Jacob's Blog

I have been spotting old Finnish manors in last weeks. It's been such a beautiful May. Last week I visited the Louhisaari Castle in Askainen, built in 1655, in dutch-italian style by Herman Fleming. Here is pic of Kuusisto manor, which is from year 1738. It's one of the oldest surviving wooden dwelling here. There is an orchard around it, dating from 1790s, now in full blossom. I guess there are apples and cherries. Also there are bird cherries, oaks, maples, hazelnut and huge larches.

I just love the place, with it's natural beauty, mystery and history. There is a castle nearby, which dates from around year 1250. The catholic bishops of Finland lived there. In 1528 when we had a lutheran reformation, Gustav Wasa gave the order that castle will be demolished. Today, only ruins remain.

But still, you can feel the atmosphere, and I think it's unbelievable we have so many ancient historic sights here, especially in west coast, and south-west edge of the peninsula of Finland. Here came the Vikings, then Celtic Christianity, then Catholicism, the Hansa trade, swedes and the russians.

The west coast of Finland differs much from other parts of Finland, and people still usually speak swedish at the coast. Genetically people are germanic. Only in the interior and in eastern parts, we have Ugric genes.

I have been also doing some meditations, especially in the sunset, sitting near the sea and listening to waves. I have written much about my meditations in my Finnish Blog - Shri Bapaji's Blog. So I only describe what new things I have experienced.

Today I felt the right-side opening, not in meditation but just spontaneously. It's quite a happening, and usually I feel to be like one of Antique Greek heroes... on somebody like Alexander The Great. I feel the Kundalini tingling in the right side, and She comes to my awareness like a rush of heroism and strenght. All fear just vanishes, and I am not really afraid even about death. I get the feeling that I see right through other people.

I will now try to describe it in detail.

First, I felt it in my feet, the strength. I felt I could march 50 kilometres if I wished. I was in shop, and bought vegetables, and tofu. While queing there, I noticed that I don't wish to focus my eyes near me, so I watched out of window, and felt to be like a hawk. I was thinking that it makes sense, those heroes in the battle had to look far, they could not be near-sighted as me. I think this everything is coded in the human DNA, and Kundalini just brings it up.

Of course, my brain were clear, and the Sahasrara was blowing cool. I had not really thoughts. I saw how people are cowardly and messed in their petty egos, but didn't pay much attention to it. I looked past them. And I was too high above to bother. - One thing I will have to say here, is that we don't use any drugs or intoxicants. I have not ever used even cannabis, and have had no medication. not even antibiotics for two decades. We try to eat vegetarian food, and sometimes fish or chicken. What spiritual experience I have, comes from God, and nature. Or demons, if you may prefer. Or perhaps it's natural insanity. Whatever.

So, I stand there in queu, and put horseradish paste and cabbage on the line, feeling very much hawk eyed, very confident, ready for a march. Then, I feel like explosions in the Right Agnya, in the ego part of the brain, and I feel the Collective Consciousness breaking in... A nazi doctor Friedrich Mennecke comes there, and also the father of Russian H-bomb, Igor Kurchatov. I say to them, hello, and they touch me, these right-sided fellows.

I see a rush of explanations and guilt, and problems of masculinity... I see the letters of Mennecke to his wife, the relation between the best little Mommy and Loving Daddy... It's so sad to see this really., Towards Kurchatov I feel similar things... How could I describe what I feel... I feel filial... Both Mennecke and Kurchatov ... represented the best of manhood, the intelligent man, the father archetype. They were serious men of science. And they were cruel too, because they had to make it in a cruel world, they had to make success. I don't know if I could say, but often I feel almost as if Kurchatov were my father, or has been.

You could say that when the right side explodes to my awareness through the ego, I feel filial emotions in the Collective Consciousness. I see wide and long, and far, and great space opens. It's unashamedly cosmic view, not limited by current memes, or our media, or norms of our time. That's why I get little worried of my thoughts. I can not tell my thoughts to other people, not today at least, before I have melted them some time.

To have a good right side, you should fulfill your duty, You should be a deeply moral person. This is the masculinity. It is not in outward things. And you should respect authority, this is the first rule. If you don't, I think there is no change of getting the samadhi. The teacher-disciple -relationship must work perfectly.

I come from the left, so these right-side things are new to me. My right side almost never wakes up in medition, but usually 2-3 days after a deep meditation, and always when I am involved with other people, in physical or mental activity. They are the purest ecstacy, purest bliss, from the Heavenly Father. Usually He has been so quiet... I've made Mother-meditations, I have been worshipping Shri Mataji as the Great Goddess, Adi Shakti.

A few years ago I realized that She is also The Father, - Sadashiva....But I could not go there, even if I wished..

Here is Epilogue to The Kreutzer Sonata, by Tolstoy, published in 1890. The Kreutzer Sonata was published in 1889.

Such beautiful words... beautiful, beautiful...wise..! It's a long text, but I add it here:

LESSON OF "THE KREUTZER SONATA."

I have received, and still continue to receive, numbers of letters from persons who are perfect strangers to me, asking me to state in plain and simple language my own views on the subject handled in the story entitled "The Kreutzer Sonata." With this request I shall now endeavor to comply.

My views on the question may be succinctly stated as follows: Without entering into details, it will be generally admitted that I am accurate in saying that many people condone in young men a course of conduct with regard to the other sex which is incompatible with strict morality, and that this dissoluteness is pardoned generally. Both parents and the government, in consequence of this view, may be said to wink at profligacy, and even in the last resource to encourage its practice. I am of opinion that this is not right.

