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Showing posts with label the meaning of life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the meaning of life. Show all posts

Thursday, 7 November 2013

The Day I met God in Ueno Park


One morning, a long time ago, when I was perhaps a lot more shallow than I am now, I landed in Tokyo from Europe, and my hotel room wasn’t ready until that afternoon. So in a jetlag haze, I took a little walk around Ueno Park, the scruffy old green lung of North Tokyo, and sat down to watch the world go by. I’d almost forgotten what a strange and amazing day that was, so now I think I’ll share it with you...

  In my daze, I noticed that an ancient wizened old homeless guy was sitting beside me, and without realising it, struck up a conversation in English, which he spoke fluently. Although I was so jetlagged and exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open, we talked all day about philosophy and the meaning of life from an eastern perspective and western perspective, and how in, fact there wasn’t a great difference from the fundamentals of what perhaps Jesus really meant Christianity to be (no, not silly statues of the virgin Mary and supporting Zionist colonial plans, you fools), the old pagan ways of the west and the Shintoism of Japan, and how really, the rules of life were the same no matter where you are in the world. There are good and bad people on both sides of every fence, and many ‘bad’ people have good traits and many ‘good’ people have bad traits (bad spirits inside them that haven’t managed to throw off), and really, the love of money and material goods, of conquest and domination, were just bad spirits inside a man. He talked and talked and everything he said seemed like deeper wisdom, and for years afterwards I often thought about this Yoda of Ueno park, and who he was, and how he became homeless and, did he really exist or was this old man actually God speaking to me in some way to help change my life’s direction and understand why I’m actually here?

I can say I’ve learned my lessons slowly. But if it wasn’t for this guy, I wouldn’t have bought books comparing Buddhism to Christianity, or the 'crazy' writings of Zachariah Sitchin, Graham Hancock or Daniel Pinchbeck. And if I hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have considered Ayahausca, which to all who’ve taken it would agree is a profoundly life changing experience. But strangely enough I thought about this man again the other day, probably for the first time since I’d taken Ayahuasca, and realised that all the time it wasn’t that he was God, it was just that he was a man with the light of God shining brightly in him. An enlightened man, if you want to call it that.

But now thanks to him, I can see that we all have a piece of Gods love in us, he’s everywhere, its just that, for almost everyone (at least in the west) that piece of their soul and is hidden so deep inside that, that they’re trapped in the web of their own short term animal-like cycle of needing ‘stuff’, and of needing the fix of temporary ‘satisfaction’ that distracts them from taking a moment to realise the true reality and the true love of life. ‘Life’ for most people involves TV shows, sport, the soap opera and politics of everyday gossip, political correctness and other false ‘causes’, fast food, prescription drugs, casual sex, getting drunk, recreational drug use, pretend illnesses like ADDT and other attention seeking cries for help…you get gist) every last one a short term fix and none of them connected in any way to the reality and true beauty of the world.

Maybe the wisdom of the Ayahuasca is beginning to kick in finally, that I’m beginning to see the cancer of the ‘western’ consumer world for what it is, and can see how the ‘answers’ to these cravings simply make you want more. The ‘bad guys’ even created new language to distract, divide, confuse, and ultimately, cause needless conflict – (smart huh?) - How do you react to someone calling you a ‘racist’ (always by idiotic white guys with beards) or a ‘sexist’ (usually by those same spineless men, although sometimes by girls as a sly compliment) when this is every time a trap question because the words actually have no definitive meaning and were constructed originally as trap questions to damage reputations by avoiding real issues. But this is just the start - The legal system is changing. The media is pushing the moronic masses to accept different boundaries of what’s appropriate, and what’s acceptable in terms of ‘the mans’ interference in your life. And believe you me, your voluntary enslavement has a long way to run yet – so subtle, you wont even notice.

So what’s the answer? Should you stop watching crappy TV dramas? Should you realise that the Bills vs. the Redskins or Arsenal vs. Man. City mean absolutely nothing? No, of course not. For some people, maybe you, that and hamburgers all they have to look forward to in life. Maybe you’re too far gone to accept that reality is not the slavery you’ve already sleepwalked into.

The true answer is that there is no answer, except to ask yourself truly the question that why the homeless old man, with no bank account, and no material possessions, who lives free in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, is infinitely happier and more content in his life than you, or anyone you have ever known?


Thursday, 2 August 2012

Hamburg and Hamburgers


So after my brother ditched me in Hamburg, I decided to check the city a bit. Luckily I’ve a friend here who introduced me to the place and her friends, and Hamburgs friendly heart took me in and got me an Astra Beer.

