Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

We are so often our own worst enemy, locking ourselves into humiliating habits of self-punishment and abuse. A great principle of common sense is that if you try something that doesn’t work for you, and you try it again and again and again and it still doesn’t work for you, then try something else. One…

The soul can survive the death of the body. This conclusion is not based on faith or religious doctrine, but on experience and evidence. The intense fear of death as annihilation I had as a child vanished after a certain number of out-of-body experiences. The direct experience of awareness being outside of the body, and…

Follow the path of heart, the path supported by your soul, your core, and your deepest intuitions. The mind and ego can be great allies once our deepest self discerns the path of life. But the mind and ego are not meant to be pathfinders; they are there to help once we have found our…

“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.” — Tolstoy Good things are going on, but don’t expect to see that reflected in newspaper headlines! Our minds, adapted to a hazardous existence, nervously scan our world for signs of impending disaster. We often overlook the far greater signs of…

“Our ideas about death define how we live our lives.” — Dag Hammarskjold The fear of death (in you or others) is a sometimes hidden, potent force affecting personality and behavior in strange and varied ways. To compensate for this fear, some will seek to control others, objects, money, the appearance of youth, etc., in…

This is a propitious time to create your own designs. This is also a time also to be wary of submitting to the designs of others. “I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s.” — William Blake A conscious human being is designed to be a magician, an entity that designs, creates…

“Our ideas about death define how we live our lives.” — Dag Hammarskjold The fear of death (in you or others) is a sometimes hidden, potent force affecting personality and behavior in strange and varied ways. To compensate for this fear, some will seek to control others, objects, money, the appearance of youth, etc., in…

“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.” — Tolstoy Subclinical depression is almost the norm in our society. Many people go through their days burdened, their gaze lowered, suffering under a generalized feeling of oppression. Although it is easy to attribute much of this to fractured, alienated lives,…

Cats and people are among the social mammals, but being part of the social matrix means submitting to social conditioning and often letting others pull your strings. But we are not merely the victims of the social matrix, we are also the perpetrators of it as well. Others may attach strings to us, and we…

Excess caution can lead to stagnation. Beware an excessively cautionary ego in yourself or others that would keep you from taking risks that your deepest intuition perceives as necessary. Life needs to be risky, and physical security is always an illusion. Just as a lack of caution can be anti-life, so too can excess caution.…