It is not possible that the health of one class should necessitate the ruin of another, and, in consequence, it is our first duty to turn a deaf ear to such an essential immoral doctrine, no matter how strongly society may have established or law protected it. Moreover, it needs to be fully recognized that men are rightly to be held responsible for the consequences of their own acts, and that these are no longer to be visited on the woman alone. It follows from this that it is the duty of men who do not wish to lead a life of infamy to practice such continence in respect to all woman as they would were the female society in which they move made up exclusively of their own mothers and sisters.

A more rational mode of life should be adopted which would include abstinence from all alcoholic drinks, from excess in eating and from flesh meat, on the one hand, and recourse to physical labor on the other. I am not speaking of gymnastics, or of any of those occupations which may be fitly described as playing at work; I mean the genuine toil that fatigues. No one need go far in search of proofs that this kind of abstemious living is not merely possible, but far less hurtful to health than excess. Hundreds of instances are known to every one. This is my first contention.

In the second place, I think that of late years, through various reasons which I need not enter, but among which the above-mentioned laxity of opinion in society and the frequent idealization of the subject in current literature and painting may be mentioned, conjugal infidelity has become more common and is considered less reprehensible. I am of opinion that this is not right. The origin of the evil is twofold. It is due, in the first place, to a natural instinct, and, in the second, to the elevation of this instinct to a place to which it does not rightly belong. This being so, the evil can only be remedied by effecting a change in the views now in vogue about "falling in love" and all that this term implies, by educating men and women at home through family influence and example, and abroad by means of healthy public opinion, to practice that abstinence which morality and Christianity alike enjoin. This is my second contention.

In the third place I am of opinion that another consequence of the false light in which "falling in love," and what it leads to, are viewed in our society, is that the birth of children has lost its pristine significance, and that modern marriages are conceived less and less from the point of view of the family. I am of opinion that this is not right. This is my third contention.

In the fourth place, I am of opinion that the children (who in our society are considered an obstacle to enjoyment—an unlucky accident, as it were) are educated not with a view to the problem which they will be one day called on to face and to solve, but solely with an eye to the pleasure which they may be made to yield to their parents. The consequence is, that the children of human beings are brought up for all the world like the young of animals, the chief care of their parents being not to train them to such work as is worthy of men and women, but to increase their weight, or add a cubit to their stature, to make them spruce, sleek, well-fed, and comely. They rig them out in all manner of fantastic costumes, wash them, over-feed them, and refuse to make them work. If the children of the lower orders differ in this last respect from those of the well-to-do classes, the difference is merely formal; they work from sheer necessity, and not because their parents recognize work as a duty. And in over-fed children, as in over-fed animals, sensuality is engendered unnaturally early.

Fashionable dress to-day, the course of reading, plays, music, dances, luscious food, all the elements of our modern life, in a word, from the pictures on the little boxes of sweetmeats up to the novel, the tale, and the poem, contribute to fan this sensuality into a strong, consuming flame, with the result that sexual vices and diseases have come to be the normal conditions of the period of tender youth, and often continue into the riper age of full-blown manhood. And I am of opinion that this is not right.

It is high time it ceased. The children of human beings should not be brought up as if they were animals; and we should set up as the object and strive to maintain as the result of our labors something better and nobler than a well-dressed body. This is my fourth contention.

In the fifth place, I am of opinion that, owing to the exaggerated and erroneous significance attributed by our society to love and to the idealized states that accompany and succeed it, the best energies of our men and women are drawn forth and exhausted during the most promising period of life; those of the men in the work of looking for, choosing, and winning the most desirable objects of love, for which purpose lying and fraud are held to be quite excusable; those of the women and girls in alluring men and decoying them into liaisons or marriage by the most questionable means conceivable, as an instance of which the present fashions in evening dress may be cited. I am of opinion that this is not right.

The truth is, that the whole affair has been exalted by poets and romancers to an undue importance, and that love in its various developments is not a fitting object to consume the best energies of men. People set it before them and strive after it, because their view of life is as vulgar and brutish as is that other conception frequently met with in the lower stages of development, which sees in luscious and abundant food an end worthy of man's best efforts. Now, this is not right and should not be done. And, in order to avoid doing it, it is only needful to realize the fact that whatever truly deserves to be held up as a worthy object of man's striving and working, whether it be the service of humanity, of one's country, of science, of art, not to speak of the service of God, is far above and beyond the sphere of personal enjoyment. Hence, it follows that not only to form a liaison, but even to contract marriage, is, from a Christian point of view, not a progress, but a fall. Love, and all the states that accompany and follow it, however we may try in prose and verse to prove the contrary, never do and never can facilitate the attainment of an aim worthy of men, but always make it more difficult. This is my fifth contention.

How about the human race? If we admit that celibacy is better and nobler than marriage, evidently the human race will come to an end. But, if the logical conclusion of the argument is that the human race will become extinct, the whole reasoning is wrong.

To that I reply that the argument is not mine; I did not invent it. That it is incumbent on mankind so to strive, and that celibacy is preferable to marriage, are truths revealed by Christ 1,900 years ago, set forth in our catechisms, and professed by us as followers of Christ.

