. But something remains. Something that is aware of all of it. And that changes everything. Because you are no longer inside the pattern. You are the one noticing it. And from there, what felt fixed becomes flexible. What felt like you becomes something you can let go of.

As long as one assumes that God is something separate, something “out there”, one remains within separation. Prayer, devotion, asking for help or grace all presuppose this division. This statement is a worldview articulated centuries ago by Prakashananda Saraswati, an Indian philosopher and teacher who most likely lived in the 15th or early 16th century. I recently came across his perspective and spent some time engaging with it more deeply. I want to share a short overview here as a possible point of reflection. Prakashananda belonged to the Advaita Vedanta tradition. Unlike devotional or religious movements, this tradition is not concerned with belief systems, rituals, or the worship of a personal God. Its focus lies elsewhere, on the question of what is ultimately real. According to Prakashananda, there is only one reality. This reality is not a being, not a creator figure, not a higher entity standing apart from the world. In Indian philosophy it is often called Brahman, but the name is secondary. It can just as well be described as fundamental being, absolute consciousness, or the underlying principle from which everything arises. What matters is this: it is not separate from us. From this perspective, everything we normally call “the world” has no independent existence of its own. Bodies, thoughts, emotions, objects, nature, time and space all exist and function, but they do not stand on their own. They are appearances, expressions, or objectifications of this one underlying reality. The same applies to the human being. What we usually experience as “I”, personality, biography, thoughts, emotions, belongs to the level of appearance. The true self, according to Prakashananda, is not individual. It is identical with the reality that underlies everything. In classical terms this is expressed as Atman is Brahman. In simple language: what you are at your core is not separate from the foundation of the world. This is where the initial statement becomes clearer. If reality is one and undivided, then the idea of a God outside of oneself becomes problematic. As long as God is imagined as something external, something to be reached, approached, or addressed, separation is already assumed. Prayer, devotion, worship, and the hope for grace may offer emotional comfort or structure, but they operate entirely within this framework of division.

I had an exchange on Instagram today and felt like sharing my text here. Maybe it resonates with you in some way. For a long time, I only drank when I was out. With people. At parties. Festivals. Concerts. Social gatherings. Being around others without alcohol felt unbearable. Drinking was not a choice. It was the entry ticket. At home, it was different. I did not miss alcohol at all. Not even a single drop. That alone should have told me something. Then one day, I woke up with a sudden, quiet realization. This body is the most extraordinary thing I will ever own. It keeps me alive without asking. It breathes, heals, adapts, carries me through every single day. It is the only reason I can experience anything at all. Without it, there is no seeing, no feeling, no remembering, no living. It is the only way I can perceive this life, to see, to feel, to smell, to move, to touch this world. This body, this one fragile, intelligent vessel, is the only thing that will truly stay with me until my last breath. And I was pouring poison into it. Again and again. Forcing it to fight, to filter, to clean up after me. I remember thinking: What am I actually doing? So I stopped. Not out of discipline. Not out of fear. But out of respect. Because I realized something even deeper: I was not drinking because I loved alcohol. I was drinking to belong. I would not have been with those people without drinking. I would not have been at those parties. That life only worked as long as I numbed myself enough to tolerate it. And that was the moment it became clear: I was living a life that was not really mine. When you are truly yourself, you do not need alcohol. You do not need cigarettes to hold onto. You do not need anything to escape your own body. The urge to drink is rarely about alcohol. It is a signal that your body already knows you do not belong where you are. That you are not living your real truth. And that truth does not have to look impressive. It might be quiet. It might be sitting alone at home, choosing simplicity over noise. But when it is real, you can feel it. And when it is real, you no longer need to numb yourself to survive it.

Society is on the move. AI is being implemented in several facets of our world and used by a large part of society already. It seems very ignorant to implement a tool as strong as AI without thinking about the consequences for the near and far future. The youth of today has lost the capacity to do simple calculations; without a calculator or smart phone they are lost for answers. And now we have chat gpt; fast access to a huge amount of information, but at the same time less and less people using their brains. Everybody has answers, but very few people can think. It is going to be very interesting!!! But maybe that is just another ego opinion, filled with fear and based on the feeling of losing control. In my mind it is very possible that AI will show us that we are already a very advanced form of AI. That we identify with our 3D body, mind and emotions but that we are a kind of bio-AI. The creator (programmer?) has built an ingenious virtual reality game / experience with rules and several levels. It reminds me of the time I was playing Donkey Kong on a machine in the bar where I spent a lot of my childhood… Maybe it was so attractive because it was completely in sync with the basics of the human game. Human being…. Who is doing the human being? Or…. Who is being the human? Or… who is having the human experience? I have no doubt that it will become clear to me(us) during this life. What an amazing time are we experiencing! ❤️ Jan