Its all about the 'Wanderlust' - Yes, this is the print thats been up in my hallway for the last 15 years, and i finally found its in Hamburgs Kunsthalle

I’d say cities are either one thing or another – either they’re all about knowing where to go (like London, New York, Tokyo) or you can just turn up and you’ll probably have a great night anyway…(like Las Vegas or Tallinn)

Hamburg definitely seems a ‘know where to go’ city, especially if, like me, your German is limited to ‘Achtung Himmel’ and ‘Die Englander Pig’ (Yes, I read war comics as a child)

But if you have a local, then suddenly you see that here’s a free rock concert here, a place where you can get shots for 50 cents there….

'Wreck in a Sea of Ice' - another KDF classic in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg

In the daytime, there are a few interesting things to do. Kunsthalle, the main art gallery is a whole spiritual home for, as it happens, my favourite kind of people, the 19th century German Romantics, headed by the main man himself, Kaspar David Fredreich. Strangely enough, my pretty much favourite all time painting was sitting there – ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ or just known as ‘The Wanderer’.  You know these strange moments where you look for something for years and suddenly, you turn the corner and there it is!

The shopping area is around there too, and a good (and popular) running/dog walking path around the main lake.  At the end of the shopping street, there is a kind of cute touristy area, centred around the ‘Rathaus’ (it’s the town hall, rather than a house full of rats)  and a very lovely white colonnade going out to the lake (which makes you think…ah wait a minute, yes Hamburg is by the sea after all…
On the right is a WW1 memorial, but this is a lovely part of town across from the Rathaus.

Contrary to what they teach in American Schools, Hamburg is not by the sea. Just so you know. Also, dear friends in USA. It’s not the capital, Iranians are not Arabs, and going to Cancun does not count as ‘travelling abroad’.

St Georg is a kind of more laid-back nightlife area. There’s a street full of quite average Italian restaurants and some bars, and lots of middle aged gay guys walking around with bags of dry-cleaning.  I understand from a certain friend that if its toothless drug addicted prostitutes you’re after, you can find them a few streets south of there.

Talking of which, the guys/girls showed me around the famous ‘Reeberbahn’ in ST Pauli, at the weekend. They say its ‘the main red light area.’ – I mean what kind of city of 2m people has even more than one??? But it seems to me that prostitution is the main occupation in this port city – when I went out to Scheezel, there were even camper van brothels lining the laybyes in the posh suburbs (‘for the truck drivers’ I’m sure)

But now Reeperbahn and the surrounding streets have pretty much become the centre of the cities nightlife – you could barely move on Saturday night when we went out. One street has rock bars, one has hip hop, one has football bars and skinheads, all mixed between tranny bars, casinos, and 12 storey brothels, mixing up into a cacophony of weird things to gawk at (if you’re a tourist like me at least)  There is a street that is ‘men only’ except for the Amsterdam style  ‘red light’ windows. Actually it looked pretty dull if you ask me. There was a sad looking bar in the back which I was told is on some kind of S&M street. The guys in there looked more M&S though really.
This bar had an old lady poledancing

The general neighbourhood has an interesting history though. St Pauli even has its own football team with famously ‘left wing’ supporters, to allegedly counter the other ‘right wing’ football fans. Personally I think its all a lot of rubbish- In Germany, left wing people all seem like anarchist/libertarians to me, and right wing people act like socialists. Maybe we need to give them some books on politics so they can actually make some logical opinions for once.
Here's the site of the 'Star Club' (since burnt down) where the Beatles alledgedly got their first break (There are no bands whatsover from Hamburg, it seems)

However, I digress….

If you seek an altogether more wholesome drunken night out, a new ‘shoreditchy’ type area has sprung up around the ‘left wing’ squats in an area quite nearby and also near the Uni, called ‘Sternchanze’ (translate as Star-ski jump or something similar) - there’s an S Bahn takes you straight there, and it’s full of cheapish food and drink places, and had a great atmosphere when I was there. Unlike the Reeperbahn, the girls tend not to be prostitutes, which is a real plus.

The ‘Mexicana’ drink, which is used all over Hamburg, is a spicy tomato soup shot which is sold for about 50c-1 Euro and actually (unlike the Estonian version, Mili Malikas) tastes quite nice.  This and ‘Vodka Ahoy’ is my excuse for making lots of new friends at the weekend - thanks to you guys in Hamburg for helping making this accidental holiday a good one!
A lot of the city was bombed, so there is a lot of concrete. I have no idea what is going on in this picture though.