Chastity and celibacy, it is urged, cannot constitute the ideal of humanity, because chastity would annihilate the race which strove to realize it, and humanity cannot set up as its ideal its own annihilation. It may be pointed out in reply that only that is a true ideal, which, being unattainable, admits of infinite gradation in degrees of proximity. Such is the Christian ideal of the founding of God's kingdom, the union of all living creatures by the bonds of love. The conception of its attainment is incompatible with the conception of the movement of life. What kind of life could subsist if all living creatures were joined together by the bonds of love? None. Our conception of life is inseparably bound up with the conception of a continual striving after an unattainable ideal.

But even if we suppose the Christian ideal of perfect chastity realized, what then? We should merely find ourselves face to face on the one hand with the familiar teaching of religion, one of whose dogmas is that the world will have an end; and on the other of so-called science, which informs us that the sun is gradually losing its heat, the result of which will in time be the extinction of the human race.

Now there is not and cannot be such an institution as Christian marriage, just as there cannot be such a thing as a Christian liturgy (Matt. vi. 5-12; John iv. 21), nor Christian teachers, nor church fathers (Matt. xxiii. 8-10), nor Christian armies, Christian law courts, nor Christian States. This is what was always taught and believed by true Christians of the first and following centuries. A Christian's ideal is not marriage, but love for God and for his neighbor. Consequently in the eyes of a Christian relations in marriage not only do not constitute a lawful, right, and happy state, as our society and our churches maintain, but, on the contrary, are always a fall.

Such a thing as Christian marriage never was and never could be. Christ did not marry, nor did he establish marriage; neither did his disciples marry. But if Christian marriage cannot exist, there is such a thing as a Christian view of marriage. And this is how it may be formulated: A Christian (and by this term I understand not those who call themselves Christians merely because they were baptized and still receive the sacrament once a year, but those whose lives are shaped and regulated by the teachings of Christ), I say, cannot view the marriage relation otherwise than as a deviation from the doctrine of Christ,—as a sin. This is clearly laid down in Matt. v. 28, and the ceremony called Christian marriage does not alter its character one jot. A Christian will never, therefore, desire marriage, but will always avoid it.

If the light of truth dawns upon a Christian when he is already married, or if, being a Christian, from weakness he enters into marital relations with the ceremonies of the church, or without them, he has no other alternative than to abide with his wife (and the wife with her husband, if it is she who is a Christian) and to aspire together with her to free themselves of their sin. This is the Christian view of marriage; and there cannot be any other for a man who honestly endeavors to shape his life in accordance with the teachings of Christ.

To very many persons the thoughts I have uttered here and in "The Kreutzer Sonata" will seem strange, vague, even contradictory. They certainly do contradict, not each other, but the whole tenor of our lives, and involuntarily a doubt arises, "on which side is truth,—on the side of the thoughts which seem true and well-founded, or on the side of the lives of others and myself?" I, too, was weighed down by that same doubt when writing "The Kreutzer Sonata." I had not the faintest presentiment that the train of thought I had started would lead me whither it did. I was terrified by my own conclusion, and I was at first disposed to reject it, but it was impossible not to hearken to the voice of my reason and my conscience. And so, strange though they may appear to many, opposed as they undoubtedly are to the trend and tenor of our lives, and incompatible though they may prove with what I have heretofore thought and uttered, I have no choice but to accept them. "But man is weak," people will object. "His task should be regulated by his strength."

This is tantamount to saying, "My hand is weak. I cannot draw a straight line,—that is, a line which will be the shortest line between two given points,—and so, in order to make it more easy for myself, I, intending to draw a straight, will choose for my model a crooked line."

The weaker my hand, the greater the need that my model should be perfect. LEO TOLSTOI.

In Mother´s Day 2009, I opened a sister-site in Canada, which I believe will be my final destination...

To Mother.

http://jakubko.blog.ca/

Bolo Adi Shakti Mataji Shri Nirmaladevi ki jai!!!

Story of Arzamas, the secret nuclear city of USSR. Or was it Sarov, Arzamas-16, a suburb of Arzamas?

I sit here, and almost cry. Are there people there?

Last night, as I was having a hypochondric panic-attack, I wrote to my diary: "Kun olin Ukrainassa minulla oli ulkoinen transsendenssisymboli: Ukraina. Nyt Suomessa minulla ei ole mitään sellaista. Olen yksinäinen piste tyhjyydessä - kaipaan takaisin Ukrainaan." I translate: When I was in Ukraine I had a symbol of transcendence: Ukraine. Now, back in Finland, I have nothing of a sort. I am a lonely spot in emptiness - and I miss back to Ukraine.

A human being needs something to believe in. If faith - or hope is taken from him, what is left? It happened to me.

There are two books in my table, Paul Josephson´s Red Atom - Russia´s Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today, 2005, and Adriana Petryna´s Life Exposed. It's grim reading; it's like putting too much chili in your food. Water begins to come from your eyes.

People dont watch much these nuclear-related videos in YouTube. I get the feeling that I am one of the few people who are interested. In the whole world.

It shouldn´t be so. I think nuclear technology should be popularized more, like they tried to do in the 1950´s, when we had Jetson's, and Buck Rogers, and Googie-style restaurants. Now we are like blind people; we live some sort of nuclear reneissance, but nobody is talking about it, it does not show in media, or in entertainment.

If I were to decide, we'd watch soap operas, movies and drama about Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Arzamas. We would know these places, and breathe their stories, which is our story. The story of modern man. We would have music composed, inspired by nuclear themes, and poems written about atoms. So far we go living in a state of denial. We don't want to know what we are doing. people think it's too scary, or it's not entertaining enough..

