To have or to be?

If I make an offer to you and say: “There are two different ways of living your life. One way leads to fulfilment, joy and a feeling of being united with yourself and the universe. The other way means stress, hardship, the permanent feeling that something is missing. It is a way of disease, lack of love and happiness. The first way is being true to yourself, the second one is playing games and roles for the whole life long.” Which one of the two ways, would be your choice?

The answer is at hand, but guess what: Almost anybody is choosing the second way, the way of despair, hardship and pain! Why is that so? `How can people be so dull?´, one may ask. Well, the answer to that one is not so easy. The first way of living is, what can be described as the “way of being”, the second one may be called “the way of having”. This second way is the way we know so well, almost anyone is living according to it. It is the way children learn from their parents and society and could be summarized with the motto: “What counts in life is what you have and how other people see you!” Value has, what can be described, what can be measured. It is the world in which someone is evaluating all things: money, possessions, titles, reputation, etc. Did you ever notice that people say: “He is worth 10 million a year”, which means that he has an income of 10 million per year. A humiliating sentence and an insult to every person of dignity, but “normal” in our society!

Children learn very quickly, that they are important, loved and respected, if the do something, if they own (have) something. “Performance” is what people want and the reward consists of getting respect. Very often the children have to fulfil the parents’ needs, instead that it was the other way around. No wonder that “to have” becomes what counts alone in the world, whether we like it or not. Do not be deceived by the political correctness statements of “being nice” and giving value to human life per se. The only things which really count, are the actions of people not their words. And by judging the deed, we are living in a world of having and doing, not of being!

People live their lives in an unspectacular way and only very few really find out who they really are. And if they do so, only a minority possesses the courage to live by it. From a very young age we get trained in not being ourselves, by acting according to the world’s expectations, beginning with our parents, who only “want our best” for you. (By the way: “parents know best” or “parents only want the good for their children” are lies told from one generation to the next one. Parents do not want “the best”, but what fits their one interest, not the child’s!). And they really mean it, for that is they were brought up by their own parents. First lesson in live is to learn that what is important is not, what your really want or what you really are, but to be like what society wants you to be (firstly represented by the parents, teachers, etc.). The second thing what you learn is your “role” by heart and third is you forget about your true self and stick to the artificial “educated” self, which your were taught. At the age of a kindergarten child, you are trained and fit for letting you out “into the public” and from now on you can act and live according to the “script” given to you by your parents. And the chances are good, that you will never find out, what has been done to you in your childhood!

You may search for the sense of live for your whole life, have problems of all kinds but society offers a lot of distractions to cope with the emotional tension: Alcohol, drugs, sex, TV, internet etc. Many of them are widely accepted by the culture and the state. But only one thing you shall never do: Looking inside of yourself and find out that education is manipulation and that deforming you began in a vulnerable age you do not even have any memory of any more.

Searching for your true self is not easy, a lot of explosives will blow up on the way, the attempts to “get you into line”. Anxiety is the main obstacle on that way. The biggest anxiety of all is paradoxically not the fear of death, but the fear of freedom, to be alone to be without your “textbook” by which you could live your life. Being free, means to be alone with your own being, making all your decisions on your own, by your own mind and thinking. That is a way of being, most people never experience in their whole life.

But the people who have started to live like this, they are seldom, but they exist! Do not want to go back to a life of slavery. The real root of being un-free or being unsatisfied with life, lies in the dark beginnings of every person’s life. Therefore it is so hard to get rid of the “impregnations” we got through the process called “education”. If you get free, your values, your motivation changes. What becomes important is not what you have, but what you experience. Life is about making experiences, it is the only thing which really stays. But experiences cannot be measured, they are unique and can’t be compared. This makes it very difficult for a culture which wants to bring everything into a mathematical order, to appreciate something. “To be” and not “to have” raises the quality of life to a much higher level, you feel united with the cosmos, you know the sense of your life and the nagging insecurity of people who have to “perform well”, is gone forever. Once you get a taste of what is awaiting you at the “end of the tunnel”, you do not want to go back! And that is the beginning of a new life – the only real life there is. To thyself always be true!