I think we lose a lot because of it... It may be one of the reasons our lives are so empty. We lack the drama. It is there, all time, but we have chosen not to see, not to hear.

I have decided to take few hazelnuts every day, to cure my allergy. I am only allergic to hazelnuts (and almonds), - other nuts I can eat without problem. Immunologic desensitization, it's called.

I made some soup from norwegian salmon and polenta. Enjoy making food. Black olives ( Greek Kalamata) is my favourite taste at the moment. Sauerkraut too, and garlic. Jalopenos are not so hot in the soup, which I wonder, because I burned my tongue when I tasted it raw. So, I add few pickled piri piri.

A beautiful day, in this lazy old town, where nothing ever happens.

I have had some visions.. of travel. In them I go to Southern Sweden, in Skåne, or to Canada, or Wales and I find nice people there, who are responsive to my message. I don't know if it's possible.

I imagine sitting in the kitchen with welsh friends.. in my vision they are all potheads. I can not imagine that normal, I mean bourgeois people could listen to me..

It´d have to be a radical circle.

We´d talk about my identity, my personality, my character - and what it means to people. To average seekers, who may have tried some yoga, or meditation, even done harmful things like tantra, reiki, etc. or drinking & drugs. I'd forgive it all. They would be people who have seen a lot in this life, who are not naiive anymore.

There would be no meditation and no talk about "spirituality". I'd just give them my preem, and that's it. Open Sahasrara. I'd give the real thing. I'd show them the goal right away.

I thought that it'd be a good idea to make a movie of my life... Something like The Buddha of Suburbia .... with the impression of realism. People could see who I am, and relate to me, if possible.

Who am I then?

I am Shiva.

...but of course, I have many names, many epitaphs. They are not all that dramatic, and I enjoy the more everyday-life -like aspects of me.

I am very approachable, very human. Even so much, that most people may feel embarrassed, or shocked. But it's part of the plan. Even I get confused sometimes.

I get distracted and forget who I am. I begin to worry... I live in a body, like all people in this world. I feel the pain, and I am not invincible, I am no superman. There are limits, yes.. I seldom get depressed. I may feel anxiety, or fear, but that's all. In some people I see more negative forces, like self-destructivity. I am never like that.

I mean, that there are the maryadas (boundaries). There is the law. We live within this law. Some people may think there is unrestricted or unlimited mercy somewhere, and they may think in evangelical way, but I don't believe it.

In fact, one of my names is The Just.

Well. so far, here, I have said that in some ways I am like any other human being, then I said, that in some ways I am not. For example, I would not cross the maryadas in such reckless and careless way as humans do. They commit sins, just like that, without thinking twice. It has always surprised me, and I have wondered will they ever be forgiven. Sometimes they seem to know what they are doing. There is awareness, consciousness.. But of course, there are blind people too, and ignorant, or simple.. then it will be forgiven. But it's nothing like in the Gospels. It's not so easy.

There, a stinging nettle is growing at the entrance of my cave.

I thought today how strange is our life here on this planet. For a little time we live here, breathe, we are conscious. Some time more, and we are gone. Gone for a very long time.....

It's a scary thought, or what..?

I am just a small person, having a little mind. I am no hero. I am afraid of many things. But today I was thinking about dying. I was thinking that our time here is limited. - What will I wish to do with that time?

Yes, talk about meditation and sahaja yoga, talk about the Goddess, these things I wish so much. But you know, with meditation comes awareness.

It's not just, that you go to some group - a sect, which is the best sect of course, as it always is. And you get your little enlightenment there, if you work hard enough, and are lucky; and then you get super-happy, and that´s it.

Is this really true?

When we talk about the enlightenment, what are we actually talking of?

Awareness, yes.

For example, if you drive a car, with some speed, you became more aware than usual. You begin to live more fully. Your senses open, there's danger there. That is awareness.

Without awareness, we are just lazy, pleasure-seeking muffins.

As a muffin, you can meditate, of course. You can make lot of work with your meditation. You may even develope an iron discipline. I have seen lots of this happening, seen the yoga schools, the yogis....

That is not yet awareness.

Awareness is something else than belonging to right club, having the right friends, right attitude, and the right technique. That is why the yoga-people seldom achieve the enlightenment - the samadhi. They only talk about it.

Why are they not achieving samadhi?

Because they are afraid. That's the reason.

You go on with your meditation, use lot of effort and time, it's not going to help you much.. if you are all time afraid...

People are afraid. They are afraid that they´ll be left alone. That they will lose their friends. That they will have to be alone.

Now, what we have, is bunch of cowards. That is why I chose to meditate alone. I even went far to the forests, in search of perfect solitude. That is easy in Finland, we have lot of forest.

Loneliness - or solitude is a good teacher. First what will she teach you? She will say, that you need not be afraid any more. That you lose love, or friendship, or other people´s respect. Those things don't count in solitude.

It took me many years to learn to be alone without pain. I was some sort of a ladies man. I didn't feel good unless I had good sex, or love, or when I wasn't sleeping next to woman. I was hopeless.

What a relief it was to get rid of such desires. - I don't know how did it happen. Or was not my doing, for sure. I am not very good sannyasi. But I did go to the woods, and I seeked some caves, and spent some hundreds of hours there in meditation. It helped that I was dissappointed in women. My relationships ended always in quarrels, in pain.. Often I cried. But I didn't learn, I craved for more.. love, female comfort..

I think it was time that healed me. I was always looking for moments in meditation. I dreamed of mountains, of rivers and the woods.

I tried to teach meditation to other people. I tried much. - For some reason, it is difficult for human beings to get practical with meditation. usually they have their head filled with ideas and opinions, and I begin to converse with these opinions and ideas, and there is no end to it. I can not make people go to their knees, and meditate. And I feel they don´t really want to. They settle for the opinions they have about meditation.

So, enough of it.

This will only confuse you. And it's not going to help you become aware.

Being aware is more of a good-and-evil -thing. You begin to see what is bad. Somebody might have killed a human being, that is bad. Or someone is using more spiritual violence, that is bad too. You become aware of these bad things happening, that is a good sign. Your consciousness has awaken.

Now... Follow this. Forget everything about meditation, spirituality or religion. You may know much, you may have experiences, or ideas.. just forget it. Instead think, what is good and what is bad. Think, that we will die, and your friends are not going to help you in that process. Really, they can not help. We all go there alone.

Your meditation is not going to help you either. See, our life is like a giant mess, it's made of karma; it has ties all over. You should be free of it, but it isn't that easy. You can say that ok, now I am free, I am saved, or reborn, or enlightened, but this is just words, just self-deception, and deceptions are going to make the karma worse.

What does it mean to be free of karma? What does it mean being free from the cycle of rebirth?

It means that we are no longer part of it.

With religions, the problem is that people have made much bad things in the name of their religion. So, if you follow some religion, these bad things, the karma will come after you. You will have to carry it. And it will drown you, and you will sink. You will try to deny things, make excuses.. but karma is absolute. You can not fool it. It's not here to play games; it will kill us, and judge us.

This is one lesson that death can give to us. Like loneliness, death is a teacher too. And if you listen closely, you may here him coming... One way or the other.

So, I think, in the end, we must stop excusing the evil deeds of other people. You can not carry them to Heaven. Nobody can.

Try to be alone. Try to meditate.. on your own. Try to feel your karma; the individual part of it, and the collective part. You will begin to learn to become aware of the collective karma. Now we are coming out of individual soul, atman, and reaching the impersonal level, the brahman.

Neti, neti - "neither this, nor that", we are not the individual, and we are not the collective, we must rise above them.

So many seekers just identify with the collective, and think that it's the end of the road. This identification is dangerous.

I don't always understand the lure of the collective... Why is it so tempting to humans? I was different. Already in my youth, I felt alienated from others. I have felt a stranger in this planet, still do.

As a group, or collective, humans are not in their best. They become blind. It´s not a good goal, especially if you are after the enlightenment. If you wish to become aware. The collective keeps us from becoming aware. It ties us to group-behaviour, and in the end, we will not be much different from apes. Only worse. Apes without innocence. So, I tell you, this thing which so tempts you, the collective consciousness, can be a demonic attachment. It's the Shadow. Don't let the Shadow possess you.

There are so many stories this Shadow wants to keep from us. It loves ignorance and stupidity.

So, don't meditate now, and don't try to be more humble than you are. I'd like you to think about the evil we have done. What we humans have done.

If you think of it, much of the 20th century was really insane. Think of the concentration camps, Auschwitz, the Gulag. The Cold War. It's a horrible story, and most part of remains untold.

When I am alone, in meditation, I often think that whether mankind will be able to face it's history. I don't know if it can. We have a tendency to think good.. even if all the evidence is against us.

Even moral people seldom have courage to talk about nuclear things; about our nuclear history. I don't know why is it. - Is it that they are afraid of cancer, and thinking about nuclear things, will activate the unpleasant phobia? Or are they afraid it's too active; it would change them from passive consumers to active citizens?

It's sad that the nuclear story, the Cold War story is missing from our Collective Consciousness. But even if it's missing it's there, and it's real.

Becoming aware of this legacy... of this collective karma of ours, I think it's even more important as meditation. Meditation can lead to self-deception, or it can be lazy dreaming.. romantic unreality.

More realistically, people have been ignorant or evil. And will continue to be it, the world doesn´t change. It's good thing to meditate about. Don't think about India, don't think about devas or angels there, or creatures of light. Think this instead.

Usually seekers are reading spiritual books, about chakras, and silly New Age topics. I never read them. But I love to read about Hanford, Oak Ridge, and the Manhattan Project. I like to become aware what is happening in this world. I don't want fairytales.

I seem not to understand this life. I don't understand myself, people, God, and their relation to each other. I am also tired in people. I am especially bored in spiritual people, who seem to know everything about meditation.

I don't know much. I go in meditation, and I am there, but I don't know where excatly or what I should do there. So, it's always different, and always an adventure.

Today I lied on my back, on the stone, and felt how stress and negativity gets sucked away. I felt it mainly in Mooladhara.

I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Finland people get annoyed of me. They are interested about my meditation, but at once when I begin to speak that I still have my personality, and a separate identity, they begin to argue with me.

So many seekers seem to dislike the idea of personality. They say, that all is one, everything is advaita, that there is no personal god, and that people who have too much personality are not good.

I try to answer, that I am not so great believer on advaita. That I believe in some sort of separateness, even in duality, as in dvaita and dvaitadvaita philosophies. People don't like to hear this. It gets too complicated, and they begin to feel that some how I feel superior to them. When I admit this, they feel offended.

I say then, that I am spiritually superior, so what? Let´s concentrate on essentials, and do our meditations, and discuss about it. But nobody wants to discuss anymore. I have hurt their ego. They say I should be more gentle, more subtle.

I say to them, that I am a barbarian, why do you expect me to be polite? I only say the truth, about how I feel.

Then I notice I am alone. I have lost all my disciples.

I feel the solitude. I feel the impossibility of communication.

Why is it so difficult?

Meditation is easy, just find a still moment between the thoughts and concentrate on it, untill you go to nirvikalpa samadhi.

I guess it is also because of the principle: Nemo propheta in patria. I am too close to people. We need the distance. More distance.

From a distance, is may be easier to see.

I was troubled yesterday, and I asked from the Goddesss, why was I born in Finland. Why not, in country like India, or Netherlands, or Britain?

I heard an answer coming... It went something like this..

She asked me, suppose, you were an Indian sadhu, you live in cave in jungle somewehere in tropics. - Yes, I said.

You would be there with shaivistic people, you would smoke ganja with them? - I answered to this, yes,I suppose so.

Well, then, you would enter the mahasamadhi, and people would say, he did this because he used cannabis. It's the spirit of ganja. It is because he is a pothead and hallucinating.

All attention would go from my personality, and samadhi, to discussions about drug control laws and policies. Someone might feel encouraged to imitate, and people would take into smoking hemp, and would lose the way, and never find samadhi.

Everything has a reason.

I have been thinking of time. The Wheel of Time, revolving slowly and majestetically. The human time, the Cosmic Time, and our lifetime. This week I have been discussing with older people, going through their memories, and mine too. I have watched old photos, from 1930´s and 40´s.

These photos are taken in February 11-12, 2008. I had a new digital camera, and wide-angle lens, and was enthusiastic, and wanted to see fast results. In the first photo I guess I used even a sky-filter, see how dark is the upper-left corner. I had some ego in doing this. I was having thoughts of getting into professional level, but lacked the skill, and my camera was technically ok, but far from the professional. Around March, I got tired, and frustrated. I felt that I can't take even one photo without overexposed areas. I compared myself all the time with the professionals, and it killed the joy.

After that I was hanging in some amateur forums, but didn't fit in there with my filters and wide-angles. I was too artistic to be an amateur. So, after that, I returned to the routine of just having private fun, and taking family-album type of photos.

A year has gone since. Have learned much; for example to control the light and exposure time manually. It has to become a routine. Also, time has done something else. I can now see the sheer beauty of these photos, without the ego and desperation.

As I was going through thoughts about Time, I remembered one writer, Simon Garfield and his book, The Error World. It's about the passions and obsessions of stamp collecting - haven't read it yet, but I guess it´s sort of psychological view into both philately, and masculine mind. The idea of philately as masculine thing - hobby - amuses me. Another example; is chess masculine? I think yes. Most chess players and philatelists are male. Photography is similar hobby.

It's technical. It requires practise, patience, discipline, skill. And I think, even the idea of having pleasure by looking things, with eyes, is masculine... A man can own, or possess a beautiful woman by merely looking at her. Maybe it is a cliche, but the male gaze dominates the world.

I was very jealous of my photos at that time. I am possessive by my nature. I would not had used them in a blog, giving them to people without pay. Professionals don't do such way. They sell their photos.

But this is pennies I think. How many euros could I get? Perhaps even hundred euros from three photos? Would I be so lucky? I don't want to do that. I wish to express myself, explore my emotions, I don't do this for money. Photography is only something secondary for me. It is side-affair. Yet I love it. Pics from a good photographer can take my breath away. I have been thinking, I am like William Blake; my esthetic sense is half-visual/half-literary.

Simon Garfield has also studied people´s diaries, and wartime England. Our Hidden Lives: The Remarkable Diaries of Postwar Britain, and some other books. I like the way, he takes the time around Second World War, and studies private lives of normal people. V-1/V-2 bombings, the censorship and propaganda, rationing - all this happened in Finland too, almost identical things at same time. War shattered lives. We feared the Russians will come, and people were moving towards the west. Some went across the sea to Sweden, but most stayed in Western Finland. There was a hude program of resettlement. People got torn away from their roots. Some wounds never healed.

The mentality in Eastern- and Western Finland is something like almost totally different. The West-Finnish are practical, reserved, rational type. The Eastern-Finnish are more emotional, more show-off, vain, impulsive. They don't mix easily.

Then there is the capital, Helsinki, the melting-pot, which is hovering in it's own sterile, materialistic isolation. The eastern capital was Vyborg, now part of Russia. The western capital is Turku, and it used to be even more so, when the Swedes were occupying Finland - a state which is now being called the Sweden–Finland. This was the period from the 14th to the 18th century. Then there's the northern dimension, vast wilderness, countryside, Lapland.

On this foundation our collective psyche is founded.

I was thinking today some other things about Finland too. I could write something about phenonemon called Finlandisierung, about how it has affected our collective psyche, that we are located just between east and west. ( I think Finland is neither; it is the thin neutral border.) I also thought, that Finland can not cope without European Unification. In 70's and 80's we had good relations with the Soviet Union, but when it collapsed, Finland had to come towards west, otherwise we would had become strange isolated country. In a way, we are that - our mentality is bent towars the isolationist policy, type Albania under Enver Hoxha. It is still very strong here. People find it hard to think themselves as europeans.

But I think isolation is a dead end. Culturally, spiritually, economically, what can it bring? Yet it is one of our most strongest collective dreams.

I would like to comment on Finnish spirituality.

Finns have always loved strong authority, be it Hitler, Stalin, Mannerheim, Kekkonen. Or communism, social-democrats, or right-wing extremism - nationalism. It is because people here don't trust themselves. They have a low opinion on themselves. They say, this is because on "humbleness", but it has nasty side, of putting down others. Nobody is to step out of line.

Because idealism has died in recent times, and the old authoritarian figures have gone out of fashion, Finns have had sort of identity crises. They don't know what believe. Free market economy seems only to add insecurity. And God seems to be far. So people have invented new gods, and one such is the medical science. It seems to me, people here think there is a proper medicine for practically everything in life. In spirituality also, people seem to think in pharmaceutical terms.

For example, if someone thinks he is having some spiritual experiences, of any kind. People will at once begin thinking, how it could be cured with medication. - other example, if someone is not having enough spiritual experiences, people are fast in thinking what kind of drugs could be used to artificially induce such experiences. The point seems not to be spirituality, or the experience; but the need to control them with pharmaceutical means.

In spirituality we don't wish experiences and emotions. We wish to achieve control. In fact, because of this medical obsession, it's not possible to talk with people about religious issues or spirituality. It always ends up in harping about medications. In a way, we are forced to remain secular nation. The spiritual seekers, if they are of loser type, often have mental problems, which are common here, so they rely on psychopharmacology, and if they are winner types, they rely on trendy, new drugs like GBL or DMT. The more secular types have it easy way, and take on alcohol.

Often I am frustrated, because everything in this country, or too much seems to be revolving around some sort of intoxication. People seem to see no alternatives. If you critisize their lifestyles, or ways of thinking, they become defensive, and express usually some form of deterministic, nihilistic or fatalistic world view. "Life is only chemistry", "genes rule everything", "all is biology", "joy without alcohol is pretensious", "nothing is really nothing" etc. Often I have felt that there is no hope here. People seem so immature. Even if you see some intelligent and sensitive young people, they are quick to numb their brains. This seems to be the ideal.

I think, that religion drove itself to corner about hundred years ago. After that became mass-ideology and secularism, which have also drove themselves to cul-de-sac. Now we should try to wake up, I don't know to what.

I have been scanning today old photos from early 1960´s to 2000. The scanner widens my chronolocigal horizon, as the digital age begun in my life, in spring 2003, and the earlier documents have been lying around in atticks and closets for decades.

From distance, life looks marvellous. The Memory gives things a golden hue. It's no wonder some writers get so mad about past things. You just sit there by your table, you don't move your body much; only the eyes and the fingers. The body calms down, but the brain is active. I enjoy this state.

Yet I have felt also, that it could be a great sin. In sahaja yoga, we think, that nostalgy, and dwelling in memory is bad for your superego, and The Left Side (the emotions), so I have tried to avoid it, and instead have been trying to keep myself in "middle", in thoughtless awareness. But oh, this seriosity and the rules, aren't they made for breaking?

I asked myself this question: what does the past teach me?

The first thing that flashes in my mind, as I gaze the stream of memories, is that I have been both blind, and ungrateful. I have been feeling that I am socially awkard, even antisocial person, who has lived alone most of his life.. but in photos I am always surrounded by friends, and I remember so much sweet love there. I just haven't seen it, or I haven't been able to appreciate what life has to give.

When things are too close, you sort of don't see them anymore. You take too much for granted.

And in my creativity, in my writing, I have wished immediacy, something new and up-to-day. Maybe this conditioning comes from yoga. They teach you there to live in the moment, in here, and not dwelve in past or future. I am obedient student, so I have tried to obey this rule.

Then life breaks in, and destroys all the dogma. Sometimes, when you have crises, or difficult situations, an accident, or maybe Death walks by you, and you feel his cold skin, the human mind reacts, and sometimes sends flashes of memories. They say, when you die, you see all your life like a film, in one second, all your life. Is it then a negativity in your superego? No, it can't be. Sure, such experience is a blessing. It is a miracle.

When you grow up, and begin to get old, like me, I am in my middle age now, I suppose; then life brings all kinds of unpleasant things, horrible things - all time you are reminded of our mortality. I guess I am describing my mid-life crises now... You begin to see how futile all youthful optimism is. Time is running up, and I can not change things in this world. I have tried, but has it helped? People are mad as ever. Beginning wars, acting in destructive ways, not loving each other, not respecting... So, it is time for me to calm down, and stay more quiet.

I can sit here all Sunday, what happens? I begin to remember things, I had forgotten. I regain the memory. And this Memory - it is pure gold.

For example, I have a feeling that I am not good with women, that I am a bachelor-type of nerd, and not a real man. But when I look old photos, the sheer weight of evidence crushes me. I have had so many girlfriends, wives, and relationships I can not even count. Yes, true, all those stories have ended, they don't seem to last, so that gives me excuse to feel miserable? My way has been paved with golden bricks of love, how could I be miserable? Yes, but there are deep ravines between the sunny periods, do you see?

Where?

See, in year 2000, when my girlfriend left me, and I felt still so tied to her, so much in love, that I became so crazy that I contemplated suicide. All spring, year 2000 my diaries are filled with pain. But today, is 2009, it's almost ten years ago. From this distance it is possible to look things more neutrally. Those feelings don't touch me now. I can accept things in myself, that I could not back then. I can feel such sympathy that I didn't know in that time. I am wiser now.

Most of my life I have kept a diary. Many are now lost, and there are holes in the history. And there are periods I didn't write, like in years 2000-autumn - 2002 sprng when I lived in Czech Republic. It would be nice to read about that time now. I remember it wast the happiest time in my life. In summer 2000 my GF left me, and I felt such huge anxiety nodody even knows, but along the autumn it was healed, and I celebrated the Christmas in Czech, with new GF, who became my wife for next five years.

It's a great story.

Last summer, I was in North-Italy and kept a diary. When I got home, I collected all brochures, drawings, maps, and tied it together, and I haven´t opened it since. Maybe this is wise. There is still too many emotions involved. I can let the diary to cool off for another year. I maybe open it in spring 2010.

What is the point in this?

When I look myself, in this moment, this Sunday-evening, in January 2009, I think, it's not all of me. It's but a tiny fraction of all-me. The Whole Me is something else, and I must be there young and old, adult and child, taking birth, living and dying - all simultaneously, in a cosmic, giant instant. This would be all of me. It's the whole story.

So, I am seeking my true identity.

It is an awfully long, and complicated story.

Today I managed to distance myself from the usual feelings of inferiority and miserability, and I felt almost like an archelogist excavating some lost site. I felt I have an honour to peak into life of some very noble person; maybe a prince or a king, maybe a great saint.

I just have been too hurry to see it.

I wrote this poem in July 2. 2005, I try to translate it:

"Näen kreikkalaisen lipaston,
pölyä lattialla, lasinsirpaleita
- pyhä subjektiviteetti.

(In my minds eye) I can see a greek chest (of drawers)
dust on the floor, broken glass
- the holy subjectivity.

Niilin rantavesien pyhä kirjuri -
runon merkityksiä,
monimutkaisia mieleisekseni.

The scribe of the shallow waters of Nile -
poetic meanings,
complicated things to please me.

Piiruakaan en muuta.

I will not change one iota.

Oma ehdottomuuteni.

My own inflexibility.

RUNON ULTIMAATUM -
Askel kylmään."

THE ULTIMATUM OF A POEM -
A step to(wards) the cold.

It's January 2009, and I begin this new blog. I live near Turku, in Finland. We have snow now, it's nice. Here is photo of my car, and afternoon sun in last week. The name of my blog - Jacob's Blog is from Virginia Woolf. I like her ideas of writing, and the story Jacob's Room.

I have often - sometimes crisis with my identity and language. I like to live in Finland, because it's faraway, isolated, somehow idyllic and peaceful place. But then, also, I get claustrophobic. You could suffocate in such country.

I was born in Helsinki, the capital, and have been living there long times. I have travelled a little, and lived in some places abroad; in Stockholm, Prague, Zaporozhye - Ukraine, and in many places in my country. I like the countryside, the villages - I like to live such life, even I like small towns, industrial towns..

I guess I am a universal soul; I believe I could feel at home in any country, in any culture. I feel myself to be more eastern than western. My ancestral roots lie in Carelia, in area that is now Russia. Sometimes I think this makes me half-russian.. I mean: slavic. Or so I fancy. In practise I am as Finn as Finn can be, and ugric.

I would like to write here how it feels to live life as Finn in modern world. May be I need some distance in this; I need to breath some international air, and english language. It might make me good for a change.

I am an intensively spiritual, even religious person. I am devoted to a guru; Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, and have been the last 16 years of my life. There's been some criticism towards sahaja yoga, and I am critical myself; as I am outside of that organization. I like the Shri Mataji -part, and the meditations, but when it gets to a cult, and all those people there thinking they are great yogis, oh no, it is not for me.

Towards Shri Mataji I am not critical, She is my Mother. I have met Her in person, few times; back in 1993.

I am not fanatic or very strict with my ..religion. Usually i don't tell people about it, they would not understand anyway, and then they would think I am weird. I think religion is a private affair, and you are not to talk about it in market-places and streets. And if I think of it, I have never managed to convince anyone with words.

At the beginning, in the first years in sahaja yoga, I tried to give people self-realizations, I worked with their chakras, I thought they are all going to come to sahaja yoga, and begin to meditate. But really, I can not change anyone; I can not make an atheist believe in God, or make a Christian give up his prejudices, and I can not change a fundamentalist into a mystic, or neither I can save anyone from alcoholism or drugs, bad habits, and I really can not keep people from destroying themselves. My powers are limited.

I think the best is to be with people, in normal way. Not talk about religious things, but about mundane things, everyday gossip. In the midst of it I can be a little in silent meditation, and maybe some people can receive a little vibes. Of course they don't know what is this, and I don't tell them. It's what I believe in: the truth is in vibrations; in experiencing them directly - the love in them, and not in words, or explanations.

I am more of an artist, or creative person, than a believer. I am also shy, often I have been painfully so, but at the same time, I have enjoyed social life, I have enjoyed spending time with people and having friends. I can talk, but only with 2-3 people at same time, then I feel comfortable.

I hope my writings could make some people happy, and that someone will find my Finnish life interesting. And of course I always wish I could meet some spiritual people, who can take sahaja yoga. I am not so interested in people who are still seeking and are at complety lost in spiritual matters, or who are fiercely opposing the truth of sahaja yoga.

I try to be as honest as possible. This is me, my life. I am not trying to sell you a religion; but also, I am not going to give up my spiritual quest, if someone does believe in different things or has no faith at all. For you, this yoga might seem a cult, or a minor curiosity, for me it's the biggest happening in history, it's universal truth, it's an eschatological event of cosmic scale.

I wish to speak about it.